Category: MARKETING

Ep 111: The Foot Traffic Formula with Stacy Tuschl | Recap Episode

RV: (00:06) Hey, it’s the Influential personal brand recap edition. Although it’s just me this time I’m filling in for momma CEO. AJ who is out today and I’m going to be breaking down my new friend, Stacy Tuschl interview, which I loved. And here’s why I loved it. I loved it because more, probably than any other interview that we have had, she talks about the intersection of digital marketing, marketing, online marketing, in other words, and offline marketing, this intersection between the offline world and the online world, which is where the magic happens. It’s it’s not about either, or it really is about both now, specifically. I think more of the angle that she takes in her business and in the interview, if you didn’t listen to it, go back of course, and listen to it. But, um, is she’s really teaching online marketing strategies for brick and mortar businesses. But if you listen closely, she’s really teaching both just online marketing and offline marketing, which is the story of my life. RV: (01:25) That is the story of our companies. It’s not free traffic or paid traffic. It’s both, it’s not, uh, offline or online. It’s both, when you’re launching a company, when you’re building a personal brand, you have to do everything you can possibly do to get the word out about what you do, right? Like it, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean you do all the things at once. It means you, you, you know, obviously if you’re one of our members, we teach the brand builder journey. So we teach a specific sequence and how you build this. But the thing you got to know is it’s, it doesn’t matter how advanced you are, how big you are. Like we have to over the course of time, master as many marketing strategies as we possibly can, like build in as many as, as we, as our team can handle and that we can, we can run effectively. RV: (02:23) And that is just important, right? It’s, it’s important that you know, that it’s important that you hear the truth, that nobody built a business on just going viral. And nobody just got lucky where people just showed up. Like that’s not a strategy and it’s not the truth. The truth is that every great personal brand hustled, they built one channel at a time and then the next, and then the next, and then the next all as ways of reaching out. And I think that’s just, you know, something that we can never, we can never hear enough of. Right? Because when you look online and you go, Oh my gosh, like I don’t have the followers that she has, or I don’t have as much engagement as he has, or my videos aren’t as cool as hers. That’s what we look right. That’s, that’s the thought process that we have, but you, you can’t compare your chapter one to somebody else’s chapter 25 and you got to remember that, right? RV: (03:31) You can’t look at what Dave Ramsey’s doing and be like, Oh my gosh, why? You know, like I’ll never be able to do that. Well, sure. You will. It might take you a while though. I mean, it’s taken him him 30 years, but he’s been slow and steady and consistent, and you can do the same thing and that’s marketing you all. Like it’s a, it’s a grind, it’s a hustle. It’s a battle. I mean, I I’m reminded of, you know, shark tank, you know, shark, shark tank has all these famous investors. And you would think, how do the sharks have a company that fails? Like, aren’t they famous enough that they can just like, you know, make a video post about anything and it’ll just turn into success. And the answer’s no, they’re not like it helps tremendously, but they can still fail. They, the companies still fail because, uh, you, you need a marketing system, you need a marketing plan, you need a marketing strategy. RV: (04:32) You need mechanisms that reinforce your message and are constantly working to, to tell people about who you are and about what you do. And that’s, that’s duplicatable. That’s, replicatable, that’s, that’s something that can grow all this other stuff, you know, going viral and all that. That’s just luck. That’s not something you can, you can reproduce. That’s not what you want to build your company off of, even though it’s worth aspiring to do that. So anyways, it was a great interview for that reason. I’m going to give you my three highlights, but that, that was the message, I guess, that was on my heart for me. And for you of just knowing that, Hey, this it’s all online and offline and we got to do everything we can do to tell the world about what we do. And that’s the truth of every successful business and successful personal brand. RV: (05:26) And so Stacy was a good reminder of that, but, um, all right, so here’s my top three takeaways. So first, first of all, she says directly in the interview, my traffic comes from three places, Facebook ads, Google search, and our referral program. Bam, like there, she is sharing her secrets two decades here of a successful brick and mortar business of where her traffic comes from. Facebook ads, Google search, I E search engine optimization, I E Google ads and referral program. So here’s my first question for you. How many of those three things do you have running in your business? Facebook ads, search engine optimization and Google ads and a referral program. It’s possible that you have zero. And if you’re not experiencing the kind of traffic that you want to be having, it might be because you don’t have any of those three things, things running. RV: (06:31) Now we teach all three of those things. Facebook ads, Google. We would break apart into two. We would call search engine optimization. One part that’s free Google. And then we, we, we have Google ads, which is paid traffic, which, um, specifically YouTube and, um, Google ads, which are both the Google ad network. We would actually kind of treat those as two separate things and then referral program, which we would call affiliate marketing. It’s just another word for that. Um, all four of those traffic sources we teach in our event, high traffic strategies. And there’s a reason why now that’s a phase three event and you go, well, Rory, why would you wait all the way until phase three brand builders group has four phases. We have three, two day experiences in each, each phase, right? So this would be like event number nine out of 12. RV: (07:24) And people say, well, Roy, why do you wait that long to teach traffic? I mean, isn’t traffic important. Yes. But if you don’t have, if you don’t have clear positioning and you, you don’t have a clear offer and you don’t have a clear business model and you don’t have your revenue engine, what we call your revenue engine set up for all your lead capture and all your funnels traffic is, is worthless. Um, but when, once you have all this stuff built and you go, bam, let’s go light up the traffic, the traffic ways, um, three of the six that we teach in our high traffic strategies event, you know, sh she’s doing the same thing. So there you go. Like you’re looking for the secret, like there’s the secret, like that’s what to do, um, how to do it is a different story, but that’s what to do. RV: (08:09) Facebook ads, search engine optimization, Google ads and referral program. And how many of those do you have set up? And if you don’t have any, or you only have half of them, well, the good, the bad news is that’s probably why you’re not seeing the traffic you want. But if the good news about that is, Hey, there’s a lot of room to grow. And, and, and it works, right? You’re not, you’re not yet doing the things that other people are doing that get traffic. And that’s why you don’t have traffic. So that’s a good thing. You’re, you’re clear, at least if you’re listening to this episode, you’re, you’re clear on what will drive traffic. Um, now there’s a whole bunch of things that we do for free traffic. And then our favorite traffic of all is what we call get paid traffic. So this, this category, Facebook ads, Google ads, and affiliate is in what we call paid traffic. RV: (09:02) We have another form of traffic that we teach in phase two, which is another reason why these are in phase three for us, which is free traffic. Um, and then our favorite traffic of all, which she actually didn’t talk about is what we call get paid traffic, which is where you get paid to be put in front of someone else’s audience, uh, which is the number one traffic source we have, of course, for us, it’s speaking, um, where you learn how to get paid and get put in front of an audience, which is amazing and book deals. But, um, anyways, there you go. That’s, those are the things you need to be doing. If you don’t have traffic, that’s why, why you don’t have traffic. You’re not doing those things. Um, and the, when is important, that’s what we would add to it, right. And brand builders group. RV: (09:47) So anyways, that was really edifying for me just to hear her go, okay, we don’t have a brick and mortar business, but even in a brick and mortar business, that’s what she’s doing. And that’s powerful. All right. The second thing is that she said brick and mortar is faster. In other words, offline marketing is faster. I believe that is true. What, wait a minute, Roy doesn’t brand builders kind of specialize in, in, in teaching like digital marketing strategies. Yes. We also specialize in teaching offline. Why? Because funnels and traffic and social media and podcasts. These are slower, longer term, more scalable solutions to traffic, but they are slower. So they’re more scalable. And, and in the longterm, they’re, they’re more valuable, right? Cause there’s only so many phone calls you can make in a day. Maybe not. I maybe wouldn’t say more valuable because you can build a team of people, but from you personally, as a one person, as a one man band or one woman band, you can only make so many phone calls. RV: (11:01) But remember our background, I knocked on doors for 80 hours a week for five summers. Then I tell them marketed in corporate enterprise sales. Then we did business to business sales for 12 years in our former company. And then we did digital marketing. And so that’s something I want you to know, like if you’re just starting out Facebook and Instagram and you know, funnels probably isn’t the fastest path to cash. It’s not what we teach. We actually have a, uh, in our virtual training, even for our virtual members, the very first training we put people through is what is called the fast cash, uh, the fast cash formula. And we talk about offline marketing because it’s people that, you know, it’s, it’s your customers, it’s your friends and family getting referrals from people that you know, and your clients. And it just people who trust you, that’s the fastest path to cash funnels and ads and, and, and social media and podcasting and publishing books. RV: (12:08) Those are all great things. They’re amazing things. They’re, they’re important things. They’re life changing things, but they’re longterm things. They’re longterm things, right? If you need to go sign up top 10 customers tomorrow to pay you a thousand dollars each, and you’re just starting out, getting on Instagram is not the fastest way to do that. You gotta get it through your, your friends and family from referrals and from your first clients, even if you do it for free so that you get testimonials and you can get referrals. Offline marketing is the fastest path to cash. Typically in the short term, unless you’re a celebrity, unless you have a huge following, then it’s, then it’s different. But for most of us, offline is faster. You can go knock on someone’s door. You might have to knock on 50 doors to get one person to buy from you, but you can get a credit card in a day versus, you know, it can take six months a year to get a funnel launched in some cases, depending on how much, you know, what you’re doing. RV: (13:10) Um, but asking your, your brother-in-law for a referral, emailing someone and being on a phone call tomorrow, you can collect a phone, a credit card by this afternoon or by tomorrow. So you work your offline relationships, your offline relationships are just as important. Um, and especially in the short term, you know, brick and mortar, I mean human humans. And by the way, those of you that have done, like if I speak in front of a live audience, we might see a 30% conversion. But if I do a webinar funnel, we might see a 3% conversion. So it’s a trade off. Now the good news about a webinar funnel is that we can have an infinite number of people without adding any time in my calendar. So, uh, a one to 3% conversion works as long as I have enough cash to last for six months while we get the thing built and launched and tested and tweaked, but you’re gonna see lower conversions online than offline. RV: (14:11) And it’s going to take typically a longer runway online than offline. And then finally, the last thing, this was so simple, um, was she just said, and this was just powerful, but she said, you have to scrap how you used to do things. And instead ask, how would I do things if I would just starting today in 2020? Right. So what I used to do, you know, it’s irrelevant. It’s irrelevant unless it’s still relevant, right? Like doing something because that’s what I used to do. That’s not a reason to keep doing it. The reason to do it is to go, isn’t the best thing to do today, IR, regardless and separate of what I used to do. But so many people are living in the past going, well, we didn’t, we’ve never done that. That’s never worked. I don’t know how to do that. I w I, we never used to do that. RV: (15:09) So I don’t know how to do it. Great. Learn how to do it. Right. The question is not, what did you use to do? What you used to do is irrelevant. All that matters is what do you need to do? What do I have to do right now? What do I want to do? What do I have to do? And I have to do, I have to learn whatever I have to do. And I have to do whatever I have to do, regardless if I want to do it or like to do it. It’s, it’s kind of what my mom used to say. Entitlement, you know, is, is interesting because enjoying it, isn’t a requirement of doing it, enjoying it. Isn’t a requirement of doing it. And that is true when it comes to marketing. So it’s, it’s what do I have to do more than, what do I want to do? RV: (15:58) It’s not, what did I used to do? It’s what should I do today? And some of those things from the past can still work and other things you need to let leave them behind. And in a lot of cases, you need to reinvent or supplement your traffic strategy with some new skill sets. And you can do that. And you can learn those. Some of those things right here on these podcast interviews, you can learn a ton of them from our team at brand builders group. But no matter how you do it, you got to pump your message out there into the world as fast as possible in many, as many outlets as you can keep up with. Uh, so that people hear about you because excellence is never an accident. People don’t accidentally find you and you don’t accidentally grow your business. So online marketing and offline bring it together. And that is where the magic happens. We’ll catch you next time. Bye. Bye [inaudible].

Ep 110: The Foot Traffic Formula with Stacy Tuschl

ST: (00:06) RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call, hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:03) I’m so happy and excited to be able to bring you a little bit of a discussion from brick and mortar land from one of the women who is really one of the experts and is also kind of a new friend, but we’ve known of each other for like the last couple years, her name’s Stacy Tuschl. And I met her at a couple of different masterminds. I spoke at and through mutual friend, Julie Solomon, some of you know, and she’s amazing. So first of all, she’s a bestselling author and speaker, she’s the owner of multiple seven figure businesses. She’s the creator of something called the foot traffic formula, which we’re gonna talk about. And she, one of the things that I love is she has a real good focus and balance on just not making work, everything always all the time, but like having the personal life and being, being a family, a family woman, or a family, man, I guess you could say two of ’em those of you that are, you know, trying to raise a family. And, and, and in addition to the business recently she actually became she got the Wisconsin, small business person of the year award from the SBA, which if you know anything about like local business, that’s a big, a big freaking deal. And Wisconsin is a big state. So I’m excited to introduce you to her. We’re just going to chat and hear some of her stories. So Stacy, thanks for making some time. ST: (02:36) I’m excited to be here. This is going to be fun. RV: (02:39) So you have 18 years, you five years of doing online business. Yep. Which we’ll talk about that too, but really you’re 18 years, like a true brick and mortar business owner. Like, can you tell us a little bit about that and like how, what you were doing and how you got started? Yeah, so I actually started right out of ST: (03:00) High school. The summer I graduated. I was a dancer in high school, kind of late to the game. So I knew I wasn’t going to do it professionally, but I didn’t want to stop. So I decided while I was going to college, I went to UWM Milwaukee here in Wisconsin. While I was going to school, I decided I was going to teach middle school dancers. And we held classes in my parents’ backyard. Talk about strapping. And I had 17 girls start that first year. Within three years, we had a hundred kids still coming to the backyard. And then thankfully I grew up in a small business. So my grandfather started a construction business about 50 plus years ago, so older than me. So I grew up in that and my family saw the dancers, saw what I was doing and said, I think you have a business here. ST: (03:50) Like, I think we could start charging and you could do this for a living. And like just blew my mind because even though I had grown up in that world, it was very different. I mean, construction, dance classes, it just didn’t feel like this could be something I could do. So in 2005, I officially incorporated started charging, rented a space. Today we have now two locations here in Milwaukee. I own both of the brick and mortar, like commercial buildings that we house the dancers in, and I’m about 50 employees. So it’s a pretty well oiled machine. I no longer teach. I strictly work here in my home office on the business. And then about five years ago, people started to say, how are you doing this? Can you teach me? And that’s kind of the birth of our, my online business. RV: (04:39) Huh. So this is like, so it’s a dance studio effectively. I mean, that’s, that’s what this is. And there’s a whole community dance studios is it’s fascinating. Clint Salter is a, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him ST: (04:54) Spoke at cleanse event in January before we all were shut down. RV: (04:58) Oh yeah. I love that guy. And you know, so, but, but one of the reasons that I thought this would be cool to talk about is cause everyone talks about online business and, and I think there’s a good overlap, but foot traffic formula was originally designed. Tell me if I got this right. Specifically for more of those brick and mortars about how to drive more revenue. And so, you know, I kinda think of three things going on here. There’s sort of strategies for, for those of us that are using a personal brand to drive a brick and mortar, then you go, how do we supplement this with online? And then we go, how does COVID interrupt both of those things and marry them together? So that’s kind of how I want to like talk about this, but in a non COVID world for a second, I feel like we never produce content for the people that, that our clients are like, you know, they either have a dance studio or a fitness gym, or they do salons and spas, or we got jewelry designers and they have like boutiques. So if I have a retail business, how do I get people to come in? Yeah. ST: (06:02) Okay. So I love this and here’s what I want to tell you too. Even if you were an online business owner, listen, because business is business is business, right? The strategies I’m using online, I’ve used in my brick and mortar. But the biggest thing that I, I, the difference I should say with brick and mortar is we can get them faster because we’re in person, it’s a deeper connection, right? So sometimes you’ll hear online marketing and they’ll talk about these email drips and spending how many emails, you know, getting them warmed up in the brick and mortar world. I I’m running Facebook ads directly to a free trial or a book, a call or things like that. And we’re getting people on the phone that day and possibly in our building that week. So it’s a little bit different and how fast we can do it because a lot of times our people are searching for us. They already know they have a need and they trust us a little bit more because we are local down the road. We’re one of those neighborhood businesses. But our typical funnel looks like Facebook ad to some way to not just collect their name, their email, but also their phone number. So we get to go a little deeper on our landing pages than a lot of people do in the influencer world. Not everybody’s collecting phone numbers, but in local brick and mortar, it’s more normal. Like it’s the regular everyday thing. RV: (07:20) Yeah. Well, and, and one of the things you said there to me, which is like such a big delineation for people to understand, but whether you’re online or brick and mortar or some combination of the two is when I think of local businesses, that’s like intent based search. Someone is searching for a plumber or a dance studio. And there’s a whole world of digital marketing related to that, which my mind also goes to Google because like the Google network has really like intent based search, which is different from the online world where it’s more like I’m trying to create intent. I’m trying to drum up interest like, Hey, check out this ad, meet me or this piece of content. And then kind of like rope them in versus capture them. Is that, do you see it that same ST: (08:09) For sure. I feel like the intent based marketing is a lot more we spend more time on it. So Google, my business is a thing you want to make sure it’s updated. It’s maximized because people really are searching for us using search engines like Google. So that’s huge for us. It’s absolutely one of our number one resource or sources of new leads. However, we are doing paid traffic to look alike audiences, people that, you know, we’ll upload our current customer base into Facebook and we’re doing lookalikes in this area. So that is an intent. We’re putting it in front of them, hoping, okay, maybe this will be a good fit. Right. So we do a mix of both in our brick. RV: (08:51) Yeah. So, so just so everyone understands, you kind of brushed through that real quick, but it’s like, you actually took your customer, your customer database from your brick and mortar store export it, it, theoretically you could use a plugin, but you export it as a, as an old school CSV file, upload it to Facebook. You could show ads to those people, but then you’re allowing Facebook to create a look alike off of that, knowing that those people are all from a demographic, like a geographic region. And so is going to pick that up and show ads to people like that. ST: (09:25) Yeah. And one thing we do too, to get a little bit more advanced too, is if you have a software where you can say, who is not currently active, that used to be active, like, could we get a reengagement campaign? Could we get them back in the gym? Could we get them? So you don’t, especially with COVID. If, if people have taken a break from you, how do we go back to our inactive list of customers upload that into Facebook and see who we can target. Like that’s another great way to get them back in and engaged. RV: (09:56) And then the other thing. So I love this cause you’re, you’re advertising to your customers. This is like the intersection of digital and brick and mortar you’re advertising to your customers. Like in some that are inactive, you’re advertising to look alike audiences, which are people who Facebook says, looks like these people. And then do you also run ads? I mean, when you’re the one thing about brick and mortar is you go, can I run ads to people who like the ice cream shop right down the street from my studio? Do you do that kind of stuff? ST: (10:25) So it’s a little harder because a lot of these little local brick and mortar businesses, we can’t, we’re not big enough to say like that they like this person, you know, do this. So it’s a little harder, but we will find, you know, for my ideal client, she’s a typical mom who likes target and certain brands. So we can grab bigger companies that are more nationwide that she’s going to, like that would still be a good fit for us. Like if we’re looking for the soccer mom, right. The dance mom, we can find out some of those interests, but it’s, it is harder to grab like the little ice cream shop or the gymnastics studio down the road. RV: (11:00) Gotcha. Okay. So that’s really powerful. So would you say that again, we’re talking brick and mortar, but we’re talking digital strategies for brick and mortar. Do you think most of the, you know, kind of like the primary ways you drive traffic or controllable traffic to your store, is that coming on the digital front and that’s pushing people into your store or are there still a bunch of things that you’re doing that would be like offline advertising that is really moving people into your physical location ST: (11:35) Is definitely pivoted much more digital. I mean, I’ve been around since pre social media. I always tell people, my first memory of marketing was I would walk in subdivisions and hang door hangers on people’s doors. Like Facebook ads was like the most amazing blessing that I’ve ever, that I didn’t have to go walk in some divisions anymore. So I mean, we’ve been doing it a long time. I will say one of our best sources to this day is having a referral program. And I know you’re big on that too. So we, we do kind of like the direct TV model where, you know, the friend gets something as well as the person they refer and we are very public about our referral rewards and referral program. So that’s huge for us. I mean, they’re either coming from a Facebook ad, a Google search or a friend referred them. I mean, those are the three big things we’re finding. RV: (12:25) Interesting. So Facebook ad a Google search or a referral. Yeah. So we had brand builders is that way, right. We have a very public lifetime referral fee. And then Amanda tress, who I know you also know who’s also a good friend of ours. She was on the show, I don’t know, a few weeks ago. And she, you know, her whole business like blew up with all the referral program and she’s talked about that whole thing. Okay. So you talked about Facebook ad, you mentioned, you mentioned Google, my business and then the referral program. Is there anything about else about Google search that we kind of need to know or key in on? And I, I guess this would apply again for brick and mortar, but I think, I feel like we hear a lot of people talk about Facebook ads. But we don’t hear that much about Google for personal brands. And so could you, is there anything there that you feel like we should know? ST: (13:20) So Google my business and Google, right, just in general, SEO is definitely brick and mortar. People are searching for you there, right? We want to make sure that you’re ranking high. Now, if you’re in an area where you want to get on that homepage, but if you have tons and tons of competitors, it can be really hard to fight for a spot on that homepage in the online world. It’s going to be very difficult to fight for that homepage because there are a million people doing something very similar to you. That’s why I think there’s a big difference in people. Don’t really talk about Google and SEO as much online as they do in the brick and mortar world. It’s just less saturated. Right. but I will say with Google ad words I think Google ad words work great for brick and mortars. ST: (14:06) The one thing that I will say is watch your market. So I don’t run Google ads right now because nobody in my area runs Google ads and I’m at the top of Google. So if you Google like Oak Creek, Wisconsin dance classes, I’m going to be right there at the top. So I don’t feel the need to run ads to get higher than myself. If that makes sense. If my competitors started to do it, then I would probably have to consider it. I also know it would totally push me in the game and I’m afraid that if I start proactively, it’ll just push them into the game. And then we’re just going to be outbidding each other when let’s just stay free. If we can. Let’s just say, RV: (14:45) You’re the one that if, especially if you’re the one at the top, ST: (14:49) Yeah. It was still reason to get the Google game. RV: (14:52) We’ll make sure that this podcast isn’t seen by anyone in Wisconsin. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll ST: (14:59) It’s just kind of like my strategy right now, but you may be in a different situation. You might be not even on the homepage, like number one, and you may have a lot of people running Google ads that you might want to think about time to pay to play. Right. There may come a time that I’m going to have to start doing it. It just isn’t right now. RV: (15:18) Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, one of the things about brick and mortar, one of the things about Google in general, that’s amazing is you can actually see how many people are searching for a specific term. And, and then how much it would cost to bid on that term. And so when I think of brick and mortar, I also think about hyper localized search. So like the name of a community or a small, you know, like I’m a Nashville, you know, it, you wouldn’t be going for like personal branding Tennessee, or you could do personal branding Nashville. I mean, it doesn’t really fit for us cause we don’t have like a retail location, but you might use like Oak Hill or green Hills or whatever the name of the community is. If it, if there are people, if there is a lot of, a lot of pain going on, you could like narrow the geographic niche. ST: (16:11) Yeah. And I think there’s different phrases that somebody local is looking for. Especially if they’re typing in Nashville, they might be typing in marketing agency, right. Consulting, like they’re looking for phrases like that. And then that’s something you absolutely could be doing keyword wise, trying to get people to see you, but people that kind of get this whole online world and that there’s gurus out there. Right. They may not be going to Google. They’re probably going to Facebook and kind of going down that rabbit hole. RV: (16:39) Yeah. well, that’s interesting. Okay. So that now this whole context of this conversation was brick and mortar strategies, everything, including the referral program applies to digital as well. Are there, are there things okay, so the foot traffic formula originally, it was kind of targeted at brick and mortar and but all of these things would apply just as you said, in the beginning to any digital business, is there any other sort of advantage that a digital business has that your, you would say is like, you’re seeing a lot of traffic that you really don’t, you can’t do or benefit from and in the brick and mortar world? ST: (17:18) I don’t, I don’t think so. I mean, for the most part, when I started my online business and I was struggling in the beginning, I had to go back and go, well, what did I do in the first business to become successful? And I truly was duplicating a lot of that online. That’s why I always go back and say like, this is just marketing. You know, this is not something brand new. It’s just a transitional period of what our marketing looks like, what business is now turning into. And 2020 has been a slap in the face to say like time to update, you know, your business model if you’re still living in the past. RV: (17:52) Yeah. Well, and like, just even using that as an illustration, like the door hangers, I mean, a Facebook ad is kind of like the equivalent of a door hanger. I mean, you’re going to see it, the diff the difference is you often don’t have to pay for a digital impression where you would have to pay to physically print that. ST: (18:10) Yeah. I paid for everyone. I had to manually put them on every single door, whether somebody took that and just threw it on the ground or threw it in the garbage. Right. but it looked just like a Facebook ad. Would it had a graphic, it had a headline, a call to action with a link. I mean, it took them exactly like you would do it right now in 2020. RV: (18:30) Yeah. I mean, that’s like, you know, when, when we’re trying to teach personal brands about like a webinar or something, we’re going look, the way I built my whole speaking business was I went and spoke for free. And I was on stage in front of live people with humans and they get to sample me. And then that was how they buy the stuff. A webinar is exactly the same thing. Except I think what you’re saying is true. You got to realize in the digital world, it’s, it’s slower, a lower percentage than, you know, kind of like in that physical world. So on the topic of the digital marketing, are there any places, so Facebook and Google, is there any other place that you’re looking or spending time, or you have your eye on right now in terms of online traffic sources beyond Facebook and Google ST: (19:13) For my brick and mortar or online or both? Both. Okay. So we’re definitely, we’re, we’re trying to do Facebook and Instagram, both. So when I say Facebook, I also mean Instagram and we’re definitely starting to look more into LinkedIn and YouTube for our online business this year. We’ve been doing it, but I’m talking like getting really serious and using the platform and maximizing it. RV: (19:38) Yeah. But not for brick and mortar per se. ST: (19:41) I’m not for brick and mortar. I actually thought about with my brick and mortar, I thought about doing a podcast, like a local podcast, and that will be happening. It’s just with COVID things that definitely changed the game a little bit. And that’s something that I is a little different. I don’t see a lot of brick and mortars having a podcast, but I also see podcasting just getting bigger and bigger. And I kind of want to start that trend in my area too, for just that extra credibility. Yeah. So I’m really excited that it would have been on my, to do list already pre COVID, but now we’ll, we’ll be doing something soon which is exciting. Like I love doing something experimenting. Like, let’s see if this works, let’s see what happens. RV: (20:20) Yeah. And we did an interview with a guy named Rick Steele. Who’s has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on Google advertising. And one of the things he was talking about was with the YouTube ads, you can choose to run an ad in front of any specific video, not just a, a channel, but one video. So if there are videos out there that are like getting a lot of views that are somehow for a local market, I mean, it’d be to see, yeah. It seems like the battle there on YouTube and Google land is developing more and more in LinkedIn too. Although I, you know, I hear pretty consistently at LinkedIn feels very expensive to get to people. So let’s talk about just COVID real quick then. So you, you you’ve mentioned COVID for our brick and mortar people. I mean, what do you do, ST: (21:14) Where do you start? RV: (21:15) I mean, yeah. Where do you even start with? I mean, obviously stores, you know, some of them are getting to open up the nail salons and stuff, or start open a little more and more, but what, what was the strategy? I mean, here you are an 18 year vet to brick and mortar, and I’m guessing that for some period of y’all, must’ve got shut down. ST: (21:33) Yeah. We were closed from about mid-March until June 1st. So for us you know, we didn’t have anything digital. We had never been doing anything like that. We, the good thing is because I already was in this world and I, you know, I’ve been on zoom a million times. Like this is where we live as an entrepreneurial online. I was able to go into my brick and mortar and that day say we are immediately going virtual. We are going to have zoom classes. And it’s funny because my entire team was like, what is zoom? We don’t know what you’re talking about. Where are these videos going? What are you after you do the video? Where does the video go? Like, it was just, they were so like, I couldn’t even believe that my team who’s incredible. They just, they didn’t live in that world. ST: (22:18) So what was exciting was I realized, okay, they’re so confused. And this is what’s happening right now for my competitors. They’re doing this whole thing, but they don’t have me going guys. I live on zoom. My mum’s zoom all day long. I’ve got this right. So we were the only ones in my area to pivot virtually. First of all, we pivoted within two days, we opened up on like a Tuesday and said, here’s what we’re doing. And we kind of held it over. We kept, I think we were at like 90% retention that first month. Wow. So we were really like trying everything. And then we got to open back up June 1st, but we’ve actually kept, you can come to us in person or you can stream virtually at the same time for those that don’t feel comfortable. So it’s definitely changed the way we’re going to continue to do business for a little while. But what I realized was we can’t have all of our eggs in one basket in one type of product. Like, all we do is service based businesses in person. That was scary when I realized like, that was a lot more fragile than I realized it was. RV: (23:24) Hm. ST: (23:26) Well now we’re, we’re asking ourselves, what else could we do? Cause I think there’s some people that say, yeah, but I do live of like, like I have a customer that is in live event, promo. They do swag for live events, right. In person events, they’re gone. Right. And they’re so stuck on like, but that’s what we used to do. That’s how used to make money. And you have to just scrap how you used to do things and ask yourself, how would I start again today in 2020? What could I offer that would still work in this market, you know, in the online space per se. RV: (24:02) Yeah. That’s powerful. That’s a powerful question. What did you do to like when you stream? So I was actually curious about this. So we are streaming classes, your dance classes. How are you connecting the camera to zoom? Like, what are you, is that where you using zoom to stream it? Or were you using something else? ST: (24:20) So we were just using zoom. However, some people did not have great computers. So we bought them little webcams that hooked up to their computer. RV: (24:28) Oh, okay. So, so people just, this is your, Oh, that’s right. Cause your instructors are not at the studio either they’re at home or wherever they are ST: (24:36) Correct. Even when we opened back up and they were streaming with it, now they’re in the building, but they all have to have their own computers. We have to have, we have like, I don’t even know maybe seven classrooms going on at the same time. So I need seven computers, seven cameras, seven microphones. Like I needed all the equipment. So that was, that was a process right there. RV: (24:56) But you’re streaming. You basically got a U S like a, an external USB camera that plugs right into the computer. And then you’re just setting that camera wherever you need to film the instructor. Correct. And then how are you miking up an instructor? ST: (25:11) Yeah. So that was a challenge. And that was something I’m like, you know what, no, one’s going to know that, no, one’s going to know they’re going to need good audio. I knew video needs to know. RV: (25:19) I know that. But like these mikes we’re talking on you, can’t like, if you’re teaching dance, you’re not just like, ST: (25:25) I wish I could show you, but there are fitness. Mike’s like, if you Google like fitness microphones, they’re wireless, they plug in your back pocket. So you can actually hook up a headset. And my, now my instructors have these fancy ones that go like around their neck and they sit right here. So they’re talking into the microphone. So there are options for people that need even us, if we want it to walk around and do a whiteboard back here, I could be 10 feet away writing. And you could still hear me with the wireless mic. RV: (25:51) Yeah. Yeah. So the, but it’s Bluetooth, Bluetooth technology basically. Yeah. wow. Well, look at that. We’re getting, we’re getting a few secrets again. We’ll make sure not to run ads to anyone in Wisconsin to promote this episode. And if you’re from Wisconsin, I’m sorry. You just have to ignore this episode. Particularly if you’re in the dance dance business, but I’m not thinking we’re reaching a lot of people in that market, Stacy. So I think, ST: (26:15) And here’s the thing. I really have that abundance mindset of even if they go to do X, Y, Z, I’ll always be one step ahead. Right. I’m always looking and investing and researching, and that’s what you have to do because there are competitors everywhere. Right? So you’ve got to stay on top of your game. They make me stronger. RV: (26:32) Yeah. And I mean, so many of these things, it’s like, they’re simple, but nobody actually does them. Like, there’ll be such a small percentage of people who actually go do something. And it’s, and it’s like as simple as exporting your customer list, uploading it to Facebook and running ads to those people. Who’ve been inactive that could change your business. But only 5% of people who hear that idea will probably ever actually even attempt to do it. ST: (26:58) Right. Cause somebody is thinking, I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know where that would be. I don’t have the software to do that. They think of excuses. Why they can’t instead of just making it work and figuring it out. RV: (27:09) Yeah. So are you, you, you’re still loving the brick and mortar. Like you’re, you’re doing, you’re finding the hybrid. I mean obviously teaching people, brick and mortar. So foot traffic formula is an online business that teaches brick and mortar people, how to use online to drive their brick and mortar business. Right. So you’ve got an online, but you’re still brick and mortar. ST: (27:32) I am. And you don’t, people will say to me all the time, like, why don’t you sell? Like, why don’t you get out of it? And here’s the thing. When you build a business that runs like a well oiled machine, there’s no reason to get out of it. I don’t feel trapped. I don’t feel underpaid. I don’t feel exhausted by my brick and mortar. And when people tell me, like, get out, sell, do this. I always think you probably had a bad experience managing a team. You probably didn’t have consistent paychecks. You probably had a lot more chaos than I’m experiencing. So for me, I don’t have plans to sell my brick and mortar at all. Like we’ve been doing this, I haven’t taught a dance class in over 10 years. I haven’t worked in the building for about seven years. And I plan to keep, to keep running them. RV: (28:17) Wow. Well, and isn’t that the truth? I mean, when you understand the way businesses are valued, all you’re doing is getting an advance on future earnings. So it’s like, I’m just, I’m just giving up an ATM machine that I’ve built and in exchange for a onetime payment, it’s like, well, I kinda like my ATM machine and it’s, as long as I think it’s going to keep running, I’m probably just going to hang on to that. Yeah. That’s awesome. I mean, really, really cool. And just something you just don’t hear every day. So I mean, Stacy, where do you want people to go if, if they want to connect with you or learn about foot traffic formula or, you know, some of the stuff that you’re up to. ST: (28:53) Yeah. So you can just go to my website, Stacy, social.com. I know that is a lot to spell. So I’ll have you look that up on [inaudible] podcast, but yeah, RV: (29:04) L it’s not a big deal, but it, you know, until it’s, you know, you might go Tuscaloosa to show just to shul, but to USC AHL, but yeah, we’ll put a link to it, of course. ST: (29:16) But yeah, I would say my podcasts, foot traffic, and then everywhere on social media, it’s just at Stacey social. RV: (29:22) Yeah. I love it. Well, thanks for sharing some of these secrets. This is a very unique space. I think you’re, you’re one of the earlier people for sure, into this space and I love that you’re doing it. I love that. You’re like running the brick and mortar doing it as an active, not teaching stuff you used to do, but like, you’re actually, you’re doing it. It’s really good. ST: (29:44) I think that was one of the big differences with COVID. We had an influx of people coming to me and it’s because I’m still running it. I’m in the thick of it. That was a crazy mass in March. And when they could learn what I was doing in real time, that was helpful. So it actually showed me the importance of keeping the brick and mortar to truly be able to teach in real time what’s going on so we can continue to strengthen our skills as well. RV: (30:10) I love it. Well, we’ll link up to Stacy tuschl.com. Thanks for being here. We wish you the best and we’ll talk to you again.

Ep 109: Why Research is Your Competitive Advantage with Jason Dorsey | Recap Episode

AJV: (00:06) RV: (00:07) Hey, welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. We’re breaking down the interview with one of our best friends, Jason Dorsey about him and his wife and business partner, Denise, via dr. Denise via and their new book Z conomy about generation Z and how they’re going to affect the future of the world of business and all things, personal brands. So babe, what were some of your big takeaways from listen to our friend, Jason, in the professional setting that we do? AJV: (00:40) Now, it’s always so great to get a chance to listen to friends. Cause you forget. Wow. Really smart friend. Wow. You’re so smart. Like you have all these amazing skillsets. So I think that one for anyone who has a cause it’s so fun to get to interview people that you’re actually really close to in life, because as friends, you don’t really get to know all the intimate details of their professional lives sometimes. And this is just such a great chance to be like, wow, like I’m so honored to like get to be in your life because you’re so good at what you do. So anyways, that’s just a major kudos to Denise and Jason for just for being so smart. So cool. We love you guys. So here’s one of the things that I wrote looking at my notes here is that I thought this was so fascinating and I knew this, but it had never really clicked before. AJV: (01:35) Jason talked a lot about, he said the more research that we did over the course of time the more data we collected the more just information that we gathered, the more in demand we became. And I thought that was really fascinating. And he said that what they started to realize is that research, it was their uniqueness. It was what really differentiated them in the marketplace and really set them apart and thought leadership. It wasn’t just a motivational speaker or a funny speaker or a really great speaker. It was like, no, this is founded in data. It’s founded in research. That that means something to how you recruit and hire and lead and train. And in his case, millennials now moving on to gen Z, but that research was their uniqueness. It’s what set them apart. It’s what got them on TV and all these national media spots. It’s what helped them increase their fees is they became true thought leaders in the millennial, the generational conversation that has really been really big for the last 20 years. And now they’re changing that ever so slightly to be on gen Z, which will keep them very busy for the next 20 years. RV: (02:51) Yeah. And you mentioned research it’s, it’s interesting. I don’t think their expertise is so much on millennials. I’m just thinking, Speaker 3: (03:00) Thinking not so much on millennials, but it’s on research, which means that it makes them timeless in terms of it. And, and a Z economy of course, is the new book that is all about this next era and this wave. So that was my big takeaway too, is just the power of research. And it was, I felt a little bit of a permission to when they said that there’s, there’s different levels of research. And so you can start with something basic and then kind of like work your, your, your way up. But I loved this quote when he said success is when competitors have to cite your study because your data is, is so good. So that’s something for us to aspire, aspire to. Yeah. So that was the same takeaway for me. AJV: (03:45) Yeah. I thought it was just so good. And I just, I thought this was good to just kind of sum up that point. And he said that research is what separated them in a crowded market. Right. So for those of you who feel like you’re in a crowded market, looking at research and data as a competitive advantage, I think is is really unique. Okay. Why don’t you go ahead and do your second one? Speaker 3: (04:06) My second one was really just understanding this was more of a generational thing than it was you know, how they built their business, but related to where they were saying, well, Jason said a generation isn’t changing. They’re just bringing who they are into the marketplace. And so you need to know them and that’s that’s just a quick like pivot you need to make in your, in your brain. And as a personal brand, you gotta go, okay, who are these people? I have to know who generation Z is and I need to adapt to them. It’s not that they’re changing for me. It’s just, they grew up in a different world with a different set of belief systems and, you know, politics and technology. And so knowing really who they are and, and not being frustrated, like there’s somehow changing from you, but also realizing, gosh, in order to stay relevant in the next generation, I have to adapt some of the things that I do, some of my content, some of the ways I deliver content to reach that generation. And that was just a, AJV: (05:09) Yeah. Can you talk specifically around video? These people are so used to absorbing information through video that if you really want to reach them, it’s gotta be in video. It’s not photographs, it’s not static post it’s video. I think that was, there was a great discussion around video. So if you’re, you know, a little video shy to talk about who is your demographic and here are you reaching. And if it’s in this younger, you know, at this point, you know, gen Z is all the way up to age 24, right? So they’re in your consumer market to some degree. So yeah, I thought that was great. I’m going to read this a little bit. Cause when I listened to it, I took some really tedious notes. AJV: (05:51) So a couple of other things that I put down here if say this is, I thought this was really smart. The data isn’t quite good enough, you have to be able to translate the data into a story that connects with your audience. And I thought that was really smart. And I think so, so often you think, okay, I need data. I need research. It’s like, I need numbers and I need charts and diagrams. And that’s what you think about with data. And he’s going, no data alone is no good. Nobody just, nobody emotionally connects to numbers. And he didn’t say this, or this is what I heard, but you need an emotional story tied to the data that people can connect with, that they can relate to, that they can see themselves or their company or their audience in. And he said that, you know, just even a media, right? They don’t want you to talk about numbers. It’s what are the numbers mean? Like who are the people? What are they buying? Right? What, what, how does that change? How you do business, that those are emotional things. So the data alone isn’t good enough. It’s how do you take that data and turn it into real life stories that have an emotional connection. That is what will differentiate you. That is true thought leadership. It’s not just getting numbers on a piece of paper. It’s translating those things into real stories with real emotion. Speaker 3: (07:19) Yeah. That’s cool. Thought that data is the starting point of the story and really what people are after is the story. So my third takeaway you actually already mentioned was that gen Z specifically was their language. Their native tongue is video. And I was thinking about those of you that are writers going, okay, well, what does that mean for you? If maybe you’re, you don’t want to be on the camera, you know, or you don’t like to be kind of front and center, but it’s going okay, how can I still adapt? And this came up actually in one of our events, somebody asked this question specifically and there’s some really good collaborative discussion. And what came out of that discussion was going okay, well, if you’re a writer and you don’t like to be on video, you can write and then read your writing and overlay it on top of still images or stock Royal, you know, royalty, free footage. And if you don’t want to read it, you can get a voiceover, you know, like you can get someone to voiceover it, but you can still take the written form of content and produce it into video, which if you’re going to connect with gen Z, that’s probably something you should look at doing so that, you know, hit me. It was like, we gotta go video. Everything has got to find a way to be on video because that’s, that’s who they are. AJV: (08:38) That means more showers or having to do Speaker 3: (08:45) More hairspray. Yes. More hair. AJV: (08:49) Okay. My third one you kinda mentioned it earlier, but I’m just going to touch on a little bit more. I said, you don’t have to hire a research firm to start getting data rich, right? You don’t have to go out and spend thousands of dollars to have your own data to have data. He said, one of the first things that you can do is just start compiling all of the research studies that have already been done in your space. Third parties citing them. But then talking about that as you know, one of your core differences is like, Hey, you base it on this research, you base it on the studies, you base it on this data, you base it on this X, Y, and Z. And that you don’t have to be the one to foot the bill to do all of the research that other people are doing research. AJV: (09:34) Just so other people like you we’ll use it, we’ll cite it and we’ll give them credit for it, which is fine. I just think that was really also insightful of going, Hey, have your trying to create real thought leadership. It has to be more than just a personal story, right? It’s got to be a personal story, tied to data. That’s been connected back to a story and that’s really forwarding the message where it’s really concrete and substance, but you don’t have to pay for it. There’s plenty of research studies and data out there go and compile the most credible ones. He talks a lot about how do you know which ones are credible? It’s, it’s definitely an interview you want to listen to not just to learn about gen Z, which is fascinating. But also just like, okay, well, how do I get in this research game? And what does that mean? And what does that look like? And how can you start dipping your toes in it without spinning? RV: (10:34) Yep. So there’s at least two reasons to go buy the Zee economy. Book one is so you can learn about gen Z and know who the heck they are and how you can reach them. And two is to watch one of the best in the business in terms of Jason and dr. Denise via Jason Dorsey and dr. Denise via who’s his wife and business partner and how they make data, become a part of their brand and learn about it. So that’s what we got for you. Thanks for tuning in buys economy, and we’ll see you next time. Bye. Bye [inaudible].

Ep 108: Why Research is Your Competitive Advantage with Jason Dorsey

Speaker 1: (00:05) [Inaudible] RV: (00:07) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:02) You’re about to meet one of the smartest people that I know, one of my best personal friends, someone that I learn a ton from, and I admire tremendously. Jason Dorsey is truly one of the, I think, most respected, true thought leaders in the world. Somebody who’s work defines our world and helps us redefine our world. So he is the leading generational researcher. I think in the world he’s been on 60 minutes. He’s been on the today show. He’s been on the early show. He’s been on over 200 shows. I mean, he’s on national TV on almost a weekly basis and him and his wife. Okay. So Denise via is the CEO of gen HQ and they are a research firm that helps huge companies conduct data driven, you know, empirical analysis on the trends of how generations are buying, selling, working. And they have a brand new book that’s coming out called Z economy. RV: (02:09) How gen Z is going to change the future of business and what to do about it. So this affects you as a personal brand. We’re going to talk a little bit about how Jason and Denise have built their careers up to where they are at now. And Jason was recently inducted into the professional speaking hall of fame. He’s had over 1000 standing ovations and there’s also one of the most dynamic onstage presenters that I have ever, ever seen. So Jason, welcome to the show, buddy. Thank you. Just thrilled and honored to be with you. And I just want to say thank you for all that I’ve learned from you about brand building and developing a platform and really being able to leverage ideas and to influence. So thank you so much for having me on and for your friendship. It’s truly an honor to be with you today. JD: (03:00) Of course, brother. So I think hopefully don’t mind me sharing this. You’re one of the highest paid speakers in the world and specifically among speakers who are paid a lot of money who are no offense I would put in the non-celebrity Speaker 4: (03:16) Non-Celebrity yes, definitely a non-celebrity over here reminded about that, JD: (03:20) But my nine year old daughter every day that I’m not a celebrity. And when I think about why, okay, we talked about a lot of the reasons why, you know, being amazing on stage, you have been in this industry a long time, but I think that your super power is probably research. And of course, Jen HQ you, you the center for generational kinetics is actually the name of the firm, right? So you guys do real research and so can you just talk about like, what do you, what do you do there as a research firm and how do you think that that shapes, you know, or has shaped your speaking career in terms of what separates you from other speakers, authors, thought leaders, you know, et cetera. Yeah, it’s a great question. And so I think maybe to go back a little bit, I got into this when I was 18 years old and I didn’t have a resource like you or, or other groups that could sort of help me to figure out what my path would be to become an author and speaker and a consultant and eventually a board member and so forth. JD: (04:22) So I had to sort of stumble my way through as many of us do. I ended up sleeping on the floor of a garage apartment when I was 18. I was $50,000 in debt. I had 5,000 books that I had self printed and no idea what I was doing, which is probably a good thing. Cause I may not have gotten that if I do what I was doing, but, but out of that, I sort of took the traditional path of in order to be an expert, I should write a book, which I still believe is one of the absolute best ways to get out there. It’s not the only way, but it’s a great way to do it. It shows depth of understanding and, and sort of a body of work or around a question or strategy or topic or something. So I wrote this first book and then eventually I started speaking for free. JD: (04:58) And then eventually I started getting paid a few hundred dollars and then more, and then I guess it was two or three years later, I was keynoting event. It was me and Barbara Bush, 5,000 people in arena, fireworks, going off. And, and to some degree I sort of thought I’d made it, you know, my mom was there. So that was really helpful. So that was my mini celebrity moment. And then after that, I realized that people would pay me to speak and that there was actually a business here to be a brand at that particular time talking about my generation, which we eventually called the millennials. But back then we did, and it was just young adults. And so I would go when I would speak and write and do all that. And I did that for many years, wrote a bunch more books. And then I ended up on 60 minutes and it was sort of one of those watershed moments, certainly for me in my career, but also around the topic of generations. JD: (05:46) Because until then it wasn’t nearly as hot of a topic, but that 60 minute episode really got the attention, particularly of executives, entrepreneurs, baby boomers, frankly, people that had money and influence and were makers. They then called me up and said, you know, we’ve hired your generation, Jason, they’re terrible. Their pants are falling off. You know, their moms here, they won’t work on their birthday. Like, you know, what’s wrong with you. And so I sort of became the flak jacket if you will, for my generation. And in doing that, I’m speaking at all these corporate board events and just, you know, doing what I do. And I’ll remember distinctly, I was at this one boardroom and I was, I was meeting with the board and the CEO of this public company. So it’s publicly held company trades on the New York stock exchange at the time basically said that millennials were terrible and head and they just had all these problems with it. JD: (06:34) So I not knowing any better when afterwards. And I asked their head of HR, I said, would you mind sending me the data so I could understand the problem that we just heard about because I want to make sure I can contextualize it. Cause then maybe I can try to, to solve for, to come up with some ideas. So they sent me the data and I looked at the data. I’ll never forget it. And the data didn’t match what the CEO had just said. And that was a huge deal because I, you know, I’ve served on the board of a public company. I serve on lots of private company boards right now it’s unusual that a CEO would make such a bold claim that isn’t grounded in their own data. Right? And so I went through the niece, my wife, who has a PhD, and I said, Denise, this is the strangest thing. JD: (07:16) You know, it just was with this company. They’re amazing. The CEO said this, I got the data set. And then the data does not match what the CEO just said. I said, what do you think we should do? And she said, we should start a research company. She said, because then we can give people great data, accurate data, and then they can make better decisions. And if we control the data, if we, if it’s our data, then we’re the people that they’re going to keep coming back to in order to help them grow their business or whatever the problem is you’re trying to solve. So that was how we created the center for generational kinetics. And Diddy’s being a professional researcher, became the CEO, ran up all of our research. And then we started doing more and more research. And we started doing research in the U S and then we started doing research outside the U S multiple languages and what ultimately happens. JD: (08:00) And I think this is so important for people who want to build their brand is the more data that we collected that was our own. The more people came to us for that information, for that context, for that insight. And so when you want to separate yourself in a market, one of the things I’ve learned to do is to be unique or different from everybody else that now I may not be better. I happen to think in most cases, our solutions are better, but I’m certainly different because we’ve now done more than 65 generational studies around the world. We’ve worked with over 700 clients, including many of the biggest brands in the world. And every time we work with clients, we get their data. And you can imagine now when somebody comes to me from, I don’t know, pick an industry life insurance and says, Jason, you know, can you help us think about the generational impact on the life insurance category and what our sales professionals need to know? JD: (08:46) I can say absolutely. In fact, I know exactly what works to sell life insurance, to millennials, gen X and boomers, and why one generation tries one technique to sell and that work with this generation of customers and vice versa. But then I can take that and apply it to automotive. I can apply it to physicians and healthcare. I can apply that to technology B2B enterprise company. So all of a sudden what we did, and it was not intentional. What we did is the more data that we created, the more research we did, the more we stood out in the market and you asked, you know, how do we charge the fees that we get that we receive? It’s because people are hiring me because we bring this data. This research has insights to everything that we do. So even if I don’t do a study for someone, the fact is I’ve already done 15 studies in automotive. JD: (09:28) I don’t have to do that. So they already know what it was, and I’m still getting data from all these different sources. And so for me, like when we wrote this economy book, what I think makes it so powerful. So we have all this data about gen Z. Who’s now 24 years old, as they relate to, let’s say millennials and gen X and baby boomers. And so for people out there, let’s just use the book as an example that wanted to let’s say, recruit or motivate or retain gen Z. They don’t have time managers out there to go try a whole bunch of stuff and see what works. They want to know what works. So we’re able to give them that, cause we’ve already proven it same with marketing or sales or building trust or driving influence. And that’s what people pay us for. They pay us to bring context and data driven insights and help them solve a specific problem. Right? I’m not a raw speaker. I’m not, you know, I, wasn’t a coach of a professional football team. I don’t do that. I help people understand how to solve tough generational challenges. And right now, like in our case, gen Z and millennials are upending. Every major industry, huge issues being created and they need to be solved so that leaders can move forward, grow their own personal brand, but also move their business forward. And so that’s how we got into this. And what was left RV: (10:33) You think for you that they’re all causing ruckus. Cause that’s key that keeps you in high demand, screwing everything up JD: (10:40) For everybody. Well, and that, so let’s take that comment. Cause I think it’s a really good one. So, so the perception we hear from executives all the time is, you know, Jen’s Dean, they’re driving all this change or just all of this change. They’re creating all this problems. And argument is no, they’re not. They’re just doing what they’ve always done. It’s all they’ve ever known for them. This isn’t changed. This isn’t new. This is indifferent. This is purely all they’ve ever known in terms of how to communicate what their work styles are, what their motivations are. What’s important to them. And they’re bringing that into an environment. The environment sees it as change, but gen Z and even millennials, they don’t see it as change. It’s all they’ve ever known. Why are you calling me, send me a text. You want me to do bring a checkbook? JD: (11:23) I don’t have one. You know, like these sorts of things are real deal. And so in the book in particular, we try to humanize with a bunch of Jensey stories, but also have managers who are sharing their personal stories, working with Genti marketers, talking about how they’re using social media and why certain things work and certain things don’t. And I think that’s the biggest issue for me. So we’ve sort of built our brain on the idea that we separate generational myth from truth. That’s really the key, right? We separate myths from truth and that’s what most people want are smart. If they can just get the truth, they’ll make a great decision, but they don’t know who to trust, where to go for the information so forth. And so we can bring that to them. So as a brand, you know, my brand evolved originally. JD: (12:04) I was a writer, writer wrote my first book and then I became a speaker. I didn’t become a speaker out of strategy. I became a speaker cause nobody bought the book, but I could eventually I got offered a free lunch to speak. And then I got offered dinner to speak. And then I got paid on a hundred dollars, whatever. And so, so all of that. So I went from author, really being passionate about a subject to being a speaker and then trying to figure out how to communicate well, right? 3000 talks around the world to all kinds of audiences. I mean the same kind of big stages you speak on. And then from that going into research and every time I’ve done that our fees have gone up, demand has gone up, influence has gone up the media, calls us all the time because we have the data. And so for me, when I think about building a brand, for example, this economy book is the way we’re going to base our brand for the next 10 years, gen Z is not going away. So do this and put it out and build on it. RV: (12:53) I want to talk about gen Z specifically in a second, because I think it’s, it’s you know, they are a massive force in the world, which is going to affect all of our businesses before we do that though, in terms of research. Okay. So, so let’s say that I’m, you know, I’m not a generational speaker, but I speak on something marriages or health or money or something. JD: (13:20) What, what does research, what does research mean? RV: (13:23) Like really mean and how can I, how can I do something semi substantive at lease and semi, you know, like I think there’s gotta be different levels of research, right? Like one thing is like, Hey, I did an Instagram poll to my followers. Another might be, Hey, I actually conducted a survey and I found some audience, another level might be, I hired some research from, and then maybe the next level is I hired an actual researcher that was on my team. Like, can you just walk us through like the varying levels of like what counts as research? And, and, and to what extent we really need to be able to do it in order to kind of cite it as fact and truth and not just like, you know, my Instagram poll. JD: (14:07) Yeah, absolutely. So I think there’s a, a pretty big difference between data and research. And so a lot of people confuse the two. And so for let’s take your Instagram poll. I actually think social media polls are great way to drive engagement, but they don’t represent really anything other than the people who happen to follow you more than likely or you’re advertising to, and then sub some subgroup of those that happen to be so entice that without being paid any money and they have nothing else to do that they’re actually going to complete the poll. Right. And so if you think about who it represents, I would argue probably doesn’t even represent your followers. It represents some subgroup that at that moment was interested enough and didn’t have something else going on that they wanted to participate and receive nothing in return for it. JD: (14:47) Right. So it’s helpful. It’s interesting. You want to share it and it’s a great data point, right? It’s, it’s really interesting. And you’ll probably find a lot of things that will help to inform future things. We wouldn’t consider that research, but we will consider it interesting. And I wouldn’t say that it’s wrong or bad. It’s just one source of data. But I think the problem is people do an Instagram poll or a Facebook poll, or they email their list and then they put it out as infantry search. And that I think is where you, you can, it’s a very slippery slope for us, generally speaking quantitative research, which is primarily what we do. We’re always looking to have a very low margin of error usually plus, or minus 3.1 19 out of 20 times. And so if somebody comes to me and says, Jason, I want to know your methodology. JD: (15:29) I want to know your sample. Then I absolutely want to be able to share that with them, help them to understand it. And I always say in my talks, if people are citing data, but they don’t tell you where they got it from, or they don’t tell you the methodology and sample be very leery because they could have just pulled their friends. They could have just asked their family. They could have asked a group that they knew was going to answer in a very specific way. So sort of on your, your hierarchy, if you will, of what you provided. So, you know, polls and things to your friends, which by the way, that’s a great way to understand your list and a great way to understand your followers. There’s probably even, Speaker 5: (16:00) Yeah. There’s other uses there’s other uses for that data point. JD: (16:04) Absolutely. And if it’s for internal insights in particular, I think that’s fabulous. What you don’t want to do is go start publishing that as if it’s research because anybody who’s an actual researcher, we’ll, we’ll fight, we’ll poke holes in it and that’s it like somebody like us, we have to be careful. We have PhD researchers because other PhD researchers are looking at our research. Right. And so we know that that’s sort of the, just the way it works. So you have the poles like you talked about, and then you could say go up. Like, here’s what I would do. If somebody came to me, cause we work with lots of big name celebrities and we do this for lots of companies that the easiest way to understand what’s going on in an industry that you want to be an expert in is to go and aggregate third party research. JD: (16:43) What I mean by that is you go from find research from all different sources where they did actual studies and then you put it together. And now you sort of have your one page five page, 10 page, 50 page source document of all this great research that other people have paid for, but they’ve released it publicly. Like for us, most of our research, we never released publicly because our clients want to use it as a competitive advantage in the marketplace. And then we have some that want to be really positioned as thought leaders. And so they want to release the research and bring something different to that conversation. And we help them get tons of media and get on TV shows and all this kind of jazz. But, but if we’re going back to the personal brand side, then what I would say is you want to start with this sort of landscape research where you take whatever you can find out there. JD: (17:27) And if you have no budget, you just find all the free stuff and you sort of synthesize it together, you cite it correctly. And now you’ve got this foundational piece of information, right? That you can then refer to going like a step up from that. You could join, let’s say a syndicated study or some other study where there’s a whole bunch of people chipping in, in order to do a really great study. That’s pretty common. And then you can jump up if a mortar, which is to what we do, which is customer. And we do quantitative research, qualitative research, we do mixed method, all kinds of things. But the key there is I like on the quant side, we’re doing pretty large studies, a thousand completes 2000 completes 5,000 complaints. We’re doing it around the world. We’re waiting it to something like the, let’s say the us census for age, gender, geography, and ethnicity or whatever it is. JD: (18:07) And then we’ll do like maybe I just want to find out about people who I don’t know started college, but didn’t finish or people who are small business owners that are millennials and female, right? Whatever those are, I would do studies built around those. And so, as you want to, frankly, as yet to spend more money, you can do much more complex studies. You can do more complex analytics with the data and so forth. But fundamentally what I would say to somebody can mean said, look, Jason, I got no money. Where would I start? I would say, great. What I would do is I go find all the publicly available research. You can put it together in some source documents, cite everything correctly, which is really the key. And then you can start to talk about it, cause it doesn’t have to be your data as long as it’s released publicly and you cite them appropriately. JD: (18:48) I mean, our research gets quoted all the time and that’s how we get so much media. It’s shocking how many other people use our research and their work. I mean, part of the reason we even did this economy book is because we do this study called the state of gen Z. We do it every year and have done it for many years. And that’s really sort of the source study for people trying to understand gen Z. And it was getting so much publicity that we ended up doing this economy book in many ways, because we wanted to go really deep around those core questions and strategy. So I personally believe that research is one of the best ways to separate yourself, particularly in a crowded market. And like there’s, there’s competition everywhere. It doesn’t matter what your topic is, motivation, strategy, generations, leadership, whatever. Right. And so anything you can do to distinguish yourself in a credible way, particularly through research, I think is very valuable. And I believe that if you want to work with executives and entrepreneurs and people that are making big bets, the more data and research that you can bring, the more you’re going to have trust with them because they will know that you know what you’re talking about. And I think that’s really important, even more so where do you RV: (19:50) Nine? I mean, that’s really a powerful, that’s so practical and powerful is just to like, even for your own confidence that you’re not just sharing random thoughts off your head, but it’s like, Hey, this is based. Okay. JD: (20:02) Some, some statistically valid RV: (20:05) Work, even if I, if, even if it’s not my original work, where do you find third party research? You just go to like Google and type it in or is there JD: (20:14) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What I always suggest to people. So we do customer research. We do custom research for brands who do it for companies who do it for lots of big institutional investment groups. We do it for tons of people. So that’s our core business, but if somebody wanted to not use us, so let’s say, I, you know, they say, I don’t want to work for the center for generational kinetics. I’m not interested in, you know, whatever the topics are, where we specialize. I want to go hire somebody else. I would just go on Google and would always tell people is get three bids. You’ll be stunned, how different the pricing will be for the same exact thing, dramatically different pricing. If you’ve got five, you have five. And so then you sort of got to work through and say, okay, what’s going to get me what I want. JD: (20:56) What would I have confidence in the deliverables they’re going to provide? Are they going to help me to understand it? Or do they just write a survey and send me the answers? Then I got to go figure it out. Like our specialty is we write really great questions, but that’s what, that’s what we have so much business. And then we turn it into really powerful deliverables. And so what happens is you can do a great study, but if you can’t tell a good story based on the data, then it doesn’t matter how great the study is because people won’t be engaged to it. So you really got to be able to write great questions, have the right sample do all the things that you do and sort of good research hygiene. And then from there, the next step is turning it into that story based in the data that connects with the people you’re trying to reach. JD: (21:36) Maybe those are executives. Maybe those are entrepreneurs. Maybe they’re meeting planners, whoever it is they are, but they need to be able to understand why that, that research is important to them. Why do they need to take action on it? Why should they engage with you? And that I think is where it starts to get very powerful. I think people very often go cheap on research because they think, Oh, I just need to do a study. And I’m going to throw a few thousand dollars at it or something. And then they’re frequently disappointed. They say research doesn’t work, but it’s sorta like you. And I joke about, well, if you pay for, you know, an inexpensive speaker and you’re not happy with them, you probably got what you paid for. You know, that there’s not always a direct correlation, but oftentimes there’s enough, particularly if they’ve been around for a long time, but then RV: (22:15) Aggregating third party stuff. Like you’re saying that you can just search like the state of gen Z. You guys make that available just on your website and stuff like, so you’re saying you can find credible third party research just to help you understand your own space just by basically searching around and then looking for in their citation. What’s their margin of error and their sample size and that kind of stuff to make sure you’re looking at a valid JD: (22:40) Peace. Yeah. All great research will share their methodology. So if you go on our website, which is gen hq.com, GE and hq.com, you can click on state of gen Z. You’ll see our state of gen Z research studies there for those who are still sort of unsure what this looks like. You can see lots of research done for other clients. And so anytime something’s publicly available on the web, it usually says, you know, here’s our methodology, but also says, here’s how this can be used. If you want to use it, make sure you cite us. You know, if you’re going to publish it, make sure you link back that kind of thing. And by the way, you want to do that because that’s the right way to do it. And so yeah, I would go with the third party research first. I think that that’s statistically valid, put it together and provide it to people in a way that’s very helpful for them to understand something. JD: (23:20) A lot of times people think that research is about solving problems. Like we happen to use it for solving problems, but it may just be understanding a situation. Sure. If you don’t have understanding, you can’t drive towards that resolution, you can’t innovate. And so it brings a different perspective. You know, I’ll use millennials or gen Z as an example, lots of our clients say they know gen Z or millennials, and then they start to describe them. I’m like, well, that’s your kid or your grandkid, but that’s not the 80 other millennials, you know, in the U S or RV: (23:51) That’s not a statistically valid sample. It’s not, JD: (23:54) It’s a sample of one that, you know, you happen to have a lot of emotional tie to. And so we always joke that, that a lot of our clients have a proxy for the generation and that representative of the generation is their child or grandchildren. And usually the one that’s most frustrating for them. And so they’re stunned when we say, you know, gen Z is the fastest growing generation in the workforce. Millennials are the largest generation in the workforce, millennials outspend every other generation last year, millennials were the number one generation to refer their friends, gen Z or the key group of trendsetters right now for the first time, the youngest, which is gen Z. RV: (24:29) So let me, let me stop there. Cause I wanna, I want to officially transition here to the, to the, to the Z economy book and to gen Z, because I, I think that, you know, this expertise and the data you’re talking about. So if you put your hat on, so let’s just steal a little bit of free consulting from Jason Dorsey as personal brands that are, you know, communicating about a variety of topics, but we’re kind of like establishing thought leadership and things. What are, what are the things that we need to know about gen Z, that the data is telling you that you go okay, if you’re trying to reach this audience and why we either should or should not care about reaching the audience, but just like, what are some of the macro trends? I mean, obviously that’s what Z economy book is all about is like in the state of gen Z report. But I think if, as you apply that to personal brands, what are some of the things you think we could be on the lookout for? JD: (25:25) Yeah, absolutely. So I’ll show you, I’ll share with you some things that you should do and what to avoid. So in terms of things to absolutely do, like for us, we know a gen Z, they’re very values driven in terms of how they engage with brands and they don’t just engage. They join a brand. And so if you’re going to go out and you’re going to promote whatever it is that you’re, you know, is your personal brand or your larger brand, it’s very important. You share the why behind what you do. And I don’t mean like the Simon Sinek, why, I mean the, you know, how are you going to make the world a better place? How are you helping your local community? How are you working to combat some of these social challenges that gen Z is very much connected to this and we’ve seen it over and over and over in our research around the world. JD: (26:04) So it’s very important to have that mission, that thing that you’re owning, that you’re saying you’re tied to, it’s not just about making money. In fact, gen Z is more frugal than millennials. Gen Z has a higher savings rate. They’re looking for coupons and discounts are entering the workforce later than ever before. They’re going to graduate college there than ever before. 12% of them were already saving for retirement at age 22. Like, I mean some pretty staggering numbers for a generation so young. So if you want to message to them, and again, this is 24 and under you want to be very thoughtful that you’re in alignment with their values, whichever ones, you know, obviously they gotta be your values, but you want to make sure that they’re in alignment and you’re talking about things that are going to resonate with them. And then you to walk the talk on that, you can’t just say it. We saw so many brands over the last 12 months get completely blown up on social media because they said one thing and then they didn’t do it, or, you know, and so that lack of alignment gen Z will call you out so fast for that. So I think that’s really important. The second is RV: (26:59) They socially aware, is that like you would say, they’re kind of like socially aware, JD: (27:04) Well, they’re, they’re aware of social causes, right? They want, they want to know that you’re about more than just making money. And so much of personal branding unfortunately, is like, here’s how to make money or get rich or do this. And then people turn around and try to sell that. Like that’s interesting for gen Z. In fact, we would argue that gen Z would prefer to a side hustle versus trying to Steven start their own business. There’s a bunch of reasons for that tied around risk and money. But, but the idea here is you want to be really clear what you stand for so they can understand and decide if they, if it resonates with them. The second we know is they are very much into video and not into reading. That doesn’t mean they don’t read because they do read. But in terms of them taking the effort to engage with the brand videos where they start, that’s where we see things like ticktock doing so incredibly well or Snapchat and even Instagram. And obviously you’re the expert on videos. So that the video is what pulls them in and drives that sense of engagement reading for many young people is work doesn’t mean they don’t like to do it. It’s just work. And they’re used to just getting so much content through video that if you’re not providing a video, you’re missing them, all the posts with photos and all this stuff. Interesting. But you really want to pull them in. RV: (28:08) Oh, so not even phone, not even photos, you’re saying like donate, don’t think of photo and video is the same video is different. JD: (28:16) Definitely. Yeah, absolutely great distinction video. We find much more effective than photo or an image. They don’t like Photoshop things that are fake things that are perfected. That’s why you see brands like Arie who’s in this economy book doing so well with gen Z, where they’re showing like real images of real women, these kinds of things. So that a real desire for sort of rawness, I think is very strong with them. But we also see when we look at gen Z is if you are trying to sell them something, they need to know they’re getting a good deal. Now that’s important because they are very fiscally conservative or practical with their money. We see that they use coupons, they have this high savings rate, they get money for their birthday. They put it away and then ask their parents for money to go buy stuff. JD: (28:54) They really there’s a lot of that in the book. Does that mean that it reflects all gen Z? No, because our belief is generations or clues and not a box, but they’re powerful clues that do three things. They allow you to connect with build trust and drive influence. And if you can do that at a high level, you can grow your brand faster, but we also see what gen Z, if you want to engage with them, you have to understand their life stage. Remember they’re doing everything later than previous generations. That’s getting their driver’s license later in any other generation and into the workforce later RV: (29:22) Boggles my mind, my, my niece, like she waited like a year to get her driver’s license. And I’m like, everyone I know. Was there the day JD: (29:33) That you were eligible for a driver’s life RV: (29:35) That blew my mind? JD: (29:37) Yeah. Well, th that the concept of freedom, which is underlying that the, that for other generations, your driver’s license was your passport to freedom. Lose your ability to leave your home. Well, gen Z, we find don’t need that for a variety of reasons. We could go into all those take the rest of the time, but, but fundamentally they don’t attach the same thing to a driver’s license. And so if you have a different view of it, then you’re engaging with is different. Even owning a car, sounds like work and expense, but you don’t have to do it in a lot of places. So all of that, that’s why I say, you know what? Work with millennials. Tell brands this all the time, but we’re moving millennials. Doesn’t work with gen Z because they’re not millennials 2.0, I mean, they are completely different. They don’t remember a time before social media. JD: (30:16) They’ve always been able to do everything through, by sliding a finger on a screen. I mean, it’s fascinating. They’ll never write a check. They’ll never have a landline at home. All this stuff that’s sort of millennials started and was new and different gen Z doesn’t remember anything, but that in fact, gen Z does not remember nine 11. And that was one of our biggest discoveries. And that’s when he got here. So yeah, I mean, this generation is so different, more diverse than millennials. So in the book, a NC economy, we talk about this because if you can bring this accurate context, then you can figure out what to do. But the problem is so often we start with our own and then we apply it to them. And that’s where we misspeak. RV: (30:55) That is fascinating. I mean, yeah, just some of those things that you just said, like nine 11 and driver’s license. I mean, those are, you know, these like capstone moments in our life that don’t even, they’re not even on their register. So the way that we live and think is completely different from how they live and think, and it’s not that they have changed. I love what you said early on about they’re stepping into our environment. They’re not changing. It’s who they is, who they have been. Awesome. So Jason, this was like, man, I have to have been listened to this, like several times, just to pull out the part about how to do research and think about that. And then also gen Z, where do you want people to go to connect with? You obviously does economy book is coming out, you know, about this time. And so you can go find that and learn more about how we can take our personal brand and connect it to the trends that are coming with gen Z. But where should people go if they want to connect with you personally? JD: (31:56) Yeah, sure. Definitely. If you want to go check out the book, if you buy it on Amazon and you email us at [inaudible] dot com, we’ll send you all the free video courses that we put together. Denise, neither really, really good in terms of connecting with us personally, you could find me easiest way to find me is on Twitter. You can also just join our newsletter. That’s when we share all of our best research every month, you can sign up for [email protected]. And if you want to read more about the book and different things, you can go to Z economy, Z C O N O M y.com. I really look forward to connecting with everybody. You know, if people are part of your tribe, Rory you know, I I’d love to connect with them. So please feel free to reach out. RV: (32:36) Yeah, well there you have it friends. That, that is what it sounds like. And looks like when you have real data backed insights as research. Jason, thank you so much for, for this. And Kurt, you all go follow Jason, check him and Denise’s books, economy. We’ll link up to that in the show notes. Jason, we wish you the best. Thanks for being here. My man. Thank you, Rory. Congrats.

Ep 107: From Mentors to Millions with Kevin Harrington and Mark Timm | Recap Episode

RV: (00:06) Hey, we’re back with the recap edition of the influential personal brand, breaking down this interview that we did with our good friends, Kevin Harrington and Mark Timm about their new book, which I’m excited. It’s coming out right now this week. If you’re listening to this live as this episode airs, so let’s get right into it, babe. Why don’t you kick us off with your, your three takeaways? Well, one, and then I’ll do one and you know, AJV: (00:34) I know how it works. Yeah. So my first and biggest takeaway is that your personal brand is a business. And if you don’t treat it like a business, it will never be one. And I think so many people, at least that we interact with come into this, that they have this passion, I’m going to have a message and they want to build a personal brand, or they want to grow their personal brand. Without the context of that is a business like you are now entering into the world of entrepreneurship, which means you have to know how to acquire business. I E sales and marketing. You have to know how to collect payments. You’re going to have to know how to outsource staff. You’re going to have to know how to create content. You’re going to have to have a backend system, which means you’re going to have to have technology. I’m not to mention there’s going to be an investment, right? There are all of these things to create the infrastructure of how a business runs. And that is the same thing as building and monetizing your personal brand. And I loved how they talked about it. And they’re like, they’re, they’re the same, a personal brand is a business. So you must treat it like one. RV: (01:44) Yeah, that’s good. And, and it’s interesting to see someone so successful at business, Kevin now investing so much into his personal life for his own personal brand. And I mean, my first big takeaway, clearly, obviously the whole discussion about their book is about the power of mentors. And I think specifically, I thought it was so cool. You know, when Kevin listed off these mentors, it was listing off big ones, but then, you know, he talks about us and he talks about Russell Brunson. We’re both younger than him. And so I thought that was so cool. Just his open humility about the idea of having a doesn’t have an a and I mean, I feel honored to do it cause he’s, he’s incredible. And then also, also Mark, Mark is also a client of ours and also somebody that I would view as a, as a, as a mentor, but who is mentoring you like who’s pouring into your life right now. Who’s teaching you that is outside of your spouse. Somebody that’s like helping guide you AJV: (02:52) And believing in you RV: (02:55) And challenging you and, and warning you about things to look ahead and inspiring, you know, part of your vision. So you got to have a mentor and I, I actually think, you know, that’s kind of like what our business is in a way. I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s coaching and strategy, but so anyways, I just, I love that. And I thought that was super humble. AJV: (03:15) Yeah. That’d probably stuck out to you because you have tons of mentors. RV: (03:19) Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I’ve my whole life has been since you were little. Yeah. I mean just mentor, always multiple mentors at any given point. That’s a good, that’s a good point. Yeah. I mean, I am who I am because I’ve had so many mentors. AJV: (03:35) I think it’s really hard to find mentors. Right. I Rory talks about having mentors all the time and I am when I turned 37 this year 37, just a couple of months ago, RV: (03:48) Chicken you’re my young spring chicken. AJV: (03:50) Yeah. Well that was for as long as possible. And I thought it was really interesting too, because I knew that you were going to say that because you’ve had so many mentors, but I gotta be honest. I don’t think I’ve ever had one solidified mentor in my life. And I’ve had a really hard time about finding people that I want to be mentored by. And maybe that’s just because I have a mental block about it, or I haven’t tried hard enough, which is probably part of it, but I’ve instead invested so much more into like conferences and courses. And it’s like, I’m at the point in my life where it’s like, I really want a mentor. I was like, I’ve gone to the conferences and seminars and courses. And I love those. I actually really, really enjoy that. But I also, I know that I need a mentor. AJV: (04:33) So I’m actually really genuinely excited about this book and some of the resources that they’ve offered, because it’s like, actually I’m going to investigate that. And I think that takes really intentional effort because I don’t think you can just find one. I think there is a process to finding something and some one that is worth investing your time into, because it’s not just your mentor’s time, it’s your time as a mentee as well. It’s both people’s times. And I think so often we talk about the mentor, but Hey, the mentee is also has to be committed into investing all this time and energy into it. And perhaps, maybe that’s why admin, I haven’t had enough time or been willing to give enough time into it. But I think that’s something that you do really, really well side note, RV: (05:20) But that’s good. Yeah. That’s interesting to have, I would say we’re on opposite ends of the spectrum and how number of mentors that we have had like yeah, AJV: (05:30) Yeah, yeah, totally, totally separate there. Which is interesting because my second point was the value of having a mentor, but what to look for in one. And that is really what I picked up on. And I loved what he said, and I had never heard this exact color quote before, and I loved it and I wrote it down and it, he says, Ziglar said this, and I think it was Mark. He mentioned this on the interview. He said, you do not by falling in water, you drown by staying in the water. And I thought that was just really, really good. And he said, he said, that is really important that you find a mentor who has experienced failure. That was awesome. And I love that because I think so often we searched for the people who’ve always done it. Right? And it’s like, well, one that’s impossible. AJV: (06:22) You can’t have, you cannot be Uber successful and have always done it. Right. And if so, I would just caution that. And I just, I am more interested in learning from the person who’s been to hell and back. I’m more interested in going, what happened? How can I make sure I don’t do that? So tell me what tips and tools and techniques and mindsets and tell me what to do to make sure that doesn’t happen as well as what to do, but then to also have the emotional and mental capacity of resilience and of just grace and fortitude and all the things that come with struggle and hardship and failure. And also by someone who lets you fail, I’m going fail. Failing is a part of the process and it’s okay. And in fact, I encourage you to fail do it more and do it often and then learn from it. AJV: (07:12) What do you do with a failure? But I feel like you can really only do that. If you are learning from people who are willing to say, I failed, I fail all the time. It’s a daily occurrence for me in some arena of my life and that’s okay. And it’s okay if you fail too, it doesn’t have to be perfect and right, the very first time that you do it. And I love just that whole concept of you need mentors who have failed that have not always gotten it right, but who have figured it out along the way, because you will not get it right every single time. And that’s okay. I just thought that was right. RV: (07:48) That’s great. Yeah. I mean, having someone there to give you perspective to help you pick yourself back up when something goes wrong, cause you know, it will. And that was really, really cool. So my, my second takeaway which I, I actually talked a little bit about in the interview is, is from Mark, Tim of, of just, you know, he actually incorporated his family, which I thought was interesting that it’s this mindset that you run your home like a business, because here’s the truth. Anyone who runs a household runs a business like running a household is running a business. There’s a constant, never close. Yes. Just a daily flow of things that happen in cyclical nature over and over. And it needs strategy and it needs systems and it needs money and it needs, it needs resources. It needs time and planning and, and some of y’all out there like, you know, mostly me, I’m gonna say mostly, I’m going to say mostly you mom’s like, you’re running, you’re running at least two businesses. RV: (08:51) Like if you’re managing a personal brand and you’re managing a, and you have a job, like you got three businesses going on, like you, you have to get help and, and think about it in that way and have permission. I think, to think about it that way. Because sometimes we think, Oh, it’s just like my home life, but it’s like, no, it does take so many people and resources. And, and to have them say it directly like run this like a business, do what you would do the way you would organize a business, do that with your family. And I just thought that was powerful and really a good reminder and just clear permission. AJV: (09:32) Yeah. Well, I feel like if husbands and wives, or even if you’re a single parent, but if you guys treated it like that, I feel like maybe that would incline more men to step into what are the functioning roles of running a household. Maybe if you were able to relate to it more. And that’s what Mark talks about. He goes, I was having a hard time. I was giving my best to work until I realized no, it’s like, my family is like running a business. My household is like a business. So how can I take what I learned at work, what I do at work and bring it home to better improve our home life and family life and all the things. And I thought that was really good. I love that. I knew. Yeah. I knew like way back when that was something that he talked about, that we were just in awe of then, and still now. RV: (10:19) And I think there’s a lot of men that would go, ah, run a family kids. Like I don’t know what to do, but if you go, Oh, run a business and just apply those things at home, you go, Oh, okay. I see that. I could do that. Yeah, he did. He’s looking at him here. I’m sitting here realizing I’m like, crap. I have a bunch more stuff I could. AJV: (10:39) Yeah, no, no. Not at all. Keep going. Yeah. So my third one is the concept of collaboration is this as something that Kevin talked about, kind of close to the end of the interview. And he, I think you asked him like, what’s one thing that you would tell to aspiring personal brands. And he said, collaborate, like, don’t forget the power of a borrowed audience. Don’t get, don’t forget the power of the indirect connections that you get. Don’t forget that the power of two is better than one and five is better than two. And I, he talks about all these collaboration projects that he has been on and is on RV: (11:18) This whole career is basically one giant AJV: (11:21) Collaborations. He is the prime example of what that looks like. And I think that hit it home to me because collaboration is one of the core six values that we have here at brain builders group. And I hope our team doesn’t mind me sharing this publicly, but over the summer with our core team, we did these what we call core value check-ins and they rate themselves and we rate them and we say, all right, well, how are we doing on our core values? And collaboration was fifth out of six, was down on the list. And everyone self identified, like I’m not good at collaborating. Like I’m not, I’m not good. I’m a doer. I’m a, you know, I’m a high D task-driven a Thai person get stuff done. And it was like, I’m just a, let me Mark it off Melissa, go, go, go. And it was a very big aha moment to us to be like, Whoa, we have a, we got to slow down and create the space and time for synergy and collaboration and conversation and brainstorming and strategizing because that is what it is. AJV: (12:28) And it’s the concept of somebody else seeing something that you can’t see. And quite honestly, that is why Brett brand builders group exists, why we exist. It is the whole reason that we exist. And yeah, we can act like mentors and coaches, but really we’re collaborators on your personal brand. And it is time to step back and go, what am I missing? What am I not seeing? Or how do I do more of this? Or how does someone else do it? Or why does it feel like there’s some secret out there that everyone else knows that I don’t know, like who hasn’t filled me in on this. And I just feel like that is what we do, but yet our own team would be like, yeah, we suck at this. We need to do so much better. And I just kind of feel like for everyone, like if you’re not collaborating with someone, why not? And what are you missing? Because you’re not. RV: (13:23) Yeah, that, that is so huge. And it kind of comes back again to the power of mentorship and partnership. And that was my thing too, was, was partnership because it’s interesting. You’re talking about it from clients at brand builders, like as part of what we do is collaborate with you, but also brand builders exist because of our collaborations with our affiliate partners, like a huge percentage of our revenue, like 60% or 60% of our revenue is 50 to 60, 50 to 60 comes from someone else introducing clients to us. Like we go on their podcast or they do an email blast or some other campaign that we do. And because we offer one on one coaching, most of our affiliate partners, don’t like, they’re not in the business of one-on-one. And so we’re able to bring something to them and their audience that they can’t provide. RV: (14:14) And because we started the company from scratch, we didn’t have an audience, we have we’re, we’re rebuilding our audience. So they’re bringing the audience. And I think this is Kevin’s whole thing, which is always stuck with me is he said, the keynote negotiation is a win, win, and he will actually turn down deals because people are giving him too much of a percentage because he’s going, if you’re wanting me to take that much percentage, you’re expecting me to do more than I can do, and you’re not getting enough reward for what you have to do to make this successful. What I mean, that is a, like just a different way of thinking. And that’s why he’s like, you know, he’s, he’s not really a shark. I mean, it’s ironic that he was on the shark tank because he’s, he’s a collaborator. He’s not really like a shark in terms of where that term comes from. He’s he’s going, how can we partner to create something bigger together where we both win and what a simple philosophy that has AJV: (15:14) This concept of, you know, being equally yoked in the sense of, Hey, we have equal risk and equal responsibility and equal reward or relevant risk to are not equal per se. And yeah, but it’s like equal in the terms of, we’ve got both. We have something to win or lose here. We’re in it together. Yeah. It’s fair. I love that RV: (15:35) Anyways. I mean, it’s not every day you get to talk to someone who’s like sold billions of dollars of stuff and been on shark tank. AJV: (15:42) I’ve been a part of hundreds of companies hundreds. RV: (15:46) Yes. And then Mark, talk to me upon so listen to the interview, really, you know, some great wisdom in there, you know, you can tell how much we endear them or are in yeah. Endure them. AJV: (16:03) We’re talking about my life. And so I’m like, I’m personally so excited about this new book mentor to millions. They’ve got awesome resources. So make sure you check out all the links and just, you know, go, go get a mentor, RV: (16:20) Go get a mentor. Thanks for being here. Catch you next time. [inaudible].

Ep 106: From Mentors to Millions with Kevin Harrington and Mark Timm

Speaker 1: (00:04) [Inaudible] RV: (00:07) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call, hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:03) So honored and excited to bring back to you to have people that I would consider mentors and to friends, to people that we have worked with. Kevin Harrington, most of you probably know because we had him on, when we originally did our influential personal brand summit, he was the original shark on the show shark tank. He is a co founding board member of EO entrepreneurs organization, and really the inventor of the infomercial, which has led to him selling over $5 billion in global sales. You know, these are products like Billy Mays and Jacqueline, Elaine, and Kim Kardashians and 50 cent and George Foreman. And he’s just amazing. And then my other friend, Mark, Tim, who you’ll, you’ll hear his story right now, we’ve Mark is someone that we met through the Ziglar family, and I know that’s how him and Kevin met and he is a serial entrepreneur himself. RV: (02:01) He has started more than a dozen companies. Several of them have grown and been sold. He has spoken professionally for more than 25 years. And I consider Mark a personal mentor because of the way that he runs his family life and the way that him and his wife and just, you know treat their family like a business. And that’s probably the biggest thing that I have taken from Mark over the years. So the two of them have teamed up to write a book here that is called mentor to millions, which has we already know has pre-sold thousands and thousands of copies. It’s a fantastic book from two amazing people. So guys, welcome to the show. Hey Rory, thanks for having us. It’s great to be here. Thanks buddy. So let’s talk about how y’all met because obviously, you know, this book is really interesting. You write it from you know, about the power of having a mentor. And I think in this relationship, Mark plays like the mentee, Kevin plays the mentor. But how did you guys meet? Because the three of us all share sort of a, an unusual, Cool and unique bond MT: (03:07) Yeah. So I’ll jump in and do that because we actually met through our mutual mentor. So I had Zig Ziglar as a mentor when I was a young man and Kevin had Zig Ziglar as a mentor, as a young man in guests who else had [inaudible] better than you Roy. So so this is the, the book wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for zigs mentorship. So we, we, we owe a lot to him and Tom Ziglar wrote the forward, but that’s the why we had to write this book because the, the, the book’s title is mentor to millions. That’s not millions of dollars. That’s millions of people impacted. So I didn’t know, I didn’t know Kevin. Okay. I didn’t know you, but because of our mentorship of Zig Ziglar, even after his passing from the earth, we all knew the children Zig Ziglar. MT: (04:00) And it was the children of Zig Ziglar that introduced me to Kevin, that introduced me to you. They introduced Kevin to you. And so you see impact of zigs legacy is now rippling on, you know, way past his passing on the earth. So that is how impact, that’s the kind of impact that we’re talking about, the exponential impact of mentorship. And that’s why we had to write this book because that’s the secret that crazy awesome successful people have is they had mentors in their lives. And would you say that, so, so Kevin for you who were RV: (04:34) Of your other mentors. So like, I know Zig you talk about cause secrets of closing the sale and you, you know, you guys have done a lot with that, you know, who are some of your other mentors in addition to Zig? And did you have a lot of mentors growing up? I know you’ve been a mentor to so many. KH: (04:50) Yeah, good question. And I think I go all the way back. I kind of joke a little bit, but it’s it’s for real, that I had my first mentor when I was 11 years old happened to be my father Charlie, because my, my father was, was a bartender. I’m one of six kids and there wasn’t a lot of money and, and great surplus as I was growing up. And, but my dad said, Hey, I’ve saved up enough money. I’m opening up my own restaurant. Harrington’s Irish pub. So I was in there at 11 years old, not just washing dishes and serving trays of food. I was in the back with him counting the money at the end of the day and looking at the suppliers. And it was pretty amazing how he brought me shoulder to shoulder with him. We’d go out and pick up supplies. And, and, and of course I was going to school also, but grade school at the time, but make a long story short. My dad was, he mentored me to start my own businesses when I was young. So I started a business when I was in high school and then another one in college and, and et cetera. But so as I KH: (05:58) Got out of, out of getting into the, the TV business and sold some of the businesses I started during high school, one of the first big mentors for me was, was somebody that I needed desperately. Cause I built a business in this SMTP space. I had a lot of orders that were sitting, but I couldn’t fulfill them because I didn’t have the inventory. So I needed capital to have inventories. And I went to bank after bank people say, Oh, go to the bank and get lines of credit, get financing. Right. Well, there was no assets for them to lend against. I was a young entrepreneur. This is 35 years ago, but I got a former bank president who was retired that came in and said, let me tell you the deal I’m going to do. You got five banks that turned you down. KH: (06:48) I’ll get you financing probably from one of those banks that turned you down. I’m going to get you a $3 million line of credit, which is what you need. And then after that’s all done, there’s no cost. That’s straight mentoring me, helping you because you deserve it. You need it. I want to help you. And then at that point, if you want to do some business with me, we can sit down and talk about it, but I’m going to have brought you an amazing gift in the process. 90 days later, 3 million bucks in my account, we took that and grew the business. I mean, we went 10 fold from there and it was just unbelievable because I was a great marketing guy, but I needed cash. I needed capital and inventory. So this, this was an amazing step for me. And of course, beyond that, people don’t know that before Russell Brunson ever started ClickFunnels, I was in this as seen a TV business. KH: (07:41) And I said, I’m losing all my viewers TV viewership is dropping. So I reached out to Russell and Russell gave me some great tips on digital marketing. And I, I actually came out of that meeting with Russell and sold a bunch of my at semen TV assets. Cause I realized the handwriting is on the wall. This is a business I’m on TV today. But now I say today, that was 10 years ago today. It’s digital, it’s Facebook, it’s Instagram, LinkedIn it’s you know, so I’ve had some great transitions from Russell Brunson to Zig Ziglar to my father, to the banker that was retired to even getting a, a couple of days with Richard Branson down at the famous Necker Island. He gave me some really powerful advice. So mentors have been near and dear to me. And to this day I still have quite a few in my life. So RV: (08:35) Let me ask you about this, Kevin, cause this is interesting. You mentioned Russell Brunson you know, and he’s younger than you and he’s much younger than you and you also came to Veda years, I think that’s right. Well, you and your son and your team and Mark came to Vaden Villa for a day of strategy stuff with us and you know, amazed me was, which is, and it amazes me to hear you say it now that you’ve not been afraid to have mentors younger than you. So, you know, how do you pick a good mentor? Cause I know this is part of the book, the book, again, mentor to millions. What are some of the things that you guys use to, to pick mentors? Cause age obviously is not necessarily the key criteria. And I’d love to hear from both of you on that. KH: (09:24) Mark, go ahead and I’ll give you my thoughts from, from my perspective, MT: (09:28) you know, when, when I looked at Kevin, he, it doesn’t matter. The age matters. Do they have wisdom and experience in an area that you need? And, and more than anything, Kevin can speak a lot on the mentor side, I can speak a lot on the mentee side as well, because you know, Kevin is my mentor and that’s the journey we take in the book. But one of the things that you should be looking for in a mentor is number one, have they failed? You know, because it’s hard to learn from somebody that hasn’t had some failure in their life. Wow. And that’s big. We talk a lot in the book about failure and how you respond to failure and you need mentors that know and have failed because you’re going to fail, but you need to know you can lean on them and they’ll pick you up and they’ll help you learn from that process. MT: (10:13) It’s not about failure. It’s about how you respond to that failure. You know, our mutual mentor Zig said, nobody drowns from falling in water. They only drown. If they stay in the water, you know, he knew you’re going to fall down, stay there. And so you need mentors to pull you up. So you’re looking for someone that isn’t a one hit wonder that doesn’t just have one way. And the other thing you look for in a mentor is do they listen because you need them to hear you out. What are you trying to accomplish in this world? What’s your unique gift to the world and let them listen long enough to then know how to really pour into you. And so when that happens, again, it doesn’t matter if they’re younger than you or older than you. I have to tell you right now, I’ve got younger mentors that are mentoring me in technology. MT: (10:56) I mean, I, you know, I just, I can out myself right now and say, I didn’t have a cell phone at 25 years old. I was in my late twenties. I got a cell phone. So the things that are happening in technology are just intuitive auto Metronic for these young people. And so I have young people that are mentoring me to be able to use technology in a much more robust way to get the message out there. So it’s really do they know something. And one of the other things that people look for in mentors are getting a lot of phone calls right now from folks that are building up a little business. They’re getting some sales on Amazon and some places, and now they’re like, Oh, okay, we need capital. Or maybe we should exit. So finding a mentor, that’s been through a few exits because too many people would come on shark tank and they just want a lot of money for this teeny little percentage of their company. Right now I own equity and a private may never KH: (11:54) Be able to get my money back. Right. So finding an exit or a way to, you know, to monetize your investment is an important thing in today’s world. So and there’s a lot of roll-up companies that are buying up the Amazon type entities and things like this. So there’s a lot of good folks out there that, I mean, I, I know a neighbor bought a house and came in and found out, Oh, he’s a lawyer and he’s 35 years old. And he, and he used to work for major league baseball, but he’s selling, he’s starting Amazon businesses, buying Amazon businesses and crushing it. So he’s in his fifth or sixth acquisition right now. So there’s a very smart, young mentor that could help a lot of companies that are out there in the marketplace of, of monetizing an exit strategy. Well, and so most of them RV: (12:48) People listening here are our entrepreneurs in some sense, right. It might be their side hustle or something, but do you think mentorship applies directly to like personal brands and people specifically that are like in this space? Cause a lot of, I think a lot of personal brands are like both of you in that they achieved something and now they’re kind of moving into more of like a teaching role. So do you, do you think that this message still applies directly to them? Or, or how, or is it, is it different from how you would mentor someone in a corporate environment or just in a classic kind of entrepreneur entrepreneurial setting at all? KH: (13:30) Well, you know, I think certainly personal brands, it is a personal brand is still it’s a business. It has, it needs customer acquisition you know, metrics. So you’re building funnels, you’re acquiring followers customers. Yes. So and, and again, you, you mentioned my age, so, you know, it, it Russell Brunson’s way younger than me, but here a lot of the, the younger generation has tuned into the world of digital and much more powerful way. So, so yeah, I do believe that even on the branding, I mean there, there are, what are the outlets that personal brand should go after me now there’s something new with LinkedIn, LinkedIn live and there’s obviously Facebook live came and was very powerful for, for quite a bit and still is so you know, so one of the questions for personal brands is where is the best place to spend your time focus your energies? And if you do have some dollars to invest to invest. So you know, it, I try to keep myself on the cutting edge of what’s happening out there in the world. And I, you know, from artificial intelligence to virtual reality type things, I’m already KH: (14:52) Starting to explore ventures like this that will you know, maybe be a little bit pioneering where you get your legs, blood running down your ankles kind of thing from, from being too early in the market. But I like experimenting with things like this and I think sometimes mentors can help steer you in certain directions. RV: (15:15) Yeah. Yeah. And so Mark for you specifically, you know, in terms of mentoring, personal brands, like it’s interesting cause being a personal brand, it often happens like in the cracks of time, in your day, like in between meetings, you’re checking social media or you’re like, you know, you don’t often have like blocks of just days at a time unless you’re writing a book. But outside of that I find that there’s this real temptation to have it creep into taking over your whole personal life. And one of the things that both of you have done is not just scale businesses, but you know, like I know Mark specifically for you, you study this a lot about scaling your, your, your life and running your household like a business. Can you just share with us, that’s been a one way, I think that you’ve mentored me directly. Can you share a few thoughts on that? And you know, if it’s specific to personal brands or not, but just that we have this temptation to always be like on social media, doing DMS, doing comments, doing posts during dinner, you know, and after hours and in bed and like, how do you, how do you deal with some of that? MT: (16:26) Yeah, it’s a challenge. And so, and I gotta tell ya, just to be candid with everybody listening, I got it wrong longer than I got it. Right. I can only share what it feels like to get it right, because I know what it feels like to get it wrong. And I was there building the brand of company, a personal brand, 24, seven, always on my family saw me and you know what they did, they resented what I did. The book starts out with me at the end of my driveway, having one of the most pivotal moments of my life, a driveway moment where I realized I had everything upside down, that I was giving my family and my last and my lease instead of my first and my best. And I didn’t know what to do about it. I just knew it was wrong. And I was always searching like all these entrepreneurs and brands for this perfect work life balance. MT: (17:10) And then I figured out it’s a myth. There’s no such thing as work life balance. You’re never in complete balance of work and life, but you can integrate. And that’s what we talk about in the book. What if your family becomes your most valuable business? What if the business you’re going home to is the most valuable business you’ll ever own ever operate everything and be a part of what is the most valuable brand is your family. Okay. Then versus the one you’re going to. And by the way, I took it to the next level. That day in that driveway, I came home, I incorporated my family. I actually created a brand out of my family. We have a logo, we have a mission statement. We had meetings on Sunday nights. And what I did was I started taking everything I knew to do in business and started applying it at home. MT: (17:56) So if you’ve got a great personal brand, create a family brand, one of the coolest things we ever did was do a family logo cost is $99 on 99 designs. And we had 185 designers submit designs for our little family logo. It was Epic. And we were sending surveys out to aunts and uncles and cousins and friends, and they were voting on it. And the family was so proud when it was done and we had this common ground. And so the bottom line is if you’re building a family brand and it’s all consuming, integrate your family, involve them in that family brand involve them in your personal brand, tell them what they’re doing, what you’re doing, integrate what’s happening. Let them be a part of it, be transparent with it. And they’ll not resent. It they’ll want to dive in and help you do it. And that’s a huge difference. And that’s where we want to be as moms and dads, husbands, fathers, wives. We want our family to embrace us as a business and brand not resent it. Wow. RV: (18:59) I love that. And I mean, being at the book is about being a mentor. You’re actually mentoring your family first. Like by the, by the, by the work of doing that is, here’s a real, this is funny. So a few nights ago, AJ and I are putting Jasper down for bed, you know, Jasper has now so Jasper’s three, like three and a half. He was baby last, basically the last time when you guys got to meet him. And he said you know, basically he was like, what are we doing tomorrow is tomorrow family day. And we said, no, tomorrow is Workday. And he said, Oh, okay. I go to work. And AJ said, do you think you want to work with MT: (19:39) Best in the business one day Jasper? RV: (19:41) And he says, yeah, but I’m going to need a cell phone for that. RV: (19:48) So he’s negotiating his package already, which I love. Kevin, last, last little question just for you. What are some RV: (19:59) Things that you, you know, advice that you would give to personal brands? I mean, you’ve been on TV, you, you like, you’ve played this, you know, such a big role in the world, 30 last kind of parting thoughts that you’d have for anyone that kind of aspires to have the kind of worldwide impact and reach that you’ve been able to have. KH: (20:16) Yeah. So let me get this pandemic has shown a lot of interesting developments and what happened at the very beginning, I started getting a lot of phone calls, people wanting to collaborate and, and because time to challenge you hunker down, but reach out, talk to your mentors, talk to folks. And I, I believe that collaboration is good, venturing together, doing things together. So I’ve been, we’ve been doing Mark and I outside of the book. We we’ve been doing KH: (20:48) A lot of things together, but I’m also with other organizations with Roland Frasier war room with Joe Polish’s genius network and Mike Calhoun at board of advisers, you know, these collaborative efforts and even writing books. I mean, Zig Ziglar created amazing content, you know 30 some books and dozens of languages. I collaborated with the family to relaunch some of those books in, in partnership. So so in fact, with, with this one, Rory, but this was a book that was rereleased secrets sale with Kevin Harrington shell. And by the way, Zig has 4.7 or 4.9 million followers on Facebook. So you know, when you collaborate, you tie in to the network of the followers of the collaborator that you’re collaborating with. So if I just, I believe in, in creating lots of content, putting it out there, joining groups, LinkedIn groups writing books, writing lead magnets, and, and just continuing to push and build the brand. But this is a great opportunity to be able to reach and collaborate into some really powerful networks followers with other folks. I love it. RV: (22:09) A mentor to millions is the name of the book. Where do you guys want people to go? You have some amazing bonuses and stuff. MT: (22:16) Yeah. We have a lot of amazing bonuses and stuff that they can do as well. But the biggest thing we want to share, if they go to Kevin mentor.com, Kevin, and I want everybody to develop the habit of mentorship. So we’re giving away 30 days of mentorship and that’s above and beyond. The other bonus is just something Kevin and I came up with and said after 30 days of seeing what it’s like to have mentorship, and some of that will be library. And so, you know, so we’re 30 different areas of mentorship in their life. We know after those 30 days, they’re going to want to raise their hand and say, I need a mentor in my life always. And so Kevin mentor.com go there. That’s where your mentorship journey. RV: (22:56) Well, I love it. Collaboration, mentorship. I’ll never forget Kevin. One time told me that the secret to negotiating is to make sure it’s a win for everybody. That’s how you know, it’s going to be a healthy partnership. And we appreciate you guys so much. We’ll put links to all that. The book has mentor to millions. Y’all go get it. Let us know on social. What you thought about these guys, guys. We wish you the best. KH: (23:19) Thanks, Rory. Always a pleasure

Ep 105: Get Your Foot in the Door and Kick it Down with Paula Faris | Recap Episode

RV: (00:06) welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand. I am Rory Vaden. I’m filling in for my wife and CEO. AJ Vaden. And I’m rolling solo on this recap edition, which is cool because I got a chance to meet Paula in person. You know, we spoke at the same event here recently and you know, I just, she’s a new friend. And, and so it’s cool to get a chance to introduce you to her so quickly and such a high-level performer, I mean, in terms of hosting, right? Like it doesn’t get much bigger than being a host on good morning America and the view. So I want to just share with you my three biggest takeaways, which I think are pretty clear in the interview, but I specifically want to talk about them as they relate to you as a personal brand. RV: (01:02) And I think the, you know, Paula talked about hosting, right? And that was sort of the direction that the interview went was how to be a great host. And of course, you know, as always, if you haven’t listened to the interview, go listen to it. But I think the, the biggest things that I took away from her interview are really just about you on camera in general. And so that’s my first big takeaway is to be conversational, even when your rehearsed be conversational, even when you’re hurt rehearsed. And you know, this, this thing that she was talking about, where when you go on camera, because we find that a lot of our clients are struggling with this is, is yeah. How do I, what do I say on camera? How do I, what personality am I when I turned the camera on? And yes, social media gives me the ability to like reach across the globe instantly, but I still gotta like, turn the camera on and overcome that fear. RV: (02:04) And when she said, just speak the name out loud of the one person that you’re talking to on the other side of that camera, I think that is so powerful and so useful. That is a technique we teach in our captivating content event about the secret of writing is that you don’t write to people, you write to person, you pick one person in your life and you write at that person. And she was saying the same thing on camera, which I guess I’ve never thought about so directly, but hearing her say it. And it’s interesting to write at that high of a level. That’s the kind of simple thing that they’re focused on. She’s focused on her audience. She’s focused on one person that she’s trying to serve. And there’s a good chance that if your nervous, before you get on camera, you’re not thinking about the person you’re trying to serve. RV: (03:03) You’re thinking about yourself, right? You’re thinking about is my hair out of place. Just do you know, do I look, do I look good? Do I look weird? Is my face funny? Is there something in my teeth is what I’m saying? Valuable. Like you’re so consumed. It’s so easy for us to become consumed with ourselves that we immediately disconnect and, and, and lose contact with the person on the other side of the camera. And that simple idea is the difference between everybody in the world. Like she hands wall, right? Everybody who’s consumed in the noise and the alarming majority and the few people that break through the wall, even as a host. And so I just thought that was so powerful. And it allows you to be relaxed. It allows you to be comfortable in your own skin because you’re not putting on a facade. You’re not acting, you’re not even performing. You’re not pretending you’re just serving. RV: (04:15) And if all you have to do is serve, if all you have to do is help, you’re not so freaked out about it, right? It’s like, you know, maybe this is silly analogy, but if you go into like a soup kitchen, and this is not the same thing, but just, if you think about serving at a soup kitchen, like you probably don’t care so much what you’re wearing. And do you have designer clothes on and is your car clean? And, and, you know, does everybody there know how great your job is? Like, you don’t care about any of that stuff. You’re just there to help. Like you’re just there to contribute and you’re not worried or afraid of being judged. And that is the power of being focused on your audience. And I think that’s the key to being conversational, even when it’s rehearsed. So it’s like, you’re thinking a little bit about what you’re going to say, but you’re, you’re, you’re really just being in the moment of trying to serve. RV: (05:13) And I think that’s, so that was my, my biggest thing, which is a lesson that I feel like I’ve, you know, learned, but always, and always want to be reminded of, but never had really thought of as a host. And it was just powerful for me to go, wow. The biggest hosts in the world are doing the same things that we do as speakers or that we do as authors. And to hear that from Paula was, was just really incredible. So that was the first thing. The second thing was actually what she talked about that she learned from Whoopi Goldberg, which is this idea of save it for the table, save it for the table. And what is she talking about there? Well, you know, when they would talk about topics in the pre meeting before the show of like, which topics are we going to cover once they could tell like, Oh, this is going to be heated, or this is going to be funny, or there’s a lot of energy or emotion around this topic. RV: (06:13) Let’s not talk about it now let’s save it for the camera. And I think that’s so wise and that’s, you know, obviously Whoopi Goldberg has had a very famous career. You know, I don’t know, you might have different views about what you think about her views or whatever, but like you can’t, you can’t refute that. The woman has been very successful at building a lot of reach and being in TV for a long time and movies and lots of movies and, you know so she knows something about that medium and for, for her to say something so clearly like save it for the table. Here’s how I interpreted that. And here’s how I think that applies to you. I think it’s easy to over rehearse so you can over rehearse. And what happens when you over rehearse is you lose the rawness of the emotion when you deliver it on camera, because you’re so focused on delivering what you practiced and you’re delivering from a place that you have been practicing rather than delivering from a place of just raw emotion and authenticity and what you’re feeling. RV: (07:36) And so you need to have a little bit of this rehearsal, right? So that you’re not just babbling off in a, in a random direction all the time, but you’re not saying you’re not just reciting everything verbatim that you’ve already kind of mapped out. You’re allowing the natural evolution of your emotion to come through and to portray how you’re really feeling, save it for the table, you, which, you know, in the view that meant save it for the live production, save it, save it for the TV, save it for the cameras. That’s what she’s saying. And I think the same could be true for you even as like a speaker, right? Or as, as a webinar, like I think scripts can be good to the extent that they reduce our fear and they give us an idea of what they, of what to say. But I think we can over rehearse. RV: (08:28) I think we can, we can put too much pressure on ourselves to say every single word. And it’s not that each individual word is magical. What’s magical is the raw human experience what’s magical is you and I connecting as humans. What is, is, is magical is you feeling the energy and the emotion and the enthusiasm, the power that when I give you something, this idea will change your life. This product will help. This coaching program will, will, will shift your career. And if you’re too rehearsed, you don’t have it. So save it for the table. In other words, save some of it for the camera. Don’t over rehearse. I thought that was just really, really huge and really helpful. And again, hearing it from Whoopi Goldberg or hearing it in this case, third party through Paula, that was, that was cool. I thought that was, that was pretty cool. So like you get to hang out with these people who are on national television so much just, you know, any day of the week to figure out what they think about it. So that was really good. But my favorite thing about Paula’s story was when she said, you’ve gotta be willing to kick down the door and prove yourself. RV: (10:02) You gotta be willing to kick down the door for your dream. And she’s she told a 13 year story of going from this like production assistant, earning nothing to being on, to like weaseling her way into local TV to, and even though she got on camera, she wasn’t even, she didn’t get a raise. She just had more work and more responsibility. And it was a 13 year journey to go from there to good morning America. And you know, you look at her and you go, gosh, she’s young. Cause you know, she looks young like she’s young, but you go, when you hear her story, it’s like 13 years. And this drives me bananas because people spend 18 months, 12 months, six months trying to launch a business or a personal brand. And they go, you know, it’s just not working. I’m not making money fast enough. RV: (11:07) Like none of this stuff works. I’m overwhelmed. Like I don’t get, I don’t get upset that people get discouraged, discouraged as a natural part of this. What was frustrating is how improper the expectation is about how soon you would succeed. And it’s not that I’m mad at the person that’s experiencing this. I have empathy for that person. I have been that person. I am that person I’m constantly struggling and frustrated with things. I’m trying to figure out constantly. I’m frustrated with the way that the world operates and that the messages that you’re receiving is that like, if you’re not making six figures, you know, within the first six weeks failing or that if you don’t have a million followers you’re failing, or if you don’t have a a hundred million downloads on your podcast, you’re failing. Or, you know, if you’re not fiving and are flying around in a private jet, you’re failing all of that. RV: (12:06) First of all is crap. Like in terms of you can impact one life today. And that is what matters. And the other thing is none of those people did it in six months. None of them did it in six weeks. Like, because none of them did it in six years. They did it in 10 years, in 15 years, in most cases, 20 years, 25 years. So when you’re struggling and you’re getting your face kicked in and you’re like beat up because you’ve been at this for two years and it’s like, it’s not happening for you. It is happening. Like you’re doing the right things. You gotta stay that. You gotta stay the course. The question is the challenges. Are you willing to kick down the door for your dream? Are you willing to sit there and kick and kick and kick and cut and bang and chisel and drive like, have you made the resolution like, have you actually come to the decision that no matter how long it takes your going to be successful, that’s the decision I want you to make? RV: (13:21) That’s the commitment I want you to make. That’s the place I want you to stand. I don’t want you to say, I’m willing to give this a try for six months. I’m willing to give this a try for a year. Like what is try? Like if you are a mission driven messenger, if you were called to this profession of being a personal brand, whatever that looks like for you, whether you’re in direct sales or you’re an entrepreneur, or you’re a corporate executive, or you’re, you know, more of like an influencer author, speaker information marketer, type of whatever, whatever your personal brand is about. If you have been called to do that, your life will get easier. The moment you decide that you will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes for that dream to come true, that’s it, your life will be difficult when you are living in the world of going GAF. RV: (14:25) I get results. I’ll stick with this. If I see enough likes, I’ll hang in there. And most of that happens on a subconscious level, right? Like we go for, you know, a year we go for a year and a half and we were like, gosh, it’s not working. It is working. It’s working. It takes time. It takes time to build, you know, the Dubai tower, the Burj Al Arab, like you gotta dig deep the ground before you get to, before you, you gotta build the foundation. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta lay the groundwork. And this is the truth of every story. And I just, for me, it was so cool to hear Paula, because it’s, it’s the story of a host, which is not a story that we hear that often we hear about authors. We hear about speakers, entrepreneurs, information, marketers, like all these people we have had here on the podcast. RV: (15:13) They tell them that story. But this is also for a world-class host. And it’s just the more we do these interviews, the more we meet these people, the more we share the stage with them, the more it’s like the truth of success is take the stairs. It was our first book from so many years ago now, like, it’s that simple? Have you made a decision that you’re going to kick the door down for your dream? Have you made the commitment that you’re going to do whatever it takes, as long as it takes. Now, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to like keep your day job or, or, or have a corporate gig and build something on the side or, you know, start small and work your way up. I mean, it means different things for different people. But if this is what you want, if this is what you feel called to do, you can do it. RV: (16:02) You can do it. I mean, particularly if it’s in the world of personal brands, like we can teach it to you. Like we’ve studied this stuff. We know how to do it. We know the truth of, you know, if there is a shortcut brand builders group, is it like, this is all we do. It’s what I’ve spent my personal life, my whole career studying. Like how do you, you build your audience and build your reach so it can be done. But the thing we can’t do for you, we can’t teach you is that commitment, that fight that hunger, that drive that desire to be scrappy and to go, you know what? I’m going to, I’m going to go for 13 years. I’m gonna do whatever it takes. I will take the hits for 13 years to get to where I want to go. So it’s like, you know what, call me after five. RV: (16:59) If it’s not like, if you’re, if it’s not working, keep doing it for five years and then call me and tell me it’s not working because it is working. It is working. You are building the foundation, but nobody sees the foundation, right? When you drive around the neighborhood, you’re like, wow, that house flew up. No, it didn’t. They spent, they spent a year doing permits. And then once they got permits and saving money and then finding their architect and their builder, and then, and then they got the plans and then they finally started digging and then they laid the foundation and then they had problems and then it rained. And then dah, dah, dah, and then one day you’re driving by. And you’re like, Whoa, look at that whole thing is framed and flew up. Where did that come from? The same is true for you. So just decide, decide that your dream matters, decide that you’re willing to kick down the door. RV: (17:51) Because if you feel that calling on your heart, we believe that it is there for a reason that it was divinely placed in you, which means you can’t fail. You can’t lose. As long as you keep serving and you keep fighting and you keep going. So do that and keep coming back here, hanging out with us and the influential personal brand podcast in Kali. As soon as you can, if you’re not already get into our coaching program, let us talk to you every month, come to our events. We can help you. We can help you reduce the pain. And I hope I get to see you there. If not hang out here as long as you have to, we love you. And you know, hopefully we get to meet you, but in the meantime, just keep kicking butt and helping people. We’ll get you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 104: Get Your Foot in the Door and Kick it Down with Paula Faris

Speaker 1: (00:05) [Inaudible] RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call, hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:02) So you’re listening and probably your dream at some point in your life as a personal brand is to like be on good morning America or be on the View, or you know, this America this morning. And you’re about to meet the host. One of the hosts and Emmy award winning journalist, a new friend of mine, Paula Faris. She was a co-anchor of good morning America weekend. And she was also the cohost of the view for like three years. She has been on world news now and anyways, she’s awesome. And I met her at the global leadership summit. She was another one of the speakers, totally connected with her. She has a new book that’s called, Called Out, which we’ll talk a little bit about, but I thought you had to hear her story about how she got to where she is. Some of the things that we can steal from her and learn in terms of some of her skills. And then also hear a little bit about her new book and why she wrote that. So anyways, Paula, welcome to the show. I’m the interviewer and you’re the guest. PF: (02:12) It feels kind of awkward, but you buried the lead, which is one thing that you don’t want to do in broadcast journalism. Don’t bury the lead. You forgot to mention that I am the global leadership summit, cornhole champ in some capacities, because if Rory just mentioned that we met at the global leadership summit in Chicago, what he failed to mention was that I schooled him in Cornwall and if you’re familiar with unfamiliar with cornhole, some people call it what what’s bags, which I don’t understand that, but I have to say you were really gracious in defeat though. So RV: (02:54) As long as you want, cause we’re going to edit this entire section out. So just let me know when you’re done. PF: (03:00) I’m done. I’m done. RV: (03:03) Yeah. Well, you, weren’t the only person who embarrassed me. There’s a great video of Sadie Robertson Sadie, Huff destroying me as well. So, you know, I wouldn’t, yes, it’s true. It is true. But I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t take too much pride in it. You weren’t, I’m not like a formidable foe. PF: (03:22) Oh, well, I, listen, I think there’s plenty of room for growth there. RV: (03:27) Definitely. Definitely. Well, so I, I just thought, you know, it was really cool because you got at GLS, you, you were, you got, I got to see you kind of in both roles, like you were kind of doing the hosting kind of MC thing. And then you were also speaking about the, about the new book, but I, you know, short of just thinking you’re awesome and you know, me and AJ kind of connecting with you and your daughter and just like that whole thing, I really thought, wow, this is a rare opportunity to learn about hosting because I think like a lot of our clients and even myself, my dream was to be a speaker. Like I wanted to be a speaker and there’s a lot of people who talk about that and then there’s like writing and then there’s social media, but more and more like to me, the podcast medium is the most rabid fan base that we had at our former company. RV: (04:25) And it’s still the most rabid fan base of email and social and book readers and people who see me even speak live. Our podcast listeners are, they are there week in and week out. And yet nobody talks about how to be a great host. Like where do you go to, to learn this? So I really just want to hear, like, how did you even get started and, and how did it become, how do you become an, an a co-anchor of good morning America? Like, or the view, like how do you get to that level? So just, you know, tell us a little bit about that. PF: (04:59) Sure. Well, I didn’t grow up thinking that I wanted to be a broadcaster. It just kind of happened. My high school drama teacher, his name was mr. Barsoon, and he would, he would continually cast me as the narrator of our school productions. And of course I thought I was like a leading lady and he thought otherwise, so he cast me as the narrator and I actually really loved the role because you’re telling the story and you’re really setting the stage and setting the tone. And he’s the one when I was kind of floundering in my junior year in high school, I said, I don’t really know what I want to go to college for. He said, you should consider broadcasting because he knew who I was inherently. I’ve always been innately, curious my nickname growing up, Rory was Paula 20 questions. So I’ve always been innately curious. PF: (05:59) I love to ask questions. I like to champion and challenge people. He knew that about me. And then coupled with the fact that I can tell a good story would be my intonations and connecting with people the way that I narrated the school productions. So he, that was honestly the first time I thought about going into broadcasting. And so I did, I went to college for it, but I, instead of pursuing on air, I pursued off-air. So I was producing, editing and writing because I wasn’t confident in who I was. I was so scared of failure. And, you know, fear is one of those. It’s one of those tenants that has gripped me throughout my life and paralyzed me from taking the next step. And so fear for a long time, paralyzed me from really pursuing, being on camera, because I thought I wouldn’t have the words to say, even though I had people speaking life into it, I had my college professors, I had my high school drama teacher. PF: (06:56) I had people around me saying that this is what you’re inherently good at, and you’re comfortable on camera. I didn’t believe in myself. And it wasn’t until nine 11. When I was working in radio sales when nine 11 happened, I was so gripped by the coverage and the ability of these broadcasters and hosts to just unite the country through tragedy and the way that they were able to tell a story and tell it sensitively, with dignity through pain. I was, I really felt like that was the first time I accepted that dream for me, that that was the first time that I accepted the dream that other people had for me, because I, I said, okay, I’m going to step into my fear. And so I applied, I quit my job in radio sales. I was making killer money for a 25 year old. PF: (07:46) I was making like 50, $60,000 a year. We’re talking, you know, nine 11. So 2001, I quit my job. And I said, I’ve got to get back into broadcast. I’m going to pursue this. I’ve got to stop allowing fear to grip, to grip me. And I applied at the local television stations in one station called me back. And he said that he wanted to bring me in for an interview to be a production assistant. I was going to make seven Carolina are in Dayton, Ohio at the time I was in Dayton, Ohio. And I got hired to be a production assistant, making seven bucks an hour. And I had told him, in the initial interview, I said, I eventually want to report. I know that Dayton is a large market. I doubt it’s going to happen here. And he said, yeah, it’s not going to happen here. PF: (08:33) But unbeknownst to him in my downtime, I was borrowing the camera equipment battery pack the tripod from the guys in the sports department on my downtime. I’ve put together a tape. I shot my own standups, which if you’ve never worked in television or worked with a video recorder or of any sort, and you know, it’s hard to shoot your own standups. I had nobody helping me shot my own interview is all my highlight, but edited it. I handed it to the news director and I said, I just want you to take a look at this. His name was Ian Rubin. I said, Ian, if you could just take a look at this and give me some constructive feedback, I didn’t anticipate him to put me on the air at all. I just was literally trying to get some feedback. And he took a look at it and said, you did this by yourself. I said, yeah, I shot it. I edited it. And that’s where my production my production, RV: (09:19) You stole the equipment, right? So he was, I’m sure he was impressed by that. PF: (09:24) Yeah. I stole equipment yeah. RV: (09:30) Resources at the office too. PF: (09:32) I, my downtime, I, my downtime, but he asked me to make another tape for him, a resume reel as we would call it. And I was in the midst of making that and he decided to put me on the air. And that was that I had worked in Dayton, Ohio, that I worked in Cincinnati, Ohio for three years. And then I moved up at the chain to Chicago, which is the number three television market. And then nine years ago, I got the call from the network, which is the pinnacle. It’s like getting a coaching job in the NFL. Okay. You started PV leagues and you moved your way up. I got a job at ABC news and they wanted me to anchor their overnight newscast. And I was like, you have an overnight newscast. So I, I initially went to ABC nine years ago with my family, two little kids. We moved from Chicago to New York. And I anchored the overnight news. I worked third shift. I did that for a year. Then they promoted me and then they promoted me again to good morning, America weekend anchor. And then they promoted me again to, you know, cohost of the video. So it happened quite quickly, but it was through a lot of hard work and tenacity to get promoted RV: (10:41) When they tell me. So like, when did you, what year is it that you get on in Dayton? And then what year do you get to ABC overnight and then good morning America. And then the view PF: (10:51) 2001 is when I was on the air in Dayton, Ohio. RV: (10:56) Okay. So you went from seven bucks an hour, PF: (10:59) 2001 to 2002 was my first like was in Dayton, Ohio. But I, by the way, when you put me on the air in Dayton, I still didn’t get a pay raise. So I was still making seven bucks an hour, but that’s why I say, take the opportunity, get your foot in the door and kick it down. Don’t wait for the opportunity to come to you. And that’s what I tell a lot of young kids. They’re like, well, I don’t want to take this, take it and prove yourself. And you make it what you want because no one, he didn’t tell me that interview. You know, if you want to report, you can borrow the equipment. Like you, you have to take your, and you have to take the initiative and you have to dream for yourself and you have to be tenacious and be persistent. Nobody told me that that was a possibility, but I just, I wanted to go for it. RV: (11:43) Yeah. And I just, I mean, when you go like, Hey, I’m going to be on TV. And it’s like, woo, you’re making seven bucks an hour. Like get excited. Like what could feel further away? Like the national network morning show, like you couldn’t possibly feel the further away than seven bucks an hour. And so then when do you get to New York? When do you go to ABC? PF: (12:05) I went to New York in the end of 2011. So 10 years later and that I good morning, America happened in August of 2014. And I anchored that show for four years until September of 2018 and write about it. I got burnt out. RV: (12:22) Yeah. But that was, so that was a, still a 13 year. I mean, that was a 13 year journey as, as a host, which I think that’s, that’s really powerful to see, like even that’s fast. But it’s third. It’s still 13 years from dream to reality. And I think there’s a lot of people that go, Hey, I’m going to start, I’m going to start an Instagram account today. And I hope to be making six figures within two months. And then if it doesn’t happen, it’s like, Oh, I suck. And it’s like not, it does not really. RV: (12:52) So what about, can we talk about the hosting part? RV: (12:58) What do you think is the difference between a good host and a great host? PF: (13:07) Their ability to connect that? I think that’s, if I’m watching the news or I’m watching a show and I feel like that person is speaking, isn’t speaking to me, they’re speaking. Or speaking at me, they’re speaking to me and speaking with me, if they’ve made me part of the conversation, if they’ve invited me into the conversation and invited me into the environment, then I feel like that’s a connection because so often, you know, we’re so polished and, it’s funny because my sister is getting ready to start a YouTube channel. And her husband started a YouTube channel and I’m looking at their videos and I’m like, guys, you need to be more conversational. And it sounds so simple, but it’s so true because if you’re too stiff and too polished, you’re speaking at people, you don’t want to speak at people. You want to, the only way you invite them into the conversation is by being conversational. PF: (14:10) Okay. Well, looking into the lens and pretend, I always say, pretend like you’re talking to one of your closest friends, somebody that you let your guard down around. And I asked, I encourage my sister to do this one exercise. I said, I want you at the very beginning to verbally say your best friend’s name or your husband’s name at the end of the, at the end of the sentence. So whatever she might be saying, she’d be like, so today drew, I want to tell you about this really cool thing I want to do. So you’re, you’re injecting that person’s name into, into what you’re articulating. And then you take a step back and then you’re just thinking that person’s name, and then you’re seeing their face. But what you’re doing is you’re, you’re, you’re creating a conversation, you’re being conversational and you’re inviting people and you have a conversational tone, right? PF: (15:02) So I think connecting with people and you connect with them by being conversational. Because when you’re, when you’re speaking, you really only have one path. If you’re reading something, you know how many times they say you have to read it X amount of times in order to absorb it. But that’s why it’s so important. You have one shot when you’re speaking and you have to be incredibly engaging and incredibly conversational. And not that you’re dumbing it down by any stretch of the imagination, but just connecting on a level where you’re being extremely conversational, I think is the most important thing. And I think that’s where people have felt like they’ve connected with me and they feel like I’m authentic. If you can also be authentic within that conversation. I think that’s a, that’s a win, win combination. RV: (15:52) Were you always conversational as a host or did it, did you develop, was it intentional? Was it accidental? Like how did you like that exercise is awesome, but how, which I, I think that’s killer like of going, Hey, pretend you’re actually talking in real life. Like there is a one person on the other side of the camera and saying their name as powerful. Is that, is that something you had to develop consciously? PF: (16:16) Totally. I think, I mean, I, I think there are certain aspects that you’re born with it or you’re not, but I think it’s definitely something that I had. It’s a skill I had inherently a little bit of, but I had to grow it and the way that I had to grow it was just, you know, if you look at some of my early work, it’s awful, it’s not great. But I, you know, I think I was trying too hard. Sometimes we try way too hard to be funny, or we’re just trying too hard in general. And I, I think just the more relaxed I got weirdly, it, it’s not like I cared less, but it was just the more relaxed I got and the more comfortable I was, some of that came with experience. But some of that just came with being confident in my own skin and being confident about what I was talking about and confident about the topic. I think if you’re not prepared, you won’t be confident and you’re, and you will be conversational and you can, or your ability to connect is based upon whether or not you’re prepared. That’s one of my big fears is not being prepared. RV: (17:25) Yeah. But, okay. So let’s talk about the preparation thing, because how much of hosting is like on a teleprompter versus like you’re talking about being conversational, but some of it is on a teleprompter, isn’t it? PF: (17:43) It’s very tough. And that’s the thing I was when I first, when I had my first gig in Dayton, Ohio everything, when I was anchoring, I would what we say. And I don’t want to get too deep in the, in, you know, in the weeds with television speak, but you know, you’d be on cam and you’d say, here’s my role, acute a video. And I would just give them a roll cue to VO. So we’d come back on cam and that you’re on camera. Like, Hey, tonight, the Dayton dragons are playing then blah, blah, blah. And you’ll never guess who showed up and who showed up with that’s in the prompter would be my role cue to VO. Okay. So VO means voiceover. So that means when we go to tape and I’m voicing over the highlights. When I first started, I would just say roll cue to VO, and I would ad lib everything. PF: (18:29) I would ad lib the highlights cause I started doing sports. That’s how I really cut my teeth in television. And when I was out in the field reporting, you don’t have a teleprompter out in the field either. So I’m learning probably a little differently than, than a lot of people, a lot of my other peers and colleagues. And just cause that’s the way that I was trained in our sports department. So the challenge is, is when you have a teleprompter, it can. And I feel like in sports, sports anchors are usually really good at their job because they’re, they can, they’re quick on their feet. They can improvise and they can tap dance and they can talk around things. And they’re, you know, they’re, that’s just, that’s the sort of situation that they’re used to. They’re used to add living highlights and ad libbing stories, whereas a news it’s much more produced. PF: (19:23) And so when I came from sports to news, because when I, when I was in Chicago, Dayton, Cincinnati, and Chicago, I did sports. And then I decided to do news, which is one of the reasons I took the job at ABC because they wanted to give me an opportunity to kind of get my news leg, my news, sea legs, because I’d done sports for so long. And everything’s very scripted and it’s, it’s challenging because it’s hard to have that conversational tone when, when everything has been scripted for you. So, but there have been moments where the teleprompter has died and I’m like, finally, you know that this is, I mean, this is, this is how I, this is how I was trained. This is probably where I’m most comfortable. But it is a mix if you’re in the field and you see a reporter out in the field, like in front of the white house or in front of a stadium, there’s no, there’s typically no teleprompter for any of that. That’s just all off the cuff. But if you’re in studio, most of the time there is a teleprompter and I hate teleprompters because I just think they become a crutch and you just, and they take that conversational tone, which I think is so imperative to the connectivity. They remove that from the situation. RV: (20:33) Now what about like on the V on the view? Oh, that’s not a teller. PF: (20:38) No, that’s like, no, there’s no teleprompter. There, there might be a teleprompter for sponsored segments, but no, that’s all off the cuff and it’s, it’s, it can be a little, it’s very nerve wracking because you’re not really sure what everybody’s going to say. Whoopi Goldberg, I love Whitney. And she would always say, you know, we would have the hot topics meeting in the morning. We would show up at, I think our meetings were at eight 30. Yeah, eight 30. And then the show was 11 o’clock Eastern. And so we would have the hot topics meeting and we get this huge packet. And most of the times we didn’t get it the night before, but then it was revised by morning. And you just, we pick out the stories that we want to talk about that day. And based upon our fire and our passion for the stories, the producers are then pick the stories that we are gonna do for the show. PF: (21:31) Right. And what we are going to cover. We didn’t. And if we got a little too heated in the hot topics meeting at eight 30, what we would say, save it for the table. So she didn’t want us to totally go there cause she didn’t want, she wanted him so much of and kudos to her. She wanted so much of it to wait for the table for the hot topics table so that we didn’t know where we didn’t know what the other person was going to say. Cause it keeps you on edge and it keeps the conversation like really fiery. So that was a situation where it would, we would say, yeah, let’s not, don’t give too much of it away. Save it for the table. RV: (22:10) Yeah. So you went from like totally impromptu to totally scripted to all the way back to like completely impromptu. PF: (22:18) Yes. Like sitting on the edge of my seat and not sure what the hell was going to happen. It’s very, it can be scary. And for a journalist, you know, and I, I had the added pressure. I was still, when I was doing the view, I was still anchoring good morning, America weekends. So I was still a journalist and I, I didn’t want to say anything that was going to foil my news career. Cause I, my number one objective was to stay neutral on, to stay objective and really kind of like tip toe around a lot of the political talk because when I was first hired, this is pre-Trump this isn’t, you know, he, he was just throwing his name into the hat and the primaries and you know, and then he became a nominee and then, and then he became president and then it became a really political show. PF: (23:03) And but it was tough for me cause I was given explicit directions by my bosses on the news side, ABC news that I couldn’t give political opinions because of, because I was a journalist and still anchoring one of their flagship shows. So when it became a new, a strictly, when it became very political, the show, it was really uncomfortable for me. And I felt like I couldn’t go there and I felt like I couldn’t give the audience what they really, really wanted. And that was probably one of the first times that I felt like I felt like a failure in many regards because I wasn’t able to connect with the audience because the audience it’s called the view for a reason. They want you to give your opinions and give you our muse. And I would give my opinion and views on most everything except for abortion and politics. And that’s really the, that the show started turning towards when it became political. It was really uncomfortable. RV: (24:03) You think this translates pretty directly for a podcast host. I mean like, or a YouTube, like a YouTube channel. Like if you’re not, do you think this con this topic, these kind of lessons, do you think they apply to just somebody with a Mike? You know, like me, right. I mean, is it going, is it the same? Is it the same idea? Whether it’s, you know, national television or it’s a local podcast? The idea is just to connect is to connect honestly with the audience. And that is the most important thing. PF: (24:34) Absolutely. I think that is a, that’s the baseline, that’s the foundation of everything. And you can do that through a myriad of ways. Like the way that you were able to connect with me early on, like kind of telling a joke and cornhole RV: (24:48) Part of my strategy. So we were already connected, PF: (24:52) But you put me at ease as a host. I will tell you, put me at ease because you have done your research on me. And I, I detected that just from what you, the way that you introduced me. And for me, if I’m doing a big interview with someone and I haven’t read their book and that’s why I’m sitting down with them, or if I haven’t done my homework they’re going to know that, okay. So what you do is I always say it’s so important to do your research on whomever you’re interviewing whoever you’re sitting down with, whether you’re hosting a podcast or you’re conducting an interview, do your homework. It’s so important to put the other person at ease and you don’t have to, like, you can just, you don’t have to say, Oh, I read your book. And it’s amazing. You can just say, yeah, I read this. PF: (25:36) I, you know, I remember this one line in your book and you said this and that to them triggers, Oh my gosh, they took the time to read the book or they took the time to do some research on me. And it’s just one book to open the book, but you’ll see that other person guard kind of come down and like, and I can open up to you now because you have put me at ease and you’ve made me feel comfortable. And you showed me that you care enough about this interview, that you’ve done a little bit of homework, but if you haven’t done any homework and haven’t done any research, then the way that I interpret that as the person that’s being interviewed is that you don’t care. And if you don’t care, then why should I care? Why should I open up? RV: (26:19) Interesting. All right. So last little part here, why’d you leave 13 years. You’re like at the top of your game, you’re at two, I mean, literally two of the biggest shows PF: (26:31) More than 30 years. More than that. RV: (26:33) Oh yeah. It was 13 to get there. And then you were like, you were at the peak, you were like doing the thing here for five, six years. And then all of a sudden you made a decision to leave. PF: (26:44) Yeah. I made a session, a decision to step away to pump the brakes at the height of my career, which I thought was totally insane. And, but I was burnout. And I think what I was doing for so long as I was chasing these accolades and achievements, and it never seemed to satiate and I became addicted to this thing. And so often we misplace our significance in something that shifts like a job or your bank account. And for me, I had misplaced my significance in something that shifted and I was at a professional high, but it was at what cost, what good is it for a man to gain the world, but to lose his soul? And I just, it came for me, it came at too high of a cost. I, my relationships with my, with my kids and husband were really not doing well and I wasn’t going to church. PF: (27:34) My health started suffering and I thought, okay, I don’t think I was called to do this. If this is what it was going to cost. And I don’t think everybody is called to walk away or to blow it up, you know, for all intents and purposes. But for me, I really felt like, and I’m a person of deep faith. I really felt God called me out of that space where I was addicted to what I did. I was really scared to walk away cause I was scared. I was like, I built this career. I don’t want to just disappear into the ether. I was scared of being irrelevant. I was scared of what people would think of me. I didn’t know what was on the other side. I just knew I needed to get my life back because I was working crazy hours and I wasn’t seeing my husband and kids. PF: (28:21) And the things that I said were of value to me, Rory, you wouldn’t have known those based upon the choices that I was making professionally and personally. So I didn’t really truly walk away until I went through a really tough season. Like a season that a lot of us are going through right now with the pandemic. But my personal hell happened in seven months and I had a miscarriage with an emergency surgery. Then I got hit in the head before a live shot for good morning America. Some kid threw an object at my head, 60 miles an hour, had a concussion. The day I was cleared to go back to work, I was out of work because of that incident for three weeks. And the day I was cleared to go back to work, I get in a head on car crash and then I got influenza and then I got pneumonia and that was seven months. PF: (29:07) So I knew at that point, it wasn’t just a string of bad luck. That was, God’s saying, you need to slow down. You need to find out who you are because you have, you have wrapped up your entire identity in this, but it wasn’t until I stepped. And it was after that season of how I decided I needed to slow down and walk into this space where, you know, I told my bosses, they were gracious enough to kind of like, you know, they said, well, we want you to stay here. We’ll let you work Monday through Friday. And you can walk away from the view and from good morning, America weekend. And you know, he can be a correspondent and I asked them to a faith podcast, but I’m still kind of figuring it out. I knew I just needed to get my life back, but they were gracious enough to let me do that. PF: (29:47) And but it was scary cause it was, I write much of the book in that space where I walk away from these two things that I didn’t realize that defined me and they had, and I had no clue who I was outside of them. I didn’t, I didn’t know myself anymore because I was Paula Ferris, the anchor of good morning America and coasted a view. And then all of a sudden I wasn’t, and I, I didn’t know how to process that. And so I read a lot of the book about finding out, like, who are we outside of what we do outside of the things that we place our significance in. And there’s nothing wrong with loving what you do, but how do you find that balance between loving what you do and not being defined by what you do? And so that’s what much of the book was for me finding out the parts of me that won’t change in a pandemic and the parts of me and so who I am and that won’t change in a personal crisis, just digging into that because our society tells us to lean in and to find our calling and it’s always career related. PF: (30:44) And we do when we press in and guess what career will change at some point in our lives. And if we, you know, status on Instagram will change, our bank accounts will change. And if we placed our significance in those things that are going to shift, and we’re not going to know who we are outside of them. So it’s so important to find your true purpose outside of doing, to find to discover that personal mission statement, but to find the parts of you that won’t like, what parts of you won’t change. I’m in a crisis for me, I would have said, I’m Paula Ferris. I’m the anchor of good morning America and the view. And, and when that changed, I had to figure out what my mission statement was. And now it’s my purpose statement. I just say, I’m Paula Ferris. I love Jesus. PF: (31:28) I am a wife, I’m a mom. I’m curious, I ask lots of questions and I like to champion and challenge people. And so those, those, you know, championing people and being curious and question, asking a lot of questions. Those made me an effective communicator and made me an effective broadcaster. But those things aren’t going to change the way that I, that I go about manifesting them will weather through it’s a broad broadcast capacity or through another capacity. So that was really important for me to, you know, to figure out and when I wrote the book, RV: (32:01) Wow, well, the book is called, called out. And of course you can get it anywhere. Great books are sold. Don’t go looking for it. Wherever crappy books are sold, you won’t find it there. Where do you want people to go Paula, to connect with you? Or if they want to link up, I mean, obviously Instagram and all that kind of stuff, but where would you point people? PF: (32:24) You know, I, I developed this gift of telepathy during the Panasonic. So people can just reach out to me through their minds if they want. I know I don’t know what happened, but Instagram’s probably the best place to reach me. And it’s Paula Ferris. My last name is spelled just like the city of Paris with an act like Frank, Paula Ferris. So, and pick up the book, support it. I really appreciate it. Let me know how, how how you connect with it. And it’s just been great to see, to hear from people and say, Oh my gosh, I feel like you were writing my story men and women indiscriminately. So yeah, reach out to me. I’d love to hear from you. RV: (33:10) Yeah. I love this. I mean if, if you’ve ever had a struggle with identity, which is all of us, particularly those of us with personal brands is separating that, you know, what we want to be seen as, from who, you know, online or wherever, but we really are. This is a really, really key discussion from someone who was at the top of her game and left that all behind. So we’ll link up to called out. We’ll obviously AIG and I’ll do the debrief of this on the next episode, you can check it out, but follow Paula and connect with her. It’ll be interesting to see how she reinvents herself, but in this next phase. And thank you so much for being with PF: (33:53) My pleasure. And I can’t wait for that. That redemptive game of Cornwall, RV: (34:01) I don’t know what you’re talking about. We edited out that PF: (34:04) I beat him at [inaudible].

Ep 103: One Core Message with Dan Miller | Recap Episode

RV: (00:00) Hey, welcome to this special recap edition of the influential personal brand. We’re breaking down the interview today with our longtime friend, Dan Miller, who I absolutely just love. I just love his energy, him and Joanne are awesome. And we met them on a cruise a few years ago and I’ve just been, been friends. So we got your top three takeaways from AJ and from me. So, get us going. AJV: (00:32) Yeah, I think the first thing he said this like really close to the beginning of the interview and I loved it. And he said if somebody or three different people ask me the same question more than three times, I’ll just make a product for it. I think the whole concept of what should I make a product about or where do I find content is really simply answered when you just figure out what do people already come to you for? And so instead of repeating the exact same thing over and over and over again, why not turn it into a product, a course or a video series or a book or a coaching program or certification or all the things that he has done and is doing really, he said most of that comes from just, you know, if I get asked the same question more than three times, then I really consider turning that into a product. RV: (01:24) Yep. I love that. I was one of my takeaways too, is just, you know, the power of listening to your audience. And I think one of the, one of the techniques or strategies that you can use is to ask your audience. So in his case, he’s just listening. But the other thing you can do, like if you need content ideas or you need product ideas, or if you need copy for like your sales page, send a survey to your audience, ask them some questions about what they want and what they’re struggling with, and then take their words that they write back to you and use some of their language in CRE in actually marketing what you’re doing and create a product for them. So that was one of my takeaways too. I just love that. It’s such a simple, a simple, practical, actionable thing that any of us can do, you know, right away. So that was good. So what was your second one AJV: (02:17) Second one was this concept of not doing the new and trendy thing that everyone is doing. And he said, I’ll try to recap it here. He said, but I, I resist the temptation to do every single new and trendy thing that is out there. And he talked about, he said, could I be missing out on lots of money? Maybe do I care? Not really. And I think that’s really just really powerful. It’s like, if what you’re doing is working, why would you derail? What’s working to do just what everyone else is doing. That’s new and trendy. And one of the things that I thought was really insightful and something that you don’t hear a lot about, he said, now I’m not saying anything is wrong with funnels or webinars or with anything he said, but you hear all these people all over social media promoting, I made six figures, seven figures in this launch. AJV: (03:10) He said, what you don’t hear about is how much money they had to give back and refunds. And I thought that was really interesting because you hear a ton of people. You see a ton of ads. It’s like how I made six figures in this funnel, or there’s this one out. And I don’t, I won’t say what it’s called, but it’s how do you have a seven figure funnel? And then he talks about how he came up with this whole thing. And yeah, probably you could do that. I’m sure people are doing that all the time every day. And Dan said, but what you don’t hear about is how much of that they’re actually giving back in refunds because a buyer’s remorse or they didn’t get what they thought it was, or it was a little bit misleading or a little bit of a bait and switch. And I’m not saying everyone is but I do think there’s some accuracy in the fact that you hear a lot of the revenue promoted and that a lot of the backend of what was it even profitable and how much did you actually give back and refunds? And I thought that was just very insightful. RV: (04:09) Yeah. I mean, you got the refunds, you also have affiliate fees and, you know, Facebook ads and paying your graphic designer. And, you know, at the end of the day, it’s like, how, how much do you really keep in? Which is but I think his thing into your point is more about the reputation and like the, AJV: (04:26) Oh yeah, no, I love when he said, he said it, he said, I’m way more about building a consistent audience than having huge infusions of cash said, I’m way more about the consistency time, over time, over time, that will last me 20 years than I am about this one time, big infusion of of cash. And everyone is different. Perhaps you are someone who’s looking for that big infusion of cash and like go for it, do it. But I loved what he said. It’s about playing the long game and making this a, a true, a true business versus this one time push. RV: (05:00) Yeah. So for me, the other thing that I thought was fascinating you know, we teach something to our brand new members that we call the fast cash formula, which is how do you, if you need to make money quickly. And we talk about how coaching a lot of times is the fastest way. If you need to replace an income is to offer coaching. And when he was telling his story, that was how he started. And still to this day, he does one day a month of one-on-one coaching work. And I love that because he was a real life example of what we talk about that, you know, coaching is the fastest path to cash in terms of replacing a large you know, income need, but it’s the least scalable longterm. And, and yet, so he sort of toward the story about how he started with that. RV: (05:51) And then after he had done enough coaching, he created a course for the people who couldn’t afford coaching. And, and so he was teaching this course and then people invited him to come speak because there were people seeing him teach the course. And that, you know, basically out of that coaching work came his content which became also his business model. And I just think that’s a really great way to do it is to do the work, to kind of get your hands in there. And obviously we love coaching. We, we believe in coaching in the power of one-on-one and I just, I just thought that was really encouraging. And, and, you know, he, he does have multiple streams of income, but it’s been developed over years and it’s, it really started from one great body of work, you know, that he flushed out with coaching and real life scenarios then applied it to a course, you know, then applied it to live events and speaking. So I thought that was just a great, a great example. AJV: (06:51) Yeah. There’s a great evolution of evolution. That’s a great one. And I think that’s somewhat similar to my third and final point, which is which I thought is very indicative of what you hear a lot. But yet there’s this mystery around it. He said, but I don’t count on any income from my books. And, you know, in his book is super successful and has been out there, just did a 20 year edition, right? 20Th year, RV: (07:18) 20Th or 25th. AJV: (07:20) Yeah. But a long time, right on. He said, but here’s what I have found. He said, it’s not the book itself that makes all the income, it’s the actual content within the book. So the book is the calling card. It’s the credibility source. Then not to say that you won’t make income. He just doesn’t count on that in his forecast or his budget. But it’s the content of that book that he then takes that and turns it into all these different curriculums. It’s a coaching curriculum. It’s a certification curriculum. It’s a course, it’s a video series, it’s a live event. It’s all these different things that are all circulated around the content of the book. And the book is at the center, but probably isn’t, what’s bringing in the most income for him. However, from that, there is just this entire huge circle of all these things that are moving to make this very successful, a very healthy business, even though most of the income is not from the center of it, which is the book it’s from all these other ancillary income streams that have become his primary revenue. RV: (08:27) Yeah. That’s good, good perspective on the book. For me, my third takeaway, which he talked a little bit about, but it’s more of, of what we know about him and Joanne behind the scenes. And I don’t know that he said this directly, but every time I’m with Dan and Joanne, it always occurs to me how they build their life or, or they build work around their life. They don’t build their life around their work. And so it’s, it’s one of the great possibilities of a personal brand is to be able to like fit work in and around your life. And it’s hard to do cause when you’re an entrepreneur, especially early on, it’s like a lot of times, you know, we’re kind of his life, but you, you want to get out of that and you can get out of that. And AJV: (09:14) I think that goes to a lot of what he talked about, where he resists the temptation to do all of the new and trendy things. Because, well, for what reason, it’s like, are you living to work? Are you working to live? And he talked a lot about his time and his schedule, but I think that is a part of it is resisting the temptation to do. RV: (09:34) Yeah. And I, and I hope for you, like, w w I wonder, I would bet if we could take all the podcast listeners and ask if you’ve heard of Dan Miller, I bet less than half of you have actually heard of him. You’ve probably heard of some of our other guests yet. He has one of the biggest businesses of everyone we’ve ever had on the podcast. And, and his example speaks to the power of steady consistency and just trust and playing the long game and plodding along. He’s the tortoise man. That’s a, that’s such a great that’s a great metaphor. And, and, and we mean that AJV: (10:14) It was his, he said, he said, I’m the tortoise. RV: (10:18) Yeah. That’s. And, and that is, you know, and we say that in the most honoring way, AJV: (10:23) He said it so we can say it. RV: (10:26) But even to that extent, it doesn’t mean you have to be slow. It’s just, it’s the idea of consistency. You don’t have to be the person with a million followers. And, and you know, this, these huge extravagant launches and given away cars, and like, you can do those things like, but, but you don’t have to be that person in order to be successful. Like you can just do the right thing for a really long time, and it will work out like you can’t fail if you just pour back into people’s lives. So I’m as encouraged by that. AJV: (11:01) Yeah. Well, I think it just, in general, there are a million different ways to build your personal brand. And Dan gives a one, one really great perspective of how to do it. And there are many other different perspectives that you will hear from other guests, but to what Roy is saying, it’s like, it’s, it’s all about. And what we talk about a lot, it’s playing the long game and Dan is a great example of the long game. RV: (11:26) Yeah. So there you have it. So hopefully you’re playing the long game and you’ll keep coming back here. We’re going to keep working to provide amazing guests for you and hopefully useful insights. We’re so glad that you’re here. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 102: One Core Message with Dan Miller

Speaker 1: (00:06) [Inaudible] RV: (00:06) Over the years, I would say it’s been delightful and inspiring to get to know Dan and Joanne Miller. Dan was one of the very first mentors I sat down with when we moved to Nashville now 10 years ago. And I reached out to him because I heard of him and knew of his, his influence. And he’s the New York times bestselling author of a book called 48 days to the work you love, which just released the 20th anniversary hardcover edition, which is pretty amazing. That book has been in hard cover and still so successful after all these years. He’s also written other books. No no more dreaded Mondays wisdom meets passion. He’s been on CBS early show hardball with Chris Matthews. He’s been on the Dave Ramsey show. He’s spoken at the white house and, you know, he, he has a huge podcast. RV: (00:57) It’s usually like in the top two, three, five, every, every single week for careers under career podcasts on iTunes. And he’s just built an amazing community, the 48 days Eagles dot com. It’s like a community and he’s, they’ve built a business out of it. It’s given them an amazing lifestyle. And I just wanted to give you a chance to meet Dan and hear some of his philosophies about how they’ve done it and the behind the scenes journey, because I, I think of him and, and Joanne of just having more than prosperity, having peace and joy and happiness and just as well as profound impact in addition to money and influence that I think a lot of us aspire to. So anyways, Dan, thanks for making some time for us. Thanks was looking forward to, this has been too long since we had a conversation is going to be awesome. RV: (01:53) Yeah. And I, you know, the other times I’ve interviewed you for like, you know, our other old podcasts and stuff was really kind of about your work. And I, I feel like I kind of called in a favor to say, Hey, would you talk to us today more about, less about your expertise? Kind of, although there’s a lot of overlap and more about how did you become, you know, what you are today? Cause you were a personal brand long before personal branding was ever a term like you were building a digital community long before that was ever popular. And so can you just tell us, like, how did you get, how did you get started? You know, this is before social media was really around and like, this is before all of this, you know, what we know today is are the, the essential tenants of a personal brand. You were doing it long, long before. So can you talk to us about that a little bit? DM: (02:47) Absolutely. Yeah. And I was around doing things, building the business before we had hogs podcast and Instagram and Facebook and Pinterest and all those things. It can Be done. Those are just tools and we’re thankful for them, but I started what I’m doing today as a Sunday school class at our church in Nashville. And it was just a class on career life transition. A lot of people were going through unexpected unwelcomed, kind of transitions. And church asked me if I would do that. My academic background is in clinical psychology. I said, sure. Now the interesting thing about that is that I expected to have the 22 year old had just lost his job at burger King, you know, show up in frustrated, what do I do next? We had a few of those. We also had dentists physicians, attorneys, pastors, engineers, accountants, who showed up and said, everybody sees me as successful and I’m doing okay, but I don’t think this is it. So it was that kind of board that I don’t think I’m on track that was so such an obvious need and an immense need caused me to move into this space. DM: (03:58) Well, I didn’t anticipate originally this being a business. I mean, I’m an entrepreneur. I can go make money in a lot of ways. I’m a sales guy, but this was so explosive that finally with Joanne, my wife’s insistence, if I was going to spend so much time in this, that ought to have something to do with our income, that I started looking at opportunities. There put together a real rudimentary form of my Sunday school notes in the three ring binder. And we started selling those like crazy, but I immediately recognized the need. How do you make this stand out? There’s a lot of material out there on careers, on starting a business, finding your passion, all of that. How do you make this stand out? So I was way back then experimenting with what is the catch phrase? You know, I had 30 days to the work you have. DM: (04:47) Well, 30 is just a generic number. It’s like seven, 10 30, 90, 180. And this was back when 48 hours was becoming popular as a TV show. And I said, I’ll bet I can get some brand recognition. If I use that number 48, wasn’t very scientific. Roy. Wasn’t very thoughtful, but I just did it as a marketing technique, just as let’s try this. We started sending out 48 peppermint patties with every order that we were sending out. And that became something that was really iconic that people recognized and expected, but it was so powerful. It really was like somebody threw gasoline on my business because it was something that got their attention and thus what you do with branding. So 48 days now, here’s how that, you know, gonna close the gap here. I mean, I’m still known as a career coach. So if you put in career coaching in a Google search, you’re going to get 13, 14 million sites. DM: (05:46) I’m sure I’m in there somewhere, but I don’t really care where you put in 48 days. Just that nothing else. I own it. I’m going to own the first couple of pages of Google, not because of fancy SEO or buying ads or anything just because I’m the guy who says not just, well, we’ll figure this out. When the kids graduate, when you get another degree, when you finished paying a mortgage, no, I’m the guy who says you can change your life dramatically in 48 days. If you create a plan and act on it. So I discovered that 20 years ago, and that was so powerful. And so I’ve built everything and celery products all come back to that core message. And that’s important as well. One core message, not 10 different messages, one core message, figure out how God has uniquely gifted you. What’s it going to look like on Monday morning? That’s the message I’ve built from that all these years. RV: (06:42) It seems like you recognize also the problem was a big part of like you recognized early on. Wow. People are really struggling to find purpose. Like they’re really struggling to find sort of their sort of their career identity. So what’s, what is your business model? So you mentioned career coach, and I think, you know, I know a lot of people who kind of think of you in that space, cause that’s like, you know, a lot of, kind of what you’re writing about career transition or you have written about what’s your actual business model. Like how, how do you make money? And then also give us a sense of how that’s evolved over time. And and, and also when did you start this, right? Like how many years ago did you start on this journey? You know, so that we’ve got some perspective cause we got some people that are pretty experienced and then we’ve also got people who are brand new beginners, you know, just trying to kind of figure it out and find their way. DM: (07:36) Well, I started this really about 22 years ago when I started teaching that Sunday school class and the low hanging fruit. So to speak in terms of monetization was coaching. People want said, man, can you meet with me? You know, help me review revise. RV: (07:55) One-On-One you’re talking like one on one coaching. DM: (07:57) Absolutely. So initially I was co when I made the transition and stop the other things I was doing to do just this, I was coaching five days a week, five days a week because the needs were so immense. And here’s the thing about building a brand. I could still be doing that today. The needs of certainly not diminished, they’ve increased, but today, well, starting then, as soon as I started develop other parts of my business, I went to four days to three days to two days today I dedicate one day a month to personal coaching because the other parts, my business have grown now, what has, what has happened there? You know, as you know, as you mentioned at the brand new addition to 48 days to the work you love out as a book. But when I do my projections financially, even though I have a New York times bestselling book and others, lots of others out there too, I project zero in income income directly from a book is so elusive. DM: (09:01) You can’t really do a whole lot to make it happen. I feel like it’s kind of, you know, getting, getting an ice cream cone when those royalty checks come, but I don’t place any direct focus on that, but I use the message and leverage it in other ways. So we have a course that goes with that an online course in person course, other insulary products that we’ve got with that. And because I have a clear core message, I do get requests for speaking. So there’s that, you know, universities contact me a lot for speaking and then there’s live events. Cause right now we’ve changed that model. But we have lots of live events that are really popular. We’ve been doing those at the sanctuary, which you know, is just a barn on our property and Franklin. We, we say we limit those to 48 people. We usually have 60 there. We can kind of cram 60 in that little space. And we were doing seven of those a year, 70 events. People pay a thousand dollars each for those. So 60 times, seven times, RV: (10:09) Hold on, I want to capture this. So you said, so you’re saying seven events a year and six 60 people, DM: (10:19) Right? RV: (10:20) So you’re talking about 420 people, right? 60 times seven DM: (10:27) I’m thousand dollars. So there’s that property on our property and dollars just right there. That’s right. So no, you know, no overhead, no hotel fees. We could handle our own catering. We’d have a lot of fun. We’d have famous, Dave’s show up with their red truck and do live barbecue right on our property and just fun things like that. But our overhead was extremely low. So it did that. And then affiliate commissions, you know, nurturing relationships. My goodness right now I’m doing a lot of interviews. Well, I set out like 50 packets, like I said to you for this book. And I didn’t send those to anybody who I don’t have a longterm relationship with. So you talked about our friendship goes back 10 years. That’s pretty typical. So if I send it to John Lee Dumas or Pat Flynn or Dave Ramsey or Michael Hyatt, you know, those are all people that I know. DM: (11:21) I didn’t just send these out cold and say, Hey, interview me zero of those. These are the people that I know. So I sent those out. I’ve already booked I think 36 interviews as a result of that. So there’s that kind of exponential impact on my brand that comes easily when I’ve developed a relationship. So for years, and then affiliate commissions, the same kind of thing. So a free Edwards is promoting is a copywriting Academy. You know, I promote that. Well, I think the last time I did that one in particular, I think I got $26,000. So, you know, affiliate commissions are another way there. And then the biggest thing, the thing I’m most excited about right now is our online community. So what we talking about though, is having, RV: (12:08) Is that, is that a membership? Is this like a membership model? DM: (12:11) Yes. Yes. It’s $48 a month. We just went with my signature number $40 a month. But it’s where people who know they have an idea they want to pursue, they want to develop it. They can link arms with other people who were in the same path where there’s a generous sharing of ideas and resources. So they’re in that now it’s fairly new for us. We have about 1100 people in there right now. And I’m very quickly focused on growing that to 2,500 people. Well, again, if you do the math on that, you know, 2,500 people, $40 a month, that’s another, that’s a million dollar revenue stream there and doesn’t require a whole lot of me, but it’s those things that have allowed me then to go from coaching, something that requires all of my time and effort and also something that requires that generates linear income. I do at once get paid ones into these models where there’s continuity, where there’s ongoing revenue and things that require very little, my time RV: (13:14) [Inaudible]. So I love that. So you’ve built into that. So you started as service model and then you moved. Can you give me an idea with the courses? Do you do one course for every book or do you just have one course and are, are your courses like, you know, higher price ones or lower price ones? Or have you done like a little bit of all of them? Like give us a sense, a sense of that, because it seems like if you, if you’re doing one on one coaching and then that teaches you a lot of content, cause you’re working and then you go, okay, let me put that into a book and you go, if I wrote a book, now I can produce a course. So do you have like one flagship or do you have multiple ones? DM: (13:52) The 40 days to work you love online seminar is, is really what I would call our flagship course. So there is that, but we have other courses and I am quick to throw out a course. I mean, I’ll put together a course. We have a lot of courses that are $48. How to start a business with 15 hours a week, how to overcome your upper upper limit challenge in those are things I’m doing one right now, I’m going to put together on how to hack cars. So you can drive exotic cars without cost you any money. But I put together courses and in, in having an audience, having an audience that pays attention, I can put things out there and there’s a ready receptance of those. I don’t have to do some fancy, you know, click funnel, launch to get it out there and surprise a lot of people who never heard about me. Now we do a lot of just gentle releases inside our community. And then they spread the word to what goes beyond that. RV: (14:55) So on those courses. So you’ll see like the flagship course versus a $48 course, like just a quick one. How much time is there a big time difference in the content like is, is and I just mean like recorded time. So like if I buy your flagship course, how many hours, you know, do I need to have versus if it’s like, okay, it’s a, it’s a $48 course on something that’s like kind of fun and fast, you know, is there a big difference? Is it, is it the, is it the topic that determines the price point or is it kind of more of like the volume of, you know, training hours that are in the course? DM: (15:36) Some of both we consider 48 days to really be that big, the big, the big bear, you know, that, that really covers a lot in there. I have 48 videos of the, usually four to six minutes. So they’re short, but in that to really go through it, you know, you need to be prepared to spend 20 hours to really go through that. That’s two 97 is what we charge for that, those that are $48 or $17. You know, some of those you can go through in two hours, so there’s much less content. It’s a very specific topic that we’re addressing. Gotcha. RV: (16:16) In a couple and just a couple hours, but that’s, I mean, that’s really interesting. You’ve, you’ve built a flagship course on something that’s a few hundred bucks. It’s not a thousand dollars or $2,000. And like you’ve been over the course of time here just to kind of steadily grow and grow. Like, is that how you would, you would describe your business as just like a, a snowball that kind of just has been steadily growing and then over, you know, years you look back and go, wow, this has grown to be something pretty, pretty amazing. DM: (16:47) Yeah, it is, you know, a lot of what I’ve done and this is almost embarrassing to admit as a business guy, you know, I didn’t sit down and really create a strategic plan, have my big whiteboard up and all about this. This has really evolved around me because I keep responding to things that people I asked for. One of the mantras that has served me really well is if three people ask me the same question, I create a product to solve that. Wow. So a lot of this, and it’s only been my goodness in as much as I’ve been doing this, you know, 20 years, it’s only been in the last three or four years that I brought in as strategists to really help us map out what we’re doing, but there’s been so much just responding to what people are asking for. And we had those, I mean, I didn’t intend to do live events. DM: (17:40) And then people were asking me, how did you do what you’ve done with 48 days to the work you love? And while I’m telling people and over and over again, I decided it’d be easier to tell people, sitting in a room to do that same way with coaching. How have you become recognized as the coach that you are? Well, we started teaching people now one of our flagship training programs is coaching mastery where people come in and it’s a six month program, $4,800 come in. And again, the economy of scale, we have people in a group we’re going through that at any given time. We walk them through, there’s a weekly call. They have to document, they have to go through this certification coaching one-on-one, which is online training that I’ve done. So it doesn’t require my time. And then they have to document 48 hours of paid coaching. DM: (18:35) And that’s really a distinctive element because there are a lot of coaching certification programs out there where you buy the videos and you’re certified that breaks my heart. You know, how do we measure competence in that? So we require 48 hours of documented where I listened to recordings and all that on, on that to get somebody certified, but it’s responding to what people are asking for and in doing so, I keep seeing these new areas of things that are developing as major business legs for us. And the interesting thing is, I mean, right now we know live events have been decimated well, fortunately we’ve got a whole lot of other things in place that have been accelerated in this period of time. Sure. But the interesting thing is as well, if I anticipate what I want my business to look like three years from now, there are some core components that will certainly be continuing, but I am confident there’s going to be new things that I can’t even imagine yet. DM: (19:40) That to me, that’s really exciting. So I use as my business model, a Venn diagram with three circles. So they overlap in the center, are my books. My writing, my writing is my first love. That’s, that’s my zone of genius. That’s where I want to spend more and more time, but those don’t create money directly, but they fuel the growth of everything else we have in place as part of our business model. But having that Venn diagram then allows seven distinct areas. So that at any given time, one of those can be on the bubble. Is this going to continue or not? But replacing it, doesn’t put us back starting over. It’s simply a small component of continuing to move forward. RV: (20:30) So in terms of your audience, like you mentioned it you know, I think there’s such a, there’s such a craze around social media, you know, and, and that, and, and you’re not someone that, I mean, you’ve got a social media following, but you’re not someone that it’s like, you go, Oh yeah, this guy is he’s, he’s the killer. He’s the King of online influence. So you’ve been building your community in some other way. I’m going to presume as more of like the email list and the podcast. So could you just talk about how you what’s, what are some of your philosophies around building that audience? Cause that’s, that is how I think of you is you have this community that you’ve built a longterm relationship with longterm trust. You’re not always pitching them the next highest dollar thing. It’s low dollar things consistently that provide value. RV: (21:24) The soft launches. They’re not like these huge, like blitzes where everyone in the world hears about them. It’s like very casual and, and, and in a nurturing relationship. And I think that’s, that’s just a philosophy that I think is not as many people hear about. I mean, the other one certainly can, can generate a lot of income and be successful too. But I feel like everything you do is more kind of just like graceful. And I, I don’t know that it’s, that slower is not the right word, but it’s more like organic and maybe slower is the word it’s not rut. It doesn’t feel rushed all the time. DM: (22:00) You are exactly right. And I do that very intentionally. Is it tempting to jump on the bandwagon with some of the news, social media things we’ve got where you can do, you know, a $2 million launch? Yeah, it is. But I resist a lot of what I see in those spaces and the way that they use slick sales copy, oughta, hype, urgency, all those things in artificial ways to move people into making a decision. And what I see that also, you know, I hear from people who do a launch like that, and then they have a 30 to 40% refund rate. You gotta be kidding me. I mean, we, you know, we track like with mail order, you can anticipate like 12 to 15% returns just buyer’s remorse. You know how that goes. We’ve never hit 1% in what we do. And what that means is are we missing some of those big infusions of cash? DM: (23:09) Yeah, absolutely. I recognize that I liked the other way around, you know, in our community and in online communities tend to be really volatile. People come in and you know, stick their toe in the water. And two months later they’re gone in shirt is horrendous. That’s not true in my community. We have people who come in and they’re going to be there for a life. They just stay. I have people who have purchased everything I’ve ever done. So they started with an $8 audio. They moved into a $297 course. They came to a live event, you know, then they went through coaching mastery. Then they want to have access to my mastermind. You know, they’ve spent 30, $40,000 with me, but it’s been over a period of time. Not all at once. We’ve looked at that. And again, boy, is it tempting with some of these things, but we did well, I just prefer the tortoise and the Hare. Remember that kid’s story. RV: (24:16) So to dive in on that a little bit, cause I, you know, when I think of like, you know, the different mentors that I have in my life and, and that agent and I’ve had over the years, you know, I think a lot of my life is driven by kind of, you know, like my early development is ambition and success and hustle and drive and even, you know, my own book self-discipline and taking the stairs and you guys are really, I feel like are like a counterbalancing force in our life, which is more like harmony peace you know, like pace lifestyle. And can you talk a little bit about that? Like, just in terms of how much you work and, and, and was there, was it more like there was a season when all you did was hustle and it was like, you know, do the Gary Vaynerchuk work until your eyeballs bleed and then you kinda got to a point where you pulled it back or have you always just kinda been like steady Eddie kind of plugging along, but doing other stuff and like, you know, having, I don’t know, I don’t really love the word balance necessarily, but you know, more, more pursuits outside of just like driving the entrepreneurial success story. DM: (25:32) I’ve always hustled. I kind of resist that word because of what it seems to imply, but I’ve always been a hard worker. I’ve always been disciplined. I enjoy work. There is no way that I am trying to get to four hour workweek. It’s just not on the horizon at all. I have zero desire to ever get there. I hope the day I die, you know, that I write three new chapters in my current book in the morning and then go to my funeral in the afternoon. I have no desire to pare down, but now that being said, I’m very strategic about how I use my time. So let me give you a quick example. Mondays are I take care of anything having to do with business? So meetings with my team, always on Monday benders, considering new software, whatever those things all take place on Monday, Tuesday is my coaching day. DM: (26:29) So any coaching calls I have happened, then I have our coaching mastery call call with my personal mastermind. All this kind of things happen on Tuesday, Monday morning, I do my podcast, I that magic mailbox with mr questions. And I put my podcasts together Wednesday afternoon, I’m available for interviews. So I usually do three or four interviews on Wednesday afternoons. That’s the only time Thursday and Friday, no appointments, no commitments. Those are dedicated to at Cal Cal Newport calls, deep work, deep work. That’s when I think and write, I love. And to me looking at the course of my week like that, I mean, it’s like, you know, salivating to get to the piece of key lime pie. That’s what it’s like for me to get to Thursday and Friday, because I love that so much, but those are days. And inevitably there’s an opportunity. Gee, we want to get together for a committee meeting. Do we want to have you come to this conference or whatever? No, I’m more protective of those two days than anything. Now, to me that provides the kind of harmony that I want my weekly schedule. So I’m not overbooked. I’m not rushing around. I’m not, you know, crazy with, you know, things on top of each other. And so in rushing in and out, I live a very casual life. I’m pretty introverted. So I’m not looking for lots of things, just immerse me in crowds. And I have a really peaceful life. RV: (28:11) I mean, it’s, it’s a wonderful thing. And it’s just your, your home is peaceful. Your relationships are peaceful. And I just, I really think it’s it’s a different energy about how you’ve done it. And yet it’s been hugely successful. It’s given you everything and more, I think that you ever originally set out to do. I mean, beyond DM: (28:35) I, I’m still humbled in recognizing that on a decent day, I make more money than my dad ever made in a year. That’s pretty astounding. You know, I’m a simple farm kid, but I recognize the power of having, having a system in place systems that work for you systems that create residual income. And it allows a freedom that is just hard to have imagined even 20 years ago. And one of the things that comes up a lot roar, and you, you, you’ve alluded to this. A lot of what I get contacted for today is not how to grow your Facebook likes by another 20,000 people, how to get more bog hours or how to launch product. There’s a whole lot of guys out there and your generation that can do a better job with that than I, but I get contacted a whole lot by your generation saying, how can I make sure I create the kind of life that you enjoy and are living now that I don’t screw this up? Just recently, I had worked with the young guy who went from $50,000 a year in one year to two to 1.3 million and is looking to grow that there’s a tendency in that to sabotage it, if you aren’t careful. And he’s saying, how can I protect the things that matter most to me, even though I don’t have to get up and hustle to make another buck this afternoon? RV: (30:05) Yeah. Well that DM: (30:07) Is an RV: (30:09) Awesome perspective. And I think a different perspective that we don’t, we don’t hear enough of Dan, where do you want people to go? If they want to kind of plug in and see how you do it and what you do, and maybe join in as a being led by you? Where, what where would you direct them? DM: (30:25) Well, I appreciate that we created a really cool page for your listeners. They go to 48 days.com/rory, and you’ll see samples of the new book. There’s a quiz there. How close are you to living your best life? I really love that and just free resources. They can go there and circles, see other things we’re doing. RV: (30:48) I love it. We’ll put a link to 48 days.com/rory. You could go check that out. Damn. We wish you the best we miss you at Tennessee. I know you’re down there in Florida now, but thank you so much for your, for your, for your wisdom and, and and just your perspective in your friendship. DM: (31:04) Hey, always my pleasure, Roy. Thanks. [inaudible].