the podcast recap episode with aj & rory vaden

Ep 29: Expanding Your Brand Beyond Your Wildest Dreams with Michael Stelzner | Recap Episode

Today, on this special recap episode, we reflect on the interview with Michael Stelzner. As a good friend of Rory and an industry giant, we were so honored to have him on the show with us. We discuss our top takeaways from the conversation. Michael not only highlighted that organic reach is dead but pointed out that YouTube is greatly under-utilized as a social media platform. This is despite its unique algorithms and aggressive promotion of content to new viewers.

He also illustrated just how important emails still are with examples from his own sales and some tips on successful email marketing. It is so important to extend your reach outside of social media! Finally, his insights into live events were fantastic and he pointed out that while you may not rake in your riches through ticket sales, these events are a gateway to so much more. Tune in today!

Listen to the episode below

Key takeaways from this episode

  • Organic reach is dead!
  • Why YouTube should be utilized more as a social media platform.
  • The large majority of Michael’s sales come from email, highlighting their importance.
  • Tips on how to not bombard people via email.
  • Michael’s refreshing take on live events – they are a stepping stone to much more!
  • Big speakers don’t make your event, so remember to create an experience.

Tweetable Moments

“Don’t forget YouTube is still a thing. And since it’s been video-based and everything else is going video-based, they were way ahead of the curb.” — @aj_vaden [0:03:26]

“You can’t not be on social media but don’t depend on it.” — @roryvaden [0:04:32]

“You’re probably not going to make your riches from events. They are steps on the path.” — @roryvaden [0:09:20]

“You don’t want to not have big name people, just don’t think that’s going to be what makes your event.” — @aj_vaden [0:11:09]

About Michael Stelzner

Michael Stelzner is the founder of Social Media Examiner, author of the books Launch and Writing White Papers, and the man behind large events, such as Social Media Marketing World. He is also the host of the Social Media Marketing podcast, founder of the Social Media Marketing Society, and host of the weekly Morning Social Media Marketing Talk Show.

Michael is one of the leading experts on the topic of writing and marketing white papers. He has written more than 100 white papers for many of the world’s most recognized companies, including Microsoft, FedEx, Motorola, Monster, Hewlett-Packard and SAP.

Links Mentioned:

Social Media Examiner — https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/

Social Media Marketing World — https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/smmworld/

Social Media Marketing Podcast on—   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/social-media-marketing-podcast/id549899114

Michael Stelzner on Twitter — https://twitter.com/Mike_Stelzner

Tony Robbins — https://www.tonyrobbins.com/

Free Strategy Call with Brand Builders Group — https://brandbuildersgroup.com/podcall/

IPBP email — [email protected]

Take the Stairshttps://amzn.to/2ZAJNUS

Apple TV+ — https://www.apple.com/apple-tv-plus/

Disney+ — https://preview.disneyplus.com/

Guy Kawasaki —  https://guykawasaki.com/

Sally Hogshead — https://www.sallyhogshead.com/

Gary Vaynerchuk — https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/

Seth Godin — https://www.sethgodin.com/

Richard Branson — https://www.biography.com/business-figure/richard-branson

Steve Jobs — https://allaboutstevejobs.com/

RV:                   Hey Brand Builder. Welcome to this special recap edition of the Influential Personal Brand. We are talking about our top three takeaways from this interview with my very good friend Michael Stelzner from social media marketing world and which I will be speaking at. If you’ve missed that in the interview. It’s an amazing, really amazing event and so I’ll let AGA kick us off. We’re, we, we had the same kind of three big takeaways, so we’re just gonna we’re going to really nail those for you. AJV:                  Yeah. So, and a lot of our different interviews, I, you will hear much discussion around social media as it pertains to your personal brand. And one of the most fascinating things that I really thought was, well, fascinating interview with Michael Stelzner and how he talked about how organic reach on social media is dead. RV:                   Oh boy. AJV:                  But I thought it was really just really cool how he talked about how most people don’t associate YouTube as a traditional social media site. And that YouTube actually offers really unique algorithms to play your videos based on who clicks on it, who actually watches it, how long they watch it, and then what they do after they watch it. And then we’ll actually promote your video to more of people on YouTube based on those things. Whereas other social media sites, we’ll not do that. And that was a really interesting thing how he talked about. You’re going to go all in like don’t forget YouTube is still a thing and since it’s been video-based and everything else is going video base, they were kind of way ahead of the curve there. And then just the whole concept of all these different things that people are talking about constantly to grow your organic reach and he’s there going, well, good luck. RV:                   Yeah. Although I thought that was a good, yeah, like YouTube is interesting. It’s not really kind of classically social media, AJV:                  But it is. RV:                   Yeah. And, and it, it’s, I, I never really put that together that YouTube is the only platform that really shows your content aggressively to people who aren’t your subscribers. And I think, you know, a big part of his message there was just extending your reach outside of social media. So you gotta be getting people off social media, which we’ve been talking about always. You cannot be dependent upon social media. You’ve got to get those people off of social media and onto your email list, onto your podcast, which she talked a lot about was focusing on his, on his podcast and then also text message. Now, you know, you see a lot of the big players moving aggressively with into the text message opt in space as well. So you got, it’s like you can’t not be on social media but don’t, don’t depend on it. AJV:                  I don’t think that, well we say we say this quite a bit is you know, you can be Twitter rich and dollar poor. And I think that’s a lot of what he was saying. It’s like it’s not that you shouldn’t do it. Just don’t think that most of your sales and conversions are going to happen because of your social media reach. And this is a kind of something that you brought up just very quickly there, but he talks about his email list. RV:                   Yeah. So this is the second. The second thing in addition to your organic reach, basically being dead was how important email still – still to this day, how important email is to classified information about his own “classified” private, just between him and us and several millions of you. AJV:                  But I love this because you hear from marketers all the time that email is dead, email is dead. Well, not so much at me. He said that’s how much 60 to 70% of his sales come from email marketing. Crazy. That is a lot. And then he was like, but we don’t send one or two emails. We have six months of promotion with a team of 20 that are leading up to his big event, which is his primary business model, which is coming up in just a few months. But we’re talking about 60 to 70% of a very healthy multimillion dollar business coming from email marketing. Which a lot of those leads best came from their podcast and all these other arenas. But I think that is just something that, at least with our clients, we hear a lot about. It’s like when we ask them about their email list, it’s a, it’s not very big and it doesn’t get a lot of attention and a lot of focus on how do you capture emails. It’s more about how do you get followers and how do you get engagement on social media? And we forget the real way of monetizing all of those people that you’re spending all this time, money and resource to attracting them on social, is actually getting their email so that you can market to them. Regardless of what these independent platforms are doing and when their algorithm changes, your contacts don’t. So it’s just the power of email and email marketing, which we promote. But it was so good to hear some real numbers and real results from somebody Watch the Interview with  Michael Stelzner here RV:                   Was so big. Yeah. Forced to be reckoned with in this space. And I think one of the big, the big light bulbs that came on for me that right had never really thought about was that he sends 60 to 70 emails just promoting this one event. And in my mind I go, well, I could never send, I would never want to send that many emails to my list. They’d get burned out. Like they get sick of hearing it and he said, no, no, no, no. You don’t just promote the event 60 or 70 times. You take one aspect of the event and you highlight it and you, you teach something about that one little aspect. And I was thinking about our events, how, you know, most of our events are divided into six main sections over two days. It’s like we could send one email for each of those six sections and talk about, here’s one great tip and then here’s all the things you’ll learn about this section at the event. And if people don’t feel like they’re just getting bombarded because they’re not just getting bombarded, they’re, they’re getting educational information as a way of also learning about why they should buy and why they should come to me. AJV:                  Good news for all of you and thanks to Michael Stelzner, all of our clients will now be getting 10 times the amount of emails that they’re currently getting. Prepare yourself. Set up a rule to put us all in a folder. The emails are coming, but yeah, I know that’s such a great point. It’s not that they’re all promotional, but it’s breaking down each speaker, each segment, each takeaway, each special events, it’s being useful and educational, but 60 to 70 compared to our six or seven. AJV:                  Yeah, we got some email writing to do. RV:                   Yeah, for sure. So, and then the last thing to me was just his whole mindset about how we thought about events and Aja really highlighted a share the big takeaway that you had from that. Cause I, I liked the parallel that you, that he said that you really latched onto about the book. AJV:                  Oh yeah. He said that a live event is kind of like having a book. You don’t really make money at it, but it’s all the spin off that you get from that book or from that live event that you make money on. Like we say a lot, a book is just a really big business card and you’re not going to make, well most aren’t going to make your entire fortune from, or a living even from your book. But what you will do is it will raise your cache and your credibility and your awareness to a level that you can charge more. So you get more speaking or training or consulting, you get booked more to do this. You get the sponsorships and the ads and you get all the things that come along with having a book and especially a bestselling book. But it may be, it’s not the book that’s gonna make you money. He’s saying the exact same thing happens with a big event. RV:                   This is a good way of thinking about it. And I’ve never really thought about it that way. Are you? You know, I think I’m, you know, you can, I think a book is a good parallel because you can make money. It’s not that you can’t make money, it’s just that you’re probably not going to make your riches from events. There they are a step on the path. And then where he said you actually make the money was from the recordings with things you sell at the event AJV:                  Recordings was an option. But it’s a, you know, like I’ve gone to several Tony Robbins events to even have the mindset of how much money you spend to go into an event. It’s not bad. It’s you, they’re selling coaching, right? They’re selling their training program, they’re selling their mastermind. It’s all the things you sell. RV:                   Yeah. And in our case, you know our primary model, like our primary service offering includes events, and we actually give, we include the recordings for our monthly members that come with it. So I thought, you know, it’s interesting. I think we’re doing events very different from everybody too, is we’re not just because we’re not trying to make money, we’re not trying to make, yeah, we’re just very much proves this point. Yeah. Well, you know, there’s always, there’s always, there’s always next steps for people and stuff, but anyways, the last little thing I wanted to highlight that was on this event topic was that he said that having a big name speaker won’t make your event unless it’s Rory Vaden that you hired to come keynote, other than Rory Vaden as your keynote speaker, a big, a big name is not going to make the event. I think a lot of people don’t really, I think a lot of people don’t understand that they would think differently. AJV:                  I agree. And I want, I think it’s, I think there’s a couple of things. If you are in the business of hosting live events or you think you want to host live events, even if they’re small workshops, this is a must listen to interview. And then if you think that if you get this big name and they will come, he is saying, not really. It maybe a small percentage, he said, but not enough to pay for the expense of it. And we actually know other people who have spent really big money and they ended up losing a lot of money on their event because that name didn’t attract as much as it needed to for the expense. But in general, it’s not like you don’t want to not have big name. People just don’t think that’s going to be what makes your bed, that’s not going to save you. That’s a good way of saying it was a great interview. And if you’re in the live event business in any capacity, you’ve got to listen RV:                   Absolute must, must and podcasting and social and you know, you can check out the event. We’ll put links to that. I am speaking and social media marketing world this year, which is is great. And so yeah, there’s a lot of insights from a very big powerhouse. One of the godfathers of the industry. Check out the full interview, and as always, stay tuned here for your top three and three from myself and AJ, we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

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25 of the World's Most Recognizable Influencers Share Their Tips on How to Build and Monetize a Personal Brand

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