Category: Podcast Recap

Ep 47: Expert Tips for Marketing, PR, and Personal Branding with Julie Solomon | Recap Episode

RV: (00:00)
Hey, welcome to this recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Today we are breaking down the interview with our good friend Julie Solomon. This is the three and three AJ and Rory bringing you our three highlights and Babe, I’m going to let you lead us. Your leadoff batter today.

AJ: (00:16)
Yeah, well I think the first thing is what an amazing gift it is to be able to see a friend as well as a client actually live in their gift and Julie’s interview is such, her living into her gift, she is just a wealth of knowledge when it comes to getting brand deals and just being proactive and knowing what to do. And I’m telling you what, if you haven’t listened to this interview and part of your income plan, your revenue plan is getting brand deals, listen to it. I get that as anywhere in the possibility of that something I’d like to be generating revenue from. Not just getting free stuff but making money. You have to listen to it. But I think all of that is to say one of the things that was really surprising to me in this interview and I didn’t expect for her to really talk about was the importance of confidence and how for a long time she didn’t have it because no one, Julie today, you wouldn’t think that she ever struggled, struggled with confidence.

AJ: (01:18)
And I love the context of what she talked about this. And I think this is really relevant for anyone who is out there trying to build a personal brand. Because at some point I know that you have asked yourself, should I really do this? Can I really do this? What are people gonna think? Or what if I tell people, and this just doesn’t go anywhere, or am I going to look too self-promotional? Or what if, what if? What if and I know that for many of you listening, that is the exact thing that is holding you back. It’s not your ability or capability. It’s nothing to do with that is your own mice mindset of can I, should I, what will people think if I do? And she really breaks that down and talked about how, you know, she was watching everyone else and there was this little voice inside that kept getting bigger and louder and bigger and louder.

AJ: (02:11)
And for years she ignored it and pushed it down. And then she talked about the, how she had a, a group of people who really loved where she was doing what she was doing for them and maybe didn’t want to see her explode out of that position and break out into her own. And I think confidence is so much of our own, our own mindset and our own belief, but then it’s also compounded by the people that we surround ourselves with. And so she spent like 10 minutes talking about this concept of confidence in a really unique way. And I just think that’s a, it’s a really unique thing to talk about when it comes to building your personal brand because you’re going to have to have, not a little confidence but a lot of confidence because there’s gonna be some naysayers and there’s gonna be some people who don’t want to see you succeed and who don’t agree with your message and you better have some confidence to back it all up.

RV: (03:03)
Yeah. Well, I, I thought that was powerful also. And like you said, it’s interesting to see our friend do that, who we know is this like, you know, amazing, confident person you know, proactively or practically one of my favorite tips was just if you’re pitching yourself for TV, do it on video and what a simple tip. But she, you know, really helped with that mindset of, of, of putting you in the frame of mind that a Booker or you know, like a producer is in and how they’re trying to think about shows and things that they’re putting together. And I also thought, you know, so, so that concept of just show people what you’re able to do. This was specifically for TV getting booked on television shows. That made a lot of sense. Like why wouldn’t you pitch in the format or the medium that you’re pitching for?

RV: (03:54)
I think you could also play that too if you were trying to pitch yourself for a podcast for like a major podcast production or a radio show, you should pitch in the medium that you’re, you know, you’re going for. So I thought that was super relevant. Relatedly. And this is something that we’ve found to be true for us as well, that it makes sense to start local before going national. You know, get those local television appearances cause they really need the content, particularly at the local level there. They’re trying to fill their calendar with meaningful stuff and you also don’t have to travel, which is really nice and you can do a lot of local gigs and almost become like a regular in your, on your local TV market and, and really build up the kind of real that you would need before you then go out and pitch to national.

AJ: (04:42)
Yeah. I think part of that is related to confidence in what Julie talked about is these people who are booking you, they need to have confidence that you are going to be good in this visual medium that you’re going to be showcased in, in this case that you’re referring to is TV. But it’s like they need to see that you’re not going to be stumbling, bumbling around and that you’re comfortable in front of TV. And she said even doing podcasts like this where it’s a visual medium and you’re having a conversation and you know, even if it is just like this or in the context of Rory interviewing Julie, she that that works. But people need to know and they need to have a confidence before they book you. And put you on there that they know what they’re going to expect.

RV: (05:21)
And I think so the second tip for me and for you was the same was around micro-influencers and I thought this, this was a healthy mindset shift.

AJ: (05:29)
Yeah. So I think that there was two big things that for me that were kind of like, huh, Oh yes. I’m talking about, and this is not the second or third time throughout the summit that I’ve heard people talk about the value of the micro influencer. And she talked about how there’s a huge misconception out there that you have to have hundreds of thousands of followers to get brand deals. And she goes, that’s just not,

RV: (05:51)
I mean I thought that I thought that

AJ: (05:53)
I was getting more money for brand deals and I had what, seven, 8,000 followers then my friends who had hundreds of thousands of followers and who were only getting free gifts versus actual paid money. And it all came down into positioning and messaging and audience awareness and how to pitch yourself and how to book yourself at this concept that there is a huge value in engagement more than followers. And she said for the micro influencer engagement has to be high. She goes, doesn’t it? It doesn’t matter about your follower counts. Sometimes it’s just how loyal and how engaged all the four are the followers that you have.

RV: (06:33)
Yeah. You know, I was thinking about this the other day that you know, you know, social media is so, it’s so like public or it’s like superficial. It’s what you see. The parallel for me is in golf they say you drive, you drive for show, but you putt for dough. Well your social media count is like a drive. It’s all for show. But I was thinking about somebody who has a 300,000 let’s say it says 300,000 followers. If they get a 1% you know like engagement rate, let’s say on 300,000 you’re talking about was the 10% would be 30,000 is that right? 10% would be 30,000 so 1% would be 3000 so would you rather be someone who had 5,000 people on your email list or 300,000 followers. And I think most people would say, Oh, I want $300,000 and I probably would too.

RV: (07:27)
Cause I think I could turn that into more email lists. But the reality of the actual reach there is about the same that maybe 10,000 people on email is, is worth having several hundred thousand followers on social because of the algorithms and what small percentage. And you know, what she was saying is your engagement rate when you’re a micro influencer is it’s easier to keep it high because you don’t have to have so many people engage with something as you have more and more followers. It’s like the content has to be so good that not just a small subset, but like a huge chunk of the audience has to really like it and engage. And so that’s just, again, to the perception of all of this is understanding, you know, I think the perception is really, really important. There’s value to perception, but also being able to appropriately to, to value the, the, like the monetary aspects of that and what’s that worth. And brands are intelligent, right? Like they know that and they know that somebody that, that gets, you know, a 10% engagement rate on a few thousand people is worth a lot and they know exactly who they’re seeing and they know exactly what type of people are seeing those. And you know, a lot of times too, you don’t have to pay as much for a micro-influencer as you do for a macro, you know, or a major influencer. So,

AJ: (08:48)
Or, it depends on how you pitch yourself according to Julie.

RV: (08:51)
Yeah. Well, I mean positioning, but positioning is always a part of it, but I think you, you have to go out and do the work and that, that’s probably to me, the third thing here is just her mindset.

AJ: (09:07)
Don’t sit back and wait. Yeah. She talked a lot about how all these people get all these followers and then they go, where’s my brand deal?

RV: (09:16)
Yeah. Where’s my money?

AJ: (09:17)
There’s like, I’ve done all this work. My job is to put out the content. My job has to get the followers. Why am I not getting this attention? Why am I getting these deals? Why am I not getting this? And the short answer is well, cause you’re not actually going out and asking for it. You’re actually, you’re not actually doing the work to go out and attract it and actually put your, literally put your content in front of them in a very direct way. And she talked about how on Facebook and Instagram, like DMS matter, she goes, DM these brands like actually get the conversation started there and then she talked about how on Twitter it’s more for media. She goes, if you’re really trying to get into media then be researching those media outlets on Twitter. But if you’re really trying to get in touch with brands, Facebook and Instagram as the way to go. And DMS is a really simple, easy way to start. No excuses, which I know is your big last thing is this concept around no excuses, but it’s not waiting around for people to come to you. It’s not this concept of build it. And they will come, no, build it. And then go invite them to come, go knock on the door and say, come tell them what you have inside, not build it. And they will come. That is not a real,

RV: (10:29)
It’s not a real business model. Yeah, you gotta be proactive. And that’s, I think that’s another misconception again, that I had, I just kind of think, Oh well, I’m sure all these people with millions of followers, like people just come to them and to have Julie go, no, you are proactive. You’re, you’re promoting your marketing, you’re your engaging, you’re networking, you’re reaching out to people and go, yeah, that’s the real, that’s the real work of getting a brand deal. And most people aren’t willing to do that work. And it’s like, it’s a classic example again of the real truth from behind the scenes being exposed from somebody who’s, who’s out there doing that. And I just, I love that about her. And I love her special snowflake syndrome. I just think that’s the coolest, I just think it is because, because we all think we’re special snowflakes, right?

RV: (11:19)
Like we all listened to it go, yeah, that doesn’t apply to me. Or yeah, I don’t need that, or I’m, I’m too smart for that, or I, I don’t need that really do that. It’s such a niche. Tiny audience on my end won’t work for my industry. Or the other thing is is is we kind of go, Oh well you don’t understand how hard I have it. You don’t understand like what I’m overcoming. You don’t understand that I have to deal with compliance or you don’t understand like in health care you can’t, you know, no one will just do this cause it’s healthcare. Or like there’s all this stupid stuff that we tell ourselves and it’s not that there aren’t certain kind of things that need to be navigated around, right? Like compliance for financial and the financial industry is a real thing. But it’s not the excuse to not do it at all.

RV: (12:07)
And what we do is we jump to, we take things that are our challenges and we turn them into excuses and we just go, Oh, because this is a challenge. Someone laid this down. I’m going to use that as my excuse to get out of it. And ultimately to be successful in anything like getting brand deals or building a personal brand or doing any, anything significant, you have to just move past the special snowflake syndrome and go, yeah, there’s nothing special about me. And there’s nothing special about the people who’ve been successful other than they didn’t buy into special snowflake syndrome and they worked, they did the research, they believed in themselves, they built a confidence, they made a presentation and they made it. They made it happen. And you know that, that that’s the secret. Like that’s the key. Like brand builders can teach you all the formulas and the frameworks and the structure and the order and the sequence and the logic. And you know, we have all these things get that can really help shortcut a path, but you still have to walk the path. And,

AJ: (13:08)
And I think just to like make it really clear, a special snowflake syndrome is actually give the definition that Julie gave.

RV: (13:16)
Giving yourself an excuse as to why your circumstances won’t allow you to achieve something you really want.

AJ: (13:22)
And I think we all battle that in some area of our life. It doesn’t matter if it’s building your personal brand or your finances or your fitness or your marriage, or friendships or family relationships, whatever. We all battle that in some arena. And what she is saying, well, that’s the thing that’s holding you back. And I love what you just said too. It’s don’t let the challenges you have become the excuses you make. Just because it’s a challenge doesn’t mean there’s not a way. Just don’t want to become an excuse.

RV: (13:53)
So listen to that. Julie was preaching it and she was doing fantastic job. So go listen to the words from her mouth. And thank you for staying. Stay in a part of what we’re doing. We’ll get to next time.

Ep 45: The Prepared, Consistent, and Persistent Host with Alberto Sardinas | Recap Episode

RV: (00:07)
Hola! Buenos dias! [INAUDIBLE] We are going to talk about, (laughing) we’re breaking down… Welcome to the recap edition of our good friend and client Alberto Sardinias. And we thought, it was AJ’s idea to start in Spanish and that was basically all of the Spanish we know

AJV: (00:35)
Spanish or murdering the Spanish language.

RV: (00:39)
It was definitely sharing every bit of Spanish we know in 30 seconds.

AJV: (00:43)
It was total Spanglish.

(00:43)
Actually little known fact, AJ was a Spanish minor in college and she studied abroad in Mexico. And I know a little Spanish here and there, so.

AJV: (00:56)
He looks like he should know more.

RV: (00:57)
I look like I should know more. Yeah, I don’t but. Fantastic. You know, I, I’ve, I’ve never personally, I was, you know, I don’t know, I was a little bit embarrassed to say this or not, but I was like, wow, I’ve never interviewed someone who was such a celebrity from such like, from a different language, like a non English speaking celebrity. And I think Alberto was really like my first interview, that they’re qualified at that. And I thought that was interesting.

AJV: (01:25)
Yeah. I told Rory even even as I was listening to the interview, I said my favorite thing about Alberto is I think part of it is the culture of the passion and enthusiasm and the charisma that he communicates with. And I think part of that is just cultural, which you know, boring a white people over here that have. But I just loved, I loved the enthusiasm and it’s easy to see why he has a cult-like following. Because he is very endearing and charismatic and passionate and just even the way he communicates and his, his facial expressions and his body language and his vocal quadrants. It is very engaging. It’s really awesome. Endearing.

RV: (02:09)
Yeah, that’s a really good, a good word for it. And I guess that’s a big, that’s a big takeaway from you for in terms of being a great host is just to be all of those.

AJV: (02:16)
Well, yeah, it’s like we listen to a lot of these and we do a lot of interviews and sometimes the content is amazing, but the person is so monotonous in their delivery of such amazing content and not just in our interviews, but you know, we’ve been in this industry for a long time and I have seen a handful of speakers and it’s amazing how it’s like you can read someone’s book and just be enthralled in the content and be like, Oh my gosh, these are revolutionary ideas. And then you travel and spend all this money to go see this person lie to see what kind of new and unique insights are they going to give us. And then you’re like, Oh my gosh, is this the same person who wrote the book? This is a, this is not good, this is not good. And so much of it has to do with the delivery.

AJV: (03:06)
It’s not just the content that matters. It’s a can you draw someone in? Can you keep my attention? And I will say, I am unfortunately a multitasker. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s really hard to keep my attention. And a lot of it has to do with just the personality per se. And it doesn’t have to be your own given personality, but it’s the way you expose your personality, right? We all have a personality and you don’t all need to be, you know, all over the place, right? Spirit fingers. That’s not what we’re saying. But there is some uniqueness around like what is it that makes you uniquely you and are you putting that across

RV: (03:50)
In terms of like energy that you’re, that’s coming up. Yeah. And I related to that, one of the things that he said, which I don’t, I don’t think you can hear enough, is you have to be willing to promote your message. So his enthusiasm for his message, you hear as he is talking about it. But the other thing that you probably need to hear today is that you can’t ever grow weary in promotion and you have to constantly be out there promoting loud and far and wide if you’re going to compete. And I struggle with this. Like I always feel like I’m pandering. I feel cheesy. Like I hate doing the thing. You know, people see this all the time on Instagram. Like, like, you know, to you know, leave me a comment or something like that. Like I just really struggle with doing that for some reason. But it’s not about you, it’s about your message and it’s about the people you’re helping and you need to promote. You need to be willing to do that. And Alberto has, has done a great job of that, particularly in his Spanish market and now it’s, it’s, it’s fascinating to see similar to us, he’s like going through this reinvention and in the, in the English speaking market. So it’s fun to see that.

AJV: (05:03)
Yeah. I think too, as you guys should go and listen to the interview, they, something that’s unique but also not unique about every single one of these interviews that we’ve had is the amount of patience and consistency and longevity and which these people have been doing and honing their skills in which it looks like. Oh my gosh, how did you get all it? Well it’s cause it’s been doing it a long time and for Alba Bartow though, he’s been doing it since he was 17 he was going out and trying to get time and the local radio stations when he was going from high school to college and did it all through college and then actually majored in this and then went and got his master’s in this and broadcasting and it’s like this didn’t happen overnight and these aren’t like sometimes I think it’s really easy to look online and be like, Oh wow, I wonder what their secret is. I wonder what their key is. I, you know, I wonder what this, you know, how can I do that quick as possible? No, the real secret is there is no secret. It is a lot of hard work, but a really long time.

RV: (06:10)
Yeah, and I, I I, you know, I, I heard Dave Ramsey talk about one time he was speaking at a conference, it wasn’t one of his events and he was talking about the radio business specifically. It’s an interesting parallel because in English speaking radio, there are basically three people at, at the top. It’s rush Limbaugh, it’s Glenn Beck and it’s Dave Ramsey. And it has been that for years and years and years. And he was talking about how if you just stick around, you’re going to beat like 80% of the people, right? So when you think about your personal brand and you go, Oh my gosh, there’s so much noise, there’s so much competition. Like how am I ever going to stand out? Well, beating 80% of those people is just sticking around. And I don’t even think it’s sticking around that long. It’s like making it two or three years, you’re going to outlast so many of those people.

RV: (07:04)
And then he said, if you actually work hard and, and, and you work smart, then the other 17% of those people you’ll, you’ll beat just by investing in yourself and getting some coaching and doing some strategy and being intelligent and working hard. Like when you’re doing it, not getting distracted and then, you know, so that puts you ahead of 97% of people. And then he said it’s that last 3% that is the dog fight. Like being in the top of the top of the top is where, you know, it really takes creativity and magic and hustle and relationships and everything else. But 97% of this game is basically just sticking it out. And I, you’re right. Almost every guest that we have talks about that, which in some ways is like, gosh, it’d be interesting to hear something different. Right. But it’s, it’s, it’s because it’s the truth and it’s what you need to hear and that’s what we need to hear every single day because you’re battling the burnout of, you know, building your brand. It’s just reality.

AJV: (08:15)
Yeah. I think one of my favorite things that our Alberto talks about was at the very, very end. And I’m not going to say I didn’t enjoy all of the lovely plugs he gave to brand builders. [inaudible] So great. Not solicited, but we will take them. Thank you very much. But I think what I really love is he said like, where are you getting shortcuts? I said, that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have to work hard and it’s not going to take a long time. It’s just where are you getting a shortcut, right? Who are you learning from? Who are you learning from? Like where can you go to figure out this one little tweak here and this little tweak there that will help expedite the process. Not that it’s going to eliminate the process, but it may give you a little bit of bump ahead of the competition or bump ahead of the time curve, whatever it may be. But where are you getting your shortcuts? So who are you learning from? And I love that. That was really good.

RV: (09:14)
Yeah. And because when you get into that top of the top right, like when you talk about the, you know, the one percenters of the industry or the space, it does come down to experience and wisdom and you know, a few tricks of the trade, you learn them more along the way. I think about speaking, cause you know, I spent my whole life and it’s like there’s certain little things that we just know because we’ve been in it our entire career where it’s like there’s no way you could know it. It’s just, it takes 20 years of just doing it. But you can, you can teach somebody in five minutes. But otherwise you would never, never stumble across it. And, and that was another thing that he said, this was my third big takeaway was just about being prepared. And when you look at being a great host, he said that that directly a couple of times, like a lot of is about being prepared.

RV: (10:04)
Even spontaneity. What it is is all perception. It’s not, it doesn’t, it’s not really spontaneous. It’s, it’s about great preparation. But not only just as a host but in his career, right where he was telling his story about how you just have to work day in and day out and I think people confuse patience a lot. I don’t think patience is sitting by and waiting. I think patience is working your tail off and being okay with the result, not being there and keeping, you know, continuing to work, continuing to grow, continuing to strive. The patience doesn’t mean you’re sitting around waiting. It means that you’re working your tail off in the absence of the results. Showing up with the perspective, knowing that if I do this long enough, one day I will get my shot. One day I will get my break. One day I will meet a person who can crack open my career and, and that is the, the balance of patience and action. In fact, we talk about that in the procrastinate on purpose book about this balance between patients and action. It’s because you on the surface they seem like different things, but really they’re not. It’s really about action. You’re just working, working, working the patience is being patient for the results, being patient for the big break to come and, and that’s just what it takes. You gotta have both,

AJV: (11:27)
Not everyone has patients Rory.

RV: (11:31)
From my, my wife.

AJV: (11:34)
But I do believe in the concept of work while you wait. Yeah. Right. I believe in the concept very strongly of work while you wait, that’s just a part of it. My third one, my last one, and it’s kind of similar to what you said, but this was towards the tail end of the interview. And we asked him, well, how do you handle people who come the air and their stories really are unfolding the way they need to be or their message is a little bit confusing and how do you guide those people in the right direction? And I loved what he said. He goes, you never put someone on the air when you don’t know what they’re going to say.

AJV: (12:08)
He said it’s really nice that from the outside it looks like this is a very seamless process. And people call in and then they just come on the air. He goes, that is not what happens. And I said, it shouldn’t be what you do if you don’t know what they’re going to say. If you don’t know who you’re interviewing, don’t put them on the air. That goes, I think to a podcast or a radio host or in so many things in life. It’s like if you don’t know what they’re going to say, shame on you. I mean, do you haven’t done your due diligence? You haven’t done your research or you haven’t got to know your guests well enough to anticipate the unique curve balls that may look a spontaneous but really aren’t so much at all because you knew they were coming. He said, if you don’t know what they’re going to say, you don’t put them on the air.

AJV: (12:56)
That’s your job as the host. I was like, you’ve got to know how the story is going to unfold. And I liken it a lot to being an investigative journalist, right? It’s like you’ve got to do all of your due diligence beforehand before you go live on the air because if you get surprised on the air, then you have not done your job. So you got to know what’s happening beforehand before it actually comes onto the air. We’ve been actually watching the morning show. It’s unbelievable, such so good and it’s just such a unique and needed message right now. But I think you learn a lot from just like the little bits of, you know, things you’re learning on the show, even in the midst of the larger message at hand, all those little things about the amount of work and preparation that has to go in place for one single interview. I thought that was very similar to what he was saying is like, yeah, you just don’t put people on the air when you don’t know what they’re going to say. That’s your job.

RV: (13:56)
Yeah, and that’s your job as a host is looking out for your audience, looking out for their best interest. It’s one of the things that I love about hosts. It’s, it’s a great skill and it’s, it’s a great mindset to say, Hey, I’m going to be a fiduciary or a steward for my audience. That’s what we hope that we are doing for you. We’re honored that you’re listening. Stay tuned. And that’s all we have for this episode of the influential personal brand.

RV: (14:23)
Adios!

Ep 43: Get Started with Ed Tate | Recap Episode

RV: (00:01)
Welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Man, I love Ed Tate. I’m so glad that you got to meet him and I’m excited to break this down for you. It’s sort of fitting that I’m filling in for AJ doing this recap just by myself, but because I’ve known Ed for years and, and in fact I’ve known Ed longer than I’ve known AAJ and he was one of my early mentors and you know, we honestly hadn’t had a conversation about the business about like how to grow your business and build, build a business in recent years because we just kind of become friends and usually catch up about friends’ stuff. And so I am honored that we got to see us to do that with you here as a part of the podcast. And so this is our recap, right?

RV: (00:51)
So what we’re doing is, is I’m going to share with you the big highlights, the big takeaways, at least that, that I took away from this interview, especially again, having known Ed for so long. And I think hearing his mentality and his outlook on business affects me differently now than when I first started. And the first thing that he said that really stuck with me that I think is super important for you, right, is he said, there is business in every economy as long as you reach outside the walls every day. So what he’s saying there is, look, the economy’s always changing, right? Sometimes there’s great market economy, sometimes there’s down economy, great Mark is bad markets. Yeah, sometimes there’s like a virus that breaks out and that affects the world. Or sometimes there’s a natural disaster, a tsunami or a, you know, there’s wildfires.

RV: (01:51)
Like there’s political elections, there’s Wars, there’s all of these things that are constantly happening in the world, constantly shaping the market or the landscape, new competitors, new technology, et cetera. But, but what he is saying is so critical and it’s like, if you don’t believe this, I don’t know how you can succeed longterm. And what he’s saying is that you have to believe and you have to know that there is business in every economy, every market, every, every condition or circumstance by which the world can be operating or what’s happening around us in the world. There is always business to be had because if you are an expert, if you really know something that can help people, people are always going to struggle with problems. They’re always going to struggle with motivation. They’re always going to need somebody to help them grow and develop and improve, whether it’s great economies or bad economies.

RV: (02:54)
And the key thing though is that you have to be willing to reach out. You have to be willing in all markets, good and bad to tell people about what you do. And I think Ed said something like, you have to have 20 different ways that people can find out about you. And I think that is is true. You need to have lots of ways that people can find out about you. I mean, generally speaking, we love to, you know, one of the things we do at brand builders group is we help people get really clear and phase one, you know, so we’ve got these nine essential phases. And the, the in phase one brand identification we talk about, you know, getting clear, we talk about getting clear on one message, you know, one audience, one business model and one medium. Meaning that those are your primary focuses, but almost always you can repurpose the content that you’re doing and ultimately in many different places and as long as you’re just repurposing things and spreading it across multiple mediums where people can find you.

RV: (03:59)
Like you got to have a lot of, a lot of you’ve got to have a lot of fishing poles in the water so to speak. Like you got to have a lot of, a lot of things out there. I remember hearing a speaker one time say you need to pump intellectual property out into the market as fast as you possibly can. You need to publish everywhere as much as you can. Publish audio, video, the written word, the spoken word, like publish on social media and white papers and blogs. And I don’t think he was advocating to say, look, it, you have to do all of these things to be successful. What he was saying is the more that you can systemize and habitualize and, and operationalize the idea of your ideas, getting out there, your outreach, your message, your movement, your, your brand, you’ve got to get it out there.

RV: (04:51)
And if you do that, you’ll survive in any economy. Like there’s, there’s businesses that do well in every economy. And so that was just a fresh reminder for me. And I think really just important because, and it is also to every experience level, right? Like some of you that are our clients, right? Like you might be listening in and maybe you’re earlier in your journey and you think, Oh my gosh, you know, I’m competing against all these more experienced people. But I’ll tell you on the other side of that, I’ve got tons of friends who’ve been in this industry for 20 to 25 years and they’re battling because there’s all these new people coming up into their fee range and stuff, and so they’re having to kind of battle to stay at the top. So everyone is battling, so to speak. But as long as you are believing in what you do and you’re pumping out content and you’re helping people, you can win and in any, any market.

RV: (05:48)
So that’s, that’s really good. The second thing from ed, which I thought was related to this, and I never actually heard him say this before, is he has this, this philosophy that he says, never put up a zero. Never put up a zero. In other words, on any given day, you can’t let the sun fall without having done something productive that moved your business forward right there. That even if you don’t make a sale per se, right? Like, even if you don’t get a contract, even if you don’t get a new customer, you should always, you should always go for at least one new piece of business every day. That’s what he was saying. I thought, I thought that was powerful. And it’s interesting because we used to teach sales so much and it’s been almost two years since I’ve taught sales specifically and it’s going to be a little while before we get back into teaching some of that.

RV: (06:44)
But to hear Ed talk about, Hey, don’t let the day end without getting a new piece of business. That’s a great mentality or mindset. But, but, but the part that I really loved was that he followed that up with at least get a new appointment. Right? If you can’t get a new customer, at least get a new appointment. If you can’t get a new appointment, at least get a new contact to follow up with. So there’s, there’s something that you’re doing on any given day that that is advancing the business. There is, is, is some marketing acquisition that you’re doing. And even if you can’t generate the revenue, you should be getting appointment. If you can’t get an appointment, at least talk to somebody new every day. And again, I haven’t been able to talk much about this over the last couple of years. And so it was interesting to kind of have someone else talking to me about it and was really, really good reminder.

RV: (07:40)
Now the last one I think honestly, I think is the most important one. I really do believe this and this take away [inaudible] one of the reasons I believe it’s true is because when I look at people like Ed, I see this habit in their life. [inaudible] When I look at our most successful clients, right? Like people who we help at brain builders group and I, and, and you know, we’ve had some really great wins in the, in the last year we’ve had, we’ve had clients hit number one, Amazon bestsellers. We’ve had people get on the today show we’ve had people grow their, their, their social media followings by over 50,000 people. Like we, we’ve had some clients that have really had some massive wins just here in like our first year of working with people. And you know, I see this to be true in them.

RV: (08:35)
And then when I look in my own life, I see this to be absolutely true. And when you hear it, it might sound like a marketing ploy, but it’s really not. It’s if you could just like put your, put your defense mechanism down for a second, like put your wall down for a second and just, just hear this Ed said, is you have to invest in your dream. You have to invest in your dream. Like you have to spend money on your dream. You have to spend time on your dream and look, even if you never buy anything from brand builders group, that’s totally fine. But understand this truth. In fact, Randy gage said this to me one time when I was younger and this always stuck with me. He said, you should, you have to be the number one investor in your own dream.

RV: (09:27)
Like, if you wouldn’t invest in you, why would anyone else, you know, I think about shark tank, like these people who go on shark tank and they’re asking for all this money. And one of the questions the sharks always ask is they say, how much money have you put in? Because they want to see that you believe in your own dream to the extent that you’ve put your own money. And that’s what winners do. That’s what ultra performers do. That’s what multipliers do. That’s what influencers do. That’s what hall of fame speakers in New York times bestselling authors and world champions of public speaking and, and you’ll huge celebrity followings. They invest in their own dream. And I think so often we’re reluctant to invest in our dream because either we think it’s stupid or we’re not sure it’ll work out. Or you know, honestly, sometimes we’re skeptical because we feel like, Oh, I don’t want someone to take advantage of me.

RV: (10:18)
And it’s not that at all. Like, look, doctors spend more money than anybody else in their education, right? Like they spend tons and tons of money on education. It should be no different for entrepreneurs. It’s just that your education happens in a different place. It doesn’t happen in a traditional school because traditional schools aren’t really set up. Most traditional schools, there are some, but most of them aren’t really set up for the entrepreneurial environment for like a small business environment. That’s just not the way the institutions are typically structured and most of the professors and things don’t have that kind of experience. So but it’s the same truth. It’s the same path. And so that’s just a question to think about, right? Is are you investing in your own dream? Like are you actually willing to put your own money where your mouth is? And if you’re not, then that should tell you something.

RV: (11:16)
You know what? What I think it says is I think it says this is a still a, this isn’t even a dream. This is a fantasy, right? This is something that is like this figment of your imagination that you kind of would love to be. It become true, but you haven’t actually backed that up with commitment. You actually haven’t gotten to the point of believing that maybe this could be a reality. You haven’t stepped forward with dedication, you, you, you haven’t actually added the element of even making this dream a possible reality. The moment that you invest right moment, you say, all right, I’m going to put some money in and it doesn’t have to be your life savings. You don’t have to mortgage your house always, right? Some people do that. You don’t have to do that. I’ve never been the guy who’s is mortgaged my house.

RV: (12:04)
I’ve always been the guy that was like, all right, I’m going to go generate some revenue. I’m going to go acquire a customer and then I’m going to invest most or all of that right back into the business and get the next one and then reinvest and get the next one and keep my lifestyle low, right? While we invest in the next thing. And, and that’s, that’s why brand builders group is set up. Like, look, I’ll just go ahead and share this with you. I know people see brand builders group and they see, Oh, you guys work with Lewis Howes. And Julie Solomon and Kevin Harrington from shark tank and Suzanne Hendricks, right? Like she’s got a million followers like, and people think or, or Mike Johnson from, from The Bachelor, right? So, Mike recently was one of our clients came to one of our events, right?

RV: (12:52)
And people see that we’re working with these and they assume that everything we do is expensive. One of the reasons why brand builders group is set up the way that it is is yes, we do some very high level one-on-one stuff for some high level entrepreneurs. These are people that make real money, right? They’re, they’re high six figures, seven figures, multi seven figures, eight figures. We have clients that have nine figure businesses. Like we have clients that do hundred million dollars in revenue in their, in their real business, and then they’re building their personal brand. But we will always as a company be set up to offer a low price point product. And we like our lowest price point product at this point is a $99 a month subscription. And the reason is, is because when I started my dream, I didn’t have any money.

RV: (13:44)
Like when I started, when I, the first time I said, I want to be a professional speaker. I didn’t have any money. I spent like the last $600 I had flying to take a humor course from Darren LaCroix, who’s one of ed Tate’s good friends and they’ve been business partners and joint done lots of joint ventures and things together because I identified humor as a place that I needed to get better. And that was like such a huge amount of money for me. And so brand builders group is always going to have something for people who are just starting out. And you know, at $100 a month, it’s gotta be something, right? If it’s $5 a month, it’s not enough to make somebody care. It’s not enough to make somebody show up. And, and frankly, I, I firmly believe that the education that we are providing to people is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that is available for $99 a month.

RV: (14:39)
And again, I’m not, I’m not making a sales pitch here for our service. I’m, I’m trying to illustrate this point though, that the people who break through the wall believe in themselves and, and one of the ways you know that you believe in yourself, like you have to give yourself a chance. And in one of the ways that you know that you’ve actually given yourself a chance is that you put some money in. Like you went to a conference, you’ve read some books, you’ve taken some classes you’ve learned from some people. And that is something that, like I said, I have done, these are our most successful clients have done. And I don’t mean with us, I mean with they got to be successful before we ever even saw them. They were investing in all sorts of things. So you got to invest, you got to believe in your own dream.

RV: (15:25)
You got to at least be willing to give yourself a shot to give yourself a chance and say, you know what, if there’s one thing I’m going to invest in, if there’s one thing I’m going to put my money and it’s not real estate. It’s not a market, it’s, it’s not. It’s, it’s in me, it’s in my brain. It’s that I’m going to say that the most valuable asset that I can invest money into is my own brain, my own mind, my own personal development. And that is something that winners do and we believe it’s so much that we will, no matter how famous our clients are, are. And no matter how big our client roster is, we are always going to have something. For those of you that are just starting out, no, our goal is going to be to escalate you, right? Like our goal is going to be able to help you learn enough that you can make money so that you can reinvest that into doing more with us because we want you to grow and we can’t, you know, we can serve you at a deeper level, right?

RV: (16:20)
Like our virtual training is, it’s education, it’s education directly from me and AJ and all of our senior strategists, but we know ultimately our goal is to get you into a one on one coaching environment with one of our strategists and to get you to our live events because we know that that’ll serve you faster and in a deeper way, but not everyone can start there, but whether it’s with us or whether it’s with somebody else, you’ve got to invest, right? Like you’ve got to place that bet on yourself. Don’t be afraid of losing. Don’t be afraid of failing and don’t be afraid of being taken advantage of someone. I can say firmly, I’ve, I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on my own education and there are certain types of education that are better than others. There is no doubt about it, but I have never invested in any program where I didn’t at least learn enough to get my money back.

RV: (17:19)
Right? Like there are some where it’s like, man, that that experience could have been, they could have charged a hundred times what they were charging and I would have paid for and I would’ve got my money back. And that’s what we strive to do at brand builders group. But there’s never been one course that I bought that I didn’t at least learn something from or one conference that I went to that I didn’t at least get a great idea from. But you got to take that shot and no one else can do that. And, and if anyone else gives you the money, it’s not the same. It’s not the same as you betting on you, right? So again, I don’t care who it’s with, but if you have this dream, if you have this calling, if you have this message inside of you, then you have to take a chance on you believe in yourself, make that investment of money and time and work. Never put up a zero and believe that if you just do all of these things day in and day out, ultimately you, well, when that’s all for this one brand builder, we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand podcast.

Ep 41: Following Your Life’s Calling in the Face of Persistent Fear with Luvvie Ajayi | Recap Episode

RV:    00:00     Hey Brand Builder. Welcome to this special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. I’m joined by my wife and business partner, CEO brand builders group, AJ Vaden. Hello. And today we’re breaking down the interview with Luvvie Ajayi who I absolutely love and she is a brand builders group client and is somebody that we just got to meet really over like the past two years and I’ve gotten to know a little bit and work with her and also learn from her. I think she’s definitely one of those, one of those clients. And I think when I think of that interview and when I think of Luvvie in general, I think the most clear, consistent thing that she says and does in terms of her strategy for building her brand is it’s just incredibly authentic. And she talks about the way to break through the noise is to just kind of passionately own what you believe and to come out right and just say it and don’t be afraid. The fallback, which I think takes a tremendous amount of, of courage. But that’s, I think, you know, her book is, I’m judging you, right? So she’s like putting it right out there. Like that is a part of her brand is, is to really just like lay it out there on the line. So I, and I think she does that. I think she, that’s what her brand is all about. And I think that’s, that’s one of the biggest things that I, I took away from her.

AJV:     01:24  Yeah. I think, you know, one of the things that she says in the interview is it’s not always about finding your voice, it’s about following your voice. And I think, and as that relates to building our, growing your personal brand, it’s just how confident are you in being your authentic self? Because I think you will, you’ll find in Luvvie is she, the girl’s got confidence and she’s got boldness. She’s very bold. But that’s because she truly believes in what she’s saying. And I think for any of us, if we’re afraid that people are going to be judging us, then perhaps the message that you’re trying to share isn’t the real one. If you’re so concerned about what everyone else is going to say and what everyone else is thinking, is that your real truth? I think that’s set there. Deep root of Luvvie as she goes.

AJV:   02:10  No, this is my truth. And to some degree, who cares if you like it, right? Cause this is my truth. And you don’t have to like it because it’s my truth. And there’s a whole group of people out there who need to hear what my truth is. And that’s who, I’m speaking to. And for you a quote unquote haters. It’s just not for you. So don’t follow me. Don’t like it. Don’t read my book, don’t listen to my podcasts, don’t read my blog, don’t read it and then get so offended. Just don’t follow me. But how passionate are you about your message? Like is it your truth to the point where you’re like, not trying to offend anyone but if they get offended. So we it, I think that’s just a really good kind of place of going, is this my truth? Is this my core message to the point of, wow, so what, what you think?

RV:   03:03 Yeah. Well, and I, I love that. Like conceptually, if it is your truth, it’s like what other option do you have to really just come out and say it and you don’t want to water down your truth. You don’t want to Dodge. Yeah. Sugarcoat the truth. It’s like, if this is your truth, it’s what you really believe, then you have to just kind of come out and own it and dominate it. And she’s a good example of someone who does. Although I would also throw in there, you know, she’s a great real life story of somebody that was, you know, 15 years to an overnight success.

AJV:   03:32  Consistent. Yeah. And you said like

RV:   03:35   10 years on the blogging plus. Yeah. She was like one of the, the O G bloggers, like she’s been blogging for a long time.

AJV:  03:43                That’s so true. But again, it’s like [inaudible] I think the most consistent thing that you will hear through all of these interviews is consistency. There’s, there is no way around, there is no like, Hey, start tomorrow and you know, get whatever 6 million fans or like our followers on Instagram, unless you’re Jennifer Aniston who started her Instagram account and then like in 24 hours, that’s six

RV:   04:06                And spent decades building up her personal brand and becoming Jennifer Aniston.

AJV: 04:10                So I think all of those things I think are important. It’s consistency is the game. But what I really loved about that kind of point is it’s more about what’s your real truth and if it really was your truth, and I didn’t be so offended

RV:   04:23                I wasn’t thinking about this before, but, but something about the way that yours saying it, babe, about there’s some quote, and I’m probably gonna mess this up, some stuff off the top of my head, but something, a quote from a Mont Mcgon D that was like, I’m not interested in being right. I’m only interested in truth. And I also took that away away from her because even though her, her book is like, I’m judging you. And she’s very, you know, forward and bold. Bold is a great word, I think for Luvvie. And I totally admire that about her. It wasn’t just like being judgy. That’s not what her thing is about. Right. She has these three questions that I thought were super powerful, which was do I really mean it? So again, is it truth? Can I defend it? Which also is, is it truth and am I saying this out of love, which is also truth, right? It’s like I’m not saying it to just be right. I’m not saying it to offend you. I’m not saying it to just get my opinion across

AJV:  05:19   To get attention or to be controversial. Is this just just who I am?

RV:  05:25     Yeah. And if, and if, if it passes those three tests, then I think what she is saying is it can be sharp. It can be pointy, it can be penetrating like [inaudible] because, because it’s not about just being right. It’s not about just having some flagrant opinion. It’s that you really mean it. You’ve thought through it, you can defend it and you’re saying it out of love. And to me, one thing that didn’t really come up in the interview, but where I would say this applies directly for personal brands is in media training. If you’re going to be on TV, you have to have an opinion and it needs to be sharp and pointy and powerful, right? Like what makes TV is drama. Doesn’t mean you have to be mean. It means you have to be clear and you have to be opinionated. And that’s what often creates drama on TV, which is [inaudible] two opposing opinions. But the, you know, that’s why the people you see on TV are never the really like level-headed, you know, key even keel people. Cause it doesn’t make, nobody wants to watch a TV show for a bunch of people getting along. It’s, it’s just not interesting generally speaking. And so having an opinion and knowing what that is I think is,

AJV:   06:34                Is it important? Yeah. Agreed. That’s great.

RV:  06:37                The other thing she talked about, and maybe you can talk about this baby is probably the third thing is about the audience because that was very aligned with some of the stuff that we teach.

AJV:   06:46                Totally. She said that, you know, when you’re speaking, when you’re writing, when you’re just talking in general, do it through the lens of who is my single target? Who was that single individual? Like what are their demographics, what are their psychographics? So demographics is like, how old are they? What gender are they? Where are they from? You know, what is their socioeconomic status? And the psychographics are, you know, what do they care about? What do they believe in? What do they value? What are they struggling in? What questions do they have? Ha, you know, like where do they need to be met? Those are the things that you want to be thinking about as you’re writing and speaking your message. It’s who are you directing this to? Who is that single individual that you were talking too? And I love that because you know, you talk a lot about how when you were riding take the stairs that you really felt like the first chapter that this even worthwhile was when you really concentrated.

AJV:  07:44                Like I am not writing to people, I am writing to person one person. You had one person in mind. And you know, I think too, even with me it’s like when I think about like my message in my keynote and what I do, it’s like when I think about this is the exact person that I am speaking to, it is so much easier for the content to flow cause I’m not trying to make it general. It’s not general. It’s do I very specific unique individual. And that makes a world of difference in the uniqueness and in your stories and in the message and in the endearment and then the true sincerity that’s coming across because you’ve got this, this one person in the back of your mind. I’m going, this is you, this is for, this is the message that will change your life.

AJV:   Not Hey, someone out there who might be listening. No, it’s no, I know you’re listening. I know who you are. This message is for you. I think I just totally changes the whole ball game and and if you listen, if you follow Luvvie that is how she talks. That is how she writes. And I think it’s really, it really like if you’ve ever been in church and I have this, I have this moment, all the, I’m like somebody tell him like that’s what I’m going through right now. Like it’s like what’s what’s happening? But it’s like you’re sitting there in the audience and you’re like, man, that was for me today. That was for me. I needed that. Like that message was speaking to the heart of what is going on in my life. That is how people need to feel about your message.

RV:  09:16                Yeah. And that it’s so powerful and passionate and punchy when you visualize that one person in your head like this is who I’m talking to versus let me sit down and write my, you know, my memoir for the world. The other thing about that, the avatar thing, cause that was another big takeaway from me that [inaudible] for those of you that are listening, if you’re, if you’re a client already of ours, you know we, we T you know we’ve got these, this four phase process that we talk about a brand builders group and when we get to phase three we talk about high traffic strategies. And when you get into that phase, the technical, it becomes all, there’s some technical components of advertising and when you get into the backend of Facebook or you get into the back end of Google and YouTube and you literally the world is your playground to reach hundreds of millions of people and it actually becomes an exercise to go, wow, who am I really trying to reach? Yeah. The more, the more well versed you are in who your avatar is, the, the faster that process is going to go, the smoother that process is going to go. And the less money you’re going to spend because you know exactly the person you are.

AJV: 10:24                Hopefully the higher conversion because that person will, you know, it’s like whatever that mess that you say this. Sometimes it’s like, I’m like, you have a radar.

RV:   10:36                Oh, a signal. A signal. Yeah. It’s a good that you pay such close attention.

AJV:  10:42                Sonar radar signal. You’re sending out a signal and they’re picking it up. Yup. Same will happen in the advertising and ad spend if you have that very targeted perspective. I think that’s such a good point because we know so many people who were like, I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars in Facebook ads or ad words or whatever, and it’s like, it doesn’t work. And it’s like, well, we also know people who’ve spent millions of dollars and say it’s worth every single penny. So what’s the difference? Do you know who you’re targeting? Do you know where to find them

RV:  11:16                And are you watching the data of what converts? I mean, that’s the other thing that happens in phase three is phase three from a data perspective will teach you a lot about who your avatar is versus who you think it is. Because you might, you know, you start phase one, learning your identity, phase two, brand creation. You start putting all this content out, but then you get to phase three and you’re running ads and you’re seeing this type of person is engaging and this person is not, and this person is buying in. This person is not as like, wow, my voice really appeals to a different audience than I ever anticipated. That’s one of the most exciting and fun things is to go. You really start to fine tune it. So anyways, you can’t do that without aiming at somewhere first. So pick out that avatar. Be bold, be passionate, be unapologetic. That was the word as we were talking about this to me, what, what I love about Luvvie is she is bold and unapologetic and unfiltered, unfiltered, and she’s just living her truth and she’s not trying to be mean. She’s just being direct about her truth and it’s winning for her and it’ll win for you. So go out, do that today and we’ll catch you on the next episode of the influential personal brand.

Ep 39: The Professional Noticer with Andy Andrews | Recap Episode

RV: (00:00)
Hey, welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. We are back, Rory and Aja Vaden, husband and wife, best friends, business partners, and your partners and guides and mentors and roles and leaders. Hopefully for you as a support coach on your journey to build and monetize your personal brand. We are breaking down our top three and three from the Andy Andrews interview. And I’ve known Andy for a lot of years. We’ve known Andy for a lot of years.

AJV: (00:31)
I was a reader of his work way before anything else.

RV: (00:35)
Yeah. And he was one of our big mentors. If it wouldn’t, if it weren’t for him and his work, we probably would have never become authors, probably never would become New York times bestselling author for sure. And so he’s made a big impact on us. And so it was really cool to get to bring you to him or bring him to you so you could hear so AGL, I’ll give you the, why don’t you take it away? Give us, give us what was your number one takeaway?

AJV: (01:00)
Yeah. I think my number one takeaway is this whole idea that your learning has to come before your writing. It’s a, you can’t think that you can just say the same thing over and over and over in five, six, 10, 15 different books and people aren’t gonna realize like, Hey, this is just regurgory regurgitated, repackaged information.

RV: (01:24)
You don’t want regurge [inaudible] nobody wants for their surgery.

AJV: (01:29)
But I loved how he said, he said, listen, I’m not going to be one of those guys who just says the same thing and then have my editors and publishers spin it and repackage it and sell the audience the same old thing that just looks slightly different. He goes, I really want to provide different and unique messages that mean something that I really provide value based on my own personal life experiences or those that I have come in contact with. And I love that. So just the whole concept of you can’t be continually writing a proof prolific information or valuable information or even at its most basic element worthwhile information if you’re not continually out there learning ahead of your writing.

RV: (02:11)
That’s my number one. Yeah. That was my number, my number one too. And I just, I think as an author it’s a, it’s an important thing that you see a part of your job is learning a part of your job is learning. Like it’s, it’s, it’s not separate from the writing process. It’s the first step in the writing process is to be learning. And I think, you know, part of how you create a different angle on the world or a different, a different view is because you’re assimilating all of this information from a number of a number of different sources. And I think so is this your number one as well? Well, that was my number one as well. And, and my number two is where he talks about also I love what he said. This, I want to say the quote exactly.

RV: (02:58)
He said that part of the role of a great author is to dedicate yourself to seeing the details that will be valuable to other people that most people overlook. And so I think in addition to learning, there’s, there’s learning and then there’s paying attention to and there’s zooming in on and there’s highlighting. And that’s a really important skillset. Also a great comedians. You know, he talked about talks about that as well, about what makes things funny. But as for you to, you know, grab one little point out of everyday life or one little point out of a book or a show or something and be able to zoom in on it and, and teach that as a learning point for everybody. Everybody. So that was my number two thing is just kind of the skill of learning is number one. And then the skill of zooming in and noticing is number two.

AJV: (03:46)
Yeah, it’s the notice the notice. So and I don’t really know how this connects, and this isn’t really a point, but it’s a side comment. So I’m going on a tangent, but on this concept of honing in and really focusing on one point, I think one of my biggest pet peeves in the professional workplace, both as a leader, as a student all of the above wrapped up into one is when people read for the sake of reading and not for the sake of learning. And I think as a leader in our former life and I, you know, I had, you know, over whatever, 75, 80 direct reports for many years and I would give away books often. I still give away books often. And I would have people come back to me all the time say, yeah, I love that book. And they’d show it to me and it’s underlined and it’s highlighted, but I would never see notes.

AJV: (04:38)
And I would say, so what have you applied? Like what was your biggest takeaway? And they would give me some sort of general synopsis and I said, no, no, no. What did you do after reading this? What did you learn? How did it change your thinking? How did it change your actions? How did it change your conversations? And so often I realize like they just read it for the sake of reading, but not for the sake of noticing something that was very unique and intentional that they could then apply in their life or in their work. And I, what I love about Andy is he is so intentional on the little details as well as the big overarching, you know, message or concept. But it’s like you’ve got to notice the little things and you’ve got to implement the little things in order for it to work.

AJV: (05:25)
You don’t have to make huge big changes to see big huge differences. Little ones can many times be, all it takes is a little tweak here and a little tweak there. But gosh man, it’s one of my biggest pet peeves in the workplace is when people don’t notice the things that need to be fixed. It’s like you walk away, you lucky walk away, you walk around all day with like blinders on. I attended sunglasses that I don’t, I don’t enable you to see the whole picture. And I’m like, you’ve been doing this for years. How have you never noticed this and because you’re not actually trying to, I love that about Andy and his whole, and I think the reason, okay, so I’m going to tie this together so it actually makes sense of why I’m going on a tangent here. I think one of the things that he speaks about writes about and that he just is about is what are the things that make a really big difference even if you don’t feel things that you have done, things that could make a difference.

AJV: (06:21)
So he said that for him, for example he hasn’t won five super bowls and he hasn’t been the owner or CEO of some big company and he doesn’t have like these big huge championships, these one or these like crazy life stories. Like he didn’t, he was, he didn’t land a plane on the Hudson and he didn’t do all these things. He said, my supernatural gift has been to notice, to notice the things that no one else takes the time to notice and then to write about them and to talk about them and to build that. One thing that I noticed and to add whole collection of work. And I think that should give everyone a lot of confidence of going like you too can be a noticer. You two can pay attention to the things that are happening in your surroundings, in the news or on social media.

RV: (07:07)
If you’re any type of a speaker, an author, I mean that’s what people are paying for you to do is to help distill the world around you and make it directly applicable. And I think that that is a part of, you know, to what you’re saying about the reading and the absorbing is that it’s almost like real learning is evidenced by the fact that action takes place afterwards and people rely on you as a thought leader to, to distill the information down, to communicate efficiently, concepts that they can then go, Oh wow, I didn’t see all of that. But you took all of that in and then you gave me the nugget and now I can make a change in my life.

AJV: (07:45)
Yeah. So I think, I guess my point number two is be a noticer. Like be a noticer. Pay attention and then share your unique twist on whatever it is that catches your attention. Well, whatever it is that notices or whatever you notice and actually be a noticer.

RV: (08:02)
Yeah, love that. So that’s worth it’s worth striving for. For me, the third one was actually pretty simple. It’s is something that I think I, I share as a personal philosophy with Andy is he says, you know, I strive to write books that will last a hundred years because they’re based on time tested principles. And I think it’s sort of like, you know, in, in any, anything that you’re teaching, any type of information or marketing or or knowledge based transfer. There’s, I almost think of like these two, there’s like two planes, there is, there’s practices and then there’s principals. So principals are the timeless truths that never change. And then there’s the practices which are like the really specific tactical things. And a lot of times those do change. And so it’s a little bit of a balance of both. But you just have to at least be aware that if your writing or teaching or you’re creating a video course, that’s all practices is very specific.

RV: (09:00)
It can change over time. You know, think about teaching practices of social media. Those would change frequently. You’d have to update with new screenshots at least once a year most likely. But the principles of, you know, social marketing or word of mouth marketing, those have been true forever and they would apply even regardless of if the medium is social media or word of mouth or you know, whatever. And so I just thought that was interesting that he noticed that and that was something that he does deliberately. And you know, I tried to strive to do that too is I really want to peg the principal so that you know, when Jasper Liam or reading something 20 years from now they would go, wow, this is still, this is still true today.

AJV: (09:44)
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. That wasn’t my third point, but I’m going to borrow yours and make it my third point, which is, you know, it’s so funny because I had to go to the dentist this morning and my dentist has like these huge TVs like right above you. So I guess you don’t have to talk to the hygienist is they clean your teeth. I don’t know why they do it, but they always have the same show on. It’s the only time of the year. I watch it for 20 minutes, twice a year as the what’s her name? Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest. Right. So it’s their show. And it was so funny because today they had a Harry Potter on, don’t know what his real name, Harry Potter, I have no idea. But Kelly was talking about how Halloween this year, 2019 that she had a ton of Harry Potter costumes and she was like, I mean, Harry Potter has been out now 15 years, 15 years.

AJV: (10:35)
And they were talking about how there’s an art of performing timeless stories. And that’s very much what Andy was actually talking about in the interview today is how do you write something that’s not trendy that regardless if it was now or in 30 years, you’d be like, wait, when was this written? And then as I was thinking about it as you were talking over the weekend who were in, I watched a masterclass by Sarah Blakely on entrepreneurship. That was awesome. But here’s the thing that was amazing. I mean first female, self-made billionaire ever. She could have talked about so many things to do with what it means to be an entrepreneur and take your concept to product and then to market and then to go from a million to 10 to hundred to billion. That’s not what she did. Her masterclass is about mindset and what I loved most.

AJV: (11:28)
I think the biggest thing that I remembered is she was like my dad when I was young. I gave me a Wayne Dyer cassette tape or whatever it was, whatever. And that didn’t make me thinking it’s like, cause people still listen to you and read Wayne Dyer today. And it’s like, and it was already old when she got it. It is that timeless thing about the way you think and the way you view things and mentality and mindset and philosophies and principles, not just the tactical practices of what you do. And I think too that if you’re trying to appeal to the masses, if you’re really trying to enhance and grow your personal brand in a way that really does set you off on a trajectory to be known and to break through what we call she hands wall. Some of that has got to be a little less tactical, a little less practice and a little more philosophy and principle, principle and mindset and the way you think.

AJV: (12:29)
And I think those are a lot of the timeless principles that we tend to get away from because we think people don’t want those. We think people need to know how do you do this and what do you do and how do you go from here to there where many times the real key of even doing that is the more soft skills as you would say, and how you think and how you view things and [inaudible] and I love that it’s like between this Harry Potter reminder this morning and the Andy, Andy’s Andy Andrews interview and Sarah Blakely, like those are three people all in the same weight from completely totally entrepreneurship, Hollywood movie author, but are all saying the exact same thing. And it’s how to be timeless. Like what are the timeless principles that really do withstand the trends and what’s just happening right now? So I love that.

RV: (13:19)
Yeah. So that’s your role, right? That’s a part of what you’re doing. Somebody out there, right need right now needs for you to help them interpret the world around them. They need you to help them distil all of this information down in, into actions and mindsets that they can apply directly into their life as such an important role. And what a gift to be able to go out and do that on every given day. So go ahead, go forward, do that, and we will catch you next time on the influential personal brand. Okay.

Ep 37: The Marriage of Music and Business with Brett Kissel | Recap Episode

RV:00:00 Hey brand builder. Welcome to this special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. I’m joined here by my wife and business partner and CEO, AJ Vaden of brand builders group. And we’re just breaking and breaking down for you are our three and three today of Brett Kissel, which I love because Brett introduced us into the music space and was really our first client, like well known client in the music space. And so this was a super, super interesting interview. Really great to see how these strategies and techniques and things apply over in the music business. So this is our top three and three. So AJ, why don’t you kick us off? 

AJV:00:45Yeah, so my first one I think applies to all of the creatives out there and I loved his entire interview. And if you are in any sort of naturally deemed creative space, so anything in the artistry world, you should really be really listened to this cause. I think one of the high highlights or insights for me that I gathered from this is he talks about how so many people who are creatives ignore the business side of what they do. And he said, that’s just a really big mistake because you’re, you’re depending on somebody else to build, run and grow your business. And that’s a problem. Right? And at the same time, if you had to pick what’s more important, the creative side or the business side, he says, well, you know what comes first, the chicken or the egg? He said, well, in this case it’s probably the creative side because the business doesn’t really work if you’re not any good. 

AJV:01:32So you have to be really good. You’ve got to be rather, it’s a great musician or writer or whatever. Your creative space is a screenplay writer, any of the things. But I think it was really interesting. He said, once you’ve got the creative side them though you have to have business acumen, you have to know how to grow a following, build a following, how to handle your finances, how to get brand deals, how to find the right management team, the right agent, how to get yourself booked. I E be a sales person. He said at the end of the day, so much of what I do is basic salesmanship. He goes, I was in sales, but not technically right, but considering himself as an artist, I have a guide to sell myself and my work to the small deals to the big deals that he’s gotten. I loved his story that he shares about when he was 16, he went down to the car dealership and negotiated himself a free truck and he was willing to do for that free truck. That was his first brand deal and he was 16. And just getting started and, but he knew how to negotiate and how to craft himself, how to craft himself as a barter asset in terms of getting other people to do things or expose your product or services to things. And I think this all comes around this whole idea of like your brand is a business. It’s a business. It’s not just about beautiful messages and pretty pictures and that, well it is, but so much more. It’s so much more. 

RV:03:00Yeah. I mean, any, any company, any business has a product, right? And like the product is super important. You got to have a, a beautiful whatever, a a very well functioning whatever. And it’s very important. But there’s all these other components. There’s marketing the thing, they’re selling the thing, there’s accounting, there’s HR. This makes me think of eight figure entrepreneurs. So if our phase four of that brand builders group, we divide things into phases and phase four is called eight figure entrepreneur. It’s all of the non artistry parts of the business. It’s basically, you know, teaching how to run a business entrepreneurship. Yeah. And that’s, that’s really, really important. And I think I also picked up on the brand deal thing and him starting really young. That was one of my highlights. There’s another interview that will be coming out with Julie Solomon. 

RV:03:48She talks specifically about how to get brand deals and the details you’re gonna want to listen to that as well. But the thing that Brett said that was, was really powerful and I think is important is he said your brand deals are going to win if you can talk about products that, that, that you authentically and genuinely are excited about. So. Right. So he went and got like this truck which, you know, I wouldn’t want a brand deal for truck. I would want some other type of car or getting a truck all the time. Well, I would like very off brand, but I know, but I would like to have an F-150 so you know, if anyone’s out there or you know, any company you want to do a brand deal with me for a truck. 

RV:04:32No, there’s a whole market for this because it could be the truck for the non manly man. 

RV:04:37Nobody said anything about not being manly. I don’t, that was another level there. Babe Anyways. Anyways, let’s carry on here. Not the non manly. I mean it is true. I probably, I’m probably more of like an Escalade truck or something with massaging seats. Anyways, let’s carry on. The people are interested in our, in our issues. So but, but, but what could you be excited about, right? Like what are the things, what are the products you actually use and just approach those people and say, Hey, you know, I’ve got a platform. And, and I this, you know, Julie talks more about this too, but, and also when Brett was really young, it’s, you don’t have to have millions of followers. Like micro influencers are a big part of the day. It’s like if you’re reaching a dedicated audience and you’re truly passionate about the product and you use it, you can help that brand when you can make some money from them and you can introduce products to your customers that you really believe in. Yeah. 

AJV:05:32Kind of enough set on the brand deals part, but I wasn’t really just, 

RV:05:35I can’t focus, I’m still thinking about the non manly man comment from my wife. It’s okay. I’m still married. Yes, that’s true. Okay. Well that’s I think a big part of 

AJV:05:45This interview is also around talks a lot about online engagement and the social media component of as an artist or as anyone. Like how do you really do that? And he said, I thought this was really interesting, that record label at the time gave him a strategy that he was going to follow. And I said, Hey, listen, you’re young, you’re in your 20s. You don’t wear a wedding ring. So I’m, let’s really position you as available and single and really trying to help people in their twenties, figure out who they are and where they’re going. And the problem was 

AJV:06:15He was married. 

RV:06:17big problem 

AJV:06:18And very proudly married and happily married and knew where he was going. And you know, he’s married and has got kids and he was like, yeah, no, 

RV:06:28He’s the coolest family guy too. That’s just Brett. 

AJV:06:31It’s not who I am. I’m going to be me online. And that includes my awesome wife who’s also an influencer in her own right. And it’s gonna include my awesome kids. And if that doesn’t work for you, then it doesn’t work. And he said, here’s what I have found out is that because I am my authentic self, which means covered in cookie dough batter or pancake batter, he said, I will get two to three times more likes on being my normal dad husband self than I will on F on a stage with Garth Brooks, 30,000 fans. It’s incredible. The engagement and the authenticity and the realness of me just being me is three times more popular than the, Hey, let me position myself as this single available guy traveling the world, playing on stages. I said three times more just being me. 

RV:07:25I love that. 

New Speaker:07:25Yeah, I love that. I dunno if I would get more likes if I didn’t wear a wedding ring. I’m not going to find that though. Boy, you’re not to know. I would never do it. I would never do it. And that’s kind of disheartening, you know, some of that, some of that stuff exists, but just, you know, being, being yourself is super, super powerful. I, you know, I, I noted the exact same thing. So that was one of my big takeaways is just real life social media posts. And it’s the same way. Like when Jasper, I mean fortunately like our kids are so entertaining, Jasper and Liam and we get the same thing, like lots of posts, engagement. It’s that real, that realness, that everyday life I think that people can relate to. So just do that. And you know, that’s a, Sam, not sorry to be referencing these other interviews, but we have these other podcasts interviews. 

RV:08:13He dives in deep, deep, deep, deep on technically like where to post your real personal stuff and then where to post your motor businessy stuff. And he’s got a really good strategy. So stay tuned for that interview as well. The last one for me, my third takeaway, which was just really huge and inspiring, and I didn’t say this earlier, but I, I love Brett. Like he is a guy that is just nice and everything about his brand to me represents like genuine and authentic and sort of like, you know, almost like the little engine that could story of he’s the true authentic musician. Yeah. That’s country people are just good people. Well, and here’s the word and you know, he is a client, so we’ve actually worked, worked with him and his manager jam, they came over and we worked with them. But this idea of the long shot is, is everything is like he was just a normal kid from like a small town. 

RV:09:07Right. That wouldn’t, you know, wouldn’t make it as a country star. And you know, people see him, he literally, if you didn’t listen to the interview, I mean, he literally opens for Garth Brooks. So he’s a huge, like one of the huge Canadian act Canadian country music, male vocalist of the year on and on and on in Canada and, and he’s really just getting known in, in the U S but he’s touring with Garth Brooks. And what he talks about is he remembers when he first started, he was doing small customer appreciation events. He was doing rodeos like when nobody was paying attention to car dealerships, like these tiny, tiny events. And I, when he said that, I’m like, man, I used to speak at a Perkins restaurant for Toastmaster groups for like three people on a Friday night in a Perkins restaurant. I still remember what that feels like. 

RV:09:57And, and you just don’t, you can never hear that story enough because you see the glamour and the glitz and you think, Oh my gosh, it’s so far away. I can never be that. And yet when you meet these people and you hear their stories, it’s the same freaking story every time. It was the person that was willing to play the rodeo, play the Perkins, like do the small gig and do it over and over and over. It’s, it wasn’t a big break or some, some lucky find. It was that discipline regimented. Like this is my dream and I’m going after it and I will start so small and I’ll get better and better and better. And now just like, I mean we, we went and we went with Brett to, to with his team to see Michael bublé. Like he, he gave us tickets. It is like, yeah, I know Michael bublé and Garth Brooks and it’s like, what? Like, who are you? You’re like a real life celebrity. And yet he’s this, this country boy married man, dad, just like living on a prayer. Ah, I just, I love that his story, we can tell it makes me cry. 

AJV:11:02So my last point would be similar to that, but in a different respect of if, when you listen to this interview, he started when he was ven yyears old and someone in his family, I think he said it was his grandmother said, I just, I see music in you. And I think for so many of us we won’t be where we want to be without a support system. So maybe it’s your family, maybe it’s friends, maybe it’s mentors, whatever. But having a support group of literally a group of people who are supporting what you do, advocating for what you do, believing in you is vital to any success. Imagine if no e iin his family would have said, I see something in you. So we’re going to foster it. We’re going to buy you the, and we’re going to buy you the instruments. We’re going to get you the lessons. We’re going to take you to all these road shows and rodeos and, and country fairs. And 

RV:11:53Now they’re driving and someone’s driving you. 

AJV:11:55Oh, the things right. We’re going to dedicate time and give you our basement or garage to practice in. We’re going to allow you to start this band. And more than that, we’re going to take you down to those car dealerships and help negotiate and barter deals for you because that’s what we want to do for you. And I think as a parent even though my, my babies are really little, they’re o aand a half and set and ven mmonths now, it’s like this concept of like e oof my jobs as a parent, I E supporter and advocate for my kids as well as people around me that I love and believe in. It’s, it’s to let them know that they can do it. And then not just to say, you can do it, go do it. It’s to actually help advocate and support the process. 

AJV:12:36And if you don’t have, and you don’t have people like that, you need to find them. And is that they don’t have to be paid. People, friends, family, mentors, church, maybe they’re paid coaches are paid consultants, whatever. I feel like that’s what we are for a lot of our clients is we are this community. We are this network, the support system, because we truly do believe in sharing good. And the more that we can share, good, the better that the good guys win. But at the same time, there are people that are in your life that you need to share what you want to do so they can actually help support you along the way. And for him, it happened really, really young and it was fostered and it was really pushed. And that we need that too. Does it matter if we were ven oor venteen oor irty seven? It’s like we still need that push. 

RV:13:22We need someone to say, no, it’s worth it. Go for it. Yeah, it’s going to be hard, but it’s also going to be the most amazing ride of your life. Yeah. Maybe it’s not the road more traveled. But it’s gonna be the road that’s yours. And so I think all of that is to say is like you’ve got to have community behind you to make sure that you don’t give up or get frustrated or think that, wow, this is just as pipe dream. I, I’m from this small town and I don’t have these resources. I don’t have these connections. Who cares what I have to say because they do. And you’ve got to have people that are willing to say it matters. You matter, your message matters. So don’t give up. And I just think that was just a really good moment. As, and as a reminder, as a parent of like, that’s my job as a parent is to not just say I believe in you, but to help foster the development of their passions. 

RV:14:14Love it. All this just wonderful, wonderful guy. So check out the interview with Brett Kissel, Canadian country, male vocalist of the year, a whole host of other awards, great music. By the way, my favorite Brett Kissel song is called ree to oe tree, o, e. I’m counting down the hours. Anyways, Rory doesn’t sing as you can tell. But check, check out some of his music, listen to the interview, and just stay tuned. We’re so grateful that you’re here and we want to want you to know that we believe in you and you can do it. So stay the course and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 35: A Posture of Gratitude with Christy Wright | Recap Episode

RV: (00:00) 
Hey, welcome to this special recap edition of the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is Rory Vaden talking to you, joined by my wife and CEO of Brand Builders Group, AJ Vaden. We’re breaking down our top three and three from Christy Wright. So you do you and I’ll do me. I got my top three takeaways and why don’t you go? 
 
AJ: (00:23) 
Yes, so I think the first thing that I really enjoyed about this is it’s a completely different perspective on building a personal brand, right? And you talked, you kind of jumped right into it talking about this ego problem, like is there an ego issue? Knowing that Dave Ramsey is kind of at the higher level of this bigger concept of a personal brand, very much more than a personal brand these days. It’s more than more like an empire, but I really loved that this is a completely different take on building your personal brand. You’re not doing it alone, but you still have your own unique individual personality. But you’re also getting to leverage the followers experience, financial benefits of working with a much larger entity rather that be a company or a, you know, very well known personality such as Dave Ramsey. But it’s a completely different spin on, I can still be me, talk about what I talk about to my unique audience, do my unique things, but then still be a part of this much larger organization that will provide the mentorship, the financial support, the marketing resources, the audience that already exists to really help you expedite that process. And nobody else we know or talk to really has done it quite that way. We kind of do that.  
 
RV: (01:43) 
We do, we do 
 
RV: (01:44) 
Do that for our, our strategists. We want our strategists to have their own personal brand and some of the direct sales companies like Rodan and Fields there, they’re really personal – jinx talk you me a pop. They’re, they’re really advocating that 
 
AJ: (02:00) 
Micro influencer mentality. So anyways, that was a big first thing. It’s just, that’s a different way of looking at it. Like, sometimes we think what’s like, what’s my personal brand? It’s gotta be all me. And Christy is a great example of, well, not really. There’s another way. So I love that.  
 
RV: (02:15) 
And on that point, you know, one of the things that really spoke to me was just her humility through the whole thing is you, you know, the whole idea, like there’s a lot of ego with personal brand. I mean, it’s hard not to, it’s, it’s, it’s your identity and you know, to hear her say, look, I, you know, I really don’t care who owns it. Like in her eyes very, very clearly. She’s like, it’s all God’s, it all belongs to him. And you know, she shared a lot of her, her personal belief spiritually, and you could see how that ties into her brand. And I just think that’s really cool to go, you know what, at the end of the day, if you’re really here to serve your audience, then serve your audience. Like if you’re, if you’re really here to impact people, then find a way to impact people. 
 
RV: (02:56) 
It doesn’t mean you have to control everything or own everything. And so that’s a, you know, that’s a different, that’s a different, a different take and a different approach. So I, I liked that. The second thing for me that I really loved, and I think we have this, the same one on this was, she said, who cares if you’re the greatest speaker or author in the world? If no one knows about it, then you’re not able to help anyone. And one of the reasons I love this coming from her was because you could see like if you listen to the interview, you will hear that she is like very bold about her faith, very Christian. And I think a lot of times churchy people feel like, well, being humble means I can’t promote. Like being humble means I can’t tell people. 
 
RV: (03:42) 
And yet it’s like, no, you have to, and to use Jesus’ words, right, it’s like go out into the world, you know, go tell everyone. And, and that’s just the reality of business. I think this is the, this is the key. That was the key thing is going look, being humble doesn’t mean that you don’t tell anyone about about what you do. Being humble means that your celebrating what you do, not celebrating who you are so you can tell everybody about what you do. And it’s not just promoting yourself, you’re promoting your message, you’re promoting your cause and but you have to promote like you have to promote. And so I thought that was a really a really good distinction. 
 
AJ: (04:23) 
Yeah, I know it’s funny cause I didn’t really pick up that concept in the interview. So I like your take on that. I also like my take on number two. 
 
RV: (04:33) 
I like your take but I always really like… I like my take, 
 
AJ: (04:37) 
Just say it, but I love this concept that really she’s talked about. And I think it’s something that I struggle with and I think a lot of people struggle with is when, it doesn’t matter if you’re writing a book or writing a speech or you’re being up there speaking or you’re making a video course or you’re building a brand or you’re building a company, whatever. It doesn’t matter. This whole idea that the moment that you start thinking, what can I get from___? You lose. Like the moment that you’re like, okay, I want to rub shoulders with X, Y, and Z so I can meet blank. You lose the moment. You think, all right, what can I get from this partnership or from this company or from this deal or from my audience or from blank fill it in. You lose. The moment that you start doing things to get something. You’re not going to be the influencer that you want to be. And it’s not what can I get? It’s what can I give? What can I give to this deal? What can I give to this partnership? What can I give to my employees? What can I give to my audience? 
 
RV: (05:44) 
Or to my spouse?  
 
AJ: (05:49) 
What can I give to people reading my book? What can I give to the people sitting in the audience? It’s a, I think that is like a big thing because like I suffer hit and miss. I’m like, alright, what can I post that would get a lot of likes that’s so bad. Like who friggin cares? But yet we’re all plagued with that to a teeny tiny degree or sometimes, a really big degree… I thought that was really important of like the moment you start focusing on what can I get you lose. But if you focus on giving us like, okay, instead of how many likes, it’s like what do I feel like it’s on my heart to share today and how can I give value to whoever finds it one or 1 million. But if I impact the one, it was worth it today. And if you have that approach in business and branding and speaking and writing, again, all the things you will get, it just will be a byproduct of your giving. And I probably could have talked about this for the entire recap because that’s so important. 
 
RV: (06:52) 
Yeah, I posted on Insta about this one specific point, so I won’t, I won’t go into it deep here because you can, you can go there and I think you just, you just nailed that. But you know, relatedly, I, and I would say this relates to my third point, which is kind of this, this idea of being focused on the audiences that, you know, Christie was talking about how it can be scary like building a personal brand, putting yourself out there, writing a book, putting out social media posts, podcast speaking. It can be super scary, but look, if you feel that calling, there’s a reason why. And you know, the way that she described it was like if God’s going to call you to it, he’ll help you through it. And you know, regardless of what your, your, your faith is like your spirituality. I, you know, I believe that 
 
RV: (07:36) 
If you feel a calling, I think of it as literally there is a person out there calling for you. Like that message the same thing that you feel compelled to share on your heart. Part of the reason you feel compelled to share it is because there’s somebody out there calling for it. Like a signal. Like they need this message. Like there’s, there’s a space that they have, there’s a thing that they’re struggling with and that is like being put out there into the world. And that same, it’s like it’s tugging on you and, and said, you know, I don’t know if that’s how it literally is, but that’s how I think of it and that’s how it feels to me. And so whenever I feel like, gosh, I have to share this, it’s, it’s, it’s the thought that somebody out there is, is requesting to receive it and that takes so much of the pressure off and it takes, it takes the fear out of it. 
 
AJ: (08:25) 
Yeah. Right. That’s really, that’s really good. Again, just focusing on the message. I love that. Okay. Here’s my last one is I, I’ve left this comment that she said and I kinda going to take this and run with it. She was like brands or sales and she was talking about sales in this. She said they are not built on personality types. They are built on skillsets and skill sets can be learned. You are not born a keynote speaker or an author or a salesperson. And you know, you hear people say all the time when they just have the personality for it, she goes, no, what you do is not a personality trait. Your profession is not a personality trait at those are skillsets and skill sets can be learned. I think I love that so much cause we’re very much on the more data scientific side. We’re less creative I think, or a whole company. 
 
AJ: (09:21) 
But we’re, we’re very systems data. This is what you do. There’s a process and a science to it. And I think that goes to anything. And this whole idea of, well they just had a personality for it. No, that’s a skill set and it has to be learned and honed regardless of what you’re doing and then tie that into writing a book or speaking or building a brand or growing your online following or your business. And I just think that’s really important. It’s like, no, these are skill sets and skill sets can be learned. You just have to do the hard work and not give up. It’s hard work, but it’s not just something that you’re just born with. And magically it appears, and that’s the end. It’s like, no, these are skillsets. 
 
RV: (09:59) 
Even I even, I think a lot of our events, like our curriculum at brand builders group, it’s almost divided up into skillsets. Like you got the podcast power, you’ve got keynote craft, you have a full keynote calendar, captivating content. It’s like they’re each sort of themed around these individual skillsets. By the way, if you go to brand builders, group.com forward slash events, you can see our upcoming event calendar, but there you have it, the three and three from a J in me. We hope you liked it. I’m super inspiring and encouraging. Just uplifting interview from Christie, right? You get a chance to go listen to it. Go check it out and stay tuned for more. That’s all we got for today. Thanks so much, brand builder. See you next time. 

Ep 33: You Are Your Audience’s Fiduciary with Jordan Harbinger | Recap Episode

RV: (00:00)
Hey brand builder and welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast, joined by my wife, CEO brand builders group, J Vaden here to bring you our top three, three and three. Today we have the same three, so we’re going to share,

AJV: (00:15)
Well, not entirely the same.

RV: (00:18)
We never see anything exactly the same. That’s part of the fun of doing a show with your spouse.

AJV: (00:22)
Maybe the same three categories but they’re quite different points on the categories.

RV: (00:27)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So I’m like always go listen to the episode. It’s, it’s

AJV: (00:31)
Especially if you think you want to have a podcast, be a podcast host, grow your podcast, monetize your podcast, or do anything with a podcast, you should listen to this one.

RV: (00:43)
There’s not many people bigger than Jordan in the podcast world, and I mean that’s the first thing that jumped out about too is you’ll see that even as a guest, he’s extremely direct. He’s very pointy and sharp. They used to teach when I was in radio coaching, they used to say that all the time. You need to be sharp.

You need to be pointy. And you need to be opinionated and he does a really good job of that and all these other things that we’ll talk about. But I think if I had to classify one big overall theme to his success, and Agee and I talked about this, we both listened to it separately and came to the same conclusion. UI think it’s the way he thinks about his audience. Yeah.

AJV: (01:21)
And his guests.

RV: (01:22)
Yeah. So, so the mindset that he has, you know, the word that he used that really resonated with me as fiduciary. To be a fiduciary of your audience’s interest, meaning that the whole point is you put the audience first, not the guest, and that means you do whatever it takes to provide value to the audience, even if it means you’re asking tough, difficult questions, which I felt, I was kind of surprised by that. I think a lot of hosts don’t actually do that. They don’t, they don’t necessarily think I’m going to challenge the guests for the benefit of the audience.

AJV: (01:59)
Yeah. It’s really interesting because we went to go see this amazing movie that I highly recommend too, anyone to go see, but especially women. We went to go see Bombshell and Charlise Theron and Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie, they were just phenomenal. It was incredible. But here’s what it really made me think about is that Jordan has this legal background and it really comes through in the way that he is so pointed and he is so direct and he does feel like he has this fiduciary responsibility.

And the whole concept of, Hey, having guest on isn’t to make them like you more. It’s not just to, you know, boost their ego so that you can get closer to people that they know, whether it be politicians or high level CEOs or people in Hollywood. It’s no, it’s to provide a good interview and to provide the answers to the questions that your audience wants to know.

AJV: (02:53)
And I felt like that’s really a unique take on what an attorney does. An attorney has a legally binding fiduciary responsibility to the person they’re representing. In this case, he’s saying, the person you represent is your audience, is not the guest. It is not the guest. And as I was listening to his interview, it made me think about Megan Kelly and specifically Charlise thereon who plays Megan Kelly and this movie bombshell. And they talk about this big, you know, Republican convention where she got a lot of hate.

You’ve got a lot of haters. But she was committed to asking the hard questions. It wasn’t about rubbing shoulders with the presidential nominee. And It wasn’t about getting more people and more viewers for a show. It wasn’t about making people like her more or her being seen side by side with a potential future president. It was about asking the hard questions and providing the answers.

Her audience wants to know and she got a lot of hate for it, but you know what? She got an amazing interview and ask the hard questions and didn’t back down. And she provided information to her audience, which is what Jordan is. His whole message is about as a podcast host, it’s to provide the necessary information to your audience and your audience are the listeners. It is not about rubbing shoulders with the guests and that is a really different perspective.

RV: (04:15)
Well, and I think, too, it also shares, that’s where courage comes in as a podcast host because you go, well, I mean that’s a lot. It takes a lot of courage, especially if you’re interviewing influential people to to ask the difficult questions so that that’s an interesting parallel with Megan Kelly. It’s great. Yeah. I didn’t know you were going to say that. We didn’t talk about that and event spontaneous stuff going on in Wifey’s brain.

AJV: (04:39)
I really love that. I think it’s really interesting for this whole concept of the fiduciary responsibility to the people you serve and in this case it’s your audience and it’s not just to have people on the show to highlight your show or try to be famous or whatever it was. No, it’s verified, interesting and relevant information that your audience wants. And I love that.

RV: (05:02)
The next thing that he, that he said that I think is truly different from a lot of podcast hosts was his level of preparation. Oh my gosh, it’s insane. It’s crazy. Like he actually reads the books of the people he’s interviewing. Like, thank you Jordan. That is tremendously difficult. It’s awesome. I mean it’s awesome, but, but the thing that really hit me hard about that was that he said, look, if you’re not doing that level of preparation, then there’s nothing unique about your interview of that guest.

Meaning that if you’re asking the same surface level questions that every interviewer is asking, there’s no reason for them to listen to your show versus to listen to any of the other hundred interviews they have done. It’s the preparation that you’ve done that allows you to know very specific, pinpointed things you can ask that are of interest to you, which he also said, which I think is important, is have people on that are interesting to you, but also that you you’re able to know this is what my audience would want to know specifically from this person. Not just the general stuff that this person says all the time to everybody.

AJV: (06:10)
Yeah. Well I love, I loved all of that cause I think it really provides a lot of insight. It’s like if you’re going to ask the same old questions, why listen to your interview, I could get this from anyone. But it’s doing that deep research and deep dive into that individual, their life, their content, whatever, that gives you the insights.

But that’s not what I loved about that particular section of this interview. What I loved is about why he did it. And he said, listen, I’m not exceptionally funny. Like Conan O’Brien was his, his example. Ellen DeGeneres would have been my example. And he said, I’m not exceptionally funny, like even somewhere on the list.

But he goes, I’m not exceptionally famous. I’m not this, I’m not that. And he said, so what was going to be my competitive advantage? He said, I needed a competitive advantage that set me apart from all the other podcast hosts. And I love too as as many successful people say the real genius behind that was his girlfriend.

RV: (07:09)
Yeah. Now his wife. Yeah. And, and he has a new baby.

AJV: (07:13)
I had a new patient, but I love that he said, I’ve got to find my competitive advantage in the podcast space and this is his competitive advantage. And I think that’s really relevant for all of you listening. It’s, you can’t just have guests on and interview them today and expect you’d be any different than all the other thousands and hundreds of thousands.

RV: (07:31)
I think a lot of guests, a lot of podcast hosts don’t even think about that. They don’t even think about the question, how is my interview with this guest different from all the other, the interviews that this person has done. Yeah.

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AJV: (07:43)
I just think it’s like, it just made me think, it’s like what is your competitive advantage? And this was his chosen path of, Hey, no one else is doing this. That’s for sure. Spending 10 to 20 to 30 hours of research per guest. Yeah, that’s crazy. But that’s his competitive advantage. So what’s yours? I love that.

RV: (08:04)
Yeah. And, and you might be sitting there asking the question, how in the world does he have that much time to spend preparing for the guests? Well, it’s because podcasting specifically ads and affiliates. For those of you that have been through phase one where we talk about the five ways to monetize a brand ads and affiliates is his primary business model. So this is his one way that he makes money.

Like it’s the primary thing that all of the things point to and that’s why it’s one of the four things you have to get clear on in phase one is what is your primary business model. Now specifically if you’re looking at hosting, whether it’s podcasting, but I think this would also apply to hosting a YouTube show or a Facebook watch page or a TV show, any type of show hosting of the day. This is really great because he talks about there’s really only two effective to monetize, and this really clarified for me because I’ve heard people talk about both, but they presented as there’s only one way.

RV: (09:03)
It’s either this or this and he’s saying, no, it’s, it’s one of these two. There are two. And so I’ll talk about the first one because the first one I think is more representative of the, of the podcast, like the, the, the former podcast I used to host. And I guess we can drop a little bit of a hint here. It looks like we’re going to have a future podcast coming that I’m going to be hosting that’ll be in this vein.

And here’s what it is, a general mass audience appeal show. So, so that’s the first way is like if you’re going to sell ads and affiliates, if that’s going to be the way you monetize your following, then you, it’s all based on how many people are listening, which means you need to talk about the topics. That’s a huge, yeah, everybody is interested or there’s a huge total addressable market so that you are attracting a bunch of bunch of people and you’ve got to have a strategy for constantly growing your reach because the more people listen, that is the more money.

And I think that’s what we all think of, which historically has been sort of the broadcasting and media model, right? It’s like all the major CELT, television, cable television networks. It’s like you need to have something that gets the most amount of people watching. But then the other way to monetize I think is actually more representative of what this podcast that you’re listening to is an example of. So I thought it’d be good for you to hit that right.

AJV: (10:28)
Narrowed niche topic in which you only talk about and try to promote your products and services. So it’s like you’ve got to monetizing ways of, you know, making sure your podcast makes money. You’ve got selling ads and affiliates, which is that mass broad general appeal podcast which Rory just talked about, yeah.

And then you’ve got this very specific narrowed niche audience appeal, which is more like the influential personal brand podcast and which we’re not trying to get tons of ads and affiliates even though we’ll take them. So spread the word, but it’s more about introducing people to what we do. It’s our products and services and how to grow and monetize. Your personal brand. So this is very representative of a very niche audience with a very niche service that we offer versus appeals to all humans or at least the majority and which you can sell tons of ads and affiliate.

RV: (11:20)
And I think this is really important for you to be clear on because people who have podcasts struggle with this because they’re constantly going back and forth between the two. It’s like, Oh my gosh, I need to get more listeners for my show. I should talk about these topics. I have these guests. Oh, but I, I’m not big enough that I have advertisers. And so I really need to focus on selling my services, which are really very narrow and niche and they don’t apply.

And so you’re like stuck in this conundrum and you never become effective at either strategy. You need to kind of say, all right, this is a mass appeal like mass market audience or this is a narrow niche. And, and this is if it’s narrow and niche though, you better have a product or service to offer for sure, which is a ton of what we run into with a lot of our clients.

RV: (12:06)
They haven’t quite got that far or they’re not clear on, they’re not clear on what their offer is and they’re not, they’re still not clear on who their audience is. And that’s, you know, those are the four parts of phase one. It’s what problem do you solve? Who do you solve before, how do you solve it and how do you make money solving it like that.

Those are really key. But the other last little thing on this is, is hopefully a little bit of permission for those of you that are in more of a narrow niche, which I think as time goes on, that’s more of what happens because, because as a medium has been out a longer and longer time, most of the mass market stuff, it becomes harder to kind of enter into that space because you’re competing against people like Jordan or Megan Kelly or you know, huge, huge, huge brands and huge companies.

RV: (12:48)
But you don’t necessarily need to have 5 million downloads a month. You don’t necessarily like your worth in. Your value as a host isn’t tied up. And how many downloads do I have? It’s in what love to what level of value and, and knowledge and depth am I servicing my audience and their specific need. And the better you are at doing that, than likely there’s more money showing up in your bank account, even though you may not have tons and tons of followers.

And I think that’s really important in your mind to get clear on and understand, just so you even know what metrics to be caring about and looking at and which ones not to. I agree. So there you have it. Anyone that is a host, go listen to the show. That’s what we’ve got for you today. We’re so glad that you’re here. We hope that you’ve enjoyed it. We’ll catch you next time on the three and three recap on the influential personal brand podcast. Bye. Bye.

Ep 31: The Most Important Relationship with Nick Santonastasso | Recap Episode

RV: (00:00)

Hey, welcome to this special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. It’s Rory Vaden here today all by myself. Normally joined by my wife and business partner, AJ Vaden who is also the CEO of Brand Builders group. And she is also the CEO of the Vaden Villa household, which has no shortage of things going on. So I’m rolling solo on this episode, which is great and fine by me actually because I loved this episode with Nick Santonastasso and I’m telling you, if you didn’t listen to the episode, first of all, if you just need a pick me up. Like go listen to this. Like listen to this guy. I mean this is a guy that was born with no legs, one arm and yet he’s a bodybuilder.

Like he is amazing. His attitude, his story, like so inspiring, so touching, so moving, so compelling. This is the kind of thing where I, I just, I love getting to do what I do because I go like beyond the learning that happens from interviewing the guests just to, to know somebody like Nick.

RV: (01:17)
And it really just puts things in perspective for me to go, you know what? Like I just, man, I’m a whiner about stuff. Like I have it so easy and I lose perspective so much on just trivial things. You know, to hear some of the challenges that he has had and that he has gone through and, and to just, you know, think about what does life look like and feel like every day.

With, you know, for someone that has no legs and, and, and yet, you know, in his eyes and, and many ways as evidenced by his life. It’s, it’s not something that holds him back whatsoever. He has, he has like all people have greatness turned this circumstance into confidence. And that was really the first thing I wanted to share with you. Right. So there’s recap editions. We give you the three, the three highlights, like our three main takeaways.

RV: (02:14)
And that was the first one was actually just to talk about confidence because even though that, yeah. And, and I think confidence is powerful because it’s, when you think of personal brand strategy, right, that’s what we do at Brand Builders Group. It’s like we teach you how to build and monetize your personal brand. People think of the tactical stuff, you know getting clear on your messaging, getting clear on your positioning, getting clear on your market can come clear on your model and I’m talking about yo copy and colors and your key note and your books and your content.

Like all these tactical things that we teach and we love teaching and we’re good at teaching but you can’t ever overlook or you can’t ever forget the fact that at the end of the day people are buying you and so your own personal growth, your own personal development, these decidedly soft skills like are things that I talk about in my first book.

RV: (03:12)
Take the stairs or procrastinating on purpose or like what Nick is talking about here with just getting your mind right like just because you are a personal brand doesn’t mean that you are somehow exempt from learning and practicing all of the very things that you teach and that that we teach in the industry of personal development. In fact, one of the reasons why I’m in this industry is because I know I need it more than anybody. I have to be reminded of it.

And Nick was talking about that with, with confidence and clearly confidence is an important skill of any trusted brand or messenger. And I think I appreciated what he said about confidence cause here’s what he said. He said confidence is a skill that we build my keeping our promises with ourselves and following through on them. So in other words, confidence isn’t like just this trait that you’re, you’re born with like swagger, right?

RV: (04:13)
Or you know, like some people just sort of have some swagger. Maybe we think about that, but he say, no, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not what real confidence is. What real confidence is, is integrity, right? Like it comes from following through on the things that you said you were going to do. Not for the world around you, but to yourself.

Can you make a commitment? Can you say you’re going to do something and then can you show up and do that thing? Like that is what creates confidence because it’s based on this track record of being an amazing person. It’s, it’s a, it’s a track record of being trustworthy and, and that is confidence. It is also reputation, right? It’s confidence to yourself. It’s reputation to your market but no matter what you, what you call it, it comes from living out your commitments from integrity, from following through.

RV: (05:13)
And so I think that we wouldn’t always naturally draw a clear, like a straight line to saying, okay, what can I do today that would build and monetize my personal brand? We might think, Oh, I could send an email or I could do a social media post or I could write a book or I could. But it’s like, you know what builds your personal brand just as much as those things is practicing your integrity, building your own personal character, like shaping your attitude, like getting your mind right is as important a part of all of this as anything. It’s just like any profession, right?

It doesn’t matter if you’re a leader or a salesperson or an accountant. There is the skill part of this. And then there is, there’s the mindset piece and I think, you know, this is an interview that was, had a lot of those, those softer sides, the inspirational part, the mindset, the personal development and then, you know, even making confidence, somewhat tactical.

RV: (06:10)
I really appreciated that. Now to the more tactical things. So one of the other big tech takeaways I think for me from this interview with Nick, of course go listen to the full interview. But you know, basically he just came out and, and directly said to build a fan base that cares about you, you have to be open about your struggles, right? You have to be open about your struggles.

And I’ve heard this kind of before, right? Like you hear, Oh, you know, be authentic, be transparent, be vulnerable. Those are like buzzwords of the day, which is great. I don’t, I’m not demeaning those in any way. I think it’s really great. But there was, there was something about the way that Nick said it that really hit me deeply like it, it just really, it really clicked.

It really resonated because there’s something about when you, when you stand in front of a camera or when you get behind a microphone or when you launch a website or when you communicate through a social media post or through a blog or through a book, there’s like, there’s something about communicating through that medium, like putting a medium between me and you.

RV: (07:23)
Like if we were communicating face to face in real life, it’s just like raw. But then when you insert like this medium, some type of a screen you know, typically there’s something where it’s like we feel like we have to pretend or modify or, or mask or [inaudible] or cover up or like just like, just pretend that things are maybe better than they are or not.

And yet, you know, if for the people who care about you in real life and the people that you care about, like the people who you have the deepest relationships with in real life, like not on social media, not in your email list, like not your podcast followers and real life face to face are the people who you walk through struggles with. Right? Like it’s your best friend that was there in the toughest time of your life.

RV: (08:15)
It’s, it’s your family member who you were there for when they were going through a tough time. It’s a teacher who believed in you when you didn’t have faith. It’s, it’s the struggles that create the relationships that create the bonds. And so what Nick said, and again, I guess this should be obvious, but it really just hit me in a different way, was that if you want your audience to care about you, you have to have that kind of a relationship with them, which means it’s not like posting pictures of like your fancy vacation and your rolls Royce in your private jet and like all that stuff all the time.

Like those things are fine, you know, I suppose to whatever extent they, they, they, they fit with your brand messaging. But it’s the, it’s the struggles. It’s the like the weaknesses, it’s the breakdowns.

RV: (09:05)
It’s the hard times. It’s the difficulty that you’re having that makes people care about you and, and, and it shows that you care about them, that you care enough about them that like, Hey, this is a real relationship. I’m trusting you with these intimate parts of my life. Like I’m trusting that sort of sacred piece of me with you. And that is how highly I value this relationship. And that can be done through a medium.

Like that can be done through a podcast or through a video broadcast or it can be done through a book or it can be done through a blog post. It can be done through a medium just the same way as it’s done face to face. But you have to remove that like filter that for whatever reason we fake stuff and we pretend like we go into presentation mode that people, we know a lot of times we work, we’re coaching speakers on this all the time.

RV: (10:06)
Like you’re, you’re talking to this perfectly normal human and then all of a sudden they stand on stage. Like their voice changes and they, their, their, their posture changes. And like they’re this, this confident person and somehow they stand on stage and it’s like we’re in the same room that we were in 30 seconds ago. But now that you’re on stage, you’re like this totally different being.

And you know, that just takes practice. That’s natural. It takes time. And I think that’s, that’s true as well. But one of the ways you can practice it, what Nick was saying is just be vulnerable. Like, just share your struggles, whatever that is. It doesn’t, and I don’t think it, I don’t think he’s talking about like, it doesn’t have to be grandiose things like, Oh, I’m struggling with depression or suicide or you know, divorce or like whatever.

RV: (10:54)
I don’t think it has to be these major things. I think it’s the little things like, man, I was pissed off today because I was waiting in line and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. People connect with that and they care about you. A

nd I think for me, this is, this is something that I, maybe I could do a better job of. I could, I could definitely do a better job of it. So that I thought was really, really good. And then I think, you know, somewhat related to that, my third take away which was big is that he said as an influencer it’s important to engage with the followers that you have now before more will show up in the future. Right. That is a big, that is a big idea.

RV: (11:43)
That is an important, like that is a powerful concept that so many of us are going, gosh, I wish I had more followers. I wish I had more followers. I wish I had followers. I wish I had more subscribers. I wish I had more, you know, more people in my database. And yet we don’t value the ones that we have now with like the sanctity and the reverence that really deserves or attracts more people into that space.

Right. Like if we don’t value the things that we have now, cause we’re constantly just chasing the next thing. Like why would anyone else want to show up just to be one of the numbers? No, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not how it works, right? Like what makes people want to show up? Is that like mean when people feel like they’re getting you? And then when, when, when they feel cared about, they come back.

RV: (12:36)
When people feel cared about, they come back and they tune in. Why? Because in the world we live in today, nobody feels cared about. Everybody feels like a number. Everybody ironically feels more disconnected than we ever have been before in history because we don’t have the genuine, meaningful, deep relationships. And communication happens in such short spurts. And it’s often through texts like, like written Mo modalities that we’re craving the human to human connection.

And so when you give that to people, when you do that through a podcast or through a book, like through the spoken word or the written word, or through a keynote speech, like all of these different mediums that we use to build a personal brand, when you show people that you care, when you talk about them with reverence and, and when you engage with them, when you actually take the time to, you know, answer their questions and comment back to them and respond, you know, back and forth in their DMS, et cetera, et cetera, like that engagement causes like that, that that causes you to develop.

RV: (13:51)
I think the mindset and mentality of, of the proper care of your audience, that is the same mindset and mentality and attitude that attracts more people just showing up. So if you’re not valuing and engaging with and caring for the audience that you have now, I wouldn’t expect a bigger audience to show up for you.

And this reminds me like in a, in another very literal way. Like when I started out speaking, you know, people see me now. Yeah. This isn’t always like, I still do, I still do small gigs. In fact, there’s, you know, some clients will pay my full fee and have me in front of 10 people. That’s rare. But you know, like there’s probably, you know, there’s a lot, there’s a fair number of events that I speak at now that are big. Let’s say, you know, more than 300, 500 people, you know, up into the thousands.

RV: (14:47)
I’m speaking at an event later this year that’ll have 10,000 people live. And so people see that and they go, wow, like if I were in front of 10,000 people live, like I would deliver that keynote with like huge energy. But what they never saw was when I was speaking to two people in the back of a Perkins restaurant on university Boulevard in the South of downtown Denver, Colorado. Like, and I did that hundreds of times, like speaking to tiny groups for free of less than 10 people, 304 times.

I did that. Like, nobody was there. And I wasn’t getting, I mean, there were people there, but there weren’t many people there. But, but that’s the thing is nobody wants to do the work of showing up and nobody wants to care for the small audience in a way that prepares them and develops them and cultivates them into the person they need to be to attract the big audience.

RV: (15:48)
And that’s what Nick is talking about here. So that was a really, really great a reminder. So this interview is, I said, inspiring in many more ways than one. Go check it out if you’re not following you know, his name is Nick Santonastasso which is, you know, long took me a minute to learn how to say. But his handle is @NickSanto534 on most of the socials,

Of course, if you go to our blog, we will put links up to Nick’s profile in the show notes and everything, just like we do with every episode. But Mmm. You know, that is what it comes down to. And I think ultimately it’s like caring enough about yourself that so that you can learn to care for your audience. We’ll see you next time.

Ep 29: Expanding Your Brand Beyond Your Wildest Dreams with Michael Stelzner | Recap Episode

RV:                   Hey Brand Builder. Welcome to this special recap edition of the Influential Personal Brand. We are talking about our top three takeaways from this interview with my very good friend Michael Stelzner from social media marketing world and which I will be speaking at. If you’ve missed that in the interview. It’s an amazing, really amazing event and so I’ll let AGA kick us off. We’re, we, we had the same kind of three big takeaways, so we’re just gonna we’re going to really nail those for you.

AJV:                  Yeah. So, and a lot of our different interviews, I, you will hear much discussion around social media as it pertains to your personal brand. And one of the most fascinating things that I really thought was, well, fascinating interview with Michael Stelzner and how he talked about how organic reach on social media is dead.

RV:                   Oh boy.

AJV:                  But I thought it was really just really cool how he talked about how most people don’t associate YouTube as a traditional social media site. And that YouTube actually offers really unique algorithms to play your videos based on who clicks on it, who actually watches it, how long they watch it, and then what they do after they watch it. And then we’ll actually promote your video to more of people on YouTube based on those things. Whereas other social media sites, we’ll not do that.

And that was a really interesting thing how he talked about. You’re going to go all in like don’t forget YouTube is still a thing and since it’s been video-based and everything else is going video base, they were kind of way ahead of the curve there. And then just the whole concept of all these different things that people are talking about constantly to grow your organic reach and he’s there going, well, good luck.

RV:                   Yeah. Although I thought that was a good, yeah, like YouTube is interesting. It’s not really kind of classically social media,

AJV:                  But it is.

RV:                   Yeah. And, and it, it’s, I, I never really put that together that YouTube is the only platform that really shows your content aggressively to people who aren’t your subscribers. And I think, you know, a big part of his message there was just extending your reach outside of social media. So you gotta be getting people off social media, which we’ve been talking about always.

You cannot be dependent upon social media. You’ve got to get those people off of social media and onto your email list, onto your podcast, which she talked a lot about was focusing on his, on his podcast and then also text message. Now, you know, you see a lot of the big players moving aggressively with into the text message opt in space as well. So you got, it’s like you can’t not be on social media but don’t, don’t depend on it.

AJV:                  I don’t think that, well we say we say this quite a bit is you know, you can be Twitter rich and dollar poor. And I think that’s a lot of what he was saying. It’s like it’s not that you shouldn’t do it. Just don’t think that most of your sales and conversions are going to happen because of your social media reach. And this is a kind of something that you brought up just very quickly there, but he talks about his email list.

RV:                   Yeah. So this is the second. The second thing in addition to your organic reach, basically being dead was how important email still – still to this day, how important email is to classified information about his own “classified” private, just between him and us and several millions of you.

AJV:                  But I love this because you hear from marketers all the time that email is dead, email is dead. Well, not so much at me. He said that’s how much 60 to 70% of his sales come from email marketing. Crazy. That is a lot. And then he was like, but we don’t send one or two emails. We have six months of promotion with a team of 20 that are leading up to his big event, which is his primary business model, which is coming up in just a few months. But we’re talking about 60 to 70% of a very healthy multimillion dollar business coming from email marketing. Which a lot of those leads best came from their podcast and all these other arenas.

But I think that is just something that, at least with our clients, we hear a lot about. It’s like when we ask them about their email list, it’s a, it’s not very big and it doesn’t get a lot of attention and a lot of focus on how do you capture emails. It’s more about how do you get followers and how do you get engagement on social media?

And we forget the real way of monetizing all of those people that you’re spending all this time, money and resource to attracting them on social, is actually getting their email so that you can market to them. Regardless of what these independent platforms are doing and when their algorithm changes, your contacts don’t. So it’s just the power of email and email marketing, which we promote. But it was so good to hear some real numbers and real results from somebody

Watch the Interview with  Michael Stelzner here

RV:                   Was so big. Yeah. Forced to be reckoned with in this space. And I think one of the big, the big light bulbs that came on for me that right had never really thought about was that he sends 60 to 70 emails just promoting this one event. And in my mind I go, well, I could never send, I would never want to send that many emails to my list. They’d get burned out. Like they get sick of hearing it and he said, no, no, no, no. You don’t just promote the event 60 or 70 times. You take one aspect of the event and you highlight it and you, you teach something about that one little aspect.

And I was thinking about our events, how, you know, most of our events are divided into six main sections over two days. It’s like we could send one email for each of those six sections and talk about, here’s one great tip and then here’s all the things you’ll learn about this section at the event. And if people don’t feel like they’re just getting bombarded because they’re not just getting bombarded, they’re, they’re getting educational information as a way of also learning about why they should buy and why they should come to me.

AJV:                  Good news for all of you and thanks to Michael Stelzner, all of our clients will now be getting 10 times the amount of emails that they’re currently getting. Prepare yourself. Set up a rule to put us all in a folder. The emails are coming, but yeah, I know that’s such a great point. It’s not that they’re all promotional, but it’s breaking down each speaker, each segment, each takeaway, each special events, it’s being useful and educational, but 60 to 70 compared to our six or seven.

AJV:                  Yeah, we got some email writing to do.

RV:                   Yeah, for sure. So, and then the last thing to me was just his whole mindset about how we thought about events and Aja really highlighted a share the big takeaway that you had from that. Cause I, I liked the parallel that you, that he said that you really latched onto about the book.

AJV:                  Oh yeah. He said that a live event is kind of like having a book. You don’t really make money at it, but it’s all the spin off that you get from that book or from that live event that you make money on. Like we say a lot, a book is just a really big business card and you’re not going to make, well most aren’t going to make your entire fortune from, or a living even from your book. But what you will do is it will raise your cache and your credibility and your awareness to a level that you can charge more.

So you get more speaking or training or consulting, you get booked more to do this. You get the sponsorships and the ads and you get all the things that come along with having a book and especially a bestselling book. But it may be, it’s not the book that’s gonna make you money. He’s saying the exact same thing happens with a big event.

RV:                   This is a good way of thinking about it. And I’ve never really thought about it that way. Are you? You know, I think I’m, you know, you can, I think a book is a good parallel because you can make money. It’s not that you can’t make money, it’s just that you’re probably not going to make your riches from events. There they are a step on the path. And then where he said you actually make the money was from the recordings with things you sell at the event

AJV:                  Recordings was an option. But it’s a, you know, like I’ve gone to several Tony Robbins events to even have the mindset of how much money you spend to go into an event. It’s not bad. It’s you, they’re selling coaching, right? They’re selling their training program, they’re selling their mastermind. It’s all the things you sell.

RV:                   Yeah. And in our case, you know our primary model, like our primary service offering includes events, and we actually give, we include the recordings for our monthly members that come with it. So I thought, you know, it’s interesting. I think we’re doing events very different from everybody too, is we’re not just because we’re not trying to make money, we’re not trying to make, yeah, we’re just very much proves this point. Yeah.

Well, you know, there’s always, there’s always, there’s always next steps for people and stuff, but anyways, the last little thing I wanted to highlight that was on this event topic was that he said that having a big name speaker won’t make your event unless it’s Rory Vaden that you hired to come keynote, other than Rory Vaden as your keynote speaker, a big, a big name is not going to make the event. I think a lot of people don’t really, I think a lot of people don’t understand that they would think differently.

AJV:                  I agree. And I want, I think it’s, I think there’s a couple of things. If you are in the business of hosting live events or you think you want to host live events, even if they’re small workshops, this is a must listen to interview. And then if you think that if you get this big name and they will come, he is saying, not really. It maybe a small percentage, he said, but not enough to pay for the expense of it.

And we actually know other people who have spent really big money and they ended up losing a lot of money on their event because that name didn’t attract as much as it needed to for the expense. But in general, it’s not like you don’t want to not have big name. People just don’t think that’s going to be what makes your bed, that’s not going to save you. That’s a good way of saying it was a great interview. And if you’re in the live event business in any capacity, you’ve got to listen

RV:                   Absolute must, must and podcasting and social and you know, you can check out the event. We’ll put links to that. I am speaking and social media marketing world this year, which is is great. And so yeah, there’s a lot of insights from a very big powerhouse. One of the godfathers of the industry. Check out the full interview, and as always, stay tuned here for your top three and three from myself and AJ, we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.