Ep 331: How to be Comfortable Selling High Dollar Offers with Ian Koniak | Recap Episode
RV (00:02):
Love, love, love hearing the true success stories of our clients who, you know, get to the point to where they’ve reached such a level of expertise that we can have on our podcast to share with you. And that’s what this Ian Cognac interview was all about. I mean, I, if you haven’t heard it, I mean, it’s so inspiring. He, he joined Brand Builders Group three years ago, y’all, three years ago, and three years later he’s doing almost, he’s gonna do about one and a half million dollars in revenue his first full year in business. So the first two years he was with us, he had a, he had a job, he had a day job, He was doing the stuff. We were teaching him on the side, he was building up. And then, man, and, and then, you know, he, he, it was time to leave.
RV (00:49):
He left, he executed, he’s followed the playbook and almost one and a half million dollars in revenue. He’s at 1.2 million right now, 10 months into his first year full year. And he’s gonna do about a million and a half dollars, is what he told me. That is inspiring. And that could be you that could be you. Like, and can we guarantee it? No, we can’t guarantee it. Like, we can’t guarantee those results for everybody. But I guarantee you that everything that we teach and talk about works, it always works. Eventually it works. The question is just when and how fast and on what magnitude and what scale. I was telling our internal team this morning you know, we just, we just had our client, another client of ours, Eric Thomas, et the hip hop preacher, just, we, we ran his whole book launch with him and his team and start to finish, manage the entire thing.
RV (01:41):
We hit the New York Times Best Sellers list. And I was telling our team that the playbook we run for Eric Thomas is the same playbook that we run for someone who is a first time self published author with zero followers. It’s the same playbook. It always works. The only difference is the magnitude of the results. And so this stuff works. And anyways, just so invigorating to see one of our clients like Ian succeeding. But I mean, we have a, we need to start like a little seven figure club at Brand Builders Group because you know, Lisa Woodruff and Candy Valenti and Anton Gun, like, we have a, we have a large group of clients that have gone to seven figures, like within a couple years of working with us, which is really, really awesome. So anyways, the conversation was around sales and specifically I titled that episode, How to Be Comfortable Selling High Dollar Offers because that’s what Ian has done.
RV (02:37):
If, again, if you haven’t listened to the interview we’ve known him for years. He sold for RICO business products, and then he was the number one salesperson worldwide at Salesforce selling million dollar deals. And he made over seven figures a year in income there. So and then he became a brand builders group client, and is now, you know, doing his personal brand doing sales coaching, specifically B2B sales coaching. So if you’re someone who sells business to business, like you sell to other companies, Ian is one of the people that we, we recommend. So if you go to brand builders group.com/ian cognac, that’s K O N I K you can, excuse me, you can check that out and learn about what he’s up to. It’s just, he’s literally like the, one of the best in the world, and that’s what he’s, that’s what he’s teaching people to do.
RV (03:28):
So I love that. Now I’m gonna share with you three of my takeaways things that I was reminded of. Obviously, sales is something we spend a lot of our time doing. We don’t focus, Brand builders group doesn’t focus so much on teaching B2B sales. We don’t focus so much on selling to companies. We do teach people how to book keynotes. Sell keynotes is something we do really, really well. But outside of selling keynotes, most of our curriculum is around selling business to consumer and directly to an end person to get them to buy. But in our former life, you know, with the way that AJ and I met was, we started a company that was sales coaching and sales col co consulting. And we exclusively sold sales training to companies. And that was an eight figure business that we sold in 2018.
RV (04:12):
And so we, we know a lot about sales, but these days most of what we teach is selling B to C business to consumer. And so I’m gonna, I’m gonna share with you three of my highlights, three of my re reminders that I got from Ian, and, you know, just kind of like triggered things that I wanna share with you specifically for selling high dollar offers, B to c business to consumer. Because, you know, we, we talked about a lot of things in that interview, b2b, b2c, enterprise sales, It all applies. But here in this recap, I’m gonna talk about three things that really are going to help you sell high dollar offers and feel comfortable selling high dollar offers, offers. And by being comfortable, I mean, not feeling slimy, not feeling sleazy and, and just being confident. And yeah. So these are really, really important.
RV (05:06):
All right, so number one, and this was a, this was a, a, I’m gonna use the words that Ian said here, I thought were eloquent, is he said, Make your number one intention helping your client achieve a goal rather than pitching your product. Like you wanna make your number one intention helping a client achieve a goal rather than pitching your product. And this, I I, I couldn’t agree more. Like, it’s almost like if you’re in a conversation with somebody and you’re focused on the sale, you’re gonna miss, you’re gonna, you’re gonna lose the relationship. You have to look past the sale. And almost like even when I’m talking to a prospect, like if I’m in an active sales conversation with somebody sales to me is not about talking somebody into something they don’t want. And it’s not about talking someone into, to something they
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Don’t need. Sales isn’t really talking people into anything. Sales is about understanding what is their current situation and does the thing I have help them accomplish the end result. So when I’m in an active conversation with a sales prospect, I’m like looking past the sale, meaning it’s almost like I’m, I’m, I’m listening to what they want to achieve in their life. And I’m saying, Okay, let’s pretend they actually bought. Let’s assume that they bought, if they were a customer of ours, right? Now, are we set up to help them achieve the thing they’re saying they want? That’s it. If we are, then the answer is, you gotta buy. Like, you need to sign up, like we’re, we’re gonna help you. If the answer is no, then it’s definitely not. And if the answer is unsure, I have to ask more questions. I have to listen until I get clear.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I can’t really help them get clear on whether or not we can help them until I’m a hundred percent clear. But it’s like, that’s why the more that we’ve gone on, the more specific our audience becomes, and the more we narrow in on what we are doing and we’re growing, we’re reaching more people by narrowing our focus. Like at brand builders, at our core, we help experts, right? We also help entrepreneurs and we can help executives. But our core business is, is like if you are an expert of any type, you’re a coach, consultant, speaker, author, a doctor, a lawyer, a chiropractor, you, you know, a financial advisor. Like if you are an expert person who wants to become more well known, meaning your business will grow, you will make more money, you will make more impact. You’ll, you’ll achieve your life mission by having more people know about you.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
If you’re an expert who wants to become more well known, and I say this as humbly as I can, you should give us your credit card and just sign up. Like, we are the best in the world at this. We are like, I, I just, we, we’ve we’re, we’ve done this so long in so well, in such a deep way that like, if you are an expert who’s trying to become more well known, you’re trying to reach more people, you’re trying to make more impact, like, we got you. Now, if you’re not that, then that’s where it’s like, yeah, we’re not set up, we’re not, you know, we’re not set up for you, right? Like, you, maybe we’re not the right fit. You know, it is a great example of this interview with Ian. If you are, if you’re an enterprise salesperson, if you’re a W two employee and you sell to other companies, brand builder’s group, we’re not your people.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Doesn’t mean you can’t learn stuff from us, You can, but I’d go, you should talk to Ian, like homeboy is the best in the world at this thing. Like all he did was sell companies like business to business products. So for you in your business, it’s about being super clear on what results can you help people experience? What goals can you help them accomplish? Somebody comes to us, they say, I wanna be a bestselling author. We go, Yep, give us your credit card. I wanna become, I wanna speak on more stages and bigger stages. Yep. Give us your credit card. I wanna get paid more money for speaking, coaching, consulting. Yep. Give us your money. I wanna generate more online leads for my, for my service based business. Yep. Give us your money. Like, I, I want to be, you know, I wanna grow my social media following, I wanna have a bigger podcast.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I I want to I wanna scale my expert business. I want, you know, more automation. Give us your money. Like this is what we do and we’re gonna dominate for you. We, you gotta be clear on the results that you can deliver for people. If you wanna get clear on what your uniqueness is and what separates you from everyone else, give us your money. Like, that’s our flagship thing. Like, we do that so well. So what is the result that you provide for your clients? Like, it’s, it’s almost not even thinking about what do you do? Like we all think about what do I like, what do we do? And people say, What do you do for a living? I want you to think about for a second, just go, What are the results that I am capable of providing to somebody? And the more that you live in that world, you think in that world you talk in that world, you create videos about that world, you write copy in that world.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And then specific here, the more you have conversations in that world, like from that perspective of going, Okay, the person is talking to me, here are the results that I’m capable of helping them to deliver, are these the results that are on their checklist? Are these the results they’re pursuing? If they are, then it’s like, give me your money. Sign up. You’re crazy. Like you’re looking for a path that I have walked down. Come with me, let me show you the way. But if they’re not, then go, I’m not, I haven’t been down that path. I don’t know how to do that. You know, and try to try to point ’em to somebody else who can, right? I, I don’t think I would, I would not be the best person in the world to coach someone to be the number one enterprise B2B salesperson. I would definitely refer that person to Ian.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I’d be like, You should talk to my friend Ian. Like he’s got this dialed in now. You wanna launch a book, You wanna become a bestselling author? There’s nobody in the world that I could say legitimately no one in the world that could do that better than us. There’s a, there’s only a couple other people who I would say they know what they’re talking about. But like, less than five. So, and, and I would say that in many ways we’re, we’re, we’re one at least one of the best in the world. Same thing, You wanna Ted talk, you wanna grow your speaking career, you wanna grow your coaching, your information products, like, gosh, we’re your people. So get clear on that. But if you’re, if you’re focused on making the sale, you’re overlooking, you’re not looking at results, you’re just trying to make money.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
And so it’s like you have to overlook the sale. But what I mean is look past the sale, assume that they were a client, Could you help them actually achieve what they’re asking? If yes, they should buy, if no, they should not. So I love when he said the, the, the intention of make it your number one intention to help your client achieve a goal rather than to pitch your product is so good, so good. The second thing I wanna talk to you about is called the Pressure Free promise. And this is a bit right out of our formal curriculum. So if you’re not yet a brand builders group client we have 14 topics in our, in our training program. Each of them is a different two day experience, but one of them is called Pressure Free Persuasion, which is our version of how we teach sales, the methodology that we call service centered selling.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
And, and we have coined this whole new way of selling you know, all these proprietary frameworks. And one of the, one of the techniques in that program is called the pressure free promise. And the pressure free promise is all about releasing pressure in any sales environment. Like whether it’s one to one, one to many high dollar offer, low dollar offer, it’s one of the most powerful things you can do. It’s like, it’s such a tactical thing. And what is it? The pressure free promise is just promising people that no matter what happens, you are not gonna pressure them. That’s what the pressure free promise is, is saying that, Look, if I’m gonna show you, I’m gonna learn about what you need, and I’m gonna tell you about what we do, and if there’s a match, I’m gonna facilitate the process of you buying because it’s gonna be the right thing for you.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
If what we have does not fit what you need, I’m gonna facilitate the process of you saying no, and that’s okay. I’m gonna, my job is to help you decide what is best for you. My job is not to sell you. My job is, is I’m a matchmaker. So it, the pressure free promise is a mentality. It’s also an actual, like, literal phrase. But the the mentality is my job is a matchmaker. If this is a yes, I’m gonna help you move forward. If this is a no, I’m gonna help you say no, but I’m gonna help you get clear that it’s gonna be one of those. But I promise you, either way, I’m not gonna pressure you. That’s the mindset. It, and, and, and we’re articulating, we’re saying out loud, we’re telling people. And so it sounds like, it sounds, you know, some variation of this.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
It doesn’t have to be verbatim, but it’s saying, you know what, You know, Lisa, what I wanna do today is I really wanna understand what you’re trying to accomplish, and then I’m gonna tell you a little bit about what we have. And if this is a good fit for you, then I’m gonna encourage you and I’m gonna show you how to sign up. If it is not though, I’m gonna encourage you not to sign up. Whether you buy or not is not my main concern. My main concern is figuring out if what we have is a good fit for you. And so, I promise either way, I’m very easy to say no to. I promise it’s okay if you don’t buy, I wanna let you know it’s okay to say no. That’s the pressure free promise. You’re, you’re, you’re promising them. We’re not gonna have pressure.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
We’re promising them. I’m not talking ’em into something. We’re, but, and we’re promising them clarity. Like what, what I’m really committed to in a sales conversation is clarity. It’s clarity about the match. I’m a matchmaker. If it’s a good match, I’m gonna tell you to buy it and I’m gonna help you do it. If it’s not, I’m gonna tell you no, I’m not afraid of a no. And this is the difference between a pressure, a service centered salesperson and a normal commissioned breast salesperson. I’m not afraid of a no, I don’t mind a no no is fine. I’m not trying for a, no, I don’t, It’s not that I want to, No, I want to, yes, but I’m not afraid of a no. I’m not resistant to a no. A yes is good. A yes is what I want. A no is fine. What I don’t want is maybe, maybe is unacceptable, maybe is not okay.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Allowing people to say maybe is a disservice, not just to you, It’s a disservice to them because if they say yes, they can powerfully move forward. If they say no, they can powerfully move forward. If they say, maybe we are both stuck, neither of us can move forward. We have allowed ourselves to be stuck in this indecisive limo. And that is where mediocrity breeds and thrives in the world of indecision, right? I’d rather make the wrong decision than live an indecision. I’d rather take the wrong action than live an inaction. I would rather make it a no than allow it to be a, maybe, maybe is disgusting, like maybe is despicable. I like, don’t hate the no, hate them. Maybe like I’m okay with them saying no. I’ll encourage ’em to say no. In fact, if they tell me, maybe I’m gonna make it a no cuz I don’t want maybe is not powerful, maybe is mediocre, maybe as marginal, maybe is stuck in a world of not making a difference.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
It’s maybe as stuck in a world of inaction, maybe as I’m not doing anything great with my life, but I haven’t yet freed myself from being stuck in the middle to actually go out and do something. So I’m fine with no, I’m not okay with maybe, So you don’t say all that to them.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
You give them permission to say yes. The moment you give them permission to say no is also the same moment that you give them permission to say yes. Because by allowing them the permission to tell you no, all their walls come down, all their, their relu, their sales resistance comes down, their, their buying reluctance comes down and all of their preconceived notions dissolve, and they can just have an open, honest conversation with you, which is what we both want, right? And so it’s, it’s about being service centered, not self centered. That’s what this is about. So that’s the pressure free promise. The third thing is turn your customer force into your sales force. This is the ultimate form of lead generation. The ultimate form of lead generation is turning your customer force into your sales force. How do you do that? It’s so simple.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Is it asking for referrals? Yes, we should ask for referrals, but it is by over delivering for your current customers. Like the best form of prospecting is helping your current customers succeed. The best form of prospecting new customers is loving on your current customers. When your new, your current customers succeed and thrive, then it makes referrals easy, which means the next sale is easy. But if your, your current customers aren’t succeeding or they’re not loving the program, or they’re not getting results, they’re not gonna tell anybody for you. But when they are, right? When you satisfy a customer, not just satisfy, but when you over satisfy, when you create a raving fan of your current customer, every customer becomes a salesperson. That typically happens much faster than recruiting and hiring and training a new salesperson. So turn your customer force into your sales force by overdelivering, loving on them, giving them more than they expect, giving them and, and, and just being consumed with the question, How can I help my clients succeed faster?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
That’s what we want you to be focused on. That’s what we want you thinking about. How can I help you succeed faster? Not how can I make more money off of you, not how can I get, you know, more referrals from you? Like, those are fine things, but make your number one focus. How can I help you succeed faster? How can I will help you win better? And the way that we came up with our whole affiliate program was, I didn’t wanna sell to my friends. Like, I have all these friends who are speakers and authors who are very successful and they need a lot of ’em, frankly, need what we do or can benefit from. They may don’t need it. They can benefit a lot from what we can do. We can help them a lot, but I didn’t wanna have to sell to them.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
So it was like, great, well, what if we came up with an affiliate program where we paid them money for everyone they introduced to us, and then they could use that money to buy from us? Like John Gordon the author of the Energy Bus just became a brand builders group client, full fee, full paying client of ours. And we’re working with him on some sales stuff, right? Him and his team on, on scaling their, their sales team and, and scaling some of their, their high dollar offers. Well, John’s been a friend. John’s a mentor of mine. I don’t like, you know, I was like, Ah, I don’t really love trying to sell to, you know, my friends and mentors, but he referred so much business to us that he had all this money. And I said, Hey, John, like, we’re, you know, we can pay you this money, or, you know, you can, you can, you can pay it back to us and we can offer you some services.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
And it was like done. And so everybody wins, right? So we came up with that by, by by, by being focused on how can we help others succeed? And that mindset, just by itself is what this is all about. That is what this personal brand journey is all about. How can I help others succeed? Not how can I get more followers, not how can I be more famous, not how can I make more money? How can I help others succeed? How can I help others get a result? How can I make a bigger impact in their life? That is what Brand Builders Group is all about. That’s part of our uniqueness. Like, like it or not, that’s who we are. And that’s what we are about. And, and if that is you, then you are what we call a mission driven messenger. And you should become one of our clients.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
We will rock your world
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Need, need more money, right? Like we, we need our clients to succeed. We need our clients to win. That is like the ultimate fulfillment and we get out of all business is seeing our clients win. So thanks for being here. Thanks for letting us be a part of hopefully helping you win in one way or another. Keep coming back, share this episode with somebody who wants to feel more comfortable selling High dollar offers. And we’ll see you next time on the Influential Personal Brand podcast.
Ep 330: How to be Comfortable Selling High Dollar Offers with Ian Koniak
RV (00:02):
I am so looking forward to this conversation with a friend of mine and AJ’s for years. His name is Ian Cognac, and he’s one of the best salespeople that we have ever come across. He, we actually, aj, AJ met him first before I did, and they became friends. He was a sales training client of ours and he at our former life, at our former company. And he had us doing some work with him, him, his team. He was one of the top sales people nationwide for a company called Rico, which was like selling copiers and, you know, sort of business office products and things like that. And then he left and went to Salesforce and so the, the big crm, Salesforce, and he was the number one enterprise account executive at Salesforce in the world. So he’s been a sales manager. He has been a top salesperson.
RV (00:56):
And then we started working with him again as a client here recently at Brand Builders Group a couple years ago. We want to hear a little bit about that story when Ian finally left sales and started his journey as an entrepreneur now in sales coaching, which is something that we don’t provide at Brand Builder’s group, like per se, as like cl classic sales coaching like we once did. And so anyways, I wanted to have Ian on for you to meet him and teach us some tips and tools for how we can sell more in our businesses. So, Ian, welcome to the show, Brother. It’s been a long time coming,
IK (01:32):
Rory, it’s so good to be here. And I just wanna say thank you for enrolling me in 2019. I, I joined Brand Builders in April. You were just starting out in, since then, It’s been over three years and I, I’ve quit my job. I’m a full-time solo entrepreneur and now I get the privilege of, you know, helping people learn to sell in a way that has high integrity and purpose and connected to what they want most. And it really is because of, you know, a big part of it is because of following the playbook of Brand Builders Group and the work we’ve done. I’ve been working with your, you, you and your, your partners for, for over three years now, and you’re doing great work. So it’s great to connect as a guest and a testim testimony to, to the work we’ve done together.
RV (02:15):
Man, that’s awesome. Like what Give, it was a sense of what, what is your business doing this year? Cuz it’s like, so when you first started working with us, you, you had a job, so you were making a bunch of money cuz you were top. We’re gonna talk about that in a second, but then like just on that note for a second, how has your business evolved and like, give us a sense of the scope of the business that you’re up to now, three years into it?
IK (02:37):
Yeah, so, so at first it was really about like, who do I wanna serve? What, what is my brand positioning statement? Who are, who are my icp? What, what am I gonna do? And it was really about creating that audience. So I, I spent the better part of 2019, 2020 really just kind of figuring it out and doing a side hustle, if you will, coaching. I wasn’t ready to walk away from a seven figure income per se, in, in sales. And I’m supporting my family and couple kids. I’m the, the breadwinner for my, for my household. And so, yeah, I was very nervous and I, I remember you, you said to me, you said, Just go for it, Ian, you’re gonna be fine. And I, I, I just wasn’t ready to just go all in yet. So the first two years was really about building an audience and kind of proving out the model.
IK (03:17):
I was doing private coaching and then I decided to deploy the same program which brand builders taught, which is having three levels of membership. So I deployed a one year membership model where I call it bronze, silver, and gold coaching through my platform, which is untapped your sales potential. And through that the gold is private coaching with me. The group the silvers group coaching in, in the bronze is online coaching and online access. So I’ve built a amazing portal with all kinds of training modules. I meet with a mastermind every week where we have live events and group calls and I do private coaching for my most exclusive clients at, wanna work with me one on one. Just to give you some numbers, the business already is surpassed seven figures and we are just in October right now for my first full year as a solar
RV (04:03):
Show. Wow.
IK (04:05):
Yeah, it’s doing, it’s going great. I got, I got 70 paying clients, 20 in gold 50 in silver and I haven’t even launched the bronze yet. So this is all, yeah, it’s all happening very quickly and it’s very exciting for me.
RV (04:17):
Man, that’s amazing. So seven figures in your first full year well that’s awesome. So, Well thank you for that. Thanks for sharing that. And you know, I I, I remember if you’re listening and you’re a client of, of brand builders, you know, we teach the content diamond, which is like our social media strategy where we talk about answer one question every week on social media, on video, just five to seven minutes and just do it over and over and over. And we’d always tell people like, if you’ll just do this, if you just buy into this and you just follow the process, like it will work. It never doesn’t work, it always works. It’s just a question of when, and you started posting videos on LinkedIn in 2019, and I remember you’re getting eight views and six views and you did that relentlessly. And I don’t know how many views your videos are getting now, but I saw that you recently were ranked as like the number one LinkedIn sales star by sales success media, like, and so you’ve just been doing that one thing relentlessly.
IK (05:23):
Yeah. Content market is how many and
RV (05:24):
How many views are you getting now on those videos?
IK (05:27):
I’m averaging per post 30,000 views per,
RV (05:30):
Oh my
IK (05:30):
Gosh, that’s not, I’m, yeah,
IK (06:17):
In the beginning it was like, okay, just stay consistent, stay consistent, gradually built up. And, and what happened is the, for anyone who’s thinking of building brand and has like their own business still that they’re, you know, employed at corporate or whatever, I would say start the audience building now. Cuz when I was finally ready to launch my platform, it was in May of 2022. So I’d been building my brand for three years up, up to that point since joining Brand Builders. And when I launched my private coaching, the gold coaching sold out in two days, all spots, ah, and then the silver sold 50 seats. So I, I had over a half a million dollar launch as a result of, you know, building this audience. So people say it’s like the tip of the iceberg, you’re only seeing the tip, but what was beneath it in this case was consistent content posting every single week for three years prior to that launch.
IK (07:06):
And when you finally have a product, you’ve established that reputation, you established trust. Here’s the best part, and I don’t know a single person in the world who’s done this. If you know someone, please tell me. But the launch occurred without any sales calls. So everyone spent either 6,000 or $12,000 online in paying via credit card. Wow. No sales team. So that’s, that’s really what I was most proud of is the fact that there had been so much trust established that people were gonna pay 12,000 without even talking to me or having a sales person to talk to about the program. So it really does work when you’re consistent and when you’re answering the right questions and solving the right problems that people actually face and care about.
RV (07:44):
Yeah, I love that man. And, and so it was once, so you did it once a week for three years, so like 150 videos, and then by the time you were ready to like, make the jump and do this, you sold half a million bucks in the first launch.
IK (07:58):
Yeah, that’s right. And, and, and the other thing I started doing is I, I actually hired somebody in 2022, you know, I think it was probably February-ish working with him six or seven months. And he took my top performing videos and my top performing content and he think of them as a ghost writer, but he reposes and rewrites some of this stuff. It almost almost sounds like me. So he helps me. So now I’ve gotten to the point where I do probably two or three original posts, one video and a couple texts, some, sometimes some pictures on LinkedIn per week. And then he’ll fill in the gaps. So I’m actually posting seven days a week now. So my content volume has gone up to daily on LinkedIn and I’ve seen a dramatic increase in traffic from when I posted once a week to when I’m doing posting daily now. So my, my followers is up to 30,000 on LinkedIn and the view is the engagement is, is really high as well. So it’s been, it’s been really interesting to see how well you can scale if you find someone who writes like you, who can analyze the data, who can repurpose what’s relevant. Yeah. It’s almost like he, he’s my voice, right? So
RV (09:03):
Yeah, that’s the, that’s part of the content I’m in is get the videos transcribed and send ’em to a writer and then, and then have ’em repurpose the content. Like, I mean, it’s just awesome, Ian, because you know, I’ve known you for so long, you’ve always been super successful in business. Like, but to actually see you doing it and go, oh man, what we teach works like it actually works. Oh my gosh. Like if you do it, it works. Like it really, it really, really fill me up. So, so I do wanna talk about the sales specific because like brother, you have crushed it. I mean now, even now in your own business you’re still selling and, and you know, using your personal brand to do some of that. But like, how did you become the number one, Like you were number one at rico, like you were one of the number one like directors of, of sales, I remember that. So you had, and you had 70 account executives underneath you. That was about the time we met. Then you became number one at Salesforce. Like what is it about what you do, do you think that has made you a number one salesperson versus, you know, all the sales managers, the salespeople, you’ve managed other sales people that have been on teams, you know, people you’ve met in, in the industry. Like what, what makes you a number one or what makes a number one salesperson?
IK (10:18):
Yeah, I love the question. And for anyone I don’t know if you have links, but I’m, I’m happy to share. I put together a an ebook or it’s really like a infographic on the top 10 traits of elite sales performers, the top kind of, you know, 1% of sales performers. And I studied a lot and I partnered with them
RV (10:37):
And I, and let’s do this, I do want people to get it. So if you go to brand builders group.com/ian cognac, so go to brand builders group.com/ian cognac, we’ll put, we’ll put a link here to what you’re talking about, Ian. So in his last name’s K O N i k K o N I a k K O N I a K.
IK (10:56):
So I’ll, I’ll get you that link. But fun, fundamentally for me personally, I get to ask this question a lot. I think, I think one of the things which I tend to, to do really well is I have a firm, it’s energy, right? Sales is a transfer of energy from one person to another. So for me, I genuinely have a lot of energy in that it contagious, it’s infectious. And I hear that a lot from clients. I ask someone why they bought for me for a corporate client and they said it was your energy. We, we thought the sales team needed more energy and we knew you brought that to the table. Now again, is that repeatable? Is it re reusable? No, that’s a personal thing. So I, I’d say for anyone who wants to improve their energy, right? You need to think about how you can actually help your clients and believe in the product or service you provide, right?
IK (11:47):
The reason Roy, you do really well at selling, even though you may not consider yourself a salesperson, you’re an amazing salesperson, is cuz you believed you can help anyone who joins your program and follows the steps that you teach. And because of that belief, your conviction, your energy when you’re talking to prospects is going to be extremely high. So if you wanna improve your energy, it starts with strengthening your own belief in in. How do you do that? Well, you need to talk to customers. You need to see the results they’re getting. If you’re brand new to a company, find out who your top customers are, interview them and really learn about what their before state was and what their after state and how you help them. Once you know you can help people fundamentally, once you know that you can truly improve their lives or improve their company’s performance, you are going to feel more energized, more, more passionate and, and become a better salesperson. So I think it starts with belief, which then transfers to energy, which then transfers to how you engage with your clients. So that would be probably not my number one.
RV (12:45):
I mean, it’s funny how you say that. Like I literally just experienced that in the opening of this interview. Like cuz you’re a past customer also, like hearing you go, yeah, I went from zero to seven figures in less than three years and really in my first full business year, I’m getting 30,000 views, like following this process. I’m going, gosh, it works like this stuff. It’s so convicting, like we’re gonna raise all our prices after this impact is what we’re getting. You need
IK (13:10):
To
RV (13:12):
Like, it just, it’s just, it’s so invigorating. And I think sometimes I think honestly, honestly, sometimes salespeople are a little bit afraid to talk to their past customers cuz they’re like, oh, you know, like, did it work? Was it good? Like, did they have a good experience? And but you, when you see that actual transformation, you just get so convicted on it. Yeah.
IK (13:33):
So I, I just did, I started my program in May, so I just did a pulse survey for Q1 for all 70 members and I asked them specifically, you know, what do you think this program is worth it? What value have you gotten? How has this helped you in your personal life? How has it helped you in your professional life? Right? So I’m capturing not only feedback so I can continue to improve the program, but I’m actually capturing success stories that I can use for marketing for future launches. But the, the real value is like hearing these stories, hearing people, Hey, I’m spending more time with my family. I’m not burning myself out, I’m selling more than ever. And I’m also able to play with my kids like cuz cause I don’t just teach sales, I teach, you know, a lot of like mindset and habits and balance and you know, I I I practice my faith, I have family, I have other values that, you know, my story and you know, my struggles with addiction and I had to overcome a lot of personal challenges that I incorporate into what I teach.
IK (14:25):
Cuz ultimately if you’re successful in one area, you’re making a lot of money, but you actually don’t have time or presence to be with your family or you’re not actually happy, then how is that successful? Right? So for me it really is more than that. And, and I think genuinely that, that’s what attracts a lot of clients is they want that balance. They want that true success, not just in how to sell more, but actually how to do it in a way that is high integrity, where it’s not sacrificing what’s most important to them, whether it’s their time, their family, their health. So I think knowing your uniqueness in positioning your service so that you can be your true, authentic self rather than just teaching a piece of content is also a big part of what I do and how I’ve been able to really, really grow my, my own business very, very, very quickly.
RV (15:11):
Well when you say talking to your past clients, like that’s so huge. Like, just cuz you kept the stories, I mean we did the trends in personal branding, national research study, you know, like earlier this year when we released it and it’s, you know, we were asking what we asked the average American citizen, what’s the most influential factor that contributes to you making a decision? And we said, Oh, the person is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, a New York Times bestselling author, they have a large social media presence or da da da da. None of those were number one, not even close. The number one thing was they said they have customer testimonials on their website. That was the number one thing. It’s like, it makes people believe that if other people are saying this is good, it’s, it’s the single most powerful thing and you just don’t get it.
RV (15:59):
If you don’t talk, you don’t call your past clients. Like if you don’t talk to ’em or you don’t survey ’em, you don’t, you don’t get that feedback. So how else, you know, when you think of account executive and, and I wanna make, you know, help me understand that term a little bit because at Salesforce you were doing truly like enterprise sales. You’re selling to like large companies. Some of our, some of our personal brands do that, right? They sell corporate training and they sell ’em to like big fortune 100 companies. A lot of, a lot of our, our, you know, listeners of the show and are more like small business entrepreneurs that, that sell more like business to consumer. So help us understand what does account executive mean? And then I know at Rico that wasn’t really like enterprise sales, that was more like B2B sales, but sort of give us the landscape of the different types of sales. And, and then what I’m specifically looking for is what is it, what can someone selling their personal brand learn from someone who has been selling enterprise accounts and like what’s the transferable skill set? Cuz you’ve, you’ve now straddled all these worlds at Rico. You were B2B at, at Salesforce, you were enterprise sales and now you’re a small business like solo per selling B to C to individuals. Yeah. So you’ve done it in all all three, which is very rare.
IK (17:21):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s such a good question. So I think, I think if I can just pan out and give you kind of the, the landscape of sales. A lot of people think sales and they think like B to C, right? And in the big influencers out there on Instagram, whatever, that is not what, what I did for 19 years I did specifically b2b. And in B2B there’s really two segments
RV (17:42):
Of business to business y. If you’re not familiar with the term, B2B is business to business. B2C is business to consumer.
IK (17:48):
Yeah. And for anyone who wants to know how this relates to people who have their own per personal brand or entrepreneurs, if you are selling to a company, you’re selling your training, your coaching, your portal, your services to a company, listen up because that’s business to business, okay? There’s a lot of universal principles to that apply to all three, but I’m gonna kind of give you a quick school in, in, in kind of what the differences are. So, love it. There’s two types of B2B sales. There’s strategic sales or enterprise sales, and there’s transactional sales. So think of B2B transactional as I’m selling copiers, I’m selling paper products, I’m selling janitorial services, I’m selling something, computers, it’s a commodity, right? Short sales cycles, generally price is gonna be very important and it’s gonna be high volume. Okay? High volume, high activity, kind of grinded out, do the activity, then you build the pipeline, then you get the sales.
IK (18:44):
So it’s, it’s kind of like anyone can go into that job and if you’re a hard worker and if you just do what you’re told and you basically stick to the, the numbers, it’s very metrics driven. You’re probably gonna be successful selling commodity. Now, typically that range, you see people maybe go from like a hundred, 2000, a hundred thousand dollars a year, right? And, and top earners might make 2, 2 50, but in general you’re not getting paid because it’s an easier sale. It’s transactional, it’s high volume. And there’s not a lot of differentiation between providers cuz it’s commoditized enterprise selling B2B enterprise or B2B software. If you think of companies like Workday or Salesforce or Microsoft or Oracle or any of these IBM big C selling software, these are much higher volume sales. So these sales oftentimes are several hundred thousand dollars, or in my case, several million dollars.
IK (19:37):
Now, if company’s gonna spend two, three, 4 million a year with you, you better believe there’s going to be multiple decision makers. It’s going to be a longer sales cycle. You’re going to have more stages in a sales cycle where you have discovery and demonstration and actually you have to do a business case. Maybe it has to go to a board. So think of RICO as transactional for 10 years and then me going to Salesforce to sell enterprise for nine years. So I had to go from this transactional hustler, grind it out, hard work, do the activity selling rep to a strategic selling rep. And the skills are not the same. The skills of an enterprise seller selling software, you need to be able to get to senior executives in a company, not office managers or lower levels, but senior executives who are responsible for making those big decisions, right? So how to access the C-suite, that’s a skill. Another skill is how to put together a business case in an ROI so that CFOs can justify this type of investment. Another skill is what’s called multi-threading. On average, there’s seven decision makers in the enterprise selling space. It’s not one person, it’s the legal team, the IT team, the security team,
RV (20:47):
What do you call it? Multithreading,
IK (20:49):
Multi multithreading. Okay. So just, just for the sake, I don’t wanna get too technical, but for the sake of the different sales cycles, they’re very different. A strategic person needs more organizational skills, time management skills, project management. They are not hard closing because again, there’s so many different decision makers and it’s a longer sales cycle. So they need to build partnership and relationships with clients. That’s primarily what I teach in my coaching programs is how to do this B2B software, strategic selling. And the upside of this is, when you’re doing this well, you make north of seven figures. This is the elite, the NFL mvp, the highest paying sales job in any business to business sales is selling software. Okay? So if you wanna, if you’re thinking of your business to business and you want to make as much money as you can selling software, you can make seven figures a year as a individual W two employee, which is unheard of.
IK (21:45):
I never knew this was possible. I’ve done it a couple times at Salesforce. Okay. So that’s the second se segment of sales. The third segment is B to C. This is when you’re selling direct to consumers. So think of a real estate agent or Rory selling me the program of joining Brand builders group. This is what I sell. Now I sell individuals that are joining my programs. I also sell B to B because sometimes I do company trainings to go out and actually train sales teams. So I’m doing both B2C and B2B right now as an individual B2C sellers, the cycles are gonna be much shorter. Okay? It’s also going to be, typically you’re dealing with one decision maker. Maybe they need to talk to their spouse, but it’s a much, it’s one or two sales calls, right? Whereas the B2B could be 20 or 30, right? So again, you’re, these are six to nine month sales cycles in some cases. So it, it really is about getting to value very quickly. But there are some common elements of all three segments which are critical to success. And the reason I was successful in all three is I took those same elements of what makes people successful and I applied them to all three of those segments. So I hope that clarifies things for anyone. Like, cuz sales is not just sales, right?
RV (22:54):
RV (23:46):
In our former life we sold consulting, we sold training. That’s b2b. So there’s a lot of personal brands that sell b2b. There’s not that many personal brands that sell enterprise where you’re selling something that is, you know, 5,000 seats at a time. Yeah. There’s a couple that train the trainer model, which is like what Franklin Covey did, where that model is more of like where you’re shipping kits, which I don’t know if you’ve ever stumbled across anyone as a personal brands that do this, but you, you could end up being in this space one day, Ian, which is basically just like you, you create a kit right? On your methodology and then you’re selling it to United Healthcare to their HR department and then you certify people internally and then they buy 5,000 kits and you’re shipping, you’re shipping kits. Like that’s what kind of Franklin Covey model is.
IK (24:34):
Yeah. Yeah. And there are people, Grant Cardone, I think I, I can’t quote the numbers, but yeah,
RV (24:39):
He does some of that. He
IK (24:40):
Does Cardone University card company companies where all their sales team have seats. And I think that business, I mean it’s definitely eight figures, but I heard something around like 40, 50 million just for that specific line of, of Cardone University and that’s b2b. He’s got whole sales team. So it absolutely, if you’re a personal brand, if I wanted to scale up and take my program and then sell it to Salesforce, for example, where they have 20,000 users and then they go through my program, I could do that. It’s not something I’m choosing to do. But it’s absolutely relevant to personal branding space if you have programs that have, you know, audiences in those companies that you can sell seats to, for example.
RV (25:18):
Yeah, that’s really cool. I mean that’s a whole nother thing in and of itself, of going, you know, when you think about the vision of how big a personal brand could be, you know, like Grant Cardone is selling BTA c getting people to buy tickets to come to Growth Con or whatever. Yep. And he’s selling b2b, like they’ve got trainers going out to companies doing stuff and then he’s selling Enterprise Cardone University, like buy a thousand seats in this, in this virtual, like there’s a big, there’s a big world here of how personal brands can become, you know, multi eight figure and, and all of that. So I wanna talk about referrals and lead generation specifically mm-hmm.
RV (26:05):
A lot of times once they get into the conversation, right, they’re talking with someone, they do a decent job cuz they are convicted on their product. Many times at Brand Builders group, you know, we say as you know, we serve mission driven messengers. So these are people that have like dedicated their life to their expertise. They believe in it. It’s almost like they’re a bleeding heart where they would give it away for free because they just love it. What they have a harder time doing is creating sales conversations and meeting new people. So what tips do you have in the way of lead generation referrals? How do I get, I mean obviously content marketing, which is a big part, part of what we do. What, what your story is recently, but like you weren’t doing content marketing at Salesforce, you weren’t doing content marketing at Rico yet, you were still generating new business like crazy. So let’s not allow content marketing to be part of the answer. How do you generate, how do you generate leads?
IK (27:03):
I mean, genuinely you can do it in a number of ways. I think in, in B to C specifically what I do is I go on podcasts like this. I I, it’s part of my strategy. So I’ll go to a lot of podcasts and people will hear me. So I identified like the top podcasts that are in the sales specific B2B sales space. And I you know, I reached out to the podcasters. I actually hired a agent to help me get booked on this. And I, I probably do at least two or three podcasts a month and I get a lot of leads coming in through, through that. I think another channel is, is just referrals. I set up, I didn’t even set this up yet, but I have a lot of people in their programs that are coaching with me right now tell their friends about it.
IK (27:58):
So I’ll just have people reach out and say, my friends in the program is getting a lot of value. Cuz again, if you’re, if you’re people that are joining you are, are getting success, they’re gonna talk about it, they’re gonna talk about coaching. And so what I typically will do is I will you know, I won’t even ask for referrals, they’re coming organically, but I’ll ask people to share their success stories. And part of my 2.0 launch is to set up kind of what you did with, with bg. I, I have referred a ton of people to, to BG over over the years. But I wanna have that same affiliate structure where, you know, if people have had results, they can refer their friends. So now you have 70 sales people versus, you know, this, this mm-hmm.
RV (28:52):
Oh, just so y’all know, what Ian’s referencing is we actually pay our customers lifetime referral fees when they, when they introduce someone to us. And so it’s like we, we have never run a paid ad and, and I want to, I’m trying to, but like we’ve been generating so much demand that we haven’t been able to scale our team fast enough to keep up with the demand coming from the word of mouth referrals because we pay people to do it too. So they actually make some of our clients make a lot of money. I mean, we have clients that make six figures a year just in referral fees. So
IK (29:24):
Yeah. And it’s coming. I, I’ve been building up now where I’m seeing, I’m seeing the impact there and I get the get the get the bill.com payment.
RV (29:33):
Oh, from us. Yeah. We send you money
IK (29:34):
Every month. Yeah. Yeah. Cause cause I believe in it and that’s the thing, like if I believe the program works and I’m a, and I’m, I’ve experienced firsthand I’m gonna be your best salesperson, there is, there’s no better salesperson. So really capturing the results and then putting a structure together where you have an affiliate program and if you are a personal brand, you can do this through like Kajabi’s got a tool for it and all the, you know, the ma major CRMs have have ways to set that up pretty easily to link you know, attribution to, to the referrals here. But, but
RV (30:05):
Even what I, even what I hear you saying is even if you can’t do affiliate links, just get your customers to share their story. Like that’s what it’s really about.
IK (30:13):
Yes, yes.
RV (30:14):
Get them results and then let them share their story.
IK (30:17):
They’re texting every time they text you and say, I got this. Capture it right and save it. So you can keep those text message every time you get a voice note every time anyone shares a success story or a win capture that, that’s gonna be your asset library on your website, on, you know, any sales calls you want to use. If you ever do a deck or a pitch deck or anything, you can share that. It’s just something I’ve done since the very beginning and it’s been absolutely huge in, in, if you go to my LinkedIn profile, you’ll see over a hundred referrals and it’s literally stories I, when someone finishes my program and say, if, did you have a good experience? Yes. Well, can you leave a referral on LinkedIn? Fortunately I haven’t had anyone that’s had a bad
RV (30:53):
Experience. Oh, a recommendation you mean? Yeah,
IK (30:55):
Yeah. A recommendation on they
RV (30:57):
Go write a public thing on your LinkedIn. Yeah, that’s another great one. Like the whole world can see it right there.
IK (31:03):
And, and I’ll just point people if they have doubts or, Hey, go read the recommendations. Like, I don’t want, here’s the thing. In order to be the, the common thread, I wanna give you some tips on what makes a great seller across all the space. So if you sell b2c, B2B keynotes, whatever, it doesn’t really matter. The, the common thread here. Here’s something really important that I want everyone to, to think about is the best sellers are not attached to outcomes, Okay? And it’s contrary to what may, may many people believe when they have quota goals or revenue goals. But if you’re focusing on your own outcomes, you are going to be inward focused where you and your goals are more important than your customer’s goals. You see, the best sales reps are actually invested in truly wanting to help their clients. So when they show up to a sales call or an interaction, they really wanna understand, does this client need my help?
IK (31:55):
Where do they struggle? What problems do they have? And am I a good fit to solve those problems? And if the answers yes, asking for money and getting ’em to a role is going to be the easiest part. So in a sales call, I’ll spend in a 30 minute sales call, 20 or 25 minutes really just understanding their world, their situation, where their struggle, what is the impact that these problems are having on their life, on their family, on their income. I literally will have people crying and happens almost every time where you really get ’em to open up and say, I’m not where I not wanna be. I’m not providing for my family, I’m not achieving the goals that I set out to, I’m sick and tired of this. And I’m like, Yes, you’re ready. Right? So it’s, it’s the same concept in B2B or b2c.
IK (32:35):
You really wanna show up with the intention of helping your client solve a problem or achieve a goal rather than trying to pitch or sell something. Okay? That is the common language of the best sales people, is they don’t, doesn’t feel to the customer like they’re being sold, It feels like to the customer that they’re sharing their world in that this person is interested in learning about them. So what I always tell people is, be interested, not interesting. In other words, the more you can show up with curiosity, interest, and really trying to understand the world of your clients, the more interesting you are going to become to them. Okay? So don’t try and impress, don’t try and pitch. Don’t try and, you know, show up and, and wow them, right? Or else like you’re gonna lose them. Instead just leave your ego at the door and be really curious and interested.
IK (33:26):
And if you can’t help them, then go in and it’s your obligation to get them to, to sign up because you know it’s in their best interest. And then again, closing becomes the easiest part of the sale. So I think that to me is like really key in terms of, you know, some of the, the commonalities across all these different, you know, different schools of sales. It’s like if you’re, if you’re selling keynotes for example, and, and you want to go in and, and position yourself as the keynote speaker for their annual conference, you’re gonna wanna know like, what is the biggest problems that your employees are facing today that you want the keynote to address? Where are are struggles? What do people wanna learn about? What are they asking for? What would you consider successful if they walked away from? What would you want the energy to be?
IK (34:11):
What is the biggest thing? Why’d you reach out to me? Why’d you reach out to me? A as a potential speaker, right? So it’s really, you’re, you’re trying to uncover their goals and what success looks like to them. And then you tailor your messaging around how you’re gonna help them. Cuz if you don’t know what they want first or what they’re trying to achieve or what their problems are, then your pitch is gonna fall flat. So I think again that’s really important. I want to give, give some of those tips away. But that’s, that’s the key. It’s like if you do that,
RV (34:36):
I think that’s the big thing people don’t understand. Like they think of sales is like being a, you know, a smooth talker and like having the right thing to say, like whatever. And just going, all you’re doing is trying to really understand what their situation is and, and can you help. So, okay so basically most of your leads come from your existing customers.
IK (35:01):
They’re all from content marketing. I know you don’t wanna but they
RV (35:06):
Down. I don’t mind hearing that. That’s what we teach people how to do, right? Like that’s, that’s I know that especially in a B2C world like content marketing, podcasting, social media, like, you know, email marketing, all that stuff. Can
IK (35:17):
I walk you through exactly how I got my leads? Cause I have 13 on my wait list, so I’ll tell you what my strategy is and you just, hopefully your users can use it. So find the channel where your clients are in mind. It’s b2b, right? Sales people. So it’s LinkedIn or if you’re again, potentially selling two businesses and you’re a personal brand and this resonates, this could be a source of lead traffic, this podcast, right? So fundamentally find your source and go there where your clients are. So wherever that is, that’s where you want to be most active. So anyone who I post every day on LinkedIn, okay? And people connect with me, so I’ll get, you know, 50 connection requests a day. Every person that requests me, not that I’m requesting that, that raises their hand and says, I wanna connect with you or follows you, or whatever it is, depending on the channel you’re on, I send them a message, right?
IK (36:04):
Or actually I have a VA send it and the message is simple. Hey, thanks for requesting me as a connection. If you’re looking to grow sales, right? And I only send this to the people that are sales professionals cuz that’s my icp. I wouldn’t send this to someone who is a marketer or project manager, just the one, I’d say, if you’re looking to grow your sales, here are three ways I can help. And I say, number one, I have an email newsletter that you can get new videos every week sent to number two. You wanna capture the whole archive, go to my YouTube subscribe here, and I have link to subscribe. And then I say number three, my coaching programs are completely sold out, but if you want to join the next coaching cohort, here’s the wait list link to work with me directly on that wait list link.
IK (36:43):
I have my pricing laid out, I have the program laid out, and when they sign up, they know what they’re getting. So when they sign up for the wait list, they know what the investment is, they’ve already raised their hand, they fill out a form, right? And if I really wanna basically call them or create true lead source, now I have 1300 people that are teed up and I could set up calls with them and I would have them fill out a form before they book it to further qualify them and make sure they’re fit using, using ly. So that’s kind of the way I’ve been doing it, minus the calls because again, it’s just me and I don’t have sales team right now, but that’s exactly, you know, the strategy that I was used. Once that wait list is ready for launch, then I’ll warm up the, the wait list.
IK (37:22):
So I basically cap my enrollment, I cap my members, and then I have a a nurturing campaign to everyone on the wait list, Hey, it’s coming get ready enrollments in three months, here are some success stories, here’s the curriculum. Hey, you have questions, just email me or reach out on LinkedIn. And so they’re continuing to hear from me. It’s not like five months and then they lost interest them, I’m nurturing them and then they’re also on my newsletter getting, you know, continued content where I can build that trust. Then before I launch, I say I only have 20 spots available. First come, first serve, put the link and in, and then I make it, you know, more of a, a time based in a, in a, in a cap, a member cap based program where I’ve already done the math and I know how many people I need to hit, you know, the target revenue goals for, for, for what I want to do. So that creates overwhelming demand because they need to get in and they know that it’s a limited offer and there’s only limited spot. So I, I love that versus just open all the time. Anytime you want it, just hop on a call. It’s here when you, you’re ready, right? So by the time I get to the launch, everyone’s like literally dying to, to get in the program. So that’s the strategy I’ve used and it’s working really well so far.
RV (38:27):
Yeah, I love that. That’s so great, man. I, it’s just so simple. I mean, it’s just, you know, adding value and building trust and then just letting people raise their hand and say when they’re ready. We are, we’re evergreen. Like we always, we’re like an evergreen open option. So it’s always interesting to see like how people use the launch strategy to, to sort of like build the demand and, and there is always that more natural urgency in a launch model than with the evergreen. And if you’re doing an evergreen model, you gotta, you gotta have some type of urgency for something. So I really love that. So Ian one last thing here. I already, so I already told everybody, you know, by the way, go to brain builders group.com/ian cognac, we’ll connect you to Ian where you can like download some of his free trainings and, and be plugged in with everything that he’s going, he’s got going on.
RV (39:20):
His last name is K O N I A K, Coac. Before I let you go, a few tips on closing. Like any other tips on like, if you’re in an active conversation, I know you’re not doing calls now, but you’ve done years and years of calls and, and you know, it, I think when you’re selling enterprise or when you were doing b2b, like even when you’re selling copiers, like that’s still a big decision. How do you bring people to a decision quickly? You know, on, on, especially like high dollar offers, right? So whether you’re selling, you know, millions of dollars of CRM software, or you’re selling them a copier that’s tens of thousands of dollars or a consulting program or a coaching program. Any, any tips or advice on like you said, if you’ve done a good job asking the questions and listening to their need and, and, and that this is the easiest part. So what would you say about closing?
IK (40:22):
I, I think again I just shared this, I, I’ll, I’ll give three tips that I, I think work well. But the premise is if you were attached to an outcome and you need to get the sale, you are gonna show up as needy and you’re gonna have commission breath and commission breath stinks. So like above all else, the tone and the energy you need to bring is one that this is for you. It’s not for me. This is going to help you. If you wanna do it, great, I’m here. And if you don’t, hey, that’s your decision. No, no sweat off my back. I’m here to help. But honestly, some people can’t help themselves. You lead ’em to water and you can’t hold their head and force them down to drink. They need to go down and wanna drink themselves. So I think that is a mindset shift more than anything else.
IK (41:10):
And in realizing like, Hey, I don’t need this to feel worthy. I don’t need them to sign up. Okay, this is good for them and if they miss it, it’s their loss. So that’s, that’s kind of the underlying energy. Now as far as like strategies or closing tips I think it’s really important, and this goes without saying if you’re, if you’re selling business to business, so if you’re selling a keynote or to a company, you need to be dealing with the decision maker directly. So never take no from someone who can’t say yes. So if, if they’re not paying for the keynote, you need to get to the people who are deciding what speakers are there and who are paying for it, right? Versus somebody who’s just collecting information on all the speakers, right? You need to make sure you’re dealing with the heads of that department.
IK (41:49):
So anytime I was selling coaching or training to a company or keynote to a company, I need to make sure I find out first and foremost, who is the key decision maker? How is this decision made? I have a framework that I use that I’m gonna give you called predict selling. So predict selling stands for P is the problem. What problem are you solving? Okay? That’s the P You need to make sure you know the problem, okay? The R is really important. It’s, it’s the why, the reason why do they wanna do this? Okay? What’s in it for them? What outcomes it’s gonna help ’em achieve. That’s the, that’s the r stands for reason, okay? The E is engagement. Are they engaged? Okay, In other words, go get their cell phone. Here’s another, probably give you five, five tips on this one acronym. The E is go get their cell phone, get on the text thread, Ro you and I are on a text thread.
IK (42:40):
Now if even if I don’t have anything to ask of you, I’ll share a win, I’ll share a voice note, I’ll share a memo, right? Because I want you to think of me right in general and stay top of mind for you. You wanna do the same thing with your clients. Drive engagement, get on text, thread with them and have a relationship. Okay? D is decision maker and decision process. Make sure you are dealing directly with the decision maker that is above and beyond the number one in B2B way. You need to make sure you’re dealing with the right person who can say yes. And you need to understand their decision process, right? Does it have to go to a committee? When is it going to be decided? Do you have to do legal contracts? Is there a purchasing department? You need to understand, especially if you’re selling as a personal brand to businesses, there are many layers of approvals that people have to go through.
IK (43:23):
So that’s the second D in is decision process. Okay? The I is impact. If they work with you, what is the impact? What are the results? What is the payoff they’re going to get? Right? So show them the value. That’s the i is impact. The C is cost of in action. If you don’t do this right, what is that gonna cost you? Are you gonna continue to be in pain? What happens if nothing changes in the year? Right? Really get them to say, Hey, let’s say you do nothing. What is your life gonna look like in three months and six months in one year? Very, very powerful. Tony Robbins uses that quite a bit to get people to want to change, right? Cause ultimately sales is getting people to change what they’re doing. So what is it gonna cost you if it you, if you don’t do anything, right?
IK (44:03):
There’s hard costs and there’s opportunity costs. And then the last thing t is timeline. Why now why is it important for you to do this right now? What’s driving this on your side? Maybe there’s a product launch, maybe they’re hiring some new sales people, maybe you know, they, they’re getting married. What whatever it is, like find out why now is relevant for them to enroll in your service. So if you can go through, predict and have all those question answers, by the time you get to close, it’s going to be natural and you’re going to basically say, Great, well it sounds like we can help you. There’s a lot in it for you. The timing is perfect. Let’s go ahead and get started. All I need is your authorization, right? So then ask for the business, right? Which is basically ask ’em to buy, tell ’em how to buy and then ask them to buy, right?
IK (44:45):
A lot of people are afraid to just ask them. So you just be direct and ask them. And then if they hesitate, they need to think about it. Don’t get off the call, find out like, hey, we’re here now. Do you mind me asking plain and simple, what is it exactly that you need to think about? What is it specifically that is causing you hesitation? Sounds like everything we talked about is a great fit, but I believe in full transparency. Would you mind sharing what it is? So be really direct and get to, you know, the true objection and then address, address it, right? That’s the bottom line. Address it, directly work with them. Make it a win-win. And and ideally, if it’s not a fit and they walk away, you know what? It’s their loss, no attachment, their loss. Plenty of go after someone else, like, no big deal. Move
RV (45:25):
On. I love it. I love it. Predict, predict, predict. I love your framework. I see your modular, I see your captivating content, modular content method frameworks. I love it. Build, building out the so good, Ian is so good. Y’all again, brand builders group.com/ian cognac. If you wanna learn more about Ian, if you’re looking for some sales coaching, this, you know, Ian is, you know, obviously got a wait list, but somebody that we highly recommend. And n I just love this brother. I’m, I’m, I’m so excited about the journey. It’s been such a blessing to know you and see you early in your career, rising as a salesperson, a sales manager joining one of the top sales organizations in the world, becoming number one now, teaching people how to sell because you’re most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. And that’s you brother. So thanks for being here, Ian, We, we believe in you brother. And just keep going out there and, and keep, keep serving and keep selling.
IK (46:26):
Thanks for having me, Rory. And thanks for all you do, for everyone out there that’s trying to get their message for, for so many people. You’re making a huge impact in, in, in my life and in my families and all of my customers as a ripple effect of what you’ve put together. So I appreciate you just as much.
RV (46:42):
Thanks brother. Thank you so much.
Ep 329: Authenticity as Your New Competitive Advantage with Erin Hatzikostas | Recap Episode
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:54):
Hey, y’all and welcome to my recap episode on my conversation with Erin hatzicostas. Now she’s got me all triggered about how to say her last name, cuz I’ve been calling her Erin hot Costas for forever and then she said cost us. So now I’m all insecure about it. But seriously, if you did not listen to this interview, I really suggest that you go. And I don’t say that just because it’s an interview. I think you should listen to, even though it is that it’s, it just it’s really universal. And it, it touches the core of, I think of a lot of what of us, a lot of what we all struggle with, who you’ve ever thought, do I really deserve this? Or am I living some imposter life or I’m not good enough? Or I have to be something I’m not in order for people to like me or respect for, or respect me or follow me.
AJV (01:43):
This is the episode for you, cuz it’s all about using authenticity as a part of your leadership strategy. And I love it. I love her. I think she is authentic. I also think she’s just an awesome human being. It’s a really great interview. I really recommend that you go and listen to it. But with all that said here are four, four things that I took away from this conversation that I thought were really worthy to come back and recap in this conversation. I loved what she said. She said that, you know, when she left corporate America and she was a corporate CEO for years but when she left corporate America to like kind of go out on her own as a coach, speaker, consultant, entrepreneur, podcaster, author, all these things she, for a long time, didn’t want to be labeled as a coach or a trainer, a consultant or speaker because she had this like preconceived notion of what that was.
AJV (02:37):
And I loved what she said about it. And she said, it took me a long time to get here. But here’s what I would do today. Here’s the advice that I would give someone today. It’s don’t not do something because you hated the way that you saw someone else do it. And in the middle of that is you know, the foundation, the gen Genesis of some authenticity, it said don’t define what something is because of one way that you saw it done that you’re like, well, I don’t wanna do that. Or I don’t wanna be that. Well, it’s like, don’t,
AJV (03:28):
Oh my gosh. I thought that was so good because I can think of so many times or so many things where I haven’t done something because I was like, oh, I didn’t like that. Or I didn’t like the way they did. It’s like, so what do it differently? Or get it done by someone else? That doesn’t mean you don’t have to like the whole thing just because you didn’t like the way it was done by one particular person or company or organization, do it differently, be authentic and do it in the way that feels you. Then this was a second big highlight for me is we talked about, well, what is authenticity? Like, what’s your definition of authenticity? And I think this is really interesting because I think sometimes that word can be overused, but in a way where it’s not really explained very well, right.
AJV (04:14):
I hear the word, you know, be authentic and you know, show authenticity. But it’s like, what does that really mean? Because it’s like, there’s all different types of internal translations we can make with things like that. And it’s like, just do you be you? And I loved, oh my gosh, I love this so much. I literally have it written down. I’m gonna share the whole team. But on a PostIt note of my wall, I’m gonna do something with this. Cause she said, authenticity is exposing who you really are when people least expect it. That is authenticity. Oh my gosh. That is so good. Like exposing who you really are, the moment that people least expected, what an amazing definition of authenticity. And then she followed it up and she said, it’s not just being yourself. Sure. That’s a part of it. And it’s not just being transparent.
AJV (05:05):
Right? authenticity and transparency are two different things with two different definitions. You cannot be too authentic, but you can be too transparent. Right. I think that’s really an important distinction, right? Authenticity and transparency. They’re different things. Right? I thought the other thing that she said I thought was brilliant is that it’s not about you. It’s really not. It’s about creating trust with other people by being more vulnerable and humble and you in the moment. And I thought that was really good. It’s like authenticity. Isn’t about you just putting it all out there for the world to take it all in. Being authentic is about creating a trust, a trusted environment. An environment of intrigue and curiosity, even with other people, by being more vulnerable, by being more honest. And by being more humble in the moment, going back to her definition, which is authenticity is exposing who you really are when people least expected mind blown.
AJV (06:17):
I love that so much. And quite honestly, that allows me to attach a whole new meaning to authenticity and being authentic, being authentic. Isn’t just being me. No, it’s being more of me in the right moments where people least expect it. That allows me to show my humanity. And it also allows me to show my imperfections, right. I love what she said. Her son says that she’s a imperfection. And we all are. We are all imperfections. We are not perfect, but it allows me to be more imper, imperfect, which naturally should make me more human and more relatable and more personable to those around me. I need that. We all need that. So, so good. Then we followed it up with about authenticity is not a permission. It’s a power. And I think I often hear some people you know, kind of roll their eyes at authenticity as like, is this some woo woo female feminist crap.
AJV (07:17):
AJV (08:20):
And also the fact that we just were really blessed to have the opportunity to have this conversation on this show and, and use it in a way that will make us all feel more ourselves and more human when we’re looking at those around us. Right. and then the last thing we did was that we talked about this awesome study that she just did was like did this national research study on authenticity in the workplace. So cool. I love this idea. I love the results. I love this study. The data is so amazing and so helpful and empowering as a leader or a business owner. But also really empowering as a, as a teammate, as an employee, as someone who just has human relationships and, and deals with communication, which is all of us. But one of the things that I thought was really fascinating is one of the key takeaways was the parallel between authentic cultures and talent retention, which is just a really hot topic right now, right.
AJV (09:18):
Everyone is talking about how do I retain talent? How do I, you know, recruit and retain really good people. And there is a direct correlation with, do you have an authentic culture where people can be themselves in the moment where there is humility and vulnerability and the ability to just get it straight with no facades and no pretending. Is there that, and if there is you have a higher chance of talent retention versus is this a culture where we just don’t talk about those things, you know, don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t really ever get to know your leaders. Don’t ever really get to know your executives. And if you have that, you have a very high chance of quick turnover. So let that sit in for a minute. If you have any sort of employees or team members, or even even run a volunteer organization, it’s people don’t have to stay. There’s lots of options, especially right now where everyone is hiring. So how can you use authenticity as your main retention tool with your team? Y’all check out this interview check out Erin Hatzicostas you can go to B authentic, Inc. That’s just the letter B authentic ink.com. You can check her out, follow her, get this study. It’s amazing. Go listen to it, put it into practice and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 328: Authenticity as Your New Competitive Advantage with Erin Hatzikostas
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming, uh, at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:53):
Hey everyone. And welcome to another episode on the influential personal brand pod. This is AJ Vaden. I am one of your co-hosts here and I get the, uh, the honor and the privilege of getting to introduce you, uh, to a good friend of mine. Um, at Erin OSIS, you’re gonna get to learn all about her in just a few minutes and some really cool stuff that she’s got going on, and I will give her a formal introduction, but for all of you listening, uh, I want you to know why you need to stick around and listen to this episode. You know, we have had a mini guests on in the past that talk about research. Um, and today we’re gonna talk about not just research, but how research impacts you in your business right now today. Uh, we’re gonna be talking about the research on authenticity in the workplace.
AJV (01:45):
So to me it does not matter if you’re an employee, an employer, if you are so entrepreneur, entrepreneur, or anything in between, like this impacts you, right? We’ve heard it said before that, uh, data data is the real unique differentiator in the marketplace today. And I’m a big believer in that. I’m a big proponent in that it’s like data is the differentiator and Erin has gone out and done this amazing study on authenticity in the workplace. And I think that there’s some really interesting talk right now about the workplace and you know, what they’ve been calling the great resignation. Uh, and I don’t really know if that’s the right term, right? I don’t know if that’s the right term. I love what Ariana Huffington says. It’s not the great resignation is the great reevaluation. And I think looking at authenticity in the workplace and what does that even mean?
AJV (02:36):
And how does it, how does it impact our employees, our employers and the companies at large is a really important discussion to have. So again, it doesn’t matter if you are a staff of zero or a staff of 1000, this interview, this research, uh, this does pertain to you. So I hope you stick around, uh, and make it all the way to the end, because also Erin’s gonna give you a really cool link to download this data, to help you take that back to your everyday business. So without further ado, uh, I’ll give you just a quick highlight. Um, but Erin Hatzikostas is a former corporate CEO, turned professional pot stir in her own words. She is also the founder, uh, and CEO of be authentic, Inc. And as a bestselling author, she’s a TEDx speaker, she’s a podcast, a podcast host. And, uh, what she calls a, coachs a coach coach salted
EH (03:53):
Thank you so much. And like most people I have such a, I have such a girl crush on you, AJ. So it’s so jam out for a little bit, have you all to myself slash, you know, share you with thousands of people.
AJV (04:04):
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited to have this conversation. I really love having conversations with friends more than anything else, because I get to bring in like some of like the behind the scenes context of what makes you so awesome as a human being. And you don’t always get to do that when you have, you know, a quote unquote complete stranger on. Um, so it’s really always a treat when I get to, I have a friend on the show and, uh, talk about all the cool things you have going on, but then also just to help the audience, get to know the awesomeness that is, you know, these amazing people that we get to do life with. So I’m so excited. And so in an effort to help our audience get to know you just a little bit, can you give everyone a brief backstory of kinda how you got to where you are right from?
AJV (04:50):
You know, you’ve been a big corporate CEO and you’ve led teams of thousands of humans, and you’ve worked for really big corporations. And you’ve now been on the other side as a speaker and an entrepreneur and an author. Like we didn’t even have that in your bio. You’re the author of this awesome book. And you’ve got all these cool things going on, but those are like two pretty different lives. And so it’d be awesome to hear, like give us some context and some background of like this, you know, quote unquote, former life as this corporate CEO, why this shift and how did you end up here talking about authenticity in the workplace?
EH (05:27):
Oh, uh, I’d love to, and so first the first thing I have to say though, is, you know, quick story, my son, about six months ago, he was just like making a bagel in the kitchen and he is like, mom, do you know what a perfectionist is? And I was like, yeah. And he’s like, you’re an imperfection
EH (06:26):
Um, but the good news is it was a great company. It was a big company and, and much like a lot of your listeners, you know, I was able to sort of Bob and weave my way through some, some opportunities take on things I was highly unqualified to do. Um, but never once did I, you know, I have this career path, like I wanna be an executive or I wanna be a CEO. You know, I was small town girl, Northern Michigan, you know, got good grades, but didn’t know really much about, you know, running a company. Um, but, but I did find myself at one of the subsidiary companies that they had acquired and not found myself, I strategically went there and, um, was just lucky enough over the years, every time somebody would leave, they basically were like, look to their left and right.
EH (07:07):
And they’d be like, well, I guess we should give it to Erin. Um, and that happened all the way up till, you know, I took on the CEO position and, uh, I let a company, I was about a thousand people and we we’re kind of in the dumps, you know, financials had been flat for years. We were quite frankly, kind of the laughing stock of the company. It was a, it was an acquisition gone bad, a typical, like let’s bring in this great new sexy company and then give them, you know, no money and resources to do what they need to do to be successful. And, um, I took over in 2016 and I’m just really proud to say that in three years, uh, we took those flat earnings that we had been having and we tripled them and our employee employee engagement went up 12 percentage points.
EH (07:51):
Like we became kind of the darling actually of the parent company and all along the way as I was having success, I also would often think, I wonder what I’m gonna be found out. Hmm. And it, it wasn’t Asia. It, wasn’t your typical like imposter syndrome. Like I, I understood you kind of had to lean in a little further than you were comfortable. I understood the, you know, I, I, I felt like I had the intellectual chops. I had the relationships like, but it was more that I felt like I wasn’t sacrificing as much as my peers, you know, my, my other colleagues were traveling every week for, you know, client meetings. They were giving up vacations. They were, you know, I had one friend that moved her family like three times and like six years to sort of climb the ladder. And I thought, I don’t know how long my luck’s gonna run out with having this much success and not sacrificing as much as everybody else.
EH (08:45):
And, and so then, you know, I, I led the company for three years, decided I really was craving exponential growth that I couldn’t find there. And I didn’t think I would find it in the corporate world. And what happened was when I, when I announced my retirement, like 75% of the messages and conversations said the same thing they said, we’re gonna miss your authentic leadership. And I, it’s not that I was surprised like, Ooh, who me authentic, like it’s, but I hadn’t really been pinned with that badge before. And after all those messages, it was like, there was this moment where I was like, wait a minute. I’m not gonna be found out. I’ve been actually playing a different game than everybody else. And I started to realize that I had subconsciously, but pretty purposely used authenticities. And now what I actually have figured out how to teach, but I had used them to gain the best talent to, uh, negotiate deals, to stand out to the executives, you know, going to quarterly business reviews.
EH (09:50):
And everybody else was like giving the propaganda. And I was telling a story or I was telling them where we were, you know, pooping the bag and it really gained trust and St stood out. And so after stumbling my retirement, I went and did kind of something else, quote, unquote, started a software company, which I didn’t really build anything. But, um, and you know, I think this is really important. I had thought about doing the career and leadership space. I think this is actually really, really important for the audience. One of the buckets I considered was this career leadership space that I’m in, because I knew I had a lot to give and that I would do well, but I didn’t wanna do it. And here’s why, because in my head there were thousands of them and they were sort of a dime a dozen.
EH (10:32):
Right. And this is before I had heard of the concept of personal branding and doing, doing it differently. And so I actually avoided it until, you know, I started writing blogs. I would sit at hockey practice and I’m like, oh my God, I have so much to say. And I no longer have like lawyers won’t let me say stuff. And I was like puking out. Like I had, I remember having a word document, AJ and I, I never considered myself a writer. I was a math major, not a very good one, but a math major. I had 30, some pages of written blogs, just sitting up in like the metal benches at the hockey team. And what happened is I, two things happened, one, which I preach to people all the time. It’s like this lesson, I keep learning, but I also want other people to learn you shouldn’t not do something because you hate the way it was done before.
EH (11:21):
Hmm. Instead do it your own way. And so one, I was like, what do I hate about the career in leadership space? Well, it’s stuffy, it’s boring. It’s a bunch of HR people it’s blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I also listened to a podcast. And it wasn’t you guys yet, which I can tell about then hearing you guys and why it mattered so much more. I, I heard a podcast. Um, do you know, you remember the guy that has a podcast called, like Youpreneur I think, or so, yeah. Yeah. I can’t remember his name. Nice guy, but he’s a little bit like much a British guy, but I somehow stumbled upon it. And Aja was like, oh my God, this is what I wanna do. Like, I didn’t ever realize that, right. This concept. And you guys say it now a lot, you know, coaches, consultants, speakers, and authors, that there was a mechanism that there was an industry.
EH (12:08):
You know, all I had seen were these career leadership that were doing it, the old fashioned way, like go out and sell things and they didn’t have a brand. Right. And they, they weren’t speaking. And, and so when I realized that one, there was what you guys teach that is, so me, I love to speak, I love to do like the big things. Um, I loved the concept of personal branding and that I had also this message that to me, and, and what you said at the beginning was so right. Like I speak mostly to corporations, but I’m telling you authenticity always wins. And I’m learning that as an entrepreneur, right? Like the same things I did successfully as a, you know, a corporate nine to five executive are working here. And when I finally realized too, that it was teachable and that it was, you know, authenticity, isn’t this permission, it’s actually a power. It’s like something that can help you. It’s not just like, I was gonna give people permission to have a better career. Um, when I combined those two, that, that that’s when everything ignited and I got started on, on my path.
AJV (13:09):
Oh, that’s so good. And that you said something in there it’s like, authenticity is not of permission. It’s a power. Um, and I love that. And I, I wanna go back to two things that you said that you kind of skimmed over, but it’s interesting because, uh, prior to our call today, I was in my EO forum meeting. And so I’m a part of the entrepreneurs organization here in Nashville. And for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, um, you get paired in like these little small group forums. So there’s a group of seven of us, I guess, eight of us, including me. And we meet every single month for, you know, three to four hours talking about our businesses, helping each other grow. Um, and it was really fascinating that a lot of the discussion that my EO forum has had a lot of it by me is, you know, trying to figure out like, why is there such this culture of hustle and sacrifice?
AJV (13:54):
Like, why is it that, you know, in America and probably in many places all over the world, but I live here so I can speak to this more honestly. And authentic authentically is the more you sacrifice. Somehow the more successful you are, right? The more you hustle and grind and have no personal life and no family life, like the more quote unquote successful you are. And I heard you say that like you, and then it’s like, and if you don’t, you feel guilty. Right. And it’s, uh, it’s interesting. It’s like, I think about myself. I’m about to go on a, a very 10 day, a very, like a very, uh, like a very intentional 10 day vacation with my kids and my husband. And like what I asked my EO group to hold me accountable to is no work. And at the same time, I know that the reason I’m asking for accountability is because that’s gonna be freaking hard for me, because if I’m not, I feel like there’s shame and guilt tied to it. It’s like, oh gosh, my employees are working. I should be. And it’s like, if I’m not working, like where’s my worth then, like, what if I’m not valuable to the organization in 10 days, God forbid. And so I would love to hear from you both on the corporate side, and now on the other side, looking at the corporate side, where does that come from? Why is it there and how do we eradicate it?
EH (15:05):
It’s addiction. Uh, you know, I think Shonda rhymes, if you’ve never seen her Ted talk, remember the, um, the year of yes. You know, she talks about, I
AJV (15:13):
Haven’t seen her Ted talk, but I love,
EH (15:14):
Oh my gosh.
AJV (15:17):
It OK.
EH (15:17):
Yeah. So she talks about the hum and it’s very illiterate if it’s a beautiful, I mean, Shonda RHS powerhouse. Right. But she talks about the hum and getting addicted to the hum and it’s the hum and the hum. Right. You get, and, and, um, I think it’s really an addiction. Um, and what I always tell people when I talk about authenticity and part of this is, you know, I’m not a very disciplined person, you know, don’t tell Rory, like, I’m not a take the stairs kind of person. I just, that’s not how, you know, I’m a seven on the Enneagram. I’m a creative, but what I’ve found is the nice part is that what, what we teach in authenticity and, and to, to get to your point about like, why are we like that? I always tell people, I don’t change people. I change their addiction.
EH (16:03):
And there’s a detox period. Right. And so for, for example, in your example, change of addiction would be okay, you’re feeling like, okay, this anxiety, like I should be doing more, my team is, is working and I’m not. And if you start to experiment with, um, for example, you know, authenticity, one of my principles is model no better place to, to use the model principle than to go on vacation and model what you want for your employees. Yep. So many leaders would be like, take your vacation, da, da, and then they’re like, hypocrites, they’ll go. And then they’ll work. And what do you think the employees, what message do they get? They don’t listen. They don’t listen to you. They, they watch you. They told. And so a new addiction might be, you take this 10 day, you break free and you start to just, I want you just to observe what you see from your team.
EH (16:55):
For example, somebody that normally doesn’t get to do something, cuz usually you handle it and they step up and do it. And you see like the pride in their face or somebody that follows in your footsteps and says, oh, I noticed you weren’t checking in. I also didn’t check in. I so needed. I didn’t realize how burnt out I was. And, and so now it, you know, instead of being addicted to that ha like, I want you to start to get addicted to this new thing, which is leadership
AJV (17:33):
Hmm. That’s so good. Um, but yeah, I mean there’s so much, I totally agree. There’s an addiction to it. Um, and a really unhealthy one at that. Um, okay. And then the second thing, um, kind of leading into this, you said, uh, I’m learning that I can teach authenticity. So before we get to the study, which I am super intrigued about, and I think it is really interesting and compelling, uh, because I think it’s lacking. I think people struggle with this a lot for a lot of different reasons. So I want like, I want you to define authenticity to you.
EH (18:10):
Yeah. What
AJV (18:11):
Is authenticity?
EH (18:12):
Well, so the way I define it is it’s about exposing who you are when people least expect it.
AJV (18:18):
Hmm love.
EH (18:19):
And, and so what happened, you know, so I said, okay, I’m gonna go do this. I’m gonna go teach it. And then I was like, oh crap. Like, how do you teach something that’s so inherently personal and such, you know, sort of fluffy unicorn DDO. Like how, how can I teach that? Yeah. And, but, but I knew I’m like, wait, I didn’t walk into work. Like I would walk into if I went to your house for a pool party, right. Like I knew there was something more nuanced about me and, and about the people that I consider authentic as well. And actually the first spark was good. Old Google, good old Google. I like, what’s the root word? And the root word is authentic coast, a Greek word and authentic coast means to be genuine. But it also means to be original and authoritative. And so when I saw that, I was like, yes, like authenticity is this more nuanced definition?
EH (19:14):
So actually when I teach, what authenticity is that first thing I do actually is deprogram what? It’s not. So authenticity is not simply being yourself. Yeah. I know that might be depressing. I know that might take a little exorcism, but it is not simply, it’s not the same as being yourself. And it’s also not transparency. It’s not synonymous. People always ask me like, but Erin, is there ever a risk of being too authentic? And I’m like, no, but there’s a risk of being too transparent. They’re not the same word. They’re not the same word at all. And so what, what the most important thing I teach people too, is that authenticity done right in business, in work is actually not about you. Mm it’s. About creating connection, building trust, intrigue, by being, you know, exposing things of yourself, being more vulnerable, being more humbled, using the principles, telling stories, things that you do.
EH (20:13):
Not because it feels better for you, but because it feels better for the connection that you create with people. You know, for example, you know, my first principal, I teach humility, not as like some fluffy adjective, but like purposely use humility. Like I mentioned, like, I have to tell you, I was a complete failure in my first career. And the reason you do that is because what happens then? You’re like, oh, she’s just like me. Like I failed that, you know, chemistry class or, you know, or you also think like, okay, she did not need to tell me that. So I’m guessing she’s not hiding anything else. Like if she would just go and tell me that, you know, she’s spill stuff all over her shirt, you know, two minutes ago or whatever it is. And so if you can think about authenticity, not about you, but, but doing those things that kind of buck the norm that, uh, you know, show a little bit of who you are to benefit somebody else, the reality is it, what happens? It comes right back to you, right? So it’s, it’s not selflessness completely. But if you think first about how you do it for others, then the rewards come back to you almost immediately. Um, so that, that’s kind of how I define it. And then, you know, this, this company I work with called brand builders group taught me how to put some more definition and structure and framework around it, which I have as well.
AJV (21:21):
Well, you know, what’s interesting is, uh, hearing that definition and hearing that earlier, you said you even struggled for, from not maybe what most people would identify as imposter syndrome, but a form of imposter syndrome. And you and I have had those conversations before of you not wanting to feel like an imposter and you know, it’s it, it’s interesting because I feel like most people who self identify with imposter syndrome, it’s probably also much of it stems from being around a whole bunch of people who aren’t being authentic. We’re trying to live up, we’re trying to live up to the image. It’s something that is not real right. It’s like, I, I had to, I did this like a couple years ago. It’s like five years ago now maybe. But I went through my Instagram and I unfollowed every single person that made me feel bad about people.
AJV (22:15):
And not because they were doing anything was my own insecurities. Right. But it’s like, they didn’t do anything, but it was like, man, if I can tell that you’ve airbrushed your photos, it’s like, I’m trying to live up to something that I will never li be able to live up to because we’re human and no human looks like that. Right. That is an animated version of human reality. And I was like, my gosh, I’m like comparing myself to something that’s not actually real. Yeah. And that happens all the time. Right. Unintentionally accidentally or not. But it’s like, look at people’s, you know, picture perfect snapshots in a moment. But what’s missing is the real, crazy chaos that isn’t, that is life. And that, I think that’s what makes us feel like imposters is we look around and be like, everyone else has it together. I must not belong here.
EH (23:06):
Yep. And we all have this disease, this disease that thinks we are the only ones that want it. It’s so funny cuz I, you know, I do corporate workshops all the time. A lot of ’em with executives and, and uh, they’re sort of like, well, yeah, I want it. But I, you know, I, I did my town hall the normal way because I, I, I assumed everybody else wanted the normal structure and the da da, da, da. And um, you know, what I say is authenticity in business and work is sort of like, and you know, this you’re in the thick of this, you know, when you take the boys to a birthday party, one of those birthday parties where like they might do the bouncy house and then they, you know, they all all go do the pizza and then they do the cake. Right. And you’re all stand, you know, the parents are standing around the perimeter and they get done with the, you serving the kids, the cake who just like grab it and ask for another piece. And, and then they come around and they ask the parents, would you like a piece now? What do most parents say?
AJV (24:02):
Oh, no. Good. I’m good. Thank you.
EH (24:04):
What are most people think? Most parents thinking,
AJV (24:07):
Yeah. I ask some
EH (24:09):
AJV (25:17):
Oh my gosh,
EH (25:18):
That’s my kumbaya moment. Huh.
AJV (25:19):
Oh, but it’s so true. It’s true. I think we’re all in search and desire of a little bit more of that in our lives right now. And probably always, but I feel like there’s definitely an era. There’s an aura right around, at least in my circle of going, I need that. I want that. And I didn’t notice that five years ago, um, maybe it’s me. Right? Maybe it’s like, I’m just more in tune to it today than I was before. Cause it’s more important to me, but I do notice there’s this more trend of man. It’s like, you know, and I think this is a great transition to your study and what I, I don’t agree with that. There’s this great resignation I do agree with. There’s a great reevaluation. And I think a lot of that has to do with everyone, having a chance to step back and go, what am I doing and why am I doing it? And do I want to moving forward? Yeah. A lot of it has to do with who, not just what, and so I wanna know, like why did you go the research route? And then what did you find in this national research study when it comes to authenticity?
EH (26:23):
Yeah. So, you know, it went, the research were out for a few reasons. One, um, quite frankly, I always wanna be standing out and you know, I’m so glad I wrote my book. I love my book. People love my book. Everybody writes a book. Um, so part of of it was just strategic. Like not everybody does research, right. Let me do something that stands out. But I’d say just as much, if not more than that, you know, what I talk about is so impactful to people, but it, it can feel so much like fluffy unicorn voodoo, right. And, and, and nobody had really, you know, quantified it, a lot of the, you know, articles out there.
EH (27:13):
And I had pieced together and, you know, in my keynotes and things, I’d pieced together, different studies, right. Line of sight towards this data showed this, this data showed this and therefore right. Authenticity actually will get you more money is essentially the, the story. Um, but nobody had done that. And um, yeah, I mean, I, I laugh because you know what I talk about now, I’m like, you know, for three years I’ve been obsessed with authenticity, but I’ve, you know, largely been making this stuff up
AJV (27:56):
Yeah. I think it’s really powerful. Like one of the things that I, I get kind of like to what you said, and it’s the same reason we did research right. On personal branding. It’s like, man, we think all of this, but is it right? Is it true? And I think a lot of it isn’t like, wouldn’t have mattered to us because it’s like, but we still believe is still what we believe, but it was also just really amazing to go. We’re not the only ones, but then to also be pleasantly surprised about where we were potentially wrong or different. Right. Maybe wrong isn’t the right word. But it was like, it helped shape our perspective even on what we did and going, yeah. Like I do see that alternative and it allowed us to go really deep and an area that wasn’t even in our purview before.
AJV (28:42):
It’s like, I love data. I, I love, I’m such a nerd. Like this is like such my thing. Like that’s probably what one thing that people don’t know about me is like, I’m a real nerd. Like I love data. I love spreadsheets. I love geeky things. Um, my husband always says, that’s why you love me. And I’m like, yes, that’s why I love you. I love nerds. Um, it’s like nerd better for me. Um, and so I wanna know it’s like, if you had to like pick out like what were like the two or three biggest moments, ahas, whatever it was like, what were some of the biggest things that came outta the study that you feel like, I don’t care who you are. You need to know this.
EH (29:17):
Yeah. I would put them in a couple categories. Um, the first is there are a couple where the magnitude of confirming our theory or our thesis was kind of blew our mind. Uh, and those, you know, those were a couple of them, you know, you talk about the great resignation, but let, let’s just call it talent retention, which when I do corporate workshops, I always start, especially with the executives, you know, what’s the number one issue you’re facing. Cause I want them to know we’re solving issues. We’re not there doing fluff and it’s retention, retention, acquisition, talent, talent, talent, you know, and what was interesting. So I’ll tell you what we found. So we asked, um, one question, simple question. How much is authenticity practiced in your organization? And on that question, we did a Likert scale. So you know, all the time, you know, 5, 5, 5 scale liker, um, scale, and then like 10 questions later, we simply asked them, will you, do you think you’ll be working for your employer two years from now?
EH (30:15):
And then we pieced together those two questions. And we found that the people that scored the top of the Likert scale, like it’s always practice authenticity. So they have authentic culture were 92% likely to still be at their employer two years ago. And it literally drew a line like this, like 84%, 72%, 60 some percent, and then not practice at all. It was 40%. So the correlation between an authentic company, culture and employee retention was, you know, just perfect and magnified. Another one that the magnitude was, it was crazy. We asked people, um, is your leader authentic? Yes or no? Just a simple question. Yes or no. And then again, like eight questions later we asked, um, if your leader were, were to leave the organization, would you follow them? And people that said yes to the first question that their leader was authentic were four times more likely to follow them.
EH (31:11):
If they went somewhere else, 400%. And we found that correlation with trust. We also asked, you know, about the authenticity, the authentic culture. And then we looked at a statement that said, um, do you agree with this? There’s a high level of trust in our organization. And we found those with the, you know, the highest authentic culture. It was like, it was also a four times magnitude of trust. Um, so we saw, we saw, you know, basically our thesis was blown away in terms of the numbers. And then on the, the other category, I would say the surprising things, right? The things that we sort of didn’t expect, a couple things really stood out. Um, one were around executives. Um, so many people, right. Have this myth. It’s like, yeah, I wanna do authenticity or I wanna authentic culture, but right. The guy, you know, those dudes at the top, the people, you know, the executives at the top, they’re not authentic.
EH (32:02):
And it was interesting when we asked, for example, that simple question, is your leader authentic or not? When we looked at the three different job types. So we, we basically said, are you an executive leader? Are you an, an executive manager or something like that, a non-executive manager or a non-manager. So those three categories and the people that said yes, the most that their manager was authentic were the executives. And why that’s so important is that the people at the top are actually, as they’re hanging out, they’re having their one-on-ones, they’re having their meetings. They’re super authentic, right. They have these great relationships, but then as they face out to the organization, whether it’s through town halls, you know, part of the devil is the corporate com team
EH (32:58):
Yeah. Cause they have their scripts written for them. They have their handlers, they, you know, that they, they might feel like, you know, they have to Polish up or people won’t have confidence in them. And the reality is the executives are, are seeing their, their own bosses as the most authentic in the company. So that was interesting. And another surprising one was, um, that I was really curious about a sense of top sensitive topic, which is around, um, you know, black and other people of color, you know, this question. Yeah. But can they be authentic, right? Like there’s this, you know, feeling that it’s harder for them, uh, or it’s not as, as inter or as easy. And actually our data found that it was pretty much flat and there were a few places where there was not much of a statistical difference. Um, but we found in almost all of the questions, like, do you feel you can be authentic at work?
EH (33:52):
How important is authenticity at work? Um, et cetera, et cetera. It was about the same. And then the, the last thing around diversity, we found, we asked a question, um, if you’re looking for a new job, which of these factors are most important and we gave them eight factors and the top two were pay benefits, of course, and then flexibility, uh, which makes a lot of sense. The next two were authentic culture and authentic leader. And then what’s most important is what was below those below authenticity, quite significantly was the company has values that I believe in which we talk all the time about, right. Especially like the millennials and gen Z, they wanna work for a company has the same. That was actually lower. Um, getting the experience I need to build my resume, you know, basically was below that. Um, and then diversity of the company was actually last. And what I say about that is it’s not that diversity doesn’t matter, but it’s a great point. That diversity is all for. Not like if you check all the boxes, right. And you have all the percentages and numbers, if people can’t be themselves
AJV (34:58):
That’s right.
EH (34:59):
And so, you know, really authenticity in the terms of diversity, it’s, it’s the Trump card. Uh, and so that was, that was pretty interesting to see as well.
AJV (35:06):
Yeah. I think that speaks a lot too. It’s like, are you checking the diversity, uh, button versus is this an authentic, real part of our culture? Right. And it’s like, you know, even as a woman, it’s like, am I on this board because I’m checking your female card or is it because you generally want me here? And it’s like, I question that all the time. It’s like, I don’t wanna be your checkbox. Thanks. But no, thanks. Mm-hmm
EH (36:13):
Yeah, I mean, well, so, you know, I would not in the research, but I, what I would say it’s because people have four decades and decades, watch people not take the cake
AJV (36:23):
Yeah.
EH (36:24):
At the birthday party. And they’ve been so programmed that nobody wants the cake, or it’s not cool that they take the cake. And, you know, we just emulate what we see in front of us. It’s the same thing our kids do. Right. They, they emulate what we do, same thing in business. Like I always joke, like some dude in 1965 was really successful being stuffy and like having a process and people started to replicate it. Right. And it just regenerated. And then, you know, 30, 40 years later we’re like, oh crap, maybe that wasn’t the right formula. Um, but it’s, it’s about emulation because, because I know this because part of the reason I was able to start my experiments and get addicted and have that different game, that different path is because I had a father that I watched every day, come home and tell stories.
EH (37:09):
He was a teacher. And then, and then he retired and sold real estate. And he would tell story after story, basically of how, how incredibly authentic he was as a teacher and the funny things he had to do with the kids and the way he would discipline through a totally different manner. And so I got to see right people, I saw somebody eating the cake and then I was also very lucky, one of my first bosses, um, that took a big, uh, risk on me. She was the leader of our international division and she also demonstrated this authenticity. And again, it wasn’t just a permission cuz I didn’t just see her do it, but I saw her results. I, I ran her strategic planning. I knew our numbers every year we were growing the business. And so I got to tie together both the permission to be like that, but also that it created success.
EH (37:56):
And that’s why I’m out doing what I’m doing and trying to find as many people, right. To plant the seed because it’s simply that we have to start seeing something different to emulate that is not only more relieving and more fun, but you also are like, holy crap, look at the results they got. And I think you’re starting to, I, I, you know, it’s so funny in the entrepreneurial to, you know, kind of go to the entrepreneurial side of the house, you know, I, listen, I consume tons of stuff. Right. And part of brand builders is I listen to podcast. And so often I’ll hear people go, oh like, oh, this is such an interesting trend that I see. And they don’t call it authentic. And I sort of laugh and I’m like, like it’s authenticity. That’s why it’s working. Right. It’s you know, and people call it different things, but you’re seeing it all the time in the entrepreneurial world.
EH (38:44):
You’re seeing it LinkedIn, a huge trend. You know, I just listened to an episode of him, the LinkedIn guy that’s part of NSA. And he was like, yeah, she’s like stock photos. And um, you know, curated basically CAMBA picks don’t do well. It’s the, it’s the natural pictures. I was like, authenticity, you know? So I’ll hear things and I’m like, authenticity. I’m like, it, it works. It’s just about being aware of it, doing that experiment, collecting your own data for data geek. Like you, it literally is like collect the data to be like, Hmm. They open that email. Hmm. They listen to me when they normally are like distracted. Hmm. We sold more of this when we did this and then going, huh? Maybe if I do more than that, it’ll it’ll get better results.
AJV (39:28):
Oh, this is so good. I could literally talk about this for like three hours because I do think it’s something that we all so desperately need. And to me it doesn’t matter if you, again, I said this earlier, a manager or an owner, an executive, it’s like an employee, a, you know, part-time direct sales person, a retail shop employee. It does not matter. It’s like this impacts all of us. Like no matter what your role is, no matter what you’re doing, a parent, a teacher, um, it doesn’t matter a friend, a spouse, like
EH (40:32):
Yeah, you can go to be authentic ink.com. It’s just the letter B authentic inc.com/slash research. That’s a month.
AJV (40:47):
Show notes, but B authentic inc.com/research. And yes, we will put it in the show notes. And if Aaron, if people wanna just connect with you, um, to connect with your more authentic self, uh, all over online, where should they connect with you?
EH (41:02):
Yeah. I mean, you can go to my website and just check out all the things, but I, where I’m most active is LinkedIn. Um, I’d love to connect on LinkedIn. I am the only Aaron Hatti in the world. So if you can spell it, you can find me.
AJV (41:14):
Wow. That’s so funny because I’ve been saying Erin Hopsy for oh, oh,
EH (41:19):
That’s actually, that’s actually even better. Hoy Costa. You’re giving it the Mediterranean flare. I’m giving it the American, like you wanna try to spell it?
AJV (41:28):
I was like, that is like, you got it. I was like, Rory always tells me that he was like, they like, I don’t know what you hear, but you don’t hear the real words you just make. He’s like make up like all the words to songs. It goes, these are not the words. And I’m like, you’re not, I dunno what you hear, but it’s not what it is. Um, thank you so much for coming on. I love this. Thank you for bringing this topic to the table and also bringing in a way of like, how do we use this to better communication, better. Our leadership just better our relationships, right? It’s just like the more that you can be authentic, right? It’s like it has this domino effect of positivity and impact no matter where you go. And yes, that will lead to bigger, better jobs and more pay and stronger relationships and all the things. And thank you for bringing it to the table, but also in a light of like, how do we take this and apply it and see it in a different way where it’s not like you do you boo, but it’s like, Hey, like there is power in this. This is how you do it. I love this. I love you. Y’all got go check out this study, go follow Erin, go connect with her on LinkedIn. And then, uh, make sure you come back here next, uh, time on the influential personal brand. We’ll see you later.
Ep 327: First Steps to Launching Your Expert Business with Chris Ducker | Recap Episode
RV (00:02):
How do you find your niche and how do you find your first customers? That was the topic of conversation primarily with my good friend Chris Ducker. Welcome to this recap edition. I’m gonna be highlighting you know, some of my three top takeaways from that conversation with Chris, sharing some of my own thoughts here. And just hopefully helping you put this into practice because you know, as I shared Christa something very similar to what we do at Brand Builders Group. He focuses on helping experts build their personal brand, does it in a different way. He’s in the uk, we’re in the us He does mostly membership sites and, and group virtual trainings. We do mostly one-on-one coaching with people, but I’ve known him for years and love dialoging and just sort of like sharpening each other’s saw, diving in on personal brand strategy and online marketing and nicheing and all of those things.
RV (00:56):
So I’m gonna share with you my top, my top three, I’ll, I’ll say take aways. They were things that either Chris shared or things that it, it inspired me to talk to you about. And specifically I wanna, I’m gonna share with you three ways to find your niche, like, to help you actually niche down. But the first, my first takeaway was one of the things that Chris said early on, which is just going, How do you become someone’s favorite? Right? Like, become someone’s favorite. That’s what we’re trying to do. Like that is, that is what I want to do, right? Like, and, and, and I don’t know who needs to, I don’t know if you need to hear this, somebody listening needs to hear this. You don’t need to have millions of followers. You don’t need to have millions of downloads. You don’t have to have hundreds of employees.
RV (01:50):
You, you don’t have to, like, you don’t need those things. And in, in many cases, the chasing of those things, I think is what holds us back from actually receiving and achieving and accomplishing the things that are meant for us. Because we’re like caught in this distant facade and dream of like, Oh, we have to change the whole world that we’re missing out on. Like, we can change the lives of the people that are right in front of us. We can be someone’s favorite, and that’s what I wanna be, right? Like of course I wanna have, you know, reach more people and have more people buy, buy our books and our listen to this podcast and follow us on social media and join our email list. Yeah. You know, we’re, we’re generally speaking, we’re moving in the direction of, of more of those people, but getting consumed with that is really risky business. It’s really dangerous because it, it pulls you away from, you know, what I think Chris was talking about, or at least what it made me think about when he said, How can you become someone’s favorite, Right? Like, you go, maybe you won’t have millions of podcast listeners, but you’re have hundreds of
RV (03:00):
People that your show is their Favorite show,
RV (03:04):
Right? Your book is their favorite book. Like listening to you speak or watching your reels, or you know, your talks or your YouTube shorts or your, your, your YouTube videos or reading your blog, your, their favorite. How do you become their favorite? It, it’s, it’s actually way easier than people think. It’s easier to become somebody’s favorite by
RV (03:26):
Serving a More narrow group of people. Be because
RV (03:32):
There’s a couple reasons why, and I asked Chris this question and I liked the answer that he gave and, and I’ve got another answer that I wanted to share with you is I said, Why do you think that is? I said, Why, why is it that that the more you niche down the, the more you know the quicker you have success and like the more financial success you experience quickly? And he said, Well, I think a lot of it is language, right? And and I think that’s a part of it for sure. Like, it’s, it’s, we, we use the term native tongue. Like you’re able to use terminology that your audience relates with, and they go, Oh, you serve me
RV (04:06):
Like I’m your Person. And when and when your audience can show up and they, and they know, Oh,
RV (04:14):
Talk to me like I’m your Person,
RV (04:16):
Then it just creates this really quick intimate bond because you’re, you’re sharing their language that they understand and, and, and that’s super powerful. But, but the other thing, you know, as I was thinking about the question I asked him, which is
RV (04:31):
Why does it work
RV (04:33):
So much better to, to niche down rather than to go like, you know, broad market? Like what is it about that? What I realized,
RV (04:44):
What I realized is that I think the, the real, the real thing
RV (04:48):
That’s happening there
RV (04:49):
Is when you serve a smaller market, you have more opportunity and more availability and more specificity in being able to serve them in a deeper way. When you serve a narrow market, you can serve them in a deeper way. Because when you, when you serve a small group of people and you, you just ask, what’s the next thing they need? What’s the next thing they need? Then all of a sudden you can fully like, like own it and step into it and be a part of it and, and go, Oh, this is what they
RV (05:26):
Need. And, and part
RV (05:27):
Of what’s making me think
RV (05:28):
About this is the
RV (05:31):
Is the,
RV (05:33):
The, the, the book tool the book launch tool, right? So we are
RV (05:39):
Doing,
RV (05:40):
You know, book launches. One of the things we’ve been helping people with, and we’ve been doing it so much that it’s like, Oh, they need a template for this, and they need a template for this, and they need a template for this. And it’s like,
RV (05:49):
Through the process of
RV (05:51):
Coaching people on such a
RV (05:52):
Narrow specific part of their business, we’ve been able to create these incredible
RV (05:56):
Tools that we never would’ve thought to create if we were just sort of like serving the whole world. But it’s like the more we get specific on going, yeah, you know, like, I mean, if somebody’s launching a book like Brand Builders Group, I mean, we might be the best in the world at this, and we’ve just done it so much. And you know, I mean, just this year, I mean, we’ve had four clients, Ed Mylet, Eric Thomas, Tom and Lisa biu and Lovey Ajai Jones. We had four clients just this year that we’ve helped hit to New York Times, Wall Street Journal and or USA Today bestseller list. So it’s like, we’ve just been living in this, you know, for this season, especially recently, that it’s like, golly, for whatever reason, those have come to us and we’ve been, and, and we’re developing this depth, this real depth of knowledge.
RV (06:44):
You can’t do that when you’re trying to serve all different types of people and cater to all different types of businesses because you have to sort of stay super high level because, you know, it’s, it’s sort of like there’s this, this plane of there is, there’s principles that you can teach and then there’s practices and, you know, the, the, the principles of success are general. They apply universally. Like my book, Take the Stairs, a great example of that or my TED Talk, How to Multiply time, their principles. They, we, we teach at the principal level, and so they apply universally, which, you know, like people will watch a free TED talk, but I don’t make many money when they watch a free TED Talk. I do from the few of the groups that hire me to speak, which is a very small percentage of the people who watch it and, you know, take the serious book.
RV (07:30):
A lot of people read it, but it’s a $20 book, and which, you know, my royalty is 15% or whatever the number is, It’s not a huge amount. Versus when, when we’re serving people in, in the practices way, like we’re giving people verbatim scripts of what they can sell, what they can say to generate free calls and how to sell high dollar offers and exactly how to structure their sales pages. And these are the steps to do a book launch. And here’s how you, here’s how you get your first speaking engagements and, and here’s how you train your sales people, how to do free calls. And here’s what you say to ask for referrals, and here’s what you change to add humor into your presentations, and here’s how you better construct your funnels, and here’s how you optimize your offer structures, and here’s how you create more urgency.
RV (08:12):
And here’s how you, you know, like write your email copy and like, we can do it with such specificity because we’re, we’re, we’re serving experts and, and, and personal brands on really marketing and sales, how to generate more leads. And so who is that for you? Like, who can you be their favorite? Who can you be their favorite? So that’s the, that’s, that’s the first thing. The second thing is how to niche down. Okay? And this is where I wanna share you three specific questions. There’s three different ways of nicheing down, and I call this the M three model, okay? This is the M three model. This is part of our, this is one of our curriculum elements for our, our paying members at Brand Builders Group. Okay? So when you look at differentiating, how do you differentiate yourself from others in the market?
RV (09:05):
The first m is the, the market is the who. Okay? So here’s the three M’s. Market model and method, market model and method, Okay? So the, the first one is to say, can I differentiate in the market that I serve? Meaning in who do I serve? So market is the who model is the how. Method is the, what market is the who model is the how, Method is the what. So who do I serve? If I serve a very specific type of person, then that you’re automatically nicheing down and creating differentiation. Now look, you know, even like brand builders group, if you go, Okay, who do we serve at a high level, it’s, it’s probably entrepreneurs. Then you go, there’s a level down from that, and it’s like, okay, it’s anyone who does professional services. You do the level down from that and you go, Okay, it’s really experts.
RV (09:56):
And you go really down to the core. It’s like coaches, speakers, authors, consultants, professional service advisors, right? Like they’re, they’re experts. But then we narrow down to say we serve mission driven messengers. So they’re not just experts, They’re experts who care more about service than they they do about sales. They’re people who care about money, but the money is subservient to the mission. Our audience are people who wanna make a bigger impact. They wanna make the world a better place. Yes, if they make more money as a byproduct of that, that’s a great thing. And they need money in order to do that, cuz it takes money to, to make impact and, and do big things. But it’s like the mission is first. So that’s a part of how we have quickly differentiated and delineated and defined who we serve. So that’s who you serve.
RV (10:47):
It can be a demographic, like an age and a geography and, and, but it also can be a psychographic like mission driven messengers, which is their mentality. So who do you serve? Next is model, right? So the business model is, that’s when we say model, that’s like what is your business model? How do you service those people? You know, this came up on the show with Chris, which is like, he serves people through online courses primarily, right? We have a different business model. We are a, a one-on-one coaching model. Now we have courses, we have membership site, but that’s mostly just to help people have an affordable way to step in. Our goal is to work with people at our live events and one-on-one because man, when we get a chance to like talk to you and deep dive with you and, and help you not just teach it to you, but do it with you, it’s life changing.
RV (11:43):
I mean, we, we have, we can improve. Like there’s certain techniques we teach that can help people make six figures in 60 seconds. Like changing what you say on stage. I was using this example this morning with our internal team where we changed what one speaker said on stage and made a hundred thousand dollars in just adding a, a little 62nd pivot in what they said from stage versus when they hadn’t done it. And, and a hundred thousand dollars difference, like a hundred thousand dollars in this one pivot. We can’t do that though, unless we’re working with you one on one. So that’s our model. So, you know, Uber changed the model. Taxis had a business model, which was you go stand in the taxi line and, and you waited for them. Uber said, We come to you wherever you are, right? And instead of standing in a line, you push a phone a button on your app, and they come to you iTunes and, and Napster.
RV (12:40):
They, they changed the model. It was the same method in terms of the, what it was still music, but the model was different. It wasn’t by a physical CD or a cassette tape. It, it was, you know, go online and download a file or, or you know, basically plug into this, this platform that, that, that plays files. That is a change in model. Airbnb is, is a model. It’s like instead of staying at hotels, you know, people are renting out their homes. That’s a change in business model and it’s a way to differentiate. And then the third m m three is method. The method is what you actually do. So that’s like what you actually teach. So again, just using Chris as an example, since we kind of do something similar, you know, we both have frameworks and we both have a map. We both have, you know, like a roadmap.
RV (13:30):
We call ours the brand builder journey. And we both have techniques and, and exercises. We take people to help them clarify their audience you know, grow their audience, manage their, manage the different parts of their business, et cetera. But what we do is actually different. The models that he teaches are, are ones that he’s come up with that have worked for him and his clients. The ones that we teach are different. We have the 15 piece of copywriting. We have your content diamond for managing social media. We have the modular content method for writing your whole book in like two days. We have the something, something that we call pillar point formulas, which is like how to make your TED talk go viral. And we have our, our bestseller launch plan for launching books. And, and we have all of these different frameworks where it’s like the, what we’re teaching is actually different.
RV (14:18):
You can’t get what we’re doing from anyone else. You could get something similar, right? There’s lots of people who do something similar to what you do, but they can’t do exactly what you do if you’re creating your own unique methodology. And that’s part of what we teach people to do in captivating content is we teach you, we help you, we facilitate the creation of your own thought leadership, of your own original ip, of, of your own unique methodologies and frameworks and diagrams and charts and tables that they can’t, they can’t, no one can get it anywhere else in the world except from you, because that’s different differentiating your method. And that automatically creates differentiation and distinction. So that’s how you, you niche down, I would say focus on those three. You know, the market. Who, who am I serving? Who can I serve specifically the, the model.
RV (15:10):
How am I serving them? How can that be different? And then the method, what am I, what am I actually teaching or doing for them? That’ll help you niche down. And then the, the last, my last takeaway this was directly from Chris, just, you know, the way he said it was, you know, I said, What’s the best way to get your first customer? And I listed off all these different marketing method methods, and I loved his answer. He said, he said, Choose your weapon. Choose your weapon. And, and here’s, here’s how I internalized that. The formula for success is to do any type of marketing, because you’ll do it really well. Like, but the formula for failure is to do all types of marketing. The formula for success is to do any type of marketing. But the formula for, for the, but the formula for failure, the formula for failure is to do all types of marketing.
RV (16:04):
Meaning if you do all of them, none of them are gonna, you’re not gonna do any of them well. So you can take any of them and, and focus on them and do them really well, and it will work, right? Like you can become a master of cold calling. You can become a master of, of sending direct messages of email marketing, of social, of podcasting, of YouTube, of LinkedIn, of whatever. But if you try to do all of them at the same time, they’re not, it’s not gonna work. Like it’s, it’s just, you’re, you’re, you’re not optimizing for, for your resources. Like, especially if you’re a small business. So the formula for success is to do any type of marketing. The formula for failure is to do all types of marketing. So choose your weapon, choose one form of marketing, choose one platform, one technique, one strategy.
RV (16:51):
Learn it, do it really, really well. And if you come to Brand Builder’s Group, we’re gonna teach you, we’re gonna teach you how to get referrals and we’re gonna teach you how to go out and do presentations. Cuz we know that that is the fastest path to cash for high dollar offers, is referrals from friends and family. And we’re gonna teach you exactly what to say, when to say it, how to say it, who to say it to verbatim, right? In our Pressure Free Persuasion course. And we’re gonna teach you how to create world class presentations that drive massive trust and leads immediately into your business using our, our world class presentation, craft training which is based on brand dna. So but whatever it is, choose your weapon and, and just do, do one really, really well and you will succeed. The riches are in the niches.
RV (17:38):
This is, this is counterintuitive that by narrowing down your focus, you will make more impact, more money and, and just more of a difference in the world. So don’t be afraid to just let go and say you have permission to not need or chase millions of followers. Just become the favorite of a few people. And the better job you do at doing that, the more impact, the more income and the more influence you will create. Share this podcast if you wouldn’t mind with somebody who you think will benefit from it. And keep coming back here week after week on the influential Personal Brand podcast.
Ep 326: First Steps to Launching Your Expert Business with Chris Ducker
RV (00:02):
Well, some people might say you should never, you should never promote competitors or people who do something similar to what you would do. And to that, I would say, let me introduce you to my good friend Chris Ducker, who does something in the vein, the similar vein to what we do at Brand Builders Group O, honestly, and he’s one of the best in the world at it, and I’ve known him for years. And I have always been someone who just rejects scarcity and believes in abundance. And if people can learn from me or him or both of us, all the better. Chris is one of the entrepreneurs, one of the pioneers of this space, of sort of online experts in helping them become more well known. He’s written couple different books that were sort of flagship to the space, so Virtual Freedom.
RV (00:49):
And then more recently, Rise of the Preneur. He’s got a program called The Preneur Incubator, which takes people who are just starting out as sort of experts in trying to like find their way as a year long program to help them make six figures. And he’s running a, an event coming up, a free experience where you can check this out. It’s called The Elevated Entre, the Elevated Entrepreneur Experience. And it’s coming up and he messaged me about it and I was like, Yeah, man, we wanna tell people about it. So we want you to sign up to check out the free experience. You can do [email protected] slash elevated. But obviously you’re gonna get a chance to meet him and learn about him here. I’ve had him on the show before. I really admire him. He’s a real entrepreneur. He’s built businesses in the Philippines, in the US and the uk. He operates out of the UK right now and has just truly built virtual businesses. Has a great reputation. We’ve got lots of of very similar friends that we, or friends that we share with one another. And anyways, he’s just a stud. So, Chris, welcome to the show, man.
CD (01:55):
Yep. This is so good. You called me a stud right at the end of the introduction. stud.
RV (02:01):
Yes,
CD (02:01):
I’m down with this. This is good. Can we end the chat now on that very eye?
RV (02:06):
I stud real,
CD (02:07):
Very real
RV (02:08):
Note. That’s, We’ll cut that for Instagram. Chris Ducker’s a stud. Yeah, we’ll just, and we’ll just push it, but
CD (02:16):
Good to be back on the show, dude. Thanks again for having me back. Appreciate
RV (02:19):
It. Yeah. I, I, and I, I, I, you know, I think the easiest way to describe to people what you do is that in, in some ways it’s similar to us. I mean, in many ways, you, you help them build launch, build scale expert businesses. You help them figure out what they should be known for. And I love talking about it, and your stuff is super affordable. It’s super good. It’s totally legit and trustworthy, and I think people should know about it. So, you know you, before the show, we were just kind of talking a little bit about like, what’s the starting point for somebody and how figuring out what you want to be known for is like a big thing. And there’s, I think with, you know, obviously the pandemic, I don’t think we’ve had you on since Covid, right? So the world is
CD (03:08):
Maybe right at the beginning. I think I might maybe
RV (03:10):
Right at the beginning. But like you know, how, where does somebody start? Like what’s the, what’s the first step here of going, okay, maybe they just got let go from their job. Mm-Hmm.
CD (03:34):
Well, the first step is a little selfish actually. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The first step to figuring out how or what kind of expert business you’re gonna build is honestly to figure out what, what it is you wanna be known for. And I think a lot of people try to go too broad, too kind of wide, the beginning of it all. And they don’t understand the entire kind of process of nicheing down or nicheing down to our brothers and sisters from the other side of the pond there,
CD (04:21):
That’s what we want. We want to ultimately become somebody’s favorite. That’s what we wanna do. And we will never become somebody’s favorite by being too broad, by being, by casting that net too wide. So, as an example, if I can share an example, like if you think health coach, there are a gazillion health coaches out there, it’s very vanilla nowadays to say that you’re a health coach, right? But if you say, I’m a health coach that works with men, now we’re starting to get somewhere. Now we’re starting to niche down a little bit. But if you’re a health coach that works with men in their forties and beyond, now we’ve niched down one step further, but let’s try one more step to really nail in here. You’re a health coach that works with men who are 40 plus who are recovering from major surgery. Boom, there’s your niche, right?
CD (05:13):
There’s your niche right there. Now, it doesn’t mean that you’re gonna have a thousand prospects visiting your website every single week, but what it does mean is that whenever anybody does visit your website, you and the language that you’re using in the marketing, the copy that you’re using, the imagery, everything, it’ll all sing to them. And they’re very quickly turn around and say, Yes, Rory’s my guy. I wanna learn how to be able to get back in the shape, how to get my strength back, how to start eating healthier again, and really give myself a new lease of life following my surgery. I’m gonna give this guy a call. Mm-Hmm.
RV (05:51):
Well, okay, so I I love that. Concur with that. The when you said, when you said you may not have thousands of people coming to your website, but the people who come, you’re gonna be speaking right to them and they’re gonna say, Where have you been all my life? We use the term native tongue so that we say like, you’re speaking in their native tongue. Like there you go. They, they, they get you and they get that you, that you get, they get that, you get them. And it’s like, okay, what I have found, Chris, that holds people back is the emotional. In order to do that, which is wonderful and brilliant, you have to sort of separate and let go of this. Like, I’m gonna have 5 million followers and I’m gonna have 60 million people on YouTube, and I’m gonna be the person who’s on billboards.
RV (06:46):
And like, there’s like a, when you talk about nicheing down, it’s like you are at the same time, it feels like there’s almost like you have to do this emotional release of the desire to be known by everybody. Yeah. And instead say, I’m going to deliberately and intentionally choose to be known deeper by the few than a little bit by everybody. How do you overcome that hurdle? Like, what would you say to somebody go, and like, cuz I think that’s what people struggle with. They go, But I wanna help everybody. Right? And you gotta almost wave byebye to that. Or do you think, how do you think about that? Well,
CD (07:24):
You do. You gotta wave. Bye bye. You know, without a doubt. Like I say, like you gotta market like a magnet, right? That’s my thing. Like, you market like a magnet. So at the same time that you’re attracting the right people into your ecosystem at the exact same time, just like a magnet, you’re repelling away the wrong people, right? Like, we don’t want the people that don’t, you know, they don’t kind of jive with our vibe, right? Like if, if they don’t understand where we coming
RV (07:49):
From, Yeah, you can’t be here if you can’t jive with my vibe.
CD (07:52):
If you, if you’re not jiving with my vibe, baby, I don’t, I just don’t want you around. Simple as that. So like, I’m, I’m just a big believer that, you know, you put more of you into what it is that you’re doing, you will attract more likewise people into your world. So for example I practice boni. I like to drink fine single malt whiskey and American bourbon. I like to build Lego with my children. All these things make up part of me and my personality. So I’ll talk about those things when I’m coaching people, as you know, I’ll use examples of, you know, when you get a, a raw piece of material that will eventually become a beautiful bon eye one day, the branches are all leggy, and the scr in this foliage missing, and you know, all this, the roots might, might not be very strong.
CD (08:43):
And all these, you’re building up this tree from scratch, fundamentally by pruning back, by wiring, by feeding, by watering, by repoting, using different types of soils for different types of trees and all these types of things. All that, what I’ve just said, just there, that’s building a business too. We use different types of soil in different types of industry. In other words, we say and do things differently in one industry than would do in another one, and so on and so on and so on. The branches, the foliage, that’s staff, customer suppliers, product services, experiences, whatever it is, right? So when I talk about those things, people who get it get me, and therefore, you know, they, they, they just naturally gravitate towards me. So I think you have to kiss goodbye to a certain amount of the population. You could, You sh you can’t please all the people all the time.
CD (09:33):
And quite frankly, if you try and do it, it’s just exhausting. Plain and simple. It’s burnout is inevitable as far as I’m concerned in that scenario. And so I’m all about, like you say, I would rather have a hundred people on my email list that open every single email, buy everything that I put out, read every book that I write and talk about me when they’re at the dinner parties, the conferences, the coffee meetings, right? Rather than 10,000 people on the email list that do didly squat. Yeah. So I think by nicheing down, narrowing down that message, and also the big thing is the language that you use becomes that much more attractive to that person because you’re speaking directly to them based on wants, needs, pain points, et cetera, et cetera.
RV (10:23):
Yeah. Uhhuh when you talk about nicheing down, like, so in your example, you used you know, health coach for men over 40 who recovered from surgery. The, who is a big part of that example, men, the, the, it’s, it’s, you’re nicheing down by who you’re serving. So it’s sort of like the, what that you’re doing is health coaching, but in your example where you were nicheing down was by the who you’re doing it for. Correct. So it was like, it wasn’t what you were doing, it was who you were doing it for. Is, is that most of where nicheing comes from? Does nicheing come from, not so much nicheing what you do, but who you do it for? Or are there other types of nicheing or like is that sort of like the primary vehicle or like the most practical thing that people can do if they’re going, okay, how, how do I niche down, Right? Like, I’m an accountant, I’ve spent my whole life being accountant and so you go, okay, who are you going to be an accountant for? I mean, that’s clearly one way. Is that, is that the best way? Is that the only way? Is that kind of the most practical way or what do you think? I
CD (11:40):
Don’t, I don’t know whether it’s the only way or whatever, but I mean, like, I think it’s probably the most practical when you think about building a business. It’s hard enough as it is to build a business, right? Mm-Hmm.
RV (12:52):
Similar who,
CD (12:53):
Very similar,
RV (12:54):
Very similar who, but the way that we do it is very different.
CD (12:57):
Couldn’t be any different. It couldn’t be any different. You go one on one all the way, I don’t wanna work with people one on one, It doesn’t fire me up. I wanna work
RV (13:06):
With people. That’s a great, that’s a great distinction cuz that is exactly, That’s exactly it. Yeah.
CD (13:13):
Yeah. I see. And like I said, right out the gate, you can be a little selfish. Like, it’s okay, this is your business, right? Just because I don’t help or work with people one on one doesn’t mean that I couldn’t do it, but I don’t want to do it. That’s the, you know, that’s the, the definition of why I don’t do it. It’s because I don’t want to do it. I want to pe I wanna work with groups, I don’t wanna work one on one. And so just because we can do all these different things doesn’t mean that we should do them all. I’m often, when I say that I, I instantly get a flashback to when I was learning how to drive my driving instructor. Her name was Vanessa and here in the UK around built up areas. The speeding limit is 30 miles per hour. And I just kept going right up to that 30 number look 29, 30, 29, 30, 31, 29, 30 29 30. And she pulled me over after about my third of my fourth lesson. She said to me, Chris, I wanna just clarify something real quick. It’s a speed limit. It’s not a speed target. Just because you can hit it doesn’t mean that you should be hitting it all the time. And that’s never left me that lesson. That’s
RV (14:30):
Good.
CD (14:31):
It’s just like the way that we monetize our personal brands. Let’s count ’em off books, coaching, high level consulting advisories on boards online courses, speaking. There’s so many different ways that we could end up ultimately monetizing our expertise. But just because we can do all those things doesn’t mean mean that we actually should do
RV (14:52):
Them. Well, for some it’s a speed limit. For some it’s a speed target. For others it’s a speed suggestion or a speed minimum. A speed, a speed, minimum speed suggestion. I have to tell you buddy. So, so we just got back from Australia and I rented a car and I totally forgot that they drive on the other side of the road from, we drive on in the US and I drove, I drove an eight passenger van for 10 days on the other side of the road. We had some like one time must
CD (15:24):
Have been in the middle of nowhere,
RV (15:25):
CD (16:09):
Mean, you know, the, you know, the, the what and the why’s and everything. I mean that, I think that can probably all be pretty much, you know, integrated into those two
RV (16:17):
Major
CD (16:17):
Well focus. Yeah, I mean, you know, it really comes down to this, the type of person that I want to work with. That’s the who, you know, the why is because I feel called, because I’ve been in that position before. I want to help them out. Now I know what to do. You know, the, the, how well I’m gonna do it via these types of programs or this type of thing. You know, the when, well, I’m gonna do it, you know, the second and third quarter of each year, I’m gonna take the rest of the time off. You know, again, your business, you get to call the shots, you can be a little bit selfish but obviously at first you gotta pull back on the thro and tick some boxes and make sure that you’re doing things in the right way for the right reasons. And for me, that all centers around the person that you’re working with.
RV (16:57):
Mm-Hmm.
CD (17:49):
It work? Yeah, I
RV (17:50):
Why does it work, Right? Why does it work? Because I think if people really understand why, I, I really, I really think people are hung up on this emotional release of going, Okay, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna have millions of millions of followers. I’m gonna find a small group and I’m gonna serve them really, really well. And if we can get them to kind of latch onto why it works and that it really is the way, I think more people will let go of that more quickly and, and kind of follow the path.
CD (18:18):
Yeah. Well I think, I mean, you know, again, I think it comes back to the language that you use. I think people, consumers are, clients are prospects. They wanna be made a fuss of, they wanna feel special. Who doesn’t wanna feel special? Who doesn’t wanna feel as if somebody’s talking directly to them, rather than just a whole bunch of folks, right? And I just, I I, I think that’s one of the reason why it works so well from a marketing standpoint. When you’re talking to somebody, an avatar specifically, and that avatar has a specific set of problems that you have a specific set of skills to help them with, you know, Liam Nielsen taken style, right?
RV (19:01):
Nice.
CD (19:01):
It, when, when, when you are doing that, you are going to be more successful than you were if you were, again, here’s, here’s me using the same term, casting the net too wide. And that’s the reason why it works so well. Because people wanna feel special. They want to be made of fuss of
RV (19:20):
Mm-Hmm.
CD (19:36):
Example, I, I’ve got an accountant friend of mine who could be an accountant for any company on the planet. However he specializes, specializes in working with angel investors and corporations that invest in startup companies. Here in the uk there’s a whole bunch of government schemes in that regards. I’m sure it’s probably the same in the United States as well, but he works specifically with people who invests in and advise startup companies, right? He could work with anybody as an accountant, but that’s what he does. That’s his niche and he’s very, very, very successful. So I think it’s about picking one thing and just, and just, you know, running for the wheels
RV (20:18):
On, but in like, in that example, you go, Okay, everyone has an accountant, but if I’m that type of person, an angel investor, I need a specialized accountant, which means I can have two, I can have my general one, but now I can have my other one. So I don’t have to be the only accountant they ever hire because they’re hiring me for this specific thing. Like if I am a surgeon on this specific thing, you might have multiple surgeons in your life, but you’re gonna be like, I, I, I I need this one. Yeah. Alright. Well I love that. I think that’s really important. So I, I wanna shift the rest of our time to how do you get the first customer, because this is the other big roadblock I think people struggle with. You know, first of all, it’s like they gotta sort of let go of the, I’m gonna be all things to all people with all in all places on all platforms all the time.
RV (21:05):
You know, when it’s like you’re a solo entrepreneur or you have a few people, it’s like you can’t do all of these things all the time really well. The other big roadblock I think people really get hung up on is the first customers. Like the first sales are like, if you are doing this as a side hustle, you know, and you don’t like your job and you wanna do your own thing and you’re going, but I’m scared to make enough income to, you know, create a exit ramp, so to speak from my job. What, like, is it, is it social media? Is it going live? Is it sending emails? Is it blogging? Is it speaking? Is it, you know, knocking on doors? Is it like printing out flyers? Like what the heck? Like how do you get your first customers?
CD (21:51):
Well, it’s all of those things, but you can’t do them all, you know, So it, it’s, it’s choosing your weapon. The when I say that phrase, as you know, I’m basketball head. So as a hoop guy, I think back to the eighties commercials with Converse, where you had magic and you had Larry, both MVPs both won their championships, both had exactly the same pair of sneakers from Converse. Magics was white and purple and gold and Larry’s was black and white identical shoes. The two of them back to back muskets at dawn, holding the shoes, like guns with the phrase choose your weapon,
RV (22:39):
They
CD (22:39):
Both fit your foot exactly the same, but you’re either a Larry fan or you’re a magic fan, so you’re gonna buy the shoe that relates to that, to that person, right? Same sort of type of situation. Finding your first kind of customers is about, well, okay, I can, I can record a podcast and start publishing that every week, or I can do a YouTube channel, or I can be on Instagram all day long, or I can dance on TikTok. You know, I can do all these different things. But again, just cuz you can doesn’t mean you should. Not only that, but also if you go all in on one particular platform with one particular offer, you’re way more likely to get a sale happening sooner rather than later than you would do if you had a whole bunch of different offers and you were focusing on a whole bunch of different platforms.
CD (23:23):
So my advice really for anybody that wants to get kind of going with things, the lowest hanging in monetization fruit, when it comes to monetizing your expertise is your time. It’s you, it’s working with people one on one. Fundamentally, it doesn’t need to be done forever, but it is, it, it’s the easiest sale to make because you’ve got all this experience in your memory bank. Somebody else wants to download it into their memory bank. They’re happy to invest X amount of dollars per hour to sit with you and learn from you because you’ve been there, done that and you’ve been wearing the t-shirt for years. The only issue with that particular monetization strategy is it’s not super scalable, right? There’s only so many hours in the day, which means you can only work with so many people. Now, you could end up ultimately working with a smaller amount of number double triple called Dr all your fee and end up making more money that way.
CD (24:14):
But even then, your time is gonna get maxed out sooner or later. And so that’s when you have other monetization vehicles, like digital courses, group coaching, and that’s all the type of thing coming into play, Masterminds, things like that where you can ultimately make more with less effort, but straight outta the gate, it comes down to really just charging for your time. You know? And, and you know, I did this exercise maybe three years ago with one particular client of mine who was just getting started. It was in the branding and, and design world graphic design, that sort of type of stuff. And he had a good following on his on his blog, but it was kind of not really doing anything. And he was feeling a little bit down heartened about it because he’s got all these people on his email list.
CD (25:01):
I think at the time he had maybe a 1500 or so people on his list and he just wasn’t making any money. You know, you try, he was trying to throw a whole bunch of stuff out to see what people would bite at. And I just said to him, Look, Phil, the next time you send out an email, put a little PS note. I call this the power Ps put a little Ps at the end of your email that says, I never do this, but next month I’m opening up five spots on my calendar for five 60 minute consultation sessions. If you’ve been reading my emails for a while or visiting my blog for a while, you’ll know what I’m good at and what I’m not good at. If you think I can help you and you’re willing to pay, I think it was like 500 bucks for the hour, then click this link first five people to sign up. We’ll get the time. 24 hours, all, all five slots gone, two and a half grand off one email sent to a list that’s been emailed over and over and over again. Never bought anything because he wasn’t selling anything of value. So ultimately it really comes down to just choosing that weapon and choosing that vehicle, that platform. For him, it was email for you, it might be podcasting or for something else, and just sticking to that for a little while until you get some hits.
RV (26:08):
Yep, yep, yep. I love that. I mean, that’s, that’s great. So basically it’s just like any tool, any of those marketing methods will work as long as you mm-hmm.
CD (26:48):
Yeah, cool. So this is, I’ve never done this before, actually. It’s the first time I’ve done it. What I’ve done is I’ve taken all of the best stuff that I’ve taught my paying clients over the 18 months from basically now going backwards, and I’ve put it into a three day cycle. So we’re gonna meet up three days in a row for about 60 to 90 minutes each day, Okay? On day number one, we’re doing what we call our diagnosis snapshot. And we’re kind of looking at auditing our business, what’s working, what’s not, what have we got, what have we not got, what’s missing? And even if you’re just starting out, this is a great way to be able to kind of really start to ascertain exactly what you wanna do and what you don’t wanna do. So we’re gonna be doing that as well as a whole bunch of marketing staff and platform building and stuff like that on day one, Day number two, we’re gonna switch gears a little bit and start talking about actually conversions.
CD (27:42):
So I’m a big believer that conversations lead to conversions. Like I genuinely believe that. And so one of the things that we do as a company every single day is we try and start as many new con conversations every day as possible because, you know, leads generated today end up being a client signed up this week or next week. That’s the way I look at it. And so what I’m gonna do on day two is I’m gonna teach a proprietary system that we use ourself, that I teach to all of my paying clients, that basically allows you to create a nice, steady, consistent stream of warm leads coming into your business every single day, every week, every month of the year, without even spending a single dollar an advert in a way that is simple to easy really easy to execute and understand.
CD (28:32):
And that will get genuine results for you. So we’re gonna do that on day two. And in day three, I’m gonna be walking everybody through what I call my six figure up and roadmap, which will show everybody step by step exactly what they need to do, and most importantly, when they need to do it in their journey, in order to get up to six figures and beyond as quickly as possible. Some people to go through this training will get up in over six figures or prorated, thereabouts within three months. Some people take a year, some people 18 months, but follow the system, follow the roadmap, you know, the hint is in the word, it’s a map. Follow it and you’ll get to your explanation.
RV (29:10):
Mm-Hmm.
CD (29:44):
Sequence, you know, it’s some things you should do, some things you should not do. And the things that you don’t need to do, don’t even look at doing them. Don’t even think about doing them. You just stay in your lane. Remember the movie American Wear Wolf in London? Do you ever
RV (29:59):
See that photo? I never saw itm. I remember it being around, but
CD (30:03):
It’s such a good movie. There’s a part at the beginning of the film where the two backpackers, the American backpackers are in Scotland or somewhere in the uk and they’re in an old pub one night, an old countryside pub. And this old scabby, crunchy looking old dude walks up to them and says, Stay on the path. Don’t drive off into the mos, stay on the path kind of thing. And what do you think happens? They go off the path, they go into the mos and one of them gets turned into a wol. So just follow the map and you won’t get turned into a Wol symbol. I don’t d you got, I dunno where I was going with that analogy, but I think you
RV (30:43):
Follow the map. It did. Follow the map. Stay on, stay on the course. Stay, stay on the on, on the, on the plan. So again, you can help head over to brand builders group.com/elevated if you wanna check this out. I recommend Chris. I trust Chris. You know, he’s a real entrepreneur. He’s built real businesses online and offline, which is very rare these days. So you can check that, check that out. Three free days with him getting a chance to, to sample some of this work. And buddy, I just I miss you. It’s good to see you. Thank you for making some time. I hope everything goes well and make sure you look us up when you, when you come back over to the, to the us the US of America.
CD (31:23):
Without a doubt. Without a doubt, man. I, I can’t, can’t wait to come hang out with you guys again and it’ll be nice to see AJ again. It’s too, it’s been too long that we’ve been hung out in person. I think the last time we saw each other was beginning of 2020 just before everybody went. Covid crazy, right? That that was the last time I saw you in San Diego.
RV (31:43):
Crazy. Yeah, it’s, it’s goes by fast that way. Well, we wish you the best brother. Thank you for being here.
CD (31:50):
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Ep 325: Life Lessons of an Entrepreneur with Denise Villa | Recap Episode
AJV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:54):
Hey, AJ Vaden here. And here is the recap of my recent conversation with Denise via and I love conversations like this because they’re just real. And if you’re looking for a real conversation with a, a real entrepreneur, who’s not shy about telling you the ups downs, good, bad, ugly all of the in between then go check out the full episode on the influential personal brand podcast with Denise via lessons from a real life entrepreneur. But I’m gonna pick out a couple of them that I thought were really important for this recap episode that we’re gonna talk about right now. So one of the things that I think is pertinent that I’m gonna share just because it relates to me. And since I’m doing these recaps, I get to decide what to talk about. But I, I loved her take on what it’s like to work with your spouse.
AJV (01:50):
And I worked with my spouse have for a really long time, little known fact Rory Vaden and I were business partners before we were spouses. We were business partners before we fell in love and got married, we kind of broke that Cardinal rule. And we have a unique perspective that we’ve never not known each other as business partners. Whereas many couples who work together became couples before they started working together. And we don’t know what life looks like, not working together. And perhaps that’s God’s saving grace or us in our marriage as we don’t know any other way. But I, I loved a couple of things that she said I thought were really insightful. And what I loved most is that what often you hear people talking about are ways to make it work. Like how do you, you know, still find time for each other and not let work conveyed the off hours.
AJV (02:50):
And how do you divide and conquer and how do you stay in your own lane and how you not kill each other?
AJV (03:43):
AJV (04:30):
It is hard, there’s hard things about it. And there’s also really good things about it. We just choose to talk about the hard ones and we don’t often talk about like what a blessing and what a gift it is to get, to build something together with your spouse or your family to, to get to enjoy seeing each other’s gifts at work, however they can drive you crazy. And I think just making that decided choice up going, man, like what are the, the gifts, the blessings in this creates a heart change in me, at least that makes the more challenging parts, less challenging, because I get to take a, a, I get a front seat of seeing my partner, my husband, my, you know, my spouse, my friend live out his potential, live out these gifts that God has put in his life.
AJV (05:22):
And I’m really grateful for that. And I, I love that part of our conversation of it’s easy to talk about just like, oh, how do you make it work? How do you not kill each other? How do you like not let work take over? And I love that there’s also a piece of this, of like, how do you get to just sit back and revel and the awesomeness that is your, you know, dad, child, brother, sister, uncle, husband, wife and get to see them at work. And so I just love that perspective on that of working with your spouse. So that was the first thing second thing that I just kind of, of wanted to highlight but I thought was really fascinating is
AJV (06:08):
You are sitting with so many responsibilities and of which include taking out the trash to pay in the bills to, you know, sitting on boards, to writing checks, to being featured in media, to letting people go laying people off, hiring people, leading people, managing people. And I just don’t know if you know, the, the letter CEO, chief executive officer are all encompassing enough for what really happens on a daily life as an entrepreneur of a small business. Right. and I thought that was a really good take of going, like what it really means to be an entrepreneur is that you’re willing to do all of the things. And you’re not above any things. If you know the mate isn’t there, it’s you clean it up, right. Trashman, didn’t show up, you take it out, person, quit, you do the sales call, next person quits, you do this call.
AJV (07:08):
Right. And it’s, and I think a part of that is an ingrained feeling right. Of it’s a, this is mine and it’s whatever it takes, right. It’s like, I like so many things in my life today to parenting.
AJV (08:08):
And that includes our clients, our employees, our mission our, you know, our company is like another baby, right? It’s like a child. But we get to do all the things to take care of the thing that we love, that we have to do all the dirty work. And it’s so hard. Those things are true too, but it’s that, that slight perspective shift that again makes all the challenging things, just a little less challenging. All right. And then my third thing kind of on this same kind of same line, right? I, this, I love the kind of title of this, just lessons of a real life entrepreneur of what is it like to go through the different ebbs and flows, the peaks and valleys? The good and the bad of having an exclusively high growth company to, wow. Now we’re having to lay everyone off just to survive and then to come back and go, okay, now things are back again.
AJV (09:08):
And, and that’s an emotional roller coaster and like buckle up, hold on tight, cuz you just dunno how fast the drop’s gonna happen and then how fast it could pick back up again. And I loved what she said about like how do you create some consistency right. Both mentally, emotionally, even physically of making sure that your work, isn’t just the only thing in your life. And I think that’s the real takeaway for me is I think as American entrepreneurs and I can only say that because I am an American. But I’m sure this is true in most countries. Our identity gets tied up in our work and our identity is not what we do. Our identity is who we are. And if all we do, if the only thing we do is work, then we lose side of all of the other pieces of us.
AJV (10:05):
So to create more consistency, to create more stability, what we do is we have to have a little bit more diversity and all the things that we do, right. I can honestly say before I became a mother work was way more all consuming than I would care to admit today. But I think through becoming a parent, I realized it’s like, oh man, I had really put too much of my identity into one thing. And I wanted to be really careful not just to dump it into the next thing, which is motherhood of going well, where is my identity and who am I, if it’s not just, you know, being Jasper and Liam’s mom or doing this ex company or doing these ex services or whatever it may be. But it’s really making sure that it’s like, I have more diversity in my life of recommitting my life back to, to Christ and getting more involved in Bible studies and increasing a friend group.
AJV (11:08):
I didn’t have friends for a really long time work was everything. And it was creating, you know, routines and habits that’s that created some separation where everything, everything wasn’t centered on just this one thing. And I think that that’s necessary in my opinion, so that your identity doesn’t get just tied up in one thing because that isn’t your identity. That is a, a phase of your life. It is something that you’ve done, although it may be a large phase of your life, but it is not who you are. It is simply something that you have done for a period of time until you move on to the next thing. Y’all so many takeaways, those were just three highlights. They had a common central theme there. Loved this conversation, loved these takeaways. They were important to me. I hope they’re important to you. So stick around and we’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 324: Life Lessons of an Entrepreneur with Denise Villa
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:54):
Hey everybody. And welcome to another episode on the influential personal brand today is super, super special. Cuz I get to interview one of my very closest dearest, best friends, Denise Dorsey, Denise vi I, I know Rory’s like it’s via not Dorsey
AJV (01:54):
And I’m just gonna tell you guys why you need to listen if you are listening to this and you’re trying to decide if you should make the leap from what you’re doing to what you feel like God called you to do, you should listen to this episode. If you are a, a working mom, if you are trying to balance entrepreneurship, being a CEO, being an executive, being a leader, just being in the frigging workforce while also trying to balance being a mom and manage your family you should listen to this. If you’re trying to juggle multiple jobs all at once Denise is the CEO of the center for generational kinetics. She is still sitting as COO at a very amazing biomed company. She also runs a real estate development and investment group. Urban gravity’s, one of the fastest growing real estate developers in Austin, Texas.
AJV (02:47):
She is also an author of the economy. It’s like the list goes on and on. So it’s like, I often go, do you sleep? Like, do you like what? She’s also a marathon runner. It’s like, I’m like, I’m pretty sure I’m like way below standards when it comes to Denise and all of our accomplishments. But it’s like, you should listen. I’m going, man. Like what are the peaks and valleys of managing all the things because although they’re rewarding, they’re hard. Like let’s get real. They’re really hard. Also if you work with your spouse or you’re considering working with your spouse, you should listen to this episode. If you wanna write a book or you wanna go out and speak or think, think about this, not only working with your spouse, do you also wanna write, write a book with your spouse?
AJV (03:35):
Like these are all the things that are Denise villa Dorsey that you should stick around and listen to. And that is just really scratching. Really truly like barely scratching the surface of all things. Denise and I would say most importantly of all, I’m so excited for this interview. One, she didn’t wanna do it. She was super reluctant because she’s super humble. And doesn’t often put herself in the spotlight and so I’m genuinely excited to help the entire world get to know your brilliance and you’re, you’re so steady. Like you’re so consistent and calm and sometimes I’m sit at the dinner table with you and Jason and Rory and Jason is so animated and him and Rory are over there, scheming their ideas. And I’m like, people like, what are you talking about?
DV (04:44):
Aww, AJ, you’re so sweet. I think the podcast is over. I’m gonna take all these beautiful things you just said and I’m done
AJV (04:51):
DV (04:54):
And I’m excited to be here with you and thank you for having me really.
AJV (04:57):
Oh, I’m just so excited. And I’m honestly, I’m too, I’m so excited to get, to hear the parts of you and your message and these, these interesting parts of your life and your career that don’t get to come up in normal conversations where, when we’re with our kids or when our we’re and our husbands, or we don’t have extended amounts of time together for you guys listening. I live in Nashville, Tennessee, as you may know. But Denise lives in Austin. So our times are like far and through between. And so when there’s so much to catch up on like so many of these questions, I’m like, oh my gosh, I don’t know the answers to these. I’m so excited to see what you’re gonna say, but, okay. So we’re gonna start here of helping our audience get to know a little bit about you.
AJV (05:40):
And I think a part of your backstory is really unique and really important to the people who listen to our podcast. Because as I mentioned this to you, it’s like much of our audience are trying to make the decision of, do I stay where I am or do I go and do something different? Right. And there’s nothing wrong with where I am, but at the end of the day, I just feel like something’s missing. Right? Sure. Part of me that’s like, could I really do it? Or is there something bigger for me? It’s like, is this what God really intended for my life? And, and I think you’re one of those unique people in our life that it’s like, you made a really dramatic shift in your professional life because you were already so successful as a teacher and then a principal and in the world of education and academia.
AJV (06:32):
And that’s like, that’s a no joke job, a super underappreciated underpaid job, by the way. But you made a major decision of going, I’m going to leave, like what? I went to school for, what I thought I was gonna do my whole life, what you’ve been doing, what you’ve been very successful at doing to go out and go, I’m gonna, like, I’m gonna jump this ship and I’m going to join the crazy people on the world of entrepreneurship. And what I would love for the audience to hear is like, what’s a little bit of your backstory of like, where were you? What made you want to make that kind of jump? And ultimately, why did you do it?
DV (07:08):
Yeah, no, that’s a great question. And I’ve pondered that a lot, I wish I had like a, a straight answer and it was exactly at this point, but I think a lot of things happened and when I reflect back on it I wouldn’t have traded any of the experiences for it, but it was kind of the catalyst to move forward. So at the time I was a a principal at a, at a high school in Texas, a 2200 student, so very big 200 over 200 faculty. And things were going, you know, full, full on crazy times. Like just, you know, the amount of hours you put in. They need to, all those kids need to, you know, and it was my job to, to do that for everybody. And I loved it. It was fulfilling. It was really a great place to be.
DV (07:58):
I was also doing my PhD at night. So I was finishing my dissertation. I had also just finished and completed a year of, of an internship for super. So that was kind of my pathway. And I was on this pathway. I knew where I was going and my husband who’s been entrepreneur since he was 18 never known anything else. And was also traveling at that time. I probably 220 days out of the year. Wow. And you know, I just took a moment and we both did, and we’d had some really big life changes happen. Within that year as well. One of my best friends was diagnosed with stage four cancer. And one of my other best friends was gave birth and ended up being in the hospital with a hole in her heart and they weren’t sure she was gonna make it.
DV (08:52):
And there was just a lot of things going on. Quite honestly. And my husband said, you know, why don’t you take a moment, let’s just take a moment and breathe, finish your dissertation take a sabbatical and, and go back to education. And I said, no,
DV (09:50):
It wasn’t like a, you know, I had didn’t have a plan in place. It just, it just was. And basically once that opportunity happened, I just jumped both feet in and, and did it. And I love education. I love the kids, I, the parents, schools everything about it. But now that I’ve been an entrepreneur now for 15 years, I think, going on, no, actually going on 17 there’s no other better place in the world for me. I just enjoy so much and I still help people. I just help in a different way. And I think that’s why I enjoy it so much.
AJV (10:31):
I love that. And you know, it’s interesting, like this is like the third conversation I’ve had in a really short time period where I have talked to someone who had some sort of life event that occurred in one of these pivotal decisions that they’ve made. You know, I’ve, I’ve had those. And I was just talking to someone earlier today about that she left a very high paying corporate software job of, you know, what happened is her mom was diagnosed with cancer and she goes, man, is this how I wanna spend my days? Is this what I wanna be doing? And like, to hear you about a friend and then the daughter of another friend. And I know that these life events cause us to wake up, right? Like so evident, so many, right? So many of us, what I’m curious is just to hear your genuine opinion and your perspective of why does it take that sort of thing to actually cause us to do what we want? Like, what is it about us as humans, right? That’s like, I’ll stay on this path, even though I know there might be something more for me until we realize life is short. And it’s a lot shorter than I used to think yesterday, because today I have news I didn’t have yesterday. I’m just, I’m so curious, like, what is, is it that
DV (11:54):
I can’t speak for everyone, but I think for, for me I’m very goal oriented. So I mean, I’m still goal oriented and my husband does this too. People think we’re crazy about this point, but in my bathroom, I have a glass board, not a white board, a glass board, and it has all of our goals for the year so that we can see them every morning when we’re taking a shower, when not
AJV (12:16):
Taking a shower,
DV (12:17):
They’re just like right in front of me, there’s no reason not to pass it up. So I think for me as very goal oriented, I set these goals. I wanna be a principal by this age. I wanna be a superintendent by this age. I wanna do X by this age. And, and then life just continues happening. And, and then all of a sudden you’re given a moment of pause because of some life extraordinary event. That just for me, you know, just put everything else aside and, and gives you pause and thought and, and how, and what do I wanna do? I mean, I spent the last days of my friend’s life with her and I could not have done that as a teacher or as a principal. I just wouldn’t have allowed me to. So I wouldn’t change that transition for anything.
DV (13:07):
I mean, I was meant to be but I do think that you, people just go on this journey and it’s just so fast and furious you know, that we don’t take the time to, to stop for a second. And then we get the time and, and we think, is this where we’re supposed to be? I mean much like COVID yeah, COVID paused the world. And then so many people that came out of it were attorneys and now there’s screenwriters and moved to Costa Rica or, you know, people that were screenwriters who were like, I don’t wanna be this anymore. I wanna do this. I mean, and I just think that we don’t have enough pauses in our life.
AJV (13:46):
Oh, I love that. I’ve, I’ve shared this quote a few times now. But I was reading an article and that just like flashed across my screen one day. And it was from Ariana Huffington and she said, people have been calling this the great resignation, but I don’t think that’s what it is. I don’t think we have a great resignation. I think what we are experiencing is the great reevaluation yeah. Of what do we wanna do and how do we wanna do it? And what’s the in and what’s worth it. And is, is money really the answer to all the things. And many of us discovered, no, it’s not.
DV (14:21):
Yeah, exactly
AJV (14:23):
Not. And I think that’s a huge part of it’s like these life events cause us to reevaluate what we thought was important.
DV (14:29):
Mm-Hmm
AJV (15:52):
Is. And 30 age is just a number,
DV (15:55):
But it does. It gave me pause. Just thinking about where I wanna go.
AJV (16:00):
Yeah. I just, I sometimes, and I, I totally feel that and it’s like, you know, my husband, Roy’s turning 40 in just a few weeks and I’m not, I’m giving myself, I’ve got a full, like what, 22 more months before
AJV (16:16):
AJV (17:09):
So you also, you have an enormous entrepreneurial community. And one of the things that I think would be really interesting for our audience because it’s like what I tell people all the time, it’s like a personal brand should be treated like a business because it is one, it is one, right? It’s your reputation. It’s what people think of when they think of you. And regardless of what that looks like rather you are an executive or an employee or a salesperson, or you go out on your own as a solo entrepreneur or you build a company. It doesn’t matter anywhere in between. There are components of entrepreneurship that are present in everything that we do. And so what I would love to hear from you for our audience is what do you think are the necessary skills? And those could be mental, emotional, or tactical skills that it requires for someone to make it as an entrepreneur.
DV (18:05):
Oh, that’s a great question. So patience, I think is one. I have a lot of patience. Some entrepreneurs would disagree. They would say patience is not, is not a great one. And I would disagree with them back. There is so much patience needed in becoming an entrepreneur. It’s not overnight successes. All the overnight successes. Majority of them were never overnight. If you think 10 years is overnight, that’s their overnight success. Nobody ever talks about the 10 years before the overnight success. So I think patience is one tenacity. Tenacity is huge. You’re gonna get shot down. You’re gonna get said, be said, no, you’re gonna say, they’re gonna say that this is the worst they’ve ever seen, whatever. But if you truly believe in what you’re doing, then you, you you’ll keep going. You definitely just keep going. So it’s necessity would be another one. I think also being a listener, not just a communicator, not just being able to speak eloquently and, and cheer on the crowd, but to also be a good listener. Hear what people are saying, take that in, take the feedback, make the adjustments go back out there. I think those three are probably my top ones that I feel that are necessary to be a great entrepreneur. Other at least for me,
AJV (19:33):
Oh, I love that. And I think, you know, the patience one, I didn’t expect you to say that, but that is so true. Like when I said earlier, it’s like, you’re so steady. It’s like patient, would’ve been the other word. It’s like, you’re so patient like you are. And I think that’s like, I think that’s a really great reminder to everyone who’s listening today is yeah, there is no such thing as an overnight success like that does not exist. You see the success overnight, but there is no overnight success, right? It’s like, correct. Just cause you just learned about somebody doesn’t mean they hadn’t been hustling for years. Exactly. Get to that point. And I love, I love it when people say, oh man, they just came outta nowhere. And I’m like,
DV (20:11):
Really
AJV (20:13):
Thing. Like come outta nowhere that it’s like, you know, our awareness of someone is what makes us think like, oh man, they just blew up and it’s like, Mel, they didn’t blew up. Right. They’ve been building that engine for a really long time and then they just turned it on. Right. Exactly. That’s a great reminder to all of us, of man. It’s not gonna happen overnight.
DV (20:35):
You know, nothing ever does. And nothing that is worth really having at the end of it is ever just so quick. It’s not like a, it’s not like a light switch. And I also think the, the three that I mentioned are great. Especially if you have a partner that has the opposite of the three
AJV (21:23):
Oh, that’s such a great transition too. It’s like Jason and I share more of those personality traits and you, and yes
DV (21:29):
You do do
AJV (21:30):
AJV (22:28):
And so I, one I’d love to know it’s like, what have you seen both personally and just in the entrepreneurial community of what makes a successful partnership. And then the second thing is I wanna talk about, and then how do you work with your spouse? And you and I both sit in the boat and I, I share this with you often. It’s like, there are so few people that are at my life stage married to their business partner where we’re the sitting as the CEO of the company, we have young children, like it is a rare situation in most events. And it’s got amazing, beautiful components and really frigging hard ones. And I know a lot of people who get started, like they get started with their spouse cuz that’s who we can afford. Right.
DV (23:32):
Okay. No, that’s great. I think for me, number one is trust. You have to trust your partner, your business partner infinitely. If you do not or have reservations or even have like a little inkling that their trust isn’t there, it’s just not gonna work. It’s just, I can’t imagine going through every single day of what people do in a business and not completely 100% trust your partner that you’re working with. So that would be number one. Number two for me is figure out what you’re good at, figure out what your partner is good at and then stay out of each other’s way. We learned that the hard way working together. And I think the first year we really overstepped on Jason stepped over on my toes. I stepped on his and it wasn’t until we figured out our lanes and we stayed in ’em that we were able to grow and we were able to be successful in our partnership.
DV (24:35):
And, and even now, I mean, we’ve been doing this together, you know, almost 15 years and every once in a while we crossed lanes and we’re like, uhoh Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope. Let’s get back in our lane and I think that is very helpful for, for us and for other partners. And I think lastly, this has to really do, if you’re married to them, maybe not your, you weren’t married to them, but we really came up with rules around our household as well. Now I will not say that I follow every single role to a T. But I try. And the last thing we wanted in our relationship was our relationship to be all about work is so easy to all of a sudden all the conversations we’re having or about work or about your kids. And we just didn’t want that.
DV (25:27):
So we set boundaries on times a day that we can talk about our business on the weekends. You know, there’s no disgusting on Saturdays and on Sundays you can only get me until noon. Because if you’re my husband, he wakes up at 6:00 AM. He wakes me up at six 30. And the first thing you have is out of his mouth is, Hey, did you get this transaction done? Or, Hey, did you close this deal? And I’ve not even opened up my eyes for like two minutes yet. They’re like, can I brush my teeth first? So we really laid out boundaries around that. That was very helpful. And then, you know, finding people like you and Rory, I mean, you guys are amazing, but finding other like people that you can have the conversations with and talk to people, it’s a rarity of what you and I do with our husband and to have that back and forth with somebody to share it with is phenomenal. And that’s very helpful.
AJV (26:22):
Yeah. I think, you know, you said two things in there that I just wanna like pull out. Cause I think these are so significant is one of them is around the trust factor. It’s like, you’ve gotta give your partner. And you could say your partner is anywhere from a vendor to a contractor, to an employee. It’s like, I think this transcends just a business partnership, but you’ve gotta trust and give them the benefit of the doubt even when you’re not sure. And so my question to you in this is how do you build trust in business?
DV (26:52):
Oh, that’s a good one. So I’m all in or I’m all out. That’s my, so I in business, if I’ve decided that you’re my partner, whatever that is my salesperson you’re a partner in our business. You’re a vendor, anybody, anybody that we’ve touched, I’m a hundred percent in you’re on our team. I completely 100% trust. However, if that trust is broken is really hard for me to repair it. And that’s just me, myself. I’m a hundred percent in giving you everything, but if you break it I’m out. And I, I tell people that front I’m very open and honest without with anybody that I work with. Like you have everything, but you destroy it. And I walk away. Like I just, I just not worth my time nor can I do I wanna work on it to get it back. I just don’t.
AJV (27:50):
So I’m just writing this down cuz that’s like, I think so what I hear you saying and what I’m writing down is that it’s like, you have to make a choice to be all in. Yeah. Right. It’s not like, oh, it just happens. Right? It’s like, no, I’m choosing to be all in. And I’m choosing that. You’re my partner. I’m choosing to trust you.
DV (28:07):
Exactly. Exactly. No reservations, because if there’s any reservations, then there’s no reason for us to even be partners in anything.
AJV (28:17):
Okay. So that is so, so, so I guess one of the things that I’m hearing too is this has actually been a really recent conversation in our household and our business is Roy’s always telling me, babe, you’ve gotta give me the benefit of the doubt.
DV (29:09):
Right. Exactly. And for people listening I’m a lot like RRY so it doesn’t, we share a lot of the same characteristics. So surprised
AJV (29:21):
Patience is one of virtues. I have other gifts, other gifts. But it’s like, but it is, I think that’s like so important it’s like in any relationship is you’ve gotta make the choice to see the benefit of that. I have to make the choice to trust you. Because if not, then everything is filled with doubt.
DV (29:41):
Yeah. And, and then you’re going behind their, their, I wouldn’t say their backs, but you’re going behind and trying to double check the work. Did this get done? Did that get done? Did you know everything? You know, and it’s just, people make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes, we’re all human. And there’s a difference between like, oh, I messed up. That’s a mistake. And there’s a difference between a total mistrust of something that you did like that the, to me, those are very different.
AJV (30:10):
Okay. I’m,
DV (30:11):
It’s an error. I’m not forgiving when you deliberately, you know, right. Needed me to not trust me.
AJV (30:18):
Yeah. The same thing with like your kids, right. It’s like, yeah. You know, it’s so much of leadership of business is parallel to parenting. Being a parent has been the best leadership training on the planet.
DV (30:33):
AJV (30:34):
If you like, it’s like trying to get these two little humans to do something that I want them to do. And there’s no incentive. There’s no money. There’s no, like, it’s like, oh man, OK. I’ve gotta really get my negotiation skills to work with these two humans. But I think that’s like so true. It’s like, but it’s all in a choice of like, I’m choosing to say, you know, Jasper, I know that you wouldn’t intentionally knew such a thing, but that’s a choice because the other half of me is going you little rat. I know
DV (31:08):
AJV (31:08):
You know, and it’s like, that’s such a choice and it happens in business all the time. Right, right. It’s so easy to fill our mind with. Well, I mean, they’re just doing this because you know, it’s easier for them or I’m the one stuff doing all the really hard work they’re out there getting to do what they love and what they’re passionate about. And then I get stuck with everything they don’t want.
DV (31:26):
Mm-Hmm
AJV (31:27):
That’s really good. The second thing I wanna highlight is you talked about these rules. So can you give us an example of like, what’s a role that you guys have in your house to protect, you know, your personal relationship? So the business doesn’t take takeover?
DV (31:42):
Sure. So one big role is, like I said earlier about talking about business. So no talking about business on Saturdays and Sundays, we can start after 12. And so I will say, you know, Jason could talk about business 24 7. So you know, sometimes 1140, he’ll be like on a Sunday, Hey, I have 10 more minutes and then we can start talking
AJV (33:02):
So what do you guys talk about if you don’t talk about, if you don’t talk about at your daughter and if you don’t talk about work, what are you guys talking about?
DV (33:10):
Ah, what we talk about things we wanna do, where we wanna go, you know, places that maybe we wanna live. We talk about, you know, our families, our parents, maybe we, my husband travels quite a bit still now. And so there’s a lot of things in a week that transpire that I never get to even tell him about. I told him I’m a podcast with AJ. He’s like, there’s just like a lot of things that you have that you never get to share. And so we talk about things like that. And then we talk about I’m part of entrepreneur, you know organization here in town. I have a lot of entrepreneur, friends and things that are going on in their world and I wanna hear about his friends. And so that’s the, the timing that we use to celebrate those kind of experiences.
AJV (34:03):
Yeah. And I, I ask cause of genuine co you know, curiosity for my own marriage. But also because I think that’s really good for all of us to go, you know, this is like one of the big mantras. That’s in my life right now is that I want people to care much more about who I am than what I do. Yeah. I don’t wanna be defined by my work because that’s how I defined my own worth for a really long time. And I’m in recovery from finding all of my worth in my work. And what I have found is like in all general natural situations, it doesn’t matter if it’s with my husband or at a networking meeting or at my EO group or, well, a group of friends, like somehow it always transitions to, well, tell me more about what you do. And I’m like, it’s so hard to like pull out of that world and go, no, actually just wanna talk about I,
DV (34:59):
The best book you just read
AJV (35:01):
Or something. And it’s like, it’s like, it’s amazing. And I don’t know if it’s this way all around the world, but I know that it’s like this in the United States. It’s hi, here’s my name? And the next question is, so what do you do? Yeah. And it’s ingrained in this component of our lives. And it, it folds over into work is the majority of what our life is about. And I was so genuinely curious of not just for our own spouses but for each of us out there of like the thing that I love about personal branding and reputation is that it’s at the heart of who you are and who you are, has nothing to do with, with what you do. It’s a piece of it is not who you are and finding things to talk about that allow people to get to know more of who you are, I think is a kind of a novel idea, believe it or not. Well,
DV (35:51):
I also think that people have to be open to the discussion, right? I mean, in the United States and I, I I’ll say this just in the United States, you and I both travel a lot outside of the United States, but here, so many of the conversations when you meet someone are so superficial. Yeah. And they don’t go deep. And what I have found, you know, as being part of the EO community for the last 10 years, I mean, they really trained on like specific questions and to get deep and come vulnerable. And if you’re not gonna be that person, then we don’t need you in our community. Mm-Hmm
AJV (36:37):
If
DV (36:37):
You’re not gonna have a meaningful conversation with me, well, you know, there’s a hundred emails I could probably answer. And I really wanna spend the time with you and get to know you and learn, how did you become you? And I’d rather have that conversation than answer the hundred emails for sure. Oh
AJV (36:53):
Man, I’m gonna write this down. How did you become you? Not what do you do, but how did you become you? I’m always writing down what are good questions that I can ask that are not, so what do you do or tell me about your work or like that’s a really good one. So so do you, do you ask that to people?
DV (37:13):
I do. I do. I do ask that the, the first, the first glance, you know, especially if they’re outside kind of the entrepreneurial world, not heard about these things, they look at me going, excuse me. Oh, what, and, and so then it’s really probing. Like how did you become you? Where did you grow up?
AJV (37:33):
The first
DV (37:34):
Question you have, like, you know, just kind of going down the journey and then you see the person getting more comfortable. Cause at the end of the day, people like talking about themselves, they really do. It’s just, we’ve been trying to really, for a lot of people, we only speak about this and we don’t speak more about this and we do this and you’ve learned kind of these ways to put yourself out there. So that you’re, you’re captivated in the best light. And so when you kind of go in a different route, people are just more willing to have conversations. And then you’re able to share about you and your story and your authentic self of who you
AJV (38:11):
Are. Oh, I love that so much. Anything that helps me create stories around, tell me who you are not about what you do is like a big thing in my life right now, I was at a it was a charity event thing and I was standing outside, standing in line to get a glass of wine. And this young lady walks up to me. She just introduced herself. You were just like chit chatting. And she just says, well, what’s your name? How do you know the host? And she goes, how do you fill the hours of your week? And I was like, I’m sorry, what
DV (38:45):
A great question. I’m gonna write that.
AJV (38:49):
I stopped in my tracks. And I said, you mean like, what do I do for work? And this was like six months ago or something. This is like, kind of like triggered my own default to asking these silly questions. And she’s like, well, I mean, that could be a part of it, but you know, just how do you feel the hours of your day? And I was like, well, in the mornings started, I was like, well, in the mornings I have two toddlers. And so, and then I started like regurgitating my schedule. And she was like, that’s so fascinating.
DV (39:21):
AJV (39:22):
It was one of those things. I’m like, how do I spend hours? But it was like such a nice of, and then I said, are you intentionally trying not to ask like the people do for work? And she goes, yeah, it’s a really intentional effort of mine. And I said, I’m totally stealing this and I’m gonna
DV (39:52):
I love
AJV (39:54):
Very similar. It’s like, so tell me about how you became you. Right. I love that. I, I love that. And so, alright, so I’m gonna flip that on you. So Denise, how did you become you?
DV (40:06):
Oh, I should have never given it away.
AJV (40:12):
You
DV (40:12):
Know, I think our life is fools with, we talked about it, ups and ups and downs, right valleys. I’d say I became me starting with a very strong minded beautiful kind mom. I was very fortunate to have her in my life and, and to have her in my life. So my dad died and I was five. And my mom raised me as a single mom for wait till I was about 14 when she remarried. Luckily for me though, I have 52 first cousins and 32 aunts and uncles. So I always had family around. And I think, you know, they helped me become who I was. All those cousins all lived in the same city. So we were always at somebody’s house. I was always playing sports. I was mostly boy cousins for some reason we didn’t
DV (41:30):
I think it was probably one of the only lies that I’ve ever really told her, which at that time in my life, I really needed to get away. It was time for me to fly the co and she really wanted me to stay. And I graduated from high school, top 10% of my class, and I’m a first generation college graduate. My family didn’t know really the how to make the transition for me to go to college. And I said that UT Austin was the only college that accepted me and I wasn’t accepted anywhere else. And, and mind you, I did pay my own way. So this wasn’t a financial burden on my family, but I needed to go. And I left and I, that was probably a huge pivotal moment. So I went from this little pond of an all girls Catholic high school to all of a sudden 50,000 students at UT. And it was awesome. I loved UT
AJV (42:36):
DV (42:39):
Awesome. And then I just, I kept growing. I found my passion for teaching there and felt really fell in love with it. I really felt that was the right place to be. And I would not have found that without two things, one, my mom who gave me permission to look outside of making money and to really find something that I was good at. And then secondly, was an offsite internship I had to do at the school for the blind, visually impaired and the two together and the young boy that I was working with at the school paved my way for the next 14 years. And then you know, there was lots of movement and I think years later, about eight years after teaching six, six to eight years, I decided that I wanted to go in and get my master’s and then my PhD in education.
DV (43:34):
And I think for me that was also a big pivotal point. I think I realized that I could do something even more than just for me, it was helping my classroom than it was even more. If I could help the school, then it was even more I could help a district. And so I really wanted to expand that. You know, so I think that’s really, and then from there I came an entrepreneur and then that was, you know, that was crazy. I mean, our journey has been fascinating at our companies. I’ve worked with the largest brands in the United States. We’ve been truly blessed in so many ways. And I think all of those things made me mean
AJV (44:20):
I love that. And I, I think, you know, this whole thing is like building an influential personal brand. And I think the best way you can build influence is you just get to know someone that’s the best way to have influence it’s. If I don’t know, you, you have very little influence over my decisions day to day, but if I know you and I, I like you and I trust you, you have great influence over my daily decisions and behaviors. And I, I love that. And I think if we all need to be a little bit more focused on how did you become who you are not, tell me about how you did all these things you did. Right.
AJV (44:56):
And I, and it’s like, and I still, like, there’s still a huge part of teaching in you. Right. And for those of you listening you know that about a year ago, we talk about this all the time. We launched our, you know, national research study, the trends and personal branding you know, it’s Denise’s company, her and her husband’s company that fielded this research for us. And it’s like today, he’s like, you run a team of researchers, right? It’s like, there’s still that education component that has stayed with you, even through your entrepreneurial journey. It’s like, you are a research firm, right? It’s like, you’re doing research for books and you’re doing research for these huge brands, but there’s a seriously academic part of what you do that has made you so successful
DV (45:39):
Completely. And thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Teaching is, is embedded in me. I love it. Sometimes I come off just as a teacher or my husband always gets mad at me. He’s like, don’t use your teacher voice on me. And I don’t mean to, but I, I love, I love getting educated. And so kind of my love language is to serve others in the, in that same way. So I really enjoy being part of those educational moments with our team and training our talent development programs that we do even like our talent acquisition and just teaching about the jobs. It it’s, it’s fascinating. And I get so much inspiration by seeing somebody’s face to slide up. I mean, I remember when I was younger, I started teaching when I was 22 and I remember thinking how that would never go away for me.
DV (46:36):
And you know, now I’m 50 and it still has never gone away for me. It’s, it’s almost amazing coupled with, and I will share this coupled with now, many of the students who I was in educational, like I said, for 14 years, just about so thousands of students that I’ve interacted with and I get every once in a while, somebody who pops up who comes up to me and says, are you miss be? And I say, yes. And, and they say something that just, you know, makes me smile. Like, I remember when you said this joke and I’ve always kept it with me, or I’ve had a couple of people say I became a science teacher because of you, those moments in time, you just they’re true blessings.
AJV (47:21):
Amazing. No, I’m not miss via I’m Dr. Via
AJV (47:25):
DV (48:52):
Okay, those are good questions. So why gen Z? So our company is really founded on separating generational myth from truth. So that’s the core. And it was founded because we were finding out that CEOs were using data and the data wasn’t matching what they were saying. So that’s kind of how our company really started is, well, if they’re taking this data and it’s not matching what they’re saying, there’s teaching element and saying, they’re not understanding the data for some reason, another, or the data is not being read in a way that shows the information correctly. So let’s just make our own research company, that one shares the data correctly and shares a story that goes with it. So gen Z is kind of that new generation. There were so many myths that came up with millennials and you guys did get a lot of hate.
AJV (49:52):
A lot of it.
DV (49:54):
And so of course, when gen Z started coming up, there was a great way to bring out what we were seeing with this generation. And we have been following them for probably a good seven years now. And what I love about this generation from the very beginning was really their, their money sets, which was huge, never saw it in any other generation except the baby boomers. And so that has been a huge part of them and their hard work and diligence which once again, was being portrayed in their earlier lives. And I think we’re seeing it again still into adulthood. So those are two of my favorite aspects about gen Z. I’d say the learning part of writing a book with your spouse. So this was two years of a labor of love. And I will say labor of love
DV (50:59):
I have come up through an academic work body of literature writing as you’re being published for different peer reviews, right? It’s a very different writing style than my husband who is a, you know, a, a published author multiple times over that has a very different voice and merging those two together. Oh my goodness gracious. That was probably the hardest things that we did. But at the end of the day, it worked, it took a lot of giving on my part and a lot of giving on his part. And there was many things if you get the book and you’ll notice, oh, Denise definitely wrote this. Because I channel data a little bit differently. Well, when my husband does so well, as he makes the everyday user read it and understand it instantly. And so we just, we really had to practice merging those two voices. And and so on top of doing the research, which took about a year to do then putting that together and merging the two voices, it was definitely almost as hard as having a shut
AJV (52:08):
It’s kinda like birthing a child of sorts. And I love the stories of anyone who has ever gone through the process of writing a book, you know, back like what we said. It’s like, nothing happens overnight.
AJV (52:21):
Neither does writing a book. Y’all it’s like, and I, we have so many people who enter into this very fortunate community. We’ve been able to help curate at brand builder’s group of going all right. My goal is the next 12 months is to write a book, get it published. And I’m like, we’re gonna need to adjust those goals.
AJV (53:03):
And Rory is very gray, right? He’s like, well, that’s the best part of this and the worst part. And I’m like, Nope, she’s this or this
DV (54:10):
Completely. And you have that backup to show you, Nope, this is what it said. And it’s statistically valid and we’ve done confidence in our roles and, and you can play up all the words and it’s, it’s valuable. And it also aligns with what you’re doing. It makes you feel like I’m doing this right. Or
AJV (54:59):
Yeah. You said something that just made me think about this is, you know I’m I’m, as you are. It’s like, I think feedback is one of the gifts that I didn’t always want. But I always need, and it’s like, I love getting feedback and input, and to me doing research was like another way of getting feedback. Yeah. It was, I can’t see what I can’t see. And sometimes I’m just, you know, the old saying I’m too close to the forest to see the trees. Yeah, exactly. Cause I need to get outta my own echo chamber. Right. Mm-hmm
AJV (55:44):
Like that was really good to go. You know, I think one of the big data points that came up to me, which I thought was so interesting to hear yours about gen Z was like mine about personal branding. Was that testimonials 62% of Americans say that testimonials is the number one most important factor when deciding whom to hire, not if you have a book or viral, Ted talk are large social media following none of those things, it was like at the very, very top of the list. And then 10 percentage points down was the next one, but 62%. Where do you have testimonials of other people validating that you are, who you say you are and you do what you say you’re gonna do. And for us, and the way that companies and people spend marketing dollars, I’m like, oh my gosh, this is the cheapest, fastest, easiest thing that you can do. It’s like you take that or it’s like, get on national media, create a viral Ted talk, get a New York times bestselling book. And I’m like, oh my gosh, like we’ve been, we’ve been putting all of our time energy resources into potentially the wrong avenue. It’s not that we shouldn’t do the other things, but it’s like, where should the majority of our intent go? It was so, so helpful.
DV (56:55):
And if you’re a gen Z, you’re gonna look at least 10 of ’em before you make a decision. I mean, you know, so there is some even way the different generations look at reviews who you’re trying to hit will give you some idea of what do these need to look like, or how many should I have up there, et cetera. Which I think is, is really helpful when you’re looking at your own personal brand or your company or anything, really people, people search those number one thing. And I, you know, I will say that we had so much fun working on your report. I just, I love working with friends because it gets me even closer into the mindset of what you do and what you and Rory do. And it was really neat working on that project.
AJV (57:39):
DV (58:28):
Aw, thank you, AJ. It was a pleasure. Thank you for having me really appreciate talking into doing it.
AJV (58:34):
Oh, this was so awesome. I love it. And for everyone listening make sure you stay tuned for the recap episode and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand. See y’all.
Ep 323: High-Performance Secrets of NBA Superstars with Alan Stein Jr. | Recap Episode
RV (00:02):
High performance secrets from NBA superstars. What a fascinating conversation with Alan Stein. And man, I loved that more than I, more than I thought I would. You know, I’m just not, I’m not a huge sports guy anymore. Although I used to be, it was like my whole life growing up as a kid was Chicago
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Bulls.
RV (00:22):
But what a tremendous conversation, if you didn’t listen, go back and listen. It is fantastic. I’m gonna share with you some of my highlights. If you didn’t pick this up Alan was a skills trainer for NBA superstars and I’m talking superstars, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, step Curry. This guy was in the gym, working with them and you know, has written a book and started as a speaking career, sort of, sort of talking about it. And, and so I’m gonna share with you my three top takeaways from the interview of what hit me and also what I’ve been, what, you know, how I, how I interpret and internalize all these conversations. And the first one is really from Kobe Bryant. So it’s coming from Kobe Bryant by way of Allen,
Speaker 2 (01:07):
But Kobe said something so important. He said the best, never get bored with the basics. The best never get bored with the basics and from somebody that was so spectacular as a player,
RV (01:23):
As a performer, as Kobe Bryant,
Speaker 2 (01:25):
To
RV (01:25):
Hear him
RV (01:26):
Say that is, is moving to me and it’s inspiring to me and it’s validating for me and it’s edifying for me because I agree with that the best don’t get bored with the basics because the basics are what hold everything up. The, the really I would, I would say the, the people who are the best are the best, because they’re the best at the basics. They’re not the, they’re not the best at the exceptional. They’re not the best at the flashy. They’re not the best at the extraordinary. They’re brilliant at the basics. And that’s the thing to ask yourself, are you brilliant at the basics? Are you like, are you brilliant? Are you executing the fundamentals? Are you doing the things consistently that need to be done to grow your business? And, and when I think of like sales, right? I go, referrals are the basics.
RV (02:14):
It’s the fundamentals, but it’s the only thing you need. Like, are you asking for referrals in your business? If you are, you’re probably succeeding or you will be soon when, when you look at marketing and you go, are you putting out content consistently in many different places, right? Our content diamond formula that we teach are, are you following that? Are you doing it consistently? If you’re trying to be a speaker, are you speaking consistently? Are you, are you, are you on podcast interviews consistently? Are you, are you being brilliant at the basics? And personal branding is no different. Like these are the things every single weekend and week out, I gotta create a video. I gotta create a podcast. Our team’s gotta run a production
RV (02:53):
Schedule to just keep things going.
RV (02:55):
We gotta drive leads. Our sales team has to show up. They have to, you know, have conversations. They have to call follow up. They have to close. We have to onboard new people. Like we have to, we get to, we get to do all those things. And, and if, if the basics are good enough for Kobe Bryant, the basics are good enough for me. They should be good enough for you. And it’s, it’s the secret. It’s the truth. Like here’s the irony is I think people look at superstars and they go to superstars thinking if I could just get access to this superstar, then they’ll teach me the secrets. Then, then like, there’s, there’s some hidden playbook that we’re looking for. We, we convince ourselves that, that there’s something that they know that we don’t know. And if we could know what they know, then all of a sudden everything would be unlocked.
RV (03:44):
And there is a secret that they know that we don’t know the secret is there. Isn’t a secret. There isn’t a secret. The secret is to be brilliant at the basics, or as Kobe says the best don’t get bored with the basics. And so they’re not chasing flashy. They’re not chasing fancy. They’re not, they’re not chasing the spectacular they’re mastering, dominating and becoming brilliant at the basics. And so the question is, are you, am I, are we, what are the basics in your business? And are you dominating them? Are you mastering them? That was just so, so powerful for me. The second takeaway from that conversation with Alan was when he said these ultra performers, these superstar athletes have an amazing blend between confidence and humility, confidence, and humility. And I totally agree with that. I’ve seen the same thing over and over with ultra performers that I’ve been around in my life.
RV (04:52):
You know, and, and people think they, they get this mixed up. This is an important distinction. And it’s a balance that you need to understand that that confidence and humility are not at odds with one. Another confidence is not the opposite of humility. Pride is pride is the opposite of humility. Like being prideful is, is like, that’s more about who you’re doing it for, right? To me, confidence is the way you’re doing it, but pride is who you’re doing it for. And so when, when, when you have confidence, the way you’re, it’s the way you’re doing it, you’re doing it bold. You’re doing it aggressive. You’re doing it assertive. You’re, you’re, you’re doing it. You’re doing it with fire. You’re doing it with passion. You’re, you’re all in. You’re leaning into it. You are, you are, you are utilizing and accessing and withdrawing and leveraging and polling and investing every asset you have into to what you’re doing, the way you’re doing it and doing it well, pride is totally different. Pride is who you’re doing it for pride, prideful and
RV (05:56):
Being prideful is like, I’m doing it for me. I’m number one. I want everyone to see, you know, how great I am to me, that’s pride. And that’s the opposite of humility. But I think people, especially, if, if I may say, I think Christians are, are an interesting subgroup of people who struggle with this. At least I can speak for myself as a Christian, right? Because it’s like the meek inherit shall inherit the earth and, and humility is valued. And so it almost feels like if I’m being confident, I’m somehow being unholy, I’m being unspiritual or are I’m, you know, I’m, I’m not, I’m being less Christian, but I don’t see those at conflict at all. At least not now, I’ve been able to reconcile. I do see pride as being an issue because pride is doing it for me, showing the world, look at me, look how awesome I am.
RV (06:44):
Y’all need to respect me. And you bow down to me. And pride is a massive problem because it is in conflict with, you know, the first commandment of like no other God’s before me, where it’s like, humility is my life is in service of God. And my life is in service of the people around me. It’s not about elevating me so I can be humble and extraordinarily confident at the same time, I can be bold and humble. I can be confident and meek. I can be aggressive and assertive, assertive, and, and still be holy. But pride is different. Pride is like, I’m taking up the space of the most important of the most high, and that’s a problem. But and that’s different even than, than taking pride in your work. I think that’s different than being prideful. So these players, you know, probably take pride in their work, but they’re not prideful.
RV (07:38):
It’s not look at me. I’m the best. I’m the man y’all bow down. They’re they’re but they are extremely confident. I can take that shot. I’ve I’ve practiced this thousands of times. I loved, I loved when Alan said this in the interview, he said, if you hadn’t seen how many times Steph Curry had taken these millions of shots in an empty gym, you wouldn’t be as impressed when he makes 12 threes in a game. Right? It’s you know, for most of us like, oh my gosh, 12 threes, this is in a game. This is superhuman, but you go, nah, he’s like hitting 12 threes in an hour all the time, because he’s shooting millions and millions and millions of shots. It wouldn’t seem that like, you know, it just wouldn’t be that much of a superhero, cuz it’s like, it’s, it’s more like muscle memory.
RV (08:22):
And so I think that’s, what’s really cool is you can be confident and bold, but you can also have the humility to put in the work and, and focus on the basics and to keep practicing. And you know, I, I loved when he was telling the story about how Kobe was, you know, most players are working out once a day, the best are working out twice. Kobe’s working out three times a day, he’s leaving his first workout by the time people show up. And it’s like, he realized that if I do that every day, no one will ever catch me. Like over the course of a day, it doesn’t add up to much over the course of a, of a week. It doesn’t add up maybe to much, but over the course of a season, two seasons, five seasons, you know, a decade, it adds up so much.
RV (09:03):
So this blend of confidence and humility, you can have both, they’re not competing. They’re totally reconcilable. And you need both, at least, you know, this is a high performing secret of NBA superstars. According to Alan, which I concur with. And then the third one actually I thought was super relevant, especially for personal brands. Now at brand builders group, I think there’s sort of three core audiences that we serve. And, and I, I think of them as experts, entrepreneurs and executives. So experts are like speakers, coaches, trainers entrepreneurs are people who are more like professional service providers or direct sales people, or just, you know, they have some type of business and they’re, they’re not selling a product related to their expertise per se. They’re, they’re just driving leads for their existing product or their existing business. And then you have executives who are mostly on the hunt for a raise or promotion or maybe getting hired at some other company or, or just industry visibility.
RV (10:01):
But when I look at the expert portion of our audience, speakers, coaches, and coaches specifically, this was super relevant because, you know, I asked Alan, I said, you know, are you ever like insecure that, that you’re coaching the best players in the world? Like clearly they’re better than you are. And yet they’re receiving coaching from you. And I, I loved what he said, as he said, I knew they were better players than me. And they knew they were better players than me, but that doesn’t exclude them. That doesn’t exclude me from being able to add value to what they’re working on. Right? Like that doesn’t exclude me from being able to help them. And that was a really powerful and an important moment because you know, a lot of you, if you’re coaches or speakers, it’s like, you don’t necessarily have to have done something at the level or to the full extent that somebody else has.
RV (11:03):
You need to be an expert, you need to have results. You need to know what you’re doing, but you can still add tremendous value. So first of all, there’s, there’s that right? You can still add value, but the other part that hit me was going, there’s a big difference between being the world’s greatest player and being the world’s greatest coach. There’s a big difference between being the world’s greatest player and the world’s greatest coach. They’re not the same thing, many most nearly all of the world’s greatest players were never the world’s greatest coach. In fact, in all of professional sports, it’s extremely rare where a player wins a championship as both a player, and then goes on to win a championship as, as a head coach. Now, I, I look through this up a little bit and it’s, it actually has happened more often than I not specifically in basketball in football it’s like Mike, Mike DKA and Tom Flores.
RV (12:03):
And like Gary Koyak, there’s only a few in football where the, they won a super bowl as a player, but then also won a championship as a coach. And, and, you know, specifically as a superstar, like, I, I wouldn’t, I don’t, I hope he wouldn’t mind. I, I wouldn’t think of Gary Kubiak as a superstar player. He was a great player. I was Denver Broncos, right. I was Broncos fan. So I, I, I watched Kubiak, but a great coach and you know, an amazing hall of fame career. But my DKA, I would say was, you know, superstar and one as a coach, but that’s very, very rare now in the NBA. Steve Kerr did it you know, of course won championships with the bulls and then also won as a, as a coach. And Phil Jackson has done it, you know, but mostly as a coach, I think nine rings as a coach and two as a player.
RV (12:53):
And again, I wouldn’t think of him as a superstar player, but he is one of the greatest coaches of all time. And I didn’t know this, but Patrick Riley won a championship as a player. And then also, you know, as a, as a coach, but bill Russell was a superstar player and also won championships as a coach. But outside of like those, I, there weren’t a ton. Like it doesn’t happen that often. And, and, and even when it does it, doesn’t, it doesn’t exclude this point here. That there’s a difference between being the greatest player or one of the world’s greatest players and one of those greatest coaches. And it’s very rare and hard and not necessary to be both. And I think about this at brand builders group, right? Like, you know, we’re coaching many of the biggest personal brands in, in the world, right?
RV (13:36):
I I’m I’m or, or coaching advising, you know, being their strategist, I guess, is the technical term, but like ed, Mylet got way more followers than we do. He makes a lot more money than we do. He’s sold a lot more books than his launch than we did, but he’s humble enough to invite in somebody like, you know, us because we know something about it. And, you know, you, you, you take his reach his reputation. I mean, his, the success of his book launch is because of him. I mean, there was a whole team that helped him. We were part of that team, but it was really because of, of him, but yeah, our system helped. Yeah. We coached him through it. Yeah. We, we have a process that really made a difference and you know, of course he’s been super generous and, and grateful publicly about that.
RV (14:22):
And, and it just shows you that going, Hey, I’ve never performed in terms of, in some of those metrics as, as the way that he has. He allows me to speak into that Louis House, same thing, Eric Thomas Tom and Lisa BIU these, you know, we we’re, we’re getting more and more, we’re working with these very, very like high profile clients because we get really good results and we, you know, the word is spreading that what we do actually works and it’s ethical and it’s honest and all that stuff. So personally I experienced this now. I think I’ve performed in many ways. Like if you say personal branding, you know, speaking author, there’s many ways that I’ve I’ve been a great player. I don’t know if I would say superstar, I mean, a hall of fame speaking and, and New York times bestselling author are, I mean, I guess very legitimate things, but it doesn’t matter.
RV (15:12):
The point is for you, if, even if you’ve never been the greatest player, you’ve never been a superstar. You can still add value like Alan who, who was interviewing. He’s not gonna be in the NBA hall of fame yet. He’s coaching some of the best players in the history of the game, because he knew the game really well. And he was a great coach. And so I just hope if you ever have that, that sort of imposter syndrome of like, ah, you know, am I qualified to coach entrepreneurs who do better than me? You go, well, sh sure you might be, you might not be, but you might be, if you have legitimate insights that can help them, even if you’ve never been to that level yourself. Now that said, I really pride myself and AJ really prides herself. We pride ourself as a culture at brand builders group that we teach people to do things that we do and that we have done.
RV (16:04):
So, you know, we’re not teaching someone like ed, Mylet something that we haven’t done ourselves or tried out. It’s just, we’re teaching of something that we know that we know works. And then because of who he is and his reputation and his reach and his trust and all of his other relational capital and all the other assets that he has, it’s just, it, it’s a, a bigger result on a, on a grander scale. So, you know, it’s just kind of a balance, right? But like, don’t feel that imposter syndrome that just because someone’s older than you, or you know, maybe you think somehow smarter than you, or maybe they make more money than you, or they have a bigger business than you. It doesn’t exclude you from being able to add value to what they’re doing just in and of itself. And then also going well, yeah, the greatest players don’t hire the other greatest players to teach them.
RV (16:55):
They hire the greatest coaches. So you go, maybe I wasn’t, maybe I’m not the greatest player, but I’m gonna focus on being one of the greatest coaches who’s ever, you know, been in this profession. That’s awesome. Right. I mean, Phil Jackson has nine rings as a coach. I think it’s nine and two as a player. And it’s like, people think of him as a coach, one of the greatest coaches of all time, like he’s coaching Michael Jordan, you know, Kobe Shaq. Incredible. So just keep that in mind. And again, at this points to how insecurity and self-doubt is always, you only feel those things when you’re thinking about yourself, you don’t think about them when you’re, when you’re thinking about other people, when you’re just going, I’m here to help. I’m here to serve. I’m here to add value to you. I’m here to make a difference in, in your career, in your life.
RV (17:43):
I’m not worried about what you think of me or what my credentials are. I am here focused on you. I’m here to help you. That is a part of the essence of what makes a great coach even, and especially at the superstar level. So thank you for being here. Thank you for the honor of allowing us, me, AJ, our team at brand builders group to speak in your life. It it’s a, it it’s, you know, preaching to the choir here by, by definition, you’re here. Listening is a sign of, of humility and coachable coachability, and also hopefully confidence and boldness to go chase your dreams and knock ’em down and do the work it takes to make them a reality. So share this podcast with someone who, you know, who’s a sports fan. Who’s also thinking about building their business or they’re an entrepreneur or building their personal brand. This is a great one. Both the recap and the interview with Alan, make sure you go follow Alan on social and leave him a comment. Send him some love. Just say hi, let him know. You heard him here on the influential personal brand podcast. We’ll catch you next time.
Ep 322: High-Performance Secrets of NBA Superstars with Alan Stein Jr.
RV (00:02):
Well, it’s not every day that you get a chance to talk to somebody who worked closely for years and years and years with people like Kobe Bryant and Steph Curry and Kevin Duran and our guest today, Alan Stein Jr. Did exactly that. So for 15 years he worked as a, basically a, a high performance skills and mental training coach for NBA superstars and athletes. And in the last few years, he’s transitioned over into speaking and writing. He’s got a couple books out. His first book has done very, very well. It’s called raise your game, high performance secrets from the best of the best. And then he has a new book out called sustain your game. And I just saw him in person recently at the event that we had for ed my let’s book launch in North Carolina, and we sort of connected there. And then he was on ed my let’s podcast a couple weeks before I was. And anyways, I just, I really love Alan and what he’s about and the people he’s hanging out with and, and what he’s doing. And I just was sort of curious, like, man, I, I wanna know what’s going on behind the scenes with some of NBA superstars and to see if I can get a little free coaching for myself. So welcome to the stage a Stein Jr. What’s up, man.
ASJ (01:18):
Aw, man. It’s so great to be with you. I’m looking forward to a fun conversation and I’ll give you all the coaching you want my friend
RV (01:23):
ASJ (02:06):
Well, you know, I’ve never gone by or embraced the junior part of my name. And, and throughout my basketball training career, it was always just Alan Stein. And when I decided to make the distinct pivot outside of, you know, to leave the direct training space of basketball and inter corporate speaking when I went to get my website domain and social handles Alan Stein was taken so I, I wanted to try and figure out a way to keep that branding consistent. But I also wanted to find a way from a searchable and SEO standpoint to kind of differentiate my two professional lives. So if you, you Google Alan Stein, you’re probably gonna find a lot of stuff from my basketball days and training. But when I add the junior, now it’s a very distinct difference and that’s kind of the corporate keynote speaking. And in writing that I do, and it’s allowed me to have alanine jr.com and at alanine Jr. On all social platforms. So smart, there’s kind kind of a branding play and just a, a separator for sure.
RV (03:03):
Yeah. I love that. I mean, that’s really smart to have that consistency, like man, it’s so it’s so tricky when you’re like, how do I tag this person on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and it’s all different every time. Like I actually have some issues with that myself because when we sold our company, some of my profiles were caught up in that transaction. So, but anyways, so I wanna, I wanna talk to you about what you talk about and what a lot of people ask you about, which is like, what is it, what do you learn? What have you learned from coaching? I mean, you’re not just coaching professional athletes, you’re coaching or coached some of the most legendary players in the history of the game. I mean, Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, like these are, these are at the, the absolute peak of the peak of the peak of the peak performance in one of the most competitive games in the world. So I’m curious, you know, for both myself and for the person listening, how do, what can we take from the, the mindset it takes to operate at that level?
ASJ (04:09):
Three things jump out immediately. And, and my favorite part of these three things is they have such high utility. You know, they, they apply to every area of our lives. I mean, these three things allow me to be a better speaker and run a better speaking business. But they also allow me to be a better father. And I’ve, I’ve always been fascinated by principles and strategies that have that type of utility. The very first one is, is something that I learned from Kobe Bryant that changed my life forever when he said the best, never get bored with the basics and that if you want to be good at anything, you have to work towards mastery of the fundamentals relentlessly during the unseen hours. And you know, the very first thing I do with anyone that I work with is get them to identify what are the basic building blocks required to be good in this specific area of your life. You know, if, if you want to thriving in healthy marriage, what are the basics of having a thriving and healthy marriage? If you wanna run an elite speaking business, what are the fundamentals required of doing that? So getting clarity, and I know that’s what you all are all about getting clarity on the basics and the fundamentals, and then having the, the humility to stick to them on a daily basis was definitely the first lesson. The
RV (05:20):
Second was, let me hold on. I wanna stop there cuz I wanna dig in on, on, on, on this, like there’s, this is so true for us because Alan, you know, people come to us and they go, oh, I wanna become a New York times bestselling author. Like, so and so, or I wanna have a podcast like Lewis Houser, I wanna speak on stages. I wanna have, you know, have millions of people watch my videos like Eric Thomas. And then it’s like, okay. And we go, great. We’ve broken it down step by step systematically. There’s there is no question about if we can teach people to do all of those things, we are a hundred percent sure that it works, cuz we’re doing it ourselves in addition to like doing with, with other people, but nobody wants to do it. And it’s the same thing. Like when, when you think of you know, like you think of Kobe Bryant, you think of the game winning shot, you think of these epic highlight real dunks. Tell us, like, tell me a little bit about him in real life. Like to this point of never being bored with the basics and to the fundamentals, even when he was at his peak, was he doing that or did, was that just sort of like something he did to get to the NBA or like how long was that a part of what his philosophy was?
ASJ (06:29):
Such an insightful question and I’m glad you went in that direction. You know, continuing to work on and work towards mastery of the basics, remained a fundamental component throughout his entire career. And then he took that same mindset, you know, when, when he left basketball and re and retired and he had that same mindset in business. Now what’s important to, to have discernment is I’m not saying that he never graduated to more advanced techniques and more advanced skills and drills. He obviously did what I’m saying is he never left the basics behind. He realized that those were the foundation to which the rest of the house was built. So the very first time I had a chance to watch him work out in one of his private workouts. Back in 2007, he spent the first 45 minutes doing basic footwork, basic shooting mechanics, basic ball handling drills.
ASJ (07:18):
I mean to the tune of stuff that I had already taught those things to middle school, age players. And here you’re talking about, you know, arguably the best player of a generation, certainly the best player in 2007. And yet he still made the commitment to focusing on those fundamentals for the first portion of his workout. And then of course, again, he would matriculate up and graduate to more advanced techniques, but he would never leave them. And, and as I’ve been a part of and, or studied other thriving organizations, especially in sports, you know, a, a duke basketball or a new England Patriots back in their heyday, you know, it was the same thing. You know, their practices and their workouts were built on the fundamentals of the game. They never left those that wasn’t something they said, well, we’re gonna do these things until we get good and then we’ll just leave them behind.
ASJ (08:06):
They made sure those were a staple of everything they did moving forward. And, and I know in my own life, you know, anytime I don’t believe I’m getting the results that I, I think I’m capable of when I, I sit with some self-reflection and some introspection, I usually realize that I’ve, I’ve started to skip the basics. I’ve started to, to kind of, you know, move on to more advanced techniques and leave them behind. And as soon as I refocus that lens and get that required clarity and get back to the fundamentals, I see my performance escalate again. So it’s, it’s not about never moving past them is just about never leaving them behind
RV (08:42):
Mm-Hmm
ASJ (08:56):
Well, this is another part that kind of a part two to the story of when I saw him work out, that I thought was so cool was he had cuz the workout that I watched him do was really, really, really early in the morning. I mean at 3:30 AM type of work to some people that’s almost late cuz they’re considering it from the day before, but that was his first workout of the day. And, and he said to me at that time, cuz I asked him why he chose to get up that early. And he said even the most dedicated and determined NBA players in the off season, cuz this was an off season workout. He said the most D driven and ambitious NBA players will work out twice a day. They’ll work out for two to three hours mid-morning then they’ll take a little break and they’ll work out for two to three hours midafternoon and he said, if I only do what everybody else does, then I’ll only have what everyone else has.
ASJ (09:43):
I need to do more than they do. And this, this really parlays into, you know, ed my let’s concept of the power of one more. So Kobe said, if I can go in and get my first workout before they’re even awake and I’m leaving the gym from my first workout, as they’re coming to the gym for their first workout and then they’re coming home from their first workout and I’m heading in for my second workout, he said, I’ll always be a step ahead. And, and that might not matter over a couple of weeks or maybe a couple of months, but when you start to stack years and in his case decades, he said, no one will ever be able to catch me simply because I’m always doing one more than they are. And that was really kind of the, the cornerstone of his Mamba mentality.
ASJ (10:24):
And, and with that said, and I always make this disclaimer and I especially make it with younger players when I would work in that space. I don’t want everyone to think that the answer is always more as better. And that, you know, you know, if, if, if you’re working 12 hour days that working 16 hour days does not necessarily mean that that will improve your business. I mean, there’s, there’s a variety of, of different individual scenarios, but I just liked his mindset and his mindset was my edge is going to be my work ethic, my, my obsession towards mastering the fundamentals. And I’m always gonna do a little bit more than you’re going to do and you’ll never beat me. And I, I think that’s an incredible mindset to have.
RV (11:03):
Yeah. Well, I mean, I have to say like, you know, there’s a lot of this, like anti hu, like, you know, everyone was like, oh, the hustle culture. And then there’s like been this pendulum of like, oh, anti hustle. You don’t have to hustle. And you know, I’m not saying that you have to work your whole life. Like that’s all you do to be successful. But when I just look at the reality of the stories of the people who have become the elite in their profession, the volume of time spent matters tremendously. Like, and, and you know, I think, I think a lot of people would look at Kobe Bryant and go, oh, he is gifted. Right. Cause he was drafted straight outta the out of high school. Right. And go, oh yeah, totally gifted. Like just like wonder kin like the, the chosen one.
RV (11:49):
But then to hear this story of going that happened for decades and so people, they couldn’t catch him. And so it, it’s a different side of the story and it go, I’m not advocating for all we do is work, but I am, I, I can’t argue with the facts of the matter, which is that no, nobody gets to be at that level by just doing it. Part-Time like nobody. So that’s, that’s power, that’s powerful. And you’d say the same is true for Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, all the other teams in organizations you’re working with.
ASJ (12:23):
Absolutely. What, what most novice fans don’t see is that, that peak behind the curtain of the unseen hours, which I’ve been privy to. And you know, obviously this is during the NBA off season when we’re recording this, but let’s just say it was in the heart of the season. And, and Steph has one of his magical games where he knocks down 12 threes and scores, 60 points and people are mesmerized by that. And, and I certainly get that. It’s an incredible feat, but if they knew how much work he put in during the unseen hours and how many millions of shots he’s taken and Macon in empty gyms, when no one else is around, it actually becomes less spectacular. And I say that with a smile, cuz I’m not diminishing that type of feet, but when you shoot that many shots in an empty gym, when no one’s around, you’re supposed to make those shots.
ASJ (13:09):
When the lights come on and the cheerleaders start dancing and that’s how those guys look at it, you know, they’re never surprised by their unbelievable performances. It’s an expectation for them, but that’s because they’ve put in the work to deserve the right to, to perform that well. And that actually leads to the, the second lesson that I learned from those guys is they do a masterful job of blending confidence, which is what they earn through time in the unseen hours. They blend that with humility, which is what allows them to stay open to, to feedback is what allows them to stay open to being coached is what allows them to say, you know, you all might say I’m the best player in the NBA, but I’m not as good as I’m capable of becoming. So I’m gonna get back in the gym. You know, I mean, when, when I watched Kobe go through that workout, he was already an NBA champion already, an Allstar already, a multimillionaire, you know, 20 times over, already a surefire first ballot hall of Famer.
ASJ (14:04):
And he’s in the gym at three 30 in the morning working on his craft because he doesn’t believe he’s as good as he’s capable of. And when you can blend that type of confidence with humility, you get something really magical. And, and that’s something else that I’ve, I’ve tried to apply in my own life. I mean, I, I’m not anywhere on a performance level of a Kobe Bryant, but I wanna make sure that I am earning the right to hold someone’s attention when I’m on stage speaking, but I wanna stay open to being coached and, and to growing and, and developing and working on my craft. I mean, I, you know, my next speaking engagement, I aim to make the best one that I’ve ever done. But I also know that 10 years from now, if you have me back on your show, I will be a better speaker, 10 years from now than I am today because of my commitment to craft. And that’s, what’s most important to me.
RV (14:53):
Yeah. Yeah. I, we, we bumped up against this a lot because we have a fair number of like quasi celebrity or celebrity clients that we work with at brand builders group. And, you know, it’s, it’s a little bit amazing to be like, wow, we’re coaching, we’re coaching. We’re punching above our, our weight class here because like some of these people are, I mean, they’re real good and they’ve have, they’ve gotten, you know, had real success in real reach, but then, you know, so there’s like this initial part where you think, oh, that doesn’t make sense. Like why would somebody who’s the best in the world take coaching from somebody who has never even experienced that level personally. And it’s like, no, the reason they’re, they are the best in the world is because they take coaching from, from, from those people. Meanwhile, the people who you who need coaching are the ones who have no idea what they’re doing and they’re not good and they’re not starting and they’re set they’re, they’re not doing it cuz they think they’re above coaching and it’s, it’s not the weak or the, or the untalented or the UN gifted who get coaching.
RV (16:03):
Its the opposite. It’s the, it’s the, the elite highest performers on the, on the planet. And I think that’s amazing. So you talk about earning your confidence. So I like what you were saying there. So you’re so talk to talk to me a little bit more about that. You’re saying that they’re earning it through what they do in the, basically the unseen hours.
ASJ (16:26):
Yeah. They, they understand intimately that repetition is not punishment. Like that’s one of the lessons I teach my own children. Repetition is not punishment. Repetition is the oldest and most effective form of learning and skill acquisition on the planet. And that is never going to change. Even technology won’t change that you have to get in reps if you want to be good at anything. And, and they understand that and they’re willing to put in those reps to an unbelievable degree and you know, the reason Stephan Curry will go down in history as the greatest shooter the game has ever seen is not because he did a bunch of reps to get good. And now he just coast, he’s still in the gym working on his craft. He is still putting up shots, you know on off days and in the off season. Cuz that’s the repetition is what’s what’s required. And certainly it’s true in the speaking game. I mean the, how
RV (17:15):
Do you more reps
ASJ (17:17):
Get on stage the better you’ll be.
RV (17:18):
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. There’s, there’s no replacement for stage time and for sure. So when you, a lot of people listening are, you know, some type of a coach or a consultant or a leader, you know, kind of this experience like I’m presuming that you’re not, you, you’re not gonna be in the hall of fame, the NBA hall of fame as a player yourself. And so I think there’s a lot of people who end up sort of coaching above their weight class. Like I was talking about. Did, did you ever have insecurities or self doubt yourself? I mean standing on the court with these guys saying, Hey, do it this way. Not that way. Did you ever experience any of that? Like, well, who am I to tell, you know, Kevin Duran, like how to, how to whatever block somebody out or block a shot and how did you get past that?
ASJ (18:09):
Well, I, I got past it. One, by being honest, I mean I wasn’t trying to BS anybody. Those guys knew they were better players than I had ever dreamed of becoming, but they also knew that doesn’t exclude me from having certain expertise or experience that can still add value to what it is that they do. You know, a good portion of coaching comes from that, that intellectual knowledge from certain experiences from having a different vantage point from having different perspectives from shared experiences that you’ve had from other players. So I had to lean into that and say, yes, I realize that you are a better player than I ever. Would’ve been. However, I can still add to your game. You know, I can still give you things that will make you a better player. And with guys like that, you have to prove that very quickly, you know, the, the quickest way to get an elite level player to tune you out is the moment they don’t think you can make them better.
ASJ (19:04):
You know, I think that’s one of the reasons that coach Kay was so successful with, with the Olympic teams was because those guys, and then you’re talking about Kobe, LeBron, Steph Curry, KD, those guys knew that he still had something that could make them better. So they didn’t discount the fact that he was a college coach and they were pros. They realized that he could still make them better based on his experience and expertise. So to me that’s the most important part. I mean, if you look at, and, and I certainly wouldn’t want to go on a tangent of who’s the greatest player of all time, I’m, I’m still kind of in the Michael Jordan camp. And a lot of that is just based on my own age, but Michael Jordan is arguably the best player to ever play the game. So from that previous logic, he could never have a coach because no one is going to be better than him.
ASJ (19:51):
Right. Well, how foolish does that sound? Even me saying it out loud, you know, Phil Jackson was never as good of a player as Michael Jordan, but you better believe Phil Phil Jackson had a, a perspective and a philosophy and experience and expertise that he could use to help mentor and, and groom Michael Jordan to become the player he was. And, and, and I think all of those guys will acknowledge that. So to answer your question, yes, there were certainly moments of kind of that imposter syndrome. Oh my gosh, are they gonna listen to me? But I had to quickly move right through that, lean in with honesty and vulnerability and show them and prove to them that I have something that can make you better.
RV (20:29):
I love that. Okay, so you left us, hang in here, you got three, you covered to cover two of them. So I wanna, I wanna make sure that we have time to get into the third one.
ASJ (20:39):
The, the third is those guys were certainly driven by external results. They wanted to make Allstar teams. They wanted to win NBA championship rings. They wanted to win scoring titles. And, and those were often north stars that, that provided clarity and direction for where they were headed. But after that, they didn’t spend any time focused on results. They put all of their effort into the process. They put all of their effort into what are the habits I need to establish? What are the micro skills I need to develop? What are the behaviors that I need to exude on a, on a daily basis that will get me closer to that north star or that goal? So it wasn’t so much, you know, I want a championship ring as much as it was, what do I need to do today to give myself and my teammates the best opportunity to be a champion next season.
ASJ (21:27):
And they were very, very process driven. And when you can combine, you know, the, the humility and vulnerability, it takes to stick to the basics when you can earn your confidence in the unseen hours, but stay open to coaching and feedback, and you can stay focused on the steps and the processes and the habits you combine, those three things together. There’s really nothing that can stop you. And, and, and there’s no one arguing that the guys that, that we’ve been talking about were born with some physical predispositions that allowed them to be world class athletes. Sure. I mean, they’ll tell you, they were born with certain levels of athleticism, but so are a lot of people and they didn’t actualize it. And then of course, going back to what I said originally about these things, having high utility in the space that you and I play in, it doesn’t matter if you’re five feet tall or seven feet tall.
ASJ (22:13):
It doesn’t matter if you have a four inch vertical jump or a 40 inch vertical jump, the physicality is no longer relevant. So now these things actually are the separators and the difference makers in business or in entrepreneurship or in any of the, the playgrounds that we play in. So these are all things that are under our control, which goes back to your brilliant point, that you can lay out the blueprint of exactly what someone needs to do to reach a certain level of success. And it’s been proven, you guys have proven it with hundreds and hundreds of elite level clients. Problem is people just don’t stick to the script. They don’t execute the blueprint, they get bored with the basics, and then they try to do things their way, if they will follow your recipe, they will get unbelievable results.
RV (22:55):
Yeah, it’s funny. Like you know, I played basketball in high school was my whole big, you know, consuming focus. But when I, when I got to college, the, the way I was able to let go of the dream or what helped me let go of the dream was R realizing that I was competing. I know in, on something that I couldn’t control, which was the physicality part. And so I was like, well, if I’m always gonna be under massively under resourced in this area, I’m gonna quickly shift my attention into something where that is not a part of the game. And you know, that it actually was a pretty quick flip of the switch where it was like, it went from being my whole life to, I pretty much dropped it. You know, just because it was like, oh, I, this is I’m gonna go.
RV (23:46):
I’m gonna go basically find another game to, to play and to, to compete in, which is, which is really cool. So I mean, this is awesome, Alan. I, I, I think it’s, it’s, it’s amazing to me how, how consistent this story is. And, and people don’t necessarily want it to be that way and they try to rationalize it and popular culture tries to change it, but it’s like, this is the deal. And it’s super duper powerful to, to get to see it. So where do, where should we send people? All right. So we have, so your, your, your, you had raise your game, which was the first book, and then sustain your game, just came out. Where, where do you want people to go? If they wanna connect more with you and like, keep up with what you’re doing.
ASJ (24:31):
My primary speaking website is Alan Stein jr.com. And then I have a second,
RV (24:35):
Don’t forget the junior, don’t forget the junior
ASJ (24:38):
Don’t don’t ever forget that. And, and it’s a quick side note to that. Not implying that you ever would, but if you ever meet my father, he’ll tell you the biggest dad, joke of all time. He’ll say I’m Alan steins. I’m the original, he’s the carbon copy.
RV (24:53):
I think that’s funny.
ASJ (24:54):
Yeah, that’s good stuff. So Alan Stein jr.com is the speaking site, stronger team.com has info on my books podcast and online course, and some one-on-one coaching. And then I’m very easily found and very accessible and resp responsive on social media at Allen Stein Jr. On Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And then of course you can just search for the books on Amazon or audible or wherever you like to get your books or audio books.
RV (25:18):
I love it, man. Well, what a, what a cool glimpse into what it takes, and then to see you applying it in your own life, in your own business, what you’re doing now as a speaker is really, really cool. Like you can, you can see the, the trajectory of your career just shaping up nicely in terms of like your ability to apply this to other people and to companies and organizations to build stronger teams. It’s really, really inspiring brother. And you know, I’m very encouraged by that and inspired by you. So, so stay the course. We’re cheering for you.
ASJ (25:51):
Thank you.