Ep 338: 4 Keys to Creating Persuasive Promotional Videos with Eric Solomon
RV (00:02):
So I know from experience that it is extremely difficult to find quality people to work with, to help you get stuff done in a brand builders group, we are a strategy firm. We think of ourselves as architects. We think of ourselves as the air traffic controllers. We tell people what to do in the order they should do it, and in the way it should be done. But when it comes to actually getting the work done, we often have to partner with other firms. And so today I’m excited to introduce you to my personal video editor. His name is Eric, and we’re going to get inside his head about how video storytelling is really done. We’re gonna talk about four effective rules to do it. What are some of the mistakes that people make? And I want you to let to, to make this specific for you to know that the videos that we’re gonna talk about producing today are promotional videos.
RV (00:55):
We’re not talking about social media reels. And you know, it could apply to that. It’ll apply to your YouTube videos that you post every week or whatever, or your podcast. But we’re really talking about is like the commercial, the video commercial of you that you use to sell yourself and your services. And, you know, there’s a couple different types of videos for that. So it’s really like the high end video that you need to, to sell yourself. And so let me tell you a little bit about Eric. So he’s an award-winning video producer. He is an editor. He’s a storyteller. He’s a strategist. He does the whole thing from the concept and the storyboarding and the mapping, you know, e even site location, bringing another videographers, et cetera. And all the way down through like the actual editing and, and the final production.
RV (01:44):
And we love Eric because he’s so genuine. He has such an authentic approach that has the, the professional polish of true high level film production, but also the heart of, you know, we talk about mission driven messengers. And so he has that balance. And, and he he, he actually produced a film, made a film called Autism Every Day, was a project that he worked on where he weaved the stories of eight diverse families into a single narrative that showed the world what it was like for families raising an autistic child. This film went on to be screened at the Sundance Film Festival and led his client to appearances on Oprah, Good Morning America and The View. Eric has also produced trailers for TV commercials and Halloween Hollywood films like Last of the Mohicans a Few Good Men and the American President. But his biggest accomplishment in life was editing Brand Builders Group homepage videos Rory Vaden, speaker demo videos. And anyways, without further ado, Eric Buddy, welcome to the show. Thank
ES (02:59):
You, Rory. I thank you for that great introduction. I couldn’t have written it better myself,
RV (03:04):
ES (04:11):
At a high level, it’s really all about being authentic. I, I think a lot of videos don’t succeed today because people try to script them. They try to figure out exactly what they wanna say ahead of time. And I think, you know, audiences tune out to ads. They, they don’t want to hear narrators. They don’t want to hear an ad for something. They want to hear something that’s real. And when you can really authentically connect with your audience, that’s when you get their attention, and that’s when you can deliver the message. That is the whole reason to make the video in the first place.
RV (04:51):
Mm-Hmm.
ES (05:17):
Well, this is a kind of a good lead into my four golden rules for making an impactful video.
RV (05:23):
Let’s do it. Let’s get in.
ES (05:25):
First one is really all about the script, and my feeling is do not write a script.
RV (05:31):
Wow.
ES (05:32):
I believe the best videos are created by conducting interviews in an unscripted manner. The videos that I’ve made for you, Rory, I’ve, I’ve interviewed you and you’re a very polished interviewer. You have a lot of experience with that. But I wanted to ask you questions, and I wanted you to just speak to me like it’s the first time you’re talking to me. The video that’s on Ran Builders homepage that I did for you. I interviewed strategist, I interviewed clients. Nobody knew the questions I was gonna ask. It was all unscripted. And really, the reason I think to take an unscripted approach is that I don’t think a writer can write something better than what the people who are most familiar with the subject would just naturally say.
RV (06:28):
Wow.
ES (06:30):
And, you know, unless you’re Aaron Sorkin, my feeling is turn the information that you want to deliver in that video into a question and ask that, have somebody ask you that question, and then you respond with the answer. And you ask people, who are your clients that question. You ask a series of people, the same group, the same questions, and then you use their answers and you weave them together to tell the story that you want to tell, to give the information that you want to give. But you use the best moments from each of those interviews and you can create something that is far more powerful and far more engaging than anything that you could write. Or that probably you could hire a writer, a writer to write.
RV (07:21):
Yeah, I mean, I, I I will say this, like, this is one of the, I mean, we’ve worked with so many video editors over the years and have gone through so many processes and we’ve done it ourself and like, you know, lots of different ways. And the interview is like, part of when I think of you, it’s like you brought the interview and just really blew open the doors for us of going, this can be easy, this can be fast, and it can be amazing because if you just interview and, and, and, and part of what I found, so even with like my speaker demo video, we did this, and now we have, we have two, we have two speaker demo videos for me. We’ve got like a couple that we’re working on. We’re, we’re finalizing ’em both. You’ll, you’ll be able to see those by the way, rory vaden.com here, like, you know, probably within a few weeks af after the time of this interview comes out.
RV (08:13):
So you can go look at those, the [email protected] are up. Or if you go to free brand call.com/podcast, you’ll see our, our sort of like a flagship company storytelling video that Eric did. But the interview serves as such a, an incredible through line for the whole video. And it, it gives you the natural, like, cuts on audience shots and like different people saying it a different way. And, and just, I mean, what you said it, I don’t think a writer can write something better than what your people will actually say. I mean, that is so true. You do such a good job of capturing that.
ES (08:52):
Thank you. Thank you. And I think something you just said is really key. Also it does make it easy for my clients because they don’t have to go on meeting after meeting and what are we gonna put in the video and how are we gonna do this? And what are we gonna show here? I, my goal is to make it as easy as possible for my clients and sit down with them, do the interview, have them give me their assets. If they’re a speaker, they give me their samples of the keynotes they’ve delivered. If they if they make presentations, whatever assets they have, whatever photographs they have, they just hand that over to me. They introduce me to their clients who I also interview, and then they’re done. The next thing they know, they are seeing what I think could be a finished cut, but of course it’s not finished until they’re happy.
RV (09:46):
Yeah. Well, and, and that, that really is, I mean, that’s part of why what’s been amazing is like, you know, we’re so busy. Everyone is so busy. And it’s like, if you don’t edit videos for a living, you just, you don’t realize how much time it takes and how much involvement and how much storytelling and what are the right questions to ask, and the sequencing and the timing, and then the visual effects and the music and the, and the transitions and like all of these little things. And then you get into it and you go, this is so big and scary and painful. It takes forever to get a video edited versus basically, I remember when AJ found you, it was just like, we just basically dumped everything on you. And you were like, you set up a time. I didn’t even know, it was like, I have this interview with Eric, We did an interview, and then it was like, I’m done.
RV (10:35):
I was like, Wait, how are we gonna put together this video? And then, and then it was just like, No, that’s, that was my only role in it. And then you sent it back. You know, I give you some creative direction or whatever, but then you send it back. And then from there it’s more like, Okay, move these pieces around a little bit, but so painless, like so, so fast. So you know, just a, just a, an elegant way of of of, of doing it. And, and you mentioned the speaking video, so I wanna talk about that for a second because even if people listening aren’t professional speakers, I mean, you, you know, your brand builders member also, so you know, that we, we believe the fastest way to get clients is not social media, is it’s, it is not, you know, funnels and ads.
RV (11:20):
It’s referrals from people, you know, and it’s from doing presentations and you go speak for free. You don’t need to get paid because if you speak for free, you’ll get paid in business that comes from it. And a lot of times when you do a, a presentation on stage, even a keynote on stage, the way you deliver a keynote is much different from the way that you would present a sales video or a promotional video. And so, a lot of times, even though I’ve spoke on big, beautiful stages, I don’t have exactly the right clips that I need to pull together a cohesive, persuasive you know, promotional video. And yet when you interview me, you, you’re, you’re pulling, it’s easy to get that footage in an interview. It’s hard to get it from just, here’s all the presentations or here’s all the content that I’ve ever done. But in an, in an interview, it’s like, it gives me a chance to say everything that I need to say. And that’s, and that’s also part of what you do so masterfully, is you draw it out of people.
ES (12:25):
Yeah. And, you know, and it’s in you. It’s in all of the people listening people, people talk about what they do all the time. They, they know the answers to the questions. They don’t have to prepare, you know, brand builders, clients personal brands who are successful. They’re passionate about what they do, and, and all they really need is somebody to ask them questions. And the information just pours out of them. And, and that’s, that’s really the key to to creating great video. It, it’s a good, this is a good segue into the second one.
RV (13:00):
Yeah, I was gonna say, tell me, All right, tell me this. So tell me the second one, cuz I know we got four, so I don’t wanna be left hanging. So what’s, what’s the number two?
ES (13:06):
Definitely the second one is you need to create videos that are a dialogue, not a monologue. And that sounds counterintuitive because videos are a one way form of communication. You right. Use them, you create them, you edit them, and then they’re done and they’re up there. But when you think about it as an audience, when you’re watching a video, you’re always listening and thinking, Well, how does that apply to me? And huh, that point makes me think of this question and well, what else do I need to know? So there’s always a dialogue going on, but as the person creating a video, you’re either conscious of that and, and aware of that as you’re editing the video or you’re not. The best videos, in my opinion, are always taking into account what is the audience thinking. When I just said what I said, What do they need to know next?
ES (14:04):
Do I need to answer a question or do I need to keep giving them the information that they don’t even know? They don’t even know, they don’t know. You know, it’s you always have to be constantly giving them that next piece of information that they, that they’re wondering or that’s gonna keep them engaged. And when you stop doing that, that’s when the engagement level drops. You know, we videos all start out at that high, a hundred percent, and they drop fast. But when you grab people quickly and you keep them engaged and you keep telling them what they need to know, or you tell them you’re giving them your message in a very engaging and dynamic way, then you keep them engaged, you keep them with you, and you’re able to deliver that, that full message. Mm-Hmm.
RV (14:59):
Yeah.
ES (15:00):
Delivering a monologue, They’re, they’re gone.
RV (15:03):
Yeah. I mean, it’s just, if it’s, you know, that it’s like, Hey, this is a commercial. Or if it’s just all about you, right? Like, Hey, here’s how amazing I am. And there’s no consideration. It’s like they don’t really care about you. They care about what you can do for them, right? And so they only need to know enough about you to know you’re credible. What they really care about is what can you do for me for these types of videos specifically, the purpose is not education, it’s sales. Like, we’re not just trying to just educate, we’re trying to persuade and move to action,
ES (15:39):
Right? But it’s not sales in the traditional sense of, of selling. I’d like to think that the videos I create are, are story driven from the the audience’s point of view. It’s not a story about Rory Vaden, it’s not a story about brand builders. It’s a story about the people who have been served by Rory, served by brand builders. And when you’re always, you always have that perspective in mind as you’re editing and as you’re creating, and as you’re gathering the material, the content to create the video, then you’re going to deliver your message in a, in a way that people respond to, because they’re not gonna feel like you’re selling them. You’re, they’re gonna feel like you’re sharing a story with them. You’re not trying to persuade them of anything. You’re, you’re telling them, Hey, this is, this is a problem that people have and this is how I’ve helped them solve that problem.
RV (16:34):
Yeah. And I’ll I’ll say for those of you listening that are members, of course, you know, one of our flagship frameworks and things that we teach is called the 15 Ps of copywriting. And that is how do you, what words, how do you come up with the words you need to put on the page to get people to like, pull out their credit card and buy something or to sign up for a free call? And there’s a sequence which the, that se there’s a sequence of the 15 P’s. They happen in a specific order to specific reason. The reason that is, is because of psychology, human psychology of what questions do people have about new things, and in what order do they have them and what do they need to know of which storytelling is just another, is a short, ver a condensed way of saying that is going.
RV (17:25):
Stories are extremely effective sales tools because they connect, they’re deeply rooted to human psychology and the sequence of how we learn new things and explore new things and remember new things. And so if you’re a, if you’re a, if you are a, if you’re a a, a messenger, if you, one of the BBG messengers, the 15 P’s to me, always serves as a initial arc guideline for the conversation. But then, you know, when you get into visual storytelling, there is a lot, there is a lot of room for creative expression, and it depends on what assets you have and, you know, what do people say in the interviews? And since it’s kind of a spontaneous collection of different things, you have to, you allow for some flexibility to massage those assets together. But like, if you look at the videos that Eric has created, we’ve gone back and forth several times on the 15 P’s and saying like, Oh, hey, I wanna move this over here.
RV (18:22):
But it’s, it’s gotta bend and flex a little bit just to, for the, you know, the creative artistry. And you know, I think the thing that I would say for everybody, which is good, is if you don’t know the 15 P’s, or if you are a brand builder and you know ’em, but you don’t study ’em every night like I do
ES (19:03):
The 15 P’s are a great segue into the third point. Okay.
RV (19:07):
15 p
ES (19:09):
The third rule that I use is that you focus on feelings, not facts.
RV (19:17):
Mm.
ES (19:19):
And a lot of people, when they create videos, they think about that information that they want to get across. You know, I’ve got these five points that I want to get across, and I’m gonna, I’m gonna, you know, whatever I do, I’m gonna make sure I say these five points. But your audience is not gonna remember the five things that you feel so strongly that you’ve gotta get across. What they’re gonna remember is how they felt watching you, that they feel like you really cared about what you’re talking about, that you’re passionate about this subject, that you’re knowledgeable, that you’re somebody that I could feel comfortable working with. You know, the Maya Angelou quote is repeated often, and and I’m gonna do it again here. People will forget what you say and they’ll forget what you do, but they’ll never forget how they, how you made them feel.
ES (20:08):
And it’s very much true in video. You know, you think about the videos you’ve seen that you liked, you probably don’t remember details or facts of those videos, but you remember, I felt like this is somebody that could help me. I felt like this is somebody that cares about me, cares about the problem that I have. So it’s it’s not that the facts aren’t important, it’s that you have to present the facts in a way that’s memorable. And the way you become memorable is you use the feelings because feelings are memorable. So any any pieces of information you can turn into stories, if there’s an emotional element to what you do, to the way you serve people, and the way you help people try to use that. You know, you, you tell a great story, Roy during your keynotes about delegation. You know, a lot of people feel like they can’t delegate what they do. And I don’t wanna repeat the story because it’s, it’s a great story. But you know, you’re, you’re telling the story and the audience doesn’t know why you’re telling the story, but when you get to the end, you will never forget that anything can be delegated
RV (21:25):
ES (21:27):
It’s just, it’s very powerful. And it’s funny. It’s, it’s a great story. And thank you. It, so, it’s, it’s feelings, not facts,
RV (21:35):
Feelings. It is. And, and, and you know, what’s this is something that I’m guilty of, and I think this is a good place where you’ve had balance for me is, is to not go so analytical and so logical. And so information like, again, particularly in a promotional video, like a lot of my content videos that I would put on Instagram or on YouTube, the purpose is conveying information. I’m del I’m delivering education. I’m demonstrating my expertise. I’m trying to be useful to people, but in a promotional video, and it’s, you know, selling is a transference of emotion. It is a way of making them feel. And it’s, it’s sort of ironic because you go, video lends itself to the rare opportunity to effectively generate an emotion without you having to be there in person to do it. And that, I think is, is, is so powerful of going it, it, it’s almost like when you’re looking at your video, don’t ask yourself, Did I cover it? Did I say everything that I wanted to say in the video? It’s ask yourself, how does this video make the viewer feel? Like, what emotion are they experiencing? And, and what emotion am I trying to create? Not, not what information am I trying to relay.
ES (23:06):
You and I went back and forth with the 15 Ps, you know, when I, when we first started working together, you told me I did it intuitively and I didn’t know what the 15 Ps were, and then you mm-hmm.
RV (24:01):
ES (25:06):
The bad And cleanup number four is the, I call it the nonverbal rule. And it’s really that we all focus so much on the words that we use when we communicate. And we’re taught that as children, you know, user words when you communicate, a lot of brand builders clients are writers. They’re very focused on the words. And you know, Vanessa Van Edwards really crystallized this for me. She was a guest couple months ago, and she just wrote a book called Cues, which anybody who hasn’t read it, I highly recommend it.
RV (25:41):
Yeah, We love Vanessa. She’s been on twice, actually. We’ve had her on twice. She’s very good. Yep.
ES (25:45):
Brilliant. But what she talks about is that nonverbal communication really conveys more to an audience than the words that we choose. Mm. And I’m sure you, you talk about this when you’re, when you’re teaching speakers and keynote presentation craft it’s your body language. It’s your voice, it’s your inflection, It’s the energy, the emotion, it’s the, the setting. You know what’s going on around you. It’s your wardrobe, what you’re wearing. It’s all those things convey more. Then you realize, you know, if, if the, if the energy and the tone and the, the confidence in what you say is there, then it supports the message. But if you’re kind of just talking and really not into what you’re saying, then the audience is not gonna be there with you. This is a, something that the audience that I, that I think, you know, people listening can do to help them with that nonverbal communication.
ES (26:52):
I think a lot of people, you know, we communicate this way on Zoom now, you know, face to face meetings are just not happening at the rate that they used to. And people, when they set up their home video for Zoom, they, there are some things they could do to make sure that they look better, that they sound better. And a lot of people are still not doing that as well as they could. I know a lot of people are listening to this, They’re not watching the video, so I’m gonna be a little extra descriptive here. But one thing that people can do is make sure that their camera is at eye level when they’re speaking. A lot of people have laptops on the table and they’re pointing up. You would never sit down and and talk to a person that’s two feet below you Right. Looking down on them. And should be the same thing with the camera. It should be at eye level lighting. Don’t put a window behind you. I mean, you’ve got a window behind you, Rory, but that’s not really a window behind you,
RV (27:54):
ES (28:01):
Exactly. Exactly. And ring lights are very inexpensive and they’re available on Amazon. It’s, it’s a, it’s a good investment to have. Make sure you have good lighting on you. Sound is another key element. I wanna do a little, a little live example here. Right now, I’m speaking to you on my, on my new microphone. Yeah. Which I bought for this podcast because I wanted to sound good
RV (28:27):
ES (28:31):
Exactly. But do you hear a difference now?
RV (28:34):
Wow.
ES (28:35):
This is the microphone that is built into my computer. So it really makes a difference when you have an external microphone. It doesn’t have to be expensive. It doesn’t have to be it doesn’t have to be a big deal. But if you’re using the microphone built into your computer, the chances are, you might sound more like this uhhuh.
RV (29:00):
It’s just sort of wimpy and like echoy and light. I mean, it just, it doesn’t sound like you have charisma and power and confidence,
ES (29:07):
Right? Not, and, and that, yes, it’s verbal, but it’s, it’s subtle. And now I’m back on my, my new Yeti microphone. Mm-Hmm.
RV (29:20):
Yes, it does. I mean, what a, what a massive, a massive difference. So camera height should be, eye level lights should be in front of us on our face, not behind us. Just getting a mic. Any, any others that you would add? Quick pointers there.
ES (29:39):
Just remember your body language. You know it. If you are somebody who likes to talk with your hands, use your hands. If you are if you are just, just remember your energy. Think of yourself as actually being with that person, in person and, and speak to them as you would with the, with the confidence and, and dressing as you would. You know, we all dress down a little bit when we’re at home, but if you are in a, in a meeting on Zoom, you wanna look good. It matters. It makes an impression. Yeah. So it’s, it’s these kinds of nonverbal elements that I think make a big difference more than people realize when, when delivering their message. It really, it either it helps reinforce the message you wanna say, or it detracts from the message you wanna say. The words alone are not enough.
RV (30:41):
Yep. Yep. I love it. So those are awesome. Those are so powerful. The again, just a reminder, y’all, if, if, if you’re on the hunt, like if you’re on the, on the look right now, for someone that can help you create some of these promotional videos, email us [email protected] in the subject line, just put Eric’s videos, and then we will connect you you know, directly to Eric, and you can, you can talk with him and understand more of his process. As we start to wrap up here a little bit, Eric, there’s, there’s two there. I was gonna say, there’s, there’s, there’s two types of videos that every personal brand should have. And then I know you have some type of a surprise, which I have no idea what that is, but should we, should we do the surprise first? Or should we talk about the two types of videos every personal brand should have?
ES (31:34):
Well, the surprise is part of the first video.
RV (31:37):
Oh, okay. All right. So tell us
ES (31:39):
The, the first video that every personal brand should have is, it sounds obvious, but a personal brand video.
RV (31:48):
Ah,
ES (31:48):
What is a personal brand video? If you do a Google search on personal brand videos, you will get videos where people talk about themselves. Cause they think a personal brand video is about them. But if you’re a brand builder’s client, you know this, your personal brand is not about you
RV (32:06):
Preach Brother
ES (32:07):
RV (32:55):
What
ES (32:57):
Surprise.
RV (32:58):
Check this out. Okay, so it’s, it’s, it’s 95 seconds. Can we play it
ES (33:03):
Please.
RV (33:04):
Or are you nervous? Are you, are you nervous that it’s good or you feel confident?
ES (33:07):
I feel confident.
RV (33:08):
I feel, I feel confident too. Okay. So let me do this some
ES (33:12):
Share screen and
RV (33:13):
Yeah, I can, I can share. And those of you, if you’re watching this on YouTube, you’ll actually, you’ll be watching a video of me playing the video, which hopefully will work here. So let me I need to optimize this for a video clip. All right. So we’ll share,
ES (33:28):
We’ll, your editors can edit it in so you don’t have this, this part of it that’s, you could just cut to it.
RV (33:34):
Cut to it. Okay. So here here we, here we go, announcing the Rory Vain personal brand video.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
My name is Rory Vaden. I am the co-founder of Brand Builders Group. I’m the New York Times bestselling author, and I spend my days trying to help people and businesses get better. So this is, and I have always been a nerd. I have always been drawn to the provable In many ways, I’m sort of surprised that I grew up to become what some might call a motivational speaker, because what I’m really interested in is concrete evidence and provable techniques and strategies that actually can be deployed to create a result. The next level of results always requires the next level of thinking. I feel like I’m at my best when I am in front of an audience, or even if it’s an audience of one, because I’m operating in my uniqueness.
RV (34:31):
It’s not
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Enough for people to know what you do. They must know why you do it. I believe that we are capable of literally creating the world around us that we want. And I believe that every single person has that intuitive calling for the way their life is supposed to be, and they don’t realize that they have the ability to do it. And I would say that I feel like I am here to deliver a message that inspires people to be their best. And that inspires people to exploit the things that they are good at in the service of other people.
RV (35:17):
Oh man, that’s so cool. That’s
ES (35:19):
The world premier of Rory’s personal brand video
RV (35:22):
ES (35:32):
It’s, it’s who you are, it’s what you do. It’s why you do it, and it’s the unique way you do it. So in 90 seconds, if somebody doesn’t know anything about you and they come to your website and they are gonna give you a little bit of time, but not, not too much time, they’re probably gonna hit that video. And in 90 seconds, what I hope is accomplished is they will get a feeling for who you are and that you’re somebody that they can, that they like, that they wanna learn more about. You know, everybody is busy, everybody’s distracted. But if you can manage to get people to your website and you gotta deliver a message quickly to them that’s gonna engage them and want them, get them to want to learn more.
RV (36:19):
Yeah. That is the goal. So, so cool, man. I love that. So, and I mean, 90 seconds is a doable thing for anybody. Even if you don’t have a lot of video footage or a lot of photography, you could do it in an interview. One interview gives you way more than you would need to pull all this together with just a few assets, right?
ES (36:37):
It’s, it’s a quick interview, It’s 15 minutes. And if all they have is some photographs, I’ve, I’ve done it with photographs, I do it with graphics, if you have a lot of B-roll of you. So I was able to integrate that. Whatever people have can be integrated into this, but the main thing is the, the delivery of the message. You’re the, the, the passion you have and the, the, the confidence you have in delivering and talking about yourself and what you do. I mean, that’s, it’s unscripted it, that’s just who you are and what you do. And it comes across.
RV (37:13):
That is really, really cool, brother. Thank you so much for that. I mean, that is awesome, y’all. If you want one of, if you want one of those, if y’all one of those who better email us input brand builders group.com, put Eric’s videos in the subject line, we’ll connect you. Cuz you know, I mean, I, I get, I mean, I don’t, I don’t wanna speak for you, but like, you know, you people should invest a lot of money into these things, but a a 92nd video certainly has gotta be a lot cheaper than producing a one hour, you know, 90 minute feature length film. So what a great, what a great place to start if you’re, if you’re just beginning and you go, Well, I haven’t been on national TV and I’ve never spoken in front of a thousand people and I don’t have a best selling book and I don’t, you know, it’s just like, just the heart. We call this the poll P 14 in the 15 piece is the pole, the emotional like pull of just a heartfelt invitation of why you’re here and why you, you do what you do. You can create that. So simple. I it’s such, such a great idea. I I just, I love it and I love, I love mine, Eric. It, it’s really cool, man. Thank you.
ES (38:19):
You’re welcome. You’re welcome. I’m glad. The second kind of video that I think every personal brand should have is what people think of when they think of a testimonial video. And I know with the trends and personal branding study that you guys did
RV (38:38):
Yeah, preach it.
ES (38:40):
RV (38:50):
You, if you haven’t heard this, cuz maybe if you’re just new to the podcast, like if, if you go to brandville just group.com and you click on free trainings, you can download our influential personal brand summit, which is, or excuse me, our trends in personal branding, national research study, which is what Eric is talking about. And we asked Americans, it was a US study, you know, what is the most, the most influential factors in, in the average American consumer making a purchasing decision? And we said, Oh, someone’s a New York Times bestselling author. They have a huge social media following. They have, you know, graduate degrees, they have, you know, all these other things. And the number one thing by far was they have testimonials of other real life people. And so I love that you’re, you’re talking about this,
ES (39:39):
But I think they can do so much more with testimonials than they even realize. Think about it. It’s testimonial is a story. It’s not just saying, I love working with you. You know, you’re great at what you do. That’s, that’s kind of level one of testimonials. But you can take it a step further. When I do testimonial videos for my clients, I interview their clients, my clients’ clients, and I ask them, What problem were you having? Why did you end up choosing Rory to work with? What was it like to work with Rory and what results have you seen working with Rory? And those four questions tell a story, you know, I had a problem, I looked for a solution, getting the solution was great, and the results from it have been great. So I take each testimonial and make a little mini case study video out of it, 90 seconds to two minutes.
ES (40:40):
Then my recommendation to my clients is not to put that, you can put that on your website, but I think it’s better to use that later in the funnel. I think when you’ve got somebody who’s interested in your service but is on the fence, what I like to do is suggest my clients have a library of these videos, you know, have 10 or 12 of all different kinds of clients you worked with, then you’ve got somebody who’s interested but not sure. You say, Let me send you a a little case study of somebody who works in the same industry of you and you could see how, what they felt like working with me. And then you’re not selling, you’re, you’ve got clients sharing a story. They’re not selling either. They’re sharing a story and it’s, it’s incredibly powerful, but there’s more
RV (41:30):
ES (41:31):
But wait, there’s more. When you’ve got a group of these testimonials, each is different, but also they’re all the same. They all had a problem. They all discovered you, they all worked with you, they all saw results. And when you can combine the best moments from each of those interviews and have three or four people talk about the problem, they had three or four people talk about why they used you, and you weave those answers together, you end up with actually what is the brand Builders group homepage video. You’ve got clients telling their stories, you’ve got strategists talking what it’s like working with the clients and you end up with something incredibly persuasive that doesn’t feel like a sales video.
RV (42:21):
Yeah, I mean, and, and it is awesome. I mean, it’s literally on our homepage, brand builders group.com. It’s also the, I think the number one asset that we drive people to online is free brand call.com/podcast. And we use it on all those pages too. Like, because it was just, it’s, it’s amazing. We’re not even in the video. Like me and AJ aren’t even in the video, which is beautiful. It’s like, it’s all the clients and our team members doing exactly what you said. But it’s basically a highlight video of the highlight videos, a bunch of customer testimonials, it really, really com compelling and awesome, and not salesy, just awesome, but it sell, it sells like you wouldn’t believe
ES (43:01):
RV (43:10):
Amen. So
ES (43:11):
It it’s the story, Roy, before, I’m not sure if we’re we’re done, but before we’re done, there’s one other thing I’d like to say. And it’s something that, you know, as a brand builder client, I, I heard very early on that we are best positioned to serve the people we once were. And that was something that never resonated with me early on. I, I just, I didn’t get it. And I think, you know, the reason is kind of obvious. I I hadn’t yet become the person I needed to become in order to help the person I was. And for anybody out there who feels like they have a calling and a message to, to, to give people, but they’re not sure that they’re ready to do it, don’t lose faith. Don’t lose hope. It, it, you, you can get there. I did it with brand builders. You know, brand builders is not the only people who can help you. But but stay with what you believe in and, and you, if you have a message to deliver, you know, there are people that need to hear it.
RV (44:23):
Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And we’re not the only people that can help you. We’re just the best. And we have customer testimonial videos to prove it and personal brand videos and, and awesome videos. No, I’m, I’m, I’m just kidding. Kind of, sort of I do actually believe that, but Eric, thank you so much. Like, this is just so helpful, just great tips, helpful for any of us trying to understand this world of video, which, like, for me, I’m just never been a creative per se. And so it’s like I’m passionate about what I teach, but like, when it comes to the visual aesthetic and like all this stuff, it’s just not a skill. I have to like open a video editor and like whip this together. And so having somebody like you sure helps me a lot because I’ll, I’ll say for a lot of my career, I was embarrassed about the videos that I was putting out that would tell people about who, who we were and what we did.
RV (45:17):
And it’s really awesome to, to, to be proud of saying, Hey, you know, when we’re talking to someone, hey, just watch this video and then tell me what you, you know, like knowing they’re gonna be blown away because of the emotion and not because it’s a sales pitch, but because they’re actually gonna feel our real heart. And because the video is going to convey the actual feeling and the emotion of what we’re about. And when that happens, they may not buy, but, but it, they will, I they’re gonna know for sure. They’re either gonna go, You are our, you are my people, or you are not my people, because they feel the energy and, and it makes the decision quick.
ES (45:59):
Attract or repel.
RV (46:00):
Yep.
ES (46:01):
And and I, you know, I wanna just say thank you. You know, I, I’m I I’ve love, I love working with you and a j and I’m very honored that you guys trust me to help you create your, your demo videos and your brand builders videos. It’s it’s a lot of fun. You’ve got great people to work with and, and I’m really honored to that that you feel comfortable working with me.
RV (46:26):
Yeah, well, we do, we, we love working with you and that’s why we wanted to introduce you to everybody. So again, if you need this, shoot us an email, info brand builders group.com, subject line Eric’s videos. We’ll connect you to Eric. If not, hopefully you’ll take some of Eric’s advice and tips, share them with your video editors or if it’s you just as you’re putting together and, and thinking through this. So Eric, we wish you all the best my friend. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and we’ll talk soon.
ES (46:54):
Thanks Rory. Talk to you soon.
Ep 321: 4 Ways To Increase Your Content Engagement with Nora Sudduth | Recap Episode
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:54):
Hey, all welcome to our pod recap. This recap is with my conversation with Nora Sudduth from hello audio. Oh my gosh. I’m nerding out over here. Like I literally have like my little workbook why I still have paper. I don’t know. But this was the most surprisingly unexpected, powerful, insightful content rich interview I’ve had in a really long time. I’m like blown away and it’s in fact, as soon as I hit stop on our left interview, I literally was like I’m in your website right now. I’m signing up for this demo. I’m like, how do I register right now to do this? Y’all this is amazing. I’m so excited about this. I am so excited that I randomly said yes to this pitch. It’s this was divine introduction introductions, so, okay. I could go on and on about that, if you haven’t listened to the full interview, you must, this is incredible.
AJV (01:49):
Just the content itself of how do you create more engagement and consumption with your content specifically around audio, but not, not only around audio. So, alright, I’m gonna tell you my big takeaways, there’s more than three today, so I’m just gonna give them all to you, but I’ll make it short and succinct. I have my timer on I’m paying attention to what I promise. Okay. First thing we started with this was amazing. You do not have to have huge online audiences to build amazing businesses. So great reminder, you hear this from us all the time at brand builders group. If you listen to this podcast, but start with your current reach, right? You don’t need to go do paid traffic. You, you can, but you don’t have to, you don’t have to go worry about building, you know, hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of followers online to get business.
AJV (02:39):
You can, but you don’t have to, you already have an audience, right? They’re the people at the T-ball game or the people you sit next to at that concert, they’re the people at church or your kids’ schools. They’re the people in line at the grocery, like there are people all around you like, so go and look around and who are the people that are, are already in your audience that you already have access to that are already in your reach and do they even know what you do? And do they know people who need what you do or do they need what you do? Oh my goodness, how easy it is to forget that we have an audience right in front of us, when all we pay attention to is the social media PLA platform. Y’all turn it off for just a minute and get your eyes off the screen and look around.
AJV (03:22):
Like, don’t forget the real life human beings right in front of you and who they have access to. Right? It’s like all the audience you need is probably all around you. Most of us don’t need thousands of clients or even hundreds of clients. Many of us just need dozens of clients. Do you don’t need to go online to find those people to write in your local community. So don’t forget the power of the offline reach. I love that. Second thing, this was so powerful is like, don’t forget that your path happens one step at a time. You may not be doing what you’re doing right now in five years or in one year, but take that next step. And it’s okay to know. It’s like, this is my next step. I know it’s not my last step. Take steps in between. I’ve had so many conversations about this here lately is that you know, for me, this is what makes me think of is, you know, writing a book, creating the, your life’s content, your life’s message.
AJV (04:18):
Isn’t the first thing you do. It’s the last thing you do. And on my recent interview with a Mori tepo who wrote the book, bring yourself, we talked about how I was like, she was writing her book for 10 years before she wrote her book. And what I mean before that is she was creating her content. She was settling in on what she really believed she was teaching it. She was speaking on it. She was coaching on it. She was mentoring on it way before she ever wrote the book. So it’s like, you’re writing the book right now. You’re writing that keynote right now. Like you’re, you’re doing all the things right now. And your first step is not have to be your last step. Your path is step by step. Oh, that was just so inspirational to me. I loved that. Now get down to some of the technical things.
AJV (05:02):
We had a great conversation around why content does not get consumed. So why is it that we people who are interested in learning and information, which is who you are, if you, you know, buy books, buy courses attend seminars, you know, conferences, all the things listen to a podcast like this. It’s like, we, we want information. We wanna be inspired. We wanna be entertained. We wanna learn. Right. But why is it that some of us start and never finish? Or why do we spend money and have our actual actually start it? And I thought this was really good. She said, there are four keys to improving your consumption. Y’all buckle up. So, so good. Number one, make it enjoyable.
AJV (05:59):
And it’s not to say that learning is boring, boring, but what people really remember is how you made ’em feel. They remember the stories that you tell they remember the, the pieces that were outrageous or entertaining, or they believe the, the authentic nature in which you are just real and who you are much more than often. They remember the pieces of information. And I thought that was a really great in a great thing. And I loved what she said. She goes, more information does not equate to more value it doesn’t, which leads me to the second point time, make this consumable and short amount of time. Right. I love, she said time is my primary currency. And what we all have to figure out is what is the currency of our audience? Are they buying this to make more money?
AJV (06:57):
Have less stress increase their level of fulfillment? Are they doing it to have more time? Like, what is the currency in which your audience is, is trading in? Mine is time. So she was speaking my language. It’s like, I’m always like, how do I have more time? How do I do less? Right. less is more thing. And I love what she said. It’s like more stuff. Does that mean more value? And as she was talking, I was just thinking about myself as a consumer, whether or not you relate to this or not of how often do I look at something and I go a thousand dollars. Okay. But what’s included. And it’s like, you know, it’s like 42 training videos and access to group calls and, and it goes on and on and on. And I’m like, I don’t want any of that.
AJV (07:41):
I just, I need, I need, like, I need one thing. How, how do you get me? One thing that I can do in like an afternoon and then call it quits. I would pay more money for that, of going. I don’t have to do all of that. Right. In a two hour session, I’m gonna get everything I need. I’m like, that is worth it to me, give me that. Right. It’s a part of why I love conferences and events because I know I’m gonna go and it’s gonna, I’m gonna start and I’m gonna end. And I’m gonna have everything I need at the end of that day or two days, how do we create value based on the currency in which your audience is trading loved it. And I love that reminders, like more information does not mean more value, right? Often people want it to consume it and the least amount of time possible.
AJV (08:21):
So trying to add more stuff on actually makes it less valuable and more overwhelming. Ugh. So good. Number two, or number three, increase the likelihood of results speak the language of your audience. What do they want from this? What are they gonna get from this? Right? Are they, do they want to double their income in the next 12 months? Right? Do they want to 10 X their reach? Like, what is it that they’re going to get from this? Tell them exactly the results they’re going to receive. So increase the likelihood of results and go at the end of this. This is what you’re going to get. That increases consumption. It helps ’em make it to the end, cuz they know at the end, this is what I’m gonna be able to do. This is what I’m gonna be able to achieve or eliminate.
AJV (09:05):
So tell them right. Increase the likelihood, say, well the results are different for everyone. It’s like, well, that might be true, but what are the common denominators for everyone at the same time? So increase the likelihood of results. And then this was like where we spent the most time. And I think this is really important. It’s increase the ease of use, make it easy to use, make it easy to consume. If you’re making courses make sure that if you make ’em video, you also give an audio version, right? If you have a six hour course that requires someone to be in front of their computer, especially post pandemic. That can be a bit exhausting. It can be a bit much when they’re in front of their computer all day long, but it’s like, but could they go and do this out on a walk, right.
AJV (09:49):
Or, you know, on a hike or with the dog or in a park or in the car. So it’s making it easy to use. And I, I love that. It’s like, is it when you walk in, is it six hours or is it 15 minutes? Right? It’s like, I can get something done every day for 15 minutes. But if it’s a hour or two hours or six hours, I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do that. Make the workbooks easy to download, easy to write in, make it easy. Y’all make it easy. Y’all I cannot tell you how much I found value in this. And I’m kind of picky. I really am. This was so good. I totally am signing up for this free demo. I am going to hello, audio.fm. I am signing up for this free demo. I am getting the free trial.
AJV (10:36):
I’m gonna make our whole marketing team watch this so beware. This is very likely going to be integrated into our world very soon. Love the concepts, love the conversation. Go check out the full interview. And then just remember I thought this was the, the highlight, but just remember it’s like we pay to shortcut our path to success. And that was one of the last things that Nora said is that we pay to shortcut our path to success. So make sure that you’re helping people do that. If you’re creating content, you’re trying to help them, you know, not make this many same mistakes that you did. You’re helping them expedite their journey. You’re giving them a shortcut to success and people will pay for it, but make it easy. Right? Tell ’em what it’s worth. Right? Know what currency they’re trading in and make it enjoyable. Make it fun. Y’all so, so good. I could go on and on go listen to the full interview, go check it out and we’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 320: 4 Ways To Increase Your Content Engagement with Nora Sudduth
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:54):
Hey everyone. And welcome to another episode on the influential personal brand. I’m super excited today because I get to interview a newer friend. And as you guys know, if you guys listen to the podcast, you know, that we do not accept pitches very often. In fact, we have only accepted three pitches in the history of the influential personal brand and Nora happens to be one of those individuals. So I’m gonna introduce you to Nora and today is really special for three reasons. One, I’m getting to know Nora kind of at the same time that you are. So all of the questions I’m gonna be asking are super out of my own curiosity of going. Tell me more, tell me more. I wanna learn Nora about this. But two Nora is the creator and co-founder of this really amazing product called hello audio.
AJV (01:43):
And it’s all about consumption rates and engagement with audio, which if you’re listening to this, you are already in the mix, right? So this is really, really important. And really what we’re gonna answer is why are you not getting the consumption and engagement rates that you want and you need with audio. And then thirdly Nora self admitted that she doesn’t get to talk much about her personal brand. And so this is also a really cool invitation of not just getting to learn about some really cool things with content consumption and engagement and her awesome company. But I’m also generally just so excited to get to know you and how, why did you create this? And what’s your backstory. I love hearing stories like this. So if you’re listening stick around, this is going to be an energy and content impact episode.
AJV (02:34):
Now on a, a very high professional level, I will read Nora’s bio for you. But just really quickly
NS (03:34):
Oh my goodness. Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
AJV (03:38):
Hi, I am so excited. And so I wanna continue that conversation. I wanna help, I wanna get to know you more in our brief conversations, I, haven’t got to hear this part of your story. And I know our audience is many people who listen to this are in this transition of, you know, do I keep doing what I’m doing or do I really go for it? Right. Do I really like go out on that limb, jump off the cliff and do what I feel like I was put on this planet to do, or do I stay comfortable? Right. Do I play it safe? And I just keep doing the thing that I’m doing, but you, you took the leap, like you left it and you started hello audio. So I wanna know the story. How did, how did you do it? Why did you do it? Like, how did you get to where you are?
NS (04:18):
Oh, I love it. So I did, I took that traditional path to success or what we were taught right. Is that traditional path. I have a handful of college degrees, right. I started in computer science before there were many women in computer science. So I’ve got that degree. I’ve got an MBA, I’ve got a master’s degree in engineering. And I did, I, I started that, that corporate kind of path, that corporate climb and what I realized, and I didn’t, I’m not one of those folks that hated corporate. I had great experiences. I learned just, I’ve worked with so many different businesses, even, you know, exact target before they sold to Salesforce before they had a successful exit. I’ve worked with so many amazing humans along the way. And so, as I climbed, I would say up that ladder, I think I got further away from what one of my core values is.
NS (05:08):
And I am obsessed with client success. Mm-Hmm
NS (05:53):
Cause I almost didn’t have a family. Right. I almost didn’t have that. And so at, at the time my dad was diagnosed with cancer and I knew that our time was limited and after he passed away, it’s just like, you know, we all have those moments in our lives where we have that realization of, you know, life is short and am I doing what I really want to do? Is this an opportunity for me to reassess some of those decisions? And, and to, like you said, stay comfortable, which there was there would’ve been nothing wrong if I would’ve stayed, you know, in that trajectory and kept going or do I want something else? And so I think that was one pivot point for that kind of help me wake up if you will. And maybe jarred me a little bit to rethink things. And the other thing that was happening was at that point when my dad passed away, I had a little kindergartner.
NS (06:40):
My oldest was in kindergarten. She is now in high school and getting her license, which is crazy. So time has definitely jumped here and I’ve been doing this for a while, but at the time she just, she was obsessed with the school bus. I wanna take the school bus home and I’m like, I am at the office until six o’clock like, you can’t take the school bus home. No one is home at 2 35 when that school bus is coming home. And so she just was like, I wanna take the school bus home. And I’ll tell you, I was sitting in a corporate meeting and there was a lot of meetings in corporate. And so I think this was one of, of many, and I just felt frustrated. I was feeling that sense of not being happy. And, and I, you know, some women collect shoes and handbags, I collect domain names. So I probably have like 600 over 600 domain names the time
AJV (07:28):
My husband, oh my gosh,
NS (07:30):
Can’t help it.
AJV (07:31):
The amount of go daddy, renewal fees that he’s come across my, my credit card.
NS (07:35):
You don’t wanna total. And when you total it up for your taxes, you’re like, oh my gosh, I need to sell. So, and I have sold some, I made some, but still, yes, it’s not. I don’t know if it’s any healthier than a shoe obsession. Quite frankly, it mights probably a lot more expensive. But as I said in that meeting and I bought the domain F the meeting.com, I still own that domain, but I was like, wow, what that, and, and as I look back, I’m like what energy that is, like, if that’s where I really was in life. And I knew it was a lot of things happening. So I left that day and I allowed my daughter to take the bus home. And so as she took, and I met her at the corner and the bus came and her, the joy that she was filled with as she came off, that school bus, granted, even a kindergartner, she was so excited. And I thought, you know what? I want more of that.
AJV (08:24):
Yeah.
NS (08:24):
Amen. I want more of that. And so I started putting things in place to plan that exit. And, and, and I’ll say this for anyone that is in that situation. Well, I think one of the biggest mistakes, or one of the biggest things we’re told when we look for a business opportunity, right? There’s a lot of folks that wanna sell you a Bizo right. There’s lots of different types, lots of different things, but where I think I had the most success in terms of that transition and that exit was, I started with my existing reach. I didn’t just build a product or create a service and then wonder how to get in front of people. Because I think that stops a lot of folks. I think one of the biggest things I did correctly was I started with my existing reach. I didn’t just say, okay, there’s this internet out there, this black box who the heck knows who’s in it, but they’re my clients.
NS (09:14):
I don’t know them yet, but they’re clearly who I need. And instead of doing that, I was like, no, who are the people already around me? Who are the people that already, that already know me that already trust me? And you know what that looks like. We, we forget our real life connections. And I know things have changed pre you know, post pandemic and all the things. But I, I looked at, okay, I was going through my TaeKwonDo. I went and got my first degree, black belt and TaeKwonDo with my daughter. I’m like the studio, all the people there, they’re in my network. Think about your professional network. Think about your personal network. Think about the stores you go to each and every day, the clubs that you’re a part of the memberships that you’re a part of. We don’t, we overlook all of these people that are in our existing.
NS (09:59):
And we’re like, oh, I don’t, I don’t have an audience. I didn’t have an email list. When I started, I had existing reach in every single person listening to this, you have your existing reach. And so I started there and I was like, you know what, I’m looking at, what I can do for people and the results, cuz I’m a very, like I said, I’m obsessed with client results. So what can I do for folks knowing my expertise, knowing my experience. And then I looked at my existing reach and I looked at what, where, where that intersection was now. I didn’t worry about like, well, what if I don’t wanna serve this audience five years from now? Mm-Hmm
NS (10:47):
And that’s how I started. So that was how I ultimately got to the point where yes, I was doing the side hustle in the evenings and on the weekends and before work. Right. Everyone’s like, yeah, you have a nine to five. Well, I didn’t have a nine to five. I felt like I had a seven to six. And then I was, you know, doing things after the kids went to bed or in the morning before they woke up or on the weekends when they went down for naps or all the things, cuz I had a, I had a younger one as well at that time. So I had two and I, I looked at that and I said, that’s the, that’s the path. It’s just step by step. But I think one of the biggest takeaways for me there is start with your existing reach and that’s ultimately so step by step by step. I put those things in place and I was ultimately able to leave that corporate position. And I created a marketing agency of my own and that was my first step into Andre. And I didn’t stay there, but that’s how I initially stepped from corporate into this entrepreneurial space.
AJV (11:42):
Oh, I love that there are so many gems and even the, your story of, you know, I already wrote down like two things and this is, we’re so aligned in this. And I know that we, we don’t know each other, all that well at this point, but I like one of my life mantras is that you do not have to have millions of followers to make millions of dollars. Yes. And we, we try to like instill this and it’s a great reminder to everyone who’s listening. Is that just start with the one? Yes. Like, and it’s, it’s a weird thing because offline, right. And our actual real circle of people we see every day, if we knew that we impacted one person’s life, that would be, we would be so fulfilled and content with that. It would mean something. But yet if we only have one like or one share or one comment online, we somehow think it’s a failure.
AJV (12:36):
Absolutely. It’s the online digital nature somehow often minimizes the impact of a changed life. And I love that. We talk so much about your offline reputation, your offline strategy, as much as your online. I love that. I love that so much. And I love too that you said it’s like the path is always step by step, right? It is. You may not be doing this in five years, like focus on what’s the next step. That’s true. So, so you went from marketing agency, so you left corporate yes. And had your own agency. So then I’m so curious to know is like, how did you go from that to hello audio? And then also tell everyone like, what is, hello, audio? So what was the path of creating a SAS product and how did you get to where you are now?
NS (13:23):
Absolutely. so I had that marketing agency and I grew that marketing agency agency in a multiple six figures in less than nine months. And it was at that point. And if you have, if you ever had a marketing agency or if you’re done done for you, you E you have a choice to make, you’re either gonna grow and you’re gonna hire more team members, or you’re gonna kind of stay in that niche kind of boutique kind of space. And, and it’s a choice and there’s not a right or wrong choice. It’s just a choice of what kind of business you want. And around that time where I was making a decision, I had started to use ClickFunnels in my agency because everything was WordPress. Right. And then click funnels was brand new at the time. And I mean, brand spanking new. And so I started using it, Russell found out what I was doing.
NS (14:03):
And all of a sudden I got a Voxer from Russell Brunson. And I, you, I mean, if I could’ve captured the look on my face, when I got that boxer from Russell Brunson and it was like, Hey, I think we need to talk. I would like you to rebuild my certification program. And so I was like, well, okay, right. Like this is, so here I am trying to make a decision if I’m gonna grow or grow this agency or kind of keep it small. And now I have a third option, which I never suspected, which was shut it down and go work and partner with Russell Brunson and rebuild one of his training programs. And so, you know, talk about what an amazing opportunity. So I’ve of course said, yes, partnered with Russell rebuilt. That certification program took that from like 300, about 300,000 a little bit more to like 4.1 million in 18 months built another seven figure coaching program for Russell.
NS (14:54):
And again, this is because I was so passionate about client success and SAS, right. I love technology. My first degree was in computer science. So this was a natural fit. And through that work and, and reviewing thousands of marketing campaigns and helping just so many people have success with their marketing campaigns. I ended up meeting Lindsay and Derek Padilla, who are the co-founders of, of hello audio. And, you know, I was actually, both of them are former community college professors who really also genuinely care about student success, right? It’s what they do. We all want our students to succeed. And so we had this shared value and as we had both started helping folks kind of with their online courses. And really, I was kind of maybe more focused on the marketing and sales piece of trying to help your digital products grow. And Lindsay was helping folks help be essentially become a better teacher online.
NS (15:49):
And so it was such an amazing partnership and, and a relationship that started there. And then it was Derek that kind of said, Hey, people don’t finish. Like the stats are there. They’re not finishing online courses. What can we do to help? And that’s how hello audio started. So it came from both of us, all three of us actually being so passionate about our, our students having success and knowing that consumption was getting in the way, which sounds silly. But depending on the study, you read, it can be like 3% or maybe I’ve seen a few that say up to 20% of courses get consumed or content is consumed. And people, when they don’t consume your content, they don’t get the results. And so that’s actually how hello audio started. The original product name was podcast, your course. And so as we look at, okay, what does that look like?
NS (16:38):
What are you talking about, Nora? Like, what’s this podcast thing isn’t like, right? Most people are familiar with public podcasts, right? If you’re listening to this, you already know this is an amazing public podcast. And so if you think about the way public podcasts are structured, most people are like, they assume you have to have a show it’s updated daily or weekly. And, and it’s open to the general public, right? As, as a public podcast, anyone can subscribe private podcasts. On the other hand are a little different. They look and feel like a normal pod pod, right? They still, you can play them in your favorite podcast app, your favorite podcast, player of choice. But as a, as the content owner, as the content creator, you get to choose who gets access to that. So now you could actually put some gated content, whether it’s your opt-in or whether it’s your course or other paid content.
NS (17:27):
Now it’s not kind of change a little bit about what it, what it means to be a podcaster. You can now have a podcast without having a show. You’re just using podcasts as a communication channel. And you’re meeting people where they’re already at. Cuz as we look at the numbers, millions of, of north Americans are listening to audio content in their podcast app each and every week to the point where the hours consumed are actually rivaling the number of hours that were consumed in Netflix every single week. Wow. So I’m thinking, why are we not meeting people where they’re already at? Your audience is already in their podcast apps, listening to content. Why aren’t they listening to you? And so that is how we originally started. Hello, audio. And then the use cases just grew from there.
AJV (18:13):
So, okay. There’s like, I could go like 15 different ways right now. I know, I know things. So one of the things you said is that consumption, right? The data around the consumption was like a real problem that is you guys could solve. So I would just love to hear your feedback rather. That’s just your own personal opinion. Or if it’s more scientific, whatever you’ve got. Why, why do, because I think, I think this is same ha it doesn’t matter if it’s a course or whatever. It’s like, we do the same thing with books. Like how many books they’re sitting on my bookshelf at a bot with great intentions, like, oh one day, right? Same thing with courses. And then there’s other books where I’m like, you know, I must finish this. Right. And so I’m so curious, like what is the data around consumption with courses and online content and why do you think that is?
NS (19:00):
You know, it’s fascinating as I look at it’s it, and it varies the percentage it’s fascinating to look at, is it just the login that we’re requiring people to log in? I look at the work involved and the effort involved, and this is kind of back to anything that we offer for sale. Right? I look at their belief, so that consumer needs to believe that by doing the work or by participating in their own success, they’re going to get a result. So that level of certainty needs to be a certain level. I think, for people to engage like it, whether it’s a book, I believe I’m going to enjoy this. So the level of certainty, I think the higher that is the more likely they are to engage. So a and by the way, they’re, they’re a lot more likely to buy your stuff.
NS (19:42):
NS (20:28):
And yet it’s so convenient for you to play at any time, anywhere when we’re not sitting here at the screen. So if you think about what audio does it unlocks all of the hours of the day that you can reach your ideal person or your customer or your student, whatever that looks like for you when they’re not sitting at a computer and I’ll tell you, especially post pandemic, people don’t really wanna spend that many hours sitting at the screen. And so you’re giving them that option. Let, ’em listen to you while they’re walking the dog, while they’re sitting in the carpool line while they’re taking a walk that’s to me, it, it like ease in convenience, allows for greater consumption. If you make it a lot more difficult. And that also is the medium too, right? If, if you’re doing like a 60 some page ebook or are like, that’s, that’s gonna go to the graveyard of PDFs, we all have one. We all know it’s there. I have multiple bad Dropbox and Google all these.
AJV (21:24):
And I’m like, oh, when am I gonna ever have time to get through 4 45
NS (21:28):
Pages? You’re no you’re. And, and with good intentions, you were interested in the topic. We all raise our hand and we’re like, that sounds cool, but you know what? That’s a lot of work. Yep. And I’m not gonna get to that. And so, and then, so that would be the second thing, easing convenience and, and dove dovetailing into the, the third and final one here I would say is time, right? What do we, time is money. We pay to shortcut our path to success. And so if I look at your content and I think this is gonna take me hours to get through, or, you know, if I can’t fit it in to the time pockets that I have in my day or in my life, that’s just gonna be really a lot more challenging for me to consume. And so if I look at for whatever content you’re putting out there, this is fulfillment content for your courses or your coaching program, or, you know, your book.
NS (22:17):
Or if I’m looking at your marketing content, I’m talking about your webinars, I’m talking about your summit presentations, all the cool stuff you’re doing in, when it comes to creating content, if I can make it easier and more convenient to consume, if I can shortcut the path to success and, and, and allow folks to get that, like reduce the time to, to value as, as another kind of term to reduce the time to value. And if I can increase the perceived likelihood that they’re going to get the result that, that, that we’re promising or that your content is promising, that level of certainty people are going, you’re gonna see engagement go up. Those three things I think are critical in order to see your engagement and consumption rates go up.
AJV (22:59):
Ugh. I love that. There’s so much like I wrote just like the, I wrote four. I, I made one up or I heard one extra one. I love
NS (23:07):
It. It’s okay. Bonus.
AJV (23:09):
But I love this. I think this is so powerful for anyone who is listening, who is a content creator of any, of any type, whether it’s written or video or audio, but four things to increase consumption one, make it enjoyable.
NS (23:23):
Yes. Right? Oh,
AJV (23:24):
Yes. It’s like, I’m not gonna do it if I don’t like it. If it, if it’s hard, right.
NS (23:29):
I don’t want it.
AJV (23:30):
I gotta want it. So make it enjoyable. And I think a huge part of doing that is the combination of the story, right? The emotional parts. It’s like, it’s, I think about some of the, my favorite and this, I always think about this. Some of my favorite books are also my least favorite keynote speeches.
NS (23:50):
Yes.
AJV (23:50):
And true. Right. The content is so good and the stories are so good in the book, but then when you hear the speaker, I’m like,
NS (23:58):
What happened?
AJV (24:01):
You know? And it’s like, yeah. And it’s like, it’s weird because it like dolls the value and all of a sudden this great content I’m like, all I can think about is how horrible about 60 or 90 minutes was. Yeah. So it’s like, make it enjoyable. It’s gotta be somewhat right. Edutaining right. The combination of that,
NS (24:17):
To, to that point. Exactly. Most people think the only way they can add value is to give more information. And that’s not true. You can add value by being entertaining. And by being insightful, like there’s, it’s, you can do more, you can add value more ways than just more information.
AJV (24:33):
Absolutely agree with that. But I think that’s just, that’s a great takeaway. If you’re listening is like more information does not equal more value. No, that’s really important. Right. Write that down people number two. So the first thing was, make it enjoyable. Number two increase the likelihood of results. Yes. So tell people, what are the results you’re gonna get if you complete this, like, that’s really important. Like how many of us buy something going a hope, this has the answer.
NS (25:00):
Yeah. Let’s hopefully it’ll work. I
AJV (25:02):
Need you to, I need to know that it’s in there. Right. So increase the likelihood of results. I love that. Three, make it easy to use. I wanna come back to this one, cuz I have a question for you about this one. Sure. and then the last one is reduce time to value, right? Like I think we do the same thing where it’s like, well, I’m gonna make it eight hours and oh, 165 pages because then it’ll be worth the dollar.
NS (25:30):
No, right. No, it’s just not gonna get consumed. That’s what’s gonna happen.
AJV (25:36):
But it’s like, we do that all the time. It’s like these whole value ladders are built on and you get this and you get this and you get this. And it’s interesting because sometimes I’m going, what am I gonna do with all that?
NS (26:30):
Yes. Amen.
AJV (26:31):
I would, I would pay five times the amount of money versus it’s like, this is a 16 hour course with and I’d be like,
NS (26:38):
No, thank you.
AJV (26:39):
I couldn’t pay enough money to do that.
NS (26:41):
Can I pay to have someone do that for me? Can, is there add an option?
AJV (26:46):
Can you just give me the cliff notes? Can you tell me what you learned in a 15 minute coffee?
NS (26:50):
That would be great. Where’s the summary.
AJV (26:53):
The cliff notes please. But I think those are like really important things of like, we get it wrong. We try to add and add and add and add. And really what that’s doing is it’s like when people get in there and they don’t use it, then they think they’ve wasted all this money. Yes. When really the core thing, if we would’ve just kept the main thing, the main thing we could have added even increased the price tag because it doesn’t, it’s not gonna take you that long to get there.
NS (27:18):
That’s right. Because time they value that time. They value that time. And, and to your point, you should know your primary currency. So I like to talk about like, what’s the big promise of your product or the thing, or even if it’s a free training video, you still have to sell that thing. It is still a free offer. What is the primary currency? It what, okay, doesn’t matter if people are sending you their email address and then you’re giving them back something in return or if they’re giving you cold, hard cash, doesn’t matter. There’s still a currency exchange happening here. And so what I like what, this is a great exercise. If you’re listening to this that I love doing this, put you have a column for increase and a column for decrease. And I want you to think about what is that thing, the training, the product, the course your workshop, your book, what are, what are all the ways it can increase something in their life or in their business and decrease.
NS (28:08):
And I want you to try to be as specific as possible. If you can put a timeline on that, cuz we just know time, time is, is key here. People pay for that shortcut to shortcut to success. So do you help them to X their revenue in six months? Do you help reduce or decrease churn in their companies in the next 90 days, whatever that is for your business. Try to think of it and articulate it in, in a, in a currency exchange. Because that way, if you look at and, and chances are, I’m sure all of the folks listening to this, you’re all amazing. You can do more than one thing for people. There’s probably you’re gonna do this exercise. You’re probably gonna have 20 different things that you can increase or decrease in someone’s life or business. The key is to understand what’s the primary one that they care the most about. What’s the one that they’re going to pay the most for. That’s how you’re gonna be able to monetize your expertise in a, in a very scientific kind of a way.
AJV (29:04):
Oh, that’s so good. And it’s like, that’s really a short list of answers. Really? Yes. I mean it’s like most people are gonna pay to get more time. Yeah. They’re gonna pay to make more money or they’re gonna pay to have more fulfillment.
NS (29:18):
Yes. Less stress,
AJV (29:20):
Less stress,
NS (29:21):
More ease. Right. You can go on and on. But if I love the idea of like, oh, they’re actually giving me something and I’m giving them something in return and the clear I can be about what it is and why it’s so valuable, the easier it is to be able to sell.
AJV (29:37):
That’s so good. Do you feel like that translate into copy as well?
NS (29:42):
It does. Oh my God. That is your, I mean, to me, that’s copywriting gold. I would say that exercise. And then the other exercise I always recommend for copywriting is you have to get into the mind of your consumer and write down all of the potential problems they think they could have. And all of the ways that you’re providing a solution for those problems, it’s like problem, solution, exercise. Even if you think it’s crazy. Like I don’t what, and there’s honestly, if you go through this, there’s gonna be some pretty common ones. I don’t have time. I, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t believe this is gonna work for me because I’m special or my business is special or I have this special circumstance. Like there’s very common ones that come up. But if you can be able to, you know, those going into your marketing and sales campaigns, then your copy addresses them directly. I think those two exercises, the currency exchange. And then I would say your prospect problem list and your solution list is gonna be the two biggest things you can do to improve your copy.
AJV (30:37):
Ah, so good. And keep it short, right? Yeah. Like that time to your novel emails. No, I had to write a text. This is so funny. I literally one of my newer friends who is helping me break into the sport sports world, her name is Ashley. And she’s like, I’m not really good at email. I’m traveling all the time. So just, can you text me all these things? And I’m like writing this text and I get down. I’m like, oh my gosh, I have just written the longest text ever made on planet earth. And I literally, I sent it and I said, and now I know you’ll never read this. So I’m going to have to send an email that is a third of this link. And it was like, like as I’m writing it, I’m so annoyed with my stuff. I’m like, oh my gosh, why am I still typing?
AJV (31:23):
Why is this so long? Why am just taking so much time? But it’s so true. It’s like, if I have to scroll, I just go, I’ll do it later. Yep. I have to do, it’s gotta stay above the fold. Right. I think those, those are so good. Okay. So I wanna come back to this really quick thing. I literally could probably spend another hour talking to you. This is such a great company. I love this Nora. So ease of use. How do you make it easier for people to use? So I wanna answer that. And then I’m so sensitive of the time. I also then wanna go out, like, I want people to understand like, what is hello, audio, and really dive into this concept of a private podcast. Because at least to me that’s a really newer term. Right. And this gated content, but like how does this help? So, okay. So first ease of use and then let’s talk about private podcast.
NS (32:08):
Yes. Ease of use. So one of, I will say, even from a hello audio perspective is we were building this tool yet. Yes. It’s important in SAS, but I would argue it’s important in anything that people buy, but SAS specifically, why do people not buy software? Because they have a perception that it’s going to be a pain in the butt. They have a perception that it’s going to take them a long time to incorporate it into their business.
AJV (32:31):
A lot of money
NS (32:32):
And yeah, it, it is. Yeah. And depending on where you’re coming from a lot of buddy but it’s, it’s really the, the ability to kind of speed up that time to value, reduce the time to value speed up that success path because you’re making it easy for them to do. And so what other doesn’t matter, that’s why we see for example, authors, when there’s like the PDF version of your audio book or the, the book, and then you have the audio book tend to, if we look at comparisons, a lot of times your conversions on the audio book will be higher because it’s easier to consume. Right? Right. So if we look at your course, is it, are you making it easy to get through meaning are lessons maybe two hours long or are you chunking them up with very specific kind of headlines or very specific targeted engagements if you’re a coach and you do coaching calls, are you putting those replays in a locked membership site where you’re not providing time stamps or, or how can you make it easier for people to get through the content or to take the action?
NS (33:30):
So whenever I’m building an online course, I look at all right, what’s the information they need, what are the actions that they need to take? And what is the support that I can provide her that they’re going to need to take those actions and it, every single step of the way, how can I make it easier for them to consume the information? It it’s again, not creating 16 hours of content. It’s giving them only what they need to take the action. How can I make the action easier to take? Sometimes that’s templates, sometimes it’s swipe files. Sometimes it’s, it’s a certain level of support, right. And giving them that. But it’s all about making it easier. And with hello audio, when we built that, that was actually one of the non-negotiables in building that piece of software is it has to be easy to use if it’s not easy to use, people are not going to use it. And we, that was, that was how we, so now when we look at 70%, I think it’s a little over 70% of our folks said, join, hello, audio, and, and create their first private feed. They do it in less than a day. They launch their first feed in less than a day. And that isn’t a very important metric for our company, because if our product is not easy to use and they can’t get that value quickly, then we’ve done something wrong. That’s kind of what, what we truly believe.
AJV (34:45):
This is so good. So, alright. So I have a personal question for you that. Sure. So while you were talking, I pulled up think GI where we house all of our courses. Right? So as a part of brain builders group, our membership program, you get access to 14 courses. And so I it’s a lot, it’s a lot, right. That’s where I’m going. Right. So I broke it up and that’s why I pulled it in here. And so this has been a, it’s been a hot topic in our company because we have broken everything down into six lessons. Right. And at first everyone was like, that’s just too many. But the reason we did it is to make it bite size. Yep. So here’s what I’m curious to know is like, do you think the way that we’ve broken this up is still too long. So there are six lessons and in each of those lessons, we break them up into a training, a hot seat. And then a workbook. And so the training is 29 minutes and then the coaching hot seat is 15.
NS (35:38):
Okay. But they’re, but they’re distinct. Yeah. Which I love. And I think that, I mean, if I look at a 29 minute training, is that too long? No. Be, and I don’t think it’s never a number. I always look at the content. Are you giving more information that’s necessary knowing you no. Right. Like you’re giving exactly what they need to take the next action and nothing more. Does that mean you don’t care about them? And that you’re like, oh, let me over deliver. No, I like you are over delivering by keeping it as tight as possible. And that’s what I love
AJV (36:10):
Makes me so happy to hear, because if you told me something different, I’m pretty sure my team would’ve been like, we’re done. We
NS (36:16):
Quit. Your team is amazing. Your team is amazing. And here’s what I’ll say
AJV (36:20):
Backwards. Taking more ideas in here. That’s thing helpful to know. Cause it’s like we spent six months basically re orchestrating this from basically what you said is people are like, it’s so long, it’s hard prior to doing this. If you add all these up, you know, it’s like 12 hours of content. And it’s like, we had, ’em when we first started, this is so good for everyone to know. Like, don’t think just because that’s the way you start, that’s the way you have to end up. I know. But you know, when we started putting all of our courses in here, they were in two day, segments is a day, one and day two
NS (36:56):
Are long days. Those are
AJV (36:58):
One was six hours and then day two was like five hours. Right. But that’s how it was. And it wasn’t until like, we probably just had to have it that way. Cuz we have so much curriculum for, it was probably look that way for almost two years before we said, okay, let’s start going through our curriculum and how do we break this up? But that took a process of going, what is the best way to break this up and what is that right amount? And do we include both video and audio or is that too much? And we opted to do both video and audio right. As a, you know, but it’s really interesting of like even going through this, like we just launched our new version of our course membership just April 1st. So we just got it to the way that we wanted four years later. Yeah. And here’s the thing that I think is fascinating. The content itself has not changed.
NS (37:52):
It’s still valid. It still works.
AJV (37:54):
Yeah. And I think that’s a great reminder to anyone who is listening. It’s like just because you’re constantly reinventing and changing doesn’t mean the core content has to change. It’s just the format, the medium, the duration, the delivery mechanisms of it change. This is always a great reminder to me. I’m not sure if you know this, but our first book, so my husband launched his first book, take the stairs which hit number two on the New York times, we were super grateful, super blessed. It was a really awesome time, but we just celebrated 10 years of that book being out. And here’s the funniest thing B the exact same keynote today that he did 10 years ago, when the book launched
NS (38:38):
Still,
AJV (38:39):
When it launched, he was probably charging $7,500. Now his fee is 30. Yep. It’s the same content. The only thing that is different is the way that he delivers the content. That’s it? And I think that’s a great reminder to us is you don’t have to make new content. No. To make it better.
NS (39:00):
Yes. I, and I love that. And the fact that you’re zeroing in on the delivery mechanism, our, you gotta keep in mind markets evolve our habits as consumers evolve. I don’t know anyone who’s listening to this that does not have a, have an ideal customer that is busy. We’re all busy. And so while we, you know, before we would deliver things on like tele seminars, I don’t know about you, but the thought of sitting on a phone or having a phone for like hours on end, like we used to, you know, granted this was over a decade ago, but that was really popular. We have to continue to evolve our delivery mechanisms and our delivery channels to meet people where they’re already at. And that’s why I love. And we actually do integrate directly with think GI we have a lot of folks that host their courses on think GI and they automatically create private podcasts for courses because it’s just the delivery mechanism.
NS (39:54):
Some people will absolutely have time to log in and go through the videos. And I would even argue if you even have a visual course, there’s still benefit for people listening to where you’re taking them. Cuz we all know with learning repetition is key. And so when you sit down to watch that video where you sit down, it sounds like when you have your amazing workbooks and people are working through that, they’ve already heard it. Right. They’ve heard it once and they know where we’re headed or they know where you’re taking them. And that can provide a massive difference in terms of the results that your folks get.
AJV (40:24):
Hmm. I love that. And so you said something that’s really fascinating. It’s like you can create private podcasts yes. As courses in your membership site.
NS (40:33):
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
NS (40:36):
So with, with private podcasts, it kind of is it’s interesting that you can create all sorts of podcasts with different content. So we have a lot of teachers and a lot of online educators that use hello audio and they podcast their course. They have a private podcast version and Amy Porterfield who I know you just recently had on she’s one of a, she’s a hello audio user as well. And so she uses hello audio to deliver her DCA content to her, her audience because she has a lot of folks that are doing this as a side hustle. She has a lot of folks that are busy and here’s the thing. Her videos are amazing. They’re and, and she’s not trying to replace those videos. She’s just making it more convenient and easier to, for her audience to consume that information so that when they do sit down to do the work, they’ve already listened to it.
NS (41:23):
They have another option to get the information they need to get the results that they want. So for, for me, having, it’s easy to be able to just drag and drop all your course content and put it into a private feed that is still protected, right. That’s still very much protected cuz we all know that you put a lot of hard work into creating your premium courses. Right. But it’s also other things as well. We can, we can podcast. So if we look at the coaching calls, this is a great opportunity for coaching calls. You have group coaching calls, how many, and I know we’ve probably both invested heavily in coaching programs during our careers. How many times have we really logged in and watched that hour plus long zoom video really? For me hardly ever. Right. Hardly ever. And even if I start watching it, I have now opened bazillions of other tabs and I’m doing other things background
AJV (42:14):
I’m yeah. It’s just, it’ll just like, you know, absorb into my brain somehow. Yeah.
NS (42:34):
It expires, it expires and, and you get to set that time that it expires, you can set it to expire immediately. Or if you wanna give folks an hour because maybe they’re like me and they’ve got a bazillion devices and you wanna load it on maybe your iPad and your phone, you can do that as well, but we have it set so that you can choose to expire immediately after it’s used.
AJV (42:54):
So I’m curious, have you had any use studies on doing this for like private content? Just for your email list?
NS (43:03):
Yes. Okay.
AJV (43:04):
I’d love to hear
NS (43:05):
That we have folks. So we kind of use, if you think about a private podcast almost as the new inbox, right? So if your newsletters we have tar ZK is one of our users. She’s an amazing copywriter. Her emails are fantastic, right? Obviously she’s a copywriter, so she makes them, she’s a storyteller. They’re fantastic. And yet what she does is she’ll also read them and she has a private podcast called Tarzan, reads her emails, pretty clear what it is. Right. And it gives her subscribers a way to consume that content. Because I mean, I don’t know about your inbox. I probably have a lot of, let’s just say a lot. I don’t wanna get skewed a lot of unread emails in my inbox on a daily basis. So I probably will never need to read. Right. So just to give myself a little bit of an out, but it, it gets more and more crowded.
NS (43:53):
And so this gives her a way to con communicate and reach her existing list. And in a way that is, it allows her to express her personality. Think about reading that newsletter or reading that email and how different the experience is when you read it. And you’re listening to that person, read it with all of their intonation, their brand voice right now, that connection that we have with that person is more intimate. And it’s stronger because of the, the fact that it’s consumed in audio versus doesn’t this there’s nothing wrong with that email that email’s amazing, but it now takes our connection and our relationship to a new level.
AJV (44:30):
Yeah. Well that’s the, the thing with, you know, whether it’s, you know, audio or video, but it’s the audio component it’s like, don’t they say that hearing is like one of like the biggest sources of memory of smell and hearing, but it’s like one of the things too, it’s the thing that’s challenging about the written word is that you miss the tone and you miss those interests. I think, you know, it’s like we, I tried to all the time, it’s like, anytime I’m trying to write heated email, I’m like, delete that. Do not send that
NS (44:59):
That’s gonna not
AJV (44:59):
Be right. Cause it’s like, you always read it in the mood that you’re in, not the mood that it was sent, but totally different connotation and tone and feel when you hear someone in the intent that they desire to send us. Yes. Very much. I love this. This is so fascinating. Okay. So last two things, Nora. So what do you want people to know about hello audio?
NS (45:22):
Oh, well, hello. Audio is a great way for you to reach your consumers where they’re already at. And, and again, we made it easy to use, but even easier to try. So one of the things that we did with hello audience, we removed, I know a lot of SAS companies do this. They ask you to put in net credit card before you try it. We do not. So we have a free seven day trial, no credit card required to allow you to just experience it. So if you do wanna check it out and you’re interested in creating a private podcast for any sorts of content that you might already have, go ahead and go to hello, audio FM. And you can try it out for seven days without any requirements. No, no credit card requirements. It’s just making it super easy. There you go. Ease in convenience, reducing the friction
AJV (46:02):
Practice, what you preach. I’m gonna go from that. Absolutely too. And then last and not least, where can people follow you and learn more about you?
NS (46:11):
Absolutely. You can connect with [email protected] or on Instagram at Nora set.
AJV (46:17):
Oh my gosh, Nora, this was awesome. There is so much richness in this conversation and it’s like, I took an entire page of notes and I’m like trying to pay attention and come up with questions. Like I gotta write this down. This is so good. I love this. This was genuinely one of my favorite interviews that I’ve done. And it’s like, like I told you, it’s like into the audience, you know, it’s like we usually only have friends on it is very rare that we would take a pitch that somebody sent us. But I was so fascinated in this, that you have been the surprising delight in this conversation. Thank you so much for giving us your time today.
NS (46:53):
Oh, thanks for having me. I’m this has been amazing. I’m so glad we connected.
AJV (46:57):
Oh my gosh. I can’t wait to learn more. I can’t wait to stay connected. I’m so fascinated. And you, this has been such an awesome conversation. Thank you so much, everyone listening. Make sure you stay tuned. Come back for the recap episode and we will see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 319: How to Get Publicity with Selena Soo | Recap Episode
RV (00:02):
How do you get publicity for your business, for your brand, for your book, for your mission, for the, for your nonprofit, for whatever it is that you’re trying to do or advance in the world. That was the subject of this week’s interview with Selena Soo. It was awesome. And I really enjoyed meeting her. I was the I, that was the first time I’d ever met her. I I’d heard about her for years just through friends and stuff. And I’m gonna share with you my some of my takeaways from Selena and also I’m gonna share with you some of my own philosophies here about how publicity works and things that we have learned. We’ve, we’ve done a pretty decent job of getting our share of, of publicity over the years. So it’s something that we definitely know about, and then also helping our clients regularly get national appearances for, for different things.
RV (00:52):
Which is, which is great. But one thing I wanna point out is even if you already listened to that interview with selena the first the first time you listen to it, you probably listen to it like as a student, which is like, sort of how, how I was like, what she was saying and trying to learn from her, but go back and listen to it again of not what she’s teaching and not what she’s saying, but how she’s doing it, of all the guests that, that I’ve ever interviewed on this show. And I won’t speak for all the guests that AJ’s interviewed, but of all the guests that I’ve interviewed on this show, I could tell that Selena was a true pro at being a guest because of the way that she sequenced the conversation. And she one thing led to the next and she had frameworks and all of these things, but by the way, if you’re a brand builder, like if you’re one of our messengers, one of our messenger messengers, one of our clients you’ll, you’ll hear her doing things like frameworks and pillar points and the things that we teach you to do and captivating content.
RV (01:59):
And so just like watch how she does it. She was a tremendous guest all the way down to her lead magnet and everything. So just two different ways to learn from her. One is what she was saying. And two was like how she was doing it all. And I recognize those things, cuz those are all things that I try to do and things that I do actually do that have made a huge difference for converting media appearances into leads for your business, right? Like you know, there’s, I, I, I am, I think of myself almost as a professional guest, I’m trying to be a guest and I have a limited window, a limited time, a limited opportunity to be in front of someone else’s audience to deliver so much value quickly in a way in a sequence that creates context for a, a conversation to continue and then to open the door and offer them a chance to find me and stay in relationship with me and us and our team at brand builders group. And then, you know, you know,
RV (02:58):
Turn that into revenue and impact and relationships and Selena did a, a magnificent job of, of it as well. You could go listen to me as a guest on someone’s show too, and you could also see some of those things. So that’s what we’re gonna talk about a little bit here. I was really, really impressed with her. So how do you get publicity? How do you get publicity? First thing that she brought up, which I really loved because I don’t think we hear about this enough is that if you don’t have a mainstream product, you don’t really need mainstream media. If you don’t have a mainstream product, you don’t really need mainstream media. Like, so what do I mean by that? I mean that many of us think, oh, I wrote a book and now I just, I wanna be on good morning America or the today show or Oprah or, you know, the school of greatness podcast or ed my letter, like we think, oh, this would be the secret.
RV (03:53):
Like this would be the key is I gotta get on mainstream media. But in reality you don’t because first of all, the riches are in the niches. The riches are in the niches. You you’ll you’ll often make more money, get more leads for your business by being in a, in front of a smaller number of people. But it’s the right people, this more like rifle approach versus the shotgun approach of like, I just wanna be in front of massive, you know, numbers of people, because if you don’t have a mainstream product, then that means it doesn’t apply to a lot of people. So if there’s a big mass general audience listening, then you’re going, you know, 99% of the audience may not care about what you have. And so it’s not serving that media outlet well, and it’s not serving you well, and it’s not, it’s not serving their, their listeners or their audience.
RV (04:42):
Well, and so you can sort of let go of that idea that in order to, in order for media to be successful, I have to be on the biggest podcast or I have to be on the biggest TV shows or, you know, I have to, I have to be interviewed by the most famous interviewers. You don’t, you don’t, the riches are in the niches. Like so I, I, I want you to, to think about that. Another thing, and I, I talked about this a little bit. I shared this in the interview with Selena, because this is something that we’ve started teaching our, our brand builders clients, which is think of your online audience as an offline room. Think of your online audience as an offline room. So what does that mean? It means for some reason, when we see, like, if you post a video online and you get 14 video views, like a lot of people would look at that and be like, oh, I can’t believe I got 14 video views.
RV (05:38):
Like, you know, I put all this work in for this 62nd video and only 14 people watch it yet. If you were gonna stand up in front of a real life, offline room of 14 people, you’d probably be excited about that. Right? Like your heart would get racing. Certainly if it were 50 people in a room or a hundred people in a room and it like, they are, it’s the same thing. Those are real humans, real people like it’s 14 or 50 people watching a video, just like it’s 14 or 50 people watching you in a room. So those are real human lives. And just, there’s something weird about when we think about it in the context of online. And it’s probably because we’re comparing it to everyone. Like, you know, we’re comparing it to people who have millions of views, like, or their video goes viral and we’re like, oh, why don’t my views?
RV (06:23):
My videos go viral, right? Like I’m only reaching 50 people, sweetheart. You only gotta reach 50 people. Like most of us don’t need thousands of customers to change our life. Most of us, our business would be radically transformed if we had like a dozen or two dozen of our perfect customers this year. Like you don’t need millions of followers to make millions of dollars as AJ says. So think of your online audience as an offline room. And that’ll give you a little more confidence and context of like, yeah, what you’re doing is making a difference. And it will also help you with your media strategy. Why? Because chasing mainstream media, it’s it’s, I don’t wanna tell you not to do it because it’s certainly not impossible. It, it is possible. And, and they, you know, the media needs you more than you need them. So that is true.
RV (07:11):
It’s just, you can expend a lot of energy chasing it and the odds aren’t in your versus you can go after things that you would think of as smaller or like not less important or less significant and actually get in front of a hundred people. And it’s like, that’s a hundred people. That’s a huge audience. You don’t need to be on a podcast that has millions of people. If, if you’re on a podcast that has a hundred downloads, a hundred, not a hundred million, a hundred, if those are the right a hundred people, that’s the same as speaking in front of a room of a hundred of your perfect prospects. So it’s like I would be more specific and target. And we talked about, listen, notes is a great, a great tool for that and spark Toro, where a couple great tools that you could look up that will help you research, you know, different podcasts and things on specific and different influencers on specific topics.
RV (08:03):
So you don’t need to have mainstream media if, if you don’t have a mainstream product. Also to this point, I, I was talking about how clicks are better than views clicks are better than views. So if we’re getting a media appearance, you know, like a, a five minute video clip on good morning, America is not gonna change your life. Like we, you think it will, but it’s not like it’s just not gonna drive that much website traffic. You’re not gonna get it that many opt-ins, you’re not gonna get that many. If any sales like take it from me, but on national TV a few times and had a lot of friends have done it now with a book launch, you get a national TV appearance. You might move a few hundred units with that, like, which is something, but it’s not gonna automatically make you an overnight bestseller just cuz you got on the today show one time, like it’s, it’s different,
Speaker 3 (08:54):
But what can help is when you get a write up and an online and somebody’s blog, like somebody who’s a huge blogger or you know, entrepreneur or ink or Forbes or fortune, if they have a link there to your site, that’s gonna move some people. So clicks are better than views. Although I, I think, you know, full length views, if it’s like an hour long video or an hour long, you know, listens like a podcast, those are super powerful cuz you, they, you have ’em for an hour. Other than that, the real value of national media is really how you repurpose it. It’s it’s, it’s making sure you put the logos on your website. You put the the video, you know, like the clips of you on TV, in your demo videos, in your sales videos and in your press kit, the clips of that, of course, all things we teach you specifically how to do and give you templates for if you’re one of our members which by the way, if you’re not a brand builder member, you should be.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I mean, I, I mean our stuff is legit. I don’t, as humbly as I can say, we’re changing lives and we have a system that works like, and it’s not only working for us. It’s working for the biggest personal brands in the world. It’s working for people, just brand new intermediate people. Like we got people doing viral, Ted talks, book launches doing seven figures, eight figures in their business, growing their email list, growing their social followers, hundreds of thousands, people going viral with their Ted talks, like our stuff is working cuz it’s system, you know that we spend a lot of time. And, and if you ever wanna talk to someone on our team, you go to free brand call.com/podcast, free brand call.com/podcast and request a free call with our team it’s free. And then we’ve got different levels, right? We’ve got like stuff for beginners and you know, people in between and then, you know, private, like high end one-on-one coaching for like big time businesses and personal brands.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
So anyways, free brand call.com/podcast. Check that out every once in a while, if you haven’t yet. Alright. Second takeaway from Selena. If you wanna get on TV, there’s three things you need to do. Okay. So this is like divided into three subparts. So let’s, if you wanna get on TV and we have the actual TV conversation first of all, start local start with local TV, your local news channel. Why? Because there’s less competition. Two is because they need to feature local news, which is local people. So if you live there, you are a local. So it automatically skews it in your favor. There’s less people asking. They have the same amount of demands for putting out content every single, you know, day 24 hours a day. And and the other thing is because you get to practice, you get to practice, it’s a sandbox, right?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Like you get to play there in the minor leagues a little bit. Before you go to the big leagues, big leagues, you don’t want your, I, I promise you, you might think you do, but I promise you, you don’t, you don’t want your first TV appearance to be the today show. You don’t want your first podcast appearance to be Louis Houser. Ed Mylet you might think you do, but I’m telling you, you don’t, you want to have practiced and you wanna be confident and tight and sharp and pithy and pointy and punchy and clear. And so that when you’re on there and you’re, you’re delivering your pillar points, it’s like bang, bang, bang. And you know, if again, I’m sound probably like an arrogant jerk here, but if you haven’t yet go listen to ed. My let’s show the ed, my let show podcast and listen to the interview of me on his show.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
What you will hear. There sounds like a spontaneous conversation. And, and in many ways it was and it was very honest and heartfelt and that’s part of the magic. But the baseline of it was that it was the greatest hits of what we teach at brand builders group delivered all in an hour. And so we have, I mean, we have dozens of comments there, there were thousands and thousands of comments, but dozens of comments saying, this is the greatest podcast episode I’ve ever heard on any podcast. Why? Because it’s four years of our life buttoned up and, and, and, and polished and put into this one, you know, 45 minute conversation plus Ed’s magic. And he’s amazing, right? And his audience and all that stuff. Like they love him. They trust him and, and we have great rapport and all that, you know, there’s a lot of things that come together, but we have hundreds of leads that came from that interview because it’s the right combination of all of these, all of these things, not the least of which is that, you know, ed is, is very trusted and he’s got a huge audience, but it’s, it’s a, it’s a great audience, right?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
And it’s like, I would rather have that appearance than the today show because it’s a, it’s, A’s an audience of entrepreneurs, which is our target audience, right. Experts and entrepreneurs. So start local learn to speak in sound bites, catch phrases. For those of you that are listening, that are brand builders internally and captivating content, we call these what pillar points and we teach you the six pillar point formulas. These are six different forms of sentence structure that make it sound smart. And what the way you say it is as important as what you say, the cadence of how we hear things makes it sound smart and even sink and sound smarter than the integrity of the idea itself. And you need to understand how to, to write, speak in soundbites. So like some of my more popular soundbites, success is never owned. Its rented in the rent is due every day.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
When you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. You’re most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were, you make a life from the problem or you make a, you, you make a, a living from the problem you solve, but you make a life from the passion that you chase. All of these kinds of one liners that automation is to your time. What compounding interest is to your money. These are all one liners that I’ve spent years crafting, right? And then you hear ’em on a, on a TV show and you go, whoa, and it’s, it’s tight. It’s, it’s not three minutes to explain a concept. It’s
RV (14:50):
Like, like the most concentrated core essence of a, of an idea packaged beautifully delivered eloquently in a way that hits the ear and people just go ding. And that’s what you need. You know, when I’m saying we’re going bang, bang it’s it’s soundbite, soundbite, sound bite sound, bite, pillar, point pillar, point pillar, point catchphrase, catchphrase, they’re all, all the same thing, more or less. And then the other thing that she said, which I always forget about, I always forget about this was probably my greatest personal reminder from Selena was think about how to make it visual TVs are visual medium. So if you’re trying to get on TV, think about how to make it visual, right? Don’t just go. Here’s why I’m awesome. And why you should have me think from their perspective, they’re trying to go, how can we put together compelling visual content that holds people’s attention?
RV (15:48):
So just the fact that you’re smart isn’t necessarily make you a great guest for TV. Even if you’re eloquent, cuz it’s like, they need visual elements. So how can I make this more visual? And that was great. And, and again, just to shout out to Selena, like her framework that, that she taught and ran, ran through, which I just loved and you know, it was super simple. The publicity pyramid, you know, she’s a pro she’s a pro like was really, really good. And then the third thing, this is the last one. This is quick one, have one call to action and make sure it’s a lead magnet.
RV (16:24):
Don’t, don’t send people to a thousand places when they’re at the end of the interview and they say, so Rory, you know, this has been great. Where should people go to find out more about you? Be like, well, you can get my book on Amazon. You can follow me on Instagram at this handle. I got a podcast over here. I did a webinar one time on this, you know, I’ll probably go live next week on Facebook over here. No, if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. Send them to one place, one URL, one call to action, say one thing over and over and over. And again, go listen to me on the ed mallet show. Part of why we got hundreds of leads is not because I’m saying, check out my book over here and I do this and that. And you want info about me on a keynote speaker, duh da no.
RV (17:10):
Yeah. You wanna learn about me? Go to one place free brand call.com and then I give, you know, his affiliate, right? And so everyone there’s and it’s like, well, where else should they go? I would just start there, go to free brand call.com. You know, and his is ed Mylet. You know, the one we use for this podcast free brand call.com/podcast, right? That’s what I’m talking about here. So one call to action, be very specific, clear one URL and send them to a property you control, right? Don’t send them to Amazon. Don’t send to Instagram, right? Like you finally got a captive audience. You finally have an opportunity to build your list and, and, and to start a relationship. And then you send ’em to a website. You have no control over where there’s a million other things going on, send them to a URL, dear goodness, like, and, and learn to create a lead magnet, a lead capture.
RV (18:01):
What, what is that? Right. Okay. All stuff we teach you inside a brand builders group, formal formal training, but a lead capture is a form. A lead magnet is something of value to them, right? And you go, here’s a free training or here’s a free download. Again. Selena did a brilliant job on our show. She had this amazing 12 month media calendar. And I was like, she’s such a pro. She gives one lead magnet, her little calendar, which I, I went and she got me. She got me
RV (18:46):
Download open up PowerPoint, design a seven step checklist to blanky blank, save it and export it as a PDF, and then tell people how to go get it, where to email you and, and how to get it. Or, you know, as you get more sophisticated, you build it as web forms and all that stuff. But that’s the lead magnet is the thing you give them. The lead capture is the place you send them to actually get their information where you capture their info. So when you get these media appearances, oh my goodness, or a speaking opportunity, or you’re on TV or a podcast, like, please don’t send someone to go, go follow me on Instagram so that you can see 1% of my posts. Maybe if you even manage to find my profile and you don’t get distracted by cute puppy dogs or, you know, pictures of Teddy bears rolling around, like, and then if I’m lucky, you’ll see one out of every hundred posts I make no send them to a lead capture with a lead magnet where you can have them in your database and you can own their relationship.
RV (19:45):
I’m not saying don’t use social media. We use social media, but like, this is your opportunity. You just delivered value bombs on a media interview that you spent years practicing and sharpening and getting your pillar points down, make sure you harvest it properly, send them to a place. And don’t just send them to your website. If your website doesn’t have a lead capture on it, which it should be like, you know, lesson number one, lead capture, lead magnet on your website. Yeah. Make sure you have those things straight. So all, all things we’re gonna step you through. If you’re one of our brand builders and do time in, in the right order, but some great takeaways from Selena brilliant job she had, she had all the things we’re talking about, right? It’s not a mainstream media. Our, our podcast is not mainstream media, it’s niche, but it’s right in her niche. She knows that we trust people, our people, you know, we, we, we try to cultivate trust with y’all. We try to give you value. She’s speaking in soundbites. She has frameworks, her little publicity pyramid, one lead magnet, her little 12 media things. She gives you one URL, one place to go download it, pop,
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Pop, pop, pop, pop. That’s a publicity pro. So you know, anyways, we’re gonna get some affiliate links to, to promote some more of Salinas stuff. Hope you check it out. Thank you as always for tuning in. I love you. And thanks for listening to me rant here. I’m just trying to add value. I want to encourage you make sure you go you know, send Salina some love on, on social, like go follow her, leave her a comment. Tell her that you heard her on the influential personal brand podcast. Keep coming back, share this episode. Who do you know in your life that needs publicity? Who do you know, that’s an entrepreneur who do you know, that’s in a book launch? Who, who do you know in your life? Who’s like in this moment going, I’m trying to reach more people send ’em this episode, it’s free. All of our episodes are free. It’s unbelievable. The podcast. I hope you feel that way. I know from your reviews on iTunes, many of you do and you leave us great reviews, which help tremendously. So thank you for that. Thanks for your attention, your reviews, your sharing, your, your loving on our guests. And just for being here, we wanna see you succeed. We wanna see you exploit your uniqueness in the service of others. Have a great one. We’ll catch you next time. Bye-Bye.
Ep 318: How to Get Publicity with Selena Soo
RV (00:02):
If you’ve hung around here for any length of time, you know, that the way that we define personal branding is simply the digitization of reputation. And one of the ways that I vet podcast guests, that we’re gonna bring on to introduce you to is through their reputation. It’s what do I hear about somebody from other people? And that is why you are about to meet Selena Soo. Selena is friends with lots of people that we know, Julie Solomon and Susie Moore, and just like I’ve heard her name for years, Celine Da Costa, who we’ve had on this show, who I really love and adore. And I think she’s brilliant. She actually was the one who finally connected us directly to Selena and Selena is an expert in publicity, you know, visibility and just helping people get seen and, and have more reach.
RV (00:57):
So she, for I think 18 years lived in New York, she had a publicity agency. She’s helped people get featured in Oprah and Forbes and Inc. And she works with lots of you know, experts and entrepreneurs, very similar obviously to our core audience. But specifically in the area of publicity. And so publicity is one of the things that we sort of lightly touch on, but we usually farm out that work to vendor partners. And so she’s a total, a total pro and I was like, we gotta get her on the show so that we can, we can get a chance to meet her. So Selena, welcome to the influential personal brand podcast.
SS (01:34):
Thank you, Rory. I’m so thrilled to be here.
RV (01:37):
So yeah. So let’s talk about publicity and let’s start with the easy ones. How do you get on good morning America?
SS (01:46):
RV (02:33):
Oh, we love frameworks. We love frameworks. Yes.
SS (02:36):
OK, great. So, you know, imagine a pyramid, a triangle at the bottom of the pyramid that is your home base, that is your online presence, right? That’s your personal brand. Cause the first thing that people are gonna do when they hear about you, whether it’s Oprah’s producers or someone else is Google you, and if they Google you and nothing shows up, then they’re not gonna
SS (02:54):
Like exactly. Right. So even just having like a solid website, a social media presence with content like that is step one, right? To really like be present online. And then step two is guest posting. Cause that’s a natural extension from writing content on social media or your blog or your newsletter. So now you’re sharing that same content, but on third party website so that other people can see you. And the great thing about guest posting is oftentimes you can include a link back to your website, right? So that’s good for SEO. It can be good for list building. You know, if you can link up to a lead magnet and there are some amazing places like Forbes, mind, body green that are built on this model of guest posting thrive global, right? All these different places. So that would be the second layer of the publicity pyramid. And then the
RV (03:42):
Third before you, so before you go onto the third one, which as I do wanna hear this, but I will say like, you know, we’ve been on Fox, we’ve been on good morning, America, we’ve been on Fox and friends. We’ve been on, you know, several local. I will say I would rather have a online article with a link to my site than I would be on good morning, America. Like the power of an article that people can read. I mean, being on good morning, America and stuff helps a bunch with credibility, but it’s mostly, it’s kind of like you drive for show and you put for dough and golf. Like most of the national TV is like the publicity perception. Yeah. But when it comes to driving traffic and sales and leads, man, I love a link. I wanna a link
SS (04:31):
Yeah. I’m still on the same page. And that’s, you know, how I started, like following this publicity pyramid framework where, you know, I had my website and you know, my social media, but then I was writing articles and writing guest posts, including writing guest posts for influencers who yeah. You know, mail the guest posts, like to their email list. And that’s how I got, you know, my first gosh, like maybe 2000 subscribers through that strategy. Wow. Yeah. So guest posts,
RV (04:57):
Your first 2000 email, like in your database came from just putting articles on other people’s sites.
SS (05:05):
Exactly. Yeah. So that was my, you know, starting point for really like getting my name out there to the public. And then from there, the next level is podcast interviews and video interviews or guest teaching would also fall into this category. You know, when you’re getting started as an expert, you wanna start with, you know, sharing your ideas through it in content, and eventually then you’re gonna have these back and forth conversations with people. Now, this is really where I hang out on the publicity pyramid because, you know, even though podcasts or doing guest teaching, it can be more niche, but these are people that are raising their hands saying, yes, I wanna be in the room. Or I wanna be listening to this conversation and learning 30 minutes or an hour. Those are the same kinds of people that buy online courses and coaching programs. So that’s really, you know, where I primarily hang out and maybe, you know, a certain podcast might not have the brand name recognition of as Forbes, but again, not all publicity is created equal and it’s not just about the branding. It’s about are my ideal clients who are right for my offers hanging out there.
RV (06:05):
Totally. Yeah. I mean that, I think this is a great example. Like you’re, you, you likely would get more clients from this podcast than probably from a national TV thing because it’s like, you know, there’s a random smattering of people listening, but you know, I, well, something you just said, I’ve never really thought about, which I love is when someone listens to a podcast mm-hmm,
SS (06:47):
Yeah.
RV (06:48):
All right. So is there a step four?
SS (06:50):
Yeah, there’s four. There’s the next level? There’s four and five. Okay. So now we’re moving up, the publicity here, we’re getting more mainstream, so that’s gonna be magazines and, you know, magazines are powerful because people read magazines on the plane at the beach or the dentists office. Like you’re literally getting in front of millions of people. That being said with magazines, typically when you’re being mentioned in a magazine or featured, it’s usually, you know, your expertise, a quote versus like a fully written piece by you. Yeah. So you’re reaching millions, but it’s you know, less in depth. Right. And then with TV, which is at the top of the publicity pyramid, because it tends to be harder to get on TV than to get a podcast interview. That being said, as we move up, we’re reaching more people. But it can be less in depth. Like for example, a lot of TV interviews are just three or four minutes long. Yeah. So it’s kinda really
RV (07:41):
Powerful, even if you’re Tony Robbins like Tony, even if you’re Tony Robbins, you get you Dave Ramsey, you get four minutes and you’re out.
SS (07:48):
Exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, it’s a huge credibility builder to say you’re on good morning, America or CNN. And all of that. And it can be, you know, powerful if you’re spreading your message to the masses with like a mass product, whether it’s a book, an iPhone app or some kind of physical product. So it really depends on, you know, is your message one really for the mainstream mainstream masses, or are you going for a more niche audience? And then also like considering where do you really shine? You know, for some people they really wanna stick to the written word and that’s really where their magic comes out for other people like videos where it’s at. So but I would say in terms of like the law of least effort, the most natural path, it would be building out some basic online presence then going into guest posting then podcasting. And then if you want to moving your way up to magazines and TV.
RV (08:38):
Yeah. It’s interesting. You know, just that whole, this whole conversation that you just went through, which I love the publicity pyramid is what you call it Uhhuh. So, so great. Such a simple framework is so powerful is, you know, people go, oh, magazines and TV is so sexy, but like you’re gonna get way more business from podcasts and guest posting mm-hmm
RV (09:34):
They’re super credible, you know? Or they’re like, you know, some world renowned person in, in, in their field. Yeah. You know, or they’re like famous for, for whatever. And in TV a lot of times it’s like, oh yeah, of course they’re gonna have Brad pit or whoever on there for something. But when it comes to featuring books, I’m often surprised that if you’re a mainstream person, it’s not an automatic laydown they might not have Gary Vayner Chuck on just because it’s Gary Vayner, Chuck, sometimes they do. But a lot of times they have newer authors on or people that I, that you haven’t heard of. In other words, it’s, it feels more random in terms of the, in terms of the selection. It’s not like, oh, this person checks every single box. And so they get invited on this huge show. It’s a little bit of that, but I, you know, a lot of times they they’ll, they’ll grab people that are like newer. I mean, I got on Fox and friends as a first time author. Like the week after my first book came out was my first national TV appearance. And I was like, well, that’s random. Like what are they doing with, what are they doing with me? So like, how do, is there anything you can speak to until like, how do you get those spots? Do, is there anything they are looking for or not looking for? Like for TV specifically?
SS (10:48):
Yeah. I mean, I would say, you know, you wanna differentiate between local news and national news because for local TV they have a responsibility to share the stories and ideas of local experts. So, you know, if you’re an author, you know, think about, well, what cities am I connected to? Where was I born? Where did I go to college? Where have I worked? Where am I living
RV (11:09):
Now? Oh, that’s good.
SS (11:10):
Right. So I would identify all those places and really start with those markets. Because if you can mention your local connection, then you’re kind of at the top of the priority list. So that’s, you know, that’s important. And I would say that before you go on national TV, I mean, that’s incredible that, you know, you were on these national shows, but I also think a big part of it is that you done an amazing job of building your personal brand, that they, they probably had confidence that, you know, you were good on video, but I will say for national TV, they’re gonna wanna see that someone has ideally been on local TV first. Because you know, just cuz someone’s good at the podcast interview doesn’t mean that they’re gonna be good at TV. They’re gonna consider like, you know, do they have a great setup with lighting?
SS (11:52):
Can they, they speak in soundbites because some people, yeah, they can talk on a 30 minute or one hour podcast interview, but can you speak succinctly in a four minute interview? So there’s a lot more at stake and it’s not like with podcast interviews where they’re gonna be editing it later, like you kind of gotta get it right at the first shop. So I will say for like the big leagues, like the big national outlets they’re definitely doing the research in terms of what that person’s personal brand is. Have they done TV before? Are they confident? Do they, you know, smile? Are they presentable? So I would say the first stop is really, you know, to start with local news. And then once you have those TV clips, then when you’re sending in your pitch, you wanna share that so they can see, you know, you have that experience.
RV (12:34):
That’s so good. And, and that, that is, that is so true. Selena that like, you know, I love podcasts. I feel so super at home on podcast. TV goes so fast, it’s it? It four minutes blows by and it’s like, you don’t have time for a setup. There’s no time for backstory. It’s like, you just gotta deliver sound bites. They gotta be tight and sharp. It’s, it’s a different, it’s a different, it’s a different skillset. And, and being on local TV is, is, is, is huge. I love that tip about too, you know, what’s your connection to local. And I would, I would, I would tell somebody, listening, you know, you think you wanna be on good morning America right now, but you actually don’t, you, you don’t want to be on there until you’re ready for it, which is until you’ve had some, you’ve had some reps at local TV, you have the sound bites and like your website is ready for it. And you’re like prepared to like receive that traffic and capture. But yeah, TV is a TV is a is a, is a different beast.
SS (13:38):
And the other thing that I will say is with TV, like they’re really looking to capture people’s interests, you know, with visuals, right. Cause you’re watching TV. So, you know, if you have good role of you, you know, I don’t know, working with clients or if you have like live exercise that the TV audience can do, like those are gonna be things that are interesting if you’re just a talking head like, and it’s just, you know, all they’re seeing is someone talking for four minutes straight. It’s not as interesting. So just know that when the producers are thinking about, well, I have a person on their show, they’re gonna think about not just what are the words are gonna kind of the person’s mouth, but is there something that the person that can share that can capture visual interest or is there activity that would be engaging to the audience?
RV (14:21):
Gosh, that’s so simple, but that’s, that makes so, so much sense. So when you make a pitch, would you include notes about like B roll that you would show or like a, if there’s a visual or something?
SS (14:33):
Yeah. So if you were say a love coach and you were pitching you know, you could talk about, you know, that you have clients that could come onto the show or you have like B role of you working with clients and so forth, or maybe there’s like an activity for someone to do to attract, you know, their soulmate. And maybe you would write out like what the activity activity would look like. Like maybe they need to have a journal that they did. They, they journal in 30 days and you would like mention all these different props so that the segment would look very dynamic where there’d be the talking head, but there would also be props and activities involved.
RV (15:06):
Yeah. That, and that’s why you see probably all the time you see like chefs on there, cuz it’s very visual. Cause they can cut and show the food and like show, show all the stuff. So it’s almost like you, when you’re pitching for TV, what I hear you saying is it’s like, you’re not even just pitching like the content of what you’re gonna say. Yeah. But almost like you’re pitching, think of it as pitching a segment to them of like how this could fold out visually and that makes it an easier. Yes.
SS (15:34):
Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, TV producers are so busy and, you know, think about like with a podcast, there’ll be a certain number of episodes that are released, you know, per month, but TV, I mean it’s kind of 24 7, right. It’s every day. So they constantly need new content. They need to keep it interesting. So if you, as an expert can pitch yourself or as a publicist pitch, you and you’re kind of like mapping out what this segment could look like. You’re presenting something on a silver platter and making it easier for them to say yes. So when there’s so many options, of course we’re gonna say yes to the person who makes our job easy for us.
RV (16:08):
Mm-Hmm
SS (16:56):
That’s such a great question. So I think it’s important to get clear on with your expert topics. Are they niche or are they mainstream? So when I’m speaking of expert topics, it’s like the things that you wanna be known for. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs can be multi passionate at the end of the day. You wanna hone in on a few key things. So for example, at one point I had a business mastermind and people in the mastermind would ask me questions about scaling their business and you know, if they should hire a senior project manager, well, if I started getting bored of my regular expert topic and just wanted a podcast talking about how to grow your team, well then people are gonna circle back and be like, oh, I wanna work with you to grow my team. But like my mastermind is something that maybe is only four 20 people.
SS (17:39):
Whereas with my programs, let’s say I have 500 people you know, in a particular group program. Right. So my primary group program has been a program called impacting millions and that’s about publicity. So if my intention was, I wanna get people enrolled to my publicity program, then what I’m talking about in the media should match my offerings. Right? So looking at your own business, what’s the 80 20, what does the majority of revenue come from? Which offering will, you know, based on that offering, that should be what your expert topic is. And so when you look at your expert topic, is it mainstream or niche? So for publicity, I would consider that to be a niche topic. For me, a mainstream topic is something that applies to most people. For example, if I was to talk about being an introvert, well, you know, half of the population are introverts like approximately.
SS (18:27):
So that would be mainstream. Or if I were talking about networking or relationship building that applies to everyone, whether you’re a student at college or you have, you know, professional job or you’re an entrepreneur, whereas publicity typically, you know, it applies to entrepreneurs who are building their personal brands. So that’s a bit more niche. So knowing that with my offerings, I’m looking for a niche audience, not just kind of anybody I’m gonna target more niche media. So it might not have the same reach, but it’s gonna help me get in front of the right people. So those are the things I consider. But then there’s also, you know, there is a role for just personal brand building in terms of media. You know, there are certain brand names that are very recognizable, like Forbes and business insider. And so, you know, being featured in those outlets can also be really powerful whether or not your ideal client has actually read the article that you’re featured in.
SS (19:23):
But if they just see those media logos on, you know, your site, they see you as a credible expert. And the other thing that you can do with your email list is when you get your media features, you know, put them in front of them, you can add them to your email nurture sequence. You know, you can add those, you know, media logos and trust symbols next to you know, places where people opt in or, you know, make purchasing decisions. So I think that when it comes to publicity, it’s sort of multifaceted. I would say primarily you wanna get in front of people who are your ideal clients, but there is also something to be said about prestige media as well.
RV (19:58):
Yeah, that, I mean, I, I love that. And I agree with that so much. The I have found that most of the major national stuff, the real, the primarily the only real value of the media appearance is how you repurpose the appearance, basically putting it on your website. Also those of you that are speakers, you know, in your demo videos, or even if you’re a coach and you’re not a speaker, you could still have like a little, you know, little bio video. And I’m just pulling up, I’m pulling up a data point on this just for everybody. So one of the things that we did Selena was we led this trends in personal branding, national research study. And we we partnered with this PhD led research firm. And we asked, you know, all these different questions, but one of the questions was how important are each of the following when it comes to paying someone more for a product or service.
RV (20:58):
So I just wanna put a data point here behind something that Sina is saying. So, and we asked you have a, a Ted talk, a New York times bestselling book, a wall street journal, bestselling book a social media file. I’ll go ahead and show this on the screen for those of you that are watch watching this on YouTube. So I had to, I had to pull it up quick. So page 60 of our, of our report which is free, y’all know that you can, you can download this at on brand builders, group.com. But the number one thing that clients say they’re willing to pay more money for is when they see testimonials from their, from their customers. The second is that they’re paid to consult or speak, but the fourth. So this is a list of like 20 things, the fourth, and this is waited to the us census.
RV (21:49):
52% of Americans say they are more likely to pay more money to, to buy a product or service from someone who has been featured in the media as an expert. So that is an actual data point that is supporting what Selena is saying. And of course, we’ve, we’ve talked about this study in other times. And usually the point we make is actually the average pub person in the public doesn’t care that much about a New York times bestselling book or a wall street journal or a viral, you know, Ted talk, they care about testimonials and they care about, are you being paid to speak or, or consult. And then the fourth is that they care are that you’re appearing in the media. 52% of Americans say, they’ll pay you more money just because you have those logos on your site. So like Selena, that is amazing. Like, what do you call it? Prestige? Is that what you called it? Prestige. Pre
SS (22:45):
Prestige. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-Hmm
RV (22:48):
I love that. So prestige PR, so that’s really, really cool. And so the mainstream stuff too, is like, you know, so it’s like money, sex, careers relationships, like, you know, self
SS (23:03):
Productivity, success,
RV (23:04):
Productivity. Yeah. Those mm-hmm
SS (24:08):
I think it’s the same thing. Like having media, it builds your credibility as a go to expert, as you said, people are willing to pay you more, but also people are more interested inviting you to come in to be a speaker at their event. You know, there’s just more trust or more likely to take the meeting. Right? One of the first things that anyone does, you know, before they respond to someone or say yes to a request is they do a quick Google search on them. And when they land on their website, if they see media logos, it’s like, okay, this person is the real deal. And it just also shows that like, you’re taking your work seriously. If someone is just like quietly, you know, doing their work, but they’re not out there sharing their ideas. They’re not building that body of work. They’re not really seen as the real deal. So I would say that media is the ultimate credibility marker. It’s something that every person understands. Whereas if you’re like, oh, I had a webinar with, you know, a thousand people on people don’t really know what that means, but they understand what it means to be featured in a top, you know, magazine, newspaper, podcast, and so forth.
RV (25:07):
Yeah. Yeah. It is. It’s definitely this like universal credibility indicator. I, I I know we’re wrapping up one thing I wanna do how do you find these people? Okay. So, so let’s say, I mean, of course you could hire a publicist and then when you hire a publicist, you’re sort of treading off of that. They already have contact information and relationships with people, and that’s really what you’re paying for. You know, when you, I, I feel like when you hire a publicist, you’re paying for someone who has the contact information readily available and who has relationships to make that for you? They don’t, none of them guarantee results. Yeah. And and they get varying results partly based on their relationship, but largely based on your position in the marketplace. But if you’re gonna do it yourself and, and we’ve, we’ve actually had a lot of people be very successful doing it themselves. I, it how, how do you find the outlets? Like how do you find the people? I mean, do you basically just go to Google or like there anything specific you’re typing in to like find the right person to pitch to?
SS (26:13):
Yeah. I think the first step is figuring out what are the right media outlets for me. So I can share like a couple of very quick strategies that I think will help people a lot. So one of my favorite techniques is called the follow, the leader technique. That’s something that I created. Yeah. So getting clear on, okay, what’s my expert topic. So let’s say someone’s expert topic was, you know, public speaking then they wanna think about who are some other leaders either in their industry or connected to them, right. So they might be looking at well, who else is teaching on visibility? Maybe it’s a publicity expert. Maybe it’s a public speaking coach. Maybe it’s someone that specializes in getting people Ted talks, right. And then doing a Google search on them and seeing what kind of media they’ve been featured in, you know, maybe going to their website and seeing if their media page or even going to specialize search engine.
SS (27:05):
So there’s a search engine called listen, notes.com.com it’s for podcasts. And so if you type in someone’s name into that search engine, within moments, all the podcasts that they’ve been featured on are gonna come up. So if you do that exercise with five people in your industry in no time, you’re gonna have a media list of dozens of targeted outlets that top leaders in your industry have been featured in. And so these are places that you’ll wanna be considering for your own media list. So, you know, using the fall a leader technique is super, super powerful. Also even doing things like leveraging existing research, if you wanna be on top business podcast, literally type into Google, a top business podcast, and people have compiled the top 20, the top 50, the top, you know, a hundred business podcasts. And you can leverage that existing research to start building your own personal media list.
RV (27:55):
Yeah, that’s funny. Yeah. That’s how I, that’s how I met Celine. Actually, she was doing a four podcast on the top personal brand. No, I think it was top podcast for business and, and somebody. Yeah. John Lee Dumas introduced her to us. So that was actually, she put an article together, which was an amazing article. Yeah. And yeah, you mentioned listen notes, which is a great one because that is I was gonna, I was gonna mention, I was gonna mention that there’s another really great tool and I’m trying to remember what it is that will tell you that’s kind of similar listen notes is the best for podcasts for sure. There’s another one that you can like search by topic and it will tell you all of the people who are spark Toro, have you heard of spark Toro?
SS (28:49):
No, I feel like I need to write this down.
RV (28:51):
SS (29:54):
Absolutely. So the thing I’m most excited to share is my 12 month publicity calendar, because when it comes to getting to the media, there’s a few things that you need to understand. First of all, like what kinds of story ideas are they looking for? And one of the things that they’re looking for are timely story ideas. So every single month there are certain themes. And if you can hit on these themes, you’re more likely to get accepted onto podcasts, onto TV, in magazines and so forth. So I have a 12 month media calendar it’s full of 40 pages worth of store ideas, special hooks and dates to help you get into the media. And you love it. Yeah. Impacting millions.com/calendar. And people have used this to not just map out their publicity plans for the year, but they’ve also used it to map out their social media content, their newsletter content. So people can go ahead and get an impacting millions.com/calendar. This took me like a ridiculous number of hours to put together. And it’s 40 pages worth of time saving tips and resources and dates to help you get into the media. So you can go ahead and check it [email protected] slash calendar
RV (30:59):
Genius. I we don’t even have an affiliate link for this, but I went and did it myself. Great lead magnet, so useful and so practical because yeah, it gives you a way, like, all you need to know is what are the topics they’re interested in every month and then just like position what you do to that. Fantastic. So I’m downloading that we’ll put a link to impacting millions.com in the show notes slash slash calendar, impacting millions.com/calendar. You guys can check it out make sure you follow Selena online and send her some love. If you picked up some tips, let her know that you found her from our crew here. And gosh, Selena, this is just so cool. And I’m so great. I’m so glad to finally meet you in person. You, you are an example of your reputation procedures, you, and that’s what we want all of our clients to be. It’s what we try to aspire to be. And you got great tips, a great lead magnet, just, you know, I love it. So we wish you, we wish you the best. Thanks for coming.
SS (32:00):
Thanks so much.
Ep 313: Creating Videos That Go Viral with Travis Blakely and Teun Van Der Lugt | Recap Episode
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:54):
All right. Y’all here I am on the recap episode of my conversation with Travis and Tony from interlight media y’all such a good interview, such good human. So insightful worked with so many amazing content creators anyone from Lewis Howes to Jay Shetty you like so, so many individuals right soon to be AJ and Rory vaden
AJV (01:48):
And he said he got that from prince back in the day when they were working together. But plan B is just to make sure that plan a works. In other words, don’t give up. Right. when you don’t think you’re seeing progress, you are, you just don’t see it. It’s, it’s hard to see the forest through the tree sometimes, and you gotta acknowledge the mini victories along the way, because there are some, there’s a victory every day. There’s progress made every single day, but we gotta be looking for that. But don’t give up, don’t quit cuz you think it’s hard? I just there’s so much power and just going, man. It is it’s. There is no overnight success, right? There is gradual consistent success. So just don’t give up. Right? So plan B to make sure plan a works. I love that.
AJV (02:35):
It was such a good, true thing. Second thing we were talking about how do you create more authenticity in video, which is a huge part of what they do at interlink media. Like their tagline is making videos go viral. And so I said, well, how do you create more authenticity on videos? And I love what they said. They said, you’ve gotta focus on the feeling that you want your audience to feel. And that was like really important to hear. I think often I don’t think about that. I don’t know about you, but I often am thinking about like, what content do I wanna share? What point do I wanna make? What story do I want to share, but I’m not thinking about the feeling, but I know for a fact of just listening to this conversation, if I know that the feeling I want to share is hope I will come at it with a different angle, a different tone a different dimension of anything from my voice to my, my facial expressions, my examples, but I gotta focus on the feeling.
AJV (03:39):
Right. And, and it’s true because it’s like, we’ve all heard. It’s like, people don’t remember what you say as much as they remember how you made them feel. So if you wanna come across with more authenticity, it’s like focus on the feeling that you want your audience to experience when you’re sharing your content, when you’re sharing your message. And that’s always easier to do when you’re talking about something that you actually care about. So talk about what you actually care about. That makes a difference. Second thing around this authenticity is ask yourself before you start, who is that one person that you need to show up for today? Right? So before you start your video, before you start sharing your content, before you hit record, ask yourself who is that one person in my life that I need to show up for? And what do I need to say to them?
AJV (04:35):
What do they need to hear? And Travis was talking about how I’m always constantly reminding myself if I only had 30 days to live a little bit morbid, but if I only had 30 days to live, what is the one message I would wanna share who needs to hear it? And who is that person I need to show up for that one person. Just having that one person in your mind. Really again, changes the tone and the feeling and the emotion of what you’re trying to say again, back to that feeling that you’re trying to get across. So who is that one person, keep that person in your mind visualize them, see them, talk to that person and ask yourself how you need to show up for them. What do they need from you? What do they need to hear from you?
AJV (05:20):
And then last but not least, this is from Travis and Tony, both. But I think this is so important. It’s focus your efforts on one message. And on one platform, we talk about this all the time at brand builders group that you break through Shehan wall you break through the noise by intentional focused effort while it’s no different on social media, you do not have to be everywhere all the time. So pick one platform and do it exceptionally well, then add another platform, calm down, do not exhaust yourself, pick one and do it really, really well. Thanks. Y’all hope you enjoyed go listen to the full episode and we’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 312: Creating Videos That Go Viral with Travis Blakely and Teun van der Lugt
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:53):
Hey, all this is AJ Vaden. Welcome to the influential personal brand podcast. I am one of your co-hosts here today, and I’ve got two friends on the podcast today, which is not normal. We usually don’t get two. So double the fun for the next 45 minutes, get excited. But these are actually two newer friends of mine. Met them through a really good friend of mine Carrie, Jack, but then we learned through conversations that, wow, we actually have a lot of friends in common. And in fact, Tony and Travis have done work with some of people that we’re super connected to like, like Louis House and lots of different shared connections along the way. And I love, I love what they’re doing. And I actually started following Travis on social media. You guys will get to hear from both Travis and Tony in just a second.
AJV (01:46):
But I really got interested because of his like motivational inspirational messages. And then I came to learn like, oh, they actually help videos go viral. And when I first started fol, I didn’t know, that’s what they did. I just really liked his vibe. And I thought what he was doing was really cool. And then we had mutual friends and then I started like stalking their website and going through all their different things. And I’m like, wow, you guys have had some amazing clients like prince CA and Louis House and Tom Billue and some like really Jay Shetty, some like really amazing clients that you’ve done work with. And so, so glad that we got connected and we’ve got like this unique, common set of friends that we didn’t even know existed. And so I invited them to come on the show today and here are two reasons that you wanna stick around is one.
AJV (02:37):
I know that 99% of you who are listening would like to know, is there some sort of secret formula and how to make a video go viral? And I’m not saying that Travis and Tony have the answer to this secret formula, but they might, you have to stick around to find out. And the second second reason is because video is king, right? Video is where it’s at. There is so much power in video. I have my own beliefs of why that is. There’s a human connection part. But there is also some really good dos and don’ts of how to do video successfully. And we’re gonna talk about some of those two and in between, we’re gonna get to learn about two really awesome human beings who have incredible backgrounds and who have worked for incredible individuals and companies and have outstanding work. So without further ado, both of you welcome to the show.
TB (03:29):
Thank you. Is a massive pleasure.
TV (03:34):
Yes. Thank you for having us.
AJV (03:36):
Oh my gosh. It’s gonna be so fun. And Tony is is his morning. It’s our afternoon. Yeah. And so you’re in Amsterdam, right?
TV (03:45):
No, right now I’m in, I’m in Tokyo right now. Oh, you’re
AJV (03:47):
In Tokyo.
TV (03:47):
AJV (03:50):
I’m pretty sure you’re not in Tokyo. You’re you’re, you’re traveling the globe. Alright, so I’m gonna give both of you guys a separate chance. So I’m gonna start with Tony. So, you know, you’ve done some pretty cool work and you know, a company that you know is so funny. I was talking to my husband about this and he goes, I’m sorry, he he’s done video work for, for who? For mine valley
TV (04:27):
Right.
TV (05:19):
Youtube was definitely out there. Facebook was definitely out there, but I don’t think a lot of people saw that there’s a big connection between business and social media. Back then it was just, Hey, let’s, it’s cool. Let’s make a post, a video on social media and see what happens. So I didn’t see any direction. And then, then I already like I love to travel. I wanted to leave my own country and but at the same time oh, how old was I then back 24, something like that. I kind of had in my mind, also a bit of a social pressure that you need to find a bit of a career path at one point. So that’s what I was hoping to find something that combined boat like somewhere I could like, you know, leave my country and yeah, find a career basically.
TV (06:04):
And that’s, I don’t, I don’t really don’t know. That was just, I think just a random YouTube video that that, that saw that, which I saw mind value as a company. And I just really wanted to work there. I don’t know. It was just the whole vibe that they portrayed, like the, the, the personal development, which I was really into the mission that they have of changing education which, which I still firmly stand behind as well. Like because like yet, like school, wasn’t the best for me, for me either, maybe for a lot of people. So I really believed everything they say. So I just really wanted to work there. It didn’t even matter if I needed to do video or something else. I just really wanted to work there. So yeah, I, I applied I didn’t get into the film team because like, they, they have a whole separate film team, but cuz I was not experienced enough, but so I joined the customer support team, but then within two months they, they saw Tony, we need you in the film team actually.
TV (06:57):
So I’m like, oh, okay, cool. Let’s, let’s get, let’s get going. And that’s how, that’s how I got there that so cool. Yeah, so, so I really went for, like, I worked there for three, for three years. I would say I learned like everything that I needed to learn about video in this space. You know, when it comes to marketing videos, product launches event videos and most importantly social media videos and yeah, that’s and after three years I thought it’s time to go on my own, quit mind valley on very good terms and moved to Bali because mind valley itself is based in GU Lumpur. So Bali wasn’t so far around the corner from there moved there and I really don’t know how to this day, but on some random day Travis sent me a message on Instagram and I have a following like I mean back then, like it was even like a thousand, so I have no clue where that came from
AJV (07:58):
Oh my gosh. I think there’s two really important things in there that I think is amazing. It’s in this era of the quote unquote great resignation that people talk about I love what Ariana Huffington says. She goes, it’s not the great resignation, it’s the great reevaluation of what are people wanting out of their work experience and to see that you found a company on YouTube yeah. Through a video and said I am for what they believe in. I don’t even care if I can’t do what I wanna do. I’ll do whatever they’ll take me for you do not hear a lot of that right now, especially from millennials. And I can say that because I am one too.
AJV (08:55):
I just wanna work for this video. Yeah. I think that’s a great reminder to all of us that having a great presence online and offline really means a lot, not just for income and revenue and sales, but also for talent, attraction, talent, acquisition, and retention. Like that’s pretty cool to hear. And I think the second thing you said that I wanna highlight to everyone listening, cause I think this is substantial is that when Travis found you, however miraculous event occurred, that that happened, you had less than a thousand followers. So it ain’t about the followers. Y’all right. It’s not always about the followers. So don’t get obsessed with the follower, count thinking somehow what you’re doing doesn’t matter that it is just not true. It’s just not true. Yeah. yeah, so, so cool. Both of those things I love that. Okay. All right. Travis, tell us, I wanna know cuz like, for those of you who’t know, like Travis is the CEO of inter like media he and I have got these like awesome little like growing group of like mutual friends. So tell us like how, how did you get into this space? Like why start this type of, you know, viral video, social media, social media management company, like how’d you get into that? Like you also are doing your own personal brand, like why that like fill in?
TB (10:14):
Yeah. whew. Where did I start? I loving
AJV (10:17):
Question. Right.
TB (10:21):
So I come from St. Louis, Missouri. I grew up, you know, in children’s homes did had a very bleak future. Didn’t really have much to look forward to and didn’t really know what I wanted to do in my life. So as I got older I ran into a gentleman by the name of Princey, by the way I ran into him online. First I seen his video, he had a video called something about saving hip hop. I can’t remember the exact name of the, the video and this was back in like 2009. And it was a very similar thing to what Tony just said. I thought what prince was doing was super amazing. And at the time he was, you know, pretty local. He didn’t really have a whole lot of followers. And, but I believed in that mission, you know, he had something called make smart, cool, smart, being an acronym for sophisticated minds and revolutionizing thought.
TB (11:23):
So I thought that was a pretty powerful message that he created wanted to be a part of it. I, I felt like it was time for me to really dive into my mission. Ironically, this is, I was around the same age that Tony was talking. I was 25 years old at the time. And so as I looked more into it, me and him connected me and him developed a really close friendship. I mean, we were best friends for a very, very long time. And during that time period from 2010 to 2000, I met him in 2009, but from 2010 to 2014, we spent that time really trying to figure out how do we connect with people online, right. How do we go viral? Right. He always had this philosophy of why should I do a show in front of a thousand people when I could do a video and get it in front of a hundred thousand people.
TB (12:22):
So that always clicked in my mind that always let me know the power of video at that point. Like yo the, the, the online spaces where it’s at, because you could definitely connect with, with more minds that way. And so in 2014, kind of like the code was broken, right. Where we went from, you know, getting maybe a few hundred thousand views to maybe a million views to now a video getting over a hundred million views. And then every video after that was getting hundreds of millions of views is just like, wouldn’t stop. Like it was to the point where it’s like, yo, this is like crazy. Like what next? Right?
TB (13:17):
We went through four years trying to figure this out. And there was a lot of doubt creeping up. A lot of times that we thought it just wasn’t gonna happen. But yeah, so, you know, eventually as you know, we were continually going viral, people were reaching out, you know you know, I, since I was, you know, one prince with Princey since the beginning, I was, I, I knew everything because I ran a social, I was part of the videos. I was part of the creation process. Like I literally did everything with them. So I, I knew what it took to build that audience, to build that community, what the creation process is like. And so when other people started reaching out people like, you know, Jay and Lewis and, and people like that, trying to figure out, Hey, listen, they kind of like want to, you know, create content and, and, and really kind of like go to the next level.
TB (14:11):
Me and Jay developed a friendship too as well, you know? And we started working together. You know, I ended up working with Lewis from there. I ended up working with Tom, Billy and a bunch of other people, because for me interlight media, the name of my company. It, it stems from that. We all have interlight, you know, we all have a fire inside of us. Right. I believe that everybody has a purpose and that we are, as we are living in our purpose, our purpose is helping to inspire someone else to live theirs. So I am taking my talents to help other people flesh out their stuff, create, build their community out reach as many people as possible. So their inspiration can meet as many people as possible, and their impact can reach as many as possible. And it just continues to have a compound effect. But yeah, so this has been a life long dream of mine. I am thankfully living my dream now. And it’s been quite a journey.
AJV (15:17):
Yeah. That’s so cool. I love, I love what you said too, is like about the name of the company inner light because there there’s this light within all of us. And I think too, it’s kind of like, what you do is it’s, it’s helping showcase the inner light. Right. And one of the best ways you can do that is on video. And just in social, you just, you’ve got more reach. And there’s, there’s one thing you said, but I wanna go back to it’s like, y’all were trying to figure this out for like four years. Yeah. Not four weeks, not four months, but four years. Yeah. And I think that’s significant because we all know that we live in a society of like, we want it, we want it right now. And you know, it’s, we often are talking to people in our community at brain builders group where they’ve been at, they’ve been working at building their brand for six months. And they’re just like, man, I’m just, we’re not, I’m not seeing the progress. And I’m like, mm-hmm,
TB (16:36):
So two things prince always said something that, you know, was really it’s a really powerful thing you used to say, plan B is to make plan a work. Right. Mm-hmm
TB (17:46):
I am not living my true self. And so for me, I would rather spend every single day living my purpose or trying to fulfill what I am supposed to fulfill. What I know my purpose is than trying to do it for somebody else. Right. Than trying to just go along with the, get along right. Where you’re just like doing things to survive. And that’s not really my thing. I didn’t want do it for the money. I didn’t wanna do it for anything else. I really wanted to have an impact because I, I, I just genuinely have this belief that serving a million people is a much better pursuit of your gifts and talents than trying to get a million dollars. Because if you serve a million people more than likely, you’re gonna get a million dollars anyway. But even if you don’t the service and the act in itself is gonna be fulfilling for you. Oh yeah. So for me, I have always had this idea, especially coming from a very poverty background that once I was able to have that impact and serve people, that was gonna be my fulfillment. And I always had this idea that like getting the money was gonna be the byproduct anyway. But even if it wasn’t, I’m still gonna be happy. So,
AJV (19:06):
Oh, that’s so good. You know, we have this, you know, reminder for ourselves too. Like my husband, Roy Fain, and I who are business partners, as you guys know, it’s like, we have to constantly remind ourselves it’s about the power of the one, right? Not the 1000 or the a hundred thousand or the 1 million. It’s the power of the one. But because in reality, in real life, if I knew that I changed the life of one person, that would be good enough for me. But somehow we get online, we get on social media and if I only have one like, or one share, it feels like a failure. Yeah. But in real life. Yeah. If I knew that I’d changed the life of one person, it would all be worth it. Yeah. And then somehow online it gets devalued or minimized to what was just one like, and it’s like, well, that’s one person.
AJV (19:58):
Yeah. Right. It’s the power of the, one of trying not to look at the count so much trying and staying focused on the mission. Right. Staying focused on serving, like what you said is like, even if it doesn’t work, it’ll be fulfilling in the process. I love that. That’s so good. Y’all I’m so excited to have you guys on and just talk about this. And so so let’s do that. So for all these listeners out there who are building their personal brands, aspire to do these things and have their message heard right. By the one or the 1 million, whatever it may be. I would love to, I wanna hear from two different perspectives. Right. Cause I’m gonna guess that Tony, I could be wrong, but you prefer to perhaps be behind the scenes.
TV (20:41):
Both. Both ways. Yeah. Like I, I, I like to for sure, like, you know, like I lead a video editing team. I, I make my own, my own videos as well, video editing, but what you do really realize that a lot of these people we work with what I notice at least is that there is still like a gap between the knowledge of creating videos. And what I mean by that, like, everybody can make a video nowadays. That’s that, that’s amazing. You know, like I got an iPhone 13, like the camera on it is like amazing. Like I can create the best videos with that. So I, I encourage people to do that as well, but I, I fully understand that there’s still like a little barrier you need to overtake. And that’s actually like, you know, especially if you’re doing it by yourself, go into a room by yourself, turning it on by yourself, standing in front of the camera, by yourself and getting the energy out of yourself to actually say something. So that’s what I, like, I try to be on set. Like even, even it can be remotely just even just for like that direction, that like energy push. Oh, that’s all them basically. Yeah.
AJV (21:49):
That’s really, I’m important. I’m curious to hear the director mentality in you of going, like, what, what do people need to be doing to be more relatable, personable, engaging charismatic. Like, what are some of the tips that people need to be doing to be better on video? Yeah,
TV (22:10):
Well, like, honestly, I, I think like, especially when, when you’re really starting out the first thing people do and I totally understand it is compare. Like they compare right from the start like, oh, Hey let’s say prince or Jay. I really like what they’re doing. I wanna do that. And they, they then, and then they come to me, like they come forever say, can you, can you make that like, and on my end, as a creation, I’ll always say yes. Yeah, for sure we can do that. There’s no problem. But I think there’s, there’s still a difference in us making a, a crazy edit, like that can go far out of nothing. Yeah. And actually the quality that we’re getting, cuz like we, we, we fail to understand like prince CA or J she Lewis house. These people have been in front of the camera for like years.
TV (22:56):
I would say there’s, there’s just a lot of experience in there that you can’t get out of in like your first take. There’s no way there’s no way which is totally fine. So that’s something that, that you should need to grow into. But the second thing, like it may sound stupid. I really prefer then when people start to go on camera, they really need to loosen up. They really need to loosen up. So that’s why I prefer to be there. So when I’m gonna be on set remotely or in person, I just, you know, like we start making jokes a bit.
AJV (23:35):
10 pushups or 10 shots of either one. They go,
TV (23:39):
Yeah, 10 shots of the
AJV (23:39):
Kilo, like whatever works,
TV (23:41):
Get something
AJV (23:42):
TV (23:42):
Exactly. Exactly. And when it to scripting, like a script is very important, but at the same time, you know, I, I would say like the best, best process for me would always be like, make a script, put it in bullet points and learn that. So you can say it in your own voice. Like if you’re gonna rehearse the exact thing that you wrote down, not saying it’s not possible for sure. It’s possible, but like the greatest, like I’ve met some of the greatest creators. They, they really just read off a script, but it’s hard to get your personality out of a script, especially if you haven’t even read renew yourself. So that’s why the bullet points are so yeah. And, and just get loose, you know, just, you know, make a bit of fun, jump a bit around and don’t worry about the edit. Like in, in the edit we can do everything.
AJV (24:26):
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting because I think, I think that’s a huge part of even like what we see with even people on our team. Like we do this, this doesn’t mean it’s, it’s easy, but there’s some people on our team who are super adverse to video and it’s like, there’s super charismatic, engage human, engage, engaging humans. And then as soon as that red light goes on, they’re like, you’re in the headlight. And I’m like, who are you? And where did you go? Like what, what just happened to our friend? What just happened? And it’s a bizarre thing. And what I have found is that, you know, there’s two things. One is that they are literally trying to remember their script and it’s, you know, one of the things I have to constantly remind myself, it’s like, this is my content. I don’t need a script.
AJV (25:11):
Yeah. I just need to be myself. Why am I scripting out my own content? And it’s because I’m, don’t feel confident, right? It’s not the content it’s like, I’m worried about, does my hair have strays? Like, does my face look fat? Do I have a double chin right now? It’s like, it’s all these little things that we get obsessed with. And we forget, and this is like, my husband tells me this all the time. He goes, if you’re focused on you, that’s why you’re nervous. And he goes, anytime you’re nervous, it’s because you’re focused on yourself. But when you’re focused on others, it’s hard to be nervous. And so we have this little saying in our company, is that when you’re focused on service, it’s hard to be nervous. Mm-Hmm
TV (26:12):
Yeah. And I think, I think it’s a good point that you touched as well when, when it comes comes to, to, to those things. Like one, like, I think like, again, people really under underestimate, like, I mean, you have to have a good edit there, I reckon. And here we are, but
AJV (27:12):
Oh yeah. And it’s like, then you’re talking about 15 things that make no sense.
TV (27:16):
Yeah, exactly. There’s no direction that’s going
AJV (27:18):
Fully aware of these, these videos. Yeah. That’s, that’s super, I think that’s super helpful is like you gotta bullet point out what you have to say, but keep it bullet points, not scripted. And it’s like, then you gotta figure out what’s gonna loosen you up. So play music, do pushups, take tequila shots, like whatever it is, like do what you gotta do to get yourself in a place where you’re not obsessing of what you look like on camera. Now Travis, you’re someone who’s in front of a camera a ton. So I’m curious to hear from you, not only from you yourself, but from working with all these pretty influential individuals who have built really big followings over the years, like, what would you say are the keys to a video? Getting a lot of traction,
TB (28:05):
Getting a lot of traction. That’s a good question. When something is important to you, it’s usually important to somebody else. Hmm. I think probably the most fundamental thing to, to go viral or to make a video that’s meaningful and impactful is don’t base it off information base it off your feelings, meaning like carry that feeling into the video. How do you want somebody to feel right? That is what is gonna get people moving that’s what’s gonna get people to share is the feeling. Obviously you want to talk from a very, I’m a very data driven person, very factual. In fact, if you watch Prince’s video almost in every video, he’s, you know, listening out facts, but it’s more like a, a, he he’s using it. Right. it doesn’t carry the weight. Right? The weight is the feeling. How do you get people to feel a certain type of way?
TB (29:08):
Right? What are the things to say, right. Albert Einstein says, if you can’t explain this simply, you don’t understand it. Mm. So whenever you know, we are going into a video process, it’s about how do we explain this simply in a way that everybody can understand it, but we’re talking about something in a way that people understand that we care about it. Right. so that’s like, like kind of like the key and you carry that in each video. So for example, whenever he makes a video and this is something, you know, I run into when I’m talking to a lot of different entrepreneurs or people that’s making videos is, you know, sometimes I just kind of like wanna create content. It’s like, no, no, no. Every piece of content that you create should be the B like this is the best video you can create right now.
TB (29:55):
Mm-Hmm,
AJV (30:52):
Oh, that’s so good. I love that. You gotta focus on the feeling yeah. That you want people to feel. I think the other thing that you said that I think is so insightful is are you creating your best content right now? Or, you know, it’s like, I think we, so sometimes in this space of like building your personal brand and becoming more well known, we kind of get obsessed with, I gotta have something out. Right? Yeah. And so it’s like, perhaps you’re not doing your best content because you’re just trying to like, get something out. And I love it’s, you know, it’s that whole concept of save the best for first mm-hmm
TB (31:51):
Yeah. So a couple of things first off, you know, when it comes to creating content you have to know your industry. If you, or, you know, know your audience, know who you want to communicate to. So for example, if let’s just say you review baby products, right. Is, should be something you’re passionate about. Is this something you’re passionate about? Is this something you actually care about? Mm-Hmm
TB (32:47):
Mm-Hmm
TB (33:40):
Yeah. Which allows you to build a community of people that love you. Some that like you and some that are like, oh, okay. And then you are also gonna have some people that disagree with you and all that is fine because it’s about building your community and your authenticity. So if you’re consistent, you’re being authentic. You actually like what you’re talking about. And you’re passionate, what you’re talking about. You have some experience in it and you don’t have to be the first. You don’t have to be the best. You just have to be yourself. Mm-Hmm
AJV (34:35):
Oh yeah. I, this was beat into my heads. Like as soon as you started talking, I was like, oh my gosh, I haven’t thought about this quote in years, but this was beaten to my head early on, in my sales career. And you just made me think about, is that people don’t care how much, you know, until they know how much you care. Right. And it’s like, are you talking about stuff that you actually care about? Or you just out there, you know, trying to get that next, you know, sale or that next, whatever. I think that’s so good. And so you kind of teed up and I’d, I’d like to hear both of your perspectives on this. Is this concept of authenticity mm-hmm
AJV (35:27):
It’s like, you know, I’ve, I’ve got this one person in mind. It’s like, their content is amazing. And they’re amazing. It does not come across that way, but it’s like, man, if would just read their book or have a one on one over coffee, it’s like, they’re so wise. And so insightful that yet, because of this issue they have with like putting themselves out there, they’re kind of like the world’s best kept secret and not a good way. Right. So I wanna, I’d love to hear both of your perspectives. Like how do you create more authenticity for social media or your website or your podcast, or just anything to do with video when that’s really hard.
TV (36:08):
Yeah. Yeah. Like, I, I, I can if I can first say something actually that, because that’s, that’s a very common problem. I, I can totally get that. Like, it’s totally like, like you said, like you said before, the moment the red light goes on, like it’s, it’s, you’re in a different, different zone. So, so I totally get, so there’s two things to that one, obviously. And I think that that’s, that’s the, the, maybe the bad side of social media media, everything seems to be so easy. Everything seems to be so easy. So it’s very easy to compare yourself. The moment you get started to like Hey, you know, I want to be Gary V always tells me to be consistent and always post to video every day. So let me do that. And that that’s, that’s super hardening. Cuz then people forget to understand one.
TV (36:52):
He’s been doing it for quite some years. Two. He has a big team around him. There’s, there’s, there’s a whole, there’s a difference perspective in it that you don’t really see by watching it’s a machine behind it. So one, it takes time, you know, never, never think that the moment you start is gonna be the best ever. And second thing is like, it is true. There are two different types of people, one that can, that are just really good on camera. And everybody can learn that for sure. But it takes time. One PE some people are just naturally they go from the start. But a lot of people, like you said, you just said like, if, if, if you start talking to them, you get so much good information out of them, but it doesn’t translate well on camera. Well, what does that mean?
TV (37:31):
Like, for me that means like, okay, what if you just ha, if you record a conversation, then you know, why don’t you record like a zoom call with somebody? Like, we’re like, girl, you know, like, like a podcast like we’re doing right now. It’s different. The camera is on. Yes. But like, you know, we all kind of forget. Yeah. And then you still get the conversation out of it. And even from that part, send that to an editor. They can create a lot of cool, interesting snippets out of that. And then your authenticity is there.
AJV (37:59):
Oh, that’s so good for any of you who are listening. I just wanna make sure you hear that. It’s like, if you don’t have confidence or you feel insecure on camera, it’s like, just do it interview style, right? Have someone interview you, film it, send it to an editor and they’ll be able to take out the best parts of you talking. Right. That’s a really great tip because it’s like content comes in a variety of mediums. Right? So have someone interview you. That’s a really great format. Cause I feel the same way with a lot of people who have major fears around public speaking, but they don’t mind doing a panel. They don’t mind doing an interview. It’s just the concept of me standing on stage by myself, trying to tell all these people, something there doesn’t come across, but you sit ’em down on a couch with an interviewer and it’s like brilliance, just coming out of their mouth. Yeah. Somehow as this keynote speaker, doesn’t come out that way. So do an interview style. I love that. Yeah. That’s a great, tangible takeaway for anyone who doesn’t feel confident on camera to still create content and get your message out there. So, so love that.
TB (39:14):
Yeah. So one thing that I think this is gonna sound a little more bit, but it’s something for me that’s worked when communicating to my clients and wanting to create like the best pieces. You ask yourself this question. If you were to die in 30 days, what’s the one thing, the most important thing you want the world to know, like what what’s, if you knew you were gonna die in 30 days, what’s the most important thing you would want the world to know. Right? If you, if you think about that for a second and you give that message, when you’re coming from a place of, you know, what of, of your own mortality, it usually comes across as visceral as possible because you’re thinking to yourself, you know, this is the most important message to me. Mm-Hmm
TB (40:18):
Okay. Now that I’ve created that if I were to die, what’s the next most important video or what’s the most next important message that I would want to get across the world. And so what happens is this forces you to dig deep inside of yourself because it’s not about performing, right? It’s about talking to that one person. Like, because I know we’re talking to the world, but it’s really about talking to one person, right. When you’re talking to the camera, you’re not talking to the camera. You’re not even talking to yourself, you’re talking to one person, right? Who’s that one person, your client avatar or the individual that, you know, who’s, you know, if it’s, if it’s his story about something that you were going through, who’s that person that you wanna speak to imagine they need your help right now. Mm-Hmm
TB (41:10):
You’re gonna show up, oh, this person needs my help. I’m gonna show up. You know, that’s going to give you the energy and the empowerment to kind of like show up. And so that’s how I show up when I am making my videos or when I’m talking to clients, making them videos. Who’s that one person that you wanna show up for, let’s say they needed you right now. You’re gonna die in 30 days. Mm-Hmm
AJV (41:53):
Yeah.
TB (41:54):
And when you make it relatable and you connect, it becomes shareable.
AJV (41:58):
Mm-Hmm
TB (42:09):
Well, once I go through the process with them, yeah, not initially.
AJV (43:30):
That’s so good. I love that. And I know we’re coming up on time here. So I have just like one last question for each of you. So I’ll start, I’ll start with Tony. So here’s here’s my, here’s my last question for you. It’s like, if you had one creative piece of advice, right. For anyone out there who’s listening, it’s like, Hey, if you can just do this one thing, it’s going to help you get your message across on video, what would it be?
TV (44:02):
Oh, to get your message across on video? Well, I, I think people, well, I do think like a lot of people stress too much about it. Like, like, like you, like, you’re, like you said, like it’s, oh, I, I, I need to record something today because everybody tells me I need to be consistent. I need to post every single day on Instagram, on Instagram stories, YouTube, everywhere.
TV (44:52):
Don’t don’t please don’t think like that. I would for sure. Say like, you know, take your time one day, create a couple of videos, focus on one platform, just be a bit active on there. When it comes to, to quality focus, the quality on what you’re saying, that’s the most important and what you’re saying, not how it looks like. Not on a crazy edit. Just what are you saying? Start with there, start with there. And then, then you’re gonna create momentum in yourself, in your audience. And then from there, just take the next step. Like what could the next step be? Could it be a better edit? Could it be more clarity in what I’m saying? Better camera gear. Should I move to another platform? Those things, but calm down.
AJV (45:35):
I would
TV (45:36):
Say
AJV (45:36):
TV (45:57):
Yeah.
AJV (45:57):
Saying like, who is saying this? And like, why are they saying this? It’s like, you know, we get pressure. I get pressure. I shouldn’t say we, I get pressure. I, them, you need to be on TikTok. I’m like Noah don’t they’re like, oh yeah, you do. Yeah, exactly. Noah don’t. Yeah. I don’t wanna be on TikTok so I should not be on it.
TV (46:12):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it was funny cuz I was speaking to Travis actually last week and cuz I, I was also like, everybody kind of looks up to like these prince CAS and, and these J she and like they, they, they want to be consistent everywhere, but like, and or Gary VFR who is definitely consistent everywhere, but people really on the resume, like say prince say, Hey, he doesn’t drop a single, a video. Every single day of that quality. He drops once a month. Maybe sometimes once every two months. Mm-Hmm
AJV (46:51):
He literally had, but someone following him around with the video. Yeah. So until you got those resources, it’s like, yeah, like
TV (46:59):
Calm down, calm down,
AJV (47:00):
Calm down. It’s OK. That like the advice of the day, calm down. Good one Tommy. It’s so true. It’s like, you know, it’s like our, like even people in like our client community at brand builder’s group, it’s they stress themselves out of going, well, I have to do this and I have to do this. And I’m like, no, you don’t. Yeah, you don’t, you can, but you don’t have to. It’s like, you can actually be really successful and not even be on social media, spoiler alert. Right. It’s like, yeah, it’s not a dependent factor, but it definitely is a huge conduit of getting your message out there. Yes. Faster. Right. Okay. So Travis, here’s my last question for you. And it has to do with social media since inter like media is got this, it’s an amazing company doing really cool things. You had me at your hook making videos go viral. I was like, how do I learn more? Right. So I’m curious to hear your perspective of like, in order to really make social media work, what’s the first thing you need to do.
TB (48:11):
So interesting. I’ll tell this really quick story. So I had a company I work with for, for 90 days power for you out of salt lake city, Utah. And so first thing I did was identify what type of company is this? It’s a personal development company. I said, okay it’s a personal development company. So now I go to market research.com and say, all right, who’s into personal development, the most millennials. Okay. Millennials into personal developed the most. Okay. Where are these people located at California and New York, you know, places like that. Okay, great. Which platform are they on? Which social media platform are they on? Okay. So I see that they’re on Facebook mainly. Now this was a couple years ago, but, and so now it’s like Instagram and YouTube, but back then it was Facebook and YouTube.
TB (49:07):
Okay, cool. All right. Now I see who’s the top performing personal development coaches and, and influences on these platforms. So I check and see who’s the top performing influences on those platforms. Then I see the most viral videos that they are putting out. And then after I see which the most viral videos that they’re putting out, then I see the most common questions that people are asking in a comment section mm-hmm
AJV (50:25):
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s like how I translate that in my mind. It’s like, you gotta get so in tune with who your audience is, that everything else is second to that, right? Yeah. It’s like, where are they? What are they asking? What do they need? What do they want? And how can we give it to ’em in the way that they want it.
TB (50:43):
And, and also do want to, at this one last point, something Tony said, and I don’t want, wanted to gloss over choosing one platform, probably one of the biggest things that I run into, you know, entrepreneurs is they wanna be on every platform.
AJV (52:07):
Yeah.
TB (52:07):
And it’s much easier to learn how to build on one platform than it is on V. Yeah.
AJV (52:12):
So at least gives you more focus and tension and takes away the pressure of, and this and this and this and this. Exactly. which really quite honestly is probably what halts most people is. I feel like I just can’t keep up. I just can’t, I can’t do this so they don’t do anything. Yeah. So, so, so good. Anna lied. I’m gonna ask one last question to each of you. What’s your favorite, what’s your preferred platform, Tony? Like what’s your go-to platform? Just for curiosity sake.
TV (52:41):
AJV (52:42):
For me. Youtube. All right, Travis.
TB (52:45):
Yeah. YouTube is the platform for longevity. It’s the second big, biggest search engine. It’s evergreen. And honestly, anybody that wants a sustainable platform to build on YouTube is definitely number one. It’s not the quickest.
AJV (53:01):
Yeah, that’s so
TB (53:01):
Good. Y’all definitely the one that lasts the longest.
AJV (53:04):
Ugh. Y’all just so many awesome nuggets of information. So grateful for both of you guys coming on, everyone who is listening. I am telling you go check out interlight media. It’s I N N ER, not inter inner. You have to listen to my Southern accent and translate inner like you’re intervening you’re media, interlight media.com. Also you’ve got interlight social. Are those, do those go to the same place or is one better than the other?
TB (53:33):
So interlight media is the name of the company. Interlight social is the name of the website.
AJV (53:37):
See, that’s so glad I asked interlight social.com. I will make it correct in the show notes, ignore everything. I just said, enter like social.com is where you wanna go. We’ll make sure to have all the links in the show notes and y’all, if they wanna follow you on social media, where should they go? Travis,
TB (53:56):
Instagram and YouTube, just Travis believes. And if you Google, Travis believes you’ll find me everywhere. You’ll follow me on any platform. But Instagram and YouTube is where you’ll find me most active.
AJV (54:08):
Travis believes on Instagram and YouTube. And how about you? Tony
TV (54:12):
Instagram really plays that’s Instagram. That’s tone to Tony cuz my, my real, my Dutch name is tone. T E U N. It’s gonna be hard to pronounce for an English audience. So that’s why Tony
AJV (54:27):
Make it clear. I’ll put it in the show note. Yeah. Y’all thank you so much. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and all of your insights. We so appreciate it. Everyone else, make sure you catch the recap episode and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand. See y’all.
Ep 307: How to Dominate on YouTube with Evan Carmichael | Recap Episode
RV (00:07):
Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
RV (00:54):
Oh my gosh, Evan Carmichael blew my mind. Like it takes a lot. It takes a lot for me to find an educator on something related to personal branding where I go, holy moly. I’ve never heard that before. Now I, we ha this we’re on this episode here. We’re gonna break down. We’re gonna obviously break down what happened in, in the, the podcast interview that you just heard with Evan, but he came and did this, the training, you know, this very, this much longer in depth training for all of our, our monthly members. And it was just, just awesome, like really, really good and love, love seeing somebody who’s a really tactical expert and you know, somebody that we’re now confidently recommending, which, you know, we don’t, we don’t recommend people lightly, right? Like we, we, we flush out what they’re about and if we catch any sniff of them being weird or doing silly stuff, we immediately shut that down.
RV (01:51):
So if you go to brandbuildersgroup.com/evancarmichael you will hit our affiliate link and go over to his training. That is just, you know, that that’s, that’s his training, that’s his, his little monthly program. But for all of our, our like active coaching clients, he did came and did a special thing that we recorded. And it was like, oh my gosh, like just amazing. So anyways you can check that out brandbuildersgroup.com/evancarmichael, which is a link to some of his other stuff, but three, three biggest take takeaways here in terms of how to dominate on YouTube. My, my big three takeaways from the podcast interview specifically. So first of all this is something that’s not necessarily unique to Evan, but it’s super edifying to hear him talk about it. And it just reinforces one of our core central beliefs, which is put education in front of the sale, put education in front of the sale.
RV (02:52):
You have to, you, you, you have to earn the right to sell something to somebody you have to earn their trust. Trust has to be in place first before there’s a transaction. Trust must take place before there’s a transaction. Like the trust has to be in place first. How do you build trust with the stranger? The answer is you give you, don’t ask you, give you give value. First, you deliver first, you teach and, and, and most of you, most, most of our audience and in, in some way are experts and educators, right? Like you have some valuable knowledge that you’ve acquired over some journey you’ve been on in your life, which is what makes you a mission driven messenger, which if you’re listening to this show regularly, anyways, that’s who you are. You are a mission driven messenger. You’re, you’re, you’re, you’re feeling called to like, share your message with the world.
RV (03:49):
Well, why are you doing that’s because you’ve, you have some expertise. Why? Cause you walked the path, right? There’s a problem you’ve been down. There’s a challenge. You’ve conquered, there’s an obstacle you’ve overcome. So take that massive education and put it, give it away and put it up front first. And that is a core central belief. And, and I think when, when people get so lost in, like, how do I podcast? How do I YouTube? Like, what do I do on social media? Like, I don’t know what to post teach. ’em What, you know,
RV (04:39):
That is how you build trust. Like that, that’s it, that’s the secret. At least that’s our secret. If we got a secret, like however we’ve been able to do what we’ve been able to do. I mean, go look at my Instagram, go read my blog post, listen to all these podcasts you know, my books we sell for whatever, $12 on Amazon, but like, you know, we’re giving away everything. We can that we’re we’re, and we’re pumping it out into the universe as fast as humanly possible. Now I will say part of my action item from this E even though we know this part and we preach this part and we believe this and we do this part pretty well. I think, but was when Evan said you should, you, you should take your live coaching calls and publish those on YouTube. That’s really interesting because we, we do have our customers sign a release that, that gives us permission to, to, to do that.
RV (05:39):
And it, it does, I mean that that’s an infinite stream of content, right? An infinite stream of content is to go take questions for people and, and give them live coaching and publish that online, make that available to people. And I thought, huh, that’s fascinating. Like we’ve got hours and hours and hours and hours of that, but it doesn’t, you know, whatever it is, just teach, add value, share, educate, inspire, entertain. You know, the three E’s is what we, we talk about with our members, your, your, your content marketing strategy effectively is one of the three E you’re either, you know, educating, encouraging, or entertaining some mix of the three, but it’s typically one of those three, you’re either an educator, an encourager or an entertainer. And if you’re trying to sell stuff online, put education in front of the sale, give people a chance to sample you.
RV (06:33):
So anyways, that’s a, that’s a good one. Always good to be reminded of. Number two, my number two takeaway is make data driven decisions about your content specifically with YouTube, specifically, this audience retention curve concept. I mean, what, this, this is so simple and so practical, and like, anybody can do this. Like, why aren’t we, why aren’t we not doing this? This is so straightforward. And, and so if you miss the interview, what’s the audience retention curve. It’s a, it’s a tool it’s a widget on, in, in the back end of your YouTube channel that shows you second by second, how long people are watching and what’s gonna, what happens? You know, remember what he was saying here is, you know, typically the, the highest spike is the beginning is everybody starts watching. Almost everybody starts watching your video in the beginning, and then they keep for a little while, and then there’s some sharp drop off.
RV (07:35):
But then what you’re looking for are the spikes. Cuz if it’s flat, okay, if it’s flat, that means you held their attention. So that’s good. Like holding their attention is a massive victory. If it’s a drop that’s bad, that means we lost people. That means whatever we said right before it wasn’t interesting enough to help people keep hanging on, to hear what was coming next. So that is a big time problem. But then what you’re looking for are the spikes. The spikes are gold because what’s happening. There is people are pausing, rewinding and rewatching your video, which, you know, if you’ve ever wondered, like I wonder what’s the best part. Like if I, if I posted a 20 minute on VI video on YouTube, which 60 seconds of that video, should I post on Instagram reels or TikTok or like a YouTube short and you go, I don’t know, like, you know, I’ve got a one in 20 chance there, or you could just look at the data and see either where you held the audience flat or where there’s a spike and go.
RV (08:43):
That is that’s the clip. Like that’s the hotspot. Just grab it, that, grab whatever that is. Take it out in 60 seconds. And boom. Now, now your, your whole content strategy, like the art is gone pretty much. It’s mostly science at that point. So good. So simple, right? Like, I mean that one idea can grow. Your social can help you get your next great client. You know, it can help you make your impact in the world. It can help you become more well known. It’ll help you drive more leads. Like just that one practical idea. I mean, this podcast is nuts.
RV (09:31):
I mean, incredible, incredible. So that was the second one. And then the third one also sort of blew my mind and this one was like, where’s AJ, AJ. I want you to listen to this AJ, this clip is for you. I need to cut this clip. Somebody, can we cut this clip and send it to AJ? Because it was when I asked into question, how long should my videos be on YouTube? And everybody in the world is saying shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter attention. Spans humans are developing. We don’t pay attention. We want things shorter. Right? And, and Evan’s going, that’s not what the data says, sweetie. That ain’t what the data says. Not on YouTube anyways. Not on YouTube. His advice was a minimum of 10 minutes, but really 1, 2, 3 hours hours, 1, 2, 3 hours. That is amazing. 1, 2, 3 hours, no stinking way. One to three hours, unbelievable.
RV (10:36):
1, 2, 3 hours inly.
RV (11:24):
And we had Vanessa van Edwards on our podcast here. Not, not that long ago, like recently. And she was telling us some of her secrets and, and she’s a great example. Vanessa is blowing up on YouTube and I’ve known her for few years now, but like blowing up because of her YouTube channel. And if you go look like her, I, I, I, she, I sent I sent our team, her videos just because I said, look, it’s not that fancy. She’s not doing fancy editing. There’s not fancy lighting. I don’t even think she’s using a microphone. Like, and she’s blown it up, cuz she’s just teaching consistently like these great little tips, these little vignettes, you could do the same thing. Just you know, this is a game of education at scale. I mean, that’s how, that’s how Evan Des defined and described YouTube education at scale.
RV (12:17):
That’s it like that makes sense. And you go, well, I could, I could go speak to, to, to five people at a rotary club or I could record myself on my phone uploaded to YouTube and have a few dozen people or hundreds or maybe thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of people watch it. Why are we doing this? Why are we not doing this? So and long form, long form content, man, that’s a that’s that. And, and AJ always tells me I’m she says you’re a little verbose, honey, a little verbose. But she, you know, she’s like trying to be to cut it down, cut it down. That’s cuz she, she doesn’t she’s like just cut to the point, cut to the chase, give me the deal. That’s how she operates. But the data, the data in general, sweetie says long form content rules the day, at least on YouTube.
RV (13:08):
So I I’m going with, I’m going with my men, Evan Carmichael and the data that makes me happy. That’s excited. Just teach, share what you know go back, listen to the episode. There’s there’s a, there’s a ton of, of great little things in there. Again, brand builders, group.com/evan Carmichael. If you wanna learn more from Evan and check out what he’s doing, very tactical, very specific to YouTube, but extremely, extremely tactical. And this YouTube being one place that I would say, yeah, we’ve, we’ve dropped the ball. Like we’ve never dominated YouTube, like we should, but we’re, we’re getting on the, we’re getting on the, the train. Now, even though I feel like a million years late we’re we’re starting now. And and you know, Evan is, is one of the people that we’re learning from. So check that out and keep coming back, share this podcast.
RV (13:54):
We’ll share this episode with somebody who needs to start a YouTube channel or, you know, you think somebody, you know, that’s really smart and go, Hey, you’re really smart. You should be posting your knowledge on YouTube because it’s gonna change your life. And you should listen to this interview with Evan Carmichael and Roy Vaden at brand builder’s group. So do that, would you for a friend and probably share it to your team, maybe if you’re listening and you’re not the one who actually edits your video, probably wanna share that interview with Evan Carmichael. And might I add the one with Vanessa van Edwards as well? So and Sean can the interview with Sean can, that we did as well was also a great, a great a great one on, on YouTube. So there you go. Look at that. You go, you got other episodes to go listen to right now, if you want more on this subject. So thanks for being here. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 306: How to Dominate on YouTube with Evan Carmichael
RV (00:02):
Oh, you don’t even know about the powerful interview you are about to hear right now. My man, Evan Carmichael, first of all, is a genius. He’s so successful. I mean, he sold his first company when he was 19 years old, a biotech firm biotech software company. He’s raised 15. He was raising 15 million for venture capitalists when he was 22 years old. And he’s done so many things for entrepreneurs today. He is known for a lot of things. What we’re gonna talk about is specific his genius strategy on YouTube. And when I say genius, I mean, he’s got over 3 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. He did a, he did a, a training, a full, like a 90 minute training for our members inside our portal for our pain community. And it just absolutely blew my mind and, you know, Lewis Howes and Brendan Burchard and grant Cardone and ed Mylett like Gary V like all of these people are people that look to Evan for advice and ideas on YouTube. So I was like, I’m begging him, please come back on the podcast so that we could sell everybody our entire community at large. So Evan, welcome to the show, man. Thanks
EC (01:17):
For having man. Always, always an honor to be here talking to the one and only rory Vaden. Let’s go, man.
RV (01:22):
Yeah. So you’re such a beast on YouTube. How do I get, how do I become a beast on YouTube? Like what, what do, what are the key things I need to know to just like start dominating on YouTube?
EC (01:36):
Yeah. Okay. So listen to position it let’s go here. Youtube is, is an education platform. Like I think a lot of people think of it as, as entertainment and fun and movies and music. Cool. But YouTube is, is the number one education platform. So, you know, people are trying to figure out how to be, become a more influential leader. Where are they gonna go? They’re gonna go to the library. Like, who are they gonna talk to? They’re gonna talk to their mom, like what they’re gonna go and search and your stuff will pop up and not just your videos, but again, other people’s videos, this content that people are going there to learn. And so YouTube is different than any, every other platform where we wanna be making long form content, teaching people because ahead of whatever, we’re trying to sell, we wanna put information.
EC (02:19):
We wanna put education, okay. We’re teaching people at scale to then bring them into whatever the thing is that we’re selling coaching products, program services, books, et cetera. And the beauty of something like YouTube is one your, your contentless forever. So the videos you make now in a year and two years, and six years are still getting your views, subscribers, attention leads, et cetera, where every other platform it goes away, right? Like Instagram, nobody cares what you posted a week ago. It’s instant, it’s Instagram, it’s gone. Every other platform’s the same. Youtube has the best monetization. So they’ll pay you, right? Like you could be making seven figures just from the ad revenue on your videos, as well as actually building your business. And the best part about YouTube is you can take the content since it’s long form and splice it up to put on all the other platforms.
EC (03:07):
So YouTube will tell you the best moments in every video, according to what the audience cared about, those little highlight moments, you can then tweak and put them to Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and all the other platforms. So all you really have to do is have a regular show long form on YouTube. And now we’re creating content everywhere. Most of the people listening, watching your goal is not to be a full time, just content creator. You got a business that you’re trying to run. We’re, we’re trying to build our membership groups and our coaching services and be a speaker and all of that stuff. And so you don’t have time to all day, every day, be on every single platform. You don’t have to be long form from YouTube, take the data, cut it up to be on every platform. So it kind of sits above all the other social media platforms. And most importantly, to help people’s message get out, to change the world.
RV (03:49):
Yeah. So I wanna dive in on something you just said there, because if we don’t highlight it, it’s easy to miss it. And this is such a tactical thing that you can do where, so the idea of repurposing your content, right? So a lot of people talk about that. We have a thing we teach called the content diamond, which is, you know, taking long form content and dividing it up. But part that you added, you know, specifically, at least to my education, which was so brilliant, was making that a data driven selection to figure that out. So can you talk about like, where do you go on YouTube and what are you clicking on? Like I know you just gotta talk us through it, cuz it can’t like show the screen, but, but what exactly are you looking for? Because just that, that one tip alone goes, if you win on YouTube, even if you don’t win on YouTube, if you suck on YouTube, but you can figure out the moments that win, like you can use that to inform everywhere else. So, so talk more about that.
EC (04:52):
Youtube has the best data platform of all of all those social media networks. And I love the data and I can geek out on it all day long and, and dive into it. It’s overwhelming for a lot of people. The only thing you have to care about is this, the audience retention curve, like write that down. If you don’t know what I’m talking about and you think you might at someday want to start a YouTube channel, come back to that, write it down. It is your golden ticket. The audience retention curve. What that does is show you second by second, where people are either falling off your video or sticking around second by second. So if your intros are really bad, it’ll show you, you lost half your audience in the first 20 seconds. Cool. Like let’s not do that again. And it’ll show you these little flat moments and a flat moment means you never lost anybody.
EC (05:38):
Like whatever you did in that moment was really good. Right? You held their attention that whole time. Think of it. Like if you ever watched those elections and like the election debates and there’s like the red and the blue in America, right? Mm-Hmm
RV (06:12):
A flat moment is good.
EC (06:14):
Flat moment is good. That means you’ve kept their attention. So if you have a flat moment, that’s 40 seconds long. Cool. What happened there? Let’s turn that into a tweet. Let’s turn into an Instagram reel. Let’s turn that into something else. And then you have these rare moments, these special moments where it goes up, well, how does it go up? Like we lost people. We understand why it goes down, but how did we gain people in the middle of the video? Doesn’t make sense, right?
RV (06:36):
Because most people drop off like in the first few seconds or whatever minutes is the big fall off, but then you, it doesn’t just go down. There’s these spikes.
EC (06:46):
Yeah. So why does the spike, like how does that make sense that new people join the video halfway through?
RV (06:50):
Right.
EC (06:50):
Usually not usually what the case is, is the people who are currently watching REW that video to watch that part again, it’s like, what did Rory just say? What was that thing again? And they rewind it to watch that part again, that’s your goal. And that may be 20 minutes inside of your video, but that’s what we cut. And one, we wanna make more content like that, like that can educate you to make better content. But then that also, that’s what we cut. So the flat moments or the spikes, that’s what we cut to take to our other social media accounts because we know that that’s popping. And a lot of people who are making content, whether they’re doing it themselves or they have team, there’s a lot of subjective decisions that go in. It’s like, well, I like that part. And I like this moment and I think we should do here. And there’s a lot of wasted time to be honest and going back and reviewing and watching the footage again. And then relying on one person’s subjective opinion to make the call on what goes through the platforms to make your, your diamond. The data will show you. It’s a lot easier, just look at where we help people on the video and let’s take that to our other platforms.
RV (07:51):
That’s, that’s so powerful. Like what a simple, practical thing to go. There’s no guesswork, like, just look at where people are watching it. So we’re looking, so if something’s flat, that’s like good. That’s solid. If somebody, if something drops, we go, let’s not do that again. But then if it’s a spike, you go, man, that’s, those are your moments that you want to cut it, clip it, repurpose it, use it. Other places love that. So audience retention curve, that’s the name of like the widget in the back, the back end of YouTube that we’re looking for.
EC (08:22):
Yeah. For every video, give it a, give it a couple days after it goes out. And then on every video, just look at, click on the analytics tab for that video and scroll down and it’ll be right there. It’ll be this curve and it’ll show you how the video’s doing compared to your other videos. And it’ll show you the exact moments where people are falling off or engaging. So
RV (08:39):
Love it. Yeah. Here’s another com super common question. We get this all the time. How long should my videos be?
EC (08:47):
So for experts, thought leaders you have something to train on educators long, long, long, long, long, long. So the advice used to be 10 minutes plus, which is which it still is like as a minimum 10 minutes, a minimum 10 minutes, but the highest growth category we’re seen is in the one, the three hour category.
RV (09:05):
That’s insane. What, like who’s watching a
EC (09:08):
Youtube video for three hours, the, the, the entire world
EC (09:50):
So if I wanted to learn how to become that influential leader, if you did a four minute video, how much are you gonna teach me in four minutes? Not a lot, but if you talk for an hour or you did a coaching session with somebody, or you had a guest coming on, sharing something, people would watch that because it’s the best thing there available. And then when you’ve got your next launch, your book, your course, your program, your private memory, she like, I love this Rory guy nobody’s talking like him. How do I get more of him? And they want to pay for the access to get into everything that you’re offering.
RV (10:19):
And so you don’t worry about giving away too, too much there. I mean, like I mean, how many of those videos is, is it, is it kind of more like have one really killer two hour video? Or are you trying to like crank cuz to do that every week would be pretty tough not to mention, you know, if you did an hour long video every week, that’d be, that’d be a lot of content. Like what would you be charging for if you were giving away that much? So is it kind of like have a couple key key trainings out there and do it that way or
EC (10:52):
It depends what game you’re playing. Often the best thing to sell is access. So the best thing to sell is access to a community. So if you’re trying to sell your, your program, your community, which is awesome, I was able to, you know, had the honor to speak in front of, if you had a lot of long form content that was getting millions of views, you’re gonna convert a lot of those people to want to spend more time with you because they love how you think. Like, you’re, you’re a weird duck. You think differently than other people. Like I want to think the way Rory thinks and I wanna be around him more often. So I wanna join his community. It’s less about the actual ideas. A lot of, a lot of people have paid programs. A lot of the same content is in the YouTube video as in the paid program, it’s just packaged altogether.
EC (11:33):
So it’s easy to find it’s sequential, there’s community, there’s access. And so that’s really what we’re selling, not just the information I’m I put out, I’m giving you every, I got nothing to sell here. I’m giving you the best. Like you’re asking me questions. This is what I do. This is what I teach people will still some of the names that you mentioned want me to help them, their channel. I’m telling them the same thing that I’m telling you guys right now here on Rory Madden’s show mm-hmm
RV (12:08):
Yeah. And I know you’re, I know you’re, you’re not selling anything, but we are. If you go to brand builders, group.com/evan Carmichael Evan has this program called Brandly where he walks you through exactly how like every, every time he does a training, he’s reviewing these live videos, showing you the data, telling you exactly what to do. It’s a very affordable program and we were like, dude, you have to let us be an affiliate for this because it’s so good. Like this is Evan is the guy that we go to for this, and it’s gonna restructure our entire YouTube strategy. So you can check that out brand builders, group.com/evan Carmichael. And you’ll, you’ll see brand Alytics and all the people he’s working with. So you know, so anyway, so coming back to this conversation here another common question that we get a lot from our members is when do I need to start a separate channel versus just a different playlist? So like you know, like I’m a good example of that. So we have brand builders group, which teaches personal brand strategy and we help experts, you know, become more well known, build and monetize their personal brand. Then we have Rory Vaden who more classically is known in the more like leadership and personal development space. And so it’s like, can I do content for both on one channel? Do those have to be two channels? Like how do you demarcate, you know, channels versus playlists.
EC (13:41):
So first off, nobody consumes by playlists. So nobody’s like waiting for a new, no, nobody’s waiting for a new Evan Carle video to drop in this playlist, but not this playlist. Right? So where playlists are helpful, the, the biggest value of playlist is on your channel homepage. When somebody goes to your channel homepage, they can see what you’re kind of all about. Like, I just watch one or Eva, video’s my first, I’ve never heard of RO Badden before I watch a video. I like this guy. Hmm. Let me go check him out. They click on your channel. And then they see some of the content that you’ve got. And so that’s where you can structure your playlist, but it’s more of a conversion tool for first time viewers. And it is a consumption pattern for ongoing viewers or repeat viewers. Mm. In terms of a different channel, if it’s a different audience, it’s a different channel. So the easy one is language, right? I have a Spanish channel with almost million subscribers. I have a Russian channel with almost a million subscribers. It’s a different audience, cuz most of my audience does not speak Spanish or Russian some do. But if, if you love my channel, you just first met me and then half my content is in Russian and you don’t speak Russian. You’re gonna not consume most of my content. Right. Because it’s just in a it’s it’s a different audience. So that’s the easy one to understand
RV (14:51):
So different audience, different channel. But like in that case, it’s the same content, but it’s translated. So you’re just taking your, your English based content and translating it to Russian and Spanish. And now you’ve got another 2 million subscribers that way that’s brilliant in and of itself. But if it’s, if it’s the same person, it could live on the same channel. If it has to be a different person, different channel,
EC (15:16):
Not necessarily person. So I mean the, the language is that’s, that’s basically applying the diamond strategy as well. Right. We’re we’re repurposing content. It’s gotta be dub built. So like not just captions, like full on dubbed into that language. If you guys are going there. Okay. It can be the same. It can be different people on the same channel. And that might be weird for your channel cuz it’s called Rory Vaden. So like who is this Jennifer person showing up when it’s your name on it? But it’s audience. So are Rory’s too, like what is Rory known for? Are they, are they two completely different universes that would be completely different audiences or is there enough overlap between those two worlds that it all makes sense and fits under one Veda?
RV (15:57):
Yeah. I mean that’s part of what we’re trying to figure out. Right? Cause so take the stairs is very much personal development, you know, discipline my second book, how to multiply time. And my Ted talk is productivity. They’re very ubiquitous, personal development topics. Brand builders group speaks specifically to experts to help them to help them become an author speaker. So most of my, my work as an individual is helping someone become a better performer at their job. Brand builders group is much more narrow where it’s like, I’m helping you become an author speaker, coach consultant you know, or, or we are. So it is some of the same people, but I’m not, I think they’re probably different. Well,
EC (16:37):
Even in how you presented it, he’s like I help people with this, but brand builders group, we do this right. So brand builders group could be its own channel and it doesn’t have to be the Rory show all the time. Yeah. As you build and scale and grow and bring on guest trainers and experts and coaches and all the people in underneath you, that’s the team channel that R’s the head of and creator and founder, but doesn’t have to be the face for everything where RO Vaden, we
RV (17:07):
Mm-Hmm
EC (17:12):
And just in terms of making the content, you mean, you mentioned brand Linux and the offer. I mean, which is awesome. Love to have more people join in. The easiest type of content for a lot of experts to make is coaching. Half of the half of the content that I do live inside brand analytics is coaching people. It’s like, we pull up your channel. I would pull up if was in, I would pull up R’s channel. And it’s part of what, what we did for your group. Right? Like we pull up R’s channel and you just tear it apart in a loving way. But in a, like I’m not here to tell Roy Good job, Hey, you, you keep going, you know, do it Rory. It’s like, oh dude, this thumbnail sucks. Like we gotta fix this. Your intros are terrible.
EC (17:50):
Yeah. And so even if, you know, if you’re teaching the same essential eight to 10 themes to the people you’re talking to coaching is usually a lot easier to do is a lot more fun to do. You don’t need a script to do you don’t need people to show up and give you a, a answers to like 18 questions before they come on. They’re just gonna show up and, and you’re gonna say, Hey, how can I help? And they’re gonna give you their problem. And they’re asking you questions that relate to your expertise. They’re not gonna ask you like gardening advice, right? Or maybe you’re expert gardener too. I don’t know. But coaching videos are easy to easy to make. It’s easier to go longer with cuz there’s always another level to helping them out. And if you think about going to an event, you know, you go to a Tony Robbin’s event. Like the, the best part is not the content. It’s the, it’s the, his interventions. It’s the, the one-on-ones where you see like, oh wow, you see the unlock happen in somebody. And so if you’re a great coach, this assumes you are a great coach. Like if you are not a great coach, you cannot do this because you’re gonna get exposed. And, and, but this is where a lot of people struggle. Like if you’re actually really good at what you’re doing and you’re a great coach, this is the content you should be making. Most people,
RV (18:57):
The clients get, how do you get around the clients being like, oh, you’re sharing my coaching call on your public platform. You just need to get permission from them in advance or something.
EC (19:06):
And not even permission, like please do me a favor. You, you pitch it as a benefit. So if I was talking to two people recently who are both New York times by selling authors, working on their next book. Right. I gotta sell my next book. Cool. Here’s what we gotta do. A lot of authors will sell access, right? So, Hey, if you buy a thousand topics in my book, you get a, a 20 minute call with me to help you out. Cool. That’s trading time for money and cool. You sold a thousand books, pitch it as also YouTube video, 25 minutes with me buy a thousand books and we’ll do a zoom call together. That becomes a YouTube video on my channel as well. And it’s, it’s the upfront and we’re getting paid to do it. So you can, you can recognize members if somebody’s in your membership group and they crossed over a year and they’re coming back for year two, offer them a free coaching call with you, right.
EC (19:54):
As a benefit or you upsell it as part of your sequence at the beginning, they’re buying into the membership group. Hey, if you also, for a thousand bucks, you get a one on one with Rory, that’s gonna be turned into a YouTube video. And Gary V does this all the time with his four DS. Like you, you spend $10,000 to go meet him for a day. And it’s mostly his team. And he shows up for an hour and talks to the members who paid 10,000 bucks to be there for the day and then, and then turns it into content for the YouTube channel. So it’s like you sell it as a benefit, not as a, like, please do me a favor and come on my channel because one-on-one access to Rory. Vaden is impossible, so you can buy it. And it gets turned into a YouTube video, but that’s a contract that gets set up in advance, not afterwards. Oh, do you mind if I turn it into content for
RV (20:37):
Yeah. Do it on the front end, gotta happen on front
EC (20:39):
End. And you use it as a, as a bonus for them that they’re paying for as opposed to like, please do me a favor
RV (20:45):
Uhhuh. Yep. Uhhuh. It’s like an incentive. You turn it into an incentive for them, like for them. And then you get the content out of it. So I know you have to go last question. And again, y’all brand builders, group.com/evan Carmichael, brand builders, group.com/evan Carmichael. You can check this out. Like I it’s insane how, I mean, I don’t remember the exact number, but I’m, this is less than a hundred dollars a month or a hundred dollars a month or something like it’s, it’s, it’s not a lot of money for what you get. Cuz it’s like, this could change your life. Like this is career changing stuff. So check, check that out. It’s so tactical, it’s gonna change our it’s changing our entire world. The, how do I find video editors? Right? So that’s that becomes a problem. Okay. I’m an expert, but I’m not an expert at editing video. You know, what I really need is I really need to hire a video editor and I need that person to go through your training. Is that doable? How do I do that?
EC (21:43):
Or the editing almost doesn’t matter. Like why are people listening to you? Because like, if you think about quality content, it, people default the production quality, like, oh, what microphone using their Rory and what’s your headset, right? And like, what’s the lighting, but nobody’s watching your stuff for your microphone. So the quality isn’t production quality it’s quality of thought. Can you teach ’em to think like you think? And so the mistake a lot of people make is they, if they’re doing it themselves at the beginning, a lot of people do this. You spend 20 minutes making a video and then five hours editing it. You’re training the wrong skill. You’re training yourself to learn editing software as opposed to training yourself, to be a better speaker where your ultimate goal should be to be a better speaker, train, spend five hours making a video and 20 minutes editing it or zero time editing it.
EC (22:34):
Because the ability to communicate your message in front of a camera will be a skillset you use for the rest of your life, whether YouTube exists or not. When, when we’re beaming into your, your living room in VR and eight holograms and all that, you’re still just talking to a camera. And so that ability to get your message out there is the thing to train and practice. So I wouldn’t worry about editing, being the most important thing, train yourself to be a great speaker, train yourself, to press record, deliver a fire message and then release that as a video. Because when you, when I go live on a podcast like this, when I get up on stage, when I’m doing interviews, there’s no edits. I mean maybe if I really mess up, Rory will do me a solid and like cut out that piece. But you get on stage isn’t edits. Like you can’t train yours. If you’re a speaker, you can’t train yourself to only communicate when you’re perfectly edited.
RV (23:21):
Yeah.
EC (23:22):
So we have to train ourselves to be great. It doesn’t mean that you completely disrespect the editing, but my goal would be to, Hey, let’s get your business up to the point where the content is helping you generate enough money, whether it’s through your coaching or your books or your programs, so that then you can afford to hire an editor to take it to the next level. But the editing will not save you. It’s quality of thought more than production quality.
RV (23:42):
And then one of the things we’re not gonna have time to talk about all this, but like, so it’s, it’s less the editing quality. It’s all about the content. And then if I was gonna spend time, I would wanna use, use that time to do things like optimized titles and thumbnails and, and you know, those kinds of things would be a better use of time.
EC (24:04):
Yeah. And, and paying attention to your audience, attention curve, cuz that’ll make you a better speaker too. Mm-Hmm
RV (24:41):
Yeah. Well, those of you that become members, or if you are a member, we had, we had Evan a couple months ago and it was that awesome, like going, going through it. And so that training is available. That is now a permanent part of our, our library. So if you’re one of our members go watch it. It’s amazing. If you’re not, I would say go check out brand builders, group.com/evan Carmichael and, and, and check out what Evan’s got going on with brand Lytics. And man, you’re so generous. And you know, at this point I’ve known you for so many years, I’m just, I’m just grateful and you really do believe in entrepreneurs and, and so thanks for helping us. Thanks for serving us and thanks for making time to, to come be on the show, brother. We wish you the best.
EC (25:22):
Cool man. Happy to, and happy to do round two whenever you want to.
RV (25:26):
All right. It sounds good. We’ll do it.
Ep 299: Overcoming Sales Reluctance with Dean Graziosi | Recap Episode
RV (00:03):
Every time I get to sit down with someone like Dean Graziosi, it just like, I just think it’s the coolest thing that after doing this, I guess I’ve been at this for a while now, you know, 15, 15 years at least I mean, legitimately you would say, yeah, like 15, 16 years that I’ve been pretty much full, full time at this industry and getting to meet people like him, you know, it was like, this is someone I grew up, there’s watching on TV. Right. And Tony Robbins, like they’re doing business together. Like what an honor to just, just to, to get, to meet them and talk to them and then how valuable to get into this guy’s mind. And that’s what I wanna give you, these, these three core takeaways from me or, or from Dean that I took away, I took away from me.
RV (00:49):
And I love like if you didn’t listen to the episode yet, go back, go, go back and listen. Because a couple things, first of all, there’s sort of three things I’ve always wanted to like ask Dean about. And we got to all three thing, all three of them in, in that interview. So, and I’m gonna share the debrief of those right now, because I thought there was like, these are three very specific things that like, when I think of him and what he has done really well, I wanted to like, know how the, these, these parts that are really mindset things. And the other thing is, you know, and I just have to say, like, I just, I didn’t have much of a relationship. I had zero relationship with Dean other than what I saw online and stuff here and there in, in different promotions.
RV (01:31):
And you know, he’s definitely a, he’s definitely an information marketer. I mean, he’s, he’s one of the direct response Kings and and yet I never had a personal encounter with him, but I’ve had a few now. So this would be like my fourth or fifth time spending time with him, one on one. And every time I’m with him, I, I genuinely enjoy the guy. And I genuinely feel like, I feel like he is both serving and I think he is selling like I, and I think he’s, I I’ve known him as a salesperson, but also getting to understand a little bit more about, about his heart and stuff. And that’s why we wanted to bring, to bring him to you. We wouldn’t, we wouldn’t bring anyone to you that we, that we didn’t believe in. And obviously thrive 3 53 thrive, three fifty.com.
RV (02:18):
That’s our affiliate link. So we’re, we’re putting it in front of you because there’s a lot to learn from, from Dean Graziosi and Tony Robbins, a lot to learn, like whether you know, a lot about ’em or nothing about him, whether you think of Dean as a, you know, you might think of him as a direct response. Marker. You might, whatever you think about Tony, like they they’ve been around a long time or maybe you don’t know either, but like, no matter what you think about them, it’s indisputable to me to go. These guys know how to reach people. These guys know how to get their message out there. These guys have an influence. These guys, they are connected to the most
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Influential people in the world, athletes and billionaires and politicians and charitable organizations and like churches and, and entertainers. And like they have built massive influence both in terms of their indirect relationships, the people they know and their direct reach, their ability to like their audience, the number of people who come to their events, read their books, follow them on social media are in their email list, et cetera, et cetera. And you go, I think myself included here. Some of us struggle a little bit with, you know, maybe it’s knowledge like maybe it’s knowing what to do to reach people. But I think a lot of us mission driven messengers, we, we struggle with sort of the conviction and the boldness of telling people who we are and why we’re like, why, what we’re doing matters. And that was a really important interview. And you know, that’s what they’re, that’s what they’re they’re teaching, right?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
So anyways, you could check out three fifty.com go as soon as you, as soon as you get this, as soon as you listen to this, because they, they have a bunch of free training with Matthew McConaughy and Tony and Dean, obviously he mentioned, so Jenna Kucher is another, become another really good friend lately. She’s, she’s a doll like and so, you know, check this out, go there. And I would say if, if nothing else go register and watch how they do these launches, right? Like I’m fascinated being that we’re an affiliate for this launch for them is I’m learning a ton, just seeing the way that they do things and just like, oh, this is how that this is how that works. And this is how that works. And they, they have reaching people down to a science. And, and so that’s actually my first takeaway that I wanna talk about was the whole conversation around advertising.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
And, and it’s amazing, like what Dean said is so true where it’s like, do you know the person who wins is the person who can spend the most on ads. That is the person who wins when, when you’re talk, not just about making money, but just reach where you go, who’s reaching the most people. Is it the smartest person? You know, like, is it the, is it the neuroscience, you know, scientist? Is it the neurosurgeon? Is it, is it the, you know, the doctorate at the university? Is it the brilliant guy that lives in somebody’s basement? No, it’s like, they’re not reaching the most people, the people who are reaching the most, people are spending the most money on advertising is Coca-Cola the best soda ever. No, like probably not. I mean, I don’t drink soda, like but like, it’s it, but they reach the most people they’re spending the most on advertising.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
And so that to me is a really important switch that has to flip for you, right? Like at some point you have to get over that you have to get over that reluctance, that apprehension of telling people about what you do, like whether you like it or not. If you can’t get past that roadblock, if you can’t get past this limitation, this, this mental barrier of, of saying I am unashamed of what I do. I have to boldly and unapologetically tell the world who I am and what I do. If I cannot get past that, then I’m going to be stuck here in secret in private, the world’s best kept secret. And you know, the parallel that he used of, of like Martin Luther king Jr, is, is a gray one. Like lots of people wanted to, to affect civil rights and, and, and, and cure injustice and inequality.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
But Martin Luther king is remembered in history because he was able to do it through influence and, and understanding people and communicating and getting the message out and, and being able to rally an audience. This is a life changing skill set. And, and it, you, you got to have conviction in what you’re doing. And, and I, I think the first is sort of like a logical realization. This isn’t the order that we talked about them in the interview, we talked about ads in the middle of the interview. But to me, the first realization is that the person with the most reach is not the smartest. They’re not the best. They’re, they’re not the most credible or qualified or experienced. They are just the best at marketing. And that’s a huge part of this. No, if, if I don’t know about you, I can’t buy from you. If I don’t know about you, I can’t donate to your charity. If I don’t know you are there, I can’t be involved in your mission, your product, your service, your program, your institution, your university, your organization, like people have to know about you. And if you are not willing to get into the game of going, let, I wanna let people in the world know that I’m here than somebody who is probably less qualified.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Somebody who is less credible, somebody with less expertise, somebody with less experience, somebody with a less effective program is gonna reach those people, because they’re willing to overcome that, that mental roadblock about their somehow inconveniencing other people by telling them that they’re there. And this has been a huge continues to be a huge struggle and battle for me. And, and, you know, for so long, I’ve worn it as a badge of honor that we don’t spend money on advertising. It’s all referrals and word of mouth of which I think there’s some real beauty to that, right? Like you want, you wanna grow your business in the most profitable way possible. And, and I do think referrals is the best way to grow your business, but it’s not necessarily a, like, that’s not at odds with going, what’s the, what is the predictable way to constantly grow or to reach more people is to go, but how do you win?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Who’s gonna reach more people. Is the, the, the person who can spend the most on advertising and the way you justify that will, you know, not just emotionally, which we’ve been talking about, but logically and financially is you go, you have to get really good at your metrics. You have to know your numbers. You have to understand customer lifetime value of, of every click and every step of the way. And you have to have a process of what you’re driving them to do. You know, these are the things that we, these are things that we teach that brand builders group in our, you know, revenue engine and high traffic strategies. Those are some of our phase two trainings to our clients. And, you know, that’s why I’m excited about learning from people like Dean and Tony in the programs they have, because they’re doing it right.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
And they’re directing so many people. So like you have to get past that, that roadblock, the second one is going, okay, not just telling people about it, but then selling people and collecting money. And so many of us struggle to sell. We’re afraid. It’s almost like we, we, we grovel at the idea of asking people like, oh, I’m sorry. I have to ask you, ask you for money. And we don’t think of it as, as a service. And I I loved what he said when it was like, you have to fall in love. You have to love so much. Here’s what he said. You have to love what you do so much, that you feel bad. If you don’t offer it to people, you have to love what you do so much that you feel bad if you don’t offer it to people.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
And you know, in this very moment, I feel that way. I go man, brand builders group, like we created this company because we don’t see anyone in the world that can do this better than us. Like our team cares so much about helping our clients succeed and in the human to human space of like getting real life coaching, like, and training human to human and, and live experiences encounters. It’s like, I don’t know anyone who has a better, a better program for that better curriculum. We spent our, our, our career life, learning these things and testing these things and putting together like, and the amount that we charge is so low. I mean, we literally have multiple clients who in the last few years have created seven figure businesses, a million dollar annual businesses from the stuff that they’ve learned from our curriculum. We don’t charge anywhere near that.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Like to, to, to, to know the value of it is we’re super convicted of it. And man, we’ve just, we’ve poured so much time into it to fall in love with it. And I feel that same way about Dean, right? Like I’ve gone, man. I have to at least let you meet Dean. I mean, because it, his results are irrefutable. Like the amount of people that they’re reaching. And it’s like a it’s, it’s like a predictable growth. He’s figured out a way to get his message out to lots and lots of people. And he’s done it consistent for 30 years. And it adds up over time to a lot of influence, a lot of influence. And so if you’re struggling with this, one of the practical things I think you do, like one of the practical takeaways is fall in love with what you do.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
The more convicted you are in what you do. The, the more convicted you are in your product, your service, your own expertise, the harder you’ve worked at crafting the thing, the, the easier, the more conviction you’ll have that people should buy it. And I feel like in many ways, brand builders group, I mean, honestly, we have spent the first four years of this business building a world class program, like we’ve, we have sold some like a lot. I mean, we’re a, we’re a, a very healthy, multi seven figure company. But like, I think we will become an eight figure company quickly because we haven’t been focused on advertising and reach. We’ve been building, we’ve been building the program, building the ship, tightening it, testing it, tweaking it. And we have poured so much into it, but it’s like, now we can go tell the world because it’s, it’s tight.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
And, and we have that conviction. You should do the same thing as go like, well, what, what would make you so convicted? Like if you had to cure for cancer that tasted like chocolate, and you knew somebody had cancer and you knew you could cure them, you would feel obligated to share with them. You would feel it was your duty, your responsibility, your, your privilege, your honor, to let them know that you have, that you can help them. You got to get to that, like, you know, to that level or somewhere close to that level with your own products and services. Like I’ve worked so hard at my craft. I’ve worked so hard at putting this together that I, I, I have to have the world know about it. And so anyways, we feel that way about, about brand builders group. And that’s why, you know, we’re putting out this podcast for you to sample us, our network, the people we’re learning from the things that we’re doing, so that hopefully one day you go, you know what?
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I trust these guys enough to take a chance on them. And by the way, if you, if you go to free brand call.com/podcast, you can request a call with our team. You know, if you want the more human based elements separate. And in addition to that, I would say, go to thrive three fifty.com and check out what Tony Robbins and Dean Grazi are teaching. Right? They’ve put together a program teaching how they’ve gotten to be, who they are hard to not pay attention to that. And I, I felt bad. I was like, I would feel bad about going Tony Robbins has put together something that teaches the things that he actually believes about what he’s done to help him become who he is and not give you at least the opportunity to check that out. And if nothing else, at least the opportunity to go through it, right?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Like sign up, go through the training watch how they do it. And just from like, experiencing what they’re doing. And you know, even if you don’t buy it, buy it or check it out. But, you know, again, like Matthew, McConaughy free training with Matthew McConaughy and Tony Robbins, like that’s pretty legit. Like so anyways, that’s thrive three fifty.com or if you go, Hey, I love what brand builders group is up to. And I think I want like a human, you know, encounter like great do both of them, but free brand call.com/podcast is how you get in touch with us. Love. So love what you do so much that you feel bad that you, if you don’t offer it to people, that’s a great way to flip that, that mental switch. And then the last takeaway, which, which we talked about was just, you know, the mindset around money is to go, if you have a block of any type with making more money, and you somehow think that it’s evil, or you have to take advantage of people or it’s selfish, or it’s self-centered, or if you have any of that related to money, then just then just change the focus and go.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
The reason I wanna make a lot of money is so that I can give it away, because I tell you like, every non-profit that I know is doing that, that they’re doing amazing work. They need more money. Like they they, they need money. They need money to get the message out to about what they do. They need advertising and dollars and sponsor to raise money for what they do. And, and you, if you have a, a spiritual gift of making money, then you can write checks to solve problems. And that’s true in your business too, right? Like not just with charity as you go look making a whole bunch of money doesn’t mean you have to keep it for yourself. Doesn’t mean you have to like buy a private jet in an island. Like one of the amazing things about making money, like genuinely my heart.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
One of my favorite things, like one of the honors of my life is employing. So many people is saying like my work and my energy and my passion and my spiritual gift of generating revenue provides jobs. And, you know, I, I, I am motivated by paying our people more like that is something that has always been inspiring to me is like, I want to not only make money for me and my family and for our charitable contributions, but the people who on our team, like part of how I measure success is like, are we able to pay our team more and more? And are we able to pay them the top of the market? Like one day, I wanna be able to say that, like the people who work at brand builders group, it’s an amazing job. It’s an amazing mission. It’s amazing culture. It’s amazing people.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
And they get freaking paid girl. Like they get paid more than anyone doing that same role. Like that is genuinely in, inspiring to me is, is going. I want, I wanna provide jobs for people. And in order to build that kind of company, you gotta be able to write checks to solve problems. You gotta be able to hire people to do stuff. You gotta get copy written and videos, edited websites, built, and sales people hired. And, and, you know, whatever, you know, you need administrative folks and operational people and financial stuff like you need, you need legal contracts drafted, and you need all these things that it takes to, to run a business. And they all cost money. So you gotta make money so that you can solve problems. So you can write checks, not just so you can get rich and, and, you know, whatever, buy islands and drive cars and whatever.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
There’s nothing wrong with those things. But like, if those things feel off to you, then just shift your focus and go, no, my goal is because I want to, I wanna provide, I wanna provide charity. I wanna support charity and good works in the world. And I wanna support the people who are doing a good job and making a, a, a big contribution, right? Like, you know, the, the people who are supporting me are creating jobs and creating opportunity. I mean, that’s just super duper valuable. So if you struggle with those things, I mean, those are mental things that I, I think, you know, Dean has really pushed past this. He’s figured this out, he’s conquered this. And anybody who’s reaching lots and lots of people like anybody in general. Right? My, my, I am one of my, my, one of my central life philosophies was when mark Twain said, each man is my superior in some way each, I really believe that I really believe each person is my superior.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
In some way, everybody has something to teach. And if you’re struggling with reach and you’re struggling with like sales, I go, man, Dean and Tony, Tony Robbins, and Dean Grazi like, they have figured that out how to do that, right? Like they have figured out how to reach. A lot of people make a lot of money and do a lot of good in the world. So if you’re interested in learning from them, I am, I want to know, thrive three fifty.com thrive three fifty.com, check out the free training and the other resources that they’ve got going on. That’ll come your way. If you do that. Other than that, keep coming back here, stay plugged in. And, and I hope you’re, you’re enjoying this like, and stay here until you’re ready to take the next step, that whole conversation, that Dean and I had about, you know, when he was saying the, as you get, you become a more serious athlete, you go, I need the next level of coaching and when you’re ready for it, we are ready for you. So thanks for being here. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand podcast.