Ep 249: Tips for Growing on TikTok with Tori Gordon | Recap Episode
RV (00:02):
I gotta say, Tori Gordon is becoming one of my favorite people to hang out with. I just think she’s so cool. And so smart. And, and so mission driven. I mean I just, you know, it’s, it’s people like her that when they become clients that I just feel lucky and like how humbled, because it’s, it’s just an honor to me to be associated with people who care so deeply about their audience and for them to trust us, because I see how, how much they work to serve the, the, the people in their community. I mean, just amazing. And, and, and we learned so much from them and I learned a ton, right. So obviously I’m welcome to the recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. I’m, I’m sharing my top three takeaways from the chat that I just had with Tori Gordon. And man she’s built over 800,000 followers.
RV (00:56):
She’s one of the top creators on all of TikTok and she’s, she’s, she’s amazing. And I love the content that she does, the way that she does it. The consistency, the, the care that she has for her audience and just getting a chance to know her. I mean, you got to, you know, experience a little bit of her personality. I just think she’s doing a lot of things. Right. And I, I think I say, look out for Tory Gordon and y’all like, look out for Tory Gordon. She’s, she’s gonna be huge. And she’s obviously enough right. To, to, you know, I think it’s funny her, she has the coachable podcast, what she talk about and she’s super coachable, right? Like here she is like part of our community learning from us and, and teaching us and networking. And I mean, just watch out, watch out world for Tori Gordon.
RV (01:38):
So if you didn’t listen to the interview, go listen to it. But there’s, I learned, I mean, one of the things that she said has, has been ringing in my head now for like the last couple weeks, since I, since I actually did the interview with her in a really, really powerful way. So I’ll, I’ll, I’ll tell you what that is. So first of all, first, my first takeaway actually is super tactical. I did not know this. It makes so much sense. It’s kind of like, well, duh, Rory, like where, why would you not, why would you not figure this out? And it’s, it’s a very, very pragmatic thing it’s, it’s related to, to TikTok, but also I believe Instagram reels and, and I’ve been doing it and it’s working and it is put keywords in your text overlays.
RV (02:30):
What does that mean? It means that, you know, like when you post a video a reel or, you know, whatever, a, a TikTok, if you’re on TikTok, you can put titles on your videos. Well, whatever you title your video, the app is, is reading those just like the way that a Google, you know, bot crawls websites and reads the headlines of a website to tell you what that page is about. It’s, it’s informing that. And there’s all these kind of parallels between search engine optimization and, you know, like app optimization for all these social media sites. And it’s kind of like where search engine optimization was 10 years ago is where a lot of these apps are right now. And so just like, you know, one of the things that we say a lot is hashtags are social media. What keywords are to search engine optimization, right?
RV (03:22):
And so that’s part of like, when you’re doing your hashtag strategy. Well, when you’re also doing normal search engine optimization, one of the most important things you do is the headlines. What are your, biggest lines, meaning font size on a page, and the words that you put it in those headlines, make your site more indexable, more findable for those terms, whatever the terms are that are in the headlines while the same is true. This is what she’s saying. The same is true with your little, you know, videos that you post on social or your pictures. If you’re putting titles as text overlays, the apps, the algorithm, them can read those. And so that is an indicator to the algorithm. What that content is about the same way as a headline is to a Google like a crawler about what the website is about.
RV (04:13):
So it’s the same thing. And it’s like, well, duh. Yeah, of course it can read the text. Why didn’t I think about that? So instead of calling my video, you know, one thing I was thinking about today, which is like, nobody is searching that you say you, I did this this morning. I did a video that was like the number one secret to extraordinary customer service. And now I know that by putting the word term customer service in that headline, it, it’s not line, it’s a, it’s a title text overlay, but it’s the same as what a headline would be on a webpage. Now, people searching for that term or people who follow that term. The, the, the app is more likely to serve that content up to them. And it’s like, well, duh, right. So you have just like, you have keywords and headlines for search engine optimization.
RV (05:01):
You have hashtags and text overlays for social media content, duh. But I didn’t never thought about it until she said it. And so brilliant. So, so, so simple. Now the second thing sh she said to the, the, my second takeaway is the thing that she said to me that really, like, I’ve been thinking about this a lot and it’s actually impacted my behavior a lot. And, and I think she kind of just rattled it off, but it really hit me hard. And it was when we were talking about the future of social and content and like the, you know, the metaverse and all that kind of stuff. You know, and I think I was kind of lamenting about how it’s just like, I just don’t like this stuff, like I’ve, I’ve not, I’m not super social, like in real life. And I think that’s a little bit why I’m like a little, you know, slow to social media and picking it up.
RV (05:58):
And I don’t, I don’t love the idea. I don’t love the idea of living such a big part of my life, not in real life. And that’s an issue I’ve always had with social media, even of going like, well, if I’m spending time over here, that means I’m, I’m maybe not spending time with like people in my real life. And so I’m not sure, you know, there’s some parts of it. I mean, there’s some parts I love and some of the best relationships I have some of my very best friends in my life. I actually met, you know, online. And so, you know, that’ll be in another part of the future with the whole metaverse conversation, which I suspect will be talking more about because I’m, I’m gonna be diving into trying to understand what does it all mean, but here’s, here’s what she said.
RV (06:41):
So just to get, to get to the point you, you know, I was saying, I’m not sure I like this. I, Im not sure I like the technology or where this future is, is heading. And she said, the sooner I can accept it and get on board with and understand it, the sooner I can shape it, the sooner I can understand it, the sooner I can shape it. And y’all, that really hit me hard because I realized that this whole idea of, I don’t like the idea of a metaverse, I don’t like social media, media is a very self centered view, right? It’s not selfish. It’s not like you’re hurting anybody, but it’s, it’s, it’s a self centered view. It’s saying this is about me and what I think, but a true service centered view would be to go, there’s a bunch of people who need help.
RV (07:39):
I gotta go to where they are. Right. It’s, it’s kind of like going well, you know, I’ll you know, I’ll, I’ll give to needy people who, you know, show up in my neighborhood, but it’s like the most needy people might not be in your neighborhood. You gotta go to them. You gotta go to where those people are. And the sooner I can understand it, the sooner I can shape it. And just that idea of going, you know, what all these people they’re gonna be there. And when I think about the metaverse, I go, this is happening. I can see it. Right. And it’s, it scares me cuz it’s, it’s literally a half step away from the matrix, like the movie, but I can see people going, number one, if I don’t love my life in real life, if, if I have a hard day or I, you know, I don’t like where I live.
RV (08:25):
Maybe I don’t like my house. Maybe I don’t like the people in my house or my neighborhood where I just don’t feel good or I, you know, I go to a school that I don’t love or a good job that I don’t love. And I have this negative experience when I come home, the idea of going somewhere where I can feel loved and cherished and important, and people of course, people are gonna do that. Of course they are. That makes a lot of sense. The other part of this that makes a lot of, a lot of sense to me is that a lot of our best relationships are, are no longer in physical proximity. Right? So even if I love my life, I still go, my best friend lives in Texas. And you know, my other, my other friend lives in Florida and whatever, right.
RV (09:13):
They’re not here. So you have that amplified by COVID and all this crazy, like we’re working from home, we’re not sure. And we’re, we’re back in the office, we’re not back in the office and you know, so this idea of going, yeah, let’s just hop in there and connect. I, I mean, it’s gonna happen. Right. And, and I was following Zuckerberg on Instagram and he’s, you know, show in these videos of him playing with these gloves, these haptic gloves, where he’s like fencing with this Olympian fencer, and he can feel this, the virtual sword hitting against her virtual sword. I mean, so the technology is gonna be there and I, I don’t love it. Right. I don’t, I dont don’t want this to be the case. I don’t like, I, it’s not how I would design things, but to what Tori said, it just really hit me.
RV (10:05):
It’s like the sooner I can accept it, the sooner I can understand it. And the sooner I can understand it, the sooner I can shape it. And you better believe that if there’s all of those reasons for people to be in that metaverse, then you can be certain that there’s gonna be lots of bad influences in there and all sorts of, you know, negative things and all sorts of needs because there’s still people, there’s still real people inside there. And they have real hurts and issues and self-doubts and insecurities. You know, there’s a whole newness of a whole new metaverse. So those people need hope. They need help. They need encouragement, they need education. And that whether I like it or not, it feels to me like this is happening. And so I wanna understand it because the sooner I can to understand it sooner, I can shape it so that, you know, thank you for that Tori that really hit me hard.
RV (11:02):
And I think affected me in a, in a profound way. And that leads me to number three, which was you know, probably my favorite reminder, although it it’s one that we talk about a lot and it just, it’s just cool to hear her Edify and to see somebody like her, who’s such a rising star going, this is how she’s thinking. And, and seeing her win going, this is the attitude we’re talking about, right? Like you don’t, you, you can, you can be mission driven. You can be service centered, you can be audience focused. You don’t have to fake it. You don’t have to, you know, flaunt everything. You can, you can just be in the service of others and, and win. And she said, instead of thinking about how many followers you get, or how much money you make, spend more time thinking about what do I wanna be remembered for, right? Like what do you want to be remembered for? You might not even need social media to make money. You might not even care about marketing or personal branding, but it is an opportunity to leave behind something, right? It is a, it is a, it is a, a historical record of your life, which is means it’s a historical record of your philosophies and your beliefs. And thus, it is a chance for you to leave a trail of what you believed in.
RV (12:27):
And that’s, to me, a powerful reason enough to at least consider doing this. I mean, the idea that that Jasper or Liam might one day listen to podcast episodes that I recorded years before, or watch a YouTube video of me doing a Ted talk back in 2000 and whatever year, it was 15 or read a book that I wrote in 2012, that is super inspiring to me. And to go like for those who that don’t know, those are my kids, those are our kids Japer and Liam and, and go, yeah. And also your team, right? If you lead a company, you go, it it’s a chance for your team. Like you don’t, you don’t necessarily get to see or have conversation with every person team, especially you have a big team and go, this is a chance for them to you understand, like, this is what we believe around here.
RV (13:20):
This is how we operate. This is, this is what we do. You know, this is who I am. This is what our company’s gonna be about. That’s super powerful. And thinking about what do I wanna be remembered for? And also the idea like, you know, I, I think of about, of course Ziglar was one of my, one of my, my dearest mentors, the idea that people watching Ziglar videos on YouTube every day. That’s awesome. I mean, people listen to Jim row tapes. Like, I mean, there’s these, you know, Charlie tremendous Jones, there’s Dale Carnegie. I mean, there are legends of this industry and space who are still massively impacting the world today because people are consuming their content. You know, and it’s, that’s a really, really ripe opportunity. And so don’t forget that, like, don’t forget that this isn’t about metrics and money and, and followers and, and credibility. And like, this is impact. And there are more tools than ever before in history for you to, to make an impact on the world, right? Like you, you sit and go, oh, what do you wanna do with your, I wanna make an impact. I wanna help people.
RV (14:43):
All the tools are in your hand, right? You’re one button away, right? You got a hundred different apps you can use to do it. Impact people, change their life, make their life better. Do it like pour into people, share the thing that you have on your heart and share it. Because I, I know this, there’s a lot of people out there promoting a lot of trashy stuff and bad ne messages. And there’s a lot of meanness and negativity and harassment and horrible stuff going on and the good people of the world, the mission driven messengers, like we gotta step up and we gotta, we have to pump good out into the world to combat some of the bad we have that chance you have that chance. I have that chance, even if we don’t like it, the sooner we accept it and we understand it sooner, we can shape it and we can make an impact on people and be remembered for something pretty cool.
RV (15:46):
So thank you for the compliment of tuning in to all the stuff that we put out. That’s amazing. It’s the coolest thing ever. And you know, there’s a chance you and I haven’t met yet. And I just love you. I feel so grateful and honored that you allow us the opportunity to shape your business, your mind, your life, a little bit. What a privilege to compliment. We love doing it. We cherish it. I hope we get to continue doing it. I hope we get to meet in person and give you a hug, not just in the metaverse, but in real life.
Ep 247: How to Get People to Pay Attention with Peter Sheahan | Recap Episode
RV (00:02):
Such an honor and thrill to get to talk to Peter Shehan about a concept that he originated and we adapted and then a memorialized in his name called Shehan wall
RV (01:07):
And then there are the known, and there there’s this huge invisible wall between the two where those who are relatively unknown are trying to break through and become known. And what most of us do is we throw a lot of stuff at the wall and we look at the people who are on the other side of the wall and all the stuff they’re doing go, oh, I wanna do all of those things. Right. And a lot of those people, you know, I can think of the rock because he’s, he’s a rapper and he is an actor. And he you know, obviously like now he has a tequila line and he is doing all of these, all of these different, these different things. And you go, gosh, I wanna do all these things. But the problem is when you do too many things at once you bounce off the wall when you have diluted focus, you get diluted results.
RV (01:58):
If you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. It’s that simple. And most of us, most early personal brands try to emulate these, these very experienced, well known, popular personal brands. And don’t realize that these people have large teams and large budgets. And, and, and in some cases, you know, millions and millions of dollars in, in terms of sponsorships and, and these huge platforms behind them, and you can’t break through the wall by trying to be all things to all people, you know, especially, and not in all the places. And so the way to break through the wall is to become known for one thing. And this was a concept, you know, that was originally inspired by Peter, is this, this idea that if you could become, if you ask yourself, what’s the one thing in the world I could be known for and you break through on that, then once you’re on the other exci, once you’re on the other side of the wall, then you can expand into other things.
RV (02:54):
But until you break through the wall, you are, you’re bouncing off the wall, you’re creating noise. You’re part of the noise you’re consumed by the, the noise. There is just this like indelible difference of, of who you are versus everybody else. And so that’s the, that is, I guess my interpretation, as I remember it you know, it was interesting to hear Peter say that it had been years and years and years since he had even really like, thought about that in, in terms of like that concept, especially like specifically in its application to personal brands. I, I think you said if I remember, right, like the last time I talked about it, you know, in the, in the context of personal branding was at the meeting that I heard in that, which is like years ago, but, but still powerful. And, and so that’s what we’re talking about here.
RV (03:41):
And, and I wanna, I wanna couple this concept as we move into the, the recap of like my takeaways, you know, now kind of years later getting a chance to sit down with Peter and have this conversation. Again, I wanna couple this with another concept that if you’ve ever heard me or AJ on podcast, if you’ve been one of our clients, or if you have followed this, our podcast here that we talk about lot, which is from another mentor, which is a, another this is a quote that was not ours. This is from Larry Wingett. And Larry said, the goal is to find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service, us of others, find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others. And oftentimes we couple these concepts together when we teach them one, just cuz they’re, they were important moments in like the timeline of our personal brand and like me specifically like my personal history of, but, but they also work together of this idea, you know, Peter and Han’s wall, of course he didn’t name it, that we named it that as we, you know, applied it specifically to like personal brands and the narrow focus of what we do at brand builders group, but we named it after him cuz it’s concept inspired by him.
RV (04:57):
But visually he shows, you know, this kind of trying goal coming to a point right at the wall, which hits the wall in this very narrow way versus this kind of like you know, more diluted way of, of just throwing a lot of stuff at the wall. Well, couple that with Larry wing it’s concept of finding your uniqueness is going, what is that thing? How you know, or your, your uniqueness is that point, we would refer to your uniqueness as the point at which you can break through the wall. It is doing the thing that only you can do finding the thing that nobody else can quite do, just like you can do and owning that and dominating that. And that really, really being the magic. And so I think one of the reasons when we started brand builders group, I, oh I think one of our goals was to go, how do you do that?
RV (05:57):
How do you find your uniqueness? What, how does one person discover that? And that became our brand DNA, which is our flagship. You know, we’ve got, we have 14 different events or courses. And that is our, our flagship curriculum. I guess, you know, we call ’em topics internally that make up, we’ve got 14 different topics that make up our curriculum. And that became our sort of first one and flagship was helping people identify their uniqueness and creating a process to help them discover what is this one point that you can own and you can break through and it, it starts with clarity, right? So first of all, you, you’ve got to get, you have to get clear. And then once you have clarity, then it’s consistency. And so you say over and over and over and over again. And, and I, you know, the example I’d love to use is, is Dave Ramsey.
RV (06:53):
Dave is someone who has changed my life AJ’s life. I mean, they made a huge impact on, on our career, but also personally, before we ever knew Dave, we were students of financial peace university. And Dave has been saying basically the same thing on the air every single day for 30 years, right? Debt is dumb. Cash is king follow these seven baby steps. And he has built this multi nine figure business around consistency. And so if you wanna break through the wall first, you need clarity. Then you need consistency. Then you need velocity, you need to add speed and power. And that is, is how you break through the wall, but it all starts with clarity. And this is where most people get really stuck. Even in, if you understand the concept of Shehan wall, even if you hear the quote from Larry and go find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others, I love it.
RV (07:46):
It still leaves the question, okay, how do I do it? How do I, how do I break through? And so getting, you know, to talk to Peter about that was, was really fun and, and kind of circle back on this. And so, you know, in terms of my, I, my three takeaways for this, and we’re gonna talk about how do you find your uniqueness or kind of some of, some of what I gathered from Peter about about he does it, of course, brand builders group. We have our formal brand DNA helix. It’s, it’s six questions that we take every person, every client through. And it’s these initial six questions and all the exercises that go with them that tell us exactly what your uniqueness is. But you know, having Peter speak into that now I had some really great takeaways and here, here was the first one and this applies to me, this applies to so many of our clients.
RV (08:31):
And my guess is this applies to you. He said, don’t try to include every thing you’ve ever done as per part of your story. That’s really, really huge. That’s really, really important because I think, you know, a human is multifaceted. We’re, we’re, we’re complex. We have a lot of ex different experiences. We have a lot of different desires. We have a lot of different you know, interests and skill sets and knowledge. And, and I think when, when you try to kind of create a personal brand, and again, one of the ways that we define personal branding is personal branding is simply the digitization of reputation, the digitization of, and so when you go, when you go through this exercise of saying, I want to codify my personal brand in a digital form and sort of package it up into this commodity that people can see and sort of get their hands around and understand the natural tendency is going okay.
RV (09:33):
I need to tell my entire life story. I need to sort of share every, every part of me. And I think I hesitate to call it a mistake because I don’t think it’s a mistake to share who you are by any means. But I think from a, from a strategic perspective, it, the more like it, it’s almost us, like the more you share the harder it is to understand what your one thing is, right? Like if I only share with you one thing about who I am, you only have the one choice, which is to think of me in, in that one way. That’s all that I’ve made available to you. But as I, as I feel this need to like tell you everything about me and everything I’ve ever done and everything I’ve ever known and everything I like and everything I, you know, do, then all of a sudden it creates this conf this confusion, or just this obscurity in terms of like, okay, well, what’s the one thing you can do for me.
RV (10:29):
Like, what’s the, the, the, what, what are you really an expert on? And if you study like memory training and, you know, memory experts, a lot of times they talk about how the human brain is like a mental filing cabinet. Well, when we talk about exploiting your uniqueness in the service of others or breaking through the wall, it’s about occupying one piece of a, another person’s so that when they have that need, they recall you, they, they, they immediately think of you or when their friend has that need, they, they say, oh, you need to talk to my friend, Rory, a another, you know, great quote from another mentor here is Scott McCain. Once said, mind, share precedes market, share mind, share precedes market share, meaning you have to work in your marketing efforts and in your branding and in your positioning to occupy a space in people’s minds.
RV (11:30):
And the more different spaces you try to occupy the less effectively you occupy any one space. As we say it, if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results, but the clearer you are, the more narrow you are, the more likely you are to recall that space. What’s an example of this, right? It’s like, if I need a plumber, who do you call? If I need a lawyer, who do you call? You know, if I need, I need basketball lessons, who do you, you call, if I, if I want to go, you know, on a camping trip, who, who do I call? If, if I have a question about whatever the Bible or nutrition or what, like, these are all things that happen in the human experience. And it’s like, who’s the name that I recall in that category. Right? And if you’re trying to be a speaker, which was obviously how I built career is like, when there’s a room full of people sitting around going, we should have a speaker at our event.
RV (12:18):
Have any of you seen a good speaker? I need them to go, oh, Roy Vaden, right? Like that is it. Or, you know, these days it’s more of like, when there’s a group of speakers sitting around talking amongst each other, going, how do I get to the next level? We go, oh, brand builders group, or AJ or Roy or whatever authors, or, you know, professional services or whatever. But anyone going, how do I build my personal brand? Oh, brand builders group. We’re working very deliberately to occupy that space. And I think Peter’s permission. And I never really heard anyone say it so clearly. And that’s why it struck me is going, look, you have permission not to share everything about you. And it’s not only permission. I would say from a strategic perspective, it’s an encouragement not to share everything about you, because the more you share the harder it is to, to kind of wrap it in the way that you need to wrap it for, for the, the edible consumption of other people, for them to quickly understand it.
RV (13:20):
Now, you know, as people get to know you, of course, they see more and more. And that’s why I think it’s also interesting with social media, like how this shows up tactically, you know, people always say, well, you know, what about your content strategy? One of the things that I’ve always done and not everybody does this. And I’m, I’m certainly not the, you know, the person with the most followers on social. But one of the things that’s always worked well for me is like on Instagram, for example, my, my, the way I do it is that my feed is what you do. And this is my encouragement. Your feed is what you do. Your stories are who you are. And I mean, the feed function like when someone hits your profile, it’s like basically business as usual, I’m teaching, I’m in coaching. I’m giving you a chance to sample my expertise.
RV (14:04):
If you wanna know who I am as a person, then you go look in the stories and you have to click in that functionality, which is sort of a, a, a more intimate, deeper, you know, portion of the platform and, and of my profile. And that’s where you see pictures of my kids, et cetera. But if you’re a stranger visiting my profile for the first time, and all you see is pictures of my kids, even though they’re really cute, you probably don’t care cuz you don’t know them. And, and they’re not important to you and they don’t add any value to your life. Whereas if you see the professional things that I offer, you can extract value from that and you go, yeah, I’ll follow this person now, before you ever buy, you might go, who is this guy? Like, do I even like this?
RV (14:46):
Like, like I think I like this guy. And then you start clicking on stories and you figure out and you go, oh yeah, I really like who he is. Or maybe you don’t, but, but on the surface, right, I’m, I’m, I’m occupying a slot in the world’s mind and, and I’m working very hard to do that. And for years it was take the stairs. It was, you know, we wanted R’s name to be synonymous with the metaphor of, of take the stairs. That was part of how we broke through the wall, was the success of, to take the stairs book. And you know, that being really like my first keynote and first brand and et cetera, et cetera. So anyways, all of that I say to, to, to say, you don’t have to include every single part of your bio in your life, into your personal brand.
RV (15:31):
Now it can be a part of what you share on social, but like you, your website, your homepage, you know, the, the show notes, your, your professional bio, it doesn’t have to all be in there cause people don’t initially care as much about that. They wanna know what can you do for me? And then they they’ll get to know you after that. The second thing which I thought was really fast was specifically, how do you find your uniqueness? And so, you know, I having a chance to an ask Peter that question, which is really me asking Peter his thoughts on the quote from Larry Wingett to see what, what he would say and to see how it might be similar or dissimilar from how we would answer it and for, or the most part, it was really close. So you know, like when, when somebody comes to, to our brand DNA event to the very, very first, you know, training that we do, we say there’s four things we’re gonna help you get clear on.
RV (16:24):
We’re gonna help you get clear on what problem do you solve in one word who exactly do you solve that problem for? How do you solve that problem in one sentence? And then how do you make money solving that problem? What is your primary business model as we, as we call it? And those are the four things we go, we’re gonna help you get clear on it. And then we take ’em through, you know, these set of six questions to help find their uniqueness. Well, the way that Peter answered that was what is your value like, which to me is kind of close to, what problem do you solve for people? Who, who I want to bring it to, right? Like, so what is my value proposition or what is the value I have? Who do I wanna bring it to?
RV (17:07):
Which is very similar to us, who do I wanna solve that problem for? He said, what is your business model, which we would phrase as how do I make money solving it? And then the only part I think, where we were you know, a little bit different was we, we would add, how do you solve that problem? And he said, what is your modality? Which I think is, you know, kind of related to, to business model. But I thought that was interesting to hear the way that his brain process on finding your uniqueness. And so I guess here’s the salient point from this part too.
RV (17:43):
The great irony of your personal of personal branding is that your personal brand is not about you. Your personal brand has value in the context of what it does for other people. And that’s what people I think get really mixed up and confused on and, and sometimes insecure about like, why would anyone care about me? And like, why should I post pictures of my myself? And it’s like, well, they, they don’t, I, they don’t care about you. They, they care about what you can do for them. And so your personal brand, your personality matters as you put it in context of what you can do for them. What value do you bring to whom and, and how do you, how do you serve them? So the, the sooner you step out of going the, how do I present who I am to the world? And, and, and the sooner you move out of that and into what use do I have in the world?
RV (18:40):
How can I be useful for people? How can I be helpful to people? What knowledge do I have that would make other people’s lives better? Or what talent do I, that would make other people’s lives better? And the sooner you step into that, the sooner you have con more confidence and clarity and direction and momentum, and you can just like move forward, you know, building your quote unquote personal brand, it’s just extending. And this is where I think it’s so connected to your identity, because you’re basically extending the value. You have the experiences that you have, the, the, the insights, the wisdom that you have developed, and you’re making that available to the world. And that is personal branding. It’s the digitization of reputation. It’s this kind of insight out. It is. It is your knowledge and all the stuff that is internal to you, that you spend a lifetime ACU.
RV (19:31):
And then it is extrapolating that and presenting it and serving it on a platter to other people and say, this is, this is what I have to offer you. This is, this is how I think I can be helpful to you. Here’s what I have learned. Here’s the mistakes I’ve made. You know, here’s the insights that I’ve gathered. Here’s the inspiration I have for, you know, here’s the entertainment I have to offer you. And in that context, there’s this very communal exchange that happens where other people go. I like you, you help me, you add value to my life. Therefore I follow you. Trust you, recommend you share your stuff, and then eventually do business with you, right. And, and buy from you. So that is, that is, that is it. And I think, I think, you know, sometimes when people hear that phrase uniqueness, they get lost in like, what is unique about me and that isn’t really how we’re using the phrase.
RV (20:25):
It’s not what is unique about me. It’s going, what unique, what is my unique take on solutions I have for the world? Or what unique expertise do I have to offer you? Or what unique art or what unique talent do I have to offer you? Not so much what makes me different from everyone else? The part that really matters is what do you have to offer to other people? And when you, when you center in that, that is your uniqueness. It’s one of the reasons why we always say your most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were because to that person, your uniqueness is most relevant, the unique way that you solve that problem is highly relevant to someone else going through who’s going through what you’ve already been through. And, and when you focus on that, you’re not trying to manufacture something that isn’t, there you are, you are literally translating the value of your human experience and existence in the benefit of another person.
RV (21:35):
And that’s tremendously unique. I can’t add value to that. Person’s life in the same way you can, because I haven’t walked the same path that you have walked. That is your uniqueness. It’s not so much what makes you different? Oh, you’ve got a different slogan or a different like, like headline, or you do a different style of videos, or, you know, you look a different way. It’s that you’ve lived a different life. And so the more that you can, you can highlight a and add value to other people’s lives, kind of through the lens of your own. That is your uniqueness, but it’s in the context of serving other people. That’s where all the magic is. So anyways, just a rich, rich, rich conversation. And then the last thing for sure, I mean, this was, this was a quote directly from Peter from the interview.
RV (22:27):
And this is, this might even new quote from Peter Shehan that that really sticks with me is he said, the clearer you are, the easier decision making gets the clearer. You are, the easier that decision making gets. That is so true in every area of your life. Like the clearer you are about what your values are, the easier it is to select who you hang out with and who you hire and who you, whatever, like who you vote for and where you go to eat and where you spend your time. Like, because you’re clear on the values that you have, the, the clearer you are about your goals and your vision and your dreams. Like as soon as you’re clear on you want, and you, you, you capture it and you codify it and you think about it and you go, this is who I want to be.
RV (23:17):
This is what I’m doing. The easier your decision making gets, right? Like you go, I wanna build a personal brand, great brand builders group is the place to be, but you go, I wanna run a marathon. Brand builders group is not the place to be, right? Like, we can’t help you with the that’s that’s, that’s not our uniqueness. So as you get clearer, your decision making gets easier. And then I think the nuance that I would add to what Peter said is the clearer you are, the faster you go, right? Because as part of decision making gets easier, it’s like, it’s faster to make the decision. It’s also faster to take the action and go, yes, I should work with this person. Not this person I should be. I should be reading this book. Not that book. I should spend my resources, you know, building this, not that I should spend my time doing this, not that like, and it all goes faster where people get stuck is there is dilution.
RV (24:12):
They are unclear, right? That the biggest issue is they’re unclear on their uniqueness. They’re unclear on what they want. They’re unclear on how to build their brand or unclear that they even wanna build a brand, or they’re unclear on who they’re serving UN. And so it’s like, get clear. You have to get clear. You have to do that. Work of getting clear, which will ironically feel oftentimes slow and painful. But in reality, that is the fastest, you know, next step is getting clear. And so, you know, I just, I love that is he said that, you know, the, you are the easier decision making gets. And if you go look at all the testimonials on most of our testimonials that we showcase on brand builders, group.com on our website and stuff are from people who came through our very first event, because we show all the testimonials from our later events to people after they come through the first one and they kind of see the whole journey, but you’ll see the Nu number.
RV (25:06):
One thing that people say after that first event is I got clear. I got so much clarity because once you’re clear, then the easier decision making gets and the faster that you go. So do whatever it takes, take the time to get clear, and you will move much faster, put your uniqueness in the context of other people and keep coming back go listen to the episode with Peter, if you haven’t, Hey, if you wouldn’t mind, give Peter some love, like on, on social, share this interview with someone who needs to see it. And you know, just, you know, Peter has made such an impact on our company and our team and my personal career and our clients. And so you know, just let, let, let him know that you appreciate the work that he’s done and, and keep coming back as always, we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand podcast.
Ep 239: 400k TikTok Followers in 40 Days with Hilary Billings and Marshall Seese Jr. | Recap Episode
RV (00:01):
How in the heck, did she grow 400,000 followers in 40 days? That was the topic of the interview that we just finished with Hillary billings and, uh, her boyfriend Marshall talking about how they do, you know, a, their TikTok strategy. And, oh my gosh, what an amazing interview. These two, these two are freaking brilliant. Like they are so creative and, and intelligent and systematic, but artistic and just like insightful, but also intuitive. I mean, it is amazing. And that is a hundred percent true story. She grew 400,000 followers and 40 days on TikTok that’s that is, is gnarly. So if you didn’t listen to that, go back and listen to the interview. Uh, of course this is the recap edition here. I’m gonna be breaking down this, this interview with Hillary and Marshall and, uh, I’m learned a ton. I’m gonna boil it down to my top, my top three takeaways here for you, but oh, so powerful.
RV (01:10):
And, um, and really cool. So, so first of all, one of my biggest takeaways is at a macro level, there is a major, major shift that is taking place that you at least need to be aware of and mindful of. Um, and that is that entertainment, like the entertainment, uh, you know, like actors enter entertainers in Hollywood, like it used to be who can bring the talent, right. It was like, okay, you know, if, if you’re gonna even, even I think this is gonna apply to sports and it’s like, okay, if you’re gonna get a scholarship, you know, to come play at some college, you know, who can throw a football or who can, who can shoot a basketball or whatever. Um, and it was like, you know, if you’re gonna get on Broadway in New York, it’s like, who can sing? Who can dance, can act?
RV (02:04):
It’s all of these different things, right? It used to be who can bring the talent. But the major macro shift that’s happening right now is it’s not just who can bring the talent it’s, who can bring the audience, who can bring the audience. Right? The Logan, all of the world are getting these huge acting deals. This is what Hillary was talking about. Um, and that it’s it’s it’s because they bring their audience with them. They have this built in audience. And in a way, this is what, how endorsement deals have always worked. Like whoever the famous actor is, gets the big or act gets the big endorsement deal, because they know that so many millions of people know who that person is. And if that person says it’s good, then they’ll buy the thing or sign up for the thing or whatever. But, but it still that they had to become famous initially by getting some role, doing something, usually based on their talent.
RV (03:04):
Now it is based on their audience who has a huge audience. And it’s almost like, I mean, in a weird way, I think just the value of talent is changing because it’s almost like, well, what is your talent worth? It? It’s it’s going well. One of the, the measures of what that talent is worth in the marketplace is how many people pay attention to it. And because there’s sort of this equal playing field of us, all building our own audiences, you go, well, you know how many people are paying attention to it? How many people are following it and liking it and subscribe to it and engaging with it. That is a, is an indicator. It’s a market indicator of not just how talented someone is, but, but what is the appetite of the market for that talent right now in real time, you know, in, in compared to everything else that’s happening in the world.
RV (03:55):
And you go, man. So that, that, that is why the number of Allers you have it, it does matter. Like people say it doesn’t matter. It, it does matter. We’re just, you know, we, we often talk about, Hey, don’t, don’t, don’t put yourself esteem in that, like, you create what you create and you should be focused on, but, but you should be focused on growing your reach because it matters, right? Like you, your ability to monetize is gonna be directly related to your reach. That’s why we talk about the reputation formula. Don’t forget what the, the brand builders group reputation, formula results, times reach equals reputation, results, times reach. So results is like the talent, right? How good are you? But reach is a huge part of it. And that’s just a monster shift that’s happening in the market. This, by the way, is something I realized early on as a speaker.
RV (04:44):
Um, if you know anything about my story, right? Originally my dream was I wanna be a speaker that was like the path that I was on. I never thought I would end up doing what we’re doing now, but it was kind of like I realized early on that the best speakers in the world were the people who won the world championship of public speaking for Toastmasters and the hall of fame speakers, uh, for the national speakers association, they were the best speakers in the world. When it came to mechanics delivery, the art form, the craft, the using the, the stage, the stories, the structure, the, you know, the jokes, but they were not the highest paid speakers. Why? Because they didn’t and bring an audience with them. The highest paid speakers are former presidents, right? And they’re celebrities. And they’re, you know, a lot of times they’re, they’re whatever their, their icons of industry, because they’re more well known.
RV (05:35):
Well, why is a meeting planner willing to pay more for that person? Because the reputation of that person being associate with the event increases the value of the event, the perceived value of the event, it increases the credibility of the event. And because that person is a draw, if it is a public event or any type of event where people aren’t, you know, forced to be there like employees, but any type of event where you’re trying to get people to, to opt into coming or paying all or some of their way to come, people will pay to come see someone they’ve heard of. They will not pay as much to come see someone they’ve never heard of. They don’t, they don’t, you know, they need, they don’t know why cuz they don’t know who the person is yet. So used to be about talent, who can bring the talent.
RV (06:18):
Now it’s about who can bring the audience. I mean, it’s still about talent, but it’s about both. And so this is a big deal and I’m not saying I like this. In fact, I, I, I’m not sure. I, I’m not sure that I prefer this, but on the one hand, there is kind of a, a beautiful part of this, which is the equal playing field of so media to go, we’re all playing with the same algorithm. We all have the same opportunity. Like we can all build our own audience today. We all, you know, for the most part, have an equal opportunity there to do that. And it allows people with great talent to get discovered or, or not even to get discovered. It’s like they discover themselves because their, their audience lifts them up versus have having some, you know, executive have to choose, choose them out of a hat, so to speak.
RV (07:02):
So you gotta realize this, this is what’s happening. And there is a lot of economic value in the fact that you have your own audience, not just cuz you can monetize that audience, but it makes you more valuable to everybody else because everywhere you go, some portion of your audience goes with you. That’s a really, really big deal. Um, you gotta really understand it. And uh, anyways, I, I think in some ways I’m a little bit late to the game. Ironically have, have been late to that game over over the years. Um, so that was huge. Um, the second way I had was such a simple, simple technical tip, which, and this is just cuz I don’t use TikTok really to I am on, I am on TikTok and uh, we’ve been, we are, um, focused on, on, we’ve been focused on growing Instagram and growing my Instagram reels.
RV (07:56):
And so we will at some point start moving that over to TikTok one as we could do it consistently. Um, but we’re not really on TikTok cuz we’re not able to, we don’t have the bandwidth to like keep up with it yet, but we’ll be there. But um, anyways, the discover tab in TikTok will tell you the tags that, that the platform wants you to use right now.
RV (08:46):
When you, when you pro I assume you let me just speak for myself when I am thinking as a consumer and I look at the trending hashtags on Twitter, I almost always go, those are so weird. Like why are people paying attention to these stupid hashtags, right? That’s me approaching it as a consumer or maybe I go, oh, that’s really cool. I wanna see what that’s about. But if I flip the switch and, and approach this as a creator, I go, this is a, this is a roadmap. This is an instruction manual. Like this is, these are the keys to the kingdom right here. The platform is saying, this is what’s hot right now. This is, this is what everyone’s paying attention to give me fuel for this thing that has already taken off. Basically it’s like this train has already left the stage, jump on while you can.
RV (09:38):
And it’s, it’s, it’s the most clear direct roadmap. I mean, this is so simple, but so massive to just go, okay, if I’m on Twitter, let me look at the top training hashtags. Um, I’m sure there’s a way to do this on Facebook. I don’t know. We didn’t really talk about that. But on TikTok specifically was what we were talking about is it’s the discover tab. Uh, you can also do this in Instagram, on the, on the explore page, right? And you can run searches with like, what are these top performing hashtags? And then you go, this is approaching it as a creator rather than a consumer. As you say, what piece of content could I create? That would be on brand for me, but that would speak or, or plug in or tie in or draft off of this hashtag that’s such a simple shift, but it’s massive.
RV (10:26):
Right? Everyone, you know, we all go, man. I wish the algorithm would help me more. I wish I could go viral. And yet every single time, every single one of us logs into one of these platforms, it tells you what’s going viral. If you wanna go viral right now, create content on these topics. And yet, as a consumer, when I have my consumer hat on, I, I basically like, it goes, it flies right past me. But you know, these professional creators like Hillary and Marshall, I mean, these people are genius at the same time. It’s also kind of simple, right. And going, duh, like open your eyes, pay attention. It’s right there. Like they’re, they’re serving it up to you right on the silver platter. Like this is the content that’s hot right now. Create content for me on this. Oh, it’s so simple. Um, it’s so simple and, and it’s also helpful to go instead of having to create a thousand content ideas yourself, what if you just logged in and said, what’s trending right now.
RV (11:28):
What piece of content could I, could I create that would align with what is trending right now and then right that way. And I’m just going, man, I am an in honestly, I’m going like, how have I missed this?
RV (12:22):
But like outside of that, leaving as a review is, is one of the most helpful things that you can do. And you know, if you are listening to these episodes, they’re, they’re just powerful, full, right? Like, I can’t believe the amount of, of free advice that all these guests are given away and stuff, and hopefully you get value outta these recaps. So anyways, the third thing was just the mindset, um, in how Hillary and Marshall approached this, right? Like, and I would put them in this kind of professional creator category, right? They’re they’re true creators. I wouldn’t even call ’em influencers. It’s not that that they’ve got like millions and millions of followers and people buy whatever they say. I would put them in the creator category. They, they are specifically in explicitly understanding how to manufacture virality in views. And so how they think is really important to go, how could I adopt more of this?
RV (13:17):
And, and this was one of the biggest takeaways is they simply said, if you wanna be a great content creator, you have to approach it with an experimental mindset, an experimental mindset. And, and this was one of the, one of the lines. I can’t remember if Hillary said this or Marshall, but you know, they create a lot of this stuff together. And, um, they, they’re definitely a team. And, and they said, don’t base the success off of the videos. Think base your success off of the systems, don’t base your success off of the, off of the videos, base your success off of the systems and, and going, you putting your self esteem and your pride and your focus into like, okay, I’m, I’m creating this production company and there’s this set of processes that we run. And there’s these, there’s these certain things that we monitor and we measure and we account for, and we tweak and we test and, and, uh, and that is what that, what sort of like the value is, it’s not, oh, we got lucky or we feel really good cuz this one video went viral. And did you hear what she said? Like about the video that she made about the parallel parking? She said that video didn’t perform on Facebook. So she had this, this video about parallel parking that she posted on Facebook that didn’t perform. And then it got 40 million views on TikTok. That’s insane. Like it went, it blew up on TikTok. How did it get 40 million views? Well, you know, there’s a couple lessons there. One is, it
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Shows the lesson of, of posting content on multiple platforms, right? Like the audience on each, platform’s a little bit different and you know, so the content that you think tanked over here might be useful over here. If you have the team, uh, who can help you do it. So be experimental in your mindset, in your approach and just keep going, just keep going. Just keep going, keep coming back here every single week on the influential personal brand podcast we love having ya. We’ll catch you next time. Bye. Bye.
Ep 245: How to Know if Writing a Book is for You with Tia Graham | Recap Episode
AJV (00:03):
All right. This is the debrief from my interview that we just had with Tia Graham, who is a brand builders group client. She’s a long time client. She’s been with us for over two years. And over, over the last two years, she’s been through the somewhat grueling process of writing and publishing and launching her book that comes out this, this month, January, 2022. So I wanna give you a couple of the quick highlights of some things that she said that I think are really important and really good. So this is your cliff notes version of this podcast interview with myself and Tia. Here’s the first thing when we were talking about social media, I loved what she said, because I hear it so many times right now it’s create content that’s unique for the platform that you’re putting it on.
AJV (00:50):
Right. And I think there’s, there’s a time and a place for duplicating content so you can maximize the use of every piece of content in a variety of different ways. And you can still do that. I just think addition to that, there’s a lot of power in going, I know the audience that I’m trying to reach on X platform and in her case she’s got a huge B2B audience. And so LinkedIn right. Is a huge platform for her. But actually going, it’s like, okay, what is the mindset of someone who is on LinkedIn? Right? So they’re in the work mindset, it’s career oriented, it’s business oriented and being really intentional about the type of person and the mindset that the person on this platform is in while you’re creating content for that platform is so good. It’s like, it’s so common sense, but it’s so good because we don’t do that all that often.
AJV (01:47):
It’s like, what would it mean for your social media following or engagements to actually go, no, I’m gonna curate content that is really unique for the people who spend time on this platform. So I know if they’re on this platform, this is what they’re looking for. So I’m gonna give it to ’em on this platform. I love that. I thought that was awesome. And I love to hear what she said about all the growth she she’s had on LinkedIn. And I could just say for me personally, in the last three months, I’ve made some huge shifts and how I produce my content actually producing. It was one. So back in the saddle for me after like a three year hiatus but it’s it’s being so super intentional about what platforms you’re creating for. And one of the things that I’ve been doing, and I, I learned this from several different interviews that were on this podcast.
AJV (02:35):
So yeah, I listen to our own podcast. It’s really good. I encourage you to go back and listen to some episodes too, is really telling your audience what platforms go to for what? So, like, for example, like if you want to learn about me as a person, like a human being, like you wanna learn about my awesome husband, Rory Vaden, you wanna learn about my awesome two little munchkins Liam and Jasper you wanna learn about what I like to do on the weekend or what I like to eat or where I like to go me as a believer. It’s like all these different things go to Instagram. It’s just about me. It’s like, it’s me as a human being. But if you wanna learn from me, you wanna learn about personal branding, entrepreneurship, leadership. You want my content, you want educational value go to LinkedIn, cause you’re not gonna get a ton of that on Instagram.
AJV (03:23):
And you’re not gonna get a ton of the personal side on LinkedIn because I’ve gotten really clear on how I build and create my content and for what platform and what people like. And I, I love Tia’s comments on that. And I think those are great takeaways for all of us of taking a deep hard look at how am I creating content for each platform. So that would be my first big takeaway. And I love that. I thought that was awesome. So that’ll be my first one. The second one that I think is so awesome is around the book. And I think this is a great reminder. So my second and third are both around writing book. So if you’re out there and you wanna write a book or you wanna write another book, right? Or maybe you’ve done a self-published book, and now you wanna do do a traditional published book or vice versa.
AJV (04:10):
It doesn’t matter. It applies all the same as one is be prepared to do the work. I think we live and time of, I want it and I want it right now. And if it takes longer than three months, then something isn’t working or if it doesn’t make me an immediate return on investment, this was a waste of my time and my money. And that’s just not true. You guys, weren’t privy to this conversation that I got to have with Tia after I stopped hitting record, I should have hit it again. But I thought this was like a great reminder of, you know, what it has been two years of learning and hiring experts and working with coaches and a lot of accountability of like, no Tia, don’t do this other thing, stay focused. This is what you’re doing. This is what you’re doing.
AJV (04:59):
Don’t, don’t get distracted by all the shiny things that we see happening out there, stay the path. And I think it’s really easy to just go and this and this and this when we don’t see the results that we want immediately. And one of the things that Tia said in our debrief discussion is she goes, I know I’m not gonna see an immediate return on all the investment I’ve made or over the last two years. But I know that the investment that I have made is going to keep going for years. So maybe I won’t recoup all of it in the first six months or even in the first 12 months, but I already see the amount of sales that are coming in and the consulting opportunities and the speaking opportunities that this is going to pay for itself and a whole bunch more.
AJV (05:43):
And I think we all have to have the perspective of that. Our investment is going to be worth so much more if you just stay at it, don’t give up and keep going. And don’t think because it didn’t hit the New York times and opening week that it’s not gonna be a huge raging success. That does not mean that it’s just keep going consistency over, you know, the flash is always better. So I just love that, just that re that reminder of like, it takes time, but if you put in the time and you do the work, it will come back and, you know, it’s like I can use our books as examples, you know, you’ve got take the stairs and procrastinate on purpose. It’s like we still get steady royalty checks for those every quarter, or I guess really twice a year now.
AJV (06:32):
But you know, officially in 2022, which seems so crazy, take the stairs launched 10 years ago, this year, it’s out for 10 years. And so when we think back about those original investments of time and money and resources of going, man, is it worth it? It’s like, man, we’re still getting good, healthy royalty checks 10 years later. And the amount of consulting and businesses and speaking engagements I’ve come from that is extraordinary. Now it did all happen in the first two months or three months, but it will continue to go. And that’s a beautiful thing about writing a book is it’s got a very long shelf life. So just be patient, that would be my takeaway is be patient. And then my third takeaway was I also connected to the book, but was something about the actual content of the book itself, which I just think is such a good title.
AJV (07:26):
And it’s so relevant and makes me wanna like go read it the whole thing tonight be a happy leader. And I love one of the things that she said in the interview about what is one thing that every single person should read that’s in this book and it’s about the importance of owning and sitting with your emotions. And I think that’s really important because so often it’s like, you know, we hear, we literally hear the phrases. Don’t be emotional, don’t get emotional. And Tia is saying, no, get emotional, be emotional, feel, accept, and deal with all of the emotions. That’s a part of what makes you happy. It’s like if it’s anger, figure out where it’s coming from if it’s sadness figure out where that’s coming from, whatever it is, it’s like, you’ve got to accept and actually interpret and sit with those emotions.
AJV (08:13):
That’s a part of being a human being. So pushing ’em down, isn’t gonna make you happy, but actually explore them and discovering them and figuring out where they come from makes us happy. And ultimately when we’re a happier human, we’re a happier leader. So I just, I love that around happiness, doesn’t come from having hardcore deadlines and lots of stress and overwhelm. Like that’s not happiness. Happiness comes from, there are things that bring excitement and we experience all of the emotions. And so it’s like, how do you become more happy? Right. Happy at work, happy at home, but how do we create more happiness, more joy, more fun, more excitement just more peace and what we do, because when we’re happier people, we will be happier leaders. And I think a lot of that has to do with falling in love with what you do. So how do you do that? Right. I don’t have the answers for you. Those are, those are in Tia’s book.
Ep 243: Building Million Dollar Membership Sites with Alison Lumbatis | Recap Episode
RV (00:01):
Let’s talk about how to build million dollar membership sites. What an interview, Allison Lobas. She was dropping so much bombs, like so many nuggets, so much inspiration, so much tactical information, empirical information about how she has built this seven figure business. And I just feel lucky to have her as a friend and, you know, proud to call her a client. And I just, this lady’s amazing. She’s awesome. And it’s funny, cuz I remember very specifically the first time I met her she impressed me from the moment I saw her. I was like she’s she’s got the gift and uman, just to see what she is doing and uhow she’s growing. She’s awesome. So,uwelcome to the recap edition, influential personal brand podcast. It’s your man, Rory vaden breaking down that interview and you know, normally I share like my top three highlights. UI had to, I couldn’t boil it down to less than four. I had, I had so many,uand I, I got four here for you that are just the things that really stuck out to me that I hope stick out to you. And uthe first one is, man, this is so, so flagship like, so cornerstone, so foundational of what we believe at brand builders. And to hear her say these words verbatim, she said it all started because I created the program that I needed at the time.
RV (01:40):
Bam like that is it. If, if you’ve been around here at all, you’ve heard to say this over and over again, you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. There is no other avatar in the world that you will understand in a more intimate way than the person that you once were. You are equipped, you are designed, you are prepared, you are educated. You, you, you are, are, are mission driven to serve that person. And to hear her just say that like, so clearly she’s just going. I tried to solve this problem in my own life. And then, you know, I realize other people had this problem. And so I look back and I created something for that. That’s it like that’s that is the shortest path to uniqueness. That’s the fastest way to momentum. Like that’s the, the clearest line to the distinction that is available for a personal brand.
RV (02:41):
And just, you know, to see her doing it and, and all the community that has it has become and people around it. And then her recent book launch and all that, that we, you know, we were excited to be a part of. I mean, it’s just awesome. Just awesome. So who, who were you, right? Like when you’re trying to, when you’re creating your plans for the future and for your business and your personal brand and your content, you go, who was I, what was I struggling with? What did I need that didn’t exist? Or I couldn’t find at the time, what do I know now that I wish I knew then and make that available to people that that’s gonna be visceral going to be real. It’s going to be emotional, compelling. It’s gonna have connection and power and it’s gonna be profound because you’ve been there and you have locked a mile in those shoes, speak to that person, right.
RV (03:33):
Speak to that person. And you’ll, you’ll go far. And Allison great example of this number or two. Okay. Number two, takeaway. So simple. She said in between launches, we were working aggressively on capturing leads and building our newsletter list, right? So she was saying our newsletter list converts at about 10%, just from a, a weekly newsletter, the it she sends. And the, she said, we run a lot of Facebook ads to our freebies. It doesn’t get more simple than that. It doesn’t get like easier than that. It more straightforward than that. And if you’ve been through our relationship engine training, tho those of you that are members of ours, when we take you through the relationship engine, we, we teach you the architecture, the, the infrastructure of a funnel, you know, it starts with something free. Like that’s the lead magnet is what can you give value?
RV (04:31):
How can you give value first, save the best for first? What can you give away for free teach the best of what, you know, package it up in something that is small and concise. The, that is a major quick win and, and deliver the goods right up front. Those become your lead magnets. And then she runs ad to those lead magnets and people download them. And to this day, this is what we do go on brand builders, group.com. And look, you’re gonna see that we are pushing our, our trends and personal branding, national re search study. We spent tens of thousands of dollars on that. Like it, it’s, it’s a beautiful lead magnet. It took us a year to develop over a year, all in to like plan it and put the whole thing together. We give it away for free. And it is this incredibly, it’s just this packed.
RV (05:18):
You know, it’s a PDF though. Like it’s a PDF document. People can scroll the thing in five minutes. And, and now we go out and we do media interviews and we drive people to that and we run YouTube Ads and we drive people to that and we do press releases and, and we drive people to that. It’s the same, same thing, right? She’s doing the same thing. Brandon Bouchard does the same thing. Like it mean, go down, pick your list, pick your influencer. This is how it, it works. And it doesn’t have to be new. The part that makes it special is it’s your stuff. And it’s, it’s whatever you would do and who you would, who, who you would provide that for. So you know, it’s that simple, like drive people to down a freebie, get them on your newsletter list, talk to them once a week and then tell them when you have something available to buy, like you’re building trust, build value, build relationships before you need them.
RV (06:12):
Like that is what you have to do, build relationships before you need them. We talk about out this in pressure, free persuasion with your list. It’s the same thing you have to give value first. And then they will trust you. And then when you have something they’re there, they’re sitting there ready to buy what, whatever your thing is number three, and this was really big for me hearing what she was saying. This is, I think an area of learning for my, myself. This is somewhere where I go, Ooh, I’ve, I’ve missed the boat here. AJ is super passionate about, about this. And, and so she’s moving the company in this direction, thankfully, because this is huge. And it was very edifying when Allison was talking about it is she said, build the community around the program. Know it’s more than just the clothes, right?
RV (07:00):
So, you know, she’s selling outfit formulas, and that’s what her, you know, her membership is all about. And she’s like selling clothes and helping people helping women specifically figure out what to wear. Like that’s the problem that she’s solving, but the, the power becomes the community, the community around found the program. And, you know, ultimately the knowledge is replaceable. You know, or at least kind of has like an expiration date just from the standpoint of like, look, if someone’s in your membership, like look at our, our brand builders, right? So if you’re a member, if you sign up for our, our flagship coaching, like, you know, main coaching program pro quarterly, we immediately give you access to everything to the, to the whole curriculum. Like from day one, you can go through everything as fast as you, as fast as you can consume it.
RV (07:49):
Well, once you’ve learned it, you know, it’s kind of like, well, what’s the reason to pay? Well, you know, there’s a couple things there. It’s like another thing that we talk about all the time, people don’t pay for information, they pay for organization and application, people pay for organization and application. So, you know, they need the information and then they need help applying it. And then, but then the thing that like you can, you never break free of is community. You it’s the communities, the people you’re around our brand builders members are freaking amazing. I mean, Allison is one of our clients. She’s one of the members, right? Like she’s the kind of person that comes to our events and you sit next to her. And then, you know, we’ve got lovey Ajai Jones and she comes to the events and she’s a multi New York times bestselling author, and she’s got a viral Ted talk and we have two, we have two billionaires become clients.
RV (08:40):
This last year. We got, you know, people who are time magazine person of the year, we’ve got lots of 10 millionaires and a hundred millionaires. You know, all these people with millions of followers and hundreds of millions of video views. I mean, our community is insane. Actresses actors like major famous like TV actors, musicians. I mean the brand builders group community is just nuts. You know, we’ve had several clients on the podcast, you know, so you’ve gotten to, to learn from some of them, but the point there is going, you know, from my perspective, and we still started brand builders group. And like, you know, here comes RO like thinking about, you know, content and information and my like nerdy brain, I’m going, we gotta create the world’s greatest curriculum. Right. And, and I think that’s what we did or one of the world’s greatest curriculums.
RV (09:29):
I, I definitely feel confident saying that our content is incredible. And yet the content is like,
RV (10:25):
And that’s exactly what Allison was saying. And, you know, she obviously saw the light on that much earlier than I did of for our community. But what for your community? How can you, how you facilitate your community coming together without you? One of the features that we just rolled out in our member portal is is an example, just an example of this. So we created this technology in our portal where every member registers themself and there’s a map. And when it shows a pin on a map for where you live, and then you can click on the other pins that are close to you, or if you’re traveling like wherever you’re going so that you can see who the other brand builders are like, where are the other members of the community? I’m so jacked about it, even for me, because I, you know, at this point we have, we have over 500 clients.
RV (11:15):
So like, you know, I’m, I don’t know all of ’em anymore by by name. I know a lot of ’em, but like when I go traveling, I can like see them and meet them and, and you know, get them together and, and they’ll get together. And I just, I’m excited about that. And that’s what Allison is talking about is going, that’s not like a nice to do long term that like becomes the core, like it, the, the, the, the unbreakable bond. And I think you, you move from that role of being like, okay, I’m a teacher to, to more of just like, you know, I’m the, I’m just hosting a, whatever I’m hosting a Bible study, or I’m hosting an event, or I’m, you know, I’m, I’m just, I’m just the, the, the, the gathering spot for people to come to. So that was huge for me.
RV (12:02):
And again, our team and AJ they’ve been working in that direction, which I’m just, I’m just pumped about, cuz our community is incredible. So how can you do that for your community? How can you bring them together? Was huge. And then the fourth thing, which was just another takeaway, which is another thing that I go, this is just such a good reminder. Here’s what she said. She said, my philosophy has always been about continually investing into myself on entrepreneurship really is personal development. I mean, direct sales really is personal development. Professional services really is personal development. Any type of leadership really is personal development. Like that is the job like, and that’s what you’re supposed to do. And it boggles my mind, like literally blows me away. How you know, yeah. AJ and I are junkies about, I mean, we go to the conferences, we go to the groups, we go to the events and I always kind of would assume that it’s like, the person who’s struggling is the person who should be the person who should be in that room.
RV (13:07):
The most is the person who’s struggling the most, right? Like the person who needs the most help, the person who is not making enough money and they need help. And they need someone to coach them and show them what to do. But ironically, that’s never, who’s in the room. The people who are in the room or people like Allison is the people who are crushing it, they’re killing it. It’s like the last people who really need to be, there are always the ones that are the first to sign and they’re on the front row, you know, at the event, they’re the first in, inside the mastermind. They’re, they’re the, the first to buy the book and read it. And that’s why they are crushing. It is because they’re the person doing that. And it, it just took me years to realize that. And, oh my gosh, like Allison is such a bad mam jam.
RV (13:54):
I mean, like you, you heard her story, like what a bad ma pajama this woman is. And her and her team, you know, like always nobody does it alone, but she’s a bad ma pajama. And yet she’s signing up for coaching from us. And from, you know, I met her at an, I met her at another mastermind, like she’s investing into herself and that is why she’s winning. It’s one of the biggest reasons why she’s winning and, and not just investing in herself, but like FA executing, executing. There were actually two parts in the interview. I really, really love. So I love when she said she said we had cold leads in our email list who suddenly started up again for our stuff because of the 15 PS. Now, if you’re not one of our, our members yet you may not have picked up on that.
RV (14:45):
And what are the 15 PS? The 15 PS is our framework that we teach for how to write, how to write sales copy, like on a sales page. So what she was saying there is she has all these old leads that were cold. And, you know, she always, you know, does a broadcast, sends people to a page to sign up? Well, when she came through the training and ha had her team redo the sales page with the 15 piece, all of these old people started signing up that had never signed up. And that was her saying, I learned something. I executed on it and it worked well, of course it works. That’s why we teach it. It, we teach what we do. We teach what our clients do, like what we have learned. So of course it works. The question is, number one, will you learn it?
RV (15:34):
And number two, will you do it? And, and so you gotta be willing to invest in yourself and then you gotta be willing to execute on the thing that you learn. And so she said that, and then she said another one, right after that, she said I followed every single step of the brand builder’s bestseller launch plan. And it worked right. Like she sold thousands of copies of her book on opening week. And she followed a formula. It’s, it’s a formula that we’ve learned. It’s a formula that we teach. It’s a formula that we do. I mean, go back and listen to the like, you know, so that’s part of our curriculum bestseller launch plan. But if you go if you go watch our influential personal brand summit or if you listen to the interview that I did with Gretchen Rubin, Gretchen Rubin talks about how she built her email list and doing lead magnets, right?
RV (16:23):
Allison talks about that. If you, if you go listen to John Gordon, they interview that I did with John Gordon and he talks about how he built a speaking career, going out and speak for free. Like, I, these are all things that, that we teach a formal part of our curriculum, but it’s like, until you hear one of these legends tell you, that’s how they did it. And that’s how they started you. You kind of think there’s some secret maybe that you’re, that you’re missing or you know, that, that, that it, it is like, there’s gotta be more to it than that. And it it’s like, there’s not, it’s just a matter of knowing it and, and executing it. But part of that is being humble enough to go, gosh, I got something to learn. Like I need some, I need to learn from someone who’s done this.
RV (17:05):
I need to learn from somebody who has already accomplished the thing that I’m trying to do. And and, and even, and go, like, in the case of someone like Allison, she’s already crushing it going, yeah, I wanna keep learning. I wanna keep up level, even though I’m, I’m already doing great. And that inspires me. I, I love that. Like that makes me so fired up. And, and, and so many of, of my friends who I’ve kind of grown up in the industry, I they’re the same way. I mean, John, John ACU reads a bunch of books, Lewis house is interviewing all these people like I mean, there’s I mean, Jason Dorsey does all of this research. I mean, so many of my friends are in a, in a mode where they’re constantly learning, are you right? Are you learning? Are you, are you doing it?
RV (17:54):
Are you humble enough to say, you know what, I wanna get help. I wanna get coaching. I’m, I’m willing to take, take a chance to invest in myself and then I’m gonna execute. And if you think we can help you, man, like if you’re trying to do anything around building your personal brand, your speaking career, podcasting, you know, information products, social media, launching courses, membership sites or just using digital marketing to drive awareness for whatever your, your practice is or your, you know, your service based business. Like we can help you. We know a lot this and, and you should, you should go request a call, go to, go to go to free call dot R vain.com free call dot Roy vain.com. Lemme make sure that’s live.
RV (18:58):
This is what I do. I, I believe in personal development and I practice it. So you should too. And you know, if nothing else keep coming back to the podcast, right? Like we do this for free. I’m learning a ton. I hope you’re learning a ton. We’re, we’re, we’re trying to give you the goods and, and teach you the best of what our, our friends in our community have to offer. And so, you know, I’m preaching to the choir there a little bit since you’re already here tuning in and listening, but if you haven’t yet taking it to the next level, come with us, right. Like go back and listen. I mean, we have had a bunch of brand builders group clients on, on here, go back and listen to Darcy, Ben and Koa about how she sells her courses, listen to lovey Aja E listen to Louis hows.
RV (19:46):
Like, you know, we’ve had a bunch of clients that have come on here and they’re amazing people. And they’re, these are the people that are hanging around. So if you wanna be like those people you know, you become who your friends are. We’d love to hang out with you. We’d love to have you part of the community. So go to go to free call dot Roy vaden.com. You can request a free call with our team. And let’s talk. Other than that, I hope you’re inspired to just invest in your personal development, that you are willing to create a community around the thing that you’re doing and realize that the community is inherently as valuable as anything else. Especially, and at least as much as the content, building your list, building your new, you know, communicating to your list with a newsletter. And then most of all create the program, create the content that you needed back then your most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. We’re here to
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Serve you. Thank you for that opportunity and privilege. We love you. Leave us a review if you can, on iTunes, if you haven’t done that yet, share this podcast with somebody and just keep coming back. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand podcast.
Ep 241: Beating Your Inner Critic with Dr. Margie Warrell | Recap Episode
RV (00:01):
We tend to fail more from fear and humidity than we do from over daring. That was one of my favorite lines from the interview that I did recently with Dr. Margie today I’m breaking down doing the podcast recap of that episode, sharing with you my top three highlights, um, for on that interview, which was powerful and it affected me. And so I’m excited to share that with you. And, uh, before I dive into that, I wanna let you know of a little bit of a, of a forthcoming change, a little modification that we’re making here with, um, the podcast. It, it’s gonna roll out here over a few weeks, but, um, I’m gonna be doing, uh, this recap by myself and then the next couple by myself, and then starting here in like four or five episodes what’s gonna happen is we’re still gonna do the podcast twice a week, but I will do an interview.
RV (00:54):
And then the, the recap of that interview will be on the same episode as that interview. And then our second episode, every we’ll be AJ doing an interview by herself, uh, with the guest and doing her own recap of her own interviews. So just wanted to let you know about that kind of exciting slight modification just to the way that the episodes are gonna be happening. And so for the next few weeks, you’re gonna see me, um, just by myself or be here in for me just by myself. So, um, on with the recap for this, uh, episode, this interview with Dr. Margie, um, I loved this. This was something that I personally needed and I, I had lots and lots of, of, of great takeaways. And the first takeaway is to what I was just talking about is you have to think of things as an experiment there, like your business is something that you have to view as an experiment instead of like it’s a success or a failure.
RV (01:55):
If you view it as an experiment, it, it puts you in this, this mindset kind of more of the right mindset that it takes to be successful because you go, oh, I’m gonna try things, knowing that some of the things aren’t gonna work and the reason, and knowing that that’s part, that’s part of the plan, like, you know, ahead of time, that it is by design, that you’re doing trial and error, and you’re figuring things out as you go versus this mindset, this mentality of living in this world of like, I have to be successful and everything I do has to work all the time. Otherwise it’s not gonna work. And it’s, it’s kind of this, this, this ultimatum like this, this very ultimate destination that we place ourselves in and this pressure that we put on onto ourselves and, and onto the people around us, like the people that work with us and the vendors and the contractors of like this must work or else, right?
RV (02:51):
Like, or else it’s over or else it’s done or else, you know, I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna be lost. I’m gonna fail. I’m going, I’m gonna let everybody down. And instead of kind of operating with, I, I guess that sort of definitive, it’s saying, Hey, let me view this as an experiment, I’m gonna constantly be iterating. I’m gonna constantly be adapting. I’m gonna be evolving. I’m gonna be trying things and seeing what works and then modifying from there. And that really hit me hard because especially if you’re a, if you’re a perfectionist, like, like I am and I’ll go ahead and claim AJS one too. Um, even though she’s not here, I, I, I feel pretty confident at this point, um, that I could say that comfortably with her and she wouldn’t take issue with it. So that if you’re a, if you’re a perfectionist, you are, are likely to be overly cautious because everything needs to be perfect.
RV (03:48):
Everything needs to be planned, everything. Um, you, you operate from this, this, this very calculated standpoint of like, I want all these things to work the, but, but to what Dr Margie’s point was in that interview, which really hit me, was most of us are, are overly cautious, right? Like the fear being an entrepreneur is, is even like, oh gosh, you know, I don’t know, like that seems like a big risk. And, and, and to some extent it is, uh, certainly riskier than maybe that you a more risk than the average, just the average citizen might take on. But the, that is what holds us back is is that just that kind of fear and that, that need for certainty and precision and accuracy, and for knowing what’s gonna happen before it happens. That is what holds a us back from being able to take the chances, take the risks, make the changes that are really going to, to unlock exponential growth.
RV (04:52):
And, you know, as, as she, she said, we fail far more from timid than we do from over daring. I think that line will stick with me personally from Dr. Margie and, you know, so treat it as an experiment, treat your business, your brand as, as an experiment, rather than like a test that you have to get, you have to get, right. And that there’s like a right or wrong answer. So I thought that was really good. Um, my second takeaway was something that we talked a lot about at brand builders, and it was edifying to me to hear her say the same thing. And this was what she said, you know, verbatim. I had to demonstrate my value before people would pay me. And so we were talking specif about how do you, how do you start your career as a speaker, right. Um, and we tell people all the time, whether you wanna be a professional speaker, like a paid speaker or not, it, it doesn’t matter.
RV (05:54):
Giving free presentations is a huge piece of marketing. It is the, it is the fastest way to take someone from a complete stranger to a lifelong fan is like this, this, you know, a presentation, a, a, a training class. And there’s different things that you call it. You could call it a, a podcast interview. You could call it a webinar. You could call it a video funnel of, you know, three short videos. You could call it a, a, a seven day challenge funnel and have, you know, 10, seven minute videos. Like there’s all these things that you could call it. But the fact of the matter is, is that that people have to have a chance to sample you. They have to have a chance to try you before they buy. They have to, they have to get exposed to you before they can feel comfortable purchasing from you.
RV (06:44):
If they don’t know you, if they don’t recognize you, if they’ve never heard of you. And the fact of, of the matters that most personal brands, like most of us, aren’t that well known. We’re, we’re not, you know, we’re not celebrities we’re, we don’t have millions. And, and the followers, like that’s rare that we’re working with somebody who is in that category. We do have a few clients that are that way, but, but for the vast majority of us, and, you know, perhaps for you is going, how do I give people a chance to sample me before they buy? I internally with all of our, our brand builders, monthly members, we talk about this, this concept that I call chicken on a stick, you know, it’s basically like, it’s exactly when you go to the food court. And you know, when you walk around the food quarter, if you go to whole foods or the grocery store or whatever, and there’s people sampling new food, and it’s always new food.
RV (07:35):
Why? Because you’ve because you don’t yet trust that you haven’t had friends tell you about it. You’ve never bought it. It’s new. And so what do they do? They give you a sample, a piece of chicken on a stick. They say, here, taste this. And, and they know that that is the, the most powerful mechanism that they can, they can leverage to take you from. I’ve never heard of you. I don’t know what this for brand is. I don’t know what this flavor is. I don’t know what this, what this style or this taste is, or, or this product at all to go, oh yeah. Okay. I’ll buy that because you have this meat experience. It is the exact same. It is the exact same thing with your personal brand. People have to have a chance to see ample you, they have to, they have to hear you talk, right?
RV (08:24):
The number one white people always go, well, how do I become a paid speaker, R hall of fame speaker? Like, how do you become a hall of fame speaker? Like, how do you get paid to speak? And the answer is you go speak for free until somebody walks up to you and says that wasn’t credible. I have an event coming up. What’s your fee. I would like you to have. I’d like to have you come speak at my event because they’re sampling you. They’re seeing you. They’re they’re. Um, and, and it’s the whole concept of content marketing in general, but this applies to speaking and it applies to whatever you’re selling. Like, you might be a doctor selling surgeries. You might, you, you might be a, a chiropractor. You, you might be a health food coach. You might be, you know, a consultant of any type, the whole value of social media and podcasting.
RV (09:10):
And all this digital marketing is for people to have a chance to sample you. How, how can you incorporate sample into your business? How can people sample you? And social media is, you know, that’s basically our entire social media strategy and it works right. Is you, you save the best for first. Like we say so often because I’m demonstrating my value so that people can have confidence, but four, they pay me and that’s a switch you have to flip, and you have to constantly remind yourself of as you’re, as you’re building your personal brand, and you’re building your business, uh, going how I have to give value. First, I have to give first, before they give to me, it, it’s not a chicken or the egg. It might feel like a chicken or the egg, but it’s not. It’s very clear people. You need to think of your customers as people who pay you in rears, right?
RV (10:02):
So there’s it. When it comes to paying your bills, you can, you can pay in forwards, or you can pay in rears. So you, you, you know, you pay to pay in forwards means you pay before the service comes to you and you pay ahead of time to pay in res is to say, you’re, you’re paying for a service that you have, you have already experienced. So when it comes to selling yourself, your business, your personal brand, however, you’re monetizing. The thing that you’re doing, you have to realize that people are always paying in res meaning you’re, they’re experiencing you first. And then they’re paying you after. Even if they’re technically paying you for a service that you haven’t yet delivered. It’s kinda like, even though people are hiring me for a, they’re hiring me to give a speech at a future event, they’re really paying after they’ve had some experience with me.
RV (10:59):
They’ve either read my book or they’ve seen my Ted talk, or they watch me most often. I mean, the number one way that people hire me is because they saw me speak at an event. They said that was incredible. That was, you know, worth the money. I’ll pay you to come. I want you to come do the things. So they’re, they’re paying in res demonstrate your value before you ask people to pay, how do you, how do you do this? And here’s the thing. Every company in the world, you know, right now is dealing with virtual and remote work. They need to train their people and motivate them and manage them. And they’re all like virtual or at least part Artley virtual. So they they’re all open to this idea of going, how can I inject training and wisdom and inspiration into my audience? Like, there’s never been a more ripe opportunity or ripe time for you to come infuse your inspiration, your education, your entertainment, your, your encouragement into companies in a way that they would, they will sample you for free.
RV (12:04):
And then from there, that is how they hire you. So just, you can never hear that enough. And, and you years, so many times, so many of our different guests have talked about it, but for Dr. Margie to just like nail that, you know, right between the eyes, as in terms of how she built her speaking career, I just thought was super relevant. And it applies to whether you’re a coach consultant or your professional service provider, or, you know, whatever. Even if you’re trying to just get yourself a raise at work, you have to go, let me volunteer for a project. Let me show you what I can do and earn my way into a promotion or earn my way into a raise, demonstrate the value the money comes after. And most people have that kind of, that totally flipped. Um, and then the third, the third big takeaway for me, which is another kind of fundamental reminder.
RV (12:54):
And it’s another thing you can just never hear enough, which is don’t lose to that little voice inside of your head. Don’t lose to that little voice that tells you you’re not good enough. You’re not smart enough. You, you’re not capable. You have to realize that little voice exists in all of us. And most people who lose in life, they don’t lose to the fact that they, they actually weren’t those things. They lose to the little voice who said they were those things before they ever even tried before they ever even gave it a shot before they ever even had in that bat or took the swing or took a shot. And they lost to the little voice. Most of us don’t lose to what happens in our life. We lose to the idea of what might happen before it ever even happens before it ever has a chance to succeed.
RV (13:52):
That little voice is holding people. Hostage. It is, is it is keeping them from shining their light as Dr. Margie said. And, and that that voice is, is just the voice of fear that, that, that voice was planted in you for protection to keep you safe from danger. But there’s a big difference between danger in fear. Danger is something that could actually threaten your livelihood, but the brain doesn’t delineate really so much that from fear, which is something that is new and uncertain and being successful is about stepping into things that are new and uncertain and outside of comfort. And so if you ever wanna to be successful at anything, you have to learn to conquer that little voice until you conquer that voice, you can’t do anything. You’ll be held hostage and captive to your imagination, working in the wrong direction, which is how I describe fear.
RV (14:54):
I say that fear is your creativity working in the wrong direction. And it doesn’t mean your, your, it doesn’t mean that your something is wrong with you. It means that you are perfectly functioning human, that your brain is trying to protect you from something that could be dangerous. But, but very few of the things that we are pursuing in terms of goal are, are dangerous. They’re just unknown. That’s mostly what fear is. It is, it is the unknown. It is the uncertain. And yet you have to learn to conquer that step. And if you can’t defeat that voice, you don’t have a cheat ants. You’re losing the battle before you, before you even step on the, on the field, right? Like, so we, we treat that, uh, I love what Dr. Margie said when she said, we treat that little voice as if it’s the truth, but it’s not the truth. It’s just your creativity working in the wrong direction. It’s just your brain’s defense mechanism to, you know, that is there appropriately to prevent you from danger, which is inappropriately preventing you from doing something new, and that is standing in your way, but to become successful in life, to achieve your goals, to change the world, to do the impossible, to have the thing you have never done will require you to decide and defeat that little voice over and over and over again.
RV (16:27):
Our hope is that one of the reasons that you come to this podcast every single week is to, to get that encouragement, to help you overcome that little voice, to get you that encouragement that says, Hey, you’ve got permission around here to experiment and to get that encouragement to go, Hey, you’ve you, you’ve got permission to go give value into the world before you ask people to pay. These are three of, of probably the most timeless tenants and, and most, most important principles of the, of all the kind of concepts that we talk around at brand builders captured right here in this interview with Dr. Margie, as a living example of someone who embodies these things. And, um, we’re honored to call her a friend and a client and to hold her up and say, you know, look, look what this woman has done. Like look at the career that she has built for herself all by, by treating it as an experiment, being willing to demonstrate her value first and learning to conquer that little voice of fear. Our invitation is for you to do the same. Hey, if you would share this podcast with somebody who you think needs to hear it and keep coming back week after week, we’re so excited that you’re here. We’ll catch you next time on the influential old, personal brand.
Ep 237: How to Build a Legendary Speaking Career in 5 Years with Michelle Poler | Recap Episode
RV (00:02):
I love Michelle Poler. Oh my gosh. That was an awesome interview. And I am doing the recap for you solo today on the interview that I just completed with Michelle poler and I have become a quick fan of this woman. I just think she’s cool. I think she’s fun. I think she is funny. I think she’s got a great story and what an awesome, I mean, so many lessons came out of that conversation. I mean, we’re, we’re titling it around how to build a legendary speaking career in five years because her story is amazing. Like she has gone from, I’m terrified to be on stage two. I’m one of the busiest, highest paid speakers in the world in five years. And that’s a pretty, you know, rapid transformation. And hopefully that gives hope to you. Like if you have that dream of saying, Hey, I want to be a speaker.
RV (00:56):
Then, you know, it shows you that it’s like it can be done. There’s, there’s a system to all of this. There’s a process. And that’s my first takeaway actually was very much in that vein of how she built this, this very legendary speaking career in five short years, because if you’ve spent any, any time at all around brand builders group, either as one of our members or gone through any of our free trainings or, you know, watched any of our, our, our, our free online summits, et cetera, et cetera, that we do, you know, that we are big believers, big believers, that if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. So what do we teach people? Well, the very first thing we do in finding your brand DNA, which is our phase one course, one curriculum is we help them figure out what problem do they solve in one word, we then help them figure out what is their one business model.
RV (01:47):
The one way they should focus on making money. And then we have them focus on what is there. One message. Michelle is a great example of that, right? Like she has one problem, fear, one business model speaking. She has this, this one message about doing what is uncomfortable. And then she did exactly what we tell people to do, which is show videos of you doing what you do. Use video marketing as a way to just showcase and demonstrate what you do so people can sample you and they can see you doing it. And that’s what she did. I mean, in her case, she was actually overcoming fear. So it was entertaining as well, but that’s all you’re doing on social media. And video is just giving people a chance to sample you, like sample your expertise, teach them like, if you want to change lives, start changing lives, like push the button and let’s go hit record and let people see you do what you do.
RV (02:52):
Give them a 62nd sample, teach them, inspire them, educate them, you know, help them. And, and that is what she did. And she did it consistently. And she did it for a few years. And at first it was small and a few years later it was big. And that’s the nature of this. Most people just won’t stick with it for a few years, but if you start now, I mean, think about it in five years, you could be a legend doing something that you haven’t even started yet five years. Like that’s super powerful. So I, I just love that part of the professional story of, you know, what Michelle has been able to do in her husband. Her husband’s awesome. We of course, got to meet with them backstage at the global leadership summit last year, as we had one of our friends Jamie Kern, Lima was speaking there and I had spoke there the year before.
RV (03:42):
And one of our other friends, several of our friends have spoken there and you know, Michelle was there. And so that’s how we met and just absolutely love it. So that was my first takeaway. One, one problem that you solve one business model do one thing at a time and use video to show people a sample of what you do. Couldn’t be more textbook brand builder type speak. So that’s it. The second takeaway was hit me powerfully personally. So here’s what she said. She said, every decision that you make is either comfort based or growth based, which are you choosing like any decision or choice that you faced there is going to be a comfortable option or a growth option. There’s going to be a safe, familiar thing, or there’s going to be a new, scary, risky thing. Which one are you doing most of us by the default.
RV (04:44):
And you need to understand this. This is the default design of the human brain. This is neuroscience. The default of your brain is not designed for success. The human brain is designed for survival. The number one function of the human brain is to keep you alive. And so what happens is you will automatically always default to safety, to comfort, to familiar, which means you’re not growing. You’re not changing. You’re not evolving. You’re not adapting. You’re not learning. You’re not pushing, you’re not stretching. You’re not accomplishing something new. All of that requires deliberate, intentional focus to say, yeah, this is scary and I’m going to do it anyways. It is what we talk about and take the stairs. The story about be the Buffalo, or if you’ve ever read my story about do it scared. And this idea that you’re, you are scared and you do it anyways.
RV (05:44):
That is the essence. And so I, one of the things that I did is just like a little practical challenge because I was inspired by the interview with Michelle was I made an Instagram real where I did live singing, which I’d never done. I don’t, you know, I don’t do much dancing. Most of what I’m doing is content like teaching, right? That’s most of what my social strategy is and what I’m doing. And so I thought I’m going to do something fun that I’ve never done. And this is a secret skill that many of you probably don’t even know that I have, but I’m, I’m quite handy at rap lyrics. I can hear the lyrics really well and I memorize them. And so what I did was I took the song from the sound Disney soundtrack, marijuana, the song that, that the rock Dwayne Johnson sings called your welcome.
RV (06:34):
And I wrapped it and I put it on social media, which was way outside of my comfort zone zones. I think I would never, ever do, but I did it just for fun. And just in honor of Michelle. So Michelle, there you go. That, that is my, my homage to you. My, my Dwayne Johnson lip singing rap Instagram real but it was, it’s such a simple thing because it’s like, there are so many other ways just since my conversation with her, that I have realized, wow, what’s the safe decision. What’s the risky decision. And we are deliberately more and more starting to choose risk, you know, calculated risk, calculated risk. I would say to use a term from Adam Grant’s book, originals calculated risk. I really love that concept calculated risks cause I I’m risk adverse. Because I’m, you know, I’m really logical.
RV (07:27):
And also like you, I have a human brain that’s designed to keep me safe, but being an entrepreneur, being successful, being an influencer, like being a mission-driven messenger, changing the world, all of those things, making more money, making more impact making like all of those things require comfort based decisions. They require stepping out of your comfort zone, doing things new. And that leads me to my third takeaway that I walked. I walked away with, out of that conversation from her, from, with Michelle. And this was also so practical was, you know, I was, I’d asked her the question, obviously go listen to the interview if you haven’t. But when I asked her directly like, you know, give me one tip for overcoming fear, like give me one practical tip for overcoming fear. This is so simple. Here’s what she said. Just ask yourself, what do I need to learn in order to be able to do that thing?
RV (08:23):
What do I need to learn? Right. So the fear is in doing something that you’ve never done, a huge part of that fear is just not knowing what does it take to do it? It’s the uncertainty. It’s, it’s the incompleteness of the story in your head, right? It’s it’s like, there’s a, you can see a finish line, but you have no idea what the journey is. It takes to get there. So you kind of know like, well, I don’t know if I could get there. It’s kind of scary the thought, but when you go, what do I need to learn in order to be able to do that thing? It’s now very controllable. It’s very concrete, right? It becomes more pragmatic. It’s like, you can get your hands wrapped around. It is. Oh, well sure. It would be scary to, you know, write a book.
RV (09:11):
But if I learned the writing process that authors use that wouldn’t be a scary, right? So that’s like what we teach in captivating content or in our bestseller launch plan. The one of, so in that, in that curriculum, we talk about how to become a bestseller, not the writing part, but the marketing part. And one of the things that was huge for me was just learning how the bestseller list worked. Right? So the very first time I ever thought about, I want to be a New York times bestselling author one day, it was terrifying. It was, it was, it was impossible. Like I might as well have been saying I was going to be LeBron James or the president of the United States or Warren Buffett. Like it couldn’t have been something any further away from my reality at that time. But I started moving in the direction.
RV (10:01):
I started learning about it. And one of the things that I learned was, oh, each of these bestseller lists obviously have some function that they use to determine what makes something a bestseller and they’re all different. That’s one of the things we had to learn. One of the things that we teach now and going, oh, if, if I can sell this many units over this period of time, that is what makes someone a bestselling author. And just learning that changed everything. Just like learning that one piece of information, because it went from this very obscure kind of like, oh, I can never do that to, oh, how could I do that? And in take the stairs in the buy-in principle of commitment, we talk about how most people allow their, their creativity to move in the direction of the, the neutral, which is, can I do this?
RV (10:58):
Is this possible? Should I try? Do I like it? Do I agree with it? And neutral always becomes negative. Neutral, always eventually becomes negative. But to the person who in what ultra performers do is just one degree different. They don’t say, can I do it? Should I do it? They say, how can I do it? And the moment you ask the question, how everything changes, because now you’re, you’re just going, oh, well, what would it take to pull that off? How could I meet that deadline? How could I hit that target? How could this become real? How could this become true? And that changes everything. It moves it out of this, this fear-based uncertainty and to this very like pragmatic, practical process. So whatever it is that you’re wanting to do with your personal brand or just in your life and your business in general, just first of all, kind of go, all right, well, what’s the comfort based thing.
RV (12:02):
In other words, what’s the word? What’s the thing. What’s the decision that scares me and then immediately follow up with, well, what’s, what’s the one thing I need to learn in order to be able to do that. And if you can answer that question, the fear will go away. And the likelihood that you will achieve that thing will go up exponentially. What do I need to learn in order to be able to do that thing? Hopefully you’re learning here every single week, how to build and monetize your personal brand, how to extend your reach, how to grow your impact, how to grow your influence and how to grow your income. That is why we are here. If you’re learning stuff from us, would you do me a favor and just share this podcast out with someone who you think needs it specifically this episode and maybe the episode the interview of course, with Michelle so that they can listen in and just go, who in your life is over, you know, struggling with something right now. And they’re, they’re facing fear. Just send them these two, these two, these two episodes say, Hey, I thought you might like this. That would be a super helpful to us. Make sure we can keep providing awesome content and great yet. Keep getting great guests for you so that you can keep learning so that you can keep conquering your fears. Thanks for being here. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 235: Selling with a Servant Heart with Jim Doyle | Recap Episode
RV (00:02):
Selling selling, selling, selling is something we have to learn how to do it is such a critical skill and it is becoming a bigger part of what we’re focusing on. Teaching people, teaching our brand builders members. And so this was an apropos timing of the interview with my good friend, Jim Doyle welcome to the influential personal brand podcast. It’s Rory Vaden. I’m breaking down that interview and my top three takeaways from it because it was powerful and I’ll say this, you know, AJ and I, and our team have very specific I would say unusual philosophies about selling. I say unusual because they’re different from the, you know, there’s thousands of sales traders, thousands of sales trainers out there in the world. And I would say there are very few people who align philosophically with what AIJ and I, and our team believe about Holly, how selling should be done.
RV (01:02):
We’ve we’ve had a few of those people on Phil M Jones. We had him on. And and then Jim Doyle, what we, we haven’t had a ton. We haven’t had a ton though, but this was one of them. And I absolutely loved it. I mean, I’ve known Jim for so long and just some great reminders. And so this obviously comes from his, his new book selling with a servant heart. Here’s my top three, my top three takeaways. Number one, the customer is not buying your business. They are buying what your business can do for them. That is such an important, it’s such a subtle but distinct and important shift that you have to realize when you’re selling people, aren’t buying you. They’re not buying even what you do. They’re not even buying. Do they like you? Like, that’s a small part of it.
RV (01:57):
What they’re buying is what you can do for them. What benefit can you provide in their life? What result can you manifest for them? What, like what transformation do you have to offer them that makes their life or their business better? That’s what they’re buying. They’re not buying you what you do. I mean, as much as they’re buying what you can do for them. And this is one of the greatest mistakes that, I mean, it’s the most common mistakes that you see in marketing and selling is talking all about you, your product, your expertise, your knowledge, like how much H how, how much time you spent in your industry. And it’s like the only thing that matters is what you can do for people talk about them, their needs, their desires, their, their wants their goals, their dreams, their future, like talk about their, their plans and see if you can help them.
RV (02:59):
Like what, what you do should only be talked about in the context of that. Can you help them achieve those things? That is how you want to talk in a way, if you want to have great marketing, you want to have great sales. That’s all it is. It’s that simple. But the mistake that happens like 99.9% of the time is we talk about me, my us, our w like we, instead of you, your dreams, your goals, your hopes, your future, your plans, and how might I assist you, or how might we assist you in getting there, or how do we work alongside of you to make that come true? And that’s just such a subtle distinction, but a sharp one and a necessary one, and a critical one. If you want to be able to make some money in, in what you’re doing with your business.
RV (03:53):
Second thing, great. One, a great takeaway is he said, listening has a partner, and that is good questions. I love that. Being a great Brene greatest sales means being a great listener and being a great listener has this partner, which is being great at asking questions that is in our sales training that we teach at brand builders. So our events called pressure-free persuasion and in the closing section, which is all about helping someone make a decision, we talk about how being great at sales is being a master question. Asker. It is not being a smooth talker. It’s not having the gift of gab. It’s not being overly persuasive. It’s, it’s not being convincing or compelling, or even, even persuading. It’s certainly not pressuring. It’s just being a master question. Asker. It’s asking questions in a way that help people see for themselves that either what you have to offer will help them achieve their goal, or it will not.
RV (05:03):
And they will realize for themselves if you facilitate. And that is a key word here is that we believe in service centered selling is about facilitating a decision, not making a decision, not convincing people, not pressuring people, not pushing people. It is helping people make their own decisions about whether or not what they’re buying is good for them. So all you have to do is ask a bunch of questions that help them get clear on what they want. Ask them a bunch of questions that help them get clear about the fact that they’re not achieving it yet. And then ask them a bunch of questions about what they think would help get them there, and then show them how, what you’re doing fits that need like, aligns with that purpose. And you will create a sale, but it’s, it’s like your just drawing information out of them.
RV (05:58):
And then kind of showing up in this one specific area and tying what you do to what they need. You’re not pressuring people, convincing them, lying to them, manipulating like doing all the things that most salespeople do, at least not. If you do it, the brand builder way, right. Service centered selling is what we teach. And so obviously the title of Jim’s book selling with a servant heart was very, very much in line and we know him. So B com when, if, when you think about becoming great at sales, think about becoming great at asking questions. That’s what I want you to think of not being a master negotiator, not being a smooth talker, not having all the confidence in the world, not having the gift of gab, not, not being likable, not being you know, the, the hard, closer, just think of like, when you think of, I want to be better at sales.
RV (06:53):
What I want you to think is I’m going to become a master at asking questions. That’s what you should, you should think about. And if you want to know exactly what questions to ask, that you should probably talk to us about the concepts and information that we teach in pressure-free persuasion. Maybe you should pick up a copy of Jim’s book. And but you know, it’s, it’s the, all the stuff that I’m talking about right here. Like it, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out. It just takes a little bit of intention. And I think a focus on service rather than on just selling which ties takes me to my third big takeaway from this interview, which I loved. And I just, I love the way that Jim phrased this, as he said, I have to turn off my ego. I have to turn off my desire to be the star.
RV (07:42):
Ah, that’s so good, right? Like we have to be able to do that in lots of areas of our life. If we, if we really want to be serving people, if we really want to be a mission-driven messenger is we have to move out of that window. Out of that stage of going, I want to be the star. I want the eyes on me. I want the attention. I want the fame, the influence, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And just going, I’m turning off my ego. I’m here to help you achieve your goal. And I’m going to ask some questions and listen acutely to what your goals are and see if I can help to see if what I have is an actual fit for you. And if it is I’ll help you buy it. If it is not, I will help you move on and not waste energy debating about whether or not you should buy what I have.
RV (08:36):
And I’ll help you move confidently in another direction. That is what this is about you. All it is, it is genuinely legitimately, authentically putting their needs before yours and trusting that your needs will be met. If you do it. It’s like what? My, my mentor, the legendary, his executor is the most famous quote of all. If, if you help enough other people get what they want, you will get what you want. So help them focus on asking questions and seeing how you can help. And if you can have them buy your stuff, if you can’t help them in some other way. But that’s all, this is, that’s all this is about. And that’s all, we’re about the brand builders group. We’re just trying to help you. Hopefully this podcast is helping you. If it is, we do me a favor and share this with somebody who you think needs to listen to this, a recap and needs to listen to this interview, an episode that we did with Jim and and just keep coming back. We want to keep pouring into you. We love you. We appreciate you. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 233: Sales Intelligence and Advanced Online Research Strategies with Sam Richter | 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 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):
Accessing the full power of Google search. Hey, everyone, welcome to the influential personal brand podcast recap. It’s Rory Vaden standing in for myself and AJ today. She’s not going to be with me because I am breaking down this interview about all of this data and this research and this whole conversation that we just had with Sam Richter. I’ve known Sam for a really long time. He’s one of the most well-respected speakers in our profession and around the national speakers association. And man, I just, this, this whole concept blows me away. On the one hand, it’s tremendously frightening how much data is available out there online, on the other hand, it’s this, this tr tremendously powerful tool that you can use to build your business and, and to build your personal brand and, and the, if you haven’t listened to the interview yet, obviously go back and listen to it.
RV (01:59):
What happens is we have this whole conversation around Boolean logic and all of these very simple search term modifications that you can make to tools like Google or LinkedIn, or even Facebook to be able to pull up very targeted information to serve a lot of various needs. And so, you know, it was really about Boolean logic and most mostly about, I would say Google and LinkedIn and you know, Sam has this tool. I mean, he, he, he basically takes these he creates these custom interfaces and he overlays them right on top of all of these search tools. And we’re actually buying it. We’re going to buy it for all of our brand builder members. And so we worked out an arrangement to buy this. This is so powerful because I’ve sat and watched Sam do this. Now it’s a little bit tricky to listen to him on the podcast.
RV (02:55):
You know, it’s, it’s harder to follow because you can’t see as he’s like in terms, but I’ve sat in a room and watched him do this live where he will pull up basically like every single association meeting in an entire industry. And then, you know, be able to pull up the contact information of all the people who are involved with these associations and having it right at your fingertips at, at like the click of a button so that, you know, if you’re wanting to speak, whether you’re wanting to be paid or whether you just want to go out and speak and add value to build your brand and build awareness for your business and drive free calls and, and, you know, do do that kind of prospecting using, speaking as prospecting, a lot of what we teach. It’s just like, boom, right here in front of you, this tremendously powerful free tool with Google, along with this custom interface that he has built overlaid on top of it.
RV (03:54):
And so, you know, I’ve been so impressed by that. And just over the years, seeing what he’s been able to do with his career that we’re, we’re going to buy this, we’re buying, we’re buying it, we’re buying it for all of our brand builders members. Not just for us internally, we’re going to, we’re going to put a custom version of this inside of our portal so that our members can like do this. And I’m, I’m pumped about it because this is what we believe in this, like such a huge part of you know, the conversation is not limited to speaking, but that’s sort of the lens that I’ve seen Sam do this, and I use it and know, know him and how he uses it and, and how our brand builders members will use it. But, you know, just as that, as one example to go, how can I instantly build a list of, of contact information of all the people I want to reach out to, or at least know who the people are that I want to reach out to.
RV (04:46):
So incredibly powerful and such a, such a key step that a lot of people struggle with, right? And you go, oh, I’ll have my assistant do it, or I’ll hire a VA to do it, but then they gotta be trained to know how to do it. And then they got to spend hours digging around and try to find stuff and knowing exactly what to look for. And so anyways, I’m just super excited about this and if you haven’t listened to the interview here are, or even if you have listened to the interview, here are some direct applications. And, and for my, you know, first takeaway that I wanted to share, I wanted to just kind of share with you, what are some of the key applications that I see of how you would use this or how I would use it, or how we would use use this power, this ability to go onto Google, understand Boolean logic, add more advanced search features, or obviously use Sam’s custom tools that he makes.
RV (05:42):
So first of all, you, you could use it for speaking engagements, right? To go. I want to secure speaking engagements for free or for money, you know, to prospect and reach out to also media opportunities, right? Like blogs and podcasts and things like that. Also, you would use it for research on, let’s say your prospects. So let’s say that you have a key meeting set up with either a VIP relationship or maybe it’s a vendor that you want to vet, or maybe it’s somebody that you’re looking to hire for your team, or maybe it is something like the you know, a sales meeting that you have that you just want to know a little bit of information about that company, right? You can use these kinds of tools to do that, that type of research. The other use case, the other type of research that I think is huge, especially for personal brands, is, is doing your own academic research, like for your own thought leadership, being able to pull statistics and data and reports.
RV (06:48):
And these are some of the major use cases for how you can use these free tools to bolster up your personal brands, authority, credibility, and trust just by taking some minutes to do the research. So that was the first thing I just wanted to share with you as a takeaway. Whereas here are some of the applications there’s, there’s probably a hundred or thousand applications for how you could use this, but those are some of the key applications that I think are going to be relevant for us and for our brand builders members and, you know, potentially for you related to that. The second big takeaway, which I had not seen specifically, was this URL that he shared called you got research.com, you got research.com. And I actually went to the URL and I did a search for personal branding trends, reports, and sure enough, the first one that popped up was the brand builders group trends in personal branding, national research study that we just released.
RV (07:54):
And so one, I was encouraged that, you know, it’s indexing on Google and like people are going to start finding it. We just released this a couple of weeks ago. And to, to see it work in action to go, the report that we put out is exactly the kind of report that we would want to read from other places, from other sources to be able to site in trainings that we have and in books and in articles, because it’s statistically valid, PhD led, you know, academically sound research, the kind of statistics that you, you would want to cite and be able to cite properly and, and have trust that they’re accurate and so forth and so on. And so that one tool alone, you’ve got research.com, which is a free tool. That is, that’s an example of one of the interfaces that Sam has built that already overlays that he gives away for free with powerful, right?
RV (08:46):
Like you need to, you need to have statistics to quote in your, your social media captions and your podcasts in your articles, in, in your sales conversations, in your keynote presentations, in your marketing collateral on your website, like think of all the places you can use this statistic to the, you know, in your talk to like open a presentation and go, where do I get this data? Where, where do I find this? Well, you’ve got research.com and it’s free. And all this stuff is just out there on the web, which was amazing. So that was my second takeaway is, is check that out. You got research.com and, and start supplementing and supporting that, the ideas that you’re presenting in the world with statistically validated, you know, empirically kind of accurate data. And, and it allows you to be data-driven and not, you know, have to like spend as much time as you might have to do to do the original data.
RV (09:44):
I mean, the, we S we spent tens tens of thousands of dollars putting together the study that we are now giving away to you all for free. Of course you can go get a version of that at brand builders, group.com forward slash study. You can download our study if you want to see it, or just go to UGA research.com type in personal branding, a hit trend reports that at least when I did this, it was the first one that popped up. But B this is how you become a real thought leader, right? Like this is how you become a real expert is you’re actually reading data. And, and you’re, you’re doing academic research in your space. And this is a great tool I think, to do that quickly. So that was super powerful. The other thing that really blows my mind this was my third takeaway is just searching for file types and, and for directories.
RV (10:35):
So I had no idea that you could search by file type on Google and pull up, you know, let’s say like, let’s say you want an annual reports, right? You could pull up annual reports, which companies releases PDFs all the time, and you can go find them on this invisible web. And this whole concept of the invisible web was kind of weird too, is you go well, there’s, there’s the websites that we see all the time, because they’re URLs and there’s buttons that you can click to get to. And then there’s this whole other world, which you can’t really like navigate to. But people are uploading things, you know, to the public domain on the web. They just don’t make it easy for you to get to and find stuff. And you can find PowerPoint presentations, you can find you know, like these annual reports, you can, you can find Excel files that have databases and directories, which is pretty crazy, right.
RV (11:34):
You can find word documents. I mean, I have to think, like if I was in school having access to all this information, like what I might do with this to be able to, I mean, you know, don’t plagiarize stuff. And I guess, you know, you, you, there’s an ethical dilemma here with how much, how much information, I guess you feel accessing and using. Now I would say, don’t just go get a database and add it to your email list just because you can, right. That’s that is going to violate all sorts of, of you know, the, the email, like GDPR compliance and, and it’s also kind of an ethical dilemma, not kind of, it’s, it’s an ethical dilemma, I think, to just steal someone’s contact information and just start marketing to them in unsolicited, like fashion. But you know, if you’re wanting to, to, to make personal customized, you know, reach out to people and let them know what you’re doing, I mean, nothing can stop you from doing doing that.
RV (12:29):
So I think that’s a fair thing you can do. There’s lots of, lots of ways you could do that. So doing that in, in this kind of method, doesn’t, doesn’t seem unfair as long as you’re not just like barring them with emails, but saying, Hey, I want to call somebody and, you know, try and build a relationship with them and to do this or that, or whatever. One-On-One on a one by one basis. I think that’s fair game. Cause you could go knock on a door, you could call it, you know, look out, look at the phone number and call it. You could do go to an office park and do that. Like, there’s lots of ways to use this information, but you know, it’s, there’s Excel databases, PDFs, word docs. That’s just interesting to me and see like what other presentations are out there.
RV (13:15):
I think you just need to be careful of you don’t want to plagiarize stuff and you don’t want us, you definitely don’t want to do violations of, of you know, GDPR compliance and things like that. But I mean, I don’t know, I it’s, it’s powerful. So use it, use it, use your discernment in your judgment wisely, but pretty wild to know that you can search for file types. And I would also pay attention to what which of your own files are find-able in that way. Right. And making sure that you’re aware of where are you storing things and is it actually publicly accessible through these you know, search engines like Google, for example? So lots of different use cases here. The one that we’re predominantly focused on is, is I would say as a, as a targeted outreach tool to identify, you know, legitimate prospects that might be interested in what you’re doing and reaching out to them.
RV (14:11):
And also you know, probably even more than that is doing the research also customization for your presentations, right? To go, all right. I want to customize my presentation to whatever audience I’m in front of them. And that’s huge to be able to do that right, to say, okay, maybe you talk on leadership, but you’re gonna go speak to the automotive industry, or you’re going to go speak to the financial services industry and go, how can I spend a few minutes, grab some, some key data points of that industry specific and then tailor what I’m saying directly to them. That’s next level. That’s next level. I mean that customization in our world-class presentation craft event, one of the lessons we teach customization and we talk about doing this. And so these tools, you got the news.com, you got research.com and those are the free ones that Sam gave out.
RV (15:01):
And then also the Intel engine, which we’re going to, like I said, build into the brand builders, membership community. Amazing, amazing. So just really eyeopening, fascinating stuff. I’ve, you know, a totally like nerdy conversation that was not really on my radar of like, oh my gosh, what a, what a tactical practical, pragmatic kind of thing that you can be doing. And that’s what we want to do here. We want to be sharing with you principles, inspiration, and then also like tactics and make you think and go, Sam is a hall of fame speaker. He’s one of the top speakers in the world. He’s built this whole business by learning how to use Google. I mean, and teaching other people how to do this. One simple, one simple skill, which is tremendously, tremendously powerful. So I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoy all the episodes. If you did make sure that you share this with somebody who you think would find it interesting or fascinating and keep coming back next week and next week, we’ll catch you on the influential personal brand podcast.
Ep 231: Playing the Long Game with Dorie Clark | 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 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):
And we’re back on the influential personal brand podcast recap edition solo episode with Rory Vaden. AJ is not with us here today, but I am dissecting and digesting. And then distributing knowledge back to you on the Dorie Clark interview that we did, Dorie has been a longtime friend, and she’s just really well loved and really well-respected in the space, in our space and in our industry. And so it’s great to be able to see her and learn about her new book and playing the long game and all, all these kinds of things. So I want to share with you there, there, there were, there were two major takeaways. I have, I have three, but I’m going to focus in mostly on these, these two major takeaways that really, really stuck with me. And this first one is totally unique.
RV (01:50):
I’ve never ever had this thought before. I’ve never heard anyone talk about this and the way that Dory said it, it was kinda like she sort of quickly and lightly referenced it. But as I was thinking back, it really, really hit me hard. And so we were having this conversation of how long does it take to be successful, right? And like, just about anything and, you know, sharing our kind of our perspective back and forth on all these different ways in places that we’ve seen people be, be successful and things that we’ve tried to accomplish, et cetera. And basically what we both concluded was that it’s like, it takes two to three years before you really start seeing the results of your work. And then at five years is when it really starts to get, you know, exciting. And I think there’s so many examples of that, you know, in, in my own life, as I, as I look back you know, and doing the world championship of public speaking, like that took, that took, that was like two years of my life.
RV (02:59):
And then after that, it was like another couple of years before speaking really started to take off. I think of the, the, the first company that we started and it was like, you know, we started off pretty strong, then we kind of like leveled off, but then it was about five, about five years into it. We started to really like, turn the corner and hit this, this exponential growth. And this is, this is, this is true in Dory. Was Dory was sharing that about her. I mean, brand builders group is now three years into the business and it’s where it’s starting to get exciting. Like, it’s basically just been a grind in a startup and digging ditches, as we say, and laying the trenches and the foundations of a building a company. And it’s like, oh, it’s starting to get exciting. And my guess is that within two or three years, it’s going to be like, holy moly, this is amazing.
RV (03:50):
And then, and then at some point after that, it just turns to almost like it feel, it starts to feel unfair because you’re just like, I don’t even feel like I’m, I’m having to work as hard for this wonderful blessing. And that’s because for five years you got your teeth kicked in and you got beat up and it was just like stress and heartache and problems and breakdowns and like one gut punch after the next. And there’s also still problems. I mean, it is, it is true more money, more, more problems. But I’d rather have those problems than, than, than the other ones. But so here’s, here’s the part that is unique. That really hit me, that I was like, oh my gosh, I’ve never had this thought. W here’s the words, I’ll tell you the words that she said. And she said this like very casually sort of nonchalantly.
RV (04:42):
And I don’t even know if she meant to emphasize it, but she said the words, significant competitive moat, MOA T moat, a significant competitive moat. And as I was thinking back after the interview, for some reason, those, those words were like hitting me, significant competitive moat, you know, and what is a moat, right? A moat is what they used to put around a castle. And they would put like alligators in there so that when the Drawbridge was up, it was like, good luck attacking the castle. You gotta like, get through all the alligators. A is a, is a barrier. It’s a, it’s an insulator for safety. It’s a protective device, right. Or a strategy or, or, or, you know, now I think that, that you have, well, here’s the part that stuck with me after, as I was thinking about that. And I was like, why is that?
RV (05:38):
Why did that hit me so strong, significant competitive moat? Well, here’s the power, all the things that you’re struggling with now, all of the obstacles that you’re facing all of the time it’s taking all of the blood and sweat and tears, all of the challenges, all of the heartbreaks, all of the heartaches, all of the struggles that you are going through now will one day become the moat that securely protects you from other people coming in. And I’ve never really thought about it like that, of going, oh my gosh, all of the heartbreak that I went through is now something that is out there, kind of like working in my defense, so to speak. Now we’re not, we’re not scarcity people, we’re abundance people. So we’re not worried about, like, we don’t worry about competitors ever. Like we, we, we don’t really freak out about competition.
RV (06:40):
We only think that there is collaboration, but even so it, it, it’s, it’s this idea that there is this barrier to entry. There is this price of admission. There is, there is this initial orientation or this obstacles. You have to overcome that to get to where you are, you know, like to where you’ve made it. And that’s those very same challenges that were annoying you and driving you crazy one day become the things that you’re thankful for as a, as a moat, as a barrier to competition. They, and it’s not just a barrier to competition. It’s sort of, it, it sort of symbolizes and codifies your place in the world as an expert or as an entrepreneur or as the leading business on blank, because you’ve made it through that. And not very many people do so that, that just really hit me hard.
RV (07:41):
It’s just like, wow, all the things that I am frustrated with now are one day going to be the things that are protecting me and protecting sort of like our place in the world or our business, or, you know, my place in the world. And you don’t really think about that as you’re, as you’re going through those challenges, but they do become a significant competitive moat. And I want that to be encouraging for you, because if you’re in, if you’re in those early stages right now, it’s hard, right. It’s discouraging. It’s painful. It it’s, it can be hopeless. I mean, it can be desperate where you’re like, I just don’t know if this is working. I’m so stressed and overwhelmed and broke and tired. And like, is this ever going to pay off? And the answer is yes. And then once it does, it keeps paying off because you’re now on the other side of this, this moat that almost nobody will get past because they’re going to, they’re going to stop and they’re going to quit at all the same places you’re thinking about quitting right now, right?
RV (08:49):
Like, think about that. Most people are going to quit at the same places. You’re thinking about quitting right now. So if you don’t quit, if you keep going, if you keep pursuing, if you keep chasing, you keep taking the stairs, you keep serving, you keep pouring out and adding value and working and building, you know, digging the ditches and building the infrastructure and doing all the things that we talk about. A brand builders group that like five years from now, you’re going to be standing like all alone. I mean, you’re going to be on this island with very few, you know, sort of like an elite few that have made it, and then that’s going to become part of your protection. That’s just really powerful. And you know, it’s really cool brand builders group because now that we’ve been around for three years, we’re seeing these stories.
RV (09:35):
One of my favorite stories recently to share is Ian cognac, who is one of our clients. And he started with us. And when Ian started when, when he first started, it was like, Hey, you should do a video every week. And this is one of the things that we teach in our curriculum, right? Is you need to publish one video every week. Well, Ian started doing that on LinkedIn is post a video a week, a video a week, and his first video, seven views, 14 views, 11 views, right? And at some point you go six months into it. He’s posting this. And it’s like 26 views. Not really feeling, feeling it, but we’re going just stay the course, just keep going. One video a week, one video a week, one video, a week, two years later, his average video view gets like seven to 8,000 views.
RV (10:23):
His com coaching roster is completely full. He’s got like more business than he knows what to do with this is now like his full-time gig. He’s living his dream. He’s changing lives because, and, and, and, and most people will never get there because they won’t cross cross that mode. You know, Anton, gun’s another person who started working with us a few years ago and it was, you know, low six figures, low six figures, three years later, he’s all in doing the stuff, you know, going through the grind, like all the things we’re asking him to do, and he’s doing it, he’s doing it. And three years later, it’s like several hundred thousand dollar business. Let’s just say, north of half a million. And well, north, because it’s like, oh, it’s, it’s starting to catch. And you create this. You insulate yourself against competition.
RV (11:11):
Lisa Woodruff is one of our clients. Who’s we started working with her several years ago. We met her and, you know, she was a couple million and now it’s like, it’s, it’s way more than that. She’s pushing the eight, this eight figure number, because they’re doing the things. And then it’s like, once you get to that, these new levels, very few people will get there because you have built a significant competitive moat. The things that the challenges you’re facing today that are driving you crazy are going to be the very same challenges that you’re grateful for one day, because they’re securing your safety and they’re securing your place in the market. That’s so, so powerful. And I’ve never, never thought about it that way. The second thing was around this, you know, I asked story this question. What’s how do you find your personal vision?
RV (12:04):
And, you know, we, we take the stairs, we talk a lot about vision. And we haven’t talked about vision boards and the power of vision. And I share some of the stories of some of the big visions I’ve had in my own life and how I wrote them out years in advance. And then they become true. And that has happened over and over again. I mean, it’s a very house that I’m sitting in and you know et cetera, but the there’s a lot of different ways to come at vision. And our, we have our conquering impossible goals course is we take people through all of this assessment and analysis of how to find their purpose and how to find what they want to be and what they want to do in life. And so, anyways, I just sort of randomly asked this question and I kind of thought, Dory might say something like what you hear all the time of, how do you find your personal vision?
RV (12:53):
But what she said really caught me off guard, and it’s really stuck with me. She said, oh, well, ask yourself, who are you jealous of? Who are you jealous of? And that was powerful. And a little bit like it caught me off guard because, you know, we think of jealousy. I mean, jealousy is a, you know, it’s a bad thing like jealousy, you know, comparison is the thief of joy. It tends to cause you to not be grateful for what you have, but there is also this, this little element that comes from not jealousy, but who do you admire? Right. I mean, I guess that’s, that’s probably the, the, the, the better way of saying it. It’s who do you admire? Who do you look at and go, gosh, I like what they have is so cool. I would love to do something like what they did.
RV (13:41):
Yeah, I think admire is a, is a, is a better word for this, but I think those are hints to your divine design. Like when you see something in the world that someone has, or someone created, or some group of people created and you go, that’s awesome. I would love to have something like that one day. I don’t think that’s an unhealthy feeling. I think if it, if it makes you go, oh, if only I had that, then I could be happy. That’s unhealthy if you said you know, oh, look at how easy they have it. I have it hard. That’s unhealthy if it’s, if you say gosh, they’re so lucky. And look at me like, I’m, I’m unlucky. That’s not healthy. Even if, even if you see something, you go, oh, I can’t be grateful for what I have, because it’s not this thing that I want.
RV (14:42):
That’s an unhealthy, but if you just simply go, you know, what they’ve done is amazing. I’d love to do something kinda like that. That’s totally healthy. That’s ambition, that’s drive that’s inspiration. And, and, and I would call that divine design. I think those little cues are hints. They are, they are clues as to the calling of your heart and the design of your life. And like what you’re created to do, because you there’s these things in the world that you see in, you’re drawn to them and you go, oh, that’s beautiful. I I’d love to do that or have that, or accomplish that, or support that, or create something like that. That’s a clue to your calling. And, and I think that’s, I think that’s super duper healthy. So Dory said, who are you jealous of? I’m a temperate back a little bit and say, who do you admire?
RV (15:33):
And allow yourself to sit in that admiration and allow it to be divine inspiration, and a clue for who you’re meant to become. And I think that’s a really, just a really fast, clear way of figuring out who you’re meant to be. And if you are on that journey, trying to figure out who you want to be, what do you want your personal brand to look like? You should request a call with our team and you should talk to us about that. We know something about it, where we’re really good at it. We have a lot of great history with clients and some of the things that we’ve done ourselves. And if you’re not yet ready for that, then I would just say, keep tuning in, keep coming back, listen and learn from these guests. We’re just sharing all this stuff for free from our friends, our networks, a lot of our clients that we bring on.
RV (16:20):
And you’re getting to learn from people who we learned from too. So I hope you’re enjoying the podcast. If you are, keep coming back, share it with someone. And if you’re ready to get serious about figuring out what is that future for you? What is that personal vision for your personal brand requests, a free call with our team and let’s talk and let’s get you going in that direction. But until then, we’re so glad you’re here. We love you. We believe in you keep coming back. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.