Ep 360: Business Automation: What You Need To Know So You Know What To Automate with Ben Rigsby
AJV (00:02):
Hey y’all, this is AJ Vaden here and welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand. And y’all, I’m so excited that I get to have such a good close personal friend on the show today. Before I give a formal introduction to Ben Rigsby, Ben and I are an EO together. So if you ever heard of eo, the Entrepreneur’s Organization, so, and I talk about a good post personal friend, I know all his dirty secrets for the most part, at least professionally I know it’s professional, dirty secrets and he knows all of mine. And so that gives us a good, healthy mutual level of accountability with each other. And also we get to see each other on a monthly basis. And so when I talk about like I am bringing in someone who is incredibly skilled at what they do, I say that as a firsthand perspective.
AJV (00:52):
I have also been a client of bins and I have seen him grow and exit a business and grow a new business. And I’m just so honored that he said yes to come on the show today. Probably a little bit of peer pressure made him do that. So grateful for that too. And so lemme formally introduce him. And then we’re gonna kick it off. But before I do a formal introduction, I need to tell you why you wanna stick around. And as I was talking to Ben, I was like, there’s so many things we could talk about, but what should we talk about today? And he’s the one who said, well, here are the three things that we do really, really well. And I was like, yes, those are the things we should talk about. And so here’s what we’re gonna talk about today.
AJV (01:33):
We’re gonna talk about if you are a person or a business who needs help with lead generation, this is an episode for you. If you are someone who is trying to improve your lifetime value of your customers, then this is probably an episode for you. And if you were someone who is trying to speed up the sales process and get people from point A to point Z just a little bit faster, in a more efficient and effective manner, then this is probably an episode that you want to stick around four. So with that said, I will give you some of the formal accolades of my friends, Ben, and then I will tell you something that he left off of this beautiful bio investment bay that I think is the most important of all. So Ben is the founder of Movement marketing.
AJV (02:22):
He serves as the creative, strategic and technical lead for design motion, graphics development and product innovation. I will tell you also, it’s he’s not just someone who leads those things. Ben is that he is certified and all different types of things. It’s like every single time I ask my question, he’s like, oh yeah, I know Domo. Oh yeah, I’m certified in HubSpot. Oh yeah, I do. I was my, I was a photography major. Oh yeah, I can do video editing. Oh yeah, I can build a website. And I’m like, you, and when do you have time to learn all this stuff? So he doesn’t just lead it, he’s the practitioner of it. And I, I, I think that’s a really important part of this. You are also like, not just at movement, but in his former business, they were an award-winning an award winning creative digital agency on tongue tied here.
AJV (03:13):
But I think it’s a really important thing to mention. It’s like when we talk about like how all of these things work together in this digital marketing space. I think digital marketing has a very broad umbrella of things to talk about. And what I love most about Ben is that it really is about how to use digital marketing for business. And I think that’s really important. It’s not just about how to make things pretty, it’s about how do you make them efficient and effective and so that you are improving lifetime value and you are being a more efficient and effective business. And a lot of this comes down to business automation. And I think then you are one of the best people and most robust skills of someone who is well versed in true business automation. And so that’s a huge part of what we’re gonna talk about. And then what he just always so conveniently leaves out of all of his bios is that he’s also got this wicked professional dance backgrounds. And I don’t know why you keep denying this part of your life is my favorite part, but you were on tour with some pretty big people Who’d you go on tour with?
BR (04:20):
We won’t name names, but to your point, yes. I did have a previous life of mine growing up as a male dancer, which is how I met my wife. So thank you for that entire history of my childhood. Yes,
AJV (04:37):
Well you can just go to YouTube and you can assert Ben Rigsby dance videos and I’m sure that you will find some
BR (04:45):
That’s, that is,
AJV (04:48):
And when you say male dancer, just to clarify
BR (04:53):
Professional’s, no polls. No polls, yeah.
AJV (04:59):
Ben, to the show, thank you so much.
BR (05:02):
Thank you. Thank you for having me. That was the most professional opening that I’ve ever seen, so very much appreciate that.
AJV (05:08):
Oh, I’m so excited because I know that you know so much and I also, you’re so humble about it and you never are the first one to go, oh yeah, that’s what we do. Like, you almost never raise your hand and say, I know how to do that. Although that is what you know how to do. And so this is just an amazing opportunity for me to borrow your brain and your expertise for the benefit of our audience today. And so I’m gonna let you pick like out of these three topics that we kind of said, like improving lifetime value increasingly generation and sales enable it and ma enablements with helping speed up the sales process. Like what do you find that most of the companies and most of the clients that you’re working with today, where do you think most people are struggling most right now?
BR (05:55):
Yeah, no, totally. That’s a, that’s a fantastic question. So I would lean in probably in the lead generation area. And it’s, it is not necessarily for the lack of lead generation, but it is purposeful lead generation. So, you know, you look at what’s out there today with social and search and paid and organic email marketing networking. I mean, all of those things are channels and so many more kind of fall into the realm of lead generation. But so often do we walk into situations and the clients don’t have a leads process to begin with. And so understanding, and it’s not like, Hey, we gotta go do six months worth of work. It can take 30 minutes, quite honestly to understand what your leads process is. Because if you are a business owner or you’ve been around business, you have an idea of how you move people throughout the sales cycle. But I do think it begins with documenting and understanding what a leads process looks like. That way as leads start coming in the door, you can automate that, which allows you to scale much, much faster. So I would say leaning in with lead generation is probably where we start. Then we move into how do we actually close those leads faster and then keep those leads longer? Or those customer,
AJV (07:14):
Can you pause right there? Cause I, I don’t wanna skip over this because I know this, but I imagine a lot of people listening are going lead process, leads process mm-hmm.
BR (07:42):
Yeah, absolutely. If you think about an individual and their desire to purchase, they go through all kinds of different phases. They go through some research phases, they go through some qualification phases of are you the right organization, brand, individual that I want to do business with? And then they move into the purchasing process, the procurement cycle. And so if you think about people as they’re introduced to your brand, those people are gonna be some semblance of a lead. They might be the marketing qualified lead. They might have raised their hand and say, Hey, I want to talk to you. I’m interested in your services. We might move them into what we call a sales qualified lead. Then they go into the deal kind of discussion. And those are where we start to understand opportunities. Close one close loss. So like in my world, it usually goes something like a lead to a marketing qualified lead to a sales qualified lead to an opportunity to close one close lost in that situation. And a lot of times we’ll try to move ’em straight from lead into they didn’t close with us. And that is where people start to get frustrated and say, my lead gen isn’t working. And the reality is, it’s not that it’s not working, it’s just that, that we’re missing like three steps in the middle there and we’re wasting a whole bunch of time in that process.
AJV (09:01):
I think that’s most people’s challenge in general is they’re talking to a bunch of people who are never going to buy from them, correct? Right. And so we do something, and I’ll talk about that in a second to help qualify leads, but any best practices and going, all right, you’ve got a lead mm-hmm.
BR (09:27):
A hundred percent. We just worked with an organization on this and, and I should caveat, every organization’s gonna be slightly different, right? So take these examples with a grain of salt. But if you think about your ideal customer a lot of people call that their icp, some people call it their avatar, some people call it their personas. It’s all the same thing. But if you think about who that individual is, what that business is, revenue size, people size, geographic regions, right? There’s probably some common denominators across all of these ideal client profiles that you have. So when you’re thinking about lead captures, and when I say lead capture, that can be online chat, that can be a phone call, that can be a form fill, that can be a gated download, right? There’s so many lead captures. It’s trying to find what are those least common denominators that apply across all your ideal client profiles.
BR (10:18):
And I’ll take revenue as an example, add that question somehow, some way into your lead capture so that you can immediately start to kind of distill down good leads from junk leads from, Hey, these are referral leads that I need to pass out to a partner. So quite simply, if somebody comes in, fills out a form and says, Hey, I’m pre-revenue, maybe that is your sandbox, and that’s what you focus in. So now you know that’s a qualified lead if pre-revenue is not your sandbox or your ideal client profile, you know, to push them to a different resource, right? And so it helps, it’s it’s little tips and tricks like that along the leads process that help hone in your focus to your point and, and saves you time from not talking to individuals that are never gonna do business with you or focusing all of your time on individuals that you truly do have an opportunity to impact. So that’s just a quick example right there.
AJV (11:17):
No, I think that’s really good. And it’s like, you know, a part of I think why this process is really so important for all, especially if you’re selling any sort of high dollar ticket offering. So anything more than a couple of hundred bucks would qualify as a high dollar ticket offering where if somebody can’t click a button and go, I’m gonna buy that, and they’re gonna require conversation, you gotta have some sort of lead qualifying process. And so you know, a form fill, it could be a simple form. We use an application, so we have like a formal application and we went through this process of trial and error which, you know, highs and lows of that. But we recently just got it super tight. So, and I, I would love for you to share some, you know, experiences of what you’ve seen that works on applications and forms and, you know, and one of the things that we discovered, and I I’ve got two comments here that I’d love your insight on for the benefit of everyone who’s listening is one length of forms, length of applications, because we’re so data heavy when we launched our initial application, which was two years ago, so we’ve learned a lot, we’ve come a long way.
AJV (12:27):
It was a 13 minute long application and initially we convinced ourselves that it was like, well, if they’re gonna stick around that long, then they’re super qualified. And what we were finding is about we were getting about a 55% application completion rate, then six months ago we did like a whole revamp of all of our things and reevaluated everything as a more mature place in our business and said, 13 minutes, gosh, why is anyone filling this out? And we reduced it to three minutes. And so now we can fill out this application, it’s about seven questions, three minutes or less, and now we’re at 94% application completion. And that’s a major thing of just going, I wish somebody would’ve said, you’re out of your mind who has 13 minutes to answer a bunch of questions for a stranger so that they can get on a call with a stranger.
AJV (13:25):
And so some best practices around stuff like that I think would be so helpful of what’s a good link, what questions you should ask. Anything like that would be so helpful as we talk about this leads process. And then the second thing I wanna make sure you hit on is you mentioned this is revenue. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (14:09):
They were really nice and said, but hey, I’m not gonna fill out this application, so I guess I’m never gonna get a call. And so then I was like, well, here’s the direct Kaley link. I’d like for you to schedule a call so you can tell us why not. Because it’s so short and it was so fascinating and the, I thought it was a really interesting thing of, and we’re getting like a 94% completion rate, so it’s a very few people who aren’t completing it, but is there a another route for the people are going, Hey, it’s like, I don’t wanna fill out your application. So it got me wondering what question did they get to that made them go? And most of it is income or revenue. And so it’s kind of like rero. And so when we look at the dropout on our forms, our applications, most of them drop out when we start asking any sort of financially related questions because now pretty educated consumer, they’re going, oh no, I’m getting qualified, right?
AJV (15:07):
It’s good, bad and different, whatever it is. But I think it’s important. It’s like there’s limited resources for all companies to some degree. And so thoughts around all these things, what are the good questions? Dropout rates, questions around money, if you’ve seen any trends or best practices. And then in general, for the very few, now again, I’ve only had one email ever who have said, I won’t fill out your application, so I guess I’m not gonna get a call. But also just any thoughts around that for maybe someone who does have a very sophisticated, busy time limited customer profile where they’re just like, they’re not likely going to fill it out. Any suggestions around that? So I know that’s loaded and that’s a lot.
BR (15:49):
That’s fair. It’s fair. And, and I would caveat with, with this statement, there’s always gonna be exceptions to the rule. So you wanna solve for the 80 to 90%, right? There’s gonna be people that fall outside of that, which it sounds like that individual might have. And if that individual turned into a great customer of yours, that’s when you use that example as how should we look at this onboarding experience a little bit differently because we might be missing out on others. So that’s just a, a little pin in that one. But in terms of length, we stick to the rule of thumb, like if it’s a form, less is more. The, the old kind of rule of thumb was six fields or less to get those to get those leads in the door. Now there’s new technologies out there. I just, I was looking at one the other day, clear bit if anybody has looked into that, where it can allow you to accept even less fields and pulls back all the information by looking at aggregate sites like LinkedIn, crunch Base, all that kind of stuff.
BR (16:48):
So we stick to the rule of thumb of less is more, what is the most pertinent information that we’re looking for in that first touch experience? And that might be some qualification questions. Then as time goes on, you can employ something that’s called progressive forms. So as they come back, now that you know that you know their name, you know their email address, you’ve set a little cookie on their computer without them knowing it sounds horrible, but that’s just the way the world works. Now, you can ask them slightly different questions and you can start to build out that customer profile over time without overwhelming them right out of the gate. I think you bring up something that’s really interesting. The more work you ask someone else to do, the less likely they are to become a customer of yours. So it is how do you take the friction out of that experience?
BR (17:36):
And that is less is more. And when they fill something out, you wanna make sure that there’s a value add on the other side that’s worth it for them to give you some of that information. I think you, you also bring up a great point. Anything around budgets or dollars on the first date is dicey, right? It’s like as soon as you ask the budget question, you’ve now skipped to the third date and that person is not ready for that situation. So revenue is an easier thing to ask than, what’s your marketing budget? What’s your sales budget? What do you expect to purchase? Another one would be timeline. What’s your timeline on this? Like if you’re looking to transform who you are as an individual, what’s your timeline? Like sense of urgency? So there are, there are less riskier questions to ask. It could be, how large is your company?
BR (18:29):
Is it zero to 10 people? 10 to 20? I get asked that question all the time when I’m signing up for a service. So that feels like that’s just a default one. So there certainly are some riskier questions, budget and revenue, and there’s some lighter questions like size, industry perhaps urgency, timelines, items like that. But we really do stick to this concept of less is more. And that is sometimes a fight with, with a client. And I say a fight, but it’s, it is a good argument to have because again, there’s always gonna be exceptions to the rule. So like if you have a very in depth application where you need to know information, well, maybe that’s not the first step. Maybe that is the second step. But the first step is we’re warming them up to, hey, now that you’ve filled this out, here’s how our process unfolds.
BR (19:18):
And we explain that before they’re just launched into that experience. You mentioned something quite beautiful, which is analytics around every single one of those questions. And so you can take the subjectivity out of the mix by saying, Hey, they made it to question eight, but on question nine, that’s where we’re seeing the biggest drop off. Why is that? And so now you can start to ask some introspective questions of, is it the question? That’s the first thing we would change is let’s just change the question, see if they get past eight. Now, if they don’t, then now we’re dealing with length and time invested versus value received. And so those are really important concepts, especially on a first touch conversion. Because those are the ones you want to make super, super easy for that individual to get hooked into that. Now you can nurture some of those, those harder or more time intensive asks down the road. I don’t know if I answered any of your questions,
AJV (20:15):
BR (20:43):
It does
AJV (20:44):
To be easy. And so one other quick question on this because I think this is really good. I wrote down is like clearly less is more, but you said six fields or less mm-hmm.
AJV (21:34):
So that we can try some phone outreach, right? Cause you, you we’re interested enough to fill out this form, we want a little bit more. So I’m curious around any data around what’s it like between just an email, first name and email, first name, last name, email, add in phone number. Like what are the potential drop off opportunities of getting people to fill out your forms for people who are going, all right, I need to start collecting emails, I need to start doing something, but what’s the bare minimum and what should I really be asking for?
BR (22:05):
Totally. And so this is where we, in our minds, this is where it draws directly back to the leads process. So you just mentioned there’s, there’s multiple different ways for an individual to fill out a form diff varying links, right? For entry points into bbg. And so in that situation, what I heard is we’ve got some marketing qualified forms, we’ve got some sales qualified forms. So obviously the ones where people are raising their hand and saying, Hey, I want to talk to you. Those are gonna be some forms that have some additional fields because we need to make sure that we’re the right fit. But they’re willing to do it because they’ve already researched your brand, they’ve looked at your material enough, they’ve seen you speak, whatever it might be, and now they really do want to do business with you. So they’re willing to go the extra mile.
BR (22:52):
Some of those lighter forms are gonna be more on the leads or marketing qualified leads to where I’m just signing up for your email newsletter. Like, I just wanna see some content from you. And those are the individuals that quite honestly, we are probably wasting our time talking to right now. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (24:22):
No, I think that’s really important and insightful for people who are figuring out this digital part of their business in terms of lead generation of going, you gotta have marketing forms and then there’s sales forms and think about those as two completely different things. And on a sales form, you likely want your phone number, right? It’s like
BR (24:43):
A hundred percent like
AJV (24:44):
You, but I think those are just, those are so simple. Often they get bypassed and they’re like, oh, I only need one form on my website. It’s like, not really.
BR (24:55):
No, no, no, no. You
AJV (24:56):
Kinda have multiple points of entry. Some are just for marketing and I love that. Just a very distinction of what are your marketing forms where you’re just trying to get their emails for nurture and then what are your sales forms where it’s like, no, like there’s an opportunity here. We’re going to talk to you, we’re gonna offer a call. Right?
BR (25:12):
That’s exactly right. And, and honestly like we will even choose channels matched to forms. So like if we’re spending dollars, so paid advertising, we wanna drive a little bit higher to that SQL side of the house. Because at the end of the day, what the organization is looking for is revenue growth. And they don’t really care as much about the leads coming in the door. They really care about close one opportunities. And so when we’re spending dollars with Google or Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, whatever the channel is, that is when we’re driving more qualified forms, going to very specific landing pages away from the marketing side of the house, more on the organic side, so social seo, search items like that, even email marketing, that is when we start to drive a little bit more of that marketing side of the forms, knowing that we’re gonna nurture them over a longer period of time. So that’s it, it’s, again, there’s exceptions to all of these rules, right? But like, just by default, that’s how we think about it until we get into conversations and unpack something and we, we say, oh, okay, well we need to do something a little bit different here because of this one, one specific thing in this client’s business. So
AJV (26:26):
Yeah, I think that’s really, I think that’s really good. And if for all of you out there, here going, what is he talking about with all these words? So sql, sales qualified lead, right? So paid media, paid traffic, make sure you’re collecting more data because it needs to lead to revenue for your return on investment. This is why I wanted you to come on the show. It’s like you are talking about a really advanced process here with like really creating the dig digital infrastructure for a thriving sales business in a marketing business. And this is a lot of work, right? This is not for the faint of heart.
BR (27:00):
It is. It is. And it, it’s, it’s, it is a process that you can certainly crawl, walk, run into and one that, to your point, we’re saying a lot of acronyms, right? We’re a bunch of geeks that found our cool doing what we’re doing, and we’ve, this is, this is our world, right? And so often and I talking to somebody that is like, what the heck are you talking about? So thank you for breaking that down. And you can certainly start very, very small and grow it over time into, into the behemoth that you know, you want it to become.
AJV (27:32):
That’s good. So, okay, so now we’ve got leads, right? Yeah. Let’s say, okay, now we’ve got leads. So give us some best practices, some highlights of now how do we make this leads process the most efficient and effective that it can be to go, all right, leads in the door, now they’re a customer.
BR (27:50):
Yes. So a lot of times there’s like this magic handoff point of lead came in the door, we’ve qualified that lead and now we’re handing it over to sales. And we talked a little bit about this at the beginning of this conversation. And you know, if you think about any organization, it can be one person in the organization or it can be 5,000 or more people in the organization. Every organization has got some concept of marketing, sales and operations. It can be the solo entrepreneur that’s doing all three that they don’t even know they’re doing all three. But the reality is that persists across every thriving business that exists. And so there is this handoff going from marketing to sales, and usually the, the clientele that we walk into, there is not a defined leads process, which creates some chaos in that situation.
BR (28:40):
And the chaos occurs when leads are coming in the door that are not ready to purchase or perhaps not the right clientele for us. And the sales team or the sales individual is flooding their time, dealing with individuals that are not ready to close. And it creates this frustration that starts to persist across the business. And so when I say we start with a leads process, it is not only to solve the understanding of who we should nurture to why we should nurture to those individuals and growing those leads in pipeline over time, but it’s also to make that handoff more effective going from marketing into sales. And that one experience can speed up the close rate of your pipeline immensely. I know it sounds crazy, but if you’re focused on the buyer that is ready to buy right now, you can close that individual in a day.
BR (29:31):
If you’re focused on the buyer that isn’t gonna buy from you for six months, you’re gonna be spinning your wheels. And so that is a huge element right there. Then you can start to do things very uniquely. Like we’ve all been in this situation where we’ve been part of sales sequences where you get those 13 emails, those 10 emails that are like, you know, they’ve got the bulleted list and then the final one is you either are stuck under a washing machine or you just don’t want to talk to me, right? Like they’re getting more and more and more creative, right? And so one of the things that we have started to see is this power of CRM technologies, right? Whether you’re using a Salesforce or an active campaign or a Dynamics or a HubSpot or something else, right? But being able to track engagement of individuals in your pipeline is hugely important.
BR (30:25):
And the most simple is, Hey, I just sent an email from my Outlook, you know, email program or from G Suite, I need, did the person ghost me? Did they not, did they not see my email? Why aren’t they picking up my phone call? Having insight into when somebody opened or clicked on something or engaged with a piece of content so you can time your sales follow up right? There is also very important. I have found over my tenure that sales is around timing, having good timing, being able to build relationships, but you gotta meet somebody where they are when they’re ready for that purchase cycle. And so from a sales enablement, it is the one to one emails. I have never really found much success with sales sequences. I know others have, and I’m still trying to unpack why that is and why I haven’t been able to do it well.
BR (31:21):
But the reality is, if you can give a sales team good leads coming in that are ready to purchase, that speeds up that process. And if you can equip that sales team with some technology around understanding engagement of content, of email reads, opens, document reads opens, it equips that sales team to time their follow ups a little bit more effectively and close those deals faster. And so we see, this is crazy, but we have seen when the marketing to sales handoff is perfected, that close rate speeds up by some crazy number like 65 to 70%. It is insane when the synergy is happening between those two pillars in the business.
AJV (32:05):
So what is the one thing or one of the top things that you can do to really better improve that synergy from marketing to sales?
BR (32:16):
So I know I’m a broken record right now, but it is working with the seal sales team to understand the leads process. And, and it it, it is, it’s crazy. But like, if you can bring the sales individual or team or think about it because you’re also the salesperson, why are these sales closing? Why are these sales not closing? You’re gonna pick up, up on patterns that are carrying from one deal to the next, from one customer to the next. And there might be one pattern in your business. There might be 20 patterns in your business, but you can design the leads process to cater to the sales team. So one of the first things we do is we ask, what’s a lead to you? Like, what makes a lead a lead? And you know, you’ll hear conversations around, well, it’s it’s this individual, it’s the owner of the business.
BR (33:07):
They’re this age, you know, it’s this size of an organization. We’re like, cool, cool, cool, cool. All right, let’s talk about your customers. Why did they become a customer? All right, that’s a good story. Why did this customer become a customer? And we start to unpack that and you start to see patterns. And those patterns are gonna be demographic patterns. They’re gonna be behavioral patterns that now you can gain that system and design an entire marketing program to feed those type of leads to the sales team and take everything else and put it over on the sideline and nurture to those individuals over time trying to get them into this side of the house. And so it really is a coordinated effort. I, I am a firm believer that marketing’s job is to serve up sales leads. Like that is marketing’s job 1 0 1. And yes, it is look, tone, feel, it is brand awareness.
BR (34:00):
It is credibility of the brand. It’s all those things, right? Like we, we have to do that. Like that’s just default stuff that we have to go do. But our true job, the job of are we gonna be fired or not fired? Are we gonna be successful or not successful? Is how many leads did we deliver to a sales team that actually closed? And that is why we start with, let’s talk to the sales team, let’s understand the customers, what are good, what are not good, and how do we get more of the good to you? And that’s where we, that’s where we start.
AJV (34:30):
I think that is so incredibly important for anyone listening to just take a pulse on for a second is the best research, the best data you actually already have access to. It’s your clients. That’s right. It’s your customers. I think it’s so easy to get caught up in gotta have the crm, gotta have this, gotta have that. And it’s like we overlook the obvious, which is I need to take a good look at who has purchased from me, why did they purchase? And how do I find more people just like them?
BR (35:06):
You are spot on. Spot on. And, and honestly, the first time we engage, when we find out that somebody doesn’t have a leads process, we wanna see the last two years of customer data. And, and I say customer data, they’re like, what does that mean? I’m like, I just need to see accounts and I need to talk to an accounts person or a salesperson and understand why some of these individuals closed or d or or why they do business with you. So you are spot on because the historical context of that is what you, is the easiest, most impactful thing that you can move forward in the quickest clip. Versus trying to say, all right, let’s go spin up a search campaign, let’s go spin up a new xyz. It’s like, yes, you can go do that, but you should go do this thing first cuz you’re gonna make more money quicker doing that.
AJV (35:54):
Yeah, I think this is really, I think this is just really important for everyone who is going, well, I don’t really have money to go do X, Y, and Z. And it’s like, yeah, but you do have some time to talk to your customers to really focus in on where did you come from? Why were you attracted, why do you buy? And how can I replicate that process? Even if it’s on a very small scale. It’s like how do I replicate that until it’s a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger? You don’t have to have tons and tons of automation to do some of the basics, which is back to you gotta know who your ideal client is and you gotta get really specific on what made them buy, what attracted them. And it’s like, even as you were talking, I was thinking about in my head like, what are the commonalities that we see, the trends that we see in our sales pipeline?
AJV (36:41):
And you know, this is, you know, we consider ourselves sales professionals way before we consider ourselves marketers. Mm-Hmm.
BR (38:02):
It’s so true. It’s so true. And, and even like if you’re thinking about lead captures, like you just said it right there, form fills, right? Somebody’s ready to move on it. So if you don’t have somebody looking at the forms all day long, every day, you might miss that opportunity. And if that is not a possibility for you, that’s when you might step into something like live chat. Cuz it forces the conversation a little bit differently. A click to call forces the conversation a little bit differently. So again, it, it is assessing what your availability is, what your team makeup is, and what are gonna be the best conversion metrics or conversion, I’m sorry, technologies for you in specific circumstances, but you’re right, you’re absolutely right.
AJV (38:43):
Ok. Right. I have three questions and I’m watching the clock intently. I’ll try to make these quick so these can be rapid fire if you want. Do you think that there is an ideal CRM automation software out there in the market today?
BR (38:58):
Yeah, I am biased. I will say that we work with, we work with them all, but the one we prefer to work with is HubSpot. And, and I’ll tell you why and a very quick clip, it’s because it has the crm, it has all of the marketing automation, email, social, all of that stuff built into it and it has all of the sales enablement built into it as well as long as well as customer success. So the reason we like it is because it’s the self-contained system where you don’t have to spend a bunch of time, money or energy doing integrations from one system to the next. It’s all contained. The teams are all working out of it, operations, sales, customer success, marketing and it’s super intuitive for the customer. It’s like WordPress on steroids for a crm. So that’s the one we work with the most. Now we’re also used to working with Salesforce, which that is, that is a b fee tool. So good luck with that one. And then Dynamics as well as some others. So yeah.
AJV (39:57):
All right. So HubSpot is your personal favorite. Okay, the next question I had is for this like Legion and also the sales enablement process of like converting quicker, are you finding that most people are spending money on paid traffic or is it more organic?
BR (40:16):
So it’s been an interesting shift. It really has over this concept of the deprecation of third party cookies compliance, which would be the gdpr the ccpa, all the regulatory stuff that we are now bound to as marketers. I don’t know that I’ve necessarily seen a shift. I have seen, well I haven’t seen a shift per se from paid media to organic, but what I have seen is an, an acceleration of using that historical data and building your own customer list or email marketing list and using that to push out content much more than I have seen going after similar audiences, custom audiences and items like that. So I guess after saying that, yes I have seen a shift going back towards organic moving a little bit away from paid media. Paid media is kind of a dicey thing right now in the sense of you have to have a very strong content game to be really, really effective from a paid media standpoint. So
AJV (41:18):
Yeah, I think that’s wise. And again, I ask because we’re not paid media users, we’ve haven’t had to be, and it’s like we do a little here and we do a little there, but it’s like, it’s not really our thing and it’s, I would prefer it not to be
BR (41:56):
That? Yeah, so subject lines and preview techs are, are gonna be very important. Also, I would suggest if you’ve got a program, most of ’em have it like I would think Constant Contact MailChimps of the world. Of course any of these more CRM heavy type technologies have this concept of AB testing, which is basically send out, you do two variations of it, send it out and it will pick the ones that’s the most top performing and send that one to the rest of your audience. It sounds like used to be AB testing was this concept that people are like, what? I’m gonna pay you a lot of money for that. That sounds awesome. Now anybody can do it. Quite honestly, now what we talk about internally is subject lines be outlandish. Like think of what are more aggressive things that are just gonna get somebody to be like, what? And do a double take on that’s what we want. If it’s an event and you’re saying something like, Hey, come to my event, like that’s not gonna work at all. Like you’ve got exactly what you’re talking about. Like give the best first, put that thing in the subject line and preview text and be a little bit outlandish. You can always pull it back, but start aggressive, see how that looks and then pull it back from there. That’s what’s
AJV (43:12):
That you a little bit, the more outlandish, the more people are going, what’s in here? What is this? What is this about?
BR (43:17):
It’s a hook. Yes. Yeah. Like we’ve pushed out some wild subject lines and I’m like, I’m gonna get in trouble for this
AJV (43:30):
I think that’s awesome. You know, it’s interesting, again, as I’m just like, as you’re talking thinking through like what, what are some of the things that we’re doing? Many things are just the process of trial and error, but the one subject line in our sales pipeline that gets the most clicks and the most replies is one that is called Meet your Chief Strategy Officer. And it’s been so interesting that out of all the ones that one is the one that people are like, what is who, who is it and what, what do they do for me? Yeah, but it’s your chief strategy officer and it’s like just you got, but again, you only know what to use once you really know who your ideal client is.
BR (44:13):
That that is true. That is absolutely true. And I would highly recommend using some tools that allow you to do some AB testing and there’s plenty of, of, of very cost effective tools out there. But I love that because it just leaves you wanting more. Like what do you mean meet my chief strategy officer? And so you’re looking for a hook, that’s all you’re looking for in a subject line.
AJV (44:34):
Love it. Okay. we only have like three minutes left but I wanna make sure we get to touch on lifetime value just a little bit. So what are some ways that we can help grow this, increase this, give us some, give us what you got, what are the I
BR (44:49):
Love it. So the number one thing that I see where customers start to churn or drop off is by lack of communication. And we kind of talked about it a little bit with the application process, right? Like if you throw somebody into something where they have zero familiarity with the odds of them bugging out are gonna get increasingly higher as those experience start to unfold. So what we have seen is when we close one a deal, now let’s, let’s start up some internal communication. Let’s make sure the teams are aware that hey, we just, we got a new customer, we got a new client, whatever we want to call them, new member whatever that is. But then there is a series of marketing nurtures and funnels that now need to go out to that newly added customer or client, kind of giving them an idea of what they can expect over the next couple of days, next couple of weeks, months, whatever that looks like in your process.
BR (45:42):
But we want to foreshadow what the delivery is before the delivery happens, right? And the more communication that we can provide to that individual that feels personal, makes them have an unbelievable experience and people that have an unbelievable experience are gonna talk about it and they’re gonna stay with you for more stuff. And so as we give them that experience, now is our opportunity to introduce some upsell, some cross sell, some other opportunities. We don’t wanna do that right out of the gate cuz that’s just disingenuous and it kind of turns people off. But at the same time, communication, onboarding that client effectively foreshadowing the delivery before the delivery happens. I mean, it’s the simple things in life that can trip us up or make the difference. Like I will tell you in our business at Snapshot, the the first agency that we started it was simply answering the phones.
BR (46:39):
Answering the phones, which is a simple thing. Created an experience that allow clients to come back to us. So it just, communication is everything. Your products are probably awesome, your service is probably awesome. The thing that creates issues in everybody’s world is communication. And so solving that through the customer experience creates happy customers. Happy customers stay with you for a much, much longer period of time. Of course there’s other things you can do, right to extend the lifetime value, but that is where we start is how do we start to automate the onboarding experience for clients?
AJV (47:18):
Oh, that’s good. So alright, same kind of thing. I wanna do rapid fire, best practice for onboarding. Like what, what should happen during the onboarding?
BR (47:26):
So we ask the customer, do you like email, text message or phone call? So let’s dial it into their preference. And we’ve got systems in place that can handle all three of those. So if they’re not an email person and they’re a text message person, all of our communication needs to go through text until it can’t and then it goes through a different channel. So that, that’s where we start is curtailing it to the customer.
AJV (47:52):
Okay, love it. Again, back to the customer, you want good customer experience and you need to ask the customer what you want their, or what they want their experience to be. Mm-Hmm.
BR (48:20):
Late. It is, it is very true. I would tell you if, if once the delivery is fulfilled, like if it’s a product or if it’s on, if it’s an ongoing service, it’s much easier to upsell along that way. But if it is a, a finite, tangible thing, once that thing is in their hands, we might have missed that opportunity. So I usually look at it from the standpoint of just the same as a lead coming in the door to a sales getting closed. There’s, there’s, let’s call it 10 touch points. There’s more, there’s less, right? But once that deal is closed and the product is in hand, there should be touch points along that way. And so once you design what those touchpoints should be, you, it will become clear. This is where we want to introduce similar products, similar experiences, similar services. And what we have found is the more effective communication in that process. You don’t even have to bring it up. The customer brings it up to you and allows you to respond to it as more of a consultant than a salesperson. And when you can start to frame your mindset of sales is just trying to understand the problem that that person is faced with and you have put yourself in a position to offer them a solution, that’s what sales is. And so in that customer onboarding experience, there’s plenty of opportunities to do that as well.
AJV (49:44):
Love that. Okay watching the clock one last question around kind of like lifetime value. What do you think, other than communication and obviously having a good product or service, right? What do you think is the most important thing that companies can do today to increase the tenure of their customer staying with that company?
BR (50:06):
That, that’s a great question. So one of the, one of the big things that we’re constantly looking at, and this is why I don’t believe necessarily that marketing is what it used to be from a marketing, like just events, look, tone, feel, right, brand awareness, all of that. But innovation. So like if you have got a service or a product and you want to keep that customer for longer, you’ve gotta keep innovating that thing, whatever that thing is, and introducing new value. Some of that new value needs to be at a freemium model to keep them engaged. If they’re on a reoccurring revenue model for you, you need to bake that into your process or into your revenue matrix. Some of it is upsell’s opportunity, but I would think outside of communication and outside of building relationships with your customers, it is continuously innovating the products.
BR (51:01):
If you look at any kind of churn that you might be having, the churn is because the problem either is around communication or the person is just either done using your product, has gotten what they needed outta your product and doesn’t need it anymore. So how do you keep that need and that desire there? And that is through introducing new features new concepts, sister products, right? That extend, you know, your your main product even longer. So there’s, there’s things there, but I think in a rapid fire state, I would say innovating on your product,
AJV (51:35):
Ben, this is so good. Like this is so good. Y’all literally just got thousands of dollars of, of free digital marketing advice. And it’s like, I probably took a page and a half of notes and was like, here are three things that our sales and marketing department need to powwow on. This is for new beginners, this is for established companies, this is for companies who are scaling. This information is just so rich. So Ben, if people want to learn more about you and what you do at Movement, where should they go?
BR (52:07):
They should go to make mvmt.com/bbg.
AJV (52:13):
So make movement mvmt.com/bbg and I will put that in the show notes. Y’all check out Ben, his company, his team, they are so awesome. But then also if Ben other than searching you on YouTube or dance videos, if people want to find you and connect with you personally, where should they go?
BR (52:35):
I am avid on Instagram and LinkedIn, so come at me at at ben Rigsby. You’ll find me on both those channels.
AJV (52:45):
Ben. So awesome. Exceeded all expectations. Thank you so much for being so great. Thank and everyone else, stay tuned for the recap of this episode and we’ll catch you next time on the influential Personal brand. See you later, y’all.
Ep 358: How to Build a Bestselling Brand in the Christian Market with Annie F. Downs
RV (00:02):
Well, if you have listened to this show for any amount of time, you know that I am a hardcore Bible thump in Jesus freak. It’s true. We are at Vaden villa and our church that we go to in Nashville is called Crosspoint Church. I’ve been on the board there for several years and one of our teaching pastors and leaders of the church has been a friend of mine who I have admired from afar for years. We’ve gotten to know each other a little bit. Her name is Annie F Downs. That is our guest today. You’re going to hear from her. So she is a New York Times bestselling author. She speaks all over the country. She does sermons, she does Christian conferences, a couple business gigs every year. She has an Damazing podcast like the Lineup of People on her podcast.
RV (00:45):
Her podcast is called. That Sounds Fun. And she also has a podcast network called the That Sounds Fun Network of which one of our other one of our clients, Matthew West, who’s like I’ve got major, major man crush on Matthew West
AFD (01:25):
Rory. That was the kindest introduction. You could just make me cry sitting right here. Thank you very much.
RV (01:30):
Well, you’re awesome buddy. And then you also do weddings cuz we saw you at Chris and our, our, some of our best, best friends, Chris and Lexi got married and then we’re like, what
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Annie’s doing this? How did, wait, you know, that, how did this, how
RV (01:43):
Did this happen? So,
AFD (01:44):
Hey, that’s so fun. It’s such a gift. I got started the ordination process through Crosspoint a couple of years ago because two of my friends got engaged on the same weekend and they both asked me to do their weddings. And I was like I can’t do weddings. Let me make a call
RV (02:13):
So tell me a little bit about all the things you’re going on. So like, when you think of like Annie f Downs, just give us a lay of the landscape and, and you know, I think I share with you a little bit like there’s a lot of people who listen to this show. We, we haven’t talked much about how the, the church market and the faith market and just in spirituality conference, you know, in general. Yeah. so tell us like what makes up the landscape of everything, the moving parts of the N E F Downs Empire?
AFD (02:41):
Yeah. I think that’ll help for people to kind of get a picture of what the businesses look like because we are not a ministry, we are a business. Got it. I get to do ministry work, I get to do work that is faith-based, but we want to run really successful businesses. Got it. And I think there’s a different responsibility and a different expectation when someone thinks you’re running a ministry than a business. Maybe it’s just in my own brain. Sure. And so I’m like, oh no, I wanna run a really good business.
AFD (03:24):
And so it’s called Downs Books Incorporated. Inside of Downs Books is all the writing I do. Okay. All the speaking I do. And that, that sounds fun. Podcast and the, let’s read the Gospels podcast. So everything I make and everything my team makes is under the Downs Books co company. Got it. What is also in our office is my manager Kelly Haywood has K c h entertainment here too. So she has, I have five employees at Downs Books. She has four that help kind of run the high level things, right. Like they, when we launched the, let’s read the Gospels podcast, they’re the ones figuring out how do we do the website and how do we do the graphics and how do we, so they’re kind of the behind the scenes machine for a lot of what we do. They do what you hear music managers do or managers for people on tv. It’s, it’s the same relationship. It’s a management relationship.
RV (04:16):
Interesting.
AFD (04:16):
And then across the hall, is that, that sounds fun. Network, a podcast network for our friends listening who don’t know, it really works just like a TV network where all the shows have something in common, but they’re different. And what a network a allows is community and income because we also have a sales team that helps get advertising. So we have 17 shows on the network, although that sounds fun. Network. And we have five employees over there as well. And so we’re helping these 17 shows to help them book guests. Sometimes we help them meet each other so they can be on each other’s shows. We help them find ad partners that are really good fits for their content and their audience. And so that’s what we, we get to do. I’m, I’m a co co-owner and a founder of the Network. Okay. Both of my shows are on the network, but I’m not in the, like, daily running of that company.
RV (05:08):
Got it. Got it. Yeah, that’s really interesting. I didn’t even know that you had that. So Yes. So,
AFD (05:15):
And then I also teach at Crosspoints. I’m also on the T team. That’s
RV (05:18):
And you do weddings. Yeah.
AFD (05:19):
And I do weddings.
RV (05:20):
Right, right. Occasionally. Occasionally. That’s the other part. For close, for close friends. That’s right. And then, so, so let’s talk. So let’s go to Downs Books. Okay. And let’s talk, let’s talk in there. Cause that sounds like that’s sort of the core of like where you’re spending’s righting your, your time. Yes. how did you start, like, and, and how did you make your first dollars? Right? Like Yeah. Go all the way back to the beginning and like mm-hmm.
AFD (05:52):
Yeah. You know what you’re gonna love Roy, I think I may have told you this in our real life before, but I, when my fourth book released, I also applied to teach at the parent teacher store in Green Hills because I didn’t have enough money to pay my assistant. Wow. So, so it has been, I mean, it is not one of those like, and your listeners and friends probably know, like, it’s not one of those, like when you get your book deal, there you go. It’s like, no, the, if your book deal is, if your book’s coming out in a year and you get a $10,000 book deal, I’m just making an easy number. I mean, you’re, after you pay your agent, which you should have an agent and you should pay your agent once they get their percent. And once you pay taxes, you’ve made $5,000 in a year.
RV (06:59):
AFD (07:01):
Then I was like, that
RV (07:01):
Was your first book. That was your first book.
AFD (07:02):
Yes. Yes. Okay. And I thought, this isn’t working. And you know, you, you don’t pay your agent. You the, you know, the agent takes a percent. And so at this point I’m saying to my agent, you’re not making any money and I’m not getting the right books. So what are we doing? So, so we made, I made no money through this until a couple of years later. I mean, I was writing I was writing like for like one of those Groupon kind of websites. Okay. I was writing ads for them. So I was making like a, a small income off of that.
RV (07:37):
But not like your con not your content. You were just doing copywriting for
AFD (07:41):
Something? No, no, no. I did copywriting for probably three years behind the scenes while in front of the scenes. I’m trying to author and travel and speak. Yeah. My book does get picked up by a publisher in 2011. After I self-publish it, I self-publish it. Cause I was like, at this point I’ve written the book. I have an audience of a couple of thousand people who have been with me in this journey. I just want a book that my grandkids can have on their bookshelf that my, that their grandmother wrote one time. Right?
RV (08:09):
Yeah.
AFD (08:10):
When we put it on Amazon in the first quarter, I put it up in quarter four because I wanted to hit holidays. Okay. And it was for teen girls. And we sold about 2,500 in that quarter.
RV (08:21):
Wow.
AFD (08:22):
And when that happened, a publisher said, I’m sorry, we said no to that. We didn’t know you would sell the books. Right. And you sell the books. And so they came back, Zondervan signed me for a book deal in the winter of 11. And the book came out in August of 2012. And my first book deal, my advance was $7,000.
RV (08:45):
Nice.
AFD (08:47):
So I
RV (08:48):
Filling in to go.
AFD (08:49):
Yeah. I seriously thought, here we go.
RV (08:52):
So like that was at least, I can’t believe it, over the course of three or four years. Years, that’s like 65 cents an hour. I mean, some somewhere. It was wild. Somewhere in there.
AFD (08:59):
Yeah. Yes, yes. So what ends up happening though is, and I don’t know this behind the scenes, what I know is I’ve gotten a book deal offer and then I get a phone call from the publisher that says, Hey, would you like to travel and speak on a Teen girl tour? And it’s every other weekend for the school year. And I thought, well, yeah, the here’s I, I thought I wasn’t gonna get to do this anymore. And suddenly I see this job for the next year. And what had happened, Rory, is the publisher had made a deal with a record label here in town that had point of grace on it, the word word record label. And it was a conference called Girls of Grace that was for teen girls. Huh. And the sponsorship deal included a speaking spot. So Zondervan was a sponsor of the tour. Ah. The sponsorship included a bunk on a bus and a 20 minute slot. And I was the only new author that lived in Nashville. Wow. And so I was the only one who could bus out
RV (10:00):
AFD (10:03):
That’s right. I’ll take it. Cause built So was your cause built the whole thing.
RV (10:06):
So that wasn’t until 2013 then?
AFD (10:08):
Yes, 2012 and 2013. The book came out in ap August of 12. And the tour started then. And so what I would do in every city, Rory, is I, we would get there on a Friday. I would have most of Friday free, cuz the conference was on Saturday. So we bused out at midnight on Thursday would go to Columbus, Ohio. Yep. Friday I rent a car or get in an Uber and I drive to every bookstore that will look me in the face and I say, Hey, I’m Annie F Downs, do you have my new book? And if they did, I would sign ’em. And if they didn’t, I would ask them to carry it. So I’d go to three or four bookstores in every city on our first day in the city. The second day when we had our event. When I’m speaking, what’s also happening is all these youth group leaders are there. And so I’m, I have a, this is very in line with what you teach us to do. I have a thing on the screen that I say, Hey, if you want a 30 day devotional for free, here’s all you gotta do. Hit the do this QR code or whatever. And so what ends
RV (11:02):
Up happen, it wasn’t QR codes back then, I don’t think, think QR codes didn’t become popular until Covid. That’s what’re right. Covid left behind in its wake was QR codes for the work. Exactly.
AFD (11:10):
Right. I think it was probably just an a web address. Yeah. I think they just could take a picture of that, of a place on my website. And so what that, what that tour ended up doing is giving me a bunch of emails of teen girls and their leaders Wow. And a bunch of youth pastors who said, can I want her to come back and speak to our youth group or to our college ministry or to our women. So I had it for, and I ended up being on that tour for two years. Wow. So I was in front of thousands and thousands of leaders who then bring in speakers to their own
RV (11:40):
Church. Got it. Okay. And so, and so at that point you’re collecting email addresses, which good on you. Like that’s a game changer to ca to capture all that. But it’s not like millions of email addresses. It’s like no, no, no. A few thousand. You do that for a couple years, you got five or 10,000 emails maybe.
AFD (11:57):
Exactly. I pro I think we ended each year, I think we ended each year with five more. So I think the first year was about 5,000. Second year was about 10.
RV (12:04):
Okay. But now these people have seen you speak and so now they start calling you to come speak at their church. Yes.
AFD (12:11):
Yes. Interesting. So then they say, Hey, we saw you at Girls of Grace in Min Minneapolis. Our church is 30 minutes from there and we have a youth conference that has a thousand students. Will you come speak
RV (12:22):
Uhhuh
AFD (12:26):
Yes, I was paid. I feel like it was a couple of hundred dollars. It wasn’t very much and it was one bunk. So I also was my own merch person. Right. Which is very normal. This was, I was treated Yeah. Very well on this tour. That is, I mean, you know, there’s those big music tours like Winter Jam where you don’t get paid. You’re just glad to be there and you, what you get paid is how much merch you move. Right. Right. And so I, I had one bunk, so I set up my own merch table. I would train merch volunteers. I was counting in merch, I was counting out merch and and I got paid a couple hundred dollars.
RV (13:01):
I mean this is sounds more like a musician start. Like
AFD (13:04):
It totally is. And in fact, so much of what you see shaped in my career is because who we can watch here in town do this is musicians. And so my friends that are musicians, I was watching them and going, wait, you don’t do your own books at the end of an event? Who does that? Wait, you aren’t making this decision? Who does that? And so I really am, I do look as an artist, if you like, looked down from the sky at me and a country artist, we look very similar and how our businesses run versus if you look down me on mine and another author who has as many books out as me, doesn’t have the kind of team I have, doesn’t have the kind of processes I have cuz I look like a musician.
RV (13:46):
Interesting. So then, so, so then these youth leaders start calling and that’s, are you getting a thousand bucks to speak?
AFD (13:52):
No, I’m getting 500 bucks to speak and travel for two people.
RV (13:56):
Wow, okay. Yeah. So not a lot of money still going on.
AFD (14:01):
Right. So we are, that’s why, I mean it took, I put three teen books out 20 12, 20 13, 20 14. And then in 2015, my first adult non-fiction came out. That was a memoir called Let’s All Be Brave. And when that book came out is when I did not have the money to pay my assistant who, because I, I’m a big believer in like get some help before you can actually afford the help. Yeah. Like you be the hustler to make the money so that you can have help because mm-hmm.
RV (14:51):
Uhhuh
AFD (14:51):
RV (15:10):
Yep. And so then so then that book came out. So that was your fourth book. So now you’re starting to get some, some advances that are at least like, you know, more reasonable advance to kind of like build your career. Yes, yes. You have some royalties coming in
AFD (15:24):
Probably. That’s right. So the good news of taking small advances is you do usually get money on the backside. So I have 11 books out and I make money on the backside of nine of ’em. And so I’m getting mailbox money every quarter. We try to treat book money, like foundation money that we don’t touch unless we have to. So we just deposit that. What we’re actually trying to run our budget off of is speaking money and podcasting money. But the podcast didn’t start till 2014 and it didn’t start making money until 2017 probably.
RV (15:55):
Ah-Huh.
AFD (16:14):
That, that was a muddy season, as you can imagine, because I’m still getting these calls for teen girl conferences or for college conferences even. I am, at this point I’m 34 and I am way out of actually living life as a teenager or living with teenagers. And I’m mostly talking to 20 year olds cuz I’m at Crosspoint, I’m volunteering in the college ministry. So my time is spent with people in their mid twenties. So that transition was really hard. I, we had to work really closely with my booking agent and kind of be like, Hey, we, we can’t keep taking these, we have to start setting me up. So the transition looked like if a big church called and said, Hey, we’ve got $2,000. We’d love for Annie to come speak to our college women’s group and there’s 500 girls that’ll come great. Annie would be happy to do that. Could you do a luncheon the next day for the women? Yeah. And invite any women and it won’t cost you any extra, but Annie would love to talk for 20 minutes to women in your church or could she get a meeting with your women’s minister to talk about what y’all are doing for women’s ministry? So the the transition was, if you’re gonna pay me for what I’m known for, will you let me do for free what I’m trying to do?
RV (17:32):
Mm-Hmm.
AFD (17:36):
And so it was muddy though. It was not fun that we had to say nos. We didn’t wanna say we had to do things cheaper than I wanted to do, but I, and I also ended up changing publishers because it was really hard to not be considered the the new girl who wrote for teenagers when I was trying to be a peer with my friends who wrote for adults.
RV (17:56):
Right. Yep. And then so then you start speaking at women’s groups and then from there it’s just like you’re speaking and the spinoff starts to come and then you speak at That’s right. So, so what’s do you the like is there’s, they’re speaking at women’s groups and then they’re speaking at like is a women’s group, like a Christian, like a conference, is that primarily then
AFD (18:20):
Probably a conference? Yeah, that’s right. And a lot of churches do their own like women’s retreats and women’s conferences that are for whatever they are. You know, it could be a hundred women in a room or it could be 10,000 women that go to some of these. And the ones that, you know, one of the things that happens a lot is they will end up reading your book or, or going through a Bible study I’ve written and, and, but they don’t have the money to fly me or to bring my assistant or whatever. And so the opportunity is to go like, man, who in your community could do this? There’s people right there. Right. But the transition started happening where people would bring me in Saturday and say, will you stay and speak on Mother’s Day to our Sunday morning? And so then I started being able to, to get invitations that were not just female audiences but we’re men and women together. And that’s when I started doing more Sunday mornings.
RV (19:16):
Do people get paid to speak at a church on a Sunday?
AFD (19:19):
Sometimes, yeah. I mean if, if you are traveling and you’re leaving your normal life, yes. I think it’s, it’s considered an event. So a most ti Sundays, if I’m speaking somewhere else, there is some honorarium attached to it. For me with Crosspoint, that is not, that is not true. Only because that’s my, that is how I serve my local church and I only teach four or five times a year. And so it’s, it’s the way I get to give back to the church that gives me so much. And so there are exceptions to the rule, whereas with a conference, there is no exception for me. Like, if, if you can’t, if you can’t bring me in and and pay me to do my job, then I’m not the right fit for you. That means that God has somebody else for y’all. That’s a little bit different on Sunday mornings to me. I don’t do merch tables on Sunday mornings. There’s just some changes that are not rules that anybody else has to follow, but are rules that are for me that I’ve created that are like, nah, we’re not gonna sell books on a Sunday morning. I just don’t like the way that feels, so I don’t do that.
RV (20:21):
Got it. But so they might, and then, I mean I’m sure it varies, but like when you get, when you get into the Christian market, ultimately you have local churches doing program for their membership. Yes. And they might be bringing somebody in and they’re paying that speaker to come in or maybe doing like a rev share, like a ticket sale kind of a thing. Yes. Or you have conferences where it’s like a regional kind of lots of churches sort of promoting, there’s a promoter, either a church is hosting it and then you have speaking on Sundays and all of those can be paid things in the church world.
AFD (20:58):
Yes, that’s right. And the conferences, that’s, that’s exactly right. Those are the three options. You’re gonna do something local, you’re gonna do something community sized or you’re gonna do Sunday mornings.
RV (21:06):
Mm-Hmm.
AFD (21:20):
For some people it’s okay if it’s not for everybody. Yeah. I, it just, it is for me. Yeah.
RV (21:25):
Lots of, I mean lots of authors, lots of Christian authors, that’s what they kind of do. I feel like they do like a, a big church tour of the whole country and that’s, that’s part of how they sell their, they how
AFD (21:34):
They sell. Especially in July and August or June and July when pastors want some time off. I mean that’s why you see so many authors and pastors sharing their stages with other people is they want, they need some weeks off and understandably Uhhuh
RV (21:53):
Tell me about, so let’s talk about the podcast. So I’m b I’m Curious cuz that’s part of like, you have the, that sounds Fun network and then you also have your two, your two podcasts. Yep. So when do you start making money from that and how, how do you make money from the podcast and like, tell us about that a little
AFD (22:09):
Bit. Yeah, so it’s, it’s ad revenue, right? So it’s, it is the same as a TV show. It’s commercials and, and there are multiple ways to do it. There is what’s called a di, which is just a drop in where, where it’s not the voice of the host where it literally is a commercial. So you hear that a lot on some of the shows on other networks. I think Gimlet does it. It’s, it’s not good or bad, it just is. And where they’ll have a read that goes before you start listening to the show you’re listening to. So for me, what we do, we all add host Red Ads for my show and for the That Sounds Fun Network. We do host red ads. Those are the most genuine we believe for what we are making and, and they pay the most. And so for my show I started having advertising partners want to work with us about 2017.
AFD (22:58):
So my producer at the time, Chad Sna from Sound On Sound Off Music or Sound on Sound Off Productions, he had a friend who had done ad sales for a long time. So I hired him for a while, then I joined a network. It was not a great fit, but that’s was the next move is I joined a network. When I left that network is when my manager and I kind of went like, Hey, we can build a better thing than what I’m experiencing Hmm. As a podcaster. And so we got a sales team. So they work with ad partners, they work with like advertising companies that are kind of over multiple different companies that want to advertise. And so they, it literally is a, Hey Annie, I mean it happened this morning. Hey Annie, there’s a brand that wants to be on the podcast. Can they go ahead and send you an example of of their product and you can see if you like it and see if it’s something that you’d like to talk about. And that’s how we do.
RV (23:50):
So how, how does that, like how big of a pod, like how big does a podcast have to be before it can start advertising?
AFD (23:57):
That’s a great question. So it, depending on what kind of money you wanna make, you can start advertising with someone like Anchor that’s run through Spotify. You can do ads for Anchor starting immediately now. You’ll get paid if you have five listeners, you’ll get five pennies or something. You know, like, but there, there is a availability for anyone who starts a podcast to start making advertising money right away when you really make money that can pay for your production and actually help run, run your ministry, your company, your brand. We see that about 10,000 listeners in the first 10 weeks is when advertising partners are really interested in working with you in the
RV (24:38):
First, that’s the, that’s 10 weeks like each,
AFD (24:39):
That’s the number they look at episode. Yep. So you look at an episode that releases on January 1st, you’re gonna what the advertiser partner doesn’t they like the first week that matters to them, but what they actually look at is what’s the arc of the whole show? So how at the end, so when we look at stats every week, you, you know me Rory, I look at stats constantly. It’s like I
RV (24:58):
Love it. I did not know that about you.
AFD (24:59):
Oh you did? Oh listen,
RV (25:00):
I didn’t know that that
AFD (25:01):
Is about you. That is science. Like that will tell, we can say I think everybody loved that episode. Well no they didn’t, nobody listened. So we gotta look at the science. So I love the stats. So every Monday in our staff meeting we look at how did our shows do it one week just cuz we’re interested. But what we really go back and look at is the show that released 10 weeks ago, how many people have listened? And usually we have about double from one week to 10 weeks. So what, what what happens in one week happens again in week two through 10 of listenership. And so that’s what advertising partners look at. So when we’re looking at shows to add to the network that really want, that are hoping it’ll be a financial benefit to that show where the host is like, Hey, I need to make money off of this if I’m gonna put time in. Then we say man, well as soon as you get to 10 thousands when you’ll really start seeing ad partners be interested
RV (25:50):
And how much do they pay? Like how much does it cost? Let’s just use 10,000. Like let’s say it’s, yeah, let’s say you’re at 10,000, which means if I calculate you’re saying you release an episode, you get 5,000 downloads this week and then another 5,000 downloads over the next nine’s weeks’. That’s right On that on that episode. Yep. How do you price it and what do they like, what do they pay kind of thing?
AFD (26:11):
Well this is outta my expertise level because I don’t know any of that. What I know is we do CPM cost per million and, and I know that it actually varies based on the partner. So someone like a Thistle Farms who we really believe in and love and want to talk about, they may not have the same cost or same ability to pay for a show that, that a huge brand like Better Help does. And so we can work with Thistle Farms and say, Hey Annie loves y’all, so here are the, the five ad slots. This one is the one we will get to you at a price that works for your company, but we can’t give you this one because this one is double that cost or whatever. Right. And so, and each show is different. And so it really varies. Our sales team, we have two full-time sales team members here and that’s what they do constantly. And the other thing Roy, is they’re not just doing, do you wanna buy this show? They’re saying, do you wanna buy a year worth? And so that’s the bigger number that they’re looking at is can we find ad partners that believe in us? Like we believe in them enough to go, Hey, for a year let’s make a contract. Mm-Hmm.
RV (27:18):
Mm-Hmm.
AFD (27:29):
Watching. It’s per episode. Yeah. Because for example, let’s use Thistle Farms again because we love them. Everyone go shop at Thistle Farms. But if Thistle Farms, you know, if they they don’t actually care how we did this month, they care how we did on the show that they’re on. Right. And so they wanna look at the 10 weeks. It’s cool, you’ll see people do all time. We hit 2 million, we hit 3 million downloads. That’s awesome. We do it for the network, we celebrate with everyone and we celebrate on our show. But what advertising partners really care about. And so therefore what podcasters should really care about is how did each episode do after 10 weeks?
RV (28:01):
And and if you, let’s just say you have a show that does about 10,000 downloads per episode.
AFD (28:08):
Yeah.
RV (28:09):
In a year, like at a high level, how much revenue do you think one show like that? You know, oh boy,
AFD (28:15):
Give or I, I don’t wanna mess this up. I mean I bet if you’re doing weekly shows, I mean this is going to be a guess Rory for real. If you’re doing weekly shows at a 10,000 downloads and you do, let’s say you do 45 shows in a year cuz you take a couple off or whatever, I mean I bet you’re gonna make maybe a thousand bucks a show. I bet you’re making 800 to a thousand bucks a show. So, you know, four $40,000 maybe.
RV (28:42):
Okay,
AFD (28:43):
Interesting. I could be really off about, I think that’s about what, but you know, also the cost to make a show is about $500 per episode. Yes. If you’re hiring outside. And so that’s, that is a thing. People don’t factor. They wanna start a podcast and they want to make advertising money. Well, y you’re gonna be outta pocket for a little bit if you c if you don’t have the skills to make it sound good. Mm-Hmm.
RV (29:08):
You. Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting cuz we had, we had a podcast that had millions of downloads that we sold as part of when we sold our last company. But we’ve never run ads on our, the only ads we run on our show are for our services. Yeah. And so that’s, and that’s, you know, because we’re offering people free calls to learn about what we do. And that’s usually when you’re starting out, that’s gonna pay a lot, a lot more money Yes. Than you’ll make from advertisers until you get really, really big.
AFD (29:35):
Absolutely. And we still, I mean still on my show and on shows on the network, we use the opportunity when we have empty ad spots to talk about the products we make. That is a hundred. And one of the things on our network that we really believe in is the community part. And so one at a quarter you’re advertising for another podcast and it’s on the network mm-hmm.
RV (30:07):
Yeah, that’s really cool. I noticed that like Caleb is doing this now where they’ve got, they’ve got Caleb podcasts and you know, people are really doing this Interesting to see how it all happens. Well, yeah. So as we’re wrapping up, like, so tell us a little bit about what you’re working on. So I, I know Carlos Whitaker used to be really he used to be around Crosspoint a lot. I never really got to know him, but I know you, you obviously have your, your podcast. That sounds fun. You’ve got the books, but you and Carlos are teaming up on something exciting in 2023, right? Yeah.
AFD (30:40):
In June we’re going on tour together. It’s called the Here for You Tour. We just kind of wanted, he and I are good friends. We have a lot of the same audience, but also a lot of people who don’t know each other. And, and we thought, man, what we wanna do is let’s just go talk, let’s go meet up where our friends are already at and gathering. And so we’ve got about 12 cities we’re going to in June where we’re gonna get to show up and talk about Jesus and talk about what’s going on in culture and feature some local businesses. Like it’s kind of just gonna be a really fun hang night that we get to do. It’s really exciting. And the other thing we’re working on that I’m really proud of is the let’s read the Gospel’s podcast. And Roy, the idea really was like, what if there’s so many people who want to read the Bible in a year, but but don’t finish.
AFD (31:28):
Yeah. And so can we give some steps that would Enbridge people to a year? So we are gonna read Matthew, mark, Luke, John every month. And so people can start with on January one, February one, March one. And, and so the only commitment you’re making is a monthly commitment. We’re just gonna do it 12 times. So you can do it with us all 12 times or you can do it with us once, or you can do it with us in April. Or if you’ve never listened to Matthew, mark, Luke and Johnny, you don’t even know what they’re about. I’m gonna read the whole thing to you. And so, and
RV (31:56):
You’re reading it, you’re, it’s in your voice.
AFD (31:58):
It’s me. Yeah. We’re reading it 12 times man. It is an interesting year because we are really having to, it takes about 15 hours to read and so, and we have to do, so that’s two or three hours a week. So it’s really changing our rhythms next year. Cause I’m not doing any besides you, you’re my last outside conversation besides my shows until 2024. Nice. Wow. Because we just, my voice, we have to, if I’m gonna tour and travel and do a pot, do that sounds fun twice a week and read the gospels every month, that’s about all my voice can do. Yeah. So it’s changed my availability in a really interesting way. I’ll be very interested to see what happens. What happens when we focus like this next year.
RV (32:44):
Well, one thing that’ll be awesome. So, so we read the, we read the whole Bible this last year, which was the first time we ever made it through. Yeah. We’re in a, we’re in a family bible study. It’s the coolest thing is every Sunday from like three to seven, we found a Bible study. And the thing that that was a game changer was all the families pooled to buy babysitters. And so the kids go off with the babysitters and so then the family can actually like eat and do bible study. And it was, we read the whole Bible and the the thing, which was amazing, super power, powerful experience to read all the way through. But the thing that I’m most craving is you have to go so fast that we didn’t get to spend enough time in the gospels. And I’m like, man, I’m really, I’m really craving more time there in Matthew, mark, Luke and John. So that’s a really cool idea. That’s very, very, very, very powerful. Well Annie, where should people go? I got one last question for you, but before that, where do you want people to go if they wanna like learn more about you and connect up and see what you’re, what you’re up to?
AFD (33:42):
I, you know me Roy, I’m like embarrassingly easy to find. I’m just Annie F Downs everywhere. F is in fancy. So Annie f Downs will get you everything you need. Annie f Downs slash Gospels will get you access to all the resources we have to go along with the podcast. And then the here for You tour is here for you tour.com. So that’s where I’ll be all this year, all those places.
RV (34:02):
I love it. So my last question is just Annie, like thinking back, you know, let’s say somebody’s listening right now who, you know, maybe they are an aspiring author or maybe they’re an aspiring speaker, or maybe they’re in that like transition mode between like, I’m serving one audience, I’m doing one thing in my life, but I really want to be doing something else. Like, you know, those can be long dark seasons and, and Yeah. You know, those can be trying times. Like what would you, what would you say to that person if they’re listening right now?
AFD (34:30):
Yeah. You know, the thing I I, the only thing I would’ve regretted so far is if I would’ve quit. I have made mistakes along the way for sure. I don’t regret my mistakes. We had a, we’ve had some big ones that I’ve done and we have done some massive cleanup around it. I I don’t regret mistakes. I would’ve regretted quitting. And so that’s what I would say is don’t give up and get some people around you to help you because what they can help you do is not even decide whether to quit or not, but help you decide how do you pivot this thing so that it actually works for you. And so that it actually meets the needs that you believe the world has, that you are uniquely gifted to meet. And so ask, ask some, ask for some help and do not give up.
RV (35:13):
I love it. I love it. Well, we’ll link up to annie f downs.com. You can check out the tour, the shows. Thank you so much for such a transparent, open sharing, Annie, of just how all of this works and, and just hearing your story. It’s, it’s super encouraging and you know, we’re praying for you, my friend, and, and we wish you the best.
AFD (35:31):
I love you guys. I’m really glad to be friends with you and your wife, so I’m thankful for y’all and for the work you do, it matters to me.
Ep 356: Create Your Visual Identity in 30 Days or Less with Nadine Hanafi
AJV (00:02):
Hi everybody, this is AJ Vaden here, and welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand. I am here today with a one and the only Nadine and, and Nadine is a very close personal friend. She lives here in Nashville, so lucky that she moved here to Nashville from Morocco where she was born. Although she’s got dual citizenship now, she can call herself a true nashvillian. So I’m so lucky and fortunate that I get to share the same city with my dear friends but also a client of Nadine’s. And we met through mutual friends three or four years ago, and it’s like one of those phone calls when you meet someone and you’re like, I love you like this. Like I love you and I love you. That’s how I met Nadine for a friend bit. It’s like the very first time that we spoke, I was like, you’re amazing.
AJV (00:56):
And you guys are about to experience just how amazing she is with her very unique craft. And before I get her our little formal introduction, I just want to tell you why you need to stick around and listen to this particular episode. Because when you think about design and how you want your brand to look how you want it to feel how you want other people to experience it, I am here to tell you, you are most likely wrong. And we’ll tell you people that I recently made. Cause what most of us do is we look around and we go, I like this and I like this, and this is my favorite color and this is my favorite font here, put it together and make it look great. And then it comes back and you’re like, well, this doesn’t feel like me.
AJV (01:46):
And it’s because you have it all wrong. And if your brand doesn’t feel like you, it’s most likely because it’s not. And it’s because we’re making decisions on the exterior things around us, not based on really how we want or how our brand is meant to be. And so if you’re struggling with like, what is my brand and how do I want it to look like in terms of the visuals, this is an episode that you must listen to. The second thing that I think is really important is most people assume that having an expensive looking brand is expensive. And that’s not true. And that I think outside of Nadine’s incredible creative talents is making it affordable, is her next best specialty. And so we’re gonna talk a lot about that. So if you wanna look like a million dollar brand, you don’t have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to do it, specifically not in the beginning.
AJV (02:48):
And she’s gonna teach you and talk about how you can do that on what I would say balling on a low budget, right? So
AJV (03:37):
It’s going to blow your mind. But over the last 10 years, she has helped hundreds a clients from Suite execs, the Fortune 100 companies like Disney and Verizon to bestselling authors like our good friend Lori, harder from the Earner Happy podcast Sarah, she’s worked with Sarah Knight, she’s helped build beautiful slide decks for so many different Ted Talk presenters. I could go on and on and on
NH (04:20):
Well, thank you and thank you for having me. Thank you for that wonderful introduction. I have one correction to make that I was not born in Morocco, I was born in Minnesota of all places on a very cold winter day
AJV (04:57):
Before we do that, I think it’s worth giving people just a quick story about how you got into design, because it is not the traditional path. No, it’s not like you went to art school and like you came at this in a very different way, which I think is a part of your uniqueness. And what makes you so different is that this wasn’t something that you really came at for, like, this is what I’m gonna go to school for and this is what I’m gonna do in my life. It came by opposite. So why don’t you just give us a high level view of like, how did this ever even become a theme for you?
NH (05:30):
So I like to say that I am a designer who did not go to design school and does not know how to use any of the design tools.
NH (06:17):
And so I accidentally fell into design because my first and last corporate job,
NH (07:10):
I was like, mm-hmm the heck no, I closed it. I was like, I am not watching this. I am not getting through this training. And so I still needed to get some sort of formal training and design for this company. And so I just went through and found other courses inside lynn.com that taught me basics of design. And that was much more interesting to me. I could actually watch hours and hours of videos of, you know, how to do design. And what I figured out is I could take all of those design principles that I was learning and actually apply them using PowerPoint since it was the one and only design tool that I knew how to use at the time. And I basically hacked PowerPoint to make it do what I wanted it to do for me. And I started creating brochures for this company, obviously besides the slide deck that I was creating, which got better and better cause I got better at design, but also brochures, sales materials, one pagers.
NH (08:02):
I even created graphics for the website. Everything I created in PowerPoint. And in this process, one, I realized PowerPoint is an incredibly powerful tool. It can do not all the things that Photoshop can, but a lot of it and all, everything that you actually really need if you’re not a professional designer, creating these, you know, crazy designs. And the second thing I realized is I have probably a monetizable skill here,
AJV (08:56):
Of that. These were PowerPoint design, like we use PowerPoint designs that you created for every single one of our brochures, landing pages, you know, websites. It’s like you would never have an idea that these originated and PowerPoint, in fact, you should be like PowerPoint spokeswoman. This is,
NH (09:13):
I’m working on it. I am. So if anyone knows somebody who works at Microsoft
AJV (09:19):
Put in the universe,
NH (09:21):
I’m a spokeperson. Yes, absolutely. But
AJV (09:24):
I think it’s really amazing because what you have figured out is how to do something. And what I love about it, why I think it’s so cool is that with programs like InDesign or Photoshop for the end user, consumer like myself, it’s like I don’t know how to edit it or move something or update something. And so I’m trapped by whoever was the designer or finding someone else. And it’s like the best thing about you, the way that you’ve designed all these templates and all of these tools for our company at Brain Builders Group is that it’s like I actually do know how to use PowerPoint most people, so I can go in and make the copy edits without having to have the expense or the burden of finding someone else to go and like reformat this. And I think that’s a really important skill set, and you don’t have to be good at design to make very quick updates to something that is already very well designed. So with that said, I wanna kinda like take it up a level and just talk about some of the things that you’ve learned, you know, really over the last 15 years or so of what makes good design and what, what should people really be looking for and what should they really be asking themselves as they go on this visual process for their own personal brands. And I know without a doubt you’re gonna share the horrible mistakes that I have recently made.
AJV (10:45):
I’ll
NH (10:45):
Be fine,
AJV (10:47):
Totally fine. I gave you, I gave you permission to do this, but I do think it’s good. As people are kind of going, right, I’m at this place where it’s time to create some sort of visual component on either a website or a landing page, or I need something, where do I start?
NH (11:04):
Well don’t start by hiring a designer
NH (12:05):
What kind of people do you want to attract? What is the vibe that you wanna create as a brand? And who are these people that are gonna be attracted to that vibration? And so once you have done that homework first, that’s when you can really get into visual identity. So, and there’s really a science and an art to branding, visual branding, visual identity. And so the, the, the art piece is like making things beautiful and all of that. But the science piece is picking out brand elements, design elements based on certain truths, right? So we talked about this before. I am a proponent of don’t build
AJV (13:19):
Emotion to me,
NH (13:21):
Right?
AJV (13:23):
Of what not to do. Yes.
NH (13:25):
Go. Yes. So I developed something called the Blind test and as part of a, a bigger program that I’m developing called The Color Workshop, which will actually be a workshop that I’m gonna be launching soon. And it’ll be a workshop that will take you through a step by step process to help you identify one, your signature color, the color that really embodies your essence as a brand, but also your entire color palette really. And how to, you know, make everything kind of look good together. Part of this color workshop is something I call the blind test. And the blind test is I basically give you all of these cards that have words on them, right? And they’re color cards. So behind the words are colors, but you don’t see the colors cuz the cards are black and white. And so you have to, there are 12 cards and you have to go through a process of elimination in taking out the, the words that you don’t connect with, right?
NH (14:19):
And technically at the end of this process, the last cars that you end with, we then unveil them, right? We take out the cover and then you can see what colors they are. And the reason I built it this way is because we all have preconceptions about colors, right? We might have, maybe we’re following someone on Instagram who uses yellow as their signature color and we hate that person. So we’re never gonna use yellow. And maybe yellow is actually your color
AJV (15:08):
NH (15:09):
Before. And I don’t know where those colors came from, but you probably saw them on someone else’s branding or in beautiful spaces that you had visited. But they felt right in those spaces, they felt right for that person maybe. And, and so you thought that they might be right for you. And the funny thing is, when we did the blind test the first thing I ask you is gimme your first five hard nos
AJV (15:33):
And you eliminated, it’s not exaggerating y’all. No, it’s not exaggerating.
NH (15:38):
You eliminated literally your first three hard nos. The cars that you eliminated were the three primary colors of your actual,
AJV (15:46):
For myself did not follow any sort of process or logic or process.
NH (15:53):
But the funny thing is, is you were not connecting with those colors. You had pick them out, you thought they would work and then for weeks you were, you know, thinking about it and asking people and people were reflecting this back to you. These are not your colors. You knew it in your core. These are not your colors. You just couldn’t figure out why. And then when you did this test right away, it was just so clear you realized why those colors did not feel right. It’s because they were not right for you. They did not represent your energy and we figured out what your energy is. And it was not any of those colors
AJV (16:24):
NH (17:13):
My colors.
AJV (17:14):
I love this idea of like hot pink cluttering, I think some orange might be good, maybe this like sea shell pink. That’s pretty, I like that. And I was like, put this all together, make it look awesome. And that’s what Nadine did. And then she sent it back to me and I was like, well
NH (17:31):
That doesn’t feel right.
AJV (17:33):
Yeah, it’s a real right. And it’s like, and it’s like one of those things where it’s like, you know it, but you’re like, hmm, yeah, what happened here? And, and I think it’s so many of us do that cuz we see someone else’s brand and we go, I want mine to look like this. And what you mean is I want it to look beautiful like this. Not I need these colors. But until you go through this very personal process of going, who are you and who are you trying to reach? Who are you trying to attract? And it’s not just who you are, it’s what is going to attract the audience that you want to build. And when we did this process, I’m, I literally was like definitely not that one and that was great
AJV (18:23):
And it was pink. And I was like, definitely not that. And it was orange. I was like, there you go. That’s why I don’t connect. But here’s the thing, if, if Nate Dan would’ve showed me the colors that were truly coming out from the words, I would’ve never let her convince me of it that way. Cuz I’ve been like, Uhuh red, red is not my signature color. And let me tell you my internal reasoning of why is because I have red hair and I think bright red conflicts where my hair, so I’d never red. I was like, what a silly, ridiculous reason of going. Well I just, I don’t really have red in my wardrobe, so I don’t really think I can be a brand color. But that was like my very illogical process because emotions were tied into it versus going, no, these are the words that I say, define me.
AJV (19:08):
These are the words I wanna be known for. And then when you reveal the color, you’re kind of like, okay, and I need to like settle in with this a little bit. And I think the most amazing thing that happened for me, just as an example for all of you is I had an adverse reaction at first cuz I’m like, don’t really love red. And yet I look at the words and it’s like, bold. And it’s like, well, that’s pretty fricking bold. And it was like, I’m passionate. Well that’s pretty passionate. And it’s like all these things. And I’m like, why am I resisting this? And then it was the craziest thing. So for me, I’ll just give you this example. It was red purple, black gold, yeah. Are my colors. Did I miss one? I think those really, those were. And I walked out into my garage later that afternoon and Nadine, I haven’t even told you this story.
AJV (20:06):
And in my garage, I took a picture on my iPhone like 10 years ago of the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life. And it was so breathtaking. I blew it up on this huge canvas and it’s in my garage and I walk out and I was getting in my car and it just caught my eye. And I looked up and I see this canvas there, and it is the most brilliant sunset of golds and dark shades of black and deep purple and reds and magentas. And for the first time ever I saw that and I was like, that is how I wanna be seen. I wanna be seen like that. And that’s how you should feel. That’s how you know it’s yours. And so I’m just curious, Nadine, if you could give us some examples of, could you just read off some of the words and colors that are represented that there’s 12, we don’t have time to do 12, but to kind give people an idea of what this is process is like. So if you’re not going through this process with someone that you’re working with, you should stop and go, why the heck not? Because if you’re just picking colors like I did at, at some point, you’re gonna go, man, that was fine for a season, but that’s just not really me. And you don’t have to do that. You can actually get it right the first time.
NH (21:27):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you want me to share some of what the keywords are for maybe your, your colors?
AJV (21:34):
Sure. You can do mine. I think this is just really helpful, but don’t tell us the color until after you read the words and just, I think this was a really powerful process that anyone can do if you just, like, even if you don’t, which we’re gonna give you access to do some of this really cool stuff that Nadine has created. But it’s like, just go Google these colors and go like, what words are associated with these? You can even do that.
NH (21:56):
Yeah. This is public information. So I’ll, I’ll share the words for my signature color, which you don’t know, so I’ll tell you what it is. But my words are creative, abundant, sociable, positive, passionate, joyful. Those are my words. And my signature color is orange. And I connect with orange on a very
NH (23:02):
And that was purple, right? And so we talked about how we can marry purple with red to create these really deep fiery shades of purple that have all of those aspects of red but but still anchored in that purple color and all of that purple means. So let’s see. And another one, black is a color that is used a lot and not everybody that likes black ends up picking black as one of their cards. You did. But black is sophisticated, substantial, efficient, elegant, intelligent, confident, authoritative. So these are examples of the words. So these are the words that you need to connect with or either eliminate or choose as part of this exercise. And you know, and that’s why we do this by process of elimination, because you will find that you connect with a lot of words across a lot of different cards. But the the goal here is to connect with the cluster of word of words where you’re like, okay, I have a, you know, I identify myself with most of these words in this group of words, and that’s what leads you to, to your color. So do you want me to share?
AJV (24:10):
No, I think that’s, I think that’s good. I think, you know, for anyone who is listening, like nad has created so many different tools and quizzes and amazing things to help you do this. So if you go to brand builders group.com/db, digital brand kit db k, so brand builders group.com/db k you can go and check out and she’s got this amazing color quiz that will tell you what season you fall in, gives you all these cool different color palettes. But I think this is a really defining part of, like, this is a part that most people skip as they don’t really do this introspective work. And instead they go right into, well, I just need a website. So can you talk a little bit about like, the purpose of doing brand guidelines before you go into designing Yes. Fires, brochures, landing pages, and just kind of like talk about if you’re ready to go this route and it’s time, what is the process that someone should follow?
NH (25:08):
Yes. So I would say this, A lot of people when I ask someone, do you have your branding? They’ll say, yeah, I have my logo, I have my colors, I have my fonts, and I’m working on my, my website. So yeah, I have my branding. I’m like, yeah, where’s the rest of it? Did you not have your branding? You have the beginning, you have a style guide. That’s what you have
NH (26:02):
Usually because the website was made by a professional and the presentations were made by you trying to mimic what the professional did.
NH (26:52):
You’re constantly in a oh, I need this shoot. Let, let me go hire somebody to do this. Oh, I need that. Oh man, I need to, okay, can you also create this for me? And so you’re constantly on this hamster wheel of asset creation on demand as the demand arises instead of proactively creating everything. And so digital brand is really the solution to that. Like I already surveyed and figured out, you know, surveyed people and, and, and did my homework and figured out all of the assets that a personal brand might need across all your platforms at every touchpoint from, you know, like a podcast if you have one all the way to your social media, to your webinars, to your, you know to your invoices, et cetera, et cetera. And so in order to have that cohesive brand across everything you need to infuse your, your style guide into everything. But you also need to know what all of those assets are, right? So yeah, that is, does that answer your question,
AJV (27:50):
Some of the examples of like what are the assets that most people don’t even think about? Cause you said is like, I think a lot of people at some point are probably, okay, I know I need colors and I need fonts, and I need a logo. And that’s what they think is their brand guidelines. That’s what they think is their branding, but they’re missing so much more. So you can kind of just give us like a checklist of like, what are all the things that you don’t even know that you’re gonna need that you wanna make sure is cohesively done on the front end so that it’s not piecemealed together and it’s, you know, I think the benefit for me is like, if you do all of this work on the front end, it’s so much easier and cheaper and faster to do things later.
NH (28:31):
Absolutely. If you are able to execute on your ideas, like on the go quickly because you have materials that you need to execute on that idea, instead of like, oh, now I have to go create this template or buy this template and then I can create it, that saves you a lot of time. But to answer your question, some of the things that, you know, a lot of people won’t think of, it’s like, all right, so let’s say you go buy a social media, you know, Canva template pack that’ll give you, you know, like all of the little squares. But then are your, like all of those highlights at the top of your of your Instagram account, are those gonna be, you know, look the same
NH (29:19):
Are they branded the same? So just having cohesiveness within your social media is is something to look out for. But also I mean if I’m gonna enumerate things from the db k package, we have a course kit, for example. So if you’re gonna build a digital course, you are going to need slides, right? That you’re going to actually put your content into that, you’re going to then record on your, on your video lessons. You’re going to need the PPS that you’re gonna provide to people as downloads, as free downloads with your course. You are going to need a course roadmap template so that you can paint a picture to your students of like, here’s everything that you’re going to learn in each part of this course and give that to them as a pdf. You are going to need, once you get all of your course materials put together, you’re gonna need to upload all that into a course portal like Kajabi or Thinkific.
NH (30:10):
You’re gonna need to brand that, that’s gonna need a you know, banner image and thumbnails and all of those things. I created all of those things for you already, and that’s all in the course package. So the day that you decide that you wanna build a course, you don’t even know everything you need, you’re gonna open up your course kit and you’ll know exactly what you need to build your course and you’ll have it. And as a bonus, I give you a course outline builder that you can use to actually build the outline of your course and a, you know, in a smart way that’ll make it easy for you to record the course. So it’s weave in in some of the strategy other things that people won’t think about, like your videos, for example. Like you wanna start a YouTube channel, you are gonna need video thumbnails and you cannot afford to be creating video thumbnails
NH (30:53):
Like, especially if you’re gonna have them professionally done. Cuz if you wanna create a lot of videos and every time you need to spend, you know, three hours on camera just putting together one video thumbnail, you’re not gonna get very far. Right
AJV (31:48):
Guesswork. Well, I would, I would, I would second as a customer, as our whole company, as a customer, and then I am personally a customer. It’s like what I would say that I think is really amazing about Digital Brain Kit and what you’ve created is it is all of the design, but it’s also the strategy. And that’s been with like partnerships with a variety of different tools and resources and education that you’ve gone out and done. But I think one of the things that’s really cool for the community at Brand Builders Group is like we were able to work with you of going, here’s what everyone’s gonna need in a speaker kit or in a media kit or, and so it’s like all of those things are pre-built in there. So, and I think that’s a really unique opportunity of going, it’s like you’re gonna need color fonts and logos, yes, but you’re also gonna need imagery.
AJV (32:32):
You’re gonna need the right size dimensioned banners, you’re gonna need thumbnails, you’re gonna need the bumper slides, you’re gonna need the highlights, right? You’re gonna need a press kit at some point. You’re gonna need a media kit for podcasts or just general media. You’re gonna need a PowerPoint slides for something at some point in your life, right? Yeah. So it’s like to have all of this done and kind of prepackaged together is, it’s not just beautiful design. It’s well architected in a way that helps conversion, but it’s also the strategy of going, oh my gosh, if you just think about all those things of how much it would cost and time and money to do them separately over the course of time by finding betting new vendors all the time is outrageous. And so you’ve been able to do that in this well consolidated package. And then I know that we mentioned this earlier, it’s like a part of this is having great design that reflects you and that will attract your audience. The second thing is that it’s done in an affordable way. And so I know one of your things is, is that you, you know, you, you say you need a a beginner brand, right? What do you starter brand? A starter brand Starter brand,
NH (33:43):
Yes. Like a starter home.
AJV (33:44):
Yeah. It’s like, and I think this is a really cool concept of you don’t need to go hire a $30,000 designer to go out and build a very high end professional brand. And what you need is you need something that can get you going. So you can, can you kinda tell us about what that is and what that looks like?
NH (34:04):
Yeah. You don’t need to go hire somebody expensive to create this beautiful professional brand for you if you are just starting out Now, if you’re, you know, 5, 7, 10 years into business and you’re, you’re like, I know who I am, I know who I’m serving, I’m very clear, I’ve got the money. Yes, by all means, splurge away and get yourself the best designer ever. But if you are just starting out, first of all, it’s not a good investment because your brand at this stage of your business is very fluid. You are gonna iterate, you are still figuring out who you are in your market and also who you’re serving and who you’re attracting. And you’re not really gonna get answers to those questions of who are you and who are you serving until you actually get into motion and build momentum and start showing up and start doing things, and then let the market respond to you, and then let yourself kind of figure things out.
NH (34:56):
So as you’re figuring things out, things might change. Who you are might change who you serve. You’re like, you know what, these people are not who I wanna serve. You’ve got a lot of complainers, a lot of freeloaders, like I’m attracting all sorts of wrong people.
NH (35:57):
Like you could get a lot of miles out of, out of a starter brand, maybe five years, maybe seven years with that starter brand. Or maybe you’ll realize six months down the road, yeah, I picked this visual identity, it’s not serving me well. I need to pivot. Well, you’ve only lost $2,000 at this point which is not $30,000. And you also, most importantly, did not lose months and months of, of time of like going back and forth with designers to figure, you know, to build things. All of that frustration and time you now saved yourself because you got all your assets in one instant download. You didn’t go create them and, you know, invest your time and money into creating them. So, so really it’s you know, I like to say it’s like a starter home. Like you can not as a first time home buyer go out and buy your dream home.
NH (36:42):
Like that’s not the smart move. Like, you need to go buy a starter home first,
NH (37:25):
And you know, a lot of people get really personal with it. And so it’s like, well at the end of the day, this brand is not about you. It’s about your business and what you’re building and who you’re going to attract. And the goal here is to get things done, is to make things happen. So stop getting hung up on the colors and on the fonts and oh, maybe this other font looks like this one really, it’s very close, but it’s not exactly, it’s a little bit more round on the edges and it’s like you’re wasting time. You are procrastinating. Just take something and go with it and go make things happen. And then, you know, maybe two years down the road when you have a seven figure business, you can afford to then go to a designer and argue about which font is rounder and better for you
AJV (38:11):
Time
NH (38:11):
To do that.
AJV (38:12):
That’s the best advice that any designer could give someone, is the point of this is not to get caught up in the details. Because I think that’s often what designers do. And I think that’s also why I love what you do so much. Cuz it’s not about the granularity of well, this hangs this way and it’s, it’s like, no, the point of this is to get things done is to get things in motion. It is, is to start knowing that things are gonna evolve and change over time as you evolve and change as your audience evolves and change. But I, I know so many people, so many people that the only reason they haven’t launched is because of something like this holding them back. And it’s like, this is the best advice is like, hey, this is the point is not to make it perfect. The point is to get something done so you can get things in motion.
NH (39:01):
Yeah. And I, I’d wanna share one other thing that’s very important to me to share with the people is if you are going to for any reason, hire somebody to help you with your design you need to know how to choose who you’re going to hire. Oh,
AJV (39:20):
Okay. So if we can just go from, I’m just gonna start with the point is not to make things perfect, it’s to get things done and then you’ll pick up with something else I really wanna share. Okay. So the the whole point is not to get things perfect, it’s to get things done so you can get things in motion. That’s what’s important.
NH (39:39):
Yes. And the other thing I wanna share that’s really important to me is for people who want to go out there and hire somebody to help them with this, and that’s perfectly fine if, if you choose to do so. I would just say you wanna be mindful of, of who you are hiring and how you manage the process because there are, there’s, you can make one of two decisions when you’re gonna hire somebody. You can either hire a an affordable junior designer who is going to get things done on the cheap and quickly, or you can hire a designer who’s also a creative director. The difference between the two obviously is monetary first. The creative director is gonna be more expensive than the junior designer. But the reason why is because the junior designer isn’t is somebody who executes on your vision, your creative direction, and your very specific guidelines.
NH (40:32):
And a junior designer is typically not somebody who is first in marketing, digital marketing, the online business, personal branding or any of that. They know how to make beautiful designs and they will apply exactly what you tell them. But you need to inform everything that you give them. You need to, to educate them a little bit and also give them very specific instructions and very specific feedback because that is the only way that you’re gonna get good actual good design from them. So if you are working with somebody and you are getting frustrated because they’re sending you things that you’re like, well, no, this is not what I asked for. No, this is not what I meant. No, you’re not getting this and you’re in a position, you’re, and you’re finding yourself having to write a lot of mean emails
AJV (41:19):
Nobody wants to do. Nobody wants to. Yeah. Which
NH (41:21):
Nobody likes to write those mean emails. But if you’re finding yourself on the cusp of sending an email that says, no idiot, that’s not what I asked for
NH (42:15):
But still, you have to find a creative director who is also versed in marketing and digital marketing and personal branding and is used to working with high profile brands so that they can actually, you know, steer you in the right direction with certain things and know how to create certain strategic branding assets and communication assets, et cetera. And so, again, that is the other thing that I wanted to create initially when I created the first iteration of Digital Brand Kit, I really just went to make beautiful designs for people. But as I did and I started got into motion, right? And got this into the hands of people, the feedback that I got was, well, I need strategy, I need, I need help actually executing on this. And so that is where I went out and got, you know, took classes and learned more about this. I was like, I’m certified in digital psychology and and I’m certified in all of the things that you know, so that I know how to infuse all of that into these designs so that you don’t need to make those decisions, right? Or figure those things out on your own again, so that you can go and get things done. So I just wanted to caution people about working with other designers and what that looks like and where your frustrations might be coming from.
AJV (43:31):
I think that’s good. So if you get terrible designs, it’s your fault. It’s your fault
NH (43:36):
Basically.
AJV (43:38):
I think that, I think there is a lot of truth in that because when you don’t go through the initial brand guidelines process in general of really defining like, what are my signature colors and what are these things, it’s like how in the world is someone else supposed to get into the inner workings of your mind? Who is your core target audience? What are you offering without a ton of time? And the more time it takes, the more costs. And so it’s like the more work you can do on the front end of being like, I want, I’m very clear on this. And if you’re not ready to invest that amount of time and money, the starter brand that, like, that’s who this was built for. But it’s like as you elevate out of that and you go, now I want something a little bit more, you know, elevated, that’s the word. It’s like you’re still, it takes it’s time and it’s introspective and I think that’s the part that people wanna skip through and they go, I just want something that’s awesome, awesome. Put it up there. And it’s like, well it’s not gonna be awesome unless we go through this process. I think that’s so wise. And I know we just have a couple more minutes yet and I just wanna do a couple of like rapid fire questions for you, for everyone out there who’s going, okay.
NH (44:48):
Hmm.
AJV (44:49):
What, what should I be doing? Like what are some, like the big things I should be looking for? So I’m just gonna do some like rapid fire questions outside of doing like a colorblind test, like what would you say, what should people be doing to have an idea of what their visual identity should look like?
NH (45:08):
Hmm. I’ll tell you what they should not be doing. Don’t go build a Pinterest board
AJV (45:14):
NH (45:17):
Don’t go build a Pinterest board if you’re gonna do one thing. It would be take a piece of paper and write down who your ideal client avatar is. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (46:09):
I love that. I think that’s, I think that’s really wise up going. Your visual identity is not for you.
NH (46:15):
No it’s not.
NH (46:18):
Beautiful picture is that you pinned on pinches doesn’t mean that’s your visual branding. I know you feel
AJV (47:24):
Oh, I think that’s so good. And I, I love that. You know, it’s like, as you were talking, it just made me think it’s like you’re not building a website so you can go look at it. You’re not posting social media so you can go read your own posts, right? You’re doing this so that it reaches someone that you care about serving. And so it’s, it’s gotta be reflective of who you are so that you can attract the people that you are trying to curate as your audience. And that’s, that’s so good. Cause I think the emotions of people, the reason this is so hard for people is because they want it to be so perfect for them and they forget that this is not for you, this is for your audience. That I love that. That’s so good. Okay. Other quick things just like high level, how often do you think people should be posting like visual things online?
AJV (48:15):
You know, cuz I think, you know, I see so many people where it’s like they’ve gone to just like black and we black and white text, or some people just use photography now, or some people have like curated like design posts for social media. And I’m just curious, it’s like one, how often do you think somebody should be posting something that’s like attached to their brand? Like design-wise? Mm-Hmm.
NH (48:44):
Can, are we talking specifically about Instagram? Sure.
AJV (48:47):
Example about Instagram? I think that’s probably the most visual of all the platform. Yeah,
NH (48:51):
I would say just enough that if somebody is scrolling through your, your feed and looking at your images, they’re getting enough pops of your brand color throughout that they’re recognizing that there’s some sort of cohesive you know brand elements that are coming up, you know, over and over again. So I would say as much as you can, but not to where it’s, you know, overkill. So, but just pops of your brand color throughout would be, you know, just so it’s like cohesive with your brand. That would be my
AJV (49:23):
Just enough where it’s like you can get the feel from it. And I think that’s like all these different trends where it’s like so many people are just the, just doing photos of themselves. And so that was the second question is should you infuse your brand colors into your photography?
NH (49:39):
Yes. That’s a great question. Guess what, the only Adobe tool that as a non-designer I know how to use is light room and light room. If you buy certain presets or if you can use pre-made presets that you find in Lightroom, Lightroom will let you put a filter on your images and you can mass do this on many images and just put these filters. So why this is useful is, let’s say that your visual identity has a lot of cool tones in it, cool cooler colors, right? Maybe some blues and some lavenders, things like that. You’re not gonna wanna have your photos be very warm, have warm tones because it’ll clash with the, the, the cooler tones of your branding. So if you wanna have something cohesive in your in your feed, you’re gonna want your imagery to have those cool tones. And that’s something that you can do in Lightroom using these they’re called presets. So if you just literally Google Lightroom presets you’ll find tons of vendors that have beautiful presets that you can just put these filters on all of your images and vice versa. If you have warm colors, go with warmer filters and that will give you that nice cohesive look.
AJV (50:51):
Is Lightroom also the tool that you use where you can like do the cutouts or remove the background?
NH (50:57):
No, that would be, well technically that’s Photoshop, but I don’t use Photoshop cuz I don’t know how to use Photoshop. I use a tool called remove.bg, so the website is removed bg and it’s so awesome. It’s like, I don’t know how much I paid less than $10 a month. And you literally drag and drop an image into this thing and it’ll remove the background for you. And it’s genius. So that’s, that’s another awesome tool that I would recommend.
AJV (51:22):
I think that’s super cool. Specifically if you’re in this like starter brand mode where it’s like you’re gonna be doing a lot of this DIY and just going, how do you do this? Can’t figure it out. Yeah. It’s just knowing some of these really cool tools. So that one’s called Remove bg.
NH (51:38):
Remove bg.
AJV (51:39):
Yeah. So super cool. So any other cool design tools like that that it’s like for you out there, who is the, you know, DIY of going, man, how do I make this awesome, but I don’t, I don’t got a lot of skills, so help me out. Any other tips or tools that you think would helpful?
NH (52:00):
You’re putting me on the spot. I’m thinking I have, like, I have an entire bookmark folder
NH (52:50):
AJV (53:39):
So I love that y’all like, this is so helpful. And it’s, you know, just, it does, again, it doesn’t matter if you are just getting started or you’re super established. We always need something refreshed with our visual identity at some point, right? You’re gonna need a new asset, you’re gonna need a refresh of social media, you know, square images. You’re gonna need new headers, you’re gonna book designs, Prescott designs, new speeches. It’s like the list goes on and on and on. And at some point you’re gonna need to keep things fresh, right? You can’t have the same thing that you used five years ago, and nothing has changed ever since. It’s gotta be refreshed. And so there’s so many different tools that Nadine has created to make that process easier for you. And the easiest thing of all is to make sure that you start with a solid set of brand guidelines that really reflect you. So one of the things that I would just really encourage is at the very least, go to this website and take this color. Yeah. And it’s like, this is an amazing tool to get you pointed in the right direction of this is what you say about yourself without looking at colors, which is a really important thing. So again, brand builders group.com/db. And go take this. Nadine, if people wanna follow you personally, where do you want ’em to go?
NH (55:00):
Well, I would say check me out on Instagram. I’m not very active on it, but
AJV (55:23):
Ah, so generous. If you guys have got questions, you know, dmr most of the questions are taken care of for you with digital blankets, be honest. But this is so many good tips, so many good tools. We’ll link all of those design tools in the show notes for you guys. And we’ll also link brain builders group.com Forge slash dk. Go check it out. Take the color quiz get started. Keep building, keep doing what you’re doing. Nadine, thank you so much for being here. And everyone, we’ll catch you next time on the Influential Personal Brand. See you later.
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):
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,
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
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):
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.
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.
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
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.
RV (32:38):
That.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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):
AJV (29:26):
Was help you up.
LH (29:27):
Mm-Hmm.
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.
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
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):
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.
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.
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):
LH (39:00):
Mm-Hmm.
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):
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.
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):
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
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.
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):
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.
AJV (56:18):
Oh my gosh, this is such a good reminder. I says, don’t do it alone. Mm-Hmm.
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.
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
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):
RV (10:18):
Mm-Hmm.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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):
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
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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,
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
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.
AJV (07:40):
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
AJV (32:13):
Yeah.
MR (32:13):
Because it’s based on something
AJV (32:15):
Mm-Hmm.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
MR (41:44):
So that’s just, but ditto solidarity hands at your back. I been where you’ve been
AJV (42:50):
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.