Category: Podcast

Ep 354: Running Profitable Virtual Events with Bari Baumgardner

RV (00:02):
Well, if you are a mission driven messenger, that’s probably why you’re listening to the show. And if that is you, you had your life interrupted in a big way by covid, as did everyone. But specifically those of us that are speakers, coaches, authors, experts, personal brands of events and speaking at events and hosting events has been a really big part of is what we do. And when Covid hit, the whole world of events changed. And one of the companies that was quick to jump to the front of the line in terms of their thought leadership, the event production going virtual is an event called, or is a, is a company called Sage Event Management. And you’re about to meet Bari Baumgartner, she’s the founder of the company, she’s the chief strategist. She runs it with her husband Blue, who handles some more of the technology and sort of creative sides.
RV (00:56):
But when I tell you that these two and their company went to the forefront of the industry, it happened virtually overnight. Part of it was Tony Robbins was one of their, their big clients where they helped to put on this massive live virtual event he has has unleashed the power within U P W and they’re the team that helped Tony take that event Virtual which has become a smashing success. It’s affected thousands and thousands of people. They’ve also worked with Dean Graziosi, Jeff Walker Jamie Kern Lima, another good friend of ours, Eric Wary, Pete Vargas. Amy Porterfield, another brand builders group client of ours. So they’ve worked with a lot of our friends, a lot of our clients they have a really key technology piece that a lot of people are using, but it’s more of just understanding the strategy of how to produce high dollar offer virtual events and how to use virtual events to to grow your platform and your business. So anyways, Barry is here with me in person. Barry, I’m so glad to meet you. Thanks for making time for us.
BB (02:01):
Absolutely Rory, thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.
RV (02:04):
So what exactly do you do? Okay, so I kind of give that like a background, but like tell us, how would you de describe what you, what you guys do at Sage?
BB (02:15):
Yeah, thank you for asking. I think what’s really interesting about what we do that’s different from a lot of event production companies out there as we lead with strategy first. So our company Sage actually stands for strategic advice for growing events. And from our very first day opening our doors, gosh it’s hard to believe it was 18 years ago out of a guest bedroom in my house, I opened Sage Event Management. And the concept was what’s the strategy behind the event? And you know, I think it’s interesting an event world, so much of it is checklisting, right? Like you have to checklist a little bit to get it done. Yeah. And I often think, and I don’t mean any disrespect to event planners who do it this way, but a lot of times it’s almost like a glorified waitress, a glorified order taker. It’s like, yes ma’am, yes sir, let’s make it happen.
BB (03:00):
You know, it’s an expectations plus kind of industry. But so often I find that people don’t ask why are we doing it? So, you know, if you come to Sage, the first question we’re gonna ask you is, what’s your big why? Like, what are you out there to do to change the world? What does it mean to you personally to do it? Who are you meant to serve? What are your non-negotiables and how do you make that right? Fit client rave, renew and recruit. It’s at the heart of everything we do. And then we design your live event and then we design the logistics to support the live event. So that strategy first approach, I think is what differentiated us from the beginning and led to us working with some of the biggest names in the personal development and business development space. Mm-Hmm.
RV (03:38):
, I love that. So any brand builder client that comes to you, they better know the answer to those questions cuz that’s what we help them get super clear on is who are they serving, how are they make money doing it? Why are they there? What problem do they solve? And you know, I’ll say that like for me, I got into this space because I wanted to be a speaker. That was like my original dream. And you know, I’ve spent 20 years doing that, but I’ve never, I I’ve, I’ve, I’ve understood very little about the event production side and sort of putting it on. But you know, I made my career standing on stage speaking in front of lots of people. When you talk about virtual events, obviously Covid changed the world, rocked everybody’s world. And when you said, when you talk about virtual events, you say that virtual events are what works for a live event. 80% of what works for a live event works for a virtual event, but 20% needs to be different. Can you talk about what, what is that 20% and and what do you mean by that?
BB (04:40):
Yeah, absolutely. Well first of all, I think that Covid did for the events industry, what nine 11 did to the travel industry, it changed it forever. You know, after nine 11 travel never looked the same. And after Covid, I think events are never gonna look the same. It ushered in a whole new way of communicating with our audiences. And what was interesting, listen, for 15 years we’ve done in-person events and I think of them specifically as enrollment events. Our events always have a high ticket offer. So speakers, authors, coaches who are selling a one to many group coaching program or mastermind. That’s what I think of as a high ticket offer. And so we’re reverse engineering the event around that high ticket offer.
RV (05:16):
Say that again. What did just go, sorry, but rewind there quick. You said it’s a mastermind or a a one to one or a group coaching program? Yeah,
BB (05:24):
It could be one to one like, you know, VIP days or a done for you service. It could be a one to many like a group coaching program or a mastermind. Any of those things could be part of what you’re doing. But when I think of a high ticket offer, I’m generally thinking of an offer that’s 5,000 and above one that would take an audience more than a minute to think about more than, you know, something you might sell on a webinar or a challenge or a launch. You know those well for some audiences I think it’s still a big investment. When you start thinking of a high ticket offer, it’s one that might give you pause. Like that’s a big investment, how am I gonna pay for that? And the, the three day model, the three day event model calibrated properly, this is the framework we’re talking about actually will lead your audience to say this is amazing, I want more.
BB (06:06):
And you’re like, I thought you would, I have something for you. And that’s your high ticket offer. So when you get to that 80% role you were talking about what’s awesome about what we learned from Covid and doing virtual events is that in-person events and virtual events are 80% the same. The framework that we’ve always taught that we use for the biggest names in the business and for people you’ve never heard of is 80% the same, the 20% that’s different between in-person and virtual is what we call tech and touch. The technology is different and the touch points are different, but the good news is the framework for making a high ticket offer is the same. And why that’s good for you is if you wanna do in person or you wanna do virtual, you wanna do both. You’re not sure. It doesn’t matter if you learn the framework, you can easily pivot between the two.
RV (06:51):
Okay. So, so talk to me about the three day event strategy. Cause I know this is like big part of what you guys do and then sort of like, like you’re saying, it’s, it sounds like you were doing this long before, you’ve been doing this for years and years Covid happened, you were one of the first ones to go virtual. You guys did it with Tony, it was the smashing success. And then like all of a sudden you guys blew up and now you’re like everywhere you broke through the wall, as we say it’s like you broke through the wall. But it’s, if, if I, from what I gather sort of your bread and butter is like if you’re gonna make a high ticket offer, you do that over a three day event. So can you just like walk us through what happens over these three days? How long is it, where is it? Like all all that? I mean clearly you’re talking about that we could actually do this virtually.
BB (07:35):
Yes. Yeah. And I really do think that COVID ushered in this virtual opportunity. I think of it as the democratization of live events. Meaning that you don’t have to have a big list, you don’t have to have a big studio, you don’t have to big budget, you don’t have to have a big production. You can do this with a computer, a TV, and a Zoom account. We’ll come back to that in just a minute. Okay. So it’s that simple. So this is what’s really amazing about virtual, but the three day framework that we’ve become known for is based on the fact that there are two types of buyers for high ticket offer. A logical buyer and an emotional buyer. An emotional buyer when they hear an offer is like, sounds great. I meant where do I sign up? That’s my husband blue. Like he’s never met an offer he doesn’t like. Like if you’re that kinda buyer, then you’re an emotional buyer.
RV (08:20):
What’s driving down the street? Saw banners had had free hot dogs, walked home with a brand new Lexus, like for
BB (08:25):
Sure, for sure. Or we have like the toothpaste subscription, the sock subscription, the underwear, , you know, all the things. But I’m a logical buyer, right? And so a logical buyer is more likely to be like, this sounds interesting, but when you say recorded, what does that mean when you say live? You know, they’re asking every question. And really I think the world is made up of both buyers. And when you think of a high ticket offer, you need to cater to both. And what I find happens so often, and it will hold an up and coming speaker, author, coach, course creator it’ll keep them stuck, hold them hostage is thinking, I’m not ready for a three day, that must be so much content, so much work. I’ll do a one day, sure I’ll do a half day. And the problem with that, I always like to phrase it this way, if I had more time, I’d write you a shorter letter.
BB (09:09):
Meaning that it’s harder to write a short letter than a long letter. Is it harder to give a TED talk or a workshop? Yep. A TED talk, right? Every word has to be perfect. So why I love a three day event, especially for people who are up and coming and wanna make a high ticket offer, is that it, it’s really flexible and it’s very forgiving. Meaning that if you don’t get your offer perfect in a three day, you have a lot of time for recovery and repositioning, which is especially important for those logical buyers. When you do a one day everything better, be perfect for that high ticket offer or you’re not gonna get the sales you want. So I’ve devoted our business and my life to teaching people this three day model and this framework that actually takes the, the buyer, the potential buyer through a process of, I think of this as buyer’s psychology, what you can do that, oh wait a minute, I could do that.
BB (09:58):
Oh wait, now that I hear how you do this, I will do that. And then when you make your offer, you’re like, oh, I must do that. And when you hear the repitch on the last day, you’re like, I am crazy not to do that. So I think our journey as a host, as an event host who’s making a high ticket offer is to take them from you can do that. To wait, I could do that to, I will do that, I must do that. I’m crazy not to do that. And a logical buyer needs that time. An emotional buyer is like, what you can do that I could do that I’m in, where do I sign up? But the logical buyer needs time to actually process it and think through it. And the three day model gives you the opportunity to do that, whether you’re doing it in person or virtually doesn’t matter.
RV (10:34):
Yeah. And one of the things that you said we were chatting a little bit before is that you know, we were talking about like some of the events like Ed, for Ed Millet’s book launch. Many listeners are familiar. We did a whole bunch of stuff with Ed’s launch. One of the things was a live event. We were using your technology to run the Zoom rooms. So we host Yeah, it was awesome. I mean like, like it was, it was great. We, we, we hosted the event at Steven Scoggins place. He’s a client of ours, he’s one of our strategists. We love the guy. He’s the one who was like, you know, that was one of the first times I heard Barry and Blue Barry and Blue Barry and Blue . And so if you look at a three day event you said earlier, and I agree with this, that for most people a hybrid event is gonna be pretty difficult. It’s pretty difficult to fill a room. Like we had a hard time getting 400 people there for Ed. I mean it was, we had a high price point, but getting 400 people there and then all the people online. But you said a virtual event. There’s like, there’s like no risk, there’s no hotel deposits, there’s no food and beverage minimum. There’s, there’s no parking passes, there’s no like all of these things you can go live. But if, is this like three eight hour days? Is that like
BB (11:46):
It is. And here’s what’s amazing about this. So when, when Covid first hit, this was like March 15th, 2020 and Trump was forced to shut the country down and we were actually at an event in Miami and just a quick, quick story. We were flying in from a strategy day in Puerto Rico with Stu McLaren actually to a, to this event in Miami. And you know, we’re a million miles. I mean it’s a dubious honor. You fly a lot, you get upgraded a lot cuz you’re flying all the time. And we almost always get upgraded to first class and we’re flying into Miami and we didn’t get upgraded And I’m like, you know, I turn to my husband blue, I’m like, this is not really a thing. This whole covid thing is so hyped up when the airport’s this busy, the flights are this busy. Like it’s just, I think it’s just a bunch of media hype while we’re at this event in Miami, the country shuts down and literally as we’re flying home on an empty flight, we were in first class on this, we’re the only people in first class.
BB (12:37):
It was like a zombie airport, you know, we’re flying home. I’m like, okay, now it’s a thing. Now we have a problem. And literally we went from, well we were, I remember being in Puerto Rico and having clients call going, should we be worried about our event? I’m like, no it’s fine. It’s not a thing to literally that week people calling and like postpone, cancel, postpone, cancel, postpone, cancel. And if you’re the kind of business we are, we have a lot of repeat business. Somebody postponing to the next year or saying, I’m gonna cancel this year and we’ll revisit this when this thing blows over is lost money. Like you’re not, we were expecting you to do this again next year. Right? So the fact that you’re postponing, you know, where where are we replacing the money from this year? And we had this choice of either going down to being a consultancy and letting our team go, which I really did not wanna do cuz we have an amazing team or rethinking it.
BB (13:23):
And this is like the quick pivot. Within two weeks we went from to our first client, which actually was not Tony, it was a guy named Dylan Frost. I’ll forever be grateful to Dylan Frost of Amazon Wholesale Formula. We went to him and said, Hey, your event was supposed to be the first week of April in person. We’ve tried live streams and broadcasts and some will cast before they’ve never worked not with high ticket offers. There’s never a good conversion on them cuz they’re very passive. I want you to think about this with me as we’re thinking about what’s different and in person and virtual, they’re very passive ex viewing experiences. We’re broadcasting at you, we’re not talking with you. Sure. And we said, but we have an idea for this event being interactive and being virtual and it may be a total disaster. And to give credit where credits due, my husband Blue came up with this idea.
BB (14:06):
He literally said, what if we were to put a bunch of TVs together and link them all together in a way that we could see all these different Zoom galleries, have people come to different rooms so that we can see all of their faces and we can chat with all of them so that it’s an interactive experience. It’s not just that we’re broadcasting at them, we’re actually able to spotlight them and take q and a and interact with them and see their chats. And so again, when you ask what makes us different, I think because of the kind of company we are, immediately what we did different from any other tech platform was rather than focus on the audience experience, we focused on the host experience. What we know to be true is if the host isn’t getting that real time interaction, if they’re not feeling it, the event’s gonna be a flop.
BB (14:49):
So when we went to Dylan, we said we have an idea, let’s partner on this. We’ve got two weeks to put it together. Let’s just float it out there and see what happens. Now this event in person for three years had been about 300 people domestic US. And when we launched the idea of an international, like anybody come one come all you can sign up for this virtual event. It’s gonna be interactive and experiential. We went from a solid 300 over the last three years to 1200 and less than a week. And for the first, and it was free. Was it free? It was paid. It was paid. No, that was one of our rules paid like a webinar is free, a challenge is free, an event’s not free. And this goes back to tech and touch. So thank you for asking me that. Immediately what we did were four non-negotiables that we’ve stuck with since because they’ve worked so well.
BB (15:35):
If you’re going and this is where tech and touch the 20%, that’s different. Think about an amazing in-person experience that you’ve had at an event. You never start an event without registration, right? You have to get credentialed, you have to go to registration and pick up your badge. So one of the first things we did with virtual is say you have to go to registration and pick up your credentials. So we did a virtual check-in experience and that made sure that they would show up the morning of day one knowing what to do. Like you don’t wanna start an in person or a virtual experience. People going, where do I go and where do I click and how does this work again? So by having a check-in experience, just like you would from person just virtualized we did it by Zoom. We literally had live people on Zoom checking people in making sure they knew how to use our tech platform, Avio, which we created virtually overnight.
BB (16:24):
And making sure that they were set up for success so that we started on time on day one with no tech fails. That was point number one of the 20%. That’s different. The other thing that we did is we sent swag, physical swag to every single person who registered even if it had to be overnighted. And the reason for that is we wanted to differentiate ourselves from a webinar. You know, how many webinars do you like? I’m gonna sign up for this, it’s free. I might go, I’ll catch the replay. You’re not really super serious about it. Which is why they generally have a 30% show up rate. But if an event had a 30% show up rate, that’s a disaster. So we made a, we had this idea, what if you got physical swag, someone knocks on the door and literally hands you a box or an envelope with swag in it.
BB (17:08):
You’re like wow, well this is a different kind of event. This is definitely not a three day zoom meeting. This is definitely not a webinar. What, what’s in here? Oh my gosh. Like a journal and a workbook and some stickers and some emoji paddles so that I can you know, interact with you from afar and you can see my interaction and my emotion from afar when you’re on stage. Not only did they get more excited about the event, there was some recipro of frost in that. So they did better at showing up for the event and they were more likely to remember that it was different than a zoom. You know, when you said how long could the meeting be? We were toying around with that on the first one. Like will they stay with us for eight full hours? Right? And what we found was the third point that’s critical on the difference in tech and touch, which is some form of gamification.
BB (17:51):
There has to be some form of interaction with them in the form of breakouts, giving them points for showing up points for taking action. And that’s where Avio comes in. The dashboard that we created allowed them to have a wrapper on Zoom. So they’re all using Zoom technology. There’s 350 million people on Zoom at any one moment in time. Like that’s not user accounts, it’s 350 million people using Zoom at this moment in time. Wow. So people know Zoom and I think that was something else people were getting wrong in the conversion to virtual. There were all these fancy solutions, but it was like make a fake avatar and knock on a fake door, go into it, it was a little too techy and people would be turned off by what do I have to learn in order to attend this event? Right? Everybody knows Zoom. I mean grandparents know it, kids know it, everybody in between.
BB (18:35):
So it was an easy solution but we had to put a rapper on it that allowed people to have interaction, to be able to download resources, to be able to take action and for us to reward that action through leaderboard and gifts and all kinds of interactions so that they would stay with us for three full days. And what we found was 90% showed up consistently event over event. And of that 90% they would stay with us for three full days. And here’s what I really love about virtual. Stay with us for three full days. You remember in person events where at the end of the, I
RV (19:08):
Gotta go early to go to catch a flight. Yep. To get home in time for dinner.
BB (19:11):
You got it. They don’t have to the virtual.
RV (19:14):
So what was the fourth
BB (19:15):
One? Yeah, the fourth one is that there has to be I think some form of interactivity, like that breakout piece that I mentioned is really critical. Like I really think they need interactivity where they’re being do you know in in-person events where it’s like turn to the person next to you or you’re meeting in the coffee shop or maybe you’re chatting in the ballroom waiting for the doors to open. There has to be this component that allows them to interact with the host and with each other. Chat is brilliant for that, but so is sending them into breakouts where they’re literally talking with each other because part of the three day framework that works for a high ticket offer is building a like-minded community. You need to experience virtually that wow, you’re from Brazil, you’re from Russia, you’re from wherever. And yet we’re also alike.
BB (20:00):
I think the thing that people were most craving in Covid, but really has always been true of live events is to be surrounded by a group of like-minded people. Like that’s really critical. And so if, if again with livestream what never worked is we’re broadcasting at you versus having an interactive experience where we’re reading your chat. I mean, what I love most now is standing on stage and getting real time feedback on whether you’re with me or not with me. Whether you get the content or you don’t, whether you love what I’m saying or you don’t, whether you have a question, I can pluck that question out and answer it in the moment. It actually starts to be one of those things and you go back to in person, it feels a little flat cuz the most reaction you could get would be a clap, a laugh, or a, you know, callback, right? Like, you know, who’s with me? You know, that kind of thing. So
RV (20:42):
You’re not reading, reading comments. Exactly. Some people put their life story right there in the chat. So yes. But, and, and I agree with this, it’s like most of it previously was there’s a live event happening and the live stream is, we’re letting people watch that, which is, this is, it’s virtual first. We’re talking to them, we’re engaging them. So I’m still like curious about the three, this three day agenda. Like how much of it are you on stage? Are you bringing in guest speakers? How much time are they in breakouts? Like when do you make the offer like that kind of a thing?
BB (21:16):
Yeah, it’s a great question. I mean I think from a high level like macro view, what I really think works in a three day event is what I call the three by three p g. Meaning that you’re doing three things over three days. So each day, three things. The first day our sole focus is content connection, community. I wanna give you amazing content, especially important virtual so that they come back, right? Like for day two and day three, this is not a bait and switch where you have light superficial content. Like give them just enough to be dangerous and then they have to buy the thing to get the real stuff. Your goal is to really give them amazing content that has them having aha after aha after aha. We often call this accumulation effect where every session builds on the one before it. So by the end of the day you have a real idea of a framework.
BB (22:00):
And again, you’re starting to think, I can do that, I will do that. Like this is possible. I will do that. The next piece is connection. Connection to the host, connection to the community. But most importantly, and this is true for in person and virtual events, most importantly a connection to themselves. Like why we come to events is for a sense of what’s possible for us. And I think what people miss a lot on an high ticket offer is, if I don’t believe it’s possible, I’m not gonna pay you to help me make it possible. I have to believe there’s a future in this that I can do this in order for me to want to pay you to help me do it. So that sense of the future self versus the current self is how we start to establish the gap. The gap from where I want to be versus where I am.
BB (22:42):
The minute I see a gap, what do I wanna do? Close the gap, right? And now that I see it, I wanna close it, which gets me to day two. So day one, content connection community day two is about closing that gap. It’s about pain. The exposure of that gap is, I’m in pain now because I can see where I wanna be. I can see where I’m stuck, I really wanna close that gap. I need a solution that’s the s the solution. And then that’s gonna come in the form of an invitation. So it looks like this, wow, I feel like you’re really in pain around the gap in your life or in your business. But here’s the thing I have a solution for that I’d like to invite you to join me to continue the journey for the next six months or for the next year or whatever it might be.
BB (23:24):
So that second day is pain solution invitation. Literally leading people to want your high ticket offer before you’ve even made it so that when they hear it, they’re like, that’s exactly what I was looking for. Like I thought you would, you know why you’re my right fit client, I know you. Which goes back to what you teach R right? It’s like if they’re clear on their big why and their purpose and who they’re meant to serve, you’re designing an offer that they’re gonna love. And then day three is for your logical buyers. And the three things that happen on day three are decide, commit, celebrate. We want you to make a decision to do something differently. You must commit to something different. Don’t let this be three days wasted. Commit to a timeline. When you gonna start, we have a saying, if you don’t have a plan for Monday, you don’t have a plan, like commit to a date to start and then celebrate.
BB (24:10):
What is it gonna look like when you reach that goal? What’s the celebration you’re gonna have when you reach that goal so that they can again, future cast where they’re going to be. Now if in deciding, committing and celebrating you realize that you could use accountability and community and enhanced opportunity that I wanna remind you this offer is still available to you. It’s not too late for you to join us in this program. It allows time for that logical buyer to be like, you know, I really do need to be here. This is what I’m missing. So three days allows for that. So three by three p, g, content, connection, community pain solution, invitation, decision, commitment, celebration. We weave that into every three day. And I say that when you do that, the structure does the selling for you. You don’t have to be icky or salesy or sleazy. If you give generously and follow that model, your right fit clients can be coming to you on day two and saying, I want more, where do I find that? And you’re be like, I thought you would let me invite you to join us
RV (25:04):
So you’re not, I love this. So you’re not, you’re not actually making the offer. So that, so to speak from stage, here’s what it is here, how much it cost until day three. But you’re kind of seeing
BB (25:14):
That day two, actually we make the offer on day two and we reiterate the offer on day three. Yeah. And I really think of it, if you’re familiar with Launch World, for any of you listening, you know, in a launch there’s a cart close, I think of day three is cart close, but also a little bit more heart close. Meaning that what I’m trying to get them to do on day three is get outta their head and into their heart. We make better decisions with their heart than our head. And a three day event allows me to get the offer on the table. On day two, my emotional buyers be like, great, this is what I’m looking for. I’m all in logical. Buyers are gonna say, I have some questions and we’re gonna say, I thought you would, let’s take some time to answer them.
BB (25:50):
And then on day three we get to say, listen, time to decide, time to commit. And if you are gonna do that, here’s a key piece. The celebration for buyers is that day. So you know, I said it was decide, commit, celebrate. If they do join you, you’re gonna reward them for joining you with a welcome celebration. We’re there together with like-minded people, other people who bought into the program and you can really celebrate that. They made such a great decision, not by deciding to invest in you, by deciding to invest in themselves. Like that’s really the key is like, you’re so smart for investing in you. Mm-Hmm.
RV (26:22):
, that’s fantastic. So, so somewhere, probably shortly after lunch, the second day is when you make officially say this thing is available, here’s what it is, here’s some bonuses to sign up, et cetera. But like when you say the structure is doing the selling for you, it’s just kind of like if you’re taking people on this journey, you let ’em know it’s available. They know time is expiring naturally then it it does the selling, it’s like closed card. It’s just like, oh this is my chance. Especially if there’s a celebration there like, hey join, you know, you’re gonna be a part of the whatever, like the the new members club we’re on Correct dinner, you know, champagne hour, the
BB (27:04):
Last Yeah, we like to do it at lunch. And I have to tell you, this is what’s interesting for both in person and virtual. The best call to action I’ve ever tested over 17 years of doing this is a welcome celebration. So if you’re in person, you’ve got the cost of lunch. But think about it, if you’re making a high ticket offer 5,000, 10,000, 15,000. And listen, with Russell, we just did an offer that was 150 with Garrett White. We just did an offer that was 500,000. By the way, the economy does not kill a high ticket offer. It just reinforces one. So these big offers are being made right now and selling quite well. But what’s really interesting is still what outperforms anything is that simple. The program starts at this event. The program starts at the welcome celebration. People don’t like to miss the start of something.
BB (27:47):
And it’s something else to keep in mind is you can’t keep people in buying tension for too long. So by making that offer just before dinner on day two, having that dinner break to answer questions and close people having that repitch the next morning, that heart close, and then having that welcome celebration soon after, we’re able to really tighten that moment, which is I know the offer, I have questions about the offer, I have answers to the offer I’m all in. Think about, I must do this, I’m crazy not to do this. And then the reward for doing that. Yeah.
RV (28:17):
Mm-Hmm. is after lunch. So, so, and you said that, you know the heart pitch on the morning of day three, so it’s like they’ve had some time to answer, you know, get questions answered and then it’s like yeah. So I mean this is so fantastic. So, so Barry, the thing is interesting, like even as you talk, I keep visualizing an in-person event, like an in-person event and it’s like I’m having to pull myself back to go. But this is a virtual event, so this is happening virtually. So a virtual celebration is just like a private breakout room for over lunch basically.
BB (28:53):
Yeah. And this is where Avio comes in again, you know, we need it a way to easily get people to be able to click on a button saying, I’m ready to buy, and to click on a button to say, I need to talk to someone with questions. If you think of in person back of room is where you would go when you hear an offer from the stage. If you have questions, you go to the back of the room. If you wanna buy, you go to the back of the room. We needed a way to virtualize the back of the room. So Avio, think back to what I said, you needed gamification and a way for them to get used to using the dashboard. If they’re clicking around and they’re constantly getting points and rewards for clicking around over two full days, when it comes time to actually click, I’m all in.
BB (29:30):
They’re like, sounds good. They’re used to being on the dashboard, they click the button, they put in their deposit and they’re in. And the ones who are like, but wait, I have questions. You’re like, no problem. Click the button that says talk to a program expert. When you click on it, it’s gonna take you into a room just like the one we’re on right now where you can be led through a q and a session. So it works like a virtual back of room. Yeah. We do the same thing with welcome celebration. You click a button on your dashboard and it lets you into the welcome celebration, which is a private room only for buyers where we can celebrate the decision that you made and give you the next steps. Just like we would at a welcome celebration in person.
RV (30:07):
Mm-Hmm. . And then the, so the, the technology part of this. Okay, so this is so great and you go the, oh, oh, do you have a lot of guest speakers or does it matter? You have some guest speakers? It’s, does it not, it it’s not such a big
BB (30:25):
Deal all over the map. I mean all over the, we have some hosts Yeah, that, I mean we have some events where, you know, I think of like an event with Dean and Tony. We have quite a few guest speakers. And then there are other events where there’s a primary speaker, the host, especially if you’re an up and comer, like one thing I’d love for you to know is you might be modeling people that you love in this space and seeing a lot of guest speakers, but you don’t have a budget for that. It’s so not necessary. Like you don’t have to have an outside speaker to have a really amazing three day event.
RV (30:50):
Uhhuh . And so then the technology piece, okay, so cuz now we gotta like, take my mind, we’re virtual, this is a virtual thing. So you got, if I’m doing this like right now, I’m recording this downstairs in our studio, right? So I’ve got our you know, this is, I’m using Zoom and so basically Avio is this kind of key inter user interface that controls the whole experience. Yes. But I’m just broadcasting using normal Zoom. So I guess what, what’s the technology you need to pull this off? Like talk me through that.
BB (31:28):
Yeah, well I think that’s a great question. First of all, remember I said democratization of live events and I’d circle back around to all you really need is a tv, a computer, and a Zoom account. Now Avio is an amazing luxury. It does make things so much easier, but it’s not something you have to have. Like if you’re just getting started, I would have my computer, my Zoom account. You might wonder why a tv, I think it’s critical to have a TV because remember I said it’s about the host experience. If I can see my audience in gallery view much bigger, I’m gonna be able to read your name, I’m gonna be able to see your face, I’m gonna be able to interact with you. I can have that chat. Scroll down the side so I can see what you’re saying back to me. So I’m a big fan of not doing this on your computer.
BB (32:10):
It’s run from your computer, but you’re actually seeing everyone from a TV. And listen, everybody these days has a TV in their home. So this is super easy to do. And if you really wanna get fancy, then here’s an Uplevel move. Take two lights in your house, take the lampshade off and put them right here in front of you so that you’ve got light on your face. , that’s an advanced level move without having di nav teams. You’ve got some good lighting, but again, you have lamps in your home, you have a TV in your home. And if you don’t, here’s a good excuse right before Black Friday to do
RV (32:38):
That. right there.
BB (32:39):
This is airing, but
RV (32:41):
Quiet tv.
BB (32:42):
Yeah, I mean, but seriously TVs today, a really good TV is $200. So, but
RV (32:46):
You’re saying, but when you say tv, you’re basically just saying a large extended desktop for your computer so that you can see a bunch of people and feel like you’re not alone in your basement, but that you’re actually presenting to a room full of people.
BB (33:00):
Yes. And Avio makes it easy to interact, but you could give a link to your offer. You don’t have to have Avio and you know, we like to give prizes away via leaderboard and activity. But think about this. If you’re having an intimate event, you could take every registrant, put their name on a sheet of paper, put it in a bowl, and at the start of each session, draw a name. Like you could be old school with this, the same things that we did in person to reward people for coming back on time. We can do virtually to reward them for coming back on time. And we wanna do that, we wanna reward them for staying engaged.
RV (33:31):
So, but like if you’re a, I mean, can anyone use abio? Is this like, can we just go log in and buy the thing and use it for our event?
BB (33:38):
You can and it’s, you know, it’s really affordable. I mean, it’s under a thousand dollars for a year. So super easy to use. And I think we’re in like AVIO 5.0 at this point. We have seven full-time developers whose only job is to work on Avio. But it is, I mean interestingly it’s what we use to run an event for GoPro where we have 40,000 people. It’s what we use to run U P W where we have 25,000 people. And here’s something else that’s really interesting. When you think of, how
RV (34:05):
Many, did you say 20,000? 20,000?
BB (34:08):
Yeah, we, we generally do about 25,000 at U P W virtual U P W. And what I think is really interesting about that, I remember the very first virtual U P W and Tony and I were standing there and looking at the gallery view and we’ve got a lot of TVs, a lot of galleries to make that work. Some are in the cloud, some are in the studio, but we were counting, we’re looking in every, and we’re like, there are two people in that box, four people in that box, six people in that box, the classroom in that box, the 25,000 was the people who were registered and showed up. But I think we had probably closer to 75,000. When you look at the number of families or classrooms or friend groups that attended. And honestly I love that. Why would we not want that? You know, you want as many people as possible to be exposed to your message. Say here, sometimes you can’t control the ticketing, but I want you to think about this. How often in an in-person event does your buyer come to the event and they can’t afford to bring their family in and they’re having this incredible experience and they call home, they’re like, this is amazing. Let me try and explain it to you.
RV (35:08):
And I spend 5,000 bucks in like a 10, 2, 2 minute conversation. No, I don’t think so, sweetheart. Yeah.
BB (35:14):
Yes, exactly. They’re like, it sounds like a cult. That sounds expensive. No, come home as soon as possible. The dog just soap on the floor and the kids are cranky, you know, but with virtual you’re like, Hey, come over and check this out. And I can’t tell you how many people love seeing at U P W where you can tell the buyer, like let’s say I’m, I love Tony, I’m going to unleash the part with, and my spouse is like, nah, that’s not for me. And you’ll watch that spouse kind of walk back and forth behind and then finally the spouse is like, huh, interesting. And then they lean in. Yeah. And then they’ll life
BB (35:43):
Changing. Yeah. Before you know it, they’re sitting on the sofa, then they’re jumping up and down and then before you know it, the kids in the family are there. So what I most love about it, when you think about something like that brand, how often would a nine year old get exposed to personal development? Right? Well now that’s absolutely possible. So I just think the power of virtual isn’t just that you can do it from anywhere. Like literally a computer, a TV, and a Zoom account. You can do it from your home, do it from your basement, do it from your garage. Your attendees can do it from anywhere. So you could be a brand new speaker, author, or course creator and literally have a global audience. Even if your audience is 50 or five. I mean, if you’re like waiting to get started, why not do an event for five people? I mean, what better way to test
RV (36:26):
It out? Does it matter how much you charge on the front end?
BB (36:29):
I really believe in not less than $97 for a ticket.
RV (36:34):
Okay. But that, by the way, I think it’s the’s $7 for three days is like, that’s
BB (36:39):
Amazing.
RV (36:39):
Very, that’s nothing
BB (36:40):
Very affordable. But I think if you were to look at the blended average in our industry, the ticket price in person and virtually quite frankly is somewhere in the 97 to 1 97 range. And by the way, we don’t charge less for virtual. You shouldn’t either. I mean, it’s actually in some ways a better experience and think about it travels up 47% right now. Flights, hotel costs, you know, we’re in a recession inflation. So when your attendee has to buy a hotel, you know, buy a flight, get a hotel room, Uber, then pay for the food down in the lobby and the $7 coffee and whatever they’re feeling broke before they even walk into your room. And virtual, they’re literally just bargaining with their family to give them the time. Like that’s all it takes is honey, can I just have three quiet days to attend this event so that I can change our life or I can change my business. It’s a much easier barter to be able to say, I’ll still tuck the kids in at the end of the night and if you’re really quiet, I’ll make you dinner during my dinner break. I mean, you can do all of that now through the power of virtual
RV (37:36):
Mm-Hmm. . But you’re saying it’s like you don’t, you can, you can charge 97 to 1 97 upfront, take people on this three day journey and make a five to 10,000, maybe a five or $10,000 three days later because they’ve gone through it. What, what
BB (37:53):
Or a $15,000 offer or a $50,000 offer. I mean, just to be clear, the offers that we’re making virtually go up to 500 k I mean successfully. So it’s no different from in person when it comes to the size offer that you can make.
RV (38:08):
What, what kind of conversions do you expect to see on this Barry? Like if you go, I mean let’s say you get, let’s say you get, you know, 200 people to show up for three days and then is that a very different conversion percentage wise if you get 2000 or 20,000? Or do the percentages kind of hold the same?
BB (38:30):
Yeah, it’s such a great question. I love this question cuz I think a lot of people get this wrong. First of all, I think that it, an intimate event converts better whether in person or virtual.
RV (38:41):
Interesting. So smaller is not bad.
BB (38:43):
No. Smaller is actually fantastic. And the bigger the event host, you’ll have them like kind of remember the days when we were smaller and how amazing that was. So, you know, everybody wants to be the big event host, but you know, really a smaller room convert, it’s more intimate. It does tend to convert better than a larger room, but a larger room has more volume. So it’s not like you don’t want a larger room as you grow, that volume works for you. So we might convert less at a 25,000 person event than we do at a 2000 person event, but we have more people. So we’re still making more money technically. Right? So, but I want you to think about the fact that in person a good solid blended average conversion is 20% and virtual it’s more 10 to 15. So it’s slightly below. But we tend to see virtual registrations outpace in person. So we tend to see if, you know, blended average year over year, we see more people register for virtual than in person. So the fact that our conversions are lower is outweighed by the fact that more people are there and they’re staying with us all day and they’re staying with us till the very end of the event.
RV (39:41):
Yeah, okay. But if you had 200 people buy a hundred dollars ticket, they stay there for three days, you, you would expect that maybe 20 to 30 of those people after three days would buy a, some a $5,000 offer maybe.
BB (40:00):
Yeah, I would have a stretch goal of 10, a minimum goal of 10% and a stretch goal of 20%. And for those of you that are more practiced in delivering your content, making offers, you can increase that conversion accordingly.
RV (40:12):
Yeah,
BB (40:13):
So you can do the math, like imagine if you’re just getting started and you went to have an event for 50 people and make a $5,000 offer. Let’s say that five people took you up on that and you made $25,000 from your basement at your first ever live event and launched your high ticket offer. Like that’s a pretty good, we call it a purpose driven payday. Like what I love to say about a live event is that it’s a purpose driven payday. You can have impact and income, purpose and payday. You don’t have to sacrifice one for the other. And there’s no better blaze to try this out than through a virtual event versus having to go get that hotel contract we were talking about where you have real liability. And if that worked, imagine f a quarter later, three months later you’re like, you know, that was so easy, I’m gonna do it again. And at another five people, oh wow, I got so much better. I actually converted 10, not five. And then the next one I didn’t have 50 people. Words started to get out how amazing I am. I had a hundred people. So it’s really easy to start scaling your high ticket offer and literally launch your mastermind, your group coaching business, your done four, you service your high ticket offer through the power of a virtual live event.
RV (41:14):
Mm-Hmm. . And, and so coming back to the AIO and the technology, since this is Zoom, you don’t even have to have a camera crew with multiple angles and stuff. I mean, I guess that obviously at like Tony’s event, you guys must be, I mean that it’s
BB (41:30):
Not even, and even at our own studio, like we have a studio right now we have five cameras in our studio, but we do this for a living and we’re bringing in some of the biggest names in our space to work out of our studio. So of course we have multiple camera angles and we have a control room and we have an AVD crew. But you don’t need that to get started. You don’t need a big list, you don’t need a big studio, you don’t need a big production and you don’t need a big budget. Like that’s what’s amazing about this. You don’t need all these camera angles. This is about you being engaging. I would recommend standing. I do think it’s important to stand.
RV (42:02):
Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, just cuz you’re in presentation mode for two days. Yeah. so you guys, so that’s another thing that we can do. So, so basically people can engage you to buy avio if they want to do this. And then I guess avio must allow for you to pull in multiple camera angles. I guess there’s that a zoom, is that a Zoom
BB (42:23):
Feature That’s more of a Zoom thing and a switcher thing, like advance level move that would be having a switcher. So you can do that, but even that is super easy to do and some of our students who are just getting started out take that basic equipment and use that. Absolutely.
RV (42:37):
Okay. And then so, so, but then Avio allows you to do the event registration, the gamification, the leaderboards, you have your own little buttons there, click here to talk to somebody. Or if you’re a solopreneur or whatever, you just say, click here to schedule a call with me and you send them to Callen Lee or whatever. And and then so, or
BB (42:58):
You guys ideal, like if they have a question, they just click a button on Avio, it takes them into a Zoom room. And if you’re just getting started and you don’t have a sales team, then you would be the person in that room answering the questions. But if you do have a team member, a family member who can help you, they could be in that Zoom room helping to ask answer questions. A student, a volunteer. Well
RV (43:16):
I just mean if you’re running the event, how you, you can’t, you need somebody else to kind of be there, right. To
BB (43:21):
Do that. Well the minute you walk off stage, you go over to, you know, a computer that’s been Yep. And you just answer the questions. Absolutely. Yeah. Super easy to do. Yeah.
RV (43:29):
And then the other thing is, you guys have a studio where it’s like, okay, I don’t want to deal with the tech, can I just like, can I promote the event and then you guys deal with all this, that’s also something that you
BB (43:39):
Do. It is, yeah. We’re in the done for you business. Yeah. We coach people on how to do it, but we also do it for them. You can come to the studio and do that.
RV (43:47):
Yeah. And then are you, are you also in the I want to, I’m gonna have 5,000 people at my thing and I want you, you know, to come to Nashville and set it, set it all up and kind of like we run it from here and not your studio. Clearly that’s what you did with Tony. Yeah,
BB (44:05):
Yeah. We do that. Yeah. We help, we collaborate with other studios and we also we’ll do what we call a popup studio or even an in-person event, which kind of gets me too, the next question is, should you be doing a hybrid? Cause you’re like, well, if in person’s great and virtual’s great, shouldn’t you know peanut butter, chocolate, amazing. Let’s put ’em together. Yeah. But I really think if you’re an up and comer, you, it’s an and nutton or I don’t think you, I think you should like, these are my in person dates and these are my virtual dates. I don’t think you try and put them together. It is super complicated to run a hybrid event. You need a depth of budget team and resources. It’s much harder to do if you’re gonna do it well. Which is why I think you’re gonna see the biggest names in the business do it.
BB (44:46):
And everyone below that say it really doesn’t pay to do it. I love virtual, I love in person. Virtual doesn’t replace in person, it’s the new and not, or, and I think more and more you’re gonna see people are like, these are my in-person dates and these are my virtual dates versus these are my hybrid dates. And the simple reason for it is that you can’t help but pander to an in-person audience. Like it is the rare host that doesn’t focus on in person, which immediately takes that interactivity, that makes virtual work and reduces it back to that telecast that broadcast, that’s a super passive experience. So if you’re debating this, my recommendation would be if you’re just getting started out, start with a virtual event because it’s so much easier. The net is so much better. Grow into it. When you’re confident in the model, then you can put your money on the line with an in person event. Or if you’re more advanced, make it the, and you know, these are my dates from person, these are my dates for virtual.
RV (45:37):
How many, this is kind of like a last question, but the, what’s the maximum number of people you can have watching these? So that’s another reason to use Abio, right? Because on Zoom you can only have 500 or, I mean, it depends on your account.
BB (45:50):
That is the advantage. Like we’re working, we’re, we’re close friends with the folks at Obvi at zoom. So we work hand in hand with them. We have enterprise accounts which allow you to scale quickly and easily for any size event you’re having. It also adds a layer of security. You know how you can have like a little bit of Zoom bombing and you don’t want, you, you don’t mind if a spouse watches your event, but what you don’t want is somebody just giving the link out and have 50 of their friends log in without paying. Avio gives you a gateway to that so you can control who’s accessing the event.
RV (46:21):
Uhhuh. . Yeah. I got, so where should people go, Barry, if they want to like either learn from you or engage you to help them host one of these like live virtual event experiences?
BB (46:35):
Yeah, thank you for asking. I mean, the simple easy way is [email protected]. You would think that we would have a really swanky website, a place that I would drive you. But the truth is we’ve been running so hard since virtual hit. I’m embarrassed. Please don’t go to my website. Don’t even think about it. Just go to [email protected] and our team will . When you say
RV (46:54):
Go to, you’re saying email, you’re saying send an
BB (46:56):
Email to Yes. Go to event zip by sage.com. Yeah, we do run an event every year called the virtual Event on virtual events. We run it twice a year and we teach not only the model for how we do what we do but also how to design your high ticket offer, how to take it one to many, how to design your live event around it so that people are naturally saying, that was amazing. I want more. And how to use the technology, how to set up your own studio and how to use Avio so that you can make it all work seamlessly.
RV (47:23):
Yeah, well I think it’s great. It’s a great example. We teach, we tell our clients like, you don’t need fancy website. What you need to do do is deliver great value. Teach everything you know for free. People don’t pay for information, they pay for applications. So just go teach what, you know, give out an email address and let them just contact you and then you’ll go for there. So I’d love that.
BB (47:44):
And you know, probably if you’re really smart, hire Rory to make you look a lot
RV (47:48):
Better. , we, we can, we enough level it as we go. We’ll up level it as we, as we go, but the core is just adding lots of value, which this has been so valuable, Barry. So thank you so much for this. We will I guess link up to that email address somehow or maybe just drop the email on our, on the, in the show notes for you. Thank you. But really eyeopening and appreciate you sharing so much, Barry. We wish you all the best.
BB (48:13):
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Ep 352: 5 Simple Things You Can Do To Better Build Your Personal Brand with Lori Harder

AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody. This is AJ Vaden on the Influential Personal Brand. Welcome to another episode. So genuinely excited to have my friend Lori Harder on the show today. You guys are in for a super awesome special treat because Lori really is the epitome of someone who has taken her reputation and all of the success and all of the things that she’s accomplished and turned it into so many different things over the course of her career. So let me just tell you for a quick second why you need to stick around. Then I’m gonna formally introduce Lori if you don’t already know about her. And then we’re gonna hop into this. But here’s what I would tell you. If you are a person who is in any sort of transition and you’re trying to figure out how do I make a successful transition from one career to another, one industry to another, one company to another, this is the one to be a show that is very much going to help you.
AJV (01:02):
Or if you’re a person who is, let’s say you’re doing many things, but you’re trying to figure out how do you make them consistent and have a good through line so that everything feels like it’s connected, then this is an episode for you. Or if you’re trying to figure out what lane do you really want to be in, this is an episode that was truly built to serve the needs of those questions and for those of you who are going through this process. So with that said, I will now give you a formal introduction of the one and the Only Lori Harder, and then we’re gonna hop in and actually let her talk for a second. So quick interview or quick overview. If you don’t know Lori Lori has built three that is right, three separate seven figure businesses. She is the founder and CEO of a new product line, which we will talk a lot about the evolution of this process as we go through this.
AJV (02:02):
She’s also go a bestselling author of a Tribe called Bliss. She’s the host of the Earn Your Happy podcast, which is if you don’t listen to it, it is a must listen to podcast with more than 46 million downloads, which is incredible. She also is a co-host of another awesome podcast called Girlfriends and Business. She has a lot going on but she also has all this other really cool background information that you may not know. Like you may not know that she was a three time world champion in the fitness industry. She’s an 11 time fitness cover model. She was a gym owner. She’s a seven figure business owner through a direct sales network marketing company. And the list kind of goes on and on and on, which is one of the reasons that I wanted to have her on the show today is because she is someone who has been there, done that, seen the ups, seen the dams, and is still here to tell you all about it. It. So without further ado, Lori, welcome to the show.
LH (03:03):
Ah, I’m so excited to be here. And you guys, it’s been so much fun having you on my show too. So if you wanna like hear the reverse of this, you can go on on that near it. , thank you so much for that intro. I’m like, how old am I? Is that, that took a long time to do . Do you hate that your bio gets longer and longer? Yes. And you’re like, whoa,
AJV (03:24):
This is all of the amazing,
LH (03:25):
Hold on a minute.
AJV (03:26):
That’s that accumulates over the years. Yes,
LH (03:29):
Totally.
AJV (03:30):
But like truly like in all honesty, you have done so many amazing things and I bet a ton of our listeners know about you probably follow you, but then I bet there’s a fair share where this is their first introduction to you. And so just to help kinda give everyone a little bit of background, can you just tell us a little bit about how your career started and how you got to where you are now?
LH (03:55):
Yes. I’m gonna give you a brief overview. So I’m gonna skim through some things, but the reason that I’m gonna go way back for a minute is just because I want everyone to know that no matter where you’re from, what your education level is, you truly can create any life that you want. And my story will show that and, and prove that I’m from a really small town in upper Michigan. Like most people don’t even know Michigan has an upper part. Like truly they’re like, it’s lower Michigan, Detroit. No, there is something way up in the woods that is more Canada than Canada is . It’s called Upper Michigan. And that is where I’m from. And I was raised in a, a more restrictive religion where I couldn’t hang out with people outside of my religion. And already being in a tiny town in a tiny congregation, it made my circle of influence really small.
LH (04:44):
It made what I saw in the world as possible. Very small. It made you know what I thought people were capable of doing very, very small. And that’s not to say it negative, it’s to show you the picture of I didn’t really get to exist outside of this circle. So a lot of the work that I have done now and out in the world and what my book is based on and why I’m so passionate about having these conversations on podcasts is because we need to see what is possible through other people and hear these stories. So doing that when I was 18 years old, I decided to leave, which meant I had a choice. And I believe that you guys all have this. You’re, you’re facing a really tough choice like this right now where you’re going to leave everyone and everything behind.
LH (05:30):
And some of you don’t have to leave things behind. But some of you may have to make the choice to leave things behind and build a future that is completely built in the uncertain and in the risk with new people that you have never met in your entire life. And this obviously isn’t done overnight, but this is what majority of the things that I have done is based on is because I think that everyone who is in a pivot and in a transition is in that moment that I was in when I was 18, choosing, do I choose this very uncertain future or do I go back and stay in my very like contingent based happiness or contingent based group and love? Or do I go and try to figure out what this call is on my heart and why in the heck I’m waking up every single night and why I have low key anxiety 24 7.
LH (06:21):
And this is the place where I just started building everything else. It was like the, the, the first, I think the first big awakening and just breakthrough for me was realizing when I, when I had started working out, I come from a family that dealt with a lot of anxiety. Most of my family was all on some sort of medication or depression medication or anxiety medication. And they were all overweight. And the first big moment for me was when I was in middle school, I went and stayed with a family because our congregations were far away from each other. They were like two hours. So I ended up staying with the family for a week. And first I wanna just say I love my family more than anything. You could still love them and you can also want to be different.
LH (07:07):
So with that said, I went and stayed with this other family. Well, this other family was very fit and they were always busy and they were always out and doing something. They weren’t watching tv. In fact, it was kind of frowned upon. And they ate really healthy. Like I didn’t understand why we weren’t snacking at night. I’m not even kidding you. On the first night I was there it was probably like 7:00 PM after dinner and we were watching a movie and I was like, Hey, are we like, what, where’s the snacks? Like what kind of snacks do you have? Like, where’s your snack covered? And she was like, what are you talking about? Do you want an apple? And I literally looked at her like she had three eyeballs. I was like an apple, like an apple for a snack. Who are you weirdos?
LH (07:49):
I went home, I lost five pounds. Like I literally had been dieting since I was eight years old. Ended up losing five pounds in this one week that I was there. Cause we were so active and we ate really healthy. What did this do for me being in that environment without even trying made me or, or turned me into something else? Right? I actually got a physical result. I had a mental result. I felt really good and I couldn’t unsee it. And that was the moment for me where I really started getting into fitness and saying, okay, I want to help people transform because fitness has transformed my life so much. So I, I pretty much spent the first from probably 20 to 30 was really that dedication to like that fitness portion of my life in transforming people.
AJV (08:35):
Can I pause right there for just one second? Yes. Cause you said something that I think is so impactful and maybe it’s just hitting me personally right now because one of my childhood best friends right now is in recovery and she’s actually in a program right now. And one of the things that they told her her in this inpatient program is, you know, there are three changes that you have to make if you wanna see real change. Mm. You have to change people, places and things. Oh. And what you just said right there is a really important thing about you said is like your environment actually can have a, a physical manifestation in your life. And it’s like, I think it’s really amazing of going, nothing else changed for you other than being in a new environment. And because you acclimated to that new environment, other things started happening.
AJV (09:26):
A lot can happen in a really good way and in a really bad way. So I’m just kind of curious, it’s like, did, did you notice that in the moment of going, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like this is so different. And then did you notice like the environment made a change? And I’m just kind of curious for everyone who is out there who is, you know, kind of sitting there going, I don’t really love where I am or what I’m doing, or, or they suffer from comparison for whatever reason we all do it. Like what kind of impacts have you seen around that environmental change?
LH (10:02):
I, so I think environment is everything. I think your environment is stronger than any willpower you can create on your own in that prior environment that you’re in. So when I go to make a change or a pivot, this is a huge part of pivoting. When I go to make a change or a pivot, I simultaneously look at what I will have to do, like what kind of habits I will have to do, but what kind of environment I will now have to either buy into, put myself in, or even be looking at, right? Cuz it’s, it’s all of the input. It’s, it’s what we’re reading, it’s what we are looking at and consuming on social media. It’s what conversations we’re having. Mm-Hmm. , it’s who we’re around, it’s who our mentors are. So I simultaneously look at all of these things and I know that I I I have to change my environment while I change my habits.
LH (10:55):
So whenever I’ve done anything, let’s say when I went from fitness to personal development, I went from going to all the fitness events, reading all the fitness magazines, looking up to all the fitness people. My vision board was full of fitness things and fitness goals to just like that, looking at who is helping people write books, who is authors, who’s an author that has a podcast who is in the space of like writing books that help people write books. I hired a coach for writing books and overnight I flipped everything and set myself up in an environment where it would support me moving forward on the goal of writing a book. And I think that that was a big reason why number one, I was able to like go from you guys. I did not graduate high school. That’s another thing I wanted to share. Went from like an eighth grade reading level to writing a book because I had coaches and had to understand how to do it. And I put so much specific time into that thing. And so I think environment is literally everything.
AJV (11:55):
I think that is like, this is gonna be one of those quotes that I pull out and post all over social media that is so good. It’s like your environment is often stronger than your own willpower. Mm-Hmm. that is so good. And it’s like, just remembering, it’s like what you surround yourself with is ultimately what you do, what you think, what you believe. Like it really does create the patterns and the habits in your life. So if you really wanna change, it’s like what in your environment needs to change? Mm-Hmm. like that is so, like the fact that you did not graduate high school, had an eighth grade reading education and then went on to write a book, it’s like most people let that be an excuse. Mm-Hmm. versus there’s an instant amount of information in the world. It’s just, are you in an environment that allows you to have access to it, use it and do something with it. So on that note I want to, I wanna talk about this because you have done so many awesome things and you know, often it’s like, because I know you, I forget, it’s like, oh yeah, oh
LH (13:03):
Yeah. It’s easy to forget when you’re with
AJV (13:04):
Me. All these things. I think this is so awesome. I love this. So on this conversation, you went from really having this incredible fitness career to being a cover model, to owning a gym, to then having, you know, this seven figure very successful, which you still have you know, business and network marketing to then transitioning from this that kind of world to this whole new world of more like information products with courses and books and events and a podcast. Tell me how on God’s green earth did you make these transitions successfully? Because I think that’s where a lot of people struggle. It’s like they’ve been known for this one thing for forever and now they’re trying to do this life pivot and they kind of get stuck with, well, people aren’t gonna know me for this, I’m not known as this. And then they just kind of give up. Mm. How did you do that successfully?
LH (14:05):
I don’t know if I figured this out in the beginning or if this was, you know, I think some of the things we do were just kind of, we don’t even realize we’re following a bit of like desire and intuition. But I, I not long down the path started to realize that if you know how to attract people to you as like a, whether that’s a personal brand or whether you are a CEO or founder of something, if you understand how to attract people to you, you can almost funnel them into anything, in my personal opinion. So what do I mean by that? I mean that even if right now I didn’t have any of those things and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, do, I would just start talking about the things that I was interested in right now.
LH (14:56):
Like maybe I’m like, maybe I wanna start a products company or maybe I wanna start like a skincare line, or maybe I wanna start a wine brand. What I would start doing is talking about wanting to start those things and like the, the journey of what I’m feeling going through it and maybe the journey of how am I setting up my environment, like what we just talked about. And I would be consistent with it because, and, and this is truly what I did. I, I didn’t necessarily always know what I was rolling into, but I always shared the journey of what, where I was at and what I was feeling and what I was thinking consistently every single day. And I think there’s so many people out there that I think it’s everyone, right? We all are on this journey of, of desiring to evolve.
LH (15:39):
And so I think if that is the topic of desiring to evolve and how are you doing it and what does it look like and what are you doing that’s different and what is, you know, what is this journey? Who did you have to maybe leave behind? What was that feeling? All of a sudden I realized I had this audience who was pretty tuned into what I had to say. Mm-Hmm. . And so you become, it’s kind of like I became a personal brand overnight. Not overnight, not overnight, over years and years without really realizing what I was doing. It was like, yeah, I love that I was building this audience based on my core values mm-hmm. , which means that every business that I build, the secret that the secret sauce that I have learned is that my business is just really my core values infused into a business with a product.
LH (16:23):
So whether the product is a book or whether the product is an actual physical product, that company is serving something that I, I feel needs to be served or a need that I see or that I have. And it’s, it’s based off of my personal core values. So I don’t become, I don’t have to become a different person as I pivot into different businesses, I literally get to show up fully me in every single business because it is literally based off of my core values and, and my desires and, and a need at one time. So it’s not hard for me to talk about any of the products that I’ve ever created, whether it’s a e-course or whether it’s a book or whether it’s a physical product because I base all of these things off of things that I either was and lessons I’ve learned.
LH (17:10):
So it’s very easy for me to obviously talk to my past self and talk you through you know, what I went through or it’s very easy for me to be like, this is what I needed and here’s what it does for me. And it’s a part of my life every day so it doesn’t feel unnatural. Where sometimes I know we can maybe be thinking of products or something like that, that you’re like, oh well that’s making money. Maybe I should do that. And then it feels very awkward. Mm-Hmm. like, you’re actually not gonna be able to show up consistently to it cuz there’s not gonna be a natural place for you to show up daily. You’ll have to create it cuz it won’t be authentic to you. And then people will feel that too.
AJV (17:45):
Yeah. I tell you what, that, that is so vitally important. Cause I think a lot of people make their decisions about what businesses or what products or services to get into based on some sort of market analysis or market research. And you’re saying no, it’s the opposite of what are my core values and how do I exhibit those into products or services that I think will serve the people who need ’em because I needed them. And if I did, then so do others. And I think that’s a really strong way, which quite honestly is probably going to be the answer to my next question,
LH (18:19):
,
AJV (18:19):
Which is how have you kept everything consistent mm-hmm. with a good through line between all the things that you’ve done. And just even hearing you say that it’s like, well that doesn’t even make you have to evolve your personal brand at all. It’s like, this is just a as as you grow and evolve, then the things that you’re interested in come along with you as does your audience.
LH (18:41):
Yes. I I, so I love this question though, taking it to like the, the second level of this is, you know, what you can do, especially as you pivot, there is always a gift in what you just did. Even if, even if what you just got done with, or maybe you were working a corporate job that you feel like you’re like, ah, I wasted two years of my life or five years of my life. Absolutely not. There are so many gifts that that past thing has given you that you are going to get to integrate into this new thing of yours. I was just thinking about how my past of doing e-courses and meditations and speaking in public and learning to create a talk is gonna help me so much with getting this new product out because I am going to get the product out through events.
LH (19:26):
And if I hadn’t, you know, spoken publicly, if I hadn’t felt like I can just get up in, in front of a crowd now and connect with them on a very human level then I wouldn’t have this great modality and these great ideas around, okay, we’re gonna do events, we’re gonna do some challenges that maybe we include like, you know, some daily rituals and maybe a meditation. Like these are all things that are coming from my past that are now making me think in the grand scheme of honestly, I’m thinking about how do we create community? Because if you can create, you already have a community essentially. If you’re creating your own personal brand, I just want to now take the community I have, insert a product and create even more community around it. So essentially I’m gonna continue being me and building community and also say, this is one of the things I’m obsessed with that I use every single day.
LH (20:16):
And this is what our community does. Or, you know, choose it if you like it. And that’s been, I think that that has been such a huge realization for me is, is if you can build that community, it’s kind of like, what, what does the community need? What are they doing? What are the healthy rituals? What are the, what are the habits of this community? How, how do you, how do you want to connect them to each other? Cuz that’s next level community, right? Like, that’ll really take your community deeper. And it’s just kind of of like rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat that same idea.
AJV (20:50):
You know, what’s interesting is that even as I sit here thinking through all of the things that you’ve done through your career that I can already just hearing you talk, pull out as an outsider looking in, what are some of the through lines that I see, which I think is really fascinating that I didn’t correlate to before, but now hearing you talk about some of your core values and it’s just things that you believe in. It’s like health is a theme through every single thing that you do. Happiness, community, like those are themes through every single thing that you do. And I, so I’m curious, it’s, was that intentional? Like, did you like kind of like outline those before and was that a very strategic decision or did it just evolve and happen naturally?
LH (21:35):
You know, I think I really realized the power of community when I had started the Bliss Project and also when I had started writing that book, because simultaneously while I was doing those things, I was in search. I had, I had told you guys at the beginning of this podcast and aj you know, like I was looking for my own community because I had started kind of the, the fitness thing is a very solo journey. Like, you’re, you’re pretty, you have to be pretty self consumed to get to that point and stay at that point with your body. You, you, you kind of have to be pretty selfish. It’s, it’s actually, it’s actually fairly hard to be social because you really need to control, especially when you’re competing all the time, you really unfortunately need to control what’s going in your mouth 24 7.
LH (22:19):
And it can get really tough if you’re very social. So when I got out of that, and that’s a whole other thing that I had to like, figure out how to like recalibrate and be what does normal look like? What is health? What does normal healthy look like? And I, those words aren’t even the right words to be using. It’s just trying to figure out what, what works for me, what, what is like truly a baseline that feels really good. And so from there I was like so freaking lonely. Like I had started, you know, even, even my when I started the membership, I had a fitness membership, you guys, and, and that was a huge focus for me. That was one of the first things that I really outside of network marketing also started making money with was, it was around the same time I had launched a fitness membership and, and we would do challenges where they were, they started as 30 day challenges, then they went to 14, then we realized people had the attention span that only seven days would work . So we were doing these, you can see I was like that. Ok. Nope. Got it.
AJV (23:17):
Try and error.
LH (23:18):
Yes. And even from that, you know, I launched those challenges. We, we were trying to get those right for three years. So I didn’t just throw it out and say, oh, that one didn’t work good. Like, we took the same challenge and we kept launching it and we launched it four times a year. And that’s how it became a really great challenge. So I just want you to like, oh my god, three years to even get like one of those things, right? And so around that, yes, I had, I had a bit of a team, but we were all, all kind of working solo and I was really lonely. And I just, I did not, I didn’t have support around like, I dunno, like when things would go wrong in my business. Like I had my husband, but we can’t count on one person to be everything for us.
LH (24:01):
And we did, we weren’t speaking the same language business wise yet. It just wasn’t a good thing. When I would go to him, like with any stresses or what I should, our creation process was very different. So this was when I actually went to a Jack Canfield event. I was like, I need help. I, I think I wanna start doing other things, but I also need to tribe like, so I had enrolled in a Jack Canfield event. I was also becoming interested in personal development at this time because I realized that in fitness I couldn’t get them to transform if I couldn’t change their mindset. So I wanted to go and learn from people who knew how to do that and, and add it to my program. So this all was happening at once. It was like, okay, this is gonna fix a lot of things for me.
LH (24:45):
That was my hope anyway. And it did. But I ended up going, and simultaneously while I was doing this, he was talking about masterminds and I was like, what’s a mastermind? And he was talking about how he gets together with a group of friends. He did it like weekly or biweekly. And this was this group that would support each other through business and even life. And it was very, it was very planned out. And to me right away I was like, okay, that doesn’t feel like it’s gonna take away from my life. You know, according to like prior experiences where maybe I would try to get something together and the people just weren’t there yet and I was trying to drag them with me and they didn’t wanna go where I was going. I was like, okay, find people who wanna go where you’re going.
LH (25:22):
Create a touch base where you are accountable to them every single week. It did not go, actually we did every other week for one hour, created this with another fitness woman and then another woman that she knew. So a total stranger and then another woman that I had just met. But we all had goals that were similar. We all wanted to grow our business. And that is when I just realized the power of connecting with people. Our businesses all accelerated so fast by doing this. And, and here’s the thing is like, I was serious, so I wanted to create accountability and so did they, like when we first got on our first call, it was like, how serious are we taking this? And it was like, well, I, if you don’t show up, like without an excuse or if you have to travel, like you’re out.
LH (26:06):
Like if you don’t show up or if we go, if you continue to go over or if you come here with a problem but you’re not into it you know, if you, if you’re not willing to find a solution, that’s not why we’re here and we just can’t move forward with you, we’ll find someone else. And so this was like an expectation from the beginning. Well that scared the hell outta me. I was like, oh my God, this is serious. But my vision was so much bigger than my fear because I would pay attention to it daily at this point. I was, I was going on walks or runs or working out and I would specifically choose to visualize what I wanted every single day during those moments of movement. And so my vision was, was just, even, even if it was just 1% bigger than my fear, I kept it bigger than my fear.
LH (26:46):
So really started showing up to that. And that taught me so much about consistency, accountability, who you are around putting it out there, talking through your fears. Like my comeback rate is so much faster when I’m in these groups because it, where where maybe I would be, let’s say somebody tells me like when I was trying to get a a a book deal, right? And they tell me this is real. Your book sucks. Your writing is basic. This idea’s been done a million times. No. Like, no one will buy your book. Okay, well instead of me being like, my book sucks, I shouldn’t put this out there, I’ve already been turned down 20 times, that is a real number. Instead, I got on this call that week with those women and they said to me, are you kidding? Like, this book is amazing. You’re incredible. You’re a great writer. That’s just some, you know, jerk that you literally need to get over and we’re gonna make a plan to get out there again right away. Who’s your next call next day? Get on another call lit. Literally that week because I went right back into it and they made me feel so much better. I got a six figure book deal that week, literally same week where I would’ve not first time author. I would’ve not, I think I would’ve just like walled and given up.
AJV (28:04):
That’s so important because you said three things there that I just like, this is a very big deal. And the first of them comes back as something you already talked about is your environment. Mm-Hmm. . It’s like, it’s what, but it’s also who, right. But the other thing, it’s the community, right? It’s like it’s environment, but then it’s community. And I think that that’s a theme through everything that you do. And it’s like that’s, and I, I think that’s a really important thing because I think as anyone who is listening who considers yourselves a creator or an entrepreneur of any sort, we all know that’s a lonely road often. Mm-Hmm. , it’s not one that many people understand. We feel a lot of burden. There’s a lot of pressure, there’s a lot of comparison. I read a statistic that the other, I read a statistic the other day in a book that I’m reading that says that entrepreneurs are four times more likely to suffer from depression than the average American.
LH (29:00):
Wow.
AJV (29:01):
Four times more likely. And the main reason is they don’t share their failures.
LH (29:08):
Oh
AJV (29:08):
Wow. They don’t share their failures. And so I think the environment is huge. You said the community is huge, but then the third thing is just literally having a support system. Yes. Having people who believe in you is if frigging big deal. Mm-Hmm.
LH (29:24):
, that just having someone did that
AJV (29:26):
Was help you up.
LH (29:27):
Mm-Hmm. it was, it was so big that I didn’t realize, I guess I I didn’t realize the time in between my path after that point accelerated much faster because I realize the amount of time in between the blows and the hard times and the challenges or when we think we’re dumb or whatever that is when we launch a course and it fails when we have an event, no one shows up. The time in between there is so much less like that. You’re compacting your whole jour, you’re accelerating your whole journey by getting in a group and having them say, yeah, so that happened to me too and, and I got back out there. Or who cares? That’s part of the process. What does that guy know? Like, is he writing a book? No. Like, so these are the moments that you’re just like, oh yeah, he’s not writing a book. . I
AJV (30:22):
Think this is like a really big deal. Cause I think about all of the people who are in our community at Brand Builders group and I just know that so many of them suffer from, well I have been doing this for like 10 months.
AJV (30:39):
Yeah. And yes. And it’s like, Daisy even hear you say that you were doing the exact same challenge for three years of just going, okay, well that didn’t work. Let’s let’s launch it this way. Okay. That didn’t work. Or show it again. It’s like you were doing it four times a year for three years, 12 times for over three years to go, okay, I think we finally have a formula that works. Mm-Hmm. , you got turned down from your book deal 20 times. Mm-Hmm. , it took us two years to finally talk to an agent who would even talk to us.
LH (31:11):
Yeah.
AJV (31:11):
We were basically stalking these people at this point, but it took two years. We had two years of rejection when we were getting our first book deal. And it’s like people, it takes time. And I love what you said. It’s like, you know, I, again, I wrote this down too. This is gonna show up all over social media in some way so that there’s always a gift in what you just did. Mm. There’s always a gift in what you just did. And it’s like in a huge part is that bounce back factor, that ability to come back and go, okay, well that didn’t work. What’s next? But we gotta have perspective of this. This is a, this is not a sprint, this is a marathon. And it takes time and trial and error and a whole bunch of perseverance. And it’s a whole lot easier to do if you’ve got a whole bunch of people coming along with you on the sidelines.
LH (32:00):
Oh my god. You know what I think of all the time that is, is so crazy because we all watch it every year, is is football, like majority of people like athletics, basketball, golf, like, so I think the reason, I mean, the reason that athletes can number one, get so good and also just like they’re resilient is because they have a team and also they don’t have an expectation around if they fail, they don’t get to quit. There is no quit. Like there’s another game Yeah. That they can show up to, but they have to, to know how to publicly fail mm-hmm. over and over again. And if we can understand how important that is for our journey of getting better it it’s just like we, we think like, oh, if we’re bad at it, like that’s the end, or if we fail or whatever that is like, oh my God, the the only way to be great is to embrace public failure. And truly, I believe that if you are on a track of like publicly failing over and over then you’re on a fast track because you’re learning more lessons than anyone who’s winning is getting to learn. Eventually when it clicks for you, it will click beyond what would normally click. Because if you are extracting the lesson from each of those failures, and also you’re building up this thing of just like, it didn’t kill me. Mm-Hmm. do it again.
AJV (33:30):
I think of that,
LH (33:31):
Oh my gosh. With just athletes, they have an expectation of, okay, get back in the game. Like if they suck so bad, like I think of those people who are, who are throwing the, what is it? The, the the free throw or the kickers, right? They don’t get to be like, oh, I sucked and go cry on the sidelines. Even if they just lost something for their whole team or, you know, it was a huge turning. They could have been a huge turning point for their team. They are great and athletes are great because they don’t dwell on the past. They do not dwell on what happened. Their next thought is what’s next? Okay, what can I do next? And I’ve just adopted that. I’ve stopped being willing to look back unless it’s to say, what could I do better? And then I say, what’s next?
AJV (34:17):
That is so good. And that is also so representative in your trajectory through your life and your career of this evolution of all the things that you’ve kind of done. So I wanna kind of pivot just a little bit right now and talk tactically about some of the things that you’ve done. And so I’ve got a few questions outlined that I know are gonna be really important to our audience. So here’s the first one. Keys through your eyes, through your opinion, I don’t care what anyone else says, just through Lori’s eyes, what are the keys to creating courses that both create real value but also generate real revenue?
LH (34:55):
Mm. Well, a few things that I’ve learned is that a good course is only good if people complete it.
AJV (35:03):
check. Okay.
LH (35:05):
And a lot of the courses that I created in the beginning I learned really quick and relaunched them. I like segmented them because I came out with like 12 modules, then quickly segmented them to six, like took it down and chunked them up. And then even there we started selling even like individual things like individual modules. So with that said, you know, we can think that we’re perfecting it by adding more, but I think we’re in an era of less is more. And to make the number one thing I want people to feel when they go into a course is accomplished. Mm-Hmm. . Like I, I want to create the habit of showing up and completing something. And if you make it too challenging, I just think people aren’t gonna do that. And you immediately feel like a failure within there. So that’s kind of where I’m at right now with, with courses is how can I create something where they’re gonna feel accomplished right away? Whether that’s shorter segments shorter modules and remembering that the fundamentals never get old. I think sometimes we can think that we have to give all of these big new ideas and it’s like if your people were doing the fundamentals, they wouldn’t need to buy anything from you , because
AJV (36:16):
They’re true.
LH (36:17):
Because those work, they just do show up, do the work, make yourself feel better, work out, eat well, repeat, do it again, .
AJV (36:28):
It’s so true.
LH (36:30):
And so yeah,
AJV (36:31):
Go ahead. That point of less is more. It’s like my number one complaint with like, pretty much every single course that I purchase is I get in and I’m like, I don’t have time for this right now. Totally. Cause I get in and I’m like, oh my gosh, there’s 14 modules I I don’t even care about. If they’re one minute each, I can’t even get that far. I’m like, huh. Cause I wanna be able to like do an entire course in one sitting.
LH (36:54):
Yep.
AJV (36:54):
That’s how I roll. And so if it’s, if I can’t do it, I’m like, oh, now I have to schedule it. And then that just never happens. So I love about the concept of less is more. I would pay more money to get the information in a more consolidated version. And that’s what I hear you saying.
LH (37:09):
Totally. And people do pay that for different things, right? Like how many I was just thinking about the book or the, the audibles that take books and they chunk them down and you pay for essentially the cliff notes of the books. And I was like, see, I will buy more of those, spend more money so that you can just tell me what the book’s gonna tell me right away. . And people have made a whole business off of it.
AJV (37:34):
Well it’s a, it’s a whole thing. Like we talk about this all the time when we talk about the keynote business and you know, we’ve been in the keynote business for a really long time and I remember earlier in our career, I remember so many people saying, you charge that for an hour. And the answer is no. You get 15 years of consolidation and experience in trial and error and knowledge and research and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent. You get all of that in an hour. That’s what you’re getting. It’s not an hour rate. It’s no, you’re getting 20 years of stuff primed into an hour. So you don’t have to go through all of that. That’s what you
LH (38:19):
Oh my gosh. Totally. Like literally it was just in a mastermind that was four days long and lots of hours for me to come back with three things that I’ve given to people and they’re like, shut up. This blew my mind. And I’m like, you’re welcome for sitting in there for four hours and traveling and spending all that money.
AJV (38:36):
So glad it cost you, cost you five.
LH (38:38):
Yes. Could now could you go and bring something back to me?
AJV (38:41):
that that’s, but that’s so true. It’s like, I love that concept that less is more make people feel accomplished, but it’s, people aren’t buying like 62 hours, 45 workbooks, 600 pages. Like No, no, thank you. It’s how can you create the most value and the least amount is time.
LH (39:00):
Mm-Hmm. . I love that. And, and I think, I think you need to like find a spot where you can try some things. Meaning like find a group of people, a test group where you can get some real feedback, even if it’s like six of your friends that you’re like, Hey, could I borrow you for 20 minutes? Like, does this feel like it’s valuable to you or would this be valuable? And maybe it’s not people who are way ahead of you, but maybe it’s people who you would want to sell to who are a little behind you. Right. and just, I, I think we can get so much in our heads thinking we need to have this like, mind blowing content. And it’s, it’s not necessarily mind blowing. It’s kind of like exactly what you said. Like what is the best stuff that you have learned?
LH (39:43):
Like just sit for a day and say, what are three key things that have changed my life on this journey? And from those key things, you can literally tell a story for each one, each. So break ’em down. You have three things in front of you. Tell a story for each one. Extract the lesson, have them maybe do some writing around it. Like it’s that simple. Like that is what people need is just that moment of like, oh, if I did this, this would really change the game for me and move the needle. How can I implement it? How can I integrate it? And when
AJV (40:16):
Yeah. You know, it’s that whole concept of save the best for first
AJV (40:22):
. Yes. Hot last, save the best for first. I know I find myself I’m, my favorite thing to do is go to conferences and events. I’d like to be live in person. I like to just like remove all the electronics and go, I’m here for it. And I have found myself, like if I’m at a four day conference, I’ll often just bail at like day two because I’m like, I’ve got everything I came for. I don’t need anymore. I just need this now I need to go and implement. But if they had saved the best for last, I would’ve never done that. And it would’ve felt more challenging and more overwhelming cuz now I have to filter through four days to go, oh great, I got something in the last hour of day four. Yep. That says being like, I got everything I came from on day one. I don’t even need to go to the other three Ds. I’m sure it’s gonna be great, but I got everything I need. Yeah. And that makes me feel accomplished quickly.
LH (41:13):
Yeah. I love that you even shared that as I’m like thinking about just different things in the future. I’m like, gosh, why don’t, I mean that’s such a great even marketing idea to be like, look, our conference is one day and we’re just gonna have more of them, or whatever that looks like because we want you to take something from this day and go integrate it like that. Same with courses that we just talked about. Yeah. How can you think of it in a, a different way of like how your people learn best or what do they need most to do? Like is it just the one thing and then go integrate it? Like how could you build it so that it works better for them?
AJV (41:44):
I mean, every, every audience, every community is different, but mm-hmm. , you know, that is, that is what we’ve done at Brand Builders Group is we just said we’re, we don’t have learning events, we have come and do events. Mm.
LH (41:56):
That’s
AJV (41:56):
So good. It’s like 30% of the time is learning, 70% of the time is doing. And we do it with you because selfishly that’s how we do it. It’s like that’s, I learn we need, that’s how we learn. And it’s like we can’t be the only ones go home at the end of a a mastermind event going, oh, when am I gonna have time to even look at these notes? Versus no, we’re gonna do those notes in session together. So I love that Less is more help ’em feel accomplished quickly. Give ’em the best goods right up front. Change their life in the first hour. That’s amazing. So, okay. I’m gonna, I’m just like, I’m gonna go rapid fire. I love it. I don’t wanna miss any of these. Ok so next one. You know, I’m sure this is going to be such an easy answer, but how do you get 46 million downloads on your podcast?
LH (42:44):
Oh God. How
AJV (42:45):
Do you do this?
LH (42:46):
You know what, I think it was consistency, like consistently showing up and I talk about it everywhere I go. So at every speaking thing I’ve ever done, I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it at everything or weaved in like, you know, I’ve had this many interviews and this is what it’s taught me. I talk about it on social media every day. I you know, started a a a text list where I’ll also text you a reminder like, listen to this episode if you’re feeling this way. In the beginning I definitely feel like it was important to do a good launch. And that’s what I focused on. So, you know, if you’re thinking of launching a podcast, I think having a good launch strategy strategy, and I’ll share just a tiny, a couple tiny things around that. If you can speak anywhere when you’re launching, that would be awesome.
LH (43:36):
Or if you can have an event, because I think one of the main things that got me onto new and noteworthy is I was holding a Bliss Project event and I didn’t even really realize what I had done in a, in a good way. So take this and plan it better than I did. But I, I had that event and it had like four to 500 women at it. And what I did is I literally asked them, cause I launched the podcast that week, knowing the event was there, but I said, can you take out your phones and subscribe and leave a review now? And I think all of those going at once, you know, helped it stay up in new and noteworthy. And then I also continued to ask through the event, I’m like, Hey, you know, I spent all this time in front of this microphone because I wanna give you like the, the best stuff.
LH (44:18):
It’s truly like the, the things that have changed my life. If it changes your life or if you like it, would you share it? Would you just remember to share it? And on the podcast, I ask on just about every episode share this with someone. Like you get now to be, even if you’re not the person giving me advice, like you get, like when I share podcasts, I get to be the hero. And I say that like, I’m the hero. I just shared this awesome information. Be the hero. Share this information. Would you share this? Would you rate and review this? People will not do what they’re not asked to do. So I consistently, specifically ask for what I want on every single podcast. You guys am almost a thousand episodes in, that’s over a thousand asks. So it’s, it’s definitely going to help spread obviously when you do that
AJV (45:09):
Well. Yeah, it’s like if you don’t ask, the answer is always no.
LH (45:13):
Yes. Ask so
AJV (45:15):
Good. That’s just, I mean, simple, but again, the fundamentals work.
LH (45:21):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (45:22):
doesn’t have to be revolutionary for it to make a big difference. Stick to the fundamentals. Okay. Next one. All right, moving right along here. Tell us about your path from information products to physical products and knowing just a little bit about the backstory. Help people understand like, what are the things you need to know? What are some todos not todos? What do we need to be aware of if you are considering making a transition or stepping into the world of physical products?
LH (45:55):
Yes. Oh my gosh. Okay. So for me it was really what is the next challenge? And I felt like I had really done. So I was at that place where that realization where I did not, I did not dream past where I was like, I, I became the author, the the speaker. I had done the things and I was like, I never let myself dream outside of this. This was the cap. And I hit that place in like 2018 and I was like, I don’t think I wanna write another book right now. That was a really long journey. And I, I was feeling, you know, as you can tell from my journey, I’m a bit of a squirrel brain. So I was like, I need, I wanted a new challenge and I was craving a challenge that would force me to become a different person in order to fulfill it.
LH (46:45):
And I also was having a lot of conversations with my husband and started going to dinner with Chris and his friends. And I was noticing this stark difference in conversations. I was so lit up. Not that I wasn’t lit up with my friends, but at the, the place that I was, we were kind of having the same conversations about how do we get our courses out? How do we, you know, all of those, which is amazing, but I, I was having them and my brain likes new things often this know that thy self, right? And so I was going to dinner with my husband and they were having conversations about investing in companies, investing in each other’s companies how to really start pulling in lots of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, if not some of them talking about billions. And this was blowing my mind.
LH (47:32):
I was just like, they’re having this like a normal conversation. Like it because people had exited for 300 million and this guy for 500 million. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. My girlfriends are not having this conversation right now. They’re burnt out and they’re trying to figure out how to launch their next course, which is amazing. But also, what if this was an opportunity for them because they had already built their brands. I was sitting here thinking, okay, these women could, like, immediately I was thinking of all the ways they could implement and help grow these things. Cause I’m like, they have the audiences and you guys are looking for the audiences. Yeah. So we were just missing how to raise money, how to invest in each other, how to start a company. And so I was starting to feel this really big call. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, God, not me.
LH (48:15):
No, why. But I was feeling it like, oh, it’s gonna be you who’s gonna bring this back to your friends? And I was like, oh, crap. So I just literally got that soul hit and it was like, oh gosh, I am on this journey. Learned how to raise money, started learning about physical products. So, so similar, yet so different. So the really cool thing about a personal brand is that if you can start learning about physical products, you have so much of the equation already done that a lot of people who might be good at physical products don’t necessarily know how to do yet. So if these two worlds could collide, it’d be like, it’s mind blowing, right? Because you have both Hals of what you need. You need the marketing, which is like very much of what you’re learning in a personal brand is like how to market yourself.
LH (49:06):
All you’re doing is you’re taking marketing yourself and you’re gonna now market a product that technically is you. If you build it the way that I told you throughout your core values, it’s just something that you do and use, right? So it’s kind of, it’s kind of the same thing. And now people are really buying the core values and the founder and all of those things behind the products, which I think is really cool. So things that you want to know about building a product, find somebody who has done what you have done before. Do not go into this just Googling. Like you have to start by Googling, but then you need to sit down with as many people as you can and say, what do I need to know? What do I need to look out for? I would say start with a product that feels really natural to you.
LH (49:50):
Like a, a need that you see, or that you, you can see the world needing out there. Like a white space. Look for what the differentiator is. Why, why is it different from all of the other products out there? Why is it better? Why are you the person and that your team who can market it the best? I would stay away from your first products for anything that has a lot of legal tape around it. Anything that is really regulated, you, you’re gonna spend this is no joke. You will spend 10 times more on legal fees. There’ll be a lot more things that you cannot do when you are marketing online, when you’re marketing in retail. So it really stops a lot of the organic things that you can do, especially if you have already built a brand. It, it’ll even kind of stop you from being able to use what you already have.
LH (50:38):
So with that said, I would stay away from things that have a lot of like red tape or regulations. Okay. So finding that thing that maybe, and I would focus on one, I would focus on one product so that all of that money in r and d and research and all of the copywriting and everything, you can put all of your money behind that one message and you can tweak that . And if that’s not working, then you can go to the next product. But if you have like multiple skews and a bunch of different flavors, yeah, you have to remember every time you do that, when I say flavors, it’s just multiple things, right? Like maybe you have eyeliner, lipstick, and every single time you bring in a new product, that’s another email, that’s another person for copywriting that that’s another sales page. That’s another.
LH (51:23):
So it’s a lot of energy and it’s a much bigger team. So I would say start with one thing. Start with something that you can see needs to be improved out in the marketplace. And from there, honestly it’s, I don’t wanna say it’s easy, but you just have to have meetings with formulators co packers and you’ll learn all of these things along the way. Cause it’ll be how to make a lipstick and market it out to the world or put it on retail. You’ll get all of your answers, I promise you. And then from there, you’ll wanna talk to people and research people who have done it.
AJV (51:53):
Oh, those are so good. And I, I love what you said too about just avoid any sort of thing that has lots of legal tape because you’ll spend all of your investment money voyers.
LH (52:04):
Yes.
AJV (52:04):
So avoiding those sorts of things, it’s just an easier, easier, not easy, easier mm-hmm. place of entry. I love that. That’s so, so good. Okay. I know that we are almost up on time and I’ve got one other, one last question. And then I will let you free
AJV (52:23):
Before I ask you this last question. For all of you who are listening, I as before we started the recording, I said, Hey, where do you want me to send people who wanna connect with you? Because if you have listened to this interview and your mind is not blown with the amount of information that you have gotten, then you need to go back and listen again. We’re clearly spaced out. Like there is so much richness, there is so much gold in this interview. You don’t even know what you’re listening to because I, I just know how much time, money, resources, education that you have gone through to be able to quickly spit out some of these things that we all get on a free podcast. And so if you want more of that, which I think you do, I think you should probably tune into this. Lori has a really cool daily text that if you just text the word daily to this number, which is 3 1 0 4 9 6 8 3 6 3. So again, text the word daily to 3 1 0 4 9 6 8 3 6 3. Now don’t worry, I will also put that in the show notes. You can grab that. But you are gonna get a daily text from her. So Lori, tell ’em really quickly what this is all about.
LH (53:48):
Oh my goodness. Well, thank you for sharing this. I, this is actually the spot where I create all content from. So you kind of get like the real me sitting down and talking to like a best friend. And these are the conversations or the, the, the quotes or the nuggets that I’m getting from masterminds or things that are really pushing me forward. Or maybe there’s a block and then there’s a thought around the block that helps push it forward. These are some, you know, different things that Chris and I do to really like, keep our, our vision in front of us. These are different affirmations that are rocking my world. These are just like, if I was your bestie and I was sending you like cheerleader texts every single day, like truly from my heart and from here, that is where I, because I sit and I write from my heart, truly. Like, okay, if this was my best friend, what would I be sending her right now? And from there, that’s where I kind of create all other content. So you get the first videos, you get the first texts, all of those things. So I will only spam you with things that will change your life.
AJV (54:52):
only healthy spam. Really? Yes. Good, healthy spam. Well, I am, I’m literally, I’m doing this right now. I am signing up for this because yay. This is, I think as that great reminder that you shared earlier. It’s like you gotta put yourself in the right environment and you gotta build community and you gotta learn from people who’ve done it right? And that’s why you guys should do this. And text the word daily to 3 1 0 4 9 6 8 3 6 3. Okay, now, last question. All right, what do you know now that you wish you knew then as you were getting started?
LH (55:27):
Oh God. Go, go to the scarier places first. Like at, go to the, do whatever you can to knock down the doors of the people who have done it and ask the go learn from them and ask them questions. Like join their stuff. Ask for one on one time. Like they will, everything that we have said on here, they will accelerate your journey. They will save you money. They will save you heartache. Make sure they’ve done what you wanna do. , like, make sure people in the industry like check their credibility. Like really ask around and say, I’m thinking of investing in this person. What have you heard? Like, just, you know, I won’t take it personal. Just tell me all the things. What have you heard? Is this a good investment? And, and that will collapse time for you.
AJV (56:18):
Oh my gosh, this is such a good reminder. I says, don’t do it alone. Mm-Hmm. , do it alone. Lori, this has been so good. I have one. I love learning from you. Cause those are things we don’t do in normal, just like lunch conversations or whatever. So this has been such a special treat for me to go, oh my gosh, you have so much brilliance in your I need to pull that out of you more often. When are you moving to Nashville again?
LH (56:46):
I gotta live. I gotta live there too. I want to.
AJV (56:50):
Y’all, this has been so good and I’m a quick learner. I take advice. Well, so if you got value from this podcast, please share it. Please, please go like it, leave a review, please share it with someone that you think it’s going to be helpful for. Be the hero, get this content out in the world. So and then go do the same, right. Quick learner. Mm-Hmm. , I don’t have to recreate the will, I can follow instructions. So share it, like it, comment on it, leave a review help spread it out there. Y’all, thank you so much for listening. Lori, thank you so much for being on the show and to everyone as stay tuned to the recap episode and we’ll see you next time on the Influential Personal Brand.
LH (57:31):
Bye.

Ep 350: Activating Your Prey Drive with Micheal Burt

RV (00:07):
Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview. As always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions, and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to, to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do [email protected] slash pod call brand builders group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
RV (00:54):
Nothing fills me up more than seeing our clients succeed. And one of the things that we’ve done a lot in the last few years as we’ve helped people with book launches, we actually just last week had our 11th client that has hit the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, or the U s A today bestseller list. And while we love pursuing bestseller lists, we also wanna remind people that bestseller lists don’t change lives, books do. And our job when we work with the client is to help them get their book into the hands of as many people as possible in a legitimate, ethical, impactful way that actually changes the world. And so occasionally on this show, we are able to have clients of ours who we feel like we have something to learn from and who we feel like you have something to learn from.
RV (01:42):
And that is the case here for sure, with Coach Burt, coach Micheal Burt. He usually goes by Coach Burt or just coach to a lot of people. And he is we met, he became a client of ours. We’re helping him with a book that he has coming out. The book is called Flip the Switch, and it is all about activating your prey drive. And when I say prey drive, it’s like p r e y. So this is something that he is the leading authority on this term, this concept about prey drive. He defines it as the instinctual ability to see something that you want and have the intensity to pursue it. So he was a former championship women’s basketball coach which we’ll talk about. He’s a 17 time author. And he has been hired by many of the top companies in the world, Dell Inc. State Farm Insurance, Vanderbilt University and others just around helping activate this drive in their teams, helping people to have more competitive intelligence. He’s been featured on shows like CNBC’s, the Prophet and Entrepreneur Magazine, and he’s just really a great guy. I’ve really enjoyed getting to meet him and I’m excited to learn from him. So coach, welcome to the show.
RV (02:57):
Excited to be here
MB (02:58):
With you. You, man, this is this is gonna be fun.
RV (03:01):
Yeah. So tell me quickly about your background as a basketball coach and the track record that you had there. Cuz I feel like that’s a Yeah, I was a basketball player and so I, you know, I understand that world. I think that’s an important part of, of the backstory.
MB (03:15):
Well, you know, I’m in Texas today in San Antonio when I was speaking at an event and, and a person just asked me, what really differentiates you from other speakers and coaches? And I said, well, everybody is differentiated by their unique past, their unique experiences, their unique education. And I started actual athletic coaching when I was 15 junior pro basketball. I was coaching in elementary team at 18. I was at Riverdale High School at 19 while I was in college. And I actually became the youngest head coach in the state of Tennessee at the second largest high school at 22. So I knew very early in life that I wanted to coach, but I was most fascinated by what I called inner engineering the players building competitive intelligence. So around 18, I went to a coaching clinic in Nashville at David Lipscomb University, and Don Don Meyer, the great coach at David Lipscomb, said, if you don’t read another book this year, pick up a copy of the seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
MB (04:11):
And I, at 18 years old, I went straight to the bookstore, I bought it, I became a huge disciple under Covey for the next seven years, where I really learned how to inter engineer whole person theory. I really mastered those seven habits and I began teaching my players those habits. So when you fast forward three or four years, I was really using a lot of business methodology, a lot of personal growth methodology with my players, way more than other people were. We were starting to win a lot of games. And so people were constantly asking me, what are you doing with the kids? And so at 25 years old, I wrote my first book called Changing Lives Through Coaching. That was 17 books ago. And I became kind of fascinated with just how do you activate a drive inside of a person? But that started as a decade as a head coach at Riverdale. We won the first of seven championships at that school. And you know, I kind of became known as this great coach that knew really how to get more out of people. That’s what people knew me for. So
RV (05:06):
You won seven state championships? I don’t want to like over that.
MB (05:11):
I, well, I built, what I did is it took me 10 years to build that place that never won a championship in 30 years. Okay. So I won the first Got it. And then I retired at 31 years old. They were going to win the next seven after I left.
RV (05:24):
Wow. Okay. So, so you were a state championship basketball coach. Yep. And, and you, you use this term competitive intelligence. Yeah. So what is that, what is that? And like define, define that for me.
MB (05:42):
Well, I think when you look at intelligences, you know, whether you study the work on intelligences, obviously there’s iq, there’s physical quotient, spiritual quotient, you know, there’s all these intelligences. And I really said what I was building in my players was what I called, I called a competitive intelligence, which was kind of a combination of intangible things. My players were smarter than other people’s players. They had more chemistry, they had more trust in buy-in. There were more intangible assets that you couldn’t measure, that my teams had discipline. And, and so I started calling that competitive intelligence. It’s like they just knew how to win at a higher level than other people knew how to win based on the unique methodology I was using to coach them, which came from my background with Covey. Right. Me studying under Covey, taking it and teaching my players was really building that competitive intelligence in my players.
RV (06:31):
Uhhuh . Yeah. I mean it’s, you know, it’s amazing. I mean, it’s like o obviously, you know, there’s a physicality that matters tremendously in sports, but even in sports, like, you know, even if you, you look at like Tom Brady for whatever reason comes to mind to me as you go. Yeah. I mean, he’s a, he’s a specimen of a physical health, but his physical stature isn’t so much more dominating than every other player that’s on the field, or, you know, even every other quarterback. So there’s the, you know, there’s, it’s unmistakable that that, that the mindset, you know, plays a huge factor. So, apl so take me into your, how does that carry over for entrepreneurs and for personal brands and for, you know, we call, we refer to our audience as, you know, mission-driven messengers. Yeah. How, how do you see that kind of construct applying to what a mission-driven messenger does every day?
MB (07:34):
Well, most experts in the world have, have had a long cycle of building a primary skill, right? That’s the reason they’re experts, is they had a cycle of, of finding their primary skill, most likely packaging that skill, marketing that skill, and ultimately monetizing that skill. So that decade for me was in the trenches, in the laboratory, learning how to activate the prey drive in people of all socioeconomic backgrounds. D you know, high income class, low income class, one parent, no parents, two parents. I was really learning how to win at a very high level, but more importantly, how to take a person and get more out of them. Now, when I started writing books I’d had no intention of coaching adults, Rory, none whatsoever. I wanted to coach. I was gonna go to college. I was gonna be the next male pat summit.
MB (08:25):
I was gonna go on to coach at a major university. That was my trajectory. But when I started writing books people started calling me and said, Hey, will you come over and speak to my team? And it was companies like Dale, state Farm, national Healthcare, and I would just go speak for an hour and then go back to the players, right? Go back and coach. Well, I would go over and speak and they would say, we want you to come back. And I said, okay, what do you mean? I said, well, come back once a quarter, come back. And then people started saying, how much, how much would it cost for you to coach our people? And I had never really thought about that. So I’m like, man, I’m a high school coach. I’m trying to win championships. I really love the kids. I’m not interested in doing this. But, but the numbers was six figures. They would say,
RV (09:05):
But I can be bought. Let’s be clear. I love the kids. I love bad basketball, but like anyone, I can be bought. I mean, let’s be honest. I mean, that’s
MB (09:15):
. Now, now the funny thing was people started saying, well, what if we paid you $150,000 to be our coach? And of course, as a high school basketball coach, ooh, that was a lot more money than I was making. And I was working 80 hours a week, but I hadn’t fulfilled my mission, which was to bring a championship to that school. And that’s really what I promised my boss when he hired me at 22 years old. So I didn’t, I didn’t leave, I didn’t retire until I brought the place to a national, you know, championship. Then I stayed one more year because I didn’t wanna retire after I had won a championship, just to show that that’s the kind of person I am. And then I retired at 31 years old, and my speaking and coaching career really took off because I was, it was the recession of oh eight. I retired in the spring of oh eight. And so banks were hiring me, mortgage companies, real estate companies, home builders, cuz they couldn’t sell anything. And so it was like, man, this dude’s got a lot of what, what I call today prey drive. He’s got a lot of energy. He’s, he understands how to win, so why don’t we start paying him? And I was routinely signing six figure contracts in oh eight to come into companies and try to get more performance out of their people.
RV (10:18):
Mm-Hmm. . So how do we do that? How do we do that? So, so how do we get more performance out of ourselves, our people? How do, how do we actually activate this prey drive?
MB (10:30):
Well, this is what I, this is what the, the whole new book is about, which is called Flip the Switch. I trademarked the two words, prey drive in humans an animal has a prey drive. It is the animal’s ability to stalk, capture, and kill prey. And g God gave me the gift of association. I can hear a concept, I can quickly associate deconstruct a concept, codify it, package it, and then deliver it in a way that activates something inside of another person. And so when I heard that word, pray, drive those two words, I’m like, you know, humans have a prey drive. I had this big revelation. I was with my wife at a, at a conference. The guy said, pray drive. I looked it up and I said, humans have a prey drive. It’s just not been activated. And so many people. And I told my wife, that’s, this is what I’ve been doing since I was 15 years old.
MB (11:16):
I just didn’t know I was looking for a new way to talk about an old thing, right? I was looking for some bja day. I was looking for a new way to talk about motivation. And so what I did is I studied the top 20 motivational theories. I deconstructed those theories. I then associated those theories with me. 30 years of me actually coaching all walks of life. I spent four years in the prison system rehabilitating maximum security offenders. I’ve coached multi-millionaires, I’ve worked with billionaires, I’ve worked with people just trying to get started. And I’ve kind of taken motivation and turned it into a science. So there’s three phases of this drive has to be activated. And, and in the book I talk about about five activators that I have seen. Once the prey drive is activated, then there must be a persistence to that prey drive to really accomplish something big. This is why mastery is so important. And then there must be an intensity to that prey drive, which is targets timelines, a game to play a scoreboard, right? And typically people fall off the wagon. So the first step is to figure out the three phases where people fall off the wagon and then to go to work on these five activators that I talk about in the book.
RV (12:21):
So you’re saying, so step one is it’s gotta be activated number, turn it on, flip the switch to use the title of the book, right? So we have to flip, we have to flip the switch, turn the prey drive on, then we need to do something about persistence, like to keep it going. And then you’re saying,
MB (12:38):
Oh, no refinement.
RV (12:39):
Okay. And then intensity, what you’re saying is like, intensity comes from like having a target or a goal or a timeline or you know, a competition or something like that. So yeah. So let’s talk about the, let’s talk about the activation. Cuz cuz you know, I, I have to say that it, it struck me once I understood actually one, once I saw the word p r e y, like when I saw it spelled out, it made more sense to me. And it caught my attention of like, you know, I associated it personally with like a killer instinct. And basically just like, yeah, some people are are turned off. They have no ambition, they have no drive, they have no pursuit. They have, they’ve, they’ve got, they’ve got nothing that they’re going after. And I think it’s, you know, there’s always there what a lot of people would say, you, you can’t motivate someone. The one thing you can’t do is, is motivate someone, which I’ve always struggled with. I don’t think I really ag I don’t, I don’t agree with that. I think there’s a number of things you can do. And I feel like you’re sort of saying the same thing here. So talk, talk to us about how to activate it and you know, and if you wanna run, let’s run through some of the activators about how to, how to flip that switch in ourself or our team or maybe a child, you know? But let
MB (14:00):
It flip. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you, when you think about activating the prey drive it is, it is an instinct ability to pursue potential opportunity a better life, right? And most people, it has not been activated.
RV (14:16):
And you’re saying it’s instinctive. So you’re saying that we all have this somewhere deep down, turned off, buried, whatever you wanna say, but we all have the ability to, to pursue.
MB (14:29):
That’s correct. Yeah. I think if you look at kids, I have a two and a half year old son and a and a and a 12 week old daughter and a 10 year old daughter. And listen, they pursue, they see things they want and they pursue ’em, right? And, and what happens, I just coached a group of real estate agents today, insurance agents yesterday. You know, the best ones pursue opportunity, pursue deals, they follow up, they see something through to its conclusion. They understand they have to activate this drive every day. So when I looked at the five activators, I said, okay, what have I seen that activates people’s drive to want more, right? Cause satisfied needs never motivate, only unsatisfied needs. The reason we become complacent is because our needs are met. Okay? And that’s really, when you study the motivational theories, they all say the same thing.
MB (15:13):
We move toward things we want when we’re hungry, we moved toward food. When we’re lonely, we move toward people, right? We move toward things we want and what we think will make us happy. So when you think about activating, I started looking at this. Fear is a tremendous activator of prey drive, right? And, and psychologists would tell you when you’re afraid, you fight, you flee. Or there’s a third thing they’re now saying is you freeze. Which is what a lot of people are doing in today’s economy. They just freeze. They don’t do anything. Okay? So fear is an activator, a prey drive. When you are afraid of losing something, something that matters to you, it will activate your drive when you’re afraid of going broke, when you’re afraid of going back to the way you used to be when you’re like, fear can be one of the strongest drivers of a person’s prey drive.
MB (15:56):
Now here’s an example. In March of 2020, you’re in a very similar business that I’m in. Okay? I, I speak, I drive leads, we generate those leads to a coaching business, right? Lemme generate about 3000 leads every 90 days right now, well, in March of 2020, there was no speaking engagements. I was losing about a quarter of a million a month in my coaching business, right? And, and what happened to me is it activated a deep drive in me. It activated two things, a fear and a competitiveness in me, right? The, the old coach in me that didn’t like to lose came out. And the fear of losing everything I had worked 20 years to build, which was an incredible life activated my drive to such a freakish level. I just got to a whole nother level of push and energy and force and creativity.
MB (16:46):
And I actually needed that to activate that drive in me because I had been doing this 15 years and I need, I wouldn’t complacent, but, but there was another gear in me I hadn’t found yet. And through the fear of losing everything, the fear of going back, man, it activated my drive. So, so I push so hard that, you know, six months later in the middle of the pandemic, we did like 1.7, 1.8 million that month, which was a big month for my coaching business. But it all came outta fear. It really started with fear activating my prey drive. Not a lot of, but a lot of people contract when they have fear. High prey drive, people use fear as fuel. So fear is an activator or prey drive, typically fear of losing.
RV (17:24):
Yeah. I mean that like, you know, the, I the, the thing that popped into my mind was like you know, a mama bear, a mama bear kind of thing of like, you, you know, you see your kid getting attacked by, you know, some, some animal or whatever, and all of a sudden you just go savage, right? Like, you just go, you go on ’em. So that makes a lot of sense. That’s, that’s powerful. I, it, it also to me, like really reframes, you know, that, that, you know, there’s a healthy, very much a healthy side of, of fear beyond just staying, you know, safe, but like hitting that gear, hitting that gear. So okay, so fear, that makes sense. What are some of the other ones?
MB (18:04):
Competition is an activator of prey drive. When there’s an, when there’s an adversary, when there’s somebody to beat. When there’s somebody who doesn’t think you’re good enough when there’s a, you know, just any kind of competition can activate your drive, right? But, but competition, I’m a big believer that you need a game to play a trophy to win. If it’s, if it’s in your own, if it, if it’s in your own mind, you need, you know, speaking yesterday, and I was asking my coaching students if they thought I could convert 50% of the room or higher on purchasing the new book, flip the Switch, right? Uhhuh . So, so there, there’s a game. So I asked him, so I called the dude out and I said, what do you think? He said, I think you can convert 25%. I said, all right, I’ll make a bet with you.
MB (18:41):
I’m gonna, I’m gonna try to get 50% of the room minimum or higher when I go in and speak to this insurance group to buy the new book. Right? So it’s competition activated my prey drive cuz I’m a competitor. Okay? So competition is an activator. Now you mentioned something earlier, why is people’s prey drive not activated? I actually think it’s because they’ve not been exposed to what a better life would look like. Exposure is an activator, a prey drive. When I see something, when I’m exposed to something, when, when, when I, when I experience something that goes, oh, there’s a be there’s a, I could have a better life. I could stay in better hotels, I could drive a better car, I could live in a better house. I could go on better vacations. I could, right? Like exposure is a huge activator of prey drive. Cause I see something and it expands my mind and it’s like, man, I want that. I want a life like that. Okay, so environment is an activator, a prey drive. Does that because you’re in an environment,
RV (19:37):
Are you saying, so it is environment number four, or are you saying exposure environment? So exposure is, is
MB (19:44):
Number three, environment number
RV (19:46):
Four.
MB (19:47):
Yep. Gotcha. Environment is four. Meaning there’s expectation. Think about playing at Alabama or Georgia. Think about where there’s an environment of expectation. Think about like, when I was a coach, we created this environment that we’re the best high standards similar language lots of accountability, right? Identity teaching people, Hey, we’re the best at what we do. Personal pride being in environments, they just bring out the prey drive in you, right? And then fifth would be embarrassment. This is what I write about.
RV (20:17):
So hold on ho hold on. Embarrassment. I wanna talk about that. But, but the environment one is interesting to me because it’s like winning is such a culture, right? Yeah. And losing is also a culture like you, I think of like Coach K at Duke or you know, the Yankees or the Patriots or Alabama, right? Like they, they win consistently. And, and I remember seeing a study, I, man, I wish, I wish I would’ve documented where this was, but I remember seeing a study and they were studying very, very like wealthy, successful people. And they were looking for what these people have in common. And they found that like the number one thing that all these people had in common was that they believed they were supposed to be successful because they had been told their whole life in our family, we’re successful, our family is smart, our family is wealthy, our our family is intelligent.
RV (21:17):
And they basically like adopted that as a belief system and then it became their reality and it was completely manufactured by the environment. Yep. And similarly you know, there’s, well, there’s I think it’s in the book Freakonomics, it’s either Freakonomics or tipping point. I think it’s Freakonomics where they talk about how in New York City there’s all this terrible crime. And you know, like at the, when you go into the train station if, if the little turn style doesn’t, you know, work, like if you jump over it, you don’t have to pay. You just jump over and then hop on the train. And they were talking about how, you know that good people who would normally pay stopped paying because so many bad people were just like jumping over the thing. And so they were like, well, I’m not gonna pay if no one else is paying. Where normally that would be like a good person. And just like, so it works in the other direction too. I mean, I, I think that people really underestimate this one.
MB (22:19):
I, I do too. Because look at, look at people working from home today. And there are a percentage of people who can activate their prey drive daily. But I would tell you, because we went from working in offices to home, I would tell you that we’re a lot more productive when we’re together, when there’s an environment. That’s why I’m building a greatness factory in downtown Nashville, which is a place where you go to work, learn, grow, connect, you’re going there to be great. It’s called the Greatness Factory. It’s not called the complacency factory. And so, so you know, it, it’s this place of energy. It’s like, man, I wanna work at the greatness factor where the energy’s good and there’s environment. And when I’m in town, I lead sales rallies and every, every tenant gets access to my coaching programs. And they can use the auditorium and the podcast studios and writes a little city.
MB (23:05):
But there’ll be a lot of environment activators of prey drive. Cuz I’m working at the greatness factory. I wanna go to work. So environment, that was a big one that I built as a coach. You know, when I went to Riverdale, they had never won a championship in 30 years. I mean, it was 1979. I had to really build an environment. So we redid the locker rooms, we w we changed uniforms to nicer uniforms. We, we redid the hallways. We put big things of we’re the best. I brought in gold you know, rings, championship rings for the players to wear gold ball balls in there for them to see what they look like. A lot of visualization on what it’s like to be a champion. It took me 10 years of sowing this into my players. But over a tenure cycle, they begin to believe we’re the best.
MB (23:49):
And when you’re here, we activate the prey drive. Now people do not wake up with their prey drive activated. I tell people this when I speak, I just, because I write motivational books, just cause I wrote this book does not mean I wake up with my prey drive activated. I wake up just like everybody else does. Sometimes I’m tired, sometimes I’m irritable, sometimes I’m frustrated. Right? And so I, I teach in the book, how do you activate it every day? How do you go into battle every day? Right? King David was a great king in the Bible until he stopped going into battle, right? And his own troops talked him outta going into battle, right? We’re at our best when we are pursuing, when we are engaging, when we are in the game. This is why retirement is such a bad idea for people. Cuz they quit pursuing their potential.
MB (24:31):
They make themselves not as valuable in the world because, because they basically said, I’m used up. Right? I don’t have anything to pursue. So environment is important. And then the fifth one is embarrassment. And I don’t use embarrassment as a coach, like negative. And some coaches do, they talk the way they talk to people. I don’t do that. I talk to people from an affirmative perspective. Like, you know, Rory, help me to understand, man, you’re the best. I brought you here because you’re the best in the world at what you do, man. You have a pure, unique ability and unique talent. Help me to understand why you’re not playing at the level you’re really capable of playing. Help me to understand why you’re doing four deals a month when you could be doing 12 deals a month. Help me to understand why you’re doing this versus this. I I speak to people in a way that they go, you know what? This is embarrassing. The way I’m playing at the level I’m playing is embarrassing to me and I wanna play at a higher level. So that’s the way I talk about embarrassment in the book is you look at yourself versus your potential and you go, man, I’m not even close to where I’m capable of doing and I want to do better. I want a better life. I want him to level up.
RV (25:36):
Mm-Hmm. , I, it’s funny that you used this like this might just be my reticular activating system, but literally today I was listening to an interview with a good friend of mine, John Gordon, also a client of ours and mentor of mine. Mm-Hmm. . And I was listening to an interview between John Gordon was interviewing Matthew McConaughey. Hmm. And he asked Matthew McConaughey, where does your, where does your willingness to work so hard come from? And Matthew McConaughey literally said, because if I didn’t, I’d be embarrassed.
MB (26:11):
Yeah.
RV (26:12):
And he said, I would be so embarrassed to my friends, to my family, to God, to myself. I’d be so embarrassed that I never lived up to Yeah. What I was capable of. I mean, it’s just I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use that in a positive way. And now here today, twice in the same, in the same day. Like, that’s really powerful.
MB (26:36):
Well, I’m glad you said that because I actually take a contradictory view in the book of finding your Why. Chapter three of, of this new book is called Screw Your Why. And it’s called that because I actually, you know, I’ve coached people for 31 years. I think it’s a great book. I think Simon Sinek is a, a genius. However, having said that, I do not believe a person has to find their why to do something big in the world. I actually believe your purpose finds you when you are taking action and pursuing a curiosity, pursuing a, something you’re fascinated by. So I believe in something called because goals. See, you just said it about Matthew McConaughey. A because goal is a big reason that you do something even when you don’t feel like it. Okay. Be because if I don’t work hard, I’ll be embarrassed because I grew up without my dad.
MB (27:28):
I wanna be a good dad to my kids. Because right when they asked Tom Brady why he played so hard in the Super Bowl where they came back when they were down 30 something points at halftime to the Falcons, he said, because my mom was dying of cancer and I flew her in for this game, and I didn’t wanna lose the super goal Super Bowl with my mom in the stance. See what I talk about in the book are these because goals and a because goal was a big reason. Because I make the argument that you can know your purpose and still not be motivated. Your prey drive still not be activated. I could know I’m supposed to coach people today, but when it came time for me to go motivate those real estate agents today, what if I didn’t feel like it because a coach poured into me when I was six years old changed my life.
MB (28:09):
I made up my mind I was gonna spend the rest of my life pouring into other people. Because, because I see myself as the best at what I do because I don’t wanna be embarrassed by my performance. See, this is a because goal. And when I know a person’s because goal and I know the activator, the primary activator of their prey drive, I can really help a person get to a higher level. Because you and I both coach wealthy people. I mean, I’ve coached people making five or 600,000 a month, a million a month, 3 million a month, they still lost a prey drive. So it’s not about them versus the money, it’s about them versus their potential, them versus what they’re really capable of doing. And I need to know their, because goals on why they would want it and why they would want play at a higher level.
RV (28:50):
Mm-Hmm. when you were talking, it reminded me so I had a conversation with Ed Mylet not that long ago. So, you know, we are obviously been a strategist for him. And it was after his book launch and we were talking about like other things that we can support and do and help him with. And we were talking about some presentation skills stuff that, that we do that’s really, really next level. Some of the stuff we teach about the psychology of laughter and how to create a physiological change in the audience and how to gracefully sell from stage and, you know, advanced level storytelling skills and, you know, just like mastery level stage mechanics. And and I just said, you know, I don’t think he wouldn’t mind me sharing this. He was asking me, he was like, okay, what do I need to do to see the training? And I, I literally responded. I was like, well, ed, you’re, you’re already legitimately. And I said, I was like, I don’t, I’m not pumping you up full of fluff. Like you’re already one of the best speakers I’ve ever seen. And he got pretty short with me. And he literally said, he goes, Rory, I don’t want to be one of the best speakers the world has ever seen. I want to be the best speaker the world has ever seen. He’s like, send me the training . And I was
MB (30:12):
Like, that’s that, that activated, but that activated his prey drive. See, see when, when somebody shook Michael Jordan’s hand and said, good game. It infuriated him that activated his prey drive when George Carl didn’t acknowledge Michael Jordan at the restaurant the night before. They played the supersonics, it infuriated Jordan, it activated his prey drive. Like he, he, he looked for things like, like when you say something to a guy like Millet, who is, who is, is incredible from stage and getting better every time. Like every time he gives the presentation, he’s better and better and better and better. You know, that activates his prey. Drive that desire to be the best, that competition to be known as the best activates prey drive. You know? And that’s what, so you can see it once you have a, an anchor to it, what prey drive is, which is that, that killer instinct. See that moment you felt that killer instinct to my left, and you don’t get to my let’s level without having that instinct, right? Yeah. So, so it’s like you, that one statement, boom, flip the switch. And that’s really what I think a good coach does. Sometimes. It’s, it’s something they say that activates something inside of a person.
RV (31:15):
Well, well, I certainly wasn’t doing it on purpose. I was an accident. He, he, but he, he he, he, he, he, it just shows you the level of intensity that he operates at. And I, and I, I want to ask you about intensity before we go, but before, before we do that so you’ve mentioned this, we’ve been talking about flip the switch. Okay. We’ve kind of gone through these five activators, but there’s a whole system here for, you know, basically activating this, sticking with it. I wanna talk a little bit about intensity, but where do, where should people go coach if they wanna pick up a copy of the book?
MB (31:49):
Well, if they go to my website, coach bird.com and click on that, you can pre-order the book. When you do pre-order the book. We’re giving you a lot of things, including two full days of coaching with me, one on visionary that’s coming up quick, and one on January 13th called Activate, which is a full day. We also give you 90 days of pre drive for lunch, what I call pre drive for lunch, which are 90 days of sessions with me for 90 days. And, and a breakdown of the book on video of me breaking the book down and kind of a masterclass. So they go to coach bird.com, they can click there, take ’em to Amazon purchase it, and then they come back and show us where they purchased it to get all the freebies.
RV (32:27):
Mm-Hmm. . All right, well, we’ll link up to that in the show notes for everybody. So my, my last little question is just you know, the, the concept of in intensity. Yeah. And, and balance, balance this for me. So there is, you know, there’s complacency.
MB (32:50):
Yep.
RV (32:50):
Which, you know, is what it is. But I’ve also been in, you know, some circles that talk about enoughness and going, okay. Is, is, is there ever a point where you have enough to where you go, Hmm, you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve got enough. Like I don’t, I don’t need to keep chasing, I don’t need to keep, like, always moving the goalpost, so to speak. So I’m cur I’m curious about your assessment on either the balance of enoughness with intensity, or do you not, do you, do you not really believe in enoughness at all? Or like, just what’s your, what’s your personal philosophy there about intensity, you know, like intensity and rest or intensity and enoughness not, I mean, obviously you don’t believe in complacency, complacencies the enemies. Yeah. Sounds like. Yeah. But, you know, how do you reconcile that? Or, or is that not really the concern? Because, you know, people spend plenty of time resting and they need to get more time getting their butt in gear. Like, I’m just curious of your thoughts.
MB (33:51):
Yeah, I, I do believe in rejuvenation, which means to make young again. So I operate very much like an athlete, artist, entertainer. I rest, I practice and I play. And when I play, I wanna play at such a high level that it’s deeply impactful to people. But to play at that level, you need rest, you need rejuvenation. So I, I completely believe in that. I typically take one day off per week, just like the Bible says. I typically take one day where I do nothing. Okay. And, and just to myself now to your question about complacency, which is a gradual settling to a place of mediocrity. Mediocre meaning halfway up the mountain, you’re gradually settling to go halfway up the mountain. My mom has been a nurse her whole life and she worked a percentage of her life in nursing homes, taking care of elderly.
MB (34:38):
And I asked her one day, why did people pass away at the end of their life outside of just natural causes? And she gave me three reasons. She said, number one, they run outta money. And when they run outta money, they run outta good care. There’s one nurse for every 23 residents in a nursing home. She said, number two, they run out of love. Nobody comes to see ’em. The only love they get is from the other residents and the people who take care of them. The family forgets about ’em. She said, but the real reason they pass away is they run out of purpose. They don’t have something to get up and pursue. And I saw that with my own grandfather. He retired, he worked his whole life on a farm. He loved it. Get up and work at build houses. He was, he became a single digit millionaire in his life.
MB (35:18):
I mean, he, he was an entrepreneur and then he decided to retire. And my mother said as almost as if the day after he retired, everything in his life went downhill. His mind went downhill, his health went downhill. And then we spent all of the money that he had earned in his life to take care of him 24 hours a day for the rest of his life. And so the, the, the point here of why people watching this should be interested and have an intensity is that you don’t wanna run out of purpose. And, and the prey drive is pursuing something that is meaningful to you. Right now, the average person, average females live into 78 years old. Average average females living to 82, average males living into 78. Put that in number of days you have left on planet Earth. And that will build an intensity in you. Cuz it ain’t a lot of days, right? I’m 46, you look at what, 15,000 more days. If I live to be that age, that builds intensity. I got a long way to go in a short time to get there. Big goals, big goals, big because goals, and that is where the intensity comes from, is I got something big to do on planet Earth while I’m here.
RV (36:22):
I love it. I love that. So powerful coach. Thank you for this. We’ll link up to coach burt.com. Y’all can go there. And yeah, I’d say go check it out, even if you’re not gonna buy the book. Go look at what coach is doing. And the way that we’ve got this whole book launch structured, he’s, he’s following the brand builders method, right? He’s got a lot of, a lot of insane bonuses he’s giving away. He’s really, really overdelivering. So head over to coach burt.com, check that out. Coach, we want the best for you, man. We’re good. We’re excited to be on your team, we’re pulling for you. And thank you for helping us all activate this part of our life.
MB (36:59):
Well, and I think the people out there, let me say this, it’s been a, a absolute pleasure and honor working with Rory. And for those, for those out there watching, he cares deeply about the people he works with. He, he goes above and beyond on what’s asked. He continues to follow up and texts and coach. And if you’re out there thinking about doing this, it’s been a, it’s been a very first class experience for us. So thank you for that. Thank you for believing in me and helping us to hit this hit this list that I know that we’re gonna hit.
RV (37:26):
All right, my friend. So yeah. We’ll everyone stand by for that coach. We’ll catch you next time. Thanks for being here.
MB (37:32):
All right. Thank you, big guy.

Ep 348: Tips for the First Time Author with Bob Wheatley

AJV (00:53):
Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal brand. This is AJ Vaden here, and I am here today with a very good close personal friend and a fellow brand builder and actually a client turned team member, which is very unusual and very rare for us to have someone like Bob Wheatley on the show today. But we just felt like this was too good of an opportunity to pass up. And so before we get into the details of this interview, I wanted to kinda tell you why you need to stick around for the entirety of this interview. And ultimately, if you have ever had a dream of writing a book, this is the interview for you. Or if you are in the process of perhaps writing your first book or trying to land a book deal or trying to get your book published, or you’re just starting to ideate around this, like, I’m going to do this now, how do I get it in the hands of somebody that it can impact?
AJV (01:56):
This is for you. Or perhaps you have even published your first book and now you’re wondering, how do I sell this ? How do I actually make money with this thing? Then this is the interview for you. This is an interview built for that first time author, or aspiring first time author. And that is why you need to stick around for this interview. Now let me also formally introduce you to my good friend Bob Wheatley. Bob is an author. He’s also a podcaster. He’s also on the speaking circuit talking about his new book, but he’s also a former professional athlete, which is definitely what my two toddlers think is the coolest part about Bob. He serves as a co-host of that single show, a singles ministry sponsored by Christian Radio in Dallas. And after graduating from the University of Southern California, he played for four years of professional baseball with the Toronto Blue Jays and the St.
AJV (02:55):
Louis Cardinals and l y’all listen, like that is like no joke. Like to learn about the rigor and the expectations, and quite honestly, the passion and the lack of pay often associated with professional sports. One of the things that I know is that what you’re going to learn about here is some true hard work. This is not fluff. These are the real things that it takes to get real things produced in the real world. These are not get rich quick gimmicks. This is not how do you sell a million books in 30 days? But this is the real work that it takes because that’s what he is been putting in for his entire life, and that is no different than what you’re gonna hear on this show right now. So without further ado, Bob, welcome to the show.
BW (03:42):
What an introduction . You can just, you can just keep going. I don’t, I don’t have much to much to add beyond that. That was amazing. Thank you. I’m so, so stoked to be on the show with you.
AJV (03:52):
We’re so happy to get to be able to do this and a part of why we were so excited to have Bob as a guest on the influential personal brand is because he is a first time author and he just published his first book and it’s going out. It’s going to be available for presale right now, but it’s launching in January of 2023. So as you’re listening to this you have an opportunity to get your hands on this amazing book that we’re gonna talk about but also is because we’ve been able to walk side by side along with Bob and watch the journey of idea to book, to publishing, to holding it in our hands of going, this is a reality and this can happen. And it wasn’t that long, truly. And so we thought this would be amazing opportunity for all of those first time authors or aspiring authors to go, how do I do this?
AJV (04:46):
But then also, we’re just so excited of you for or for you, and we’re so proud of the work that you’re doing. So this is also just a really special moment that we get to celebrate some real life hard work that we get to see firsthand. And so here’s my first question that I have for you, and I pinged you with this earlier. It’s why write a book, right? Because , as you are going to share, it’s no joke, it’s so much work as anything good in life takes a lot of work, but it’s a ton of work. So why a book? You could have done a course, you could have just stuck to the blogging or podcasting, but there was something in you that said, I want, I want these words on paper. So tell us a little bit about why that route.
BW (05:30):
Yeah, totally. And but before I answer that, let me just say, it’s kind of surreal for me to be sitting here cuz if you’re a member, I became a brand builder’s client first I found you guys through the podcast. It was just a friend referred the influential personal brand. Like, Hey Bob, you’re thinking about writing the book. I know you’re in the podcasting space. These guys are doing some awesome stuff. Check out this podcast. So it’s cool for me because I was listening to you guys for a while, you know, on the other end of this show. Now to be sitting here with you personally is just so, so cool. Oh,
AJV (06:01):
I didn’t even know
BW (06:02):
Share that. I, yeah, I was a, I was a podcast listener subscriber, the whole deal. But as far as why write the book, cuz you’re right, there’s so many ways that you can go when it comes to a personal brand or even just having a message to share. I think for me personally, I was always a reader, like when it comes to playing professional baseball, spending time in the minors, we have this saying, hurry up and wait. There’s just so much downtime. And so it’s either you’re playing cards with your buddies, you’re scrolling your phone, or for me, you know, you’re, you’re reading. So most of the stuff that I was reading while I was playing was nonfiction. It was mental game, it was mindset, it was health, nutrition, weightlifting. Like, I just wanted to throw baseballs as fast as I possibly could cuz I wanted to get to the big leagues.
BW (06:50):
But I was reading, I was constantly around it. And so you’re, you’re right that I could get a message out in any number of forms, but I’ve always been a reader. And I grew up in a house of attorneys, oddly enough, my dad’s an attorney, my brother, my sister, my grandfather, two uncles and an Aunt . Oh my God. So if you guys get sued, don’t call me. But I do have some wheatleys on deck for you in the legal space. But when you grow up in that house, when you grow up in the house of an attorney, you’re constantly making an argument. And that doesn’t mean you’re being combative with people, but it’s like, okay, if you believe that thing, that’s great. Prove it. Hmm. Like, why, why do you believe that? Let’s not leave it at surface value. Let’s, let’s develop an argument. Let’s develop our thinking. And so there’s so many ways I could answer that question as far as why a book, but that’s just a couple. I was always a reader raised by an attorney and oh,
AJV (07:51):
That’s good. Here we have it. You know what’s interesting is as we come to a close on the year 2022, I have shared this with many people that I’ve encountered over the last few months, that this has probably been single-handedly the best year of my life. Both personally and professionally, but not because something extraordinary happened in our business. Although there’s lots of successes, but there’s been lots of ups and downs, or there wasn’t something extraordinary that happened in my personal life. But this year has been the single most 40 year of my life because of my commitment, my recommitment to personal development. And I am finishing my 15th book of the year. I’ve got just, I don’t know, maybe a third of the this last book I’m reading called Live No Lies by John Mark Comer that I had the opportunity made my, made the opportunity for myself.
AJV (08:47):
I read through the entire Bible this year and then read 15 books. And I, I shared this with Rory about halfway through the, the year this year. And I said, I think I forgot the power that a book has to change a life. And I am just a firsthand example of that this year. And you could ask anyone who is super close to me. I am a different person today than I was 12 months ago. And it is because of the books that I have just completely committed my life to just being in positive reading and filling my mind with things that are gonna help me versus potentially harm me. And it’s, I had just, I have fallen back in love with the power of the written word. And there’s nothing wrong with a short form content and a blog or a social media post or a podcast.
AJV (09:40):
But one of the things that I thought about this year is I do a lot of podcasting and write blogs and write social media posts. And I can tell you right now, the amount of time that I put into my podcast prep or blog prep or social media prep is teeny tiny. But the amount of time and preparation and thought that is required, that is mandatory to write a good book takes a lifetime. And I forgot about that until I have like, been so transformed by books this year. And it’s, it’s one of the reasons why I wanted, I wanted to ask that question because I think there’s just, people have forgotten the amount of preparation and editing and re-editing that it takes to like, make a book a book, and we kind of get consumed with that short form content or pop it in our ear of going, man, we just whipped that out, for 15 minutes prep versus a lifetime of experiences and stories that really make up a book. And I, again, and we know how long it takes to do this and the fact that you’ve done it in such a short amount of time is incredible. But then also knowing that the book that you have will change someone’s life is pretty freaking extraordinary.
BW (11:01):
Yeah. Well I, and I’m so glad you you said that not necessarily about me. I’m saying I have that, I’ve had that same experience where as I’ve written more, I’ve become a much better reader mm-hmm. Because I’m, I’m so grateful for the work that these men and women have put in on those books. Like when I was in the, in the buses, in the locker rooms of the minor leagues reading book after book after book, I really didn’t care. It was, or I wasn’t as grateful as I should have been. Now after having spent two and a half years writing a book, writing, rewriting, editing, throwing stuff away, like there, there is so much that goes into a book just because it is, it’s so complex. And of course it depends on the project, but by and large you have to write 200 pages. That makes sense.
BW (11:50):
Yeah. You know, and you’re sharing like this’s just thousands upon thousands of your own words. And you’re right, like when it comes to a podcast, you and I are having a conversation, we’re keeping it casual. We could pause the whole deal when it comes to a book. It is set in stone mm-hmm. . And so I totally agree with what you’re saying. As I’ve written more, I just so appreciate writing, especially cuz like, it took me two and a half years to write a book and I have a, I have a Mac. Like imagine these guys who like, I, I like classic novels and know I quote a number of them in my book. But if you think about like a toll story or you know, like you think about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, like then they didn’t have a Mac like the, the minds of these people to write something down like that. And with the lack of tools, the lack of technology, it’s just, it’s so impressive and so awesome that we’re able to share that. Oh my god. And years later,
AJV (12:52):
I have a girlfriend who is just, she’s incredible, her name’s Victoria Jackson. And she hand wrote both of her first books. And I was like, what, what does that mean? And she was like, what do you mean, what does it mean? I had some paper and a pen or a pencil. And I was like, what?
BW (13:11):
That is wild. I couldn’t imagine that my two year book would’ve taken two decades. That’s crazy. good for her.
AJV (13:20):
So, okay, well on the topic of getting this book out there and for all of you who are listening, who are these first time authors? I think there’s some really strategic questions that we wanna dive into today. That would just help anyone who is listening in a universal kind of perspective shift and all the different ways that you can actually write a book. Because if you are going about writing a book, there’s a few different ways you can do it, right? There’s the traditional path, right? You’re gonna try to work with a p a traditional publishing house, which means you probably need an agent. They’re gonna have, you’re gonna have a book deal, you’re gonna have a book proposal, you’re gonna do the whole thingy, right? Then there’s the opposite of that, which the self-published route, right? And I always use this example how Elrod, right?
AJV (14:00):
People always go, well, self-published, like is it really gonna get distribution? Well, it’s like he’s now sold 2 million copies of the Miracle Morning. So yeah, self-published can work just fine, right? But you’ve got that where you’re doing all of it and you’re paying for it up front, but you’re keeping all the money on the back end. But then you kinda have this middle world, which is this hybrid model that has really come on strong in the, on the scene in the last 10 years where it’s, it’s like a traditional publishing hat publishing house because they can do some of the design and the editing and the distribution, but yet it’s more like a self-publish route in terms of you’re gonna keep and retain the rights and the money to your book. And so walk us through what did you do? How did you go through that decision making process and what has that decision been like for you?
BW (14:47):
Yeah, definitely. So I ended up taking that middle route. I did the, the hybrid model that you were describing where self-publish the book with an agent. So we call it agent led publishing. And when it comes to the traditional route, I mean, it’s called traditional for a reason. That’s how it used to be. But honestly, self-publishing is becoming so good these days. Not only in terms of the, the product, but the amount of people that are doing it. It’s not like the little kid brother like, oh, you self-published, ha ha ha. Like, you can, you can have a really solid product if you sell publish. And so for me personally, the traditional route wasn’t really in the cards. And I say that was for two reasons. One externally and one internally. The external would be I just didn’t have the platform. Mm-Hmm. , like if you’re looking for the New York publishing houses to give you a call, you’re gonna need to be somebody. And I just didn’t have that platform to where they’d be so enticed, oh, Bob, gotta have your book. So externally there was a no. Can
AJV (15:51):
We pause right there just for a second? Yeah, please. I think there’s a couple of nuggets in there that is really important. And we were having this chat before I hit record around how it really isn’t the New York Times, you know, best written book. It’s the New York Times best selling book. There’s a hundred
BW (16:09):
Percent
AJV (16:10):
Called that. And you know, it’s like any chart that you look at is not really a, a critical claim on the quality of the book. It’s how well did the book sell, how well was it marketed? And you mentioned something that I think is really unique. It’s like, I didn’t have the platform to attract a big publishing house. And so can you tell us a little bit about like, what your platform was and and then I can share, you know, feedback of like, we had, we experienced the exact same thing when we were initially trying to shop and get our books sold. But talk a little bit about this platform size and why traditional publishers lean into that. And then what was your size at the time? Just give some, you know, context for everyone who’s listening.
BW (16:55):
I mean, if you think about it, these are for-profit businesses. So if they had to choose between publishing Bob’s book or Barack Obama’s new memoir, like, duh, of course, of course they’re going with, with the president. So in terms of my platform, like even today, I probably have about 10,000 followers between all of my socials. That’d be LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, I might be a little over that, but it’s not hundreds, not hundreds of thousands. Not even close. So small fish in that pond. So I could write this amazing book. Wow, this is the best we’ve ever read. Not that anybody said that, I’m just saying in theory. And, you know, they, they still wouldn’t take my call mm-hmm. . So then it’s the, okay, I’m probably going the self-publishing route, which again is totally fine, but I was so blessed to actually find an agent who believed in me, who saw the projectability of things.
BW (17:49):
Like she, she read one chapter of my book and there was enough to warrant a, a phone call and we’re actually on Zoom and you know, we, we talked for 20 minutes or so, and then I was so glad that I was prepared for this. She asked me, what’s the next book? I was like, let me, let me show you. And so I have it, you know, I have all the files ready to go and pulled up and like, I had already written like 20,000 words of my next book. That was all thanks to honestly my brand builder’s training. So the fact that I am like, you only get that phone call once because my agent, she’s a, as a Christian podcaster and author, she’s like on the Mount Rushmore of the Christian publishing world. Like she is, she is a baller. And so she represents all these amazing authors. She’s 80 New York Times bestsellers. And she said, Bob will take a chance on you. And I think part of that, a writing something
AJV (18:45):
As a compliment to you, please, but then a reminder to everyone else is having quality content is a prerequisite, it’s a requirement, right? That’s not what gets you published. That’s not what gets you an agent. That’s the expectation of it has to be good, it has to have value, it has to exceed the value that I thought I was going to get in this chapter. And that’s, that’s just like basic level, nothing more than that. Everything above that is how are you going to distribute this, right? But I think that’s really important around, it’s like, you know, there is this weird mix of how am I gonna sell the book and how am I gonna market the book? And also how do I make sure this book provides value that has the power to help and change the reader, right? And I think that that’s not something we wanna skimp over of going, you know, this is something we say often at Brain Builders Group is that the book is always the last thing you do, not the first thing you do, it’s the culmination of years and stories and experiences and data and research and all the things.
AJV (19:57):
It’s not the first thing you do, it’s the last thing you do because, you know, this is, this is, this is the, the summation of everything. It’s not the hypothesis. And so the fact that you did that and you had quality work is what even got you the call, right? And so, just for everyone listening, it’s like focusing in on the content and making sure it is value rich and value written like that is, don’t get us wrong when we say it’s a New York Times best selling author and you gotta sell it and promote it and market it. Yes. That’s how you get in the hands of people. But if you really wanna work with people and you really wanna provide value, it’s the content has got to be life changing.
BW (20:38):
Totally. And that’s exactly what she shared with me. She said, typically, whether it’s her criteria or even a, a traditional publisher, they look at three things. They look at the product, they look at the plan, and they look at the platform. Mm-Hmm. , you need to have two of those three things or they will not consider you at all. So when she was looking at my specific situation, product plan platform, okay, well, she, she liked the product, she liked, you know, the, the chapter that she read and the concept of the book as a whole, also my writing style. She’s like, Hey, there, there’s something here. Then the plan, it’s like, look, I know I don’t have the platform, but here’s, here’s what we’re gonna do to sell it. Here’s the whole plan as far as the podcast tour and the, the bulk orders. And here’s here is the, here’s the plan.
BW (21:27):
We actually have one, like, like you said, it’s not, you know, New York Times best, best writing, it’s New York Times best Selling. So here’s my selling plan. And then the platform, I probably failed that test, but again, it’s two of the three Perfect World. You have all three and then you know, you it’s gang busters and you sell millions of books. That’s awesome. . But yeah, it it was one of those doors that were just cracked open. I had a a, a former friend that went to USC with me. He was a, a student athlete there, and he was connected with this agent. So I got a phone call with her. But then to be able to take advantage of that call, I think is just gonna be a, a real milestone moment for me as I look back on my life and my writing career, frankly.
AJV (22:15):
Yeah. And I think that’s, that’s really significant too. Like, there’s just so many nuggets. If you’re not writing down notes, I would encourage you to like write down some notes because these are some really significant nuggets too. It’s that, and I think so often somehow we just think we’re gonna send a bunch of cold pitches and send out a bunch of chapters and we’re gonna just like network wor network our way in through social media or through our content. And unless you have a massive platform, that is likely not the way you’re going to get to partner with an agent or a publishing house. But the most likely way is that you put on your sales hat and you work your personal, you know, sphere of influence and you figure out who knows someone who knows someone who maybe even knows someone who could get me a call, right?
AJV (23:03):
And it’s like, do not disregard the importance of the statement that Bob just made as I had a friend who knew this person who could refer me in. We all know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone, right. Seven degrees of Kevin Bacon. But we, we’ve gotta be confident enough, inspired enough that what we’re doing means something to actually say, Hey, I’m willing to go out on a limb here. I’m gonna ask for this. Why? Because I’m so convicted in what I’m talking about. I’m so passionate about this that I can’t not, right? I can’t contain it. I can’t keep it in. I have to get it out there. And we all need a little bit more of that if this is something that we really wanna go after, because that’s how it’s most often going to happen, right? It’s a referral in. It’s taking that, you know, sales mindset and going, who do I know? Who knows someone who can help get me connected to the right person? Right? Totally.
BW (24:02):
As far as what we can control, I think that’s absolutely the way to go. Part of it is, you know, divine providence. And if, if God has good works prepared for us, I think he’ll open the doors that need to be open, shut the doors that need to be shut. But yeah, we have a responsibility as well. You’re absolutely right.
AJV (24:19):
Yeah. It’s that, you know, that whole saying, it’s like let God do what he can do and let you know you do what you can do. Right. And it’s like we both have a role to play. I can’t just sit here and say, bring it to me . Right? Yeah. If it shows up at my door that’s not really how it works. We gotta work while we wait. So, so you decided to kind of go this, you know, hybrid model, right? And a lot of that was you had a good product, you had a good plan, but you didn’t really have the platform, right? So walk us through like, what does that look like for somebody who’s out there going, okay, like what are my options and what does a hybrid model really work look like? So behind the scenes, give us the real deal, like what does it look like in this hybrid model?
BW (25:02):
Yeah, totally. So when it comes to self-publishing versus traditional, one of the value add is you retain all of the rights of your book. Whereas with traditional publishing, it’s typically the large pop. You know, you make six figures for some people, I mentioned Barack Obama probably a seven figure advance. Like that’s pretty sweet. That’s a, that’s a big deal. But then when it comes to the, the commissions thereafter, like you’re basically making a dollar a book forever. Once you earn out that advance, they pay you,
AJV (25:34):
You sell a lot
BW (25:35):
, right? Totally. But I mean, oftentimes those advances are, you get it all upfront and it’s like, hey, you could sell zero books, still keep it so that, that’s a, it’s a cool thing. But then when it comes to self-publishing, the margins are significantly greater. You know, you might make $6 a book or something, but also you retain the rights to it. So if you wanted to, if you wanted to change the title, you could, if you wanted to change the cover, if you wanted to make a movie from it, if like it is yours, it is still yours, you are self-publishing. And so that is one of the value ads of doing this hybrid model, because I have the representation where I have this awesome agent in my corner, we’re self-publishing together. So if anybody, let’s let’s say actually sell this book, say a lot of people buy it and like it, and that’s awesome.
BW (26:22):
People can then say, oh, well he’s working with her. Oh, well te tell me more about this guy. Cuz I’ve never heard of him and his 10,000 social media followers. Like, he seems like a nobody but the book. People like the book and he’s represented by, by somebody with a name. So you retain the rights, but then also you have that representation to where if the book really sells, you can just flip it. You can go to those traditional publishers, say, Hey, kinda like a proof of concept, like a beta test. Hey they, they sold 2000 copies in their first three months. Hey, they sold 5,000 copies this summer. Do you want it? So having that agent in your corner, I mean, and they have those, the publishers on speed dial, cuz that is their job pitching the, the projects of their clients to those houses. So yeah, there’s, there’s give and take with both traditional and self. But for me, that hybrid model, just having the representation, having somebody in my corner has been so valuable. Not to mention as a first time author, being able to borrow other people’s mistakes so I don’t have to make them myself so valuable. Having a coach, having somebody say, okay, this is what you need to expect has been, has been just so, so awesome for me. Yeah,
AJV (27:42):
I love that. And as everyone’s kind of like, you know, thinking about this and it’s the way that we’ve explained it, you know, in our, in our own household as we, you know, we’ve done two books with traditional publishing houses and I think there’s pros and cons to all the things, but you know, with traditional publishing, you’re really paying all of the fees yourself upfront in the hopes of making money on the backend, right? Whereas often if you have a six figure plus advance, you’re getting the money on the front end and very little, very little on the back end. So you’re kind of paying for it no matter what. It’s just, do you wanna pay the upfront costs, retain the rights, retain the ownership, retain, you know, I would even say the creative rights of covers, images, titles and you’re gonna pay for it, but then you’re gonna make it back on the backend as long as you have a good plan and a growing platform.
AJV (28:38):
Or do you go, Hey, I’ll forego those things. I’ll get that short term upfront money, but I’m also gonna forgo lots and lots of royalties. You know, and again, I’m talking, generally speaking, there’s plenty of people who make royalties. But I can, I mean, I can attest that in the non-fiction world, you know, we have a national bestseller and a New York Times bestseller and we can not even pay for monthly groceries off of our royalties. So I’ll tell you, it’s like even, you know, New York Times best selling books there’s, you know, again, it’s like you’ve gotta just have that continuity plan. But again, it’s because the royalty percentage is really small. Right? And those are all good lessons learned. But the other thing, you know, I think that’s really important is you don’t think that the creative rights are that important to retain, but they are like, one of the biggest lessons that we learned through the publishing process was with my husband’s second book Procrastinate on Purpose.
AJV (29:38):
And this is way before we knew the hard, hard lessons that we know now. We went with a, you know, a kitschy title, something that we thought was clever, called Procrastinate on Purpose, and didn’t have the same impact that we had with Take the Stairs. And then when Rory released his TED Talk, multiply Your Time, you know, it’s got what, 6 million Ted or 6 million views now. And we’re going, what’s the exact same content? What in the world? And it had so much to do with the title. And for three years, for three years we have been trying to get this dead gum title changed. We’ve tried to change the cover image we never liked the cover image. And they will not for the life of us, change the title no matter what or change the creative concept of the cover. And it’s like, those are things that you forego and it’s like, I think those are important lessons to learn. And we’ve, you know, fortunately, unfortunately learned them the hard ways. But again, there’s pros and cons to all of it. But that is a really great pro that you can go, Hey, I’m gonna make some tweaks here, republish, let’s go again. Don’t get that with a traditional publisher most of the time,
BW (30:50):
Right? When it comes to the traditional publishing that you know hasn’t changed is it still has the cachet. You can say, I’m with so-and-so publishing house. It’s like, okay, big deal. Like this is, this is a, this person is a big deal. They know what they’re doing. They like, they have a book deal versus self-publishing. Like we just understand what is what. But you’re right there, there are pros and cons to both. And with somebody in my position, or perhaps the person listening, you might not have the option. Mm-Hmm. , you might not. So if you go the self-publishing route, just know there are a lot of pros of that world over a traditional Absolutely. There’s nothing wrong with going that route.
AJV (31:30):
Absolutely. And I think it’s getting stronger and more reputable literally every single month. Not even every year. It’s like every month. That industry is doing a pretty dominant takeover in a lot of ways. So that’s so super helpful. So now there’s this art and science of actually writing the book and getting it in the hands of other people to actually read it. So what we’d love to hear is just what are some best practices and pitfalls, some dos and don’ts of how to get this writing part done in the most effective but also efficient manner. So what are the, some of the lessons you’ve learned about how do you actually finish writing a book? Because we all know someone who had an idea that never got started or had an idea that got halfway started and never got finished. And so how do you actually bring this thing to fruition?
BW (32:27):
Yeah, totally. I, I would say for the person who is considering starting a book, like, Hey, bucket List, I’ve always wanted to do this. Don’t get caught up in the, the perfectionism of things. I would say if, let’s say you have the concept, cuz you need, you need to know the destination of where you’re trying to go. Your first goal should be just create the outline, create the skeleton. You’re gonna put meat on those bones eventually, but create your system. Like, especially if you’re in the non-fiction world, like if you just look at the non-fiction books that you have on your shelves, oftentimes it’s some sort of system. It’s the five love languages, it’s the seven baby steps, it’s the seven habits of highly affected people, right? We’re taking this expertise in whatever field you’re in and we narrow it down. If we’ve spent 10, 20, 30 years, we are like a world renowned expert, or at least we just know more than the reader.
BW (33:28):
Cuz that’s all you need. Let’s make it simple, let’s narrow it down. And so I would say if you are the bucket list person, hey, I really wanna write a book. I’m sure you have the concept there. It might be a little fuzzy, but you have the destination next step, just create the system. Five love languages, seven habits, whatever it is. Like, do a, do a brain dump, write down everything that you believe and then say, okay, how can I piece this together to make it clearer for the next person? Hmm. So that would be the first step. The second thing, and this might be difficult for the perfectionists that are, are listening to this, but that was me. So this is just something I learned as far as pitfalls. Like this is one that I stepped into. This is an error that I made.
BW (34:11):
Your first draft will be bad, will be, I I promise you it will be. So lean into that. Let that be your first, like your first foray into writing. Your goal is not to write the bestselling book initially. like literally my goal, like on any books that I have moving forward, my, my first goal when it comes to the actual writing is to write a bad book. Write a bad book. But it has to be a book. Like it has to be 200 pages. Don’t write a bad chapter. Chapter. Yeah. Like it, people have done that. Like you need to write a book, but it doesn’t have to be perfect. So give yourself the permission to write a bad book. Then you take a weekend off, maybe take a week off like you let somebody else read it, whatever, get it outta your hands. But it’s, it’s done.
BW (35:03):
Like there’s so many people that have started a book, in fact, I’ve done this myself with previous projects that will never see the light of day, where it’s just, you know, one chapter, two chapter three, dead end. Like just, you just lose the juice. So, and I’m being kind of facetious, like, hey, write a bad book. But like, that’ll be a challenge in itself. You know, you need to write 200 pages of stuff that is just okay. Just okay then give it to somebody you trust, maybe one or two people in terms of the editing process. And then you make it it better and better and better. I would also say don’t waste your editors. Like let’s say you have 10 people that you trust, you’re in a book club or whatever it might be. Do not give it to all 10 of them right away. Because if you do that, then they might all have great feedback. But what happens if they’re not aligned? Mm-Hmm. , Hey, I love chapter three. Hey, I really don’t like chapter three. Who’s right? Both, neither in the middle. Like, you really don’t know. So just give your book to a person, have ’em edit. You don’t have to apply all the things that they do. But that is like a solo like test in isolation. Hey, just read my book with a pen in your hand and think on paper. And so if you’re really bored in chapter three, like that’s good for me to know. Cuz that’s a 16 page chapter. It’ll be much better if it’s 12.
AJV (36:31):
I will tell you about that. That’s great advice. Not just for writing a book. That’s great advice for life. It’s like, so often we get bad advice and it’s because we ask the wrong questions or we ask the wrong people. So to be super tight and small and considerate with who you’re asking to do something, I think it’s really why sound advice for writing a book, but also for life no matter what it is that you’re doing it’s being very intentional with who’s the one giving you some of that feedback. I love that. That’s just good life advice.
BW (37:08):
And I can’t say I came up with it myself. If I could get add like one additional thing, have a mentor. Hmm. Have somebody that you’re trying to model. Like as I was playing in the minor leagues, I would watch film of other left-handed pitchers that I wanted to emulate. I was watching Clayton Kershaw, I was watching John Lester. Why? Because they were the person that I wanted to be. So, and there’s gonna be some creative, you know, latitude for you to work with. It is your book, it’s your writing style. Like this isn’t a true copy and paste, but as far as that, don’t waste your editor’s advice. My writing mentor told me that. So if you wanna write a book, if you wanna start a business, you wanna play in the big league, it’s like, get somebody that has done it before and say, Hey, if you were in my shoes, what would you be thinking about that? Again, it’s probably more like life advice than anything, but if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking about writing, awesome. Find somebody who’s written, Hmm. Give ’em a call.
AJV (38:07):
And I think one of the underlying things that you’re saying across this is like, don’t be afraid to invest in yourself. Right? It’s like, it’s gonna be a time, money resource but there’s gonna be all different types of investments. I know that you work a lot of weekends and after hours, but I also imagine it probably doesn’t feel like work. It feels like a passion, it feels like a hobby, like a purpose. But I also know that you invest a lot of resources and of your own money into doing this. And I think that’s just something that let’s not, you know, not address, you know, the elephant of the room. Like this is no joke. This is going to be an investment of energy, time, money and resources. Anything you wanna add to that?
BW (38:55):
Well, yeah, totally. If if it wasn’t a book, if it was some other widget that you don’t sell for $12, you’re starting a business. Like if you’re starting a donut shop, you wouldn’t expect, oh, I think I’ll spend like, I mean 97, 90 $8 to get this thing started. Like, no, you’re spending thousands of dollars, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds depending on the project to start your business. And so it would just depend on the book that you’re writing. There’s nothing wrong with writing something where it’s more like a journal for the eventual grandkids. Totally fine. But if you say no, like, I want to write a book, I want it to be published and I want it to change people’s lives. Don’t expect to do that without an investment. Hmm. Whether it’s time, money, or both. And so you shared it on the front end of the call. How’d you put it? You said something like, I can’t not share this. That’s when you know you have a book in you. If you have something you can’t not share, it’s just like, oh, if I could just share this one thing with the world, like I, I would, I have to. It’s like, well, you totally can.
AJV (39:59):
I love
BW (40:00):
That. Sit down at the desk 90 minutes a day, you know, every day except for Sunday and it will happen like that. That’s been my, that’s been my strategy. And I think that’s one area where playing pro sports, specifically baseball has helped. We had a game every day. Mm-Hmm. . Like, if there’s anything that baseball players are good at, it’s just showing up. Just like you, you might lose, you might be the, the scapegoat of the game before you blew it. You know, you, you lost the game. There’s a game tomorrow and the next day and the next day. Like there’s a quote in Bull Durham. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains. There’s always a game tomorrow. Like, just keep showing up. So if you say, look, I wanna write a book. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, like, make a plan, commit to, all right, I’m gonna write for 90 minutes a day until it’s done.
BW (40:54):
And it will be hard. But sometimes, I mean, when it, when it comes to something worth doing, it’s always hard. Hmm. It’s always hard and it’s worth it. I’m already writing my second book. Like it was, it was such a rewarding experience and I’m, you know, I’m kind of like geeking out on this right now, but it’s just what an amazing thing to set your mind to something and finish it. And now moving forward I can share that with people. Mm-Hmm. Like the conversations that you have as a result of your book, the Doors that open, and it’s not for money, fame, anything like that. I now have a connection piece with friends, family, colleagues. I was just at the gym last night and there’s this gal that I’ve kind of worked out alongside for like years and it’s one of those gym relationships where you kinda like give ’em a head nod.
BW (41:48):
It’s like, Hey, I see you every Thursday, but like, we don’t, we don’t talk and Tina talk, actually know each other. , she and I, she and I talk a little and you know, it’s kind of just like the smile and then put in the headbutts the earbuds. But like for me to give her my book last night and like to see her light up and that’s something that we’ll now share. Hopefully she likes it. we’ll see t b d we’ll see, we’ll talk about it on the next episode. But to be able to share that with somebody, like what a cool thing as humans. Yeah. I love that. That’s what we’re made for. We want to connect and, and share and and love. So yeah. It’s, it’s been a, a great journey for me. I’m so glad I’m on it.
AJV (42:25):
Oh man, I love that. And I love that too of just that great reminder. It’s like, you know, half of it, it’s just showing up. It’s just showing up. I, that just, it reminds me about some of like the early advice I got as a new mom. It’s like, you know, half of the success of parenting is just showing up. It’s just showing up and you gotta do it and you gotta do it every day. Right. You gotta do it every day. And you mentioned something there, it’s like, well you said it’s like, well, you know, it’s like I can’t not share this. And so as we’re kind of like rounding out towards the end of our interview here, it’s like, what is it that you can’t not share? So tell us a little bit about this new book that’s coming out. It releases January, 2023, our Heart’s Desire. Tell us like what, what’s this book all about?
BW (43:09):
Yeah. like you said, it’s called Our Heart’s Desire Subtitles, how our stories reveal the thing we want Most. And so I’m a Christian. I love God. This book is, and it’s so funny cuz you and I hadn’t talked about this. You read the Bible this year. That, that’s amazing. That’s so cool. We should do it together next year.
AJV (43:31):
It’s been, revel a revelation of my perspective of, you know, I’m actually this book I was just reading live No Lies. One of the things it said, it’s like, you know, the Bible is a historical work. And so it’s like I have both read the Bible, both in a historical perspective as well as a, you know, spending time with God, perspective of learning and growing and that, but it’s been more of a, a knowledge journey of a, a historical record. And it’s, to view it that way has been extraordinary. And it’s like I’m now taking that approach with books of like, there are, you know, just these different facets of how you learn. And it’s been so exci. I can’t wait to read your book. I told you earlier, it’s not in my office, it’s next to my bedside. And so I’m so excited to read it. So tell everyone else about it. I’ll stop talking.
BW (44:20):
Yeah, no, that, that was my fault. That was my tangent. I’ll own that. But in, in terms of this book, aj, the reason why that caught my ear, you reading the Bible last year, I’ve done that every year, year for the last five years. Wow. Wow. I have a mentor here in Nashville that recommended that I do it, and it’s just become my routine. Wow. Like, I wake up in the morning, I read the Bible for 20, 30 minutes, whatever that day warrants. And so that doesn’t make me an expert on scripture. I would never claim that. But it does mean I am constantly reminding myself of that story. And so as I had written a couple of those books, like I said a few minutes ago that stopped and started and didn’t go anywhere. I was also learning about story and about writing and stuff like that because that seed had been planted and I was kind of getting there.
BW (45:08):
And so this book came about because I’m learning about story and also reading the story of scripture. And what I realized was the, the similarities between the two mm-hmm. and like the subtitle, how our stories reveal the thing we want most. When we look at our favorite movies or novels or whatever it is, you’ll see all of the same motifs over and over and over again. You have the hero, like the protagonist, you have the villain, the love interest to be saved. You typically begin in some sort of paradise. That paradise is lost. The entire story is about restoring that paradise. Mm-Hmm. . And so as I’m reading the story of scripture five years in a row, I’m like, well, that, that’s the story. That’s what this book, the Bible is saying. And so if this is truly God’s word, and if this, if this is truth, that’s the story we were born into.
BW (46:04):
That’s wild. Because you could have humans writing books, writing screenplays in Hollywood. They keep telling that same story, hero villain, love interest to be saved. We want to return to paradise. And then you think about the desires of our heart. Like even we could even take, you know, God out of it for a second. If you look at society, if you look at your window and you say, this is wrong, or you look at any sort of like social dilemma or things like that, all we’re trying to do, AJ is restore paradise. That’s it. Like we just wanna live in paradise. That’s what we are made for. And so if the Bible is God’s word, which I wholeheartedly believe it is, we’ll have that. What an amazing thing. Now God, as the author of that story, has a specific way that he wants that to unfold.
BW (46:57):
But we have the same desire that he does. It’s just that we’re like on the hamster wheel of, oh, let me get to Paradise faster. Mm-Hmm. , and he’s the author of, of the story. He’s the one that’s dictating the terms. And so basically what I did is I took the Bible and I told it through stories. So quote dozens of movies, novels, plays, like I talk about the Dark Knight, the Hunger Games. I talk about the back and forth relationship of Rachel and Ross and friends. Like, I’m just, I’m guiding you through the story of scripture by using stories that you understand. And so this isn’t like a top shelf, overly academic. Like there’s not gonna be any pastors or theologians that nerd out over this. I wrote this book for the person who wants to connect with God but doesn’t really know where to start.
BW (47:52):
Hmm. So as the person who’s read the Bible, you know, the last five years, like, all right, well, but I grew up in the church. I’ve been going to Christian schools since seventh grade. Like, so I was in it, I was around it. If there’s somebody who wants to know God but didn’t have that, what would they do? Hmm. Because they’re not, I can open the King James and like, oh, you know, oh, I totally get this right. But I believe as humans, like just on a, on a heart level, we have this story written on our hearts. We want to return to that paradise. We wanna see every tear wiped away. And if what the Bible says is true, that’s exactly what God plans for us. It can give us so much hope. Yeah. So that’s the book.
AJV (48:39):
I hope that it sells millions of copies and I hope that it gets in hands, the hands of millions of people. But I know it’s in my hands, it’s on my bedside and it’s gonna be one of my first reads of 2023. And I would encourage any of you listening, if that sounds appealing to you, to get to see, you know, the work of a first time author to bring this out, but also this really creative and unique depiction of how do we take these pop cultural references and movies and shows and love stories that we’re so accustomed to and start, how do we apply this and learn about the Bible? Then that might be a book for you. So Bob, tell people where can they go to order a copy of the book and where can they go to learn more about you?
BW (49:20):
Yeah. Best place is just bob wheatley.com. Have everything for you there, Bob wheatley.com. You can place an order. We are also given away the audiobook completely free for anybody that pre-orders. So depending on when you listen to this it’s probably still gonna be available for you. Just go to bob wheatley.com. If you place that order, it’ll be super easy right there on the homepage. First name, email your receipt number, and then boom, you have an additional five hours of my voice. So hopefully that’s not a detractor. Maybe I should , maybe I should have kept that to myself. But yeah, audiobook is entirely free. If you love the idea of the book, I don’t want you to have to wait.
AJV (50:01):
So I love that y’all check out Bob. Go to bob wheatley.com. You can order a copy of our Heart’s Desire and if you do it as a presale you’re gonna get a free copy of the audiobook so you can listen and give the copy away. But if you also just wanna learn more about Bob and his story you can get all of his social media handles on his website. We’ll also put all of those in the show notes. Bob, thank you so much. It was so awesome to have you on the show to hear about the journey, but also learn about the book. I’m so excited for you. I hope this gets in the hands of exactly who needs it. We love you, we support you and to everyone else we’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand. We’ll see you later.

Ep 347: How I Stopped Drinking with Rory Vaden Part 2

RV (00:00):
But I do wanna share with you the two things for how I stopped, how I actually stopped drinking. And the first one is really important. It was, it’s to rewrite your programming. Rewrite your programming. And there’s an entire chapter on this. Take the stairs. It’s called the Creation Principle of Integrity. And it talks about how our words are, what are the, the first step in creating our lives? Like your, the human brain is a computer. It is a program your brain is happy to do. Whatever you tell it to do. It will. And, and so here’s what’s important. Don’t try to convince yourself to artificially not do something that you really do wanna do. Instead, realize that you naturally won’t do the things you don’t wanna do. So don’t try to convince yourself not to do something you do wanna do.
RV (01:01):
Realize that you naturally won’t do something you don’t wanna do. So here’s what I mean. If you, if you tell yourself, I love alcohol, alcohol makes me relax, alcohol makes me happy, alcohol makes me comfortable. I need alcohol. Cause I had a hard day. If you tell yourself those things, they will be true for you. So when you, when that is your base programming, and then you try to change your behavior on top of that, it’s in conflict. Cuz you’re going, oh, I can’t drink for 30 days cuz I’m on this thing. Or, you know, I made a resolution. I’m not gonna drink for a little bit. The the issue there is your, your mindset. The is, is the behavior doesn’t align with the programming. Underneath you’re saying, I like alcohol, I want alcohol. That’s what the program is. And then you’re trying to create behavior that is in, in conflict with that saying, but I don’t wanna drink or I’m not gonna drink.
RV (01:54):
So you’re denying yourself something. The actual way to change your behavior is to change the root programming. Because if you convince yourself, I don’t like alcohol, I don’t want to drink, then it’s much easier to have the behavior fall in line because you’re not going against the programming of your brain. So this sounds incredibly simple and it is simple. It’s not easy, but it’s credible, incredibly simple. If you wanna stop any habit in your life or change any habit in your life, or stop any negative thing, you have to attack the underlying programming. How do you do that? Simple. It’s what you tell yourself over and over and over again. All you believe, you listen. Your brain does not believe what is true. Your brain believes whatever you tell it most often, whatever you tell it most often is what becomes true. I guarantee it.
RV (02:48):
And so I wanna read for you, I’m just gonna read for you my, you know, I call these my alcohol affirmations, which they’re really my non-alcohol affirmations. I just wanna, I’m just gonna read them to you because this is what I read to myself like every day for the first few weeks. And after a couple weeks, I didn’t have to read it anymore. My desire for alcohol disappeared. Right? So here it is. Alcohol makes my body soft. Alcohol slows me down. Alcohol puts me in a less than optimum state to work. Alcohol makes me less likely to achieve my goals. Alcohol makes me sleep less. Alcohol weakens my decision. Making alcohol makes me more vulnerable to a physical attack. Alcohol puts me at risk of a dui. Alcohol increases my caloric intake. Alcohol increases the, the chance of me doing something dishonoring to my wife. Alcohol raises the likelihood that I will eat other bad food. Alcohol costs me money. Alcohol steals from my retirement. Alcohol gives me headaches. Alcohol affects my ability to be sharp and active the next day. Alcohol reduces my desire to exercise. Alcohol exposes me to disease and cancer. Alcohol is poison to my body. Alcohol shortens my lifespan. Alcohol risks my reputation. Alcohol sometimes causes me to say things I later regret. Alcohol sometimes causes me to do things that are dishonoring to my family, my team, myself and the, and the Lord.
RV (04:35):
Alcohol has been involved in almost every single occurrence of my life’s most embarrassing moments and deepest regrets. I don’t wanna have to drink alcohol in order to have fun, relax, or unwind. There are many people who I respect in my life who drink little or none at all not drinking alcohol. Lengthens the length, lengthens the term of my effectiveness and my success. Alcohol might cause me to set a bad example to the people around me.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And so
RV (05:14):
If you will just
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Say those things over and over again, I mean, that’s what I did. It changes the programming. It replaces your programming in your head, and it, it changes everything because now you’re building new behaviors on, you’re on a new foundation, and they’re not working against
RV (05:32):
Each other.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
They’re working with each other. They’re working alongside each other. And, right, like the more I said those things, those that affirmations list that
RV (05:42):
I just shared with you, the more I believed it to
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Be true. And the more I
RV (05:45):
Felt like it really was true,
Speaker 2 (05:48):
And the more
RV (05:49):
That I felt it really was true, the less desire I actually had to ever do it. And so I wasn’t like, I know where I am now. It’s, it’s weird to fast forward ahead six years and go you know, who I was back then and was like, man, I looked forward. Like I looked forward to drinking. It was like the thing I was looking forward to at the end of the week, or even at the end of a day, like, gosh, I can’t wait to just like go home and have a drink. And now it’s like, I don’t want it. I’m not drawn to it. The desire is not there because the programming has changed. And so, you know, that’s what I want you to really like, think about with whatever change it is that you wanna make in your life. And you know, replacing your programming.
RV (06:36):
So, you know, first, first of all, you gotta, you gotta redefine your identity. Then you gotta rewrite your programming. And then the last thing is is you gotta replace your choices. And there’s, there’s two key choices that I’ve made on this journey, at least for me, that were, were really pivotal and they both have to do with replacements. And so the first one was just literally replacing what I was holding in my hand and giving myself more options. Because the, that’s the, the hard part is going, oh, well, when I’m out at dinner, I’m used to holding wine and or, you know, like, I come home at the end of the day and it’s like, oh, I, you know, I, I wanna, I wanna have a drink of some type. And so, you know, what I’m grabbing for is important to sort of have that replacement.
RV (07:27):
So here’s some simple replacements that made a big difference for me. So instead of drinking beer, drink Topo Chico specifically was what I would do because it was a glass bottle and I would pop it, it makes the same, you know, it’d make the, the same sound as popping open a bottle of beer and then you know, drinking that or sparkling water, right? So sparkling water was a, was a in instead of wine drink sparkling water. So instead of beer drink, Topo Chico is a glass bottle. Instead of wine, what I do is I drink sparkling water and then I will either add or sparkling apple juice or sparkling grape juice. And that is like what, what I would have like even now when I’ll go out to dinner, like what I’ll order, oftentimes I’ll order sparkling water with a splash of cranberry juice.
RV (08:23):
And so it’s super healthy. Often it’s free. I mean, you know, like, or it’s, it’s nowhere near the cost of a, of a cocktail. Now, if I really want a cocktail, what I will do is I’ll order a mock. And so almost every bartender loves making mocktails cuz they don’t get asked for it that often. And you say like, Hey, make me something fancy or whatever. So if I’m at let’s say we’re in Mexico by the pool or something, you know, and it’s like, I really wanna have a something, you know, like I’ll go, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll have a, have a have a fancy, a fancy mocktail. And that’s just a simple, a simple replacement. So instead of beer, I had Topo Chico. Instead of like wine, I’d have sparkling grape juice. And instead of a cocktail, I would get sparkling water with like a splash of cranberry or just, or just a mocktail.
RV (09:11):
So those are easy choices, but the, the more, the more difficult choice and frankly the more powerful choice. And the more important choice was that for me in my life, there were two people specifically that I identified that I needed to replace. Not so much like replace the people I needed to replace the time I was spending with these two individuals. And so when I looked back on, you know, the regrets that I had and me being drunk, and then I looked and said, well, gosh, there’s this very common thread that there’s these two specific people in my life that when I’m around them, I am drunk. It’s like sort of what we do. And it’s, it became the modality and the way of operating. And so, you know, rather than trying to change what they’re doing or change their behavior, I just basically said I have to replace myself out of that circumstance.
RV (10:09):
And most of the time in life, I’m a big believer, like I’m a big believer that usually you don’t need to change your circumstance, you need to change your attitude. Like usually that is, is what my default is. And what, even when I coach people and coach myself, like usually it’s not the circumstance that it’s is the problem. It’s your attitude. That’s the problem. And so you need to change your, you need to change your attitude, not your circumstance. But in this case, and whenever you’re trying to change like a physical behavior, it’s really important to change your physical surroundings. When you’re trying to change a physical behavior. It’s important to change the physical surroundings. Same thing, right? Like when you, when you’re trying to lose weight, I’ve been on that journey as well. It’s like I can’t have chips and cookies and bread and crackers and pretzels and everything just like a right there at my disposal to grab, because otherwise I’ll grab them, right?
RV (11:04):
So I have to change the environment. It’s sort of the same, same thing here, which is really tough. These were two people in my life that it was like we got together and we got drunk. And I can’t do that anymore, right? When I’m, when I’m making a change. And so what goal do you have in your life? What thing do you aspire to? Who are you looking to become? And it might be that you need to replace yourself out of a situation and you need to put yourself in another situation. You gotta change your environment. You gotta change your circumstance. Like literally change your environment. And so that was, that was a big, that was a big thing for me. And so that is how I have done it, right? And it, it hasn’t been very hard actually. Like the first few weeks were hard, but the, you know, you redefine your identity and you figure out, okay, why does this matter to me?
RV (11:56):
Not somebody else telling me I should, but, but why do I care? I listed my seven reasons of, of what, why it mattered to me personally. You only need one, right? You just, but you need one good one that matters to you. And you gotta be doing it for you. Like, if you’re making changes in your life because of someone else or cuz you think you’re supposed to, it’s not gonna be sustainable because you’re, it’s, you’re not changing your identity. You change your identity by changing your purpose and changing your why and deciding, I’ve got a reason to become a different person and that’s my reason, not yours. Not someone else’s, not some rule or some, you know, principle that I think I’m, I’m supposed to uphold or do. But it’s like a genuine, like, I’m rewriting, I’m redefining my identity. Then I gotta rewrite my programming, which to me is, is the most practical part of this.
RV (12:51):
And it’s reading those affirmations. And it might mean that you have to play this back you know, play this recording back and just listen to them. In fact, what I’m gonna do at the end is I’m gonna say ’em again so that they’re, you can, if you just need to like fast forward and you just wanna play these, I I’m, I’m gonna read ’em again. And, and then the third thing is that you have to replace your choices. You gotta replace your choices and give yourself art alternatives be in different circumstances, environments. And I I do have one last thing I wanna share with you too. But before I do that, let me go ahead and read, read these affirmations for you one more time. Alcohol makes my body soft. Alcohol slows me down. Alcohol puts me in a less than optimum state to work.
RV (13:39):
Alcohol puts me in a less than optimum state to compete towards achieving my goals. Alcohol makes me sleep less. Alcohol, alcohol weakens my decision making alcohol makes me vulnerable to a physical attack. Alcohol puts me at risk of a dui. Alcohol increases my caloric intake. Alcohol increases the risk of me doing something dishonoring to my wife. Alcohol raises the likelihood that I’ll eat other bad food. Alcohol costs me money. Alcohol steals from my retirement account. Alcohol gives me headaches. Alcohol affects my ability to be sharp the next day. Alcohol reduces my desire to exercise. Alcohol exposes me more to disease and cancer. Alcohol is poison to my body. Alcohol shortens my lifespan. Alcohol risks my reputation. Alcohol sometimes causes me to say things I later regret. Alcohol sometimes causes me to do things that are dishonoring to my family, my team, myself and the Lord.
RV (14:58):
Alcohol has been involved in almost every single occurrence of my life’s most embarrassing moments and deepest regrets. I don’t wanna have to have a drink in order to have fun, relax, or unwind. There are many people who I respect in my life who drink little or not at all alcohol, lengthens the time of my necessary working career to pay off all that it has caused me. And alcohol might cause me to set a bad example to the people around me that I care about. Here’s what I want you to know. Today is the hardest it will ever be. Today is the hardest it will ever be. It is the hardest right now. The more that you play those affirmations back, you listen to ’em, you recite them, you repeat them, the more your programming will change. And it may be hard to imagine now, but I’m telling you, it is possible that you will wake up one day.
RV (16:03):
And what once was something that all you wanted, all you could think about later in the future, is something you don’t even notice. You don’t want it, you’re not attracted to it. The key is to rewrite that underlying programming. Not to try to lie to yourself and say, oh, I, I, you know, not to deny yourself something that really deep down you’re saying you want and just temporarily disallowing it from yourself, but getting under the root and, and, and rewriting a program that says there’s a different program here and I’m gonna rewrite it because I want to be a different person. Not for anybody else, not for any other reason necessarily, but you’re making the decision that you wanna do it because something that’s important to you. Now, there might be someone else in your life that matters, but it’s, it’s not that that person’s telling you to do it, it’s that you are choosing to do it because that person matters to you.
RV (16:57):
But this is the hardest that it’ll ever be. And I, I I promise you that if you do these things and you think this way and you work in this direction, it will get easier and easier. So I’m not sure who this was for, but I felt called to put it out there. So whether this is for you or a loved one, someone, please feel free to share it and please don’t feel judged. This isn’t about judgment. This isn’t about right and wrong and good and bad. This is just about my journey. Overcoming something that I decided wasn’t the right healthy thing for me and how I did that in case you or someone you know, wants to make that same decision. Thanks for tuning it in.

Ep 346: How I Stopped Drinking with Rory Vaden Part 1

RV (00:08):
All right, podcast friend. We have a special interruption, I guess a deviation from the norm, an extreme circumstance and an unusual broadcast situation here. I recently recorded a video on how I stopped drinking. And it was three strategies for how I stopped drinking. And I don’t know why exactly, I don’t know who this is for, but I have felt called to share my personal story about how I stopped drinking six years ago and specific, you know, specifically how, like what I did, why I made that change, but also how I, I was able to do that, which was important for me. So this has nothing to do with personal branding, really. This has nothing to do. This is not at all the normal format of our podcast. For me to share something like this is very, very un unusual.
RV (01:10):
This is a tremendously personal I guess you would say vulnerable unexpected thing for me to be sharing. But I follow the promptings that I feel led to, and for some reason I feel led to this one. So, if you’re, this is the first time you’ve ever listened to this show you’re welcome to listen to this, to this, to this episode. And we may break it into a couple parts cuz it was a little, a little bit long. But, you know, this is not what we normally cover here on this show. Normally we’re, we’re, we’re talking to people about how to, you know, expand their reach, become more well known, make a bigger impact, make, make more income, and grow their influence in the world. And, and I guess, you know, there is a little bit of a tie, which is if, if you know, one of the things that I believe deeply is that before you can build a strong personal brand, you have to build a strong personal character.
RV (02:05):
Before you can build a strong personal brand, you have to build a strong personal character. And this story that I’m gonna share about how I stopped drinking six years ago and why, and how it all went and how it all happened, and then specifically the, the strategies that I, I used through that own sort of personal development are are related to my character. Okay? I’m not saying that you, if you, you don’t like, if you drink, you have your person of weak character at all. Not whatsoever at all. Aj, my wife, my bus, our business partner, my business partner, our ceo, you know, she, she, she drinks to this day. But it is, for me, this was an important journey about that I felt I needed to go on to, to strengthen and fortify my personal character. And so that’s why we decided to share it with you is, is not so much about going, Hey, we think you need to, to learn how to stop drinking.
RV (02:59):
You may not drink at all. Or maybe you do and it’s, you know, not a big deal or like, you know, maybe you do a lot and it, it’s not affecting like, you know, whatever, like, whatever your attitude is. It’s, this is not about saying, Hey, you should stop doing this. This is my story about how I created a, a, a significant behavior change in my life and, and, and created new habits and, and new behaviors that is tied, at least was for me, tied to my personal character and is also tied to taking action and creating change and, and making, at least in my case, you know, what I felt was the move to make myself a stronger person. And so, you know, maybe this is relevant to you, like hyper relevant. Maybe it’s relevant for someone, you know, but I think what makes it relevant to all of us, and and, and to you at, at least on some level is, is twofold.
RV (03:48):
One, it is realizing this connection that before you can build a strong personal brand, you have to build a strong personal character. And that’s really, really important because your, your influence will never grow wider than your character runs deep. Your influence will never grow wider than your character runs deep. That’s something that my pastor shared with me a couple years ago, and I found that to be really true. But for all of us, we’re always trying to make changes. We’re trying to create some behavior change, some pattern change to get ourselves or our business to the next level. And so I think listening to the psychology of what, how I’m creating that change and I’m, I’m leaning on the psychology that you know, I’ve spent a lot of my life developing, which is the psychology of helping people take action and, and build discipline and do things they don’t wanna do.
RV (04:38):
And, and that’s something I’ve, you know, spent a career studying. So, you know, listen to it more from that angle. Like, if, if you’re not someone who struggles with alcohol in whatever way, I’d listen to it, listen to it from that angle, or just, you might just skip past this episode. If you don’t want to get all, all up close and, and personal with me. So again, I, this is a, this is a break from the norm. Just wanted to give you a heads up and a warning. Just fair warning that this is not our standard programming and it’s not a permanent change in our programming. Like we’re, we, we’re, we’re continuing on with our normal format, but not that I wanted to share with you and at least give you a little bit of a look into this part of my life, which was a, which was a powerful and, and important journey. So anyways, I hope you, I hope you enjoy.
RV (05:23):
So about six years ago I stopped drinking alcohol, and I’m gonna tell you a little bit about why I did that, but specifically I wanna share with you three strategies for how I did that. Now, I wanna let you know up front, I’m not against drinking. I don’t believe that it means you’re bad or immoral or any of those things. If you do it, I did it for a long time. I honestly don’t know why I’m sharing this with you, but I feel called to share some of this story with you. You and so I just, I wanna make sure you know up front that I if you drink, this isn’t a slam against you or meant, you know, or anybody aj. Aj my wife drinks and she still drinks. And you know, I have friends, friends that do, so it’s not about that.
RV (06:15):
But I just wanna share three reasons, or not three reasons. I gonna three, three strategies for how I stopped drinking about six years ago. So let’s dive in. Here they are, I’m gonna give ’em to you right up front. So first of all, the, the, the very first strategy is to redefine your identity. Redefine your identity, which is all about figuring out why. And so I’m gonna talk through seven reasons why I stopped drinking and how that sort of came about. Then the second strategy is to rewrite your own programming. And we’ll get into the details of that. I’m gonna share with you an affirmations list that I use, which is really a huge part of what changed my life. And then the third thing is to replace your choices. And there’s two specific types of choices that I replaced in my life that made have made a huge difference.
RV (07:12):
And I’ll share with you what both of those are. So first of all, let’s talk about replacing your identity. And to me, this is really key because if you wanna make any change in your life, you have to start thinking of yourself as a different person, because that’s literally what change means. Change means I’m becoming a different person. I’m, I’m on my way to being someone that is different than I am, or especially than I have been. And in order to do that, it’s going to be, it’s gonna require work, it’s gonna require effort, it’s gonna require intention and discipline, which means it’s gonna be difficult and probably, or at least uncomfortable or, you know, unfamiliar at the least. And so you really need to know why you’re doing what you wanna be doing. Like, I, I think, I think here’s a, here’s what I think is not a great reason to stop being drinking to stop drinking is cuz it’s like, oh, other people think I should stop drinking.
RV (08:15):
I, I actually don’t think that’s a great, the greatest reason why you should. I, I think any change that you make in your life has to be one and should be one that you are making, that you are choosing it. And so you are the one taking agency of your own life. And it’s not cuz you think you’re supposed to or cuz someone said that, you know, somebody threatened you with something, this or that. It’s because whatever has happened, you’ve come to a place where you’ve said, I wanna make this type of change in my life. I wanna make some type of change. And so really this applies to all types of changes. And so I think in order to do that work, in order to take the stairs to, to steal the, the title and metaphor of my first book you, it’s gonna be a journey.
RV (09:01):
And so you need to really understand why you’re doing it. And so I’m gonna share with you these are seven reasons why I decided to stop drinking. So and this happened about six years ago. The last time I had alcohol was the night that AJ told me we were pregnant with my son Jasper, with our oldest son Jasper. So at the time of this recording, that was, you know, six over six years ago, which is crazy that it’s been that long. And, and you also should know that like I drank a lot before that. Was I an alcoholic? I don’t know, I guess depends on what the definition of an alcoholic was. I never went in treatment. I didn’t miss work. You know, maybe if I was, I was, I guess what someone maybe call a high functioning alcoholic, but I once heard the definition that an alcoholic is someone who simply drinks to get drunk.
RV (09:56):
They drink for the purpose of getting drunk. By that definition, I was an alcoholic because that was the only reason I was drinking was to get drunk. It wasn’t like, oh, I like the taste of this more than any number of other things I could drink and that’s why I’m doing it. Or like, I, I’m not, I was never interested in like the making of alcohol or, you know, how it happened or like the hobby of, of of, of how it was crafted, right? Like it was, no, I’m drinking for the purpose of feeling a certain way or escaping a feeling that I was feeling. So, you know, I guess by that definition maybe I was, but I personally, you know, was never, I guess had a place where you might say I was outta control where it was affecting my, you know, my, I don’t know, I don’t know what the measure of that that would be.
RV (10:46):
So, but by some definitions I was. But you know, obviously if, if this is something you’re struggling with or a loved one is struggling with, you should consult with, you know, a mental health professional. And I never was really at that point. So again, I just share in my story here. I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but so here’s seven reasons why I stopped. Okay? So first of all, regret reduction. Regret reduction. You know, as I, as I thought about this whole journey and, and you know, I should say that the catalyst for this was solidarity with aj, right? The ca the catalyst for me stopping wasn’t, it was these seven reasons, but it wasn’t like something massive happened in my, well, I guess finding out you’re gonna be a dad is pretty massive, but like, I didn’t have this, you know, blow up or, you know, hit rock bottom kind of moment.
RV (11:35):
It was just like, you know, she said I was gonna be a dad and she wasn’t gonna drink for nine months. And so I said, all right, I’m just gonna stop drinking with, with you. And then I just never picked it back up. And at first it was really hard, like the first couple weeks were really hard and the first couple months were hard and then it got easier. And that’s something I think you should know, or if, if somebody, you know is, is struggling with an addiction of some type I’m certainly not an expert on addiction, but I have spent a life studying the psychology of, of self-discipline and overcoming procrastination and moving people to action and overcoming inaction. And so what I know from that work as well as my own life is it’s the har today is the hardest it’s ever gonna be.
RV (12:26):
Like, the day that you set out on the change is it’s that that’s the hardest, but it becomes easier o o over over time. So you should know that. But for me, when I was looking back, a hundred percent of the regrets that I had ever had in my life were from when I was drunk. Like, I actually realized that, that as I thought back over the course of my life and I was thinking about, you know, all the, all the, the poor decisions that I had made, all the stupid things that I have said, most of the really dumb things that I had had done, probably all of the dumbest things that I had done. Like, I literally as I, I didn’t have a ton of regrets in my life, but I, I had some big ones. And in all of them, every single regret I had in my life was from, from when I was drunk.
RV (13:21):
And so I thought, well, gosh, if I don’t want regrets, maybe if I could stop doing this, you know, if I stop drinking, maybe I’ll have fewer regrets in my life. And, and it’s just a, it’s just a, a reduction of the chance, right? So it’s like the chance of me ever getting a DUI goes way, way down. If I’m not drinking the, the chance of me ever engaging in sexual immorality or, you know, breaking trust with my wife or having an affair or something, it goes way, way down. If I’m not drinking or I’m not drunk it, it’s not impossible, right? But the likelihood I’m, I’m playing the odds, and this is how I structure my whole life. This is how I structure business is, is, you know, the strategies, the techniques we teach to help people make money, it’s all about, like, nothing is guaranteed, but there’s these principles of success and these principles that are true. And you go, man, if you adopt these into your life, you’re just sort of like playing the odds. And so I thought, man, I’m certainly going to improve the odds in my favor of of, of not having, of having through regrets in my life if I stop drinking. The second thing honestly was mental health. And, and here’s what I mean specifically.
RV (14:33):
I’ll never forget one time I actually said these words out loud. Like, I, these, these words came outta my mouth and there was something about the way I said it that really locked me up and it captured me and it, and it caught my, it like caught my attention. It was like a slap across the face. Like I, it made me go, whoa. And here’s what, here’s what I said to someone. I don’t even remember the scenario. All I remember is what I said. I said, you know, I just have more fun when I’m drunk.
RV (15:10):
And bam, just like that, like when there was just something where I said, when I said, I just have more fun when I’m drunk. That hit me so hard because I realized, wow, the, the however I have structured my life, like whatever choices I’ve made, whoever I’m around, whatever I’m doing, whatever, you know, goals, I’m pursuing business, I’m involved with, like whatever my physical health is, wherever I am at the, like, I have the most fun when I’m drunk. That felt like a risky orientation of my life. It felt like a risky orientation of my happiness. It felt like a risky orientation of, of my mental health to go, I have to be drunk in order to be experiencing my highest level of happiness. And it was a very sobering moment because I realized that’s not how I wanna live. I wanna be able to be happy without this.
RV (16:16):
I wanna be able to be happy every moment of every day with, with without any substances like that. I want my own attitude and my own mindset to be in charge of my own health and happiness. I don’t want dependency on something else for my, for, for my happiness other than, you know, I’m a I’m a I’m a Christian, so, you know, my relationship with God is super important, but like outside of that, my own happiness, I want to be independent of things that are happening around me. I don’t want my circumstances to dictate my happiness. I certainly don’t want substances to dictate my happiness and what I realized for myself, right? I can’t say this for everybody. All I’m all I’m talking about today. I said just Sharon with you, my own journey here, which was sort of an accidental journey a little bit like, you know, just an unexpected journey is, is is that I realized that I diluted my bodys own ability to deal with stress and pain and heartbreak and struggle because I was medicating with alcohol.
RV (17:26):
So I, you know, there are ways that you process stress and grief and, and heartbreak and setbacks and rejection and life. Like, life is difficult. Like for everybody. Life is so, life is hard, man, like, so difficult. And, and what I realized was, oh, somehow along the way, and just you, I, it wasn’t like I was crazy into, into doing bad stuff all the time. I just started drinking, you know, a little bit in high school and then more in college, and then a lot more later in college. And then, you know, I had some money and it was more, and then I was a young professional. I was traveling all over, I was flying first class and, you know, I was speaking and stuff and, and it was just like, it was just always available. And so it was just happening a lot. But I, at some point I had developed accidentally a dependency on this substance to help me resolve stress, to help me deal with rejection, to help me deal with frustration.
RV (18:34):
And so this substance was the thing that I was using for that. And so I was disallowing my body’s natural ability and from forcing itself to deal with those things in a healthy way. And so I was doing this unhealthy thing. And so I was like, man, I want non dependency. I want to be in charge of my own happiness. I want my attitude to dictate how I feel. I, I wanna be in charge. I don’t wanna be dependent on something else, regardless of whether what the something is. I don’t want something else to be responsible for my happiness. I want to be responsible for my happiness. So that was the second reason was mental health. The third reason was actually very practical. It was financial savings, like I remember one year we got a, like a personal accountant for our family and you know, they were just like, we would send in our receipts every month, or, you know, at first we started with QuickBooks and then we had like a family accountant.
RV (19:33):
And so they were tracking stuff and they had this line that was like, alcohol and it was thousands of dollars. And if you would’ve told me at the start of the year, oh, you know, Rory is someone who spends thousands of dollars on alcohol, I’d been like, no way. You’re crazy. Like, I have drinks here and there. And then looking at it added up and black and white, it was like, holy moly, I spend thousands of dollars on this. Thousands of dollars, right? Cuz you know, a drink might be, I don’t know, eight bucks, 10 bucks, 12 bucks. If you’re in Vegas, it’s 25 bucks. Like, and you go, ah, you know, a bottle of wine here and there is 20 bucks, 30 bucks. Like you know, you have martinis, you go out on the lake, you do the birthday parties and, and, and, you know, well, couple glasses of wine with dinner.
RV (20:21):
And again, I’m not judging anybody, I’m just sharing my story of going, for me, it added up. And specifically, it wasn’t just thousands of dollars, it was the opportunity cost of going, what if I would’ve spent those thousands of dollars instead of spending on alcohol? What if I would’ve invested that into my own education, into my own personal development? Like, if I would’ve used that money to go to conferences or travel the world or, or even waste and like blow on silly, you know, stuff like I, you know, whatever shirts and, and and, and, and clothes and like, you know, trips or, or TVs or whatever. Like, and then specifically was like, what if I would’ve invested that money? You know? Like if I would’ve taken a few thousand bucks every year from the time, let’s say from the time I was like 20 to 25, if I would take, say it was 2000 bucks every year from age 20 to 25 and invested that, and I would’ve had like that 10 grand invested, it would grow to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars by the time I was retirement age, like hundreds of thousands of dollars.
RV (21:22):
So I was just, that was one for me where I was like, okay, yeah. Like this is crazy. It’s crazy. It’s costing me, it’s costing me money. The fourth thing was competitive advantage. And I gotta give a shout out here to my man Lewis house because Lewis was one of the people, there were several people in my life that I met who were really high performing individuals. And as I got to know them, I was like, oh, this person doesn’t drink. And I was almost surprised. I was like, wow, I didn’t even know you could, like, it was almost like being successful in business meant you had to like drink at the golf course or drink at the happy hour or, or you know, drink at the award ceremony or drink on the airplane together or like go out for drinks and, and you know, everyone get together and you buy, buy drinks.
RV (22:09):
If you no, if you do so about stuff, it’s fine. But it was just like, it was crazy that somehow my default had become that that was mandatory. Like that it was just that you had to do it. And then I met some of these other people, one, one of ’em being Lewis, who was just this amazing guy who was co accomplishing big things in the world and he wanted to help people. He had these huge visions. What’s funny now, like all of ’em are coming true, but like back in the day it was like, you know, it was as many people who knew him and knew me and we were kind of up and coming and it was like, wow, this guy’s really cool, and, and he doesn’t drink. And so I asked him about it one time and he was just like, you know, look, you know, the way he described it to me was he was like, he was an athlete and he was like, I’m looking for every competitive advantage that I can get.
RV (22:56):
And so that was the fourth reason for me was like, competitive advantage of just going, okay, like separate morality, separate physicality. If you just look at it peer like ambition and success of like, who, what am I gonna, who am I, what am I gonna achieve someday? And, and what can I be capable of someday? And you go, okay, these are the goals I have in my life. And again, you go, does alcohol increase my odds of achieving these goals or decrease my odds? For me, it was like decreases the odds. And it was like, yeah, if all things being equal, okay, and I don’t, I’m not super competitive with other people. I’m pretty competitive with myself, but I’m not super competitive with other people. But if you just thought about, and you said, okay, if there’s three people in the race, all things being equal, and you go, if I’m a non dreger, does that give me a competitive advantage for me?
RV (23:50):
I was like, yeah, it probably does. Like it probably does. So, so why not? So that, that was a, that was a epiphany, which is kind of close to the fifth one. So the fifth one was physical vigilance. Physical vigilance. This was the fifth reason why, you know, thinking back, I stopped, I stopped drinking and I met a, a friend, or we had a friend named Navy Seal Joe and Navy Seal Joe was a Navy Seal for 24 years and he did 13 combat tours. You know, he’s running life and death missions. And he said to me, and he, he didn’t drink, and he and I, I asked him about it one time and he said, he said, it’s real simple, Rory, when you’re in Navy Seal you realize, you know your life At any moment you could be in a life or death situation like snap of a fingers, your Navy seal it.
RV (24:43):
There’s, you know, like the Marine, the Marines, the marines say no easy day, right? There’s no easy day. Like at any moment you can find yourself suddenly in a life or death situation. And he said, and I had to realize that like even once he was out of the military, the same was true, right? You can be walking down the street and in a split second, somebody walks up behind you, you’re in a life and death situation. You can be driving a car and something jumps out in front of the road and you split second, you’re in a life and death situation. You know, someone says something to you and you reacted the the wrong way to, it could be a loved one, could be a stranger. You suddenly might be finding yourself in a situation that could alter the trajectory of your life. And so he was saying that there were these moments that we never know when they’re gonna come up, but they could happen at any moment, right?
RV (25:31):
You could be, you know, tornado hurt, like, you know, hurricane, it could be volcano, could be a physical encounter, could be your, your house catches on fire and you go, are you prepared? Right? Like, if I’m drunk, does that make me prepared for that moment? For me, it was like, no, that feels not the case. It’s the opposite, right? It’s the opposite. And so I never wanted to be caught in a moment where I was like, whoa, I have handicapped my own ability to, you know, maximize the likelihood of a positive outcome in some type of a life or death situation. So it’s physical vigilance. It’s very similar. One time I remember a man came up to me after speaking he, he had read Take the Stairs and he was like, Roy, I really love the book, et cetera. And he said, you know, I doesn’t look this way, but I, I I lost 120 pounds.
RV (26:29):
And I said, wow, that’s crazy. How did you do this? And he told me, he said, well, you know, it’s amazing. It’s really like, how did I gain it? At first he was like, all I did was I got married 10 years ago and I gained a pound a month. Okay? So that’s 12 pounds a year. And I did that every year for 10 years. That’s 120 pounds. Like all I did was gain a pound a month. I did that consistently for 10 years. I’m 120 pounds overweight. And I said, well, so what happened? And he and I said, you know, what’s the diet like? What was the diet program? What was your exercise regimen like? What, what’d you, what’d you do? He said, it wasn’t any of that. He said, I had a friend whose house caught on fire and this guy’s house was burning down in the middle of the night and he had a wife and he had two kids and he had to make a decision in the middle of the night in that environment, which of his family members he was gonna carry out to safety.
RV (27:29):
And he told me, he said, in that moment, I made a de a decision that I would rather die than have to make that choice. And so I had to be in a position physically where I was strong enough to carry out all of my family. If that situation happened, I would have to be able to go room to room and pick them all up and, and, and make it out of the house. And so he said, that was the thought that moved me. It was this, the same idea of physical vigilance like that, that, that I’m ready at any moment before, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m most ready or I’m best optimized for any moment. The six is spiritual guidance. I don’t wanna spend too much time on this one cuz I don’t, I don’t want you to think that like, you know, you’re, you’re in spirit, you’re unspiritual if if you drink, you know, you’re not, I mean, Jesus, you know, his first miracle Jesus is first miracle, starting water into wine at a wedding.
RV (28:26):
But there, you know, when I, I look through you know, I, I’m, I’m, you know, I’m a man of God. I read the word and that’s, that’s my source of truth. And I was looking in first Peter five eight, and it says, be alert and of sober mind because the enemy, the, your enemy, the devil pros around like a roaring line looking for someone to devour, resist him, stand firm in your faith. Because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And it’s like be alert and of sober mind, right? That’s a warning in Romans 12, one it says, therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Holy in pleasing to God. This is true and proper worship. And you know, again, it’s like, doesn’t mean you can’t ever drink or even that maybe you shouldn’t get drunk.
RV (29:18):
It just means like, I’m being mindful of the idea that, okay, like if, if my body is supposed to be, my life is, you know, a dedication to the Lord, you know, there’s some spiritual, there’s spiritual impacts here. This is not a salvation issue, by the way, just to make that super clear. Drinking or not drinking has nothing to do with whether or not you get into heaven. There’s, there’s, that’s a whole different story. You know, speaking, you know, of the Christian faith that has nothing to do with whether or not you get into heaven. The Bible to me is, is not a rule book, it’s an instruction manual. Though for how you live and you know how to get the most out of living and, you know, these are things that I saw in there. So you know, that mattered to me.
RV (29:57):
And then the seven thing was just setting an example, setting an example an an an example setting for my boys, you know, and just going, you know, my dad was an alcoholic, his dad was an alcoholic. Like it ran in our family. And again, like a couple drinks here and there, whatever, I mean, this is all for you, for you to sort out. Like but for me it was again saying like, who do I want my boys to see? Me being? Who do I want them to see me being? What do I want them to see me doing, knowing not so much that I’m concerned with what they think about me, all that’s, although that’s important, but what concerned me more is knowing that whatever it is that I do is likely to give them permission for them to do in their own life.
RV (30:56):
And even if I am spared from ever becoming an alcoholic or become, you know, getting to the place where it, it really is, is is ruling my life, they might not be so lucky and I don’t wanna be a part of any part of contributing to that right now. My boys are gonna drink one day. I mean, maybe I’ll have a drink with them one day. I don’t know. Like but it’s, it’s like, it’s just setting that example and also, you know, helping other people that are cool and, and people realizing that you can actually be cool without doing this. You could be successful without doing this. You can rise in the corporate ranks without doing this because, which is weird to even think we have to say that, but somehow the, the world is at the place where you kind of have to say it cuz it’s more like, we think the opposite of like, oh, it’s, it’s, it’s weird to not drink.
RV (31:51):
Like you’re the unusual one if you’re not drinking, not the other way around. Like, it’s more normal, it’s more customary to be drinking and you can apply this to any type of indulgence, right? You know, the same things for like, you know, whatever, any type of abuse, not abuse indulgence abuse of in like a, of a substance, substance abuse is what I’m saying, or indulgence of, of some type. You know, so just, you know, that’s my identity. That’s why is going, who do I wanna be? And that’s what you gotta figure out for yourself is just who do I wanna be? And, and is this helping me or is it out? And if it’s, if it’s fine, like if it’s under control and you go, okay, yeah, it’s fine, it’s under control, fine. You know, it’s, it’s, no one should be judging you except you.
RV (32:36):
Like, it’s, it’s all up to you to decide what feels right. All right. So interruption, pause, stop the recording, stop the tape, stop the video. Stop, stop. Apologize for this interruption, but it sounds like I’ve got more to say on this topic than I anticipated. And I, again, I have no idea why I’m doing this. I just for some reason feel called to share this story with the world. But I, I’ve got more to say, in fact a lot more to say than some really, really practical tips and like actual tactical things that you can do or that I did to help me stop drink to, to help me stop drinking. So I am gonna share those with you, but we decided that, hey, this is a good place to pause and draw part one to a conclusion.
RV (33:30):
And we’ll sort of like wrap part one and then stay tuned and we will, we will bring you part two. I will not leave you hanging, but I just wanted to interrupt myself here for a moment and say there’s more to come. And if you’re, if you’re getting value out of this or if you think it’s useful for someone that, you know, that fills me up. I guess that’s really ultimately the only reason why I’m doing this. But we’re gonna split it into two different sections. So this lands the plane on part one and we’ll make sure obviously that we send out part two very, very, very soon. Make it easy for you to find. Thanks so much.

Ep 344: Be A Better Networker with Megan Roudebush

AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody, AJ Vaden here and welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand podcast. I am so excited to introduce you to a newer friend of mine, Megan Roudebush. It was referred to me by a mutual friend when she was accidentally previewing this cool a she had been working on. And then I said, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I need to learn more about this app. Who made this app? What does this app do? And I was literally so enthralled with it. I was like, Can you please introduce me to your friends, which is Megan. So all of you are gonna get to hear from Megan, and just a quick second. But before we do that, I just wanna remind you of why you need to, we need to stick around to the very end of this show. So if you consider yourself someone who struggles networking, this is the episode for you.
AJV (00:52):
If you consider yourselves an introvert, and that’s just quote unquote, not your thing this is an episode that you need to listen to if you struggle with meeting new people engaging in relationships, getting referrals, getting word of mouth business. Once again, this episode was specifically designed with you in mind. So please, please stick your hands. Now let me give you a little bit of a formal introduction of Megan. She has so many cool things in her bio. I was literally like, What, what should I talk about? There’s like so many cool things that I will just kind of give you some highlights here. Megan is the founder of an amazing network, pla platform called Keep With that you’re gonna get to learn about. It’s an app. It just launched in two 2022. So like right now it’s like so fresh and new.
AJV (01:45):
She’s also spent much of her career as a financial compliance officer. So not only has she created this amazing technology, she knows a whole lot about how to keep data safe and how to do things the right way. But in addition to that, she has helped teach poetry, poetry, writing classes in juvenile detention centers. She has interviewed people such as Chuck Norris at the ripe age of eight, I think, I think I was that young. She’s got such a cool and varied background, and today she’s going to help teach us how to keep it interesting, how to be a better networker, and how to build a world of math business. So well, without further ado, Maggie, welcome to the show.
MR (02:27):
Aj, thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure and I love the way we ended up here literally having dinner with Amanda in Denver, so just couldn’t be more thrilled to be
AJV (02:36):
Here. Oh my gosh, I’m so excited. And I want to help our audience get to know you a little bit before we jump in and start talking about networking and just the app world in general since like you’re fresh. I mean, you’re really not even out of it yet. You’re still in it, but I think that’s like such a world that everyone is curious about. And I would love to hear your story of how did you come to the idea of creating this app? And then just some advice for all of the listeners of how do you know when you’re ready for an app, What is your advice on making an app? Then I wanna actually tell our audience what Keep With is all about. And through that process, everybody is gonna learn how to be a better networker. So how did this idea come up? How did you go from financial compliance and all of these things to creating this app?
MR (03:24):
So, so many questions I wanted just answer them all at the exact same time, which will not serve your listeners very well at all. So I started Keep with the boring answer is that as a grownup in the world I was known to be very careful with relationships. So a native New Yorker, grew up in New York City, moved to Chicago, Vdidn’t know anybody. And when I got here, I was very careful and methodical about building my network. I joined the Executives Club of Chicago. I, you know, ended up at Deloitte, started to build my network, and I had built a re a reputation for being careful and cautious. If I wanted to introduce you to somebody, I would have to get both of your permission first, right? I would not connect with anyone on a social media platform with whom I had not spoken or met.
MR (04:08):
Hmm. And so I was getting asked to speak and write about networking a lot, and I thought, Hey, I think there’s a company here, at least an LLC somewhere to put the speaking fees, right? So that’s the boring answer. The really cool answer, and you’ve hit on it, is I grew up as a kid reporter in New York City. And so from the time I was eight till the time I was 18, I was interviewing grownups about really important world problems. Interviewed Chuck Norris because he was involved in Dare that anti-drug platform, right? Also interviewed Janet Reno, you know, covered political conventions, got to meet Amy Tan. But as a kid reporter, you learn how to ask questions, open-ended ones specifically, and to care about the world. And so when I think of keyless origin story, when you’re networking and you’re really truly authentically building relationships, you’re asking questions and caring about the world. So we started in 2017, formed an llc, learned how to name a company that’s probably a whole other podcast episode, have really good IP council, that would be my tip there. And started to get hired by companies across industry and sector to help their people build relationships better. That’s how we industry agnostic, sector geography. And then eventually, and we can talk about it, we knew that we needed to build a technological solution to support our work.
AJV (05:26):
Yeah. So I, so I’m curious, like, there’s two things that you said that I think are really important that are often overlooked is the importance of caring. Now, you said about, you know, things going on in the world, but it also could be transposed to just caring about what’s going on with other people, which I think is, you know, a key relationship starter and the importance of asking open ended questions, which, you know, as a journalist or reporter, that’s just kind of what you’re taught to do. But as normal people in a business networking environment, I don’t think that’s very common. So can you expand on that just a little bit of like, how do you create a desire or a curiosity in someone else when most of us are mentally worried about, what am I gonna say next? Not, you know, I really wanna learn about you. Like, just tell me, and instead we’re more of like, Well, how can I tell you about what I do? So how do you kind of flip that switch?
MR (06:23):
You know, I, I think it’s really important, aj, you, you hit the nail on the head again, relationship building is reciprocal. And I recently heard somebody say that you should envision your eyes really big. Your ear is really big in your mouth, really small, right? And, and I, I think that’s important. So for anyone, and I actually deal with this with my seven year old, I’m like, don’t think about what you’re gonna say to me next before we actually have this conversation. For anybody who is prioritizing what they need to say next and what their message is over learning about someone else, that’s where you flip the script. Mm-Hmm. . So if I ask you why you started this podcast, I’m gonna learn a ton about you. If I ask you what you find most rewarding about your work, you’re gonna light up and you’re gonna tell me and you’re gonna say, Well, because this is what I do with clients and this is why it’s exciting and how we make a difference and we get people into successful positions. And so I think it’s very important that we sort of shift and focus on by asking questions and showing that authentic interest in others, how we can build stronger relationships versus, hey, this is what I have to say. Mm-Hmm. Next. Mm-hmm.
AJV (07:40):
. Yeah. You know, it’s interesting as you said that I think a lot of people struggle with knowing what are the best questions to ask specifically in a a networking environment. I just think about so many of the in-person networking groups or, you know, different things that I’ve done. Anything from BNI to chambers of commerce, to masterminds to conferences, seminars, all the things where you kind of just stand around and you’re awkward, right? It’s like, man, it’s like, should I just go back to the drink bar one more time? It’s like, I dunno what to do. It’s like, how many times can I go to the bathroom? But it’s like, but you know, this is something I’m supposed to do. But pretty much every single conversation starts and ends the same way, which is, Hey, what’s your name? What do you do? And you said two questions right then and there that if you’re listening, you should write these down.
AJV (08:27):
Which is, why did you get into this business in the first place? Like, why did you get into this business in the first place? Instead of, you know, what do you do? It’s like, find that out and be like, How’d you get into that? Why did you get into that? But then also I love that second question is like, Hey, what do you find most rewarding about this business that you’re in? Like, those are real conversation starters that are slightly different than just what do you do? Which starts and ends pretty much the same way every time you ask it. So are there any other go to kind of questions that you would say would be really helpful in that environment?
MR (09:04):
For sure. And I’d also, if we can like to put a pin in something that you said for after we answer this question, cuz you, you mentioned something really important. You know, you can ask what someone is working on these days. You can ask what somebody, what brought the person to this event, right? If you are at an in-person networking event, what brought you here today? Because is either they’re gonna tell you about the person who invited them, and that’s an interesting story and maybe a way for you to expand your network or they’ll say, I was really excited about the speaker, or I really wanna join the organization. Or, I’m new to Chicago and don’t know anybody. And so those are all different things. What are some of your challenges right now? You know, what are you, what are you working on next year? Right now, one of my favorite things about this time of year is that there’s so many holiday events happening and it’s prime network. Like from a networking nerd perspective, I’m like all of all of the events, all of the parties, everyone’s having their annual gathering, right? And so you could say like, what’s your favorite holiday? Like, what is your go to? What is that one holiday event that you have to go to every year that is always on your calendar? Like, that’s just kind of a fun thing.
AJV (10:14):
Yeah, that’s a great question.
MR (10:16):
But you mentioned not necessarily feeling comfortable in a large gathering with a drink in your hand and wanting to go to the bathroom a lot.
AJV (10:25):
It funny, I dunno,
MR (10:26):
I’m, I’m a consummate extrovert, but I’m really finding that in this covid prepost covid situation, I, I’m extrovert to the, to the cows come home. However, even I have these introverted moments. What I would say is you may not have to stand in a large ballroom with a drink in your hand. If you prefer networking one on one, go for a walk with somebody, do a workout with somebody have a zoom with them. Mm-Hmm. , I think it’s important that people not force it. If you don’t like standing in a ballroom with a drink in your hand to network, don’t stand in a ballroom with a drink in your hand to network. There are so many other ways that you can do that. You can join a board, you can volunteer at your kid’s school. You can, you know, we’re opening up gyms again. I ride Peloton at 5:00 AM with some pretty amazing women. Those are all ways that I network that have nothing to do with standing in a ballroom with a drink in my hand.
AJV (11:15):
That is such an important reminder cuz I think so often we get stuck in this idea specifically around business networking, that it has to happen around some sort of business oriented event. Or we’ve convinced ourselves that, you know, we need to be at this type of meeting or association to make it work. And that that really isn’t true. You know, I’m a much better networker in small group settings where I can actually get to know someone and not get interrupted or feel pressured to go like, make the rounds. And I think that’s a really great reminder. So I think this would be like valuable. What are, are all of the different ways to kind of kind of help open up people’s minds and broaden their perspectives around what is networking, which is just another way of saying relationship building, but what is, what are all the ways to network that really make a meaningful difference?
MR (12:08):
And you, you’re exactly right. We say that networking is the building and maintaining of meaningful relationships for personal and professional reasons in support of the goals of the people that you know and the people that they know. That’s a mouthful . It’s very, and it’s very essence. Networking is building relationships. And I think that dispels the smarmy, salesy, negative, scary connotation to it. It’s building relationships. And you can do that by appearing on a panel. You can do that by volunteering. Volunteering is great because if you and I go to a dog shelter and help clean and wash the dogs and help get them ready for adoption, we’re gonna be up to our eyeballs and soap and getting to know each other. Right? And maybe we have a common interest of, of animal causes. But then maybe we join the board of that animal shelter.
MR (12:56):
And so then you’re surrounded by another sphere of influence where you’re on the board with other people who care about that. Mm-Hmm. and then maybe you know, you help somebody’s nephew become an intern. You know, just all of the different ways. Volunteerism is one of the most authentic ways to build relationships with others. And it’s multi-tiered. Being on a panel you, if you’re an introvert, write an article with somebody, go to your professional association and say, I really wanna write an article on X. Who should I partner with? If you and I decided to write an article for entrepreneur about business development, how great it would be to get to work on that together. And we’d be networking, we’d be building our relationship and maybe, I mean, I am an extrovert, but pretend we’re introverts. And so just by writing that article, I’m learning about you. I’m learning your style, I’m learning from you. It’s this reciprocal nature. And then I would just say anything wellness related. So I’m running the New York City marathon this Sunday. Super nervous.
AJV (13:56):
Congratulations. Thank
MR (13:58):
You.
AJV (13:59):
Cool.
MR (13:59):
I’m gonna meet 50,000 other people who share this interest in doing this. Really I would say maybe outlandish, but really kind of grandiose thing. But training and training with other people and having that common interest or bond, you know, wellness focused networking is one of my personal passions.
AJV (14:15):
Yeah. And I really love, there are two things there that kind of just blow my mind a little bit. Cause I, they seem so duh, but at the same time, I, they’re not, which is volunteerism. I mean, when I just think about it, it’s like the act of doing things to add together. It’s like you’re making memories, you’re creating experiences. It’s not just that, you know, I think it’s one of the things that most people challenged or challenged with is, I don’t have time for another coffee. Right. I hear that a ton from people in our community. And honestly, sometimes I felt it’s like, man, I don’t have time for another coffee. But it’s like, but at the, at my core, like I know how important it is to make that time to network. But then it’s like there is something meaningful about it, doing it while you’re doing something else, like volunteering or wellness.
AJV (15:04):
And it’s like I go to the same bar three class that’s like my preferred workout of choice every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. And it’s like my favorite instructor, I just go to whatever she’s doing, like whatever class. But it’s like we’ve, we’ve become really good friends. And then through the process of just chatting after class one day she made a comment around, she’s gotta go get dressed up. And I was like, Oh, what for? And she was like, Oh, well my PR company, I was like, PR company. What do you mean PR company? And she goes, Yeah, in addition to owning the studio also I’m a partner and a PR company. I was like, Wait, what? And long story short, it’s like I ended up hiring her firm. But that was, again, that’s a version of networking where people don’t view it as networking, but you gotta be able to show up.
AJV (15:50):
But I love the, I love the way, like where are the, where are the places that you see people on a regular basis, right? So training for a marathon doing Peloton at 5:00 AM you create that community volunteering. I love that when that is so cool about processing your desire to volunteer and, and give back to the community as a way of networking and building relationships. And I love the concept too of you’re building relationships through doing something together. Not just trying to learn about each other’s businesses. It feels more natural and organic. And I have never viewed it that way before.
MR (16:26):
You know, it’s interesting. I have an investor he’s one of the coolest human beings on the planet and he’s such an inspiration because he built his company in such an inspiring way. And so a really good example is when I originally reached out to him, I said, Hey, we’re looking to meet other investors and customers. And he was like, Well I don’t, I I at first he’s like, Well I’m not sure how strong my network is, right? And as he’s gotten to know me and he is gotten to know the platform, he’s like, Oh, I know all the right people to introduce you to. Right? and so that’s just been been really helpful. I would also say, you mentioned not having enough time for another coffee. And I would like us to talk about the tech we sort of for move the app aside for a second, but at least our view and the view at keep with and what we’ve built the tech on is that you should have a networking strategy.
MR (17:16):
Mm-Hmm. , you shouldn’t be having a coffee with someone unless it supports an overall networking goal. And we would say that a networking goal is anything that you’re looking to accomplish. Cause if I’m looking to accomplish it on my own, but I have you helping me accomplish it, I’m gonna be more successful. Wow. So like you shouldn’t have, no one should be picking your brain with reckless abandon and nobody should just be having, you know, coffee with you just because, But if I am looking to meet the CEO of Peloton, Barry McCarthy, who I am looking to meet,
AJV (17:47):
Just put it out there in case anyone listening knows person,
MR (17:50):
Putting it out there that keep with, wants to partner with Peloton. If I am having a coffee with someone and I know that they might be able to help me with that introduction or that they’re wellness focused mm-hmm you know, having that strategy to support your networking because you can’t maintain an unending number of relationships.
AJV (18:08):
Yeah. So I’ve got two questions for you. Both for me selfishly, but then also I figured if, you know, I have these questions, other people listening have these questions. So here would be something that I find in, again, maybe this is just a me thing, I’m guessing it’s not, is sometimes networking or, and lemme just not call it networking for a second. Saying yes to a lunch or a coffee feels very one sided. And that’s why I feel like a lot of people going, I just don’t have time to do this anymore. Cuz they don’t view it as mutually beneficial or reciprocal. And I think that is in due partly because of the person who’s trying to coordinate it isn’t helping create that reciprocal environment. And so it’s easier for you to push it off, not respond and not do it. So my first question would be for everyone listening is how do you truly network set up these meetings whether virtually or in person where somebody else is inspired to go, Yes, I wanna take that hour with you or that half hour with you, I wanna get to know you.
AJV (19:15):
I do see the mutual benefit here. And not that it all has to be about, you know, give to give. Sometimes it is just give to give. But I think there’s also an art and a science of doing that in the right way where someone says, Yeah, when can we get together? Because there is this opportunity for both parties to win. So are there any tips or best practices on how do you make that where it is this reciprocal environment from even onset of thinking about it?
MR (19:46):
Yes. And I, I feel like we could have a whole conversation just about that. How do you even start, how do you know who to even reach out to? And I do at some point wanna talk about the tech cuz we have some tools in the tech to get you there. But you should be very aware of what your most important relationships are of all the different pockets of your network within those pockets. You know, who’s in your close group of key advisors, who would you call on a Friday night if something good or something bad happened? Mm-Hmm. who are your most important people in those relationships. But you should also, like, we, like I said earlier, have a networking strategy. I am networking to meet seed round investors to close out our seed round. I am networking to meet enterprise clients who will be early adopters for keyless tech. I am networking to meet other Peloton enthusiasts who are gonna be at the marathon on Sunday, whatever the case may be. And so having that strategy, so know why you’re gonna go into something.
AJV (20:43):
Can I pause it there? Cause you said you in my opinion, glance over something that I think is wildly important. And what you just said, I think from my experience is where most people fail miserably. They do not know who they wanna meet , they do not know who they wanna meet.
MR (21:06):
So there’s this tool out there aj and it’s gonna help people with that and I’m really excited. But no, you’re exactly right. So I this is gonna be the most, I hope this, I hope this comes across, across streamlined, but what you were asking is how you make sure that those conversations feel reciprocal. I recommend one that everybody set up strategic networking time with themselves for a period of time every week. Mm-Hmm. , I think it should be an hour. If everyone says they don’t have an hour to build relationships every week, I really call shenanigans on that set up strategic networking time, recurring meeting invite, show up to it, don’t book over it, consider it like a workout, et cetera. In that time, come up with a way list of ways that you can be helpful to other people.
AJV (21:52):
Amen. Love that.
MR (21:54):
So maybe your kid has gone through the college application process recently and you can help a friend whose kid is now going through the college application process. Maybe you speak a language, maybe you’re a super connector. What are all the ways that I can add value to you? And have that list right? Then you can think about what are all the things that I need in the world right now? I could really use some help figuring out a new web developer cuz I got an email before this call that my web developer is going in a different direction. Or how can I get a new book agent because our book agent has transitioned away whatever the case may be. So have your list of the ways that you can add value. Mm-Hmm. , what can I do for others and have the list of things that you need right now.
MR (22:38):
And those will then when I say to you at the end of a networking meeting, Hey aj, how can I be helpful to you right now? You can be like, actually I really need help with X in Chicago. But you also said people don’t know who they wanna meet. That is exactly true. And I will say to you, and I did say to you at the end of our first conversation, who are you looking to meet these days? And so in our Tech Keep West platform is really air traffic control for your relationship building and it helps you focus on who you know, who you wanna meet, your networking goals, who your people wanna meet. So if I know that you’re looking to meet clients in Chicago, I can note that and then I can add value to you every time I see a prospective client for you that builds the reciprocal nature.
AJV (23:26):
Yeah. So I think this is a great transition to talk a little bit about keep with, Cause I think one of the biggest challenges that people struggle with is just staying organized. It’s making time, it’s tracking it. Not everyone has a personal CRM or a database, not most companies do, but not all. But on a personal perspective it’s like that’s kind of the genesis of LinkedIn when it started, but yet it doesn’t do it in this strategic element. And this is what drew me in when we were, when I was meeting with our mutual friend Amanda, and she was previewing this app again, not intentionally. And I was like, Wait, this is so cool. And it was one of those things where you just recognize a need and you’re like, the reason it stuck out to me is because every single person in the brand builder’s community at some point has said, I need more of this type of client.
AJV (24:18):
I need more of these types of relationships. And they struggle with being strategic when asking of knowing who to ask, when to ask how often to ask. And there’s just a lot of, there’s a lot of, it’s, some of it’s just organization of keeping track. So if you have a desire to really be helpful and give and an effort of going, Hey, it’s like how can I serve the people around me? What can I give to people? Knowing that is the best relationship building tool you can do is just be willing to give. This is an amazing way of staying organized and tracking and making sure when life gets busy, you don’t forget all the important stuff. So tell us what is keep with and what does it do and like how does it help the everyday person like me?
MR (25:03):
For sure. So think of Keep with as air traffic control for your relationship building. And what it does is it brings together your connections, personal and professional from all the different places where you have them. So you probably have people in your social channels, you have people in your phone, you have your holiday card list, You probably as a business owner have a crm. It syncs to to CRMs and it’s a way to bring all of your people together. But it also includes the networking events that you will attend and the introductions that you are fostering and who you wanna meet and your networking goals all in one place. And then there’s a content library where you can learn how to network better. And it’s always great to have that, that educational component, but it’s bringing all of your relationship building into one platform.
MR (25:53):
It allows you to prioritize your relationships. So our mutual friend Amanda’s company had some pretty amazing success with her sales based on using our methodology, which we’re really proud of. It allows you to have a list of who you wanna meet. And so then when you’re on a plane and you sit next to somebody who knows somebody that and they say, Hey, who are you looking to meet? You’re like, Actually, I wanna meet these three people. Right? And it’s, it’s just such a great tool. One of our investors said she wished she had an executive assistant following her around to every meeting. And we don’t typically have that. But we do have keep with. And so we are enterprise facing first. We’re starting with businesses though any individual user can sign up now. But we’re B2B first and then we’ll be expanding to to b2c. There’s no spam, there’s no ads. And all introductions require consent of both people being introduced, which prevents people from flinging themselves at you in an, in an unwanted way.
AJV (26:49):
Thank you for that. . I think that’s, I mean I think there’s so much about this I think is so cool. If people wanna learn about Keep With, where should they go?
MR (26:58):
Sure. So our overall website is keep with.com and if people want to sign up, it is a paid app. You go to platform dot keep with.com and you register and sign up first, and then you download it to your device. So it’s available on iOS, Android, and web. And on our website Keep with.com you can view a demo video and anyone can also reach out to me as well.
AJV (27:24):
Awesome. Well, we’ll make sure to put all of that in the show notes to make sure everyone’s got it. But you can go to keep with.com or then platform dot keep with.com if you wanna actually get the app. Now continuing our conversation on this, you know, networking adventure that we are all on, whether or not we admit it. So we had talked about this a little bit of most people aren’t super clear on who they wanna ask for, which is probably the number one deterrent of asking. And I have been a part of so many networking meetings where I have said, Hey, who can I, you know, introduce you to, who are you looking to be connected with? Or we do a lot of facilitated networking events at Brand Builders group and they do not do what they’re supposed to do.
AJV (28:09):
And instead what they do is, Well, just tell me about your business. Instead of going, Well, this is who I am strategically looking to be introduced to. So what advice do you have for the person out there who’s going, Well, I thought I was doing that when in turn they are not, because not everyone is your audience. And I can just think of so many examples where they go, Well, I’m looking to be introduced to anyone who is interested in buying a home. Well, that’s a really broad statement. So how do you, how do you narrow it down where someone can immediately go, I know someone like that. What tips do you have to help people narrow it in?
MR (28:49):
So it, it’s funny as, as somebody who always found math challenging, I can’t believe I’m gonna give us an equation, but I’m gonna give us an equation. So we’ll do this as kind of a fill in the blank. So you can think of it as a networking goal is an objective that you are looking to accomplish with the power of your network behind you. Really simple. And, and like I said earlier, what any goal, if you’re looking to do anything, move to a new place, get a new job, get a new client become more fit, whatever the case may be, any networking goal, you know, any goal can be a networking goal, but the way that you should think about it is, I am networking to X land meet, introduce, volunteer for the purposes of
AJV (29:32):
Y
MR (29:33):
And you can get even more specific and say, you know, I am networking to meet home buyers in this market looking to spend this dollar range for the purposes of X. Or I’m looking to meet people who know lots of people who want to buy houses, right? Because then they’re the super connectors and you get more bang for your buck. So it’s having networking goals that are specific and include why you wanna meet the person. If I just tell you, Hey aj, I wanna meet Barry McCarthy, the CEO of Peloton, you’re like, That’s nice, Who doesn’t? But if I say I wanna meet Barry McCarthy because I know that Peloton is a new tech solution and he wants to add apps to his platform and that I know at a micro level we’ve really helped people in the community connect better. Mm-Hmm. , then you’re like, Oh, if I meet Barry I’m gonna send him Megan’s way. Right? Yeah. So it’s having a networking strategy, just meeting anyone is is not gonna cut it.
AJV (30:28):
Yeah. And I love that too. Because we talk a lot about getting really clear on what, you know, you’re talking about like your, you know, networking strategy in terms of people, we would call it your avatar. It’s like know exactly who your avatar is. It’s not I’m looking for home buyers. It’s looking say, Hey, I wanna serve home buyers who are new and I live in Tennessee who are new to Middle Tennessee, so I wanna serve that market who is, you know, an out of state transplant who is looking to buy a home, who is, you know, spending this amount of money X, Y, and Z. But you’ve added a whole nother level of, but why, why this type of person? And I think that’s really unique. So can you just put a little bit more context around that because I think that part will really help it stick. That’s the sticky part of that personal connection that why to it
MR (31:20):
There’s a trust and an authenticity to to relationship building that really, really matters. Mm-Hmm. . And so if I am asking you for an introduction, I am taking that really seriously. Right? And so I want you to feel comfortable when you go to a holiday party and you meet someone and you’re like, Oh, I need to introduce you to Megan because she is doing this. If you know the purpose behind the introduction, and it’s not to land a sale to make, you know what I mean? If it’s, if it’s something way more meaningful that builds trust, it also gives me specificity because then when I’m sitting on a plane next to somebody who you know is gonna be a potential home buyer for you, I have the specificity in my head. I actually also have it in the keep with app. AJ is looking to meet people that are gonna buy that are new to the neighborhood, right? Yeah. So it provides way more for me to make a warm introduction
AJV (32:13):
Yeah.
MR (32:13):
Because it’s based on something
AJV (32:15):
Mm-Hmm. , I love that y part of like, here’s what I’m looking to meet, but here’s why I really wanna meet. That’s a really, really distinguishable fact That would help, again, make it sticky of going, Oh, that’s right. It’s because she’s a Peloton junkie and does it every morning at 5:00 AM And it’s like that, that sticks with me as much as wanting to meet the CEO of Peloton. So that sticky part is really good. So okay, here’s my next question. On behalf of everyone who’s listening, what’s the best way to make an introduction? Like, what’s a way that you shouldn’t do and what’s a way that’s helpful? Like, so how do you, so somebody says, Hey, this is how I wanna meet, and you’re like, I know someone. What are the best practices in making good introductions?
MR (33:02):
So first and foremost I always encourage people, keep with, always encourages people to be a connector, to always be thinking about who you can introduce. The key most critical component is to get double opt-in first. Mm-Hmm. ever proceed with an introduction before getting both people’s permission first, I once had someone introduce me to someone, introduce me to someone who I already knew really well and was a really close friend, . And so after the introduction we was made was made, I was like, nice to meet you person who has been to my home a million times and it was my child, right? But that’s a funny example. But we may be dealing with a health issue these days. We may be dealing with, we may be tapped out, I may be heads down in fundraising and so I have to dial down my, my outreach, right? Mm-Hmm. get double opt in first. That’s, that will build your credibility, support your credibility. So that’s really important.
AJV (33:57):
Mm. I like that. So just to clarify, I wanna make sure everyone hears that quickly. Get permission from both parties before you make the mutual introduction. So if I had, if I’m like, Oh my gosh, I just met someone today, they need to meet Megan. It’s like, Hey Megan, hey, I met someone today. I really love to introduce you. Are you okay with that? As well as telling my friend Bob Smith, Hey Bob, you want me to introduce you to Megan? Great. And then I, then I make the connection, right?
MR (34:23):
And that is currently a pretty clunky process. You do emails, but we’ve solved for that with the technology. So we have double opt in, I select, you select me, you select Bob, we both get a prospective introduction, we both consent, and then the introduction proceed. Awesome.
AJV (34:38):
So it takes care, the automation takes care of all of the personalized manual work that you would be doing otherwise.
MR (34:45):
And you then can keep track of, oh, I sent Megan three potential introductions and she declined all of them, right? Oh, so they proceed. That also gives you some intel. So getting double optin, but I would also just say on a very fun level, build the person up that you are introducing. My favorite things to do is send a note to two people and tell them why they’re awesome. Mm. You know, you need to know you. And very rarely it’ll just like, my gut will just tell me, the universe will be better if you two know each other. And so I’ll say that. I’ll say, These are the rock star things about this person. These are the rock star things about this person. And I have no specific goal or purpose, but I just know two HR experts need to make the world better, right? Mm-Hmm. . But build the other person up. Because if I send a note to someone and I’m telling them just how amazing you are, and I’m like, Here’s why you need to meet aj. Her business does this for people. She’s so amazing. That is so much more powerful than you reaching out to somebody gold and saying, Here’s why I’m amazing
AJV (35:47):
Yes. Which most people won’t do typically, right? But I love that. I love that buildup where both people feel so complimented that the, you know, flattery does go somewhere sometimes flattery helps a lot. And I love the other thing that you said too is explain why they should connect. I feel like when I get a bunch of introduction, you know, emails, it’s often at the end of it I’m like, I hear you’re awesome. I’m not sure exactly why they wanted us to get together. I’m willing to meet, but it’s like most of my willingness comes out of my desire to keep my relationship strong with whoever sent this random connection. Because the context of here’s why you need to meet is missing. So I think that is really important to build both parties up and then connect the dots. And then here’s why I think you guys need to meet each other.
MR (36:42):
And it’s also so important that we’ve really, like your network is your most important asset. Mm-Hmm. , no matter where you live, where you work, what, what’s going on, your people are your most important asset. And so I think it’s really important that we take that seriously, that you trust who you’re introducing me to. If you introduce me to somebody and then they damage my business, for example, or I introduce you to somebody and then they ghost you, right? That’s a reflection on me. And so we need to be discerning about who we let into our networks. And that’s why taking the time and the care to make the introduction, if I’m introducing you to somebody in my network, they’re really vetted. And I, I take that responsible really seriously.
AJV (37:20):
I love that. And I think that’s really, really important of you’re not just connecting people that you don’t know, but there is a trusted relationship that you are passing on to another trusted relationship. I love that. This is so good. Okay, last question. Watching the clock, I’m paying attention. So last question. What do you think people need to know about networking that they don’t know?
MR (37:48):
The importance of making time to do it? So I think a lot of people think if they stay heads down in their work, they’ll, you know, so it’s very important to take deliberate time to network. I also think that people do not think enough about including personal and professional members of your network. Mm-Hmm. only think about who we know professionally and ignore the personal Amanda, our mutual friend, we were talking about the importance of neighbors and she was like, Neighbors are in my network. And I was like, Yes, your neighbors love you . So the personal and professional, not having enough time, time that you have to be standing in a ballroom with a drink in your hands, which we covered you definitely don’t. And to be truly discerning about who you let in and who you keep in your network. I think those are just a lot of, I mean we can go on and on, but I would say that people often only think about who they know professionally. And we can be way more open-minded, stop by cating between personal and professional. The parents at hockey are just as important as your clients. Yeah. Be potential clients.
AJV (38:49):
I love that. I love just be discerned of who comes in, who stays in. I think that’s a really important just reminder to us all is I just, I somebody referred, I just remember this time last year I was at a conference, a summit of a really good friend who was hosting it and I was one of the speakers and one of the sponsors of the events concert. I just naturally assumed worked with the person who was putting on the event. I was like, well, there’s no way she would’ve had a sponsor come speak on her behalf unless that she was a client. That was a very bad assumption of mine. So I hired this company for tens of thousands of dollars, had a horrific experience. 60 days in, I’m like, no. And so I reached out to my friend, I’m like, Hey, I just, I want you to know.
AJV (39:39):
And they were like, she’s like, Oh my gosh, I didn’t know. And I’m like, Have you not ever worked with ’em? And she goes, No. And I was like, Oh my gosh. Was like such a great reminder of ask don’t make assumptions. And then I was, I went back to this company and I was like, listen, this is a hundred percent not what was advertised. Like this is not okay. This, I had to get so many other people involved to even like, get out of this contract because I’m like, I really did it based on my assumption that somebody else’s trust that that’s what they were putting in front of their audience. And I was so wrong and that’s my fault. That’s no one else’s thought. I made that assumption. But to your point your, your involvement with the people around you reflects on your reputation.
AJV (40:25):
They’re an extension of you. And then I also, I lied and I have one more question cuz I said I was gonna ask it in the very beginning and then I got on this deep dark road of networking, which I think is so important. I also asked earlier about apps. How do you know when you’re ready to have an app? How, like how do you know if you should have an app? And since you have been in need deep eyeballs deep in this for almost five years, I would just love for your quick personal, you know, share with our audience of how do you know if you should have an app and how do you know when you’re ready? And that’ll be the last question, I promise.
MR (41:03):
Okay. I’m gonna go to what you first said though though because the, the what you just described about the contract and people not knowing, one of the most important questions that people need to ask is how well do you know so and so? Mm-Hmm. you know, I see that, you know, so and so can you make the introduction? So and so may have just matched with me randomly at a conference and I may not know them. And so a really good question is to say how well do you know them? And also aj, if you say to me, I really wanna introduce you to someone I can say to you, that sounds great, tell me why, but how well do you know them? Is this somebody that you would have in your house, you know, at a holiday party? Is this somebody that you only know at a very high level?
MR (41:44):
So that’s just, but ditto solidarity hands at your back. I been where you’ve been . In terms of how we got here and how we knew tech, we needed tech to scale. We started off getting asked to speak and write about networking. Hmm. And companies across industry sector, big name logos across geographies started to say, Hey Megan, can you come teach our people how to build relationships better? And so the fact that it was industry agnostic, the fact that it was around the world, the fact that every time I was talking to people they were saying networking is hard. Oh I need to do more of that. Oh, I need to, I hate that. Right. That told me there was something there when I saw what a big challenge it was. And I saw the existing tools that were trying to solve the challenge but weren’t. And as an entrepreneur, I wanted to scale our company to help more people connect better the right way. I thought that using technology as a solution was the way to go. One of my favorite phrases is there’s gotta be a startup fixing that
AJV (42:50):
. I love
MR (42:51):
That. Any problem? Think about it like this weekend, wherever you are. Like if someone’s like, I wish we had, it’s like, I think there’s got, I think I’ve heard there’s gotta be a startup fixing that. And so I wanted to be the startup that fixed networking. And so we started to go down this path. We raised some capital very quickly. Some other time we can talk about the traction and the speed and there was a whole bunch of excitement and capital raised and I was introduced to Amanda and, and the tech started and away we went. And so working with the app at team and their unparalleled professionalism and excellence and UI experience and they just got us our mutual friend once said to me, It’s great that you’re my client and we’re building the tech together, but you’ve changed my life and that’s what relationships do.
MR (43:34):
So I knew we were ready when we were getting companies around the world, across industry and sectors saying that they were finding it hard. And so I thought then we are in our houses. Hello, welcome to my kitchen. Right? And so we had to use technology to stay connected even if we’re one of those people who say that we hate doing it on Zoom. So there were a whole confluence of factors and we’ve now built tech that has looked at the pain points of existing solutions that is really based on who you know and who you wanna meet. No spam, no ads, no noise. And we feel like we’ve built something that’s really gonna help people to build relationships better.
AJV (44:10):
No, I love that. And I think, you know, some of that is, you know, it’s definitely not easy, but it’s also kind of simple of going, it’s, you know, basic laws of, you know, supply and demand. It’s like you were having a lot of demand. That’s how you knew. It’s like I have to do something that’s more scalable. Something that is more far reaching than me just being on stages. That can only, you can only do so many. And so I think looking at the demand, I think that’s a really good tip for anyone who’s listening of going, Are people asking for what you do? To the point that like, I don’t have enough bandwidth to continue doing it because I’m getting asked so often to help with X, Y, or Z. Is the demand there enough and is it scalable enough? But there’s an opportunity to take it into a a tech-based platform and I love that. Now you just clarifying cuz it’s like you’ve been working on this for a long time so it’s not like it’s one of those things you just whipped up over the last 12 months.
MR (45:05):
No, we, we started as keep with in in 2017 and have been developing the content and the methodology and the approach for some time. In September of 21 is when we really started to raise capital in earnest. I was introduced to Amanda cuz I needed to find the right team to build our tech. And we used our network to find the right team. And then people have talked about how quickly and beautifully we’ve been able to build technology from September to April. The, the tech launched in April of this year in beta. We spent the summer working out some bugs. It’s fully functional and now we are talking to some very large global enterprises about implementing it across their companies.
AJV (45:45):
Man, so cool, so exciting. Congratulations. Like how cool to see this idea come to fruition in such a way that is passion driven and really meant to help people make networking not so hard. It’s so awesome to have you on the show. Thank you so much. Y’all go check out, Keep with go to keep with.com or if you wanna just go ahead and download the app platform dot keep with.com. Megan, if they wanna connect with you personally, where should they go?
MR (46:17):
Sure. Megan, m e g a n Keep with.com. Just send me a note, shoot you my calendarly. You can also connect with me on Keep with and book some time. But the easiest way is [email protected].
AJV (46:30):
So cool, so generous. What a great, helpful interview. Thank you so much for being on and everyone else stay tuned for the the short recap version after this and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.
MR (46:44):
Thanks AJ.

Ep 342: How to Scale a Coaching Company and License Your IP with Todd Herman

RV (00:02):
You know, as humbly as I can say, sometimes when I think about this podcast, I go, it’s insane the quality of the guests that you hear and get access to for free and the quality of guests that I get access to for free. And today is definitely an example of that you are about to meet. If you don’t already know one of the smartest people in business, in personal development. That’s how I would describe Todd Herman. We’ve known each other for years at a distance. We’ve, we kind of gotten closer over the last few years and just every time I turn around somebody’s talking about how brilliant this guy is and how sharp and how awesome he is. So he’s a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of a book called The Alter Ego Effect the Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life, which came out years ago, but has been, you know, one of these perennial bestsellers.
RV (00:55):
He’s an international speaker, he’s a peak performance coach. He has been the recipient of Inc’s 500 fastest growing Companies award. He speaks for groups like ypo, like some of the most prolific groups around of course he’s been featured in CBS and Business Insider. A lot of the like, you know, major media kind of empires. But one of the things that Todd has done that is super unique, which is what I am particularly interested in, not cuz we’re trying to do this, but because we kind of did this once and very few people do it, is scaling a training, coaching, consulting business and selling it. He has done this three different times in three different ways with sort of three different group, like three different kind of models, which is what we’re gonna talk about because I think that this is the future. I think that pe personal brands eventually wake up to the idea to go, yeah, I wanna be well known. I wanna have influence, I wanna have reach, but dang it, if I’m gonna work as hard as normal entrepreneurs, I also wanna have something that has enterprise value and asset value. So anyways, I kind of just begged Todd to say, dude, will you come on the show and just like, share your wisdom. And it took me a long time to coordinate schedules, but he’s here. It’s great to have you bro.
TH (02:14):
Dude, I’m excited. Yeah, just to dig into this stuff cause I know your audience and the topic around, you know, building a coaching business that could be somewhat sellable for someone is such a foreign concept for many people. Not that everyone has to sell something, but I’ve been in this space for 26 years. I’m going into my 26 year, I started in 1997 before coaching was a thing. So happy to open up the kimono so, so to speak and just drop as much as I can to help out.
RV (02:47):
Yeah. Well, I’d love to hear it. And I do wanna get into, I wanna talk a little bit about alter ego, cuz I know that ties in, I mean, that ties into it. Yeah. But just to give us the history of scaling and selling a company and, and I want to hear just kinda like, okay, you have these sort of three different generations or iterations that you’ve done. Yeah. And you know, I think like I was mentored by Zig Ziegler and I knew him personally and I was, I was friends with him when he fell and he hit his head and he started to lose his short term memory. And it was interesting to see how that affected the business. Right. Yeah. And he couldn’t speak anymore. And of course Dave Ramsey is here in Nashville and he’s been thinking about y for years about succession planning and scaling the business beyond him and creating the personalities. And I think this is, as personal brands wake up to the idea of going, man, how do I build something that outlasts me that runs without me? I’m not the just the dancing bear on stage all the time. Yeah. And you, you’ve, you’ve done that, man. So tell us, tell us three quick stories about what they were.
TH (03:51):
Yeah, so the, the very first one was the peak athlete, which is what I started in 97. And I was you know, very young at the time. I was 21 when I started doing mental game coaching, people performance stuff for athletes. And I as I was growing that business, I did it on the back of really only one channel. So there’s different types of channels we can all use to market with, right? And so the only thing I knew how to do, I was not a marketer by any stretch imagination, but I grew up in the world of four h I grew up on a big ranch in farming. Yeah. Canada, and, you know, in the world of four H, it’s like agricultural boy scouts for people who don’t know. And you always had to do a speech every single year in your club.
TH (04:35):
And if you won that one, then you’d go to the next level and next level, next level. So I started when I was 10 and I just fell in love with speaking. I was very natural at it. And that was what I used to grow the peak athlete was I offered free speeches in a context of 90 days and I ended up doing 68 free speeches in my province of Alberta where I was living at the time. And people go 68 species, 90 a day. How did that happen? And I mean, that’s a completely different story, but that’s what kind of got me my waiting list of clients. Okay. Got it. That it, and so, but I was trading nothing but time for dollar. I was super busy. I would charged $75 for a package of three sessions. That’s what my price point was when I did my quick in taxes in 97, 98, 99, I was making $8 and 56 cents an hour.
RV (05:24):
Nice
TH (05:26):
Gas money was my biggest cost was traveling around all these young kids after school to, to see them. But I’m a big,
RV (05:34):
You were selling to kids, you were doing speeches and then at the end of the speech you were basically saying, Hey, if you like this, join my, my $75 package coaching program.
TH (05:45):
Yep. Yep. How I gave up my free speech was I said, I’ll do my talk for free. Normally it’s $2,200, but if you get all one parent from each of the kids in the room, I’ll do it for free because they’re the wallet holder. Right. That was the, that was the worst part about that business was this person’s getting the service, but this other person’s paying for it. Right. But as a parent, we’ll do anything for our kids. Right. So that was the, that was what I did. So the offers were either work with a kid one on one or come in and work with a team. So I was just learning as I was going. There was no internet back then for me to be Googling how to run a coaching business because that wasn’t even an industry at the time.
TH (06:26):
And so this is awesome. I love this so much, but I was super, but I was, you know, even though I wasn’t making much money, I was busy and I was working a lot and I loved what I was doing, so I was getting a lot of reps, which is probably the thing that’s most overlooked in I think our world today. People are trying to race towards expertise status before they ever even have any sort of practitionership or, you know, send you on the muscle or on the bone. And, you know, I’ve, I’ve passed well over 19,000 hours of 1 0 1 coaching with elite athletes. So, long story short was, was doing quite well, but I didn’t, I just knew I didn’t know enough. So I sought out a mentor named Harvey Dorfman, and he’s known as the Yoda Baseball greatest mental game coach to ever live.
TH (07:14):
Cold called him, asked if I could come and spend some time with him in North Carolina during the baseball off season. And he called me back and he said, you’re not gonna live with me kid, are you? And I said, no, I have got an aunt and uncle who lived near you in North Carolina, which was a lie. That wasn’t true at all. . I ended up staying at a Motel six for $28 a night on my Scotia Bank visa card, which I maxed out when I was down there with a $1,000 limit. But I got to spent 33 days with Harvey and during that time, Roger Clemens came in to see him, Andy Petit, Craig Beo, like the biggest names in baseball. And I got to see the best guy work with the best athletes. And I was like, oh my goodness. All the stuff I thought you would talk about with a pro athlete, cause I wasn’t working with pros yet, was completely wrong.
TH (07:56):
And then he started funneling me clients and he also talked to me about like, hey, like developing intellectual property, had never heard of that before. So, you know how this then ties into all these other ones is if you wanna grow and scale and ultimately sell a business, what people don’t understand about this world is one of the first questions any company is gonna ask you is how many trademarks do you own? Okay. My company now, like the one that I, the one existing I own 44 trademarks. Wow. Each one of those trademarks has a dollar value on it. So everyone thinks it’s all about, well how much revenue are you doing in your company? No. A buying company wants to know how well is your stuff protected in the inte cuz this, this is what we’re selling is intellectual property, whether it’s your coaching process, whether it’s the method that you have, whether it’s the brand framework that you use. And so I fell down that rabbit hole of learning about intellectual property. I went to Steve Jobs, his mentor David Sip is his name. He wrote the book visual meetings, visual teams, visual leaders. Steve Jobs only mentor mentioned him once. And that was at a speech that I happened to be at at University of Washington. So I went and learned how to draw models and create models and frameworks and whatnot. So ultimately the peak athlete ended up selling two decades later almost to Ral Madrid. In,
RV (09:25):
So did you have other like coaches or was it just the methodology in the IP that you sold?
TH (09:31):
I, i, rare there was I never scaled through other coaches. I scaled through intellectual property and licensing. So the peak athlete, I built out a amazing training system for developing the inner inner game of athletes. And then I licensed it to the German soccer federation, the Danish Olympic team, the South African spring box sports teams around the world. And
RV (09:58):
I actually just went to a South African spring box rugby game in Sydney, Australia, like a month ago. .
TH (10:06):
That’s how lucky are you? That would’ve been a great game because it
RV (10:08):
Was, it was awesome. So you you, you licensed this methodology to these teams. Yeah. So you just cold called these teams and then said, Hey, I’ve got a process for training your athletes and it’ll cost you this much per year or whatever.
TH (10:26):
Well, I mean, this goes back to the benefit of speaking a lot. So I would, because I was speaking so much, all the leads were basically coming in at the end of those talks. And then I had built up such a good name that at the highest level of really any industry, most decisions are made by, you know, Hey Rory, do you know anyone that is XY good at X, Y, and Z? Yeah. And if you can keep your name top of mind, which is, which is branding or personal branding it’s a com It’s a very unfair advantage that you have. So I never had to do as much cold calling. I did do direct outreach, but that really wasn’t my game. My game was getting on stages and around the world talking about what I talked about and which was building the triune athlete, the mentally, emotionally, and physically tough athlete. And and then giving people processes. And then, you know, I would mention in my stories in case studies that, you know, the German soccer federation since 2004 has been, you know, licensing our training and, and their development of their athletes and, and on and on and on.
RV (11:36):
So yeah. So you weren’t cold calling them, you were working through relationships, but they were, they were a client of yours, so they were paying to access your system.
TH (11:46):
Yeah.
RV (11:47):
Yeah. And then you would deliver it to them.
TH (11:49):
Like, I would do a train the trainer series. I would do a trainer, the trainer series with all their people one showing them how to train on it and then second showing them how to coach on it. And that was the secret was because there was a lot of stuff out there that’s training in nature. The problem is if your stuff is only at the level of training someone or educating, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s becoming an embedded part of the ethos or the philosophy of an organization. But when people are now taking the training and implementing it through coaching, that’s a very different you know, essentially metastas metastasized tumor that goes on inside of that company. So, you know, German Soccer Federation renewed that license for well over a decade with me. So I did the work once and then every year I would do an update with them. Typically a two hour call with their head of training and a few other people. And and that was basically it.
RV (12:56):
Interesting. So they’re just, so you’re trained the trainers and then you’re licensing the IP for them to go and administer it. How do you define the difference between training and coaching?
TH (13:10):
Well training is typically one to many people at the front of a room where you’re introducing whether it’s new concepts, new methods, you’re, you’re teaching something, you’re training someone on how to, especially with our world of like intellectual property and think like, I’m not showing you how to swing a baseball bat necessarily. Cuz you can train someone on that and you can, that’s where training and coaching kind of gets a little bit mixed up at the same time. But in our world, there are two very different disciplines. Training is giving them the processes, the systems coaching is ensuring that it’s being put into action. And coaching is really about three things. There’s really, coaching is only three things. Encouragement, accountability, and progress. Those are the three legs of the stool that support a coach. If you’re someone who doesn’t know how to encourage or can’t hold people accountable or can’t model back to people the progress that they’re making, those you would grade yourself very low on being a good coach.
RV (14:12):
And so then who did you sell this to? Because you’re already, you’re already printing money, right? If you’re licensing it, it’s just like, yeah, these people are using it and that person is using it. So like, who did you sell it? How did you identify the buyer? How do you value that kind of a thing. Mm-Hmm. . And then what happened to your existing customers?
TH (14:32):
Yeah. So first, who did you sell to? It was as two ways you came in. Relationships with coaches would be the most common way for me to come in. So could be the the, the GM or coach of, say the German national soccer team. Okay. And I develop a relationship with him because I have a relationship already with the head coach of the Cleveland Browns. Like people don’t realize in sport just how much people from other industries now share and talk. And I got to live through that cycle in the eighties and nineties, not necessarily so, but two thousands, very collaborative culture. And so in through the coach or in through training directors you’ll be be looking for, let’s say the director of training for the Danish Olympic team. Okay. They’re the people who are tasked with how can we improve and develop our athletes. And they’re out there constantly doing research, trying to find out what’s new in physiology, behavioral sciences, neurosciences and, and whatnot. And that’s, those would be the two main people that I’d be coming in through was there in professional sports. Like the nhl I did a direct mail campaign and it was, I sent out the direct mail campaign to the GMs of the teams and to the head coaches. So every team would get two letters. One to the GM and one to the head coach of the team.
RV (16:01):
Yeah. So when I meant sell, so that’s awesome. That’s, that’s helpful is just like, you know, there’s somebody in charge of buying the thing and you figure out who they are and you work through referrals and presentations and direct mail. Yeah. I meant when you sold the company, did you, you actually sold that company?
TH (16:17):
Yeah. So what happened was Real Madrid has now become the the diamond on top of the sports mountain. There are sports teams from around the world who go to Real Madrid University. They have a university now and make a pilgrimage to go and learn about how Ral Madrid develops their athletes because they’ve been so far ahead of everybody else. Like North American Sport has been an archaic mountain for a long time with the way that they’ve approached sport. And Ral Madrid has been way on the forefront of diagnostic type stuff. You know, getting people to wear bio feedbacks type devices. And so I was a part of a team that came in to develop Al Madrid’s Peak Performance system. And so like working with like Christian Ronaldo and, and those guys, but that’s who ultimately wanted to buy it and own, own the IP that I had.
RV (17:17):
Okay. So they just,
TH (17:17):
So the deal, the deal that I struck with them was they can buy it and then and, and they didn’t care about any of the revenue. They just wanted to own it. And, and so all those other basically contracts that I had it was a two year out. They could, the German soccer federation could continue to use it for two more years. I got to con I got to keep it for my own personal use though as well.
RV (17:44):
So when you sold it, you basically maintained like your own global license to use it and train it however you want it?
TH (17:50):
No, not global license. I could use it for one on one clientele. Cause I had built up such a big name in sport. Like, you know, when Kobe Bryant is one of your clients and you helped him build out the black mamba, you know, and, and your, my entire world was built around referability. So the only way that you could get to me to work with me one on one was you had to be referred by a present client or past client. And so I could use it for 1 0 1 stuff. That was, that was the only thing I really cared about. Yeah. I
RV (18:16):
Got that. So, and did they approach, so did they approach you about it, I guess? Or did you approach them like they
TH (18:22):
Say No, cause I was already work. Yeah, I was already working with them. The relationship is so strong. They see its impact, you know, and like when you think about the frustrations that all of us can have around wanting to achieve any sort of goal or mark of excellence in some sort of discipline, whether it’s marketing or whatever. And we’ve all been handed bits and pieces to things when someone comes along and they actually have a well defined complete and codified system of dealing with a whole athlete, which then also permeates at the team level. It’s so refreshing. And when you think about from now that program director side of things, or the head coach or the gm, they’re like, this allows me to not have to go out and acquire 10 other people to do this. I got one stop, like it was a full meal deal type thing.
TH (19:13):
And that was always my goal was to like continuously develop it. I was the first, like back when I started sports psychology was the term that was used. And we were the first company to hire three neuroscientists to come onto our team. We were the first ones to dive into the actual science because when people actually know anything about psychology or psychiatry, out of all the scientific disciplines, it’s the least sciency. It’s the most theoretical. And we were the first ones to start really diving into the science of it. And so that’s just because I come from a farm and ranch, you know, my dad has phrases like, well that dog won’t hunt, which is basically a, you know, a barometer. And I found a ton of it in, and I still find a ton of it in the self-help, personal development, you know, all that kind of world space. People are still spouting off stuff that was written 70 years ago that is categorically, categorically proven to either be false or very ineffective. There are way smarter ways to go about achieving some level of mastery or success than what, so
RV (20:20):
Did you have a lot of employees when you sold this? Or was it really just like, it was the ip It was basically a IP and some trademarks and that was,
TH (20:26):
I kept it super lean all the way. So at my, at my max for the peak athlete, we had seven team members.
RV (20:34):
Yeah. Seven. Yeah. Uhhuh. Okay. So then, so then tell us about the next ones. This is fascinating. So the next one, so that’s really like an IP business. You’re basically selling your methodology to someone who just says, we love it, we believe in it, we want it, we wanna own it.
TH (20:51):
Done. Yeah. So, so this ties into again, your personal brand world. So here I am speaking on stages. A lot of times the people in your audience are not target markets for you, but they like the topic that you have. So here I am talking to athletes and sports teams and invariably, once you start rising through the ranks of sport, a lot of times the only people who can afford to keep their athlete in more elite levels is people that have got some money in their pocket. And one of the things that started happening was, I’d get people coming to me afterwards and say, listen, I loved what you just said about you know, the Traian athlete or developing mental toughness or inner game stuff or emotional resiliency and, you know, but I was thinking the entire time, these are all the same issues I’ve got on my team in my business or my team or department in the government.
TH (21:47):
And so people would say like, could you do the same thing for my company? And for the first couple of times I’d say, no, you know, I don’t really know. And that was maybe, maybe the immaturity of my entrepreneurship. A great entrepreneur would’ve, would’ve went. Yeah, absolutely. And so I said this to one of my mentors. You talked about Zig Zigler. Jim Roan was one of my mentors. He was actually my first. Oh cool. I met him when I was 21. And I actually know some funny stories about Jim and Zig behind the scenes too. But Zieg always got very frustrated with the fact that Jim was terrible at returning phone calls . And so I had said this to a mentor and he was like, here’s your answer from now on. Absolutely. And then again, they just educated me about your, your intellectual property probably isn’t gonna change that much.
TH (22:36):
So what I then started was a company called No Limits Coaching and Consulting, which was geared towards performance and leadership training and coaching for the corporate and government world. Okay. And I used, again, just speaking to kind of build that up, it was almost like a little side hustle thing I think for me to say yes to. Ultimately though, that one ended up becoming bigger than the sports one, cuz corporate can spend way more money. And it’s actually what forced me to do licensing because I wasn’t able to devote as much time anymore to, to the peak athlete as much. So it’s a great example of how constraints are actually great powers of invention for you because with that, I ended up, because the peak athlete when I ended up selling it was the world’s largest mental game coaching and peak performance company in revenue and in number of people that we served.
TH (23:31):
Cuz we did well over 2 million athletes in total coming through our training programs back then. So No Limits. My first client was actually the Canadian government. They were, cuz that was Rick came up to me at the end of one of my small little talks of 30 kids and asked me. And so I just simply took the ip. And this is a good example of taking it into just a new market. The product never changed that much, you know, change out some lipstick and some eyeshadow on it, right. 20% of it just to make sure it’s customized to that audience. But human performance is human performance. It doesn’t matter if it’s really on the field over here or on the court and or whether it’s in the boardroom or sitting at your desk. Performances. Performance is performance. And that’s, that’s how I started to grow that business. And,
RV (24:22):
But you had sold the, you had sort, you had sort of sold this ip, so like the certain visuals and labels and all those things, you just have frameworks to like, you have to change that, but the principles are the same and the you can’t, you can’t just, like nobody owns principles.
TH (24:38):
Yeah. No one owns principles, but the moment you put something into a shape, you can trademark it. So circles, triangles and squares are your best friend in in our world. So if, if you have steps, if you have processes, you can’t trademark those, but you can trademark things like, so I’ve got one, people can go to it and it’s, it’s a good learning lesson. So my, my entrepreneurial performance training company 90 day year. So if you go to 90 year.com and there’s one called the Five Stages of Business, that hierarchy model, it’s like almost like Maslow’s Hierarchy needs my five stages of business that is a trademark piece of IP that cannot be replicated, reproduced without the express written consent of me and my company.
RV (25:27):
Mm-Hmm. .
TH (25:28):
And so I’m a very big protector of ip. I’m actually well known for it in, in kind of our world. Like you, you don’t, you don’t touch my stuff.
RV (25:38):
So let’s talk about that. Okay. So, okay, so these are the three companies. So you have the sports company, then you have the leadership company. Yeah. Who’d you sell the leadership company to
TH (25:47):
Chevron.
RV (25:48):
What?
TH (25:49):
Yeah, so I did a speech in San Antonio, Texas. It was a leadership event. And just so happened that this guy Ken was, who was the executive VP at Chevron, came up to me and they were dealing with a major issue with developing a workforce. That was a big divide between the seniors and the juniors because in the 1980s there was no investment in the oil and gas space. So they had something called the big crew change, which was all these people who were senior were gonna be leaving with all of the intellectual property of how to run a, you know, oil and gas or energy company. And they had no one to backfill with. And they’d been trying to fix it for a decade, but no one was coming together. And he came to me and said, I think you’re the guy who can do this.
TH (26:36):
And I was like, I’ve never been in your space. I mean, I grew up on a farm and ranch and I know the gas world about as much as anyone driving by a, a pumping rig. And I said no at first. And then he convinced me with maybe a little bit more money. And I also realized I was, the opportunity was gonna be incredible cuz I was gonna be sitting down with the CEOs and presidents in sometimes even leaders of countries around the world getting this big project done. And ultimately they ended up buying that leadership and performance training system that I had.
RV (27:10):
So was it very similar? They’re basically buying a set of frameworks and, and visuals and methods and phrases and charts and tables
TH (27:20):
And, and a train the trainer system that could be easily deployed towards remote, you know, areas around the world. Exactly.
RV (27:27):
Yeah. So, so, so the train the trainer thing is interesting. So basically you have to, it’s almost like you have two things to build. You have to build the thing and then you have to build the thing that trains people to teach the thing. Exactly.
TH (27:40):
Yeah. So you’ve got, and the easiest way to think about it is, here’s how you would do it is if you train it, then record yourself going through why you trained it the way that you trained it. And then I would take that and then I would take that transcript and then I would just go make my edits into it. And when you start to like, learn more about facilitation skills, how to be a great facilitator, the first thing that I learned in my, my own growth as a, you know, person in this space in my own career was how unimportant sometimes the content was.
TH (28:19):
Hmm. We all try to overwhelm people with lots of content and what’s more important is getting people traction and momentum. Because most people’s experience of almost all courses and training programs is they never did implement anything. But if you’re the one who even got them from 0.1 to 0.2 or you know, A to B, let alone z cuz we’re all thinking about, I’m gonna get you to Z but that’s, you imparting your own desires and motivations onto the one learner. And all some people want is just a, a micro improvement even. So anyways, that’s just, you know, when you learn good facilitation skills, you learn that, you know, not to overwhelm people with content, content is, is very important.
RV (29:05):
So your buyer came up, your buyer in that scenario came out very similarly. They were someone that saw you in a speech, they became a fan, you develop relationship. They, they become a customer basically as a customer. They go, man, we like it. We believe in it, we want it, we don’t want else to have this. Here’s a check and we’ll take that from you.
TH (29:25):
That’s right.
RV (29:27):
Yeah. I love that. I freaking love that. Yeah. So then, so then the third one is an entrepreneurial coaching company.
TH (29:35):
Well that’s my, that’s my current one. That’s the third one was another one that happened in about a six month time span after I had sold the leadership company. I still had a bunch of intellectual property that was left over and I was kind of just looking for my next thing to do while I was still,
RV (29:54):
They didn’t want, like they didn’t, they didn’t wanna, that
TH (29:57):
Didn’t need didn’t serve their needs. Yeah. Didn’t serve their, you know, the market of who they had. So then I went and sold that last little bit to which, which now getting to your point of trying to find a buyer, this was me going out and finding a buyer. And I, what, what I did was I pinged about, I think it was probably 18 different friends in the industry and said, Hey, I have this piece of like training material. It would most likely be best for this industry, this type of, you know, client, customer, do any of you know anyone who would be interested in, in purchasing it? And a friend reached out right away from the self-defense market and, and said this stuff would be outstanding in for a friend of mine. And then they made the connection and, and that was how it sold. And, and Rory, this is actually a real, this is something I talk about a lot to all of our mentoring clients as well. The hardest part about this business model, everyone says it’s so easy and, and they’re wrong. It’s not, coaching is not as easy as everyone says it is.
RV (31:05):

TH (31:05):
No, coaching is very, everyone says it’s so easy because it doesn’t take any inventory. You don’t have to buy something and it’s gotta be on a ship that comes over and sits in a warehouse somewhere. So it’s taking up cash flow or you know, something like that. But, you know, building any business where you’re building the product and the marketing at the same time is very, very challenging. And so one of the things that I had done early on was I learned about licensing. And so that’s what I did was I went out and bought up and I licensed other people’s training from them to make me go faster so I could go out and impact more people. So you know, my worst decisions in my career have always been based on ego. You know, I needed to do it to satisfy my own ego needs and my best decisions were all ones where I I didn’t try to do it on my own. I went and I, you know, whether it’s license something or I outright just buy it from someone their own ip. Cuz you can buy information for a lot of people don’t know how to value things. And
RV (32:08):
Well I wanted to ask you about that. Like how do you, how do you go about valuing this? Right? So I mean, let’s say somebody’s listening right now and they’re like, man, I’ve been in the mortgage industry for 30 years. I got the training manual, da da da. Like I got the whole thing. And I mean, I, the way that I think about a business is, you know, and I think the, the, yeah. My, my undergrad was accounting, right? And so I process it from a very financial, it’s like, it’s a, it’s a present value of a future stream of estimated cash flows. Mm-Hmm. . So it’s going, the business throws off a dollar this year, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna pay you $5 for your, for your business. It gives me a dollar and hopefully I can get my $5 back faster. But worst case scenario, I get it back in five years and then every year after, right? Like it’s the net, the official term net present value of future, future cash flows. IP is sort of different than that. It feels to me more like the way you would do a strategic valuation, which is you have this piece of your machine that I think I can take and I can plug it into my machine and it’ll make my machine more valuable in the way that my machine is valued. Is that kind of the
TH (33:16):
That’s exactly right. Yeah. And so sometimes people are looking at speed, okay, does this thing, is this thing gonna make us go faster or is this thing gonna make us, or is this thing gonna make, give us a a competitive advantage over other people that was real madrid’s play with with my stuff because they were building up this university and now they didn’t have to go build curriculum, hire other people to put it together, try and get people to collaborate together who have very strong opinions on things, know it has to be this way and this way and and that way. That’s always the challenge about bringing, you know, anyone who’s a subject matter expert on something together is you bring seven together in a room and you got a lot of times seven different opinions on how it should be done or could be done.
TH (34:00):
So you’re avoiding political hassle then as well. And you get to monetize it tomorrow. That was, that was what Ri Madrid could go into. A Chevron wasn’t caring about monetization, they were caring about actually the big massive problem that they had, which was this big crew change. And so, so that was speed, then speed to mitigating the problem that they had. So the way that I think about IP and trademarks, this is just a rough number, but it’s born fruit for me three times for every trademark that you own, it’s a worth about a quarter of a million dollars to your business. Your business is value if you, the moment you add a trademark to your company. Now there’s some conditions to this, which I’ll explain, but it’s gonna add $2,000 in valuation to your business. And now if you are in the coaching space of let’s say goddess energy, let’s just say, you know, and there’s no knock against that.
TH (35:01):
There are some people who are do quite well in that space, but that’s not a big market. That’s a market that you actually have to create with your marketing. Cuz no one wakes up and says, I want to be a goddess today. But there’s other people who wake up and they go, man, I am sick and tired of trying to fight so hard for clients, I need a stronger personal brand. Now they might not say it exactly language that way, but personal branding is quite a large market. Alright? So, you know, if you know Brand Builders Inc goes out and takes a look at their IP and readjusts it and makes it more trademarkable and registers it, and you have 10 of those pieces you just added, even if you have no clients, that’s two and a half million dollars worth of valuation
RV (35:54):
And, and to do this process. So each one you’re saying is maybe roughly valued at 250,000. Yeah. How much does it cost? Cuz you, if you create it, you gotta hire a lawyer, you gotta fill out some paperwork, you gotta file, do some filing, you gotta wait for some approval, you have to like answer questions, go back and forth, and then one day the,
TH (36:17):
It’s not that, it’s, it’s, it sounds super hard to a lot of people. I thought it was exactly like that to Rory the first time I did it. And then I
RV (36:24):
Was actually describing that like, it’s pretty easy. Like, it’s like these are a few very simple tacticals. It’s a, I mean, is there more to it? Well,
TH (36:32):
The, the answer the answer for me and you, I mean, I send everyone to the same lawyer that’s been doing it for me for a long, long time, and he’s been, he’s, he’s literally specializes just in our space, Peter you know, based outta New York and, you know, yeah, I think I I I even forget how much it costs me anymore, but I think it’s probably somewhere around 2,500 bucks, you know, from start to finish with the different people who are involved. Very little time on my end to get it done. But, you know, someone else can go and do all the filings themselves and it’ll cost them a few hundred bucks.
RV (37:05):
Mm-Hmm.
TH (37:06):
. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. . But to your point about now coming, bringing it back to the purpose of your podcast, personal branding, this also is a forcing function to get the quality of your names on your frameworks, right? Because you start to do, you know, trademark searches and you’re like, oh, the name that I’ve been using for a long time is already a registered trademark and it happens to be in the same space as me. So that’s not unique. Then let’s, what’s, what’s a new name possibly that I have to come up with?
RV (37:39):
And what if you find out that, like what if you find out what if you find out that somebody created something after you, so like, let’s say that you have created this thing, it’s been in use and now somebody else has it. If they got the trademark first, does that prevent you from basically getting it? No.
TH (37:59):
No, because there’s I, I forget the actual technical term. It’s just on the,
RV (38:05):
It’s like a first, it’s like a first in use.
TH (38:06):
Yeah, exactly. It’s the word is in, there’s something in use. Yeah. But yeah, it’s, if it’s, if you’ve been, if you can prove that it’s been in use for a long, and it is happened with me a couple of times and we were able to prove on two different occasions that we had at in use first. I actually just won a lawsuit against Instagram because they were not giving me an Instagram handle and profile. That’s a trademark name of ours. And Instagram lost and they had to hand it over to me.
RV (38:33):
Take that Zuck. Yeah,
TH (38:36):
You don’t, you don’t win many of those battles . But again, that’s the power of having something that’s registered and you know, all Yeah.
RV (38:44):
So they have to, they have to grant you the handle because you have the registered trademark of that. Absolutely.
TH (38:49):
Because the, the laws of the US trumped whatever their privacy policy in terms of use policy was on their site.
RV (38:57):
Uhhuh . So what about how do you police this? Okay, so, so let’s say you’ve got some trademarks. Yeah. So this, this is interesting to me because there are, there are a couple things. So one is I have this quote from my first book, take The Stairs, which is came out in 2012. This quote, success has never owned, its rented and the rent is due every day. And that quote has been, I’m talking like JJ Watt has used it and rappers and NBA stars, and it’s like, yeah, that quote is mine and my book, but it’s a quote, right? Yeah. So it’s like you can’t really trademark a quote. So no, there’s that. And then I have this other flagship story of mine, which is a buffalo, a story about buffalo charging into the storm. And now it’s like, now it’s, people are retelling the story and it’s going viral on social and now they’re creating mugs and posters around like this story. So it’s, I struggle a little bit with going, well, part of the goal, both from an impact perspective and a branding perspective, is you want people to share your stuff. Like that’s part of the goal, right? Is I want them to hit the share button. But on the same side, it’s like, how do you protect, you know? So talk to me about policing your trademarks and like how do you, how do you sort, what’s your philosophy there? Yeah.
TH (40:19):
I’ll never forget when Creative Comments came out, and then I had a few friends who jumped on it that were in it that had ip and I pinged both of them. And I said, you’re opening up a can of worms here. And like, cuz you can’t unsqueeze the toothpaste once you let your IP or your frameworks be open for anyone to use. Now again, good example is actually business model generation, what I think is one of the best books written in the last 30 years, our most important business books written in the last 30 years by good friend of mine a Smith Alexander Osterwalder. And, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a canvas, it’s a map of business models. Okay, well they, they opened theirs up for creative comments. So if you went and did a Google search for business model canvas or business model generation canvas, you’re gonna get back 36 million results of that image and that canvas being on different blogs and consultants websites around the world, well, a few years back, they wanted to try to stuff all that stuff back inside because they were now their business model changed and they were now running a lot of workshops.
TH (41:27):
Well, problem is, is there were a lot of other consultants out there running workshops off of their canvas. And that’s probably, if you were to factor it out, well over a hundred million in certifications and licensing that’s lost to that business because they could have certified those people in going out and using that canvas. And now they’re certified partners of the business model generation world. So when I say when you get back, going back to your world or idea of policing it, a I tell the story over and over and over again, it’s a part of my brand story. I tell the story of, you don’t touch our stuff. It took, I’ve got 19,000 plus hours on the field of play doing one-on-one coaching. That’s not counting the group and the speeches and the trainings I’ve done around the world, which now doubles that number.
TH (42:18):
Right? you don’t take my stuff and it’s not cease and desist that we send, we sue and we, the minimum amount you earn in America for IP infringement is quarter of a million dollars. Okay? Now we take that money and we donate. I don’t do it. So I can earn money. We take that money and we take off whatever the cost was and then we go and we donate it to one of our favorite charities. She’s the first, which helps young girls in third world countries put them through school. But all it took was a couple of those and people getting stung very hard by our team that we have an army of thousands of people, Rory, who ping us every week saying, Hey, I just saw someone in it looks like they’re using your, your thing. And, and a lot of times it’s not that, like, it’s not an infringement, but we have a lot of people, we found people who were giving away some of our course material as opt-ins and downloads and lead magnets for free. Well, that guy in particular, he’s one of the people who, this was about four years ago, five years ago now, quarter million dollars he lost.
RV (43:29):
Interesting. So then you just, because, because it’s, because it, it is actually protected by a trademark. You’ve got the right to do that. And so you absolutely, you just file a suit and they’re either, I guess, and so they either have to settle with you or they have to stop using it or, or
TH (43:46):
No. Like, no, it’s, it’s, no, they, Rory, it’s, it’s so obtuse and you know, whatever other term can come up right now. But to think that someone isn’t doing it maliciously, they’re doing it malicious, they know what they’re doing, we go to the end, we finish it with them. Interesting. There is no appol, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what I was doing. And no, there’s none of that. There’s none of that. That’s why like for me, like attribution, it costs you nothing to say, I heard this amazing quote in the book, take the Stairs, or I saw Rory Vaden speak on stage and he says something that was an absolute truth. Rent is due every single day, you know, whatever the full quote is right? No one’s gonna remember that you like, it doesn’t cost you anything to sanitation. I mean, I’ve had people come to me and say like, did you have to name drop the 35 people? And I’m like, well that was their quote . That
RV (44:48):
Was their citing the citing the So you’re
TH (44:50):
Citing yourself. Yeah. And I am, I’m standing on the shoulders of so many amazing people that help me get to where I am. I’m not gonna dishonor, you know Harvey Dorfman as someone who was so critical to my success when it was his idea that I was just sharing up there
RV (45:05):
Mm-Hmm.
TH (45:05):
even though he is passed away.
RV (45:07):
Yeah. So yeah, this idea, eye
TH (45:10):
Opening, I get it. Like it pains you, it pains you. And this is my problem with people who don’t understand this space. People think that just because it’s words or it’s a picture that anyone else can go and do it. No. If you walked into a sports store and you took a pair of soccer cleats off the shelf and tried to walk up with it, it’s, it’s not shocking that you would get dinged for that. Well, you can’t walk into my intellectual property storehouse and take my thing off the shelf and go pass it off as your own. It’s just not gonna happen.
RV (45:43):
Uhhuh. yeah. Yeah. Well this is eye opening, man. I mean, I, my my Ted talk which is probably the most organically viral thing that we’ve ever had is few, few million views. Yeah. It’s all based around a diagram that I created called the Focus Funnel. And my guess is focus funnel is probably trademarked by someone, but that visual is, if you Google it, it’s everywhere. And you, you know, it’s like all over the place. It’s cuz millions of people have seen that, seen that talk, but we don’t have a trademark on it. Mm-Hmm. . And I’ve always, I’ve always kind of been like, well the, the whole goal is to have people share it and have it impact people and all that stuff. But, you know, this is a totally challenging interview for me, like an eye opening because to go, man, if it’s worth 250,000, I mean we have hundreds of these visuals inside of our curriculum mm-hmm. . I bet, I bet. We, I I bet we legitimately have, I mean we probably legitimately have 35 or 40 very distinct visuals cuz we have, we have 14 courses and each course easily has three to four. Yeah. And, and so it’s like we, but
TH (46:57):
Well, I was gonna say, I was gonna say like, so the number that I’ve typically found in a business that’s more mature like yours and that’s, there’s no secret as to why I say I’ve got 44 registered trademarks in our name right now is because the average really well designed program has about 40
RV (47:17):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. I mean that’s, yeah. That’s, that’s probably, yeah, I mean that, that’s probably about right. So it’s not hundreds, but it’s dozens. Yeah. And you say a 40 and I go yeah, yeah, 40. That’s, that’s that sounds about right. But if you go, what’s that, what’s the math on that? 40, 40 times 250,000, 10 million. Yeah. That’s a big number. Mm-Hmm. 10 million bucks
TH (47:42):
And, and bigger companies like private equity companies, that’s what they’re gonna look at. They’re gonna, that’s gonna, cuz everyone wants to sell their customer list or their revenue or whatever and you know, people don’t realize that you’re being plugged into a larger ecosystem and yeah, it’s, it’s funny cuz we’re talking about this topic, it’s not something I typically ever get interviewed on. Yeah.
RV (48:02):
That’s why I wanted to ask you about this
TH (48:04):
. Yeah. I mean, but this is why, I mean, I love coaches. I go to bat for a lot of coaches. I mean, I’ve got my you know, I’ve had a lot of friends come to me who are, you know, being pushed around by some people around IP and Yeah. I’ve just, I’ve had a playbook for such a long time and you know, there are some big, there are some big names that I’ve gotten the sharp end of our stick because of IP infringement, some extremely big names in the leadership personal development space that every single person on your podcast would, would know.
RV (48:40):
Yeah. Well that is, yeah, that, I’ll say that, that has shaken me more than a couple times where I’m going, this person is basically telling a real, like almost verbatim from something that I posted three months ago, three months ago. And I’m like it’s hard to go. Yeah. You know, is it the same? But it’s like, it’s so close that you’re like, I think anybody would raise an eyebrow at, at this. And it’s anyways, that’s the,
TH (49:11):
Here’s, that’s, here’s here’s the reality. The public doesn’t care.
RV (49:15):
Yeah. The public doesn’t care.
TH (49:17):
Yeah. The public doesn’t care. And so, because I’ve had friends in me like man, because they think I’m spending so much time doing, so I’m like, I don’t spend any time doing this. This is, that’s the purpose of having a systems and processes in your business. And there’s a team of like, when it, when when there’s an inquiry that comes in from a former client or a client and they say, Hey, I think this person, my executive assistant passes that straight along to the legal side and then they just take care of it, I might become aware of it.
RV (49:44):
Mm-Hmm.
TH (49:44):
. But but yeah, like it’s, it’s funny cuz it is the frustrating part. I wish people did care more about the source of where the material came from, but now in the, you know, what 400 terabytes of contents uploaded every, you know, hour into the internet, you know, it’s, it’s hard to keep up with that. But yeah.
RV (50:05):
Interesting. Well buddy, this has been amazing. I know that you, and you’re doing a lot of work with entrepreneurs and things now, and we didn’t, I mean we went way over time, but like where, where should people go if they wanna plug into what you got going on?
TH (50:19):
So Todd herman.me is my kind of home base on the internet and that has links going out to all the different other, you know, whether it’s my book, the Alter Ego fact and and whatnot there, or entrepreneurial stuff. But I know you got a big coaching audience too, and I’m scaling up a, a coaching platform to help coaches grow and serve their their people. Because what people don’t under the hardest part about this business isn’t necessarily the marketing side, it’s actually the delivery side. Because our model is all about if you’re a coach, you are, you’re actually getting paid to help someone transform in whatever way. Whether it’s building a new skill, you know, reaching a new outcome, finishing a project or even, you know, deeper emotional transformations that might be happening. And the thing that actually grows this business is actually client success. It is not marketing like everyone thinks it is, it is client success cuz that activates referrals, retention, and testimonials. And so we’re building out a platform and we, we’ve built it out. We’ve got some, we’ve got thousands of people onto the platform. Tony Robbins company came onto it as well. And yeah, so that’s what I’m excited about right now. And that’s up coach.com.
RV (51:31):
That’s cool. So up coach and it’s, it’s basically like a, a tool for helping coaches manage all their clients and like track like the progress and
TH (51:39):
All that. And their clients can log in, you can put courses in there, you can track their habits, you can add tasks to them or manage projects. Like there’s, you can put all your worksheets right inside of it so that you’ve got visibility into them, actually whatever they’re writing instead of it being a Google doc or a PDF download as well.
RV (51:56):
Really cool. Yeah, really cool. All right, well we’ll drop you, we’ll drop you back link, we’ll drop you an SEO backlink them as well. You will have the full authority of brand builders group.com backlinking. So Todd, man, this is great. I’ve, I just, I I I’ve always just, I learned so much from talking with you and it’s always just such a sharp perspective and just really helpful man. So I appreciate you going off script here and like sharing with us. Like this is definitely an interview like no other that we’ve ever had on the show. And that’s
TH (52:29):
Well good. We zagged we zagged today. So that’s cool with
RV (52:33):
Me. Yeah, I love it, man. So everyone make sure that you go follow Todd, send him some comments, send him some love. And brother, we just, we’re, we’re grateful for you and we and we wish you the best.
TH (52:46):
Cheers man. This has been great.

Ep 340: Building Your Side Hustle with Nick Loper

AJV (00:02):
Hi everybody, This is AJ Vaden here, and welcome to another episode on the Influential of Personal Brand. I’ve got a new friend here today, and we’re gonna be talking about how to build and grow your side hustle. And before I formally introduce Nick Looper to the show, I want to tell you guys in advance why you need to stick away, stick around to the very, very end. So here’s why you wanna stick around. We’re gonna be talking about how to take that side hustle that maybe you’ve been working on and make it a recurring main hustle. So whatever you’ve been doing on the side, like how do you make enough money to make it your main hustle to do something that you really love, that gives you the lifestyle and the financial freedom that you want? That’s the first thing. The second thing is we know that a lot of you out there are aspiring speakers, authors, consultants, and we’re gonna talk about some different ideas of how do you really grow and leverage some pieces of your business that aren’t always time for money.
AJV (01:03):
And so we’re gonna talk about some different ideas with SAS products and how do you hit yourself to some of those so you’re not always trading time for money. And last but not least, we’re also gonna just talk about maybe if you’re one of those people who doesn’t have a side hustle, you don’t have differentiated income streams, but maybe you want some, what are some of the coolest, quickest, fastest things that you can be doing to build your side hustle right now? So without further ado, let me introduce you to Mr. Nick Loper and I’ll give you this formal introduction and then we’re gonna get started. So Nick Loper helps people earn money outside of their day job. He’s an author, he’s an online entrepreneur, and the host of the Award-Winning Side Hustle, Side Hustle Show podcast, that’s a tongue twister. And we’ll put a link to that in the show notes so that you can learn more about how to build and grow your side hustle. So Nick, welcome to the show.
NL (01:57):
Thanks for having me honored to be here. Yeah,
AJV (02:00):
No, we’re so excited and I’m really super excited to talk to you today because I actually, as I told you before we started, I’ve spent quite a bit of time doing some online stalking of trying to get some really good criteria and some good topics to share with our audience. And so I just wanna help them get to know you. And how did you get into teaching people how to build their side hustle? And what is the side hustle that you’ve been up to?
NL (02:29):
Yeah, this whole project started from this desire to build a more personally branded project, and it’s been, you know, probably the best decision that I’ve ever made. You know, starting with, you know, $50 mic corner of a living room, let’s see if anybody will tune into this stuff. And it’s been, you know, completely life changing from that little experiment back in 2013. Prior to that, the main side hustle for me was this comparison shopping site for footwear. That was the main business. That was the thing that let me quit my corporate job and start and I kind of un naively thought like, Look, I could just be the dude who sells shoes on the internet. Like that would be my thing. It had like a lot of businesses, a finite lifespan and was really grateful to have started several other side hustles on the side for that, including the blog and podcast, including lots of projects that didn’t work out. One of the other ones that did okay was a virtual assistant directory and review site started in 2011, a couple years before Side Hustle Nation and sold that one in 2020. But those are some of the projects that I’ve been working on and really grateful to be involved in the online space for quite a while and playing this personal brand game that we’re all we’re all working towards.
AJV (03:46):
Oh man, I love that. And so just briefly, what, what were you doing with this shoe comparison site? How on God’s green Earth did you come up with that idea and what made you wanna do it?
NL (04:01):
Oh, so this dates me a little bit. So, comparison shopping is not what it once was, but if your listeners are old enough to remember in the early days of the internet, you know, you would start your product searched on Google and instead of on Amazon and you would, you know, figure out where you could find the best price on whatever it was that you were looking for. And so there would be big sites like Price Grabber and NexTag and shopping.com in those days. And my idea was like, well, what if we really niched down and said, we’re just gonna do this for shoes? Cause I’d interned at a, you know, online footwear retailer in Seattle, like in college that started as, you know, a family owned single location, brick and mortar shoe store, that in the early days of the internet they had this cra you know, what, what would, what would happen if we put some of our inventory up online? Is anybody gonna buy this stuff? And by the time I came on board as their, you know, you know, low paid marketing intern, like of course the online side had blown up way more than their single location brick and mortar shop. And so that was my first exposure to affiliate marketing and pay click advertising and SEO and e-commerce, all this stuff that was really important. So taking what I learned there and then applying it to my own affiliate operation after the fact.
AJV (05:11):
Oh man, , I love that. And that’s actually a really great transition. And so there’s so many different things that we can talk about, and I have like a long list of things that I think would be really helpful to our particular audience. But you know, we kind of started with like talking about this concept of, you know, really leveraging your time for money and hitching yourself to some things that already exist. And so I wanna kinda just kinda get your ideas about, you know, software as a service and like, how is it that you can turn somebody else’s SAS product into your side hustle?
NL (05:50):
Yeah, a couple different ways to go about it. I mean, SAS is, is like the holy grail of business models, right? You know, create something once it’s all digital, it’s just ones and zeros out there on the internet and sell it over and over again, or get people paying you recurring for it. That’s like, that’s, you know, that’s it. You made it right. But super complicated, especially if it’s your first business to deal with the development and the validation and everything that goes into that and the support. So a couple different alternatives. One is white labeling that software or reselling that software. We had an episode on this in the spring that has actually done really well cause it was kind of eye opening, you know, over the course of 500 episodes. So it was one that we really hadn’t talked about before, but the, in this case, the guy was looking at some like reputation management software, how to help small businesses get more reviews for Yelp, for Google, for Facebook.
NL (06:45):
And, you know, he would go out and sell those to small businesses under his own brand. And, you know, he had to, you know, he’d buy like, you know, the wholesale rate you know, number of seats for this software. You go and resell it at a marked up price and add this layer of management and customer support in between. I was like, Oh, that’s really interesting. Like, he wasn’t the coder, he wasn’t the creator of this thing, but he just took what somebody else had and went out and sold it. And the other you know, software with a service method that we call it is kind of piggybacking on the popularity of a popular software tool and establishing yourself, establishing yourself as a go-to expert on that software. And we’ve seen people do this with QuickBooks, with Asana, with you know, certain WordPress plug-ins.
NL (07:34):
Even even like Squarespace, like some big, sometimes like big softwares. Maybe it’s like Tailwind for, you know, Pinterest. Maybe it’s there’s tons of different ones. Canva. One of my favorites was Paul Miners who was on the show years ago. And what he would do he did this specifically for Asana, and then he did it for pipe drive, and I wanna say Zapier as well. Like, he’s kind of like, Hey, look, I know all this stuff. But he started creating these YouTube videos where he’d, you know, introduce himself, Hey, I’m Paul, I’m an Asana consultant, and today we’re gonna cover how to do blank, blank, blank in Asana, right? Mm-Hmm. , like these like very specific keywords that somebody’s gonna be searching for in Google or YouTube. And by virtue of, you know, being relatively early in the space, and by virtue of producing this helpful content, he’d had all these companies reaching out and be like, Can you come in and train our team on, you know, just how to set up Asana and how to do this stuff? And so he went from working somebody’s full-time job for somebody else to be in his own like, location independent consultant on the back of this, you know, really just a helpful content marketing based approach.
AJV (08:39):
Yeah. You know, actually I really love that. Subtle but really important shift in what you said. It’s software as a service or software with a service. And I think that’s a really unique component. And I can think of legitimately like 10 of some of our most valued vendors. That’s truly what they are. It’s like we have lots of software products that we use at Brand Builders group, but it’s typically it’s working with someone who specializes in that, so we don’t have to learn it in house. And that could be done with any product that you really love yourself, become an expert at it, and then it’s like you can be reselling the, you know, the product and then offering in that layer of consultancy expertise, customer service, et cetera.
NL (09:26):
Yeah, totally.
AJV (09:27):
Yeah, No, it’s it’s interesting. I think we we are keep resellers ourselves and so we use the CRM keep and we resell it and it’s like, we get asked all the time, Well, hey, can you just set this up for us? Right? Yeah. It’s like, no, we don’t do that , but we, you know, we could, but we, we are choosing not to. But that’s a great example of anything that you become really well versed in. It’s like, why not offer your, you know, start with YouTube how-to videos and that could be a full blown business before you know it.
NL (09:59):
I love that. And that was I mean, you bring up Keep, you know, and we had people, you know, we’ll set up your funnel for you and keep slash Infusionsoft, or we’ll do it in active campaign or, you know, and after you do it, a handful of these you can kind of, you know, rinse and repeat the same basic templates too. Totally. So your hourly rate really starts to explode after that.
AJV (10:18):
Absolutely. It’s like, and that’s the thing, it’s like all of these software is, you really can create these templates. It’s like, if it’s this type of industry, here are the things you’re gonna wanna have. If you’re this type of business, these are the things you’re gonna have. And once you do it enough times, it’s like, you know what people need, and it is rinse and repeat and just a little bit of tailoring. That’s really fascinating. And I think there’s something kind of tied to that as well. And we talked a little bit about this before we started is how much affiliate marketing, marketing can also be a part of a pretty significant side hustle. And I’m curious to get your take on affiliate marketing and is it tied to e-commerce products, services? Like what do you see out there in terms of people making real money with affiliate marketing?
NL (11:05):
Yeah, so this has been my main source of income for, you know, probably 15 years, probably longer than 15 years. And it’s a, you know, it’s performance based marketing customer or rather, companies say, Hey, look, we could use some help selling our product or service. Here’s what we’re willing to pay. Here’s what we think a new customer is worth to us. And then they enlist affiliate affiliates like me to go out and help find those customers. It’s really a matter of creating content for that target customer and helping them make decisions. So one of the popular affiliate models that we’ve seen working lately, we call it the modern comparison shopping site, whereas like in my day, it was like very data you know, product catalog driven, you know, you know, very simple, not a lot of you know, insight or, you know, because there was hundreds of thousands of products, it was not a lot of like analysis and like, well, if you’re you, you have a narrow foot, you ought really, it’s like, there was none of that.
NL (12:02):
It was just like pulling in data and spitting back out prices. With the modern comparison shopping site, we seen some people doing really well with you know, very long tail search terms, like this product versus this product, this direct to consumer brand versus this direct to consumer brand. And creating the super in depth, you know, pros and cons, helping people make their decisions and guiding them towards like, Okay, based on your situation, this is the one that we think is best for you. The site that comes to mind is called fin versus fin.com, and they started reviewing FinTech products, and then they started reviewing like men’s health and wellness products. And then, you know, they’ve gotten even broader since then, but following that same basic template and what they’ve done that was kind of cool was like, you know, re almost like skating where the puck is going to say, Well, this company just received, you know, X million dollars in venture funding mm-hmm. . So we know in three to six months there’s gonna be, they’re gonna be spending money on customer acquisition, there’s gonna be some search volume surrounding that term. So we’re gonna go out and create that article in advance and kind of maybe the, maybe the SEO tools don’t say, it doesn’t say there’s any search volume today, but we’re confident that it’s gonna be coming based on what we’re seeing. And so they did a really good job with that.
AJV (13:18):
Interesting. So what makes you someone that companies want to partner with? Like generally speaking, you know, it’s like, what would you say makes a really good affiliate partner where you actually do make money?
NL (13:32):
Well, it’s trust in relationship with your audience, and then it’s the ability to convert. It’s the ability to, you know, find the traffic that’s qualified and then pass that along. For me, it was kind of a long time in realizing that the podcast audience that I had through the Side Hustle Show and the blog traffic were not necessarily the same. And I always had assumed like, Hey, you know, blog of Pocket, you know, follow, follow me because I’m so interesting as it relates to the web traffic, it was so much more transactional. It was, you know, Googling something, I need to find an answer to this specific question, you know, answer that, and they’re kind of off and, you know, Sure. Try and capture them as an email subscriber. Try and get them to, you know, subscribe to the site, try and get them to download an episode or two.
NL (14:20):
But largely is like, Okay, how can I solve this person’s problem here and now? And it was leading into that, that started to really ramp up some of the affiliate revenue. Like I’ll give you the example. Like the, the typical podcast listener for me is very entrepreneurial. They’re in it for the long haul. They’re kind of like, you know, really to like build something that’s their own. They’re not the type of person who’s probably that attracted to signing up for DoorDash or delivering for Instacart or something, but for the blog reader or the website visitor who’s googling ways to make extra money, like, Oh, that may be a viable option for them. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (14:55):
. Yeah, I think so. In, you know, in general, you know, translating this to everyone who’s listening, it’s like, first of all, you’ve gotta know your audience and you gotta know your audience on all platforms. And I think that’s maybe such an assumed given for most, but I think it’s amazing to me how often I find that people really don’t know who their audience is. And you can use any social media platform to get your own analytics on your audience. But I’m curious to get your feedback on like, what would you tell someone who’s going, All right, I’ve got this small side hustle and I wanna do the affiliate marketing route because, you know, I’ve got a small but trusted audience. How do I really leverage that versus, Oh, that sounds really interesting. I have all kinds of products I’d love to promote. What do I do? What would you say to both of those different people?
NL (15:47):
Yeah. If the audience is small and they are paying attention to you as the influencer, you as the personal brand, you might pick, you know, the five or 10 tools that you really love that you feel comfortable recommending and almost designing product launches around them. Like, you know, even maybe it’s a three or four email sequence, or three or four social post sequence, really hying this up and talking about why they need this in their life. And one, you know, strategy may be like, Let, let’s play the substitution game. You’re probably currently using tool X, Y, or Z. Or maybe you’re just, you know, maybe you’re doing it yourself in Excel. Here’s why this solution is better, faster, cheaper. Right? And so you kind of position it in different ways. Here’s the frequently asked questions format, here’s the testimonials format you know, email blast that goes out.
NL (16:41):
And I think you can find a very low risk way to get started. You’re not spending months creating your own product or program, and you’re just, now the, the downside is you’re, you’re getting a percentage of revenue instead of the whole piece. So different trade offs, you have less control over what happens to those customers after you’re kind of sending them off into somebody else’s world, somebody else’s ecosystem, but definitely an attractive way to make, make some commissions, make some money without having to create your own product. And you can kind of hit the ground running pretty quickly with that.
AJV (17:12):
Yeah. So what I hear you saying is like, regardless if it was your business or you’re promoting someone else’s products and services, you gotta have your marketing game plan, You gotta have a launch plan, right? You gotta have a strategy of knowing how are you gonna promote this and what different tools are you gonna use to get this to the point of conversion for whoever is following you,
NL (17:30):
Right?
AJV (17:31):
Yeah. it’s, it’s so interesting because I think there’s this big promise of a lot of people going, Yes, I’m gonna make all my money, or just, you know, doing affiliate marketing and influencer marketing, but it’s like you said, that’s been your primary source of income for the last 15 years. So you’ve clearly figured something out that maybe the ordinary person trying to do this has not. What do you think you do that’s different than someone else that’s been so successful?
NL (18:01):
Well, there’s a lot to learn on the traffic side, especially the SEO side. It can be really, I mean, you can go as deep into the weeds a as you want. Both the shoe business and the virtual assistant business really captured kind of you know, bottom of the funnel traffic, like mm-hmm. , you know, they’re looking for this product you know, maybe like this specific new balance model xyz in the case of the shoe site, it’s like, that’s a pretty high buyer intent keyword. And so they’re, you know, trying to find at that point probably who has it in stock, who’s got it for the best price, right? And so that was relatively easy to capture. And that was all paid traffic too. That was not a site, never got any love from the SEO gots with the virtual assistant site.
NL (18:45):
It would be, you know, this company versus this company or this virtual assistant company review. So they had already done a little bit of homework. They’re trying to figure out like, ah, are they legit? Can you, you know, can you point people in the right direction that way? But targeting in a lot of cases, some, you know, lower, lower in the funnel type of intent there mm-hmm. . And we targeted some higher ones too, like, you know, just virtual assistant companies or best virtual assistant companies. Like they’re still interested in it, but they haven’t quite narrowed it down yet. And so trying to capture people at different stages of their buying cycle. And then on the podcast it’s, you know, almost a byproduct or just building a relationship with people, you know, 40, 45 minutes, 50 minutes every week, week after week. Like, they kind of get to know, like, and trust you in a really special way.
AJV (19:33):
Yeah. No, I love that. And that’s actually a really great transition. Cause one of the topics I had on my list here are ideas on how to monetize a small podcast. Cuz I’m pretty sure at this point everyone and the brother and their sister has a podcast or wants to start I podcast. And it’s one of those things where so many people start it and not a lot of people continue with it because it’s a lot more work than you initially think to keep it going much less actually turn it into something that makes you money. So tips, ideas for how to monetize a small but mighty podcast.
NL (20:13):
Small but mighty. That’s the key. It doesn’t take a ton of listeners if they’re the right listeners. Right. And I’m still bullish on the future of podcasting just because I don’t know what the latest stats are. Like half the population doesn’t even listen to podcasts yet. It’s like, you mean you haven’t discovered the, the magic of OnDemand audio and whatever you wanna learn about, like, this is, this is so cool. So yes, lots of room still to grow in in the podcasting space. More competitive than ever, but also more money flowing into the space too. So monetizing a small podcast your best bets are not sponsorships, right? Where that’s very much a game of amplitude and frequency. How many people can you reach and how often you can reach them. And if you have a huge daily show, then yeah, it makes sense.
NL (20:57):
For a lot of people it’s going to be creating a, you know, private membership community to, you know, check that recurring revenue box. People want more, they want more of you in their life, but you, you know, you can’t realistically do one on one all the time. Like, here’s the private community. It could be the you know, higher ticket digital product. It could be the higher ticket you know, done for you consulting service. It could even be, you know, using the podcast as content-based networking to call up your ideal customer and just get ’em on the phone. Cuz we’ve had a couple friends of mine be like, Well what’s the first half an hour of any sales conversation anyway? It’s a lot like a podcast, you know, it’s like, well why don’t you just hit the record button and all of a sudden instead of a sales pitch you’re leading with now, hey, why don’t you come on my show? And as long as there’s value on both ends there, it’s only natural for that guest to turn around and be like, Oh wait. You know, What is it that you do again? Oh, you know, we could really use some help setting up our sales funnel or whatever it is that you do.
AJV (22:01):
Yeah, I think out of, you know, it’s like if I were to go back and look at all the different reasons that we’ve, we’ve had two different podcasts now, but all the different reasons that we initially said, why do we want a podcast? One of them truly was this truly natural relationship building and networking that occurs by just finding interesting people that you wanna get to know that you wanna learn about and inviting them on the show. Whereas I could have maybe reached out to a dozen of these people and maybe one of them would’ve taken a sales call or a coffee or a lunch, but at least 50% of them would accept a spot being interviewed on our podcast. And it’s, it is, it’s a strategic networking move. It’s a great way to just start that slow relationship build that may or may not, but may lead into a sale one day.
AJV (22:56):
But it’s that opening of, Hey, do you wanna grab coffee? Not really. You wanna be a guest on my show? Yeah, that sounds interesting. Tell me more about your show. But that, that alone is a really uniquely strategic angle, depending on right, what’s the, you know, what’s the benefit of them for coming on the show and everything. But I love that particular one. And then you, you mentioned the membership site and so any insights that you would share on what you think makes us successful membership site where you could convert a listener into a paying member? What do they want?
NL (23:35):
Yeah, so typically the membership site is content plus community and it’s often come for the content stay for the community. And so we’ve seen and depending on your niche, maybe you lean more heavily on one or the other. Like is this educational content that they’re after or is it community? So a couple guests recently, one was called On the Hard Days, it was a parenting podcast for neuro divergent kids or parents of neuro divergent kids. And that was the feedback that she got from her audience was like, I, I gotta know, other moms have to be in the same spot that I’m in. I just need some friends. I just need people to listen and vent to and get support and feedback. And the other one that was on the show recently was Jill from Sober Powered, which is a podcast about the science of addiction and, and trying to get and stay sober. And it was the same thing from her audience. It wasn’t like she was providing the educational content free through the podcast, but what her listeners wanted was more Jill, they wanted more her time, they wanted more community, and that’s what she ended up putting together with that and actually bring it on some guest experts once a month. And so that was kind of how she had hers structured.
AJV (24:50):
Yeah, I think just, it’s a great reminder to everyone who’s listening. It’s like, if you truly figure out who your audience is and then you serve them in a way that they need, they do want more of you, it’s like, you know, you, you become, like you said, it’s like you’re this trusted voice in their ear week after week. But to build any relationship, it takes consistency, it takes providing real value and it also make you gotta provide the real value to the right person. So it’s knowing who your audience is, which is where we started talking about this, even with seo, it’s like doesn’t really help unless you know exactly who you’re targeting. Same with paid media, but then also giving them what they want in an authentic way that only you can do it, right? That’s kind of the, the true equation of building a successful personal brand.
AJV (25:37):
It’s, you know, serving the right audience and doing it in a way that only you can do. So alright, so I’m tentatively watching the clock knowing that we only have about 10 minutes left. So I’m curious, one of the things that I just kinda had, you know, down here are two things that you said on our pre-call that I thought would be interesting and you said, you know, everyone always talks about a journey to a thousand clients or a thousand fans, but what about just making 10 true clients? And so I’d love to hear you just kind of like deep dive on, you know, it’s, it’s interesting cuz people often look at quantity as somehow this is the end all be all of what I’m trying to get to. And you made that comment of maybe it’s not a thousand fans or it’s just 10 really great true clients. So where’d that spare from? And I’d just love for you to share some insight on that.
NL (26:29):
You bet. So the Thousand True Fans is this essay from Kevin Kelly that is like now taken as internet business gospel that says, Hey look, you got a thousand true fans and true fans. He defines as somebody who supports your work to the tune of a hundred dollars a year. They, these are the people who like, you know, buy everything you put out, they, they come to your concerts, they spread the word about you, right? And, and that’s awesome to have that level of community and that level of support, but you know, only a, probably only a small percentage of the people following you are going to, you know, really check that true fan box. And so it’s like you gotta have, you gotta shoot for some pretty big numbers to get there. So what the guys from the Tropical NBA Podcast argue is like, well, what if you flip it? What if you say what if you aim for 10 true 10 true clients starting out, you get 10 true clients that each pay you a thousand bucks a month. Like you’re kind of in a similar revenue area as that thousand true fans and maybe more realistic to get to because now you can have one on one conversations. You can look people in the eye and say, Sign here. This is the service I’m gonna provide for you. And it’s just maybe more realistic for people starting out.
AJV (27:40):
Yeah, it’s so interesting that this came up. So literally over the weekend, my husband and I who are business partners were doing our annual business planning for 2023, which is unbelievable that it’s almost here. And one of our dear close friends, a former pastor of ours at our church had, you know, left ministry and is starting his own marriage counseling business with his wife, which has been their true passion for a really long time. And he had launched this course business selling these, you know, guide to a, you know, great marriage, whatever it was called, but for $39. And he was like, Nah, I just, I just gotta figure out how to sell it. Thousands of these. And we were like, Yeah, why, why do you need to sell thousands of these at $39 and how much work is that gonna take? Versus what if you just had 10 people paying you 500 bucks a month? And he was like, That’s a great question. But it is, you know, it’s, it is that, it’s that same thing that people always say, it’s like, I wanted, I want this product that just makes money while I sleep. And it’s like, Yeah, but you gotta sell a lot of product for that to stay consistently.
NL (28:53):
It really is. And you can think of it as a a value ladder or kind of like a different menu of service offerings. Like you can go buy, you know, Tony Robbins book for 10 bucks mm-hmm. , or you can go to his, you know, $10,000 five day get you pumped up, walk across the hot Kohl’s, you know, live workshop. And so, and there’s probably some different tiers in between there too. And so, you know, maybe you have down the road you introduce different price tiers where you know, this is the full, you know, done for you top of the line Cadillac of services all the way down. Like, well here’s my, you know, ebook workbook on how to do it yourself if you wanna fill in all the blanks, you know, and you have maybe some different levels in between.
AJV (29:33):
Absolutely. I think for everyone it’s I think there’s this overarching temptation to listen to everyone of going, Yeah, make money while you sleep, build a course and make a million dollars. And I was like, I dunno how many people who are making courses make a million dollars consistently. But that’s a great option, right? And what we call a collapsible offer it’s a piece of the puzzle that for that consistency. Yeah, you don’t have to sell a lot of those in order to make it work long term. Alright, so my last question for you is for those of, for those of us out there who are listening to this show who go, All right, all right, what, this is what I need to do to start, you know, adding some income streams. I wanna do some side hustle stuff. I wanna expand on how the, all the different ways I’m making money, what would you say are the best three ideas for someone who’s just getting started on a side hustle?
NL (30:29):
Oh my goodness. Oh, I think you gotta start with pains and problems, right? Like the typical advice, you know, to find the, the perfect side hustle ideas to look at these like concentric circles, like well put your skills in this, in this circle and put your you know, hobbies and interests in this circle and then put like, you know, things you’ve been paid to do in this circle. And like the magical sweet spot in the middle is like, well that’s your unique side hustle idea. And the problem is for a lot of people it’s like, well my skills are over here and my hobbies and interests are way over here and like what I’ve been paid to do, like doesn’t overlap any of that stuff. And that’s super frustrating. And so what you have to do instead is kind of put on your pessimist hat for a little bit, which I normally like to stay more optimistic, but bear with me on this one.
NL (31:13):
So you open up just a blank notes app on your phone. I call it my what sucks list. And for, you know, a day a week, you know, a couple weeks, it is your job to write down everything that sucks, everything that you find annoying in your life, everything that you wish there was an easier way, everything that your spouse or partner is complaining to you about that your coworkers or neighbors are just kind of griping about. Because on the other side of those pains and problems and annoyances, like there might be a business idea solution. And it’s usually gonna take one of three forms, product, service, or content. And like, we’ll give the example of like a dirty house, a common common problem for me cuz I look around this room so there are, I could go out and buy cleaning products to address this pain and problem. I could go hire a cleaning service to address this pain or problem. Or I can go binge watch, you know, all the decluttering shows on Netflix or YouTube like how to organize and you know, make my space clean and stay that way. And so entrepreneurs are tackling that same problem from three different ways. And so that’s how I kind of recommend people go about that initial idea searching phase. Does that make sense?
AJV (32:23):
Absolutely. Actually, I really love that cuz I think most of us naturally go, I wish this was better. You know, at the, as soon as you started talking, it made me think about this. I was recently traveling overseas and I don’t know, I can’t speak for the men cuz I can only speak for the lady’s bathroom, but it’s always so annoying to go, I have to like, walk underneath all the, all the stalls and look underneath like who has feet where other legs never can tell what’s open, especially these long airport bathrooms. But while I was traveling overseas, this was in Sydney, Australia, I walked in and above every single stall was a red light or a green light.
NL (33:01):
Okay?
AJV (33:01):
And so as soon as you walked in, you just saw anything that was green was open, anything that was red was locked. And I was like, this is brilliant, this is so smart. It’s like created so much efficiency and it’s like, I can’t tell you for how many years, it’s like kind of just like looking underneath the stars, like totally creeping on people to go, well what’s, I don’t know, But same type of thing. It’s like, what a brilliant idea of going, duh, just put a red light in a green light over these stalls. So all the women coming in here can quickly and efficiently come in and out. But it’s like to the point that would’ve very much come from what do you wish was better? What sucks? Yeah, what are people always complaining about? What do you complain about? I think that’s awesome. I think that’s not pessimistic, that’s improvement oriented.
NL (33:49):
That’s a, that’s a more positive way to look at it. And really bonus points if you can reach out and have conversations with, you know, business owners who maybe you have some pre-existing relationship with and you know, what are you struggling with? And you can ask your audience the same thing. You know, what’s your, what’s the biggest challenge that you’re facing this month? And you know, you start to see some patterns in those you know, in those answers. And that’s kind of a hint that, or what if you created the solution to that. You may not know what it is at the beginning, but you kind of validate and maybe pre-sell and kind of, you know, even get people on the phone and try and get people’s feedback. Well hey, I’m thinking of creating this, you know, if I did, what would you like to see inside? What would that be? What would that be worth to you? And just trying to get, get some feedback on ideas before you go back to the cave and spend three months building this thing that you’re not sure if anybody wants.
AJV (34:41):
No, I love that. I think just really getting clear on what you said, it’s like what are your skills, what are your passions? What have you been paid to do? But then also it’s like, what needs improving that you could actually help with what, at the very least it’s maybe you found a tool or a resource that’s really awesome, right? Kinda getting behind that and going, I need to just tell every single person I know about this and maybe tag some services on top of it. Right? those are so helpful. Anything else that you would say for someone who’s just getting started?
NL (35:08):
Well, on those live, I know you have a lot of podcast podcasters tuning in. There’s this one cool tool, I’ll see if I can take it up that I just found somebody, a listeners sent it to me. It was called likeon phonic.com/graph and it creates you punch in the name of your podcast and it creates this like 3D matrix thing of all the related shows on similar topics that you talk about. And it’s really cool because these are like guest podcast targets, basically like, hey look, if my audience is into this, you know, my, maybe I could find some new listeners over here, or maybe these hosts would be open to some sort of joint webinar, you know, collaboration, partnership thing as like, I thought that was a really cool recent, recent tool new find for me.
AJV (35:57):
Yes. And I will go and find the link and I will put that in the show notes for every, for everybody. But again, it’s like, find the tools that you love and figure out do they have an affiliate program and promote the pants off of them, right? ? Yes.
NL (36:10):
I dunno.
AJV (36:12):
Nick, thank you so much for being on the show. I’ve got one last question for you. And this is totally not relevant to any sort of conversation we’ve had so far, but more of just helping our audience continually get to know you. What is your favorite side hustle that you’ve ever done? Or what is the side hustle that you’ve always wanted to do but you’ve never done?
NL (36:35):
Oh, I love it. So I’m like, I’m a sucker for these like, online businesses, right? Cuz there’s leverage and it’s like even the first few years you’re working for so far below minimum wage, it’s probably not even funny, but like over time it takes the same effort to produce a podcast that 10 people listen to or 10,000 people listen to or a hundred thousand people listen to. Same thing with, you know, written content, email content, YouTube content. So I love, like, I love all that stuff and that is ton of, that’s really fun. Like this combination of content production and analysis of what’s working, what’s not. Like I love that stuff. If I were to start a new business tomorrow, honestly I think it would be like a pressure washing business. I think it’s just so satisfying to go out there, do the work. I think it has the, you know, it would go like mini viral in the neighborhood. You stick your flag out there, you know, the neighbors walk by, they see you working hey, you wanna come by, gimme a quote. Like, I’m right across the street. What do you think you wanna come by and do my house next? I think that would be a ton of fun. I think that may be my retirement side hustle.
AJV (37:31):
Oh my gosh, I love this. We always talk about this like what are, what is the random chore that you secretly really like? and mine is power washing . Nice. There is great satisfaction. It’s so dirty now, it’s so clean. I love that. And this has been so helpful. So great. Thank you so much for being on the show. If people wanna connect with you where should they go?
NL (37:55):
You bet, of course, would love to have you tune into the Side Hustle Show. We cover new and creative business ideas every Thursday. Look for the you know, green cover art with my mug on it and Spotify Apple Podcast, wherever your favorite podcast app is. Side hustle nation.com/ideas. If you are in that idea seeking stage, this is just a long list of part-time business ideas, ways to make extra money, no opt-in required over there, just you know, hopefully get the creative juices flowing.
AJV (38:23):
Awesome. And I will put both of those links in our show notes. But again, check out his podcast, The Side Hustle Show podcast and your favorite listening tool. And then if you are in the ideation phase or maybe you just want more side hustles, you can go to side hustle nation.com/ideas. And you can stay in touch with Nick on both of those places. Nick, thank you so much. Everyone, thanks for listening in and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 338: 4 Keys to Creating Persuasive Promotional Videos with Eric Solomon

RV (00:02):
So I know from experience that it is extremely difficult to find quality people to work with, to help you get stuff done in a brand builders group, we are a strategy firm. We think of ourselves as architects. We think of ourselves as the air traffic controllers. We tell people what to do in the order they should do it, and in the way it should be done. But when it comes to actually getting the work done, we often have to partner with other firms. And so today I’m excited to introduce you to my personal video editor. His name is Eric, and we’re going to get inside his head about how video storytelling is really done. We’re gonna talk about four effective rules to do it. What are some of the mistakes that people make? And I want you to let to, to make this specific for you to know that the videos that we’re gonna talk about producing today are promotional videos.
RV (00:55):
We’re not talking about social media reels. And you know, it could apply to that. It’ll apply to your YouTube videos that you post every week or whatever, or your podcast. But we’re really talking about is like the commercial, the video commercial of you that you use to sell yourself and your services. And, you know, there’s a couple different types of videos for that. So it’s really like the high end video that you need to, to sell yourself. And so let me tell you a little bit about Eric. So he’s an award-winning video producer. He is an editor. He’s a storyteller. He’s a strategist. He does the whole thing from the concept and the storyboarding and the mapping, you know, e even site location, bringing another videographers, et cetera. And all the way down through like the actual editing and, and the final production.
RV (01:44):
And we love Eric because he’s so genuine. He has such an authentic approach that has the, the professional polish of true high level film production, but also the heart of, you know, we talk about mission driven messengers. And so he has that balance. And, and he he, he actually produced a film, made a film called Autism Every Day, was a project that he worked on where he weaved the stories of eight diverse families into a single narrative that showed the world what it was like for families raising an autistic child. This film went on to be screened at the Sundance Film Festival and led his client to appearances on Oprah, Good Morning America and The View. Eric has also produced trailers for TV commercials and Halloween Hollywood films like Last of the Mohicans a Few Good Men and the American President. But his biggest accomplishment in life was editing Brand Builders Group homepage videos Rory Vaden, speaker demo videos. And anyways, without further ado, Eric Buddy, welcome to the show. Thank
ES (02:59):
You, Rory. I thank you for that great introduction. I couldn’t have written it better myself,
RV (03:04):
. Well I, I, I’m so excited about this because, you know, we’d love to teach people what we do. We don’t teach people theory and, and we like to introduce them to people that we admire and that we do work with. And, and that’s part of why we want to introduce them to you. By the way, some of you are, are already sold going. I need an Eric in my life. And you actually can have Eric, some of our team members you cannot have because they are full-time employees of Brand Builders Group. Eric, however, is an implementation partner, and so he is available for anyone. If you become interested at any point, you just email [email protected]. And all you do is in the subject line, put Eric’s videos. And we will connect you directly to him. So [email protected], put Eric’s videos in the subject line and we’ll connect you to him. We’ll, we’ll share that with you again later. But so I wanna just dive right in. First of all, your philosophy about storytelling and video editing. Talk about, talk about some of that at a high level.
ES (04:11):
At a high level, it’s really all about being authentic. I, I think a lot of videos don’t succeed today because people try to script them. They try to figure out exactly what they wanna say ahead of time. And I think, you know, audiences tune out to ads. They, they don’t want to hear narrators. They don’t want to hear an ad for something. They want to hear something that’s real. And when you can really authentically connect with your audience, that’s when you get their attention, and that’s when you can deliver the message. That is the whole reason to make the video in the first place.
RV (04:51):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. And when you say authentic, cuz that’s like a buzzword, right? Like I think it’s, and sometimes it’s easier to understand what authentic means by talking about what inauthentic is, where you talk about like, so if somebody is you, you know, like scripting is a good example, so people really get stuck on that kind of thing. Like, what, what makes a video inauthentic?
ES (05:17):
Well, this is a kind of a good lead into my four golden rules for making an impactful video.
RV (05:23):
Let’s do it. Let’s get in.
ES (05:25):
First one is really all about the script, and my feeling is do not write a script.
RV (05:31):
Wow.
ES (05:32):
I believe the best videos are created by conducting interviews in an unscripted manner. The videos that I’ve made for you, Rory, I’ve, I’ve interviewed you and you’re a very polished interviewer. You have a lot of experience with that. But I wanted to ask you questions, and I wanted you to just speak to me like it’s the first time you’re talking to me. The video that’s on Ran Builders homepage that I did for you. I interviewed strategist, I interviewed clients. Nobody knew the questions I was gonna ask. It was all unscripted. And really, the reason I think to take an unscripted approach is that I don’t think a writer can write something better than what the people who are most familiar with the subject would just naturally say.
RV (06:28):
Wow.
ES (06:30):
And, you know, unless you’re Aaron Sorkin, my feeling is turn the information that you want to deliver in that video into a question and ask that, have somebody ask you that question, and then you respond with the answer. And you ask people, who are your clients that question. You ask a series of people, the same group, the same questions, and then you use their answers and you weave them together to tell the story that you want to tell, to give the information that you want to give. But you use the best moments from each of those interviews and you can create something that is far more powerful and far more engaging than anything that you could write. Or that probably you could hire a writer, a writer to write.
RV (07:21):
Yeah, I mean, I, I I will say this, like, this is one of the, I mean, we’ve worked with so many video editors over the years and have gone through so many processes and we’ve done it ourself and like, you know, lots of different ways. And the interview is like, part of when I think of you, it’s like you brought the interview and just really blew open the doors for us of going, this can be easy, this can be fast, and it can be amazing because if you just interview and, and, and, and part of what I found, so even with like my speaker demo video, we did this, and now we have, we have two, we have two speaker demo videos for me. We’ve got like a couple that we’re working on. We’re, we’re finalizing ’em both. You’ll, you’ll be able to see those by the way, rory vaden.com here, like, you know, probably within a few weeks af after the time of this interview comes out.
RV (08:13):
So you can go look at those, the [email protected] are up. Or if you go to free brand call.com/podcast, you’ll see our, our sort of like a flagship company storytelling video that Eric did. But the interview serves as such a, an incredible through line for the whole video. And it, it gives you the natural, like, cuts on audience shots and like different people saying it a different way. And, and just, I mean, what you said it, I don’t think a writer can write something better than what your people will actually say. I mean, that is so true. You do such a good job of capturing that.
ES (08:52):
Thank you. Thank you. And I think something you just said is really key. Also it does make it easy for my clients because they don’t have to go on meeting after meeting and what are we gonna put in the video and how are we gonna do this? And what are we gonna show here? I, my goal is to make it as easy as possible for my clients and sit down with them, do the interview, have them give me their assets. If they’re a speaker, they give me their samples of the keynotes they’ve delivered. If they if they make presentations, whatever assets they have, whatever photographs they have, they just hand that over to me. They introduce me to their clients who I also interview, and then they’re done. The next thing they know, they are seeing what I think could be a finished cut, but of course it’s not finished until they’re happy. .
RV (09:46):
Yeah. Well, and, and that, that really is, I mean, that’s part of why what’s been amazing is like, you know, we’re so busy. Everyone is so busy. And it’s like, if you don’t edit videos for a living, you just, you don’t realize how much time it takes and how much involvement and how much storytelling and what are the right questions to ask, and the sequencing and the timing, and then the visual effects and the music and the, and the transitions and like all of these little things. And then you get into it and you go, this is so big and scary and painful. It takes forever to get a video edited versus basically, I remember when AJ found you, it was just like, we just basically dumped everything on you. And you were like, you set up a time. I didn’t even know, it was like, I have this interview with Eric, We did an interview, and then it was like, I’m done.
RV (10:35):
I was like, Wait, how are we gonna put together this video? And then, and then it was just like, No, that’s, that was my only role in it. And then you sent it back. You know, I give you some creative direction or whatever, but then you send it back. And then from there it’s more like, Okay, move these pieces around a little bit, but so painless, like so, so fast. So you know, just a, just a, an elegant way of of of, of doing it. And, and you mentioned the speaking video, so I wanna talk about that for a second because even if people listening aren’t professional speakers, I mean, you, you know, your brand builders member also, so you know, that we, we believe the fastest way to get clients is not social media, is it’s, it is not, you know, funnels and ads.
RV (11:20):
It’s referrals from people, you know, and it’s from doing presentations and you go speak for free. You don’t need to get paid because if you speak for free, you’ll get paid in business that comes from it. And a lot of times when you do a, a presentation on stage, even a keynote on stage, the way you deliver a keynote is much different from the way that you would present a sales video or a promotional video. And so, a lot of times, even though I’ve spoke on big, beautiful stages, I don’t have exactly the right clips that I need to pull together a cohesive, persuasive you know, promotional video. And yet when you interview me, you, you’re, you’re pulling, it’s easy to get that footage in an interview. It’s hard to get it from just, here’s all the presentations or here’s all the content that I’ve ever done. But in an, in an interview, it’s like, it gives me a chance to say everything that I need to say. And that’s, and that’s also part of what you do so masterfully, is you draw it out of people.
ES (12:25):
Yeah. And, you know, and it’s in you. It’s in all of the people listening people, people talk about what they do all the time. They, they know the answers to the questions. They don’t have to prepare, you know, brand builders, clients personal brands who are successful. They’re passionate about what they do, and, and all they really need is somebody to ask them questions. And the information just pours out of them. And, and that’s, that’s really the key to to creating great video. It, it’s a good, this is a good segue into the second one.
RV (13:00):
Yeah, I was gonna say, tell me, All right, tell me this. So tell me the second one, cuz I know we got four, so I don’t wanna be left hanging. So what’s, what’s the number two?
ES (13:06):
Definitely the second one is you need to create videos that are a dialogue, not a monologue. And that sounds counterintuitive because videos are a one way form of communication. You right. Use them, you create them, you edit them, and then they’re done and they’re up there. But when you think about it as an audience, when you’re watching a video, you’re always listening and thinking, Well, how does that apply to me? And huh, that point makes me think of this question and well, what else do I need to know? So there’s always a dialogue going on, but as the person creating a video, you’re either conscious of that and, and aware of that as you’re editing the video or you’re not. The best videos, in my opinion, are always taking into account what is the audience thinking. When I just said what I said, What do they need to know next?
ES (14:04):
Do I need to answer a question or do I need to keep giving them the information that they don’t even know? They don’t even know, they don’t know. You know, it’s you always have to be constantly giving them that next piece of information that they, that they’re wondering or that’s gonna keep them engaged. And when you stop doing that, that’s when the engagement level drops. You know, we videos all start out at that high, a hundred percent, and they drop fast. But when you grab people quickly and you keep them engaged and you keep telling them what they need to know, or you tell them you’re giving them your message in a very engaging and dynamic way, then you keep them engaged, you keep them with you, and you’re able to deliver that, that full message. Mm-Hmm. . So it’s, it’s about always thinking about what the audience needs to hear next.
RV (14:59):
Yeah.
ES (15:00):
Delivering a monologue, They’re, they’re gone.
RV (15:03):
Yeah. I mean, it’s just, if it’s, you know, that it’s like, Hey, this is a commercial. Or if it’s just all about you, right? Like, Hey, here’s how amazing I am. And there’s no consideration. It’s like they don’t really care about you. They care about what you can do for them, right? And so they only need to know enough about you to know you’re credible. What they really care about is what can you do for me for these types of videos specifically, the purpose is not education, it’s sales. Like, we’re not just trying to just educate, we’re trying to persuade and move to action,
ES (15:39):
Right? But it’s not sales in the traditional sense of, of selling. I’d like to think that the videos I create are, are story driven from the the audience’s point of view. It’s not a story about Rory Vaden, it’s not a story about brand builders. It’s a story about the people who have been served by Rory, served by brand builders. And when you’re always, you always have that perspective in mind as you’re editing and as you’re creating, and as you’re gathering the material, the content to create the video, then you’re going to deliver your message in a, in a way that people respond to, because they’re not gonna feel like you’re selling them. You’re, they’re gonna feel like you’re sharing a story with them. You’re not trying to persuade them of anything. You’re, you’re telling them, Hey, this is, this is a problem that people have and this is how I’ve helped them solve that problem.
RV (16:34):
Yeah. And I’ll I’ll say for those of you listening that are members, of course, you know, one of our flagship frameworks and things that we teach is called the 15 Ps of copywriting. And that is how do you, what words, how do you come up with the words you need to put on the page to get people to like, pull out their credit card and buy something or to sign up for a free call? And there’s a sequence which the, that se there’s a sequence of the 15 P’s. They happen in a specific order to specific reason. The reason that is, is because of psychology, human psychology of what questions do people have about new things, and in what order do they have them and what do they need to know of which storytelling is just another, is a short, ver a condensed way of saying that is going.
RV (17:25):
Stories are extremely effective sales tools because they connect, they’re deeply rooted to human psychology and the sequence of how we learn new things and explore new things and remember new things. And so if you’re a, if you’re a, if you are a, if you’re a a, a messenger, if you, one of the BBG messengers, the 15 P’s to me, always serves as a initial arc guideline for the conversation. But then, you know, when you get into visual storytelling, there is a lot, there is a lot of room for creative expression, and it depends on what assets you have and, you know, what do people say in the interviews? And since it’s kind of a spontaneous collection of different things, you have to, you allow for some flexibility to massage those assets together. But like, if you look at the videos that Eric has created, we’ve gone back and forth several times on the 15 P’s and saying like, Oh, hey, I wanna move this over here.
RV (18:22):
But it’s, it’s gotta bend and flex a little bit just to, for the, you know, the creative artistry. And you know, I think the thing that I would say for everybody, which is good, is if you don’t know the 15 P’s, or if you are a brand builder and you know ’em, but you don’t study ’em every night like I do you, you could just give it to Eric and he’ll just do it. And that’s one thing that’s awesome, is like having someone who can tell your story for you, or, and it’s not really your story, it’s the story. Tell the story about what you do for you that, that, that helps a lot. So what’s the, what’s the third one? All right, so dialogue, not monologue. Well,
ES (19:03):
The 15 P’s are a great segue into the third point. Okay.
RV (19:07):
15 p
ES (19:09):
The third rule that I use is that you focus on feelings, not facts.
RV (19:17):
Mm.
ES (19:19):
And a lot of people, when they create videos, they think about that information that they want to get across. You know, I’ve got these five points that I want to get across, and I’m gonna, I’m gonna, you know, whatever I do, I’m gonna make sure I say these five points. But your audience is not gonna remember the five things that you feel so strongly that you’ve gotta get across. What they’re gonna remember is how they felt watching you, that they feel like you really cared about what you’re talking about, that you’re passionate about this subject, that you’re knowledgeable, that you’re somebody that I could feel comfortable working with. You know, the Maya Angelou quote is repeated often, and and I’m gonna do it again here. People will forget what you say and they’ll forget what you do, but they’ll never forget how they, how you made them feel.
ES (20:08):
And it’s very much true in video. You know, you think about the videos you’ve seen that you liked, you probably don’t remember details or facts of those videos, but you remember, I felt like this is somebody that could help me. I felt like this is somebody that cares about me, cares about the problem that I have. So it’s it’s not that the facts aren’t important, it’s that you have to present the facts in a way that’s memorable. And the way you become memorable is you use the feelings because feelings are memorable. So any any pieces of information you can turn into stories, if there’s an emotional element to what you do, to the way you serve people, and the way you help people try to use that. You know, you, you tell a great story, Roy during your keynotes about delegation. You know, a lot of people feel like they can’t delegate what they do. And I don’t wanna repeat the story because it’s, it’s a great story. But you know, you’re, you’re telling the story and the audience doesn’t know why you’re telling the story, but when you get to the end, you will never forget that anything can be delegated
RV (21:25):
. It’s, yeah.
ES (21:27):
It’s just, it’s very powerful. And it’s funny. It’s, it’s a great story. And thank you. It, so, it’s, it’s feelings, not facts,
RV (21:35):
Feelings. It is. And, and, and you know, what’s this is something that I’m guilty of, and I think this is a good place where you’ve had balance for me is, is to not go so analytical and so logical. And so information like, again, particularly in a promotional video, like a lot of my content videos that I would put on Instagram or on YouTube, the purpose is conveying information. I’m del I’m delivering education. I’m demonstrating my expertise. I’m trying to be useful to people, but in a promotional video, and it’s, you know, selling is a transference of emotion. It is a way of making them feel. And it’s, it’s sort of ironic because you go, video lends itself to the rare opportunity to effectively generate an emotion without you having to be there in person to do it. And that, I think is, is, is so powerful of going it, it, it’s almost like when you’re looking at your video, don’t ask yourself, Did I cover it? Did I say everything that I wanted to say in the video? It’s ask yourself, how does this video make the viewer feel? Like, what emotion are they experiencing? And, and what emotion am I trying to create? Not, not what information am I trying to relay.
ES (23:06):
You and I went back and forth with the 15 Ps, you know, when I, when we first started working together, you told me I did it intuitively and I didn’t know what the 15 Ps were, and then you mm-hmm. you you had me watch them, You, you know, I learned them and I saw, well, it’s not all 15 that apply to a video. There’s really five of them that are I think are key five, five or six of them. But it’s not always in the order that you have them in the list, because when you focus on the feelings and not the facts, sometimes it doesn’t make sense to do them in the order that, that they’re written. You have to make sure the video flows and you have to pay attention to, to the feelings that are being conveyed. Make sure each point flows into the next point, You know, keeping that dialogue going and not a monologue. Mm-Hmm.
RV (24:01):
. Yeah. Well, so when you guys are looking at your videos, you know, particularly if they’re promotional videos, be asking yourself, What, how does this make me feel? How does this make the viewer viewer feel? Like, do they feel angry? Do they feel happy? Do they feel bored? Do they feel inspired? And part of that is also knowing like in brand dna, you know, so our flagship first, our first training of our 14 trainings, there’s a, there is a lesson called Brand Characteristics list where we help people define, and we say, these are the emotions. Like what energy is your brand about? What are the emotions that you’re, the primary emotions of your brand? Just like you would have a primary color palette. It’s like, what is the prior Mary emotion that your, your brand should kind of cultivate in people? You gotta know some of that to, to do this. Or you gotta work with somebody, you know, like Eric, who can sort of feel it intuitively and, and, and draw it out of you. So focused on feelings, not facts. Amen. Love it. Absolutely. okay. What’s the, what’s the fourth one?
ES (25:06):
The bad And cleanup number four is the, I call it the nonverbal rule. And it’s really that we all focus so much on the words that we use when we communicate. And we’re taught that as children, you know, user words when you communicate, a lot of brand builders clients are writers. They’re very focused on the words. And you know, Vanessa Van Edwards really crystallized this for me. She was a guest couple months ago, and she just wrote a book called Cues, which anybody who hasn’t read it, I highly recommend it.
RV (25:41):
Yeah, We love Vanessa. She’s been on twice, actually. We’ve had her on twice. She’s very good. Yep.
ES (25:45):
Brilliant. But what she talks about is that nonverbal communication really conveys more to an audience than the words that we choose. Mm. And I’m sure you, you talk about this when you’re, when you’re teaching speakers and keynote presentation craft it’s your body language. It’s your voice, it’s your inflection, It’s the energy, the emotion, it’s the, the setting. You know what’s going on around you. It’s your wardrobe, what you’re wearing. It’s all those things convey more. Then you realize, you know, if, if the, if the energy and the tone and the, the confidence in what you say is there, then it supports the message. But if you’re kind of just talking and really not into what you’re saying, then the audience is not gonna be there with you. This is a, something that the audience that I, that I think, you know, people listening can do to help them with that nonverbal communication.
ES (26:52):
I think a lot of people, you know, we communicate this way on Zoom now, you know, face to face meetings are just not happening at the rate that they used to. And people, when they set up their home video for Zoom, they, there are some things they could do to make sure that they look better, that they sound better. And a lot of people are still not doing that as well as they could. I know a lot of people are listening to this, They’re not watching the video, so I’m gonna be a little extra descriptive here. But one thing that people can do is make sure that their camera is at eye level when they’re speaking. A lot of people have laptops on the table and they’re pointing up. You would never sit down and and talk to a person that’s two feet below you Right. Looking down on them. And should be the same thing with the camera. It should be at eye level lighting. Don’t put a window behind you. I mean, you’ve got a window behind you, Rory, but that’s not really a window behind you,
RV (27:54):
. Well, and I’m also heavily front lit, so if there is a window behind you, you have to be heavily front, front lit.
ES (28:01):
Exactly. Exactly. And ring lights are very inexpensive and they’re available on Amazon. It’s, it’s a, it’s a good investment to have. Make sure you have good lighting on you. Sound is another key element. I wanna do a little, a little live example here. Right now, I’m speaking to you on my, on my new microphone. Yeah. Which I bought for this podcast because I wanted to sound good
RV (28:27):
way to practice what you preach, man.
ES (28:31):
Exactly. But do you hear a difference now?
RV (28:34):
Wow.
ES (28:35):
This is the microphone that is built into my computer. So it really makes a difference when you have an external microphone. It doesn’t have to be expensive. It doesn’t have to be it doesn’t have to be a big deal. But if you’re using the microphone built into your computer, the chances are, you might sound more like this uhhuh.
RV (29:00):
It’s just sort of wimpy and like echoy and light. I mean, it just, it doesn’t sound like you have charisma and power and confidence,
ES (29:07):
Right? Not, and, and that, yes, it’s verbal, but it’s, it’s subtle. And now I’m back on my, my new Yeti microphone. Mm-Hmm. . And it’s, it sounds much more influential.
RV (29:20):
Yes, it does. I mean, what a, what a massive, a massive difference. So camera height should be, eye level lights should be in front of us on our face, not behind us. Just getting a mic. Any, any others that you would add? Quick pointers there.
ES (29:39):
Just remember your body language. You know it. If you are somebody who likes to talk with your hands, use your hands. If you are if you are just, just remember your energy. Think of yourself as actually being with that person, in person and, and speak to them as you would with the, with the confidence and, and dressing as you would. You know, we all dress down a little bit when we’re at home, but if you are in a, in a meeting on Zoom, you wanna look good. It matters. It makes an impression. Yeah. So it’s, it’s these kinds of nonverbal elements that I think make a big difference more than people realize when, when delivering their message. It really, it either it helps reinforce the message you wanna say, or it detracts from the message you wanna say. The words alone are not enough.
RV (30:41):
Yep. Yep. I love it. So those are awesome. Those are so powerful. The again, just a reminder, y’all, if, if, if you’re on the hunt, like if you’re on the, on the look right now, for someone that can help you create some of these promotional videos, email us [email protected] in the subject line, just put Eric’s videos, and then we will connect you you know, directly to Eric, and you can, you can talk with him and understand more of his process. As we start to wrap up here a little bit, Eric, there’s, there’s two there. I was gonna say, there’s, there’s, there’s two types of videos that every personal brand should have. And then I know you have some type of a surprise, which I have no idea what that is, but should we, should we do the surprise first? Or should we talk about the two types of videos every personal brand should have?
ES (31:34):
Well, the surprise is part of the first video.
RV (31:37):
Oh, okay. All right. So tell us
ES (31:39):
The, the first video that every personal brand should have is, it sounds obvious, but a personal brand video.
RV (31:48):
Ah,
ES (31:48):
What is a personal brand video? If you do a Google search on personal brand videos, you will get videos where people talk about themselves. Cause they think a personal brand video is about them. But if you’re a brand builder’s client, you know this, your personal brand is not about you
RV (32:06):
Preach Brother
ES (32:07):
. Where have I heard that before? The personal brand video is about the people you serve. So in 90 seconds, I create a personal brand video that tells people who you are, what you do, why you do it, and what, what unique way you do you approach in solving that problem for clients. And so this is the perfect way. I’m going to email you now, Rory, send you a link. And this will work as audio. Also, it’s a video, so if people like what they hear, they can come to the website and see the video. But I created a personal brand video for you. R
RV (32:55):
What
ES (32:57):
Surprise.
RV (32:58):
Check this out. Okay, so it’s, it’s, it’s 95 seconds. Can we play it
ES (33:03):
Please.
RV (33:04):
Or are you nervous? Are you, are you nervous that it’s good or you feel confident?
ES (33:07):
I feel confident.
RV (33:08):
I feel, I feel confident too. Okay. So let me do this some
ES (33:12):
Share screen and
RV (33:13):
Yeah, I can, I can share. And those of you, if you’re watching this on YouTube, you’ll actually, you’ll be watching a video of me playing the video, which hopefully will work here. So let me I need to optimize this for a video clip. All right. So we’ll share,
ES (33:28):
We’ll, your editors can edit it in so you don’t have this, this part of it that’s, you could just cut to it.
RV (33:34):
Cut to it. Okay. So here here we, here we go, announcing the Rory Vain personal brand video.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
My name is Rory Vaden. I am the co-founder of Brand Builders Group. I’m the New York Times bestselling author, and I spend my days trying to help people and businesses get better. So this is, and I have always been a nerd. I have always been drawn to the provable In many ways, I’m sort of surprised that I grew up to become what some might call a motivational speaker, because what I’m really interested in is concrete evidence and provable techniques and strategies that actually can be deployed to create a result. The next level of results always requires the next level of thinking. I feel like I’m at my best when I am in front of an audience, or even if it’s an audience of one, because I’m operating in my uniqueness.
RV (34:31):
It’s not
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Enough for people to know what you do. They must know why you do it. I believe that we are capable of literally creating the world around us that we want. And I believe that every single person has that intuitive calling for the way their life is supposed to be, and they don’t realize that they have the ability to do it. And I would say that I feel like I am here to deliver a message that inspires people to be their best. And that inspires people to exploit the things that they are good at in the service of other people.
RV (35:17):
Oh man, that’s so cool. That’s
ES (35:19):
The world premier of Rory’s personal brand video
RV (35:22):
, right here on audio podcast, the world premier of my personal brand video. Dude, I love it. Thank you so much. That is so cool. Welcome. That is so cool.
ES (35:32):
It’s, it’s who you are, it’s what you do. It’s why you do it, and it’s the unique way you do it. So in 90 seconds, if somebody doesn’t know anything about you and they come to your website and they are gonna give you a little bit of time, but not, not too much time, they’re probably gonna hit that video. And in 90 seconds, what I hope is accomplished is they will get a feeling for who you are and that you’re somebody that they can, that they like, that they wanna learn more about. You know, everybody is busy, everybody’s distracted. But if you can manage to get people to your website and you gotta deliver a message quickly to them that’s gonna engage them and want them, get them to want to learn more.
RV (36:19):
Yeah. That is the goal. So, so cool, man. I love that. So, and I mean, 90 seconds is a doable thing for anybody. Even if you don’t have a lot of video footage or a lot of photography, you could do it in an interview. One interview gives you way more than you would need to pull all this together with just a few assets, right?
ES (36:37):
It’s, it’s a quick interview, It’s 15 minutes. And if all they have is some photographs, I’ve, I’ve done it with photographs, I do it with graphics, if you have a lot of B-roll of you. So I was able to integrate that. Whatever people have can be integrated into this, but the main thing is the, the delivery of the message. You’re the, the, the passion you have and the, the, the confidence you have in delivering and talking about yourself and what you do. I mean, that’s, it’s unscripted it, that’s just who you are and what you do. And it comes across.
RV (37:13):
That is really, really cool, brother. Thank you so much for that. I mean, that is awesome, y’all. If you want one of, if you want one of those, if y’all one of those who better email us input brand builders group.com, put Eric’s videos in the subject line, we’ll connect you. Cuz you know, I mean, I, I get, I mean, I don’t, I don’t wanna speak for you, but like, you know, you people should invest a lot of money into these things, but a a 92nd video certainly has gotta be a lot cheaper than producing a one hour, you know, 90 minute feature length film. So what a great, what a great place to start if you’re, if you’re just beginning and you go, Well, I haven’t been on national TV and I’ve never spoken in front of a thousand people and I don’t have a best selling book and I don’t, you know, it’s just like, just the heart. We call this the poll P 14 in the 15 piece is the pole, the emotional like pull of just a heartfelt invitation of why you’re here and why you, you do what you do. You can create that. So simple. I it’s such, such a great idea. I I just, I love it and I love, I love mine, Eric. It, it’s really cool, man. Thank you.
ES (38:19):
You’re welcome. You’re welcome. I’m glad. The second kind of video that I think every personal brand should have is what people think of when they think of a testimonial video. And I know with the trends and personal branding study that you guys did
RV (38:38):
Yeah, preach it.
ES (38:40):
, anybody who’s who’s heard about that has heard that the number one factor people use when deciding who to work with is testimonials. Yeah.
RV (38:50):
You, if you haven’t heard this, cuz maybe if you’re just new to the podcast, like if, if you go to brandville just group.com and you click on free trainings, you can download our influential personal brand summit, which is, or excuse me, our trends in personal branding, national research study, which is what Eric is talking about. And we asked Americans, it was a US study, you know, what is the most, the most influential factors in, in the average American consumer making a purchasing decision? And we said, Oh, someone’s a New York Times bestselling author. They have a huge social media following. They have, you know, graduate degrees, they have, you know, all these other things. And the number one thing by far was they have testimonials of other real life people. And so I love that you’re, you’re talking about this,
ES (39:39):
But I think they can do so much more with testimonials than they even realize. Think about it. It’s testimonial is a story. It’s not just saying, I love working with you. You know, you’re great at what you do. That’s, that’s kind of level one of testimonials. But you can take it a step further. When I do testimonial videos for my clients, I interview their clients, my clients’ clients, and I ask them, What problem were you having? Why did you end up choosing Rory to work with? What was it like to work with Rory and what results have you seen working with Rory? And those four questions tell a story, you know, I had a problem, I looked for a solution, getting the solution was great, and the results from it have been great. So I take each testimonial and make a little mini case study video out of it, 90 seconds to two minutes.
ES (40:40):
Then my recommendation to my clients is not to put that, you can put that on your website, but I think it’s better to use that later in the funnel. I think when you’ve got somebody who’s interested in your service but is on the fence, what I like to do is suggest my clients have a library of these videos, you know, have 10 or 12 of all different kinds of clients you worked with, then you’ve got somebody who’s interested but not sure. You say, Let me send you a a little case study of somebody who works in the same industry of you and you could see how, what they felt like working with me. And then you’re not selling, you’re, you’ve got clients sharing a story. They’re not selling either. They’re sharing a story and it’s, it’s incredibly powerful, but there’s more
RV (41:30):
, but there’s more.
ES (41:31):
But wait, there’s more. When you’ve got a group of these testimonials, each is different, but also they’re all the same. They all had a problem. They all discovered you, they all worked with you, they all saw results. And when you can combine the best moments from each of those interviews and have three or four people talk about the problem, they had three or four people talk about why they used you, and you weave those answers together, you end up with actually what is the brand Builders group homepage video. You’ve got clients telling their stories, you’ve got strategists talking what it’s like working with the clients and you end up with something incredibly persuasive that doesn’t feel like a sales video.
RV (42:21):
Yeah, I mean, and, and it is awesome. I mean, it’s literally on our homepage, brand builders group.com. It’s also the, I think the number one asset that we drive people to online is free brand call.com/podcast. And we use it on all those pages too. Like, because it was just, it’s, it’s amazing. We’re not even in the video. Like me and AJ aren’t even in the video, which is beautiful. It’s like, it’s all the clients and our team members doing exactly what you said. But it’s basically a highlight video of the highlight videos, a bunch of customer testimonials, it really, really com compelling and awesome, and not salesy, just awesome, but it sell, it sells like you wouldn’t believe
ES (43:01):
. That’s great. That’s great to hear. Right? It’s, it’s not about you, it’s not about aj, it’s about the people you serve and the people who serve the people you serve.
RV (43:10):
Amen. So
ES (43:11):
It it’s the story, Roy, before, I’m not sure if we’re we’re done, but before we’re done, there’s one other thing I’d like to say. And it’s something that, you know, as a brand builder client, I, I heard very early on that we are best positioned to serve the people we once were. And that was something that never resonated with me early on. I, I just, I didn’t get it. And I think, you know, the reason is kind of obvious. I I hadn’t yet become the person I needed to become in order to help the person I was. And for anybody out there who feels like they have a calling and a message to, to, to give people, but they’re not sure that they’re ready to do it, don’t lose faith. Don’t lose hope. It, it, you, you can get there. I did it with brand builders. You know, brand builders is not the only people who can help you. But but stay with what you believe in and, and you, if you have a message to deliver, you know, there are people that need to hear it.
RV (44:23):
Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And we’re not the only people that can help you. We’re just the best. And we have customer testimonial videos to prove it and personal brand videos and, and awesome videos. No, I’m, I’m, I’m just kidding. Kind of, sort of I do actually believe that, but Eric, thank you so much. Like, this is just so helpful, just great tips, helpful for any of us trying to understand this world of video, which, like, for me, I’m just never been a creative per se. And so it’s like I’m passionate about what I teach, but like, when it comes to the visual aesthetic and like all this stuff, it’s just not a skill. I have to like open a video editor and like whip this together. And so having somebody like you sure helps me a lot because I’ll, I’ll say for a lot of my career, I was embarrassed about the videos that I was putting out that would tell people about who, who we were and what we did.
RV (45:17):
And it’s really awesome to, to, to be proud of saying, Hey, you know, when we’re talking to someone, hey, just watch this video and then tell me what you, you know, like knowing they’re gonna be blown away because of the emotion and not because it’s a sales pitch, but because they’re actually gonna feel our real heart. And because the video is going to convey the actual feeling and the emotion of what we’re about. And when that happens, they may not buy, but, but it, they will, I they’re gonna know for sure. They’re either gonna go, You are our, you are my people, or you are not my people, because they feel the energy and, and it makes the decision quick.
ES (45:59):
Attract or repel.
RV (46:00):
Yep.
ES (46:01):
And and I, you know, I wanna just say thank you. You know, I, I’m I I’ve love, I love working with you and a j and I’m very honored that you guys trust me to help you create your, your demo videos and your brand builders videos. It’s it’s a lot of fun. You’ve got great people to work with and, and I’m really honored to that that you feel comfortable working with me.
RV (46:26):
Yeah, well, we do, we, we love working with you and that’s why we wanted to introduce you to everybody. So again, if you need this, shoot us an email, info brand builders group.com, subject line Eric’s videos. We’ll connect you to Eric. If not, hopefully you’ll take some of Eric’s advice and tips, share them with your video editors or if it’s you just as you’re putting together and, and thinking through this. So Eric, we wish you all the best my friend. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and we’ll talk soon.
ES (46:54):
Thanks Rory. Talk to you soon.