Ep 537: Why You Want Your Book to Hit a Bestseller List | Rory and AJ Vaden Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
Why you want your book to hit the bestseller list. Now, I hear from a lot of people that hitting the bestseller list isn’t important to them because this is not a, a vanity project or, you know, they’ve already made it in their career. And this isn’t about popularity or they’re not trying to feed their ego. And I would say, yeah, it, it, hitting a bestseller list should not be about any of those things. And then I hear from another group of people, I wanna hit a bestseller list. And then remains the question about why, right? So this is a quick review of why every, everyone should want their book to hit a bestseller list. And it is not because it’s gonna make you feel good it’s not because you get some resume resume builder or some new notch on your belt, or it’s some pride thing that you get to brag about to your friends.
AJV (00:57):
Or it’s not an ego thing, or it, it, it shouldn’t be about feeding your self worth or making you feel like your content is worth something. I would say all of those are not the reasons.
AJV (01:56):
So I’m gonna talk about two in particular the USA Today National Bestseller list, the New York Times, but there’s others. Success Magazine is putting their own list out. There’s the indie list. There’s Publishers Weekly, there’s, there’s varying amounts there. Even an Amazon bestseller list if we wanna count that. But it matters because it acts as a filter. It helps people go through the process of helping define what’s a little bit more credible or not, right? Not saying that if you didn’t hit a bestseller list, it’s not a good book. I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that with so much noise, our human brains need a filter of going, where should I put my time, money, energy, and attention. And what it does is it says, this author has done the hard work of helping their book get to X amount of people. And if that amount of people bought the book, there must be a, a varying level, a varying degree, levels of credibility of quality
AJV (02:59):
That is in this book. And that is really helpful. And like I said, there’s Amazon bestseller list, there’s Publishers Weekly, there’s the indie list. Success now has a list. There’s the USA Today List, and then there’s the New York Times. And I think through these different varying levels, it really does create a more intense filter, the higher you go up, right? But these filters help our brains process. Well, if this, if this list has recognized this because this many units were sold or this editorial, that means this. Many people bought it, which means this. Many people heard about it, which means there must be something to it. It is a credibility booster for your book. It is a filter for the noise. And most importantly, it gives your book the extra recognition that it needs, that it requires to be seen by more people, that it can help.
AJV (03:55):
That is why this matters. It’s why it should matter to you. It should matter that you do the work to hit the list so that you can help it get in front of other people where it has the potential to help them. If you are writing a book and you say, I don’t care about a list, then why are you writing a book? ’cause You should be writing a book to get it into the hands of the people. It can help. That means you have to do the work to get it into the hands of people. It can help, which means you, the author has got to promote it, sell it, market it, talk it about it. You’ve got to do the things. And if you do those things, hitting a list helps you do more of those things. So why should you hit the bestseller list? Because you want your book to change people’s lives. That’s why. And the list will help your book be filtered through the noise and get additional recognition and credibility to reach more people. That is why all authors need to care about making sure their book is a bestselling book.
Ep 536: 5 Things you Need to Know to Write, Publish and Launch a Bestselling Book with Rory and AJ Vaden
AJV (00:00:02):
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast, AJ Vaden here getting to interview my one and only the one, the only Rory Vaden. This is apparently our annual podcast together ’cause we did one last year and we are doing one this year. Y’all, I have asked Rory’s permission to interview him as my guest on this episode because we have found ourselves immersed in this unexpected world of publishing over the last, I mean, really, I guess 15 years now unexpected for me, maybe not for Rory. And as we have discovered some things that we find are really important to us as we’re writing our next book, and as we’ve been working with so many of our clients at Brand Builders Group trying to decipher the best way to publish their book and to write their book, it, it drew out some interest in us of going, maybe, maybe we’re not just authors in this space.
AJV (00:01:05):
Maybe we have a bigger role to play in this space. We’ve published traditionally before. We will not do that next time. I’ll reserve what we are doing as a part of the interview. But through this 15 year, you know, kind of adventure in the world of publishing, we’ve learned a lot. And we wanted to share some of that with you today. And that’s why I invited Roan to be my guest as to help reveal some very exciting things that we have going on in the world of publishing. But to also help everyone understand just the state of publishing. Like what does the industry look like today and what does it take to hit a bestseller list? And what is required of the author versus the publisher, and where are we at? And so that’s what we’re gonna cover today. So if you’re listening and you are thinking to yourself, I wanna write a book one day.
AJV (00:02:01):
This is for you. If you’re listening, going, I’m in the middle of writing a book. This is for you. If you’ve already written a book and you’re in the middle of launching your book, this is for you. So, in other words, anyone who has will or will ever write a book, this episode is curated very specifically for you. So Rory, thank you for setting aside some time to come and talk with me today. This is an added bonus. Get an extra hour of my day with you. Yeah, which is also great, but also I believe that I’m not, I’m not saying this biased because I’m your wife and your business partner, but I believe you have figured out something in the world of publishing that no one else has, has cared to or has done the, the work to. But what you have been able to curate, discover, uncover, and Systematize is nothing short of revolutionary due to a deep desire of knowing how to do this better for yourself and for others. And so that’s what I wanna talk about on the show today. So welcome to your show.
RV (00:03:07):
Thank you, babe. I’m so excited about this. I I’m spending an extra hour with you. Yes.
AJV (00:03:13):
So be super
RV (00:03:14):
Fun. As you know, I’m a nerd. I’m a nerd on this topic. So this was, so this will be so fun.
AJV (00:03:19):
Yeah. And so what I wanna do first really quickly is make sure everyone has like a, a solid background on our history in the publishing world as authors. And so very quickly because we don’t have a ton of time and we have a lot to cover, can you just walk everyone through your journey to becoming a published author? And not just that, but a New York Times bestselling author, and then a follow up with a national bestseller. Walk us through, how’d that come about?
RV (00:03:49):
Yeah, so really quick not talking about it, how it came about. Basically, the first product that I ever produced was like audio CDs. But then the second product was a self-published book. And it was, it was the very first skill that I did where I taught, I did Speaking for Money, was called how to Be Funny to Make More Money. That was the subtitle of the book. So the book was called No Laughs, NO toay it to No Laughs, KNOW, no Laughs to No Laughs, how to Be Funny to Make More Money. And I taught the Psychology of Laughter and what makes people funnier, which was something that I had to learn how to do. And so We Self-published that book in 2007. Then
AJV (00:04:37):
Is this book available for Purchase Anywhere?
RV (00:04:39):
No, we have buried it deep, deep into the archives. ’cause It was truly self-published, which means we controlled all the editorial, we controlled all the creative, we found our own printer, we did everything. We registered the I
AJV (00:04:55):
VM number’s, what it means. That’s what it meant to self-publish. Mm-Hmm
RV (00:05:01):
Yeah. And we, we had to select the type of paper that we used and all the, there’s a hundred million decisions you have to make when you self-publish a book that you don’t even realize you have to make to turn it into a physical book. So, so there was that book Then Take the Stairs. It was a traditionally published book. That was our first traditionally published book that came out from Penguin Random House. Long story that we don’t have time for here about how we got a literary agent, and then how we got a book deal. And then that process took about three years, and then it took about a year to write it, do the presales. We release, take the Stairs in 2012, we hit number one on the Wall Street Journal, best settles number two on the New York Times. Then fast forward to 2015, we also released a second book with Penguin Random House called Procrastinating on Purpose, five Permissions to Multiply Your Time.
RV (00:05:55):
That book was one that we fully expected to be a number one Wall Street Journal bestseller, and and a New York Times bestseller. And we missed both of those lists. And we could not figure out why, which is a part of what l led us to where we are today. But we did hit the, the, the Indie IndieBound National Bestseller List. So it was a national bestseller, even though we did not hit New York Times or USA Today or the Wall Street Journal, which are the big main ones. Then last year we soft released another self-published book, which is a children’s book called Be the Buffalo, which we haven’t even really launched. We just, it, it is available on Amazon, but we haven’t actually done the book launch for it. But we released it so that we could print it for our kids. We used Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, which is now, you know, the easiest way to self-publish today. And now we have our new book that will be coming out. We’re tentatively slating around July of 2025, which is the book you and I are writing together. And we have left traditional publishing and we are now hybrid publishing. And we can talk more about that, but that’s, hopefully that’s what you’re looking for. Yeah,
AJV (00:07:10):
And I think this is really important, and I think there’s a, a couple of things that just kind of wanna highlight in our journey of publishing is we have now published in all the formats,
AJV (00:08:02):
It’s not what other people said. This is our direct experience. And I think that’s a really important context for the, the rest of this interview today is we have gone through the, the trials tribulations of all different formats of publishing. And our biased opinion is not meant to influence yours, but it’s to give you facts, right? We have our own opinions. We’ll reserve those for private conversations. But we will keep this high level and factual of expectations. And that’s where we wanna start is, you know, today there is a very, very feasible way to get your book published in three very distinct formats. There is traditional publishing, right? Which means you are working with a, you know, a New York publishing house. There is hybrid publishing, which means you have some investment, the publisher has some investment, and then there is self-publishing. And there is no easier time in the history of our country.
AJV (00:09:06):
We live in the United States. So I’m talking specifically about the United States to get your book published than ever before. Right? There, there was a time not that long ago that if you wanted to publish your book, you had one option and they got to decide if your book was good enough to get out into the world. That’s not how it is to today. And that is good, right? That is, that is powerful. Now, it also comes with pros and cons at every diff at, at every different level. And that’s what we really wanna talk about. So here’s my, here’s my question for you, Rory. Can you just break it down and help explain what is self-publishing? What is hybrid publishing and what is traditional publishing in a way that someone who has never gone through this experience could understand at a high level?
RV (00:10:04):
Absolutely. so basically if you start with traditional publishing, there are, here’s the advantages. The advantages are they pay you to write the book. So they pay you in advance against future royalties. And you have to earn out that advance before you ever make more money. But you never have to pay back your advance if you don’t you know, out earn it. So they pay you in advance to write the book. Then they owned the, they own the book. They actually own the, the, the intellectual property of that, those words in that order, which means they have exclusive right of where to print it, how to print it. They get to have final sign off on the title of the book. They get to have final sign off on the editorial, meaning the words in the book and what gets included and what doesn’t get included.
RV (00:10:58):
They also have the final say on the creative editorial, which is like the book cover. The way that the diagrams inside the book are laid out, the, you know, how big the pages are, they control the creative, they control the editorial. They also distribute the book. So they have, there’s a whole network in traditional publishing, which is publishers make the books, and then they, they send those books to distributors. Those distributors send those books out to retailers, and then consumers go and buy those books. And traditional publishers have a sales team that also calls on retailers and set tries to convince retailers to stock their books on the shelves. You know, of what, what’s new and exciting coming out? And it’s like a, there’s a whole chain. Some of the other great things about traditional publishing are the quality of the books is really high.
RV (00:11:59):
It’s the, it’s the, some of the best editors in the world. The distribution is one of the top things, which is that your book becomes available in airports and brick and mortar bookstores and can be translated into other languages. And there’s foreign rights deals, and sometimes those become movies and things. So that’s the, the, the fundamentals of traditional publishing. Let’s talk about self-publishing next, because it’s basically the opposite of all of that. So in self-publishing, you don’t get paid in advance. You have to pay. And why do you have to pay? Because you have to pay to print the books. First of all, you have to pay to write the book, right? So either you’re gonna write it or you’re gonna hire a writer and you’re gonna pay that outta your pocket. Then you’re gonna hire an editor, you’re gonna pay that out of your pocket.
RV (00:12:51):
Then you’re gonna pay someone to lay out the words on a page that’s called type setting. You have to pay for that. Then you pay for the graphic design of putting in the charts and tables and pull quotes. Then you have to pay for the design of the cover. Then once you actually have the book made and you have to find suppliers for all of those pieces, then you have to pay to print the books, right? And, and the good news is that you get to control that. And so the price to print the books might be lower. It might be like, you know, say four to $5 per book if it’s a hardcover book. But if you print 10,000 units at $5 each, you’re, you come out $50,000 just to get 10,000 copies of your own book. So you have to pay all the money, is the downside.
RV (00:13:41):
The upside is you have full control. You get to say whatever you want. You get to have final authority on the cover. The other downside though is you don’t have distribution. Now with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, they have made it super easy to do a lot of that stuff. And so your book can be sold through Amazon, but it’s not gonna be in airports. It’s not gonna be in Barnes and Noble. It’s not gonna be in Books a million. It’s not gonna be at, you know, Parnassus independent bookstore in Nashville. Those places are not gonna have that book. And so you’re naturally gonna sell less of those books ’cause fewer people are gonna see them. The other downside of self-publishing is the time it takes to figure all that out and to control all of that. The other downside of self-publishing is your book is not gonna be New York Times bestseller eligible.
RV (00:14:28):
And there’s some reasons why, but predominantly it’s because you will never s have enough books in print available at all the necessary retail stores around the country of where that book needs to be placed so that people could buy it so that it could all report to count for the New York Times. We have, we have figured out, very few people have ever done this, but we have figured out how to help a few self-published authors hit the USA today bestseller list following our system that we teach. And by the way, we work with client. We have done all three, as AJ has mentioned, we also work with clients regularly who do all three. But the dream of being a real national bestseller is, is pretty difficult and it’s basically impossible. There might somehow be a one in a hundred million chance knowing all the things we know that we could pull it off.
RV (00:15:27):
But it’s, it’s, it’s pretty much, and the other thing is the New York Times bestseller list specifically is there’s not only a quantity factor, there’s not only a distribution factor, there is also an editorial factor. That list ultimately is not objective. The New York Times was sued many decades ago, and the way they won the lawsuit was that they publicly said, it’s not an empirical only list. It’s an editorial list. And so they have very high editorial standards and thresholds. And so self-published books don’t usually cross those thresholds, even if they did sell enough volume in the right places on the right times. So you kind of weigh bye-bye to the, the, the, the New York Times, you know, dream. Then there’s hybrid. But
AJV (00:16:10):
Before we move on to hybrid, okay, you wanna preface ’cause there are some self-publishing companies today that really do help orchestrate and organize all of the things that we just said. Totally. So it’s not really that you’re in it on your own anymore. In the self-publishing world, there are many self-publishing entities that have all have, have orchestrated and put that all together for you. I think one of the, the things I think is important to note about self-publishing is really what is the purpose of the book, right? And I think that’s the same question you have to ask as we go through all of these is what am I trying to achieve with this book? What, what’s the purpose, the intended purpose of the book? And that will help a lot of going, is this self-publishing? Is it traditional or is it this, this middle thing called hybrid, which we can talk about now?
RV (00:17:04):
Yeah, so that’s a great point. You know, when we, we self-published our first book, we had to control all of that. We had to make all those decisions. Amazon, Kindle, KDP, Kindle Direct Publishing came on the scene. They have a whole process that helps facilitate a lot of that if you print through Amazon, but then Amazon gets to control the prices and things, but it helps tremendously. But you still get to own your intellectual property. That’s the other big advantage of self-publishing. You own the intellectual property, so you can do whatever you want with that book. You can create derivative products of that book. You have full control. And then when we did our children’s book last year, we used, as AJ mentioned, a vendor who helped coordinate. We paid them to help us with coordinating the self-publishing aspects of it. She was phenomenal.
RV (00:17:52):
We’ve had her on the podcast and I think we’re probably gonna turn, we’re probably gonna create a whole children’s book division here in the future, working with her ’cause she’s so wonderful. So when you get to hybrid publishing, now hybrid publishing is a blend of self-publishing and traditional publishing. So self-published books often are paperback, not always, but often when you do hybrid, you have access. There’s a hybrid publishing company and a lot of hybrid publishing companies are made up of people who used to be in traditional publishing who left traditional publishing for whatever reason, to go work at a hybrid publisher. So they have a whole process to produce a book that looks like a traditionally published book reads like a traditionally published, published book. Feels like a traditionally published book. So if you have a good hybrid publisher, and there’s, you know, there’s a whole gradient range of hybrid publishers and as well as gradient price points that correspond with each of those.
RV (00:18:57):
They a hybrid publisher though, the good ones, you could have your book right next to a book from Jim Collins or John Maxwell or Brene Brown, and you really couldn’t tell much of a difference. Versus with a self-published book, you can almost spot it instantly. And so there’s a brand equity piece of that that ties into this, that hybrid publishers can help you really create. So the big difference between a hybrid and a traditional publisher is that when you hybrid publish, you also have to pay to produce the book. So you’re not getting paid in advance. You have to pay the cost of producing the book. But much like a traditional publisher, you have a highly skilled team that knows how to produce the book. They also typically include editorial. So you get a top notch editor that you don’t have to go source and find yourself.
RV (00:19:52):
They’re usually included in the price that you pay and they help you edit the book. It also typically includes some element of graphic design for typesetting the pages, designing the cover, and it’s kind of sold as a package. Also, things like registering the ISBN number, those are things that, like the hybrid publisher takes care of a lot of the like logistical technicality things that you never know you have to think of. Now, so the downside is you have to pay, but the upside is you own all of the intellectual property, more like self-publishing. So instead of signing away all of your rights, you get to own them, which means if you wanna change the title of your book, if you want to change the interior of the book, if you wanna change the color of the cover, you have full control to do all that in the way you would.
RV (00:20:47):
If you self-published and you own all of the intellectual property rights to create workbooks and quote books and day planners and daytimers and whatever, whatever thing you wanna do, you maintain control of the ip, you can turn that, you know, into any type of coaching program, mastermind consulting, curriculum, et cetera. You need no sign off from the traditional publisher. The other big advantage of hybrid publishing is the cost of the book itself. So when you self publish, you get the books cheaper because you get to choose where they’re printed. When you traditionally publish, you get in advance, but then you have to buy your own book from the publisher. And usually it’s at a discount of retail. It’s usually around 50% off of retail. But like with, even today with Take the Stairs, we have to buy our own books. Like if it’s a hardcover, take the Stairs book, it costs us like $12 to buy our own book.
RV (00:21:49):
When you hybrid publish, you get to buy the books at much closer to a cost, which means, and the reason why this matters is because if you sell the books, you know, there’s two ways to sell. There’s to sell through retail channels, like stores like Amazon, Barnes and Noble Books, Ilion, you know, airports, independent bookstores, that’s retail channels. But then there are direct sales channels which are like through your website or at the back of a room when you’re speaking or to your consulting clients where they buy directly from you and they pay you when you do self-publishing or hybrid publishing. You know, people say you can’t make money from books, and that’s actually not at all true when you self-publish or hybrid publish. In fact, one of my mentors, Zig Ziglar said, the way to know which type of publishing you should do is you should ask yourself, do you wanna get rich or do you wanna get famous?
RV (00:22:43):
If you wanna get famous, you should tra you should try to traditionally publish. If you wanna get rich, you should self-publish. But Zig told me that before the world of hybrid publishing emerged. And so what hybrid publishing allows you to do is to kind of get famous, but also get rich because the other advantage of hybrid publishing is so, so, so that’s normal hybrid publishing, okay? Is you pay for the book, but you own the ip, you get the books at discount, but they can be but they look like traditionally published books even though you still have full control. And then do you want to talk about why we went into hybrid publishing?
AJV (00:23:28):
Not yet. Okay. I think that, you know, as we’re kind of like going through this interview, there’s really five things that you need to know to write, publish, and launch a bestselling book, right? And that’s what this whole episode about. And the first thing that we’ve been talking about is publisher type. I mean, that’s the first thing that you really have to decide is like, what, what publisher type of, because that’s a really important factor of if you wanna have a bestselling book. And so back to purpose and intent, perhaps that’s not what you care about. I think there is a reason of why to have one that we can talk about. But that’s the first, the first thing. The second thing, these are in no particular order is the marketing of the book. The, the third is the selling of the book.
AJV (00:24:08):
The fourth is pub dates when you actually publish the book. And the fifth is actually making money with the book, which is ROI, which Roy just mentioned. And as we go through this interview, you’re gonna get all five of these things. But I think one thing that’s really helpful to, just to kind of sum up this first one, which is publisher type, is to think about it like this. My good friend Alison Trobridge, who has a hybrid publishing company and a self-publishing company, and also an app called Copper Books. I love how she phrases it. She goes, you have to think about self-publishing like a bootstrapped entrepreneur, right? You’re figuring it out as you fall off the cliff, right? You’re building it as you go and you’re self-funding the whole thing, right? It’s a bootstrapped entrepreneur. Skip to self-publishing. It’s like private equity, right? Or
RV (00:24:53):
Sorry, skip from self-publishing. To which one? To traditional traditional publishing.
AJV (00:24:57):
Traditional publishing. And it’s like private equity, right? It’s like you better come with a well-vetted plan of how you’re gonna market and sell the book, and they only wanna invest on a sure thing, right? They want proof. They wanna know how you’re gonna make money. This is a private equity, you make pennies on the dollar, but they make a lot, right? It’s private equity. Then you have hybrid publishing, which is like a business partnership, right? And there’s a time and a place for all of those. But I think that if you can just go, okay, bootstrapped entrepreneur, self-publishing business partnership, right? We both have skin in the game here, there, this is a true partnership that’s hybrid. And then private equity is like a traditional publisher. If you just wanna kind of categorically think about ’em that way, it will help you just kind of go like, where do I fit based on my audience size my investment abilities my, my writing abilities, my timelines, the purpose of the book all of those things really go into this really huge conversation of publisher type. Now as Rory mentioned we are in the middle of writing our next book and we, it will be a hybrid publisher published book. But there’s more to that story because we ourselves have gotten into the hybrid publishing space. So in January of 2024 we, this is a, a sister company, it’s an extension of Brand builders group. We launched our own hybrid publishing imprint called Mission Driven Press. Now Rory, why did we do that? Like why did we get into the hybrid publishing space?
RV (00:26:36):
Great question. And by the way, if you go to mission-driven press.com, there’s a great table that shows you the advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing, hybrid publishing, and traditional publishing all in one table that we put together. So it sort of summarizes what we’ve been talking about so far at mission-driven press.com. So why did we get into tradit or hybrid publishing? Why would we leave one of the biggest publishers in the world where we got, you know, we were earning over six figures in advances and we hit the New York Times bestseller list. Why would we leave that and go back to hybrid publishing? Well, there’s a few reasons why in general, hybrid publishing is a great avenue for people who are entrepreneurial minded, people who know how to run a business and know how to market, know how to sell, and know how to make money.
RV (00:27:29):
Hybrid is really good because you get the quality and the gravitas of a, of a really, you know, beautiful book that looks like a New York published book. But you get the profit and the, the return on investment the way you do with more of like a self-published book. It’s more of an investment. It’s you’re investing in and you’re getting a return. The reason why we didn’t hybrid publish sooner is because typically historically hybrid publishing books were not eligible for the New York Times bestseller list. And there’s kind of a couple reasons why I think that is. One was that they, they often didn’t meet the editorial standards of New York Times, which are extremely high, extremely high. You might think you’re a great writer, but like it’s a whole different level to, to get the New York Times to sign off on your book, editorially speaking. But the other reason is more practical, it’s more functional, which is in order to become a New York Times bestselling author, first of all, it takes a huge number of units sold in a week.
RV (00:28:44):
And this is something we’ve spent years figuring out and just trying to understand because it’s, it’s a, it’s, they don’t publish much information about how it works. And so, you know, we’ve put together a team that tries to understand what are the ethical rules that the New York Times wants people to play by, and how much does it really take to hit the New York Times? And I’ll share with you a key data point. This is a proprietary data point that’s been compiled by our data science team internally that in the year 2023, okay, if you look at the, a full calendar year of 2023 on average, the average book that hit the New York Times the first time it hit sold 18,401 units in a week on average. So just that alone says you have to move a lot of units, but you also have, those units have to be sold in a variety of different places.
RV (00:29:41):
This is a term known as distribution, meaning it can’t just be 18,000 units sold through Amazon. There’s gotta be the New York Times. Apparently nobody knows for sure. This is a little bit like the Google algorithm, like we don’t, nobody knows for sure, but we’re using the hints they give us along with experience to kind of create a validating set of triangulated hypotheses that then become proven over time. But they have to be sold in lots of places. And self-published books are not sold in lots of places. They’re usually sold on Amazon and through your own shopping cart and your own shopping cart. Sales don’t count for New York Times because the New York Times only recognizes certain reporting retailers. And the industry leans heavily on something called BookScan. And only certain retailers report to BookScan. So your direct sales are good while you make money on them.
RV (00:30:32):
They do not count for the major bestseller lists when you sell through your website. The only sales that count are the officially recognized sales that happen through retail reporting outlets, typically that report through book scan and or the New York Times. So you have to sell a huge number of units. And in order to sell a huge number of units, you have to have a huge number of units in print. Most self published books. And most hybrid publishers are never gonna print that level of inventory. ’cause It’s a huge risk, right? I mean, imagine if you were the publisher, if it was self-published to go, I’m gonna print 20,000 books at $5 each, that’s a hundred thousand dollars just to have enough inventory available to even have a chance. And it’d be super risky on the editorial side. And that’s, and most hybrid publishers also won’t make that investment.
RV (00:31:19):
So most self-publishing never has the distribution necessary to hit like the New York Times. And almost all hybrid publishers also do not have the distribution required to hit the New York Times. That is traditionally that the historically that has been a feature set that only belonged to traditional publishing, they had distribution. Remember they have that channel of, they sell to distributors who sell to retailers who te sell to consumers. Those sales report through BookScan, and they were, those retailers report to the New York Times. And that was a feature set only available to traditional publishing. About two years ago, our team started to notice something very unusual. We noticed a hybrid publishing company that hit the New York Times repeatedly. They hit with, and they were signing pretty big authors like Glen Beck John Maxwell, Joan London like Mike and Peggy Rowe. And these are major books that were, that were hybrid published that were hitting the New York Times.
RV (00:32:33):
So we established contact with them. We wanted to figure out what was going on here. How is this pulling, how are they pulling this off? You know, because previous to a couple years ago, we’d always been told it was impossible. And we had never seen evidence that it was possible. Well, as we built a relationship with this team, we came to found out, find out something incredibly powerful. This company was started by some very high powered tra, formerly traditional publishing executives. And they were able to structure an arrangement where they are a hybrid publisher, but their books are edited. They have the, the editorial level of like a, a a, a major five New York publisher. And they actually have distribution through Simon and Schuster. So it’s not like Simon and Schuster. It is Simon and Schuster. It is a hybrid published book that is printed on Simon and Schuster Printing presses.
RV (00:33:39):
It is shipped from the Simon and Schuster warehouse. The Simon and Schuster sales team calls on retailers the way they would for a normal Simon and Schuster book. And those, it, it has the same distribution chain, the supply chain, so to speak, as a, as an actual traditionally published Simon and Schuster book. And that is why they were hitting the New York Times. They figured out a way to where hybrid publishing could move one step closer to traditional publishing, but it stays just inside the line of traditional publishing in that you own your ip, you control the creative, the author gets to determine the title. But then here’s the other awesome thing that they do. The author doesn’t have to pay to print all the books the publisher pays to print to, to, they pay for the initial print run to satisfy the initial retail estimated sales.
RV (00:34:38):
That is another massive feature set that historically was only available through traditional publishing. So that is when the world changed, is we said, this version of hybrid publishing is as close to traditional publishing. It’s all the editorial, it’s the distribution, it’s the supply chain, it’s being bestseller list eligible. It’s producing a book that is world class, you know, with an an in. You cannot tell the difference between it and, and a normal major book. And yet you can own the IP control, the creative. Now you do still have to pay the cost. So that’s the one sort of, the one sort of downside is you still have to pay because you have to pay to produce the book. But there’s all these other things. And that was when AJ and I said we think with that week. So we started a partnership with them. We created our own imprint, which is called Mission-Driven Press. And so now we offer hybrid publishing through Mission-Driven Press, but that has distribution through Simon and Schuster and has all the editorial and all of these things. And so we said, we’ll go first as authors. We believe in this so much we’re going to abandon traditional publishing, which was something we spent years of our life. It was a desperate dream of mine to do. And we’re abandoning that for what we believe is more of the future, at least for our audience, which is hybrid publishing. And that’s why we started Mission-Driven Press,
AJV (00:36:13):
You know, and I think it’s really important ’cause I think the, the whole concept of being able to, you know, have a legitimate bestselling book that is truly bought by other humans, which is a really important part of the integrity of the process was a really validating moment of this is a space that we could really get into. The other really validating moment for us was, and I think that most really successful brands, no matter what they are they succeed because they really, they were really solving a problem for themselves. And they realized that if they had that problem, others did too. And I think one of the things that made me want to get into this is when we went through years and continue to go through years of trying to make editorial changes to Rory’s previous books, including titles and covers and being told, I know that it’s your book, but no, can’t change the title, can’t change the cover, can’t change the words in the book.
AJV (00:37:13):
No. And it’s like, but we have, we have all this proof of if we did these things that would, it would make, it would, it would have a big impact. It would make more sales. You would make more money. Publisher. The answer is no. And realizing that even though you wrote the book and it’s your ip, what what really happens in traditional publishing is you sell your ip, it’s no longer yours. And to have that realization before, during, and after, as, as anyone who’s a content creator, and I just wanna put it in a a personal context of, you know, those are your stories and you are giving them away in exchange for dollars and cents, right? They’re not yours anymore. The those frameworks, those points, the stories the content is no longer yours. And many times, not even the derivative rights to do more things with that, you have sold that for a payment.
AJV (00:38:05):
It’s no longer yours. And I don’t know if people really understand that as they step into that. And that was a very eye-opening moment for us when we had all this statistical proof and data of how all of these other things that were happening with a different title change would move the needle. And, and we can’t, we couldn’t, we were told no, because at the end of the day, it’s not really ours anymore. And the thing that was again, something we’re like, man, this should never happen again, is believing that no editor has the right to tell you that this can’t be published when it’s yours. Sorry, this part of that story, I know it’s true, but it’s too much for here, right? These words, that name can’t use those. And that’s a, that’s a really sobering moment for the accuracy of your story and the heart of your content.
AJV (00:38:57):
And just realizing as a content creator that you are giving that up for a paycheck. And sometimes that’s okay and in others it’s not. And when it’s not having a good alternative, like a hybrid publisher really made a lot of sense. And so that, that’s another component of just realizing those mm-hmm,
AJV (00:39:46):
How do you actually do that? Right? And I don’t care if you’re self hybrid or traditional, how do you do that? Because that doesn’t matter. It’s the same amount of work, right? To make that hell happen. But I think one of the things that is really important to note is that there is a huge gap and this is across all three options, self, hybrid, and traditional. No one actually knows how to market and sell their book
AJV (00:40:49):
What’s the work involved, what’s the investment involved? What’s actually required to sell enough book books to take a run at a bestseller list? But then also I think it’s a equally as important thing to realize. The other big gap was just knowing when to do it right? Because so many things in life, it’s all about timing. Launching your book is no different. It’s about timing. And I think that as we stepped into this and that’s why this is really a sister company, a brand builders group, which is a personal brand strategy firm. This is the fulfillment side of book strategy, right? But you gotta have a good writing plan, a good writing strategy. You have to have a good publishing strategy that’s mission-driven press. But there also had to be a good sales and marketing strategy to go and execute. And what authors don’t realize is that authors are the salespeople, you know?
AJV (00:41:46):
And I think that is where we really said, Hey, we we’re gonna fill this gap that’s clearly missing. There is no mystery of what it takes to sell books. It’s just some people choose not to do it, whether they don’t know it or they choose not to do it, right? And that you can be in either category but there, there is not a secret. It takes work. And that work is very specific. So Roy, if we could just move in for the, the next 10 minutes to talk about the sales and marketing side of what it actually takes to have a bestselling book, that would be great. And if we could also incorporate the timing component, right? So when we think about marketing, selling and the timing of those things, the nuance of that what, what would you tell the audience is the most important thing to know about how to market your book, how to sell your book, and when to publish your book?
RV (00:42:37):
Mm-Hmm.
RV (00:43:47):
And we’ve seen this time and time again. So one of the things, if you really want your book to be a bestseller, first of all, I think high level, you gotta understand the big buckets of what’s going on here. And so we talk about, again, at mission driven press.com, we sort of lay this out. There’s four, like when people say I wanna write a book, there’s actually four major phases of that project. Phase one is writing the book. Historically, brand Builders group has always been able to assist people with writing the book. We help them find their uniqueness, we help them create their frameworks, we create the big idea. We can help them create an outline for it. We can introduce them to ghost writers if they need them. But you, it’s writing the book. That’s like stage one. Stage two is publishing the book, which is, you know, publishers don’t sell books.
RV (00:44:40):
Publishers make books. Publishers don’t know much about selling books. You a lot of authors think they would, but that’s not what publishing is. Publishing is about making books. It’s about the editorial, it’s about the distribution, it’s about the, the, all the million decisions about what makes a great book. But it’s not so much about selling it. And, and that’s a big mistake that people make. So inside of publishing the book, there are the three options we’ve talked about mostly on this podcast, right? That’s what we’ve been talking about. Stage three is selling the book. So you write the book, then you publish the book, but now you gotta sell the book. And this is where our deepest level of expertise is at Brand Builders Group is teaching people a replicable system, a duplicatable system, a proven system to get real humans to buy your book.
RV (00:45:34):
And when I say we have a system for this, as of last week, we help our 51st brand builders group client, who has followed our system and become a New York Times Wall Street Journal, or USA today national bestselling author. We’ve done that over 50 times in the last couple years. And what we don’t do is we don’t tell authors to buy their own books. If anyone ever says what you should do is buy your own books that you should run, right? Number one, it’s very risky to do that. And it’s number two, there’s some questionable ethics around buying your own books just to make them count for the bestseller list. But number three, it doesn’t accomplish the actual goal, which is changing lives, helping people, and also building your brand and your business. So what we do is we teach a system and there’s seven main mechanisms that we teach people for how to sell books, okay?
RV (00:46:33):
And we can, we’ll deep dive on those for a minute here. But then you have stage four, which is processing the books or reporting the books. So you write the book, writing the book, publishing the book, selling the book, and then reporting the sales. And when it comes to where the rubber meets the road of making sure your sales report you know, to become a bestseller list or become a bestselling author, you have to make sure that your sales, whatever sales you generate, whether that’s 50 books or 5,000 or 50,000 books happen in the appropriate way so that they get recognized by the reporting outlets. We’re not trying to game the system, we’re not trying to cheat, we’re not trying to lie. We’re not trying to make it look like you’re selling more books than you are. We’re just trying to make sure that every single hard earned sale that you created gets counted and that’s it, right?
RV (00:47:29):
So that’s what we’re trying to do. And, and so we actually provide that service for free for any of anyone who’s a brand builders group client, whether they publish with mission driven press or not. If we’re helping you write the book or we’re doing the sales strategy, we do that part because we want your hard earned work to be recognized. We’re not really in the just the business of doing that. We just do that as a service because there’s a lot of people who do it wrong, and there’s a lot of misconceptions and frankly, there’s a lot of shadiness around it and a lot of disorganization and a lot of people have lost a lot of money. And so we just said, we’re gonna just take care of this piece and we’re gonna provide it for free. And we don’t care if you sell 10,000 or a hundred thousand or 10 books.
RV (00:48:10):
I mean, we do, we wanna help you sell. I just mean it’s not like we will only provide that service to like the big famous authors we work with. We provide it for everybody because we were, we were aspiring authors at one point too. So that’s the four stages. Now, if we zi deep dive here, what AJ’s asking about is how do we sell books? That’s stage three. What are the mechanisms? Okay, so I already told you the biggest thing that does not sell a lot of books is PR and social media, which is ironic because that’s what everybody thinks will sell books. And, and I just wanna spend a minute on this. PR is very important. PR is huge for brand building. If you do PR right? It can be huge for list building, but pr in and of itself, going on Good Morning America and thinking that’s gonna sell all your books is not a very good strategy because it’s very, very difficult to get that slot.
RV (00:49:07):
And when you get, when you get that slot, if you get that slot, which is, you know, one in a one in a hundred thousand, you, you’ll be shocked at how little books it sells. And we have, we have clients every week who are on like every month for sure that are on Good Morning America, Fox News, today’s show, you know, various things with Oprah. And you know, several of the biggest podcasters in the world are clients of ours, right? Louis Howes and Amy Porterfield and Ed Millet. We know exactly how many books are sold from being on those shows, but a national TV hit usually sells somewhere between 800 to 1200 units. So it’s not nothing, right? But it’s a very far cry from 18,000 units. If you’re trying to make a run outta New York Times or, you know, tens of thousands of units, if you’re trying to change the world, it’s not gonna happen that way. So
AJV (00:49:56):
Now there are a couple of PR mediums that we have seen that are better to do such as podcasts,
RV (00:50:04):
Right? Yeah. Podcasts are a high return on the buck for how small the audience is. So like the biggest podcast in the world typically are not gonna move as much as a Good Morning America hit, but the audience they’re reaching is much smaller. So as a percentage, because you go, you know, let’s take our book about personal branding. If we’re on a podcast that only has a hundred thousand downloads, but all a hundred thousand people are entrepreneurs will sell way more books to a hundred thousand entrepreneurs who listen to us on a 30 minute podcast interview than we will being on Good Morning America reaching millions of people for a three minute segment of which only a small fraction of them are entrepreneurs. So podcasts actually are a great strategy because one of the things that we talk about is you have to think of your online audience as an offline room.
RV (00:50:57):
And sometimes authors go, oh, I don’t wanna be on that podcast. It’s a small podcast. It, it only gets, you know, a thousand downloads a month. But if you were standing on stage in front of a thousand people, you probably would take that opportunity. You probably would be excited about that. And that’s more of what podcasts are like. It’s a thousand people focused on you giving you their full attention for 20, 30, 40 minutes. So we’re big fans of podcasts. Now you have to have strategies for how to convert those. And this is what it comes down to. I know we’re running short on time. Here’s how you sell books incentives in one word. The secret is incentives. And what you do is you give people additional incentives to order the book. And I’ll just share with you a really quick tip here. Here’s how to sell 50,000 books.
RV (00:51:51):
I can teach you this in 60 seconds. What you do is you get 10,000 people to buy one copy. And so you give some people some extra incentives. If they buy one copy, then you get a thousand people. You try to find a thousand people who will buy 10 copies. And so you come up with a few more incentives that they get if they buy 10 copies, and then we wanna get a hundred people to each buy a hundred copies and they get a really big incentive, and that’s another 10,000 units. Then you wanna find 10 people who will each buy a thousand copies. That’s another 10,000 copies. A great incentive there would be to like give away a speech and say, Hey, if you buy a thousand copies of my book, I’ll come speak or I’ll make an appearance or something like that. And then if you can, you try to find one person who would buy 10,000 copies, you know, and that might be like $300,000. So you’d have to give them some really, really, really big incentives. But you
AJV (00:52:49):
Let us know when you find those people because we would like to meet them
RV (00:52:53):
And, and, and, and there are those people out there. There are those people indeed. So incentives and that’s part of what our team helps you do is help you think through those strategies, think through those incentives. We’ve got templates and scripts and examples. But the point is, get real people to buy your book. And yes, we’ll use incentives to help them, but people know they’re buying books, we’re talking about the book. They’re real humans with real transactions. And you’re doing the hard work it takes to create a movement and change lives. And if all goes well, our team will help make sure hopefully those sales get reported properly and hopefully those sales get counted. And you get listed as a bestselling author and we’ve got a great track record of doing it because we’re trying to do it the right way. We’re trying to do it. We openly, honestly, in transparency with retailers, with publishers and with authors, it’s not about trying to just buy your own books to game the system. It’s doing the work it takes to tell the world about your book and that your book deserves to have that work.
AJV (00:53:57):
Yeah, and I would say one of the things I think it’s really important to kind of sum a lot of that up is like, that is sales. Y’all
AJV (00:54:50):
But that is at the end of the day, what moves books. We do this all day, every day with new authors every single day, every week having launches. And I can tell you right now, the people who go, I will sell my book, those are the books that sell
RV (00:55:20):
Well, you know, on this point, Robert Kiyosaki had a, a great quote on this. He said, you have to remember, it’s not called New York Times Best Writing Author. It’s New York Times best Selling author. This is a sales game. And like anything, whoever is selling the most is, is, is getting the word out there. And by the way, we do this for new authors. We also do this for the biggest authors in the world, right? John Maxwell, ed Millet, Lewis Howes, Amy Porterfield. Like we have helped Eric Thomas et the hip hop preacher, we’ve helped some of the most reputable, credible personal brands in the world build their brand by helping them do this stuff. We’ve had three of our clients have followed our system and pre-sold a hundred thousand copies of their book, like Pre-sold during their launches. So this stuff works at the highest level and it works if you’re just starting out.
RV (00:56:15):
But you know, the reason you would wanna be a bestseller is statistically you make, you make a lot more money in advances, in speaking fees. You get better media opportunities. I mean, look, you know, just to use Lewis Howes as an example, ’cause he’s a client and a close friend. Everybody wants to be on Lewis Howes podcast, everybody, it’s one of the biggest podcasts in the world. And every week his team gets flooded with books that get mailed to them. And when they open those books, there’s two piles. There’s the no pile, and there’s the maybe pile. Being a New York Times bestselling author doesn’t automatically put you in a, some type of a yes pile, but it pretty much almost always puts you automatically in the maybe pile. So you’re gonna separate, you know, it’s the, the, the, what is it, the wheat from the shaft.
RV (00:57:03):
Like you get separated from the crowd, that you get a real, legitimate, honest look by literary agents, by public publicists, by speaking opportunities by ma you know, being invited to be in part of, you know, VIP groups and stuff like that. But I do wanna just leave everybody with this, aj. It’s really important to know that you should do this and we’re really good at it, and we teach you straightforward practices that are ethical. There’s no, there’s no manipulation, there’s no deception. It is just hard work. But we give you the templates, we give you the tools. That’s what our clients pay us for. And you should want to do this because you want to sell a lot of books, right? But you have to remember bestseller lists. Don’t change lives, but books do bestseller lists. They don’t really change lives. They might change your life.
RV (00:58:01):
If anything, they’ll change one person’s life. They’ll change the author’s life. But nobody on the world, nobody in the world cares. If you’re a bestselling author, they care about, can you help me? Can you, could you have advice, insights, inspiration that will help me in my life? But either way, to reach a lot of people, you need to do the work of getting the book out there. So bestseller lists are fun to go after. They are meaningful. They, they do, they do matter, but they’re not the thing. Nowhere near are they the ultimate goal here. You know, they’re a fun game as a checkpoint to kind of go after. But this is about changing lives. This is about helping people. This is about making a difference in the world, and it’s also about helping you build your brand and your business by getting your, your message out there. So we try to, you know, we wanna pursue bestseller lists. We think that we’re pretty good at it. We got a strong track record, but it’s not the end goal. It’s, it’s a side goal of going, let’s help you get your book into many people’s hands as possible so that your book can make the world a better place. That’s what this is about. That’s why you started bestseller lists. Don’t Change Lives, but Books do.
AJV (00:59:12):
Yeah, and I would just add, like, why would you wanna do all of this? It’s a calling, right? You can’t not, amen. It’s a calling. It’s something that’s been placed on your heart that you feel like you have something that has the power to help someone else. And having it in writing words on pages it matters because you know that if somebody else reads it, it can help them. It’s a calling. And it has to be that first because then all the work is worth it. And it doesn’t know, it doesn’t matter how many copies are sold, it’s worth it knowing that it could potentially change the trajectory of someone else’s life. It’s a calling. That’s why you do it. And so we’re so excited to be a part of Mission-Driven Press. We’re so excited to be able to more deeply serve our community.
AJV (01:00:01):
And if you are an aspiring author or you’re in the middle of writing that book or you’ve got your book done and you’re trying to launch it, I would encourage you guys go check out our website, mission driven press.com, fill out our author form and tell us about your book. So Mission-Driven Press. There is a form that says, tell us about your book. If it’s a future book. It’s a book in motion. It’s a book heading into launch at any stage. We wanna hear about it, see how we can come alongside you, see what we can do to help you get that book into the hands of people that it can help. So, mission-driven press.com. Fill out the form. And y’all, thank you so much for listening. Rory, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. Everyone else, we will see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 535: 3 Ways Your Faith Affects Your Profits | Graham Cochrane Episode Recap
RV (00:03):
So many entrepreneurs underestimate the role and the power that faith plays in their business. And that’s part of what I want to talk to you about today is three ways that you may not even realize that faith is shaping your future profits. And three, sort of exercises and demonstrations of faith that are really, really important for you growing your business. So the first thing is you need to understand what’s working against you. And you need to understand that there is biblically there is a spiritual battle going on, that there are things going on in the heavenly realms that surround this world that we don’t know about. Now, that can be one of those things that feels hard to believe for people. And if it is, I get that. I kind of go, well, that feels, you know, wild to me sometimes. And you can go really deep on, on that.
RV (01:03):
But even if you can’t get your mind wrapped around the idea that like there is, you know, a spiritual battle going on all around us at all times, what you should be able to understand concisely and quickly and see for yourself is that even inside of your own head, there is a battle of doing what you know you should be doing and doing what you feel called to do versus being pulled back into doing what is safe and doing what is convenient and doing what is comfortable. And what I want you to know is that if there is a devil, okay, so let’s just say it, let’s just say it that way. If there is a devil, the devil, if the devil can stop you from dreaming, he will stop you from doing so. If the devil can convince you to not dream, then automatically you will not do.
RV (02:09):
Here’s the other thing that you should know about the devil, right? Part of the devil’s greatest victory if there is a devil, would be convincing people that the devil is not real, right? So part of his great victory would to go, oh, that’s crazy. That’s made up the devil. I’m not real. The devil’s not real. Like, and, and, and, and if that were true, then he would be completely free to operate in silence, to create chaos, to to shape the world without the world even being aware of the fact that he is there and that he really is, you know, an ultimate enemy. Now, that alone doesn’t just prove that the devil is real, but either way, whether the the devil is real and is, and wins by making you think he’s not real. And so he gets to operate freely. Or if the devil is real and you believe that he is real or even if it’s not the devil, if it’s just your own voice inside of your head that says, don’t dream.
RV (03:13):
You could never do that. You could never win. Sure. So-and-so could do it, but that’s not you. You don’t have their resources. You, you’re not as smart as them, you’re not as talented. You don’t have as much money, you don’t have the, the relationships, you don’t have the connections, you don’t have the education, whatever it is, even if you wouldn’t call that the devil spiritually, in all three of those scenarios, whether the devil is real and you believe it, whether the devil is real and you don’t believe it, or whether the devil isn’t real, but something inside of you still convinces you to stop dreaming the devil wins or somebody other than you wins. Because if the devil can stop you from dreaming, he automatically stops you from doing. And so you gotta combat that. How do you combat that? You combat that by dreaming.
RV (04:03):
You combat that. You combat that by first giving yourself permission to dream by first even allowing yourself to go suspend, bend, suspend the necessity for it to be realistic, right? No one said it had to be realistic. It doesn’t have to feel real realistic. It doesn’t have to feel possible. It doesn’t mean that someone else has to have done it. Chances are whatever dream you’re having, somebody has done it. So it is possible. But even if you can’t get your mind wrapped around it, I would just say when you’re dreaming, the first rule is give yourself permission to dream. And the way you do that is by suspending the requirement for realism, suspend the requirement for realism. Allow yourself to dream without it having to be realistic. You go, that’s right. I’m not having a realistic picture in my mind, that’s not what I’m trying to do.
RV (04:56):
I’m, I’m trying to dream something in my mind. Let’s suspend realism, at least temporarily. We can always bring realism back later. But if you don’t allow yourself to dream, you won’t allow yourself to do. And if the devil is real, and I believe the devil is real, ’cause I believe that is I believe in scripture. And I, I believe that that’s, there’s evidence and proof of that. As you probably have heard, if you’ve listened to my Eternal Life podcast where I go through, you know, 15 hours of evidence that supports scripture in the life of Jesus on my other free podcast the, if the devil stops you from dreaming, he automatically stops you from doing. And many of us are blind to that. Many of us go, man, that’s a battle that I’m losing before, before the war even begins. That prevents, prevents me from even having a chance.
RV (05:46):
So you gotta be aware that your faith comes into play from the moment you have a dream or an idea. The second thing, the second place that faith comes into business that you may not realize how important faith is, is you gotta understand that very often it is our broken dreams that lead to our beautiful dreams. Very often, our most broken dreams are the things that lead to and plant the seeds for what becomes our most beautiful dreams. The very things that we thought were just like, were devastated. ’cause We go, how could this happen? Why would this be years later, you look back and you often go, oh, now I can see how God worked that out in, in my favor, in my good. You know, I I think of like the high school reunion, right? This is classic where you go, man, there was this, you know, this, this, this boy or this like, you know, this girl or this boy that I had a crush on in high school.
RV (06:52):
And then you go back in your high school reunion 20 years later and you go, holy moly, am I glad I didn’t end up with that person. Like they went in a completely, you know, different direction than I would’ve ever gone in. You, you know, like that is not how I would’ve wanted my life to end up. Yet in that moment when they didn’t choose me in that moment when, when they didn’t show me love in that moment, when they didn’t come back after me, I was devastated. My dream was broken, I was, I was heartbroken. But yet that that not happening actually created the environment for the life that I have. Now, the reason this is important is because if you don’t consciously realize that when you have broken dreams, when things don’t work out for you, you automatically default to God is against me, or this wasn’t meant to be, or this isn’t in my destiny, or this isn’t fate.
RV (07:47):
And when you beli, when you beli, when you adopt that mentality, you often give up those broken dreams. Go, see, I tried, it didn’t work out, I’m finished. But the perspective principle of faith, so this is, this is actually in chapter six of Take the Stairs. The perspective principle of faith says that faith is consciously choosing to believe that what is happening now is somehow for your good later on. That actually ties back to a verse in scripture, Romans 8 28, which says, in all things God works for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. Not in some things, not some of the time in all things. What it doesn’t say is you’re gonna feel good all the time. Life is gonna be easy, it’s gonna be evident to you. It’s gonna be obvious what God is doing.
RV (08:44):
No, it just says in all things God is working for good. And so we can have faith in that. But, but that’s a conscious choice. You have to, you have to make inside of a heartbroken moment. Like if you’re, if you’re having a heartbroken moment, it’s easy to go. Where is God? There is no God or or if there is a God, why would God be letting this happen to me? Right? That and that’s where it stops. And that’s a lack of faith. That is that faith is choosing a long-term perspective, right? Faith is believing in, in a, in a future, but faith is having hope for what you cannot see. Faith, faith is more than just what is happening to me right here, right now in this moment. And if you’re not consciously aware of that, then when you have heartbreak and you will have heartbreak, right?
RV (09:33):
Faith doesn’t mean you won’t have heartbreak. Jesus himself says, in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world. But he says, in this world you will have trouble. So it’s a validation of faith to say you’re gonna have problems. We know the problems are coming. You don’t get a choice about whether or not you’re gonna have problems. You’re gonna have problems. I promise you’re gonna have problems. Anybody who’s been successful will tell you problems are on the way, right? Like you, you’re gonna have problems. The question is not whether or not you have problems. The question is how you respond to those problems and how you respond to those problems has a lot to do with how you process those problems and the meaning that you assign to those problems. And if you don’t have faith, when you have problems, when you have broken dreams, the default is to assign it to, oh, I was, I’m destined for failure, or God doesn’t love me, or God doesn’t care about me, or this isn’t meant to be, or I’m not smart enough.
RV (10:35):
But when you have faith, you Romans 8 28, faith, you know, in all things God is working for good faith is choosing to believe that what is happening now is somehow for a greater glory Later on. And I see this pattern again and again and again in the mindset of the ultra performers. And even if you can’t get your mind wrapped around the idea that this is God, hopefully you can get your i your mind wrapped around the idea of perseverance to go. It would be naive to think you could achieve anything meaningful without enduring heartbreak, without enduring some failure. You know, that’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen. So what is necessary is perseverance. And to be able to persist through that, well then that means the way that you process that failure matters a lot. And if you think that heartbreak means you’re gonna fail and you, then you’re just gonna give up.
RV (11:28):
So, but if you have faith, then you go, I trust that God’s gonna weave together this beautiful tapestry somehow. The third way that you may not realize your faith is affecting your prophets is realizing that overwork is a sign of under faith. Overwork is a sign of under faith. If I overwork, then what, what I’m, what I’m demonstrating, what I’m saying with my actions is if it’s to be, it’s only up to me. It’s not up to anyone else. It’s not up like it’s not up to God. I’m in this alone and it’s on me a hundred percent. I must take control, full control of my success. It’s only up to me in general. I’m a fan of agency, I’m a fan of accountability. But spiritually we are co-creators with God, right? We, we, he created us, right? We’re not the creators of all things.
RV (12:31):
We are the created. And as the created, we get a chance to co-create with him. So there is this, you know, from the time Adam exists in the garden, there’s a co-creation mechanism that is reinforced biblically. Now, again, if you can’t get your, if you, if you can’t get your mind wrapped around that or you don’t understand that, it’s not necessarily, it’s, it’s not really nec, it’s not necessarily a necessity that you do. But what is is to go, when I’m overworking, I’m saying it’s only up to me. It, there is a level of faith required to tap the amount of work that you put in. And this is one thing that’s different about brand builders group from the company agent and I built before in the company we built before, we just worked like crazy nonstop. There wasn’t margin for God. We didn’t leave margin for a miracle.
RV (13:26):
You, there’s no, there’s no space that you’re inviting God to show up to fill you. You, if you wanna see a miracle, you have to leave margin for a miracle. You, you, you have to go, I’m gonna do my part and I’m going to, I’m gonna use my talents, but at some point I’m releasing control to say what happens here is, is out of my control. It’s, it’s in your hands. So I will show up with what I have, which is little right, which is humane. It is not much. I I don’t have supernatural powers, but I will use the skills and the talents and the resources you’ve given me, and then I will give it back to you and I will trust you to do it. That’s a sign of faith. And a lot of people don’t equate the idea that overworking is a sign of under faith is to go, oh, I have to work constantly because I, I don’t trust that God will fill in the gap. But having faith means I’m leaving margin for a miracle. I’m allowing God to fill in the gap. I’m, I’m contributing to the extent that I can, but then I’m surrendering, surrendering ultimately to his control. And these are three parts of your faith that influence your prophets.
RV (14:41):
The devil can stop you from dreaming. He’ll stop you from dream doing if you gotta realize that broken dreams lead to our most beautiful dreams, and that
RV (14:50):
Overwork is a sign of under faith. All of this points to an idea that if you increase your faith, you will increase your profits. That’s the challenge I wanna welcome you to and invite you to take in the next stage of your business.
Ep 534: How to Find Yourself and Your Own Vision with Graham Cochrane
RV (00:02):
Well, I can’t wait to let you hear and listen in on this conversation with my good buddy, Graham Cochrane. So, Graham is a BBG client, and he represents, in my eyes, much of why we started the company, to find good people with real expertise, who are helping people and care about making a difference in the world, using their skills and talents to make the world a better place. He is a mission-driven messenger who has real expertise and a really impressive track record. So Graham is a seven figure entrepreneur. He has a podcast that reaches over 80,000 people every month. So he’s in the top 0.5% of all podcasters. He has over 700,000 YouTube subscribers, which is super impressive. I’m super jealous of that. And he does all of it in minimal number of hours per week. He’s been a Ted speaker, he’s a keynote speaker.
RV (00:56):
I know he’s speaking at some of my friends events, and I’m starting to see him more and more. We’re also in a Christian entrepreneur’s mastermind together. His wife and AJ are in an actual mastermind together. And so just an amazing guy and he’s got a new book coming out called Rebel. Find Yourself by Not Following The Crowd, and we’re gonna talk a little bit about that and how to just, you know, make money doing what you do and getting paid for what you know, which was kind of like more of his first book. So, Graham, welcome to the show, man. Good to have you
GC (01:28):
Dude. Pumped to have the conversation, man. It’s been fun to see our, our world collide over the last 12 months. A little bit more love what you guys are doing at Brand Builders. It is literally the best. Like literally, if you’re not in brand builders, you need to join. ’cause It’s the best program for getting your message out there holistically and building a business around it. It’s so well done, bro.
RV (01:46):
Man, thank you for that. I mean, that’s a powerful testimonial and, and to get it from someone like you who’s already, you know, doing a great job of it before we found you. I love that. And, and I just, I, I love your heart for what you’re doing. Everyone listening already knows I’m a hardcore bible thumping Jesus freak, and AJ is you are, and your, your, your wife is, and, and we got a chance to meet your family and that whole thing. But talk to me about Rebel, the title Rebel, and specifically the subtitle to me really spoke to me when I, I saw it said, find yourself by not following the crowd. So why is not following the crowd important? And I feel like we live in a world where people are constantly following the crowd and like looking at what other people are doing. And I feel like your book is like a very distinctively, diametrically kind of opposed message to that. So tell us about that.
GC (02:47):
Yeah, I mean, I think people are ultimately looking for fulfillment. You know, if you’re a personal brand or business owner, you want to be fulfilled in your business. And, and I have some thoughts on what leads to fulfillment, but t typically what we do is we almost abdicate the path to fulfillment by just looking at what everyone else is doing and saying, well, he looks happy. She looks happy. That’s how she’s running her business. That’s how he’s showing up online, that’s how they’re raising their kids. That’s how they’re thinking about handling their money. And so we just sort of copy what we see ’cause it’s easier. The, there’s already a flow. There’s already like a current of culture, of conformity moving in a direction. So the easiest path is the path of just doing what everyone else is doing. And the problem is, is that you’ll never find fulfillment by following the crowd because it’s gonna pull you further away from the way you were designed.
GC (03:36):
So we believe in a great designer and you, you know, this is true intuitively because you know what it feels like to feel out of alignment and then when you’re like in the zone or in your sweet spot, and it’s a lot easier to live in alignment. And I just think we’re afraid to a figure out what does alignment mean for us? Like, who, how are we designed? The late Dan Miller who was like, I, I had him on my podcast and he endorsed my first book and had a brief interactions with him before we lost him. But the two questions he always says that you need to answer are, who am I? And why am I here? And I, I, I agree with him on that, that we don’t know who we are. But even, but if we did the small but important work of finding out more about the way God designed us, the way we’re wired, man, we’d flourish in business. We’d flourish in parenting and marriage. We’d flourish in our relationships with money and people and spirituality. So it’s, to me, this book is a book about alignment and identity. But once you figure that out, man, you’re gonna be more successful. You’re gonna be more satisfied, you’re gonna be of more service to other people. And I think those are three things everybody wants.
RV (04:39):
So, yeah. And I think, you know, you used that word abdicate, which I really love. ’cause I think that it’s, it’s like this energy of almost like a a default mode. And I do think people basically like live, live their life in that way of like, I’m just sort of default. And I think probably at least the way I view it is few people wake up and go, yeah, I wanna do what everyone else does, and I’m just gonna follow the crowd. But it seems more of like, they struggle to figure out, how do I know, who am I? How do I know why I am here? How, how, how, how do I find that? So what insights do you have there? If someone’s like, well, I just don’t really feel like I’m that clear on that, what are the steps that they can take to sort of like, get clear on some of those things?
GC (05:28):
Yeah, exactly. So there’s a lot of ways to do this. The way I teach in the book, it, it is a, an acronym, rebel is an acronym. It’s a five part framework. And the, the r the beginning of it, it starts with resolving to dream again. So the R stands for resolve to resolve to dream. Again, my theory, my premise is that joy and dreaming and desires that I think are put there by God are the starting point to figuring out who you are. Mm-Hmm. The point of thinking about dreaming, the point of thinking about what fires you up, what you would love to, you know, in Tim Ferriss’s language dream of doing, being or having, like he says, like, if you’re the smartest person in the world and there was, it was impossible to fail, what would you dream of doing? Being or having, I, that type of questioning is a starting point for figuring out your identity.
GC (06:19):
Not the end, but the starting point. ’cause My my theory is that dreams are clues as to the way God designed us. We dream. We might have collective dreams that are similar for all people, but I think there’s a lot of uniqueness to the things you want to do, want to have people, the person you want to be, that are a, a, a clue to, maybe I should pull on that thread a little bit more, but the problem is, is like, as adults, I think that’s just beat out of us. Like, as a kid, this was so natural. Like we grew up dreaming. We knew what we wanted as kids. And then either culture at large culture, like in your home or whatever, told you this is the, the way, you know, sort of mandalorian star Wars. Like this is the way you have to follow it.
GC (07:01):
And very few people dream anymore when they grow up. And so they, they no longer know who they are. They’ve lost sort of themselves, and they, they’ve conformed. And I really think there’s a difference between the path of conformity and then the beginning of getting off of that path is dreaming again. And it’s really hard to do. ’cause We feel like dreaming is pointless. It’s childish. It’s my dream didn’t work out for me very well. I got burned by dreaming. There’s disappointment there. So it’s a very tender place, but that’s my theory. You start with dreaming again, 30,000 foot view might seem impossible. I don’t know what I’m gonna do with this dream, but it starts to tell you a little bit about the way you’re wired.
RV (07:34):
Yeah, that’s good. Brother and I, I mean, just as you were talking, I was, you know, sort of processing what you were saying and it, it dawns on me that like, you know, God puts a dream in your heart. If you, if you look at the inverse of that, the devil, if the devil stops you from dreaming, then the devil stops you from doing, right? Like, if you never allow yourself to have the dream, then the likelihood of that thing ever coming true, it basically becomes non-existent. And so the devil doesn’t even have to stop you from doing, if he can just stop you from dreaming, then it’s like, it’s like a seed that never gets watered. It never gets birthed. And so then it’s like the devil wins by default in terms of a spiritual battle. And just thinking about like a spiritual enemy of you know, and I think of that, you know, that’s what the scripture says, that, you know, the devil is a liar. I mean, that’s, he, he, he’s he’s a liar. He comes to kill and steal and destroy. And you go, if he plants a lie, like if God plants a dream, you should go do this. And then the level the devil shows up and just plants a lie on top of it, you could never do this then like you lose. So it’s like, which voice are you gonna listen to?
GC (08:43):
Oh, that’s so good. And there’s different lies. It’s either for some people he knows what’s, like, if we’re gonna talk spiritually, the devil knows what’s effective for each of us. So it might be, you know, you you’ll never be able to do this. The other lie could be if this won’t work out, and you’ll be incredibly disappointed. And there could be a huge fear of disappointment, especially if you had a dream that did die in the past. Something we, we talked about, about a year ago, I was doing a session with you. We talked about this identity crisis intersection about like, and I wrote about this in the book about when you have a dream, we all have had a dream. It could be a financial dream or a career ambition, or a relationship dream. Like, I wanna get married, I wanna have kids.
GC (09:21):
And then what happens when that dream dies? Well, we’re at this identity crisis intersection because our dreams are not compartmentalized. They’re part of, our identity is attached to our dreams. That’s why they hurt so much when we lose them. And that’s why they feel so good when we gain them. And so part of you dies with that dream. And so what most people do is they say, forget this. I’m gonna choose the path at this intersection. There’s two choices. I’m gonna choose the conformity path, put my head back down, be like everybody else, and say, Hey, dreamings for other people that didn’t work out for me. There’s no way I’m gonna do the opposite. Which is the other choice, which is to dream again. You know, maybe the, the divorce happened, you could choose to pursue another relationship and dream again. But most people are like, I don’t want to be hurt again.
GC (10:00):
I don’t wanna be disappointed. Again, it’s a tender spot. So we, we gave dreaming a shot once or twice, and then that was it. And I think I was just talking about this with Chris Cook on the Win Today podcast of like the people that seem younger as they get older and seem more full of joy in life are the people that continually let themselves dream again, dream new dreams. Maybe that dream didn’t work out, but what’s a different version of that dream? I could dream, you know, my first dream was to be a rockstar. Like literally try to get a record deal that fell through. I had to make some tough choices. But in a roundabout way, God put new versions of that dream in my heart, where now I’m in front of tens of thousands, if not millions of people regularly performing, sharing, creating, doing creative work.
GC (10:44):
I just didn’t wanna sit at a cubicle all day. And God gave me another way to do that. It was through YouTube, which didn’t exist when I was in college. You know, it was through podcasting, it was through books, it was through all this stuff. And so I never could have even imagined. But I think, yeah, there’s that lie of you’ll be disappointed if the dream doesn’t work out. It’s impossible. Dreaming is selfish. Depending on your, your origin story, your parents might have said, we don’t get to do what we want. We do what’s responsible we do with the families, businesses, we do. You’re gonna go to college, you’re gonna do this. So a lot of times dreaming feels selfish. So everyone’s story is gonna be a little different. But this is where, why I start with dreaming. ’cause It’s like so useful if you let yourself do it. But so many people have mental blocks around it.
RV (11:23):
Mm-Hmm.
GC (12:44):
Yes. Right. Because to do anything great, let’s talk about personal brands. Like to build a personal brand takes risk. Like anyone who thinks you can build a business without risk is, is not in the right mind. It takes risk. And so some people get scared away. But I think, and that was me when I thought about entrepreneurship, I never wanted to start a business ’cause it seemed risky. Mm-Hmm.
GC (13:21):
And so once I saw a vision of like, well, I, it’d be so fun to help musicians be so fun to be able to talk about music. And I was a freelancer at the time and do a little bit of everything. That was a big enough desire that made me want to take the risk. ’cause I had no idea what the business model was. I didn’t know who Amy Porterfield was. I didn’t know any, I didn’t know what a course was. This is 2009. You know, I’m like starting out in the dark ages and like trying to figure this out. But I think desire gets you past the risk. So if you’re gonna build a personal brand, don’t build the brand that you think you should build or someone else is building or build the business model the way you think. You, you’ve gotta really be excited about the thing you’re building to get you to take the risks necessary. And like you said, like horse correct along the way to get anywhere meaningful. And without that, I just don’t think we’re gonna take the risk. Mm-Hmm.
RV (14:07):
GC (14:15):
The e is to establish the outcomes you want in life. So if we’re resolving to dream again at the beginning, big picture dreams. I walk people through a 50 dreams exercise in the book. The E is to establish the outcome. So now we get clear on vision, right? And this is more of, okay, what what do I specifically want my life to look like? And I love, I kind of stole this question from Rich Lipin which is this just the simple scenario of imagine it’s three years from today, and I bump into you Rory, and I’m like, Rory, I haven’t seen you in three years. How the heck are you buddy? And you’re like, Graham, it has been the best three years of my life. I’m like, oh my gosh, that’s amazing. Let’s grab a coffee. Sit down. Tell me, tell me about that.
GC (15:00):
What would you be telling me about what would have to be true for you to say to me? It’s been the best three years of my life. And what I like about this journal prompt or thought exercise is two things. One, it’s open-ended. ’cause It’s not business related. It could be, it could be your family, it could be your finances, it could be whatever. But also it’s the timeframe of three years. Like, I’m not, like, I’m a big planner on the strength finders. I’m high on futuristic. I live in the future to my detriment a lot of times at the expense of the present. But 10 years, like people having a 10 year plan, it’s really, really hard because 10 years is so far down the road. I’m either gonna be highly unmotivated to take action today. Totally. It’s a decade away or I don’t know who I’m gonna be in 10 years.
GC (15:43):
10 years ago I was a totally different person. And so it’s just a tough thing to project one year. Like I, I kind of like New Year’s resolutions ’cause they give you a lot of urgency to like, let’s freaking go. And I like the, the boost of adrenaline, but then it’s hard to change your life in a year. And so you get discouraged and you give up three years, you’re close enough to who you kind of can project who you’re gonna be and what season of life you’re gonna be. And you can look at your kids, you can look at your life and go, I can kind of see in three years where I might be. So that’s, it’s reasonable to assume some things. And yet I think you and I both know that we can do a lot of damage in 36 months. Like we could change our body in 36 months. I could change my marriage in 36 months. I could transform my business in 36 months. And so that three year question allows people to go from dreaming big picture to man, what do I really care about that I would say it’s been the best three years of my life. What would have to be true? And now I have some specific outcomes I wanna move towards.
RV (16:39):
Mm-Hmm.
GC (18:01):
Yeah. You start to journal it out. There’s some sub-questions you can ask yourself. Like once you see that vision, like what are the opportunities in front of me right now that could get me to that vision that are just low hanging fruit? And then the opposite, what are the obstacles that I could foresee, external obstacles, internal obstacles that would prohibit me from making that vision come a reality. But the reason we do all this stuff, right, is like, and, and I have this with clients who come to me and say, Graham, I wanna, I wanna make a hundred thousand dollars a year in my business. And, and I’m like, Hey, go, go do this exercise. Go do the three-year vision. They come back and what it does is it exposes what they uniquely want. And I had a client who wanted a hundred thousand dollars a year in his business.
GC (18:42):
He wanted me to help him scale up. But when he came back from this exercise, what he discovered was actually what I want is to move to Florida and live closer to the beach so I can ride my bike or walk on the beach every day with my wife. I want to be able to have my wife stay home with our kids and work with me in the business. So my four kids, me and my wife are all at home together. We have more time together and we’re getting to work on something together. I want to be able to travel a little bit more and I want to be able to replace my car. Like he had very specific things and he was like, I wanna be working out every day. Like he had mapped all this out and he realized I don’t need a hundred thousand dollars a year, a month in my business to create that vision.
GC (19:20):
‘Cause The money is where as I coach business owners a lot, that’s where their minds go is a a dollar amount. But I’m like, the money is a just a vehicle. You really have a business to create the life you want and serve your life, not have your life serve your business. So like what, what kinda life do you want? And that’s gonna be different for Rory and me and my clients. Like, you’ve gotta get clear on what you uniquely want. And the reason why as a business owner, if you’re a personal brand, is that well then now you’ve got a much clearer vision to give yourself permission to not do what she’s doing, what he’s doing, what the trends say to do if it’s not in alignment with your vision. So if your vision is to work less than than 20 hours a week in your business, you probably shouldn’t be taking on a, a model of business that requires you to pump out content all day, every day.
GC (20:06):
And you’re a slave to the business. ’cause You’re now sacrificing your vision for making money. What if it got you to be curious about, is there another way to make money but have my vision of working less than 20 hours a week if that was part of your vision. So that’s where it starts to get more personalized to you so you know how to design your life and not just float. ’cause In personal branding, you’re gonna, everyone’s gonna copy everyone, but you’ve got some of the biggest clients in the world and everyone sees them, the Ed Millets and the Amy’s and all these people and be like, oh, I should just do what they’re doing. But maybe that’s not best for you and your personal brand. Mm-Hmm. Or your season of life or your unique challenges or your special needs child or your whatever. You gotta really get clear on what you want to do and make your business fit. That, that’s part of my heartbeat when it comes to business owners specifically.
RV (20:50):
Mm-Hmm.
RV (21:39):
I mean, like, it, it was hard. And, and I was thinking about that to myself and I was going, you know, people don’t give themselves enough grace for the season they’re in. Right? It’s like you’re looking at someone online who’s blowing up and it’s like if you got newborn kids, like you’re living in a completely different universe. Like you’re, you’re not even, you’re not even in the same game, the same league. Certainly not the same field. Like you’re in a completely different universe. And just having that, you know, both the dreams for your own life, but also the grace of failure of like, if it’s not happening so fast, it’s like, dude, there’s, you know, and, and having kids not having kids, it’s like, it’s two different universe, I mean, happening on this planet. Like they, they they’re completely different. Yeah. And each one has different, you know, things that come along with that.
RV (22:31):
And so I love that. And, and so, so the acronym y’all, R-E-B-E-L. If you want to know the rest of the acronym, you need to go get the book. Okay. So the book is called Rebel. By the time you’re hearing this, the book is out or really close to being out. So you need, you can, you can go get Gram’s book. I, I have one more thing I want ask you about before I let you go Graham, but like, but before I do that, where should people go if they wanna like get the book, learn about you, you know, stay in touch, et cetera?
GC (23:02):
Yeah, the rebel book.com will get you directly to the book. And if it’s before it comes out, there’s some pre-order bonuses there. But graham cochrane.com, the Graham Cochrane show, or on Instagram, the only place I hang out online is at the Graham Cochrane.
RV (23:17):
Cool. cool brother. So the last thing I always wanted to hear your thoughts on a little bit is how you build a business not working a hundred hour a week. I know this is something that you have made a focus in your life. I know that this is something that you have done. I know this is something that you have coached and advise people on. I would love to just hear a few of your tips or pointers around that and going like, I think a lot of people do think, I mean, entrepreneurship is hard. I mean, let’s, let’s be real. It’s, it’s like, I think there’s a, a lot of truth sometimes to that whole, like, you know, you quit a job working 40 hours a week for someone so you can go work 80 hours a week for yourself.
RV (24:03):
And a lot of times that is pretty, and then my experience has been that that is often true, especially like the first couple years. But like, you also have the freedom to design a business differently. So how do we design a business that works that way? The other thing I’ll say about you is I love meeting your family and I really learn a lot and like all I need to know about a person by meeting their family just to go like, you know, is this someone who’s just trading what’s happening at home for something else? Which is not necessarily good, bad, right or wrong, it’s not. It’s just, but I, I’m always very curious, especially of like people’s kids and things like that. And yours are so wonderful and your wife is so wonderful. So it’s, it’s powerful to me to to to go, alright, here’s someone who’s who’s doing this. And, and while, while they’re able to have this like really wonderful, beautiful family. So talk to about, talk to us about that a little bit.
GC (25:01):
Oh, thank you so much, man. And likewise, your family is a, is a, a, a treat to meet them and see them. And AJ is such a classy, classy person, and Shay’s really loved getting to know her. And I think they’re trying to stick together in their little small group inside this mastermind. But looking forward to doing more life with you guys. Man, I think we, we want the same things, right? Which is you really care about your family and you care about your faith and you care about other people and probably your community. And those are all things that are a time commitment. And so from day one, when I started my business, I was on food stamps. I was newly married, new baby planning a church. I was like a volunteer worship leader. Like I, I was like, I know God’s telling me to start a business, but there’s no way it can be a hundred hour a week business.
GC (25:48):
It just can’t. ’cause I, I am volunteering 20 hours a week at this startup church. I’m trying to become a dad for the first time. I’m, I’m still a couple years into marriage. So it has, I had parameters from day one that had to fit in. And so that was my set of circumstances, which I’m really grateful for because it taught me to understand something that’s just so simple, but it takes effort on the front end to do, which most business owners don’t do, which is really do the hard work of, of an 80 20 analysis on your business. Like I think people hustle because they’re lazy. I think hustle is just a, a form of laziness in disguise because people are, haven’t done the hard work of sitting down and slowing down and saying, what of the tasks I’m doing in my day, week, month, what of the offers I have, what are the lead gen strategies I have really are the, the 20% of the things I’m doing that are generating 80% of the results I need?
GC (26:40):
And that changes from season to season in business business. And I’m constantly putting everything under the gun, so to speak, of, prove to me that this task is worth it. Prove to me that that offer is worth it and I’m willing to let things go. Or I’m willing to not have the most perfect system as long as it gets me most of the results so I can do it in a minimal amount of time. And I became like a weirdo bro every year. I was like, I made it a game every January. How can I work fewer hours in my business this next year while increasing my income this year and just see what’s possible? And I haven’t always done it perfectly and economies change, things change. I’ve started a second business. That’s what I’m doing now. Now I’m writing and speaking and things are changing again.
GC (27:21):
But that’s always a mantra I have is I have to prove to myself that this task is worth it. I just think most business owners are doing a lot of activity and most of it isn’t moving the needle forward. It feels important, it might even look important, but I’m willing to not look as important. I’m willing to not look as active on social media or other places to have more of my time back and have the income and lifestyle I want. So it’s just a, it’s just a decision to analyze things and put it under the gun.
RV (27:50):
Yeah. That’s cool. I love that. I love that question. How can I work fewer hours this year while still growing the business? You know, that’s a AJ and I put constraints and parameters around our stuff. Like, you know, we’ve always said like, brand builders group cannot be more than 50 employees because then you get into all these other, like, it just becomes more complicated. There’s all these HR policies and like all these other things that come, come into play and it’s like, so what’s the most impact we can create with 50 employees? And it’s like, you have to go, what’s the impact per employee? What’s the revenue per employee? And it’s been really fun to, to fund to do that. We, we also, you know, we worked a hundred hour work weeks and the first business and brand builders, we said, we’ll work from nine to five and outside of that it’s up to God.
RV (28:36):
Like we, and so it’s like, how can I build a business? And this is the constraint. In, in AJ’s case, there’s two days a week and she, you know, she, she’d been trimming back more and more ever since we started to, to be, have more time with the kids. So I think it’s good to give yourself those types of parameters, those types of boundaries, those those types of challenge questions to go, how can I do this? Because if you ask the question how your brain will figure out the answer, it’ll start to cut what’s irrelevant. But if you don’t ask that, it’ll just fill the space with whatever shows up. So I really love that, Graham, I’m so excited about you and the book and just the, the future. I just, again, you know, we’re so proud of the people we get to work with as clients and just be a part of their journey and proud to hold people up and say like, look at, like these are the people who, who we get a chance to work with.
RV (29:31):
A lot of what I think we do that’s really brilliant at Brand Builders Group is we pick people who are gonna be successful with or without us and then we work with them right before they blow up
Ep 533: The #1 Best Way to Get Referrals | Sara Hardwick Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
I’m gonna make this sweet. I’m gonna make this short, and I’m gonna tell you the number one way to get referrals. This is very easy, very simple. Give them first, if you wanna become an expert at getting referrals, then become an expert at giving referrals. There is no better thing to do in the world in order for someone to give you a referral than for you to give them one first. This, it’s an act of generosity. It’s an active initiation, it’s an act of service. It’s an act of you showing them, but you believe in what they do. But there is also this overarching law of reciprocity that just exists in the universe. That, and it’s, this isn’t why you do it. You’re not giving to get, you’re giving to give, but as a result of giving value, of providing connection, of establishing an introduction of giving something of yourself, there is this natural inclination in humanity to want to do that in return.
AJV (01:10):
It is harder for you to ask someone of, to ask something of someone before you have given them something first. I think that’s where a lot of sales hesitation comes from. And in this case, I think it’s where a lot of referral hesitation comes from. You feel bad asking, you feel guilty asking, you feel salesy asking. And I think a lot of that stems from a lack of confidence in conviction of knowing that you have provided them value before you ask. And there’s a lot of different ways that you can provide value. I’m just using this. One example of what you can do is give an introduction, give a referral first. There is value in that connection. There is a value in that introduction. I’ll make sure it’s a good one, right? But it doesn’t even have to be a professional one. Like maybe it’s a referral to a vendor.
AJV (02:04):
Maybe it’s a referral personally, right? But as you’re thinking about your network, your sphere of influence, your clients, past clients, whatever, pay attention, right? That requires active listening skills. That requires being present, but pay attention to what people are talking about, what they’re asking for. Perhaps it’s just a, a, a book recommendation, right? It’s a, it’s a connection of going, Hey, I heard you talking about this thing on our last call. I’m gonna send you the link to this book and then actually do it, right? That is providing value. Perhaps you heard him talking about taxes. It’s like, Hey, I don’t know if you’re looking for a new CPA, but mine has been amazing. Let me connect you to him. Perhaps they were asking for business, right? It was an I be like, you know what? I’m gonna inquire a little bit about that. I’m gonna say, Hey, person tell me, tell me
AJV (02:59):
Who it is that you’re exactly, that you’re looking for. Like, who’s a great client for you? Like, I’m gonna be intentional of going, okay, I’m gonna genuinely think about that and I’m gonna refer you to someone. I’m going to connect you to someone. That doesn’t mean they’re gonna buy from you, but it does mean I am listening and providing value to you through connections and introductions. Perhaps it’s a, a podcast episode. It could be a book, it could be a vendor, it could be actual business connections. Maybe it’s a personal connection. Maybe you heard someone say, Hey, we’re struggling to find extra, extra childcare help in the summers. And it’s like, oh, man, I have a whole deck of amazing people home from college. Let me refer you to them. Y’all like, the list goes on and on. If we can just reshift how we think about connections, introductions, and the word referrals specifically, it will change your mindset on what it is.
AJV (03:51):
Because really a referral is just an introduction, right? It’s a, it’s a connection. And that could be to a, like I said, to a book, to a podcast, to a course, to a, a vendor, to a, a prospect, to a, the list goes on. But what I know is that often the, the sales hesitation, this sales reluctance comes from a deep seated issue of have I earned the right to ask for this? Like, have I provided enough value that would, that would give me the confidence in asking for something in return? I, I know that it comes from that deep down for most of us, maybe not all of us, but for a lot of us. And I also know that some of us just aren’t gonna have that natural hesitation to ask for something. And that includes help, right? Which is really what we’re doing here.
AJV (04:38):
We’re asking for help. And so the best thing that you can do is not ask for it, but just give it, just give it and give it so well and give it so freely that the person then says, that was so generous, that was so kind. What can I help you with? What do you need help with? And then you need to be prepared, right? And that’s when you need to know clearly what do you need help with? What, what, who do you need to be referred with? What vendors do you need to meet? Like, what clients are you trying to connect with? And that, that is a clarity conversation that you need to have with yourself about who do I wanna be referred to? What I, what am I looking for right now? What would be helpful? Because I know personally, I get asked for referrals and introductions all the time.
AJV (05:25):
And the, and the other party can’t clearly tell me why or who
AJV (05:57):
Anyone in that seat right now, but let me make a mental note of this so that I know for the future. And I think that’s the other part about asking for referrals and asking for introductions is it’s not a one time thing, right? It’s not, there’s not, there shouldn’t be this huge buildup to this. One thing I’m gonna ask for this one time, and I hope I get it. It’s like this is a continuous thing, which means you should be giving continuously. It’s like how can you con consistently and continually provide value to those around you? And that means you’ve gotta be in their life. You have to know what’s going on. Could be through social media, through texting, through networking meetings, through phone calls, but this is called relationship building. Yeah, it is. And that takes work and it takes time. And that means it needs to be a part of your business strategy.
AJV (06:43):
This, this is a business growth strategy. This is a life strategy. This is
Ep 532: Growing Revenue Through Referrals with Sara Hardwick
AJV (00:00):
Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is AJ Vaden here today, and this is a really special and unique episode because I’m getting to do this interview, this conversation with Sarah Hardwick, who is a, a new acquaintance of mine, but she is on this interview on behalf of Giftology which is not new to me or to Rory, or to Brain Builders Group. And Giftology was founded by a really good close per personal friend of ours, John Rulon, who over the summer we’re at, we’re recording this episode in September, 2024, and just a few weeks ago John unexpectedly passed away while on family vacation. And I think it’s a very unique thing to get to be a part of a person’s legacy that literally like outlives them in a way that is felt like viscerally.
AJV (01:08):
I’m gonna give you guys this quick story about John as we step into this interview with Sarah. But I think this is a very good moment for us all to go. Does what we really do matter after we’re gone. Like, does our legacy really have the potential to live on, live on when we’re no longer here? Or, you know, there’s a lot of really big personal brands out there like Dave Ramsey and Zig Ziglar, and it’s like, you kind of see the, the generational change and it, it starts to lose its impact a little bit, or it has the potential to, and and then you have these moments that I experienced after John passed away just a few weeks ago. And I think this is a great testament to Giftology. I think this is a great testament to John, but also a great testament to the power of the work that you do that goes beyond you.
AJV (02:07):
And so after John passed away, it was probably only two weeks, two after he passed away, and I was traveling, and I got this very weird email. And it was weird because it was this introduction email that somebody had filled out a form on my personal website, not brand builders group.com, but aj vaden.com. And they had filled it out and they had said, Hey I know this is gonna sound weird, but you were referred to me by John Rulon. And I was thinking to myself, that is weird. What do you mean when? And he said to be honest, I don’t even really know how to talk about this in this form. I just wanted you to know that he’s been talking about you to me for months. I did not reach out in time, and I want to honor his legacy and follow up with you after.
AJV (02:58):
And so he was like, if you’d be willing, here’s my phone number. Call me. And I didn’t call him because I was traveling, but I did text him and I said, hi, this is AJ Baden. And then I realized that wasn’t enough. And so I made him a voice message, which I’m pretty sure I cried the entire voicemail. I think I had to pause like five times to get through it,
AJV (04:10):
I just, I knew that I had to reach out. And I actually have my call with him today looking at my calendar after this interview, not probably coincidental but this was scheduled weeks ago, way before this episode was scheduled. And I have my call with him today. And we were both sharing like, wow, like the life you live matters beyond your death. Like what you believe for what you stand for, what you teach it, it has significance like a lot. And for this particular conversation around referrals and connections, I thought it was just like the greatest testament to someone’s life work to go. And you’re still doing it after death, right after death. You are still connecting people through referrals. And so I’m glad I made through that without crying. But for everyone here listening today,
AJV (05:13):
That you’re, you do have the potential to change lives that you will never, ever, ever know about. And also, like when you do what you’re meant to do, when you’re, when you do that thing that you were called to do way beyond what you even thought it, it outlives you, right? It outlives you. And, you know, John’s entire thing was connections and referrals through gifting and and really just loving on people, really. And so I wanted to have this episode because Giftology is launching a very awesome referral course. And Sarah is here today to talk about referrals and the uniqueness of that. I’m gonna formally introduce her in just a second. But here’s what I would say. It’s like, this isn’t just an episode about how important your work is, whatever your work may be, that there is, there is a, there’s a component of it that will outlive you if you live into its fullness, but also the power of connection even beyond death, right?
AJV (06:13):
Like the power of referrals and what that has to do to help you grow and build community and build your business. And that’s really the heart of this episode, is how can we help you do the thing that’s required to help you increase your impact, which is you actually have to reach more people. And you can do that, I believe, in the best way possible through referral. So this is an, this is an interview today about how do you grow your business through referrals. So, longest introduction ever. Now let me formally introduce you to Sarah Hardwick, who is the community relationship strategist at Giftology. She is spearheading the Rich Relationship Society, which is an exclusive membership. We’re gonna be talking about that today. I’m so excited about that. But I think some other things that are really amazing about just Giftology and this entire concept in general is how you can do it in a way that actually fosters connection, not just sales. And that, I think is what is so unique and powerful about this course, this membership, what you guys are doing, and the heart of Giftology. And so Sarah, so honored to have you on the show today. Welcome.
SH (07:26):
Oh my goodness, I am so honored to be here, aj, thank you for sharing that story and getting through it without tears is, is a skill. But John was the ultimate connector, the, the referral king. And, and for what you said about the fact that these connections are still living on now is just a testament to his legacy. And that legacy is something that we are so, so, so committed to continue because building relationships and taking care of those relationships is, is so, so important from a business point of view, referral, sales, all those things, but also just like the heart of who we are as, as humans. So thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited for, for
AJV (08:14):
Our conversation. It’s gonna be a great conversation. And I know it’s gonna be great because I know that our audience and, and specifically I’m, I’m, I’m gonna pick on the Brain Builders group community just for a second, and the most loving way possible,
SH (08:32):
Yeah.
AJV (08:33):
And I’m like, I’m gonna tell you the easiest, best, fastest, cheapest way to grow your business is through referral. But what people wanna hear is somehow, if I can just make that social media post, or if I can just, you know, optimize this funnel or before I can, and I’m like the listen, you can try to convert strangers on the internet, or you can ask friends and family and clients who know, like, and trust you.
SH (08:57):
Yep.
AJV (08:58):
But there is this reservation, this hesitation to doing that. And so that I, I would really love to talk about that. And I think some like basic terminology might be really helpful for everyone who is listening. And so I wanna start by asking you and your opinion, what is a referral? Like, how would you just simply define a referral? What is it?
SH (09:19):
Yeah, I feel like sometimes referral gets this like icky stigma. It’s like this icky word, like you said, people don’t wanna ask their family and friends for business for introductions. But I would truly say it is just an introduction when we are adding value to the relationships that in our network, like the law of reciprocity is real. People want to add value to us as well. And if we’re in business, most of the time, the way that people can add value is a referral, is an introduction. And that referral doesn’t have to be a referral that’s a client. It can also be an introduction that is somebody like, Hey I have a bunch of kids and I need a ba new babysitter. Can you introduce me to a babysitter? Right? You’re still adding value by introducing that contact. So I would take the, the ickiness the stigma away from it, and really just focus on like, how can I add value to somebody’s business through introducing them to someone I know, like, and trust as well.
AJV (10:23):
Hmm. That’s so good because I think what you just said, it’s like people, and I think in our personal life, like I don’t think I’ve, I’ve ever heard any woman or man for that matter, I know who needs childcare help to be reserved about asking for referrals,
SH (10:39):
Yes.
AJV (10:40):
But it’s because we don’t process it that way in our head. And so I think a little bit, this is like a, a psychological shift. It’s a mindset shift of going, referrals are just introduction, and I love that. And it’s anything that can add value to someone else’s life. It’s any introduction that could add value add, add value. Exactly. It’s really, really, really powerful. But I mean, like, how would you feel about even, because I think one of the things that I hear all the time is, well, how do you ask for a referral without asking for a referral? And I’m, what, what do you mean? And they’re like Don, I don’t want to say that word.
SH (11:18):
Yeah. How do you get referrals without asking, right? That’s like the million dollar question. I think, and what John’s strategy has always been is about adding value to people first. Whether that is the, you giving them a referral first, whether that’s you gifting them writing a handwritten note, caring about their family in some way, showing up in an uncommon way for them. I think if you add value to the relationship first, again, law of reciprocity. I’ll keep bringing it up, bringing it up. They will want to add value to you. And then being able to frame that value in a business setting of, look, hey, I’m looking to grow my business in 2024. Here’s what we’re looking to do. Explain referrals in a conversational way and get away from the icky ask. It doesn’t have to be an ask that you throw out on the transaction table, right? Or in a client meeting, it can really be about like adding value to each other’s businesses. If I’m at a networking event, like, let’s talk about how we can help each other, and if that works out to be referrals, awesome. And let’s let add value in that way, introduce people, let the referrals flow both ways.
AJV (12:32):
Hmm. I love that. I think that’s so, and if you guys are not writing this down and taking notes, pull over and write this down. How do you ask for referrals? You don’t. You simply give referrals first.
SH (12:42):
Love it.
AJV (12:43):
It’s like you provide value. And one way you can do that is you make a referral. Right? Exactly. It’s don’t want somebody else to do for you what you’re not willing to do for them first.
SH (12:55):
Yeah. And we have this we have this long list of 20 plus ways you can demonstrate value, those demonstrations of value. One of them is introducing a professional contact. One of them is introducing a non-professional contact, that babysitter example, right? But there’s loads of other ways that you can add value and kind of get that referral ball referral conversation going, handwritten notes, sending a voice memo, just following up with someone after you had a meeting and realize that their kids were homesick. And you can be like, Hey, is there anything I can do to support you in this, in this hard time? Right? So I think it’s, yes, that is absolutely the best way to get referrals, like give referrals out but also just give something, demonstrate some sort of value and that will come back and if you frame it right in the form of referrals.
AJV (13:46):
Yeah. I love that. And I think that’s so important because, you know, I was actually I’m in this mastermind and we had our, they call it a pod. We had our pod meeting yesterday, and this was like a really great example of that as we tried to do a best practice. We rotate, like somebody do like their like little 10 minute TED talk. And yesterday was on like social media growth and at the end, so she did her whole 10 minutes. She was like, I have a whole course on this. I’m gonna give you my top 10 minutes. Like, these are the things that I think would be applicable to all of you. And at the end of it, we were all like, so how do we buy your course
AJV (14:47):
You know? Yeah.
SH (14:48):
I I love that you just brought that example up because I think sometimes the gap is where we add all of this value and then we don’t know how to receive people’s gratitude or payment or whatever that looks like. So we need to be strategic about like, okay, we’re gonna add all this value to a relationship, but also be prepared for them to come back and be like, Hey, how can I help you? What can I do for you? And that’s when you need to have that referral communication ready of like, I’m doing this in 2024. This is what a good referral looks like for me. This is what a bad client looks like for me. Like, give people who want to help you a clear vision of how they can help you, especially in the referral world. And that’s where like the idea of having a referral conversation with someone, we call it a clarity conversation. Get clear on two people’s needs rather than having just like a quick referral ask. And you’re like in the parking lot, like, bye, okay, hope, hope you send me somebody. Right? that is where like the real difference comes in. I think a lot of business leaders have a gap there.
AJV (15:58):
That’s so, and you know, it’s so interesting. I’m so glad that you brought that up. ’cause One of the things I have on my little question chart for you too,
AJV (16:06):
When, when someone says, Hey, that was amazing. How can I help you? Like, Mm-Hmm,
SH (16:54):
That’s not helpful,
AJV (16:56):
I’m like, because it’s literally, it’s like, it’s like literally brain overload. I’m like, if it’s everyone that’s like, I genuinely need to think about it. And genuinely, I probably won’t make time to do that. You know, I’m just being honest. But it’s
SH (17:31):
Yes, I will, I will answer straight and simple three things that we teach everyone to have clear in their own mind, and then also be able to communicate clearly to someone who is asking you like, how can I help? What referrals can I give? The answer is never anybody, anyone, exactly what you said. Then you’re putting them into like this decision fatigue cycle where they have to think and they have to think about their whole network. And, and that’s not helpful. So the three really clear points that are key to this clarity conversation that we teach. Number one, what client do I serve best? And be able to paint a picture of that to somebody that can be like business size or personality, put in some psychographics. Like you really want to be able to paint a picture of if they’re walking down the street and they run into Joe who’s a financial advisor and X, y, Z deals with these types of clients and lives here, they’re like, oh my gosh, I have to introduce Joe to aj.
SH (18:31):
Right? So what client do you serve best? Paint that picture really well. What client do you serve worst? Like, make sure you communicate that because creating that dichotomy for them then allows them to, to not, you know, live in the world of their whole network of anybody they can like clearly sort and be like, not, not for aj, for aj, not for aj, for aj. And then the third piece, which so many of us I think just, just miss and this makes it hard for people to refer you, is how do you want to be referred? Hmm. Good. Be clear about that. I prefer a three-way text message. So everybody who may be providing me introductions, they understand that and they send a a three-way text message. Why do I like that? Because I like to send a video. And this was John’s specialty too. I learned it, learned it from him, and learned it from the best. But being able to clarify how you want to be referred three-way, text message, email, phone call, like give people those simple steps to refer you business and more referrals will, will flow through.
AJV (19:39):
That’s so good. You know, it’s interesting ’cause I’ve heard lots of people say before it’s like, hey, to be super clear on who you wanna be referred to. Yes. I have not heard anyone say like, also describe who you do not want to be referred to. And as I was going through this in my brain, ’cause you know, sometimes the perks of being a podcast coach or or a podcast coach is like free coaching. So this is like, so good. You know,
AJV (20:22):
We are not well positioned to serve someone who is in the position of I have to make money in the next 90 days, or I can’t pay my bills. And that’s different than somebody who’s just starting out who has a runway. Right? And that was, it’s a really, ’cause I think a lot of people referred us, people in the past are going, oh, they’re starting to build their personal brand. You need to talk to Brain Builders group. And it’s like, actually we’re, we are best and most well positioned to start to serve someone who is already probably a little bit more established, not the super beginner in terms of I have no runway has to work. What can you do for me? That’s not who we serve best. And just even being able to clarify that little thing in our referral ask will be a monumental difference for our ability to serve people the right way.
SH (21:10):
Love it. Yeah. That, that clarity is so, so important from a personal and your business perspective. And then also being able to communicate that. And what I’ll say to, to your point of people who have referred you business in the past, and maybe it isn’t that right fit, right? Mm-Hmm.
AJV (22:22):
And I think that’s really important. And if you’re, I’m being serious. Like if you are like listening to this while you’re driving or something, I hope that you go back and actually sit down and do some of these exercises. Mm. You’re not good at it and you, or you’re maybe you’re good at asking but not good at receiving them. Or maybe you’re not asking at all. Like this is legitimately, legitimately what you need to do to get better at it. It’s your job to be a good asker. It’s your job to be a good communicator. It’s your job to paint the picture. That’s your job. It’s not the other person’s job. ’cause I know I’ve heard of, I’m sure you have too, Sarah, of like, well, I ask all the time, but I never get ’em. I’m like, tell me how you ask
SH (23:03):
Exactly.
AJV (23:04):
Yeah. And I think that this is the fine tuning of that. And I love what you said too, is include how do you wanna be referred? What’s the best mode of communication here? Yes. and I think that too is significant, right? Of going, let’s do this in a way that we can be responsive and do all the things that we do and include, I love that. Including a video in the text message. I think those are things that are also super helpful. So this is kind of in the same lane as that, but I’m curious, well, knowing all of that, which I think is so great, when is the best time to ask then?
SH (23:39):
Yeah. I will tell you the absolutely worst time to ask to start. And that is like right after a transaction or right after you sign on a client or a lot of people, they sit down and have like a 30 day, 60 day annual review with a client. Like, that is not the time. We want to separate the time that you are working for your client or adding value to someone else from the time that they are going to add value to you. So I will answer that with absolutely don’t ask at the transaction points. And that’s always been our philosophy from a gifting lens too. Like, don’t gift on the day a deal closes or at the time of transaction, right? Like, we wanna show up for people in uncommon times, in uncommon ways. When is the best time to ask? That’s why we’ve created a system around this. So you can actually like start, go through your contacts, start building those relationships, start having the referral conversations that then get you to a point where you’re sitting down with a potential partner and having a clarity conversation. So there’s not like a set time that we’re like, you have to ask now. But you definitely should be building up the relationship in a meaningful way before you ask. And that’s why we kind of need a system in order to get there.
AJV (25:02):
That’s good. You know,
SH (25:19):
We are definitely different in that regard. And that’s what I mean, even from a, a gifting perspective, right? Like that’s what is so different about our philosophy. We do things very, very differently over here at Giftology because we really are strategic about you showing up for this person in a relational way, period.
AJV (25:38):
That’s the difference.
SH (25:38):
That’s the difference. And of course, like there probably is studies, statistics, all those things that show that window of, of opportunity. If it feels right, go for it. But if you are looking to build a relational referral based business, we need to show up relationally for people before they do something for us, before they add value, before they send us a referral, right? So being able to systematize how you’re adding value, warm up that conversation and then ultimately make sure again, like it is a conversation where y’all are seeing how you can add value to each other. That clarity conversation, it’s not just about what you can do for me, how you can refer me if you’re a business leader. I wanna know the same thing about you if you’re a client of mine. Like what’s going on in your world that I need to know about that we’ve never talked about before in the, on the transaction table. Hmm. So I, I think that’s really important, the separation for us at least.
AJV (26:37):
You know what? I just had an aha moment in my brain for the first time ever of why I think so many people are actually reluctant to asking for referrals. Hmm. I actually think it’s because they correlate it to sales and they’re reluctant to selling. Right?
SH (26:52):
Absolutely.
AJV (26:53):
There is that transactional element of it’s so hard for so many people to ask for the business, right? And it’s that kind of like rejection moment, right? Yeah. And I think as you were talking of like, yeah, don’t ask at the point of of transaction, it just clicked in my brain. I’m like, oh no. Like people are actually seeing this as like a defined sales conversation. It’s a transaction. And if we can shift that mindset to be like, no, this is, this is a relational conversation, don’t ask then this is a a give to give. Not even a give to give. It’s a give to give. Yes. and give. So well give so much that people naturally go, wait, how can I help you? Right. That’s a completely exactly different mindset. And I just, I know I’ve been through, I have been the person who’s like, all right, just power through. I’m gonna ask every single time. This is when I do it. This is my process. And I think that’s fine for some people, but I don’t, I don’t believe that will get you probably the best and most quality. It may get you the quantity, but it may not get you the best and most quality. And at the end of the day, that’s what we’re after.
SH (27:57):
Yeah. The, the quality, the quality piece is huge. Like having that conversation with somebody to get clear on who your best worst clients are, right? Clear vision of your business, who you work with, that conversation allows for them to go out and really talk about you well, in a way that they can bring back pre-qualified pret, trusted referrals to you. And, and that’s, that’s the goal. Like if people are just out there, you ask them to refer you business and they’re out there like referring everybody and their mother to you, but, but they haven’t done the work for you, right. Of like, I am out there selling you on your behalf. So then all you have to do is take my introduction. They’ve already said Yes. I’m so excited to work with aj. Like that’s the type of referral partner we want. And and our belief is like, if you just get a core group of partners, that is so much better than just like asking every client that you have, like for, for a referral. We, we joke like our course, a lot of referral trainings and things like that, it talks about how to get the fish, how to catch the fish, how to get the referral. Ours is all about how do you collect a crew of fishermen that will go out and find the fish on your behalf? That’s good. Yeah. Like shifting the focus from, it’s not about the referral. Those will come, it’s about the referral partnership who can get you the referral. And I, and I think that that shift is, is what’s needed.
AJV (29:32):
That’s a good word. Because that’s a, that’s a mindset shift. It is. And I, and I love that. And I know that this is a part of, you know, this, this entire course that you guys are launching out into the world, which I’m so excited about. And you guys have this awesome acronym called Rich. Yes. Which is reciprocal, influential, connected, and humble. And I’d love to just talk about that for a second. ’cause This is, that’s very much what you just said. It’s like, Hey, don’t go out fishing. How do you, you know, recruit a crew, a fishermen Yeah. To do fishing on your behalf. And so I think, I think one of the things I lo and I love that where it’s like any good relationship is reciprocal. Like at some point, if it’s one sided going burn out, right? But also influential.
AJV (30:17):
So they have access to the people that you wanna be, you know, you know, have influence over the people they have access to, connected, have access to ’em. And humble is doing it in a way where no ego is involved, right? And I think that’s really important for everybody. But I, I, what I wanna, I love to talk about for just a second is how do you identify these humans, right? Yeah. It doesn’t matter. Like I know some people listening, maybe you have thousands of product purchasers, others have maybe dozens or hundreds of service clients. Maybe you’re in a very niche environment where you have maybe only dozens or hundreds of a a book of business. And I think this, this is universal. It doesn’t matter how many clients you have, it’s like, how do you find your crew, right? Who’s your, who’s your fisherman crew? That’s gonna be my new term. Who’s our fisherman crew. Yeah.
SH (31:02):
AJV (31:03):
So what, how do you do that? Like, what are, what are you looking for? How do you identify it? Like do they all need past clients, current clients? Like give us some high level what, what you guys think about this?
SH (31:15):
Yeah, that, that’s great. I think Adam Grant’s book Give and Take gives a really like high level picture of this. That there’s givers, matches and takers in the world. Most of the time we can’t really move people from one category of the other. So in what we’re describing, the reciprocal relationships, right? Like someone who’s gonna add value to your business, you’re gonna add to theirs. We want people who are in that giver category. Sure. You can maybe dabble in the matchers like you’re giving referrals one way and, and referrals are coming in the other way. But being able to identify and also realize like, look, there are gonna be people that I add so much value to and they’re just not going to give me anything in return. And that qualification process, that prioritization process of your network, of your clients, of like whoever’s at your networking group, right?
SH (32:12):
That is actually really important. I think a step that we don’t do all the time. We give, we give, we give. And ultimately what, what Adam Grant’s book says is, givers always win, but givers also always lose. So to be strategic about who we are giving to is important. So to kind of answer your question about how do you identify those people, I think it’s through a process of qualification. First we ask questions of like, about referrals and things like that, that before we rely on them as a referral partner, we’re adding value and seeing how they react to that value. And if they reciprocate before, we rely on them as a referral partner. So if you also like the relationships, they are a little bit of a gut game, right? Like, if you genuinely feel like you’re giving, giving, giving, and someone is not receiving that, well, someone is not adding value back to them or back to you, rather, then that’s okay. That doesn’t mean stop giving, stop, be generous. That just means they’re probably not gonna be a referral partner for you. That’s gonna change your business. And ultimately we need to prioritize a different relationship. So collect, organize, prioritize your relationships is really important. And then energize them to be really good referral partners. That’s our, our COPE system.
AJV (33:35):
Hmm. What okay, so I have a comment and a question. Yeah. What I just heard you say, Mm-Hmm. Tell me if I’m hallucinating and wrote this down wrong, but this is what I heard is really look for people who are natural promoters of what you do.
SH (33:50):
Yeah.
AJV (33:51):
Who are Yes. You know, ’cause I’m just thinking like through our own, we have roughly, I don’t know, 880 monthly members in our brand builders group community and another 200 annual clients. And I’m going, there are just some people who screamed from the rooftops will tell whoever will listen, you have to know about this. Right? And then there’s others that would, but we usually would need to ask. Right? I think the only difference is just, I don’t know, season of life enthusiasm projects, they’re working on natural personality tendencies could be a variety of things. And I think that’s one of the things that I just heard is like, who’s already in your ecosystem? Who is just a natural promoter of what you do and who you are?
SH (34:36):
A hundred percent. And what I’ll also add to that is sometimes the reason why people are not those natural promoters in our orbit is because they don’t know how to promote you. Hmm. So yes, absolutely. There’s gonna be people that are just going to like ultimately be your cheerleaders and those are gonna be the best referral partners for you. But there’s likely people in your network that maybe, maybe they’re, like, they refer other people’s businesses, right? They are a natural referer, but they don’t understand what you need, who you’re looking for, what you actually do, that they don’t feel comfortable or they don’t have the tools to go out and refer you business. So I would say it’s like an and or of, yes, there’s absolutely these cheerleaders, but also there’s probably those diamonds in the rough in your network that you just haven’t taken enough time to sit down with and explain how they can refer you. And, and so they just haven’t yet. So being able to, to run through a system, to go through your network and, and see who those, those star cheerleaders are is really helpful. And then you can add value to those relationships and, and keep the referrals flowing.
AJV (35:51):
That’s so good. It’s so simple, but so impactful of just taking the time to have a strategy around this. And that’s, this is a lead generation strategy, right? Exactly. If you’re gonna spend all this other stuff, why not also have a referral strategy, right? Yep.
SH (36:08):
Yep. I, I joke all the time. I’m like, we have literally systems and strategies for everything else. We hire people for everything else. We have a team, we have scheduled calls, we have all these other things, but when it comes to relationships and referrals, we’re like, oh, like when I think about them, like I’ll give them a call or like, we have something in our CRM that sends an automated birthday text, right? But those are not the things that are going to make people show up for you. And so we do have to build a system around it. We build a system for everything else, why wouldn’t we for referrals and, and relationships.
AJV (36:43):
I love that. That’s so good. All right. So that was my comment. So then here’s my question. Yes. Yeah. what is the best way to incentivize
SH (36:51):
Incentivize, Ooh, tricky word. Because I think a lot of times the objection coming from the gifting side of the business, right? Is like, I don’t wanna bribe people into, into giving me referrals. I don’t wanna incentivize people Mm-Hmm.
AJV (38:06):
That’s good. I love that. You know, it’s so interesting ’cause I think there’s such a, what what’s the word? An affiliate mindset.
SH (38:19):
Yeah. Which like everywhere
AJV (38:20):
Is everywhere you go right now. And that’s not a bad thing. No,
SH (38:24):
Absolutely.
AJV (38:25):
How can we add in to add in addition to that, and it’s, I guess I honestly believe ’cause we, we pay 10% lifetime referral fees on any of our customers. You have to be a customer. Yeah. But if you refer us business, we’ll pay you 10% lifetime referral fees. I think our decision around that is like, Hey, we’re whether gonna pay that and other advertising vehicles, or we’ll pay you, we’d rather pay you. So, you know, but I also know that deep down no one would ever put their name on the line for something they didn’t also believe in. Yeah. It’s like, at the end of the day, I’m not gonna refer you for a dollar because my reputation’s attached to it. So it’s like, even though we have that kind of rewards program it, it is also on the back of no one’s gonna do this just for a dollar to people they know now. Maybe they put a link out and somebody clicks on it that they’ve never met before. Yeah. Different story. And I think that’s really the difference between referrals and affiliates. Yeah. It’s like, are you referring people that you know, like, and trust, or are you recommending something to you an audience? Right. Not saying either is better or worse, but I do think there is a subtle difference there of that whole process.
SH (39:37):
Yeah. And, and all’s
AJV (39:38):
Take is just no. Provide value and however that value comes, figure out what the value is and then provide it.
SH (39:45):
Absolutely. And what you said, like there, there is room in the marketing mix for all of these things, for you to have affiliates for maybe you to pay out some referral partners. Right? But where we have not made room in the past is these systems for adding true value and caring about the relationship first. Like those are all things, some people are quote unquote incentivized by some sort of payment, and that’s great, but other people like maybe don’t care at all. And they would really rather just understand like, wow, I’m helping AJ so much, right? Like, I, I am helping by giving this client, or I’m helping Susie by, by introducing her to aj. Like that fills a lot of people’s cups. And I think we have to recognize that like, we’re not the only givers in the world. Like a lot of other people do want to help, do wanna refer you, do you wanna give, but you need to give them the tools to do that successfully.
AJV (40:48):
You know, it is so funny that you say that because there’s, I think there’s two things that’s like light bulb moments for me that might resonate with everyone who’s listening is what I want more than anything else when I give a referral, I don’t know, this maybe sounds selfish, but I want gratitude.
SH (41:07):
Yeah.
AJV (41:07):
I can’t tell you how many times that between Rory and us, we’ve referred people to speaking engagements or to different podcasts or connected them with like, you know, someone they wanted to meet. And we never even got a follow up. We never got a thank you. Mm-Hmm.
SH (42:16):
Yes. Yes. And we all do. That’s the thing. Like gratitude is so needed, wanted, desired. And to actually bring that into your strategy, into your follow-up strategy for referrals and make sure it happens, like exactly what you said. Sometimes you refer somebody and then it goes dark for a couple months, then all of a sudden you see them on stage. Right. The difference in making sure there’s a system of, oh my gosh, AJ referred me business, I’m going to send her a handwritten thank you note. Oh my gosh, we ended up landing so and so on this stage, I’m going to report positive progress back to aj. Like those steps, to your point, they need to happen for our referral partners to feel good about referring us. And the only way you are going to continue to refer to that person is if you feel like that follow up cycle is solid, is if you feel like you are appreciated. Like, why would we do all this stuff if it’s not appreciated? I don’t need to refer you business like I, you know, it, it takes a couple minutes outta my day. Whatever that looks like. But for people who are grateful and, and use gratitude in their follow up and in their strategy for operationalizing referrals, it’s a game changer.
AJV (43:36):
So good. You know, I’m just making a note to myself. It’s like you know, even for like the people who don’t, of like even me being willing to go like, hey I, I would love to refer you, but I would really like an update. Like, I would really like to know what happens with this a hundred percent if it go anywhere or not. Because if it doesn’t, I wanna know that too. Like right. It’s like yeah, referring people when it’s quick, it’s on the other side. But I think that’s just even me adding that in of going, Hey, I would happy to be connecting you to X, Y, and Z. Would you please let me know how it does?
SH (44:11):
Exactly. And here’s the thing, aj, that’s awesome that you say that, but you should not need to be the one that that says that. Right? You should,
SH (44:18):
You shouldn’t need to be the one that follows up in that way. Like the person that is receiving the referral needs to have this down, needs to have this communication down so that you feel good about who you sent. You feel good that like, okay, next time I send my friend to so and so, they are gonna take good care of them because they took care of the last person I sent and they told me about how they did it, right? So that, that communication cycle, like we as people who are receiving referrals, we need to run that system. We need to have that communication stack, not you, I love that you do that because most people don’t. But I think it’s the people receiving it, it’s on us, the people that are receiving referrals to exude that gratitude to follow up to report positive progress as we say, and make sure that they know that the person they referred has been taken care of in one way or another. Even if it doesn’t work out, that’s okay. Come back and let me know and let me know what I can do better next time to refer you a better fit. Right. That’s all.
AJV (45:24):
So good. So, so helpful. Okay. I’m watching the clock. I know we’re almost out of time here. So here is what I wanna talk about next is yes, there’s, so like what you said, there’s so much strategy that we all put in all these different other things. And I can even tell you, I don’t know if I would say we have a clean articulated strategy, even a brain builders group after this conversation, if you would’ve asked me before, I’m like, yeah, we do
AJV (46:20):
So this is the last question I have. And then actually before I do it, before I ask this last question, I wanna just like, before we get in and I forget, like I wanna tell everyone, y’all, this is a high level, amazing training of a full course that you need to go get
SH (47:00):
Yeah. Love that. Before I tell anyone where to go to learn, I always like to say like, step one is committing to building a relationship based business. Like make that commitment that you want referrals to be a strategy for you. You want more referrals, you want better referrals, right? Like, make that commitment to your business of this is going to be a way that I gather leads, I’m going to transfer some investment, some thought, some strategy from cold email and social media and all these things to my relationship. So step one, commitment, step two when, when this episode goes live, there will be a link I believe in, in the show notes where y’all can buy the referral partner transformation course. We are doing a grand reopening of, of our course as and it’s gonna come with a bunch of bonuses from John’s amazing friends and networks and colleagues and some live coaching sessions as well. So there’ll be a link for y’all to get connected. And then once you, once you guys are connected there you are always welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn. It’s Sarah Hardwick and you can, you can find us Giftology on, on all platforms and just plug in to really how you can better your relationships and make that a fruitful referral strategy for you.
AJV (48:23):
I love that. And I’ll put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes as well as the website for Giftology. But y’all, this referrals course is really what you’re looking for here. Yeah. And if you, if you got any value from this episode, and I’m telling you I know that you did, it’s impossible not to. I literally have a page of notes to take back to our team. And I’ve been doing this for 20 years, so I know that you did get value if you actually listened to this episode. So please go check out this referrals course. I will put it in the show notes. This is, this is kind of one of those things, if you’ve been asking yourself, how do I wanna grow my business? We’re telling you, yeah, get good at building relationships and getting referrals. That is the cheapest, fastest, easiest way to grow your business.
AJV (49:09):
It is. So get good at it. Make a commitment that this is worth investing into, and then go and do it. Now the last thing I wanna say I wanna ask you and then we’ll wrap up is one of the things that I struggle with is I actually really love introducing people. I I would consider myself a connector, however, I get really bogged down when I have to write all of the different intro emails or make all of the videos and say, I would say, is there a tip for everyone out there? So I’m not telling ’em, you can tell ’em what’s the easiest way that you can make it for someone else to introduce you on your behalf?
SH (49:44):
Yeah, I think those, those questions that we went over of the clarity conversation, giving them like where you want the introduction is maybe that first step. But to your point, sometimes the bogged down of like writing out what this person actually does, if you guys sit down, I, I wouldn’t recommend just like sending a PDF to someone and going, Hey, refer me. Right? but if you do all these relationship steps, these relational systems, you build a referral partnership with someone like you are describing and you guys are referring each other business, it doesn’t hurt to shoot an email or send a PDF or whatever that looks like to be like, Hey, you’re sending me so many amazing referrals. Like, just so you don’t get bogged down exactly what you just said, here’s a quick copy and paste that you can save, pin it to the top of your inbox, throw it in a folder, right?
SH (50:31):
And you can just copy and paste this into into our chat or whatever that looks like. I think also like the, my my favorite way of being referred, the video or the text message, like, just, just send a quick text. That’s all it is. Some people live in this space of email referrals. And I do think it is important to edify the person that you are referring, but that can be done over a different medium. Hey, I told so and so, so much about you, aj, they already know how much I love you. You guys should connect, like periods, send. That’s all. And trust that your referral partner did did the hard work for you by selling you already. So I would say that is definitely a problem for amazing connectors like you, aj. But we just need to equip our referral partners better.
AJV (51:19):
Yeah, I think that’s back too. It’s like having a crew versus asking everyone because that’s where it’s probably a little bit exhausting and it’s like, oh, now it’s this and that. So if you have your crew, then it’s like, this is, this is how you do this. ’cause They’ve already heard about you from them. And so it’s, hey, just what you just said, it would be so easy. It’s like, Hey, I’ve done the good work of doing what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s like they already know everything. Here’s the connection. Take it from here. Let me know what happens. Right, exactly.
AJV (51:47):
So good. So, so many like, so many golden nuggets. So much value in this episode. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on and also just being so generous with the content. These are very likely things that are in the course that we’re gonna have to pay for. And I know there’s so much more, but this has been such a generous episode of some really great strategic tactical things that people can go and do. Everyone who’s listening, again, please go to the show notes, check out this referrals course, the brand new relaunch of the this updated program helping you grow your business through the best way possible relationships. Check it out and then come back and tune in next time to the influential personal brand. We’ll see you next time.
SH (52:32):
Thank you, AJ
Ep 531: The Three Parts of a World-Class Presentation | Jennifer Kem 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. There are three key components to a world class presentation, and most people don’t even know what they are. So let me walk you through it. The first one is your content. The content of your presentation is the base. The second one is the charisma, and the third one is the circumstance. I’m gonna explain each of ’em to you in detail. So first, there is the content. The content is the basis of your presentation, no matter how funny you are, and no matter how inspiring you are, if your content is lame, it’s not gonna be an amazing presentation.
RV (01:14):
People will say, oh, that person was really funny, or They were really entertaining, but it didn’t change my life. And no one’s gonna invite you to come speak or hire you or recommend you. Beyond that, typically. So how do you make great content? Well, the way you make great content is to forward the thinking that’s already been done. So content is about having a clear message and making sure that the, the people in your audience know exactly what to do when they’re done hearing you, and that you share a balance of stories and education, what we would call frameworks, visuals, charts, tables, illustrations that help emphasize the point that you’re making. And in a perfect world, it’s original thought leadership, accompanied by what we call pillar points that are written by you, these catchphrases that you made up that no one has ever heard because they came from your mind.
RV (02:09):
The second part of a great presentation is charisma. It has to do with your delivery. How funny are you? How inspiring are you? How engaging are you? Being a masterful storyteller is one of the most important skills of charisma. Also, learning how to use the stage, learning the psychology of laughter, and how to tell jokes. Learning how to use your voice to command the audience. Learning how to use gestures, learning the, the mastery of the mechanics, of the professional trade of speaking. By the way, if you ever want to learn more about coaching with our team on how to be a better presenter, just click on the link around this video and I’ll set you up with a free call with one of our strategists. Third part of a great presentation is the circumstance, and this is the one that almost nobody knows about or thinks about.
RV (03:01):
The setup of the room in which you are speaking has a tremendous amount to do with the experience of that event. It is one third of the power of that experience, and that presentation is dependent upon the circumstances of the room. Now, when we talk about circumstance, we’re talking about lots of things like how close is the stage to the first row of the audience. The further the distance, the stages from the audience, the less connection you have, the less intimate the experience will be. It also includes things like the height of the ceiling. The more space there is between the tops of the heads of the people and where the ceiling is, the more energy that is lost and absorbed into empty space, rather than having that energy transmitted through the audience, creating a powerful experience. Also, the space between people in the room, right?
RV (03:57):
If you have a room of a thousand people and only a hundred are there and they’re all spread out, that’s gonna create a less than desirable experience. Other things include the time of day. The, the earlier you speak in the morning, if you speak very early, sometimes people aren’t awake yet, or sometimes they’re hungover, or if it’s late at night, they’re just thinking about going to bed, or maybe they’re thinking about going to the bar. So the time of day that you speak matters a lot. And then also who’s in the audience? Believe it or not, female audiences laugh a lot more than male audiences. So if you’re ever in front of an all male audience and you don’t get a lot of laughter or engagement, don’t be alarmed by that. That’s perfectly normal and typical for most all male audiences. All female audiences are my favorite.
RV (04:44):
Put me in front of an arena of 10,000 women at a direct sales conference, and we will literally make the walls shake with laughter and fun and have an awesome time. How well do the people in the room know each other and how well do they feel connected to each other? Has a lot to do with the power of the experience. The closer they are to one another, the more impactful the presentation tends to be. The more that they are strangers or feel only distantly connected, the harder it is for you to connect with them. All of these elements are related to circumstance which affect the connection you have with the room. So these three elements, the content, your charisma, and the circumstances of the setup determine the connection that you have with the audience. The more you maximize each of these three areas, the stronger the connection.
RV (05:36):
The more powerful the experience, the less effective you are at maximizing each of these three areas. The lower the connection will be and the lesser the overall experience for the audience. So if you want to have an amazing presentation, you first have to have amazing content, but content alone is not enough. You wanna layer on top of that the secrets of charisma. This is some of the things that we help people do for a living. It’s being charming and engaging and inspiring and motivating and entertaining and funny and, and touching people emotionally. But then also it’s controlling the circumstances, setting up the environment, do those three things, and I promise your presentations will go to a whole new level.
Ep 530: How to Monetize Live Events with Jennifer Kem
RV (00:02):
Well, every once in a while I will meet a client who is someone who has been a vendor to several of our clients. And anytime that happens, I pay attention because this is such a small world that we live in. And because all of our brand builders, right, all of you mission driven messengers, are always looking for good vendors and asking us, who can I trust? Who can I do stuff with? So I really, really pay attention? Well, one of those people is Jen Kem, who I’m gonna tell you about. And she became a client of ours after I had been hearing her name. And so here, let me tell you a little bit about Jen. Okay. So she works specifically with thought leaders and personal brands and she helps them to make more impact and make more money. She has been named by Forbes as a top brand strategist.
RV (00:49):
Her company, master Brand Media represents influencers, celebrities, CEOs, experts, authors and really helps them with brand collaborations, live events. Kind of monetizing specifically through live events is what we’re gonna talk about today. And she, some of our brand builders, group clients that she has worked with is Selena Sue, Chris Winfield, Jen Gottlieb, Nicole Walters, all really high level clients that I know personally. She’s also worked with people like Lisa Nichols on an event called Speak and Right to Make Millions. They, they did that event together years ago. And anyways, when Jen became a private client of, of mine for BBG, and she was telling me what she did, I was like, I want to have you on the podcast. I need to learn about all that you do. And I know there’s gonna be people in our community who are doing this. So we’re gonna talk about how to make millions of dollars through live events and through creating and curating event experiences. Now, she has a book coming out also soon, so later next year called Unicorn Team Build and Scale, an Unforgettable Brand from the Inside Out. So we’ll probably touch a little bit on that, but I really want to learn from her about how she does what she does. So, Jen, welcome to the show,
JK (02:07):
Rory. I’m so pumped to be here,
RV (02:09):
Buddy. I am too. So, so how did you get into producing these live events and like how did you get into this live event world and business?
JK (02:20):
Well, you know, it’s a long yarn, but bottom line is I came from corporate. I used to be the head of go to market launching of big products and services. And so when I jumped the pond, if you will, over into entrepreneurship and started my own consultancy and agency around helping companies, products and personal brands do the same, it literally was one of my first mentors who then became a client. I’m sure this happens to you too, Rory, as we’ve talked about. Now, you are my mentor on the book side. And, and, and I had a mentor, her name was Lisa Nichols. And I wanna give full credit to Lisa because I hired her to be a mentor, to just make sure that from a leadership perspective, from a, the way that I looked at the world perspective, that I had a very, a bigger awareness of what was possible for me.
JK (03:10):
And in that relationship, I can’t help but like share with her, gosh, you know, I see these amazing things that you’re doing and I’m curious if you thought about doing X, Y, and Z. And she was like, I’m always open. And I think when you work with mission driven messengers, like Lisa, yeah, they are open to hearing how can I expand my message to the world? And so, bottom line, we created this amazing relationship. And it was her who encouraged me and said, because I said to her, I think you should be doing, she was already doing amazing events. She’s a very highly requested and hired speaker, and she had already a New York Times bestselling book under her belt called No Matter What. And I said, I think that from a next level perspective where we need clarity for your audience is like, what are really your offers that you’re making? Because people loved her, they would show up anywhere she would go. So she had all the charisma and the the of a visionary. And from a high ticket perspective, people were used to purchasing from her books, smaller bundles, things like that. And she was only available for higher level mentorship in a one-on-one capacity, which she was my, she was one of my mentors that I was paying a high.
RV (04:23):
Oh, so you hired her to be your like one-on-one private coach.
JK (04:26):
Yeah. And then what she did was she, like, she changed my entire life and, and I always teased her, ruined it at the same time. Just kidding. Lisa
RV (05:08):
It’s always like strategy. It’s always like, how do we get the coffee and what’s the AV and like all this stuff, all that stuff. But like you, so you have a framework, it’s called Million Dollar Experiences, is that what it’s called? Yes.
JK (05:18):
It’s called the Million Dollar Experience Model. Yes.
RV (05:20):
Million Dollar Experience Model. And so this is all about basically how to create an awesome experience that also translate into more revenue at the event, right?
JK (05:29):
Yes. And, and, and post-event, because even the model itself accounts for, you know, what’s all the pre things you have to do, obviously what happens at the actual event to create the transformation that makes the people who come. And the key is that the people who come in that pre-work are people who are ready for a transformation that understand they want more after an event and are are already primed because we’ve done a good job before the event to invite the right people into the room so that the offer itself is a perfect fit for the problem that they wanna solve. And then the post event is cared for as well. Because a lot of times what happens is, and also with the events, people don’t wanna do them because it’s exhausting, right? Physically strenuous a lot of the things
RV (06:19):
Totally. It’s, it’s, oh my, it’s stressful. Anytime you have to print name tags, that’s what I tell people. Like, if it’s small enough that you don’t eat name tags, it’s all right. Once you get into name tags and taking lunch orders and like the, the gets crazy if you bingo, it’s
JK (06:33):
Crazy. Bingo. And so the thing is that I always tell people like, you’re always gonna have the fatigue because you’re showing up for big work. But it, the fatigue doesn’t have to be toxic or unnecessary. And I think that a lot of times, because I always, one of my ways that I live my life is, I call it I work on the right hard things. And so if one of the hard things, and Rory is correct, friends printing name tags and lunch orders, it’s like, what we shouldn’t focus on. But it takes up so much energy, you just don’t even understand it. And my philosophy is, you know, treat a live event or a live activation, by the way this works online or offline. ’cause When you mentioned Selena Sue, she’s made the most income and impact from actually us architecting the right experience for an online three day event. She did. And she did it three times and made millions of dollars from it. And it just shows that when you have the right model, and Rory and I can geek out about models all day. ’cause He has like the most amazing models around
RV (07:35):
Oh, frameworks. Like frameworks and Yeah.
JK (07:37):
Models and systems. And me too from a place of using a live event vehicle, if you will. It’s a vehicle really to then I think amplify really all of the things you got going on, whether it’s a book and then turning that book into a high ticket offer that then, you know, gives you nice cash injection and, and income, but also anything really. So it’s also back to that post-event caretaking that allows people to, if they don’t choose yes at that time, they are ready for the next or the next time. And, and, and hmm. You know, I know brand builders and Rory and AJ are very much about the relationship building. And that’s what I also love about live events. They’re the best way to get closer to people and create relationships and not just sell more, but frankly, partner collaborate, creation, ship opportunities. Mm-Hmm.
RV (08:36):
There’s just, and there, it, it takes so much energy to your point. It’s like, ’cause you’re giving so much energy and it’s like mm-Hmm,
JK (09:55):
Right,
RV (09:56):
Exactly. So walk us through the model. Walk us through the, okay, so, so, so walk us through like how, how does it work?
JK (10:01):
So there’s three parts of the model the million dollar experiences model. And from this point, you’ll probably hear me call it MDE. So just remember those words, m France, m, m, d, e, million dollar experiences. Okay? And the model is comprised of three stages. So the three stages are strategy, sales, and scale. Okay? And under the strategy, strategy track, if you will, are three important components. Experience, design, offer, clarity, and the campaign plan. And so experience,
RV (10:31):
Design, offer, clarity and campaign des
JK (10:36):
Design, campaign plan.
RV (10:37):
Campaign plan. Mm-Hmm.
JK (10:38):
RV (10:38):
Okay.
JK (10:39):
And so I’ll, I’ll go through the two, three tracks and then I’ll just give you a little tidy taste under each one. So the stage, the next stage is the sales strategy, right? So that includes your event marketing, your offer invitation, and the agenda and zones, which is the way that we architect the right way to create a room of transformation. Like
RV (11:02):
A physical, like the physical space.
JK (11:04):
Yeah. So it’s the physical space. So the agenda and the zones are critical components to making sure that the sales strategy works. Interesting. mm-Hmm.
RV (11:28):
Scale, yep.
JK (11:30):
And that is the seamless logistics, the unicorn team that you need to actually do the thing. Mm-Hmm. And then the money, math and metrics. So those are the, the nine, if you will core parts of the model that really make what you were mentioning earlier, Rory. It’s like, what’s so cool about this model and why I am kind of obsessed with it, and I’m proud that, you know, we’ve been able to create such phenomenal results is because it, it speaks to my soul around leverage. You know? Because it’s leverage for all the right reasons. There’s you know, you get to grow your personal brand because people who see people in the front of the room, you know, Rory as a speaker, it’s, and when you produce your own events, you create a lot of authority. And then you have the income piece, which again, this model is so great if you have a mid to high ticket offer.
JK (12:24):
And then the third piece of it is actually you compress the amount of time to make cash. Because within online funnel, which again, you need those systems. I have online funnels, I have all the things, but when you are committed to a live activation, you actually can make the same amount of money in three days that you can make in 365 days. That then gives you the capital you need to be better at marketing online in an ongoing way. So this is why I love this way of doing things. And I, I think that most people don’t look at live events with that mindset. They look at it as like, oh, I just have to do it because people seem to make pretty good money. Or, you know, again, Tony Robbins is doing it. Maybe I should be doing it. And I’m like, no, it’s not about it. Do it because you wanna create leverage, you wanna get your time back actually, and you wanna like have the biggest impact in the smallest amount of time. Mm-Hmm.
RV (13:17):
Let’s talk about the offer part. Okay. So when you say mid to high ticket offer Mm-Hmm.
JK (13:37):
So I think it’s based on also the stage of business that you’re in. So I will say that at the minimum, it’s, it’s, it’s more worth it to do an MDE type of activation. If you have at least a $5,000 offer. When I say that, please listen to me, like perhaps you’ve written a book, right? And say you have this storied career, but right now people are starting to know you for a thing you want them to know you for. That’s why you go work with brand builders, right? You, you, you’re building your personal brand, you’re writing a book and you want to take some of what you’ve learned, but you know that people don’t really know you fully for this offer yet. An MDE event is great at that stage because let’s say it’s a five to $10,000 offer and you can get 50 people in the room, right? So let’s do easy math. ’cause This, I don’t wanna mess this up since we’re live on a podcast, but basically, let’s say you get, imagine if you could 25 of the 50 people to buy a $10,000 offer, right? That’s 200,
RV (14:34):
That’s $50,000
JK (14:35):
Right? Now. That’s some nice money. And imagine that the cost of you bringing 50 people into a room with a $10,000 offer, right, is only 20 5K. So now we’re talking about not is that 20, that’s 10%, right? Which a lot of events only break even, or they cost more than they make because they’re not doing MDPE. So now your profit is 2 25. And for you, if you’re just, you’re, you’re just getting known, what a great way to go. Now if you’re already known, oh my gosh, the amount of money you can make, right? So a lot of times what we suggest to clients is do you have a 20 5K offer and a hundred k offer, basically, again, everyone’s gonna be different depending on a lot of factors inside of the model I just shared with you. But generally speaking, when you talked about Chris and Jen or Selena, those were the price points because they had already built, they had a platform, you know, they were good marketers that type of thing. And so then you can elevate to that. And I’m not saying at when you’re starting that you don’t have, you can’t have a hundred k offer. Absolutely. You can’t. It might make a lot of sense. And that’s why the offer clarity is so important of like, how does it fit in with the audience you’re inviting to the event? Yeah. Because it fits with the audience you’re inviting. They’re gonna say yes, they’ll figure out the money.
RV (15:59):
Well, and I just, I think it’s, there’s some, i I know there’s people listening right now that like, it’s challenging. They’re limiting beliefs to go, wait a minute, you can sell something that’s a hundred thousand dollars at the end of an event. Is it, is it, is it always two days or three days? Or does the agenda change?
JK (16:15):
Yeah. So the be so the best practice and what we’ve seen work the best for clients is a two and a half to three day event. Yeah. Generally speaking. And what I wanted to also mention is because
RV (16:24):
People aren’t spending a hundred grand after 20 minute webinar, that’s for sure. Correct. That’s, that’s not usually how
JK (16:28):
It’s going down. That’s, that’s for sure. If you have a sales call maybe, and you have a good sales team, or you’re good at sales, you might be able to do it right? But in a live event, if you want to get 30 to 50 to 70% of the people in the room to move towards a big offer, right? You have to you have, you need some time, you need some time to lay it out. You need some time to help them understand why it’s for them. So,
RV (16:53):
But you could, you think so, so, so first of all, how do you get 50 people in a room for 25,000? I mean, 50 people’s, not that many people. Mm-Hmm.
JK (17:05):
So here’s the mon, so this is when kind of, I’m gonna pop up to the third track that I mentioned, which is the scale scale part scale, okay? Which is the money, math and the metrics. Okay?
RV (17:15):
Money, math, and metrics.
JK (17:16):
So to get what we know is like if we know the offer is a hundred k, let’s say, right? We gotta go find people who could demonstrate that they could pay that, right? So we build our traffic and marketing strategy as part of MDE based on those people. And so let’s say you know, you already have a list, I’m gonna go, we have a segmented list for us and we tell our clients you should do that too. Or part of the process is we’re gonna have to segment them first. So to find out who are our bigger players, right? Who are the people who are doing, let’s say a million plus in their business or more they’ve been in business for five years or more for a hundred k offer, generally speaking, that’s who’s gonna pay, right? So if I know about how much I have a hundred k offer, I’m gonna be looking for those people.
JK (18:07):
And there are three types of traffic, right? There’s what I call OPP organic paid and partnership traffic. And so in the strategy of who to get inside of the room, we ask ourselves what are our lowest hanging fruit in that OPP traffic model? So for example, if it’s partnership, I might say to Rory, for example, Hey, I have people, I’m doing this MDE event about MDE, and I could say, Hey, r Rory, I know we seem like great collaborative partners on this. It could be a win-win for some of your people. And I don’t even need you to nail anybody. Do you know anybody, like three people that you feel like could work for this? And when you take that type of care for a hundred k offer to actually ask partners to do that, you’re gonna have better qualified people in the room, right?
JK (18:59):
I don’t run paid traffic generally to events where I know my offer’s gonna be a hundred KI will run paid traffic to an event where I think my offer will be between 10 and 20 5K though. Because what’s cool about the MDE model is that getting somebody to pay you 10 or 20 5K is actually, and I say this with respect and humility, it’s quite easy if you use this model a hundred k little bit different treatment. You gotta work on the, the marketing strategy upfront in that pre piece that we talked about earlier. But that’s why it’s so important to architect a unique pre-launch in the event and post-launch strategy for your specific brand and where it’s at, at this moment, right? So that’s why I said it’s about timing and moment for you versus how much the offer should be.
JK (19:47):
Mm-Hmm.
RV (20:52):
To get even. So even I hear you saying though that like a 10 to $20,000 offer is something that very legitimately could happen in like a, you know, a fairly mass market way in terms of running paid ads. If you, you, you’re following the system, hopefully you pushing ’em to a two to three, three day event, and then you’re, you’re, you’re making an offer, walk me through the event, like high level agenda. So you said experience design, but then you also had agenda and zones that was in Yes. Underneath the sales. Like, you know, there’s a lot of things you can do with two and a half days, right? It’s like we could sing songs, we could do exercise routines, we could bring in guest speakers, we could do, you know, small workshops, round table. Like there’s so many, there’s a lot of time to, you could use differently. And it, I mean, it makes sense to me. If someone’s coming in and then, you know, investing at a 10,000 or $20,000 level, you’re, that’s gotta be pretty intentional about how you’re using the time while they’re there.
JK (21:50):
Yes, exactly. And such a great question. So that’s why the experience design and the offer clarity that I mentioned earlier are the most important components to do first period. Okay? You don’t need to think about where you’re gonna have it. You don’t need to be thinking about even how many people you want there, okay? What you need to be thinking about is what’s your offer? And then you architect the experience around the offer. Okay? So that’s number one. Then the agenda’s job is to make sure that the offer is the star of the show, right? When you’re building your personal brand, I think of it like this, like Rory is the man, and Brad Builders is the company around personal brand development. This is what I call your monetization product strategy, right? So it’s like the product that’s associated with me, right? How do we make it the star, right?
JK (22:42):
And so the agenda is, and then make the messenger, the me driven messenger, which is the personal brand that’s delivering the show, is amplifying, look, you love, you want me, but what you really want is this process, this model, this thing that we have. And the agenda should reflect the model. So for example, here’s a little trick you start with, if you have a model, right, like I do, and Rory has a ton like MDE I’m gonna teach them MDE as the baseline of the agenda, period, nothing else comes into play. Then I ask myself, day one is always about challenging the limiting belief, working on the mindset, helping us all speak the same language while we’re here together for three days, right? So we work with our clients to be like on day one, when you open with your story and, and the model or the framework that you’re gonna be teaching over the next two to three days, what is gonna make them see themselves in the story and the, the framework, what is gonna do that?
JK (23:49):
And whatever that experience is, we create that as the first agenda item because now we’ve set the primer for all of the other things we’re gonna put on the agenda to support them in having that transformation. So that’s day one, generally speaking, day one is all about that. And whatever experiences you create, whether it’s breakouts, perhaps other speakers, which again, other speakers by the way, you gotta, they’re part of the primer. You pick speakers that not only help people come and elevate your brand, but also can buy into the framework. Because if it’s a separate conversation, they get confused, right? The audience goes, oh, I should go work with this person, or I should do this, or I should do that. And we wanna make sure that they’re laser focused. The reason that they’re here is to work with us. And when I say that, it’s because we done the work upfront to right. To invite the right people. You know, it’s, it. So, so we do that on day one. Day two is about one
RV (24:46):
Thing to just, just to double tap on one thing you said there. I I’m, whether it’s in an event model or for the purpose of making money or anything in general, I’m such a huge proponent of make the framework the hero, not the messenger, the hero. Yes. Like, you cannot scale a company when the messenger is the hero. It’s like, it has to be a framework, right? Like that, that’s such an important idea. And, and it’s also something that if you really care about impact, it’s one thing if you, it’s one of the best ways I think you’d tell about where someone stands in their ego. If if it’s really about ego, they’re gonna have a hard time making it about the framework because they want all the attention on them. If someone really cares about impact, they’re gonna work really hard. And that’s one of the things we do is help people create their frameworks in our captivating content. But it’s because you go, a framework can outlast you, A framework can be taught to other people, A framework can scale, a framework can be duplicated. Yes. So I really, really, I really, really love that. So, okay, so day two, so tell, tell me what happens day two.
JK (25:52):
Day two is, now obviously if you have a two and a half day to three day event, you have to be able to emphasize the most important parts of the framework that solve the problem that they came to solve. Right? So you have to do that by lunchtime on day two, because lunchtime at day two is the first time you’re gonna invite people into play bigger with you, right? Using the work. And so ev we call it like the hemispheres of the event, right? So think of the lunchtime on day two as like a tipping point moment. So everything before that is mindset and making sure that you’ve taken actually the best parts of your framework and taught it the best, not the weakest, not the least important. None of that give them the best, right? And, and the key is to show them that it’s better to do it with a trusted proven guide, a KAA group of people who understand the framework better than you do, which is usually your team, right?
JK (26:55):
Or your company. And so day two, morning is all about making sure you’re emphasizing and solving the problems. So they’re like, oh my gosh, I got so much value already, right? Then you’re making the invitation at lunchtime. Now after that moment, it’s all about emphasizing why it, the framework will solve all the problems that they came to solve. So all the content on the agenda after that is about choosing the top problems that they think that they have and using the framework to solve it in the agenda period. Okay? And, and you can do that in a very cool, interesting, fun way. There’s a lot of ways to do that. That’s where like, it’s, that’s fun for me to be your thought partner on like, here’s a way you could do it that doesn’t feel like academic or boring, but sometimes it, parts of it will have to be academic.
JK (27:46):
And, and it again depends on the offer and, and the type of crowd that, that you, you attract. So that’s what day two after lunch is about. And the reason we know so much data on the people who come is because in the pre-launch process, after they’ve chosen to come, we have this amazing sales tracker that is like magic, okay? Where we put all the attendees in and we sort them based on their problems. So we’re gathering all those data ’cause we ask them before they come and then we architect the agenda around solving the problem period, right? That’s where the magic happens. ’cause They’re like, oh my God, they’re reading my mind. Oh my God, this framework really like, does the job, you know, oh wow, I really trust her or him because the me, the mission-driven Messenger, our job is to tell stories and share other people’s wins to elevate how the framework has helped us become successful in whatever we’re teaching.
JK (28:50):
So that’s a key part is a lot of people do not look at the data, the people coming. They don’t ethically stalk their amazing people that are coming, that are getting in a plane, train or automobile to come to you and taking time away from their families, taking time away from their business to come. And so to me it is our responsibility and that’s why I love this framework to actually study them and go, what are they really meetings that we don’t waste their time? Because when you do that for people, they are like, I gotta have this thing. And it’s actually a good quality product and experience that they’re having in an ongoing way. And then now they’re telling everybody about you because they’re like, oh my God, that three days that I spent at Brand Builders or with Mass Brand Institute or you know, super connector media or impacting millions all these people, like, they’re gonna go, wow, I, I, I really got and I met some of my best friends and colleagues there because they’re like me. You know? And so that’s really what the other side of the invitation on day two is about, is amplifying those things. And then by the end of the day you know, you’re gonna look back and go, wow, I got a 50 or 70% conversion at least 30% and that was a lot more than I got from an online funnel and webinar. So mm-hmm,
RV (30:09):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, so you, you talked about like offer structures, like being the most important. What are the parts that you have to nail about that, right? Because like I feel like there’s a lot of, I mean, clarity to me feels like, I mean, you said that and that’s why I feel like most of the time it’s just not that clear what’s included and what’s the result or the, the benefit or the outcome of if someone takes it up. But like, what are some of the keys around the offer clarity piece that either you see people screw up or you’re like, you know, make sure it’s this and not that. ’cause It’s not just the price point, right? I mean, a price is just a number. It’s really gotta be engineered from something other than just grabbing an arbitrary number out of thin air,
JK (30:55):
Right? So the two, the two things that I think are missing the most, and we touched on one already, is framework, framework, framework. Selling the process, not the person. Okay? So important and actually training yourself as a visualizer, right? The person who’s the messenger to realize that the business you, not the brand you, but the business you needs the framework, right? Your, your team, your company, your ability to serve more people is a, is gotta be a business decision, not a brand decision. And, and the framework is almost like your little clone. It’s your cloning device, if you will, that allows you to you know, replicate like you said and scale. So number one, we’ve already touched on that. Number two is you gotta nail what I call your rich niche, okay? And how I define niche, the rich niche. The rich niche, right?
JK (31:52):
Nail the rich niche. Yes. So I define niche a lot differently than I think other people. And I call your, to me, a niche is not the demographic or the psychographic or the person, the niche is the actual problem that you’re solving. And once you know the actual problem, then you go find the watering holes where the people who have the demographics and psychographics hang out. And then you use that to like focus your marketing efforts around. And so part of why offers don’t sell is because they really don’t know the problem that they’re solving. They really don’t. They, they think they do because then if I give you x amount of calls and a community platform and access to all of our educational content, and we’re gonna also assign you an advisor or a coach, those I know people will be like, oh yeah, I know those are just features and benefits.
JK (32:53):
They are literally just features and benefits and maybe they don’t need a coach, but you think they do to buy a 20 5K offer offer to you. Maybe they don’t. Maybe what they need is we do a kickoff for two hours with you, build your entire custom strategy using this process. And if you want, you can get a coach later, but that they’re getting a, a real win that’s palpable. And I think a lot of times again, we bloat the offers, we add a ton of bonuses. And by the way, I love bonuses, I love extra things. But the truth is that we live in a world now. And, and the way that you market online and offline is actually quite different than five years ago. Like, so if you’ve learned something five years ago, it’s not gonna be as relevant right now because people are in a state of overwhelm and over consumption. And that’s why we gotta like that. Like we gotta cut through all that noise and go, Hey, I see your problem. You actually told me this is problem.
RV (33:52):
I love this. And that’s so true. Like people bloat their offers with bonuses and it’s like more is more is not better it, and it, it, it really isn’t. It’s mm-hmm,
JK (34:47):
I keep, I keep coming back to, so two things, two tools inside the Mte model, you’re asking such quick questions. So remember when I said like stalking people ahead of time? Yeah. So first is architecting the right intake form when they’re choosing to come to your event and asking the right questions that really extract and make the problem come to the surface. You know? So asking better questions like be a better coach in your intake forms, meaning like, ask better questions so that they, it it, it brings to the surface what their problem really is. ’cause Then you can study that and make that part of the agenda, as I said earlier, the
RV (35:23):
Second. That’s good.
JK (35:24):
Yeah. The second piece of it is you know, asking, oh is to create a diagnostic that supports your framework. So for example, and you use that as part of either the pre-launch of the event or during the event depending on the space you have. Okay? And what I mean by diagnostic is a simple way for them to score themselves at solving the problem on their own. Okay? You do that early and you use your framework as the scoring mechanism. So it’s like, look at me, I just shared MDE, which is a nine part system with the three tracks, right? So if I were teaching MDE and inviting people to an MD workshop, I would say, there are nine things you need to create a million dollar experience, right? Score yourself on these nine areas. And I guarantee you there’s gonna be two or more areas where they’re gonna have a gap, they’re gonna have an atrophy. And people don’t buy from what they have, they buy from the gap. So they
RV (36:28):
Know. It’s also about that too is like, if you told them this is what your problem is, they’d go, no, I don’t have that. I got that covered. But the moment you have ’em fill out assessment, they’re like, oh dang, like, I really suck at this. Yes. And it’s them, it’s the it it’s them making the realization on their own of their blind spot versus like a salesperson telling them. Exactly. It’s so good. Y’all, I hate to cut this off there, there are few podcast interviews where I’m like, I wish we had more time. I wish we had more time. I have to cut this off. I don’t mean for this to be a cliffhanger, but like we, Jen and I both have a hard stop, as you could tell. This is why I had, I was like, we gotta have her on the show.
RV (37:04):
Like she knows what she’s doing and here’s what I want you to do. Go to brand builders group.com/mde MDE for million dollar experience brand village group.com/mde. If you are someone who is putting on a live event, thinking about a live event, maybe one day I’ll have a live event. But like, if you’re going, I want to do in-person events, you know, and virtual too. But I think it’s like, especially if you’re like one of those people that’s like, ah, screw virtual, I hate Covid and Zoom. Let’s get people in the room. Like, if you’re doing that, like, and that is your model, you gotta go check Jen out and her team brand builders group.com four slash mde. I mean, she’s given you so much value just on this call alone. I mean, structuring the agenda, structuring the offer, structuring the pre-event questionnaire, the diagnostic making, the framework, the hero.
RV (37:56):
Like, if you can’t turn this one podcast, and by the way, go leave us a rating on iTunes about how awesome our podcast is. ’cause Like I really believe that this podcast episode alone could make you tens of thousands of dollars. Like, so I believe that this woman can help you make a lot more than that if, if you have more time. So, so check that out. And Jen, this is so cool. Like, I, I just, it’s such a, you’re such an example too, of someone with like, such a specific problem you solve is monetizing live events. I don’t know, but like, I can’t even give you, but like three people in the world who even claim to be able to do that, that it’s like, that’s the the thing. So this is so good and, and we’re so excited about your book coming out and I think we should probably have you back to actually talk about that. ’cause That’s like building out your team and we could probably tie it back into this. But anyways, friend, you, this is awesome. This is so powerful. This stuff is great.
JK (38:55):
Well, I’m so glad it was valuable and I can geek out all day long with you, Rory Vaden, and I appreciate how much you’re helping the world and helping me, not just with my book, but getting messages that of people who have this intellectual property and, and expertise and helping us all grow even bigger. So thank you. It’s been so much fun.
RV (39:16):
It’s my pleasure, buddy. We wish you, we wish you the best. We’ll, we’ll be following your journey very closely and we’ll have you back again sometime soon.
Ep 529: Creating Culture | Britney Ruby Miller Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
So how do you build culture when you have a company or a team that is virtual or just a company or a team that’s growing beyond your ability to talk to or interact with every single employee or every single leader on a regular basis? But, but that’s the question. How do you build culture? And I was having a conversation on the influential personal brand podcast with a newer friend of mine. Her name is Brittany Ruby Miller, and she’s the daughter of Jeff Ruby from the Jeff Ruby steakhouse and Entertainment Group. And they have grown to be more than 900 employees, multi-location restaurant, a hundred million dollars in revenue. And we were having this conversation around culture, right? And here at Brain Builders Group, we’re much smaller than that. But we’re all virtual and we only get to see each other all in person a couple of times a year.
AJV (00:59):
And in this post pandemic world where not everyone is in the office, I think this conversation of how do you build culture has come up to be more prevalent in conversations as the years have gone on. And so we have this conversation of how do you do that? And I think there was a couple of things that came out that were worthy of kind of just highlighting in this quick, kind of short episode right now. So the number one is, does your team speak common language? In other words, do you have a, a set of principles, a foundation, that everyone understands what you’re talking about? And so as we were talking about this idea of shared language, it came to this is not from training documents or SOPs, even. Those are, those are good and helpful. That’s not what we’re talking about.
AJV (01:49):
It’s do you have a shared common list of beliefs, values, principles that you work by? And one of the things that I think you can do as a small business owner and entrepreneur that doesn’t cost tons of money is have your own company library. And I think this was a very big takeaway for me but also for all of you. ’cause It doesn’t matter if you have just a, a one, you know, team member organization or you have a thousand, it’s like, do you have a shared language so that when you use an acronym or when you say something, everyone goes, oh, I know what you mean. Because then it allows you to have quicker conversations without the contextual explanation. And one of the fastest, cheapest and most impactful ways to do that is to have a company library. Now, there’s lots of different ways that you can do that. We, we actually have this at Brand Builders Group. We have this leading up to that we use a platform called Better Book Club. In fact, I’ll include a link to that in my post here. But Better Book Club allows you to have a virtual library
AJV (02:59):
That says these are company sponsored events, and you can even reward people for reading those. You can make it mandatory, but then you can also incentivize them to go and read these. And one of the things that we instituted as a part of Better Book Club listens to customers is that we have a book of the quarter that every single quarter, we as a company buy a copy of a book that we’re all going to read together. We’ve done this for two years. So we’re, I think on book number seven, as we’re in Q3 2024 as I’m recording this, and we, we select books that have you know, I would say Universal Appeal that are applicable and beneficial to you no matter what your role is, no matter if it’s day one or, you know, you’ve been with the company since the beginning.
AJV (03:47):
Some of those books have been unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guera. It’s one of my top 10 favorite books of all time. It was mandatory reading for our entire company in Q2 of 2024, right? We started the year Q1 this year with Extreme Ownership by Jocko, Willem, and Leaf Babin. We said, we started the year on this kind of accountability mindset that we all need to take ownership. If you see something, say something, it’s not your job or your job, it’s everyone’s job. Do we have to own this? So we started with that. And so that allows all of us to have common language. So when we talk about like, are you owning this? All I have to do is go, Hey, do you remember when we read Extreme Ownership? That’s what I’m talking about right here. And, and that’s all I have to say, right?
AJV (04:36):
Same thing with Unreasonable Hospitality. It’s like people know, and I say, Hey, are we being unreasonable with this? That it’s not a bad thing. It’s going, Hey, are we really doing this with intentionality in mind? Are we doing this because it’s easy? Or are we doing this because we, we want people to feel seen, loved, and cared for in a, a unique and personal way? I think those are things we’re reading right now, Q3 2024, hidden Potential by Adam Grant of Learning. How do we, we we grow and develop the staff versus just hiring for the staff. And that’s, those are cultural things that we believe in. Those are not necessarily books that fit every organization or every person, but those are have been ones that stick out to us of going, Hey, this is the common language that we’re trying to instill to build culture.
AJV (05:25):
I think that’s a huge part of it’s, do you have shared language? Do you have common language? There’s really expensive ways to do that. There’s super affordable ways and having a shared company library that’s available for all new employees coming in, but also required reading that you have for all existing employees. So that’s one thing. The second thing is making sure that you have well documented and well communicated core values, vision statements, mission statements. Brittany in our conversation calls it her vp Mosa, right? And I think, I dunno if I’ll get all of these, but it was like vision principles, mission Operating Guidelines, SNA Systems and Accountability. Oh my God, have I got that right? This is a miracle don’t hold me to that, but VP Moosa, VP MOSA vp Moosa can look that up,
AJV (06:27):
And every single month at our All hands on deck company meeting we go through these and we have someone in the company volunteer. They pick one of them and they do a mini five minute core value presentation, right? So we have all of them available every single month as we open up our company meeting. But then somebody volunteers, or sometimes they’re voluntold, but for the most part, they volunteer and they put together like, why did they pick this core value? How do they see it being lived out? And why is it important to them and their role at this specific time and time and place, right? So I think that’s just keeping, keeping them real. And it’s not that they’re hearing it from us, it’s, it’s, I care what the team has to say. And honestly, their presentations, they’re so much better than mine.
AJV (07:11):
But that’s one thing that you can do is just have like, Hey, these are, these are the core values that we operate this company with. And I think the most important thing is sharing those when you’re interviewing people during the recruiting and hiring process. So you never want someone to come on board and be like, whoa, where did that come from? So the openness, transparency of going, Hey, this is how it is. It’s not for everyone. That’s okay. But before you take a position here, you should know this is what it’s gonna be like here. Opt out now. No hard feelings,
AJV (08:06):
You better be aligned with your mission, values, mission, purpose with your company. Otherwise, you’re going to be miss role. Bull money’s not worth that. It’s just not. So that would be something the other thing, when you talk about mission and vision, right? It’s like, why do you exist? Why does your company exist? What, what’s your purpose for being in business to begin with? And what I have found is I hope this is helpful and impactful for our team to be reminded every single month, at least monthly, we’re gonna read this together. And we call it our brand mantra, but it, it’s basically our vision and mission statement. It’s why we’re here, what we hope to do, our, our purpose how we do things. But we call it our brand mantra.
AJV (08:55):
You may call it your vision statement, mission statement, purpose, whatever you wanna call it. But for us, it’s a brand mantra. And I do hope it’s important for everyone to take a step back and for at least five minutes as we all read it together, to remind ourselves, oh yeah, that’s why we do that. Oh, yeah, I remember that now because it’s easy to forget. And I, I hope everyone else finds it important, but what I have found that for me is that I need to stand back and read that every single month so that I don’t forget why we exist, what our purpose is, what our mission is, what our vision is in the middle of customer service problems or inundation of reporting and analyses, or managing deadlines or missed deadlines or projects that didn’t get done or missed the budget or did it, whatever.
AJV (09:45):
All this stuff is in the middle of all the stuff going on, which sometimes is very fun. I need to step back every single month at least for me and go, oh yeah, that’s why we’re here. That’s why we do what we do. And if it’s important for me, then I know it has to be important to at least someone else in our team, someone else in the company to go, this is more than about just money, right? It, it has to be, right. For all the things going on, it’s like people could do a lot of different jobs. It’s like, it’s gotta be more than just about money. And that that is how you build culture. It’s like, do we agree on things that are beyond paychecks and benefits? And the answer is yes. It’s like, I want people who want to be here.
AJV (10:31):
Not that they have to be here. I don’t want a paycheck to be the only reason our team is here, which means that we have to attract people on common and shared language and beliefs, and we have to keep them based on the same things. Because not every job has all glamorous parts, and not every company is gonna be sunshine and rainbows all the time. There’s gonna be, you know, stormy weather and there’s gonna be hard times. And people make it when we go, but it’s more, it’s more than about just me or just my department or just my paycheck, right? It’s gotta be about more than that so that we can weather the stormy times but also celebrate in the good times. And so those are just a couple of things. As you’re, you’re asking yourself, like, how do we build culture, a culture that doesn’t have to be managed by one person at the top, or as your team and your company grows, how do you still uphold the same level of standard of excellence or core values that you had when you were really small? It’s because you have to hire for it. You have to manage for it, and you have to retain for it. And if there’s been a time where you’re out of alignment, then you, you can’t be afraid to part ways because that, that’s damaging to the culture of the organization. And by keeping
Speaker 4 (11:52):
One person, you could be damaging 10 others. And those are things where it’s like you hire for it, you manage for it, you retain for it, but you also let people go for it because you all have to be in alignment to have a good, healthy culture. We are not perfect at this, let me tell you. I am consciously aware of where we fall short. But you gotta be open to it. And, and you’ve gotta do something even if you can’t do it perfectly. So, couple of ideas on how do you build culture. If you want more, go tune in to the Influential Personal Brand podcast with Brittany Ruby Miller on how to build strong culture.
Ep 528: Building A 5-Star Life with Britney Ruby Miller
AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. So excited today to introduce you guys to a new friend of mine, the one and only Britney Ruby Miller. And if you don’t know her by name, then you’re missing out. And we’re gonna talk about a lot of different things today. But before I formally introduce her, as you guys get to know her, I wanna kind of just tell you why I wanted to have her on our podcast. And Britney and I got introduced by a mutual friend couple of months ago now, and she was so gracious to give me a copy of her book. If you’re watching, you can see it’s five star Life. If you’re not watching, then you just need to go pick it up and read it. But she sent this book to me along with one of the sweetest, kindest packages of all time, because if you know anything about me, you know, the way to my, my heart is really through my children.
AJV (00:59):
And my sweet 7-year-old Jasper came to a, an adult dinner party
AJV (01:59):
So if you guys are listening, the reason I think you should stick around is all things culture. And that’s what I would say it’s like, doesn’t matter if you’re trying to be a build a culture in your family or in your community, or with your clients or with your company. What I’ve summed this all up is, is a, it’s a radical journey through what does it mean to love people really well. And to me, that’s culture. It’s like how do you set a tone and a culture of love and hospitality and generosity and, and, and a and a very politically charged environment that we find ourselves in the United States? These are the types of conversations and interviews that I think will make us better, make our businesses better, thus make everyone around us better. So that is why I am having her on the show. That is why you need to listen to this episode. This episode is one of those episodes that doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, it’s applicable to you. So listen to the whole thing, and then you can check out the recap episode. Now, let me quickly formally introduce her, and then we’re gonna actually get to this interview. Otherwise, I could spend the next half hour just telling you why she’s so awesome. But
BR (03:04):
Got whole bio. Don’t read that entire thing. You better summarize it. I
AJV (03:07):
Love it. She’s, I think she, what I want you guys to know is that she’s the CEO of the Jeff Ruby Entertainment Group. And Jeff Ruby’s is one of our favorite restaurants. It’s iconic, especially the one here in Nashville. I don’t know about all the other ones, but I love it here because this is where we take all of our clients out to dinner. She didn’t even know that
BR (03:25):
AJV (03:26):
But what I think is amazing, and what I didn’t know about the Jeff Ruby organization is that you guys almost have a thousand employees and you guys are doing a hundred million dollars in revenue. And what I love about that is not only is that extraordinary in the entertainment and hospitality environment, but you’re also a mom and an author and a wife, and running this massive organization in a family business environment where it’s going from generation to generation and you know, trying to maintain legacy, but innovate and do things new in a new way. You also have a culinary background and you and your husband Caleb, are coming up with this whole new brand, and it’s like you’re the epitome of, I’ve got a lot going on. So how do you manage all of that? And this is, this is a part of what I’m so fascinated with when it comes to not only entrepreneurship and business ownership, but also, you know, parenting and marriage and making it all work together. So without further ado, Brittany, welcome to the show.
BR (04:35):
Thank you for having me. And your little man was so cute. He was just sitting there chopping away at the adult table. And when I bought him the knife, I’m like, I, I, she’s either gonna think it’s super sweet or I’m a crazy, crazy human being because I bought him a Japanese chef knife. And I, it was, it was fun to, I like to buy little kids their first chopping knife. And so that meant a lot that you appreciated it and made sure we threw in the apron. But he’s the next generation of, of carnivores eating at Ruby, so we gotta get him young
AJV (05:09):
And he uses the knife all the time, regardless of, it’s like he’s chopping up a string cheese.
BR (05:16):
Yes.
AJV (05:16):
Or, you know, it’s just, he loved it. And I think that’s too, it’s how you help people fall in love with brands at an early age, is you create these memorable connections. And so that’s what I want you to kind of start with is just talk about being in this family business. ’cause You grew up in this business, now you’re leading this business, and I think it would be really great for you just to talk about what, what have you learned leadership wise from stepping into a family business and also the process of making it your own as you’ve stepped into this role of CEO
BR (05:49):
Ooh family businesses are, they, they can be a blessing and a curse. Luckily for us, it’s a blessing. And I think just staying on the family business side. And then I wanna talk a little bit about the restaurants and like, what that is because and, and honestly, most family businesses, or most restaurants end up, they are family businesses. And it’s a, it could be a very tough industry, let alone throwing the dynamics of, you know, those types of relationships. And we learned really quick that we have to develop some sort of communication and agreement on how our family wants to treat each other. So we, I think first and foremost, the, the foundation is through our social covenant. That’s through our leadership training. That’s through transformational leadership. And coming to an agreement on how we would like to communicate with each other.
BR (06:38):
What do we do if there’s conflict? What do we do? You know, how do we approach that? We go one-on-one first. If that doesn’t work, we go two on one. We try not to go around. And unless you’re part of the solution we don’t, we try not to gossip in our family and teaching our kids that as well and how to handle things very, very directly and typically within 48 hours. So we go through an apology process. There’s a six step apology process when you screw up. And the last piece of it is after you ask for accountability and, and forgiveness. The last piece is, is there anything else that I need to apologize for? And when you first kick this thing off and you start living and doing this social covenant kind of lifestyle, you, there’s things that come up that were five years ago, 10 years ago.
BR (07:25):
And, and sometimes we have to revisit it and say, Hey, I thought that we already squashed this thing. Essentially, you wanna get to a point where you always know where you stand and you can have clear communication. You’re not gonna have hurt feelings. You know, I, I think about situations, you know, that I’ve had with my dad. I know when I walked through that first six step apology with him he tweeted something to his 90,000 Twitter followers, political. And this was years ago. And, and I’m like, why are you doing this to me? Like, please, I gotta sell sakes to the left and the right. Okay. And, but the way that I told him not to do that was disrespectful. My mentor said, you need to go apologize to your, to your father. I’m like, look at what he did to me.
BR (08:09):
Like this is, now I gotta clean up this mess. Right? And once I apologized for one, he was my boss at the time being disrespectful. I’m very sorry, will you hold me accountable? And if and when you’re ready, can you forgive me? And then when you say, is there anything else going on that maybe I need to apologize for you, clear the air. Luckily that day he was very kind. There was nothing else that was festering up inside of him. But that was the first day he said that he knew I was ready for leadership. And, and so there’s a culture within our family. And then we rolled this thing out company-wide. So I, we started that with our home office, which is, we’re up to about 60 employees now and and then leadership within the restaurants. And so they’ve all, you know, gone through our transformational leadership process and all the Ruby iss and everything like that. So I think on the business side and the family business side, we all, there’s a mutual respect. There’s a way that, you know, we wanna handle our relationships and treat our relationships. And then comes
AJV (09:10):
From like, I feel like that’s pretty rare in any company, much less a family business. Where did that come from?
BR (09:21):
This, this guru who I call Ford Taylor. He’ll like that.
AJV (10:14):
I love that. And so I think, I think two things in here that I think is really amazing is, one, the fact that you guys have a social covenant. Mm-Hmm. And so does that trickle down to all of like your restaurants and everyone else too?
BR (10:30):
Yes, it’s a consistent document. And so, you know, we wanna go in humility. We wanna walk in pre forgiveness, we wanna walk in grace, we wanna have love for, you know, our employees and treat them with respect. And we don’t want to gossip. It’s like, it’s this big list of things and it’s pretty universal across the board. So yeah, we did that at our home office and the GMs have all seen it. Next year’s goal is for really to get ingrained into all the restaurant folks boots on the ground. And but that it takes time. You know, we were building, it takes about 18 months ’cause what we’re trying to do right now is a proprietary tl, which includes all the Ruby iss, the transformational leadership and Enneagram. So
AJV (11:20):
So one of the things here, you kind of mentioned this, like mentors, clearly this person for Taylor’s been in your life for 10 years. That’s amazing. What, what else would you say? Because I think a lot of people are listening are like, I’m sorry, you have an apology standard in your family and in your business. I, I would say that’s, I have personally never heard that before. I hear lots of leadership training, but even processes for apologies and standards and families and in, and in businesses. I’m gonna definitely take this from this interview and be like, putting it in place right now. But I think more than that, it’s like, I love that you said you got that from your mentor, and I think that’s, that’s so important for everyone to realize. It’s like, you don’t have to come up with these ideas. It’s like, we need to learn from those who’ve gone before us. So what would you say when it comes to books, mentors or experiences, what would you say for anyone who’s listening, if that resonates with them, of going like, how do I just be a better person? How do I love people better to create better family culture, business culture? What else would you say has been impactful for you?
BR (12:25):
Well, I think for me, I mean, that was the process. I, Caleb met Ford because he went to a training for two days. And Ford does them all over the world. And so he opted into this training. The good news is he also wrote a book, it’s called Al Leadership. It’s an excellent book. It includes that process, it includes what a social covenant is. It talks about everything that we do. Leadership is in that book. Hmm. And, and so, you know, that, that was key. And I think on the mentor side, I realized, you know, I grew up the Ruby way and everything that I knew and you know, was taught was through Jeff Ruby. So I get brand, I get quality, I understand five stars is what we strive for in the restaurants. Fine dining over the top, changing the game, you know, servant’s Heart, all of our core values, you know in, in our, we call it our VP Mosa, our vision purpose, mission objective strategies and action steps.
BR (13:25):
That’s in the book too. So you map this whole thing out for your organization, which is all culture. But what I also needed was a business mentor. A leadership mentor. And so I, I got that with Russell Mankas. He, he was he worked for my father back in 1986. He opened one of our restaurants and then he graduated onto Hilton and started open Hi opening Hilton’s worldwide. And so my dad always tried to recruit him back, and he’s always like, Jeff, I make way too much money for you, my friend Hilton pays better than your little restaurant group. And so, you know, but they stayed in touch. When he retired, he called my father and said, I wanna go out making a difference. And so I’m going to retire from Hilton. I’m gonna move back from New York to Cincinnati for two years, and I wanna mentor Brittany, and I’ll also be your managing director.
BR (14:20):
And so when I went to, to our, from, I was in operations for 15 years, I would say. Then Russell came to me and we convinced him to stay for three years. And then one day he was just like, all right, peace out. Here’s the keys. You’re good. Truly, the next day he left. And I had no idea. I mean, he was just like, today’s the day. And, and so I worked, you know, it was hustle. I worked my day job at the corporate office. And that was, you know, in operations and marketing and some of the guest relations and the things that I was doing for our organization. But then he handed me a binder the size of Texas and said, I need you to read every single operating agreement, every single lease. So at that point, we had had, we had, I think five, five restaurants or so.
BR (15:00):
I mean, they’re huge. And each lease is 150 pages probably. And, and then once you do that, you’re gonna help me negotiate Nashville. And that was the business IQ that I needed. And I didn’t write. He goes, you know, one day you’re gonna be signing these leases. This is not, you’re gonna be your father’s, which is where we are now. My brothers and I own the business and we’ve transitioned G one to G two successfully. And if I’m guaranteeing a note or if I’m signing, you know, for the next, some, some of these leases are like 15, 20 years long. And and then maybe my daughters will be in the same situation, or my son or my nieces and my nephews. That’s really our goal is to be able to give G three the same opportunity that we had. So I wouldn’t have been able to do any of that without Russell.
BR (15:45):
The other thing that I did was built a board, a board of advisors. That’s been very helpful. Helpful. And so there’s a book, actually the five steps to a successful board. You know, they, they have been there through covid. They’ve been there through, you know, we had a family emergency recently. And thank God everything’s okay. But, but I had to step away from the business and my family. We stepped away from the business and the board was there as a sounding board for our executive team. And so my board of advisors, you know, we’ve got a strategist, Harvard, MBA, former p and g engineer, Darcy Bean, she built our strategy and came on board, pun intended. And, you know, we’ve got a data guy from Xavier University, we’ve got a former retired CFO for Kroger on there. And Ford’s on the board as well. And then David Cassidy with our accountant. And so, you know, it’s all different departments that really, and then I have small committees that I meet with and, and they’re amazing. And I think it’s good accountability for me as well. So I got my board of advisors. I got my restaurant and hotel mentor of my father, the Jeffrey B. Wade, and then Ford. And my cup is pretty full with experts around me to hold me accountable when I need to get, you know, whipped back into shape basically.
AJV (17:00):
You know, it’s so interesting ’cause I was on a phone call this morning with a girlfriend. We do like a monthly accountability call, right? Two female business entrepreneurs. And one of the things that we were talking about this morning is, man, like, who do I go to for this, this, and this for my leadership team? Like, how do I not be, you know, the one size fits all for everything for my leadership team? And we were just having this conversation about coaches and mentors and masterminds and books, and we were doing like a cross sharing of all the things that we were doing or have done. And I love hearing you say this because anyone who is listening, I just wanna encourage you that if it’s going slow because you’re trying to do it all on your own, it’s because you’re not supposed to do it alone.
AJV (17:48):
Hmm. Right? And that’s what I just heard from you. It’s like, nowhere in life are we supposed to do this alone. Right? I just, I was, over the weekend, I was having the same conversation about raising kids. Like, we’re not meant to do this alone. Right? It’s like we need grandparents, aunts, uncles, nannies, friends, what, however it is. But it’s like nowhere in the history of humanity have people been succeeding alone. But yet so many of us are trying to figure it out in our little dark offices in our basements, or we’re, we’re trying to do it alone. And what I love what you just said is like, no, like you have an entire community of business experts, mentors, coaches, family, other leaders that are alongside you said, my cup is full with other people. And I don’t think a lot of people say that today.
BR (18:41):
You know, it’s, I was just talking to my best friend about this, where, you know I think before I had kids, I assumed I was just gonna be their everything. Like what a narcissistic thought that would be. Like, my poor kids, like I’m your only
BR (19:19):
And, and they’re like, yeah, can we please let her handle this for us?
BR (20:14):
There’s nothing else that all we needed to do right then was surround ourselves our, our, the, the Brandon’s family and his wife and his kids, and, you know, so we all had different roles. Brandon was in the hospital. My dad was really involved in the hospital. I had the kid role, you know, keeping, making sure all these kids are happy and, and their babysitters are coordinated and meals are coordinated. And, and then and then when he luckily started to we realized that he was gonna be okay ’cause it got really, it, it, we almost lost him. I just remember in that at that point, I made a call to our CFO and our COO and said, I need you to just run the business, step in call me if you need me. You know, but my Dylan handles talent and acquisition and, and he, you know, he’s a vice president.
BR (21:05):
He stepped away. My dad had to step away and I step away as CEO. And guess what happens when four active owners step away from the business? You have a record breaking month in August
BR (21:54):
Like, I wanna be there to cast the vision. I wanna be there for all the little million details and whatnot. And I had to give all of that up. And so I’m going back to work in January. I’m taking sabbatical like the rest of the year. And the other piece was, you know, the podcast, the networking. I, I’m, I’m going to dinners. I’m, I’m, and I do dinners at our restaurant so that I can till kill two birds of one stone and look at the quality and then also talk to the staff and, you know, do that whole thing. And it, and then, by the way, I do have kids and they’re pretty busy. They’re all in sports
BR (22:36):
I’m like, no, no, no. Something drastically had to change. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (23:38):
Yeah. So I’m gonna hire you, pay you, and yet do your job for you. Yeah. But
BR (23:43):
There’s a,
AJV (23:44):
So many of us do that
BR (23:46):
And, and I preach it te it’s teach, train, equip, empower, let go. So what I realized through this process is I got to the empower part, you’re empowered, but I just wouldn’t let go. Yeah. Like, I’m still gonna do the high level business stuff. I’m still in my board meetings. I still look at cashflow, I still look at the financials. I still look at, I have a CEO scorecard. That has been great. We did tee that thing up so I know how the company’s performing, you know, guest satisfaction and, and down to food costs and beverage costs and all of that. And if something’s wrong, then I go to those two people
AJV (24:19):
Would you say that this mindset shift really happened when your brother went into the hospital?
BR (24:28):
Yeah. That, that was a silver lining. He called me when he was able to talk. About four weeks later, he call, he FaceTimed me from, and I was at the Reds game because at this point now we’re like, okay, the crisis is over. We still fly out there. My brother Dylan and I were out there every single week and giving Christie a break. And we don’t want him to be alone out there. And so but when I flew back, I took the kids to a Reds game and he FaceTimed me with this huge smile. Brandon smile was like, I am, well, he said, I’m so happy you quit your job. And I said, Brandon, I, it’s on pause, but
BR (25:10):
And that meant everything to him. The beauty, I always, I say now, Brandon’s even a better version of Brandon now. And what I learned through, and he was already amazing. What I learned at the Craig, where he is, you know, they, they, they kept him for the maximum amount. They wanna keep him for a pretty long time. And we’re like, okay. But he is walking again. You know, he’s talking, he’s, and they said that more often than not, and it doesn’t matter if these people come out fully recovered or, you know, maybe they’re in a wheelchair. It’s really, even with them being in a wheelchair, they’re coming out better versions of themselves because of what the time that they’re allowed to themselves that they allot this time to the mental game as well. And making sure, you know, you, you have a totally different perspective on life when something like that happens. I know for you with, you had a crazy situation with your brother growing up, and it, it’s, I can’t, I mean, that, that blows my mind. It’s just, this is something I, well, I think for you, it changed your life forever. This has changed my life forever for the good. Yeah.
AJV (26:16):
You know, it is so interesting that I, again, perhaps this interview was really just for me today. I don’t know if it was for everybody else, but we’ve been having a lot of these, why does it have to take a crisis to get our attention conversations in our house? And over the summer, this past summer, we had two really close friends die unexpectedly. And it was, it’s been, man, it’s been a really deep time of going, why
BR (27:31):
No, I mean, I think I wanna know the answer to that too, because I’m saying the same thing. I am speaking at an event in October to 800 women, and it was supposed to be my testimony and the I am second in the book and all of that. And so I was writing it from a perspective of how I’ve healed from being at the Meyer clinic in 2008, a Christian psychiatric place, and how I healed from all the things, you know? And so it was this kind of past tense, been there, done that perspective of being in just the darkest place of my life. And I remember saying to Caleb as I’m writing this, and it’s a, it’s a lot about perfectionism. And I, I was asked to speak at a church recently on perfection, going like, I don’t even remember what it feels like, you know, which is amazing thing, right?
BR (28:24):
So I felt almost like a fraud. I’m, I’m building this speech, I’m writing this speech, trying to relate to people, but I really can’t relate because it’s, it’s, it’s like, it’s happened and I’m healed. And that’s the beauty of God, the cycle of life, right? And the healing process and whack like out of nowhere, there we are in our crisis. And now I’m like, wow, okay, now I know exactly what to speak about and I can reference the things that have happened, but what I’m feeling right now, and in the suffering, there’s so much beauty and, and you can’t live in a life without any suffering. Right? But I agree with you. It’s scary. I’m going, like I said, the same exact thing, please, God, do not let, I just don’t wanna deal with this. I can’t deal with any right now. Like, we just had enough with the Ruby family, right?
BR (29:09):
Like, can we, can we heal a little bit more? But by the way, that was really awesome to get to a good place of silver lining of, you know, stepping back and, and being intentional. And it really relates back to Covid. You look at the shutdown and it’s like, so much beauty came outta that. So how do you take the Covid shutdown or your life experiences and you, you get into that place and you have some sort of intentionality, some sort of reminder without going through it. How do you do that? I don’t know. I, I don’t know if it’s some sort of question you ask yourself before you go to bed at night and then you wake up. Is there some routine you can get into to stop? I mean, is there, are there habits, you know, spiritually that you can do to, to wrestle that out? I don’t know. I if you find your
AJV (29:53):
Next book, we all need to know
BR (30:40):
I always felt a calling. At some point I took religious studies in college. I just felt you know, and I, I didn’t, I knew I was going into the restaurant business but I always thought maybe one day I’ll write a book. Well, I didn’t know it would be about healing from, you know, infidelity and and from multiple miscarriages and losing those babies and, and what we had been through when I remember when Caleb, we went through this process with our marriage, fighting for our marriage, and Caleb confessed and he had to go get help first. My mentor called her. My spiritual mom said, if you can get through this with Caleb, you will have the most rock solid marriage that you can ever imagine. And that was so foreign to me. Hmm. Like, there is no chance, like, I don’t even know if I’m gonna stay with this guy, by the way.
BR (31:33):
And, and so we went through two years of healing from what had happened, and then also healing from the, the pregnancy losses. And you get to a point where then I was able to do that same speech that Kathy gave me, my spiritual mom to other women. I started to say like, Hey, and, and it was so like, taboo. Like, oh my gosh, Caleb did that too. You, I’m like, yeah, you know, and I remember Ford told me, ’cause he talks about his marriage and confession as well, and he really walked Caleb through those, those times in his life. And Caleb, I said to Ford, by the way, I will never do what you do Ford. He laughs at still to this day. I will never be up on a stage talking like, that is not gonna be my story. That is something very private.
BR (32:23):
But you get to this point where you’re just so healed. My life is so much better. I’m married to my best friend. I’m married, he’s a, he’s a life coach to me. It’s my, you know, and, and so I just, I felt super, super called to do it. And I wrote it for in three months during Covid, actually on Mondays. I would write a chapter on Monday and and then handed it off to Caleb and he would co-write and edit it. So it was a cathartic process. And we were, we just, I don’t know, it’s just, it felt right.
AJV (32:53):
Yeah. You know, I love that. ’cause You know, a big part of our life and our business is books. That’s a huge thing that, you know, we believe in. And what I tell people all the time, it was so interesting to hear you say this. I’m like, I, people say, should I write a book? And I’m like, I cannot answer that question for you. I just know that, you know, it’s time to write a book if you feel called to it. Like, if you can’t not talk about it. Right? And you know, the whole idea of like, you know, people write books as business cards and I’m like, nobody reads those, right? And so
BR (33:45):
It’s a lot of work. And no matter how confident and, and how sure you are that you’re supposed to write a book. And I’ve talked to other women who’ve written kind of the same type of testimonial books, you still have a vulnerability hangover when it’s out
AJV (35:07):
Yeah. Well, just a reminder to everyone,
BR (36:09):
There’s so many, so many books out there that, that have totally changed my life. If they weren’t there, I, there’s, I’m, I remember at the Meyer Clinic, Audrey, my counselor said, you need to go home and read the book boundaries. Like, that’s their curriculum, you know, and this is a three week process. I’m like, I’m here for you to teach me. It’s like, no, no, no, go home and this is your homework. You have to read this. And that’s why when people, we onboard people, you know, there’s a list of five books you have to read in order to be a Ruby manager. And
AJV (36:37):
What are those five books?
BR (36:39):
So you got, I, you’ve got Good To Great, which is one of the best five dysfunctions of a team, I think is amazing. And I’m going to throw re Unreasonable Hospitality. And right now it’s a Danny Meyer setting the table. But our, our mutual acquaintance I think that would be good. And so, you know, and then one is the, not Counting Tomorrow my dad’s book. And I would hope if you work for me, you re wanna read my book as well. So it’s, it’s it’s a, but there’s so many, so many good ones out here. I would say in on the personal side, you know, I think boundaries is probably the number one thing for perfectionism, anxiety, how to deal, you know, with people with personality disorders, which I have in my family. Not my immediate family, but people I have to deal with. And reading that book’s going like, oh yeah, I’m an enabler. I’m codependent. That’s what that means. And oh, I actually need better boundaries for myself as a perfect, when I went to the Meyer Clinic, I was diagnosed with perfectionism, not anything else. That was it. Perfectionism. So I’m in recovery for perfectionism. And that book was, is something I went back and read it a couple weeks ago. I read it so long ago and I’m highlighting again everything. And I’m like, gosh, one day I am gonna get it. Just
AJV (37:53):
BR (38:20):
I speak the same like language. We just went to Chick-fil-A a couple of weeks ago. I took our a, a group of folks down there and with their home office and we spent two days learning the Chick-fil-A way. And that was our number one takeaway was how many books, I mean, they’re all culture. And the way that those leaders and the owners, franchise owners of each Chick-fil-A train, you would think they have multiple, multiple, multiple pro processes, procedures, SOPs, they have none.
AJV (38:51):
Love that
BR (38:53):
Truet did things, how the Kathy family operates, what’s near and dear to them. And then they’re empowered and let go to go run your business according to the ways that the Kathy family did it. And so we came back and said, man, we gotta get everything, Jeff, Ruby, everything that’s up in here, one book’s not enough. We need all his tips, his Ruby iss, we need the coffee table books. We need the 10 Commandments of service. Like all of those things are individual little books that if you go to Chick-fil-A you can see in their bookstore, it’s not just merch. I mean, it is basically their training models for their entire company that they give to all their employees.
AJV (39:28):
That’s so good. ’cause You can get so inundated and overwhelmed with SOPs and training docs and it’s like, let’s bring it up. Not here people, let’s just all speak the same language so that we all know what we’re working with. I love that. I think that’s amazing. And I think, you know, one of the things too, it’s like, you know, on the topic of, you know, this is a, a podcast about personal branding, but personal brands aren’t just for marketing and, you know, attracting clients. It’s also does your team, your employees, do they know what you believe? Right? Mm-Hmm. That is also a part of building a significant and influential personal brand. It’s just allowing people into the inner workings of this is what I think believe. And so one of the questions I wanted to ask you, ’cause this comes up to me a lot, and not everyone listening shares my faith.
AJV (40:16):
Not everyone in our company shares my faith. And so I just wanna, before I go into this conversation, I wanna preface all the welcome here. And you do not have to believe what I believe for us to mutually coexist. So just wanna preface that. But if you follow me on social media, you know, I talk about God and Jesus a whole bunch. And that wasn’t always that way. For the majority of my career. I did not talk about that publicly for a lot of various reasons. But I felt like in 2021, I was a deep, dark depression. I had a, I-I-I-I-I was in a deep dark depression for pretty much the most part of that year. And when I started to come out of it people kept asking, like towards the end of 2022 and into 2023, they said, man, like, you’re different.
AJV (41:02):
What, what have you been doing? And I felt like I heard the Lord say, tell ’em tell me, tell ’em the truth. Tell ’em what you’ve been doing. Don’t, don’t talk about the books you’ve been reading or don’t talk about the Bible studies. You join up. Tell them what you’ve been doing. And what I was doing was I was reading the word of God, and I hadn’t read it consistently in a long time. In fact, 2021 was the first time in my entire life I read every single word of the Bible, and then I did it again, and now I’m doing it again. And I felt like God was saying like, no, tell ’em what you are doing. And I said, y’all, I’m opening up the word of God and I’m reading every word and I’m letting the Holy Spirit into my life. And people are like, what?
AJV (41:46):
What? And I’m like, yes. I did not get a therapist. I did not go to counseling. I am reading the word of God. Right? Nothing wrong with those other things. And I started being vocal about it. And now I get asked all the time, like, aren’t you afraid if you talk about this, you’re gonna turn people off? Or do you, do you talk about this just here? Or how do you talk about it in your company? How do you talk about it with your clients? And I know you talk about this, it’s in your books, it’s in your social media. You’ve mentioned it briefly today. And I would love to hear from you because there’s a lot of people asking the question, like, in a pretty polarizing environment, how do you talk about it? And so I’d love to hear from you, like, why do you talk about it? And then how do you talk about it?
BR (42:33):
You know, that’s the same question I asked Dan Kathy face to, I said, you all have, they’ve been through the ringer in the past. And you know what, he owned the past and said, we didn’t always handle things the right way. What we do, and this is all that matters, is people will know who we are by our love for all, for everybody. And, and so they don’t feel the need to shove their certain agendas down people’s throats. They really are saying now everybody knows we’re believers. Everybody knows that, you know, we’re a company of faith. And first and foremost, you love people, love God, love people, and that’s it. And I didn’t go to seminary when I was baptized in 2001 because I wanted to appreciate all world religions. And that for me was, I took a ton of Buddhism class in college. I took Judaic studies Hindu, Wiccan, I had a Wiccan class.
BR (43:37):
And because I wanted to appreciate all faiths and all people and what you just said, you know, so I switched my major from business to religious studies. And that I think gave me such an appreciation for all the faiths that are out there. But it’s, my faith isn’t for everybody. And, but I think if you work for me, people know when we talk about it, ’cause we are, you know, especially, I mean, we’re doing prayer services with my employees for Brandon. You know, we were worshiping together. And I hope our team knows that this isn’t something. And I talk about it a lot, like there’s an appreciation for all of it out there. But, but you also choose to work for a family of faith. And so this is what goes along with the territory and from a public standpoint. So it’s basically, you know, there’s two different versions that I can tell my story.
BR (44:35):
The Plain glass or the stained glass versions. I have a speech for both
BR (45:29):
This is what God has called me to do. What has he called you to do? You know, what is it? 90% of all people out there believe in something
BR (46:19):
It’s, you just held me accountable too because when I was going through my dark depression, what did I do? I, that’s the same thing. I actually opened the Bible and I got in there and I did a chapter a day. And then I would underline it, then I would highlight it, then I would note, do the notes. And I have never felt more peace in my life than when I was doing that. And now I feel like it’s, you know, I’ll open it during church and fill out the verses and here and there, but when you actually study that, there is, it’s, it’s, it’s almost like your anxiety’s immediately gone. It’s, and there’s a peace. And I’m like, why? It’s the same thing. Like, life’s too short. Why don’t we, why do we have, why does it take a crisis? You know what, why does it take whatever to get back in the word and to feel that overwhelming peace that you can’t explain and that it can come from nothing else other than God and from the word of God.
AJV (47:10):
Amen. You know, it’s so interesting because we were just talking about literally like this. I feel like you’ve been like had microphones in my house the last few days because this is like so many other things we’ve been talking about. And one of the things we were talking about is how it’s like we, we, I hear so many people today go, things are so crazy. Like, has there ever been a time in history where things are so out of whack? And I’m like, have you ever read the Old Testament
BR (47:39):
AJV (47:40):
And I just tell you some stories, the Old Testament, it’s like, it has always been this crazy it just looks different. And it’s like every
BR (47:47):
Election’s the most important election ever,
AJV (47:49):
You know? And it’s like everything is like, you know, it doesn’t matter if it’s the pandemic or the economy or gender issues or whatever people are talking about. I’m like, listen, y’all, none of this is new. None of it, right? All of it is documented from thousands of years ago. And I think one of the things that gives you overwhelming unexplainable peace through reading the Bibles knowing this is not unique
BR (48:17):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (48:18):
It’s been done before. It’s been said before. It’s been seen before. Nothing that we are experiencing today is for the first time.
BR (48:26):
Well, at the Meyer Clinic, you know, when they talk about depression and anxiety, what the homework is is go home and study David, go home and read Psalms and see when the pit of depression and darkness and how he cried out and cried out for so, so long. And so their training and, and it’s still a medical place, there’s still medicine involved and you’re doing blood work and all of it, but you’re doing nine to five every hour on the hour. You have a different class. And one of ’em is going and really seeing how prevalent depression and real feelings are in all these emotions in the Bible. And and then seeing how he came out of it and got through it.
AJV (49:05):
Yeah, I know. And it’s again you know, it’s like I wanted to ask is I know that you’re vocal with it and with such a large org organization and, you know, such a a public figure, I think it’s really important for those who are going, like, how, how do I weave that in? How do I know how to do it? And a lot of it is just being honest. It’s like we don’t all have to believe the same thing, but this is what I believe and I think it’s really convicting for everyone just to step into. It’s like we can all coexist and accept each other’s differences. We don’t have to agree with them to be around them. And so, all right, this is my last question. I’m watching the clock. I’m very I’m cognizant of our time, but my last question is, if there was one piece of advice that you could give to someone listening of how to build better culture in their organization, does it matter if they have a team of one or 1000? What would be your number one piece of advice to build better culture?
BR (50:02):
You have to define what your VP Mosa is. You have to articulate it on paper. So you’ve gotta go through a process to write down what is near and dear to you. So our core values are true to self change the game hustle, right? X be exceptional. And Servant’s Heart, those are the core values that, you know, we real, that embody Jeff Ruby. You gotta write your vision, mission, and purpose for what, if it’s your company or if it’s your family. We really have three different VPMs. I have my own personal, we have our family, and then I have our business one. And until you’re able to articulate it on paper, I think, you know, obviously be a good person and, you know, you wanna live a good life and, and show people that you’re a quality. That’s the number one recruiting tool is being a good, a good leader. A good human being is what people wanna work for. But with turnover and the labor crisis and everything, you’re not gonna keep people once they finally understand, you know, you just have to be able to articulate it. People leave ’cause they’re not well trained or they don’t understand the vision. And so I think you have to be able to go through a process to articulate what your, what your vision, mission, and purpose is.
AJV (51:10):
Yeah. It’s really finding alignment with the people within the organization. And if you can all do that, then you’re all gonna be on the same page. And it’s kinda like the whole thing. Somebody once told me, it’s like not everyone is gonna be for your organization for, they might be for it for some time, right? But it’s not everyone is for you forever. And that, but that doesn’t mean that as some exit, you know, better comes in and it’s being okay with the release. And I think all the huge part is that it’s like as you change and the company changes, the people change, right? They come and they go. Brittany, thank you so much for spending some time in the midst of so much that you have going on. This has been so helpful in so many different ways and I would just encourage everyone who’s listening, if you’re not familiar with the Jeff Ruby organization check them out, jeff ruby.com.
AJV (51:59):
Definitely get a steak at one of the restaurants. It’s world class, none other. But also I’m gonna put Brittany’s Instagram profile in the show notes because she’s got all kinds of cool stuff coming up with her Five Star brand, five star Life. I also put the link to pick up five Star Life book because I think it’s awesome for anyone who is going, like, how do I just have general improvements in all the areas of my life? Brittany, is there anything else that you feel like they should know or, or where should people go to connect with you? I
BR (52:34):
Don’t think so. You nailed it.
AJV (52:53):
Well, thank you so much. This has been so awesome. And for everyone who’s listening, stay tuned for the recap episode, which will be coming up next. We’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.