Ep 432: Charge More by Doing Less with David Baker
AJV (00:02):
Hey, everybody, welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is AJ Vaden here today, and super excited get to interview a, a fellow Nashvillian today. And also David is a, a brand new acquaintance of mine. I actually got cold pitch pitched him, which I, one out of a hundred times will say yes to those. But I thought this conversation looked super interesting. So I thought this would be worth coming onto our show because he is teaching the business of expertise. And as you guys all know, we talk a lot about the importance of being an expert in your field on this show. So what a better way to kick off today’s show with some conversation around what it means to be an expert and the pros and cons and everything in between. So, before I formally introduce David, I just want to give you a little preview of why you stick, need to stick around to the very end.
AJV (00:59):
I would say these are some of the highlights that I kind of pulled out of this, but I’m like, yeah, I wanna, I wanna know the answers to these things. So if you have a question around why long-term relationships could be dangerous for your advisory practice, then you’re gonna wanna stick around if you wanna talk about productizing your service offerings. ’cause I know so many of us are constantly going, man, like, how do I get out of the business of exchanging time for money, constantly time for money? Then this is an interview for you, and if you wanna just in general talk about how to position yourself as an expert, then this is a show that you don’t wanna miss. So, stick around. Don’t fast forward, don’t hang up early. Listen to the entire show. And then you can also catch the recap episode shortly after this.
AJV (01:49):
So now let me formally introduce you to David Baker. Here’s something that’s fascinating. He grew up with a tribe of Mayan and Inmans Indians in Guatemala. And we were just talking. He said, why is your zoom in Spanish? And I’m like, oh my gosh. I was just in Mexico and I couldn’t get it out. And he was like, oh, well, you know, I speak Spanish. I grew up in Guatemala, but not just grew up in Guatemala. Grew up with Mayan Indians. He’s also a airplane pilot, a photographer. He rides motorcycles. He lives here in Nashville, which is a super plus for me. But his work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, fast Company, U Ss a Today, Inc. Magazine, Forbes. I could go on and on and on, but instead of me telling you about him, why don’t I just introduce him? So, David, welcome to the show.
DB (02:37):
Thank you. Thank you. You got me all excited about sticking around for this. It’s like, wow, that’s sounds interesting. And how did I not pick up that? You’re in Nashville too. I, I when you told me that just a minute ago, I thought, well, how have we not met? I know. Yeah. That’s, that’s great. Thank you for having me.
AJV (02:53):
Love getting to meet other people who live in Nashville. ’cause I feel like so many of my friends today don’t live here. So when I meet somebody else who’s local, it’s a, it’s an extra treat. So as we get into this conversation just to help our audience a and b get to know you a little bit better, can you just kind of give us like a high level overview of how did you go from growing up in Guatemala to moving to Nashville, to writing books, to speaking and podcasting? Like how did this all come about?
DB (03:23):
Well, I’m a total fraud, and this is the, I’ve chosen to say that on your podcast the first time. No, I, my parents were medical missionaries. That’s how I grew up in Guatemala. So, lived in Costa Rica for a year while they learned Spanish, very poorly, learned it
DB (04:11):
And then one day, just with a lot of hubris, honestly, I was talking with my wife. I was sitting on the couch and I said, you know what? The ads in this local newspaper really suck. They’re just like, I could do better than this. I don’t know anything about it, but I think I could do better. So I started an ad agency, didn’t know, had never worked at one, didn’t know anybody else in the field, did it for six years. And it was a pretty ordinary, average firm, you know, it, it was successful, but not wildly successful. But as a part of that process, I subscribed to a newsletter. And part of what came with that subscription is that you could ask the newsletter editor questions for free. I think it was, that was his way of just staying in touch with the market. And one day I said to him, why don’t, why don’t you advise your clients rather than just doing a newsletter?
DB (05:02):
Why don’t you do consulting for them? And he gave me his reasons for why he wasn’t interested, but he said, why don’t you do it? And before I could even think about that, the answer to it, I, he said, and I’ll just put an ad in the newsletter, and you just gimme 10% of whatever you make. And I didn’t think much would come of it, but it seemed like kind of an interesting idea. And people started calling, and very quickly, within six months, it just completely took my life over. I think people were hungry for just business advice. And so that it was somewhat accidental, but I embraced it very quickly with sort of a combination of some expertise and a lot of curiosity and willingness to kind of be out in front of my skis a lot. And since then, obviously it’s been, that just really started the process of learning. And so I just, I feel like I’m just learning a lot all the time and helping people in the process process. So that was 30 years ago, next March when I started this firm and worked all across the world with thousands of firms, and just really love what I do. So I, I’m completely irrelevant to most of the world, but I want to be deeply relevant to a small part of it. And that’s small consulting, branding sort of firms.
AJV (06:16):
Well, I love that. ’cause I think that’s all of our challenges, right? If we try to be everything to everyone, then we are nothing to no one
DB (06:35):
Six, but only four of them were any good, but, so let’s just say four. Yeah.
AJV (06:41):
So a, a huge part of the audience that listens to this show. It’s also, you know, an aspiring author, aspiring speaker. Mm-Hmm. And so what would you say is like, how have you written so many books? Like what would you say is your inspiration? What’s your process and how do you find time to do that in also the midst of all the other stuff you have going on?
DB (07:02):
Hmm. Gosh, I love that question. Not many people ask it. I, I really, really love that question. You know, I think it starts in my mind with having a business that makes enough money that I don’t have to work all the time. So, a business that delivers enough extra time for me to, without any guilt, spend time working on it. That’s part of the answer. I think the other is that I feel like at my core, I’m an author who happens to be a speaker, and who happens to be a consultant. I’m, I’m really feel like I ha I have to say things, even if nobody’s listening, I have to say things. And so, what really makes me think I love this question is, so I, I’m getting ready to do a talk next week, and it’s a new one. I never give the same talk again.
DB (07:53):
I just can’t do it. I, I’m not saying you shouldn’t, I’m just saying I can’t do it. So I’m thinking about what am I gonna talk about? And the topic is, surely there’s more. And then realize, oh my gosh, do I really have anything new to say? And I, I just, just for fun, I added up all the stuff I’ve written, and it ended up being 2 million, 400,000 words over the last published words. So, and a 10th of those are across all of the books, right? So 90% were in other things, articles or podcast episodes or whatever. And so many things hit me after I realized that it’s like, okay, with a narrow focus focus, you, you never run out of things to say, now you think you’re going to, but the narrow your focus, the more you never run out of things to say, I have more unwritten articles now where I have the idea that I’ve ever had in my life, even after written two, 2.4 million words.
DB (08:50):
That’s one thing. The other is that I, like, not that many people read the articles I write, but the articles create an audience who then are going to buy the books and the articles are how I work out what I think. And those things get shaped into a book, right? So if I’d written a book without all of that, all those years of work writing articles, then I wouldn’t have an audience and I wouldn’t have thought through all of these things. So I feel like there’s sort of this mix, this weird mix. You’ve got to have a blog or something that forces you on a regular basis, maybe it’s a podcast, whatever it is that forces you to keep figuring out what you think mm-hmm.
AJV (10:03):
Hmm.
DB (10:03):
I’ll never figure that out until I start writing. So it’s not, oh, clarity. Now, let me write that down. No, it’s like, until I, I wrestle with articulating what I’m thinking, then the clarity comes. So to me, writing is how I figure out what I think.
AJV (10:19):
Hmm. That’s so good. And I loved your comment too about, you know, blogging or even podcasting or just creating content, whatever it is, it’s like, that is the arc of figuring out what you have to say. It’s, it, it takes practice, right? It’s like with anything, in order to be good at anything, you have to do it a lot. And the same thing goes with our thoughts and what we have to say. I love that. Yeah.
DB (10:43):
Yeah. I mean, you’re, so you’re doing this podcast and you’re doing it, I think it’s twice a week, right? Or, you know, it’s regularly. And there are probably times when you think, oh, today I am so excited about another time. It’s like, I don’t know really what I’m gonna say. I don’t know, do I have anything new to add? But this forces you to be on stage and people like you and me and your listeners, we don’t wanna look stupid. Yeah.
AJV (11:07):
We
DB (11:07):
Don’t wanna look stupid. And we’re trying to, we’re like, I wanna stand in front of a group, and then I want to open it up for questions, and I want to not fear a single question that would come my way. And unless you keep putting yourself on the stage in a light, you’re you, you don’t refine what you think. Right. Because, and what forces you to refine it is you don’t wanna look stupid. That’s just, it’s a natural instinct. Right?
AJV (11:33):
Oh, I love that. It’s the whole concept. It’s like, I love that just that idea of like, you can only refine what you think if you talk about it all the time. Right?
DB (11:41):
Right. Yeah.
AJV (11:42):
And I think that, you know, for most people, you know, myself included, sometimes it’s like we struggle with wanting to be a generalist. Like we struggle with, oh, you know, I just think about the amount of speaker press, Kitts that I review for our community at Brand Builders Group. And it’s like, I can speak on nutrition, health, fitness, mindset, goal setting. And I’m like, no, you can’t
DB (12:06):
Yeah. Yeah. I
AJV (12:06):
Can’t. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. And I love that too. It’s like your entire thing is that like, like narrow it down, right? That’s the, that’s the goal of expertise, right? Mm-Hmm.
DB (12:47):
AJV (13:36):
Mm-Hmm.
DB (13:36):
That then allows you to have excess opportunity that you can waste some of. So if, if you’ve got two options, two potential clients that wanna hire you, then you just choose the one that’s the better client. That doesn’t take any courage at all. But what takes a lot of courage is to say no to one opportunity that isn’t a great fit. So don’t put yourself in those positions. Put yourself in a position where you don’t have to muster all that courage. It’s not a question of knowing the right thing, it’s a question of having the right courage. Hmm. So I I just added a second person recently, but up for all these years, it was just me. Okay. And Billings were somewhere between 900001.7 million, and that’s taking about 10 weeks off a year. I’m not proud of that. We don’t use all that money. We don’t need all that money. That’s not, I’m not saying that I’m better than anybody that way, I’m just saying mm-hmm.
AJV (14:33):
DB (14:33):
Can, you can make a lot of money. You don’t have to be a big firm to make a lot of money. And what that, what that income allows me to do, what it gives me is the freedom to go out and figure things out and then write books, and then that just layers better marketing on top and more opportunity. I can be choos or, and choos or, and it’s just this cycle that repeats and helps make you better and better. Right. The world is just way too complex anymore to pretend that you can know everything about everything you, I’m feeding back to the comment you just made about the generalist, right? Like, people don’t pay a lot of money for generalists. They just don’t, they want, like, if you’re in a messy divorce or some kind of bankruptcy or whatever it is that’s, or a medical issue in your life, all you care about is hiring somebody that knows exactly how to help you in this situation. And, and the money doesn’t matter. Right. But when it’s like you need something done around your house and you just find a handyman that can do most anything and maybe not great at anything, that’s good enough. Right? Like, this is how we think and that’s how our clients think too.
AJV (15:41):
Yeah. I think, you know, one of the things that people struggle with so much is being afraid to be narrow. Mm-Hmm.
DB (15:50):
AJV (15:50):
Right. They’ve got FOMO
DB (16:02):
Right, right.
AJV (16:03):
I know that in my previous consulting life, I said yes to all kinds of stuff that I should not have said yes to. ’cause I’m like, ah, if they can do it, I can do it. I’ll figure it out. Mm-Hmm. But then it took 10 times the amount of time and effort and energy and resources to go and do that for the same price. Mm-Hmm.
DB (16:19):
I
AJV (16:19):
Guess it wasn’t that thing that I could do in my sleep. Right,
DB (16:22):
Right.
AJV (16:23):
Yeah, go ahead.
DB (16:24):
Well, I was just gonna say that sort of ties in with the whole idea of packaging productizing your services too, right? Because you want the efficiency that comes from doing, like, you, you should be leading that relationship. You’re not simply listening to what a client needs, and then you’re taking orders like a waiter would and says, oh, you need that, that, that, okay, now I’ll put, I’ll put together the perfect solution for you. No, it’s like, you’ve done this enough that you know generally what they need, so much so that you can put together a package and either they buy the package or they don’t, and if they buy the package, this allows you to be very efficient in how you work with clients. It also allows you to notice the patterns from one client to the next because you’re doing similar things for each of them. So it just, it, it really builds your practice better.
AJV (17:15):
Yeah. And I love that. So let’s talk about that for a second because that was one of the other things that you had said earlier, is this idea of productizing, right? Mm-Hmm. Your service offerings. So what do you mean by that? How do you do that? Like, what advice would you give people out there going Yes, yes. Like, how do you do that? Help me. Help me. Yeah.
DB (17:33):
Yeah. So here, here’s an illustration. So let’s say I’m going under the knife for surgery, and I’m a little bit nervous, and I talk to the, you know, the, the anesthesiologist will come in first, and, and then the surgeon will come in and they’ll ask you some questions. And usually it’s very perfunctory. But what if you just slowed that down a little bit and you said, Hey, I’m nervous. Can you tell me how you do this? Like, what, what are the steps that you follow? Here’s what you don’t want to hear to the dancer. It’s like, well, listen, I’ve done this a lot. You really need to trust me. I’m just gonna cut you open first. That’s the first thing I always do. Then I’m just gonna kind of look around and figure out what seems like it’s in the right place and what isn’t.
DB (18:15):
And depending on, you know, and like, no, you want, you want 17 steps in order. You want to know that they have done this many times before, that they’re an expert, and you’re, you’re putting yourself in the hands of somebody else. Now, a consulting relationship is not quite as important or critical as that, but your clients have a right to know how you think in advance, what, how you think about certain things and how you go about things. Because what they want to know is that you have applied a process in the past, and if you apply the same process for them, it’s likely to result in something good for them. Right? There’s a good result at the end of it. Productizing your service means that you you approach things in a pretty normal way and this in a regular way. And that regular way should be informed by your, your positioning, right?
DB (19:17):
So, my productized service should be very different than yours. And I also use a productized service to protect myself. So if a client comes to me and they’re sort of a hot mess, they just need lots and lots of help, and I wanna help them, right? But they want a fixed price. And I’m thinking, man, I don’t have any idea. I I don’t wanna learn all this on my own dime and figure this out for you. Like with an unpaid proposal that’s 80 pages long or something, I, I want to protect myself. So if I’m gonna give you a fixed price, I’m gonna have to shoot really high to protect myself. That’s not in your best interest either. So let’s start with a diagnostic or a road roadmapping exercise. Maybe it lasts for two weeks. Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
DB (19:59):
It’s $10,000 or 20 or five or whatever it is. And if you’re gonna start going down the productized path, that’s what you would always start with, is how a relationship begins. Picture that you’re on a plane with somebody, you’re both in first class, you’re just chatting. It turns out that they’re possibly a client of yours, they’re a candidate client, they’re not happy with whoever they’re using now. And they’re so intrigued that they say, you know what? This is really interesting. I can’t believe we just kind of ran into each other here. How would you start with somebody like me? You ought to be able to pull up a webpage and say, this is exactly how we start. We call it this. It costs this, it takes this long. This is what it involves. That’s productizing your service offerings. And that’s how you do it to start with at the beginning. And then you can productize everything else as well down the line.
AJV (20:49):
Yeah. No, I love that. It’s like the first product that you sell is a diagnostic.
DB (20:54):
Yeah. Right. Right.
AJV (20:54):
I said, I can’t tell you what you need until I get in there and know what you need.
DB (20:59):
Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. And, and this ought to be at least as profitable as anything else you do for the client. This should not be a loss leader, right? This is not, you shouldn’t have on your website. Click here for a free 60 minute consultation. It’s like, no, you’re giving away your very best thoughts at that point. Instead, those early conversations should be about whether it’s a good fit. Like, tell me what you’re, what you’re facing, and let me tell you how I approach things and, and how I think about these kinds of things now. Okay. It seems like it’s a good fit. Now let’s do this diagnostic and really figure out what’s wrong, and then we’ll spend the rest of the money way more effectively, rather than just sort of bouncing around at the beginning without knowing where we’re headed.
AJV (21:47):
Now, would you also suggest when people come back from a, you know, diagnostic research type of engagement, that they also have a, a set suite of offerings? Yes. Or, yeah. So can we talk
DB (21:59):
Absolutely about that
AJV (22:00):
A little bit? Like how do people determine like, what are my suite of offerings?
DB (22:04):
Yeah. In
AJV (22:05):
Consultative arrangement.
DB (22:07):
That’s, it’s really good to think about that one. And so not too far from where you’re, where you live. I think it’s at the what’s the mall? The really big, the Green Hills Mall near where you live, right? Mm-Hmm.
AJV (22:30):
45 pages long. Yes.
DB (22:33):
DB (23:31):
‘Cause This is the best client relationships mean that we do these things for you. Otherwise, and this is particularly true, if you have a large firm with a lot of people doing different things, if they don’t wanna use this one third of your services, then you’re gonna lose a lot, lot of money because these people are just sitting around, right? So the best advisors lead the relationship and they’re gonna listen to what the client thinks they need, but then they’re going to say, nah this is what you really need. You need this list of services. And so it should be very specific. It should be in order, and there should be less and less variety around them. And if more and more clients aren’t using a particular thing, then just drop it off. It’s hard to be more specific than that. But generally, you always want a first one, like that road roadmapping thing you were talking about.
DB (24:18):
And then you probably want four or five or six other things on there. If people wanna get a sense of how to productize their services, we just released a completely new website. And I like I’m not sure your listeners or clients of mine, I’m not saying it for that reason, but they might want to look at the service offering. So they’re all very specific. They’re packaged in different ways. They’re all priced. That’s how you want to think about it. You want to get away from Cheesecake Factory menu towards the fixed price sort of menu.
AJV (24:45):
Yeah. What’s what, what website should you go to? If you picked,
DB (24:49):
Oh, sorry. Yeah, I didn’t even say right. Punctuation.Com. Yeah, it just released yesterday. So
AJV (24:54):
Punctuation.Com, if you wanna go, just check out what a suite of offerings mm-hmm.
DB (25:09):
Right? Right,
AJV (25:10):
Right. A huge part of this, it’s like when you offer less, then you can become better at it, which means you can charge more for it. Right. You can charge at a, a premium. But it’s like when you have 20, 30 things that you’re trying to do, it’s like, then you’re never doing the same thing enough to go, man, I can literally do this in my sleep. Yeah. It doesn’t mean near enough time to complete the same task. And
DB (25:34):
Don’t you think there’s sort of a dirty secret in our industry that many of us in our hearts don’t really believe we’re worth the money?
AJV (25:42):
Oh, yeah,
DB (25:43):
Definitely. And, and so we overdeliver, we, we keep checking in more than we need to. We write reports that are totally unnecessary, and let it, let’s just like, if you wanna report, take notes, I mean, that’s how we ought to think about this stuff, right? But we’re still, we’re so oversensitive about delivering value that we’re undercutting ourselves constantly. And if you are, I wrote a more recent book called Secret Trade Craft, and one of the things I said in there is that as you mature in your particular field, you should deliver less for more. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (26:27):
Delivered
DB (26:28):
To clients to justify your views because you were you were not very confident, right? Yeah. And, and, and you strip all that stuff out and you get to the core of what they need to hear. And this is really, really valuable because experts know how to cut to the chase. Right. And they’re not embarrassed by how simple their advice is that, anyway, I just wanna, I I, I wish I could preach that from the mountaintops,
AJV (26:54):
DB (27:23):
Yeah.
AJV (27:24):
I now know why this book is constantly selling thousands of copies every single week. Mm-Hmm.
DB (27:42):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (27:46):
Right name. Clear
DB (27:58):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (27:59):
And there’s power in that. So I love that. I love that idea of productizing it by starting with a diagnostic and then, then you can go, okay, all the things I offer, you need one, four, and five.
DB (28:10):
Right, exactly. Right. Yeah. And I know how to charge for it. We don’t have to waste a lot of time figuring that out. Right. No scoping questions.
AJV (28:18):
I love that. That’s so, it’s, it’s good sage advice for all of us where we feel like we have to offer everything to remember. No, you don’t.
DB (28:27):
Yeah. No, you don’t. It’s motivated, it’s motivated by our own insecurities more than it is. And when you have a client who’s pushing you to deliver everything, they’re not a qualified client. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (28:36):
DB (28:37):
Like a qualified client trusts you to do just what they need and not, and not waste their time with anything extra.
AJV (28:43):
And that’s where that courage to say, no, you’re not of me. No, I don’t do that. That really comes in. I love that. So, so good. That’s such wanted advice. Okay, next question. ’cause I know I’m watching the clock and I promised, you know, 45 minutes. But I would love to know like, what are some of these like, positioning mistakes that people make? So we’ve been kind of talking about, you know, this idea of like, position yourself in a way that you are this expert mm-hmm.
AJV (29:27):
And now they’re like, how do I get out of this? Mm-Hmm.
DB (30:04):
Mm-Hmm.
DB (31:01):
And if you want, I leave this out, but if you want, did you enjoy the work? So those three things, and you’re gonna end up with this map of maybe five to 20 different options, right? Then the next thing you do is try to draw a circle around the things that you’re going to include in your new positioning. And this is where the tension comes, because your tendency is to want to draw the biggest circle possible so that you don’t waste any of the opportunity that you’ve had, right? Mm-Hmm.
DB (31:56):
It’s like, nah, you can’t really do that
AJV (33:24):
DB (33:48):
That right? That’s a more human approach, right? It’s a more human approach. It acknowledges how difficult it is. Like the, the way you said that just a second ago is like that logically, literally that’s what you should say. But it’s not what we humans do. Yeah. It’s just too hard, right? So, yeah, that’s exactly right. And I think we just need to recognize that this is a hard thing, right? What I don’t wanna do is, I don’t wanna wake up one day and realize it’s like hit myself on the head. It’s like, shoot, my business is, has been shaped entirely by what other people want me to do.
AJV (34:20):
Hmm.
DB (34:21):
Now, in a way, you kind of have to do some of that, right? You can’t just create a business that nobody
AJV (34:34):
DB (34:35):
Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, right? Your clients want you to do this ’cause they love you. Well, that would make that client happy, but then what’s gonna happen to your life? I mean, you have, your business has got to serve you the business. It, you, you’ve gotta be in charge of this thing, right? Don’t let the, don’t wake up one day and realize, okay, I started this business years ago because I wanted more time, I wanted more money, and I wanted more control. And now I look at my business six years later and I realize I’m spending too much time working. I’m working harder than I was. I’m making less money and I don’t have as much control that is messed up, right? Mm-Hmm.
AJV (35:19):
DB (35:34):
And
AJV (35:34):
It’s like, well, it’s so full because I jam packed it full. That’s why. Yeah. No one else to blame just me. But it’s that, you know, it’s back to, it’s hard to say no.
DB (35:45):
It is, it is.
AJV (35:46):
It’s a lot of clarity, a lot of courage to go, that’s not good for me. Even though it might feel good when I say yes. Yeah. It’s not good for me, not good for business to be like that.
DB (35:59):
And you’ve gotta make some brutal decisions that are going to disappoint some people, right? I, I’m not a particularly a religious person, but there, there’s this story of Jesus walking through this town, and he had the power to heal everybody. And I’ve, by just touching them, and I’m wondered, you know what, why didn’t he just touch everybody? Hmm. Like, and that’s sort of like you and you, you’re not, we’re not Jesus, but we, we have the power to help a lot of people, and it’s really hard to walk away from that. But, you know, you’ve gotta put your own oxygen mask on first. And some of the things that look really selfish, if you didn’t, if you’d never heard that repeated at the beginning of flights all the time, and you saw parents putting their own masks on first before they help their kids, you’d think, well, geez, that is selfish. No, no. It’s, it’s, it’s how more of us are gonna survive than not. And we have to keep there’s just, there’s so much. When you are good at something and you’re a genuinely good person, you wanna help everybody. But that is sometimes done at the expense of who you are and the other people in your life, and it’s just gotta stop.
AJV (37:14):
Hmm. That is so good. You can say that 1000 more times because we all need to hear it. We all need to hear it. And the, the truth is, and I love that story about Jesus and it as it relation to how we run our businesses, it’s like we aren’t meant to help everyone,
DB (37:31):
Right?
AJV (37:31):
Like we are uniquely positioned to help the people that we were meant to help.
DB (37:36):
Yeah. And
AJV (37:37):
If we stay focused on that, we will help more. Yeah. In the right ways that we are, you know, only we can do. And I love that. That’s so good. All right, I’ve got one last question for you.
DB (37:47):
Okay.
AJV (37:48):
How do you make your, you, your expertise or what I would say your uniqueness, how do you make that more narrow mm-hmm.
DB (38:10):
Mm-Hmm.
DB (39:11):
And if you find a lot more than that, then you’ve got to narrow it further, right? If you find less than that, then you’re probably gonna run out of opportunity and you need sufficient opportunity. You don’t want to go into any specialist sort of advisory role, assuming that you can lock up more than about 1% of the opportunity. And so the math is pretty deep, it’s talked about in the book, but that’s how you decide exactly how narrow to go. And so, so you’re broad and you picture yourself walking towards the right solution. And there are two things that will stop you on this path. As you walk from generalist to specialist. The first thing that might stop you is courage. And you just gotta get over that, right? The second thing, the legitimate thing that would force you to stop on that path is running out of opportunity. So you want to be in that special place where there’s not too many competitors, but still enough opportunity. And that math is 10 to 200 competitors.
AJV (40:10):
Hmm. That’s good. I love that. And I think too, it’s like many of us, I think we forget to look around and go, what is everyone else doing? Not that we should do what we do based on what others are doing, but it’s still good to have that comparative analysis of what is out there, what are people doing? Mm-Hmm. What are people charging, right?
DB (40:30):
Is
AJV (40:30):
There enough demand? Is there not enough demand? Not that it would change who we are and what we do, but mm-hmm.
DB (40:36):
AJV (40:36):
To have that comparative analysis of is there enough demand in the marketplace? Is there too much supply? You know, just basic laws of economics. Super.
DB (40:45):
Yeah. I mean, if we, we could apply that to your, your business. So the people who know branding, there are tens and thousands of those people, right? You apply branding in a very narrow way in your business, and that’s personal branding. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (41:10):
And it’s so funny because we left the world of, you know, corporate consulting and sales specifically in sales when we started Brain Builders Group. And it was a, a very decided decision of we don’t work with companies.
DB (41:26):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (41:26):
We work with people, right?
DB (41:28):
And
AJV (41:29):
The hardest temptation in the last five years has been to say no to all the people that we work with. They’re like, oh, we love what you’re doing for us. Can you come do this for our company?
DB (41:39):
Right. Because
AJV (41:40):
It would’ve been so easy to go. Sure,
DB (41:42):
Yeah. I’m not,
AJV (41:44):
It applies and it’s been the hardest thing in the, it’s where we’ve been most disciplined of going, we don’t work with companies. We, in fact, we had to put it in all of our branding to hold ourselves accountable.
DB (41:55):
Right, right, right.
AJV (41:56):
It’s everywhere. So that we remind ourselves, oh yeah, we said we weren’t gonna do that.
DB (42:00):
Well, the best, the the best way to understand positioning is that there are a lot more things you don’t do than there are things that you do. Right? So it’s choosing a positioning is, is an exercise in irrelevance. Yeah. You’re becoming irrelevant to more and more people. And in the process you’re becoming more relevant to a smaller group.
AJV (42:19):
Love that. And I’ll say my drop on that comment, that was awesome. Such a great interview. I love also the narrow focus of the interview, which is apropos for the conversation. Y’all, if y’all wanna check out David and learn more about all the things that he does, go to david c baker.com. I also wanna give him a shout out for his I don’t think it’s your latest book, but it’s
DB (42:46):
The next to last book, right?
AJV (42:47):
Next to last book. It’s expertise is. So go to expertise is, I’ll put both of those in the show notes. David, if people wanna catch up with you on social media, is there one place that you would send them?
DB (43:02):
Probably LinkedIn David C. Baker, my middle initial, sometimes help you get to the right place. Or just the whatever, the slash dc b on LinkedIn. Happy to connect with people there.
AJV (43:13):
That’d be awesome. And we’ll put that in the show notes. Again, so check him out on his website. David C. Baker, connect with him on LinkedIn, and then go check out his book expertise Is is the website. Pick up a copy. Read it. David, pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank
DB (43:31):
You, AJ.
AJV (43:32):
And everyone else. Stay tuned for the recap episode and we will see you next time on the influential Personal brand.
Ep 407: Telling Stories That Make a Difference | Damon West Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
So I just had this amazing conversation with a newer friend of mine, his name is Damon West, and he’s got an incredible story from being a collegiate athlete to working at a very large investment bank, to getting hooked on meth, to being sentenced life in prison, to getting parole, to becoming a motivational speaker and a multi-time published author. And the stories just awesome. But while I was talking to him, it spurred this idea to make this video to share with all of you. And I think it was really good cause we were talking about how do you incorporate these crazy stories, these events, these, I can’t believe this happened to me, type of story into your message. And how do you take a very, you know, you focus story, in this case, a very me focus story and turn it into a message that is universally helpful to your audience, where I’m not just telling you my story to help you get to know me, but I’m telling you my story.
AJV (01:14):
Because within that story, there is a message that means something to you, the person who is listening, the end user, right? So at Brand Builders Group, we have a really simple formula that talks about this, which is tell a story, make a point. If you’re going to tell a story, what’s the point of that story? The story part is about you. The point, the message is about them. So what are you trying to convey during this message? And this was just a really great storytelling conversation, is really what it ended up being, is how do we tell our story in a way that actually helps other people? And so here’s a couple of things that I just wanted to share from this conversation cuz I thought they were worthwhile. So number one is just asking yourself, and I’m, I’m literally using words out of his mouth cuz I thought this conversation was so great, is what’s the SWAT team story in your life?
AJV (02:14):
Like, if you’re struggling on how to make a point and create a message, then ask yourself like, what are the SWAT team stories in my life? And what I mean by that is, you know, in Damon’s life, there was a SWAT team raid, and that’s how he got arrested. A SWAT team busted down the doors, rated a, I think meth house would be the appropriate term and arrested him, right? That’s a SWAT team story very literally for him. But all of us have those swat team stories in our life, those defining moments or events or decisions that said, my life was going this way and then this thing happened. That SWAT team moment
AJV (02:59):
And then my life went in another direction. Could be good, could not be good. But what are the SWAT team stories, the stories that make you stop in your tracks and go, wait, what that happened to you? Like this thing, this decision, this event, this moment? Like, wait, I, what? So what are the SWAT team stories in your life? And then what’s the message within that story, right? That, what’s the point of that story? Because that’s what takes a story that’s yours and makes it a story that other people need to hear. Because there is a message, there is a point, there is something within that story that is universally applicable to anyone who hears it. I’m going, I needed to hear that today. I needed to be reminded of that today. So that’s the first thing. Second thing is know what your signature stories are.
AJV (03:50):
When I was talking to Damon, we, we were both talking about how it doesn’t matter what audience you’re in front of, right? This is maybe an audience of one and maybe you’re just practicing in the mirror, right? Maybe you are the audience of one. Maybe it’s in a one-on-one coaching call. Maybe it’s on a podcast like this. Like right now, technically I’m talking to my camera, right? Although others will hear it. I’m talking to myself, right? The only thing I see right now is a little green dot on my computer. I’m talking to myself. However I have you in mind, right? So maybe it’s that maybe you’re making content videos or maybe you’re speaking on stages. Maybe you’re speaking on stages to hundreds of high schoolers or thousands of people in corporate America. The the point is, it does not matter who you’re talking to.
AJV (04:32):
It’s what are the signature stories that you tell no matter what, because this is a signature story of your message of your life. And it’s profound in many ways. And so we have lots of stories. Like I have a list of probably at this point, a hundred different stories that I could tell, but I have two or three that I tell no matter what. Those are my signature stories. And it’s like, I know that this was such a defining moment. This was such a swat team story in my life that it doesn’t matter what audience am I, I’m in front of, this is a story I’m telling. That’s what we’re calling your signature stories. It’s those one or two stories that are in every single message that show up in all the different types of conversations because they’re that powerful because they were powerful to you.
AJV (05:17):
And if they were powerful to you, if they changed you, they have the power to help change someone else too. So what are your signature stories? All right, so have your list. The next thing is knowing how to tailor your presentation without changing your message. And I thought this was really profound because in an era of everyone’s something that’s a little special to them, right? Most audiences wanna feel like this was catered to me. This was tailored for me. This was crafted or built or customized just for my audience. At the same time, that’s what we think we want. But what we really want is we want something that we know is going to be impactful to the audience that’s going to help them, help them make better decisions, help them think differently, help inspire them in some way. And sometimes having something brand new isn’t the best way to do that, right?
AJV (06:07):
Sometimes the good old tried and true is what people really need, although that’s not what they think they want. So knowing how to tailor your message or your presentation know how to tailor your presentation for the audience without ever actually changing the message. So here’s how you do that is you can tailor the opening. You can tailor the ending. You can work in industry lingo or statistics. You can make it about the event. You can weave in acronyms. You can tell a story about the audience. You can do something about the city that it’s in. Like I have go-to stories and jokes. If I’m ever speaking in Las Vegas there are just, this is like, I’m gonna tell this joke or I’m gonna tell this story if I’m in Las Vegas because it, I know it’s gonna be a home run no matter where I tell it.
AJV (06:56):
Or if I’m ever speaking at 8:00 AM I always have a story for an 8:00 AM if I’m ever speaking over lunch. I have little jokes that it’s always for lunch meetings. If it’s I’m, if I’m the closing speaker and I’m the last people, that last person there and people are constantly leaving to catch their flights because nobody thought about having a speaker right before everyone leaves. It’s like, I have stories and jokes just for those time that’s tailoring the presentation that makes it feel custom and unique. Although my message is never impacted. So how do you tailor your presentation for the industry, for the audience, for the company for the location, the locale, the theme of the event without ever actually changing the message itself. Cuz when people say, Hey, I I love that you customize this, what they’re really saying is, I love that it felt like you customized it just for us, but what they really want is the goods.
AJV (07:47):
And you only know it’s the goods because you’ve delivered it enough to know that point resonates. That story is what people remember. You need to be doing your message and your presentation so often that it’s like, I know a laugh is coming here. I know a silent moment is coming here. And not only happens cuz you’ve done it dozens, if not hundreds of times. And so people say they want something custom, but you don’t wanna try out brand new stuff and an audience like that, that’s for your small group of friends or for your mirror, right? That, that takes practice to know it’s like it’s gonna crush that’s gonna make a difference. That’s going to actually be what they asked for while also giving them what they want, which is making it feel custom and tailored. And you can do that without ever changing your message. So don’t change your message. Learn how to tailor the presentation, right? And then I have these other quick three things that I just thought were really good. Just little motivational bombs for you today. So number one I thought this was so good for all of us, is that there’s only two ways to think about the future. It’s with fear or with faith. And they both have more in
AJV (08:54):
Common than you think. They are both a hundred percent based on things in the future. One is negative and one is positive. Fear is thinking about all the bad things that might happen in the future. Faith is remembering that good things are coming your way. And as we’re doing all these things, we’re thinking about, you know, speaking on that stage or writing that book, or getting our message out into the world or, you know, starting this new venture or this relationship or having a baby. It’s like we can choose to be filled with fear, which is the negative, or we’re gonna choose to have a little faith because they’re both a choice. And it’s just which one, which path are you gonna take? Is it the path of fear or the path of faith? And that I needed that yesterday when I had this conversation.
AJV (09:36):
So thought maybe it would be good for you too. Number two is that you are always more capable to overcome more than you think. You are always capable to overcome more than you think. And I think that’s just a reminder to all of us. It’s like once we’ve overcome it, then we’re reminded of like, whoa, I did that. But before it happens, or even during, we’re like, I don’t know if I can do this. But the truth is you can, you can do it. You can overcome this. You can make these new decisions, you can create these new habits, you can do this. And you are way more capable of overcoming more than you ever thought was possible. You are capable. That was number two. And then number one, I asked a amen at the very end. I said, with all these life trials that you’ve been through that you have overcome without, you know ease with lots of difficulty what would you say is like the number one thing when it comes to keeping this positive mindset and choosing a faith future over a fear future?
AJV (10:41):
And he said, number one key to my mindset and to my emotional wellbeing and my overall growth is just consistency. It’s nothing big. It’s just showing up every day. It’s making a choice. I’m not going to, you know, do drugs again. I’m not gonna take that sip of alcohol. I’m not gonna eat that cookie if I want it. I’m not gonna spend that money here. I’m going to investigate here. I’m gonna wake up every day. I’m gonna get in the shower and I’m gonna try. I have to put in the work. And he said, it’s n nothing profound and it’s nothing big, he said. But it’s those daily decisions. Those defining moments that were made in the, the ease of the moment where I could have easily said, this is too hard. But it didn’t. I said, no, this is hard and I can do hard things. And it was a great reminder to me, and I hope it’s a great reminder to you that success isn’t easy. It takes work whatever that success is. It’s not supposed to be easy. Who said this was supposed to be easy? But the best things in life come from overcoming. I, I know that for most of us when we look back, it’s like we don’t remember the things that came easy, but we profoundly remember the things that
AJV (11:53):
Came hard then we overcame because it changed us, it challenged us and it grew us. Those are the things that we remember and those are the things that your audience is gonna remember too. So don’t be afraid to share those moments of your life, the hard stories because they do make a difference. They made a difference for you and they make a difference for people like me. So tell your story. Get out there and I’ll see you later.
Ep 406: Turning Your Story Into A Message with Damon West
AJV (00:02):
Hey, y’all, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is AJ Vaden to hear AJ Vaden here. And I am joined today with a newer friend, ab, but a friend who has lots of mutual friends with myself and Rory. So, so glad to be adding Damon West to our list of amazing guests on this podcast, but also a new friend in our, you know, circle. So before I start this interview, I want to remind everyone, as I always do, why you should stick around and who this podcast was uniquely designed for. So, number one, if you have a desire to write and publish books, speak on stages, and get your message out into the world, which should be most of you, which is why you listen to this podcast. This is an episode that you wanna listen to because we’re gonna talk about how Damon went from, you know football player, college football to prison, to author, speaker on stages, and a lot of things in between there.
AJV (01:05):
But ultimately, it’s like, it does not matter where you are today. If you have that desire on your heart, there is a way to make all of the things of your past a part of this story that leads you to where you wanna be. And so we’re gonna delve into that. We’re also gonna talk about just how do you do that? Like, how do you get outta prison and go, I’m gonna change my life. I’m gonna do something different. I’m gonna make different choices. And they’re big and they’re bold, and they’re not what I expected. And I know a lot of people in our community are entering into new phases of their life, and perhaps it’s not that dramatic, right? That transformative, but to some degree, we’re starting over. It’s a new time on our life, whether it’s we’ve sold a business, starting a new business, we’re leaving a company trying to go out on our own.
AJV (01:50):
We’re trying to take this side hustle. We’ve been doing it and making it our full-time thing. Or maybe you’re just stepping out on a limb for the first time going, man, I want to do this, but I am scared now. This is hard and new, and what am I doing? Like, what am I crazy? So it doesn’t matter where you fall within that spectrum, this is a podcast that is gonna be uniquely inspiring and informative to you. So I encourage you to stick around. So now I could give you a whole bunch of background bio. I mentioned a little bit of it, but as I formally introduced Damon here are just f to me. Here’s a couple of things that I think would be really powerful for you to know. Is one yes, he did go to prison. I think you should know, like, this is someone who, when they talk about setbacks, when they talk about, oh yeah, I made some bad choices. Like this led to some pretty severe consequences. And it was in prison for a few years, so it’s not like, you know, three days in a white collar, you know, prison upstate, right? It’s a different type. And I think that’s really important for us to get. It’s like, regardless of how bad you think your situation is, or, oh, I can’t change from now. Like, well, no, that’s not true. He is the author of now three books or four,
DW (03:06):
Well, four in a children’s book. So yeah, four four in a children’s book. Yeah. So
AJV (03:11):
The list is growing even as we speak. Yeah. But also he’s been on stages all across the country. He is a, well, you know, well sought after speaker. He is a multi-time author and also an entrepreneur. So everyone who is listens to this, you’ve got some degree of some of those things within you. And so I know, I know that you’re gonna love this interview. So Damon, welcome, welcome to the show,
DW (03:35):
Aj. Thanks a lot, so much. I mean, you covered so much in that introduction too, but look, it’s, it’s so exciting to be here. Like you said, we do have a lot of mutual friends, Amber Lee, ed Mullet, you know, ed Ed’s a very big mutual friend of mine, John Gordon, Catherine Gordon. So it’s great to finally meet you and, and be a part of your show because I’ve got a lot to say about what we’re gonna talk about today, about building your brand and, and how do you make it, how do you break away from the pack and chase your dreams in life? Because like you said, I had to do it. I mean, and like, and you hit the nail in the head. It’s not like I went to prison for a couple years. I got sentenced to life in prison in Dallas, Texas, and I spent seven years and three months of that life sentence in a maximum security level five prison in the state of Texas. The highest security level there is, or the worst of the worst go. And then I made parole, I made parole, and I’m on parole AJ until the year 2073. Hmm. So when you talk about making plans and having to follow the rules of your plan every single day, I got, I got a lot to say about that.
AJV (04:36):
Yeah. Well, I mean, and that’s a part of what I kind of wanna just start, start with. And I know people are gonna be like are you gonna give us more of that story? Because Yeah. In the world. And so here’s my first question for you. It’s like you have this amazing journey from successful college athlete to prison inmate to motivational speaker and ler. And that’s quite the remarkable journey in your short 47 years. So can you just share with the listeners who maybe are getting introduced to you for the first time, what are some of those pivotal moments or mindset shifts that allowed you to transform? Right. And I, and I would say too, it’s like maybe in some of the not so awesome ways, right? Because I know that there was an accident during your football days and yeah. That led to choices that were transformative to the more positive transformative. So what were these moments that happened in your life that led to such an influential personal brand today?
DW (05:36):
Yeah. I think that the way to start this off is by, you know, I tell people all the time that at no point in my life did, did God just reached out with his hand hand one day and put his hand on my head and said, Damon, you’re healed
DW (06:18):
But I was a very functional addict. And I graduated college, went to work in the United States Congress, worked on Wall Street. I was a broker for UBS when I was introduced to meth for the first time. And I say that there’s been people put in my life because the choices that we make in life are gonna take us down different roads. And as you alluded to, some roads are good, some roads are bad, but there’s always gonna be messengers along the way on those roads to help guide you where you need to be. But the trick is, you have to be receptive to all those messengers. And sometimes when we’re not in the right space, we don’t, we’re not receptive. We can’t hear or see the messenger in front of us. And I made a lot of wrong turns, again, with that fork in the road.
DW (06:57):
When I tried meth for the first time in 2004, 18 months after their first hit of meth, I was living on the streets of Dallas and I became a criminal. I started breaking into people’s houses to fund my addiction. And and the Dallas SWAT team got me in 2008 and they, they arrested me in this traumatic SWAT team raid. And they took me to Dallas County Jail. And then a year later I was sentenced to life in prison. My mother and my father had this conversation with me. They, they right after I’m sentenced to life, they, they let my parents talk to me for five minutes, just kind of on the side of the courtroom. And my mom was reminded me about how they raised me, how, you know, the stuff they heard in the courtroom isn’t the man they raised. In fact, she tells me, when you go to prison, you, you won’t get in one of these gangs.
DW (07:39):
She said, you come back as the man we raised or don’t come back to us at all. So now I’ve got this giant ultimatum and I don’t know how I’m gonna do it, AJ cuz I’ve never been to prison before. I don’t know anything about prison. And I’m in this Dallas County jail complex for the next two months before the prison bus comes to get me. And I have this encounter with one of those people that I would call the messengers in life that’s an old black man named Mr. Jackson. Mr. Jackson shares with me what prison’s gonna be like. And he’s telling me about the violence I’m gonna endure the first couple months. But he tells me things like, you don’t have to win all your fights, you just have to fight all your fights. You know, and that’s true in life. No one counts your wins and losses, but everybody kind of watches the seat as he or she get back up.
DW (08:19):
And that’s what he’s telling me, get back up. But he, but he tells me this, he says, let me break it down from your different way. And that’s when he tells me, he said, I want you to imagine prison as a pot of wine, water. And he said, you have three choices of how you’re gonna respond to this pot of wine water. You can be like the carrot that turns soft, the egg that becomes hard in the boil water, or a coffee bean, which changes the pot of wine water into a pot of coffee. Hmm. And that a agent, when he told me the story about the coffee bean, I remember, I was like, I can understand that. And that’s the way people’s reactions are five to 95 years old when they hear about the coffee bean for the first time. Because you can wrap your brain around those three choices.
DW (08:55):
Mm-Hmm. So Mr. Jackson is one of those people that I met in life that guided me. He was a mentor. Cuz we all need mentors, aj, everybody needs coaches. We all have to have coaches in life. But as I went through prison, I ran into other people in there. There was my, my first cellmate Carlos, you know, Carlos was explaining to me about thinking how your thinking is everything. Your thoughts control your actions, and if you have the wrong thoughts, you can’t have the right actions. And, and so he helped me with the way I think. And a, as I got through the prison process and I started transforming myself in that prison to a pot of a pot of coffee. The parole board came and took notice and they allowed me to leave prison early on parole. Now, as I said, I’m on parole for the rest of my life, but since I got outta prison in 2015, I’ve ran into these other messengers in life because now I’m hyper aware of the roads that I’m on.
DW (09:41):
And I’m looking for those messenger every day. But I’m gonna tell you something, aj, the main thing I’m looking for every day is how do I serve other people? Because that’s like what I pray for every day, aj. I just, man, I just wanna know two things every day from God put in front of me what you need me to do today for you, and let me recognize it when I see it cuz I don’t wanna miss whatever that is. And that’s like the first key to everything else you’re gonna open in life is that the secret to life is serving other people. How do I serve others? Mm.
AJV (10:11):
That’s so good. And you know, it’s so interesting. I have a friend right now who’s really suffering from addiction. And we just had a conversation this past weekend about choices, right? There are defining choices. And then there’s daily choices, right? We have these daily decisions we have to make and we have these defining choices that we have to make. And those daily decisions turn into habits, right? Which could be good or bad. And these defining ones are the ones that can send us down one of these roads and that every, and I love what you said, like every road has, you know, messengers alongside the road. And it sounds like to me it’s like prison saved you.
DW (10:51):
It did. Yeah. It was, was getting a life sentence on top, not just prison, but being sentenced to life in prison. Aj my, my angels in life, my angels didn’t have wings. My angels had a assault rifle. They had shields, they had helmets. They, they came through the window, they busted outta my door. They were a SWAT team. Mm-Hmm.
DW (11:36):
And, and there’s many different levels of adversity and there’s a lot of different ways to be in prison. Aj mm-hmm.
DW (12:15):
But it took some serious adversity in my life to make me get off this comfort zone that I’ve been in in life, even when I was in, on drugs and, and, and in my addiction. There’s a comfort zone that people get into. Misery is a very comfortable place too. And your friend that’s going through that right now, you’re right. It’s the daily choice every day that you have to make to change these, to make these good habits. And whenever I was in prison and my back was against the wall and I just surrendered because that’s one of the keys to all this. You gotta surrender this idea of control over things you do not control. Once I surrendered that, I started, I was able to work on myself and, and look, yeah, you’re right. Prison did save my life. And one of the things I talk about with people all the time is that, especially people that wanna get up there and speak or write books, is that, and, and Ed, my ed, ed and I talked about this when I was on his podcast, the things that you think might be the, that the disqualifiers in your life, because the things that have gone wrong, the, the places you messed up, those actually may be the great qualifiers for you to help someone else.
DW (13:16):
You know, these are the things, yeah. These, the things you think disqualify you might be the great qualifiers. Your liabilities may be your biggest asset. But how do you turn that around? How do you make that into a message that people can digest and understand?
AJV (13:30):
I mean, I would say, I think for the most part, and you know, I’ll speak for just myself, but it’s like when I listen to speakers and read books, it’s like, I think most would agree that I don’t really wanna hear about all the successful things that you’ve done
AJV (14:14):
What if that happened to me? Like what would I do? Like, would I let it grow me or would I let it destroy me? And it’s like, those are the stories that are, in my opinion, more transformative, more life giving than hearing from the person who got it right all the time. Did all the right things. Not that those are bad. It’s good to hear those stories too. But I think there’s something about that comeback story that for most people they’re like, okay, well if you did it, there’s hope for me. So here’s my question in that, because you are speaking on stages and you, you are so vulnerable with your stories and you don’t hold back, which I love and I appreciate. So here, here’s, here’s something for the audience, I think it’s like how do you incorporate those sorts of elements of your story into speaking engagements and books and even interviews like this where one, what did you have to overcome to be like, yeah, I’m, I’m just gonna be honest, right?
AJV (15:12):
I’m just going to tell you what happened. I’m gonna tell you the truth. So how do you do that one and how do you do it in a way that’s beneficial for me? Not just hearing your story, but also, you know, we always say it’s like you tell an eye focus story with a you focus message because I think you do that really well. But then also for those people who are going, yeah, that, that’s cool for you to do, but my story’s so dark, it’s never gonna see the light of day. Like what advice would you give to that person who has that story? And it really does need to be heard, but they’re afraid to share it.
DW (15:45):
Great question. And you tapped on a little bit of it just now and, and you, you talked about vulnerability. Vulnerability is a strength. Vulnerability gets a bad rap. I mean, people think of the word a lot of times people think vulnerable vulnerability means you’re weak. It’s some, it’s some form of weakness. Vulnerability’s a strength because when you’re vulnerable, you let those walls down, those guards down, you show how human you are. And like you said, that draws people in. Now someone says, Hey look, you know, that person’s been through something, I’ve been through something. Maybe there’s something they’re gonna say that’s gonna help me get through what I’m about to go through next. And here’s the deal. Everybody’s got a story out there. I i I believe that everybody’s got their personal stories of overcoming. And you said it earlier in the show, everybody, people need to hear those stories cuz we, you know, we’re all gonna relate to people in different ways.
DW (16:32):
And your story may be the one thing that helps somebody get through their worst day. So if you’re trying to figure out how to tell your story, I’ll just give you what happened to me when I got outta prison in 2015. I’m on parole for the rest of my life and, but I know I’m sitting on this really powerful story wrapped around this great message. And there’s the first part, the story that I can tell and the message within. I think if you’re gonna be out there speaking, have a message, have this, and this is your brand, this is what you build your brand around. What’s the message like? My call to action at the end of every presentation is be a coffee beat. Mm-Hmm.
DW (17:13):
The last four words he ever said were be a coffee beat. But it was a statement, it was an order. Like, go do this. And that’s what you want to build a message inside your story. But I think that you have to work your way up to that. And, and if you’re trying to tell a story in front of an audience, it’s like reading a book. If a book doesn’t grab me in the first seven pages, I’m shocking it aj I’m not, I’m not re it’s, you got seven pages
DW (17:48):
Mm-Hmm.
DW (18:30):
DW (19:10):
No one’s gonna let me in. I found a cop and a judge that would take me around and sponsor me to, to take me into schools. But I knew that if I wanted to have a presentation and I wanted to be able to tell a story, the message within it, that would be impactful. Because that’s what you have to do. You have to figure out how am I gonna serve this audience? How am I gonna serve the reader? It’s all about serving people. We talked about this earlier, servant leadership. How am I gonna serve this audience? I knew I had to practice and get good at my message. There’s no such thing as an overnight success, aj. You know that. I know that. But people are drawn to that when they see those, those Instagram account accounts with the private jets, the Lamborghini and all that.
DW (19:48):
I want that. I want that. Well, you know, it takes a long time to get to something, you know, a lot of hard work. Most of the days that I spent the first two years outta prison were not in front of audiences. They were in my parents’ spare bedroom cuz there was a mirror in that spare bedroom. It just happened to be there. When I moved in every single day I’d come home from work, I worked at a law firm, which is a really good job for a guy outta prison,
DW (20:27):
The mirror was my audience, but I sharpened it up. I was poised, I was ready to go. And then in 2017 dabble Sweeney, the head coach at Clemson, brings me in to talk to his team. The first big college football coach in America that gives me my shot and my presentation was so on point, so direct on message and it, and it served Dabo s team so well that Dabo got on the phone. He started calling every coach in America for me. I mean, Nick Saban, Kirby smart Lincoln Riley, he’s calling ’em all up and he’s telling about this guy he gotta bring in. But Dabo introduced me to a guy named John Gordon. And then John Gordon calls me up out of the blue and he’s telling me, he is like, Hey man, I was just, I just got done talking to Clemson’s football team and Dabo was telling me about your story and, and, and the coffee bean message.
DW (21:15):
And, and that’s when John says, Hey Damon, write this book with me. We’ll call it the coffee bean. He said, the world needs your message. This is where I think that you, a lot of people give up before they get to this point, but growth follows belief. And you have to believe in yourself before other people will believe in you. And the belief in yourself is gonna become from the consistency, getting in your reps, putting in the work. And that’s the thing about life. You know, no one could put in your work for, you have to put in your own work in life. But when you get that belief in yourself and, and the reps behind it, then I think other people will believe in you because your message has to be developed. And when it gets in front of other people, cuz like you said, you don’t, you know, you hear these stories about people wanna talk about the goods they had done pour out about the stuff you overcame. That’s the, that’s where the secret sauce is.
AJV (22:06):
Yeah, I love that. And I love just that reinforcement of you have to be ready before the opportunity comes, right? Yeah. You’ve gotta be doing this way before you get your chance. But it also, it’s like I really like, I think one of the things that if, as you’re listening, you haven’t picked up on this before, it’s like there, you’ve gotta have a message deep within you that is bigger than any obstacle, bigger than any rejection. It’s like, I don’t care how many times I’m gonna get told no. Like I know I’m meant to do this. So if I have to practice it for myself in front of the mirror for the next two years, then so be it. But I know that this, this is the message that I have to go out and share. And I think that’s just a really good reminder for all of us is like, it takes time, it takes practice, it does not happen overnight.
AJV (22:54):
And not only does it not hope that it happen overnight, it’s like no, you’re doing tons of work behind the scenes no matter what you’re doing. And anyone who has started a business, started a family in a marriage, raising kids, you know, doesn’t matter what it is, how much work it takes that no one sees before anything actually works. And so one of the questions that, as you were talking about, cuz you mentioned talking to football teams, but you also talk to lots of corporate audiences. You talk to all types of audiences. And I was just like looking at your client list on your speaker press kit as I was prepping for this interview. And it’s like, man, you’ve got audiences that range from students to corporations to associations. And clearly your books have mass audience appeal. And one of the questions that I have for you with such like a powerful, unique story, right?
AJV (23:45):
Is what, what are the common themes or messages that you’re able to kind of universally share with audiences that regardless of their background, like these apply? And then how do you find those, right? Because I know, and I’m just thinking at, we just came off the hills of a two day event that we hosted for our community and brand builders group. And I think one of the things that people have a hard time doing is translating these like deeply personal messages that it’s like, I know if I’m in, if I’m in a room full of, you know, student athletes, I’m gonna crush it, but how do I make that work with a group of, you know, direct saleswomen from Arban or whatever, and it’s like, yeah. So how do you take these like big powerful stories and find these common themes as you mentioned, these messages of your stories that resonate across any audience?
DW (24:39):
Great question, John. So when John reaches out to me and he’s telling me, Hey, let’s write this book, we’ll call it the coffee meeting. We start becoming friends. John’s watching me grow as a speaker and he is about to really watch, watch Me grow as an author because John Gordon’s about to hitch me to his, to his rocket ship and put me out there in a different level, right? And he knows what’s coming. And he told me this, Roy, I mean he told me this aj he said, listen, he said, Damon, he said, you have been going out sharing your message and you have been sharing this. Be a coffee beam, man. That’s your brand. That’s your message. Be a coffee beam, you see it behind me, see it on my shirts, you see it everywhere. He said, stick with this. He said, and I’m gonna tell you this, a lot of speakers, a lot of authors, they’ll go and they don’t see a result fast enough.
DW (25:26):
And three years, four years down the line, they don’t see the results coming in yet. And then they changed their message, they changed their brand and they go a different direction because they weren’t seeing the results fast enough. He said, results take time to measure. I’ll never forget that. He said, stick with be a coffee bean. He said one day, if you do this, you’ll be known as the coffee bean guy. And that’s gonna be a pretty big thing to be known as. He said, I’m known as the energy bus guy. And that’s a very big thing to be known as. Stick with the coffee bean. Don’t ever change your brand or your message no matter what audience you get in front of. It’s always gotta be about being a coffee bean. When John told me that, that’s like one of these huge nuggets, and I know you and Rory talk about this a lot.
DW (26:09):
You gotta to build your brand, you gotta stay consistently on message. Now how does that translate? Because if I’m going to talk to a bunch of 18 to 22 year old college athletes, you know, there’s one message for them, right? And then there, if I’m going to talk to corporate America, if, if Walmart or AIG brings me into a corporate boardroom, what am I gonna say to them? Here’s what I would tell you. Do your research, tailor your message to fit your audience. Know what stories go with what groups, but never leave behind that core message. Every group I’ve spoken, and at this point aj, I’ve spoken to thousands, not a thousand, two, 3000 different audiences in that time. And I’ve never not told the story of the coffee bean, and I’ve never not told my backstory. Now, is my backstory the same in a corporate audience as it is in front of a college athletic?
DW (26:59):
No. Mm-hmm.
DW (27:46):
This is the same thing was what I’m saying right here. Now you’ve individualized it, you’ve personalized it for your group in front of ’em. They know that you put in the work to come and sit in front of them that day. You didn’t just come there to get a check, you came there to serve mm-hmm.
AJV (28:14):
I love that. What I wrote down, and I think this is such a good reminder for me to remind our whole community about this. So for everyone listening, it’s just the power of, you know what Damon just said, it’s like you have to know how to tailor your presentation, not change your message. Yeah. Right? It’s like, no, your message is your message and that’s what you wanna be known for. And I tell you what, Damon, you should have some like pretty big endorsements coming and you need to be hitting up like Starbucks and all the coffee shop
DW (28:43):
I’m tried.
AJV (28:44):
If you’re the coffee bean man, you need to be like Starbucks. Where at all,
DW (28:48):
I’ve tried Starbucks. It’s hard to get through to it. If you know somebody from Starbucks and we get off air, tell me, because I, my gosh,
AJV (28:54):
God, gosh. Well, I’m a bulletproof coffee girl, so i’s been a mile, it’s been a minute since I’ve been to Starbucks, but I will tell you, it’s like, but it’s like, again, it’s like once you become known for that thing, it’s like in brand builders group language, it’s called what we call breaking through she hands wall. It’s like you wanna be a power washer, not a water hose, right? Yeah. It’s like you, you’ve gotta just know exactly what your message is. And when people think of you, they need to think of coffee bean story, right? It’s like, when I think of a coffee bean story, I think of Damon. When I think of Damon, I think about these coffee beans and it’s like, once that happens, then you have broken through Sheehan’s wall, right? And then that’s a great reminder for all of us is tailor the presentation.
AJV (29:32):
But don’t change your message. Don’t change your message. I love that. That’s such a good reminder. And I’m also, I’m watching the clock and we have like five or six minutes left, and I actually wanna ask you two more personal development questions kind of about these books that you’ve written. And you’ve invested a lot of time into this message in writing these books. And so there’s two last questions I have for you. So, all right. I know that a huge part of what you talk about, what you write about is resilience, perseverance, and mindset, right? There’s lots more. But those are three things that stood out to me. And so some tactical advice for anyone who is listening or just for me what are some key strategies or practices that individuals like me and everyone listening that, that can adopt to help increase these qualities of perseverance? Resilience mindset shifts to navigate setbacks in our personal or professional lives. So it’s like a, when you know, the, you know, s h i t hits the fan. I’m on a, I’m on a non cussing roll right now so I can spell it, can’t say it
DW (30:43):
No, great question because we all go through this and, and, and is look, John, our friend John Gordon. John says that fear and faith have more in common than the letter F to begin with. John says, fear and faith, both believe in futures that haven’t happened yet. Fear is this negative future. You can choose to believe in that you get the choice, that’s good. But faith is a positive future. You get the choice to believe in that too. And you can choose your path every day. And it’s always better to choose faith over fear. If you’re gonna pick a future that hadn’t happened, pick the positive one. And this is where I, I try to like land every day, is like, I’ve gotta focus on the positive every single day because there’s gonna be negativity around me. There’s gonna be things that happen in life that can pull you out of this, this good time that you’re in.
DW (31:29):
But you gotta focus on the positive. I learned two things about diversity in life inside that maximum security prison, aj, this is what I learned. I’ve learned that adversity’s never as bad as you think it’s gonna be. Hmm. And you are always capable of way more than you think you are. Mm-Hmm.
DW (32:16):
Is it the traffic or is it you? It’s always gonna be you. And it’s always how you see three words that I love putting together. Position determines perspective. Mm-Hmm.
DW (33:03):
He said, man, these eight coaches are gonna be in this room. The best coach in America is gonna be named. I can sneak you in. I’m at the event right now. I drove an hour and a half because this event, he sneaks me in the back door and I’m there and I, I go open to meet all these coaches cuz I got this story I wanted to share with them. And every coach I met that night, AJ slammed the door in my face. They all told me no, there was one coach left one hour. It took me to get seven nos in one hour. I mean, I’ve been defeated that night and I’m in the corner of the Toyota Center. I’m getting ready to leave. I’m licking my wounds, feeling sorry for myself. The voice in my head is telling me, go home. You’re an imposter.
DW (33:36):
You don’t belong the imposter syndrome. And, and know we’re all gonna, you’re gonna go through this. When you’re out there speaking and writing a book, you’re gonna ask yourself sometimes, do I belong here? But let me tell you something, do not listen to yourself. Talk to yourself, because the voice in your head can be fear. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (34:28):
I love that. I love that so much. It’s sometimes we just need a little dose of inspiration to go, I got this, I can do this. I can do hard things. I took my kids on a hike yesterday to just commemorate Memorial Day and just like, just really just a, an hour and a half of just like, silence and helping my kids understand what Memorial Day is all about. And halfway through this hour and a half long ha now my kids are small, they’re almost four and just turned six. This is a long, this just feels like a marathon for them, right? It’s not that long. It’s two and a half miles, but it felt like a marathon for these small humans. And my husband ends up carrying my four year old, but my six-year-old, I’m like, Hey, if you can make it all the way back to the car, you get a sticker and a sticker is worth a quarter.
AJV (35:14):
And at the end of the week he gets to turn in his stickers for quarters for doing hard things. And he’s like, I get a sticker. And I’m like, yeah, I’m gonna give you a sticker buddy. It’s like 25 oh cents. It’s the whole quarter, right? And he gets motivated and he’s like, he’s hustling. And we get towards the end, he goes, mom, I just, I need to quit. I’m like, you need to quit. He goes, yeah, I need to quit, mama. My feet hurt. I need to quit. I’m like, nobody. And I pause like in the middle of all these people, they’re probably like, who is this crazy, like, you know, like cheerleader mom. And I’m like sitting there and I’m like, I need you to say this with me. I can do hard things. I’m like, yes, yes, I can do hard things. He’s like, no mom, I can’t say that. You’re so embarrassing. And I’m like screaming at the top of my lungs, I can do hard things. And and it was like, tell me,
DW (36:00):
Roy’s recording this while you’re doing it.
AJV (36:02):
Wish she was recording of it. I think she was quite a while back carrying my four-year-old. And here’s like the craziest part. It’s like, I don’t know if it helped him, but it helped me. It’s like, I hope it helped him, but it helped me. And it was like such a reminder that it’s like, no, I can do hard things. Like I hope Jasper, that you got something outta that. But at the end of the day, it’s like, after saying it like 10 times screaming in the middle of the state park, I’m like, no, I can do hard things. And I needed that reminder. And it’s like, sometimes it’s like, gosh, we just need to remind ourselves. Oh
DW (36:37):
My God, aj I love that. Cuz you’re hitting on something that, that, that is like the big force in my life that’s going on. Like every time I go out and I serve other people, this helps other people. I, I know it does and I hope it does, but I know one person it helps for sure. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (37:46):
Yeah. That, like when you were saying that, it just reminded me of that yesterday. It’s like, I don’t actually know if it helped him
DW (38:17):
Take your time. I don’t care. This is a fun conversation. Go on, go as long as you want. Let’s go.
AJV (38:21):
So in the Coffee Bean, the book, which everyone should go and check out, which I think is so great, and I’ll use this as my, you know public service announcements. If you want to check out more about Damon West and his speaking, his books, all the things he has going on and also grab a copy of this book, the Coffee Bean. He’s got other books too. He is got one for kids. Go to damon west.org. So that’s damon west.org. And then again, the book is called The Coffee Bean. It’s co-written with John Gordon. He’s got a version for kids, which I love all kids books, so I’ll be picking that up myself. Or follow him on Instagram, which is at Damon West seven. So it’s at Damon West seven on Instagram. Or just go to damon west.org and you can get all of his social themes there.
AJV (39:09):
But I’ll also, we’ll put this on the show notes for you. Okay. So last question. In a coffee bean, you talk about the importance of mindset and in my interpretation, how that can shape our influence, how it can shape our personal brand. So here’s my last question for that person who really does need to cultivate this, I can do hard things mindset. For the person who does have a lot of limiting beliefs, what would you say is the number one thing for that individual to cultivate a growth mindset? A I can do hard things. This overcoming of self-limiting beliefs. Like what would you say is the one thing that they can do to really well both build their personal brand, which for us is just their reputation, but also to just live a better life. Like, what is the thing that we can do to change our mindset, to build a better mindset?
DW (40:01):
Yeah. This is, this is something that, that I had to remind myself of, and I think every one of us do. And aside from the things you just said, because that’s very important. You just said something very important because your brand is your reputation. This is you. This is like, you know, everything about what you’re putting out. That’s your reputation. So guard that, but it’s consistency. Be consistent. Take the same action every single day. And, and you know whenever, whenever you’re consistent, you start building this confidence in yourself because like, you know, ed talks about this a lot. You keep promises that you make to yourself. Mm-Hmm. But be consistent. Show up every day. One of the hardest things about working out is just getting to the gym. And if you can get yourself to the place where you need to be every day to be consistent, that’s when it’s gonna happen.
DW (40:48):
But it’s gonna take time. And just understand that, that you have to put in the work. But consistency trumps everything else. Consistency can beat talent. By the way, talent is great to have, but talent doesn’t beat someone who is consistent and won’t go away. Someone who’s persistent. Someone that gets in front of the, a mirror in a spare bedroom where they live on parole and practices a presentation that one day is gonna be their business that, that they use to create other businesses with. Because the speaking business, I mean, you know, aj it’s something I never, I, I tell my wife almost daily that I cannot believe this is my life and I get to go out and impact a world like this. But it provides for a, a life for my family that’s created generational wealth. I mean, every generation’s changed underneath me now, but it started out in my parents’ fair bedroom, speaking in front of a mirror for two years to get my presentation right, to go speak one time in front of Dabo Sweeney. You know, that’s what it’s about. Being consistent.
AJV (41:47):
I love that. You know, I’m, I’m actually, I’m reading through the Old Testament right now. I’m in this like Bible and a year program and I’m reading through the Old Testament. And one of the things that has stuck out to me most about the Old Testament is how often people get their answers or their desires given to them is persistence. Like, I can’t, I, I’m gonna start counting like how many times a king said, yes, I’ll resolve this, just leave me alone. Or how many times it was just like pure persistence, pure dis consistent. I’m gonna show up every day at this, at this king’s doorstep. I’m gonna show up every day at this, at my master’s door, and I’m gonna ask and I’m gonna ask. And they’re like, oh my gosh, just I’ll give you whatever you want. Stop asking me. Yeah. And it’s such a great reminder that it’s like so much power comes in persistence.
DW (42:36):
And you’re in the Old Testament right now, like the book of Job man. If you want to read a story about a guy that was consistent and just showed up every day while the S H I T was hitting the fan read job, man. This dude, this dude endured way more than any anybody you can imagine. For years this went on, lost his entire fam. I mean, everything was taken, but he had faith and he had consistently, consistently, he believed every day that I have faith in this and it’s gonna work out. And that’s, you gotta have what they call the patience’s a joke. You know, I tell people all the time that that since we’re talking about the Old Testament, that that God doesn’t set bushes on fire anymore. H ha that’s a very Old Testament thing that God did to get people’s attention. But you know what God does today? God sets people on fire. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (43:44):
Reach it. Love this. Y’all check out Damon. Go to damon west.org, check him out, follow him, buy his books. Spread the spread. This good news Damon so, so awesome to have you on the show. Thank you so much for sharing your story and these words of wisdom. And for everyone else, stay tuned for the recap episode. That will be coming up later this week. We’ll see you next time. Thanks so much.
DW (44:10):
Thank you. Thank you.
Ep 399: How To Find Your People | Phil Treadwell Episode Recap
AJV (00:03):
So I just had a pretty enlightening conversation with Phil Treadwell, who I happened to be interviewing for the influential personal brand podcast. And we got on this little bit of a side tangent talking about, you know, real estate and mortgage professionals and what they can do in today’s, you know, somewhat tumultuous unique market. And we got on this side conversation about social media that led to another side conversation, which has now led me to this conversation, but I thought it was worthy enough to make an entirely separate video about, because I think this is something we really forget. And this is a little bit about social media, but also just human interactions. So it doesn’t matter if you’re online or offline, I think this conversation is really important. I will start with the online piece because that is a continuation from this conversation that I had with Phil Chadwell on our podcast.
AJV (01:04):
But here, here’s kind of where it stemmed from is that as you’re thinking about how to use social media for your business, right? And we talked a lot about how social media is a tool, and like any tool, it can be used for a variety of reasons, good reasons, healthy reasons, bad reasons, unhealthy reasons. But it’s a tool, right? And we have to treat it like a tool. And in this particular instance, it’s a business tool. And here’s kind of where this all started, is that social media, it’s a tool. But like with any tool, you have to ask yourself first, why am I using this tool and how can this tool be used? So I’ll say that again. Why am I using this tool? And then how can this tool be used? So through the lens of social media, what we talked about is, you know, if you just ask yourself for a second, for the audience that you’re trying to reach, why do they get on social media?
AJV (02:11):
Do they get on for education, entertainment to stay in touch with friends and family? Do they get on to see what’s happening in, in the world and media? Or is it to shop and look up pretty things? Why do they get on, right? And I thought it was a really good example that Phil shared in our interview, and he goes, most people, as they’re sitting in line at the D M V, this is the exact example he got where he gave, we’re, we’re trying to, you know, you know, kill 15 minutes and you decided to pop on social media. Were probably not sitting there trying to go, yes, real estate professional that you are defined for me the terms and definition of amortization, right? That’s probably not what we’re doing. Now, some of you maybe it is, but in general, I think it
AJV (02:58):
Just begs the question, what is your audience doing online? And is what you are doing online appealing to them, right? So that’s the first is why is your audience getting on social media? And then the second is, how are they using it both in their personal and professional life? So why are they using it? And then how are they using it, right? And I think those are two very distinctively different questions with some similarities. And at the end of the day here’s what resonated with me is that so often as we think about social media as a business tool, we think about it as an educational tool. We think about it as a marketing tool, a branding tool a selling tool. But we forget that the heart of why most of us human beings get on social media is for human connection. Truly, yes, we find vendors, we check people out, we listen to music, we learn about, you know, media, entertainment, political things, news, whatever is happening.
AJV (04:08):
Yes, we do all of those things. We learn, we get information, and most of what we’re doing most of the time is actually checking in with people.
AJV (05:13):
And Jenny Allen is single-handedly my most favorite author of all time. And I explained this book, find Your People as a Adult Version of How To Make Friends
AJV (05:57):
This is also something that I don’t just wrestle with in my professional life or using social media or as a, you know, thinking about business. I struggle with this in my personal life as in almost 40 this year, almost 40 year old. I find that it’s really challenging to find people that I can do life with who’s in a similar life stage. Who we go through similar challenges, right? So for me, a mom of two young boys who also runs a business who’s in business with her husband, who works out of their home, where we both travel a lot, right? That’s kind of unique. And I have found it’s really hard for me. So I picked up this book cuz I was like, I need you to teach me how to make friends Jenny Allen, help me. And what I learned is that this was is this so much more than about making friends.
AJV (06:43):
This is about the human condition of we are built, we are truly built, and this is this, I’m gonna bring this all together in just a second. I promise. We are truly built to connect with people who are in proximity. And I think a little bit of that is true online and offline. And I think one of the reasons that so many of us default to online is because we have immediate proximity. It’s this thing right here that’s in our pocket all the time. And we default to that versus, you know, taking it the offline part cuz that’s harder, that’s more awkward, that’s more uncomfortable and it’s definitely more time consuming, right? But one of the things that I learned is like I was trying to do life and build friendships with, not that they’re not still my friends, but with people who don’t even live in my city.
AJV (07:30):
Some of my closest friends do not even live within a drive away from me. I have to get on an airplane for hours to see some of my closest friends, which is why as a human being sitting here in Nashville, I’m going, I don’t feel like I don’t have friends when I have tons of friends, but I need friends that I can walk to their house, that we run into each other at the grocery store. I need friends that I’m gonna naturally see at church or at different functions across town. I need, I need friends that there is natural crossover. In other words, it needs to be easy, it needs to be convenient, there needs to be things that we have in common. We need to be in proximity of each other if we’re gonna have that natural opportunity to do life together, to build real community.
AJV (08:16):
And so much of that has to do with proximity, convenience. But mo most importantly, it’s what we have in common. Do we go to the same grocery store, the same coffee shop? Do we go to the same church? Do our kids go to the same school? Do we live in the same neighborhood? Do we work out at the same, you know, for me, bar three class, right? It’s like, what are the things that we have in common? Because that’s where there’s natural connection. And then it hit me, the exact same thing happens online on social modi, on somo, on social media, both professionally and personally. And here’s how I’m gonna wrap this all up. My encouragement to you is that before you start talking
AJV (08:54):
About the what that you do, right, interest rates, how many sales you’ve made, how many people love you, how many flights have you been on, how many stages were you on? Like, that’s cool, that’s fine. But that does not build connection. And that’s what we’re trying to do on social media, right? Social media is the networking tool of the 21st century. It’s not meant to only be online, but it’s a starting point. But in order to build connection, it’s like, I need to get to know you. I need to know who you are where w you know, where do you live? Not like your address, but you know, like, do you live near a beach? Like for me, I live like in this, you know, foresty tree area. It’s like, I want to know the little things about you that’s a part of the human condition, the human connection that makes me wanna follow you.
AJV (09:40):
I wanna see what you’re gonna dress up for as Halloween or what you thought about the Arrows tour with the Taylor Swift concert. It’s like those are the things that are equally as important, and they may seem counterintuitive, but the who part of this, the human connection part is equal to the what part? At least 50% if not more. So as you’re thinking about social media and how do I use this as a tool and how do I use this to help separate myself and differentiate myself? The number one way that you can differentiate yourself is to actually let people go get to know you. You’re the only you there is, there’s lots of loan officers, there’s lots of attorneys, there’s lots of dentists, there’s just only one you, so who are you, right? Like, what do you like to do and what are your thoughts?
AJV (10:27):
And you know, find your own balance in there. I’m not gonna get into the weeds on that. My point is, is we wanna get to know the who. That it’s that human connection that I wanna know that there’s other people like me out there doing things I like and struggling with, things that I struggle with. And we follow people. We’re drawn to people that we have things in common with offline and online. So as you’re thinking about the, why is my audience getting on social media and how are they using it? Just don’t forget the who part of that. It’s not just about the what and the education and information that’s part of it, but it’s about the who, who are you, who are they and what do you have in common? If you like this, then go check out the full conversation that I had with Phil Treadwell and I’ll catch you next time. See you later.
Ep 398: How To Build Your Brand In Mortgage and Real Estate Industry with Phil Treadwell
AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is AJ Vaden here today. And before I introduce my guest, I’m gonna put a disclaimer out there because every so often we will do an episode that is super niche for a very unique audience, and today is one of those days. And what we’re gonna be talking about today is how to use a personal brand to help you. If you are a real estate agent, you could be a real estate developer, a broker, you could be a loan officer, you could be in any sort of role that’s kind of touching this mortgage and real estate industry. And we decided to do this because one, at Brand Builders Group, we have a ton of audience members who serve the real estate industry, but also because the real estate industry is a little bit tumultuous right now.
AJV (00:58):
And one of the biggest questions that we get in terms of a personal brand is, well, how do I use that to actually leverage and differentiate myself to generate more leads when the market is interesting? I’ll just say that. But then also so many of people in these industries are also coming to us going, how do we diversify our income streams where the income stream that I had have been my main thing has kind of disappeared a little bit, or it’s, it just looks different today. And so I invited a newer friend of mine, Phil Treadwell, to be our guest on this particular show today because I got to meet Phil because I was on his podcast. And when we were talking at the end of that, I was like, you know what? I would love to have you on to talk about these niche topics on the influential personal brand.
AJV (01:49):
So now let me formally introduce Phil to you guys in case you don’t know him. So Phil Treadwell is a mindset coach. He’s a national speaker and a fellow podcaster. He’s also the founder of M one Academy. And as I mentioned, he’s host of the Mortgage Marketing Expert podcast. So if you’re in the real estate industry, that is a must listen to podcast, he’s also received lots of cool awards, like the 40 most Influential Under 40, Hey, but then also Top 20 Mortgage Professionals by Yahoo Finance. So it’s always good to tout some of those credentials while we’re having you on the show today. So feel welcome. So glad you’re here.
PT (02:28):
Well, thank you so much. That was a incredible intro. I’m excited to have another conversation. We, we covered a lot of cool topics on my podcast and it’s gonna be fun to do it again.
AJV (02:37):
Yes. Well, I’m so excited, and I also love getting to do these super niche podcasts that serve a really, you know, specific part of our audience. And so let’s just jump right in. So here’s the big question, right? It’s like, you know, real estate’s kind of crazy right now. It’s up, down all around. Interest rates are real high and making a lot of people not wanna buy, which means a lot of people in the mortgage industry are going, oh,
PT (03:26):
I think that’s a great question. At the end of the day, a personal brand, as you all know, needs to be about the person more so than the brand. We have some of the largest corporations on the face of the planet that are trying to personify that company. Well, mortgage and real estate, it’s about the person they work with, the realtor, the loan officer, the individual person. And yet we have so many professionals in the industry that are trying to create a shtick or a logo or a brand. And we need to be continuing to emphasize it’s about the person. Mm-Hmm.
PT (04:18):
You have a unique how you do it. And so it’s a matter of showcasing that with your own personality, with your own ways that you can get those people’s attention. And that’s really where people are, are thriving. Even in this market. There’s opportunities in every market. I don’t care whether interest rates are high and supply is low, people pay for solutions to their problems. And it’s just you using your uniqueness, you as a person and your ethos as a professional to solve those problems for people. And a personal brand just gives you the opportunity to put that out at scale, put it out at a really high level for people to find you and realize that you have the solution that they need.
AJV (05:00):
Yeah, I love that. I remember when I started I was part of a team of people who started our first company in 2006. What a great time to start a business in 2006. But we were so naive, we didn’t know, like we didn’t know what a good market was. We definitely didn’t know what a recession was. And I remember someone telling me in those first couple of years of starting our first company, and they said that during the Great Depression in the twenties, that more millionaires were form were formed during that 10 year period than any other 10 year period in US history. And, and that’s because it’s like you’re gonna, it’s all about how you view it, right? There’s op opportunities in every market, just like you said, it’s just gonna be like, who’s the one who perseveres gets creative, stays persistent and does something a little different. So what would you say are some of the things for, you know, the real estate professional, the, you know, mortgage expert, what would you say, what are some of, of the things that you’re seeing out there that really lends itself to working right now when it comes to building your personal brand?
PT (06:04):
Yeah, great question. Most mortgage and real estate professionals, when they know that they need to be on social media, they know they need to be creating content, they start putting out educational content, which in and of itself is a great idea. However, we have to realize that when people get on social media, they’re typically on social for a reason. In Texas, we, I talk about the, the God forsaken D M V. Now, that’s not what’s on the sign, but everybody that’s been here knows you wait in line for hours. It’s, it’s just a terrible experience. Well, when people are in that experience or you’re in the waiting room in a doctor’s office or in line to pick up the kids or whatever it is mm-hmm.
PT (06:48):
Right?
PT (07:32):
Instead of coming out and saying, Hey, here’s the biggest myth about the housing market right now, here’s three things you need to know. If you wanna start investing in real estate and coming up with a hook and letting people know, I have a solution that you need. I have an opportunity to show you how to do something. There may be a misnomer. And that’s what’s really working and getting people’s attention when it comes to educational content. But I think the other thing where people are, are grasping and, and really getting, gaining a lot of ground in this market is realizing that social media is also about social proof. And what I mean by social proof is if, if five years ago I said, you need to use aj, she’s an awesome loan officer, she’s gonna have an incredible process. She’s gonna take care of you.
PT (08:15):
If she says she can get it done, she can. Five years ago if I said use aj, they just wouldn’t use aj. Mm-Hmm.
PT (08:59):
It’s why when we meet someone, the weather, it’s the first thing we talk about. It’s the one thing we have in common with that person at that time. And so we realize that our aunt’s, brother’s cousin went to the same school as, you know, whoever they had. And, and we, we uncover all of these things that are in common. Social media is the perfect opportunity as you build your personal brand to find these quirky little things that are about you, that you like to do for hobbies that you notice about the world and share those with people so they can make that connection and solidify that referral that you worked so hard to get in the first place.
AJV (09:34):
Oh my gosh. Like, we’re gonna have to go off on a tangent because there are so many things that you just said that if you’re just listening and you weren’t really listening, you probably just let that slip by. And I cannot let that happen. So let’s talk about this for a second, because these are really, really good because everyone talks about social media. Some people talk about how much they hate it and how they can stand it. Other people don’t talk about it because they’re too busy on it and Right. And then there’s a whole group of people who are the I would say the educators of social media who are constantly teaching PE are trying to teach people how to use it, right? And it’s just like this funny, it’s this funny combination of how this really works. But at the end of the day, social media is a tool, right?
AJV (10:18):
Just like any other tool, food is a tool, right? Our, our money is a tool and there are good things and bad things about every tool, depending on how you use it. A hammer can build a house or it can be a, a weapon to hurt somebody. It’s a tool, right? And this is like such one of my pet peeves when people go, oh geez, social media is, you know, the number one just destructive thing for our youth. And it’s like, as probably we could say the same thing about food or parenting or a hundred other things, right? It’s a tool. So let’s talk about how to use this tool effectively in business, which that’s how I treat it. Like this is a business tool, right? And so I use it like I would in any other business tool, like my email. I’ve gotta have a schedule and I gotta manage it.
AJV (11:06):
So there’s a few things that I think are really important just to kind of come back on, as you said, ask yourself this question or this is what I heard anyways, which was ask yourself, why are people getting on social media? Mm-Hmm.
PT (11:57):
You know, I, I don’t know that I would recommend one topic I’m a big fan of and versus, or, and we get caught up in that a little bit now. I would say if you’re gonna do long form educational video type content, then YouTube and Facebook are probably going to be better suited for, for that type of content. If you’re going to do short form content that drives traffic to some of these other platforms, you’re gonna look at reels on Facebook and Instagram or potentially TikTok. But to your point, you’ve gotta know who is your audience. I have a a basic marketing formula that, that I kind of walk people through. And that’s the very first question. Who’s your audience? Who’s your target market? Who is it you’re trying to serve? The next question in there is what problem do you solve? What value do you provide?
PT (12:48):
Message you provide that particular audience? And then the third piece of that is, what’s the most effective medium to deliver that solution to that audience? And so where to find that audience is very dependent upon what problem you’re solving, what message you’re providing, so that you can create the most effective medium. Cuz especially in real estate, we have a lot of people that know a team that creates a lot of leads with a YouTube channel. So I’m gonna go out and create a YouTube channel or I, I love the, you know, podcast. I listened to a lot of podcasts. I’m gonna go start a podcast. Well, the reason I started a podcast specifically was I was a regional manager that was trying to reach more people and add value to their business that I could network with, potentially recruit. And I felt like a podcast was the most effective medium to deliver a valuable advice to build their business.
PT (13:43):
I didn’t know a lot of loan officers that sat on YouTube for hours. I didn’t know a lot of them that were even really on social media a ton because this was around 2018. But I did know people that listened to Audible and listened to podcasts cuz they could do it in their car. They could, you know, while they’re at the gym, walking around the house, even the background at work. So the platform is super important from the standpoint of is it the best place to give this message to that audience? Now we all know too, Facebook is kind of aging up or has continued to age up for a while. So if you’re looking at Gen Xers or, or older, Facebook is a great platform for you. Instagram, it’s gonna be solidly millennials, you know, TikTok has been Gen Z, but I’m gonna be honest, there’s probably as many millennials or more than there is Gen Z on TikTok anymore.
PT (14:32):
So a lot of it is about posting content different places and really understanding is my audience there When I post a video even now, and I’ve spent a lot of time, you know, researching some of this stuff, having conversations and testing content, I still take the same video and I post on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, shorts, LinkedIn and TikTok to really understand, okay, the message of that video, the problem that I’m solving there is that audience on that platform resonating with it or not. So again, the the audience and who you’re trying to reach is, is very important. But when determining that platform, I think that that that messaging in there is a, is a critical piece.
AJV (15:12):
Yeah. You know, that’s so interesting. And I just wanna reiterate what you said. It’s like one for all of you listening it’s, and this doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, but it’s like, until you know who is your core target audience, the rest of this is a moot point. It’s like, if you don’t know that you’re just slinging mud on the wall and hoping some of it sticks, which just, just isn’t a good strategy, right? It’s just not. So step one is you’ve gotta really know demographically and psychographically speaking who your core target audience is. And then I love this part of what you said, it’s, and then you need to know why they’re getting on social media, right? Like to your point, it’s like if you’re, if this is a way to, you know, kill 15 minutes at the D M V, do I really wanna know what, you know, the, you know, definition of amortization is probably not.
AJV (16:00):
Or it’s like I want something that’s quick light, you know, probably more inspirational or entertaining in that moment. But if I was gonna sit down and go, Hey, and now I’m trying to learn something, would I go to Instagram or would I go somewhere else? Right? If I really wanted to have an in-depth conversation about what’s happening with interest rates in the mortgage world, I probably am not going to Instagram in general for me. Right? And that might be different from your audience, but those are the questions that you’ve gotta be asking. And I think that’s so good. It’s just sitting there going, why would my audience get on this platform in the first place? And am I, am I appealing to that or am I automatically going, no, I don’t, that’s not what I’m getting on here for. I don’t want this. That’s exactly right. All the work and effort you’re doing feels like it’s not working because you’re just doing it wrong.
PT (16:49):
Yeah. And, and you bring up a great point around what they’re getting on there for. Cuz it goes back to this, this conversation and business about solving someone’s problem. In those environments where people are trying to escape and they wanna be entertained or inspired, you need to solve that problem. They’re gonna pay you in time and they’re gonna give you their attention for that solution. So your content does need to be entertaining. And I will say when it comes to a well-rounded personal brand, I believe your, the majority over half of your content needs about who be, excuse me, the majority of your content needs to be about who you are, not just what you do. Mm-Hmm.
PT (17:43):
Mm-Hmm.
PT (18:31):
And as I’ve started to share that story with people, I now get five to 10 people a week that take a wing pick and tag me in it. And it’s become part of this relatability that you have with people. You ha i I think it’s important as you’re thinking about this, this question that you’re posing, why are people getting on social media? I think it’s to relate to people. And so the content needs to be relevant. If you’re working with first time home buyers, you’re typically gonna be steering towards a younger demographic in most cases. So what type of content do they wanna see? Mm-Hmm.
AJV (19:37):
Yeah. And I love what you said too earlier, it’s at the end of the day, and I think this is a, this is like the second thing that I wrote down, a really good reminder to everyone. It’s like a personal referral isn’t even enough anymore. It’s like, like you said five years ago, you say, Hey, use aj and it’s like, great, I’ll use aj, but now it’s like, well, let me learn about aj. Right? And that’s because the ease of doing so is like mm-hmm.
AJV (20:21):
And it’s like, I clearly, you know, I believe in this and anyone listening knows I believe in this is my business. But it’s like, it, it’s really true. It’s like people are going to go to Google and type in AJ Vaden and it’s like, what pops up or what doesn’t pop up, right? And it’s like if I go, I don’t care who you recommended me to cuz I do this all the time. I’m like, I need a new dentist, I need a new hair stylist, I need a new, if there’s no website, there’s no chance I’m using you. I don’t care how much you tell me you’re awesome. Right? If I can’t find Google reviews or some sort of social proof, I’m out. Cuz I’m just like, what, who did you refer me to? Like, don’t even have a website. There’s no reviews, there’s no social media. And so I would just love to hear your opinion on, for this unique industry, right? Calling, I’m just calling it the real estate industry mortgage included. What’s a, what’s enough like, right? Yeah. Like what’s the bare minimum and what would be like, this is what you should have.
PT (21:19):
Yeah, that’s a, that’s a tough question because it is obviously is subjective to each person. I get a lot of questions around how often should I post, how much is too much, what’s not enough? And my answer that I give about the frequency of posting is you need to be consistent. If it’s once a day or it’s once a week or a few times a month, I don’t know that there’s necessarily a wrong answer so long as you’re consistent. Because people will look at your profile and see, okay, you posted three days ago, but the last post before that was six months ago and it was three months before that, or two years before that. Right. People do pay attention to that. So I think it needs to be consistent more so than anything. I also think, like I’ve said before, there needs to be a good mix between personal and business content. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (22:26):
I know that name. I know Scott. I was like, this sounds so familiar. Yeah,
PT (22:30):
Scott’s a is a, is a, is a friend of mine. He’s he’s been on the podcast several times and he was telling a story about a guy who was a top producer and was just having a, a bang out year, you know, 20 20, 20 21. And one of his best friends ended up buying a house but didn’t use him as his loan officer. Now to his credit, the, the loan officer went to his friend and said, Hey, you know, just curious, did you felt like you didn’t couldn’t use me or whatever. And the response was super interesting. The friend said, Hey, I knew that my wife and I would have a ton of questions and we, we really needed to understand the process better. And I noticed that you kept posting that you guys were having record months and you were doing all these, these transactions and doing all this volume and we didn’t wanna slow you down.
PT (23:17):
And I think that that’s powerful for people to realize some of these things that we put out there. Yeah. To boost our reputation can potentially be working against you. So reviews and testimonials are good, but whenever we try to, what I kind of do ego posts where we, we kind of stroke our ego a little bit, sometimes that can have the opposite effect. There’s ways to show your experience, your credibility, position yourself as an expert within that context of that personal brand without deterring from it. So again, the frequency just needs to be consistent and mix it up. But just be careful. Why is your audience on there? They’re not on there to see that you have, you know, all of these accolades and that you’ve done all this stuff. There’s a time and a place for that. And a lot of times that’s not on social media.
AJV (24:02):
That’s say that for your website.
PT (24:04):
Yes. Yes.
AJV (24:06):
I think that’s really good. Now that lends me to another really quick question, and then I’m gonna change, change directions on us here. Do you think that in this world social media is enough? Or do you really think people need to have, even if it’s like a quick splash page or just a one page landing page? Do you really think people need to have a website or a blog or a podcast or a social media enough?
PT (24:33):
I, I personally believe you need a website. Now, I’m not saying it has to be a super robust website, but at the end of the day, your website, in my opinion, is your digital business card. Your social media platforms are gonna cater different types of content to different people. But social media is also about directing all of that attention someplace. If marketing’s about getting someone’s attention, we don’t really make any money on marketing. Where we make money on is sales where we create a customer. And that’s a lot of times more difficult to do if, if not impossible for most in mortgage and real estate to do. You need to have a website, you need to have a place that you can drive traffic. You need to have some type of a, of a call to action in that way. Again, it doesn’t need to be complicated, but having that is, is extremely important in, in today’s day and age for sure.
AJV (25:21):
Yeah, I think that’s really good. And I’ll just share one really quick thing. If you’re going hi, a website here’s just one really quick thing that I learned that’s really helpful. In interim, if you don’t have the time or the resources to actually go and get, even if it’s a mediocre one page website, which quite honestly today is you could probably whip something up for 1500 bucks if you just use a template, let’s just say you don’t even have time or capacity for that. Just at least go by your name, just by, you know, in my case, aj vaden.com and then have it redirected to whatever your most robust social media profile is. Right? Yeah. And it’s like, I did that for years when I was like, I don’t have time for this, so I just had it redirect my LinkedIn profile until you’re ready to do whatever. So, but at least secure your name and have it a redirect somewhere. Would you say that could be a good workaround for the very short?
PT (26:17):
A hundred percent. Yeah. And, and there’s lots of places and like I’m a big fan of Link Tree mm-hmm.
PT (26:57):
And one thing that I wanna make sure of when we talk about social media being enough is I have a personal belief that social media is about creating relationships. It’s networking. In the 21st century, you have to take the relationships offline. Mm. You, you can’t just have conversations with people, at least in mortgage and real estate and expect to have a long-term sustainable foundation for a business by simply just trying to interact with people online. Now, what does offline mean? It doesn’t necessarily mean in person. That might be email, that might be text, that might be in the dms, but it can’t just be in the interaction on the social media profiles because you’ve got to at some point create relationship. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (28:05):
Yeah. I love that
PT (29:25):
That’s a, that’s a good question. I’ve, I’ve not actually been asked this question before and I’ve done hundreds of episodes of my podcast and, and been on on a lot of others into the hundreds as well. So I love this question. And I think my first instinctual or instinctive, excuse me answer is let’s go ahead and take some of our own advice. Meaning if we’re teaching people how to build wealth with real estate, a great way is to invest in real estate yourself. Hmm. You’re gonna create that much more credibility by saying, Hey, I actually own a couple of rental properties, or I have some Airbnbs or VRBO os and now I can show you in a different way how to utilize these things as well. I, I mean there’s even here in D F W, some, some top loan officers that make more money passive income through their real estate portfolio and, and things that they’ve built on the side than they even make, especially now in in their mortgage business.
PT (30:19):
Mm-Hmm.
PT (31:00):
If you have an audience of a specific amount of people and there’s certain type of products that that audience really needs or wants, there are ways to make money on advertisements or affiliates or things of that nature by just spreading the word about products, you know, that you believe in. So once you create a certain amount of attention and following, there are are numerous ways that you can do that. And I know a lot of people that have made their side hustle their full-time hustle, and you can still participate in real estate, you can still be a loan officer by pursuing this thing. And in today’s day and age, entrepreneurship is, you know, obviously kind of a buzzword, you know, in the eighties and nineties, I mean, you didn’t have a job and then now it’s, you know, this this key to financial freedom. But for most of us it’s about really staying consistent and persistent over time. And as those things build up, it opens up so many opportunities. So the answer for those that haven’t built a brand yet is you need to spend a lot of time doing that and you’ll find all kinds of ways to monetize it. And whether you have a personal brand or not, you can invest in real estate and start doing the things that you’re teaching people to do already.
AJV (32:07):
Yeah, I love that. I think that’s so good. And I’m gonna just throw this in cause I, you mentioned this, like you were just on a two and a half week jaunt around the country. And I think speaking would be one, it’s like, no, you’ve gotta have expertise and you have to have some stage presence. But how did you get into that? All right, so how did you make the transition from regional manager to podcast hosts to, you know, you’ve got content you’re speaking, so walk somebody through the trajectory of like, okay, this is what it really looks like if you’re interested.
PT (32:41):
Yeah, it was, it was a happy accident. You know, I started the podcast to build my region and all kinds of cool things happened because of that. I was able to speak on some panels at industry level conferences that you’re not necessarily getting paid for. They may cover your ticket to the event, but then you start networking with a lot of people. And I think there’s a ton of mortgage and real estate professionals right now, regardless of how big your business is, that has a specific area of expertise that you can reach out to industry events and say, Hey, I have a proficiency for this. I’d like to know, is there anywhere in your event where that makes sense for me to be a panelist or for me to have a little short spot where I can just kind of share this thing and, and have it very defined.
PT (33:24):
And then from there, as you start meeting other speakers and you start continuing with your craft, I’ve never been to an event where they’ve reached out to me to speak that they haven’t said, Hey, who else do you know that might be a fit mm-hmm.
PT (34:13):
I took a few workshops on showing up better in communication and speaking to where I, all of a sudden someone reached out and said, Hey, we want you to, you know, fly to this place and, and speak. We’re gonna cover your travel and your ticket. We can’t really pay you anything. But at that particular event, there was a Hall of Fame football player that spoke right after me and then Rudy Rudiger for the one for, for Rufi, if everybody’s seen the movie Rudy. And so it was me and then Darren Woodson, who’s a hall of fame cowboy football player and ESPN n commentator. And all of a sudden I’m like, okay, well I didn’t get paid for this event, but all of a sudden I’m on stage with these people and then it just turns into, you know, paid speaking gigs. And so there, there is a, a huge opportunity, especially for mortgage and real estate because there’s so many types of businesses within our business.
PT (35:03):
Not all real estate teams are the same. Not all mortgage teams are the same. So whatever your skill is, listen to podcasts on it, read books on it, get educated, take workshops, invest in yourself and then come up, here is what I’m good at. Here’s what I’m proficient, here’s what I love talking about that I can, I can bring some passion to and then literally start asking people to do that. I still will reach out to events and say, I all the speakers you have on there, I love what they’re doing. I have some friends on there, here’s where I think I can add value. And then there’s at the same time other places that reach out and say, we want you to come, you know, speak at our event. That’s become something I really enjoy doing and, and want to do a lot more of. And it, there’s, there’s opportunities for everybody, especially in this space to, to be able to do that as well.
AJV (35:47):
I love that so much and I think that’s such a great reminder. And the number one thing that I gleamed from what you just shared is sometimes the best opportunities are not the ones that you get paid for. That’s right. But you’ve gotta be willing and you’ve gotta, you know, be a little opportunistic. Yes. And it’s like you’re gonna get paid eventually. You just may not get paid in that moment. And I yeah. Know so many people who are turning things down cuz it didn’t offer to pay. And I’m like, well, have you ever been paid before? No. Well, it’s like
PT (36:50):
Yes.
AJV (36:51):
And I, that is such a great reminder of like, man, the gift is in the practice. It’s in honing the skill, it’s in the networking, it’s with who you meet. It’s like that’s the gift. Like that’s how you get paid until one day you get paid even more.
PT (37:10):
Yes. So there’s, there’s two quick things that I wanna, I wanna put an exclamation point on that. The first one was I, this last two and a half weeks, I spoke eight times in five different cities. And as I came back and was kind of debriefing with, with my coach and my mentor a guy who’s done Ted Talks and, and has a very high speaking fee and, and really coaches me on this side of my business. And he was just asking me to kind of give my impression on it. And the first thing that came to mind is almost exactly what you just said. There were things that I learned throughout each of these hour long, you know, onstage me talking to an audience, you know speaking events. There’s things that I learned that I could only have learned by doing that thing.
PT (37:53):
And we need to remember that you can’t dial in something, you can’t get better at something, you can’t fix something that you’re not actively doing.
AJV (38:42):
So good and such a good reminder to, to all of us. And I probably could come with like, come up with like five more questions that I’m like, I know everyone is gonna want to hear. However, we’re out of time. And so if you really want to learn more about what’s happening in the industry and how to build your personal brand to grow your business, diversify your income streams, then I would encourage you to go check Phil out at his website. You can go to phil treadwell.com, I will spell that out in the show notes, but it’s phil treadwell.com. You can also go follow him on all the social media sites, which is everything is at Phil Treadwell. So Instagram do you have a social media platform of choice that you want people to go to?
PT (39:25):
I mean, Instagram’s probably where I’m most active, but I’m active on all the socials. If you, if you DM me on one of the social media platforms, I’ll get it and I’ll respond.
AJV (39:34):
Awesome. Phil, thank you so, so much for being here. So many good nuggets, so many good tips. And y’all, so much of this is transcends the real estate industry. This is just good business advice, but I think for this unique opportunity to serve the real estate mortgage professionals and our audience, this one’s for you. Stick around for my summary episode next and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 387: Redefining Success | Ryan Blair Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
All right, y’all. Today we’re gonna talk about redefining success and what does success look like to you? I just had this awesome conversation on our influential personal brand podcast with a gentleman named Ryan Blair. He’s a multi-time, multi, you know, time entrepreneur, billion dollar companies and just wise beyond his years and also humble extremely humble. And one of the things I loved about this conversation was this conversation of redefining what success looks like. And I think a lot of us are challenged today, specifically in 2023, with looking around and defining our success by what other people are doing. And I only know that’s true cause I know I suffer from it. And I can’t be the only one, right? I can’t be the only one who looks around going, man, is like having a really nice house. Does that mean success or free time?
AJV (01:01):
Does that, is that success or, or money? Is that success or fame? Is that success? And we, we kinda get caught up in it when we look around. And one of the things that I have found is that, for me at least, and I can only speak for me, but I know that there’s gotta be other people like me out there, is I need to put blinders on when it comes to success. I, I need one of those cones that like go around the heads of dogs after they’ve gone to the veterinarian. And I need to not be able to see what anyone else is doing. I need to be able to focus inward and upward of going what? Like, what God? Like what, what do you have for me? Not what does success look like? Like where does that word even come from?
AJV (01:42):
It’s what do you have for me? Because the, the truth is, is like I already know what God has for me. He has a promise for eternity. And that’s what I’m working towards. And my challenge for living in 2023 is that there’s so much things that distract, distract me from what I really should be doing, which is raising two awesome human beings, St. Jasper and Liam being an amazing wife to my husband helping, serving working. I believe in hard work. Those are things that I believe in. And that doesn’t always mean it’s gonna result in millions of dollars. It means it could, but it doesn’t mean that it will, that doesn’t mean I’m any less successful of the person next to me. And so I’ve spent a ton of time over the last few months really thinking about what, what is success to me? And here’s a couple of things that have come up with myself and my husband, Roy Vaden is, success today doesn’t look like more dollars than our banking account, which I’m not mad about it. I I’m not, I’m not saying I don’t wanna make more money. I think the more I make, the more I can give, the more I can do. But also I’ve realized it’s like, man, we, that was the only thing that we looked at in terms of success for a really long
AJV (02:58):
Time. And today, success looks like free space on the calendar. We’re buying back our time of going, I know success today looks like freedom with time to do what we feel like we’re being called to do. Not forcing ourselves to do the things that we think we should be doing because someone else told us that’s what we should do. Someone else could be our parents, our neighbors, our colleagues friends, right? But it’s like we’re defining success by the amount of hours that we have in our day to do the work that we want to do. Not freedom in terms of, Hey, I wanna, you know, go have a lunch every single day with a girlfriend, which I would love to do. But it’s like, no. It’s like, do I have the hours to do what I feel like God is calling me to do?
AJV (03:47):
That is success, right? The second thing is, success looks like having the confidence to say no, right? So the first thing is time. The second thing is the ability to walk away the wherewithal to know that’s not good for me, even though it seems like it today. I know six months from now, that’s not a good decision for me. That could be relationships, business deals, investments. There’s a lot of temptation to go, Hey, that’s going to be a great r o i. However, it’s gonna also simultaneously cause a lot of stress, right? It’s going to take away time and put pressure on versus give me time and take pressure off. And so it’s confidence to say no. It’s willingness to walk away. That is what success looks like. The next thing success looks like. How many lives impacted? How many people served versus again, dollars in the banking account.
AJV (04:43):
I believe that the dollars come when lives are changed. When people go, I want to pay you. Like you’re, you’re helping me so much. I desire to give you my money, versus I take your money and then hope I do a really good job. That is success. Success has shifted to, I want more time to do the work I’ve called to do. I want to feel convicted and saying yes when it’s a yes and feel powerful to say no when it’s a no. And man at the, and most of all, it’s, it’s helping. It’s serving, it’s feeling freed up to help someone in a way that someone else has helped me. It’s, you know, paying it forward, but it’s a, it’s a life impacted, it’s a life changed knowing that that will result in probably financial success. And even if it doesn’t, that is more successful, right? Not dollars, not social media followers, not even email list subscribers. It’s like I subscribe to all the things. I think social media is a powerful tool. I think AI is a powerful tool. I think owning your own context is a powerful tool. Those are tools, but that is not success. Those are tools that help you be
AJV (05:56):
Successful. Those are tools that help you on the journey, but those are not success money. That is a tool, not success businesses, right? Those are tools that does not define your success. Cuz the truth is, is no matter where you are, there are successes and failures, failure failures all day long, every day all through life. You are not a success or a failure. We all succeed and we all fail. And so what is success? Right? And I think that depends on the season that you’re in. And, and that should change. It most definitely will change and it should like success. What it looked like for me prior to having children versus what success looks like for me today is wildly different, right? The number one thing I think about more than anything else on this planet is how do I get my kids to know and love the Lord?
AJV (06:51):
If I achieve one thing, then call it a day, my life was successful, right? That is not probably what I would’ve said pre-children. I didn’t have context of what success looked like in the stage of life, right? And success will likely look different five years from now and then five years from then. But it’s like, it just take a moment to redefine what that is. Without worldly voices popping in, friends, voices popping in, siblings, parents, even your children popping in. It’s like, if we don’t define it, we won’t find it. And so you’ve gotta take the time to define it so then you can go after it. And I don’t know what it looks like for you. So I’m just sharing what it looks like for me today because it’s wildly different than it was at any other time in my life of going, I’m for the first time actually going, what would a successful day look like?
AJV (07:47):
A successful year? Knowing that I am not a success or a failure. I simply have successes and failures. But I’m just me who also has successes and failures at the same time. So just a, a word of encouragement. And also a prompt to spend some time on before you go after that next thing you’re after or even after. The thing that you’re after right now is just take a moment and define what does success and this thing look like for you in this season? And then make sure you continue to iterate on what thats, that success is in every season that you enter. So hope that was helpful for you, and I hope you stick around. I’ll see you next time.
Ep 386: How To Turn Your Job Into Your Calling with Ryan Blair
AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode on the influential personal brand, AJ Vaden here, one of your co-hosts. I am joined today by a newer friend. However, although he and I are just getting acquainted to each other, I have heard about Ryan Blair for years, and we have lots of mutual friends. And then a good friend and team member of mine joined his mastermind this year. And praises just come every day if not every hour, about Ryan and what you’re doing with your new company Alter Call. And so just mad kudos in respect all that you’ve built and all that you’re building. And so I feel super honored to get to have you on the show today and to get like the next 40 minutes of your brilliance and wisdom, and to get to share that to our awesome community with Brand Builders and the influential personal brand podcast.
AJV (00:55):
So I could continue complimenting you or we could get to it. Let’s go, let’s, let’s dive in. Everybody who’s listening, if you’re not familiar with Ryan Blair, let me just give you a very high level, quick background. He’s a number one New York Times bestselling author. He’s a serial entrepreneur. And by that I mean like a whole bunch, like a $2 billion company is what he built as an entrepreneur. But it’s some really fascinating background information is was gang member turned businessman, and, you know, talking about billion dollar sales. And, you know, just like, that’s kind of an interesting story we’re gonna have to hear a little bit about. But your, your newest company, alter Cloud is the one that you’re building and growing right now and touching so many lives, including the lives of people that I know and hold super near and dear to my heart.
AJV (01:51):
You’ve been a c e o, you were part of visas, you’ve got books, you’ve got all these inspirational messages. I could go on and on and I’ll just tell everyone the reason that I wanted to have Ryan on today is selfishly because I really want to learn about how he’s been able to include the personal aspects of his life into his business, right? And so if there are things that you’re trying to figure out of, you know, for me personally, it’s like, as you guys listen, you hear this all the time, you know, I’m really into Jesus and I’m really into my faith. And it’s always like, what’s that fine balance of bringing that into my work, right? So if there are things that you believe in or, you know, the world can be unfortunately really polarizing right now, doesn’t matter which way you look, there’s something that somebody’s for or against and you’re trying to figure out, like, do I bring that into my business?
AJV (02:45):
Do I keep it separate? Thus keeping you separate from your business and your message, or can you find a happy medium of a way filled with, you know, acceptance and grace, but also truth and love of how do I combine what I personally believe into what I’m building in a business? So that is why I wanted to have Ryan on, but also mad businessman, building wicked awesome companies. Plus a lot of, I think the emerging trends that everyone’s talking about with AI and technology are all gonna be a part of our discussion today. So the point is, stick around. It’s gonna give fun. Brian, welcome to the show.
RB (03:22):
Thank you for having me, aj. I’m a big fan of your work and thank you for the kind words.
AJV (03:25):
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited. So give us just high level, like when you say was gang member, turn to businessman, like, let people know, like, what does that actually mean?
RB (03:36):
Well, you know, I have to because we’re among fellow brand people. I have to tell you, I’m a good storyteller,
RB (04:24):
So I could go into the art and technique of sharing your adversity, or I could tell you specifically about mine. But you know, when I looked at the pattern from a spiritual standpoint and I saw all these crazy things happening, and then a mentor showed up into my life and it changed my life forever. And another mentor showed up and another mentor showed up, I said, God’s gotta be at work here. And so it was my duty to explain God’s work in my life and to put it into books and movies and some of the other things that I’ve done, because I could just see the creator’s craftsmanship at work in the crafting of my character and my competency to be the man that I am today.
AJV (05:05):
I love that. And so I would love to know, cause I think mentors and rather they’re people who come alongside you and do it in a loving just free or their paid coaches or whatever it is, like the power of mentorship in your life. Can you just talk about that for like 60 seconds?
RB (05:25):
It’s the most important thing. I I’m praying for a mentor now on a particular subject, a spiritual subject that I, I need somebody who’s in office who anoint people in their callings. And I need to, to talk to this person about exactly what they do and how they do it. I need people to teach me different gifts of discernment, or I’m learning to sing. I have a mentor that teaches me that I’m learning to box. I have a mentor that teaches me that, you know, I, I used to spend a lot of money on stupid stuff like bottle service and lavish vacations. Now I spend even more, more money on mentors and I’m growing like crazy because of it. And I’m in the greatest season I’ve ever had because I have all these great coaches that are teaching me how to become a better individual and how to enjoy life more and, and how to, you know, put together different skills that I wouldn’t learn otherwise.
RB (06:14):
So mentorship is extremely important. But before I could afford mentors, I pursued people. And when people showed up with information that I felt that I needed to have in order for me to achieve my goals, I extracted that information. I was very prepared, very diligent. I’d write up hundreds of questions in preparations for these meetings, even as a young 20 something year old want to be entrepreneur. And if I could get an entrepreneur in front of me that knew more about entrepreneurship than I did, I wanted to close the gap as much as I possibly could. And I valued every single meeting as though God had sent the person to me to transfer this information that I needed to be able to further my journey. Mm. So it’s, it’s been a part of my process since I was 17 years old and I’m now going on 46 and I’m investing more in the process now than ever.
AJV (07:06):
You know, it’s interesting, I just had a very similar conversation with my husband Rory. And I was in a, an unusual season for me in 2021, where just found myself in a funk. And I didn’t really pinpoint why. And it’s because I spent all of 2020 trying to be the problem solver. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (07:55):
And my husband literally gave me one of the greatest compliments of my life the other day. And he said, babe, like I can see not only like do are you happier? He goes, but I can literally see you growing. Hmm. And it was like, that’s beautiful. The greatest compliment of my life. And like to that about, you know, free mentors, it’s like I had forgotten the power that a book has to change your life. And it’s like, for those of you who can’t find a free mentor, it’s like, get yourself a good book. It’s like, you know, it’s years of preparation to get those words on pages sometimes that ultimately can really change your life. So I love that. And I, I think this is really good cuz you’ve already brought it up a couple of different times around this idea of like, God orchestrating things in your life.
AJV (08:41):
And you know, one of the things that I love about what you do is you don’t shy away from your faith. And you actually do the opposite, right? Yeah. You run right into it and go, now this is a part of my business. It’s a part of what, what I do, how I do it. And that’s a part of your uniqueness. And I’m curious to know how did that decision come about? And for those of us out here that are struggling to balance that line with what’s personal, what’s business? Any advice you have around that?
RB (09:15):
Yeah, it, it’s very hard. Because the business world has removed God from the conversation. They have made it a completely secular conversation for the most part. Majority of, we’re not supposed to bring our faith to work with us. We’re supposed to separate that and our work, if not properly, boundaried will take over our entire lives, especially as entrepreneur. So for those of us who are entrepreneurs, we have to boundary work, right? For those of us who are underachievers, let’s say you got a boundary life because life will take all the available space and you don’t get enough work done for the overachiever and the entrepreneur. You got a boundary of work cuz it will take all the appro, all the space and then you won’t have a life. And I’ve been on that side of the equation for far too long. So, you know, the way that it came about was simple.
RB (10:07):
I had built a business that was built on the greet of Wall Street. You know, I was a publicly traded company about making my numbers. It was filled with ego, it was filled with just non-spiritual activity, let’s say, for lack of better words. And when I had stepped down as c e o of that company and take care of some family matters, I thought I was done with entrepreneurship. I thought that you could not be a spiritual and be an entrepreneur at the same time. Like people talk about being conscious and a capitalist, I thought those two things were mutually exclusive. Like this isn’t gonna happen. And in a lot of contemplation, a lot of you know, getting deeply connected to my faith, I realized that my calling was to fuse the two together to teach people how to be spiritual entrepreneurs. And in order for me to step into that calling, I had to learn to embody both the spiritual and the entrepreneurial gifts that I had been able to obtain throughout my walk.
RB (11:02):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (12:17):
Mm-Hmm.
RB (12:56):
Yeah. Every, every relationship that we have should be treated as sacred. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (14:14):
Hmm. Those are just two good life lessons. I don’t care what your business is,
RB (15:10):
Yeah. Yeah. You know, God doesn’t call the qualified, he, he qualifies the called as the old saying goes. And I’ve certainly been getting qualified in, in this, this calling of mine. You know, I, I didn’t think I’d ever be a one-on-one coach with people. You know, I used to sell out stadiums and now, you know, I’m doing thousands of hours of one-on-one coaching calls, and I’m learning to be a better coach. I’m learning to listen better to, you know, to counsel people and to, to help people on a one-on-one basis. And I’m also called to work with groups. So we have experiences and so forth. The the thing that I’ll, I’ll tell with you other than just that, or tell you other than just that spiritual belief that you know, that I’m being qualified in this calling and that I’ll, you know, I’ll have the right people come to teach me the skills that I need in order to, you know, fulfill God’s purpose in my life and my personal mission and that.
RB (16:02):
But I, I also have always looked at the analogies between businesses. So yes, I was in the consumer product space and I learned a lot about consumer products, shipping billions of dollars with the computer consumer products around the world. I’m taking those best practices and those learnings, and I’m applying them now to a technological product that we’re building here at Alter Call. So prior to that, I was in broadband wireless, I was in telecommunications, and I took a lot of the best practices from that business. And I created all visas in our, a lot of our pricing models and shipping models. And our financial models were all, because I had brought with me prior experiences and prior investors and prior business understanding, and it in a completely outside business, that’s where real innovation occurs. Because if you have experience in one business and you can apply it to another sector, that’s where innovation happens.
RB (16:54):
If I was born and raised in Tony Robbins, you know, and, and I showed up and I worked with him and I learned all about what he does and everything he does and how he runs a business, and then I went to start my own, it would just be a knockoff of Tony Robbins, right? Mm-Hmm.
RB (17:47):
So think of it like going wide like width, not to use a weight loss analogy, but I went for a billion pe millions of people, 3 million people. Now I’m going deep in the impact that I want to make. Eventually I will be called, as I master that deep impact, I’ll be called to go wider and wider and wider, but I’m called now in a season in my personal life as a leader and in the business that I’m creating to create the deepest impact that I can. And then from that deep impact, we will start to go wider as we go. So it’s, it’s very, I could very much see the creator’s craftsmanship. And then one other item I’ll just mention to you, you gotta be willing to walk away from something. And what I walked away from expertise in the direct selling industry, expertise in consumer products.
RB (18:33):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (19:07):
I love that. I I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of or read the book, the Circle Maker?
RB (19:13):
I have not.
AJV (19:15):
So this is a new book I just started reading and you just said something and I had just read this yesterday in this book. And I, I loved this description of it. It’s that, you know, if you’re searching for your purpose for what’s next, it’s, it’s often has nothing to do with God. It has everything to do with us. And they said, the problem isn’t that God doesn’t give you what you want, it’s that we don’t know what we want, so we don’t know what to ask for. Mm-Hmm. And I feel like that’s a lot of people today, it’s like they think they want something because they’ve seen it somewhere else. But it’s really come down to redefining what does success look like in your life? Like, what is this thing I’m going after?
RB (19:54):
Yeah. When you’re, but when you’re on the spiritual walk, there’ll be a resonance. And if you really get to know your soul and you do the internal work, you might help one person and you’ll be like, that lit me up that I felt something there. And that’s a clue. And with obedience, you go, you move toward that clue. God uses clues for you to really determine your calling. He doesn’t just tell you what your calling is because then you wouldn’t discover it. It wouldn’t, you wouldn’t earn it. Right. So God uses clues. And what I do is I just, I conduct a number of experiments and the ones that completely fail, I had no business experiment. You know, that, that experiment didn’t work. That wasn’t my purpose. The ones that succeed, I know okay, that experiment, it had some light to it, it had, it had some energy to it.
RB (20:39):
The Holy Spirit was in that experiment. And I then go deeper into that experiment. And, and that’s the process that I use. But I’ll, I’ll tell you with regard to purpose, we all have the exact same purpose. And that is to leave the world better than we found it. And to share our love and wisdom abundantly. That’s it. Now the vehicle for expressing that changes. Yeah. But we shouldn’t get caught up in the vehicle. We should get caught up in the fact that I’m here to serve. I’m here to make the world a better place than I’ve found it. I’m here to leave behind my love and wisdom to my son and to all that I mentor and my true legacy. I’ll never be able to calculate it. Cuz I have no idea how many people my son’s gonna make an impact in the lives of, or his son or their sons or anybody’s children.
RB (21:26):
I have no idea what my true legacy is going to be. So I should just focus on service. The more that I serve, the more that I’m able to step into that calling. And then I get the feedback in real time when I’m on path. And when I’m not on path, God will use detours and close doors to get you back focused on your calling. So if a friend of mine says, let’s go invest in Bitcoin, and I entertain the idea, next thing you know, I’m heading in that direction, I’ll start to have some feelings that I’m, I’m not on the right path right now. And then I’ll get redirected. Mm. Like, you know, to, to where I need to, you know, to focus.
AJV (22:00):
I love that. My friend always says, and I’m sure she got this from somewhere else, but I love what she said. It’s like what often we feel as rejection is simply God’s protection. Right. I love that old saying. Now you mentioned something about now the way you do it and the way we all do it will change over the course of time. And I feel like we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about some things that are inevitably changing in the way that we work and do business. And you’re kind of at the forefront a lot of this and the technology companies that you’re investing in and AI and just what that looks like for business today and what it’s gonna look like in the future. So let’s shift a little bit and talk about Yeah. Technology as it is just warp speed, changing the way that we work and live and communicate and do life. But then also some specifics around like what, what you’re finding in ai. So this was open up that Pandora’s box.
RB (23:01):
Yeah. Let me, well, you know, I, my background, I started my career in technology and I’ve always viewed myself as a technologist at Visas. I, I saw the cloud as, you know, my work and then everything else was just a product of that. So I’ve always been heavily invested and involved in technology. I, I, I knew that AI was going to change some industries, and I got that insight about five years ago before I started alter call. And I started looking at AI in the addiction industry because I lost my mother to addiction. And I’ve lost many friends. And my family’s had a very difficult time with it, and I had some challenges with it as well. And so I thought, is there a way that AI will make an impact there? And, and so I’ve started my, my research five years ago.
RB (23:48):
And then I decided to set my sites on the coaching industry because the accuracy of the AI wasn’t at the level that where we could detect addiction and and improve outcomes. But the accuracy has improved. And so now we’ve been investing heavily in AI powered coaching. We have three AI scientists on the team right now as well as number of engineers. And we’re expanding our team and we’re building AI powered coaching. So I just got off a call before this one where I was having my coaching calls reviewed where it would tell me the sentiment, the questions asked and answered the use of language that the onwards and transition words and, and a full analysis of my coaching calls to help me become a better coach. And so that’s some of the innovations that we’re doing. We’re, our goal is not to eliminate the coach.
RB (24:34):
Our goal is to power the coach and to augment the coach. Yeah. but there are a number of jobs that will be eliminated as a result of ai. And if your job is one of those that you’re worried about being eliminated, my advice to you is simple callings will not be eliminated. Mm-Hmm.
RB (25:25):
Right. So my advice to each of you listening in, if you’re worried about your job or your career being taken by ai, you need to learn how to step into a calling and need to learn to greet your work as such. Because if you do that, you are irreplaceable. And if your employer wants to replace you, there’s many of us that are gonna pick up people that are, that are gonna be called to the work. And that’s what I’m looking for when I’m working with people. I’m not looking for people to take a job with me. I’m looking for people to share in this calling with me. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (26:19):
You know, it’s interesting and I think, you know, even pre ai I would say it’s like I kinda, you know, I loved what Ariana Huffington said, it’s, it wasn’t the great resignation, it was the great like reassessment, I forget the exact words. Yeah. But it was the, it wasn’t a great resignation. It was the great, you know, like reassessment of like, what am I doing with my life? Yeah. Like, what, what am I doing? And do I even know who I am? Because my entire identity has become my job. Right. Yeah. You know, and I think that’s just unfortunately a lot of the work culture in Americas, you know, we all do this, we all suffer from this. As soon as you meet someone, it’s, my name is and your name is, and then what do you do?
RB (27:08):
Yeah.
AJV (27:09):
Right? Yeah. Have you ever had anyone say, so tell me who you are, right? No. It’s like, what do you do? Right. And I think that there’s a lot of doing that happens and that all of our identities have got sucked into this doing part of why versus just who you are innately. And I think there’s, I think the reason in my opinion that the coaching industry has blown up so much, had very little to do with everything going digital or the great, you know, quote unquote resignation and much more of going like, I, I wanna find who I am again. And the demand for that desire has created a booming industry. Right. The coaching industry just in the US will do more than 20 billion this year. There’s more than 1.2 million people just on LinkedIn in the US who identify as a coach.
RB (27:59):
Yeah.
AJV (27:59):
Right? Yeah. And it’s like, those may not be full-time jobs, but there’s a demand of going like, teach me a new way. Teach me a better way. Someone show me, guide me, mentor me. And that’s what you’re doing with this. So I’m so fascinated. So I literally, I wrote this down and I was like, AI powered coaching. So like, tangibly speaking, like what is this? Like how, like what is this?
RB (28:25):
Well, one and I’ll, I’ll just give you an insight that I’ve pondered recently is the reason why we have so many coaches is because the education system has failed us completely. And we should have had great teachers that taught us how to know our body, taught us how to balance a checkbook, taught us how to be an entrepreneur. And instead we got Henry Rockefeller and or Henry Ford and Rockefeller education system to turn us into industrialists to identify with creating products for others. Yep. Basically we became worker bees. That’s right. And and that’s the entire education system that we’re in, and it is failing us. And that’s why we need coaches to go find a level of mastery and the internal skills or external skills mm-hmm.
RB (29:13):
And so I’m a huge fan of the coaching industry. It’s expanding everyone moving into the coaching industry. I see it as the age of the messenger. Like we have people out there with the message and they’re sharing it. And so I applaud everyone who proudly says, I’m gonna become a messenger, a messenger of yoga, a messenger of, of whatever practices and so forth. So that’s where I see us from a macro basis and from a historical basis. But, and that’s why I’m so excited by the, the investments that we’re making in AI and so forth, but what, what AI powered coaching is going to do, because it’s such an unregulated industry what we are doing is we are extracting the best practices and we’re doing so by evaluating the outcomes from the clients. And then we’re taking those best practices and training our coaches and how they can model those best practices to accelerate outcomes for clients.
RB (30:07):
Our vision is that we can reduce the time that it takes to get to an outcome. We can and, and also make it more affordable to get to an outcome so that we can make coaching available to the masses. I believe that everyone should have a coach. And, and if you think about it, our family structure is disintegrated as such that we just don’t have fathers as coaches anymore, or mothers as coaches anymore. Even when we have mothers and fathers, oftentimes they have to go work, you know, like a slave and somebody else’s job, and they can’t bring back their best selves to coach the children. So we, we have to solve this problem through this new you know approach. And so we’re using AI and technology to make our coaches more efficient, to improve our client outcomes, and to to eventually make coaching faster and more afford more affordable.
AJV (30:57):
I love this. This is so cool. And I honestly, what I think is so cool about it is, again, this isn’t replacing coaches, this is empowering coaches. It’s allowing you to do what you can do at a more rapid impact, right? Yeah. And it’s like, man, just the learn to, to shorten the learning curve for people. Yeah.
RB (31:19):
So, yeah. One of the, one of the things that we, we do analysis on is the emotionality of the coach and the correspondence to that of the client outcome. So like, I get a feedback report after every call, and on some calls it says like, my sentiment was neutral. And I’m like, that’s not what I wanna bring to my clients. They pay me a lot of money. Right. I want, I wanna bring the best sentiment. And so just because I’m able to have AI evaluate and, and run models and tell me my sentiment, my tonality, and tell me the use of questions and answers and the amount of presence that I bring to my calls, I’m now a better coach because of that. That’s our mission, is to take an unregulated industry and to give frameworks and teaching, teaching methodologies, and then use ai to evaluate these coaches so that way they can become more efficient and more productive and create greater results in the marketplace.
AJV (32:10):
Love that. Fascinating. all right. So I know I’m watching the clock. I’m always trying to be sensitive. We got about like five minutes last here and I have a, a couple of random q and as that I wanna just like hit you with, so you mentioned earlier, yeah, some jobs will be eliminated, not callings, but jobs. So what do you foresee other jobs that are likely gonna pass away with the future of ai?
RB (32:35):
Well, a lot of ’em in, in, in my, my particular case, you know, you know, teachers are you know, there’s going to be a a front on teachers, any, any job where people are not doing a good job at it, where the industry is being cornered by unions, by, you know, and teachers is one of those, there’s some good teachers out there, don’t get me wrong, but then there’s some terrible teachers out there. And so the opportunity to re you know, eliminate those jobs and disrupt those jobs is very high. So you’re gonna, you’re gonna see any of those jobs where people are not serving at their highest level are, are going to be highly impacted. But it’s also going to force us to evolve. And just, for example, chat, G P T, which we’re all very familiar with, when, when I go on there, I ask great questions and I evolve the quality of my questions and I get nuanced answers as I am able to ask better questions.
RB (33:36):
So just that large language model is gonna teach us as human beings to ask better questions. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (34:30):
Well, yeah. You know, it’s like too that I’ve already seen this pop up in a few places is, you know, I, I live in Nashville, right. Music city, and there’s just like, I get bombarded with like all these different webinars and stuff going on in the city, and it’s like, is AI going to destroy music city, the songwriting business? You know, that just like something flew across my inbox and it’s like, I have a lot of friends who are singer songwriters and I’m like, no, it should make them better. Yeah. Right. It should. It’s, it’s, the collaboration should be quicker, faster. What did take months could now take days. And, you know, we live in the, you know, creator economy in the world that, you know, we are in, we, you know, we serve the expert, right? We say our target audience is the mission driven messenger. There’s been a lot of talk about like, is AI gonna completely replace copywriters and graphic designers? And I’m like, no, unless you’re not good at it. Unless you’re not efficient. So I had this great conversation with a good friend of mine where he’s got a full-time copywriter on his staff and his, his outcome, like his output every week is one blog.
AJV (35:36):
Hmm. And we’re like, not now.
RB (35:41):
Be 10 blogs a day.
AJV (35:42):
Not now
RB (36:13):
Yeah. It will, it’s going to certainly improve efficiencies for all of us, which is a good thing because the more efficient we are as entrepreneurs, the more income we can generate, the more income we can generate, the more we can pay salaries and, and all of the things that we get to share our wealth with. So that’s, that’s gonna be a magical boomer, a coaching business for example, that had one blog a week, you know, and, and, and couldn’t hire another blogger to do another blog per week, can now get 10 blogs out there a week, and that’s gonna spread their wings and, and spread their message and, and generate more revenue. So we’re gonna see an expansion and many industries and companies would get capped at a certain revenue size, cuz it was just extremely hard to build beyond say, 30 million a year. Mm-Hmm.
RB (36:54):
AJV (37:46):
Mm. It’s gonna be interesting fascinating. I think it’s the word. It’s gonna just be interesting and fascinating. All all right. Next question, because you mentioned this a few times, and this is something that is a constant conversation in our house, is how do you think this impacts, or just what is your personal opinion on the future of college and higher education in the traditional sense?
RB (38:11):
Well, there’ll always be a marketplace for ego and greed and you know, many people that go to colleges are sent there by way of ego and greed. Right. So, you know, I I get personal identity outta my son going to Harvard, so I’m gonna insist that my son goes to Harvard, I’m gonna make this poor kid go to Harvard. You know, that’s gonna be in our, our, our ecosystem for quite some time. Yeah. But you know, it, it’s, it’s not going to be a necessity. It’ll give you bragging rights. It’ll give you ego benefits, but it’s not going to be a necessity. So I, I went to a, a decent little school called Cal Lutheran University, and then I dropped out my senior year and I’ve never cared whatsoever about, you know, any of that because I’m learning and growing each and every day, and I’m applying skills and getting feedback as an entrepreneur. You know, these things are only as good as the belief that they create within you. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (39:26):
Unfortunately, the only thing I retained from college was how to play corn hole and beer pong
RB (39:31):
AJV (39:32):
But I got a lot of practice. Yeah, right. I’m really good at that.
RB (39:36):
That’s priceless though. That’s priceless. I imagine that family outings.
AJV (39:42):
Oh, I dominate, dominate. But it is, you know, it’s interesting. So you have a son
RB (39:48):
Yeah.
AJV (39:49):
Who’s how old
RB (39:51):
Reagan is 14 years old.
AJV (39:53):
He’s 14. So to college you’re not with Reagan.
RB (39:57):
It’s whatever he wants, you know whatever he wants. If, if he wants to go to college, you go to college. If he wants to start a business, he is got a VC in me to help him start a business, whatever he wants. I my parenting method is a little bit different in that I’m looking for what is his personal calling, what is his soul called to do? And then I want to put everything I can to support that. So if he’s called to be a musician, I don’t care if there’s any money in musicianship mm-hmm.
AJV (40:56):
Good answer, Ryan. You know, mine are little, right? So I’ve got a three-year-old and a six-year-old and, you know, we are on the homeschool path. My kids are homeschooled now, and, you know, we’ve taken the stance of if you wanna go to college, that’s fine. If you want us to pay for it, you’re gonna have to convince us why it’s the good idea. You’re gonna have to convince us of why, what exactly are you going to be doing? Because I know what I did. But I think Yeah, I love that. You know, I just finished reading how successful people think by John Maxwell. Yeah. And like, my biggest takeaway from that entire book was don’t build your business based on profits. Build your business based on purpose. Yeah. Right. And it’s
RB (41:39):
Like, yeah, I love John. John mentored me for a couple of years. I I have a personal relationship with him and I love him dearly. He’s one of the he’s a great source of wisdom and for all of us, Steve, it, it, it is by Reagan’s 14 by the time that he enters the workforce. Yeah. It’s gonna be about callings and whatever that calling is. And the last thing I, I do wanna share with you something that you mentioned about the national concept. You know, my words are going to be easily replicated via ai, but the delivery of those words is unique to me. Yeah. So I need to work on the artistry of my delivery. So does every musician, right. Because it’s going to be the way you deliver that song that’s going to be the essence of mm-hmm.
AJV (42:32):
That is so good. And, and, you know, honestly, that’s so true. It’s like reading something versus hearing it and feeling it. Yeah. You know, it’s, I always tease, it’s like I often don’t want to see some of my favorite authors speak in person because I love their words so much, but then when I hear them as presenters, I’m like, well, that ruined it. It
RB (42:54):
Ruined, right. Yeah.
AJV (42:56):
Right. Totally ruined it.
RB (42:57):
Yeah. You’ll more vice versa, right? Yeah. You’ll, well, we’ll no longer pay a person to do research and organize the information then deliver us information. Because I could do, I could ask Ja G b t Yeah. What are the benefits of it all plant-based diet compared to X or Y I don’t need to go to a seminar, you know, for that information anymore. So the, the people that are in the delivery of knowledge and wisdom are gonna have to become better artists and get, and, and, and go on a growth path where they’re bringing in more information from consciousness or from the Holy Spirit and they’re delivering it to the world. So it’s going to eliminate the people that have earned false wisdom. Yeah. Or un or they have unearned wisdom. They just got it through a bunch of research. It’s gonna eliminate that job. And those of us that are wisdom holders and, and, and growing in that we’re gonna have to get better at the delivery of that wisdom.
AJV (43:48):
That’s so good. Like that’s gonna be the big takeaway from this for me is like, don’t be concerned with what’s gonna go, but like, focus on your artistry. Yeah. That’s the thing that no one can take, no one can replace. It’s, it’s yours. But you can work on it and fine tune it. Ryan, thank you so much. Y’all, if y’all wanna catch up with Ryan it’s at Real Ryan Blair on Instagram. So you follow him on the gram, but also check out Al Alter call this amazing program that has coaching. You’ve got masterminds, you’ve got all types of things involved in it. And so go to alter call.com. I’ll put both of those links in the show notes. Ryan, is there anywhere else that you should tell people to go find you learning
RB (44:34):
You? No. No. I, I love meeting new people, so if you hit me up on Instagram we could start a conversation.
AJV (44:40):
Awesome. Y’all, thank you so much for sticking around. Be sure to tune in to the Cliff Notes version of this episode on the podcast, and we’ll catch you next time on the influential Personal brand. See you later.
Ep 355: The Four Non-Negotiables for Successful Virtual Events | Bari Baumgardner Episode Recap
RV (00:02):
So Tony Robbins is arguably the, at least one of the most successful personal brands in the world, one of the biggest personal brands in the world one of the, the highest revenue generating personal brands in the world. I mean, you know, he’d, he’d be up there, Dave Ramsey, Tony Robbins, you know,
RV (01:12):
And probably when people needed encouragement and inspiration the most, they found a way to do this and make it profitable and a great experience for everybody. And we got a chance to talk to her. And I have to say, I had, I, I had never talked to Bari. Very rarely do we have someone on this show where it’s like I’m meeting them for the first time during the interview. But that was the case here with Barry. She was referred to me by a good friend of mine, Randy Garn, and, and I, I’d heard about Bari and Blue because you know, we’ve used their technology, et cetera. And anyways, it was such an awesome interview, a powerful interview here on running profitable virtual events. I think we’re gonna try this. I think we’re actually gonna experiment with this format. So anyways, let me give you the, my three highlights and takeaways.
RV (02:01):
In some ways, this one really, this one more than other episodes, really will function as like a summary of what she covered, because she covered so much, and it was, it was so powerful that even, even for my own knowledge and like my own retention, I’m, you know, some of this, I’m just recapping. So first of all, she talked about the four non-negotiables of a virtual event. And the big idea here, which is so simple, but so smart and powerful, is to go, if you want a virtual event to emulate the kind of results that you would have from a physical in-person event, then you need to try to emulate the in-person event experience or, or the dynamics of it as much as possible. And that makes so much sense to me. And she said well, there’s four non-negotiables that we have. So first is the registration process has to take place.
RV (02:56):
You have to go through a virtual check-in process that makes sense. Second was physical swag and sending somebody something physically in the mail. And that makes a lot of sense, right? That’s like super powerful that makes people show up and take it, take it serious. The third was gamification which I think is more of just like a attention, it’s like attention or retention strategy. And then the fourth is interactivity, which of course is the best part of in-person events, is almost, it’s almost always the people you meet and, and you know, the, the relationships you make in the hallways and all that kind of stuff. And it’s, it’s not just what you’re learning, but the people that are there. Well, in a virtual environment, you have to really work just deliberately to recreate that. And so those are four simple things, you know, she walked through them in detail, but I think it’s more of just, you know, there’s lots of ways for how to do those four things.
RV (03:52):
It’s more of knowing what the four things are. And, and, and really to me, the big idea there is going, how can we model our virtual event to emulate the experiences of an in-person event? And by doing that, we’ll emulate the results of an in-person event that will, will emulate the, the experience, the client experience, the user experience of being at a real event in person. And that’s what they’re doing. And that’s part of why they’re getting the kind of same sales results and bigger sales results with these virtual events. We’ll talk about that in just a second. The second big takeaway, which to me was like, I guess the grand takeaway of the whole interview was this very, very simple three day format. And on the one hand, I’m like a little bit skeptical of going, can you really hold people’s attention for three days?
RV (04:47):
But on the other hand, I mean brand builders group, we do two day events, like all of our members the people, our, our our paying members who are in our coaching program, they get unlimited access to our events. So part of what they do is they pay a monthly fee and they can come to, we do an event, we do a two day event every single month, and they can come as many to as many as they want. It’s unlimited access, and the time flies by. So I go, yeah, I, I could totally see the three day format. But the key is, and she made this point, which is also how we’ve constructed our events, is you’re not teaching for three straight days. Like, you can’t just stand up and talk for three days. And certainly not in a virtual event. So the whole thing is it’s gotta be interactive.
RV (05:33):
There’s gotta be exercises and questions and dialogues. And and this is one of the reasons why I think we might try this, is because when somebody comes to one of our events, their life is freaking changed. I mean, when our members, this is why we retain our clients for years. Like on average, our clients stay with us for years. Like we’ve only been in business for four years, and like a third of the clients that signed up with us in the very beginning are still with us, are like more like 25%, 25% of the people who signed up with us like four years ago are still with us. So people hang around and then we didn’t even know what we were doing back then, right? So we’re just figuring it out, like you’ve really gotten it dialed in in the last couple years.
RV (06:17):
And but people, when they have this experience, it’s like life changing and, and then they stick around. And so part of what our team has been trying to figure out is going, how do we get people to sort of get that experience, like get a way to sample that? And I think Barry’s model here is a great one. And so we’re, we’re looking at this. We’re not, haven’t officially announced that we’re gonna do this, but I’m, you know, again, I’m learning right alongside you here with the people who come on this show. And this is one that was, was super compelling to me going, I think we, we should try this because we have a lot of fans that have not yet become customers. And it’s like, it’s like, I think they trust us. I think they kind of see it, but it’s exactly what she was talking about.
RV (07:04):
They’re not totally sure that they could do it or what the next step is, or that it’s worth the money or that. And so it’s sort of like they just need to experience it. And I think this three day format gives people a chance to really experience it and get involved and, and get acclimated and, and, and get familiar with your content and, and what the process feels like to go through. So, you know, she talked about this three day format and you know, the, basically the, the first day is just getting a sense of what is possible teaching some content, like, you know, adding some real value in the first day. And, and probably it’s, I got the sense that like a lot, a lot of the teaching does happen in the first day or, or a big part of the first day is teaching and, and giving people real content but also giving them a chance to sort of establish their own vision and, and, and see what do they see as possible for themself.
RV (08:00):
And then day two is really where you spend more time talking about the gap of, of like, okay, where, where are you now compared to where you wanna be? And what would your life look like if you achieve that? And what’s the process that it takes to get there? And and so you, you sort of, and then you show them the solution and you show them the journey. So like, for example, at Brand Builders Group, we have our brand builder journey. Ours is actually called the Brand Builder journey. In fact, if you’ve never been to our website, if you go to brand builders group.com and then under the about menu, there’s a sub menu. That’s our brand process. You can see how we, we map this out for people just as an example. And, and also if you, if you haven’t yet requested a call with our team, you should go look at this and, and it’ll, it lays out, you know, our 12 like, well, we have a 14 part journey all in that we take people on to go from like concept all the way to eight figure personal brand and becoming one of the most well known people in the world, which several of our clients are.
RV (09:09):
So you can, you can check that out at, just go to brand builders group.com and click on about, and then click on our brand process. But I think that’s what I got a sense is whatever your brand process is, that’s what you lay out on day two. Those of you that are listening that are members of ours, when we, what this would be is when we take you through captivating content and we help you map out all your pillars and you lay out like your high level framework and you, you know, your unique branded methodology and all those, those things, that’s what you’re really introducing them to in day two is what it sounds like. And then tactically, this was important. I was digging, you know, to make sure I got crystal clear on this, at the end of day two is where you make the offer, right?
RV (09:52):
So that’s where you make the offer and you let people sort of hear it and you invite them to join. And and so you think of day two as making the offer. And then day three is basically like closed cart. And so then on day three, they come back. Day three is all about just getting people that are there to make a decision to do something differently in their life, to future cast or to vision what it’s gonna feel like when they do reach the goals that they have and reminding people it’s not too late to join. And then there, it, it sounds like there’s a second offer on day three in the morning, which is the heart you know, the heart pitch and the heart close in the morning. And then I, I thought it was really great where Barry was talking about you need to have celebration.
RV (10:42):
And you know, there, there were a couple, couple key things here. One was having that lunchtime celebration for all, all new members or all people who were joining, whatever the program is that they get to come. And so, you know, like she said, no one wants to miss the start of a program. And so people wanna sign up cuz they want to get to get that invitation that’s really compelling and powerful and, and, and productive. Like pragmatic could go while you’re all here, let’s get everyone together and like actually start the program and, and, and get people going. Really, really smart and simple. And then the other thing that I really loved was where she was saying you know, have breakout rooms in your virtual meeting for sales to take place, right? And I think she said, you know, something like with Tony, they’ve got, you know, dozens of salespeople just standing by running breakout rooms. And so when people have questions, they’re just going, oh, hey, you come over, you know, come in here and talk with our salesperson. You don’t say salesperson, but like, come get your questions answered. That’s super productive. And you know, just really smart. And like, again,
RV (11:52):
She’s emulating what happens in a real life event, at a real life event. You know, you make an offer, people go to the back table to talk to someone to get information about it, and then they sign up. Well, in a virtual room, you got in a virtual event, you gotta create the same thing. So the way you do that is you leverage breakout rooms in Zoom and and if you don’t have a sales team, then you could use like a Coly link and, and let people schedule times with you, you know, that evening or, you know, sometime very, or or in near and in and around the event so that you can close people and, and sign ’em up while they’re excited. And that just, gosh, I mean, that makes so much sense to me. So simple. And, and like she said, the best part about it is the, the, you don’t have to do like a big hard sales pitch.
RV (12:35):
The the format of the event sells itself because people are with you long enough to trust you. You know, if they’re gonna stay that long, like if they don’t, they’re gonna bail, right? So they’re, they’re, they’re gonna stay there. They, they’re long enough to trust you, to feel part of the community and meet people and to really have a true immersive experience, a chance to experience what it feels like to be one of your customers. And you know, I look at Tony Robbins and go, oh, like all of Tony’s events are three and four days and all of these other events I’ve been to where they make high ticket offer, they’re all like three and four days. I mean funnel Hacking Live is that way. And I mean all of Tony’s events, relationship mastery and, you know or Business Mastery and then I think, yeah, date With Destiny and all these, they’re, they’re multi-day events.
RV (13:22):
And you go, yeah, because after someone’s had that experience, they’re like really bought in. And I just love it. So you kind of let the, the format of the event just do its thing, make it, give you lots of time for q and a and, and exercises and dialogue and, you know, networking and meeting. That’s really, really cool. I really love it. And so the third, my third big takeaway there is just the numbers of how this works. And we have another client that’s doing this right now who, who is generating several hundred thousands of dollars, like a few hundred thousand dollars from each one of these events. And they’ll get like a few hundred people there, maybe 300 to 500 people will show up. And so they’re, they’re selling the tickets for a low ticket price, like 97 or, or 1 97.
RV (14:07):
And historically our events at Brand Builders group are $3,000 each. Cuz they’re, I mean, our events are legit. I mean, they are, they’re like more powerful than a college course, but not everyone has that kind of money. And so, you know, I’m going, golly, if we lowered the price on one of these, just a, just a first one where people got a chance to sample it, I wonder if we can move some of those. I bet we could, I bet we could move a ton of ’em. So you, you go, you have a 97 to 1 97, and again, here’s what’s really cool about is, is it’s a virtual event. So you’re not paying for venue rental and for AV and for food and beverage and printing workbooks and like name tags and like having your staff there and coffee and like parking and all the, the massive number of expenses that add up for a, for an in-person event.
RV (14:56):
So you go, I can charge a lower price and I can impact more people. Like, that’s the best part of this is like money aside, just going, man, I can impact more people, impact people all over the globe by doing a virtual event. And, and that’s why you’re doing this, right? I mean, that’s why you’re a mission driven messenger. You’re going, I I want to help people. So, you know, the price is obviously a barrier to the, to the number of people you get to help. And so lowering that price is, is, you know, an interesting idea because you, you can actually do it and you at least break even maybe for your time or you know, the cost of a small team to help you put on the event, et cetera. But anyways, you, you charge, you know, somewhere between 97 to $197 it sounds like.
RV (15:40):
And you know, she said, did you hear this? She said, we’re making offers that go up to $500,000. So at the end of three days, they’re making offers at some of these events that are as much as a half a million dollars for a customer. So that’s pretty crazy just to wrap your mind around. But a $5,000 offer, you know, 3000, 5,000, $10,000, like this is happening regularly. And I think that’s really interesting. So now one thing she did say is numbers wise that in an in-person event, a solid average is like closing 20% of the room, which to me is high. That feels higher than what, what is normal, but let’s say it’s 20%. And then she said in a virtual event, it’s more like 10 to 15%. So it’s slightly lower in my mind. I’m going, okay, call that, you know, 10 to 15% in a live event and five to 10% in a virtual, but the difference is it’s five to 10%.
RV (16:41):
So it’s a lower percentage, but it’s a smaller percentage of a much bigger number because there’s a whole bunch more people there because the ticket price is lower and it’s a virtual event, so you don’t have all the cost of the venue and all that stuff. So it changes the dynamics of this completely, which is really amazing. And, and she said, you know, imagine if you’re just getting started and you, you know, you get 50 people to show up to this thing and you get five people to buy a $5,000 offer, it’s 25 grand. Like for me, when I was first starting, like that was a been big time money, right? Like that’s, yeah, $25,000 is good money. Like for anybody, like, unless you’re Elon Musk, most of us aren’t stepping over $25,000 bills
RV (17:25):
I mean, this was just fascinating, like having her spell out the whole model and go behind the scenes, really, really interesting. And, and it also was powerful that she’s going, it’s not the technology, she sells the technology to help you do it, but she’s just using Zoom, so her technology layers on top of Zoom to make it a little more like customizable and, and gamified and all that stuff. But she’s saying, you know, you can do this, this with Zoom. It’s, it’s not, the technology’s not the magic. The format is the magic. And I can see that, and I, I I love that. So, and again, you know, at the end of the day, the big idea here is you’re impacting lives. That’s it. You’re changing lives. You’re going go in virtual events, give us the opportunity to impact lives at scale. Everything virtually gives us the opportunity, the blessing, the privilege to impact lives at scale.
RV (18:21):
And we can afford to charge lower prices for these in-person events or excuse me, for the virtual events because it doesn’t cost the, the same and you can get people to, to, to show up and and then you can sell more people if it’s a feeder event. Now she’s saying for your real events charge the same price as you normally would because it’s the same amount of time. And the, the value, the content is the same whether it’s in person or not. But for these, for these entry level events to like fill your programs and try to try to use a three day event to fill the program, I’m, I’m excited about it and I’m on board. If nothing else, it’s an experiment. I think we’re gonna have to try just to see if we can reach more people, reach you.
RV (19:04):
Some of you probably are listening are not yet customers of ours and you’ve never had a chance to experience like the Brand Builders group experience. So I don’t know, maybe we’ll have Barry Baumgartner to thank thank for that. So anyways, figure out ways to impact lives. Can you do it virtually? Reach more people, be able to make the money you need, but by charging a lot you know, more people, a lower dollar amount. That’s inspiring to me. You’re inspiring to me. Helping you get your message out to more people is inspiring to me. So I hope you’ll keep coming back, share this episode with somebody that you think will enjoy it. Tell ’em about the influential personal brand podcast or at least go rate us on iTunes, leave a review, and we’re so grateful to have you. Hopefully you’re following me on Instagram, come over and say hi or on LinkedIn. And that’s it for this time. We’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand podcast.
Ep 354: Running Profitable Virtual Events with Bari Baumgardner
RV (00:02):
Well, if you are a mission driven messenger, that’s probably why you’re listening to the show. And if that is you, you had your life interrupted in a big way by covid, as did everyone. But specifically those of us that are speakers, coaches, authors, experts, personal brands of events and speaking at events and hosting events has been a really big part of is what we do. And when Covid hit, the whole world of events changed. And one of the companies that was quick to jump to the front of the line in terms of their thought leadership, the event production going virtual is an event called, or is a, is a company called Sage Event Management. And you’re about to meet Bari Baumgartner, she’s the founder of the company, she’s the chief strategist. She runs it with her husband Blue, who handles some more of the technology and sort of creative sides.
RV (00:56):
But when I tell you that these two and their company went to the forefront of the industry, it happened virtually overnight. Part of it was Tony Robbins was one of their, their big clients where they helped to put on this massive live virtual event he has has unleashed the power within U P W and they’re the team that helped Tony take that event Virtual which has become a smashing success. It’s affected thousands and thousands of people. They’ve also worked with Dean Graziosi, Jeff Walker Jamie Kern Lima, another good friend of ours, Eric Wary, Pete Vargas. Amy Porterfield, another brand builders group client of ours. So they’ve worked with a lot of our friends, a lot of our clients they have a really key technology piece that a lot of people are using, but it’s more of just understanding the strategy of how to produce high dollar offer virtual events and how to use virtual events to to grow your platform and your business. So anyways, Barry is here with me in person. Barry, I’m so glad to meet you. Thanks for making time for us.
BB (02:01):
Absolutely Rory, thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
RV (02:04):
So what exactly do you do? Okay, so I kind of give that like a background, but like tell us, how would you de describe what you, what you guys do at Sage?
BB (02:15):
Yeah, thank you for asking. I think what’s really interesting about what we do that’s different from a lot of event production companies out there as we lead with strategy first. So our company Sage actually stands for strategic advice for growing events. And from our very first day opening our doors, gosh it’s hard to believe it was 18 years ago out of a guest bedroom in my house, I opened Sage Event Management. And the concept was what’s the strategy behind the event? And you know, I think it’s interesting an event world, so much of it is checklisting, right? Like you have to checklist a little bit to get it done. Yeah. And I often think, and I don’t mean any disrespect to event planners who do it this way, but a lot of times it’s almost like a glorified waitress, a glorified order taker. It’s like, yes ma’am, yes sir, let’s make it happen.
BB (03:00):
You know, it’s an expectations plus kind of industry. But so often I find that people don’t ask why are we doing it? So, you know, if you come to Sage, the first question we’re gonna ask you is, what’s your big why? Like, what are you out there to do to change the world? What does it mean to you personally to do it? Who are you meant to serve? What are your non-negotiables and how do you make that right? Fit client rave, renew and recruit. It’s at the heart of everything we do. And then we design your live event and then we design the logistics to support the live event. So that strategy first approach, I think is what differentiated us from the beginning and led to us working with some of the biggest names in the personal development and business development space. Mm-Hmm.
RV (03:38):
BB (04:40):
Yeah, absolutely. Well first of all, I think that Covid did for the events industry, what nine 11 did to the travel industry, it changed it forever. You know, after nine 11 travel never looked the same. And after Covid, I think events are never gonna look the same. It ushered in a whole new way of communicating with our audiences. And what was interesting, listen, for 15 years we’ve done in-person events and I think of them specifically as enrollment events. Our events always have a high ticket offer. So speakers, authors, coaches who are selling a one to many group coaching program or mastermind. That’s what I think of as a high ticket offer. And so we’re reverse engineering the event around that high ticket offer.
RV (05:16):
Say that again. What did just go, sorry, but rewind there quick. You said it’s a mastermind or a a one to one or a group coaching program? Yeah,
BB (05:24):
It could be one to one like, you know, VIP days or a done for you service. It could be a one to many like a group coaching program or a mastermind. Any of those things could be part of what you’re doing. But when I think of a high ticket offer, I’m generally thinking of an offer that’s 5,000 and above one that would take an audience more than a minute to think about more than, you know, something you might sell on a webinar or a challenge or a launch. You know those well for some audiences I think it’s still a big investment. When you start thinking of a high ticket offer, it’s one that might give you pause. Like that’s a big investment, how am I gonna pay for that? And the, the three day model, the three day event model calibrated properly, this is the framework we’re talking about actually will lead your audience to say this is amazing, I want more.
BB (06:06):
And you’re like, I thought you would, I have something for you. And that’s your high ticket offer. So when you get to that 80% role you were talking about what’s awesome about what we learned from Covid and doing virtual events is that in-person events and virtual events are 80% the same. The framework that we’ve always taught that we use for the biggest names in the business and for people you’ve never heard of is 80% the same, the 20% that’s different between in-person and virtual is what we call tech and touch. The technology is different and the touch points are different, but the good news is the framework for making a high ticket offer is the same. And why that’s good for you is if you wanna do in person or you wanna do virtual, you wanna do both. You’re not sure. It doesn’t matter if you learn the framework, you can easily pivot between the two.
RV (06:51):
Okay. So, so talk to me about the three day event strategy. Cause I know this is like big part of what you guys do and then sort of like, like you’re saying, it’s, it sounds like you were doing this long before, you’ve been doing this for years and years Covid happened, you were one of the first ones to go virtual. You guys did it with Tony, it was the smashing success. And then like all of a sudden you guys blew up and now you’re like everywhere you broke through the wall, as we say it’s like you broke through the wall. But it’s, if, if I, from what I gather sort of your bread and butter is like if you’re gonna make a high ticket offer, you do that over a three day event. So can you just like walk us through what happens over these three days? How long is it, where is it? Like all all that? I mean clearly you’re talking about that we could actually do this virtually.
BB (07:35):
Yes. Yeah. And I really do think that COVID ushered in this virtual opportunity. I think of it as the democratization of live events. Meaning that you don’t have to have a big list, you don’t have to have a big studio, you don’t have to big budget, you don’t have to have a big production. You can do this with a computer, a TV, and a Zoom account. We’ll come back to that in just a minute. Okay. So it’s that simple. So this is what’s really amazing about virtual, but the three day framework that we’ve become known for is based on the fact that there are two types of buyers for high ticket offer. A logical buyer and an emotional buyer. An emotional buyer when they hear an offer is like, sounds great. I meant where do I sign up? That’s my husband blue. Like he’s never met an offer he doesn’t like. Like if you’re that kinda buyer, then you’re an emotional buyer.
RV (08:20):
What’s driving down the street? Saw banners had had free hot dogs, walked home with a brand new Lexus, like for
BB (08:25):
Sure, for sure. Or we have like the toothpaste subscription, the sock subscription, the underwear,
BB (09:09):
Meaning that it’s harder to write a short letter than a long letter. Is it harder to give a TED talk or a workshop? Yep. A TED talk, right? Every word has to be perfect. So why I love a three day event, especially for people who are up and coming and wanna make a high ticket offer, is that it, it’s really flexible and it’s very forgiving. Meaning that if you don’t get your offer perfect in a three day, you have a lot of time for recovery and repositioning, which is especially important for those logical buyers. When you do a one day everything better, be perfect for that high ticket offer or you’re not gonna get the sales you want. So I’ve devoted our business and my life to teaching people this three day model and this framework that actually takes the, the buyer, the potential buyer through a process of, I think of this as buyer’s psychology, what you can do that, oh wait a minute, I could do that.
BB (09:58):
Oh wait, now that I hear how you do this, I will do that. And then when you make your offer, you’re like, oh, I must do that. And when you hear the repitch on the last day, you’re like, I am crazy not to do that. So I think our journey as a host, as an event host who’s making a high ticket offer is to take them from you can do that. To wait, I could do that to, I will do that, I must do that. I’m crazy not to do that. And a logical buyer needs that time. An emotional buyer is like, what you can do that I could do that I’m in, where do I sign up? But the logical buyer needs time to actually process it and think through it. And the three day model gives you the opportunity to do that, whether you’re doing it in person or virtually doesn’t matter.
RV (10:34):
Yeah. And one of the things that you said we were chatting a little bit before is that you know, we were talking about like some of the events like Ed, for Ed Millet’s book launch. Many listeners are familiar. We did a whole bunch of stuff with Ed’s launch. One of the things was a live event. We were using your technology to run the Zoom rooms. So we host Yeah, it was awesome. I mean like, like it was, it was great. We, we, we hosted the event at Steven Scoggins place. He’s a client of ours, he’s one of our strategists. We love the guy. He’s the one who was like, you know, that was one of the first times I heard Barry and Blue Barry and Blue Barry and Blue
BB (11:46):
It is. And here’s what’s amazing about this. So when, when Covid first hit, this was like March 15th, 2020 and Trump was forced to shut the country down and we were actually at an event in Miami and just a quick, quick story. We were flying in from a strategy day in Puerto Rico with Stu McLaren actually to a, to this event in Miami. And you know, we’re a million miles. I mean it’s a dubious honor. You fly a lot, you get upgraded a lot cuz you’re flying all the time. And we almost always get upgraded to first class and we’re flying into Miami and we didn’t get upgraded And I’m like, you know, I turn to my husband blue, I’m like, this is not really a thing. This whole covid thing is so hyped up when the airport’s this busy, the flights are this busy. Like it’s just, I think it’s just a bunch of media hype while we’re at this event in Miami, the country shuts down and literally as we’re flying home on an empty flight, we were in first class on this, we’re the only people in first class.
BB (12:37):
It was like a zombie airport, you know, we’re flying home. I’m like, okay, now it’s a thing. Now we have a problem. And literally we went from, well we were, I remember being in Puerto Rico and having clients call going, should we be worried about our event? I’m like, no it’s fine. It’s not a thing to literally that week people calling and like postpone, cancel, postpone, cancel, postpone, cancel. And if you’re the kind of business we are, we have a lot of repeat business. Somebody postponing to the next year or saying, I’m gonna cancel this year and we’ll revisit this when this thing blows over is lost money. Like you’re not, we were expecting you to do this again next year. Right? So the fact that you’re postponing, you know, where where are we replacing the money from this year? And we had this choice of either going down to being a consultancy and letting our team go, which I really did not wanna do cuz we have an amazing team or rethinking it.
BB (13:23):
And this is like the quick pivot. Within two weeks we went from to our first client, which actually was not Tony, it was a guy named Dylan Frost. I’ll forever be grateful to Dylan Frost of Amazon Wholesale Formula. We went to him and said, Hey, your event was supposed to be the first week of April in person. We’ve tried live streams and broadcasts and some will cast before they’ve never worked not with high ticket offers. There’s never a good conversion on them cuz they’re very passive. I want you to think about this with me as we’re thinking about what’s different and in person and virtual, they’re very passive ex viewing experiences. We’re broadcasting at you, we’re not talking with you. Sure. And we said, but we have an idea for this event being interactive and being virtual and it may be a total disaster. And to give credit where credits due, my husband Blue came up with this idea.
BB (14:06):
He literally said, what if we were to put a bunch of TVs together and link them all together in a way that we could see all these different Zoom galleries, have people come to different rooms so that we can see all of their faces and we can chat with all of them so that it’s an interactive experience. It’s not just that we’re broadcasting at them, we’re actually able to spotlight them and take q and a and interact with them and see their chats. And so again, when you ask what makes us different, I think because of the kind of company we are, immediately what we did different from any other tech platform was rather than focus on the audience experience, we focused on the host experience. What we know to be true is if the host isn’t getting that real time interaction, if they’re not feeling it, the event’s gonna be a flop.
BB (14:49):
So when we went to Dylan, we said we have an idea, let’s partner on this. We’ve got two weeks to put it together. Let’s just float it out there and see what happens. Now this event in person for three years had been about 300 people domestic US. And when we launched the idea of an international, like anybody come one come all you can sign up for this virtual event. It’s gonna be interactive and experiential. We went from a solid 300 over the last three years to 1200 and less than a week. And for the first, and it was free. Was it free? It was paid. It was paid. No, that was one of our rules paid like a webinar is free, a challenge is free, an event’s not free. And this goes back to tech and touch. So thank you for asking me that. Immediately what we did were four non-negotiables that we’ve stuck with since because they’ve worked so well.
BB (15:35):
If you’re going and this is where tech and touch the 20%, that’s different. Think about an amazing in-person experience that you’ve had at an event. You never start an event without registration, right? You have to get credentialed, you have to go to registration and pick up your badge. So one of the first things we did with virtual is say you have to go to registration and pick up your credentials. So we did a virtual check-in experience and that made sure that they would show up the morning of day one knowing what to do. Like you don’t wanna start an in person or a virtual experience. People going, where do I go and where do I click and how does this work again? So by having a check-in experience, just like you would from person just virtualized we did it by Zoom. We literally had live people on Zoom checking people in making sure they knew how to use our tech platform, Avio, which we created virtually overnight.
BB (16:24):
And making sure that they were set up for success so that we started on time on day one with no tech fails. That was point number one of the 20%. That’s different. The other thing that we did is we sent swag, physical swag to every single person who registered even if it had to be overnighted. And the reason for that is we wanted to differentiate ourselves from a webinar. You know, how many webinars do you like? I’m gonna sign up for this, it’s free. I might go, I’ll catch the replay. You’re not really super serious about it. Which is why they generally have a 30% show up rate. But if an event had a 30% show up rate, that’s a disaster. So we made a, we had this idea, what if you got physical swag, someone knocks on the door and literally hands you a box or an envelope with swag in it.
BB (17:08):
You’re like wow, well this is a different kind of event. This is definitely not a three day zoom meeting. This is definitely not a webinar. What, what’s in here? Oh my gosh. Like a journal and a workbook and some stickers and some emoji paddles so that I can you know, interact with you from afar and you can see my interaction and my emotion from afar when you’re on stage. Not only did they get more excited about the event, there was some recipro of frost in that. So they did better at showing up for the event and they were more likely to remember that it was different than a zoom. You know, when you said how long could the meeting be? We were toying around with that on the first one. Like will they stay with us for eight full hours? Right? And what we found was the third point that’s critical on the difference in tech and touch, which is some form of gamification.
BB (17:51):
There has to be some form of interaction with them in the form of breakouts, giving them points for showing up points for taking action. And that’s where Avio comes in. The dashboard that we created allowed them to have a wrapper on Zoom. So they’re all using Zoom technology. There’s 350 million people on Zoom at any one moment in time. Like that’s not user accounts, it’s 350 million people using Zoom at this moment in time. Wow. So people know Zoom and I think that was something else people were getting wrong in the conversion to virtual. There were all these fancy solutions, but it was like make a fake avatar and knock on a fake door, go into it, it was a little too techy and people would be turned off by what do I have to learn in order to attend this event? Right? Everybody knows Zoom. I mean grandparents know it, kids know it, everybody in between.
BB (18:35):
So it was an easy solution but we had to put a rapper on it that allowed people to have interaction, to be able to download resources, to be able to take action and for us to reward that action through leaderboard and gifts and all kinds of interactions so that they would stay with us for three full days. And what we found was 90% showed up consistently event over event. And of that 90% they would stay with us for three full days. And here’s what I really love about virtual. Stay with us for three full days. You remember in person events where at the end of the, I
RV (19:08):
Gotta go early to go to catch a flight. Yep. To get home in time for dinner.
BB (19:11):
You got it. They don’t have to the virtual.
RV (19:14):
So what was the fourth
BB (19:15):
One? Yeah, the fourth one is that there has to be I think some form of interactivity, like that breakout piece that I mentioned is really critical. Like I really think they need interactivity where they’re being do you know in in-person events where it’s like turn to the person next to you or you’re meeting in the coffee shop or maybe you’re chatting in the ballroom waiting for the doors to open. There has to be this component that allows them to interact with the host and with each other. Chat is brilliant for that, but so is sending them into breakouts where they’re literally talking with each other because part of the three day framework that works for a high ticket offer is building a like-minded community. You need to experience virtually that wow, you’re from Brazil, you’re from Russia, you’re from wherever. And yet we’re also alike.
BB (20:00):
I think the thing that people were most craving in Covid, but really has always been true of live events is to be surrounded by a group of like-minded people. Like that’s really critical. And so if, if again with livestream what never worked is we’re broadcasting at you versus having an interactive experience where we’re reading your chat. I mean, what I love most now is standing on stage and getting real time feedback on whether you’re with me or not with me. Whether you get the content or you don’t, whether you love what I’m saying or you don’t, whether you have a question, I can pluck that question out and answer it in the moment. It actually starts to be one of those things and you go back to in person, it feels a little flat cuz the most reaction you could get would be a clap, a laugh, or a, you know, callback, right? Like, you know, who’s with me? You know, that kind of thing. So
RV (20:42):
You’re not reading, reading comments. Exactly. Some people put their life story right there in the chat. So yes. But, and, and I agree with this, it’s like most of it previously was there’s a live event happening and the live stream is, we’re letting people watch that, which is, this is, it’s virtual first. We’re talking to them, we’re engaging them. So I’m still like curious about the three, this three day agenda. Like how much of it are you on stage? Are you bringing in guest speakers? How much time are they in breakouts? Like when do you make the offer like that kind of a thing?
BB (21:16):
Yeah, it’s a great question. I mean I think from a high level like macro view, what I really think works in a three day event is what I call the three by three p g. Meaning that you’re doing three things over three days. So each day, three things. The first day our sole focus is content connection, community. I wanna give you amazing content, especially important virtual so that they come back, right? Like for day two and day three, this is not a bait and switch where you have light superficial content. Like give them just enough to be dangerous and then they have to buy the thing to get the real stuff. Your goal is to really give them amazing content that has them having aha after aha after aha. We often call this accumulation effect where every session builds on the one before it. So by the end of the day you have a real idea of a framework.
BB (22:00):
And again, you’re starting to think, I can do that, I will do that. Like this is possible. I will do that. The next piece is connection. Connection to the host, connection to the community. But most importantly, and this is true for in person and virtual events, most importantly a connection to themselves. Like why we come to events is for a sense of what’s possible for us. And I think what people miss a lot on an high ticket offer is, if I don’t believe it’s possible, I’m not gonna pay you to help me make it possible. I have to believe there’s a future in this that I can do this in order for me to want to pay you to help me do it. So that sense of the future self versus the current self is how we start to establish the gap. The gap from where I want to be versus where I am.
BB (22:42):
The minute I see a gap, what do I wanna do? Close the gap, right? And now that I see it, I wanna close it, which gets me to day two. So day one, content connection community day two is about closing that gap. It’s about pain. The exposure of that gap is, I’m in pain now because I can see where I wanna be. I can see where I’m stuck, I really wanna close that gap. I need a solution that’s the s the solution. And then that’s gonna come in the form of an invitation. So it looks like this, wow, I feel like you’re really in pain around the gap in your life or in your business. But here’s the thing I have a solution for that I’d like to invite you to join me to continue the journey for the next six months or for the next year or whatever it might be.
BB (23:24):
So that second day is pain solution invitation. Literally leading people to want your high ticket offer before you’ve even made it so that when they hear it, they’re like, that’s exactly what I was looking for. Like I thought you would, you know why you’re my right fit client, I know you. Which goes back to what you teach R right? It’s like if they’re clear on their big why and their purpose and who they’re meant to serve, you’re designing an offer that they’re gonna love. And then day three is for your logical buyers. And the three things that happen on day three are decide, commit, celebrate. We want you to make a decision to do something differently. You must commit to something different. Don’t let this be three days wasted. Commit to a timeline. When you gonna start, we have a saying, if you don’t have a plan for Monday, you don’t have a plan, like commit to a date to start and then celebrate.
BB (24:10):
What is it gonna look like when you reach that goal? What’s the celebration you’re gonna have when you reach that goal so that they can again, future cast where they’re going to be. Now if in deciding, committing and celebrating you realize that you could use accountability and community and enhanced opportunity that I wanna remind you this offer is still available to you. It’s not too late for you to join us in this program. It allows time for that logical buyer to be like, you know, I really do need to be here. This is what I’m missing. So three days allows for that. So three by three p, g, content, connection, community pain solution, invitation, decision, commitment, celebration. We weave that into every three day. And I say that when you do that, the structure does the selling for you. You don’t have to be icky or salesy or sleazy. If you give generously and follow that model, your right fit clients can be coming to you on day two and saying, I want more, where do I find that? And you’re be like, I thought you would let me invite you to join us
RV (25:04):
So you’re not, I love this. So you’re not, you’re not actually making the offer. So that, so to speak from stage, here’s what it is here, how much it cost until day three. But you’re kind of seeing
BB (25:14):
That day two, actually we make the offer on day two and we reiterate the offer on day three. Yeah. And I really think of it, if you’re familiar with Launch World, for any of you listening, you know, in a launch there’s a cart close, I think of day three is cart close, but also a little bit more heart close. Meaning that what I’m trying to get them to do on day three is get outta their head and into their heart. We make better decisions with their heart than our head. And a three day event allows me to get the offer on the table. On day two, my emotional buyers be like, great, this is what I’m looking for. I’m all in logical. Buyers are gonna say, I have some questions and we’re gonna say, I thought you would, let’s take some time to answer them.
BB (25:50):
And then on day three we get to say, listen, time to decide, time to commit. And if you are gonna do that, here’s a key piece. The celebration for buyers is that day. So you know, I said it was decide, commit, celebrate. If they do join you, you’re gonna reward them for joining you with a welcome celebration. We’re there together with like-minded people, other people who bought into the program and you can really celebrate that. They made such a great decision, not by deciding to invest in you, by deciding to invest in themselves. Like that’s really the key is like, you’re so smart for investing in you. Mm-Hmm.
RV (26:22):
BB (27:04):
Last Yeah, we like to do it at lunch. And I have to tell you, this is what’s interesting for both in person and virtual. The best call to action I’ve ever tested over 17 years of doing this is a welcome celebration. So if you’re in person, you’ve got the cost of lunch. But think about it, if you’re making a high ticket offer 5,000, 10,000, 15,000. And listen, with Russell, we just did an offer that was 150 with Garrett White. We just did an offer that was 500,000. By the way, the economy does not kill a high ticket offer. It just reinforces one. So these big offers are being made right now and selling quite well. But what’s really interesting is still what outperforms anything is that simple. The program starts at this event. The program starts at the welcome celebration. People don’t like to miss the start of something.
BB (27:47):
And it’s something else to keep in mind is you can’t keep people in buying tension for too long. So by making that offer just before dinner on day two, having that dinner break to answer questions and close people having that repitch the next morning, that heart close, and then having that welcome celebration soon after, we’re able to really tighten that moment, which is I know the offer, I have questions about the offer, I have answers to the offer I’m all in. Think about, I must do this, I’m crazy not to do this. And then the reward for doing that. Yeah.
RV (28:17):
Mm-Hmm.
BB (28:53):
Yeah. And this is where Avio comes in again, you know, we need it a way to easily get people to be able to click on a button saying, I’m ready to buy, and to click on a button to say, I need to talk to someone with questions. If you think of in person back of room is where you would go when you hear an offer from the stage. If you have questions, you go to the back of the room. If you wanna buy, you go to the back of the room. We needed a way to virtualize the back of the room. So Avio, think back to what I said, you needed gamification and a way for them to get used to using the dashboard. If they’re clicking around and they’re constantly getting points and rewards for clicking around over two full days, when it comes time to actually click, I’m all in.
BB (29:30):
They’re like, sounds good. They’re used to being on the dashboard, they click the button, they put in their deposit and they’re in. And the ones who are like, but wait, I have questions. You’re like, no problem. Click the button that says talk to a program expert. When you click on it, it’s gonna take you into a room just like the one we’re on right now where you can be led through a q and a session. So it works like a virtual back of room. Yeah. We do the same thing with welcome celebration. You click a button on your dashboard and it lets you into the welcome celebration, which is a private room only for buyers where we can celebrate the decision that you made and give you the next steps. Just like we would at a welcome celebration in person.
RV (30:07):
Mm-Hmm.
BB (30:25):
Deal all over the map. I mean all over the, we have some hosts Yeah, that, I mean we have some events where, you know, I think of like an event with Dean and Tony. We have quite a few guest speakers. And then there are other events where there’s a primary speaker, the host, especially if you’re an up and comer, like one thing I’d love for you to know is you might be modeling people that you love in this space and seeing a lot of guest speakers, but you don’t have a budget for that. It’s so not necessary. Like you don’t have to have an outside speaker to have a really amazing three day event.
RV (30:50):
Uhhuh
BB (31:28):
Yeah, well I think that’s a great question. First of all, remember I said democratization of live events and I’d circle back around to all you really need is a tv, a computer, and a Zoom account. Now Avio is an amazing luxury. It does make things so much easier, but it’s not something you have to have. Like if you’re just getting started, I would have my computer, my Zoom account. You might wonder why a tv, I think it’s critical to have a TV because remember I said it’s about the host experience. If I can see my audience in gallery view much bigger, I’m gonna be able to read your name, I’m gonna be able to see your face, I’m gonna be able to interact with you. I can have that chat. Scroll down the side so I can see what you’re saying back to me. So I’m a big fan of not doing this on your computer.
BB (32:10):
It’s run from your computer, but you’re actually seeing everyone from a TV. And listen, everybody these days has a TV in their home. So this is super easy to do. And if you really wanna get fancy, then here’s an Uplevel move. Take two lights in your house, take the lampshade off and put them right here in front of you so that you’ve got light on your face.
RV (32:38):
That.
BB (32:39):
This is airing, but
RV (32:41):
Quiet tv.
BB (32:42):
Yeah, I mean, but seriously TVs today, a really good TV is $200. So, but
RV (32:46):
You’re saying, but when you say tv, you’re basically just saying a large extended desktop for your computer so that you can see a bunch of people and feel like you’re not alone in your basement, but that you’re actually presenting to a room full of people.
BB (33:00):
Yes. And Avio makes it easy to interact, but you could give a link to your offer. You don’t have to have Avio and you know, we like to give prizes away via leaderboard and activity. But think about this. If you’re having an intimate event, you could take every registrant, put their name on a sheet of paper, put it in a bowl, and at the start of each session, draw a name. Like you could be old school with this, the same things that we did in person to reward people for coming back on time. We can do virtually to reward them for coming back on time. And we wanna do that, we wanna reward them for staying engaged.
RV (33:31):
So, but like if you’re a, I mean, can anyone use abio? Is this like, can we just go log in and buy the thing and use it for our event?
BB (33:38):
You can and it’s, you know, it’s really affordable. I mean, it’s under a thousand dollars for a year. So super easy to use. And I think we’re in like AVIO 5.0 at this point. We have seven full-time developers whose only job is to work on Avio. But it is, I mean interestingly it’s what we use to run an event for GoPro where we have 40,000 people. It’s what we use to run U P W where we have 25,000 people. And here’s something else that’s really interesting. When you think of, how
RV (34:05):
Many, did you say 20,000? 20,000?
BB (34:08):
Yeah, we, we generally do about 25,000 at U P W virtual U P W. And what I think is really interesting about that, I remember the very first virtual U P W and Tony and I were standing there and looking at the gallery view and we’ve got a lot of TVs, a lot of galleries to make that work. Some are in the cloud, some are in the studio, but we were counting, we’re looking in every, and we’re like, there are two people in that box, four people in that box, six people in that box, the classroom in that box, the 25,000 was the people who were registered and showed up. But I think we had probably closer to 75,000. When you look at the number of families or classrooms or friend groups that attended. And honestly I love that. Why would we not want that? You know, you want as many people as possible to be exposed to your message. Say here, sometimes you can’t control the ticketing, but I want you to think about this. How often in an in-person event does your buyer come to the event and they can’t afford to bring their family in and they’re having this incredible experience and they call home, they’re like, this is amazing. Let me try and explain it to you.
RV (35:08):
And I spend 5,000 bucks in like a 10, 2, 2 minute conversation. No, I don’t think so, sweetheart. Yeah.
BB (35:14):
Yes, exactly. They’re like, it sounds like a cult. That sounds expensive. No, come home as soon as possible. The dog just soap on the floor and the kids are cranky, you know, but with virtual you’re like, Hey, come over and check this out. And I can’t tell you how many people love seeing at U P W where you can tell the buyer, like let’s say I’m, I love Tony, I’m going to unleash the part with, and my spouse is like, nah, that’s not for me. And you’ll watch that spouse kind of walk back and forth behind and then finally the spouse is like, huh, interesting. And then they lean in. Yeah. And then they’ll life
BB (35:43):
Changing. Yeah. Before you know it, they’re sitting on the sofa, then they’re jumping up and down and then before you know it, the kids in the family are there. So what I most love about it, when you think about something like that brand, how often would a nine year old get exposed to personal development? Right? Well now that’s absolutely possible. So I just think the power of virtual isn’t just that you can do it from anywhere. Like literally a computer, a TV, and a Zoom account. You can do it from your home, do it from your basement, do it from your garage. Your attendees can do it from anywhere. So you could be a brand new speaker, author, or course creator and literally have a global audience. Even if your audience is 50 or five. I mean, if you’re like waiting to get started, why not do an event for five people? I mean, what better way to test
RV (36:26):
It out? Does it matter how much you charge on the front end?
BB (36:29):
I really believe in not less than $97 for a ticket.
RV (36:34):
Okay. But that, by the way, I think it’s the’s $7 for three days is like, that’s
BB (36:39):
Amazing.
RV (36:39):
Very, that’s nothing
BB (36:40):
Very affordable. But I think if you were to look at the blended average in our industry, the ticket price in person and virtually quite frankly is somewhere in the 97 to 1 97 range. And by the way, we don’t charge less for virtual. You shouldn’t either. I mean, it’s actually in some ways a better experience and think about it travels up 47% right now. Flights, hotel costs, you know, we’re in a recession inflation. So when your attendee has to buy a hotel, you know, buy a flight, get a hotel room, Uber, then pay for the food down in the lobby and the $7 coffee and whatever they’re feeling broke before they even walk into your room. And virtual, they’re literally just bargaining with their family to give them the time. Like that’s all it takes is honey, can I just have three quiet days to attend this event so that I can change our life or I can change my business. It’s a much easier barter to be able to say, I’ll still tuck the kids in at the end of the night and if you’re really quiet, I’ll make you dinner during my dinner break. I mean, you can do all of that now through the power of virtual
RV (37:36):
Mm-Hmm.
BB (37:53):
Or a $15,000 offer or a $50,000 offer. I mean, just to be clear, the offers that we’re making virtually go up to 500 k I mean successfully. So it’s no different from in person when it comes to the size offer that you can make.
RV (38:08):
What, what kind of conversions do you expect to see on this Barry? Like if you go, I mean let’s say you get, let’s say you get, you know, 200 people to show up for three days and then is that a very different conversion percentage wise if you get 2000 or 20,000? Or do the percentages kind of hold the same?
BB (38:30):
Yeah, it’s such a great question. I love this question cuz I think a lot of people get this wrong. First of all, I think that it, an intimate event converts better whether in person or virtual.
RV (38:41):
Interesting. So smaller is not bad.
BB (38:43):
No. Smaller is actually fantastic. And the bigger the event host, you’ll have them like kind of remember the days when we were smaller and how amazing that was. So, you know, everybody wants to be the big event host, but you know, really a smaller room convert, it’s more intimate. It does tend to convert better than a larger room, but a larger room has more volume. So it’s not like you don’t want a larger room as you grow, that volume works for you. So we might convert less at a 25,000 person event than we do at a 2000 person event, but we have more people. So we’re still making more money technically. Right? So, but I want you to think about the fact that in person a good solid blended average conversion is 20% and virtual it’s more 10 to 15. So it’s slightly below. But we tend to see virtual registrations outpace in person. So we tend to see if, you know, blended average year over year, we see more people register for virtual than in person. So the fact that our conversions are lower is outweighed by the fact that more people are there and they’re staying with us all day and they’re staying with us till the very end of the event.
RV (39:41):
Yeah, okay. But if you had 200 people buy a hundred dollars ticket, they stay there for three days, you, you would expect that maybe 20 to 30 of those people after three days would buy a, some a $5,000 offer maybe.
BB (40:00):
Yeah, I would have a stretch goal of 10, a minimum goal of 10% and a stretch goal of 20%. And for those of you that are more practiced in delivering your content, making offers, you can increase that conversion accordingly.
RV (40:12):
Yeah,
BB (40:13):
So you can do the math, like imagine if you’re just getting started and you went to have an event for 50 people and make a $5,000 offer. Let’s say that five people took you up on that and you made $25,000 from your basement at your first ever live event and launched your high ticket offer. Like that’s a pretty good, we call it a purpose driven payday. Like what I love to say about a live event is that it’s a purpose driven payday. You can have impact and income, purpose and payday. You don’t have to sacrifice one for the other. And there’s no better blaze to try this out than through a virtual event versus having to go get that hotel contract we were talking about where you have real liability. And if that worked, imagine f a quarter later, three months later you’re like, you know, that was so easy, I’m gonna do it again. And at another five people, oh wow, I got so much better. I actually converted 10, not five. And then the next one I didn’t have 50 people. Words started to get out how amazing I am. I had a hundred people. So it’s really easy to start scaling your high ticket offer and literally launch your mastermind, your group coaching business, your done four, you service your high ticket offer through the power of a virtual live event.
RV (41:14):
Mm-Hmm.
BB (41:30):
Not even, and even at our own studio, like we have a studio right now we have five cameras in our studio, but we do this for a living and we’re bringing in some of the biggest names in our space to work out of our studio. So of course we have multiple camera angles and we have a control room and we have an AVD crew. But you don’t need that to get started. You don’t need a big list, you don’t need a big studio, you don’t need a big production and you don’t need a big budget. Like that’s what’s amazing about this. You don’t need all these camera angles. This is about you being engaging. I would recommend standing. I do think it’s important to stand.
RV (42:02):
Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, just cuz you’re in presentation mode for two days. Yeah. so you guys, so that’s another thing that we can do. So, so basically people can engage you to buy avio if they want to do this. And then I guess avio must allow for you to pull in multiple camera angles. I guess there’s that a zoom, is that a Zoom
BB (42:23):
Feature That’s more of a Zoom thing and a switcher thing, like advance level move that would be having a switcher. So you can do that, but even that is super easy to do and some of our students who are just getting started out take that basic equipment and use that. Absolutely.
RV (42:37):
Okay. And then so, so, but then Avio allows you to do the event registration, the gamification, the leaderboards, you have your own little buttons there, click here to talk to somebody. Or if you’re a solopreneur or whatever, you just say, click here to schedule a call with me and you send them to Callen Lee or whatever. And and then so, or
BB (42:58):
You guys ideal, like if they have a question, they just click a button on Avio, it takes them into a Zoom room. And if you’re just getting started and you don’t have a sales team, then you would be the person in that room answering the questions. But if you do have a team member, a family member who can help you, they could be in that Zoom room helping to ask answer questions. A student, a volunteer. Well
RV (43:16):
I just mean if you’re running the event, how you, you can’t, you need somebody else to kind of be there, right. To
BB (43:21):
Do that. Well the minute you walk off stage, you go over to, you know, a computer that’s been Yep. And you just answer the questions. Absolutely. Yeah. Super easy to do. Yeah.
RV (43:29):
And then the other thing is, you guys have a studio where it’s like, okay, I don’t want to deal with the tech, can I just like, can I promote the event and then you guys deal with all this, that’s also something that you
BB (43:39):
Do. It is, yeah. We’re in the done for you business. Yeah. We coach people on how to do it, but we also do it for them. You can come to the studio and do that.
RV (43:47):
Yeah. And then are you, are you also in the I want to, I’m gonna have 5,000 people at my thing and I want you, you know, to come to Nashville and set it, set it all up and kind of like we run it from here and not your studio. Clearly that’s what you did with Tony. Yeah,
BB (44:05):
Yeah. We do that. Yeah. We help, we collaborate with other studios and we also we’ll do what we call a popup studio or even an in-person event, which kind of gets me too, the next question is, should you be doing a hybrid? Cause you’re like, well, if in person’s great and virtual’s great, shouldn’t you know peanut butter, chocolate, amazing. Let’s put ’em together. Yeah. But I really think if you’re an up and comer, you, it’s an and nutton or I don’t think you, I think you should like, these are my in person dates and these are my virtual dates. I don’t think you try and put them together. It is super complicated to run a hybrid event. You need a depth of budget team and resources. It’s much harder to do if you’re gonna do it well. Which is why I think you’re gonna see the biggest names in the business do it.
BB (44:46):
And everyone below that say it really doesn’t pay to do it. I love virtual, I love in person. Virtual doesn’t replace in person, it’s the new and not, or, and I think more and more you’re gonna see people are like, these are my in-person dates and these are my virtual dates versus these are my hybrid dates. And the simple reason for it is that you can’t help but pander to an in-person audience. Like it is the rare host that doesn’t focus on in person, which immediately takes that interactivity, that makes virtual work and reduces it back to that telecast that broadcast, that’s a super passive experience. So if you’re debating this, my recommendation would be if you’re just getting started out, start with a virtual event because it’s so much easier. The net is so much better. Grow into it. When you’re confident in the model, then you can put your money on the line with an in person event. Or if you’re more advanced, make it the, and you know, these are my dates from person, these are my dates for virtual.
RV (45:37):
How many, this is kind of like a last question, but the, what’s the maximum number of people you can have watching these? So that’s another reason to use Abio, right? Because on Zoom you can only have 500 or, I mean, it depends on your account.
BB (45:50):
That is the advantage. Like we’re working, we’re, we’re close friends with the folks at Obvi at zoom. So we work hand in hand with them. We have enterprise accounts which allow you to scale quickly and easily for any size event you’re having. It also adds a layer of security. You know how you can have like a little bit of Zoom bombing and you don’t want, you, you don’t mind if a spouse watches your event, but what you don’t want is somebody just giving the link out and have 50 of their friends log in without paying. Avio gives you a gateway to that so you can control who’s accessing the event.
RV (46:21):
Uhhuh.
BB (46:35):
Yeah, thank you for asking. I mean, the simple easy way is [email protected]. You would think that we would have a really swanky website, a place that I would drive you. But the truth is we’ve been running so hard since virtual hit. I’m embarrassed. Please don’t go to my website. Don’t even think about it. Just go to [email protected] and our team will
RV (46:54):
Go to, you’re saying email, you’re saying send an
BB (46:56):
Email to Yes. Go to event zip by sage.com. Yeah, we do run an event every year called the virtual Event on virtual events. We run it twice a year and we teach not only the model for how we do what we do but also how to design your high ticket offer, how to take it one to many, how to design your live event around it so that people are naturally saying, that was amazing. I want more. And how to use the technology, how to set up your own studio and how to use Avio so that you can make it all work seamlessly.
RV (47:23):
Yeah, well I think it’s great. It’s a great example. We teach, we tell our clients like, you don’t need fancy website. What you need to do do is deliver great value. Teach everything you know for free. People don’t pay for information, they pay for applications. So just go teach what, you know, give out an email address and let them just contact you and then you’ll go for there. So I’d love that.
BB (47:44):
And you know, probably if you’re really smart, hire Rory to make you look a lot
RV (47:48):
Better.
BB (48:13):
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Ep 353: How to Create an Environment You Thrive In | Lori Harder Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
Hey all, this is AJ Vaden and welcome to my recap episode of my conversation with my friend Laurie, harder. And y when I say go listen to this particular episode, I mean, go listen to this particular episode. It’s so, so good, so many nuggets. It’s so rich. We cover so many topics. It’s legit. I don’t care where you want your business, there is something in there for you. So without further ado, I’ll give you kind of like some of my key takeaways from this conversation, which quite honestly was just as impactful for me if it was, if it as it is going to be for any of you. It was so, so good. So here are a few things that I just pulled out that were phenomenally important to me that just hit me in a certain way, so hopefully they hit you the same way.
AJV (00:56):
So the first thing is we started the whole conversation of just remember that you have a choice. And I think that’s just a good reminder for anyone, no matter where you are in life, it’s, you have a choice of how you feel. You have a choice of your attitude. You have a choice of whether or not you’re happy today or you’re stressed today. And I’m not saying that we don’t have days where we’re stressed and overwhelmed. I have those days often, but those are also choices I make. And it’s, I think it, the difference is am I choosing to focus on the things that aren’t going well? Or am I choosing to focus on the things that are, and it’s not that you ignore the things that aren’t they need fixing, but it’s choosing to put your, your, your hope and your aspirations in the things that are working and not get bogged down by the things that aren’t.
AJV (01:44):
It’s, are you choosing little things that make you feel good versus choosing things that don’t make you feel good? I know for me it’s like, am I choosing to go on a walk or am I choosing a glass of wine? I need to choose a to go on a walk, right? And it’s like you have a choice. You have a choice about are you gonna be disciplined and do the things you know you’re supposed to do or are you not? Are you going to do it? Even if you think it doesn’t make a difference, even though it does or not. It’s like you have a choice and all the things, you have a choice. And I think that is just a good place, a good foundation to start for the rest of this conversation is we all have choices to make. How we spend our time, our attitudes, how we feel, how we treat people.
AJV (02:31):
Those are choices that we get to make. And we do have influence and control over those things so you have a choice. So that was the first thing I think that was really good. Second thing is similar to that is you have a choice in your environment. Now, sometimes we are temporarily stuck in an environment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t create counter environment. So maybe you are temporarily in a, a job per se that isn’t healthy for you and you can’t just up and leave. You have bills to pay, you have a family to take care of, you have responsibilities, but there can be other environments that you surround yourself with i e community outside of work that help counter negative environment. So your environment is a really important part of your ability to make progress. And I love what Laurie said, and I’m totally just stealing this right out of her mouth.
AJV (03:24):
Your environment has a mental, emotional and physical impact on you. And if you are not consciously making decisions, choices to improve your environment, then your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing will suffer. So let’s all just take a second, take a step back and go, what environments am I in that are healthy and good and, you know, moving me in the right direction? And what environments may I be in that are not those things, and how do I have more of the good and less of the not so good? Right? And I think, again, it’s like environments can be places. They can be groups of people, they can be communities, they can be all different sorts of things. But I know for me, and I love what she said when she talks about her childhood and an environment she was used to seeing versus a new environment when she went to go stay with a family a a set of friends.
AJV (04:23):
And she was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What is this? I, I didn’t even know this existed. If we don’t create new environments, then we convince ourselves that things are just the way that they are. We don’t even know things are possible cuz we’ve never seen them be possible for anyone in our environment. So it’s, I think it’s just so incredibly important to have different and varying environments so that you see new patterns and new habits and new ways of living or thinking or acting or doing that create new possibilities for you. I don’t remember who said this first, but it’s like, you know, it’s like you are who you hang out with. Well, I think that’s probably true for most of us. It’s like we are the, you know, culmination of where we spend our time, energy, thinking resources, right? That begins to create who we are.
AJV (05:12):
So what environments are you in and what environments do you need to be in? I love this quote. This is so good. And she said that your environments are often stronger than your willpower. So if you know that you have a temptation to do things that you don’t want to do, then remove yourself from those environments, right? If you’re trying to eat healthy, then do not put yourself environments where it’s, you know, chips and dips and nachos and hamburgers and hot dogs, right? Remove yourself from those environments. If you hang out with a group of people who aren’t healthy and you’re trying to be healthy, remove yourself from those sorts of temptations, not from the people, from the environments, right? See them on a hike, see them doing something else. But you’ve got to know that if you’ve got struggles in the willpower discipline arena, then you’ve got to change the environment.
AJV (06:09):
So, so good. Oh my gosh, this isn’t like brand new, but such a new fresh context of looking at this really does hit it in a different way. And just remembering, it’s like your environment is often stronger than your willpower. So good. Love this. Okay, moving right along here. This next one is like same kind of quote where I’m like, this should just be all over lord’s social media. I don’t know why this isn’t everywhere she goes, but there is always a gift in what you just did. And if you have ever said to yourself, I just wasted so much time, or I just wasted so much money, or what a bunch of waste of time, resources, emotions, I would just encourage you to rephrase that and go, you wasted nothing. You learned a ton, a ton about what you should do and what you shouldn’t do, what you want and what you don’t want.
AJV (07:10):
But there is a gift in what you just did. And a lot of times that gift comes in experience and it comes in knowledge and cl it comes in clarification. But there is an a, there is a gift in what you just did, whether it was a success or it was a temporary failure, whether it worked out or it didn’t. There was a gift in what you just did. You just have to make the choice to look for it. And that is so powerful because often we look at things that don’t work out as failures and we look at failures as a waste of time. And I’m currently reading a book right now called, called to Create by Jordan Rainer. And in this book he talks about something in Silicon Valley where they talk about the fail faster rule. And that’s just my my, my synopsis of what he is talking about.
AJV (08:04):
I don’t know if that’s really what he said in the book, but this is how I remember it anyways. But the fail, the fail faster role is like in Silicon Valley. It’s like if your startup fails fast, that means that you’re learning just as fast. So it’s like if you haven’t failed, then you haven’t tried hard enough, risked enough that there hasn’t been something that happened enough. And I think that’s both healthy and potentially not as long as we’re willing to express that. You know, failure does not, failures do not mean we are a failure. That means we did things that didn’t work. Welcome to life.
AJV (08:54):
Experience. And so creating different ways of looking at this of like what are the lessons learned? What are the gifts I received from what I just did? Because nothing was a waste of time. There was something that was received, there was something that was learned. There was something that came out of it that is going to make you a better person, but you gotta make the choice to find it. So just, I thought that was such a good reminder of everything that we do, whether it was a, an investment loss or it was a business loss, a relationship loss. Where is in the, what is the gift in what you just did? Also in, in the wins, right? There’s clearly gifts in the wins. I think it’s easier for us to find those, but it’s, it’s a mental, a discipline to find the gifts and the things that we don’t consider wins.
AJV (09:43):
But there is always a gift in what you just did, I just thought was so good. Now, tactically speaking there were a few other things that I wanna share that I thought were equally as powerful here. So with courses we talked about the concept of less is more. The whole idea of this, it’s like you want to save, like this is what we say at brand builders all the time, is you wanna save the best for first. Because if you give, if you serve up the best first, if you give your audience the best first they feel accomplished faster, they feel more empowered faster, they feel more educated, more knowledgeable they feel like they can do things right up front. And so you wanna give them as much as you can as early as you can because that shows a very quick return on their investment.
AJV (10:29):
They don’t need to spend six hours and 66 pages to feel like they got their money’s worth. You want them to feel like they got their money, their money’s worth in the first hour. So how can you do less is more and help them feel accomplished way up front. Love that. Second thing about courses is just don’t forget that fundamentals never get old. We think we have to create some new twists and make new shiny objects and, you know, talk about a brand new way of doing something. And sometimes people don’t need a brand new way of doing something. They just need to hear it in a new way. They need to hear the solid, basic fundamentals in a way that hits them, right? The whole concept of there’s always a gift in what you just did. You could say that a hundred different ways, but the way that Lori said that hit me, right?
AJV (11:17):
The fact that she said, you know, your environments often are stronger than your willpower. It’s not like that has never been said before. She’s never been said that way. And so sometimes it’s not that you’re saying brand new stuff, you’re just saying in a way that your audience can relate to in a way that they don’t relate to the way someone else says it. So just don’t forget like fundamentals don’t get old. Just make sure to share it in your lens and your perspective and provide as much value as possible right up front. Now, when it comes to podcasts, Lori’s podcast now has more than 47 million downloads. So how do you go from a new podcast or a podcast that maybe has a few thousand downloads to millions of downloads? I thought this was really good. Keep it simple. It’s fundamentals, but talk about it everywhere you go.
AJV (12:06):
It’s be consistent. Don’t give up. It takes time. But talk about it everywhere you go. Ask people to share it. Ask people to rate it. Ask people to give reviews on it. But talk about it and then ask people to do what you want them to do. We talked about how it’s like if you never ask, the answer is always no. So you’ve got to ask, remind people, tell people this is how you can help talk about it everywhere you go and tell people what to do. That’s how you grow your podcast and need to do those two things consistently right. Now, last but not least, we also talked about stepping into the world of physical products, right? So that could be anything from t-shirt, shoes to water bottles, wine, food, snacks, nutritional supplements, the list goes on and on and on.
AJV (12:58):
Could be any sort of physical product going from an an educational and information product world to a physical product world. And what are some of the things that we need to know and what should we be looking for if we are considering making this transition or adding a physical product line to our business offering? So first, find some help
AJV (13:53):
That’s the first thing. Second is make sure that you’re just filling a need that you see in the market. Don’t think don’t, don’t create a product as you think there’s a need. Find a need and then create a product to fulfill that need, right? And if you’ve got a trusted audience, you can start by asking them that fill a need that you already see in the marketplace. Cuz there is there. Focus on why your product is different than competing products, right? So focus on what differentiate your products. How are you gonna market it differently? How does it help differently? How does it serve your audience differently? How is it made for your audience specifically? So focus on your differentiator. I love this one that this was so pa impactful. Avoid any sort of products as your first product that have lots of legal tape, right? So anything that would require like fda regulatory issues, anything that, you know, like beauty products,
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Food, beverage nutritional lines, anything that has lots and lots of legal take. What’s gonna happen is most of your investment money or your own money is going to be going to the lawyers versus product development, research and development marketing. Most of it’s actually just gonna go to the pockets of attorneys versus actually helping develop your product. So as your first product entry to market, avoid anything that has lots of legal red tape almost to the end of my list here, focus on one thing. In other words, don’t create a product line that has lots of s skews first. So if you’re gonna create a makeup line start with one thing, right? Is it a lip gloss? Then stick to that. Is it a mascara stick to that. Don’t go, here’s an entire makeup on, we’re gonna have this and this and this and this.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
It’s like, no, start with one thing. So you have centralized focus on what works. You do all of your checks and balances, all your trial and error, all of your market testing with one product. So you get the marketing right, you get the audience right, you get the pricing right? You get the packaging and the shipping and all the things right on one product, and then you expand from there. So start with one sku, one product and that will save you lots of time, lots of money, and actually help you generate revenue. So y’all, there’s so many things I could talk for another 20 minutes on this. But I’m looking at my timer and my time is up. So go check out this full interview. Catch us next time on the influential personal brand. And if this has been helpful to you, please go and like this episode, share this episode, comment on it, leave us a review, rate it. If this is helpful to you and you think it would be helpful to someone else, please share it with them. You get to be the conduit of sharing good information out into the world. So I’m asking for your help. If you like our podcast, the influential personal brand, please like it, share it, leave a review and get it out into the world and share it with a friend. So thank you so much. We’ll see you next time on the influential Personal brand.