Ep 322: High-Performance Secrets of NBA Superstars with Alan Stein Jr.
RV (00:02):
Well, it’s not every day that you get a chance to talk to somebody who worked closely for years and years and years with people like Kobe Bryant and Steph Curry and Kevin Duran and our guest today, Alan Stein Jr. Did exactly that. So for 15 years he worked as a, basically a, a high performance skills and mental training coach for NBA superstars and athletes. And in the last few years, he’s transitioned over into speaking and writing. He’s got a couple books out. His first book has done very, very well. It’s called raise your game, high performance secrets from the best of the best. And then he has a new book out called sustain your game. And I just saw him in person recently at the event that we had for ed my let’s book launch in North Carolina, and we sort of connected there. And then he was on ed my let’s podcast a couple weeks before I was. And anyways, I just, I really love Alan and what he’s about and the people he’s hanging out with and, and what he’s doing. And I just was sort of curious, like, man, I, I wanna know what’s going on behind the scenes with some of NBA superstars and to see if I can get a little free coaching for myself. So welcome to the stage a Stein Jr. What’s up, man.
ASJ (01:18):
Aw, man. It’s so great to be with you. I’m looking forward to a fun conversation and I’ll give you all the coaching you want my friend
RV (01:23):
ASJ (02:06):
Well, you know, I’ve never gone by or embraced the junior part of my name. And, and throughout my basketball training career, it was always just Alan Stein. And when I decided to make the distinct pivot outside of, you know, to leave the direct training space of basketball and inter corporate speaking when I went to get my website domain and social handles Alan Stein was taken so I, I wanted to try and figure out a way to keep that branding consistent. But I also wanted to find a way from a searchable and SEO standpoint to kind of differentiate my two professional lives. So if you, you Google Alan Stein, you’re probably gonna find a lot of stuff from my basketball days and training. But when I add the junior, now it’s a very distinct difference and that’s kind of the corporate keynote speaking. And in writing that I do, and it’s allowed me to have alanine jr.com and at alanine Jr. On all social platforms. So smart, there’s kind kind of a branding play and just a, a separator for sure.
RV (03:03):
Yeah. I love that. I mean, that’s really smart to have that consistency, like man, it’s so it’s so tricky when you’re like, how do I tag this person on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and it’s all different every time. Like I actually have some issues with that myself because when we sold our company, some of my profiles were caught up in that transaction. So, but anyways, so I wanna, I wanna talk to you about what you talk about and what a lot of people ask you about, which is like, what is it, what do you learn? What have you learned from coaching? I mean, you’re not just coaching professional athletes, you’re coaching or coached some of the most legendary players in the history of the game. I mean, Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, like these are, these are at the, the absolute peak of the peak of the peak of the peak performance in one of the most competitive games in the world. So I’m curious, you know, for both myself and for the person listening, how do, what can we take from the, the mindset it takes to operate at that level?
ASJ (04:09):
Three things jump out immediately. And, and my favorite part of these three things is they have such high utility. You know, they, they apply to every area of our lives. I mean, these three things allow me to be a better speaker and run a better speaking business. But they also allow me to be a better father. And I’ve, I’ve always been fascinated by principles and strategies that have that type of utility. The very first one is, is something that I learned from Kobe Bryant that changed my life forever when he said the best, never get bored with the basics and that if you want to be good at anything, you have to work towards mastery of the fundamentals relentlessly during the unseen hours. And you know, the very first thing I do with anyone that I work with is get them to identify what are the basic building blocks required to be good in this specific area of your life. You know, if, if you want to thriving in healthy marriage, what are the basics of having a thriving and healthy marriage? If you wanna run an elite speaking business, what are the fundamentals required of doing that? So getting clarity, and I know that’s what you all are all about getting clarity on the basics and the fundamentals, and then having the, the humility to stick to them on a daily basis was definitely the first lesson. The
RV (05:20):
Second was, let me hold on. I wanna stop there cuz I wanna dig in on, on, on, on this, like there’s, this is so true for us because Alan, you know, people come to us and they go, oh, I wanna become a New York times bestselling author. Like, so and so, or I wanna have a podcast like Lewis Houser, I wanna speak on stages. I wanna have, you know, have millions of people watch my videos like Eric Thomas. And then it’s like, okay. And we go, great. We’ve broken it down step by step systematically. There’s there is no question about if we can teach people to do all of those things, we are a hundred percent sure that it works, cuz we’re doing it ourselves in addition to like doing with, with other people, but nobody wants to do it. And it’s the same thing. Like when, when you think of you know, like you think of Kobe Bryant, you think of the game winning shot, you think of these epic highlight real dunks. Tell us, like, tell me a little bit about him in real life. Like to this point of never being bored with the basics and to the fundamentals, even when he was at his peak, was he doing that or did, was that just sort of like something he did to get to the NBA or like how long was that a part of what his philosophy was?
ASJ (06:29):
Such an insightful question and I’m glad you went in that direction. You know, continuing to work on and work towards mastery of the basics, remained a fundamental component throughout his entire career. And then he took that same mindset, you know, when, when he left basketball and re and retired and he had that same mindset in business. Now what’s important to, to have discernment is I’m not saying that he never graduated to more advanced techniques and more advanced skills and drills. He obviously did what I’m saying is he never left the basics behind. He realized that those were the foundation to which the rest of the house was built. So the very first time I had a chance to watch him work out in one of his private workouts. Back in 2007, he spent the first 45 minutes doing basic footwork, basic shooting mechanics, basic ball handling drills.
ASJ (07:18):
I mean to the tune of stuff that I had already taught those things to middle school, age players. And here you’re talking about, you know, arguably the best player of a generation, certainly the best player in 2007. And yet he still made the commitment to focusing on those fundamentals for the first portion of his workout. And then of course, again, he would matriculate up and graduate to more advanced techniques, but he would never leave them. And, and as I’ve been a part of and, or studied other thriving organizations, especially in sports, you know, a, a duke basketball or a new England Patriots back in their heyday, you know, it was the same thing. You know, their practices and their workouts were built on the fundamentals of the game. They never left those that wasn’t something they said, well, we’re gonna do these things until we get good and then we’ll just leave them behind.
ASJ (08:06):
They made sure those were a staple of everything they did moving forward. And, and I know in my own life, you know, anytime I don’t believe I’m getting the results that I, I think I’m capable of when I, I sit with some self-reflection and some introspection, I usually realize that I’ve, I’ve started to skip the basics. I’ve started to, to kind of, you know, move on to more advanced techniques and leave them behind. And as soon as I refocus that lens and get that required clarity and get back to the fundamentals, I see my performance escalate again. So it’s, it’s not about never moving past them is just about never leaving them behind
RV (08:42):
Mm-Hmm
ASJ (08:56):
Well, this is another part that kind of a part two to the story of when I saw him work out, that I thought was so cool was he had cuz the workout that I watched him do was really, really, really early in the morning. I mean at 3:30 AM type of work to some people that’s almost late cuz they’re considering it from the day before, but that was his first workout of the day. And, and he said to me at that time, cuz I asked him why he chose to get up that early. And he said even the most dedicated and determined NBA players in the off season, cuz this was an off season workout. He said the most D driven and ambitious NBA players will work out twice a day. They’ll work out for two to three hours mid-morning then they’ll take a little break and they’ll work out for two to three hours midafternoon and he said, if I only do what everybody else does, then I’ll only have what everyone else has.
ASJ (09:43):
I need to do more than they do. And this, this really parlays into, you know, ed my let’s concept of the power of one more. So Kobe said, if I can go in and get my first workout before they’re even awake and I’m leaving the gym from my first workout, as they’re coming to the gym for their first workout and then they’re coming home from their first workout and I’m heading in for my second workout, he said, I’ll always be a step ahead. And, and that might not matter over a couple of weeks or maybe a couple of months, but when you start to stack years and in his case decades, he said, no one will ever be able to catch me simply because I’m always doing one more than they are. And that was really kind of the, the cornerstone of his Mamba mentality.
ASJ (10:24):
And, and with that said, and I always make this disclaimer and I especially make it with younger players when I would work in that space. I don’t want everyone to think that the answer is always more as better. And that, you know, you know, if, if, if you’re working 12 hour days that working 16 hour days does not necessarily mean that that will improve your business. I mean, there’s, there’s a variety of, of different individual scenarios, but I just liked his mindset and his mindset was my edge is going to be my work ethic, my, my obsession towards mastering the fundamentals. And I’m always gonna do a little bit more than you’re going to do and you’ll never beat me. And I, I think that’s an incredible mindset to have.
RV (11:03):
Yeah. Well, I mean, I have to say like, you know, there’s a lot of this, like anti hu, like, you know, everyone was like, oh, the hustle culture. And then there’s like been this pendulum of like, oh, anti hustle. You don’t have to hustle. And you know, I’m not saying that you have to work your whole life. Like that’s all you do to be successful. But when I just look at the reality of the stories of the people who have become the elite in their profession, the volume of time spent matters tremendously. Like, and, and you know, I think, I think a lot of people would look at Kobe Bryant and go, oh, he is gifted. Right. Cause he was drafted straight outta the out of high school. Right. And go, oh yeah, totally gifted. Like just like wonder kin like the, the chosen one.
RV (11:49):
But then to hear this story of going that happened for decades and so people, they couldn’t catch him. And so it, it’s a different side of the story and it go, I’m not advocating for all we do is work, but I am, I, I can’t argue with the facts of the matter, which is that no, nobody gets to be at that level by just doing it. Part-Time like nobody. So that’s, that’s power, that’s powerful. And you’d say the same is true for Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, all the other teams in organizations you’re working with.
ASJ (12:23):
Absolutely. What, what most novice fans don’t see is that, that peak behind the curtain of the unseen hours, which I’ve been privy to. And you know, obviously this is during the NBA off season when we’re recording this, but let’s just say it was in the heart of the season. And, and Steph has one of his magical games where he knocks down 12 threes and scores, 60 points and people are mesmerized by that. And, and I certainly get that. It’s an incredible feat, but if they knew how much work he put in during the unseen hours and how many millions of shots he’s taken and Macon in empty gyms, when no one else is around, it actually becomes less spectacular. And I say that with a smile, cuz I’m not diminishing that type of feet, but when you shoot that many shots in an empty gym, when no one’s around, you’re supposed to make those shots.
ASJ (13:09):
When the lights come on and the cheerleaders start dancing and that’s how those guys look at it, you know, they’re never surprised by their unbelievable performances. It’s an expectation for them, but that’s because they’ve put in the work to deserve the right to, to perform that well. And that actually leads to the, the second lesson that I learned from those guys is they do a masterful job of blending confidence, which is what they earn through time in the unseen hours. They blend that with humility, which is what allows them to stay open to, to feedback is what allows them to stay open to being coached is what allows them to say, you know, you all might say I’m the best player in the NBA, but I’m not as good as I’m capable of becoming. So I’m gonna get back in the gym. You know, I mean, when, when I watched Kobe go through that workout, he was already an NBA champion already, an Allstar already, a multimillionaire, you know, 20 times over, already a surefire first ballot hall of Famer.
ASJ (14:04):
And he’s in the gym at three 30 in the morning working on his craft because he doesn’t believe he’s as good as he’s capable of. And when you can blend that type of confidence with humility, you get something really magical. And, and that’s something else that I’ve, I’ve tried to apply in my own life. I mean, I, I’m not anywhere on a performance level of a Kobe Bryant, but I wanna make sure that I am earning the right to hold someone’s attention when I’m on stage speaking, but I wanna stay open to being coached and, and to growing and, and developing and working on my craft. I mean, I, you know, my next speaking engagement, I aim to make the best one that I’ve ever done. But I also know that 10 years from now, if you have me back on your show, I will be a better speaker, 10 years from now than I am today because of my commitment to craft. And that’s, what’s most important to me.
RV (14:53):
Yeah. Yeah. I, we, we bumped up against this a lot because we have a fair number of like quasi celebrity or celebrity clients that we work with at brand builders group. And, you know, it’s, it’s a little bit amazing to be like, wow, we’re coaching, we’re coaching. We’re punching above our, our weight class here because like some of these people are, I mean, they’re real good and they’ve have, they’ve gotten, you know, had real success in real reach, but then, you know, so there’s like this initial part where you think, oh, that doesn’t make sense. Like why would somebody who’s the best in the world take coaching from somebody who has never even experienced that level personally. And it’s like, no, the reason they’re, they are the best in the world is because they take coaching from, from, from those people. Meanwhile, the people who you who need coaching are the ones who have no idea what they’re doing and they’re not good and they’re not starting and they’re set they’re, they’re not doing it cuz they think they’re above coaching and it’s, it’s not the weak or the, or the untalented or the UN gifted who get coaching.
RV (16:03):
Its the opposite. It’s the, it’s the, the elite highest performers on the, on the planet. And I think that’s amazing. So you talk about earning your confidence. So I like what you were saying there. So you’re so talk to talk to me a little bit more about that. You’re saying that they’re earning it through what they do in the, basically the unseen hours.
ASJ (16:26):
Yeah. They, they understand intimately that repetition is not punishment. Like that’s one of the lessons I teach my own children. Repetition is not punishment. Repetition is the oldest and most effective form of learning and skill acquisition on the planet. And that is never going to change. Even technology won’t change that you have to get in reps if you want to be good at anything. And, and they understand that and they’re willing to put in those reps to an unbelievable degree and you know, the reason Stephan Curry will go down in history as the greatest shooter the game has ever seen is not because he did a bunch of reps to get good. And now he just coast, he’s still in the gym working on his craft. He is still putting up shots, you know on off days and in the off season. Cuz that’s the repetition is what’s what’s required. And certainly it’s true in the speaking game. I mean the, how
RV (17:15):
Do you more reps
ASJ (17:17):
Get on stage the better you’ll be.
RV (17:18):
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. There’s, there’s no replacement for stage time and for sure. So when you, a lot of people listening are, you know, some type of a coach or a consultant or a leader, you know, kind of this experience like I’m presuming that you’re not, you, you’re not gonna be in the hall of fame, the NBA hall of fame as a player yourself. And so I think there’s a lot of people who end up sort of coaching above their weight class. Like I was talking about. Did, did you ever have insecurities or self doubt yourself? I mean standing on the court with these guys saying, Hey, do it this way. Not that way. Did you ever experience any of that? Like, well, who am I to tell, you know, Kevin Duran, like how to, how to whatever block somebody out or block a shot and how did you get past that?
ASJ (18:09):
Well, I, I got past it. One, by being honest, I mean I wasn’t trying to BS anybody. Those guys knew they were better players than I had ever dreamed of becoming, but they also knew that doesn’t exclude me from having certain expertise or experience that can still add value to what it is that they do. You know, a good portion of coaching comes from that, that intellectual knowledge from certain experiences from having a different vantage point from having different perspectives from shared experiences that you’ve had from other players. So I had to lean into that and say, yes, I realize that you are a better player than I ever. Would’ve been. However, I can still add to your game. You know, I can still give you things that will make you a better player. And with guys like that, you have to prove that very quickly, you know, the, the quickest way to get an elite level player to tune you out is the moment they don’t think you can make them better.
ASJ (19:04):
You know, I think that’s one of the reasons that coach Kay was so successful with, with the Olympic teams was because those guys, and then you’re talking about Kobe, LeBron, Steph Curry, KD, those guys knew that he still had something that could make them better. So they didn’t discount the fact that he was a college coach and they were pros. They realized that he could still make them better based on his experience and expertise. So to me that’s the most important part. I mean, if you look at, and, and I certainly wouldn’t want to go on a tangent of who’s the greatest player of all time, I’m, I’m still kind of in the Michael Jordan camp. And a lot of that is just based on my own age, but Michael Jordan is arguably the best player to ever play the game. So from that previous logic, he could never have a coach because no one is going to be better than him.
ASJ (19:51):
Right. Well, how foolish does that sound? Even me saying it out loud, you know, Phil Jackson was never as good of a player as Michael Jordan, but you better believe Phil Phil Jackson had a, a perspective and a philosophy and experience and expertise that he could use to help mentor and, and groom Michael Jordan to become the player he was. And, and, and I think all of those guys will acknowledge that. So to answer your question, yes, there were certainly moments of kind of that imposter syndrome. Oh my gosh, are they gonna listen to me? But I had to quickly move right through that, lean in with honesty and vulnerability and show them and prove to them that I have something that can make you better.
RV (20:29):
I love that. Okay, so you left us, hang in here, you got three, you covered to cover two of them. So I wanna, I wanna make sure that we have time to get into the third one.
ASJ (20:39):
The, the third is those guys were certainly driven by external results. They wanted to make Allstar teams. They wanted to win NBA championship rings. They wanted to win scoring titles. And, and those were often north stars that, that provided clarity and direction for where they were headed. But after that, they didn’t spend any time focused on results. They put all of their effort into the process. They put all of their effort into what are the habits I need to establish? What are the micro skills I need to develop? What are the behaviors that I need to exude on a, on a daily basis that will get me closer to that north star or that goal? So it wasn’t so much, you know, I want a championship ring as much as it was, what do I need to do today to give myself and my teammates the best opportunity to be a champion next season.
ASJ (21:27):
And they were very, very process driven. And when you can combine, you know, the, the humility and vulnerability, it takes to stick to the basics when you can earn your confidence in the unseen hours, but stay open to coaching and feedback, and you can stay focused on the steps and the processes and the habits you combine, those three things together. There’s really nothing that can stop you. And, and, and there’s no one arguing that the guys that, that we’ve been talking about were born with some physical predispositions that allowed them to be world class athletes. Sure. I mean, they’ll tell you, they were born with certain levels of athleticism, but so are a lot of people and they didn’t actualize it. And then of course, going back to what I said originally about these things, having high utility in the space that you and I play in, it doesn’t matter if you’re five feet tall or seven feet tall.
ASJ (22:13):
It doesn’t matter if you have a four inch vertical jump or a 40 inch vertical jump, the physicality is no longer relevant. So now these things actually are the separators and the difference makers in business or in entrepreneurship or in any of the, the playgrounds that we play in. So these are all things that are under our control, which goes back to your brilliant point, that you can lay out the blueprint of exactly what someone needs to do to reach a certain level of success. And it’s been proven, you guys have proven it with hundreds and hundreds of elite level clients. Problem is people just don’t stick to the script. They don’t execute the blueprint, they get bored with the basics, and then they try to do things their way, if they will follow your recipe, they will get unbelievable results.
RV (22:55):
Yeah, it’s funny. Like you know, I played basketball in high school was my whole big, you know, consuming focus. But when I, when I got to college, the, the way I was able to let go of the dream or what helped me let go of the dream was R realizing that I was competing. I know in, on something that I couldn’t control, which was the physicality part. And so I was like, well, if I’m always gonna be under massively under resourced in this area, I’m gonna quickly shift my attention into something where that is not a part of the game. And you know, that it actually was a pretty quick flip of the switch where it was like, it went from being my whole life to, I pretty much dropped it. You know, just because it was like, oh, I, this is I’m gonna go.
RV (23:46):
I’m gonna go basically find another game to, to play and to, to compete in, which is, which is really cool. So I mean, this is awesome, Alan. I, I, I think it’s, it’s, it’s amazing to me how, how consistent this story is. And, and people don’t necessarily want it to be that way and they try to rationalize it and popular culture tries to change it, but it’s like, this is the deal. And it’s super duper powerful to, to get to see it. So where do, where should we send people? All right. So we have, so your, your, your, you had raise your game, which was the first book, and then sustain your game, just came out. Where, where do you want people to go? If they wanna connect more with you and like, keep up with what you’re doing.
ASJ (24:31):
My primary speaking website is Alan Stein jr.com. And then I have a second,
RV (24:35):
Don’t forget the junior, don’t forget the junior
ASJ (24:38):
Don’t don’t ever forget that. And, and it’s a quick side note to that. Not implying that you ever would, but if you ever meet my father, he’ll tell you the biggest dad, joke of all time. He’ll say I’m Alan steins. I’m the original, he’s the carbon copy.
RV (24:53):
I think that’s funny.
ASJ (24:54):
Yeah, that’s good stuff. So Alan Stein jr.com is the speaking site, stronger team.com has info on my books podcast and online course, and some one-on-one coaching. And then I’m very easily found and very accessible and resp responsive on social media at Allen Stein Jr. On Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And then of course you can just search for the books on Amazon or audible or wherever you like to get your books or audio books.
RV (25:18):
I love it, man. Well, what a, what a cool glimpse into what it takes, and then to see you applying it in your own life, in your own business, what you’re doing now as a speaker is really, really cool. Like you can, you can see the, the trajectory of your career just shaping up nicely in terms of like your ability to apply this to other people and to companies and organizations to build stronger teams. It’s really, really inspiring brother. And you know, I’m very encouraged by that and inspired by you. So, so stay the course. We’re cheering for you.
ASJ (25:51):
Thank you.
Ep 320: 4 Ways To Increase Your Content Engagement with Nora Sudduth
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 that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:54):
Hey everyone. And welcome to another episode on the influential personal brand. I’m super excited today because I get to interview a newer friend. And as you guys know, if you guys listen to the podcast, you know, that we do not accept pitches very often. In fact, we have only accepted three pitches in the history of the influential personal brand and Nora happens to be one of those individuals. So I’m gonna introduce you to Nora and today is really special for three reasons. One, I’m getting to know Nora kind of at the same time that you are. So all of the questions I’m gonna be asking are super out of my own curiosity of going. Tell me more, tell me more. I wanna learn Nora about this. But two Nora is the creator and co-founder of this really amazing product called hello audio.
AJV (01:43):
And it’s all about consumption rates and engagement with audio, which if you’re listening to this, you are already in the mix, right? So this is really, really important. And really what we’re gonna answer is why are you not getting the consumption and engagement rates that you want and you need with audio. And then thirdly Nora self admitted that she doesn’t get to talk much about her personal brand. And so this is also a really cool invitation of not just getting to learn about some really cool things with content consumption and engagement and her awesome company. But I’m also generally just so excited to get to know you and how, why did you create this? And what’s your backstory. I love hearing stories like this. So if you’re listening stick around, this is going to be an energy and content impact episode.
AJV (02:34):
Now on a, a very high professional level, I will read Nora’s bio for you. But just really quickly
NS (03:34):
Oh my goodness. Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
AJV (03:38):
Hi, I am so excited. And so I wanna continue that conversation. I wanna help, I wanna get to know you more in our brief conversations, I, haven’t got to hear this part of your story. And I know our audience is many people who listen to this are in this transition of, you know, do I keep doing what I’m doing or do I really go for it? Right. Do I really like go out on that limb, jump off the cliff and do what I feel like I was put on this planet to do, or do I stay comfortable? Right. Do I play it safe? And I just keep doing the thing that I’m doing, but you, you took the leap, like you left it and you started hello audio. So I wanna know the story. How did, how did you do it? Why did you do it? Like, how did you get to where you are?
NS (04:18):
Oh, I love it. So I did, I took that traditional path to success or what we were taught right. Is that traditional path. I have a handful of college degrees, right. I started in computer science before there were many women in computer science. So I’ve got that degree. I’ve got an MBA, I’ve got a master’s degree in engineering. And I did, I, I started that, that corporate kind of path, that corporate climb and what I realized, and I didn’t, I’m not one of those folks that hated corporate. I had great experiences. I learned just, I’ve worked with so many different businesses, even, you know, exact target before they sold to Salesforce before they had a successful exit. I’ve worked with so many amazing humans along the way. And so, as I climbed, I would say up that ladder, I think I got further away from what one of my core values is.
NS (05:08):
And I am obsessed with client success. Mm-Hmm
NS (05:53):
Cause I almost didn’t have a family. Right. I almost didn’t have that. And so at, at the time my dad was diagnosed with cancer and I knew that our time was limited and after he passed away, it’s just like, you know, we all have those moments in our lives where we have that realization of, you know, life is short and am I doing what I really want to do? Is this an opportunity for me to reassess some of those decisions? And, and to, like you said, stay comfortable, which there was there would’ve been nothing wrong if I would’ve stayed, you know, in that trajectory and kept going or do I want something else? And so I think that was one pivot point for that kind of help me wake up if you will. And maybe jarred me a little bit to rethink things. And the other thing that was happening was at that point when my dad passed away, I had a little kindergartner.
NS (06:40):
My oldest was in kindergarten. She is now in high school and getting her license, which is crazy. So time has definitely jumped here and I’ve been doing this for a while, but at the time she just, she was obsessed with the school bus. I wanna take the school bus home and I’m like, I am at the office until six o’clock like, you can’t take the school bus home. No one is home at 2 35 when that school bus is coming home. And so she just was like, I wanna take the school bus home. And I’ll tell you, I was sitting in a corporate meeting and there was a lot of meetings in corporate. And so I think this was one of, of many, and I just felt frustrated. I was feeling that sense of not being happy. And, and I, you know, some women collect shoes and handbags, I collect domain names. So I probably have like 600 over 600 domain names the time
AJV (07:28):
My husband, oh my gosh,
NS (07:30):
Can’t help it.
AJV (07:31):
The amount of go daddy, renewal fees that he’s come across my, my credit card.
NS (07:35):
You don’t wanna total. And when you total it up for your taxes, you’re like, oh my gosh, I need to sell. So, and I have sold some, I made some, but still, yes, it’s not. I don’t know if it’s any healthier than a shoe obsession. Quite frankly, it mights probably a lot more expensive. But as I said in that meeting and I bought the domain F the meeting.com, I still own that domain, but I was like, wow, what that, and, and as I look back, I’m like what energy that is, like, if that’s where I really was in life. And I knew it was a lot of things happening. So I left that day and I allowed my daughter to take the bus home. And so as she took, and I met her at the corner and the bus came and her, the joy that she was filled with as she came off, that school bus, granted, even a kindergartner, she was so excited. And I thought, you know what? I want more of that.
AJV (08:24):
Yeah.
NS (08:24):
Amen. I want more of that. And so I started putting things in place to plan that exit. And, and, and I’ll say this for anyone that is in that situation. Well, I think one of the biggest mistakes, or one of the biggest things we’re told when we look for a business opportunity, right? There’s a lot of folks that wanna sell you a Bizo right. There’s lots of different types, lots of different things, but where I think I had the most success in terms of that transition and that exit was, I started with my existing reach. I didn’t just build a product or create a service and then wonder how to get in front of people. Because I think that stops a lot of folks. I think one of the biggest things I did correctly was I started with my existing reach. I didn’t just say, okay, there’s this internet out there, this black box who the heck knows who’s in it, but they’re my clients.
NS (09:14):
I don’t know them yet, but they’re clearly who I need. And instead of doing that, I was like, no, who are the people already around me? Who are the people that already, that already know me that already trust me? And you know what that looks like. We, we forget our real life connections. And I know things have changed pre you know, post pandemic and all the things. But I, I looked at, okay, I was going through my TaeKwonDo. I went and got my first degree, black belt and TaeKwonDo with my daughter. I’m like the studio, all the people there, they’re in my network. Think about your professional network. Think about your personal network. Think about the stores you go to each and every day, the clubs that you’re a part of the memberships that you’re a part of. We don’t, we overlook all of these people that are in our existing.
NS (09:59):
And we’re like, oh, I don’t, I don’t have an audience. I didn’t have an email list. When I started, I had existing reach in every single person listening to this, you have your existing reach. And so I started there and I was like, you know what, I’m looking at, what I can do for people and the results, cuz I’m a very, like I said, I’m obsessed with client results. So what can I do for folks knowing my expertise, knowing my experience. And then I looked at my existing reach and I looked at what, where, where that intersection was now. I didn’t worry about like, well, what if I don’t wanna serve this audience five years from now? Mm-Hmm
NS (10:47):
And that’s how I started. So that was how I ultimately got to the point where yes, I was doing the side hustle in the evenings and on the weekends and before work. Right. Everyone’s like, yeah, you have a nine to five. Well, I didn’t have a nine to five. I felt like I had a seven to six. And then I was, you know, doing things after the kids went to bed or in the morning before they woke up or on the weekends when they went down for naps or all the things, cuz I had a, I had a younger one as well at that time. So I had two and I, I looked at that and I said, that’s the, that’s the path. It’s just step by step. But I think one of the biggest takeaways for me there is start with your existing reach and that’s ultimately so step by step by step. I put those things in place and I was ultimately able to leave that corporate position. And I created a marketing agency of my own and that was my first step into Andre. And I didn’t stay there, but that’s how I initially stepped from corporate into this entrepreneurial space.
AJV (11:42):
Oh, I love that there are so many gems and even the, your story of, you know, I already wrote down like two things and this is, we’re so aligned in this. And I know that we, we don’t know each other, all that well at this point, but I like one of my life mantras is that you do not have to have millions of followers to make millions of dollars. Yes. And we, we try to like instill this and it’s a great reminder to everyone who’s listening. Is that just start with the one? Yes. Like, and it’s, it’s a weird thing because offline, right. And our actual real circle of people we see every day, if we knew that we impacted one person’s life, that would be, we would be so fulfilled and content with that. It would mean something. But yet if we only have one like or one share or one comment online, we somehow think it’s a failure.
AJV (12:36):
Absolutely. It’s the online digital nature somehow often minimizes the impact of a changed life. And I love that. We talk so much about your offline reputation, your offline strategy, as much as your online. I love that. I love that so much. And I love too that you said it’s like the path is always step by step, right? It is. You may not be doing this in five years, like focus on what’s the next step. That’s true. So, so you went from marketing agency, so you left corporate yes. And had your own agency. So then I’m so curious to know is like, how did you go from that to hello audio? And then also tell everyone like, what is, hello, audio? So what was the path of creating a SAS product and how did you get to where you are now?
NS (13:23):
Absolutely. so I had that marketing agency and I grew that marketing agency agency in a multiple six figures in less than nine months. And it was at that point. And if you have, if you ever had a marketing agency or if you’re done done for you, you E you have a choice to make, you’re either gonna grow and you’re gonna hire more team members, or you’re gonna kind of stay in that niche kind of boutique kind of space. And, and it’s a choice and there’s not a right or wrong choice. It’s just a choice of what kind of business you want. And around that time where I was making a decision, I had started to use ClickFunnels in my agency because everything was WordPress. Right. And then click funnels was brand new at the time. And I mean, brand spanking new. And so I started using it, Russell found out what I was doing.
NS (14:03):
And all of a sudden I got a Voxer from Russell Brunson. And I, you, I mean, if I could’ve captured the look on my face, when I got that boxer from Russell Brunson and it was like, Hey, I think we need to talk. I would like you to rebuild my certification program. And so I was like, well, okay, right. Like this is, so here I am trying to make a decision if I’m gonna grow or grow this agency or kind of keep it small. And now I have a third option, which I never suspected, which was shut it down and go work and partner with Russell Brunson and rebuild one of his training programs. And so, you know, talk about what an amazing opportunity. So I’ve of course said, yes, partnered with Russell rebuilt. That certification program took that from like 300, about 300,000 a little bit more to like 4.1 million in 18 months built another seven figure coaching program for Russell.
NS (14:54):
And again, this is because I was so passionate about client success and SAS, right. I love technology. My first degree was in computer science. So this was a natural fit. And through that work and, and reviewing thousands of marketing campaigns and helping just so many people have success with their marketing campaigns. I ended up meeting Lindsay and Derek Padilla, who are the co-founders of, of hello audio. And, you know, I was actually, both of them are former community college professors who really also genuinely care about student success, right? It’s what they do. We all want our students to succeed. And so we had this shared value and as we had both started helping folks kind of with their online courses. And really, I was kind of maybe more focused on the marketing and sales piece of trying to help your digital products grow. And Lindsay was helping folks help be essentially become a better teacher online.
NS (15:49):
And so it was such an amazing partnership and, and a relationship that started there. And then it was Derek that kind of said, Hey, people don’t finish. Like the stats are there. They’re not finishing online courses. What can we do to help? And that’s how hello audio started. So it came from both of us, all three of us actually being so passionate about our, our students having success and knowing that consumption was getting in the way, which sounds silly. But depending on the study, you read, it can be like 3% or maybe I’ve seen a few that say up to 20% of courses get consumed or content is consumed. And people, when they don’t consume your content, they don’t get the results. And so that’s actually how hello audio started. The original product name was podcast, your course. And so as we look at, okay, what does that look like?
NS (16:38):
What are you talking about, Nora? Like, what’s this podcast thing isn’t like, right? Most people are familiar with public podcasts, right? If you’re listening to this, you already know this is an amazing public podcast. And so if you think about the way public podcasts are structured, most people are like, they assume you have to have a show it’s updated daily or weekly. And, and it’s open to the general public, right? As, as a public podcast, anyone can subscribe private podcasts. On the other hand are a little different. They look and feel like a normal pod pod, right? They still, you can play them in your favorite podcast app, your favorite podcast, player of choice. But as a, as the content owner, as the content creator, you get to choose who gets access to that. So now you could actually put some gated content, whether it’s your opt-in or whether it’s your course or other paid content.
NS (17:27):
Now it’s not kind of change a little bit about what it, what it means to be a podcaster. You can now have a podcast without having a show. You’re just using podcasts as a communication channel. And you’re meeting people where they’re already at. Cuz as we look at the numbers, millions of, of north Americans are listening to audio content in their podcast app each and every week to the point where the hours consumed are actually rivaling the number of hours that were consumed in Netflix every single week. Wow. So I’m thinking, why are we not meeting people where they’re already at? Your audience is already in their podcast apps, listening to content. Why aren’t they listening to you? And so that is how we originally started. Hello, audio. And then the use cases just grew from there.
AJV (18:13):
So, okay. There’s like, I could go like 15 different ways right now. I know, I know things. So one of the things you said is that consumption, right? The data around the consumption was like a real problem that is you guys could solve. So I would just love to hear your feedback rather. That’s just your own personal opinion. Or if it’s more scientific, whatever you’ve got. Why, why do, because I think, I think this is same ha it doesn’t matter if it’s a course or whatever. It’s like, we do the same thing with books. Like how many books they’re sitting on my bookshelf at a bot with great intentions, like, oh one day, right? Same thing with courses. And then there’s other books where I’m like, you know, I must finish this. Right. And so I’m so curious, like what is the data around consumption with courses and online content and why do you think that is?
NS (19:00):
You know, it’s fascinating as I look at it’s it, and it varies the percentage it’s fascinating to look at, is it just the login that we’re requiring people to log in? I look at the work involved and the effort involved, and this is kind of back to anything that we offer for sale. Right? I look at their belief, so that consumer needs to believe that by doing the work or by participating in their own success, they’re going to get a result. So that level of certainty needs to be a certain level. I think, for people to engage like it, whether it’s a book, I believe I’m going to enjoy this. So the level of certainty, I think the higher that is the more likely they are to engage. So a and by the way, they’re, they’re a lot more likely to buy your stuff.
NS (19:42):
NS (20:28):
And yet it’s so convenient for you to play at any time, anywhere when we’re not sitting here at the screen. So if you think about what audio does it unlocks all of the hours of the day that you can reach your ideal person or your customer or your student, whatever that looks like for you when they’re not sitting at a computer and I’ll tell you, especially post pandemic, people don’t really wanna spend that many hours sitting at the screen. And so you’re giving them that option. Let, ’em listen to you while they’re walking the dog, while they’re sitting in the carpool line while they’re taking a walk that’s to me, it, it like ease in convenience, allows for greater consumption. If you make it a lot more difficult. And that also is the medium too, right? If, if you’re doing like a 60 some page ebook or are like, that’s, that’s gonna go to the graveyard of PDFs, we all have one. We all know it’s there. I have multiple bad Dropbox and Google all these.
AJV (21:24):
And I’m like, oh, when am I gonna ever have time to get through 4 45
NS (21:28):
Pages? You’re no you’re. And, and with good intentions, you were interested in the topic. We all raise our hand and we’re like, that sounds cool, but you know what? That’s a lot of work. Yep. And I’m not gonna get to that. And so, and then, so that would be the second thing, easing convenience and, and dove dovetailing into the, the third and final one here I would say is time, right? What do we, time is money. We pay to shortcut our path to success. And so if I look at your content and I think this is gonna take me hours to get through, or, you know, if I can’t fit it in to the time pockets that I have in my day or in my life, that’s just gonna be really a lot more challenging for me to consume. And so if I look at for whatever content you’re putting out there, this is fulfillment content for your courses or your coaching program, or, you know, your book.
NS (22:17):
Or if I’m looking at your marketing content, I’m talking about your webinars, I’m talking about your summit presentations, all the cool stuff you’re doing in, when it comes to creating content, if I can make it easier and more convenient to consume, if I can shortcut the path to success and, and, and allow folks to get that, like reduce the time to, to value as, as another kind of term to reduce the time to value. And if I can increase the perceived likelihood that they’re going to get the result that, that, that we’re promising or that your content is promising, that level of certainty people are going, you’re gonna see engagement go up. Those three things I think are critical in order to see your engagement and consumption rates go up.
AJV (22:59):
Ugh. I love that. There’s so much like I wrote just like the, I wrote four. I, I made one up or I heard one extra one. I love
NS (23:07):
It. It’s okay. Bonus.
AJV (23:09):
But I love this. I think this is so powerful for anyone who is listening, who is a content creator of any, of any type, whether it’s written or video or audio, but four things to increase consumption one, make it enjoyable.
NS (23:23):
Yes. Right? Oh,
AJV (23:24):
Yes. It’s like, I’m not gonna do it if I don’t like it. If it, if it’s hard, right.
NS (23:29):
I don’t want it.
AJV (23:30):
I gotta want it. So make it enjoyable. And I think a huge part of doing that is the combination of the story, right? The emotional parts. It’s like, it’s, I think about some of the, my favorite and this, I always think about this. Some of my favorite books are also my least favorite keynote speeches.
NS (23:50):
Yes.
AJV (23:50):
And true. Right. The content is so good and the stories are so good in the book, but then when you hear the speaker, I’m like,
NS (23:58):
What happened?
AJV (24:01):
You know? And it’s like, yeah. And it’s like, it’s weird because it like dolls the value and all of a sudden this great content I’m like, all I can think about is how horrible about 60 or 90 minutes was. Yeah. So it’s like, make it enjoyable. It’s gotta be somewhat right. Edutaining right. The combination of that,
NS (24:17):
To, to that point. Exactly. Most people think the only way they can add value is to give more information. And that’s not true. You can add value by being entertaining. And by being insightful, like there’s, it’s, you can do more, you can add value more ways than just more information.
AJV (24:33):
Absolutely agree with that. But I think that’s just, that’s a great takeaway. If you’re listening is like more information does not equal more value. No, that’s really important. Right. Write that down people number two. So the first thing was, make it enjoyable. Number two increase the likelihood of results. Yes. So tell people, what are the results you’re gonna get if you complete this, like, that’s really important. Like how many of us buy something going a hope, this has the answer.
NS (25:00):
Yeah. Let’s hopefully it’ll work. I
AJV (25:02):
Need you to, I need to know that it’s in there. Right. So increase the likelihood of results. I love that. Three, make it easy to use. I wanna come back to this one, cuz I have a question for you about this one. Sure. and then the last one is reduce time to value, right? Like I think we do the same thing where it’s like, well, I’m gonna make it eight hours and oh, 165 pages because then it’ll be worth the dollar.
NS (25:30):
No, right. No, it’s just not gonna get consumed. That’s what’s gonna happen.
AJV (25:36):
But it’s like, we do that all the time. It’s like these whole value ladders are built on and you get this and you get this and you get this. And it’s interesting because sometimes I’m going, what am I gonna do with all that?
NS (26:30):
Yes. Amen.
AJV (26:31):
I would, I would pay five times the amount of money versus it’s like, this is a 16 hour course with and I’d be like,
NS (26:38):
No, thank you.
AJV (26:39):
I couldn’t pay enough money to do that.
NS (26:41):
Can I pay to have someone do that for me? Can, is there add an option?
AJV (26:46):
Can you just give me the cliff notes? Can you tell me what you learned in a 15 minute coffee?
NS (26:50):
That would be great. Where’s the summary.
AJV (26:53):
The cliff notes please. But I think those are like really important things of like, we get it wrong. We try to add and add and add and add. And really what that’s doing is it’s like when people get in there and they don’t use it, then they think they’ve wasted all this money. Yes. When really the core thing, if we would’ve just kept the main thing, the main thing we could have added even increased the price tag because it doesn’t, it’s not gonna take you that long to get there.
NS (27:18):
That’s right. Because time they value that time. They value that time. And, and to your point, you should know your primary currency. So I like to talk about like, what’s the big promise of your product or the thing, or even if it’s a free training video, you still have to sell that thing. It is still a free offer. What is the primary currency? It what, okay, doesn’t matter if people are sending you their email address and then you’re giving them back something in return or if they’re giving you cold, hard cash, doesn’t matter. There’s still a currency exchange happening here. And so what I like what, this is a great exercise. If you’re listening to this that I love doing this, put you have a column for increase and a column for decrease. And I want you to think about what is that thing, the training, the product, the course your workshop, your book, what are, what are all the ways it can increase something in their life or in their business and decrease.
NS (28:08):
And I want you to try to be as specific as possible. If you can put a timeline on that, cuz we just know time, time is, is key here. People pay for that shortcut to shortcut to success. So do you help them to X their revenue in six months? Do you help reduce or decrease churn in their companies in the next 90 days, whatever that is for your business. Try to think of it and articulate it in, in a, in a currency exchange. Because that way, if you look at and, and chances are, I’m sure all of the folks listening to this, you’re all amazing. You can do more than one thing for people. There’s probably you’re gonna do this exercise. You’re probably gonna have 20 different things that you can increase or decrease in someone’s life or business. The key is to understand what’s the primary one that they care the most about. What’s the one that they’re going to pay the most for. That’s how you’re gonna be able to monetize your expertise in a, in a very scientific kind of a way.
AJV (29:04):
Oh, that’s so good. And it’s like, that’s really a short list of answers. Really? Yes. I mean it’s like most people are gonna pay to get more time. Yeah. They’re gonna pay to make more money or they’re gonna pay to have more fulfillment.
NS (29:18):
Yes. Less stress,
AJV (29:20):
Less stress,
NS (29:21):
More ease. Right. You can go on and on. But if I love the idea of like, oh, they’re actually giving me something and I’m giving them something in return and the clear I can be about what it is and why it’s so valuable, the easier it is to be able to sell.
AJV (29:37):
That’s so good. Do you feel like that translate into copy as well?
NS (29:42):
It does. Oh my God. That is your, I mean, to me, that’s copywriting gold. I would say that exercise. And then the other exercise I always recommend for copywriting is you have to get into the mind of your consumer and write down all of the potential problems they think they could have. And all of the ways that you’re providing a solution for those problems, it’s like problem, solution, exercise. Even if you think it’s crazy. Like I don’t what, and there’s honestly, if you go through this, there’s gonna be some pretty common ones. I don’t have time. I, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t believe this is gonna work for me because I’m special or my business is special or I have this special circumstance. Like there’s very common ones that come up. But if you can be able to, you know, those going into your marketing and sales campaigns, then your copy addresses them directly. I think those two exercises, the currency exchange. And then I would say your prospect problem list and your solution list is gonna be the two biggest things you can do to improve your copy.
AJV (30:37):
Ah, so good. And keep it short, right? Yeah. Like that time to your novel emails. No, I had to write a text. This is so funny. I literally one of my newer friends who is helping me break into the sport sports world, her name is Ashley. And she’s like, I’m not really good at email. I’m traveling all the time. So just, can you text me all these things? And I’m like writing this text and I get down. I’m like, oh my gosh, I have just written the longest text ever made on planet earth. And I literally, I sent it and I said, and now I know you’ll never read this. So I’m going to have to send an email that is a third of this link. And it was like, like as I’m writing it, I’m so annoyed with my stuff. I’m like, oh my gosh, why am I still typing?
AJV (31:23):
Why is this so long? Why am just taking so much time? But it’s so true. It’s like, if I have to scroll, I just go, I’ll do it later. Yep. I have to do, it’s gotta stay above the fold. Right. I think those, those are so good. Okay. So I wanna come back to this really quick thing. I literally could probably spend another hour talking to you. This is such a great company. I love this Nora. So ease of use. How do you make it easier for people to use? So I wanna answer that. And then I’m so sensitive of the time. I also then wanna go out, like, I want people to understand like, what is hello, audio, and really dive into this concept of a private podcast. Because at least to me that’s a really newer term. Right. And this gated content, but like how does this help? So, okay. So first ease of use and then let’s talk about private podcast.
NS (32:08):
Yes. Ease of use. So one of, I will say, even from a hello audio perspective is we were building this tool yet. Yes. It’s important in SAS, but I would argue it’s important in anything that people buy, but SAS specifically, why do people not buy software? Because they have a perception that it’s going to be a pain in the butt. They have a perception that it’s going to take them a long time to incorporate it into their business.
AJV (32:31):
A lot of money
NS (32:32):
And yeah, it, it is. Yeah. And depending on where you’re coming from a lot of buddy but it’s, it’s really the, the ability to kind of speed up that time to value, reduce the time to value speed up that success path because you’re making it easy for them to do. And so what other doesn’t matter, that’s why we see for example, authors, when there’s like the PDF version of your audio book or the, the book, and then you have the audio book tend to, if we look at comparisons, a lot of times your conversions on the audio book will be higher because it’s easier to consume. Right? Right. So if we look at your course, is it, are you making it easy to get through meaning are lessons maybe two hours long or are you chunking them up with very specific kind of headlines or very specific targeted engagements if you’re a coach and you do coaching calls, are you putting those replays in a locked membership site where you’re not providing time stamps or, or how can you make it easier for people to get through the content or to take the action?
NS (33:30):
So whenever I’m building an online course, I look at all right, what’s the information they need, what are the actions that they need to take? And what is the support that I can provide her that they’re going to need to take those actions and it, every single step of the way, how can I make it easier for them to consume the information? It it’s again, not creating 16 hours of content. It’s giving them only what they need to take the action. How can I make the action easier to take? Sometimes that’s templates, sometimes it’s swipe files. Sometimes it’s, it’s a certain level of support, right. And giving them that. But it’s all about making it easier. And with hello audio, when we built that, that was actually one of the non-negotiables in building that piece of software is it has to be easy to use if it’s not easy to use, people are not going to use it. And we, that was, that was how we, so now when we look at 70%, I think it’s a little over 70% of our folks said, join, hello, audio, and, and create their first private feed. They do it in less than a day. They launch their first feed in less than a day. And that isn’t a very important metric for our company, because if our product is not easy to use and they can’t get that value quickly, then we’ve done something wrong. That’s kind of what, what we truly believe.
AJV (34:45):
This is so good. So, alright. So I have a personal question for you that. Sure. So while you were talking, I pulled up think GI where we house all of our courses. Right? So as a part of brain builders group, our membership program, you get access to 14 courses. And so I it’s a lot, it’s a lot, right. That’s where I’m going. Right. So I broke it up and that’s why I pulled it in here. And so this has been a, it’s been a hot topic in our company because we have broken everything down into six lessons. Right. And at first everyone was like, that’s just too many. But the reason we did it is to make it bite size. Yep. So here’s what I’m curious to know is like, do you think the way that we’ve broken this up is still too long. So there are six lessons and in each of those lessons, we break them up into a training, a hot seat. And then a workbook. And so the training is 29 minutes and then the coaching hot seat is 15.
NS (35:38):
Okay. But they’re, but they’re distinct. Yeah. Which I love. And I think that, I mean, if I look at a 29 minute training, is that too long? No. Be, and I don’t think it’s never a number. I always look at the content. Are you giving more information that’s necessary knowing you no. Right. Like you’re giving exactly what they need to take the next action and nothing more. Does that mean you don’t care about them? And that you’re like, oh, let me over deliver. No, I like you are over delivering by keeping it as tight as possible. And that’s what I love
AJV (36:10):
Makes me so happy to hear, because if you told me something different, I’m pretty sure my team would’ve been like, we’re done. We
NS (36:16):
Quit. Your team is amazing. Your team is amazing. And here’s what I’ll say
AJV (36:20):
Backwards. Taking more ideas in here. That’s thing helpful to know. Cause it’s like we spent six months basically re orchestrating this from basically what you said is people are like, it’s so long, it’s hard prior to doing this. If you add all these up, you know, it’s like 12 hours of content. And it’s like, we had, ’em when we first started, this is so good for everyone to know. Like, don’t think just because that’s the way you start, that’s the way you have to end up. I know. But you know, when we started putting all of our courses in here, they were in two day, segments is a day, one and day two
NS (36:56):
Are long days. Those are
AJV (36:58):
One was six hours and then day two was like five hours. Right. But that’s how it was. And it wasn’t until like, we probably just had to have it that way. Cuz we have so much curriculum for, it was probably look that way for almost two years before we said, okay, let’s start going through our curriculum and how do we break this up? But that took a process of going, what is the best way to break this up and what is that right amount? And do we include both video and audio or is that too much? And we opted to do both video and audio right. As a, you know, but it’s really interesting of like even going through this, like we just launched our new version of our course membership just April 1st. So we just got it to the way that we wanted four years later. Yeah. And here’s the thing that I think is fascinating. The content itself has not changed.
NS (37:52):
It’s still valid. It still works.
AJV (37:54):
Yeah. And I think that’s a great reminder to anyone who is listening. It’s like just because you’re constantly reinventing and changing doesn’t mean the core content has to change. It’s just the format, the medium, the duration, the delivery mechanisms of it change. This is always a great reminder to me. I’m not sure if you know this, but our first book, so my husband launched his first book, take the stairs which hit number two on the New York times, we were super grateful, super blessed. It was a really awesome time, but we just celebrated 10 years of that book being out. And here’s the funniest thing B the exact same keynote today that he did 10 years ago, when the book launched
NS (38:38):
Still,
AJV (38:39):
When it launched, he was probably charging $7,500. Now his fee is 30. Yep. It’s the same content. The only thing that is different is the way that he delivers the content. That’s it? And I think that’s a great reminder to us is you don’t have to make new content. No. To make it better.
NS (39:00):
Yes. I, and I love that. And the fact that you’re zeroing in on the delivery mechanism, our, you gotta keep in mind markets evolve our habits as consumers evolve. I don’t know anyone who’s listening to this that does not have a, have an ideal customer that is busy. We’re all busy. And so while we, you know, before we would deliver things on like tele seminars, I don’t know about you, but the thought of sitting on a phone or having a phone for like hours on end, like we used to, you know, granted this was over a decade ago, but that was really popular. We have to continue to evolve our delivery mechanisms and our delivery channels to meet people where they’re already at. And that’s why I love. And we actually do integrate directly with think GI we have a lot of folks that host their courses on think GI and they automatically create private podcasts for courses because it’s just the delivery mechanism.
NS (39:54):
Some people will absolutely have time to log in and go through the videos. And I would even argue if you even have a visual course, there’s still benefit for people listening to where you’re taking them. Cuz we all know with learning repetition is key. And so when you sit down to watch that video where you sit down, it sounds like when you have your amazing workbooks and people are working through that, they’ve already heard it. Right. They’ve heard it once and they know where we’re headed or they know where you’re taking them. And that can provide a massive difference in terms of the results that your folks get.
AJV (40:24):
Hmm. I love that. And so you said something that’s really fascinating. It’s like you can create private podcasts yes. As courses in your membership site.
NS (40:33):
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
NS (40:36):
So with, with private podcasts, it kind of is it’s interesting that you can create all sorts of podcasts with different content. So we have a lot of teachers and a lot of online educators that use hello audio and they podcast their course. They have a private podcast version and Amy Porterfield who I know you just recently had on she’s one of a, she’s a hello audio user as well. And so she uses hello audio to deliver her DCA content to her, her audience because she has a lot of folks that are doing this as a side hustle. She has a lot of folks that are busy and here’s the thing. Her videos are amazing. They’re and, and she’s not trying to replace those videos. She’s just making it more convenient and easier to, for her audience to consume that information so that when they do sit down to do the work, they’ve already listened to it.
NS (41:23):
They have another option to get the information they need to get the results that they want. So for, for me, having, it’s easy to be able to just drag and drop all your course content and put it into a private feed that is still protected, right. That’s still very much protected cuz we all know that you put a lot of hard work into creating your premium courses. Right. But it’s also other things as well. We can, we can podcast. So if we look at the coaching calls, this is a great opportunity for coaching calls. You have group coaching calls, how many, and I know we’ve probably both invested heavily in coaching programs during our careers. How many times have we really logged in and watched that hour plus long zoom video really? For me hardly ever. Right. Hardly ever. And even if I start watching it, I have now opened bazillions of other tabs and I’m doing other things background
AJV (42:14):
I’m yeah. It’s just, it’ll just like, you know, absorb into my brain somehow. Yeah.
NS (42:34):
It expires, it expires and, and you get to set that time that it expires, you can set it to expire immediately. Or if you wanna give folks an hour because maybe they’re like me and they’ve got a bazillion devices and you wanna load it on maybe your iPad and your phone, you can do that as well, but we have it set so that you can choose to expire immediately after it’s used.
AJV (42:54):
So I’m curious, have you had any use studies on doing this for like private content? Just for your email list?
NS (43:03):
Yes. Okay.
AJV (43:04):
I’d love to hear
NS (43:05):
That we have folks. So we kind of use, if you think about a private podcast almost as the new inbox, right? So if your newsletters we have tar ZK is one of our users. She’s an amazing copywriter. Her emails are fantastic, right? Obviously she’s a copywriter, so she makes them, she’s a storyteller. They’re fantastic. And yet what she does is she’ll also read them and she has a private podcast called Tarzan, reads her emails, pretty clear what it is. Right. And it gives her subscribers a way to consume that content. Because I mean, I don’t know about your inbox. I probably have a lot of, let’s just say a lot. I don’t wanna get skewed a lot of unread emails in my inbox on a daily basis. So I probably will never need to read. Right. So just to give myself a little bit of an out, but it, it gets more and more crowded.
NS (43:53):
And so this gives her a way to con communicate and reach her existing list. And in a way that is, it allows her to express her personality. Think about reading that newsletter or reading that email and how different the experience is when you read it. And you’re listening to that person, read it with all of their intonation, their brand voice right now, that connection that we have with that person is more intimate. And it’s stronger because of the, the fact that it’s consumed in audio versus doesn’t this there’s nothing wrong with that email that email’s amazing, but it now takes our connection and our relationship to a new level.
AJV (44:30):
Yeah. Well that’s the, the thing with, you know, whether it’s, you know, audio or video, but it’s the audio component it’s like, don’t they say that hearing is like one of like the biggest sources of memory of smell and hearing, but it’s like one of the things too, it’s the thing that’s challenging about the written word is that you miss the tone and you miss those interests. I think, you know, it’s like we, I tried to all the time, it’s like, anytime I’m trying to write heated email, I’m like, delete that. Do not send that
NS (44:59):
That’s gonna not
AJV (44:59):
Be right. Cause it’s like, you always read it in the mood that you’re in, not the mood that it was sent, but totally different connotation and tone and feel when you hear someone in the intent that they desire to send us. Yes. Very much. I love this. This is so fascinating. Okay. So last two things, Nora. So what do you want people to know about hello audio?
NS (45:22):
Oh, well, hello. Audio is a great way for you to reach your consumers where they’re already at. And, and again, we made it easy to use, but even easier to try. So one of the things that we did with hello audience, we removed, I know a lot of SAS companies do this. They ask you to put in net credit card before you try it. We do not. So we have a free seven day trial, no credit card required to allow you to just experience it. So if you do wanna check it out and you’re interested in creating a private podcast for any sorts of content that you might already have, go ahead and go to hello, audio FM. And you can try it out for seven days without any requirements. No, no credit card requirements. It’s just making it super easy. There you go. Ease in convenience, reducing the friction
AJV (46:02):
Practice, what you preach. I’m gonna go from that. Absolutely too. And then last and not least, where can people follow you and learn more about you?
NS (46:11):
Absolutely. You can connect with [email protected] or on Instagram at Nora set.
AJV (46:17):
Oh my gosh, Nora, this was awesome. There is so much richness in this conversation and it’s like, I took an entire page of notes and I’m like trying to pay attention and come up with questions. Like I gotta write this down. This is so good. I love this. This was genuinely one of my favorite interviews that I’ve done. And it’s like, like I told you, it’s like into the audience, you know, it’s like we usually only have friends on it is very rare that we would take a pitch that somebody sent us. But I was so fascinated in this, that you have been the surprising delight in this conversation. Thank you so much for giving us your time today.
NS (46:53):
Oh, thanks for having me. I’m this has been amazing. I’m so glad we connected.
AJV (46:57):
Oh my gosh. I can’t wait to learn more. I can’t wait to stay connected. I’m so fascinated. And you, this has been such an awesome conversation. Thank you so much, everyone listening. Make sure you stay tuned. Come back for the recap episode and we will see you next time on the influential personal brand.
Ep 318: How to Get Publicity with Selena Soo
RV (00:02):
If you’ve hung around here for any length of time, you know, that the way that we define personal branding is simply the digitization of reputation. And one of the ways that I vet podcast guests, that we’re gonna bring on to introduce you to is through their reputation. It’s what do I hear about somebody from other people? And that is why you are about to meet Selena Soo. Selena is friends with lots of people that we know, Julie Solomon and Susie Moore, and just like I’ve heard her name for years, Celine Da Costa, who we’ve had on this show, who I really love and adore. And I think she’s brilliant. She actually was the one who finally connected us directly to Selena and Selena is an expert in publicity, you know, visibility and just helping people get seen and, and have more reach.
RV (00:57):
So she, for I think 18 years lived in New York, she had a publicity agency. She’s helped people get featured in Oprah and Forbes and Inc. And she works with lots of you know, experts and entrepreneurs, very similar obviously to our core audience. But specifically in the area of publicity. And so publicity is one of the things that we sort of lightly touch on, but we usually farm out that work to vendor partners. And so she’s a total, a total pro and I was like, we gotta get her on the show so that we can, we can get a chance to meet her. So Selena, welcome to the influential personal brand podcast.
SS (01:34):
Thank you, Rory. I’m so thrilled to be here.
RV (01:37):
So yeah. So let’s talk about publicity and let’s start with the easy ones. How do you get on good morning America?
SS (01:46):
RV (02:33):
Oh, we love frameworks. We love frameworks. Yes.
SS (02:36):
OK, great. So, you know, imagine a pyramid, a triangle at the bottom of the pyramid that is your home base, that is your online presence, right? That’s your personal brand. Cause the first thing that people are gonna do when they hear about you, whether it’s Oprah’s producers or someone else is Google you, and if they Google you and nothing shows up, then they’re not gonna
SS (02:54):
Like exactly. Right. So even just having like a solid website, a social media presence with content like that is step one, right? To really like be present online. And then step two is guest posting. Cause that’s a natural extension from writing content on social media or your blog or your newsletter. So now you’re sharing that same content, but on third party website so that other people can see you. And the great thing about guest posting is oftentimes you can include a link back to your website, right? So that’s good for SEO. It can be good for list building. You know, if you can link up to a lead magnet and there are some amazing places like Forbes, mind, body green that are built on this model of guest posting thrive global, right? All these different places. So that would be the second layer of the publicity pyramid. And then the
RV (03:42):
Third before you, so before you go onto the third one, which as I do wanna hear this, but I will say like, you know, we’ve been on Fox, we’ve been on good morning, America, we’ve been on Fox and friends. We’ve been on, you know, several local. I will say I would rather have a online article with a link to my site than I would be on good morning, America. Like the power of an article that people can read. I mean, being on good morning, America and stuff helps a bunch with credibility, but it’s mostly, it’s kind of like you drive for show and you put for dough and golf. Like most of the national TV is like the publicity perception. Yeah. But when it comes to driving traffic and sales and leads, man, I love a link. I wanna a link
SS (04:31):
Yeah. I’m still on the same page. And that’s, you know, how I started, like following this publicity pyramid framework where, you know, I had my website and you know, my social media, but then I was writing articles and writing guest posts, including writing guest posts for influencers who yeah. You know, mail the guest posts, like to their email list. And that’s how I got, you know, my first gosh, like maybe 2000 subscribers through that strategy. Wow. Yeah. So guest posts,
RV (04:57):
Your first 2000 email, like in your database came from just putting articles on other people’s sites.
SS (05:05):
Exactly. Yeah. So that was my, you know, starting point for really like getting my name out there to the public. And then from there, the next level is podcast interviews and video interviews or guest teaching would also fall into this category. You know, when you’re getting started as an expert, you wanna start with, you know, sharing your ideas through it in content, and eventually then you’re gonna have these back and forth conversations with people. Now, this is really where I hang out on the publicity pyramid because, you know, even though podcasts or doing guest teaching, it can be more niche, but these are people that are raising their hands saying, yes, I wanna be in the room. Or I wanna be listening to this conversation and learning 30 minutes or an hour. Those are the same kinds of people that buy online courses and coaching programs. So that’s really, you know, where I primarily hang out and maybe, you know, a certain podcast might not have the brand name recognition of as Forbes, but again, not all publicity is created equal and it’s not just about the branding. It’s about are my ideal clients who are right for my offers hanging out there.
RV (06:05):
Totally. Yeah. I mean that, I think this is a great example. Like you’re, you, you likely would get more clients from this podcast than probably from a national TV thing because it’s like, you know, there’s a random smattering of people listening, but you know, I, well, something you just said, I’ve never really thought about, which I love is when someone listens to a podcast mm-hmm,
SS (06:47):
Yeah.
RV (06:48):
All right. So is there a step four?
SS (06:50):
Yeah, there’s four. There’s the next level? There’s four and five. Okay. So now we’re moving up, the publicity here, we’re getting more mainstream, so that’s gonna be magazines and, you know, magazines are powerful because people read magazines on the plane at the beach or the dentists office. Like you’re literally getting in front of millions of people. That being said with magazines, typically when you’re being mentioned in a magazine or featured, it’s usually, you know, your expertise, a quote versus like a fully written piece by you. Yeah. So you’re reaching millions, but it’s you know, less in depth. Right. And then with TV, which is at the top of the publicity pyramid, because it tends to be harder to get on TV than to get a podcast interview. That being said, as we move up, we’re reaching more people. But it can be less in depth. Like for example, a lot of TV interviews are just three or four minutes long. Yeah. So it’s kinda really
RV (07:41):
Powerful, even if you’re Tony Robbins like Tony, even if you’re Tony Robbins, you get you Dave Ramsey, you get four minutes and you’re out.
SS (07:48):
Exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, it’s a huge credibility builder to say you’re on good morning, America or CNN. And all of that. And it can be, you know, powerful if you’re spreading your message to the masses with like a mass product, whether it’s a book, an iPhone app or some kind of physical product. So it really depends on, you know, is your message one really for the mainstream mainstream masses, or are you going for a more niche audience? And then also like considering where do you really shine? You know, for some people they really wanna stick to the written word and that’s really where their magic comes out for other people like videos where it’s at. So but I would say in terms of like the law of least effort, the most natural path, it would be building out some basic online presence then going into guest posting then podcasting. And then if you want to moving your way up to magazines and TV.
RV (08:38):
Yeah. It’s interesting. You know, just that whole, this whole conversation that you just went through, which I love the publicity pyramid is what you call it Uhhuh. So, so great. Such a simple framework is so powerful is, you know, people go, oh, magazines and TV is so sexy, but like you’re gonna get way more business from podcasts and guest posting mm-hmm
RV (09:34):
They’re super credible, you know? Or they’re like, you know, some world renowned person in, in, in their field. Yeah. You know, or they’re like famous for, for whatever. And in TV a lot of times it’s like, oh yeah, of course they’re gonna have Brad pit or whoever on there for something. But when it comes to featuring books, I’m often surprised that if you’re a mainstream person, it’s not an automatic laydown they might not have Gary Vayner Chuck on just because it’s Gary Vayner, Chuck, sometimes they do. But a lot of times they have newer authors on or people that I, that you haven’t heard of. In other words, it’s, it feels more random in terms of the, in terms of the selection. It’s not like, oh, this person checks every single box. And so they get invited on this huge show. It’s a little bit of that, but I, you know, a lot of times they they’ll, they’ll grab people that are like newer. I mean, I got on Fox and friends as a first time author. Like the week after my first book came out was my first national TV appearance. And I was like, well, that’s random. Like what are they doing with, what are they doing with me? So like, how do, is there anything you can speak to until like, how do you get those spots? Do, is there anything they are looking for or not looking for? Like for TV specifically?
SS (10:48):
Yeah. I mean, I would say, you know, you wanna differentiate between local news and national news because for local TV they have a responsibility to share the stories and ideas of local experts. So, you know, if you’re an author, you know, think about, well, what cities am I connected to? Where was I born? Where did I go to college? Where have I worked? Where am I living
RV (11:09):
Now? Oh, that’s good.
SS (11:10):
Right. So I would identify all those places and really start with those markets. Because if you can mention your local connection, then you’re kind of at the top of the priority list. So that’s, you know, that’s important. And I would say that before you go on national TV, I mean, that’s incredible that, you know, you were on these national shows, but I also think a big part of it is that you done an amazing job of building your personal brand, that they, they probably had confidence that, you know, you were good on video, but I will say for national TV, they’re gonna wanna see that someone has ideally been on local TV first. Because you know, just cuz someone’s good at the podcast interview doesn’t mean that they’re gonna be good at TV. They’re gonna consider like, you know, do they have a great setup with lighting?
SS (11:52):
Can they, they speak in soundbites because some people, yeah, they can talk on a 30 minute or one hour podcast interview, but can you speak succinctly in a four minute interview? So there’s a lot more at stake and it’s not like with podcast interviews where they’re gonna be editing it later, like you kind of gotta get it right at the first shop. So I will say for like the big leagues, like the big national outlets they’re definitely doing the research in terms of what that person’s personal brand is. Have they done TV before? Are they confident? Do they, you know, smile? Are they presentable? So I would say the first stop is really, you know, to start with local news. And then once you have those TV clips, then when you’re sending in your pitch, you wanna share that so they can see, you know, you have that experience.
RV (12:34):
That’s so good. And, and that, that is, that is so true. Selena that like, you know, I love podcasts. I feel so super at home on podcast. TV goes so fast, it’s it? It four minutes blows by and it’s like, you don’t have time for a setup. There’s no time for backstory. It’s like, you just gotta deliver sound bites. They gotta be tight and sharp. It’s, it’s a different, it’s a different, it’s a different skillset. And, and being on local TV is, is, is, is huge. I love that tip about too, you know, what’s your connection to local. And I would, I would, I would tell somebody, listening, you know, you think you wanna be on good morning America right now, but you actually don’t, you, you don’t want to be on there until you’re ready for it, which is until you’ve had some, you’ve had some reps at local TV, you have the sound bites and like your website is ready for it. And you’re like prepared to like receive that traffic and capture. But yeah, TV is a TV is a is a, is a different beast.
SS (13:38):
And the other thing that I will say is with TV, like they’re really looking to capture people’s interests, you know, with visuals, right. Cause you’re watching TV. So, you know, if you have good role of you, you know, I don’t know, working with clients or if you have like live exercise that the TV audience can do, like those are gonna be things that are interesting if you’re just a talking head like, and it’s just, you know, all they’re seeing is someone talking for four minutes straight. It’s not as interesting. So just know that when the producers are thinking about, well, I have a person on their show, they’re gonna think about not just what are the words are gonna kind of the person’s mouth, but is there something that the person that can share that can capture visual interest or is there activity that would be engaging to the audience?
RV (14:21):
Gosh, that’s so simple, but that’s, that makes so, so much sense. So when you make a pitch, would you include notes about like B roll that you would show or like a, if there’s a visual or something?
SS (14:33):
Yeah. So if you were say a love coach and you were pitching you know, you could talk about, you know, that you have clients that could come onto the show or you have like B role of you working with clients and so forth, or maybe there’s like an activity for someone to do to attract, you know, their soulmate. And maybe you would write out like what the activity activity would look like. Like maybe they need to have a journal that they did. They, they journal in 30 days and you would like mention all these different props so that the segment would look very dynamic where there’d be the talking head, but there would also be props and activities involved.
RV (15:06):
Yeah. That, and that’s why you see probably all the time you see like chefs on there, cuz it’s very visual. Cause they can cut and show the food and like show, show all the stuff. So it’s almost like you, when you’re pitching for TV, what I hear you saying is it’s like, you’re not even just pitching like the content of what you’re gonna say. Yeah. But almost like you’re pitching, think of it as pitching a segment to them of like how this could fold out visually and that makes it an easier. Yes.
SS (15:34):
Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, TV producers are so busy and, you know, think about like with a podcast, there’ll be a certain number of episodes that are released, you know, per month, but TV, I mean it’s kind of 24 7, right. It’s every day. So they constantly need new content. They need to keep it interesting. So if you, as an expert can pitch yourself or as a publicist pitch, you and you’re kind of like mapping out what this segment could look like. You’re presenting something on a silver platter and making it easier for them to say yes. So when there’s so many options, of course we’re gonna say yes to the person who makes our job easy for us.
RV (16:08):
Mm-Hmm
SS (16:56):
That’s such a great question. So I think it’s important to get clear on with your expert topics. Are they niche or are they mainstream? So when I’m speaking of expert topics, it’s like the things that you wanna be known for. And I know a lot of entrepreneurs can be multi passionate at the end of the day. You wanna hone in on a few key things. So for example, at one point I had a business mastermind and people in the mastermind would ask me questions about scaling their business and you know, if they should hire a senior project manager, well, if I started getting bored of my regular expert topic and just wanted a podcast talking about how to grow your team, well then people are gonna circle back and be like, oh, I wanna work with you to grow my team. But like my mastermind is something that maybe is only four 20 people.
SS (17:39):
Whereas with my programs, let’s say I have 500 people you know, in a particular group program. Right. So my primary group program has been a program called impacting millions and that’s about publicity. So if my intention was, I wanna get people enrolled to my publicity program, then what I’m talking about in the media should match my offerings. Right? So looking at your own business, what’s the 80 20, what does the majority of revenue come from? Which offering will, you know, based on that offering, that should be what your expert topic is. And so when you look at your expert topic, is it mainstream or niche? So for publicity, I would consider that to be a niche topic. For me, a mainstream topic is something that applies to most people. For example, if I was to talk about being an introvert, well, you know, half of the population are introverts like approximately.
SS (18:27):
So that would be mainstream. Or if I were talking about networking or relationship building that applies to everyone, whether you’re a student at college or you have, you know, professional job or you’re an entrepreneur, whereas publicity typically, you know, it applies to entrepreneurs who are building their personal brands. So that’s a bit more niche. So knowing that with my offerings, I’m looking for a niche audience, not just kind of anybody I’m gonna target more niche media. So it might not have the same reach, but it’s gonna help me get in front of the right people. So those are the things I consider. But then there’s also, you know, there is a role for just personal brand building in terms of media. You know, there are certain brand names that are very recognizable, like Forbes and business insider. And so, you know, being featured in those outlets can also be really powerful whether or not your ideal client has actually read the article that you’re featured in.
SS (19:23):
But if they just see those media logos on, you know, your site, they see you as a credible expert. And the other thing that you can do with your email list is when you get your media features, you know, put them in front of them, you can add them to your email nurture sequence. You know, you can add those, you know, media logos and trust symbols next to you know, places where people opt in or, you know, make purchasing decisions. So I think that when it comes to publicity, it’s sort of multifaceted. I would say primarily you wanna get in front of people who are your ideal clients, but there is also something to be said about prestige media as well.
RV (19:58):
Yeah, that, I mean, I, I love that. And I agree with that so much. The I have found that most of the major national stuff, the real, the primarily the only real value of the media appearance is how you repurpose the appearance, basically putting it on your website. Also those of you that are speakers, you know, in your demo videos, or even if you’re a coach and you’re not a speaker, you could still have like a little, you know, little bio video. And I’m just pulling up, I’m pulling up a data point on this just for everybody. So one of the things that we did Selena was we led this trends in personal branding, national research study. And we we partnered with this PhD led research firm. And we asked, you know, all these different questions, but one of the questions was how important are each of the following when it comes to paying someone more for a product or service.
RV (20:58):
So I just wanna put a data point here behind something that Sina is saying. So, and we asked you have a, a Ted talk, a New York times bestselling book, a wall street journal, bestselling book a social media file. I’ll go ahead and show this on the screen for those of you that are watch watching this on YouTube. So I had to, I had to pull it up quick. So page 60 of our, of our report which is free, y’all know that you can, you can download this at on brand builders, group.com. But the number one thing that clients say they’re willing to pay more money for is when they see testimonials from their, from their customers. The second is that they’re paid to consult or speak, but the fourth. So this is a list of like 20 things, the fourth, and this is waited to the us census.
RV (21:49):
52% of Americans say they are more likely to pay more money to, to buy a product or service from someone who has been featured in the media as an expert. So that is an actual data point that is supporting what Selena is saying. And of course, we’ve, we’ve talked about this study in other times. And usually the point we make is actually the average pub person in the public doesn’t care that much about a New York times bestselling book or a wall street journal or a viral, you know, Ted talk, they care about testimonials and they care about, are you being paid to speak or, or consult. And then the fourth is that they care are that you’re appearing in the media. 52% of Americans say, they’ll pay you more money just because you have those logos on your site. So like Selena, that is amazing. Like, what do you call it? Prestige? Is that what you called it? Prestige. Pre
SS (22:45):
Prestige. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-Hmm
RV (22:48):
I love that. So prestige PR, so that’s really, really cool. And so the mainstream stuff too, is like, you know, so it’s like money, sex, careers relationships, like, you know, self
SS (23:03):
Productivity, success,
RV (23:04):
Productivity. Yeah. Those mm-hmm
SS (24:08):
I think it’s the same thing. Like having media, it builds your credibility as a go to expert, as you said, people are willing to pay you more, but also people are more interested inviting you to come in to be a speaker at their event. You know, there’s just more trust or more likely to take the meeting. Right? One of the first things that anyone does, you know, before they respond to someone or say yes to a request is they do a quick Google search on them. And when they land on their website, if they see media logos, it’s like, okay, this person is the real deal. And it just also shows that like, you’re taking your work seriously. If someone is just like quietly, you know, doing their work, but they’re not out there sharing their ideas. They’re not building that body of work. They’re not really seen as the real deal. So I would say that media is the ultimate credibility marker. It’s something that every person understands. Whereas if you’re like, oh, I had a webinar with, you know, a thousand people on people don’t really know what that means, but they understand what it means to be featured in a top, you know, magazine, newspaper, podcast, and so forth.
RV (25:07):
Yeah. Yeah. It is. It’s definitely this like universal credibility indicator. I, I I know we’re wrapping up one thing I wanna do how do you find these people? Okay. So, so let’s say, I mean, of course you could hire a publicist and then when you hire a publicist, you’re sort of treading off of that. They already have contact information and relationships with people, and that’s really what you’re paying for. You know, when you, I, I feel like when you hire a publicist, you’re paying for someone who has the contact information readily available and who has relationships to make that for you? They don’t, none of them guarantee results. Yeah. And and they get varying results partly based on their relationship, but largely based on your position in the marketplace. But if you’re gonna do it yourself and, and we’ve, we’ve actually had a lot of people be very successful doing it themselves. I, it how, how do you find the outlets? Like how do you find the people? I mean, do you basically just go to Google or like there anything specific you’re typing in to like find the right person to pitch to?
SS (26:13):
Yeah. I think the first step is figuring out what are the right media outlets for me. So I can share like a couple of very quick strategies that I think will help people a lot. So one of my favorite techniques is called the follow, the leader technique. That’s something that I created. Yeah. So getting clear on, okay, what’s my expert topic. So let’s say someone’s expert topic was, you know, public speaking then they wanna think about who are some other leaders either in their industry or connected to them, right. So they might be looking at well, who else is teaching on visibility? Maybe it’s a publicity expert. Maybe it’s a public speaking coach. Maybe it’s someone that specializes in getting people Ted talks, right. And then doing a Google search on them and seeing what kind of media they’ve been featured in, you know, maybe going to their website and seeing if their media page or even going to specialize search engine.
SS (27:05):
So there’s a search engine called listen, notes.com.com it’s for podcasts. And so if you type in someone’s name into that search engine, within moments, all the podcasts that they’ve been featured on are gonna come up. So if you do that exercise with five people in your industry in no time, you’re gonna have a media list of dozens of targeted outlets that top leaders in your industry have been featured in. And so these are places that you’ll wanna be considering for your own media list. So, you know, using the fall a leader technique is super, super powerful. Also even doing things like leveraging existing research, if you wanna be on top business podcast, literally type into Google, a top business podcast, and people have compiled the top 20, the top 50, the top, you know, a hundred business podcasts. And you can leverage that existing research to start building your own personal media list.
RV (27:55):
Yeah, that’s funny. Yeah. That’s how I, that’s how I met Celine. Actually, she was doing a four podcast on the top personal brand. No, I think it was top podcast for business and, and somebody. Yeah. John Lee Dumas introduced her to us. So that was actually, she put an article together, which was an amazing article. Yeah. And yeah, you mentioned listen notes, which is a great one because that is I was gonna, I was gonna mention, I was gonna mention that there’s another really great tool and I’m trying to remember what it is that will tell you that’s kind of similar listen notes is the best for podcasts for sure. There’s another one that you can like search by topic and it will tell you all of the people who are spark Toro, have you heard of spark Toro?
SS (28:49):
No, I feel like I need to write this down.
RV (28:51):
SS (29:54):
Absolutely. So the thing I’m most excited to share is my 12 month publicity calendar, because when it comes to getting to the media, there’s a few things that you need to understand. First of all, like what kinds of story ideas are they looking for? And one of the things that they’re looking for are timely story ideas. So every single month there are certain themes. And if you can hit on these themes, you’re more likely to get accepted onto podcasts, onto TV, in magazines and so forth. So I have a 12 month media calendar it’s full of 40 pages worth of store ideas, special hooks and dates to help you get into the media. And you love it. Yeah. Impacting millions.com/calendar. And people have used this to not just map out their publicity plans for the year, but they’ve also used it to map out their social media content, their newsletter content. So people can go ahead and get an impacting millions.com/calendar. This took me like a ridiculous number of hours to put together. And it’s 40 pages worth of time saving tips and resources and dates to help you get into the media. So you can go ahead and check it [email protected] slash calendar
RV (30:59):
Genius. I we don’t even have an affiliate link for this, but I went and did it myself. Great lead magnet, so useful and so practical because yeah, it gives you a way, like, all you need to know is what are the topics they’re interested in every month and then just like position what you do to that. Fantastic. So I’m downloading that we’ll put a link to impacting millions.com in the show notes slash slash calendar, impacting millions.com/calendar. You guys can check it out make sure you follow Selena online and send her some love. If you picked up some tips, let her know that you found her from our crew here. And gosh, Selena, this is just so cool. And I’m so great. I’m so glad to finally meet you in person. You, you are an example of your reputation procedures, you, and that’s what we want all of our clients to be. It’s what we try to aspire to be. And you got great tips, a great lead magnet, just, you know, I love it. So we wish you, we wish you the best. Thanks for coming.
SS (32:00):
Thanks so much.
Ep 316: Be a Better Negotiator with Mori Taheripour
AJV (00:00:02):
Hey everybody. And welcome to another episode on the influential personal brand. So excited to have a fellow what I’m gonna say, learner teacher, student coach speaker consultant, author on the show today Mori was referred to me by a super good friend of mine. And although Mori and I are relatively new friends, we’ve got a really awesome friends in common. And I’m, it got introduced to her. And then I was so privileged to get a copy of her book that I’ve started reading. I think I’m on, like, I don’t know, maybe a third of the way through also holding it upside down right now. I am. There you go.
AJV (00:00:44):
And just love this. I’m so excited to get to talk about the book today, but to give you a little bit of a professional highlights of ma and her background, I’m here to some things credential that maybe you would wanna know. I think these are really cool things. But here’s like, I would say generally speaking, we’re gonna talk a lot about today. A lot about negotiation today and Mori is a negotiation expert and she has worked with some of the most iconic sports leagues, fortune 100 corporations. But she’s also a teacher at the Wharton school of a business. She’s also been on some major media outlets, including ESPN forms, Inc money NPR. Like I could go on and on with professional accomplishments, but we were just having this conversation about how our bios are such a teeny tiny part of who we are, and they really don’t give the full spectrum of who we are as individuals.
AJV (00:01:43):
Just some professional accomplishments along the way. And so two quick things, one Mori, welcome to the show and two I’m, this is my chance to let you introduce yourself and who you really are by helping our audience get to know you. And so here’s my first question for you. So here’s your introduction to the show and our audience. And here’s what we wanna know. We wanna know, how did you go from, let’s just say college graduate to all of these amazing things that you’ve done to most recently launching this awesome book about negotiation. So we wanna know how’d you do it
MT (00:02:27):
Well, first of all, let me just say J thank you for having me on the show, whatever it is you drink in the morning, I’ll have even half of it, even half of it would probably help. So your en your energy is awesome. Thank you for having me here. So I don’t really wanna go into like the really lengthy explanation of it, because I feel like there’s chapters of my life. I would say the first one is really all the way through college. And probably a few years thereafter the daughter of Iranian immigrants much like all the other sort of immigrants, immigrant stories, your parents have all these dreams and ambitions for you. They want the very best life for you. They take all those risks and they leave behind what they know to promote for the hope and promise of a better life for you.
MT (00:03:18):
And so, especially sort of this, what I call Iranian guilt, you know, we sort of carried this weight with us, knowing all that’s been sacrificed for you. And that sort of followed me from college. My father wanted me to be a doctor the youngest of three kids and the first two did not go that route. So I was like the last promise. Right. And, and so almost like living my life in a pre-programmed kind of a way I, I really didn’t even question it. And I went through college. All I knew was that I was not very good at the very thing I was supposed to be doing. Right. So it was, the sciences were always so hard, you know, kind of forced my interest in a lot of them, but it was like, don’t look right. Don’t look left, just look straight ahead.
MT (00:04:02):
This is what you’re supposed to do. And, you know, when I, when I graduated college and took the MCATs twice, by the way I was like, alright, wait a minute. This is not a, I’m not good at this. And two, I, I B I don’t even know if this is something that I enjoy all that much. What I did enjoy was helping people. What I did enjoy through all the, sort of the, the jobs that I’d had through like work study in college and the working in different doctor’s offices. And then really my last job was at St. Louis hospital in New York and Harlem, and working in the sickle cell unit and, you know, sort of really understanding in some ways that it was public health that I really enjoyed. And that was sort of like helping people at a macro level, not a micro level.
MT (00:04:47):
And so, you know, there was some of that in my spirit. I just knew that being a doctor wasn’t it. And so went through a lot of difference where I volunteered at a amazing organizations organization working with really high risk individuals drug users sex workers, and were, I did basically HIV test counseling. So I was the person that spoke to them beforehand to get them tested. And I spoke to them afterwards to get them their results. Wow. Was right.
MT (00:05:42):
And I enjoyed that very much. So, so fast forward that I continued to work in public health for several years, moved on to the public health department. And after a few years had the great privilege of starting this program that, that helped pregnant women who were at risk for HIV aids. And this is I’m kind of going down this route because it is important. But this program that I started kind of took off and it was, you know, the, the, the weight was fashioned was that it was basically supposed to sort of democratize access to HIV testing for people, for pregnant women, no matter if their race, religion, color, whatever it was. And only to be able to understand that they were HIV positive so that they can take the medications to help prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child.
MT (00:06:33):
And it was extraordinary, right? Again, like this was the first big breakthrough we had had in HIV aids. And again, you feel like you’re doing something that’s meaningful that you could be proud of. It sort of set my soul in its own way. State of California came to me and I said, the great program. We’d like to do this statewide. And here’s like a bunch money for you to do it. And but we want you to do it. So, and I just applied to business school after like all that, the understanding that I was not gonna go to med school, that I sort of found my niche, I was ready to go to business school. And then I get this opportunity and I thought business school can wait. Here’s an opportunity to do something on my own. And so I left the public health department and launched my company at that point as sort of my first sort of entrepreneurial venture. And, and what we did was basically a lot of education and social marketing campaigns, a really big level for like the CDC and others. And so I was like that entrepreneur that got handed money and I was like, wow, this was easy. Like, you know, this is
AJV (00:07:41):
Like, what’s
MT (00:07:42):
So hard about this
AJV (00:07:45):
Bunch of babies.
MT (00:07:46):
Exactly. But I do remember the conversation with my mom because my mom said, okay, you didn’t go to med school. You know, now you’re, you got into business school now you’re gonna do this. And yeah, there was, there was quite a bit of disappointment in that conversation, but I remember telling her that I’m not afraid. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen. Mom, I’ll be like the most educated waitress on the face of planet. Right. Like that’s what I would go to. Right. Because I realized that I really wasn’t afraid, like there was no fear in making that decision at that point. And maybe it’s because I had sort of taken care of myself always, but I thought what’s the worst that could happen. And that was sort of the beginning of this entrepreneurial journey. Now my career’s gone completely a different way, but I think it’s not having fear at that outset that has sort of that’s, that’s the one thing that sort of stayed with me all throughout my life. It was the whole notion of what’s the worst that could happen. Just do
AJV (00:08:41):
It. I wanna pause and talk about that a minute, because I really believe that fear ultimately is what holds most of us back from living out our, our calling and our purpose. Right. It’s like, we get so comfortable where we are that we don’t take the risk because we’re, we’re afraid. Like what if it doesn’t go well? And what, whatever. So I’m so curious, like where did that come from? How did you cultivate that? I mean, is that something you were born with? Like, where did this unabashed lack of fear come from that allows you to do things that others don’t?
MT (00:09:20):
I think a couple of things, the first was sort of like, it was that big fear of having that conversation with my parents to begin with that said, Hey, I don’t wanna be a doctor. I think I feared that for so long that once I had the conversation and I sort of set myself free, then it was like, I don’t know if there was anything else that I feared more than disappointing them, if that makes any sense. So everything else sort of pales to comparison in some way, I thought, I thought, oh my God, I feared that for so long. And all right, what happened? Yes, they’re disappointed, but you know, I’m still time standing. Right. And I’m now able to maybe pursue what I really wanna pursue. So the freedom from that, despite the, all the disappointment, I think if I, if I really had to think about it was the, the one thing that said, look, it all kind of works out.
MT (00:10:07):
Maybe it’s not perfect. Maybe it’s not exactly what you want it to be, but it works out because you have the wherewithal to sort of get through the lowest of the low. The other part of it is like having money or not having it or losing it never really scared me. I kind of felt like it was something that you just sort of could make up for. And I was very serious. I, I had waitress through college, one of the best jobs I ever had. I was like, if that’s what it takes, if all hell all else goes to, to hell in a hand basket, that’s what I’m gonna do. And I was, I think it was some level of sort of humility or maybe survival mechanisms. I don’t know, but that kicked in really early. And I think actually not putting so much emphasis on the, where am I gonna get money? Where am I, how am I gonna survive? Not really thinking about that, but in some, maybe it was some naive way thinking it’s, it’s gonna work out some way that sort of freed me up. I think one of the bigger, bigger, or hurdles that a lot of entrepreneurs, particularly, I think people who have a family to take care of, right. That they have other responsibilities. It was me. And so that, that, you know, maybe was an unfair advantage that I had as well. I just really had myself to sort of take care of,
AJV (00:11:23):
You know, it’s interesting in our last conversation, you said something that really resonated with me because it’s a core belief. Like one of the things that, you know, is kind of like one of my life mantras is that people care much more about who you are than what you do. And one of the things that I asked you on our first conversation was, you know, what’s, what’s something that you wish people knew about you. And I had written this down from my notes in our last call and you wrote down, I want them to know that I am not my work, but I am not my work. And I’m just curious, like how much of this lack of fear really comes from you have a really clear disassociation from your self worth and how that’s connected to your profession.
MT (00:12:08):
It’s not been easy. I’ve learned a lot of my lessons, the really hard way as evidenced by all the stories I tell of my book, I mean, lots of scars and lots of bruises. There’s been some really low lows. And you know, in, in my company, for example we, we, we have sort of, I’ve never lived through this before, as none of us have really a pandemic, but we had, you know, shortly after the, well, whoa, this was really easy. Was the.com crash. I was like, oh no, no, it really wasn’t. And then, you know, then we had the great recession of 2007, 2009, and being an entrepreneur, having to lay people off wor worried about, are you gonna get another contract? You know? So all of that, the really low lows of sort of that economic downturn, you know, I’ve, I’ve gone through that.
MT (00:12:58):
And so there were on those occasions, you know, again, the disappointment of sort of family, right. And, and I always knowing that I didn’t never want to go back and say you were right. I should have never done this. I never wanted to regret that. And so maybe it was the fear of, of failure that drove me in some ways, but with every one of those, those challenges and some I got through and, and it was okay. And some I got through and, you know, heart heartache and breaking up with a, a business partner who had been a friend for so long. And, you know, I would say I’ve never been married, but that was a really bad divorce. And you know, what I realized is that if I continued to sort of tie who I was with, what I did as a profession, then I would’ve been broken.
MT (00:13:51):
Yeah. Right. Or, or that got me kind of emotional. I would’ve broken a whole lot through my life and that was not an option. And the fact that I, I got through it and I didn’t allow myself to be defined by those struggles though, a lot easier said than said now, but it took a lot of sort of self love and, and, and changing my own narrative, you know? So I don’t want anybody to think this is easy. It’s, it’s a life lifelong struggle, honestly. But the more, as strange as it sounds, the more scars I got, the more bruises I got, the more hits that came my way. And I just kept getting up. Mm-Hmm
AJV (00:15:18):
I think that is such a instrumental and fun, a fundamentally necessary just awareness that we have to have is human beings, much less entrepreneurs or anyone who’s out there it’s like building a personal brand. It’s like, you know, I think the beautiful thing about building a personal brand is it really is about your message, not what you do, it’s about what you believe and right. Who you are and what you stand for. Not about, you know, and that’s why I said, it’s like, you know, we both kind of have this distaste for bios. Right. And I think that’s that, it’s like, what does that have to do with like who I am?
MT (00:15:56):
Exactly.
AJV (00:15:58):
And it’s so funny it’s I was at a recent conference with my husband and at this conference, they were handing out these what do you call ’em lanyards, right. And the lanyards have your name on them. And so my husband gets this lanyard and it says, Rory Vaden, CS, PSA.
AJV (00:16:23):
And it was like, like three other letters. And I was like, what are all of these letters? And it’s like, I took this lanyard and I like marked through all of them and just wrote D a D
AJV (00:17:07):
And it’s like, that’s gonna stick with me and to be a constant reminder of like, work, like the work we do is hard. Right. It’s like, you’re, you’re in the public face. It’s like, and you you’re laying it out. Like, you know, it’s like holding MA’s book. It’s like, you’re putting it out there. Right. You’re, you’re wearing your heart and your life on your sleeve when we, we dedicate our message to sharing it with the world. And so, you know, one of the things that I hadn’t read down, and I’m so curious, and I’m always fascinated to hear this because if you’re listening and you’ve ever wondered, you know, what would it take for me to write a book or, you know, should I do it? It’s like, I think it’s really important to know. It’s like, it’s hard work and it is long tedious. It’s gonna suck the resources. And a lot of times the money right out of underneath you. And so here’s my first question for you. It’s like, at what point in your journey, right. Professionally and personally, did you figure out that you wanted to write a book? Like how did you know that? Like, and then why did you do it?
MT (00:18:10):
So we have to backtrack a little bit after that whole sort of the thing with my company. And I, I did eventually go back to business school anyway after five years of, of being in, in my company. And, and when I was getting ready to graduate, my, one of my professors who taught negotiations and was the chairman of that, the legal studies department at the time said I think you should teach. And I thought he had lost his mind.
MT (00:18:56):
And I, I said, all right, finally, I’ll give this a shot. Right. He said, just be my TA. And that’s how it all sort of started just to see what you think being on the other side of the classroom and not a student that was nearly 18 years ago. I’m, I’m still teaching at Wharton. Wow. But, but I say that to say that then sort of, I talked about my life in chapters, that next chapter was sort of teaching career began. I never imagined it. I had never, never, even in my wildest dreams thought I could do it or was capable of doing it. And it was because somebody saw something in me. I didn’t see in myself. And I always say that to entrepreneurs, especially because I feel like, you know, we’re not risk averse right. To begin with. And, and in a lot of ways obviously not taking ridiculous risks because I think a lot of entrepreneurs take quite calculated risks, but, but in terms of the pursuit of something that drives you that beyond which you have serving in your daily life, right.
MT (00:19:59):
That, that, that goal, that purpose, whatever it is, I think entrepreneurs are incredible in doing that. Right. They sort of jump off that cliff that many people would never dream of doing. For me teaching was that right. I, somebody else saw it and I was like, you know what, I’m gonna give this a shot. What’s the worst that could happen. Right. And it, it was that what sort of drew me obviously to even the subject of negotiations and when I sort of trusted myself, which took about three years to stand in front of a classroom and teach it my way, like teach it the way I saw negotiations, teach it from my perspective and that sort of opens up everything. I won my first teaching award, I would say the first year that I actually kind of ripped up my syllabus and started teaching it exactly the way I wanted to teach it.
MT (00:20:50):
And that sort of made all the difference in the world. So you start trusting yourself and then, and then kind of magic happens. The book so years after I started teaching, I got the opportunity to teach for Goldman Sachs and their 10,000 women’s program which is working with female entrepreneurs globally. It’s not Nashville program. And I helped launch the program in the American university, in Cairo, Egypt, and was there for like the first three cohorts, life changing, amazing female entrepreneurs, guts, conviction, all the, all of it. Right. And one of the people sort of high level at Goldman Sachs was sort of seen sort of the outcomes of that program. And, and was that actually for the first graduation of these women came to me after several years of me being in that program and then actually teaching in the 10,000 school business program, which is where I went to next, after that said, whatever it is you do in my classroom, I’m not really sure what it is, cause I haven’t sat in it, but something magical happens and something really special happens. Look at the way they respond to you, capture it in a book.
MT (00:22:03):
So here’s somebody else who says, you know, they see something in you. And I was never fancied myself to be an author. Didn’t even like writing. The best part of being premed was that I took tests. I didn’t have to write anything. Right. And so I was like, there’s just no way. And, and moreover, there’s like a billion negotiations books out there. What do I have to contribute? Yeah. And so I fought it again. Right. I didn’t trust it. And, and, and yet he sort of planted the seed and kept coming back to me about it. And it took first, it took about 10 years to get the book out, but that’s only because the first four years I negotiated against myself I was like, there’s no place for you that you don’t want a redundancy. You don’t wanna do something that’s already out there.
MT (00:22:48):
But then when I was like, wait a minute, but what these books say is so different than what you deliver. Mm-Hmm,
AJV (00:24:07):
You know, it’s interesting. I think there’s like a couple of things I wanna kind of like circle around is one I did, this is a really great reminder to everyone who’s listening. Like writing a book does not happen in a year. It just doesn’t you, you said this was like a 10 year process, the first four years of negotiating against yourself. But then like, y’all like take note, like this does not happen in a year. And if it doesn’t or two years, that doesn’t mean it’s not going to, but this was a very multi-year process. Right? It was
MT (00:24:40):
Mm-Hmm
AJV (00:24:42):
So you’re kinda saying like, once you knew, like there is a message that I have, that’s kind of like unique and different. I think this is, I think this is equally as important because I think so many people struggle with, well, everything has already been said, I have nothing else to add. So what advice would you give to someone who’s talking them at themselves out of their own dream?
MT (00:25:04):
It’s like, no, honestly, I think especially for entrepreneurs, it’s no different than that product that you know, that there’s nothing else in the market for it, or, you know, whatever niche that you create or, you know, writing a book. I think that so much of it has to be your own belief in it, because again, there are no guarantees right there there’s zero guarantees. So at the end of the day, can you do something that you’re a proud of, but B that could have been, and would’ve been, and should have been like those types of regrets that come from not having taken that risk, not, not living up to the promise of what you had imagined for yourself and instead sort of backing off because you didn’t believe in the fact that you could actually pull it off. I think those missed opportunities to me are far scarier.
MT (00:25:58):
Like they, that, that notion of the, what if regret is so much more difficult to live with because you will spend the rest of your life thinking about it, as opposed to doing it and maybe failing and you learn, and then you move on, but at least you can never look back and say, what if I had and I think so much as we can control when we get to that intersection so much as we can control taking that turn and moving towards something and saying, what’s the worst that can happen. Right. I, I, I think that’s really important. And once you believe then it’ll work or it won’t, but you won’t ever have to spend all those time, you know, moments thinking, you know, I, I let it flip by.
AJV (00:26:43):
Mm that’s so good. I love that. I love too. It’s like the, the fear of not going for it is like greater than the fear of going for it. I think so good. And I wanna, I wanna get to the book in just a second, because I, I really wanna learn like your insights and perspective around negotiation, cuz I know they’re really unique and I think a lot of people don’t consider themselves good salespeople or good negotiators. We’re gonna change their mind on that today. But from a place of being on the other side, you know, we celebrated 10 years of our first book coming out. This year’s unbelievable. It’s been out for 10 years, but our publishing story was very different than yours. We basically prospected agents for like two years. We were borderline stalking these people until they finally were like, oh my gosh, we’ll just, we’ll read the proposal.
AJV (00:27:32):
So you go away. Luckily it all turned out in our favor, but from, you know, one publishing story to another, because they’re all very different. I would love for you to kind of share, like what has your journey been? And like a real life perspective for the listener out there. Who’s going, I do feel that calling on my heart, I do have that message that I know it’s, it’s unique and different and my audience needs to hear it. And I don’t know how to go about doing this. Like what do you mean you just called a publisher or what, what did you do? Right. So kinda give us like your, your perspective. I mean, this is, this is somewhat fresh, right? Mm-Hmm
MT (00:28:25):
I got an agent before I even knew I was gonna write a book, right. We, I had this for a good fortune of meeting this person and as friends and, and really sort of relied on him all along the way, especially in those four years. And he understood where I was coming from because he, he respected the fact that I didn’t just wanna write another book then, and didn’t have sort of something that was different and fresh and knew cause he would have to stand by it. And so I think that was crucial. One in getting me to focus in a way that could bring this book sort of to market successfully and would be something that people would wanna buy from testing who my audience would be to all of that, right. Something that that’s what agents, they all agents, they, they are great at something, right.
MT (00:29:16):
That it could be lawyers. They could be whatever it is that work on your behalf. In this case, he was somebody that knew the publishing world and had a great eye for these things. So I relied on him to, to sort of take me through that early those early stages. And then it was, I think his relationship with the publishing world that got me, honestly, the type of an advance that was huge. I, I mean there was a, a sort of, they did an auction basically over my book, right? Like who would’ve ever imagined that there was like more than one person who wanted to get behind this book and it was a proposal at that point. And so it was, they believed. And I think that the, the reason why that worked is because relationships have existed, right. There was a tremendous amount of respect between all these publishing houses and my agent.
MT (00:30:12):
He led me to a place that I could proudly stand behind something and sell it. Mm-Hmm
AJV (00:30:54):
Yeah. I think that’s really important. And you know, it’s like, it’s same. It’s like we knew that we had to get an agent. If we wanted to do the traditional publishing route. We knew that. And that’s why we spent two years
AJV (00:31:40):
And that’s not how you do it. Mm-Hmm
MT (00:32:22):
Completely? I mean, it’s, it’s ludicrous to think that, that, you know, your book, it looks like the other way around, you know, you’re putting the car before the horse. I think, you know, looking at your example and hearing what you all did, you had your content as well, right? It actually, the story is all that different, right. Because you knew you wanted the book, whereas me, I, to talk myself into that, but once you have those parts connect, then it’s you go? And the reason why it’s not painstaking is because we had all the content. Yeah. Right. So the book becomes the packaging of that or the making it almost accessible. Mm-Hmm
MT (00:33:32):
Right. It’s the accessibility of that, that I think the book becomes as opposed to, to your point, the other way around.
AJV (00:33:38):
I totally agree. It’s like one of the things that we, you know, we, we get a profile at the time, like, well, when are you guys gonna write your book on personal branding? And you know, our message for the last four years has been, it’s like our, our philosophy is the book is the final product, not the first product, right? It’s like, we’ve been fine tuning our methodologies and our processes and tweaking it. And it’s like, when the book comes, you’ll know that everything is just where we think it should be. It’s the final product, not the first product. Right. I think there a trend right now is that people create a book to then sell their services. And we’re kind of like, now you need to go sell the services.
MT (00:34:19):
AJV (00:34:20):
Go speak on this, train on this, consult on this. You need to like be doing it, living it, then go write the book.
MT (00:34:28):
Absolutely.
AJV (00:34:28):
Which is what you’ve done. And to me, that, to me, that is what makes me wanna read a book like this is because it’s not your first rodeo. This is like your 1000th rodeo. So let’s talk about, bring yourself I wanna talk about this. It’s how to harness the power of negotiation to negotiate fearlessly. So what is negotiation? Because I think that’s like one of those terms that people use that can kind of be frightening. So for all of our listeners who are like, oh man, I, I can’t negotiate. I’m not a negotiator. Right? What is your definition of negotiation?
MT (00:35:05):
So it’s something we do all the time. Like literally from the moment you get up in the morning to the moment you go to sleep at night, you know, that’s your parent. But even, you know, regardless of that, every time you make a decision, every with yourself, even, you know, I always say pros and conflicts are, you know, a masterful negotiations, right? Because you’re thinking all the reasons why not and all the reasons why and so debate, that’s going to inner debate that’s going on. But you know, everything from family conversations, kids, business partners, vendors, I mean, you name it. It’s all in negotiation. So literally people hear the word and they’re so anxious and they think they’re bad at it. And I’m like, how could you possibly be bad at it? You, you do this all day long every day. And it’s literally those, those transferable skills that we use that I teach in class that is no different than everything else that you use every day that makes negotiations what it is.
MT (00:36:04):
Right. So it’s not meant to be scary. It’s not conflict ridden necessarily those such a small slice of that pie. Yes. There are difficult conversations. Yes. There are bad deals, that’s life. But the majority, again, if you think about it in the context of, if this is like the soundtrack of our lives, how could it all be conflict? It’s not, the majority are problem solving and, and collaboration and they build relationships, not break them up. And, and so it’s life. It, it literally is every part of our life. And so important as a result.
AJV (00:36:43):
So what would you say makes someone a good negotiator?
MT (00:36:52):
So I should probably sort of public service announcement. This is, this is I take a very different perspective than a lot of perspectives that we see sort of in TV or things that we’ve heard all our lives about. That great negotiator is sort of in your face, combative, you know, goal driven to the point that they’re not even considering anybody else. And you know, that, that real sort of almost like masculine inequalities and I don’t mean masculine male, female. I just mean that sort of the bra that mm-hmm,
AJV (00:38:37):
Clearly we’re gonna need to cut this. It’s like roughly at minute 42 the question I will restart with is what makes a good negotiator. And then we’ll, re-pick it up. So I’ll wait here patiently until she comes back
Speaker 3 (00:40:08):
Okay. So that was really scary. That was literally never happened. It was like an outage, like, oh,
AJV (00:40:15):
That’s weird.
Speaker 3 (00:40:15):
Everything flickered and it just went out. So I’m sorry about that.
AJV (00:40:19):
No, that’s okay. I actually, I captured the minute wrote down the question, so we’re just gonna start over with what makes a good negotiator. Okay. And I already noted the minute we’ll cut it out. It’s not a big deal. I captured all of it really quick.
Speaker 3 (00:40:31):
Are you okay with me actually getting rid of the
AJV (00:40:34):
Yes, totally. Okay. Okay. All so made all the verbal notes for the editor.
Speaker 3 (00:40:41):
Do you want me to start from the beginning?
AJV (00:40:43):
Yeah. So I’m just gonna re-ask question and then that’ll be a good kind of like segue. So okay. So here’s, here’s the next question then? What makes a good negotiator
Speaker 3 (00:40:54):
What makes a good negotiator? So I think that we’ve seen a lot of movies and sort of public profiles that show sort of these really brash negotiators in your face, sort of combated, very aggressive mm-hmm
Speaker 3 (00:41:53):
I think the great negotiator is the person who’s their, their authentic self and understands that this is a skill that is learned, right? We’re not born great negotiators and the more you do it, the better you become. But I think a really big part of that is the level of authenticity and believing that that person that’s coming to the table, that, you know, how you show up that gives you the confidence to be a great negotiator. And then all the other things I could tell you like the characteristics, I believe that the best negotiators are incredibly curious that they use negotiations, not an O as an opportunity to be so self-assured that they think they have nothing else to learn, but they come to the table curious with sort of that, that blend of confidence and humility that says I’m confident with who I am and what I bring here, but I’m humble enough to know that there’s a lot to learn always.
Speaker 3 (00:42:47):
And so the open mind, the open heart empathy, you know, where, again, it’s that level of curiosity about the person you’re negotiating with to understand their journey, how they’ve gotten here so that you can appeal to their sense of values and order. And, and, you know, I think those are the things that we don’t often see celebrated because again, that character that we see in our heads about the movies that we watch, the great negotiators are never seen as like the real kind, respectful, you know, empathetic person it’s so wrong. Because I think there’s a place for everybody, but in my mind, in my heart, I just believe that the, the great negotiators are those that make room for other people. And, and, and trust that, that conversation and that, that, that approach where it considers both sides is really the best one.
AJV (00:43:38):
Mm. I think that’s really good. I actually have a really difficult conversation coming up. Later this week, that’s gonna require some financial negotiation and that’s a really great reminder for me right now is like, I need to come to this quote, unquote, negotiation table, really seeking to understand, like, where are you coming from? Why do you feel this way? Like really seek to understand the other person in order for me to even have a fighting chance at finding a happy medium win-win situation.
Speaker 3 (00:44:12):
Yeah. Because I mean, first of all, knowing all that you’re bringing to a table, right. That’s sort of the most important part, right? The, the reason why my book is called bringing yourself is because I believe the hardest part of all this is to really understand their own value. Right? And that, that conversation you have to have with yourself at first, right? Who you are, what you stand for, what your values are, what your conviction is, the things that are sort of the non-negotiables, which have literally nothing to do with money, by the way, it’s what you stand for. Right? And, and once that’s sort of understood, and you could speak, you can be your own sort of best advocate. Then I feel like everything else sort of falls into place, right. Because everything else becomes some kind of tactic or strategy. But the hardest part is that breaking through those really negative things that we say you just said fighting chance which I would never see somebody like you who’s accomplished all that. You’ve accomplished. Even think that that’s how they should think about this. Of course you have a fighting chance of, I mean, are you crazy
AJV (00:45:18):
Reminder talk matters,
Speaker 3 (00:45:21):
Right? But it’s like, no. I mean, the minute you think that, that you have to sort of even fight to have the chance, like I would, I would abolish all of that. I would, I would put that away because you know, the truth is it will not take you that long to understand why you’re supposed to be there in the first place and ask for what you’re worth. Right. That, that should not take very long. But the other part of that is that, you know, negotiations is all about influencing somebody. Mm-Hmm
AJV (00:46:20):
Oh yes. Let’s have another coaching session. This is podcast coaching session for AJ. But I think that’s really important cuz it’s like you do like even subconsciously start to think about negotiation in a way of like win or lose. That’s not a real thing. Like we, no one has to lose, no one has to lose in this. And I do think there’s so much negative connotation around the idea of negotiation. So I’m curious, like where do you think that comes from? Like even in my subconscious where I’m an extraordinarily unusually confident human being, but for me to even like subconsciously think fighting chance, like when it comes to negotiation, like where do you think that comes from?
Speaker 3 (00:47:02):
I think society in a lot of ways, right? Again, like what’s what we see in movies, what we see on TV, what we read. And I think that maybe just maybe the more sort of other examples that we see of really sort of these successful negotiators women who, you know, are, are tremendous at this, by the way, talk about sort of the bad stories, but you know, the more examples we have of people who don’t espouse those other sort of characteristic and, and when we can actually change the paradigm of how we, we see negotiations, we reimagine it. And it becomes something that we all understand that we’re so capable and confident of doing, but, but, you know, use it in a way that speaks to you, right? Make it your voice that matters, not what you are told that you should say or how you should pretend to be.
Speaker 3 (00:48:00):
I mean, there’s more pretense in what people are taught, right? There’s more, you know, negotiations is not like baking a cake. I, who am I to tell you, if you say this word and that word, and if you do this and you act like this, you’re gonna succeed, first of all, that’s not true.
AJV (00:48:56):
Mm. I love that, you know, and you said something earlier that, you know, really resonated with me, but then also with so many of, you know, the people that I, I get to interact with on a daily basis, both personally and professionally and it’s setting up non-negotiables right. And I think that’s a huge, a huge part of negotiation, but also of confidence of knowing it’s like, there’s wiggle room, but then I have my non-negotiables and there’s no wiggle room there. And so I’ve heard you say, and maybe it was our conversation, maybe it was in the book. I don’t remember at this point, but it’s like, and that negotiation is not an issue of skill. It’s more to do with self-worth and confidence. Can we talk about that for just a minute? Yeah. Like to hear that negotiation is not a skill thing, it’s a belief thing. I mean, that’s really different because it’s like every other negotiation training book seminar that I’ve ever been to are very, very sales oriented, very skills oriented it’s words to use body language, tone of voice, you know, you know, all the things, right. So to hear, it’s not a skill issue, it’s a self worth, it’s a confidence issue. Really puts it in a different place of perspective. And so just, I wanna hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3 (00:50:21):
I’ll probably be best at describing that if I give you an example, but before I go there, I, I, I think that, again, the hardest part is that get knowing yourself, knowing your self worth. And this is after thousands of people that I’ve taught, it could be CEOs of major corporations. It could be professional athlete, people who you would never imagine have, you know, issues with sort of self-worth or, you know, imposter syndrome as we imagine it, but they do right. And so time and time again, it goes back to this issue of knowing your value, right. And not just knowing it, but being able to courageously and fearlessly advocate for it. And so I feel like if, if you can do that, then I don’t teach rocket science. Anybody who tells you that they’re, you know, you have to learn all of these skills before you can negotiate successfully is, is just not being honest because the, the fact is that those are, and those are first of all, really easy, right?
Speaker 3 (00:51:18):
Learning how to prepare for negotiations is not rocket science, right? Learning, you know, what kinds of things you should consider in preparation, not rocket science. You know, what’s rocket science. What’s really hard is knowing your self worth because only then, right? Can you actually set goals that are aspirational and worthy of you? And then once you set those goals, then you can actually go to the table and, and ask for those things. And then once you can ask for those things, then you actually get it right. But if that first piece is not done, then all the skills in the world are not gonna get you through that journey without you folding. Right. So, so grounding yourself and knowing yourself is really important. You talked about non-negotiables non-negotiables are generally things that are like our values. Yeah. Right? Our convictions, things that if you give them away, you are no longer whole, no matter how success we’ll be, outcome of the negotiations is right.
Speaker 3 (00:52:15):
It’s the stuff we can’t live with ourselves. If we put those, you know, whether it’s lying, whether whatever it is. Right? So even those things have nothing necessarily to do with financials or the sort of the, the tangibles, it’s the intangibles that matter right now, the example that, that I was gonna give you is this, that, that the best negotiators, right. If, if you’ve gone through 65 trainings, read every book, listen to the podcast, you know, I’m so ready. Right. I’ve watched every movie I’m, I’ve got it. Right. But what you really struggle with is sort of fear and anxiety, or even like, maybe even lack of self-belief. Right. And you know, there’s all these studies that are done. Say like we have somewhere between 12,000 to 60 thoughts, 60,000 thoughts, a day of those thoughts, 80% of them are negative, right? So the minute you go down that rabbit hole and you fall back into that one behavior, you have not chosen to address, which is the fear, the anxiety, the stories that you tell yourself, right? And this, this, you just go in a tail spin. You will not remember what it said on page 37 of that book. Right.
AJV (00:53:31):
That’s not true. That’s so true.
Speaker 3 (00:53:35):
Mirroring. You can hardly see the person sitting across from you straight because right. Because cognitively your fear is blocked you from doing that. So you’re in your head, you can’t be present. You’re fearful that now affects every little, everything big or small that you’ve learned. And you’ve been told to do. And now you’re sitting there in a, in a, you know, pile of fear. Mm-Hmm
AJV (00:54:51):
Yeah. Oh, I love this. And you know, this is, it just brings up, you know, a fear that I often hear from people who are working on their personal brand or who want to become more well known for something, but what their real fear is, is, do I really have anything to add to the conversation? And I love this so much because being in a world of sales for a very long time, there’s a lot of talk on negotiation. I have literally probably read a dozen books, been to twice as many conferences or seminars heard speakers on these attended webinars. And I have never heard negotiation discussed the way that you’re discussing it today. And if we would just lean more into the uniqueness that is just naturally within us as like, I wish this was the conversation that was had with me when I was starting out at 22 and 23, like how much further ahead I would be if it was not about reading body language and, you know, say these words and do it at this time.
AJV (00:55:55):
And, but it was more about like, do you know what you’re going in for? Right. Do you know what you really want? Do you know what the outcome is that you wish, you know, to have? It’s like, do you know your non-negotiables like, do you know your own self worth? Like, do you even know what you’re negotiating for? Right. It’s like, how often are we just, you know, and in my perspective, it’s to my comment I made earlier, it’s like, sometimes it’s just a, it’s, it’s a battle. It’s like, well, I’m just going into win. Right. Right. And it’s like, well, right. Is what’s that old saying, you can win the battle and still lose the war. Right. Right. It’s like, do we even know what we’re, we’re going into conversate with? I think this is such a great reminder to anyone who is listening. It’s like, regardless of what you feel called to talk about, I assure you the way you’re gonna talk about it is different than how anyone else is going to talk about it because they’re not you, I, this is a great example of that in this conversation.
Speaker 3 (00:56:50):
And I should have probably added before, as I’m thinking, as you’re saying, this is like another really great attribute of, of, of negotiators, great negotiators is that they’re storytellers really, really great storytellers. And that’s how we move people. Right. That’s how we influence people. That’s how we persuade people. And it’s the story you tell yourself. Right. But it’s also the stories that you can share with other people, the, the opening up the vulnerability, the, the letting people in. But we’ve been told that you should not, and I’m not saying, you know, be vulnerable in every negotiations, but just even vulnerable to yourself. Right. And, and that sort of deep understanding of yourself, but learning to tell your story, you know, it’s the brand builder’s way, right? Yeah. But it’s, but it’s knowing, knowing how to do that fearlessly. And knowing that that’s how you change people’s minds and hearts, I guess you know, the, the great quote of, of this notion of, you know, people may forget what you said, and they may forget what you did, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. How do we make people feel some way mm-hmm,
AJV (00:58:11):
Oh, I love this. I could continue this conversation for another hour and still have more questions. But I wanna make sure people know where to go to check out this book, bring yourself so more where should go to learn more about you and learn more about becoming that great negotiator that is already within
Speaker 3 (00:58:34):
Well, they can, so everything’s on my website. So if they go to more report.com the information about the book I’ve got a newsletter they can sign up for everything’s there. I’m on social media, the book itself, you can find it, any outlet that sells books. So Amazon and hang on random house. It’s actually the publisher Barnes and Nobles all it. So not too hard to find it is out there.
AJV (00:58:58):
All right. Well, I will make sure to put your website link in the show notes, everyone spells it correctly. You can go to Amazon type in, bring yourself, I’ll put all your social handles in the show notes. And before we sign off, I have one last question for you that has nothing to do with negotiation or publishing or teaching or anything. But since it came up today this is help me and help our audience get to know you. What would you say are three non-negotiables in your life that you’re like, these are three non-negotiables for me.
Speaker 3 (00:59:32):
I don’t lie.
AJV (00:59:34):
It’s a good one.
Speaker 3 (00:59:36):
I’m horrible at it. That’s probably one of the reasons why, like, I can’t keep up with a, with a, with a lie to save my life. And so I just feel like the reputational risk is so worth so huge and so damaging. Yeah. That, you know, I, I just, I’ve, I’ve learned from mistakes and not even like business mistakes, but like mom and asking me 30 questions and I’m like, I lost you at eight. Right. So can’t do that.
AJV (01:00:05):
That’s a good, I love that. Okay. That’s good.
Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
Not having the really hard conversations. I, I, I wanna just, if it’s there, let’s just talk, talk about it, right. Because I’ve, I’ve, that’s another thing I’ve learned. I carried the burden of those difficult conversations for a really long time. I, I, I, I lived with Ms. I was diagnosed with Ms in 2010, the burden of stress and all the rest of it had, hasn’t gotten the best of me, but it definitely has taught me that, that the minute you can release that stress and, and the stress of sort of holding back things that are important to you or things that, that need to get cleared away, then, you know, it’s, it’s just so much healthier for your mind, your body, your spirit, all of it.
AJV (01:00:53):
Hmm. Love that.
Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
My non-negotiable, I don’t, I don’t want to be in any kind of relationship business or otherwise with people who have little thought for others that have no empathy, that, that just don’t care. Here I go getting emotional again. I don’t even understand it, but, but I feel like I see so much of that. We see so much of that in our world, and it honestly breaks my heart. And I know that I can’t control all that happens, but I can certainly control those people who I wanna associate with. Amen. And I feel like that we owe the world. We owe everybody better than that. More than that. So that’s really important for me is for people to, to just care about others.
AJV (01:01:48):
Yeah. I love that. Those are so good. I think this is a good practice for all of us, right? Leaving this show. It’s like, if nothing else, it’s like spend some time thinking about what are the non-negotiables in your life. And I love those more. I think those are so good. I have so enjoyed having on the show, getting to know you more, getting to learn from you and also getting a mini coaching session. So lots of, for me y’all stay tuned. I’m gonna record our recap episode. That’ll be live next. Make sure you check out the book, bring yourself and make sure you come back for another episode on the influential personal brand. We’ll see you next time. Thank you.
Ep 314: 5 Steps to Getting Paid Speaking Gigs with Grant Baldwin
RV (00:00):
To so a few weeks ago, my friend grant Baldwin introduced me to his audience. I was on his podcast and it had been a while since we connected. And he sent me an email thread that went back years and years of when we first connected and he was sort of making his climb through the industry. And it’s been fun for me to just sort of watch him you know, come into the speaking world, you know, kind of crack through. He never had a huge following or wasn’t like, you know, TV famous or something like that. And he’s built just a wonderful career for himself as a paid speaker and also helping other people get speaking engagements. And so he made that his entire business. He’s the CEO of a company called speaker lab which just recently found out congratulations. They’re on the in 5,000 list for the second time. He’s been featured in Forbes and entrepreneur in, in magazines, Huffington post, and has just been, you know, around hanging in the same circles, the national speakers association, et cetera, and also right here around Nashville. So we’ve, we’ve come across each other from time to time. He’s somebody that I think we’ve got a lot we can learn from. And anyways, welcome to the show grant. Good to see you.
GB (01:11):
Right. Thanks for letting me hang out with you, man. I appreciate it.
RV (01:13):
Yeah, brother. So let’s talk about your expertise, like getting some paid speaking engagements where do we find them? How do we, how do we go about getting them? Right. So a lot of people listening are, you know, some of ’em are coach a lot. A lot of our eyes is like coaches and speakers. A lot of ’em are like professional service providers and things like that. You know, or just entrepreneurs in general. And for us, personal branding, as you know, is not social media or websites. We think of it as reputation. And this is like, how do you build your reputation? So speaking is a huge part of that. It’s been a huge part of our career when you make that transition to go, I wanna get paid speeches. What’s the first thing that needs to happen or where do you go look?
GB (02:00):
Yeah, good question. So what we basically teach inside the speaker lab is a five step framework. We call the speaker success roadmap. And so it makes the acronym speak. And so maybe what we could do is why don’t, I just kinda like walk through at a high level, what that acronym is and kind of sure here’s the roadmap that we follow. And then we can kind of jump in wherever, but the first part of the process S is select a problem to solve. And so this comes down to two key things that everyone listening, you gotta get really, really clear on. You have to be clear on who do you speak to? And number two, what problem do you solve for that audience? Now this, this seems overly simplistic. And it’s like, yeah, yeah, but just like fast forward, tell us how to actually book gigs.
GB (02:35):
But if you’re not clear on these things, then you’re shooting for everything and nothing at the same time. And so what we, what we tend to see, and you’ve seen this as well, Roy is that whenever it comes to who do you speak to? A lot of times we wanna spread the net as far and wide as possible. So who do I speak to? I don’t know. I, I speak to humans. I speak to people. My message is for everybody. Right? Right. And the reality is, is like that just doesn’t work. And same thing whenever it comes to, what do you speak about? And people are oftentimes like, well, what do you want me to, to speak about? I could speak about sales or marketing or leadership or motivation or family or faith or on and on the list goes. And so what we tell speakers all the time is you wanna be the steakhouse and not the buffet, the steakhouse and not the buffet.
GB (03:11):
And what we mean by that is Roy. If you and I were going to grab a bite to eat, we were looking for a good steak. Like we have a choice. We could go to a buffet where steak is one of a hundred different things that they offer and they’re all mediocre. Or we could go to a steakhouse where they do one thing, but they do that one thing really, really, really well. They don’t do Pasa. They don’t do seafood. They don’t do sushi. They do steak. And that is it. And again, it’s counterintuitive because as speakers, we think that we need to spread the net as far and wide as possible. The more things I can speak about the more audiences I can appeal to the more opportunities that I will have, but people are looking for specialists and not generalists. So you don’t wanna try to speak on anything and everything to everybody solve one specific problem for one specific audience. So again, if you get that right, if you get clarity there, everything else in the process becomes much simpler. So that’s the yes. Elective problem to solve the B is
RV (04:01):
I wanna talk about that for just a second. So when you say a problem to solve, what are some characteristics of a great problem to solve? So like, you know, marketing is an example, is that considered like in your world, in your language, is marketing a problem that you solve or is it have to be something more specific than that? Like what, what are the criteria that something must pass in order for you to go? Yeah, that’s a clear problem that you can make money, like you can take to the market and solve.
GB (04:32):
Yeah, absolutely. And to your point there, like there’s an overlap there between what you’re interested in, what you’re passionate about, what your knowledge belong, what your expertise is in and what is it that the industry, or actually cares about because just because you’re an expert on something doesn’t necessarily mean that there are opportunities to speak on that thing. And maybe there are opportunities to speak, but not to a particular industry that you are looking for. So there’s basically, I think about like kind of a VIN diagram of three different circles here. Okay. and so we’re looking for three different things. One is gonna be your industry. So who exactly are you speaking to meaning that there are certain kinda like predefined industries within the speaking space? And so there, there are seven primary industries and within this, there’s a whole bunch of different kind of subcategories, but real quick, those are corporations, associations, nonprofit, faith-based government, military education K through 12 and college.
GB (05:23):
Okay. So again, within that, there’s a whole bunch of different subcategories, but those are typically the big seven categories that the majority of speaking engagements fall into. So you have industry, the other side of it is going to be integrity, meaning like, what are you actually qualified to talk about? What is the some expertise or knowledge now that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to be the world’s foremost expert on this thing, but you need to know at least something on the topic, be knowledgeable on it, know something slightly, be slightly ahead of maybe where your audience might be. And then the third piece kinda what you’re talking about here, Rory is interest. So industry integrity and interest. And so this is a two way street. One is something that, that you are interested on. You’re knowledgeable on, you have some expertise on, but it also has to be something that that industry or that decision maker is interested in.
GB (06:04):
So let me give you a quick example of this. So years ago, when I got started, when I first reached out to you in 2006 or seven or whatever it was, and I was kind of figuring things out, I was doing a lot of speaking in the education space. And one of the topics that at the time that I was really interested in was the subject of personal finance. This was something that my wife and I like, we were going through some of Dave Ramsey stuff and paying off debt and, and going like, wow, this has really made a big impact in our lives. So if I could teach teenagers about this, like that would make a huge, huge impact for them. And one of the things that we found was that I was doing a lot of speaking in schools and conferences.
GB (06:39):
And if I interviewed a hundred different high school principals, all 100 of them would say that yes, teaching students about personal finance was really, really important yet. Nobody was really hiring speakers to talk about personal finance in a school assembly setting. So was it important to them? Was it of interest to them? Yes, but it wasn’t necessarily something that they were hiring speakers to talk about. But what I found was that oftentimes they were hiring speakers to help their students in a school assembly setting, make a successful transition from high school and to college in the real world. So I started doing talks around that. And within that, I would talk about talk about personal finance. So it wasn’t like this bait and switch or anything, but saying, Hey, here, what’s the thing that you are looking for, the challenge that you have, that you identify for yourself within your school, within your students that you have, how do I, how do I come at that and attack that topic while at the same time, maybe talking about this other kind of tangential type of topic. So again, the point being is you interest, is that two way street, just because I’m interested in, it doesn’t necessarily mean that organizations or groups actually hire speakers to talk about that.
RV (07:41):
Yeah. I think that’s a, that’s a really great a really great point. Like we think of it as like we would call that positioning, right. So it’s just like, how do you position this in a way that it is what you do, but in a way that it was hireable by, by somebody else? I think that’s, I think that’s great. Okay. So then, so now you pick your topic, your pop problem, right? Okay. So then what’s the P
GB (08:07):
Yeah. The P is to prepare your talk, prepare your talk, basically get really, really clear on what’s the solution that you are gonna be providing to this audience. Now, this can come in a lot of different ways, meaning that oftentimes when we think of speaking, we think of keynotes, we think of kind of this, this large stage type of environment. But as we both know, there’s a lot of different ways that speaking can look. So there are absolutely keynotes, there are workshops and breakouts and small small groups and large groups. And you may just do a, a one hour block. You may do a five day thing with 30, 30 people, and really go deep on a topic in this day and age, thanks to the pandemic. There’s massive amount of opportunities with virtual. So all that to say that, that whenever it comes to preparing your talk, it can look a lot of different ways.
GB (08:48):
And I think that’s also part of what makes the speaking industry interesting and unique is that there’s gonna be some people who are listening and watching like, Hey, I would, I would love, love to do 50, 75, a hundred speaking gigs a year. And other people are like, that’s totally unappealing, but I would love to do five or 10. And I just don’t know, how do I find those five? Or how do I find those 10? And what do I speak about how much do I charge and how did this work? And so it can look a lot of different ways depending on what it is that you are trying to accomplish. But again, the P there is to prepare your talk, prepare that solution to the problem that you’re solving.
RV (09:18):
Okay. So let’s assume that you’ve got those, which is a giant assumption. Those are both very, absolutely very difficult things. Now, now you have your product to sell what happens next.
GB (09:29):
Yeah. So the E is to establish yourself as the expert. And so there are two key marketing assets that every speaker needs. Number one is you need a website. And number two is you need a demo video. So in this day and age, if you don’t have a website, you don’t exist. It’s hard for people to take you seriously. A demo video is one of those things that also feels a little bit fuzzy to people’s like, what exactly does that mean? I’ve heard that a sizzle reel, that sort of thing. What do I put in it? You know, what doesn’t need to be in it. So think of it kind like a movie trailer, the point of a movie trailer, as you take like a, a two hour movie, you’ll boil it down to two or three minutes. And within those two or three minutes, you have an idea of who’s in it.
GB (10:04):
What’s the plot, what’s the theme. What’s the genre. And the point of a demo video and the point of a movie trailer is to make you want to see more. So you wanna think about it in this way. If I’m an event planner, if I’m a decision maker, I am in the risk mitigation business, meaning that if I hire you Roy, to get up on my stage and I hand you a microphone, and I’m asking you to talk to my thousand attendees at that audience, anything you say can and will be used against me. So I need you. I need to make sure that you make me look good. And again, you and I have both had that experience before where
RV (10:34):
You and don’t make me look bad. Like the absolutely the number one objective is to not suck.
GB (10:42):
If
RV (10:42):
You that’s true, you are not terrible. You’re, you’ve got a long way for that meeting planner.
GB (10:47):
Right? And so whenever they’re making that decision, oftentimes they are putting their neck on the line. They’re putting their butt on the line by hiring you and going to bat for you. No, no, we need to have the speaker trust me. And so they don’t need to see necessarily like a, an entire video or an entire full length presentation of your talk. They just need to see a few minutes of it in the same way that there’s a lot of movies that may be amazing movies that neither you or I have seen just cuz like I solved two minutes of the trailer and I just knew like that wasn’t my cup of tea. It’s not what I’m looking for. Maybe it’s an amazing movie, just not what I’m looking for. And so that’s for, for an event planner for a decision maker, they need to see a couple of minutes there of your presentation, especially if they’re going to pay you. But especially as you are growing in your, in your speaking business and wanting to share that message with, with bigger audiences and some higher profile stages, that demo video becomes more and more important.
RV (11:36):
So are most of the demos that you’re seeing and, and you’re using. And are, are they, are you saying they, most of them are two to three minutes.
GB (11:45):
Yeah. I recommend like short, less is more. You’re doing shorter
RV (11:48):
Ones.
GB (11:48):
You can, yeah, you can absolutely have you know, a longer video, a 10 minute video, a 15 minute video. But you think about from again from an event planner decision maker standpoint, whenever they are considering hiring you as a speaker, they’re not just looking at you, they’re looking at you and five or six, seven other speakers. And so they don’t have time to go through 30 minutes of video per speaker trying to determine whether or not it’s a fit. So they’re going to look at the initial kind of two or three minutes there and then they’re gonna probably whittle it down to two or three, maybe have a committee or board meeting to kind of determine who might be a good fit. And then maybe they wanna watch, you know, 10 or 15 minutes, but also think about it from the perspective of anybody watching any video.
GB (12:25):
Right? Anytime like someone just think about like a, a friend or a family member send you a video. Oh, I just saw this. This is hilarious. You gotta check this out. The first thing any of us do when we click on that link is we look to the lower left corner and look at the timestamp to see how long it is. If it’s more than a couple of minutes, like that’s an eternity in online video land ain. Nobody got time for that. So you wanna keep your video short, keep your video concise. So yeah, I think two, three, maybe four minutes is, is plenty to really convey what you need to, what you need to show to an event planner or decision maker.
RV (12:55):
Okay. All right. So demo video short to the like give them a sense of a taste of what it’s like to have you. And that’s what you’re saying between that and your website. You’re establishing yourself as the expert, which is the E
GB (13:07):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s a, there’s plenty of things that you could do, but as far as getting, going and getting your foot in the door with decision makers and event planners, those are two of the key tools that you really need.
RV (13:18):
And what about start looking, let me ask you specifically about the you know, like in the old speaker days they used to, it used to be the one sheet and it was like, you have to have this one page, you know, sheet on your talk and who you are. Do you still recommend that? Do you still see that being in use? Like, are you finding that that’s not really necessary anymore?
GB (13:37):
Yeah, I think personally I think it’s less and less necessary or relevant because I think that’s essentially what your website is. And so one thing that’s important for any speaker to think about is, and I’d say maybe personal brand is, I know for me, when I got started, all I was trying to do was book gigs, book, gigs, bookcases book, that’s all I wanted to do. So I wasn’t worried about, you know, being a podcast or being an author or doing a course or any number of other things. Like all I wanted to do was book gigs. And so my website was specifically designed around that. Whereas again, one of the nice things with speaking is that it it’s, it can be fairly flexible. There’s some people that wanted 100% of their business is speaking. And some people, 5% of their business is speaking.
GB (14:15):
It’s not, it’s not, not that one’s better, worse than the other, but you gotta be really clear for yourself on how that kind of fits in. Meaning maybe you’re just trying to book a couple gigs and speaking’s a very small percentage of your business. Then you want your website to reflect that. And so maybe it’s not on, on the homepage or it’s not kind of a priority thing. Maybe it is more of a secondary thing on a secondary page. That’s totally fine. But oftentimes what the, the primary goal is for you as a speaker needs to be reflected in your marketing assets.
RV (14:43):
Okay. All right. A,
GB (14:46):
Hey acquire, paid speaking gigs. Now this is the part that, again, that we wanna, we wanna fast forward to, but again, I think this is also a good chance to kind of stop step back, look here of going, okay. I wanna fast forward to this, but again, if you don’t have these other foundational pieces of place, it’s
RV (15:01):
A breakdown.
GB (15:01):
It’s really hard to book gigs. If, if you’re just gonna like, yeah, man, just tell me how to book gigs. Like, okay, well, who do you speak to? What problem do you solve? I don’t know. I’ll speak to one, whatever. How do I book gigs like that?
RV (15:09):
Well, and not only that, what I would say grant is it’s also not only is it difficult to book gigs, it actually works against you because you go to a speaker’s bureau or you go to an A-list client and you don’t have your stuff together. You might get one shot. I mean, I talk about this with podcast all the time. Like people come to me, can you introduce me to ed? My luck? Can you introduce me to Lewis house? Can you introduce me to a publisher? And I’m telling, and I’m going, I will do it when you are ready and promise. I promise you, you don’t want me to go too early, cuz they’re gonna give you one look. And if you don’t make it through the gate, the next time you come around, they’re gonna go. And I already saw them I’ll pass. Right? So it’s like, you gotta, when you get the shot, you gotta have your stuff dialed in and be ready. Otherwise it works against you to be there too early.
GB (15:55):
Yeah, absolutely. And, and so and in fact we were just talking a little bit before we started recording here about the the NSA convention. It was a national speakers association or national convention happened to be this year in our backyard here in the national area. But at the, at the event I was catching up with a speaker friend of mine that has done very, very well. And he was wanting to get in with a bureau. I’m, I’m good friends with a a bureau here in town that I think you do some work with as well. And so I was talking with the, the president of that bureau and, and I was talking with this other speaker and I said, Hey, do you want me to make an introduction? Me knowing that this guy’s ready and he could, he could absolutely connect with him, made the introduction, they hit it off.
GB (16:33):
They continued to keep in touch. And I think they’re gonna start doing some work together. But again, the point being is I think especially early on speakers are going, like, how do I get in with a bureau? How do I get in with the agent? And it’s kind of this catch 22, where, where that if you’re not already consistently booking gigs, especially at a decent fee, then bureaus, aren’t gonna be interested in you. And typically once you get going and you build some momentum and you’re doing a lot of gigs then you don’t necessarily need a bureau or an agent. And so one of the best things that you can do whenever it comes to acquiring paid speaking gigs is learn how to do this on your own, rather than being dependent on some other group or organization. That’s just going to do that.
GB (17:11):
So it there this, and far as booking gigs, I think it’s, it’s easy to kind of create some type of mystique around it. Like there’s some like secret code that you have to have to be able to connect with people, but it, it’s not. It’s a matter of having a system and a process to consistently reach out, to follow up with decision makers and event planner. So if I reach out to an event planner, who’s working on a conference and you know, next spring, I’m not trying to convince them that they already that they need to have a speaker. They’re already planning on having a speaker. I’m just showing them why I may be a good for, for that event. So so having a, a system and a process to reach out to events, to follow up with events, not just say, Hey, I, you know, I have my website, I have my demo video, and now I’m gonna sit back and I’m wait for the phone to ring, or I’m gonna post some such some stuff on social media, or I’m going to post some create a podcast or I’m gonna post some YouTube videos.
GB (18:01):
And then I’m going to reactively. Hopefully people magically find me like that. Doesn’t work. Speaking is very much a momentum business. And so there’s a a, a, a friend of mine in the, the speaking space who always says, the more you speak, the more you speak and whenever you speak, it does tend to lead to some of these organic opportunities of repeat business of word, of mouth, of referrals, amongst other speakers or event planners, or attendees that are in the audience. But you have to start to plant some seeds to in terms of booking gigs, instead of again, just building a website and hoping that people magically find out about you.
RV (18:36):
So this is effectively sales. You have to identify some prospects, you have to contact them, whether it’s by, by phone or by email or by referral introduction or they see you, or they see you somewhere. But like you have to reach out to them, tell ’em about your product or service, and then follow up with them to help them make a decision. I mean, that, is that what you’re saying? There’s not like a secret
GB (19:00):
A thousand percent. Yeah, absolutely. I, I don’t think there is necessarily some, some magical secret. It it’s stuff that that absolutely works. It’s worked for years and years and years. It’s just one of those things that most speakers don’t enjoy or most speakers don’t want to do. Like, yeah, I just wanna, I just wanna stand on stage. I don’t really wanna do sales. I don’t really wanna do marketing. I don’t really want to talk about myself. I, I get that. We all understand that, but like that’s part of the business. There reminds me a lot of there’s a book emo by Michael Gerber and he talks about the difference between huge, the illustration of someone who is an entrepreneur who owns a bakery. And he talks about the difference between being a good baker and running a bakery. And those are two different skill sets.
GB (19:41):
Meaning maybe you make the best breads or cupcakes or cakes or whatever it may be. You’re an amazing baker, but being a great baker, that’s not automatically translate to you being running a great bakery. And the same thing is true with speakers. There are so many speakers that are amazing on stage. They have phenomenal content, but a big part of being a successful speaker is the sales is the marketing is following up, is being amazing off stage, which has little to, nothing to do with how you present on stage. And so you have to recognize that that a big part of being a speaker has nothing to do with you being on stage giving a good message. Does that matter? Absolutely. That stuff is super important, but a big, I would say a bigger part of being successful as a speaker is what happens off stage in terms of the sales and marketing efforts that you put in.
RV (20:28):
You mentioned social media, how much does social media just getting your honest opinion here in assessment of speaking fees, getting the gigs, you know, how much does social media play into this? Is it, is that how you get gigs? Does it matter with your fee? Is it completely irrelevant? Is it, you know, all that matters? Like, just give, give me your, your opinion on that.
GB (20:52):
Yeah. My 2 cents would be I think it depends on the event planner and it depends on the industry and kind of what their, their criteria are. Okay. So lemme give an example. So there are some event planners, some decision makers who are gonna put a lot of stock into what someone’s online, social media clout, and platform is going to look like, right? In some cases that’s gonna be a big deal, other event planners, depending on the nature of what it is that they are looking for, may not care about that at all in the same way that some event planners may be looking for a speaker who has, you know, some a significant accomplishment or achievement that the audience is gonna recognize. Maybe they, you know, won a gold medal. They played in the NBA, they play some type of professional sport.
GB (21:36):
They have climbed Mount Everest blindfolded in their shorts. You know, they, there’s some type of specific thing that they’re looking for. And so it kind of depends on the event. And so for me personally, I don’t, I don’t put a ton of stock in social media. And again, that’s just kind of me personally, does that help or hurt me? I’m sure. In some cases it, it does hurt and that in some cases it doesn’t matter. And so it’s kind of, you know, we were talking a little bit about this before we started recording of as entrepreneurs. There’s a thousand different things that you could do in your business that move the needle, right. And as an entrepreneur, you can’t do them all. And so you have to kind of determine and prioritize. What’s going to have the biggest impact in your business.
GB (22:19):
So let me give you a quick illustration of this. I remember several years ago my wife and I were interested in doing some real estate investing, didn’t know a ton about it was kind of intrigued by, it reached out to a friend who had done a, a ton of real estate. Investing, knew all about it. And I said, Hey, man, I’m, I’m just getting into this world. I’m trying to learn here. And I said I said, you have all these different types of real estate investing. Okay. You have single family homes and, and multi-family homes and apartments and mobile home parks and raw land and commercial properties. And short-term rental Airbnb on and on and on the list goes, and then I said, which one is best? And he said, yes. And I was like, that’s not helpful. And I was like, what do you mean by that?
GB (22:56):
And he’s like, they all work. What you won’t find though, is you won’t find someone who’s doing everything. And so we can both point to a speaker right now who’s killing it, using Instagram or a podcast or Facebook or Twitter or social media and someone else who’s absolutely killing it. Who’s not touching any of those things. So it’s not necessarily that you have to do one or that you have to do the other, but ultimately I think determining for you for what it is you’re trying to accomplish based on the in addition to the industry that you’re in which you’re speaking on and determining if that’s something that, that is a big part of what it is that you’re trying to do and, and build.
RV (23:31):
Yeah. Interesting. All right. So we have to acquire the gig. We’ve got everything put to place. We gotta go find these people. We gotta follow up with them, reach out to them, follow up with them. What’s the K
GB (23:43):
K is no when to scale, no, when to scale. And what we mean by that is people who are interested in speaking are also probably interested in a lot of other things. They also probably want to do coaching or consulting or write a book or do a podcast, or do a course. And so you can do any number of things, but you can’t do all the things at once. So something’s gonna come first. Something’s gonna come last. And this is where I think you do such a great job of teaching. How does speaking fit into the mix of the, in of the bigger pie and what it is that you’re going to accomplish? Cause like we touched on, there are speakers who do five gigs a year and speakers that do 50 gigs a year. And it’s not that one’s better, worse than the other, but you’ve gotta determine for yourself where does speaking fit into the mix of what it is that you are trying to accomplish?
GB (24:21):
So again, just realizing like you, you can’t do it all. And, and but being clear on, Hey, this is how speaking fits in, or this is how speaking is a, a driver for other parts of my business. So let me give you a quick example of this. There’s a, a client that we worked with a while back and they were doing they were doing 20 or 30 speaking gigs a year, but they were doing it as lead generation for their coaching business. And so they would do a lot of free speaking engagements, but for the right type of audience and they were generating literally hundreds of thousands of, of dollars in revenue for their coaching business. But the whole thing was built upon the Legion that they were getting from these speaking engagements that they were doing. So again, the point being is, is for them, it made sense to do a lot of free engagements, but for the right type of audience, cuz that’s what was building their coaching business. Whereas for someone else, like it may, may not make sense to do as many free gigs. And so again, just determining like how does speaking best fit into the mix of what you want to accomplish?
RV (25:19):
Mm-Hmm
GB (25:53):
Yeah. At a simplified version. Yeah. There, there’s certainly a large element of that, of, of identifying potential decision makers, event planners, reaching out to them. Some of it is to your point of figuring out who actually is the decision maker. So you know, just because you, you know, just because someone is a, a VP of whatever doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the ones that are, are ultimately pulling the trigger. Another thing to think through and be aware of when you’re reaching out to people is what’s the timeline for when they are making decisions about speakers. So for example, if we’re recording this right now and in the summer and you come across an amazing event, that’s happening next month there’s a high likelihood they’ve already picked their speaker for. So reaching out and saying like, Hey, I saw this event that’s happening next month.
GB (26:36):
You should totally hire me. It’s like, no, no, like you already missed the boat on that. So another thing that we always work with speakers on is to really have a long term perspective on this, that you are in the relationship of building business. And the reality is that relationships take time. I think, think of one particular event where I, I reached out to for five straight years with this event planner and just following up, Hey, we booked another speaker. Oh, that’s cool. Remind me what you’ll start. It looks like you’ll start reviewing speakers again for next year’s event, you know, in a couple of months. Awesome. Is it okay if I follow up with you then, and then following up with them then did that for five straight years. And I don’t know if eventually they just ran into options, but eventually they, they hired me.
GB (27:15):
But I think again, having a, a, a long term perspective on this to reach out, to follow up so often what happens is if you reach out to an event planner decision maker and, and, and they say, well, we’re not looking for speakers right now, but feel free to check back with us in four months. They don’t expect you to follow up with them. They don’t expect you to reach out. And the, the reality is, is like most speakers don’t and most speakers are just kinda leave the ball in their court of just saying like, well, Hey, if you know, if you ever need a speaker, I hope you think of me like that just doesn’t work. If they say, Hey, we’re gonna start reviewing speakers in November, then you would say, Hey, is it okay if I follow up with you in November?
GB (27:49):
And they’re gonna say, absolutely, and then have a system in place, whether that’s a CRM or, or post-it note or whatever you need to do, have a system or process in place that you’re going to follow up with them in December. And there’s a lot more we could, you know, dig into or in November a lot more. We can dig into exactly what to do exactly what to say there, but again, having systems in place to reach out, to, to follow up with people so that whenever they’re ready to make a decision that ultimately they’re thinking of and, and deciding on you,
RV (28:14):
Mm-Hmm
GB (28:52):
All right. I’ll give you a bunch of different answers on this. And so first of all, lemme give you a shortcut answer. So we have a, a free speaking fee calculator. So if you wanna check that out, it’s over at my speaker, feed.com, my speaker feed.com. It’s totally free, but you basically just answer a couple multiple choice questions. There it’ll spit out a number of what you could be charging there. And, and Roy, as you well know, speaking fees are much more of an art than a science. There’s a lot of variables that go into it. I’ll give you a couple of variables. One is gonna be your industry. You can charge more in some industries versus others. You can charge more speaking to corporations than you can to nonprofits. Typically you can charge more to colleges than you could to elementary schools.
GB (29:26):
It’s not that one industry is better worse than the other, that each pond kind of has its own kind of different fee ranges that they’re used to another factor of variable is gonna be your marketing assets. So we talked about your website, your demo video earlier, whether we like it or not, whether we want admit it or not people judge books by their cover. And so if you are a, you know, let’s say you’re a 10,000, $20,000 speaker and your website, your demo video don’t look sharp. They don’t look professional. And specifically they don’t look on par relative to other speakers who are in that same range. Then an event planner may be looking at or deciding between it’s hard to take you seriously. So it doesn’t mean that you need to have spent tens of thousands of dollars on your marketing assets.
GB (30:04):
You just need to make sure that they look sharp and professional. Another variable is just going to be your your speaking experience, meaning if you’re a brand new speaker, just getting started and you’re just kind of getting your at bats, getting your reps there. You probably won’t be able to charge as much as someone who’s been doing this for five, 10, maybe 20 years. And it’s probably just a better speaker. The way that you get better as a speaker is that you speak, it’s the same way that you get better as a writer, as a podcaster, as you do the thing. And so you and I happen to be decent at speaking, not because we have anything, any special gift or ability, but because we’ve given hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of presentations and all different environments and settings and some that have gone incredibly well and some that have been a complete disaster, but the each time you speak, you’re getting that real time feedback from the audience that helps you to refine your message and your presentation skills.
GB (30:50):
So those would be a couple of the different variables that go into your speaking fee. And let me piggyback and, and kind of answer another kind of similar question there, which is is it okay to speak for free or speaking for free a bad thing? And I think oftentimes that that speaking for free has like this negative connotation that if you are speaking for free, you’re not a real speaker or people aren’t gonna take you seriously. And so what I would say is it’s okay to speak for free caveat, as long as you know why you’re doing it, don’t just do it out of the goodness of your heart. You are running a business and you have to treat this as a business. And so one of the things I heard early on actually from a mutual friend, Jason Dorsey, he said, when you’re speaking for free, you’re providing something of value.
GB (31:33):
And so you need to receive something of value in exchange. And that thing that you receive in exchange may or may not be in the form of a check. So there’s a lot of different ways that you could receive value that may not come in the form of currency. Okay. So it may be, for example, let’s say that you go speak at something. And I mentioned this client earlier, who does a lot of coaching. And so, you know, if you go speak and you have some type of backend book or product or service or coaching or consulting thing that you offer, you go speak at the right type of audience and it generates significant sales on the back end. Speaking for free may make a ton of sense for you. Maybe it makes sense to speak for free. If you know that this is gonna get my foot in the door with this client, and it’s going to potentially lead to a bunch of other events.
GB (32:15):
I remember a few years ago, I was speaking in an event and I took a, a slightly lower fee, but I, I made an arrangement with the decision maker and said, Hey, assuming I’d do a good job. And the whole thing’s predicated on me showing up and delivering doing my part. Then I want you to introduce me to five other event planners that you think would be a good fit that you and I both agree I would be a good fit for. And if you can make an endorsement recommendation and a personal introduction to them, to that decision maker, it means nothing. It costs them nothing, but to me it’s worth something. So another quick example would be a friend of mine spoke was invited to speak at something in Europe a couple years ago, and he doesn’t do a ton of speaking.
GB (32:53):
So we were kind of talking through speaking fees and I said, Hey, here’s, here’s one thing you could do is you can negotiate to have them also fly your spouse over your wife over and extend the stay for you at the, at the place where they’re gonna be doing the event. You can turn it into a European vacation on their dime. So again, the point being is there’s a lot of different ways that you can receive something of value that may or may not involve a whether or not you got paid and got a check for it.
RV (33:18):
Mm-Hmm
GB (34:10):
Thanks buddy. I appreciate it.
Ep 312: Creating Videos That Go Viral with Travis Blakely and Teun van der Lugt
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 that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:53):
Hey, all this is AJ Vaden. Welcome to the influential personal brand podcast. I am one of your co-hosts here today, and I’ve got two friends on the podcast today, which is not normal. We usually don’t get two. So double the fun for the next 45 minutes, get excited. But these are actually two newer friends of mine. Met them through a really good friend of mine Carrie, Jack, but then we learned through conversations that, wow, we actually have a lot of friends in common. And in fact, Tony and Travis have done work with some of people that we’re super connected to like, like Louis House and lots of different shared connections along the way. And I love, I love what they’re doing. And I actually started following Travis on social media. You guys will get to hear from both Travis and Tony in just a second.
AJV (01:46):
But I really got interested because of his like motivational inspirational messages. And then I came to learn like, oh, they actually help videos go viral. And when I first started fol, I didn’t know, that’s what they did. I just really liked his vibe. And I thought what he was doing was really cool. And then we had mutual friends and then I started like stalking their website and going through all their different things. And I’m like, wow, you guys have had some amazing clients like prince CA and Louis House and Tom Billue and some like really Jay Shetty, some like really amazing clients that you’ve done work with. And so, so glad that we got connected and we’ve got like this unique, common set of friends that we didn’t even know existed. And so I invited them to come on the show today and here are two reasons that you wanna stick around is one.
AJV (02:37):
I know that 99% of you who are listening would like to know, is there some sort of secret formula and how to make a video go viral? And I’m not saying that Travis and Tony have the answer to this secret formula, but they might, you have to stick around to find out. And the second second reason is because video is king, right? Video is where it’s at. There is so much power in video. I have my own beliefs of why that is. There’s a human connection part. But there is also some really good dos and don’ts of how to do video successfully. And we’re gonna talk about some of those two and in between, we’re gonna get to learn about two really awesome human beings who have incredible backgrounds and who have worked for incredible individuals and companies and have outstanding work. So without further ado, both of you welcome to the show.
TB (03:29):
Thank you. Is a massive pleasure.
TV (03:34):
Yes. Thank you for having us.
AJV (03:36):
Oh my gosh. It’s gonna be so fun. And Tony is is his morning. It’s our afternoon. Yeah. And so you’re in Amsterdam, right?
TV (03:45):
No, right now I’m in, I’m in Tokyo right now. Oh, you’re
AJV (03:47):
In Tokyo.
TV (03:47):
AJV (03:50):
I’m pretty sure you’re not in Tokyo. You’re you’re, you’re traveling the globe. Alright, so I’m gonna give both of you guys a separate chance. So I’m gonna start with Tony. So, you know, you’ve done some pretty cool work and you know, a company that you know is so funny. I was talking to my husband about this and he goes, I’m sorry, he he’s done video work for, for who? For mine valley
TV (04:27):
Right.
TV (05:19):
Youtube was definitely out there. Facebook was definitely out there, but I don’t think a lot of people saw that there’s a big connection between business and social media. Back then it was just, Hey, let’s, it’s cool. Let’s make a post, a video on social media and see what happens. So I didn’t see any direction. And then, then I already like I love to travel. I wanted to leave my own country and but at the same time oh, how old was I then back 24, something like that. I kind of had in my mind, also a bit of a social pressure that you need to find a bit of a career path at one point. So that’s what I was hoping to find something that combined boat like somewhere I could like, you know, leave my country and yeah, find a career basically.
TV (06:04):
And that’s, I don’t, I don’t really don’t know. That was just, I think just a random YouTube video that that, that saw that, which I saw mind value as a company. And I just really wanted to work there. I don’t know. It was just the whole vibe that they portrayed, like the, the, the personal development, which I was really into the mission that they have of changing education which, which I still firmly stand behind as well. Like because like yet, like school, wasn’t the best for me, for me either, maybe for a lot of people. So I really believed everything they say. So I just really wanted to work there. It didn’t even matter if I needed to do video or something else. I just really wanted to work there. So yeah, I, I applied I didn’t get into the film team because like, they, they have a whole separate film team, but cuz I was not experienced enough, but so I joined the customer support team, but then within two months they, they saw Tony, we need you in the film team actually.
TV (06:57):
So I’m like, oh, okay, cool. Let’s, let’s get, let’s get going. And that’s how, that’s how I got there that so cool. Yeah, so, so I really went for, like, I worked there for three, for three years. I would say I learned like everything that I needed to learn about video in this space. You know, when it comes to marketing videos, product launches event videos and most importantly social media videos and yeah, that’s and after three years I thought it’s time to go on my own, quit mind valley on very good terms and moved to Bali because mind valley itself is based in GU Lumpur. So Bali wasn’t so far around the corner from there moved there and I really don’t know how to this day, but on some random day Travis sent me a message on Instagram and I have a following like I mean back then, like it was even like a thousand, so I have no clue where that came from
AJV (07:58):
Oh my gosh. I think there’s two really important things in there that I think is amazing. It’s in this era of the quote unquote great resignation that people talk about I love what Ariana Huffington says. She goes, it’s not the great resignation, it’s the great reevaluation of what are people wanting out of their work experience and to see that you found a company on YouTube yeah. Through a video and said I am for what they believe in. I don’t even care if I can’t do what I wanna do. I’ll do whatever they’ll take me for you do not hear a lot of that right now, especially from millennials. And I can say that because I am one too.
AJV (08:55):
I just wanna work for this video. Yeah. I think that’s a great reminder to all of us that having a great presence online and offline really means a lot, not just for income and revenue and sales, but also for talent, attraction, talent, acquisition, and retention. Like that’s pretty cool to hear. And I think the second thing you said that I wanna highlight to everyone listening, cause I think this is substantial is that when Travis found you, however miraculous event occurred, that that happened, you had less than a thousand followers. So it ain’t about the followers. Y’all right. It’s not always about the followers. So don’t get obsessed with the follower, count thinking somehow what you’re doing doesn’t matter that it is just not true. It’s just not true. Yeah. yeah, so, so cool. Both of those things I love that. Okay. All right. Travis, tell us, I wanna know cuz like, for those of you who’t know, like Travis is the CEO of inter like media he and I have got these like awesome little like growing group of like mutual friends. So tell us like how, how did you get into this space? Like why start this type of, you know, viral video, social media, social media management company, like how’d you get into that? Like you also are doing your own personal brand, like why that like fill in?
TB (10:14):
Yeah. whew. Where did I start? I loving
AJV (10:17):
Question. Right.
TB (10:21):
So I come from St. Louis, Missouri. I grew up, you know, in children’s homes did had a very bleak future. Didn’t really have much to look forward to and didn’t really know what I wanted to do in my life. So as I got older I ran into a gentleman by the name of Princey, by the way I ran into him online. First I seen his video, he had a video called something about saving hip hop. I can’t remember the exact name of the, the video and this was back in like 2009. And it was a very similar thing to what Tony just said. I thought what prince was doing was super amazing. And at the time he was, you know, pretty local. He didn’t really have a whole lot of followers. And, but I believed in that mission, you know, he had something called make smart, cool, smart, being an acronym for sophisticated minds and revolutionizing thought.
TB (11:23):
So I thought that was a pretty powerful message that he created wanted to be a part of it. I, I felt like it was time for me to really dive into my mission. Ironically, this is, I was around the same age that Tony was talking. I was 25 years old at the time. And so as I looked more into it, me and him connected me and him developed a really close friendship. I mean, we were best friends for a very, very long time. And during that time period from 2010 to 2000, I met him in 2009, but from 2010 to 2014, we spent that time really trying to figure out how do we connect with people online, right. How do we go viral? Right. He always had this philosophy of why should I do a show in front of a thousand people when I could do a video and get it in front of a hundred thousand people.
TB (12:22):
So that always clicked in my mind that always let me know the power of video at that point. Like yo the, the, the online spaces where it’s at, because you could definitely connect with, with more minds that way. And so in 2014, kind of like the code was broken, right. Where we went from, you know, getting maybe a few hundred thousand views to maybe a million views to now a video getting over a hundred million views. And then every video after that was getting hundreds of millions of views is just like, wouldn’t stop. Like it was to the point where it’s like, yo, this is like crazy. Like what next? Right?
TB (13:17):
We went through four years trying to figure this out. And there was a lot of doubt creeping up. A lot of times that we thought it just wasn’t gonna happen. But yeah, so, you know, eventually as you know, we were continually going viral, people were reaching out, you know you know, I, since I was, you know, one prince with Princey since the beginning, I was, I, I knew everything because I ran a social, I was part of the videos. I was part of the creation process. Like I literally did everything with them. So I, I knew what it took to build that audience, to build that community, what the creation process is like. And so when other people started reaching out people like, you know, Jay and Lewis and, and people like that, trying to figure out, Hey, listen, they kind of like want to, you know, create content and, and, and really kind of like go to the next level.
TB (14:11):
Me and Jay developed a friendship too as well, you know? And we started working together. You know, I ended up working with Lewis from there. I ended up working with Tom, Billy and a bunch of other people, because for me interlight media, the name of my company. It, it stems from that. We all have interlight, you know, we all have a fire inside of us. Right. I believe that everybody has a purpose and that we are, as we are living in our purpose, our purpose is helping to inspire someone else to live theirs. So I am taking my talents to help other people flesh out their stuff, create, build their community out reach as many people as possible. So their inspiration can meet as many people as possible, and their impact can reach as many as possible. And it just continues to have a compound effect. But yeah, so this has been a life long dream of mine. I am thankfully living my dream now. And it’s been quite a journey.
AJV (15:17):
Yeah. That’s so cool. I love, I love what you said too, is like about the name of the company inner light because there there’s this light within all of us. And I think too, it’s kind of like, what you do is it’s, it’s helping showcase the inner light. Right. And one of the best ways you can do that is on video. And just in social, you just, you’ve got more reach. And there’s, there’s one thing you said, but I wanna go back to it’s like, y’all were trying to figure this out for like four years. Yeah. Not four weeks, not four months, but four years. Yeah. And I think that’s significant because we all know that we live in a society of like, we want it, we want it right now. And you know, it’s, we often are talking to people in our community at brain builders group where they’ve been at, they’ve been working at building their brand for six months. And they’re just like, man, I’m just, we’re not, I’m not seeing the progress. And I’m like, mm-hmm,
TB (16:36):
So two things prince always said something that, you know, was really it’s a really powerful thing you used to say, plan B is to make plan a work. Right. Mm-hmm
TB (17:46):
I am not living my true self. And so for me, I would rather spend every single day living my purpose or trying to fulfill what I am supposed to fulfill. What I know my purpose is than trying to do it for somebody else. Right. Than trying to just go along with the, get along right. Where you’re just like doing things to survive. And that’s not really my thing. I didn’t want do it for the money. I didn’t wanna do it for anything else. I really wanted to have an impact because I, I, I just genuinely have this belief that serving a million people is a much better pursuit of your gifts and talents than trying to get a million dollars. Because if you serve a million people more than likely, you’re gonna get a million dollars anyway. But even if you don’t the service and the act in itself is gonna be fulfilling for you. Oh yeah. So for me, I have always had this idea, especially coming from a very poverty background that once I was able to have that impact and serve people, that was gonna be my fulfillment. And I always had this idea that like getting the money was gonna be the byproduct anyway. But even if it wasn’t, I’m still gonna be happy. So,
AJV (19:06):
Oh, that’s so good. You know, we have this, you know, reminder for ourselves too. Like my husband, Roy Fain, and I who are business partners, as you guys know, it’s like, we have to constantly remind ourselves it’s about the power of the one, right? Not the 1000 or the a hundred thousand or the 1 million. It’s the power of the one. But because in reality, in real life, if I knew that I changed the life of one person, that would be good enough for me. But somehow we get online, we get on social media and if I only have one like, or one share, it feels like a failure. Yeah. But in real life. Yeah. If I knew that I’d changed the life of one person, it would all be worth it. Yeah. And then somehow online it gets devalued or minimized to what was just one like, and it’s like, well, that’s one person.
AJV (19:58):
Yeah. Right. It’s the power of the, one of trying not to look at the count so much trying and staying focused on the mission. Right. Staying focused on serving, like what you said is like, even if it doesn’t work, it’ll be fulfilling in the process. I love that. That’s so good. Y’all I’m so excited to have you guys on and just talk about this. And so so let’s do that. So for all these listeners out there who are building their personal brands, aspire to do these things and have their message heard right. By the one or the 1 million, whatever it may be. I would love to, I wanna hear from two different perspectives. Right. Cause I’m gonna guess that Tony, I could be wrong, but you prefer to perhaps be behind the scenes.
TV (20:41):
Both. Both ways. Yeah. Like I, I, I like to for sure, like, you know, like I lead a video editing team. I, I make my own, my own videos as well, video editing, but what you do really realize that a lot of these people we work with what I notice at least is that there is still like a gap between the knowledge of creating videos. And what I mean by that, like, everybody can make a video nowadays. That’s that, that’s amazing. You know, like I got an iPhone 13, like the camera on it is like amazing. Like I can create the best videos with that. So I, I encourage people to do that as well, but I, I fully understand that there’s still like a little barrier you need to overtake. And that’s actually like, you know, especially if you’re doing it by yourself, go into a room by yourself, turning it on by yourself, standing in front of the camera, by yourself and getting the energy out of yourself to actually say something. So that’s what I, like, I try to be on set. Like even, even it can be remotely just even just for like that direction, that like energy push. Oh, that’s all them basically. Yeah.
AJV (21:49):
That’s really, I’m important. I’m curious to hear the director mentality in you of going, like, what, what do people need to be doing to be more relatable, personable, engaging charismatic. Like, what are some of the tips that people need to be doing to be better on video? Yeah,
TV (22:10):
Well, like, honestly, I, I think like, especially when, when you’re really starting out the first thing people do and I totally understand it is compare. Like they compare right from the start like, oh, Hey let’s say prince or Jay. I really like what they’re doing. I wanna do that. And they, they then, and then they come to me, like they come forever say, can you, can you make that like, and on my end, as a creation, I’ll always say yes. Yeah, for sure we can do that. There’s no problem. But I think there’s, there’s still a difference in us making a, a crazy edit, like that can go far out of nothing. Yeah. And actually the quality that we’re getting, cuz like we, we, we fail to understand like prince CA or J she Lewis house. These people have been in front of the camera for like years.
TV (22:56):
I would say there’s, there’s just a lot of experience in there that you can’t get out of in like your first take. There’s no way there’s no way which is totally fine. So that’s something that, that you should need to grow into. But the second thing, like it may sound stupid. I really prefer then when people start to go on camera, they really need to loosen up. They really need to loosen up. So that’s why I prefer to be there. So when I’m gonna be on set remotely or in person, I just, you know, like we start making jokes a bit.
AJV (23:35):
10 pushups or 10 shots of either one. They go,
TV (23:39):
Yeah, 10 shots of the
AJV (23:39):
Kilo, like whatever works,
TV (23:41):
Get something
AJV (23:42):
TV (23:42):
Exactly. Exactly. And when it to scripting, like a script is very important, but at the same time, you know, I, I would say like the best, best process for me would always be like, make a script, put it in bullet points and learn that. So you can say it in your own voice. Like if you’re gonna rehearse the exact thing that you wrote down, not saying it’s not possible for sure. It’s possible, but like the greatest, like I’ve met some of the greatest creators. They, they really just read off a script, but it’s hard to get your personality out of a script, especially if you haven’t even read renew yourself. So that’s why the bullet points are so yeah. And, and just get loose, you know, just, you know, make a bit of fun, jump a bit around and don’t worry about the edit. Like in, in the edit we can do everything.
AJV (24:26):
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting because I think, I think that’s a huge part of even like what we see with even people on our team. Like we do this, this doesn’t mean it’s, it’s easy, but there’s some people on our team who are super adverse to video and it’s like, there’s super charismatic, engage human, engage, engaging humans. And then as soon as that red light goes on, they’re like, you’re in the headlight. And I’m like, who are you? And where did you go? Like what, what just happened to our friend? What just happened? And it’s a bizarre thing. And what I have found is that, you know, there’s two things. One is that they are literally trying to remember their script and it’s, you know, one of the things I have to constantly remind myself, it’s like, this is my content. I don’t need a script.
AJV (25:11):
Yeah. I just need to be myself. Why am I scripting out my own content? And it’s because I’m, don’t feel confident, right? It’s not the content it’s like, I’m worried about, does my hair have strays? Like, does my face look fat? Do I have a double chin right now? It’s like, it’s all these little things that we get obsessed with. And we forget, and this is like, my husband tells me this all the time. He goes, if you’re focused on you, that’s why you’re nervous. And he goes, anytime you’re nervous, it’s because you’re focused on yourself. But when you’re focused on others, it’s hard to be nervous. And so we have this little saying in our company, is that when you’re focused on service, it’s hard to be nervous. Mm-Hmm
TV (26:12):
Yeah. And I think, I think it’s a good point that you touched as well when, when it comes comes to, to, to those things. Like one, like, I think like, again, people really under underestimate, like, I mean, you have to have a good edit there, I reckon. And here we are, but
AJV (27:12):
Oh yeah. And it’s like, then you’re talking about 15 things that make no sense.
TV (27:16):
Yeah, exactly. There’s no direction that’s going
AJV (27:18):
Fully aware of these, these videos. Yeah. That’s, that’s super, I think that’s super helpful is like you gotta bullet point out what you have to say, but keep it bullet points, not scripted. And it’s like, then you gotta figure out what’s gonna loosen you up. So play music, do pushups, take tequila shots, like whatever it is, like do what you gotta do to get yourself in a place where you’re not obsessing of what you look like on camera. Now Travis, you’re someone who’s in front of a camera a ton. So I’m curious to hear from you, not only from you yourself, but from working with all these pretty influential individuals who have built really big followings over the years, like, what would you say are the keys to a video? Getting a lot of traction,
TB (28:05):
Getting a lot of traction. That’s a good question. When something is important to you, it’s usually important to somebody else. Hmm. I think probably the most fundamental thing to, to go viral or to make a video that’s meaningful and impactful is don’t base it off information base it off your feelings, meaning like carry that feeling into the video. How do you want somebody to feel right? That is what is gonna get people moving that’s what’s gonna get people to share is the feeling. Obviously you want to talk from a very, I’m a very data driven person, very factual. In fact, if you watch Prince’s video almost in every video, he’s, you know, listening out facts, but it’s more like a, a, he he’s using it. Right. it doesn’t carry the weight. Right? The weight is the feeling. How do you get people to feel a certain type of way?
TB (29:08):
Right? What are the things to say, right. Albert Einstein says, if you can’t explain this simply, you don’t understand it. Mm. So whenever you know, we are going into a video process, it’s about how do we explain this simply in a way that everybody can understand it, but we’re talking about something in a way that people understand that we care about it. Right. so that’s like, like kind of like the key and you carry that in each video. So for example, whenever he makes a video and this is something, you know, I run into when I’m talking to a lot of different entrepreneurs or people that’s making videos is, you know, sometimes I just kind of like wanna create content. It’s like, no, no, no. Every piece of content that you create should be the B like this is the best video you can create right now.
TB (29:55):
Mm-Hmm,
AJV (30:52):
Oh, that’s so good. I love that. You gotta focus on the feeling yeah. That you want people to feel. I think the other thing that you said that I think is so insightful is are you creating your best content right now? Or, you know, it’s like, I think we, so sometimes in this space of like building your personal brand and becoming more well known, we kind of get obsessed with, I gotta have something out. Right? Yeah. And so it’s like, perhaps you’re not doing your best content because you’re just trying to like, get something out. And I love it’s, you know, it’s that whole concept of save the best for first mm-hmm
TB (31:51):
Yeah. So a couple of things first off, you know, when it comes to creating content you have to know your industry. If you, or, you know, know your audience, know who you want to communicate to. So for example, if let’s just say you review baby products, right. Is, should be something you’re passionate about. Is this something you’re passionate about? Is this something you actually care about? Mm-Hmm
TB (32:47):
Mm-Hmm
TB (33:40):
Yeah. Which allows you to build a community of people that love you. Some that like you and some that are like, oh, okay. And then you are also gonna have some people that disagree with you and all that is fine because it’s about building your community and your authenticity. So if you’re consistent, you’re being authentic. You actually like what you’re talking about. And you’re passionate, what you’re talking about. You have some experience in it and you don’t have to be the first. You don’t have to be the best. You just have to be yourself. Mm-Hmm
AJV (34:35):
Oh yeah. I, this was beat into my heads. Like as soon as you started talking, I was like, oh my gosh, I haven’t thought about this quote in years, but this was beaten to my head early on, in my sales career. And you just made me think about, is that people don’t care how much, you know, until they know how much you care. Right. And it’s like, are you talking about stuff that you actually care about? Or you just out there, you know, trying to get that next, you know, sale or that next, whatever. I think that’s so good. And so you kind of teed up and I’d, I’d like to hear both of your perspectives on this. Is this concept of authenticity mm-hmm
AJV (35:27):
It’s like, you know, I’ve, I’ve got this one person in mind. It’s like, their content is amazing. And they’re amazing. It does not come across that way, but it’s like, man, if would just read their book or have a one on one over coffee, it’s like, they’re so wise. And so insightful that yet, because of this issue they have with like putting themselves out there, they’re kind of like the world’s best kept secret and not a good way. Right. So I wanna, I’d love to hear both of your perspectives. Like how do you create more authenticity for social media or your website or your podcast, or just anything to do with video when that’s really hard.
TV (36:08):
Yeah. Yeah. Like, I, I, I can if I can first say something actually that, because that’s, that’s a very common problem. I, I can totally get that. Like, it’s totally like, like you said, like you said before, the moment the red light goes on, like it’s, it’s, you’re in a different, different zone. So, so I totally get, so there’s two things to that one, obviously. And I think that that’s, that’s the, the, maybe the bad side of social media media, everything seems to be so easy. Everything seems to be so easy. So it’s very easy to compare yourself. The moment you get started to like Hey, you know, I want to be Gary V always tells me to be consistent and always post to video every day. So let me do that. And that that’s, that’s super hardening. Cuz then people forget to understand one.
TV (36:52):
He’s been doing it for quite some years. Two. He has a big team around him. There’s, there’s, there’s a whole, there’s a difference perspective in it that you don’t really see by watching it’s a machine behind it. So one, it takes time, you know, never, never think that the moment you start is gonna be the best ever. And second thing is like, it is true. There are two different types of people, one that can, that are just really good on camera. And everybody can learn that for sure. But it takes time. One PE some people are just naturally they go from the start. But a lot of people, like you said, you just said like, if, if, if you start talking to them, you get so much good information out of them, but it doesn’t translate well on camera. Well, what does that mean?
TV (37:31):
Like, for me that means like, okay, what if you just ha, if you record a conversation, then you know, why don’t you record like a zoom call with somebody? Like, we’re like, girl, you know, like, like a podcast like we’re doing right now. It’s different. The camera is on. Yes. But like, you know, we all kind of forget. Yeah. And then you still get the conversation out of it. And even from that part, send that to an editor. They can create a lot of cool, interesting snippets out of that. And then your authenticity is there.
AJV (37:59):
Oh, that’s so good for any of you who are listening. I just wanna make sure you hear that. It’s like, if you don’t have confidence or you feel insecure on camera, it’s like, just do it interview style, right? Have someone interview you, film it, send it to an editor and they’ll be able to take out the best parts of you talking. Right. That’s a really great tip because it’s like content comes in a variety of mediums. Right? So have someone interview you. That’s a really great format. Cause I feel the same way with a lot of people who have major fears around public speaking, but they don’t mind doing a panel. They don’t mind doing an interview. It’s just the concept of me standing on stage by myself, trying to tell all these people, something there doesn’t come across, but you sit ’em down on a couch with an interviewer and it’s like brilliance, just coming out of their mouth. Yeah. Somehow as this keynote speaker, doesn’t come out that way. So do an interview style. I love that. Yeah. That’s a great, tangible takeaway for anyone who doesn’t feel confident on camera to still create content and get your message out there. So, so love that.
TB (39:14):
Yeah. So one thing that I think this is gonna sound a little more bit, but it’s something for me that’s worked when communicating to my clients and wanting to create like the best pieces. You ask yourself this question. If you were to die in 30 days, what’s the one thing, the most important thing you want the world to know, like what what’s, if you knew you were gonna die in 30 days, what’s the most important thing you would want the world to know. Right? If you, if you think about that for a second and you give that message, when you’re coming from a place of, you know, what of, of your own mortality, it usually comes across as visceral as possible because you’re thinking to yourself, you know, this is the most important message to me. Mm-Hmm
TB (40:18):
Okay. Now that I’ve created that if I were to die, what’s the next most important video or what’s the most next important message that I would want to get across the world. And so what happens is this forces you to dig deep inside of yourself because it’s not about performing, right? It’s about talking to that one person. Like, because I know we’re talking to the world, but it’s really about talking to one person, right. When you’re talking to the camera, you’re not talking to the camera. You’re not even talking to yourself, you’re talking to one person, right? Who’s that one person, your client avatar or the individual that, you know, who’s, you know, if it’s, if it’s his story about something that you were going through, who’s that person that you wanna speak to imagine they need your help right now. Mm-Hmm
TB (41:10):
You’re gonna show up, oh, this person needs my help. I’m gonna show up. You know, that’s going to give you the energy and the empowerment to kind of like show up. And so that’s how I show up when I am making my videos or when I’m talking to clients, making them videos. Who’s that one person that you wanna show up for, let’s say they needed you right now. You’re gonna die in 30 days. Mm-Hmm
AJV (41:53):
Yeah.
TB (41:54):
And when you make it relatable and you connect, it becomes shareable.
AJV (41:58):
Mm-Hmm
TB (42:09):
Well, once I go through the process with them, yeah, not initially.
AJV (43:30):
That’s so good. I love that. And I know we’re coming up on time here. So I have just like one last question for each of you. So I’ll start, I’ll start with Tony. So here’s here’s my, here’s my last question for you. It’s like, if you had one creative piece of advice, right. For anyone out there who’s listening, it’s like, Hey, if you can just do this one thing, it’s going to help you get your message across on video, what would it be?
TV (44:02):
Oh, to get your message across on video? Well, I, I think people, well, I do think like a lot of people stress too much about it. Like, like, like you, like, you’re, like you said, like it’s, oh, I, I, I need to record something today because everybody tells me I need to be consistent. I need to post every single day on Instagram, on Instagram stories, YouTube, everywhere.
TV (44:52):
Don’t don’t please don’t think like that. I would for sure. Say like, you know, take your time one day, create a couple of videos, focus on one platform, just be a bit active on there. When it comes to, to quality focus, the quality on what you’re saying, that’s the most important and what you’re saying, not how it looks like. Not on a crazy edit. Just what are you saying? Start with there, start with there. And then, then you’re gonna create momentum in yourself, in your audience. And then from there, just take the next step. Like what could the next step be? Could it be a better edit? Could it be more clarity in what I’m saying? Better camera gear. Should I move to another platform? Those things, but calm down.
AJV (45:35):
I would
TV (45:36):
Say
AJV (45:36):
TV (45:57):
Yeah.
AJV (45:57):
Saying like, who is saying this? And like, why are they saying this? It’s like, you know, we get pressure. I get pressure. I shouldn’t say we, I get pressure. I, them, you need to be on TikTok. I’m like Noah don’t they’re like, oh yeah, you do. Yeah, exactly. Noah don’t. Yeah. I don’t wanna be on TikTok so I should not be on it.
TV (46:12):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it was funny cuz I was speaking to Travis actually last week and cuz I, I was also like, everybody kind of looks up to like these prince CAS and, and these J she and like they, they, they want to be consistent everywhere, but like, and or Gary VFR who is definitely consistent everywhere, but people really on the resume, like say prince say, Hey, he doesn’t drop a single, a video. Every single day of that quality. He drops once a month. Maybe sometimes once every two months. Mm-Hmm
AJV (46:51):
He literally had, but someone following him around with the video. Yeah. So until you got those resources, it’s like, yeah, like
TV (46:59):
Calm down, calm down,
AJV (47:00):
Calm down. It’s OK. That like the advice of the day, calm down. Good one Tommy. It’s so true. It’s like, you know, it’s like our, like even people in like our client community at brand builder’s group, it’s they stress themselves out of going, well, I have to do this and I have to do this. And I’m like, no, you don’t. Yeah, you don’t, you can, but you don’t have to. It’s like, you can actually be really successful and not even be on social media, spoiler alert. Right. It’s like, yeah, it’s not a dependent factor, but it definitely is a huge conduit of getting your message out there. Yes. Faster. Right. Okay. So Travis, here’s my last question for you. And it has to do with social media since inter like media is got this, it’s an amazing company doing really cool things. You had me at your hook making videos go viral. I was like, how do I learn more? Right. So I’m curious to hear your perspective of like, in order to really make social media work, what’s the first thing you need to do.
TB (48:11):
So interesting. I’ll tell this really quick story. So I had a company I work with for, for 90 days power for you out of salt lake city, Utah. And so first thing I did was identify what type of company is this? It’s a personal development company. I said, okay it’s a personal development company. So now I go to market research.com and say, all right, who’s into personal development, the most millennials. Okay. Millennials into personal developed the most. Okay. Where are these people located at California and New York, you know, places like that. Okay, great. Which platform are they on? Which social media platform are they on? Okay. So I see that they’re on Facebook mainly. Now this was a couple years ago, but, and so now it’s like Instagram and YouTube, but back then it was Facebook and YouTube.
TB (49:07):
Okay, cool. All right. Now I see who’s the top performing personal development coaches and, and influences on these platforms. So I check and see who’s the top performing influences on those platforms. Then I see the most viral videos that they are putting out. And then after I see which the most viral videos that they’re putting out, then I see the most common questions that people are asking in a comment section mm-hmm
AJV (50:25):
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s like how I translate that in my mind. It’s like, you gotta get so in tune with who your audience is, that everything else is second to that, right? Yeah. It’s like, where are they? What are they asking? What do they need? What do they want? And how can we give it to ’em in the way that they want it.
TB (50:43):
And, and also do want to, at this one last point, something Tony said, and I don’t want, wanted to gloss over choosing one platform, probably one of the biggest things that I run into, you know, entrepreneurs is they wanna be on every platform.
AJV (52:07):
Yeah.
TB (52:07):
And it’s much easier to learn how to build on one platform than it is on V. Yeah.
AJV (52:12):
So at least gives you more focus and tension and takes away the pressure of, and this and this and this and this. Exactly. which really quite honestly is probably what halts most people is. I feel like I just can’t keep up. I just can’t, I can’t do this so they don’t do anything. Yeah. So, so, so good. Anna lied. I’m gonna ask one last question to each of you. What’s your favorite, what’s your preferred platform, Tony? Like what’s your go-to platform? Just for curiosity sake.
TV (52:41):
AJV (52:42):
For me. Youtube. All right, Travis.
TB (52:45):
Yeah. YouTube is the platform for longevity. It’s the second big, biggest search engine. It’s evergreen. And honestly, anybody that wants a sustainable platform to build on YouTube is definitely number one. It’s not the quickest.
AJV (53:01):
Yeah, that’s so
TB (53:01):
Good. Y’all definitely the one that lasts the longest.
AJV (53:04):
Ugh. Y’all just so many awesome nuggets of information. So grateful for both of you guys coming on, everyone who is listening. I am telling you go check out interlight media. It’s I N N ER, not inter inner. You have to listen to my Southern accent and translate inner like you’re intervening you’re media, interlight media.com. Also you’ve got interlight social. Are those, do those go to the same place or is one better than the other?
TB (53:33):
So interlight media is the name of the company. Interlight social is the name of the website.
AJV (53:37):
See, that’s so glad I asked interlight social.com. I will make it correct in the show notes, ignore everything. I just said, enter like social.com is where you wanna go. We’ll make sure to have all the links in the show notes and y’all, if they wanna follow you on social media, where should they go? Travis,
TB (53:56):
Instagram and YouTube, just Travis believes. And if you Google, Travis believes you’ll find me everywhere. You’ll follow me on any platform. But Instagram and YouTube is where you’ll find me most active.
AJV (54:08):
Travis believes on Instagram and YouTube. And how about you? Tony
TV (54:12):
Instagram really plays that’s Instagram. That’s tone to Tony cuz my, my real, my Dutch name is tone. T E U N. It’s gonna be hard to pronounce for an English audience. So that’s why Tony
AJV (54:27):
Make it clear. I’ll put it in the show note. Yeah. Y’all thank you so much. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and all of your insights. We so appreciate it. Everyone else, make sure you catch the recap episode and we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand. See y’all.
Ep 310: The Fastest Way to Become a Paid Professional Speaker with Kindra Hall
RV (00:02):
Kindra hall is one of our dear real life friends, and she is a delight and she is one of the best female speakers in the world. One of the, the highest grossing, you know, highest revenue, grossing, keynote speakers, that’s out there. And Kindra and AJ and I like we’ve, we’ve known each other for years at this point. And it’s been really great to see how fast Kindra has launched her career. Specifically as a speaker. I, I remember meeting her earlier in her career where she’s like early on in her journey. She’s like, I’m gonna speak everywhere. And then it was like, within a matter of a couple years, she really freaking was everywhere.
KH (01:11):
Thank you for having me Rory so glad to be here,
RV (01:14):
Buddy. You are awesome. And I, I really mean that, you know, like we, of all the people who come up, you know, to me, and, and say, I wanna be a speaker, like of the people who have actually built like a really true, you know, career. I think you’re probably the fastest that I’ve ever seen that happen to where it was like, I have a dream to speak to. I mean, you and I are gonna be sharing the stage at MDRT together here in, at, in Sydney, Australia in a few months. That’s, you know, a lot of people say, that’s, that’s the biggest, one of the biggest stages in the world. So how did you do that?
KH (01:52):
Now I’m not to make me nervous. All of a sudden I’m like, wait, that’s a big stage. I didn’t think left that part out.
RV (01:58):
It’s a big, old deal. You should be totally nervous. You should be freaking out. It’s a big, it’s a big deal.
KH (02:04):
My, my heart rate just, just went up significantly. I’m starting to sweat a thing. You can’t smell me through here. You know, I, it, how did I do that? It’s a good question. I think I really was someone who I would see and I saw you speak for the very first time. Gosh, it would’ve been in like 2006 when 2007,
RV (02:26):
Was it that DSA convict with direct selling association? Yeah, that wasn’t, I had a, I had like a eight minute part of a showcase. Yeah. And you were, you were there
KH (02:36):
RV (03:04):
The pieces together. You’re like, okay, if they’re paying this guy to do it, then I think there’s a career for me.
KH (03:09):
Like, that was terrible. No, I’m just kidding. I’m kidding. But, but you know, you don’t really know what is possible until you see it. And I kind of put together that I, I had a topic or a thing that I was, that I knew a lot about that actually came later that I realized that that was important. I knew that I could be on stage. I’d been on the speech team as a kid through high school and college. And then it was kind of a whim. I got this whim, I wrote a little mini article in success, magazine. It like, like, it was a little insert, like a little paragraph and somebody saw it, you know how sometimes these things just happen. Somebody saw it and called like found me and said, will you be your keynote? Will you be one of our keynote speakers?
KH (04:00):
What do you charge? And I had no idea. I didn’t know what to do. I remember I gave a 90 minute presentation, no slides. I like it was the first time I put a message together in that way. And it wasn’t great looking back, but it was enough for me to go back to my hotel room. I’ll never forget it was in Las Vegas, but like not on the strip, like that one, that’s like south of the strip
RV (04:54):
Mm-Hmm
KH (05:38):
But that, I think that was more for me that was more a fluke. So I would say that at the be now, yes, people hire me because they’ve read my book. They’ve seen me on Instagram. They saw me at another event, someone they work with saw me at an event. So now it’s definitely word of mouth. Of course, I work with some incredible bureaus, so my agents are great. They’re, they’re great. They represent me well to their clients, but at the beginning, that one little article I feel like was a, a fluke. It was that obsession that hit me that day after I finished. And what happened next? And if I’ll share it with you,
RV (06:19):
Tell me, yeah, we wanna know, I wanna hear the, the
KH (06:22):
Actual story. This is the very specific thing that I did. So there was another guy at that conference who said, oh yeah, I speak all the time. He was being like, he was definitely bragging about it. And I was like, he knows something. I don’t like, how do I, so I offered the next day to buy him a coffee. And we sat down in the Vegas, whatever coffee shop. And he was like, well, you know, you just gotta reach out to people and see if they need a speaker. And I was like, but, but who, who do I reach out to? And he’s like, I don’t know, convention and visitors bureaus. And I was like, okay, I have a start. So I went home and I set a goal to reach out to 100 organizations or events a week for six weeks. Wow. Which would equal 600. And I started with convention and visitors bureaus. Now I will say, I never heard back from a CVB. Nobody ever that
RV (07:11):
Is not, I’ve never booked one of them. That was, I don’t think that was good advice. I, I was gonna
KH (07:16):
Say, no, it wasn’t, but it got me started because I would sit down at my computer and here’s what I had. I had a a really cheesy little demo video of me that was mostly words swooping in that my brother actually made that said fresh voice, stor new, new strategy storytelling. And then like this, a little clip of me talking at a sales event for a company that I was employed by, like I worked for. So, and then I had done, I did like little vlogs for YouTube. And so I cut in like me talking just so they could hear my voice, see what I looked like on stage. It was so low budget. I, but I had nothing else. And then I created a one sheet PDF or whatever, and I sat down and I Googled women’s events. And then I would enter ’em into a spreadsheet and I’d look up like, who is the contact?
KH (08:08):
Who is the whatever. And I would look up like, who else needs my message entrepreneur events. So I Googled entrepreneur events. I Googled. And a big thing for me was Amer the, I found the American marketing association and they have chapters in every city. And so I started, so I found the one in Minneapolis and they, so I made this list. And then at the end of the week after I had a hundred, I would send an email and say, this is how I can basically how I can serve your audience, because it’s not like they have a problem. So I’m trying to tell them that I know you have this problem and I can solve this problem. I included the link to the video. I attached a PDF and I sent it. And the majority of people didn’t write me back, but I remember the American marketing marketing association in Minneapolis did, and they said, will you come speak?
KH (09:01):
And I said, yes. And then I thought, well, wait, if there’s a Minneapolis chapter, maybe there’s a Nashville chapter. Maybe there’s a Dallas chapter. And so I then had 50 chapters that I could reach out to. And that’s how it started. So it wasn’t, I mean, it was brute force at the beginning. And I did, I reached out to 600 events. I heard back from probably 50, but it was enough to get me in front of people and, and make no mistake. The events that I was writing for the most part I got paid with, like, here’s a Chi, you can have the remaining chicken taco at the end bar
RV (09:39):
Buffet line.
KH (09:41):
RV (10:31):
Mm-Hmm
KH (10:33):
Was a long story.
RV (10:34):
No, it’s a, I mean, yeah, it’s a great story, but that is it. I mean, it’s like every association, every company has events. They need speakers and you, you call ’em and you ask ’em are you email? And you ask ’em, do you have speakers? And they say, send me your topic and send me your demo video. Like, and that’s how, how it starts. N now you’ve always been great at telling a story. You’ve always been fascinated at a story, your, your, I mean, this is a huge part of what you, you do. You know, your first book, which we also, I think really kind of became friends when you were launching stories that stick, cuz it was like, Hey, how do I hit the best seller list and all that stuff. Yeah. Which was awesome if I remember, I think it hit number two on the wall street journal.
RV (11:18):
Yeah. Like was legit was your great storyteller and a huge part of speaking is being a great storyteller. So what are some of the things, you know, I’m thinking more of stories that stick what are some of the elements that you need to tell? Great stories. And, and let’s say specifically from stage now, it, it might not be, you’re a keynote speaker in front of yeah. An arena of people. It might be a webinar or a podcast interview or an Instagram or a YouTube live or whatever, but like what are some of the kind of mistakes you see experts making when they’re telling stories?
KH (11:56):
Well, the first mistake is not telling any stories because the stories are the thing that people remember. Like I remember from early two thousands, your story about the stairs and I can still see you on the stage telling that story. And it’s, it’s been, oh my gosh, is that almost 20 years? I don’t wanna say that out like that. That’s embarrassing.
KH (12:47):
The second mistake that people make is it’s they choose the story because it’s a story they want to tell. Maybe because it’s funnier, it’s emotional or it makes people cry or it’s about their dog and they really love their dog. And they aren’t, it’s not exactly clear to the audience why that story for this message. And so I would say it’s, you know, it’s really important to make sure that when you are telling stories in any kind of presentation, whether it’s a, a keynote or a pitch that it’s a really clear to the audience, why you’re telling this story to illustrate whatever message it is that you want them to walk away with. And then I think the third thing is, well, there’s so many but I think one of the great, maybe not the mistake, but I think one of the great opportunities stories afford us is the opportunity to just be ourself, to not have to be the expert when you’re up there. Like you’re, you are just telling the story of, of how like something that happened to you or, or a lesson that you learned or an experience that you had. And, and it’s such a perfect opportunity to be human versus here is the salesperson standing in front of the room or here’s the expert that I’m supposed to listen to. So to choose stories that, you know, to recognize that like really cool thing, that story allows us to do and then to choose stories, to tell that that make that even more possible.
RV (14:28):
Yeah. And I that’s so true. This story is so humanizing. It’s like such a way to connect with people also a way to entertain. Like it it’s naturally entertaining and, and provocative, like if you were gonna write a new story. Okay. So let’s say you were gonna give a new speech. What do you think about in your mind? Like, what’s the thought, press you go through where you go, how do I select the story? I’m gonna tell, so maybe you go, okay, I’m talking to this group, I wanna make this point. And then from there you go, I should do a story or like walk us through the sort of thought process that goes on in Kindra’s head, where you go. Here’s how I select the story. Here’s kind of the high, the high level parts and how I sort of like outline it and then, you know, just like take us through that.
KH (15:18):
Yeah. Yeah. So I think I always start with the, well, some sometimes it, it, it can come in one of two ways sometimes. I stumble upon a story and I’m like, oh my gosh. Like and when I say stumble upon a story, either something happens to me or I remember something that happened years ago and I think, oh, wow, this illustrate, like this is a great story. This illustrates a point that I often try to make. For example, in stories that stick, the opening story is about buying a bottle of cologne on a trip in Slovenia. And I specifically, and the salesman told a story and he did such a great job of it. And I specifically remember standing in that situation, thinking to myself, this is a story. This is a story story is happening to me right here. Right now.
KH (16:16):
I need to remember this. So sometimes it’s the story first. And sometimes it is, which then gets engineered into a message is sometimes it’s the message first it’s, this is the message that I want them to walk away with. This is what I want my audience to think, feel know, or do, what story do I have or what story is there that illustrates this objective that I have. And that’s where it can be. It can be really, it can be really surprising like, oh, wait, there was I, and this isn’t a new story, but this is a story I tell this story about using a story in physics class. Like you wouldn’t think as a, as a, you know, as you said, a well paid keynote speaker that I would open keynotes with a story about a paper from physics class in 12th grade, but it illustrates the message I want to deliver. So very clearly that it ends up being the right story to tell.
RV (17:16):
Okay. So you can either start with the story and engineer the message, or you can identify the message and then sort of reverse engineer it back into the story that you want to tell.
KH (17:28):
Yeah. And I think that the most frustrating thing about the process, and I can say this honestly, like, I, I don’t want people to think that it’s like, oh, so easy. Is that often when you have a message it is really, really hard to find the story that goes with it. Like you can be like where you can sit there and say, what’s a, I have, what’s a story I have and one won’t be there. So I’ve gotten a lot better at saying, I have this message I want to deliver. And then allowing space in my own brain for the right story to come along. Now, it does require heightened awareness on my part. Like, do I witness something a different way? Do I recall something a different way, but, or sometimes you find the story you’re like, oh my gosh, this is such a great story. I have no idea where to use this story.
RV (18:18):
Do you keep a list or anything like, do you like, I, I have like,
KH (18:22):
And again, this is where I wish, I mean, in a perfect world, I would’ve created an app for myself and then I would sell it to all of you, but I have, I text story ideas to myself. I have multiple notebooks and scraps of paper and napkins. With story ideas. I, I put ’em in my notes. I email them to myself. So they’re kind of all over the place. I need to get better about that, but that’s
RV (18:47):
Also, but you do capture it, you at least document it and, and attempt to store it somewhere.
KH (18:53):
Yeah.
RV (18:53):
So what is the difference between telling a story and telling something that happened? And, and is there a difference? Cause I think a lot of people go, I, I’m not a good storyteller, you know, but like they tell friends like, oh, Hey, this is what happened, but then it’s, it’s not very compelling. It’s not very engaging. It’s just really flat or it’s like, oh, okay, well, like what was, what was the point of that? How do you make it engaging?
KH (19:22):
I think that’s kind of the, so if you think about telling something that happened the way I see it is, it’s kind of like a, like a flat line. Like you’re just not like dead, like flat line, but you’re just going along the things kind of in chronological order. Which isn’t necessarily, that can be a place to start with a story, but what a story needs is to kind of take that flat line and to bring the two ends together and then make it a 3d, like a sphere. So that there’s, there’s more intention to it. It’s not just this and this and this happened, it’s these things all happened. And this is, this is what it means in the world. So how that happens is, well, I have a three part, you know, a story has a beginning, a middle and an end, but as we’re thinking about stories to think about it in a way of, at first you’re establishing like this world of what was like, what, how you knew the world, what was happening basically setting the scene in what I call the normal.
KH (20:23):
And then the middle part of the story is the action point is the decision that was made. And the interesting thing is, as you’re creating a story versus telling somebody what happened, like this happened, that, you know, I come home from a flight, I say to my husband, we got delayed. And then we, there was a maintenance issue. So we turned back around and then we took off, but there was weather. So, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now I’m back home. Whereas with the story there would be, it would be like you build it up in the normal so that the audience is thinking something’s about to happen. Something’s about to happen. Something’s about to happen. And that explosion is the thing that happens. And they’re like, oh yes, that’s what it was. And then the new normal is what you learned as a result.
KH (21:05):
What happened as a result? Now that’s the basic framework, but what, and in stories that stick, we talk about this, this is what the research is that a story really has. Then also four key components. It needs a character, an identifiable character it needs authentic emotion. It needs like a specific moment in the story that people can like be drawn into and really visually see it. So that they’re, you know, sitting right next to you on the stairs is in take the stairs case and then specific details. Because again, it’s the specific details that will have the lasting effect cognitively for people to remember that story. Interesting. Did that help? It’s a little mad
RV (21:46):
Scientist. Sorry. Yeah, totally. Sorry. Well I think it, it’s just, I think a lot of it is realizing that there’s a difference between telling a story and telling what happened and going a story is something you have to craft. Like it’s, it’s
KH (22:01):
Tension behind it, intention
RV (22:02):
And energy. And you know, so, and I like stories that stick. That’s really what that is about. So your, your newer book choose your story, change your life is interesting because that’s more about the stories that we tell ourselves.
KH (22:17):
Yes.
RV (22:18):
So I’d love to kind of marry that with what are the stories that maybe you’ve heard experts tell themselves about why they can’t be successful. And then what are some of the stories that you told yourself about maybe the industry or whatever, and then how do you rewrite your, your story to be more empowering?
KH (22:43):
Yeah. I, I mean the stories that we, because of course the stories that we tell ourselves have all of the components by nature that I just mentioned. And so the natural stories that are alive within each of us, those are crafted without effort. That is, we are very good at crafting those stories ourselves. And so we have within us, these very powerful forces, which are our stories that dictate our actions for better or worse. So for example and for talking, and if we’re talking about speakers here, it’s so funny, the, the stories that people tell themselves. So I was working with a speaker several years ago, long before I was a speaker who who was it, wasn’t for a lack of like, it wasn’t like imposter syndrome. But there was definitely some frustration around not being able to get to the next level.
KH (23:42):
And the stories were that this person was telling themselves as well. My content is serious and, and audiences just want they just wanna laugh and I can’t laugh, or I don’t make people laugh because I’m so serious. And so there were, there were some of these stories that were and, oh, I’m a even stories about the stories that could be told was I’m a very private person. I can’t share my stories. So therefore I won’t be successful as a speaker. Hmm. Or as successful as I want to be. You know, I had stories about myself, the stories that I was stories that I had about myself and then stories that were told to me, I was told on multiple occasions that I was too blonde to be taken seriously on stage
RV (24:38):
Really?
KH (24:39):
Yep. That I was too young. I didn’t have enough experience or success that I was too female. Right. So, so that there were, and, and so it’s really interesting too, because those were stories that I could have adopted for myself. As, oh, I, I guess I don’t have a place here instead. Some of the stories that I really struggled with were yeah, like what, what value can I bring to them or that audience I would be, I would be standing backstage thinking that audience doesn’t pair anything about what I have to say. And I would have the stories playing in my head of maybe an event, like way at the beginning that didn’t go so well. Right. Cause I was still getting good at speaking. And so it really is a matter of when you find these stories that you’re telling it’s, it’s seeing them for what they are. Right. Mm-Hmm
RV (26:22):
Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s really amazing. Like one of the things that I picked up there is like, it’s funny how, when we’re trying to craft, like when we’re trying to tell a story at first stage or something, we have to sit down and go, all right, I need to craft this with intention. But when it’s the stories in our own head about our own life, those are crafted without much effort, almost invisible. Like we don’t even, yeah. You know, some, somebody says something, boom, we adopted as truth. We live, we live our whole life by it. We don’t even know that it’s there affecting how we think what we do. And so it feels like identifying and just going, oh, where did I learn that? Like, where did I, where did I even adopt that from? I think a lot of it is fake. Like it’s, it’s manufactured. They’re not real things.
KH (27:10):
I, I had a really, I had a big epiphany. That’s actually changed my life as a speaker. I realized that I, I had this belief that if I wasn’t terribly stressed and painfully nervous and out of my mind, terrified to go out on stage that I then didn’t, I wouldn’t do a good job. It was like, it was required for me to be really unsure of myself. And that’s how I used that. I would use those stories as like the adrenaline that got me on stage, but it made me miserable. I hated my job because I felt so terrible right before, sometimes days before I, my husband would call it the darkness before I would go and give a presentation. And so I used this self storytelling strategy because I just couldn’t live like that anymore. I would just feel too miserable before every keynote.
KH (28:11):
And so I would choose to tell myself stories that would stop that anxiety stop that, that nervousness. And, you know, you would think that one of the stories you would tell is a time you did a great job. Well, I do. I mean, forgive me for saying this, but I do a great job almost all the time. Right. And so my inner critic is like me, that’s not good enough. That’s not good enough. And so I would stay in this very nervous state. So I decided to, and we’re talking about carefully curating, crafting our stories. I decide, I figured out that the stories that worked were the stories of when all the odds were against me and I still did a great job. So there was this one huge event. So it was a big sales conference for tech. It was like the first tech event that I had spoken for.
KH (29:01):
And I got the stomach flu, like in the middle of the night, the night before I was so sick, they had to put a bucket off stage for me with strict instructions to cut the mic. If they saw me go towards the bucket I was, I was terribly ill and this was way before COVID. So you could, you know, show must go on. I gave a killer 90 minute presentation and then went to the airport and got some, you know, pretzels and Gatorade. And I was fine, but like that, I’m like, wait, I was, or the time where I was in The Bahamas and the whole electrical grid went out, all that was on in the room were the generator lights. And I just called out to the audience. Do, should I just keep going? Like my mic didn’t work. There were no decks.
KH (29:43):
And it was, and it just kept going. And it was awesome. Right? So telling myself these stories, but those are the stories. Those were the only stories. So this is, what’s really important as whatever your limiting beliefs are, whatever they are that you’re telling yourself that you’re, you, you gotta catch it. You gotta figure out where it’s coming from, but then it’s your job to choose better ones. And I have this set of stories that I consistently retold myself. I call it the fourth step it’s installing before I would go on stage until now. I don’t, I don’t have to struggle with any of that anymore. So for example, Roy you’ll love this. I was at an event just a, just a couple weeks ago. And the event got started late because for whatever reason. And so then the guy was going long and I was sitting there and then they, they called for a Q and a and everybody left the room because they didn’t wanna sit for the Q and a, and they went out to get the coffee. And then it was my turn to come up on stage and everybody was gone and they were like in the back, like dinging the gong. I would’ve freaked out before and now I, I don’t, because I know that I know the stories of when I’ve faced terrible odds and done. Great.
RV (30:53):
Yeah. That’s I, I love the word that you use there reinstall, it, it it’s, it’s like a program that you’re just in installing taking the old one out and going, oh, that one doesn’t work. I’m just gonna drop that one. I’m gonna reinstall a new program, which is just a new, a new story. Well I love this Kindra. So good Kay stories that sticks the first book, which is, you know, I would say is really kind of like the art of how to tell a great story. Yep. And then, and then choose your story, change your life, which is, is a lot about, you know, almost like a very personal development, kind of like your own mindset and about how you live your life and how much these stories impact us. Where should people go if, if they wanna connect with you and learn more about, about you and what you’re up to.
KH (31:40):
Yeah, well, you can find me. I’m Kindra hall.com. K I N D R a H a L L social I’m on LinkedIn, Twitter, kind of Facebook, Instagram. You can find me there. And of course the books are wherever books are sold
RV (31:57):
Uhhuh. Well we’ll link up to Kendra hall.com in the show notes. Thank you for this friend. Always, always such a pleasure to talk with you. I’m, I’m so excited about your whole career and the art that it’s taking and all the great work that you’re doing. So we wish you the best and we’ll keep in touch, look forward to, to seeing where you go from here.
KH (32:17):
Well, we’ll see you in Australia, Rory. Thanks for having me.
RV (32:20):
That’s right. I’ll see you soon.
Ep 308: How to Grow a Personal Brand and Build a Real Estate Empire with Vinney Chopra
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 that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand buildersgroup.com/podcall. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:53):
Hey everybody. And welcome to another episode on the influential personal brand. This is one of your co-hosts AJ Vaden. Here I am here today with a, a friend we recently got reunited. We randomly were at the same mastermind event together. And I don’t think until here recently, I had seen Vinney in probably 15 years, been a really long time and was such an honor to get to run into him. He’s the happiest, most joyful human on planet earth. You all have a taste in just a moment, but first before we kind jump into a conversation, I might give a couple of high level things that you need to know about Vinney Chopra and why you need to stick around. This is, it’s kind of gonna be one of those interviews where we talk about personal branding. We talk about business, we talk about entrepreneurship, but we’re also gonna talk about scaling through investing.
AJV (01:52):
And Vinney is just a fascinating human being. And some of the most fascinating things that I think you need to know about him is that when VI, he moved to the United States almost 40 years ago, he moved here with $7. That’s right. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, $7 in his pocket. That’s it. And today he’s got more than 650 million under assets. He’s the author of two amazing books. He’s a podcast host, he’s a crypto investor. He is a man of many talents. And y’all, I’m just so excited to learn from him like selfishly, I’m having Vinney on the podcast today, cuz I want to ask him all these questions and learn for myself. And I know that if I can gain something, I know that you’re gonna gain something about.
New Speaker (02:46):
Real estate syndication of being an author, using that, to help your personal brand, but growing your business and your reputation, which are all things that Vinney has done exceptionally well and going from $7 when he moved here to over 650 million in assets 40 years later is nothing shy of incredible. I’m so excited to have you on the show. Vinney. Welcome.
VC (03:12):
Thank you, AJ. Thank you. I’m humbled. I’m privileged to be with you. I appreciate that. When I met you and Rory few months back, maybe last month we were there, you know, in Sarasota it’s it was fabulous to meet you all. And I saw you in presentation here, dynamic. I mean the company you have built is super, you know, just so great. And I’m so fortunate to be with you today.
AJV (03:40):
Oh, I’m the pleasure is all mine. He’s like even in Vinney’s text, y’all he just emos joy. It’s like even his text messaging, he’s just like the happiest guy and I’m so excited to get, to spend an hour with you. So all Vinney. So I kind of gave you a little bit of advanced notice and I clearly shared a tiny, tiny little microcosm of all of the things that you’ve accomplished, but here’s what I wanna do first is I wanna help our audience get to know you. And so here’s, I’m just gonna lay it out there. You can tell us as much or as little as you want, but how did you go from moving to the United States with $7 to being a multi-time international bestselling author podcast, host and most impressively, this incredible real real estate investment empire. How did this all happen?
VC (04:31):
Thank you. Thank you, AJ. Actually, I came with a very humble beginning. We are six siblings four sisters and two brothers, including me. We lived in one bedroom apartment. I think it was 300 scare freak total, literally like one bedroom, one living room and a hallway, never had a television, never had like a telephone or a refrigerator when I was growing up all the way till 11th grade. I think we only had a bicycle and you know, the two legs cycle, right?
VC (05:39):
So that really gave us very good in, you know, power to learn and be aggressive. And to really top in the class, if I may post a little bit, you know, in the junior high, I kind of topped in the high school I taught there also in studies, I got a free scholarship, five year scholarship from the Indian government to, I always wanted to become an engineer. So I’m a mechanical engineer. I took my five years to get the degree that I worked with Larson turbo, which is reliance group, one of the biggest company in India. But then I came here. I always wanted to do MBA masters in business administration. I thought, you know, marketing and engineering, I can make a good living in USA or in India. So I came here with $7. Now I could only bring $7. My grandpa actually paid for my ticket to come here.
VC (06:39):
My parents didn’t want me to come here.
AJV (07:44):
This is amazing. Like it’s like, I mean, it’s like one of those stories of when we think about overcoming the odds as someone who lives in America, it’s a really different story when you compare it to really no access to ed education and like no vehicle, 300 square foot with eight people living in it. Like that’s a, that’s a different level of humble beginnings than what we hear most often specifically on this podcast. And so I know that after college, right, you took clearly a job. So what was your first job? Like? Did you go into engineering or did you say the sales and marketing?
VC (08:24):
It just so happened. I worked like 80 hours a week. I know Ru also worked, I think, you know, in the similar profession, but that was like selling through summer months while I was going for George Washington university and we’ll sell books and encyclopedias 13 hours a day knocking on doors. And that really made me tougher. It made me being very, you know, accepting rejection and making sure that I could really down deep in myself, you know, figure out ways how could to overcome and be happy. I guess, you know, I was not always smiling like this, but I just always felt like, okay. And they gave us great many books by the way, Mandino in the greatest salesmen in the world, Charlie, tremendous Jones, you know, Dale Carnegie’s book how to influence people and, you know win France then think and grow rich, you know, Napoleon Hills. I remember those seven books really got me going mind wise and thinking, oh, I forgot magic of thinking big by WJ Schwartz. You know, all, these are very, very great books. So that’s when after about three summers, I said, you know what, I’m enjoying it so much. Let me just put the engineering in a box literally for some time and let me try out other revenues. So I became promotional consultant, fundraising consultant. I ranked, you know, raised my bar high. So I never went back to engineering. Can you play it?
AJV (10:02):
I, I mean, it’s kinda one of those things where, you know, I think people forget the power of learning, how to be a great salesperson. Yeah. Right. It does not matter what business you’re in. Right. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, having the skills of knowing how to make a sale and have influence like, like even as a parent, right. It’s like I’m selling every day and my kids are the best negotiators on the planet. Right. It’s like, there is just so much power in knowing how to make a sale that makes you a great business person. So I know that you went on and you were in fundraising for 40 years.
VC (10:41):
Yeah.
AJV (10:46):
For a really long time,
VC (10:47):
He retired in 2015.
AJV (10:50):
So I want everyone to pay attention to that. Let me call that out. So Vinney retired after a 37 year career with the same company, right. But 37 years. And you retired in 2017. It’s 2022 y’all. So your real estate investing really started five years ago,
VC (11:10):
Two eight. When I really took big, big strides, we start, we’ve been married 42 years just to say everybody, and I’ll be 17 this year. I’ll be, you know, after 50, I say, every birthday we go backward. So actually I’m only 30 mind of 17. Maybe
AJV (11:32):
I love it. I love it. But it’s like, I think it’s really important that I think just so often we feel like we look up at some point in our life and we just feel like we’re, I just thought I would be in a different place by now, or I thought I would have more or do more or something by now. And what I love about your story so much is that so much of the monumental success that you’ve had in books and everything has happened post retirement, right? Retirement is not retirement for you. Retirement. Truly
VC (12:05):
Seven years have been spectacular growth years. For me, I’m making more and doing more and being happier more. I was happy all these 40 years also. And we’ve been married 42 years, but what I have really scaled up has been in seven years.
AJV (12:23):
This is incredible. So, okay. So what click, what changed? What’s different? Like what did you start doing seven years ago? Because really what happened is you left kind of the quote unquote corporate America. You left your, you know, quote unquote nine to five, even though I know you’re working more than nine to five, but you left that and you said, all right, this is my, you know, next era, right? This is the next thing I get to do in life. Why real estate? Why investing? Like, what was it like, what was that next step that you took when you quote unquote retired?
VC (12:55):
Surely, you know, actually when we got married, it all depends. You know, when the opportunity knocks, you gotta open the door. I always say that and you should embrace it. That’s what is the other thing, you know, and being consistent in, you know, in the things we do. So when we got married, I was in Ohio, Finlay, Ohio, and we moved to bay area. My peer group started talking about real estate, hold on, I’m a promotional consultant, but I’m meeting over the weekend and all, and they’re saying rental homes and investing over here and there. So when Neil and Monica were born, our two children, we started, we said, okay, let’s dabble into it. Right? So we started investing into single family homes and we were getting cash flows. Okay. Cash flows. Then we went to Arizona, we bought two homes in one day, then another home, another rental later on, on the internet, went to Georgia, bought over there, went to Texas.
VC (13:56):
So we kept on buying these single family homes 2005 while being working full time. Also, you know, we have a lot of free time. What we do with the free time is our own choice. So I became a broker and I declared it to the company. I’m a broker, but I’m not going into that profession. So that helped me a lot to really start building my side hustle. Let’s say, you know, in real estate. So when I retired in 2015, I started a company in 2014, December, November, actually. And that is monil investment group, our kids name, Monica and Neil kind of put together. But before that, I had another company with a big major partner. I was not major partner. And then we sold all the assets in that one, you know, later on. But this Moni investment group has seven companies now in the last seven years. And it’s got monil senior living, monil management, monil you name it academy multi-family academy, then hospitality, Mon hospitality, and all these different, you know, crypto. And now we are going into Bitcoin mining, Mon mining just got built last 10 days. What
AJV (15:17):
VC (16:22):
You know, my main passion is really to make 1 million millionaires. What, I mean, that’s a pretty big goal, but if you look at 8 billion people on the planet, you know, and I think how many I was told out of eight, 4 billion have internet. I really believe that you could pass the information through the internet online education, and that can be spread all over the globe. So that has been my passion. I’ve recorded maybe 1,300 lectures right now, which can really manually teach everything that I do even better. And again, with all the tools and things, and we have dropped it down to 330, 6 of them into a course where people can really learn everything and everything. But writing book also makes the author really dig deeper into themselves. And they even, I say teaching is twice learning. I always say that because you try to perfect the art because you are going out in the open to tell other people about it in simpler ways.
VC (17:32):
I just have to say that I, you know, in Scottsdale, we finished the trip, right. You know, last week. So mark ter Hanson and crystal Hanson invited me for dinner. And as you know, mark ter Hanson wrote that book chicken. So for the soul, they sold 500 million copies, the number one writer, author in the world. So they want to write a book on me. I said, what they said, Winnie, we wanna write a book on you, fictional character, but your life and that book, fictional book is getting more coverage and people are learning about the principles much better. Anyway, I thought I might, it’s been on my mind. And I told them yesterday that yes, I gave permission. And we’ll be now doing interviews and all, and then hopeful. Yeah.
AJV (18:25):
I mean, I think that is just a, it’s a Testament too, of what a personal brand is all about. Right. It’s becoming known for something that you wanna be known for. And it’s like, I love what you said. It’s like teaching is just choice learning. Yes. Right. And I think there’s so much power in what you said of like writing a book or even creating a course or creating content in general really is more self-reflection of what do I have to say? Yeah. And how do I wanna say it? And it’s an R to fine tuning your message in a way that it reaches this very specific audience, but then two was like, you’ve got this enormous goal of helping a million people become millionaires. Right. And a part of that is it’s information, right. It’s education. And so one of the things that I wanna share with the audience today, anyone who’s listening is Vinney has made one of his books available.
AJV (19:19):
And e-copy so if you go to Vinny chopra.com Ford slash freebook. Right. So Vinney, V I N N E Y Chopra, C H O P R a.com Ford slash freebook. I’ll make sure to put that in the show notes, but you can go and grab an E version of one of his books. And I just, I love so much that you’re, you’re leveraging all of your success to help other people have success. And I think that’s really incredible. And I think that’s a power of a personal brand and creating valuable information is that you’re helping other people succeed, but simultaneously you’re becoming more successful every single time someone else hits their goals. And I think that’s a beautiful part of this whole puzzle. And so I, I’m super curious. And then I wanna actually talk about, you know, investing your business through, you know, real estate and scaling, but I’m curious, it’s like, there’s a lot of things that you could do. So why a book? Why a course, like why, why those specific things for you?
VC (20:24):
I would say definitely no, that is passing down the knowledge so that in simpler terms and having people to really act on, right. A lot of people just read and read and read. I like to also hold them accountable. So I do group coaching, every Wednesdays in my masterminds. Then I have personal coaching, only four students. I take a year that way, but that’s just one part of my thing just to give back forward, give giving. Then other side of my business is really getting into the deals and the structures and raising money. That’s what I’m good at. I just waste 4.5 million in three hours on vacation, literally. And you know, and I’ve got four interviews this week with my half a million dollar investors who are very already seen the package, cuz I’m buying $65 million multi-family right now. And then also crypto Bitcoin mining is very big in my mind.
VC (21:25):
And we, even though the stock, I mean, crypto Bitcoin went to 31,000 or whatever, 32, we can mine it at 12,000. So still there is a huge, huge profit. And that’s what I’m very, very excited about right now. Then hotels that’s the other one and senior living is my other one. So I mean every angle it’s kind of like, I give some time to this pocket this time, this, this, this. So I always have believed in, you know, AJ that you never should say, I can only do this or this or this or this, but always replace the R with an a and D and just your subconscious and your brain will just, you know, become so infer. I say, when you say I can do this and this and this and this and this, that has been the real success principle for me to really send it out in the Cosmo with the law of attraction.
VC (22:31):
Like the book was the secret, right from Rhonda burns, which is kind of going for the last, you know, a hundred years, what we think, what we conceive and we send strong signals all around us in the Cosmo. You don’t even know how it’s gonna happen. I don’t even know what, how these things are under unraveling right now.
AJV (23:56):
You know, it’s interesting. It’s like, although you’re doing a whole bunch of different things, there is a common through line. And you know, we talk a lot about that at brand builders group, but it’s, you really have the common through line, the common thing in every component of what you’re working on is investment. Yes. It doesn’t matter if it’s personal investment in learning or it’s real estate or Bitcoin or mining, or, you know, you know, senior living or hotels. It’s all about investments. Good, true. Right. It’s like, that’s that through line. So, you know, we talk about this a lot in brand builders groups. So for anyone who’s listening, who’s been around for a minute, you know, that we really much believe that you break through the noise by becoming known for one thing mm-hmm
AJV (24:45):
Right. And it’s like, now you’re doing a little of this and a little of that, but you’re doing all those little of this and a little of that, but it’s all through the lens of investment wealth building. Right. And I think that’s really important for everyone who’s listening of going, oh my gosh, well I’ll never be at that level. It’s like, no, you are. When you find that common, when you find that common thing that you’re passionate about, that you’re really good at doing, which I do wanna talk about how do you raise several million dollars in on vacation? So we’ll talk about that in a second. But it’s like, once you find that thing that you’re naturally good at you’re superpower, it’s like, then you’re, I really do believe that your mind activates and it goes, and it’s like, it could come in this form and then this form, it’s just like, it’s the same thing with information.
AJV (25:27):
You could read it, you could hear it on a podcast. You could be in a coaching program, a Masterman program, a course, but it’s all the same information, but it’s how it’s delivered in a variety of mediums. That makes it unique. And I hear you saying invest investing is very similar, right? It’s like plenty of people invest in a 401k or in a Roth IRA. And it’s like, but there’s also real estate investing. And then even in real estate, you’ve got senior living, you have hotels, you have multi-family units, you have single family homes. It’s like, there’s all these different ways to expand it. As long as you know, what your focus is. And what I hear you’re saying your focus is really investment. Even when it comes to education, it’s personal investment,
VC (26:07):
You are so right about it. A is you are so right. Two streams just too very focused, you know, attack is of course on the passive investors who are rich
AJV (27:15):
VC (27:53):
I love it to give credit to Monica Chopra, our daughter, she’s our partner else in the business. You met her in Sarasota. She’s wonderful. She’s been with us seven years. Of course. And the good part is that we have in mail Chi designed these beautiful emails that we have used for previous undertakings, where we use raise money. We just clone it. What? Just clone it and put new information in it. Yeah. So we were able to, she was able to design it. She sent it test market while I was there sipping, you know, pina colada or something. And then she said, dad, should we send it out? And we did. We sent out to 1,330 investors we have in our database and we never talk to anybody. But in our bullets we share all the good information and then give them soft commitment forms, clickable links.
VC (28:54):
So as soon as they like the whole system and the brochure and everything, they click on it, then it goes into a survey automatically. And then when they fill out the survey, it goes into Google sheet in real time, in real stamping, we find out if they wanna put 200,300, 500 and so on, and then how will they believe will be investing? We have a whole questionnaire that way. So that’s how we raise that money. Then in the mail chip, it says, oh, so many people clicked and opened and how many did not open? So we resend it again. Mm-Hmm
AJV (29:50):
Know? Oh, let me tell you what y’all I don’t know. Who’s been saying email marketing is dead, but they’re dead wrong. Oh, raising millions of dollars and email marketing right here with Vinney Chopra.
VC (30:23):
In our, in our CRM. In our, I know you mentioned it. I think I saw that in Sarasota. You said your next customer is in your Rolodex, in your right school, literally, which is so true. I love texting also huge, huge fan of texting. So I copy the same message
AJV (31:02):
Great. I think that’s such a great reminder of the power of your email list. And if you’re not building your email list right now, like if, if this was not clear enough, raising millions of dollars yeah. In an email blast, like let’s tune into what are you doing to build your email list, but not just build it, but nurture it right. Provide value to it. That’s huge. Like that’s a really big deal to raise millions of dollars off of, you know, 1300 investors is a really big deal. You know, we, some of us have email lists of 10, 20, 30, 5000 thousand people and couldn’t raise that much money with a launch. So I think there’s one thing in building a great email list in terms of numbers, but there’s a difference in having a quality email list versus just a quantity of an email list. I’m
VC (31:49):
So glad you said it, AJ. Now this was mail Chimp. I used the word that’s very sacred for us. That’s 1,330 investors, but my active campaign list is 14,000 mm-hmm
AJV (32:13):
VC (32:40):
Sense urgency. I should definitely mention that. I get sold out very quickly because I tell them it’s first come first served. Even if you have 5 million with me before I will not put you above the line, you got to make that commitment. It’s time stamped and everything. Mm-Hmm
AJV (33:23):
I mean that, I think again, that’s good old fashioned sales, right? How to create that limit, that sense of urgency. Yes. Something that moves people to action. That’s that’s 40 years of amazing sales that work right there, Vinney
VC (33:38):
Work. And you know, I collect almost 98 to 99% of my commitments, which is unheard of in the syndication world. It’s very unheard of. Even my coach told me, Vinney, you gotta get twice as many commitments to get half of it, money collected to buy anything. But somehow in the other, I always felt that if I can educate my investors nicely, not selling them, nobody wants to be sold at all. But as a consultant and show them all the different avenues, what can go wrong or whatever, and then make them understand right about the investment they will endear to you. And the more open you are, more trustworthy, you are, they will bring money more and more and tell more people about it and everything
AJV (34:31):
True.
VC (34:31):
So we collect almost 99% of soft commitments into hard commitments.
AJV (34:37):
Yeah. That’s awesome. You know, I heard this the other day and I’m paraphrasing it, but it’s, it’s really simple provide value, build trust. Yeah. Right. The more value that you provide, the more trust that you build. Right. that’s so good. So, okay. You kinda mentioned something that’s gonna kind of transfer us into the second part of our conversation. So we’ve got, you know, 15, 17 minutes left here. So we wanna talk about investing, right? So your personal brand is all around investments. It comes in a variety of formats. But you you’ve chosen a very distinctive, you know, path post your corporate retirement into this world of investing. And a lot of people don’t know what real estate syndication is. And so fill in like, what is that?
VC (35:24):
It’s very simple syndication. If you do the word, you know, in the Wikipedia or dictionary, it’s pooling of money together of likeminded people for profits. And you could, you know, syndicate to raise money, to buy a plane and put the plane to use. And that is where the profits will be generated. You could buy apartment building, which I’m in quite a bit and hotels, you could buy office building mobile home park. You could build a company, you know, a VC company mm-hmm
VC (36:34):
When you buy in Mar in stock market, Google stock, you have to pay a hundred percent of it cash or do margins or do options and all that more risky. But in real estate, guess what? You come up with 25% of the money. The bank comes along, they look at the property. They say, yeah, we feel comfortable. We’ll give you 75% of the money. What you bring only 25. They give you three times more and you give the whole hundred to the seller. Now you own the property. What the bank says, just pay us the interest only loan for five years or three years, or give us interest and principle, you know, principle, payback, Orlu payment. We call it right Uhhuh. But now you made that property increasing value. The bank says, you keep all the profits, you keep all the equity. You’re not gonna take any equity out. You. I mean, this is the craziest thing.
VC (37:48):
First of all, you put a hundred thousand, you are buying $400,000 worth. And when the 400,000 increases to 40 million now 40,000, all that gain is yours to keep, oh my gosh. And the tax laws say, depreciation, what is that? Depreciation is that your building is going to be worth zero. If you buy it for 1 million. After 27 and a half years, taxation code says it’ll be worth zero. And you can deduct the losses every year.
VC (39:01):
We call it three DS, but the property management companies took care of it. Right? But then when we started buying apartments, we were having 20 homes in one place, kind of because 20 units, you collect rent from all 20 and they’re paying the mortgage down. That’s the other part. I didn’t talk about that deposition and all that. And bank is separate. Now comes to residence. Mm-Hmm
AJV (40:34):
Up. That’s amazing. So, but
VC (40:36):
It’s the only reason AJ, because I’m able to get money from my family, friends, people I know. And they gave me money. That’s the power of syndication.
AJV (40:47):
That’s amazing. I mean, it’s, it’s a pulling of funds. Yeah. Where everyone wins.
VC (40:52):
Yeah. Everybody wins.
AJV (40:53):
Everybody, everyone wins.
VC (40:55):
70, 30 splits means our investors get 70% of 30 returns and the cash flow, I get only 30, which is great, but they, you know, get benefit and we get benefits to
AJV (41:09):
You. Oh, so much of the win-win I love this. And I think the, that, there’s a couple of things that you said that I wanna kind of go back to, and I’m just curious for everyone who’s listening. Who’s going, I’m at a place where I know I need to be investing specifically in real estate, cuz right now, if you’re not investing, your dollar is losing money, right? Yes. You just have dollars in the bank. You are losing money at the rate
VC (41:30):
7% each year.
AJV (41:31):
It’s insane. So it’s, we’re not really at a time of like, you know, should I invest? It’s like, no, what are you going to invest in? Cause otherwise your money is literally losing its values sitting where it’s sitting. So you went residential versus commercial. Why?
VC (41:48):
The reason is because of economies of scale, because instead of having single family or duplexes all over in different cities and different because you don’t wanna buy everything in one place, mm-hmm
AJV (43:13):
That’s a love it. Well, I think too, especially in this world that we’re living in where how much of a virtual environment are we gonna stay in? Yeah. It’s like, regardless of people ever return to offices, they’re always gonna need places to live. Sure. Right. and so that kind of leads me to my second question. And I don’t know, what’s, you know, it’s like this doesn’t have to be academic, but I’m just curious on your perception with millennials. Yes. Younger millennials specifically. And then the rise of gen Z, right. Which, you know, Monica is, you know, in the verge of this millennial gen Z era, I’m curious, like, what are your thoughts on the importance of how you invest in money in terms of, you know, multi, multi, how like multi-family housing units versus single family homes. Because I’m just so curious, like how many of these people are going to want to buy? I have so many people that I know that are in this younger millennial generation where it’s like, they don’t want to, yes. It’s a decided choice that they’re choosing to rent because they want the freedom and flexibility.
VC (44:16):
You know, you hit the nail in the head. I talk about three tsunamis flowing through the world and USA one is the millennial and Zen Z, just like you said, they like portability. They don’t wanna move lawn. They want to be moving into remote areas and working from laptop, enjoy the beaches and this condominiums renting. So portability is number one on their mind. They don’t wanna be tied down. Some of them saw their parents lose their homes in the last recession or something. Right. So that is a huge, we are investing. It’s a rental rental nation. We call it, we are a rental nation, you know, rent. Yeah. Rental nation, renters nation. Second one is our tsunami, which is a silver tsunami. 10,000 baby boomers are turning 65. So seniors are growing more and more and more 10,000 every single day. So there’s a simple tsunami going through. The third tsunami I talk about is the immigration, the immigrants coming, our population growth is very low. 2.4%, you know, and with the death rate and all. So we do need influx of other nationalities and different people coming through. So three tsunamis are all making USA, a renter nation again. So we have been renter nation. We have so much shortage. 20 billion units are shortage in America right now, 20 million. Even if I built so many apartments still, we will not be able to capture it.
AJV (45:57):
That’s insane. And I love this. And I heard you talk about this just as a tiny bit in Sarasota around these three tsunamis. So I just wanna repeat this for everyone. We’ve got this generational tsunami with gen Z and millennials who don’t necessarily wanna settle down and buy a home. They wanna be flexible and move from city to city or place to place in this, you know, laptop living world, which I think is fascinating. And only growing with the natural, you know, distant work environment that we’re experiencing with virtual work. Second is the silver tsunami. Right? And I wanna kinda go back to one of the steps. You said, you said 10,000,
VC (46:39):
Every night turned into 65 years of age. So there are so many, I’m 70, I’ll be 70 this year, right? August. But up to 2031, what almost nine more years, all these people who are in the sixties, you know, on 61, 62, 63, 64, all the way, the last person will turn 65.
AJV (47:58):
That. That’s not your typical senior living in bar city. But I think that’s amazing because that’s true. It’s like people are living longer and they want better quality of life. No one wants to go to what you think about now, when you think about a retirement home, it’s very yucky and scary. And quite honestly like what kid wants to put their parents in that, right. That’s not ideal, but you’re, so I think this is amazing because it’s like, we’re saying 10,000 a day, you’re entering into this and all these people are living longer. It’s like, where are they gonna go? Right. When they are not able to stay into their home, they’re not able to upkeep it or they don’t want to. And so you’re, you’re doing a ton in this senior living environment. Like, like what do you think is the potential for this particular a real
VC (48:44):
I’m setting my goal at 2 billion, with a B billion in this decade, rest of the decade, I’m doing five projects right now in Florida and Virginia Williamsburg, Virginia should be opening up end of October. Beautiful, beautiful place. If anybody would like to, you know, watch and see and meet me there. That’s Hampton Manor is our brand Hampton, a M PTO N manor.ceo is the website, but Williamsburg, Virginia, Chesapeake, Virginia, we are building. Then in Punta go, we just opened up. We are not even open yet. We are 60% occupied already. We are not even open yet. So people have already given us deposit. And as soon as we open the door, they’re going to all seniors will be coming in. And even the corner of Florida is coming. I just found out yesterday to our facility. There’ll be a big, big write up on our communities because what we are building. So that’s gonna be great. Cape coral. We built it. Palm bay, Sebastian vane Jacksonville, Mari island. So building in all these locations then St. Louis, then Texas, we are coming Nashville. We are coming Nashville. I know we all over
AJV (50:04):
USA. I’m harassing VI like, come on. When are you coming to Nashville? You have two investors waiting on you. This is the it’s incredible. Like I think this is amazing. And then the immigrants tsunami. Yes. Right? Which again, renters I think this is really interesting in hearing this perspective of one syndication where you don’t hold all the responsibility. You don’t hold all the liability. Yes. But you’re pulling it together to do something larger. Right. but then it’s this, I love this multifamily housing component. Especially when you get into like 5,000 units, plus it’s really exciting. And then what I’m most interested is you senior living? Like, I think that is fascinating mainly because it’s so needed. It’s so needed to reimagine what senior living looks like for this, you know, next 10 to 20.
VC (50:54):
No, that’s so true. What you said, AJ, our goal, our motto is let’s spoil the seniors. Yeah.
AJV (51:01):
Love that.
VC (51:02):
You know? I mean, we want them dignified life, respectful life, cuz that’s their golden years. I love that. And we start at like 3,300, I think is the amount which includes all the meals, rents, all the ADLs activities are daily, living, caregiving, linen, laundry, everything included, transportation, all that. And then the care of service. If they need us, it might go to 4,000 or 4,500 and seniors don’t have to pay a penny because there are certain livings where you have to buy a condo or something. Hours are rental units. They are five to seven acres of land. One story, no two story, no elevators and courtyards are built with the waterfall functions, but in greens and swing pools and other things so that, and they can put vegetable garden outside. Just enjoy the life. Yeah.
AJV (52:05):
Oh, I love that. I, I mean, I think too, it’s like, my dad is 70. He turned 71 this year. Yes. And I, you know, I’ve heard him tell me if it comes down to putting me in a home or killing me, just kill me. And I think a lot of that comes down to this mentality around there’s a, a horrible association with, there’s gonna be no quality of life. Right. I don’t wanna be in this stale hospital-like place. And I’m like, well, dad, we’re not killing you. No. So we need other options. And I love this because I think this is so needed and it’s so necessary. It’s not going away. It’s only growing and that’s the power of investing and specifically in this way. And I love this concept of syndication. I think it’s so cool. I could just like sit here and talk to, we didn’t even, we haven’t even scratched surface of Vinney’s knowledge and
VC (52:57):
Exactly. If other people who are asking, listening to us, if you say to AJ, you know, bring Winnie back, I’ll be here whenever you need me.
AJV (53:06):
VC (53:11):
So my gosh, I didn’t talk about the cyber security. My company is doing really well with the venture capital fund that we have also started with my partner, our, our, you know, I’m thinking about bit mining, maybe going to NASDAQ, you know, up there. And also the re small re that I have in the back of my mind. So we are just, you know, mind is a good thing. Right. You know?
AJV (53:34):
Absolutely. and I think this too, it’s like, I know most of you probably aren’t watching our video, you’re listening, but Vinney couldn’t look further away from 70. If he tried it’s, there is power in keeping your mind active and keeping business and keeping just full of life and busy of doing things that you enjoy. That keeps you young. Like the joy, all of this is just, it’s amazing.
VC (54:03):
ADI, you said it. You know, my grandpa, he passed away at 94. He was driving our Indian friends. They might know the traffic in new Delhi. It’s pretty bad. He was driving at the age of 91. What at 91, able to see and manure the car and everything. That’s the thing I will, I’ll be 70 in August. I wanna be like him.
AJV (54:50):
Oh, I bet. That’s how it feels when you’re doing what you love. Right. It’s how it feels.
VC (54:55):
Never a work. No, not at all. I,
AJV (54:58):
Oh, I love it. I love all of this. Y’all I think this is just so fascinating. Not only do I think it’s awesome that you should check out Vinney and follow him. Because he’s got this awesome personal brand that’s growing out of really just a desire to help other people succeed. And it’s like a Ziglar used to say, if you help enough people get what they want, then you can also get what you want me too. And you’re so living back. And so Vinney, when it comes to social media, do you have a preferred platform? Like where should people go to stay in touch with you?
VC (55:29):
Oh my gosh, you just go Google Vinney Chopra. You’ll come with 1000 pages. I, somebody told you, and then you could go on Instagram, smiley, Winnie I’m smile a lot. You know, you could go on Amazon, Winnie smile, Chopra, Winnie Chopra. You could go to Facebook. Youtube channel is growing big time. Tiktok is also getting bigger now Pinterest. They started and of course, iTunes and bus bar. I mean, all my, you know podcast that I’m doing and my live show is every Friday live at nine 30 wi and Bo show my partner and I do it together. No, it’s been fun. It’s been fun. I’m writing a book by the way, Uhuh, my third book is gonna be this one. Oh,
AJV (56:20):
You’re
VC (56:20):
Living, investing made easy look
AJV (56:22):
At, I love.
VC (56:23):
So it’s almost half done. And then of course I’m gonna be coming up with my big book with mark Victor Hanson and his company is going to be, you know, he just personalized it last week. You know, when we met, oh, I don’t know if
AJV (56:39):
Cool, love this
VC (56:40):
With a great book ask. And they’re gonna write a fictional story on me, which I’m very excited about
AJV (56:47):
You. Oh my goodness. So we’ll put all of these different links in the show notes so that you guys can connect with Vinney. And then don’t forget, go to Vinney chopra.com/freebook. Yes. Grab a copy of his book. Follow him on social, subscribe to his podcast. If you wanna learn about growing your personal brand through watching someone else do it, which is what he’s doing. And also learn about the power of real estate investing check him out stay tuned after our recap episode that I’ll do after this Vinney. Think this, thank you so much for being on the show.
VC (57:22):
Thank you, AJ. Thanks to you and R you guys are doing amazing. God bless you.
AJV (57:28):
And thanks everyone. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal.
Ep 306: How to Dominate on YouTube with Evan Carmichael
RV (00:02):
Oh, you don’t even know about the powerful interview you are about to hear right now. My man, Evan Carmichael, first of all, is a genius. He’s so successful. I mean, he sold his first company when he was 19 years old, a biotech firm biotech software company. He’s raised 15. He was raising 15 million for venture capitalists when he was 22 years old. And he’s done so many things for entrepreneurs today. He is known for a lot of things. What we’re gonna talk about is specific his genius strategy on YouTube. And when I say genius, I mean, he’s got over 3 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. He did a, he did a, a training, a full, like a 90 minute training for our members inside our portal for our pain community. And it just absolutely blew my mind and, you know, Lewis Howes and Brendan Burchard and grant Cardone and ed Mylett like Gary V like all of these people are people that look to Evan for advice and ideas on YouTube. So I was like, I’m begging him, please come back on the podcast so that we could sell everybody our entire community at large. So Evan, welcome to the show, man. Thanks
EC (01:17):
For having man. Always, always an honor to be here talking to the one and only rory Vaden. Let’s go, man.
RV (01:22):
Yeah. So you’re such a beast on YouTube. How do I get, how do I become a beast on YouTube? Like what, what do, what are the key things I need to know to just like start dominating on YouTube?
EC (01:36):
Yeah. Okay. So listen to position it let’s go here. Youtube is, is an education platform. Like I think a lot of people think of it as, as entertainment and fun and movies and music. Cool. But YouTube is, is the number one education platform. So, you know, people are trying to figure out how to be, become a more influential leader. Where are they gonna go? They’re gonna go to the library. Like, who are they gonna talk to? They’re gonna talk to their mom, like what they’re gonna go and search and your stuff will pop up and not just your videos, but again, other people’s videos, this content that people are going there to learn. And so YouTube is different than any, every other platform where we wanna be making long form content, teaching people because ahead of whatever, we’re trying to sell, we wanna put information.
EC (02:19):
We wanna put education, okay. We’re teaching people at scale to then bring them into whatever the thing is that we’re selling coaching products, program services, books, et cetera. And the beauty of something like YouTube is one your, your contentless forever. So the videos you make now in a year and two years, and six years are still getting your views, subscribers, attention leads, et cetera, where every other platform it goes away, right? Like Instagram, nobody cares what you posted a week ago. It’s instant, it’s Instagram, it’s gone. Every other platform’s the same. Youtube has the best monetization. So they’ll pay you, right? Like you could be making seven figures just from the ad revenue on your videos, as well as actually building your business. And the best part about YouTube is you can take the content since it’s long form and splice it up to put on all the other platforms.
EC (03:07):
So YouTube will tell you the best moments in every video, according to what the audience cared about, those little highlight moments, you can then tweak and put them to Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and all the other platforms. So all you really have to do is have a regular show long form on YouTube. And now we’re creating content everywhere. Most of the people listening, watching your goal is not to be a full time, just content creator. You got a business that you’re trying to run. We’re, we’re trying to build our membership groups and our coaching services and be a speaker and all of that stuff. And so you don’t have time to all day, every day, be on every single platform. You don’t have to be long form from YouTube, take the data, cut it up to be on every platform. So it kind of sits above all the other social media platforms. And most importantly, to help people’s message get out, to change the world.
RV (03:49):
Yeah. So I wanna dive in on something you just said there, because if we don’t highlight it, it’s easy to miss it. And this is such a tactical thing that you can do where, so the idea of repurposing your content, right? So a lot of people talk about that. We have a thing we teach called the content diamond, which is, you know, taking long form content and dividing it up. But part that you added, you know, specifically, at least to my education, which was so brilliant, was making that a data driven selection to figure that out. So can you talk about like, where do you go on YouTube and what are you clicking on? Like I know you just gotta talk us through it, cuz it can’t like show the screen, but, but what exactly are you looking for? Because just that, that one tip alone goes, if you win on YouTube, even if you don’t win on YouTube, if you suck on YouTube, but you can figure out the moments that win, like you can use that to inform everywhere else. So, so talk more about that.
EC (04:52):
Youtube has the best data platform of all of all those social media networks. And I love the data and I can geek out on it all day long and, and dive into it. It’s overwhelming for a lot of people. The only thing you have to care about is this, the audience retention curve, like write that down. If you don’t know what I’m talking about and you think you might at someday want to start a YouTube channel, come back to that, write it down. It is your golden ticket. The audience retention curve. What that does is show you second by second, where people are either falling off your video or sticking around second by second. So if your intros are really bad, it’ll show you, you lost half your audience in the first 20 seconds. Cool. Like let’s not do that again. And it’ll show you these little flat moments and a flat moment means you never lost anybody.
EC (05:38):
Like whatever you did in that moment was really good. Right? You held their attention that whole time. Think of it. Like if you ever watched those elections and like the election debates and there’s like the red and the blue in America, right? Mm-Hmm
RV (06:12):
A flat moment is good.
EC (06:14):
Flat moment is good. That means you’ve kept their attention. So if you have a flat moment, that’s 40 seconds long. Cool. What happened there? Let’s turn that into a tweet. Let’s turn into an Instagram reel. Let’s turn that into something else. And then you have these rare moments, these special moments where it goes up, well, how does it go up? Like we lost people. We understand why it goes down, but how did we gain people in the middle of the video? Doesn’t make sense, right?
RV (06:36):
Because most people drop off like in the first few seconds or whatever minutes is the big fall off, but then you, it doesn’t just go down. There’s these spikes.
EC (06:46):
Yeah. So why does the spike, like how does that make sense that new people join the video halfway through?
RV (06:50):
Right.
EC (06:50):
Usually not usually what the case is, is the people who are currently watching REW that video to watch that part again, it’s like, what did Rory just say? What was that thing again? And they rewind it to watch that part again, that’s your goal. And that may be 20 minutes inside of your video, but that’s what we cut. And one, we wanna make more content like that, like that can educate you to make better content. But then that also, that’s what we cut. So the flat moments or the spikes, that’s what we cut to take to our other social media accounts because we know that that’s popping. And a lot of people who are making content, whether they’re doing it themselves or they have team, there’s a lot of subjective decisions that go in. It’s like, well, I like that part. And I like this moment and I think we should do here. And there’s a lot of wasted time to be honest and going back and reviewing and watching the footage again. And then relying on one person’s subjective opinion to make the call on what goes through the platforms to make your, your diamond. The data will show you. It’s a lot easier, just look at where we help people on the video and let’s take that to our other platforms.
RV (07:51):
That’s, that’s so powerful. Like what a simple, practical thing to go. There’s no guesswork, like, just look at where people are watching it. So we’re looking, so if something’s flat, that’s like good. That’s solid. If somebody, if something drops, we go, let’s not do that again. But then if it’s a spike, you go, man, that’s, those are your moments that you want to cut it, clip it, repurpose it, use it. Other places love that. So audience retention curve, that’s the name of like the widget in the back, the back end of YouTube that we’re looking for.
EC (08:22):
Yeah. For every video, give it a, give it a couple days after it goes out. And then on every video, just look at, click on the analytics tab for that video and scroll down and it’ll be right there. It’ll be this curve and it’ll show you how the video’s doing compared to your other videos. And it’ll show you the exact moments where people are falling off or engaging. So
RV (08:39):
Love it. Yeah. Here’s another com super common question. We get this all the time. How long should my videos be?
EC (08:47):
So for experts, thought leaders you have something to train on educators long, long, long, long, long, long. So the advice used to be 10 minutes plus, which is which it still is like as a minimum 10 minutes, a minimum 10 minutes, but the highest growth category we’re seen is in the one, the three hour category.
RV (09:05):
That’s insane. What, like who’s watching a
EC (09:08):
Youtube video for three hours, the, the, the entire world
EC (09:50):
So if I wanted to learn how to become that influential leader, if you did a four minute video, how much are you gonna teach me in four minutes? Not a lot, but if you talk for an hour or you did a coaching session with somebody, or you had a guest coming on, sharing something, people would watch that because it’s the best thing there available. And then when you’ve got your next launch, your book, your course, your program, your private memory, she like, I love this Rory guy nobody’s talking like him. How do I get more of him? And they want to pay for the access to get into everything that you’re offering.
RV (10:19):
And so you don’t worry about giving away too, too much there. I mean, like I mean, how many of those videos is, is it, is it kind of more like have one really killer two hour video? Or are you trying to like crank cuz to do that every week would be pretty tough not to mention, you know, if you did an hour long video every week, that’d be, that’d be a lot of content. Like what would you be charging for if you were giving away that much? So is it kind of like have a couple key key trainings out there and do it that way or
EC (10:52):
It depends what game you’re playing. Often the best thing to sell is access. So the best thing to sell is access to a community. So if you’re trying to sell your, your program, your community, which is awesome, I was able to, you know, had the honor to speak in front of, if you had a lot of long form content that was getting millions of views, you’re gonna convert a lot of those people to want to spend more time with you because they love how you think. Like, you’re, you’re a weird duck. You think differently than other people. Like I want to think the way Rory thinks and I wanna be around him more often. So I wanna join his community. It’s less about the actual ideas. A lot of, a lot of people have paid programs. A lot of the same content is in the YouTube video as in the paid program, it’s just packaged altogether.
EC (11:33):
So it’s easy to find it’s sequential, there’s community, there’s access. And so that’s really what we’re selling, not just the information I’m I put out, I’m giving you every, I got nothing to sell here. I’m giving you the best. Like you’re asking me questions. This is what I do. This is what I teach people will still some of the names that you mentioned want me to help them, their channel. I’m telling them the same thing that I’m telling you guys right now here on Rory Madden’s show mm-hmm
RV (12:08):
Yeah. And I know you’re, I know you’re, you’re not selling anything, but we are. If you go to brand builders, group.com/evan Carmichael Evan has this program called Brandly where he walks you through exactly how like every, every time he does a training, he’s reviewing these live videos, showing you the data, telling you exactly what to do. It’s a very affordable program and we were like, dude, you have to let us be an affiliate for this because it’s so good. Like this is Evan is the guy that we go to for this, and it’s gonna restructure our entire YouTube strategy. So you can check that out brand builders, group.com/evan Carmichael. And you’ll, you’ll see brand Alytics and all the people he’s working with. So you know, so anyway, so coming back to this conversation here another common question that we get a lot from our members is when do I need to start a separate channel versus just a different playlist? So like you know, like I’m a good example of that. So we have brand builders group, which teaches personal brand strategy and we help experts, you know, become more well known, build and monetize their personal brand. Then we have Rory Vaden who more classically is known in the more like leadership and personal development space. And so it’s like, can I do content for both on one channel? Do those have to be two channels? Like how do you demarcate, you know, channels versus playlists.
EC (13:41):
So first off, nobody consumes by playlists. So nobody’s like waiting for a new, no, nobody’s waiting for a new Evan Carle video to drop in this playlist, but not this playlist. Right? So where playlists are helpful, the, the biggest value of playlist is on your channel homepage. When somebody goes to your channel homepage, they can see what you’re kind of all about. Like, I just watch one or Eva, video’s my first, I’ve never heard of RO Badden before I watch a video. I like this guy. Hmm. Let me go check him out. They click on your channel. And then they see some of the content that you’ve got. And so that’s where you can structure your playlist, but it’s more of a conversion tool for first time viewers. And it is a consumption pattern for ongoing viewers or repeat viewers. Mm. In terms of a different channel, if it’s a different audience, it’s a different channel. So the easy one is language, right? I have a Spanish channel with almost million subscribers. I have a Russian channel with almost a million subscribers. It’s a different audience, cuz most of my audience does not speak Spanish or Russian some do. But if, if you love my channel, you just first met me and then half my content is in Russian and you don’t speak Russian. You’re gonna not consume most of my content. Right. Because it’s just in a it’s it’s a different audience. So that’s the easy one to understand
RV (14:51):
So different audience, different channel. But like in that case, it’s the same content, but it’s translated. So you’re just taking your, your English based content and translating it to Russian and Spanish. And now you’ve got another 2 million subscribers that way that’s brilliant in and of itself. But if it’s, if it’s the same person, it could live on the same channel. If it has to be a different person, different channel,
EC (15:16):
Not necessarily person. So I mean the, the language is that’s, that’s basically applying the diamond strategy as well. Right. We’re we’re repurposing content. It’s gotta be dub built. So like not just captions, like full on dubbed into that language. If you guys are going there. Okay. It can be the same. It can be different people on the same channel. And that might be weird for your channel cuz it’s called Rory Vaden. So like who is this Jennifer person showing up when it’s your name on it? But it’s audience. So are Rory’s too, like what is Rory known for? Are they, are they two completely different universes that would be completely different audiences or is there enough overlap between those two worlds that it all makes sense and fits under one Veda?
RV (15:57):
Yeah. I mean that’s part of what we’re trying to figure out. Right? Cause so take the stairs is very much personal development, you know, discipline my second book, how to multiply time. And my Ted talk is productivity. They’re very ubiquitous, personal development topics. Brand builders group speaks specifically to experts to help them to help them become an author speaker. So most of my, my work as an individual is helping someone become a better performer at their job. Brand builders group is much more narrow where it’s like, I’m helping you become an author speaker, coach consultant you know, or, or we are. So it is some of the same people, but I’m not, I think they’re probably different. Well,
EC (16:37):
Even in how you presented it, he’s like I help people with this, but brand builders group, we do this right. So brand builders group could be its own channel and it doesn’t have to be the Rory show all the time. Yeah. As you build and scale and grow and bring on guest trainers and experts and coaches and all the people in underneath you, that’s the team channel that R’s the head of and creator and founder, but doesn’t have to be the face for everything where RO Vaden, we
RV (17:07):
Mm-Hmm
EC (17:12):
And just in terms of making the content, you mean, you mentioned brand Linux and the offer. I mean, which is awesome. Love to have more people join in. The easiest type of content for a lot of experts to make is coaching. Half of the half of the content that I do live inside brand analytics is coaching people. It’s like, we pull up your channel. I would pull up if was in, I would pull up R’s channel. And it’s part of what, what we did for your group. Right? Like we pull up R’s channel and you just tear it apart in a loving way. But in a, like I’m not here to tell Roy Good job, Hey, you, you keep going, you know, do it Rory. It’s like, oh dude, this thumbnail sucks. Like we gotta fix this. Your intros are terrible.
EC (17:50):
Yeah. And so even if, you know, if you’re teaching the same essential eight to 10 themes to the people you’re talking to coaching is usually a lot easier to do is a lot more fun to do. You don’t need a script to do you don’t need people to show up and give you a, a answers to like 18 questions before they come on. They’re just gonna show up and, and you’re gonna say, Hey, how can I help? And they’re gonna give you their problem. And they’re asking you questions that relate to your expertise. They’re not gonna ask you like gardening advice, right? Or maybe you’re expert gardener too. I don’t know. But coaching videos are easy to easy to make. It’s easier to go longer with cuz there’s always another level to helping them out. And if you think about going to an event, you know, you go to a Tony Robbin’s event. Like the, the best part is not the content. It’s the, it’s the, his interventions. It’s the, the one-on-ones where you see like, oh wow, you see the unlock happen in somebody. And so if you’re a great coach, this assumes you are a great coach. Like if you are not a great coach, you cannot do this because you’re gonna get exposed. And, and, but this is where a lot of people struggle. Like if you’re actually really good at what you’re doing and you’re a great coach, this is the content you should be making. Most people,
RV (18:57):
The clients get, how do you get around the clients being like, oh, you’re sharing my coaching call on your public platform. You just need to get permission from them in advance or something.
EC (19:06):
And not even permission, like please do me a favor. You, you pitch it as a benefit. So if I was talking to two people recently who are both New York times by selling authors, working on their next book. Right. I gotta sell my next book. Cool. Here’s what we gotta do. A lot of authors will sell access, right? So, Hey, if you buy a thousand topics in my book, you get a, a 20 minute call with me to help you out. Cool. That’s trading time for money and cool. You sold a thousand books, pitch it as also YouTube video, 25 minutes with me buy a thousand books and we’ll do a zoom call together. That becomes a YouTube video on my channel as well. And it’s, it’s the upfront and we’re getting paid to do it. So you can, you can recognize members if somebody’s in your membership group and they crossed over a year and they’re coming back for year two, offer them a free coaching call with you, right.
EC (19:54):
As a benefit or you upsell it as part of your sequence at the beginning, they’re buying into the membership group. Hey, if you also, for a thousand bucks, you get a one on one with Rory, that’s gonna be turned into a YouTube video. And Gary V does this all the time with his four DS. Like you, you spend $10,000 to go meet him for a day. And it’s mostly his team. And he shows up for an hour and talks to the members who paid 10,000 bucks to be there for the day and then, and then turns it into content for the YouTube channel. So it’s like you sell it as a benefit, not as a, like, please do me a favor and come on my channel because one-on-one access to Rory. Vaden is impossible, so you can buy it. And it gets turned into a YouTube video, but that’s a contract that gets set up in advance, not afterwards. Oh, do you mind if I turn it into content for
RV (20:37):
Yeah. Do it on the front end, gotta happen on front
EC (20:39):
End. And you use it as a, as a bonus for them that they’re paying for as opposed to like, please do me a favor
RV (20:45):
Uhhuh. Yep. Uhhuh. It’s like an incentive. You turn it into an incentive for them, like for them. And then you get the content out of it. So I know you have to go last question. And again, y’all brand builders, group.com/evan Carmichael, brand builders, group.com/evan Carmichael. You can check this out. Like I it’s insane how, I mean, I don’t remember the exact number, but I’m, this is less than a hundred dollars a month or a hundred dollars a month or something like it’s, it’s, it’s not a lot of money for what you get. Cuz it’s like, this could change your life. Like this is career changing stuff. So check, check that out. It’s so tactical, it’s gonna change our it’s changing our entire world. The, how do I find video editors? Right? So that’s that becomes a problem. Okay. I’m an expert, but I’m not an expert at editing video. You know, what I really need is I really need to hire a video editor and I need that person to go through your training. Is that doable? How do I do that?
EC (21:43):
Or the editing almost doesn’t matter. Like why are people listening to you? Because like, if you think about quality content, it, people default the production quality, like, oh, what microphone using their Rory and what’s your headset, right? And like, what’s the lighting, but nobody’s watching your stuff for your microphone. So the quality isn’t production quality it’s quality of thought. Can you teach ’em to think like you think? And so the mistake a lot of people make is they, if they’re doing it themselves at the beginning, a lot of people do this. You spend 20 minutes making a video and then five hours editing it. You’re training the wrong skill. You’re training yourself to learn editing software as opposed to training yourself, to be a better speaker where your ultimate goal should be to be a better speaker, train, spend five hours making a video and 20 minutes editing it or zero time editing it.
EC (22:34):
Because the ability to communicate your message in front of a camera will be a skillset you use for the rest of your life, whether YouTube exists or not. When, when we’re beaming into your, your living room in VR and eight holograms and all that, you’re still just talking to a camera. And so that ability to get your message out there is the thing to train and practice. So I wouldn’t worry about editing, being the most important thing, train yourself to be a great speaker, train yourself, to press record, deliver a fire message and then release that as a video. Because when you, when I go live on a podcast like this, when I get up on stage, when I’m doing interviews, there’s no edits. I mean maybe if I really mess up, Rory will do me a solid and like cut out that piece. But you get on stage isn’t edits. Like you can’t train yours. If you’re a speaker, you can’t train yourself to only communicate when you’re perfectly edited.
RV (23:21):
Yeah.
EC (23:22):
So we have to train ourselves to be great. It doesn’t mean that you completely disrespect the editing, but my goal would be to, Hey, let’s get your business up to the point where the content is helping you generate enough money, whether it’s through your coaching or your books or your programs, so that then you can afford to hire an editor to take it to the next level. But the editing will not save you. It’s quality of thought more than production quality.
RV (23:42):
And then one of the things we’re not gonna have time to talk about all this, but like, so it’s, it’s less the editing quality. It’s all about the content. And then if I was gonna spend time, I would wanna use, use that time to do things like optimized titles and thumbnails and, and you know, those kinds of things would be a better use of time.
EC (24:04):
Yeah. And, and paying attention to your audience, attention curve, cuz that’ll make you a better speaker too. Mm-Hmm
RV (24:41):
Yeah. Well, those of you that become members, or if you are a member, we had, we had Evan a couple months ago and it was that awesome, like going, going through it. And so that training is available. That is now a permanent part of our, our library. So if you’re one of our members go watch it. It’s amazing. If you’re not, I would say go check out brand builders, group.com/evan Carmichael and, and, and check out what Evan’s got going on with brand Lytics. And man, you’re so generous. And you know, at this point I’ve known you for so many years, I’m just, I’m just grateful and you really do believe in entrepreneurs and, and so thanks for helping us. Thanks for serving us and thanks for making time to, to come be on the show, brother. We wish you the best.
EC (25:22):
Cool man. Happy to, and happy to do round two whenever you want to.
RV (25:26):
All right. It sounds good. We’ll do it.
Ep 304: What You Need To Know To Hire The Right Talent with Matt White
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 that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
AJV (00:53):
Hey everyone. And welcome to another episode on the influential personal brand. This is a J Vaden here. I’m one of your co-hosts. And today is super special. I always love it when I get to interview people that I actually work with. And so let me introduce you to Matt white. I’m gonna give you a little bit of his formal bio in just a second, but Matt and I have been friends for a really long time, but I became a client of Matt’s like what, three years ago? Mm-Hmm
AJV (01:47):
And so that’s actually the coolest thing that you need to know about Matt is that he is dad of Salla, but okay, let me give you a little bit of his professional bio. Matt is a trusted advisor and a culture index consultant to CEOs at fast growing companies around the world. So if you’ve never heard of culture index one, you’re gonna learn a lot about it today. But you might be familiar with programs out there like engram or disk or Myers Briggs, and there’s a lot of things out there, but I think can be somewhat confusing. And here’s why our company brand builders group decided to partner up with Matt and use the culture index is it’s not a personality profile. And I think sometimes for me, at least culture index can be a little bit. What would I say?
AJV (02:40):
Not as well of a description as what it is, cuz it’s not about culture in your company, right? This is about finding the right culture of the position that you’re looking for and matching it with what is someone’s natural skill sets like their God-given talents, like who they are and how can you fit that to match the actual needs, the requirements of a position. And so Matt has been leading this endeavor at brain builders group. He does it with tons of clients around the.
AJV (03:11):
country. He happens to be located here in our hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. But today as a business leader, an entrepreneur, a leader of any kind or even if you’re just trying to lead a person of one this is the conversation for you. So you wanna stick around, we’re gonna talk about the culture index assessment, the profile but more importantly, how do you find higher and retain the best talent for your company? So that was the longest introduction ever, ever
MW (03:48):
Excited. Yeah. I’m excited. Thanks for the opportunity.
AJV (03:51):
Yeah, I’m so happy about this, so, okay. So tell people a little bit about how did you get into this? Cause you did not start as a culture index consultant working with CEOs. That’s not where you started. So I give our audience just a little bit of background about how you got to where you are.
MW (04:08):
Yeah. So I’ll act, I’ll go all the way back to college. So I was, I came outta college with a finance degree and I went straight into college ministry. And so a lot of people don’t know that, but I was actually in college ministry until I was 31. And so when I was 30, the first few years, and this is important to one of the things that you touched on about leading yourself was especially in your late twenties and or twenties and thirties, like it’s really about self discovery. And so early on in ministry, I was doing things that were right in my gifting and wiring and it was really fun. But then as it changed, I got kind of bored over time. And when I was 30, I realized my future was not vocational ministry. So then I was like, well, I’m behind the eight ball because I’ll be competing for jobs with people who are six and seven years younger than me.
MW (04:55):
So cuz I have no business experience. And so thankfully I been a member of a gym in Birmingham, Alabama that had just started one of my teammates from college kept recruiting me to come there and try it out. And I ended up going on staff with that startup and because it just really provided the, what I thought was the best opportunity for me to get a crash course in business because I had no business acumen. I just been doing whatever I wanted to do in ministry. And so I joined that when I turned 31 and then a year later became a partner, we franchised it. And so it was a fantastic environment to really learn like the ins and outs of business. I was studying under some great leaders and just cut my teeth in business that way.
MW (05:40):
And then in that process we scaled rapidly. And a few years in, we just didn’t see the growth that we thought we should have out of some of the other partners in the business, long story short, we were introduced to culture index. And so we actually became a client my last year there. And so, and it was kind of the same thing too with ministry. Like when I was starting out with the fitness, a lot of the things that I were, I was doing like opening gyms and leadership were really fun. And then some of my role changed by the nature of the growth of the business. And I just became less and less fulfilled in it. And so you know, as AJ mentioned, when we bring a client on, we train them for two days in how to interpret this data and mobilize it to fix the issues in the business and scale.
MW (06:31):
And so on the way out of the, the workshop that I was in as a client, I called the founder of culture index and said, Hey, my name’s Matt white. I wanna become your next licensee. What do I need to do? And so I became a licensee on the side while I was still doing fitness and you know, cause all of my eggs were in the basket of the fitness business, but then over time I just saw and I was just wrestling internally. I was working with my best friends in the business, but the actual work I was doing just wasn’t out of my skill. It wasn’t in my skillset. I wasn’t passionate about it. And I’d been reading the book of Ecclesiastes and six times in 12 chapters, Solomon says there’s nothing better for a person than that. He or she should eat, drink and find enjoyment in their toil. And it just hit me. And I was like, so I don’t care how much money I make. If I don’t enjoy what I’m doing, I don’t wanna do it. You know, the reality is we spend 70,000 hours of our lives at work. And so I decided to take a leap and move to Nashville and start culture index. And that’s how I got started.
AJV (07:33):
Ugh. I love that. And I think there’s so much brilliance in some of this for everyone listening of just remembering it’s like your path is gonna take different journeys and leaning into that and realizing I’m I know this is where I started, but that’s not where I wanna go. And that’s okay. I think so many of us try to like stick it out and make it work. And it’s like, why punish yourself? Like why punish yourself? Because you’re too afraid to go out and do something that you feel called to do. And I mean, it’s like, I mean, I think you’re probably the happiest now you’ve ever been. I don’t know. That’s just saying as an outsider looking in, but
MW (08:15):
100%, 100%, because again, we spend so much of our lives at work, especially as entrepreneurs and business owners, and this is your baby and this is your passion. And I’m, I, it doesn’t feel like work to me. And sometimes people like, you know, my friends and I’m hanging out at like nine o’clock at night and they’re like, Hey, let’s look at this profile and I’m sorry, I’m you’re talking about profile. I’m like, no, I love this stuff. And I also believe like, you know, in any business, I believe the most important thing in any business is your human capital. Yeah. Right. Like the greatest leading indicator of P and L performance in the business is your human capital. And so that’s where I get passionate about. It’s like not to mention the fact that as leaders, you, you will have massive amounts of opportunity to influence for better or worse the lives of the people that work for you. Yeah. And in my opinion, our cap depends on our ability to lead other people.
AJV (09:10):
Hmm that’s so
MW (09:11):
I just always wanna be a you know, a student of the game of leadership.
AJV (09:16):
I love that. And this is such a great transition too. And before we, we hit record, we were having just a brief, you know, conversation. And I know there’s so much discussion right now, out in the marketplace, around the topic of the great resignation. Right. And if you’re not watching, I’m doing funny ears when I say the great resignation because I, I don’t really know if that’s what it is. And then I read this article a couple of weeks ago by Ariana Huffington. And I thought this was a great re explanation of that. And I love what she said. And she said, it’s not so much, this is the great resignation. It’s more of a great reevaluation and people are taking a step back and going, man, I don’t love what I’m doing. Why not? And how do I get to do something that I love?
AJV (10:05):
And maybe it’s people environment, culture, environment, but what if it’s just the job itself? It’s like, you feel like you’re not wired to be doing what you’re doing and you’re pushing, right. Instead of like having that natural pull that’s easier. Mm-Hmm
AJV (11:03):
We don’t even have the skills for it. And it just it’s mindboggling to me sometimes of going, why are people trying to do this when they don’t, they’re not gonna be good at it. And mm-hmm
MW (12:14):
Okay, I’m gonna keep it really simple. So if you’re a business owner or, or not a business owner, you’re leading a team and you you’re part of a business. If your business is not using psychometrics, you’re behind the eight ball because most people are. And so when I say psychometrics, basically, we’ve got the technology now in the research with psychometric, all psychometrics is, is you’ve got psychology and math and they get together and have a baby. And now we actually have data on what will this human being do when nobody’s looking. And when they’re under pressure, in other words, you naturally do who you are, right? And you you’ve talked about the interview process. It’s like when you’re, when you’re interviewing people, it’s simply a sales pitch. And if I need a job, I can convince you, certain profiles are better at convincing others, right?
MW (13:05):
So you, most people are going into interviews and they’re making these very expensive decisions off of subjective information, which is their experience with that person or their track record, which the assumption is what you did over here at this company is the exact same thing with the exact same leadership as what you would be getting here in my company, which is hardly ever the case back to culture index. So there’s really two things you gotta look at when you’re looking at psych psychometrics is what’s the statistical reliability of that instrument. So in other words, how, if we go back to human capital, if that’s the greatest leading indicator of P and L performance in your business, how accurate and valid do you want the data to be that you’re using to make these decisions that will influence the P and L statement? Yeah. So you gotta look at statistical reliability.
MW (13:58):
I can’t speak for any of Graham and all of those others because I, I’m not a practitioner of those. I do know that culture index has an internal or a statistical reliability of 0.9. So 90% of the time it is spot on. Now we can get into why that is part of it has to do with the design. This is a free choice checklist versus a versus a forced choice. So anytime you force a human being to choose one of four or one of six options, it will negatively impact the reliability of it. Mm. So one it’s, it’s, whatever you’re using, you gotta look at, does it really measure what it says? It measures the second thing though, and I think it’s actually the bigger draw is there’s only about 65 culture index licensees in the country and what we hang our hat on is radical candor and the strategic ability of the advisor to lean into CEO.
MW (14:52):
When I understand where your three and five year goals are and give you very candid, blunt feedback about the people you’ve chosen to bring around you and whether or not you will hit those top and bottom line goals in the next three to five years. I mean, I’ve, I’ve been on multiple demos this morning with client, with prospects in Alabama and Georgia, and we’re pulling up and we’re talking about for one example, a construction company, you know, 150 employees and they have their, their linchpin in their business is the project manager overseeing these construction. And they had eight of them. And I’m literally able to say, okay, this one’s worth $2 million. And this one is costing you $2 million. Interesting. And I don’t have to, I don’t have to guess, cuz I ask them, what do they need outta that role? And they say, I need X, X, X, X. And I say, okay, well, how much of your time do you spend telling this person what to do and having to follow up with them because they don’t follow through? Hmm. I spend a lot of time and I say, okay, how much is that worth? Cause for the CEO, the two biggest problems I fix for our CEOs time and money.
AJV (15:55):
Yeah. You know, it’s I love that you say that, cause you’ve done this we’ve had this conversation many times and you just go, horrible idea. Never hire this person.
MW (16:09):
Candidate. Well, and, and, and I I’ll say this too. You, you talked about culture index, so we don’t measure character values, integrity. We also don’t. We also don’t want measure what somebody’s passionate about. Okay. And so we don’t measure good. Is this a good or a bad human, but it’s like this. And we talk about culture because that’s a buzzword, right. Everybody wants a strong culture. And then if I said to one of you owners or entrepreneurs on this call, if you ever, ever seen the movie Rudy, right. If you haven’t, you ought watch it. It’s, it’s a classic, but it’s about a guy who is just passionate about Notre Dame football. And he believes Irish and he played football in college. So he studied it. He had a lot of experience. He knew the ins and outs. And then he got to walk on at Notre Dame and he had more grit, more passion, more drive, more work ethic than probably every other athlete on the team. But Rudy was five foot 10. And if you started Rudy with all the grit and passion and heart and experience at five foot 10 going against a six foot five competitor, statistically he’ll lose nine out of 10 times. And then when you put a square peg in a round hole, I don’t care. What values are up on the wall when your team loses eventually a losing program has a terrible culture regardless of the values.
AJV (17:27):
Yeah. You know, I, what, I, I think one of the things that both as a entrepreneur CEO, but then also as a, as a client, one of the things that I’ve gotten really in tune with is that a lot of people can do the job. It’s just, how quickly are they gonna burn out doing it? Hmm. And that was like a really good insight that I picked up from our work together and using this is, yeah. I mean, you could force someone into doing this and they could probably do it, but for how long before they go, I’m exhausted. This is so hard. I’m not happy. And the, what I love about this as a business owner is I know what I need out of these positions. And it’s so hard to determine that by looking at a resume or social media, or even doing an interview, I, I mean, we do shadow days.
AJV (18:18):
We do call audit. We do all these things to help other people get to know like, this is what the business is gonna be about. But at the end of the day, those are really high level samples. And to what you said earlier, it’s like, I need to know, is this person gonna love doing it and be good at doing it when I’m not around? And I think that is a really important thing. And so I’d love to hear your perspective of, you know, this great resignation or great reevaluation in terms of, for business owners. It’s like, how do we get around this? Mm-Hmm
MW (19:09):
Hmm. Okay. Couple of thoughts. With two case studies from different clients here in Nashville, one is in a service business construction, and one is a
AJV (20:10):
Yeah.
MW (20:11):
You know, like, and you can’t tell from the dots whether or not somebody’s gonna like cheat or steal
MW (20:56):
Although we measure these, this is from another article I read by Harvard it’s, every human being has a need to achieve the need for relationship and the need. For some level of knowledge and expertise, we just happen to measure. Those are our three primary motivational drives. And so when you can get the talent or not talking about how to go find it, but like the talent’s coming to you where you’re getting applicants like that, you have an advantage when I already know what makes that person tick. And I help them see their future in my company. The other one though, is from the client with a social enterprise. And they, they have, they are inundated with applicants, like just so many that is because of the mission and the cause of the business. Right. And so I think there’s multiple things in there as one, when you talk about the great resignation, I agree with that. It’s a reevaluation because people are gonna have to work. Yeah. Right. They can’t sit at home forever, but like when we, as leaders can learn how to take the talent and inspire and motivate and more importantly, put them in roles that they’re naturally gifted for. I mean, you think about like, Chick-fil-A versus McDonald’s, that’s the same business, but it seems like McDonald’s struggles a little bit more than Chick-fil-A to find talent and it’s fast food.
AJV (22:16):
Yeah.
MW (22:17):
So that has to do with leadership development and culture and vision. And I actually know quite a few Chick-fil-A’s that use culture index.
AJV (22:26):
Hmm. So, so much of it is about that pairing. Right? So one of the things that I have found really difficult is even knowing what you need out of, of a position, right. Like I know that seems kind of silly, but it’s actually quite challenging to go, like, what do I actually need out of this position? So any thoughts around that and how to help business owners and leaders be like, what do I want out of this position? I know what needs to get done, but like, what do I actually need this person to do in terms of what skill sets and what traits and what drivers I’m like, mm-hmm
AJV (23:21):
Right. And that’s like, that has nothing to do with the position itself. That’s just knowing myself as the leader business owner. It’s like, I want people who, who see it and who can create it for themselves. But if you’re gonna wait around and you’re gonna make, wait for me to build that for you, I’m not gonna do it. Mm-Hmm
MW (23:52):
Yeah. So let’s go back to the first part about the actual job where I see I wouldn’t say most, but I have clients that have struggled with being able to define what do I really need in this role. Mm-Hmm
AJV (24:56):
Yeah, totally.
MW (24:57):
If it’s on, but it’s on the leader to, to define here’s what you do in your job. Okay. So, but that, that we struggle with that when there’s a lack of clear direction. Yeah. And a lack of a strategy. But the second thing is, is because what you mentioned, you know, is we have a different piece of the program where we actually design so that you can answer questions about the job. And then it says, okay, this is the pattern. Or these are the patterns that will produce the ideal behavior, where 80 to 90% of the day, this is how you need to behave. Mm-Hmm,
MW (25:48):
And you’re basically saying, look, I want somebody who’s equally good at playing offense and defense at the same time. And so that’s where, you know, I, I challenge my clients, push back and say like, at the end of the day, is it more important for this person to win and innovate or not make mistakes? And usually when you put a straight edge on it like that, they’re able to say, yeah, but I can’t have everything. But if this is what is ultimately gonna make this position successful, they need to be detailed. Let’s say we can measure that. Mm-Hmm
AJV (26:22):
Yeah.
MW (26:22):
So you can’t have everything.
AJV (26:24):
I think that’s a good reminder to all of us. You can’t have everything. So if someone out there is going, okay, like something you just said clicked, but I’m not currently using culture index. It’s like, what would be like the, the first step advice that you would give to a leader who’s going, this is how you get clear of what you need out of a position. Would you say it’s like, start with the KPIs, like start with the end result in mind? Like, what would you say?
MW (26:51):
Hmm. I go back to the fitness business experience where I learned there and, you know, our CEO was a fantastic strategic thinking visionary. And so we just had this vision for five years out of what we wanted to be. And there was 300 fitness communities and, and it was, and we could clearly define it. And it actually took us four days as a leadership team to come up with that. It’s like, where do we wanna be in the next three to five? Or I think it was five years. And then once we got that end goal, then we backed into how do we get there? And we broke it down. What are the metrics that need to be measured? And then what’s feasible year four, year, three, year two, and year one. And so you take the big picture, but then you break it down to bite size.
MW (27:34):
So then we took it and we said, okay, so this year we’re only gonna, here’s our one year goal. And we had what we, we drew this mountain and we had base camps up to the top of the mountain. And the cool thing was, it was like, I forget who wrote the book, making vision stick. But we did, we, we really focused as leaders in the organization of communicating that vision of where we’re going down to everybody who was even a part-time employee. So they knew what the vision was. And then they knew how, what they do every day ties in to helping us achieve that mission. Mm. I love that. So I would say that, and then some kind of operational system, like traction or scaling up with ver Harnish where there’s, there’s so many resources out there on how to scale a business mm-hmm
AJV (28:34):
Yeah. We implemented traction here at brand builders group, the book traction by Gina Wickman. It was mandatory reading for all of our leaders three years ago. And it’s like, we, we put in place traction simultaneously as we started doing culture index. So okay. So I know I’m, I’m watching the clock. I know we only have a few more minutes left here, but I’ve got like two other, like, kinda like big questions. So one of the things that I find fascinating, and I know if I find it fascinating, all of the other people out there listening also find it fascinating. So help give people some insight into some of these profiles that you have at culture index, cuz there’s a lot of them. There’s a lot. Right. And I know my profile as I’m a persuader. Right. And it’s a heck of a lot easier for me to work with other persuaders than it is some others. It’s just, there’s like a natural ease in it. So give us some, like, what are some like just inside behind the scenes knowledge, if no one, no one’s ever taken this, I don’t know what this is. Mm-Hmm
MW (29:42):
Yeah. So let’s go back to some, you know, probably something that’s really familiar for a lot of people is like a disk profile, right? The D I S C it’s been around for a long time reasonably accurate, but it, it, it lumps people into one of four categor categories. Right. So if I know I’m communicating with a high D that’s about 25% of the world, according to disk, the problem with that is it’s kinda like looking at a mountain. If I’m, if I’m a mile away from a mountain, I can tell that’s a tall mountain, but, and I can, I, I can go climb that. But then when I get up really close and I can see the precise, like there, here’s a big crevice, here’s a ma major like overhang that changes how I approach that. And so what you’re really looking at and where I think what I love about culture index is that it is precise in that.
MW (30:34):
And so to, you mentioned profiles, think of it. Like if I’m, if I’ve got, let’s say you’ve got the disc and you’ve got four tools for people, right. Well, how much more precise and accurate can I be? And confident if I were to say, Hey, actually I have 19 different tools and here’s how you use each one of those different tools. And so we’ve broken it down into 19 different patterns. So for example, within the high D for disk, where they have one profile for that, they actually have five. And so that changes and there’s a lot of nuances there. And the big thing too is I, I try to train my clients. So there’s two things that are really important when it comes to motivation and communication. One is that person naturally off playing offense or defense, and then how do they think learn and problem solve.
MW (31:23):
Hmm. And so we call that deductive and inductive reasoning or thinking. And so that changes how we communicate. If, if I’m talking with you as a persuader with a higher B trait, I know that you’re actually going to need some personal interaction. If I’m working with you pretty consistently, because that’s a motivational drive. Whereas if I’m working with Rory, he wants to come to work. And that B is low, even though you guys have the same, a trait, essentially your B is very different. And so you guys are radically different just on that one data point and we’ve got seven mm-hmm
AJV (32:40):
AJV (33:25):
And I remember this, I don’t know if you remember this conversation. But we were talking about one of our key employees and I remember this conversation and you said you have shrink, trapped and Eagle
AJV (34:33):
She enjoys it. She loves it versus man, she was stressy, you know what out? Because she was in spreadsheets and she does not like spreadsheets. It’s not good at spreadsheets. And it’s like it was like, it’s like, you know, you, you’re looking on the outside going, why is like what in the world? And you’re like, I gotta help this person be more organized. They need more accountability. And it’s like, no, they’re never gonna be successful in that role. Mm-Hmm
MW (35:12):
I, I just had this thought, you know, you mentioned my daughter. I take every Monday off and we just play together. And so much of the play is actually like work. Like she wants to build things or she wants to fix something or she wants to go explore or she wants to start something, but it actually has a lot to do with work. She wants to cook. She wants to make something. And it’s like, that stuff is effortless and fun to her. So what happens between when we’re kids and then we have to go get a job and then at work has a negative context to it. Yeah. The reason why I think it is, is because it feels like work. If I show up and I have to do things I’m not naturally wired up to do. Right. But the, and that’s where stress comes honestly. And that’s why work takes longer. You know, people say like work will expand to the time allotted for it. I, I don’t think that’s necessarily true because if you have somebody doing something that’s natural for them, doesn’t feel like work they’re more efficient. Yeah. It doesn’t feel like work and they’ve got better morale.
AJV (36:11):
Yeah. And it’s, I think it’s so important. It’s like one of our big commitments in our company and it’s like, we’re definitely not perfect at this. Got a long way to go. But it’s like, if we know it’s the right person, it’s like, let’s find the role that you’re naturally gonna succeed in. Because otherwise we’re doing each other, a disservice, like we’re trying to make it work. You’re trying to make it work when it’s like, you could go out and find a position that you love. And you know, it’s interesting, cuz we’ve all heard that old saying is like people don’t leave companies, people leave people. I really believe that there’s a middle step in there. It’s like people leave jobs. Mm-Hmm
MW (37:14):
Mm-Hmm
AJV (37:14):
MW (37:16):
Yeah. And there there’s some structures and organizations where there are limitations and it’s like, you may have been really enjoying this and good here, but then we don’t have another opportunity to leverage those strengths. And so they may have to leave. That’s not on the leader, but then a lot of it is in on the leader of if I don’t understand my talent and therefore I’m not optimizing them, then that really is on the leadership.
AJV (37:41):
Yeah. I’m so good. I love discussions like this. I love learning just about people and it’s like, I love all these. I love culture index, fascinate, engram disc. I do all of them. I’m just fascinated with learning about like human nature in general. Mm-Hmm
MW (38:02):
You me too?
AJV (38:03):
I’m an eight go figure. I’m a di and disk. Right? I’m the Maro and fascinate, I’m the persuader. And it’s like, but they’re all complimentary. And it’s like, okay. I should probably like take my own advice here. It’s like, I know myself well enough, but yet like even in this conversation, it’s like, I have like this checklist of things that feel like work to me and it’s because I’m not naturally gifted in ’em. So I have to, it takes me longer. It’s it’s harder for me. I don’t enjoy it at the end of those days where I’m doing that. I feel stressed and overwhelmed because it’s, it’s not fun. And then I have other days where it’s like, man, it was a great day and I’m always asking myself what makes a great day for me as a business owner. And I think that’s a good question for everyone to ask.
AJV (38:50):
It’s like get really in tune with like what makes a great day. And I’ve just found like for me, it’s like, I, my cup is full when I get to spend time with our clients and with team members that, you know, are positive and happy. Like I love that. And been on days where I’m just like sitting behind a computer screen all by myself, crunching numbers, I’m like, Ugh, this is so hard. Like why does this feel like work? And so I think you just gotta get in tune with that for yourself too. And mm-hmm,
MW (40:06):
Hmm, man, that’s a tough one. The first thing that comes to mind is humility, but then I had to check myself cause I, I think I’m a good leader and I wouldn’t necessarily call myself humility or humble. I’d like, I’d like to think that, but I think because I also see this, like I, I do, I engaged with visionary leaders all day long and some of them with same identical culture, next profiles have very different results because you could be a leader, but if nobody wants to follow you, it really doesn’t matter how strategic you are. And it really doesn’t matter how much vision you have or how you can hold team accountable. It’s like at the end of the day, if people don’t trust you and you’re not approachable and open for feedback as a leader, I think it’s gonna be very difficult to build a team around you because every good leader, I know they really believe like I couldn’t have gotten here without the team that helped me get there. And so, and maybe that’s just the, the other thing too, is like, I want to aspire more of that because the twenties and my thirties, it was like crash course in humility, especially the thirties. And I think I’m at a better place because I’ve gotten a little less ego.
AJV (41:28):
Hmm. That’s so good. I love that. Such a good conversation. If people wanna connect with you online social media, what’s the best platform for them to go to?
MW (41:39):
Well, I, I am not great with social media. I think it’s Instagram is Matt white, 3 21, LinkedIn is, is there. And then you know, like we said, if you guys take that survey, then my assistant will reach out and schedule a few minutes to review the data with you, either with me. One of my colleagues and well
AJV (42:03):
Since you’re self proclaimed, so Instagram, Matt white 3, 2, 1,
MW (42:09):
It’s Matt white, 3 21,
AJV (42:11):
Matt white 3 21. Or
MW (42:12):
It’s basically just pictures of sale though.
AJV (42:16):
Pictures, basical, pretty much all I want. Well that that’ll be an offline conversation for me and you, we, I can help you with this. You help me with the people I’ll help you with social media. So
MW (42:27):
Yeah, I have no brand. So I’m, I’m your next client? I have no brand
AJV (42:31):
Note to sell note to sell Matt, so awesome. Thank you. So for being on here everyone be sure to stay tuned for the episode and we’ll you next time on the influential personal brand.
MW (42:44):
Thanks AJ.