Ep 363: 15 Legal Strategies for Entrepreneurs to Reduce Taxes | Henry Yoshida Episode Recap
RV (00:02):
Well, most of the strategies that we teach at Brand Builders Group are strategies to help you grow your income, right? Obviously most of the time on this show we’re interviewing guests. Most of the teaching that we do is in our paid membership. Of course, that’s our core businesses, helping mission driven messengers to build and monetize their brand and become more well known and make a bigger impact in the world. So most of what we talk about is how to grow your income. What’s interesting though is the interview that I just did with Henry Yoshida, which if you haven’t listened to it, go listen to it. The first part of the interview is all about understanding a vehicle called a self-directed i r a, which is, it’s not a new vehicle, but it’s one that you most people haven’t heard of that’s becoming more popular, especially because of like a tools being created like the one that Henry has created.
RV (00:52):
Which is very, very affordable way to sort of transfer your i r a into more self-directed or non-trad, non-traditional assets. And anyways, that’s what the whole interview is about. But towards the end of the interview we started talking about just general tax strategy. And you know, there were a few things that came up that inspired me to go, you know what? I’m gonna, I’m gonna put together a killer episode here for you all and this on tax strategy, because this is not something that you normally hear. And I would consider, like when most people think of Brand Builders group, right? They think of like, oh, you guys help people, you know, crush book launches, right? Like, we’ve had at the time of this recording, 11 clients that we’ve helped hit the New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestseller list.
RV (01:43):
We’ve had four clients that we’ve helped that we’ve, that we’ve worked with where their TED Talk has gone viral over a million views. We’ve had five clients grow their business more than seven figures in a year. Like it’s, it’s, we we’re known for like those kinds of things. But when you are with us for a while, like a lot of our clients stay with us for many years. Like as your business starts to grow, our training gets more and more advanced. And one of the things that we talk about, but rarely, it’s more like in smaller rooms like our private Highland Masterminds and like our most experienced people is tax strategy. And, and we talk about things like managing your financial statements and, and you know, forecasting and, and just, you know, legal stuff that you don’t hear a lot. So anyways, what I wanted to go ahead and put out there into the world and just make this available for free is 15 legal strategies to help you reduce your taxes if you’re an entrepreneur. Now obviously I’m, I’m not a cpa, I’m not a C F P. I did, I did go to school by undergrad. I studied much about accounting and I do have an mba. But you should always, always, always, you know, consult with your local tax advisor.
RV (02:58):
You know, know. So I don’t consider this professional like legal advice officially, but I’m telling you, you wanna check into these things. And I’m not gonna explain ’em all in detail cuz we don’t have time. But I’m gonna rattle these off of 15 legitimate legal ethical tax strategies that you can, you can explore if you’re an entrepreneur. And this is important. And, and I would actually say part of why I’m putting this together, and no offense to CPAs, there’s some great CPAs out there, but in our experience, we have worked with a number of CPAs who actually aren’t very well equipped to offer tax strategy advice. Most of them just do tax returns. They’re not very creative, they don’t ask very many questions. And when I mean creative, I don’t mean creative, like they’re bending the rules. I’m saying they don’t even know what questions to ask in order to take advantage of many of the kinds of things that I’m gonna share with you here.
RV (04:00):
Right? And so the, the place to learn tax strategy is not graduate school. It’s it’s not, you know, professional training. Where you really learn it is from other entrepreneurs. And, and honestly, they have to be very successful entrepreneurs. Otherwise, this conversation doesn’t come up very often and very, very few people know much about it. And so, anyways, that’s why I thought let’s go ahead and just put this out into the world. This’ll be, you know, hopefully you’ll see an example of some of what our high level business training looks like. Yes, we teach, you know, all the other things. Copywriting and funnels and podcasting in the business of speaking and book launches and how to train your sales team and sell high dollar offers and, you know, build your content and write your book and your positioning and messaging. But our phase four curriculum gets pretty ninja and it gets pretty advanced on, on just general being an entrepreneur.
RV (04:54):
So here’s just like one example of a micro lesson. I’m gonna put this out here into the world for free. You know, take it with a grain of salt, but this is, this is stuff that we’ve learned by experience. So here we go. I’m gonna rattle through these again, I’m not gonna spend a ton of time on each one, but these are, I’m gonna say these are hints for you to go investigate and look because they’re very legitimate. So, number one is what came up in the interview with Henry and that’s what kind of inspired me to put this together for you is a defined benefit plan or a pension plan. So you can listen more to the interview cuz we kind of talked a little bit in, in detail in the interview. But the bottom line with this is that as a, as a business owner, you can create a, a mechanism by which you provide a, a retirement benefit for your employees, okay?
RV (05:46):
Typically, like you think of 401k, right? And but when you are an employee of the company, there are certain plans that allow, allow you as the owner to maximize or create, create large contributions to your retirement account. So it doesn’t pad your money doesn’t pad your pocket with money in the short term. In fact, it, it takes money out of your pocket because you’re putting it into retirement instead of putting it either into your checking account or or into the government’s pocket. But what it does is it allows you to have to, to, to contribute much more than you would normally be allowed to include with something like the r you know, there’s Roth IRAs and they have income limits, and then there’s traditional IRAs and they have total contribution limits, and then there’s four oh [inaudible] limits.
RV (06:40):
So, you know, typically, you know, 25,000, 20 to $30,000 ish somewhere in there is about what you can do. But if you’re an entrepreneur and you have a successful business and you start to make real money and you go, okay, what are other things I can do? I can provide this awesome benefit to my employees and it gives me a vehicle to sock away more money for retirement later. So, you know, pension plans, defined benefit plan, go, you know, investigate that and listen to the interview with Henry, you can check that out. Second thing if you’re making a profit the, the, you know, the entity, the legal structure of your, of your business entity dramatically affects your, your tax liability and your tax implications. So there’s, there’s more that should be considered into this conversation. But in general, okay, a a great place to look if you are, you’ve been a, an entrepreneur and you’ve got a fairly successful business and you’re making profit, is to look at the structure in L L C filing as an S corp, right?
RV (07:43):
So a lot of times a business starts as like a sole proprietor, then at some point you maybe become an L L C. But look into L L C filing as an S corp for lots of of entrepreneurs that are sort of in this maturing phase, starting to make money. There is a great opportunity for tax advantages. Now there’s some, there’s some other things that get triggered. And, and what I’m sharing with you, I’m not sharing with you unethical or illegal strategies. These are legal ones. Part of what makes them legal is that they have counterbalancing forces, right? So in order to take advantage of some of these, there’s certain other things you can take advantage of. But I’m sharing with you sort of like my, some of my greatest hits here. There’s, there’s a few that are not on this list that are more advanced really for like scaling companies.
RV (08:31):
Really, really like, as as you start thinking about selling your company that would come up. And there’s one on here. The last one, by the way, I’m gonna show you how to become filthy rich and never ever pay taxes in a completely legal way. That’s gonna be number 15 on this list. So, so keep staying tuned for that. All right, so number three specifically, this is something for training companies. So if, if you are a training company which means you train people, you, you train, you have like you know, a lot of times it’s, it’s some type of information marketing type business where you do professional training. There is something called a 1 99 a exemption. Okay? Now this is set to sunset currently, I think in 2025. But if you just go to irs.gov and just look up 1 99 A, this is qualified business income deduction and look for the FAQs.
RV (09:30):
This creates a major tax advantages that, you know, could, can be tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. If you have a company that you know, is like, let’s say multi seven figures, that is a true, legitimate training company. And there’s certain things you have to do to qualify as a legitimate training company. Brand builders group, we’re a training company. We have curriculum and, and we have workbooks, and we have courses in systematic training and processes that we put people through. So look at, look up the 1 99. A number four is the Augusta rule. So the Augusta Rule, this is something that says you can rent your home 14 days a year. I, I, I believe, again, don’t quote me on all this, this isn’t what I do full-time, but I, I, you know, I’m, the things I’m saying shouldn’t be grossly out of out inaccuracies.
RV (10:21):
They, they should be pretty accurate. Off the top of my head, I think the Augusta rule says you can rent your home 14 days a year tax free. It comes from the masters tournament and people who live in Augusta who rent their home out during the masters and they make a bunch of money. So what the Augusta rule allows you to do is to rent your own home to your business. So if your business has meetings and you have to rent boardrooms or meeting space and that’s a legitimate business operation and function that you have whatever the market rate is that you would pay to rent somewhere else, can be amount that you can you know, the equivalent market rate of, of renting a similar property or space somewhere else you can rent to yourself and use your home for those meetings.
RV (11:08):
And, and 14 days worth of that can be tax free. So this is this is one of the things you sometimes hear on the internet and you’re like, is that real? Actually is real? A few of these are gonna be like that where you’re like, man, I’ve, I’ve heard, you know, I’ve seen Instagram and TikTok videos like have gone viral. A lot of times they’re over sensationalizing things and they’re not, you know, telling you about like the restrictions behind them, but some of them are, you know, they’re actually legit and you just have to sort of investigate. The Augusta rule is one of those. Number five is a D A F, which is a donor advised fund. This is a charitable, this has to do with charitable givings. And basically, you know, when you make charitable contributions, the government allows you to, to deduct that from your taxable income.
RV (11:55):
Well, the thing is, is you might, let’s say you have a bunch of money come in at, at one year or something, you have a big launch or something, g great happens. You just have a good year and you’re sitting on a pile of money and you’re not sure who you wanna donate that money to. And, and you don’t wanna pay taxes on it. So you go, I’m gonna start a d a f a donor advised fund, which allows me to put my money aside in ear market for charitable givings, and I can take the tax deduction now so that I don’t get taxed this year, but then I have to give that money later. So again, it’s not like it’s some magic way of, of keeping money in your pocket, it’s just saying, rather than paying money to the government, I’m gonna pay money to causes that I care about and, and I’m gonna give, and so I’m reducing my tax liability.
RV (12:44):
And the government does that on purpose. It’s not like you’re sneaking one past them, right? What they’re doing is they’re incentivizing business owners and people of wealth to invest into and give money to things that make the world a better place. You know? And they have to be, you know, actual nonprofit organizations and they, they have to uphold certain standards to, to classify what, whatever it is, a 4 0 1 [inaudible] [inaudible] and i, I think is what it is. Yeah, I think, I think that’s it. A 4 0 3 [inaudible] maybe, maybe there’s both of ’em. But anyways, they have to be a nonprofit organization. But the point is, you can take the deduction immediately now and not have to give the money until later. Also, the money inside of your fund can grow and grow and grow and earn interest while you’re figuring out who you want to distribute that money to.
RV (13:33):
So that’s a, that’s a cool one. Number six is a keep bonus, and that’s Q E A A P. It is a rule that allows you to make up to $1,600, I believe, per employee as a gift and a deduction for any gift. So basically, instead of paying them $1,600 in income, of which you have to pay payroll taxes on and they have to pay in income taxes on, you can actually get money to your employees. So it’s a way of getting them more money where neither of you, like you get the tax deduction and they don’t pay the income tax on it. And you can do that up to $1,600 per a year per employee using something called the keep bonus. So that’s a really cool way. Again, it doesn’t put more money in your pocket, but it is, it prevents you from paying taxes.
RV (14:29):
You, if you don’t do that, what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna get taxed on all that money, and the government’s gonna take a percentage of that. So it’s basically like instead of paying it to the government, you could pay it to your employees. And again, it’s the reason it’s not illegal. It’s not like the government is stupid or that they don’t know this. They’re, they’re doing it as going, Hey, there’s a vehicles and ways to increase the amount of money that you give to people. And this is why, by the way, this is why entrepreneurs get tax breaks, is because the government knows you’re stimulating the comp, the, the economy you are helping you, your, you’re helping stabilize the country. And b by the way, I should have said this earlier, these are all US based tax strategies. So I know we have a lot of you that are listeners that listen internationally.
RV (15:15):
This is completely US based. I apologize, but I’m not, I’m not well versed in international tax law, but what I would say is my experience has been many other countries have similar types of things, similar types of vehicles. They’re often called something differently. So still worth paying attention to this and then kind of investigating your local tax code or asking a C P A or asking a successful entrepreneur or investor about some of these things. But anyways, in the us you know, the, the government gives tax breaks to entrepreneurs cuz we’re creating jobs, which means we’re giving income to people, which means there’s a less dependency on the government for their, for their income and for their health and wellbeing and their family, and also for their retirement, right? And, and that takes pressure off of the government. And so that’s, that’s kind of why this works.
RV (16:03):
It’s not like we’re pulling a fast one over them, but it, it’s also, if no one tells you this, you’re not gonna know any of this stuff. And I went to graduate school, right? Like I went to graduate school and I don’t remember learning any of this.
RV (16:51):
So you don’t have to pay taxes, payroll taxes on that money, but you’re, you’re transferring money from the business to your employees without having a, and it’s lowering your tax burden. It’s lowering your, your tax impact. So that’s number seven. Number eight, okay? This is another classic internet viral video One is something called the section 1 79 deduction. This is sometimes referred to as the Hummer rule. And you go, people are going and buying hummers and taking a hundred percent of that as a deduction. Is that really real? And the answer is yes, it was for a while, and it kind of is still. So section 1 79 refers to that section of the, the tax code, which says that vehicles that weigh over 6,000 pounds are they were, they were a hundred percent deductible. I think that’s trailing off.
RV (17:50):
I think it trails down a little bit year over year. But this, this is something that we actually took advantage of because when you have these, it’s the catches, it has to be a, it, the vehicle has to have a gross vehicle weight rating, G V W R, gross vehicle weight rating of more than 6,000 pounds. And if that is the case and you buy a vehicle that weighs over 6,000 pounds, that’s considered to be like a commercial vehicle for your business, you could take a hundred percent of that amount as a deduction in the year that you made that purchase. Now this was like a year ago, I think this is already factoring out, but and, and, and, and may, it’s gonna disappear at some point unless the tax law changes. But anyways, investigate the details of a section 1 79 deduction.
RV (18:42):
Number nine is vacations, okay? Business trip slash vacations. It is true, you know, to my knowledge that you can take deductions for vacations if more than 50% of the time is for work, right? So you have to be doing work related activities more than 50% of the time. So there are details around this that matter and that, that, that are important. There’s details around all of these things, like I should have mentioned. Going back to the Augusta rule, which was number four on this list, one of the things you have to do if I remember, is you have to take meeting notes and you have to produce meeting notes that say I had, I actually had this meeting in my house on this date. This is what we talked about. And this is a meeting that we would’ve had somewhere else at a hotel.
RV (19:32):
And I would’ve, I would’ve or could have had to have paid that money to a hotel. And rather than doing that, I’m, I’m taking it as you know, a tax deduction for on my taxes, but I actually had a real meeting. You have to actually have a real meeting and have, have notes. Now you know exactly how long the meeting is and what exactly do you cover. Those things are, you know, a little more gray area and a little bit depends on your appetite for, you know, how much you follow the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law, et cetera, et cetera. But on business trip vacations, a good example of it is, Hey, I’m gonna go to Miami and I’m going to, you know, set up work meetings on Friday and on Monday, and then I’ll just stay there Saturday and Sunday.
RV (20:14):
All now of a sudden that becomes a business trip that I can write off you know, in full or large portions of, or certain components of, so again, there are, that is a legal, legal deduction. Number 10, this one is interesting. I almost didn’t put this one on the list cuz we’ve, we don’t, we’ve never done this, but I’m hearing of a lot of people doing this. So I would approach this one with extra caution, but if you have a company and you own a video production company, okay, so you have to start a business. You, you know, which means there has to be some legal documents, right? And you create an actual business that is a video production company that does video work. Then anything that you buy that shows up in your videos, it can be a deduction because it’s considered a part of the set design.
RV (21:10):
I’m sure it’s not anything you buy, it’s probably not cars and houses and, and helicopters and things although maybe, but you know, just like certain other things, like anything that would appear in one of your sets, which again, there’s probably limitations to this, but a lot of times it’s much more flexible than you realize if you actually go investigate the details. And this is where I talk about, you know, CPAs aren’t super creative, they don’t think of this kind of thing. And you go, well, if you shoot videos as a part of what you do and you go, can I start a little side business that does this legitimately? Like it’s gotta be a business. You gotta have some other clients beyond just you. But how many clients do you have to have for it to be considered legitimate? You know, is is kind of a flexible conversation.
RV (21:53):
So and then you go, man, I’m gonna, I’m gonna buy a prop you know, and I’m gonna buy a $200 set of bows headphones, because I’m gonna use that as a prop in a video and it’s part of my set design, right? So yeah, there’s an ethical gray area that comes into this, but there’s a, there’s a legal component that is, is perfectly legal if you are abiding by certain things. So pay attention to that. Alright, number 11, another internet one. This one is often becomes, you know, one of these viral videos is to hire your children. And this is true, this is a, is a, is a perfectly legal strategy. As long as your kids have an actual job, I think they have to have a job description and they have to have certain, certain form formalities and certain things that establish them as an employee of the company.
RV (22:46):
So in this case, you can pay your kids up to, at the time of this recording, I think it’s $12,500 a year, and the kids don’t have to pay taxes. Why? Because nobody has to pay taxes on the first $12,500 per year. So how does this save you money on taxes? Well, it’s basically a way that you can get money to your children with pre-tax dollars instead of after tax dollars, right? If, if I were gonna, you know, buy something for my kids, I’d have to buy that with after tax dollars. Like I draw income, I pay taxes, and then I have money to pay, put give to my kids. If my kids are an employee of the company now I can pay them $12,500 every year. They don’t have to pay taxes. And now they have actual money that is theirs that they have earned.
RV (23:38):
Now that money has to, will go to them. It cannot be money that you use otherwise that is like, you know, illegal. But if it is money that is going to them that they’re using for their things, paying for schooling, paying for sports, paying for whatever I don’t even think there’s restrictions on like toys and things. Like I think they can spend the money double check that, but, but it’s their money. It can’t be your money. You can’t pretend to pay that money and then take that money and go buy yourself a car with it. But it can be money that they have and they can, they can then start to invest that money and use that money to pay. I think they can even pay for like private school and things that are of personal direct benefit to them. And you go, the reason it’s an advantage is you’d be paying that money anyways, right?
RV (24:22):
Like if you didn’t pay it to him, you’d be paying that out of your pocket and you’d be paying that money with after tax dollars. So look into the specifics again of exactly you know, you can’t just say they’re an employee, you have to give them certain duties and things, but it’s, that’s reasonable, right? And you’re the business owner. So you’re, you are within your legal rights to determine what you pay people for and what you hire them to do and how much you pay people, right? The, as, as long as it’s above minimum wage, there’s no, there’s no government mandate on what tasks you choose to pay certain money for. And so, you know, there’s a limit here, there’s a threshold, but again, this is perfectly legal. Number 12, anything with your logo on it is considered a uniform or advertising expense, including clothing, right?
RV (25:12):
So brand builders group, you know, I, I’m for some of you are listening to this, you can’t see me, but I’m wearing my brand, a brand builders group sweatsuit that we got. It’s got our logo on it, this is a hundred percent write off, right? So I’ve got this little tiny logo on here, and now all of a sudden this piece of clothing is a hundred percent write off as advertising expense and I would say is very legitimate, right? Those of you that are watching this video, you see the logo right inside the video. So it’s like very, very legit now. So considering put your logo on things now there’s probably some limits here. Like putting a logo on your car doesn’t necessarily mean you can just write off the whole car, but there are some things like that where people wrap their cars and they do certain things.
RV (25:57):
You should look at that. Number 13, number 13 is an H s a A health savings account, okay? A health savings account. Think of it like an I r A, it’s just an account where you can put money in. You know, kind of like how we were talking with Henry about the, this, our whole conversation in this last interview was about SD IRAs, self-directed IRAs. It’s just a, it’s just a special type of account that has special tax treatment in the eyes of the government. And HSA is an account. When you put money into your hsa, that money you don’t get taxed on the money you put in there. Now, here’s the catch. All of that money has to be used for health expenses, right? So that’s why the government, again, you’re not pulling a fast one over the government, it’s legal.
RV (26:46):
They, they ins they create this tax incentive and the whole tax system, right, is not about penalizing people, it’s about incentivizing people to use their money in certain ways, in ways that benefit the economy, the overall health and stability of a country and, and, and you know, a government, et cetera. Well, this, if people have money saved for their own health expenses, that reduces the dependency again on the government. It keeps you healthy, et cetera, et cetera. There’s advantages to the government and to the overall, you know, country of keeping people healthy. So when you put money into your health savings account, now you have money that is earmarked. You can only use that money for health expenses except once you are over a certain age. So if you put money into an HSA year after year after year, and it’s growing, right? It’s an, it’s, it’s, you can have that invested that is growing.
RV (27:43):
You at a certain age, which is probably 59 and a half or 62 and a half or 65 or whatever the number is. Now, if you haven’t used that money for health expenses at that point, I believe you can then take it. And you can use that money. You, you can, you can use that money as retirement if not, even if you can’t do that or even if the legislation changes around that. The advantage is you have money growing and growing and growing. So even if you’re gonna use it for your, you know, your to, to be in a retirement home one day and and assisted living home, the advantage is you’ve had money growing and earning interest and, and, you know, you’re, you’re saving on taxes throughout your lifetime. It’s growing. You’re not paying taxes on that. And then when the time comes that you need it for large health expenses, the money is there, right?
RV (28:34):
So that’s a huge advantage. And I actually think that once you reach a certain age, I think you can access some of that money as retirement money. In, now again, in the interim, it doesn’t put more money in your pocket. It, it’s, it’s all of this is allowing you to invest. Notice the theme here. The government is incentivizing you. The government is using tax law to incentivize you to use your money in certain ways, providing jobs, taking care of your health, investing in things, and providing for your own retirement and for the retirement of your employees. That’s why these things are all legal. It’s, it’s, it’s because they want you to use it in a certain way. So what a lot of successful entrepreneurs do is they go, ah, let me put some money. You know, if you max out your I r a and you max out your 401k, and you start to make real money every year in profits, every year you go, well, let me put all my money, let me, let me max up my hsa my health savings account, which is I think at the time of this recording, around $3,600 a year, you can put $3,600 a year in there and now that account grows.
RV (29:38):
And then if you have the money or hopefully then you just, you pay your health expenses with after tax dollars so that you can have this big thing growing as a nest egg that gets bigger and bigger and bigger over the, over over time. So that’s a great, a great legal strategy. Now, these last two are huge strategies and they, they are gonna, they will sound crazy, but these are ways that you can actually legally avoid paying taxes at all. Like and you know, or certain parts of taxes. Okay? So here’s what number 14 is, and you may have heard of this. The, the more successful you become as an entrepreneur, the more you’ll start hanging around people who are having these kinds of conversations. And you will start to hear about Puerto Rico Act 22, Puerto Rico Act 22.
RV (30:32):
We have several friends now at this point who have moved to Puerto Rico. John Lee Dumas was our first friend that did this. And now I can, off the top of my head, think of like five other friends who all live in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico Act 22 allows you to play a, a flat tax rate of 4% again, at the time of this recording. But you have to live, you have to be a primary resident of Puerto Rico. So if you like Puerto Rico and you don’t mind living in Puerto Rico Puerto Rico is a US controlled territory, right? So you’re under the protection and the, and the rule of the United States. But you, you, there, there are some caveats here. So you have to live in Puerto Rico, you know, one day more than half a year. So whatever that is, 162 or 163 days a year, whatever the number is.
RV (31:23):
You have to live there. You also have to do certain things to establish Nexus. Like your banking account has to be there, your place of worship your your, your primary mailing address, your your driver’s license, things like that have to be legit. You have to become a legit Puerto Rican resident. But when you do that, you then do not have to pay federal income tax of the us. You only pay Puerto Rico taxes, which are 4%. Now one of the other things to be aware of is that you give up your right to vote, as I understand it, right? So you can no longer vote in elections, but and you gotta move your family to Puerto Rico. So there’s some trade-offs, right? But you’re also going, you might be going from a 40% tax bracket or 50% tax bracket if you live in California.
RV (32:09):
And if you can set up your business and operate legitimately in Puerto Rico, you’re gonna go to 4%. So you could like almost double your income just by moving. And you have to stay there a certain number of years. I think it’s like three years or something. And if you, if you come back before then you have, you know, there’s, you have to like do back taxes or whatever. But so anyways, look at this. It’s a real thing. Puerto Rico Act 22 and then number 15, this is the grand finale, the Grand PBA of how you can literally become a millionaire, a multimillionaire, a billionaire even, and never pay any taxes at all. How does this work? How could you possibly, how is this real? Yes, this is real. Okay? This is how wealthy, wealthy, wealthy people think. How do we know we happen to know a lot of wealthy people?
RV (33:06):
Because a lot of, I mean, we’ve had four clients at Brand Builders Group who are billionaires in like the last 18 months, billionaires with a B, right? So we’re starting to see and hang out with some like really wealthy people. So what is the best way to create wealth and never pay taxes? How is this possible that you can have billions of dollars and never pay taxes? So here’s, here’s how you do it. It’s not easy, but it is real. Is you start a company as an entrepreneur, you grow that business, and then you take that company public. Once you take that pump, that company public, now you have stock that is actually worth real money. It has a, a real market rate. And what a lot of these billionaire founders do, and I’m talking big companies, right? Big time people like celebrity entrepreneurs that you hear about.
RV (33:59):
So what they do is they take their company public, they have millions and millions and hundreds of millions and sometimes billions of dollars in stock. And then what they do is they take a loan against that stock from a bank and you never pay taxes, right? So, so, so they’re using their stock as collateral to take a loan from a bank. So that’s how they turn it into money. If they were to sell the stock, that would be a liquidity event. So they would then realize that as income and they would have to pay taxes on it. But there are, there’s plenty of banks who will look at a public, publicly, publicly held stock as a, as a strong collateral against alone. And so they’ll take a loan from the bank, they hold up the stock as collateral, they technically own the stock. They never have to sell the stock.
RV (34:48):
And what’s happening is the bank is giving them a loan against it. And now they’re just paying, they’re paying interest, they’re paying interest on that loan to the bank. But it is, it pales in comparison to what you would pay in taxes to the government. I found this, bam. That is how you can 100% legitimately avoid paying taxes and become filthy, filthy rich if you wanna do it. So there you have it, no gimmicks nothing illegal. Definitely some things that have some stipulations and some criteria that you want to pay, pay attention to. But these are the kind of things that happen if you hang around brand builders group, right? These are the kind of people we hang out with. These are the kind of conversations we’re having in addition to how do we change the world and how do we help you change the world?
RV (35:35):
And how do you add your service to more people and, and make an impact and make the world a better place? And a big part of how you make the world a better place is how you use your money to do that. So we have no problems making money, right? We love money. Money’s just not the most important thing in our life, right? For us we’re, we’re Jesus followers, we’re Christians. Like for us, we’re a hardcore Bible thump and Jesus freaks. So we don’t serve money, money serves us. Money is a tool, but we, we care about money, we’re deliberate about money. We like to make money, and we want to help you make a lot of money, and then use your money to do good in the world for you and your family and your employees and for the people around you.
RV (36:17):
So there you have it. 15 legitimate legal ways to save money on taxes. Investigate these, check these out. Hey, share this, share this episode with someone who needs to hear it and request a call with our team. Will you go to brand builders group.com or sorry, wrong number, wrong number go to free brand call.com/podcast. Go to free brand call.com/podcast. Learn about us. Read a little bit about the people we work with you know, the clients that we serve. We, we serve major celebrity clients, ed Mylet and Lewis, how, and Eric Thomas and Amy Porterfield and Peter Diani, and John Gordon and Matthew West, right? Like, we have major celebrity clients, but our heart is also for the people who are just starting out and who are real entrepreneurs trying to find their way and figure this all out. And we’re gonna guide you. We’re gonna guide you on everything, marketing, sales, positioning and then scaling your company with leadership and financial strategy that is legal and ethical and that actually works to make the world a better place. So check out free brand call.com/podcast. Share this episode with an entrepreneur that you know who needs to save money on taxes. So I want you to think in your head right now, who do I know that is an entrepreneur that needs to save money on the taxes? Share this episode with them. You might just change their life and the lives of their employees and maybe the people around him and the investments that they make. And keep coming back here every single week listening and in to the influential Personal Brand podcast. Bye for now.
Ep 361: Sales Enablement for Beginners | Ben Rigsby Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
So I was recently having this super insightful conversation with a friend of mine talking about sales enablement. Now I’ve been in sales for a really long time. In fact, at my core, more than any other title, professional title that I hold the one that I really hold the most and the one that I love the most is salesperson. Like. So like, I love sales, I’m into sales. I started in sales. I’m still in sales today, to be honest. But this term sales enablement was like, what is that like, fancy term? And it was so interesting to talk about the, you know, I guess today old school sales process that we’re used to in the offline world, right? So it’s, you know, anything from, you know, the introduction to the questioning and overcoming objections, which apparently people don’t use objections anymore.
AJV (00:58):
Now they’re called reservations and I’m not really a PC person. So a lot of these, I’m like, okay, let’s just call it what it is, right? But objections, reservations, whatever you wanna call it, closing. Apparently people don’t use the term closing anymore. But we’re asking for the business, right? And then we’re asking for referrals. We’ve got the presentation with all these things, but that’s in an offline world. But an online world, this term sales enablement is like a really important term. As we drift further and further into this world and we’re finding our clients somehow in a digital space, right? Even if we meet them offline and you know, the real world, at some point they’re looking at your website, they’re looking at your content, they’re checking you out on social media, they’re going through your LinkedIn profile, and there is this online component that that is an ever present and probably ever-growing.
AJV (01:51):
Part of how we attract, nurture leads into clients, right? And then clients into forever clients is the plan. So I was having this conversation with my friend Ben and I thought there were some really cool takeaways that I would put in a little video and share them with you. So here’s a couple of my takeaways from my conversation with Ben. Number one is that lead captures surprise, surprise are the number one best option for growing your email list. People are no longer interested in just subscribing to something where they might in hopes get good information one day. So the idea of, Hey, you just give me your email, I’ll add you to my list, I’ll add you to my easing. Like, that’s not a thing if you weren’t aware, right? And you actually do wanna collect emails,
AJV (02:58):
I’m just saying at the end of the day, you don’t want people to just follow you on social media. You want to turn those followers on social media into emails that live on your email list that you can actually build real relationships with through your own natural correspondence. Rather through a blog or a podcast or an easing, whatever it is you have them subscribe to. You need possessions of those emails. Cuz if you just have followers on social media, you are, it’s rented real estate, right? Those are not your followers, those are Instagram’s followers. Those are TikTok followers. Those are not yours. So we’ve gotta get ’em off of social and into your email list. And so the best way to do that is to offer a lead capture where it’s enticing enough, it’s valuable enough where you’re going. Yeah, I’m gonna give you my private information, my email address in exchange for whatever promise you hold into this.
AJV (03:59):
Something. It could be a webinar, it could be a P D F, it could be a research study. That’s what we do. It could be some sort of, you know, free call. It could be a variety of things, could be an ebook, the list. We could go on and on and on here. Private interviews. I, I’ll stop with ideas, but what do you have to give someone an exchange for them giving you their email address that is a lead capture that would live on your website. That is something you can promote on social media that can live on, you know, the right hand side of your blog. That can live in a lot of different places. You could advertise that on a podcast. It can live in a lot of different places, but it’s, someone’s going to go to somewhere, click something, give your email address and then you have to be able to deliver them information.
AJV (04:47):
Now in an offline world if you’re going, wow, that sounds like a lot, that, that sounds like a lot of technology cuz it is. In an offline world, let’s just say that you are a speaker or you do presentations. One of the easiest things you can do to have a lead capture is to just say, Hey, if you liked my presentation today and you would like a copy of my slides, bring me your business card and I will email you the slides. Guess what? That too is a form of a lead capture. So let’s change the way we think about it. Yes, it can be through funnels and online correspondence and webinars and all those things. Yes, it can, right? But it can also be really simple in an offline setting to still nurture the sales enablement process where you’re getting leads that you can then, you know, turn into fans and customers for a lifetime. So there’s lots of different ways of doing, but if you’re low tech, which is totally fine, just think about what can I give people just in exchange for their business card. People do have those
AJV (05:57):
Mostly today. And if not, just say hey, and if you, and if people don’t have their business cards, you could again, I’m trying to keep it low tech for the non-techies. Just go, Hey, I have a signup sheet in the back of the room. Just give me your name and your email and I will email you X, y, and Z. So it can be simple, it does not have to be high tech if you are not there yet. There are many ways to do this, but then you still have to have them stored somewhere. And yes, you could just put ’em in your outlook contacts if you want, right? You could just add ’em to your LinkedIn profile if you want. Now there are more advanced ways to do that, but there’s some low tech ways. The most important thing is how are you capturing contact information so that you can stay in touch with people in an online world in the sales enablement process.
AJV (06:44):
So that was the first thing, right? I think that’s really important cuz we talk a lot about it in the online world with e-books and webinars. But I wanted to say there was a way to do it in the offline world too. From stage at a Chamber of commerce meeting and a keynote with thousands of people. You don’t have to go high tech, you can just say, bring me your business card or sign up in the back of the room. Give me your name and email. I will send you this. The most important thing is the this, whatever that is, needs to be something of high value, right? So what information do you have that people want? And that is your need capture in exchange for an email address high level. Okay, we can move on now,
AJV (07:26):
And I actually wrote down this quote and I thought this was so good. And he said, the more that you ask someone else to do, the less likely they are to become a customer of yours, ma. So good. Such a good reminder. I’m gonna say it again. The more you ask someone else to do, the less likely they are to become a customer of yours. So good. So think about it. If you are techy and you have all of the, you know, backend automation set up, think about the things that you’re asking people for. Are you making them answer 5, 10, 15 questions in order to get to the next step? Because again, the more you ask someone to do, the less likely they are to become a customer, right? We know that in terms of the sales enablement process and lead captures online we’re going first name and email.
AJV (08:20):
That’s as much as we’re gonna ask from you. I know plenty of people who don’t even worry about the first name. Just give me your email because the least amount of information is going to get the highest conversion. Now, there is a pro to doing that for lead following, right? So, so for emails, but there’s another process that you really wanna consider if you’re actually having people request a call. Because if you’re going, Hey, just give me an email and I’ll, you can request a free call or you’re getting something free, then you really do wanna have a whole nother conversation with, Hey, you’re not asking for emails. This is no longer a lead capture. What you’re doing now is you have an application and that is a qualifying list. So in the offline world, how I would sit down and go, you know, you know, tell me what you’re looking for.
AJV (09:05):
What are you currently using? What do you like about that? Is there anything you would change about that? Who’s involved in these decisions? That’s an offline application, right? That’s an offline qualifying set of questions. Online. You have applications, which could be called intake surveys, they could be called assessments, you can call ’em whatever you want their applications. And that’s going, Hey, what’s your industry? What’s your title? What was your revenue last year? You know, who are you currently using? What are your goals in the next six months? All of those things, those are qualifying questions, right? This is a sales high level capital word here, sales enablement process. So let’s don’t be confused with what we’re doing in order to actually have someone on the phone to convert them to be a raving fan and customer. So there are marketing, which is you’re just trying to get emails, which is the least amount of information as possible, is gonna give you the highest conversion that’s on the marketing front.
AJV (10:06):
Then you’ve gotta think about sales. And for that, you don’t wanna be getting on the phone with people who aren’t truly good prospects for your service. And I didn’t say good prospects now or later. Just good prospects. You should. And we’ll have plenty of calls with people who aren’t a fit right now. That doesn’t mean they won’t be a fit in the future, just like offline sales, right? That is the whole process of sales nurturing. It happens offline and online. So we just wanna make sure we have qualifying questions that go, you’re a good fit for what I do and we’re a good fit for what you’re looking for. Let’s talk. Right? So that’s an application completely different than, Hey, give me the least amount of information as possible, which is going to result in the highest conversion, which is first name or email, or just email.
AJV (10:53):
So again, you just kind of have to know what you’re looking for. We even say we have some funnels where we split test of going, Hey, how, how are we doing with just first name and email? And then we go first name, last name, email. And sometimes we even go first name, last name, email, phone number, because if we don’t have a phone number, there’s just so much we can do with email clutter. So there’s all different types of ways of going about it. But in general, one, you’re trying to grow your email list. The other, you’re trying to get qualified emails for marketing and then you’re doing qualified leads for sales. Think about those in three very different categories, right?
AJV (11:41):
Three different things with three different sets of information, sales enablement. Okay, moving along here,
AJV (12:42):
Marketing’s job is to serve up qualified leads for the sales team. So the sales team can have good conversations and find the right fit for the right person and convert them into being hopefully again, a lifelong customer, a raving fan. And that’s a really important job. So if we’re not getting great qualified, you know, leads from the marketing department, sales doesn’t do their job very well. And if sales has been converting, then we gotta look at like where are the leads coming from? Is it a sales problem as a marketing function? They go together, they’re not separate. And marketing and sales are a union. This is a marriage because the whole point of marketing is to provide good qualified leads to help the sales team and sales team job is to do an amazing job and deliver a great service so that the customer goes, yes, that is what I wanna do.
AJV (13:39):
I do wanna buy your services and your products. Here’s my money. Right? So those two things have to work together. So just ask yourself, how often do my sales marketing team talk, collaborate, communicate, brainstorm, and give feedback all? How often are they sta sharing? How often are we doing this together? Because it’s gotta be all the time, right? Just a great reminder. And then one last thing here is that communication. I love this. I thought this was so good cuz we’re all about lifetime value at Brand Builders Group. We’re constantly just looking at how do we create products and services where our customers want to be a part of this for a lifetime, right? It’s not about like, how do we hold you to your contract? It’s not about that, although, right? Those are things a part of business, but it’s like, well, how do we create a program? How do we create a membership, a service where you go, I want to be a part of this, right? That’s lifetime value. That’s how we interpret that, right? It’s a life of the time of a customer who’s with you. And the number one thing that improves lifetime value is communication with your customers. So couple of quick things here. Just really
AJV (14:50):
Quick tips. It’s like during your customer onboarding, just make sure you’re asking what’s their communication preference? Like, what do they actually prefer, right? Do they prefer phone calls, texts, emails, like what’s best for them? And just simply asking that question allows you to cater the communication experience so they actually receive your communication, right? If somebody is not checking emails ever, or you’re just getting spammed, there is no communication even though you’re making a attempts. Same thing. It’s like if you’re blowing someone up in text and they’re like, oh my gosh, just stop. I only use this for personal and they just opt out, right? Or maybe somebody just actually wants to talk to be like, Hey man, I just, I’d love to hear from someone every so often. These are the things that will just make our communication efforts more streamlined, more targeted, thus more successful. And the number one thing to improve lifetime value is communication. Good, healthy communication. So simple tip, during onboarding, ask them what is their number one preference of how they want to receive communication from your company, right? So simple things, important things, they will make a difference. They’re gonna make a difference for you. Hope you enjoy this.
Ep 359: Developing a Mindset of Persistence | Annie F. Downs Episode Recap
RV (00:02):
Some of my favorite interviews on this podcast and show are the ones where we get to hear the story about how a mission-driven messenger or personal brand started in the very beginning. And if you haven’t yet, make sure you go back and listen to the interview that I just did with Annie F Downs, because that’s the story that she tells about how she got started, how she made her first dollars. And I, it’s just so, so inspiring and, um, and actually inspired me. And so I’m gonna share with you some of my, some of my thoughts and highlights from, from the show, uh, from that interview. And then also just kind of like some of the things I want to add to it and, and share with you. Um, the very first thing that I wanna do is something very tactical. I wanna share with you some of the data about podcast advertising dollars, um, because that came up in our conversation.
RV (00:53):
She hosts a podcast and she also runs a podcast network. And so we were talking about monetizing a podcast. Um, and so I asked her in the interview, you know, how much do you charge for the ads? And how much can you really make as a podcaster and when do you start making money, et cetera. Um, and, you know, she, she openly admitted. She’s like, I don’t really like know all of those, those specifics, um, you know, off the top of my head. But, um, you know, she threw out some numbers. And, and then, um, we actually, at Brand Builders Group, we have a course called Podcast Power. And you know, this is where we teach people one, one of, we have 14 courses in our full curriculum, right? So our members who are, uh, paying members of our, of our membership community, they get access to 14 courses.
RV (01:35):
And one of ’em is Podcast Power, and we have a whole section in there on advertising dollars. And so I didn’t know the numbers off the top of my head, but I went ahead and went into the course, grabbed that specific section, and I wanted to share a couple of those with you just since it came up in the, in the, in the interview. Um, and it, it admittedly, you know, making money from podcast ads is, is a little bit of like a gray box because it’s, it’s not like it’s, I guess it’s a free market system, right? Like so many things, um, there, there’s not a, a hard and fast rule of how it has to be. Um, it’s driven by supply and demand, and it’s driven by like how many, what your show is about and how much advertisers want you, and they want access to your audience and how convicted they are that your audience is the right fit for them, et cetera, et cetera.
RV (02:21):
So, um, that’s part of what it comes down to. But, um, I did wanna just share with you these are, these are the numbers that we, we share with our paying clients, right? So, and, and if you are one of our members, you can go into podcast Power in our workbook. It’s on page 42, um, of, uh, that workbook’s 137 pages, which, you know, obviously we’ve got lots and lots of content we’re teaching y’all. But, um, so the number that we were using in that conversation with Annie was if you’ll have a podcast that gets about 10,000 downloads per episode, and I loved what she said, and I would edify what she said, that basically the first week, uh, will be a number. So let’s say like 5,000, whatever the number of downloads you get that first week will probably double over the next nine weeks.
RV (03:08):
So if you get 5,000 on the first week, then you probably will get another 5,000 over the next nine weeks. And that’s, we see that to be, you know, about right, too, just like, you know, using rough numbers. So we’ll use 10,000 downloads per episode. Um, right? So if you’re doing an episode every week, that means you’re getting around like 40,000 downloads a month. So that’s a, you know, that might take a couple years to get to give or take some, depending on what your topic is and your, you know, who you are, et cetera, and, uh, your network. But, um, for a 15 second ad, um, and this is what we did, is we sort of pulled together data from our, uh, clients and we work with, you know, some of the biggest podcasters in the world, our clients of ours. And, um, you know, we got hundreds of of members.
RV (03:53):
So we, we see this, but it’s, you know, this is, again, this isn’t like scientific per se. This is our poll of our community to try to put some real numbers to something that’s kind of an obscure conversation. Um, that for a 15 second ad, um, that, uh, if you, if you did four episodes a month, so we’ll just stay there, we’ll just say, if you had 10,000 downloads an episode and then you were doing four episodes a month, an advertiser might pay you around $720 a month, um, which would be, you know, like for four episodes, like $180 per episode. And if you were doing four episodes a month and they wanted, they wanted all four, if they wanted a spot on all four, then you might make $720 per 15 second ad per advertiser, right? So if, if it goes up to a, if a 60, that’s for a 60, a 15 second ad read, if you were looking for like a 62nd ad read, um, those, uh, uh, come out to approximately like $25 each, like, you know, for like a A C P M, right?
RV (05:02):
And so if you go, all right, if we’re gonna have 10,000 downloads per episode, then you would, you, an advertiser might pay, uh, 250 an episode or a thousand dollars a month to be on all four of your episodes. So, you know, Annie off the top of her head, she said, yeah, if you have a podcast that’s getting 10,000 downloads an episode and you have an episode coming out every single week, then you know, I said, what would that podcast make in a year? And she was, she was reluctant to answer, but she threw out a number that was, uh, I think she said like maybe $40,000 a year is what that podcast would make. Um, and you know, when I went and looked up our data and what, what we actually formally teach, um, so we’re seeing around a thousand dollars a month for one 62nd ad read.
RV (05:53):
So that would be $12,000 a year, but that’s only for one 62nd ad read. So if you had three 62nd ad reads, um, in each episode, that would be $3,000 a month or $36,000 a year. So I actually think she was pretty close. I actually think that’s about right. Um, and for those of you that are podcasters are aspiring podcasters, you know, anyone who’s an experienced podcaster knows that if you start the year with 10,000 downloads an episode, it’s gonna grow. And it, it’s always, it’s one of the beauties of the podcasting medium is it’s constantly growing and, um, it’s just a snowball that builds and builds and builds and it’s a really, really beautiful and wonderful medium in that way. So, um, yeah, so that is, uh, you know, a, a good, a good rule of thumb if you get up to a hundred thousand downloads an episode, you know, you multiply that by 10, now you’re talking about making, you know, $10,000 a month per advertiser, uh, which would be like 400.
RV (06:51):
If you had four of those on each episode, that’d be like $400,000 a month or 5 million bucks a year. Like that would be pretty massive. So it may not scale quite up to that, but that’s, you know, you can make real money over it long term. But in the short term, if you’re podcasting, you’re not gonna make much money from advertisers cuz you’re not in front of that many people, right? They’re paying C P m, which is cost per thousand impressions. So you don’t, if you don’t have thousands of downloads, then you’re not getting, you’re not getting many impressions and they’re not gonna be paying you, uh, much for those, right? So, um, that is a little bit of data there. And if you’re an early podcaster, and even if you’re an experienced podcaster, right? Like our, our podcast gets, you know, well north of, of that number, but we don’t, um, we don’t have ads on our show other than our own ads.
RV (07:39):
And so we offer just people, uh, our various free training and we give them a chance to, um, you know, uh, learn from us or engage with us or request a free call at some point. That’s what we really want you to do, right? We want you to go to free brand call.com/podcast and request a call to say, Hey, we’d love to talk to you about what is your dream, what is your vision, um, to build your personal brand and monetize it, and then talk to you about how we do that and how we help people all the way from the biggest personal brands in the world down to people who are just starting out. And we’ve got stuff for, um, every different budget. So anyways, if that’s you, let this be our ad read, uh, here in this and go to free brand call.com/podcast and request a call with us.
RV (08:19):
So I hope that is, I hope that is helpful for you. That was something I wanted to make sure and look up, um, and give to you the, the, the next thing that I was inspired by listening to that, uh, you know, re-listening to that interview, re going over my notes with, uh, uh, Annie and was just, you know, she said something and it was kind of like quick, but she said, get help before you can afford help get help before you can afford help. And this really reminded me of a concept that is in my second book, which is Procrastinated on Purpose, five Permissions to Multiply Your Time. And in that book, which is also based on the, uh, which my, my, my viral TED talk is based on my, my TED Talk’s called How to Multiply Time. Um, we talk a lot about the concept of getting help in your life, um, like extra hands to help you with things and hiring people to do it.
RV (09:15):
And what people always say is they say, I can’t afford it. Like they say, Rory, I would love to hire someone to help clean my house, do my landscaping, edit my videos, write my copy, do my website, et cetera, et cetera. And they say, well, the problem is, I, I can’t afford it. And so I want to reintroduce or remind you, or if you’ve never read my book, um, that second book, the, I want to introduce to you the concept of mvat, M V O T and m OT stands for the money value of time. Now, the, the concept of the money value of time, first of all, should not be confused with the time value of money. The concept of the time value of money is about knowing what is $1 worth today out in the future based on some assumptions of compounding interest.
RV (10:03):
And that’s a powerful concept also, but not what I’m talking about here, right? That’s the time value of money is basically knowing what, uh, an amount of money will be worth at some point in the future, um, based on, you know, compounding interest. M v OT or money value of time is just a very, very, it’s a much simpler calculation and it’s a much simpler assumption and a much simpler thing. It’s a much simpler thing to explain, which is just that all of us have an hourly rate of pay, all of us do. Now, you might not get paid hourly, right? You might be a salesperson on commission, you might be an owner who’s on profits. Um, you, you, you might be, you know, and, and, and an investor who gets dividends, like, uh, we get paid in different ways, but all of us can figure out what our hourly rate of pay is if you just take the total amount of money you earned, right?
RV (11:02):
Whatever you earned in income, and you divide that by the total amount of hours that you’ve worked for a year. Um, and to do it quickly, you know, rough math here is to use the number 2080 for the number of working hours in a year. So if you just approximately, you know, did you take 200 2080? That’s about what HR professionals use to estimate the number of working hours in a year. And if you take that amount and you divide that, uh, take your total income and divide it by 2080, it’ll give you your hourly rate of pay. And what you’ll find is, let’s just say somebody, if, if somebody makes like $150,000 a year, okay? So if you made a $150,000 a year divided by 2080, then that means you make $72 an hour. Let’s say if you make $75,000 a year and you divide that by 2080, that means you make $36 an hour, right?
RV (12:02):
For the, for the, the, the time that you’re working. So here’s the thing, as people always say, I can’t afford it, I can’t afford to hire somebody else, but the the key insight is to realize you already are affording it. You already are affording it. You are paying somebody to do that work. You are either paying someone else at their rate of pay or you are paying yourself at yours. Because if you are using an hour of your time to, to complete any task, I don’t care what the task is. If, if you are completing a task, then the opportunity cost of your time is equivalent to whatever your mvo is, is to say, if, if instead of mowing the yard for an hour, if I took that hour and I use that hour and reinvested it into work and to income generating things on average, that’s the hourly rate of pay I make.
RV (13:00):
So the way to think about it is to realize, you know, if you make $75,000 a year, every hour that you’re doing something is you’re paying $36 an hour to do that task. It’s like a, it’s like a, a price of admission. You’re saying, oh, I’m gonna pay $36 and I’m hiring my, you know, I’m hiring myself to do this. Whereas if I could hire somebody for less than that rate of pay to do that task for me, then I could reallocate that time and I could reinvest that time into things that generate income or generate more money at that rate of pay my mvo or higher. And what you find is that if you do that over the course of time, then your mbot gets higher and higher and higher because you spend more and more of your time. You spend a higher percentage of your time focused on higher income p earning activities, and you spend a lower and lower percentage of your time on non-income producing activities.
RV (13:58):
And then you are you. But that work still needs to be done. It just doesn’t need to be done by you and you’re able to afford it by reallocating your time into higher profit activities. That is the concept of mbot that is, uh, in the delegate chapter, uh, along with another powerful rule called the 30 x rule. In my second book, procrastinate on Purpose, five permissions to Multiply Your Time. But I bring it up here because this is the conversation that Annie was saying is she was saying, I always by help before I can afford help, and that is how it has been with me too. I’ve never felt like I have extra money around to hire the next person. We don’t, but we know we need the help in order to grow. And so what happens is I’m always trying to minimize my lifestyle expenses, right, in order to create more that I can reinvest into hiring people to help us get things done.
RV (14:56):
When you do that over and over and over again, at some point it catches up and now you have people who are getting things done and making things happen, and now you start to make more money and you’re making money off of the system that you’ve built right off of the network or the infrastructure or the, or the organization or the company, because you’ve got a group of people who are all doing things and they’re, you are paying them. That’s, that is what an entrepreneur, that’s what it means to be an entrepreneur. You’re giving life to, uh, jobs around you. You’re a job creator. And Annie’s story was that she, she talked about how she couldn’t even afford to pay her assistant. She could barely afford to pay her assistant. Um, when she first was getting speaking gigs, most of the money was going to the person who was booking the gigs for her. And I’m not saying that I like it. I’m not saying that that’s how it should be. I’m just saying that’s how it is.
RV (15:56):
And if you’re serious about changing the world, if you’re serious about being a mission-driven messenger, if you’re serious about like wanting to do good work in the world, you are gonna have to make sacrifices and you’re gonna have to make short-term sacrifices in exchange for the long-term payoffs that come, which is money, it’s influence, it’s impact, it’s income, it’s purpose, it’s peace. It’s all the things that are these beautiful rewards that show up from, from doing it. But there’s a price that you have to pay right there. There’s, there is sacrifices required. This comes from my first book, take the Stairs, the Pain Paradox. The Pain Paradox says that one of the key mindsets of UL ultra performers, one of the key distinctions that UL Ultra performers have made is they realize that, that the short-term easy leads to the long-term difficult. Meanwhile, difficult short-term choices lead to easy, long-term consequences.
RV (16:55):
And so you gotta make that choice. And that pulls me right into, you know, the third thing I wanted to share with you about what it takes to make it on this journey as a mission-driven messenger. And at the very end of the interview with Annie, I said, Hey, if there was somebody out there right now who’s in, you know, struggling in that moment, what would you tell? What would you tell them? And effectively what she shared is you have to make a decision that you’re not gonna quit at some point in your career, at some point in your life, you have to resolve, you have to conclude. You, you have to come to a, a summary analysis that says, I will not be stopped. I will not quit. I will not give up. I will not abandon. I will stay, I will fortify, I will edify, I will solidify this commitment.
RV (17:57):
I’m not going anywhere. You can’t get rid of me, right? There’s no one in this world who can stop you except you. You are the one ultimately who gives up. You’re the one who ultimately fires yourself. You’re the one who ultimately calls it quits. No one else can do that for you. They can bounce you around from different opportunities and close certain doors, but at the end of the day, you are the one that decides if you’re gonna be successful or not. And you decide and you resolve that you’re gonna keep going even when it’s hard. You, you have to, you have to reach this point in your life. You have to reach this time where you say, I don’t care if it’s difficult, I’m gonna succeed. Even if it’s difficult. I don’t care if it’s inconvenient. I’m gonna succeed even if it’s inconvenient. I don’t care if I’m having a hard time affording it.
RV (18:45):
I don’t care if there’s rejection, I don’t care if there’s fear. I don’t care if I am tired, if I’m exhausted, I don’t care. I am going to rise above that. I am going to succeed in spite of that, I am going to do it anyway. And that is what it takes. That is what it takes to be successful in this industry or any industry. It is that personal resolve that, that discipline, that commitment, that vision and that that persistence to just say, I am going to rise above all that. If the world throws this and that and whatever at me, it doesn’t matter. I will not be stopped. You can’t stop me. I’m going to do everything in my power. Then I’m gonna find a way or I’m gonna die trying. Nobody is gonna wave their wand over you and say, you deserve to be a a messenger.
RV (19:34):
You deserve to be an author. You deserve to be a speaker. Right? You, if you’re waiting for that, you’re gonna wait your whole life. Stop waiting for that and go get it and decide. The only person who waves that wand is you. And you. You wake up and you say, this is what I’m gonna do with my life. I’m gonna inspire people, I’m gonna help people. I’m gonna make a difference. And I will not be stopped. I might get rerouted, I might get tired, I might have setbacks. It might be hard, it might be difficult, inconvenient, uncomfortable, challenging, and it might be scary, but it doesn’t matter. This is the life that I choose for myself. I am in charge and I have a future that I’m pursuing and I am writing my story and I am the author and I decide that this is how it’s going to be. I’m gonna make it. Even if it’s hard, nobody else can do that for you except you.
RV (20:41):
And that is the power that you do have. That power. And, and listening to Annie’s story was just such a great fresh reminder of that to me, right? She was a four-time author, right? She had an agent and four book deals and she could barely, she was barely making it. And now, you know, you see her, she’s on stage in front of thousands of people and she’s got this huge podcast in this amazing network, all these great opportunities. She’s inspiring people, she’s changing lives. Like she’s doing all these wonderful things. And people see and they go, well, I could do that, I could do that. Right? They look at her on stage like, that looks like so much fun. I could do that. Why? How come I can’t do that? Cuz that’s not the job. The job is overcoming the fear. The job is overcoming the inconvenience.
RV (21:28):
The the hard part is all the parts you don’t see. It’s not given up when most people will, right? It’s not accepting someone else’s rejection as, as permanent. It’s realizing it’s just temporary. It’s just a redirection. And you can make that decision right now. And if that’s you and you are ready to make that decision, I would say the first thing you should do is you should come and join us because we are among the very best in the world, if not the best in the world, at helping mission-driven messengers to reach more people and to make this dream come true. We know a lot about it. We’ve done it, we’re doing it. We have several people doing it. We, we, we can help. But you gotta make that decision that you’re not gonna be stopped. So I hope you do that. If you’re ready to make that decision, go to free brand call.com/podcast, request a call with our team.
RV (22:22):
Uh, if not, if you’re not quite at that point, um, just keep tuning in and keep hanging out and keep learning, um, and keep, uh, checking in on these amazing guests and these inspiring stories. We’re so grateful for you that you’re here. Um, share this episode with somebody who needs it. If you would go share, go tell Annie, uh, go find Annie on social media and send her some love. Let her know that you heard her, her on the Influential Personal Brand podcast. Um, and just give her a thanks for showing up and being a part of, uh, this amazing community. So, you know, they, these folks do it for free. They come on here because we’re friends and because they wanna help other people just like you. We’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand podcast.
Ep 357: You Don’t Need A Visual Identity To Build Your Personal Brand | Nadine Hanafi Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
Hey, AJ Vaden here. Just making a quick pop in here to talk about something that has been on the top of my mind for hmm, 15 years. I’m not exaggerating. It’s literally been on my mind for 15 years. And it’s on the lines of this concept of building your personal brand, which, you know, to me is just an extension of your reputation. But I feel like there’s a lot of misconception out there about what is a personal brand and people associate personal branding with influencers and social media followers and you know, all the things that you would think about with having an online presence and a podcast and a website and a blog and all the things. And those things are good. Don’t get me wrong. We talk a lot about those things at Brand Builders Group and here I am making a content video for social media and or podcast and a blog.
AJV (00:59):
So don’t get, don’t hear what I’m not saying here. Those things are good and valuable and important, but those are not a personal brand. They’re just not. A personal brand is the formalization of what you wanna be known for and who you want to be known by. It’s the formalization and digitization of your reputation in a way that helps you get out there and become the go-to expert in your space, both online and offline. But again, personal branding, it’s just an extension of your reputation. It’s the intentional desire of becoming known for what you want to be known for. That is a personal brand. But what comes along with that is once those things are formalized as well, how do I get this message? How do I display my content, what I have to say, who I wanna be out into the world? And that’s where it gets a little muddied, right?
AJV (01:58):
Because then we, we get confused that somehow personal branding is all about social media and it’s not. Or we think that branding is all about visual identity and websites and colors and fonts and it’s not. We think that it only has to do with content creation. It doesn’t, those are all pieces and parts of the puzzle here. But there is a, a piece of this puzzle that I wanna specifically talk about today which is the visual identity part, because that is where people get hung up and they get consumed. And it’s what most often stops you in your tracks because you’re so concerned with what it looks like. You forget that you’re actually doing this to help somebody. You get so consumed with how many likes or followers or subscribers that you get that you forget that people who did see it and who did have an it that or who did you did impact.
AJV (02:49):
You forget that those people are real live human beings on the other side of your screen. Or you get so obsessed with doing so many speaking engagements or book deals or whatever that you forget, like you are making an impact with one person and that is worth it, that’s worth it. But back to this concept of visual identity, there are so many EMA emotions that are tied up in, well, what is my brand gonna look like? That that is what the whole concept of personal branding becomes about. And so I was sitting down with a friend, Nadine, who owns this awesome company called We Are Visual and has another company called Digital Brand Kit. And we were having this conversation because on the journey of building my personal brand over the last 10, 2, 15 years I have never really sat down and spent the time if this tells you anything of really creating my own color palette or a visual identity or font, because I believe that’s just a tiny piece of it.
AJV (03:53):
And at some point you actually need to do those things that, that’s important for you to have this visual representation of who you are and how you want to be a scene in the world. And it’s been a long time coming. And so I’ve been going through this journey and it’s been a really hard process for me. It’s been a really hard thing of going, man, I just don’t know if that’s it. So I was having this conversation with my friend Nadine, and she gave me some key tips that I thought I would pass along to you. So step one here’s what she said. And she is a designer. Do not hire a designer as your first step.
AJV (04:31):
That was so helpful because that’s what you think you need. Oh, I just need to go find someone who can figure out and do this for me. Don’t do that. In fact, as a designer, you know, she’s giving me this. If I don’t hire designers your first step, but instead spend time with your audience, spend time with your content and getting in tune with who do you wanna impact? How do you wanna impact them, and how do they need to be impacted, right? How do they actually want to hear from you? And what is it that they need from you? What is it that they want from you? And how can you really make a difference in the people that you feel like you’re called to make a difference for? So don’t hire a designer. Spend time with your audience. Step number one. So helpful.
AJV (05:14):
Step number two follow truths, not trends. And this was so, so powerful. I’m gonna say that again. Follow truths, not trends. And what she said is, your visual identity is what’s true about you, not what’s trending online or in the market, right?
AJV (05:57):
Don’t know, did they go away? I dunno,
AJV (06:48):
Taking pictures of colors and restaurants and sending ’em to a designer. Don’t do that. Because you waste time and you’re never going to actually get a visual identity that represents you. So follow truths, not trends. Number three, she said, here’s actually something to and think about when you think about what you actually need when you’re building out your personal brand. And you have to think about what is an actual set of brand guidelines. Because if you work with most designers, a set of brand guidelines is gonna include a logo, a color palette, fonts, maybe some iconography, some typography. But that’s about it. And she goes, if you really think about it, this is what you need. Buckle up. You’re gonna need colors, fonts, logos, you will need iconography. You will need topography, but you are also going to need brand imagery, right?
AJV (07:41):
So those are different types of imagery, not just icons and just visuals. But you’re gonna need like full like photography imagery, right? Think about all the things that people put quotes on and you’re standing behind and all the things. You’re gonna need imagery, you’re gonna need banners for the different social media platforms. Well, they all have different dimensions, so you’re gonna need a different size banner for Facebook versus Instagram versus LinkedIn versus YouTube. You’re gonna need different banners. You, cuz they all have different dimensions. You’re gonna need PowerPoint files. Don’t think about, don’t forget about that. At some point you likely will do a presentation, whether it’s a webinar or a keynote. But what about p d s? Are you gonna have e-books? Are you gonna have any sort of lead magnets or downloads? What about handouts? Will you able to do workshops or will you do something that you hand out in a virtual presentation or a live presentation?
AJV (08:35):
What about your speaker press kit? Will you do any speaking cuz you’re gonna need something where you have formatted for that. What about a webinar kit or a course, right? Are you gonna need imagery for both the, the, you know, like the cover pages of the courses the different files that have you have in the courses the different thumbnails you’re gonna gonna need thumbnails, you’re gonna need ad images if you ever do pay traffic. What about a media kit? Do you have a podcast? Do you need a podcast thumb? Now? Do you need a media kit? Like don’t go to overwhelmed now, right? But if then if you’re getting into video, do you need video bumpers? Do you need video covers? And the list just went on and on and on and I was like, oh my gosh, that is what you have to think about.
AJV (09:17):
And that is where people get stuck. I, instead of pursuing something that has the ability to change your life and to change someone else’s life, we get lost behind all of these things. And so when I was having this conversation with they dean, I mentioned that she owns these awesome two companies. We are visual, which helps you do things custom. But she said this was the whole reason this this conversation she was having with me is the entire reason that she created the company Digital Brand Kit because she has created all of those assets and templates with dozens and dozens of dozens of preset color palettes and imagery and typography and fonts. So that for people like me, they don’t get stuck in this kind of thing. Instead of focusing on my audience and my content and doing what I feel like God put me on earth to do.
AJV (10:11):
I don’t get stuck behind some color wheel, right? And so I just wanna encourage you the same thing. I’ve gotten almost 15 years in my personal brand without having a formal website or brand guidelines or anything like that. And guess what? It’s working out okay. And at the same time, there’s comes up time like for me right now where I wanna do it and it feels right and it feels like the time to do it. But you don’t have to spend 20,000, 50,000, a hundred thousand dollars on this. You don’t have to spend 10,000. In fact, you can spend a thousand or 2000 get to, to get the things that you need. And when you think about where you’re gonna invest your time and your money and your resources, people get overly attached to the visual part of it because we think that’s all that matters.
AJV (10:57):
And I’m just here, I’m living proof to tell you that it’s not I haven’t had one in 15 years. And at the same time, there comes a time where something is important but it’s way more important to figure out the truth behind what’s really important and how you wanna present yourself than spending, you know, tens of thousands of dollars getting something that’s just trendy and cool. And so I don’t know who this is for today, but I know that it was for me. And so I hope it resonates with someone else out there. And shameless plug my friend nabe, if you’re interested in this sort of thing go to brand builders group.com/db k and check out digital brand kits for your own starter brand. And again, it’s like visual identity is important, but it ain’t the whole thing. So just keep on keeping on and keep doing you. We’ll see you next time.
Ep 355: The Four Non-Negotiables for Successful Virtual Events | Bari Baumgardner Episode Recap
RV (00:02):
So Tony Robbins is arguably the, at least one of the most successful personal brands in the world, one of the biggest personal brands in the world one of the, the highest revenue generating personal brands in the world. I mean, you know, he’d, he’d be up there, Dave Ramsey, Tony Robbins, you know,
RV (01:12):
And probably when people needed encouragement and inspiration the most, they found a way to do this and make it profitable and a great experience for everybody. And we got a chance to talk to her. And I have to say, I had, I, I had never talked to Bari. Very rarely do we have someone on this show where it’s like I’m meeting them for the first time during the interview. But that was the case here with Barry. She was referred to me by a good friend of mine, Randy Garn, and, and I, I’d heard about Bari and Blue because you know, we’ve used their technology, et cetera. And anyways, it was such an awesome interview, a powerful interview here on running profitable virtual events. I think we’re gonna try this. I think we’re actually gonna experiment with this format. So anyways, let me give you the, my three highlights and takeaways.
RV (02:01):
In some ways, this one really, this one more than other episodes, really will function as like a summary of what she covered, because she covered so much, and it was, it was so powerful that even, even for my own knowledge and like my own retention, I’m, you know, some of this, I’m just recapping. So first of all, she talked about the four non-negotiables of a virtual event. And the big idea here, which is so simple, but so smart and powerful, is to go, if you want a virtual event to emulate the kind of results that you would have from a physical in-person event, then you need to try to emulate the in-person event experience or, or the dynamics of it as much as possible. And that makes so much sense to me. And she said well, there’s four non-negotiables that we have. So first is the registration process has to take place.
RV (02:56):
You have to go through a virtual check-in process that makes sense. Second was physical swag and sending somebody something physically in the mail. And that makes a lot of sense, right? That’s like super powerful that makes people show up and take it, take it serious. The third was gamification which I think is more of just like a attention, it’s like attention or retention strategy. And then the fourth is interactivity, which of course is the best part of in-person events, is almost, it’s almost always the people you meet and, and you know, the, the relationships you make in the hallways and all that kind of stuff. And it’s, it’s not just what you’re learning, but the people that are there. Well, in a virtual environment, you have to really work just deliberately to recreate that. And so those are four simple things, you know, she walked through them in detail, but I think it’s more of just, you know, there’s lots of ways for how to do those four things.
RV (03:52):
It’s more of knowing what the four things are. And, and, and really to me, the big idea there is going, how can we model our virtual event to emulate the experiences of an in-person event? And by doing that, we’ll emulate the results of an in-person event that will, will emulate the, the experience, the client experience, the user experience of being at a real event in person. And that’s what they’re doing. And that’s part of why they’re getting the kind of same sales results and bigger sales results with these virtual events. We’ll talk about that in just a second. The second big takeaway, which to me was like, I guess the grand takeaway of the whole interview was this very, very simple three day format. And on the one hand, I’m like a little bit skeptical of going, can you really hold people’s attention for three days?
RV (04:47):
But on the other hand, I mean brand builders group, we do two day events, like all of our members the people, our, our our paying members who are in our coaching program, they get unlimited access to our events. So part of what they do is they pay a monthly fee and they can come to, we do an event, we do a two day event every single month, and they can come as many to as many as they want. It’s unlimited access, and the time flies by. So I go, yeah, I, I could totally see the three day format. But the key is, and she made this point, which is also how we’ve constructed our events, is you’re not teaching for three straight days. Like, you can’t just stand up and talk for three days. And certainly not in a virtual event. So the whole thing is it’s gotta be interactive.
RV (05:33):
There’s gotta be exercises and questions and dialogues. And and this is one of the reasons why I think we might try this, is because when somebody comes to one of our events, their life is freaking changed. I mean, when our members, this is why we retain our clients for years. Like on average, our clients stay with us for years. Like we’ve only been in business for four years, and like a third of the clients that signed up with us in the very beginning are still with us, are like more like 25%, 25% of the people who signed up with us like four years ago are still with us. So people hang around and then we didn’t even know what we were doing back then, right? So we’re just figuring it out, like you’ve really gotten it dialed in in the last couple years.
RV (06:17):
And but people, when they have this experience, it’s like life changing and, and then they stick around. And so part of what our team has been trying to figure out is going, how do we get people to sort of get that experience, like get a way to sample that? And I think Barry’s model here is a great one. And so we’re, we’re looking at this. We’re not, haven’t officially announced that we’re gonna do this, but I’m, you know, again, I’m learning right alongside you here with the people who come on this show. And this is one that was, was super compelling to me going, I think we, we should try this because we have a lot of fans that have not yet become customers. And it’s like, it’s like, I think they trust us. I think they kind of see it, but it’s exactly what she was talking about.
RV (07:04):
They’re not totally sure that they could do it or what the next step is, or that it’s worth the money or that. And so it’s sort of like they just need to experience it. And I think this three day format gives people a chance to really experience it and get involved and, and get acclimated and, and, and get familiar with your content and, and what the process feels like to go through. So, you know, she talked about this three day format and you know, the, basically the, the first day is just getting a sense of what is possible teaching some content, like, you know, adding some real value in the first day. And, and probably it’s, I got the sense that like a lot, a lot of the teaching does happen in the first day or, or a big part of the first day is teaching and, and giving people real content but also giving them a chance to sort of establish their own vision and, and, and see what do they see as possible for themself.
RV (08:00):
And then day two is really where you spend more time talking about the gap of, of like, okay, where, where are you now compared to where you wanna be? And what would your life look like if you achieve that? And what’s the process that it takes to get there? And and so you, you sort of, and then you show them the solution and you show them the journey. So like, for example, at Brand Builders Group, we have our brand builder journey. Ours is actually called the Brand Builder journey. In fact, if you’ve never been to our website, if you go to brand builders group.com and then under the about menu, there’s a sub menu. That’s our brand process. You can see how we, we map this out for people just as an example. And, and also if you, if you haven’t yet requested a call with our team, you should go look at this and, and it’ll, it lays out, you know, our 12 like, well, we have a 14 part journey all in that we take people on to go from like concept all the way to eight figure personal brand and becoming one of the most well known people in the world, which several of our clients are.
RV (09:09):
So you can, you can check that out at, just go to brand builders group.com and click on about, and then click on our brand process. But I think that’s what I got a sense is whatever your brand process is, that’s what you lay out on day two. Those of you that are listening that are members of ours, when we, what this would be is when we take you through captivating content and we help you map out all your pillars and you lay out like your high level framework and you, you know, your unique branded methodology and all those, those things, that’s what you’re really introducing them to in day two is what it sounds like. And then tactically, this was important. I was digging, you know, to make sure I got crystal clear on this, at the end of day two is where you make the offer, right?
RV (09:52):
So that’s where you make the offer and you let people sort of hear it and you invite them to join. And and so you think of day two as making the offer. And then day three is basically like closed cart. And so then on day three, they come back. Day three is all about just getting people that are there to make a decision to do something differently in their life, to future cast or to vision what it’s gonna feel like when they do reach the goals that they have and reminding people it’s not too late to join. And then there, it, it sounds like there’s a second offer on day three in the morning, which is the heart you know, the heart pitch and the heart close in the morning. And then I, I thought it was really great where Barry was talking about you need to have celebration.
RV (10:42):
And you know, there, there were a couple, couple key things here. One was having that lunchtime celebration for all, all new members or all people who were joining, whatever the program is that they get to come. And so, you know, like she said, no one wants to miss the start of a program. And so people wanna sign up cuz they want to get to get that invitation that’s really compelling and powerful and, and, and productive. Like pragmatic could go while you’re all here, let’s get everyone together and like actually start the program and, and, and get people going. Really, really smart and simple. And then the other thing that I really loved was where she was saying you know, have breakout rooms in your virtual meeting for sales to take place, right? And I think she said, you know, something like with Tony, they’ve got, you know, dozens of salespeople just standing by running breakout rooms. And so when people have questions, they’re just going, oh, hey, you come over, you know, come in here and talk with our salesperson. You don’t say salesperson, but like, come get your questions answered. That’s super productive. And you know, just really smart. And like, again,
RV (11:52):
She’s emulating what happens in a real life event, at a real life event. You know, you make an offer, people go to the back table to talk to someone to get information about it, and then they sign up. Well, in a virtual room, you got in a virtual event, you gotta create the same thing. So the way you do that is you leverage breakout rooms in Zoom and and if you don’t have a sales team, then you could use like a Coly link and, and let people schedule times with you, you know, that evening or, you know, sometime very, or or in near and in and around the event so that you can close people and, and sign ’em up while they’re excited. And that just, gosh, I mean, that makes so much sense to me. So simple. And, and like she said, the best part about it is the, the, you don’t have to do like a big hard sales pitch.
RV (12:35):
The the format of the event sells itself because people are with you long enough to trust you. You know, if they’re gonna stay that long, like if they don’t, they’re gonna bail, right? So they’re, they’re, they’re gonna stay there. They, they’re long enough to trust you, to feel part of the community and meet people and to really have a true immersive experience, a chance to experience what it feels like to be one of your customers. And you know, I look at Tony Robbins and go, oh, like all of Tony’s events are three and four days and all of these other events I’ve been to where they make high ticket offer, they’re all like three and four days. I mean funnel Hacking Live is that way. And I mean all of Tony’s events, relationship mastery and, you know or Business Mastery and then I think, yeah, date With Destiny and all these, they’re, they’re multi-day events.
RV (13:22):
And you go, yeah, because after someone’s had that experience, they’re like really bought in. And I just love it. So you kind of let the, the format of the event just do its thing, make it, give you lots of time for q and a and, and exercises and dialogue and, you know, networking and meeting. That’s really, really cool. I really love it. And so the third, my third big takeaway there is just the numbers of how this works. And we have another client that’s doing this right now who, who is generating several hundred thousands of dollars, like a few hundred thousand dollars from each one of these events. And they’ll get like a few hundred people there, maybe 300 to 500 people will show up. And so they’re, they’re selling the tickets for a low ticket price, like 97 or, or 1 97.
RV (14:07):
And historically our events at Brand Builders group are $3,000 each. Cuz they’re, I mean, our events are legit. I mean, they are, they’re like more powerful than a college course, but not everyone has that kind of money. And so, you know, I’m going, golly, if we lowered the price on one of these, just a, just a first one where people got a chance to sample it, I wonder if we can move some of those. I bet we could, I bet we could move a ton of ’em. So you, you go, you have a 97 to 1 97, and again, here’s what’s really cool about is, is it’s a virtual event. So you’re not paying for venue rental and for AV and for food and beverage and printing workbooks and like name tags and like having your staff there and coffee and like parking and all the, the massive number of expenses that add up for a, for an in-person event.
RV (14:56):
So you go, I can charge a lower price and I can impact more people. Like, that’s the best part of this is like money aside, just going, man, I can impact more people, impact people all over the globe by doing a virtual event. And, and that’s why you’re doing this, right? I mean, that’s why you’re a mission driven messenger. You’re going, I I want to help people. So, you know, the price is obviously a barrier to the, to the number of people you get to help. And so lowering that price is, is, you know, an interesting idea because you, you can actually do it and you at least break even maybe for your time or you know, the cost of a small team to help you put on the event, et cetera. But anyways, you, you charge, you know, somewhere between 97 to $197 it sounds like.
RV (15:40):
And you know, she said, did you hear this? She said, we’re making offers that go up to $500,000. So at the end of three days, they’re making offers at some of these events that are as much as a half a million dollars for a customer. So that’s pretty crazy just to wrap your mind around. But a $5,000 offer, you know, 3000, 5,000, $10,000, like this is happening regularly. And I think that’s really interesting. So now one thing she did say is numbers wise that in an in-person event, a solid average is like closing 20% of the room, which to me is high. That feels higher than what, what is normal, but let’s say it’s 20%. And then she said in a virtual event, it’s more like 10 to 15%. So it’s slightly lower in my mind. I’m going, okay, call that, you know, 10 to 15% in a live event and five to 10% in a virtual, but the difference is it’s five to 10%.
RV (16:41):
So it’s a lower percentage, but it’s a smaller percentage of a much bigger number because there’s a whole bunch more people there because the ticket price is lower and it’s a virtual event, so you don’t have all the cost of the venue and all that stuff. So it changes the dynamics of this completely, which is really amazing. And, and she said, you know, imagine if you’re just getting started and you, you know, you get 50 people to show up to this thing and you get five people to buy a $5,000 offer, it’s 25 grand. Like for me, when I was first starting, like that was a been big time money, right? Like that’s, yeah, $25,000 is good money. Like for anybody, like, unless you’re Elon Musk, most of us aren’t stepping over $25,000 bills
RV (17:25):
I mean, this was just fascinating, like having her spell out the whole model and go behind the scenes, really, really interesting. And, and it also was powerful that she’s going, it’s not the technology, she sells the technology to help you do it, but she’s just using Zoom, so her technology layers on top of Zoom to make it a little more like customizable and, and gamified and all that stuff. But she’s saying, you know, you can do this, this with Zoom. It’s, it’s not, the technology’s not the magic. The format is the magic. And I can see that, and I, I I love that. So, and again, you know, at the end of the day, the big idea here is you’re impacting lives. That’s it. You’re changing lives. You’re going go in virtual events, give us the opportunity to impact lives at scale. Everything virtually gives us the opportunity, the blessing, the privilege to impact lives at scale.
RV (18:21):
And we can afford to charge lower prices for these in-person events or excuse me, for the virtual events because it doesn’t cost the, the same and you can get people to, to, to show up and and then you can sell more people if it’s a feeder event. Now she’s saying for your real events charge the same price as you normally would because it’s the same amount of time. And the, the value, the content is the same whether it’s in person or not. But for these, for these entry level events to like fill your programs and try to try to use a three day event to fill the program, I’m, I’m excited about it and I’m on board. If nothing else, it’s an experiment. I think we’re gonna have to try just to see if we can reach more people, reach you.
RV (19:04):
Some of you probably are listening are not yet customers of ours and you’ve never had a chance to experience like the Brand Builders group experience. So I don’t know, maybe we’ll have Barry Baumgartner to thank thank for that. So anyways, figure out ways to impact lives. Can you do it virtually? Reach more people, be able to make the money you need, but by charging a lot you know, more people, a lower dollar amount. That’s inspiring to me. You’re inspiring to me. Helping you get your message out to more people is inspiring to me. So I hope you’ll keep coming back, share this episode with somebody that you think will enjoy it. Tell ’em about the influential personal brand podcast or at least go rate us on iTunes, leave a review, and we’re so grateful to have you. Hopefully you’re following me on Instagram, come over and say hi or on LinkedIn. And that’s it for this time. We’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand podcast.
Ep 353: How to Create an Environment You Thrive In | Lori Harder Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
Hey all, this is AJ Vaden and welcome to my recap episode of my conversation with my friend Laurie, harder. And y when I say go listen to this particular episode, I mean, go listen to this particular episode. It’s so, so good, so many nuggets. It’s so rich. We cover so many topics. It’s legit. I don’t care where you want your business, there is something in there for you. So without further ado, I’ll give you kind of like some of my key takeaways from this conversation, which quite honestly was just as impactful for me if it was, if it as it is going to be for any of you. It was so, so good. So here are a few things that I just pulled out that were phenomenally important to me that just hit me in a certain way, so hopefully they hit you the same way.
AJV (00:56):
So the first thing is we started the whole conversation of just remember that you have a choice. And I think that’s just a good reminder for anyone, no matter where you are in life, it’s, you have a choice of how you feel. You have a choice of your attitude. You have a choice of whether or not you’re happy today or you’re stressed today. And I’m not saying that we don’t have days where we’re stressed and overwhelmed. I have those days often, but those are also choices I make. And it’s, I think it, the difference is am I choosing to focus on the things that aren’t going well? Or am I choosing to focus on the things that are, and it’s not that you ignore the things that aren’t they need fixing, but it’s choosing to put your, your, your hope and your aspirations in the things that are working and not get bogged down by the things that aren’t.
AJV (01:44):
It’s, are you choosing little things that make you feel good versus choosing things that don’t make you feel good? I know for me it’s like, am I choosing to go on a walk or am I choosing a glass of wine? I need to choose a to go on a walk, right? And it’s like you have a choice. You have a choice about are you gonna be disciplined and do the things you know you’re supposed to do or are you not? Are you going to do it? Even if you think it doesn’t make a difference, even though it does or not. It’s like you have a choice and all the things, you have a choice. And I think that is just a good place, a good foundation to start for the rest of this conversation is we all have choices to make. How we spend our time, our attitudes, how we feel, how we treat people.
AJV (02:31):
Those are choices that we get to make. And we do have influence and control over those things so you have a choice. So that was the first thing I think that was really good. Second thing is similar to that is you have a choice in your environment. Now, sometimes we are temporarily stuck in an environment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t create counter environment. So maybe you are temporarily in a, a job per se that isn’t healthy for you and you can’t just up and leave. You have bills to pay, you have a family to take care of, you have responsibilities, but there can be other environments that you surround yourself with i e community outside of work that help counter negative environment. So your environment is a really important part of your ability to make progress. And I love what Laurie said, and I’m totally just stealing this right out of her mouth.
AJV (03:24):
Your environment has a mental, emotional and physical impact on you. And if you are not consciously making decisions, choices to improve your environment, then your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing will suffer. So let’s all just take a second, take a step back and go, what environments am I in that are healthy and good and, you know, moving me in the right direction? And what environments may I be in that are not those things, and how do I have more of the good and less of the not so good? Right? And I think, again, it’s like environments can be places. They can be groups of people, they can be communities, they can be all different sorts of things. But I know for me, and I love what she said when she talks about her childhood and an environment she was used to seeing versus a new environment when she went to go stay with a family a a set of friends.
AJV (04:23):
And she was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What is this? I, I didn’t even know this existed. If we don’t create new environments, then we convince ourselves that things are just the way that they are. We don’t even know things are possible cuz we’ve never seen them be possible for anyone in our environment. So it’s, I think it’s just so incredibly important to have different and varying environments so that you see new patterns and new habits and new ways of living or thinking or acting or doing that create new possibilities for you. I don’t remember who said this first, but it’s like, you know, it’s like you are who you hang out with. Well, I think that’s probably true for most of us. It’s like we are the, you know, culmination of where we spend our time, energy, thinking resources, right? That begins to create who we are.
AJV (05:12):
So what environments are you in and what environments do you need to be in? I love this quote. This is so good. And she said that your environments are often stronger than your willpower. So if you know that you have a temptation to do things that you don’t want to do, then remove yourself from those environments, right? If you’re trying to eat healthy, then do not put yourself environments where it’s, you know, chips and dips and nachos and hamburgers and hot dogs, right? Remove yourself from those environments. If you hang out with a group of people who aren’t healthy and you’re trying to be healthy, remove yourself from those sorts of temptations, not from the people, from the environments, right? See them on a hike, see them doing something else. But you’ve got to know that if you’ve got struggles in the willpower discipline arena, then you’ve got to change the environment.
AJV (06:09):
So, so good. Oh my gosh, this isn’t like brand new, but such a new fresh context of looking at this really does hit it in a different way. And just remembering, it’s like your environment is often stronger than your willpower. So good. Love this. Okay, moving right along here. This next one is like same kind of quote where I’m like, this should just be all over lord’s social media. I don’t know why this isn’t everywhere she goes, but there is always a gift in what you just did. And if you have ever said to yourself, I just wasted so much time, or I just wasted so much money, or what a bunch of waste of time, resources, emotions, I would just encourage you to rephrase that and go, you wasted nothing. You learned a ton, a ton about what you should do and what you shouldn’t do, what you want and what you don’t want.
AJV (07:10):
But there is a gift in what you just did. And a lot of times that gift comes in experience and it comes in knowledge and cl it comes in clarification. But there is an a, there is a gift in what you just did, whether it was a success or it was a temporary failure, whether it worked out or it didn’t. There was a gift in what you just did. You just have to make the choice to look for it. And that is so powerful because often we look at things that don’t work out as failures and we look at failures as a waste of time. And I’m currently reading a book right now called, called to Create by Jordan Rainer. And in this book he talks about something in Silicon Valley where they talk about the fail faster rule. And that’s just my my, my synopsis of what he is talking about.
AJV (08:04):
I don’t know if that’s really what he said in the book, but this is how I remember it anyways. But the fail, the fail faster role is like in Silicon Valley. It’s like if your startup fails fast, that means that you’re learning just as fast. So it’s like if you haven’t failed, then you haven’t tried hard enough, risked enough that there hasn’t been something that happened enough. And I think that’s both healthy and potentially not as long as we’re willing to express that. You know, failure does not, failures do not mean we are a failure. That means we did things that didn’t work. Welcome to life.
AJV (08:54):
Experience. And so creating different ways of looking at this of like what are the lessons learned? What are the gifts I received from what I just did? Because nothing was a waste of time. There was something that was received, there was something that was learned. There was something that came out of it that is going to make you a better person, but you gotta make the choice to find it. So just, I thought that was such a good reminder of everything that we do, whether it was a, an investment loss or it was a business loss, a relationship loss. Where is in the, what is the gift in what you just did? Also in, in the wins, right? There’s clearly gifts in the wins. I think it’s easier for us to find those, but it’s, it’s a mental, a discipline to find the gifts and the things that we don’t consider wins.
AJV (09:43):
But there is always a gift in what you just did, I just thought was so good. Now, tactically speaking there were a few other things that I wanna share that I thought were equally as powerful here. So with courses we talked about the concept of less is more. The whole idea of this, it’s like you want to save, like this is what we say at brand builders all the time, is you wanna save the best for first. Because if you give, if you serve up the best first, if you give your audience the best first they feel accomplished faster, they feel more empowered faster, they feel more educated, more knowledgeable they feel like they can do things right up front. And so you wanna give them as much as you can as early as you can because that shows a very quick return on their investment.
AJV (10:29):
They don’t need to spend six hours and 66 pages to feel like they got their money’s worth. You want them to feel like they got their money, their money’s worth in the first hour. So how can you do less is more and help them feel accomplished way up front. Love that. Second thing about courses is just don’t forget that fundamentals never get old. We think we have to create some new twists and make new shiny objects and, you know, talk about a brand new way of doing something. And sometimes people don’t need a brand new way of doing something. They just need to hear it in a new way. They need to hear the solid, basic fundamentals in a way that hits them, right? The whole concept of there’s always a gift in what you just did. You could say that a hundred different ways, but the way that Lori said that hit me, right?
AJV (11:17):
The fact that she said, you know, your environments often are stronger than your willpower. It’s not like that has never been said before. She’s never been said that way. And so sometimes it’s not that you’re saying brand new stuff, you’re just saying in a way that your audience can relate to in a way that they don’t relate to the way someone else says it. So just don’t forget like fundamentals don’t get old. Just make sure to share it in your lens and your perspective and provide as much value as possible right up front. Now, when it comes to podcasts, Lori’s podcast now has more than 47 million downloads. So how do you go from a new podcast or a podcast that maybe has a few thousand downloads to millions of downloads? I thought this was really good. Keep it simple. It’s fundamentals, but talk about it everywhere you go.
AJV (12:06):
It’s be consistent. Don’t give up. It takes time. But talk about it everywhere you go. Ask people to share it. Ask people to rate it. Ask people to give reviews on it. But talk about it and then ask people to do what you want them to do. We talked about how it’s like if you never ask, the answer is always no. So you’ve got to ask, remind people, tell people this is how you can help talk about it everywhere you go and tell people what to do. That’s how you grow your podcast and need to do those two things consistently right. Now, last but not least, we also talked about stepping into the world of physical products, right? So that could be anything from t-shirt, shoes to water bottles, wine, food, snacks, nutritional supplements, the list goes on and on and on.
AJV (12:58):
Could be any sort of physical product going from an an educational and information product world to a physical product world. And what are some of the things that we need to know and what should we be looking for if we are considering making this transition or adding a physical product line to our business offering? So first, find some help
AJV (13:53):
That’s the first thing. Second is make sure that you’re just filling a need that you see in the market. Don’t think don’t, don’t create a product as you think there’s a need. Find a need and then create a product to fulfill that need, right? And if you’ve got a trusted audience, you can start by asking them that fill a need that you already see in the marketplace. Cuz there is there. Focus on why your product is different than competing products, right? So focus on what differentiate your products. How are you gonna market it differently? How does it help differently? How does it serve your audience differently? How is it made for your audience specifically? So focus on your differentiator. I love this one that this was so pa impactful. Avoid any sort of products as your first product that have lots of legal tape, right? So anything that would require like fda regulatory issues, anything that, you know, like beauty products,
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Food, beverage nutritional lines, anything that has lots and lots of legal take. What’s gonna happen is most of your investment money or your own money is going to be going to the lawyers versus product development, research and development marketing. Most of it’s actually just gonna go to the pockets of attorneys versus actually helping develop your product. So as your first product entry to market, avoid anything that has lots of legal red tape almost to the end of my list here, focus on one thing. In other words, don’t create a product line that has lots of s skews first. So if you’re gonna create a makeup line start with one thing, right? Is it a lip gloss? Then stick to that. Is it a mascara stick to that. Don’t go, here’s an entire makeup on, we’re gonna have this and this and this and this.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
It’s like, no, start with one thing. So you have centralized focus on what works. You do all of your checks and balances, all your trial and error, all of your market testing with one product. So you get the marketing right, you get the audience right, you get the pricing right? You get the packaging and the shipping and all the things right on one product, and then you expand from there. So start with one sku, one product and that will save you lots of time, lots of money, and actually help you generate revenue. So y’all, there’s so many things I could talk for another 20 minutes on this. But I’m looking at my timer and my time is up. So go check out this full interview. Catch us next time on the influential personal brand. And if this has been helpful to you, please go and like this episode, share this episode, comment on it, leave us a review, rate it. If this is helpful to you and you think it would be helpful to someone else, please share it with them. You get to be the conduit of sharing good information out into the world. So I’m asking for your help. If you like our podcast, the influential personal brand, please like it, share it, leave a review and get it out into the world and share it with a friend. So thank you so much. We’ll see you next time on the influential Personal brand.
Ep 351: Finding Your Purpose in the Power of Service | Micheal Burt Episode Recap
RV (00:02):
Well, I loved that conversation with Coach Burt. In fact, I enjoyed it a lot more than I anticipated. Not that I, I didn’t think necessarily. I would, I just really, really enjoyed it. And if you haven’t listened to it, go back and listen to it. But the whole conversation is around activating your prey drive, like your, your P r e y prey drive, like the instinctive ability to pursue. And, you know at first when he was talking about the, you know, he teaches people how to do that, I was like, well, that’s interesting. Like that, that, you know, what’s that gonna be? And then as he talked out, these five activators, I, I, you know, they’re very simple, but very not so obvi, you know, it’s like the not so obvious truth and, and really, really powerful. So I loved it.
RV (00:51):
And it, part of my inspiration as I look back on that conversation and think about, you know, what other, what, what in, what have I learned? What did I learn from it? And then also, how am I sort of internalizing that conversation, which is always what we do with these recaps is thinking about how am I internalizing this? How am I applying it to my own life? And then what would I add to it in terms of clarifying, you know, the message or just kind of like speaking, speaking you know, my own insight in, in, into it, in my response. And I, I, you know, so as, as coach was talking, I love the, you know, just the activating the active nature of everything he’s saying in these, you know, these five activators in terms of overcoming complacency and, and fear and competition and environment.
RV (01:43):
Really, really good. Really, really good. Y you know, the thing that I wanted to kind of talk with you about and share with you is a little bit of some of, I guess the evolution of my motivation in, in my life and, and talking about finding, you know, power and motivation and purpose and how that’s evolved for me. And, and I think early in my career, you know, I was very driven, very ambitious, very focused on this you know, this, I would, I would call it pray drive. Like, I don’t know that I would’ve had a word for it before this interview, but I love what coach is saying is, you know, is activating this like hunger in this passion for conquering and, and, and achieving and pushing yourself to the limits. And I, I really do think that a lot of champions have that, and they figure out a way to do it.
RV (02:42):
And so that’s, there’s so much value in it. What’s interesting is that, well, once I got to you know, once I got married, and especially once I have had become a father you know, and, and maybe just from the result of maturing, hopefully a little bit or, or maybe just having a deeper faith walk, I think today, and, and, and in the last several years, I would maybe say like maybe the last, yeah, probably like the last 10 years, I would say it’s the last 10 years. I have really shifted and found my source of power and my source of motivation in a, from being focused on service. And this didn’t come up so much in, in the conversation. I don’t, I don’t think that it, it disrupts or dilutes anything that coach said, but I think it is, it is something in my own life that has been a, a, a different level of prey drive for me of just going what I do now.
RV (03:50):
What drives me now is, is not the pursuit of achievement for myself. It’s actually, it is actually finding meaning and value in my life and finding purpose in my life. And, you know, the most, the most powerful part of the whole interview, there were several highlights, but the most powerful part of the whole interview for me was at the very end when he said that his mom had been a nurse her whole life, her whole life. And, and she boiled it down to, there’s, there’s three, there’s three reasons people die. First of all, they run out of money. And so when they run outta money, they can’t afford good healthcare. The second is they run out of love, which, you know, their family forgets about ’em, and, and you know, that’s sad. Or they lose all their friends. That’s a really, really sad one. But then the third one she said is they run out of purpose and they don’t have something to get up and pursue.
RV (04:55):
And that really hit me hard, because that to me is the one that is the most avoidable of these three, right? Like, running out of money you know, some of that’s sort a matter of how long you live and how much money you’ve saved and how well you saved. And you know, but money runs out when it runs out, so to speak. And then running out of love, you know, in, in some ways I think that’s, that’s outside of your control. You know, you can’t force people to love you, but running out of purpose and having your purpose go ec be go extinguished to me is heartbreaking. And, and it, and it, and it is, it is defeating. It is. I can see why that would lead to, to, to death because it’s like, why am I living? Living is hard. Living takes work. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s time, it’s energy, it’s it’s pain, it’s setbacks. Like, there’s a lot of hard parts of just being alive. But the other part that makes me sad about that is going not only
RV (05:56):
Is one to me controllable, which is what I’m gonna talk to you about, is going, how is, how is it controllable? How does it become controllable in your life to never run out of purpose, to never have your purpose go e extinct. That’s what we’re gonna talk about here in this, in, in this recap, in this little addition. Because I believe there is a way that it would never go extinct. And the other thing is that if you do this, if you have this kind of purpose, you won’t run out of love. And I don’t think you’ll run out of money either. And here’s the big light bulb that came on for me, was that anytime I were in per I’m in pursuit of achieving things for myself it, it, it’s, it’s sort of self-centered, right? It’s a new title, it’s a new, it’s a new, you know, a possession.
RV (06:45):
It’s a, it’s a, it is yeah, it’s like a, a title I’m pursuing. It’s a trophy. It’s something like that, which I don’t think at all, nothing wrong with this, super valuable and, you know, change the course of my life. But what I noticed is that every time I would achieve one of those things, you know, it would wear off. And it was like, okay, now I need to push myself to the next level and the next level, which again, I don’t think is bad. I think, I think that is something that the world’s ultra performers do. I think coaches spot on. And I think, you know, we have had the privilege of coaching four billionaires, by the way. I’ve, I’ve personally worked with four billionaires in the last like 18 months. And so I’ve been around a lot of these people, and, and they do have a, a, a tremendous drive.
RV (07:29):
But of whatever the thing is, it’s like you need a new thing. You need a new goal. You need a new destination. You need a new target. You need a new timeline. You need to new title. You need, you need a new thing to go after to chase, to pursue, to sort of keep that going, which I don’t think is bad or wrong or, or even unhealthy. But the thing that I have found that I can pursue, that never goes away, that never becomes extinct, that never loses its power, that never disappears, never dissipates, never dilutes and, and it never, it never disappears, is serving other people, helping other people. And I don’t just mean this in like an altruistic sense or like some type of a spiritual sense. I also mean it in a, in a literal scientific, practical, pragmatic, even a self-centered sense.
RV (08:33):
You could even take it as far as that to go, that when I am focused on serving other people, it gives me something to pursue that never goes away. It, it, it gives me something that I, I, it’s a destination that I never fully reach. And it’s a, it’s, it’s a flame that never burns out. And, and the reason this is powerful is because it gives our life meaning, if I am just achieving for myself, if I’m just pursuing for myself, if I’m just conquering for myself, if I’m just acquiring for myself, there’s nothing bad or wrong with that. But what I’ve noticed is, is it doesn’t have the same level of meaning that if I am dedicating my life in the service of other people, because our lives have meaning in the context of other people, if I’m pursuing a goal, my life has, you know, meaning in the context of that goal.
RV (09:33):
But when that goal is achieved or not achieved, the meaning sort of is attached to it. But when I am, I am serving another person, or focused on serving people, my life always has meaning. Why? Because there’s never an end. There’s always people who need help. So when she said people die because they run out of purpose, that’s terrifying, and heartbreaking and sad and unnecessary, because if your purpose is caught up in serving other people, you’ll never run out of purpose. Because there’s always somebody who’s out there who needs your help. There’s always somebody who’s hurting. There’s always someone who’s broken. There’s always somebody who’s going through pain. There’s somebody who’s in a setback. There’s somebody who is, is in the, is the middle of devastation in crisis and, and temptation and indulgence and, and, and just, just pain. There’s always somebody out there, or a struggle or somebody who is trying to achieve something.
RV (10:33):
But, but there’s always somebody there. And so I should never run out of purpose because there’s, there’s never a finish line to the needs of this world that other people have. And I think that, I think that one of the things that we do that I would say is wrong, is people go searching for the pursuit of happiness, and they go searching for things and, you know, material possessions and titles and relationships, and, you know, job positions and, and homes and vacations and whatever. We go per that, we go in pursuit of these things that we think will bring us happiness. And again, there’s not anything wrong with those things. The part that I think is wrong is I think that we are wrong about where happiness comes from. I think we’re what we’re wrong. What we’re mistaken about is about what actually brings true happiness, true joy, true satisfaction, true fulfillment, true peace, and true power. What brings those things is not acquiring, it’s not achieving, it’s serving, it’s helping, it’s adding value. In other words, don’t ask, what is my purpose? Ask, who can I serve? Right? Don’t ask like, what should my next goal be? Ask, how can I be of value to somebody? How can I contribute to their life? How can I make their life better? And what is amazing about that is it is this, this infinite and invincible form of power, because when I am achieving, there are wins and there are losses.
RV (12:34):
But when I am serving, there are only wins. There are only wins You cannot lose when you’re serving someone else. And, and, and they cannot beat you, right? Like, if I’m in a competition, someone can beat me. And again, I think competition. I don’t wanna think competition’s not bad. I think everything that coach is talking about, I’d say like, amen, exclamation point. I’d punctuate it. Yes, these things are true. I’ve done these things. I agree. These are, these are characteristics of high performers. And I think there’s super p valuable power in activating and understanding your own prey drive. And then there’s also, I think, a power in activating this purpose, drive this, this, this neverending desire to contribute to humanity. And I think the, the people who, who really change the world are, are the ones who contribute value to other people, not just the ones who achieve or accumulate or accomplish a lot, but they’re the, they’re the people who help a lot.
RV (13:31):
They, they improve the lives of other people a lot. Don’t ask, what is my purpose? Ask, who can I serve? Don’t go searching for happiness. Go searching for someone to help. If you go searching for someone to help, and you help them, you’ll find happiness. There’s nothing like the feeling you get when you help somebody else succeed. There’s nothing like the feeling you get when you, you know, contribute to somebody else’s success. There’s nothing like the feeling you get to when you, when you add value to somebody’s life, when you help them, when you get to have a small part in their success or their survival or their safety, they’re, they’re you, you have a deep sense of purpose, a deep sense of value in your life, because it, your life is occurring in the context of other people versus your life occurring in the context of serving yourself and just accumulating or achieving or amassing more things for yourself.
RV (14:34):
Not bad, not wrong. I think what is wrong is we’re wrong about where we think happiness will come from. I’ve achieved enough, I’ve accomplished enough impossible goals as, as I teach in our Conquering Impossible Goals course, which is based on you know, our take the Stairs book. And, and there is this energy of, of, or that it takes to achieve a huge goal. That’s why it’s beautiful, and that’s why it’s helpful and it inspires other people. And you often help other people as a byproduct. Like being in your own greatness often inspires greatness around you. And so there is a beautiful byproduct to accomplishing things that are beyond your own wildest imagination, which is that the people around you become inspired by watching, and they start to believe that they’re capable of things themselves. So there’s a lot of value in that way as well, to achieving.
RV (15:23):
But, you know, in addition to that, or as a, as a clarification or a sharpening of that is realizing that happiness doesn’t come from those achievements. I mean, I can pull out, I can literally go pull out in, I, I mean, in, in our, like in our storage, I’ve got trophies of a New York Times bestselling author and being a Hall of Fame speaker and, and becoming the world champion of public speaking first runner up and, and valedictorian and you know, getting my b a when I was 23. Like, I have all of these trophies and plaques and titles and things, and they literally sit, they literally sit in storage, right? Because they don’t, they don’t give meaning to my life anymore. But you never run out of meaning when you’re serving people. You never run out of purpose when you’re helping other people. When, when his mom said, which was so profound that people die because they run out of purpose. They should never run out of purpose, because you only run out of purpose if you’re self-centered. You never run out of purpose if you’re service centered.
RV (16:33):
And this is, this is such a big lesson for personal brands specifically, or for leaders specifically, or for entrepreneurs specifically, because you go, y you, we have the good fortune and the blessing of not having to be worried about our survival. We have the good fortune and blessing of most of us having achieved some level of success. And so it’s like we’re moving from survival to success, to significance. It’s this journey, this transformation that we’re on. And we go, oh, how do I get to significance? I get to significance not by being more successful. I get to significance by being more service minded. That’s how I get to significance. I get to significance. I meaning I’m having longer term impact, longer term sustainability to my motivation, a, a a longer term evidence of my life. And my work mattered not because of what I achieved or a mass or accumulated for myself, but because of the value in the contribution that I made in the lives of other people.
RV (17:32):
And that is a life that is worth living, which means it’s a life that is, is not worth killing and not worth dying, because you always have something else to do. You’ve got somebody else to serve. You’ve got somebody else to help and, and somebody else to save and somebody else to help succeed. And, and, and, and somebody else to mentor and coach. And so for me, I think I have ended up finding power. The, like, I have found my purpose in the power of service. I find my purpose in the power of service. And I think achievement is good. Conquering is good. Prey is prey drive is good. A amassing accumulate. I think those, these are good things because they often empower you to, to be able to be in a position to serve other people, right? Like you can’t you know, you put on your mask first before you’re helping others around you.
RV (18:30):
But you should never run out of purpose because you’re never run out of people to, to, to serve. And and it reminds me, you know, when he said you know, that this idea of count your days that’s actually there. That’s, that’s based on scripture, okay? So this is, you know, I don’t, regardless of if you’re a Christian or not, but like, if you read the Bible in the ancient text, in the, in Psalms, it’s Psalms 90, I looked it up. I didn’t have it memorized, but I knew it was in there. And so I looked it up. So in Psalm chapter 90, verse 12, it says, teach us to number our days so that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Teach us to number our days so that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. That’s exactly what Coach Burt was talking about, right?
RV (19:18):
Is he was going, man, when you realize that there’s a clock counting down on your life, and you just are aware of that fact of, gosh, there’s, there’s a, there’s a limited time I’ve got here, it creates a tremendous sense of urgency, right? And that’s how I feel. I don’t let one second of my day go by accidentally, even if I’m sitting on the couch doing nothing, I’m deliberately sitting on the couch doing nothing because I’m rejuvenating, right? Or I’m rewarding myself with something. Nothing in my life is accidental. Nothing is unintentional, like every single second. And it is, I’ve, I’ve always felt this extraordinary urgency, this extraordinary urgency on my life, not because I’m desperate to achieve and accumulate and have more, although I’ve had big goals, and I, you know, came from very, very little. And we’ve accumulated a whole lot more than I ever imagined, and, and certainly more than we need, like for our survival.
RV (20:15):
But like, I’ve, even with that, there’s this tremendous sense of urgency, because I know there’s somebody out there who needs help, and that’s what I want you to think about. And that’s the power of numbering our days. And I, I, I, I love that coach brought that up. And then, you know, seeing that reference directly also in, in scripture, and of, of the five that he shared, the five activators of prey drive, again, I, I, I really, I loved, I loved it. So go listen to the whole interview. But the fifth one was the one that hit me the hardest, which was about embarrassment, because it ties into everything we’re talking about here.
RV (20:57):
And when I think about purpose, right after I die, I don’t wanna get to the end of my life and meet the person that I could have been and be disappointed, right? I would be embarrassed by that. I would be embarrassed getting to the end of my life and then being able to see like, oh, this was everything I was capable of, and this is, this is, you know, like, this is what I was capable of. These are the blessings that I’ve been given, the time I had been given, the, the relationships that, the skills, the access to different things. This was everything I was capable of. And I fell so far short of that because I was lazy, or complacent or distracted, or I was indulgent. Like in going, I’d be so embarrassed, I’d be so disappointed.
RV (21:55):
But beyond that, it’s not just me, right? It’s going, I don’t wanna get to the end of my life and be able to look back and see all the people that I could have helped, see all the people that I could have made a difference with. See all the lives that I might have helped transform or even just shape a little bit to see everybody that I could have helped along in their journey. And, and at some point get to the end of my life and see all these people lined up on a wall and go look at all the people I missed because I was indulgent. Look at all the people I missed because I was lazy, looked at all the people I missed because I had too much pride, or because I was scared, or, or because I was distracted. That would be so heartbreaking, you know?
RV (22:41):
And most of all, at least for me, I don’t wanna get to the end of my life and meet my creator and say, here’s what I’ve done with what you’ve given me, and be embarrassed about that report, right? I’ve, I’ve been given so much, so many blessings. We all have. All of us, if you are listening to this, you have blessings in your life, if nothing other than the blessing to have access, to listen to this type of information from wherever you are, which is an incredible blessing. Just to have access to, you know, these types of trainings for free and from so many different, for so many different people, right? We all have blessings. And I would hate to, to show up for my final report and say, here’s what you’ve given me and here’s what I’ve done with it, and here’s what I’m capable of.
RV (23:41):
And there’s a giant gap I’d be embarrassed about that I, I’d be scared about that. I, I wouldn’t feel proud about that. And so whenever I die, however I die in whatever way that I die, I just want to, I wanna know that up until the very last possible moment that I, I was physically or mentally able, that every single last waking breath that I could possibly muster up, I was working in the pursuit of hum serving humanity, of helping humanity, of making a difference, of making an impact on other people, of, of, of serving those people who are in a struggle. And, and, and helping those people who are in different, difficult and challenging circumstances to conquer them and helping people who are facing obstacles to overcome them, and to go with every moment I had. And so, because at least then if I didn’t live up to my capacity, at least I can say I did everything I could, right?
RV (24:48):
Like, I, I took advantage of every single second serving the people around me in the best way I knew how. So I can at least come with a final report to go. I may have not lived up to my potential, but I did everything I could. Like, I, I did the best I knew how to do with what I had, and I helped every single person that I, I could, I could, you know, fathom within my abilities to try to help. But I know I never ran outta purpose. I ran outta life before I ran outta purpose, right? I didn’t run outta purpose, and that caused me to run outta life. That’s, that’s, that’s not gonna be it. That’s not gonna be me. That’s not how I’m going down. And maybe for you, it’s the same. So be competitive. Activate your pray drive. Listen to that interview with Coach Burt.
RV (25:42):
Send him some love on social. Let him know that you heard him here on our podcast. Share this episode and, and, and the interview with somebody that you think it can help activate your prey drive to, to go out and pursue. And, and, and, you know, these are, I think can be, you know, very similar messages is the instinctive ability to pursue service, right? For me, that is where the power is in these days. I have found my purpose and the power of service. But conquer and win and challenge and accumulate and AMAs and, and achieve, and push yourself to the limits and become a champion. And also serve others and help others. And don’t, don’t get law searching for happiness and achievement. Realize that happiness comes from service. Don’t ask what’s my purpose? Ask who can I serve. Thanks for letting me serve you. Thanks, you keep coming back, giving us this blessing and privilege. We appreciate you. We love you. We’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand Podcast.
Ep 349: 3 Things To Consider If You Want To Write A Book | Bob Wheatley Episode Recap
AJV (00:00):
So I was having a conversation earlier this week with a friend who is a first time author, and we got to talking about all the, you know, exciting parts and challenging parts of being a first time author. And so I thought I would record just a, uh, quick recap of some of the highlights of this conversation that I had, because if you’re listening to this and you are a first time author that you know, you’re just on the precipice of getting your first, first book out into the world, or even if you’re an aspiring author or a maybe one day, that might be something I wanna do, type of one day author. I think this is really applicable to you. And even if you’re a second or third time author, I think there’s some nuggets in here that would be really helpful to you. And, um, so here are some of the highlights from this conversation, uh, that I had.
AJV (00:56):
So, first thing that I think would be really helpful if you’re considering, uh, writing a book or you just finished and you are in this kind of like first author category, is you’ve gotta consider three things. Um, as you’re launching your first book. One, it’s, you have to have a quality product. Um, and that’s a given, right? So, uh, don’t produce crap content
AJV (01:47):
Or You need to write a book? And they’re going, it’s just not time yet. And it’s been a 5, 10, 15 year journey for some people because they know that the book is the last thing you do, not the first thing you do. Once you have proven content that can really make a change, that can really help someone and that can really make an impact. So you gotta have a great product that’s a given, right? Um, but the second thing is you have to have a good plan. Um, so many of us think that you write a great book, it’ll just sell itself. No, it won’t
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Also a plan for marketing and promoting the book to get it in the hands of the people who need it. So you need a great product, you gotta have a good plan, but then also you gotta have a platform. You have to have a place where you can actually talk about this product, which is your book, right? And it doesn’t mean you have to have hundreds of thousands or millions or even tens of thousands followers online. It just means you’ve gotta have a platform of loyal and en unengaged audience. And that could be in the hundreds, seriously. Um, it just, you gotta have a platform of people that you have identified that you can help, and that this content is meant to help them. And you have a plan of how you’re going to get it in front of those people. And that could be through audio, that could be on podcasts, it could be on videos and YouTube and Instagram on social media, but there’s a whole world offline, right?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Does not have to be just online. So it’s, are you gonna do a book tour? Are you gonna go to local bookstores? Are you gonna do speaking events? Are you gonna do a launch party? Are you gonna go speak at your churches, kids, schools, whoever will have you, chambers of commerce, business journals, whoever. Um, but it’s like, do you have a platform to get it out there? So a great product, a great plan, but then also you’ve gotta have a platform, right? And I think that’s a really important thing to talk about, um, because so many people just talk about the content or they talk about hitting some list. And both of those are just pieces of a really important puzzle, which is, I bet that if you have a desire to write a book or you have written a book, it’s because you, you believe that it can actually help someone, right?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
And, and that is deservative of these three things that require your attention, a really good product, your content, a really good plan, um, and then a platform of people who need to hear about it, right? So, um, those are just kind of like high level three things that I think are really important. But in addition to that, I’m just kind of looking at my notes here, here are some of the other things that I think is really important, um, to just to remember as you are writing your first book, and this is really a conversation for that first time or aspiring first time author. Um, and the first thing is you just have to do it, right? There’s so many people who go me one day, well, it’s like, no, just one day. You just gotta do it. So you just have to start writing.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And it doesn’t have to be perfect because it’s not going to be, it’s not going to be awesome, right? So just focus on saying it ugly first. Just get it on paper. Uh, you know, we have this saying, um, my husband Roy and I always say there is no, uh, good writing, only good editing. There are no good writers, only good editors. And so don’t worry about if it’s good or if it sucks, just get it on paper because then you can go back and edit it and rewrite and rewrite and re-edit again and again and again to make it good. But you have to have something to start with.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So you just have to start riding and expect the first round to be bad
Speaker 3 (06:44):
No, don’t even send it out to 10 and goes, I hope somebody likes it or somebody will give me some constructive, you know, criticism. Find three or four people who you value their feedback, who have been where you want to be. So who have done this process or who fit your core target audience, your avatar. And actually give it to a very few group of people who you’ll entrust that will actually lead it, actually spend time on it because they want to help you. They want to see this succeed, they wanna see you succeed, but they will also give you the hard but necessary input and feedback to make it better, while also encouraging you along the way. Um, and that’s a diligent process, and it should be a select and small group of people. And this is what my friend Bob said. He said, don’t waste your editors, right?
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Don’t waste ’em. Um, you don’t need feedback from dozens or, you know, even, you know, half a dozen people. You need a good set of feedback from three or four people who can actually provide you with real insights that will make a real difference. So don’t waste your editors, don’t waste those big asks. Find a small group of people who will actually go through this and give you the real feedback that you need to make your writing to make your content better. And then last but not least, and you know, we could say this on every single thing in business or in life, is don’t forget to get a coach or a mentor. Find someone to emulate, right? There are so many people who have been through this process. You do not have to go it alone. You do not have to figure it out alone,
Speaker 3 (08:21):
That actually makes no sense to me. So find someone, a mentor, a coach, um, maybe it’s a, you know, a volunteer friend. Maybe it’s someone you pay, but find someone who has been through this process who can guide you through the ups and downs, the peaks and valleys, um, the parts that you know about, the parts that you don’t because there’s a lot of both. Um, and just find someone that you can emulate and who can help mentor you through this process. If it’s free, great if it’s paid, great too. But invest the time, money, resources, and attention that it requires. If this is something that you really wanna do,
Speaker 4 (08:54):
And if you’re not willing to do those things, then it’s probably just not time, and that’s okay too. So anyways, I just thought this was a really great conversation and there were some really big important things. And as we start the new year, I thought these would be awesome takeaways and highlights for anyone who is going, man, a book is on my goal list for this year. I really wanna get that book out. These are things that you should consider as you get through the process of getting that first book out into the world. So good luck, God speed. We’ll see you later.
Ep 345: Be a Better Networker with Megan Roudebush | Recap Episode
AJV (00:02):
Hey y’all, AJ Vaden here and welcome to the recap episode of my conversation with Megan Rabu from Keep With Y’all. Such a information helpful interview that has ongoing tech based solutions. But just generally speaking, the importance of relationship building, aka networking was such a powerful conversation because there were three big things that came out of this conversation that I think is very applicable to you. Whether or not you use Keep with the app or use any sort of technology. These are just really great reminders around networking, again, aka relationship building. So here’s the first one I think is really important is as any sort of business or personal you know, realm, I guess what the word is, whatever the word is, like whatever your sphere is, business or personal, you need to be really clear about knowing who you wanna be introduced to.
AJV (01:11):
It doesn’t matter if you are a stay at home mom who just moved to a new town. It’s like what type of friends do you wanna meet? You know, it’s like what type of activities do you want your kids to be involved with? Like, what type of families do you want your family to meet? Like that’s really important of just being really super clear both personally and professionally of who am I trying to meet? Who am I trying to build as my sphere? Who do I wanna surround myself with? Because if you’re not intentional with that, it will happen by default and you’ll look up one day and go, I don’t fit here, or I don’t feel like I’m growing here. Or I feel, I feel out of place in my own friend group or church group or professional networking group. And it’s because it wasn’t done with strategic planning or strategic effort from the get-go.
AJV (02:00):
So I just love that. And some tactical advice on that of just going like, who are the people that I’m actually trying to build as a part of my network, right? What type of people are they? What do they do? What do they think? How do they, you know, view personal development? Who are they trying to meet? Like what is it that you wanna have in common? Are these people that you wanna be able to do business and life with? Are these people that you are searching on cause you want to learn from them? Versus are you trying to have a reciprocal business, you know, referral relationship with them? Or you know, just like what is the intent of the individuals that you want to be in your sphere? What are their psychographics and what are their demographics, right? I think that’s really important. Like, do you care about, are they in a very similar life stage of you?
AJV (02:46):
Should they be married, single with kids without kids, certain age range? I think those are things are really important. So that you just, you start building this intentional network. And then from there it’s asking yourself, who do I want to be introduced to from these people? And I think that’s where a lot of us struggle, just as much of going, who do I wanna be in business with? Like, who do I want to do business with? And you know, we use this example on the podcast so that if, you know, if you’re a real estate agent and you go, I just wanna be introduced to anyone who’s looking to buy or sell a home, as you know, a human being, it’s really hard for me to pinpoint an individual when I’m going. I think that’s anyone potentially. I’m sure I know someone.
AJV (03:33):
Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you. And that’s a very typical common response that we hear in business when somebody says, Hey, do you know someone who’s looking to buy or sell a home as this specific example? Versus if someone said, Hey I am a, you know, home buyers, you know, agent who specifically works with first time home buyers who have just moved or who have been relocated for work to the Nashville, Tennessee area. So do you know anyone who is brand new to Tennessee who’s maybe been renting, who’s gonna be a first time home buyer who is not from this area and has potentially moved here in the last two to five years? Well, it’s like immediately I know literally five people who are currently renting who have moved here from rather New York, Colorado, or California along with Half City and who I’ve been talking about just waiting for the right time to buy.
AJV (04:28):
And they will be, some of them are first time home buyers, some aren’t. But the fact that it’s like, I want to know someone who has moved here in the last two to five years and I’m going, Ding, bing, bing, bing, bing. So it’s just being really clear on who you want your sphere to be and then who you want to be referred to. So I think that was like the first eye opening part of this conversation of most of us aren’t really good at networking or, you know, strategic relationship building or asking for referrals is we’re not actually clear on who we wanna build relationships with, with and who we want to be referred to. So that’s kind of step one. The second thing is, you know, what’s your game plan for actually relationship building? And I loved what she said that was again, should be so not an aha moment for me, but it was around the importance of, you know, networking and relationship building happens everywhere you go.
AJV (05:20):
So I view it as, you know, what are, what are you doing for volunteering and how are you meeting people doing that versus, you know, who are you meeting and spending time with on different wellness endeavors? So I love to go hiking, I love going to bar class. I love going on long walks. It’s like, who am, who am I like doing those types of things with as a part of relationship building, not just going to coffee and having lunch but it’s actually creating memories, creating experiences doing things that really help you get to know someone versus just having coffee,
AJV (05:56):
Exchanging business information or questions. It’s now it’s like I, I wanna relationship build through volunteer work and through doing life things together that I can see you on a regular basis and continue these conversations and help you get to know me and help me get to know you. And I love that concept. So, so good. And then the last thing that I would say is just this importance of this mutual opt-in is what she called it. A double opt-in of making sure whenever you connect people through referrals that both people are giving you permission. And so instead of just firing off an email cuz it’s easier, it’s making sure that person A has agreed to be connected and person B has been, has agreed to be connected because that creates this reciprocal trust environment where you’re not getting random emails of going, Why, why, why are you introducing me to this person?
AJV (06:49):
I don’t know. I’m really busy right now where it’s like, no, I’m giving you a heads up aj. Hey, I really think you should meet this person and here’s why. Are you okay if I introduce you with me going, Yeah, that’d be great, Pass it along. The other person gets the same thing. So when the intro happens, I’m all that more ready and excited to accept it and to act on it. Simple, but so wise, so wise and would make me quite honestly that more, much more willing to go, Yeah, how can I help? What can I do? Yes, but it’s a part of building this trusted network where we’re all signing off on it. And people aren’t ghosting you because there’s been this mutual agreement in advance that yes, this is a good time for me, I want to do that. And so nobody is feeling left out or left behind because there wasn’t any response. So, so many good tips. Go check out the full interview, check out, Keep with you can go to keep with.com to learn more, but go listen to the full interview with Megan Rabu and we’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand. See you later.
Ep 343: How to Scale a Coaching Company and License Your IP with Todd Herman | Recap Episode
RV (00:02):
Holy smack,
RV (01:12):
And, and we know something about it. We’ve sold a company a coaching business, but I think it was far undervalued for what it should have been. And I think knowing, knowing many of the thing, like having learned some of these things, I’ll share with you some of my highlights is definitely gonna change the, the future of our, our business. And the way it already is, AJ and I have already taken action on several of these things from when this interview took place. So, first of all, alright, so Todd Herman was, was our guest. We were talking about how to scale a coaching company and how to license your ip. And here’s my top three takeaways. So first of all, my very first takeaway is about the power of trademarks, or I should say the value of trademarks and the, the financial value of trademarks.
RV (02:02):
So, you know, if you go back and you listen, one of the things that Todd said is he said, look, if somebody’s gonna come by your company, if you’re a personal brand company, is he said, the first thing they’re gonna ask you is, how many trademarks do you own? What? Like, I’ve never, no one has ever said that before. Like, I’ve never, I’ve never heard that before. Because we have not spent a lot of time like focused on our ip. Like, and it’s you know, one of the things he said is he said, look, if if you win an IP infringement case in the US it’s a minimum of $250,000. So he said, we don’t, you know, he doesn’t send cease and desist letters. He just sues people. And that’s pretty wild. You know, like that’s a pretty assertive or aggressive stance.
RV (02:50):
I mean, depending on how you look at it. But I gotta tell you, this is a place where I feel like we’ve been getting, we’ve been getting the short end of the stick here. There are so many quotes of mine that get ripped off and stolen and put all over the internet there. I mean, there’s a few of ’em specifically, success is never owned. It’s rented and the rent is due every day that originally appeared in Take the Stairs be the Buffalo and my Buffalo story. People are now putting that in their TED Talks. We’ve got you know, this, this story I tell do it scared about do it scared again. That was 10 years ago. We published that in a New York Times bestselling book, and we almost never get cited for those things. And then, you know, my focus funnel from my TED talk on how to multiply time and in a brand builders group, I mean, we’ve got dozens of these visual frameworks.
RV (03:45):
Now, some of those things are, are, are not trademarks that we can get. Like success is never owned. It’s rented. The rent is due every day. That’s more of like, you know, kind of like a copyright issue. Anyways, we, we need to, we need to do an episode for you on the difference between just copyrights and, and and trademarks. But specifically what, what Todd was talking about is these visual frameworks that you create, which we have a bunch of them, right? Like we have the brand DNA Helix and the modular content method. I mean, we have the, the services spectrum, and I mean on and on and on on, we have the marketing map for book launches. And I mean, every single one of our 14 curriculums has at least two to five frameworks. And in our captivating content course we teach people how to create their own frameworks.
RV (04:38):
Like we teach our clients how to do this is something that we’re really good at. What we haven’t been doing is actually protecting them legally. And this is the part that blew my mind is he said, each trademark is worth approximately $250,000 to your valuation. So we’ve got 14 topics in our curriculum. We have 14 courses in our full curriculum. Let’s just say that each one of those has three frameworks, some of ’em have more, but if we have three, then that’s, that is 30. That means we have 42, we got 42 frameworks. What is the math on this? I need to look at this. I got so pause for the interruption here. So if we’ve got a minimum, let’s say 42 frameworks in our whole Brand Builders group curriculum and $250,000 each, that is 10 million by itself. That means we could, you know, according to this rough math, right?
RV (05:39):
And it’s, it’s rough math, but it’s, it’s, it’s based on, it’s based in reality. We could add 10 million to our company valuation by going out and getting trademarks and all this. So guess what we’re doing? We are getting trademarks like crazy. So we have started this process. We are going down that path to get trademarks on these things because they’re super duper powerful. So anyways that is a big, a big, big, big deal. And, and, and a and a big i a big idea. So I think that was fascinating. So you gotta, first of all, it shows you the power of creating frameworks, which if you don’t know what that is, like gosh, request a call with us, y’all like free brand call.com/podcast. Just do it. And seriously, you’re talking about millions of dollars in, in this one thing. If we teach you how to create like a couple frameworks, it can be worth a million dollars to you.
RV (06:36):
Like that. One thing that you would learn, and this is one of our biggest specialties, is helping people create their own visual frameworks and things. And and then we’re about to make a specialty of how to get those things trademarked,
RV (07:29):
But then what you need to do is then go back and record yourself on explaining why you trained it the way you trained it. Record that. And that becomes the, the train the trainer content. And so the train, the train, their model, which has been around for decades is this idea that, you know, like with companies like frankly, Covey was one of the, one of the, you know, they went public for doing this. They were, they’re nine figure business and went public and a huge part of what they did. So I remember I got to meet Dr. Covey. So, you know, this is all based on seven habits of highly Effective People. And the late Dr. Steven Covey and I got to meet his son one time. He came to our house, someone invited him to our house, we had this little get together, and he was explaining to me how they did their whole business.
RV (08:14):
And, and a big part of it was this train the trainer model where you, you know, let’s say they have you, you have your program, you have your normal course, and let’s just say it takes two days for someone to go through your full experience. Well, when you sell it, you can say, okay, come through the, the full program for two days and you pay X or pay X plus y and stay a third day or a fourth day, and I’ll, I’ll certify you. So not only will you go through the program, you also will become certified to teach the program to other people. And that’s a train the trainer model. Or sometimes people would call it a two plus one because it was like basically a two day public event and then a one day certification training and the content for that third day is what he was talking about.
RV (09:02):
So what Todd was talking about in the interview was saying, you know, train your, train it record, record yourself training it, and then record yourself explaining why you trained it that way. And that is what becomes the content for that third day, which becomes a product in and of itself that you can sell for lots of money. And then, you know, the way that the Covey, you know, family was describing this to me, is that really what that business model is, is shipping kits. They’re shipping kits. What does that mean? Because they, they, they wouldn’t make their money on the, the certification as much, although you can. You know, there’s, we got a lot of friends that do certifications, make a lot of money doing it, Donald Miller. And you know, like Jeffrey Gier does this, John Maxwell does this where they certify, they certify, by the way, if you didn’t know, this Brand Builders group now is certifying and licensing our content to people to go out and teach different parts of our content.
RV (09:55):
We don’t license all 14 parts, but there are certain parts of our curriculum that you can get licensed in, and we can, we can help you move faster in your business by giving you our content, you licensing, you’re buying our content, but then having the right to go reteach it and charge, you know, bundle it in with your other services and charge and our content’s amazing. And it’s really, really well, well polished. So anyways, the way that the Train the trainer model works is, so you, you know, you make money selling someone to come to your two day event. You make more money certifying them on how to teach your content, but then where they would make the most money is that they, they could, they could charge whatever they wanted to put people through their class. The only caveat of the arrangement legally was that they had to buy their kits for certifying people through the, the home company, right?
RV (10:50):
So, so say for example, you paid Brand builders group, you know, whatever, let’s, let’s call $5,000 you know, 7,500 bucks, something like that. Which is often, you know, typically somewhere between 20 512,500 is typically what you’ll pay for like an annual license to be able to teach somebody else’s content, right? And then you get to come and part of that includes, you know, materials and everything, but then when you go out and you, you sell it and you say, all right, I’m gonna host a class on this thing, but then you have to buy the workbooks from us. And what they do is they make these really nice kits with workbook. You know, the, first of all, the book is in there, workbooks are in there. They have little chachkis desk calendars, quote books you know, maybe CDs, maybe little like, you know, action guides or whatever.
RV (11:37):
And you know, maybe a magnet and flyer, you know, like some, like a map they put up on the wall. All these different sort of like ches that you build around your content and it comes in this box, which is a kit. Well, if, let’s say someone from United Healthcare as an example likes your content, they come through, they get certified, you might make a few thousand bucks from that person getting certified. But what you really want is you want them to, to take 5,000 employees through your content. Cuz now 5,000 people are getting introduced to your content and they’re also buying 5,000 kits. Well, if each one of those kits is a hundred bucks, y’all, what is this? 5,000 times a hundred. I don’t wanna overestimate this. That’s $500,000 from one customer, from one event, you know, from one from one company.
RV (12:29):
You could make a half a million dollars doing that. And that’s what, that’s what the train the trainer model is. And so that’s just, you know, it was super pragmatic. It was a good reminder of that, that business model. And and that is something by the way, that we are doing. So, you know, if you actually, if you actually go to brand builders group.com, if you are looking at if you’re interested in this, I’m pulling up our own website here for a second just to make sure I tell you, right? But if you go to brand builders group.com and then you go under brand strategy, there’s a, there’s a link that says content licensing, and you should do this. You know, even if you’re not a, you know, if you’re, even if you’re not interested in getting certified on our content to, to resell it you should go to this page.
RV (13:12):
The shortcut to the page, by the way, is brand builders group.com/get certified. You can at least go to this page and see how we’re doing it and see how we’re, we’re selling our certifications and you know, just monitor that. But like the book Strength Finders, you know, we interviewed Tom Rath on this podcast. It’s the best selling non-fiction book of all time other than the Bible. And the you know, since the creation of Amazon, I should say. And that’s what they do. They sell thousands of copies every week. Cause they’re a train the trainer model. And so people are buying, like, buying these, buy the droves because they’re certifying their clients and they basically have an army of salespeople out there selling this book and this methodology. So really, really powerful stuff. Again, you gotta be protected. So you need to have your trademarks in place, you gotta have your agreements, you gotta have good frameworks, you gotta have tight content, all the, all the things that we, we coach people on how to do.
RV (14:11):
But then, gosh, this is how you go out and scale it, which is just like exponential thinking, really, really, really powerful. And then the third takeaway for me from this interview, which was just a good reminder, and you can’t, you can’t hear this enough, and I can’t hear this enough, but I loved that Todd really edified this and, and, and, and hit it hard as he said. You know, everyone spends all their time on the, on the, the marketing and sales side of the business. But when you’re building a truly scalable coaching company, or when you’re trying to create intellectual property that actually has enterprise value, it’s
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Really all about the delivery. It’s all about the implementation, it’s all about the execution. It’s about, it’s the client success that grows the business. The way that we say this is that the, the best form of marketing is to turn your customer force into your sales force. How do you turn your customer force into your sales force? You help your customer succeed and everything you do, if you, you have to become consumed. You have to become like just completely infatuated and, and, and like totally focused on how do I help my clients succeed faster? You wanna grow your coaching business, that’s the number one question you need to be answering. How can I help my clients succeed faster? What tools can I help them to implement faster? What, what support do they need? What type of training? What type of structure? And it’s all about, it’s not so much, oh, I need to teach you everything.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
You know, I need to be focused, not so much on teaching you everything you need to know. I need to be focused on helping you get results as fast as you can. I need you to get traction quickly. And so you’re, you’re perpetually innovating. You’re, you’re iterating your content, you’re adapting, improving your content. Not to add more content, but to basically do it, to, to have less and go, what’s the least amount I can teach to get so that somebody has to consume the least amount in order to get the result? And that’s very much what we are. You know, the journey that we’re on right now in Brand Builders group. We’ve got amazing content and curriculum, and now it’s just like we’re constantly going, how can we sharpen this and whittle it down and, and make it tighter? I would also point you to the interview that we did with Amy Porterfield on this show.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
By the way, Amy Porterfield is now one of our clients brand’s group client, which is super exciting. And we, but before Amy was a client, I interviewed her on the show talking about creating courses and, and we did this whole thing about she was talking about the importance of getting your students to complete the course and, and things that you need to do along that way. And so that’s what I want you to be focused on, right? Like the best form of marketing is a changed life. The best form of marketing is a changed life. The best form of marketing is a customer of yours who wins a a customer who creates a massive result. And this is why we’re talking about our customers all the time, right? Like we just had our 11th customer this last week hit the Wall Street Journal bestseller list 11 times.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
We have helped a client hit the New York Times Wall Street Journal and or USA Today bestseller list 11 times. We just had our fourth client create a viral TED talk, meaning they wrote a TED talk that got over a million views. This is somebody that we’ve been coaching for years following our methodology of applying the principles and applying it to a Ted, TED talk and getting over a million views a fourth time. We’ve done that, right? Like we, we have four clients, four clients that have gone from zero to over a million dollars in business within a couple years of starting in our program from, from like zero to over seven figures a year. Now, we don’t promise that for everybody. That’s not an income claim. I’m not guaranteeing that. I’m saying though, that we’ve had four people do that. So these are the results that make people like, those are the wins.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
We need more of that. We don’t need four, we need 400, right? So that is the, that’s the, that’s where you want the obsession to be. Not just how do I sell somebody and get a new client, but going, how can I help my client succeed faster? How can I help them win? How can I what can I do to shorten the learning curve? What tools and templates can I create for them to get them there quicker? And, you know, that is, that is where the magic happens. That’s how you get people to win. The most powerful form of marketing is a changed life. And when you focus on that, you turn your customer force into your sales force. And once that happens, you’re gonna have exponential radical growth. You’re gonna be scaling a business and scaling a company that has real enterprise value that is a high level education some seriously valuable information.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
The interview with Todd and this, you know, what we’re talking about here. So share this episode. Will you, with somebody who’s serious about scaling their personal brand, not just having one, but going, how do you scale one to multi seven figures and eight figures? This is something we know something about, right? We have had four, AJ and I have launched four multimillion dollar businesses and and an eight figure business. And brand builders group is very much on its way to eight figures. We should be at eight figures within the next year or two. So like these concepts work. They’re powerful, life changing, I mean, changing the complete trajectory of your family tree and you’re learning it for free right here on the Influential Personal Brand podcast. And of course, if you want to come alongside of us and let us be your personal coach and help you implement these things directly and apply them faster so that you can get results quicker, go to free brand call.com/podcast and let’s have a chat about that. Until then, keep tuning in here. Enjoy it. Thank you for being here. We’re so grateful for you. Share this with your friends, keep coming back. We love ya. And we’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand Podcast.