Ep 67: Gratitude with John O’Leary | Recap Episode
AJV: (00:00) Welcome friend to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Man, did we need to hear from John O’Leary right now! AJV: (00:10) Seriously. He’s so awesome. He’s just the best guy. AJV: (00:15) I mean his attitude, his mindset if you haven’t listened to the purpose. So yeah, I mean his story is incredible. We’ve been friends for years. One of the most successful speakers in the world, truly. And just an amazing guy, but to hear, to hear his story, you know, it’s like you can’t, we were talking to him about how he’s built his career and everything, but you can’t, his career is built on gratitude and love. Like his secret is not some business process or something. And that, that was my first big takeaway and I had never heard him say this, but he said, you know, there is an ROI on love. And when he was telling the story about loving on the AV guys that are like backstage at a keynote that you know, nobody talks to and if they do talk to them, it’s like, Hey, get this done for me or get this put in. AJV: (01:02) Or, you know, why doesn’t this work or whatever. And having those guys refer him, I just like that is the epitome of him. And I just thought that was a good reminder for all of us. Especially now when things are difficult and things are hard. Like you’re never too busy to love on people. You’re never, you’re never too broke to love on people. You’re never too important to love on people. And the world is starving for that right now. And I teared up in the interview like I, I just needed it so badly. He’s so amazing. AJV: (01:35) And you’re a big seller AJV: (01:36) And I am a softie. It’s true. It’s true. AJV: (01:39) We might take on John like outside of the interview is that anyone who can capture the heart of a three-year-old as an inspirational speaker has got my vote. Our child, our oldest child, Jasper talks about John O’Leary. Every day and I don’t mean some days, every single day he said, daddy friend, mr John, I want to watch the video daddy’s friend, mr John. And I just, to me there’s something about like what is it about him that has captured this curiosity in even a three year old and there is this uniqueness about John, I really do help you watch the interview. But actually it’s very rare that I take notes but I have a lot of notes. It’s very rare. But there were just like so many good one liners and nuggets and just like you said, it’s really an era of needing messages like this. And this is kind of in line with what you just said. It wasn’t my first point. My points are kind of out of order cause I had so many. But I loved this and he said there is no such thing as a little job. AJV: (02:49) And I love that and I, you know, it’s like we very much have the attitude, it doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO, the business owner, the entrepreneur, you are also the trash taker, the cleaner, the window washer. It’s like at one point do you think that you have elevated among the above the jobs that need to be done? And I just really believe that a servant’s heart and a true leader never rises above that. If there is trash on the floor, you pick it up, right. If there is something that needs to be cleaned, you do it. There is never this concept of rising above. And I loved it. He talked about this story about Lavelle, the janitor, janitor, the janitor in his hospital room when he was in the hospital bed for six months after he had this horrific accident. Yeah, truly fighting for his life. AJV: (03:39) And he said, he said, I believe that Lavelle saved my life many times because I was so succeptible to the tiny viruses. A little cold or anything could have been what ended his life. And he said, but because Lavelle was in there cleaning his room and making it sanitary every day, that was a part of what saved his life. AJV: (03:58) There’s no little jobs. AJV: (04:01) I’m just even reading this and it’s like I’m going to have to like hold the tears back because he said that today in the midst of covert 19 he said there is never been a greater reminder in our country of how every job matters. AJV: (04:16) Yes, like the grocery store when he said delivery truck AJV: (04:22) Tricity internet. I mean imagine if we didn’t have internet right now, like that AJV: (04:28) Be a big deal. It would be interesting. That would be a big deal. Or just people who are willing to get up and go to the grocery stores and keep those open and people who are willing to get up and put their lives at risk to keep a coffee shop open or the restaurants open. AJV: (04:43) The nurses right to, Oh my gosh, of course the doctors, gosh, our first responders and all the people who you know, you just never realize like what I mean how critical that just delivering, getting mail delivered is like keeping the country running. Being able to get things at your house. The person who picks up a side job running to the grocery store to grab groceries that an elderly person can get groceries delivered to their house. Amazing. AJV: (05:11) So many things. I just love that in the midst of this and then just also talking about that story of lavel just putting a name and a face to, it’s like some people may see it as a janitor. He said, no, this man kept me alive. It’s just such a powerful perspective. AJV: (05:30) That’s powerful. Yeah. And you know, kind of playing off of what you just said, I think when he was actually telling the story of how they got started and, and you know when he went out and started speaking and it was totally by accident and then you know, he ended up going, okay, this ha, this is our full time thing. We have to make it work and we have to do whatever it takes. And I feel like you and I have been there in our relationship, like with our business where it’s like both, both times. Yeah. We didn’t have a choice. Like we had to make it, we had to make it work and okay, AJV: (06:03) But we did have a choice. We chose to make it work. AJV: (06:06) Yeah, well we, we chose to do whatever it took to make it work. Like you always have a choice. You can take, you can take a safer route. But to that point of like there’s no small jobs. I remember a couple of weeks ago this is a little sort of side note, but Mmm, there, there was chaos in our house and there’s chaos every once in a while cause we have two little kids and everything. And I was overwhelmed and I just scooted out of the room like, and I just went upstairs and, and then later that morning AJ was like, I could tell she was upset and not upset, but just like she was quiet and I was, you know, she kind of brought up like, Hey, you bailed on me. And I felt so bad in that moment because it’s like you have to be willing to dig the ditches. AJV: (06:56) Like you got to do the work of digging the ditches and whether it’s your spouse or your business partner or the people next to you, everybody has to be willing to dig the ditches together. And I think, you know, people use that analogy like who you’re going to be in the foxhole with and a fight, which I think is, you know, inspiring and if you’re a war person or whatever, but the reality is for most of us, the daily life isn’t a foxhole. It’s not a matter of life and death, but it is a matter of digging ditches. It’s a matter of who’s doing the work and are you staying in the fight? Are you staying in the battle? And Mmm, just doing the work it takes to make it work. And so I took that. That was one of my big takeaways was when he was talking about doing whatever it takes to make it work, which also ties to what you were saying about there is no small job. Yeah, you got to hang in there and you gotta you gotta dig the ditches AJV: (07:46) And just appreciate like I don’t rise above the small jobs like yeah, I just, I love that. So yeah, so I guess that would be my first point. I will, I’ll claim that as my first point. My second point, which I think is kind of connected to that a little bit, but I just thought it was worthwhile sharing is don’t be so had to read this so I get it right. Don’t be so arrogant to think you should get paid in year one. AJV: (08:12) Wow. AJV: (08:13) I was like, I am right. Because I think so many people are like, what should I charge? What should I charge? And like part of like what we do at Brand Builders Group is helping people set their pricing schedules and their fee schedules. And it’s a really hard sketch. A hard question. But I love to, the attitude of like, if you really went back and you said, okay, well how did we get started and what did we do? It’s like, okay, well we spoke a lot for free. AJV: (08:37) Yep. AJV: (08:38) I lot like, I mean for eight years I was still speaking for free. Like I was still getting paid to speak, but I was still speaking for free. And it’s like, remember AJV: (08:46) Still speak for free at certain events, like still to this day, AJV: (08:50) But it’s like really before your speaking career took off, you know, I was like, you spoke over 300 times for free. And it’s like that very first year that we really launched our first business. You know, I spoke something like 220 times for free that year. AJV: (09:04) Can we tell him how much you made? The first year we had this, this is, this is not in Brand Builders Group. You’re making even less than brand builders group AJV: (09:15) [Inaudible] everyone gets paid before. AJV: (09:16) Yes. but in our first, our first year in business, you made like in our first business, 30, 20, 40,000, 24,000, $24,500 rolling in it. That, and then, you know, by the end of our, I mean, okay, a few years later they were making that every month. And then, you know, a few years later you’re making that more like every week. AJV: (09:36) Yeah. I mean it’s, it’s really is amazing and I think that’s, you know, not to like broadcast, you know, what we make or anything. But in year one I was making $24,500 of speaking for free. AJV: (09:49) A ton, AJV: (09:49) Like every day. But then it was by year 10 you know? Yeah. I mean it was more like I was making that a week. I was making it that a week AJV: (09:58) And to put things back in context. Okay. So brand builders, we’re now about a couple of years into the business. So year one you made AJV: (10:07) $600 I think it was technically, I think I made 13 AJV: (10:11) Oh yeah, for delivery work. Cause you assisted on some delivery work but AJ is the CEO of brand builders group and she gets paid last. She only gets paid if there’s anything like leftover and it’s been AJV: (10:23) Virtually zero now for virtually zero other than the delivery work. Yeah, I do. Some clients do some of that, but I just, I thought that was so important and I guess it hit me because we get asked that so much and I think 12 years later into our professional lives and personal lives, it’s we forget that the reality is, is when we started speaking, we didn’t charge. We said yes to everything and that’s so much of what John was saying. He said, my business group has, has said yes. I just said yes. He said we were yes, led and mission driven. And he said, and don’t be so arrogant to think that you should get paid the first time you do it or the first year because we did it for years. We still do it like, like we are, you know, after the sell of an eight fair bit, eight figure business and all the stuff that we’ve done, it’s like we still don’t get paid and we’re digging, AJV: (11:19) We’re digging ditches right now. We’re, we’re brand builders. Even though the, you know, the clients are doing well and our T, you know, like we’ve been able to get our team up to good levels of pay. AJV: (11:28) But there’s just, I just loved what he said. There’s like this, this attitude of people get entitled. I was like, I deserve to make this money. My time is worth this says you says who? And I just loved his attitude of like, don’t be so arrogant doing that work. Yeah. I love that. I just thought it was such a good reminder of when you’re asking yourself, what should I get paid and what should I charge? Maybe the question is like, well, just how many times can I do this before someone says, can I pay you? AJV: (12:00) Great. Gosh, that’s such a, such a great reminder. Yeah. It’s again, just so powerful to hear this inspiration and, and here’s the thing. You may be there right now, right? Like, maybe you were a speaker or you were an employee or you were someone making a lot of money and all of a sudden, boom, covid hits, you know, some crazy things happens in China with a bat. And here we go. Like all of us have to just do whatever it takes and you rebuild by serving, figure out a new problem and start serving it and start solving it and start helping and don’t be above it. And then the money always follows, like the money will come back around. Mmm. Way more important than the money. And this is what he’s all about. And this was my third takeaway was just being reminded of how much life is a miracle. Yeah. Towards the end. And he was just talking about you know, like one and there’s like a one in 400 trillion chance or whatever it is of your, of your DNA coming together the way that it is. AJV: (12:59) And just like the fact that you’re here and, and then talking to somebody like John who’s so grateful for everything and go, go, you know what? Imagine if you didn’t have your hands right, like imagine if you didn’t have your hands or if you didn’t have your eyesight or if you didn’t have, like there’s so many people that are, you know, living with a lot of fear right now because their immune system is really weak and just really dangerous time for the vast majority of, of us. And, and perhaps you, we have so much to be grateful for. It’s, it’s so beautiful that we’re even here. We you know, as, as crazy as the current situation is of the quarantined world. It’s also pretty incredible how we’re able to connect and do business virtually and have our basic needs met and food delivered to our house. AJV: (13:50) And there’s, if this was, if there was ever a time in history to have this, it would be right now, like this has to have been the easiest time, the most medically advanced to ever have something like this. And it’s all about that perspective. I remember seeing something on Instagram about Covid where it said your grandparents were called to war. You’re being called to sit on the couch. You can do this. I posted, that’s right. I saw it somewhere and I’m always sealing AJ’s lines and but it’s true, but it’s true. You know, like we’re, we’re alive. We’re here and just don’t forget the miracle of, of that. The miracle of life. There’s so much to be to be grateful for. AJV: (14:32) Yeah, mine is probably my third point is similar to that and I think it was, it was probably towards the last half of the interview when we were talking to John about just how has this affected your business? What’s your attitude? What’s the plan on the go forward? And I just, I love that he said, I’m just so grateful for the season and I think it’s really hard for a lot of us to admit that openly because there are so many people who are struggling. There are so many people who’ve lost their businesses, they’ve lost their jobs, they’ve lost their lives, they’ve lost family members. You know, you’ve, you will look at New York and you’re going like, how can I publicly say I am grateful for this season when people are every single day on the front lines risking their lives, people are dying, people like they are suffering. AJV: (15:17) And at the same token, there is this amazing privilege that has been given to so many of us to be at home. To refocus and reprioritize. And I, I really honed in on what he said and he kind of like took this and two parts in the beginning he said, you know, in year one I speaking my speaking career started because our little girl scout asked me to speak at her girl scout troop and then a parent in the audience was a part of the rotary club. And then some was there was a part of Kawanna. So his first year he spoke three times all for free year two, he spoke eight times, all for all for free. Year three though, he started charging and making money. He spoke 60 times. But yeah, 14 years later he has spoken more than 2000 times to millions of people. AJV: (16:07) And many different continents. And he said, he said over the last, you know, two months, he goes, I’ve had 41 days in a row where I’ve been able to tuck my kids into bed. That’s never happened before. I’ve had 41 days in a row where I’ve gotten to make them lunch. That’s never happened before. I’ve had 41 day, you know, and he’s kind of goes on and on and you’re like, it’s interesting because the first half of our interview is very much about how did you get your speaking career started and what you can expect. And it’s like, it goes from girl Scouts to like literally millions of people being impacted by John’s story on multiple continents in 2000 times. And, but yet, but the the amazing part of this interview is like, I’m so grateful for the things that I never knew I was missing. Like being home for 41 days. AJV: (16:57) And you also, in the context, if y’all don’t understand, like for John, somebody who’s primarily a keynote speaker and their primary revenue, like the keynote speaking business, he’s gone all the time. But this pandemic is impacting speakers radically. I mean, our entire keynote business is basically on the course of three weeks. Over the course of three weeks. Lost every event. Yeah. You know, indefinitely disappeared. You know, some of them will come back at some point maybe, but it’s okay. AJV: (17:28) But for him to, to have that attitude, it’s not like he just has it all hunky Dory right now. Like it’s entire business bookings for the rest of this year AJV: (17:40) Just went out the door. AJV: (17:42) They’re like, this isn’t like, Oh, it’s this one thing. It’s like, no, that’s his entire business went poof. And yet he is still choosing to be grateful, AJV: (17:50) Choosing to consciously be thankful for the things you do have versus unconsciously complaining about the things that you don’t, or being entitled and thinking that you’re above facing the challenges that are in front of you and. AJV: (18:04) Or that you’ve somehow earned or deserved to not have to deal with difficulty. RV: (18:09) Or to not that you’re above, above the work. Just really, really great, great reminders. Loved it, man. We needed this. And go listen to it. There’s a good chance you need it. Even if you don’t need it, you need it. Go listen to John O’Leary and be grateful. Know that your work matters. There is no job too small. There’s, there’s no audience to serve. That’s too small. There’s no message that’s too small. The work is important. The world needs you. Go find them now. We’ll catch you next time.
Ep 66: Gratitude with John O’Leary
Speaker 1: (00:06) [Inaudible] RV: (00:06) Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview. We are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with. This is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit call brand builders group.com/summit call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:03) Hey, you’re about to meet one of my very dear friends and a man that I absolutely love. His name is John O’Leary, and he’s also one of the busiest professional speakers you know, in the world today. Although the world of professional speaking is changing dynamically, which we’ll talk some about, but if you don’t know John, he was in a very serious explosion with a five gallon gas tank when he was nine years old and he was burned on a hundred percent of his body. Over 80% of those burns were third degree. And now he is one of the most booked inspirational keynote speakers in the world. He’s the bestselling author of a book called on fire, seven choices to ignite a radically inspired life. He has a new book that is called in awe, which is a followup to that. And we just were sitting around chatting and it was like, man, we gotta get you back on the show to some talk, some shop and talk through a building a keynote business. So John, welcome to the influential personal brand. JO: (02:11) Rory Vaden. Thanks for being my friend. And on most podcasts when I hit record, we started going right away. You and I had 49 minutes before we hit record just to talk. So we really are friends first and foremost. But I’m glad to be on the podcast. RV: (02:26) Yeah, well that that is for sure. And you know this, cause I sent you the video that Jasper has been learning all about fire and every night he’s like I watched John, I watched John and so your, your, your story’s inspiring. Even to our little three year old man and just helping him, you know, learn about fire and gratitude and all that. So I, you know, I love you man. JO: (02:49) Well I love him. He’s a cute little guy and I think you learn about fire, you learn me something, you stay away from when you’re a kid, but as you get older you got to figure out how to harness fire. And that’s what I’m excited about talking with you during this podcast. Like how do you go from being repulsed by something or being driven by fear to being inspired and motivated to do something bigger in your life. And that’s everyone of your listeners. That’s what they’re striving to do in their own words. RV: (03:18) Yeah. Well, and so tell me about your, tell me about the, your, your keynote career. Like how did you go from, okay, so this burns happens when you’re a kid and a lot of people that are listening, you know, they, they, they want, you know, that that’s part of what they aspire to is go and, Hey, I want to stand on stages and, and inspire people. And so you’re, you’re one of those stories that just, you have an incredible story and You know, tell us how did you kind of move officially into professional speaking JO: (03:54) Haltingly awkwardly and painstakingly slowly. So that’s the truth. And I think it’s most of our truth for those of us who had at some point or another, made it in front of the stadiums and the auditoriums and the Rotarian clubs. It takes a while to elevate from where you are to where you want to go next. But what you need to know is it’s possible. It is absolutely utterly possible. There’s been many who’ve done it. So the best way to achieve success is to follow those who’ve done it before you. And for me, Rory, I got burned at age nine. The great goal of my life was not to be an international speaker, but to be ordinary. So my desire from age nine until about 28 was to fit in, which meant at age 11 I was playing soccer at age 16 I was trying to find a six pack of beer to split it with my friends. JO: (04:44) I was trying to be funny, I was trying to be cool. I was trying to fit in like everybody else, which meant also I was trying to be who I really wasn’t. And I did that for the majority of my young life. And then at age 28 a third grade girl scout asked, mr John. That’s me. If I would speak to her troop and man I, I’d never spoken before publicly, I had never told anybody how I got burned. I had no idea how to string a couple of sentences together or how to build a database of potential clients. This was not the goal, but in life, when an opportunity knocks, I’ve always said yes, whatever that thing is. Even if it’s helping a friend move on a weekend, my answer is yes. I just try to live in yes. And so I said yes to this little girl. I planned this talk for probably, I’m not exaggerating, 40 hours to deliver a talk to three third grade girl Scouts. JO: (05:40) And when I delivered, I bet you will be so underwhelmed by this. I looked down at several note cards. I never looked up and that’s my first talk. One of the fathers in the room was a Rotarian. He asked if I would speak to his group and I said yes. And then one of the members from that group was a Kiwanis club. So in year one I spoke a grand total of three times was not even paid with a box of Samoa. So I got no cash. You know. You did get some MOAs or no, I got nothing. No Do-sey Doe’s no Thin Mints, nothing. I got maybe a free lunch at a rotary club and then year two happened. I spoken maybe eight times, Nope, no cash, maybe a gift card to a shell gas station when I was still open. And then year three, it started to become a business. JO: (06:29) It always had been mission led. It had always been yes, led, but it all of a sudden began to take on the underpinnings of an actual business. I hired my first employee, I borrowed against our home actually to pay her salary. And this woman named Deanna and I started building this thing up from the ground floor and we delivered 60 keynotes in year three in the 14 years that have followed. I’ve spoken two thousand times, 50 States, a couple dozen countries, a couple of million people live. And a couple of cool things have grown out of that. But it has been a wild whirlwind of just saying yes to the next audience in front of you and showing up with everything that we had to inspire the people in the room, not to realize how great I am. Cause there’ll be bored by that, that message, but by how great they are. JO: (07:20) So how did you go and I wanna I want to talk about covert and how that’s affected your business and the like what your mindset is going in into some of this and a little bit but, but I mean to go from eight to 60, that’s a lot in that was really like your first year going after this. So, so what did you guys do then and how much were you charging and like how did that, like that, that, that, that was a real business, which you took a real risk. You took the loan, you got a heat lock. It sounds like you got all he lock and started the business. A hired your first person. Was she just out there emailing people and calling them or what was happening? Yes, to both. So I brought her on after already probably booked about 20 that year, add about averaging $1,500 a keynote or something like that. JO: (08:16) And so there was a little bit of cash coming in the door, but she was asking for more than I’d booked in the entire year. And by the way, I’m married, I have a mortgage, I have one child and another one on the way. And so this is not like, well, it was my part time gig and I was independently wealthy. Neither of those things were true. I had to make this thing work, which is also one of the reasons I think, in fact, it did work. We had to make a go of this thing. We better figure this thing out. And we were motivated not only to stay out of the broke house, but to keep people alive, keep people moving forward, make them recognize how beautiful their life is and their calling to do more for others. So we started off speaking for free. JO: (08:56) I’m begging you guys, if you’re just beginning and you’re just listening to Rory Vaden today for the first time and you’re thinking you want to deliver a message on a platform someday, don’t be so arrogant enough to think that you’re, you need to be paid right off the bat. There is a benefit to going into school houses and synagogues and churches and rotary clubs and serving. Many of these people that you serve on the front side will become your advocates downstream. And so even when we were just kind of showing up to love, I’d still walk out with everybody’s business card in the room and I would still Rory Vaden following your, your process man, I would still follow up with emails. We would still begin sending out a monthly at that time newsletter to encourage them to keep moving forward, but also to remind them that there’s a guy named John O’Leary who alive and well and ready to serve when they are ready. JO: (09:40) So even in the early stages of this business, when there was not a business model, so to speak, there was the beginning of a database, there was the beginning of a followup and there was the beginning of a long term dream of what it could look like. RV: (09:54) And, and, and is that, I mean, over the next 14 years, has that changed much? I mean does it basically just the same thing, build a database, go out and speak, contact people get like what? How has that change and were there any big breaks? Like were there any big moments where you said, Oh, when this happened. That really catapulted my career. RV: (10:16) So it’s a great question because you live this every day, your life. What I’ve always found at least in the first 15 years maybe I’ll find something very different than the next 15 is that the idea of big breaks is, is sometimes exaggerated. I’ll book a huge event in front of tens and tens of thousands of people and the right people in that room thinking now I’ve made it and the following day I wake up and I’m really not that changed. I’ll book a huge huge radio show or television show or podcast boom baby now we got it. I’ll create a book that is worthy enough to be a New York times bestseller, becomes a number one New York times bestseller and still I haven’t made it. And so you have a beautiful quote about when the rent is due. It’s like it’s due everyday man, get up and pay it again cause it is due every single day. We’ve had a lot of breaks but but none of them that have actually made us overnight successes. What have made us in quotes, overnight successes is showing up and going to work the following day. JO: (11:18) And so some of the things that have grown in the last 1415 years is the database. When you collect information over the course of years, we now have a couple of hundred thousand people that we we’ll get to love on every single week. Another thing that has happened is we started getting into social media. So now we have I think 300,000 or so followers online and then you ask yourself, well how can I serve them better? What if they had a really cool life giving book? And so I wrote a book called on fire. It became a number one national bestseller. It’s still selling now four years after it’s released at a high level because it’s about reminding people not only that they matter, but here are the next steps that you can take to impact. Even more lives through yours. After that release, we said, how do you touch more lives? JO: (12:02) We created the live inspire podcast. Rory Vaden has been a guest on this thing. We have a hundred thousand plus listeners every single month that checked out the millions of downloads. Now 2 million over 2 million downloads of a million downloads, and it’s awesome. It’s a cool way to get in front of people, not only the mass audiences, but it allows you to reconnect with a guy like Rory Vaden or a guy like John Gordon or a lady like Renee Brown or you. You name the person and now you get to meet these people one-to-one here, their stories. But my kids and I, cool story. We were watching Apollo 13 and they wanted to know when the guy died. This guy played by Tom Hanks when he died at the movies in the sixties so when did he die? It turns out commander Jim Lavelle lives in Chicago. JO: (12:45) He’s 94 years old. He’s been married for 70 years. He’s the world’s greatest failure just about everything he did in life. He failed except for the fact that he kept moving forward. And so he even failed to go into the moon except for the fact that they figured out how to Slingshot around the moon and come back safely. So one of the great stories I think of our society bringing this guy back with technology foreign figure to a cell phone and yet commander Jim Lavelle is alive and well in Chicago today through the efforts, not only of him and his two person crew, but through what we were doing in Houston. Yes, they had a problem with they redeem the problem. RV: (13:23) That’s amazing. That’s such a cool, that’s such a cool story. And I, I I mean one of the things that has always just blown me away, and this is, I guess part of what I would hope for people to capture from you is just like, you have such a genuine heart to serve. And we were, we were talking about some of the Covid stuff going on and how it’s affected your business and you were just, you were telling me that, you know, I don’t want to have the big high price thing because like my guy is the ups guy and the nurse and the teacher and the stay at home mom. Like your, your, your people are the people like just the, the, the people and how have you always had that heart to serve? Cause I have no doubt whatsoever that that is a huge reason why you have built such a successful keynote career. But I just, I guess I have a hard time understanding how do you go from almost dying just trying to just barely survive and just be normal yourself. Right. How do you go from that to where it’s like I can barely live. I don’t, you know, you lost, you know, a big portion of your hands. Right? And to, all I do in life is care about other people. Like that’s a big leap. JO: (14:39) So let me begin answer the question by starting with the end in mind. For the listeners that just want to grow their business. I can’t tell you how many speeches that have been referred to me through the AV guys. These are the folks who wear black shirts and black pants in the back of the room. That big time speakers like myself ignore because they’re unimportant. They’re only there to get the video up on the screen and the sound of the room, and besides that, they’re useless except for the fact I really love these guys. I like, I love them. And so I hang out with them. I’ll launch with them, I’ll hug them on the front side, hug them afterwards, thank them for their work. Stay in touch longterm, they refer me speeches because I don’t do this on purpose, but those guys then go on to the next venue the following day and if someone sinks, they’re like, by the way, you should meet a guy named John O’Leary. JO: (15:26) Mike, he’s so genuine. He blows away the audience. He gave me his card. In fact, I was texting them last time. Here’s this, here’s the number. And so we get, we get referrals all the time from AV guys. I received three referrals from guys driving town cars. These are the guys like why would you ever talk to a guy driving you, cause they’re completely unimportant except for the fact that I believe in the dignity of human life. And I see the guy in front of me having a far better story than the one I’m going to share from a stage later on. And so I’ve heard so many amazing stories, exchange cell phone numbers with these guys and then have been referred to future clients because of the chauffeur. And so is there an ROI in love? Yes. Okay. Yes. But your real question is why, why do you like people? JO: (16:10) Number one is I recognize that my life is a miracle and that’s not because I got burned and survived the unsurvivable, the likelihood of us being in the room, if you just look at the biology and we’ll have an after hours with Rory Vaden and chattel there if you want to get into the functioning of how we were reproduced into this position. But here’s, here’s the biology man. When you add up your mom and your dad and the likelihood of their DNA becoming one turn into Rory Vaden, the math is less than one in 400 trillion. So the very fact that Rory Vaden is in the room is one in 400 trillion just from mom and dad coming together. We were miracles and we get, we get bored by life and we act like COVID. 19 will be the end of us or recession’s going to break our back or losing a third of our portfolio has ruined what we wanted to do later on in life. JO: (17:01) And what I need you guys to do, listening, ladies listening, is to recognize that you’re made for so much more than this. Like you are a gift. You are miracle. You need to act like it. And once you can act like you can also recognize that the dignity of those around you. So Rory, I’m here because a whole lot of people showed up for me, but maybe the most important person in my story was the janitor. And this is the guy who came into my room as a kid when I was nine. He did his job, he did it for about minimum wage, and he did his job for the next five and a half months while I was treated in burn care. And if he had not done his job at a high level, there’s a high likelihood that I get some small little infection. JO: (17:43) COVID 19 as a reminder, it doesn’t need to be a missile that claims your life. It can be something you can barely see under a microscope that can claim your life. This guy’s job is to protect a little boy from that. His name was Lavelle. I believe he saved my life in the hospital. And I’ve never forgotten the fact that there’s no such thing as little jobs like that. They all matter and an epidemic. And now a pandemic like COVID 19 reminds us of the profound value of grocery store workers and truck drivers and nurses and custodians like their work matters. We just for too long have overlooked it. JO: (18:20) Wow. what a perspective. So, so what is going on with your business? How has [inaudible] affected you and what are you doing about it? And how are you thinking about it? Awesome. Gosh, there’s a lot of questions right there. So from a societal aspect, it’s breaking my heart because I recognize that people’s portfolios have been wiped out to a degree that many of us have become unemployed, that many of us have lost their lives and lost lost loved ones. And that help. The healthcare system itself is incredibly taxed during this time. So just as a citizen of the world I ache, I really hate it. It makes me sad thinking about it. But I also remember a conversation that I had with my grandfather, and this will get me emotional too, cause he’s my hero. My grandfather served in world war II. He was in the Navy for three years, came all married sweetheart, built an incredible life. JO: (19:19) And after September 11th we had lunch together on the 17th and I’m writing this story about this right now. So in September 17th grandpa and I met at a little pasta place down the street from his office. He’s near the end of his life. He’s certainly near the end of his working life. And I learned over lunch that he had just invested a large chunk of his savings into American airlines and United airlines, right as the market has come back online. And everyone who’s got any savvy at all knows what’s going to happen to the airlines after the bell rings and we get to sell or by no one’s going to be buying these two airlines. They’re the ones that collided into buildings and into th th th they’re gonna fall dramatically. And grandpa Bobby bought them heavily. So I say grandma, grandpa, I think he kind of made a mistake man. JO: (20:11) And he took a bite of his pasta then a sip of his tea in front of them and he said, John, do you know that they refer to our generation as the greatest generation? I just said, yeah, I’ve read that book Gramps. And he said, you know why? I’m like, tell me. He goes, it’s not because we survived the great depression and it’s not because we went off and we fought in world war II. And it’s not because we were the most productive group of all time for humanity. They built the nations. He’s like, let me tell you what it was. We never forgot the lessons that we learned along the way. And I think that’s really important to remember during this COVID 19 pandemic. What made the greatest generation, the greatest generation, I think back then and still today, is not what they did. JO: (20:53) It’s that they were made better because of what they endured. They were made better because of the depression. They were made better because of world war II. They were made better because of their great productivity. And so when this crisis happened on nine 11 six days later, when the markets reopened, he’d still remembered what his, what he’d lost, but also was taught during the depression, during the war and during the decades that followed. And so it’s why my grandfather, as a citizen was making an investment into organizations that he wanted to be around longterm. So what am I thinking about right now during COVID 19 I’m thinking about the lessons that I can learn right now that we can apply longterm. I don’t want to forget man, what I know to be true, Rory, this too shall pass. I don’t know if it’s next month or in 16 months, but sometime the pandemic passes, sometimes we’re back at work sometime the markets return and my, my great concern is we’re going to forget what we’re learning right now and I want to be like my grandpa. JO: (21:48) I want to be part of the next greatest generation that did not forget the lessons being taught during COVID 19 so what I’m remembering right now is I’ve had 41 dinners at home with my wife. That’s never happened since we’ve been married ever. Wow. 41 nights in a row, tucking my, my, my little girl, my three boys. And it never happened. Since I’ve been born, I’ve had 41 lunches. When you and I finished this podcast, I’m going to hang up race home and make them lunch again. 41 peanut butter jellies in a row, man, 42 tomorrow. But man, rather than cursing the fact that I can’t get on flights, personally, I’m extraordinarily grateful for this season because I know it will pass. I know it will pass. So that’s what I’m doing personally, professionally, I’m trying to pivot into the storm. I’m trying to raise the sail high and figure out what we can do digitally through the profound blessing, the technology to influence clients and influence last longterm starting today. And so this big ship of ours here at live inspired are pivoting into what we can become. And by the way, we would not have done this had everything in life gone perfectly the way we planned, but, but now we have this beautiful opportunity to become so much more significant and life giving than what we would’ve done if John O’Leary was on a plane today speaking to only a couple hundred or only a couple thousand. Now we believe we can influence millions of lives starting right now. Why wait? RV: (23:16) I love it man. I absolutely love it. Well John, where do you want people to go if they want to connect with you more and just kind of follow your journey and see what you’re up to. Of course, in all that book, that book is out like you all. Can you, can he, you can just feel this man’s heart and it comes through in his writing and so excited for y’all to get your hands on this new book. But where else did you direct people, John to connect with you? JO: (23:43) So thank you for your compliment. Like it is all hard. I haven’t been through media training. I probably said the wrong thing all the time, but it is heartled man. So where they can go to learn more about the book and about who John is as good a readinawe.com. So that’s read in awe.com you’ll learn about the book, you’ll learn about John, you’ll have the links to social media and the podcast. But the reason really I’m driving folks there is when this whole thing broke out, we recognize that there would be some collateral damage. And last year, Rory, 1.5 million Americans attempted suicide. And this was one life was awesome. You got nothing to complain about, no pandemics, no reset, nothing man. One and a half million. So on the front side of this, our team got together and said, how do we invest in people? And so we built a 21 day campaign. So just love them and encourage them and to remind them that they’re not alone and that there is a next step. So there’s a cool 21 day challenge somewhere on that website. sign up for it. You’ll benefit from it. You’ll realize you’re not alone. And you’ll also realize your best days remain in front of you. RV: (24:54) Yeah. John, buddy, I just, I can’t thank you enough for your, your attitude and your mindset and your heart. I mean, I’m sitting here almost in tears myself, just like being encouraged, being reminded of the importance of gratitude and then also just experiencing you living it through your life and through your lens. It’s, it’s so impactful to me and to, to everybody. So thank you for what you’re doing. I hope you are relishing the time with the family and you know, the world is, the world is still very much, very much a need of John O’Leary. So I hope you keep, keep inspiring virtually and digitally through this time. And we just love you and we wish you the best. JO: (25:43) Let me say one thing, man. I twice now, the publisher of my books have sent me back the first edition with my picture on the front of it and what I’ve always sent back to them as a reminder, read the book and then redo the artwork of the, of the book because that’s not it. And so on the first one on fire, there’s mirrored letters of flames that if you look at it just right, you actually see your picture of Rory Vaden and whoever else is reading on fire. They’re going to see their little image in the letters. And if you read on in awe, there’s this big brilliant blue sky with clouds floating past with a red kite flying high, reminding us what it was like once when we were kids and how we can return to that to day to day. And so you said the world needs more John O’Leary? I don’t. Thank you. I think the world needs more people who are fully alive. And do your exhibit a of that. So Rory Vaden keeps shining the light, keep living it out. And thanks for being my friend. Of course, brother, much love God bless you. Feel likewise. God bless. See you buddy.
Ep 65: Everything You Need to Know to Make Brilliant Online Courses with D’Arcy Benincosa | Recap Episode
RV: (00:00) Hey brand builder, welcome to the influential personal brand recap edition. We’re breaking down our episode with D’Arcy, Beninicosa who I feel like is one of our new favorite friends. AJV: (00:11) Yes, we love D’Arcy D’Arcy. D’Arcy is so cool. She’s so cool. And she’s so interesting. It’s probably a good thing I wasn’t on this interview because I’d have been like, so tell me about your favorite place you’ve ever traveled. Tell me more about this upcoming book. So tell me more about your fabulous self. RV: (00:29) Yeah, we were focused and down to business on video courses, which it’s kind of funny. We haven’t had anyone actually come talk about this directly, even though so many of us and so many of our clients do them. And what happened was D’Arcy, so she’s one of our clients, she was in one of our events. She was in, I think it was our captivating content AJV: (00:50) and everyone wanted to learn from her, RV: (00:51) everyone was like, I want to tell us you stealing the show. And so they were, you know, she was like spending time with people and she was like, well, why don’t I just come on? AJV: (01:00) we were so excited about it. RV: (01:02) So if you’ve ever been curious about video courses, how much they cost, how to do ’em, how long they have to be, this is a really, really key interview. And I think that was my first takeaway was it’s not about the number of videos that determines the pricing. You know, she has a $50 course, which is like 15 videos and then she has a $1,500 course, which I think was like 24 videos. It’s not about the length of the, or the duration of it. So much as it is about the monetary value of what your teaching, in other words, how is what you’re teaching going to directly or indirectly affects the person’s income. And if the skills that you’re teaching directly affect somebody’s income, then you can charge more for those. Which like is the definition of value, right? It is. What is the value of the expertise that you’re providing? Not the quantity of information that you’re providing. And that was my first one. AJV: (02:02) Yeah. Which is interesting because that’s how everything should be priced. But so many people are like, well, it’s only one call a month. And I’m like, well what are you covering on that one call a month? RV: (02:12) If you get one idea that saves you from making a hundred thousand dollar mistake, which a Brand Builders I think is a lot of what we do is where we’re not only teaching people things that help them make a lot more money, I mean, but to prevent a lot of stupid money AJV: (02:28) and also just wasted time. But I just think that’s a good lesson in general. It’s not how many videos or how many calls are necessarily what’s included. It’s the price is more indicative of the content in which you’re teaching and you know from someone has in their life. Yeah. So from people like us who have a background of selling things that were as little as $20 for a book or seven figure consulting deals, I just realize it’s so much of application and content, not just what’s included in terms of how many hours. And anyways, that is a great one and mine isn’t all that off for my first one, which is I thought this was just a really important aha for anyone who is creating a webinar or video course. And it’s that the bonuses are almost as important as the course itself. Yeah, that was a good one. So what you include as your bonuses to get people to move to action are many times equally as important and need the necessary thinking and consideration and planning as the actual course itself. RV: (03:35) Yeah. And, and, and when you think about the, the pricing and the offer structures, so for those of you that are, uh, you know, come to our stuff in phase two and we talk about offer structure in getting people to actually pull out their credit card and make a purchase. You know, we talk a lot about how the total retail value should be maybe usually three to 10 times the cost of what you’re actually asking for in charging for. And driving up the real retail value has a lot to do with the bonuses. So the creating quality bonuses that are legitimately valuable and, and spending time to make them polished so that they have a high dollar value, not only does it help them implement the course more effectively, it also is going to help you sell more. So that was, that was really good. RV: (04:20) Um, on the, on the topic of marketing, I was blown away at the funnel even though this was for her $50 course and about how simple a funnel can be. I mean, we overcomplicate, you know, it’s such an intimidating concept sometimes the funnel of like, Oh well what technology do you use and how many emails? And like, how do you know, how far are they watching the video? And a lot of that stuff we teach cause that stuff really works and we believe in it. But for her to just go, no, I just took the first video in my course and listed it for free on YouTube with a link to say, if you want the rest of the videos, click here and there are for sale. And you know, she’s not, she’s not buying Maserati’s with that money, but I loved what she even said, AJV: (05:03) buying groceries every week. RV: (05:05) I’ve been paying for my groceries for since 2017 like that is totally meaningful. That’s totally valuable. So that was, mine is just that a funnel doesn’t have to be complex, complicated architecture. It doesn’t have to be long. It’s just a thoughtful process about how you can give value for free, create the law of reciprocity, and then offer people a chance for how to get more. And it’s that simple. AJV: (05:33) Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s my big second takeaway was the importance of prepping your audience before a launch. And she’s, she talks a lot about her methodology and she’s got a very scientific, like, this is what I do, this is when I do it. Which I think for anyone who is just starting out, that’s exactly what you need. Oh, this is like the weeks leading up. Yeah. Just give me the formula and let me execute it. Right. It’s like baking. Tell me how many scoops, how many drops, how many eggs? Like that’s all I need and I can do it. And that’s really what she’s outlining for you in this interview. And she said that, you know, I know that the six to eight weeks before I launch of a new video course or a webinar that, um, all of my content is going to be circulated around that exact launch. So people know that, Hey, this is all she’s talking about. This is, this is new, this is what I’m going to find on her feed, this is what she’s going live about. And then pop there goes her new course, there, goes her lunch, but she’s prepping the audience weeks in advance with a soft content, soft content, providing value, providing value before she comes out and offers the course. RV: (06:40) Yeah, there’s a, that makes me think of a book that’s out by Robert Cialdini who wrote the book influence, which sold like 6 million copies. Right. But he wrote a new book called Pre-Suasion and it’s all about setting the context in advance. And when she was talking about that, uh, I was thinking about that book and also just like, it just makes so much sense to kind of prepare people’s minds for like, this is the direction that we’re heading and tee them up. So, AJV: (07:07) but then also just makes your life easy. Like if you know, these are the launches I’m going to do this year, this is the content I’m going to launch. Or relaunch. Yeah. It just makes your life easy. Okay. Well I know that January, February, and part of March, this is what I do for my content. Okay, great. Now we launch. Okay, now in April, this is what I do. That it actually makes your life easy if you have a plan. RV: (07:27) Yeah. And it also prevents you what she said, that mistake, one of the biggest mistakes was I was launching too many things at once. But it’s like if you plan out the calendar, you don’t, you don’t find yourself in that spot because you go, Oh Hey, there’s a conflict here. So, um, that was really good. My last one was, it was just getting on live with your audience. And I don’t know why this was such a light bulb for me, but AJV: (07:51) probably cause you’re an introvert who works in a dungeon in the basement and never likes to see the light of day. RV: (07:56) No. Well that’s just, that is, that is, that is true. I don’t, I don’t, um, what do you mean I have to talk to people? Yeah, I mean I, that is absolutely true, but, but the, the idea of, I think at least the way most people seem to process like a webinar is they process it as like a one time event. And it is, it is an either or. It is either you do it live, uh, or you do it as a recording. But the live part of it, I think people process as like you only could do it live once and where she said do it live six weeks in a row of just doing it over and over again so you don’t feel like, Oh my gosh, all my eggs are in this one basket, this one hour. Like get everybody there. And if the tech goes down like, Oh, it’s so risky, but to just go, no, you’re going to, you’re going to do this live consistently, which is the best practice, right. RV: (08:50) Do it live and do it live for a while and then take whatever was the highest, uh, video and turn that, make that the recording that you make into your evergreen. Um, of course we just, we build a lot evergreen from the beginning, but just take the pressure off of you of going, I got, I got multiple shots and, and just be with your people. Like just say it’s, it’s not like, Oh my gosh, everything has to go perfect. It’s like, no, just hang out with your people. Like these are your friends, these are your friends, your fans. Like, hang out with them and give them a chance to like talk to you and just share with them what you have. And I think that it’s easy to get scared and intimidated by, you know, the webinars. AJV: (09:33) Oh, very scary there. So my last one was just something she brought up just kind of casually, but I really launched, latched on to it was the importance of not launching too soon. And so many people out there have this Jones’s mentality of, well, everyone has a course and everyone’s doing a webinar and everyone is this and every I gotta I gotta I gotta and it’s like, yeah, maybe, but not too soon. There is a huge danger of doing it too soon when your audience isn’t ready for it. And she talked about how she spent two years providing value to her audience before she came out with a course. And then her first course was 49 bucks and it was very niche and it was very specific. But there’s, there’s immense value of not rushing to do this when you haven’t primed your audience to be ready to buy from you. AJV: (10:22) And we have a recent customer from Brand Builders group that this really resonated with me and it was a, I’m an a gentleman who heard about us from Lewis Howes. Okay. What I’m talking about and my friend that this is like really resonated with me because he, he requested a free call with Brand Builders Group about building his personal brand. He heard about us on Lewis’s podcast and then he said, you know, I’ve been listening to Lewis for 10 years. And to me that just is like so much to what Darcy said, it’s, you know, Louis had been nurturing and building this relationship, this online relationship. Well this person for 10 years before he was ready to click and buy something and there’s so much value into not rushing it and just providing value. Like if you’re truly, truly trying to build a personal brand and it’s all about money, then you’re already not going to win. AJV: (11:18) People can smell it. You’re already not going to succeed if it’s just about that, you know, we always talk about mission over money. Yeah. But it’s, you know, if you’re on the mission of serving and providing value with real expertise that you have, which I think is what Darcy talked about in this tire and entire interview, it was if you have something worthy of sharing with the world than just do it. Like what are you the expert at? Where’s your real expertise and experience? What do you have results in that you could actually help someone else improve their life, their business, their systems or their mindset and actually get out there and do it. And it’s amazing how many people need that and are willing to spend money $49 or $1,400 for someone to be their guide to show them how to do it. And I love that. Um, I have a bonus topic that, RV: (12:06) so before you bonus your topic, just on that note, because one thing that she also said was she was like, and if you’re struggling with that, you should go back through phase one. And that was as a seven figure earner who has a lot of experience for her to say, I had to go back to phase one for my new thing and how like how challenging it still was and how important it is. That was, that was, AJV: (12:30) yeah, so make sure you go back and listen to the full interview specifically the last five minutes when she talks about how everyone needs to work with Brand Builders group [Laughing]. RV: (12:38) Yes, for sure. Now we have a bonus tip, AJV: (12:42) so I’d have a bonus topic where I really need everyone to figure out how do we go back through this process of getting remarried so that Darcy can come shoot our wedding. RV: (12:54) Oh yeah, AJV: (12:56) yeah. If you’re not following Darcy, you need to, in addition to being an amazing photographer, and here’s one of the things that I love most about her. What you guys did not talk about at all is at Darcy’s not one of those photographers who does all the filters and she comes back and she fixes everything. It’s like, no, like help me capture you and your natural beauty. Let me capture the essence that is you not let me bring it back to my photo studio and do all the airbrushing and fix every blemish. It’s like, no, like, let me capture the real you. So I want to know how do we get remarried so I can have Darcy come do my photo. RV: (13:33) Honey, will you marry me on the podcast? How romantic was that? How much romantic? A spontaneous reproposal right here on the podcast. I had confidence, I would say not because we have undying love, but because we want additional wedding photography from Darcy bidding process to go with our already amazing wedding [inaudible] AJV: (13:58) like, no. Oh my gosh. They’re incredible. They’re incredible. But what I was going to say is like in addition to that, her authenticity and her fun vibe and her personality and her confidence are just absolutely contagious. So if you are just listening to the recap, you are truly missing the best part, which is the interview of Darcy. So go check it out.
Ep 64: Everything You Need to Know to Make Brilliant Online Courses with D’Arcy Benincosa
RV: (00:00) Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview. We are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with. This is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit call brand builders, group.com/summit call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:03) Oh my gosh, I love D’Arcy Benincosa. You’re gonna love this woman. She is so fun and so cool and so intelligent and a true professional. So she is, has been, I think one of the most sought after destination luxury wedding photographers in the world. But out of that, she’s also become a very well renowned business coach, specifically for creatives. And that’s part of why we brought her on here today. So she and I met through a mastermind that she was involved with and then she became a client of brand builders group and I’m always kind of like, why are you a client? You’re so amazing. But she’s so humble and she’s such a student that way. And then she was in one of our events and everyone started asking her all these questions and it was like, Oh my gosh, we have to just get D’Arcy in front of all of you so that you can learn because she’s done a ton. RV: (02:00) Okay. So she’s as a photographer, I mean, she’s been featured in so many different things and as, and as kind of a a business coach or teacher she’s been featured in HuffPo, ABC, NBC, the view, Upworthy, I mean, her photography has been in every major wedding publication like Martha Stewart. And Harper’s Bazaar and style me pretty like so she’s got a master’s degree, so she has that interesting balance of like classic education. Like me, I have a master’s degree but also really am more of an entrepreneur. And anyways, I’m just excited for you to, to meet the energy that is D’Arcy, Benincosa. So welcome to the show. Oh my gosh. It’s such a privilege to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for that introduction. I’ve done a lot in 40 years. Well you don’t look forward to at all. RV: (02:57) And so I guess there’s so many things I want to ask you about, but I, I think that the place that we should start just to like get right to what is probably most relevant for our audiences is I think that of all of our clients, you’re one of the people that is really well experienced with video courses, creating them, pricing them, launching them, promoting them. And so like, I think maybe we just dive in with that. So, so how many courses, like is it w give me an idea of what percentage of your business come from courses and how many courses do you have? And like just give us like the overview of what courses mean in D’Arcy’s world. DB: (03:41) Yeah. So for a long time I was just shooting weddings. I think a lot of us just offer a service, right? I was out shooting weddings, doing brand shoots. I was so good at storytelling. And of course is always happens when you get really good at some thing. People who want to be good at it start inquiring, Hey, can you teach me how to do that? Can you teach me how to do that? And I realized as a business person, yes I was tied to photography, but I knew I didn’t want to be shooting weddings when I was 70 so I thought this is a great new Avenue of another client I can serve. So I started creating the education and creating ways of helping photographers, book clients. So at first it was about 0%. Then I would say the year I finally decided to launch a course, it became a third. DB: (04:37) I launched a course audience. If I had a six figure launch my first time launching something because I really didn’t launch until I had served my audience for a couple of years. And that launch was huge for me. I didn’t do any paid advertising either. That was my mind. So all my clients were just ready to buy what I had to offer because I had been serving them. And I think making sure you don’t launch too soon before you’ve served them enough before they want, you know, there’s so many laws to marketing. Talked about the law of reciprocity is a big one. Make sure you’ve given so much to them, but that by the time you launch something, they are just ready to buy from you because you’ve served them so well. And I think that’s what happened with my first course. And then I got really zealous and right after that I created another one. And I think I did that a little too soon. But then I started listening to what they were asking and I, I started creating things that I did really well that I didn’t realize people would pay me to learn. Like I thought, Oh this isn’t a big deal. And then it turned out to be something everybody needed help with. So I have a lot of courses, I’ll be honest, I have probably more than a lot of people recommend, but they do really well. RV: (06:04) Interesting. Okay. So so that when people hear course like how many videos, I know this is such a basic question, but like how many videos are in a course, how long do they have to be? How professional? Like how professionally shot do they have to be like, you know, do you have to rent a studio and go do it with like full lighting? Can you do it on your phone? Like just give us a sense of of that. And maybe maybe correlated with price points. Cause I’m sure it’s like the answer is, it depends. It can be all those different things. But just since you’ve actually had so much different experience, like how would you kind of price, you know, different modalities and volumes and that kind of thing. DB: (06:50) So let me tell you my lowest price course than my highest price course. So my lowest price is $49. It includes 15 videos that are each about six to 12 minutes long. RV: (07:03) Say that again. How many DB: (07:04) 15 videos that are each six to 12 minutes long. Okay. And it’s a very niche course. It’s teaching photographers how to shoot a meter film. Do you remember film? RV: (07:19) I do remember film, but I don’t know what meaner film is. Is that like filming? DB: (07:24) Yeah, most people shoot digital, but film is making a comeback, especially with hipsters. I’ve always, I’ve always shot it. So I’m teaching people how to meet her light for their camera to shoot film. Okay. I do it really quickly, really succinctly. And it’s a $49 course. I put it cheaper because it’s really easy. It’s quick to get through and I wanted them to have an experience with me so they could see how I was as a teacher. And that one, I just have one video from the course on YouTube. It’s the most searched YouTube term by photographers. You guys might not get it so don’t get lost in the language but it just says how to shoot a meter film and that’s exactly what they type into the search bar and I don’t know RV: (08:14) The title of your video. Okay. DB: (08:16) That’s the title of one of the videos in the in the course that I put on YouTube and then I have a link to buy the $50 course and that, and I sell a couple of those a week. They’ve paid for my groceries. That course has paid for my groceries since I put it up in 2017 and the awesome thing about that content is it never changes. Shooting film is a thing that is always the same. How to do it is always the same, which is awesome to have as a course. RV: (08:46) So your whole funnel, there is one of the videos in the course you made publicly available and then you have a link in the description and like a card that comes that slides out. DB: (09:00) If you want to learn more in depth, this is what I cover. Click here to buy the course because there are a lot of other videos on YouTube like that, but mine is the best. I’m a really good teacher and I did my research well and I made sure I was very clear. And and so it’s a, it’s a 12 minute video. It has almost a hundred thousand views and people are watching it every single day and it, it goes. Yeah. And that’s one of the, RV: (09:29) One of the funnels. And so it’s not even like, it’s not even really a marketing, it’s the actual video in the course itself. And then if you want more boom and you click and you go to a sales page that tells what’s in the course or do you go straight to your shopping cart? DB: (09:42) Yeah, pretty much too. I think a landing page, it could Jobie that then tells what’s in the course and they can just buy it. RV: (09:49) Got it. And did you shoot it on your iPhone or, I mean you’re a photographer so you have a little bit of an advantage with the production quality. DB: (09:59) So I used to make a ton of YouTube videos and I would rent out a studio for like 300 bucks and pay my friend 300 bucks and he would come in and we would shoot all day long, 12 hours a day. We were in a studio that had light and then he would go and edit all of the, all the videos. So I created that course in about two hours. I just wrote down everything people need to learn. I got up, I taught it. I didn’t need a lot of cue cards for that one. I had my meter, I had my camera and that one was really easy and I could run paid ads to that if I wanted. I just have other things that I run ads to. So that one I had just, I love seeing how it performs on YouTube. RV: (10:43) Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So what’s your most expensive one? So my most DB: (10:47) Expensive one is a, the one without me. So I do coaching with me, but without me, it’s 1495. It’s 1,495 it’s called the marketing map. And it’s basically how to market yourself as a creative with really tried and true services. If you are just a service because so many of these things that teach you are like, you have to have a product or a course or anything like this. And this is basically like I have a service if I was a photographer, you know, so these are photographers, different kinds of creatives that have one service to offer. How do you market them? And it goes through very in depth how to market that. And that I launched I did RV: (11:30) So hold on. So one thing just for y’all listening, cause this is interesting because in our phase one event, we talk about five ways to monetize a personal brand and we call them the paids PA IDs. But then you know, the S is services and we talk about how the fastest path to cash is a service is your time for money, but it’s the least scalable. And I think that’s really, really unique because you’re right, everyone teaches you how to sell one of the other ones, but to actually get more gigs if you’re a senior or get more bookings if you’re a photographer. So that’s really specific. So how many, so what’s, what, how many videos are in it and how long is it and all that. DB: (12:10) Yeah, and I will say really quickly, most people come to me with only knowing how to sell their services. And what I teach in the marketing map is, yes, here’s how to sell your service. But then I also give them a lot of ideas for how to eventually bring in passive income. Because the way I serve my clients is let’s monetize your service. Let’s get you making six figures at least because everybody’s working way too hard to not least be making six figures. And then let’s open up your mind and let that creative genius flow for how you can eventually change your business model to not be so service-based so you can not work so hard and you know, but a lot of people at the beginning of their businesses service-based. I think that’s where we all kind of start. And then we learn what our gifts are. So that one is six maps. So it’s six, I call them maps instead of modules cause I’m a destination wedding photographer, travel all of that stuff through it’s six maps. And in each map there are four videos. And then I update that with very good masterclasses about every quarter. So I have genius SEO people come in genius, you know, Google analytics, people come in, blogging people things like that where I’m always serving that audience by, by recording new masterclasses as well. RV: (13:33) Oh, okay. So that’s kind of you, you include them in like a growing archive of just specialty classes. How many, so, but, but then the set part of it is for, you said it’s six modules or videos. So it’s 24 videos. How long are they? DB: (13:52) You know, I know most people say only do like 10 minute videos. I think you need to know how compelling you are. And I happened to be a really good storyteller so some of my videos are up to 25 minutes long, maybe 30 I didn’t plan them that way, I just had so much to share on that. But I try not to overwhelm. So they’re very well organized. They’re very much by topic and they very much lead on a journey. Now I could have included another 40 videos of content, but you want to make sure you don’t overwhelm your audience. And one thing you really want to make sure with courses is that people can finish it because they feel successful when they finish it. And I have a very big mission to help people finish their courses with me because how many of us buy a million courses and don’t finish them? I have been guilty of that. And so I like to make my clients feel very successful. So very much like I led them on a very targeted journey that all over the place. RV: (14:53) Well. Well I think the thing that’s interesting to me as you go that one is 24 videos, right? Your other one, the $49 one is 15 videos. So it’s not really about, it’s not really about the quantity of videos, it’s more is it’s priced more upon the value of the information to the person about what, how, how translatable this information is into helping someone make money from what you’re teaching them. DB: (15:20) Yeah, I think so. Cause with the, how does she meet her film? I’m TA, I’m teaching them one basic skill. That skill could or could not bring them in, come into their business. It’s more like this could be a hobby, this could be something. I just want to learn for fun. The marketing map, if they follow what’s in there that teaches them how to have a half a million dollar photography business, which is, and, and they could scale it to even more. But that’s basically where I’m coming at it from because you can’t make more than half a million if you, if you only offer services. That’s my opinion in photography because you’d be shooting all the time and you wouldn’t have enough time to edit and all of these things. So it’s basically how to scale to that with the idea of, Hey, if you want to, then after the services bring in passive income and stuff, it hints at that, but it doesn’t niche to that. RV: (16:13) Okay. So then the, so the four, so for this one, let’s talk about the marketing map or just the one that’s 1497. So how do you market it? And you said you had a six figure launch, your first launch, like, so part of this, I guess as you go, okay, what, what skill set do I have that I can teach people your outline, the course. I mean, this is what we do in captivating content, right? In our event, we’re kind of like, okay, let’s outline it. Let’s block it all out. Then you come into a studio, you’re going to shoot, you’re going to shoot it, you’re going to have to edit the videos and eventually you’re gonna have to upload them somewhere, whether it’s Kajabi or Thinkific or it could be YouTube, unlisted if even if it was like your first, your very first course. But like once you have the course done, how do you sell the actual course? Like what are all the things that you, well, let’s talk about what you did in that first one and then what you do now because you didn’t do any paid acquisition before. DB: (17:10) And I will say in the marketing map, you only see me during the welcome video. The rest of the time it’s PowerPoint presentations with my voice because I created it all at home and my neighbor’s dog barks a lot. So I had to create these videos at like 1:00 AM so I was in my room, which hoarding with my voice, I would mess up. So if with ScreenFlow you can record your whole screen, I would have a PowerPoint. If I didn’t like how something sounded, I’d stop, rerecord it. And then you can edit everything out, you can edit out your ums, your mistakes, you know, you get really close to a microphone. Suddenly every breath you intake sounds so loud so you can edit all of that stuff out. So the way that I did it is I did webinar, a webinar funnel first, and I had read everything, Jeff Walker’s launch book, everything that said like do a 10 day, 14 day launch. And I just knew that wasn’t enough time for my audience. So I actually launched for six weeks and every week I would teach a live webinar because I’m really good live and I wanted to serve them out, answer all their questions. And so I would Mark it the live webinar on Instagram, which is where most of my following is. And to my email list. And every week I got on and did a live webinar and I closed some of those webinars at $40,000 at the end of it with people buying the product. RV: (18:40) And so that was it. That was, you’re saying that’s the same webinar repeated six times or six different? Yeah. DB: (18:47) Okay. Nope. Same webinar and I just got people on there live. And here’s the crazy thing, you guys, I didn’t have the course created at the time I started selling it because I think all of us have a course or something inside of us, but it is always takes the back the back, you know, we just always put it off in terms of other work and I knew if I had sold it, I would make it. So I not only sold the course for six weeks, it, I took six weeks to make it. RV: (19:20) Oh, so you were making it during that time that you were selling it? Yeah. DB: (19:22) Yeah. And I got their questions like I had it outlined, I knew what I was doing, but with more of their questions, I was like, Oh, I should add that in. Oh, that needs to be added in. And then I would just create videos and content every night. Like it was crazy. It was crazy. RV: (19:36) And your webinar. Okay, so your, so your webinar, so this is like classics and this is classic phase two brand builder stuff too, right? It’s like we’re all about the webinar funnel. You’ve got some traffic sources, you drive them to a webinar, you rock their world, like give, give, give, and then you tell them what you have available. Like it’s not rocket science. If you know something and you serve people and you create reciprocity, like you’re going to sell some of these. If you, if, if you’re, if you’re teaching on something that you should be teaching on, like something that you know something about, but the webinar itself, did you create like fancy slides for it and all of that stuff? Did you, so you take the time to create like a nice webinar slide deck. DB: (20:23) Yeah. Here’s the thing about photographers and knowing your audience is so helpful. Photographers are very much about aesthetic, so I don’t do like these masculine click funnel type things. Mine are very beautiful. They’re very much photography heavy. They all have a strong brand. From the way I present my fonts, like I feel like the visual identity of my brand is of the top that I have seen and it’s very consistent. So my slides are gorgeous and they show compelling images. I talk about, you know, how I took these images, you know, working with Harper’s Bazaar and Thailand and all of these things that people, you know, not to brag but to show this is what you can do when you build your business in this way. So yes, I had beautiful slides and I really taught something in the webinar that wasn’t in the course but very much served them and made them want more. And it really gave them the experience of, Oh my gosh, if I just got this much information off of D’Arcy off 60 minutes, what could I get from an entire course? And that’s the way I’ve always wanted my run my webinars is I want people to feel like what they got off my webinar. They would have literally paid at least $300 of information for RV: (21:45) Yeah, that we feel the same way. Like it’s, our philosophy has never been teased them, don’t give them anything and make them buy. It’s the inverse. It’s, it’s like over-deliver. And in fact, we, you know, for us, you know, grant Cardone has his 10 X rule for us, the 10 X rule that I think about is deliver 10 times the amount of value in advance of what you’re asking them to pay. And then, you know, it’s like exactly what you’re saying when they’re gone, man, I’ve gotten so much already. Like how could I, how could I not buy from this person? So, so I love that. But that, that was it. It wasn’t, there weren’t Facebook ads. Like in your case, you had an organic audience between Instagram and email that you had built up and you just said, Hey, come check this out. So you, the, the, the only thing you really designed was like that first slide deck. And then you had the outline of the course clearly. But, and then you were designing the course on the fly as you went along. DB: (22:43) And I think, I use my sense of humor in Instagram stories. So I called it magic marketing and I photo-shopped myself in the pitcher of magic mic, which, right. We did not know this movie, but I know that with a lot of my, I was, I was almost cast for it as I could see that they weren’t willing to pay me enough money for my abs. So I was like, so I think I use my hands humor, I use my, my compelling newness. You know, I, I went online and invited people there, made sure that they won’t want to miss it. And that’s the one thing about my audience. You know, everybody can create a course, but I think once you sell a course and people do not give good feedback and you kind of missed your boat or you didn’t know over-deliver or you sold the course, you had no business teaching and you didn’t have enough experience. DB: (23:34) There are a lot of people in the industry and when people buy from you, they’re like, Oh I’ve been burned before. You know, and I, I really think having a high standard, if you’re going to become, like you said, your reputation. So I make sure every course, I don’t make sure it’s perfect cause then I never put it out. But I make sure that like it is what I know. I can teach that I’m very good at it. I’m organized. Organizing the information is huge for people as you teach. And I’ve learned from you making sure you have organized information that is easily obtained, you know, and ingested by people so they can take it away and change a behavior that I learned that changed behavior from you at your captivating content. I have been doing it. I just didn’t realize I was changing a behavior. And that’s really key for courses. You want people to come away transformed. RV: (24:30) Yeah, I love that. I mean it’s, it’s kind of like the best marketing ever is when your students actually change their, their actual behavior because then they’re thinking about you and they’re doing things in there telling people. So I really, really love that. So, so, so that was how you launched the first one. Now what happens after that? Like how do you, how often have you launched, do you, you know, do you do paid traffic now? And I mean, yeah, I mean 1500 bucks. Like you don’t have to sell too many of those things, you know, most people to in order to quit their job kind of a thing. You, you could, if you’re good at building an audience and doing it consistently, like so, so what happens after that first launch? DB: (25:15) Yeah, so I think what’s really important after that first launch is to understand your content calendar. So at the beginning of each year, I map out my exact sell dates, like what am I selling so that I can preplan the content that I’m putting out that goes along with it. So for example, my next big course that I’m launching, it’s a new course. I’m launching it in may. That means everything from March and April is content that helps people see, Oh my gosh, I will eventually need this course. So I think planning out your content, selling three to four times a year, not being afraid to sell. I was on a coaching call with actually some people that we know about courses and somebody said I don’t want to be annoying when I sell. And you know, women are the only ones who asked me that question. DB: (26:10) No man is ever like, I don’t want to be annoying when I sell. And I think, you know, if you’re really offering a service then selling is part of that. So I make sure I sell about four times a year and a mistake that I made was trying to sell too many things at once. I remember I had a course, I was launching a group coaching program I was launching and an in person retreat and I needed to sell them all at the same time. That was a horrible thing. It was really hard to sell any of them. Well, and I did that last year. I was like, Oh my gosh, we plan too many launches at once. So this year we’re very careful. I have exactly the dates where I’m selling things. So from that you can keep selling one signature course if you want. DB: (26:58) Like Marie Forleo’s model, she sells B school every March. She then does live calls with it for six weeks and the rest of the year she’s putting out free content that drives people to trust her to then join B school. I love teaching, so I have a lot of courses. I put out one that was cheaper. It was one 49 and it answered a very niche question. It was how to prepare proposals. I do custom proposals for all my luxury clients, how to prepare those to make sure that you book that client, how to give them like you call a compelling offer to make sure you book that client and how to make sure that proposal speaks to them. And that course has been really, really powerful. And so yeah. RV: (27:52) Okay. Are most of your courses towards that lower or are most of your courses like South of a couple of hundred bucks or is it just kind of like all over the place? DB: (28:00) Yeah, I have. So with my product value ladder, which is how do your courses rank? I have one 49 I have two one 40 nines and then I have the 1400 so now I’m creating the four 97 and I think a four 97 course is a really sweet spot because people, we’ll be willing to spend that much. It’s not a thousand, right? So many people talk them selves out of selling a thousand. But it is enough that you can make a really good launch out of it. And those are, that’s the one I’m putting a lot of paid ads. I haven’t put paid ads behind the 49 and I haven’t put paid ads behind the one 49 when we relaunched the marketing map, I had hands-off did nothing. One funnel with Facebook ads and launched it again, RV: (28:50) The 40 this is the 1497 one you’re talking about. So and then give us a sense of that. Right. So, so yeah, and one reason, you know, like we would tell people it’s, it’s kinda hard to run like an evergreen paid ad campaign on a course that’s South of maybe 200 bucks because the cost per acquisition, the price is so low. You know, it’s hard to break even now when you look at the lifetime value of that customer, if you’ve got that kind of sophisticated tracking on the back end, it could still make sense cause you’ll escalate them over time. But just on that one funnel alone, which is really what we want to do with paid paid acquisition is if we can at least make money on that very first buy, then everything from that point in the future is gravy. And and you know, it’s like you can spend as much you as fast as you can to acquire new email addresses and stuff. So, but the 1497 one, that one is super valuable. You’ve proven that you’ve got a webinar that will sell that. So give us an idea of like, what do you expect from like a closing percentage? Like, how many people register form one of these webinars? How many show up, how many actually buy, how long does it take? And then, you know, like at the end of the day, what percentage of people might actually buy something at that price point? DB: (30:15) Yeah. So the rule of thumb is that you will sell from eight to 12% of the people who are on the webinar. I, I remember, I think it was Russell Brunson said if you sell over 12%, email me right away cause I need to know what you’re doing. And he sells a lot of things. So I have a really high close rate. So I have had a few webinars. I know why when I do live I sell better. That’s why I like to do six, five or six lives because then I choose the one where I really nailed it. And that’s the one I put for the replay. So when we relaunched the marketing map a year later, well actually we did it six months later. I think we needed to do a year because my audience hadn’t grown enough. But we relaunched it for 10 days and it made 60 K in 10 days and I only put a thousand dollars behind the ads. DB: (31:07) So that’s not too bad. That was like, you know, a nice 10 day thing and I did nothing for that one. But I closed it about 12% I would say I’ve had one webinar and I CA, I think it was just a really engaged audience where I closed at 15 and then I had one webinar where I closed I think it eight and that felt like the biggest failure. It’s really hard to feel like you know how to pick yourself back up after a webinar because you do put so much into it. So you have to give yourself RV: (31:41) Now was this eight out of a hundred people or is this 80 out of a thousand people? DB: (31:46) Yeah, I usually have about 500 people on the webinars. RV: (31:49) So that means like a thousand of registering. DB: (31:52) Yeah. Yeah. I thought I was going to 1400 and then they’ll, and then they’ll rewatch about about 20% rewatch, maybe 15. Not rewatch, but watch it. They don’t come on live, you know, they, I don’t sell as well on the replays. Because you know, you want to give those bonuses live. So when they’re watching it live or the first time they see it, give them access to bonuses. And I’ve heard that the bonuses are almost as important as the course. So making sure you have bonuses that truly are what your absolute ideal client wants and cannot say no to. RV: (32:38) Yeah, for sure. And I think yeah, so just so you have like 1400 register, 500 show up, and then so 10% would be 50 people. So you might sign up somewhere around 50 people out of that live. Then you’ll have another 20%, so maybe another 200 people watched the replay and then you’ll get like some smaller, DB: (33:01) Like 10% of them as well. Yeah, eight to 10. Yeah. RV: (33:06) And then did that, and these aren’t evergreen, so these aren’t always running. You’ve always done like a couple of launches a year and you’ve done like a launch model. DB: (33:16) Yeah, the profitable portfolio, which I’m creating now, that one will be my first evergreen because it’s the perfect formula for evergreen. It doesn’t need a big emotional hit to buy. It’s a very tech technique based course. And I think sometimes we have these technique based courses that sell really easily. Like I’m teaching editing, I’m teaching this. Whereas some people try and sell mindset or grand ideas or these bigger kind of things and that I think you really do need that one to one connection with your client. So the profitable portfolio, you could know me or not know my reputation and still understand the value that’s being led here. Just from seeing my work and my accolades. You know, my list of publications already show this woman is qualified to teach this. When you get up into 1500, 2000 my group coaching is 4,500 a person. They really need to have that experience with you. And most of my coaching clients have been following me for a while and really know and trust me. RV: (34:24) Yeah. and then Facebook ads and stuff. So are you doing a lot of that now or is that more like you’re learning, you’re learning that space in terms of driving? DB: (34:33) Yeah, I’m really good at Facebook ads. I know when to launch them. I haven’t run them full time, but we did recently starting in January start a lead magnet that’s really great. It’s for teaching people how to have an Epic website, 10 things to have 10 things not to get rid of immediately. And that’s my website. I relaunch it every single year. It’s a launch that, you know, having launches in your business that people look forward to I think is something that can really build your brand and get people who may not have bought from you previously to buy from you because they get really drawn into the story of your business and how it serves them. So we do that as a lead magnet that we’ve started since January. And and then with the profitable portfolio, I have a budget usually around three to five grand a month for where my business is and how I want to scale it that I’ll be doing ads for. And this one, I’m going to do the launch and everything straight off the bat with ads. RV: (35:35) And that’ll be so like for six weeks, just like three to five grand over the course of six weeks maybe. I would say three to five grand a month. Yeah. So if I go into six weeks, I was planning on doing it for a month and then I’m taking it into the, into the evergreen funnel and see how that does. Gotcha. yeah. Well I know I’m excited. Cause you haven’t been through our phase three event yet. I don’t think I need to sign up for that one. That’s the one. That’s the one where we get into all of Facebook ads and Google and.
Ep 61: Deeper Audience Engagement through Unscripted Keynotes with Connie Podesta | Recap Episode
RV: (00:00) Hey brand builder. Welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Connie Podesta is a hoot. I said she’s a hoot. Aj said that I was a hoot. I’m not sure what that is all about, but I said, isn’t, isn’t Connie a hoot? And AJ said you’re a hoot…because she was making fun of me. Why don’t you tell them why you were making fun of me? AJV: (00:23) Because Rory starts out this entire interview with this wonderful build up of Connie and then she’s awesome indeed, but then says, well, you know, here’s how you know she’s really awesome as that I’m willing to refer her to my clients. But here’s why that’s a big deal. Because my clients have come to be accustomed to a certain level of performance that’s alluring to his magical performance back to his clients have become accustomed to his incredible delivery. And RV: (00:58) Now some of that you added some of that you added. I’m not saying, I’m not saying that I didn’t think that that was true, but I didn’t say that. I’m not necessarily saying it now either. Well, I am. I’m awesome because, and Connie is too. AJV: (01:12) Do you do, I didn’t think it was hilarious that as you’re introducing someone else, you’re like, well, you know, they’re awesome because I’m awesome. Right? RV: (01:20) I’m also extremely humble as is Connie. But here’s what I, here’s what I, here’s what I love about, there’s so many things I love about Kanye. I talk about it in the interview, but when I think of myself as a speaker and her, I couldn’t think of our style, like our being more different, AJV: (01:40) Basically everything she said denote story as completely answered. RV: (01:46) Yeah. Like the most boring speaker. I’m irrelevant. I’m outdated now. She does speak more than I do like, so she speaks a ton. It’s actually a really good interview. Yeah. And I think, you know, here’s the thing that she really inspired me in this interview particular is just this, this concept of planned spontaneity. I think I have, I have a hard time, you know, like my logical brain is just freaking out with all the stuff she’s talking about, about just don’t have a plan and like just, yeah, go off the cuff and interview everybody. And I’m like, what are you insane? But Mmm, really, I actually think it’s brilliant. What she’s actually doing is she has set up like a giant, choose your own adventure and she, she knows where all the paths are going to lead. But [inaudible] it appears to the audience. And it is, I mean it’s, it’s very engaging and spontaneous, but she’s not up there just winging it with no plan. It’s what comedians called planned spontaneity. It’s, it’s allowing for the appearance of spontaneity and it is spontaneous, but it’s, it’s sort of like there’s this plan that you have, AJV: (02:53) But also I think one of the things that you’ll learn if you go listen to the full episode is that she is not relying on some huge adventurous, a story that she had. Right. And you guys talk a lot about this and one of the things that I really loved in the beginning of this interview is that you both called attention to that. Both of you don’t necessarily have that incredible story in terms of the framework of how you teach, right? Didn’t climb Mount Everest, you didn’t lay right. RV: (03:20) Like neither of us are actually that exception, AJV: (03:24) Do these things. And so I think what I really love is that both of you are great examples of truly successful speakers without these truly unique stories. Now of course you have unique stories, but it’s not the basis of your entire book ability as a speaker. And I think that’s really inspiring for everyone out there, including myself, is that you don’t have to go climb the seven top peaks in the world to be a incredibly successful speaker with high fees and book calendars. And I loved that what Connie talked about in the very beginning and she said that her sales pitch, which I think this is also really [good], RV: (04:02) She also talks to all the people herself. Yeah. But that, Whoa, Whoa, sorry, sorry. She says maintain control of the mix so that if they ever talk, you take the mic back AJV: (04:15) Listening to her advice. And but I think it’s really good because she said, when I’m talking to meeting planners or whoever’s booking the speakers, I go, well, do you want your entire meeting to be about the speaker or to be about your audience? Boom. Because I don’t make it about me. I make it about you. And I make it about them. And it’s like, all right, let’s, you know, turn the switch. Right. I think that’s really amazing in terms of like, just a quick change, a perspective, how so many people think, well what’s my story? What’s my uniqueness? And she goes, cares about you. Nobody cares about your story. Right. It’s what about the audience? RV: (04:53) Yeah. And I would say her and I are very aligned on that point, which was kind of my second big takeaway was that even though it’s interesting cause it’s like we’re very different from most, not most speakers, from a lot of speakers and that we don’t have like this amazing life story. But then we’re, Oh, thank you sweetheart. But then we’re, we’re very different in our delivery style and our preparation method. But then we’re also very aligned philosophically on the unmaking, the audience, the hero. And she said, you know, the goal is not to make yourself look good. The goal is to make the audience look good and feel good and feel inspired. And I, I couldn’t echo that that more. And I think that that is inherently one of the biggest things that speakers struggle with. And one of the things that personal brands struggle with. RV: (05:40) I know, because this was also me. There’s you, there’s a level of ego that is involved. And when you start, it’s like it’s all about you and I, you gotta, you gotta sort of get past that. In fact, it applies this this last week I was, I was doing a thing for Lewis Howes for his inner members and we were doing like a copywriting training for them. And I [inaudible] I said this thing that I’d never really said and people really latched onto it, which is that copywriting is not about telling people what you do. It’s about telling people what you can do for them. And that’s the same shift as a speaker. It’s like, it’s not about you or, or what you’ve done, it’s about what you’ve learned and how that can help them. And [inaudible] especially if you don’t have some incredibly compelling personal story, you gotta make it all about the audience and it’s just, you gotta be there in service and [inaudible] AJV: (06:31) So we share that perspective. Yeah. RV: (06:33) Hold on. I’m not done yet. It’s still my turn. Okay. Okay. Okay. Now AJV: (06:37) Fast off is complete. Well I think the second thing that really hit me as that she talks about how she doesn’t rely on this story and she really wings it and it’s like, yeah, I mean kind of. She does that kind of, she doesn’t really, and I think what she really relies on, what she’d give confidence to everyone who is listening to this episode is that what she really is relying on is her expertise and her knowledge and that is what you got to own. It’s like the reason she feels comfortable we need to get [inaudible] is because she has an idea of exactly what they’re going to say. I guess she’s done this enough times. If she’s seen this, she’s seen this enough times to know there’s only one or two or three outcomes from this question, so I know exactly how it’s going to go. AJV: (07:16) So it’s that scripted non-scripted approach in terms of like if you’ve done something enough and you’ve done enough research and you have enough personal results and experiences, you know kind of where it’s going, which allows you to be up on stage feeling like you’re winging it, which in turn is really just relying on the years and years of your personal experience and your personal results, which is why that’s so important from the beginning. That’s what we talk about in the foundation of building your personal brand and our phase one finding your brand DNA is, you know, what do you have to hang your head on? What do you have research in? What do you have results in? Where is your experience? Where’s your expertise in your designated lane? And that’s what she’s saying. She goes, you know, she talks about how she doesn’t really have a plan and to some degrees because she doesn’t need one because she has all of this years, years and years of experience, firsthand experience to know exactly how this is going to play out. There’s no question she knows where it’s going to go. And that’s allows for this feeling of on the fly, even though it’s RV: (08:22) Pretty expected. You know, as you were talking, it was making me think about how when you see, you know, if you watch a live, one of the late night shows, you know, Jimmy Fallon or whatever, Jimmy, you know, whatever the late night show, Jimmy Fallon is the best one. And but there is the comedians that’ll come on there and they’re so funny. So funny, so funny. And you go, gosh, they’re so funny. They’re coming up with jokes on the spot and it’s like, no, they have been on stage so many times. They have all these little bits and pieces and they’re just as the, as the interviewer asks them a question, they pull on something that they’ve done before, they, they weave together this kind of beautiful, seemingly spontaneous thing. But it’s, it’s actually very well, well rehearsed. So anyways, the last one for me, the, the, the last kind of point, which I think was sort of the obvious point of what she was talking about was asking myself, how can I create more interaction with the audience? RV: (09:16) Yeah. It’s not, should I, it’s not, do I do interaction or not? Like for me, I’m a slides guy. I’m not going to be abandoning all my slides and signature stories. Like I’m just not going to do it. But, but I, I also, it was so compelling to say, okay, how could I create more interaction? And then even deeper than that, like I don’t think that her point was so much, Hey, you should do interaction. I think what she was saying is she’s like, that’s who she is and she allowed herself to be who she is and an actress and an a teacher and on the fly. And she is funny. And so she, she said, I’m willing to leave the slides behind so that I can be who I am. And so I think, you know, there’s that really important permission and principle and power to say be who you are and then you know, at the same time like I’m a slides guy, I’m a logic guy, I’m like efficient. RV: (10:11) I’m going, Hey how many points? That’s who I am and I’m also going, what could I learn? What could I take away from this to make it more fun? Even though I’ll probably never be the guy up there with no, no plan and no, no slides because that’s being who you are, right? Yeah. That’s who I am. But I think some people listening, like you might be listening going, gosh I didn’t even know you could do this and not have slides. And that’s so empowering, right? Cause slides are free in pain. They also, they also create technical challenges and you know, glitches and things that do happen. But all of us go on, what can we do that’s more fun and how do we also not rely on slides and the plan, but go, let’s rely like what you were saying on the depth of our expertise. Let’s sit in the comfort of what we really know, not just the mechanics of a manufactured and rehearsed presentation to where it’s the same rote thing over and over time. Yeah. AJV: (11:09) And that’s kind of similar to my third and final point. And I really love the example that she gave ran. She talks about how Hmm her, her desire and her need for having audience interaction really came from her years as a teacher and a counselor. And it just hit me in the moment of like, yeah, imagine just for a second that you were a high school teacher for behaviorally challenged inner city kids in Chicago. Just for a second, pretend that’s your audience. Imagine how a slide deck would go. RV: (11:44) Okay. AJV: (11:44) Imagine how a 60 minute lecture would go. And the point is it wouldn’t. And so she said, from that experience I realized the depth and that came from audience interaction because I was in front of an audience every single day for years and years of people who didn’t want to be there. And let’s just be honest, many of your audiences didn’t select to be there. They were told to be there. They were mandated to RV: (12:09) Depending, I mean if you’re in the corporate for sure. I mean if you’re more entrepreneur, it’s a little bit different, but yeah, AJV: (12:14) Right. At some point you’re going to have someone in your audience who was like, how long can I check Facebook before someone notices? All right, this is a little bit of reality and I think what’s interesting is she said, that’s where I’m going to start as F as if I didn’t have an engaged audience, as if I had an audience who wasn’t going to pay attention and how can I change that to enforce that they are paying attention and they are engaged and they do leave with something. And I just love that approach. And that doesn’t mean your whole thing has to be around interaction, but it’s more positioning yourself. It’s not around just your information, it’s how do you get your information and across the way that people will actually use it. And it’s, for me, it’s like I tell her, wear this all the time. I’m not an audio learner. I have to see it and do it in order to learn it. And I have, I would say borderline photographic memory. And it’s like, but if I don’t see it, I don’t do well. So I was actually one of those kids that I never really went to class and high school or college. Actually. RV: (13:16) Hold on, let’s have an honest confession here. How did you become the CEO of brand builders group? Tell us, tell us what makes you qualified. AJ Vaden, AJV: (13:27) That’s for sure. But the point is is I didn’t learn anything from the lectures. If it, if I heard it audio, it just is like, there’s like too many things going on in my brain. So instead of going to class, I knew that if I just read this and did this, like that’s how I learned. Like I realized that very early on. It’s like I went at a pace faster than my classes, right? And I learned that and then I got really bored and for sure wasn’t paying attention. And so I think it’s like, you’ve got to just say, it’s like, all right, there’s all these different learning types out there, right? They’re visual learners, there’s audio learners, there’s application learners, there’s tactical learners. What am I doing to appeal to all of them? Because if you are just a stand and deliver speaker, then you’re missing at least a third, if not a fourth of your audience. Just by the simple way you deliver it, regardless of how good your content is. And I think that’s what I really took away from Connie was how do you engage people? So they don’t just see slides, they actually learn the information enough to actually do something with it. RV: (14:26) Love that. That’s so good. So good. So another great interview. Definitely worth a listen. And w one of the best keynoters on stage really in the world from a mechanics point of view. So go listen to Connie Pedesta hear what she’s got to say. It’s, it’s exciting and, and it’s a hoot. Let’s just say that. So, wow, that’s a hoot. Have a hoot yourself and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand podcast.
Ep 60: Deeper Audience Engagement through Unscripted Keynotes with Connie Podesta
RV: (00:00) Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview. We are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with. This is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that@brandbuildersgroupdotcomslashsummitcallbrandbuildersgroup.com slash summit call to talk to you soon on with the show. You are honestly so lucky to be listening to this right now because you’re, you’re about to learn from one of the best keynote speakers in the world. RV: (01:12) And when I say that I really mean it. And here’s how you know, I mean it, Connie Podesta you know, she’s a hall of fame speaker. She’s written seven books. She’s been in the business for a long time, but she is one of the people that I actually refer to my speaking clients. So after someone has had me and you know, there’s a certain expectation level they have of what they’re going to experience it over time. It really becomes hard to find people well who you feel like, man, I really trust someone to come behind and do a great job for my clients. And that is Connie, she will make you laugh, your face off and then kick you in the pants. And you know, she’s spoken for all the, you know, the big companies, Microsoft, Harley Davidson, blue cross, blue shield, Cisco. She’s also something that I very much am not, she is a great MC and that’s something I tried to avoid at all costs. But she is just so anyways, so Connie thank you for making some time here and I’m just so excited to pick your brain a little bit about, you know, kind of the keynote speaking career. CP: (02:26) Yeah. Someone called me a legend a while back and I said, I think most legends are dead, but I’ll take it. I’ll take that. Cause I think I’ve been speaking longer than almost anybody still out in the circuit. So I do have tons of things and I always say that everything I’m going to tell you about speaking is totally true for me. Okay. Doesn’t mean it’s true for everybody else, but I will be very transparent and authentically honest about what over the past 30 years has worked for me to keep me in the game for 30 years. RV: (02:59) Yeah. And that’s what I want to hear. And I, and I hope you don’t mind me saying this. I mean, this is a compliment and not in a, not offensive in any way, but as a speaker, I view myself as pretty like normal, right? Like I didn’t win a Superbowl. I never climbed Mount Everest. I wasn’t a Navy seal. Like I’ve never been a CEO of a fortune. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it’s like, you know, I have stories of course, like my, you know, I have some parts of my life and things that I shared in that, but, but it’s, I’m not the guy that people go, Oh my gosh, she landed the airplane on the Hudson. I got to hear that story. And I feel like you’re kind of the same way. It’s, it’s really based on like thought leadership expertise, delivery on stage and not so much like your celebrity yet you’re, you’ve gotten to a place where you’re earning fee, you know, you’re in a in a higher, a very high fee range and have had those, a wonderful career. And so I think a lot of people listening, you know, I think that’s inspiring as much as it’s inspiring to hear those people as well. It’s kind of going, if you’re just sort of like a normal person, how do you be, how do you get to your level in this business without, you know, having one of those amazing stories? CP: (04:22) Well, first of all, I think that’s kind of one of the problems is the people for example, that come to me for just coaching. Not I don’t charge for coaching, but just comes to me for mentorship or coaching, you know, they’re always like, Oh, okay, I’m trying to figure out my story. And I go, well just stop. I’ve never had a story in my life. I’ve never done anything unbelievably outstanding, like you said, scaled a mountain or landed the plane. And, and the way I explained it to my clients, because I’m often up against a speaker who has this amazing [inaudible] RV: (04:53) Right in your fee range. CP: (04:56) Yes. And my fee range. And they’re trying to decide between the two. And the way I always explain it to both my mentorees and the people I’m talking to people now in your audience is, there’s two ways to look at this. One is you can have your story and, and it becomes mostly about you. You may kind of connect it to leadership or to sales, but you have done something so traumatic, so adversarial, so impressive that your goal is to tell that story. Hopefully that other people will be motivated. But I always tell my clients when I’m up against someone, well, what’s your end game? Do you want their story or do you want me and I will make it about your audience’s story. I have no story. So because I’m not focused on myself, it’s not about what I did great or horrible and I want them to learn. CP: (05:51) My entire focus is on the audience and my goal is to dig into their story and help them take that and add strategies and tools and all of this thing. And because I’m a psychology person, dig kinda deep inside their brain. So I really teach the speakers that come to me. Forget your story. Forget thinking. You have to have a story. Forget that you need a story. In fact, there’s it don’t even try because there’s people out there with stories far bigger Roy than you and I are ever, ever go. So for us to even try to do that, and instead just say, be honest, I don’t have a story. However, your audience has a story. So you can either get somebody with their own story or you can get someone that makes it about your audience. What would you like RV: (06:43) And would you, is kind of that like the positioning of that too is like, it’s not so much about me, it’s about what can I share that’s really useful for your audience and being direct direct to them. CP: (06:56) I just said yesterday too, where it was me and another type of speaker and I, and they said, well what would you say you’ve done? That’s really amazing. And I said, my goal is never been for an audience to think I’m amazing. My goal’s always been for them to leave that King, they’re amazing. And there’s two different, you know, that’s two different points of view. So do we make it about us or do we make it about the audience? And there’s no right or wrong. It’s great to have people up there that have a story. But I would like the people watching this to realize most of us don’t. But most of us can deliver the tools and strategies about sales or leadership or whatever it is that when they go, their brains are on fire. Like what am I going to do next? CP: (07:44) Where am I going to go? And I love it when my audiences, they leave and someone might say, what was the name of your speaker? And they go, I don’t remember. That’s okay. That’s fine with me because they’re leaving texting and if you ask them what they’re texting, like I’m texting my boss cause we have to have a meeting and I’m texting my wife cause it made me think of this discussion we had and I’m texting one of my other departments because I think I know how to close a deal. I don’t care if they remember my name. Okay. If they want to hire me, they’ll go get it off of Google. I want them brains to be so on fire with what they can do. What they can accomplish, what they can go back and change and behaviors and attitudes and mindsets that I’m irrelevant to them. I that’s fine if I’m irrelevant to them because watching them believe what their text and and calling people on the phone, that’s all the feedback I need. RV: (08:31) Like you’re irrelevant as a person. But it’s the information that has been super duper relevant to them, CP: (08:38) Not the information is so, and I do some things interactive that they will be talking about. I tell my clients, I said I’m going to do some things with them that will create an energy in your audience that will not stop. I mean it is going to change the next two or three days. How they approach every breakout, how they respond, how they react, whether they’re open and more engaged. So I don’t just see me as an opening keynote either. I see. And I tell my clients one of my goals and one of my responsibilities is to hand you back. And I’ve said this, people call me what they say an audience Turner. And what that means is not only am I delivering a presentation, but my endgame is to turn the minds and mindsets of the audience a bit to a place where I can hand my client back. CP: (09:32) And that’s what I say to them. I have the ability to hand you back an audience that’s not the same. And that’s why when people say, you know, we want you for a closing, I go, well what a waste. You know, mostly Chris wanted to be the closing cause they’re thinking of them. Most speakers are kind of thinking of them a lot. So if you’re thinking of yourself and marketing them, being a closing is great because everyone’s leaving with me on their mind. I don’t want to be at a closing, I don’t care about that. I want to be the one that starts it. And I want to be known for handing the client back an audience that will never be the same. So then every breakout, every session, every lunch, every networking opportunity has been altered for the better as a result of hearing me. And if you’re good at doing that, then they aren’t just talking about you. When they leave. They’re talking about you for three days and they’re talking about your material and they’re applying it and the event planners see them talking about it, applying it, using a calling, texting, raising their hand and breakout, asking questions. And by the end of three days, that’s the event planners fees, how valuable and viable all the things you offered were. Then it comes back to you. RV: (10:46) I love that. That’s a great, what a, what a great mindset to approach it. So I, I want to shift to you. You brought this up, the indirect Tivity because that’s another thing, you know, I think that you do so well. It’s like you don’t have the story, but you’re really, really dynamic on stage. And I kinda think of humor as a part of it. But another thing is the, is the interactivity. So can you talk to me about working the audience? Like how important is it to work with the audience? Cause it, it, it terrifies me. I personally have never done a lot of it, but it’s like, you know, you never know what’s going to happen. You kind of lose control of whether or not it’ll be funny or staying on task. But how important do you think it is to like interact with the audience? What do you do with the audience? How do you prepare for it? Like just talk a little bit about your strategy for like the actual interaction with the [inaudible]. CP: (11:48) In terms of how important I think next to being a professional person that does a good job, it is the absolute most important to, to see a speaker that’s not interacting with the audience. Absolutely drives me crazy. And I think it goes back to my background. You know, a lot of speakers started in corporate and training and HR and all that, but I didn’t, I w I taught high school and I taught behavior problem kids. And then I became a therapist because my students were so in trouble and well, to be honest, their parents were needed therapy a lot more than students. So taking this site ICology. And I’ve always been funny, thank goodness. I mean that just I was born with. And so when you look back on my training, you know, whether I had students in my class or I had clients in my therapy office, it could never be about me. CP: (12:42) The students don’t care about me. They don’t care about my life. They don’t care what I did. Amazing. And my clients don’t care if, if you came to me for marriage counseling, you don’t want to sit and hear my amazing signature story about my marriage and how we were down in the depths and went bankrupt. And now look at what all you want me all students want and all clients want in therapy. Is it to be 100% about them? But I also learned in teaching high school that I can’t lecture. I could not stand in front of the class for 45 minutes and write or use overheads or use slides and expect to keep the attention of a young person. So I learned early on that I hardly ever wrote anything or ever used back then overheads or slides. I just, I would talk and then I would go to a student and then I would bring them up in front of the class and then we would tell a story and then we would do a role play. CP: (13:37) And then we would add, I mean, I had to, in order to survive in a high school in South side of Chicago, I had to become full of change and full of variety. And I learned to act out different voices. And if I was teaching English or history, I would, I got them into acting things out. And so when I became a speaker and people started, you know, and I started speaking just to promote my private counseling practice, but I would do the same thing in the beginning days when you’re in the rotary club. I would bring guys up and I do this. And before you know it, everyone’s like, she’s amazing. And now, you know, if someone comes to me for coaching, I take away their slides and I take away their signature store and I take away their level or Mike and give him my hand till those are the three things I do. CP: (14:27) And I tell them, I’m not saying you can’t go back to your lava Leer slide show, you know, stand on stage and talk and don’t involve the audience. I want you to experience what it’s like to not do what all the other millions of speakers do. And it’s amazing worry because once they let go of the mind, the lava Lear, once they let go of all the slides, once they let go of just standing there and and vomiting information and you know, 67 steps, here’s what we do. Once they get into the audience and start bringing people up, it’s like now I say, okay, well now you can go back to your signal. Oh no, no. Oh my God, this is more fun than I’ve ever had in my whole life. And it’s one of the reasons why I don’t do slides because slides means that I’ve already decided months ago what I’m going to teach this audience. CP: (15:22) Okay. Or yesterday or two weeks, I never know in, you’re right. I love the fact that when I bring people on stage, I have no idea what they’re going to say. Most of my great material came from somebody on stage saying something so out of the blue that I never expected forcing me to have to think on my feet and improvise and come back. And then all of a sudden I’d leave and it’s like, that was amazing material. Oh my God, I can’t believe I’ve never done that. But I would never have thought of it had I not been pushed into being outside of my comfort zone and having to react in front of 2000 people. RV: (16:04) So how do you prepare for that? Like do you, and and like how much do you, but like do, you said you literally walk on stage with no plan of what I mean, surely you have a plan of some type. CP: (16:17) I do. I do a thing with personalities. I kind of know how I’m going to start. I kinda know how I’m going to end. Yes, I have a plan, but I’m not seeing what I didn’t like for me. And don’t get me wrong, all of you watching that use PowerPoint, bless your heart. There’s no good or right or wrong and speaking, it’s what works for you. So again, I’m just sharing what works for me. I used to have slides. RV: (16:41) Yeah. Cause I’m a, I’m a PowerPoint guy and I’m sitting here going, this is terrified. Like the idea of doing what you’re talking about to me is absolutely terrifying. I’m going to teach you how to do one role play. And you never ever teach me CP: (16:59) Slides. I had slides and I left them on the plane. This was like 20 years ago. Okay. When we had the slide deck, the carousel, that’s how old I am. And I get in front of 2000 people and here I am. I’m an actress, I’m a comedian, I know all this. But you know, slides were in and everyone had their slide deck and I announced the 2000 people. Oh by the way, I left my slides on the plane and they all just started cheering like yay. And I was like, wow, you know, I’ve never asked myself. I know I thought it was cool to have slides, but I never once asked my audience, what do you think about it? So now I’m getting the feedback and that was an amazing day. I had no slides, I didn’t have structure C PowerPoint to is like being in a cage because now I’m structured, I have to do this slide, next slide and this slide. CP: (17:55) And if you do go off track, God forbid now you have to click through five slides and say, Oh, I don’t have time for those with no slides and PowerPoint. You can be whoever you want. The audience can be whoever they are. And so I’m very in tune to the audience. So if I’m starting a path that I had outlined and planned in my mind and I can see the looks on their face and they’re not quite there yet, I just dig a little deeper. If I try something and I can tell by the looks on her face, they got it, it’s in there. I just skip it and I don’t do another story on it and I move on. So when you have no structure, you are forced to have to look at them and look at their eyes and see the looks on their face and read their interaction and read their feedback and you’re forced to go with the audience, let them direct you rather than you directing them. So it’s very much forces you to give up control. RV: (18:59) So totally. Yeah. And I see that so, so I see that on the macro level. And, and it’s like this fun thing and you’re reading the audience on a micro level. How do you interact with one person in a way that doesn’t become a waste of time for the other 2000 people? Like how do you, CP: (19:21) Because that for me is the structured part. I know exactly through trial and error because I had lots of things happen on stage that I was like, Ooh, I don’t need to ask that question that way. Because then, so now I know and it does come through practice. I know exactly how to word it and a couple of things. Number one, a lot of speakers to do role plays on stage. The audience is the one that looks foolish or silly or dumb or doesn’t, I don’t do that. I’m the one, they audience person is always the one in control. I set it up like that. Like Rory, you’re so and so you’re doing this. I am the employee. I came in late, I have no idea what I’m doing. Let’s take it from here. So that’s a really big key is to never make the audience look stupid or foolish. CP: (20:11) Always have it be me. I’m the one that came late. I ask questions very directly. Like if I were five minutes late and I didn’t even come to you and say anything and you came to my desk, what would you say? So you have to ask questions that are very narrowly focused. And I have people say things that I never expected and then I’ll turn to the audience and say, how many of you would have said that? None. Okay. Where did you get that from? And then it just takes off from there. And then we just, we explore that. But no, you’re right. I never know what anyone’s going to say. They absolutely love the fact that their peers are involved in something and engaged. I go into the audience, that’s why I use the handheld. I use a hand tote. I, when I see a speaker as a lavalier, I’m like, they’re not interacting at all because they can’t be having people talking into their chest. CP: (21:08) When I see a speaker with a lot with a handheld, I’m like, they’re going to do it because you never want to hand the microphone to a client. Never. You keep the microphone. So if I had brought you up on stage and I asked you a question, I would hold out my microphone and you answered, you start to answer in a way. I don’t want, I just take it back and go, Oh, no, no, no, no. I don’t buy that at all. So with a handheld, you keep control of what’s going on. But I would say they they are interacting about 80% of the time. RV: (21:39) So, so you know what questions you’re gonna ask a person, like you kind of know, okay, this is the point I want to talk. Let’s talk about how do we treat people who come to work late as a leadership principle. And so, you know, there’s some principle you want to draw out that’s related, CP: (21:57) But I do, I would bring you up on stage. I would say, Rory, you’re the boss. I’m the employee. I came in 35 minutes late. You have two choices and I always do that if you have kids. Okay? So we’ve learned as parents, right? You don’t say what you want for dinner, you say, or snack, you say, would you like an Apple with peanut butter or would you like we learned early on and that’s what I do with my audience when I’m asking for their feedback. They always have a couple of choices. RV: (22:27) Oh, are you going to finite? A finite list. A finite list of options. Yeah. CP: (22:32) So are you going to come up to me and talk about it or do you think you’re just going to ignore it? Because I’ve never been late before. And then you’ll answer one of those two. I know where to go no matter which of those two you answer. RV: (22:43) Yeah. So this is really a choose your own adventure game. This is really a choose your own adventure game. CP: (22:49) Yes. So I’m always asking questions where there’s a couple of answers. When they answer that, then I ask something else with a couple of answers. So I never know where there’s always a myriad of choices, but I’m in control and that’s what people, but you, if you’re going to interact well it has to appear that you’re not in control, but you are. RV: (23:14) Got it. Okay. So you have like almost like a decision tree. If you were going to be a nerd like me and map this out, it’s like a decision, right? CP: (23:21) Right, yes. RV: (23:23) Huh. But, and, and, and so, you know, and basically, you know, kind of like a Plinko board or something, you know, that all of those routes eventually lead back to the point that you want to make that’s related to your content. And then it’s just, it’s kind of like fun, CP: (23:38) Don’t, if they don’t lead, if they answer so weird or so strange. I just looked at the audience that go, do any of you even get this human being? And they’re like, no. And I, and I’ll say something silly like what? Birth order? And they’ll say a youngest and I go, what? Yeah, that’s what, RV: (23:54) Wow. CP: (23:57) Then mine, I’m also a therapist. I have all this psychology. So I also have the ability that if it’s not going bright to kind of bring it into psychology and why we do what we do. And the other thing it helps, Rory, is I am really funny and you know when you’re ready. RV: (24:13) Yeah. So, so I want CP: (24:16) You can get away with so much. RV: (24:18) I know. I know. And so I want to talk about that for a second. Cause that’s the other thing, right? Like people like me who are not naturally funny. The only way you are funny is when you have written jokes and you’ve got stories and slides that lead right into a, you know, a plan thing. CP: (24:34) Ever told a joke. RV: (24:36) How do you be funny in this like completely abstract like world, this is stressing me out. Speaker 4: (24:43) [Inaudible] CP: (24:43) Well that part is very structured. Like I do a part with personalities and I have this one group stand and I say, you know, let’s give him a hand. This is the absolutely psychologically the hardest working group right now in your company. Well, the people standing, I won’t even go into it, but no one in the audience is gonna think that. And so everyone’s kind of clapping and then I add according to them. RV: (25:15) Yeah. CP: (25:16) And then it’s, then it’s, then they’re all like, Oh yeah, okay, now. And I go, look, you all, you do work hard. But nobody knows it. You don’t tell anyone. You don’t share. If you don’t, you’re not great team players, you know? So if you’re going to work this hard, let’s get a little credit for. So those little one kind of liners like according to them, you know. But again that’s a funny line. According to them, everyone laughs. So it allows me to really get to the point that this group of people don’t share and they don’t open up and they’re sitting there nodding like you’re right, we don’t. But because I’m funny if that was somebody serious and they said, yeah this group thinks they work hard according to them. I mean they don’t do any, if you, if you were serious and no one was laughing, that could be very hurtful. RV: (26:12) [Inaudible] So that’s also kind of planned spontaneity though. Like just from experience and doing this and you kind of know like you have like a series, you have a series of little moments to pull from like this catalog in your head that you can draw on CP: (26:28) When the, when the slides and PowerPoint are gone. And the signature story of how you overcame amazing things is gone to me. And that’s why I do that with my speakers. At first I said, you can go back to it, but to, and this is just me, if you cannot engage an audience and get tons of word of mouth feedback without a signature story and without a PowerPoint presentation, then I think you haven’t truly come to grips with what your message really is. Because those two things, the signature story of what we did and the PowerPoint, which is all graphic and this and that, and those two things, I believe as a therapist is what keeps us from really being authentically who we are in front of an audience of people. If we strip away, that doesn’t mean you can’t come back to it, but I’d like to see my speakers, the old school standing with a handheld Mike, looking at a hundred or a hundred thousand people and having a conversation with them, not to them, with them watching their looks, watching their faces, walking into the audience, being accessible and, and again, for all of you watching, I’m not saying I hope, I hope to be honest, Rory, every other speaker uses slides. CP: (27:58) I hope every other speaker has a signature story. I hope every other speaker never wants to engage her. RV: (28:03) This is part of your uniqueness. CP: (28:07) Yes. I mean my number one selling book is how to stand out from the crowd. When my clients call me now, they start out with, first of all, they’re like, you called me back Connie. Yeah. I don’t have a gatekeeper. Don’t have an agent. Don’t have it. No one. RV: (28:22) Right. Can you talk to clients directly? CP: (28:25) You’re, you’re going to have my cell phone. Yeah. You and I are in a partnership. I’m not having somebody else out there but, but number two, you know, I, I, I want them to know that I want to model to the people in the audience how they want those people to be with their clients. How they want their salespeople to sell, how they want their leaders to lead and manage. So I have to model being accessible and being accountable and being in the present and being authentic. And so I’ve got to show them that it’s possible to strip away all of the stuff and just literally have a thousand people think that your just talking to them and when people call me they’re like are you the one that doesn’t have any slides or PowerPoint? I go, yeah, and they go, okay, you called me back. CP: (29:20) No slides. Our audience of sickest so I’m getting calls where that’s their first question. You are the one without any slides and when no one was using slides I use them because that’s how I could stand out. Now that everybody’s using slides I’ve stopped using because that’s now what makes me stand out and I do think one message, whether it’s slides or comedy or all of you watching have to be your own unique person, but I go to watch other speakers to learn what I should not copy or not do. I don’t go to watch them to learn what to do. And I think if we’re going to stand out now we have to look at what almost all speakers are doing, which means that’s what audiences are used to. And all I use is word of mouth. I’ve never made a cold call. I don’t ask for referrals. I don’t ask for testimonials. I don’t collect business cards. It’s totally word of mouth, which means that I’m left with that. What I do on stage is my only marketing. It’s my only business card. It’s my only cold call. Everything is that moment on stage. So it has to be different than anyone else or no one’s going to remember it. RV: (30:37) [Inaudible] Well that is, I mean that is, it’s very, it’s very incredible. And, and it’s, you know, this has been super interesting to me because I’m trying to go, you know, how do you, how could you duplicate it and, and what’s, you know, the science behind this play in spontaneity and still being able to like, you know, cause it’s planting [inaudible] native cause they’re, they’re still paying you to deliver a lesson and a message and you’ve gotta you’ve gotta make sure you, it’s not just going up there and Jim or John for an hour about nothing. CP: (31:07) It’s a lot of you know, one of the things I say to them and I say the speakers, I can you talk about this, you know, if your goal is to connect with the audience and create this relationship, one-on-one relationship, every time you use a slide, Roy, just think of this. They have to stop that connection with you and they have to turn and look and you have to stop your connection with them and to everyone’s now looking okay and no one can psychologically read and hear at the same time. It’s impossible for a brain to do so. They can’t hear what you’re saying. They’re just reading this slide and then when you want the slide to be done and come back, you have to reestablish that connection. It takes 1520 seconds to do that and so that’s the problem. RV: (31:50) Okay. See there’s one that’s one of your clients calling you right now, Connie, because they’re going to talk to you directly. Okay. CP: (31:57) You know they’re going to say, you said you were accessible and now you didn’t even ask. RV: (32:01) Yeah, CP: (32:02) But, but I do want us to end up with, I want ever, I don’t want you to get any emails like I think slides are great. I have a story. Here’s how I want to end. All I shared with you is what works for me and I want everyone watching. If slides work for you and you love it, use them. If a signature story works for you. Oh my God, lucky you because I don’t have one. So I just want everyone to listen to an alternative option. There are all sorts of ways to be successful in speaking. You and I have very different delivery styles and both of us are very successful and our audience was love, both of the things we do. RV: (32:42) But and you know, I, I think I do think that very much that it’s like I am very much a slide and a plan joke and story after, you know, like everything leads. But the reason for doing that is so that I know that so well that I can depart because what we both have in common, even though it’s like I do a lot of, and I do slides and I do stories well, we both have in common is an absolute focus on the audience, not on ourselves. And, and an absolute focus on creating a meaningful connection in the moment, not just powering through some like preplanned set of information. And I, and I think that you really do that brilliantly. And this has been really empowering for me because you and I’ve never talked about this is to go, I think I could do some things that would be be be more lively and engaging with the audience because knowing like, okay, if I set this up right, there can be some structure to it that still allows for a lot of fun, playfulness CP: (33:45) And, and I met her and you don’t need a mentor and my God, you’re super successful. But yes, if I had someone like you, I would not take away slides. Not that you’re, you’re doing great, you’re doing awesome. Word of mouth, you’re doing amazing. But if you came to me and said, Oh, I would like to just explore. RV: (34:04) Yeah, do something fresh, do something fun. CP: (34:07) And I’ve done it with a lot of speakers they don’t want, they love their slides, they love everything and that’s great. I always hate it when people start emailing me and defending why use it and I go, no one has the fence. I’m, I think every way is amazing. However, if there’s a little piece of you, Roy, that would just like to have a five minutes, just a little something different that you’ve never tried, then that’s where we would start. I would probably take one of your stories or one of the things that you do right now and you’ve always done it a certain way and show you how maybe going into the audience you could do that same content, that same material, but engage somebody in a way that would just be, you know, and just the fact that you might walk off the stage and talk to someone in the audience is a change of pace for you. And I think the more we can all change our pace, the more variety. We, one of the reasons why I use the handle is because I can talk really soft. I can do different voices. I mean the handheld gives you a lot of experiential advantage in terms of voices. RV: (35:17) The voice control. Yeah. The voice control component of a handheld is really, is really wonderful. CP: (35:22) Cause I do role-plays. They, they need to be heard and it’s not good. RV: (35:27) Yeah, for sure. But that holding you, holding you, holding the mic is, that’s a, that’s a super helpful tip is like you, you hold it out to them but still you still have it so that if you need to rein it back in then, CP: (35:42) Well, and I have lots of psychological sentences, things I do on stage when they’re going to end it. So I would say a sentence and not say the last line. And all I do is hold out my mic and the whole audience yells the word back. So the fact that I hold out my boss Mike, they know that’s there and they yell it out and they participate. So that’s participation too. Just having them be engaged. But I don’t do silly stuff. I mean they’re not dancing on stage. That’s one rule is if you’re going to participate with your audience, they have to look cool and professional. Cause I’m, I pull up a lot of leaders and these are their employees and they need to look really smart and really professional and really good. So we can’t ever use our interaction. Well sometimes I make fun of people, but that’s where the comedy, RV: (36:32) Well this is so helpful just to kind of get into the mind of, of how you’ve differentiated yourself and some of the things. And, and I, I really liked the way that you said that there’s a lot of things you’re talking about, which is an alternative view to maybe the things that you always hear about. And I think that’s super refreshing to be like, there’s multiple ways to make it in this business. CP: (36:55) I have so many speakers. No say, yeah, I don’t have a story so I can’t speak. Oh my God needed to do I or well, I just not comfortable with slide PowerPoint. Well that’s fine. I think speakers sometimes think that there’s a certain, RV: (37:10) It has to be a certain, yeah, CP: (37:12) No, here people, well, you have to like, I have never had a niche, every niche niche where there, I’ve never had one. I’ve never gone exclusive. You know, I don’t have an agent. I answer my own phone calls. I don’t Mark it. I mean, these are all things that the average person, you know, you have to stay on your lane. My lane is if they’re breathing and have my feet there, that’s my lane. Okay? RV: (37:34) Okay. CP: (37:35) I, I would never want to be in one industry, but that’s me. So I love taking what all the other people say speaker has to do. And this is my authoritarian rebellion authority issue person. I like listening to what other speakers say, you have to do this and then just do the opposite. I think that is so much fun. And it gets noticed. And thank God that there’s events time. There’s out there that are looking for the speaker that does it totally different. So for all of you listening that have that little rebellious streak, and you don’t want to just do it the way everyone tells you to, I just want you to know that’s okay. It’s fine. And there’s, there’s room for us in this crazy speaker world. RV: (38:23) Well, there it is. My friends. Connie, where do you want people to go? If they want to connect with you? We’ll put a link of course to Connie, pedesta.com and anything else you want CP: (38:31) Connie pedesta.com you’ll have mysel we’ll talk, we’ll become friends. The latte will speak. It’s no big deal. Just anything is fine. RV: (38:43) Well thank you for sharing your heart and I think given us permission to go an alternative route, giving us permission to ditch the things that are rigid, giving us permission to engage with people, focus on them, not ourselves. And just kind of the permission I think to have fun and, and also like as speakers to always be pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone and not just telling everyone else to do that. So CP: (39:07) Hello. I also giving them permission that if rigid is comfortable and doing what they’ve always done feels right to them. That that’s okay too. Okay. RV: (39:19) Do your thing. [inaudible] CP: (39:21) Right. Do your thing. Do you be you? So RV: (39:24) I love it. All right. Thank you so much Connie. Always great to be with you and just awesome to get to get to a little bit of a look inside of your mind. So we appreciate it. And we’ll talk to you later. RV: (39:45) [Inaudible].
Ep 55: Blogging: The Gift that Keeps Giving with Elizabeth Rider | Recap Episode
RV: (00:06)
Hey, welcome to this special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Holy moly. What a powerful and technical interview with Elizabeth Rider. And there’s, there’s so many things that I loved about that interview. One of them is that perhaps you’ve never heard of Elizabeth Rider because you know, she doesn’t have a huge social media following but she dominates her niche and she has more web traffic by far. Then probably most of the major social influencers who are out there. And that is why this is such an important interview because this is something that we align with on, you know, for Elizabeth and Andy. I think my, my first big takeaway or just thing that I want to punctuate for you to make sure that you didn’t miss this [inaudible] where she said your blog is the home of your business. And that is what we are constantly preaching and brand builders group that the, your blog is the, the headquarters.
RV: (01:21)
It’s the central like home location of your personal brand, your relationship engine, which is what what we call the entire ecosystem. You know, for us, we use the term relationship engine, which refers to an automated ecosystem that is digital that works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, introducing your content, two new people, and constantly bringing people in to your business and into your funnels and generating revenue for you. But the blog is, it’s the anchor, it’s the, it’s the cornerstone of that whole thing and people just don’t talk about that. And that’s because of, I think exactly what Elizabeth said. Mmm. Which is that we’re, we’re so concerned with the vanity of, of, of metrics of how many followers that we have, like in recent years, it’s just been about like the perception versus the substance and the reality of how many people are coming to a website that, that we own.
RV: (02:30)
And I love that exaRVmple that she was sharing about a blog post that she wrote eight years ago is bringing in 100,000 visitors a month to her site. That’s crazy. Meanwhile, the same amount of time as writing one blog post that you put into writing a social media post, that social media post is going to disappear in 24 hours. Like if you’re lucky it’ll last 24 hours. It’s just to get pushed down the feed. No one’s going to go back and look at that, but it’s like what you post on social media over time, the value of it diminishes. But what you post on on the web, like as a on your website or specifically as a blog article, over time it gains traffic. It’s like a, it’s like a growing snowball. It’s, it’s almost like the time on social media is like spending money.
RV: (03:26)
The time on your blog is like investing money. The time on your social media is spending money because it disappears and it never really comes back. The time spent on a blog is investing money because it starts even, it starts small, but it grows and grows and grows and grows over time and one post years later can be bringing you more traffic than it ever did when you first posted. And that’s just something that you don’t hear about. And so I hope that you caught that and it made sense to you in if you’ve been fighting those of you that are members, if for some reason you’ve been resistant to this strategy we’re talking about with making the blog that everything revolves around the blog. Hopefully you’re onboard now. Mmm. Yeah. And hearing about how much money it can make and generate for you. Now, one thing that we were not in alignment on with Elizabeth, just to kind of comment on this, you know, she talked about not using the sidebar.
RV: (04:25)
Okay. W we just [inaudible] flat out would disagree with that. We are all about the sidebar. Mmm. Yes. A course on mobile. The sidebar doesn’t display. So it’s a, it’s a both. And for us, we want to see the sidebar on the desktop view because there’s still a large amount, almost 50% of traffic is still coming, you know, depending on what you’re looking at, you know, 40 to 50% of traffic is still coming from desktop. So it’s not like you want to not do that. But I also very much adamantly agree with her that when you’re on mobile, you need to have a different type of lead capture, a mechanism that scrolls with people because they’re not going to see the sidebar like they will as they are reading on desktop. So the other thing was there was, you know, she was talking about RSS feed and that she doesn’t use an automated RSS, which [inaudible] stands for real simple syndication and RSS is a little technical term, which means that when someone subscribes it, the, the system automatically emails them every time you post a new blog.
RV: (05:33)
Well Mmm, I would, I would agree with her to the standpoint where I can say, yeah, Hey, if you can do a manual broadcast every time you post a new blog, do that. Like that’s better cause it’s going to be fresh and customized and all that. Yeah. Most of you, you know, most of us are just struggling to barely keep up with all the moving parts of a digital marketing machine on a weekly basis anyway. So that’s why we, we are very big fans of the RSS, you know, automated email system because we’re trying to automate as much of this as we can so that, you know, you can be out doing all the things that you need to be doing, but you know, so anyways, that’s not really a disagreement. That’s more of like an in addition to if you can do custom broadcast, fine.
RV: (06:18)
Yeah, if you’re not able, if you don’t have the [inaudible] time to do that or you don’t have the staff, then just do an automated RSSV to start and you can always grow later. But I mean, the blog, the blog, the blog, just really, really huge. And some of the things that she was talking about related to SEO of naming your blog post, don’t, don’t, don’t name it something like clever, right? We talk about this a lot. Clear is greater than clever. Clear is greater than clever. Name it something that somebody would type into a search engine. That’s what you want to name it. Mmm. And when you get to phase three, our phase three event high traffic strategies, one of, one of the six sections in that phase three event is understanding like the Google algorithm and search algorithms and how those all things work.
RV: (07:07)
And those are called your H one tags, which is your, your title tags for an article. So those are really, really important that what you actually name your blog posts is really, really important. The second thing, which is related to what we were just talking about that she just really nailed I think is how some of this is as a business strategy issue. But a lot of it is a heart issue. Like a lot of this is an ego issue is, is that there’s an ego in social media of like, as I spend my time there and I have more followers, like that makes me maybe look better on the surface to some people. But unfortunately that’s why there’s so many people that are Twitter rich and dollar broke. And, and I say that like meaningfully and honestly and, and in a heartbroken way that there’s a lot of people who have a lot of social media followers and they really, really struggled to convert that to real dollars or significant or scalable dollars because they don’t control that relationship that the third party platform controls that relationship.
RV: (08:17)
And it doesn’t mean that third party platforms are bad. They’re, they’re good, they’re providing a service for free and we want to provide value back to them by producing content. But it just means you don’t, you don’t want to build your house on rented real estate. You know, people talk about all that time. You know, I think Michael Hyatt was the first person that I heard say that. And it’s just, yeah, that’s a great, yeah, a great analogy. But I also want [inaudible] I want to highlight for you something that I am now referring to as the 1% rule, the 1% role. So here’s what the 1% rule is, and this is this an ego, it’s just, it’s an ego thing. It helps you give get perspective, right? When you look at somebody’s social media profiles and you see how many people are following them, it’s easy to be intimidated, right?
RV: (09:03)
It’s to go, well man, they have a million followers. Holy moly. But in reality, just do 1% of that number because that is realistically, you know, a much more consistent look at how in gay, what is the engaged number? So 10% would be a hundred thousand 1% 10,000 yeah, right? Now let’s steal. Great. Like I want to have a million followers. There’s no reason I wouldn’t want to have a million followers. But again, it’s like if I could choose between having a million followers on social and 100,000 and email, I would take the 100,000 on email every single day of the week without a shadow of a doubt because those 100,000 I can reach whenever I want, as much as I want, as long as I want. I’m in control of that relationship. The million could disappear tomorrow, right? Like literally the algorithm changes, it disappears tomorrow. So just keep that in mind. It’s kind of like don’t compare your step number two to someone else to step number 27 and you know, just keep in mind that what appears on the surface, the people hit it hit hardest by the algorithms are the people with the biggest followings like yeah, for people starting out, we got crap, you know, I got a few thousand followers and now it’s like I’m lucky if a couple of hundred people see the post.
RV: (10:28)
But imagine how painful it is. If you have a million and you’ve got hundreds of thousands of people and you’ve done all this work to build this audience and then only only a few thousand of them see it, that’s painful. Painful man. We don’t want to see that happen to you. Like we want our community to be sure or build on social media. It doesn’t have to be one or the other, but it’s like make sure if it is one or the other that you’re, you’re bringing people over to the area that you control. And that should be your blog and your website in your properties in the, in the longterm. So that’s the 1% role. That’s the heart issue. And then the third thing that [inaudible] Elizabeth shared that I, well, it’s just so I think relevant and always good to hear and is scarcity versus abundance. Scarcity versus abundance.
RV: (11:20)
Yeah. More and more as time goes on, the people who I meet who are not only the wealthiest but the happiest, they are sharing what they know, they’re, they’re giving it away. They’re teaching people, they’re impacting lives. You know, [inaudible] [inaudible] discouraging to me how many times, cause this is what, you know, this is our business now. Brand builders group is what we’re doing all day. Every day is helping leaders and messengers grow their influence. And people say, I want to make an impact on the world. But then it’s like all they ever think about is like how much money they’re making. And that’s important too. We gotta be able to pay the bills and we want people to grow and make money. But it’s like they don’t, they’re afraid to teach people anything because they want to charge for everything. And, and so they never build a following because to get the real value you have to pay for it and nobody’s sure if it’s worth the value because they haven’t gotten any value yet.
RV: (12:17)
The abundance mentality is give it away first. Give it away first. Teach everything you know for free. Just teach it one bite at a time in all random order. Remember this quote, right? We say this all the time. People don’t pay for information. People pay for organization and application. People don’t pay for information. They pay for organization and application. You don’t have to be worried about giving away too much content for free. You don’t have to be worried about putting your best ideas out there. It’s not that you’re going to put all your best ideas out there and people aren’t going to buy from you. It’s that as you put their best ideas out there, you increase the chances that people are going to buy from you because they want to know what else and they want to see the full system and they want to see things in order.
RV: (13:06)
And most of all, they want help applying the ideas. Right? You can’t give away application because, I mean I guess you could, I guess you could give away. You’re doing work for people, but that’s, that’s not really what we’re talking about. We’re talking about giving away the ideas and that people are going to pay you for the assistance to help them get it implemented. People don’t pay for information. They pay for organization and application. So be of abundance. Share your best stuff, provide tons of value. And, and you know another way of thinking about this as the way that we try to process it is we want people to feel like they’ve gotten 10 times the value of what we’re charging for something before they ever give us any money, right? So if we’re going to come out and make a $3,000 offer, our goal is that by the time somebody sees a $3,000 offer, they feel like they have gotten ideas and strategies and insights from our free content that could help them make $30,000 and so by the time we asked for the sale, it’s almost like they feel like they owe us.
RV: (14:21)
It’s not even like they’re buying the thing that w it’s not even like they’re taking a risk on buying the thing that we’re promoting. It’s almost like they’re going, man, I’ve already gotten so much value from here. Like of course I’m going to buy like I’m going to keep buying and keep buying because you just keep over-delivering and over-delivering and that’s the brand you want to build. That’s the reputation you want to build and, and here’s the other thing that’s amazing. The more you give away for free, the more great ideas you develop. Like when you’re giving away stuff for free, you’re always advancing your thinking. You’re pushing yourself, you’re, you’re allowing for new space to explore new ideas at a deeper level. When you hoard the few ideas that you have and you feel like, Ooh, I want, I want to wait until someone pays me for it.
RV: (15:14)
It’s like you’re so busy hoarding these things and then [inaudible] manufacturer something on, on the, on the external, on the surface that people can digest for free and suddenly that’s, that’s meaningful. You, you never have this base or the energy to actually just develop more content. So the have the abundance mentality, give it away. Change lives. Like, yes, make money. We are all about making money to turn your reputation into revenue. That’s one of our slogans. But our, our, our thought process on that is like, we want to work with mission-driven messengers. We work with people who really want to make a difference in the world. So make a freaking difference in the world. Like go do that first, do something right now today that adds value to people’s lives. And, and I promise you somehow sooner or later it’s gonna come back to you in money and influence and all the above.
RV: (16:14)
I just, I just don’t, I can’t think of an example in my life or in anybody else’s life that I know where they, they provided so much value to the world that it didn’t flow back to them. And that’s just a mindset, a switch that you gotta make. So those are my three big takeaways from Elizabeth. I just, I’m so impressed with her. I love what her brand’s all about. I love the quality of the content that she puts out, the consistency, the clarity of her whole business model. And she’s just really, really awesome. So, you know, I encourage you to [inaudible] follow her and check out some of the stuff that she’s doing and stay tuned. As always, we’re working to help you mission-driven messengers turn your reputation into revenue and make a greater difference in the world. We’ll catch you next time.
Ep 54: Blogging: The Gift that Keeps Giving with Elizabeth Rider
RV: (00:01)
Holy moly friends. Ayou’re about to have your world rocked by. One of my newer friends who I absolutely adore and admire. Elizabeth Rider is her name and she is incredible. So she’s a nutritionist. She’s an author. She has a book, a great book that just came out called the health habit. She’s a, you know, a health coach and an online business mentor, but she is one of the like, Oh geez. Of blogging and building an audience. And if you go to your, if you go to her website, so she’s, she’s a seven figure. She’s turned it into a seven figure business, which we’re going to talk about. If you go to her website you’ll see, you know, we’ll put links to it, but elizabethrider.com. There’s over a hundred thousand people on her email list, which is very public. But what you wouldn’t know unless you were friends with her like me and we call her Liz and not Elizabeth cause we’re friends, is that this woman is getting 700,000 to a million page views a month of pure organic traffic from Google. From her blog. So to give you a frame of reference, like at my peak as a blogger, I was around a hundred thousand views in a month. So this is like 10 times beyond as an average of where I’ve ever been at at the best. So I, I was like, we gotta we gotta we gotta have her. So anyways, she’s the coolest. She’s here and Elizabeth, thanks for making time for us.
ER: (01:33)
Thanks Rory! Wow, that’s a lot. It’s a lot to live up to I feel like. But it’s all true. The page views the [inaudible] that’s what I want to talk to people about.
RV: (01:41)
Yeah. So, so I want to just hammer that directly, right? Like, because social media is like, it’s like the world of it’s like in golf, you know, they say like you drive for show, but you putt for dough and, and social media is like the drive. Like, Oh, you can drive the ball 350 yards. But it’s like the people who make the money know how to putt. And I just want, like, I just want your perspective on social media versus blogging because I don’t think people hear it. I don’t think that’s what you hear people talking about.
ER: (02:15)
Yeah, for sure. Like let me just say this. I mean I’ve got a lot of thoughts about that. I’m going to preemptive all the saying everything I’m about to say doesn’t mean that social media is bad or not good or useful cause I still use it too. So this is not to say that none of it’s useful, but I see an epidemic that needs to be corrected, especially with people coming into building brands right now where they want to spend all of their time. And I’m going to use Instagram is like the place, right? Because we’re in the zeitgeists. We’re Instagram is a place that people want to be. And again, it’s not bad. I want Instagram too. But when it comes to like this like longterm idea of people seeing your content and building a brand and getting, establishing yourself and using your time well, this is what I want to talk about.
ER: (02:59)
Instagram or Facebook or any of them, maybe 1% of your audience, you know, maybe if you’re really highly engaged, three to 5% of your audience sees all of your posts, right? And they see it within 24 hours and then it goes into your feed or onto your grid or whatever it is. And it’s, it does happen, but it’s very rare that someone scrolls back through maybe five posts, even think about a hundred posts, right? Like a deep, like, you know when somebody deep likes one of your photos and you’re like, Whoa, they were deep on my feedlike that. You know what I mean?
ER: (03:28)
And it’s like, well, you never want to happen when you’re like scrolling. Like maybe you find your app, your significant others acts or like you know, someone who you don’t want them to know that you’re looking at their stuff. You’re like, don’t like anything. Make sure that you don’t accidentally double tap something like my example all the time, but it’s rare, right? Right. What I see is people, you know, spending so much time crafting this content that maybe a hundred people see if even right, if you have a large brand, maybe 1,002 thousand people see it. If you’re just starting out, maybe a few people see it, but then it gets buried, right? And none of that is cataloged in the search engines. Now let’s talk, let’s talk about a blog where I have a post that I wrote in my sweat pants eight years ago that sends 80 to 100,000 people a month to my blog. Still from every month, every month.
ER: (04:26)
And in turn the, you know, a percentage of those people get on my email list. That’s the granola post on my healthy homemade granola post. I just wrote a post and I want to also make sure everybody knows it’s not just because I wrote it eight years ago, that one happens to be there. A post I wrote last year is a number one ranked Google search for easy to kill hard boiled eggs. So in that, I just wrote that last year. So I don’t want people to think, well, yeah, that was eight years ago, right? Like you can write a post now that, yeah, it’ll, it’ll become it. So what I want to, what I would, I really stress for the people who I coach and anybody who asks me about this, I’m like, look, your blog is the home of your business. It’s cataloged by Google and it lives there forever.
ER: (05:03)
And if you do it right, if you know how to do it, you will get traffic literally, perpetually, forever. That can continue to build and continue to grow and continue to put people on your email list to see your products and services you can continue to serve. Or that same amount of time could’ve been spent on an Instagram post that’s now buried 80 posts deep. No one’s ever gonna see again. So it’s kind of like, you know, w I think people, and I’m gonna, this might be a little bit of tough love, but you’ve really got to humble yourself to be like, I don’t need to be part of the popularity contest on Instagram. What I need to take my time and serve my blog so that I can continue to reach readers and PR potential clients and customers forever.
RV: (05:48)
I love that. You know, I’m thinking of a parallel here with money. You know, there’s a metaphor I heard a long time ago that you know, growing your wealth is growing in army and when you spend a dollar it’s like you kill off one of your soldiers. When you invest a dollar that is like a soldier multiplying, like it’s sort of, you know, kind of spawns when you, that’s almost how this is. It’s like when you spend all this time on a social media post, people see at once and then it’s gone forever. When you put that into a post that is, is cataloged on your blog, Google is driving traffic to it and the older, it’s almost like from a Google perspective, the older it is, the better in it. Like the, the, it can be really valuable.
ER: (06:30)
There’s something, and I want to make this clear to people. I’ll give everybody a tip here. It does, it establishes that Google, Google wants to continue to send people to things that they know people like which are being clicked on and people are spending time on the page. Google also likes old posts being updated because it knows that the site is fresh. So like the healthy homemade granola. Once a year I’ll go in there and maybe update the photo or like, you know, I’ve, I’ve updated a few of the sentences so you don’t have to do that, but Google does like that. I never changed the URL. Don’t ever change your URL. That’s really important but you can even add to it. You know, I’ve gone in there and been like, Hey, this is now one of the most popular granola recipes on the internet. You can, you can continue to update it. But yes, it likes the longevity when building the site. So the stores doing it now, the point of that is start doing it now. I haven’t got a year or two years or three years to start blogging
RV: (07:21)
And, and so I think it’d be fun to talk about Google here a little bit. Cause everyone hears about like hashtags and like follow and, and you know, hitting the search page or the for you page or whatever. But Google is like the ultimate search engine. And I think a lot of authors and content creators don’t really understand that much about you know, how does, how does Google work, so like, is there anything that you kind of do to, to, to sort of think in your mind okay. With every post, like is there any kind of checklist that you go through for that?
ER: (07:57)
That’s actually my new program called blog. Like it’s hot. I actually have an entire program, but I would love to share for free with all of your listeners. I’m like, it’s hot is my new course because that’s the problem is people are like, well how do I do that? Right? So I give everybody an exact checklist and you know, after, after a certain creative time, that becomes second nature. So I don’t even need to use a checklist, but I’ll, you know, give everybody a checklist. One thing you really want to do is name your posts. The title of your post needs to be what somebody would Google. So like one of the reasons that that you know like if we look at easy to feel hard boiled eggs people, I didn’t, I didn’t call the post the trick to peeling hard boiled eggs or
ER: (08:36)
Don’t make this mistake when you peel hard boiled eggs or something like, and Google might Google would find that. But the just easy to peel hard boiled eggs. It’s like boom, that’s the title of the post and that’s what somebody Google Google’s. Now Google did make an update to the algorithm at the end of 2009 to have more of like predictive called bird. We don’t need to get into like the analytics, the technical side of that. But what it just means is that there is predictive, the search, the search engine is smart enough to kind of predict what they think the person is trying to find. So there is some logic built into that. But you know, for the most part it’s really important to name your post what it actually is and what somebody would Google. Whereas like an email list, when you’re emailing, you know, for the subject line you might use like a headline, right? Or like a question or you’re trying to get people to open the email that’s different than like what you would title the post. Just make sure your title. Yeah. So your post title and the email subject line are different. But just make sure your post title is what somebody would Google. That’s super, super important.
RV: (09:37)
Yeah. It’s almost like, like an email subject line might be like curiosity or shock or whatever, but it’s like your post on your page needs to be like, almost like it could be very literal boring cause, but it’s what the person would type in and and so how do you know, like so do you, are you like in the back of Google ads all day, every day? Like, are you in Google analytics looking and being like, what should my posts are ranking and traffic or like what’s, how do you keep score?
ER: (10:09)
That’s really interesting. I don’t that much. So I teach things a little different because, so you can look at keywords and you can do that. I don’t use Google ads at this moment. I could in the future, I don’t use ads. There’s a, there’s a keyword tool in ad words that people can log into and search keywords. I always tell people like, look, and I think this is what makes me different. And like the blogging teacher’s sphere, if researching keywords worked and ever you just blogged off of researching keywords, everybody who ever did that would have millions of views and they don’t, right? So the way I teach blogging is like, one kind of goes back to what you guys teach about a personal brand. It’s got to like fit into your how you serve and what you teach. Right? So, and when you know your customer, when you are connected to your mission and your customer, I know what my customer’s Googling.
ER: (10:56)
How do easy to feel hard boiled eggs, right? Like how to make healthy, homemade granola. These are all things that I know that my customer would Google. And I think that blogging has to be enjoyable. This is all stuff I’m doing in my, like, this is stuff I eat and stuff I’m doing in my real life. I’m not blogging about things that I don’t use or eat. So, you know, the truth, the actual definition of blog is weblog and it was intended to be just a wet, a log on the web of your daily life. Right? That’s what a personal blog started out as. And now it’s, you know, we use them in many different ways, but for me it’s like I stay in my lane of, I know like my blog is about healthy recipes and practical tips for healthy living. That’s, that’s right.
ER: (11:36)
That’s right. I stay, I also have, you know, category for business for when I do that. You know, I always tell people have three to five categories of your, on your blog, not more, right? You don’t want to dilute yourself. You’re going to see five categories on my blog, something’s going to fall in there. And really for me, the way I decide what I’m going to post, I do have, you know, a map out a calendar, but if the week, if I want to change it that week, if I’m like, wow, I made this instead or you know, this recipe just came up. I change things on the fly too, but I actually keyword research can be, can be useful but it’s also when you have a personality brand and a personality based business, you’re blocking about what you’re doing right and about what you teach and what you’re good at.
RV: (12:18)
Sure. But, but so you’re not, you’re not like huge like into Google analytics or using, you know, crazy tools. Just every once in awhile you’ll get a report from like somebody who will send you a report or something.
ER: (12:29)
Yeah. I look at my Google analytics. I mean absolutely you need to have it installed. I look at it probably once a month. What I think is super valuable for me for with Google analytics is that I can see those really high traffic posts that are performing well. Google does want to see those updated or just that they’ve been touched at least once a year. Just cause it still says, Hey, I’m still here. Like some someone’s the gatekeeper of this. I might update an image, I might update something, but I also make sure like midway through the post I have an extra special banner or something that’s like, Hey, get on my email list. Like, Hey, if you’re loving this post, make sure, you know, cause you can include extra calls to action and those really high performing posts to make sure that that you’re maximizing the space. So, so it’s interesting, you know, it’s interesting to see and I go look at those posts and you know, I do the same thing on every post as far as like how I you know, write the title, pose the H two tags, the images, how I construct the post. But then I’m like, what are these, you know, I do have these like 10 or 15, like huge traffic posts. I’m like, okay, what’s happening on these? You know, what’s, what’s making,
RV: (13:34)
So you’re always watching those, you’re always like, let me pay attention. Is it like star players, right? It’s like, okay, this is like, you know,
ER: (13:41)
It’s also seasonal. You know, like in December, healthy homemade, hot chocolate almost surpasses healthy homemade granola, right? But in July, that’s not going to be the case. So you know, for a blog like mine, it’s a little seasonal. One thing that I would tell people to do, I know a lot of people listening to this are like, wow, I’ve just been spending so much time on Instagram. So I want to mention this real quick. Look at your top nine or your top posts from Instagram from the last year and fricking take a Saturday or Wednesday and Thursday night and turn that into nine blog posts. Like whatever your highest performing content was, turn those into blog posts, immediately. Get those onto a blog. That’s nine posts. People are always like, what should I post to my blog? I don’t have to post. I’m like, if you have good Facebook or Instagram post tournament blog posts.
RV: (14:23)
So I was going to ask you about that in terms of like repurposing your content. You know, like it sounds like you’re a classic, your process is more of like a classic blogger. Like you sit down and you write, you write an article, you’re not transcribing something or starting with something else. And then how much of that information do you post on social or does it, do you really treat them separate as like separate entities?
ER: (14:49)
You know what’s interesting, right? I don’t, it’s not that I treat them as separate entities. We do take we link to my posts and we rotate through them on the Facebook feed. On Instagram. It depends, I do a story or you know, a post if it fits into the grid. But I really, for me personally, I see social media as like an accoutrement to my, to my blog and it’s really work. People connect with me. So I do a lot of like face to camera stories and that kind of a thing where, and again, it’s more the reach. And one thing I’m proud of and I’ll say, I’ve never bought Instagram followers or any social media followers. I’ve never purchased followers. So all of my followers are, you know, legit real followers, which means also it hasn’t grown as fast as some people who have, you know, invested in different ways or maybe have purchased an audience. So, you know, I have 20,000 ish Instagram followers, which is amazing. It’s all, you know from just organically growing that. But when I know that I can have almost a million or more page views a month on my blog, that’s where my time and effort is going.
RV: (15:56)
So can we, do, I want to shift the conversation a little bit to the email list? Because you know, I mean like, obviously we’re, we’re big, we’re big fans of the blog, right? And we, we basically think of social media as just like traffic redirects. They’re just like tributaries that like point, point people back back to the blog. And there’s some other things that it does, social proof, et cetera, et cetera. But the, once they come to your site. All right, so you’ve got this title like you’ve gone through, you’ve done all the tagging and all the, all the steps of the, you know, what you’re going to do to make sure it index as well. What are the things that are actually building the email list and can you just talk about why that’s important? Like if, you know, there’s a million people coming back every month, like does it even really matter to build the email list? How do you do it? Where do you do it? How often? When like talk about that a little bit.
ER: (16:54)
It’s still absolutely important. You know, email is, this is the way I credit, it’s almost like to dating. Like if, if someone’s going to ask out on a date, social media is like meeting at a bar and maybe chatting with somebody and all your friends are there, right? Like you’re, you’re not really that invested in it. Like maybe he’s cute, she’s cute. You’re like having a little bit of a thing. Somebody coming to your website to me is like you’re meeting that person for coffee, right? Like it’s a little bit more intimate [inaudible] out of the noise. You’re like, okay, we’re gonna have some coffee. Being on someone’s email list is like inviting them into your living room. Right? Or maybe, and I will say like in a cheeky way, like almost your bedroom, cause a lot of people wake up in the morning and they get on their phones and they start scrolling.
ER: (17:35)
And guess what, you might be on there, they might be on your email list and you’re the first person that they see in the morning. Like that’s like a legitimately like real thing that happens. It’s like this deeper level of intimacy because there’s been an exchange you gave them, they gave you their email address. And generally what, you know, people call these different things like a big banana. Like everybody on the internet is monkeys and you need to like, you know, have a bunch of bananas that people can grab. I don’t love that analogy as much. You know, the free download on your website, right, like that you’re, you’re exchanging value, they’re giving you their email address and you were giving them something for free
RV: (18:08)
Lead magnet.
ER: (18:11)
Right now on my website we’ve got five, five healthy habits that you can implement today for immediate results or, you know, an eight page guide. And one thing, you know, which was actually something that I like, I had this dawned on me, I should have done this way sooner because my email list would probably be even bigger. That’s in the header of every single blog post on my website. My lead magnet is in the header of every single blog post on my website. So when somebody lands there, it’s, it’s at the top no matter what. It’s also underneath every single post. I keep my sidebar pretty clean of things just because on mobile and traffic’s going mostly mobile. I think 60 or 65% of my traffic is mobile. They don’t see the sidebar. Anyways. so don’t, you know the sidebar, it’s not a bad thing to use, but I, I have the sign up. There’s one above the post, one below the post, and then there’s a scroll pop up that once somebody gets, I think it’s 30 or 40% through the page, it pops up and it was like, Hey, do you want this free thing?
RV: (19:13)
[Inaudible] What are you using for the scroll pop-up? Do you know?
ER: (19:16)
Well, I, my WordPress, my side of WordPress it’s designed on show it, but the blog is WordPress and I think we’re using pop-up ally pro right now is the WordPress plugin for the pop up. That might change in the future, but I think that’s just the tool that we’re using and it’s worked well. And then I use active campaign for email. So whenever somebody subscribes anywhere on the website, they get funneled into active campaign.
RV: (19:38)
And is there a certain percentage, like if you go, is there a certain percentage that you aim for every month? If you go like, Hey, if you’re getting a ho, if you’re getting you know, call it a million, cause it’s easy numbers. If you’re getting a million page views or visitors, I guess if you’re getting a million did you, does are page visits, right? Those are page views, so, so that could be it could be the same person. Right. So and then also
ER: (20:02)
It’s usually a million page views. It depends on the month. Honestly, the series is probably 200,000 to three or 400,000 people could be more, could be less, but you know, just depends.
RV: (20:16)
It totally depends. But then it’s like, and then some fraction of those people, like a, a larger, I would, I would think at this point some large number of those are people who have been there before. But then there’s also going to be a pretty big chunk just because of the volume here that are new people. Is there a certain percentage or anything that you go like, I want to see my email list growing by this percentage every month? Or you watch that closely or not really?
ER: (20:41)
Yeah, I, it’s, I’m, I’m definitely into analytics. I watched that. But I also focus, I try to focus the majority of my on just serving the audience and blogging. Although I will say we’re aiming for a thousand or more signups from organic Google traffic a week. I’m onto the email list and I would like to continue to scale that. And you know, the next will be 1500 and then 2000. So, and that’s, you know, that’s about what we’re out. I will also say with my email list, we very actively dump dump. That’s a terrible word, right?
RV: (21:11)
Well fits your dating analogy. Yeah.
ER: (21:14)
We dumb people who are inactive and this is really, really important. So on the email list, because people want, here’s what happens, a lot of things happen. Someone signs up, they Ms. Key there email address. So it’s never going to, you know, it might balance or it might be going somewhere or somebody changes jobs. 30% of email addresses are abandoned every year. So just think,
RV: (21:35)
Wow, that’s crazy.
ER: (21:38)
So think about like a previous job or maybe somebody changes their last name or they, or they just are like, wow, I’m so over this email address. Or people have like a catchall email address for that. Their, their signups, you know, it’s not their primary email address. There’s, there’s a variety of reasons or they’re just not interested. So I can’t, I think ours is set, it’s, and I give them a good amount of time. It’s like three or four months. If they haven’t opened an email, it triggers an automated re-engagement campaign, trying to be like, Hey, here’s, here’s another free ebook. Like here’s another freebie first and then a few days later, here’s another one. So we give them a lot of opportunity to stay, but if nothing’s being opened, we dump them. They’re not on the active email list anymore because at that hurts your open rates and it skews all of your numbers. So we really actively dumb people.
RV: (22:27)
Interesting. Do you delete them completely from the system or do you just put them in a bucket of people you don’t send email to?
ER: (22:32)
I want to delete them because I just like energetically like to see the number as is, however keep them. And it depends on what system you’re using. It’s ridiculous. You also pay for them. Well, no, actually an active campaign and most of them, if they’re not on any lists, you’re not paying for them. So it doesn’t hurt to keep them. Gosh, if I was paying for them, I would probably delete them because I’m at such a, the more your email list grows, the more you pay and I’m not going to pay for people who aren’t opening emails. Right, right. So if you’re on a system that you are paying for it, I would suggest considering deleting them. However, in the system that I used, we were only charged with their analyst. So we just removed from all lists and then the data’s there. Historically in case like this is more of just a general best practice in customer service and technical stuff, you want to keep people there because if they resubscribe two years later and are asking for something, you can see, Oh wait, you subscribed two years ago? It just gives you a history, it’s probably not a big deal to delete them. Again, my, you know, active campaign consultant and specialist is like, no, we need to keep them. And so I’m like, fine, if that’s the best practice, we will.
RV: (23:36)
Who is also a client, a client of brand builders group a and we love her and we’re so grateful for her. She’s amazing. So how, so do you email
ER: (23:46)
Your list every time you post a blog? Yes. Yes you do. No, I don’t just copy and paste. So I tell people do not use RSS feeds. There’s, you should, no one’s going to open those. Right? People want emails that are written to them and that are personal. Just like you said, that’s such an old thing to do like an RSS feed where it was like, Oh, the blog posts triggers and it just goes to everybody. People know that, that they’re not gonna read that. So, and besides that, your email subject line needs to be different than the post title. Because if you tell people what the post title is, they’re probably not going to open the email cause they’ll just know, Oh, if I ever want to did it feel hard boiled eggs, I’ll come back and open that. You know what I mean? But I do send them a quick email with like maybe a little personal, a line or two, like about what I’ve been doing that week. And then I might copy the first few sentences and then there’s an image and then it’s read the posts because you’re always trying to get people back to the blog cause then they’ll go to more pages, they’re more likely to see your services and they’re engaging in your brand more. The goal of that email is to get them back onto the blog. Yeah.
RV: (24:52)
So then, yeah, so once they’re on there, you say you’re pushing, I mean, once your email list gets big enough, you’re pushing your own traffic to some extent. I mean at some whatever, 20% open Raiders, 3% click through rate or whatever your email rates are, you’re driving a lot of that traffic.
ER: (25:06)
That’s a good point. As your email list gets bigger, what happens is like I do the post and I will tell everyone I am consistent. I am definitely not perfect. And there’s a big difference between those things. So I’m to, that’s you what I want to happen every week, but this may or may not happen on this timeframe.
RV: (25:25)
We’re going to all be looking next week to make sure this happens. And then we’ll be sending you
ER: (25:30)
Exactly most of blog posts on Monday. Schedule the email to go out Tuesday morning. Sometimes I posted on Tuesday and the email goes out Wednesday morning. I like to send my, have my emails go in the morning. And I do really realistically, it would be great to do one post a week, but really blog posts, I’m probably averaging three a month right now, which is good. And again, that’s consistent. Google really likes consistency on blogs and it doesn’t have to be perfect. Again, don’t mistake perfection with consistency. So don’t get down on yourself if you’re like, Oh, it’s Tuesday and I didn’t do it, you know just make sure that you’re doing at least three to four posts a month. Heck, even if you just did two, you’d be doing better. Well, Google doesn’t want to see is that you have all these blog posts and then you don’t post for a year and then you tried it, you know, and you can rebuild that.
ER: (26:17)
So that’s okay if that happens. But just try to be at least getting something up, you know, three new posts. And if even if I don’t write a blog post, I’ll still email my list that week. And it might just be because I’ve been blogging for so long, let’s say I didn’t get a post up this week, the email would just be like you know, Hey, here’s, here’s five chocolate recipes to get ready to for Valentine’s day and I can just link to five recipe chocolate recipes from the blog. Right. So it can be a new linking to other things. Hold things. Yeah.
RV: (26:46)
How do you keep, how, how long have you been blogging?
ER: (26:51)
12 years.
RV: (26:52)
So how do you keep coming up with new art? Like articles after 12 years of doing three posts a month?
ER: (26:59)
Yeah.
RV: (27:00)
Like don’t you run out of stuff to say
ER: (27:02)
No. So here’s a few tips for people. I never run out of things to say. One, if you’re doing, if you’re blogging about something that you really genuinely are passionate about, and for me that’s healthy food, you will never run out of ideas. Like there’s just, you know, and that might be, you know, when I think about recipes, I would never run out of recipes. There’s always something new. But one, one thing that really helps is like if you go look out, if you click on natural beauty or something on my site in that category, I’ll do like the natural beauty series where some people would be like, here are the 10 best natural products. I’ll call that the natural beauty series. And I’ll do 10 blog posts. Like one’s castor oil, one’s menuca honey, like each one will get. So, so take something that normally would be a list and turn that into individual blog posts into a series. Like one of like, one thing that I teach people in my program is like a year of content. You can create a year of blog ideas in one hour if you just come up with like four or five like categories and the thing about like three things that you want to teach in each category and turn each of those things into a series or into multiple posts and you’ll just never run out of never run out of ideas.
RV: (28:12)
Interesting. Interesting. Interesting stuff. Okay. So the last little section I want to ask you about is just a lot of our clients struggle with this, which is, you know, you are a nutritionist and a health coach, but then you have a section of your blog that is about business. Yeah, it’s so, so to me it’s like, it’s one thing if you have like health food and then you know, maybe did like a series on healthy oils or something like that. But business seems kind of like a, it seems like a little bit of a distance. Maybe it’s not. But that’s what I want to ask you about is like you, you, you have kind of gone ahead with just like keeping it together on the blog. Like how have you reconciled in your own mind? Like I’m, you know, I’m, I’m known for healthy, like you broke through the wall with healthy recipes.
RV: (29:00)
Like she hands wallets, you use that term which all of our listeners know about. You broke through the wall with healthy recipes. You’re a, you are a classic example of one medium, a blog, one topic, healthy recipes, extremely consistent for years and years and years. One primary business model, which is information, a secondary business model of affiliates. Like you are such a great example even though you weren’t our client of somebody who actually did this stuff. Does the stuff that we teach and talk about and then, and then so, so talk about the business piece. Like how did, when did that come in? How did you, was it like, Oh, I’m on the other side of the wall, fine. Or Mmm. You know, like,
ER: (29:44)
Yeah. I mean, I didn’t even know what the wall was, but I think here’s, here’s what it is. The business piece of my business grew from me figuring out the business on the house side and people being like, how are you doing that? What are you doing? Will you teach us? Right.
RV: (29:58)
So they were asking you for it.
ER: (30:00)
Yes. People were asking, but I’m also just teaching what I’m doing and I think if you look at it like ultimately, yeah. W like if you needed to pick a thing, it’s healthy recipes that I broke through the wall, but that’s also just what I was doing on a daily basis. Right? I was blogging what was working for me. And when you look at these categories, they’re all things that are working for me in life. All right. I am big, like I said before, like on your blog, pick three to five categories, right? Business. I, I did kind of, I was like, should I just, I was, I debated having business as a category. I’ll tell you that because I see what you’re saying. Like it can be confusing. Like somebody lands here for granola, what’s this thing about business? But what they’re seeing is that I’m running a business, right? When somebody lands on my blog, I’m running a business. So I think, you know, that category in my mind is there for someone who’s like, wow, I want to run a business like this. How would I do that? And if someone’s not interested in that, they just want the healthy recipes and they can just get the healthy recipes.
RV: (30:55)
Oh, so that’s just one of your five categories. It’s just like this, this thing that’s kind of over here. And I think what’s interesting too is that your audience was asking for it. That is sorta telling, right? If you’re serving the audience and they’re asking for it. Yeah. So anyways, I just, I thought that was, I thought that was really interesting. And you do, I mean, you do a lot of business from your business portion of your site. I mean you’ve done, Oh yeah. I mean you’ve, you’re one of the top affiliates for Marie Forleo and several other business people like and that, and that’s, I think the part that’s so cool about it is like that’s who you are. Like you’re interested in business, you’re learning business, you’re constantly, you know, we, we actually met cause you were at Louis’s mass Lewis house mastermind and I was there and that’s how we met. And so it’s like clearly that’s just like a hobby and passion of yours and it’s kind of true to the roots of the web blog concept of like I’m blogging about my life. Yeah,
ER: (31:49)
Totally. It’s, yeah, that’s exactly it. Worry. It’s like I view my blog and like everything I do now is, you know, I figured out what works for me and then I put it on the blog and I’m not saying that, you know, everybody has to do this. I’m not, it’s not like this is the one way that will work for everyone. I don’t say that with food and nutrition. I don’t say that with business. I tell everybody you need to figure it out for yourself. What way works best for you. But I view everything I do now, especially, you know, via the medium of the blog of like I feel a responsibility right in the different areas of success that I’ve had with my own health, with the business that I’ve grown you know, with, with what I’ve learned to share that and to say, Hey, this is an option for people.
ER: (32:33)
You know, even working with brand builders group, I want people to know that I’ve gotten a ton of value from you and I’ve had so much value from our interactions because I want people to know that I got value from that. And I want people to work with you. You know, be schools the same way. Like you, somebody just emailed me yesterday, they’re like, Lizzie, if you have your own business program, why on earth would you be an affiliate for another business program? And I’m like, because it changed my life. It, it legitimately changed my life. And there are people on my email list who might be like a photographer or a a business struggle, just store, you know, I had a woman who came through who wanted to start her own toothpaste line. Like you know, all of these different things. I feel like I’m doing a disservice to the world, to the email list if I don’t share what taught me to do what I’m doing now, if that makes sense.
ER: (33:23)
You know, so and I don’t view it as competition or cannibalizing. I think any business program I teach works in synergy with anything else that I recommend. Right? We all need to learn from multiple teachers. So I don’t view it as like you should do one or the other. I’m like, look, go learn from a lot of people, see who you resonate with and, and learn from a lot of people. But you know, at this point it’s still why, you know, on my website under become a health coach, you’ll see the Institute for integrative nutrition because that’s how I became a health coach. So, you know, there’s this old model of wanting to keep our secrets for ourselves or you know, the secrets to success that people don’t care or, you know, cause we feel like, well, what if I share this and somebody becomes more successful than me in my view.
ER: (34:06)
I’ve done my job as a mentor and it’s just a citizen of the planet. If I can share something with somebody and they do better than me, that’s good. That’s what I want. I want people to build bigger blogs, bigger businesses. I want them to become a more famous health coach. You know, have a higher traffic recipe blog. Like that’s good. Right? That’s why we’re here. And it’s, it’s, it’s, so, I don’t even know what the word is. It feels, it’s, it’s awful to think, well, I’m going to do all of this. I’m not going to tell you what the hell. Like I don’t want to live that way.
RV: (34:35)
Wow. That’s such like classic scarcity versus abundance mindset. Absolutely love that about, you totally got goosies listening to that. I mean that just the, the mindset of just what has changed in my life and just wanting to help people. Liz, where should people go if they wanna connect with you? Obviously Elizabeth rider.com and the health habit, the book, and we’ll link all that. What else?
ER: (34:59)
Yeah, Elizabeth fighter.com get on my email list. I send people a lot of free books and the longer you’re there, the more free recipes and eBooks and just insider stuff that you get the books on Amazon. I’m on Instagram. I do lots of stories, but yeah. However, here’s what I tell people. However, they want to connect. We’ll connect. I don’t do Snapchat. I don’t do tech talk. You know, I, I have my few mediums and I would love for people to come over to the website.
RV: (35:24)
Awesome. well thank you so much. This was hugely valuable, a totally a powerful perspective that I don’t think people hear enough about and really appreciate you opening the door to like you know, just the, all the behind the scenes of your business. So thank you for supporting us and we’re cheering you on and we wish you the best.
ER: (35:43)
Thank you. Thank you. Bye everyone.
Ep 53: Finding Your Right-Fit Client with Bill Cates | Recap Episode
RV: (00:01)
Hey, it is the Influential Personal Brand Podcast recap, edition three and three, me and my wife and CEO of Brand Builders Group. AJ Vaden here to bicker and and discuss and go back and forth and share with you our top three highlights from our long time and good friend Bill Cates. So babe, why don’t you kick us off?
AJV: (00:22)
Yeah, I think the most interesting and I’m kind of like taking us all the way to the end and then we’ll kind of skip around. But this was just really, really fascinating to me. And this is all kind of in coordination with this book that he has which I think is just this whole concept of neuroscience. He has this whole chapter about it in his book and Radical Relevance is the book. And he said this is what he says. He said, your brain is literally looking six times a second for safety, like every single second. Your brain like that’s from anything from your biochemistry to just breathing, walking not tripping, not falling, not getting hurt to actual emotional, physical, mental,
RV: (01:07)
Which you notice when you have a three year old because it’s like, Oh, you never realize how much danger there is just everywhere
AJV: (01:14)
Everything is Danger. But six times a second your brain is looking okay for how to stay safe. And three times a second your brain is looking for an opportunity and what does that have to do with what we do in marketing and branding and building a personal brand. And I think this was the part that was like really tied it all in together and made it so interesting is you go, what do people really look for? And it’s like so many times we just go out and we market the solution and we forget to identify what’s the real problem. Like how are we helping people stay safe, be safe, feel safe.
RV: (01:53)
Like they literally scientifically will pay more attention to you can talk about the problem. Yeah. And how to stay safe
AJV: (02:00)
In addition to the opportunity. But it’s twice as more when you are trying to keep them safe, solve a problem protect them. Provide security versus just talking about what you can do. And I think that’s just really relevant. Yeah. To everything that we do. And that’s just natural brain chemistry.
RV: (02:21)
Fortunately or unfortunately, I think this is why I think the media knows this very, very well, right? Like they have taken it to the level of what Andy Stanley uses the term fear peddling, which I thought was a really good term. And you know, so it’s, it’s sort of a delicate balance, but any you, you want to be clear on what is that problem an and I think the, one of the things that jumped out for me or like a thought that I had as a result of what bill was saying cause the neuroscience thing was one of my top three takeaways as well. My second big takeaway was just that clear is greater than clever.
RV: (02:58)
Clear is greater than clever. It’s like people need to understand, it needs to be so painfully obvious, like ridiculously evident. Unmistakably clear exactly who you’re helping and what you’re helping them with. And that is this. You just can’t hear that message enough. And it’s amazing to me how almost every single interview we do with someone who has built a major personal brand, this comes up in the conversation.
RV: (03:33)
A key thing. So clear is greater than clever.
AJV: (03:36)
Yeah, kind of to that point, he even talks about when people go to your website and you know, it’s like you gotta be thinking about when you build your website, one of two things. First, who is this for? Right? Who is your, what we call your ideal avatar, your perfect avatar. He calls it the right fit clients. But who is this built for? And then what value are you providing to them? And he said, and it cannot be for everyone because it is the more general, the more confusing, the more general, the more overwhelming. And I think that too is kind of in line with what you said. Okay. So onto my second one. Mine was an analogy and I’ll probably use this for the rest of my life and maybe eventually take credit for it.
AJV: (04:20)
But at the very, very, very, very end of the interview, he just stayed, he said he got this from one of his mentors and this analogy of a water hose. He said, when you turn on a water hose, there is intense focus, all this water being streamlined into this tiny little tube and then it goes out and it can have a lot of velocity and make you know, a lot of distance and cover a lot of grounds, no pun intended. But what would happen if you took a needle and he started poking holes and this water hose and is that an eventually you’re going to start having all these little, you know what would you call them? Off sheets. Spickets spouse. There you go. Spouts. You’d have all these little spouts throughout the water hose. And the focused water at the end would start to dilute and get weaker and would it have as much power?
AJV: (05:14)
And he said the exact same thing happens with our message. If we don’t have focus, he goes, the more you try to do, the more diluted everything becomes. And that happens with your audience, with your message, with your marketing, with your services, with your offerings, with your copy. He goes, if you’re trying to serve everyone, you are serving no one. And he said in the more distractions that come your way are all these little holes in the water hose and you got to patch those things up and get everything streamlined into one concentrated effort. And I thought that was a really great visual. Yeah. I’m too be like, yes, that’s true. It’s like why am I getting distracted and all of this stuff
RV: (05:57)
All of the time. How do I refocus and get back on the one singular path? Yeah, I love it. So for my third thing, it’s kind of the same thing we’ve been talking about, but it’s from the other side. So one of the this was probably my favorite takeaway from this interview was that, you know, when we talk about having focus, which I mean that’s our, basically the entire conversation at our phase one event is how to find your one thing and to w, you know, we walk you through our [inaudible], our brand DNA helix. Those of you that have been through it, you’ve been through that process of reconciling all of these different questions we asked you to, to help you identify what is the thing you should focus on. But the way when we talk about focus and even as we’re talking about it now with our first ones, it’s always like, you should do this to create more differentiation.
RV: (06:45)
You should do this so that you have like your resources in mind in one direction. But the thing that he said, which I think is super important to realize is that when you do this, you serve your audience deeper. Like you serve your audience better. So it’s not only just about separating yourself from the noise in the marketing or being clear about who, who you serve. Those things are super important. But additionally, when you narrow your niche, when you narrow the audience, it allows you to actually spend the time exploring and diving deeper. And I think about brand builders group is one of the things that we made a strategic decision early on. W only gonna do personal brands. We get asked all the time about can you lead a strategy meeting for the company? It’s like, no, that’s it. It’s not that. What we do doesn’t apply to that.
RV: (07:38)
It’s that it takes us off course. And we, yeah, actually just to kind of like pinpoint on that, I love why are friends, Susie Moore says, because she says, I get asked, why don’t you have this and why don’t you have that? Why don’t you start a coaching program? Why don’t you do a live event? She goes, I’ve got a really good answer to that. I don’t want to, yeah, some degree. We made a conscious decision like, we don’t want to do company branding. We, you don’t want to. Well, and we just, we understand personal brands, our whole world, all of our friends, I mean it’s just like the world that we live in. And so, but the, to what he was saying is it’s not just like a business strategy, it’s also a service like a customer service strategy. Yeah. And I don’t think we think about it.
RV: (08:20)
I think we all think of it as like, okay, the marketing strategy is to focus, but also realizing this is a customer service strategy. And that was just a, that was a refreshing take on, you know, a fundamental concept of what we teach. And yeah, what we talked about. My last one is really short. It’s really simple and it’s kind of, I think the first thing he said on the interview, he says, relevance is influence, boom. And that was just like, I mean, that hit me like square on of like throw [inaudible] very feminine, masculine, masculine, Mike drop.
AJV: (08:59)
But just relevance is influence. And you know, and the times of today with all of this craziness going on, doesn’t matter like where you are and what’s going on. You have to be relevant to have influence. You can’t be teaching and peddling something that worked 20 years ago and expect to have relevance and thus influence today
RV: (09:19)
All the time. Literally teaching the same exact technique that they taught in the 1985
AJV: (09:29)
Doesn’t work. It doesn’t. Relevance is influence.
RV: (09:32)
There you have it. Friends, top three and three influential personal brand podcasts from your favorite Nashville couple with red hair and a dark hair who work on personal brands exclusively at brand builders group. We love you. Be relevant. Have a great one. We’ll catch you next time. Bye bye.
Ep 52: Finding Your Right-Fit Client with Bill Cates
RV: (00:00)
Hey, one of the things that we find that our clients struggle with a lot is just, you know, getting new clients, right? I mean, building a personal brand is exciting. Having a message is exciting, but there’s a big difference between having a message and having an audience and making money. And so one of the people that I’m honored to introduce you to today is bill Cates. So I’ve known bill for years. We actually met through a group at the national speakers association called the million dollar speakers group. So he has run multiple successful enterprises over the years and, and it’s been, you know, decades that he’s been in this space. He’s actually a hall of Famer a hall of fame in the hall that speaking professional speaking hall of fame. He’s also a certified speaking professional. He’s the author of many different books or I guess three, three books.
RV: (00:52)
I think this is your, this is your fourth book is actually my sixth book. But that’s cool. Six book. Yeah, he’s cranking them out. But so historically Bill taught referrals, right? He is one of the, the, the most recognized thought leaders in the space of referrals. But his new book caught my attention. It’s called radical relevance. And so it’s more about sharpening your, your marketing message, cutting through the noise and winning more ideal clients. So I think he has adapted a lot of his expertise here in this book. Radical relevance to I think very much a modern approach to how business is being done. So anyways, bill, welcome to the show, man.
BC: (01:34)
Thank you Rory. I appreciate it. Always good to see you.
RV: (01:37)
Yeah. So let’s start with the radical relevance concept, right? Like, so that’s, you know, I think that’s a, that’s a pretty catchy concept. Can you explain exactly what do you mean by radical relevance?
BC: (01:51)
Yeah. So a couple things. First of all, I believe we live in a, a radically relevant world. And what I mean by that is that our prospects are inundated by messages, right? The beauty of the internet has made it easy to get our message out. And, and the double edged sword is that because everybody’s getting their message out, nobody’s getting their message out. Right? So it’s that people are a deluge by messages. And so we’ve got to find a way to cut through all that. And if you look at the way the world is moving, I mean, relevance has always been important. Anytime anyone tries to influence someone else, you gotta be relevant. But look at Google. Google is built on relevance, right? You start to type in a message and you’re two words into the seven word search and it already knows what you’re looking for. Amazon bought this book. You, you want to buy this book, et cetera. Everything is about relevance. There’s even you know billboards on the, on the side of the road that,
RV: (02:50)
Well, yeah, like the bud, the bud light. I’ve seen the beer where they do like hyperlocal marketing. Like, Hey, Nashville. Yeah. Or, Hey Titans fans will, they know based
BC: (03:00)
On ways and Google maps and all those, you know, a map functions. They know the demographics of who’s driving by the sign and everything get any given part of the day. And so they, the, they adjust the message for who their market is at that moment. Some billboards even have pollen sensors in them, so they detect when the pollen count gets to a certain level, it automatically triggers a ads for allergy medicines in the local pharmacies. So we live in a world where the way to get through is to be really, really focused and to have the right markets selected and not that, you know, to be all things to all people and everybody knows about having the right market. And that’s kind of the target. We’ve got to have a target. But we also gotta have the bullseye. The bullseye on the target is what I like to call the right fit client.
BC: (03:48)
Now people probably heard the term persona or avatar or ideal clients, pretty much the sure thing who you are meant to serve, who was meant to be served by you, who appreciates your value for all the reasons you want them to appreciate the value. It’s kind of the, you know, the, the your business soulmate, if you will, is your right fit client. And so the more narrow we can go, the more relevant our messaging becomes. And one of the mistakes I found, there’s a lot of people, you know, in an effort to kind of include a little more, to not exclude this group or this group. They make their message a little broader. Well what does it do? It actually diffuses the effectiveness of the message. So that’s what I mean by being radically relevant.
RV: (04:31)
So I want to talk to you about that for a second. Cause I think that, you know, this is something we walk clients through is, is identifying their core target audience and getting really clear on that. And in every scenario, every single time we do this, there is like this emotional bond that people have to, you know, the, the, the world at large that they feel like there’s somehow, you know, they’re disserving people and they’re, you know, not being inclusive and there. So how do you get over the emotional side of this?
BC: (05:07)
Yeah, that’s, and that is the toughest. And some of it’s based on fear in the, in the fear is if I just work on this group, this segment of the market, I’m going to miss all this opportunity. And the truth is, if you pick the right market, yeah, you’ll miss this opportunity, but you’ll be so successful here and help these people so much better than if you’re the fuse. You won’t even notice that you’re missing that. So part of it’s fear based, part of it is you’re right. Just that emotional attachment to your message and wanting to help as many people as you possibly can. However, the problem or the fallacy with Adam mistaken thinking is that if you don’t come up with the right messaging that’s going to attract the right people, you’re not going to be helping anybody. You’re going to be helping actually fewer people then what you want to do.
BC: (05:51)
So what you can do over time is you can develop more than one target market. You can develop more. One bullseye someone just starting out probably doesn’t want to try that. You want to start with, with your, with your strongest position. But over time you can do that. I’ve done that with my business in a number of ways over the years. You just, but for instance, a website’s a good way to think about this. If someone comes to your website and you’re, you’ve got a message that’s trying to serve like three different masters, right? Three different types of visitors, then everything’s going to be, it’s going to be too much. You’re probably gonna use too many words. People are going to get confused. What we want people to see when they get to our website is that we know them, that we get them, that we understand them.
BC: (06:34)
Empathy is huge in this, right? And it’s hard to do that on a website unless you help them self identify. So for instance, on my website I have three personas, three avatars of people who are coming to my site. One is corporate folks who bring me in to speak at conferences and do training and our video training and all that. And I have individuals, individuals, solo preneurs, individual salespeople, reps, advisors who also looked for the content we have. And other people are planning a meeting and they want a speaker. And so what I do is I have them self-identify who they are. They click on that appropriate link and then everything that they are given, all the messaging is geared towards them. So you can have more than one, but you got to treat each one differently and separately. So
RV: (07:22)
Do you think that by narrowing the market, like narrowing this focus is sort of like, you know, that saying the riches are in the niches, do you think that you make more money by serving fewer people or do you think that you actually are serving more people? It’s like you’re, you’re, you’re reaching us a bigger percentage of a smaller pie rather than a smaller percentage of a bigger pie.
BC: (07:47)
Yeah, that’s a hard question to answer because it’s probably gonna depend a lot on, on the niche, the market you go after. What I do know is that you’re going to bring more value because not just perceived value because you have the right message, but real value because you’re actually going to know them better. You’re going to go deeper and wider and you’re gonna, you may come in with a certain level of expertise, but as you serve those people, you’re going to learn about other problems they have and you’re going to help him solve this problem, this problem that creates a new problem or new opportunity. That’s why I wrote the book because I was helping people generate more referrals and introductions and that borrowed trust would get them in front of more people and the borrowed trust would carry them a certain distance into the new relationship, but eventually they had to build their own trust and they have to have the right messaging and the right a trust-building mechanism.
BC: (08:39)
And that’s what radical relevance does. It takes a deeper with my clients. And that’s the same thing in any niche. As you get to know the niche better. Now you may just decide to serve a sub niche niche within that niche, which is just the high most successful companies in an industry, let’s say. And there may not be a lot of those, but you get really deep in them and there’s a lot of opportunity there. And you serve them really deeply. So it’s hard to say. You could end up serving more people. You’re gonna end up serving fewer. One thing I know for sure is you’re going to serve them better.
RV: (09:12)
That’s value. Yeah. I mean it’s interesting if I, if I use me and Aja as a case study, you know with brand builders group, it’s like, you know, we’re under somewhere underneath the topic of business and then some are underneath the topic of business you’d have like sales and marketing. Our former company, you know, that we exited, used to do sales. So now it’s like we’re somewhere under marketing. And then under marketing you would have branding and then under branding you would have personal branding and then under personal branding you would have like specific niches. And it’s like this company in our first full calendar year, we have gotten in to the same revenue point as what has taken us five or six years in previous endeavors. But our niche is so narrow.
BC: (10:04)
It is. And what, what, what’s happening is your, the way you’re messaging your value, the way you’re talking about what you do. And who you do it for. It resonates so well with the right people that it attracts the right people to you. I hate to use this word, but it repels the rest. In other words, some people say, all right, that’s not for me. And that’s what you want, right? You want people to identify very quickly to see that you understand them. And now thank God we live in a large country and in the great big world that there are enough of those people there that allows you to create a very robust business. I mean, it’s possible to select and go so fine tune that there aren’t enough people in that niche to sustain a business. So that obviously has to be considered.
RV: (10:50)
But it’s pretty hard to do that. Well, that’s pretty hard to do that like in the world we live in and how connected. But it’s funny you say that because like our vision is what we call a thousand messengers. And so our, our core offering, right, is that we, we work with people, we see them four times a year. They talk to a strategist every month. They get virtual trainings for us, that’s like our, our signature program. It’s called pro quarterly. And we know like our vision is we want to just a thousand people. Like we only need a, a thousand is a, is a huge business for us. That is, you know, more than what we would ever need. And it’s only a thousand people out of however many, 8 billion on the planet. So you don’t need to reach millions and millions necessarily. And I think, I think that’s what a lot of our clients, you know, they see Tony Robbins, they see Lewis house, they see Oprah, they see, you know, even even like Bernay Brown in the Simon cynics and they go, Oh, I want to do that. I want to reach millions of people. And you know, they’re, they’re stepping over probably the likelihood of having a very wonderful income by just finding a narrow, narrow focus in just really serving those people at a high level.
BC: (12:06)
And it doesn’t mean they can’t get, eventually get to that point, but to get from here to there, you know, you don’t do it in one step. And if you find that niche, you find that target market, you Excel at that and you create those, those thousand raving fans, if you will, then there are other opportunities will open up and you can start to leverage that great will that you have with those people and create more opportunities. You just have to take it one step at a time. Another way to think about this for the folks who really just love serving as many people as they possibly can understand, especially if you’re in a B2B kind of situation or even a B to C can work. You know, if by you serving whoever your client is, remember that by helping them be better at whatever it is that you do, you’re serving other people, you’re serving the people they come in contact with. So for instance, I’ve been helping affirm who does peer groups with a CEOs. And so they know when they help the CEOs come to the peer group and, and get better and become better leaders, they’re impacting all the employees and all those companies
RV: (13:14)
Are being impacted. Oh, I see what you’re saying.
BC: (13:17)
Right. So there’s a, there’s a follow on effect or benefit. If you’re serving an individual and you help them become a better individual, whatever it is you do that makes them better, you’re impacting their family, you’re impacting their friends. So, you know, I don’t think that the impact you have just stays with that one client. It really impacts a lot of people. And when you think that way, you realize you really are affecting a lot of people.
RV: (13:41)
Yeah. Like consider the indirect impact that you’re making. That’s really good. That that’s a cause. I think a lot of this is just an emotional, it’s a fear. It’s a, Oh my gosh, I can’t narrow like I need to, I need to reach more people. And there’s various reasons why. So, and I think if you get this right, like if you nail the audience, it’s exactly what you said, you, you, you’ll, you will serve them better. So how do you know which audience is the right audience to go deep on? Right. Cause it’s like this is you know, this is a part of in our, what we call our phase one experience, we call it, you know, finding your unique Randy and ne is going, you’ve got to find your audience. And it’s like there’s all these different audiences you could serve,
BC: (14:31)
Right?
RV: (14:31)
How do you pick the one or like what’s the criteria you use to say, well this is the one I’m going to attack or you know, or,
BC: (14:40)
And my answer to that is going to be a little bit of my own personal experience. It’s a little bit trial and error. It’s, it’s rare that someone comes into a and immediately knows exactly what their message is and who it’s for. And as the perfect flow. I mean, some people probably do that. Sometimes it’s based on what you did before you came into this new business. You know, what other industry you worked in, what contacts you have. There’s a lot of that that goes into it. You know, that natural market, some people call it. So for instance, in my own business, I’ve been at this for over 25 years. When I sold my second book publishing company and decided to get into coaching and training and speaking, I knew the printing industry because I bought printing, I sold printing. So that was my natural place to start.
BC: (15:26)
And so I knew what to say to those people to help them, et cetera. But I eventually outgrew that industry a little bit. The profit margins are low, et cetera, et cetera. And I was looking for the next thing. And so sometimes [inaudible] we have to take action looking for the clarity, right? We can’t always wait for perfect clarity to take action because if we do, we may never take action. And so we just act and we, and we, and we deliver our value to different groups and we see the resonance. So in my particular case, when I wrote my first book on referrals and I had an opportunity to speak with some financial professionals, financial advisors, it was like immediately love it for a site, for both of us. Right? Cause they, they wanted what I taught, I believe in the value that they brought to their clients.
BC: (16:14)
And I always tell my staff that when we’re helping these financial advisors and planners help their clients, you know, we’re, we’re helping a lot of people get their financial house in order and it’s very important for everybody to do that. So that was like the perfect match and it’s expanded a little bit since then. I do a lot of different types of professional services now, but that’s, I w I was doing what I was doing, looking for the right match. You, you, you might not know it sitting in a seminar, you know, you know, you bring tremendous value to your clients, but a lot of it just getting out and do it and see how who had resonates with,
RV: (16:51)
Well, I think that’s, that’s a, I think that’s an interesting insight is it’s like don’t wait for the clarity to come before you take action, take action. Knowing that the clarity will come. Mmm. As you walked down the path.
BC: (17:04)
Yeah. Looking for the clarity. I mean, when I, I knew I wanted to write a book but I didn’t know what I wanted to do on, I knew I wanted to go deeper into a topic. I was kind of a generic sales speaker and I’d like to prospecting, but I didn’t know it. And then eventually, too long of a story to tell here. But this idea of referrals and introductions hit me and it like resonated immediately. So it’s like I was acting, doing my thing, looking for the clear vision. Now you’ve got to have a certain amount of clarity. You won’t do anything right now and you give that to your clients. Right. But you don’t have to be perfectly crystal clear. It doesn’t have to all be figured out. You got to take action.
RV: (17:40)
Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s sort of like, you know, come up with something that’s like 80% right. You know, or 70% in a, and then just start walking towards the direction and then figure it out. Now as you were talking, I’m actually coming up with my own little checklist. Here it is, is going okay. How do you find your right audience? You know, one thing would be going, okay, what do I have? W who do I w who do I have knowledge to serve? Another is like you said, who do you have relationships with? I think another one would be what audiences do I have access to? Right. That was one of the things about brand builders group where it was like, you know, we’ve been serving salespeople for so many years, but it was like, I know so many people in this space and Aja knew so many people in this space of authors and speakers.
RV: (18:29)
It was just like, gosh, this is an audience that we have access to. That’s, and, and, and, and then also like there’s a need, like who has the need that aligns with your expertise? Those are some of the clues. But so anyways, I want to, I want to, I want to come back to something directly in, in the book. So in chapter three, well the title of chapter three is the neuroscience of relevance. Mmm. I want to talk about this cause this is interesting to me because I think when we hear relevance are we here niche? Are we here target audience, we think of marketing strategy or like brand speak or like business best practice. But I thought this conversation is fascinating. What does the, how does neuroscience affect this? The context of what we’re talking about here?
BC: (19:23)
Yeah, it affects it intimately in a lot of different ways. And you know, the way I think and the way I structured the book was there are certain principles that that that should guide us. Marketing principles, principles based on how the brain works. And so I start off with the principles and then from there we derive the strategies. And then from the right strategy, we tried to strategies, we derived the tactics. The problem most people do is they go straight to the tactics, right? And, and if something’s not working, they look for a new tactic. But it could be a flawed strategy or it could be based on it just a flawed belief or principle in the first place. So with that as kind of a, an umbrella to this conversation I, I wanted to learn how the brain works because I know the more we can understand how the brains of our prospects work in our own brains for that matter, the more we can tailor the message properly.
BC: (20:15)
And there’s a couple of quick things I’ll give you the [inaudible] from that chapter. One is just understanding what the brain’s main function is, which is to keep the organism alive, which is to conserve energy, to conserve calories. That’s the brain is designed to do that. And so whenever you come with a message for your business, that might be a little too clever, a little confusing, a little convoluted. The brain goes, Oh, confusing. It takes more energy. I don’t want to go there. And it’s not relevant. It’s not perceived as relevant. It’s almost perceived as a threat and it moves on. And so that’s why we know that the brain craves clarity. Now it doesn’t mean we can’t use cleverness sometimes and headlines and how we’ve discussed what we do, but it better get into the brain immediately if you could. I use it as a kind of a back to the billboard scenario.
BC: (21:08)
It’s like if you’re driving down the road and the billboard has a message and it’s 30 seconds later, you finally get the clever message, it’s on the billboard. Well it didn’t do its job. It’s too late cause she missed the exit, right? And so it’s got to resonate quickly and that’s what the brain is looking for. The brain is also a scanning six times a second. That’s pretty fast. Am I safe? Where am I? Am I safe? Am I safe? And then three times a second is, is there an opportunity? So the brain loves an opportunity, but only if it feels safe. Well guess what? No wonder most marketing messages that are most effective start with what’s the problem? I understand your problem. I know you have this problem. And then there’s an opportunity that comes from that. So that’s how we structure our messaging based on how the brain works.
BC: (21:56)
There’s one more real quick, it’s a concept called [inaudible]. So hold on one second. You said, you said it’s six times a second. The brain is asking the question, am I safe? And then three times, three times a second, the brain is saying, is there an opportunity? Exactly. And, and the brain is built for opportunity. It loves opportunity, but only when it feels safe, it’s subservient to safety. It is. Absolutely. Because what happens is it’s like the, the reptilian brain is just looking say, am I safe? I’m safe. If it’s fear-based, right? Am I safe? I’m gonna say once it feels safe, that’s when the cerebral cortex can start to come into play and thought can start to come into play and aspirations for things we want to accomplish. Start to come into play, but only when the organism feels safe. And so, you know, no one, this sort of stuff really directs how we talk about our value, right?
BC: (22:47)
How we message it, the questions we asked, you know, how we display empathy for our prospects situation, so will resonate with them. The other one real quick is called cognitive and fluency. And what it says is, let’s say if someone goes to your website and your website is a little convoluted, it’s not as clear as it should be. Everybody’s always saying, well, when you look at my website, you know where it’s under construction. Yeah, I get it. Everybody’s website is always under construction, under construction, but if it’s, if it’s lacking a certain amount of clarity, the brain is going to immediately make the leap that this is confusing, confusing. To me, dealing with that company is going to be complicated. It just makes that immediate leap. And so the clearer and simpler we can make all our messages, all our steps, everything that we convey to people, the easier it is for people to take that path to us. Otherwise the brain will just say no too much. Which again, to me, all of that is sort a natural byproduct
RV: (23:46)
Of narrowing the niche. Because if you narrow the niche, like you automatically are speaking to a specific subset of people and they quickly go, Oh, this is for me. Or they quickly go, this is not for me. Exactly. That’s what we want. We want them to say, this is for me, this is not for me. And if they say this is for me, we’ve earned the right to a few more seconds of their attention. Yeah. It’s just slowly pull them through. That is so interesting. Thinking about brand builders group, again, just as a, as an example of we have co clients because you know, my background, I come more from like the corporate world and speaking and stuff. We have people going, Hey, can you help our company do branding? And it’s like, no, we don’t do that. Like we don’t do company logos. We don’t, we, we, we work with personalities, we work with people.
RV: (24:35)
And then you know, that definitive decision is really, you have to have discipline to make a decision and especially to follow through cause. Cause here’s the other thing that happens. Bill, is like our clients say, all right, I’m going to serve this audience. I’m going to go in this direction. And then all of a sudden one client shows up and waves a little money at them and says, Hey, I, and, and that’s a real issue too, right? It’s like, we gotta pay the bills, but agent, I had this conversation the other day, pretty soon we’re going to be free to get back into the world of sales training. Like, you know, R, R, w, w we’ll just, we’ll, we’ll be able to do that, but we’re probably won’t. But she gets calls every day of some like some of the, Hey, you know, we need help, our sales team needs help.
RV: (25:26)
And we’re just like, Nope. But, but that, that money is super enticing to pull you off track. Well, and that’s where you’re forming an Alliance with someone who can, who can serve the client, and you make the introduction and maybe you make some money out of that. Maybe you just create some Goodwill, but either way the client gets served and, and you can say, no, and, and I get it. Look, we’ve all been the place where, you know, we’re attracted by the money, especially when we’re getting started. And, and I, I’d say that sometimes there may be a reason to do that, but first of all, if somebody comes with a big check and you’re able to serve them and do a good job, you don’t want to take it. If you can’t do a great job, there can, can possibly could be some synergy there because in that large company you might also be able to like for in your case, yeah, help it all.
RV: (26:15)
A lot of their employees create their own personal brands, right? Salesforce great there. So there could be a synergy there but in all your outbound marketing and all your outbound messaging, it has to stay on focus, right? You may take your ideal to help keep things going for a little while, but, but here’s what I found. Here’s what I found about the side deal and I wonder if this is true for, for you. Like speaking is a good, the speaking business, a good example of this, right? Like some company shows up, they pay you some money to come speak to some audience outside of your core thing. It’s like w G sometimes there is a, there is a natural fit and it kind of makes sense. Sometimes you have to do it financially and you just go that this is not a longterm strategy thing.
RV: (27:01)
This is a short term desperation thing. But if you’re financially stable, what I have found is every time I’ve chased one of these, it begets more of the same. And so it’s like, it takes you further and further off the path that you are on. Yup. It’s, it’s true. And, and and your [inaudible] probably going to spend more time trying to serve this company or person that’s not quite in your niche, so it’s not going to be as profitable. You’re probably not going to be as good. I mean, there wasn’t a time when I did, I took anything. Anybody, you know, put it in the just, that’s what happens. Yeah. But it’s a sign of neediness, right? It’s not an abundance mentality for sure. And, but I, I’m never as good when I take something outside my main focus. I won’t take a speaking engagement or training engagement if I feel really good that I can do a great job for these people.
RV: (28:00)
And then I also don’t have to spend, you know, triple time trying to figure out their business and, and, and do the right thing for them. Cause I don’t want to do a half ass job. Right. And so, right. It’s an abundance mentality and sometimes it takes working with someone like you and your firm and your coaches to stay on track, right. To not be teased by that. You know, one of my first mentors in this business, a guy named David Rich out of South Carolina, he says, it’s like a garden hose, right? It’s this shooting, this fountain of energy of this water that’s going out. But if you start taking this little over here or this little idea and a little pinpricks right into the garden hose and then the water starts to sprays that and then the water coming out again isn’t as strong.
RV: (28:45)
And so we just have to be careful with all those distractions. Easier said than done. I know. Yeah. Well. I think it, I th I think it, I think it really is. So one list kind of off topic question, but Mmm. It’s relevant and then we’ll kind of what kind of land the plane. A lot of, a lot of our audience, we know they are people who have the, the desire to do paid speaking [inaudible] and just being that you’ve been in the industry and you know, you’re in the speaking hall of fame, what is, what is some of the advice and, and speaking to relevance, right? Like the industry has changed dramatically even in the last five or 10 years, let alone 20 years. The, what’s the advice that you would give to somebody who’s saying, gosh, you know what? I really do want to pursue the profession of paid speaking. You know, what, what do you, what would you tell them? Well, there’s
BC: (29:42)
So much, but a few things. First of all, be very clear on what the problem it is you the solve, right? Do you solve a problem that people want solved? Right? You’re going to be much more successful, much more quickly solving problems than you are helping people hit aspirational goals. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with hitting aspirational goals. That’s a great thing to do. But usually if someone has a goal and aspiration to, to go somewhere, do something at the heart of that is actually a problem, right? They don’t like where they are. They don’t like something right now. And so we got to know what problem do we solve. And then, you know, what’s the result of that transformation? That’s one thing. Another thing is you gotta be, you gotta be really good at, at, at doing what you do and conveying your message.
BC: (30:30)
And you know, everybody thinks they’re pretty good as a speaker and most people don’t really work on their craft. You know, I have a certain natural ability, but that only carries me so far. I’ve worked with coaches, I practice, I hate practicing what I practice to get better and better. And you’ve got it. You’ve gotta be willing to do that and pay the dues, if you will, in terms of building that craft as a, as a speaker. And then the treat it like a business. You know, it’s, most people in this business don’t make very, because they don’t treat it like a business. They they don’t have a business mindset. And, and I guess the final thing as we approached the the landing strip is, is you got to get good at talking about your value, you, you in, in a way that isn’t arrogant, but in a way that displays confidence. There’s a fine line I think between arrogance and confidence and we know people that have both, but your clients need the feel that confidence coming from you, right? It’s okay to be humble and modest and I’m a pretty modest kind of guy, but at the right time, I’ve got to turn on that confidence and people have to see that. And so that’s part of the sales process, right? Of just showing up with confidence and making confident recommendations to move someone along in that process.
RV: (31:50)
Yeah. Well, I love it. The book is called radical relevance. Bill, where do you want people to go if they want to get connected with you and, and stay in touch.
BC: (31:59)
Thank you. I appreciate it. So a radical relevance book.com radical relevance book.com will, that’s the page for the book. You’ll learn about the book, see if it’s a good match for you, see if it resonates with you. And then my main website is referral coach.com referral coach.com and a lot of free resources. There are a lot of ways to get into my world to see if I can bring any value to you. I appreciate it.
RV: (32:22)
Absolutely love it. There you have it. My friends the one and only it’ll Kate’s and talking about narrowing the niche. What a great conversation. Well, bill, thanks for being here, my friend, and as always, we wish you the best.
BC: (32:35)
Thank you Rory.