WWK Ep 045: How Your Personal Brand Attracts the Right Team
01:00:00:02 – 01:00:00:17
Rory Vaden
We often.
01:00:00:19 – 01:00:06:26
Rory Vaden
Think about using your personal brand to drive leads for your business to attract new prospects. But
01:00:07:00 – 01:00:12:23
Rory Vaden
of the hottest trends right now, and one of the most important ways to be using your personal brand is to recruit.
01:00:12:26 – 01:00:17:09
AJ VADEN
talent acquisition, talent retention. Everybody needs to be talking about that.
01:00:17:11 – 01:00:22:16
AJ VADEN
there is an amazing opportunity right now to get talent that has not been available in previous years,
01:00:22:16 – 01:00:25:13
Rory Vaden
How does your personal brand affect
01:00:25:13 – 01:00:26:26
Rory Vaden
who you get to work with
01:00:26:28 – 01:00:27:27
Rory Vaden
attracting talent?
01:00:27:28 – 01:00:31:28
AJ VADEN
attracting is it’s the difference between being a magnet and a megaphone
01:00:31:28 – 01:00:34:10
AJ VADEN
It’s putting out there who you are
01:00:34:13 – 01:00:35:29
AJ VADEN
where somebody else would go.
01:00:36:02 – 01:00:37:16
AJ VADEN
I said, what I’ve been looking for,
01:00:37:17 – 01:00:41:11
Rory Vaden
I am joined, of course, by my co-host, best friend, business partner, CEO and
01:00:41:13 – 01:00:42:13
Rory Vaden
AJ VADEN Vaden.
01:00:42:16 – 01:00:43:11
Rory Vaden
This is
01:00:43:11 – 01:00:44:25
Rory Vaden
the Wealthy and Well Known podcast.
01:00:44:28 – 01:00:49:07
Canned Open AI VO
Ever wonder what it actually takes to build a reputation that generates revenue?
01:00:49:11 – 01:00:53:25
Canned Open AI VO
Rory and AJ VADEN Vaden are the powerhouse duo behind Brand Builders Group,
01:00:53:28 – 01:00:55:21
Canned Open AI VO
NYT bestselling authors and
01:00:55:25 – 01:01:01:16
Canned Open AI VO
the personal brand experts who have helped some of the world’s most influential leaders scale their personal brands.
01:01:01:20 – 01:01:02:06
Canned Open AI VO
Now
01:01:02:10 – 01:01:03:16
Canned Open AI VO
they’re pulling back the curtain
01:01:03:16 – 01:01:06:11
Canned Open AI VO
on how to capture attention,
01:01:04:27 – 01:01:06:11
Canned Open AI VO
build massive trust,
01:01:06:13 – 01:01:09:07
Canned Open AI VO
turn your expertise into a lasting legacy.
01:01:09:08 – 01:01:16:03
Canned Open AI VO
Get ready to elevate your influence and your income. This is wealthy and well known.
01:01:16:06 – 01:01:24:08
Rory Vaden
In this episode, we’re going to be talking about how do you attract better team members, better relationships in general, and what could be vendors, could be contractors.
01:01:24:08 – 01:01:24:18
Rory Vaden
But
01:01:24:18 – 01:01:31:21
Rory Vaden
how do you use your personal brand to build the team around you that you need to get your mission out into the world?
01:01:31:23 – 01:01:32:12
AJ VADEN
In the house.
01:01:32:12 – 01:01:33:04
Rory Vaden
In the house
01:01:33:06 – 01:01:38:20
Rory Vaden
and this is a great topic for us to talk about and specifically for you to talk about.
01:01:38:22 – 01:01:40:03
AJ VADEN
It’s a great topic to talk about
01:01:40:03 – 01:01:56:10
AJ VADEN
talent acquisition, talent retention. Everybody needs to be talking about that. And there’s a lot of great talent on the market right now. And I, I just think that there is an amazing opportunity right now to get talent that has not been available in previous years,
01:01:56:10 – 01:01:58:16
AJ VADEN
and it’s up to you to snag it.
01:01:58:17 – 01:01:59:06
Rory Vaden
So
01:01:59:06 – 01:02:04:06
Rory Vaden
how do you think about personal branding in the context of a recruiting conversation?
01:02:04:07 – 01:02:17:01
AJ VADEN
Yeah, I think for the most part, it’s not all that different than what I would say in a customer acquisition conversation, but a little different in the fact of I really do believe that for the most part,
01:02:17:01 – 01:02:28:02
AJ VADEN
when someone decides to work with a company, they are not making that decision based off of the company. They are basing it off of the leaders, the individuals of the company.
01:02:28:03 – 01:02:47:11
AJ VADEN
They are going. No, I am choosing to come and work with these people. That’s who they’re going to be conversing with. That’s who they’re going to be spending their time with. You hopefully like them. Right? Hopefully you want to join a company where there is values, alignment. There’s a culture that you want to be a part of. And here’s how I know that’s true.
01:02:47:11 – 01:03:11:15
AJ VADEN
I have done dozens and dozens of dozens of interviews this year as we’ve been growing our team, and I always turn it back over to them at some point and go, what questions do you have for me? My questions are done. Now. What do you have for me? And the best candidates always ask very similar questions and they’ll ask something around culture.
01:03:11:17 – 01:03:14:01
AJ VADEN
They’ll ask something around values,
01:03:14:02 – 01:03:44:23
AJ VADEN
belief systems. Because what they’re really trying to discover is, are you who I think you are, right? Like, what is it in this company that I would attach myself to? Right. I think it’s a good reminder to leaders of companies like you work 60% of your waking hours. So I’m not talking about sleepy time, but all of the hours you’re awake, 60% of those hours in a 40 hour workweek are at work.
01:03:44:25 – 01:03:59:07
AJ VADEN
You better be aligning yourself with a company that makes you feel appreciated, valued, that you feel fulfilled, that you enjoy, that you like. Why would you join a company with a whole bunch of people that you don’t align with? You don’t believe what they believe and you don’t even like them.
01:03:59:12 – 01:04:07:12
AJ VADEN
So I think a huge part of using your personal brand for talent acquisition is helping broadcast at a larger scale.
01:04:07:16 – 01:04:27:03
AJ VADEN
Who you are, what you believe, what you stand for. Because at the end of the day, anyone you hire, that’s what they’re coming on for. It’s like, no, like we believe the same thing. I can get behind this, not just, hey, I’m going. Nobody goes and just works for a URL or a logo. Like, that’s not what’s happening.
01:04:27:03 – 01:04:29:18
AJ VADEN
They’re going, I could work with that person.
01:04:29:23 – 01:04:47:06
Rory Vaden
So true or false? When the leadership of a company has a recognizable personal brand, they are able to attract talent for less money or be able to get people they would maybe not otherwise be able to attract or afford.
01:04:47:07 – 01:05:19:27
AJ VADEN
I don’t necessarily say less money. I think money becomes less relevant. I think it’s it’s not that you if you have a stronger personal brand, you can hire people for less because they just want to work with you. That’s not it. You need to attract top, top talent by paying them what they’re worth. But what I do think begins to happen is like the money becomes a checkbox, and now it becomes like, no, like money is no longer as important to me because all these, all these other buckets start getting filled up.
01:05:19:29 – 01:05:41:04
AJ VADEN
Like, I love my work, I love my team. I think I’m contributing. There’s real purpose, there’s real value, there’s real impact to what I’m doing. Because at the end of the day, it’s like money. You can make money anywhere. Like you can make more money or less money doing the same job based on where you go. I think the difference is people start to realize it’s like it’s not all about money.
01:05:41:10 – 01:05:51:07
AJ VADEN
As we all start to realize when we age a little bit, it’s like, no, it’s like I want to do awesome work with awesome people making a real difference where I feel valued and I have real contribution.
01:05:51:09 – 01:06:04:00
Rory Vaden
Yeah. I don’t think it’s like an offset justification to go, well, I’m going to pay you less because we’re awesome. But it is it is one of those things where they go, they might take slightly less because you’re awesome, and.
01:06:04:04 – 01:06:08:14
AJ VADEN
Because they know that I could take more money somewhere else and be miserable, right?
01:06:08:14 – 01:06:11:09
AJ VADEN
So would I take a little bit less here and be really happy?
01:06:11:10 – 01:06:38:10
Rory Vaden
Yeah, I think people are, especially post-Covid, you know, are much more present to the idea that money is not the top consideration. It’s like I want to have I want to be a part of a team with some purpose. So how do you do that with your personal brand? How do you and I’m talking like tactically, pragmatically, how do you communicate your values, communicate your mission, share these belief systems you’re talking about.
01:06:38:10 – 01:06:44:08
Rory Vaden
Where do you do that? When do you do it. How often do you do it? Like what does that expression actually look like?
01:06:44:08 – 01:07:05:08
AJ VADEN
So I would share the exact same thing to someone who is trying to do this for customer acquisition. And at Brand Builders we talk about this a lot in our community. It’s you have to go where your avatar is, right? If because I just I firmly believe you don’t have to be online everywhere. You only have to be where your customer is, where your avatar is, right, your ideal customer.
01:07:05:08 – 01:07:32:03
AJ VADEN
And if your ideal customer isn’t online, what are you doing? Like, like if you run a family wealth office and like you’re not finding people on Instagram, then you they’re not a huge reason for you to be there. I actually liken that very much to this conversation of if you are using your personal brand for talent retention and or talent acquisition, then you have to go, where does the talent I want gather?
01:07:32:10 – 01:07:56:28
AJ VADEN
Where are they at? Are you trying to hire local talent? Well, then you need to become the the local person, right? You need to be in all the things local. If you’re trying to hire internationally or it doesn’t matter. And it could be remote and hybrid. I think there is a conversation point there where where are the people I’m trying to attract for my company most likely to find me or hear about me.
01:07:56:28 – 01:07:58:15
AJ VADEN
And that’s where you go.
01:07:58:22 – 01:08:18:14
AJ VADEN
So if I’m trying to hire local talent, we live in Nashville, Tennessee. I am looking for Nashville based leaders and team members. Then I’m going to spend more time in the Nashville based market. So there are things that I have done this year that two years ago I would have been like, I don’t have time for that.
01:08:18:15 – 01:08:36:12
AJ VADEN
That’s not relevant, but I have a mindset shift, like one of the things where it’s like, I got reached out to by the Nashville Business Journal about, hey, you’ve been nominated by someone in the community and previously, like We like we have been nominated Brain Builders group. I would have like deleted that. And I’ve gone like, that’s not important.
01:08:36:12 – 01:08:58:28
AJ VADEN
I’m too busy for that. But because I’m in a very talent acquisition mindset right now, I’m like, yes, I will take the time to fill out this very lengthy survey. I will take the time to, you know, do all the things that you did. Because if you’re going to nominate me and I could qualify for one of the top 20 fastest growing companies in Nashville, then yes, that matters.
01:08:58:28 – 01:09:00:28
AJ VADEN
I will say yes to any panel.
01:09:00:28 – 01:09:21:07
AJ VADEN
I will do podcasts, anything around culture, leadership, teamwork. It’s a automatic yes. Not because I have time for it, not because I just love doing it. Because there is a purpose and intention of anyone listening to those shows would be someone who would be eligible to know what we do, apply for what we do, or tell someone else about what we do.
01:09:21:09 – 01:09:31:06
Rory Vaden
Just a little shout out to BBG as a team. So what we did get an award. What number? What number were we. Oh top 20.
01:09:31:07 – 01:09:32:09
AJ VADEN
Top 20.
01:09:32:11 – 01:09:35:00
Rory Vaden
It was. What was it? It was the top 20.
01:09:35:03 – 01:09:36:11
AJ VADEN
Growing companies in Nashville.
01:09:36:12 – 01:09:45:23
Rory Vaden
In Nashville. That’s pretty awesome. And that is a thing right? You go. If you want to attract people who are innovative and want to be a part of something exciting, this building, it’s like.
01:09:45:24 – 01:09:46:15
AJ VADEN
Pay attention.
01:09:46:15 – 01:09:46:24
Rory Vaden
And
01:09:46:24 – 01:09:53:21
Rory Vaden
what are they going to look at? Like, where are they going to look? They’re going to look at what are the fastest growing companies in Nashville.
01:09:53:21 – 01:10:03:02
AJ VADEN
That’s it’s the same thing. It’s why in the past, you know, we applied to be on the Inc. 5000. We won the Inc. 5003 years in a row.
01:10:03:07 – 01:10:22:26
AJ VADEN
Anywhere where I’m going. Is there a talent acquisition opportunity? The answer is yes. So that I can talk about our mission, our culture, our values, how we onboard, how we hire, how we attract, the mission behind what we do. Anything where I can tell our company story, it’s a yes, because that’s my job as CEO.
01:10:22:26 – 01:10:27:28
Rory Vaden
So when you talk about talent acquisition, I think there’s a couple buckets here.
01:10:27:29 – 01:10:33:00
AJ VADEN
There is I want to I want to just make one adjustment. I’ve really been saying talent attraction.
01:10:33:02 – 01:10:34:15
Rory Vaden
Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you about.
01:10:34:16 – 01:10:35:28
AJ VADEN
It’s really talent attraction.
01:10:35:29 – 01:10:51:02
Rory Vaden
So what’s the difference between recruitment and attraction? And by the way, because this episode to me applies very much to, you know, solopreneurs, professional service providers. I think about real estate teams who are recruiting people. I think about direct sales organizations.
01:10:51:04 – 01:10:51:11
Rory Vaden
Like.
01:10:51:16 – 01:10:55:00
Rory Vaden
Who hires and then obviously small businesses for sure,
01:10:55:07 – 01:11:02:08
Rory Vaden
but what you’re talking about to me is talent attraction. So what’s the distinction between recruiting and attraction?
01:11:02:10 – 01:11:03:07
AJ VADEN
Yes, I love that. So
01:11:03:08 – 01:11:07:08
AJ VADEN
attracting is it’s the difference between being a magnet and a megaphone
01:11:07:10 – 01:11:18:05
AJ VADEN
okay. Right. A megaphone is telling everyone we’re hiring, we’re hiring, we’re hiring. Which you know, got to do that too. But talent attraction is more like being a magnet.
01:11:18:05 – 01:11:25:01
AJ VADEN
It’s putting out there who you are in a sense, where somebody else would go.
01:11:25:03 – 01:11:26:13
AJ VADEN
I said, what I’ve been looking for,
01:11:26:20 – 01:11:26:28
AJ VADEN
like.
01:11:26:29 – 01:11:51:15
AJ VADEN
I can’t believe, I can’t believe I just heard that. I can’t believe I just met you. Like this is what I’ve been looking for. That’s the difference to me. It’s a difference of putting out job posts of here’s a role we’re hiring for versus talking about who you are, what you believe, what you stand for, your mission, your purpose, your values, your culture, and having somebody else be magnetized, right?
01:11:51:17 – 01:11:56:19
AJ VADEN
Sucked in of going. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s what I’ve been looking for.
01:11:56:21 – 01:12:01:12
AJ VADEN
But when we get to the attraction part right, that’s just getting candidates in the door.
01:12:01:13 – 01:12:01:29
Rory Vaden
Well.
01:12:02:01 – 01:12:02:27
AJ VADEN
It’s like a lead magnet.
01:12:02:27 – 01:12:20:20
Rory Vaden
It’s like a lead magnet. Tell me about your job. You have a strong philosophy about job descriptions and job postings because, you know, most of them are like boring. Boring. And you really believe. I mean, you created a whole clod project and skill for this internally that we all have to use. Now that’s like, what do you talk about?
01:12:20:20 – 01:12:28:16
Rory Vaden
Just that as a tactical expression of like because I think that represents this difference between like, oh, I’m recruiting and I’m putting something.
01:12:28:16 – 01:12:29:09
AJ VADEN
On the difference.
01:12:29:13 – 01:12:29:25
Rory Vaden
Tracking.
01:12:29:25 – 01:12:52:26
AJ VADEN
My person and recruiting. There are two very different things. Anyone can put a job post out there and hire someone, but I think that’s a reflection of who you attract. Recruiting is a sales job. It’s and let’s not forget like if you’re a leader, you’re in sales. Your job is to recruit amazing people and then keep them there.
01:12:52:26 – 01:12:58:15
AJ VADEN
That is the same thing as client acquisition and client retention. A leader’s job is.
01:12:58:16 – 01:12:59:02
AJ VADEN
People.
01:12:59:02 – 01:13:00:29
AJ VADEN
Acquisition and people retention.
01:13:00:29 – 01:13:02:11
AJ VADEN
Is the same job.
01:13:02:18 – 01:13:21:26
AJ VADEN
And I think people forget now it’s a sales job and recruiting has to cast a vision. And you can do that in a job description. You can do that in a job post. But what most people do is they go, here’s a paragraph about the company, here’s a sentence about the role, and then here’s all the things the role is going to do.
01:13:21:26 – 01:13:48:03
AJ VADEN
I think that’s very important because people need to opt in based on experience, based on qualifications and skills. Those are important. What I just firmly believe is that you’re missing the recruiting part, the attraction part, if you don’t actually put the vision in there. So what we adjusted is that all of our job postings, all of our job descriptions have a one page sales letter, a recruitment letter first.
01:13:48:06 – 01:14:11:28
AJ VADEN
Then comes a little about the company, a little about the role and the job description. But that first page is more of a cultural values aligned standpoint of this is who. This is how you know that you are a great person for this company and this role. It’s a selling of this is where we’ve been, this is where we’re at.
01:14:12:00 – 01:14:32:16
AJ VADEN
This is why I’m hiring and this is where we’re going. Do you want to come with us? And so these recruitment letters are vision statements. It’s a quick recap of 2 or 3 sentences about where we started to how we got to today. Why are we hiring this role and how you know if this is for you. So it’s more adjective related.
01:14:32:16 – 01:14:40:01
AJ VADEN
It’s more vision related, it’s more purpose aligned. And then you end it with, and this is the ride we’re about.
01:14:40:01 – 01:14:41:03
AJ VADEN
To go on.
01:14:41:06 – 01:14:44:09
AJ VADEN
You want to. Come and it literally says.
01:14:44:11 – 01:14:45:25
AJ VADEN
Want to come.
01:14:45:27 – 01:14:48:20
AJ VADEN
If so, keep reading. And then it gets to.
01:14:48:20 – 01:15:09:13
Rory Vaden
That I every time I hear you talk about this I’m reminded of this. So this is this is the this is from Ernest, Sir Ernest Shackleton. Right. So this is the famous job posting that that he did. This is like he was doing the endurance expedition. This is like from 1914 to 1917 to he was like an Antarctic explorer.
01:15:09:13 – 01:15:29:27
Rory Vaden
And here was his job posting. It said men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return, doubtful honor and recognition in case of success. That’s so great.
01:15:29:28 – 01:15:31:04
Rory Vaden
It’s a unique profile.
01:15:31:06 – 01:15:31:25
Rory Vaden
It’s a unique.
01:15:31:25 – 01:15:33:01
AJ VADEN
How many people did it?
01:15:33:02 – 01:15:36:21
Rory Vaden
Yeah, well, I mean, whatever. He filled the voyage. He did, and it was true. But it’s like.
01:15:36:22 – 01:15:37:21
AJ VADEN
But could you imagine.
01:15:37:21 – 01:15:38:03
AJ VADEN
Reading that.
01:15:38:03 – 01:15:39:09
AJ VADEN
And being like, yes.
01:15:39:11 – 01:15:39:26
Rory Vaden
Yes.
01:15:39:27 – 01:15:58:11
AJ VADEN
But for the right person. And that’s how, you know, for the right person. But if he had had on their need sailing experience and he’d do it, it’s like, how many nonsense resumes are candidate interviews would he have had to go through because you just didn’t get to the point? Yeah, like, this is what I’m looking for.
01:15:58:12 – 01:16:18:28
Rory Vaden
You can throw the gantlet down and this is what, you know, a lot of times, you know, when my backstory we talk about when I went door to door in college, but really the records that I broke were recruiting records. I was really a recruiter, and I used to always argue with sales managers and other recruiters. I’m like, you guys are, you know, pandering around how hard the job is.
01:16:18:28 – 01:16:31:15
Rory Vaden
I tell people this is the hardest possible summer job they could ever choose, but it’s also why they could make more money than ever before. Throw the gantlet down. Throw the challenge down like it’s exactly what.
01:16:31:15 – 01:16:33:13
AJ VADEN
You’re saying. Rise to the occasion or opt.
01:16:33:13 – 01:16:49:24
Rory Vaden
Out and that you want. It’s like you’re putting a signal out that repels the 95%. But man, the 5% go. Those are my people, right? It’s like, you know, honor and recognition and cases of success.
01:16:49:26 – 01:17:14:07
AJ VADEN
But I do think like that is the difference between hiring and recruiting. That’s the difference between a attraction method versus a hiring method. And they’re very different. And I think that we forget as leaders, as entrepreneurs, it’s like, no, you have to put out there your personal brand. So all of these recruitment letters are from the desk of AJ VADEN Vaden.
01:17:14:07 – 01:17:37:29
AJ VADEN
I write all of them because this isn’t just who they’re going to report to. It’s like, no, they need to know from the top, this is it. This is who we are at. Then down below it says you’ll report to it has all of that later on. But it’s like these come from the desk of the CEO. And it’s like, I want to be very clear that you heard it from me and my little words on the paper, this is what this was, this is what’s going down.
01:17:38:02 – 01:17:59:23
AJ VADEN
And I’ve had so many people who have applied for these roles that probably would have never applied because they referenced the front page. They’re like, but when I read that, that was intriguing. That was inspiring to me. And others probably read it and scrolled past. That’s what it needs to be. What I don’t is what what I don’t want is a whole bunch of.
01:17:59:23 – 01:18:00:17
Rory Vaden
Lukewarm.
01:18:00:17 – 01:18:05:02
AJ VADEN
Lukewarm applicants because they’re like, oh, I have those skills.
01:18:05:05 – 01:18:23:16
AJ VADEN
I can find the skills, I can build the skills, right? I need someone who embodies the values and the culture that can carry us forward. And I think that’s just a difference. Are you hiring for skill now? To me, skills is the prerequisite. That’s like, of course you have to have the skills.
01:18:23:16 – 01:18:30:22
AJ VADEN
But there is a different level of cultural alignment where someone raises their hand and that that I want that.
01:18:30:22 – 01:18:52:08
Rory Vaden
So you said something. This is one of our philosophies that recruiting is a sales job. I think a lot of small business owners just don’t believe they can get top talent, because they can’t afford to pay what the big companies can pay. Right? And it’s like you get the company card and you get all these amazing benefits and you get this top salary.
01:18:52:08 – 01:19:03:06
Rory Vaden
Do you think that small businesses can, can compete for top of talent and and if so, why? And then also also how.
01:19:03:09 – 01:19:27:00
AJ VADEN
Yeah. So when I made the comment earlier I think there is top talent on the market like never before. And there’s an opportunity for someone to go snatch it up. This is kind of what I’m talking about. And I really do think this started in 2020, but I think we’re catching an even bigger wave right now with AI and with the amount of larger companies releasing much of their workforce.
01:19:27:00 – 01:19:37:21
AJ VADEN
Because I think for the most part, people are going, no, I want a different type of role moving forward, a different type of opportunity that I want to be able to make the money.
01:19:37:21 – 01:19:56:03
AJ VADEN
But it doesn’t always have to come in salary. So I think that’s where small businesses get caught up in. Well, I can’t compete with that because when you look at just salaries, that’s probably true. Like we do not have the same budget that Starbucks does. Like I do not have the same budget Gary Vee does. We do not have the same budget.
01:19:56:06 – 01:20:21:00
AJ VADEN
So I cannot compete on salary alone. So what do I have to do? I have to be creative and competitive with bonus structure. I have to be creative with education opportunities, advancement opportunities we have. One of our things is we’re going like there’s a balance thing that we can compete on. We have unlimited time off. I feel very good that our team does not abuse that, but I think it’s better than going.
01:20:21:00 – 01:20:42:23
AJ VADEN
You only have two weeks. We’re looking at family dynamics and how can we compete on maternity leave, paternity leave? How can we, you know, compete on grievance grievance care? I’m looking at all the different things that we can compete on. And one of those when it comes to financially, it’s it’s bonus structure where it’s like we win together.
01:20:42:23 – 01:21:11:13
AJ VADEN
So that’s where I think small businesses can get really creative of. I can’t compete on salary, but if you do what I think you can do and you prove an hour, why on your roll, we’ll share in it together. Because when there’s more money than there’s a pot to to pool from, and that’s something that we changed pretty dramatically a couple of years ago is creating a very highly competitive, incentivizing bonus structure, because we can afford that when there’s more money.
01:21:11:15 – 01:21:37:25
AJ VADEN
But I can’t just, you know, I don’t have a monopoly tree in the backyard where I can just, like, make up salaries, that this is not how business works, but it’s looking at time off. It’s looking at other creative ways of doing company trips. It’s cultural alignment, it’s social activities, its involvement, it’s engagement. And that’s where as the when you think about talent acquisition, you really have to ask yourself, what is the culture that I’m trying to advance?
01:21:37:27 – 01:21:41:09
AJ VADEN
that’s where I think it can be really good to be polarizing.
01:21:41:10 – 01:21:53:12
Rory Vaden
Yeah. And I think you got this. There’s a culture piece here. There’s also just the vision of the company and what we’re doing and why it matters and why it’s good in the world versus like, oh, you’re going to work for be a cog in some big corporate machine.
01:21:53:14 – 01:21:58:22
AJ VADEN
And that’s the shift that I feel like is happening where we can attract some great talent that wasn’t available.
01:21:58:23 – 01:22:26:23
Rory Vaden
Also, I’m actually comfortable with you sharing the, at least conceptually, how we do the bonus plan, because I think a lot of people, you know, it’s like the David and Goliath thing, like you assume you’re at a disadvantage because you’re small, but it’s like, actually you have many advantages. And can you just explain to whatever extent you feel comfortable the concept of how our bonus plan works and, and what does that mean to literally win together and like some of the mechanics.
01:22:26:23 – 01:22:30:04
Rory Vaden
So if someone’s never done that before with their small business.
01:22:30:05 – 01:22:57:02
AJ VADEN
So there’s it’s not just in our bonus plan, but like in general we have a philosophy, a brand builders group. And these are just founder philosophies that we hope, you know, continue forever. But it’s a win together, lose together philosophy. And these apply to every role in the company. So like when we have big incentive trips, it does not matter if you are data entry or an assistant or you are the top producing salesperson or anyone in between.
01:22:57:02 – 01:23:01:01
AJ VADEN
Everyone goes because every role matters.
01:23:01:01 – 01:23:03:08
Rory Vaden
Meaning every person in our company.
01:23:03:10 – 01:23:22:17
AJ VADEN
Role, it does not matter. Everyone wins when we win together and if we don’t win, no one goes. So it really creates a leveling of every role has power, every role has significance. So treat it as so. So the bonus plan applies to that as well. So we pay our bonus plan off of contribution margin.
01:23:22:18 – 01:23:23:21
Rory Vaden
Oh gosh. What is that.
01:23:23:22 – 01:23:28:23
AJ VADEN
Contribution margin is gross margin minus direct labor.
01:23:28:24 – 01:23:30:04
Rory Vaden
Gross margin.
01:23:30:05 – 01:23:33:21
AJ VADEN
Quick quick executive pop quizzes.
01:23:33:21 – 01:23:39:27
AJ VADEN
So gross margin is revenue minus cost of goods sold.
01:23:39:27 – 01:23:41:00
AJ VADEN
And a.
01:23:41:01 – 01:23:44:07
AJ VADEN
Service business like ours that’s primarily commissions.
01:23:44:08 – 01:24:02:25
Rory Vaden
Yeah. So basically you could think of gross margin as like how much actual money do you comes in the door from. Selling it. Right. Like it’s like minus the direct cost of like if we sell more, there’s just this much cost automatically going out the door. So it’s almost like real revenue. Yeah.
01:24:02:25 – 01:24:09:25
AJ VADEN
So it’s just revenue minus cogs cost of goods for us and most businesses, that is commissions.
01:24:10:00 – 01:24:12:00
Rory Vaden
Delivery commissions and sales commissions.
01:24:12:01 – 01:24:40:09
AJ VADEN
So that gives you your contribution. Component one. The second component is direct labor. So what is direct labor. It’s any person. So these are salaries. It’s any person could be hourly contractor full time. It doesn’t matter. But any person who spends more than 51% of their time in revenue generating activities. So there is admin labor which is operational or management labor that’s not included.
01:24:40:10 – 01:24:41:16
Rory Vaden
So executives.
01:24:41:17 – 01:24:50:00
AJ VADEN
Right. So you take the gross margin and you subtract out your direct labor because both of those contribute to the cost of selling.
01:24:50:01 – 01:25:01:00
Rory Vaden
Yeah. So it’s basically like it’s basically like going okay, you take out the actual cost of goods and then you take out the salaries of the people who are also part of cost of goods. And that’s, that’s the real.
01:25:01:00 – 01:25:01:11
Rory Vaden
Number.
01:25:01:16 – 01:25:03:12
Rory Vaden
Contribution contribution margin.
01:25:03:13 – 01:25:30:11
AJ VADEN
So it’s like what is left after all the money spent to acquire the money that you have. Yeah, that is contribution margin. So we have a baseline of a number. Just a flat number set of we have to hit this number and contribution and margin. But once we hit that, every single person in the company is eligible for 10% of their base salary in bonus.
01:25:30:13 – 01:25:31:13
AJ VADEN
But then.
01:25:31:19 – 01:25:39:25
Rory Vaden
Once we go above that minimum threshold, everybody automatically gets a like a 10% pay increase. But it’s just a bonus. But they get it right up front.
01:25:40:01 – 01:26:03:22
AJ VADEN
Of whatever is your base salary. You get 10% of that. But where it gets exciting and this is where you can just really get creative and you can really build a plan that competes with bigger companies that you couldn’t otherwise. For every additional $100,000 over our baseline, every single employee. So it can get expensive, but it’s not expensive if you’re generating more revenue.
01:26:03:22 – 01:26:15:03
AJ VADEN
So this is but you got to have somebody who’s thinking creatively of like, do I have a shared mentality? Right. And it’s the concept of, would you rather have a whole bunch of a tiny.
01:26:15:05 – 01:26:17:18
Rory Vaden
Pipe, like a big piece of a small pie or.
01:26:17:24 – 01:26:19:12
AJ VADEN
Yeah. So I think it.
01:26:19:14 – 01:26:19:27
Rory Vaden
Is a.
01:26:19:27 – 01:26:29:03
AJ VADEN
Bigger it’s a, it’s a conversation in that. And that’s just a decision we’re making to attract and retain top talent. But then for every 100,000 over that baseline.
01:26:29:04 – 01:26:30:04
Rory Vaden
In contribution margin.
01:26:30:05 – 01:27:00:13
AJ VADEN
And contribution margin, everyone earns an additional 1% of their salary all the way up to 40%. So you can earn up to 40% of your salary in bonus every single year. But the the power in that is like everyone plays a role. And when when we win, everyone wins. But if we don’t hit it a nobody winning. And so this what it should do is create a culture of personal accountability of.
01:27:00:16 – 01:27:14:24
AJ VADEN
And this is a these are back to. It’s like once you have your point of orientation of what type of company do I want, then you build everything to support that. We are terrible micro managers. I don’t want a team that has to be micromanaged.
01:27:14:26 – 01:27:16:17
Rory Vaden
Autonomy is one of our core values.
01:27:16:18 – 01:27:41:25
AJ VADEN
Initiative, autonomy, personal growth. Those are all core values because we know that’s that’s what’s required for the company to grow beyond us. So we are building every other component of our compensation plan, talent acquisition and retention plan to support those core values. And we can all do it together. But also it’s like we’re not going to go earn the bonus ourselves and then hand it out.
01:27:41:26 – 01:28:01:19
AJ VADEN
No, we collectively have to do that because we can’t hit those numbers just the two of us. But it’s the same thing with when we do a big company trip. Everyone goes, and I think some of those things really do help. No matter what your role is, there’s power and feeling acknowledged and a part of the bigger picture.
01:28:01:22 – 01:28:13:18
AJ VADEN
And then also it’s like then you can start competing with some of the big boys in your industry that you’re not there yet because you’ve gotten creative on the on what I would say is the outliers of the core role.
01:28:13:19 – 01:28:34:03
Rory Vaden
Yeah. This reminds me there’s a concept in Robert Kiyosaki book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, where he’s talking about the difference between like, wealthy people and everyone else and basically like scarcity and abundance. And he says, you know, poor people say, I can’t afford that. Wealthy people say, how could I afford that? And this is that same concept applied to to recruiting and talent acquisition to go.
01:28:34:04 – 01:28:58:03
Rory Vaden
It’s one thing to go, I can’t pay those salaries. And there’s a functional truth to that. But then you go, how could I do it? Because what we’re doing is we’re paying up to 40% more than their salary as a bonus, but we only pay it if it’s there. And that’s a really righteous way to do it. And a lot of people again, the, the, the, the winner going on the Shackleton journey says, sign me up like I’ll be paid for my results.
01:28:58:03 – 01:29:07:03
AJ VADEN
But that’s also a great filter if you can just be upfront with these things, because the person who just wants it are going to opt out there, like, I don’t know, that feels.
01:29:07:03 – 01:29:07:29
Rory Vaden
Like I don’t want to be paid.
01:29:07:29 – 01:29:26:20
AJ VADEN
Yeah, that feels different. That feels risky. Where it’s like the more risk, the more reward. So I think there’s all those things where it’s like, we want to build a culture of people who want big rewards because they’re willing to take bigger risks. That’s how we grow as a company, but that’s a decided decision. Not every company wants that.
01:29:26:22 – 01:29:53:10
AJ VADEN
Not every base of employees want that. But that’s where you say everything else you build around. This has to come from what’s the culture you’re trying to support? And we’re trying to support an entrepreneurialism environment where we have anyone in the company can have untapped income. Anyone can have lead source pay, create leads for the company, have affiliate pay like anyone can sell something, not just a sales team.
01:29:53:16 – 01:29:56:14
AJ VADEN
Those are cultural standards that we’re really trying to cultivate.
01:29:56:15 – 01:30:12:02
Rory Vaden
All right, so there’s the last question. How do you draw the line between corporate values and personal values in this recruiting and building your personal brand? Do you see a difference between you share both of them.
01:30:12:07 – 01:30:13:05
AJ VADEN
Sure do.
01:30:13:08 – 01:30:26:23
Rory Vaden
how do you justify going? I’m going to share my personal values out there. And I think that that’s the way to recruit even even though knowing that there may be people who don’t share those, even people who would maybe want to work here don’t have your same personal values.
01:30:26:23 – 01:30:44:19
AJ VADEN
I share both because it’s a, it’s a litmus test of can can we still have difference of opinions and still successfully work together. And I think you can. I think that people can share different beliefs and cohabitate and coexist beautifully.
01:30:44:22 – 01:30:53:10
AJ VADEN
I think the challenge is when there’s underlying differences that no one talks about. I think all of that’s eradicated when we just all know where we stand.
01:30:53:13 – 01:30:57:03
AJ VADEN
In fact, because I did an interview yesterday,
01:30:57:06 – 01:31:05:02
AJ VADEN
I shared the exact same three things on every single interview. Anyone in our company, anyone who’s ever interviewed with our company has heard these three things.
01:31:05:05 – 01:31:10:01
AJ VADEN
And it’s like there are three things that you need to know about us before you continue in this interview.
01:31:10:05 – 01:31:27:20
AJ VADEN
first, as we run this more like a family owned business, it’s not anywhere in our core values. You’re not going to see it in our brand mantra, but these are three personal things that you need to know about us that are just true. And for some people, that’s going to feel good. Some are like, no way. I do not want you to know anything about my personal life.
01:31:27:20 – 01:31:47:07
AJ VADEN
And if that’s you, you should probably just go ahead and tell me now and we can call this. We’ll call it a wrap. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that we are not a faith based company, but we are faith based entrepreneurs. So you do not have to share our faith. But you need to be okay with me sharing mine and you all you were.
01:31:47:07 – 01:32:09:01
AJ VADEN
You will hear Jesus. You will hear Scripture. You will hear me talk a lot about God. Those are my beliefs. You don’t have to have them. But you do have to be okay hearing about them. And in our own company, we have people who are very declared agnostic. We have people who are practicing Islam. We have people in our community who practice Judaism.
01:32:09:01 – 01:32:24:10
Rory Vaden
We had one of our employees tell us recently that we we are some of the best Muslims they’ve ever met because of we actually, even though we have different religions, but caring for people and loving on people is a shared philosophy. Even though we have different religious backgrounds.
01:32:24:11 – 01:32:36:05
AJ VADEN
And it’s like I just I know it works because I see it work every day. It’s like we have people who absolutely do not believe what we believe, and we love them and they love us, and it works. So I’m very.
01:32:36:06 – 01:32:36:26
Rory Vaden
It can be done.
01:32:36:27 – 01:32:40:26
AJ VADEN
It can be done regardless of what you would hear otherwise. Like you can be done.
01:32:40:29 – 01:32:57:16
AJ VADEN
But I think but this is an alignment of like my personal value. Sit on top of this, because at the end of the day, you’re not working for a company, you’re working for people. And I don’t want any surprises. Like, I know one needs culture shock. This is not a bait and switch environment. When I hire you, it’s a big investment for me and you.
01:32:57:17 – 01:32:58:17
Rory Vaden
You need to know what you’re getting.
01:32:58:20 – 01:33:17:09
AJ VADEN
You need to know what you’re getting into. And I believe the same in sales because recruiting as a sales job. But the last one is that Roy and I have an extremely high tolerance for change and for the right person. That sounds exciting and like opportunity and like innovation and growth for the wrong person. That sounds exhausting. Like we don’t know what we’re doing.
01:33:17:15 – 01:33:35:28
AJ VADEN
Like there’s no stability and there’s insecurity. And that’s just not a good fit for you either. All of those things can be great somewhere else. But if any of those things, those three things are unsettling to you, you should not continue. But if they all align, let’s go. Let’s continue the conversation.
01:33:36:00 – 01:33:52:27
Rory Vaden
I love it, I love it. Well, personal brand, you know, we say it is the formalization, digitization, monetization of your reputation. It’s really a word reputation. When you look at recruiting, recruiting is connected to reputation. Do people trust you? Do they want to work with you? They want to have relationship with you. And that’s one of the reasons why this matters.
01:33:52:27 – 01:34:25:23
Rory Vaden
So if you know someone who is building a mission that really matters and they deserve to have A+ talent on their team, will you just send this episode to them and be like, hey, I think this can help you attract the people that you deserve to have because your mission is worth it, because we hope it inspires them and shows them some tactical ways where they can compete with, you know, the the big companies and the big guys because there’s something extremely exciting, beautiful and attractive about small companies and small teams doing big things in the world.
01:34:25:23 – 01:34:42:06
Rory Vaden
And so we would love that. We’d also, if you’re enjoying this podcast, please rate it, review it wherever you listen. And if you’ve heard enough to go, you know what? I want to become an insider of the Brand Builders Group community. I want to be a member. I want to interface with other people who are on this journey.
01:34:42:06 – 01:35:00:24
Rory Vaden
I want to get more exposure to the tactics that we teach. Go to free Brand Call podcast, Free Brand Call Podcast and request a call and we’ll talk with you. You’ll talk to us one on one. We want to get to meet you a little bit, hear your story, and see if you both could be a good fit for being a part of our team of customers.
01:35:00:24 – 01:35:15:05
Rory Vaden
And if we could be a good fit, potentially to help you grow your business and your impact and your mission. So that’s what we’re here for. And also, as always, keep coming back. We’re so grateful for you. Go out and teach what you know to the person you once were. We’ll catch you next time on
01:35:15:05 – 01:35:16:17
Rory Vaden
the Wealthy and Well Known podcast.
WWK Ep 044: Maggie Berghoff: How to Build a Business Around the Life You Want
01:00:00:00 – 01:00:02:22
Maggie Berghoff
I wanted to scream from the rooftops how you can heal your body.
01:00:02:22 – 01:00:07:08
Maggie Berghoff
I just knew that waking up and going to work every day for someone else
01:00:07:10 – 01:00:09:17
Maggie Berghoff
was not aligned with the life that I wanted to build
01:00:09:17 – 01:00:14:08
Maggie Berghoff
I genuinely wanted to work from home all my own schedule and help people with their health and wellness,
01:00:14:12 – 01:00:18:16
Maggie Berghoff
I knew business so well. I am so good at business and I love building companies,
01:00:18:16 – 01:00:23:18
Maggie Berghoff
when you’re focused on growing two companies every single day, of course you have split attention and split results.
01:00:23:18 – 01:00:26:17
Maggie Berghoff
that. I’ve always allowed my business to align my life.
01:00:26:17 – 01:00:28:21
Maggie Berghoff
I was in it for the lives transformed.
01:00:29:00 – 01:00:52:15
Rory Vaden
Most entrepreneurs build a business and hope that one day it gives them the life they want. Today’s guest did the opposite. Maggie Berghoff started as a nurse practitioner struggling with her own health. After reversing those challenges through functional medicine, nutrition and mindset. She turned her personal journey into a coaching business that quickly grew into a thriving company. She became a USA today bestselling author with Eat to Treat.
01:00:52:16 – 01:00:56:00
Rory Vaden
Built a multi seven figure business and eventually
01:00:56:03 – 01:01:07:18
Rory Vaden
shifted from helping patients heal to helping health care professionals build businesses of their own. But what makes Maggie’s story remarkable isn’t just the revenue, it’s that she built the entire business around one goal
01:01:07:19 – 01:01:10:10
Rory Vaden
freedom. Freedom to raise her three children.
01:01:10:10 – 01:01:12:08
Rory Vaden
Freedom to work on her own schedule,
01:01:12:10 – 01:01:16:02
Rory Vaden
Freedom to create a company that served her life instead of consuming it.
01:01:16:03 – 01:01:30:10
Rory Vaden
But perhaps the biggest transformation wasn’t going from healthcare to entrepreneurship. It was that Maggie eventually became willing to bet on herself because the woman who once thought spending $5,000 on advertising was,
01:01:30:10 – 01:01:31:23
Maggie Berghoff
like, oh my gosh, this is wild.
01:01:32:02 – 01:01:35:02
Rory Vaden
Eventually reached a very different number.
01:01:35:02 – 01:01:40:02
Maggie Berghoff
There were some months that we were spending like $180,000 on ads myself a month. Just me.
01:01:40:03 – 01:01:40:23
Rory Vaden
Wow.
01:01:41:01 – 01:01:42:03
Maggie Berghoff
For ten days,
01:01:42:05 – 01:01:47:04
Rory Vaden
So how does a nurse practitioner go from being terrified to spend $5,000
01:01:47:04 – 01:01:51:12
Rory Vaden
to confidently risking $180,000 in ten days?
01:01:51:17 – 01:01:55:11
Rory Vaden
what did she learn that made that decision feel almost obvious?
01:01:55:11 – 01:02:01:01
Rory Vaden
That’s where this conversation begins.
01:02:01:03 – 01:02:23:11
Rory Vaden
Imagine having a multi seven figure membership business without working 80 hours a week, without having to hustle constantly on nights and weekends. What would that be like? And imagine if you were able to build it around something that was connected to your life story, something that was connected to your passion and that you got to serve the person you once were, and you got to help other people live the life of your dreams.
01:02:23:11 – 01:02:27:01
Rory Vaden
That’s part of what we’re going to talk about today. I’ve got my good friend Maggie Berghoff
01:02:27:05 – 01:02:27:14
Rory Vaden
here,
01:02:27:14 – 01:02:36:20
Rory Vaden
She’s someone that I admire. And we’re going to ask her for all of her special secrets and secret sources for how she has made that happen. Maggie, welcome to the show.
01:02:36:21 – 01:02:38:23
Maggie Berghoff
I am so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
01:02:39:00 – 01:02:39:12
Rory Vaden
Yeah.
01:02:39:14 – 01:02:52:17
Rory Vaden
So you you were a nurse practitioner? Yes. How did you go from. I’m a nurse every day to suddenly I’m into, like, doing building your personal brand and like, being an online entrepreneur, if you will.
01:02:52:18 – 01:03:04:15
Maggie Berghoff
Two things happened. Number one, I did, like you say, said struggled with some health problems that I reversed with functional medicine, mindset, nutrition and all the things. And I was so passionate about helping other people through that.
01:03:04:15 – 01:03:07:13
Maggie Berghoff
I wanted to scream from the rooftops how you can heal your body.
01:03:07:13 – 01:03:09:15
Maggie Berghoff
And that is exactly what I started to do.
01:03:09:15 – 01:03:14:05
Maggie Berghoff
And at the same time, I became a new mom and I was pregnant with my first baby. And
01:03:14:05 – 01:03:22:13
Maggie Berghoff
I just knew that waking up and going to work every day for someone else at the office on someone else’s agenda was not aligned with the life that I wanted to build
01:03:22:15 – 01:03:24:00
Maggie Berghoff
as a mom.
01:03:24:03 – 01:03:45:10
Maggie Berghoff
So for years I was helping people just with their health and wellness. And what I did was I took my story and my healing and all the good and all the bad, and compiled it into a framework that other people could go through to help them heal their body and really coached them one on one. What really helped me in my health journey was coaching and having someone there to support me, not just give me the framework but help me through it to implement.
01:03:45:10 – 01:03:54:21
Maggie Berghoff
And so I, you know, one by one, helps people with that, which really turned into this business that I never initially intended to build. I didn’t have this huge goal.
01:03:54:21 – 01:03:59:12
Maggie Berghoff
I genuinely wanted to work from home all my own schedule and help people with their health and wellness,
01:03:59:16 – 01:04:07:07
Maggie Berghoff
and it turned into a bigger business solely from following my passion and hard and people getting great results and sending more people my way.
01:04:07:08 – 01:04:40:16
Rory Vaden
Well, I think, you know, one of our flagship mantras, or perhaps our most flagship mantra, Brand Builders group, is that you’re most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. You’re such a great example of that story. Can you share with us? Like what? How how much was the package that you were selling back then? Just because I think, you know, especially if there is a mom listening right now who is kind of in that space, it’s going okay, you have the steady job with security, and then you’re like, okay, I’m stepping into entrepreneurship.
01:04:40:18 – 01:04:48:00
Rory Vaden
Were you selling like a $10,000 package? Was it a $5,000 package? Like what was the first step?
01:04:48:01 – 01:04:49:03
Maggie Berghoff
High ticket from the start.
01:04:49:04 – 01:04:49:11
Rory Vaden
It was.
01:04:49:12 – 01:05:05:19
Maggie Berghoff
So I very much knew that the service I wanted to provide was high ticket in nature, because it was one on one. I wanted to partner with people and be there for them, have them message me, not have to wait, you know, for a doctor’s visit months down the road, or call in for an answer and get an answer two weeks later to their problems.
01:05:05:19 – 01:05:13:07
Maggie Berghoff
Whatever it was, I knew that that required high ticket. So initially my first packages were like $6,000.
01:05:13:09 – 01:05:15:03
Rory Vaden
But it was always high ticket, high touch.
01:05:15:04 – 01:05:15:09
Maggie Berghoff
High.
01:05:15:10 – 01:05:16:06
Rory Vaden
Ticket right out of the.
01:05:16:06 – 01:05:18:19
Maggie Berghoff
Gate, six month programs with clients.
01:05:18:19 – 01:05:24:19
Rory Vaden
And you didn’t have a bunch of strategists or coaches or whatever. In the beginning, it was just you. They’re buying time with you.
01:05:24:20 – 01:05:41:13
Maggie Berghoff
Yes. Which is invaluable, right? When you have one person who has also, like you said, walked the path that you are trying to walk and can help you speed up and accelerate your journey to healing, to building a business, to whatever it is. And so that’s all the what? It was so basic at the beginning.
01:05:41:15 – 01:06:07:09
Rory Vaden
But that’s so good. Like, I, I, I still believe to this day, like, everyone thinks you got to have millions of followers and you have to have like this huge credibility or stardom. And I go, if you’re serving the person you once were, it’s actually much faster to make more money by selling to fewer clients, a higher touch, you know, program, because what people will pay for is access to you, right?
01:06:07:10 – 01:06:20:06
Rory Vaden
Like, they’re not going to get access to Tony Robbins or they’re not going to get access to, you know, Andrew Huberman or whatever. Like you’re not going to get access to those people. But when you’re first starting out, people will pay a lot to get personalized access. That’s what you gave them.
01:06:20:06 – 01:06:41:01
Maggie Berghoff
And they want it. And I remember when I was first starting out, I actually compared myself at the beginning. I got over this real quick. So people a lot further along than me. And I would kind of ask myself, why would they hire me if they could hire this other person or work in this other person’s practice? And I’ll never forget specifically, the girl told me on the phone on a sales call with me that she had already worked in, and this happened a variety of times, too.
01:06:41:02 – 01:07:05:07
Maggie Berghoff
They already were working with people who were way bigger names than me, but they didn’t want that service because they never talked to that person, or they were just handed off some coach who had 100 other people to take care of. So they were hiring me, and they would hire you because of that smaller component. And knowing that it’s actually you that they’re bonding with, they build trust with and that who’s actually going to be walking through them on this journey of health or business?
01:07:05:08 – 01:07:33:20
Rory Vaden
Yeah, totally. I mean, I think, I think, look, you know, price is all about supply and demand. And if you if you decrease supply, then the price goes up, right. So that is what happens when you’re doing one on one. There’s a limited supply. And so the price goes up. Also there’s always a demand for one on one versus like once you get into the one to many environment it’s like well there’s a lot of people doing it and you better have a really good system and be really well known.
01:07:33:20 – 01:07:55:08
Rory Vaden
And I think anybody, especially in a world of AI where you can get access to information, it’s like, I want to talk to a person and people will pay a premium. And so that’s how you started. So then that went on. How much time went by before you really started getting the calls about like, hey, I want to I want to know how to do what you do as a business owner.
01:07:55:14 – 01:08:15:05
Maggie Berghoff
It was actually only a couple of years later. The business grew really quickly. Super grateful for that. So I was everywhere TV, magazines, speaking on stages, and I had this successful business. But what drew people to me was I also had a successful life. I was working from home with my three babies. My husband quit his job and was working with me at home too.
01:08:15:06 – 01:08:33:01
Maggie Berghoff
We built the business together and so people were damning me nonstop. And I’ll never forget looking at my phone in my Instagram DMs and the people asking me to help them build a company so they could build this lifestyle as well surpass the people asking for health help. And that’s not why I did it. I did it because I genuinely at first I didn’t.
01:08:33:01 – 01:08:42:09
Maggie Berghoff
I actually said no, like, no way I’m building this business. I have so much momentum. And I said no and no until I recognized how incredibly selfish that was of me. Honestly,
01:08:42:09 – 01:08:46:13
Maggie Berghoff
I knew business so well. I am so good at business and I love building companies,
01:08:46:13 – 01:08:55:09
Maggie Berghoff
and so if I can help someone else build their dream lifestyle, their dream business, and help people with health and wellness in the way that they’re passionate about, I’m not the expert at everything.
01:08:55:10 – 01:09:08:17
Maggie Berghoff
You know, I had people wanting to help people through fritillary, through their fertility struggles or migraines or whatever it was. And so several years later, I started adding on that component. I still did health and wellness and also business mentorship.
01:09:08:19 – 01:09:17:19
Rory Vaden
When did you let go of the personal health? Like when did you realize, okay, in order to build one, I do have to let go of the other. Or like, how did you get to that?
01:09:17:20 – 01:09:33:09
Maggie Berghoff
This was the hardest thing probably I’ve ever done in business, and it was around the time where I first started working with you, Rory, in my book launch, where I recognized I need to make a decision here because there’s only so much time that I have as a founder and that my team has. My team was dipping into both sides of the company.
01:09:33:11 – 01:09:49:11
Maggie Berghoff
I didn’t have two separate teams built because I was a smaller business owner. And so it was probably around that time, maybe 2021, 2022 when I made a full decision. Our company is fully shifting and putting all of our time ever energy into in resources, into business mentorship.
01:09:49:12 – 01:09:54:11
Rory Vaden
And what happened after you made that decision? Like how did the business grow a lot? Like.
01:09:54:12 – 01:09:54:22
Maggie Berghoff
Yeah,
01:09:54:22 – 01:10:00:05
Maggie Berghoff
when you’re focused on growing two companies every single day, of course you have split attention and split results.
01:10:00:07 – 01:10:11:15
Maggie Berghoff
And so everything just felt so much easier, even for my team members when they were writing an email, they wrote for one company, right. You’re not trying to grow two things simultaneously. If you’re posting on social media, you’re posting for one company, one ideal client.
01:10:11:15 – 01:10:40:07
Maggie Berghoff
And so, yes, everything was easier, grew faster, and it felt more aligned to me, to I. I didn’t do it for a while because I felt a little bit of guilt giving, stopping what I was really known for at that time. And also, I know I’m really good at helping people with their health and wellness. And so. But for me, stepping into building companies and helping other people build companies was more relevant to me at that time and more exciting and fulfilling at that time because I had already built and grown a company.
01:10:40:08 – 01:10:43:08
Maggie Berghoff
Right. And so that’s when that transition happened.
01:10:43:10 – 01:11:04:19
Rory Vaden
Yeah, that that makes me happy to hear. And it’s also because it’s like the other thing we’re always drilling people with is if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. And it’s again, you’re such a great case study of like that isn’t just tongue in cheek lip service advice. It’s like, of course you grow and you have more freedom when you’re focused on one thing.
01:11:04:19 – 01:11:27:15
Rory Vaden
And, you know, I love I love seeing that. The other thing that I kind of notice in you in terms of a, of a personal transition is your original passion was helping people achieve health. But at some point you became more passionate about helping people achieve freedom. And it wasn’t just about making money, and it wasn’t just about growing the business.
01:11:27:15 – 01:11:47:15
Rory Vaden
It was that you were raising a family. And then, you know, I didn’t know this until we talked today, but you also ended up focusing on one avatar. So you gave up really working with men to go all in with just female. Tell me about that decision, because that’s another example of how you’ve been like niching down and getting more focused.
01:11:47:15 – 01:11:51:15
Maggie Berghoff
So focused. And you know, what I found out about myself too, is even with health and wellness,
01:11:51:15 – 01:11:53:23
Maggie Berghoff
I was in it for the lives transformed.
01:11:53:23 – 01:12:03:02
Maggie Berghoff
So it doesn’t matter if I’m helping someone balance their body or build their business, it’s the life that I’m after most, helping them to wake up every day and love their life and be fulfilled and happy and healthy.
01:12:03:02 – 01:12:24:08
Maggie Berghoff
And so that’s just that’s just really what it was, no matter what the coaching was about. And so for narrowing down more into an ideal client for me, the women, I never actually envisioned having a female only brand. It wasn’t my huge goal and and dream per se, but I noticed in marketing that such a like very few percent were males who were buying our program.
01:12:24:13 – 01:12:45:21
Maggie Berghoff
And I, up until this point, run all of our own marketing. And so I’m in charge of the ads, and any marketing that we do comes. I’m the one doing it. And so it’s just kind of a decision. If you see that 90% of your clients are female and 10% are male, if you just kind of give up that 10% and go all in 100 on female, the stories that you share land more clear.
01:12:45:21 – 01:12:51:15
Maggie Berghoff
The events that you throw are more on brand. And it just is. It makes sense from a marketing perspective to.
01:12:51:15 – 01:12:56:04
Rory Vaden
Do that. So that was more of a data driven decision of just like, gosh, this is this is obvious.
01:12:56:05 – 01:13:05:00
Maggie Berghoff
At the time it was data driven. I was kind of just like, why would I spend money running ads to the guys when I know that the females are the ones that really make up our company most?
01:13:05:01 – 01:13:21:22
Rory Vaden
Yeah. Well, and I think the challenge everyone faces is they go, I want to change the world. I want to help everybody, or I want to help as many people as possible. And they think that the best way to help as many people as possible is to help as many different types of people as possible. And it’s a huge mistake.
01:13:21:23 – 01:13:34:14
Rory Vaden
The actual way to help as many people as possible is to help the fewest number of types of people as possible, and serve them in the deepest way. And the data in your case was super duper clear on that. Yeah. So I.
01:13:34:14 – 01:13:53:08
Maggie Berghoff
Love the deepest way. That’s so true for me. I’m looking at how much deeper can we go with our existing client base, with our existing ideal client, instead of spreading thin and saying, oh, let’s start helping people in this industry, or let’s bring the guide group back in or whatever. I’m going deeper with our existing audience, and it just feels so good to do that and so focused.
01:13:53:08 – 01:13:54:09
Rory Vaden
there’s this pretense.
01:13:54:09 – 01:14:10:01
Rory Vaden
People love to pretend online that they make all of this money and they have all of this free time. People love to be like, oh yeah, you can be a zillion there and like, live on the beach and do nothing. Or like, you can be a zillion there and just like, be a mom and like, hang out with the kids all day.
01:14:10:03 – 01:14:22:17
Rory Vaden
Well, a lot of times I go, that’s bogus, because anyone who’s successful running a business knows it’s freaking hard. And it takes time and intensity and focus and passion.
01:14:22:17 – 01:14:31:05
Rory Vaden
So my question is for you. How much do you really work and how have you pulled it off?
01:14:31:05 – 01:14:37:08
Rory Vaden
Because I know that you are a mom of three. I know that you prioritize family. You’ve got a multi seven figure business.
01:14:37:11 – 01:14:41:01
Rory Vaden
give us an honest assessment of like what does that mix look like.
01:14:41:02 – 01:14:42:14
Rory Vaden
And and how have you got there?
01:14:42:15 – 01:15:02:17
Maggie Berghoff
For me, it’s actually real. Real. I truly do build my company around what I want my life to look like, and that changes based on my kids ages. As you know, the seasons are different depending on how old they are, what they’re involved in. Are you moving houses? And I just my business to align with that. And so there are three things that I think are really helpful for that.
01:15:02:17 – 01:15:29:18
Maggie Berghoff
And it’s gratitude, grit and grace. I’m so grateful for my life, no matter what season we’re in or what what the business is doing. And I have great. I work hard, even though I’m working less hours I can achieve in a few hours what most could achieve in a few weeks, right? So I’m working so focused and efficient with my time, only on the things that actually matter, only on the things that actually are going to move the needle forward and then actually increase the business or client result.
01:15:29:18 – 01:15:54:10
Maggie Berghoff
I am just so focused. Rory and Grace. So if something doesn’t line up right, or I thought I wanted to do something and I ended up shifting my priorities, I give myself a lot of grace with that. And so that’s helped me to grow the business in that way. How many hours I work really fluctuate. Sometimes I don’t work all that week and sometimes I’m, you know, grinding for eight hours behind the computer because the kids are at camp and I have time and I’m zoned in.
01:15:54:10 – 01:16:01:19
Maggie Berghoff
And so it really just there’s no set schedule, which is what I always wanted. And I’m proud to say from the beginning, I’ve always built
01:16:01:21 – 01:16:04:23
Maggie Berghoff
that. I’ve always allowed my business to align my life.
01:16:04:23 – 01:16:12:00
Maggie Berghoff
And it’s not just moms. We have people who they just want to spend. The summer is where their family is. They want to go hiking three days a week.
01:16:12:00 – 01:16:19:22
Maggie Berghoff
So it’s not even just moms. It’s people who really want to build not just a successful company, but a successful life in there and what they value.
01:16:19:22 – 01:16:35:03
Rory Vaden
Yeah I’m a I’m a big believer that it’s like the the only scorecard that should matter is the, the scorecard that matters to you, not the scorecard that matters to everybody else. I think that’s really great. Okay. So you mentioned to me that you still are hanging on to marketing.
01:16:35:03 – 01:16:46:11
Rory Vaden
why is marketing the thing that you’ve hung on to the longest? Because you mentioned to me that not only are you still running your own ads, it’s like pretty much everything marketing is still you’re still.
01:16:46:12 – 01:17:05:00
Maggie Berghoff
The marketing that we do for our business, which is wild, but also, I guess, a little bit proud, right, that we got to where we are with this. And the only marketing is me and I don’t do it full time, clearly, because I’m doing other things in the business like hiring and being a mom and whatever. And so for me, that moment actually wasn’t intentional.
01:17:05:00 – 01:17:14:23
Maggie Berghoff
I had worked with. It was ads. I had worked with ads agencies in the past, ads contractors in the past, and I just couldn’t kick the feeling of knowing that they didn’t really know the business
01:17:15:03 – 01:17:27:15
Maggie Berghoff
And so I just made the decision to and I was working with a great ads agency, actually my last one, I love her so much, but we had outgrown them and we wanted to spend more in scale to where they hadn’t done before and they weren’t comfortable doing so.
01:17:27:15 – 01:17:47:02
Maggie Berghoff
I just decided I’m going to take it in my hands. I had specifically wanted to do something that they said, no, it’s not a good idea, but I just knew this is a good idea. I’m going to do this. And so I just started doing it myself. And so I ran all my own ads to a very specific funnel, and I did it for the last several years.
01:17:47:02 – 01:17:53:08
Rory Vaden
So ads ads has been the predominant client acquisition strategy that you’ve built your business on now.
01:17:53:08 – 01:18:17:03
Maggie Berghoff
So since it’s just me, when you’re leaning into something, you’re sacrificing something else, right? Trade off. So when I previous to this, 100% of our clientele actually came from organic Instagram or TikTok, organic 100% purely. That’s how I built the business. When I started getting very serious about running our own ads, that priority shifted because I only have so much time, and so ads were crushing that I felt okay letting go of organic just for a time purposes.
01:18:17:03 – 01:18:44:11
Maggie Berghoff
I don’t think it’s smart. I think it’s good to have both. But also, I’m okay giving myself grace that we’re going to take a stand. The step back from organic right now while I lean into ads. And so we flopped that. And so then 100% of our clients came from ads. Now, I’m so excited to build some people to to take over what I’ve built in the marketing and just run what I am currently running so that I can focus more on organic, because in my mind, obviously both would be phenomenal.
01:18:44:11 – 01:18:46:04
Maggie Berghoff
So that’s how that shift.
01:18:46:06 – 01:19:03:21
Rory Vaden
So, so talk me through ads because we don’t talk a lot about ads on this show because a lot of what we teach is referrals, presentations, organic, like not so much organic social. A lot of what we do is like organic offline and like relationship stuff. So when you when when you mentioned that you outgrew your ad agency,
01:19:04:01 – 01:19:07:21
Rory Vaden
how much did you start spending versus how much are you comfortable spending now?
01:19:07:23 – 01:19:21:18
Maggie Berghoff
It’s kind of wild. So when I was with the last ad agency, which I did love them, they were so great. We were about, you know, maybe $85,000 for a launch. We do launches. Okay. So we were at about 85,000.
01:19:21:19 – 01:19:23:01
Rory Vaden
How many launches a year?
01:19:23:03 – 01:19:23:16
Maggie Berghoff
Two.
01:19:23:20 – 01:19:24:11
Rory Vaden
Okay.
01:19:24:12 – 01:19:42:06
Maggie Berghoff
Fall launch, spring launch. It was spring fall. And we were, you know, anywhere from 30,000 to 85 with them. Okay. And what we outgrew was I wanted to push the I mean, it worked so well that I was like, I want to push this further. If this works so perfect, why are we only doing this two times a year?
01:19:42:06 – 01:20:00:16
Maggie Berghoff
This does not make sense to me. So I wanted to do it every month and they just said, this is just not a good idea. It’s going to break all these things. And and then also finance wise, I wanted to push the budget. If we’re spending 85,000 and getting, you know, five x that from a launch, I wanted to push that a little bit.
01:20:00:16 – 01:20:06:22
Maggie Berghoff
And that’s when I started doing myself. I launched every single month. I pushed the budget.
01:20:06:22 – 01:20:11:22
Maggie Berghoff
There were some months that we were spending like $180,000 on ads myself a month. Just me.
01:20:11:23 – 01:20:12:19
Rory Vaden
Wow.
01:20:12:21 – 01:20:16:00
Maggie Berghoff
For ten days, our launch period is like 10 to 12 days
01:20:16:06 – 01:20:32:01
Maggie Berghoff
When you grow your business, as, you know, the things that used to feel kind of wild to you just become your norm. I call that my new baseline. So as I’m, you know, maybe I’m making more in one month than I did in the Tiger year prior as my nurse practitioner. I’ll never forget when that happened. I was like, oh my gosh.
01:20:32:01 – 01:20:41:06
Maggie Berghoff
And then that just became my new baseline in my norm. And now we’re far, far above that. Same with ads. I remember when I first started, my first guy I hired for ads, one of you spent 5000. I was like,
01:20:41:06 – 01:20:42:18
Maggie Berghoff
oh my gosh, this is wild.
01:20:42:18 – 01:20:51:17
Maggie Berghoff
And actually I didn’t have a great experience. I freaked out and I quit ads because organic worked so organic for us is Instagram and TikTok, and that worked so well.
01:20:51:17 – 01:21:17:01
Maggie Berghoff
So it just felt like I didn’t want to do that. But then when I just got to new levels and I remember the first time I spent 85 for that specifically to me was like, oh my gosh, $85,000 worth of cars days. Yeah, that to me was wild. And I remember I was actually sitting at a conference and it was like the old CEO of a company called Integrative Nutrition Institute of Nutrition, and I was talking to him at this conference, and I was like, what do you think?
01:21:17:01 – 01:21:29:17
Maggie Berghoff
And he told me, do you think you can make that back without the ads? And I’m like, yeah, I do that all the time. Like if I launch organic, I make more than that. So he’s like, then what’s the risk? And that changed everything for me.
01:21:29:22 – 01:21:33:12
Rory Vaden
Just meaning that if you made zero, if you spent it, you made zero, you could get it back.
01:21:33:13 – 01:21:40:16
Maggie Berghoff
Yeah. If I spent it, it made zero. I’m still going to make at least 85 or more because organic launches, I was still doing six figure launches.
01:21:40:17 – 01:21:49:01
Rory Vaden
And what are you okay, so you’re saying you’re running ads. You’re doing like a ten day launch window. So you’re like pushing into like a live webinar or a challenge or what are.
01:21:49:01 – 01:22:09:17
Maggie Berghoff
You, 40 summit. But it’s very different than other people’s four day summits. I actually because of here’s what happened. So, you know, I value family and flexibility and things like that. I saw people doing summits a long time ago, but it just felt kind of out of reach for me. They’re asking 35 different professionals to be on their hiring admin to manage all this stuff, all these email campaigns.
01:22:09:17 – 01:22:24:10
Maggie Berghoff
And I just thought, you know, I do want to do a summit. I see the value in showing up for someone multiple days in a row, then going to sleep and thinking about you waking up and coming back, all this stuff. But I needed to do it in a way that was around my lifestyle. So I decided my first ever four day summit.
01:22:24:10 – 01:22:42:11
Maggie Berghoff
I was going to go live Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for 90 minutes. I’m going to do like 45 minute training and then Q&A. Super chill, and I’ll promote my program at the end. And that was our first four day summit. We’ve been doing this same summit since like, oh my gosh, like maybe 2019. And actually the same exact thing.
01:22:42:11 – 01:22:44:21
Maggie Berghoff
Just me for 90 minutes. Monday, Tuesday.
01:22:44:21 – 01:22:46:09
Rory Vaden
Wednesday, same content and everything.
01:22:46:10 – 01:22:47:09
Maggie Berghoff
Same slide deck.
01:22:47:10 – 01:22:52:02
Rory Vaden
What? Every month. Yep. Still. Yeah. Wow.
01:22:52:04 – 01:23:04:23
Maggie Berghoff
And do you know who inspired me for that? I was sitting at a VIP dinner in Nashville, which goes back to your point of relationships, right? So I was sitting at this VIP dinner for my lawyer, who is also Amy Porterfield, lawyer. And.
01:23:05:01 – 01:23:06:00
Rory Vaden
Yes, yes.
01:23:06:02 – 01:23:24:00
Maggie Berghoff
And so Amy had said, I just do the same thing over and over and over again. And at the time, I wasn’t I was kind of tinkering with like different titles, different, different vibes to try to attract more people. But when Amy said that, I was like, well, she’s doing much better launches than I am, I’m going to follow her lead and just try to make it easier.
01:23:24:00 – 01:23:34:20
Maggie Berghoff
Why change the title? Why change the slides? And then I just started doing. At that time it was still two times a year, but then when I dropped the people who were doing my ads, I just I just did it every single month.
01:23:34:20 – 01:23:45:08
Rory Vaden
So now when you do it every month, though, if you’re running the same webinar, you got to have new, fresh people coming in every single month. But that’s why you’re just increasing the ad spend to just go like, I just have more and more people in front of me.
01:23:45:09 – 01:24:07:06
Maggie Berghoff
Well, yes and no. So yes, you need more eyes. So that’s where paid ads comes into place. And I, I love paid ads, but also people will come and sit on that summit month after month after month, and maybe they buy four months later and you can see they’ve come to three summits and it’s the exact same talk, the exact same topic, the exact same Q&A, but it’s just a matter of time until it clicks for them where they are like, yep, I want to do this.
01:24:07:06 – 01:24:22:03
Maggie Berghoff
But if it’s the same message, the same ideal client, you know, it’s better than just context switching all the time because they have a very clear direction on what you do, who you hope is this for them. And eventually, you know, on the right month they might decide, you know what I’m in.
01:24:22:09 – 01:24:23:06
Rory Vaden
Fascinating.
01:24:23:06 – 01:24:30:22
Rory Vaden
what do you consider like what’s a good cost per lead. And like, is that like what’s the metric that you use to measure the success of like the ad campaign?
01:24:30:23 – 01:24:33:11
Maggie Berghoff
Now I am no ads expert, but.
01:24:33:16 – 01:24:37:01
Rory Vaden
Sounds like you’re not doing Bad girl. I mean, I don’t know, like.
01:24:37:03 – 01:24:54:11
Maggie Berghoff
I mean, I guess so and actually, you know, rewind because I have done better than every ads company we’ve ever hired. And we’ve hired some big guys. Sure. And so I guess I’m doing okay. Cost per lead. I try to like look at in between 20 to $35 is usually where we are. Some launches.
01:24:54:12 – 01:24:57:19
Rory Vaden
Is, oh, I was going to ask you, do you charge for the four day summit or is it free?
01:24:57:22 – 01:24:58:18
Maggie Berghoff
Is is free.
01:24:58:21 – 01:25:03:10
Rory Vaden
Free four day summit? Okay, so you’re just going straight from an ad to a free four day event.
01:25:03:11 – 01:25:06:18
Maggie Berghoff
Yeah. 90 minute sessions. Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
01:25:06:18 – 01:25:14:05
Rory Vaden
We’ve done this model. We do this. We do this model also a couple couple times a year. We do this I love it, but now I’m like crap we should just a month.
01:25:14:06 – 01:25:24:11
Maggie Berghoff
Yeah. And I remember the ads team had said like it’s going to drop off, people are going to get tired of it. And we have not seen that, at least to this point. And and it’s been.
01:25:24:15 – 01:25:30:07
Rory Vaden
So it’s free and sorry. So I cut you off. So you’re saying your CPL 20 to $30 for a registration.
01:25:30:08 – 01:25:34:03
Maggie Berghoff
Yeah. But some months it’s like 8 to $12 sure per lead. And so sometimes.
01:25:34:03 – 01:25:38:06
Rory Vaden
It’s free. I mean, to be sub20 would be normal I think. Yeah.
01:25:38:07 – 01:26:03:16
Maggie Berghoff
And then obviously you’re looking at conversions. So once you launch then we add up okay. What we actually made and contracted versus collected and then how much we spent. And up until this point it’s been so tremendously amazing. And it’s so with the ads versus organic for me in that season of my life and that season of my business, it was really great to know I don’t have to think about being creative, posting content on social media, growing an account.
01:26:03:16 – 01:26:15:11
Maggie Berghoff
I can just I spend one day a month setting up my ads. I do my thing, I show up for my people for those four days and I love it. I love hosting the event. It’s very fun. It’s very energetic, and that’s where 100%.
01:26:15:11 – 01:26:19:22
Rory Vaden
Of it is this all in meta? Pretty much. You’re running meta. Mostly meta ads.
01:26:19:22 – 01:26:20:03
Maggie Berghoff
Yeah.
01:26:20:04 – 01:26:49:23
Rory Vaden
Just meta. Wow. And so then that lends itself to the lifestyle you’re talking about is you’re doing the same thing on rinse and repeat. Because I agree, it’s just like a social media and organic. It’s just a beast that you have to feed every day. And it is such a grind. There is a lot of power in being like, you know, to win organically, I have to constantly be creative or I can just put money in the machine and make there’s always going to be people there.
01:26:50:00 – 01:27:05:19
Rory Vaden
Like, that’s the one algorithm that never changes, right? If you give Zuckerberg money, he’ll put people in front of you. Yeah. And that is just fascinating to go. What a simple way. Like a duplicate way a predictable way to just go like in this season. This we’re just run this play over and over again.
01:27:05:19 – 01:27:26:10
Maggie Berghoff
Over and over. And I was okay, you know, paying meta I would rather I know our system is so good. I know our coaches, our team. Everything is so good. So yes, I’m going to say here’s my money. Please find me more people for this program and I’m going to chill the rest of the time. But for me, for being creative on social media, I do still love Instagram and TikTok and I will get back to that.
01:27:26:15 – 01:27:45:03
Maggie Berghoff
But also when you’re at least for me, when I’m growing a company, my brain is not in the mode of being creative. On Instagram and TikTok. I’m in the mode of finding the right people to hire in my team, making sure my clients are taken care of. So in the last couple of years, that’s really where my focus has been, which is why paid ads has been such a blessing.
01:27:45:03 – 01:27:46:14
Maggie Berghoff
I love I love paid ads.
01:27:46:15 – 01:27:55:16
Rory Vaden
Is your ad strategy like super complex and complicated or like, how do you spend that much and get such a great, consistent return? Do you think.
01:27:55:17 – 01:28:17:17
Maggie Berghoff
It’s actually so basic? I think the reason why I get such a great return is because I share stories. I share my story, which goes back to everything you tell people, of course, as well. So I’m just authentically letting people know, here’s what I’ve done, here’s who I help, and here’s how I can help you. Come to this four day summit and I’ll teach you how.
01:28:17:19 – 01:28:45:09
Maggie Berghoff
So it’s very much story base our our copies long, our landing pages long, which is kind of not industry standard. Usually they say small opt in pages convert higher hours is really long. I’m like, here’s my whole life story and all the clients we’ve helped and all these things I’m going to cover at the four day summit. So it’s long copy on ads, long opt in page, and then the ads themselves are, I think our best performing ads are actually be real content.
01:28:45:09 – 01:29:01:13
Maggie Berghoff
Showing me as a mom on stage at my client events, working at home. So it’s more so be real content showcasing what it actually means to build a business in our model, in combining, you know, your passion for growth in your career and also your passion for growth in your personal life.
01:29:01:14 – 01:29:15:16
Rory Vaden
Yeah, that’s that’s awesome. Maggie, I think that there’s so much consistent here. See here with just focus and just like doing the same thing over and over and really perfecting it. And it seems like you guys have done a really, really great job of that.
01:29:15:16 – 01:29:19:14
Rory Vaden
Also not being intimidated about how other people are doing it or whatever.
01:29:19:14 – 01:29:24:09
Rory Vaden
It’s just like finding a play that works for you and running it in a way that feels comfortable.
01:29:24:10 – 01:29:40:21
Maggie Berghoff
Yeah, I am so zoomed in on three things actually client results, client retention, brand updation. So that’s kind of my through line of everything that I do in the business. And then finally making sure that I’m the mom I want to be and the wife I want to be. So I’m just very focused on those things.
01:29:40:21 – 01:29:49:21
Rory Vaden
Do you at the end of this four days, do you do straight to a full offer, like go to a sales page and put in the credit card and buy the thing, or do you drive free calls and then by the thing or.
01:29:49:22 – 01:30:04:23
Maggie Berghoff
I actually did do credit card to high ticket for a little bit because of the season of business, and I didn’t want to have sales team at that time. And but we do now do sales calls. Oh, okay. So we promote the program and we take them to a sales call with our team internally.
01:30:05:00 – 01:30:09:12
Rory Vaden
Do you tell them the price before you offer them the free call? We don’t. Okay. So that’s really.
01:30:09:13 – 01:30:10:13
Maggie Berghoff
Like sure.
01:30:10:13 – 01:30:17:13
Rory Vaden
But we don’t. But you’re just doing four days of like pure value. And then after the fourth day request a call.
01:30:17:15 – 01:30:28:13
Maggie Berghoff
Third day tried trialed. I’ve trialed all the days for all the third day since. I’ve done it every single month for so many years now. I’ve tried different things. So third day is when we.
01:30:28:13 – 01:30:35:22
Rory Vaden
Pitch and then you only have full time employees, so you have a sales person who’s a full time employee. That one one sales person.
01:30:35:22 – 01:30:37:00
Maggie Berghoff
Right now we have one sales.
01:30:37:00 – 01:30:38:16
Rory Vaden
Person and they take all the calls.
01:30:38:16 – 01:30:55:06
Maggie Berghoff
During our launch. So she does take all the calls every other day. But during our launch, we do need to bring in. We bring in alumni clients to help her because she doesn’t have enough calendar space. So we bring in a couple alumni who are those are, I guess, contracted. They just close at the event.
01:30:55:07 – 01:30:59:23
Rory Vaden
But they’re just like it’s past clients. Who are the salespeople?
01:31:00:00 – 01:31:03:18
Maggie Berghoff
Yeah. During the launches, because we have increased call volume.
01:31:03:19 – 01:31:06:12
Rory Vaden
Wow. Yeah, that’s that’s fascinating.
01:31:06:13 – 01:31:15:22
Rory Vaden
If there’s somebody out there right now who is a mom who is going, I want to build. I’d love to build this kind of a business. I do have an expertise, but,
01:31:15:22 – 01:31:20:03
Rory Vaden
I don’t know how to run ads. I don’t know, you know, I don’t have a team to manage.
01:31:20:04 – 01:31:21:11
Rory Vaden
Like, what would you tell her?
01:31:21:12 – 01:31:32:07
Maggie Berghoff
Put your blinders on to everything I just said because none of it matters yet. When I first started my business. It was just waking up and helping people with their health and wellness. Organic. Not a dime spent on marketing
01:31:32:07 – 01:31:39:22
Maggie Berghoff
and so just knowing that there’s one person that I’m helping behind this screen, and that’s how I talked to my Instagram, as if I’m just here today to help one person.
01:31:39:22 – 01:31:56:08
Maggie Berghoff
And it actually did, even if it wasn’t a client even just getting a message from someone in my DMs saying that really helped me. I love that tip that just lit my soul on fire. And so you don’t have to have the team, the funnels. I don’t even have a website at first. You don’t have to have all of that to start helping others with your expertise.
01:31:56:09 – 01:31:57:04
Maggie Berghoff
Like right now,
01:31:57:06 – 01:32:06:15
Maggie Berghoff
you are more qualified for them because you have lived this exact experience, and there’s someone who really would love to hire you to help you through that exact experience, and that’s how small it can start.
01:32:06:15 – 01:32:25:09
Maggie Berghoff
And then from there, the next steps, like where I am right now in ads and spend like I would if I heard that early on in my first year, I probably would be intimidated and thought, that’s not what I want. But when you’re growing, it just becomes the next obvious step. And it’s not so hard anymore because you have learned all these skill sets and self-growth.
01:32:25:10 – 01:32:37:15
Maggie Berghoff
Entrepreneurship is self-growth. So you’ve learned the skill sets and the lessons that make it make you be able to handle something bigger. So it it kind of becomes less. It’s just the next step. It’s just the next
01:32:37:17 – 01:32:58:16
Rory Vaden
I’m so inspired, Maggie and I just I want to commend you for designing a life that you love and not the life that you think other people are supposed to have or not competing with anybody. Just. I think you’ve done such a good job of saying like, this is what I how I want to help people and this is the life I want to have, and then I’ll let the business kind of like organize itself around that.
01:32:58:16 – 01:33:07:16
Rory Vaden
And it’s really, really beautiful and inspiring to watch. So thank you for your encouragement and my friend. We’re so grateful for you and we continue to wish you the best.
01:33:07:17 – 01:33:14:08
Maggie Berghoff
Yes, well, thank you and I’m so excited for everyone in your audience listening to this podcast. You guys are all up to awesome stuff.
01:33:14:09 – 01:33:16:09
Rory Vaden
Yeah, absolutely. All the best friend.
WWK Ep 043: Jamie Maglietta: How to Get Booked on TV
01:00:00:03 – 01:00:02:06
Jamie Maglietta
getting booked is is strategic.
01:00:02:08 – 01:00:07:21
Jamie Maglietta
You aren’t just showing up to talk about your book, you need some relevancy.
01:00:07:23 – 01:00:14:18
Jamie Maglietta
you want to be thinking about where your audience is in that moment in time, as well as the news cycle.
01:00:14:20 – 01:00:37:00
Rory Vaden
What actually makes someone newsworthy. How do you go from sending pitches that get ignored to having producers actually come looking for you? Jamie has seen that process from virtually every angle. She’s worked at CNN, Fox and MSNBC. Producing, booking and line editing some of the biggest shows in television.
01:00:37:00 – 01:00:42:00
Rory Vaden
And she’s learned that getting attention isn’t necessarily about being the biggest name in the room.
01:00:42:00 – 01:00:43:01
Rory Vaden
Sometimes
01:00:43:06 – 01:00:45:18
Rory Vaden
about knowing exactly where you belong.
01:00:45:19 – 01:00:48:19
Jamie Maglietta
She didn’t chase press, she produced it.
01:00:48:21 – 01:01:00:00
Jamie Maglietta
And I have so many examples of people that are controlling their brand. In a way, it’s so strategic that they are not chasing press presses coming to them.
01:01:00:02 – 01:01:10:13
Jamie Maglietta
before you invest in media, before you invest in like a PR firm, it’s better to be packaged, know your strategy and start on your own, building that audience and testing the waters.
01:01:10:16 – 01:01:24:23
Rory Vaden
So what does it actually take to become known in this conversation? Jamie breaks down how to get booked on national television, how to pitch journalists without getting ignored. Why your lived experience can be more valuable than your credentials,
01:01:25:01 – 01:01:30:12
Rory Vaden
and the surprisingly simple mistake that can send a pitch straight to the trash.
01:01:30:12 – 01:01:33:06
Jamie Maglietta
You don’t want to be pitching the wrong sources.
01:01:33:06 – 01:01:40:12
Jamie Maglietta
Preparation allows you to produce. It gives you freedom.
01:01:40:14 – 01:01:56:15
Rory Vaden
How do you get booked on national television shows? What can you do that’s going to make the media care about your expertise? What are the steps to creating more exposure and awareness with what you do in getting featured in publications?
01:01:56:15 – 01:02:08:18
Rory Vaden
In addition to that, we’re going to talk about how to be camera ready, how to know what you need to do to prepare when you’re getting on camera, how to have a checklist to walk yourself through to build your confidence and to be more confident on camera.
01:02:08:18 – 01:02:30:20
Rory Vaden
And we’re going to talk about all of that on this episode with my good friend Jamie Magdalena. So Jamie is an Emmy Award nominated media strategist. She has worked at CNN, she’s worked at Fox, she’s worked at MSNBC. She’s done basically every job and role that you can imagine on these national television shows. She’s dead producing and light editing, and she’s done booking.
01:02:31:00 – 01:02:34:14
Rory Vaden
She also has a degree from Harvard, so she is an expert.
01:02:34:14 – 01:02:47:04
Rory Vaden
She’s actually one of our brand builders, group members and clients. And that’s where I met her. And when she was telling me that what she does is get people on camera ready and media ready, I was like, oh my gosh, I get asked this question a lot.
01:02:47:05 – 01:02:56:14
Rory Vaden
I would love to feature you on our show. And so that is why she is here. Please welcome Jamie Magdalena to the wealthy and well-known podcast. So great to have you.
01:02:56:15 – 01:02:57:20
Jamie Maglietta
So glad to be here.
01:02:57:20 – 01:03:00:16
Rory Vaden
So easy question. How can you get us all booked on national TV?
01:03:00:16 – 01:03:04:13
Jamie Maglietta
Like you can see, just like show up, you’re going to get booked.
01:03:04:16 – 01:03:04:21
Jamie Maglietta
You know,
01:03:04:23 – 01:03:07:02
Jamie Maglietta
getting booked is is strategic.
01:03:07:03 – 01:03:12:11
Jamie Maglietta
It’s all about thinking through who you are, who you serve, a lot of what you teach.
01:03:12:11 – 01:03:21:06
Jamie Maglietta
But I came up with a framework to help people on that journey of becoming bookable and to really produce themselves, and I call it known and it’s an acronym.
01:03:21:06 – 01:03:22:03
Jamie Maglietta
So K
01:03:22:04 – 01:03:38:09
Jamie Maglietta
is for Know Your Message. You know, we talk about clarity and marketing and it’s important as a marketing strategy. But clarity is also a booking strategy. A producer needs to know who you are so they can sell them to their team and what you’re going to offer and the value
01:03:38:15 – 01:03:38:20
Jamie Maglietta
add.
01:03:38:21 – 01:03:45:06
Rory Vaden
Explain that part to me about sell them to your team. So like for those of us that don’t live in the media world
01:03:45:07 – 01:03:49:15
Rory Vaden
you’ve got a producer. Is that who you’re pitching? Are you pitching a booker?
01:03:49:15 – 01:03:54:13
Rory Vaden
Are you pitching a producer? Are you talking to a director? Like how does it what’s just like.
01:03:54:13 – 01:04:08:05
Jamie Maglietta
So it depends on, you know, where I was in my career, it’s all different. So when I was a producer, say, I’m lining a show, I’m preparing each block and determining what goes where and how much time I’m going to give you. Right.
01:04:08:07 – 01:04:09:09
Rory Vaden
Okay. So that’s where the producers.
01:04:09:12 – 01:04:10:04
Jamie Maglietta
The producers.
01:04:10:05 – 01:04:10:23
Rory Vaden
The outline of.
01:04:10:23 – 01:04:35:10
Jamie Maglietta
The show. Right. If I’m mapping out the outline of the show, in some cases an executive producers determining what’s going to go in those spots. And so you have a pitch meeting and everyone on the team, potentially 20 people, come to the table with 2 or 3 ideas, guest ideas and angles, and they need to be able to sell you as the right fit for that show and the audience, because you have to think about it.
01:04:35:12 – 01:04:41:01
Jamie Maglietta
You aren’t just showing up to talk about your book, you need some relevancy.
01:04:41:03 – 01:04:58:07
Jamie Maglietta
And, you know, I interviewed a former Fox International correspondent, Connor Powell, for my podcast, Unknown to Known, and he’s now a podcast expert, and he was saying the same thing that you’ve said before. You need to know your story. You need to know your why and that transformation you’re going to provide.
01:04:58:08 – 01:05:08:00
Jamie Maglietta
Because if you don’t and you just keep showing up and pitching and failing and you’re going to burn out. So you need that clarity. You need to know your message.
01:05:08:00 – 01:05:36:16
Rory Vaden
So okay, so when I as I hear you talk about it, I hear you saying, like I have to have clarity about my story, my expertise, what I do. But then when you use the word relevance, there’s two other things that I think about. And maybe this isn’t right. Genuinely, I don’t know. I think there is relevance of what’s happening in the news cycle and like what’s trending and how do I tie into that?
01:05:36:16 – 01:05:57:04
Rory Vaden
But then there’s the other part. What you’re just talking about is like, what’s relevant for the media network? Like, you guys are all having this meeting of like, this vision you’re putting together for the show. How do I know how to make myself relevant? Like that’s very invisible to me. So, like, is that sort of is that sort of like the trifecta of what you have to do.
01:05:57:05 – 01:06:21:23
Jamie Maglietta
Or about people magazine, for example, they want celebrity stories. If you’re not a celebrity or you don’t have a celebrity hook, you shouldn’t really be pitching them in some instances. You know, when people magazine, they have those human interest stories. So maybe you find a way to hook in that way. Same if like you’re watching Fox and Friends and you watch it all the time and you know that they’re going to have a fun cooking segment at the back end of the show, right?
01:06:22:00 – 01:06:44:06
Jamie Maglietta
I’m an author. I have a cookbook. I’m going to pitch myself. Well, what’s coming up? I don’t know, Memorial Day. I’m going to cook up a barbecue and pitch them this great barbecue idea. You’re becoming relevant to what they need right now in the news cycle, but also providing them with a creative way to attend to their audience, because the audience is maybe preparing for that barbecue.
01:06:44:07 – 01:06:44:22
Rory Vaden
Right.
01:06:44:22 – 01:06:45:06
Jamie Maglietta
So
01:06:45:06 – 01:06:52:01
Jamie Maglietta
you want to be thinking about where your audience is in that moment in time, as well as the news cycle.
01:06:52:02 – 01:06:55:00
Jamie Maglietta
You know, if people are on social media talking about,
01:06:55:00 – 01:07:13:22
Jamie Maglietta
parenting a lot and there’s a lot of parenting, you know, homeschooling. I’m homeschooling my kids right now. You know, you see that conversation taking place over and over and over again as a producer, you’re going to say that author that pitched us last week is all about alternative ways to raise your children.
01:07:13:22 – 01:07:19:03
Jamie Maglietta
Maybe we should bring that author on to talk about this news that’s happening right now in our school system.
01:07:19:03 – 01:07:41:11
Rory Vaden
Yeah. And I think that’s important for everyone to hear that. If if you get turned down from the media, it’s not necessarily that we hate you and we’re never have you. A lot of it is. The thing you’re pitching to us right now doesn’t fit what we’re covering right now. And so it’s less of like, I don’t like you, and it’s more of like a dating service of like, you fit, we fit.
01:07:41:12 – 01:07:44:03
Rory Vaden
We have a match for what they’re looking for. Is that.
01:07:44:03 – 01:07:54:23
Jamie Maglietta
I would say so. And and whenever I would get a really good pitch, I would save it. I may not reply, but I did save it in my inbox. Interesting. And that’s something people don’t realize is
01:07:54:23 – 01:08:00:04
Jamie Maglietta
in most cases you are organizing and thinking ahead and thinking this could be a good voice later.
01:08:00:04 – 01:08:00:20
Rory Vaden
I had a,
01:08:00:22 – 01:08:16:13
Rory Vaden
you know, in my mind, I used to think it was all famous people who got in the media, which in some cases is is true. But I had this friend named Matt who wrote a cookbook. I’m pretty sure it was called The Southern Gentleman’s Guide to Cooking, and he got himself on national TV all the time.
01:08:16:18 – 01:08:34:06
Rory Vaden
And the way he did it is he he taught me something. He said, Rory, you got to remember that TV is a visual medium. They don’t just want a talking head. They have to be thinking about how to make it visual. And he said, as a chef, I’ve got a big advantage. And that’s why he would always do like the what we’re grilling for the barbecue for 4th of July.
01:08:34:07 – 01:08:36:00
Rory Vaden
And he crushed it.
01:08:36:02 – 01:08:39:04
Rory Vaden
How do we so
01:08:39:09 – 01:08:51:17
Rory Vaden
the difference between a media pitch that gets put in the trash and ignored, one that gets saved and maybe looked at, and one that you go, I’m taking this to the pitch meeting today, and we’re going to try to get this person on the show.
01:08:51:17 – 01:08:58:00
Jamie Maglietta
So a lot of times when you are looking for really unique guests, those pitches come in handy.
01:08:58:02 – 01:09:18:05
Jamie Maglietta
A lot of times you’re looking at articles online to find a fresh voice that may not already be in the media tied to your story, so I always push people to print first. You want to be showing up in articles quoted as the expert, because that’s going to help the trail of support to pitch you to the team.
01:09:18:05 – 01:09:18:09
Jamie Maglietta
You
01:09:18:12 – 01:09:36:10
Jamie Maglietta
can then say, oh, Rory was quoted in Forbes magazine, and he’s now talking about this, and he came out with a new book. Oh, wow. That’s great. Cool. He’s an expert. Maybe we should consider him. You want to have a trail? And so that’s what my online audit helps people do, is figure out where they are, what they have, and what they need.
01:09:36:11 – 01:09:52:02
Rory Vaden
That’s interesting because when I, you know, I’ve gotten I’ve been on national TV a few times, but the three biggest the first time I got on Fox and Friends was right after I hit the New York Times, but I was 29 years old, so I think that was unique, and it was a cold pitch for my media company.
01:09:52:04 – 01:10:18:22
Rory Vaden
The second time I got on Fox was because I had built a relationship with one of the one of the hosts who was like following me. Then most recently, when we got on Good Morning America, we released a national research study that was a PhD led study, and I released it on Twitter. And somebody from ABC affiliate somewhere saw it, reached out to us and said, hey, I want to interview you.
01:10:18:22 – 01:10:29:10
Rory Vaden
And it was like a local affiliate late night thing. And then we didn’t even know. And then somebody told us, they’re like, you’re on Good Morning America right now. We didn’t even know it was for Good Morning America.
01:10:29:14 – 01:10:52:07
Jamie Maglietta
You need to realize that when people are searching you, they’re doing it at odd times of the day because they were working around the clock. And if we’re looking you up and we come across you, and it could be any time of the day, it’s all about how quick you respond. A lot of people don’t realize that the faster you reply is, it’s going to increase your chances of getting.
01:10:52:07 – 01:10:53:12
Rory Vaden
On if you reach out to us.
01:10:53:12 – 01:10:55:03
Jamie Maglietta
If we find you and reach out.
01:10:55:04 – 01:10:55:14
Rory Vaden
Yeah.
01:10:55:16 – 01:11:09:09
Jamie Maglietta
If you pitch and I’m like, can you come tomorrow? Are you on tomorrow? You have to be ready. And that’s also why I started, you know, teaching people how to be on camera ready, having those lights in your house, just in case you can’t show up to a studio, having a mic
01:11:09:09 – 01:11:12:03
Jamie Maglietta
ready. If you want press, you should be prepared.
01:11:12:09 – 01:11:39:09
Jamie Maglietta
And that also gets to that other letter of known, of nurturing your purpose and your presence. You want to be showing up online consistently, purposefully and strategically, building community conversation and content that resonates with your audience, that builds engagement, that potentially attracts the media to start following you. You want to be there consistently before you need attention, right?
01:11:39:10 – 01:11:42:15
Jamie Maglietta
Your online presence right now is your pre-interview,
01:11:42:20 – 01:11:45:05
Jamie Maglietta
and there’s so many great examples.
01:11:45:06 – 01:11:59:15
Rory Vaden
So even for a major national TV producer, you’re going to go look at my social media to decide, like before you reach out to me or you’re going to go look at my blog post or you’re and that’s like, that’s the pre-interview.
01:11:59:15 – 01:12:01:23
Jamie Maglietta
Your online presence is your pre-interview.
01:12:02:01 – 01:12:17:07
Jamie Maglietta
You know, I would try to pitch so, you know, say there was a podcast and we needed to book someone for it. And you’re looking for so many great, like there’s so many great people out there. Right. And you have all these great names and you’re looking into them and they all just hit a wall.
01:12:17:08 – 01:12:43:08
Jamie Maglietta
They all hit that wall of, I don’t know if I can really sell this. And that wall is there on there, not really present on social media. They’re not leaning into the media ecosystem on Twitter, on LinkedIn, and there’s no articles quoting them, and there’s no interviews of them on YouTube. It’s like if you’re not showing up and strategically positioning yourself across the internet, it’s really hard.
01:12:43:09 – 01:13:05:06
Jamie Maglietta
Now, in some cases we have I have had guests on that didn’t have any online presence, and those were exclusives. You know, I read the book, Trump okay, he’s running for office. It’s 2016. I read one of his books. I was becoming the Trump expert at work. I’m reading his books and I found this one woman quote like throughout his book, Louise.
01:13:05:06 – 01:13:24:11
Jamie Maglietta
And I’m like, who is this woman? Are they still friends? Like, she did a lot with him. I found her, I tracked her down, our team booked her, we did an exclusive interview, and she became a great get because she was able to weigh in at a time where everyone was wondering, how is Trump’s relationship with women?
01:13:24:13 – 01:13:27:12
Rory Vaden
She was close to him, and he was talking about her in the book.
01:13:27:13 – 01:13:29:21
Jamie Maglietta
And they were still friends at the time, which helped his case.
01:13:30:00 – 01:13:36:20
Rory Vaden
Yeah, but you didn’t randomly find her? No. I was like, not randomly. You were digging for it, but what I what’s interesting, what I hear you saying is,
01:13:36:20 – 01:13:47:18
Rory Vaden
it’s not that I have to have a million followers on my YouTube channel. You’re actually looking for fresh voices. But you got to have. There’s got to be a video of me on someone’s podcast somewhere, so you can see, like.
01:13:47:19 – 01:13:48:05
Jamie Maglietta
I need to know.
01:13:48:06 – 01:13:50:04
Rory Vaden
What you’re going to be like.
01:13:50:05 – 01:14:10:23
Jamie Maglietta
I need to know how you’re going to show up on camera. We need to hear how you’re going to perform. Are you going to be able to hit the mark? If I have a three minute conversation, can I get in more than one question with you? I need to know that because if you’re so fresh and we don’t know, it’s hard to trust that you’re going to nail it on on television.
01:14:11:03 – 01:14:28:01
Rory Vaden
Yeah. And I have to tell you, this is my horse story about this. So when I was the first time I got booked on national TV was Fox and Friends. Oh, my gosh, it was a huge deal, right? I’m 29 years old. Yeah. I mean, Dave Ramsey was in the green room and like. Yeah, all it was, it was crazy for me, right?
01:14:28:02 – 01:14:47:07
Rory Vaden
so I did not know this. The media company that I paid to to book us, they had an entire conversation with the Fox News team and agreed to a preset list of questions that they were going to ask me, and my PR firm never gave me the questions.
01:14:47:09 – 01:14:47:20
Jamie Maglietta
Wow.
01:14:47:21 – 01:15:08:07
Rory Vaden
So I’m up there in on national TV, and I’m realizing that Gretchen is asking me questions from a script that I don’t have. And so I can tell because she’s trying to, like, push me through the script and I’m like, they have mapped out a whole thing. And my PR team never sent me the interview script.
01:15:08:08 – 01:15:17:06
Jamie Maglietta
Now, here’s the thing. We don’t want you to have those questions. We don’t want you to know what we’re going to ask. Did you give me questions before we met today?
01:15:17:07 – 01:15:19:19
Rory Vaden
No, no, no.
01:15:19:21 – 01:15:20:16
Jamie Maglietta
You want that?
01:15:20:16 – 01:15:22:03
Jamie Maglietta
That’s not boxing, friends.
01:15:22:04 – 01:15:27:10
Jamie Maglietta
But you want that natural, organic response. And you also. Here’s the thing about that
01:15:27:10 – 01:15:40:05
Jamie Maglietta
I highly recommend if you’re podcasting and you’re thinking, I’m going to send that guest a ton of questions, don’t because they will anticipate the questions. And then when you ask a question that’s not on the list, they get thrown.
01:15:40:05 – 01:15:47:23
Rory Vaden
Off totally. Well, so so here here was the here was the dilemma though. They had on screen graphics that they had mapped.
01:15:48:02 – 01:15:49:10
Rory Vaden
We did that to the.
01:15:49:12 – 01:16:02:09
Rory Vaden
To the interview. So it was like they were they were needing me to kind of say those things to match with the graphics. But anyways, I was comfortable with it because I prefer a non-scripted interview, but.
01:16:02:11 – 01:16:04:18
Jamie Maglietta
Maybe your PR firm just chose not to give them.
01:16:04:18 – 01:16:04:20
Jamie Maglietta
To.
01:16:04:21 – 01:16:06:04
Rory Vaden
You, or they just drop the ball.
01:16:06:04 – 01:16:06:18
Jamie Maglietta
Just drop the ball.
01:16:06:19 – 01:16:07:17
Rory Vaden
They just drop the ball.
01:16:07:17 – 01:16:08:20
Rory Vaden
So I can’t speak for them.
01:16:08:21 – 01:16:14:08
Rory Vaden
Yeah, I don’t know. But anyways, that that stuff does happen. So so coming back to
01:16:14:08 – 01:16:26:16
Rory Vaden
what makes a really juicy pitch, okay, so I don’t necessarily I need a trail. Hopefully there’s video of me on social on YouTube. What about my book? Right. Like
01:16:26:20 – 01:16:31:13
Rory Vaden
like, I want to come on national TV to talk about my book, but you go, you can’t just do that every day.
01:16:31:13 – 01:16:33:15
Rory Vaden
So how do you how do you walk that line?
01:16:33:17 – 01:16:44:17
Jamie Maglietta
So I would get so many pitches and we talked about this where I had books and books, I had boxes of books. I saved some of them, and I went through them recently and it covered my living room.
01:16:44:20 – 01:16:45:09
Jamie Maglietta
They were just.
01:16:45:09 – 01:17:05:09
Jamie Maglietta
Everywhere my fox been, and maybe 2% made air like of those pitches. The ones that stood out, they were sometimes known already celebrity names or bestsellers, you know, you knew you saw that trail of their best seller. So they have.
01:17:05:11 – 01:17:08:15
Rory Vaden
A different category. So that’s one reason the best seller list.
01:17:08:17 – 01:17:26:05
Jamie Maglietta
Seller can help you stand out. But it has to be a pitch. Again, that is relevant. But I would say this you need to be relationship building well in advance of that book, and you need to be providing value to their audience in another way without an ask. And ask is I have a book, I want to promote it.
01:17:26:06 – 01:17:32:10
Jamie Maglietta
Well, can you come on as an expert in your industry and talk about other stories that we need talked about?
01:17:32:11 – 01:17:44:03
Rory Vaden
I gotcha. So, so so you’re still trying. The way you’re adding value is showing up and adding expertise and not just, oh, I have a book I want to come on, but you’re being a like more of a regular contributor.
01:17:44:04 – 01:17:53:09
Jamie Maglietta
And do it ahead of time to, you know, I always say if you have a book coming out, you know, too, if you’re, you know, you’re writing a book. I know I’m writing a book, right? I’m going to write.
01:17:53:09 – 01:17:53:15
Rory Vaden
A book.
01:17:53:16 – 01:18:02:11
Jamie Maglietta
Let’s go. I’m an expert in media. You want to book me on media, I’ll come and talk about it. I’m going to start building those relationships because I don’t need anything right now.
01:18:02:11 – 01:18:04:02
Rory Vaden
Right? Yeah. That’s that’s.
01:18:04:02 – 01:18:09:09
Jamie Maglietta
What I want to be showing up well before you need it. And that’s all about nurturing your purpose.
01:18:09:10 – 01:18:26:20
Rory Vaden
Yeah. I mean, that’s one of our BBG mantras. Build relationships before you need them. It’s interesting to go that applies to media is to go. I need to be a I need to be contributing and supporting you and your stories before. Hey, by the way, can I talk about my book? But but even that, how do I get how do I be relevant to you?
01:18:26:21 – 01:18:32:13
Rory Vaden
You guys are all having this meeting that I’m not in. You’re not? How do I. I don’t know what you need.
01:18:32:14 – 01:18:53:02
Jamie Maglietta
Well, you have to think, like, if you’re pitching CNN, there’s a news agenda. We’re focused on all the news that’s happening. And if the show you’re pitching never really has an author segment, why don’t pitch that show? You want to be finding the right shows that could include you in their in their story, in their show, in their news article.
01:18:53:02 – 01:18:55:20
Jamie Maglietta
You don’t want to be pitching the wrong sources.
01:18:55:20 – 01:19:22:17
Jamie Maglietta
So many times I would get pitched absolutely bonkers stories. I was running a legal show and I kept getting pitched, you know, a hot dog eating contest. So you want to make sure that you’re aligned with your PR firm, or that you are pitching in a more authentic way. I was talking to a few friends that are in the media, and they were saying, your pitches really can resonate when you know who you’re pitching well.
01:19:22:17 – 01:19:41:00
Jamie Maglietta
So if it’s a journalist and you’re like, hey, I saw this article you wrote, here’s my point of view on it. You know, maybe there’s a way to fit me in in the future. Keep me in mind building relationship next time you’re pitching. Hey, you know, I really appreciated your your content that you put out on YouTube about this topic.
01:19:41:01 – 01:19:51:07
Jamie Maglietta
I am an expert in this and I actually disagree. Here’s my take. And it doesn’t have to be an email. I tell people, you could be doing this on Twitter. You could do this on LinkedIn.
01:19:51:10 – 01:19:52:00
Rory Vaden
Oh, interesting.
01:19:52:01 – 01:20:14:12
Jamie Maglietta
My little secret tip is, and this is how I sometimes got guests, they would tweet an article and say, hey, this was posted in the USA today. They had this expert on that. I’m an expert too, but I disagree. Here’s my point of view. Right. And then they would send me this tweet you know exchange or I had actually I had her on my show, Nina Jankovic.
01:20:14:12 – 01:20:24:04
Jamie Maglietta
She was in the Biden administration. She, you know, was bullied a bit online and she wrote a book about her, her experience. She’s coming out with a new book, by the way.
01:20:24:07 – 01:20:34:05
Jamie Maglietta
But Nina and I built a relationship on Twitter, and I, you know, I saw what was happening to her as a journalist. And I had reached out and said, I see you’re getting bullied.
01:20:34:06 – 01:20:41:02
Jamie Maglietta
You know, this is awful. Like, I would love to stay in touch. But what she did on Twitter is what everyone should be doing now.
01:20:41:04 – 01:20:44:04
Jamie Maglietta
She didn’t chase press, she produced it.
01:20:44:06 – 01:20:52:22
Jamie Maglietta
She went on Twitter with a topic of that was of interest, and started to write an op ed. And then the Wall Street Journal would see this because she has that expertise.
01:20:52:22 – 01:21:04:08
Jamie Maglietta
She worked for the Biden administration. She’s an expert in disinformation. They would say, hey, can you write that for us? For the longest time, she would get op eds and and bylines without ever pitching. And it’s mainly because she’s showing up.
01:21:04:08 – 01:21:15:11
Jamie Maglietta
And I have so many examples of people that are controlling their brand. In a way, it’s so strategic that they are not chasing press presses coming to them.
01:21:15:13 – 01:21:23:01
Rory Vaden
And that’s because they are deliberately commenting on something in the press.
01:21:23:03 – 01:21:23:20
Jamie Maglietta
Becoming relevant.
01:21:23:21 – 01:21:26:19
Rory Vaden
With their own point of view, but on their own platform.
01:21:26:20 – 01:21:29:14
Jamie Maglietta
On their own platform. Or, you know, I had this one guest on my.
01:21:29:14 – 01:21:31:23
Rory Vaden
Show, a fascinating little tip. That’s pretty cool.
01:21:31:23 – 01:21:51:18
Jamie Maglietta
This one guest she was on, she was a TEDx speaker, but that wasn’t what got her attention. She was on LinkedIn and she commented on an article on an on an event that was happening, gave her point of view and CNN international founder, because it built such an engagement. And she wound up getting booked on CNN. And so she wound up on my podcast.
01:21:51:18 – 01:21:56:09
Jamie Maglietta
I try to find people who have had these experiences to support my belief that
01:21:56:09 – 01:22:06:19
Jamie Maglietta
before you invest in media, before you invest in like a PR firm, it’s better to be packaged, know your strategy and start on your own, building that audience and testing the waters.
01:22:07:00 – 01:22:12:08
Jamie Maglietta
And that really does bring me to that. Oh, in my known is own your story.
01:22:12:10 – 01:22:34:21
Jamie Maglietta
The vulnerability that you share now could be the value add later, and the messy middle is worth sometimes sharing. And I had this guest on my show. Her name is Kendall Williams and she has an Instagram account of over 100,000. She began talking about how she was estranged from her son and built a community around it. Journalists and producers started following her.
01:22:34:21 – 01:22:57:03
Jamie Maglietta
She didn’t know, as she’s growing as 100,000 people and they were following her, and they probably were born to her because she was only maybe one of the only people talking about this on social media, Oprah’s producer reached out to her and said, we want you on the show for Oprah. This just happened in the in November, she wound up on Oprah from Oprah, the Wall Street Journal heard about her story.
01:22:57:03 – 01:23:22:03
Jamie Maglietta
They put her in an article. She then was asked to speak at a conference. In the audience was another journalist. That journalist quoted her, interviewed her for a story for USA today. That conversation with her turned into a front page on USA today for Mother’s Day. Wow. There’s so many stories of owning your story and showing up because sometimes it’s not about your academic experience, it’s about your lived experience.
01:23:22:09 – 01:23:33:08
Rory Vaden
All right, so I want to give you some rapid fire. Best advice is this is this is advice that I’ve heard about media. And I just want you to kind of give me like two or false okay.
01:23:33:09 – 01:23:38:09
Rory Vaden
Best way to to get on media is to connect your expertise to what is happening in the news cycle.
01:23:38:10 – 01:23:38:18
Jamie Maglietta
Yes, I.
01:23:38:18 – 01:23:39:05
Rory Vaden
Agree
01:23:39:05 – 01:23:44:03
Rory Vaden
TV is a visual medium. You need to think about how your expertise could be presented visually.
01:23:44:04 – 01:23:48:12
Jamie Maglietta
You need to think about your headline and you need to provide them with those visuals.
01:23:48:14 – 01:23:49:09
Rory Vaden
In the pitch.
01:23:49:10 – 01:23:50:00
Jamie Maglietta
I would
01:23:50:00 – 01:24:04:19
Jamie Maglietta
So I had someone pitching. It was a machine. He came to me, he’s like, I don’t know how to get this. I want it in the hands of Fox and Friends. I’m like, okay, let me hear. This is just a year ago. And I said to him, I don’t know how you make water out of air like you need a visual.
01:24:04:19 – 01:24:22:02
Jamie Maglietta
You have this a cool product, you need a visual. So they made a video and they started to include it in the pitch and they started to get press. It’s all about giving me all the all I need to see this on TV, to see this for my audience and for this instance as a product turning air into water.
01:24:22:02 – 01:24:26:12
Jamie Maglietta
That’s pretty cool. But if my audience can’t see it, is they going to believe it?
01:24:26:12 – 01:24:38:14
Rory Vaden
I guess that’s the other reason why data is really a great way to get booked on TV. Correct? Because data automatically, automatically presents the opportunity to be displayed visually.
01:24:38:17 – 01:24:58:12
Jamie Maglietta
Yeah, like having a having having your own study, making sure that that study is backed because online studies aren’t as strong to the media as backed studies. Yeah. You know, by the way, your study, I think it was 78% of Americans will trust people with a personal brand Harvard business. They yeah, I think it was a business review.
01:24:58:13 – 01:25:18:12
Jamie Maglietta
They came out with 1 in 2024. And theirs was very similar in the sense that the the presence online for a CEO or anyone needs to be more authentic. You need to be building that personal brand, and you need to be showing up online to attract not only clients, but to potentially earn press for your brand.
01:25:18:13 – 01:25:32:13
Rory Vaden
Yeah, those are good. Another one, this is from a mentor. He said the media, particularly the television medium, wants soundbites. Not long monologues. True or false?
01:25:32:13 – 01:25:57:07
Jamie Maglietta
Yeah. I mean, you want to deliver your talking points in a way that’s conversational. But if you’re going to just come on and spit your talking points and not provide me with any dialog or again, relevancy to the media, if I’m booking you, I want to know that you can connect to our audience. I’ll say this when I was at Fox, I got to support authors in satellite interviews.
01:25:57:08 – 01:26:17:17
Jamie Maglietta
Okay, so that is a huge opportunity. They are going to be on a ton of different affiliates across the country. Local media is great for your brand because you probably will have more people learn to trust you because they already trust that small network. So you may be able to build your following, starting with local markets over national between us.
01:26:17:17 – 01:26:19:06
Jamie Maglietta
That’s not a question, but that’s a point.
01:26:19:12 – 01:26:20:03
Jamie Maglietta
And what
01:26:20:07 – 01:26:41:23
Jamie Maglietta
happened was in this one, I was supporting Mike Huckabee, and he came out with this book and every interview he would say, okay, who are we talking to? And I’d be like, here’s the call letters, Minneapolis. And he’d say, Minneapolis, all right. And he would Google and he would look up what’s happening in Minneapolis politically that I could weigh in on to provide them something unique for their audience and then talk about my book.
01:26:42:00 – 01:26:59:23
Jamie Maglietta
So that’s what he would do. He’d say, okay, tell them I can talk about this. And they would be so thrilled, because now they can bring Mike Huckabee on a story that matters to their audience and mention that he has a book, ask his point of view on it, and then segue into his book versus just having him on to talk about his book.
01:27:00:01 – 01:27:02:20
Rory Vaden
that’s probably the biggest takeaway for me is
01:27:02:20 – 01:27:19:21
Rory Vaden
I’ve always heard, you know, try to connect your expertise what’s happening in the news cycle. But there’s this other part of it which is that invisible meeting. And to be relevant in that meeting, you have to be familiar with the content that that outlet produces on a regular basis.
01:27:19:21 – 01:27:51:05
Rory Vaden
And it shouldn’t be that hard. You just have to go look at what they produce, watch it, figure out who is their audience, what do these people care about? And go, all right, if I can take my expertise and I can mix it with what’s happening in the news cycle, and I can match it with this outlets exact audience, and then I can write, I guess, a pitch to you to say, here’s how I can talk to this audience about this trending topic, and I’m the expert because of this, that intersection increases my odds.
01:27:51:06 – 01:28:03:19
Jamie Maglietta
Correct? It would. And it’s as you know, I don’t know if I said this already here if we were talking about it, but people want to be pitched with that knowledge, the knowledge of your awareness of what they’re doing and how they’re producing it. Yeah.
01:28:03:19 – 01:28:06:21
Rory Vaden
You don’t want to be a guy pitching the hot dogs when you run the legal show.
01:28:06:22 – 01:28:20:23
Jamie Maglietta
So you definitely want to be thinking of that and watch it, watch the shows, read the articles, consume as much news. And I know a lot of people say that, but it’s really the best way to study and research before you pitch.
01:28:21:00 – 01:28:31:07
Rory Vaden
So so the pitch itself, it’s really about that kind of customization. And then is this just an email to the the booker, the producer, like, who.
01:28:31:07 – 01:28:31:15
Jamie Maglietta
Am I.
01:28:31:15 – 01:28:32:21
Rory Vaden
Looking to send this to?
01:28:32:22 – 01:28:54:11
Jamie Maglietta
It’s all about networking. You know, producers and reporters. We like to connect with people. And sometimes you want to do it casually. And as I said, you don’t want to be asking for something at first. Just building a here’s an article I saw. Maybe it could be a great lead for your next, you know, article yourself. Like, maybe here’s a good hook.
01:28:54:13 – 01:29:11:06
Jamie Maglietta
Here’s something I heard at a conference. Maybe it would be useful for you. I saw this great speaker. You should book him for a guest. I thought of you something like you’re providing value. That’s useful. You’re not bothering me. And then when you’re like, hey, by the way, I’m dropping a book, I’m like, oh.
01:29:11:08 – 01:29:12:00
Rory Vaden
Let me take a look.
01:29:12:01 – 01:29:12:20
Jamie Maglietta
Let me look.
01:29:12:23 – 01:29:27:03
Rory Vaden
And then so I send you an email, and the email needs to connect those three things. Basically your media outlets, audience, a news story, my expertise. And it’s I need to do that in two paragraphs. One paragraph. You want to keep.
01:29:27:03 – 01:29:48:13
Jamie Maglietta
It small. So yeah, you do want to keep it tight. I have read I can’t remember what research it was from. It was a PR outlet. They said that you want to try to keep your first pitch under 200, 200 words because you’re building the relationship, you’re getting in the door, and then after you’ve gotten in the door, then you can provide them with more.
01:29:48:17 – 01:29:49:13
Jamie Maglietta
If you’ve piqued their.
01:29:49:13 – 01:29:51:02
Rory Vaden
Interest, meaning like a second interview.
01:29:51:02 – 01:29:53:20
Jamie Maglietta
Or a second in email or a DM.
01:29:53:20 – 01:30:00:00
Rory Vaden
Oh, I see what you’re saying. So the first message is short, and then if they if they want more, then let them ask you for more.
01:30:00:01 – 01:30:12:00
Jamie Maglietta
And that’s why it’s important that you get with a PR firm when they are to pitch you. That isn’t just going to do a blast pitch, they’re going to do that. They’re going to take the time to understand because it’s a lot of work.
01:30:12:01 – 01:30:13:03
Rory Vaden
It’s a ton of work.
01:30:13:04 – 01:30:30:08
Jamie Maglietta
And that’s why you also need to start it sooner. You know, we were talking about oh, and owning your message. It’s also about widening your reach. And you really can’t become known in your own audience. You got to become known in the audiences of others. So that’s where you really become known. And on that journey, a lot of people say, well, I can’t get on podcasts.
01:30:30:08 – 01:30:54:11
Jamie Maglietta
I don’t know how well what I do with people is I will put them through that visibility launch of packaging them, and then I’ll pitch them to my contacts. I’ll I’ll put them out into the world and maybe connect them to people so they can build relationships, introduce them to my network if you way. But then I will say to them, if they’re really hungry for media to go to the right PR firm, and I have a few that I recommend, and it’s all about matching.
01:30:54:11 – 01:31:13:18
Jamie Maglietta
It’s again, like dating, like you want to match the right people with the right PR firm. You don’t want to just go with any PR firm. And so I would say in that moment, you need to make sure that you’re using the media well in advance of a book launch, because you want to be gaining those legitimizes. Well before you drop that book.
01:31:13:19 – 01:31:33:01
Rory Vaden
Yeah. And amen to what you said there about the right PR firm. The reason you’re hiring them is to do that work, to customize you to each pitch, sending out something on a broadcast. It’s like that, ain’t it? Like we can’t be paying five, seven, ten, $20,000 a month to someone who’s just like, shot gunning? You’re out there.
01:31:33:02 – 01:31:34:14
Rory Vaden
I don’t I don’t think that’s that’s not going to.
01:31:34:14 – 01:31:37:03
Jamie Maglietta
Get it. But that’s also why you can’t pay someone a thousand.
01:31:37:03 – 01:31:58:19
Rory Vaden
Dollars, right? It takes real time and real expertise to pull this together. I wanted to talk to you about being on camera ready? And all of these tips. We’re out of time. Part two. So here’s what I want to do. So. So you have something called an on camera checklist, like a camera ready checklist. Right. All right.
01:31:58:20 – 01:32:17:11
Rory Vaden
So if I’m going to ask you for one great tip before I let you go, but if you’re listening and this is all interesting and you’re going, yeah, I need to be more confident with this. I need to get I need to get more exposure. I’m ready to be out there on camera. Whether it’s lives on social or webinars or podcasts or local TV or national TV.
01:32:17:15 – 01:32:17:18
Rory Vaden
01:32:17:20 – 01:32:26:01
Rory Vaden
You can get this checklist if you go to free brand training, free brand training.
01:32:26:03 – 01:32:30:19
Rory Vaden
You can get Jamie’s Camera ready checklist so you can go check that out.
01:32:30:19 – 01:32:31:14
Rory Vaden
So
01:32:31:16 – 01:32:39:20
Rory Vaden
what is one thing that we all can do right now that will make us present either more confidently on camera,
01:32:40:00 – 01:32:46:16
Rory Vaden
or just a secret tip for performing better when you know lights, camera, action.
01:32:46:16 – 01:32:48:04
Rory Vaden
What’s one thing we can do.
01:32:48:05 – 01:32:56:23
Jamie Maglietta
Well, after you’ve widened that reach? In my known strategy, it’s now those moments, and you’re only going to be able to nail those moments if you are prepared.
01:32:56:23 – 01:33:00:16
Jamie Maglietta
Preparation allows you to produce. It gives you freedom.
01:33:00:18 – 01:33:05:23
Jamie Maglietta
I had Gene Simmons. He was doing a book tour and I took I was asked to take him around.
01:33:06:04 – 01:33:10:08
Rory Vaden
The stage with him a few months ago. And it was it was wild. I got to meet him. He’s great.
01:33:10:09 – 01:33:39:07
Jamie Maglietta
So we got lost and he suddenly became like my uncle, you know, it was like, oh my gosh. So what? What I learned though from him that day was he came in prepared. He wasn’t nervous. He was prepared. And that was freeing. And you can really nail those moments when you feel free. You can also nail those moments if you do what Mel Robbins and Danny Cevallos would do when they were legal contributors, they would be available.
01:33:39:09 – 01:33:53:10
Jamie Maglietta
You know, Danny would Cevallos. He’s now with NBC. He would come on and he would we’d have breaking news and we’d say, can we put you down to two minutes? Sure. No problem. I could do this in two minutes. And we still got in two questions because he knew what he wanted to say, and he nailed it. Right.
01:33:53:11 – 01:34:12:22
Jamie Maglietta
So I would challenge everyone, create content, creating content. Those 32nd reels is going to help you gain confidence in your messaging, so that when you have those moments, you can nail them. And the same with Mel. She was always so authentic in the control room. So what I would always do is check people in and say, oh, hey Mal, how’s everything going?
01:34:12:23 – 01:34:31:21
Jamie Maglietta
How’s your family? Loosen them up. Oh. What are you what are you wearing? You know, like you’re trying to get them loose before they’re on. What are you going to say? I would always ask to. What’s your point of view? So if I’m producing and I’m doing that before someone goes on camera, you want to also kind of do that for yourself or have someone help you loosen up.
01:34:31:22 – 01:34:50:14
Jamie Maglietta
That’s what the Green Room was always for. It’s like those last minute thoughts, those last minute you got this moment. And that authenticity, though, that she would bring is what you see now. And I’ll say that she’s a true inspiration because she’s free and that’s how she nails it. And that’s why she gets.
01:34:50:15 – 01:34:51:02
Rory Vaden
Yeah, she’s a.
01:34:51:02 – 01:34:52:11
Jamie Maglietta
Master, you know, and.
01:34:52:11 – 01:34:53:02
Rory Vaden
She’s a master.
01:34:53:03 – 01:35:01:15
Jamie Maglietta
I think if you’re at home and you’re hearing this, you’re like, well, I can’t be Mel Robbins. Well, maybe you can, but it’s all about practicing and you’re only going to get better if you practice.
01:35:01:15 – 01:35:23:12
Rory Vaden
No. Okay, so I got to meet Mel last year. We spoke, we shared the stage together at a huge event, and she crushed it. And and, you know, it’s like you couldn’t be Mel Robbins today. But people don’t realize she’s been doing this for a long time, a really long. And she works hard. So does Gene Simmons. Gene Simmons is a hard working.
01:35:23:13 – 01:35:24:00
Jamie Maglietta
Hustler.
01:35:24:00 – 01:35:26:12
Rory Vaden
A hustler like these people.
01:35:26:13 – 01:35:27:05
Jamie Maglietta
And generous.
01:35:27:06 – 01:35:44:09
Rory Vaden
Excellence is never an accident. Like, they just they’re just practicing. So when you say be prepared, that’s saying no, you’re talking points. Know your point of view. Be rooted in what you want to say, and then be kind of like ready to adapt and be flexible to whatever comes at you. And to tie that together. That’s what.
01:35:44:10 – 01:36:03:10
Jamie Maglietta
Exactly which is why we don’t give questions. Yeah. Because it it doesn’t allow them to be free because they’re waiting for that next question. Okay. They’re going to ask me this. So I’ll say it there. Well shoot I didn’t get to say what I wanted to say because he never got to that question. Yeah. And that’s where it also comes in handy to have those soundbites.
01:36:03:11 – 01:36:22:02
Jamie Maglietta
Like I said, you know, meet we all in media say media attracts more media. I believe relevancy gets that first piece of media. Then media tracks media. That’s a soundbite. That’s a little tiny bit of information that I’ve prepared that I can deliver when the moments. Right. That’s how you want to think about your talking points?
01:36:22:07 – 01:36:55:08
Rory Vaden
Totally. Well, there you have it, friends. That’s Jamie Magli at some amazingly practical invite advice for you. Here’s what I want you to do right now. So share this episode with someone you know that should be on TV. Share. Share this episode with someone who you know is a guest on podcast, or should be guesting on more podcasts and just send this to them because like, literally Jamie, people like Jamie can charge thousands and thousands of dollars for the kinds of advice in the tips that you that are here.
01:36:55:10 – 01:37:12:16
Rory Vaden
Also, you can go to free brand training for to get her camera ready checklist, check her out online and keep coming back as we help you increase your reach, build your reputation, and make a difference as a mission driven messenger. We’ll catch you next time on the Wealthy and Well-known podcast.
WWK Ep 042: Why Your Personal Brand Matters More When You’re the CEO
01:00:00:00 – 01:00:03:13
AJ Vaden
executives with strong personal brands are reported.
01:00:03:13 – 01:00:06:01
AJ Vaden
to close deals faster,
01:00:06:02 – 01:00:10:16
AJ Vaden
attract several times more qualified job candidates.
01:00:10:18 – 01:00:13:10
Rory Vaden
Your reputation does not stay with just you.
01:00:13:10 – 01:00:17:19
Rory Vaden
It travels through every higher you make, every vision you cast and every story you tell.
01:00:17:21 – 01:00:21:07
Rory Vaden
nearly half of a company’s overall reputation
01:00:21:12 – 01:00:22:23
Rory Vaden
directly attributable
01:00:23:02 – 01:00:24:20
Rory Vaden
the reputation of its CEO.
01:00:24:20 – 01:00:26:03
AJ Vaden
if you’re in a leadership position,
01:00:26:04 – 01:00:27:19
AJ Vaden
you better heed some,
01:00:27:19 – 01:00:29:21
AJ Vaden
advice on if that’s true.
01:00:29:21 – 01:00:32:01
Rory Vaden
So what does that actually mean for how you lead?
01:00:32:01 – 01:00:38:10
Rory Vaden
It means the way you show up publicly shapes who walks through your door, who stays, and who believes in where you are going.
01:00:38:11 – 01:00:48:00
AJ Vaden
I don’t want someone who’s applying for a job. I want someone who is applying to go on a mission. And that is my job as CEO.
01:00:48:01 – 01:00:51:03
AJ Vaden
If I’m not dreaming big, no one else is either,
01:00:51:03 – 01:00:52:16
AJ Vaden
People need consistency.
01:00:52:20 – 01:01:01:19
Rory Vaden
Your personal brand is the most powerful tool you have to protect your culture, attract top talent, and build something that lasts.
01:01:01:23 – 01:01:06:07
Canned Open AI VO
Ever wonder what it actually takes to build a reputation that generates revenue?
01:01:06:10 – 01:01:10:22
Canned Open AI VO
Rory and AJ Vaden are the powerhouse duo behind Brand Builders Group,
01:01:11:00 – 01:01:12:19
Canned Open AI VO
NYT bestselling authors
01:01:12:21 – 01:01:18:14
Canned Open AI VO
the personal brand experts who have helped some of the world’s most influential leaders scale their personal brands.
01:01:18:17 – 01:01:19:06
Canned Open AI VO
Now
01:01:19:09 – 01:01:20:14
Canned Open AI VO
they’re pulling back the curtain
01:01:20:14 – 01:01:21:23
Canned Open AI VO
on how to capture attention,
01:01:21:23 – 01:01:23:10
Canned Open AI VO
build massive trust,
01:01:23:12 – 01:01:26:07
Canned Open AI VO
turn your expertise into a lasting legacy.
01:01:26:08 – 01:01:33:06
Canned Open AI VO
Get ready to elevate your influence and your income. This is wealthy and well known.
01:01:33:08 – 01:02:00:06
Rory Vaden
A 2026 research study from Deloitte said that nearly half of a company’s reputation is determined by the reputation of the leader. Today, on wealthy and well-known, we’re going to be talking about how the personal brand and the personal reputation of the person in charge shapes the entire company’s future. How does it shape your ability to get your message out, to recruit, to attract, to retain top performing team members?
01:02:00:06 – 01:02:19:00
Rory Vaden
And how does all of that tie in to building your personal brand and creating more impact in the world? So it makes sense that I would only interview the person that I’ve got the most direct access to. Who is the leader in the CEO of our company? My co-founder, my business partner, my wife, AJ Vaden. You ready to do this?
01:02:19:01 – 01:02:19:17
AJ Vaden
Yeah,
01:02:19:19 – 01:02:27:13
Rory Vaden
I think it’s interesting because a lot of people would maybe look at us on the surface and be like, okay, Rory is the face, so to speak.
01:02:27:13 – 01:02:46:04
Rory Vaden
I’m speaking, I’m writing books and, you know, doing stuff. But going like one of the reasons we’ve always believed you’ve had a passion a little bit for building your personal brand. But I don’t think you build your personal brand in the way a lot of people think about it of like driving leads. I think you have that is part of it.
01:02:46:04 – 01:03:09:04
Rory Vaden
But I do feel like you’ve believed and practiced this for a long time, that your personal brand matters for how we do business around here, how people think of us, our internal team or customers and prospects. I mean, is that fair to say or. Like what? I guess that would be my question is why do you, as the CEO, feel like it’s been important to invest the time and money to build your personal brand?
01:03:09:04 – 01:03:19:14
Rory Vaden
Because it is a lot of time and money, and it pulls you away from all the other things we need our CEO to do. But surely you see some value in it for some reason.
01:03:19:15 – 01:03:23:14
AJ Vaden
Yeah, that was a very loaded question, and I had like 13 comments.
01:03:23:16 – 01:03:24:03
Rory Vaden
Along the.
01:03:24:03 – 01:03:36:09
AJ Vaden
Way along the way in my brain. But I’m going to start with one. That’s actually another statistic that I think is fascinating from the executive personal branding playbook, which came out in February of 2026. And it says that
01:03:36:09 – 01:03:50:12
AJ Vaden
executives with strong personal brands are reported. Now, this is where I need everyone to like, listen up to close deals faster, attract several times more qualified job candidates.
01:03:50:17 – 01:03:51:01
AJ Vaden
01:03:51:02 – 01:04:07:08
AJ Vaden
And and that so I think it’s it’s a combination of what you said. And I think that’s where you have to look at what is the CEO’s job. And I think the first question in there is, well, interestingly enough, a CEO can look different and every single company.
01:04:07:09 – 01:04:08:06
Rory Vaden
Yeah, right.
01:04:08:07 – 01:04:30:16
AJ Vaden
And I think that is where I have been caught up. And I shared this on a previous episode that we did a few weeks back about my realization through my entrepreneurs group with EOE of the difference between what you think as CEO is versus what you want it to be. And how does that compare to right? Are you the CEO or the founder?
01:04:30:17 – 01:04:44:05
AJ Vaden
Right. And it’s like, I’ve been spending a lot of time this particular season of life of defining what is the CEO role for me at Brand Builders Group in this season of business?
01:04:44:06 – 01:04:44:19
Rory Vaden
Great.
01:04:44:20 – 01:05:15:08
AJ Vaden
And that’s kind of one of the best parts. And one of the trickiest parts of being the CEO is that no one else can tell tell you what it is. That’s the tricky part. It’s like there’s it could be whatever you want, right? That is both the tricky part and the fun part, but discerning and distilling down what is my role of CEO in each iteration of the company has been something that I haven’t given nearly enough time and focus to, because that’s strategy, right?
01:05:15:09 – 01:05:23:07
AJ Vaden
That’s working on the business, not in the business. But I have spent a significant amount of time over the last few weeks really going know
01:05:23:09 – 01:05:32:21
AJ Vaden
where do I provide the most value as the leader, the founder, the owner, i.e. the CEO?
01:05:32:23 – 01:05:42:19
AJ Vaden
And where do I have gaps that I need to fill? Because that is not my best use. And I have come up with four categories.
01:05:42:19 – 01:05:48:20
Rory Vaden
So what are the four things that you think you have to do as a CEO in this season for where we’re at.
01:05:48:21 – 01:06:08:05
AJ Vaden
Right now? I would say I really have come to the belief of, like, once your business is stable and you’re not in startup mode, and I don’t think there is necessarily a timeframe on when you exit startup mode. I think it’s when you reach stability, you exit startup mode when there is some level of stability, right. And position people process finances.
01:06:08:11 – 01:06:18:17
AJ Vaden
So these are the four categories that I have recently defined for myself. And maybe for someone who’s listening, this will resonate with you of shifting. What are your priorities?
01:06:18:17 – 01:06:45:20
AJ Vaden
What are your executive functions as CEO? As you reach stability in your business? Number one is talent acquisition. And one of the things that I, I do believe strongly is as CEO is the financial fiduciary, but they are also the protector of the culture. And the number one way that you protect culture is that you make sure that no stragglers make their way in.
01:06:45:21 – 01:07:21:01
AJ Vaden
If you want a strong culture, then you have to have aligned individuals, because then you don’t have to force it upon people. It naturally exists within the organization. And I think that’s really important of going at a stable business. A stabilized company has hopefully right. A clear vision, mission, purpose and core values. And so when I go out for talent acquisition and I go out for interviews, I am literally interviewing for the core values.
01:07:21:05 – 01:07:24:04
AJ Vaden
here has been the best part of why the personal brand matters.
01:07:24:04 – 01:07:47:19
AJ Vaden
So many people, when I bring this up, they’re like, oh no, I already know I follow you. I listen to your podcast, I hear you talk about this all the time. Boom! And I’m like, oh yeah, tell me more about that. How long have you been following me? How did you find me? And sometimes they were like, no, I just started following you when I started the interview process or when I came across the posting and I wanted to check out the company.
01:07:47:19 – 01:07:59:15
AJ Vaden
And then I went to your website and, you know, they comment on, hey, I’m also from the South, or I’m also from a family of entrepreneurs, or I also love chips and salsa, whatever else they find.
01:07:59:15 – 01:08:10:15
AJ Vaden
But it’s amazing to me how many people are like, oh no. I’ve been listening to the podcast since I started the interview process, or hey, I actually started listening to the audiobook and we couldn’t be more aligned if you paid me.
01:08:10:20 – 01:08:33:18
AJ Vaden
And I’m like, well, that’s good because I’m going to pay you if I offer you the job. But it’s been so powerful that I don’t have to do so much vetting and back and forth, and it’s like it goes from interview to conversation so much faster when they already know. Like, I actually have an email correspondence here recently because we’re in a hiring mode right now.
01:08:33:20 – 01:08:49:08
AJ Vaden
And for this particular, you know, job posting is for an inside salesperson at Brain Builders Group. And hey, by the way, if you’re listening, we are hiring. So maybe we’ll put the link to that in the show notes and you can check it out. But this was amazing because I sent out.
01:08:49:08 – 01:08:53:13
Rory Vaden
She liked chips and salsa. If you want to know how to get the job, just pay you like chips and salsa.
01:08:53:18 – 01:08:56:16
AJ Vaden
How you can get the job is you. You’re an amazing closer.
01:08:56:17 – 01:08:57:05
Rory Vaden
There it is.
01:08:57:05 – 01:09:12:06
AJ Vaden
How can get the job? Just to be clear, but I think this was really important is as we started posting these new job postings, me as the CEO actually wrote sales letters. Recruitment letters attached the beginning of all our new job descriptions.
01:09:12:06 – 01:09:19:02
Rory Vaden
I love this. Explain to me what the difference is between a sales recruitment letter versus a job posting.
01:09:19:02 – 01:09:26:19
AJ Vaden
So a job posting is here’s the job right? Here’s a one paragraph summary of the company. This is what we do. This is who we are.
01:09:26:21 – 01:09:28:20
AJ Vaden
Right. It’s the reverse of your resume, right?
01:09:28:21 – 01:09:52:08
AJ Vaden
It’s finding a match. But what I had found is that if my job is chief talent acquisition officer, which it is, then it’s like, no, I have to be selling a vision of who we are as a company, the culture I have to be establishing in writing before you apply. This is who we are representative of my voice as CEO, my personal brand.
01:09:52:08 – 01:10:22:11
AJ Vaden
And so I started writing these page long recruitment letters, these sales letters for every job. And this is in my brand voice. So to what you’re saying, like, hey, 50% of the reputation of the company, I can say, at least in recruiting, that is true because they are filtering their first impression through my words on paper of this is where we’re at, this is where we’ve been, and this is where we’re going, which is why I’m looking for this role.
01:10:22:12 – 01:10:31:04
AJ Vaden
Here’s how you know if you should continue to the job posting. And I sell the vision, not the job.
01:10:31:06 – 01:10:40:19
AJ Vaden
I don’t want someone who’s applying for a job. I want someone who is applying to go on a mission. And that is my job as CEO.
01:10:40:19 – 01:10:43:19
AJ Vaden
It is. And that kind of leads to the second category.
01:10:43:19 – 01:10:46:18
Rory Vaden
Don’t go to the second category yet, because I want to talk about this a little bit.
01:10:46:19 – 01:10:59:22
AJ Vaden
But I think it’s so important. So when I think about talent acquisition, I’m not talking about just interviews. I am the cultural representative for the company, on social media, on my website, in podcast interviews,
01:11:00:00 – 01:11:06:05
AJ Vaden
that matters because I need someone to be able to opt in or opt out before they get on a phone call with me.
01:11:06:05 – 01:11:23:03
AJ Vaden
I don’t have time to waste with people who are like, oh, I didn’t know that about you. Why not? Why didn’t you know that? Like, there’s there’s mediums all over. Like you didn’t do your research before you got on the call with the CEO. This conversation is now over. Thank you so much.
01:11:23:06 – 01:11:23:19
AJ Vaden
01:11:23:21 – 01:11:52:01
Rory Vaden
See, I love this so much because I think so many entrepreneurs in so many executives that are struggling, the reason their company is struggling is because they don’t place a high enough priority on recruiting. And we were having this conversation not that long ago with some people on our team is that, you know, we actually have one of our courses, is called Influential Leader, and we talk about the six behaviors that every leader must have.
01:11:52:02 – 01:12:18:11
Rory Vaden
And the first one is recruiting. Yeah. If you’re going to be a great leader, you have to be a great recruiter and think of sports teams, right? Like if someone is going to build a national championship team or a world. Where they recruit constantly and the top colleges, they’re recruiting kids in eighth grade, they start tracking these kids and their families, and they are following them sometimes earlier.
01:12:18:11 – 01:12:37:02
Rory Vaden
And it’s going, you don’t get to be a leader if you don’t have anyone to lead. So you got to recruit. And the other thing is recruiting is a sales job. You don’t just wait until someone fills out your application and says, I’d like to work there. You find top talent and you hunt them down. You go get them.
01:12:37:02 – 01:12:43:18
Rory Vaden
You have to. If to build the greatest team, you need the greatest players. To get the greatest players, you have to go find them.
01:12:43:23 – 01:13:13:10
Rory Vaden
Recruiting is a sales job. And I just think, you know, you’re talking about the CEO, but all leaders like you have to recruit. And I think because so many executives under prioritize the importance of recruiting, they under prioritize the importance of building a personal brand. I am shocked, I am shocked that companies are still so far behind on getting their executives out in front of people, particularly their recruiting executives.
01:13:13:10 – 01:13:31:19
Rory Vaden
They’re they’re sea level executives because it’s like, I’m not coming to work for a company. I’m coming to work for people. And you do such a great job of it. And you know what what, what, what prospects and leads are to sales is what recruits are to CEOs and the whole company.
01:13:31:20 – 01:13:49:19
AJ Vaden
Well, I just firmly believe if the executive founder CEO, I’m just going to use the word or the letter CEO for the rest of this segment. So I stop saying that if they’re doing it, if they’re doing a really good job of that, they actually make the recruiting job of all of their leaders so much easier. Heck yeah.
01:13:49:20 – 01:14:11:06
AJ Vaden
If they’re out there leading the charge and creating space, top talent is finding you. They’re searching you. They’re coming to you of like, what do you have? Open what’s available. I’ve been following you. I’ve been reading your book. I’ve been listening to your podcast. They’re finding you because you’ve set the tone and the pace of the culture and the organization and also making it known,
01:14:11:06 – 01:14:19:18
AJ Vaden
And that makes it easier for all of your department leaders and teams to actually go and have better, faster conversations.
01:14:19:19 – 01:14:40:15
Rory Vaden
Faster conversations. And even if they didn’t find us through your personal brand, to your point, they find us after they apply or after they start researching. It closes. It shortens the the recruiting cycle, just like a personal brand shortens the sales cycle. And recruiting is a sales job. So it’s the it’s the same dynamic. So I love that.
01:14:40:15 – 01:14:53:11
Rory Vaden
I’m so grateful that you embrace that as our CEO. And you believe that and you do it. I don’t know what your four things are, so I’m dying to know what these are. Okay. So what is your second? The second, you know, most important thing.
01:14:53:11 – 01:15:11:14
AJ Vaden
You. Do the transition of when I started writing these vision letters, these sales letters to these job postings. Right. Because this is really a letter to a unique individual. The person who reads these, who applies for this job, whether we found them or they found us, it doesn’t matter. It’s like they should be like, oh my gosh, that’s what I’ve been looking for.
01:15:11:14 – 01:15:31:05
AJ Vaden
And if it doesn’t resonate, they should move on, right? But it should appeal to them because I’m selling a vision. Like I said, I don’t want to hire someone who’s looking for a job. I want to hire someone who’s like, I’m ready to go on a mission, right? I want to join a movement, which is the second part of my role as CEO is I am the chief vision officer.
01:15:31:07 – 01:15:31:18
AJ Vaden
Right.
01:15:31:19 – 01:15:34:21
AJ Vaden
If I’m not dreaming big, no one else is either,
01:15:34:21 – 01:15:57:16
AJ Vaden
right. And I have never become more aware of that than this year, thanks to Doctor Benjamin Hardy and Blake Erickson, who co-wrote the book The Science of Scaling. And I attribute so much of my own mental transformation this year to that particular book. And if you have not read it and you’re listening, go buy it
01:15:57:16 – 01:16:03:13
AJ Vaden
but it’s like, your people will do half of what you do, right and twice of what you do wrong.
01:16:03:13 – 01:16:26:16
AJ Vaden
And if you’re dreaming real small dreams, then everyone else’s are even half that size. And it’s like, I have to dream twice as big as everyone else in the company just to get them to be on any sort of pace of what’s possible. And I hadn’t been dreaming that way the last few years. I had been doing like, hey, this is a well balanced path.
01:16:26:17 – 01:16:46:10
AJ Vaden
This is moderate growth, this is sustainable, this is what’s tracking. And how boring is that? Like, it even felt boring to me while doing it. And I’m like, well, but this is what the trends say. And this is pretty factual. And that kind of lines up. And then it hit me this year of like, well, who grows a.
01:16:46:10 – 01:16:48:07
AJ Vaden
Huge company doing that?
01:16:48:08 – 01:16:55:07
AJ Vaden
Like who makes a massive impact with moderate scheduled growth based on I’m like, oh.
01:16:55:07 – 01:16:56:03
Rory Vaden
My gosh.
01:16:56:04 – 01:17:01:16
Rory Vaden
Sally hogshead has this great quote where she says, the world has not changed by people who sort of care.
01:17:01:17 – 01:17:20:14
AJ Vaden
Yeah. And it’s like, but it’s like also like you don’t do big, amazing things by planting really small. Exactly. You don’t. And if if I do believe this saying of like your team does half of what you do right and twice of what you do wrong, well then my right has to be double right, double big right. It’s like the things that I can do.
01:17:20:14 – 01:17:42:20
AJ Vaden
Well, I better do them really well because my team is going to do half of that. They’re going to dream half of the way I dream, think half the way I’m going to think. And so it’s it is creating a vision that almost does feel impossible because I think dreaming the impossible, the seemingly impossible, and I should put seemingly because everything feels impossible until it becomes possible.
01:17:42:22 – 01:18:12:06
AJ Vaden
But the reason that’s become such a huge part of this, like this Chief Vision officer, is realizing it actually helps you weed out the non culture fits. And so talent acquisition number one. But I would say protector of the culture and the vision right. Caster would be a close second because they’re somewhere in there. Helps you understand if there is anyone who doesn’t believe or you’re going they’re not going to help you get there.
01:18:12:07 – 01:18:21:05
Rory Vaden
And those two are so closely connected because of that. It’s like you only recruit top talent for people who are the top talent, is attracted to the big mission. Yeah, right.
01:18:21:06 – 01:18:22:11
AJ Vaden
And they want to do something.
01:18:22:13 – 01:18:24:13
Rory Vaden
They want to do something big. Yes.
01:18:24:14 – 01:18:26:22
AJ Vaden
They’re not looking for the safe zone.
01:18:26:23 – 01:18:31:06
Rory Vaden
And in order to achieve the big mission, you need to have the top talent. So like those two things go.
01:18:31:10 – 01:18:48:15
AJ Vaden
So they go. So it’s like what I have found is that the bigger I dream, the bigger I communicate, the bigger the plan. I have just noticed on my team, our team, but specifically my direct reports, there are some people who have come alive and they’re coming up with new ideas that I didn’t even know they could do.
01:18:48:18 – 01:19:18:17
AJ Vaden
They have initiative that I haven’t seen activated, and then I have others who all they do is question. And I’m not saying that’s wrong, I just noticing it of like, there’s a difference here, but and it’s all stemmed from doing something seemingly impossible big vision thinking. And I think the power of that for a CEO is that even if you only do half of it, that’s so much more than what you’re doing right now.
01:19:18:21 – 01:19:42:18
AJ Vaden
And it forces you, in the words of Doctor Ben Hardy, to think differently. You don’t set hugely impossible goals to hit them. You set them because it forces you to think in a way that would allow you to hit them. And it forces a change of thinking that every great visionary leader has to do to create leaders behind them.
01:19:42:19 – 01:20:05:20
Rory Vaden
Yeah, and I got to share one of my all time favorite quotes. And I don’t even know how to pronounce the guy’s name, but I think it’s Panthers jolly, who’s like ancient philosopher. And he says, when you’re inspired by some great vision, some extraordinary purpose, dormant forces and faculties come alive inside of you, and you find yourself to be a far greater person than you ever dreamed you could be.
01:20:05:22 – 01:20:10:01
Rory Vaden
And that’s like what this is all about. It’s just like it activates you.
01:20:10:02 – 01:20:28:12
AJ Vaden
But it activates you and then as a byproduct to your team. But to that point, there have been so many new ideas that have come alive in me where I’m like, oh, is this been underneath our nose the whole time? How did I miss this? This is just a repackaging. It’s a repositioning. And it’s it’s light bulb, light bulb, light bulb.
01:20:28:12 – 01:20:38:13
AJ Vaden
When you allow yourself to sit in the seemingly impossible. So number one, chief talent acquisition officer. Love it. Number one, chief vision.
01:20:38:14 – 01:20:40:08
Rory Vaden
Number two, chief vision officer.
01:20:40:09 – 01:20:41:21
AJ Vaden
Then third. And I’ve mentioned this.
01:20:41:22 – 01:20:42:06
Rory Vaden
Number.
01:20:42:06 – 01:21:02:16
AJ Vaden
Three a couple of times already, but it’s chief culture protector right. And so part of that is the acquisition part. But then the other part is protecting the existing team and the culture. So it’s like a huge part of my job is to make sure that the right players are in the right seats. And, you know, I, I personally love working with people.
01:21:02:19 – 01:21:17:23
AJ Vaden
I think it’s a decision that a lot of entrepreneurs have to make. Am I building a team or am I building a lifestyle business? Right? Do I want employees or do I not? Mike McCallum. It’s always says the two most important decisions you can ever make when you’re starting a business. Am I building it to keep or building it to sell?
01:21:18:00 – 01:21:39:20
AJ Vaden
And do I want employees or not? You have to know the answer to those two things before you begin, because those are two very different paths. I personally love having team members, I really do, and as anyone would say about me, people are complicated and challenging. Mo people mo problems, right? That is a part of how this works.
01:21:39:22 – 01:21:54:17
AJ Vaden
A part of that, though, in the culture protection, is making sure that there is a a shared aligned group of individuals as you grow. And Marshall Goldsmith wrote an amazing book, Pop Quiz. What is it?
01:21:54:17 – 01:21:58:15
Rory Vaden
What got you here won’t get you there as the one. He’s written several, but I assume that’s the one.
01:21:58:17 – 01:21:59:07
AJ Vaden
This is the one.
01:21:59:08 – 01:22:00:05
Rory Vaden
Yeah, yeah.
01:22:00:09 – 01:22:21:02
AJ Vaden
And we had our entire team read it, because I think a part of protecting the culture is realizing when you outgrow members on your team, or sometimes when they are no longer aligned where the company is going, there are shifts that happen where they were the right fit for a time for a season, but it’s rather a role shift.
01:22:21:02 – 01:22:50:06
AJ Vaden
It’s a life situation shift, and those don’t have to be bad, but you do have to recognize them when they arise. And that’s a part of protecting the culture of the organization. Because just as we change, grow and evolve as individuals, so do companies. They change, grow and evolve of what’s needed and what season. As technology evolves, as the market shifts, there’s this whole, you know, AI conversation that’s making everyone take a look at how are we doing things.
01:22:50:07 – 01:23:00:04
AJ Vaden
And a lot of that is in the culture protection of, hey, if they were a fit for a season and they’re not now, how is that infiltrating our culture and an unhealthy or negative way?
01:23:00:05 – 01:23:12:06
Rory Vaden
Okay, so I want to ask you about this because in the in the topic of personal brand, everybody we talk about, you know, everybody wants to be liked and we talk about building trust. But
01:23:12:07 – 01:23:24:01
Rory Vaden
when you say the topic of personal branding as a leader requires you to make tough decisions that not everybody likes, and you have to coach people, you give feedback.
01:23:24:01 – 01:23:45:05
Rory Vaden
Sometimes you fire people, sometimes you have to say no to things. How do you reconcile building a personal brand that is, you know, hopefully appealing and magnetic while also balancing the like? I got to make the tough decisions as a CEO. Do you see those as competing somehow?
01:23:45:07 – 01:24:05:06
AJ Vaden
No, I think those are 100% aligned, because shouldn’t your team know exactly who you are and where you stand? Would you rather have a whole bunch of strangers out on the internet getting to know the intimacies of your values, beliefs, convictions, and leadership style? Or would you rather have your team know that? And I think the more that you can be honest with this is where I stand.
01:24:05:06 – 01:24:19:09
AJ Vaden
It helps people opt in or opt out. If you’re going to do something great, you better have people who are prepared for the mission. And I think the more that you invest in your personal brand, it helps your team get to know the inner workings of, oh, that.
01:24:19:09 – 01:24:22:16
AJ Vaden
Makes sense, right? Like, I can’t I can’t imagine.
01:24:22:16 – 01:24:24:13
AJ Vaden
How many times our team in the past has been.
01:24:24:13 – 01:24:25:01
AJ Vaden
Like.
01:24:25:02 – 01:24:45:11
AJ Vaden
I have no idea why they’re making this decision, and it’s because I didn’t spend near enough time talking about my leadership philosophies or cultural philosophies or pay philosophies or sales philosophies. And I don’t hold back now, like I want to be very clear, sales is king. Let me be clear. Right. And I think that was foreign to a lot of people.
01:24:45:11 – 01:25:01:18
AJ Vaden
And they some of my actions maybe weren’t alluding to that. And I’m like, no revenue, no nothing else. Right. And it’s like, I think that is now a filter that people understand. If they’re going to have a conversation with me, they know the first thing I’m going to come up is like, tell me, what’s the ROI ROI on that?
01:25:01:18 – 01:25:06:00
AJ Vaden
How is that going to generate revenue? How are you going to track it? How are you going to report on it? Prove it to me.
01:25:06:03 – 01:25:16:22
AJ Vaden
And so it is creating a new level of culture. The more that I can just actually talk about, promote and stand firm to the values beliefs that I have as a personal brand.
01:25:17:03 – 01:25:20:16
AJ Vaden
So it is helping build trust within the organization
01:25:20:17 – 01:25:37:09
AJ Vaden
or or or not. And I have to be okay with that too. If somebody goes, wow, I didn’t know that’s what you really thought, then I’m like, but now you do, and you have a decision to make, and I have to be okay with that because I am the culture protector.
01:25:37:09 – 01:25:54:19
Rory Vaden
I think it’s so interesting. It’s we’re talking about in the context of your team and kind of internal, but it’s I feel like a lot of the biggest personal brands in the world do that externally to they’re like, feel free to unfollow. Feel free to unsubscribe. Like you don’t like what I’m saying. You’re not. No one is forcing you to sit here and listen to me.
01:25:55:00 – 01:26:14:09
Rory Vaden
And there is a level of assertiveness and confidence and being unapologetic. And this is who I am. This is what I believe. You’re welcome to come along for the ride. If not, you know, by all means, like and and I think that is a is a really deep it’s being convicted in your convictions. Yeah. It’s really powerful.
01:26:14:10 – 01:26:22:20
AJ Vaden
And I think the other thing is like I think it’s only fair to your team like on this culture protection topic, for them to know exactly who you are.
01:26:22:22 – 01:26:23:10
Rory Vaden
Yeah.
01:26:23:11 – 01:26:29:19
AJ Vaden
That’s only fair to them so that they understand, like, this is what I’ve signed up for and who I signed up with.
01:26:29:20 – 01:26:30:04
Rory Vaden
Yeah.
01:26:30:04 – 01:26:47:04
Rory Vaden
So can you say chief culture officer and that you you have to talk about the vision and do these things. I recently became friends with a gentleman named Craig, who was a former, you know, CEO for many years of Home Depot. And he said, you know, one of my most important roles was I was the chief repeating officer everywhere I go.
01:26:47:05 – 01:26:59:09
Rory Vaden
I just had to constantly repeat the vision, constantly repeat the values. And he’s like, because that like, no one else does that. Like I have to be the ambassador of that. So I love that. So that’s number three. Yeah.
01:26:59:10 – 01:27:15:09
AJ Vaden
You got to say on that note, it’s like your team, at least your direct reports as a CEO, they should be able to fill in the blanks with what you’re going to say because you hear it so much. They’re like, I know AJ. And it’s like, yeah, you better know because I’ve said it enough that you do know.
01:27:15:13 – 01:27:23:02
AJ Vaden
Don’t leave anything to ambiguity. Don’t leave anything to their own version of the translation. That’s not being clear. Clear is kind.
01:27:23:02 – 01:27:39:01
Rory Vaden
Yeah, I love that. One of my favorite things with our community, not talking about our team, but our clients. Clients will come up to me and they will be like, I have a question for you and I know what you’re going to say. Before I ask, you’re going to say diluted focus, diluted results, but I’m going to ask you anyways.
01:27:39:01 – 01:27:48:14
Rory Vaden
And then they’ll ask me the question. I’m like, what do you think I’m going to say? And they’re like, dang it. And I’m like, yes, you are getting it because it’s just like you’re just hammering it over and over.
01:27:48:16 – 01:27:50:05
AJ Vaden
People need consistency.
01:27:50:08 – 01:27:57:05
AJ Vaden
Yes. It’s like, what if my team, because I’m through the lens of the CEO, came to me and I gave a different answer every time.
01:27:57:06 – 01:27:59:21
Rory Vaden
This makes me think of miss Heather. Yeah. So when we.
01:27:59:21 – 01:28:00:16
AJ Vaden
Were our homeschool.
01:28:00:16 – 01:28:08:02
Rory Vaden
Team, our home school teacher who just retired and moved back to Australia, but she was raising our boys and she.
01:28:08:02 – 01:28:09:12
AJ Vaden
Was raising them.
01:28:09:14 – 01:28:33:07
Rory Vaden
Raising our boys, she was teaching our boys and she was teaching us how to raise them. She was really a parenting coach more than and and you know, she would she would coach us on like, you don’t negotiate with children. You don’t, you know, have flexible boundaries. And, you know, miss Heather is blind. And she was talking about how, like, I need to know where the walls are.
01:28:33:08 – 01:28:50:19
Rory Vaden
That’s how I survive is I. It’s like I know where the walls are. Kids need the same thing. They need to know this is the boundary. This is not allowed. You do not have gradients of boundary. You have a clear solid wall. Like this is the boundary that never moves. And then people know how to navigate without it.
01:28:50:19 – 01:29:05:17
Rory Vaden
But if you’re inconsistent in your character, if you’re inconsistent in your expectations, if you’re inconsistent in your consequences, nobody knows who they’re going to get. They don’t know how to navigate around the around the landscape. They’re just constantly like, you know what?
01:29:05:23 – 01:29:25:00
AJ Vaden
What are you going to get today? Yeah. And I think that that is a benefit of building a personal brand as a CEO, as your team creates expectations and it creates consistency so that they can be more autonomous because they know what I’m going to do. They know what I’m going to say because I’ve been consistent in what I say and what I do.
01:29:25:01 – 01:29:41:20
Rory Vaden
Yeah, and I love how you’re talking about all this, because you can clearly see our definition, and specifically your definition of personal branding is not like your social media followers, your logos. It’s just it’s what you believe. It’s who you are. And that’s why it matters as a leader. Okay, so number four, before we before we.
01:29:41:20 – 01:29:43:16
AJ Vaden
Go, storytelling officer.
01:29:43:17 – 01:29:44:22
Rory Vaden
Oh, okay.
01:29:45:01 – 01:29:54:04
AJ Vaden
I’ve got talent acquisition. We have chief vision, chief culture. Protector and chief storytelling. And this is where.
01:29:54:08 – 01:30:01:12
Rory Vaden
Tell me the story about how you arrived at that. Chief storytelling officer is one of your for most important jobs.
01:30:01:14 – 01:30:21:00
AJ Vaden
I think this is really, really important when it comes to a personal brand. And I would say this is probably the one out of all the things that I’ve come to believe about my role as CEO actually came from our trends and personal branding research study. It just didn’t come alive. It didn’t activate for me until the last couple of years.
01:30:21:02 – 01:31:00:20
AJ Vaden
Of all the statistics around, you know, people are more likely to buy from companies who have established personal brands. They’re willing to pay more from companies who their values align with executives they’re more likely to work for you, vote for you, promote you. If you have an established personal brand. And I just believe more than anything else in today, in this world of AI, that there are very few things that AI is not going to be able to do in the future, there’s very few, and that can be scary or that can be super encouraging.
01:31:01:02 – 01:31:27:05
AJ Vaden
I think that it’s rather a problem or an opportunity, and I think it can be both right. I think it can be both. I think there’s going to be problems, as with anything, and I think there’s going to be great opportunities. And what I’m paying attention to is, well, what’s it not going to be able to do? As much as I’m paying attention to what it can do, what it will be able to do, I’m also really watching intently of what’s it not going to be able to do, because I think they’re in lies.
01:31:27:05 – 01:31:47:11
AJ Vaden
Much of the opportunity, like AI, is not going to be able to do my hair. I’ve been thinking a lot about my hairstylist like, she’s secure, we’re good, right? Her job is secure, right? It’s not gonna be able to do my nails right. It’s like there’s like these things. But then I think about it as my job. I use it for many things, and it’s super helpful.
01:31:47:11 – 01:32:10:19
AJ Vaden
And I’m like, but what can I will? I refuse it to let it do for me because it can’t and it cannot tell my story. It does not possess my memory. It it cannot recount the way I felt when my mom died. It cannot recount the memories I have of our car accident as a child. It does not remember my wedding day.
01:32:10:19 – 01:32:35:02
AJ Vaden
It does not remember the day that I had my children. It cannot relive those moments, which means it cannot tell that story. It cannot talk about the devastation of being fired. And then the miracle of starting Brain Builders group and the call from Louis like it wasn’t there. It can’t do it. It cannot tell your story. And that’s my job.
01:32:35:04 – 01:33:00:02
AJ Vaden
So Chief storytelling officer is it’s the human connection. It’s the emotional component. It is what we desire at our core as human beings, which is connection and belonging and purpose and the desire and the need to be more than of ourself. And that is something that no one else can do. For, for the company, for your team, than you.
01:33:00:03 – 01:33:03:06
AJ Vaden
So Chief Storytelling Officer is the fourth one.
01:33:03:10 – 01:33:30:14
Rory Vaden
Holy moly. That’s good. We need to cut that clip for sure. If you’ve been listening to this and you go, you’ve had an experience like I just had, which is that AJ just redefined what a personal brand means to someone who’s the CEO and an executive who do you know that is an executive or a CEO that needs to realize how important their story is to the success of their company?
01:33:30:16 – 01:33:50:23
Rory Vaden
Who do you know that is running an organization? We used to share this episode with them, and if you are someone who needs help telling your story and you’re not sure how to craft your story and you’re not sure how to, you know, carry that vision and and codify all that, go to free brand, call free brand call podcast.
01:33:50:23 – 01:34:08:00
Rory Vaden
Request a call with our team. We’ll want to hear your story. We’ll capture some of that. And then if it’s if it makes sense, we’ll talk to you about how we might partner with you to tell a better story and create a better company. That’s it for now. Until next time, we’re signing off for the wealthy, Well-known podcast.
WWK Ep 041: Hiring, Delegating & Building a Team That Protects Your Brand
WATCH THE INTERVIEW LISTEN TO THE EPISODE BELOW One of the biggest bottlenecks in a growing personal brand is the belief that you still have to do everything yourself. In this episode, Rory and AJ Vaden break down what it really takes to build a team that helps your brand grow without adding more chaos behind the […]
WWK Ep 040: Niching Down: Why Being for Everyone Means Being for No One
WATCH THE INTERVIEW LISTEN TO THE EPISODE BELOW If you’re good at a lot of things, niching down can feel unnecessarily limiting. Why choose one audience, one problem, or one specialty when you know you can help more people? But trying to serve everyone usually makes it harder for the right people to understand why they should […]
WWK Ep 039: Jim Kwik: How to Build a Limitless Brain in the Age of AI
# About Jim Kwik
Jim Kwik is the founder of Kwik Learning, a New York Times bestselling author, and an internationally recognized expert in brain performance, memory improvement, and accelerated learning. For more than three decades, he has helped people unlock their potential by teaching practical strategies for learning faster, improving memory, and strengthening mental performance.
After experiencing a traumatic brain injury at age five and struggling with learning throughout his childhood, Jim became determined to understand how the brain works and how people can learn more effectively. His personal experience became the foundation for a career dedicated to helping others overcome limiting beliefs and discover what is possible when they learn to work with their brains instead of against them.
As a sought-after brain coach and speaker, Jim has worked with CEOs, entrepreneurs, athletes, celebrities, and high-achievers. His clients and audiences have included organizations such as Google, Nike, Virgin, Zappos, WordPress, SpaceX, Harvard, and the Cleveland Clinic. His accelerated learning programs have reached students in 195 countries, and his podcast, *Kwik Brain*, has generated more than 60 million downloads.
Jim is also the author of *Limitless*, a New York Times bestseller that gives readers practical tools for improving mental performance, learning more effectively, and reaching their goals. His mission is simple: to help create better, brighter brains and ensure that no brain is left behind.
WWK Ep 038: Reputation Precedes Revenue: How Relationships Create Sales That Last
01:00:00:00 – 01:00:10:23
Speaker 3
Most thought leaders and experts think that if they’re going to generate more revenue, they just have to get better at selling and closing. But that’s not necessarily true.
01:00:11:01 – 01:00:13:10
Speaker 3
reputation precedes revenue.
01:00:13:10 – 01:00:16:22
Speaker 3
the win is not the revenue. The win is the relationship.
01:00:17:01 – 01:00:21:13
Speaker 3
you always win the relationship, even if you lose the sale.
01:00:21:16 – 01:00:27:04
Speaker 4
one of the best things that you can do to grow revenue in your company is to build offline relationships.
01:00:27:04 – 01:00:37:05
Speaker 4
there is an incredibly important conversation to be had about the power of sales and how it’s complemented by marketing,
01:00:37:07 – 01:00:44:15
Speaker 3
marketing is slow, but sales is fast. But marketing scales often faster than sales does.
01:00:44:15 – 01:00:50:21
Speaker 4
the speed to sell has 100% due to how much did they already know you or know about you before the conversation began?
01:00:50:21 – 01:00:57:22
Speaker 1
because most people tend to fail by thinking that sales is a presentation, but it’s not. Selling happens in a conversation.
01:00:58:00 – 01:01:02:08
Speaker 1
Ever wonder what it actually takes to build a reputation that generates revenue?
01:01:02:11 – 01:01:06:23
Speaker 1
Rory and AJ Vaden are the powerhouse duo behind Brand Builders Group,
01:01:07:01 – 01:01:08:20
Speaker 1
NYT bestselling authors
01:01:08:22 – 01:01:14:15
Speaker 1
the personal brand experts who have helped some of the world’s most influential leaders scale their personal brands.
01:01:14:18 – 01:01:15:07
Speaker 1
Now
01:01:15:10 – 01:01:16:15
Speaker 1
they’re pulling back the curtain
01:01:16:15 – 01:01:18:00
Speaker 1
on how to capture attention,
01:01:18:00 – 01:01:19:11
Speaker 1
build massive trust,
01:01:19:13 – 01:01:22:08
Speaker 1
turn your expertise into a lasting legacy.
01:01:22:09 – 01:01:28:23
Speaker 1
Get ready to elevate your influence and your income. This is wealthy and well known.
01:01:29:01 – 01:01:42:04
Speaker 3
We’re going to talk about in this episode why your conversions might have to do more with what should have happened three months ago. That didn’t happen versus what is happening in the sales conversation on a daily basis.
01:01:42:07 – 01:02:16:13
Speaker 4
Now, the trick to this is knowing what should actually be in the sales conversation. What should you be talking about? How do you start it? How do you transition? How do you end it? And that’s ultimately where most people tend to fail, is they think that sales is a presentation, but it’s not. Selling happens in a conversation. And by the end of this episode today, we’re going to talk about how do you have a successful conversation, because that’s all it is to make sure that you’re not selling to people, but they’re opting in to what you have to offer.
01:02:16:14 – 01:02:40:21
Speaker 3
Great. So I’d like to start with what happens before the sales conversation. And here’s something that I think is genuinely unique about us. And I’ve I’ve only gotten clarity about this in recent years. I think that there are there are people who teach sales, hardcore sales, you know, I think of Grant Cardone and people like that. They’re like, always be closing.
01:02:40:21 – 01:02:47:08
Speaker 3
And if you’re not first, you’re last. And you know, they’re either selling you on why they can’t do it or you’re selling them on why they should,
01:02:47:08 – 01:02:59:02
Speaker 3
And then there is the whole world of like marketing and social media and content marketing and thought leadership and books and social media kind of like tied together and trying to make sales that way.
01:02:59:04 – 01:03:09:07
Speaker 3
The way I describe those as offline selling versus online selling. And I genuinely think we’re one of the only people in the world who do both.
01:03:09:09 – 01:03:18:15
Speaker 3
And we tie both of those together, and we have always done both really well in a way that complements, you know, each other, that
01:03:18:17 – 01:03:26:01
Speaker 3
marketing is slow, but sales is fast. But marketing scales often faster than sales does.
01:03:26:01 – 01:03:45:05
Speaker 3
how much do you think reputation matters before the sale. Like how much do you think it matters what people have heard or seen about you before, that before the actual sales conversation? Or do you think it’s like, no, it really just kind of comes down to the conversation. However you get there is how you get there.
01:03:45:06 – 01:03:45:12
Speaker 4
Oh,
01:03:45:12 – 01:03:52:12
Speaker 4
the speed to sell has 100% due to how much did they already know you or know about you before the conversation began?
01:03:52:13 – 01:04:03:16
Speaker 4
And that has everything to do with speed to sell. That doesn’t mean that people have to know you or know of you to buy from you. It just means if they don’t, if you’re starting from scratch, it will take longer.
01:04:03:18 – 01:04:21:23
Speaker 4
And I think this is important to note for everyone who’s listening. If this is your first time listening, or you’ve only listened a couple of times to know that Rory and I’s background is heavily rooted in. Sales before anything else, like even before I say I’m a business owner, I’m a founder, I’m a CEO. It’s like I’m a sales woman.
01:04:21:23 – 01:04:29:02
Speaker 4
And that’s because we grew up in a very, very rich, sales focused environment.
01:04:29:02 – 01:04:37:15
Speaker 4
like when we started our first company, there were four of us who founded it. And I’m not exaggerating, and I’m not that old, right? I’m 42.
01:04:37:15 – 01:05:01:18
Speaker 4
But like, like in the early days of even my sales career in my early 20s, which I guess was 20 years ago, that did put some age on it, didn’t it? Yeah. So but even then it’s like we literally took the Yellow Pages, a phone book, ripped out pages and split it alphabetically. And I had a phone that I called people on.
01:05:01:19 – 01:05:31:17
Speaker 4
No, no real email outreach. Definitely no social media. No CRM or CRM. I had a spreadsheet and an outlook calendar. And so it’s like that. I was just bred into a sales environment where you pick up the phone and you call someone, you work referrals, you get names, you get to know people, you go to networking meetings. And I do believe that’s what made us incredibly good at what we’ve done for the last 20 years, which is generating revenue, is because we weren’t waiting.
01:05:31:18 – 01:05:57:06
Speaker 4
We weren’t waiting on marketing to work. It’s like marketing is important and has become increasingly important. And we do that, but we don’t wait, right? It’s like, no, we’ve got to go out and network. And I think that’s the whole idea of this is not a new saying. It’s like your reputation precedes you. It should it better. So what are you doing to make sure that your reputation precedes you, to all of your prospects and prospective customers?
01:05:57:07 – 01:05:59:15
Speaker 4
And the beautiful thing about marketing
01:05:59:15 – 01:06:02:11
Speaker 4
and branding and social media and podcasts and blogs and books
01:06:02:11 – 01:06:08:17
Speaker 4
and everything today is that you have more opportunities than ever to help people get to know you
01:06:08:19 – 01:06:10:22
Speaker 4
before you actually ever talk to them.
01:06:10:22 – 01:06:14:16
Speaker 4
It’s just, are you taking advantage of taking advantage of those?
01:06:14:20 – 01:06:24:04
Speaker 4
and are you still being proactive in sales outreach versus somehow waiting for those sales to come to you and your DMs?
01:06:24:05 – 01:06:49:02
Speaker 4
There was a couple episodes. I was telling a story about a client of ours who was like, I’ve been doing social media for years, exactly what you told me to do, and I haven’t converted one customer. And I’m like, well, have you asked anyone to, like, buy from you? Like, that means nothing to me? Because if you’re sitting on waiting, waiting on people to show up in your comments or your DMs thinking that’s where your customers are going to come from, that is not how it works.
01:06:49:03 – 01:06:53:23
Speaker 4
Didn’t work then. Doesn’t work that way today for the most of us. So I do believe that
01:06:53:23 – 01:07:04:00
Speaker 4
there is an incredibly important conversation to be had about the power of sales and how it’s complemented by marketing,
01:07:04:02 – 01:07:04:14
Speaker 4
but that
01:07:04:14 – 01:07:08:14
Speaker 4
marketing does not replace sales. It complements it,
01:07:08:16 – 01:07:13:15
Speaker 4
it supports it, it expedites it, but it does not replace it.
01:07:13:17 – 01:07:15:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think that’s really good. And
01:07:15:16 – 01:07:20:16
Speaker 3
Was just having this conversation in my own head here recently. So as you know.
01:07:20:17 – 01:07:21:12
Speaker 2
I was I’ve.
01:07:21:13 – 01:07:40:08
Speaker 3
Been invited on a board that is a very powerful board for a very powerful company. And some of the other people on the board where our, you know, Harvard MBAs and, you know, worked at Continental Airlines and home chairman, chairman’s of Continental and Home Depot and, you know, with Mitt Romney and Bob Dole and like some really, really powerful people.
01:07:40:08 – 01:07:55:18
Speaker 3
And I’m sitting there going, why am I on this? Like, what? What is my contribution going to be to this room? Because they have so much experience? And I thought, well, you know what it is. I am a revenue generation specialist.
01:07:55:20 – 01:08:00:07
Speaker 3
I started in retail at Sunglass Hut. Then I was going door to door in college.
01:08:00:07 – 01:08:22:13
Speaker 3
Then I was doing enterprise phone sales, then we were doing B2B sales when we started our first company. Then we were doing digital marketing and social media and sales, B2C coaching sales. Then we were doing consulting and speakers like, and it’s like online marketing, selling one on one, selling one to many, selling to a room full of people, selling on a webinar, selling in a three day challenge.
01:08:22:13 – 01:08:23:07
Speaker 3
And it’s like.
01:08:23:08 – 01:08:33:18
Speaker 4
Selling in the back of the room, selling in a restaurant, selling in an office, selling online. If it if it can be sold. We have tried we have tried it in some fashion.
01:08:33:18 – 01:08:49:04
Speaker 3
So I think and that comes to what we’re talking about. And one of the things that we say in our book, which by the way, you can get the audiobook for free, free brand audiobook podcast and like one of the opening chapters, is that
01:08:49:04 – 01:08:51:19
Speaker 3
reputation precedes revenue.
01:08:51:21 – 01:08:54:01
Speaker 3
Reputation precedes revenue. Now,
01:08:54:01 – 01:08:54:14
Speaker 3
I think what’s
01:08:54:16 – 01:09:03:07
Speaker 3
part of what’s important for this is that some of our clients, who and members who are watching, or if you’re just new to kind of our community, they go, I’m doing a lot of these things.
01:09:03:07 – 01:09:22:10
Speaker 3
And like, I just I’m struggling to close sales. And it’s because, well, if the first time someone’s ever heard of you as they saw one ad or one reel and then came on one webinar and then they didn’t close, it’s like, don’t be surprised. Like it takes it takes time. Trust takes time. And trust must take place before there’s a transaction.
01:09:22:10 – 01:09:31:18
Speaker 3
So I think what marketing does is it shortens the sales cycle if we do this right. But you still need to sell.
01:09:31:19 – 01:09:40:06
Speaker 4
Well I would say marketing helps do that an online fashion. But your reputation can help do the exact same thing in an offline fashion.
01:09:40:07 – 01:09:41:07
Speaker 3
Absolutely.
01:09:41:08 – 01:09:45:05
Speaker 4
And both work and both should be used.
01:09:45:09 – 01:09:57:21
Speaker 4
look, there’s so much conversation even on this show, to be honest, about online marketing. And I’m kind of like the ever present force at our company that’s like, don’t forget, there’s offline two.
01:09:57:21 – 01:10:20:06
Speaker 4
And I think that’s because still to this day, in every sales environment that I am in, every big sale that I’m a part of still happens offline. So I’m just a huge proponent and advocate of it, knowing that marketing plays an essential role and awareness and consistency and visibility. But y’all, like nothing.
01:10:20:10 – 01:10:28:07
Speaker 4
overpowers the genuine influence that comes from someone else going, you need to meet my friend AJ.
01:10:28:08 – 01:10:51:10
Speaker 3
Gosh, you know, even as you’re saying that I’ve never really thought about this till this very second is that, you know, I’ve been on many of the biggest podcasts in the world Louis Howell’s Ed Millett, Amy Porterfield, Cody Sanchez, Jenna Kutcher, Trent Shelton, Dave Ramsey, right. These huge online platforms, 100% of those came from offline, the offline relationships.
01:10:51:12 – 01:10:54:15
Speaker 4
None of them found you because of your online.
01:10:54:17 – 01:10:57:20
Speaker 3
No, it was all offline relationships.
01:10:57:20 – 01:10:58:07
Speaker 4
That I’ve been.
01:10:58:07 – 01:11:03:05
Speaker 3
Telling, you know. Yeah. Well you’re right, I’m just it just took me a while, as usual. But
01:11:03:05 – 01:11:03:11
Speaker 3
that’s.
01:11:03:12 – 01:11:08:18
Speaker 3
why we define personal branding as the digitization of your reputation.
01:11:08:18 – 01:11:10:15
Speaker 4
Is already present. Reputation offline.
01:11:10:16 – 01:11:16:17
Speaker 3
Is offline, and then personal branding is just the digitization, multiplication of that offline reputation.
01:11:16:18 – 01:11:23:17
Speaker 4
Yeah. So I know that we’re going to talk about a lot of different things today. But I don’t want to forget to say this for the for the all of you who are listening. It’s like
01:11:23:18 – 01:11:29:11
Speaker 4
one of the best things that you can do to grow revenue in your company is to build offline relationships.
01:11:29:11 – 01:11:45:00
Speaker 4
To actually invite someone to coffee, to go take a lunch, to take that phone call or zoom meeting that you don’t think you have time for, to build the relationships, to build that relational equity with the person who referred you with the person they referred you to.
01:11:45:01 – 01:12:06:07
Speaker 4
To show up at a networking meeting, join a board that could be a nonprofit board. Go to an event, go to a conference. Don’t sneak off and check your emails in the corner at the break. Actually stand in line and meet someone like, go do the things that put you in proximity with other people that you can build networking relationships with.
01:12:06:12 – 01:12:24:16
Speaker 4
Like. And if you’re not, if you’re going, well, that’s just not me. It’s like, but that’s sales that has to become a skill set, a muscle that’s developed for you to go out and generate sales for your company, for your business, for your team. That’s not going to happen. You sitting in an office with paper.
01:12:24:20 – 01:12:38:11
Speaker 3
Yeah. And I would you know, another one I’d add to that list which sometimes people don’t like to say, but it’s true. It’s, you know, join masterminds, like many of the most powerful relationships that we’ve made have come from rooms we paid to be in.
01:12:38:12 – 01:12:38:22
Speaker 4
100.
01:12:38:22 – 01:12:43:21
Speaker 3
Percent with other people who are investing at really high levels. And here’s the thing
01:12:43:23 – 01:12:48:05
Speaker 3
Relationships are irrefutable accelerants to revenue.
01:12:48:05 – 01:12:59:21
Speaker 3
People are going like, what’s the hack going viral? You know, like being being famous, having a big podcast, being a bestselling author, you know, going going to like, you know, some prestigious school know
01:12:59:22 – 01:13:03:21
Speaker 3
if you’re looking for the shortcut, there is only one shortcut in is relationships.
01:13:03:21 – 01:13:15:06
Speaker 3
That’s the only thing that exists that is really a true shortcut. And so, you know, just to your point, joining those things, building those relationships is, is is critical.
01:13:15:07 – 01:13:36:10
Speaker 4
Yeah. I was like as you were talking, I was like, what if like the shortcut that everyone is looking for is the person sitting across from you, like, what if that’s the shortcut? Like, what if being a good friend, being a good resource, helping someone else is the shortcut that you’ve been looking for? And all this time, energy and money that’s being expended in all these other areas, all of that can be bypassed.
01:13:36:11 – 01:13:58:06
Speaker 4
If you just said yes to that coffee meeting, if you just engaged in that conversation, showed up at that evening networking group, like what if? And again, not saying one is more important than the other, but one most certainly cannot be forgotten. And in a world that is full of social media and content marketing and digital marketing, it is very close to being overlooked and overshadowed altogether.
01:13:58:06 – 01:14:00:12
Speaker 4
And that is the power of the offline relationship.
01:14:00:13 – 01:14:16:18
Speaker 3
And here’s the here’s the big advantage in a world of AI is as the world moves more towards artificial, they’re the people are the people who are going to win, are going to realize that actually relational is where the equity is.
01:14:17:00 – 01:14:19:16
Speaker 4
I’m going to predict this, that we’re.
01:14:19:16 – 01:14:20:01
Speaker 3
Going on.
01:14:20:01 – 01:14:30:15
Speaker 4
Record, we’re going on record. I have a strong prediction that over the next five years, there is a huge and enormous reemergence.
01:14:30:15 – 01:14:31:17
Speaker 3
Resurgence.
01:14:31:18 – 01:14:56:06
Speaker 4
Resurgence of live events. I think that the need for human contact, human connection for me, just to know that wasn’t AI, for me to know that was a real person, a real idea, a real conversation. Like we are on the verge of the live event business, the seminars, the conferences, networking meetings, humans getting together. I think that we are going to see it reemerge, a.
01:14:56:08 – 01:15:15:02
Speaker 4
Resurgence of resurgence like we’ve never seen before. Because when I think about the 20 years ago in my early sales career, there was like a seminar to go to every week. Like, I mean, it was like a networking meeting at every corner. I was getting invited something, every lunch, every dinner, every weekend. It was a bad networking meeting.
01:15:15:02 – 01:15:32:14
Speaker 4
It was the Chamber of Commerce. It was, you know, all the live events. We would go to the get motivated, the women of faith, like I was saying yes to, I was in that event all the time. And really, when I reflect over the last ten years, I have had to search for them. I have like really had to go out and be like, what do I want to go to?
01:15:32:15 – 01:15:42:02
Speaker 4
Maybe their micro events, maybe their big mega events? Again, I can just already tell you there’s already in this early signs of AI. There’s already a
01:15:42:04 – 01:15:47:13
Speaker 4
request and a need for. And I just want to see humans. Like I just want to be with people
01:15:47:16 – 01:16:02:09
Speaker 3
So here’s a behind the scenes statistic about Brand Builders group. So our own membership, what we have figured out is the number one most determining factor of whether or not someone stays in our program is if they’ve come to our events.
01:16:02:10 – 01:16:03:04
Speaker 4
100%.
01:16:03:04 – 01:16:04:04
Speaker 3
And and we’ve.
01:16:04:04 – 01:16:04:17
Speaker 4
Got how.
01:16:04:17 – 01:16:18:12
Speaker 3
Many we have. We have AI bots, we’ve got online courses, we’ve got digital community. We do. But it’s like the thing that is the needle mover is did they come to an event? Did they interact with other humans in the program?
01:16:18:12 – 01:16:19:19
Speaker 3
It’s the relationships.
01:16:19:19 – 01:16:40:03
Speaker 4
And so I just so for whatever it’s worth, I think there why not get ahead of the curve as you’re listening here. It’s like, okay, where am I missing the boat of just being in a room with someone else who might be my new best friend, who might be the person that refers me to my biggest deal I’ve ever had, who might be X, y, z.
01:16:40:03 – 01:17:12:15
Speaker 4
But you’re not going to know if you’re not there. And I think that’s just the value of the idea of expediting your personal brand. Yes, it happens online, but it can happen offline too. So does reputation matter when it comes to selling? Yes, 1,000% online, offline. Either way, they’re they’re both valuable. But that whole idea of a reputation that is established expedites the sales process is absolutely, undeniably true and accurate.
01:17:12:15 – 01:17:23:08
Speaker 4
I’ve had so many clients who’ve even come to us at Brand Builders Group that said, no offense, I would have never called you if I had not been referred by X. Like, no offense taken. Okay.
01:17:23:09 – 01:17:26:00
Speaker 3
We don’t take offense, but we do take your money. Yeah.
01:17:26:03 – 01:17:46:04
Speaker 4
But it’s like when I would say, well, why do you say that? Like, well, I’ve never heard of you before. And I was like, oh, it’s fair. Like, but I trust my friend. Friend like, this is someone I trust. And if they say that you’re good, I trust them. I’m like, that’s fair. You’ve never heard of us. Like, why I would want what I call a complete stranger and say, here’s all my money, please help me do this.
01:17:46:05 – 01:17:50:13
Speaker 4
Probably not that it makes sense if you just think about it.
01:17:50:14 – 01:18:14:15
Speaker 3
And I don’t. I don’t mean to sound like a jerk about this quoting our own book, but like, you know, the book again is free on audio, but we say in there because it’s true, if you do your job right, your customer force will become your sales force, right? If you serve the customer in front of you, they will have an amazing experience and the best marketing in the world as it changed life.
01:18:14:16 – 01:18:44:17
Speaker 3
They will tell people or other people will see the results. And so much of our business comes from the fact that our clients are crushing it. They’re having documented wins on a major scale and people say, how did you do it? And they go, brand builders group. You need to do that same thing. You need to make sure the people who are already giving you money or having a great experience and are getting a result, if they get a result, then they will bring you the result you want, which is more clients and I think that also is overlooked.
01:18:44:17 – 01:19:07:12
Speaker 3
So anyways, we talk a lot on this show about marketing, reputation, digital content strategy. Let’s talk about sales. Okay? I do want to get into the tactics of this of the sales conversation, but I actually want to flip what was in our show outline. And I want to talk about ethical selling first, because this is another place that I think at least our audience struggles with.
01:19:07:12 – 01:19:17:11
Speaker 3
And a lot of where I personally have struggled with of going, we don’t want to be unethical. Like we’re not willing to compromise our reputation for revenue.
01:19:17:12 – 01:19:21:19
Speaker 4
Well, could you just define for everyone who’s listening, what would you say is ethical versus unethical?
01:19:21:20 – 01:19:40:06
Speaker 3
That’s what I want to talk about. I want to talk about because I think, you know, I use Grant Cardone, and I actually don’t think he would mind me saying this, but like, they’re so hard. Chorus. Like their job is to close. It’s almost like a close at all costs. I think he takes pride in that. And I wouldn’t even say that’s wrong necessarily.
01:19:40:06 – 01:19:41:08
Speaker 3
That’s just not what we believe.
01:19:41:09 – 01:19:42:01
Speaker 4
It’s just on brand.
01:19:42:07 – 01:20:05:04
Speaker 3
Yeah. And that’s on brand. So what we believe is something different. It’s not weak though. It’s not like oh let them by if it’s comfortable. Right. It’s. So I want to talk about what. How do you define ethical selling. What do you think is different about our philosophies about sales? Because, you know, here, here we are saying we’re selling machines.
01:20:05:04 – 01:20:10:16
Speaker 3
We came up in sales. But there’s a lot that we won’t do in selling. And maybe we could start with that.
01:20:10:19 – 01:20:14:14
Speaker 4
I think that’s probably like an easy thing, like what are our nevers? And always when it comes to.
01:20:14:18 – 01:20:18:23
Speaker 3
What are the things we don’t do in selling that maybe other people who teach sales.
01:20:19:00 – 01:20:22:14
Speaker 4
We don’t lie, we don’t exaggerate, we don’t overpromise.
01:20:22:15 – 01:20:30:08
Speaker 3
And we don’t sell things to people that aren’t the right fit for them. Yeah. Like we we walk away from sales all the time.
01:20:30:09 – 01:21:02:21
Speaker 4
Well, I want to I want to clarify because it’s like, as I say, that I’m sure a lot of people are going, well, of course you don’t lie. And it’s I think let me define what that is. Are you saying things that you know to be true versus repeating hearsay or things you would like to be true? And like I can even say, like even in my own sales experience as a salesperson growing up without the proper education, I have said things before that I believe to be true because I wanted them to be true about maybe the products or the services or the company I was selling for, and then later came to realize,
01:21:03:01 – 01:21:22:09
Speaker 4
oh shoot, that was not accurate. That was, I need to go back and recant. I need to change my sales script. I need to go and call them and say, hey, I’m sorry I said this. That’s not accurate. And I don’t think a lot of people do that. They say something on a whim. The customer is like, well, hey, can you help do this?
01:21:22:10 – 01:21:31:23
Speaker 4
And you’re like, yeah, absolutely. Because it’s like, maybe you really don’t know what the delivery team does, right? Like the actual operations of your company does.
01:21:32:03 – 01:21:38:06
Speaker 4
It’s not that I think anyone is intentionally lying or they’re going, hey everyone lie.
01:21:38:07 – 01:21:43:22
Speaker 4
No, I think there’s a lot of documentaries about some companies that have most certainly done that
01:21:43:22 – 01:21:51:20
Speaker 4
But I don’t think most people do that. I think they say things because they want them to be true for the customer and they go, yes, we can do that.
01:21:51:21 – 01:21:55:11
Speaker 4
Yes. That’ll happen. Yes, on this timeline. And it ain’t true.
01:21:55:12 – 01:22:24:08
Speaker 3
Yeah. Here, here’s the most common form of lying that happens in a sale is not an outright blatant lie. It is an over promise of what you can actually deliver and or an exaggeration of what you can actually deliver. And a lot of times, if the sales person is not connected to what the delivery, this is why there’s internal conflict is like the sales person is promising things, whatever they have to promise to make a sale, and then the team is left holding the bag of like, how do I execute?
01:22:24:09 – 01:22:26:17
Speaker 3
Like we don’t? That’s not what we actually do this.
01:22:26:18 – 01:22:43:10
Speaker 4
I mean, like, we’re not perfect at this. Like, this has happened in our own organization where sales team promised something, then would call the delivery team. Hey, this is what I told them. Just making sure you can do it. The delivery team goes, no, we can’t. Then I hear from the delivery team and the sales team going, hey, this is what we said.
01:22:43:10 – 01:22:56:12
Speaker 4
They’re saying we don’t do that. And I’m going, yeah, we don’t do that. And they’re like, but this is what we told them. And the delivery team is trying to figure out a way. I’m like, that is not what we do. Call the person back, say you misspoke. And if that means we lose the sale, we lose the sale.
01:22:56:13 – 01:23:10:09
Speaker 3
And we just we have we have lost salespeople or we have removed salespeople as a result of this because it’s like, that is not something that we will do. We will not overpromise what we can’t deliver on.
01:23:10:10 – 01:23:35:11
Speaker 4
And not exaggerate. We will not over promise. Because at the end of the day, if you’re trying to help your customer force become your sales force, you have to overdeliver, which means you need to set proper expectations from the get go. I think the number one reason I in my opinion, this is just my opinion that there are customer service issues is there are unmet expectations.
01:23:35:12 – 01:24:09:07
Speaker 4
Something was said or heard, promised or wanted either way. And I’m not saying the customer is always right. I am not always right when I have an issue, right. But I do believe it all stems from the exact same place of unmet expectations. I was told this or your sales page said this, or your website said this, or all your testimonials said this, and I have had a 180 degree different experience, and now I’m pissed because what you showed me, what I believed to be true, is not.
01:24:09:07 – 01:24:14:03
Speaker 4
So setting proper expectations is what makes a happy customer.
01:24:14:04 – 01:24:37:15
Speaker 3
Yeah. One one of the things that we believe about sales that I think a lot of people don’t, is we don’t believe that the sale is finished. When you collect the money, we believe the sale is finished when the customer experiences the result that we talked about. And so many sales organizations are just get the money on to the next, get the money onto the next, get the money on to the next.
01:24:37:15 – 01:25:01:10
Speaker 3
And that’s not how you build reputation. That’s how you build. That might lead to an increase in short term revenue, but it is a decrease in long term reputation, which ultimately is a decrease in long term revenue. And I think a lot of times when people have a really fast start as an entrepreneur and they get out of the gates quickly, but then they hit these plateaus, it’s because some of their reputation is catching up with them.
01:25:01:10 – 01:25:18:16
Speaker 3
And now it’s a instead of being a tailwind that’s pushing them forward, it’s a headwind that’s going against them because they’re trying to sell something to people. But people are going, well, you’re saying this, but I’ve heard a bunch of your customers say something different. And and those aren’t those aren’t aligned. We got to be able to deliver the result to the person.
01:25:18:19 – 01:25:29:02
Speaker 4
Yeah. I think the other thing is that thing is really important is like those things that we don’t do, right? So we don’t lie, we don’t exaggerate, we don’t overpromise. What did you say? We don’t. You said something.
01:25:29:04 – 01:25:30:09
Speaker 3
I said, we don’t overpromise.
01:25:30:10 – 01:25:36:17
Speaker 4
We don’t have a promise. But I would say one of the other things is we don’t treat customers like numbers or transactions.
01:25:36:18 – 01:25:37:14
Speaker 5
Totally.
01:25:37:16 – 01:25:58:18
Speaker 4
And that’s easy to do when there’s high volume. That’s also really easy to do when you’re not in a one on one selling conversation, if you’re selling online, if it’s an e-commerce and we talk about units at units or people, right. Those are people like we even say our members. Right? But it’s like we used to call them users in the system.
01:25:58:18 – 01:26:16:04
Speaker 4
And I had someone call me out and they’re like, users are like, are they drug addicts? Like, what is what is happening here? And I’m like, oh yeah, I didn’t even hear that. Like, no, it’s like, yeah, these are human beings. These are our clients. These are our customers. And so we changed it. But it’s like it’s just a remember, it’s a reminder.
01:26:16:04 – 01:26:22:19
Speaker 4
It’s like, this is not a transaction. This is a relationship. And you have to treat it as so if you want it to beat one.
01:26:23:01 – 01:26:23:20
Speaker 3
Yeah. The
01:26:23:23 – 01:26:34:13
Speaker 3
even if someone bought from you and then they left. A lot of organizations are like, well, screw you. You left like you’re out. Like you’re not, you know, fine, I don’t, and it’s like you always preserve the relationship.
01:26:34:15 – 01:26:40:23
Speaker 4
Yeah. So those are some of the things we never do. I want to share just three quick things that we always do that we believe in.
01:26:40:23 – 01:26:51:11
Speaker 4
And this is at least destroy. And I and a shared sentiment at all three entities that we serve Mission Driven Press, Nashville, Creative Spaces, Brand Builders Group. Right. Those are our three sister companies.
01:26:51:14 – 01:27:01:18
Speaker 4
But there are three things that we constantly say to anyone who’s in a sales seat, which let me just preface this is everyone. We we talk about this a lot.
01:27:01:18 – 01:27:11:00
Speaker 4
It’s like everyone in every organization is in sales. And there are three types of revenue. I’m going on a tangent for a second. I’ll come back to what I was going to say in a second.
01:27:11:01 – 01:27:37:19
Speaker 4
But there are three types of sales that are always happening. The first is new revenue generation, right? That’s new sales, right? And that is probably most the sales and marketing department. Right. But that’s new revenue generation, new sales. The second is revenue retention, right. So it’s like how do we retain these customers, repeat customers. This is LTV and all the things that we’re doing to keep clients clients.
01:27:37:19 – 01:28:03:20
Speaker 4
But then there’s also revenue protection and retention. And protection is very different. And the protection side is what people usually don’t think is sales. And I consider that finance operations, HR, it, it’s all the behind the scenes infrastructure that are putting things in place to protect the client, to protect our team, and to protect the client, to give you
01:28:03:22 – 01:28:11:11
Speaker 4
easier, simpler experience with the organization, to remove friction, to make conversations happen faster.
01:28:11:11 – 01:28:34:14
Speaker 4
And a lot of people don’t consider themselves in sales. And I go, you are in revenue protection. You protect the revenue because you’re supporting the team and equipping the platforms and the technologies to do their job, to make our client experience better. So there is new revenue generation, there is revenue retention, and then there is revenue protection, which means every seat is in sales in
01:28:34:14 – 01:28:35:13
Speaker 4
some capacity.
01:28:35:14 – 01:28:42:09
Speaker 3
So you’re talking about like if I can’t log into my portal, that’s a risk of a loss sale. If I, if I, if the agreement is too cumbersome.
01:28:42:13 – 01:28:44:23
Speaker 4
And cage takes 30s to load and they bounce.
01:28:45:00 – 01:28:45:19
Speaker 5
And then if I can’t.
01:28:45:19 – 01:28:59:02
Speaker 3
Sign up for an event like any those would be things in our. It’s the logistical kind of like operational things that you go, what does this have to do with sales? And it’s like it has everything to do because that’s a customer that’s about to leave. If that goes wrong, that’s good.
01:28:59:03 – 01:29:22:01
Speaker 4
So those are the three categories. So just a reminder don’t think about sales in just the scripts or the, you know, sales talks that your sales team has is like no, we all play a role in sales in any organization. No matter what your job is, you play a role. Now back to the three always. Here are three philosophies that I hold firm to and probably bog my team to death on.
01:29:22:02 – 01:29:37:15
Speaker 4
Number one key philosophy there are no duds. This is so important because in sales it’s easy to say. And they were never going to buy, right? They didn’t have the money for this. They were just wasting my time. They just wanted free calls and free resources.
01:29:37:17 – 01:29:38:12
Speaker 6
Blah blah blah.
01:29:38:12 – 01:29:51:07
Speaker 4
And my philosophy is there are no duds. You talk to every single person and you have the exact same call with every person. There are no duds, right? That’s philosophy number one.
01:29:51:08 – 01:29:56:12
Speaker 3
And if they have a big enough vision, they’ll find the money. If if they don’t, it’s like.
01:29:56:15 – 01:30:13:19
Speaker 4
But I think that’s I’d say that’s like another personal philosophy, not one maybe shared by all, but I just firmly believe I never hear. I know it’s just not right now. And if I can’t make the cell right now, I want to build a relationship that equips me to make the sell one year, five year, ten years from now.
01:30:13:19 – 01:30:21:10
Speaker 4
So maybe they don’t have the money today. Maybe they don’t have the time or the resources or the capacity today. But I’m not making a sale today.
01:30:21:10 – 01:30:22:13
Speaker 3
But if they buy.
01:30:22:13 – 01:30:23:11
Speaker 4
You a path.
01:30:23:12 – 01:30:28:18
Speaker 3
That if they buy you today, even if they don’t have the money, well become a customer one day.
01:30:28:19 – 01:30:42:06
Speaker 4
One day. So the sale I’m making today is okay. Let’s stay in touch. So subscribe to the podcast. Follow me on social. Read the book. Here’s some free resources and when you’re ready, I’ll be ready. Amen. Right. So
01:30:42:06 – 01:30:45:07
Speaker 4
The second is no lead left behind.
01:30:45:08 – 01:30:47:23
Speaker 3
Oh yeah. Here she goes.
01:30:48:01 – 01:30:50:18
Speaker 4
No lead left behind.
01:30:50:19 – 01:30:52:05
Speaker 4
And this is like
01:30:52:05 – 01:30:57:02
Speaker 4
I’m sure as soon as I say it. Like eyes are rolling like Rory’s right now. But it’s like
01:30:57:05 – 01:31:06:14
Speaker 4
yeah. It’s like no, we did the work to attract the lead, do the work to engage the lead, do the work to get the lead on a call, do the work to convert the lead.
01:31:06:15 – 01:31:14:04
Speaker 4
No lead left behind Legatum into our system. So do something right. And that’s a heavy marketing job at Brain Builders Group.
01:31:14:06 – 01:31:19:03
Speaker 4
That’s a very big deal. I think for any company to go like you did the work to attract them.
01:31:19:04 – 01:31:21:13
Speaker 4
Don’t abandon ship once they come on board.
01:31:21:14 – 01:31:43:04
Speaker 3
Well, and you have so many superpowers. And inside of the skill set of sales, you have many superpowers. Relational being number one. Probably. But I think follow up is your most technical tactical superpower. You down? It’s not. You don’t have magic sentences you use to close people. What you do is you go, I will stay in touch with you and I will add value and I will.
01:31:43:05 – 01:31:51:03
Speaker 3
People will believe in you and they will eventually buy from you, even if it’s not today, because you just follow relentlessly.
01:31:51:05 – 01:31:57:16
Speaker 4
It’s like if you don’t buy from me comes you like, you like me, you’ll buy from me because you want me to go away, right? I’m just like, relentless.
01:31:57:17 – 01:32:03:07
Speaker 3
But it’s but it’s not just follow up. Like, are you going to buy or are you going to buy or are you going to buy its follow up? It’s relational followers.
01:32:03:13 – 01:32:21:10
Speaker 4
But I do, because that’s because I believe in the philosophy of no lead left behind. Like if you share a glimpse of interest, I latch on, right? It’s like I’m a latch. I’m all I’ve cued in that it’s not today, but one day, one day it might be. I have many.
01:32:21:15 – 01:32:23:19
Speaker 3
So you’re telling me there’s a chance.
01:32:23:22 – 01:32:46:01
Speaker 4
That is me? That is me. But I have many a story. Like Tracy Christman, who’s the CEO of Budget Blinds, a $2 billion company, where I followed up with her for five years and for five years, she said, I appreciate the follow up. It’s not a good time. Why don’t you touch base next year? And I’m like putting it in my calendar.
01:32:46:01 – 01:33:06:02
Speaker 4
Tracy five years. And finally she was like, oh good Lord, you are following my instructions. You followed up with me. I know she regretted it at the time. And then she was like, you know what? There’s a slot, there’s an opening. I’ll give you a chance. Like, yes. And it was like that turned into a five year relationship, almost seven figures.
01:33:06:02 – 01:33:22:06
Speaker 4
And we’re still in touch with her today. She texted us just last week asking for some new stuff as her role is grown, our relationship has grown, but she said no for five years so no lead left behind. Number two. Number three is an always list, which is once a client, always a
01:33:22:08 – 01:33:22:18
Speaker 4
01:33:22:18 – 01:33:23:00
Speaker 4
it’s
01:33:23:04 – 01:33:34:19
Speaker 4
hey, if you have to step away from being an active client, then just know we’re here and we’re ready if you’re ever ready to come back. And what’s our part? To make sure that we stay in touch, we stay engaged.
01:33:34:20 – 01:33:51:08
Speaker 4
There’s points of interaction, points of engagement, points of service to let you know that like we’re still here having update calls, reaching out, touching base, following them on social media, whatever it takes. But it’s once a client, always a client.
01:33:51:08 – 01:33:56:20
Speaker 4
That doesn’t mean they’re always a paying client, but if you treat them as so, one day they may become one again.
01:33:56:21 – 01:33:57:05
Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:33:57:05 – 01:34:03:04
Speaker 3
a lot of our clients. I don’t even know if they’re paying anymore. Like, I don’t even keep track of, like when I’m connecting them.
01:34:03:08 – 01:34:07:22
Speaker 4
It’s no longer about a business client relationship. It’s just a relationship.
01:34:08:02 – 01:34:12:03
Speaker 3
If somebody is out there right now and they are
01:34:12:03 – 01:34:13:02
Speaker 3
going, okay,
01:34:13:02 – 01:34:16:09
Speaker 3
I’m either not great at sales or I don’t love it,
01:34:16:09 – 01:34:23:01
Speaker 3
or I don’t buy into the philosophy and training of some of the more aggressive kind of like sales tactics.
01:34:23:02 – 01:34:29:21
Speaker 3
What are some tactical things that you can share with them right now that they can use to close more sales?
01:34:29:22 – 01:34:39:07
Speaker 4
Yeah, I would say I would just I would define aggressive, as you say that, because I consider myself a fairly aggressive salesperson and aggressive.
01:34:39:08 – 01:34:40:19
Speaker 3
Let me say manipulative.
01:34:40:20 – 01:34:43:11
Speaker 4
There you go. I think it’s completely fine.
01:34:43:14 – 01:34:45:17
Speaker 3
It’s a great distinction.
01:34:45:19 – 01:34:51:05
Speaker 4
Based on how you define it, which is bold, pro proactive
01:34:51:05 – 01:35:03:15
Speaker 4
a little bit rejection proof. Like, I don’t care if you say no, but like I’m still going to say this, but I think there is some element of you cannot be afraid to ask for the business. You cannot be afraid to go, hey, I believe this could be good for you.
01:35:03:15 – 01:35:23:10
Speaker 4
And here’s why. And I think a lot of that is that maybe aggressive is a strong word, but it comes from conviction and confidence in what you’re selling. And is it the right fit for the person. So that’s actually where I would start. It’s like if you’re if you’re hesitant and selling, I would first go, where is your hesitancy and your conviction?
01:35:23:11 – 01:35:36:01
Speaker 4
Because if there is something that’s holding you back or it’s not clicking or things aren’t converting, before I would look at tactics or closing techniques or objection handling, I would first take a gut check at your conviction and what you’re doing.
01:35:36:05 – 01:35:44:21
Speaker 4
It’s like, are you fully informed on what your product or service does? Have you seen the transformation or the benefits of it?
01:35:44:22 – 01:36:14:07
Speaker 4
Do you believe in it? Have you used it? Have you read the case studies? The testimonials? Have you met the people? Have you experienced it live? And I think a lot of companies, a lot, including us. We forget this sometimes too. They forget to make sure their sales team is immersed in the product or service, because they have to be the number one ambassador, the number one advocate, the number one believer of what we do and when they’re not, it’s when sales drops or they sell to the lowest common denominator.
01:36:14:07 – 01:36:34:02
Speaker 4
And it’s like, are you aware of what else is out there in the market? And that would be the second thing. It’s make sure that your your conviction is in place that you believe to your core, and what you’re selling and what you’re selling is 100% in alignment with what actually happens. That’s number one. Number two is you have to believe it’s the best in the market.
01:36:34:03 – 01:36:48:06
Speaker 4
Even if it’s not, you have to you have to believe that it is because you’re like, it changed my life. It’s changed these clients life. Even if there’s more products that are quoted better in the marketplace, that’s like, well, I don’t think those are better because of this.
01:36:48:10 – 01:36:55:02
Speaker 4
but you can only do that when you’re aware of all the other products, services, programs that are out there compared to what yours is.
01:36:55:03 – 01:37:03:15
Speaker 4
And you can speak intelligently about it. And like I can give you ten programs right now that charge ten times what we do on offer. Half.
01:37:03:17 – 01:37:24:03
Speaker 3
That’s how we build brand builders group. You go, people pay for masterminds. They pay for one on one coaching. They pay for courses, they pay for AI bots. They pay for implementation tools. They pay for live events. They pay for virtual events. And it’s like our members get all of that for a fraction, a fraction of what they would pay, what they are paying in other places.
01:37:24:03 – 01:37:26:06
Speaker 3
And that conviction is really good. Yeah.
01:37:26:06 – 01:37:29:09
Speaker 4
And then my third one is the powers and the questions.
01:37:29:09 – 01:37:41:18
Speaker 4
So the first one is that you’ve got to be relentlessly convicted in what you do. You have to have situation awareness and belief that your product or service is superior. And the third is that the power is in the questions.
01:37:41:18 – 01:37:55:08
Speaker 4
Any great sales conversation is just that. It’s not a monologue. It’s not a presentation. It’s a conversation because you are genuinely curious and interested, and you’re asking questions to listen, not so that you can move on to the next step.
01:37:55:12 – 01:37:56:18
Speaker 3
And I think
01:37:56:20 – 01:38:13:14
Speaker 3
if you’re nervous, it’s because you feel like you have to say the right thing. You have to have the magic words, the secret formula. And that’s self-centered. There is no fear when the mission to serve is clear. So the key to reducing that reluctance in a sales conversation is to not be thinking, oh, I have to have magic things to say.
01:38:13:14 – 01:38:32:19
Speaker 3
It’s I want to ask questions about them. And the number one thing you should be asking questions about is their dream. What what is their what is their vision? What do they want? What do they wish they could have? What is the thing that they are pursuing passionately for their life, their business, or whatever related to what you do?
01:38:32:21 – 01:38:54:14
Speaker 3
The key is you have to get them talking about that more than the conversation is about your product. If they are clear that they want this thing and they’re super passionate about it, then there’s only one question remains, which is does your product or service help them get closer to that? If yes, they will buy. If no, they might not.
01:38:54:18 – 01:39:01:22
Speaker 3
it’s as simple as that. But most salespeople are talking way too much. They’re not listening. They’re not asking the right questions.
01:39:02:00 – 01:39:05:20
Speaker 3
So ask them about their dream, their hopes, their futures, their ambitions. And
01:39:05:20 – 01:39:10:12
Speaker 3
this is our number one rule, like our number one rule, if I had to boil it down, is
01:39:10:18 – 01:39:15:08
Speaker 3
you always win the relationship. If you lose the sale,
01:39:15:10 – 01:39:17:19
Speaker 3
And I, I don’t think every company believes that.
01:39:17:19 – 01:39:28:06
Speaker 3
But you and I have always believed that in lockstep. And that’s what we’ve done, and that’s what we have encouraged our team to do, and that’s what we encourage our community to do. And hey, it’s worked out pretty well.
01:39:28:07 – 01:39:50:11
Speaker 4
Yeah. And I would just encourage everyone. It’s like, don’t be afraid to sell. Selling is not a bad thing. It’s how you actually sustain, grow and scale your business. If you don’t generate revenue, you won’t make it. Don’t be afraid to sell, but believe in the thing that you’re selling. So as you’re listening to this today, I would just encourage you if this was helpful to you.
01:39:50:12 – 01:40:14:16
Speaker 4
Do us a favor. Do yourself a favor, do your friend a favor, and share this episode with someone who maybe is experiencing a little sales reluctance, or maybe just a little sales frustration. And maybe this will be just a little bit of boost of confidence to help that person kind of step over that barrier, to embrace sales as what it should be, which is building relationships and helping people make decisions.
01:40:14:17 – 01:40:26:11
Speaker 4
Right. That’s what that is. If you liked it, we would appreciate a review because that helps other people know what episodes to listen to. And if you haven’t already, please subscribe so that you can join us again next time.
01:40:26:13 – 01:40:46:11
Speaker 3
If you need help coming up with some sales talk tracks for yourself. Some sales systems to grow your revenue, go to free brand, call free brand, call out, request a conversation with our team and we’ll show you how we can help our members to grow their revenue using those systems. And you know, this service centered mindset. But we appreciate you being here.
01:40:46:11 – 01:40:52:18
Speaker 3
That wraps up this edition of the wealthy and well-known podcast. Until next time, go serve the person you once were.
WWK Ep 037: Become the Chief Storytelling Officer of Your Brand
00:00:07:02 – 00:00:10:11
Speaker 1
Most personal brands and thought leaders are afraid to be in front of the camera.
00:00:10:11 – 00:00:12:17
Speaker 1
Scared of what the camera is going to say about them.
00:00:12:19 – 00:00:15:08
Speaker 4
Everyone who’s been successful at something
00:00:15:08 – 00:00:17:02
Speaker 4
has an obligation
00:00:17:04 – 00:00:20:06
Speaker 4
a duty to share what they’ve learned
00:00:20:06 – 00:00:22:16
Speaker 4
trust must take place before there’s a transaction
00:00:22:17 – 00:00:27:07
Speaker 4
your face is the greatest asset you have towards creating trust
00:00:27:09 – 00:00:31:13
Speaker 1
The truth is, you are the brand. You should be in front. And there’s a reason why.
00:00:31:17 – 00:00:32:16
Speaker 4
the thing that
00:00:32:18 – 00:00:34:04
Speaker 4
the most pure
00:00:34:04 – 00:00:36:16
Speaker 4
is the most free, the most available
00:00:36:18 – 00:00:38:06
Speaker 4
the story of the founder.
00:00:38:06 – 00:00:41:18
Speaker 4
It’s also the most attractive.
00:00:41:21 – 00:00:45:14
Speaker 5
I am the only one who can tell the story of our company.
00:00:45:14 – 00:00:48:04
Speaker 5
I want to be the chief storytelling officer.
00:00:48:09 – 00:01:09:11
Speaker 1
In this episode of the wealthy and well-known podcast, you’ll learn why your face is the greatest asset you have for creating trust and accelerating transactions in your business, and how sharing your story as the Chief storytelling Officer of your brand can build deep customer loyalty without gimmicks, hacks, or tricks.
00:01:09:13 – 00:01:11:20
Speaker 4
There is no fear when the mission to serve is clear.
00:01:11:22 – 00:01:16:06
Speaker 1
Ever wonder what it actually takes to build a reputation that generates revenue?
00:01:16:09 – 00:01:20:21
Speaker 1
Rory and AJ Vaden are the powerhouse duo behind Brand Builders Group,
00:01:20:23 – 00:01:22:18
Speaker 1
NYT bestselling authors
00:01:22:20 – 00:01:28:13
Speaker 1
the personal brand experts who have helped some of the world’s most influential leaders scale their personal brands.
00:01:28:16 – 00:01:29:05
Speaker 1
Now
00:01:29:08 – 00:01:30:13
Speaker 1
they’re pulling back the curtain
00:01:30:13 – 00:01:31:22
Speaker 1
on how to capture attention,
00:01:31:22 – 00:01:33:09
Speaker 1
build massive trust,
00:01:33:11 – 00:01:36:06
Speaker 1
turn your expertise into a lasting legacy.
00:01:36:07 – 00:01:43:03
Speaker 1
Get ready to elevate your influence and your income. This is wealthy and well known.
00:01:43:05 – 00:01:47:09
Speaker 4
Most personal brands and thought leaders think their camera is judging them.
00:01:47:10 – 00:01:49:18
Speaker 4
They’re afraid to be in front of the camera,
00:01:49:22 – 00:01:50:21
Speaker 4
even scared
00:01:50:23 – 00:01:57:09
Speaker 4
About what the camera is going to say about them. But today we’re going to talk about the power of your camera and why
00:01:57:09 – 00:02:01:19
Speaker 4
your face is the greatest asset you have towards creating trust
00:02:01:23 – 00:02:05:17
Speaker 4
and thus accelerating transactions in your business.
00:02:05:18 – 00:02:22:04
Speaker 5
Now, if you’re sitting there listening to Rory talk and going, well, I’m going to skip this episode. This one is not for me. If you’re saying I need to be for the face of the brand, if I need to be the face of my company, if I have to get on camera. Nope. No thank you. And I would actually encourage you.
00:02:22:04 – 00:02:40:14
Speaker 5
This episode is for you. This episode was perfectly designed to reach you exactly where you are today. Because the truth is, you are the brand, right? You are the person behind the company, but we don’t want you to be behind it. We want you to come out and be in front. And there’s a reason why.
00:02:40:16 – 00:02:41:07
Speaker 5
All right, Rory.
00:02:41:08 – 00:02:42:07
Speaker 4
Let’s get into it.
00:02:42:11 – 00:02:44:05
Speaker 5
Why? What’s the reason why?
00:02:44:10 – 00:02:51:05
Speaker 5
Why do we think that people should get out from hiding behind their logos and websites and actually be the front?
00:02:51:06 – 00:02:52:00
Speaker 4
Yeah.
00:02:52:02 – 00:02:54:00
Speaker 4
part of our premise is that
00:02:54:02 – 00:02:56:13
Speaker 4
trust must take place before there’s a transaction
00:02:56:13 – 00:03:08:03
Speaker 4
is simple, right? The reason that we don’t teach gimmicks and hacks and tricks on this show is because we’ve been around long enough to see that that stuff doesn’t work long term. It eventually burns out.
00:03:08:04 – 00:03:08:20
Speaker 5
And usually.
00:03:08:22 – 00:03:10:09
Speaker 3
To say, we’re old.
00:03:10:10 – 00:03:12:19
Speaker 4
No, we’re not that old. I mean older.
00:03:12:20 – 00:03:13:09
Speaker 5
Mature.
00:03:13:10 – 00:03:14:20
Speaker 4
We’re mature, we’re experienced.
00:03:14:21 – 00:03:15:13
Speaker 5
Experienced.
00:03:15:14 – 00:03:20:03
Speaker 4
I’ve been at this since I was. We’ve been 17. We’ve been at this since you were 20.
00:03:20:03 – 00:03:21:05
Speaker 5
Two in this.
00:03:21:05 – 00:03:23:21
Speaker 4
So we’ve been at it a hot minute. But I think it’s
00:03:23:23 – 00:03:49:04
Speaker 4
what we’ve done has worked, which has played the long game. The long game is trust. And so if you start the conversation there and you go, well where does trust come from? And I would just say if you made a list of the people that you trust the most in your life, there’s a good chance that the people on that list are going to be people that you see, that you you know, their face, you spend a lot of time with them.
00:03:49:05 – 00:03:54:02
Speaker 4
You trust your pastors. We trust the people we live with. We trust our family. We trust people in our neighborhood.
00:03:54:02 – 00:04:12:12
Speaker 4
And the only strangers that we trust are people that are like celebrities. And I would say, why do we trust celebrities? Why do we trust actors? Actors are liars for a living, like they literally are paid to pretend.
00:04:12:14 – 00:04:28:04
Speaker 4
Why do we trust them? We trust them because we see them. So I think that this this topic matters because I don’t think it has anything to do with how you look. I think it only has to do with familiarity
00:04:28:05 – 00:04:45:00
Speaker 5
I would love to give a quick case study example of this. One of the things that we do at Brand Builders Group is every single quarter. We collectively as a company, pick a book to read and everyone has to read it. And at the end of the quarter, we do a book club and we come and we share our takeaways and our thoughts.
00:04:45:00 – 00:05:10:14
Speaker 5
The reason we do that is because we believe in personal growth and development, but it’s also because we want to create shared common language amongst our team members. This year for Q2, this is in 2026. We read the book Excellence Wins by Horst Schulz, who is the founder of the Ritz-Carlton. And I just want to give this as a really great example.
00:05:10:14 – 00:05:13:11
Speaker 5
I have known of the Ritz-Carlton brand
00:05:13:13 – 00:05:18:06
Speaker 5
pretty much since I was in my 20s. It’s a pretty well known brand.
00:05:18:07 – 00:05:22:13
Speaker 4
We didn’t go for. We didn’t get to go to the Ritz-Carlton for a while, but we knew about it.
00:05:22:14 – 00:05:44:13
Speaker 5
But it’s one of those iconic brands around luxury and service, and I think a lot of people are like, I’d love to go to a rich one day just to experience what everyone talks about. But, you know, to be honest, up until a couple of years ago, I didn’t even know where it started or who started. Like, if you would have talked about Horst Schulz five years ago in a room, I’d have been like, who’s that?
00:05:44:13 – 00:05:51:04
Speaker 5
And by getting to know him, I have fallen in love with the brand
00:05:51:06 – 00:05:58:08
Speaker 5
I did not love. I did not have an affinity for the Ritz-Carlton. I mean, it’s a brand, it’s a logo, it’s a building
00:05:58:12 – 00:06:06:04
Speaker 5
But my appreciation, my affinity towards it, has compounded significantly since reading this book
00:06:06:06 – 00:06:09:14
Speaker 5
because I got to know the man behind it.
00:06:09:16 – 00:06:10:17
Speaker 5
I got to learn about
00:06:10:18 – 00:06:14:00
Speaker 5
why he wanted to get in this service business, and how he started
00:06:14:00 – 00:06:15:21
Speaker 5
and the culture he’s trying to instill.
00:06:15:21 – 00:06:21:01
Speaker 5
And honestly, his his love of Scripture and the Bible and his commitment to the Lord
00:06:21:03 – 00:06:36:23
Speaker 5
I could go on and on and on about all the things. But by getting to know him, I have completely fallen in love with the brand because I know the person behind it and I don’t know this person in real life.
00:06:37:00 – 00:06:56:03
Speaker 5
I’ve never heard him speak on a stage, but I can tell you right now if there is an option of staying at many other luxury brands versus a Ritz, I would go to the Ritz just to be reminded of how it started, to be reminded of the culture and the intention and the heart of service behind this brand, but
00:06:56:04 – 00:06:57:12
Speaker 5
because of a book.
00:06:57:16 – 00:06:58:09
Speaker 4
And a person.
00:06:58:09 – 00:07:23:01
Speaker 5
Because of a story, because of a person who is willing to go, this is what I believe, and this is why we started this company. So let that be just a nod of encouragement to every founder, to every business, over, to every solopreneur, every entrepreneur. If you think your story and you being the face of it, doesn’t have significance and customer loyalty and affinity, you are so mistaken,
00:07:23:02 – 00:07:44:15
Speaker 4
like, think about using that case study. How many millions of dollars does the Ritz-Carlton spend on advertising? How many billions of dollars do they spend to acquire the real estate that they have and build it? And to go out of all of that and people who have talked about it, and it’s been used as a brand in case studies and in business school.
00:07:44:15 – 00:07:49:01
Speaker 4
But what’s the thing that actually made you fell in love
00:07:49:01 – 00:07:50:21
Speaker 4
is the story of the founder.
00:07:50:22 – 00:08:16:01
Speaker 4
It’s also the most attractive. It’s it’s the most compelling. And I just I think people are missing out. And we saw this in our trends and personal branding National research study that that people are more likely to buy from you, work for you, recommend you spend spend more money with you. If they know the stories of the founders and and the executives.
00:08:16:01 – 00:08:18:04
Speaker 4
so then why do we hide AJ? Like
00:08:18:04 – 00:08:19:18
Speaker 4
why the fear of the camera?
00:08:19:19 – 00:08:36:13
Speaker 5
I don’t think it’s just a fear of the camera. I think it’s a fear of being in the public eye. I think that just as many people have a fear of speaking on stage. Right. It’s like public speaking is the number one fear of all humans even before death. Right? Which is so ironic.
00:08:36:13 – 00:08:45:12
Speaker 4
But Jerry Seinfeld says that. Great line. He says, for most of us, we would rather be in the casket than giving a eulogy at the funeral. It’s so.
00:08:45:12 – 00:09:01:14
Speaker 5
Great because I think it’s people are really afraid of as judgment. I don’t think this is a fear of a camera, a camera I’m looking at right now. It’s a piece of equipment. It’s a little tiny black box. I am not afraid of you. Tiny black box I got, is not it? That is not.
00:09:01:15 – 00:09:04:15
Speaker 4
I’m not afraid of you. Tiny black box.
00:09:04:17 – 00:09:17:16
Speaker 5
Like that is not what I’m afraid of. What I’m afraid of is what everyone else is going to think, say, share about me when I talk to this tiny black box. Right?
00:09:17:19 – 00:09:36:22
Speaker 4
But I don’t get that because and I go to me, this is very similar to the fear that people have about saying, no, this is in multiply your time. We talked about it’s like people are afraid to say no, they don’t want to say no. But what they don’t realize is you’re always saying no to something. You’re either saying yes to to one thing or you’re you’re you’re.
00:09:37:00 – 00:09:39:23
Speaker 4
Anytime you say yes to one thing, you’re simultaneously saying no.
00:09:40:01 – 00:09:44:10
Speaker 5
But I think it’s fair to make a general statement. No one likes to feel judged.
00:09:44:11 – 00:09:44:22
Speaker 4
Sure.
00:09:45:02 – 00:09:45:20
Speaker 5
Nobody likes.
00:09:45:21 – 00:09:46:05
Speaker 4
But that’s.
00:09:46:05 – 00:09:46:19
Speaker 5
Not my point.
00:09:46:23 – 00:10:10:20
Speaker 4
But that’s not my point. My point is you’re being judged. Anyways. That’s my whole point is to go. You’re being judged anyways. Your face is already associated with your brand in an offline environment. The only thing about online is it’s the multiplication of your reputation. It’s the digitization of your reputation, but it’s still your reputation, so you already have that judgment.
00:10:10:20 – 00:10:15:06
Speaker 4
People are already judging you, your brand, your face, how you look every day.
00:10:15:06 – 00:10:33:22
Speaker 5
I really do believe it is the difference of the ability for when you go online, like when you’re putting a video out there, podcast, YouTube, social media. But I just want to say this, I don’t think this is just about being on camera. I think the exact same thing happens on stage of like, what are they going to say in the evolution?
00:10:34:00 – 00:10:44:01
Speaker 5
What are they going to tell the meeting planner? What if everyone hates it? What if people leave in my presentation? What if no one claps? What if I get terrible reviews? I think the exact thing, exact same thing happens.
00:10:44:02 – 00:10:45:03
Speaker 4
I think it’s the same.
00:10:45:04 – 00:11:02:22
Speaker 5
Thing because when you post it, you’re putting it out there versus yes. Is it happening all around you? Sure. But are they coming to your face and going, that was terrible. I can’t believe you said that. You’re an awful person. No, people aren’t doing that. Not to your face.
00:11:02:22 – 00:11:03:11
Speaker 4
But online.
00:11:03:12 – 00:11:04:23
Speaker 5
They online they will.
00:11:04:23 – 00:11:06:19
Speaker 4
Because they’re hiding behind the camera.
00:11:06:20 – 00:11:16:19
Speaker 5
They’ll just be like, you know, thumbs down, like, don’t listen, unfollow this person. That’s crappy advice. And I think a lot of people, it’s like, they don’t like that.
00:11:16:20 – 00:11:17:07
Speaker 4
Yeah, I.
00:11:17:13 – 00:11:22:09
Speaker 5
Think that’s a reason not to do it. I’m just going I think that’s the reason most of us aren’t doing it.
00:11:22:09 – 00:11:31:15
Speaker 5
that should have zero impact on whether or not you do it. I’m just saying I do believe that’s why they don’t. So how do we get over that is the question.
00:11:31:16 – 00:11:49:00
Speaker 4
Yeah, I think you’re I think you’re right. And to that point, I think I guess what’s, what’s what’s really fair about that is the the criticizing is also hiding behind the camera. They don’t have to they don’t have to see you face to face. And so they’re much more likely to be nasty and mean. It’s like when someone writes a negative email, they will.
00:11:49:01 – 00:11:57:17
Speaker 4
They would never say those things. Almost never would that person say nasty things to your face. But when they do it through email, it’s like there’s that. That barrier.
00:11:57:18 – 00:12:08:10
Speaker 5
I have found to is that for an entrepreneur, a business owner doesn’t matter. Your company is like your child and nobody wants anyone to tell.
00:12:08:10 – 00:12:09:01
Speaker 3
You your baby’s.
00:12:09:01 – 00:12:30:09
Speaker 5
Ugly, right? So I believe that it doesn’t even have to be negative because I have had many conversations with friends or they’re like, I’m just getting ripped apart, I’m getting destroyed. And then I’ll go read the comments and I’m like, where? Like, what do you mean, like? And I even get this sometime, like every single time that a customer service emails, we do get them right.
00:12:30:10 – 00:12:36:19
Speaker 5
Like they come at me time I get one. I literally have to emotionally remind myself, this is not about you.
00:12:36:19 – 00:12:38:15
Speaker 5
The company is still good, we’re still doing good work.
00:12:38:16 – 00:12:54:00
Speaker 5
And it’s just one piece of feedback. I think so many of us are so attached to this company, whatever it is, that it’s like, it hurts when people don’t like it or have negative things to say. So it doesn’t even have to be a hater or a criticize. Or it could be.
00:12:54:01 – 00:12:55:03
Speaker 4
A constructive feedback.
00:12:55:03 – 00:13:03:19
Speaker 5
Or it could be a yeah, somebody who’s pretty neutral, who’s like, well, you know, I think you should. And then all of a sudden we take that as, oh, I’m terrible.
00:13:03:21 – 00:13:15:16
Speaker 5
So I think there are some of that where you have to detach yourself from the company, like there is. There has to be an identity shift. If I am not my company, I am the person behind the company.
00:13:15:16 – 00:13:30:22
Speaker 5
this is about why you started it, who you started it for, the ideals, the beliefs, the values, the lessons, the stories, the victories, the failures. Those are the things that help people separate you from the company. And I think that’s where a lot of people get it wrong.
00:13:30:23 – 00:13:35:14
Speaker 5
It’s like, oh, I am the face of the company. It’s like, no, the company has its own face,
00:13:35:14 – 00:13:48:15
Speaker 5
we’re just saying, hey, stop being behind it and actually bring the story to the forefront. We had this I told you about this a couple of weeks ago, how I met an organization called EO Entrepreneurs Organization here in Nashville.
00:13:48:15 – 00:14:08:00
Speaker 5
And there’s seven of us that we meet for half a day every month. We’ve done that for ten years. And five of the seven are the original five. So we’ve been together doing this for ten years, and it’s my favorite thing that I’m a part of. And we have this ongoing conversation for two years.
00:14:08:01 – 00:14:09:10
Speaker 4
Oh, this is good. Yeah, this is good.
00:14:09:14 – 00:14:24:23
Speaker 5
And I think it’s very reminiscent of this conversation. So maybe some of you will gleam something from this. But for two years we’ve had this conversation almost every month of like, what do we have to do to become the CEO of our company?
00:14:25:01 – 00:14:28:18
Speaker 4
Like, what does it mean to be a CEO? What should a CEO be doing? What should a CEO.
00:14:28:22 – 00:14:49:03
Speaker 5
Even had goals like this year is the year I become the CEO of a company, because as you guys know, I say this all the time. CEO just really means chief Everything officer. But in a small business and a growing enterprise, as an entrepreneur, it’s like you’re doing all the things right. You’re making sales, handling customer service issues, doing recruiting, checking bills, like there’s a lot of things.
00:14:49:03 – 00:15:01:20
Speaker 5
And so most of us have very established businesses. We’ve been doing this a long time, and we’ve all had this running conversation for two years. Like, how do we become the CEO of a company?
00:15:01:23 – 00:15:05:22
Speaker 5
And at our last meeting, a wise member.
00:15:06:00 – 00:15:08:09
Speaker 4
You had an epiphany. You all had a big epiphany.
00:15:08:10 – 00:15:15:23
Speaker 5
A wise member of our group who’s been in business the longest, said, I have had an epiphany.
00:15:16:00 – 00:15:16:10
Speaker 4
Oh.
00:15:16:10 – 00:15:33:15
Speaker 5
And I would like to share it with the rest of you to see if it clicks. And we were like, do tell Dennis. Like, tell us, tell us, tell us what you’ve learned. We need to know. And he goes, what I’ve realized is I don’t want to be the CEO. And we were like, what? And he goes, how do you guys define CEO?
00:15:33:16 – 00:15:55:02
Speaker 5
Right. And so I like led this conversation of like, what is a CEO to you? And as we’re all sitting there talking about what is a CEO, we all ended the conversation with, oh yeah, I don’t want I don’t want to do that. I don’t actually want to be the CEO. But oh, here was the big oh, shoot, I am the CEO, but that’s not what I want.
00:15:55:02 – 00:16:18:08
Speaker 5
And Dennis was like, this is the exact same epiphany I had. I don’t want to be the CEO. I want to be the founder. And we were like, what’s the founder do? Like, what do they do? He goes, I want to be the chief storytelling officer. He goes, I have finally realized I am not the best CEO for my company, but I am the only one who can tell the story of our company.
00:16:18:09 – 00:16:37:11
Speaker 5
I want to be the Chief Storytelling officer. I am ready, finally, to be the face of the company, to tell this origin story, to share its beliefs and values and lessons like I am ready to step out from behind the company. I don’t want to be the CEO. I want to be the founder chief storytelling officer of my company.
00:16:37:12 – 00:16:38:00
Speaker 4
That’s good.
00:16:38:01 – 00:16:38:12
Speaker 5
And I was.
00:16:38:12 – 00:16:39:10
Speaker 4
Like, that’s good.
00:16:39:15 – 00:17:13:09
Speaker 5
That’s what we want. That’s what I want. And so it was such an epiphany of going, we’ve been striving for this thing that once we finally just said, what is that like? What is that? None of us actually said this was our long term vision. But every single one of us said part of why we started this business, and a part of why we still run our business, is because we want to share what we’ve learned with other business owners, and we’re not doing it because we don’t see ourselves as being in front of the camera, the face, because we’re stuck behind it doing all the things that need to be done.
00:17:13:09 – 00:17:35:01
Speaker 5
So I just think that’s a really interesting thing of like, hey, what is the transition from being an executive of your own company to being the chief storytelling officer of the heartbeat behind all that you’re doing? And I think that’s what we’re talking about today. It’s are you willing to get on stages, to get on camera, to post content, to be the chief storytelling officer of your company?
00:17:35:03 – 00:17:36:20
Speaker 2
I love that, I love that.
00:17:36:20 – 00:17:51:20
Speaker 4
So on this topic of being front facing and doing doing video, I know the answer to this one. Okay, I don’t always know the answer to what. How do you how do you overcome this fear? This one I know the answer to.
00:17:51:21 – 00:17:52:03
Speaker 5
Hit.
00:17:52:03 – 00:18:19:03
Speaker 4
Us is simple. The reason that people are either afraid to get on camera or the reason that they go, I don’t want to get on camera because I don’t want to be perceived as vain. Both have one thing in common, and the thing they have in common is they are self-centered. The solution to this problem is to be service centered, not self-centered.
00:18:19:03 – 00:18:36:12
Speaker 4
So let me explain. When I have a fear of judgment, I am being self-centered. What are they going to say about me? Are they going to bash me? Are my ideas stupid? Do I look silly on camera? Is my hair out of place? Like, is the, you know, is my outfit whatever? Do I look, you know, everything is.
00:18:36:13 – 00:18:54:16
Speaker 4
Is this the imposter syndrome is totally self-centered. And then the other group is like, I think like a lot of legitimate CEOs and entrepreneurs think they’re like, oh, so vain to be on camera. People are going to think I’m vain. I don’t I don’t need that attention. I don’t I don’t need the limelight. I don’t need the whatever.
00:18:54:17 – 00:19:18:03
Speaker 4
Also self-centered. The answer to this. The solution is to realize you being on camera has nothing to do with you. It is not about whether you feel good enough to or whether you feel like it’s vain. It’s not about you. It’s about the person on the other side of the camera. When you are being service centered, you go, I’m not trying to gain attention.
00:19:18:03 – 00:19:34:23
Speaker 4
I’m not trying to get trust. I’m not trying to gain praise. I’m trying to be useful to the person on the other side. It’s the same thing that happens on stage. And that’s why I know this is because it was like as a speaker, I was always so scared of, like, am I going to be funny? Is the audience going to like me?
00:19:34:23 – 00:19:58:08
Speaker 4
Whatever. Whatever. Am I going to forget what I’m going to say? It’s all this I focused stuff. But when you let go of self-centeredness and you just focus on service centeredness, you go, what is that person in the audience struggling with? I wonder what that person’s life is like. How is what I’m about to say? How could I make what I’m about to do or say be useful to that person?
00:19:58:11 – 00:20:13:14
Speaker 4
And you only feel you don’t? There is no fear when the mission to serve is clear. And so I know that if someone is afraid of being on the camera, it’s because of self-centeredness, not not selfishness. It’s not that they’re trying to take advantage of people.
00:20:13:15 – 00:20:16:07
Speaker 5
I said, you’re just too focused on your team self and I.
00:20:16:08 – 00:20:34:04
Speaker 4
You’re too focused on me, myself and I and, you know, and a lot of entrepreneurs and executives and founders go like, well, I don’t need to be the face because they’re thinking about themselves as like, I don’t need this, but it’s not about what you need. It’s about what you can do for the audience. What lessons have you learned?
00:20:34:04 – 00:20:34:15
Speaker 4
just how can
00:20:34:15 – 00:20:34:20
Speaker 4
we.
00:20:35:00 – 00:20:56:17
Speaker 5
Have a genuine question then? Because I’m thinking through, like so many Uber successful entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs that I know who still say this and I’m like, but you have so much to I have so much to learn from you. Yes. And so for that person who’s still going, yeah, but no, I just, I don’t do you, I don’t have that calling in me.
00:20:56:17 – 00:21:04:08
Speaker 5
So for, for some of the people listening who’s like, well, I hear you, I just don’t relate to that. Like, do you think everyone should do this?
00:21:04:10 – 00:21:06:05
Speaker 2
I think that.
00:21:06:07 – 00:21:15:03
Speaker 4
Everyone who’s been successful at something has an obligation and a duty to share what they’ve learned
00:21:15:03 – 00:21:40:23
Speaker 4
with the person they once were. That’s why we say your most powerful position to serve the person you once were. I don’t think it’s necessarily a requirement that everybody has to build a personal brand and start a podcast. And but I will say this, I think there’s way too many people that have them that actually don’t have much to share with the world that haven’t been that successful, who are just trying to do it as a marketing tactic.
00:21:40:23 – 00:21:58:05
Speaker 4
Should be, and the people that should be or not, because they’re afraid of being vain and like, oh, I don’t want to be an influencer. I don’t need that attention. And going, it’s not about you. It’s going if you care to make the world a better place and you have lessons and expertise that you’ve learned, you have that duty to share it.
00:21:58:05 – 00:22:21:06
Speaker 4
I believe that because otherwise I go then all of your success was was just an accumulation for yourself. And that’s great. I mean, that’s fine. Like, okay, you sold your company, you’re successful, you have money. But like, how are you helping the person, the generation behind you? What are you doing to help them? So that’s why I think that if you have that you should share it doesn’t mean it has to be in the form of a podcast.
00:22:21:06 – 00:22:26:21
Speaker 4
But I go, but since the tools exist today. Why wouldn’t you do it?
00:22:26:21 – 00:22:28:06
Speaker 4
And and I will say
00:22:28:06 – 00:22:37:01
Speaker 4
The most dangerous creators are the ones that they go, I don’t need your likes. I don’t need your following. I don’t even need your money because I’ve made money from all this other stuff.
00:22:37:02 – 00:22:55:20
Speaker 4
And those are the ones that people flock to because they go they don’t, they’re not they’re not trying to get something. They’re just trying to give something. And they also could care less about the haters because again, they don’t need anything from it. They’ve they’ve got their validation, their success from other places. So I kind of I kind of think so.
00:22:55:20 – 00:22:57:00
Speaker 4
I kind of think they should.
00:22:57:02 – 00:23:09:20
Speaker 5
I mean honestly, I feel the same way. I was just curious. But it’s like I really do like in that to this book, excellence wins. Like there was nothing Horst Schulz was going to gain from writing this book other than serving his readers.
00:23:09:21 – 00:23:11:10
Speaker 4
Totally. Great example.
00:23:11:11 – 00:23:34:11
Speaker 5
I mean, there’s like there is like, this was not for some royalty or big advance like that would be pennies in the bucket. Yeah, but this was just about serving the readers of like, I have learned things that I think others should know. I’ve seen things that I care to share. I believe there’s a better way of loving your employees and loving your customers.
00:23:34:11 – 00:23:43:22
Speaker 5
And I’m going to tell you what it is. You don’t have to agree to it. You don’t have to subscribe to it. But I believe in it enough that if I don’t, it’s a disservice to who I am.
00:23:44:00 – 00:23:56:10
Speaker 4
And to me, that’s what a mission driven messenger is, right? That’s why we say, you know, for our clients, our community, our aspiration is that personal branding is not self-centered, not it should be service centered.
00:23:56:11 – 00:24:15:08
Speaker 5
Okay. So as we wrap up, I have some tactical questions for the person listening who we’re really saying, hey, your face is the best marketing tool that you have, so let’s get your face out there and it’s really not your face, it’s your story, right? Chief Storytelling Officer it’s going to be my new goal Chief Telling Officer.
00:24:15:09 – 00:24:22:03
Speaker 4
But, but there is a distinction between I think face is more powerful than just words on a page or voice.
00:24:22:05 – 00:24:22:14
Speaker 2
I do.
00:24:22:15 – 00:24:23:00
Speaker 4
Think that.
00:24:23:00 – 00:24:24:01
Speaker 5
Matters the story.
00:24:24:02 – 00:24:25:13
Speaker 4
But it is ultimately it’s the.
00:24:25:13 – 00:24:26:19
Speaker 5
Story story. So
00:24:26:21 – 00:24:39:15
Speaker 5
Tactically speaking though, what are some very tactical ideas that someone’s like, okay, I get all of that. But that red light goes on and I go blank, right? It’s like I am struggling to do this.
00:24:39:15 – 00:24:45:15
Speaker 5
what are some tips, some ideas that can help someone overcome that to get them comfortable on camera?
00:24:45:17 – 00:25:03:09
Speaker 4
Yeah, I’m going to give a shout out here to my friend Phil Jones. Phil Jones has a really great he’s got lots of great quotes, but one of his great quotes, as he says, the worst time to think about what you’re going to say is in the moment, you have to say it. The worst time to think about what you’re going to say is in the moment, you have to say it.
00:25:03:09 – 00:25:25:02
Speaker 4
So I think thinking about what you’re going to say before the camera goes on, I think is valuable. You. That doesn’t mean you should use a teleprompter, doesn’t mean you should memorize the script. You can do those things if they’re helpful. But what works for me is I literally keep every almost every day I update this. So I have a running Google doc that just says reels ideas.
00:25:25:03 – 00:25:44:03
Speaker 4
And every time I have a thought during the day where I go, man, I wish somebody would have told me that five years ago. Or like I wish I would have learned this much earlier. Or like, here’s a lesson that I’m learning and I’m being reminded of today going that would have been useful to me 20 years ago.
00:25:44:03 – 00:26:05:14
Speaker 4
I just write it down and I’ll just put like like I’ll give you an example. Right. So some of my recent ones here is inertia. I just wrote down the word inertia because I was reminded recently that all of success in business and life is just about inertia. It’s about getting if you’re if you’re not moving, it’s just about creating movement.
00:26:05:19 – 00:26:38:06
Speaker 4
And then it is about doing the right movements. Because once you’re doing the right movements, things do what they’re already doing. And so those two, those two things are both connected to the concept of inertia. And I’m like, I need to just make a real about inertia. So as you’re reminded of those lessons, I think that’s a tactical thing is, is don’t wait till the camera turns on to be like, okay, say something brilliant or it’s like, no, catalog it beforehand so that when you have time to record, you’re like, oh, I’ve got these three things I want to I want to say.
00:26:38:06 – 00:26:40:21
Speaker 4
So that’s one tip. What’s your what’s a tip from you?
00:26:40:22 – 00:26:57:14
Speaker 5
Yeah. So I’ll give you just a couple of quick tips that I think have been helpful and useful to me. The first one is that if you have a problem talking to the tiny black box, I would really encourage you to print out a picture of your favorite customer or your favorite team member and actually tape it below the camera.
00:26:57:14 – 00:27:20:02
Speaker 5
I know that seems like a weird kind of thing to do, but I think a lot of people have a struggle talking in monologue. They’re just looking at a camera, talking to nothing. But if you put a picture of like, oh, like this, this is the customer that I remember that we helped change their life, or we saved their house, or we got them out of debt or we, you know, saved them on the operating table.
00:27:20:02 – 00:27:40:02
Speaker 5
It’s like, put that person there to be reminded. Like, this is not a tiny black box you’re talking to. These are real human beings. So that’s just a little tip hanging up below, you know, or off to the side of your your laptop. That’s one. A second is I think a lot of people struggle with reading a question silently and then answering it aloud.
00:27:40:02 – 00:27:58:01
Speaker 5
So I actually have someone interview you. I think one of the best things you can do to get comfortable on camera is it to be more conversation and then let editors do what they do best and edit out the interviewer? But just, you know, this could be your spouse, it could be a kid. It could be someone in the office doesn’t have to be an expert.
00:27:58:01 – 00:28:21:18
Speaker 5
Just be like, I just need to have a conversation. So that would be my second tip is if you have a problem in the monologue of just like sharing content, have someone interview you and then let the editing do what editing does. Then my third idea for you is, and these are all things that I have done that helped me with all of this is the very first things that you can do on camera are not necessarily sharing content, it’s just sharing your story.
00:28:21:23 – 00:28:50:09
Speaker 5
Like have a list of like things that, you know, like the back of your hand, like what was your first job, what got you into your industry? What was the first year of your company like? What are your core values? What’s your mission statement? So just more talking about things that are innately your story that aren’t necessarily thought leadership or content, but it just gets you really acclimated to talking to the camera, talking about yourself, talking about things in general.
00:28:50:09 – 00:29:06:09
Speaker 5
So those are good ways to just warm you up so that when you go and talk about ideas like inertia, you already have some familiarity with talking to the tiny black box, sharing ideas because you’ve started with sharing your story first.
00:29:06:11 – 00:29:15:17
Speaker 4
Love it. All right. Last question. Tactical. Okay, I want to go super superficial. I do think.
00:29:15:19 – 00:29:17:00
Speaker 5
You want to go super.
00:29:17:00 – 00:29:33:06
Speaker 4
I want to go superficial. Okay? I want to go with superficial tips. I do think, genuinely, people have a fear of how they look on camera and just go like, you know, I’m okay in real life, but there’s something about on the camera. What tips do you have to look better on camera?
00:29:33:07 – 00:29:33:16
Speaker 5
Lifes and.
00:29:33:16 – 00:29:35:06
Speaker 4
Angles, what.
00:29:35:08 – 00:29:36:16
Speaker 5
The end likes and angles.
00:29:36:17 – 00:29:44:10
Speaker 4
Okay, what about the lighting and what about the angles? Makes someone look better on camera.
00:29:44:11 – 00:30:04:14
Speaker 5
I cannot speak to the males that are listening to this. I can only speak to the female listeners, but you give me angles that make me look ten years younger. I lighting that takes away, you know, the natural, beautiful lines of aging that makes me feel better. And you get.
00:30:04:18 – 00:30:06:22
Speaker 4
You don’t know how to do it. You just know what.
00:30:06:23 – 00:30:07:18
Speaker 5
I know how to do it.
00:30:07:19 – 00:30:11:13
Speaker 4
Oh, well, how do you do it? Like, how do you do the lighting? How do you do the angles?
00:30:11:14 – 00:30:18:13
Speaker 5
Never, ever, ever have your camera looking up at you because it just makes you look terrible.
00:30:18:14 – 00:30:21:23
Speaker 4
Meaning camera lower than your eyeline. Yes, is the worst.
00:30:22:00 – 00:30:24:18
Speaker 5
It just gives you a instant double chin no matter how.
00:30:24:19 – 00:30:27:12
Speaker 4
So camera always has to be above your eyeline.
00:30:27:13 – 00:30:28:21
Speaker 5
These are personal preferences.
00:30:28:22 – 00:30:29:06
Speaker 4
Yeah.
00:30:29:07 – 00:30:39:02
Speaker 5
That’s good. Yes. Looking down, it just gives you a more defined jawline, gives you more definition and like everything. But you know, again, I’m just you said superficial.
00:30:39:03 – 00:30:40:10
Speaker 4
It’s like that’s what I’m saying.
00:30:40:13 – 00:30:53:18
Speaker 5
You look better and the lighting matters. Right? Okay. What a dark lighting. Are there shadows on your face. Right. So it makes you look like you have dark circles under your eyes. It picks up, you know, certain imperfections and your skin or lines, and it’s.
00:30:53:18 – 00:30:55:08
Speaker 4
Like dark lighting does that.
00:30:55:09 – 00:30:59:20
Speaker 5
Well, it’s just if it’s casting a shadow. Right. So if you have lighting behind your off to the.
00:30:59:20 – 00:31:01:09
Speaker 4
Side where the light is coming.
00:31:01:09 – 00:31:03:04
Speaker 5
From, need the lighting in front of you.
00:31:03:05 – 00:31:05:11
Speaker 4
So behind the camera pointing at you.
00:31:05:12 – 00:31:23:19
Speaker 5
You can have too much lighting for sure. And then you looked washed out. But it’s a reason why I love natural lighting. It’s why photographers love natural lighting because it does something that artificial lighting can’t do. So the type of light, the tone, the hue of the light, the placement of the light, those are all things that really matter.
00:31:23:19 – 00:31:28:05
Speaker 5
It’s why I never let you take pictures of me, because you never have good angles.
00:31:28:05 – 00:31:32:09
Speaker 4
And part of why I’m asking this question, it’s very self-centered. I need to understand.
00:31:32:10 – 00:31:52:14
Speaker 5
That those would be my two things, like what I have found. And then it’s like, yes, can you use a filter or two? I don’t believe in using AI for enhancements, but a nice filter to it’s like, no problem if we’re going superficial here to go. You know what? I’m 42 and I love everything about being 42 and the fine lines, and I have no problem with that.
00:31:52:14 – 00:32:14:14
Speaker 5
But do I really want them highlighted on camera? Probably not. Like I love the smile lines because it shows that I’ve had a great life, but do I really want them, like featured in close Up? Probably. Probably not. So like let’s subtle subtle the suckers out. And I think a lot of it is just knowing like what makes you comfortable.
00:32:14:16 – 00:32:31:20
Speaker 5
So like for me it’s like I what I don’t really care about is hair, makeup or outfits. Ironically, I care more about lighting and angles. So that’s just me. I know plenty of people who are like, nope, gotta have full hair and makeup to be on camera. That’s not me. Like I don’t care, but I do care about lighting and angles.
00:32:31:20 – 00:32:47:20
Speaker 4
My encouragement to people on that category is look how you look in real life. Like don’t like be. You’re super casual in real life and then like wear a suit or a dress on camera, like, look how you look in real life. And then what I hear you saying is just like, we just want to get the best version of how we look in real life on camera.
00:32:47:21 – 00:33:09:19
Speaker 4
Best version I don’t have very many other tactical tips because I suck at this. One tip would be higher hire people who can make you beautiful on camera. My only tip that I’ve. I learned a while back that has truly stuck with me about cameras is called the tip and turtle. The tip and turtle. Okay, so when you’re taking pictures, this feels awkward.
00:33:09:19 – 00:33:13:15
Speaker 4
But and this is particularly more for stills than it is, I think for video.
00:33:13:16 – 00:33:14:19
Speaker 5
It would be very awkward.
00:33:14:20 – 00:33:33:05
Speaker 4
It’d be very awkward if you did this on video. So this is this is a camera taking thing, but is if you tip forward towards the camera and if you, you stick your neck out, you turtle you it’s called the turtle. You stick your neck out like this is you tip towards the camera and you stick your neck out.
00:33:33:06 – 00:33:53:06
Speaker 4
It feels awkward as heck, but the pictures come out way better so you can try the tip and turtle tip forward towards the camera. Turtle your neck out and you’ll be you’ll be happy with your picture. So there’s your there’s your total, superficial, not purpose driven, complete self-centered set of camera tips. I would just right.
00:33:53:06 – 00:34:18:08
Speaker 5
Here lighting and angles make a world of difference. And then again letting editors do what editors do best. So if you’re listening to this episode and you’re going, this is exactly what I needed to hear to be reminded that I need to be the chief storytelling officer of my company. Would you please do us a favor and one give us a review like this helps other people know if this is a podcast they should listen to.
00:34:18:09 – 00:34:39:12
Speaker 5
So if this was good for you today, will you please leave us a review? That would be so helpful. But then more importantly, if you think this was helpful for you. Do you know someone that you should share it with? Do you know someone who has an amazing story but they’re reluctant to share it and just give them a little nudge of encouragement of hey, I heard something today and it made me think of you.
00:34:39:13 – 00:34:51:18
Speaker 5
Check out this episode. Do yourself a favor by helping a friend and send this over to them. And then if you liked it, and if you haven’t already subscribed, right, subscribe so that you can tune in and hear more from us later.
00:34:51:22 – 00:35:12:11
Speaker 4
Yep. And if you’re looking for ideas for how to convert all of this into cash for your business, request a free call with our company Free Brand Call Podcast. You can talk with one of our strategists about how we work with mission driven messengers to become more well-known and more wealthy with ethics and integrity, and we’d love to hear your story and see if we can help you.
00:35:12:12 – 00:35:19:12
Speaker 4
That’s it for this edition of the Wealthy and Well-known podcast. Until next time, go out and serve the person you once were.
WWK Ep 036: Content Strategy vs. Content Calendar: Why Posting More Isn’t Working
01:00:00:00 – 01:00:05:17
Speaker 3
a content calendar is like a production process of managing a bunch of mechanics.
01:00:05:17 – 01:00:07:02
Speaker 2
that’s not a strategy.
01:00:07:03 – 01:00:08:21
Speaker 2
That’s a repurposing
01:00:08:21 – 01:00:09:17
Speaker 2
process.
01:00:09:17 – 01:00:11:02
Speaker 3
A content strategy
01:00:11:02 – 01:00:14:01
Speaker 3
is a purpose driven, mission driven message
01:00:14:04 – 01:00:22:19
Speaker 1
Most of you listening have a content calendar, but no real content strategy. And that’s why you’re exhausted, burned out, and still feeling invisible on social media.
01:00:22:19 – 01:00:26:00
Speaker 2
There’s a difference between going viral and converting into customers.
01:00:26:01 – 01:00:26:11
Speaker 3
Exactly.
01:00:26:11 – 01:00:37:15
Speaker 1
We break down the difference between just creating content and creating content that actually converts, showing you what keeps entrepreneurs busy versus what our top performing clients do to turn content into customers.
01:00:37:15 – 01:00:41:19
Speaker 3
you’re most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were.
01:00:41:21 – 01:00:46:05
Speaker 1
Ever wonder what it actually takes to build a reputation that generates revenue?
01:00:46:08 – 01:00:50:20
Speaker 1
Rory and AJ Vaden are the powerhouse duo behind Brand Builders Group,
01:00:50:22 – 01:00:52:17
Speaker 1
NYT bestselling authors
01:00:52:19 – 01:00:58:12
Speaker 1
the personal brand experts who have helped some of the world’s most influential leaders scale their personal brands.
01:00:58:15 – 01:00:59:04
Speaker 1
Now
01:00:59:07 – 01:01:00:12
Speaker 1
they’re pulling back the curtain
01:01:00:12 – 01:01:01:21
Speaker 1
on how to capture attention,
01:01:01:21 – 01:01:03:08
Speaker 1
build massive trust,
01:01:03:10 – 01:01:06:05
Speaker 1
turn your expertise into a lasting legacy.
01:01:06:06 – 01:01:13:06
Speaker 1
Get ready to elevate your influence and your income. This is wealthy and well known.
01:01:13:08 – 01:01:17:12
Speaker 2
Most of you listening have a content calendar. Or at least
01:01:17:14 – 01:01:33:14
Speaker 2
some part of one. The challenge is that many of you have zero content strategy, and that’s the reason that most entrepreneurs are exhausted, burned out, and at the end of the day, still feeling invisible with all of their efforts on social media.
01:01:33:16 – 01:01:33:23
Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:01:33:23 – 01:01:43:14
Speaker 3
So we’ll talk about that on this episode and some of our philosophies and strategies around creating content that works in today’s era and market so well.
01:01:43:14 – 01:02:09:11
Speaker 2
Here’s where I think we should start, because I have so many conversations with so many individuals who are just frustrated, overwhelmed, and quite honestly convince themselves that they can’t get customers on social media. Yeah, they’re like, this doesn’t work. It’s not working for me. Like, I literally had a conversation with one of our clients less than a week ago that was like, I’ve been doing exactly what you said for two years, and it doesn’t work.
01:02:09:12 – 01:02:27:04
Speaker 2
I haven’t grown, I haven’t gotten one customer. And my first response is, well, then you’re not doing it right. But then my second response was, why do you think that you’re doing exactly what I said? Tell me exactly what it is that we tell you to do that you’re doing. That’s not working.
01:02:27:05 – 01:02:29:22
Speaker 3
What did they say? That’s a great that’s a great thing. Yeah.
01:02:29:23 – 01:02:35:03
Speaker 2
And it was very fast. And they’re like, I post every single day. And I was like.
01:02:35:04 – 01:02:36:15
Speaker 3
We don’t even tell people to do that.
01:02:36:16 – 01:02:53:20
Speaker 2
Interesting. And they were like, I follow the content diamond like I. And for those of you who are listening, who are like, what’s a content diamond? We’re going to talk about that in this episode. But they’re like, I have been doing the content diamond every week for a year, posting consistently, but then it really got me thinking. It’s like, but
01:02:53:20 – 01:02:55:05
Speaker 2
that’s not a strategy.
01:02:55:06 – 01:02:58:08
Speaker 2
That’s a repurposing process.
01:02:58:14 – 01:03:03:16
Speaker 2
And so I took a little time and I just pulled up their social media.
01:03:03:18 – 01:03:09:16
Speaker 2
and I made some notes and I thought, well, that’s not that doesn’t line up.
01:03:09:17 – 01:03:16:12
Speaker 3
Yeah. So what did you see? That was the gap between what they thought they were doing right and what they were actually doing.
01:03:16:13 – 01:03:32:02
Speaker 2
So here are three things that I think is really important for everyone to pay attention to. The first thing was that they had started an entirely new Instagram account that was not their personal Instagram account. That was a new business account.
01:03:32:04 – 01:03:33:20
Speaker 3
Oh, that business only account.
01:03:33:21 – 01:03:54:03
Speaker 2
Well, not necessarily a business only account, but a an account that they created for their brand. Okay, so now they are separating everything that was who they are. And to only post in content about their product and service. And I thought well we don’t say to do that. That’s, that was the first kind of inclination of why did you do that?
01:03:54:03 – 01:04:13:06
Speaker 2
And they’re like, well, I didn’t find the anyone who was getting any traction and I wasn’t really making any progress on my personal account. So I banned and shipped, made a completely new one. But then when I was on the account, I noticed that it was a woman everywhere. And this particular clients, not a woman. And so I’m like, where are you?
01:04:13:07 – 01:04:22:04
Speaker 2
And they’re like, well, I my product and service is primarily for women. So I figured I needed a woman to do all my content.
01:04:22:09 – 01:04:27:22
Speaker 3
Interesting. So you outsourced your personal brand to not your person?
01:04:28:00 – 01:04:28:15
Speaker 2
Yes.
01:04:28:16 – 01:04:29:03
Speaker 3
Wow.
01:04:29:04 – 01:04:44:07
Speaker 2
And I said, well, how’s that working? It’s not working. I’m like, can’t imagine why that that’s not working. And then the third thing is, none of it was actually about the customer. It was all about the product.
01:04:44:08 – 01:04:46:20
Speaker 3
Oh, there’s the there’s the, there’s the biggest problem.
01:04:46:20 – 01:05:11:00
Speaker 2
And so it just hit me for the very first time in a very tactical like, I can see the difference between what is a content calendar, what you’re doing with consistency. What you’re doing is what you think is repurposing versus a real strategy. And this was all about, hey, what are tips and tricks and formulas and diet combos and workouts?
01:05:11:00 – 01:05:35:14
Speaker 2
And I’m like, that has nothing to do with answering the questions that your customer has. Like, why would they want to have these recipes? Like, what is their desire and their need for some sort of fitness routine? Which is also ironic because this particular clients program has nothing to do with fitness. And I’m like, there’s a disconnect here that you clearly can’t see that old saying, you’re too close to the forest to see the trees.
01:05:35:16 – 01:05:53:17
Speaker 2
And that’s true for all of us, because when we’re so busy, we’re so in it and we’re just like, we’re trying to do all the things that everyone is saying, and the algorithm is changing all the time. The platforms are changing and merging, and now there’s AI, and it’s like we’re just scrambling to try to keep up because most of us don’t have a team right there.
01:05:53:18 – 01:06:12:22
Speaker 2
We are the people creating the content, making the content calendar, filming the content, posting the content. And it’s it is exhausting. And that’s not to say everyone should be doing that, which I think is something we should touch on at some point. And I don’t necessarily think everyone should be on every platform, but that’s a part of the strategy.
01:06:13:00 – 01:06:35:12
Speaker 2
But when you’re just trying to repurpose because people are like, hey, you need this mini, you know, this many posts or this mini reels, this mini platforms at this many times, that’s a calendar. That’s not a strategy. And that’s the difference between social media and thought leadership. There’s a difference between content and social media. And I think today we really need to define what is content.
01:06:35:12 – 01:06:37:18
Speaker 2
And then what is social media.
01:06:37:20 – 01:07:01:00
Speaker 3
And what is strategy and how do those work together. You know, two tactical things that I was thinking about that are mistakes that creators thought leaders make while you were talking. So number one is you don’t want to create content about your product or service. You want to create content that is useful for the types of people who buy your product and service.
01:07:01:02 – 01:07:12:18
Speaker 3
no one’s going to pay attention. If all you’re doing is talking about the thing that you sell. It’s like you got to create content that is useful for people, and that it is for the type of people who buy the thing that you sell.
01:07:12:19 – 01:07:14:20
Speaker 3
And I think a lot of people miss that.
01:07:14:23 – 01:07:41:01
Speaker 3
The other thing that you said, that really blows me away as a huge mistake is outsourcing your personality. Like, the whole thing is this is your personal brand. It the trust comes from you as an individual. And one of my favorite examples is Jefferson Fisher. I mean, this guy built a huge following and it is just phone to camera in his car and that’s it.
01:07:41:02 – 01:08:00:13
Speaker 3
No studio, no fancy mics, no fancy editing, just sharing his expertise. And and like your your person is like a really critical part of your personality and your personal brand. And I think people just are overthinking this and overcomplicating it.
01:08:00:15 – 01:08:22:07
Speaker 2
But I would say the other thing too, is they’re over producing it. Yeah. Like to the point with Jefferson Fisher. And again, that’s all based on what size you are. How long you been in the game? What what the goals and intent are with your different social media accounts. Like are you really immediate entity versus hey. Am I trying to serve and build an audience for my back end, like whatever your primary businesses.
01:08:22:08 – 01:08:46:02
Speaker 2
And that’s one of the things that I have found is very interesting is the more produced it is, quite honestly, at least for me personally, the less likely I am to engage in it. That may not be true for everyone, but that comes back to the strategy of building and creating content that is for your unique audience, and really getting to know them to the point where it’s like,
01:08:46:04 – 01:08:48:01
Speaker 2
I know what they need, I know what they want.
01:08:48:02 – 01:08:51:13
Speaker 2
I know what questions they have, and I’m going to give them the answers.
01:08:51:14 – 01:09:23:05
Speaker 3
Yeah, and I would I want to make sure that people know that a lot of the big creators who have teams are frustrated with the content that their teams are putting out, and a lot of the very polished content is not outperforming the very raw content to this day. By far the highest performing content we have is when you or I talk directly to the camera on the phone like nothing even comes close on a consistent basis to, to to beating that.
01:09:23:11 – 01:09:45:15
Speaker 3
And so I think a lot of new thought leaders or experts who are newer to content creation or social media, they actually like to hide behind the excuse, oh, well, I’ll do this when I have a nicer camera, a bigger setup, more team and go, that’s not it, you. Actually, the magic is in the realness. The magic is in just being honest.
01:09:45:15 – 01:10:04:15
Speaker 3
And the magic, honestly, is being is being useful for your audience. Whether that is really polished like this has become pretty polished over time, or it’s talking direct to the camera, but it’s like, how are you useful to the person on the other side? Doesn’t mean the makeup has to be perfect, doesn’t mean the script has to be perfect.
01:10:04:15 – 01:10:07:15
Speaker 3
It just means you have to be real and useful.
01:10:07:15 – 01:10:13:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I think this is a perfect transition to what is a content calendar versus content strategy.
01:10:13:20 – 01:10:17:10
Speaker 2
So let’s talk about what is a content strategy and how do you get one.
01:10:17:11 – 01:10:18:00
Speaker 3
Okay.
01:10:18:02 – 01:10:36:13
Speaker 3
when most people hear that term content strategy, what they think, I think what they think is wrong. They think social media. When I hear the term content strategy, I think of how social media is going to capture a lead, how we’re going to use email and other things to nurture that lead.
01:10:36:13 – 01:11:00:11
Speaker 3
And then what conversion element do we have in place to move that relationship from trust and ultimately into a transaction? And I think those latter two parts are completely missing from the from the minds of people in that equation. They just think content strategy is like my hook for Instagram, or like my thumbnail on YouTube or my topic selection.
01:11:00:11 – 01:11:29:10
Speaker 3
And to me I’m going, no, that’s just the a piece of the strategy of the of the first third of the overall strategy. And if you don’t have a way to nurture those leads, then it doesn’t matter how much front end strategy you have, you’re never going to make money. So even if this person was doing everything right with the the attract part, if they don’t have a content strategy for the nurture and they don’t have a content strategy for the conversion, then they don’t have a content strategy.
01:11:29:10 – 01:11:35:11
Speaker 3
So that’s how my mind is that how you think of the term, or do you think differently about that term content strategy?
01:11:35:12 – 01:11:55:03
Speaker 2
You know, honestly, yes. But I feel like that’s even step two. Like there’s there’s a step even before that, which is what do you actually have to say? And I think there’s a huge part in that where when things really aren’t clicking and they’re not converting, at some point you have to look at the content to go like, are we missing the mark?
01:11:55:04 – 01:12:11:18
Speaker 2
Are we not reaching our avatar? Are we missing what we’re talking about? Are we over generalizing? Are we trying to whitewash it? Because I think a lot of people are trying to be too broad to general to reach the masses, and that ultimately doesn’t work.
01:12:11:18 – 01:12:17:03
Speaker 3
Well. Yeah. And that’s that’s another major misconception creators have about content.
01:12:17:03 – 01:12:25:13
Speaker 3
They go, I want millions of views and I want lots of customers. And I think it’s more of a question of like, which one do you really want?
01:12:25:14 – 01:12:28:16
Speaker 3
Do you want millions of views or do you want to make money?
01:12:28:18 – 01:12:31:23
Speaker 2
There’s a difference between going viral and converting into customers.
01:12:32:03 – 01:12:32:10
Speaker 3
Exactly.
01:12:32:11 – 01:12:33:12
Speaker 2
Those are different formulas.
01:12:33:12 – 01:12:57:19
Speaker 3
So you when you’re going viral, you are over generalizing. You are watering down. You are appealing to the masses. That’s the definition of viral is creating a piece of content that applies to everyone. When you’re converting customers, you’re creating content that appeals to your avatar, your ICP, your, your person. And and so I think that’s a that is a big part of the struggle.
01:12:57:19 – 01:12:57:23
Speaker 3
So,
01:12:57:23 – 01:13:06:22
Speaker 3
what do you suggest then creators do in terms of how do they select or what type of content should they be creating to, to to fight that balance?
01:13:06:23 – 01:13:25:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. And you guys, if you listen to the show, you’ve heard us say this before, but it start with who? It’s like, who are you making this content for. And it can’t be you. Like you’re not making it for yourself. And what, what what else you’re not doing is you’re not making it for the platform. And I hear a lot of people say, well, this is the content for Instagram.
01:13:26:00 – 01:13:51:17
Speaker 2
Like Instagram is not your avatar, Facebook is not your avatar. TikTok, YouTube, they are not your avatar. That’s not what you’re doing. You are making this content for a human being, a person that you have the ability to help. But again, this is all in context around conversion, whether that’s a follower into an email address, an email address, into a webinar, registration to a customer.
01:13:51:18 – 01:13:52:04
Speaker 2
Right.
01:13:52:04 – 01:14:00:10
Speaker 2
This is the unsexy work that people really don’t love to do, right? They’re like, oh, I’ve done that exercise before. Check. Moving on.
01:14:00:10 – 01:14:04:10
Speaker 3
It’s a 35 to 45 year old female who feels this way, and they think.
01:14:04:10 – 01:14:04:17
Speaker 2
They’re.
01:14:04:17 – 01:14:05:02
Speaker 3
Not it.
01:14:05:03 – 01:14:06:00
Speaker 2
That’s not it. Right.
01:14:06:00 – 01:14:16:11
Speaker 3
I actually am one of those people where I’m like, I don’t want to do this, this work. I’m like, I kind of got it. And then but you’ve always really forced us as a company to be like, no deeper on the who.
01:14:16:11 – 01:14:30:16
Speaker 3
So what do you think most thought leaders do to check the avatar box, or the ideal client profile box, versus what should they be doing to create and drive a real content strategy that converts?
01:14:30:17 – 01:14:46:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, I would say for every exercise you’ve ever done, go do it again, but do it through the lens of service versus the lens of marketing and advertising. And I think a lot of people are doing it through the lens of marketing and advertising. And I’m not saying.
01:14:46:15 – 01:14:55:06
Speaker 3
Which is like total addressable market. How much income do they have? I want to sell to rich people fast and like make a lot of money. And it’s like, that’s not changing the world.
01:14:55:07 – 01:15:18:07
Speaker 2
Yeah. But more importantly, it’s not changing a life. Right? And you can’t change the world until you change people, and then people change the world. And so I think a lot of it is looking at this avatar, right? This ideal customer, this ideal prospect exercise. And there’s millions of them out there. We have a huge part of our curriculum that does that, but it doesn’t have to be with us.
01:15:18:07 – 01:15:38:20
Speaker 2
You can do this in a million different ways, but the heart behind it, the purpose, the intention of it is to really get into an emotional and get in touch emotionally and mentally and physically, spiritually with what is it about this person that I know that I can help?
01:15:38:20 – 01:15:41:15
Speaker 2
Like what fears do they have? What questions do they have?
01:15:41:15 – 01:15:55:02
Speaker 2
What dreams do they have? What keeps them up at night? What is holding them back? What are all of the things that psychologically are manifested in their body, in their brain? Where I’m going
01:15:55:02 – 01:15:56:12
Speaker 2
I have the answer to that.
01:15:56:14 – 01:16:19:15
Speaker 2
Most of us really undervalue the true expertise, the true knowledge we have in an area, because it’s very common to us, and we forget that there’s an entire population of people out there that this is not what they eat, live and breathe every single day. And because you hang out with people that are like you, everyone’s up to speed on, you know.
01:16:19:17 – 01:16:27:16
Speaker 3
This is called the curse of knowledge. When you underestimate the value of what you know because you know it so well, it’s been your whole life to assume everyone else.
01:16:27:17 – 01:16:43:19
Speaker 2
You assume everyone else does. You never talk about it, you never share it, and you hold it in. And we say this all the time. It’s like it is not of service to be the world’s best kept secret. If you have all this knowledge, you’re like, well, you know, they didn’t ask. And it’s like, well, no, they didn’t, but that doesn’t mean they’re not seeking.
01:16:43:19 – 01:17:08:11
Speaker 2
And the point of you creating thought leadership, creating content, your products and services are to go and serve those unique individuals. The problem is that when you don’t focus in on a person versus a group of people, it has to be a person. Then everything does come out generic. Most of us have set in an audience in a church and left going.
01:17:08:13 – 01:17:30:12
Speaker 2
How? How could that have been so uniquely to me? Like, are they reading my journal? Did my spouse call them? Like, how could that have been so uniquely designed to hit me exactly where it hit me today? And when that happens, you know that this this content, this message, this keynote, this presentation, the sermon was created with intentionality for a person.
01:17:30:12 – 01:17:55:12
Speaker 2
And I know the most impactful presentations in the world were created because someone set down and said, I know someone that needs to hear this, and if there’s at least one, there has to be at least one more and likely one more after that. So I’m going to hit the bull’s eye of this target so uniquely, so specifically because I have a person in mind and for most of it is someone we know and it’s who we used to be or it’s for us.
01:17:55:12 – 01:18:24:10
Speaker 2
And because of that, that dialed in nature of how target it is, the right person hears it in a way that they’re like, oh, that’s for me. Like, I’ve been looking for this. How did this show up in my feed today? And I think that’s really that’s what people miss. They use it as a marketing exercise versus an exercise of I have a unique gifting, a unique set of skills, a unique knowledge base that actually has the power to change someone’s life.
01:18:24:10 – 01:18:45:03
Speaker 3
Yeah. And I think that a lot of people do that avatar exercise is like, what’s the fastest way for me to make profit? But really, you should think of that avatar exercise as what’s the fastest way to find my purpose? Because I think for most of us, our why is a who like the reason for for at least for our audience.
01:18:45:03 – 01:18:51:02
Speaker 3
We know that our audience is mission driven messengers. They’re doing this not just to make money, but to make a difference.
01:18:51:02 – 01:18:55:07
Speaker 3
It’s going, this is the purpose of my business. This is why I exist.
01:18:55:07 – 01:18:57:23
Speaker 3
I exist to serve this person.
01:18:57:23 – 01:19:20:16
Speaker 3
And you know, as you’re talking, I walk away with three very tactical, specific things you said. So one is don’t talk to people. Talk to a person. Number two, it’s not so much about demographics is about psychographics, their feelings. And then number three, and this is this is the ultimate secret. And if you if you get this, you get everything.
01:19:20:16 – 01:19:24:16
Speaker 3
If you don’t get this, you’re probably going to miss it. And it’s the thing that we say all the time,
01:19:24:16 – 01:19:28:20
Speaker 3
you’re most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were.
01:19:28:22 – 01:19:45:03
Speaker 3
Why do we say that? Because it’s true. Because that’s the person you know in the deepest way. And I think one of my favorite quotes of all time is from Henry Ford, where he says, if I would have asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.
01:19:45:05 – 01:19:56:05
Speaker 3
I think the reason that people haven’t asked you for your advice is because they don’t even know what to ask. You know their journey better than they do.
01:19:56:07 – 01:20:02:01
Speaker 3
Because I’ve already been down it. And that’s the content that is so powerful if you’re serving the person you once were.
01:20:02:02 – 01:20:05:11
Speaker 2
And honestly, that is step one of content strategy.
01:20:05:11 – 01:20:06:03
Speaker 3
Is the who.
01:20:06:04 – 01:20:11:21
Speaker 2
It is the who. Because once you have that, the very next thing you do is go, what are the questions they have?
01:20:11:21 – 01:20:32:04
Speaker 2
And that is the basis of your content. Everything stems. Everything comes out of knowing what are the questions they have that I have the answers to? Because if I’m constantly asking the same question in my head or in my circle, and I’m not getting an answer and I’m just ruminating on how do I do this, how do I do this, how do I do this?
01:20:32:04 – 01:20:51:03
Speaker 2
And then I come across a person and a book, a keynote, a presentation, a real it doesn’t matter, a podcast. And they have the answer, what am I going to do? I’m going to learn more. Well, I got to learn about this person. What else do they do? Like what other episodes do they have? Like what book do I need to buy?
01:20:51:03 – 01:21:15:04
Speaker 2
What what programs do they offer? But it’s because there was a specific question answered that is really uniquely tailored to me. So I just think that that is the unsexy behind the scenes. No one gets to see the end result of it immediately. We want to rush through it. But if we if we skip that part, if we don’t nail that part, then the results are exhausted, overwhelmed, burned out and visible.
01:21:15:05 – 01:21:21:19
Speaker 2
Doing all the work and not seeing the results. And it’s because we didn’t do it with a person in mind to begin with.
01:21:21:21 – 01:21:56:09
Speaker 3
If if someone is struggling with their content right now or they’re going, it’s not converting, it’s not performing. My guess is they are they they don’t understand the difference between intensity and specificity. And if you are in a crowded room, a networking space, there’s this murmur over the room. You don’t hear the conversation, but the moment someone says Amanda or AJ or Rory, it it rips you like we could be having a conversation and somebody over here says Rory.
01:21:56:10 – 01:22:27:02
Speaker 3
And it would. It rips my attention from our conversation. It steals it. But it’s not because they yelled it. It’s because they used my name. That’s the difference between intensity or volume versus specificity. And I think thought leaders really need to choose to go. Do I want a million people to see this, or would I rather have ten people see this that would buy, because it’s such a specific signal that I become the only option.
01:22:27:02 – 01:22:48:11
Speaker 3
And they trust me. And I think the other part that is is tearing at them is their ego. Because the ego is like, I want to I want to help everybody. I want to have millions of people see my stuff versus going, now I if ten people buy from me. I can change those ten lives and I can also make a lot more money.
01:22:48:12 – 01:22:55:13
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I think that this whole idea of content strategy starts with the who and then everything comes out of that.
01:22:55:13 – 01:22:59:20
Speaker 2
once you know your who, that also helps you prioritize the platform.
01:22:59:20 – 01:23:28:08
Speaker 2
And the whole idea of why I think a lot of people are exhausted and overwhelmed is they’re trying to produce content or repurpose content for every single platform out there, and they don’t have a team, right? And guess what? YouTube is very different than meta, which is very different than LinkedIn. And I think there’s a lot of stuff happening where it’s going, hey, to be really successful in any one of these, you have to have a strategy for each one.
01:23:28:10 – 01:24:04:08
Speaker 2
I don’t believe that there is one universal social media strategy that works universally at this point of where we are in technology that’s like, hey, this this really works well for me here on Instagram. So I’m going to do the exact same thing on every other platform. That’s not necessarily true. And if you’re a solo, an entrepreneur where this is not your full time job, that is exhausting because it’s like whether you’re going to hire out every single agency or a person to do this full time, or you’re doing it yourself, and it’s like, I always say that with like me and taxes, I was like, how could I possibly keep up with the amount
01:24:04:08 – 01:24:38:07
Speaker 2
of tax changes and policy changes that are happening every single year? And then there’s new taxes for every single state, and every state does sales tax differently. Like, how could me as an entrepreneur constantly keep up with that? It’s impossible. And I feel a little bit like that with social media and content of going, hey, once you know who your avatar is, they most likely have a primary platform that they spend time on, which should be your primary platform that you create content for.
01:24:38:08 – 01:24:49:02
Speaker 2
That’s not to say you can’t share it to other platforms, but it’s also saying you shouldn’t dilute your efforts into every single platform. But by the look on your face you may disagree with.
01:24:49:03 – 01:25:11:17
Speaker 3
I mean, I’m processing. You say that you say that a lot, and I know I agree with I agree very much with the premise that every platform at this point requires a specific, unique strategy. I think the closest to a universal piece of content is short form video. Right? Because I think TikTok, Instagram, YouTube shorts, LinkedIn, meta, a short form video could work.
01:25:11:17 – 01:25:35:18
Speaker 3
But definitely just like we have videos that go viral on Instagram, the exact same video doesn’t go viral on TikTok. Like we know that same same with LinkedIn. So I agree with I very much agree with what you’re saying on that. I think, you know, there is a measure of what is the what is the cost of time to take one great piece of content and like literally put it in other places.
01:25:35:18 – 01:26:11:13
Speaker 3
Sometimes that cost is low enough that it’s worth it. But I think the real crux of the issue and where we’re aligned is when people think content calendar, they think content repurposing. They’re focused on the mechanics of social media. How much should I have to you know, Gary Vee says I have to post 100 pieces of content a week, or Alex Ramos poses 3000 pieces of content a week and it’s like, okay, I have to like, just do this, this, this arbitrary exercise of creating content and it’s the mechanics, and I should plan it out and I should schedule it going.
01:26:11:14 – 01:26:22:15
Speaker 3
No, the real part is the heartbeat behind it. It’s the it’s the emotional connection behind it. And I think listening just as we’ve gone through this, to me, it’s like
01:26:22:15 – 01:26:28:12
Speaker 3
a content calendar is like a production process of managing a bunch of mechanics.
01:26:28:14 – 01:26:33:05
Speaker 3
A content strategy is a purpose driven, mission driven message
01:26:33:05 – 01:26:41:00
Speaker 3
for a person. It’s a purpose that you know, it’s your life’s purpose and that is what has connection.
01:26:41:01 – 01:26:51:07
Speaker 3
The other one is just mechanics, and that’s why one works on us. Even if you have a small audience and the other doesn’t work, even if you’re paying a bunch of people to try to help you do a bunch of stuff.
01:26:51:08 – 01:27:13:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, I think the same thing happens in business, right? It’s like most people started a business or joined a business because they felt aligned with the purpose, the passion, the calling, the role, the people. But then you get into it and it becomes all about business because you get really caught up in all the tasks and the deadlines and the works and the projects and the updates and the calls and the meetings.
01:27:13:21 – 01:27:31:18
Speaker 2
And you look up one day and you’re like, wait, why are we doing this? What am I doing? And I think the exact same thing happens with your content. It’s like when it all becomes about the production schedule, the calendar, the algorithm, the views, the, the, the. I could go on and on just the it’s the the right.
01:27:31:19 – 01:27:38:07
Speaker 2
It’s like whatever the new the is when it becomes about that, it really does lose the heart behind it. Right? Because there is a
01:27:38:08 – 01:27:49:04
Speaker 2
heart and mission and purpose of content. But then there’s the business of content. And content has become a business, a very big business. But there is the heart of it and there’s the business of it.
01:27:49:04 – 01:28:04:20
Speaker 2
And we got to have both right. For it to really work. There has to be both, because you also can’t just be like, well, well, you know what I heard Rory and AJ say is that if I just tune into my avatar and just speak to the heart, it all worked. Well, we’re not saying that either. You’re just saying that’s where you have to start.
01:28:05:02 – 01:28:30:08
Speaker 2
But there is a science and a business of it too, of predictability, of going like, hey, humans thrive on consistency and regularity. And if I only hear from you sporadically every few months, it’s like, I’m not going to come because I never know what I’m going to get. So there is also, I think the nature of like humans do internally really thrive with routine and habits and expectations, and we have to give that to them too.
01:28:30:09 – 01:28:45:15
Speaker 2
And that’s where a calendar is really helpful. But it doesn’t have to be something that stresses you out, burns you out. And here’s what I would say for everyone listening when it comes to a content strategy versus a content calendar, the moment that it feels like it’s just a checklist for you is the moment
01:28:45:15 – 01:28:57:20
Speaker 2
You need to step back and go, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Why am I doing this? Who am I doing it for? Because it’s all all too quickly become about the business of the content, not the person that it was actually built for.
01:28:57:22 – 01:29:18:05
Speaker 3
Yeah. So there’s two resources I think we can point people to to help them with this. So first of all, if you if you haven’t yet, go to Free Brand audiobook. It’s free. Free brand audiobook. And it’s you wrote the chapter on avatar in here. Oh actually no I did. I can’t remember who wrote the chapter we read.
01:29:18:06 – 01:29:41:03
Speaker 3
We read both of our each other’s chapters, but there’s a chapter in Wealthy and Well Known that walks through specifically avatar and how to find your who. And the other thing is, if you go, okay, I’ve done some of that work, I need some help managing the mechanics because because that does matter too. And going, I need some help pulling this together and figuring out, okay, what questions should I be asking?
01:29:41:04 – 01:30:00:10
Speaker 3
How do I organize all of this? If you go to free brand, call, free brand call, you can request a call, talk with our team one on one, and we’ll just get to hear a little bit about your vision and share with you how we support people. But the first call is free and we’ll we’ll walk you through how we work with people.
01:30:00:10 – 01:30:01:02
Speaker 3
01:30:01:04 – 01:30:02:18
Speaker 3
Was the last thing you want to leave people
01:30:02:20 – 01:30:05:21
Speaker 3
We’ve covered a lot of ground today. Final thoughts?
01:30:05:22 – 01:30:11:02
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think my final thoughts, if I were going to have anyone who’s listening walk away with an action item,
01:30:11:02 – 01:30:16:08
Speaker 2
it would genuinely be go back, sit down today and redo your avatar.
01:30:16:10 – 01:30:20:10
Speaker 2
it’s like setting goals. You don’t set one goal and never go back and said another.
01:30:20:10 – 01:30:33:09
Speaker 2
But a lot of people, they say, oh, I did that avatar exercise thing ten years ago or a year ago. And it’s like, well, you don’t do that with goals. What goals change and evolve? Guess what? So does your audience.
01:30:33:11 – 01:30:40:18
Speaker 2
So does your avatar. Because you grow and evolve, your business grows and evolve. Your products and services are changing constantly,
01:30:40:23 – 01:30:42:08
Speaker 2
especially in today’s market.
01:30:42:08 – 01:31:00:04
Speaker 2
So I think it’s a really good thing leaving this episode to go before I focus on the business, the mechanics, the calendar, the platforms, the algorithms, which after all important. I’m not saying they’re not. It’s to step back and go, hey, I need to pull up this avatar, this who? That my business is for
01:31:00:06 – 01:31:10:05
Speaker 2
once? You know you’re who in that intimate of a level, you will have the answer to all of those next questions that actually build out the content, calendar and mechanics.
01:31:10:07 – 01:31:18:05
Speaker 3
Yeah, we know as you get clear about who the question about every other downstream decision becomes super clear. And then I would say so
01:31:18:05 – 01:31:21:16
Speaker 3
I would agree first action, do that. Second action,
01:31:21:18 – 01:31:27:15
Speaker 3
Make a list of every single question that person has. Ancer those questions one at a time.
01:31:27:15 – 01:31:52:19
Speaker 3
And I would challenge everyone to go, don’t do it fancy. Do it right here. One question at a time. Answer a video. Post that every day and see if it doesn’t change everything about your business. Make sure you send this episode to someone who you think would enjoy it. Or if you’re listening, going, oh my gosh, I know exactly who needs to hear this episode if it isn’t you, but we would love also your help rating and reviewing this podcast wherever you listen.
01:31:52:19 – 01:32:04:01
Speaker 3
That helps new people find it and keeps us attracting the highest quality guests to to bring on this show for your benefit. We’re so glad you’re here. Until next time, go out and find someone to serve.