Author: Nicole Gale

Ep 530: How to Monetize Live Events with Jennifer Kem

RV (00:02):
Well, every once in a while I will meet a client who is someone who has been a vendor to several of our clients. And anytime that happens, I pay attention because this is such a small world that we live in. And because all of our brand builders, right, all of you mission driven messengers, are always looking for good vendors and asking us, who can I trust? Who can I do stuff with? So I really, really pay attention? Well, one of those people is Jen Kem, who I’m gonna tell you about. And she became a client of ours after I had been hearing her name. And so here, let me tell you a little bit about Jen. Okay. So she works specifically with thought leaders and personal brands and she helps them to make more impact and make more money. She has been named by Forbes as a top brand strategist.
RV (00:49):
Her company, master Brand Media represents influencers, celebrities, CEOs, experts, authors and really helps them with brand collaborations, live events. Kind of monetizing specifically through live events is what we’re gonna talk about today. And she, some of our brand builders, group clients that she has worked with is Selena Sue, Chris Winfield, Jen Gottlieb, Nicole Walters, all really high level clients that I know personally. She’s also worked with people like Lisa Nichols on an event called Speak and Right to Make Millions. They, they did that event together years ago. And anyways, when Jen became a private client of, of mine for BBG, and she was telling me what she did, I was like, I want to have you on the podcast. I need to learn about all that you do. And I know there’s gonna be people in our community who are doing this. So we’re gonna talk about how to make millions of dollars through live events and through creating and curating event experiences. Now, she has a book coming out also soon, so later next year called Unicorn Team Build and Scale, an Unforgettable Brand from the Inside Out. So we’ll probably touch a little bit on that, but I really want to learn from her about how she does what she does. So, Jen, welcome to the show,
JK (02:07):
Rory. I’m so pumped to be here,
RV (02:09):
Buddy. I am too. So, so how did you get into producing these live events and like how did you get into this live event world and business?
JK (02:20):
Well, you know, it’s a long yarn, but bottom line is I came from corporate. I used to be the head of go to market launching of big products and services. And so when I jumped the pond, if you will, over into entrepreneurship and started my own consultancy and agency around helping companies, products and personal brands do the same, it literally was one of my first mentors who then became a client. I’m sure this happens to you too, Rory, as we’ve talked about. Now, you are my mentor on the book side. And, and, and I had a mentor, her name was Lisa Nichols. And I wanna give full credit to Lisa because I hired her to be a mentor, to just make sure that from a leadership perspective, from a, the way that I looked at the world perspective, that I had a very, a bigger awareness of what was possible for me.
JK (03:10):
And in that relationship, I can’t help but like share with her, gosh, you know, I see these amazing things that you’re doing and I’m curious if you thought about doing X, Y, and Z. And she was like, I’m always open. And I think when you work with mission driven messengers, like Lisa, yeah, they are open to hearing how can I expand my message to the world? And so, bottom line, we created this amazing relationship. And it was her who encouraged me and said, because I said to her, I think you should be doing, she was already doing amazing events. She’s a very highly requested and hired speaker, and she had already a New York Times bestselling book under her belt called No Matter What. And I said, I think that from a next level perspective where we need clarity for your audience is like, what are really your offers that you’re making? Because people loved her, they would show up anywhere she would go. So she had all the charisma and the the of a visionary. And from a high ticket perspective, people were used to purchasing from her books, smaller bundles, things like that. And she was only available for higher level mentorship in a one-on-one capacity, which she was my, she was one of my mentors that I was paying a high.
RV (04:23):
Oh, so you hired her to be your like one-on-one private coach.
JK (04:26):
Yeah. And then what she did was she, like, she changed my entire life and, and I always teased her, ruined it at the same time. Just kidding. Lisa because she’s like, you really need to be helping entrepreneurs. ’cause I know that you are crushing it with corporations. ’cause I had taken my corporate experience and a lot of my clients were corporate people and executive types who wanted that type of strategy and, and working with their go to market teams. And she said, I feel like the way you’re teaching me as my student is what entrepreneurs need more of. But they don’t know anybody like this. You know, we’ve been told you can do events and experiences but a lot of times the conversation is more about logistics and event planning. And I would totally come into a place of,
RV (05:08):
It’s always like strategy. It’s always like, how do we get the coffee and what’s the AV and like all this stuff, all that stuff. But like you, so you have a framework, it’s called Million Dollar Experiences, is that what it’s called? Yes.
JK (05:18):
It’s called the Million Dollar Experience Model. Yes.
RV (05:20):
Million Dollar Experience Model. And so this is all about basically how to create an awesome experience that also translate into more revenue at the event, right?
JK (05:29):
Yes. And, and, and post-event, because even the model itself accounts for, you know, what’s all the pre things you have to do, obviously what happens at the actual event to create the transformation that makes the people who come. And the key is that the people who come in that pre-work are people who are ready for a transformation that understand they want more after an event and are are already primed because we’ve done a good job before the event to invite the right people into the room so that the offer itself is a perfect fit for the problem that they wanna solve. And then the post event is cared for as well. Because a lot of times what happens is, and also with the events, people don’t wanna do them because it’s exhausting, right? Physically strenuous a lot of the things
RV (06:19):
Totally. It’s, it’s, oh my, it’s stressful. Anytime you have to print name tags, that’s what I tell people. Like, if it’s small enough that you don’t eat name tags, it’s all right. Once you get into name tags and taking lunch orders and like the, the gets crazy if you bingo, it’s
JK (06:33):
Crazy. Bingo. And so the thing is that I always tell people like, you’re always gonna have the fatigue because you’re showing up for big work. But it, the fatigue doesn’t have to be toxic or unnecessary. And I think that a lot of times, because I always, one of my ways that I live my life is, I call it I work on the right hard things. And so if one of the hard things, and Rory is correct, friends printing name tags and lunch orders, it’s like, what we shouldn’t focus on. But it takes up so much energy, you just don’t even understand it. And my philosophy is, you know, treat a live event or a live activation, by the way this works online or offline. ’cause When you mentioned Selena Sue, she’s made the most income and impact from actually us architecting the right experience for an online three day event. She did. And she did it three times and made millions of dollars from it. And it just shows that when you have the right model, and Rory and I can geek out about models all day. ’cause He has like the most amazing models around
RV (07:35):
Oh, frameworks. Like frameworks and Yeah.
JK (07:37):
Models and systems. And me too from a place of using a live event vehicle, if you will. It’s a vehicle really to then I think amplify really all of the things you got going on, whether it’s a book and then turning that book into a high ticket offer that then, you know, gives you nice cash injection and, and income, but also anything really. So it’s also back to that post-event caretaking that allows people to, if they don’t choose yes at that time, they are ready for the next or the next time. And, and, and hmm. You know, I know brand builders and Rory and AJ are very much about the relationship building. And that’s what I also love about live events. They’re the best way to get closer to people and create relationships and not just sell more, but frankly, partner collaborate, creation, ship opportunities. Mm-Hmm.
RV (08:36):
There’s just, and there, it, it takes so much energy to your point. It’s like, ’cause you’re giving so much energy and it’s like mm-Hmm, it’s transformative because you have the human experience of like, we’re pouring into each other and like we’re bringing the, bringing the energy. So I, I think that in and of itself is a really big insight for people to understand that. I think a lot of people miss is just going, there’s a pre-event strategy that primed people and preps them. And then there’s also a post-event strategy, which is like, you keep in touch and you build a relationship. ’cause We play the long, we’re playing the long game constantly. And I, I’m just shocked at how many people are like, well, nobody bought in my funnel. Nobody bought my webinar. This sucks. It doesn’t work. And it’s like, no dude, it’s like a great funnel converts at like 3% for anybody, like 5% maybe. So your whole life is, that, is is nurturing the 95%. That’s where the, the magic is. It’s not like the 5% who buy, it’s going, how do you build a relationship and add value and stay in touch with the others? So just the idea of even pre ’cause sometimes they’ll be like, this event sucked. We didn’t sell anything. What a what a failure. And it’s like, oh my gosh, did you totally have the wrong motives and the wrong sales strategy going in, in the first place?
JK (09:55):
Right,
RV (09:56):
Exactly. So walk us through the model. Walk us through the, okay, so, so, so walk us through like how, how does it work?
JK (10:01):
So there’s three parts of the model the million dollar experiences model. And from this point, you’ll probably hear me call it MDE. So just remember those words, m France, m, m, d, e, million dollar experiences. Okay? And the model is comprised of three stages. So the three stages are strategy, sales, and scale. Okay? And under the strategy, strategy track, if you will, are three important components. Experience, design, offer, clarity, and the campaign plan. And so experience,
RV (10:31):
Design, offer, clarity and campaign des
JK (10:36):
Design, campaign plan.
RV (10:37):
Campaign plan. Mm-Hmm.
JK (10:38):
. Mm-Hmm. .
RV (10:38):
Okay.
JK (10:39):
And so I’ll, I’ll go through the two, three tracks and then I’ll just give you a little tidy taste under each one. So the stage, the next stage is the sales strategy, right? So that includes your event marketing, your offer invitation, and the agenda and zones, which is the way that we architect the right way to create a room of transformation. Like
RV (11:02):
A physical, like the physical space.
JK (11:04):
Yeah. So it’s the physical space. So the agenda and the zones are critical components to making sure that the sales strategy works. Interesting. mm-Hmm. . So that’s, that’s the game that’s actually a game changer. So we can even touch on what I think of this whole model are game changing things that people, most people are not doing, but the unicorns that are winning are doing because of this model. So the third stage is called scale.
RV (11:28):
Scale, yep.
JK (11:30):
And that is the seamless logistics, the unicorn team that you need to actually do the thing. Mm-Hmm. And then the money, math and metrics. So those are the, the nine, if you will core parts of the model that really make what you were mentioning earlier, Rory. It’s like, what’s so cool about this model and why I am kind of obsessed with it, and I’m proud that, you know, we’ve been able to create such phenomenal results is because it, it speaks to my soul around leverage. You know? Because it’s leverage for all the right reasons. There’s you know, you get to grow your personal brand because people who see people in the front of the room, you know, Rory as a speaker, it’s, and when you produce your own events, you create a lot of authority. And then you have the income piece, which again, this model is so great if you have a mid to high ticket offer.
JK (12:24):
And then the third piece of it is actually you compress the amount of time to make cash. Because within online funnel, which again, you need those systems. I have online funnels, I have all the things, but when you are committed to a live activation, you actually can make the same amount of money in three days that you can make in 365 days. That then gives you the capital you need to be better at marketing online in an ongoing way. So this is why I love this way of doing things. And I, I think that most people don’t look at live events with that mindset. They look at it as like, oh, I just have to do it because people seem to make pretty good money. Or, you know, again, Tony Robbins is doing it. Maybe I should be doing it. And I’m like, no, it’s not about it. Do it because you wanna create leverage, you wanna get your time back actually, and you wanna like have the biggest impact in the smallest amount of time. Mm-Hmm. . So that’s what those,
RV (13:17):
Let’s talk about the offer part. Okay. So when you say mid to high ticket offer Mm-Hmm. , what price point is that exactly? Like, is this a a hundred thousand dollars something or a $20,000 or a 5,000? Like what, what’s the range that this model kind of like Mm-Hmm. works for?
JK (13:37):
So I think it’s based on also the stage of business that you’re in. So I will say that at the minimum, it’s, it’s, it’s more worth it to do an MDE type of activation. If you have at least a $5,000 offer. When I say that, please listen to me, like perhaps you’ve written a book, right? And say you have this storied career, but right now people are starting to know you for a thing you want them to know you for. That’s why you go work with brand builders, right? You, you, you’re building your personal brand, you’re writing a book and you want to take some of what you’ve learned, but you know that people don’t really know you fully for this offer yet. An MDE event is great at that stage because let’s say it’s a five to $10,000 offer and you can get 50 people in the room, right? So let’s do easy math. ’cause This, I don’t wanna mess this up since we’re live on a podcast, but basically, let’s say you get, imagine if you could 25 of the 50 people to buy a $10,000 offer, right? That’s 200,
RV (14:34):
That’s $50,000
JK (14:35):
Right? Now. That’s some nice money. And imagine that the cost of you bringing 50 people into a room with a $10,000 offer, right, is only 20 5K. So now we’re talking about not is that 20, that’s 10%, right? Which a lot of events only break even, or they cost more than they make because they’re not doing MDPE. So now your profit is 2 25. And for you, if you’re just, you’re, you’re just getting known, what a great way to go. Now if you’re already known, oh my gosh, the amount of money you can make, right? So a lot of times what we suggest to clients is do you have a 20 5K offer and a hundred k offer, basically, again, everyone’s gonna be different depending on a lot of factors inside of the model I just shared with you. But generally speaking, when you talked about Chris and Jen or Selena, those were the price points because they had already built, they had a platform, you know, they were good marketers that type of thing. And so then you can elevate to that. And I’m not saying at when you’re starting that you don’t have, you can’t have a hundred k offer. Absolutely. You can’t. It might make a lot of sense. And that’s why the offer clarity is so important of like, how does it fit in with the audience you’re inviting to the event? Yeah. Because it fits with the audience you’re inviting. They’re gonna say yes, they’ll figure out the money.
RV (15:59):
Well, and I just, I think it’s, there’s some, i I know there’s people listening right now that like, it’s challenging. They’re limiting beliefs to go, wait a minute, you can sell something that’s a hundred thousand dollars at the end of an event. Is it, is it, is it always two days or three days? Or does the agenda change?
JK (16:15):
Yeah. So the be so the best practice and what we’ve seen work the best for clients is a two and a half to three day event. Yeah. Generally speaking. And what I wanted to also mention is because
RV (16:24):
People aren’t spending a hundred grand after 20 minute webinar, that’s for sure. Correct. That’s, that’s not usually how
JK (16:28):
It’s going down. That’s, that’s for sure. If you have a sales call maybe, and you have a good sales team, or you’re good at sales, you might be able to do it right? But in a live event, if you want to get 30 to 50 to 70% of the people in the room to move towards a big offer, right? You have to you have, you need some time, you need some time to lay it out. You need some time to help them understand why it’s for them. So,
RV (16:53):
But you could, you think so, so, so first of all, how do you get 50 people in a room for 25,000? I mean, 50 people’s, not that many people. Mm-Hmm. . But it’s also gotta be the right people, right? In order to do this. Exactly.
JK (17:05):
So here’s the mon, so this is when kind of, I’m gonna pop up to the third track that I mentioned, which is the scale scale part scale, okay? Which is the money, math and the metrics. Okay?
RV (17:15):
Money, math, and metrics.
JK (17:16):
So to get what we know is like if we know the offer is a hundred k, let’s say, right? We gotta go find people who could demonstrate that they could pay that, right? So we build our traffic and marketing strategy as part of MDE based on those people. And so let’s say you know, you already have a list, I’m gonna go, we have a segmented list for us and we tell our clients you should do that too. Or part of the process is we’re gonna have to segment them first. So to find out who are our bigger players, right? Who are the people who are doing, let’s say a million plus in their business or more they’ve been in business for five years or more for a hundred k offer, generally speaking, that’s who’s gonna pay, right? So if I know about how much I have a hundred k offer, I’m gonna be looking for those people.
JK (18:07):
And there are three types of traffic, right? There’s what I call OPP organic paid and partnership traffic. And so in the strategy of who to get inside of the room, we ask ourselves what are our lowest hanging fruit in that OPP traffic model? So for example, if it’s partnership, I might say to Rory, for example, Hey, I have people, I’m doing this MDE event about MDE, and I could say, Hey, r Rory, I know we seem like great collaborative partners on this. It could be a win-win for some of your people. And I don’t even need you to nail anybody. Do you know anybody, like three people that you feel like could work for this? And when you take that type of care for a hundred k offer to actually ask partners to do that, you’re gonna have better qualified people in the room, right?
JK (18:59):
I don’t run paid traffic generally to events where I know my offer’s gonna be a hundred KI will run paid traffic to an event where I think my offer will be between 10 and 20 5K though. Because what’s cool about the MDE model is that getting somebody to pay you 10 or 20 5K is actually, and I say this with respect and humility, it’s quite easy if you use this model a hundred k little bit different treatment. You gotta work on the, the marketing strategy upfront in that pre piece that we talked about earlier. But that’s why it’s so important to architect a unique pre-launch in the event and post-launch strategy for your specific brand and where it’s at, at this moment, right? So that’s why I said it’s about timing and moment for you versus how much the offer should be.
JK (19:47):
Mm-Hmm. , I think that I, like, for example, when people build a funnel, and again, I love online funnels, but when they build a funnel and they wanna make 250 K, which I use that example, it actually will still take a ton longer to make 250 k with the regular funnel or a webinar than it will to do a three day, two to three day event, a two to three day event. I, I, I could bet my son’s future college tuition on it that you’re actually going to get a higher ROI if you choose this model because you cannot, an online funnel or an online webinar will never do what a live event does, which creates belly to belly conversation, right? Belly to belly conversation and energy that’s created in the room that’s palpable. And, and that you brought, if you bring the right people in, then everybody feels like family, right? Everybody feels like, oh, you’re like me instead of us trying to just push a bunch of people in a room who have nothing in common. And so that kind of caretaking is part of the model of like, oh, let me be smarter instead of mm-Hmm. Even just try
RV (20:52):
To get even. So even I hear you saying though that like a 10 to $20,000 offer is something that very legitimately could happen in like a, you know, a fairly mass market way in terms of running paid ads. If you, you, you’re following the system, hopefully you pushing ’em to a two to three, three day event, and then you’re, you’re, you’re making an offer, walk me through the event, like high level agenda. So you said experience design, but then you also had agenda and zones that was in Yes. Underneath the sales. Like, you know, there’s a lot of things you can do with two and a half days, right? It’s like we could sing songs, we could do exercise routines, we could bring in guest speakers, we could do, you know, small workshops, round table. Like there’s so many, there’s a lot of time to, you could use differently. And it, I mean, it makes sense to me. If someone’s coming in and then, you know, investing at a 10,000 or $20,000 level, you’re, that’s gotta be pretty intentional about how you’re using the time while they’re there.
JK (21:50):
Yes, exactly. And such a great question. So that’s why the experience design and the offer clarity that I mentioned earlier are the most important components to do first period. Okay? You don’t need to think about where you’re gonna have it. You don’t need to be thinking about even how many people you want there, okay? What you need to be thinking about is what’s your offer? And then you architect the experience around the offer. Okay? So that’s number one. Then the agenda’s job is to make sure that the offer is the star of the show, right? When you’re building your personal brand, I think of it like this, like Rory is the man, and Brad Builders is the company around personal brand development. This is what I call your monetization product strategy, right? So it’s like the product that’s associated with me, right? How do we make it the star, right?
JK (22:42):
And so the agenda is, and then make the messenger, the me driven messenger, which is the personal brand that’s delivering the show, is amplifying, look, you love, you want me, but what you really want is this process, this model, this thing that we have. And the agenda should reflect the model. So for example, here’s a little trick you start with, if you have a model, right, like I do, and Rory has a ton like MDE I’m gonna teach them MDE as the baseline of the agenda, period, nothing else comes into play. Then I ask myself, day one is always about challenging the limiting belief, working on the mindset, helping us all speak the same language while we’re here together for three days, right? So we work with our clients to be like on day one, when you open with your story and, and the model or the framework that you’re gonna be teaching over the next two to three days, what is gonna make them see themselves in the story and the, the framework, what is gonna do that?
JK (23:49):
And whatever that experience is, we create that as the first agenda item because now we’ve set the primer for all of the other things we’re gonna put on the agenda to support them in having that transformation. So that’s day one, generally speaking, day one is all about that. And whatever experiences you create, whether it’s breakouts, perhaps other speakers, which again, other speakers by the way, you gotta, they’re part of the primer. You pick speakers that not only help people come and elevate your brand, but also can buy into the framework. Because if it’s a separate conversation, they get confused, right? The audience goes, oh, I should go work with this person, or I should do this, or I should do that. And we wanna make sure that they’re laser focused. The reason that they’re here is to work with us. And when I say that, it’s because we done the work upfront to right. To invite the right people. You know, it’s, it. So, so we do that on day one. Day two is about one
RV (24:46):
Thing to just, just to double tap on one thing you said there. I I’m, whether it’s in an event model or for the purpose of making money or anything in general, I’m such a huge proponent of make the framework the hero, not the messenger, the hero. Yes. Like, you cannot scale a company when the messenger is the hero. It’s like, it has to be a framework, right? Like that, that’s such an important idea. And, and it’s also something that if you really care about impact, it’s one thing if you, it’s one of the best ways I think you’d tell about where someone stands in their ego. If if it’s really about ego, they’re gonna have a hard time making it about the framework because they want all the attention on them. If someone really cares about impact, they’re gonna work really hard. And that’s one of the things we do is help people create their frameworks in our captivating content. But it’s because you go, a framework can outlast you, A framework can be taught to other people, A framework can scale, a framework can be duplicated. Yes. So I really, really, I really, really love that. So, okay, so day two, so tell, tell me what happens day two.
JK (25:52):
Day two is, now obviously if you have a two and a half day to three day event, you have to be able to emphasize the most important parts of the framework that solve the problem that they came to solve. Right? So you have to do that by lunchtime on day two, because lunchtime at day two is the first time you’re gonna invite people into play bigger with you, right? Using the work. And so ev we call it like the hemispheres of the event, right? So think of the lunchtime on day two as like a tipping point moment. So everything before that is mindset and making sure that you’ve taken actually the best parts of your framework and taught it the best, not the weakest, not the least important. None of that give them the best, right? And, and the key is to show them that it’s better to do it with a trusted proven guide, a KAA group of people who understand the framework better than you do, which is usually your team, right?
JK (26:55):
Or your company. And so day two, morning is all about making sure you’re emphasizing and solving the problems. So they’re like, oh my gosh, I got so much value already, right? Then you’re making the invitation at lunchtime. Now after that moment, it’s all about emphasizing why it, the framework will solve all the problems that they came to solve. So all the content on the agenda after that is about choosing the top problems that they think that they have and using the framework to solve it in the agenda period. Okay? And, and you can do that in a very cool, interesting, fun way. There’s a lot of ways to do that. That’s where like, it’s, that’s fun for me to be your thought partner on like, here’s a way you could do it that doesn’t feel like academic or boring, but sometimes it, parts of it will have to be academic.
JK (27:46):
And, and it again depends on the offer and, and the type of crowd that, that you, you attract. So that’s what day two after lunch is about. And the reason we know so much data on the people who come is because in the pre-launch process, after they’ve chosen to come, we have this amazing sales tracker that is like magic, okay? Where we put all the attendees in and we sort them based on their problems. So we’re gathering all those data ’cause we ask them before they come and then we architect the agenda around solving the problem period, right? That’s where the magic happens. ’cause They’re like, oh my God, they’re reading my mind. Oh my God, this framework really like, does the job, you know, oh wow, I really trust her or him because the me, the mission-driven Messenger, our job is to tell stories and share other people’s wins to elevate how the framework has helped us become successful in whatever we’re teaching.
JK (28:50):
So that’s a key part is a lot of people do not look at the data, the people coming. They don’t ethically stalk their amazing people that are coming, that are getting in a plane, train or automobile to come to you and taking time away from their families, taking time away from their business to come. And so to me it is our responsibility and that’s why I love this framework to actually study them and go, what are they really meetings that we don’t waste their time? Because when you do that for people, they are like, I gotta have this thing. And it’s actually a good quality product and experience that they’re having in an ongoing way. And then now they’re telling everybody about you because they’re like, oh my God, that three days that I spent at Brand Builders or with Mass Brand Institute or you know, super connector media or impacting millions all these people, like, they’re gonna go, wow, I, I, I really got and I met some of my best friends and colleagues there because they’re like me. You know? And so that’s really what the other side of the invitation on day two is about, is amplifying those things. And then by the end of the day you know, you’re gonna look back and go, wow, I got a 50 or 70% conversion at least 30% and that was a lot more than I got from an online funnel and webinar. So mm-hmm, , yeah, it’s fine. And you can actually then extract all those pieces and turn it into content obviously too.
RV (30:09):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, so you, you talked about like offer structures, like being the most important. What are the parts that you have to nail about that, right? Because like I feel like there’s a lot of, I mean, clarity to me feels like, I mean, you said that and that’s why I feel like most of the time it’s just not that clear what’s included and what’s the result or the, the benefit or the outcome of if someone takes it up. But like, what are some of the keys around the offer clarity piece that either you see people screw up or you’re like, you know, make sure it’s this and not that. ’cause It’s not just the price point, right? I mean, a price is just a number. It’s really gotta be engineered from something other than just grabbing an arbitrary number out of thin air,
JK (30:55):
Right? So the two, the two things that I think are missing the most, and we touched on one already, is framework, framework, framework. Selling the process, not the person. Okay? So important and actually training yourself as a visualizer, right? The person who’s the messenger to realize that the business you, not the brand you, but the business you needs the framework, right? Your, your team, your company, your ability to serve more people is a, is gotta be a business decision, not a brand decision. And, and the framework is almost like your little clone. It’s your cloning device, if you will, that allows you to you know, replicate like you said and scale. So number one, we’ve already touched on that. Number two is you gotta nail what I call your rich niche, okay? And how I define niche, the rich niche. The rich niche, right?
JK (31:52):
Nail the rich niche. Yes. So I define niche a lot differently than I think other people. And I call your, to me, a niche is not the demographic or the psychographic or the person, the niche is the actual problem that you’re solving. And once you know the actual problem, then you go find the watering holes where the people who have the demographics and psychographics hang out. And then you use that to like focus your marketing efforts around. And so part of why offers don’t sell is because they really don’t know the problem that they’re solving. They really don’t. They, they think they do because then if I give you x amount of calls and a community platform and access to all of our educational content, and we’re gonna also assign you an advisor or a coach, those I know people will be like, oh yeah, I know those are just features and benefits.
JK (32:53):
They are literally just features and benefits and maybe they don’t need a coach, but you think they do to buy a 20 5K offer offer to you. Maybe they don’t. Maybe what they need is we do a kickoff for two hours with you, build your entire custom strategy using this process. And if you want, you can get a coach later, but that they’re getting a, a real win that’s palpable. And I think a lot of times again, we bloat the offers, we add a ton of bonuses. And by the way, I love bonuses, I love extra things. But the truth is that we live in a world now. And, and the way that you market online and offline is actually quite different than five years ago. Like, so if you’ve learned something five years ago, it’s not gonna be as relevant right now because people are in a state of overwhelm and over consumption. And that’s why we gotta like that. Like we gotta cut through all that noise and go, Hey, I see your problem. You actually told me this is problem.
RV (33:52):
I love this. And that’s so true. Like people bloat their offers with bonuses and it’s like more is more is not better it, and it, it, it really isn’t. It’s mm-hmm, , you know, Amy Porterfield, I asked her one time, I was like, okay, you’re the queen of courses. Like I get this question all the time. What’s the right amount of what, what, how long should a course be? And like if I charge this much money, it should be, you know, how long and this much money. And she said, that’s totally the wrong way to think about it. The right length of the course is as short as it possibly can be to solve the problem. And I was like, oh, ninja master , bingo. I was like, that’s so good. Like the right length is to be as, as short in the least amount of stuff to solve the problem. How do you know if you hit the right problem? I mean, one way you’ll know is you didn’t sell crap is that means you go, man, we, we didn’t, we didn’t hit it. But before that, like, are there things you see where you go like, ah, this person is really dialed in on the problem they’re solving and this person isn’t.
JK (34:47):
I keep, I keep coming back to, so two things, two tools inside the Mte model, you’re asking such quick questions. So remember when I said like stalking people ahead of time? Yeah. So first is architecting the right intake form when they’re choosing to come to your event and asking the right questions that really extract and make the problem come to the surface. You know? So asking better questions like be a better coach in your intake forms, meaning like, ask better questions so that they, it it, it brings to the surface what their problem really is. ’cause Then you can study that and make that part of the agenda, as I said earlier, the
RV (35:23):
Second. That’s good.
JK (35:24):
Yeah. The second piece of it is you know, asking, oh is to create a diagnostic that supports your framework. So for example, and you use that as part of either the pre-launch of the event or during the event depending on the space you have. Okay? And what I mean by diagnostic is a simple way for them to score themselves at solving the problem on their own. Okay? You do that early and you use your framework as the scoring mechanism. So it’s like, look at me, I just shared MDE, which is a nine part system with the three tracks, right? So if I were teaching MDE and inviting people to an MD workshop, I would say, there are nine things you need to create a million dollar experience, right? Score yourself on these nine areas. And I guarantee you there’s gonna be two or more areas where they’re gonna have a gap, they’re gonna have an atrophy. And people don’t buy from what they have, they buy from the gap. So they
RV (36:28):
Know. It’s also about that too is like, if you told them this is what your problem is, they’d go, no, I don’t have that. I got that covered. But the moment you have ’em fill out assessment, they’re like, oh dang, like, I really suck at this. Yes. And it’s them, it’s the it it’s them making the realization on their own of their blind spot versus like a salesperson telling them. Exactly. It’s so good. Y’all, I hate to cut this off there, there are few podcast interviews where I’m like, I wish we had more time. I wish we had more time. I have to cut this off. I don’t mean for this to be a cliffhanger, but like we, Jen and I both have a hard stop, as you could tell. This is why I had, I was like, we gotta have her on the show.
RV (37:04):
Like she knows what she’s doing and here’s what I want you to do. Go to brand builders group.com/mde MDE for million dollar experience brand village group.com/mde. If you are someone who is putting on a live event, thinking about a live event, maybe one day I’ll have a live event. But like, if you’re going, I want to do in-person events, you know, and virtual too. But I think it’s like, especially if you’re like one of those people that’s like, ah, screw virtual, I hate Covid and Zoom. Let’s get people in the room. Like, if you’re doing that, like, and that is your model, you gotta go check Jen out and her team brand builders group.com four slash mde. I mean, she’s given you so much value just on this call alone. I mean, structuring the agenda, structuring the offer, structuring the pre-event questionnaire, the diagnostic making, the framework, the hero.
RV (37:56):
Like, if you can’t turn this one podcast, and by the way, go leave us a rating on iTunes about how awesome our podcast is. ’cause Like I really believe that this podcast episode alone could make you tens of thousands of dollars. Like, so I believe that this woman can help you make a lot more than that if, if you have more time. So, so check that out. And Jen, this is so cool. Like, I, I just, it’s such a, you’re such an example too, of someone with like, such a specific problem you solve is monetizing live events. I don’t know, but like, I can’t even give you, but like three people in the world who even claim to be able to do that, that it’s like, that’s the the thing. So this is so good and, and we’re so excited about your book coming out and I think we should probably have you back to actually talk about that. ’cause That’s like building out your team and we could probably tie it back into this. But anyways, friend, you, this is awesome. This is so powerful. This stuff is great.
JK (38:55):
Well, I’m so glad it was valuable and I can geek out all day long with you, Rory Vaden, and I appreciate how much you’re helping the world and helping me, not just with my book, but getting messages that of people who have this intellectual property and, and expertise and helping us all grow even bigger. So thank you. It’s been so much fun.
RV (39:16):
It’s my pleasure, buddy. We wish you, we wish you the best. We’ll, we’ll be following your journey very closely and we’ll have you back again sometime soon.

Ep 529: Creating Culture | Britney Ruby Miller Episode Recap

AJV (00:02):
So how do you build culture when you have a company or a team that is virtual or just a company or a team that’s growing beyond your ability to talk to or interact with every single employee or every single leader on a regular basis? But, but that’s the question. How do you build culture? And I was having a conversation on the influential personal brand podcast with a newer friend of mine. Her name is Brittany Ruby Miller, and she’s the daughter of Jeff Ruby from the Jeff Ruby steakhouse and Entertainment Group. And they have grown to be more than 900 employees, multi-location restaurant, a hundred million dollars in revenue. And we were having this conversation around culture, right? And here at Brain Builders Group, we’re much smaller than that. But we’re all virtual and we only get to see each other all in person a couple of times a year.
AJV (00:59):
And in this post pandemic world where not everyone is in the office, I think this conversation of how do you build culture has come up to be more prevalent in conversations as the years have gone on. And so we have this conversation of how do you do that? And I think there was a couple of things that came out that were worthy of kind of just highlighting in this quick, kind of short episode right now. So the number one is, does your team speak common language? In other words, do you have a, a set of principles, a foundation, that everyone understands what you’re talking about? And so as we were talking about this idea of shared language, it came to this is not from training documents or SOPs, even. Those are, those are good and helpful. That’s not what we’re talking about.
AJV (01:49):
It’s do you have a shared common list of beliefs, values, principles that you work by? And one of the things that I think you can do as a small business owner and entrepreneur that doesn’t cost tons of money is have your own company library. And I think this was a very big takeaway for me but also for all of you. ’cause It doesn’t matter if you have just a, a one, you know, team member organization or you have a thousand, it’s like, do you have a shared language so that when you use an acronym or when you say something, everyone goes, oh, I know what you mean. Because then it allows you to have quicker conversations without the contextual explanation. And one of the fastest, cheapest and most impactful ways to do that is to have a company library. Now, there’s lots of different ways that you can do that. We, we actually have this at Brand Builders Group. We have this leading up to that we use a platform called Better Book Club. In fact, I’ll include a link to that in my post here. But Better Book Club allows you to have a virtual library
AJV (02:59):
That says these are company sponsored events, and you can even reward people for reading those. You can make it mandatory, but then you can also incentivize them to go and read these. And one of the things that we instituted as a part of Better Book Club listens to customers is that we have a book of the quarter that every single quarter, we as a company buy a copy of a book that we’re all going to read together. We’ve done this for two years. So we’re, I think on book number seven, as we’re in Q3 2024 as I’m recording this, and we, we select books that have you know, I would say Universal Appeal that are applicable and beneficial to you no matter what your role is, no matter if it’s day one or, you know, you’ve been with the company since the beginning.
AJV (03:47):
Some of those books have been unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guera. It’s one of my top 10 favorite books of all time. It was mandatory reading for our entire company in Q2 of 2024, right? We started the year Q1 this year with Extreme Ownership by Jocko, Willem, and Leaf Babin. We said, we started the year on this kind of accountability mindset that we all need to take ownership. If you see something, say something, it’s not your job or your job, it’s everyone’s job. Do we have to own this? So we started with that. And so that allows all of us to have common language. So when we talk about like, are you owning this? All I have to do is go, Hey, do you remember when we read Extreme Ownership? That’s what I’m talking about right here. And, and that’s all I have to say, right?
AJV (04:36):
Same thing with Unreasonable Hospitality. It’s like people know, and I say, Hey, are we being unreasonable with this? That it’s not a bad thing. It’s going, Hey, are we really doing this with intentionality in mind? Are we doing this because it’s easy? Or are we doing this because we, we want people to feel seen, loved, and cared for in a, a unique and personal way? I think those are things we’re reading right now, Q3 2024, hidden Potential by Adam Grant of Learning. How do we, we we grow and develop the staff versus just hiring for the staff. And that’s, those are cultural things that we believe in. Those are not necessarily books that fit every organization or every person, but those are have been ones that stick out to us of going, Hey, this is the common language that we’re trying to instill to build culture.
AJV (05:25):
I think that’s a huge part of it’s, do you have shared language? Do you have common language? There’s really expensive ways to do that. There’s super affordable ways and having a shared company library that’s available for all new employees coming in, but also required reading that you have for all existing employees. So that’s one thing. The second thing is making sure that you have well documented and well communicated core values, vision statements, mission statements. Brittany in our conversation calls it her vp Mosa, right? And I think, I dunno if I’ll get all of these, but it was like vision principles, mission Operating Guidelines, SNA Systems and Accountability. Oh my God, have I got that right? This is a miracle don’t hold me to that, but VP Moosa, VP MOSA vp Moosa can look that up, . But for us we have a set of six core values.
AJV (06:27):
And every single month at our All hands on deck company meeting we go through these and we have someone in the company volunteer. They pick one of them and they do a mini five minute core value presentation, right? So we have all of them available every single month as we open up our company meeting. But then somebody volunteers, or sometimes they’re voluntold, but for the most part, they volunteer and they put together like, why did they pick this core value? How do they see it being lived out? And why is it important to them and their role at this specific time and time and place, right? So I think that’s just keeping, keeping them real. And it’s not that they’re hearing it from us, it’s, it’s, I care what the team has to say. And honestly, their presentations, they’re so much better than mine.
AJV (07:11):
But that’s one thing that you can do is just have like, Hey, these are, these are the core values that we operate this company with. And I think the most important thing is sharing those when you’re interviewing people during the recruiting and hiring process. So you never want someone to come on board and be like, whoa, where did that come from? So the openness, transparency of going, Hey, this is how it is. It’s not for everyone. That’s okay. But before you take a position here, you should know this is what it’s gonna be like here. Opt out now. No hard feelings, , no like no guilt but opt out now. I think it was a really important thing that we can all step into and live into as we, as we make these hiring choices and as people make some of the bigger deso decisions of their life of, Hey, this is where I wanna spend, you know, 40 hours of my week every week, 60% of our waking hours are at work.
AJV (08:06):
You better be aligned with your mission, values, mission, purpose with your company. Otherwise, you’re going to be miss role. Bull money’s not worth that. It’s just not. So that would be something the other thing, when you talk about mission and vision, right? It’s like, why do you exist? Why does your company exist? What, what’s your purpose for being in business to begin with? And what I have found is I hope this is helpful and impactful for our team to be reminded every single month, at least monthly, we’re gonna read this together. And we call it our brand mantra, but it, it’s basically our vision and mission statement. It’s why we’re here, what we hope to do, our, our purpose how we do things. But we call it our brand mantra.
AJV (08:55):
You may call it your vision statement, mission statement, purpose, whatever you wanna call it. But for us, it’s a brand mantra. And I do hope it’s important for everyone to take a step back and for at least five minutes as we all read it together, to remind ourselves, oh yeah, that’s why we do that. Oh, yeah, I remember that now because it’s easy to forget. And I, I hope everyone else finds it important, but what I have found that for me is that I need to stand back and read that every single month so that I don’t forget why we exist, what our purpose is, what our mission is, what our vision is in the middle of customer service problems or inundation of reporting and analyses, or managing deadlines or missed deadlines or projects that didn’t get done or missed the budget or did it, whatever.
AJV (09:45):
All this stuff is in the middle of all the stuff going on, which sometimes is very fun. I need to step back every single month at least for me and go, oh yeah, that’s why we’re here. That’s why we do what we do. And if it’s important for me, then I know it has to be important to at least someone else in our team, someone else in the company to go, this is more than about just money, right? It, it has to be, right. For all the things going on, it’s like people could do a lot of different jobs. It’s like, it’s gotta be more than just about money. And that that is how you build culture. It’s like, do we agree on things that are beyond paychecks and benefits? And the answer is yes. It’s like, I want people who want to be here.
AJV (10:31):
Not that they have to be here. I don’t want a paycheck to be the only reason our team is here, which means that we have to attract people on common and shared language and beliefs, and we have to keep them based on the same things. Because not every job has all glamorous parts, and not every company is gonna be sunshine and rainbows all the time. There’s gonna be, you know, stormy weather and there’s gonna be hard times. And people make it when we go, but it’s more, it’s more than about just me or just my department or just my paycheck, right? It’s gotta be about more than that so that we can weather the stormy times but also celebrate in the good times. And so those are just a couple of things. As you’re, you’re asking yourself, like, how do we build culture, a culture that doesn’t have to be managed by one person at the top, or as your team and your company grows, how do you still uphold the same level of standard of excellence or core values that you had when you were really small? It’s because you have to hire for it. You have to manage for it, and you have to retain for it. And if there’s been a time where you’re out of alignment, then you, you can’t be afraid to part ways because that, that’s damaging to the culture of the organization. And by keeping
Speaker 4 (11:52):
One person, you could be damaging 10 others. And those are things where it’s like you hire for it, you manage for it, you retain for it, but you also let people go for it because you all have to be in alignment to have a good, healthy culture. We are not perfect at this, let me tell you. I am consciously aware of where we fall short. But you gotta be open to it. And, and you’ve gotta do something even if you can’t do it perfectly. So, couple of ideas on how do you build culture. If you want more, go tune in to the Influential Personal Brand podcast with Brittany Ruby Miller on how to build strong culture.

Ep 528: Building A 5-Star Life with Britney Ruby Miller

AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. So excited today to introduce you guys to a new friend of mine, the one and only Britney Ruby Miller. And if you don’t know her by name, then you’re missing out. And we’re gonna talk about a lot of different things today. But before I formally introduce her, as you guys get to know her, I wanna kind of just tell you why I wanted to have her on our podcast. And Britney and I got introduced by a mutual friend couple of months ago now, and she was so gracious to give me a copy of her book. If you’re watching, you can see it’s five star Life. If you’re not watching, then you just need to go pick it up and read it. But she sent this book to me along with one of the sweetest, kindest packages of all time, because if you know anything about me, you know, the way to my, my heart is really through my children.
AJV (00:59):
And my sweet 7-year-old Jasper came to a, an adult dinner party at Britney’s family’s restaurant in Nashville, Jeff Ruby’s. And not only did she have the, you know, team bring him out food so he could chop he was so enthralled with that. She was so kind, sent him his own knife and his own apron, and one for my little one. And it was the perfect display of generosity and hospitality. And we have been on a year long adventure at Brand Builders Group finding new ways to have unreasonable hospitality and loving on people and loving them well. And Brittany, honestly, for me, being a pretty, pretty, pretty much a stranger at that point, the unbelievable love that you showed my family was just nothing short of extraordinary. And then as I started reading her book, I was like, oh my gosh, everyone else needs to meet you too.
AJV (01:59):
So if you guys are listening, the reason I think you should stick around is all things culture. And that’s what I would say it’s like, doesn’t matter if you’re trying to be a build a culture in your family or in your community, or with your clients or with your company. What I’ve summed this all up is, is a, it’s a radical journey through what does it mean to love people really well. And to me, that’s culture. It’s like how do you set a tone and a culture of love and hospitality and generosity and, and, and a and a very politically charged environment that we find ourselves in the United States? These are the types of conversations and interviews that I think will make us better, make our businesses better, thus make everyone around us better. So that is why I am having her on the show. That is why you need to listen to this episode. This episode is one of those episodes that doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, it’s applicable to you. So listen to the whole thing, and then you can check out the recap episode. Now, let me quickly formally introduce her, and then we’re gonna actually get to this interview. Otherwise, I could spend the next half hour just telling you why she’s so awesome. But Brittany Ruby Miller is the best. Oh, we’ve
BR (03:04):
Got whole bio. Don’t read that entire thing. You better summarize it. I
AJV (03:07):
Love it. She’s, I think she, what I want you guys to know is that she’s the CEO of the Jeff Ruby Entertainment Group. And Jeff Ruby’s is one of our favorite restaurants. It’s iconic, especially the one here in Nashville. I don’t know about all the other ones, but I love it here because this is where we take all of our clients out to dinner. She didn’t even know that
BR (03:25):
.
AJV (03:26):
But what I think is amazing, and what I didn’t know about the Jeff Ruby organization is that you guys almost have a thousand employees and you guys are doing a hundred million dollars in revenue. And what I love about that is not only is that extraordinary in the entertainment and hospitality environment, but you’re also a mom and an author and a wife, and running this massive organization in a family business environment where it’s going from generation to generation and you know, trying to maintain legacy, but innovate and do things new in a new way. You also have a culinary background and you and your husband Caleb, are coming up with this whole new brand, and it’s like you’re the epitome of, I’ve got a lot going on. So how do you manage all of that? And this is, this is a part of what I’m so fascinated with when it comes to not only entrepreneurship and business ownership, but also, you know, parenting and marriage and making it all work together. So without further ado, Brittany, welcome to the show.
BR (04:35):
Thank you for having me. And your little man was so cute. He was just sitting there chopping away at the adult table. And when I bought him the knife, I’m like, I, I, she’s either gonna think it’s super sweet or I’m a crazy, crazy human being because I bought him a Japanese chef knife. And I, it was, it was fun to, I like to buy little kids their first chopping knife. And so that meant a lot that you appreciated it and made sure we threw in the apron. But he’s the next generation of, of carnivores eating at Ruby, so we gotta get him young .
AJV (05:09):
And he uses the knife all the time, regardless of, it’s like he’s chopping up a string cheese.
BR (05:16):
Yes.
AJV (05:16):
Or, you know, it’s just, he loved it. And I think that’s too, it’s how you help people fall in love with brands at an early age, is you create these memorable connections. And so that’s what I want you to kind of start with is just talk about being in this family business. ’cause You grew up in this business, now you’re leading this business, and I think it would be really great for you just to talk about what, what have you learned leadership wise from stepping into a family business and also the process of making it your own as you’ve stepped into this role of CEO
BR (05:49):
Ooh family businesses are, they, they can be a blessing and a curse. Luckily for us, it’s a blessing. And I think just staying on the family business side. And then I wanna talk a little bit about the restaurants and like, what that is because and, and honestly, most family businesses, or most restaurants end up, they are family businesses. And it’s a, it could be a very tough industry, let alone throwing the dynamics of, you know, those types of relationships. And we learned really quick that we have to develop some sort of communication and agreement on how our family wants to treat each other. So we, I think first and foremost, the, the foundation is through our social covenant. That’s through our leadership training. That’s through transformational leadership. And coming to an agreement on how we would like to communicate with each other.
BR (06:38):
What do we do if there’s conflict? What do we do? You know, how do we approach that? We go one-on-one first. If that doesn’t work, we go two on one. We try not to go around. And unless you’re part of the solution we don’t, we try not to gossip in our family and teaching our kids that as well and how to handle things very, very directly and typically within 48 hours. So we go through an apology process. There’s a six step apology process when you screw up. And the last piece of it is after you ask for accountability and, and forgiveness. The last piece is, is there anything else that I need to apologize for? And when you first kick this thing off and you start living and doing this social covenant kind of lifestyle, you, there’s things that come up that were five years ago, 10 years ago.
BR (07:25):
And, and sometimes we have to revisit it and say, Hey, I thought that we already squashed this thing. Essentially, you wanna get to a point where you always know where you stand and you can have clear communication. You’re not gonna have hurt feelings. You know, I, I think about situations, you know, that I’ve had with my dad. I know when I walked through that first six step apology with him he tweeted something to his 90,000 Twitter followers, political. And this was years ago. And, and I’m like, why are you doing this to me? Like, please, I gotta sell sakes to the left and the right. Okay. And, but the way that I told him not to do that was disrespectful. My mentor said, you need to go apologize to your, to your father. I’m like, look at what he did to me.
BR (08:09):
Like this is, now I gotta clean up this mess. Right? And once I apologized for one, he was my boss at the time being disrespectful. I’m very sorry, will you hold me accountable? And if and when you’re ready, can you forgive me? And then when you say, is there anything else going on that maybe I need to apologize for you, clear the air. Luckily that day he was very kind. There was nothing else that was festering up inside of him. But that was the first day he said that he knew I was ready for leadership. And, and so there’s a culture within our family. And then we rolled this thing out company-wide. So I, we started that with our home office, which is, we’re up to about 60 employees now and and then leadership within the restaurants. And so they’ve all, you know, gone through our transformational leadership process and all the Ruby iss and everything like that. So I think on the business side and the family business side, we all, there’s a mutual respect. There’s a way that, you know, we wanna handle our relationships and treat our relationships. And then comes
AJV (09:10):
From like, I feel like that’s pretty rare in any company, much less a family business. Where did that come from?
BR (09:21):
This, this guru who I call Ford Taylor. He’ll like that. , he’s my mentor. And and he’s the one really I talk about in a lot in my book. But Ford you know, has a leadership background and, and then his whole world came crashing down and he, he built this huge company all the wrong ways and ended up getting out of it. And then, you know, basically now what he does is, is consulting and life coaching, so, Hmm. He has been the key to everything, leadership that I know beyond my father and, and also kind of my industry mentors. So, yeah. So, and we still use him. It’s been 10 years that Ford has been a life coach to our family and a family counselor. And when things come up that we can’t sort through, we call him and he mediates it for us. Okay. And yeah, so he’s been the, he’s been the glue. That’s where it came from.
AJV (10:14):
I love that. And so I think, I think two things in here that I think is really amazing is, one, the fact that you guys have a social covenant. Mm-Hmm. And so does that trickle down to all of like your restaurants and everyone else too?
BR (10:30):
Yes, it’s a consistent document. And so, you know, we wanna go in humility. We wanna walk in pre forgiveness, we wanna walk in grace, we wanna have love for, you know, our employees and treat them with respect. And we don’t want to gossip. It’s like, it’s this big list of things and it’s pretty universal across the board. So yeah, we did that at our home office and the GMs have all seen it. Next year’s goal is for really to get ingrained into all the restaurant folks boots on the ground. And but that it takes time. You know, we were building, it takes about 18 months ’cause what we’re trying to do right now is a proprietary tl, which includes all the Ruby iss, the transformational leadership and Enneagram. So , we have a big emphasis around, you know, different styles of personalities and, and incorporating that has been helpful as well.
AJV (11:20):
So one of the things here, you kind of mentioned this, like mentors, clearly this person for Taylor’s been in your life for 10 years. That’s amazing. What, what else would you say? Because I think a lot of people are listening are like, I’m sorry, you have an apology standard in your family and in your business. I, I would say that’s, I have personally never heard that before. I hear lots of leadership training, but even processes for apologies and standards and families and in, and in businesses. I’m gonna definitely take this from this interview and be like, putting it in place right now. But I think more than that, it’s like, I love that you said you got that from your mentor, and I think that’s, that’s so important for everyone to realize. It’s like, you don’t have to come up with these ideas. It’s like, we need to learn from those who’ve gone before us. So what would you say when it comes to books, mentors or experiences, what would you say for anyone who’s listening, if that resonates with them, of going like, how do I just be a better person? How do I love people better to create better family culture, business culture? What else would you say has been impactful for you?
BR (12:25):
Well, I think for me, I mean, that was the process. I, Caleb met Ford because he went to a training for two days. And Ford does them all over the world. And so he opted into this training. The good news is he also wrote a book, it’s called Al Leadership. It’s an excellent book. It includes that process, it includes what a social covenant is. It talks about everything that we do. Leadership is in that book. Hmm. And, and so, you know, that, that was key. And I think on the mentor side, I realized, you know, I grew up the Ruby way and everything that I knew and you know, was taught was through Jeff Ruby. So I get brand, I get quality, I understand five stars is what we strive for in the restaurants. Fine dining over the top, changing the game, you know, servant’s Heart, all of our core values, you know in, in our, we call it our VP Mosa, our vision purpose, mission objective strategies and action steps.
BR (13:25):
That’s in the book too. So you map this whole thing out for your organization, which is all culture. But what I also needed was a business mentor. A leadership mentor. And so I, I got that with Russell Mankas. He, he was he worked for my father back in 1986. He opened one of our restaurants and then he graduated onto Hilton and started open Hi opening Hilton’s worldwide. And so my dad always tried to recruit him back, and he’s always like, Jeff, I make way too much money for you, my friend Hilton pays better than your little restaurant group. And so, you know, but they stayed in touch. When he retired, he called my father and said, I wanna go out making a difference. And so I’m going to retire from Hilton. I’m gonna move back from New York to Cincinnati for two years, and I wanna mentor Brittany, and I’ll also be your managing director.
BR (14:20):
And so when I went to, to our, from, I was in operations for 15 years, I would say. Then Russell came to me and we convinced him to stay for three years. And then one day he was just like, all right, peace out. Here’s the keys. You’re good. Truly, the next day he left. And I had no idea. I mean, he was just like, today’s the day. And, and so I worked, you know, it was hustle. I worked my day job at the corporate office. And that was, you know, in operations and marketing and some of the guest relations and the things that I was doing for our organization. But then he handed me a binder the size of Texas and said, I need you to read every single operating agreement, every single lease. So at that point, we had had, we had, I think five, five restaurants or so.
BR (15:00):
I mean, they’re huge. And each lease is 150 pages probably. And, and then once you do that, you’re gonna help me negotiate Nashville. And that was the business IQ that I needed. And I didn’t write. He goes, you know, one day you’re gonna be signing these leases. This is not, you’re gonna be your father’s, which is where we are now. My brothers and I own the business and we’ve transitioned G one to G two successfully. And if I’m guaranteeing a note or if I’m signing, you know, for the next, some, some of these leases are like 15, 20 years long. And and then maybe my daughters will be in the same situation, or my son or my nieces and my nephews. That’s really our goal is to be able to give G three the same opportunity that we had. So I wouldn’t have been able to do any of that without Russell.
BR (15:45):
The other thing that I did was built a board, a board of advisors. That’s been very helpful. Helpful. And so there’s a book, actually the five steps to a successful board. You know, they, they have been there through covid. They’ve been there through, you know, we had a family emergency recently. And thank God everything’s okay. But, but I had to step away from the business and my family. We stepped away from the business and the board was there as a sounding board for our executive team. And so my board of advisors, you know, we’ve got a strategist, Harvard, MBA, former p and g engineer, Darcy Bean, she built our strategy and came on board, pun intended. And, you know, we’ve got a data guy from Xavier University, we’ve got a former retired CFO for Kroger on there. And Ford’s on the board as well. And then David Cassidy with our accountant. And so, you know, it’s all different departments that really, and then I have small committees that I meet with and, and they’re amazing. And I think it’s good accountability for me as well. So I got my board of advisors. I got my restaurant and hotel mentor of my father, the Jeffrey B. Wade, and then Ford. And my cup is pretty full with experts around me to hold me accountable when I need to get, you know, whipped back into shape basically.
AJV (17:00):
You know, it’s so interesting ’cause I was on a phone call this morning with a girlfriend. We do like a monthly accountability call, right? Two female business entrepreneurs. And one of the things that we were talking about this morning is, man, like, who do I go to for this, this, and this for my leadership team? Like, how do I not be, you know, the one size fits all for everything for my leadership team? And we were just having this conversation about coaches and mentors and masterminds and books, and we were doing like a cross sharing of all the things that we were doing or have done. And I love hearing you say this because anyone who is listening, I just wanna encourage you that if it’s going slow because you’re trying to do it all on your own, it’s because you’re not supposed to do it alone.
AJV (17:48):
Hmm. Right? And that’s what I just heard from you. It’s like, nowhere in life are we supposed to do this alone. Right? I just, I was, over the weekend, I was having the same conversation about raising kids. Like, we’re not meant to do this alone. Right? It’s like we need grandparents, aunts, uncles, nannies, friends, what, however it is. But it’s like nowhere in the history of humanity have people been succeeding alone. But yet so many of us are trying to figure it out in our little dark offices in our basements, or we’re, we’re trying to do it alone. And what I love what you just said is like, no, like you have an entire community of business experts, mentors, coaches, family, other leaders that are alongside you said, my cup is full with other people. And I don’t think a lot of people say that today.
BR (18:41):
You know, it’s, I was just talking to my best friend about this, where, you know I think before I had kids, I assumed I was just gonna be their everything. Like what a narcissistic thought that would be. Like, my poor kids, like I’m your only leader, or Caleb, and it’s the tribe, you know, our tribe is so awesome. And and they’re, I can see parts of my nanny’s personality, you know, that I love in all of, in my kids. And I can see parts of my best friend that, you know, and she, and honestly, there’s times that I’m just going, I am not in the place to discipline right now. Maria, you need to call your Aunt , you know, .
BR (19:19):
And, and they’re like, yeah, can we please let her handle this for us? ? But, and sometimes you just gotta step out and take a break. You know, I’ll give you an example for why with, with our board specifically you know, my, my brother is expected to recover. He had a brain, brain brain bleed in July. He was in the ICU for four weeks, and now he’s recovering at a world class TBI traumatic brain injury facility in Denver. And so what do you do when your entire business, like you said, we have 900 employees, we just crossed a hundred million threshold we’re on fire. We just launched two new businesses that, that are basically startups that we haven’t really catering events. That’s not our wheelhouse. And and then we’re also trying to push forward and, and what do you do when everything just comes to a screeching halt?
BR (20:14):
There’s nothing else that all we needed to do right then was surround ourselves our, our, the, the Brandon’s family and his wife and his kids, and, you know, so we all had different roles. Brandon was in the hospital. My dad was really involved in the hospital. I had the kid role, you know, keeping, making sure all these kids are happy and, and their babysitters are coordinated and meals are coordinated. And, and then and then when he luckily started to we realized that he was gonna be okay ’cause it got really, it, it, we almost lost him. I just remember in that at that point, I made a call to our CFO and our COO and said, I need you to just run the business, step in call me if you need me. You know, but my Dylan handles talent and acquisition and, and he, you know, he’s a vice president.
BR (21:05):
He stepped away. My dad had to step away and I step away as CEO. And guess what happens when four active owners step away from the business? You have a record breaking month in August . So it’s like, it was unbelievable how, I mean, and so here’s what I learned. Had I not done that, there’s no chance I would be in the grind every day. I mean, you think about my, I’m in the restaurant business. This isn’t a nine to five job, okay? But I was in the office nine to five. So I’m in the office getting through all the emails, participating in every leadership meeting that I thought I needed to be involved in. And and even the nuances of, you know, just little things because I, I really genuinely thought like, if this event or whatever, deep down I’m going, like I know I can help bring the vision if I’m in the meeting.
BR (21:54):
Like, I wanna be there to cast the vision. I wanna be there for all the little million details and whatnot. And I had to give all of that up. And so I’m going back to work in January. I’m taking sabbatical like the rest of the year. And the other piece was, you know, the podcast, the networking. I, I’m, I’m going to dinners. I’m, I’m, and I do dinners at our restaurant so that I can till kill two birds of one stone and look at the quality and then also talk to the staff and, you know, do that whole thing. And it, and then, by the way, I do have kids and they’re pretty busy. They’re all in sports . So it wouldn’t have worked. I mean, it wasn’t working. People ask me all the time, like, how’s your work life balance? And I’m going, yeah, it’s fine.
BR (22:36):
I’m like, no, no, no. Something drastically had to change. Mm-Hmm. . And so, you know, my, my new for me, again, this isn’t, this isn’t because I’m in the restaurant that might not part pertain to people who are nine to five, but I have a feeling nine to five bleeds into a lot of business dinners, you know, and, and networking events that happen that are outside the office. And that’s where things can get really, really muddy. And so, you know, my new thing is I just wanna kind of pitter around in the mornings and get my prayer time in, get my workout, be with the kids, you know, make sure I’m have enough time, couple hours, 10, 12, 10 to 12 or something like that where I’m, I’m not just rushing out the door. And then I have the freedom to go be in the restaurants and to do these types of things. And what that’s done for my mental space is I couldn’t do it if I didn’t have the team. Why would I build a, an, an executive team anyways if I’m not going to lean on them for high pressure situations that benefit, you know, their company as well. It’s a waste of money.
AJV (23:38):
Yeah. So I’m gonna hire you, pay you, and yet do your job for you. Yeah. But
BR (23:43):
There’s a,
AJV (23:44):
So many of us do that
BR (23:46):
And, and I preach it te it’s teach, train, equip, empower, let go. So what I realized through this process is I got to the empower part, you’re empowered, but I just wouldn’t let go. Yeah. Like, I’m still gonna do the high level business stuff. I’m still in my board meetings. I still look at cashflow, I still look at the financials. I still look at, I have a CEO scorecard. That has been great. We did tee that thing up so I know how the company’s performing, you know, guest satisfaction and, and down to food costs and beverage costs and all of that. And if something’s wrong, then I go to those two people , what’s happening here? You know?
AJV (24:19):
Would you say that this mindset shift really happened when your brother went into the hospital?
BR (24:28):
Yeah. That, that was a silver lining. He called me when he was able to talk. About four weeks later, he call, he FaceTimed me from, and I was at the Reds game because at this point now we’re like, okay, the crisis is over. We still fly out there. My brother Dylan and I were out there every single week and giving Christie a break. And we don’t want him to be alone out there. And so but when I flew back, I took the kids to a Reds game and he FaceTimed me with this huge smile. Brandon smile was like, I am, well, he said, I’m so happy you quit your job. And I said, Brandon, I, it’s on pause, but , I’m going back at the beginning of the year. And he said, well, I’m just, it’s so good to see you with your family, spending time and having a good time.
BR (25:10):
And that meant everything to him. The beauty, I always, I say now, Brandon’s even a better version of Brandon now. And what I learned through, and he was already amazing. What I learned at the Craig, where he is, you know, they, they, they kept him for the maximum amount. They wanna keep him for a pretty long time. And we’re like, okay. But he is walking again. You know, he’s talking, he’s, and they said that more often than not, and it doesn’t matter if these people come out fully recovered or, you know, maybe they’re in a wheelchair. It’s really, even with them being in a wheelchair, they’re coming out better versions of themselves because of what the time that they’re allowed to themselves that they allot this time to the mental game as well. And making sure, you know, you, you have a totally different perspective on life when something like that happens. I know for you with, you had a crazy situation with your brother growing up, and it, it’s, I can’t, I mean, that, that blows my mind. It’s just, this is something I, well, I think for you, it changed your life forever. This has changed my life forever for the good. Yeah.
AJV (26:16):
You know, it is so interesting that I, again, perhaps this interview was really just for me today. I don’t know if it was for everybody else, but we’ve been having a lot of these, why does it have to take a crisis to get our attention conversations in our house? And over the summer, this past summer, we had two really close friends die unexpectedly. And it was, it’s been, man, it’s been a really deep time of going, why does it take this to make us all stop and reevaluate the choices that we’re making? And we’ve had a couple of friends with diagnoses and, and it’s like, so much of this has just caused Rory and I to go, , please, dear God, do not make a crisis in this tiny little family of ours before we wake up. Right. And I would, you know, I would be curious to hear from you, like, what advice would you have for everyone listening does, like, how can we wake up before the crisis happens? Like, how do, how do we get in touch with the choices that we’re making before we’re faced with, oh, I don’t, I don’t get the luxury of planning for this. It’s happening right now.
BR (27:31):
No, I mean, I think I wanna know the answer to that too, because I’m saying the same thing. I am speaking at an event in October to 800 women, and it was supposed to be my testimony and the I am second in the book and all of that. And so I was writing it from a perspective of how I’ve healed from being at the Meyer clinic in 2008, a Christian psychiatric place, and how I healed from all the things, you know? And so it was this kind of past tense, been there, done that perspective of being in just the darkest place of my life. And I remember saying to Caleb as I’m writing this, and it’s a, it’s a lot about perfectionism. And I, I was asked to speak at a church recently on perfection, going like, I don’t even remember what it feels like, you know, which is amazing thing, right?
BR (28:24):
So I felt almost like a fraud. I’m, I’m building this speech, I’m writing this speech, trying to relate to people, but I really can’t relate because it’s, it’s, it’s like, it’s happened and I’m healed. And that’s the beauty of God, the cycle of life, right? And the healing process and whack like out of nowhere, there we are in our crisis. And now I’m like, wow, okay, now I know exactly what to speak about and I can reference the things that have happened, but what I’m feeling right now, and in the suffering, there’s so much beauty and, and you can’t live in a life without any suffering. Right? But I agree with you. It’s scary. I’m going, like I said, the same exact thing, please, God, do not let, I just don’t wanna deal with this. I can’t deal with any right now. Like, we just had enough with the Ruby family, right?
BR (29:09):
Like, can we, can we heal a little bit more? But by the way, that was really awesome to get to a good place of silver lining of, you know, stepping back and, and being intentional. And it really relates back to Covid. You look at the shutdown and it’s like, so much beauty came outta that. So how do you take the Covid shutdown or your life experiences and you, you get into that place and you have some sort of intentionality, some sort of reminder without going through it. How do you do that? I don’t know. I, I don’t know if it’s some sort of question you ask yourself before you go to bed at night and then you wake up. Is there some routine you can get into to stop? I mean, is there, are there habits, you know, spiritually that you can do to, to wrestle that out? I don’t know. I if you find your
AJV (29:53):
Next book, we all need to know . But it’s like, it’s one of those things where it’s like, I mean, I know every, I mean, I know so many people where it’s like, life was a hamster wheel until right, until, and it’s like, man, how do we prevent the, until now you, you mentioned something that I, I wanna kind of circle back to. And you do speak and you do have this amazing book and you are a mom. And so I, I have like three or four questions before we completely run out of time. But I, I wanna know what, with everything else that you have going on, which is a lot, what inspired you to want to write this book, five Star Life?
BR (30:40):
I always felt a calling. At some point I took religious studies in college. I just felt you know, and I, I didn’t, I knew I was going into the restaurant business but I always thought maybe one day I’ll write a book. Well, I didn’t know it would be about healing from, you know, infidelity and and from multiple miscarriages and losing those babies and, and what we had been through when I remember when Caleb, we went through this process with our marriage, fighting for our marriage, and Caleb confessed and he had to go get help first. My mentor called her. My spiritual mom said, if you can get through this with Caleb, you will have the most rock solid marriage that you can ever imagine. And that was so foreign to me. Hmm. Like, there is no chance, like, I don’t even know if I’m gonna stay with this guy, by the way.
BR (31:33):
And, and so we went through two years of healing from what had happened, and then also healing from the, the pregnancy losses. And you get to a point where then I was able to do that same speech that Kathy gave me, my spiritual mom to other women. I started to say like, Hey, and, and it was so like, taboo. Like, oh my gosh, Caleb did that too. You, I’m like, yeah, you know, and I remember Ford told me, ’cause he talks about his marriage and confession as well, and he really walked Caleb through those, those times in his life. And Caleb, I said to Ford, by the way, I will never do what you do Ford. He laughs at still to this day. I will never be up on a stage talking like, that is not gonna be my story. That is something very private.
BR (32:23):
But you get to this point where you’re just so healed. My life is so much better. I’m married to my best friend. I’m married, he’s a, he’s a life coach to me. It’s my, you know, and, and so I just, I felt super, super called to do it. And I wrote it for in three months during Covid, actually on Mondays. I would write a chapter on Monday and and then handed it off to Caleb and he would co-write and edit it. So it was a cathartic process. And we were, we just, I don’t know, it’s just, it felt right.
AJV (32:53):
Yeah. You know, I love that. ’cause You know, a big part of our life and our business is books. That’s a huge thing that, you know, we believe in. And what I tell people all the time, it was so interesting to hear you say this. I’m like, I, people say, should I write a book? And I’m like, I cannot answer that question for you. I just know that, you know, it’s time to write a book if you feel called to it. Like, if you can’t not talk about it. Right? And you know, the whole idea of like, you know, people write books as business cards and I’m like, nobody reads those, right? And so , and if they do, they don’t recommend it. And it’s like, if you’re gonna write a book, do it because you feel called to, it’s like you can’t not do it. Right. I think that’s, that’s a really important thing for everyone who’s listening to this to take hold of. It’s like, this isn’t a resume builder, it’s not a notch on your belt. It’s not to increase your fees. It’s a calling because it’s a lot of work.
BR (33:45):
It’s a lot of work. And no matter how confident and, and how sure you are that you’re supposed to write a book. And I’ve talked to other women who’ve written kind of the same type of testimonial books, you still have a vulnerability hangover when it’s out . It’s like, wait a minute, what did I need to share that detail? But as Ford says, the more details in there, the more relatable it people are. And, and you know, for our testimony, getting to the place, you know, this is 15, 15 years ago, and being able to, you know, part of my VP Mosa, my, my vision, purpose and mission for my life is to save marriages, to be dangerously transparent, to save marriages and to save, save lives. And so the book is an easy way to open the door where people read it, and then you hear from somebody a year later, like, they know, you know what they’re going through. And so that’s, you know, it’s just a way to get that all out there. And, and to be honest, Caleb and I, as much as we like to mentor couples and walk them through that process we don’t, we don’t have the wherewithal to do it to as many couples as we would like to. And so it’s, here’s the book. Yeah. Here’s the Meyer Clinic in Dallas, here’s the next steps. Like, here’s a go-to for us on what transformation looks like.
AJV (35:07):
Yeah. Well, just a reminder to everyone, , this is the five star Life book. I will put the link where you can pick up yours in the show notes. But I, I have never been reminded so much is in the last couple of years of how much power that a book has to change a life. And, you know, somebody was asking me the other day about the difference between books and content creation and blogs and podcasts, and I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Not even in the same realm. It’s like I spend about 15 minutes prepping for a podcast. I, I might spend 10 prepping for a blog. You spend years, a lifetime putting together the content in a book, a good one. Not all books, but a good one. It’s a lifetime of stories and points and anecdotes and months, if not years of editing and production and publishing. Not even comparable to a blog or a podcast, but a book has the power to change a life if you’ll let it.
BR (36:09):
There’s so many, so many books out there that, that have totally changed my life. If they weren’t there, I, there’s, I’m, I remember at the Meyer Clinic, Audrey, my counselor said, you need to go home and read the book boundaries. Like, that’s their curriculum, you know, and this is a three week process. I’m like, I’m here for you to teach me. It’s like, no, no, no, go home and this is your homework. You have to read this. And that’s why when people, we onboard people, you know, there’s a list of five books you have to read in order to be a Ruby manager. And
AJV (36:37):
What are those five books?
BR (36:39):
So you got, I, you’ve got Good To Great, which is one of the best five dysfunctions of a team, I think is amazing. And I’m going to throw re Unreasonable Hospitality. And right now it’s a Danny Meyer setting the table. But our, our mutual acquaintance I think that would be good. And so, you know, and then one is the, not Counting Tomorrow my dad’s book. And I would hope if you work for me, you re wanna read my book as well. So it’s, it’s it’s a, but there’s so many, so many good ones out here. I would say in on the personal side, you know, I think boundaries is probably the number one thing for perfectionism, anxiety, how to deal, you know, with people with personality disorders, which I have in my family. Not my immediate family, but people I have to deal with. And reading that book’s going like, oh yeah, I’m an enabler. I’m codependent. That’s what that means. And oh, I actually need better boundaries for myself as a perfect, when I went to the Meyer Clinic, I was diagnosed with perfectionism, not anything else. That was it. Perfectionism. So I’m in recovery for perfectionism. And that book was, is something I went back and read it a couple weeks ago. I read it so long ago and I’m highlighting again everything. And I’m like, gosh, one day I am gonna get it. Just
AJV (37:53):
. Just keep rereading it every year. But I love that. I think having like, that was like, that’s a really big takeaway of like, hey, it’s like if you wanna be a leader here, like these are the prerequisites that we can all speak the same language, right? That’s back to setting really good culture. It’s like, do we speak the same language? Do we have the same foundation of knowledge? And I think that that’s a really significant thing. So if you use these little terms, everyone’s like, I know what she means.
BR (38:20):
I speak the same like language. We just went to Chick-fil-A a couple of weeks ago. I took our a, a group of folks down there and with their home office and we spent two days learning the Chick-fil-A way. And that was our number one takeaway was how many books, I mean, they’re all culture. And the way that those leaders and the owners, franchise owners of each Chick-fil-A train, you would think they have multiple, multiple, multiple pro processes, procedures, SOPs, they have none. , they have not. They read Truit Kathy’s books. I
AJV (38:51):
Love that
BR (38:53):
Truet did things, how the Kathy family operates, what’s near and dear to them. And then they’re empowered and let go to go run your business according to the ways that the Kathy family did it. And so we came back and said, man, we gotta get everything, Jeff, Ruby, everything that’s up in here, one book’s not enough. We need all his tips, his Ruby iss, we need the coffee table books. We need the 10 Commandments of service. Like all of those things are individual little books that if you go to Chick-fil-A you can see in their bookstore, it’s not just merch. I mean, it is basically their training models for their entire company that they give to all their employees.
AJV (39:28):
That’s so good. ’cause You can get so inundated and overwhelmed with SOPs and training docs and it’s like, let’s bring it up. Not here people, let’s just all speak the same language so that we all know what we’re working with. I love that. I think that’s amazing. And I think, you know, one of the things too, it’s like, you know, on the topic of, you know, this is a, a podcast about personal branding, but personal brands aren’t just for marketing and, you know, attracting clients. It’s also does your team, your employees, do they know what you believe? Right? Mm-Hmm. That is also a part of building a significant and influential personal brand. It’s just allowing people into the inner workings of this is what I think believe. And so one of the questions I wanted to ask you, ’cause this comes up to me a lot, and not everyone listening shares my faith.
AJV (40:16):
Not everyone in our company shares my faith. And so I just wanna, before I go into this conversation, I wanna preface all the welcome here. And you do not have to believe what I believe for us to mutually coexist. So just wanna preface that. But if you follow me on social media, you know, I talk about God and Jesus a whole bunch. And that wasn’t always that way. For the majority of my career. I did not talk about that publicly for a lot of various reasons. But I felt like in 2021, I was a deep, dark depression. I had a, I-I-I-I-I was in a deep dark depression for pretty much the most part of that year. And when I started to come out of it people kept asking, like towards the end of 2022 and into 2023, they said, man, like, you’re different.
AJV (41:02):
What, what have you been doing? And I felt like I heard the Lord say, tell ’em tell me, tell ’em the truth. Tell ’em what you’ve been doing. Don’t, don’t talk about the books you’ve been reading or don’t talk about the Bible studies. You join up. Tell them what you’ve been doing. And what I was doing was I was reading the word of God, and I hadn’t read it consistently in a long time. In fact, 2021 was the first time in my entire life I read every single word of the Bible, and then I did it again, and now I’m doing it again. And I felt like God was saying like, no, tell ’em what you are doing. And I said, y’all, I’m opening up the word of God and I’m reading every word and I’m letting the Holy Spirit into my life. And people are like, what?
AJV (41:46):
What? And I’m like, yes. I did not get a therapist. I did not go to counseling. I am reading the word of God. Right? Nothing wrong with those other things. And I started being vocal about it. And now I get asked all the time, like, aren’t you afraid if you talk about this, you’re gonna turn people off? Or do you, do you talk about this just here? Or how do you talk about it in your company? How do you talk about it with your clients? And I know you talk about this, it’s in your books, it’s in your social media. You’ve mentioned it briefly today. And I would love to hear from you because there’s a lot of people asking the question, like, in a pretty polarizing environment, how do you talk about it? And so I’d love to hear from you, like, why do you talk about it? And then how do you talk about it?
BR (42:33):
You know, that’s the same question I asked Dan Kathy face to, I said, you all have, they’ve been through the ringer in the past. And you know what, he owned the past and said, we didn’t always handle things the right way. What we do, and this is all that matters, is people will know who we are by our love for all, for everybody. And, and so they don’t feel the need to shove their certain agendas down people’s throats. They really are saying now everybody knows we’re believers. Everybody knows that, you know, we’re a company of faith. And first and foremost, you love people, love God, love people, and that’s it. And I didn’t go to seminary when I was baptized in 2001 because I wanted to appreciate all world religions. And that for me was, I took a ton of Buddhism class in college. I took Judaic studies Hindu, Wiccan, I had a Wiccan class.
BR (43:37):
And because I wanted to appreciate all faiths and all people and what you just said, you know, so I switched my major from business to religious studies. And that I think gave me such an appreciation for all the faiths that are out there. But it’s, my faith isn’t for everybody. And, but I think if you work for me, people know when we talk about it, ’cause we are, you know, especially, I mean, we’re doing prayer services with my employees for Brandon. You know, we were worshiping together. And I hope our team knows that this isn’t something. And I talk about it a lot, like there’s an appreciation for all of it out there. But, but you also choose to work for a family of faith. And so this is what goes along with the territory and from a public standpoint. So it’s basically, you know, there’s two different versions that I can tell my story.
BR (44:35):
The Plain glass or the stained glass versions. I have a speech for both . I’m writing rewriting two of them right now. So there’s one that I go to in marketplace where I know that it’s the word of God, and I know how look, the reason why we go one-on-one and the, and then two on one, and then you bring in the group is ’cause that’s what the disciples did. Mm-Hmm. , it’s Jesus. And that’s how he communicated. But I don’t put all of our employees through the third day as the stained glass version. And it’s for anybody who wants to come and listen. Like, Hey, here’s where we get all this from. Everything that you need in leadership is in the Bible, everything that you need. And and so it, it’s really just the time and a place. But even when I’m giving a secular marketplace kind of speech or discussion, I, I always do share, you know, this is where I’m coming from and this is my ministry.
BR (45:29):
This is what God has called me to do. What has he called you to do? You know, what is it? 90% of all people out there believe in something ? It’s a higher power of something or someone, whatever they, you choose to believe in. And so I just am really careful that I, I never, there is never any judgment on my end on when people have other beliefs than I do. I think that if, if we all did that right, like what you just said, this is my, this is how I feel and have an appreciation, especially in such a polarized world right now, I wish that there was more of that from a political standpoint of , this is how I, you wanna talk about your side, you wanna, we just don’t do it. It’s, it’s, it’s hard. So it’s something that’s important to me.
BR (46:19):
It’s, you just held me accountable too because when I was going through my dark depression, what did I do? I, that’s the same thing. I actually opened the Bible and I got in there and I did a chapter a day. And then I would underline it, then I would highlight it, then I would note, do the notes. And I have never felt more peace in my life than when I was doing that. And now I feel like it’s, you know, I’ll open it during church and fill out the verses and here and there, but when you actually study that, there is, it’s, it’s, it’s almost like your anxiety’s immediately gone. It’s, and there’s a peace. And I’m like, why? It’s the same thing. Like, life’s too short. Why don’t we, why do we have, why does it take a crisis? You know what, why does it take whatever to get back in the word and to feel that overwhelming peace that you can’t explain and that it can come from nothing else other than God and from the word of God.
AJV (47:10):
Amen. You know, it’s so interesting because we were just talking about literally like this. I feel like you’ve been like had microphones in my house the last few days because this is like so many other things we’ve been talking about. And one of the things we were talking about is how it’s like we, we, I hear so many people today go, things are so crazy. Like, has there ever been a time in history where things are so out of whack? And I’m like, have you ever read the Old Testament
BR (47:39):
? Right?
AJV (47:40):
And I just tell you some stories, the Old Testament, it’s like, it has always been this crazy it just looks different. And it’s like every
BR (47:47):
Election’s the most important election ever,
AJV (47:49):
You know? And it’s like everything is like, you know, it doesn’t matter if it’s the pandemic or the economy or gender issues or whatever people are talking about. I’m like, listen, y’all, none of this is new. None of it, right? All of it is documented from thousands of years ago. And I think one of the things that gives you overwhelming unexplainable peace through reading the Bibles knowing this is not unique .
BR (48:17):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah,
AJV (48:18):
It’s been done before. It’s been said before. It’s been seen before. Nothing that we are experiencing today is for the first time.
BR (48:26):
Well, at the Meyer Clinic, you know, when they talk about depression and anxiety, what the homework is is go home and study David, go home and read Psalms and see when the pit of depression and darkness and how he cried out and cried out for so, so long. And so their training and, and it’s still a medical place, there’s still medicine involved and you’re doing blood work and all of it, but you’re doing nine to five every hour on the hour. You have a different class. And one of ’em is going and really seeing how prevalent depression and real feelings are in all these emotions in the Bible. And and then seeing how he came out of it and got through it.
AJV (49:05):
Yeah, I know. And it’s again you know, it’s like I wanted to ask is I know that you’re vocal with it and with such a large org organization and, you know, such a a public figure, I think it’s really important for those who are going, like, how, how do I weave that in? How do I know how to do it? And a lot of it is just being honest. It’s like we don’t all have to believe the same thing, but this is what I believe and I think it’s really convicting for everyone just to step into. It’s like we can all coexist and accept each other’s differences. We don’t have to agree with them to be around them. And so, all right, this is my last question. I’m watching the clock. I’m very I’m cognizant of our time, but my last question is, if there was one piece of advice that you could give to someone listening of how to build better culture in their organization, does it matter if they have a team of one or 1000? What would be your number one piece of advice to build better culture?
BR (50:02):
You have to define what your VP Mosa is. You have to articulate it on paper. So you’ve gotta go through a process to write down what is near and dear to you. So our core values are true to self change the game hustle, right? X be exceptional. And Servant’s Heart, those are the core values that, you know, we real, that embody Jeff Ruby. You gotta write your vision, mission, and purpose for what, if it’s your company or if it’s your family. We really have three different VPMs. I have my own personal, we have our family, and then I have our business one. And until you’re able to articulate it on paper, I think, you know, obviously be a good person and, you know, you wanna live a good life and, and show people that you’re a quality. That’s the number one recruiting tool is being a good, a good leader. A good human being is what people wanna work for. But with turnover and the labor crisis and everything, you’re not gonna keep people once they finally understand, you know, you just have to be able to articulate it. People leave ’cause they’re not well trained or they don’t understand the vision. And so I think you have to be able to go through a process to articulate what your, what your vision, mission, and purpose is.
AJV (51:10):
Yeah. It’s really finding alignment with the people within the organization. And if you can all do that, then you’re all gonna be on the same page. And it’s kinda like the whole thing. Somebody once told me, it’s like not everyone is gonna be for your organization for, they might be for it for some time, right? But it’s not everyone is for you forever. And that, but that doesn’t mean that as some exit, you know, better comes in and it’s being okay with the release. And I think all the huge part is that it’s like as you change and the company changes, the people change, right? They come and they go. Brittany, thank you so much for spending some time in the midst of so much that you have going on. This has been so helpful in so many different ways and I would just encourage everyone who’s listening, if you’re not familiar with the Jeff Ruby organization check them out, jeff ruby.com.
AJV (51:59):
Definitely get a steak at one of the restaurants. It’s world class, none other. But also I’m gonna put Brittany’s Instagram profile in the show notes because she’s got all kinds of cool stuff coming up with her Five Star brand, five star Life. I also put the link to pick up five Star Life book because I think it’s awesome for anyone who is going, like, how do I just have general improvements in all the areas of my life? Brittany, is there anything else that you feel like they should know or, or where should people go to connect with you? I
BR (52:34):
Don’t think so. You nailed it. . My Instagram, you know, we got a lot of things kind of cooking right now, so but if you’re in Nashville, we’d love to have you at Jeffrey b Steakhouse. And even if you are a vegetarian or vegan, we challenge ourselves to make sure that that’s five stars as well. So all are welcome.
AJV (52:53):
Well, thank you so much. This has been so awesome. And for everyone who’s listening, stay tuned for the recap episode, which will be coming up next. We’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 527: How to Outlast Difficulty | Randy Gale Episode Recap

And so, I think a lot of this comes down to just being able to outlast, outlast your competition, right? And when I say competition, I don’t really mean like other people. I mean, can you outlast your fear? Can you outlast your self-doubt? Can you outlast your insecurities? Can you outlast the inconvenience of having to figure out technology? Can you, can you outlast the pain it is and the challenges and the difficulties that come along with getting your message out to the world?
RV (01:09):
If you are a mission-driven messenger, you gotta outlast all those things. It’s not, and, and, and, and if you’re not seeing the success that you want, don’t look back and say, oh, the algorithm, or, oh, I don’t have the right topic, or, oh, nobody cares about this. Or, you know, I, I don’t look this way or that way, or, I don’t have the, don’t you like? All of those are excuses. And here’s the thing. If you set out on this journey, you said you wanted to change lives, well, you can change lives at any given moment. No one is stopping you from changing lives, right? Making money is a different thing. You may or may not make money. It may, may take, may take time, but if you wanna change lives, you can push a button and publish. You can push a button and record.
RV (01:51):
You, you, you are one button away from literally broadcasting to the entire world. Like, are you doing your part? And if you’re not, at some point, you just gotta reconcile the reality. Like, you gotta go look snowflake. It’s, it’s not that you’re unlucky, it’s not that you’re not knowledgeable. It, it’s that you’re not showing up, you’re not outlasting, you’re not doing the work. And so I wanna give you three strategies, three tips, three techniques, three sources of inspiration that I think will help you outlast the competition. And by competition, again, I’m not so much saying other people who do what you do, although you could, you could think of it that way. I just think it’s, it’s outlasting your own fear, your own self-doubt, your own inconvenience, your own insecurity, outlasting, all of the excuses that will come up on this journey. ’cause They will, I’m living them.
RV (02:49):
I face them every day, right? Like, I still carry this chip on my shoulder of going, man, I would be so much further ahead if I didn’t have to start over five years ago. Like I was so much further down the road, I had to start completely over, right? So I know what that feels like, and here’s three things that I want to remind you of and equip you with that I think will help. So these are three sources of inspiration to help you outlast the inconvenience. Number one is vision. Vision. This comes right outta my first book. Take the Stairs, which still to this day is selling like hotcakes. If you’ve not ever read it, it’s a life-changing book. Like, if you haven’t read, take the Stairs. I don’t know how you’re surviving. Like, it, it’s, it is a, it, it is a quick read.
RV (03:39):
It has got so many powerful fundamental truths about success in general. And it shows up here and it applies to personal brands. Why? Because one of the things that we talk about in there is that the amount of our endurance is directly proportionate to the clarity of our vision. The amount of your endurance is directly proportionate to the clarity of your vision. When you can see something clearly that you want, when you can see it, when you think about it, when you could taste it, when it’s visceral, when you, you dream about it and you focus on it and, and you go, this is something I want in my life, for my life, for my career. When you can see it, then that creates a naturally strong connection to how the sacrifices you’re asking yourself to make today forwards you towards that pursuit. It creates a context for action to take place.
RV (04:32):
And so you discipline engages automatically. You become motivated, you become inspired, you become alive, you become activated, right? But discipline becomes dormant in the absence of a dream. Discipline becomes dormant in the absence of a dream. If you’re not dreaming or you don’t have a dream, or you don’t dream that often, or you don’t dream that clearly, or you’re not spending time thinking about it, then there is no reason to make the sacrifice. There is no reason to bear the inconvenience. There’s no reason to endure the pain, to navigate the difficulties, right? To to to survive the setbacks, to conquer the challenges. If there is no vision, there’s no reason. That’s why the Bible says, without vision, people perish. Because it literally dies. You. There’s no reason to put in that effort, that energy, that work, because there’s no payoff at the end. But that payoff is something that exists in your mind.
RV (05:27):
The powerful part is not achieving it in real life. The powerful part is having it exist in your mind, which is something you can create and access today and it will use, and in your mind will use that to activate your discipline. So what is your vision? And do you spend time thinking about it? And, and when you, when we talk about vision, we mean think of a picture, a moment in your life that you wanna live in the future, right? I, I, I tell the story often of like walking through the airport and seeing my book on the bookshelf in the airport with the New York Times bestseller logo, like burst on the cover, right? Or, or being on stage at, in, in front of a huge arena or our house that we live in, right? It was years that I was visualizing this house that I, I wanted to have and, and, and, and not so much because I manifested it, right?
RV (06:17):
It’s because I saw it and I worked my butt off and we worked our butts off to where it became real. But I held it out there. So that, I mean, yes, I’d like to believe that it’s moving towards me, but I was moving towards it, right? And maybe you meet somewhere in the middle. I don’t know, maybe you did manifest it, but I’ve never manifested anything without working my freaking butt off. Like I have never thought about something and had it just like something huge, something significant, and just had it show up. Other than one time I did manifest 1 million followers because I went to bed thinking I’m gonna get a million followers, I’m gonna get a million followers. And the next day someone dropped off at my house, a book called 1 million Followers . So it wasn’t quite what I was going for, but it, it was 1 million followers, but it, it wasn’t actually a million followers.
RV (07:07):
It was a book called 1 million Followers by Brendan Cain, which is actually a really good book. I really, I really like it. We’ve had Brendan Cain on the podcast. And so, but you gotta have a vision, right? You gotta have something you can see that you’re moving towards. The second thing is you gotta have some good old fashioned commitment, good old fashioned commitment. And this also isn’t take the stairs, we call it the buy-in principle of commitment. And it says, the more you have invested into something, the less likely you are to let it fail.
RV (07:47):
The more you have invested into something, the less likely you are to let it fail. That means you should increase your investment, increase your expenditure of time, money, prayer, thoughts, resources, attention, like you should increase your investment. Because when it’s difficult, you’re gonna tend to run away. That’s the, that’s the natural default and design of the human brain to keep you safe, which means to run away from pain, to run away from fear, to do what everyone else does, which is to avoid the inconvenient and chase the convenient chase the easy escalator, right? And what you gotta do is you gotta be a take the stairs person. You gotta be someone that says, no, I’m, I’m not gonna be like everybody, I’m not gonna run away from the pain. I’m not gonna run away from the fear. I’m not gonna run away from the inconvenience.
RV (08:36):
I’m gonna run towards it. I’m gonna run into it, I’m going to conquer it. I’m gonna be the buffalo. If you’ve ever heard me tell this my Buffalo story, which now is like, you know, going all over the internet which we’ve been talking about for my entire career, being the buffalo charging the storm. That is what it takes, is straight up commitment. Because the more money you invest into your dream, the less likely you are just to walk away, right? The more time you’ve got into it, you’re like, I can’t just walk away from this. Like, I’m not just gonna leave this here. I pour my life into this thing. Like I poured my life into pursuing it. And that’s what it takes is to set a goal that matters to you so much that when you go all in, the reason it works is not so much because like, you get lucky ’cause you went all in or, or ’cause you figure it out.
RV (09:23):
Just ’cause you went all in. It’s because you, there wasn’t any other option. And so you do it until you find a way. And there’s always a way, a lot of times it takes a long time to find the way, but eventually you find the way, if you stay committed and you stay committed by increasing the investment, right? You do more, you spend more time. One of my mentors early on in my career was a guy named Randy Gage, and he said this, and I’ve always loved this, he said, you should always be the number one investor in your own dream. You should be the number one investor in your own dream. You should be investing. Not your boss, not your investors, not the bank, not your rich uncle. You, it’s your dream. If you want it bad enough, you put your money on the table, you put your time on the table, you come to the playing field and you put your heart on the field and you say, this is what I want. This is what I’m after, and I’m all in.
RV (10:21):
And if you don’t do that, then don’t be surprised when it doesn’t work out. Like, don’t be shocked when you fail. Don’t be surprised that you, you end give up or you get distracted. And what most people do is they don’t get, they don’t quit, they get distracted and then they quit inadvertently, right? Accidentally. And it’s some good old fashioned commitment. And that leads me to number three. So the number three, number three force here that you can use, the number three source of inspiration to help you outlast the challenges is service. Service. To me, service is the greatest and most powerful inspiring force there is.
RV (11:04):
It is getting outside of ourself and what we want and saying, regardless of what I want, regardless of what I care about, regardless of what I like, regardless of what is convenient for me, I’m going to do whatever I have to do to be of value to somebody else, to enhance their life, to improve their life, to, to help their situation. My inconvenience is irrelevant. The fact that it is difficult is not a, not something that factors into the consideration. It’s not a characteristic of the equation. Because what matters is helping other people and making a difference and making an impact. And so honestly, my wellbeing in that is sort of ancillary. It’s, it’s anecdotal. It’s, it’s irrelevant. It, it’s not a part of what matters. When you are living in service and there is no fear, once the mission to serve becomes clear, there is no fear, there is no self-doubt. You’re not worried about it. ’cause You’re not thinking about yourself. You’re thinking about the person out there who needs you. That is what I want you to do. That is how you outlast your competition. You’re focused on others and you’re going, yeah, this is difficult. Yeah, I don’t feel like doing this today. Yeah, I don’t like it. Yeah, I don’t like the technology. Yeah, this annoys me. Yeah, it’s hard. Yeah. I’m spending, investing more money into my business. Yeah, but it matters because it matters to someone else. And your message matters.
RV (12:35):
Your message matters to someone else. Your work matters to someone else. Your life matters to someone else. When you get fully present to that, then you won’t abandon ship. You won’t change course, you won’t alter the destination. You’ll stay focused, you’ll stay on target, you’ll stay committed, you’ll stay disciplined, you’ll stay activated, and you’ll outlast all the fears and inconveniences that show up, and you will conquer it and you will do something great. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it and keep coming back every single week on the Influential Personal Brand podcast. Thanks for being here.

Ep 526: How My Brother Transformed His Life with Randy Gale

RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden, and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well-known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. Well, a huge part of my life has been built around trying to inspire people to be more disciplined, teaching them the psychology of discipline, how to get themselves to do things they don’t want to do, and to help them achieve excellence in their own life. But a huge part of where I learned that from and my life was from my brother, my big brother, Randy, who you are about to meet.
RV (01:01):
This is a very special episode. And my big brother was a huge part of raising me. If you know anything about my story, our story but you know, that we were raised by a single mom. My mom was often working and, you know, busy doing things. And so Randy spent a lot of time raising me. Even though today I try to avoid tools and camping and anything masculine, pretty much at all costs. The, the, the manly skills that I have, and most of all the discipline and the perseverance and the resilience that I have is largely because of this man. Randy is incredible in his own right. So he’s done many things. So first of all, he is a military vet. So he served in two Wars. He was in Kosovo and he also was in Operation Southern Watch.
RV (01:52):
So he’s from, he was in the United States Navy, and he is a coach. So in addition to his professional life, he coaches competitive women’s softball and specifically young women. And their teams have been incredible. So he has coached the firecracker softball team in Colorado over the past 12 years. And their, his teams have tallied over 700 wins, and they have had two final four finishes in the Colorado State High School softball championships for the high school teams that he has been associated with. Part of what was the catalyst for this interview was that my brother went through an amazing physical transformation recently. He was always very athletic and very in shape in his younger years. Then as he had kids and built, you know, built a family and was doing the, doing the corporate thing he got busy doing other stuff. And we’re gonna hear about something that happened in the last couple years where his dramatic transformation led him to becoming a professional bodybuilder where he got two first place medals in the master division. I was there to watch it, and I wanna hear a little bit about the psyche for how he was able to transform his his own life again. And who knows where else we’re gonna go. We’re just having a chat with me and my brother, so please welcome to the show. Randy Gale. What’s up, brother?
RG (03:26):
Hey, how you doing? Thanks, Rory. Great introduction. Really appreciate it. Just one caveat, not a professional bodybuilder. I’m an amateur bodybuilder MPC amateurs. So yeah, I did win my show there and the overall for masters, which then qualified me for a national level show that I have yet to do so. But yeah, a big difference between, you know, the amateur MPC level and a, and a professional, professional bodybuilder who’s been doing it for several, several years.
RV (03:55):
Sure. Thanks. So thanks for clarifying for that, for clarifying that. And let’s start, let’s start there. Because that really was the catalyst where I was like, man, I gotta, we, I don’t know why we’ve never had you on the show, but this was an amazing transformation. So can you just give us some stats on when, oh, how much did you weigh Mm-Hmm. What was going in your life? Give us, give us the backstory of like, what was going on with you physically, and then what was the decision you made? When did that happen? And then, you know, at what point how much time passed between the transformation and when you were actually when you actually won in this amateur show?
RG (04:36):
Sure. So kind of what had happened is o over the years, you know, I’ve been coaching for several years and, and work and, and doing all of that sort of thing. But essentially I was kind of having, I wasn’t, I wouldn’t say health issues, but what I thought was maybe gout in my knees or my, my ankles and stuff when I eat certain foods, I was the heaviest I’d ever been. I was 280 pounds, so five foot eight. So there’s not a whole lot of room for that to go. I was, you know, over 50% body fat, like was, I was just fat obese not who I am or what I felt like I was. And I always remember there was one that, you know, there’s been two times in my life where I’ve tried to lose weight.
RG (05:26):
And the first time I remember I actually, a statement that you had told me was, you know, your body will only allow you to get to a certain suck level, right? And then once you notify your suck level, you’re like, oh, turn the gas on. It’s time to go. Well, I had less sight of that obviously from the last time that I had started to sort of train for a bodybuilding competition. And, you know, I, I pour a ton of energy and time into these young ladies and, and trying to help their dreams come true of playing col college softball and, and just, you know, becoming great character kids and, and, you know, contribute to society and whatnot. So we really trying to teach them how life is gonna happen, life skills, what’s gonna, you know, come their way, how to be ready, and how to be disciplined in that facet.
RG (06:20):
And in doing that, I lost sight of who I was, and I didn’t the focus wasn’t on me. So when I started having some health issues, I was kind of like, you know, this is, this isn’t gonna work. You know, I just, I’m not comfortable. I can’t tie my shoes. I can’t , you know, without breathing heavy. So it, it really was. I saw, you know, the thing that sort of shoots that catalyst is, is when you see a photo of yourself and you’re like, who is that? Like, it’s not me. I don’t look like that in your head, right? How many people, you know, you, you’ve talked to that it’s like when they go down that health journey, it’s like, you know, I was at a point where I was like, I didn’t even recognize myself. And that’s so true. I mean, everybody I’ve ever talked to that has needed help or has been there, that’s where they start. It seems like they, that’s a trigger point that, but usually it’s physical when they see themselves physically, but they’re like, I got, I can’t do this no more. So that’s kind of where it happened with me. I started training the biggest thing. So, just,
RV (07:24):
Just to pause, just to double click on that for a second. Hmm. I mean, one of the ways to say that is just basically, it’s a reality check, right? It’s like you come face to face with an irreconcilable truth. And I think that’s powerful for, in lots of ways, right? Like, people who are struggling financially, they are often afraid to look at their statements and they’re, they’re trying to avoid. And then it’s like, at some point you come, you’re forced to come face to face with this reality to go, this is my, this is my real situation. And so anyways, so so you saw, you basically saw a picture of yourself and you were like, I gotta do something .
RG (08:09):
Yeah. Well, it, it’s, it goes back to how am I, I’m, I’m this coach and everybody knows, how can I ask these young ladies to do something I can’t even do myself? Like, if I can’t be disciplined in my eating habits and my healthcare, how can I possibly ask them to, to be committed and disciplined into their sport and the things that it takes to get to that next level? So that was really the, that was really the, the thing that kept me going. Once I had saw, you know, the physical, the, the way I looked physically, I was like, you know, that’s what got me going. You know, I, I did, you know shameless plug to Joe Rogan, ’cause I used to list, listen to, I listened to his podcast in the morning about when I was getting up and I was doing this cardio, and it was like, you know, I’ve already completed something in my first half an hour of my day, then most people will do all week, right? And so it was understanding that to complete something that other other folks wouldn’t do. And it’s just get through it. Just get through it. People say that it’s, you know, motivating motivation is what keeps you, it is not, it’s, it’s discipline. Motivating gets you started, something motivates you to get started. But once that motivation’s gone, you have to have discipline to carry it out. Mm-Hmm.
RV (09:28):
.
RG (09:28):
And for me, I’m very goal oriented, right? So,
RV (09:33):
Yeah. So tell me about the competition and tell us, like, okay, so you were 280 pounds. Yeah.
RG (09:38):
You
RV (09:39):
Were over 50% body fat. Mm-Hmm. . And then you decided to enter a, a competition or work towards one, and how much time passed?
RG (09:50):
So that, that was not on the radar yet when I got started, obviously, right. It was just about, you know, getting healthy and trying to lose some weight. Biggest thing was, can I, can I change my diet to make it like a lifestyle where it wasn’t so extreme, I couldn’t handle it, and I’d be right back where I always am. So that’s how it started. So the first year, I, I picked the biggest, baddest dude in the gym, and I went up to him his name’s Taylor. And I said, Taylor, you’re working out with me . I’m like, I’m gonna work out with you. And he was like, Hey, great man, let’s do it. So he trained me and he was a bodybuilder, so he trained me as a friend. Like, I didn’t pay him for it, it was like a friendship, you know? And I had lost, you know, that first year, 50 pounds, just training with him and eating right. So after a year I had
RV (10:39):
Dropped. Hold on. How, how long were you training? Like, that’s, that’s , that’s a big moment. So you lost 50 pounds?
RG (10:46):
I lost 50
RV (10:47):
Year. How often were you working out?
RG (10:49):
Well, December to like, the following December, I had lost 50 pounds. Wow. and I worked out five, six days a week.
RV (10:55):
Okay. How long
RG (10:56):
Cardio three, cardio, three, four days a week. 20 minutes to 30 minutes. And it was just, you don’t start there. So for your audience that’s listening is like, you can have in your head, that’s where I want to get, and you can attain it, but don’t set yourself up for failure and say, Hey, I’m gonna go start here. ’cause In two weeks you burn out. Right? So start slowly do what you, what you’re capable of, and put goals in front of yourself. Right.
RV (11:21):
Well, and I think the other thing that’s really powerful is, you know, you talked about suck level, which is a concept that, you know, like, I used to talk about that a lot. I I, I, it’s funny, I haven’t talked about that in a long time of like, that’s a good concept because it’s like your suck level is basically when you push yourself at red line to reach a new level, then it pushes you forward. Then you’re, what you would consider sucks, is actually much higher than you, you normally operate at. And the other way to do that is to do what you did, was to like surround yourself with people who are operating at a higher level. You’re, it’s like your, your baseline suck level goes up automatically because their expectations are so much higher. And just like you adopt their psyche, you adopt their habits, you adopt their, their self-talk, their way of eating. And that must’ve been going on with Taylor.
RG (12:12):
Yeah. Well, the other piece of that too, right, was, so after that year, I had talked to Taylor. I said, I wanna do a show, man. Like, I need another goal. I dropped the 50 pounds. I need another goal. I was two 30, and I was like, okay, I’m pretty fit. I’m, I’m looking pretty good, you know, like, but I wasn’t what I had still pictured in my head. And so when I talked to him, I said, gimme a show. Let’s pick a date. We picked October and this was in December, and I started full, full go. It was, it was on. And the way I made sure I did it is I told everybody I was doing it. I had to make myself accountable to other people, not just to myself. Because when you’re only holding yourself accountable, until you’re disciplined enough to continue to do that by yourself, you need something to push you to keep you doing it.
RG (13:03):
Because for me, I didn’t want to fail everybody. I told I didn’t want to fail my kids that I said I was doing this for. You know, I, I didn’t want to fail and prove that I couldn’t do something. So for me, I told everybody, I said, I’m doing, I, I, at first, I was, I was slow about it. Like January, February, I was kinda like, Hey, something new coming. I didn’t like fully commit. And then by March when I had dropped another, like, you know, 10 pounds, I’m like, Hey, I’m doing a show in October, by the way. And then it really kicked up another level. And it was, and, and to be quite honest, the hardest part for me is bodybuilders are selfish. You have to be a very, very selfish individual at that time, because right then it’s all about you.
RG (13:49):
It’s all about what you’re doing and how you’re com you know, competing and how you are making yourself look and how you, everything evolves, evolves around you because you can’t, you can’t do it up the other way. You would fail. And so, yes, I did surround myself with very like-minded individuals. You know, even at home it was like my wife Nicole, and my, my son Carter was like, you know, I’ll eat what you’re gonna eat. I’m not eating that. I gotta eat this. Right? And so that’s not always easy to have to, you manage three different types of meals or whatever. When it’s like, Hey, we could just make one meal. I was like, no, can’t I got six to eat today? And, you know, whatever. But so yeah. So that’s kind of how that happened. And then,
RV (14:37):
So by telling everybody, basically you kind of like, you don’t have a choice after that. Like once you, once it’s, once it’s out there now, your integrity’s on the line, your reputation’s on the line. Like, and these, it’s amazing how much these girls from your team, like how much of an impact they played here without, they, they maybe they didn’t even know. I don’t know if
RG (15:02):
I would talk to them about it. ’cause I, I would, I would tell them like, listen, ’cause they would ask me, you know, they’d see me eating six almonds or whatever on the sidelines, you know, during tournaments. ’cause We’re, you know, I’m coaching constantly. We’re always playing whatnot, but I bring my, my lunches or whatever, you know, and, and they would see, and I’d say, listen ladies, I’m not doing this to just do it. I’m doing it to win. Like, I don’t, I don’t set out to do something to just to do it. If I’m gonna do something, I’m gonna go out to win. And that’s exactly what I expect you to do. I don’t expect you to step on the field to just be on the field. I expect we’re gonna win. So that was my whole motto the whole time. That second year, and in that second year, I dropped another. So I got down to two 30. So dropped 50 at first, and I dropped another 30 pounds to step on stage. So I stepped on stage. I weighed in at 1 99. After two years of, you know, just going mad crazy. And, you know, I think the day of the show, I was 1 97 that morning.
RV (16:04):
Wow. So it’s over 80. So over 80 pounds,
RG (16:07):
Three pounds. Yeah.
RV (16:09):
And what was your body, what did your body fat
RG (16:11):
? My body fat was down to like 5%. And I, I remember the definitely because think, think what meant so much to me is you came out right. That, that was tremendous for me, was a huge impact. And meant you don’t even know what that meant. But I remember waking up the next morning and telling Nicole, there’s no way. That’s me. There’s no way that that is me in the mirror. I, I mean, I went the other way so far the other way. And I was like, I cannot believe, I mean, I’m talking, but I can’t believe that’s me. . It was like, you know, when you’re 47 years old and you got a six pack and you can see the, you, you know, the, your durations on the side, serrations on the side. You’re like, wait, you know, it was crazy. It was, it was really crazy. I was really hungry. But it was really, it was really cool. .
RV (17:00):
Well, and if you go to, if you go to if you’re on Instagram, if you just look up the, the Randy Gale, GALE, the Randy Gale, you can see these pictures. Like, I remember I posted a picture on my Instagram that showed the before and after, and people went nuts. I said, it was like, that’s freaking massive 80 pounds. But, but dropping 45%. Yeah. In body fat in less than two years. That’s gnarly.
RG (17:27):
It’s really the body composition, right? The, the weight you can drop off. But if you are not, if you are not doing the right things, you’re just going to lose weight. And yeah, you’ll recomp yourself a little bit. But, you know, for me it was like, when you’re that big, you have X skin, like you have extra skin. That was the hardest thing. You know, and I think even you had heard some comments, you know, in the, in the stands, I was like, man, that dude lost a lot of weight. ’cause I had skin that you can’t hide that. And I wasn’t about to have surgery to have it removed. ’cause Why would I, you know? But it’s like that’s the biggest thing. I think that was the most difficult or most challenging thing. Wouldn’t you have lost that much weight? Is like, what do you do with all this skin that you were stuffing before , you know?
RV (18:07):
Well, I mean, the, the, I mean, it’s a reminder. I mean, it’s a reminder of the price you paid, right? It’s like scars. It’s going, this is a reminder that I’m not the person that I once was. That I’m not going back like that. It’s this, you know, it’s, it’s a, yeah. It’s, it’s a relic. It’s a relic of a different time in my life where I made different choices and I had different outcomes. Umspeaking.
RG (18:34):
Well, it’s also kind of a, a scary, a, a scary concept too that, that folks don’t really understand or I, I never really, I think thought about was, you know, there’s a lot of food diseases out there, right? That, and, and, you know, I even had a young lady on one of my teams that had a, a, a eating disorder. By doing this, it gave me somewhat of a, an eating disorder as well in the sense that I would freak out when I didn’t eat something right. And do an extra 15, 30 minutes of cardio. And so getting where I’m at now, which I’m, I’m, I’m maintaining, I’m out of, I’m call off season, right? I’ll start training really hard again here in July. It was really hard mentally for me to be like, okay, it’s okay to eat that because it’s that time of the season as opposed to, oh my God, freaking out. I’m gonna get really fat. You know? And so that, you know, that’s something that if, if somebody goes down this journey, they have to be ready for, they understand they need to talk to people. You need, there’s a right way to get back to say normal conditions of eating as opposed to, you know, super strict and, and you know, that bodybuilding diet.
RV (19:54):
Yeah. I mean, when you’re, when you’re training for a show, it’s like all consuming. I mean, it’s a very, very intense that the, I I, so I, I want to go back actually, like, on, on the topic of being, not being the person that you once were. Mm-Hmm. . You know, we just, I, you know, I just had mom on the show like not too long ago, which was like, prompted by just, oh, it’s Mother’s Day, and I should like, have mom on to like, tell her story about what it was like. And it was really powerful. I actually learned, I actually learned a lot hearing. It’s, it’s interesting hearing mom, you know, now being in our forties, hearing mom retell her perspective of the story of like, what happened, about how our life worked. And because like, my life is pretty dramatically different from where we started, you know?
RV (20:51):
Like, I see. So it’s, it’s, and, and, and that’s part of why I wanted you to, to have you on the show, because your life, your life is too, your life is dramatically different from where we started. And then you also had this more recent transformation that was also very dramatic in a very short period of time. And I think there’s people that are listening that maybe are not in the best situation, or maybe like, not in the best circumstances. Hmm. And sometimes it feels far away like that. You know, you, you could have a different, you could have a completely different life in two years or five years, like a radically different life. What do you remember about us growing up? Like what, what do you, ’cause you were older, you’re five years older than me.
RG (21:39):
Yeah.
RV (21:39):
And
RG (21:40):
Four and a half. I’m not five years. No,
RV (21:41):
You’re five and a half years older than me. Well,
RG (21:43):
Five and a half. Yeah. I’m getting older. I’m gonna tell you .
RV (21:46):
Yeah. It’s but you, but I, but I have, I have at least five point a half per more percent body fat than you do at least
RG (21:54):
Right now. You don’t, I
RV (21:55):
Believe the, you know, a lot of those, you know, the, the stories that mom was telling was, you know, like, I don’t remember a lot of the hard, I feel like a lot of the hardest times I don’t remember because I was still a baby. But you were old enough to remember some of those times. Mm-Hmm. clearly they were hard on moms. She was 23 years old. Single mom had two kids, had been divorced twice. You know, she shared about that she had two abortions and no college education at the time. Like living in a state away from her family. Like, it was hard. And that was her version of hard, my version was like a baby. I don’t remember anything. Y’all were taking care of me. But I’m curious about some of what you remember because you were like old enough to actually re remember it and you like live it.
RG (22:52):
Yeah. I, I, I, I would say first off, like, just to mom, like, as we’re older right? And understanding how difficult it is to raise kids. ’cause We have our, our own kids. And how not having another person there to support you and to be able to have two kids that turned out like we’ve turned out pretty freaking amazing, pretty amazing. Doesn’t, you don’t hear about that. I mean, and to understand not only the, the, the difficulty and challenges you have to, who’s gonna watch my kids when I go to work so we can eat, like, thank God for, you know, the ETLs and, and Danny and all the people that, you know, mom brought up and that were there for us. ’cause They didn’t have to be, and and times were different then, right? I mean, community was a lot more community back in those days.
RG (23:50):
And, but, but fortunately for us, like there’s, I don’t know. There’s no way, there is no way that we’d be where we are without the help that mom got. Because I don’t know how, I don’t even know how she got where she got without, you know, without them. But prior to them, it’s like I do, I would tell you, like as I listened to the, the, the podcast, like there are things that mom stated that I think are different than what she said. But that again, as perspective, right? She’s older. I’m anywhere between five and 10. So I see things differently or I remember things differently. You know, I, I can tell you that.
RV (24:30):
Well, and just to, just to underscore what you said there. Yeah. ’cause It’s like, I, I go like, you know, me and AJ are happily married and we have a team. I mean, we got a team of people, like, and I go, we’re, we struggle, like, we struggle to raise kids and like keep up with the family and like, working and, and just, just keeping the house clean. And just like having Santa, just getting the kids to go to eat and like, go to sleep at night. It’s, it’s like, it’s so hard. And what
RG (25:01):
I, what I would tell you is I think now, and, and you’ve written me and you, and you’ve told me the affinity that you’ve had for me, an understanding, like, I raised you from five to 10 because mom was working. So when you say you were with me a lot of the time, you were with me all the time. Like, I never got to go anywhere with just me. It was always me and my brother. This is,
RV (25:28):
You’re talking about from when I was age five to when
RG (25:30):
I was Yeah. From when you were like five to 10. It was like, you were always with me. We were always doing stuff with my friends or whatnot. You know, they were your fr they, a lot of my friends growing up were your friends because you were with us. Right? but I think you also kind of started to understand like, I was being a parent, right? I didn’t know how to be a parent to you at that age. So, you know, even in talking with mom, and she’s apologized because I didn’t have the childhood, you would have Right. That, that a normal, you know, two, maybe a two parent home what people would call normal, I guess upbringing of, you know, a, a family, kids are allowed to be kids and you get to a certain age and then, you know, you start figuring out adulthood. Well, for me, it wasn’t about that. It was, take care of your brother, make sure you don’t burn down the house or wherever you’re living. .
RV (26:26):
Yeah, we weren’t living in houses. We weren’t living in houses.
RG (26:28):
Yeah. We weren’t living in houses. And it was a dungeon, you know, Utah, I talked about the dungeon. It was a dungeon. It was a boiler room. The boiler was literally in the kitchen across the street, like the sink. Like it was, I’m, no, I’m telling you, it was, it couldn’t have been more than 36 inches wide. We’d walk in the door and it was just like two rooms with a boiler room and a kitchen sink. I don’t even remember a stove in there. I don’t remember if mom said it was a stove, but I don’t, I don’t remember ever cooking in there. But it, it, it is what it is. So, I mean, we always, always had a roof over our head somehow. I don’t how she did it. You know, she was
RV (27:04):
Resourceful in that way. I mean, my mom was resourceful. She was good at making friends. Yeah. And she was good at getting people to care about us. And they looked after us. I mean, we had so many people. So she was super resourceful in that way.
RG (27:18):
Well, I, I will tell you that, that is what created who I am as far as, you know, when I meet people, I’m, I, I, I love making friends. I, you know, everybody’s a friend to me. But I’m also that person that like, I try to take charge to take care of, if that makes sense. So I, I’m, you know, people are like, yeah, you know, you’re that a type personality. Well, it’s really because I’m always on, I’m always just looking out for everybody,
RV (27:47):
Like on duty. Yes. Like, that’s how I think of it. That’s how I think of it as like, you’re my big brother who is always on duty. Like you were on duty training me, looking after me, watching over me, you know, doing. And, and even now you carry that. Like, I see that with the girls, like on your softball team. Like, it’s like you’re on duty.
RG (28:08):
Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know how to let somebody else take care of me and my situation stuff. All I know is how to take care of everything and handle it, if that makes sense. So you know, maybe that’s kind of a fight or flight thing from when we were little is just like, figure it out. Like, we always just figured it out. We never got in, in a bad situation that we didn’t get outta because we would just, I’d figure it out.
RV (28:42):
And what do you so, so what do you remember most about growing up? I mean, out outside of just in general, taking care of me. Like,
RG (28:51):
I remember moving a lot. I remember, you know, I, I know like I did, I went to like three different first grades. I think Mom even said that, you know, like three different first grades. Which we were always in sort of the same sort of area, but it was like, we didn’t move states at least. But we did move around. I, I felt like we moved around a lot. I remember, you know, mom had always had me in sports though. Some way she managed to get me into sports. So like, I would, I did Boulder Valley Soccer when I was younger. I don’t think we paid, ’cause we didn’t have any money. And she found a way to get me in there. And so she never let us have downtime to just get in trouble. Right. She always like found a way to have us with somebody somewhere, or doing some sport. At least for me. You were a little bit younger, so you, I mean, you, I guess somebody was watching you. I don’t remember like where you were when I was, you know, playing soccer and whatnot. But so I was always kind of involved in sports growing up.
RV (29:58):
Do you remember, like, do you remember feeling poor or thinking we were poor or having other people like tell you we were poor? Like, do,
RG (30:10):
Do you, I remember, remember that what I do rem what I do , what I do remember a lot of is when my dad would send child support money, we would, mom would take us out to McDonald’s.
RV (30:22):
I remember that.
RG (30:24):
And that was my dad had sent child support. We had a little extra money and you and I would go get Happy Meals and that was a big deal. Right. Because it was like, whatever that character or whatever was in the Happy Meal.
RV (30:35):
Ronald McDonald Oh no. The thing, the toy and the Happy Meal. Yeah.
RG (30:38):
Toy and the Happy Meal. But we also used to go to the train at the McDonald’s in Boulder. They used to have that one over by Crossroads Mall back in the day. And it was like, you could go in the caboose and whatnot and I don’t know, but
RV (30:49):
Right. I remember that
RG (30:50):
Used to do that. I, I remember not feeling poor because mom would take us to do stuff. Like we were always in the mountains in the foothills. I know you didn’t like it. But for me it was great. That’s why I liked fishing. And, and like, I al one thing I do remember was I always wanted a dog though. Like, we never had our own place. Like we were always living with somebody or lived in somewhere that we couldn’t have a pet. So that was one thing that I wish I always could have. And then I finally did, you know, in high school we got, you know, mom allowed me to get Roscoe.
RV (31:28):
And Did you? Yeah, that’s right. We had Roscoe Roscoe 1 1 1 time. One time we were playing football. One time we were playing football in the living room. I remember ’cause you used to put the blankets over. Oh yeah. . We were playing goal line. And I used to, I used to carry the ball and I’d have to like jump over you and you’d be under the blankets with all the pillows and you’d slam into me and I’d have to try to like jump over the goal line. And you rocked me back into the Christmas tree, like knocked me back
RG (31:56):
After. It was like yesterday.
RV (31:57):
I hit the Christmas tree, Christmas tree completely tips over and crashes. And mom’s favorite ornament. Was it ACO cu Buffs ornament Or a, I think
RG (32:08):
It was a Broncos ornament. A
RV (32:10):
Broncos ornament crash and shattered and all And what happened, mom goes, I took care
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Of it. What happened? Randy
RV (32:19):
Took care of it. Mom
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Roscoe knocked over the Christmas Street. . We blamed it on the dog.
RG (32:27):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
You did. You took care of it.
RG (32:29):
That’s why I always wanted a dog was ’cause I was always getting caught. ’cause I had nothing to blame it on. It’s like, plus mom knew everybody, so it was like I could never get away with anything.
RV (32:37):
We did tell her the truth of that story. Like 10 years later, maybe I don’t even something like
RG (32:40):
That. Don’t even remember. Maybe this is the first essential here. I don’t know about
RV (32:43):
Yeah, maybe. I think we told her the truth.
RG (32:45):
Yeah. And then
RV (32:46):
Anyways, we’re honest people. We’re honest people. But we did, we did lie about the . We did lie about the Christmas tree.
RG (32:52):
. Yeah. and then, you know, I think our fondest memory, for whatever reason, I don’t understand why is, is always, you know, always around football. Like when we played Garfield, like, you know, I don’t know if you, you’ve told your audience what, what I sent you for a Christmas gift, but it was, you know, the doll or stuffed animal that we used to play with for a football. ’cause We didn’t have money for a football. Like something that simple, like, and we literally, we picked it up and here goes to get it. He is. And you could fit your, this is show him how you flip it around and you fit it. I was always the quarterback. So that this
RV (33:33):
Was, this was, this is the greatest Christmas present baby I’ve ever gotten because this is, this Garfield doll is the doll. We couldn’t afford a football and somebody must have donated us.
RG (33:44):
I think we got it at a church or something.
RV (33:45):
A church or something. But when you, his little plastic eyes, he’s got these like hard plastic eyes. When you throw this bad boy, he perfectly spi I mean, perfectly spirals. Yep. And so we played with this for hours, for years.
RG (33:59):
Yeah.
RV (34:00):
And then this last Christmas outta nowhere, Randy sends me this no note or anything. There was nothing. It just showed up. Because you must have ordered it from Amazon or something. Yeah,
RG (34:11):
We looked that for it.
RV (34:11):
Yeah. And it showed up. And when I opened it, I knew, I knew it was from you. Like, ’cause this was, and I so it sit, it sits on my desk. That’s where I just went to grab it. . Right, right behind me. Right. The
RG (34:25):
But it, I mean it’s the, it’s what you talk about in some of your you know, when you’re, you’re speaking sometimes you talk about the Garfield and, and, and that’s it. I mean, for those that don’t know, that’s that’s it. That’s the thing That was football for us for years. Same thing. You know, we just made do, we emptied two liter bottle and we make paper baseballs wrapped up tape balls. And we played baseball. I think most kids didn’t have things, did that sort of thing. And we, we played baseball. We had
RV (34:52):
A two liter empty, two liter bottle of soda was our bat. Right. And then you had take a, take a pick paper and roll it up and tape it up. Yeah. We did that all the time. We
RG (35:01):
Used to do, we used to do great things as kids. I mean, we, you know, even things that I did with Carter now is, you know, I made a tournament, a basketball tournament bracket. Right. Like how you and I used to play that all the time. You know, I was the older one, so I got to pick out and do all the fun stuff and Yeah. You
RV (35:18):
Got to shoot all the three pointers and I sat and rebounded
RG (35:21):
Yeah. Hours
RV (35:22):
At a time and
RG (35:23):
Yeah. But you were a great rebounder when you got the high school.
RV (35:24):
That’s true. I was a great rebounder in high school. . So did you, but you never, so like, the thing that dawned on me was like, I didn’t really realize I didn’t, I never had any inclination whatsoever that like, we were only one, you know, we were only like a few days away from living on the streets at time. And like, we hadn’t had friends, we wouldn’t have had a meal. And like, it never dawned on me. It wasn’t until I was much older looking back, being like, wow. Like, mm-Hmm. And, and I started learning about money and business and stuff and being like, we, we, we, we come a long way. So, so, but when you were young, you never felt that either. You never felt like, no. Oh, I’m not gonna be,
RG (36:09):
I never felt
RV (36:09):
Somebody because we don’t have money.
RG (36:12):
I never felt like, I mean, I guess the, it, I don’t know if it’s a good example or not, but you know, some kids, when you’re going to school, you’re like, he, well that kid’s, the, the, the dirty kid or he smells or he doesn’t take a shower because they can’t afford the water, whatever. I never felt like I, that was us. Okay. Right. I never felt like that was us. I do know that we learned the value of a dollar very early. ’cause When we wanted something, we had to earn it. I can recall we went camping in Colorado Springs one time. I had saved up all my allowance for months to buy a fishing rod in a Rio. And I mean, I tell the story all the time that you and you and mom are over here on the side. And I’m standing on the dock. I got my fishing rod and my line in the water. I got a Pepsi in one hand and Cheetos in the other. And I hear, skip, skip, skip who? And a fish. Big, big old fish took my pole and Rod. And I stand up and I’m screaming and I’m crying to mom and she’s all, what? What’s going? I said, the fish just took my pole. And she says, well go get it. I’m like, how am I supposed to go get it? I’m diving in this lake. Like, I’m great
RV (37:22):
Advice, mom. Jump in the
RG (37:23):
Lake. Go get it. Go get it. Oh man. I was so, I was so heartbroken. I had saved up for the best reel, you know, forever. It was like, I mean, those are the kind of things that, that we have stories like that from, from our whole childhood. Like, I have stories that I remember that are, that if I say now just crack me up, they’re hilarious. But at the time they were like, you know, destroyed me, you know, type of thing. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I don’t, I don’t think, you know, we always had, I don’t feel like we ever went hungry. I’m, I’m sure we were probably hungry, but I don’t feel like we ever went hungry, if that makes sense. Yeah. I don’t think we ever missed a meal. You and me, like we always had something to eat some soup or something. But we
RV (38:06):
Were on, we were on wic. We were
RG (38:07):
On wic. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, you know, it’s milk and butter and, and eggs and cheese I think is what it is. It’s like the essentials.
RV (38:15):
But that’s only till, I think mom said that that only was while, while I was under age too. Once I was like over age two. Yeah. It shuts off. So I,
RG (38:23):
I don’t, I, I guess I don’t know all that. Like, I don’t know the details of when that kicked in or not. I do remember, like, we grew up on mac and cheese. We grew up on ramen noodles. We grew up on the little, you know, Kool-Aid things that were 5 cents, they were little barrel that, that had juice in them. You know, they’re not even juice. I don’t know what they were, but taste like juice
RV (38:42):
Chemicals.
RG (38:43):
S they definitely chemicals, you know we grew up on tortillas, but you know, we
RV (38:48):
Call little one burritos. The
RG (38:49):
White, the white, the white man burrito. Right. We put cheese in the tortilla and melted cheese. And it was like, Hey, that was our burrito. Yeah. Didn’t have beans in it. Just had cheese and yeah.
RV (38:58):
We weren’t eating healthy because we were eating cheap. Which is unfortunate. ’cause That’s how a lot of families are like, when you don’t have money, it’s like you Yeah. It’s all crappy food that’s Yeah.
RG (39:07):
Afford. Yeah. Well that you’ll find that too, when you’re trying to get healthy. Right? Like, they don’t help you to get healthy. That’s for sure. .
RV (39:13):
Yeah. It’s expensive. It’s hard to find. It takes forever to cook. Like yeah. Ram Well, I, I just, you know, if, if there’s somebody out there right now who’s listening, who’s just going through a tough time, like maybe, maybe they’re looking at a picture of themselves in the mirror going, that can’t be me. Or, you know, maybe they’re in a place where they don’t have a lot of money, you know, or they’re, you know, like one of your girls dealing with some type of a, of a, you know, an eating disorder. Like, you’ve come so far and, and we’ve come, I mean we’ve, we’ve, we’ve all come so far. What would you say to that person about what it takes to transform their life?
RG (40:07):
For me, people sometimes say think big, but for me it’s think, think simple. Don’t, don’t bite off the biggest piece of the apple first. Start off slow, but continue to do it every day. And eventually you’ll be done. You start off slow on that bottom step of that mountain. You didn’t think you could get to you, but you had to take a step to get it. We’ll, take one step, take two steps the next day, take three steps the next day. And before you know it, you’re at the top and you don’t even know how you got there. You don’t remember where, what it was like when you started. And then I’ve heard this lately a couple times, is get uncomfortable being uncomfortable, like to make a change of anything. It isn’t gonna be nice. It’s not gonna be comfortable. It’s not nothing worth doing is easy.
RG (41:05):
Like, that was the biggest thing for me is like understanding. Like, I’m going to get there eventually, but it isn’t gonna be easy and it isn’t gonna be in 30 days and it isn’t gonna be in 60 days. But I don’t care. I I, I have a date out here that I gotta get to. And if I just keep doing this every day, I’ll get to where I’m at. And if I have to reevaluate my goal when I get there, then I’ll reevaluate. But I’m not gonna reevaluate until I get there. There. And then though, you know it, you’re there. If it’s a financial situation, I mean, I, I would say I’m not the greatest financial person to be given financial advice, but you know, but it’s, for me, it’s like I start to think about more of like, what’s more important for my next payment, right?
RG (41:56):
Like, can I live without this so that I can get this? Yeah. That makes more sense. So I start to weigh things like that, you know, now as, as opposed to before when we grew up, like that was my big, that I think that is one of the big issues that I have is we didn’t have money. So now when I have money for something, I’m like, Hey, get it. Like my, I don’t want my kids to never have nothing that they don’t want. Like, that was hard for me. My my daughter, you know, she wanted a new bat. I’d go get her a new bat. She wanted a new glove. I’d go get her a new glove because I didn’t want her to feel like I fell, which was, I had good enough. Or I had, I had shoes on. Who knows what brand they were. Right. I had a shirt on.
RV (42:40):
I know they were from Payless. I know sure that was
RG (42:43):
Straight Payless.
RV (42:44):
Uhhuh . They were from Pay Less. That was the only place that we ever went.
RG (42:47):
Yep. When they started like, making shoes that looked like Reebok pumps. I remember that day. . You know what I mean? So you know, don’t give up no matter what you do. Don’t give up. Don’t give up find. I found, I, I found that it wasn’t that I could really necessarily go to any one individual that I knew. It was more like I found podcasts and I used social media to push me by watching motivational things. That’s how I did it. So, you know, I would say things that, that I would internalize and I would hear it and it would make me think about where we came from. Or it would make me think about how far we’ve come or it’d make me think about what I wanna show to my brother, or what I wanna show to my mom or what I wanna show to my kids.
RG (43:44):
Like what am I doing that shows them that what I say, I mean, you know, and so for me, the bodybuilding thing I feel I’m like in my life is probably the one thing that I said I was gonna do that I did without a doubt. And you know, this, I mean, there’s a lot of things that I’ve wanted to do in my life and I’ll start and I stop because whatever it’s ’cause of whatever, the two things, I don’t the three things I’ve never stopped. I’ve been married to almost 24 years. I’ve got two kids. One’s getting, both of ’em will be seniors next year, one in college, one in high school, and I coach. And I’m lifting. Like, those are the things now to me that I’ll, I I’m not gonna stop. Right. And so, you know, if there’s anything in life that’s worth doing, it’s, it’s for your family. And you do whatever you can do. You do whatever you gotta do for your family.
RV (44:38):
Yeah. Well, I just want to thank you R like it’s not lost on me that the life that I have is much the result of many people who made sacrifices along the way and who invested in me. Many, many people starting first and foremost with you and mom. Like and that’s continued, that’s continued to this day. Like people constantly investing into me and, but I never, I never would got there if it weren’t for you. And I’m so grateful for the discipline. You know, and I, it’s like I joke about not, I mean, I kind of joke. I mean, I do, I joke about the fact that I don’t like camping. I don’t like manly stuff. You know, I don’t, I would rather get a man a manicure than I would go fishing a hundred times . But the truth is like, I’m a pretty tough son of a.
RV (45:36):
If I have to be and it’s because of you, it’s because you beat the crap outta me, and pushed me to the limits. And you, you always taught me to get back up. You always taught me to keep going. You always taught me like don’t listen to what anybody says to you. And don’t, don’t ever internalize someone who’s talking crap about you or about us. Like you always, I remember you always pushing me in sports and never letting people who are bigger than me and older than me. You know, like your friends. They never got to make fun of me. That was, you would always, you would. We were on duty.
RG (46:15):
Yeah. I have a great story I have to tell because it, it goes to that point. I remember coming home one day and you were at Ryan Elementary, this in Lafayette, and I came home and I don’t know, one of the neighbor girls came running up, your brother’s getting in a fight, your brother’s getting in a fight. And I’m like, what? So I tear off and I’m running across the street and I’m, it was my friends and you come walking back across the street and I’m like, what happened? And they’re like, Rory knocked him out. . It was like some big kid that was messing with you in school, wanted to meet you after school, and you met him and you knocked him out. And I was like, what? It’s like I didn’t get to do anything. I didn’t get the help at all. And you guys were walking across the street like, you know, like king of the mountain. It was funny. I just remember that story when you’re saying that. It was I don’t know if you remember doing that, but you came walking across the street with with Craig and the guys and you are like, you know, it was, it’s funny.
RV (47:15):
Yeah. And I, I don’t, I, I, I don’t look for fights. I try actively to avoid fights, but like, and not just fights rejection, right? Heartbreak, setback, failure. People telling you you’re not good enough, you’re not smart enough, you’re, their skin’s the wrong color. Like you’re whatever. Like yeah. Those are, those are, those are things that I’ve endured and I know that you have and I know that people listening have and just, so anyway, so thank you for that. Y’all, if you want to know more about my brother and check out his journey and see what he’s up to with, with lifting and you can, you could go to Instagram and follow him at the Randy Gale GALE, the Randy Gale brother. I love you. Thank you. Thank you for this. And thank you for everything.
RG (48:04):
Thanks for the opportunity. And yeah, if any reviewer, your viewers have questions on Health Journey that they’re going through, hit me up. I’m always here to help. Like Rory says, you know, I’m always on watch.
RV (48:17):
I love it. I love you, bro.
RG (48:19):
All right, love you.

Ep 525: When Less Is More | Robin Robins Episode Recap

AJV (00:02):
I know that we’ve all bought into the idea that more is better at some point in our lives, personally or professionally, whether it’s more money more things, more accolades, more accomplishments more travels, more stuff, like more friends, more customers. Like I know for all of us that we suffer from the, I think I need more or I think I want more syndrome. At some point in our life, and maybe as you’re listening to this, you are suffering from the more syndrome right now. But this is actually a conversation about how you build more with less. And really specifically this is about how you build a better and bigger business on a smaller audience. And that’s what we wanna talk about. So there, there’s a couple of things that I wanna bring up. And a lot of this stems from an amazing conversation that I had with a phenomenal entrepreneur named Robin Robbins.
AJV (01:07):
And she’s another redhead located in Nashville, Tennessee. I was fortunate enough to be able to interview her on our podcast, the Influential Personal Brand podcast. Go listen to that episode. It is an NBA and entrepreneurial lessons. But there was something that she said in there that really got me thinking about this concept of less is more, right? Not more is more, but less is more. And she said in the interview, your company rides on the who internally and externally. And we’re gonna talk about that for just a couple of minutes. And I think this is a really important thing because I think a lot of times when we think about the who, we think about one or the other, we think about, you know, books like Start With Who, which is about like recruiting and hiring. And we think about cultural aspects of who we hire and how we build our team.
AJV (02:03):
And I think those are really important. In fact, we talked a lot about in this interview how hiring great leaders is how you grow your organization. It’s like you will only grow as fast as you grow your leaders, right? Because you, as the entrepreneur, the business owner, cannot do all the things, be all the things to all the people all the time and expect for you to grow. That’s why so many of us wonder why we started our businesses in the first place, right? Because there was this dream of time and, and margin and space and creativity and freedom. And then what actually happens is you are the person doing all the jobs and you don’t even get to do the thing that you like anymore. ’cause You started it because you were really good at this one thing, but now you’re trying to learn finance and accounting and billing and operations and customer service and all the things that you didn’t even want to do when you got into business.
AJV (02:55):
But that’s because you are not relying on the, the strength of a leader, right? And you don’t have to have tons of people in your organization to make them super, super impactful. But one of the best pieces of advice that I’ve ever got is hire great people, pay them very well, and expect a lot out of ’em, right? And I think that that’s, it’s a lot about a who, right? One great person, one a player, can do the work of three very average players. And I mean that, and I have seen that up and down and all around in my professional life. It’s like one A player literally can do the work of three C players, right? And some of that’s attitude, some of that’s experience, some of that’s determination. But a lot of it is really just work ethic. It’s like, how hard are you willing to work to figure out the thing versus relying on someone else to figure out the thing for you.
AJV (03:53):
And I think that’s a really important concept. If you’re in that position of like, Hey, I do wanna grow, I do wanna scale, then the first thing you need to do as you’re thinking about growth and scale in your business is going, do I have leaders that can help me get from where I am to where I wanna be? Because where you started won’t sustain you, right? And I think that’s a really important truth. It’s like, what got you here won’t get you there, right? That, that, that’s true, right? The, the sales, the operations, the staff that’s needed to go from zero to a million is very different than one to three, three to 10, 10 to 30, 30 to a hundred. That’s a completely different ballgame. It’s a completely different level of systems and operations, staff skills, experience, and most importantly, people, right?
AJV (04:45):
It is a different level of people. And so as we’re talking about this concept of your company rides on the who, there’s the internal components that, you know, do you have a players and are you paying them well enough that they’re not just a paycheck away? And do you expect a lot of them? Do they have growth potential? Do they like the culture? Do they like you, do you like them? Those are all things that when we talk about building an organization that hinges on great leaders and a lot of that is great leaders who can build great systems, right? It’s like you, you are the assistant until you hire the assistant to do the jobs that you’re currently doing, right? Because the thing is, is like somebody else will always be better at what you’re doing because they can be more dedicated and focused than you can as the business owner, you should be doing other things.
AJV (05:37):
And that’s getting clear on the money invested into quality people is worth it because it frees up your time to go do the next thing, whatever that may be. So there is this internal component of the who really matters. And a lot of the growth of a company is directly correlated to the quality of the leader, right? But then there’s this external component that we talked about in this interview that I thought was also really awesome, and I thought this was really important. And I’m actually looking at my notes from this, and I, I loved what she said. She said, this is Robin, Robin said this, get you get more customers when you get more specific and you can go listen to the interview. But she has built, built a multi eight figure business, I think somewhere in the 40, $45 million annual revenues, recurring revenue business.
AJV (06:32):
And what I love is that she shares this. She goes, there are very few people who can actually even buy what we offer. And I, I don’t quote me on this, go listen to the interview, but maybe 10,000. That’s it. So I think a part of it, she was like, we know anding about our customer, what they need, when they need it, what they can afford, what they’re trying to do, what size they are, how many people they have, what revenue they’re at. We know everything about them, and we have built our solution. So specifically catered to this small group of 10,000 people, she goes, we have built a, you know, $40 million business servicing a, a very even small fraction of that people, she was like, but our whole thing is we don’t have to have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of prospects to build an enormous business.
AJV (07:25):
We just need to get so clear, so specific that we are so dialed in on that niche specific audience that we can get bigger with a smaller audience, right? That’s because you can do more for that audience. It’s, versus it’s the difference between doing a little for a lot of people or doing a lot for a fewer amount of people. And in her case, it’s not super small, it’s still thousands. But I think that’s a really important concept because a, a lot of the more conversation that I hear in my world is I’m trying to get more followers, right? Specific on social media, or I’m trying to get more subscribers or I’m trying to get more leads and I’m trying to get more clients and, and people are kind of consumed with this idea of I need more. And I just wonder why, right?
AJV (08:16):
It’s like, do your current subscribers or current followers buy from you? I don’t know. Maybe they do, but I bet a lot of you get most of your business from word of mouth and referrals and your current customers. And I bet that if, if we all took a really deep hard look at who our audience is, we could all admit we don’t need millions, don’t even need hundreds of thousands, don’t even need tens of thousands. And most of us don’t even need thousands of people to go after, to build a very life sustaining, fulfilling life-giving business that’s making a positive impact on the people that you are around on your family. It, it could be generational change, and you could do that with dozens of clients. So more is not always better. Sometimes less is better. ’cause You can do more for those people when you have less clients.
AJV (09:10):
And so I just wanted to challenge everyone in this conversation of going, you can grow to a very large size business with a very small client demographic, and you’re able to do that because you know your client demographic so intimately, right? But there’s not just the external who factor. There’s the internal who factor, which is the, the cultural dynamics of you’re only gonna grow as fast as the leaders in your company, right? You and I love this whole thing, it’s like you can never, you know, grow faster than the systems that you put in place, right? And I think a lot of times when you do that is when you self implode, like when you grow faster than your systems and processes can manage, is when we see these have amazing potential companies implode right before our eyes because they couldn’t sustain the growth.
AJV (10:00):
They didn’t have the right systems, the right processes, nor the right leaders in place to do the thing. Don’t make the same mistake. Don’t don’t over romanticize growth, right? There, there is a, a power in boring organic growth, right? And nobody likes to talk about that because we wanna talk about how you went from zero to seven figures and the next six months. Like, but that’s not always good, right? Sometimes the boring organic just kept doing the same thing, kept growing as we could, right? We, we grew as fast as we could. Sometimes that’s just better because you stay a little more sane, but it allows you to grow your systems and processes appropriately, and it it allows you to recruit or grow your leaders appropriately. So more isn’t always better, right? Sometimes less leads to more. And I just thought this would be a really great conversation as, as we’re all looking at, for at least us here at Brand Builders Group at whatever ev what at everyone’s talking about in the market.
AJV (11:11):
More money, more followers more clients, more leads what have you just said? What can I do with less, right? What, what could I do with what I have? And instead of focusing on more people or more leads or more followers, what if you just said, no, I’m just gonna focus on serving the ones I have better. And it doesn’t have to be more or bigger. I just wanna do more and better for what I currently have. Because if we do a life changing service to the people we have, they will tell others about you, right? We talk about this all
AJV (11:52):
The time. The best form of marketing on the planet is a changed life. And that goes for clients and employees. , right? The best marketing, the best recruiting on the planet is the proof of a changed life. And sometimes that happens by doing more for fewer people.

Ep 524: From Scrappy to Strategic: How to grow an 8 figure business with Robin Robins

AJV (00:00:02):
Hey everybody. Welcome to the influential Personal Brand podcast, AJ Vaden here. Really excited to introduce you guys to Robin Robbins. And she and I are fairly new to knowing each other, but Robin has known my husband and my co-host Roy Vaden for a very long time. And he has been singing her praises for years. And so the fact that we get to have her on this show today is really exciting. And before we formally introduce her, I want you guys to know why you should stick around today. And I think one of the things that most of our audience says at some point is, how do you go from, you know, where I am today to that dream company, whether that be a seven figure, eight figure, or nine figure entity. And I think today, the really the goal is to explore what it takes.
AJV (00:00:51):
What are the hard decisions you have to make? What are the choices you have to decide on along the way to help you go from where you are to where you wanna be on this venture, right? This ad venture of entrepreneurship. And so Robin is coming on the show today. Let me tell you just a tiny little bit about her. She is the CEO at Technology Marketing Toolkit. And what they do is develop highly effective marketing and sales strategies, very specifically to MSPs and managed service providers, if you don’t know what that term is. But I think one of the things that’s so amazing is that she has built an incredibly successful business for a very niche audience. And it’s one of the reasons that I wanted her to come on today, is talk about how do you succeed with less, right? And in this case a less big audience, right? It is focusing in the specifics. And so, without further ado, Robin, welcome to the show.
RR (00:01:52):
Thank you, aj. I appreciate you so much. I know I’ve gotta have you and Rory come speak to my audience ’cause I’ve just, you know, it’s, I just, I know. So you, the value you guys bring to people is amazing. And yeah, so I’m, I’m as much a fan of you guys as I, you know, maybe you are me. I, I appreciate that. Oh, we’re super. You guys do incredible work.
AJV (00:02:13):
And I told I told Robin before we hit record that, you know, Rory has been like, listen, y’all got to meet each other. I feel like you have the same personality, you got the same hair color. You guys have so much going on. And so I’m really excited to introduce you to the show. And, you know, one of the things, I just wanna share this quick story because I think this is a really powerful component of what a lot of people struggle with listening or not. And I asked Robin right before we hit record, Hey, I didn’t get a call to action A CTA for the show notes. Is there any sort of call to action that you want me to give? And she was bold enough to say, well, you know what? Not really. I don’t think a lot of your audience are managed service providers. And if you’re not an MSP, I don’t really want you don’t, don’t
RR (00:03:00):
Clutter out. It sounds really hurtful when you say it that way. , don’t
AJV (00:03:03):
Clutter out my lead magnets. You know, but here’s, here’s why. I think that’s a really important story to tell. That is not what most people say. I have never once in the history of this show, which has now been running for six years with consistent two episodes every week, have anyone said, no, I don’t have a CTA for. And I think that’s significant because you have extreme clarity. Extreme clarity on who your avatar is, right? Yeah. And so let’s just start there for a second. ’cause I know most likely you didn’t start that way on day one, right? Right. And so what was the process? And you know, and this is, you know, for everyone listening, this is a conversation and entrepreneurship. But also Robin Robbins and her team who I know several people at her team really enjoy. Everyone I’ve met at her team, but they are really some of the best people in the world at doing what they do. And they do it for a whole bunch of people in a really specific and niche way. But also I think that in addition to entrepreneurship, for everyone who’s listening, it’s really clarity and courage is, I think, a part of like, the theme of this. And so how did you, over the course of what, 20 years now, determine that this micro niche audience is the one that you wanted to serve? How did that come about?
RR (00:04:23):
Yeah, I think, well, let me kind of go all the way back to how I even start in business. ’cause I always describe myself as a very unlikely, uneducated, and reluctant entrepreneur. You know, I didn’t start this going, I’m gonna build, you know, we’re, we’re probably gonna land somewhere around 44, 40 5 million this year. I never in a million years thought I’d have that going on with, you know, 130, 140. I, I lose track how many employees were, we’re hiring more. I, I walked into the lunch true store. I walked into the lunchroom, and we have two offices. And I, there was like someone standing there and I’m like, hi, who are you? Right? like two people. I mean, I knew what one who one was, there’s like two hires. I don’t even know their names. It’s so embarrassing. It’s terrible. I came home, I was so just, oh, I just wanted to die.
RR (00:05:10):
But so . But I started out, I got fired from a job, and it was in right after nine 11 happened. I was in sales. I got fired from the job because I refused to sign a contract they wanted me to sign. I was working there for about a year, and they made it contingent on, on getting a bonus that I had earned. And I took it to an attorney and he advised me, he is like, I wouldn’t sign this. You know, he’s like, I, I, this is crazy. So I didn’t, I got fired. And so I had to replace that income pretty quick. And things were a little weird after nine 11, if you remember. I don’t know if we were in a recession or what, you know, but it wasn’t like, like a booming economy, right? So I started just, I’ve always been good in sales.
RR (00:05:52):
I’ve learned sales from, from early on. So I just started reaching out to people saying, Hey, I’m independent. started my own thing. And wanna know if you are you know, looking for somebody who’s really good at marketing sales. Like, I, I was very good at writing copy. I, I learned copywriting mostly from Dan Kennedy, but I’ve studied copywriting. So I knew how to write copy. And I knew digital marketing pretty well back then. Digital marketing was like overture. ’cause Google wasn’t even invented yet in email marketing. I was really good at that. So I just started reaching out and I started getting a couple side hustles here, there, a couple people said yes. But I was still actively looking for a job. And then somewhere around, I don’t know, maybe three, four months in, I had enough money coming in that I thought, you know, I might be able to make this work.
RR (00:06:44):
So I continued to look for a job. And but I started just like doing this consulting thing. And I didn’t know what it was. I just, you know, I didn’t, like, I had a website. I had to barter for a website. I didn’t have enough money to buy a website. So I bartered with, there was a web design company and I said, Hey, I’ll, they needed help, I think with like, some copywriting. And I said, Hey, I’ll, I’ll write copy if you’ll do my design, my website. So that was a barter, right? So, you know, I just started out like this. And then at that point when I said, I, I think I could do this, you know, my client base consisted of a shipping company, an MRI imaging center. I had a computer training school. I had a self test software, like a test prep software company.
RR (00:07:30):
I had, who else? Goodness. It’s like, it’s all over the map. You know, there was, oh, I had a Bijan who was a spiritual advisor, right? You know, I mean, it was like this eclectic, anybody who could fog a mirror, wave a dollar, I wanted you , right? I mean, it was like, well, I was just, I had their breathing. They were good. Yeah. And that’s okay. ’cause I think everybody starts there. You’re very, you’re very scrappy when you start, right? And it’s a good thing that you’re scrappy, that’s how you get things done. But at some point, you gotta stop being scrappy and you gotta start being strategic because otherwise you’re just gonna end up with a scrap heap. Okay? So I started like thinking, okay, if I’m going to do this, who specifically do I want as my customer? And I started like thinking about niching either in like a, a, a, a service.
RR (00:08:17):
Like for example, I tested doing digital pay per click lead generation and getting paid by the lead and, you know, across different, so that was like a specialization, not in a, not in a avatar customer, but a in a thing, right? And and then I started to test in different industries and stuff. And so one of the big breakthroughs that I had is there was a company, I had an association with company called CompTIA. And I learned strategic partnerships or JV partnerships from J Abraham. So that’s, I started reaching out to, to people who had big lists and saying, Hey, I’m really good lead generation marketing. I mean, mean, my pitch was a little better than this, but saying I’m really good. How about I do a free webinar for your audience on marketing lead generation? And CompTIA was one of the companies that said yes.
RR (00:09:03):
And I poured my heart soul into that and made it the best web. Well, it wasn’t even a webinar, it was a teleseminar. ’cause This is, you know, , I mean, we forget, you know, wasn’t that long ago. So I did this teleseminar. It worked out really great. And I used that to leverage to say, well, why don’t you hire me to do a series of four year members on lead generation marketing? And they agreed. So I sold them to pay me $5,000 a month to do this teleseminar. And then I spoke at their event. And what that started to do is that got me into the vertical I’m in today. Now, you know, MSPs, it’s funny ’cause people go like, what’s an Ms PI got yelled at on Facebook? Oh, surprise, surprise. Right? Because I had an ad that said MSPs used MSPs in the, in the word. And someone wrote below, like, you shouldn’t use acronyms in marketing, dummy, if you’re trying to get people, you know, you can’t use acronyms. And I’m like, and I wrote back, I said, if you don’t know what an MSP is, I don’t want you like go away. That’s exactly what’s supposed to happen. Not a
AJV (00:09:56):
Prospect. Yeah,
RR (00:09:57):
Yeah, yeah. And, and stop comment commenting on my ad. ’cause You’re gonna get, you’re gonna just drive reaction to stupid people. ’cause You know what I mean? , the, the engagements, like, you know what I mean? The engagements beget more, right? So, you know, I, I get come to do this. I start getting some customers, at the time they were called more var, value added reseller. I, they’re, they’re basically companies that sell outsourced IT services and support. And they love acronyms in this industry. So MSP is a relatively new term. And I started getting those customers two, then three, then four, then five from this paid engagement that I had done. Which by the way, isn’t a lesson of itself. Like, I really know how to do strategic partnerships extremely well. And if you can leverage into finding a way to support somebody else’s agenda of what they’re doing or solve a need for them, associations need engagement.
RR (00:10:50):
I can provide a lot of engagement because people are very interested in sales and marketing. They were paying me to do this. So, so that’s how I got into this vertical. And there was a point, and that this is a true story. So I made a decision. I said, this is it. This is my industry. I’m gonna double down on it. I’m gonna go all in. And it took me, you know, that was like a, I got laid off like January of two, of two of 2002. And by the end of that year, I had incorporated technology marketing toolkit. And the reason for the name is technology marketing. I wanted that keyword at the time. Having keywords in your URL was like a big deal. And technology marketing was already taken. So I just slapped on toolkit and called it a day. So that’s the science behind the name. So anyway, so I, I, you know, I get started here and I started to fire my other customers and say, look, I’m, I can’t do this anymore. I gotta have all my effort and energy on this particular vertical.
AJV (00:11:43):
Can we pause right there for a second?
RR (00:11:45):
Yeah.
AJV (00:11:46):
Most people don’t do that. Yeah.
AJV (00:11:48):
At all. And I think it would be really helpful to understand, like, one, like what is it about you or the understanding, I think a lot of, you’ve already said it’s, it’s, you gotta go from scrappy to strategic. You did that pretty quickly. Mm-Hmm. . However, most people still struggle today with letting go of the customers that they know they shouldn’t be working with because there’s some scarcity, right? So what would be some tips or advice for the person who has a split audience of these are the people I really wanna be working with. These are the people I know I should let go, but I’m not.
RR (00:12:21):
Yeah, I mean, it’s a mindset. So it is like, is this true story? Like I still wasn’t making a lot of money. I was still teaching fitness classes. I used to teach aerobics classes two, three times a day to pay the rent while I was trying to get the thing going. Right? Best shape of my life had shin splints that were from hell. But, you know I’m serious. It was like it, this, it was real. I mean, this is real story I’m not making up. And you know, I had, I had somebody who, you know, I talked to and they wanted to hire me as a consultant, weren’t an MSP. And I said, I’m sorry, I’m just not taking anybody who’s not an MSP at this time. And they said, oh, you are so full of it. You know? And they mailed me the check.
RR (00:12:58):
Anyway, so I, I mean, here I am, I’m barely making the rent. And I get a check. I’ll never forget, it was for $795. That’s what I was charging, like, on a monthly basis, right? And they mailed me this check, and I look at this check and I think, oh, you know, I could just go another month or whatever. And I was like, Nope. I, I put it back in the envelope, I mailed it back to the person and I said, sorry, I’m not taking you. And that’s a true story. And it wasn’t like I had a mentor or coach. I don’t know. I would, I’ve been in sales and I just know your company, the, the health, the profitability, your whole company rides on the who, who is the customer. And if you have a disease, dysfunctional, broke bad, wrong fit customer, your business can never succeed.
RR (00:13:52):
Ever. Like, ever. And so, like, you know, like I had a friend and I won’t mention the name just because I don’t wanna make, you know, it’s not a bad story, I just don’t wanna make ’em feel bad. But they were getting started in information marketing, you know, trying to be a guru and whatnot. And in this, and it was an attorney. And she comes to me and she’s like, Hey, you know, I’m selling, I’ve been selling this course for like, you know, 1995, whatever, some real cheap price, right? I’m selling this and I’m really struggling to sell. I’m trying to send people dah, dah, dah. She’s gonna, I said, stop. I said, the cheapest thing I sell is $2,000. The problem you have is you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re wearing yourself out trying to make a $20 sale to somebody who feels like $20 is a lot of money.
RR (00:14:39):
And that’s why you’re having all these other problems in your business. Like, go upstream. And, and it was like a light bulb went on because so many people teach, oh, we’ll just have the tripwire product or offer a service or whatever. And I did that too. And it, and there is a place for it. But I think at the same time, like as I’ve grown my business, you know, now today we went from selling like an info product, you know, for $500, $700 to where we sell now, two year, three year memberships. The cheapest being $24,000 total. I mean, a thousand dollars a month, that’s the cheapest all the way up, you know, to, to double that. And, and we, we sign on two year contract and we don’t do a money back guarantee. So like, that’s unheard of. But every time I have stepped up and taken a like harder stance on who I take as a customer, the more the business has grown.
RR (00:15:37):
Love that. And it’s, it’s, it doesn’t make sense lot. Like you sit there and you go, well, if you offer cheap products, you think you’d get more people. If you had a money back guarantee, you’re gonna get more customers. And you’re right. But you get the wrong ones. You get the ones who aren’t serious, the ones that are just gonna buy it. And then we used to have an, a massive, maybe you’ve seen this selling information products. We used to have a mass refund issue right after Thanksgiving because everybody would be like looking around and they’re sofa for two nickels to buy Christmas presents. And they would look on the shelf and they’d see my product there and they’d go, oh, wait a minute. That’s a money back guarantee. And they would call us and say, I want my money back. It doesn’t work. Or some of ’em were honest and just said, I need money for Christmas presents.
RR (00:16:17):
Right? Or I haven’t opened a thing, I haven’t used it, so I just wanna return it. And so those are not the people I want is customers. Yeah. So there’s, I, there’s a balance there. You know, when you’re just starting, you don’t wanna make it too difficult to be your customer, but at the same time, you don’t wanna hold onto that strategy forever. What gets you started might not sustain you. And you really gotta take a look at who is my customer? And I’m in a vertical, but I’m also just trying to get the top 15, 10% of this industry. Because I know 80% of the 80% is the Pareto principle. 80% are gonna be worthless, useless broke. I mean, if you look at the stats, only only 4% of companies, all companies in America ever break the million dollar mark. Only 4%. So that means, for the most part, 96% are worthless to you.
RR (00:17:09):
Right? I’m talking businesses, and I don’t mean worthless as human beings. I mean worthless, like from a standpoint of getting a cash check out of ’em, right? Then, only 0.4% ever get beyond the $10 million mark. And so you start to really see, you are dealing in tiny, tiny percentages. And the question is, do you want like a hundred percent of the bottom or do you want just like a 10% of the top of the cream? And so now it takes time. ’cause You gotta build a reputation. You gotta build a brand, which is what you guys teach a hundred percent. Everything you guys teach is, is spot on. I think what we’re talking about here is an emotional strength. Mm-Hmm. . ’cause People get scared. They go like, I’ll, I’ll tell you one other story. True story client. I’m talking about niching. ’cause I do teach this in my, to my clients.
RR (00:17:58):
I’m like, you gotta have a target customer profile, and you’ve got to make sure you don’t get shiny penny syndrome, where everybody comes at you like, oh, there’s a dollar over here. Oh, there’s $5 over here. Oh, there’s, because you start to water down and you’re not for somebody specifically. So I’m teaching this to an audience and this cute little couple come up, they’re a little, you know, married couple running an MSP probably under a million dollars in revenue, pretty small, nice, sweet people. And they say, Robin, you know, they come to me on break. And they’re like, intellectually, we know what you’re saying is true and right and correct, but we’re just scared because we’re trying to, you know, we’re, we’re barely making it as it is. And if we pick a particular customer, if we niche, then we’re gonna stop people from doing business with us.
RR (00:18:46):
And I said, okay, well, tell me a little bit about what’s been going on in the, in your business. It was like, this was a, in the fall of last year. And so it was like, you know, I said, tell me like this year, how many new, tell me about the lead flow. Where are you getting customers? And they kind of like, get this really sheepish look on their face and they look at each other and they go, well, we haven’t gotten any customers. And I say, well, who the hell are you trying to keep out then? Who cares? Like, you know, you can’t get worse, right? And they kind of laughed and they, and they realize, I’m like, you’ll find that you actually get more customers when you’re for somebody, specifically when I can say, here’s who my customer is, specifically from a demographic and a psychographic position.
RR (00:19:26):
I know you teach both of those things, right? So I don’t have to explain that to these people. But you know, when you really know, like one of the things that’s really important for me is I gotta have customers that have true, honest ambition. If they don’t have honest ambition to grow, to make more money, to serve more, to build enterprise value in their business, not just make more money. They are not of any use to me because I can’t scale that customer. They’re, they, I can make a quick buck on ’em, but I can’t build an asset. I can’t build enterprise value of my company if I get the wrong customer.
AJV (00:20:01):
You know? I love that. And it’s so interesting because we have this conversation often with our community as well at Brand Builders group. And I was actually on a call yesterday and I literally had this exact same conversation and I just asked this individual, who is your ideal speaking client? Like, if you were to tell me the perfect audience, who would it be? And she was like, well, women, any woman. And then she said, well, no, wait it could be women or you know what, just salespeople, anyone in sales. And then she was like, but you know, really it’s just anyone who believes in mental health. And I’m like, women in sales who believe in mental, no, no, no. Anyone like that. And I was like, so where do you find those people? And she was like, that’s just it. It’s, it’s anyone.
AJV (00:20:47):
It’s, it’s everyone. And it was like this aha moment. And I’m like, okay, . Well, how, how am I supposed to help you? If it’s anyone? Because if it’s anyone, then I can’t think of anyone because I, my brain doesn’t work that way. My brain needs to it to be narrowed down and specific so I can actually know what you do, who you do it for, and then maybe I could talk to you. And, and I think it’s a lot of those things that I, a lot of people that we run into it have very similar conversations. I’m sure you do with your clients of going, well, I could do this for anyone, anyone who has a business I could help.
RR (00:21:25):
And you can’t. Right? I was, I’m looking right now, there’s a, there’s another little story and I wanna, ’cause I wanna get the numbers right. But yeah, so I had a client that she calls me up very, very excited runs an MSP that’s in New York City now, a couple years ago, their New York state implemented a law that’s called the SHIELD Act. And the SHIELD Act is a legal requirement for businesses to protect data that they have from cyber crime, ransomware, et cetera. So what, you know, for example, you have to have good backups. You have to have proper cybersecurity protocols in place. And she, she’s her and her husband super excited. A lot of my, a lot of my it sounds like I have all women for customers, but I really don’t. But she’s like super excited and she’s like, Robin, we gotta create a campaign.
RR (00:22:16):
And I said, okay, great. Who are we targeting? And she goes, well, all small businesses in New York City or New York State, really? I said, okay, well you are kind of right outside New York. Can you service people outside of your geographic area? Well, maybe, but not really. So maybe if we just said New York City, I said, okay, well how many small businesses are in the New York City metropolitan area? And she said, that’s why I wanted to look. I did a search in her geographic area where she was, if I just went like a 45 minute to an hour drive from her location, there were 22,000 businesses in her in that area. And I said, okay, so what’s your budget to market to these 22,000? And she says, well, we might be able to swing a thousand bucks . And I laughed. And I said yeah, you can’t even, like, that’s a fart in a windstorm, darling.
RR (00:23:15):
No one’s gonna know you did it. But you, if that’s all you’re spending to get to 22,000, you gotta narrow this down because you can’t boil the ocean. Yeah. You know, it’s like a term, you can’t boil the ocean. So like, we gotta have, the other part you have to think about is you, I think Seth Godin uses this term is the smallest viable audience. And what that means is, you know, what’s an audience that you could legitimately serve that are the lowest hanging fruit, the highest probability, the, the, the right fit? And it’s gonna be small. And as your business grows and you have more people who can, who can you can sell to as you have more resources and finances and stuff like that, you know, you can, you can expand that. Now, like with us, we haven’t really expanded our niche.
RR (00:24:04):
My niche is only MSPs in North America or English speaking countries like Canada, the UK and Australia. Now, do we have clients everywhere else? Yes, we do. But they find us and they buy, but we don’t pursue them. So really our list is only about, there’s only about 27,000. I think I just looked at this number. It’s like 27,000, 28,000 total in my universe. Total. That’s not a very big universe, right? And so again, people say to me, well, you know, how do you grow this business if you narrow it down so much is because you’re hyper-specific, because your services that you have price elasticity, meaning you can charge more when you specialize. It’s easier to find people, it’s easier to get referrals, it’s easier to get strategic partners. Because when you really know, here’s who my people are and where they go, you just put a hundred percent of your efforts there and you get exponential returns versus just spreading it out wide and thin and hoping you hit the right person.
AJV (00:25:02):
You know, like one of the things that you just said that I think is really valuable is, you know, your name comes up in various conversations, just anyone we’re talking about memberships, technology, recurring revenue comes up in those spaces, which is where we live. And I think one of the things that, and what enables you to do when you decide like, this is my niche audience. I don’t need tens of thousands, like 20, 27,000 is what you said, right? Most people listening to this couldn’t serve 27,000 people if they wanted to. Most couldn’t serve a thousand if they wanted to. Most people are trying to serve dozens, maybe hundreds, but definitely not even in the thousands. But we’re trying to reach millions for some reason when we’re only trying to really serve dozens or hundreds. But what I heard you saying is that when you go super niche, you start to start to know everyone in the industry, right? And it’s like, and you start to become known in the industry because it’s a smaller community, which is thus makes it easier for you to do what you do really well and become known. Sure. Was that, is that fair?
RR (00:26:08):
Yeah. No, I mean, we have so active members. So we have clients and then we have members that are members of a peer group or a membership. We’re just, just, we’ll cross the 1500 mark of, so 1,500 people who are in a membership active customers. Our, our industry has gone over under massive m and a, right? So two trends that are going on a lot of mergers and acquisitions, we lose our best customers ’cause they get bought UN unfortunately I say unfortunately for us, I mean, I’m very happy for them, but they get bought and so they go away as a customer ’cause they just sold their business, right? So m and a and then there’s been a cropping up of a lot of newbies and they fail very quickly because this industry that we’re in has gotten more difficult to be, it’s more difficult to be an MSP today than it was 10 years ago.
RR (00:26:56):
Without a doubt. It costs more money, it’s more difficult to get customers, everything else. So, you know, we have about 1500 members in peer groups, which is the largest peer group in our industry. And we also, we have about, I’d say about 6,000 active clients and that have bought a program, have come to a seminar, have, have done something like that. So that’s not a lot like you think, I mean, the core of our revenue is coming from 1500 MSPs. Then we also do sponsorship, which kind of lays on top of that. So we’ll do about 10 million of our revenue this year. Nine 10 million is gonna be in sponsorship dollars for events that we, that we run. And there’s probably a list, our core sponsors, there’s about a hundred 150 core sponsors. And then we’re always kind of you know, leveraging like always trying to find new ones.
RR (00:27:47):
But, you know, that’s not, you know, that’s not massive. That’s not a massive list. That’s not a massive number of customers. It’s about just being very strategic and smart with what you’re offering. And again, like, so if you’re a guru, so think about it this way too. You know, you’re only gonna get a very tiny percentage of an audience to buy because most people are not interested in growing, making more money. I, I mean they’re just not like the nature of what we do, which is selling advice. There’s it, you, you are wired like you, you know, AJ you, me, everybody listening, you guys are wired differently ’cause you’re on this. Just the fact that you’re listening to this tells me a lot about you. That you’re ambitious, that you wanna grow, you wanna make more money that excites you. That does not excite the majority of people.
RR (00:28:37):
I mean, like, I, I listen to my, my, my salespeople make calls. I listen to their calls and they had this guy on. He’s like, I don’t know. He is under a million dollars in revenue. He is not setting the world on fire. And we’re like, Hey, we can, we got a program that can that is, that we can guarantee we’ll help you increase your sales, your profitability, get better customers. Indoor. It’s not like guesswork. We’ve been doing this for two decades. We’ve refined it, perfected it. I mean like it works. He’s like, you know, I’m good . He said, he’s like, I got a couple customers and I feel blessed and I I’m good. And like, so there’s a lot of, you know, if you’re an advice giver, you gotta understand the percentage of people who are even gonna buy from you are so small. Hmm. And the more you try to water down your message to appeal to the bottom 80% who are never gonna buy. And if they do buy, it’s by accident. They don’t ascend. They don’t spend more money. Like you, you, they don’t even stay. Yeah, no, they, that’s what I’m saying. That you can’t develop them into good customers. And you, you change everything because you’re trying to appeal to too many. And by doing that, you water it down for the ones that you really, really, really want.
AJV (00:29:47):
I love that. I think this is like some of the most important strategic advice that anyone could hear at any stage of your business. Because I know everyone is tempted to this and you said it’s earlier, it’s like this is more of a, an emotional dilemma. A hundred percent that you got to battle and fight as the business owner, as the entrepreneur, or even as the salesperson, right? ’cause You can just get diluted at any level. At any stage. And that would be like, my next question for you is like, how have you kept this ability to stay so focused and so niche as you’ve grown where you’re not doing the sales calls anymore and you have all of these layers. Like how have you been able to pass this down? So the team that is now selling on behalf of the company is being just as integrous to the quality of the customer as you would be.
RR (00:30:32):
Well, you never, I mean that, see, you say it’s just as, as as it would be for me. You’re not, that’s not gonna happen. So part of the realization is, you know, when you start hiring people, now I this whole saying of, oh, I’ll hire people that are smarter than you. You know, and then just get outta, well, look, if, so there’s so, like my web designers are smarter than me when it comes to designing a website. I don’t even know how to do it. My, you know, my marketing team who runs all the, the tech that, that does the backend when we do webinars and all that, like, I don’t know how to do that. They’re smarter than me on that stuff, right? But like, you get sales and marketing people, like, it’s gonna be very, very rare. And I do have some people on my team that are as good or better than me in certain aspects of marketing, right?
RR (00:31:22):
But the vast majority are not. And that’s okay. ’cause They don’t need to be as good as you now. They have to have integrity. I mean, we have it painted on our wall. The North Star is the attraction, the development, the retention of raving fan customers, right? So that’s on our, that’s not some BS that we put on a motivational poster. We really believe it. We really, so everybody’s gotta be bought into that. They gotta be bought into excellence, no drama, hard work, teamwork, all those things. But the reality is, as you grow your business, not every single person is going to be as good as you. And if you don’t, if you can’t accept that, you’re not going to grow. Okay. So I was at a I’ll, I’ll tell you. So I was at a mastermind meeting with Joe Polish. You might, you know
AJV (00:32:10):
Yeah. Genius network.
RR (00:32:11):
Yeah. Yeah. I was actually, I get the claim to fame. I was the one who gave him the idea. I was the first member. Right? Oh,
AJV (00:32:16):
That’s awesome. .
RR (00:32:17):
Yeah. So anyway, so I was, it was, I don’t know if it was like, yeah, I don’t know if he called it Genius Network at the time, whatever. I was at a meeting where Joe, you know, and he had a guy, and I don’t remember the guy’s name. All I remember is he was the, he owned about a hundred franchise restaurants in like the, a Arizona area, right? And his, he was talking about what it takes to scale and grow. And he says, you know, and I’m gonna paraphrase what he said, but he says, you know, the problem is when you have one or two restaurants or three or four or five, he said, you’re still small enough where you can, you know, run over to the, the restaurant that has a plumbing leak and you can start putting towels on the floor or the bathroom’s not cleaned.
RR (00:33:03):
You can jump in there and get it cleaned. Or you can run behind the cash register and take care of that. Or you can. And he says, and that’s what drives you nuts, is the abil. You’re still small enough where you’re trying to keep your hand in everything. He said, when you get to a hundred franchises, you can’t, you cannot do that anymore. You have to depend on people. And you start running the business by the numbers. So you go, I remember I was saying, so I’m like, okay, so we only had like one sexual harassment lawsuit, so that’s good. ’cause That’s within the range. And we only food poison like five people. And that’s good. ’cause That’s within the acceptable, now I’m serious and everybody was laughing, but to us it would be horrible. Like you, like I are you kidding? That would tear.
RR (00:33:42):
Like, I don’t want that to happen to my employees. I don’t want that to my customers. But as you scale a company, if you, the bigger you get, the harder it is to re to maintain that same level of quality and integrity. Now you fight for it. You fight for it. You have, and the key to it though, and, and I’m telling you, I’ve just, it’s the key to it is the leaders you then hire, not the employees, but the leaders. Because the leader, you are the leader of your team right now. And you are the constraint. You know, a great leader frees up capacity for their people and their department and their co or their organization to expand. And what happens is, as you grow, and this has happened to me multiple times, someone who’s really good when you’re 20 million is no longer good when you’re 40 million it or somebody good when you’re at a million is no longer a good, when you’re at 2 million, you have doubled the size of your org.
RR (00:34:36):
And what happens is we have good people, and sometimes we feel very loyal to them. But there’s a thing called the pita principle. And you, you’ve, you, your org outgrows their capacity or their pro their their pro. You try to promote ’em. But they’re, yeah, they’re, it’s beyond their skillset, right? They, you know, and, and so some people can grow with you and others can’t. Now if they’re good people, you retain them, but you put ’em in different seats if you can, right? Because great people are very hard to come by. And you want that, that loyalty is important. But I think also to grow an organization, the only way you’re going to do it is by hiring great leaders who lead your sales team, who lead your marketing efforts, who lead your operations, who lead your financial ser the financial services, the person who you know, leads hr.
RR (00:35:26):
Like, that is the only way you grow. And as you grow, unfortunately, you’re gonna have to swap out leaders because very, very, very few people can stay with you long term. Now, I have a couple like Jeff Johnson who works with me. Jeff’s president of the company. Jeff’s been with me forever. He has stepped up and scaled as we’ve grown the company. He’s matured, he’s grown. Nicole, she’s matured, she’s grown. She’s my COO. So there are, there, there are those people. So there, I’m not saying it’s impossible, but there are a lot of leaders I’ve hired that had that you just have to fire ’em because a bad leader in an organization can destroy your organization. So to grow, and this was a lesson that took me a long time to learn. ’cause I didn’t like hiring people. I don’t consider myself a great leader of people.
RR (00:36:08):
I’m a very good sales person. I’m a great copywriter. I’m a great marketer. I great at strategy, but hiring leaders and running an org is a different skill. And I’m aware of my shortcoming. So I have to hire people that are great at those things because, and then step back, not step away because I’m still very involved. I’m still watching what’s going on. I’m looking at the numbers I’m looking at. I see there’s this, oh, well you hire someone, you abdicate No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. You micromanage until they, you, you’re riding lockstep with them for months, a year before you can really start to step away. And they have earned your trust that, see, this is like, that’s another, you can’t just hire someone and look the other way and say, give ’em the two part training of good luck and hang in there.
RR (00:36:55):
It doesn’t happen. You know, because then you, next thing you know, the whole department’s blowing up and you look and you go, what the hell? We’ve drifted so far from our vision, from our core values, from our like, and now you got, now you got real collateral damage. And that’s happened to me on several occasions. So I’ve learned it. And if you’re gonna grow an org yeah, you, you, well, you have to decide that you want to grow. And then it’s about hiring those leaders on the team that will grow those divisions for you.
AJV (00:37:23):
No, I love that. You know, as you were talking, I was at, I was at a recent mastermind trading, and Craig Rochelle was one of the speakers. And you know, he’s a, he’s an author, but is, you know, he’s the lead pastor at Life Church, which is now like the largest multi-campus church in the world, I believe. And like, one of the things that he said is he said, you can have control or you can have growth, you cannot have both. Right? And it’s like, there is a part of this and it’s just what you just said, it’s like you never expect that they will do it as good as you or like you, they can be better than you in some areas and you’re better than them in some areas. But this whole idea of you’re gonna be the one doing all the interviews and all the things he is like, you can do that and not grow.
RR (00:38:07):
That’s, well, I mean, I think you can still have control. I mean that’s, I would disagree. I I know what he’s saying. His intention is if, like, if I wanna grow the sales department, I have to hire a sales leader who can recruit on, design the onboarding, do the training, do the daily coaching, do the looking at the list, do the day-to-day stuff to run that org. I cannot do that and be CEO That’s two different, it’s two more than full-time jobs. I can’t do both. So from that per that perspective, that kind of control, yes, you have to give up the work of doing these things, but you should still have some control and maintain and insights into what’s going on. You gotta maintain control from the standpoint of the strategy. Mm-Hmm. You know, ’cause someone said to me the other day, they’re like, well, are you that kind of person where you know, you, you know, you, where you, you don’t let, you don’t let anyone do anything outside of the ideas that you have.
RR (00:39:03):
And I said, well, well, no, I’m open to new ideas, but I believe in you imitate before you innovate. Mm-Hmm. , weve got something that’s working. I want you to pick the ball up and get it, keep it going so I can step away. That’s step one. And then I wanna see you grow it. But I think you know it. But saying like, I gotta know what they’re doing. Mm-Hmm. , right? I like, if I ha like, and this happened to me years and years ago. I hired a salesperson and, and, and I’m, I’m telling him, I’m like, Hey here’s the training, here’s the process. You know, and I, but I didn’t really monitor what was going on. And three months later, sales are in the toilet. I’ve got angry phone calls coming. I’m like, what is going on? And I look at what he was doing.
RR (00:39:45):
He was like emailing people. He is making these promises that there was no, they, they were like unethical. ’cause They’re not things that we provide and could get us in legal trouble. So it, so I, my my mistake is I let too much control Mm-Hmm. . So I don’t, I still think you have to maintain a, a visual, you gotta know what’s going on. What you let up is the doing of the phone calls, the doing of the work, but with oversight. And it takes a long time for you to really be able to trust somebody and say, go do it. Right? Even then, I still wanna know, kind of tell me what you’re doing where, ’cause I still wanna know what’s going on. It is your responsibility as leader and CEO to know what’s going on in your org. You can’t hear every conversation.
RR (00:40:32):
You can’t do every job. I get that. But you still need to maintain an understanding because somebody in your billing department could be doing something that could be destroying relationships, putting you in legal trouble churning customers. And it’s just because you’re not, you say, well, you don’t have control. Right? But you don’t have visuals on it. So I, I just wanna be really clear. There’s, I i, I get really crazy when people are just like, well no, you just hire smarter people than you and get outta their way’s. Not exactly how, you know. Yes, but not exactly like that. Yeah.
AJV (00:41:07):
I’m laughing because I now know, right? When Rory says, oh my gosh, y’all are like the same person. I now know why like . I’m like, I, I’m, I’m tickled inside because I’m like, oh yeah, now I know what he is talking about. Because I think there is so much of That’s true. You know, and I think one of the things that I just, I hope that you guys are listening who are listening, you what one of the things that you hear, and I, I must wanna reiterate this ’cause I wrote it down as a great reminder even for our team. It’s like you step back, you don’t step away, right? And I think that’s kind of summing up what you’re saying. It’s like you have to understand what are the things that you have to relent on and release that someone else can do with your oversight? And what do you always keep control over? And I think that was a really important thing. It’s like, I believe this is at least my opinion, regardless if you or even else Greece, it’s like, my job as a CEO is to set strategy. That is my, that’s my role. That’s not every CEO’s role, but for me, like, that is my gifting.
RR (00:42:04):
No, that is your job as ceo. Your job is to say, here’s who our customer is. Here’s what our services are, here’s what our brand promises, here’s what our core values are. Here’s how we’re gonna make money in this thing. Like you’ve gotta create your financial model. Here’s who we’re gonna have on the team. Here’s who we’re not gonna have on the team. And set standards and make sure those standards are met. So you think about like your children now, you know, it’s not exactly the same. ’cause Children kind of mature, you know, at, at, at an age. Employees mature faster, let’s say. But you know, like as your child grows, you wanna step back a little bit and let them learn to tire their shoes and let them learn how to cook something. Like, I’m like, I’m freaking out. Like my, the rule in my house with my girls, you know, and they’re old enough, they’re 10 and 14 is they’re not allowed to cook anything when we’re not there.
RR (00:42:54):
‘Cause Sometimes like I’ll walk the dog, like I’ll leave them for a little bit. I’ll walk the dog down the street, come back. Right? No cooking of anything if my, if I’m not here, right. You know, so you, you step back and you give them, you have to give them freedom to grow and learn, but you don’t like, like not get involved in their lives. You know? I mean that’s like, you still have to maintain control. Who are they hanging out with? What are they eating? What are they reading? What are they watching on, on digital? Like if you don’t maintain control of the, of their phones. Mm-Hmm. , you’re gonna have a dis you know, dysfunctional child. So there’s this concept of control and it’s a bad thing and you’re a micromanager. It’s like, yeah, I’m gonna micromanage you until I can know that you know how to do it and do it well.
RR (00:43:42):
And I can trust you to make good decisions and trust that you know what to do. It’s not to say that they won’t make mistakes, it’s just a matter of like, it’s not fair to your team to throw ’em into the wild and expect them to somehow know how to produce a result with no leadership, no training. No guidance, no resources. No, you, I mean, it’s the biggest complaint I hear. We have marketing managers that come to us in our program or salespeople and they’re like, Hey Robin, can you help me out? I don’t, what do I do? And I’m like, well, what’s your job description? Like, what were you hired to do? No idea. So how are you measured? How do you know you’re doing a good job? No idea. I’m like, well, how do you get paid? And they’re like, you know, it’s like I’m serious.
RR (00:44:25):
Like they have someone hired ’em and they put, gave ’em like a stamp of saying, okay, you’re in marketing. Here’s Robin’s program. Go implement it. And it’s just, that’s not leadership. Mm-Hmm. . You know, and that’s what they’re like, well I hired a smart marketing person. They should be able to figure it out. That’s, no, that’s, that’s stupidity, right? You, you, you hire a smart marketing person, you work with them, you walk with them, you coach them, you make sure they understand the DNA of the company and your strategy and your customers and everything else. And then you slowly, like some people get it really quick and you can step back really quick. I have somebody I just hired, her name’s Kelly, and she is a badass woman. I love her. I’m like, but I’m still like, we’re still, we ride, we, we talk every day.
RR (00:45:09):
You know, we’re like, I don’t just like, I didn’t just abdicate say, okay, have a good day, you know, figure it out. Go out. She’s my, my chief revenue officer. But so, but it’s gonna take a year for her to really, I have to be with her. ’cause I know the history. I know where the bodies are buried. I know what we’ve tried in the past that worked in, didn’t work. And so even somebody who’s a very high protein, high level person still needs this CEO leader to be there and, and walk with them. Right? And I know I can step away very quick quickly ’cause I trust her. I think she’s got high integrity, she’s got a lot of experience. She’s grown things in the past. She’s bringing ideas and strategies I haven’t thought about. But even then I don’t just go, okay, well here’s your salary and go, go get it. I still have to mean a control over what’s going on in the org.
AJV (00:45:53):
Yeah. And I think that’s really insightful of even when you make the hire doesn’t mean the other person takes over. Like, you’re gonna be with them on that journey through the process. And I, I couldn’t agree more. And I think one of the things is like, these are like true lessons and, and high level entrepreneurship. This is a difference between six figures to seven figures, seven figures to eight figures, eight figures to nine figures is understanding the balance of some of these things. Now I’ve got one last quick question for you. And then our time is almost up. You’ve been doing, you’ve been doing this 20 years, right? Almost same avatar the whole time. Super similar business model. I know it’s changed and evolved a little bit over the course of time. As you look back over the last 20 years, if there was one lesson as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a leader, however you wanna, you know, title that if there was one lesson that you’re like, I don’t care if these listeners take away anything else, as long as you hear this, this is what I want you to hear as we’re wrapping up,
RR (00:46:53):
No pressure. Like, you know, just take the Bible and can you boil it down to a single tweet? ’cause Yeah,
AJV (00:46:58):
That’s it. You,
RR (00:46:59):
That’s, you know, eternal salvation if you know this one lesson. Yeah. , .
RR (00:47:09):
You know, I, it’s, it’s so hard ’cause there’s so many things that I would say I think, you know, looking back, I, I wish I had trusted my gut more and had more confidence in what I thought was right versus being afraid or scared of what people would say. ’cause My gut has never been wrong. What that sense you get about a person or a deal or something like that. I just wish I could go back and say, trust your gut. Stand your ground. You’re, you, you know, it’s, you’re doing the right thing. And I think also in that, from that kind of a, a branch to that is there’s very, very few mistakes you can’t recover from. So even when things look absolutely like the worst you get, you make a hire that just nearly destroys your company. I had a period in my life AJ, where I it was early on I had about seven employees and in a period of under a month, or I mean under a year, sorry.
RR (00:48:16):
I had like five or six of ’em turnover. I had to fire one, I had to fire a bunch of ’em. I, and I had two. One of ’em stole my client list and went to a competitor and there was a lawsuit. And then they, they sued me for defamation, which was just frivolous. It was just kind of a bargaining chip to get me to stop chasing them. I had another employee who left and and was trashing me and like, just flat out lies on social media. And I had, another one I found was stealing money from me. I found another one that I, it just on and on like that all goes on. I had a very, a high profile client go south on me as well. Where that, again, this was very weird. Like this was a very low integrity person in what they did.
RR (00:49:02):
I’ll just leave it at that. So I have this massive turnover. I have this very high profile client going south on me. I found out I had had melanoma all in one year. All in one. I found out I had melanoma. Which, you know, and then on the end of the tail of that, after I, ’cause that was when I decided I wanted to have kids. I wasn’t sure I wanted to have kids. And I said to my husband before I went into the surgery, if I come out and I’m okay. ’cause We were, they were concerned. It had metastasized. And I said, I wanna have a family. And like literally three months afterwards, I get pregnant. I have a miscarriage. This is all happening in like a nine, 10 month period. Right. and I was, that was like the lowest of low I’ve ever been.
RR (00:49:49):
And, you know, I wish I could go back and tell myself, girl, you got this. Like, all this is bad. But in the end it’s all gonna work out, I promise you. But I couldn’t see it at the time. And, you know, I have a renewed faith in God and I wish I could go back and tell myself, he is your savior and he will, he will protect you. ’cause He was there. I just didn’t see him. Sorry, get emotional. ’cause It’s like that important. But I, I think it’s, you know, for all of you, I think there’s nothing that’s going to happen that you make a mistake. Like, I hired the wrong people. I trusted the wrong client. I made some bad decisions. That’s, that’s what it was. I mean, all that happened was my fault. I mean, I even went in tanning bed.
RR (00:50:33):
So the me melanoma, who the hell knows it was my fault, right? So it was all like things I had done. But I think just to trust your gut and know that in the end, if you just keep doing the right thing, you work hard, you take care of people, you do what’s necessary, not what’s expedient, not what’s easy, not the shortcuts. If you keep it, it, it, it will all, it will work out. And just have that confidence. ’cause You’re gonna get beat up. You’re gonna get your butt handed to you multiple times. You’re gonna make all kinds of mistakes. You’re gonna get people who, who rip you off and it’s going to anger you. And I’m telling you it’s not worth it. Like to go, I’ll show them, I’ll sue them. And then you get embroiled in it. Like I’m telling you guys, like, it’s, I think the thing for me is just keep doing what you’re doing, doing the right thing and it will work out. But trust your gut more. ’cause There was, there were signs and I just ignored those signs about the people that I had in my life at the time. And I was kind of afraid to make, make a stance or I was afraid to fire them, or I was afraid to say, no, I’m not doing that. Or I was afraid to say what need to be said. And I think going back, I should have, I should have done that more and then had just had faith in, in, in God that it, it will work out.
AJV (00:51:50):
You know what? I bet you’re not afraid to do those things anymore,
RR (00:51:54):
. Well, no, I’m not. I mean, and, and, and you know, again, the thing I’m just afraid of now today is I just don’t wanna hurt people. I don’t, I’ve gotta be careful like, ’cause I’m in a position of power and authority with people. And the thing that I worry about now is making sure that I just remember that I can run people over pretty quick. ’cause My mind’s going so fast and I get, I get like, I got a lot going on and I can come across too short and I forget to say, Hey, how are you today, ? And I forget to just, I forget to say, Hey, thank you, you know, Hey, you did a great job there. I I, because we’re going at a million miles an hour. You kind of get focused on the whack-a-mole where you’re what’s on fire and what’s wrong and what’s broken.
RR (00:52:34):
And I gotta remind myself, you know, there’s people around me that I gotta just be a little kinder with a little. And it’s, I gotta be very hyper aware of it because that’s not the mode that I’m used to. And that’s really it. Other than that, if I, if you serve people, I don’t focus on competition. I’ve got a ton of it. I’ve got people who copy me. You’re all gonna have copy. You know, it’s, it’s all gonna be okay. , that’s, I, you know, I just, just keep doing the right thing. Get smarter. What, listen to what AJ and Rory are telling you. They’re telling you the right thing. Be around other people who are like them in spirit. And you know, for me, my faith has been super important. I think, you know, for me, you know, and I’ll, I’ll leave you with one other thing, aj.
RR (00:53:16):
I hope I’m probably telling you way more than you need. But, you know, one of the things I never, when I started my business, I never wanted to be an influencer. Like, I never wanted to be the one on stage the guru. Like, I, I did it because I saw it as a means to selling stuff, not as a means. Because I like to be on stage. I’m, and I mean this sincerely, if I was never on stage again, wouldn’t hurt my feelings. I don’t mind doing it. But it’s not like my favorite thing in the world, right? I just, I’m kind of neutral about it. In fact, I’d rather be behind the scenes than on stage if I had, if I had my, my preference, right? But, you know, so much of your business gets wrapped up in your ego because you go, well, hey, I don’t have a million followers on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook and all these things.
RR (00:54:02):
And we see these people who are doing amazing. I’m not taking away from ’em. I mean, they have these millions of views for a reason. They’re, they have incredible, incredible messages and stuff. And I’m not, I’m not, I don’t mean this in a jealous way. What I mean, it is, you can get caught up in that and feel like, you know, what, if I’m not relevant anymore, what am I gonna do if this thing doesn’t work out? Like, I’ve gotta be, I gotta be more popular. I gotta be get more likes. I gotta get more clicks. I gotta get more. I, if I don’t, I’m a failure. Right? And I started having those feelings quite a bit and it was, it made me nervous. ’cause I felt like the business kind of rose on that. Right? And, and again, I think my faith in God, just coming back to that is that is an earthly prize that, you know what?
RR (00:54:46):
I don’t need to get wrapped up in that. I just need to take care of people. I need to work hard. I need to do the right thing. And it’s okay if I’m not the most popular YouTuber or Facebook person or whatever, and not to get wrapped up in that too much. You know, because I, I can tell you this, I know a lot of very wealthy successful people that you all never heard of. Yeah. I mean, I know of billionaires and multimillionaires, none of you have ever heard of running an IT business, running a software company that you guys, if I said it, you would never know who the heck I’m talking about. Right? So it’s possible to run a great business without having all these fans, followers. Now I’m not, again, I’m not, please don’t misunderstand me. They’re important. Totally.
AJV (00:55:30):
I totally agree with you though. Okay. So
RR (00:55:31):
I’m just saying like for your spirit, I just don’t get too caught up where you feel like you’re failure if you’re not as popular. ’cause You look at my YouTube channel, you look at my Facebook, you’re like, I get like three people liking it. That’s it.
AJV (00:55:42):
I mean, I’m definitely not all that different. I mean, we run a personal brand strategy firm and I’m like, well, don’t go look at mine because that’s like, I’ve never had roughly more than what I have right now. It’s 10,000 followers. And like one of my personal mantras is that you do not have to have millions of followers to make millions of dollars, and you do not have to make millions of dollars to make a massive and eternal impact. Right. And it’s like a
RR (00:56:05):
Hundred percent. That’s what I’m saying, what you’re saying. Yep, a hundred percent.
AJV (00:56:07):
And you know, and I love what you said, and it’s like I’ve been reading a lot through the Old Testament right now, and we’ll kind of like, I know wrap in this, but it’s like, one of the things that I’ve been, I’ve been holding on to is like, just like gold where we are refined through the fire, right? And it’s like nobody looks back and says, oh my gosh, that success, that victory, it defined me. I learned everything I know. And I had this victorious thing that happened. It’s like nobody says that. I look back and go, like that valley, that challenge, that horrendous year, that awful relationship that, you know, that bankruptcy thing, it’s like we grow through the crap, right? Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. And, but we just gotta persist.
RR (00:56:49):
Yeah. I mean, it’s the fertilizer of life. Right? Exactly. You know what I mean? You just,
AJV (00:56:53):
And knowing that it’s like, and I love what you said, it’s like, man, if you just don’t give up, you just
RR (00:56:59):
Give, just, you know, get more. I, I think it was Ed Ette said this, we just had edit what, you know, and I know he’s, he’s a client, you some stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And he said, you know, don’t get your ego wrapped up in your results. Get it wrapped up in your intention. And I love that because that’s what I’m really, you know, if your intention is to do good in the world and to help others and, you know, get wrapped up in doing that and providing real value to people. And you know, the other thing is, is learn business too, guys. You know, I, you know, the other thing is if I could go back and say to myself, you know, you can build an actual, like a company with actual enterprise value that is sellable. Not just a company that makes money.
RR (00:57:39):
‘Cause In the beginning, I’ll tell you, I wasted the first, I’d say the first 12 years I just was making money and it was more money than I ever made. And I thought, this is great, you know? And as I started to evolve and grow my business, I started to realize, hey, you know, I had to learn how to run a, a legit business, not this kind of lifestyle thing. And, and if you ever wanna run a lifestyle thing that’s, that’s up to you. I’m just saying like and then as like in my industry, ’cause mergers and acquisitions is such a big deal, I had to bring in several, what I call experts and residents on m and a and enterprise value and financials. And so I started surrounding myself with people that are not like branding and marketing, but that are like, here’s how you read a p and l.
RR (00:58:23):
Mm-Hmm, , here’s how you look at the financials in your business to know if you’re within certain percentages and ranges that make sense. And here’s, I mean, like, things that like, like most of us are like, ah, I hate that, but it’s really it’s really important too. And I think if I would’ve professionalized my org a lot sooner with good leadership, good metrics, financial reporting, like understanding that I would’ve been so much better off. I would’ve made so much more money. But I’m a marketing and salesperson, so that was all like to me, you know? And so, you know, I was like, ah, financials, like, ugh, just, just go sell something else. You know, there’s, if I guess sell more stuff, there’ll be plenty of net, right? So I, you know, I think I should have done that sooner. But anyway, you know, that’s it.
AJV (00:59:06):
Ah, this is so good. I mean, I literally took three pages of notes, , while we’re talking of like, these just like great reminders. And you know, honestly, what I love too is like, you know, there’s just quick, two quick things I just wanna highlight as we go is the first thing would be that step back, not step away, right? That is that your job is to step back, not always step away. I think it was a great reminder for anyone who’s like, I just want this off my plate. Yeah. Right? I just want this off my plate. It’s like, maybe reevaluate what, what you’re saying there. A second thing is imitate before you imit innovate, right? I think that’s so good. It’s like, yeah, bring in new people who can think different or think bigger, but first, first imitate before you innovate.
AJV (00:59:48):
I think that’s so, so, so, so good. And then the third thing that I wrote down, and you said it in the very early, it’s like you gotta know from when you’re going scrappy to strategic, right? Mm-Hmm . And I think some people stay in scrappy a little too long. And at some point you gotta like formalize. Robin, this was so good, so valuable. Thank you so much for being a part of this show. Y’all. this was amazing. Save it. Go back, listen to it on repeat. Share it with your leaders, share it with your team this,
RR (01:00:18):
Share it with your mssp if you outsource your IT support, that’s who I want. Woo. Woo. That’s . There’s your call to
AJV (01:00:24):
Know where your audience is. That’s what you need to
RR (01:00:27):
Know here. They probably don’t even have one, so that’s fine. But
AJV (01:00:29):
Yeah. You know, I think this, it’s, so this is one of those conversations that really, it’s like this is, this is a conversation 20 years in the making. And if you guys haven’t realized like you just got a masterclass in entrepreneurship, I would encourage you to go back and listen to it. And then also stay tuned for the recap episode that I will do next. Robin, thank you so much. Everyone else, we will see you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 523: 3 Ways to Get Mainstream Publicity | Ryan Serhant Episode Recap

RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden, and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well-known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. Let’s talk about how to get attention for your book launch or your product launch, or your company launch, or whatever it is, and specifically how to get traditional media attention and how to get other people to feature you or your work. And this is sort of timely, right? Because right now I am launching we are officially launching a brand new podcast series that’s a total side project, but I have created a podcast called Eternal Life.
RV (01:08):
Seven Questions Every Intelligent Skeptic Should Ask About Jesus of Nazareth. And in this case, that’s a total side project. It’s just looking at the logical historical, archeological, practical, rational evidence for the story of Jesus of Nazareth, and how as a logical person, I’ve come to believe that. And so we have we, and it’s 15 episodes, and they’re free, which you, you can go look at it right on Apple or Spotify. Right now it’s, it’s now finally up. And that is something that I have created that is really for my two boys that in case something were to happen to me, if I, I didn’t, I was not around to explain to him how daddy has become to believe in the historical accuracy of the story of Jesus of Nazareth, right? So let’s say I wanted to launch that. Now I’m not actually launching it.
RV (02:00):
My, like, I’m not doing a traditional launch. There’s no book attached to it. There’s no revenue stream attached to it. It’s a total give back. But if I were trying to, I would go, okay, what are the things that I need to do to get attention for that podcast? And that’s what I want to talk about here. Okay? Not just, we can use that as an example, because it’s a real time thing going on in my life that I’m, you know, semi or quasi launching. So these, these principles will apply a hundred percent to you launching anything, whether it’s a book, a podcast, a company, a product, et cetera, a nonprofit, anything that you’re, when you’re trying to use traditional media to get the word out, okay? And number one is super simple. You have to connect your expertise to what is happening in the news cycle.
RV (02:55):
Connect your expertise to what is happening in the news cycle. This is the first of these three major publicity secrets. So the news, the news, you know, remember that the metaphor of news, if you don’t know this, news, NEWS originally began as an acronym, not a metaphor, excuse me, as a, as an acronym. It stands for Notable Events, weather and Sports. That’s what news stands for. Notable events, weather and sports. So still to this day, that’s what the news covers. Notable events, weather and sports specifically. If you’re not a, if you’re not, you know, talking about the weather or you’re not talking about sports, then what you’re talking about is notable events, or that’s what the news is talking about every day, right? All the major news channels are talking about notable events. What is notable? Notable is notable. It’s remarkable. It’s worth remarking about.
RV (03:50):
It’s unusual. It’s, it’s, it is unexpected. It’s different. It’s, what’s everyone’s talking about is captivating people’s attention. So the news, the news is not really interested in reporting accuracy. Unfortunately, the news makes money from attention, right? So they latch on every day, news channels, latch on to whatever the trending topics are in the world that have people’s attention, wars, diseases, economic collapses, you know celebrity stuff, like anything. That is the thing that people are talking about. They’re trying to ride the wave of attention. And so that’s what they’re doing, because the more that they do that, the more attention they hold, which means the more eyeballs they have, which means the more they can sell to their sponsors, and the, and the higher the packages, the higher the, the, the higher the impressions, the more money they can get from advertisers. And so they’re playing not a game of accuracy, right?
RV (04:51):
The news is not playing a game of accuracy. They’re playing a game of attention. Once you know this and understand this, then you go, great. If I wanna be featured in the news, I have to think of it as a highway, right? Think of it as like all of the trending topics are the interstate, and here you are, right? And just, you know, using me as an example, go, oh, Rory’s got this new podcast about eternal life. I gotta go. How do I somehow connect? I have to, I have to create an on-ramp for connecting my expertise into the flow of information and attention. This sort of attention superhigh that everybody is talking about. That’s what you have to do. You have to connect your expertise to what is happening in the news cycle. If you can do that, then they’re gonna feature you. Like when we launched our trends and personal branding, national research study which by the way, you can go download [email protected] under free training, or under brand builders group.com in our free trainings.
RV (05:54):
Those are, those are downloadable. Also AJ vaden.com, she has it on her website as well. You can download that free training. Well, the day that it came out, the day after it came out, I got a call from Good Morning America, and I was, because there was a, a notable event. There was Victoria Secrets. The company made this major announcement that they were, they were going away from supermodels as their, as their spokespeople. And they were, they had instead selected personal brands, like they were taking recognizable people. And there were, you know, people from different women from different walks of life, but it was a major strategic shift that the company announced. And they were saying, we’re, we’re banking on personal brands and we’re going away from the angels. You know, this, this women dressed in scantily clothing. So when we released a study, we, we happened to release a study right at that exact moment that was about how the trends in personal branding, national research study showed that people are more likely to trust individual faces than they are company names.
RV (07:08):
And so it fit. And so they had me comment on, on that story on Good Morning America, right? That’s an example of connecting it into the news cycle. So if you want to get on television first of all, you’re gonna have to be prepared to pitch or someone’s gonna have to pitch for you. But you have to think about, or, or the radio, right? Or, or anyone who’s, who has a big blogging platform, who’s blogging about current events, or even videos that go viral are often connected. I mean, they’re trending topics, right? So they’re often things connected to things that are happening in this. You know, the nation’s conscience, Tom, Tom Hanks used to say, if you wanna make a hit, you have to enter into the nation’s conscience. So you have to ask yourself, what is everyone talking about? And then you kind of ride that wave by just figuring out what is the connection point that on-ramp is what your pitch is to producers.
RV (07:59):
Producers are looking for interesting and new ways to cover the stories that everyone else is talking about. So if you can connect your expertise to what’s happening in the news cycle, they’re much more likely to say yes, right? They’re, the news is not that we released a new national research study. The news is not that you have a book coming out. The news is not that I’ve launched a new podcast, that’s news to me, that’s a notable event to me, but to the rest of the nation, that’s not news. And books come out, you know, hundreds of books come out every single week. That’s not a notable event in the grand scheme of things. The notable event is whatever people are talking about. And all you have to do to figure that out is turn on the news and watch it for 30, 30 seconds.
RV (08:40):
You’ll see there’s, there’s typically only a few stories that are dominating the headlines. Or pick up a newspaper scan, you know, scan the web, the, the major news outlets and see what the major headlines are. You just gotta pitch the, the producers of those networks, those channels, those outlets to say, Hey, I’m an expert on personal branding. I want to tie into this. You know, if, if, and, and if I wanted to get attention for, if I wanted to get mainstream media attention for my new podcast, I’d have to do the same thing. Now I have zero desire. That’s not a part of my strategy nor my plan to deal with that. And part of that’s because I didn’t write a book on it. And, you know, I, that’s not the goal, right? Is that it’s, it’s, it’s a resource I’ve created for people to genuinely go study in an objective way, the data and the evidence that supports the narrative of Jesus, of Nazareth as being a deity, right?
RV (09:36):
So I’m not trying to sell anything. I don’t need a bunch of urgent national attention. I’m putting it out there in the world. I’m letting people know about it, but I’m not like, you know, all in on trying to like promote this thing. So that is publicity secret number one, connect your expertise to what is happening in the news cycle. Publicity secret number two, become the media. Become the media. And, and by the way, this is a recap of the, the the interview that I did with Paige Dungan, who is, is one of our, one of our implementation partners for pr. And we talked about, you know, if you’re looking for a PR person, go listen to the episode. I shared how you can get in touch with her. And she’s one of the people that we recommend for that service. And we have a, we have an affiliate relationship with her, and, and she’s great.
RV (10:19):
I’ve known her for years, right? So we, there, we talked about, and this is true, is become the media build your own media platform. This is what we teach people how to do at Brand Builders Group. We teach you how to build your own audience. And you do that on social media, on blogging, podcasting, YouTube you know, whatever outlets you have. And you know, if you’re, if you’re a brand builder and you’re one of our members, you know that we teach something called the relationship engine. And there’s a technique as part of that called the content diamond. These are the strategies, these, these techniques that we teach that you know, what is a relationship engine? A relationship engine is a digital automated ecosystem that we build an infrastructure around whoever the messenger is that pumps their content out into the universe as fast as possible to automate trust and capture, you know, and, and engage in lead capture.
RV (11:11):
So that is how you start to become the media. You’re producing content, you’re producing videos, you’re producing audio. If it’s podcasts, you’re producing short form videos. You’re producing the written article, whether it’s on LinkedIn, pulse or Medium or Blog. If you’re following our content diamond strategy, you’re doing all of those things. And most of all, you’re then converting those, you’re using that media to draw in attention and awareness. And then you’re using lead capture conversion to build your email list, your text message, opt-ins you know, direct message automation is a big place where we’re doing a lot right now. And so then you’re building this audience, and you are the media because you’ve built your own audience. The media is anyone who’s who, anyone who creates content for an audience on a regular basis. So there’s several things about this. First of all, when I launch a new podcast, I don’t have to beg anyone for favors.
RV (12:06):
I can just go into my list and I can just write a, write a message and hit send. And boom, I can tell tens of thousands of people that I have a new podcast out. I can announce it on our own podcast, right? Which is kind of what I’m doing now. And I, and I mentioned in, in some other places to go, Hey, I’ve got a new podcast. If you wanna listen to it, go listen to it. Eternal life. Seven questions Every Intelligence Skeptic Should ask about Jesus of Nazareth. It’s my story as a skeptic going through the evidence and the history to go what ev you know, how can any of this be trusted and believed? So there’s two parts of be being the media. The first part is obviously that you’re building your own audience. And when you build your own audience, you can announce stuff to them.
RV (12:51):
And that’s why publishers and literary agents and, and speakers bureaus and, and places like that, they wanna get ahold of creators who have access to their own audience because they can teach ’em how to monetize that in, in various ways. And that’s what we teach people how to do both, how to build their audience, and then how to monetize that audience, how to add value to them in exchange for money, right? So there is obviously that part of it that you’ve built your own audience. The other part though, is that when you become the media, you understand the pressures, the desires, the demands, the challenges, the opportunities of having to create content regularly, right? There’s some beautiful parts about that. ’cause You go, man, I get to inspire people. I get to, I get to talk about the things that I think are, are, are important to me and are important to my audience.
RV (13:42):
And then there’s some challenging parts of that going like, oh my gosh, like, you know, it’s, it’s another week. I gotta produce more content. I gotta have another video. I gotta have more articles. I gotta have more insights. I, I, there’s, there’s this need, this engine, this, this engine that you have to constantly be fueling with new content. Well, when you understand that, it helps you relate to the rest of the media world in general, right? Like every day I get people sending books to my, you know, office and, and pitching me emails on, you know, sending me dms, trying to get on our podcast and all this sort of stuff, right? So I’m, I take the role of a producer and vet to go, does this person have anything worthwhile to say to you? To my audience, to our audience? Is it worth me putting them in front of you?
RV (14:30):
Are they gonna add value to the conversation? If yes, then I say yes. If no, then I say no, but it’s not so much that they’re gonna pay me and I’m just gonna put ’em in front of you. That doesn’t do me any good. I have to create content that’s useful for you, that’s relevant to the audience that we are building. And once you do that, you go, oh, that’s exactly what the, the producer on the Today Show, or Good Morning America, or Oprah or Fox or CNN or whatever the outlet is, they have to do the same thing, right? So they need, they need you as much as you need them. That’s something you gotta understand about media. They need you as much as you need them. They need someone to help them produce content that is worthwhile to be consumed by their audience, but they also need to make sure that that content is relevant to be consumed by their audience.
RV (15:21):
So they’re both desperate for you, and they also have to filter out the right person. So it’s not so much about who’s the smartest or who’s the most famous, it’s who has the most relevant bit of expertise for my specific audience at this specific moment in time in history. And that’s why someone could turn you down to be on national TV today and three months from now, everything can change in the news cycle, and you can make the same pitch and they would have you on. So when you become the media, you understand that, right? Like I’ve, I, I, I’ve watched a lot of our clients do the same thing, right? A lot of our, a lot of our clients are the biggest podcast hosts in the world, and they get on these kicks of certain things like you know, Tom, Tom, Tom and Lisa biu, so they’re clients of ours.
RV (16:07):
And Tom Tom’s a good example of this Tom’s podcast. He kind of like goes and kicks where he, you know, suddenly he wants to talk to anyone who’s talking about like, health and longevity or some, you know, anyone who’s talking about like you know, like crypto or Bitcoin or like any of you know, the metaverse kind of stuff. And, and that’s just because he’s interested in that. And so in that particular moment, somebody who would’ve said no to as a guest six months ago, he might say yes to today. So you go, well, how do I know when to pitch him? Simple? Pay attention to what he’s, what, what he’s promoting. And, and then you have to, and then you have to check all the boxes, right? So you gotta pitch him the right message at the right time for his audience, what he’s interested on, and then you gotta have the credibility point that he’s interested in.
RV (16:51):
So every different media outlet has different criteria for those. It’s not just about who’s the smartest, who’s the most famous, who went to the, you know, the most prestigious school. It’s a combination of all of those factors unique to their audience. So if they say no to you, don’t take it too personal. It just means you weren’t the right match, you weren’t the right fit for what they’re producing at this time. It doesn’t mean you should never pitch them again, but it does mean if you’re gonna pitch them again, you need to pitch a different angle to a different, a different, you know, a different hook to a different thing going on in the news cycle. And when you become the media, when you’re producing your own YouTube show, your own podcast, your own blog, your own Instagram channel, your own LinkedIn feed, and you start featuring other guests and, and filtering content.
RV (17:36):
You understand better how the media operates and what, what they’re looking for, which makes you a better guest. You also know, like, what are the things that are credible, right? Like, someone sends me an email that’s 18 paragraphs about why they’re coming to the show. It’s like, I can’t, I’m not even gonna look at it, because the idea of reading 18 paragraphs is overwhelming. So it’s just a no, right? On the other hand, if someone that I know and I trust really well sends me and says, Hey Rory, you should meet this person. I think they’d be great for your podcast. Here’s three sentences on ’em and a link to their website, and I click on it. I go, oh, website looks awesome. They look credible. They got a book, they’re credible. You know, they, they’ve got some, you know, maybe some social media following whatever.
RV (18:13):
They have these indicators that go, yeah, this person is legit great, let’s have ’em on. And it’s that simple. So the more you produce media, the more you produce content, the better you will be at understanding how to get on other media outlets. So that’s publicity, publicity secret number two. And then publicity secret number three. And this is the biggest secret of all this. One’s the magic. This one is, this is the one that, that has built my career. This is the one that if you go, how did Brand Builders Group go from zero to eight figures in five years with no investors, no debt, no bank loans, no credit cards, like how did you guys do it? It would be this one. And it is something that I call the relationship switchboard. Well, that’s the technique. Lemme tell you the principle. Here’s the, here’s the principle, and like, write this down.
RV (19:08):
Okay? Seriously, if you are driving, like pull over and write this down. If you’re running on the treadmill, stop for a second, you’re gonna wanna write this down. This is one of our flagship BBG Brand Builders Group mantras. This is one of the things if you became, if you were to become a member of ours and you were to become a paying client, which by the way, if you’re curious about that, if you go to free brand call.com slash podcast, free brand call.com/podcast, you can request a call with our team and learn more about what that would look like. Well, if you became one of our monthly paying members, you would hear us say this all the time. Ready? Write this down. Build relationships before you need them. Build relationships before you need them. Build relationships before you need them. Build relationships before you need them.
RV (19:59):
What do I mean by that? I mean, invest in helping the people that you might one day need help from long before you ever need help from them. That’s what I mean. So how have we built this company so quickly? We’ve built it through affiliates. These affiliates who have who, huge audiences. How did we get to these people? Especially, you know, when we started Brand Builders Group in 2018, we did not expect to start the company. And when we sold our last company, we sold, we lost everything that went with it. All of our social media, our podcast, our email list, our whole team, we were sitting on zero, baby Zero starting over. This was only a few years ago for us, right? How did we get back to, to where we are so quickly? We built relationships with affiliates. We built re relationships with people who have large platforms.
RV (20:49):
How did we do that? Well, we paid attention to who had something going on that they were launching, and when they had something going on that they were launching, we showed up and we offered to help for free. We said, Hey, I see that you’re launching a book, right? This is how I met Gretchen Rubin. This is, I always tell the Gretchen Rubin story because I love Gretchen, and she’s, you know, I guess I would call her a friend. Like we go back and forth a few times a year, but we’re not super close. But we’ve built a relationship. She’s been a big supporter of ours. She’s been on this podcast, she’s been on our summit. She lets us, you, you, you, you know advertise that, that she’s been a guest, things like that. And you know, how did I meet Gretchen?
RV (21:32):
I said, oh, look, Gretchen has a book launch coming out, and when she has a book launch coming out, I say, Gretchen, I have some friends who have some very large podcasts. Would you be okay if I pitched you to see if they would have you on their show? Right? Not for money for free, right? I do PR for Free Brand Builders Group. We have a full-time person on our team that does free pr. We only do free PR member to member though. We, we, we offer it as a free service for people who are active members in our program to help them get booked on the shows of our other active members. We do that for free. You can’t buy it. It’s, it’s a, it’s just a, it’s just a value add that we do. It is also my number one prospecting mechanism and tool that I do to build new relationships.
RV (22:18):
And I call it the relationship switchboard because I keep track of everyone I know who is the host of a media outlet, right? Most of them are podcasts, right? They have great podcasts. Some of them are, are huge bloggers, some of them are top talkers, some of them are are YouTubers, some of them are in national tv. But I just keep a list of everyone I know who has a large platform. And then I keep a list of everybody I know who’s like a VIP guest. And all I do, a huge part of my time is just connecting these people to one another. And so I just go, if somebody, if somebody I know is launching a new show, right? This is a good example right now. Dr. Josh Ax, who, you know, we’ve been sort of casual acquaintances over the year. We become really close in the last couple years.
RV (23:09):
We become really close friends. Part of that is because he’s launching a new podcast and he’s wanting to meet a bunch of people. And I go, dude, I got you. Like, I can get you access to like 30 major VIP people who I think would be a great fit for your show. And I’ll do it for free. Why? Because it helps Dr. Ax, it helps my other friends, and it, it helps me. I get caught in the crossfire. Now, a lot of it is it work for me? Yeah, it’s a ton of work. Do I get paid for it? No, I do not get paid for it at all. $0 zero now. But here’s another mantra I wrote about and take the stairs. And this is another life philosophy that is true. You always get paid for how hard you work sometimes. Now, oftentimes later, always.
RV (23:54):
Eventually, you always get paid for how hard you work sometimes. Now, oftentimes, later, always, eventually. That’s spending your time on what we would call in, in procrastinating on purpose. My second book on things that are significant. What are things that I can do now that create more time or money tomorrow? Well, connecting people is something I can spend time on today that multiplies my influence tomorrow because it builds my reputation with both people. And I have nothing to gain from either per se, like no specific ask nothing, no money. It may never come back to me from those specific people. I’m simply going, oh, you need guests for your show. Let me give you access to all of these VIP guests that I have that are friends of mine. Or if somebody is a guest and they have something they wanna promote and they suddenly launched like a new book, a new course, a new program, a new company, a new nonprofit, whatever.
RV (24:46):
And I go, Hey, are you looking to get the word out about that thing? Let me introduce you to 30 friends I have who all have big platforms. Now, I know for you, when you hear this concept, you might go, oh, well that’s great, Rory, because your clients are, you know, all these famous people and Amy Porterfield and Ed Millets and Louis Howes and Eric Thomas’, and yes, but they didn’t. How did they become clients? They became clients from me doing this for them, right? This is how I build relationships with people. Save the best for first, give, give, give, give without expectation of receipt. I do this for people. I’ve done this for many people who I’ve never gotten anything from return. I’ve helped some people get booked on shows, podcasts, like dozens of shows. They won’t even have me on their own show.
RV (25:36):
Am I bitter about it? Yes. , no, I’m not maybe a little. No, I I I’m not you, you, you don’t keep score, right? Love keeps no records of wrongs. Love keeps no record of wrongs. That’s First Corinthians, right? That’s right out of the Bible. Like, it’s not about, it’s not, I I do keep record ’cause I keep a record of people I’ve introduced to each other. ’cause I do this all the time. So I don’t annoy people. But I’m not keeping score of like, who owes me one. It’s not that I’m just giving, I’m adding value. And what happens is when I have something to share, like the Eternal Life podcast, if I wanted to, I could just suddenly go to all of those guests and all of those hosts, people who I haven’t asked for anything from in years. And I could say, Hey, here’s a new podcast that I launched.
RV (26:28):
You know, if I wanted to, I’m not gonna do this ’cause I don’t wanna do a huge podcast tour for it. At least not right now to say, Hey, will you have me on your show? And they go, of course man, because I’ve been talking to ’em every week for three years, helping them get on shows and helping people get on their shows. So that’s the relationship switchboard. It doesn’t have to be media. That’s how I use it. I use it a lot for media. I also use it for speaking, right? I take all of my past speaking clients and all my friends and, you know, clients who are speakers who are in up and comers or in, in or around my fee range. And I go, Hey, you should meet this person. You should meet this person. ’cause My clients need speakers, and my speakers need clients just like my hosts need guests and my guests need hosts, and I wanna get caught in the crossfire.
RV (27:12):
So do I do it because something good will come out of it for me? Yes. But when I don’t know, I don’t keep, I don’t keep score. I, I don’t, I don’t let, it’s not about having people owe you one. It’s just about going, how can I add value to the community? How can I add value to the, the shows that I’ve been on? How can I add value to the guests who’ve been on this show? And how can I add value to the clients who’ve had me book on their stage, have me come speak on their stages, and how can I add value to my friends who are really good speakers, who I really believe in to help them get on stages? This is the answer. And I get caught in the crossfire. I’m constantly in this interchange between awesome people. And what happens is that tends to cycle up. You tend to get around better and better people and bigger and bigger and more and more influential people, more and more people of notoriety. And it’s, it’s an upward snowball, just like everything we do with the relationship engine and building your own media platform. It’s about automating trust. It’s about saving the best for first. It’s about building relationships before you need them. It’s about give, give, give, add value. And it’s trusting that you can’t outgive God.
RV (28:23):
You can’t, you can’t outgive God. You can’t outgive the universe. You can’t out give like, you know, Zig Ziglar said, help enough people get what they want and you will get what you are you want. And I have found it to be absolutely true. Now, I’m not always in a one-to-one relationship. There’s some people that I’ve helped a lot more than they’ve helped me, but then there’s other people who have helped me a lot more than I’ve helped them. But in total, I have received a massive amount of blessing far beyond the work that I have done to help others. But I’ve done a lot of work to help others. And so that blessing seems to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And even if not, you end up getting to play a role in shaping the world, right? And that’s awesome, right? I, I love, I love it when two of my friends or two of my clients get together and I go, yep, I connected them and they made magic.
RV (29:13):
They made magic happen. And I go that, that interview would’ve never happened if it weren’t for me. And I, I can take quiet credit for it ’cause it’s true. And I can be so proud that all I did was connect these two amazing humans and they made a little piece of magic for the world. And that’s how we wanna do a brand builders group. We want to shape the voices that shape the world. That’s why we’re here at Brand Builders Group, right? We’re not trying to make a, you know, bazillion dollars. We don’t care about private jets. We don’t even care about being famous and selling lots of books and speaking on stages. I mean, those are good things. We’ve done a lot of those things. We wanna make an impact. We want to shape the voices that are going to shape the future of the world.
RV (29:55):
That’s why we do this at Brand Builders Group and we wanna have a hand in it. And so that’s why we work with Mission-driven messengers. And that’s also why we turn clients away. There are some people where we go, yeah, sorry, we can’t help you ’cause we don’t believe in your message, right? No offense, we just, we don’t, we don’t, we don’t believe that that message lines up with what we think makes the world a better place. And so we’re not gonna do it. But if you are a mission-driven messenger, and you do genuinely care about making the world a better place, you should probably think about joining our community because we have big things happening, big things happening. On that note, I, it would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to two of our brand builders, group clients hit the New York Times Bestseller list.
RV (30:37):
Just recently this month we have had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 clients this month. Eight clients who have become USA Today and or Wall Street Journal bestselling authors. And we have had two clients, Nicole Walters and Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, who have become New York Times bestselling authors. To this month, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon wrote this book Forever Strong. This was the number one selling book in the nation. She hit number three on the New York Times. But she was a came to one of my private brand mastery events only about six months ago. And followed our system to a t no hacks, no gimmicks, no tricks, just adding value, working her butt off following the system. And you know, her book absolutely crushed. It was the number one advice, how to book by unit sold. It was number three on the New York Times but the, the, the highest selling book in the nation last week.
RV (31:41):
So congratulations, Dr. Lyon. That’s the eighth time that a Brand Builders group has hit the New York Times in the last 12 months. So we’ve hit the USA today in the Wall Street Journal with eight different clients this month. And then we’ve had eight times that we’ve hit the New York Times in the last 12 months, two in this month alone with Nicole Walters and Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. And these are just people doing work, adding value. What are they doing? They’re, they’re, they’re, they’re building relationships before they need them. They are becoming the media. They’re building platforms, they’re creating content. They’re adding, they’re automating trust. And then when their moment comes, they connect their expertise to what is happening in the news cycle. That my friends are the three biggest secrets of publicity. And I hope that helps you if you are a Mission-driven Messenger, and I hope we get to work with you one day soon. Until then, keep coming back. We’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand Podcast.

Ep 522: How to Get Your Own TV Show with Ryan Serhant

RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden, and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well-known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. You are about to get backstage access to one of the biggest personal brands in the world. Not only one of the biggest personal brands, but somebody who I admire and respect for how he’s turned his personal brand into an actual scalable business with enterprise value. Something extremely rare that we see. And this is my pal a a brambles group client. Now, Ryan Serhant. And if you don’t know Ryan, you will he’s, he’s quite possibly the most famous real estate agent in the world.
RV (01:07):
So he became really popular while selling some of the \most expensive properties in Manhattan and, you know, New York and other areas, two celebrities. And he was the TV star of the two time Emmy nominated series, million Dollar Listing on Bravo. He since has had multiple TV shows, and he has another one coming out soon on Netflix. But he’s also, more importantly the CEO of Serhant, which is a tech forward real estate brokerage known for really cutting edge innovation. Extravagant listing listings, a full service media production company. And also he has basically like a whole nother half, which does digital education which is a, is a platform that has more than 14,000 members in 110 countries. And all of these things together have led to Ryan accumulating a personal brand with more than three, 4 million plus followers on social media. He’s the bestselling author of multiple books. And you know, he writes columns for Forbes and other places and has just really done a phenomenal job of turning a personal brand into a huge business. And so we invited him on the show to say, Hey, could we hear some of those secrets? So, Ryan, welcome to the show, man.
RS (02:28):
Thank you. I appreciate it. I was, was like, man, when is it? When’s the intro gonna end? We have so much to talk about
RV (02:33):
. I know. So much
RS (02:34):
Intro, so much
RV (02:35):
Information. Well, you’ve done a lot of, you’ve done so many things like that. Doesn’t even scratch the surface of, of it. But let’s start by the most recent thing, which is what brought us together was your book brand. It like Sirhan. Tell us about brand it like Sirhan, why did you write that book? It’s the third book in a trilogy. So let’s start there and then we can kind of go backwards.
RS (02:58):
Sure. You know, the book yeah. Just came out it and thank you for all your help, by the way. Really appreciate it. It definitely stands alone, you know, for people who want to go and build a brand in 20, 24 and beyond, right? It is, it is very, very tactical. No fluff. You wanna build a brand from scratch that’s personal. So a personal brand, or you wanna build a product brand and it has everything you need to know from, you know, social channels to working with pr. It has our whole, what we call our Sir Amp brand strategy system, which I can get into. But it’s, it’s really, really great. And I, you know, I wrote it because I couldn’t, I, again, I couldn’t find something like it, you know, there’s, there’s branding books that are old, you know, that talk a lot about newspapers and radio.
RS (03:44):
But it’s just a, it’s a different world now, right? And everything moves incredibly, incredibly fast as part of a, a trilogy, right? I wrote my, my first book in 2018 called Sell It Like Sirhan. We did a TV show about it for Bravo where I was like helping people sell wine and sell body and bikini waxing memberships and all this kind of stuff, . So that was fun. And then that got turned into like an education business called Sell Like Sirhan dot com, which grew and built. And literally 22 minutes ago the evolution of that brand just turned into sell it.com. Come on,
RV (04:20):
Sell it. Do
RS (04:21):
Super exciting com. Sell it.com. That, so that’s been super exciting. So that was just, that was sales tools, right? That’s what was that book? Was the sales tool belt. Like, if you’ve never sold anything, you don’t classify yourself as a salesperson. You hate salespeople, you hate selling, whatever. If you wanna control your own life, you wanna be an entrepreneur, a gig worker, you wanted to have a side hustle. You wanna sell real estate, sell cars, sell software, whatever. Read this, it is your, it’s your Bible. And I followed that up with my second book, big Money Energy, which, which really was, Hey, okay, I gave you all the tools. But if you don’t have the confidence to use them, then it’s gonna be a great tool belt that sits in your closet. So how can you start acting and carrying yourself, like the you of the future, you know, where you want to get to two years from today.
RS (05:08):
So be that person today. And so how do you do that? And so I looked at those two books and it was the sales skills, you need the confidence to use them. But then if no one knows what you’re selling, it doesn’t matter how confident you are, it doesn’t matter how many tools you have in your Jewel belt, you’re never gonna sell anything to anybody. So how do you, how do you create awareness? How do you cut through attention? How do you, how do you really build right, a brand both for yourself or for a product. And that’s where branded like Shanz comes into play. Yep. Spent the last two years writing it and putting it together.
RV (05:43):
So one, one of the things, I mean, you’ve done masterfully is PR and specifically, I, I can, can you share with us the story of like, how did, how did you get on tv? How does it work? Like, how does it even work to get a show with Bravo or Netflix? Because you’ve done that not just once, multiple times. You got your new Netflix show coming out in June. Yeah. And like, that’s, very few people have been able to do that. So like, did you just call them or like send a submission or show up to a casting call or what?
RS (06:22):
Well, the first time I was ever on TV was on a soap opera. So I, I trained to be an actor for a long time my whole life. Like, I was terrible at sports, but I liked being on stage. And so I did theater since I was a little kid and made like little home movies and all that. I went to college, I was a double major in English literature, so writing books and and theater, right? So, so performance. And I moved to New York City in 2006 to do theater. My dream was Broadway. That was my dream to be on stage or Broadway. You know, if TV or film worked out, that would be awesome. But I didn’t wanna move to California. It was the other end of the country. I’d never even been there before. And so I was like, you know, I’ve been to New York City before. I know people in New York, I’ll go make that happen. And I promptly ran out of all my money. And because when you go to theater school, they, which
RV (07:12):
Probably took a few days, right? Like in New York, you anyone can burn through like a lot of money pretty quickly,
RS (07:17):
All of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had like, I had what I thought was like five years of savings, and I was out of it in less than two years. And I made some money along the way, like I did some regional theater and made some money. I did a soap opera called As The World Turns, which isn’t Around anymore. And Oh, nice. Yeah. Made some money from that and for a while. And then, and then it just basically was down to my last couple thousand dollars. And, you know, the classic, how am I gonna eat? How am I gonna pay rent? Do I go become a bartender, a waiter? What do I do? And a friend said, get into real estate is the same thing. You know, I was great at improv, so I would do improv classes and you know, your acting classes really are about breathing, right?
RS (07:55):
They’re about listening. They’re about, you know, morphing into this conversation and that conversation. It’s about using your voice. And selling is the same exact thing. Memorize information. You meet strangers and you play an improv game, right? And so he’s like, listen, get your real estate license. Rent Apartments. New York City is tens of thousands of rental apartments and rental agents. You can make, you can make, you know, you can make a thousand dollars a day, you can make a hundred grand a year. You know, no one knows what to do. The city is all upside down. It’s crazy. So do that. So I got my license the day Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy in 2008, and everyone gets outta the business, but I already had no money. So I was like par for the course. I just thought the business was really, really hard.
RS (08:44):
And I, I kind of, you know, it was real estate was my survi survival job. I had no intention of being a real estate agent or a broker or salesman. I had all the intention of buying time. It’s like all if I rent an apartment a month, and if I can make my rent and pay for food and incidentals, which was about $2,000 a month, I could stay in New York and not have to move home to Colorado where my parents were at the time. And so what, you’re from Colorado? I didn’t know that. I’m from Colorado. I’m from, well, I’m from Texas. I grew up outside Boston. We moved a lot as a little kid, but when I, when I graduated high school, my parents sold our house in Boston and moved to Colorado. So if I were to go home, you know, at that time, I would’ve moved home to Colorado to live with my parents.
RS (09:29):
Gotcha. And so I, you know, I did my first rental deal. It was like, huh, wow, okay, so if I just work, I can make money . Like, I was so used to working for free, you know, being an actor in New York City, you do everything for free. You, you, you, you agree everything’s for free until it’s not. And so I spent two years basically working for free. And so I just was totally fine with not getting paid. And I didn’t need anyone to pat me on the back. I was just excited that if someone decided not to take an apartment from me, they took it because of another apartment, or because they didn’t want that apartment. It was never because of the color of my hair or my face or my voice, or they thought I wasn’t sexy enough. Right? So it wasn’t as personal.
RS (10:10):
And so a lot of salespeople get into sales and they, you know, 90% of them churn out because the rejection is just too hard and they just don’t wanna deal with it. For me, like my whole life had been rejection. So I was, I was kind of fine with it. I didn’t bank on anybody or anything ever. I just knew I was gonna bet on myself. ’cause That’s why I moved to New York in the first place. And so then I started doing sales, and I got my first sales commission check of like a couple thousand dollars. It was like, holy moly. And I actually liked it. I liked touching base with people. I liked seeing apartments all day. I liked running around, and I was totally fine working for free. Amazing. Because, you know, in, in, in sales, your, your success is your client’s success, right?
RS (10:48):
Amen. And so I then I built, and a little over a year later, there was a casting call that got put out for the New York version of a show called A Million Dollar Listing, which had been on the air for a couple years in Los Angeles on Bravo. And so I saw that and was like, oh, that’d be so weird, if I did a reality show, I know how to be in front of a camera. And so I just went to an open casting call. 3000 agents showed up. You know, you have to remember, at that time, I think there was 50,000 real estate agents in New York City, and that was in 2008. There’s something like 80,000 now. And so I went to an open casting call at the Hudson Hotel, and then six months later, they called me and were like, Hey, we whittled it down to a thousand people submit a written application.
RS (11:38):
And then a couple months later, they called me back and they were like, Hey, we’re doing a Skype interview. We wanna get to know you better. And they whittled it down to a couple hundred at that point, and then, then they whittled it down to 16 people to, to find the final agents that would be on that show. And they, they, they flew a, a whole production crew in from Los Angeles and said, we’re gonna follow all 16 of you around New York City for half a day. Show us what your day’s like. Show us how you operate, what do you do? And I made sure that that half day was the craziest half day in the history of real estate in New York City. Nice. Because I had just got into the business. I was like, a half day in my life, I’ll post some ads on the internet, I’ll get a bagel.
RS (12:19):
And so I didn’t want it to be that. And so I made sure it was, it was worth watching. And then they cast us, you know? Wow. And so out of obscurity. So then we did Million Dollar Listing. It premiered in 2012 and ran for 10 years. And from that we did spinoff shows. I did a, my wedding was a spinoff show. My, my renovation of my home was a spinoff show Sell, like Sirhan was a spinoff show. And then, you know, I saw the world change during that experience, right? Like we, when we started listing first came out like two to 3 million people would tune in live every week, right? There was no Netflix, Netflix was DVDs. There was no video, there was no Instagram in 2012, right? There was no Instagram. There was, YouTube was like reruns of Kevin Bacon’s movies and scenes, like, it was, it was just a different, different world .
RS (13:06):
And then Instagram comes out, right? So social becomes a thing. The heyday of reality TV kind of really kicks off 2013 to like 2016, Netflix moves to streaming, house of Cards comes out, reality TV explodes everywhere. And people’s attention starts being grabbed, you know? And I saw that like 20 16, 17 really 17, 18, 19 ratings started going down for all TV shows because YouTube became a real thing, right? The next generation didn’t need, didn’t, they weren’t watching TV anymore. Everyone was just watching. So as you had wifi, they had all the entertainment they need. And then TikTok hit and everything really changed. So it’s like, okay, so one day cable TV isn’t gonna exist anymore. And so I need to plan for my next, my next step. I built a whole career and a whole business on the back of a reality TV show.
RS (13:56):
What’s next for me? So I started my own company in 2020 called Sirhan. We do real estate brokerage services, education services, and we have a production company. So we do media services. And I created a pitch reel, right? Where I took a couple of my camera guys and we created a reel, and I pitched it around, and we took it to Netflix, we took it to HBO Max, we took it to Peacock, we took it to Amazon Prime, we took it to Hulu. And we got offers from almost all of them. But Netflix was, was the strongest. And they already had a, a world built, right? They already had a viewership that understood reality real estate. And they had the biggest global audience. And so for my business, even though those other networks are fun, and they’re cool, like, I wanna make sure that someone in India, Japan, Brazil, you know globally would have the opportunity to come in, into contact with our brand. And so we chose Netflix. We shot it all last year, and it comes out in a couple months.
RV (14:56):
Dude,
RS (14:56):
That, that’s a really long answer to your super
RV (14:58):
Simple. Yeah. That, but that, I mean, that’s, that’s so powerful. I mean, I love how God uses your, you know, backstory and pulls it all together, right? Like one, one of the things that we always say is your most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. And like, there you are not making it as an actor, starting with real estate. And then all of a sudden with a casting call of 3000 people who is more qualified to know exactly what those people need and, and to make, you know, something worth watching. When, when you say you pitched it, okay, like in, in 2020, you say, we, we created a pitch reel, and then we took it around to Yeah. Peacock, et cetera. What does that mean exactly? Who are you taking it to? How do you take it to them? What, like, how do you find these people? I mean, I assume it’s somewhat of a referrals and prospecting game, like anything, but is it basically like, yeah. Do you hire a showrunner and they like, take your pitch deck and show it to producers? Or how does that work? The
RS (15:57):
Show, the showrunner came later once the show got picked up, because there was no show to run prior to that, that was a whole separate process. You know, I had been on TV previously. Yeah. So I had the, the, the, I was in a fortunate position where, you know, I had a great agent at UTA, you know, agents are are good people, right? They can get business done. So I had a great agent at UTA that I kind of brainstormed with for a bit. The production company that I worked with World of Wonder based in LA that did Million Dollar Listing and all my spinoff shows with me on Bravo. Were down to try something new with me. So it’s like, this is gonna be different. I’m not, I don’t wanna make million dollar listing again for the new world.
RS (16:35):
Like, I wanna do something that kind of redefines the genre a bit, and it’s gonna be weird. Maybe it won’t, maybe it won’t work. I have no idea. And they said, okay, well, so we made, we made our first reel, like on our own, so that we weren’t really spending tons of money and wasting it. And then my agent and World of Wonder, the production company, set up the meetings because that’s all they do, right? That’s what their jobs are. It’s like, if you’re like, all right, how do I go buy a house in New York? You find a good agent and you say, this is what I want. The agent has all the relationships and has doing, been doing this for 10 years, and they set up those appointments, they know exactly who to talk to, and they don’t waste any time. So we did our Zoom, or it was like our Zoom tour, right?
RS (17:11):
Where we would send our little reel over and they would watch it, and then we would, we would talk about it on those, on those pitches. Like, Hey, here’s the vision. So you just saw five minutes of kind of like a taste of what we’re looking at, which was our company in New York, our building in soho that I’m standing in right now. Kind of our crazy cast of characters and, and really helping define what the universe would look like, because I think the most successful TV shows create, create a World, right? They create a universe that really grabs the viewer, and then you have to hook and release, right? So how are you hooking people and then giving them a cliffhanger and then releasing them, and then giving them a hook, giving ’em a cliffhanger, and then releasing them. And so there’s, there’s kind of an algorithm that you look at when you’re telling story long form.
RS (17:58):
I mean, short form too, for sure, but also long form. And so then we walked the Netflix executives, the HOO Max executives, Hulu Peacock, Amazon Prime. Amazon gave us a great offer, a great one. And they were super, super bullish. And the only reason I didn’t go with Amazon, and that was a tough, I remember that, like that summer which was summer of 22, when, when we kind of got the green light. These, these things take forever, by the way. I remember like going back and forth and just saying, what do we do? Who do we go with? Like, how do I, like, it’s such a big decision. How do I choose? And the way we did it was like, all right, well why, why am I doing this? I don’t, I don’t care about being famous. I don’t care about selling toasters. Like we, our business is the most important. What’s gonna be the most entertaining? ’cause We’re gonna make the same show regardless of the network. But what’s gonna be best for business? And we just looked, we’re like, all right, so we got a client. Did you
RV (18:57):
Say you, you do want it to be most entertaining, or you’re saying you didn’t care about?
RS (19:01):
No, we want it to, we just two, you want it to be entertaining, but we know what’s gonna be entertaining. ’cause We know how to make great tv, but we also want it to be great for the business, otherwise it’s a waste of time. Right? So like, like, I don’t wanna spend all this time, all this effort, effort and go make a TV show and have it sit in a box, right? Would sure. Super entertaining in that box. Or it’s,
RV (19:18):
Or it’s a distraction that pulls you away from the business. But if you can make them aligned, all of a sudden one is like jet fuel for the other.
RS (19:25):
Yeah. So, exactly. So we really, we looked at it, and so then we, I was like, okay, well where are our clients right now coming from, you know, that are using us? You know, and they were across Asia, south America, India, different parts of Europe. Like we had a buyer in Croatia. And I just went to all of them and I said, Hey, do you watch Netflix, Amazon, or where do you see tv? Every single one of them said they had Netflix. Whoa. And it just, that was just the differentiator. I was like, I, I gotta be in front of people in Croatia, Sao Paulo, Patagonia, you know, India, et cetera. And New York is a big, it’s, it’s a very New York show. It’s gritty, you know, it’s tough. It feels very New York and, and around the world. New York’s an interesting place for people to see, like, it’s just a wild, it’s wild little island that we have here.
RV (20:18):
But you’re deliberately going after, I mean, multiple times, just this, you’ve said about the importance of the international audience. Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. . So why, why is that so important to you international versus just going like, why not just dominate New York? Or why not just dominate the US or like, you know, other markets?
RS (20:40):
So New York is where we dominate in real estate. So, you know, I’m based in New York City. I live in New York. There’s enough real estate here to go around. It’s a big part of our business. But our brand has, has grown pretty globally now. And so we want to take as much advantage of it, of it as we possibly can. So sell it.com right now has, we have members in 128 countries, you know, most of which I’ve never even been to. And so if we’re gonna create a TV show and spend two years making it like it is a significant amount of work and really put the time and effort behind it, then I wanna make sure that it has the biggest opportunity possible. You know? And, and that’s why really, like what’s the best platform to be on? Like when it was cable TV only, then you’re like, you, you really run the risk of, okay, well a lot of people are gonna see it, but if it’s not any good, it’ll go off the air pretty quickly. Streaming’s actually kind of worse, because if it’s not good, that thumbnail goes away real fast, right? That algorithm just starts showing you more things to keep you in the platform. Like Netflix is just, you know, is a social media app, basically, right? They wanna keep you in there, hook you in. Don’t, don’t leave us, don’t go to Amazon. Don’t go to Hulu. Right. Stay, stay.
RV (21:57):
Yeah. It’s, but it’s amazing just to even hear your brain of how far ahead you’re thinking, like the patience it takes to pursue a TV show, knowing it could take two years to get a deal, two years to film it, then it finally gets out and at any moment they could drop you. Right? They can pull the thumbnail down. That’s super, super powerful. So, so like talk to me about, now a lot of reality TV shows, stars, we, we actually have a lot of brand builders, clients, like a fair number who were on the Bachelor or were an NFL player or like, yeah. You know, a lot of people have been on TV or they’ve had their minute of fame and then the moment the thing goes away, they struggle to monetize, they struggle to keep the momentum going. You didn’t do that. Like, you have gotten bigger and bigger. Like everything has sort of snowballed and even, even small business owners. I think that’s the thing is going, how do you turn your personal brand into a business? How do you scale it past you? What are the things that you’ve done internally? How do you think strategically about sort of scale and enterprise value and making it extend beyond the person of Ryan?
RS (23:13):
So I’m always thinking at minimum 12 months out, all the work that I’m doing today is not to the benefit of Ryan tomorrow. It’s to the benefit of Ryan in April of 2025. Like, that’s all the work we’re doing today. Like March was across our businesses. March was our biggest revenue month in company history, right? And it’s because of the work that we did a year ago, you know, and it’s really important for me always to remind our employees of that because they’re like, oh, oh, we can take time off. I’m like, well, well, no, no, because all the work you’ve done from the past year got us to today. Now imagine what could happen if we even dialed that down even further, where we’re gonna be a year from for now. So you’re always working for future. You like that is, that’s my world.
RS (24:00):
That’s the world I live in. Nothing is for me today, like I go to the gym this morning, it has no effect on my body today. Right? Am I more mentally aware? Sure. Right. But I’m doing it for my long-term health so that Ryan, next year, two years from now, Ryan, who’s 80, can look back and say, Hey, thanks , thanks for doing that. I know you didn’t want to, I know you were tired. I know it was stressful. I know you sometimes had sleepless nights, sometimes you cried ’cause you were lonely, right? And there’s too much responsibility on your shoulders. But thank you. That’s, so that’s how I think about it, you know, in terms of pulling myself out of it, you know, I was a real estate broker for 12 years. Everything was me, right? I had a team. There were, you know, but they helped me.
RS (24:46):
They were assistants on the business. It was like, so how do I, how do I scale sales when I’m the, when I’m, when I’m, when I’m kind of selling is myself, right? Because the apartments are there, the houses are there, but I’m really selling is using Ryan to go to those houses or to sell those houses. Totally. Like what is, what’s scalable that way? So lemme build a brand. Let me focus a lot on talking about Serhant and not just Ryan Serhant. I have a funky last name. It is check. And so not a lot of people have it so I could use it, right? Because it’s every time someone mispronounces it and says Sirhan or Ser Ann or Seacrest, it’s great. Right? It just means they’re thinking. And so, and that was a big part of creating early on, because I didn’t start, so I didn’t start Serhant until 2020, but I knew I was going to eventually, which is why I wrote sell it like Serhant in 2018.
RS (25:36):
I mean, we started writing it in 2016, so like, kind of four years ahead of time. And then with the brand, right? Our brand strategy system, that brand it, like Serhant the book really goes into is three phases. So it’s core identity, consistent content, and then amplification or, or shouting it from the mountaintop. And so I did those exercises, like what is the core identity of, of, of Sirhan in, in as much as how it’s different from Ryan, right? So like, what’s Ryan? And then what is Sirhan? Now let’s create consistent content around Sirhan being separate from Ryan. Let’s build a production arm that is just pushing out the product brand and focusing on those product successes in that kind of third period, which is the, the amplification. So let’s make sure that there are, there are publications that are just pushing the brand, and then let’s align ourselves with other successful people under the Samp brand so that they have their own personal brands, but they’re using Sirhan to power them.
RS (26:36):
That’s gonna help us over time, slowly build that brand away from just me. And the first year, it definitely didn’t work. Killed me. Second year, it definitely didn’t work. Still killed me. Third year, it was like, huh, all right, so it’s working. And we started expanding. So it was like, what is, what, what do I do in North Carolina? Like, what is sur in these different states and markets? Like, I’m not there. How does this work? And so it started working and then this year we’re really kind of off to the, off to the races. That’s kind of high level. Fifth year. Fifth year
RV (27:09):
In
RS (27:10):
The fifth, well, 2020, we didn’t start, we weren’t legal until like January, 2021. So all 21, 22, 23. So it took a three fiscal years. And so we’re at the beginning of 2024, so we’re like into our fourth year.
RV (27:21):
Yeah. And I would say like that, that, it’s so interesting to hear that it’s, it’s great to have that on a story because that’s what it we see for a new personal brand. Like if they don’t have a TV show or something pop, like even just a business in general, like the first two years suck. The third year you kind of start to see momentum year four and five, it starts to take off and you can see the light, and then it’s like by year 10 you’re going, I am unfairly paid. I’m getting unfair rewards for all the work as you said that you put in. Yeah. So I wanna point y’all back. So brand like Sirhan, there’s this three part system. It’s all in the book brand. It like Sirhan, so you guys can go get it. Ryan, where do you want people to go to learn? Obviously they can buy brand it like Sirhan anywhere, but like where should people go if they want to connect you with you and follow up? And
RS (28:10):
At, at Ryan Sirhan, anywhere the book is brand it like Sirhan, you can get that anywhere. Books are sold. You go to the website brand it like serhant.com to check it out for sales training, you can go to sell it.com. As of 46 minutes ago, and any real estate services, anything, we’re up and down the East coast and it’s just serhant.com. It’s
RV (28:32):
Really, really cool. The, the last question I have for you, man, is I, I know that there’s had to have been some, some dark nights and some heavy moments. You, you do have a lot of jobs, a lot of pressure, a lot of things weighing on you. You got family, right? You got daughter, you got married. And in those moments where inevitably you come across a little bit of feeling overwhelmed, a little bit of feeling that pressure days when things fall apart, people quit, you know, customer’s unhappy. The dream you thought was gonna happen starts to look like it’s falling apart. Like, what do you do to keep yourself going in those, those moments specifically in case someone listening right now happens to be in one of those?
RS (29:17):
So I tell myself always right? Because it nothing is bad forever. Time heals all wounds. You have great days, you have awful days. The greatest day I’ve ever had, I haven’t even lived it yet, you know, and reminding myself of that is a, is a kick in the butt to get outta bed and to actually go and do the thing. Because maybe that’s today. Like maybe today is the greatest day I’ve ever had. Like, that could be awesome on the sales side, you know, I am, I am, you know, I sell lots of things all day long. You know, the greatest deal I’ve ever done. I haven’t even done it yet. Hmm. You know, like I remember when we started the company and it was summer 2020 in New York City. Lockdown not allowed to go outside. There’s swat, there’s bodies in Central Park.
RS (30:10):
You turn on the tv, there’s a death clicker, okay? The George Floyd riots happen in June. It’s a really, really bad time for our country. It was really, really tough. Everything, all sales stopped for me. All real estate sales in New York City were dead. Every deal I had went into immediate litigation, it was the worst. I, any, any money I had that was like in the stock market, the stock market sold off 10,000 points, right? It was just brutal. And I’m like, I’m going to start my own company right now. I was also in the middle of renovating my house right at that point, which is a cash heavy operation. And I just had my first baby. So it, you know, it was a lot. And I was like, man, all I gotta do is just every day’s a new day. Like every day’s a new day.
RS (30:57):
The greatest day I’ve ever lived, I haven’t even lived it yet. The greatest deal I’ve ever done. I haven’t even done it yet. I just got, I just gotta push forward. And you know what? Everything’s gonna be okay eventually. It always is no matter what, unless we get hit by a comet and we’re the dinosaurs and it’s over forever. And then if that happens, then again, who cares? I just gotta keep it moving. And when things are bad, this is when you should build, because you can’t get these moments back. Like when things are great, of course you’re gonna start your own company like every other idiot, right? When things are bad, everyone’s so scared. So go, go do it. Go build. And so we just buckled down and I looked at it with a glass half full. It’s like, all right, so covid happened.
RS (31:38):
Everything sucks. Well, it looks like I just got the spring and summer markets for free. Like, when am I ever gonna get all this time that I don’t have to work? Like, I don’t, I’m not showing because I’m not on pod. Like I wasn’t do we know everything was shut down. Filming was shut down, everything was shut down. This is insane. Like, if I wanted to go start a business today, I’d be like, I need six months of quiet. I just gotta buckle down and just go do it. I’m never gonna get that again. So boom, glass half full. Awesome. You know, what else? Awesome. Everyone’s expectations are gonna be so low. I don’t have to go that crazy. like if this was 2019 or 2024, I’d have to do a parade if I was starting my own thing. , you know, in 2020. I, like, I went to the press, I was like, Hey, I’m starting my own company.
RS (32:27):
And they’re like, are you crazy? Are you sick? Do you have long covid? You know? And they were like, you should do a test. Are you wearing gloves right now? I’m like, no, we’re building for the future that everything’s gonna be okay. It’s like, man, if I could do one deal, if I did like a $20 million sale when we kicked off the company, that would just be like the greatest thing ever. And we started the company a couple months later, I sold a house in Palm Beach for $140 million. Whoa. And the whole world changed. The market changed overnight, right? And it’s been a rocket ship ever since. And so the greatest day you’ve ever had, you haven’t even lived it yet, you know,
RV (33:12):
Man. I love that. I love that. Well, brother, thank you for making a little bit of time for us. We’ll link to of course, book and everything. And it’s been, it’s been an honor to get to know you a little bit. I love the way that your mind works and and the heart and, and the energy. I mean, big money, energy, like, talk about the enthusiasm that you have all day, every day and you bring to so much stuff. I mean, it’s legendary. And so to have some insight into what you’re doing behind the scenes with these three books and just to get to meet you a little bit, I really, really appreciate it, brother. And we’ll be following you. Thanks ma’am. We, we wish you the best.

Ep 521: How To Be Rich | Matt Fornito Episode Recap

AJV (00:02):
Do you wanna know how to be rich? Well, I’m gonna tell you a story that I recently heard, and here’s how the story goes. Regardless to what amount of truth is to this story I think it’s a great example of something that we all need to hear and learn if you truly want to be rich. Now, I say that with bunny ear quotations because rich is a really relative term. If you live in the United States, then statistically speaking, you are already richer than most human beings on planet Earth. And if you make more than $50,000 a year, then you make more than most people worldwide. So there’s a relative term there. But if you wanna learn how to be successful, right, which I think is a part of what rich means, then this story should mean something to you. And this is a story about Warren Buffet and a conversation that he had with his pilot.
AJV (00:55):
And his pilot asked him, he said, Warren, will you teach me how to be rich? Will you teach me how to be successful like you and I think anyone in that your surroundings would’ve said, yes, teach me too. How did you do what you have done? And he said, okay, here’s what you wanna do. Get out a piece of paper and write down the 50 things that you want to accomplish. So he got out a piece of paper and he wrote down, here are 50 things that I wanna do, I wanna accomplish, right? He said, okay, now cut that down to 25. So narrow it down to what are the 25 most important things on that list. So he did. And then Warren said, okay, now cut that list down to 10. And the pilot did. He said, okay, well, I’m gonna cross this out and cross this out and cross this out.
AJV (01:46):
So he went from 50 to 25 to 10, and then Warren came back and he goes, all right, now I want you to cut that list of 10 in half. Again, I want you to narrow it down to what are the five things that are most important on that list. And the pilot at this point says, whoa, we started with 50. Now you’re all the way down to five. Like, that’s hard. These are all important, these are all significant. And then Warren said, but you asked, how do you be successful? How do you be rich? And if you’ve got more than five things that you’re chasing after that you’re doing, that you’re spending your time on, then it’s too many, right? And I, I, this is something we say at Brand Builders Group a lot, that diluted focus gets diluted results. And I think this is a great story that exemplifies what we’re talking about.
AJV (02:40):
And it’s like, you only have so much attention, right? We only have so many minutes in an hour, so many hours in a day, so many days in a year, and so many years in our life. And if we make this, you know, I hear people talk about this all the time. Here’s my bucket list item of things, right? And it’s like, then we’re kind of just like checking off whatever comes our way without a lot of intentionality. But if we want to really be quote unquote rich or really be successful, then what we need to do is have extreme focus, extreme intentionality into what are the five things, or are the three things. I’m not saying it has to be five, but what are the few things that you could go after with all of your focus, all of your might, all of your intention, all of your attention, all of your passion, all of your time, because that’s where you have success.
AJV (03:31):
You have success in the areas in which you spend the most time. You have the most expertise in the areas in which you spend the most time. You have the best relationships in the areas where you spend the most time, right? And that’s how you become rich, , rich in relationships, rich in time, rich in money, is that you’re not chasing every shiny object out there that you have narrowed it down to in my life, for my life, in my business, for my business, these are the select few most important priorities that are, that are above all else that get my time. First, my attention. First my energy, first my passion, first, my money first because I have declared them. So, and that can’t be spread out equally with 50 things, not even 25 things, likely not even 10 things, but maybe with five, more likely with three.
AJV (04:28):
And if you think about the way you’re going about your day this doesn’t not apply to that, right? I look at my calendar right now somewhat sheepishly. I’m going, I need to take my own advice here because on any given day I might be doing 10, 12, 15 different types of tasks. And let me tell you how I end those days. I end them completely exhausted, completely overwhelmed, not enough energy to go and give my kids and my husband the love time energy that they deserve. Why? Because I’ve expended too much in too many different areas, doing too many different things. Not a an ounce to breathe and ounce to go to the bathroom without being on a phone call, eating lunch while I’m multitasking lunch sometimes, like, what is lunch? Right? That’s my chew, that’s my choosing. No one did that to me.
AJV (05:16):
I did that to myself and I did it because I had a lack of priority. But when I have priorities and I enter and I put all of my energy into those, I have better days, I have more energy left over I, I am more fulfilled and I get more done because I was able to go deeper in the areas that got the best of me. And that is true for life too, right? And it’s like, there’s just so many things that we can do, so many relationships that we can invest in so many tasks that we can complete so many, so many opportunities that we can say yes to. There is a limit.
AJV (05:56):
And, and I say there’s a limit if you wanna do them well, right? So how do you be rich? You narrow down where you’re investing your time, energy, focus, learning, expertise and you pick a few that you can be exceptional at, and that’s how you become rich.