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.
Ep 297: Methods for a Better Marriage with Kathryn Gordon | Recap Episode
Speaker 1 (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
Speaker 2 (00:54):
For years, Jon Gordon has been a friend, a colleague, a mentor of mine, and what an absolute delight and treat to get to sit down with his wife who is also his co-author of the book, relationship grit, Kathryn. Kathryn has become a quick friend of the family and really a quick friend of AJ’s, which is you know, kind of unexpected, unusual for AJ to become so close with somebody so quickly. And they have really hit it off. And man, this was a powerful, a powerful lesson. And I mean, of all the podcasts we’ve had, this one really, really hit me hard personally. And so we were talking about, you know, methods for a better marriage, especially for entrepreneurial couples. And I think you know, I wanna share my takeaways here in just a second, my, my top three highlights, but what a great just opportunity to get to hear from people who have built something really big in the world, right between Jon and, and Kathryn.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
And of course, if you’re not familiar with Jon, he is the best selling author of the energy bus. He, he’s one of the, the, the most well known speakers, motivational speakers in the world, and he’s written several, several books and you know, I’ve just always known him really well. And just only gotten to know Katherine more recently, but just, I think it’s rare to even have a chance to talk with other entrepreneurs about how they hold it together. And one of the best parts of this, this whole interview was just hearing the story honestly, of how they struggled about how hard it was on their, their marriage, about their kids, about even being separated for a while. Like that it’s that, that permission to know that it’s okay. And that permission to hear that marriage is hard. Like a great marriage is takes a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
It’s very, very difficult because because life is difficult and kids are difficult and building businesses and doing meaningful and significant things in the world is difficult. And so to just have that opportunity to, to talk with her and hear some of their story from some people who are, you know, had a chance to walk this path a little longer than we have was, was super inspiring and, and, and helpful for me in an extremely practical way. And I’m, I’m gonna share with you, like, I would say these are three of maybe the most intimate things that I’ve ever shared in a recap, because marriage is intimate, right. And, and you know, my, my life priorities are, are, are, are very clear, right? It’s like, it is God, then it is AJ. Then it is the kids. And then it, then, you know, it is family and then it is work like that is the order of, of the priorities in my life.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And so, you know, this is, this is intimate stuff talking about, you know, marriage. So the first, my first big takeaway was around vulnerability. Now I have to tell you, and maybe you have this response too, but when I hear the word vulnerability, like it’s been thrown around so much in the last few years that there’s a little bit of me that kind of wants to gag, like, oh, you know, more like, here we go again, like vulnerability, you know? And, and like, what even does that mean vulnerability? And, and it’s just, it’s just becomes this word that people like use so much, but I love the way that Kathryn described it in such a practical nature. Right. And, and this, this is what I wrote down at least. And like when I was reviewing my notes and I guess I’ve just never heard it shared in such a simple way.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
And that hit me as really powerful. And this is the way that she described it. She said, vulnerability is simple. It’s simply sharing what you are, feeling, sharing what you are feeling. And that really hit me hard because it’s like, oh, okay, now I get why it’s so hard, right? Because telling someone how you are feeling is risky. It’s, there’s, it is intimate because it’s, it’s risky. It’s giving you access into something that nobody else knows, except for me. Right? Like, you know, you, you can see how a person looks, you can know about what a person does, but in order to know what somebody’s feeling there is this invitation for you to come inside my, my mind inside my heart and inside my body and, and really know what’s going on. And it’s, and it’s risky because that’s, that’s a very private, and it’s also sort of scary to think that someone else might judge me for the way I’m feeling.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
They might, they, they, they might not agree with how I’m feeling. They, they might think I’m wrong for feeling the way that I am. And also there is also a risk that I might offend another person by telling them how I’m feeling that I might hurt them. I might anger them. I might push them away by sharing how I am feeling. And, and that’s the risk of vulnerability, but that’s the power in vulnerability. It is, it is intimacy. It is into you. I see, right? Like that is, is like the meaning of the word into you. I see giving me access into how you’re feeling, giving you access into how I’m feeling. And if there is one relationship on this earth that you must be able to do that with, it must be your spouse. It has to be like it has to be the person because that’s the person you’re doing life with all of the highs, all of the lows, all of the challenges, the obstacles, the difficulties, as well as the wins, the celebrations, the ambitions, the dreams, all of those things are shared most closely.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
And in most proximity with your spouse, it doesn’t matter how close you are to your, your, your best friend or to your other family members. It is, it is your spouse that you’re walking most closely with. And if you are not able to share how you are feeling then with that person, then who else are you able to do that with? And, and, and how lonely, how lonely to go through life, not having that opportunity and yet terrifying to do it, scary to do it, gut wrenching, you know, to, to, to, to take that risk. But that is marriage, right? It is, it is this choice, this one relationship that you choose to say, I’m gonna go there with you. I’m gonna, I’m gonna give you access into every part of my life into how I live and how I sleep and what I wear and what I say and what I do and how I spend my money and, and what I say about other people and what I think, and also how I feel.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And so there, that was powerful for me. I don’t know why it was just something about the way that Kathryn said it. That was like, that’s so actionable and so practical, right? Share how you are feeling, share what you are feeling that was like, oh, I get it. Like, I really, I really, really, I really get it. And I think part of the risk here for me was, or not the risk, but another, another part of this that was, was an insight for me, was allowing other people to share how they’re feeling with you without getting defensive. And I think if there’s a place that I have failed in my marriage, it’s been here. I don’t think I have done a great job in my, you know, now 12 years of, of marriage with AJ giving her a space and a place and an opportunity to share how she is feeling without her having to be worried about me, judging it, commenting on it, correcting it.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I mean, I, I actually think, I, I really only learned of this term gas lighting here fairly recently. And I think that I have done that a lot to AJ, more than anybody, which is that I’ve tried to convince her to feel a different way. I’ve tried to tell her why her feelings are, are wrong, or why maybe she isn’t viewing things. Right. And that I think has probably been the single biggest gap in our marriage, right? Like that there’s, there’s many things that I do wrong, but in a real significant way, in, in a, in a way that’s really risk risky of, of, you know, what has caused real damage, that would be something that I would look back to and go, man. I hope my boys one day for their wives would give them a safer space to share their feelings with, with their wife than I have with AJ.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And that’s a hard, that’s a hard thing to admit, but also something that I’m very grateful for that I’ve gotten that clarity. And, and, you know, I, I think that that’s been a journey that we’ve, we’ve, we’ve been on for some of you that, you know, have known us for years and years who have followed us, like you know, we went through a hard time, pretty hard time, few years ago. And I think I was trying to convince AJ about certain things that she should feel. And, and she turned out to be right. I was the one that was wrong. And that just makes it harder. But anyways, I think the practical point for all of us is share what we are feeling and allow someone else to share what they are feeling without judgment, without correction, without coaching, without, you know, alt altering.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And I think, you know, the natural coach in me, I think that, you know, looking back would be, is probably one of the things that’s probably had to be most difficult for AJ being, being, being married to me and you know, something I’m embarrassed about and, and ashamed of, and but grateful to have been, become aware of it here, especially in like the last couple years. And so that was power. I mean, like that’s a life changing moment, right? Like life changing moment. And Katherine, you know, just sort of sharpened that, that for me with a lot of clarity. So that was, that was really huge. The second big takeaway for me, and this helped me a lot when Kathryn said it, because I feel this way, like, I, I feel this way where she said, look, ultimately the workload is not going to change.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Ultimately it falls on mom. Like mom has to figure it out because she is the ultimate decision maker on everything related to the kids. And so there is just an imbalance of workload as it relates to children. Like even though I try to do as much as I can do, like I try to go, how can I be useful, AJ? Like, how can I help? What, what, what can I do to support here at the end of the day, there’s an imbalance of the workload in raising the kids. At least it is in the Vaden household. And, and I don’t think it’s cuz I’m a lazy dad. I’m certainly not like an absent dad. Like the, you know, I grew up without a father, a father for, you know, the first 10 years of my life. So I, I didn’t have much to model, but like I’m here and I’m trying, and yet it’s difficult.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Like raising, like having kids has been very hard, not because there’s anything wrong with our kids. They’re beautiful. They’re amazing. They’re, they’re perfect. It’s because of my own self-centeredness and not being used to having to modify every, every single part of my life to, to make an allowance for somebody else’s needs to come first. Right. Like marriage is one level of that. Kids is a whole nother level. And so I think, you know, I’ve I’ve, and then I struggle with that being like, man, AJ’s just, she’s just carrying the workload here and it feels unfair. And so there was something about when Kathryn was like, yeah, that is how it is. I don’t know. Just the, the way that her sort of, matter of fact tone it, it, in, in a way gave me permission to not feel wrong and to not feel bad, which I think I was looking, I, I guess, deep down looking for, because it was just like, no, that that is how it is. And then yet going, and, and then, and then what is my role like then, then what can I do? And this is what she said, and I have to tell you, like, it’s this for the last several weeks I have been thinking about this on a regular basis is, is Kathryn said again, so practical, like so profound, but so practical. She said, Rory, if you go back and listen to the interview, she said, all you, I, if there’s one thing you can do, just acknowledge to a J for a J how hard it is.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
And I was like, oh man, that’s so good. That’s so simple. That’s so doable. And why haven’t I done a better job of that? Right. Like I think, you know, my default is to be defensive is, is, is, is to go, well, yeah, you’re doing all this, but, but I’m also doing this. Right. And I am, and it’s like very difficult for me. Like, I’m going, like, I’m over here dying to myself. And I’m, that’s been a difficult journey for me, especially somebody who’s like this self-motivated independent, ambitious achiever, my whole life. Like pre-marriage, it was just like, I just ran a sprint and then, you know, marriage was like, oh, okay. Like now, but now it was more like I had a partner and then kids came and it was like, whoa, like this yanked my whole universe. But, but you know, I, I tend to be more of like, well, yeah, but I’m doing this and yeah, but I’m doing that.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
And for Kathryn to just so clearly, and so simply say, just acknowledge for AJ how hard it is that has been so helpful for me. And so practical. And frankly, it’s been transformational for our marriage in a, in a matter of a few weeks. So both kind of acknowledging in that receive, receiving that, being okay with it, not making myself wrong for it and not feeling like I have to justify the imbalance, but just acknowledge the imbalance. What a, what a release of pressure from me. And apparently exactly. Kathryn’s exactly right. I feel like I should send Kathryn a check for some marriage counseling, cuz that’s what I got like on this episode. Like if you didn’t listen to this interview, like if you were struggling in your marriage at all, or if you ever have, or you know, someone who is, which we all do, like listen to this episode just, and then just acknowledge how hard it is.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
And I think that extends beyond marriage and beyond parenting, right? Specifically, this is like a parenting piece of the conversation, but like what a gift to anyone in their life to just acknowledge how hard it is, acknowledge how hard it is, acknowledge how difficult it is or what they’re going through. Like take a second to go. I see you. I, I support you. I, I, I, I, I, I am aware of what you’re doing and, and you know, I just wanna let you know that I see you. And I think so many people just wanna be seen. They just wanna go, man, does this matter? Is anyone even noticing? And, and what an, what a simple practical thing to be able to do to acknowledge how difficult this is? Honestly, I think that’s one of the biggest things that our members, you know, the people who, who become members at brand builders group, we have now almost 400 of them.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Right. And we see them several of them every month at our events. And you know, and the virtual trainings and stuff is like, they get, they get behind the scenes and we’re showing ’em behind the scenes of, of, you know, how we do things and all these things we learn with all the personal brands we, we work with and all this stuff. And they go, oh man, this is hard. Like, it’s not easy. It’s so difficult. But there is a system and there is, is a process. So who in your life can you do this for today? Who in your life can you acknowledge? And just say, Hey, you’re hand, you’re carrying a ton. And I just want you to know, like, I see it. You’re doing so much. Thank you for how much you’re doing. It’s, it’s so much, it’s so hard and you’re doing it like a champ.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
My guess is there’s somebody in your life. You need to say that to right. Maybe yourself, maybe yourself and, and definitely somebody else. And then the third, the third part of this you know, when Kathryn was sharing the story about them being separated, which I was like kind of shocked that she was just, you know, here she is just sort of openly telling, tell, you know, it’s like between me and you, Kathryn, and you know, a, yeah. A few million podcast listeners.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
God, we invite you into our lives. And I don’t know where you’re at on your spiritual journey or what you think and all that, right? Like I’m not a pastor, but is there a place in your life right now that you might need to invite God into? And here’s the hint, it’s the place where everything’s fallen apart. It’s the place where you’ve tried everything and nothing works. It’s the place where you’re most frustrated. You have the most despair. You, you are, you are the most exhausted. The most discouraged, the most beat up the most beat down the most, the closest to giving up. Where in your life are you the closest to giving up? Where in your life are you ready to throw in the towel? Are you ready to quit? Are you at the end of your rope? Are you struggling? Are you mad? Are you frustrating? Are you said like where in your life is that that is where you want to invite God into.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And look, there’s a whole lot of discussion around, you know, historical accuracy and evidence for God. But I’m telling you in my life clearly in Kathryn’s life, in the life of the people that I know the best, the proof of God is to invite God into your darkest moments. Invite God into your darkest places. Invite God into your deepest struggles. Invite God into your greatest concerns. Invite God into your greatest worries. Invite God in, invite him in invite him. And look, if you, if you’re really struggling spiritually and you go, I don’t even know if there is God I’ve been there. Like I been there, I’ve been there many times. Here’s the good thing about God. God’s not afraid of being questions. God is not afraid of being challenged like that. Doesn’t intimidate God whatsoever. And I would say, invite him in and, and see if he shows up, invite him in and see if you feel his presence, invite him in and see if something, something happens, invite him in and see if something changes. But if you’re struggling, if you’re defeated, if you’re wounded, if you’re hurt, if you’re angry, if you’re sad, if you are experiencing sorrow, if you’re feeling lost and you don’t invite him in you’re on your own, not because of him because of you, because that’s a choice that’s you are making with your life. That’s not his decision, that’s yours. So if you are not sure, if he’s there, ask him, invite him and see if he shows up. And I will tell you, he never has. Not. For me.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
He never has not for AJ. He never has not for many of the people that I love most dearly in my life that I, I have the most intimate relationships with that. I know the best personally. He often shows up in ways that are different than we expect, but he never doesn’t show up, but you have to invite him in. He, he doesn’t just come breaking down the walls. Like you have to invite him in. There is no obedience. Otherwise there is no demonstration of faith otherwise, right? If he just forces himself upon you, then there’s, that’s not, there’s not belief. There’s not relationship. Right? You have to invite him, invite him in. So where in your life do you need to do these things? Who in your life do you need to share what you’re feeling with? Who in your life do you have to acknowledge and speak and see and tell them that you see how hard it is that what they’re going through and where in your life do you need to invite God in? That’s it for this week’s edition of the influential personal brand podcast. I love you. We’ll catch you next time. Bye. Bye.
Ep 295: Keys to Powerful Presentations from My Favorite Hollywood Actress Stephanie Szostak | 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 the recap episode of my conversation with Stephanie Szostak, who is my favorite Hollywood actress
AJV (01:48):
And it was a very non-traditional route and it was a great reminder to me. And what I wanna share on this recap episode is that it’s never too late. It’s never too late to start something new, to find your calling and be the best at it that you can possibly be. And I love this because Stephanie started her modeling and her acting to career in her late twenties. Y’all most people are starting their modeling careers in their late teens, not their late twenties. So in theory, she was a decade behind the ball. And also this isn’t recent, right? This was now almost 20 years ago. So this wasn’t common for that time period for her to be doing this in her late twenties, but she did. And then she started acting and it’s like, she got at her start quote unquote late, but I don’t think it was late.
AJV (02:35):
I think it was perfectly time for exactly where she was doing, what she was meant to do at that time of her life. That’s true for you too. It’s true for me. It was true for her. And it’s true for you. You are not too old. You are not too young. It is not too early. It is not too late to do what you feel like you were called to do, to do what you’re passionate about doing the time is right now. And it’s the best time. It’s the best time, right. Frigging now. So I love that and I loved her story. I just love her story in general of, it’s never too late to reinvent and to be something new and to be somebody new and not being afraid to do that. And yeah, it will cause new learning curves and changes, but that’s okay because if that’s what you’re called to do, it’s all worth it.
AJV (03:26):
I love this quote and I’m, I don’t have the, the name of the person who quoted this, but I’m gonna share it anyways, even though I cannot give credit where credit is due, this is not my quote, do not quote me on this. But it’s like, it’s going to be hard, but cause you’re passionate about it. It’ll all be worth it. I will find the author of that quote and put it in the show notes, but I love that quote. It’s like, yeah, it’s gonna be hard, but because you’re passionate about it, it will all be worth it. And that is a great reminder of one of big takeaways I took from this episode of just accounting, her story of how she got into acting and modeling. And today she has been in so many amazing movies and shows and is incredible at what she does.
AJV (04:14):
But started in her late twenties seemingly too late, but actually perfectly timed for exactly where she should be and what she should be doing. Okay. That was the first thing. The next two things do have to do with some presentation tips and I love this and I, I think these are really important for anyone who gives presentations. And let me just be clear. School teachers give presentations, parents give presentations, employees, employers, speakers, authors, consultants, podcasters. Yes. We all give presentations. Like if you are in a job of communicating to another human person, you give presentations, you just don’t view it that way, but you do. And that is a communication change that we all need to have in terms of public speaking and presentations. And I think it’s so interesting that, you know, the number one fear of people is public speaking, even above death.
AJV (05:06):
Like that’s just fascinating, but yet we all speak in public all the time. Like when do you not speak in public? Like you’re talking to strangers all the time when you order your coffee or you order food. And yes, I know they’re not like formal presentations, but are we afraid to do those things or is it just the idea of being in front of a group of people and being stared at and potentially judged and not knowing how they’re gonna perceive you? Is that what we’re really afraid of? Not the speaking itself, but really the fear of being judged. And I think that’s a better thing of what people are really afraid of. It’s not public speaking. It’s what if I don’t bring any value? Right? What if they don’t like it? What if they don’t like me? What if somebody records, it puts on the internet and I become a meme, right?
AJV (05:54):
That’s what we’re afraid of. Not public speaking, we’re not afraid of that. We’re afraid of all the things that come with public speaking. So I think that was in really good context of you gotta get really clear on like, what are you trying to convey and what emotion do you wanna convey when you’re doing it? And it can’t be a, an emotion of fear. That’s for dang sure. And so I think the first thing I’ve loved about this is she really gets in the mindset of you have to be in tune with what emotion are you trying to create before you go out and try to create it so simple, but yet still freaking hard to like really tap into it’s like, how do I wanna tell this story? How do I wanna deliver this message? How do I want the audience to feel?
AJV (06:43):
And in her case, you know, of viewers around the world, how do I want them to feel in this moment? And I think that comes back to again, something else that’s really important is we’re afraid when we make it all about us. But if we were to change our mindset on what it means to public speak or present or communicate, and we were less focused on how are we gonna sound? How are we gonna look? How are people gonna view us? And we were more concerned with how do I help them get this information in a way that’s gonna be impactful to them? How do I share this information in a way that they will receive it? Or how do I give it to them in a way that they will enjoy it, have fun with it, use it right? But if we make it about them, not us, it changes the landscape of how we create our presentations and how we communicate in general.
AJV (07:35):
But you gotta go with it with what do I want them to feel? Not how do I wanna feel? How do I want them to feel and start your presentation, start your plan for communication from there. So good. So, so good. Loved that. Third thing, last thing I’m gonna share, I’m trying to keep these under 10 minutes always for your listening convenience. But here’s the last thing that I would share that I thought was a really good takeaway is just how you get yourself in the mindset before you communicate or present. And that could be again to your family to a video camera like I’m doing right now. I’m not talking to anyone right now. I’m talking to myself on zoom, but I have all of you in mind. Right? So it’s like, I need to know. It’s like, what do I really want you to get from this?
AJV (08:22):
So it’s like, I’m not presenting to a group of people right now, but yet I am, I am presenting to a group of people because I have you all in mind. So how are you getting yourself in the right mind space, the right head space before you go in and present, right? So she gives ideas around like, do you have music that you listen to? Do you have affirmations that you read, right? Is there like some sort of body movement that you do? Do you have notes that you wanna look over, but what are you doing to get yourself in the right space to make sure that you bring your best self to that presentation or communication or video or whatever it is that encounter that it’s like, what are you doing to put yourself in like game mode? Right?
AJV (09:15):
So I don’t know why that came to mind, but it’s like, I’m pretty sure I’d have an idea of what I would do. I’d probably have some warm up rounds. I’d have my playlist prepared and ready to go. I would have my affirmations. Are we doing the same thing when we turn on that camera and hit record? Or are we doing that same thing before we address our team? Or are we doing that same thing before we have that one-on-one conversation? Or before we step on stage, before we hit go on a podcast interview, right? Are we, are we getting in game mode before we go and do it? So yeah, this was such a solid interview. So many applicable tips. And what I loved, it’s not just about being a presenter, IE, a speaker or an actress is about how to be a communicator. We all communicate. And this is, this applies to all of us. So how do we get in the mode of being good communicators? And just realizing like it’s about them. Not us is about them. Not us. Go listen to this episode, go check out the full thing, go look up Stephanie, show stack, coolest girl ever love her. Go check her out. Go listen to the episode and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand. We’ll see. Y’all.
Ep 293: How to Read People with Vanessa Van Edwards | Recap Episode
RV (00:02):
Vanessa van Edwards. One of the
RV (00:05):
Coolest
RV (00:06):
Sharpest, smartest personal brands that I think is in the marketplace and we’ve become pretty good friends over the last few years ever since sharing the stage together at global leadership summit a few years ago. And she is really, really impressive. And just the science of people is what her brand is all about. And it’s, it’s literally all, all of this about reading people and their nonverbals. And I just, I think it’s fascinating and I think it’s so cool how she’s taken such a specific tri like a specific skill set, you know, all the way down with a very specific type of communication and turned it into such a magnificent personal brand, built it on science and research and data and just, just a really great example and an awesome, awesome person. So this is a recap, obviously of my interview with Vanessa van Edwards, her new book cues is what we talked about.
RV (01:03):
And I mean, just that idea alone of the, the title of the book that are, that there are social signals that we subconsciously send to one another is really powerful. And that’s of course what the whole interview, what her book, her whole book is about. And so I’m gonna, I’m gonna share with you a couple of my highlights and in this case, you know, there’s two big highlights, and then I’m gonna, I’m gonna teach you something that is a part of our curriculum at brand builders group, which I haven’t, I don’t think we’ve ever covered on this podcast. And it’s, it is game changer. Like this technique is the single, maybe the single most powerful technique that we have that we invented. This is our proprietary technique that will make you a master communicator. And I’ll, I’ll tell you what it is. That’s gonna be my third takeaway. But my first takeaway, which is just good to hear, and it’s edifying for what we do and what we teach and you go, how has she built nearly a million subscribers on YouTube, this great social media following she’s consistently selling all these books and built a, a tremendous speaking career. And she said two words aggressively helpful,
RV (02:21):
Aggressively helpful. If
RV (02:24):
You want to get people to pay attention
RV (02:26):
To you, you need to be aggressively helpful. You have to be
RV (02:32):
Relentless. You have to be intentional. You have to
RV (02:34):
Be committed. You have to be dedicated. You have to be ruthless about the idea that your
RV (02:40):
Brand, your media company, your platforms, your podcast,
RV (02:43):
Your social, your YouTube, like your books, your, your, your blogs,
RV (02:48):
Whatever you’re putting out into the world, your keynotes,
RV (02:50):
Your, your
RV (02:51):
Podcast interviews, like when you’re a guest in someone else’s show your webinars, your lead magnets,
RV (02:56):
They have to be aggressively helpful.
RV (02:58):
They to be useful, right? Albert Einstein says you don’t try. Don’t try to be a person of, of influence. Try to be a, a person of, of utility, like be valuable to other people. And that’s the secret. Like that’s the secret don’t hold back. As we say, around here all the time, save the best for first, save the best for first, give away your best stuff. And, and that’s what keeps people coming back. And so it’s just powerful. And again, edifying to have so many like guests on this show who have built huge personal brands that then come and tell us, Hey, this is, this is how to do it. And that’s why we do it is, is because we’ve learned from a lot of them over the years. And we continue to learn from them and, and we can, and we teach you those things, right?
RV (03:49):
So how can you be aggressively helpful? How can you put out content that will dramatically change people’s lives, save the best for first, give it away, make a difference and watch how people show up and come back and share and invite friends. The second thing, which the second, my second takeaway is probably what I would say is my biggest takeaway from this interview. And it is not really what the topic of the conversation was about in terms of how to read people. This though was something I’ve never heard anybody say, at least not so clearly as Vanessa said it. And I almost didn’t ask her this question. And I said, but I, you know, I we’re watching the data of all these book launches, right? So we just, we just helped Tom and Lisa BIU with their book launch launch. We’re helping Eric ed Mylet with his huge book launch right now.
RV (04:44):
We’ve, we’ve, we’ve, pre-sold tens of thousands of units. And so we’re watching all these book launches and, you know, I’m seeing Vanessa clock through every week with several hundred units. And it’s really impressive. It’s very, very hard to do, to sell consistently several hundred units. And so I asked her, I said, Hey, what’s your secret? Like, how do you do the long tail, right? Because we have all this, you know, we have a, a great strategy for how to do a book launch and all the presales and everything leading up to it in like the first eight weeks and, you know, keeping it going. I mean, we’ve got now, in my opinion, perhaps one of the best, if not the best book, launching strategy that there is in the marketplace. And, you know, we got a lot of the results to back that up and prove it with several best selling authors that we have helped.
RV (05:28):
But this long tail long, you know, this long tail is something that I’ve always been super interested in and going man, like what you really want is not, you know, not just the big launch, you want the big launch, you want the big book launch because it lights the spark, right? Like it sets things into motion, but the true perennial bestsellers are these, you know, books that sell several hundred or even a few thousand units every single week for years. And, you know, other than writing a great book and, and hopefully having it propagate, there’s not that much that I’ve seen or heard or learned, or been able to reverse engineer about how to make that happen. And Vanessa shared this great secret, and this was like a light bulb for me. And she said basically that she sells books by SEO, SEO search engine optimization.
RV (06:24):
If you’re not familiar with that term, now we teach SEO. That is a part of our, our curriculum and our, our high traffic strategies training, which is one of our, our phase two trainings. For those of you that aren’t members, we have 12 different topics that are 12 different training, you know, kind of like modules that are they’re each two days. You know, so our entire education takes 24 days just to like go through the full education. It’s, it’s a lot, it usually takes people three or four years to get through it all. But like, so we teach search engine op search engine optimization, but never in connection with selling books. And it’s so simple, right. But it’s so brilliant because you go, how do you create this steady, consistent, long tail sell through of a book? And you go, well, what, what force is there in the world that is steady and consistent and long term?
RV (07:20):
And the answer is search people’s search behavior, they’re search habits. People are searching for terms on a very consistent basis. And if you can figure out what are the terms that people are searching for. And of course, you know, there’s lots of different tools for this, but one of the ones that we, the one that we use internally, which is also the one that sounds like Vanessa uses is called a refs, a refs. And it’s a tool that will tell you, you know, you could type in any term and it’ll tell you, this is how many times this term is searched every, every month on Google. And then you can also go to pages and see which, you know, how, which, how, which, which terms pages are scoring for et cetera, and, and what the average cost per click is. If you want to go out and buy one and what she said, which first of all, this was a tactical tip, which I did not know is that a HFS has a secret tab for YouTube, which is huge, cuz because YouTube is also a search engine.
RV (08:20):
So that means that you can use this tool, which you might already have. And you know, MOS is another one Uber suggests is another one. Like they all, they all, you know, do a decent job of, of what you need to do. But AHS specifically since that’s what we use, I don’t know about the other ones, cuz she didn’t talk about it. But has this a tool that will tell you about YouTube search? So how often are people searching specific terms on YouTube? And then all she did was she made a list of all those terms. And then she created videos that were specific to those questions, which happen every single month, right? People are, are continuously like repetitively searching those terms. And every single month new people are on YouTube searching. And so she creates, she said for like every single book, she creates 20 videos that specifically address these common questions and those specific term search terms that people are looking for. And she creates videos for those where the primary focus of the video, first of all, is to add value, right. To be aggressively helpful. But the secondary vehicle is to promote her book specifically. Right. And all it doesn’t have to be overt. It doesn’t have to be a huge pitch. She’s just adding valuable content. She’s optimizing her presence in the PLA in the marketplace for terms and then suggestively and gently sort of referencing that what she’s teaching is coming out of her book.
RV (09:56):
So genius, so simple, so actionable. So duplicatable, so something that we are going to do. I mean, what, I mean, that’s a huge, that’s a career altering that one idea like could be a career altering idea of just going, because if you, if you write a book that sells several hundred copies every week, like within a few years, that’s a lot of people that have read the book, that’s gonna change the trajectory of your entire career. Like this was a really big tip and not something that I have heard anywhere else. Like out of all the stuff we’ve read that we’ve looked at the courses we’ve been through the, the hundreds of authors that I’ve interviewed, no one has ever given me that tip. So that was a huge, huge tip and one that we are definitely getting into action mode on. So really, really brilliant and smart and simple.
RV (10:53):
So I hope you pick that up and you know, if you’re not selling books apply this to anything, right. You’re selling mouse traps or you’re selling cars or you’re selling battleships, figure out what are the search terms that people are searching for, create VI videos specific to, to those queries optimize the video so that they come up for those, do an awesome video and then make a suggestive call to action to whatever your product of service is like. So we even teach that with content marketing, but just have never thought about it or applied it to a book like it’s, it’s so simple. And it’s like, how did I miss this? How have I never thought about this? Well, UN you don’t UN until, you know, you don’t know until, you know, right. But you go man, one little tip like that, SuperDuper powerful.
RV (11:38):
The third takeaway was something that I’ve heard before. And so I wanted to share with you one of our favorite techniques, and this is something that I personally invented. You know, our team has polished over the years and, and is a formal part of our world class presentation, craft trainings. So the one of our phase three, or excuse me, the third training in our phase in our phase one curriculum is called world class presentation craft. And it applies very much to what Vanessa’s talking about here. And, you know, she said nonverbal communication is 69% of, of communication. And she was talking about how, it’s not the words that you say, it’s your facial expressions. It is your eyes. It’s the, your gestures, your body language, even the clothes you wear, the colors that are around you are all things that communicate in a very clear way.
RV (12:35):
Although, you know, somewhat subconsciously to the people around us. And then she was talking about how our, our vocal pace and cadence is a huge component of that. And so I wanna go ahead and share with you one of our favorite techniques of all time and this, we call this the vocal variety matrix, the vocal variety matrix. And it’s very, very simple, but it’s extremely powerful. So if you were to create a graph where the Y the Y axis was energy, so high, you know, at the top would be high energy at the bottom would be low energy. Okay. and then the Y axis would be like speed, where you know, let’s, let’s say all the way to the right is fast. And all the way to the left is slow. What happens is you have this natural separation of these four distinct quadrants and each quadrant represents a different utility of your voice. And when you master this VO, the, you know, this vocal variety matrix, we sometimes call it the emotions matrix because each different quadrant communicates a different emotion. And it doesn’t matter the words that you say, right? So let me, let me, let me talk this out for you. Right? So for example, quadrant number one is somebody who talks like with high energy, which is often also the volume is very loud and very fast, right? And so you talk like this, and when you
RV (14:00):
Talk really loud and really fast, what you’re doing
RV (14:02):
Is you’re adding a
RV (14:03):
Tremendous amount of energy and emotion and enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter what the words you’re gonna do. Like what the words are that you’re saying, don’t even matter. You’re creating this physiological change in the audience by just talking loud and fast with high energy and high speed that suddenly create excitement and enthusiasm
RV (14:18):
And energy. Similarly,
RV (14:21):
If I talk loud
RV (14:24):
And slow,
RV (14:26):
This
RV (14:27):
Has high energy, loud volume,
RV (14:30):
But slow pace, regardless of the words that come
RV (14:36):
Out of my mouth,
RV (14:39):
You talk like this
RV (14:41):
To create the emotion of respect, you’re commanding authority. You’re, you’re, you’re demonstrating your control, your credibility, your power. And then if I talk low and slow, low energy, low volume, and low speed, it creates a completely different emotional experience, a different energy, one of authenticity, vulnerability, honesty, transparency, connection, and trust. And then if I keep my energy low and I keep my volume low, but then I pick up my pace. All of a sudden I start adding suspense because just by adding, just by talking faster again, regardless of the words that I say, this, isn’t a matter of the words that we’re saying, we’re just talking about delivery here and here. This is what, this is probably the, the most underutilized quadrant of all the four quadrants. But this is somebody who just talks very low, but very fast, but it’s a mental game, right?
RV (16:20):
It’s, it’s mental exercise that forces you to concentrate, to lean in, to create suspense, to be, to be sort of curious, to be preoccupied with like, what’s he gonna say? And like trying to keep up with everything that’s going on and, and notice that no one quadrant is better than any of the others, the magic here, first of all, is that it doesn’t matter what you say, it’s using the vocal variety matrix to determine how you say, because all of a sudden, no matter what I’m saying, this is loud and it’s exciting and it’s fast pace. And then all of a sudden I drop it way down.
RV (16:55):
And I share the lesson that I learned from that story. And what this means for your life personally, is that you have to take this advice and you must go out and execute this behavior, this action. And then I can move on into the next story and set up the next story with back, you know, backstory on the characters and, and saving some time in my presentation by just sort of speeding along, keeping you mentally engaged and forcing you to have to listen, sit on the edge of your seat because of this suspense. And because of the, the way your mind has to be preoccupied with what I’m saying in order to keep up with how fast that I’m talking, but I’m moving through a lot of kind of insignificant details and trivial things just so I can set up the next story, baby. Cuz here we come, it’s getting exciting again.
RV (17:50):
Bam, isn’t that amazing? This is one of the secrets that has shaped my career. I mean, it is one of the biggest things that we coach speakers on when we work with them in world class presentation craft, this is part of, you know, how I created a viral Ted talk and got inducted in the professional speaking hall of fame and you know, became a two time world champion of public speaking finalist, helping people with the art of speaking is one of the things that we do most frequently at brand builders group, both their message, but also the, the mechanics of their delivery. And that technique is called the vocal variety matrix. We’re sharing it here for you for free on this podcast episode. Usually those kind of things, you have to be a paying member to get access to, but I wanted to share that one just as a special bonus giveaway in honor of my friend, Vanessa van Edwards, because of how much content she shared and how much I love what she’s about and just applying one of the techniques that we teach very much to what she is talking about here in the science of people.
RV (18:55):
So I hope you enjoyed that interview. Hey, share this recap edition with someone who needs to hear it. Somebody who you know, is, is trying to build their personal brand and, and the interview as always tell your friends. And if you can leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to the podcast that helps us tremendously, you know, we’ll share another ad for that here in just a second, but we really, really need that help. And that’s why we’re here every single week, bringing you the best of the best that we can from our friends and community, and also drop dropping in with our tips and recaps and highlights. So thanks for being here. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand podcast.
Ep 291: How Personal Branding Is Changing the Sports Game with Mollie Marcoux Samaan | 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 the 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 Martin 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, welcome to another recap episode of the influential personal brand. This is the cliff notes version of my conversation with Molly Marco, Sam, who is the L PGA commissioner. She is a collegiate athlete in herself. She was like named a sportswoman of the year while she was at Princeton. She was also named one of the sports teams of the deck for high hockey Princeton. She has done so many incredible things for the world of sports and hyper specifically for women’s sports. And I just, I love my conversation with her and I’ll keep this short and sweet. I’m gonna try to keep this. I got five minutes if humanly possible. But there are three things right here are my three big takeaways. And this will was kind of like towards the end of our conversation, but I loved this and I think it’s applicable and no matter what your role is, right?
AJV (01:50):
So many of you listening are not professional athletes. Maybe you are, but most of you probably are not. But I love what she said is that every single person is a part of a team, right? It’s like your family unit, that’s a team. You’ve got your colleagues that work. That’s a team. You’ve got community groups, you have friend groups, you’ve got nonprofit groups, you have church groups, you’ve got social groups. It’s like, you have teams in your life. And sometimes you’re the star player. And sometimes you’re a utility player. And sometimes you’re a backup player, right. But we all play a part and that’s just a such a great, great reminder. Cause I know in the journey of building your personal brand you’re not always gonna get to be the star surprise, sorry. Don’t wanna have to burst your bubble there, but you’re not always gonna be the star.
AJV (02:36):
There’s gonna be a lot of work. Building your personal brand is a business like this is a business that needs to be treated like one, which means sometimes like what you’re gonna be doing is behind the scenes. And you’re not gonna feel like it’s making a PA an impact or a difference, but it is there are, there are different roles that you’re gonna fill on every team that you’re in and every season that you’re in. And I just, I loved that analogy of like you’re, you’re on teams. Right. and, and you play different roles in each of the teams and those, those roles change at different seasons. It’s just such a good reminder for me. It’s like, I need to remember that I am not always the star player. Right. And it’s like, I gotta let other people shine. And I have to take a backseat sometimes and sometimes I get to come forward regardless.
AJV (03:19):
I’m a part of a team and my role matters. And I, I love that thought. That was so good. The second thing that I thought was really significant is this shift that the LPGA is taking on the importance of making sure the stories of the players are known. Right. and I, you know, if you list into this podcast,
AJV (04:02):
She goes, I mean, what other, what other time in life are other humans literally jumping out of their seat, screaming and yelling for the successes of another person. Right. And it’s like, I’ve got my jerseys. Like, you know, I live in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s like me and my boys, like, we’ve got like our Derek Henry jerseys. We’ve got our eight EJ brown jerseys. We’re Tennessee Titans fans. And it’s like, we are cheering for these people. Like we’re taking their numbers and their names and we’re wearing them. Right. It’s like, it’s this community aspect of being a part of something. And that happens when you know the story. It’s like, yes, they’re amazing on the field. But it’s like, the more we get to know the story, the more I’m in it, in the team and in the game itself. So how is that true to you and your company, right?
AJV (04:46):
Like what if people were screaming up and down for the success of your sales team or your executive team or your customer service team, right. It’s like, that would be incredible. Right. But it’s like, we gotta help share the stories of the people on our teams. Right. And that includes companies, our leaders, our frontline employees, the executive, whoever it is, it’s like help us fall in love with you. And we can only do that when we get to see you and know you learn from you thus trust you. So, oh man. She was just, you know, speaking my language. And then the last thing that I thought she was said that was really impactful is love what you do get at it all the time. Like if you’re in the middle of something, stay present, be focused at being really good at what you’re doing, not focused on trying to get goods, you can do something else.
AJV (05:31):
And I, I so admire what she said. It’s like, I’ve never gone out looking for another job. I just focused really on the job that I have. I care deeply. I do a really good job. I wanna, I wanna see my team succeed and I’m focused on the here and now. So I, and I even like, I was like, you know, bring it up like three or four times. So what do you see next? She’s like, Nope, I am here. And now I need that in my life. I need to be more here and now, right. Not looking one year, five year, 10 years ahead. It’s like, no, I am focused on the team that I have right now. The business that I have right now, the audience that I have right now, it’s like, I am focused on you. I care deeply. I wanna be known for caring deeply.
AJV (06:11):
I wanna go, like, I wanna go and focus on what’s right in front of me, not just like what I wanna do in the future. It’s like, no, it’s like, it’s all about the here and now. And I think that’s a really great message for all of us. It’s like the work you’re doing right now matters, however, big or small your audience is, however, big or small your company is the work you’re doing right now for the team that you employ. And for the clients that you’re serving it matters right now. Say, stay focused on the here and now y’all go listen to this episode, Molly, me Simon. So amazing commissioner of the L PGA tour. Like it’s about to blow up. I’m so excited. So happy that I get to be a part of interviewing her at the beginning stages of this part of her journey. So go check out the whole episode and come back next time at the influential personal brand.
Ep 289: Personal Brand Strategies for Network Marketing and Direct Sales with Ray Higdon | 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):
This episode brought together three of my favorite things, sales, personal branding, network marketing, and and four, I would say leadership, all kind of coming together in this interview that I did with Ray Higdon and welcome to this special recap edition. I love this. I, I love this conversation. I’ve been, I, I love having this conversation specifically about how does personal branding apply to direct sales people, you know, all types of direct sales and then also network marketing specifically, which is really what rays expertise and, and, and special niche is. And so I just, I just thought this was fascinating. And if you know anything about the world of network marketing there’s just a really interesting kind of almost like dynamic happening right now, where companies are trying to really figure out how much flexibility and freedom should people have with their personal brand versus, you know, leveraging the company’s brand.
RV (02:01):
And I think a lot of companies are struggling with that, but it, it it’s really prevalent in direct sales, cuz they’re like, you know, right on the front lines out there selling face to face and, and doing business with friends. So fascinating conversation. I, if and we talked about some of those things with Ray, but the three highlights I wanna share for you apply outside of network marketing. And, and beyond direct sales, I think these are three ubiquitous concepts and takeaways that are really important for all of us and for you, no matter what type of business that you are in. And they they’re super duper powerful and they were great reminders for me. And as I was going back and reviewing the show, I was like, yeah, this there’s some really, really big moments in here. So the first one is when, when Ray said this, he, this is such an important phrase.
RV (02:55):
He said, I want to be duplicatable. I want to be duplicatable. That is a really important concept. And it, it makes sense like that is one of the best things. That’s one of the best lessons you can learn from network marketing, right? Is they just, they teach you how, how, how to sell something. And then if you can teach someone else how to sell something, you just duplicate that process over and over, it’ll change your entire life. But even with your personal brand everything you need to sort of think in terms of being duplicatable, repeatable processes and, and how do you scale things. So whether it’s just scaling your own content marketing strategy, right? Like we call it the content diamond. For those of you that are brand builders members. You know, we teach this, this system of what happens every single week, this, this giant checklist that you have to run, that’s being duplicatable, right?
RV (03:52):
It’s, it’s being able to have many people step in it’s interchangeable parts of your system. We also talk about an eight figure entrepreneur, which is one of our phase, one of our phase four programs that, you know, the same thing about like redundancy and scale. And we, one of the flagship points from, from scale your sales, or excuse me from eight figure entrepreneur, is that we talk about how custom fails, right? Standard scales, custom fails standard scales, custom fails standard scales. Anything that you can do repeatedly over and over and over again. And in this episode, when Ray was talking about, you know, why is McDonald’s the most like successful franchise it’s because it’s designed to be run by the person with the lowest level of skill, right? It’s created for the least common denominator. It’s it is, it is the most spelled out.
RV (04:55):
It is the most explicit. It’s the most specific it’s like, if you follow this playbook and this process, it will duplicate. And that is how things scale. Think, think about manufacturing lines. We, we talk about this, of going a manufacturing line works because it’s cranking out the same thing over and over again. That is how you scale. So you want to think in, in, in terms of being duplicatable, even if you’re gonna choose not to be duplicatable, right? Like you might say, no, no, no, I don’t wanna be the, I don’t wanna be the Honda accord. I want to be the rolls Royce. And I want every single thing to be custom and handcrafted, even if you’re gonna make that choice, that’s something you should do deliberately. And, and intentionally by way of considering to go, what’s the, the alternative of like, how do I scale?
RV (05:47):
But if you wanna be one of those two things, right, you don’t want to get stuck in the middle, which is where a lot of people do. And, and honestly, being duplicatable is gonna be really important, even Rolls-Royce as, you know, great processes and streamlines and, you know, checklists like you can’t build a great brand without being duplicatable. You have to be able to do things systematically, repeatedly on autopilot, over and over and over. And it, it reminds me almost of my in my Ted talk. And so my, how to multiply your time, Ted talk, my second book procrastinating on purpose. One of the, one of the flagship sayings in there is we say automation is to your time. Exactly what compounding interest is to your money. Automation is to your time, what compounding interest is to your money. That’s being duplicatable.
RV (06:36):
It is investing in creating a system or a process that can be stamped out on, on repeat. You should be thinking that way, always as an entrepreneur, like that’s how you free yourself up. As you, you replace yourself with a process. You, you, you, you know, people become interchangeable to some extent the, the, the better your processes are. The second takeaway for me in parallel, I wanted to highlight for you was when Ray said, look, if I had big goals, I would have a prospecting number. And then I would have a marketing metric of something that I focused on. And I love this. You know what, like for example, he said, I’m gonna do one reel every day or three reels a day, I think is what he said. He’s like, if I had big goals, I would be doing three reels a day.
RV (07:28):
And there’s a couple things I, I love about this. The, the high level concept here though, is focusing on what you can control, reminding yourself that your job is to do the things you can do. And you have to focus on doing the things you can do, stop worrying about the things you can do and start focusing on the things that you can do. You have to focus on the controllables, you do the things that are a hundred percent in your power. And so I always, you know, I believe in that concept a lot, we, we write about it in, in take the stairs. And in my first book, we say, put your self-esteem in your work habits, not in your results, put your self esteem in your work habits, not in your results. You let the results shake out. You let the results be a byproduct of the work.
RV (08:19):
So I’m a huge believer in that concept. It’s always great to be reminded of it. The thing that I loved about this and, and the, the little kind of nuance flip that switched for me was that applies to marketing too. Like, it definitely applies to sales. It’s a survival mechanism in sales. We, we would say, you know, don’t don’t focus on how many people say yes, like just focus on how many people you’re gonna talk to. Like your goal is to work a certain number of hours and talk to a certain number of people or make a certain number of dials. One of my old friends, Andrea Wal wrote, she wrote this book on called go for no. And that was sort of, the mentality was like, you know, just worry about like, instead of going, Ooh, I hope I get one yesterday, aim for 20 no’s.
RV (09:06):
And by aiming for 20 no’s, you’ll end up with more yeses than if you were just focused on the yeses. Right? So it’s that kind of idea, which I love it. And, and, and you hear it for that applies very much for sales. The part that was really cool here is the same applies for marketing. The same applies for marketing for personal branding specifically for social media, right? Is if all you’re focused on is how many views did I get? How many followers did I get? How many comments did I get? How many likes did I get? How many shares did I get? If, if that’s all you’re thinking about, none of that is in your control, right? Like none of that is in your control. You can influence those things by the quality of the content that you put out. But the better thing to focus on is, is the quantity, right?
RV (09:52):
Quantity leads to quality. Quantity typically is where things are controllable. So when Ray was saying, I would focus on making three reels a day, that’s a great metric to focus on. That’s a great way to think about it is to go H what is the volume of output you are going to do every day? Not, and, and let the results shake out, knowing that if you put in the work, if you pay the price, if you, if you constantly make good choices, if you continue to, to, to do the, like, have great work ethic and great character and integrity, and you do the right things over and over and over and over again, consistently over the course of time, it’s going to shake out it’s, it’s the compound effect that book by Darren Hardy and which is, you know, that good choices compound. And over time, it all plays out.
RV (10:41):
Like you have to remind yourself of that, even with your marketing is just like, I’m just focusing on, you know, like I’m gonna do a hundred podcasts, or like, I’m gonna do three reels a day, or I’m just gonna write every single week or whatever it is, focus on the activity, not the results. So what is that for you right in your business, in your life, like right now, where are you focused on the results? Where are you allowing your self-esteem to be tied to a result? And you need to break that you need to chop that you need to separate, that you need to sever that relationship, and you need to instead connect your self-esteem to activity, to controllables, to your work ethic, to to like the volume of what you’re doing and allow, and, and then just allowing the results to shake out, knowing that they will be there.
RV (11:34):
They will be there sooner or later, but it’s almost, it’s never, when we want it, it’s always slower than we than we want, but that’s really, really a big deal. And then finally, my, my third takeaway, this is actually more of something that, you know, Ray said that reminded me of a really important concept, which I don’t know that we’ve hit it hard enough on, on, on this podcast, right? And on this show, and even with our, our members with our brand builders members, like, but this is really important to understand. Marketing is long term sales is short term. Generally speaking, marketing is long term sales is short term. Marketing is good. Sales is good, but marketing is, you know, typically it’s like, you’re reaching the masses and you’re building trust with the masses. You’re building an audience that takes time. The good news, right?
RV (12:33):
The downside of marketing is that it takes time. It, it, it takes time to build the systems, create the content, you know, put it out there, grow a following, stay in touch, like earn trust with people. That’s the, that’s the bad news. The good news though, is that it’s extremely scalable. Once you hit the tipping point where you’ve been doing this, now people just start flooding to you and it just gets better and better and better, but it’s hardest early on. And it’s slowest early on like marketing. Isn’t the fastest way to results. Sales is marketing is long term sales is short. Term sales happens right away, right? Sales is human to human conversation. I can pick up the phone. I can talk to somebody today. I can make a sale, right? I have to just convince one person, you know, Mani, mano, or wo mano to wo mano
RV (13:25):
And you’re just going to talk directly to somebody and listen and ask questions, and you can make a sale. That’s the beauty of sales, the, the downfall, you know, or the hard, you know, that’s the good news of sales. The bad news of sales is that while sales is fast, it’s not super scalable. I, I mean, it, it’s, it’s quite scalable to a point, but you know, you, if you always have to do the selling, that’s gonna make it harder to scale, cuz it’s pulling your time. Now, the way you get around that is, is you go through what we teach in phase four, which is scale your sales, which is how to recruit and hire and train and manage and motivate a sales team. So sales is quite scalable has been for decades, but like the, as a solopreneur, it doesn’t, it doesn’t scale super well, cuz it’s taking your time and your time is pulled from all of these other, these other things.
RV (14:15):
The other part is that a lot of people are uncomfortable selling. They don’t know how to prospect. They don’t know how to ask for referrals. They’re not comfortable asking for the sale. They don’t know how to do it. They don’t know what to say when, when people, you know, give you objections. And by the way, if that’s you who you need to request a call with brand builders group and you need to go through our pressure free persuasion course, that is where we teach all that stuff. The tactics of how to ask for referrals exactly. You know, step by step what to say when they give you, when you run, when you get an objection, when you get you know, when you’re unsure of what to do or how to respond like that is, that is sales, but, but sales is fast.
RV (14:58):
Marketing is slow. Marketing is long term sales is short term. But then, you know, long term marketing catches up and it becomes this super powerful thing and, and marketing can also shorten the sales cycle. Because if somebody comes in to you already, you know with a, with like persuaded to use Robert child Dini’s persuasion kind of idea, like if they come to you already sort of pre-sold, that’s gonna accelerate things. And so part of the magic of brand builders group, like what we do internally is, is we do both, right. We do marketing and sales. Like we use marketing to sort of like warm up the leads and bring them in. And then we use sales and then we work through referrals. And so that’s why we’ve been able to build very successful businesses, very fast and, and businesses that are, are, are much larger than most people with millions of followers frankly because we understand how to do both.
RV (16:00):
And so they both work. They’re both good, but they both serve different purposes and you gotta sort of work work, you know, realize which one is your strength, which one is your weakness and how do you incorporate both of them in together? Because marketing is slow and sales is fast. Marketing is long term sales is short term, but, but marketing is scalable. And, and sales is more of a grind. So like it’s all it is. It’s all a balance. But if you’re gonna build a great business and a great personal brand, you want to be friends with both. Like you want to be really good at both marketing and sales and the better you are at those two things, the easier everything else becomes. So maybe you need to request a call at free brandand call.com/podcast request a free call with our team.
RV (16:51):
If you want to, you know, work with us, we do the first call for free. We’ll help you create a customized marketing. And you know, we’ll show you our journey for creating a marketing plan and a sales plan for your business. But that is those are the big take takeaways from today. Be duplicatable, put your self esteem in your work habits, not your results. And, you know, remember that marketing is long term and sales is short term, learn how to do both and you will have a great business and a great brand. Hey, leave us a review. If you wouldn’t mind at iTunes or wherever you listen to the show and share this episode with anyone who you think it might be helpful for. We’re so glad you’re here. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand podcast.
Ep 287: How To Break Through The Noise with Lindsay Czarniak | 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 welcome to my recap of my conversation with Lindsay Czarniak loved this conversation and I love her. I think she’s so cool. And she’s so down to earth and it’s just an awesome, conversation like if you’ve ever wondered, like how do you get to be doing the things that you see people on TV doing, which I often do and be like, how, how did you get into this? And, you know, how did you get to be the one to report on this or do this? This is a really cool behind the scenes sneak peak on what I would say, like Lindsay’s rise to all the things that she’s done, both sports related and non-sports related, which I just so cool. Right. and I loved it and I just think she’s just an awesome human being, so, okay. I could go on and on about that.
AJV (01:44):
So I’m gonna give you my top three takeaways at legit. I’m holding up a notebook, have like 10, so I’m gonna have to narrow it down here as I’m actually doing this recap episode. But here’s the first thing, and this is just a great reminder to all of us is the importance of building relationships. Not because you need them are not because you think you’re gonna need them one day, but because you genuinely care about other human beings and I love what she said. She goes, you build relationships, not, not because you think you’re gonna need ’em one day. But you build them because there’s a, a genuine desire to just know other people. And she said, it’s, it’s been a constant reminder throughout her life, as it is mine, and probably yours of the way you treat people matters. And it’s a reflection of your heart.
AJV (02:34):
It’s a reflection of how you view yourself. And that means a lot to other people, right? I was actually in a call with, I don’t know if it was a webinar. I can’t remember what it was. Oh, I D know what it was. I was at a conference. I was at a conference on customer experience and I was sitting in the audience and the speaker who up, who also happens to be a close friend and an amazing author, John de Julius he said, what if you lived every day, like the way you treated people today is how you would be remembered. And that just hit me in a really profound way of if today was my last day on earth, is how I’m treating people the way I want to be remembered when I’m gone. Or, you know, is today a day where I’m being short or, you know, just flippant because I’m tired or overwhelmed or, you know, is today the day that I actually had time in patience and stop to say hello and get to know someone or help somebody with, you know, a bag of groceries or whatever it is.
AJV (03:43):
And I think it’s just, it’s, it’s a sign of your heart. And that was like a big thing to me is how you treat people as a reflection of how you view yourself and how you view others. And people take note of that. So build relationships, not because you think you need, ’em not because they’re gonna do something with you, but because you generally care about humans, right? You, you generally care about the people around you, what their name is, what their story is. And at the very least, you know, it’s, you, you care enough to say hello, right. To give them time and respect. I think that really matters. And that it shapes your reputation. It shapes how people view you. So just a great, never ending forever, always reminder of the importance of relationships and how you treat people. Second thing is this is tactical.
AJV (04:29):
Just a quick tip for any of you who get nervous on camera or who our camera’s shy. I thought this was really great. I love this. And it’s what I have noted here in my notes is the, the post-it rule, right? So it’s like your entire script for your video should fit on a post-it note. In other words, it should not have many words and it should be really short. And I love that. It’s like pick out three things that you wanna talk about in any interview, ironically, we talk about three things in our recaps, but talk about three things that you wanna talk about in any conversation or any video that you’re doing. And just write down the words that are gonna make you remember that point and then be you. And that’s the key it’s like, what people really want on camera is not some long scripted, highly produced animated video.
AJV (05:18):
What they want to hear is from someone they can relate to someone that’s personable, someone that’s being authentic, someone that’s genuine that you can listen to and go, man, it’s like, I’ve had questions like that. Or I wondered things like that before. Whether it’s educational inspirational or informational or just entertainment, it’s like, keep it to the, keep it to the basics. So you let pressure off yourself, right? The more you force yourself to stick to an outline or memorize something, the more pressure you put on yourself. And quite honestly, it’s like when we have a hiccup, that’s when we get even more nervous and it just makes it worse. So what if you just had a post-it note with like three or four key words that will help you remember the points that you’re trying to make, and then you can just have a conversation.
AJV (06:06):
You can just be yourself and share because that’s what people really want. And she talked about how she did this when everything happened with George Floyd and she interviewed her mother-in-law and she’s you know, and she just said, I just, this wasn’t anything to do with sports or my professional career, but I had questions. And I figured if I have questions, other people like me have questions. So I’m gonna ask them and I’m gonna record it, and I’m gonna share. And that won her a Gracie award for women in sports who are making, are creating influential movements that, that wasn’t scripted or highly produced or animated, and didn’t have pretty bumpers or graphics. It was a conversation amongst two people who were having real live conversations around real life challenges in, in like live in the moment in real time.
AJV (06:59):
That is what people are looking for. So just remember that the next time you go to do an interview or make a video, it’s like, people want more of who you are. Don’t, don’t get consumed with having it scripted and outlined just have a conversation. So the post-it the post-it rule, right? Three words on a post-it note, that’s all you need. And the rest is just be, you just be you all right. Last thing super, super short, super simple, but really significant is the more relatable you are, the more fans you create. I love that. And it’s like it will simultaneously create non-fan that’s okay. That’s not your audience, but the more relatable you are, the more fans you will create. Y’all go check out this episode. It’s so cool. She’s awesome. You know, she, she gave us her handle. She said, follow her on Instagram. It’s Lindsay C, Z not her full names. Aniak but just C, Z. So go check her out, follow her on Instagram. You’re gonna learn really cool things about how she loves fishing and early mornings and telling silly dad jokes, like check her out, check out this interview. So good. Come back next time and get more tips on how to build an influential personal brand.
Ep 285: How to Double Your Business In 12 Months | 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):
I love it. Absolutely love, love, love when we have AJ on this show as, as a guest and not just a host, she’s brilliant. And I like, I’m not just saying that cuz she’s my wife and she’s my business partner. Like she is absolutely phenomenal. At selling, I mean’s several things, but specifically at selling, you know, like she is a one woman wrecking crew and I’m talking about she, she has had multiple years where she’s generated over a million dollars in revenue by herself as a one person individual. And so getting a chance to interview her and talk about how do you double your business in the next 12 months? Fantastic conversation worthwhile conversation. Of course, if you didn’t listen to it, you kinda wanna go back and listen to it. I’m gonna share with you what my highlights are and take away.
RV (01:47):
And you know, I, I hope this isn’t weird for you. Like I love learning from her, like, you know, just as a friend and a spouse, but as a professional colleague, I really, really love learning from AJ. And I find her philosophies very like original and refreshing and different. She has a very different take on the world. So I, I wanna share what my three top takeaways were from listening to her and just sort of like being around this conversation. And obviously she, the reason that she, one of the reasons she came on the show is cuz she wanted to let you know that she put together a completely free training about how to double your business in the next 12 months. And if you go to double dot brand builders, group.com, double dot brand builders, group.com, you can watch the whole free training.
RV (02:37):
Like it’s a whole presentation and everything. And it’s, I it’s, it’s gonna be it’s phenomenal. So the, with that, going back to what we talked about in the interview, the first thing that came up, which to me really is this necessary switch that has to happen. If you are gonna grow your business, like if, if you’re be a successful entrepreneur, salesperson, personal brand, like insert whatever term you want there, mission driven messenger. You have to reach this point where you decide that you are not ashamed of what you do and that it’s also not humble to not tell people about what you do. Like there is a switch that has to flip in your brain and, and for as, as much time as the switch is flipped to, I don’t wanna intrude on people. I don’t wanna push on people. I don’t wanna have to interrupt people to tell them about what I’m doing.
RV (03:43):
Like as long as that switch is flipped off, like flipped in that direction, you’re gonna struggle your whole life. Like the rest of time. Like until we flip this switch, you are going, you’re going to be broke. Like you’re gonna have a hard time because you’re gonna always be shy and embarrassed and timid about telling people what it is that you do. You can’t be timid about telling people what you do and have people find out about it, right? Like you have to be bold. You have to be powerful. You have to be assertive. You have to be commanding. You have to be convicted. Right. And it’s, and it’s not humble to, to not tell people what you do like humility is to me is, is, you know, I, I actually did an Instagram reel about this. That like the difference, like the opposite of humility is not self-confidence the opposite of humility is pride, right?
RV (04:46):
Self-Confidence is being convicted in, in, in what you do. Pride isn’t is about who you do it for, right? So this isn’t about you going, oh, I need to tell the world how great I am. That’s pride. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about being convicted to tell the world how great the thing is that you have can be for them, right? It’s not about, it’s the difference between pride and confidence is who you do it for self-confidence is going. I am a capable person of helping you. It is in service of you and in when I’m operating in service of you, that gives me the permission, the confidence the, the openness, the power, the authority, the, the, the, the white space, the invitation to kind of boldly proclaim and say, Hey, I’ve got this thing that will change your life.
RV (05:42):
It’s about you. Pride is when it’s about me. Let me tell you how great I am. Let me, you know, you, you should know me, look at what I’ve done. Look at who I am. That’s different than confidence, which is, let me boldly tell you about this thing that I have for you, how it can help you, what we have put together for how it serves you. And, and until you flip that switch, you’re gonna struggle. You’re gonna be broke. It’s gonna be hard. You’re gonna have a hard time finding customers. You’re gonna your marketing campaigns. Aren’t gonna work. You’re not gonna sell your sales people. Aren’t gonna sell. Why? Because selling marketing enrollment registrations are a matter of conviction.
RV (06:27):
There is this transference of going and listening to somebody who believes what they’re saying and not just believes what they’re saying. They believe that what they are telling me about is good for me. It’s not about them, right? They’re just the messenger. But the message is for me, the message can help my life. And that is you have to get to that point. I mean, think about it. You, you can’t shy your way into the world, knowing about you. You can’t timid your way into changing lives. You, you can’t soft pedal your way into making a difference in the world. You can’t, there’s too much noise. There’s too much competition for attention. There’s, there’s too much competition in general. There’s too much negativity. There’s, there’s too much misinformation. If you’re gonna win, it has to be bold and assertive. And, and DEC declarative, like I am here with something that can help you not look at me.
RV (07:30):
It’s look at this. It’s not who am I? It’s what do I have for you? But, but you have to make that switch. You have to turn that corner. Otherwise you are gonna be the world’s best kept secret. I mean, you’re not gonna be the world’s best kept secret. You’re just gonna be a secret. You’re just not gonna be known. And, and this, I think is one of the greatest struggles that mission driven messengers have. And why do we know this? Why do we, why do we have so much clarity about this? Because this is us. This is what we struggle with, right? For us, it’s a spiritual thing as Christians, we’re going, man, you know, the meek shall inherent the earth. So how do I, how do I stand up and go listen to my podcast and, and, and, and tell the world like, you should listen to this podcast.
RV (08:16):
How do we, how do we go? You know, like, oh, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, harder for a rich person to, or a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to inherit the kingdom of heaven. How do we reconcile that? Because we go those messages, that construct, that concept is not about being broke and, and hidden and shy. And that’s not what it’s about. That’s about positioning. What’s the position in your life. And where do you stand in the pecking order of the things that matter, right? And, and so if you’re a Christian, right? The what, what we’ve realized and have come to understand from studying this really understanding scripture and sort of the heart of this is going, it’s not about how much money you have. It’s about what position money has in your life, right? If money is number one in your life, that’s a problem.
RV (09:11):
That’s, that’s what Jesus is talking about. He’s saying, I want the number one spot. I wanna be first. God should be first. And that’s what he’s saying. You can be rich and God can still be first. You can be poor and money can still be first. And God can be second, right? Even if you’re poor and God is, but money is first, or your pride is first, and God is beneath that. That’s the problem that’s going on there, right? It actually is completely separate of the quantity of money you have. It’s about the position of that item in your life. This is a positioning issue. This is the positioning in your own mind. Like, and, and you, you, until you flip the switch, you’re gonna be living with this struggle of like, oh, I’m self promotional or I’m I’m, I’m, I’m, you know, I’m, I’m arrogant.
RV (10:04):
I’m egotistical. Yes you are. If the mission is about you and as, and, and about elevating you and making people worship you and idolize you. Yes, that’s wrong. But if the mission is to push the message out to the world, if the mission is to solve a problem for the world, if the mission is to help other people, if it’s to elevate them, then you can do that and be bold. You have to be bold and powerful and assertive and loud and consistent and dominating because you won’t get heard. Otherwise, like you gotta, you gotta break through, like you can’t sit in a corner somewhere in a room and think the world’s gonna find out about the solution that you have, that you’re not gonna impact lives. You’re not gonna help people. So it’s rooted in service. It’s not rooted in pride. It’s rooted in service.
RV (11:00):
It’s not rooted in pride, but until you click until this clicks, you’re gonna struggle your whole life. Your business is always gonna struggle because you’re gonna be at odds. You are gonna be subconsciously self sabotaging because on the one hand, you want to grow your business. But on the other hand, you, you feel like there’s this spiritual battle of going, oh, I have to remain meek and humble. And until you reconcile this, you’re gonna struggle. And the way you reconcile it is realizing that they’re not remotely connected at all. I mean, even Jesus, like the great commission is go tell the world, proclaim it. Boldly. Not about how great we are, but how about how great he is about what he has done about who God is, but go boldly into the world. Why can we go boldly into the whole world? Because it’s not about us.
RV (11:56):
It’s about this cure. It’s about this message. And it’s about another person. It’s about him, right? That’s why you can do it. If you are at the center, that is a conflict. But if your expertise is at the center, if your service is at the center, if the product is at the center, if service is at the center, then you can proclaim it wildly and boldly and loudly and confidently without doing it. Pridefully you have to get this. If you’re ever going to grow your business, if you’re ever going to grow your reach, if you’re ever gonna break free of, of being financially poor, like this is, is a really, really big issue. So it was huge. Right? And so just hearing AJ talk about it and give her her take on it. Super powerful for me. The second thing is something we’ve been talking about a ton like AJ and I have been talking about this.
RV (12:56):
We’ve been talking about it with our own team internally. We’re getting, you know, we’re, we’re trying to like make sure our members, our, our messengers and our membership program like that, they’re all super clear on this. And, you know, wanna make sure that you’re in, in the loop on this too, which is this huge mistake that like the entire world has somehow been tricked, like misled. Like it’s like the entire world believes something that is so ineffective. It’s unbelievable. And here’s, here’s what it is. We have all been misled to think that the key to glory is selling to strangers on the internet.
RV (13:57):
Like no, the path to riches is not through strangers on the internet. The path to riches is through trust. And the relationships of the people who know you in real life, the people who know your character, the people who love you, the who believe in you, the people who have been there in your darkest moments, the people who you’ve delivered for, it’s not millions of strangers on the internet. It’s a few dozen people who know you in real life. Why? Because it’s about trust. Now, can you make money from the internet and social media? Of course you can, but only after you’ve built trust, right? And it takes a long time to build trust. When people only watch, you know, three seconds of your videos at a time, they gotta watch a lot of three second videos before they actually really trust you. So it takes a long time.
RV (14:52):
The, the, your next great customer is not a stranger on the internet. Your next best customer is much more likely to be in your cell phone or in the cell phone of your current customer’s cell phones. It’s the people that, you know, like the people who know the people, you know, it’s leveraging the, the relationships. This is reputation, right? When you, when you hear personal branding, please don’t think social media and logos and colors and websites and YouTube channels and podcasts think reputation, right? That is what our company is about. The digitization of reputation. Like, yes, it is digitizing it. Yes, there are these modern things that we’re doing, but the core is not the digital part. The core is the reputation part, the character part, the, the, the personality, the integrity part. And so when it comes to selling and doubling your business in the next 12 months, it’s not going, Ooh, there’s some secret hack that I’m gonna learn on social media.
RV (15:57):
That’s somehow gonna introduce me to millions of people who are all then gonna buy from me, even if it does introduce you to millions of people, which can happen. And that’s a great thing and good things come from that. They’re not gonna all suddenly buy from you. You have to develop trust. And that takes a long time, a long time, right? Like a lot of people who buy from us, we, we had a, a great friend sign up this, this guy’s really cool guy. His name’s Ray Higg. And he joined our program yesterday and he’s got, he’s really huge in the network marketing space. And he’s got this program called rank makers. And, and he’s a great guy like and you know, him and his wife, Jess, like they have business together, but like, he really helps a lot of people that are in network marketing.
RV (16:36):
Like this is what he’s done his whole life. We’ve gone back and forth for a few years. And, and he just now became a customer because it was just like, it just takes time. Right? And so we, instead of believing this sort of lie that, oh, if every, if you do it, all right, people are just gonna flock to you and buy suddenly over the, you know, strangers from the internet instead it’s relationships, it’s reputation, it’s character. And so work through your relationships, work through the people who already know you get referrals from those folks. Right? So obviously our, our pressure free persuasion training is one of the reasons why we’re talking about this now because of the exit of our former company, there was, there was a window of time where we were bound by a non-compete. And so we couldn’t teach sales training.
RV (17:22):
And so we, we, we didn’t for a few years, but now we’re free of that. And, and we created this, I mean, life changing sales curriculum pressure free persuasion, which, you know, if you’re a member, you’ve got access to it. And it’s just like, you know, we teach this stuff, but the psych, the tactical part, but the psychological part is right here is going quit thinking the riches are gonna come from strangers on the internet. And instead start working through in a deeper way through the relationships you already have and asked to be introduced to people that’s and specifically getting referrals from your customers. Like if you’re not getting referrals from your customers, even if you only have one customer or five, like if you’re not getting referrals from your customers, you’re missing on the best, easiest, lowest hanging fruit for more revenue in your business.
RV (18:12):
And just ask yourself this question on a scale of one to 10, how good of a job are you at getting referrals from your current customers? My guess is it might be zero.
RV (19:08):
And so at scale, all this stuff works. That’s why we do it. That’s why we teach it. But it’s over the long term in the short term, do it through the relationships of the people you have, unless you have some massive platform, right. Then that’s, that’s the reason you have it is cuz you’ve been doing it for a while and you do have trust and there’s ways to monetize it. But for most of us, most of you, it’s gonna happen through the relationships that you have with real people in real life. And then the third thing, you know, third, big takeaway here. And, and I got a fourth bonus one, but the, the third one is when AJ was saying, just give away so much value that people feel compelled almost that they have to pay you for something. And that is such a rare philosophy.
RV (19:59):
I think like, I don’t hear people talk about it, but that is how AJ and I have built our life, our businesses. It’s like, we give it away. Like we give it away. We, it, it’s a, it’s a tremendous amount of time and pain and money to just give away so much of this stuff. But like, you know, a great example here recently is, is Tom and Lisa BIU. If you don’t know them, they’re awesome. They, they have a they’re superpower couple. They sold a company for a billion dollars. It was called quest nutrition. They were co-founders and now they have a, a huge podcast called impact theory. Well, Lisa had a book come out called radical confidence. We didn’t know them very well. I had known Tom a little bit. And so, you know, she’s doing her book launch and I said, Hey, did you think about this?
RV (20:42):
And are you guys doing this? And did you know this? And have you tried this and, and have you met this person and that person and this person, right. And just like, you know, we don’t charge for PR. PR is something we do for free for all of our, just our friends and clients. That’s just how we add value to the community is introducing people all the time. Right? So like the more we get to know somebody personally, the more likely we are to ntroduce them. So we’re introducing them, you know, just making connections, but we share tips with everybody, right? Like we’re sharing the same tips with them that we have, you know, somewhere in, in the archive here of all these podcasts, like, and we’re just going, Hey, are you doing this? And what happened was they literally said this. I mean, this is the craziest thing.
RV (21:19):
This is a true story. It happened recently. Right? And they’re really big deal. I mean, they’ve got millions of followers. That’s one of the biggest personal development podcasts in the world and an amazing reputation. And they’re tremendous people like super smart, super successful, wealthy, sharp, inspiring, tons of people, all of these things. And basically what they said was they said, Rory, this has reached a point where we feel guilty. Like about how much value you, we have gotten from you. You’ve been so helpful to us in, in, in our book launch Lisa’s Lisa’s book launch the book is called radical confidence. Right. And they were like, we have to hire you.
RV (22:12):
The intention was just to be helpful, but it was amazing how good people, like really good people actually do start to feel a little awkward when you’ve given so much. Right. And you’re because at some point it’s like, golly, like you’ve done so much for me. Like, what can I give back to you? Like, how can I help you? Like, oh my gosh, like you saved the day here. I, I, I want to repay the favor. I need to repay the favor. It’s like their law of reciprocity. It’s not a manipulative thing. It’s, it’s a, it’s an abundance thing. It’s a generosity thing. It’s a person of character thing going, gosh, you’ve done so much. You’ve done so much for me. Like, what can I do for you? How can I help you? I wanna be a part of this. And that’s what happens, you know, so good people that that’s what happens.
RV (22:57):
And so like, that’s our whole strategy. I mean, that’s our whole content marketing strategy, give away everything for free. Like we teach you everything we know. And so anyway, so they hired us, right? So they’re, they are brand builders, group clients, and we made a huge impact even officially after they hire us. Like, so with Lisa, we helped Lisa grow her book sales 33% in 10 days, right. Of everything that she had done in the launch, we helped her increase it 33% in a 10 day window. You know, and then, you know, she hit the USA today, national bestseller list. It’s amazing. Right. So now we have another client who’s a national bestseller and all of this happened. She’s so cool. Like I love follower. She’s super sharp and sassy. You know, she’s, she’s really, really cool. And all of a sudden we ended up with another client.
RV (23:47):
That’s a very recognizable client. We’ve had a huge, added, a huge amount of value to their life. And she’s a national bestselling author as she straight up legitimately would not have been. If, if it, if it weren’t for us, like, like that’s a really cool thing to go. All we were doing was just trying to help. And, and as much as helping them, we were also helping our network. Right. Because it helps a lot of our friends and a lot of our clients to be able to get to interview somebody like Lisa and get to build a relationship with her. Right. So it’s, it’s not even like, Hey, let’s help her and see if we can get in, it’s going, how can we just help? How can we add value? And it’s, if you just look, it’s another switch here. Like, if you can flip this switch, if you can go, if you can shift from going, what can I get from you?
RV (24:32):
What can, what can you do for me? And you can flip the switch to go, what can I do for you? How can I help you? It radically changes your life and it changes your business, right? Like people are coming to us going. I heard you guys are the best. And it’s like, all we’re doing is trying to help. Right. you know, our stuff is really good. Like our content is really good. Like, we, we, we do, you know, we know what we’re talking about, but there’s other people in the world who do it, but I think it’s, it’s people are drawn to that heart of generosity and anyone can do that. And here’s, and here’s one of the reasons why I think we do it. I hated selling so much. Right. Like I went door to door and felt like such a scam artist.
RV (25:17):
And, you know, I learned some, some really shady techniques along the way about, about sales. Like just some, some, some pretty shady stuff. And I was like, I just don’t wanna be that guy. I don’t care if I’m not the number one salesperson, I’m not gonna be that guy. Like, it’s like the, I, the amount of money you could pay me, isn’t worth a compromise of my own character. Right? Like, I’m not gonna compromise my character just to earn a commission. I’m not gonna compromise my reputation just to grow my revenue. And AJ’s the same way. And I think, you know, that’s one of the reasons we end up married is like, we have this apparently unusual philosophy and belief system that it’s like, no, no, no. Like I know, I know if I use that technique, I could sell more, but I would feel horrible and I couldn’t live with myself.
RV (26:11):
I don’t care that much about money. I don’t care that much about recognition. I’m not gonna do that. So what we defaulted to was just like, how can we give, how can we serve? How can we help? And she became this multimillion dollar producer, like in, in her early thirties. And, you know, it’s just by giving. So how can you do that? Like how can you adopt that posture of, and, and the more reluctant you are about selling, the more, I would say, embrace serving, embrace, giving away, sharing what, know, give it away for free, just go speak for free, put it out on social media, teach it for free. And just test me on this. I promise you, the money’s gonna show up. I promise, like you cannot lose when you do this. Like you cannot lose. And, and this story with Lisa was pretty crazy because it was like, she literally was like we have to pay you something like for them, they were like, we can’t sleep at night knowing how one sided this relationship has been.
RV (27:14):
Right. Like and so it was like, okay, well, I guess, you know, send us some money, but it was literally like, it didn’t really change anything. We were, we were just helping, you know I mean, I guess it did, it made us block more time on the calendar to show up and sort of be on their schedule. Right. Rather than just kind of operating when it was convenient. But do that go, how can I give away so much value that people would want to pay me and make that, make that your posture make that, make that your prayer make that your position in the marketplace make that your reputation and, and just, and just watch. So again, those are, those are the takeaways, love this story, you know, congratulations, Lisa USA today, national bestseller, radical confidence is the book, pick it up, you know, take a, take a look if you haven’t gotten it.
RV (28:02):
Really, really awesome. It’s, it’s endorsed by Jay Sheti and Mel Robbins and Dr. Nicole lap, like all these really modern day, you know, thought leaders, the thought leaders of future of our generation, like really, really cool. And then the other thing is go to, if you go to double dot brand builders, group.com, check out this, this full free training that AJ put together about how do you double your business in 12 months. And then, you know, that brings me to the fourth takeaway, which, you know, I wanna tell you about is we, it’s hard to build a personal brand. Like it’s, it’s hard to be an entrepreneur in general, right? Like you gotta do the marketing, you gotta do the sales, you gotta do the delivery, the customer service, the accounting, the HR, the legal, the strategy, the operations, like the finance, like it’s hard to be an entrepreneur.
RV (28:50):
And that’s one of the reasons why our heart is for so many entrepreneurs. And you know, anyone who builds a personal brand, then it’s like, yeah, you gotta learn, you know, content creation and presentation skills and social media and branding and color design and graphic design and, and, you know, paid traffic and all the things we teach podcasting, right? Like all of the things in our whole curriculum. And so it’s, it’s not easy to make money in the midst of all of that. You actually have to create content and you have to go, man. I started out just wanting to impact lives. I just wanted to help people. And now I have to do all this other stuff that like gets in the way between me impacting lives. Like I have to do all of these things in order to just get to impact lives and, and to be able to make any money, right?
RV (29:36):
Like you have to take care of all that stuff really, before you make money and you create content. And so one of the things that we realized and, you know, our, the feedback from our community’s been awesome is that our content is really, really good, really, really solid and really powerful. And so one thing we’ve never done, we’ve never done this in our career. We are just doing it now is we have started a content licensing program where you can actually you pay a fee it’s moderate, very moderate. You pay this fee. And then what’ll happen is you get a, you get trained on how to use our content to help people find their uniqueness, build their personal brand, established their position in the marketplace. All of these, you know, these things from our, from our flagship brand builders group curriculum, and we give you the content.
RV (30:29):
So you can then you know, like when you become, when most people become a client, we’re taking you through the content to apply it to your own life. This is a program that we have now launched called content licensing, where we are giving you permission to take our content and go out into the world and sell it. And you can make as much money as you want from teaching our content. And you get, you know, the legal authority and the, and the right to do it. And we actually, not only that we train you how to do it. So you, you’re paying just, just a, a very moderate licensing fee in order to be able to use our content and go tell it to the world. And, you know there we give you the tools, right? We give you PowerPoints, we give you you come through the training, we teach you how to teach it to other people.
RV (31:15):
And you get all of these resources that are assets to help you, you know, have this sort of off the shelf service that you can, you know, either, you know, do as a do as a business, or in most cases, just make it a part of your business. It’s specifically for like coaches and consultants. And if you’re interested in that, like go to license dot brand builders, group.com, license dot brand builders, group.com. And you can read about that and, and get more for more information if you want. And it’s just one more way. We’re trying to like help close the gap between where you’re at and money showing up in your bank account. Because it’s, it’s difficult and, you know, to practice what I preach here, the content is incredible. Like we have developed a systematic process to help people figure out who they should be, the rest of their life and what the calling is, what the unique calling is on their life and how they can turn that into a personal brand and to help them figure out what is their uncapable difference?
RV (32:19):
What is their uniqueness? What is their identity that only they can, the, the space that only they can occupy in the world and then teaching ’em how to make a bunch of money doing it. We, I mean, you know, has God inspired, like we believe this system was given to us, but like, it’s incredible. And we’ve now taken 600 people more than 600 people through the process, you know, and a lot of ’em are these really great clients that, that you hear of that we work with. So anyways, go to license dot brand builders, group.com. If you wanna read up about that and just switch on, right, switch on, be proud of what you, you do, be proud of how you can help, you know, don’t, don’t try to get, make people just, you know, worship you and idolize you and fall in love with you and tell them how great you are.
RV (33:08):
That’s pride self-confidence is telling people how awesome this tool is. This service, this technique, you know, that you have this solution to solving their problem, and you can do that boldly and daringly and almost provocatively and aggressively and powerfully and go out and tell the world, be an ambassador, right. Be an ambassador of the problem you solve and be an ambassador of the solution that you have that can actually transform lives, flip that switch. And I promise you’ll double your business. Like that is what makes it possible. Don’t flip that switch, and I promise it’s about impossible to double your business. So hopefully you’ve enjoyed this. Check out the full training with AJ at brain builders, group.com and keep coming back here week after week on the influential personal brand podcast
Ep 283: Turning Your Lifestyle Into a Business with Natasha Stoneking | 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 the 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 Martin team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/podcast, brand builders, group.com/podcast. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:53):
Hello friends. This is AJ Vaden here with another recap episode of the influential personal brand co podcast. I am going to be doing the cliff notes version of my conversation with Natasha stone king who was an old friend of mine. We went to college together and she has just really blown up on a social media, but more importantly it’s been a, a steady climbed for her, which is what I love is to hear the truth behind things. There’s and the truth is, is there’s no secret to overnight success. It is consistent. It is often gradual and there is always a ton of work happening behind the scenes, but she has built an incredible life and style business with incredible monetization with brand deals and all these different things she has going on online. And so we’re gonna talk about three things that she shared today that I think are really helpful, and it doesn’t matter if you are trying to monetize your audience.
AJV (01:59):
If you really consider yourself a, a blogger or an online influencer, an not, I think these tips really do ring true, no matter what your business model is. But just good, good old fashioned reminders of what it takes to become successful in business. No matter if that business is online or not. So here we go here are the first three or the first of my three things. And I love, I love that. She said that she has been blogging since 2008 y’all it’s 22, right? So she’s been at this for 15 years. This is something that she said, I started doing it because I loved it. I keep doing it because I love it. And my audience, my engagement, my followership has continued to grow because I’ve been consistent. And so here are a couple of things. I think it’s really important for us all to remember success.
AJV (02:55):
Success does not happen overnight. It happened through consistency. And if we’re trying to build something in a month or even in just a year, it’s like, that’s really not fair. It’s not fair to you. And it’s not fair to your message. It’s not fair to the people around you. We live in this era of instant gratification and that’s just not how it always works, especially in business. But it’s about consistency goes, I have been consistent this entire time. My topics have changed. I have changed my life has changed, but I’ve been consistent through the whole process. And here I have a couple things that she’s super consistent on that I thought was really important. She does a coffee a morning coffee live on Instagram every morning and does not miss it. She goes, I am almost always in my PJs with my coffee.
AJV (03:44):
And I’m just sharing a little bit of inspiration and optimism for the day, every single morning. That’s a big deal. That’s a huge commitment. But a part of that is she goes, I’m building a relationship. I’m building a relationship with my audience. Isn’t just for engagement. This is something that I am passionate about doing, I enjoy doing, which is why it doesn’t feel like work. Right? And I think those are just really good reminders when we get bogged down with, oh, I just have to keep doing it. It’s like, no, you shouldn’t have to. It’s something that you should want to do. Because even when it’s online, this is still relationship building. It just happens differently. Like we wouldn’t expect that the person that we’re married to, right, or the person that we’re dating or whatever, it’s like, tho those relationships were not built through just texts or through posts.
AJV (04:36):
Right. There was human connection. There was a consistency effort. There, there was get to know me. And I wanna get to know you, it’s this virtual element of relationship building that ti it does take time and it does take consistency, but it’s gotta be done in authentic, in an authentic way where you, you genuinely care about making a difference in doing what you’re doing, which makes it feel less of a burden and more of something that you get to do, not something you have to do, but it’s finding those things of like, what am I gonna be truly consistent with, right. And maybe it’s one post a week. Maybe it’s not a a morning coffee session. But maybe it’s, it’s one post a week, but you’ve gotta train your audience what to expect from you. Right. And that was kind of like the number one thing I thought that was really good.
AJV (05:20):
The second thing is she goes, I, I love on my audience and specifically her email list, right? So this is kind of like 0.2 and three. So I’m gonna stick to the love part. And then we’ll talk about the email list part. But I love on them and I loved what she talked about and you should go listen to this. She goes, I’m doing giveaways all the time. She says, I, you know, I have helped co-design different line for tons of different brands. And anytime that I get my, you know, my pieces of what I’ve designed is I always set one aside to be able to share and give away to my audience hyper specifically in her email list. But again, it’s like, what are the things that you’re doing to actually create excitement and share the love with your audience?
AJV (06:02):
And that could be your social media audience could be your podcast, subscribers, blog, subscribers, email list whatever it may be, but what are some things that you’re doing to infuse a little fun into your engagement, right? It’s like, I’m not a exaggerating, I, I did this podcast interview with Natasha yesterday and this morning. I literally pulled up my email and I was sent this to our marketing team. And I was like, all right, y’all it is time to infuse a little fun with how we engage with our audience. So I wanna be doing BG summer swag giveaways. We did this thing last year called the 12 days of B E B G for Christmas, where we gave something away for the 12 days leading up to Christmas. But it’s like, what are we doing to just create a little fun, a little engagement, a little excitement, a little giveaway to just switch things up to also make people feel a little loved on, and it’s like, you don’t have to buy anything from us to get this.
AJV (06:54):
Like, this is something we wanna do because you give us to your time and attention, however frequently that is, it’s like, thank you. There’s a bunch of other things that can be getting your attention out there. Thanks for giving me a little bit of yours. I love that. And she says she does it all the time and I’m like, no, I’m gonna be like, I’m gonna be following her a heck of a lot more closely because there’s this element of fun. And so a prize that we all enjoy and it’s like, what are we doing to actually share the love back to our audience, back to the people that are engaging with us, that we’re trying to build these relationships with. And that was like one of the biggest takeaways for me. I literally spent like 20 minutes writing up this detailed outline of, okay, this is what we’re gonna do on a quarterly basis.
AJV (07:37):
And these my annual fun things. But I think that’s the key word. It’s like, what are you doing to create fun with your audience? Like, how are you creating this in excitement that we all wanna be a part of? So I loved that. I love that so much. And then my third thing, and I love what she said. She goes, I was just taught really young, really early in the business, that the most important thing, always your email list. And, you know, if you follow myself a brewer or brand builders group, you know, this is something that we are already true believers in. It’s like, if you are only building your platforms on social media then you are been building on rented real estate, my friend, and building your email list is probably now even more so than before ever increasingly that much more important owning that first party data is a huge part of today and into the future.
AJV (08:25):
So it’s like, what are you doing to compel someone to want to give you their email, right. But what kind of unique, original content are they gonna get in your email list that they’re not getting on social media? Are they not getting on your blog or they’re not getting on your podcast? And I think those are really, and I think different things that we hear is so often what we hear so much about is how do you multiply time by taking one piece of content and splicing it and using all these different places. And I will say there is a time and a place for that. There’s also a time and a place not to do that. And I believe this is a part of that, of what kind of original unique content are you creating for your email list that is only for your email list.
AJV (09:05):
Like that’s the only place you’re gonna get it, right? And perhaps part of those giveaways are just for your email list, but it’s creating original unique content that you’re not gonna get anywhere else. You’re only gonna get it. If you’re a part of my email list and it’s nurturing that list and treating that list is different and unique from the other platforms. So again, it’s creating intention, it’s building these online relationships. It’s infusing excitement into fun and y’all, these are just three things that we talk about, but we also talked about her brand deals and how to know if a brand is right for you, things that you can be doing. If you’re trying to get brand deals way before you go after them. The art of proactively reaching out called prospecting called sales and not waiting on other people to do it for you, how much you should be doing versus having an agent or a PR team. Now that we talked about so much in 45 minutes this is a interview talk full of real life. Like here’s what you do. Here’s how you do it from someone who’s doing it right now. So hope you enjoyed this. Please go check this out. Check out Natasha at hello, happiness, blog.com. And then always stay tune and come back and visit us again at the influential personal brand.
Ep 281: The Power of One More with Ed Mylett | Recap Episode
RV (00:03):
Wow. That conversation with Ed Mylett man, I am humbled. I don’t know if you picked it up, but the, what he said about working with us and our team man, that was, that was powerful and edifying to, for him to say those things about us and, and, you know, we really feel the same way about him. I mean, ed, I, I have really gotten to know ed. I mean, we have talked on, I, I mean a daily at least once a day for the last several months, like 6, 4, 4, 4 or five months at the time of this recording, like and I really love this guy and I believe in him and that’s part of why we have lent our like you know, time and our resources and our, our, you know, strategies to be a part of it.
RV (00:56):
And what just, what an amazing guy. And, and y’all it, it’s he’s he has, is operating a level of success. That’s just extraordinary. And it, it, I wanna share with you, of course, the three, the three big highlights or takeaways from the conversation from the inter from that interview specifically some point maybe I’ll do another training. That’s just like what I’ve learned from Ed Mylet over the last several months, cuz I’ve learned a ton from him also. I’ll keep this focused on just the interview, but one of the things that, you know, I want to start with that is encouraging to me is it’s it’s encouraging to see people like, you know, I think of like, you know, ed Mylett or you know, whoever Dave Ramsey, like these, these huge, very successful influential people and to realize how much of their life has been dedicated to personal development, not just teaching, but learning, not teaching.
RV (01:53):
I mean, learning it, I’m talking about the people you probably most respect a huge portion of their time is personal development. Like this stuff actually works. I mean, this stuff actually changes lives. And, and, and these people who are changing the world are living by the, by the principles that, that we teach and talk about collectively in this industry. And that’s why brand builders group exists is we want to help mission driven messengers, get their message out to the world because the world needs it. The world is desperate for this, for this help, for this encouragement, for this education about how to live a positive life, how to be successful, how to control your thoughts, your money, your time to have better relationships, better health, have more joy and peace. And it’s, you know, it’s age old principles, but they’re delivered through new modern day messengers.
RV (02:48):
And that’s what ed is. And that’s what we believe you are. And that’s why we believe that you’re listening. And that’s, you know, it’s super fun to work with people like ed. I mean, you, you, I mean I tell you, I don’t remember what the number was when we recorded the podcast, but right now, as I’m recording this we just hit 50,000 units. Pre-Sold of Ed’s book 50,000 when we still have a week before it launches like this is a massive, I mean, this is someone, you know, literally affecting millions of people, all the, all the people he’s reaching through his own platform. Plus all the people who are promoting it, this event that we’re doing with Eric Thomas and Mel Robbins you know, Jim quick, John Gord, Marie Forley Odine Graziosi. I mean Jenna Kucher and Rob Deard deck and Maria Manos.
RV (03:38):
I mean, the list goes on Andy fr like it’s gonna be this huge event and it’s reaching all these people. But I say all that to say, he’s a student of personal development, which, which, which tells me two things and hopefully tells you two things. One, you should be a student of personal development, right? Like you may not wanna own multiple private jets and own islands like ed does. But like, you know, maybe you, you wanna have money to give away, like you wanna do something, right? Like pretty much anything big in the world takes some money like, and, and, and, and impact and reach and go, man, I’ve reached a lot of people. Well, that means there’s you’re student of personal development. And the second thing is you should be a teacher of it because the world needs you. That’s why you’re here. Right. That’s why you’re listening. There’s there’s a calling in your life. There’s a prompting saying, you’ve got some message inside of you. And if you’re not doing it, my guess is it’s because there’s a, there’s another voice which I would call the devil who immediately follows up and says, yeah, but someone already said that, but like, who would listen to you?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Who would listen to ed mylett
RV (04:44):
Five years ago, ed Mylet
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Was posted. Did you hear this story about Tony Robinson? He was posting videos of hash
RV (04:50):
Brown. So
Speaker 2 (04:51):
My gosh, that video, that story of him with Tony Robbins on his backboards, he thought Tony Robbins said, you have to use hashtags. Ed thought. He said, hash Browns. You have to post pictures of hash Browns. Are you kidding me? Like what in the world? Like that is crazy. So, you know, nobody knew who he was even like five, seven years ago. So it like,
RV (05:18):
It just, it, I don’t know. That’s inspiring to me and I, how inspiring to me and the fact that I hope it inspires you and it inspires you to go, your voice matters. Like somebody else out there needs it. It may not be millions of people. It may be 10 people. It may be one person, but like, that’s a person that’s a life. So anyways, let’s get on with the three highlights. I I’m ranting I’m ranting cuz I just moved. Ed. Ed is in powerful, powerful dude. So my three biggest takeaways from the interview with ed Mylet all right. First, first one here is his premise of this book. All right. The book’s called the power of one more. The, the event’s called max out. So we, you know, we’re helping run the, the book launch the event, you know, Ed’s following our playbook by those, by the way, those of you that are brand builders. Like I said this in the interview, but like he is following our playbook to a T he’s executing it at a bigger scale because his platform, but I mean, he is following our playbook to a T is working. This is gonna be one of the biggest book launches of this year. Like it works and, and his premise of this book is you’re a lot closer to the dream life than you think you are.
RV (06:31):
That’s a powerful thought. You’re a lot closer to the dream life than you think you are. Right? The, the, the devil, the self doubt tells you you’re far away says this impossible says, okay, that could happen for ed, but not for me. That could happen for Rory, but not for me. That could happen for Marie or whoever, but not for me. Like, and Ed’s going, no, you’re closer to it than you think you’re one decision away. You’re one, you’re one piece of knowledge away. You’re one relationship away, you know, AJ and I had this conversation and, and, and I told her, I said, I don’t know this was, this was several months ago, right? When I first met ed. And I said, babe, I don’t know. But I feel God telling me that we’re supposed to go all in on helping add my lead. This is before he is a client.
RV (07:21):
This is like, right. I first met him like before any of this is taking shape. And I don’t, you know, even by the time you hear this, like there, the, the, the, the trajectory that this is on is becoming a really massive thing that he’s doing like, and, and going, I don’t know, but I, I feel like we’re supposed to go all in on this. It’s very possible that this one relationship with ed my lead is gonna change our whole life. It certainly did with Lewis, right? Like brand builders, droop would not exist if it were not for Lewis howes inspired this business, he asked for it. And then he’s the one who said, you guys need to create this. I know a whole bunch of people who need this, and I’m gonna help you meet ’em. I’m gonna light the spark to kick this thing off one relationship.
RV (08:02):
Now you might go, I don’t know, a Lewis Howes or ed mylett. It doesn’t every, but every relationship we met, like every relationship we had led us to the next one and the next one and the next one, you’re a lot closer to the dream life than you think you are like, it’s right there. Right? One relationship away. One moment away, one big shot. 1, 1, 1 missing piece of the puzzle of, of the knowledge you need. And you go, ah, it clicks, right? I’m I’m there licks right on, on there. It might be one video post, one podcast post, like, but we just don’t know when it’s gonna happen. And people give up too soon. That’s a powerful, powerful premise. And that’s this whole thing. The power of one more is like, you’re, you’re closer than you think. So do one more. Just like, if you just keep doing that, it’s it’s in the moment, it feels like you’re behind. But over course of your life, it’s like, you’re guaranteed. It’s the success is guaranteed. Like if you follow all these principles, it’s not like that are not gonna work. Like they’ve worked, you know, for millions and hundreds of millions of people to accumulate millions and billions of dollars. Like the principles of success are timeless. They work for, I like they work. Like there’s a reason why people teach them follow them and stick with it. Second big takeaway from ed was that identity is the thermostat of your life.
RV (09:27):
What you think you’re worth is what you’re going to get. So whatever the story is that you’re telling yourself about yourself is going to continue to be the true story for you. Right? If you’re telling yourself I’m a victim, I had it harder than everybody. O O other people have pushed me down. I’m not in control of my circumstances. I have it. I have it harder than everybody else. If that’s the story you’re telling yourself, then that is your certain future. Like, that’s what he’s saying. There is like, whatever is going on in your head, the story you’re telling yourself. If you know, if you say like, I’m the, you know, I’m an overcomer, like I’m, I rise above. I figure it out. I find a way, then that is your future. Like, it’s not just your present. That is your future. That is your identity, right? If you think I’m not good enough, nobody cares about me. I’m not smart enough. I’m stupid. I don’t have what it takes. That’s your future. Not just your present, that’s your future. And if you say, man, I’m loved. I’m a child of God, God creates. And so in me is the power to create, right? That God lives in me. He created the world. Then I too have the power in me to create things with my own breath, to speak creation in into reality.
RV (10:55):
Then that’s your future. So what is the story you’re telling yourself about yourself? You’ll never exceed your identity. You have to grow your identity. And I love how open that ed is about Jesus. Not that you know, you have to be believe in Jesus to be successful. There’s lots of successful people who don’t believe in Jesus. Ed happens to believe in Jesus. I happen to believe in Jesus, but what matters is even people who believe in Jesus, like what he was saying is they go to, they go to church on Sunday and they go, yeah, I believe in God. And then they go out in the, we work weekend, go, ah, I don’t, I don’t have what it takes. And it’s like, no, no. Like if, if you following scripture saying, God is in you, right? Like the holy spirit is with you inside of you, you have the ability to create, to make, to multiply.
RV (11:41):
And he and ed believes that like, he believes that about himself, which what’s funny is like, whether, whether it’s true or not, it’s true. Like it became true. Like whether it’s true or not, it becomes true because it is the story that you’re telling yourself. And, and, and, and if you stumble across success, if you happen to get to lucky break, you happen to get a big moment. But your identity is at odds with it. Then you’ll, you’ll turn the air conditioner on in terms of your thermostat. And, and you’ll, you’ll, you know, you’ll start heating up and getting success. And you’ll cool yourself off. You’ll self sabotage because that’s your identity. Your identity will say, ah, that was just luck. I didn’t deserve that. That lucky break. Right? Couldn’t do it again. Right. Anybody could do it once. Can’t do it twice. Like you’ll self sabotage.
RV (12:24):
And that’s why he’s saying like, you gotta understand your identity. You gotta rewrite your identity. You gotta be mindful of the story. You’re telling yourself about yourself. That’s what’s gonna change your life. And, and here’s, what’s crazy is like, whatever is your present story is your future story. But also whatever is your present self is your past story. Like in many ways, like mostly, I mean, there are circumstances, right? There are some things that happen to people that are unavoidable. Like I’m not, I’m not suggesting that you are making the horrible, every horrible thing that has happened in your life. But, but there is some truth to that to go, who I am today is in part the result of the story I’ve been telling myself about who I have been in the past and who I will become tomorrow is largely in part affected by the story. I tell myself today about who I am today.
RV (13:22):
And if you wanna change your life, rewrite your story. If you wanna change your life, rewrite your story. And then the third big takeaway from that conversation with ed for me, was just sort of the, the profound thought of, you know, this idea of one more, like, what if this is my last conversation, right? Like what if, what if this is, what if this is my last podcast? Like, what if this is the last podcast recap I ever do? What if this is the last, tonight’s the last date night I have with my wife? What is, what if, what if this is? What if this is my last shot to introduce myself to somebody who, you know, has the knowledge and the relationship to change in my life? What if this is my last shot to learn from somebody? Like, what if this is? What if this is my last shot?
RV (14:13):
Like, what if this is it? What if this is my last day? Am I living with it going like, man, what if, what if this is it? What if this is my last, my last moment? Am I capitalizing? Am I maximizing it? Am I even appreciating in a small minuscule percentage of how I would, if it were my last, because it could be our last, it could be my last, it could be your last, we don’t know. And this idea, the power, one more is going, look, I should be grateful because I got one more. I have one more day. I got one more breath. I got one more. I got at least one more podcast episode of me. I got one more, one more chance to meet somebody. I got one more opportunity to change somebody’s life. And if there’s a calling on your heart to go out and serve somebody and help them, it might be because there’s at least one more person out there
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Who still needs you
RV (15:07):
One more. And what if this is our last chance we would view it differently. We, we would think about it differently. We would act differently and, and we would be more grateful. I, I think I would, I would be more grateful. I’d be more thankful. I’d be more precise. I’d be more deliberate. I’d be more intentional. I, I I’d, I’d put more in, you can do that. You can do that sooner or later. That’s gonna be true. We don’t know when. So you might as well enjoy the richness and the fullness of life that is available to you right now by treating everyone as if it’s your last and just being grateful for the power of one more. So by Ed’s book everybody else’s,
RV (16:13):
I mean, it’s like you reminds me of the early days when I was learning from Zig Ziegler and like, man, this is an amazing, this is an amazing person. This is a world changer. You know, like a lot of our clients, I feel that way about Lewis. I’m like, man, this guy’s a world changer. Like that’s that powerful stuff. And we have other clients, some of them can’t tell you who they are, but like, I’ll go, man. They’re amazing. And all of our clients, I go to our events. Every time I go to one of our brand builders group events, I’m
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Like, gosh, I you’re amazing. You, people are amazing. You have so much more working for you than I did. Like you have so much more working for you than so many of the people that I have seen be successful in this industry that I’ve seen impact millions of lives. Like you have so much more going for you where you are at now than when, where they did when they were, where you are, but they, they, the difference is just
RV (17:09):
Believing it and telling yourself the story that it’s
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Possible instead of telling yourself the story that it’s not possible.
RV (17:24):
So I hope that this podcast and that brand builders group and that my life and AJ’s life and our team and our family and our kids, I hope this is a place you continue to hang out in because I hope we’re a people who help you believe what’s possible for you. I hope that everything you experience from us and our family and our team
Speaker 3 (17:48):
And our community helps you write the story that you were meant to write for your own life and thereby the lives of so many others. So keep coming back, we’ll catch you next week on the influential personal brand podcast.