Ep 582: How I Built a 3 Million Dollar Coaching Business in 4 years with Ian Koniak
[00:00:00] Rory: [00:00:05] Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand [00:00:10] podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you [00:00:15] learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden [00:00:20] and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times [00:00:25] bestselling author.
[00:00:25] And this show is to help experts learn how to become more [00:00:30] wealthy and well-known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. [00:00:35] One of the great privileges of my life is when our clients [00:00:40] succeed and getting to feel like we’ve played a small part in helping [00:00:45] somebody do something awesome in their own life.
[00:00:47] And we never get to take credit for it ’cause it’s [00:00:50] not our credit to take, it’s their credit to take. But this next gentleman that you’re [00:00:55] about to hear from is one of my favorite success stories, one of my personal [00:01:00] friends, mine and AJ’s. We’ve known him for a very long time, and you’re gonna hear some [00:01:05] of that story.
[00:01:06] And he was one of our very first brand builders, group [00:01:10] clients. Um, early on. He, he knew us from our former life. [00:01:15] Um, and so a couple years into Brand Builders Group, he joined us and, [00:01:20] uh, I’ll give you the formal bio. Okay. So Ian Cognac is our longtime [00:01:25] friend, but he is the president and he is the founder of Untap Your [00:01:30] sales potential.
[00:01:31] Which helps sellers go from good to great by [00:01:35] mastering mindset, habits, and skills needed to perform at the highest level in sales. [00:01:40] He has sold over a hundred million dollars in revenue in his career and he is the [00:01:45] former number one enterprise account executive, uh, for [00:01:50] salesforce.com. He is also, uh, also worked in the Dean of Pavilion’s [00:01:55] Enterprise Sales School.
[00:01:56] And he’s a speaker, he’s a coach, he’s an expert in sales. That’s [00:02:00] where we met him years and years ago, over decades ago at this point. And, [00:02:05] uh, Ian leads sales training workshops for Fortune 500 companies. He [00:02:10] speaks on stages. Uh, he, he appears in the media with several, has been on several [00:02:15] of the top 100 podcasts.
[00:02:17] And, um, I’ll go ahead and just spill the [00:02:20] beans. He four years into his business, so he started with Brand Builders Group about four [00:02:25] years ago. His fourth year in the business, he did three and a half [00:02:30] million dollars in annual revenue. He is [00:02:35] qualified for the Inc 5,000 list in his first year of eligibility and is [00:02:40] just someone that we kind of hold up as a model to go look at what’s possible.[00:02:45]
[00:02:45] So with that, Ian,
[00:02:46] Ian: welcome to the show. So good to see you again, man. It was [00:02:50] great to see you briefly in LA and I’m excited to dive into the story and, and [00:02:55] how, how we built it.
[00:02:56] Rory: So, yeah, just for people who don’t know, so we [00:03:00] met you through aj, aj, uh, ran a sales training [00:03:05] workshop for your sales team back in 2008.[00:03:10]
[00:03:10] Yeah, it was right
[00:03:10] Ian: when, before he wrote the book, take the Stairs. So, okay.
[00:03:14] Rory: [00:03:15] So it would’ve been, that was probably more like 2010, 2011, 2010, something like that. ’cause the book came out [00:03:20] in 2012. So, but over a decade ago. So we met you in a former life, [00:03:25] became friends, uh, and stayed in touch. Then we [00:03:30] exited that business, started over with Brand Builders Group, and then a couple years later we [00:03:35] reconnected.
[00:03:35] Mm-hmm. When did you start untap your sales potential? [00:03:40]
[00:03:40] Ian: I started, I launched unap Your Sales Potential in May [00:03:45] of 2022. Okay. I originally had started a business called Ian [00:03:50] Cognac Sales Coaching after starting with Brand Builders Group, and we had focused on [00:03:55] doing business to business training. So we’d go to big companies and we trained their sales team, and I [00:04:00] quickly realized I was trading time for money and that wasn’t gonna scale.
[00:04:03] And so I decided to pivot [00:04:05] from B2B to B2C and sell directly to. The individual [00:04:10] sellers who are there are millions of them, and, and create a program that, that had, um, [00:04:15] a combination of, of one-on-ones, but also group coaching and online, online training as [00:04:20] well, via a course. So we, we started, we launched in May of [00:04:25] 2022 was our first launch.
[00:04:26] I had already been on my own for about a year, had [00:04:30] left Salesforce for about a year at that point.
[00:04:32] Rory: Okay. Yeah. So, so you joined us [00:04:35] around 2020. Something like that. A couple years after started it was, it was [00:04:40] 2000.
[00:04:40] Ian: It was 2019 to 2020 in that range. Before I had left [00:04:45] Salesforce and when I was building my business, while working still at [00:04:50] corporate is when I worked with Brand Builders.
[00:04:51] And then I stayed with you guys to do several workshops [00:04:55] where we did, um, you know, content workshop. We spend a two day with, with Jeremy and the team kind of [00:05:00] thinking about the structure of Run Top your sales potential. And I continued to work with your [00:05:05] implementation team on building out the portal and Kajabi and, and, uh, really [00:05:10] getting the infrastructure set up around the LMS and, and everything that went along with [00:05:15] that.
[00:05:15] Rory: Yeah. So it’s just, I, I want people to know that because it’s like, it’s a [00:05:20] amazing, first of all, congratulations on three and a half million dollars in annual revenue in [00:05:25] your fourth year. Thank
[00:05:26] Ian: you brother. And, and I’ll say we’re running about 60, [00:05:30] 60% margin. We just got the p and l. So really good margin on, on the business as [00:05:35] well, um, after, you know, cost of delivery and payroll and whatnot.
[00:05:39] So [00:05:40] it’s a profitable business. It’s not just revenue.
[00:05:43] Rory: Yeah. And I want to, I want to hear about the [00:05:45] business model, but I just for, for those of you listening to go, you know. E [00:05:50] Ian started with us and it didn’t really, it not like it necessarily took [00:05:55] off in those first couple years. You were working at your corporate job, you were posting videos on [00:06:00] LinkedIn, but just to fast forward for everybody to go, if you knew [00:06:05] that five years from now.
[00:06:06] If you followed a system and you worked the plan, and you [00:06:10] did the things that we told you to do and you executed, and like, if [00:06:15] you knew that in five years you would generate three and a [00:06:20] half million dollars, would you be willing to pay the price for five years? Like, [00:06:25] would you be willing to make the sacrifices?
[00:06:26] Would you invest in the training and the coaching and, [00:06:30] and making the videos? So take us back in to. Your [00:06:35] first video’s on LinkedIn mm-hmm. And how you started [00:06:40] there. So
[00:06:40] Ian: this is a real important point for all the, for all your audience [00:06:45] is when I launched Untapped Your Sales Potential in 2022. Okay. I did a [00:06:50] launch that was six figures.
[00:06:52] Immediately it was like two 50, 300,000 [00:06:55] for in a day or two since launching to the point where PayPal shut me down, [00:07:00] Stripe shut me down. ’cause they didn’t know if it was real or not. So I had to be submitting docs in the middle of the launch to [00:07:05] let them know, Hey, this is legit. Um, because we. You know, the, the cards weren’t [00:07:10] going through ’cause they, they, they stopped us.
[00:07:11] We were doing so well. And I, and I share that because that [00:07:15] was a result of the, the prior three years of building a [00:07:20] brand and building an audience and building trust to the point where I had a big wait list, I had [00:07:25] credibility. So when I finally had a product on top of your sales potential, the demand was [00:07:30] literally seeming, and, and that is really what you’re asking about is how did you get to that [00:07:35] point?
[00:07:35] ’cause the revenue comes. Uh, as a lagging indicator of the leading indicators that you [00:07:40] do, the KPIs that you’re doing. So my journey started with brand builders. It really started, um, [00:07:45] with you, Rory. You were just starting the company and we had our call and, and you said you came at the [00:07:50] perfect time, but I didn’t.
[00:07:51] Near death experience in December of 2018. And, [00:07:55] um, it, it was, uh, I won’t get too detailed, but it, it. It [00:08:00] helped me realize that my life had been very self-serving. It had been very [00:08:05] focused on me and what I could do for myself and and my family. And I was really focused on money [00:08:10] and recognition and a lot of the things that sellers tend to tend to focus on.
[00:08:14] And I. [00:08:15] When I was, the
[00:08:15] Rory: culture encourages you to focus on those things. On the sales culture. It’s
[00:08:18] Ian: a performance, it’s a [00:08:20] performance culture and leadership. And that was the world I lived in for, you know, for my whole life. [00:08:25] And so, um, what happened is I got stuck upside down on a rollercoaster and hung up there for [00:08:30] 30 minutes.
[00:08:30] No way. Yes, yes way. And in my life flashed before [00:08:35] my eyes. I thought I would die. And what I realized is I. Had, if I died, all of [00:08:40] my wisdom, all of my knowledge, all my gifts, all my lessons would’ve died with me and I wouldn’t have [00:08:45] made a legacy and helped other people. And I, I promised to God when I was hanging up, I said, I [00:08:50] will not wait any longer.
[00:08:51] I don’t know what it’s gonna look like, and I promise I [00:08:55] will start serving people now. And at that moment, the ride took off and that was my [00:09:00] origin story for my business and shortly thereafter. I called you and you said, [00:09:05] Hey, I’m actually started. We just started this thing. You’d be perfect for it. And I took the leap of [00:09:10] faith.
[00:09:10] So at that point, I had no plan. I had no business model. I did [00:09:15] not have a way to monetize. I just had you as a mentor
[00:09:18] Rory: and FYI. [00:09:20] Yeah, so, so like, yeah. So that, that’s amazing. That’s amazing. [00:09:25] Okay, so that is, you’re upside down on a [00:09:30] rollercoaster. You decide I’m gonna do this. Then what happened? So [00:09:35] then you found us.
[00:09:36] Ian: So then I found you right when, when the, when the, the student is [00:09:40] ready, the teacher will appear. And you had had all that stuff go downward. Now brand builders had [00:09:45] started and it was like divine time. It was perfect. And I, I flew out to [00:09:50] Tennessee and went to the finding a brand DNA workshop. And one of the things that.
[00:09:54] We [00:09:55] discussed is, is just building an audience and, and I decided to do what was called a [00:10:00] 365 day challenge, and every day I was gonna post a video, one [00:10:05] minute or less, a short video, giving a tip and giving some help in terms of. [00:10:10] Either personal development or sales, or mindset or habits or just kind of sharing my, my [00:10:15] playbook, my secrets to, to being successful that I had kept with me.
[00:10:18] And the goal simply was if I [00:10:20] died, at least I know I was helping people. And I did that on Instagram. I, I, I spent every day [00:10:25] building on Instagram and I built a good following on Instagram. And what [00:10:30] happened was, um, like how
[00:10:31] Rory: many people. Like when you say good following, this is not millions of people. I want [00:10:35] people No,
[00:10:35] Ian: no, no.
[00:10:35] It was like thousands. It was like five, 6,000 and yeah, it was [00:10:40] engaged. The videos were getting hundreds of views each time. But you know, I had a lot of people that loved the [00:10:45] content and that. Was not how I got [00:10:50] my business monetized. What what happened was, um, I [00:10:55] was building all the infrastructure for my brand at Brand Builders [00:11:00] during the year.
[00:11:00] I was also posting a video a day. So when I say infrastructure, what I mean is, [00:11:05] um, I was building my content. I was building my presentation, I was structuring [00:11:10] what I was gonna teach. I was, um, looking at the website, the logos, the, the [00:11:15] actual. Um, copy for, for my site, ev everything that goes into the [00:11:20] foundation I was building while doing these videos.
[00:11:22] And so I spent a year building all this, [00:11:25] call it the newsletter, the infrastructure, the website. And then what I realized [00:11:30] quickly is that Instagram wasn’t where my people were. You know, I, I, it [00:11:35] was great for me getting comfortable being on camera, and it was great for me [00:11:40] learning to be consistent and have discipline around content creation.
[00:11:44] [00:11:45] But what I ended up doing in January of 2020 was I took all of [00:11:50] that strategy that I had on Instagram. I launched my newsletter, I launched my website, I [00:11:55] launched my blog, and I moved it over to LinkedIn and that’s where my business started. I. [00:12:00] Really exploding as in 2020 when I changed platforms and went to LinkedIn.
[00:12:04] [00:12:05] ’cause the people I was talking to were all sellers working at tech companies and they were [00:12:10] on LinkedIn, they weren’t on Instagram. And so that was really what, what [00:12:15] ended up happening is I built the muscle of content creation and video creation and communication [00:12:20] on Instagram. That was my, my beta. And then when I moved to LinkedIn.
[00:12:24] Um, [00:12:25] now I had a, a way to capture all of the, the, um, audience via my newsletter. [00:12:30] So I started building up this newsletter in 2020 and, and built that pretty [00:12:35] substantial for the next, I’d say two years. And on LinkedIn, once [00:12:40] I started PO posting, I would get a lot of dms and people would, would say, Ian, can you, can you, [00:12:45] uh, coach me?
[00:12:45] Do you coaching? Can you help me? And I started doing one-on-one coaching as my [00:12:50] initial revenue stream. And, and that was really. Um, we made about [00:12:55] $70,000 while I was at Salesforce in 2020. And then I would do a couple keynotes to a [00:13:00] few businesses, and that was really the year. I’ll, I’ll take one more step back.
[00:13:04] [00:13:05] Um, I had some personal challenges where I was going through all this, but I was also [00:13:10] living a double life and, um, struggling with addiction,
[00:13:13] Rory: which I wanna, yeah, I want to talk to you about that, and [00:13:15] I wanna talk to you about that in a second. I want, I wanna, I wanna rewind though, just to. [00:13:20] I think so many people go, oh, well Ian got lucky.
[00:13:23] He went viral, built millions of [00:13:25] followers, and I, and it’s like, that’s not the story here. No. The story is you had [00:13:30] five or 6,000 followers, but they were legit followers on [00:13:35] Instagram. And then you moved to LinkedIn, you said you build your newsletter. Did that, did that mean [00:13:40] you had millions of people in your newsletter?
[00:13:42] Oh my God. How, how many today? How many? I, I, I, [00:13:45] I hope you don’t mind ’cause I just, since you’re one of ours, I’m drilling under the details. Yeah, please, please. How big was [00:13:50] your newsletter at the end of that first year on LinkedIn? I.
[00:13:53] Ian: Maybe a thousand [00:13:55] people. Maybe. I mean, it was very slow in
[00:13:57] Rory: the beginning. A thousand people.
[00:13:58] Yeah. So you said I built it [00:14:00] substantial, which, and I just, I want to clarify for people, ’cause some people [00:14:05] think, oh, substantial. Is James Clear? He is got 3 million people on his email list. We’re talking. A [00:14:10] thousand, but they were a thousand real humans. They were all
[00:14:14] Ian: sellers, all [00:14:15] target audience, all ICP and my LinkedIn following by the end of that year was [00:14:20] probably 5,000.
[00:14:21] So again, very small at this point before going [00:14:25] full time. Because it wasn’t about the following, it was about the content creation, [00:14:30] about the program creation, the system creation, and, and it was about getting money. So these, [00:14:35] these folks that were following me, they were reaching out, they were highly engaged, and they were willing to pay [00:14:40] for one-on-one coaching with me.
[00:14:41] And for me, that was really. Um, [00:14:45] validating that I had a business model that could replace my Salesforce income. ’cause I was one of the top reps at Salesforce. I [00:14:50] was making great money. I was the sole breadwinner for my family. I wanted to know that if I was gonna go and [00:14:55] do this full-time and run my brand and my coaching business full-time, that I could replace my [00:15:00] Salesforce income without skipping a beat.
[00:15:01] And so,
[00:15:02] Rory: and we still, to this day, we still teach the fast, what we call [00:15:05] the fast cash formula, which is posting, posting a video every day. [00:15:10] Asking your friends and family for referrals offering one-on-one coaching. And it’s like we teach all the like [00:15:15] templates and everything to this day, and it’s like, you, you did that.
[00:15:19] Mm-hmm. [00:15:20] And then you scaled. Okay. But there’s a big part in between that I want to talk about, which [00:15:25] is maybe not so pretty because we’ve got, here’s your origin [00:15:30] story and now we see you today and it’s like three and a half million in revenue. But [00:15:35] there’s a big part of your journey that happened, Ian, that I also want people to [00:15:40] know and I, whatever level of truth.
[00:15:43] You feel [00:15:45] comfortable sharing, but I want people to know the real story of what happened [00:15:50] in your life because it was not sunshine and rainbows. It was not viral. It was not. Oprah [00:15:55] discovered you, it was not. You gotta, you hit it big on the lottery [00:16:00] like so can you tell us like what was going on? I would wanna.
[00:16:03] Ian: I would love to, and I [00:16:05] wanna, I wanna for, for the audience listening, um, this is heavy and it’s, [00:16:10] it’s very real and raw. Yeah. A bit
[00:16:12] Rory: of a trigger a warning here too. Just like if you have [00:16:15] little baby ears nearby, like, probably this, this is adult. We’re gonna have adult conversation for a [00:16:20] minute.
[00:16:20] Ian: Yeah, so, so here’s what was going on.
[00:16:22] I was a very high performing [00:16:25] seller, and I was a high functioning addict. So I had struggled with [00:16:30] addiction my entire life. Um, drugs, alcohol, and sex. And, and those [00:16:35] things were, um, a big part of how I got validation and how I [00:16:40] coped with the stress and the overwhelm of the pressure I’d put on myself. And, and just the, [00:16:45] the general, um.
[00:16:47] I would say excess. I was living in, in [00:16:50] flesh and desires of the flesh. And in, um, in [00:16:55] 2020, you know, after a year of being in brand builders, what I started, and I say it’s, it’s [00:17:00] God’s grace, and it, it was a sign from God. But I started realizing that I had a [00:17:05] double life, and here I was trying to coach and trying to train and be this role model.
[00:17:09] [00:17:10] And in, in, um. In my personal life, I was hiding, I was hiding secrets [00:17:15] from my wife. I was going to strip clubs and massage parlors, and I was, um, [00:17:20] I was watching pornography and I wasn’t telling my wife any of this stuff, and I [00:17:25] decided I wanted to confess to my wife in 2020. It was February, [00:17:30] um, 13th, 2020.
[00:17:31] This is the exact date. I had a guilty conscience. I [00:17:35] knew that I could not be the man that I proclaimed to be publicly if I had [00:17:40] private secrets and if I wasn’t living in full authenticity and full truth. And [00:17:45] I, I give full glory to God with, with this because it wasn’t me. It was, it was a [00:17:50] calling, it was a deep moral calling of, you know, living a righteous life.
[00:17:53] And I wanted to break free of [00:17:55] this. And I had tried on my own for many years and just continued to, to slip and, [00:18:00] and, and. You know, compartmentalize this activity. And, and [00:18:05] rationalize. And rationalize stands for rational lies because they’re rational, but you’re lying to [00:18:10] yourself. And any addict or anyone who struggle struggles know, knows what I’m talking about.
[00:18:14] Um, and [00:18:15] I couldn’t do it on my own. So I decided to confess to my wife. And, um, [00:18:20] I told her I was, I was, uh, specifically I was going on webcams. I, I didn’t tell her the [00:18:25] full extent of what. What I was doing, but I said, I’m watching porn, I’m watching webcams. [00:18:30] And she’s like, what’s that? I’m like, well, it’s, it’s basically women who are, um, [00:18:35] now unfortunately, it’s, it’s more rampant than ever with OnlyFans, but it’s, it’s [00:18:40] webcams of real women.
[00:18:41] And, and I said, I know how you feel about porn. I know how you feel about strip clubs. [00:18:45] You know, I just wanted to tell you I’m doing this and get your thoughts. And, um, [00:18:50] she, she collapsed. Uh, she, she fell to the ground. She was four months pregnant and she, [00:18:55] hmm. Started, um, trembling and shaking. Um, and then she started having [00:19:00] labor contractions and we thought we were gonna lose the baby.
[00:19:03] So I, I went and [00:19:05] rushed, rushed to the hospital. Um, and the whole way to the doctor, I’m [00:19:10] praying, I said, God, I don’t know what I’ve done, but please don’t take this baby. I promise I will change. I [00:19:15] promise I will get help. Please don’t take this baby. And we get to the. He puts [00:19:20] the ultrasound and it was the longest 30 seconds of my life.
[00:19:22] I’m hysterical. [00:19:25] And, um, he looks up and he said, there’s a heartbeat. The baby’s okay. And I said, [00:19:30] thank God, thank God. He’s like, what were you cheating? What’d you do? And I said something like that. I’m like, does this [00:19:35] happen a lot? He says, I see it every week. Wow. Women coming in because they’re men [00:19:40] are hiding and living, um, a lie or keeping secrets from their wife.
[00:19:44] [00:19:45] And that to me was the beginning of my rebirth. That was when I found God. That was when I found [00:19:50] Christ. I was baptized in, uh, last year after five years of studying and. [00:19:55] Um, I got into recovery for addiction. I stopped my personal brand to, I [00:20:00] stopped brand builders and I said, no matter what happens, the most important thing in the world is to keep my [00:20:05] family together and to break this generational curse that was, frankly, [00:20:10] um, long before me, before I was born.
[00:20:12] This has been in my family and I was exposed to things at a [00:20:15] very young age, and, you know, I, I, I, that was the. That was the, the [00:20:20] life I inherited. And, and I’d made a decision that this would stop with me and my kids would not [00:20:25] inherit what I did. And, and I devoted myself to recovery. And that was my focus [00:20:30] for 2020.
[00:20:31] Um, and I, I, I share that because [00:20:35] that was necessary for me to get where I am today. And it was part of my [00:20:40] brand building. Um, it, it wasn’t just sales training, I was talking about. [00:20:45] Authenticity and integrity and all the things that I had to do in order to get to a [00:20:50] place where I would attract people from a place of truth and, and from a [00:20:55] place of love and service.
[00:20:56] I had to face my own demons first before I can do that. And, [00:21:00] and I’ll just tell you this, while my brand is focused on helping sellers untap their [00:21:05] full potential, the amount of people and men specifically who have reached out [00:21:10] that have struggled with similar afflictions is. More than I can ever [00:21:15] even think was possible saying Me too.
[00:21:18] I’ve been doing this in secret [00:21:20] and, and I’ve helped a lot of people get into recovery for a very taboo [00:21:25] addiction that I don’t think anyone really talks about, but is rampant in our society with the. [00:21:30] With porn and with the access that we have. So I, it’s been five years and, and [00:21:35] by God’s grace, I, I am living a life of honesty and integrity with my wife and [00:21:40] been sober for five years.
[00:21:41] And, and I, I, um, I’m very proud of, of [00:21:45] those changes. And that’s been part of my, my story is sharing some of these very personal [00:21:50] things. And in the process it’s attracted a lot of. Sellers who, who tend to [00:21:55] struggle with some of these areas and some of these addictions. Um, it’s very [00:22:00] common in that business and sales space and, um, a lot of people have come to me [00:22:05] because of that, because of my faith, because of my battles with addiction and A DHD and [00:22:10] all the personal changes I’ve made.
[00:22:12] And speak to, it’s attracted a lot of [00:22:15] people to my, my business and my brand. And that’s one of the main things they cite as a reason they’ve [00:22:20] signed up is that vulnerability and that story.
[00:22:22] Rory: Yeah, I mean that’s a, [00:22:25] uh, that’s a crazy story. Um, yeah, [00:22:30] thank you for sharing that. And I, part of, [00:22:35] there’s so many powerful parts of it.
[00:22:38] One of the [00:22:40] connections I want people to make though is [00:22:45] on the surface, you would think that sharing all of those [00:22:50] things would destroy your personal brand. I. You would think [00:22:55] it would eliminate people from paying you. [00:23:00] You would think you would just get trashed and you, you know, [00:23:05] ha ha havoc and like, you know, trolled online about all of these [00:23:10] things.
[00:23:11] And I’m sure you’ve received some of those, which you will [00:23:15] receive anyways. You receive some of that anyways, but [00:23:20] sharing the hard parts of your story.[00:23:25]
[00:23:25] Doesn’t usually hurt the business. It usually [00:23:30] helps the business long term because people go, oh, Ian [00:23:35] is a real, he’s a real dude. He struggled with real [00:23:40] things and he is really willing to like lay it all out there [00:23:45] and. You know, I’m not saying that that would be the strategy everyone [00:23:50] should follow that you would just like take all of your darkest secrets and lay ’em out on the web.
[00:23:54] And I [00:23:55] also don’t think you’re saying that you did that right away. There was a no, you shared it with your wife, [00:24:00] you dealt with this. You went, you went to recovery, you healed from it, you moved [00:24:05] on. And then later it, it’s, it’s like you don’t, you don’t share your [00:24:10] hurts. While it’s an open wound, you, you share it once, once it’s a scar.
[00:24:14] Not, and not [00:24:15] even, you’re
[00:24:16] Ian: in a healthy place and you’re out of it. I mean, you’re never entirely out of [00:24:20] addiction. There’s always, you know, temptation. But, but fundamentally, you’re, you’re spot on. Like I [00:24:25] wasn’t when I was in it, I was. Saving my family and my marriage, and more [00:24:30] importantly, like living a life I could be proud of and God could be proud of.
[00:24:33] And I share it now because I [00:24:35] believe it’s part of God’s will to talk about the things no one else is willing to because [00:24:40] I. People need to know they’re not alone. And especially men who, who struggle and shame with, [00:24:45] with some of these activities and married men who are hiding, um, secrets from their, their partners.
[00:24:49] No one, [00:24:50] I don’t know anyone that talks about this personally, and I just think it needs to be done. Whether or not it [00:24:55] stains my brand, whether or not people, you know, don’t wanna work with me is irrelevant. I’m doing in [00:25:00] my mind God’s will by helping people have loving, honest marriages. [00:25:05] Which you’re best positioned to serve the person you once were.
[00:25:08] And that was me [00:25:10] hiding. So that’s what I’m saying. Hundreds of men have come out to me and said, Hey, me too. How [00:25:15] can I get help? And that’s, that for me is the most fulfilling, even if I’m not getting paid for it. [00:25:20]
[00:25:20] Rory: And that, you know, I want people to also know, like. That is all a part of why [00:25:25] we’re proud of you.
[00:25:26] Right? We’re not only proud of the, the mission driven messengers who have led a [00:25:30] perfect life and grown their business. It’s, it’s the, the part that makes me so [00:25:35] proud of you, Ian, is the part where you just said, where you said, I don’t [00:25:40] care if it hurts my brand, I don’t care if I lose revenue over it. [00:25:45] I’m doing this to help people.
[00:25:48] Yes. And that’s like, [00:25:50] that’s the. That’s the part where you go, I’m willing to risk [00:25:55] whatever it is about me, if it’s in the service of others. [00:26:00] And you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. Right. I mean, that’s why [00:26:05] we say it all the time and you go and it’s amazing. You know, you talk [00:26:10] about God, like God specializes in resurrections.
[00:26:14] [00:26:15] Right, like God, God specializes in redemption. God [00:26:20] specializes in using broken people. God specializes in using people who [00:26:25] aren’t perfect and, and, and you go, you know. You look through the Bible, [00:26:30] whether it’s, you know, Moses who was a Hebrew, you talk about, uh, you know, [00:26:35] David, who was a shepherd, Jesus who was like literally born in a [00:26:40] stable to a poor family.
[00:26:42] Like, uh, Paul, who was a murderer. [00:26:45] Like our God specializes in using broken [00:26:50] people and, and making things beautiful. And I, and I think one of the reasons why he does [00:26:55] that is because that’s part of how he gets the glory. Is he [00:27:00] gets, he gets the glory in those redemption stories to go, how [00:27:05] could you survive this?
[00:27:06] How could your, your, you and your wife, you and your wife are happily [00:27:10] married, you have multiple children now you, here you are talking on a podcast to the [00:27:15] whole world airing your dirty secrets, so to speak, and it’s like. How [00:27:20] could that happen? Because it’s like, ’cause God is blessing it. He’s redeeming it.
[00:27:23] Now. I [00:27:25] do wanna make sure people know you don’t do this when it’s a scab. You do it once. It’s a [00:27:30] scar. That’s kind of like the general rule of thumb that I, you know, try to [00:27:35] delineate. It’s like you cannot do this while this is fresh. You have to, like you said, you have to be in a place where it’s [00:27:40] healthy, you’re past it and that’s when you, then you talk about it.
[00:27:44] Um. [00:27:45] But Ian, what a beautiful
[00:27:47] Ian: redemption story. I’m getting. I’m getting emotional, man. It, it’s, it’s [00:27:50] such, it’s so spot on. It’s like everything we go [00:27:55] through, right? Everything we’ve been through that we can’t fix on our own, [00:28:00] strengthens our faith and strengthens our connection with God. And, and that’s the cornerstone of my [00:28:05] story is I can’t, but God can.
[00:28:07] And, and my story is a glor [00:28:10] glorification. Amen to God. Amen. Because everything that. Brought me to [00:28:15] a rock bottom and brought me to that place of full surrender. Brought me to Christ, brought me to [00:28:20] to my faith, and, and, and it’s, it’s still ongoing. It’s, it’s like when you [00:28:25] think you can, you’re humbled and, and it’s always to lead us back to God and I.
[00:28:29] [00:28:30] Ironically, you just said, make, do, do this when it’s your scar, not your scab. [00:28:35] Our next theme of our next mastermind in which we have 80 people coming together from our community, from around [00:28:40] the world is make your scars, your superpowers. Mm-hmm. That’s the theme of our [00:28:45] next mastermind. So yes, we’re a sales training, but we’re gonna go deep in terms of [00:28:50] bringing out things that people may be ashamed of that are holding them back is once you’re.[00:28:55]
[00:28:55] Free. The most free person in the world is the one with nothing to hide, and [00:29:00] that’s been the genesis of my brand is once I had nothing to hide, once I put it [00:29:05] all out there, I was free to serve. I didn’t have this baggage and this heavy weight [00:29:10] that I was carrying because I truly was in service and I was leading with spirit.
[00:29:14] And, [00:29:15] and, and I say that because, um, it’s such a blessing to have gone through this [00:29:20] and it is such glory to God. So I’m really glad that you see it the way, that way. That’s the way I see it [00:29:25] too. And it’s not something to be ashamed of. It’s something I’m proud of more than anything, is saving [00:29:30] my marriage, keeping us together, and living a life of honesty and integrity in a world where.
[00:29:34] [00:29:35] So many people are lost and so many marriages end in divorce.
[00:29:39] Rory: Yeah. Ab [00:29:40] absolutely. I, I, um, one of our family philosophies is to live a [00:29:45] life that would stand up to the scrutiny of transparency, right? Just live a life. That would be like, if [00:29:50] everyone saw everything, you know? ’cause people can say bad things, they can make stuff up.
[00:29:54] But [00:29:55] like ultimately if you’re just living that life where you go, come audit, like, come audit, [00:30:00] right? Like, um. That’s super powerful. And, and, and one of the things my [00:30:05] pastor says, um, is, you know, he told [00:30:10] me that a, a mentor had shared with him is that your influence will never grow wider [00:30:15] than your character runs deep.
[00:30:18] Your influence never grows [00:30:20] wider than your character runs deep. And the work that you did of. Healing your [00:30:25] character and solidifying your character and cleaning up your [00:30:30] character and, uh, creating a rock solid character [00:30:35] then became the foundation that was so solid that boom, you put, you put that [00:30:40] together with the vulnerability, the solid character, and then your normal ex, your, your [00:30:45] actual expertise and work ethic and, you know, maybe some coaching along the way and just like.[00:30:50]
[00:30:50] Boom, here you are. A completely changed life. [00:30:55] Um, it’s really, really inspiring, Ian. It’s really, every part of [00:31:00] this to me is inspiring. Um, thank you and we’re really proud of [00:31:05] you. Where, where should people go if they want to learn, uh, more about you and, and what you’re [00:31:10] doing and like, uh, you know, especially if they’re like in sales,
[00:31:14] Ian: and I think, I [00:31:15] think you just nailed it, right?
[00:31:16] You can’t build your brand from a shaky foundation. You can’t build [00:31:20] your business unless you’ve done the work on yourself. Because once you’ve done that, [00:31:25] it will shine through your content, through your energy, through you know, your [00:31:30] transparency and, and through your stories, frankly. ’cause you’re gonna have the stories that really people connect [00:31:35] to in, in a place of authenticity and truth and vulnerability.
[00:31:38] And so. [00:31:40] Um, that’s right. Once that was, that once that work was in a good place, I could focus on [00:31:45] the brand. I left Salesforce, I put in service and the rest was history. I went from [00:31:50] 5 33 in 2021 to one, five to two, five, and last year to three five. And it’s [00:31:55] been a steady, progressive growth. But it all started with doing the work on myself.
[00:31:59] And I, I [00:32:00] just encourage anyone listening to face your demons, face your fears, be [00:32:05] honest, be truthful, do the inner work ’cause it’s gonna help you. Ultimately, um, in your [00:32:10] business, you can’t be one thing in your business and be something else in your personal life. And, and I [00:32:15] think that’s something not a lot of people really speak to, and it’s really important.
[00:32:18] So if people [00:32:20] wanna follow me, um, there’s really three channels that I, I’m on. Uh, you can go to untap your [00:32:25] sales potential.com. That’s where if you wanted coaching or. Any kind of [00:32:30] support with your business, um, in, in the sales capacity, uh, that’s the best [00:32:35] place to go and talk to my team. Um, YouTube. I have, uh, over 500 [00:32:40] videos posted now.
[00:32:41] Mostly sales training. I, I post on mindset habits [00:32:45] and selling skills. I’ve been doing every single week a new video and then we cut up, we do some shorts, but [00:32:50] I’ve been doing that, that content diamond for, for the past.
[00:32:53] Rory: Well, baby Content [00:32:55] Diamond. Shout out to Brand Builders Group following the system.
[00:32:58] Ian: Every week without fail [00:33:00] posting twice a day on LinkedIn and, and doing a new video every week, um, via newsletter. So [00:33:05] YouTube is great. LinkedIn’s where I kind of live from a social standpoint, not Instagram or [00:33:10] TikTok. I’m on LinkedIn, Ian Cognac at LinkedIn. And uh, yeah, I have a newsletter as [00:33:15] well where I send out a new video training every week.
[00:33:17] And we just launched a free course. It’s a 12 week [00:33:20] course. Um. It, it’s called the Fundamentals of Elite Tech Sales. If you wanna [00:33:25] Google that, you can get that as well for anyone listening.
[00:33:27] Rory: Yeah, that’s really cool, man. I, I, [00:33:30] um. I love, you know, I love [00:33:35] seeing the fundamentals as part of this story, right?
[00:33:37] There’s this whole personal aspect, but there’s another part that’s just [00:33:40] like getting clear on your brand, your brand positioning, who your audience is doing the content [00:33:45] diamond. Well, starting with one-on-one coaching, like so many of the things that we teach people to [00:33:50] do and go, you know, you don’t have to be, be a believer in God to like learn from Ian’s [00:33:55] story about what has happened.
[00:33:58] But man, if you’re not a [00:34:00] believer. You gotta see the, you gotta at least go, what a powerful redemption [00:34:05] story of like, you know, you going to the rock bottom. And I think that’s what I think [00:34:10] that’s, sometimes I think we experience rock bottoms because that’s, that’s when [00:34:15] we start paying attention to God. We start paying it.
[00:34:18] We, we, we really, we [00:34:20] really, in our lives, we really start paying attention to God. [00:34:25] We have no other option. Like when we’re out of hope, when we, when we, once we’ve [00:34:30] exhausted everything else and we’ve tried all the different things, then we start paying attention to God and [00:34:35] it’s like, and he’s there and he will be there and he will meet you and you’re just, you’re a [00:34:40] real life living example of that redemption story.[00:34:45]
[00:34:45] It’s inspiring and it’s hopeful, and it’s powerful and it’s [00:34:50] courageous. So thanks for sharing it buddy, and thanks for being a, being here. And [00:34:55] thank you for the privilege of letting us be a little part of all you’re doing.
[00:34:58] Ian: Thank you for your [00:35:00] mentorship, your guidance, your example. Thank you for putting out your faith and, and [00:35:05] your channels.
[00:35:06] And, and it’s, um. It’s admirable and, and I, I just love what you’re [00:35:10] doing as well and I’m grateful to be part of it, so thank you so [00:35:15] much.
Ep 578: How to Monetize Niche Events and Publications with Remington Ramsey
Rory (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand Podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. Today
Rory (00:34):
We’re gonna have a really unique conversation about how to build community, and we’re gonna be talking to Remington Ramsey, who is the creative force behind Real Producers Magazine, which started as this sort of regional, uh, media production and has become sort of a nationwide phenomenon. And he is reaching very specific into the real estate industry, despite not having been, uh, been a realtor himself. And yet he has created this entire business. He is fostering this community and he’s doing it through a magazine. And so there are, over the years, there have been people who have done this really, really well. And it’s a very unique model that has some specific intricacies that I, I want to talk about and I want to hear the story because I think this could apply to all of you. Even if you never start a magazine or desire to.
Rory (01:32):
The, the concepts and the tactics around serving a community and how your personal brand grows as the community grows is super, super relevant. So in addition to that, he is the author of a book called Agent Allies. And Ton was referred to me by one of my dear friends, the late John Ruland. Uh, and that was how we got to know each other. And it was one of the last relationships that John introduced me to, uh, right before he died. And so Remington and I kind of took that and said, Hey, we should get to know each other a little bit if John thought this was good. Mm-hmm
Remington (02:24):
Man. Uh, two things, Rory. One, thank you. Uh, so three things. Uh, two, I need to work on my intros ’cause that’s just super powerful. Well done
Rory (02:48):
I am proud of you. I’m proud of you. The, the, the, the Take the Stairs movement lives on and lives strong
Remington (03:23):
Well, you, you brought up our, uh, our, our buddy John Ruland, uh, rest in Peace, one of a kind dude. And, um, and Cutco, that’s where we met selling knives. And most people know that, uh, from selling knives to your parents and your grandparents, and then you quit. Mm-hmm
Rory (04:39):
To be clear, when you say closing gift, you’re talking about the gift that the agent gives to their client, like in their new home, congratulations for buying a home. Here’s a set of knives, you know? Yeah. Hopefully you Thanks for doing business with me, that kind of thing.
Remington (04:53):
Exactly. They would engrave their name, uh, you know, Rory Vaden re max Cell phone, here’s your Knife. And the, the point of the whole thing was to brand and with a gift that they would use every single day so that they would remember their realtor. So it’s phenomenal real, uh, Cutco prides themselves as being the largest closing gift company in North America because there’s no one else who’s doing this. A second, second place is like gift bags and, and bottles of wine. So I loved it and I was doing really well and I felt like I was, uh, selling a bunch of knives and breaking records, but at the end of the year, I didn’t have a ton of money to show up for it. And it was because I was spending all of my money back into the business trying to figure out who the realtors were that could afford it, and then spending more money on marketing to gain those relationships. Got it. So that’s where it all started. That’s how I got into real estate. Um,
Rory (05:43):
So you were trying to figure out who the top realtors were going? If I could build a relationship with them and then they sell a whole bunch of homes, then I sell a bunch of knives, like in the wake.
Remington (05:53):
Yeah. Well, I mean, not only that, like if you look at Indy, there’s 10,000 realtors in Indianapolis. 1.8 million people, 10,000 of ’em have their real estate license, but half of ’em won’t sell a home this year. Uh, and it’s true across the nation, like that’s kind of real estate’s the largest trade organization in the world, but two outta three that train to be a realtor this year will not be here this next year. So like, essentially it’s a, it is a very high turnover rate. So as a vendor, that’s really frustrating because you spend all your time like taking these guys out to lunch ’cause they love free lunch. ’cause a lot of them can’t afford lunch. So I’d be out there on these free lunches spending my money and they’re not getting any knives ’cause they can’t afford ’em ’cause they’re not doing any closing. So that was an aha moment for me. And that’s really what birthed the idea of real producers.
Rory (06:38):
Mm-hmm
Remington (07:00):
Well, the magazine came second. What came first was the events. So I was essentially going to all of these sales meetings and, uh, lunch and learns, bringing bagels and, uh, donuts and various bread products. ’cause that’s apparently what the realtors want. Mm-hmm
Remington (07:45):
And before you know it, they’re all in their CE and I’m just staring at all these vendors for hours because there’s no realtors at my booth. So frustrated and thinking there’s gotta be a better way. I created my first event, I called it Turkey time. I gave away eight turkeys and a carving set, and I sold more knives in that one event than I had the previous two weeks. I was like, oh, okay. I need to host my own events. And so that’s when I, you talked about the book, like I basically go into the journey of how like I created my own events that took out all the stuff that wasn’t working and sorted out the realtors that hadn’t actually become professionally. What I mean by that is they’re not good at it yet. And so they waste the vendor’s time and frustrate the industry because they might not even be here this time next year. And so the vendors are after the top realtors who have shown that they can do this year in and year out, and they take care of their vendor partners. So that’s what birthed the idea is like, I’m gonna do my own events and then we’re gonna create a magazine to be the face of it.
Rory (08:51):
Okay. So just to, to to double tap on the events for a second mm-hmm
Remington (09:15):
Yeah. Instead of attending other people’s events where they don’t really have the same priorities of value that I would, that I would, I need to create my own events. JJ Pap Ison talks about this Build your cathedral concept and instead of going to everyone else’s, you build, uh, something that, uh, creates them wanting to come to you. And this doesn’t just have to be, you know, a salesman selling knives. You could do this with anything if you have the right value. But yeah, I created an event where we brought them to me and then any realtor who was already using me for my services also brought a friend. So now you can duplicate it, which I know is a principle you talk about.
Rory (09:54):
Mm-hmm
Remington (09:59):
It
Rory (09:59):
Free
Remington (09:59):
To come to
Rory (10:00):
No,
Remington (10:00):
It was free for the realtors and that was the other light bulb. This is kind of what led to us with the concept of the magazine because I got the party paid for by the vendors because they knew I would bring the value and get the right realtors in the room. So when the magazine came about, I, I basically sat down with 50 real estate professionals. Like I said, it was, I know it’s 2015 and print advertising is dead, like everyone says. Yeah.
Rory (10:22):
That’s what I want to get to is like, why, why in the world would you go into Print magazine? And yet here you are crushing it with this business because
Remington (10:30):
It would, it is never not gonna be cool to be on the cover of a magazine. Now here’s what’s, here’s what’s interesting. It’s 2025 as we’re recording this and print’s actually back. There’s a lot of, like Gary Vaynerchuk’s talking about how print mediums are back, niche products are back magazines are actually a big deal. I think what happened was social media and internet blew up and got so crowded that these niche products are cutting through the noise and people want to feel it again. They want to feel the paper books, they wanna feel the magazine. So right now, in this moment, magazines are a big deal. But in 10 years, again, when people are saying print is dead and magazines are dead, we’re still gonna thrive because it’s not about what, it’s not about print, it’s about what we’re printing. And we were printing things you could only find in that magazine. It was basically Facebook and print. It’d be like me putting Rory’s face on the cover of a magazine and only sending it to his family and his friends because you would open it because it’s Rory. And so that’s what’s happening with these communities, these real estate communities. The top realtors wanna see where they rank and their friends rank and they wanna see their name and face and print as much as possible.
Rory (11:36):
Ah, so there’s a ranking element is that there’s a ranking element to the magazine. Can you explain that?
Remington (11:42):
A hundred percent. So in Indianapolis, I’ll just give you an example. ’cause that was the first one. We only go to the top 500 realtors based on their volume. And they cannot buy it. They have to earn it. So in order to get the magazine, you have to be a top 500 realtor, be on a team of a top 500 realtor, and then it is a free magazine. So every single phone call that a realtor gets, it’s somebody selling them something. Realtors are constantly bomb being bombarded with sales calls, but we’re the ones that call in and say, Hey, we’re doing this all for free. The vendors are paying for this. So the vendors then get access to this group by having an ad in the magazine and access to the events and then shout outs on social media. So it’s a three-prong approach at being in the right room to have an opportunity to earn their business.
Rory (12:28):
Say that again. Okay. So the vendors, the vendors pay for it because they get ads in the magazine. Mm-hmm
Remington (12:37):
Through online,
Rory (12:38):
Through the events and on social. We
Remington (12:41):
You got it. Yep. So really that’s what we, we look at, we look at what creates an environment where someone would go with you. Like if, if you’re, um, if you’re a top realtor and you’ve had your relationship with your mortgage lender for years, but the person you recruit on your team is brand new and they’re still making the relationship. So even the ones at the top, these vendors are making sure that they’re staying in front of, in the right room. I, I say this all the time, it’s better to be in the room than it is to be good at your job to get the initial business. And what I mean by that is, if you just stay in front of someone constantly, when it is time for them to make a change, the first person they think of is you. And it’s not because you’re amazing and you get things done on time because there’s 10 other people that do that too, is because you’re standing in front of them at the time they need you. And so that’s, that’s kind of the, the reason why it works. And so if you’re a vendor and you’re participating with us and real producers, your goal is to stay in front of the ones you’re already working with and then duplicate ’em and get more like them.
Rory (13:42):
Yeah. So goth, I want to go back and underscore that. So you’re saying effectively that being top of mind is not necessarily about being the best at what you do, it’s about being the one who’s in front of them at the time of need.
Remington (14:05):
I, I firmly believe that. Now, I’m not saying that that is how you sustain a business, because in order to get repeat business, you gotta be good at the thing. But in order to get the business, the number one thing that matters is top of mind awareness.
Rory (14:23):
Uh, okay. So and you’re saying that, that the vendor, that that’s your value prop to the vendors because the vendors are in front of all of these top agents every, how often do you produce the magazine?
Remington (14:37):
Yeah, it’s a monthly magazine.
Rory (14:39):
Okay. So that’s a lot to produce. How, how many articles, or like how many pages are in this thing every month?
Remington (14:45):
It depends on the size. So we’re in 130 markets now. I’ll, I’ll flash forward to the end of the story. That was 10 years ago, uh, proved the concept in nd partnered with a national company called Into, uh, publishing at the time. Now it’s called the in two companies. And they’re my, uh, essentially printing this niche magazine in 130 different markets nationwide. So if you fly into any major market or even a minor market, there’s a real producers there. The, the concept is it goes to the top, roughly five to 10% of the realtors in that city. When I first started, people didn’t get that. They, they had only been, you know, told that they need to have as many eyeballs as possible. And I said, is that really what you want though? Because I’ll tell you right now, there’s certain eyeballs. I don’t want seeing my stuff. I don’t want the phone calls of people who can’t afford my stuff or waste my time. And so this is really a, an approach to get in front of the right eyeballs and, uh, if you’re gonna advertise and be a partner with us and real producers, you understand that it’s not a pay-per-click model.
Rory (15:51):
Yeah, yeah. And not an impression model. I mean, that, that’s what’s interesting is what, what’s really like, one of the things that’s so unique about what you’re doing, which is part of why I wanted to talk to you about this is so much of advertising is literally driven by cost per, you know, impre CPM cost per whatever, thousand impressions. And it’s literally just like the spray and pray model mm-hmm
Remington (16:27):
Yeah. Well, and it’s not, and this is specifically for the people that I’m talking to in this industry, though. I’m not saying this is the only way to do marketing if you’re a part of, so I own a sports bar. It’s not, that’s not the me This magazine is not the best medium for them. You know, cost per impression is great for the sports bar because, you know, we can only make $10 a burger and get you in as many times as we can. And we, we rely on volume. So we’ll do the products where it goes to every household and, you know, clicks on Facebook and everything like that. But when it comes to our vendors, you know, our core four industries, our lenders titles, uh, title companies, builders and home inspectors, because they are at the center of a real estate deal and have the most to gain, uh, money wise from a single real estate deal, those salespeople would do so much better with their marketing dollars to get in front of the right eyeballs instead of all the eyeballs. Mm-hmm
Rory (17:28):
Well, yeah. And I would say, you know, you’re talking about real estate here, but just like rounding it out for everyone listening, most of the people listening here are in a mode where they’re like, if you’re an expert of any kind, by definition, it’s like you’re, you’re dealing with a higher level, a more narrow niche, like a smaller group where you’re a more targeted audience that you’re going after. And it, the strategy you’re talking about is interesting because it sort of rails against digitally, everybody goes, you know, how do I just get millions and millions of people? Um, same with print, but like mm-hmm
Rory (18:18):
So, so I see the value add for i the vendors. Okay. So, so thinking about the event. Yeah. So I see the value add for the vendors because you’re curating a list of the top agents. It’s exclusive, which is also unique and cool that you have to be a top agent by production to even get the magazine. Which is funny because the woman who sold our house in Nashville is a top agent. And we walked into her, her office at the closing, your magazine was sitting right, right on her. Like, that’s awesome. Front desk at the reception. I was like, oh my gosh. Like, that’s great. That’s real. I know, I know this magazine. Um, and, and she, she is, uh, shout out to Lacey Newman. Like she, she’s a boss, like she’s in Compass, uh, here in Nashville and like luxury agent and all that stuff.
Rory (19:09):
So she’s got your magazine. And I go like, whoa, you’re, you’re reaching, you’re reaching the right person if she’s got that, um, out in her desk area, right. Like the reception. So I see the value add as a vendor to go by curating this list. You’re in front of them. What’s the value add to the agents? I mean, I know it’s free and I know you’re saying I’m not trying to sell ’em something, which is good, like a lot of people are selling ’em, but there’s a lot of, there’s also a lot of people giving away a lot of free garbage, uh mm-hmm
Remington (20:09):
Yeah. And I think community is the right word there, because originally we’re like, okay, are we a magazine or are we an events company? And I think over the last 10 years there’s been like trying to swing one direction or the other. But to be honest, the number one word you come back to is that community. It’s a culture and, uh, movement almost. Because if the events didn’t even exist, would the magazine still matter? And the answer is absolutely yes. See, it’s kind of like, we’ve alluded to Star Wars in the past. This is, we’re gonna geek out for a second here. So Star Wars made it, I think the figure is three times more on the products and memorabilia than they did the box office dollars of the movies. Um, so infinitely more on all the swag, but they never would’ve sold all the dolls and t-shirts had they not had the movies be so cool and successful. And so the magazine is at the center of what we do, like being on the cover of magazines, seeing your friends, seeing where you rank, seeing the stories, that’s always gonna be at the center. But all the other stuff that we do that really reflects that is little bits and pieces that add up to a ton of value that are within this community. So your original, uh, get getting back, you asked like three questions in there.
Rory (21:25):
Well, that’s, it’s, it’s really going. What are the, how do you be,
Remington (21:29):
Why does the realtor care?
Rory (21:30):
Yeah. Like and how do you make, that’s the question yourself, Val, valuable. How do you make the magazine valuable? How do you make the events valuable? The the ranking. The ranking is super interesting. Yeah. So, you know, so
Remington (21:42):
I’ll, I sat down Rory with 50 people, 50 people that I trusted in the real estate industry here in Indy ahead of time. And I said, I asked them all the questions, this is what I’m thinking and I’m thinking about starting this magazine, what should I put in it? What should I not put in it? What do I care about? And I, I did all those appointments before I did a single sales appointment to create the magazine. And the, the biggest takeaways I got is that exclusivity is a big deal. If you look at why Facebook take took off instead of MySpace. ’cause MySpace was cool. I had MySpace. Did you have MySpace?
Rory (22:15):
Oh yeah. Mm-hmm
Remington (22:16):
Yeah. So Zaa, MySpace, alt Friendster, all these sayings. Facebook is the one that took off. And I think, you know what most people believe is the biggest reason is because of the exclusivity factor when it started. And so if you look at the magazine, it’s a badge of honor to even receive this magazine for starters. Now, as a realtor, the reason they care about it is because, uh, another platform where they can share their story, where someone else is saying they’re good at the thing, instead of them saying, I’m good at this thing, is third party validation for their business. So the first thing they get, you saw that magazine sitting on Lacey, is it Lacey? Lacey? Yeah. You saw it is sitting on her desk. Did she pay for that? No, it was a third party that said, this person is very good at selling real estate so much.
Remington (23:02):
So we put her on a cover. Whereas most of the other magazines that people were quote unquote, you know, saying were our competition, it was pay to play models. So Rory, hey grit, congrats on selling a ton of homes. We’re going to put you on the cover of this magazine for $2,000 and you can get a couple copies to send to your friends and family. That’s a model that works. And it was around for years before we started Real producer. I’ve, some of my agents have been on those and, and are still on those and that, that works and that’s cool and fine and everything, but if it, it kind of, it would devalue if we ever took the dollars of someone to get on the cover, you’re buying the exposure versus earning it. And so the realtors, just to
Rory (23:42):
Be clear, is is there a different person on each cover? Like, does yours work like that? Or is it one real?
Remington (23:47):
Oh yeah, it’s nomination base. So the way it works is anyone in real estate can nominate them. We personally vet them, make sure that they’re, uh, doing at least the numbers and they’re reputable. And then we feature them based on nominations. So they cannot pay to be on the cover. You can’t pay to receive the magazine. It’s all based on merit. And so the community understands that and they know that. So when they’re picking up the magazine, they’re not thinking, well, you know why she’s on the cover? ’cause Keller Williams has an ad on the back cover. Well, no, we don’t take the dollars of any brokerage, so you can’t pay to be on the cover. It’s truly based on merit. And I think that’s one of the central things we decided 10 years ago that has kept us, um, in their, in their thoughts as they think about their own promotional materials. Alright,
Rory (24:32):
So but then is, is one agent on the cover nationwide every month? No. Or are there different agents in every market, or how granular is the cover?
Remington (24:41):
It’s granular. As granular as the market is. If you fly into Indy and you don’t know anyone in Indy, you’re not gonna know who’s on the cover. Only the people in Indy care about who’s on the cover because it’s a magazine based for the Indianapolis Realtors, the top 500 realtors in Indy get it, the top 500 in Nashville, get theirs now. That’s how it started. And if, if you look at our 130 markets, it’s a different realtor on the cover of every single one of them. But this event we’re doing here in September, that’s why this event is such a big deal. And I’ll, I’ll sing your praises a little bit, give you some flowers. You’re speaking at this event. It’s the inaugural first event, RP Elevate. Come see, uh, Rory Speak live. And the reason it’s such a big deal is it’s the first time ever we’re joining all those markets and we realize that the networking, ’cause another one of your questions, you, you basically asked without asking, why do realtors care about this?
Remington (25:33):
Why do they care about a magazine that’s all about them? Well, first of all, I mean, healthy Ego is a real thing in real estate. I think we all know that. So we want to see our name and face and print. But I had a realtor at one of my master classes, say during right after Covid, he said the Indianapolis market was super hard hot. And for the first time ever there was, uh, multiple offers on, on listings. And they had to decide, who am I gonna go with? And this realtor’s name is Alan. He said The reason why I beat other agents on all of these deals was not because I had the, the higher price or even the better offer. It was simply because I have done enough networking with these realtors. They trusted me to get the job done, and they trust me to do it right. And so I won all these deals that everyone else lost. And I think that kind of encompassed our thoughts here. It’s not just realtors showing up to events to get their free prizes and free lunch and go home. They really want to know these other agents so they can improve the industry together. And I think that we’re at the center of that conversation. Yeah,
Rory (26:40):
It’s interesting. I’m, I’m actually speaking at an investor’s conference, uh, here in a couple months and they were telling me the same thing, especially like when you’re, when you’re like, um, putting deals together that they will win, they will buy properties and they’ll get those properties for a lower price because the seller believes that even though you’re offering less money, they’re more convinced that you’ll get the deal to go through and that it’ll get done Right. It’ll get done fast and that like it will actually happen. Yep. That’s a fascinating part of a personal brand is to go, you don’t even have to have the best offer. They just trust that you’re gonna get it done and get it done. Right. And you win business because of that, even if you don’t have the, like the most money.
Remington (27:26):
Yeah. And especially if you’re a likable person in the process, people want to go with someone that they know, like, and trust. I think we undervalue that likability factor. We know and trust is a big deal. And but that likability factor is so big when it comes to sales because if you’re gonna be in the trenches with this person, you better enjoy it. Otherwise they might go with the other deal even though it’s not as good of a package. So I totally believe in that. So,
Rory (27:51):
So then just to be clear, if you have like a hundred plus markets mm-hmm
Remington (28:13):
So the rankings, we reset every year. You know, we’re not trying to send the magazine to different realtors every single month based on their last month’s pro Sure. Uh, production. So this, this month for real producers, everyone’s in a tizzy. ’cause we’re redoing the list in January for this calendar year. And it’s really exciting ’cause we send out the badges, we get these little digital badges that says I’m a top 500 realtor. Um, and so this is a, a fun month for us, but yeah, it’s, but for the entire calendar year, based on last year’s production. So to give you an idea, you have to sell about 9 million number. 500 is right around 9 million in Indie.
Rory (28:49):
Mm-hmm
Remington (28:51):
All the way up to 150 million
Rory (28:54):
Uhhuh for like the number one spot. Mm-hmm
Remington (28:57):
Rory (29:13):
He definitely made it cover the 80 listings.
Remington (29:15):
Yeah.
Rory (29:16):
Wow. Yeah. Uh, that’s awesome. So then, um, okay, well, okay, so the ranking comes out once a year. What about the rest of the year? Like what else? Because like, that makes sense to me to go, like, I, I would be like, where did I rank? Where did my friends rank? Where did my team rank? But that only is once a year. The other 11 months, you gotta put something in there to make them pay attention other than the cover.
Remington (29:38):
Well, the content is all about the realtors. So we have rising stars, we have leaders, we have personal pieces, uh, and we also do stories on our vendors too. And that’s, I the vendors love us and the realtors actually appreciate that too because they’re getting to know these vendors on a deeper level versus just the guy that does my carpet cleaning. Um, so, uh, philanthropy, I mean, there’s so, there’s so much content. Here’s the, here’s the key, the biggest rule with real producers is that we try to have as little content that can be Googled as possible. Less than 10% of the magazine content can you actually Google to find the answers, which means that the majority of content is unique specifically to that issue and the story cannot be found elsewhere. So the cover story, the Rising Star, the leaders, people having an impact within the philanthropy. Like they’re very unique stories within the real estate community. And we do some fun stuff too, like staff, like we do have standings, quarterly standings, monthly standings that that does update. Um, and they, they eat that up as well. Um, but all the content is specific for the realtors of that city.
Rory (30:47):
Mm-hmm
Remington (30:54):
That’s why I’m not doing it all, you know, well, issues. Yeah. That’s why we have franchise owners. Yeah.
Rory (30:59):
So, uh, and then, okay, so then, uh, in terms of monetizing this mm-hmm
Remington (31:27):
Yeah. We make money off of the events. We actually, uh, for the longest time, just to be abundantly clear to the realtor, we didn’t have any ways to make money off of the realtors. We really wanted to establish that you can’t buy your way into the content. Once we established that nationwide, we started creating ways because they, they were asking us, we want extra copies of this. We want just our stories, we want booklets. So at that point we decided, okay, this is an opportunity. And we, we do little promos, little mini magazines of just their story where they can buy a hundred of them and leave behind at open houses and, and things like that. Um, obviously digital marketing has taken a shape differently so that if that’s gonna be part of the geofencing and Google words, like that’s a part of the package as a vendor.
Remington (32:14):
So there’s lots of other ways. And then obviously RP Elevate coming up is, uh, a national event. That’ll be the first time we’ve done that. But if you look at us, uh, real Producers for 10 years, my dream was to have a seat at the table with trusted real estate brands. When they, when you think of big brands that people look to for whatever, now, you know, Zillow is a very polarizing brand, but everyone knows Zillow. I think we’re finally at that point where, especially within the top realtor community, real Producers is a logo and a brand that everyone knows and trusts. And this last year with NAR really struggling with those lawsuits, they need a trusted voice within real estate. And a lot of ’em are looking towards real producers for that. So there’s a lot of opportunity in the future past, uh, vendors paying for an ad.
Rory (33:05):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s really, really cool. Um, do you guys do awards too? Do you do like Oh, yeah, yeah.
Remington (33:12):
Awards banquets are huge, man. We, we raise a lot of money for, um, for charities. Uh, most recently, the last three years, we focused all of our national efforts, uh, to fight human trafficking. And we’ve got five different organizations through what we call N two Gives, which is our parent company. N two Gives. And, um, in the last I think five years, we’ve raised $29 million, um, to fight human trafficking. Uh, I think 4 million of which came from just the real producers markets. So, um, yeah, the, the awards bank was, are a lot of fun, man. We get all dolled up, we, we donate to a good cause and then they get glass trophies that say they’re good at selling homes. Everyone loves it.
Rory (33:57):
Uhhuh
Remington (35:20):
Yeah, Remington ramsey.com would be a great place to start. That’s kind of the hub. Um, we converted my Instagram couple years ago to just being a talking head about marketing. So if you, if any of this was fascinating, you had mentioned different niche products that could be created with the same concept. Um, I talk about all that, so just find me on Instagram, Remington Ramsey. But the book Agent Allies is literally just my story, like a deeper look at how as a vendor you can use real estate agents to build your business a lot faster. Like, if you think about any vendor or service provider, like if you were to start a moving company tomorrow, Rory, instead of doing a billboard or a commercial or advertising the masses, my argument is you should advertise to the realtor. ’cause they’re the ones that know who’s at the center of the move and you’re gonna get a hundred people with advertising to one instead of just one. So the book is really an effort to bring vendors and real realtors together to improve the industry and, uh, get better at sales just in general. So it’s, it’s been a lot of fun. Number one new release in, in real estate over the last couple weeks.
Rory (36:23):
That’s really cool. That’s really cool. Um, well, I, I, I’m noodling and sitting here to go, how would we do this at Brand Builders Group? How would we apply it, you know, to another group? I think there’s a lot of disparate communities out there, even one that real estate that’s so established and has, has nar and like a lot of things. And yet there’s still these pockets of going, you can, you can serve a small group of these people mm-hmm
Remington (37:03):
Thanks for having me on, Rory, I, I told you before the show, but I’m a huge fan. I love your work, your, your books and, uh, strong man of faith, like leading the way, leading the charge on all those reels. Uh, uh, just keep it up, man. Thanks brother.
Ep 572: Using Paid Virtual Events to Scale Your High Ticket Offer with Zach Hesterberg
AJV (00:34):
Everybody. Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand Podcast. AJ Vaden here. Super excited to have this conversation today, one, because I know Zach and I believe this is going to be of immense value to everyone. But two, I’m also super excited ’cause I shared this with him before I hit record. I’m so selfishly invested in learning this information that this to me is like, I’m just over here with like, like a, you know, a girl on the first day of school with her pen and notebook ready to take notes. And so should you as I always do here’s who this podcast is for, and this is why you should stick around. If you would like to know how to test and offer before you invest time, money, energy and resources into it, this is the episode for you, right? If you wanna know how to sell high ticket offers could be coaching, consulting masterminds, communities without taking one-on-one sales calls or big, or building a huge sales team.
AJV (01:34):
This is the episode for you. If you wanna know if you should be hosting paid events versus free events, this is the episode for you. And if you wanna know what the biggest mistakes are with hosting live events today, then this is an episode you do not want to miss. So let’s get right into it. Let me introduce you to the one, to the only. Zach Hesterberg. He is the founder of paid events, helping high ticket coaches, consultants, and course creators scale through paid virtual events with nearly a decade in marketing, Zach has helped generate six and seven figure paydays while selling over 15,000 event tickets. Y’all, that’s awesome. Unlike traditional funnels that rely on unreliable sales teams, his paid event method attracts high net worth premium clients, increases conversions, and creates predictable revenue without burnout. Who doesn’t want that? Zach, welcome to the show,
KH (02:33):
Aj. I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me, by the way. Fantastic intro. You are a fantastic podcaster,
AJV (02:40):
Well, you know, if all else fails, I could always go into MCing, you know,
KH (02:45):
That’s, that’s fair. That’s fair. I’ve always said, I’ve always said, if I had a, if I had a secondary life, I’d always wanna be like a radio DJ or an mc. So I’m, I’m right there with you.
AJV (02:53):
That’s never too late. Never too late. Yeah. All right, well, just to help our audience get to know you a little bit I’d love to just start with, how’d you get into this?
KH (03:04):
Yeah, so paid events specifically that came probably 2020 I was doing, so I already had a marketing agency. Been doing that since 2015. Started in college, just kinda working with some local businesses. And 2020 came around and I was working with a couple clients more so just optimizing their sales process. I was, people were coming into us for help with Facebook ads mm-hmm
KH (03:50):
It was called the Wedding Photography Summit. And he reached out, he said, Hey, I know that you do a lot of stuff with sales processes. I’m selling $7 tickets for this upcoming summit having a hard time scaling up ads. And I also have some like order bumps and, and one click upsells that have a really low take rate on, could you help me out with that? I said, yeah, no problem. So for the next eight weeks, help them scale up ad spend. Got the, the cost per ticket sold like the, the CPA down pretty low got the order bumps swapped out, and it started working really well. We sold over 8,000 tickets. That was my first ever virtual event. Wow. And a week before the event, well, actually it was the week of the event, it was our last call of our consulting engagement. I said, so Jai, what are you gonna pitch during your event? And he said, I wasn’t planning on pitching anything. What do you mean? Like, I was just, I’m hosting a, a paid event. Like I don’t, I don’t wanna pitch anything like these people have paid to be here. I said, brother, do you hate money
AJV (04:44):
I was like, you’ve got 8,000
KH (04:46):
Of your best customers coming to you to learn how to build up their business. You have a coaching program for 2K, you should at least offer that. Like, because an event is only a catalyst to get someone transformation after the event’s over. Like, there’s so many people that will go to a live event, whether it’s in person or virtual. They get all hyped up, they’re excited, and two days, five days, few weeks after the event’s over. Yeah. Nothing. Yeah. You’ve not taken action on anything. And typically that’s because there was not a real transformation that occurred during the event. You got excited, you got into a great emotional state, but there was no action that was taken to hold you accountable to seeing that transformation through after the event was over. So that’s what I pretty much told him. And he was like, all right, well, cool. I’ll give a quick pitch. And he made another quarter million dollars in the last second. And yeah, that’s, that’s how I got started with it. And so I’ve, I’ve taken on quite a
AJV (05:37):
Bit more. Well, that’s a good entry into the business, Zach. Yeah,
KH (06:34):
KH (07:23):
Most theologians would say there were probably 11 to 12,000 people in that crowd that day. And if you do the math and you say, well, if he was working eight hours a day and he had one hour appointments with people, eight, eight, yeah. Eight appointments per day nonstop back to back to back a hundred percent show rate. And you know, not taking any breaks, it would take him about five years and three months to have met with that many people. But he just did it in one afternoon. And it’s not, it’s not that like, it, it, it’s actually not impersonal to do that. It’s actually almost better because he, he’s doing a disservice if he has to have people meeting with him one-on-one. People want to hear from him. They don’t have to have a one-on-one with him. And so anyway, I was like, man, yeah, he used events to be able to start his ministry and even his disciples.
KH (08:16):
‘Cause Some people would say, well, you know, he had a disciple. So that’s his sales team. No, no, no. Most of his disciples were also doing sermons. It’s a far more efficient way to spread a message. And of course, you’re not gonna have a hundred percent conversion, but you could still have somewhere between a 10 to a 20% conversion pretty consistently when you’re speaking to a group of people at the same time, it’s kind of pitching in a one to many fashion. So that’s my, my inspiration behind some of this. I love that. But yeah I mean, happy to dive more into it. Like obviously there’s sales strategies that you have to deploy and you have to make sure that you’re pre handling objections and, and pre-framing people for the right reasons. But yeah, you could absolutely scale. Like I, we’ve seen the, the virtual events that we’ve hosted, we’ve seen them successfully sell anything from as low as a thousand dollars offers as high as $30,000 offers directly from virtual events where people are paying seven bucks for $9 for like really cheap. So it’s a loss leader model. You don’t, you don’t make money on the front end, typically you’ll lose money after the cost of acquisition, but you make all of your money in that backend sale.
AJV (09:17):
So this is so fascinating. So I would curious to hear from you, like, why do you think that these sales call funnels, like the call booking funnels, why do you think they’re becoming a little less effective as time goes on? Yeah.
KH (09:32):
I think it’s twofold what maybe threefold. In general, the, the reason I said twofold is because people are more sophisticated than ever before, and they’re also more skeptical than ever before. So sophistication is like they
KH (10:18):
People have made some investments that really weren’t the best fit for them, or maybe they didn’t get taken well or taken well care of. And so yeah, the, the skepticism and the, the sophistication, it’s like, it’s just really hard to sell to. And in the past you can, when those were both lower, you can easily have a quick 62nd ad that someone watches on Instagram, they watch it, they’re like, oh yeah, this is interesting. Then they click it, they opt in, they watch a quick 20 minute VSL or maybe a 90 minute webinar. They’re like, cool, yeah, I’m sold. I wanna book a call. They book a quick, a quick hour long sales call and they’re gonna buy no problem. But it’s just not happening at the rate that people would like to see at this point. And so, I, I, I always say that lead generation is easy. It’s really easy to get a lead or someone interested in working with you, but the conversion part is much harder. And that’s because most people skip the in-between step, which is the lead nurture. And so I’m finding that, and this is just my kind of hypothesis a virtual event or in-person event doesn’t really matter, is one of the most efficient ways to nurture a prospect and truly gain that know, like, and trust factor that they truly need before they’re ready to invest with you at a higher rate.
AJV (11:29):
So I have a question for you. You mentioned like seven to $9. Why so cheap? Like why not $20? Why not $50? Yeah,
KH (11:38):
Great question. Great question. I haven’t seen a whole lot of data on the 20 to $50 range. I’ve tested all out a, a good few on like the 97 to 2 97 offers, and people still use those. And so I’m, I’m not gonna sit here and say like, one is better than the other. The only reason we’ve done seven to $9, and, and actually here in about three weeks, we’ll be hosting our own event. We’re actually gonna we have the hypothesis that we think a dollar will still work, so we’re gonna do a dollar ticket because I think there’s just something powerful in the 16 digits being exchanged of, of the credit card number. But yeah, the seven to $9 came up from, honestly, that first client, Ja, he was already selling it for seven. And then the very next week I had a client, her name was Christian Boss, and she said, Hey I I, I’m curious about hosting this upcoming three day virtual event.
KH (12:26):
I was gonna make it free. What are your thoughts? I’m like, I have another client we just sold 8,000 tickets for, for $7. Like, do you wanna do that? And she did it. And a month later she had 3,500 tickets sold at a $7 price range, and she made a quarter million dollars from that as well. And I was like, huh, yeah, maybe there’s something to it. And so my hypothesis, like I’ve, I’ve tested out once again, other price ranges, but my hypothesis is that the lower the price range or the, the, the lower the, the price for the ticket, the easier it is to make that quick impulse purchase. And we’re not in it for profit on the front end. We’re in it for buy-in. And there’s a significant difference from a free event versus a paid event of any sort on the show rate as well as the backend conversion rate, because these people
AJV (13:07):
Are sure you better have some skin in the game, right? Yeah. Something.
KH (13:09):
Yeah. So, yeah, I, I don’t know, the seven to nine I, I’m open to being proven wrong. Like, our motto is, we don’t care to be right. We just wanna make money. So that’s why we’re gonna try the dollar tickets. And then we’ve tried some $27 and $47 events, but they just, the sales page conversion rate quite literally just has not been as desirable as we’d prefer. And at the end of the day, we want that cost of acquisition as low as possible.
AJV (13:32):
So that leads me to another question then. So clearly you’re not doing it for profit. Are you trying to do it for break even? Or are you fully prepared to take a loss? Oh,
KH (13:40):
Yeah, yeah. Fully prepared to take a loss. So I’ve
KH (14:22):
Yeah. Yeah. Literally on the spot. So it’s, they’re like, okay, well we can, we can float that cash. So yeah, you can absolutely try to break even. You can add in some order bumps, some one click up sales. But most of the clients that we work with, they’re busy. Like, they’re usually multiple seven figures, oftentimes in the eight figure range. They don’t want to have to come up with new products to sell just for a funnel. Like they’re, like, at the end of the day, they, they only care about the backend profit. So as long as you have the cash to float, great do that. But if you’re really cash strapped, you could of course add in some extra one click up sales and you could try to increase the average order value.
AJV (14:57):
So then it’s Okay. So walking through this process, for anyone who’s listening to who, okay, if I had a little money to put some, you know, money into some ads, had this low ticket offering, what are you seeing is the most successful formula for the event itself? Is it a full day? You mentioned three days. Yeah. Is it a half day? Yeah.
KH (15:15):
Great question. So it does depend on your market a little bit. For example, myself, if
KH (16:08):
The reason why is, is honestly just because if you can deliver a really powerful shift on perspective in their mindset on, on day one, they’re sitting in that for another 24 hours before they get to hear from you again. And then they’re now eagerly waiting for day two, because as long as you kind of create some nice open loops that don’t totally get closed on day one, now they’re super excited for day two and you’re taking up their brain space and their mental bandwidth over the next 24 hours, and that’s only a two day event. If you wanna do a three day event, great. Now you’re, you’re kind of taking up mental bandwidth for about 72 hours of time, and they’re getting to spend in their mind, they’re getting to spend multiple days with you, but really it’s might only be an hour or two per day. So really it’s not much different than a quick little two hour session or a three hour session. But if you could break that up into multiple days, there’s a, in my opinion, a pretty strong correlation on the, just, just the experience that the customer’s having.
AJV (17:02):
So That’s so interesting. So you find that it’s better to have shorter sessions over multiple days than having all together on like a half day full day. Yep.
KH (17:11):
Yeah. By it. I guess my, my rationale behind this, and once again, I like, I could be wrong on this, but my rationale is that the bite size information is easier to digest for sure, as compared to making someone absolutely just drink through the fire hose.
AJV (17:26):
Yeah. And then their brain is so full they can’t think. Yeah.
KH (17:29):
Because if, if their brain is twofold, they can’t think, and they feel like they’ve just drank from the fire hose for four hours straight, the last thing they want to do is now go buy a multiple thousand dollar offer that you’re pitching them because they feel like they just got so much information they need to take action on that before they invest in your offer, because that would almost be poor stewardship of the information they just got. So give them bite-sized, digestible information and still, like, I would say more so radically change the way they look at whatever the area of life is that you’re helping them, whether it’s business or marketing or health or finance, whatever, like help them out with some mindset shifts. Don’t teach too, too much of the how’s. And it’s not manipulative. It’s just like if you teach too much of the how’s, they will then feel like they have to go implement all of that.
KH (18:13):
Yeah. And we all know, going back to what I just said earlier, if they are so focused on the how, and they’re focused on implementing all of that now, they’re not going to actually buy. And if they don’t buy now, they’re, they’re not actually gonna get that transformation and the accountability mm-hmm
AJV (18:44):
Fascinating. And so next question I’d have is for the person listening you know, I think this is a really, you know, a big deal because first of all, you gotta have, you know, if you’re listening, you gotta have some money, right? To put into paid traffic. So is that if they don’t have any money. Yep. So this model still work, what’s just trying Absolutely. Trying to drive it organically. Have you seen that work?
KH (19:05):
Absolutely. Yeah. There’s, we have kind of four core ways that we’ll drive traffic to any event, whether you have a big budget or not. Obviously yes, ads are probably the most scalable. However, you can also leverage your email list or SMS list if you have those. If not, no big deal. I’m sure you have a few emails you could still send send invites to. But then you can also leverage your organic traffic, obviously go post on some social media. Go let your, your word of mouth network know. And then lastly, any JVs or affiliates mm-hmm
KH (19:52):
And so they, they’re financially incentivized for a different reason. We have seen a fun little hack I guess you could call it on the thank you page. There’s some, there’s some extra real estate you could use after someone buys a ticket on the thank you page. Instead of just saying, cool, here’s a receipt. See you there. Check your emails for more information. You could put a video on that thank you page, and you can now actually leverage that as a way to get some new traffic immediately. We’ve seen this done in two ways. Number one, we’ve seen it done where that that video is actually inviting them there. You could have a form directly below that to sign up to be an affiliate. Yeah. And you could get an affiliate code and immediately you could actually start making money. You could maybe give them a hundred percent of ticket sales a hundred percent of the proceeds of the ticket sales that they generate before the event starts.
KH (20:39):
They can potentially even have a little bit of an ROI before they even get to your event. That’s kind of fun. But the other way is just simply leveraging the power of relationships and reminding them of, Hey, look, congratulations on taking this investment, getting your ticket. I just wanna be really clear, we’ve all been to events where nothing changes after the event’s over. Mm-Hmm
AJV (21:40):
Yeah. I love that. I, I love that. Thank you Paige. ’cause That could work, not just for this event, but for anything, anything you have
KH (22:29):
Okay. just wanna make sure that we’re super on the same page. You’re talking about the in event experience, or are you talking about leading up to the event?
AJV (22:38):
My, like the in event experience? Yeah.
KH (22:40):
Okay. In event experience. I think your first question was what’s some of the biggest wins or like, things that they’re doing well,
AJV (22:46):
Yeah. But what should we be doing? Yes. Okay. And then what could people stay away from? Yeah. Like biggest mistakes.
KH (22:51):
Yeah. I think it’s gonna be, what I tell you to do is also the opposite of it is the mistakes.
AJV (23:35):
What’s this leading up to? When’s it coming? Yeah. Yep.
KH (23:38):
And then the second type of
AJV (23:38):
Person that’s me. I’m always like that at the events. I’m like, when’s it coming? What is it? Hurry up.
KH (23:43):
Yep. Yeah, I’m, I’m right there with you. And then the second type of person, they’re there genuinely thinking that their life is about to be entirely changed over the next two hours. Whether it’s one hour per day or whatever. And you can address both of these people in the same statement. You open up and say something along the lines of, Hey guys, I’m so, so excited that you’re all here today, guys, as promised, we are going to teach A, B, and C over the next few days. Whether it’s today or over the next two days or three days, whatever. It’s gonna be extremely powerful. There’s gonna be a lot of shifts in thought that you might have never had before. There’s gonna be a lot of just kind of knowledge bombs that are getting dropped. Like make sure you’re ready to take notes.
KH (24:20):
But I wanna make sure that we’re all on the same page with something. We’ve all been to events and we got some you know, value and it was exciting and then you left and nothing else happened. And so to make sure that I’m not just leaving you hanging there, just, just to call what it is, I’m going to give you an offer at the end of this event. Not gonna sit here and try to say, I’m going to like, it’s not gonna be a bait and switch. I’m actually gonna give legitimate value. You guys paid to be here, unlike a webinar you have paid to be here. Mm-Hmm
KH (24:55):
You’re gonna be off to the races. You do not need to work with us. Fantastic. I’m so excited you’re here. The others of you, you know that you’d much rather have someone holding your hand or some sort of support after this event is over. ’cause You’re genuinely serious about seeing a transformation in this area of your life. Guys, I’m not just gonna leave you hanging. I will absolutely give you an offer if you’d like to continue working with us. I can tell you more about that on the last day. No big deal though right now. I just wanna let you know there will be an offer. So hope that doesn’t offend you all. Feel free if you I’ll even give you a heads up before I give the offer on the last day, if you guys would like to get out of the room, if that would offend you, you guys can go, go ahead and leave.
KH (25:30):
I I don’t wanna pitch anyone that, that doesn’t wanna hear our offer. Yeah. Is that cool with everyone? And you could actually have everyone say, yep, sounds good. They’ve, everyone’s, everyone’s guard just totally dropped. So that’s one big thing that you could do. And then now they’re not, they’re not like surprised when you give them the pitch. I think a lot of people will try so hard to give this incredible amount of value on the front end during their event, and then they try to switch into the pitch and people are like, oh, wait, I wasn’t expecting that. Or like, there’s just kinda an awkward gap. Oh yeah. But if you open up like
AJV (26:02):
That, it, it went on. I love you to, oh no, you’re just selling me. Yeah, yeah. Like that.
KH (26:06):
Yeah. But if you open up like that on the, whenever it comes time to do the pitch, it’s like also, I, I learned this specific from Russell Brunson in one of his 10 x 10 x growth con presentations. He gave an ask and he said, is it cool if I take the next 15 minutes or so to tell you tell you guys about a special offer I created for you all today? And so he actually had kind of a, a question saying, would you be willing to let me give the offer mm-hmm
KH (26:48):
And you actually wait for everyone to say yes. Like, drop in the comments Yes. Or whatnot. Cool. Now they’re literally giving you permission Yeah. To give an offer and pitch them. So that’s gonna be helpful. And then lastly, I would say there’s, I mean, I could continue talking on this, but I don’t wanna ramble. Lastly, I would say keep engagement high. There’s a lot of people that will focus so hard on just rambling as I’m doing right now. And they
KH (27:34):
You could even share like have people share wins or a ahas after a certain session before you jump into the next session. And that way people are now jumping in and they’re actually reminding everyone else in the room of what they just learned. And so like when you do that, people are actually much more engaged. They’re not just gonna be jumping up on Facebook on a, on a different tab of their computer and start scrolling because they see that they are engaged. They are a part of this event. They’re not just watching someone teach.
AJV (28:00):
Yeah. That’s good. Now in terms of the offer, you said that you’ve seen as low as $2,000 mm-hmm
KH (28:13):
Yeah, probably like low end $5,000 higher end 15 k is probably the sweet spot. Reason being, there’s a few ways that you could pitch on the how to actually get the conversion. So you could pitch direct to checkout. My personal favorite. You could technically pitch to, you know jumping on a sales call. I don’t like that because once again, that now puts man hours at the bottleneck of how many people you could serve. And then there’s a third option that I’ve seen work pretty well which is you could pitch a deposit and say, Hey, this is exactly how much it’s, you don’t owe that right now. You actually owe X amount instead. I’ll give a direct example. The client that I mentioned, they’re, they they spend about 30 K right now per day. They have a $6,000 offer and their offer, they could go straight to checkout on this with no problem.
KH (29:04):
But theirs is very specific to a type of individual and some financial criteria. It’s, it’s kind of a a credit based offer and that you have to have a certain amount of credit in order to be able to leverage what they help you with in the backend. And so they, to make sure that they’re not taking on the wrong clients, they’ll say, Hey, look, our offer is six K to you today. Normally it’s 10. Which is true if you go book a sales call with their team, it’s normally 10 K and they say it’s, it’s six K this week. However, you don’t owe that today. It’s on day two. They say, you don’t owe that today. You’d actually only owe $500 and it’s a totally refundable deposit by putting $500 down today. We’re gonna do a bonus q and a day tomorrow, answer all of your questions on whether or not this is truly the right fit for you or not, because not everyone is perfect for this strategy.
KH (29:50):
And they’ll tell you, like on the pitch, like, who, here’s who it’s fear, here’s, here’s who it’s for, here’s who it’s not for mm-hmm
AJV (30:48):
Yeah. So now this is so fascinating and, and so helpful. What, what, what do you think makes a good offer? Like if you’ve been doing this for a while? I listen to it. I’m fascinated with offers. I sign up for all kinds of funnels. ’cause I just wanna see how they work. ’em, I love listening and some are really great and compelling and others are like, I can’t believe anyone is buying this right now. Mm-Hmm
KH (31:14):
Okay, so I, I wanna make sure, I would imagine you’re asking the general question, but just to make sure I’m not misunderstanding. Are you asking about backend high ticket offers or the front end offers?
AJV (31:25):
Yes. It’s for a high ticket offer. Yeah.
KH (31:26):
Great. Okay. In general, it’s gotta be like, I would say categorized under a few different key transformations. So
KH (32:23):
People buy the masterminds because they want the networking. There’s also dating coaches or Sure. People like that. So there’s that. And then also if you could sell, like, anything that’s investment related, that’s you know, it’s going to be an appreciating asset or there is a certain value to it that, yeah, I mean, I’m, it’s like a, a a, just a super high quality or super high service, like a high quality service or high quality product. If you think I’ll, I’ll, I’ll give the best example. The best offers incorporate multiple of these all at the same time. So Rolex, for example technically high ticket offer, you don’t really think of it though. It’s not really a coaching space, but Rolex is a perfect example of a high ticket offer. They’re charging 10 to, I dunno, 50,000, probably more than that for certain watches and what they’re selling.
KH (33:13):
Number one, it’s a high quality product. You know, that if you buy a Rolex, it’s not breaking a month later, it’s going to be around for decades and decades and decades. Also, high quality service, if you go on in, they’re gonna walk you back. Whenever you’re picking up your, your Rolex from your ad, they’re gonna walk you back into a private room. They’re gonna do a special unboxing thing, they’re gonna give you some drinks while you’re there. Like it’s a really nice prestigious service. Additionally, it’s an asset. You’re buying a watch maybe for 10 K that you can walk out if you really needed to. You could walk out and probably resell it to someone else for 15 to 20 K depending on which one that you’re buying. Additionally they’re selling ego
KH (33:59):
So like that’s a perfect example of a fantastic high ticket offer because they’re selling so many different benefits all at the same time. Correct. A bad offer would be something that is just hard to grasp. Like, I had a client not too long ago, incredible, incredible leadership consultant. He helps people with, you know, seeing leadership breakthroughs within their organization. And when I say that leadership breakthroughs, it’s like, why would I buy that? Like that’s, I don’t know, it sounds good, but I’m not ready to just go pay $20,000 for a leadership coach. I think I’m a fine leader. How do I know if I’m a bad leader? Like, you have to, you have to solve for specific pain points such as like, Hey, I’m going to help you get out of your day-to-day operations, or I’m going to help you hire a COO to, or Yeah, that would be even more specific.
KH (34:47):
I’m, I’ll help you hire a COO to get you out the day-to-day operations or a CEO if you get outta the day-to-day operations. Or I’m going to help you turn your team of task doers into business builders. Mm-Hmm. And they’re actually gonna start focusing on revenue driven activities. Or I’ll help you deploy systems that SOPs so that everyone can leave the office at 5:00 PM rather than working until nine or 10:00 PM every day. So like, you have to get way more specific there. So you can’t just say, I’m a leadership coach. You actually have to say, I help with X, Y, and z Kind of an esoteric high level conversation. But does that make sense? A few of those examples I’m giving.
AJV (35:23):
Yeah. I think that’s great. And I think for a lot of people, this comes back to do you know the benefits Yeah. Of your offer. Yeah. Right. This comes back to the fundamentals of what we do at Brand Builders Group with finding your brand DNA. It’s like, what problem do you solve? Mm-Hmm. Right? What’s the cause of that problem? What’s the unique way in which you solve it? That’s your message. Mm-Hmm
KH (36:08):
Yeah. It’s, it’s helpful. I, I love the way that you kind of reframed all of that, so it’s really helpful to understand Yeah. The pain points that you’re solving. ’cause I, I’m sure most of the people listening to this have already heard this before, but there’s only two core human motivators in life running away from pain or running towards pleasure. And so if you can understand your audiences, both of those, what specific pain points and symptoms are coming up in their life or in their business that they’re trying to solve for, and what specific desires are they trying to achieve? Mm-Hmm
KH (36:50):
You actually have to be able to point flaws or like kind of poke holes at Yeah. If you know them well enough, let’s say you’re a health coach and you help people, I dunno, lose the last 10 pounds of, of their little bit of belly fat, if you know that most of them are trying a certain solution and they’re not getting a result, you should also talk about that as well. So it’s like, Hey, I know you have the belly fat, you’re struggling to lose it. I know you want to have six packs, but here’s what you’ve keep. Like here’s what you continue trying to do, which is X, Y, and Z. Here’s why that’s not working. And now, and now you’re setting yourself up for why your specific solution is working well or why it can be the, the solve, like the, the true solution to their problem.
AJV (37:32):
Yeah. I think that’s so good. And that kind of comes back to one thing, and then I know that we’re almost outta time, and I have one really big question that I wanna hit before we do this, but before I get to that, it kind of comes back to a question that I meant to ask earlier. And I was just looking at my notes. It’s like, do you find that for these, you know, very low dollar paid events, that it is better to have a super niche specific targeted topic? Kind of like what we were just talking about? Yeah. Or do you think it’s better to Yeah. Okay.
KH (38:03):
Going broad is not the way to go get as specific as possible. And that’s where people actually make a, a lot of mistakes is that they’ll try to make their event or any of their marketing in general, in general, so broad to be all encompassing, but when you try to talk to everyone, you talk to no one. Yeah. So make it really specific to solve a very specific problem.
AJV (38:20):
Yes. Our favorites not our favorite. One of my, well, it’s my, maybe it’s my favorite, but one of our sayings at Brand Builders Group is so cheesy, but you’ll never forget it. It’s the more specific, the more terrific
AJV (39:04):
But if you’re one of those individuals who’s like, I don’t, I, it’s not that I don’t wanna build a team, I don’t have a team, right? I have to figure out something. I am the sales team. I think these are, these are the great options and why I wanted Zach to come on the show today. But he also has this awesome playbook called the paid events playbook. And you can go to paid events.com/playbook. And in that it’s gonna cover high level overview of how to plan for your event, how to fill your event, and how to convert attendees at your event. Zach, is there anything I’m missing with that?
KH (39:39):
Not really. I, I mean, you, you covered the high level overview for sure. Yeah. It’s, it’s more in depth than most people would think. And obviously if you have any further questions, you could either go jump on chat GBT and go find information, or if you want direct help, sure you can reach out. But that is a really good overview of yeah, how to plan for your event, make sure it’s actually gonna sell and attract the right people, how to host it, keep people engaged, and then how to make sure, you know, it’s, it’s not really helpful to have a hundred people there if no one buys in the end. So how to make sure you are getting those backend conversions.
AJV (40:08):
Yeah. So again, it’s go to paid events.com/playbook. Yep. Get it, read it, use it. All right. Now before our time runs out I have one last question that I think is universally applicable. And I mentioned this in the very beginning during my intro that we said we were gonna talk about how to test an offer Yes. Before you invest into or invest too much time, money, or resources in it to make sure that it’s an offer that will work. So Zach, how do we do that?
KH (40:40):
KH (41:24):
You could use it totally free. Everybody jump on there and you can make an account and it’s a, it’s an AI essentially presentation builder. And you can give a quick one sentence prompt and say, prompt and say, give me a presentation that, or like, give me a PDF that teaches X, Y, and Z. And so let’s say that you’re a health coach and you’re like, give me one that’s like, lose five pounds before your wedding. And then another one that’s like, how to gain five pounds of muscle in the next six months for bodybuilders or whatever. It’s all like, maybe you have a few different ideas, jump on there, create a PDF for all of them, and then we put together a quick Facebook lead form and Facebook lead forms. You can instantly have a download be given to the person, like without even having to set it up with your CRM.
KH (42:10):
And so we had a, we, we had the lead form for each PDF, we tested out a few different PDFs. And on the PDF, or I’m sorry, on the, on the lead form, we were asking name, number, email no, I’m sorry, not even number, just name an email company name. And then we wanted to know not just what was gonna get the lowest cost per lead, but what’s gonna be the highest quality lead. And so we had some custom qualifying questions in there, one of which I said, which of these describes you best? And that question changed depending on the lead magnet they were opting in for mm-hmm
KH (42:53):
And it was like, I’ve never hosted an event trying to create my first one. Second one was I’ve hosted them, struggled to convert. And third one is like, we crush events, we’re just looking at scale. And then I also asked, where’s your company revenue at? And I think that was it. And so I was asking the revenue question for all of our PDFs, and then I was asking a different kind of intention or sophistication level question for the other PDFs. And so what I did, I set it up for about a hundred dollars a day, and within 24 hours I had very crystal clear data.
KH (43:49):
So that way I was minimizing all variables except for the actual lead magnet. And then I was, I, I was like, well, I don’t care about the cost per lead. I wanna make sure these people are actually qualified
KH (44:25):
And they specifically had a, a, a unique experience with real estate investing. We’re like, okay, cool. That helps us out with the pain points and the desires. And anyway, you can do this. Literally go set it up for $300, go come up with two to three PDFs and I mean, you don’t have to spend much more time than two or three minutes on the PDF I beef mine up a little bit. But yeah, do that. Then go set up a lead form, ask some sort of questions for how qualified they are. I’d say like, a financial qualification is probably helpful. And secondly, what’s their sophistication level around what you’re helping them with? And now you’re gonna have way more intel of like, clearly our lowest cost per lead is coming from this type of offer, and here’s the majority of the leads. Here’s their core desire, core pain point, and we actually know they’re qualified. Great. Let’s actually start putting some bandwidth into creating a more robust offer around that.
AJV (45:15):
That’s awesome. Love that Gamma app.
KH (45:19):
Yes.
AJV (45:19):
Love it with Facebook forms, what AI saves the day.
KH (45:24):
It really does.
AJV (45:25):
Right. love it. So, so good. Zach, if people just wanna connect with you or follow you on social media, where should they find you?
KH (45:33):
Yeah Instagram’s good. Just my first and last name, Zach Hesterberg or YouTube. We’re starting to treat quite a bit more seriously. And YouTube a lot of it’s going to be biblical based content talking about events and selling high ticket. So if you want long form, go to YouTube. Short form, go to Instagram
AJV (45:49):
And we’ll put both of those handles in the show notes. Zach. So good. So many good insights. And I think also just a, a good reminder of like, Hey, just because everyone around you is doing it this way, doesn’t mean there can’t be another way. And I think this is a good reminder for all of us who’s like, you don’t have a sales team. You are the sales team, but there’s other ways to still reach the masses and help scale your business without having to scale your team. So this was such a worthwhile conversation. And everyone who’s listening, don’t forget to stick around for my recap episode, which will be coming up next. And Zach, thank you for being here, everyone else. We’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 571: Who to Hire to Build an 8-Figure Business | Jen Kem Episode Recap
RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. There’s an African proverb that says, if you wanna go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go with a team. And if you are an entrepreneur or you’re a small business owner and you’re trying to grow your business, you are definitely going to need a team. And in this video I’m gonna share with you exactly who should you hire first. As one of the most common questions that we hear from people is they say, I don’t know when to hire and who to hire first.
RV (01:08):
And what I’m gonna share with you may surprise you because I’m gonna say that the first people you should hire are gonna be people that support you in your personal life more than your professional life. So you’re gonna need people to work inside of your company too, but you’re likely gonna need to start at home first. Now here’s the high level concept. A high level concept is that you need to hire people who will take things off of your plate. So if you’ve ever felt like I’m doing so many jobs, or I’m doing four people’s full-time jobs, you probably are. That is what it means to be an entrepreneur, especially a solopreneur. And so, as fast as possible, you need to get those jobs off of your plate. But the simplest and most direct positions to hire for are the ones that I think we hear the least about, and that is hiring people in your personal life.
RV (02:02):
So who would you hire in your personal life? The very first hire that I would make is a house cleaner. These are easy to find. There’s a lot of people who offer this service. If you are still cleaning your house, then that means that’s time that you’re spending there instead of spending it on your business. And that’s the big idea here, is anything that’s taking your time, we have to get off of your plate. We have to outsource it, we have to delegate it to somebody else. So I’m looking for the most tangible and tactical and practical things to get off my plate first. So I would start with the house cleaner. It’s also something that you don’t have to be a millionaire to hire a house cleaner. And you can use platforms like care.com, which is one of our favorites. We use care.com to hire, uh, house cleaners, pet care, elderly care, and childcare.
RV (02:51):
Um, you can even get people to cook for you, right? So you go, what, how much time am I spending on mowing the yard? I need to get someone to do the landscaping. How much time am I spending doing handy work around the house? You can, you can use, uh, Thumbtack or, you know, there used to be tackle. I don’t think they’re around anymore. But there’s, there’s all sorts of, uh, platforms and apps you can use to hire these people locally. Not only do you free up your time, you get them a job and you’re providing income opportunities for the people around you. So anything that is taking time around the house, I would start with first. ’cause that’s gonna give you your peace of mind back. And many times those are some of the most tactical universal skills that are the easiest to hire for next inside of your business.
RV (03:38):
The very first thing that I would, the very first position that I would hire is an assistant. You need an assistant to do basic things for you. Like, um, schedule flights, you know, these are people who can do expense reports, they can filter your email, they can schedule appointments on your calendar and deal with the back and forth with that. They can take the, all the things that come into your inbox that don’t really need your attention, and they can start processing those. In my case, my assistants have access to my inbox. I’ve always done that. And you go, well, what about privacy? And I go, well, if it’s anything that’s super private, then, you know, set up a private email inbox for that or a text message. But, uh, your business email
RV (04:34):
Like, that’s an important part of the job, but it’s, it’s not rocket science to solve that problem. But you need an assistant, you need someone to filter out spam and, and just everything. And also a personal assistant. So this could be the same person, or it might be someone else, someone to do your grocery shopping for you, someone to run to the dry cleaner, someone to do go buy Christmas presents, somebody to wrap the presents, somebody to meet, meet the maintenance man, take the car to get an oil change. All of these things that suck up your time, that is time that you could be spending either on your business or with your family or doing hobbies. Those are the easiest things to hire. After you get your assistant, then typically the next person that you hire in a, in inside of your business, I think is someone who can do marketing for you.
RV (05:22):
So marketing is another tactical skillset that you, that takes time and it’s things that people can learn, right? It’s a very straight down the, the path. There’s things you need to learn how to do. Now as you get lar bigger and your brand grows, or your company grows, you may need multiple marketing people. Specifically, there’s three skill sets you need. You need someone who can write something, copywriter. You need someone who can graphically design something, and then you need a video editor, somebody who can edit videos. Those are really, really common roles. Um, but in the beginning, you might just have a marketing assistant if you’re posting on social media or they’re helping make updates to your web pages, or they might even just be a project manager who’s managing your vendors. When you’re first starting out in your business, chances are you can’t afford a bunch of a bunch of employees.
RV (06:11):
So what you do is you hire contractors, you hire vendors, but you try to have one person who is on your team who can project manage multiple vendors until you can scale up and afford to bring people on your team, which is expensive. And then they want raises, and you want to give ’em raises and they need benefits and like they have to provide for their families. But you, you grow together, but you don’t have to wait to be able to afford employees to start delegating and hiring things off of your, your plate. You can do that right away with all of these apps. You can do it with, uh, hiring contractors, but you kind of do need somebody at home. It’ll start as an assistant. Then maybe there is an, a marketing assistant. Um, another early role that you’re gonna hire in your company is gonna be an accountant, a bookkeeper, right?
RV (06:57):
You’re gonna need someone to deal with quick QuickBooks or whatever software tool you’re using to keep track of your expenses. A lot of times you can, you can find, uh, retired accountants to do that. You can find people who know QuickBooks. You can find people with, you know, basic level education, maybe not even a college diploma, but who have experience in accounts payable and accounts receivable. It’s a great side job. And you’ll notice that all of the jobs, all of the roles that you’re hiring early on are tactical, not strategic. Strategic roles tend to be more expensive. They tend to require more experience and they’re more artistic. The easier roles to hire are the ones where it’s like, it’s a task and here’s a task and here’s an instruction manual for how to do it. And you can just like put anyone in that, in that seat.
RV (07:46):
As you grow, then you need to bring on more strategic people because there’s complexity that will be added to your organization, um, after you hire a bookkeeper and you get that in place, the next thing that I would be looking to hire is what we would call delivery. Somebody who can actually do client work for you so that you don’t have to do the work, right? In any type of business, even if I’m a, you know, if I’m a high school kid, starting a a, a, a mowing, a yard mowing business, there is delivering the service and then there is selling the service. And you have to separate those two tasks. You’ll make more money if you’re selling the service than if you’re delivering the service, right? So you go, I can make more money selling people $10, a $10 service to cut their yards, and then I can find people to mow the yard for $5 and then I’m gonna keep the five.
RV (08:40):
That’s how you really become an entrepreneur, and that’s how it starts. So in order for you to be able to sell more, you gotta open up your capacity, which means you need more people who can deliver. So you gotta get other people trained to do a good job. And that becomes a really hard part. The, the more people driven your business is, right. And so services like ours at Brand Builders Group, we do personal brand strategy. So the people that we hire are personal brand strategists. They have to learn our curriculum, our methodology, our philosophy. They have to hold our values and we spend a a lot of time training them. And, and we also look for people who come in with some experience so that they can work with clients at a lower rate of pay than somebody would have to work with me or my wife and our CEO my business partner aj.
RV (09:26):
Um, so you need to get delivery off of your plate, and that is where the business starts to become scalable because you can sell more and more and more as long as you can deliver that service and you have other people who can deliver it after that. The next thing that we typically start to outsource is sales. Because when you start the business, you are usually the top sales person, but sales is a tactical skillset and it is something that can be delegated and it can be farmed out. And this is something that we did in our past life, was train salespeople. We have inside of brand builders group curriculums for both how to sell and for how to recruit, train, hire, manage, and motivate salespeople. Um, the other thing that’s great about hiring salespeople, and sometimes salespeople you actually can hire earlier, is salespeople often can and want to be paid on commission.
RV (10:18):
If they’re good, they’d rather be paid for their results and they’d rather be paid a percentage of the business they bring in than a flat stable, um, stream of pay, like in a salary or an hourly rate. Well, when you’re starting a company, salespeople can really be great because you don’t have a lot of consistent revenue. You can’t take the risk of hiring employees. But if you find a salesperson who’s willing to work on commission, you can hire as many straight commission salespeople as you can keep up with because it’s on them to go out and sell and you wanna support them and help them. But commission-based salespeople can be one of the very first, uh, positions that you hire in the company. After that, it starts to get more strategic. Uh, in brand Builders group, we have a curriculum called Eight Figure Entrepreneur, and we talk about how do you grow your business from a six figure business to seven figures, multi seven figures, and ultimately eight figures.
RV (11:13):
That is something that my wife and I have done six times. Six times. We have started multi seven figure businesses and twice we have built eight figure companies completely from scratch, from zero, uh, with, you know, no, no venture backed money. We don’t use bank debt. We’ve built it from revenue, from customers in graduating the teams up. Now, when you get to that level, we talk about the eight departments of every business. Every single company, whether a small solopreneur or a Fortune 100 company has eight major functions. Marketing, sales, delivery, customer service, HR, operations, and IT administration and finance it. Every business has those functions. The reason you’re overwhelmed as an entrepreneur, as a solopreneur is ’cause you have to do all eight of those things. Marketing has to generate the lead, sales has to sell, the lead delivery has to fulfill on that, uh, promise and deliver to the customer.
RV (12:17):
Customer service has to deal with any customer service questions or cancellations. HR has to hire all of the people to do of those things, operations. And it has to create the tools and the systems to support all of those people doing those roles. Administration deals with the, the strategic, uh, parts of the business as well as the legal parts, um, and, you know, taxes and legal structure and filings and all that. And then, uh, finance deals with counting the money of all of those things. Those eight functions exist in every business. And as you start to scale, you’ll start with these early positions, and then over time, you’re gonna need someone to head up each of those departments. And then from there, the sky is the limit.
Ep 570: Building the Team to Launch Your Brand with Jen Kem
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One of my favorite interviews we’ve ever had on this podcast is from a woman named Jen Kem, who we’re going to hear from again today.
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Now, when she came on before, she was kind and generous enough to share a lot of secrets about how to monetize events and structure your events in a way to sell high dollar offers.
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And it blew my mind.
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Like literally things that are so significant and monumental.
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So I was like, we have to have her back.
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And part of what we’re having her back for is she has a new book that is coming out.
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And so let me give you the full the full rundown on Jen.
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So she has been named as a top brand strategist by Forbes and she specializes in sort of like just launching innovative ideas with high performing teams.
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And she’s done that for big companies.
0:47
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She’s done that for personal brands, but she has what she calls the Unicorn innovation model, and that’s been used by iconic brands like Oprah Winfrey Network, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Oracle, and a number of New York Times best selling authors and keynote speakers and other thought leaders.
1:04
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So she knows our space really well.
34:15
34 minutes 15 seconds
I love it.
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34 minutes 16 seconds
So I got one last question for you before I ask you that.
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Just where do people go if they want to learn about the book and keep up with you and, and you know, for more info on helping build their own Unicorn team?
34:31
34 minutes 31 seconds
Yeah.
34:31
34 minutes 31 seconds
So number one, I mean, obviously the easiest thing to do is go to Amazon.
34:35
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Most of us like go there and the books available in all the booksellers online.
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34 minutes 39 seconds
And if they’re not, if it’s not in your local bookstore, ask them to order it for you.
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34 minutes 44 seconds
Like it.
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34 minutes 44 seconds
It’s available wherever books are sold, Amazon being the easiest place to find it currently.
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And then if you want to know more, you can go to unicornteambook.com.
34:53
34 minutes 53 seconds
It gives you a lot of like other things that I didn’t get to share here that tell you what the book and tells you also all the places you can get it.
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And then my favorite places to hang out, if you will, to kind of chat and and talk anything Unicorn is LinkedIn and YouTube specifically, but on Instagram is definitely me in the DM.
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So if you like, you know, find me over there and you want to ask a question, it’s actually me responding over there.
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I love it.
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I love it.
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So my last question for you, Jen, is just to go like, if you think about personal brands applying this sort of leadership energy to their futures, what, you know, what’s the biggest mistake you see them make that you would encourage them not to do in this particular area around finding the right people, finding the right idea, activating, you know, their energy of all the people, Like what do you think is kind of the biggest mistake that you would just say like just don’t, just don’t do this.
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I’d say don’t abandoned your identity in the relationship to team, especially as people are telling you to scale and grow, which you you probably want to do.
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But scaling and growing, if you abandoned yourself in that, it’s going to be difficult for you to have the energy to go to the next level because as I like to say, you’re going to hit the next level.
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You’re going to meet a new devil and when you meet that new devil, you need to know what to deal with.
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You need to know how to face that devil, and it’s really about you feeling that energetic strength to push through the right heart thing for the next right thing.
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36 minutes 31 seconds
And so don’t abandoned yourself.
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36 minutes 34 seconds
A team includes you.
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That’s the bottom line, and you are the core and the nucleus of the team as the personal brown and as the founder of the ideas that you’re bringing into the world.
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I love that.
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36 minutes 46 seconds
I think I’ll that’s what will I, one of the things that will stick with me from this is just doing the things that give me energy and good permission to keep those things and embrace those things and not think, oh, as we grow, I I have to do these other types of things.
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So that’s really, really powerful.
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Well, you know, I’m a huge fan of you.
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I’ve learned so much from you.
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I’m so excited about this, the book, all the things that you’re up to.
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37 minutes 13 seconds
And you know, when we get around to like doing our events and bigger events, it’s like you will be on that Unicorn team.
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37 minutes 21 seconds
It’s like I got to call Jen because I know she she just knows how to activate, you know, an event.
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So we wish you the best.
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Thank you for letting us be a part of the journey.
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37 minutes 31 seconds
Thanks for the time today and keep crushing it, friend.
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Thanks, Rory.
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I’m so grateful for you.
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37 minutes 37 seconds
Thanks for being a Unicorn in my life too.
Ep 543: How To Find Where Your Ideal Clients are Gathering | Michael Mogill Episode Recap
RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help Mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. Before you can sell to your clients, you have to find them
RV (01:01):
In this video, we’re gonna share with you the eight top ways to find where your perfect clients all hang out. Let’s dive in right away with number one. And the first one is, it should be where you hang out. It really should be, it should be all the places that you hang out. Why? One of our fundamental core beliefs at Brand Builders Group is that you are always most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. Which means that if you are building a personal brand, it should be built around people that you’re trying to help. The people that you are best suited to help and who you are most likely to make a lot of money from quickly are the people who are like you were a few years ago. That is who you’re most powerfully positioned to serve. It’s who you are most divinely equipped to help support, which means that those people should be you.
RV (02:00):
They should have been you maybe five or 10 years ago or something like that, right up front. If you’re having a hard time finding your ideal clients, then you might be serving the wrong avatar because that means you are trying to reach someone who you don’t fully understand. If you’ve done the rest of your personal brand strategy right, and you’ve had a good strategist from our team, or if you’re doing it yourself, you should be dialed in on these people because it should be you. So ask yourself that question. Where do you hang out? What are the, what are the magazines that you read? You know, what are the conferences that you go to? And, and you really should know those if you don’t. That brings us to number two, which is ask, ask your current clients where they hang out. Send them a survey, call them on the phone, shoot ’em a quick email, like when you see them at your, in your next encounter, just ask, Hey, what are the books that you read?
RV (02:59):
What are the magazines you subscribe to? What are the podcasts that you listen to? What are the conferences you go to? What associations are you involved with? Who do you follow? Like ask your current clients. Where are their favorite sources of media? And there’s lots of ways to ask. You could do that in person with a email, with a survey, et cetera, et cetera. But ask, it is one of the legitimate best ways to find new pockets where your clients might be hanging out that you’re just not aware of. So go ahead and ask. It’s super, super, super simple. Number three is follow other industry leaders. You should follow other industry leaders. One of the biggest mistakes that personal brands make is that they forget, in order to be a great teacher, you must first be a great student. So you should, again, you should be studying, you should be learning, you should be following other industry leaders or other leaders who are in your space, not ’cause you’re gonna copy them, not ’cause you’re gonna steal their stuff, because you’re gonna learn from them.
RV (04:02):
And because that’s gonna help shape you and, and, and help you understand your space. It’s gonna help you know what’s already been written. It’s gonna help you in order to forward the conversation, which is what a thought leader does. A thought leader forwards the conversation. You have to be in the conversation, right? You have to know what conversation is being had. So follow the other industry thought leaders, because they’re gonna point you to resources and talk about people and events and tools and media outlets and groups that you can be, you know, plugging into. And that’s gonna help, help you understand really quickly where those people are. Which brings us to number four, which is kind of related. It’s podcasts. You should be listening to the podcasts in your space, right? Like they’re going to interview and feature other guests who are world renowned leaders in, in your space.
RV (04:54):
Now, our goal here, right as we build your personal brand, is that one day we want you to be the guest, right? I mean, one day you’ll probably be the host first, and we want you to get interviews with those other people. And then one day we want you to become the guest where you are the expert thought leader. You are the most world renowned authority. You are, you know, the leading, recognized voice in your space, but you have to kind of know who those people are. And so listen to the podcast and this plugs into number five, which is search. Use the search, search for your topic, search for your space, search for your audience in each of the search functions, not just Google, but search in the YouTube search bar, search inside of Twitter, search inside of Facebook, search the terms on TikTok, search the actual terms, and that will introduce you to the leaders, the influencers, the movers and shakers.
RV (05:49):
And it’s gonna show you the groups, right? Search on LinkedIn and, and you search a topic like sales and all the top sales groups are gonna come up. They’re all right there, right? Someone has already gathered your audience. That’s the great thing is while you want, while you build an audience, you want to find existing audiences while you build your own audience, which is one of the things we’re super passionate about, is teaching you how to build your own audience while you’re building your own audience. You need to find existing audiences, and that’s what this whole video lesson is all about, right? So use the search feature. Relatedly is hashtags, which is number six. Hashtags are going to help you find your people. And, and if you’re following industry leaders pay attention when they use a hashtag, right? If you don’t know what a hashtag is, right, it’s just, it’s just the pound sign and then a word, right?
RV (06:42):
Like, you know, we sometimes use mis pound mission driven messengers. And so if you’re following brand builders group, that’s like one of the hashtags that our, our people youth, right? So you would, if you were following us, you would pay attention and go, oh, there’s other people who are following this, this type of a hashtag. You gotta know what are the top hashtags in your industry? Again, this tool that I’m gonna share with you at the end of this video is gonna do all of these for you. So make sure that you stick around. Number seven is Google Alerts. Google Alerts. Google Alerts is one of the oldest features of Google. A lot of people still don’t know about it, but it still works really, really well. You can actually take any term that you would ever type into a Google search bar, and you can set an alert for that term.
RV (07:29):
And what a Google Alert does is it automatically emails you anytime that term shows up in a new published article or in a new online mention somewhere. So Google is scraping the web and it’s, it’s basically like making Google an employee for you, like a virtual assistant or something that’s gonna go scour the internet every day for all the new articles and all the new websites and any new mention of the terms that matter most to you. By the way, you should at least have a Google alert for your name, because you definitely wanna know when people are talking about you and writing about you online. So make sure that you set up Google alerts. And then finally, number eight, the tool is called Spark Toro. This is my absolute favorite. This is a tool that we discovered maybe about a year ago, and it is incredibly powerful because it basically does all of these first seven things for you.
RV (08:25):
What Spark Toro allows you to do is basically type in a topic and then it will tell you all of the people who are sort of like the leading authorities on that topic, or basically it, it scrapes the web and says, people who follow this topic also follow all of these people. The other thing it will do is you can say, you can put in a person and say something like, you know, whoever Mel Robbins and you say, I wanna reach people like the people Mel Robbins reaches. And so you could say people you type in Mel Robbins and Spark Toro will tell you, here’s everybody who has followers that are similar to the people who follow Mel Robbins. It’s a tremendously powerful tool. It it’ll introduce you to you know, branded, like branded or themed accounts or company accounts or just like communities as well as other thought leaders who you’ll be like, I didn’t even, I’ve never even heard of that person, even though maybe you have been in the space for a long time.
RV (09:26):
So we’ll include an our affiliate link to Spark Toro, but it’s a free tool. You get so many free uses of it, or at, at least at the time of this video, it is a free tool and you can use a couple free searches a month, and then you pay some very nominal rate to have access to this. So check out spark Toro. You can click on our affiliate link or just check it out on your own. But there you have it. There you have it. Eight ways to find your ideal audience. You have to find your audience before you can sell to your audience. And remember, before you can be a great teacher, you must first be a great student. So make sure you’re plugged in to your area and to your space to that you are one of these people in and among the crowd, so that you can then rise and raise your personal brand to where you’ll become at the front of that crowd.
Ep 542: How to Build a 9-figure Personal Brand with Michael Mogill
RV (00:03):
You are about to meet someone that I admire dearly. Michael Mogul is someone who I think is the epitome of someone who is doing the things that we teach personal brands to do. Except he’s not a client of ours,
RV (00:56):
And Michael has been amazing. Let me give you a little bit of his formal bio. So he’s the founder and CEO of Crisp, which is the number one law firm growth company in America. So they advise law firms on how to grow their practice and do another number of things related to, you know, improving operational efficiency, increasing profits, marketing, sales, the whole thing. They, they curate a huge event many different events, but a, a, a huge event. And he is also the author of a book called The Game Changing Attorney, which is one of Amazon’s bestselling books in the legal category. He hosts the Game Changing Attorney podcast which again, is one of the top podcasts in his niche of legal market leaders. The, the, the conference they put on is called the Crisp Game Changer Summit.
RV (01:46):
It’s huge conference. They’ve had many of the biggest speakers in the world and they help thousands of attorneys that are from solo and small firms to large practices just to differentiate themselves and, and earn millions in revenue. And in the process of that, the Michael’s company, Chris, has become very, very well respected. One of the fastest growing companies in Atlanta, twice, has been on the Inc 5,000 in the top 10%. And he’s just a, a student of personal development and, and personal growth. And I just want you to hear the story of how somebody has built a massive business serving one very specific niche. And so here to tell us that story is Michael Mogul. Michael, welcome to the show, man. Thank you for having me. So tell us a little bit about how, how you got, so, first of all, did I say anything in inaccurate in what I just said? That, that, that was a mouthful of me trying to just recapture, but that, that, that’s it, right? Like you guys serve the, the just lawyers exclusively in a very, very deep way. You curate events just for them. You write books just for them. You create podcasts just for them, right? That’s right. And, and as you were saying it, I, I felt like you were talking about
MM (02:58):
Somebody, somebody else. So it’s a, it was amazing, right? Like the, you hear all these accolades and you know, it, it’s, it’s kinda like the feeling that I had when I released, you know, our first book and, you know, the day before. I wasn’t a bestselling author, but the day after I was. And it’s just, it’s amazing how, how life changes.
RV (03:13):
Yeah. Yeah. So give us a sense of the size of your business to whatever e extent you’re comfortable. The, the number of customers you see, the, the size of your, your employees, your, your, the size of your events, just like whatever, yeah. Whatever analytics or empirical stuff you can give us to give us a, I wanna, I want people to understand a sense of the scope of what you’ve been able to build, serving a, you know, a a very specific audience.
MM (03:39):
Yeah. Yeah. So at this point, we work with about a thousand law firms across the country. Okay. And then roughly, because we also work with I’d say probably close to about 2000 law firm team members. We have, you know, this point, I’d say probably between 120, you know, 120 to 130 employees, right? That are full-time in the company. We are high eight figures. We’ve gotten a nine figure valuation for the business. And the business is entirely bootstrapped, started with $500 to my name, no investors, no loans, no partners, you know, no funding. Nothing like that.
RV (04:07):
That’s incredible. And, and this is one of the first points I want to make for people who are listening. I’ve been saying a lot that too many people are chasing the, the width of their reach, that they’re forgetting about the depth of their impact. And everybody’s chasing millions of followers, millions of followers, millions of followers. You’ve got a business that’s valued at nine figures with 1000 customers. That’s it. One, one thou not tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, not millions. 1000 customers, nine figures, for those of you mathematicians, that’s a hundred million dollars plus valuation from a thousand customers. Michael, that’s extraordinary. And I think that that represents the future of how monetization will be done for, for, for personal brands. So tell us about how you started it. ’cause I, you, I know when you and I talked before, you were like, yep, no investors and no partners. So, so how the heck did you start it? Because clearly if you didn’t have investors and a bunch of money, you must have started, you must have started fairly small, right?
MM (05:17):
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, as, as as small as small gets. So I am a first generation immigrant. So my, my, my family and I, we immigrated here. They were, you know, refugees coming over from Eastern Europe. We came here, I was four years old and you know, this was in 1990. And at the time, you know, my, my parents, you know, being immigrant parents, my career path was either doctor or lawyer. And when I went to college, I actually went pre-med at, took the mcat, got into medical school, decided that that was not for me. I spent, you know, hundreds of hours shadowing doctors, but I was always very entrepreneurial in nature. Like, I had a, you know, a web design company when I was 16 years old. And, you know, there’s always like these entrepreneurial ventures. So at the time, you know, where, you know, when I finished college and, you know, I got into medical school, I put in for a deferral just essentially to say, well, I’m not sure I wanna go yet, but I wanna take a year to just kind of find out.
MM (06:05):
This was in 2008. For those that remember this was, you know, not a great time in the economy. So I go from, you know, seemingly about to go to medical school, to washing dishes at a dive bar. Nice. It’s called Taco Mac. And yeah, it was like the American dream. You can imagine how, you know, how proud my parents were at this point. And essentially I went from there to washing lab equipment at the CDC, so the Centers to Disease Control. And while I was there, I had an opportunity to do some of the web design and web development. But really I was trying to figure out like, what do I wanna do with my life? And how do I want to, you know, spend my time? Like, what, what skills do I have? I knew I didn’t wanna go to medical school, so, you know, I just, I started doing all sorts of stuff.
MM (06:43):
Like, I would try to use the time productively to develop skills, whether it was in understanding like money, or whether it was understanding marketing. And I bought a camera. ’cause I just figured this would be like a lifetime hobby to learn, like, just to, just to take pictures. Wow. And every day I had the goal of just like taking one great photo and it was like, you know, like taking photos of flowers and plants and, you know, that sort of thing. But for me, my hobbies, you know, tend to turn into businesses. So the, you know, getting the camera turned into a photography business. And this was originally in like, in the hospitality space, so like bars and restaurants and concerts. Okay. Photography became, you know, video. And we had a a company in Atlanta where we were just doing photography and video and, and nightclub promotions and just working with like Live Nation when there were concerts that came into town.
MM (07:26):
And eventually I started doing that full time. After I’d say four to five years, I started to realize that I think I’m sitting at the wrong table. Meaning that, you know, I’m, I’m going all in on this, but half of our clients go outta business every year. ’cause The bars and restaurants turn it over, and then when it rains outside that, you know, that affects our business. So who would be a better fit client? And at the time it was our corporate clients. So things like the W hotels, red Bull, Verizon, Coca-Cola. So that’s really how CRISP started. It was the pivot from, you know, one industry to focusing more on, on corporate clients. But at the same time, we had no focus, like, meaning that we would work, you know, doing videos for anyone. I mean, when I started the business, even originally in 2012, I had $500 to my name.
MM (08:06):
So it’s like, how do we get clients and customers? And I just went down my list of contacts on my phone and I messaged everyone. I was saying, does anyone know anyone who needs a video? Right. And, and we were doing, I mean, it didn’t matter if we would do like a bar mitzvah or a soccer tournament or, you know, you’re just, you know, filming a dental practice, you know, whatever it was, there was just no focus whatsoever at the time. It was just, how do I get business? It was just me. And I will say that one of the biggest, you know, kind of pivots in the business that that led to a lot of exponential growth was when we started working with lawyers and law firms. So at the time we were doing videos for everyone, brands, different types of professional services, like just all sorts of different industries and businesses. It was just, it was about selling video to everyone, which was not, you know, not a great way to scale. And then,
RV (08:48):
Yeah, so you, you’re doing like, you’re, you’re, you’re selling to everyone, but you’re a generalist and so you’re just like, yeah, getting low dollar things like here and there. When, when you, when you decided to go on law firms. ’cause ’cause Yeah, here’s the ironic fear that all of our clients have when we, when we tell them like, Hey, pick, pick one and, and serve one audience very deep is they think that that will be limiting. They go, well, if I only serve this one audience, I’m gonna be saying no to all of these other people, and that that’s gonna make my business smaller and less revenue and less profitable. It’s like the, the idea of focusing on a, on a more specific, they, they confuse that being specific means being smaller. But it was not, it’s not that, it was not that way for you.
MM (09:43):
Absolutely not. And in fact, I even learned this lesson from many of the lawyers we worked with. So at the time, I mean, this happened by accident. I’m not a lawyer, nobody on our team is a lawyer. And we had a a fan, a phenomenal attorney come to us that essentially she, you know, she was working hard, but she couldn’t compete with the big advertisers, whether it was on tv, radio, billboard. She didn’t have the resources to compete. And we ended up producing a number of videos for her, like really that highlighted her area of expertise, what set her apart. Those videos went on social media and her business exploded. And then that led to her referring another lawyer that she knew and then another lawyer. And at the time, I didn’t know anything about the legal industry. As I started to learn more, I saw a super saturated, very competitive, commoditized space that consumers have a difficult time differentiating one lawyer from another lawyer.
MM (10:29):
And then I saw that, okay, well if they’re producing these great videos that tell their story, this becomes in, in a way a competitive edge, right? Especially for, you know, most law firms which can’t compete on TV and radio and other traditional forms of advertising. I also found, and this is kind of where that niche focus starts to come in, is that the law firms that came to us that were these full service firms that were doing personal injury and criminal defense and family law and so on, they were really struggling to bring in cases versus the ones that were honed in on one practice area. But the ones that were doing the best were honed in on one practice area, but then they found a deep niche, like a personal injury lawyer that focused exclusively on trucking accidents or motorcycle accident cases, right? The ones that had that, you know, that deep niche, they were able to be very focused in their marketing messaging and also were able to stand out and differentiate versus saying, Hey, we help all injured people, or we help not just injured people, but we also help those going through divorces.
MM (11:20):
And we also help those that need like, you know, business litigation, right? Because you’re just so broad. So I think that’s where, you know, that that started. And then for me, when we made that pivot fully and exclusively to working with lawyers and law firms, it’s just, I candidly saw that we were making a much greater impact. And I liked helping small business as opposed to some of these larger corporations where, you know, they had to spend the money, right? They, they had the budget, it was a lot of like decision makers, but helping another entrepreneur was much more rewarding. And we were helping them solve a challenge that we ourselves were solving in the process of how do you differentiate and stand out in a very crowded space where consumers have a hard time towing one apart from another.
RV (11:56):
Yeah. And I, the the other thing that’s amazing about this, right, is somebody listening might be like, oh, well that’s good. Michael figured out his niche and he’s crushed the law space. So now I can’t get into the law space. And I go, no, you’ve reached a thousand, you have a thousand attorneys. How many attorneys are there in the us? Do you have any idea?
MM (12:19):
Oh yeah, there’s about 1.3 million
RV (12:21):
MM (13:10):
Absolutely. And in fact, I was speaking with a, with an attorney recently. So she focuses on allergen law and apparently there’s only three lawyers. She focuses
RV (13:16):
On what? Allergy
MM (13:17):
Allergy law, right? So like if you, let’s say the types of cases would be if you go to a restaurant and you have a child who’s allergic to peanut butter and you tell the restaurant, Hey, you know, make sure no peanut butter, but then they put, put it on there anyway. And they have, you know, this massive allergic reaction they have to go to the hospital that is allergy law. And she said that she’s one of three that focuses on allergen law across the country. Like meaning that there’s just, there’s only three of them. It’s not, it’s not a super well-known practice area. There’s not a ton that do it. But she’s become kind of the go-to expert in this space because she writes books on allergy law, she’s now working with the FDA in terms of advising them. She works with several nonprofits and, and it’s such a, you know, you can find like the more narrow the focus we find, the more successful they are generally and the more known they are for that specific area.
MM (14:02):
Like, it is much, much easier, I think to grow a successful law firm. Probably a successful business as well, if you’re very clear on, and, and as you know, Roy, I mean like, you know who you’re for and who you’re not for down to the marketing messaging down to being able to differentiate and stand out and resonate. So I find that the more and more you niche down, I mean, I guess the common thought is that, oh, there’s gonna be less available. You know, like total addressable market, right? It’s like, oh, there’s gonna be less people, but you don’t need to win. You know, you don’t need to boil the ocean essentially.
RV (14:29):
Mm-Hmm,
MM (15:39):
Yeah, so when we started out, you know, started the company in 2012 video, then started working with lawyers, I believe around like 20 13, 20 14. But really the, so the expansion started where, you know, video was great, you know, to help somebody differentiate and stand out from the competition. It was great content. But then the next thing we heard was that, okay, I’ve got this great video, but how do I get it out there? Like, how, you know, how do I actually get the phone to ring and how do I get, you know, get known? Which is really where the marketing started of us placing the content on social media for our firms. So that was the marketing piece. And then we realized, you know, several years in that, okay, you can have great content and you can be, you know, promoting and amplifying that content, but then what happens when someone reaches out to you?
MM (16:18):
And that’s where all, like, everything beneath the iceberg of do you have a good business? Do you have the right people in place? You know, is the operation strong? Like is the culture, right? Like all those elements that sometimes you can have great marketing, but if you’re already working 80 hours a week, getting more calls, getting more leads, getting more cases doesn’t, you know, really materially improve your life. ’cause You’re already working 80 hours a week. So that’s where we went from video to marketing to coaching. And we soon saw that, you know, when we were doing workshops and coaching our firms on the leadership side of really growing a successful business, you know, in, in, you know, in their field. Now it’s like, okay, you can work with the firm owner. But then we started to get their team members on board because the team members were, that’s where all the true leverage came in for them.
MM (16:57):
So we started the team member workshops and we added, you know, onsite trainings. We come out to their office and then we even recently added recruiting to where we were first coaching on here’s how you can source and find these candidates. ’cause Hiring was one of the biggest challenges for many of our firms. And then we say, you know what, here’s the, we’re gonna show you how to do it and teach you how to do it. And then there’s the option of, we’ll do it for you. But what, where this all came from, I guess coming back to the, the reason for this evolution of the ecosystem was in the fact that we, we said from day one, we’re an law firm growth company. And one of the things that I didn’t love is that I hear a lot of businesses say they are an, you know, an x, y, z growth company, but what does that really mean?
MM (17:32):
Right? And can you really help solve a true business growth problem if you’re focusing really on only on one area? Like if we were only producing the content, if we were only doing the marketing, right? And I really viewed this as being a holistic solution of having like kind of a go-to shop that helps you understanding that you need to have all these elements and all these pieces, pieces to truly achieve these growth goals. Like if a firm comes to us and they’re at a million in revenue and they say they wanna get to 10 million in revenue, okay, is video gonna take them from one to 10 million? Probably not, not on its own at least, right?
RV (18:00):
It’s gonna help, yeah. Not just as an independent item that doesn’t, it has to exist inside of a ecosystem of, of like Strat, like strategic offerings or I guess operational elements.
MM (18:11):
Exactly. I mean, we just found that you’ve gotta get your messaging right. You’ve gotta get the positioning right. You gotta have the right content. You have to make sure that you’re promoting and amplifying the content in the form of marketing so people hear about you. And then once that call comes in that you’re providing, you know, you’re living up to your marketing, you’re providing great service, you’ve got a strong leadership team, like there’s operations in place in terms of processes and systems and procedures and so on. And now you can really start to grow and scale a great business. So all those elements and those expansions, the ecosystem came back to, if we say we’re gonna be a law firm growth company, then, you know, we really wanna make sure that we’re integrated and helping our firms solve this problem, you know, from, from beginning to end.
RV (18:45):
Mm-Hmm,
MM (19:30):
Yeah. You know, it’s funny, it sounds so obvious when you say it, but every time we made one of these expansions in the ecosystem, people looked at me like I had horns on my head and they’re like, what are you doing? Like the, the big shift when we went from video to, to coaching, like, I mean, we had team members that, you know, who looked at me and said, you know, I don’t understand the vision. We had a lot of people in the legal industry that were saying like, what is Chris doing? Chris is a video company. What are they doing getting into coaching? You know, that sort of thing over the years. But as you’ve described it, and this is the way that I saw it as well, was like, this is the natural progression, right. Of fulfilling the next need.
RV (20:01):
Yeah. So there’s, the reason it’s, it feels simple to me is also ’cause we’ve done it wrong for a long time, and then we, as we figured it out for ourselves, then we started coaching clients to do it. And, and right, that’s one of the reasons why brand builders group only works with personal brands. Like if a company calls us and says, Hey, can you teach us something about brand strategy? It’s like, well, yeah, a lot of our strategies apply to companies, but we don’t work with any company. Zero. We work only and exclusively and solely with a an individual single person of helping that person become more well known. But then we vertically integrate that component. And as we’ve done that, and we’ve coached other people to do that, there’s like two, two of the biggest philosophies that, that we’ve realized. And, and you model this too, Michael, is the greatest form of marketing in the world is a changed life.
RV (20:56):
When you change the life of your customer, they will go tell other people and your customer force will become your sales force. And the story you just told us was exactly that, right? It started with like, one lawyer has a great experience, they give you referrals from a, the second thing that has really emerged for us in terms of monetization strategy is that really the key to making more money is to serve a more narrow audience in a deeper way. So it’s going, how can I serve? Instead of going, how can I reach more audience? It’s like, how can I serve the audience I have in a deeper way? That’s the fastest path to monetization, right? That’s not how you become famous, it’s how you become rich. It serve a more narrow niche in a deeper way. And it, the progression you described was just like so perfectly spot on because you’re just going, oh, well I solved that problem and now a new problem emerges, and so I’ll solve that problem for them. And now a new problem emerges. And it just seems like that’s been your, your whole progression, and this has happened freaking fast. You’re not even 10 years. So you’ve gone from zero to a hundred million dollar valuation in less than 10 years.
MM (22:09):
Yeah. Oh yeah.
RV (22:11):
That’s epic. I mean, just, just think about, okay, so for anybody listening right now, I just want you to think about where you were in your life 10 years ago, right? And, and for some of you that might seem, oh, I’m very close to what you’re doing now some of you, it might seem like a lifetime away, but if you were starting on zero this moment, and I said, look, 10 years from now, you could have a hundred million dollars business. Most people would go no way. That’s freaking impossible. It’s not impossible. It’s not only not impossible, it’s likely if you follow the strategies and you serve a community and you focus on transforming their life and you focus on serving them in a deeper way. And I just, I just love, I just love you. This, you’re just a perfect example, real life story of this.
RV (22:58):
So starting 10 years ago, what would you tell yourself? Like what do you wish you knew then that you know now? Because you clearly had an instinct for this. I mean, you know, like even though I’m saying you’re such a great model, this we’ve only just met you, like so you figured this out all on your own. Is there some things that if somebody was listening right now thinking about, okay, I want to be be where you are in 10 years, what, what are the things, what are the, what are like the three biggest things that you would tell them that you wish you would’ve known?
MM (23:34):
Yeah. Well, so I think the first thing, you know, as I’ve been thinking about this a lot is just that really determining whether you have the stomach for this, right? Meaning of just entrepreneurship in general. I try to actually do my best to dissuade people from doing this stuff. And if, and if they still wanna do it at the end, then I’m like, okay, that’s it. You, you have, you have what it takes, right? Meaning that it’s going to be a very difficult journey. It’s gonna be a difficult path. It’s gonna probably involve a lot of pain, but it’s absolutely worth it, you know, if you, if you stick it out. So that’s probably one of just being clear on like, okay, you know, is this something I’m wi willing to dedicate my life to go all in 24 7? I mean, I I will say like, I, I didn’t do it on my own, right? I, I had a lot of help. You know, my wife, she came from a management consulting background, you know, when she came into the business, I was very strong on, you know, on the sales and marketing front. But she laid the operational groundwork, which, which really enabled us to scale, right? And that’s probably one, but number two, I wish. So
RV (24:29):
Just on, so just on that real quick though, I’m so glad you said this because there’s so much so many people are enamored right now with being an entrepreneur and like, start a side hustle and make millions and fly a private jet, and like all the pictures on social media, the glamorous of like, be your own boss. Like, oh yeah, you don’t need to work nine to five. Like, your boss is an idiot. Like start your own thing. And it’s like, you don’t, there’s not, there’s no one’s telling the true story, which is like, you late nights and stress and like, you’re leveraging the house and you have cash flow, like, you know, worries. So I’m, I’m, I’m glad that you, I’m glad that you bring that up ’cause no one,
MM (25:07):
Yeah, well, I mean, up until about four years ago it was seven days a week, you know, 24 7, 365. Like my wife and I, we would come into the office Saturday and Sunday. I mean, you know, it, it wasn’t until like our kids were born and, you know, we had more of the, you know, the leadership team in place and, you know, we’d start to really build a foundation. But up until that point, especially the first five years, it was ramen noodles. It was, you know, wasn’t really taking a salary. And if I was, maybe it was like $25,000 a year. Mm-Hmm.
RV (25:53):
So, so it’s like five to six years of intensity though. I mean, like real straight up. Like you’re not, you know, flying a private jet and living on a yacht. And, and, and it, it’s, it’s like, and, and you say it’s worth it, but it’s like, I think people need to hear to go, you gotta be prepared for, for five years. You’re saying, in your case, five years of, of very intense pain. Pretty much
MM (26:22):
At least. Yeah, I mean at, at least for sure. You know, and, and, and again, everybody has their own path. You know, I, I think we were very, very ambitious in terms of our goals. We wanted to move at a very fast pace. We wanted to, you know, to see a lot of progress year over year for, you know, depending on someone’s lifestyle. I’ll say that what, what made it easier for us at least, was in, in me early on, is that I really didn’t have much to lose. Like, I, I wasn’t coming from, you know, a, a job where I was making good income. You know, I wasn’t driving a nice car, you know, the, the home that we lived in was a, you know, $107,000, you know, town home that we bought as a foreclosure, right? Like they just, you, you start, I didn’t have to give up a Mercedes and, you know, and I didn’t have to give up any type of lavish lifestyle. So that made it a little bit easier, especially in the, you know, in the early days. But, and then I think the other part of it is that only
RV (27:08):
Easier, only easier in the sense that you didn’t have to go backwards. And a lot of people Yeah. Not, not only are very, very many, not very many people are willing to endure the five years, but even fewer people are willing to go backwards from where they are for correct. Four or five years. Especially if they’ve already put in, you know, five or 10 or 20 years to get where they are. And it’d be like, I’m gonna go backwards and, and it’s gonna be even worse. So that’s, yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s powerful to know. What was the second thing?
MM (27:39):
Yeah, so I guess I was thinking about the, the two because I got, I got a good one. That’s the third one. But you know, the the second I, I look back and I wish I would’ve documented more, right? Oh, so in, in, in, in a number of ways. So one is I wish I would’ve taken more photos and I wish I would’ve taken more videos. ’cause You know, I I think back to, you know, some of these experiences and stories which, which have become, you know, such, you know, amazing learning lessons and have made it their, you know, their way into presentations and when we speak at our summits and so on. And, you know, I wasn’t really proud of what we had early on, so maybe that’s why I wasn’t taking photos. ’cause It wasn’t a lavish office and we didn’t have a huge team and, you know, it just didn’t look that impressive.
MM (28:13):
But I wish I did that. And then the other side of the documentation is just, just the systems and processes, right? It’s much easier to do that when you’re small than when you get big and there’s more complexity and things start to break down. And you, and you wish you, you had, here’s kind of the step-by-step process on how to do this. Or if somebody leaves, you know, being able to, you know, to train up and bring in another person. So I, you know, I would say that start documenting things, you know, both in terms of capturing those moments, but also in terms of processes early on, it makes it much easier to scale later. Mm-Hmm
RV (28:42):
Mm-Hmm. Yep. Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s a good one. I mean, I think it’s, when you look at scaling a business, it’s people, processes and product. I mean, it’s like you have to have a great product. You gotta have processes documented and great people and processes is the one I think people don’t talk about, which ironically is the most controllable. Sometimes it’s hard to create a good product. Sometimes it’s hard to recruit and retain good people, but like, documenting your processes, like all of us are a hundred percent in control of it. And nobody ever does it
MM (29:21):
Yeah, so this is a big one, and I see this with a lot of our clients and our firms. And if I had to say like, what is the difference, the biggest difference between a six figure firm and a seven figure firm and an eight figure firm and a nine figure firm, it is the same thing across the board. And it really just comes down to perhaps the level of courage and the willingness to write the check and the willingness to invest. So, meaning that it’s one of the things that I think led to a lot of our, you know, our growth was that we just, it was being courageous. So I, I’ll give you an example. Back in, you know, in 2017, you know, we were, you know, still a very, very small company in the legal space. There were companies that had been around for 20 years and 30 years that were these great like, marketing agencies and consulting companies and so on.
MM (30:00):
And it’s like, and we were unknown, and I wanted to get attention, I wanted to get our name out there somehow. And we thought, okay, so similarly, like our clients were having a great experience with us. And we felt that, okay, well our clients probably know people like them. So people that are very similar in growth minded and entrepreneurial in nature. So what if we did some sort of referral program where they could refer other people to us? And I saw what these other referral programs were in our industry. It was like they were giving away like, you know, an iPad or an Amazon gift card. And I was like, well, that’s not crazy enough. So I had got this idea in my head, and once that started, never left was what if we gave a car away, like to our clients? And at the time it was like, well, what if we gave away a Tesla?
MM (30:39):
And this was in two, you know, in 2017. So people ask me, they’re like, well, how did you give away a Tesla? Well, I had like $80,000 to my name. The Tesla model s at the time was $77,000. I went to the Tesla dealership, I wrote them a check, and they gave me one. Right? So it’s, you know, wow. And, and, and I thought this would be brilliant, right? Like, I thought if we did this, it would get a ton of attention. Clients would start referring other clients to us, you know, because every time they’re referred, they would get a chance to win this Tesla. And as soon as we announced it, 30 days went by, we didn’t get a single referral. Hmm. Like nobody cared at all. And I, and my eyes started twitching because every day I drive up into the office and I parked it in front of the office and I was just thinking like, have I made one of the most massive mistakes ever?
MM (31:21):
Right? Like, of just pouring the savings into a car,
MM (31:59):
So this first one was in 2017, let’s see, we’re now in 2020, you know, four, so roughly what, seven years. And we have now given away, I believe 18 cars over the past seven years to our clients. And you know, in this year we, we will be giving away a cyber truck. But we’ve done everything from like Teslas to a Ferrari, to a Rolls Royce, to a gwa. And you know, I, I got our, our fair share of criticism when people say, well, you know, they give cars away or whatever, and, you know, I have to do that. And honestly, we wanted to make working with us an exciting experience, right? Just because legal traditionally is not known for a very engaging, you know, thing. Like, you know, when lawyers are coming to workshops or, you know, even just in general, the industry as a whole is very traditional.
MM (32:41):
Not a whole lot of innovation, not a whole lot of change. And we wanted to create this engaged community of people that were, you know, entrepreneurial, that were committed, that were wanting to really grow their firms. And we wanted to make it exciting to be a part of that. So if you, you know, if just by growing your firm, you can, you know, potentially win a, you know, a, a Tesla cyber truck or a Ferrari or something. Okay, that’s exciting. That’s not the primary reason to do it, but you gotta do something to stand out and differentiate. And we didn’t have the resources to compete against these massive companies. So that was I think the, the lesson here is just that you gotta be courageous. You gotta be willing to, to, you know, to make those investments and place those bets. And, and I find that those that play on defense of like, not, you know, trying not to lose, that’s a very, very difficult place to be in business.
MM (33:24):
And instead we went on the offense. And even when it didn’t work, at first it’s like, okay, well let’s figure it out, right? And let’s, you know, let’s adjust, let’s iterate, let’s adapt. And, and now it’s, it’s become, in some respects, one of the things that we’re known for. But, you know, that’s how we went from one car to over 18 cars. And that’s how eventually, you know, we had a weird experience at the, at the conference where we gave away a car. Like we, we didn’t control the experience ’cause it was another conference and it was like right after Super Bowl Sunday, it was gonna be this big announcement, but only seven people showed up. And when we called the name of the winner at this other legal conference, they weren’t even there, right? Like they were at home. And then I called ’em, he didn’t answer the phone. So it was at that moment that I said, never again are we gonna give away our grand prize at another conference? Which led us to starting our own. And then that went to, that’s
RV (34:06):
Why that was the catalyst for starting your own conference.
MM (34:08):
That was the catalyst. And then we ended up creating the largest legal conference in the entire legal industry that has 5,000 people attending it. And that, that was the one catalyst.
RV (34:16):
Oh my gosh, this is so, so crazy. So, so just real quick, they get, for every client they refer, they get their name and a drawing to win a car. And as simple as that. Exactly.
MM (34:27):
Yeah. Oh my gosh, that’s,
RV (34:29):
That’s so cool. Okay, so I wanna hear about the conference. Yeah, because the conference is a whole nother business. I mean, th that’s really gonna stick with me just in general, Michael, about just, it’s the courage to invest, right? Like you’re, you’re investing in coaching, you’re investing in team, you’re investing in technology. You’re clearly you, you had to hire staff to be able to start offering all of these other things you’re putting on, you know, doing this raffle with the car. And then one of the biggest investments y’all make is this conference that you do every year. And I’d like to hear about that because that is a, that’s a really exciting thing, but a scary thing. So, and it’s almost like a separate business. I mean, how many people came to the first conference? Where did you do it? And then how have you continued to courageously invest beyond that? Yeah,
MM (35:23):
So if, if you’ve ever been to a legal conference or any type of, I guess, professional services conference, they’re not known for their excitement. Like, meaning, usually what happens is it’s at, you know, in a dimming lit room, everybody’s on their laptops, on their phones, maybe there’s a speaker on stage, but no one’s paying attention. And generally the reason people go is it’s either at a destination like a, like a Vegas or Miami and you know, they’re gonna get, get drunk in network, right? But, but the conference is kind of like a, you know, a sidebar to what, what is actually taking place. And I’d go to enough of these, ’cause you know, I was speaking at, at the time, like 15 to 20 of these a year and I was like, you know what? I think we can do better, but I’m one of these people that’s like, okay, well if you think that, you know, prove it.
MM (36:02):
And you know, so when we did our first conference, my target was 200 people. I was like, if we could just get 200 people there. The first event that we did was in in 2018. And, but we ended up getting 500. But the approach that we took is I looked at other industries and I’d look at like Salesforce, like Dreamforce conference, and I saw what, you know, Tony Robbins was doing. And I was like, what if we did something that had, you know, great production in av, we got a DJ and then we got like great speakers from other industries. So like at our first conference we had like David Goggin speak and Chris Voss, and this was right before David Goggins, you know, his book even came out and before David was known and you know, and we had so many non-legal speakers ’cause you could see a lot of the legal speakers at other conferences, but I wanted ours to stand out.
MM (36:44):
So the first one we had, you know, 500 people attend that one. And it was either gonna go where people walked in and they’re like, what the hell is this? And walk right out. Or it was gonna be a huge hit. It was gonna be one or the other. ’cause It was just so different from any other type of legal conference. And people loved it. I mean it’s, it was unheard of at the time, at least with legal conferences, they have a full room at 7:00 PM when you’re, when your speakers speaking on, I think it was like a Thursday or Friday night, like usually conferences start to clear out like at least legal ones at like two or 3:00 PM And we had the full room, David Goggins was speaking seven o’clock, like not, you know, not a single person on their phones, not a single person on their laptops.
MM (37:18):
Like it was a truly engaging event. And then we continued to do them, you know, year after years they grew bigger. And in 2022 we ended up doing what I think is, I believe it’s the first legal conference in a football stadium. So we did it at Mercedes-Benz Stadium where the Falcons play, where they had the Super Bowl here in Atlanta. And we had 5,000 lawyers at that one. So we kinda went from 500 to the first one to 5,000 at the one in 2022. And now we’ve made the the events even more exclusive. So they’re, they’re now private events by invitation only. The one this year is, you know, is 3000 people, but you know, the production values continue to increase the quality of the speakers and the quality of the contents continue to improve. And it was really about creating a, a conference that was about not the practice of law, right?
MM (38:00):
‘Cause We’re not teaching lawyers how to practice law. Like they’ve gotta come in with that. But more so the business side of law, and especially at the time in 2018, most legal conferences were focusing on trial skills and not how do you grow your law firm? You know, like how do you hire the right people? What about culture? What about marketing and brand and those topics? And there’s a lot of just, most law firms were really struggling to grow their business. So I felt that there was a need for this and now they’re more common. But you know, as they started to catch up, as we start to see other, you know, businesses and law conferences, they still, and I still don’t understand why maybe they’ll hear it on this podcast. Maybe they’ll, you know, they’ll do it different in which case out root for them. But they still don’t go all in in terms of like the production value and the quality and the experience. And it’s just, it’s, it’s almost like, you know, they see the business of all topic, but the, but the experience is what I really think is a differentiator. Is,
RV (38:49):
Is, but those, okay, so, so on the one hand you’re like, yeah, experience, make it awesome, make it engaging. On the other hand you go, it’s fricking expensive. I mean, oh yeah. You’re, you’re having, you know, production crews and setups and tear downs and av and like, these speakers are not cheap, right? Like, how do you, how do you justify the cost of putting on these events and do you, like, do you lose money on them and you’re okay with it ’cause you sell the other stuff? Do you try to break even? Do you make a little, do you make a lot? Like what’s your, you know, mindset there around how you’re investing into these? Because it’s also and is a ton of time. I mean, you don’t just get 500 people to show up at an event without spending a lot of time like talking about it.
MM (39:34):
So I don’t know if I’ve shared this publicly before, but I will, I will tell you. So as an example, and this is also why I think this could only happen in a founder led business. So meaning that if, if I had to make this decision by committee, the answer would be hell no. Every single time. So as an example, that conference in 2022 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, that was an $8 million conference. Like meaning that between, between the venue rental, the av, the food and beverage, the speakers all, and it was $8 million before anybody walked through the door. And in, as you know, in the event space, there’s no payment plans. These, these people want their money up front. So, and that is terrifying. But I’ll, I’ll tell you how I justify it. And, and also we don’t do sponsors, we don’t do exhibitors like that.
MM (40:15):
It is cut, you know, in some ways unheard of in, you know, in the legal industry because pretty much every conference you go to, there’s the massive exhibit hall, there’s the person who sponsors the wifi, there’s the person who sponsors the cups there. We don’t do that because again, we feel that those detract from the experience and we want it to be really honed in and focusing on like what is going to be most valuable to people. So them having to walk through an exhibit hall of one person pitching them legal funding, another one pitching them, you know, pay-per-click another per person pitching ’em something else we feel could hurt the experience even though we’ve been offered continuously. I mean, it’d be easy to monetize that because people would want to have a presence there. Totally. But the, the way that I justify it is that, you know, it’s kind of interesting in our model that I really believe that we have to walk our talk.
MM (40:57):
So in the sense that if we position ourselves as a law firm growth company, that helps other law firms grow and we’re saying, Hey, you’ve gotta make investments and you’ve gotta take risks. I believe that we have to lead by example. So doing something, you know, crazy like that is, is is a form of doing that. So it’s, it’s this kind of this idea that when people, you know, see someone do something, it means more than when someone tells you something. Right? And then just like seeing is believing, like, you know, we’re at this event I remember at Mercedes-Benz and we’re telling ’em to think big and I remember sharing with the team, I’m like, this wouldn’t work if we were at a tiny venue of like a, you know, like a, a holiday inn Yeah. Telling ’em to think big, right? Just, you know, it wouldn’t align.
MM (41:33):
I, so I will say that, you know, we have, we’ve invested tremendous amount of resources in the events. Some I I would say are really just brand drivers. Like, meaning that, you know, that event in 2022 we didn’t lose money on it, it was still profitable. So we, we generally see like people that come to the event, many that are not clients become clients or join the ecosystem or even existing clients, it’s, you know, in some ways it’s like a re-engagement event where they may, you know, choose to add on additional aspects of our ecosystem to their existing programs. So there is that component to it. But our first focus is how do we make this as valuable as possible to someone. The majority of people that attend the event don’t invest in anything, right? Like probably 80% or more. But it’s such a strong brand driver. Like I knew when we did that Mercedes-Benz event that it was just as important about the people who weren’t there as the ones that actually were there. And when you, when you see or hear someone who’s did you know, a legal conference in a football stadium, like you can hate my guts. Like you can absolutely, you could dislike me personally. You could not be a fan of Chris. That’s okay. But you gotta respect filling that room,
RV (42:33):
Uhhuh. So when you say, you said it’s just as important about who is not at the event as who is at the event and you’re just basically saying like the statement it makes to the rest of the industry. Yeah,
MM (42:45):
I mean you could say you’re, you’re a growth company or you’re a great marketing company and that’s one thing. But then if you get 5,000 people to fly out to Atlanta and show up in a room, I mean seeing is believing, right? Mm-Hmm
RV (43:19):
So you went from 520 18 to like 5,000. So was it like a steady increase?
MM (43:26):
Yeah, so we went from 500, the first one I believe we had a thousand at the next one. And the highest we went before that Mercedes-Benz event, I believe was 2000. And, and by the way, that I do not recommend a 5,000 person event. Like I don’t know if we’ll ever do that again. To some extent it was probably hubris and ego where like, I think the biggest legal conference at that point, we were already that at 2000 and most legal conferences, like big ones may have seven to 800 people. So I figured, okay, well let’s just do 5,000. Basically going from zero to 2000 was one thing. Going from two to five was an exponential, like just challenge of, of just ’cause ’cause at that point, y you, you know, we realized that there’s all the people that attend legal conferences and we were already capturing them.
MM (44:09):
We had the database, they had attended some of our events and maybe they attended other ones. But then after you get, you know, there’s a core audience that goes to legal conferences overall, like from one to the next and so on. But then, you know, once you, once you hit all of them, now you gotta reach people that have never been to a legal conference. Now you’ve gotta reach people that have, maybe have never even thought about the business of law and, and, you know, and where are they? Right? Some of them aren’t even consuming the, the same content. They’re not in the same places. They’re, you know, they’re very, very different audiences. And we had, you know, a huge delta to make up from like 2000 to 5,000 of getting people that have never been to anything like this.
RV (44:41):
Yeah. Yeah. It is fascinating stuff. This is so been so cool, Michael. I, I, I just, I just love it so much and it’s inspiring on so many levels and just shows you how it, this is a very, you know, real, it’s, it’s a very practical reality that’s available. If you do the things and you put in the work and you serve your audience in a deeper way, where do you want people to go? If, if they, if they are curious, I know you’ve got your book on Amazon that they can check out if they want to connect with you, where should we, where should they head?
MM (45:12):
Yeah, so the book is called The Game Changing Attorney. It’s on Amazon. There’s a podcast by the same name. If they’re interested in learning more about me, I’ve got actually a personal brand website, Michael mogul.com. Come on. Yes, sir. Or they can go to the crisp website, which is just crisp.co. And learn about that stuff. But I really appreciate this.
RV (45:29):
And Mogul is M-O-G-I-L-L, Michael mogul.com. Michael, thanks for this insight. And, you know, thanks for being courageous with your risks, man. I love, I love what you’re up to, and we want to, we want to encourage you and we’re learning from you. And we wish you all the best, my friend.
MM (45:49):
Thank you.
Ep 529: Creating Culture | Britney Ruby Miller Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
So how do you build culture when you have a company or a team that is virtual or just a company or a team that’s growing beyond your ability to talk to or interact with every single employee or every single leader on a regular basis? But, but that’s the question. How do you build culture? And I was having a conversation on the influential personal brand podcast with a newer friend of mine. Her name is Brittany Ruby Miller, and she’s the daughter of Jeff Ruby from the Jeff Ruby steakhouse and Entertainment Group. And they have grown to be more than 900 employees, multi-location restaurant, a hundred million dollars in revenue. And we were having this conversation around culture, right? And here at Brain Builders Group, we’re much smaller than that. But we’re all virtual and we only get to see each other all in person a couple of times a year.
AJV (00:59):
And in this post pandemic world where not everyone is in the office, I think this conversation of how do you build culture has come up to be more prevalent in conversations as the years have gone on. And so we have this conversation of how do you do that? And I think there was a couple of things that came out that were worthy of kind of just highlighting in this quick, kind of short episode right now. So the number one is, does your team speak common language? In other words, do you have a, a set of principles, a foundation, that everyone understands what you’re talking about? And so as we were talking about this idea of shared language, it came to this is not from training documents or SOPs, even. Those are, those are good and helpful. That’s not what we’re talking about.
AJV (01:49):
It’s do you have a shared common list of beliefs, values, principles that you work by? And one of the things that I think you can do as a small business owner and entrepreneur that doesn’t cost tons of money is have your own company library. And I think this was a very big takeaway for me but also for all of you. ’cause It doesn’t matter if you have just a, a one, you know, team member organization or you have a thousand, it’s like, do you have a shared language so that when you use an acronym or when you say something, everyone goes, oh, I know what you mean. Because then it allows you to have quicker conversations without the contextual explanation. And one of the fastest, cheapest and most impactful ways to do that is to have a company library. Now, there’s lots of different ways that you can do that. We, we actually have this at Brand Builders Group. We have this leading up to that we use a platform called Better Book Club. In fact, I’ll include a link to that in my post here. But Better Book Club allows you to have a virtual library
AJV (02:59):
That says these are company sponsored events, and you can even reward people for reading those. You can make it mandatory, but then you can also incentivize them to go and read these. And one of the things that we instituted as a part of Better Book Club listens to customers is that we have a book of the quarter that every single quarter, we as a company buy a copy of a book that we’re all going to read together. We’ve done this for two years. So we’re, I think on book number seven, as we’re in Q3 2024 as I’m recording this, and we, we select books that have you know, I would say Universal Appeal that are applicable and beneficial to you no matter what your role is, no matter if it’s day one or, you know, you’ve been with the company since the beginning.
AJV (03:47):
Some of those books have been unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guera. It’s one of my top 10 favorite books of all time. It was mandatory reading for our entire company in Q2 of 2024, right? We started the year Q1 this year with Extreme Ownership by Jocko, Willem, and Leaf Babin. We said, we started the year on this kind of accountability mindset that we all need to take ownership. If you see something, say something, it’s not your job or your job, it’s everyone’s job. Do we have to own this? So we started with that. And so that allows all of us to have common language. So when we talk about like, are you owning this? All I have to do is go, Hey, do you remember when we read Extreme Ownership? That’s what I’m talking about right here. And, and that’s all I have to say, right?
AJV (04:36):
Same thing with Unreasonable Hospitality. It’s like people know, and I say, Hey, are we being unreasonable with this? That it’s not a bad thing. It’s going, Hey, are we really doing this with intentionality in mind? Are we doing this because it’s easy? Or are we doing this because we, we want people to feel seen, loved, and cared for in a, a unique and personal way? I think those are things we’re reading right now, Q3 2024, hidden Potential by Adam Grant of Learning. How do we, we we grow and develop the staff versus just hiring for the staff. And that’s, those are cultural things that we believe in. Those are not necessarily books that fit every organization or every person, but those are have been ones that stick out to us of going, Hey, this is the common language that we’re trying to instill to build culture.
AJV (05:25):
I think that’s a huge part of it’s, do you have shared language? Do you have common language? There’s really expensive ways to do that. There’s super affordable ways and having a shared company library that’s available for all new employees coming in, but also required reading that you have for all existing employees. So that’s one thing. The second thing is making sure that you have well documented and well communicated core values, vision statements, mission statements. Brittany in our conversation calls it her vp Mosa, right? And I think, I dunno if I’ll get all of these, but it was like vision principles, mission Operating Guidelines, SNA Systems and Accountability. Oh my God, have I got that right? This is a miracle don’t hold me to that, but VP Moosa, VP MOSA vp Moosa can look that up,
AJV (06:27):
And every single month at our All hands on deck company meeting we go through these and we have someone in the company volunteer. They pick one of them and they do a mini five minute core value presentation, right? So we have all of them available every single month as we open up our company meeting. But then somebody volunteers, or sometimes they’re voluntold, but for the most part, they volunteer and they put together like, why did they pick this core value? How do they see it being lived out? And why is it important to them and their role at this specific time and time and place, right? So I think that’s just keeping, keeping them real. And it’s not that they’re hearing it from us, it’s, it’s, I care what the team has to say. And honestly, their presentations, they’re so much better than mine.
AJV (07:11):
But that’s one thing that you can do is just have like, Hey, these are, these are the core values that we operate this company with. And I think the most important thing is sharing those when you’re interviewing people during the recruiting and hiring process. So you never want someone to come on board and be like, whoa, where did that come from? So the openness, transparency of going, Hey, this is how it is. It’s not for everyone. That’s okay. But before you take a position here, you should know this is what it’s gonna be like here. Opt out now. No hard feelings,
AJV (08:06):
You better be aligned with your mission, values, mission, purpose with your company. Otherwise, you’re going to be miss role. Bull money’s not worth that. It’s just not. So that would be something the other thing, when you talk about mission and vision, right? It’s like, why do you exist? Why does your company exist? What, what’s your purpose for being in business to begin with? And what I have found is I hope this is helpful and impactful for our team to be reminded every single month, at least monthly, we’re gonna read this together. And we call it our brand mantra, but it, it’s basically our vision and mission statement. It’s why we’re here, what we hope to do, our, our purpose how we do things. But we call it our brand mantra.
AJV (08:55):
You may call it your vision statement, mission statement, purpose, whatever you wanna call it. But for us, it’s a brand mantra. And I do hope it’s important for everyone to take a step back and for at least five minutes as we all read it together, to remind ourselves, oh yeah, that’s why we do that. Oh, yeah, I remember that now because it’s easy to forget. And I, I hope everyone else finds it important, but what I have found that for me is that I need to stand back and read that every single month so that I don’t forget why we exist, what our purpose is, what our mission is, what our vision is in the middle of customer service problems or inundation of reporting and analyses, or managing deadlines or missed deadlines or projects that didn’t get done or missed the budget or did it, whatever.
AJV (09:45):
All this stuff is in the middle of all the stuff going on, which sometimes is very fun. I need to step back every single month at least for me and go, oh yeah, that’s why we’re here. That’s why we do what we do. And if it’s important for me, then I know it has to be important to at least someone else in our team, someone else in the company to go, this is more than about just money, right? It, it has to be, right. For all the things going on, it’s like people could do a lot of different jobs. It’s like, it’s gotta be more than just about money. And that that is how you build culture. It’s like, do we agree on things that are beyond paychecks and benefits? And the answer is yes. It’s like, I want people who want to be here.
AJV (10:31):
Not that they have to be here. I don’t want a paycheck to be the only reason our team is here, which means that we have to attract people on common and shared language and beliefs, and we have to keep them based on the same things. Because not every job has all glamorous parts, and not every company is gonna be sunshine and rainbows all the time. There’s gonna be, you know, stormy weather and there’s gonna be hard times. And people make it when we go, but it’s more, it’s more than about just me or just my department or just my paycheck, right? It’s gotta be about more than that so that we can weather the stormy times but also celebrate in the good times. And so those are just a couple of things. As you’re, you’re asking yourself, like, how do we build culture, a culture that doesn’t have to be managed by one person at the top, or as your team and your company grows, how do you still uphold the same level of standard of excellence or core values that you had when you were really small? It’s because you have to hire for it. You have to manage for it, and you have to retain for it. And if there’s been a time where you’re out of alignment, then you, you can’t be afraid to part ways because that, that’s damaging to the culture of the organization. And by keeping
Speaker 4 (11:52):
One person, you could be damaging 10 others. And those are things where it’s like you hire for it, you manage for it, you retain for it, but you also let people go for it because you all have to be in alignment to have a good, healthy culture. We are not perfect at this, let me tell you. I am consciously aware of where we fall short. But you gotta be open to it. And, and you’ve gotta do something even if you can’t do it perfectly. So, couple of ideas on how do you build culture. If you want more, go tune in to the Influential Personal Brand podcast with Brittany Ruby Miller on how to build strong culture.
Ep 528: Building A 5-Star Life with Britney Ruby Miller
AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. So excited today to introduce you guys to a new friend of mine, the one and only Britney Ruby Miller. And if you don’t know her by name, then you’re missing out. And we’re gonna talk about a lot of different things today. But before I formally introduce her, as you guys get to know her, I wanna kind of just tell you why I wanted to have her on our podcast. And Britney and I got introduced by a mutual friend couple of months ago now, and she was so gracious to give me a copy of her book. If you’re watching, you can see it’s five star Life. If you’re not watching, then you just need to go pick it up and read it. But she sent this book to me along with one of the sweetest, kindest packages of all time, because if you know anything about me, you know, the way to my, my heart is really through my children.
AJV (00:59):
And my sweet 7-year-old Jasper came to a, an adult dinner party
AJV (01:59):
So if you guys are listening, the reason I think you should stick around is all things culture. And that’s what I would say it’s like, doesn’t matter if you’re trying to be a build a culture in your family or in your community, or with your clients or with your company. What I’ve summed this all up is, is a, it’s a radical journey through what does it mean to love people really well. And to me, that’s culture. It’s like how do you set a tone and a culture of love and hospitality and generosity and, and, and a and a very politically charged environment that we find ourselves in the United States? These are the types of conversations and interviews that I think will make us better, make our businesses better, thus make everyone around us better. So that is why I am having her on the show. That is why you need to listen to this episode. This episode is one of those episodes that doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, it’s applicable to you. So listen to the whole thing, and then you can check out the recap episode. Now, let me quickly formally introduce her, and then we’re gonna actually get to this interview. Otherwise, I could spend the next half hour just telling you why she’s so awesome. But
BR (03:04):
Got whole bio. Don’t read that entire thing. You better summarize it. I
AJV (03:07):
Love it. She’s, I think she, what I want you guys to know is that she’s the CEO of the Jeff Ruby Entertainment Group. And Jeff Ruby’s is one of our favorite restaurants. It’s iconic, especially the one here in Nashville. I don’t know about all the other ones, but I love it here because this is where we take all of our clients out to dinner. She didn’t even know that
BR (03:25):
AJV (03:26):
But what I think is amazing, and what I didn’t know about the Jeff Ruby organization is that you guys almost have a thousand employees and you guys are doing a hundred million dollars in revenue. And what I love about that is not only is that extraordinary in the entertainment and hospitality environment, but you’re also a mom and an author and a wife, and running this massive organization in a family business environment where it’s going from generation to generation and you know, trying to maintain legacy, but innovate and do things new in a new way. You also have a culinary background and you and your husband Caleb, are coming up with this whole new brand, and it’s like you’re the epitome of, I’ve got a lot going on. So how do you manage all of that? And this is, this is a part of what I’m so fascinated with when it comes to not only entrepreneurship and business ownership, but also, you know, parenting and marriage and making it all work together. So without further ado, Brittany, welcome to the show.
BR (04:35):
Thank you for having me. And your little man was so cute. He was just sitting there chopping away at the adult table. And when I bought him the knife, I’m like, I, I, she’s either gonna think it’s super sweet or I’m a crazy, crazy human being because I bought him a Japanese chef knife. And I, it was, it was fun to, I like to buy little kids their first chopping knife. And so that meant a lot that you appreciated it and made sure we threw in the apron. But he’s the next generation of, of carnivores eating at Ruby, so we gotta get him young
AJV (05:09):
And he uses the knife all the time, regardless of, it’s like he’s chopping up a string cheese.
BR (05:16):
Yes.
AJV (05:16):
Or, you know, it’s just, he loved it. And I think that’s too, it’s how you help people fall in love with brands at an early age, is you create these memorable connections. And so that’s what I want you to kind of start with is just talk about being in this family business. ’cause You grew up in this business, now you’re leading this business, and I think it would be really great for you just to talk about what, what have you learned leadership wise from stepping into a family business and also the process of making it your own as you’ve stepped into this role of CEO
BR (05:49):
Ooh family businesses are, they, they can be a blessing and a curse. Luckily for us, it’s a blessing. And I think just staying on the family business side. And then I wanna talk a little bit about the restaurants and like, what that is because and, and honestly, most family businesses, or most restaurants end up, they are family businesses. And it’s a, it could be a very tough industry, let alone throwing the dynamics of, you know, those types of relationships. And we learned really quick that we have to develop some sort of communication and agreement on how our family wants to treat each other. So we, I think first and foremost, the, the foundation is through our social covenant. That’s through our leadership training. That’s through transformational leadership. And coming to an agreement on how we would like to communicate with each other.
BR (06:38):
What do we do if there’s conflict? What do we do? You know, how do we approach that? We go one-on-one first. If that doesn’t work, we go two on one. We try not to go around. And unless you’re part of the solution we don’t, we try not to gossip in our family and teaching our kids that as well and how to handle things very, very directly and typically within 48 hours. So we go through an apology process. There’s a six step apology process when you screw up. And the last piece of it is after you ask for accountability and, and forgiveness. The last piece is, is there anything else that I need to apologize for? And when you first kick this thing off and you start living and doing this social covenant kind of lifestyle, you, there’s things that come up that were five years ago, 10 years ago.
BR (07:25):
And, and sometimes we have to revisit it and say, Hey, I thought that we already squashed this thing. Essentially, you wanna get to a point where you always know where you stand and you can have clear communication. You’re not gonna have hurt feelings. You know, I, I think about situations, you know, that I’ve had with my dad. I know when I walked through that first six step apology with him he tweeted something to his 90,000 Twitter followers, political. And this was years ago. And, and I’m like, why are you doing this to me? Like, please, I gotta sell sakes to the left and the right. Okay. And, but the way that I told him not to do that was disrespectful. My mentor said, you need to go apologize to your, to your father. I’m like, look at what he did to me.
BR (08:09):
Like this is, now I gotta clean up this mess. Right? And once I apologized for one, he was my boss at the time being disrespectful. I’m very sorry, will you hold me accountable? And if and when you’re ready, can you forgive me? And then when you say, is there anything else going on that maybe I need to apologize for you, clear the air. Luckily that day he was very kind. There was nothing else that was festering up inside of him. But that was the first day he said that he knew I was ready for leadership. And, and so there’s a culture within our family. And then we rolled this thing out company-wide. So I, we started that with our home office, which is, we’re up to about 60 employees now and and then leadership within the restaurants. And so they’ve all, you know, gone through our transformational leadership process and all the Ruby iss and everything like that. So I think on the business side and the family business side, we all, there’s a mutual respect. There’s a way that, you know, we wanna handle our relationships and treat our relationships. And then comes
AJV (09:10):
From like, I feel like that’s pretty rare in any company, much less a family business. Where did that come from?
BR (09:21):
This, this guru who I call Ford Taylor. He’ll like that.
AJV (10:14):
I love that. And so I think, I think two things in here that I think is really amazing is, one, the fact that you guys have a social covenant. Mm-Hmm. And so does that trickle down to all of like your restaurants and everyone else too?
BR (10:30):
Yes, it’s a consistent document. And so, you know, we wanna go in humility. We wanna walk in pre forgiveness, we wanna walk in grace, we wanna have love for, you know, our employees and treat them with respect. And we don’t want to gossip. It’s like, it’s this big list of things and it’s pretty universal across the board. So yeah, we did that at our home office and the GMs have all seen it. Next year’s goal is for really to get ingrained into all the restaurant folks boots on the ground. And but that it takes time. You know, we were building, it takes about 18 months ’cause what we’re trying to do right now is a proprietary tl, which includes all the Ruby iss, the transformational leadership and Enneagram. So
AJV (11:20):
So one of the things here, you kind of mentioned this, like mentors, clearly this person for Taylor’s been in your life for 10 years. That’s amazing. What, what else would you say? Because I think a lot of people are listening are like, I’m sorry, you have an apology standard in your family and in your business. I, I would say that’s, I have personally never heard that before. I hear lots of leadership training, but even processes for apologies and standards and families and in, and in businesses. I’m gonna definitely take this from this interview and be like, putting it in place right now. But I think more than that, it’s like, I love that you said you got that from your mentor, and I think that’s, that’s so important for everyone to realize. It’s like, you don’t have to come up with these ideas. It’s like, we need to learn from those who’ve gone before us. So what would you say when it comes to books, mentors or experiences, what would you say for anyone who’s listening, if that resonates with them, of going like, how do I just be a better person? How do I love people better to create better family culture, business culture? What else would you say has been impactful for you?
BR (12:25):
Well, I think for me, I mean, that was the process. I, Caleb met Ford because he went to a training for two days. And Ford does them all over the world. And so he opted into this training. The good news is he also wrote a book, it’s called Al Leadership. It’s an excellent book. It includes that process, it includes what a social covenant is. It talks about everything that we do. Leadership is in that book. Hmm. And, and so, you know, that, that was key. And I think on the mentor side, I realized, you know, I grew up the Ruby way and everything that I knew and you know, was taught was through Jeff Ruby. So I get brand, I get quality, I understand five stars is what we strive for in the restaurants. Fine dining over the top, changing the game, you know, servant’s Heart, all of our core values, you know in, in our, we call it our VP Mosa, our vision purpose, mission objective strategies and action steps.
BR (13:25):
That’s in the book too. So you map this whole thing out for your organization, which is all culture. But what I also needed was a business mentor. A leadership mentor. And so I, I got that with Russell Mankas. He, he was he worked for my father back in 1986. He opened one of our restaurants and then he graduated onto Hilton and started open Hi opening Hilton’s worldwide. And so my dad always tried to recruit him back, and he’s always like, Jeff, I make way too much money for you, my friend Hilton pays better than your little restaurant group. And so, you know, but they stayed in touch. When he retired, he called my father and said, I wanna go out making a difference. And so I’m going to retire from Hilton. I’m gonna move back from New York to Cincinnati for two years, and I wanna mentor Brittany, and I’ll also be your managing director.
BR (14:20):
And so when I went to, to our, from, I was in operations for 15 years, I would say. Then Russell came to me and we convinced him to stay for three years. And then one day he was just like, all right, peace out. Here’s the keys. You’re good. Truly, the next day he left. And I had no idea. I mean, he was just like, today’s the day. And, and so I worked, you know, it was hustle. I worked my day job at the corporate office. And that was, you know, in operations and marketing and some of the guest relations and the things that I was doing for our organization. But then he handed me a binder the size of Texas and said, I need you to read every single operating agreement, every single lease. So at that point, we had had, we had, I think five, five restaurants or so.
BR (15:00):
I mean, they’re huge. And each lease is 150 pages probably. And, and then once you do that, you’re gonna help me negotiate Nashville. And that was the business IQ that I needed. And I didn’t write. He goes, you know, one day you’re gonna be signing these leases. This is not, you’re gonna be your father’s, which is where we are now. My brothers and I own the business and we’ve transitioned G one to G two successfully. And if I’m guaranteeing a note or if I’m signing, you know, for the next, some, some of these leases are like 15, 20 years long. And and then maybe my daughters will be in the same situation, or my son or my nieces and my nephews. That’s really our goal is to be able to give G three the same opportunity that we had. So I wouldn’t have been able to do any of that without Russell.
BR (15:45):
The other thing that I did was built a board, a board of advisors. That’s been very helpful. Helpful. And so there’s a book, actually the five steps to a successful board. You know, they, they have been there through covid. They’ve been there through, you know, we had a family emergency recently. And thank God everything’s okay. But, but I had to step away from the business and my family. We stepped away from the business and the board was there as a sounding board for our executive team. And so my board of advisors, you know, we’ve got a strategist, Harvard, MBA, former p and g engineer, Darcy Bean, she built our strategy and came on board, pun intended. And, you know, we’ve got a data guy from Xavier University, we’ve got a former retired CFO for Kroger on there. And Ford’s on the board as well. And then David Cassidy with our accountant. And so, you know, it’s all different departments that really, and then I have small committees that I meet with and, and they’re amazing. And I think it’s good accountability for me as well. So I got my board of advisors. I got my restaurant and hotel mentor of my father, the Jeffrey B. Wade, and then Ford. And my cup is pretty full with experts around me to hold me accountable when I need to get, you know, whipped back into shape basically.
AJV (17:00):
You know, it’s so interesting ’cause I was on a phone call this morning with a girlfriend. We do like a monthly accountability call, right? Two female business entrepreneurs. And one of the things that we were talking about this morning is, man, like, who do I go to for this, this, and this for my leadership team? Like, how do I not be, you know, the one size fits all for everything for my leadership team? And we were just having this conversation about coaches and mentors and masterminds and books, and we were doing like a cross sharing of all the things that we were doing or have done. And I love hearing you say this because anyone who is listening, I just wanna encourage you that if it’s going slow because you’re trying to do it all on your own, it’s because you’re not supposed to do it alone.
AJV (17:48):
Hmm. Right? And that’s what I just heard from you. It’s like, nowhere in life are we supposed to do this alone. Right? I just, I was, over the weekend, I was having the same conversation about raising kids. Like, we’re not meant to do this alone. Right? It’s like we need grandparents, aunts, uncles, nannies, friends, what, however it is. But it’s like nowhere in the history of humanity have people been succeeding alone. But yet so many of us are trying to figure it out in our little dark offices in our basements, or we’re, we’re trying to do it alone. And what I love what you just said is like, no, like you have an entire community of business experts, mentors, coaches, family, other leaders that are alongside you said, my cup is full with other people. And I don’t think a lot of people say that today.
BR (18:41):
You know, it’s, I was just talking to my best friend about this, where, you know I think before I had kids, I assumed I was just gonna be their everything. Like what a narcissistic thought that would be. Like, my poor kids, like I’m your only
BR (19:19):
And, and they’re like, yeah, can we please let her handle this for us?
BR (20:14):
There’s nothing else that all we needed to do right then was surround ourselves our, our, the, the Brandon’s family and his wife and his kids, and, you know, so we all had different roles. Brandon was in the hospital. My dad was really involved in the hospital. I had the kid role, you know, keeping, making sure all these kids are happy and, and their babysitters are coordinated and meals are coordinated. And, and then and then when he luckily started to we realized that he was gonna be okay ’cause it got really, it, it, we almost lost him. I just remember in that at that point, I made a call to our CFO and our COO and said, I need you to just run the business, step in call me if you need me. You know, but my Dylan handles talent and acquisition and, and he, you know, he’s a vice president.
BR (21:05):
He stepped away. My dad had to step away and I step away as CEO. And guess what happens when four active owners step away from the business? You have a record breaking month in August
BR (21:54):
Like, I wanna be there to cast the vision. I wanna be there for all the little million details and whatnot. And I had to give all of that up. And so I’m going back to work in January. I’m taking sabbatical like the rest of the year. And the other piece was, you know, the podcast, the networking. I, I’m, I’m going to dinners. I’m, I’m, and I do dinners at our restaurant so that I can till kill two birds of one stone and look at the quality and then also talk to the staff and, you know, do that whole thing. And it, and then, by the way, I do have kids and they’re pretty busy. They’re all in sports
BR (22:36):
I’m like, no, no, no. Something drastically had to change. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (23:38):
Yeah. So I’m gonna hire you, pay you, and yet do your job for you. Yeah. But
BR (23:43):
There’s a,
AJV (23:44):
So many of us do that
BR (23:46):
And, and I preach it te it’s teach, train, equip, empower, let go. So what I realized through this process is I got to the empower part, you’re empowered, but I just wouldn’t let go. Yeah. Like, I’m still gonna do the high level business stuff. I’m still in my board meetings. I still look at cashflow, I still look at the financials. I still look at, I have a CEO scorecard. That has been great. We did tee that thing up so I know how the company’s performing, you know, guest satisfaction and, and down to food costs and beverage costs and all of that. And if something’s wrong, then I go to those two people
AJV (24:19):
Would you say that this mindset shift really happened when your brother went into the hospital?
BR (24:28):
Yeah. That, that was a silver lining. He called me when he was able to talk. About four weeks later, he call, he FaceTimed me from, and I was at the Reds game because at this point now we’re like, okay, the crisis is over. We still fly out there. My brother Dylan and I were out there every single week and giving Christie a break. And we don’t want him to be alone out there. And so but when I flew back, I took the kids to a Reds game and he FaceTimed me with this huge smile. Brandon smile was like, I am, well, he said, I’m so happy you quit your job. And I said, Brandon, I, it’s on pause, but
BR (25:10):
And that meant everything to him. The beauty, I always, I say now, Brandon’s even a better version of Brandon now. And what I learned through, and he was already amazing. What I learned at the Craig, where he is, you know, they, they, they kept him for the maximum amount. They wanna keep him for a pretty long time. And we’re like, okay. But he is walking again. You know, he’s talking, he’s, and they said that more often than not, and it doesn’t matter if these people come out fully recovered or, you know, maybe they’re in a wheelchair. It’s really, even with them being in a wheelchair, they’re coming out better versions of themselves because of what the time that they’re allowed to themselves that they allot this time to the mental game as well. And making sure, you know, you, you have a totally different perspective on life when something like that happens. I know for you with, you had a crazy situation with your brother growing up, and it, it’s, I can’t, I mean, that, that blows my mind. It’s just, this is something I, well, I think for you, it changed your life forever. This has changed my life forever for the good. Yeah.
AJV (26:16):
You know, it is so interesting that I, again, perhaps this interview was really just for me today. I don’t know if it was for everybody else, but we’ve been having a lot of these, why does it have to take a crisis to get our attention conversations in our house? And over the summer, this past summer, we had two really close friends die unexpectedly. And it was, it’s been, man, it’s been a really deep time of going, why
BR (27:31):
No, I mean, I think I wanna know the answer to that too, because I’m saying the same thing. I am speaking at an event in October to 800 women, and it was supposed to be my testimony and the I am second in the book and all of that. And so I was writing it from a perspective of how I’ve healed from being at the Meyer clinic in 2008, a Christian psychiatric place, and how I healed from all the things, you know? And so it was this kind of past tense, been there, done that perspective of being in just the darkest place of my life. And I remember saying to Caleb as I’m writing this, and it’s a, it’s a lot about perfectionism. And I, I was asked to speak at a church recently on perfection, going like, I don’t even remember what it feels like, you know, which is amazing thing, right?
BR (28:24):
So I felt almost like a fraud. I’m, I’m building this speech, I’m writing this speech, trying to relate to people, but I really can’t relate because it’s, it’s, it’s like, it’s happened and I’m healed. And that’s the beauty of God, the cycle of life, right? And the healing process and whack like out of nowhere, there we are in our crisis. And now I’m like, wow, okay, now I know exactly what to speak about and I can reference the things that have happened, but what I’m feeling right now, and in the suffering, there’s so much beauty and, and you can’t live in a life without any suffering. Right? But I agree with you. It’s scary. I’m going, like I said, the same exact thing, please, God, do not let, I just don’t wanna deal with this. I can’t deal with any right now. Like, we just had enough with the Ruby family, right?
BR (29:09):
Like, can we, can we heal a little bit more? But by the way, that was really awesome to get to a good place of silver lining of, you know, stepping back and, and being intentional. And it really relates back to Covid. You look at the shutdown and it’s like, so much beauty came outta that. So how do you take the Covid shutdown or your life experiences and you, you get into that place and you have some sort of intentionality, some sort of reminder without going through it. How do you do that? I don’t know. I, I don’t know if it’s some sort of question you ask yourself before you go to bed at night and then you wake up. Is there some routine you can get into to stop? I mean, is there, are there habits, you know, spiritually that you can do to, to wrestle that out? I don’t know. I if you find your
AJV (29:53):
Next book, we all need to know
BR (30:40):
I always felt a calling. At some point I took religious studies in college. I just felt you know, and I, I didn’t, I knew I was going into the restaurant business but I always thought maybe one day I’ll write a book. Well, I didn’t know it would be about healing from, you know, infidelity and and from multiple miscarriages and losing those babies and, and what we had been through when I remember when Caleb, we went through this process with our marriage, fighting for our marriage, and Caleb confessed and he had to go get help first. My mentor called her. My spiritual mom said, if you can get through this with Caleb, you will have the most rock solid marriage that you can ever imagine. And that was so foreign to me. Hmm. Like, there is no chance, like, I don’t even know if I’m gonna stay with this guy, by the way.
BR (31:33):
And, and so we went through two years of healing from what had happened, and then also healing from the, the pregnancy losses. And you get to a point where then I was able to do that same speech that Kathy gave me, my spiritual mom to other women. I started to say like, Hey, and, and it was so like, taboo. Like, oh my gosh, Caleb did that too. You, I’m like, yeah, you know, and I remember Ford told me, ’cause he talks about his marriage and confession as well, and he really walked Caleb through those, those times in his life. And Caleb, I said to Ford, by the way, I will never do what you do Ford. He laughs at still to this day. I will never be up on a stage talking like, that is not gonna be my story. That is something very private.
BR (32:23):
But you get to this point where you’re just so healed. My life is so much better. I’m married to my best friend. I’m married, he’s a, he’s a life coach to me. It’s my, you know, and, and so I just, I felt super, super called to do it. And I wrote it for in three months during Covid, actually on Mondays. I would write a chapter on Monday and and then handed it off to Caleb and he would co-write and edit it. So it was a cathartic process. And we were, we just, I don’t know, it’s just, it felt right.
AJV (32:53):
Yeah. You know, I love that. ’cause You know, a big part of our life and our business is books. That’s a huge thing that, you know, we believe in. And what I tell people all the time, it was so interesting to hear you say this. I’m like, I, people say, should I write a book? And I’m like, I cannot answer that question for you. I just know that, you know, it’s time to write a book if you feel called to it. Like, if you can’t not talk about it. Right? And you know, the whole idea of like, you know, people write books as business cards and I’m like, nobody reads those, right? And so
BR (33:45):
It’s a lot of work. And no matter how confident and, and how sure you are that you’re supposed to write a book. And I’ve talked to other women who’ve written kind of the same type of testimonial books, you still have a vulnerability hangover when it’s out
AJV (35:07):
Yeah. Well, just a reminder to everyone,
BR (36:09):
There’s so many, so many books out there that, that have totally changed my life. If they weren’t there, I, there’s, I’m, I remember at the Meyer Clinic, Audrey, my counselor said, you need to go home and read the book boundaries. Like, that’s their curriculum, you know, and this is a three week process. I’m like, I’m here for you to teach me. It’s like, no, no, no, go home and this is your homework. You have to read this. And that’s why when people, we onboard people, you know, there’s a list of five books you have to read in order to be a Ruby manager. And
AJV (36:37):
What are those five books?
BR (36:39):
So you got, I, you’ve got Good To Great, which is one of the best five dysfunctions of a team, I think is amazing. And I’m going to throw re Unreasonable Hospitality. And right now it’s a Danny Meyer setting the table. But our, our mutual acquaintance I think that would be good. And so, you know, and then one is the, not Counting Tomorrow my dad’s book. And I would hope if you work for me, you re wanna read my book as well. So it’s, it’s it’s a, but there’s so many, so many good ones out here. I would say in on the personal side, you know, I think boundaries is probably the number one thing for perfectionism, anxiety, how to deal, you know, with people with personality disorders, which I have in my family. Not my immediate family, but people I have to deal with. And reading that book’s going like, oh yeah, I’m an enabler. I’m codependent. That’s what that means. And oh, I actually need better boundaries for myself as a perfect, when I went to the Meyer Clinic, I was diagnosed with perfectionism, not anything else. That was it. Perfectionism. So I’m in recovery for perfectionism. And that book was, is something I went back and read it a couple weeks ago. I read it so long ago and I’m highlighting again everything. And I’m like, gosh, one day I am gonna get it. Just
AJV (37:53):
BR (38:20):
I speak the same like language. We just went to Chick-fil-A a couple of weeks ago. I took our a, a group of folks down there and with their home office and we spent two days learning the Chick-fil-A way. And that was our number one takeaway was how many books, I mean, they’re all culture. And the way that those leaders and the owners, franchise owners of each Chick-fil-A train, you would think they have multiple, multiple, multiple pro processes, procedures, SOPs, they have none.
AJV (38:51):
Love that
BR (38:53):
Truet did things, how the Kathy family operates, what’s near and dear to them. And then they’re empowered and let go to go run your business according to the ways that the Kathy family did it. And so we came back and said, man, we gotta get everything, Jeff, Ruby, everything that’s up in here, one book’s not enough. We need all his tips, his Ruby iss, we need the coffee table books. We need the 10 Commandments of service. Like all of those things are individual little books that if you go to Chick-fil-A you can see in their bookstore, it’s not just merch. I mean, it is basically their training models for their entire company that they give to all their employees.
AJV (39:28):
That’s so good. ’cause You can get so inundated and overwhelmed with SOPs and training docs and it’s like, let’s bring it up. Not here people, let’s just all speak the same language so that we all know what we’re working with. I love that. I think that’s amazing. And I think, you know, one of the things too, it’s like, you know, on the topic of, you know, this is a, a podcast about personal branding, but personal brands aren’t just for marketing and, you know, attracting clients. It’s also does your team, your employees, do they know what you believe? Right? Mm-Hmm. That is also a part of building a significant and influential personal brand. It’s just allowing people into the inner workings of this is what I think believe. And so one of the questions I wanted to ask you, ’cause this comes up to me a lot, and not everyone listening shares my faith.
AJV (40:16):
Not everyone in our company shares my faith. And so I just wanna, before I go into this conversation, I wanna preface all the welcome here. And you do not have to believe what I believe for us to mutually coexist. So just wanna preface that. But if you follow me on social media, you know, I talk about God and Jesus a whole bunch. And that wasn’t always that way. For the majority of my career. I did not talk about that publicly for a lot of various reasons. But I felt like in 2021, I was a deep, dark depression. I had a, I-I-I-I-I was in a deep dark depression for pretty much the most part of that year. And when I started to come out of it people kept asking, like towards the end of 2022 and into 2023, they said, man, like, you’re different.
AJV (41:02):
What, what have you been doing? And I felt like I heard the Lord say, tell ’em tell me, tell ’em the truth. Tell ’em what you’ve been doing. Don’t, don’t talk about the books you’ve been reading or don’t talk about the Bible studies. You join up. Tell them what you’ve been doing. And what I was doing was I was reading the word of God, and I hadn’t read it consistently in a long time. In fact, 2021 was the first time in my entire life I read every single word of the Bible, and then I did it again, and now I’m doing it again. And I felt like God was saying like, no, tell ’em what you are doing. And I said, y’all, I’m opening up the word of God and I’m reading every word and I’m letting the Holy Spirit into my life. And people are like, what?
AJV (41:46):
What? And I’m like, yes. I did not get a therapist. I did not go to counseling. I am reading the word of God. Right? Nothing wrong with those other things. And I started being vocal about it. And now I get asked all the time, like, aren’t you afraid if you talk about this, you’re gonna turn people off? Or do you, do you talk about this just here? Or how do you talk about it in your company? How do you talk about it with your clients? And I know you talk about this, it’s in your books, it’s in your social media. You’ve mentioned it briefly today. And I would love to hear from you because there’s a lot of people asking the question, like, in a pretty polarizing environment, how do you talk about it? And so I’d love to hear from you, like, why do you talk about it? And then how do you talk about it?
BR (42:33):
You know, that’s the same question I asked Dan Kathy face to, I said, you all have, they’ve been through the ringer in the past. And you know what, he owned the past and said, we didn’t always handle things the right way. What we do, and this is all that matters, is people will know who we are by our love for all, for everybody. And, and so they don’t feel the need to shove their certain agendas down people’s throats. They really are saying now everybody knows we’re believers. Everybody knows that, you know, we’re a company of faith. And first and foremost, you love people, love God, love people, and that’s it. And I didn’t go to seminary when I was baptized in 2001 because I wanted to appreciate all world religions. And that for me was, I took a ton of Buddhism class in college. I took Judaic studies Hindu, Wiccan, I had a Wiccan class.
BR (43:37):
And because I wanted to appreciate all faiths and all people and what you just said, you know, so I switched my major from business to religious studies. And that I think gave me such an appreciation for all the faiths that are out there. But it’s, my faith isn’t for everybody. And, but I think if you work for me, people know when we talk about it, ’cause we are, you know, especially, I mean, we’re doing prayer services with my employees for Brandon. You know, we were worshiping together. And I hope our team knows that this isn’t something. And I talk about it a lot, like there’s an appreciation for all of it out there. But, but you also choose to work for a family of faith. And so this is what goes along with the territory and from a public standpoint. So it’s basically, you know, there’s two different versions that I can tell my story.
BR (44:35):
The Plain glass or the stained glass versions. I have a speech for both
BR (45:29):
This is what God has called me to do. What has he called you to do? You know, what is it? 90% of all people out there believe in something
BR (46:19):
It’s, you just held me accountable too because when I was going through my dark depression, what did I do? I, that’s the same thing. I actually opened the Bible and I got in there and I did a chapter a day. And then I would underline it, then I would highlight it, then I would note, do the notes. And I have never felt more peace in my life than when I was doing that. And now I feel like it’s, you know, I’ll open it during church and fill out the verses and here and there, but when you actually study that, there is, it’s, it’s, it’s almost like your anxiety’s immediately gone. It’s, and there’s a peace. And I’m like, why? It’s the same thing. Like, life’s too short. Why don’t we, why do we have, why does it take a crisis? You know what, why does it take whatever to get back in the word and to feel that overwhelming peace that you can’t explain and that it can come from nothing else other than God and from the word of God.
AJV (47:10):
Amen. You know, it’s so interesting because we were just talking about literally like this. I feel like you’ve been like had microphones in my house the last few days because this is like so many other things we’ve been talking about. And one of the things we were talking about is how it’s like we, we, I hear so many people today go, things are so crazy. Like, has there ever been a time in history where things are so out of whack? And I’m like, have you ever read the Old Testament
BR (47:39):
AJV (47:40):
And I just tell you some stories, the Old Testament, it’s like, it has always been this crazy it just looks different. And it’s like every
BR (47:47):
Election’s the most important election ever,
AJV (47:49):
You know? And it’s like everything is like, you know, it doesn’t matter if it’s the pandemic or the economy or gender issues or whatever people are talking about. I’m like, listen, y’all, none of this is new. None of it, right? All of it is documented from thousands of years ago. And I think one of the things that gives you overwhelming unexplainable peace through reading the Bibles knowing this is not unique
BR (48:17):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (48:18):
It’s been done before. It’s been said before. It’s been seen before. Nothing that we are experiencing today is for the first time.
BR (48:26):
Well, at the Meyer Clinic, you know, when they talk about depression and anxiety, what the homework is is go home and study David, go home and read Psalms and see when the pit of depression and darkness and how he cried out and cried out for so, so long. And so their training and, and it’s still a medical place, there’s still medicine involved and you’re doing blood work and all of it, but you’re doing nine to five every hour on the hour. You have a different class. And one of ’em is going and really seeing how prevalent depression and real feelings are in all these emotions in the Bible. And and then seeing how he came out of it and got through it.
AJV (49:05):
Yeah, I know. And it’s again you know, it’s like I wanted to ask is I know that you’re vocal with it and with such a large org organization and, you know, such a a public figure, I think it’s really important for those who are going, like, how, how do I weave that in? How do I know how to do it? And a lot of it is just being honest. It’s like we don’t all have to believe the same thing, but this is what I believe and I think it’s really convicting for everyone just to step into. It’s like we can all coexist and accept each other’s differences. We don’t have to agree with them to be around them. And so, all right, this is my last question. I’m watching the clock. I’m very I’m cognizant of our time, but my last question is, if there was one piece of advice that you could give to someone listening of how to build better culture in their organization, does it matter if they have a team of one or 1000? What would be your number one piece of advice to build better culture?
BR (50:02):
You have to define what your VP Mosa is. You have to articulate it on paper. So you’ve gotta go through a process to write down what is near and dear to you. So our core values are true to self change the game hustle, right? X be exceptional. And Servant’s Heart, those are the core values that, you know, we real, that embody Jeff Ruby. You gotta write your vision, mission, and purpose for what, if it’s your company or if it’s your family. We really have three different VPMs. I have my own personal, we have our family, and then I have our business one. And until you’re able to articulate it on paper, I think, you know, obviously be a good person and, you know, you wanna live a good life and, and show people that you’re a quality. That’s the number one recruiting tool is being a good, a good leader. A good human being is what people wanna work for. But with turnover and the labor crisis and everything, you’re not gonna keep people once they finally understand, you know, you just have to be able to articulate it. People leave ’cause they’re not well trained or they don’t understand the vision. And so I think you have to be able to go through a process to articulate what your, what your vision, mission, and purpose is.
AJV (51:10):
Yeah. It’s really finding alignment with the people within the organization. And if you can all do that, then you’re all gonna be on the same page. And it’s kinda like the whole thing. Somebody once told me, it’s like not everyone is gonna be for your organization for, they might be for it for some time, right? But it’s not everyone is for you forever. And that, but that doesn’t mean that as some exit, you know, better comes in and it’s being okay with the release. And I think all the huge part is that it’s like as you change and the company changes, the people change, right? They come and they go. Brittany, thank you so much for spending some time in the midst of so much that you have going on. This has been so helpful in so many different ways and I would just encourage everyone who’s listening, if you’re not familiar with the Jeff Ruby organization check them out, jeff ruby.com.
AJV (51:59):
Definitely get a steak at one of the restaurants. It’s world class, none other. But also I’m gonna put Brittany’s Instagram profile in the show notes because she’s got all kinds of cool stuff coming up with her Five Star brand, five star Life. I also put the link to pick up five Star Life book because I think it’s awesome for anyone who is going, like, how do I just have general improvements in all the areas of my life? Brittany, is there anything else that you feel like they should know or, or where should people go to connect with you? I
BR (52:34):
Don’t think so. You nailed it.
AJV (52:53):
Well, thank you so much. This has been so awesome. And for everyone who’s listening, stay tuned for the recap episode, which will be coming up next. We’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 525: When Less Is More | Robin Robins Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
I know that we’ve all bought into the idea that more is better at some point in our lives, personally or professionally, whether it’s more money more things, more accolades, more accomplishments more travels, more stuff, like more friends, more customers. Like I know for all of us that we suffer from the, I think I need more or I think I want more syndrome. At some point in our life, and maybe as you’re listening to this, you are suffering from the more syndrome right now. But this is actually a conversation about how you build more with less. And really specifically this is about how you build a better and bigger business on a smaller audience. And that’s what we wanna talk about. So there, there’s a couple of things that I wanna bring up. And a lot of this stems from an amazing conversation that I had with a phenomenal entrepreneur named Robin Robbins.
AJV (01:07):
And she’s another redhead located in Nashville, Tennessee. I was fortunate enough to be able to interview her on our podcast, the Influential Personal Brand podcast. Go listen to that episode. It is an NBA and entrepreneurial lessons. But there was something that she said in there that really got me thinking about this concept of less is more, right? Not more is more, but less is more. And she said in the interview, your company rides on the who internally and externally. And we’re gonna talk about that for just a couple of minutes. And I think this is a really important thing because I think a lot of times when we think about the who, we think about one or the other, we think about, you know, books like Start With Who, which is about like recruiting and hiring. And we think about cultural aspects of who we hire and how we build our team.
AJV (02:03):
And I think those are really important. In fact, we talked a lot about in this interview how hiring great leaders is how you grow your organization. It’s like you will only grow as fast as you grow your leaders, right? Because you, as the entrepreneur, the business owner, cannot do all the things, be all the things to all the people all the time and expect for you to grow. That’s why so many of us wonder why we started our businesses in the first place, right? Because there was this dream of time and, and margin and space and creativity and freedom. And then what actually happens is you are the person doing all the jobs and you don’t even get to do the thing that you like anymore. ’cause You started it because you were really good at this one thing, but now you’re trying to learn finance and accounting and billing and operations and customer service and all the things that you didn’t even want to do when you got into business.
AJV (02:55):
But that’s because you are not relying on the, the strength of a leader, right? And you don’t have to have tons of people in your organization to make them super, super impactful. But one of the best pieces of advice that I’ve ever got is hire great people, pay them very well, and expect a lot out of ’em, right? And I think that that’s, it’s a lot about a who, right? One great person, one a player, can do the work of three very average players. And I mean that, and I have seen that up and down and all around in my professional life. It’s like one A player literally can do the work of three C players, right? And some of that’s attitude, some of that’s experience, some of that’s determination. But a lot of it is really just work ethic. It’s like, how hard are you willing to work to figure out the thing versus relying on someone else to figure out the thing for you.
AJV (03:53):
And I think that’s a really important concept. If you’re in that position of like, Hey, I do wanna grow, I do wanna scale, then the first thing you need to do as you’re thinking about growth and scale in your business is going, do I have leaders that can help me get from where I am to where I wanna be? Because where you started won’t sustain you, right? And I think that’s a really important truth. It’s like, what got you here won’t get you there, right? That, that, that’s true, right? The, the sales, the operations, the staff that’s needed to go from zero to a million is very different than one to three, three to 10, 10 to 30, 30 to a hundred. That’s a completely different ballgame. It’s a completely different level of systems and operations, staff skills, experience, and most importantly, people, right?
AJV (04:45):
It is a different level of people. And so as we’re talking about this concept of your company rides on the who, there’s the internal components that, you know, do you have a players and are you paying them well enough that they’re not just a paycheck away? And do you expect a lot of them? Do they have growth potential? Do they like the culture? Do they like you, do you like them? Those are all things that when we talk about building an organization that hinges on great leaders and a lot of that is great leaders who can build great systems, right? It’s like you, you are the assistant until you hire the assistant to do the jobs that you’re currently doing, right? Because the thing is, is like somebody else will always be better at what you’re doing because they can be more dedicated and focused than you can as the business owner, you should be doing other things.
AJV (05:37):
And that’s getting clear on the money invested into quality people is worth it because it frees up your time to go do the next thing, whatever that may be. So there is this internal component of the who really matters. And a lot of the growth of a company is directly correlated to the quality of the leader, right? But then there’s this external component that we talked about in this interview that I thought was also really awesome, and I thought this was really important. And I’m actually looking at my notes from this, and I, I loved what she said. She said, this is Robin, Robin said this, get you get more customers when you get more specific and you can go listen to the interview. But she has built, built a multi eight figure business, I think somewhere in the 40, $45 million annual revenues, recurring revenue business.
AJV (06:32):
And what I love is that she shares this. She goes, there are very few people who can actually even buy what we offer. And I, I don’t quote me on this, go listen to the interview, but maybe 10,000. That’s it. So I think a part of it, she was like, we know anding about our customer, what they need, when they need it, what they can afford, what they’re trying to do, what size they are, how many people they have, what revenue they’re at. We know everything about them, and we have built our solution. So specifically catered to this small group of 10,000 people, she goes, we have built a, you know, $40 million business servicing a, a very even small fraction of that people, she was like, but our whole thing is we don’t have to have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of prospects to build an enormous business.
AJV (07:25):
We just need to get so clear, so specific that we are so dialed in on that niche specific audience that we can get bigger with a smaller audience, right? That’s because you can do more for that audience. It’s, versus it’s the difference between doing a little for a lot of people or doing a lot for a fewer amount of people. And in her case, it’s not super small, it’s still thousands. But I think that’s a really important concept because a, a lot of the more conversation that I hear in my world is I’m trying to get more followers, right? Specific on social media, or I’m trying to get more subscribers or I’m trying to get more leads and I’m trying to get more clients and, and people are kind of consumed with this idea of I need more. And I just wonder why, right?
AJV (08:16):
It’s like, do your current subscribers or current followers buy from you? I don’t know. Maybe they do, but I bet a lot of you get most of your business from word of mouth and referrals and your current customers. And I bet that if, if we all took a really deep hard look at who our audience is, we could all admit we don’t need millions, don’t even need hundreds of thousands, don’t even need tens of thousands. And most of us don’t even need thousands of people to go after, to build a very life sustaining, fulfilling life-giving business that’s making a positive impact on the people that you are around on your family. It, it could be generational change, and you could do that with dozens of clients. So more is not always better. Sometimes less is better. ’cause You can do more for those people when you have less clients.
AJV (09:10):
And so I just wanted to challenge everyone in this conversation of going, you can grow to a very large size business with a very small client demographic, and you’re able to do that because you know your client demographic so intimately, right? But there’s not just the external who factor. There’s the internal who factor, which is the, the cultural dynamics of you’re only gonna grow as fast as the leaders in your company, right? You and I love this whole thing, it’s like you can never, you know, grow faster than the systems that you put in place, right? And I think a lot of times when you do that is when you self implode, like when you grow faster than your systems and processes can manage, is when we see these have amazing potential companies implode right before our eyes because they couldn’t sustain the growth.
AJV (10:00):
They didn’t have the right systems, the right processes, nor the right leaders in place to do the thing. Don’t make the same mistake. Don’t don’t over romanticize growth, right? There, there is a, a power in boring organic growth, right? And nobody likes to talk about that because we wanna talk about how you went from zero to seven figures and the next six months. Like, but that’s not always good, right? Sometimes the boring organic
AJV (11:11):
More money, more followers more clients, more leads what have you just said? What can I do with less, right? What, what could I do with what I have? And instead of focusing on more people or more leads or more followers, what if you just said, no, I’m just gonna focus on serving the ones I have better. And it doesn’t have to be more or bigger. I just wanna do more and better for what I currently have. Because if we do a life changing service to the people we have, they will tell others about you, right? We talk about this all
AJV (11:52):
The time. The best form of marketing on the planet is a changed life. And that goes for clients and employees.