Category: Podcast Recap

Ep 209: How to be Funnier with Darren LaCroix | Recap Episode

RV (00:02):
Welcome back to the influential personal brand podcast recap edition joined by my wife, my business partner, my beauty, my favorite person in the whole wide world. AJ Vaden also our CEO at brand builders group. Today, we are breaking down the interview that I did with Darren LaCroix, who is the 2001 world champion of public speaking from Toastmasters. One of my OJI mentors. And really, I would say without a shadow of a doubt, Darren has taught me more about being funnier than anyone else. And it’s been a huge part in my career and just just a point of learning. So AJ and I are breaking it down. AJ welcome. Good to see you.
AJV (00:47):
Glad to be here. Ready to give you all my opinions.
RV (00:52):
I like it. I like it. Well I’ll go first with my first takeaway. You know, we’re sharing our top three takeaways each. I think one of the biggest things about humor is just realizing and, and identifying where are there opportunities for natural humor and not trying to force natural jokes, like not, not trying to force unnatural jokes, but just identifying these opportunities. And Darren talks about four ways to identify humorous opportunities, which I thought were so straightforward and clear. And these are, these are F’s, they’re all F’s. So what are your flaws? That’s an opportunity. What are your failures and talking about your failures, people love hearing about your failures. What are your first, like the first time you ever blanked and what are your frustrations? What are your flaws, your failures, your first and your frustrations. And, and I think the only other thing I would add to this is that not only are these great opportunities for humor, even if they’re not funny, these are great opportunities for stories. So AJ that I think is going to stick with me as a, as a big highlight from this episode.
AJV (02:04):
Yeah. And I know in his interview he gave some really great examples of how to do that. And I think one of the things that really stood out to me as he talked about this, and it was similar to this because he was talking about, you know, the frustrations failures first and flaws, but then he said learning how to do it in the moment. So it’s and so one of the things that I wrote down that it, it’s kind of similar to what you said, but I wrote down is that learn how to create humor for specific audiences, locations, industries, or companies. And then from there, it feels really custom and in the moment, and he tells this really funny story about, you know, this example is what I remember is the Hussey and G right? You’re at this big convention, everyone is frustrated about not being able to find this one ballroom HASI ended G so he found the frustration, but then he also did it in the moment and real time, which made it way funnier.
AJV (03:07):
Right. And so I think it’s one it’s figuring out what is the frustration of the moment. And I think that’s really easy because we all have them. I think one of the biggest things that I just kind of jotted down as a great reminders to myself and I used to do this and I haven’t done it in a really long time. I know if you’re listening, you can’t see what I’m doing, but if you’re watching, it’s like I used to have this little notebook and I would carry it around and I would write down stories. Right. It’s like when my kids say the most hilarious thing, it’s like as much as I think I’m going to remember that by that night, when I’m trying to tell, you know, you worry about this story. I’m like, wait, what did he say? And it’s like, really conditioning yourself to like, jot this down and be like, I don’t know where I’m going to use this or where I’m going to tell this, but this is just too good not to include somewhere. So I don’t forget it. And I think the same thing happens in just everyday life and then being able to filter it through those four apps. But then also really focusing on, you know, to me it’s about a location, an industry, a company or even like a specific audience of a type of people. And I just thought that was a really good way to make it super neat. And also relevant to the people that you’re talking to.
RV (04:27):
Yeah, yeah, that actually was, so my second takeaway is very much related to that. I wrote down, convey the emotion of the moment and I think just like what you said, what’s amazing is when you write spontaneous humor like that, it doesn’t have to be nearly as well written. Yeah. cause it just like, it’s just, you know, it’s so in the moment and it’s so special that that people, you know, are just completely unexpecting that. And and so, you know, I think identifying those frustrations and then also just conveying whatever the emotions are of, of any of those moments. So if you’re talking about your flaws, like you have to talk about how did you feel when you made this mistake or like when you had this failure, if you’re talking about your first and you’re telling the story you got to share with the audience, what was your emotion in that moment?
RV (05:26):
And because that’s what we really relate to. That’s the human, the human experience is emotional. And I think one of the, one of the hallmarks of a great presenter is that you can move the audience emotionally. You can take them on this rollercoaster ride of emotions. And part of the way you do that is just by sharing all these stories from these different parts of your life and just sharing the true real emotions that were there. Even if it’s not funnier, it’s more engaging. And it, it just kind of breaks up this monotonous of information that your presentation might otherwise be. So I, that was, that was a big thing for me. That was my second takeaway.
AJV (06:05):
Yeah. So my next one would be, is kind of on the same lines. And I’ll try to make these at congruent points when we can, but it’s that humor is probably more about the delivery than it is the words. And I think that’s a huge part of it. And I loved in the interview, he was sharing that example of some guy who had memorized all of these Robin Williams jokes, but they didn’t land because of the delivery. And it’s like words, aren’t what necessarily engage people when it comes to stories and humor. It’s the emoting, right? It’s the vocal quadrants. It’s the hand motions. It’s the facial expressions is everything that goes into the delivery and something that really isn’t that funny. If you just say it, when you add in the necessary hand gestures or facial expressions or vocal variety, all of a sudden, it’s hilarious. And then, so it’s like, it’s not just about figuring out what to say. It’s how do you deliver this in a way that’s authentic, but it also really creates this light-hearted emotional feel around the entire experience. So I thought that was this important because we talk so much about what to say, but really that’s just a teeny part of it. It’s also how you say it.
RV (07:27):
Yeah, for sure. It’s amazing how adding one little gesture or facial expression, you know, an eyebrow raise or something like that, just like completely enhances the, the whole story and the joke that’s I love that. That’s a good reminder. So on that note, you know, you’re talking about delivery, which is huge. One of the other takeaways for me, which was something that I’ve heard Darren say before, I’ve heard lots of comedians say this before, but it is such a great reminder is that great lines aren’t written they’re rewritten. And so when you do think about the writing, you got to realize like, nobody, like almost nobody, even Jerry Seinfeld or Ellen degenerate, they don’t just sit down and just like write a perfect line. They identify an opportunity for humor. They apply some of the basic kind of principles of the psychology of what causes people to laugh.
RV (08:23):
They write it, then they go deliver it. Like you were saying, they enhance it, they test it, they tweak it, they edit it. And by the time we ever hear it in like a stand-up comedy set in front of an arena full of people or on HBO, or, you know, some nighttime late night television show, they’ve delivered that line hundreds of times, it’s totally polished, totally dialed in. And so, you know, if you think, well, I don’t know how to write jokes. Yeah. Welcome to the club. Even the people who do it as they don’t do it, it’s a craft. It’s a skill. It’s something that can be practiced, just like any sport or artistry, you know, humor is, is a form of artistry. And a lot of it is, you know, there’s certainly some that is talent and gifting and that, but a lot of it is just discipline and practice and regimen, which for someone like me who was not born naturally funny, that’s really, really great news.
AJV (09:22):
Yeah. Well, I think if you just kind of go back to that though, it’s like for the people who are going, I don’t want to have hundreds and thousands of hours to go and practice how to do this. It’s go back to the whole point of it’s about looking around your real life. Real life is the best place to tell humor. And without having to write any jokes, you can be incredibly humorous by just capturing the ridiculousness of life. Right? It’s like we have two young toddlers. There is at least an incident or a shenanigan every single day that it’s like, I cannot believe this just happened. And it’s like, there’s no writing to that. It’s capturing the essence of life in the moments that you remember to do it. So a little hope for all of those who are like, I don’t, I don’t know how I’m going to learn how to write jokes.
AJV (10:12):
It’s like, don’t remember to write down the funny stories that already happened. You don’t have to create anything. You just have to remember the things that actually happened to you that are funny. And my last thing, and I, this is a little quote that he said somewhere, but it really stuck out to me. And it said a comedy cuts down, humor lifts up. And this isn’t about comedy. This is about humor. This is about lifting up. This is about lightening, the mood. This is about giving that mental break to a serious subject or creating that break where the audience needs a little relief from this. Isn’t about making fun. This isn’t about cutting anyone down. This is about lifting up and using the humorous parts of life and situations in order to lighten the mood, not cut anyone down. And I really loved that.
RV (11:03):
Hmm, amen. Just a little levity to the whole conversation. Well fantastic. Always love getting A’s thoughts. Go back. Make sure you listen to the full episode. The interview with Darren, you hear from prince own mouth, what he’s talking about and make sure that you share this recap and both Darren’s episode with anyone out there, you know, who might want to learn how to be funnier,
AJV (11:25):
Basically, anyone, you know, who’s not funny that listen to this, you need help with your stories. That’s who this is for.
RV (11:33):
Yes. And don’t send it to me. I will be personally offended if you do that. So don’t send it back to me, but we’re so glad to have you keep coming back here. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 207: How to be a Better Writer with John David Mann | Recap Episode

RV (00:02):
A bit of nostalgia for me on this edition of the influential personal brand podcast recap, because we’re breaking down the interview from John David Mann, who was my very, very, very first media appearance ever. He was the, yes, he was the, he was the first person from the media, whoever interviewed me for an article. And it was a really nice feature article and that was like full, full, full circle. So as you can hear, I’m joined by my partner, a J Vaden, the CEO of brand builders group. We’re talking about how to be a better writer, although as John David Mann says, which I love he’s he, his new ebook is called how to write good or at least good or great. So AIJ why don’t you kick us off, we’ll share our top three takeaways each of, of, of what, what we pulled out and what we learned from John David Mann.
AJV (01:02):
This first one I had, this was so good is that the hero of this story is not a person that the hero of a story is a concept or an idea. I just love the whole idea around not making any one person the hero, because there’s never a hero. There are heroes in every story. And how do you define who is the hero of a story? I think really demotes all of the other contributions to the other characters real life or in fiction. And so removing that fresher away from a person I think just elevates everything that you do and you go, no, the hero is not a person. The hero is a concept or an idea that might be taught by a person, a character, but it is not that person. It’s the idea or the concept itself. I thought it was so good.
RV (01:56):
That’s so good. You, you took it right. You took it right off my list. That was my number one. Takeaway, have the hero be a concept or an idea and not a person and what it made me, what it made me think of. So you know, so one of our events that we have is called bestseller launch plan, and it’s very specific around, we teach the mechanics of how do launches work and how do bestseller lists work and dah, dah, dah. And, you know, we go through this whole thing and this whole system, there’s a ton of stuff to know and learn. It’s just one of my favorite events that we have. But one of the, one of the moments at the, at, towards the very end of the two days is we say there is no such thing as a New York times bestselling author.
RV (02:40):
There is only such a thing as a New York times bestselling team. There, there is only such a thing as a New York times bestselling team. It’s a group of people like that. That that’d be true. I mean you never, nothing great in the world is ever accomplished. Single-Handedly great. So I, yeah, you, you, you nailed it what a cool idea and what a cool way of writing to go. Okay. Even if you have a hero character in the story, the real hero has to be bigger than that, bigger than a character. Cause that’s, that’s the truth of, of, of the real world and the human experience. So yeah, we both have the same first one. Yeah.
AJV (03:26):
And my second one is kind of similar to that along this character idea. And a lot of this conversation right, is around like writing. So writing books, writing articles by writing, but I thought this was really interesting. It’s spend as much time getting to know the character, the voice of whatever. You’re writing a blog and article a, but spend as much time asking yourself who is this character as you do anything else, it’s like a, I think he would have said, is, are you sad? Or he said, I don’t remember, but I know the character better than you know yourself, right? It’s like, ask yourself, like, who is this person? What do they do? What do they love? It’s a find out all the intricacies of this character then start writing. And I think you could do the exact same thing if you’re not writing like fiction, but you’re writing to your audience is you must know your audience that well.
AJV (04:19):
So this is a huge part. And I think what connected to me as we spend a lot of time at brain builders group and our signature content called finding your brain DNA helping you really define who is your core target audience. And we spend a lot of time on this, like, who is your primary audience? Who is your secondary, who is your tertiary? Who is that ideal avatar? And when we get to that ideal avatar, who is in the very core focus, like right here in the middle, like right here you need to know every single thing about this person. And so we have a list of like 30 questions that we go for. It’s like, what are their dreams? What are their hopes? What are their aspirations? What are their fears? What are their limiting beliefs? What questions do they have?
AJV (04:58):
What do they like to eat? Drink? Where did they live? Are they married? Are they single? Are they divorced? Right? It’s like, how many kids do they have? What are their kids’ names are their kids’ ages? Like we really build out a profile and it’s for this reason, right? It’s like, you have to know your audience as well, as you almost said, as good as like, we’ve got good in my brain, as well as you know yourself. So ask yourself, who is my audience, or who is this character? And focus on that before you start worrying about content, because the content is only going to be relevant if you know exactly who it’s for.
RV (05:34):
So once again, you have taken the words out of my mouth on my second, my second takeaway, which is that characters develop through curiosity about who they really are. And w th the so, so amen to everything you just said, that’s exactly what I was thinking. One nuance to add to this conversation is specifically in the area of humor, when you are, when you are trying to add humor to a presentation, a lot of times humor is revealed naturally through stories by just asking yourself who are the characters and how they would interact together, of course are probably number one. Favorite TV show of all time is modern family.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Definitely, definitely.
RV (06:23):
And, and, you know, if you, if you, if you step back and you look at modern family, it’s basically, there’s a bunch of characters who are all very strong. They all have salient features. And then each episode is they just, they just mix and match different characters together in a scene. And I don’t know for sure if this is how they do it, but we’ve watched it so much. I have to think this is what they do is they go, okay, let’s take Jay and Gloria and, you know, Phil and put them at a carnival, what would happen? And so they just, they take these characters and they, they, they never run out of ideas to write because they’re exploring the depth of not only each character, but how would that character interact with another character? And you could just, you know, put, pull these together.
RV (07:15):
And so it’s just, I think really, really brilliant. You can tell that you know, John is an amazing writer. Again, you probably heard this in the interview, but if you don’t know this, he, he was the co-author of the Go-Giver with Bob bird, which is one of the best-selling non-fiction books of all time. And probably in my top five favorite books. I mean, it’s just, it is an amazing book. And so this characters, it’s like, there’s there’s room for humor and entertainment and depth and emotion drama. Yeah. All, all the things. All right. So AIJ why don’t you go ahead and just tell everyone what our third takeaway is, even though you don’t know for sure what mine is there it’s
AJV (07:57):
Possible. There’s often interviews where it’s like, well, we’re probably going to have the same ones which is always fine too. But my third and final one is that I just know so many people who would have what they call writer’s block. And I would really like to say, there is no such thing as writer’s block, there’s only memory block. And this is what I mean by that. It’s like the only reason you’re not writing is because you’re not remembering all the things that you have to write about. Right? It’s like, you know, you have memory block, not writer’s block. Like somehow you have forgotten about all the events that have happened to you or to someone, you know, or to someone that, you know, know someone, you know, right. There are these stories and these events that happen all day long, every day, all around the world in your life and in the lives of those around you.
AJV (08:49):
And then when you sit down to write, you forget about all of them, right. And it’s not my first block, it’s a memory block. It’s like, somehow your memory, just those white. Right. And you don’t remember all the things that have happened to you. Hardships, successes, failures, happy moments, surprise moments. And it’s like, instead of trying to figure out what should I be writing about? It’s this think about all the events, all the stories that you’ve had in your life. And then what was the point or message behind that? What did you learn from that? What did someone else learn from that? But it’s like, I believe that truly every great piece of content that I’ve ever read, book, article, interview, whatever, there is a story behind it. And it’s like the whole message or the point of the story happened because it happened to someone like it was a real life event.
AJV (09:37):
And so it’s like, as you get going into writing, it’s like, just ask yourself, like, what does this look like in real life? So if you are a, you know, in my example an entrepreneur is like, what does entrepreneurship look like in real life? It’s messy. Right? It’s messy. And what does it look like for a working parent then it’s real messy. And what does it look like for a working parent of two toddlers during COVID? Well, it, then it’s just frigging chaotic, right? So it’s like, what does it look like in real life? And let that be the conduit for your content and what you write about and what you talk about. You don’t actually have to come up with much. You just have to remember all of the things that already are happening all around you every single day, and then use those as the template, the outline for your content.
RV (10:28):
Yeah, that’s good. I mean, that’s really good if you just you know, and we always say, if you’re your most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were, and that happens through what you’re doing, what you’re talking about is telling stories about your life and you never run out of, you never run out of stuff to say you get 24 hours of news stories every day, or maybe not 24 hours, but lots of hours. So that my third one actually was different. And th this was a very technical, technical writing tip, which I, I love because I love the technical tips. He said this, which I thought was super eloquent. He said, suspense is creating questions. And then unwrapping details on the way to an answer. Suspense is creating questions and then unwrapping details on the way to an answer.
RV (11:24):
And there’s, there’s so many parts of this that I love. So one is what is suspense? It’s creating questions. It’s going, what’s going to happen? Why did they do that? Where is this going? You know, what’s the next step. And, and that’s part of what creates engagement is that is suspense. That’s what draws the audience in is it’s, it’s creating these questions. And then this is the part I love unwrapping details. What a illustration and way to think about telling a story. It’s like a story is a gift that you slowly unwrapped for people. And you expose a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more, you know, on the way to the answer on the way to this wonderful destination, where you, where everything comes together. And there’s this, this, you know, this moment where there’s a lesson the, the questions are questions are answered. Problems are solved, lessons, lessons are learned. And I just thought that was super cool. And, and to go, oh, if you want to create more suspense, all you have to do is create more questions. And don’t leave and don’t leave a question, unanswered, answer the answer. You just answer them one at a time and, and make sure you systematically work your way through. So I, I thought that was just delightful.
AJV (12:47):
It’s good. That’s a very good technical dev. I like it. I like
RV (12:50):
It. I think in my you know, it’s funny. Cause I started with like when I was a teenager, my dream was like, I want to be a speaker. And I think as I’ve gotten older, it’s like, I more really loved writing and it’s like, I want to be a really great writer. And you know, this is, this is really cool. So getting a chance to learn from one of the best writers of our time, John David, man, what a tree go back, listen to the episode check out his new e-book how to write good or at least. Yeah. Which I just love was so great. And then share this episode with someone in your life who wants to learn to be a better writer or just a better storyteller in general. Leave us, leave us your comments on social. Come say hi over on Instagram to me or LinkedIn to AIJ. And keep coming back. We’re grateful. You’re here. We’ll keep that. We’ll keep the content coming. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 205: How to Start a Keynote Speaking Career with Shep Hyken| Recap Episode

RV (00:02):
Welcome back to the influential personal brand podcast. This is the recap edition of the episode with Shep Hyken. It’s your man, Rory Vaden. I’m rolling solo today on the recap, as you know, AJ my wife, our CEO at brand builders group. My business partner is a run and gun and a hardworking woman and mom of two toddlers. So we don’t always catch her, but I am excited to walk through this recap of what I’ve learned from Shep Hyken. And I’ve learned a ton from Shep Hyken over the years. I do every single time that I talked to him. And of course, you know, the focus I would say of this whole conversation ended up being like how to start a keynote speaking career. Shep is in the professional speakers hall of fame. He’s the New York times best selling author. And you know, here’s one thing that we probably don’t say enough directly, that we should is like, if you want to be a speaker, join the NSA, the national speakers association, like it’s ridiculous because people like Shep are walking around there and you know, so many of the people that we have on this show just walk around the halls and you can just like meet them and build relationships with them and the national speakers association.
RV (01:20):
So just a special shout out to y’all unpaid advertisement, voluntary promotion of NSA. It’s been such a huge organization for me, such an important point of my life, of our career and just encouragement. And you get you learn, you know, from really, really amazing people, which I, I have always. And you know, it just took me a back a little bit on memory lane, listening to the Shep, talk about how did he build his career in a lot of ways, very similar to how we have built ours, but you know, here’s what it boils down to. And even if you don’t want to be a keynote speaker, I would say, you know, this, this is it. Wasn’t specific to keynote speaking. It’s really specific to marketing any, any personal brand. And I’d say specifically in like a B2B environment business to business but really just marketing yourself in general.
RV (02:14):
So here’s, here’s my very first takeaway. Okay. here’s what shep’ said. He said, find a list of people, tell them what you do and get really good at doing it for them. Find a list of people, tell them what you do and get really good at doing it for people. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. And at a high level, that’s what this is. I remember hearing Larry, Winget say one time, he said, you got to have a really good product and you got to ask a lot of people to buy it from you. And if you’re not generating revenue, it’s because one of those things is broken. You either don’t have a really good product or you’re not asking enough people to buy it from you. And chances are, it’s a little bit of both, if not a lot of both. So Mike, if you’re frustrated and you go like, Hey, my side hustle is not working my business.
RV (03:08):
Isn’t growing dah, dah, dah, like you can’t blame brand builders group or your marketing agency or your social media assistant. If you’re not doing those two things, if you don’t have a really good product or if you aren’t asking a lot of people to buy it, that is like, that comes down to, to you. That is your fault. That is your responsibility. That is your decision. Like it comes down to you. You gotta make sure those two things are happening. And how do you have a really good product? Well, that’s, that’s a bigger conversation. That’s a lot of what we’re going to help you with a brand builders group. We have our captivating content curriculum, which is where you create true original IP thought leadership and intellectual property. We have world-class presentation craft, which is all the mastery level mechanics of preparing it for the spoken word.
RV (04:02):
But then when you go, how do you get a lot of people to buy it? That is, you know, a lot of the other curriculums we teach around marketing, but like one of the things that Shep said, that’s so simple as that LinkedIn is the new telephone, especially in a B2B environment. If you’re selling something business to business, which means, look, if you’re a personal brand, what are the things that we sell B2B business to business simple. You’re calling on companies for sponsorship deals. Usually it’s companies who sponsor you, not individuals, companies have big marketing budgets. They will pay for impressions. Without having to hold you accountable for specific results, they just need awareness. They’ve got money set aside for that. So that’s a brand deal. If you’re selling consulting, you typically consult with companies, you coach individuals, you consult with companies. If you are trying to sell keynotes, right?
RV (04:54):
That’s a B2B thing. It’s typically a company or an association or an organization is gonna hire you to speak. And if you’re selling B2B, like you gotta be crushing it on LinkedIn. If you’re not on LinkedIn, like, what are you doing? I literally just got off the phone with one of our longtime friends, brand builders, group clients, his name’s Ian. And he has been following our formula to a tee doing a weekly five-minute video every single week, week in and week out for two years. And two years ago when he was posting his videos, you know how many people were watching them for six, eight, like 10 views, three views, 14 views, 25 views two years later because he followed what we told him to do. Save the best for first teach what, you know, give away everything you have for free in one bite sized chunk and all random miscellaneous order and do it week and week out, hit the schedule no matter what be consistent.
RV (06:01):
He’d been doing it for two years. His average video now on LinkedIn, 8,000, 10,000 views, he’s doing multi-six figures as a side hustle. Like he’s making money on as a side hustle more than what most people make in real life. Just from inbound leads coming from the fact that he’s been following the system, teaching what he knows adding value to people’s lives give first. And if you’re in a B2B environment, do it on LinkedIn. Look, the number one reason people hire you to speak is because someone has seen you speak. It has never been easier than it is now too. To show people what it’s like to hear you speak. You can push a button on your phone, hit record and post it, show people what you do. Show them that you have a good product. And if nobody’s hiring you guess what? It’s either because you’re not showing enough people or what you’re saying, not that good, right?
RV (07:00):
It’s one of those two things. There’s a good chance. It’s a little bit of both. Maybe a lot of both, but, but LinkedIn is, you know, the B2B world there. Everybody has gathered in one spot and you just, you gotta be consistent and you gotta be, you gotta have quality and you just gotta keep on it. And and, and this has never changed, right? Like it never will change. It takes a lot of work to build a good product and a lot of work to tell a lot of people about it. And you gotta do it consistently. But if you do it for a couple of years, you’ll change your life. You do it for a couple years. It’ll change your life. That is something that we told the in few years ago, three years ago, it took them a year to believe us.
RV (07:41):
Then he started doing it. Two years later, changed his life. Like you can do the same thing, but you have to start. You have to start now. You ha you cannot wait. Now you, is it discouraging to go? Well, I’m starting from zero. Yes, it’s discouraging. We had to start over three years ago, we had to start on zero, zero emails, zero followers, zero connections. Like I spent a lifetime. I spent a career 15 plus years building something. And then I had to start over again. Zero. It’s very discouraging, but it’s the old Chinese proverb. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is right now. Right? So plant the tree, do the work, build the reps, dig the ditches, build the infrastructure and give, save the best for first. Give, give, give, teach everything, you know, for free one bite size chunk and all random miscellaneous over order and hit the schedule consistently.
RV (08:44):
And you do it. You’re going to showcase that what, you know, people are going to love you. And eventually a bunch of people are gonna show up. So you can shortcut that by doing actual sales, rather than marketing and content marketing, and actually picking up the phone and calling someone or sending a messages and send an emails and doing all that. But at the end of the day, find a list of people, show them what you do get really good at doing, doing it for them. Number two, takeaway from my conversation with Shep, which was kind of a modification of something that he said, but it reminded me. It made me think of this, which is why you don’t really market a speech. You, you market your expertise and then you deliver it in a variety of ways, or, you know, even a better way of saying it.
RV (09:34):
Like, you know, we say at brand builders, like one of the big mistakes that people do is they market the, they market the solution. They market the answer. You don’t want to do that as much. You want to market the problem. You want to be an ambassador of the problem. You want to promote the problem you want to celebrate the problem you want to sell. The problem you want to agitate the problem by talking about these are the problems. This is what people are. You know, this is what people do wrong. If you do that, people will buy from you. So you’re like, you’re marketing the problem. I mean, think about this way, right? Like if I start talking about the solution, the right way to do something, most people won’t even understand it or connect to it because if they understood it or they connect it to what I was saying, they would have already done it.
RV (10:20):
They wouldn’t have the problem. So what they do understand though, is the problem, because that’s the thing they have now, the problem is what’s right in front of their face. The problem is what is like damaging their life, what they’re struggling with day in and day out. And so when you talk about the problem and they hear you talk about the problem, they go, oh yeah. Like, this is me. This is what I, I, this, this guy, or this guy gets me. They understand me. This is what I’m struggling with. And if you can demonstrate that you understand the problem, clearly the people will hire you because they’ll automatically assume, you know, the solution. So you don’t just market your speech. You, you market your expertise. And, and I would say the first step of that is marketing the problem, celebrating the problem. You know, talking about the importance of, of what it is that you do.
RV (11:13):
I, I remember another hall of Famer at NSA is a guy named Nito Cobain who is, you know, very, very smart. One of the wealthiest people that I probably know, he also started high point university in North Carolina, which is amazing university, very entrepreneurial minded. And one of the things that Nieto said one time, this was a private group that he was talking to. There’s probably, I don’t know, less than two dozen people in the room is he said, you know, if somebody hires you to come do a speech and then they never hire you again, you missed the mark. Because if someone just hires you to come to a speech, basically just entertainment. You’re, you’re basically just a talking head for an hour. But if you’re a real expert, if they view you as an expert, if they view you as having the answer to their problem, they’re not just going to hire you for that speech.
RV (12:09):
They’re going to try to find ways to bring you into their business over and over again, because you’re demonstrating an understanding of the problem and understanding of the solution. And they are hiring you for your expertise, not hiring you to deliver a speech. If somebody hires you for a speech, you’re just a spot on the agenda. But if someone’s hiring you for your expertise, now you’re an essential part of their business. And that’s how, you know, you have real expertise. Not only do you have real expertise, but that the marketplace views your expertise because they want a relationship with you on an ongoing basis because they understand the value of your expertise. They trust that you have it. They know that they need it and your, the door, the person that they’re choosing for that. So repeat business, deeper business long-term relationships. Those are indicators that you’re really an expert in that you’re marketing yourself as an expert, and that people understand you as an expert.
RV (13:12):
Now, you know, you may say, well, no, I don’t care about that. I just want to do speeches. That’s fine. Like, but nonetheless, when Nieto talks, I listened closely any time that anyone’s super successful talks, I listened closely. And that has stuck with me. And, and that’s a little bit of like, what Shep was talking about here is you, you don’t market your speech, you market your expertise, you market a problem, and you market your ability to solve that problem. You know, the problem I’m solving is not, you need a speaker, hire me to speak the problem that I’m solving. Is there something going on in your business that is a breakdown, and you bring me in to come talk about how to move past that that’s the real value, right? And, and even when you look at the price of a speech, you go, if you’re just hiring me to come talk for an hour, then you’re just paying me for an hour of my time.
RV (14:07):
That’s going to be hard to have a lot of value. If you’re hiring me to help you solve a problem, then the value I’m bringing is not the value of the hour of my time. It is the value of solving that problem inside of your company forever into the future. That has a huge value, right? So, so that’s, you know, when we talk about breaking through she Hans wall and finding your uniqueness and marketing the problem, like all this stuff ties together. Long-Term and then the last thing which came from shep, which was super simple and super powerful and, and, you know, he’s, he is an expert on the customer experience. So it makes sense that we naturally couldn’t have a conversation without stumbling into this at some point, which where it was, he said, you have to realize that every single interaction you have with the client shapes their opinion of you, every single touch point, every single interaction that somebody has with you, your website, your brand, your team, your marketing, collateral, your emails, your social media, your podcast, hearing you on some other, other media channel, every single interaction shapes their view of you.
RV (15:28):
And you gotta be mindful of that. And you, your team’s gotta be mindful of that and your copywriters and your graphic designers and your video editors. Like everybody has to be super mindful of that. That is creating the customer experience. So what experience are you creating for your prospects and your customers? What energy are you giving off? Is it uplifting? Is it inspiring? Is it positive? Is it trustworthy? Is it credible? Do you follow through on the promises you make? Do you do what you say you’re going to do? Are you adding value? Are you giving first? And, and I loved, you know, tactically, what Shep was saying is create a journey map, create a, create a journey map around just going, what is every single touch point that a client might have with you and plot the entire process it’s big and it’s long, and you go, we got to optimize each one of those touch points to maximize the customer experience.
RV (16:27):
Make sure you’re responsive. Make sure you’re, you’re quick to get back to make sure that your emails, your voice, your energy for yourself, your team, your website, your salespeople, your videos, that they are all in alignment with the values of your company and with the reputation that you are wanting to build every single touch point, day in and day out. And that’s why we keep coming back to you every single week as part of this podcast, which hopefully if you’re loving this, would you do me a favor and just tag someone and share this with somebody who you think needs to hear this this episode or any of our other episodes. We want these to be touchpoints for people and, and we want them to be valuable to you, and we want you to keep coming back. So we’re striving every single episode weekend and week out to make it more valuable. Let us know how we can do that. Also leave us a review on iTunes and all these things that we talk about is super helpful to us and create your customer journey, map, optimize your interactions and keep showing up, keep adding value. Keep coming back. We’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 203: How to Hire Great Contractors with Hanson Cheng | Recap Episode

Listen to the episode below In today’s episode, we revisit our conversation with Hanson Cheng, a rapid skill acquisition expert, speaker, and multi-million dollar earner who helps CEOs optimize their time to ensure more freedom and flexibility. Tuning in you’ll hear Rory and AJ discuss their top three takeaways from Rory’s interview with Hanson, from […]

Ep 201: How To Get a $10 Million Business Valuation with Kevin Kruse | Recap Episode

RV (00:02):
Hey, welcome back to the influential personal brand podcast. It’s your friend Rory Vaden joined by my wife and our CEO, AJ Vaden. We are breaking down the interview that we did with Kevin Kruse. One of our longtime friends who is really successful entrepreneur done several wonderful things and just someone that we look to that expands our horizons and thinking on everything it means to be an entrepreneur and in leadership. So AJ welcome back. Good to see you happy to be here. So why don’t you kick us off, let’s dive into our, our three biggest takeaways from Kevin. And you go, you do it first.
AJV (00:45):
Yeah, so my first one is short sweet and simple, but I think I fundamental building block of entrepreneurship and something that every single person should be asking themselves as they dive into. Do I want to build a business? And if the answer is, yes, how do I want to build a business? And I love this and he talked about it for quite a bit. And I think it’s just really important. And I had never really heard this before or even gone through this process myself. And he said, but as you are in the beginning stages of building your business, ask yourself this question, is this a lifestyle business, or are you building a business that you will want and, or require employees? And so it’s like, are you building a business that you can manage with maybe one team member or a partner or a spouse, or are you actually building a business that will need and require employees? Because those are two very distinctly different businesses with two sets of different responsibilities and outcomes and plans and budgets and time and all the things. And really what that comes down to is you have to, you have to ask yourself, do you want to be leading and managing others? Yes or no. And that will very much dictate the type of business you build. And so it’s really helpful if you know that on the front end.
RV (02:09):
Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. That reminds me of you know, like Dave Ramsey has a thousand employees and everyone comes to work and they’re like full-time. And then one of our other friends and mentors, Andy Andrews has built his whole bursal brand with zero employees. And they are both very successful in their space. I love that. One of the things kind of similar for me was, was my takeaway is that there were kind of like three primary ways that a business is valued. And again, it’s sorta like, you know this, but you don’t zoom out and go, oh, like, this is, this is very simple. This is how it comes down or what it comes down to is that basically a business can be valued on just the assets. What are the, what are the assets worth of a company? So you got, you know, whatever buildings and, and, you know, intellectual property and equipment.
RV (02:58):
And then the most common way that businesses are valued is that they are valued as a multiple of EBITDA earnings before interest taxes, depreciation and amortization, which effectively is profits, right? So there’s a multiple of your profits. And then the third one, which is kind of the fun one that we were talking about on this interview, which is the world that Kevin lives in, and this is playing in is to be a, that businesses can be valued based on a multiple of revenue. So a top line valuation versus a bottom line valuation of profits. And so that is going to mean the value of that company is many times more what the value of a company that is based on, on a bottom line valuation is, you know, is worth. And I thought, you know, that’s just good to know, like if you don’t know, those are the three primary ways that a business is valued. And then I think much of the conversation was which ones are valued at the top line multiple. And what do you do? And how do you get to have, have one of those, which was, which was fun. So that was, that was my first takeaway. Yeah.
AJV (04:05):
My second is kind of a dovetail off of that and the great and powerful conversation that was had around subscription revenue versus service revenue, or one time revenue and how that is just such a key indicator of the way that businesses are evaluated today. And there’s just so much power in subscription-based revenue, specifically, SAS subscription-based revenue versus this one time, a service revenue. And it’s not necessarily to say that one is better than the other, but they are uniquely different. I haven’t had very different valuations. So again, back to, for all of you who are in the beginning stages, what a blessed and overwhelming time that you’re in but really knowing how do you want to set this up? And it’s really, I gathered, and this is how I garnered my internalization of this information. It’s am I building this business to keep it, or am I building this business to sell it?
AJV (05:06):
And in that case, you need to have a long-term valuation strategy in your mind as you’re building out your products and services. And just going, it’s like if you’re building to sell, then subscription-based revenue with a high emphasis on SAS, right? So software as a service would be a key part of making sure you get the highest valuation and the highest sale. But if you’re building it to keep, that’s a different story. And so I think, again, it’s, you know, to me, it’s back to, do you want to manage and lead others? And then are you building this to keep or sell again, it goes back to those fundamental building blocks of how do you build a business that you’re actually going to enjoy and want to do for the longterm. It’s having those two things in mind.
RV (05:51):
Yeah. And so much of being a successful leader is always about like, you know, thinking about the big picture up front and that’s that certainly applies, applies here. And, you know, if you’re going to do the lifestyle business, you might choose to do things that are less stressful. Like maybe they have less value long-term, but there may be less stressful. And my second takeaway was related to that, just a another fundamental, which is the concept of churn. You hear that term churn and to what you were just saying, AJ I think, you know, when you have recurring revenue, you typically have higher valuations. The other thing is recurring revenue is also typically more stabilized revenue, which even if you never plan on selling it and you don’t care about the valuation, recurring revenue is an incredible way to run your business.
RV (06:43):
Another thing that we teach people all the time and in our, in our eight figure entrepreneur courses that a business worth selling looks a whole lot like a business worth keeping. And so you know, recurring revenue is very healthy, regardless if you’re going to sell it or keep it. But if you’re doing recurring revenue, the number one metric you want to look at is churn. And it’s just super simple. If you start the year with a hundred, what did you end the year with? Did it, was it more than a hundred? If so, you know, that’s, that’s a positive churn. If it’s less than a hundred, it’s a negative churn. And when you look at, you know, the value of that company, that’s one of the key metrics they’re looking at. And if you’re just keeping it as a lifestyle business, that should just be a metric you’re looking at to assess kind of the health of your revenue in the, in the delivery is, do you have positive or, or negative churn another symbol fundamental concept that has really, really big long-term impact. So that, that was my number two. What was your, what was your, your third takeaway for Kevin? Yeah. Well, just
AJV (07:45):
A quick thing on that. I think that’s w that’s just a huge concept to wrap your mind around is that if you are building a business to sell it’s, that buyers investors are actually looking for only positive churn. Like it’s not even like a break even it’s like, no, I only want to see growth year over year. So the idea of losing anyone is not in your favor. I just really think that’s really important. And that really brings up the discussion of, again, if you’re building to sell, it’s like, what’s your retention plan? What’s your customer care plan. What’s your, all the things plan. And again, there’s just so many things that kind of go into this of going, if you’re going to have only positive turn and only seek growth numbers, there’s more than you just involved. Let’s just call it what it is.
AJV (08:30):
And so, again, it’s just knowing all these things and being able to see the end in mind as you have the opportunity to start something new and fresh. And I think that’s really important so many times as you know, startup entrepreneurs, we’re looking 30 days ahead, and this is requiring you to look 10 years ahead. All right. And so again, all the things that I think just are important as you’re making those beginning decisions that definitely have domino effects in the weeks, months, and years to come. But my final point not to go on a tangent is just hearing his interpretation and his forecast about how the future of business is in apps, no matter how you slice it. But it’s just like, there is such a demand for SAS products, specifically apps that there is just no wiggle room of getting your way out of it.
AJV (09:24):
If you’re, if you want to build an enterprise business or an eight figure business or a business that will sell, it’s like, this is an inevitable, at some point, this is going to be a part of your business. And that’s, that’s Kevin’s interpretation. I know that’s not the only one in the world but that was his. And I think that was really interesting to hear that there’s such a heavy, infinite emphasis on the app because as a consumer, I I’m overwhelmed by the option of apps. And so to have that many more apps just seems overwhelming to me, it’s like walking into TJ Maxx and there’s so many things in so many places, like I don’t even know where to look and I feel that way a lot about apps. And it’s like, I don’t need a thousand apps on my phone where I only look at one on a daily basis.
AJV (10:10):
And so I thought it was really fascinating to hear his forecast and his prediction of that. And then also comparing it to my user experience where I use apps, but there are very few that I use on a daily basis. And so I think a lot of that comes to the innovation and ingenuity of how do you make an app that becomes a part of someone’s daily routine, not just to have an app for the sake of having an app. I don’t think we need more of that. It’s like, where, where does the app come in play where it’s like, no, it really becomes a part of my daily routine and a necessary part of how I find information, processed information, store information. And I think that’s like a whole nother discussion, but I would say his prediction and my interpretation were very, very different. Yeah.
RV (10:55):
But that’s funny that, yeah, there’s so many apps. Well, and certainly it’s like, there is a dependency on technology for sure. And the value of it is, you know, technology doesn’t call in sick. It doesn’t go on vacation. It’s like, it’s there all the time. It sure does break. It sure does have code updates and bug fixes and all that. But that, you know, my third takeaway was also around apps. And, and to what you’re saying, one of the things that I felt nudged by was like, Hey, we need to, we need to work on it. We need a brand builders app. Like we need to start getting going on this. And just like you’re saying incorporating into people’s daily lives. And, and I think that’s really cool. But when he was talking about building the app specifically, I thought this was a super valuable lesson where he said, the more you can describe it in detail before you start building the app is like the more valuable and, and, and the more likely that app is to succeed. It’s just like you have to do the work of, of translating and documenting as much of that user experience of what it’s going to be like when they open the app on paper, before coding and development ever, ever starts. And
AJV (12:07):
Well, I think that’s similar to anything in life, right? It’s like even at brand builders group, you know, we’re a strategy firm. And, you know, somebody recently said to me, and I thought this was said to, you know, interesting to sit to say thing to say to me since I’m, you know, the CEO of a strategy firm. And they were like, I’m just a firm believer that execution eats strategy for lunch. And I was like, yeah, but what happens when you execute with no plan, right? And it’s so much wasted time and money and energy and frustration. And it’s like the power in strategies, what you just said. It’s like, the more that you can Strat strategically know, what is this do? Who is it for? What’s the benefit? What problem does it ha you know, what problem does it solve? How am I going to have market reach? It’s like the more that you know, that on the developer side, the more efficiently and effectively they are to build this. And that goes to same with building your personal brand, right? The more that you have the strategy in place, you can go to any vendor in the world and have a quality execution plan. Not to say that any vendor will do a good job, but at least you have a plan. Someone is able to execute without having a plan. You’re just throwing mud on a wall and hoping some of it sticks.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
I don’t think that’s a really good plan. No,
RV (13:26):
I don’t. I, I think it’s kinda like, you know, if you were going to set out on a sailboat, you know, execution is saying, all right, let’s learn how to pull up the sales. And let’s just go and, and not knowing how to guide the ship or where you’re aiming or where you’re going to. You’re just like wherever the wind takes me. And people do that all the time. When they build websites and they launch their brand and they write books, it’s just this kind of like often running and it’s expensive. Like it’s not only is it waste time and ineffective. It’s expensive. So amen to, to, to the power and the importance of that. You gotta be dialed in on that strategy and design it on paper before you design it in real life. Like if I had to grab it all in one sentence, that’s how I would say it. Design it on paper before you design it in real life. That’s your company, that’s your website. That’s your road trip. It’s your life plan?
AJV (14:18):
It’s your marriage. It’s your finances. It’s your home. It’s all the things. Yeah. Yeah.
RV (14:24):
So anyways, any, any other thoughts on that one?
AJV (14:28):
This is good. I feel like anyone who is an aspiring entrepreneur, a startup entrepreneur, or an entrepreneur who wants to sell their company one day needs to listen to this episode. Yeah,
RV (14:40):
Totally big, big one for entrepreneurs, real life stuff. And a, well, there, you have it. Go check out the full episode if you haven’t listened to it and either way, make sure you keep coming back. We’ll catch you here next time on the influential personal brand podcast.

Ep 199: Creating Distinction in Your Personal Brand with Scott Mckain | Recap Episode

Welcome back to the influential personal brand podcast, special recap edition. We are breaking down the interview with my longtime friend, Scott McCain. AJis not with me here today, so I’m rolling. Settle on this. And I, I love the conversation with Scott because over my career I’ve probably had, I don’t know, maybe maybe 15 or 20 conversations with Scott and like dedicated conversations and every single time I do, I feel like it moves me forward. Like it moves my understanding forward. I feel like there’s, there’s these really great insights that I have drawn. And so it’s fun to get a chance to share some of those with you coming off of this most recent interview, which was just, it’s just solid. I mean, he’s just got such solid expertise, such solid insights, such a great example and model of both someone who’s tremendous on stage, you know, the world world the hall of fame speaker designation and then just such a long track record and a career of, you know, diving in to this one topic area of distinction and helping companies create more distinction.

So I think there’s a lot to learn from watching just excuse me, the way that Scott has built his career and, and modeling what he’s done in his own career to really carve out that expertise. But anyways, let me give you my, my three big takeaways in terms of what I heard, what I’m applying in my own life in my own career as part of our team at brand builders group. So number one, he said this, which is funny, cause I don’t, he’s probably said this before, but it’s one of those things where you go, ah, it doesn’t quite, you know, every time you hear it, you, you hear it differently. And this was just such a simple line. He said, no one is loyal to a generic, no one is loyal to a generic, right? Like the, the concept of being generic is, is indistinguishable, like indistinct un-unique, which means you are replaceable.

It means you’re, you’re transferable, you’re interchangeable. There, there is no specific value or no specific thing that somebody can get from your brand that they can’t get from somewhere else. And I think this is one of the things that we talk about a lot at brand builders group. And it’s, it’s a big part of what separates our philosophy and strategy about, about branding and even like content. So our, our, we have 12 courses in our core curriculum, 12 events and in our phase one course, two it’s called captivating content. And we talk about extrapolating your uniqueness into a body of work. It’s extrapolating your ideas. And one of the things that people get so hung up on is is they, they think, oh, well, Bernay brown already said that. Or Tony Robbins already said that, or Stephen Covey says it this way or whatever, like pick your, pick your person, Seth Godin says it like this, or Simon Sinek or, you know, like it, they just, they rattle off or they, they, they, they think of, they think that what they say doesn’t matter because someone already said something like that, or somebody said something about it.

Who was who, who is like, what more well-known than they are. But the whole way you become unique is sharing your viewpoint. It’s your opinion. It’s your story? It’s your path? What have you done? And, and I think one of the great mistakes, it’s, it’s not bad to quote other people here and there, but I don’t need you to tell me what so-and-so thought I can go read their book. I can go listen to them. Speak. What makes you irreplaceable is you sharing with me, with us, with the world, what you think and not even what you think, tell us what you’ve done. It’s why we say all the time that you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were because you have walked down a path that gives you all the credibility. You need to speak to that person. And you know, everything you need to know to get past that problem or that obstacle that they are facing.

And because only you can give us your story about how you did it. Only you can share with us your insights about what someone else needs to know, you know, to help them on that same journey. No one else is you. You know, AJ had these t-shirts printed for our company that says your uniqueness is your super power. And, you know, she believes so deeply in, in that. And, and she just draws that out of our think our team and our clients in such a beautiful way, because she’s always talking about you. Tell me about you. Tell me your stories. who are you? What do you believe? What do you know what you have been through? That is unique? I can’t get it anywhere else. I can’t get it in someone else’s video course. I can’t get it in a book. I can’t get it on any other YouTube channel.

I can only get that from you. And that makes you irreplaceable. It makes you one of a kind. It, it, and, and yet, most people won’t do the deep work of figuring out what do they think? What do they believe? And then do the work of polishing it because they write that they write it off. They write themselves off as insignificant. They write their own experience, their own education, their own insights. They write them off as trivial or insignificant, and somehow over estimate, an overly weights or overly attribute the significance and the weight of other people’s opinions. But we can get those from them. We can’t get you. We can’t get yours from anyone except you. So no one is loyal to a generic either. That was, I was so good. Relatedly, I definitely had never heard Scott share this quote, which apparently is from the CEO of Fairmont.

And I loved this. And he said, every moment that I was playing defense against the competition, wasted a moment where I could be innovating to make them irrelevant every moment where I was playing defense against the competition, wasted a moment where I could have been innovating to make them irrelevant. That’s so good. And again, it’s the same thing of like setting your strategy or doing things in your company based upon what other people are doing and going, I want to emulate, and I want to form what I do based on what others are doing either, because I want to be like them, or I want to be different from them, but it’s using the external orienting your strategy based around in an external dynamic, an external force, an external figure, an external company versus just going, what do I want to do? What do I think would be awesome?

What do I think would be cool? What do I think has never been done before? What am I interested in learning? What am I interested in saying, what do I think people need? What do I think is missing from the world that I somehow feel uniquely called or equipped to serve? That’s innovating, right? Innovating. Isn’t going, let me look at what everybody else is doing. And somehow try to like, do something different or better than them. At least not. In my opinion, innovating is going deep inside and saying, how could I do this better? What, what would make this better? What do I think the world needs more of? How could we deliver this in a way that would make it better for our customers, for our team, not what does so-and-so do? What does my competition to, whatever everyone else around me doing, what is the state and the trend of my industry or the world it’s, it’s like, it’s going internally again and, and innovating.

And when you do that, you make them, you make other competition irrelevant, not from the standpoint of like, we’re so much better than you than know that nobody needs you. Although maybe that maybe the CEO did mean it that way. But I think of it as like, they’re irrelevant because they can’t get the same experience from other people that they can get from you because you’re not looking at what they’re doing and trying to emulate it or do the same thing they’re doing. You’re doing it your way. And the only place that someone can come get it your way and authentically your way from the original source is from you. Because you’re the only person who does that. You’re the only person who offers that. So why not lean into that? Why not own that? Why not rest in that? Why not settle in that?

Why not establish and plant your foundation in that it makes you uncopiable. It’s doing things the way that you would do them. And, and it’s just listening to your own instinct, your own intuition, your own beliefs of going, this is how I would do this. This is how I would say this. You know, we’re I had been working on one of our courses, a new courses called pressure-free persuasion. And it’s about, you know, it’s about sales effectively. I mean, there are so many books written on sales. Like it’s unbelievable. I mean, there’s so many people who talk about sales. Why would I go, I’m going to create a book on sales. Is it, is it because I think I’m going to say things about sales that have never been said before, not necessarily, but I do think that I have things to say about sales and selling and the, and the way that selling should be done, that is markedly different from how other people would describe it.

And I know AJ has philosophies that have what she does, which is very different. She does things that you would read in the bestselling, the, what you would read in the best selling sales books of all time. And AGA would say, that’s stupid advice. That’s terrible. I would never do that. I would never say that to my customer and is going, you can’t get that from anywhere, except her from here from our team, like that is our uniqueness. It’s, it’s what we’re saying. What the way we would say it is different. Now are the principles the same? In some cases they are, in some cases they’re radically different, but it doesn’t matter. It’s it’s doing it the way you would do it saying it the way you would say it, being it the way you want to be it. And when you do that, you’re uncomparable, you’re unique.

You’re distinguished, you’re different. You have natural differentiation, not, not artificial manufactured differentiation, because it’s coming from you inside the source. And every moment that you are spending time, you know, comparing it to the way someone else does it, or using that as the, as the primary or the sole basis for how you do it is a moment you’re not, you’re not digging in and listening and praying about and thinking about and meditating on and, and just hearing like what the spirit says to you about how you could do it. And you move in that way because they can’t get it anywhere else. They can’t get it anywhere else. But there’s a lot of people who can teach, you know, StrengthFinders. There’s a lot of people who can teach the seven habits of highly effective people. They’re whatever they’re certified, but when you’re building your personal brand and those things aren’t bad, that’s great.

There’s value. There’s a lot of value to those things. They’re well-established, but the thing they can’t get anywhere else is what do you believe about productivity? What do you believe about sales? What do you believe about marriage or dating or relationships or leadership or entrepreneurship or fitness or health or diet, or like, whatever your thing is that makes you uncomfortable, but it’s doing the work then of listening to that and then owning it and then, and then doing the work of polishing it and not just sharing random half-baked thoughts, but actually developing it and refining it and working it, all these things that we take you through and captivating content to help you go, okay. So let’s, let’s sharpen your ideas. Let’s make clear what your ideas are. Let’s, let’s tighten them, let’s shape them. Let’s poke holes in them, let’s test them and then let’s come out with something that is beautiful that no one else could ever say, because it’s completely tied to you.

Which leads me to my, my third takeaway from Scott and this whole conversation was where he said, it’s the decision is the toughest part, the decision about what you’re going to own and who you’re going to be is the toughest part. And I agree with that. I think one of the things that we wrote in the take the stairs book, which made me think about this, I haven’t thought about this in years, even though it’s in that book is that we spend too much of our time trying to make the right decision.

And instead we should spend more of our time making a decision and then making it right. And what that means is too often, we sit around kind of like trying to do this universal calculus of like, what’s the right move for me to make. And I don’t want to make the wrong move. And we, we think that it’s kind of like we have to choose the right path. And we try to assess based on whatever, some scoring criteria or set of factors and to go like, oh, what’s, what’s the, what’s the right path for me. And I want to make sure I take the right path versus kind of instead, just like taking a general look and going, okay, well, this is generally the way I’m going to go. You know, and I’m going to take out my, my machete and I’m going to chop down the wood and the twigs and the branches.

And I’m going to just kind of make the path like this is the path I choose. I’m gonna make this my path. I’m going to make it right. And, and this is such a, such a simple, but, but profound decision point in your career. Because again, if you’re choosing, if you’re waiting for the perfect path, you’re waiting for it’s, it’s based upon the idea that you could choose the wrong path, right. And you know, there are certainly bad decisions you can make, especially in your personal life, right? There are poor decisions you can make that will have consequences, but when it comes to like setting your strategy, I think less of it is about going, oh, what’s the perfect path. And it’s more of going like, okay, let’s make a general consideration of what I’m good at what I like doing the people around me, the skills I have, the skills I don’t, the market, et cetera.

And then picking a path and dominating it and saying, this is what I’m going to do. And I’m going to make it work like that, that the decision to make it work is more important than the decision about what should I make work, the decision to make it work is more important than a decision about what should I make work. That’s where we got to get to is, is just going like, okay, this is the path I’m going to make it work. I think about brand builders group, right? And like, we could do all these things we could do. We could do masterminds and we could do live events and we could do video courses and we could do monthly membership sites. And we could do keynote speaking. We could do consulting. Like we could do all of these things. But from when we started the company, we said, we’re going to do one-on-one coaching for personal brands.

We feel like that’s something that not a lot of people do. If they do it, they don’t do it at scale. If they do it, they don’t have a lot of curriculum or structure behind it. And there’s not a bunch of people out there in the market doing it, you know, so was this, and we know how to do one-on-one coaching, not in the personal brand space. We’d never done that before, but, but we didn’t know something. We had built a coaching company before. Right. And that’s where AJ and I, and a lot of our team came from is we had some knowledge and said, this is what we’re going to do. And, and we said, our goal is a thousand messengers. We’re going to find 1000 personal brands that we’re going to work with on a one-on-one basis every single month. And we’re going to go get a thousand messengers.

And we just had our three-year birthday. And interestingly enough, we just crossed 300 active members. I just got the notification this morning, we’re at 301 active members. We’re making progress. Like we’re on the path. Isn’t because we chose the right path. I mean, there’s something to be said for the fact that we chose something that we thought we could do that we thought we could be good at that maybe there wasn’t a bunch of other people do it, but there’s lots of coaching companies out there. There’s lots of people who do one-on-one coaching in, in, in the personal brand space. It’s more because we made a decision and made the D and then, and then said, we’re going to make it right. And this, this happens with choosing your business model. I think this happens with choosing like what’s the right social media platform to be on.

And this certainly has, has this certainly applies to what topic do you choose to talk on? There’s not a perfect topic. There’s not something written in the universe that if you, if you select the right one, then you’ll hit the jackpot and your personal brand is going to succeed. It’s more about just choosing one and going all in on that one problem, all in on that one message all in on that one uniqueness. And you, because, because when you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. And being clear is greater than being clever. And, and it’s like making a decision and making it right is more important than making the right decision. So it’s the decision, that’s the toughest part. And I think what makes it hard as we’re trying to assess, what’s the perfect decision instead of just going, all right, I’ve taken a general account for some factors.

This is the decision and boom, I’m going at it. I’m running at it. I’m chasing it down. I’m knocking it down. I’m getting the machete out. If I have to. And I’m cutting down trees and weeds, but I’m going, I’m not just looking for the easy path. I’m not looking for the perfect path and not looking for the path that other people do or don’t do. I’m looking for my path and I’m going to decide it. And I’m going to make a way, and I’m going to figure it out. And maybe that’s what you need to do today. Maybe that’s where you are at. But this whole conversation from one of the world’s leading thinkers on distinction, Scott McCain, it all pointed. At least me back. It all pointed me back to the idea that you gotta dig deep inside. You gotta, you got to go internal and figure out what you want to be and who you want to be. And if you need help with that, you should call us because we’re really, really good at it. So I hope you enjoy this episode. I hope you do request a call with our team if you haven’t yet. And at some point we get to meet you, but yeah, more than anything, I hope that whatever your path is today that you make a decision and then you make it right, that you, you choose a path and then you make it the winning path. And we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 197: Fueling Your Own Creativity, Innovation, and Productivity with Juliet Funt | Recap Episode

RV (00:02):
And we are back with the influential personal brand podcast, special recap edition of the interview I did with our good friend client and a, I would say mentor someone I’ve known for years Juliet Funt. And I have shared the stage speaking with Juliet on literally the biggest stages in the world. I mean she speaks at world-class events for world-class organizations and I’ve just, I’ve known her for years and we’ve gotten the opportunity to, to walk with her. And some of her creation around the, this book that she’s working on, which is now a a real life, a real life, a real life thing. And it is a, a joy to get a chance to talk to her about that. And obviously that’s what we were talking about. Fueling your own creativity, innovation, and productivity with this concept that she refers to as white space.
RV (01:06):
Obviously today I am rolling solo. I’m filling in for AJ who doesn’t make every episode as a, as a CEO of a fast-growing company, the mom of two toddlers she’s always got a bunch of stuff going on, so we try to catch her as much as we can. But today I’m rolling solo and I’m just gonna run you through my biggest takeaways in terms of how I’m applying, what Juliette was talking about in the interview. And then obviously in her new book a minute to think which I will tell you, I have read cover to cover. I am not able to read the book, all the books of every single podcast guests that we have on most of the people we bring on very familiar with, or I have read something of theirs in the past. This is a book that I have read cover to cover.
RV (01:51):
It is absolutely brilliant. Well-Written well edited, well-organized sharp, meaningful, clear, powerful, useful, and practical. And, you know, we touched on some of those concepts in the, in the interview. And so the, the first one to me is just that we all need more oxygen. Like we need need oxygen in our life. What she calls white space oxygen is to a fire. What are white spaces to our calendar? What oxygen is to a fire? It is just air it’s. It is margin. It, it is, it is openness and that is not a sign of weakness, or it is not a compromise in productivity. It is a necessary fuel. It is necessary to fuel productivity. And I love the way that she describes this, which is thoughtfulness interlaced throughout your day. What a great definition, thoughtfulness interlaced throughout your, and the benefit. And I thought this was super elegant and she’s super elegant in her writing.
RV (03:05):
Is that, you know, she said that the benefit here is that deceleration kicks in and you can listen to your own wisdom, how powerful and profound is that you can listen to your own wisdom. And so often so many ways. And so many days we’re going so fast, just sprinting from the next to the next, to the next to the next. It’s like trying to build a bigger fire by just piling more and more stuff on top of it. And there’s, there’s no oxygen, there’s no space, there’s no room to breathe. There is no fuel to grow the thing. And so I, I just love that. And I love the, the eloquence of being able to listen to your own wisdom. I think that is truly one of the most defining things that we do at brand builders group that is different from other, I guess I would say, you know, copywriters or people who help do, you know, identity for a brand is that we help you find your uniqueness.
RV (04:15):
We, for us, our belief is that the answers inside of you, it’s not, how are you different from everyone else? And it’s not. What do you do in relation to other people? It’s what do you do? What do you actually believe? What path have you walked down? And so much of this is being able to access your own intuition, your own insight, your own instincts, or as she describes it, your own wisdom. And in order to do that, you need white space, white spaces to your calendar, what oxygen is to a fire. And I just think that’s a brilliant, brilliant metaphor. Absolutely love it. The second takeaway for me, it was really just a question and it’s, it’s a very simple question and it’s super direct, but man, it hit, it hit me hard. And I think this question hits hard and I hope it hits hard for you.
RV (05:15):
And here’s what, here’s the question? Where are you doing high quantity, low value work? Where are you doing high quantity, low value work. And if you’re a leader if you’re not, you’re an entrepreneur with a team, or if you’re a personal brand, even managing a team of contractors, where do you have the people around you doing high quantity, low value work? Where are we running a bunch of manual processes, a bunch of, you know, manual things following a set of steps and a checklist that was created 10 years ago that, you know, we don’t even look at anymore isn’t even relevant anymore. And I just, I think this is super powerful. And I’ll tell you, one of the adjustments that I made immediately after listening to this interview was you know, our, our, our team runs the content diamond. Those of you that are, are members of brand builders group, like your members in our, our coaching community.
RV (06:13):
You know, we teach this content diamond process of repurposing content, which is brilliant and it’s amazing, and it totally works. But I, I was auditing, I went back and it was looking at some of the steps and I noticed that one of our steps is to embed a link to our YouTube video. Like we do a 60 every week, we do this five minute video and that’s, you know, we publish that on my YouTube channel or on our YouTube channel, if it’s the company stuff. And then we put it on my blog. So the bolt, my blog, Rory Vaden blog.com is the one place that you can go to access, you know, like everything that I’m doing. And so we make this really nice five minute YouTube video every week. Well, we also distill that down into a 62nd kind of teaser video.
RV (06:58):
And we embed that teaser video in LinkedIn, in LinkedIn pulse, which is LinkedIn’s blogging platform. And what I realized is we’re getting killed in the algorithm because there’s this external unique link to YouTube, which the, the, all the social media companies hate, they hate when you link to outside things. Cause that’s their whole goal is to keep you on their platform. And so we’ve got this, this one step in our process, which is embed a YouTube link, which is, you know, from years ago and our team is just doing that and we’re not watching and going, wow, we’re getting crushed in our reach, in our views. We’re not reaching anybody and going, we’re running this checklist, we’re spending however much time we’re doing it and going, we’re getting almost no value from it. So that was that was one of the things immediately that we’re, we changed in our business as a result of this interview.
RV (07:51):
And that was, that’s a question that I would ask for you, where are you doing high quantity, low value work? I think it is the, the, the, this is something that we talked about in our second book, procrastinate on purpose five permissions to multiply your time, which is that the human brain gets addicted to insignificance and trivial tasks. Why? Because when you cross an item off your to-do list or you hit delete on something in your inbox or you mark something as complete in your project management software, the human brain releases dopamine. Like if you monitor the human brain like under brain scan, there’s, there is a release of dopamine when we complete things. So we feel good. It tells us good job. Congratulations. You’re, you know, you you’re done. The problem is that the human brain releases basically the same level of dopamine, whether it’s a trivial task or a significant task, well, trivial tasks are take much less time and you can get a lot more trivial tasks done and get a lot more hits of dopamine.
RV (09:04):
So the neuroscience of your brain actually begins to work against you. You become addicted to that feeling the same way that you know, somebody is addicted to substances, like someone’s struggling with substance abuse is addicted. It’s this feeling, but in reality, what moves your business forward is not the volume of tasks that you complete, like ultra performers know that success is not about the volume of tasks you complete rather just about the significance of them while often the most significant tasks take a longer time. So you don’t check them off as quickly, which means you don’t get the hit of dopamine as frequently, which means that your brain left to its own devices. It was going to pull you back towards the insignificant, towards the trivial, towards the, the minutia, the mundane, in some cases, the meaningless. And we get addicted to this high quantity, but low value work and, and so many businesses.
RV (10:02):
And so many personal brands die on the hill of quantity. We’re just doing too many things and they’re not stopping and slowing down and decelerating and taking a moment a minute to think as the title of Juliet’s book is they’re not taking a minute to think about, does this really move the needle? Is this really valuable? Should we continue doing this? Is this high, high impact, very significant work. And if you don’t do that, you literally become addicted to the opposite. So that was just a powerful reminder for me and just a great reinforcement of some of the things that we should know, but, you know, we kind of lose sight of, and then the third, the third big takeaway least, you know, just for me listening to Juliette. And, and again, it’s, it’s, it’s really wonderful for me to be able to have this interview because I’ve read the manuscript cover to cover, like we’ve, we’ve walked with her a lot through just kind of helping her organize some of this.
RV (11:08):
And, and I mean, I, this book is going to be incredible. Y’all this is going to be a major book. Like, I think this is going to this that’s. The other thing is you know, random side note here is you should go, you know, to her site and you should watch what she’s doing. Cause this, I think this is going to be a really big business book. That’s going to have a lot of staying power. And it’s gonna make a big splash in the space. So you know, even if you don’t buy it for yourself, I think it’s like pay attention and watch what she does and how she does some of these things around the launch. But the third takeaway, which is another kind of sobering simple passion is just, are you scared of quiet?
RV (11:55):
Are you scared of quiet? Are you scared of sitting with your own thoughts? Are you scared of sitting still? Are you afraid of trusting that things can actually work out for you without your full control? That is a deeply profound concept and question that I just love how she ties it into like the practicality of every day, you know, productivity, but that is where the deep work happens. And you know, that’s why so many clients who work with us at brand builders group, you know, they come through our phase one course, one brand DNA experience. And they’re amazed at how deep the work is for most of our client. Well, for all of our clients, the very first encounter with us as is almost like it’s cathartic, it’s therapeutic. It’s, it’s, it’s almost, it’s almost spiritual because we’re going on this deep introspective journey of figuring out what is your uniqueness?
RV (13:06):
What is the problem that you can solve in the world that no one else can solve? What are you uniquely positioned to do? How, and who are you uniquely positioned to serve? And that’s what happens. First, later comes all the mechanics of here’s, how to launch a podcast and here’s how to write a book and here’s how to do a book launch. And here’s how to create a keynote. And, and, and here’s how to get booked for a keynote speech. And, you know, here’s how to build a company. Here’s how to do a sales call. And here’s how to build the funnel that dah, dah, dah, like we’ve got 14 events, 14 different two day experiences in our formal curriculum, as of right now. But the very first one finding your brand DNA is this, this deep work. And there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of exercises.
RV (13:47):
There’s, there’s not that much education. I would say in our very first phase one course, one of our, our whole journey, because a lot of it is just questions. We’re basically just peppering people with these questions that, you know, they go through this sort of like self exploration to find their uniqueness, to figure out who they serve, what problem do they solve? How do they solve it? And what’s the fastest path to cash solving that problem. But so many of us are scared of the quiet. We’re scared to be reflective. We’re we’re, we’re, we’re S we’re scared to be introspective. We’re scared to just listen to our own wisdom. And I think when, when you force yourself to, to have some quiet, you force yourself to face your fears.
RV (14:46):
It is in the quiet that we are unmistakably confronted with the things that challenge us, which is scary, but it also puts us in the ring with our fears. It puts us face to face with our fears and inevitably, and almost always, we beat those fears. We conquer those fears. We find the answers. We defeat the problems in that quiet. So while it is scary, it’s also tremendously empowering. And I believe, and I have experienced from my own life. And I believe this to be true for you is that if you take a moment to sit in the quiet, those fears and concerns may come up, but then you can see them. And if you can see your fear, then you can face your fear. And if you face your fear, you can defeat your fear. If you’re willing to sit in the quiet and inside of that silent conversation of prayer and meditation, or just being with your own thoughts, you are allowed to experience and explore the miracles of everyday life to write your own escape from the mental prisons of limiting beliefs of our own construction. So take a little time to have a little white space, white spaces to your calendar, but oxygen is to a fire allow for some quiet allow for a minute to think and know that your highest value work will come from your highest value answers, which you will most likely find in your quietest times. We’ll catch you next time.

Ep 195: How to Dominate Your Niche with Chester Elton | Recap Episode

RV (00:02):
Chester Elton was our guest this week on the influential personal brand. And this is the recap edition of that episode. I am joined by my partner in shine, AJ Vaden we’re breaking down the interview because you know, we both know Chester for a really long time. We haven’t seen him in a while, but he was an influential person in our, in our life. And so it was great to reconnect and Aj, welcome to the show. Looking forward to getting your thoughts on this,
AJV (00:32):
Looking forward to giving you all my many opinions.
RV (00:37):
Yeah, so I think looking back at this episode, to me, it really was about how to dominate a niche. And that is something that chester and his writing partner business partner, Adrian have really done. They’ve, you know, they were the carrot guys and they carved out this like very specific niche that they have just dominated for decades at this point. And my first big takeaway, which is going to be something near and dear to your heart, AJ I know it’s just having proprietary data helps you dominate. And, you know, I look at when I look at some of our, the most successful like speakers specifically that we’d know, I think Sally hogshead and Jason Dorsey and I think David horsehager and Chester Elton, and it’s like these folk, Tom Rath, these folks have proprietary data that really is real data. And it really helps you kind of like define a niche. I also think of Michael Stelzner does this really well with social media, Chalene Johnson
AJV (01:46):
And the list goes on.
RV (01:47):
It goes on. So that was my first big takeaway. And I know obviously in the, not so distant past you lead our national research study trends and personal branding. And so I, I figured, I don’t know if that stuck out to you, but that was a big takeaway for me.
AJV (02:03):
Yeah, that’s that was my first point, probably in a little bit different context than you just shared. But I did, I literally highlighted this quote with that having proprietary data helps you dominate period. It helps you dominate. It helps you get on media and helps you clarify your niche. It helps you reach a new target demographics. It helps you with credibility. It helps you in so many different ways. It helps your content strategy. Like there’s countless ways that it helps. But one of the things that really stuck out to me that I thought was really important in this interview is that EBIT, it’s not just having the data. You have to understand the data and that data gives you credibility, but it’s not necessarily the data points that people remember. It’s the stories that people remember. And because you have what your job is as the owner of the data is to learn how to truly understand RVit and interpret that data to the general public, and then take that and create a story with that data that helps your audience.
AJV (03:16):
So to me, it’s like having the data is the given it’s the requirement, it’s the necessity. We’ve probably heard it 12 times this year. So far, that data is the new differentiator, right? It is the new competitive advantage. It’s like information and data and proprietary data is the new competitive advantage. But having the data really isn’t good enough, right? You have to understand the data you have to interpret. The data we have to do is take that data and create stories. That mean something to your audience, because it’s the stories that they’ll remember. And so, as an example from this interview, I thought these were some things that stuck out to me is that he had, they had a a hundred thousand people take this motivators assessment, right? And of that 18% referenced, severe anxiety at work. But by 2020, that 18% had turned into 30% of the workforce.
AJV (04:24):
But then if you just parcel that out and just look at millennials and gen Z, it was 42%. And the story that really started to form for me is, you know, our, our kids are the generation right after gen Z. So I’m like, well, gosh, what if like, if we don’t start making some serious changes, like what does that look like for my kids? And what you’re saying that we’re telling these young people who are graduating high school or college, or, you know, trade schools were saying, the moment you entered the workforce, almost half of you will experience severe anxiety.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
What, so
AJV (05:05):
Those are the things to me, it’s like, it’s the data, but it’s really the story that the data tells that I think you really have to own. So I know that was a long point. I’m like the other one’s shorter, but that was most significant to me. Yeah,
RV (05:17):
No, that’s, that’s good. I mean, it’s hard enough to get data and then it’s hard to interpret it and make it and make it applicable. And that’s one thing that they’ve done. And, and so I thought that was good. So the other thing that stuck out to me from this specific interview, obviously Chester and Adrian have sold, sold a lot of books and they’ve gotten a pretty sure portfolio is, is who they publish with, or have published most of them with. And just, just a good reminder, which we know. And we, we talk about and we you know, we teach people, but what publishers are really buying is your marketing plan. It’s it’s the, the author’s job is to sell the books. And we actually did our bestseller launch plan event last week at the time of get compared to this recording when, when we’re actually recording this. And one of the things that we said, which we’d never really said before, so clearly is that most authors build a book and then try to build an audience. And it’s extremely difficult. Like you have to build the audience first and then build the book for the audience. That’s how the book, that’s how the book becomes successful. And so anyways, I just thought that was a good reminder as always to, to just go, yeah, like a huge part of this is just marketing. Not necessarily who has the best ideas.
AJV (06:39):
No, I think that’s really good at that. Did not make it on my top three lists. So that’s, that was good.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
I didn’t even pick up on that,
AJV (06:47):
But that’s true, right? It’s like, if you have the audience then it can carry any product or service versus build the product and then try to build the audience. That’s really good. No, my, my second thing is probably just something that resonated with me stronger is that if you try to be too many things to too many people, you become nothing, right. If you become too many things to too many people, you become nothing. And I love this. And he said, it became really clear to Chester that the place where business people go, his audience with LinkedIn, and we’ve had this discussion in our house here recently
Speaker 3 (07:25):
About like, think about it. All right. So that’s probably
AJV (07:28):
Why it just really stuck out to me is that, you know, linked in is the place where this professional crowd goes to source information, find service providers, you know, do all the things. And it’s not that Instagram and Twitter and TechTalk and Facebook and YouTube, aren’t other really important platforms. That’s not what I’m saying. But I thought this was just really good is that you got to figure out where’s your place and what is the thing that you want to be to your people? And what place are those people going? And, you know, he said it was LinkedIn. So we went all in on LinkedIn and because they went all in on LinkedIn they got into this influencers program and because they got into this influencers program really, really early, they got more opportunities and then more opportunities and more opportunities.
AJV (08:18):
And to me, I think that just is, it speaks really, really clearly to a lot of our audience where it’s so overwhelming to think about, okay, I’ve got to create content for all these different platforms. And some of it needs to be original, some can be repurposed, and then I’ve got to do all these things and all these platforms, which is, I think is really important. Right. And I think you do need to be all the places, but it’s how much of you needs to be in all the places. And what if you just said, okay, I’m going to do what I need to do to make sure I’m spreading my content everywhere, but I’m also going to go all in on the one platform that I most resonate that my audience modes, my audience most resonates in, and I’m going to just like double down on that. And that was LinkedIn for them because they said, that’s where we found that business people go. So that’s probably also my platform, which is why it stuck
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Out to me that it was really just
AJV (09:08):
A great reminder of you don’t have to be all the places all the time and be all the things to all the people. Yeah,
RV (09:14):
No, I think, I think that’s, I think that’s true. I mean, for me, like, I, for whatever reason, I’m drawn to Instagram, like just the usability of it. We post stuff on LinkedIn on Facebook, but like I spend most of my personal time on LinkedIn and I think it’s sorry, did I say Lee? I said, LinkedIn, I meant Instagram. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas you’re, you know, you’re more on LinkedIn and I think, well, it’s interesting when
AJV (09:38):
It comes to personal I’m on Instagram way more.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Right, right. That’s really cool. But
RV (09:45):
Your voice as a content creator is more for LinkedIn. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, to that note, so this was my third takeaway, which it was powerful to hear him say this. Cause I’ve, I’ve thought about this before. And I’ve, I’ve kind of heard some studies, although they seem not super reliable, but that it takes four or five impressions for someone to buy your book. You know, and I’ve heard all sorts of numbers. That’s why I’m saying like, there’s a, for different studies quoted on this, but not in any that were totally authoritative that I feel confident repurposing here, but just as, as a kind of like a general you know, anecdotal, anecdotal kind of an observation that he was making, which I would totally agree with is that, you know, people have to see you in multiple places. Like it’s not just enough for them to be like, oh, I saw you, this, this one post from you over here.
RV (10:42):
Like that’s not really when they buy it’s when it’s like, oh, I heard you on this podcast. And now, you know, I just saw your book on a shelf and Hey, here you are. Here’s an ad for your webinar funnel in my feed. And oh, look, you’re speaking at my company’s event next month. Right. And it’s like, that kind of triangulation needs to happen to where you really start, I think, breaking through the wall and creating massive gravity. So, you know, it’s, it’s kind of like figuring out what, where you can, you can dominate well, but also when you do this, you kind of start to surround people. And just, just knowing that if people buy from you, they typically aren’t going to just buy the ferry first time they see you. It’s going to be more of like millennium, multiple impressions. I know. Talk about
AJV (11:28):
That. No, it’s, it’s kind of like it’s like you intentionally kick in not reticular activation. Right. You know, it’s like, it’s an intentional effort to spark an individual’s particular activation where, you know, and it’s a real fancy word that I don’t use very often activating
RV (11:50):
System. It’s like a, yeah, it’s a neurological, like a, once you become
AJV (11:55):
Intrigued with something, like if I was shopping for a new car and I’m shopping for, you know, and in a new Infiniti SUV and I’m looking at white infinities, the next thing I know, I’ll see white infinities everywhere I go. And it’s like, it’s like now your, your mind has like tuned into like, oh, I’m noticing something that I didn’t notice before. And I do, I do agree that being in so many places really helps nurture that. And and it’s like, y’all all go all in, in one place. But that doesn’t mean you ignore all the others. So the third thing that I wrote down was two parts. And he said, the most important thing is consistency. And we have heard that from every single person who has ever been on this show
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Or ever in the history of life and
AJV (12:36):
Conversation. So that is not new, but such an important reminder across the board where like, if you’re posting once a month on LinkedIn, or once a week on Instagram, like that’s probably not going to do it for
Speaker 3 (12:49):
You to get you there. Don’t be frustrated
AJV (12:52):
When it’s not working. Right. It’s like, you know what? I’ve had clients before. It’s like, well, you know, we built it and no one came well, that’s not really how it works. It’s like build it and then market it, then promote it and then put paid ads to it and then talk about it everywhere you go. And then maybe people will come. But I also love what he said is that so much of it is trial and error. So allow yourself the grace to try and fail and then try again. And then sometimes when, but it’s trial and error for each of us and that’s okay. Don’t think you have to have it all mapped out and have it perfect. The first time some of this just is figuring out what resonates, where do people go? What is your preferred medium? And it’s like, but you got to do it consistently enough to even have an opportunity to have some trial and
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Error. It was just a little bit of grace and have a little bit of patience.
RV (13:44):
Yeah. I mean, amen to that. The consistency from a lot of it is just sticking around. I mean, tester spin at this a while as, as have, as have we as have most of our friends, really good
AJV (13:56):
Content and being super charismatic
Speaker 3 (13:58):
And like all the things that Chester is. So yeah.
RV (14:03):
Well so that’s it, you know, you’re, you’re hearing it and I think it’s great when you hear some of the same things, cause you go, oh, it’s not just one person. This is really the truth. And that’s one of the things that I love about this show as a listener is, is just hearing the real truth from people who are really out there with top, top personal brands. And they share most of the interviews we do on this show are not what they talk about on other shows like these they’re the content they share with us is it’s not what they write about in their books. They’re kind of giving us the behind the scenes journey. So I love that. We’re trying to do that. Hopefully you love that. And if you do, you know, put a shout out for us on social that we can, we can connect with you personally, leave, leave a review. And most of all, just keep coming back. We’re so grateful for you. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand podcast.

Ep 193: How to Be an Amazing Show Host with Ken Coleman | Recap Episode

RV (00:02):
On this episode of the influential personal brand podcast, I had a chance to interview her interview, a master interviewer about he prepares his interviews, his guests, uh, obviously I’ve known Ken for a long time. It was actually my first ever recurring media appearance was being on Ken’s old show back when he was in Atlanta. So this was really great. I’ve always loved Ken as an interviewer. And, uh, I’m joined of course by our CEO, my business partner, my wife, aj Vaden, uh, she is here. So we’re breaking this down. I’m going to hop right in to probably the, I guess probably the, the biggest takeaway or at least the first like this, this was a big one was when Ken said, don’t listen to what they are saying, but how they are saying it. And listen for the emotions, listen for kind of like underlying emotions that they might be experiencing that they’re not sharing.
RV (01:01):
And, you know, I thought this was really good because I, I think a lot of personal brands are doing interviews these days for whatever, for, for their, for their book, for their podcast, for their, you know, live show, whatever. But it also reminded me of the days of sales, like in teaching sales, where you’re, when, when you do sales training, you’re listening, you’re listening to what they’re saying, but you’re kind of listening for what’s behind the scenes. And I never really equated those two things like, oh, this is a skill that, you know, I kind of learned in sales that really applies to being a great interviewer. So that
AJV (01:36):
Was, that was the question. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That’s a good correlation there.
RV (01:42):
Yeah. It’s stuck that stuck with me. So what was your, what was your first takeaway? I
AJV (01:46):
Think the first one for me, I thought was really important and overarching is something that he talked about that he’s never intimidated when interviewing guests. And I think this is really important because we listened to a lot of podcasts interview. A lot of people, we are interviewed by a lot of people. Um, but I think there’s some real power in going first. Someone here was, you know, doing interviews of presidents and world leaders and various significance, uh, to give significantly low known individuals is that it’s like, you can’t be intimidated when you’re interviewing your guest because when they’re your guests, I get your show, right? Like you’re, you’re the boss, you’re, you’re the one leading the charge. And I loved, uh, he shared this example about Tom Brady, right. But he said, I’m never intimidated because of preparation and experience. Not because I know this person so well, or we’ve had all of these intimate conversations, it’s like, no, I prepared.
AJV (02:43):
And I’ve done this enough to know what questions make a difference and how to pull out really good answers. And he said, I love this little quote, relentless preparation leads to reflexive performance. I thought that was really good. Um, and then also just, you know, using this Tom example about, you know, him as a quarterback and how he can like lead this team on the field war, it’s like he didn’t go out there and do that for the first time. Right. That didn’t happen on try number one, but at some point by doing it enough times and preparing enough, it really becomes instinctive. Right. Um, and it’s, it’s not like you’re going out there going, okay, I’m going to study up on every single person to the, you know, millions degree, even though we’ve had other guests come on and say, that’s their unique advantage.
AJV (03:29):
Right. They do it. And that’s okay. But at some point you got to just be a good enough interviewer where you know, what questions to ask and you know, what to, how to pull out the question behind the question. And I thought your point was really good. It’s, it’s being intuitive enough that you can listen to the emotion versus just the words. But to me, it was more about, uh, you’ve got to know what you’re doing enough, that it really becomes instinctive so that you’re not worried about what’s the next question. I’m going to answer that you’re just present in the interview. Right? And I, this is how I’ll wrap this up. This was my, I thought this was the most interesting part in my first point, which was, he said always, always the best parts of the interviews are the ones that you do not plan. Right. It’s the best parts. And I just think that’s true in life. That’s true in life. Um, but it’s like the best part. So the parts that you don’t plan, but you can only do that if you’re being present and what’s really happening versus being nervous or worried about your list of questions or trying to make something fit, but don’t do that. Just be prepared enough and confident enough that you can be instinctively present in the conversation because that’s when the magic happens.
RV (04:44):
Yeah. I think it’s ironic how though, it’s almost like the more you plan, the more you’re able to do things spontaneous and unplanned just where that magic happens. So I want to dovetail on a dovetail off that because, um, this was going to be my third point. But since you were talking about prep, my second big takeaway was just how, like tactically, how he preps for an interview. I remember the interview we did with Jordan harbinger, which you can go back and listen to y’all, it’s still up on the podcast. Or if you, you go to our influential, personal brand, summit.com, you can listen to it there. But, um, Jordan reads like the entire book of every guest and his prep. That is his competitive advantage of one of the things he does. But he’s a, he’s a full-time interviewer, like that’s his gig. But what Ken shared here was that there were three, three things about how he preps number one asks, how can this guest provide value to my audience?
RV (05:43):
That is the core of it. Right. And putting yourself in the audience’s shoe shoes, um, was huge. And then he said, right, the last question first and right, the first question second, that was super tough. I love that. I thought it was super practical because it, if you write the last question first, it kind of tells you, oh, this is however we get there. This is sort of the arc that I’m wanting to go on, which I thought was powerful. And then the first question, second of which I think it’ll really stick with me, those two things. And he said, Hey, that first question, I always try to focus on an intimate detail from their life. That’s basically, I don’t think Ken said it quite like this, but at what resonated with me was he was going ask them a question about a detail of the, of their life that a normal interviewer never would have done enough prep work to know that question, to ask in the first place, because it creates that connectivity and it lets their guard down. Like it’s something they’re super passionate about. That’s maybe even unrelated to the interview. So a couple ninja tips there that are super practical on how to do expert interview prep. Yeah.
AJV (06:53):
Well, I’ll, I’ll dovetail off of your number two, because that was, um, because I, I wrote that down too, as a part of my point too, which is, you know, the most important thing is to really go, what’s the last question I want to ask and really like, you know, orchestrate the whole interview around knowing that, and everything’s leading up to that. Um, but I also wrote down a couple of other things that were very tactical and very technical. That would be very helpful. It’s just, first of all, you have to know as the host, right? The interviewer host of whatever it is that the interviewer is, what does your audience want to know? Question one, right? Question two. What is your audience need to know? And then three, what can my guest through their experience and expertise give to my audience based on those two things.
AJV (07:49):
I love that. And I think that is really a healthy juxtaposition of making the interview about both the guest and the audience. And I think one of the things that he had mentioned was that, you know, a great interviewer makes the interview all about the guest. And I would just add onto that is like a great interviewer, makes it all about the guest in relation to the audience. And I think it’s just this really healthy juxtaposition of like, yeah, it’s all about the guest. It’s not trying to highlight anything from the host experience or their background or their whatever. It’s like, no, this is really just about you, the guest and how you, the guests can provide value to the people who are listening. So what is, what do the people listening want to know? What do they need to know? And what can you, the guest give to them? And those two regards and your job as the interviewer is to make that connection.
RV (08:49):
That’s good. That’s good. Yeah. I like that. That, that’s a good thought. Like you have to know what your audience wants in order to be a great interviewer in order to be able to know what, what, how can I, what do I need to ask and how do I get the value out of them? You’ve got to be connected to your audience too. Um, I love that. So the, my third takeaway, which was really gonna be my second takeaway was about making your, how to do your interview in a way that it is entertaining also. And it kind of ties to what my first point was. But I asked Ken specifically about radio shows because radio shows are really difficult. Um, I did one for a while. Terrestrial radio Egypt probably remembers those day. I wasn’t very good at it,
AJV (09:32):
But we had the part of our past,
RV (09:38):
Well, it’s hard because it’s live and it’s, everything is compressed. There’s like, you’ve got, you’ve got six minutes to build rapport, get to know this person, get their backstory, get into the issue, solve their problem. And it’s like doing this in six minutes and be entertaining all at the same time. It’s really difficult. But when, when Ken basically said something to the extent of, of basically if you can get them to share their heart, it will be both powerful and entertaining. Um, so it’s like if they just talk from their head, it might be useful and educational, but if you can get them to share their heart, that will be entertaining, whether it’s sad or happy or, you know, like funny or, or profound or whatever. And so it’s kind of that same thing of what the first one was, was, was figure out what’s going in their heart and ask them about what’s going in their heart more than what’s going on in their head.
RV (10:37):
And I think, I think it gave me permission as, as a host. I’m sometimes also in the back of my mind, going, not only how can this be useful for people, but how can we make it sort of fun and engaging for them to listen to? And it, I feel like Ken relieved a little bit of that pressure to be like, Hey, like if you do this right, and you’re so present, like you were talking about ha like if you’re so present and you’re dialed in on like their real underlying emotion, that question behind the question, or like trying to access their heart, it’ll, it’ll be entertaining automatically as a by-product. So you can just like really focus on that. So that was a, that was a helpful thing for me.
AJV (11:16):
Yeah. Well, my third one isn’t necessarily something that I picked up, um, from the Ken Coleman, uh, interview, even though Howard, if you’re doing any sort of interviewing, you should definitely go listen to this. There’s some really great technical, uh, tips and, you know, just tactical strategies, like it’s really solid. However, my third point did it come from the interview, but more as a listener of a bunch of interviews and some things that I kind of jotted down throughout the course of this interview around like, no, this to me is just a listener sometimes. Like these are the things that are really awesome. And then also as a guest, right, as the person who’s being interviewed have some tidbits. And so I’ll just give a couple of quick are those, cause I think these are really relevant to the conversation. And the first one is like, I find that the best interviews of all times are the ones that are hyper-specific right.
AJV (12:07):
Like a great example, as I was listening to an interview, not too long ago. And one of the questions was, uh, what piece of leadership advice would you give to all the listeners it’s like, that is that it’s too broad. It’s too general. It’s too generic versus what is the one piece of advice that you would give to someone right now who is leading a team of people who do not see the vision. Right. And it’s the difference of something so broad in general that it doesn’t latch onto it doesn’t have that same, um, memorability factor. It’s like, I don’t even remember what the answer was. Um, but it was just at, it’s fine that there’s power in the specificity of the questions and the answers, um, that really allows you to hone in and go, oh yes. Tell me that. Right. Or also specific stories.
AJV (12:59):
Right. I remember some of the best interviews that I’ve ever heard are, do user stories. I still remember. And you would have thought, I’ve heard this conversation yesterday when it was like 10 years ago. And I think too, it’s the specificity of the stories as well as the points. Uh, but that has a lot to do with the person who’s asking the questions. But then also I would say as important as it is to be a great interviewer, people also need to learn how to be a great interviewee. Right. I think that is really important too, because I’ve listened to Sue minty interviews where I’m like, okay, that was not what it could have been to the interviewer, but also due to the interviewee, right? Giving generic, uh, stories and examples and not being prepared or not really answering the questions that the interviewer asked. Like, I hear that quite often. I’m like, well, I really wanted to hear the answer to that question. Not whatever you just shared.
RV (14:00):
That’s like a political move. It’s like the politicians, the politician answer
AJV (14:05):
The politician answer. Um, I think those things are really, uh, important. And here’s what I would say too, is just like a, an interview. We, uh, here’s something that I think is really important is not make it about the subject matter, but this is something that, um, Kim said, make it about the human, right. Like start with something that is humanizing. I remember one of my favorites, a podcast that I was a guest on here lately. And it just made me think about this, uh, was a good friend of ours, Carrie Jack, the happy hustle. Yeah.
AJV (14:39):
Um, but he was such a great interviewer, not just because he had prepared questions, but the enthusiasm he brought and the genuine excitement, like I felt genuinely like he was excited to be talking me. And he also does this like rapid fire list of questions to his guests, but they’re not always the same questions. And I think that’s really unique and it, you know, he was asking me about different, um, you know, uh, tricks or tips, uh, about all these different areas of your life. And I think it had nothing to do with personal branding, but it had everything to do with me, the guest, and it took the pressure off. It took the weight off of him and made go, okay, just for a minute, rapid fire, tell me the answers to these 10 things. And it’s really humanizing and fun and different. And I think really powerful to do in the very beginning because then it’s like, I get to know, even if it happens in 30 seconds, just enough about the personality that I’m like, oh yeah, I want to hear more of this. So those would be the things that really stick out to me. I’m going, those, those things are powerful of like, yeah, that person is fun and engaging in one of expected that, so it’s this humanizing factor that has nothing to do with the interview, but yet has everything to do with the conversation.
RV (15:56):
Yeah. That’s so cool. It’s being dialed into that person. Carrie does do a great job of that enthusiasm and making me feel so special and wanted. And that makes you perform better as the guests. I feel like when somebody is like, I’m excited that you’re here. Yeah. Um, well I love that stuff. Uh, again, very specific skill. That’s becoming more and more important and useful in the world in many, many ways, from one of the great interviewers of our time, Ken Coleman to go make sure you listen to the full episode, uh, and just keep coming back week after week, we’ll be here to support you on your journey. That’s all we got for this edition of the influential personal brand podcast.

Ep 191: How To Accelerate Your Personal Brand Through Strong Visual Identity with Stephen Scoggins | Recap Episode

RV (00:02):
Welcome back to the influential personal brand podcast. This is the recap edition of the interview that you probably just heard recently with Stephen Scoggins, who is very unique. He is one of our clients. He then became a certified strategist, and now he is one of our implementation partners. And you got to hear his story and his own personal brand journey. And then we got into talking about visual identity and also doing an overview of, of what he provides. So AJ is here with me. Hi, AJ we’re going to do just our three biggest takeaways. And from, from the episode, obviously the episode was a little bit of an introduction, especially towards the end of what brand amplifiers is. But before we got to that point, when Stephen was telling the story about why he built a personal brand, this despite already having many successful entrepreneurial ventures, and he was telling the story about how he actually didn’t want to build a personal brand, or he wasn’t sure. And his friend asked him this question or, or made this observation. He said, what you’re really struggling with Stephen is not whether or not you should build a personal brand. What you’re really struggling with is an internal battle, an internal battle of answering the question. Am I worthy enough to have a voice? And that, I mean, I got goosies w when, when he said that, and I think, I think everyone struggles with that. I still feel that I still feel that from time to time. And so that was my first takeaway.
AJV (01:50):
No, I think that’s a really good point. And just knowing Stephen, and also probably so similar for all of you, it’s you question like, well, there’s already someone else who talks about this in my space, or there’s already a company that does this well, you know, it’s, Bernay brown talks about shame. So I can’t talk about that. And it’s like, millions of people talk about it, but it really does come down to that inner level of clarity of am. I meant to do this. Like, it’s like, why am I doing this? And I think that’s really important. And just knowing Stephen it’s like building his personal brand has so nothing to do with money. I he’s like all his financial endeavors and successes have paid him well enough. And this really is an impact thing for him. And it really is. I was like, no, I want, I want to be a beacon for people who’ve been where I’ve been and know that there’s another way there.
AJV (02:45):
And so for all of us, it’s going, when we have those feelings of, am I worthy enough? Am I good enough? Or is someone else better than me? And it’s, you know, this comparison battle that we’re all in going well, am I doing what I feel like I was called to do hi, is this like the calling on my life to talk about this, to speak about this, to share about this. And I think not always, but in many ways, it’s, it really does help subside some of those feelings of inadequacy or comparison of just knowing it’s like, I may not be the best, but this is what I was called to do at this time for these people at this place. So I love that. I think that was really significant. I think one of the things for me, this kind of like 0.1 and 0.2 is a lot of what he talked about was like, what is the most frustrating part about building a personal brand?
AJV (03:33):
All right. It’s just like, we all start with this. Like, I want to talk about this and I want to share this and I have this message and this calling, and I want to help people. And it gets clouded by the monstrosity of complexities that potentially can be there. Okay. We’ll have to figure out what I’m doing and who I’m doing it for and where I’m going to do it. And then what is my offer? And then how do I actually collect the money? And then what different platforms do I need? And it’s like, okay, well now I need a designer. Now I need a website developer. And, oh my gosh, now I need this technology. And it’s like, our mission gets clouded by the complexities that we add to it. And one of the things that I love about this is he said, do what you can with what you have.
AJV (04:16):
You don’t have to do all the things right now, but do what you can with what you have. And he talked a lot about how he’s a, he’s a bootstrapping counting guy and it’s like, it’s like, you do what you can with what you have. It’s like, we still, one of our primary funnels was shot within a 24 hour time span, changing outfits in our backyard using our iPhone and a ring light. That’s it? Like we launched our whole company brand builders group without a website. In fact, we didn’t have any website for the first six months. And it was like, so it was like, do what you can with what you have knowing it doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be pristine, but do what you can with what you have. And, you know, as it leads into why I think this is so relevant and why I love him so much is a huge part of him becoming a client and then a certified strategist.
AJV (05:11):
And now one of our primary implementation partners, like our preferred implementation partner is he knows how to bootleg Leggett, but do it in a high class way where it’s like, it does not look bootlegged. And that’s because he’s been through the process of doing it on his own and then hiring people and finding what works and creating the packages that, you know, you’ll hear about in the interview. And we’ll talk a little bit about here. It really is built to help the person who’s going, oh, why is this so frustrating? Why is this so difficult? All I want to do is get my message out there. Really figuring out a way to have these consolidated vendors and a consolidated process to get things done is a huge part of making this not only less frustrating, but also making it more successful in the process. So I just, I love this whole concept. Do, do what you can with what you have.
RV (06:07):
Yeah. And just dovetailing off that. I think my, so my second point was, you know, he talked, we were talking about how people have to be able to sample you. They have to be able to see what you do. And that’s why video is just, is so important. And you know, there’s a lot of people that shoot video, but being able to go and knock out a video for your sales page and video funnel for your lead magnet and your demo video in your full link keynote video all at once is that you can really be proud of it. And, and like you said, it’s just, it’s hard to find quality vendors. It’s hard to find quality employees. Like it’s hard to hire good, to, good to help. It’s really hard. And so
AJV (06:55):
I was so baffled, like why it’s so hard to give people money, how are you making it so hard for me to give you my money? But to your point, yes, it’s challenging.
RV (07:06):
And that’s why we put this together. So, you know, we mentioned that link brand builders, group.com forward slash brand amplifiers. You know, and there’s, they customize the package for each person, depending on what you need, but just go there and check it out. And if it feels like a thing that might be good for you request a call, but yeah. Do what you can with what you have and then level up level up when you can so that people can sample you and they can, they can get a level of production value that matches your level of expertise. That’s obviously why we put this together. I think people should, should go check that out.
AJV (07:39):
Absolutely. okay. I’ll get my, my third point, my third point, my third point was I thought this was interesting and he kind of talked about it in a side note, but just being in the industry and in the business, it’s such a problem as, you know, what comes first, the chicken or the egg. And when he talks about that getting a speaker reel for his demo video to get booked as a speaker, I immediately thought, oh my gosh, this is something that everyone is really challenged with because it’s like in order to get booked to speak, you really need a good demo. Cause people need to see you speak. But if you’ve never really gotten booked to speak before, how do you get a demo? Then
RV (08:21):
I
AJV (08:21):
Need to get a demo video. But in order to get a quality demo video, I need to be on stage speaking. And in order to get booked to be on stage, I need this demo video. And it’s like, wait, what, what and I, and it’s, it’s a challenge for so many of our clients. And just top of mind for me, cause at brain builders group, we recently had one of our two day events called full keynote calendar. When we talk about what are the four assets you need to get booked as a speaker. And one of them is a quality demo video. And it’s not just a clip of seeing you speak like that’s old school. That’s like, no people actually need to be your demo. Video is not just a clip of you speaking. It is a selling of who you are, what you bring to the audience, what problem you solve, how you’re going to enthrall the audience, why you’re different than other speakers and it seeing you speak.
AJV (09:08):
So there is production value. That’s really important in demo videos. And that means you gotta have not just a great stage. You need to have multiple great stages and voiceover and B roll and you, and that takes a great videographer and then a great video editor. And I can’t tell you how many speaking engagements that Rory you and I both have been at separately where we spent thousands of dollars bringing in a high professional film crew. And then I get the video back and it’s a camera in the middle of the room, looking at me, waist up the whole time, no stage, no audience, no movement. And you cannot use any of the footage at all. If you were in this boat, you know how hard it is sometimes to get a big audience on a high production space stage with great audio. Like those don’t happen all the time.
AJV (10:02):
And most everyday people’s lives who are trying to build a speaking business. And so I know not to like harp on this, but I, one of the things that I love so much about what Stephen is doing is like, he’s like, I’m going to fix that problem for myself and for everyone else. I love that he built a huge warehouse and a huge stage for this huge led like 50 foot screen and Milton audience. It’s beautiful. And he goes like F that I’m not waiting around on this stuff anymore. It’s like, I’m going to build my own high, get my own film crew, my own cameras. And it’s like a five camera set up on this huge stage with this huge led screen, with a built in audience.
RV (10:47):
You can’t get that anywhere. You cannot cannot like you can’t get it.
AJV (10:52):
You can’t even get it from a client, much less on demand. And I think, you know, one of the things that I loved about that is like, if you can’t find it, then it’s like, how do you go and build it? Right? And then how do you find the resources to get what you need when you need it? And to me, that just so resonated because we work with so many people who are speakers are speaking as a part of their career, a part of their business, but you need a fit, you need video. And it’s hard to find really good video. So I just, I just loved the whole concept of, well, I couldn’t find it. So I built it.
RV (11:23):
Yeah. That’s that’s that’s bootstrapping again. That URL. One more time is brand builders, group.com forward slash brand amplifiers. My last little takeaway, you know, I highlighted it in the interview because when he said it, I thought it was so powerful. He said, I realized that in my striving to be like other, the more I strive to be like other people, the more I diluted myself and the more disconnected I became with my audience. And so it’s like find your uniqueness and center in that. Don’t worry about what other people are doing be you, and then capture that on video, like so that people can see you. Like you don’t have to pretend you don’t have to be something you’re not like just center in and be you and the right people will find you and fall in love with you. And so anyways, thank you for listening. We’re always so grateful for you. Hopefully you found that inspiring instructional and maybe you even get a great vendor partner out of it. We certainly recommend them keep coming back here every week on the influential personal brand. We’ll see you next time. Bye. Bye