SELLING Archives - Brand Builders Group

Ep 555: Nail the First 30 Seconds of a Cold Call | Ryan Lang Episode Recap

RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden, and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well-known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. Over the course of my career, I have had to cold call a lot. I knocked on over 20,000 doors when I was in college as, as a door to door salesperson. After I finished graduate school, I then worked for an enterprise software company selling anti-spam like spyware and anti-spam filtering software to large corporate enterprises. And then my wife and I built an actual sales consulting company where we cold called on large companies and small companies to train their salespeople how to sell.
RV (01:08):
And as an author, I’ve, I’ve cold called on literary agents as a speaker. I’ve cold called companies to get speaking engagements. I’ve made tens of thousands of cold calls. And how you open your cold call makes a big difference. And, and when it comes to cold calling, I think most of us get super nervous and super, like when we’re nervous and when we’re afraid and when we’re scared, it’s usually about nailing those first 30 seconds. Like we’re most nervous about what do we say and what happens in those first opening seconds? And it really is important that you get it right. And most people don’t. Most people get it wrong. In fact, most of the sales trainers and most of the scripts that you ever come across are awful. They’re, they’re terrible. They’re stupid. Like they, they’re, they’re, they’re horrendous. They don’t make any, they don’t work like and so I wanna talk to you in this video, I’m gonna share with you first of all the mindset of what we’re after here when we are cold calling.
RV (02:04):
And then I’m gonna talk you through the, the two most common mistakes that we see when we watch people, like when we’ve coached people who are cold calling, or the mistakes that I, I have made, right? I mean, out of 30,000 or, you know, more thousands and thousands of cold calls. I’ve made a lot of these mistakes myself. So I’m just gonna share with you the things that don’t really work. And then I’m gonna share with you a three step process here towards the end of exactly what you should do when you’re making cold calls. If you want to nail those opening seconds and, and have an actual chance. First of all, let’s talk about the mindset, right? What is, what’s the, what’s the mindset here? The, the mindset is serving, not selling, right? That’s everything that we’re about at brand builders groups, service centered selling.
RV (02:48):
So the mindset is always serving, not selling. So the mindset isn’t how do I trick someone? It’s not how do I manipulate them? It’s, it’s not what’s the, the ninja, voodoo tactic that I can magically say that’s gonna somehow take someone who wouldn’t buy and make them a buyer. I’m not trying to like sneak something under their radar, right? That’s not what it’s about. Now, service centered is, is being confident. It’s being direct, it’s being confident. It’s also being aware that for many people, the answer’s gonna be no. And that’s okay. Your job as a service centered salesperson is not to magically take someone who’s a no and make them a yes. And that’s not your job. If you think that’s your job, that is gonna create pressure on you. That’s not the job of a service centered salesperson. The job of a service centered salesperson is to find all of the people that could genuinely benefit from your product or service.
RV (03:43):
That’s it. To find all the people who could benefit from, from your product or service, and give them a genuine, honest look, a genuine opportunity to buy what you are, what you’re selling, or, or to show them, right? I, I often don’t even think about it as like, my job is to sell. My job is to find them, and my job is to show this to them. It’s really their job to decide whether or not it’s the fit. And right there is the mindset shift, right? Like, it takes you from that adversarial of like me against you. And this is like some type of a, of a combat where I’m, I’m given some manipulative, high pressure, slimy sales tactic from some video you saw on the internet, like, or, you know, one of these old school sales training manuals or something. It’s not that, right?
RV (04:31):
It’s just being direct and saying, Hey, here’s who I am. This is what I got. This is who I talked to. Can, can it help you? Right? So I want you to understand that that mindset, like your job is not to sell. Your job is to serve. Now that said, you’re going to, you’re going to be dealing with some, some sales resistance, right? People have a natural resistance to being sold something because of all the bad advice and because of the, the decades of horrible training that has gone on, you’re gonna have to combat some of that. So your internal mindset is one of, of service. Also externally, the things that come out of your mouth, they should sound more like you’re talking to a friend and less like you’re giving a formal pitch. And you’ll, we’ll, we’ll, you’ll understand here when we talk about some of these mistakes.
RV (05:21):
But, but I want you to, to approach the whole thing as it’s not adversarial, right? You are, it’s not you versus them. It’s you in service of them. You’re there to see if you can help them. And if they’re gonna say no, if they’re gonna reject, reject you, they’re not rejecting you. They’re, they’re rejecting this thing that you have. And so that takes a lot of the pressure off of you right up front. In fact, one of the things that we say at Brand Builders Group all the time is there is no fear when the mission to serve is clear. If you shift this sales encounter from one away from the idea of it’s me versus them, and you shift it too, it’s me for them, it’s me with them, it’s me coming around and sitting on, on their side, and then I’m gonna talk to them the way that I would talk to a normal person, like the way that I would, that I would talk to a friend, the, the way that I would talk in real life, not the way that a robot would sound, or some weird cheesy professional salesman with sound.
RV (06:18):
Okay? So that’s, that’s the mindset. Now, let’s talk about the mistakes. Okay? So here’s, here’s the most common mistakes. Mistake number one is leading with your company name, right? So if you say, Hey, it’s Rory Vaden from Brand Builders Group, that is a mistake. Why? Because they’re not gonna recognize your company name most likely. And whether they do or they don’t, that’s not how friends talk to each other, right? You don’t call someone and say, call your buddy and be like, Hey, it’s Roy from Brand Builder’s Group. What’s up, man? You wanna hang out? Like, that’s not how we talk to in real life. It’s not how we talk to normal people. Now, by not sharing your company name, I’m, we’re not trying to be misleading. We’re we’re not trying to hide anything. We’re not hiding anything. We’re just going, look, if my job is to honestly serve them, if my job is to help them take an honest look at what I have, if, if my job is to present to them something that may or may not help them, I have to give them a, an honest chance to do that.
RV (07:18):
And so I also don’t wanna do anything that is going to negatively, you know, work against that opportunity. So anything that immediately signals and, and, and ties into their fear that I’m just, you know, some slimy salesperson or something, I wanna stay away from that, right? I just wanna have an honest human conversation. And so usually I will stick with first names if I’m cold calling, right? So, you know, say, you know, Hey, is it Lisa? Hey Lisa, this is Rory. Why? Because that’s how people talk to each other, right? You call your friends usually by nicknames and stuff like that. You don’t call and you don’t use people’s last names. So I want to create this sort of friendly conversational tone, just like I would in real life, talking to a real life friend. So don’t lead with your company name. The other thing is don’t ask them a question right away.
RV (08:08):
Now, I’m a fan of questions, questions are good questions. Great sales is more about being a great question asker than a great talker. I really believe that. And there is a place for questions, and we’re gonna use a question here soon, but don’t, don’t start your conversation with like, Hey, Lisa, it’s Rory. Do you have a minute? Like, nobody has a minute, okay? Nobody does. Like, nobody has spare time. There’s not a, there’s not a sales call that I’ve ever made where someone was like, you know what? I was just looking for someone to talk to. Thanks for calling. Like, I, I, I, I actually would love to talk to somebody. They don’t like, they’re busy, right? They, they, they, they weren’t sitting around waiting for you, and it accomplishes zero by asking them if they have time. If they have a minute, also, they go, how you doing?
RV (08:53):
I don’t care. I don’t care to tell you how I’m doing. Right? So that, that kind of cheesy fodder, that pandering, it doesn’t work. It’s just not helpful. You’re not, it doesn’t serve them in any way. And, and what we want is we wanna serve them. We wanna be useful to them. So we wanna shape the conversation to be helpful for them right away. And, and doing a question is going to create that, that sales resistance right up front because they go, man, I don’t know you. Like, that’s what they’re thinking, right? They’re going, man, I don’t know you. Like, who are you? What? Like, why are you bugging me? That is what they are afraid of, all right? So don’t do that. Don’t do one of those two things. Don’t lead with your company name. Don’t use your last name. And also don’t ask them some frivolous question.
RV (09:38):
Don’t pander to them. Those are telltale signs that you are a cheesy salesperson, that you are just another solicitor, right? Talk them in a normal voice. Use first names, okay? And, and now let’s talk about the three step process for how you do want to execute that call. Step number one, we’ve already talked about this a little bit, is a conversational tone. You’re going to use first names not last names. So you’re just going to make sure that you say, Hey, Lisa, this is Rory. Okay? Not this is Rory Vaden, because you don’t introduce yourself with last names like you do. I mean, that, that is a sign that you’re a stranger, right? Now that said, I’m not gonna introduce my last name, but the very first thing that I’m gonna say after my name is I’m gonna acknowledge the fact that we haven’t met yet.
RV (10:29):
Why? Because I’m gonna come forward with that. I’m gonna say, look, I know that you’re thinking, who the heck am I? And I don’t need you to rack your brain. I wanna let you know that we haven’t met yet. So I’m gonna take a confident stance of, of making it clear that we don’t know each other, but maybe we should, but also maybe there’s no reason for us to talk, okay? So I wanna sort of stand confidently in this space. And so a line, there’s many different ways you can say this, but an example of a line you would use is you would say Hey, is it Lisa? Hey Lisa, this is Rory. And you and I haven’t had a chance to meet yet. Or I’d say, Hey, Lisa, this is Rory, and don’t worry, don’t try to rack your brain thinking about where we’ve met because we we’ve not been introduced to one another yet.
RV (11:10):
Something like that. So I’m going to let her know, or him right up front that we haven’t met. That’s, that’s part of the relationship. So they go, okay, great. So now I have, I’ve just opened the door. Instead of getting an immediate door slammed by going, oh my gosh, you know, hi, this is Rory Vaden, okay, slam, I don’t know, Rory Vaden, hi, this is Rory from Brand Miller’s Group Slam. Like, I’ve never heard of your company. Hey, this is Rory, how you doing? Slam? You sound like a salesperson. Why? I say, Hey, is it Lisa? Hey Lisa, this is Rory. And you and I haven’t had a chance to meet yet. Okay? I got, I got a little window here, not much, right? But I’ve bought myself an extra half a second, which is all I need to execute step two, okay? So step one of how to do this right, okay?
RV (11:58):
Is to, is to let them know that you haven’t met yet, and be right up front, be open, be honest. If there’s any chance of someone giving you an extra second is through honesty and openness. So that’s what we’re gonna do. Let them know that we haven’t met yet. Now, that gives me a, an opportunity, a fraction of a second to get to step two, which is to use this phrase, the reason, this is a magical phrase. The reason, the reason I’m calling you there is a, a, a psychological trigger that happens when you hear the reason everybody p peaks interest, right? They tune in, they pay attention because you go, great. You are getting to the point. Now, here’s another common mistake is people say, Hey, this will only take a minute. I’m not a fan of saying that, because first of all, they don’t have a minute to waste.
RV (12:51):
And I, it’s almost like I’m saying, Hey, if you can just endure this for a second, that that’s not it. And I don’t wanna say I’ll get to, I don’t wanna waste time saying, I’ll get to the point. I wanna just get to the point. And that’s what they want too. They don’t wanna hear you say, you’ll get to the point, they just wanna hear you get to the point. So get to the point. So you say, hi, is it Lisa? Hey Lisa this is Rory and you and I haven’t met yet, but the reason I’m calling is, and so right there you have these, all of these things happening, firing in that opening moment. We’re using first names, right? We’re not using last names, we’re not using company names, we’re keeping it casual. We’re talking the way that we would talk among friends, yet I am openly, transparently, and honestly letting her know that we haven’t met yet.
RV (13:37):
Okay? So now she doesn’t have to worry about is this a, like, is this a weird something going on? Or like, who is this person? Say, Hey, we haven’t met yet. So I’ve got the slate clean. And now in step two, I’m saying, the reason I’m calling is I’m not telling her I’m getting to the point. I’m just getting to the point. Don’t waste time telling people that you’re gonna get to the point, just get to the point by using the phrase, the reason, the reason I’m calling is, and then here’s step three, and this is where their magic happens. If you’ve never done this before, this will sound different to you. But this is different because this is not what most people do which is one of the reasons why it works. Okay? And here, here’s what I want you to do. Talk about who not what.
RV (14:24):
In other words, don’t talk about what you’re selling. Don’t talk about what company you are from. Talk about who are the kind of people you talk to. Alright? So I’ll say that again, don’t talk about what, talk about who are the kind of people you talk to. And we’re gonna do this in two ways. We’re gonna first start generally, and then we’re gonna be specific. And when you talk about who not what, this is the magic. And, and if there is a secret trick to great cold calling to it to oring, it is this, it is talking about who not what. Now, I wanna let you know, like there’s no ultimate secret here. A lot of this is just a numbers game. A lot of this is you’re just gonna deal with rejection. A lot of this is you have to just do hundreds and hundreds and thousands of thousands of calls until you get comfortable doing this kind of a thing.
RV (15:14):
But if there’s a secret, if there is a, if there’s a magic strategy, a magic technique that will tip the odds in your favor, it is talking about who not what. And there’s two types of who. There’s the general and the specific. Okay? So let’s, let’s talk about the general. So I’ll say, the reason I’m calling is because I am the one talking to all of the, and then usually I will insert the job title, and then I will insert like the, the area, the geographic region. So when I was knocking on doors when I was in college, I would say I’m the one talking with all the moms, with students here in the blankety blank school district or with students here in, you know, whatever, Nashville, Tennessee, or Brentwood or Davidson County. I would say, I am talking to the who. This is super powerful.
RV (16:05):
I mean, I’m telling you this works in all different scales, all different environments. So when I was selling enterprise software solutions, I would say, Hey, I’m the one talking with all the IT directors for all the, all the large, you know, software companies or all the, all the companies based here in Cherry Creek, Colorado, for example. So I would say the who, the job title in the region, like the geographic region. You could also say in an industry. So if you’re calling by verticals in industry, right? You could say, you know, I’m the one talking with all the, all the, you know, mortgage bankers here in the western United States, but make the geographic region, the more specific, the more terrific. So, so narrow the region or narrow the industry as much as you can. And because it shows credibility, and it, it shows, it shows specificity, which is what you want.
RV (16:56):
Because you what, here’s what happens psychologically when they hear that you are talking to all the IT directors for all the companies in Cherry Creek, Colorado, or all the moms in the Davidson County School District. Or if, if I’m calling to sell, you know, a keynote speech, I might say, I’m talking to all the event coordinators for all the companies who have events in Orlando. Now it shifts from who are you? ’cause I’ve just said, who am I? This is what I’m doing. And it shifts to them asking the question, am I the right fit? Right? So the it, it turns their focus psychologically from who, who are you? I don’t know if I like you. What are you doing? And all this sort of like sales resistance to am I the right person that you’re trying to reach? And that’s good because we want them to be thinking about themselves.
RV (17:47):
All of sales is about that. All of sales is getting them to shift the focus away from you as the salesperson and onto them and their situation and their needs. And so by letting them know who are the kind of people that you’re talking to, then you’re, you’re more likely to create a connection with them. Or they might say, oh, that’s not me, and that’s great. So we just saved the whole conversation. They can put you in touch with, with the right person. So lead with the who and say the job title from the geographic industry or, or the geographic region, or say the job title of people in this industry, or whatever vertical or territory that you are working in terms of whatever your sales territory is. Okay? That’s what we wanna see. So that’s the general, and it immediately has them going, am I qualified?
RV (18:35):
Like, am I the right person? Am I, am I the right candidate? And that shifts the focus off of you, the salesperson, and on to them, which is what we want. We want the whole conversation, the whole relationship to, to not be focused on you, but on them and their needs. So I’ll say, Hey, Lisa, this is Rory, and don’t worry, you and I haven’t had a chance to meet yet, but the reason I’m calling is because I’m the one talking with all the IT directors for all the small businesses right here in Cherry Creek, Colorado. Now notice how I’m, I’m, I’m narrowing down to the job title. I’m saying the small businesses. So this is like business type and the geographic region. You wanna use as many of those qualifiers as you can when you do this because you want to check and you’re going to use the criteria that they will relate to, right?
RV (19:23):
You want them to, you want them to go, Ooh, I am an IT director of a small business in Cherry Creek, Colorado. That is how you, you, you’re gaining momentum. Now notice all of it’s happening in their mind. That’s all, all of sales is communication, it’s human behavior, it’s psychology. So most of the conversation is, is happening in their mind. And that’s what we’re designing this to in a way to make it comfortable for them. This isn’t about magically squeezing your way past them or manipulating them. This is putting them in a state of psychological comfort. It is helping them self-identify quickly are, is this a conversation worth having? So, hi, is it Lisa? Hi Lisa, this is Rory. And you and I haven’t had a chance to meet yet, but the reason I’m calling is that I’m talking with all the IT directors of the small businesses in the Cherry Creek, Colorado area.
RV (20:16):
That’s the opening, that’s the general who. Now I’m gonna follow up with the specific who and the specific who is, I’m going to use examples of the other people that I’m talking with. So I’m going to use the names of our preferably clients, okay? Now, typically, you know, there’s some logistical details here and some legal implications in, in certain scenarios in certain industries. So one of the things you wanna do is get the permission to use the, the name, image and likeness of your clients. This is more of a contract thing. Or just at least ask ’em and say, Hey, do you mind if I let people know that we’re working together as I’m out introducing myself to other people, and you just ask for their permission? And you need that so that you can use it here. Now, if it’s your very first day and you don’t have any customers, you can delicately and carefully and specifically mention, these are people you’re talking to, they’re not clients.
RV (21:14):
As soon as you have clients, you wanna use the client’s names because the client’s names give you credibility because of the specificity. Even if they don’t know that person, they probably will know that company, or they will at least relate to the idea that it’s a similar type of person in a similar type of company, in a similar type of geographic region or a similar type of industry as the one they, as the one that they are in. And that gives you credibility, right? So you would ideally, and now if they recognize the clients or if then that’s, that’s a game changer. I mean, that is the secret sauce. That is the magic is if they recognize people that you’re working with. So get the permission to use their name, image, and likeness and use customers as soon as you can. In the beginning, if you don’t have customers, you can just say, share I’ve been talking with, but be very specific that you are.
RV (22:07):
Don’t imply that you’re working together. Just clarify. I’ve been talking to people that some of whom you may know, like so and so and so and so and so and so. But here’s the dynamic of this conversation. The whole dynamic is based on who, not what, who are the kind of people you’re talking to? Who are the kind of people you’ve been working with and, and who are the kind of people that you have relationships with? Notice you haven’t said what company you’re with, what it is that you’re selling. We’re trying to open a conversation based on who. And this is why in some of our other training videos, we talk about using tools like LinkedIn and things to help identify and know and, and have names and references of people that they actually will recognize because of the tools of modern day.
RV (22:52):
But let’s say you didn’t have any of those, you would say, hi, is it Lisa? Hey Lisa, my name is Rory and you and I actually haven’t had a chance to meet yet, but the reason that I’m calling you is because I’m the one talking with all the IT directors here in the Cherry Creek area who all work with small businesses. In fact, you might know some of the other IT directors I’ve been talking to by chance. Do you know Tom Williams over at x, y, Z company? Or maybe you, maybe you know Mike Lorenzo, or maybe you know Jim Johnson or maybe, you know and they may not recognize any of them, and that’s okay, but, but they might recognize the company names. And the more specific, the more terrific. So if you’re, if you’re, if you’re using names, like if your clients, if you actually have clients that are recognizable or they work for companies, you’re gonna gain a lot of traction in that way.
RV (23:44):
I wanna mention, don’t ever use a customer’s name if they don’t, if they tell you not to or anybody’s name, if they tell you not to, but you’re not doing this for you, you’re doing this for them. Why? Because this puts them at ease. This helps your prospect reduce their sales resistance. It helps them reduce this, this friction, this automatic no. And it allows us to have an honest conversation amongst friends, and it allows us to open up what hopefully will be a beautiful relationship. It might be a short relationship if it’s not a fit, but we’re shifting the focus away from me as this cold calling solicitor, and we’re shifting the conversation over to them and their needs by talking about who not what. So for more insights and information on the psychology of influence, make sure that you hit subscribe on my channel. Follow me here below. If you have a question, leave a comment. But this is what I’m spend my whole life studying on the four levels of influence. So I’ll hope you hit subscribe and check out some of our other videos.

Ep 554: How to Close More Free Call Sales with Ryan Lang

0:02
If you follow the Brand Builders Group methodology, either as a client or just someone who benefits from our free content, you know that our entire strategy that took us from zero to 8 figures is giveaway content for free.

0:18
Teach everything you know for free and bite sized chunks and small, you know, all random miscellaneous order and then invite people to request free calls with you and then offer those people a chance to enroll.

0:29
And that’s how we have become an Inc 5000 company.

0:33
Two years in a row, zero to 8 figures in five years worked with all these amazing celebrity clients.

0:37
Well, a big part of that conversation is what do you say on those free calls?

0:43
So if you do all that right and you drive the free calls, there is an art form to how to manage those free calls, what to say on them, what not to say, how to follow up with those people.

0:53
And the man that you’re about to learn from is somebody who has helped us tremendously in that area.

0:59
He’s actually helped us grow our conversion percentage between 10 to 15% consistently in that one metric ever since we started working together.

1:09
So originally he was a Brand Builders group client and then he became somebody that we recognize.

1:14
His expertise is specifically in the area of sales in human performance.

1:18
And we hired him and you’re about to meet him and we’re going to talk about some of the things that we did together that he helped us implement that moved our conversion percentage in a very, very positive direction in very, very short order.

1:33
So his name is Ryan Lang.

1:35
The company he is a part of, it’s called Empire Partners.

1:38
He’s the Co founder of that company.

1:39
He has coached lots of people in the area of sales and humor performance.

1:45
So in addition to working with me and AJ and our team at Brand Builders Group, he’s worked with Russ Ruffino, he’s worked with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the New York Yankees, Conoco Phillips.

1:56
He has been involved in corporate like divestitures of hundreds of millions of dollars.

2:01
He also has certifications from digital marketer, the Transformational Coaching Academy, and is just one of my favorite guys who actually talks sales and understands the right way to sell and the right way to service people.

2:14
Ryan Lang, welcome to the show, brother.

2:17
Oh, man, thank you.

2:18
I’m so excited to be here.

2:19
Listen, after that introduction, you set your expectations right above low and I’ll try to rise up to meet them.

2:27
Well, man, it, it’s been great working with you, in fact.

2:31
And it’s, it’s funny because you know, you know this and, and maybe people who are watching know, but like AJ and I, the first company we built was a sales training company.

2:42
And we have very specific philosophies about how to sell.

2:45
And, and people were hiring us to teach them how to close and teach their teams how to sell and get referrals.

2:52
And then we built brand Builders group.

2:54
Brand Builders group in many ways is more of a marketing organization.

2:58
We drive all warm leads.

3:01
And so we went from a world where all we did was train our team to make cold calls and outbound sales to driving inbound where our sales team is pretty much does exclusively free calls with people who already are at least somewhat aware of us.

3:17
And then we got sloppy with our own sales training and and sales conversion.

3:21
And we hired you and you moved the needle for us.

3:24
And our team loves you.

3:27
And yeah, so we’re just, so we’re so grateful to have you.

3:30
And I think I’d really love to hone in on how to have free calls, what to do on free calls and, and all the things around the free call to convert it to a customer because and this is we’re, we’re only teaching people to do what we’ve done and, and we’re only doing things that work.

3:52
So tell us first a little bit about how did you get started doing sales training specifically for like thought leaders and coaches and consultants?

4:01
Because that’s, that’s one area that you have a real depth, deep expertise.

4:05
It’s not just sales training, but like sales consulting for personal brand specifically.

4:10
Yeah.

4:11
So I, you know, I, I have a very deep background in sales and, and really I think I got my first job selling something when I was like 15 years old.

4:20
Like you, you know, very, very, very deep background in sales.

4:23
And I’ve sold all kinds of things from things that are very cheap to literally things, you know, that are we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars.

4:31
And when I transitioned, I, I had AI was, you know, Co founder and, and, and part of a, an 8 figure business in the energy energy industry and walked away from that partnership after many years.

4:44
And after I walked away and I, I decided to get into the coaching space, I realized very quickly that I wanted to learn how to do this over the Internet.

4:54
This is around 2015.

4:55
So we’re, there was still a lot of things in terms of selling online and, and you know, funnels and all of that stuff that we’re still newish at that time.

5:05
And I knew that I had to kind of figure that out.

5:08
Well, I got my **** kicked as a coach for the first two years and I finally went out and hired somebody to help me with both.

5:18
I thought it was just my marketing.

5:19
I wasn’t even thinking about sales.

5:21
Once I would get somebody in person, most of the time I could figure it out, I could close the deal, but I didn’t understand how to market.

5:28
And I, I hired a group to help me do my marketing and in that as part of it was a sales training.

5:35
And the interesting thing was Rory, that I, I literally did everything that they said and completely ignored the sales training.

5:45
Like 100%.

5:46
I was like, just give me this funnel stuff.

5:48
Just give me that.

5:50
You get somebody on my phone, I’ll close the deal.

5:53
And but I, you know, I had what I, you know, what I’ve kind of determined is sometimes the kiss of death in sales is that the first high ticket sales call that I got for my coaching business, I closed.

6:06
And so now I think I’m Johnny closer here, you know, and I’m like, I knew it, you know, just get me the leads and I’m going to crush this.

6:15
And I went over for like, I don’t like 3-4 months and I’m spending money on ads and I’ve got leads coming in the door and I’m not closing anything.

6:25
And eventually I got to a point where my financial situation got so bad that I had to, you know, I had to kind of slow things down.

6:34
And so when I did that, I, I went back to doing some consulting and oil and gas and kind of decided for myself at that point that I was going to not just master sales, that I was going to put away everything I knew and figure out how to master this type of sales specifically.

6:52
And so I, I went to work with the training that I had at that time.

6:56
I did some work and then eventually I, I helped a couple of friends with, with their sales.

7:03
I knew a lot of coaches and several of whom were, you know, very successful.

7:08
We’re struggling with their sales teams.

7:09
And I ended up being able to come in the door and close at, you know, 4050%, which is kind of unheard of.

7:16
And some of the types of sales that we think and talk about.

7:19
And eventually I, you know, ended up working for clients on demand and Rustrofino and my, my mentor in this type of sale, Mark von Muser, you know, I, I basically just said, look, I’m going to empty my cup.

7:34
Rather you fill it up and I will eat, sleep and breathe this every day.

7:40
And I did that for like a year and a half was the only thing.

7:43
I mean, I literally shut off all content.

7:45
I didn’t listen to anything.

7:46
I didn’t read anything.

7:47
I just ate, slept and breathe this all day long.

7:50
And that was kind of the beginning of what eventually became coaching people on sales.

7:56
And so these organizations, so like you mentioned, Russ Rufina, right?

7:59
Like these, these organizations in this model of driving free calls and selling a high dollar offers.

8:08
Yep.

8:09
Would you say that that model works in terms of growing companies that are really significant in terms of their revenue?

8:17
No question, no question it is.

8:25
There are a lot of people that believe that a lot of things have to happen before somebody lands on a sales call and, or discovery call and, and you then sell them into, you know, a high ticket offer.

8:37
And for those that don’t, you know, that aren’t familiar with the terminology, we’re probably talking about anything north of, you know, $3000 or something like that.

8:47
And not only does it, not only do I believe it’s effective, but I’ve watched it work and I’ve worked it through multiple organizations.

8:56
And my partner, Brooke, exactly the same with his work with Tony Robbins and Brian Bufini and John Asfrith, you know, that was the model for every single one of them.

9:10
So let’s talk about so, so where do the free calls come from?

9:14
So let’s start there because I’d love to just kind of like walk through the, the, the, the, the process.

9:20
So you mentioned ads, but like walk me through in these different organizations, including ours.

9:26
So feel free to like talk about what, what you see, what we do since you’re, you’re got, you know what, you’re behind the curtain here at Brand Builders group too, of like, where do the leads come from?

9:36
Where the best places for leads to come from?

9:39
Are there certain places that convert better or worse or you know, are are warmer or colder, etcetera?

9:46
And let’s just talk about that, that component or piece of it.

9:53
So there are a couple of different places that that the leads can come from when you when you drive them to a call.

10:00
So, for example, you know, the the Russ Ruffino’s model was you know that he kind of made famous was Facebook ad to landing page to webinar to call that that was that was the funnel that that can work.

10:19
The main key component.

10:22
There is something that warms the the the person up because I I need a reason to want to jump on your calendar, right.

10:30
So in the case of a brand builders, you’ve done an amazing job with, you know, getting people warm to your message and what brand builders does through the podcast that you’ve been on.

10:42
And so, you know, you’ve been able to drive leads direct to count at brand builders through, you know, through podcasts, you basically have the opportunity to rent authority and then you deliver like crazy, which is awesome.

11:00
You deliver a ton of value.

11:01
People get a lot out of it.

11:02
And they go, holy crap, if this is what I got out of this podcast, what happens if I end up working with this guy and his team?

11:09
And we can do that through a pod.

11:12
You know, in your case, it’s a podcast that’s got fantastic reach.

11:16
We can also do that through really, really good quality lead magnets brand builders, for example, has got an amazing study on personal branding, which is insanely valuable and very, very compelling information that can drive people to a call.

11:34
We can also, if you know it for those people that have done a lot of legwork ahead of time and have built up a good following in a good audience, you can also do that, you know, directly through e-mail marketing where, you know, we deliver a lot of value to somebody for a while, great content on social or via e-mail.

11:55
And then giving people an opportunity where we kind of describe what it is maybe that they’re wanting or describe what it is their pain points are.

12:03
And if they’d like to fix it.

12:04
Listen, we’d love to jump on a call and see if it would be a fit for us to work together and help you past your your problems to the dream that you really want to get to.

12:12
Yeah.

12:13
And that’s, it’s, it’s interesting because if when I sit back and I look at like, OK, here’s Russ Ruffino or Tony Robbins or Brian Buffini or, you know, like Tom Perry is one of our friends.

12:28
Like the thing that all of these have in common is you initiate attention, then you add a lot of value, then you offer a free call.

12:43
And whether you initiate that attention on social media or a podcast or an ad or speaking as another place where we drive a lot of leads, right?

12:51
Anytime, anytime I’m out speaking, I speak a lot.

12:54
So we drive leads.

12:55
We drive leads from that or even referrals, but even when people give us referrals, even when a referral comes in, we we give them a lead magnet and we try to make them watch something or do something before they get on, even though they’re already warm.

13:11
It’s like we really try to make sure that they consume some of our content before the call so that if they show up for that call, we know they know who we are, what we do, they trust us.

13:23
They’ve gotten value.

13:25
Sort of the law of reciprocity is set in motion and sort of tipped in our favor because we’ve already added so much value to people and it and that includes and that includes this podcast, right?

13:36
Like everything we’re doing is like, we’re just trying to give so much value to people that they go exactly what he said.

13:42
If I’ve learned this much for free, what how much would I get if I actually went through this like formal program?

13:49
So I love that.

13:50
And you’re, you’re saying that in general that those principles kind of apply across the board with the different companies you’ve seen that have been successful doing this.

14:01
No question, each of them did it in a slightly different way, but there was always some way to build familiarity.

14:10
And, and, and also, you know, you, you are a master at really helping people as, as really or just about everybody else that you mentioned.

14:20
They’re masters at helping people understand that there is a mindset shift that they have to make between who they are and where they are now and who they want to be and where they want to go in some way, shape or form.

14:35
There’s a mindset shift that has to be made.

14:38
And that’s one of the commonalities that I’ve really noticed, Rory, is that whether it’s a lead magnet or a great webinar or a podcast or a phenomenal speaking engagement, the, the best of the best have have the ability to get somebody to think to themselves, Oh gosh, that’s not what I thought.

15:00
It’s actually different than what I thought.

15:02
Well, what do I do then?

15:04
How, how do I make this happen?

15:05
If it’s not what I thought, then what is it?

15:08
And then, you know, if you get the what, then you need to know the how.

15:11
And, and that’s where your free call comes in.

15:14
You know, you can give them the what And then, you know, the, the free call is the, the, the gateway to the how.

15:20
Yeah, I love that.

15:22
That’s so, that’s so good.

15:23
I don’t even know that I’ve consciously thought about it that way.

15:26
But but we even teach in our sales training in BBG that sales is all about the gap.

15:31
It’s the gap between where they are and where they want to be.

15:34
And you got to be able to paint that future and then also help them realize without offending them that like they’re not there.

15:41
And then that gap is basically what they buy is going like, oh, if you can help me close that gap.

15:45
So I, I, I love that.

15:47
So, so let’s say someone requests a free call.

15:50
What should happen to increase conversions between the moment when someone requests a free call and when they show up for the free call?

16:01
Like so now let’s just say we got the lead comes in the person requests the call, there’s a whole window there.

16:09
What are some of those things that need to happen inside of between that moment and when you’re on the phone with the client?

16:15
This is such a great question and one of the reasons why is that most people don’t even think about it.

16:22
They’re just excited, right?

16:24
They’re just excited that somebody landed on their calendar and it’s like, oh great, they’re going to get on my phone.

16:30
But they’re absolutely are ways to increase conversion and part of it in, in some cases, we’ve seen a lot of efficacy with like a really good solid application.

16:46
You know, that that almost feels like a a bit of a homework assignment for them.

16:51
You know, prior to the call where you get to learn a bit about them, they’ve got to spend a little bit of time digging in on maybe what’s not working, what they really want, what they’ve tried in the past, those kinds of things that can be very helpful.

17:07
Most people think that applications are are just for the salesperson.

17:11
Now all of a sudden, you know, all the things that are going to help you close the deal.

17:15
It’s actually very helpful in the, when you do it right, very helpful in the context of the potential client because they’ve got to spend a moment thinking about like, OK, what isn’t working?

17:26
What do I really want?

17:28
What is kind of sucking for me right now?

17:31
So that’s one thing.

17:32
The other thing is making sure that you’ve got really good, solid, ample notifications.

17:37
So, you know, that can come through, you know, your calendaring platform like Callan Lee or any of the other ones have got very good, you know, notifications.

17:48
It’s through e-mail as well.

17:50
Just letting people know.

17:51
I mean, I think we take for granted, Rory, that that, you know, we’re not the only busy ones in the world, but we get awfully offended when people don’t show up to sales calls.

18:02
And if we haven’t taken the time to try to remind them that they’ve got a sales call, then we don’t really have any reason to get offended.

18:09
So that’s one small simple step.

18:11
And then lastly, I would say anything that you can send them, you were talking about kind of the resources to get people warmed up and anything that you can send them that will, you know, help them understand more about, you know, either a, what they’re struggling with, you know, the the types of solutions that you provide a client testimonials are phenomenal things to send before people get on a sales call instead of after, which is what most people do.

18:41
Any of that kind of stuff is really good.

18:43
And I would say that if you can, automation is wonderful.

18:46
You and I both love automation, but one of the things that I think is a lost art in the world of sales is personalization.

18:54
We’re so quick to automate everything that when you get a prospective client, if you can do what I would, you know, if you can take some steps that I would call, you know, pro moves, you do a little bit of research, find out who they are, look at their application, what industry are they in, what are they struggling with?

19:12
And then try to send them some things that are curated.

19:15
Send them one of your podcasts that you know what is going to resonate with them.

19:19
Send them a client testimonial that somebody that they would identify with, you’re going to be so far ahead by the time they get on, you know, your phone by that point, drastically increasing the chances that you’re actually going to get to help them.

19:33
Yeah, that’s so good.

19:35
It’s such a simple thing you can do, right?

19:37
And it’s like you read their application and you send them a note.

19:39
Hey, I saw you were struggling with this.

19:42
Here is one of our free podcasts or one of your vlogs or an or 62nd Instagram Reel.

19:47
Like here’s a link to a reel.

19:49
You should check this out.

19:51
You know, can’t wait to talk, you know, more like that’s that’s, that’s really, really good.

19:59
The next thing I want to ask you about is the free call itself.

20:03
What is the best way to position this free call?

20:07
And the reason I asked this question is because nobody wants to show up as a consumer as to a sales call and just sit there and be sold the whole time.

20:17
But if the company offers it as a free call.

20:22
Then people go, oh, I’ll just take advantage of this free call.

20:25
And they have, they’ve got, no, they’ve got no psychological orientation towards making a decision.

20:33
So how, how do we strike the balance?

20:36
And what is that balance between making the call valuable for someone even if they don’t buy, not making it a not making it a sales pitch, but creating conversions and also making it valuable for the client, but not just wasting your team’s time?

20:52
Like how do you find that balance in both what it’s called and what you do on the call?

20:58
And like, how long are these calls and what percentage of the time is like adding value to the client versus telling them about the program?

21:07
But this is so important.

21:09
And what it starts with is framing, which is one of my favorite subjects in sales in general.

21:16
And most people think that framing happens when you get into an engagement, but actually happens before the engagement ever even starts.

21:24
So to your point, what, what, what a lot of people do is when they offer a free call, they’re so concerned that that that people are going to run from the idea of, you know, a sales call or actually talking about, you know, doing business together, that they go heavy on the free.

21:40
And often times in their copy or when they’re explaining it in a video, it’s free, free, free, free, free, free, free or or worse, they say, you know, come to a free coaching session.

21:52
That idea, because as you, as you mentioned it in that instance, you know, I’ve now given people the expectation that it’s it, it’s a free coaching session.

22:02
You’re going to get a lot of lucky lose.

22:04
You’re going to get a lot of looky loos and people that are coming on your call saying, Hey, I want you to fix my whole problem in the next hour.

22:12
So the first key is making sure that you position this in a way where you set a good frame for what’s going to happen.

22:21
You know, in sales, you and I know that we are always holding slightly different postures in a sales engagement and any kind of conversation and that begins with copy or, or how you’re inviting them to the call.

22:36
So just to, to, to give an example, the way that I like to kind of frame this up is I like to say things like, listen, Rory, so you know, we talk a little bit, we, you know, about a struggle or hate, you know, if, if, if anything that you read in this e-mail resonates with you, but I’d love to invite you to a free 45 minute discovery call.

22:58
Now on this call, we’re going to take some really serious time and deep dive on what’s not working for you right now.

23:05
And also really where you want to go.

23:08
And if I feel like I’m the right person to help you get there, we’ll talk about what that looks like.

23:13
If not, I promise I’m going to deliver you a ton of value and it’s going to be an incredibly valuable experience for you one way or the other.

23:21
If that sounds good, you know, book now there’s your copy.

23:24
By the way, if you’re, if you’re listening to this right now, you can go slap that in your landing page.

23:29
But, and we call that the pressure free promise.

23:31
By the way, also in, in our pressure free persuasion, we, we, we brand a technique called pressure free promise, which is to say, I’m going to give you a good look at this.

23:40
I’m going to learn about you.

23:41
You’re going to learn about us.

23:42
My job isn’t to talk you into buying anything.

23:45
My job is to help us to figure out if we have a match, if we’re a good fit, I’ll show you how we can work together.

23:51
If we’re not, that’s totally OK.

23:54
And just letting people have permission to say no really makes them comfortable enough to where they might actually say yes.

24:05
And that’s such a simple thing to do that takes pressure off of you as a salesperson and pressure off of off of them as a prospect.

24:13
And it’s you can do it in writing, you can do it with your words, you can do it, you can do it five times during the conversation.

24:20
But that’s really important.

24:21
And I like that was one of the things that when I think back to your time helping us when you started, like listening to our sales teams calls as you were, like, they’re not framing the conversation properly on the front end that there is the potential that a buying a purchase decision will happen on this call.

24:44
They’re saving it.

24:45
They’re saving it until the very end.

24:47
And then sort of springing it on someone and dropping in their lap like, So what do you think?

24:52
You want to work together?

24:53
And it’s like, that’s not a good framing.

24:56
That’s like dropping it in their lap at the end.

24:58
And they’re like, I don’t know what to do with this.

24:59
Like the objections come and I remember you’re like the team is not teeing it up properly on the beginning of the call, saying exactly what you just said, like, hey, we’re going to these are the things we’re going to do on this call.

25:13
It’s going to be valuable for you one way or the other.

25:17
If we can work together, I’ll show you how to do that.

25:19
If not, that’s OK too.

25:21
But you know, let’s have this and see if we can partner with you to get to the next level.

25:26
That that initial framing and that the first few minutes of the call and in the copy coming up in the video going leading into it is really been key.

25:36
That man, it’s it that that it is so important because what, what what I found at the very beginning, and by the way, this is what I’ve listened to literally thousands of sales calls in in this type of engagement.

25:51
And this is what most of them sound like.

25:53
It’s like, you know, somebody shows up and we go through the rigmarole about, Hey, how about that weather?

25:59
You know, man, Denver’s really awesome this time of year kind of thing.

26:02
And I think I’m building rapport.

26:04
And then comes the question.

26:05
And it’s something like, well, so tell me what’s going on and which leads to, you know, vomit, as I like to say, they vomit on you for like the next 10 or 15 minutes.

26:18
Your call, your call is way off track.

26:21
And worse yet, we think that we’re going to build rapport then as we go along by by, you know, relating to them.

26:29
Oh yeah, you know what?

26:30
I’ve been there.

26:31
Oh, I totally get it, you know, and, and sharing experiences.

26:35
And to your point, what happens is that we turn it into what I call a bro call.

26:40
Now all of a sudden I’m having I’m having a coffee chat with a friend and I get to the end of the coffee chat and I drop, you know, some kind of eight figure hammer on that person and they go, whoa, Rory, hold on a second here.

26:55
I thought we were friends, You know, I mean, and and so the frame it, it, it starts in your marketing, in your copy, and then it has to happen again at the beginning of the call where you set expectations.

27:09
Now one of the other key pieces too is that when you set the proper expectations at the beginning of the call, we talked so much in sales about building trust and an old school sales, you think that you build trust through ridiculous conversation at the beginning of the call and it’s not.

27:25
So one of the key ways that we build trust inside of a sales engagement is keeping our promises.

27:32
And when we set up the call in a certain way, and then we run the call in exactly that way, internally, they’re going, oh, he said he was going to do it like this.

27:43
And that’s exactly what he did.

27:45
You know, this is exactly what they told me it was going to be.

27:48
That’s that builds trust.

27:51
That’s so good.

27:53
And, and so would you say that the to delineate and to differentiate from the like bro call to the like helpful consultative decision making session?

28:07
Is that frame in the beginning?

28:09
And it’s, it’s just that what you said earlier, it’s just like, hey, here’s what’s going to happen today.

28:13
We’re going to cover these things.

28:16
And at the end of the call, I’ll share with you what it might look like for us to partner together.

28:21
And if you like it, great.

28:22
And if not, that’s OK too.

28:23
Is that basically the, the key to that?

28:27
That is, that’s the basic idea.

28:30
That’s the basic idea.

28:31
We, we take it as, you know, a little bit further by basically also just acknowledging that we were, we may need to dive deep on the call and, and asking permission to do so, which is also really key.

28:47
That’s another big problem that happens is that, you know, we hear a lot like, oh, you got to tell clients the honest truth and you got to be willing to, you know, call them out on their stuff and all the things.

28:58
Well, if you haven’t asked permission for that, try that out and see how that goes.

29:03
You know, you need a frame in front of that as well.

29:06
So that’s one little nuance that we kind of add in.

29:09
And then what do you cover on the call and how long should these calls go?

29:13
Yeah, great question.

29:15
So in the call in general, like loosely speaking, the the you know, we’ve got kind of our framing process.

29:22
And then then the next piece of the puzzle is, is discovery where we’re going to start by, you know, asking some some pointed questions.

29:30
Every person business offer is slightly different on that front.

29:34
When we talk about BBG, we, you know, we, we’ll ask somebody like, Hey, tell us a little bit about, you know, what’s not working and creating your personal brand right now, you know, something like that or, you know, what’s kind of the struggle in your personal brand that that brought you to the call.

29:53
And from there we, we go through a discovery process where we ask a whole lot of questions about, you know, what, what’s the, what’s the biggest challenge they’re currently facing?

30:04
How is that impacting them?

30:07
If that challenge were remedied, what would, what would it look like?

30:10
What you know, what’s kind of the dream?

30:12
How long has it been going on?

30:14
You know, etcetera, etcetera, things like that.

30:17
What I’m really looking for there is I’m looking to establish, you know, duration of, of the problem.

30:25
I’m also looking to establish frequency.

30:27
How often are they thinking about this?

30:29
Is this something that comes up for them often?

30:32
Is it a priority for them right now?

30:33
And also, I’m, I’m looking for intensity, you know, where else in their life is, is this maybe showing up if they’re really struggling with something, is it showing up in their relationships?

30:44
Are they, you know, is it showing up in, in their health, etcetera, etcetera.

30:48
So we go through that discovery process where we really understand more about the human being, the struggle, the dream.

30:55
And then once we get specifics on that, and I do want to use that word very intentionally, you have such a wonderful saying that, you know, the more specific, the more terrific and and never is that more true than in this part of the call.

31:08
If you lack specifics in the discovery phase of the call, you will fall short at the end.

31:15
So we want specifics.

31:16
And then, you know, from that piece, we kind of go into sharing it it if it feels like a fit at that point.

31:22
And this is a big key, you know, one of the things we’re so in alignment, you and I, on our philosophies about selling.

31:29
And I think we both believe very strongly that in order for us to say yes to helping someone, we have to believe wholeheartedly that we can do that.

31:37
So the discovery process is not just to learn more about the pain in the dream, but also to understand, can we help this person?

31:45
And do we want to help this person?

31:47
Is this the right fit for us?

31:49
Once we figure that out, we can kind of go through the, the solution portion of the call and the solution that was one of the other keys really in, in the increase of conversion rate.

32:02
You have I, I’ve told you this before and I’m going to say it again on air you, your frameworks are the are, are the, I think they’re the best in the world.

32:11
I think they’re bet they’re better than anybody else’s that I’ve ever known.

32:14
They’re phenomenal.

32:17
And we have a team of people at Brand Builders on our sales team that knows the, the, the these programs really well.

32:24
Several of them have experienced them.

32:27
And what was happening at the end of those calls at the beginning was that they were just, they were sharing the whole shooting match.

32:34
And it’s big, like the Brand Builders journey is, is is huge.

32:39
So they were sharing a lot and then giving a lot of options at the end.

32:44
And so that’s one of the other big keys is that once we get to the portion about the solution, we want to be very refined about the way we deliver it.

32:53
If at all possible, you want to try to take the pieces of your solution or your program that actually apply to the struggles that are having and perfectly match those and then offer them one option.

33:06
Even if you have multiple options at at the end of the deal, steer them towards one option and and leave something as a backup.

33:15
Because you know, as we all know in sales, the, you know, the confused mind doesn’t buy.

33:21
And that’s one of the big keys to finishing the whole thing strong.

33:25
And ideally, if you can complete one of these calls in 45 minutes, that’s rock solid.

33:32
What we usually like to do is to leave about an hour so that if somebody has any, what most people would call objections and we call limiting beliefs at the end of the call, then we’ve got 15 minutes to torpedo those and and hopefully we can move on within an hour.

33:48
Yeah, that that’s so good.

33:50
The, the one thing to add in there to, to kind of connect what you said earlier, like you, you talked about permission where you, you said early in the framing, do I have, do I have your permission to, to dig deep and to really get real with you?

34:09
That’s so powerful there.

34:11
And then I’ve also seen where you ask for that same the transition from the discovery portion of the call into the solution is also a permission conversation.

34:23
It’s almost like, as I’m saying this out loud, I’ve never actually realized this, but just as we’re talking you, you’ve got like the framing portion, the discovery portion and the solution portion.

34:36
And it seems almost like permission is the transition between each of those.

34:40
So the first, the first permission is do I have permission to dig deep, which sets up the stage for discovery and then asking their permission at the end of discovery.

34:49
Like if I’m reading you right, it, it seems like you’re very serious about this.

34:55
You know, would you be open minded if I share with you how our program works?

34:59
Like, do you want to hear how our program works?

35:02
Do you want to know what it would look like to work together?

35:05
Like, do I have your permission to share?

35:06
That is like it’s, it’s a, it’s a first, yes, it’s building, yes, momentum.

35:12
And it’s a really elegant transition and also a psychological powerful moment for them to go.

35:17
Yeah, I I do want to at least hear about the program.

35:21
If they say yes to that, it seems like they’re much more likely to like they’re much further along the buying line 100%.

35:30
And and it, it’s so true that that really is yet another permission frame.

35:36
And it’s basically to say, you know, we kind of the way we structure it as we do a little bit of a mini recap where we just kind of say, wow, Rory, all right, it seems like, you know, you’re struggling with AB and C right now.

35:47
I and, and really it’s affecting you here and what you really want is to be able to this.

35:53
Listen, if, if I could show you a way that that would help you remedy those challenges, would it be something that you’d be interested in hearing about right now?

36:02
You know, and, and if we think about this, this just goes back to good human communication.

36:09
I’ve now demonstrated, we talked about trust.

36:12
I’m now demonstrated to somebody that I’m present, I’m listening.

36:15
I’ve paid well enough attention to really understand the struggle and what, you know, what they really want, if at all possible.

36:22
I’ve given that back to them in their own words, which makes it even more powerful.

36:28
And then I’m saying, listen, if that’s really what it is, if I could show you something that would help you fix that and get where you really want to go, It’s not would you buy it?

36:37
That’s a key distinction.

36:39
As you said, it’s not would you buy it or can we do business together?

36:42
It’s can I just share something with you it, you know, if I believe it would help you pass these problems.

36:48
You know, if we’re having a good interaction at this point, the chances you’re going to get a no, there are slim to none.

36:56
It’s a, it really is a very elegant, elegant way.

36:59
And people feel good about that.

37:01
They’re going Oh my gosh, yeah, wow.

37:03
I mean, I just had to tell you everything that’s sucking.

37:06
I want out of the suck.

37:07
How do I get out of that yes, please tell me.

37:10
You know it’s also it’s like they’re asking to be shown the program versus just you dropping it on them and asking for a sale.

37:21
Like having that intermittent yes, right there is really important for them, for them and for you, because if they say no there, it’s like this is like conversation is over.

37:30
Like if they say no to that, they’re not going to, they’re not going to randomly say yes to a sale later.

37:35
So I think that’s that’s really, really cool.

37:39
The inside a brand builders group.

37:43
We we teach some sales training, pressure free persuasion.

37:46
We talked about the nine ways to close.

37:48
I want to talk about, I want to hear some of your philosophies on closing before we do that.

37:52
We only have a couple minutes left.

37:54
The if, if you all want to learn more from Ryan, like if you and I would say if you have a business, if you’ve got a business where you’ve got sales people doing free calls and you’re like, man, I need some support to come in and just like coach my sales team, work with them, listen to them or just get, you know, sales training in general.

38:15
Like I cannot recommend Ryan enough.

38:18
Like there are so few people we trust with this.

38:20
We know a lot about this space.

38:22
It takes a lot for us to hire someone to go, yeah, we’re philosophically aligned and we believe we’ve got stuff to learn from this person in this space.

38:30
And that is Ryan.

38:31
If you e-mail [email protected] and just put Ryan Lang in the subject line and then just kind of say, hey, we’d love to be connected.

38:41
We will connect you directly to Ryan because we recommend him as as one of our implementation partners and specifically are the implementation partner on this area.

38:49
Like if you’ve got a coaching business, so you got free, if you’ve got free calls coming in, selling anything, you got to work together.

38:57
So check that out.

38:59
Obviously inside of our curriculum, we have some sales training.

39:04
We talked about the nine different categories of closing questions.

39:08
I’d love to hear from you, Ryan, just a couple like 2 minutes on how to bring the call gracefully to a close, you know, and ask for the business.

39:18
If you’ve framed this right, you’ve gotten permission to go deep, you’ve done discovery, you’ve gotten permission to show them a solution.

39:27
You show them one specific solution option.

39:29
How do we wrap this up and actually turn this free call into dollars in the bank account and A and a changed life?

39:36
Yes.

39:38
So I, I think the very first thing that I, that I want to give someone on this call right now is that before we even dive into the tactical what to say, certainty sales is about transference always your energy and how you show up is going to transfer on your sales call and certainty is.

40:02
Of the utmost importance in this part of the call.

40:06
And so I would say First things first, you need to make sure that your delivery of your offer is buttoned up, that it is clear and concise and that you are extremely confident in being able to deliver it.

40:20
If you haven’t practiced it, practice it.

40:23
Do some repetitions, borrow some friends and family, go in the mirror, whatever you got to do, record yourself doing it and then play it back and listen and go, man, am I, Does that feel certain?

40:34
Does that feel confident?

40:36
Because that beyond the words is the single most important thing at the end of the call.

40:41
The next thing is make sure that you’re you don’t get cute with your pricing.

40:47
So one of the other ways that we can confuse buyers at the end of the calls, we can offer them one thing and then we can come up with nine different ways that we’re pricing it, you know, or it’s $12137.43.

41:03
Don’t confuse people with the pricing at the end of it.

41:06
Make it very, very simple for them to say yes.

41:10
And the, the, the last piece that I would say as it relates to kind of, you know, a closing question is I really like to present people, while my, while my program offering may be the same, I do like from a pricing standpoint, one of the things that Brooke and I teach is, is just the same way that you guys do it at, at Brand Builders is to have a monthly option and an annual option.

41:38
If you’ve got some sort of a subscription, if you have two different payment options, I really like that because I’m not just saying, Hey, do you want to buy it?

41:47
I’m going.

41:47
So, you know, I’m explaining the solution and then I’m going to go and, and Roy.

41:52
So basically at this point, I’m going to keep this simple.

41:55
Notice my, my, my phrasing and my languaging.

41:58
Rory, at this point, the only thing left to do is, is, is just answer one simple question.

42:04
And that’s basically, you know, which option works best for you.

42:07
Is it the monthly option or is it the annual option?

42:11
And how can I support you?

42:13
This is something I learned from my mentor that I love.

42:15
How can I support you in getting to super awesome goal and getting out of, you know, super suck and that at the end of it is really, really powerful because I’ve now taken my my price and don’t use that word, by the way, use the word investment.

42:33
We like that word better, but I’m not taking my investment and I’ve linked it to the pain in the dream.

42:41
We all, you know, those of us have been sales for a long time.

42:45
Know that price without context is always expensive, and in this case, it’s it’s especially true.

42:51
I don’t like to just leave the price out there dangling.

42:54
Most people will go, OK, so Rory, you know, it’s $10,000 and then they just sit there.

43:02
So give them an option a Rory, you know, the, the investment is the investment is 10K and you can either do the pay in full where you know, you actually save two months and you can pay us 8.

43:12
Or if you want to do it monthly, it’s it’s 1000.

43:15
You know, it’s, it’s $800 a month or 900.

43:17
I can’t do the math 809 hundred a month, whatever it is.

43:21
So give them that’s a really important nuance, though, of like it’s 11 program option, but two payment options so that it’s not a yes or no at the end, it’s a this or that, it’s a this or that.

43:34
You know that that’s really good.

43:36
That’s really, that’s really good, man.

43:38
Well, Ryan, this, this was a master class.

43:40
Like literally when I tell people our podcast is worth just the content we give away on our podcast is worth millions of dollars.

43:48
This conversation literally is worth millions of dollars to the person who puts it into practice.

43:54
We’ve been the beneficiaries of that.

43:55
Like it, it, it can at least be 10s of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a couple years if you just implement the few things on this call.

44:07
So you’ve been so generous with that.

44:09
We’re so grateful for you.

44:11
We, we proudly recommend you because we, we, we formally were in the world of sales training.

44:17
We are no longer in the world of sales training.

44:19
So we push those, we push those people enthusiastically over to you specifically in this space.

44:25
You’ve been nothing but honest and had integrity and focus and most of all, service centeredness.

44:31
Like, at the end of the day, we just don’t believe in selling things to people that they don’t need or it won’t really help them.

44:37
And we don’t care how fancy the sales tactics are.

44:39
If it’s not going to help someone, we don’t sell it to them.

44:41
And I know you share that philosophy with us, brother.

44:44
So what an honor to have you and to work with you.

44:47
And man, we’re just cheering for you.

44:49
We wish you all the best, Rory.

44:51
Thank you and thank you number one for having me on the podcast and and also thank you for your trust.

44:57
It means such a great deal to me that you and AJ have have entrusted me to take care of your team and you are a friend, a colleague and and I’m very grateful for the work that we get to do together.

45:11
Brother, my pleasure, man.

Ep 553: Speak for Free to Speak for Fee | Toni Collier Episode Recap

WATCH THE INTERVIEW LISTEN TO THE EPISODE BELOW Something our guest Toni Collier shared in a recent interview has really stuck with AJ. Toni said that if you want to build a speaking career, you need to be so passionate about it, so called to it, that you’d be willing to speak for free! In […]

Ep 547: What Most People Get Wrong About Personal Branding | Jamie Hess Episode Recap

Ep 543: How To Find Where Your Ideal Clients are Gathering | Michael Mogill Episode Recap

RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help Mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. Before you can sell to your clients, you have to find them , right? I mean, where do you find your ideal clients, both online and offline? This is an important question. If you know where they’re at, then you can go and be there and be, build relationships with them and get plugged in and then start doing business with them. But the question is, how and where do you find these people?
RV (01:01):
In this video, we’re gonna share with you the eight top ways to find where your perfect clients all hang out. Let’s dive in right away with number one. And the first one is, it should be where you hang out. It really should be, it should be all the places that you hang out. Why? One of our fundamental core beliefs at Brand Builders Group is that you are always most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. Which means that if you are building a personal brand, it should be built around people that you’re trying to help. The people that you are best suited to help and who you are most likely to make a lot of money from quickly are the people who are like you were a few years ago. That is who you’re most powerfully positioned to serve. It’s who you are most divinely equipped to help support, which means that those people should be you.
RV (02:00):
They should have been you maybe five or 10 years ago or something like that, right up front. If you’re having a hard time finding your ideal clients, then you might be serving the wrong avatar because that means you are trying to reach someone who you don’t fully understand. If you’ve done the rest of your personal brand strategy right, and you’ve had a good strategist from our team, or if you’re doing it yourself, you should be dialed in on these people because it should be you. So ask yourself that question. Where do you hang out? What are the, what are the magazines that you read? You know, what are the conferences that you go to? And, and you really should know those if you don’t. That brings us to number two, which is ask, ask your current clients where they hang out. Send them a survey, call them on the phone, shoot ’em a quick email, like when you see them at your, in your next encounter, just ask, Hey, what are the books that you read?
RV (02:59):
What are the magazines you subscribe to? What are the podcasts that you listen to? What are the conferences you go to? What associations are you involved with? Who do you follow? Like ask your current clients. Where are their favorite sources of media? And there’s lots of ways to ask. You could do that in person with a email, with a survey, et cetera, et cetera. But ask, it is one of the legitimate best ways to find new pockets where your clients might be hanging out that you’re just not aware of. So go ahead and ask. It’s super, super, super simple. Number three is follow other industry leaders. You should follow other industry leaders. One of the biggest mistakes that personal brands make is that they forget, in order to be a great teacher, you must first be a great student. So you should, again, you should be studying, you should be learning, you should be following other industry leaders or other leaders who are in your space, not ’cause you’re gonna copy them, not ’cause you’re gonna steal their stuff, because you’re gonna learn from them.
RV (04:02):
And because that’s gonna help shape you and, and, and help you understand your space. It’s gonna help you know what’s already been written. It’s gonna help you in order to forward the conversation, which is what a thought leader does. A thought leader forwards the conversation. You have to be in the conversation, right? You have to know what conversation is being had. So follow the other industry thought leaders, because they’re gonna point you to resources and talk about people and events and tools and media outlets and groups that you can be, you know, plugging into. And that’s gonna help, help you understand really quickly where those people are. Which brings us to number four, which is kind of related. It’s podcasts. You should be listening to the podcasts in your space, right? Like they’re going to interview and feature other guests who are world renowned leaders in, in your space.
RV (04:54):
Now, our goal here, right as we build your personal brand, is that one day we want you to be the guest, right? I mean, one day you’ll probably be the host first, and we want you to get interviews with those other people. And then one day we want you to become the guest where you are the expert thought leader. You are the most world renowned authority. You are, you know, the leading, recognized voice in your space, but you have to kind of know who those people are. And so listen to the podcast and this plugs into number five, which is search. Use the search, search for your topic, search for your space, search for your audience in each of the search functions, not just Google, but search in the YouTube search bar, search inside of Twitter, search inside of Facebook, search the terms on TikTok, search the actual terms, and that will introduce you to the leaders, the influencers, the movers and shakers.
RV (05:49):
And it’s gonna show you the groups, right? Search on LinkedIn and, and you search a topic like sales and all the top sales groups are gonna come up. They’re all right there, right? Someone has already gathered your audience. That’s the great thing is while you want, while you build an audience, you want to find existing audiences while you build your own audience, which is one of the things we’re super passionate about, is teaching you how to build your own audience while you’re building your own audience. You need to find existing audiences, and that’s what this whole video lesson is all about, right? So use the search feature. Relatedly is hashtags, which is number six. Hashtags are going to help you find your people. And, and if you’re following industry leaders pay attention when they use a hashtag, right? If you don’t know what a hashtag is, right, it’s just, it’s just the pound sign and then a word, right?
RV (06:42):
Like, you know, we sometimes use mis pound mission driven messengers. And so if you’re following brand builders group, that’s like one of the hashtags that our, our people youth, right? So you would, if you were following us, you would pay attention and go, oh, there’s other people who are following this, this type of a hashtag. You gotta know what are the top hashtags in your industry? Again, this tool that I’m gonna share with you at the end of this video is gonna do all of these for you. So make sure that you stick around. Number seven is Google Alerts. Google Alerts. Google Alerts is one of the oldest features of Google. A lot of people still don’t know about it, but it still works really, really well. You can actually take any term that you would ever type into a Google search bar, and you can set an alert for that term.
RV (07:29):
And what a Google Alert does is it automatically emails you anytime that term shows up in a new published article or in a new online mention somewhere. So Google is scraping the web and it’s, it’s basically like making Google an employee for you, like a virtual assistant or something that’s gonna go scour the internet every day for all the new articles and all the new websites and any new mention of the terms that matter most to you. By the way, you should at least have a Google alert for your name, because you definitely wanna know when people are talking about you and writing about you online. So make sure that you set up Google alerts. And then finally, number eight, the tool is called Spark Toro. This is my absolute favorite. This is a tool that we discovered maybe about a year ago, and it is incredibly powerful because it basically does all of these first seven things for you.
RV (08:25):
What Spark Toro allows you to do is basically type in a topic and then it will tell you all of the people who are sort of like the leading authorities on that topic, or basically it, it scrapes the web and says, people who follow this topic also follow all of these people. The other thing it will do is you can say, you can put in a person and say something like, you know, whoever Mel Robbins and you say, I wanna reach people like the people Mel Robbins reaches. And so you could say people you type in Mel Robbins and Spark Toro will tell you, here’s everybody who has followers that are similar to the people who follow Mel Robbins. It’s a tremendously powerful tool. It it’ll introduce you to you know, branded, like branded or themed accounts or company accounts or just like communities as well as other thought leaders who you’ll be like, I didn’t even, I’ve never even heard of that person, even though maybe you have been in the space for a long time.
RV (09:26):
So we’ll include an our affiliate link to Spark Toro, but it’s a free tool. You get so many free uses of it, or at, at least at the time of this video, it is a free tool and you can use a couple free searches a month, and then you pay some very nominal rate to have access to this. So check out spark Toro. You can click on our affiliate link or just check it out on your own. But there you have it. There you have it. Eight ways to find your ideal audience. You have to find your audience before you can sell to your audience. And remember, before you can be a great teacher, you must first be a great student. So make sure you’re plugged in to your area and to your space to that you are one of these people in and among the crowd, so that you can then rise and raise your personal brand to where you’ll become at the front of that crowd.

Ep 537: Why You Want Your Book to Hit a Bestseller List | Rory and AJ Vaden Episode Recap

AJV (00:02):
Why you want your book to hit the bestseller list. Now, I hear from a lot of people that hitting the bestseller list isn’t important to them because this is not a, a vanity project or, you know, they’ve already made it in their career. And this isn’t about popularity or they’re not trying to feed their ego. And I would say, yeah, it, it, hitting a bestseller list should not be about any of those things. And then I hear from another group of people, I wanna hit a bestseller list. And then remains the question about why, right? So this is a quick review of why every, everyone should want their book to hit a bestseller list. And it is not because it’s gonna make you feel good it’s not because you get some resume resume builder or some new notch on your belt, or it’s some pride thing that you get to brag about to your friends.
AJV (00:57):
Or it’s not an ego thing, or it, it, it shouldn’t be about feeding your self worth or making you feel like your content is worth something. I would say all of those are not the reasons. , why you should care that your book hits the bestseller list. So why should you, why should you do the work? Spend the money, spend the time, make the investment you know, invest your energy into making your book a bestseller list? And here’s why, because bestseller lists act like filters with thousands, if not tens of thousands of books being published every single year. There’s a lot of noise. There is so much noise. And bestseller lists act as a filter for the ones who have done the work to help their book get out into the world. And there is different varying levels of bestseller lists. There’s new bestseller lists coming out on the market.
AJV (01:56):
So I’m gonna talk about two in particular the USA Today National Bestseller list, the New York Times, but there’s others. Success Magazine is putting their own list out. There’s the indie list. There’s Publishers Weekly, there’s, there’s varying amounts there. Even an Amazon bestseller list if we wanna count that. But it matters because it acts as a filter. It helps people go through the process of helping define what’s a little bit more credible or not, right? Not saying that if you didn’t hit a bestseller list, it’s not a good book. I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that with so much noise, our human brains need a filter of going, where should I put my time, money, energy, and attention. And what it does is it says, this author has done the hard work of helping their book get to X amount of people. And if that amount of people bought the book, there must be a, a varying level, a varying degree, levels of credibility of quality
AJV (02:59):
That is in this book. And that is really helpful. And like I said, there’s Amazon bestseller list, there’s Publishers Weekly, there’s the indie list. Success now has a list. There’s the USA Today List, and then there’s the New York Times. And I think through these different varying levels, it really does create a more intense filter, the higher you go up, right? But these filters help our brains process. Well, if this, if this list has recognized this because this many units were sold or this editorial, that means this. Many people bought it, which means this. Many people heard about it, which means there must be something to it. It is a credibility booster for your book. It is a filter for the noise. And most importantly, it gives your book the extra recognition that it needs, that it requires to be seen by more people, that it can help.
AJV (03:55):
That is why this matters. It’s why it should matter to you. It should matter that you do the work to hit the list so that you can help it get in front of other people where it has the potential to help them. If you are writing a book and you say, I don’t care about a list, then why are you writing a book? ’cause You should be writing a book to get it into the hands of the people. It can help. That means you have to do the work to get it into the hands of people. It can help, which means you, the author has got to promote it, sell it, market it, talk it about it. You’ve got to do the things. And if you do those things, hitting a list helps you do more of those things. So why should you hit the bestseller list? Because you want your book to change people’s lives. That’s why. And the list will help your book be filtered through the noise and get additional recognition and credibility to reach more people. That is why all authors need to care about making sure their book is a bestselling book.

Ep 536: 5 Things you Need to Know to Write, Publish and Launch a Bestselling Book with Rory and AJ Vaden

AJV (00:00:02):
Hey everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast, AJ Vaden here getting to interview my one and only the one, the only Rory Vaden. This is apparently our annual podcast together ’cause we did one last year and we are doing one this year. Y’all, I have asked Rory’s permission to interview him as my guest on this episode because we have found ourselves immersed in this unexpected world of publishing over the last, I mean, really, I guess 15 years now unexpected for me, maybe not for Rory. And as we have discovered some things that we find are really important to us as we’re writing our next book, and as we’ve been working with so many of our clients at Brand Builders Group trying to decipher the best way to publish their book and to write their book, it, it drew out some interest in us of going, maybe, maybe we’re not just authors in this space.
AJV (00:01:05):
Maybe we have a bigger role to play in this space. We’ve published traditionally before. We will not do that next time. I’ll reserve what we are doing as a part of the interview. But through this 15 year, you know, kind of adventure in the world of publishing, we’ve learned a lot. And we wanted to share some of that with you today. And that’s why I invited Roan to be my guest as to help reveal some very exciting things that we have going on in the world of publishing. But to also help everyone understand just the state of publishing. Like what does the industry look like today and what does it take to hit a bestseller list? And what is required of the author versus the publisher, and where are we at? And so that’s what we’re gonna cover today. So if you’re listening and you are thinking to yourself, I wanna write a book one day.
AJV (00:02:01):
This is for you. If you’re listening, going, I’m in the middle of writing a book. This is for you. If you’ve already written a book and you’re in the middle of launching your book, this is for you. So, in other words, anyone who has will or will ever write a book, this episode is curated very specifically for you. So Rory, thank you for setting aside some time to come and talk with me today. This is an added bonus. Get an extra hour of my day with you. Yeah, which is also great, but also I believe that I’m not, I’m not saying this biased because I’m your wife and your business partner, but I believe you have figured out something in the world of publishing that no one else has, has cared to or has done the, the work to. But what you have been able to curate, discover, uncover, and Systematize is nothing short of revolutionary due to a deep desire of knowing how to do this better for yourself and for others. And so that’s what I wanna talk about on the show today. So welcome to your show.
RV (00:03:07):
Thank you, babe. I’m so excited about this. I I’m spending an extra hour with you. Yes.
AJV (00:03:13):
So be super
RV (00:03:14):
Fun. As you know, I’m a nerd. I’m a nerd on this topic. So this was, so this will be so fun.
AJV (00:03:19):
Yeah. And so what I wanna do first really quickly is make sure everyone has like a, a solid background on our history in the publishing world as authors. And so very quickly because we don’t have a ton of time and we have a lot to cover, can you just walk everyone through your journey to becoming a published author? And not just that, but a New York Times bestselling author, and then a follow up with a national bestseller. Walk us through, how’d that come about?
RV (00:03:49):
Yeah, so really quick not talking about it, how it came about. Basically, the first product that I ever produced was like audio CDs. But then the second product was a self-published book. And it was, it was the very first skill that I did where I taught, I did Speaking for Money, was called how to Be Funny to Make More Money. That was the subtitle of the book. So the book was called No Laughs, NO toay it to No Laughs, KNOW, no Laughs to No Laughs, how to Be Funny to Make More Money. And I taught the Psychology of Laughter and what makes people funnier, which was something that I had to learn how to do. And so We Self-published that book in 2007. Then
AJV (00:04:37):
Is this book available for Purchase Anywhere?
RV (00:04:39):
No, we have buried it deep, deep into the archives. ’cause It was truly self-published, which means we controlled all the editorial, we controlled all the creative, we found our own printer, we did everything. We registered the I
AJV (00:04:55):
VM number’s, what it means. That’s what it meant to self-publish. Mm-Hmm not necessarily self-publishing today, but
RV (00:05:01):
Yeah. And we, we had to select the type of paper that we used and all the, there’s a hundred million decisions you have to make when you self-publish a book that you don’t even realize you have to make to turn it into a physical book. So, so there was that book Then Take the Stairs. It was a traditionally published book. That was our first traditionally published book that came out from Penguin Random House. Long story that we don’t have time for here about how we got a literary agent, and then how we got a book deal. And then that process took about three years, and then it took about a year to write it, do the presales. We release, take the Stairs in 2012, we hit number one on the Wall Street Journal, best settles number two on the New York Times. Then fast forward to 2015, we also released a second book with Penguin Random House called Procrastinating on Purpose, five Permissions to Multiply Your Time.
RV (00:05:55):
That book was one that we fully expected to be a number one Wall Street Journal bestseller, and and a New York Times bestseller. And we missed both of those lists. And we could not figure out why, which is a part of what l led us to where we are today. But we did hit the, the, the Indie IndieBound National Bestseller List. So it was a national bestseller, even though we did not hit New York Times or USA Today or the Wall Street Journal, which are the big main ones. Then last year we soft released another self-published book, which is a children’s book called Be the Buffalo, which we haven’t even really launched. We just, it, it is available on Amazon, but we haven’t actually done the book launch for it. But we released it so that we could print it for our kids. We used Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, which is now, you know, the easiest way to self-publish today. And now we have our new book that will be coming out. We’re tentatively slating around July of 2025, which is the book you and I are writing together. And we have left traditional publishing and we are now hybrid publishing. And we can talk more about that, but that’s, hopefully that’s what you’re looking for. Yeah,
AJV (00:07:10):
And I think this is really important, and I think there’s a, a couple of things that just kind of wanna highlight in our journey of publishing is we have now published in all the formats, . I think that’s a part of going one of the things that we really believe in, in fact the message that we have at Brand Builders Group is teach what you know, and that’s a really core and central part of what we believe is that if we don’t know it, we likely won’t be talking about it. Definitely not teaching it. But what, when, when we do talk about something and when we do teach something, it’s likely due to firsthand experience through success and failures, failures more than successes often but you have to fail in order to succeed. And so I think it’s one of those things of, as, as we speak to this, this isn’t in theory, this isn’t abstract.
AJV (00:08:02):
It’s not what other people said. This is our direct experience. And I think that’s a really important context for the, the rest of this interview today is we have gone through the, the trials tribulations of all different formats of publishing. And our biased opinion is not meant to influence yours, but it’s to give you facts, right? We have our own opinions. We’ll reserve those for private conversations. But we will keep this high level and factual of expectations. And that’s where we wanna start is, you know, today there is a very, very feasible way to get your book published in three very distinct formats. There is traditional publishing, right? Which means you are working with a, you know, a New York publishing house. There is hybrid publishing, which means you have some investment, the publisher has some investment, and then there is self-publishing. And there is no easier time in the history of our country.
AJV (00:09:06):
We live in the United States. So I’m talking specifically about the United States to get your book published than ever before. Right? There, there was a time not that long ago that if you wanted to publish your book, you had one option and they got to decide if your book was good enough to get out into the world. That’s not how it is to today. And that is good, right? That is, that is powerful. Now, it also comes with pros and cons at every diff at, at every different level. And that’s what we really wanna talk about. So here’s my, here’s my question for you, Rory. Can you just break it down and help explain what is self-publishing? What is hybrid publishing and what is traditional publishing in a way that someone who has never gone through this experience could understand at a high level?
RV (00:10:04):
Absolutely. so basically if you start with traditional publishing, there are, here’s the advantages. The advantages are they pay you to write the book. So they pay you in advance against future royalties. And you have to earn out that advance before you ever make more money. But you never have to pay back your advance if you don’t you know, out earn it. So they pay you in advance to write the book. Then they owned the, they own the book. They actually own the, the, the intellectual property of that, those words in that order, which means they have exclusive right of where to print it, how to print it. They get to have final sign off on the title of the book. They get to have final sign off on the editorial, meaning the words in the book and what gets included and what doesn’t get included.
RV (00:10:58):
They also have the final say on the creative editorial, which is like the book cover. The way that the diagrams inside the book are laid out, the, you know, how big the pages are, they control the creative, they control the editorial. They also distribute the book. So they have, there’s a whole network in traditional publishing, which is publishers make the books, and then they, they send those books to distributors. Those distributors send those books out to retailers, and then consumers go and buy those books. And traditional publishers have a sales team that also calls on retailers and set tries to convince retailers to stock their books on the shelves. You know, of what, what’s new and exciting coming out? And it’s like a, there’s a whole chain. Some of the other great things about traditional publishing are the quality of the books is really high.
RV (00:11:59):
It’s the, it’s the, some of the best editors in the world. The distribution is one of the top things, which is that your book becomes available in airports and brick and mortar bookstores and can be translated into other languages. And there’s foreign rights deals, and sometimes those become movies and things. So that’s the, the, the fundamentals of traditional publishing. Let’s talk about self-publishing next, because it’s basically the opposite of all of that. So in self-publishing, you don’t get paid in advance. You have to pay. And why do you have to pay? Because you have to pay to print the books. First of all, you have to pay to write the book, right? So either you’re gonna write it or you’re gonna hire a writer and you’re gonna pay that outta your pocket. Then you’re gonna hire an editor, you’re gonna pay that out of your pocket.
RV (00:12:51):
Then you’re gonna pay someone to lay out the words on a page that’s called type setting. You have to pay for that. Then you pay for the graphic design of putting in the charts and tables and pull quotes. Then you have to pay for the design of the cover. Then once you actually have the book made and you have to find suppliers for all of those pieces, then you have to pay to print the books, right? And, and the good news is that you get to control that. And so the price to print the books might be lower. It might be like, you know, say four to $5 per book if it’s a hardcover book. But if you print 10,000 units at $5 each, you’re, you come out $50,000 just to get 10,000 copies of your own book. So you have to pay all the money, is the downside.
RV (00:13:41):
The upside is you have full control. You get to say whatever you want. You get to have final authority on the cover. The other downside though is you don’t have distribution. Now with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, they have made it super easy to do a lot of that stuff. And so your book can be sold through Amazon, but it’s not gonna be in airports. It’s not gonna be in Barnes and Noble. It’s not gonna be in Books a million. It’s not gonna be at, you know, Parnassus independent bookstore in Nashville. Those places are not gonna have that book. And so you’re naturally gonna sell less of those books ’cause fewer people are gonna see them. The other downside of self-publishing is the time it takes to figure all that out and to control all of that. The other downside of self-publishing is your book is not gonna be New York Times bestseller eligible.
RV (00:14:28):
And there’s some reasons why, but predominantly it’s because you will never s have enough books in print available at all the necessary retail stores around the country of where that book needs to be placed so that people could buy it so that it could all report to count for the New York Times. We have, we have figured out, very few people have ever done this, but we have figured out how to help a few self-published authors hit the USA today bestseller list following our system that we teach. And by the way, we work with client. We have done all three, as AJ has mentioned, we also work with clients regularly who do all three. But the dream of being a real national bestseller is, is pretty difficult and it’s basically impossible. There might somehow be a one in a hundred million chance knowing all the things we know that we could pull it off.
RV (00:15:27):
But it’s, it’s, it’s pretty much, and the other thing is the New York Times bestseller list specifically is there’s not only a quantity factor, there’s not only a distribution factor, there is also an editorial factor. That list ultimately is not objective. The New York Times was sued many decades ago, and the way they won the lawsuit was that they publicly said, it’s not an empirical only list. It’s an editorial list. And so they have very high editorial standards and thresholds. And so self-published books don’t usually cross those thresholds, even if they did sell enough volume in the right places on the right times. So you kind of weigh bye-bye to the, the, the, the New York Times, you know, dream. Then there’s hybrid. But
AJV (00:16:10):
Before we move on to hybrid, okay, you wanna preface ’cause there are some self-publishing companies today that really do help orchestrate and organize all of the things that we just said. Totally. So it’s not really that you’re in it on your own anymore. In the self-publishing world, there are many self-publishing entities that have all have, have orchestrated and put that all together for you. I think one of the, the things I think is important to note about self-publishing is really what is the purpose of the book, right? And I think that’s the same question you have to ask as we go through all of these is what am I trying to achieve with this book? What, what’s the purpose, the intended purpose of the book? And that will help a lot of going, is this self-publishing? Is it traditional or is it this, this middle thing called hybrid, which we can talk about now?
RV (00:17:04):
Yeah, so that’s a great point. You know, when we, we self-published our first book, we had to control all of that. We had to make all those decisions. Amazon, Kindle, KDP, Kindle Direct Publishing came on the scene. They have a whole process that helps facilitate a lot of that if you print through Amazon, but then Amazon gets to control the prices and things, but it helps tremendously. But you still get to own your intellectual property. That’s the other big advantage of self-publishing. You own the intellectual property, so you can do whatever you want with that book. You can create derivative products of that book. You have full control. And then when we did our children’s book last year, we used, as AJ mentioned, a vendor who helped coordinate. We paid them to help us with coordinating the self-publishing aspects of it. She was phenomenal.
RV (00:17:52):
We’ve had her on the podcast and I think we’re probably gonna turn, we’re probably gonna create a whole children’s book division here in the future, working with her ’cause she’s so wonderful. So when you get to hybrid publishing, now hybrid publishing is a blend of self-publishing and traditional publishing. So self-published books often are paperback, not always, but often when you do hybrid, you have access. There’s a hybrid publishing company and a lot of hybrid publishing companies are made up of people who used to be in traditional publishing who left traditional publishing for whatever reason, to go work at a hybrid publisher. So they have a whole process to produce a book that looks like a traditionally published book reads like a traditionally published, published book. Feels like a traditionally published book. So if you have a good hybrid publisher, and there’s, you know, there’s a whole gradient range of hybrid publishers and as well as gradient price points that correspond with each of those.
RV (00:18:57):
They a hybrid publisher though, the good ones, you could have your book right next to a book from Jim Collins or John Maxwell or Brene Brown, and you really couldn’t tell much of a difference. Versus with a self-published book, you can almost spot it instantly. And so there’s a brand equity piece of that that ties into this, that hybrid publishers can help you really create. So the big difference between a hybrid and a traditional publisher is that when you hybrid publish, you also have to pay to produce the book. So you’re not getting paid in advance. You have to pay the cost of producing the book. But much like a traditional publisher, you have a highly skilled team that knows how to produce the book. They also typically include editorial. So you get a top notch editor that you don’t have to go source and find yourself.
RV (00:19:52):
They’re usually included in the price that you pay and they help you edit the book. It also typically includes some element of graphic design for typesetting the pages, designing the cover, and it’s kind of sold as a package. Also, things like registering the ISBN number, those are things that, like the hybrid publisher takes care of a lot of the like logistical technicality things that you never know you have to think of. Now, so the downside is you have to pay, but the upside is you own all of the intellectual property, more like self-publishing. So instead of signing away all of your rights, you get to own them, which means if you wanna change the title of your book, if you want to change the interior of the book, if you wanna change the color of the cover, you have full control to do all that in the way you would.
RV (00:20:47):
If you self-published and you own all of the intellectual property rights to create workbooks and quote books and day planners and daytimers and whatever, whatever thing you wanna do, you maintain control of the ip, you can turn that, you know, into any type of coaching program, mastermind consulting, curriculum, et cetera. You need no sign off from the traditional publisher. The other big advantage of hybrid publishing is the cost of the book itself. So when you self publish, you get the books cheaper because you get to choose where they’re printed. When you traditionally publish, you get in advance, but then you have to buy your own book from the publisher. And usually it’s at a discount of retail. It’s usually around 50% off of retail. But like with, even today with Take the Stairs, we have to buy our own books. Like if it’s a hardcover, take the Stairs book, it costs us like $12 to buy our own book.
RV (00:21:49):
When you hybrid publish, you get to buy the books at much closer to a cost, which means, and the reason why this matters is because if you sell the books, you know, there’s two ways to sell. There’s to sell through retail channels, like stores like Amazon, Barnes and Noble Books, Ilion, you know, airports, independent bookstores, that’s retail channels. But then there are direct sales channels which are like through your website or at the back of a room when you’re speaking or to your consulting clients where they buy directly from you and they pay you when you do self-publishing or hybrid publishing. You know, people say you can’t make money from books, and that’s actually not at all true when you self-publish or hybrid publish. In fact, one of my mentors, Zig Ziglar said, the way to know which type of publishing you should do is you should ask yourself, do you wanna get rich or do you wanna get famous?
RV (00:22:43):
If you wanna get famous, you should tra you should try to traditionally publish. If you wanna get rich, you should self-publish. But Zig told me that before the world of hybrid publishing emerged. And so what hybrid publishing allows you to do is to kind of get famous, but also get rich because the other advantage of hybrid publishing is so, so, so that’s normal hybrid publishing, okay? Is you pay for the book, but you own the ip, you get the books at discount, but they can be but they look like traditionally published books even though you still have full control. And then do you want to talk about why we went into hybrid publishing?
AJV (00:23:28):
Not yet. Okay. I think that, you know, as we’re kind of like going through this interview, there’s really five things that you need to know to write, publish, and launch a bestselling book, right? And that’s what this whole episode about. And the first thing that we’ve been talking about is publisher type. I mean, that’s the first thing that you really have to decide is like, what, what publisher type of, because that’s a really important factor of if you wanna have a bestselling book. And so back to purpose and intent, perhaps that’s not what you care about. I think there is a reason of why to have one that we can talk about. But that’s the first, the first thing. The second thing, these are in no particular order is the marketing of the book. The, the third is the selling of the book.
AJV (00:24:08):
The fourth is pub dates when you actually publish the book. And the fifth is actually making money with the book, which is ROI, which Roy just mentioned. And as we go through this interview, you’re gonna get all five of these things. But I think one thing that’s really helpful to, just to kind of sum up this first one, which is publisher type, is to think about it like this. My good friend Alison Trobridge, who has a hybrid publishing company and a self-publishing company, and also an app called Copper Books. I love how she phrases it. She goes, you have to think about self-publishing like a bootstrapped entrepreneur, right? You’re figuring it out as you fall off the cliff, right? You’re building it as you go and you’re self-funding the whole thing, right? It’s a bootstrapped entrepreneur. Skip to self-publishing. It’s like private equity, right? Or
RV (00:24:53):
Sorry, skip from self-publishing. To which one? To traditional traditional publishing.
AJV (00:24:57):
Traditional publishing. And it’s like private equity, right? It’s like you better come with a well-vetted plan of how you’re gonna market and sell the book, and they only wanna invest on a sure thing, right? They want proof. They wanna know how you’re gonna make money. This is a private equity, you make pennies on the dollar, but they make a lot, right? It’s private equity. Then you have hybrid publishing, which is like a business partnership, right? And there’s a time and a place for all of those. But I think that if you can just go, okay, bootstrapped entrepreneur, self-publishing business partnership, right? We both have skin in the game here, there, this is a true partnership that’s hybrid. And then private equity is like a traditional publisher. If you just wanna kind of categorically think about ’em that way, it will help you just kind of go like, where do I fit based on my audience size my investment abilities my, my writing abilities, my timelines, the purpose of the book all of those things really go into this really huge conversation of publisher type. Now as Rory mentioned we are in the middle of writing our next book and we, it will be a hybrid publisher published book. But there’s more to that story because we ourselves have gotten into the hybrid publishing space. So in January of 2024 we, this is a, a sister company, it’s an extension of Brand builders group. We launched our own hybrid publishing imprint called Mission Driven Press. Now Rory, why did we do that? Like why did we get into the hybrid publishing space?
RV (00:26:36):
Great question. And by the way, if you go to mission-driven press.com, there’s a great table that shows you the advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing, hybrid publishing, and traditional publishing all in one table that we put together. So it sort of summarizes what we’ve been talking about so far at mission-driven press.com. So why did we get into tradit or hybrid publishing? Why would we leave one of the biggest publishers in the world where we got, you know, we were earning over six figures in advances and we hit the New York Times bestseller list. Why would we leave that and go back to hybrid publishing? Well, there’s a few reasons why in general, hybrid publishing is a great avenue for people who are entrepreneurial minded, people who know how to run a business and know how to market, know how to sell, and know how to make money.
RV (00:27:29):
Hybrid is really good because you get the quality and the gravitas of a, of a really, you know, beautiful book that looks like a New York published book. But you get the profit and the, the return on investment the way you do with more of like a self-published book. It’s more of an investment. It’s you’re investing in and you’re getting a return. The reason why we didn’t hybrid publish sooner is because typically historically hybrid publishing books were not eligible for the New York Times bestseller list. And there’s kind of a couple reasons why I think that is. One was that they, they often didn’t meet the editorial standards of New York Times, which are extremely high, extremely high. You might think you’re a great writer, but like it’s a whole different level to, to get the New York Times to sign off on your book, editorially speaking. But the other reason is more practical, it’s more functional, which is in order to become a New York Times bestselling author, first of all, it takes a huge number of units sold in a week.
RV (00:28:44):
And this is something we’ve spent years figuring out and just trying to understand because it’s, it’s a, it’s, they don’t publish much information about how it works. And so, you know, we’ve put together a team that tries to understand what are the ethical rules that the New York Times wants people to play by, and how much does it really take to hit the New York Times? And I’ll share with you a key data point. This is a proprietary data point that’s been compiled by our data science team internally that in the year 2023, okay, if you look at the, a full calendar year of 2023 on average, the average book that hit the New York Times the first time it hit sold 18,401 units in a week on average. So just that alone says you have to move a lot of units, but you also have, those units have to be sold in a variety of different places.
RV (00:29:41):
This is a term known as distribution, meaning it can’t just be 18,000 units sold through Amazon. There’s gotta be the New York Times. Apparently nobody knows for sure. This is a little bit like the Google algorithm, like we don’t, nobody knows for sure, but we’re using the hints they give us along with experience to kind of create a validating set of triangulated hypotheses that then become proven over time. But they have to be sold in lots of places. And self-published books are not sold in lots of places. They’re usually sold on Amazon and through your own shopping cart and your own shopping cart. Sales don’t count for New York Times because the New York Times only recognizes certain reporting retailers. And the industry leans heavily on something called BookScan. And only certain retailers report to BookScan. So your direct sales are good while you make money on them.
RV (00:30:32):
They do not count for the major bestseller lists when you sell through your website. The only sales that count are the officially recognized sales that happen through retail reporting outlets, typically that report through book scan and or the New York Times. So you have to sell a huge number of units. And in order to sell a huge number of units, you have to have a huge number of units in print. Most self published books. And most hybrid publishers are never gonna print that level of inventory. ’cause It’s a huge risk, right? I mean, imagine if you were the publisher, if it was self-published to go, I’m gonna print 20,000 books at $5 each, that’s a hundred thousand dollars just to have enough inventory available to even have a chance. And it’d be super risky on the editorial side. And that’s, and most hybrid publishers also won’t make that investment.
RV (00:31:19):
So most self-publishing never has the distribution necessary to hit like the New York Times. And almost all hybrid publishers also do not have the distribution required to hit the New York Times. That is traditionally that the historically that has been a feature set that only belonged to traditional publishing, they had distribution. Remember they have that channel of, they sell to distributors who sell to retailers who te sell to consumers. Those sales report through BookScan, and they were, those retailers report to the New York Times. And that was a feature set only available to traditional publishing. About two years ago, our team started to notice something very unusual. We noticed a hybrid publishing company that hit the New York Times repeatedly. They hit with, and they were signing pretty big authors like Glen Beck John Maxwell, Joan London like Mike and Peggy Rowe. And these are major books that were, that were hybrid published that were hitting the New York Times.
RV (00:32:33):
So we established contact with them. We wanted to figure out what was going on here. How is this pulling, how are they pulling this off? You know, because previous to a couple years ago, we’d always been told it was impossible. And we had never seen evidence that it was possible. Well, as we built a relationship with this team, we came to found out, find out something incredibly powerful. This company was started by some very high powered tra, formerly traditional publishing executives. And they were able to structure an arrangement where they are a hybrid publisher, but their books are edited. They have the, the editorial level of like a, a a, a major five New York publisher. And they actually have distribution through Simon and Schuster. So it’s not like Simon and Schuster. It is Simon and Schuster. It is a hybrid published book that is printed on Simon and Schuster Printing presses.
RV (00:33:39):
It is shipped from the Simon and Schuster warehouse. The Simon and Schuster sales team calls on retailers the way they would for a normal Simon and Schuster book. And those, it, it has the same distribution chain, the supply chain, so to speak, as a, as an actual traditionally published Simon and Schuster book. And that is why they were hitting the New York Times. They figured out a way to where hybrid publishing could move one step closer to traditional publishing, but it stays just inside the line of traditional publishing in that you own your ip, you control the creative, the author gets to determine the title. But then here’s the other awesome thing that they do. The author doesn’t have to pay to print all the books the publisher pays to print to, to, they pay for the initial print run to satisfy the initial retail estimated sales.
RV (00:34:38):
That is another massive feature set that historically was only available through traditional publishing. So that is when the world changed, is we said, this version of hybrid publishing is as close to traditional publishing. It’s all the editorial, it’s the distribution, it’s the supply chain, it’s being bestseller list eligible. It’s producing a book that is world class, you know, with an an in. You cannot tell the difference between it and, and a normal major book. And yet you can own the IP control, the creative. Now you do still have to pay the cost. So that’s the one sort of, the one sort of downside is you still have to pay because you have to pay to produce the book. But there’s all these other things. And that was when AJ and I said we think with that week. So we started a partnership with them. We created our own imprint, which is called Mission-Driven Press. And so now we offer hybrid publishing through Mission-Driven Press, but that has distribution through Simon and Schuster and has all the editorial and all of these things. And so we said, we’ll go first as authors. We believe in this so much we’re going to abandon traditional publishing, which was something we spent years of our life. It was a desperate dream of mine to do. And we’re abandoning that for what we believe is more of the future, at least for our audience, which is hybrid publishing. And that’s why we started Mission-Driven Press,
AJV (00:36:13):
You know, and I think it’s really important ’cause I think the, the whole concept of being able to, you know, have a legitimate bestselling book that is truly bought by other humans, which is a really important part of the integrity of the process was a really validating moment of this is a space that we could really get into. The other really validating moment for us was, and I think that most really successful brands, no matter what they are they succeed because they really, they were really solving a problem for themselves. And they realized that if they had that problem, others did too. And I think one of the things that made me want to get into this is when we went through years and continue to go through years of trying to make editorial changes to Rory’s previous books, including titles and covers and being told, I know that it’s your book, but no, can’t change the title, can’t change the cover, can’t change the words in the book.
AJV (00:37:13):
No. And it’s like, but we have, we have all this proof of if we did these things that would, it would make, it would, it would have a big impact. It would make more sales. You would make more money. Publisher. The answer is no. And realizing that even though you wrote the book and it’s your ip, what what really happens in traditional publishing is you sell your ip, it’s no longer yours. And to have that realization before, during, and after, as, as anyone who’s a content creator, and I just wanna put it in a a personal context of, you know, those are your stories and you are giving them away in exchange for dollars and cents, right? They’re not yours anymore. The those frameworks, those points, the stories the content is no longer yours. And many times, not even the derivative rights to do more things with that, you have sold that for a payment.
AJV (00:38:05):
It’s no longer yours. And I don’t know if people really understand that as they step into that. And that was a very eye-opening moment for us when we had all this statistical proof and data of how all of these other things that were happening with a different title change would move the needle. And, and we can’t, we couldn’t, we were told no, because at the end of the day, it’s not really ours anymore. And the thing that was again, something we’re like, man, this should never happen again, is believing that no editor has the right to tell you that this can’t be published when it’s yours. Sorry, this part of that story, I know it’s true, but it’s too much for here, right? These words, that name can’t use those. And that’s a, that’s a really sobering moment for the accuracy of your story and the heart of your content.
AJV (00:38:57):
And just realizing as a content creator that you are giving that up for a paycheck. And sometimes that’s okay and in others it’s not. And when it’s not having a good alternative, like a hybrid publisher really made a lot of sense. And so that, that’s another component of just realizing those mm-hmm, like this really is something you are giving away not for money, but it is not yours anymore. And I think we stepped into this going like, Hey, our story is not for sale at any cost. It is not for sale. We’re gonna tell it the way that it happened and the way that we want. Now I think with all that said, as we, we stepped into launching mid mission-Driven Press, there was another realization we’re gonna talk about for the next 10 minutes of this interview. Well, okay, great talks a lot about the ability to hit a bestseller list.
AJV (00:39:46):
How do you actually do that? Right? And I don’t care if you’re self hybrid or traditional, how do you do that? Because that doesn’t matter. It’s the same amount of work, right? To make that hell happen. But I think one of the things that is really important to note is that there is a huge gap and this is across all three options, self, hybrid, and traditional. No one actually knows how to market and sell their book . And so even as we were working with this awesome partner that has this distribution, and it’s like there was still this interesting gap of the publisher and the author really not knowing what to do, spending funds in the wrong places at the wrong times, doing things in the wrong order not probably paying enough attention to the sales and marketing side of things like titles, subtitles, covers those are marketing things, but really a lack of knowledge and awareness of what it takes to actually move books, right?
AJV (00:40:49):
What’s the work involved, what’s the investment involved? What’s actually required to sell enough book books to take a run at a bestseller list? But then also I think it’s a equally as important thing to realize. The other big gap was just knowing when to do it right? Because so many things in life, it’s all about timing. Launching your book is no different. It’s about timing. And I think that as we stepped into this and that’s why this is really a sister company, a brand builders group, which is a personal brand strategy firm. This is the fulfillment side of book strategy, right? But you gotta have a good writing plan, a good writing strategy. You have to have a good publishing strategy that’s mission-driven press. But there also had to be a good sales and marketing strategy to go and execute. And what authors don’t realize is that authors are the salespeople, you know?
AJV (00:41:46):
And I think that is where we really said, Hey, we we’re gonna fill this gap that’s clearly missing. There is no mystery of what it takes to sell books. It’s just some people choose not to do it, whether they don’t know it or they choose not to do it, right? And that you can be in either category but there, there is not a secret. It takes work. And that work is very specific. So Roy, if we could just move in for the, the next 10 minutes to talk about the sales and marketing side of what it actually takes to have a bestselling book, that would be great. And if we could also incorporate the timing component, right? So when we think about marketing, selling and the timing of those things, the nuance of that what, what would you tell the audience is the most important thing to know about how to market your book, how to sell your book, and when to publish your book?
RV (00:42:37):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. So one of our, our brand builders group mantras that we say all the time is that writers write, editors edit publishers, publish distributors, distribute retailers, retail. And nobody sells the book. Nobody knows how to sell the book. Nobody wants to do the work of selling the book. Nobody has a plan for selling the book. And typically, most authors and publishers and literary agents and publicists spend all of their time and money thinking that publicity and PR or soc and social media are gonna be the things to sell books. And while we believe in publicity and we believe in social media, those rank towards the very bottom of the list of things that we know that actually move books. There’s lots of great reasons to do social media and pr, but if you think those are gonna be the things that actually cause people to pull their credit card out and buy the book, you’ll find that you are very mistaken.
RV (00:43:47):
And we’ve seen this time and time again. So one of the things, if you really want your book to be a bestseller, first of all, I think high level, you gotta understand the big buckets of what’s going on here. And so we talk about, again, at mission driven press.com, we sort of lay this out. There’s four, like when people say I wanna write a book, there’s actually four major phases of that project. Phase one is writing the book. Historically, brand Builders group has always been able to assist people with writing the book. We help them find their uniqueness, we help them create their frameworks, we create the big idea. We can help them create an outline for it. We can introduce them to ghost writers if they need them. But you, it’s writing the book. That’s like stage one. Stage two is publishing the book, which is, you know, publishers don’t sell books.
RV (00:44:40):
Publishers make books. Publishers don’t know much about selling books. You a lot of authors think they would, but that’s not what publishing is. Publishing is about making books. It’s about the editorial, it’s about the distribution, it’s about the, the, all the million decisions about what makes a great book. But it’s not so much about selling it. And, and that’s a big mistake that people make. So inside of publishing the book, there are the three options we’ve talked about mostly on this podcast, right? That’s what we’ve been talking about. Stage three is selling the book. So you write the book, then you publish the book, but now you gotta sell the book. And this is where our deepest level of expertise is at Brand Builders Group is teaching people a replicable system, a duplicatable system, a proven system to get real humans to buy your book.
RV (00:45:34):
And when I say we have a system for this, as of last week, we help our 51st brand builders group client, who has followed our system and become a New York Times Wall Street Journal, or USA today national bestselling author. We’ve done that over 50 times in the last couple years. And what we don’t do is we don’t tell authors to buy their own books. If anyone ever says what you should do is buy your own books that you should run, right? Number one, it’s very risky to do that. And it’s number two, there’s some questionable ethics around buying your own books just to make them count for the bestseller list. But number three, it doesn’t accomplish the actual goal, which is changing lives, helping people, and also building your brand and your business. So what we do is we teach a system and there’s seven main mechanisms that we teach people for how to sell books, okay?
RV (00:46:33):
And we can, we’ll deep dive on those for a minute here. But then you have stage four, which is processing the books or reporting the books. So you write the book, writing the book, publishing the book, selling the book, and then reporting the sales. And when it comes to where the rubber meets the road of making sure your sales report you know, to become a bestseller list or become a bestselling author, you have to make sure that your sales, whatever sales you generate, whether that’s 50 books or 5,000 or 50,000 books happen in the appropriate way so that they get recognized by the reporting outlets. We’re not trying to game the system, we’re not trying to cheat, we’re not trying to lie. We’re not trying to make it look like you’re selling more books than you are. We’re just trying to make sure that every single hard earned sale that you created gets counted and that’s it, right?
RV (00:47:29):
So that’s what we’re trying to do. And, and so we actually provide that service for free for any of anyone who’s a brand builders group client, whether they publish with mission driven press or not. If we’re helping you write the book or we’re doing the sales strategy, we do that part because we want your hard earned work to be recognized. We’re not really in the just the business of doing that. We just do that as a service because there’s a lot of people who do it wrong, and there’s a lot of misconceptions and frankly, there’s a lot of shadiness around it and a lot of disorganization and a lot of people have lost a lot of money. And so we just said, we’re gonna just take care of this piece and we’re gonna provide it for free. And we don’t care if you sell 10,000 or a hundred thousand or 10 books.
RV (00:48:10):
I mean, we do, we wanna help you sell. I just mean it’s not like we will only provide that service to like the big famous authors we work with. We provide it for everybody because we were, we were aspiring authors at one point too. So that’s the four stages. Now, if we zi deep dive here, what AJ’s asking about is how do we sell books? That’s stage three. What are the mechanisms? Okay, so I already told you the biggest thing that does not sell a lot of books is PR and social media, which is ironic because that’s what everybody thinks will sell books. And, and I just wanna spend a minute on this. PR is very important. PR is huge for brand building. If you do PR right? It can be huge for list building, but pr in and of itself, going on Good Morning America and thinking that’s gonna sell all your books is not a very good strategy because it’s very, very difficult to get that slot.
RV (00:49:07):
And when you get, when you get that slot, if you get that slot, which is, you know, one in a one in a hundred thousand, you, you’ll be shocked at how little books it sells. And we have, we have clients every week who are on like every month for sure that are on Good Morning America, Fox News, today’s show, you know, various things with Oprah. And you know, several of the biggest podcasters in the world are clients of ours, right? Louis Howes and Amy Porterfield and Ed Millet. We know exactly how many books are sold from being on those shows, but a national TV hit usually sells somewhere between 800 to 1200 units. So it’s not nothing, right? But it’s a very far cry from 18,000 units. If you’re trying to make a run outta New York Times or, you know, tens of thousands of units, if you’re trying to change the world, it’s not gonna happen that way. So
AJV (00:49:56):
Now there are a couple of PR mediums that we have seen that are better to do such as podcasts,
RV (00:50:04):
Right? Yeah. Podcasts are a high return on the buck for how small the audience is. So like the biggest podcast in the world typically are not gonna move as much as a Good Morning America hit, but the audience they’re reaching is much smaller. So as a percentage, because you go, you know, let’s take our book about personal branding. If we’re on a podcast that only has a hundred thousand downloads, but all a hundred thousand people are entrepreneurs will sell way more books to a hundred thousand entrepreneurs who listen to us on a 30 minute podcast interview than we will being on Good Morning America reaching millions of people for a three minute segment of which only a small fraction of them are entrepreneurs. So podcasts actually are a great strategy because one of the things that we talk about is you have to think of your online audience as an offline room.
RV (00:50:57):
And sometimes authors go, oh, I don’t wanna be on that podcast. It’s a small podcast. It, it only gets, you know, a thousand downloads a month. But if you were standing on stage in front of a thousand people, you probably would take that opportunity. You probably would be excited about that. And that’s more of what podcasts are like. It’s a thousand people focused on you giving you their full attention for 20, 30, 40 minutes. So we’re big fans of podcasts. Now you have to have strategies for how to convert those. And this is what it comes down to. I know we’re running short on time. Here’s how you sell books incentives in one word. The secret is incentives. And what you do is you give people additional incentives to order the book. And I’ll just share with you a really quick tip here. Here’s how to sell 50,000 books.
RV (00:51:51):
I can teach you this in 60 seconds. What you do is you get 10,000 people to buy one copy. And so you give some people some extra incentives. If they buy one copy, then you get a thousand people. You try to find a thousand people who will buy 10 copies. And so you come up with a few more incentives that they get if they buy 10 copies, and then we wanna get a hundred people to each buy a hundred copies and they get a really big incentive, and that’s another 10,000 units. Then you wanna find 10 people who will each buy a thousand copies. That’s another 10,000 copies. A great incentive there would be to like give away a speech and say, Hey, if you buy a thousand copies of my book, I’ll come speak or I’ll make an appearance or something like that. And then if you can, you try to find one person who would buy 10,000 copies, you know, and that might be like $300,000. So you’d have to give them some really, really, really big incentives. But you
AJV (00:52:49):
Let us know when you find those people because we would like to meet them
RV (00:52:53):
And, and, and, and there are those people out there. There are those people indeed. So incentives and that’s part of what our team helps you do is help you think through those strategies, think through those incentives. We’ve got templates and scripts and examples. But the point is, get real people to buy your book. And yes, we’ll use incentives to help them, but people know they’re buying books, we’re talking about the book. They’re real humans with real transactions. And you’re doing the hard work it takes to create a movement and change lives. And if all goes well, our team will help make sure hopefully those sales get reported properly and hopefully those sales get counted. And you get listed as a bestselling author and we’ve got a great track record of doing it because we’re trying to do it the right way. We’re trying to do it. We openly, honestly, in transparency with retailers, with publishers and with authors, it’s not about trying to just buy your own books to game the system. It’s doing the work it takes to tell the world about your book and that your book deserves to have that work.
AJV (00:53:57):
Yeah, and I would say one of the things I think it’s really important to kind of sum a lot of that up is like, that is sales. Y’all Like that is when the author has to step into the role of salesperson. And a lot of authors that we know that we have encountered are they’re writers, they’re content creators, they’re, they’re in the words. And this is having you step off the pages and picking up the phone, making phone calls, sending emails, getting on podcasts, getting on stages. And part of the incentivized system is sales psychology, right? It’s a reward system. You give me your money now for nothing. ’cause You’re not gonna get a book right now, but I’m gonna give you this, this, this, and this, and you’re gonna get the book later, right? This is a sales psychology, it’s a reward based system of stepping into an arena that maybe you’re not aware of, maybe you’re not even comfortable with.
AJV (00:54:50):
But that is at the end of the day, what moves books. We do this all day, every day with new authors every single day, every week having launches. And I can tell you right now, the people who go, I will sell my book, those are the books that sell , the people who say, I will pick up the phone, I will send the emails, I will do the podcast, I will do the speeches. They sell books. And I think this is the last thing that I would like to leave on. Now, why would someone do that? Like, why, why would someone do that?
RV (00:55:20):
Well, you know, on this point, Robert Kiyosaki had a, a great quote on this. He said, you have to remember, it’s not called New York Times Best Writing Author. It’s New York Times best Selling author. This is a sales game. And like anything, whoever is selling the most is, is, is getting the word out there. And by the way, we do this for new authors. We also do this for the biggest authors in the world, right? John Maxwell, ed Millet, Lewis Howes, Amy Porterfield. Like we have helped Eric Thomas et the hip hop preacher, we’ve helped some of the most reputable, credible personal brands in the world build their brand by helping them do this stuff. We’ve had three of our clients have followed our system and pre-sold a hundred thousand copies of their book, like Pre-sold during their launches. So this stuff works at the highest level and it works if you’re just starting out.
RV (00:56:15):
But you know, the reason you would wanna be a bestseller is statistically you make, you make a lot more money in advances, in speaking fees. You get better media opportunities. I mean, look, you know, just to use Lewis Howes as an example, ’cause he’s a client and a close friend. Everybody wants to be on Lewis Howes podcast, everybody, it’s one of the biggest podcasts in the world. And every week his team gets flooded with books that get mailed to them. And when they open those books, there’s two piles. There’s the no pile, and there’s the maybe pile. Being a New York Times bestselling author doesn’t automatically put you in a, some type of a yes pile, but it pretty much almost always puts you automatically in the maybe pile. So you’re gonna separate, you know, it’s the, the, the, what is it, the wheat from the shaft.
RV (00:57:03):
Like you get separated from the crowd, that you get a real, legitimate, honest look by literary agents, by public publicists, by speaking opportunities by ma you know, being invited to be in part of, you know, VIP groups and stuff like that. But I do wanna just leave everybody with this, aj. It’s really important to know that you should do this and we’re really good at it, and we teach you straightforward practices that are ethical. There’s no, there’s no manipulation, there’s no deception. It is just hard work. But we give you the templates, we give you the tools. That’s what our clients pay us for. And you should want to do this because you want to sell a lot of books, right? But you have to remember bestseller lists. Don’t change lives, but books do bestseller lists. They don’t really change lives. They might change your life.
RV (00:58:01):
If anything, they’ll change one person’s life. They’ll change the author’s life. But nobody on the world, nobody in the world cares. If you’re a bestselling author, they care about, can you help me? Can you, could you have advice, insights, inspiration that will help me in my life? But either way, to reach a lot of people, you need to do the work of getting the book out there. So bestseller lists are fun to go after. They are meaningful. They, they do, they do matter, but they’re not the thing. Nowhere near are they the ultimate goal here. You know, they’re a fun game as a checkpoint to kind of go after. But this is about changing lives. This is about helping people. This is about making a difference in the world, and it’s also about helping you build your brand and your business by getting your, your message out there. So we try to, you know, we wanna pursue bestseller lists. We think that we’re pretty good at it. We got a strong track record, but it’s not the end goal. It’s, it’s a side goal of going, let’s help you get your book into many people’s hands as possible so that your book can make the world a better place. That’s what this is about. That’s why you started bestseller lists. Don’t Change Lives, but Books do.
AJV (00:59:12):
Yeah, and I would just add, like, why would you wanna do all of this? It’s a calling, right? You can’t not, amen. It’s a calling. It’s something that’s been placed on your heart that you feel like you have something that has the power to help someone else. And having it in writing words on pages it matters because you know that if somebody else reads it, it can help them. It’s a calling. And it has to be that first because then all the work is worth it. And it doesn’t know, it doesn’t matter how many copies are sold, it’s worth it knowing that it could potentially change the trajectory of someone else’s life. It’s a calling. That’s why you do it. And so we’re so excited to be a part of Mission-Driven Press. We’re so excited to be able to more deeply serve our community.
AJV (01:00:01):
And if you are an aspiring author or you’re in the middle of writing that book or you’ve got your book done and you’re trying to launch it, I would encourage you guys go check out our website, mission driven press.com, fill out our author form and tell us about your book. So Mission-Driven Press. There is a form that says, tell us about your book. If it’s a future book. It’s a book in motion. It’s a book heading into launch at any stage. We wanna hear about it, see how we can come alongside you, see what we can do to help you get that book into the hands of people that it can help. So, mission-driven press.com. Fill out the form. And y’all, thank you so much for listening. Rory, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. Everyone else, we will see you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 533: The #1 Best Way to Get Referrals | Sara Hardwick Episode Recap

AJV (00:02):
I’m gonna make this sweet. I’m gonna make this short, and I’m gonna tell you the number one way to get referrals. This is very easy, very simple. Give them first, if you wanna become an expert at getting referrals, then become an expert at giving referrals. There is no better thing to do in the world in order for someone to give you a referral than for you to give them one first. This, it’s an act of generosity. It’s an active initiation, it’s an act of service. It’s an act of you showing them, but you believe in what they do. But there is also this overarching law of reciprocity that just exists in the universe. That, and it’s, this isn’t why you do it. You’re not giving to get, you’re giving to give, but as a result of giving value, of providing connection, of establishing an introduction of giving something of yourself, there is this natural inclination in humanity to want to do that in return.
AJV (01:10):
It is harder for you to ask someone of, to ask something of someone before you have given them something first. I think that’s where a lot of sales hesitation comes from. And in this case, I think it’s where a lot of referral hesitation comes from. You feel bad asking, you feel guilty asking, you feel salesy asking. And I think a lot of that stems from a lack of confidence in conviction of knowing that you have provided them value before you ask. And there’s a lot of different ways that you can provide value. I’m just using this. One example of what you can do is give an introduction, give a referral first. There is value in that connection. There is a value in that introduction. I’ll make sure it’s a good one, right? But it doesn’t even have to be a professional one. Like maybe it’s a referral to a vendor.
AJV (02:04):
Maybe it’s a referral personally, right? But as you’re thinking about your network, your sphere of influence, your clients, past clients, whatever, pay attention, right? That requires active listening skills. That requires being present, but pay attention to what people are talking about, what they’re asking for. Perhaps it’s just a, a, a book recommendation, right? It’s a, it’s a connection of going, Hey, I heard you talking about this thing on our last call. I’m gonna send you the link to this book and then actually do it, right? That is providing value. Perhaps you heard him talking about taxes. It’s like, Hey, I don’t know if you’re looking for a new CPA, but mine has been amazing. Let me connect you to him. Perhaps they were asking for business, right? It was an I be like, you know what? I’m gonna inquire a little bit about that. I’m gonna say, Hey, person tell me, tell me
AJV (02:59):
Who it is that you’re exactly, that you’re looking for. Like, who’s a great client for you? Like, I’m gonna be intentional of going, okay, I’m gonna genuinely think about that and I’m gonna refer you to someone. I’m going to connect you to someone. That doesn’t mean they’re gonna buy from you, but it does mean I am listening and providing value to you through connections and introductions. Perhaps it’s a, a podcast episode. It could be a book, it could be a vendor, it could be actual business connections. Maybe it’s a personal connection. Maybe you heard someone say, Hey, we’re struggling to find extra, extra childcare help in the summers. And it’s like, oh, man, I have a whole deck of amazing people home from college. Let me refer you to them. Y’all like, the list goes on and on. If we can just reshift how we think about connections, introductions, and the word referrals specifically, it will change your mindset on what it is.
AJV (03:51):
Because really a referral is just an introduction, right? It’s a, it’s a connection. And that could be to a, like I said, to a book, to a podcast, to a course, to a, a vendor, to a, a prospect, to a, the list goes on. But what I know is that often the, the sales hesitation, this sales reluctance comes from a deep seated issue of have I earned the right to ask for this? Like, have I provided enough value that would, that would give me the confidence in asking for something in return? I, I know that it comes from that deep down for most of us, maybe not all of us, but for a lot of us. And I also know that some of us just aren’t gonna have that natural hesitation to ask for something. And that includes help, right? Which is really what we’re doing here.
AJV (04:38):
We’re asking for help. And so the best thing that you can do is not ask for it, but just give it, just give it and give it so well and give it so freely that the person then says, that was so generous, that was so kind. What can I help you with? What do you need help with? And then you need to be prepared, right? And that’s when you need to know clearly what do you need help with? What, what, who do you need to be referred with? What vendors do you need to meet? Like, what clients are you trying to connect with? And that, that is a clarity conversation that you need to have with yourself about who do I wanna be referred to? What I, what am I looking for right now? What would be helpful? Because I know personally, I get asked for referrals and introductions all the time.
AJV (05:25):
And the, and the other party can’t clearly tell me why or who , right? They go anyone who hires speakers. And I’m like, okay, I’m gonna need a little bit more than that. Like, what kind of speakers? What kind of company? What kind of budget are we talking about? That’s on your job. You have to know exactly who you wanna be referred to. And in my, in my world, I would like to know what company, what title, what person because then it’s an easy yes or an easy no for me. And even if it’s a no right now, doesn’t mean it’s a no forever. It just means, man, I don’t know
AJV (05:57):
Anyone in that seat right now, but let me make a mental note of this so that I know for the future. And I think that’s the other part about asking for referrals and asking for introductions is it’s not a one time thing, right? It’s not, there’s not, there shouldn’t be this huge buildup to this. One thing I’m gonna ask for this one time, and I hope I get it. It’s like this is a continuous thing, which means you should be giving continuously. It’s like how can you con consistently and continually provide value to those around you? And that means you’ve gotta be in their life. You have to know what’s going on. Could be through social media, through texting, through networking meetings, through phone calls, but this is called relationship building. Yeah, it is. And that takes work and it takes time. And that means it needs to be a part of your business strategy.
AJV (06:43):
This, this is a business growth strategy. This is a life strategy. This is . This is a revenue strategy, right? You spend time in other areas of your business and it, there’s, there’s time carved out. Time has to be carved out for relationship building biz dev, right? That, that’s a part of this. But what I know is that the most fruitful and the most awesome thing you can do to, to get, is to give. But you do not give to get, you give without expectation of receipt. But you give so well that people want to give back to you, thus you get right. So that is the number one way for you to get referrals, is that you simply give them first.

Ep 532: Growing Revenue Through Referrals with Sara Hardwick

AJV (00:00):

Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is AJ Vaden here today, and this is a really special and unique episode because I’m getting to do this interview, this conversation with Sarah Hardwick, who is a, a new acquaintance of mine, but she is on this interview on behalf of Giftology which is not new to me or to Rory, or to Brain Builders Group. And Giftology was founded by a really good close per personal friend of ours, John Rulon, who over the summer we’re at, we’re recording this episode in September, 2024, and just a few weeks ago John unexpectedly passed away while on family vacation. And I think it’s a very unique thing to get to be a part of a person’s legacy that literally like outlives them in a way that is felt like viscerally.

AJV (01:08):

I’m gonna give you guys this quick story about John as we step into this interview with Sarah. But I think this is a very good moment for us all to go. Does what we really do matter after we’re gone. Like, does our legacy really have the potential to live on, live on when we’re no longer here? Or, you know, there’s a lot of really big personal brands out there like Dave Ramsey and Zig Ziglar, and it’s like, you kind of see the, the generational change and it, it starts to lose its impact a little bit, or it has the potential to, and and then you have these moments that I experienced after John passed away just a few weeks ago. And I think this is a great testament to Giftology. I think this is a great testament to John, but also a great testament to the power of the work that you do that goes beyond you.

AJV (02:07):

And so after John passed away, it was probably only two weeks, two after he passed away, and I was traveling, and I got this very weird email. And it was weird because it was this introduction email that somebody had filled out a form on my personal website, not brand builders group.com, but aj vaden.com. And they had filled it out and they had said, Hey I know this is gonna sound weird, but you were referred to me by John Rulon. And I was thinking to myself, that is weird. What do you mean when? And he said to be honest, I don’t even really know how to talk about this in this form. I just wanted you to know that he’s been talking about you to me for months. I did not reach out in time, and I want to honor his legacy and follow up with you after.

AJV (02:58):

And so he was like, if you’d be willing, here’s my phone number. Call me. And I didn’t call him because I was traveling, but I did text him and I said, hi, this is AJ Baden. And then I realized that wasn’t enough. And so I made him a voice message, which I’m pretty sure I cried the entire voicemail. I think I had to pause like five times to get through it, . And when I finally got on the phone connected with him, his name’s Jesse Flockin, and listen to this, y’all like, this is so crazy. He goes, John has been talking about you and your husband, Roy, and Brand Builders Group to me for almost a year. And I didn’t make time for it. He told me why. And, you know, he’d sent me all your information and you know, it’s the craziest thing that he has referred me to you so many times over the last year that I never made time for it. And he goes, and quite honestly, in the midst of all of this, I wasn’t thinking about you except for I was cleaning out my inbox from emails from him, and you will not believe one of the last emails he sent me was, have you connected with AJ and Roy? And he said, wow.

AJV (04:10):

I just, I knew that I had to reach out. And I actually have my call with him today looking at my calendar after this interview, not probably coincidental but this was scheduled weeks ago, way before this episode was scheduled. And I have my call with him today. And we were both sharing like, wow, like the life you live matters beyond your death. Like what you believe for what you stand for, what you teach it, it has significance like a lot. And for this particular conversation around referrals and connections, I thought it was just like the greatest testament to someone’s life work to go. And you’re still doing it after death, right after death. You are still connecting people through referrals. And so I’m glad I made through that without crying. But for everyone here listening today, I think this is like a really important conversation to remind you that your work matters.

AJV (05:13):

That you’re, you do have the potential to change lives that you will never, ever, ever know about. And also, like when you do what you’re meant to do, when you’re, when you do that thing that you were called to do way beyond what you even thought it, it outlives you, right? It outlives you. And, you know, John’s entire thing was connections and referrals through gifting and and really just loving on people, really. And so I wanted to have this episode because Giftology is launching a very awesome referral course. And Sarah is here today to talk about referrals and the uniqueness of that. I’m gonna formally introduce her in just a second. But here’s what I would say. It’s like, this isn’t just an episode about how important your work is, whatever your work may be, that there is, there is a, there’s a component of it that will outlive you if you live into its fullness, but also the power of connection even beyond death, right?

AJV (06:13):

Like the power of referrals and what that has to do to help you grow and build community and build your business. And that’s really the heart of this episode, is how can we help you do the thing that’s required to help you increase your impact, which is you actually have to reach more people. And you can do that, I believe, in the best way possible through referral. So this is an, this is an interview today about how do you grow your business through referrals. So, longest introduction ever. Now let me formally introduce you to Sarah Hardwick, who is the community relationship strategist at Giftology. She is spearheading the Rich Relationship Society, which is an exclusive membership. We’re gonna be talking about that today. I’m so excited about that. But I think some other things that are really amazing about just Giftology and this entire concept in general is how you can do it in a way that actually fosters connection, not just sales. And that, I think is what is so unique and powerful about this course, this membership, what you guys are doing, and the heart of Giftology. And so Sarah, so honored to have you on the show today. Welcome.

SH (07:26):

Oh my goodness, I am so honored to be here, aj, thank you for sharing that story and getting through it without tears is, is a skill. But John was the ultimate connector, the, the referral king. And, and for what you said about the fact that these connections are still living on now is just a testament to his legacy. And that legacy is something that we are so, so, so committed to continue because building relationships and taking care of those relationships is, is so, so important from a business point of view, referral, sales, all those things, but also just like the heart of who we are as, as humans. So thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited for, for

AJV (08:14):

Our conversation. It’s gonna be a great conversation. And I know it’s gonna be great because I know that our audience and, and specifically I’m, I’m, I’m gonna pick on the Brain Builders group community just for a second, and the most loving way possible, . But one of the things that I hear all the time is, you know, where do I find more leads? How do I find more leads?

SH (08:32):

Yeah.

AJV (08:33):

And I’m like, I’m gonna tell you the easiest, best, fastest, cheapest way to grow your business is through referral. But what people wanna hear is somehow, if I can just make that social media post, or if I can just, you know, optimize this funnel or before I can, and I’m like the listen, you can try to convert strangers on the internet, or you can ask friends and family and clients who know, like, and trust you.

SH (08:57):

Yep.

AJV (08:58):

But there is this reservation, this hesitation to doing that. And so that I, I would really love to talk about that. And I think some like basic terminology might be really helpful for everyone who is listening. And so I wanna start by asking you and your opinion, what is a referral? Like, how would you just simply define a referral? What is it?

SH (09:19):

Yeah, I feel like sometimes referral gets this like icky stigma. It’s like this icky word, like you said, people don’t wanna ask their family and friends for business for introductions. But I would truly say it is just an introduction when we are adding value to the relationships that in our network, like the law of reciprocity is real. People want to add value to us as well. And if we’re in business, most of the time, the way that people can add value is a referral, is an introduction. And that referral doesn’t have to be a referral that’s a client. It can also be an introduction that is somebody like, Hey I have a bunch of kids and I need a ba new babysitter. Can you introduce me to a babysitter? Right? You’re still adding value by introducing that contact. So I would take the, the ickiness the stigma away from it, and really just focus on like, how can I add value to somebody’s business through introducing them to someone I know, like, and trust as well.

AJV (10:23):

Hmm. That’s so good because I think what you just said, it’s like people, and I think in our personal life, like I don’t think I’ve, I’ve ever heard any woman or man for that matter, I know who needs childcare help to be reserved about asking for referrals, , right?

SH (10:39):

Yes.

AJV (10:40):

But it’s because we don’t process it that way in our head. And so I think a little bit, this is like a, a psychological shift. It’s a mindset shift of going, referrals are just introduction, and I love that. And it’s anything that can add value to someone else’s life. It’s any introduction that could add value add, add value. Exactly. It’s really, really, really powerful. But I mean, like, how would you feel about even, because I think one of the things that I hear all the time is, well, how do you ask for a referral without asking for a referral? And I’m, what, what do you mean? And they’re like Don, I don’t want to say that word. . Yeah. Yeah. So how would you, how would you recommend that?

SH (11:18):

Yeah. How do you get referrals without asking, right? That’s like the million dollar question. I think, and what John’s strategy has always been is about adding value to people first. Whether that is the, you giving them a referral first, whether that’s you gifting them writing a handwritten note, caring about their family in some way, showing up in an uncommon way for them. I think if you add value to the relationship first, again, law of reciprocity. I’ll keep bringing it up, bringing it up. They will want to add value to you. And then being able to frame that value in a business setting of, look, hey, I’m looking to grow my business in 2024. Here’s what we’re looking to do. Explain referrals in a conversational way and get away from the icky ask. It doesn’t have to be an ask that you throw out on the transaction table, right? Or in a client meeting, it can really be about like adding value to each other’s businesses. If I’m at a networking event, like, let’s talk about how we can help each other, and if that works out to be referrals, awesome. And let’s let add value in that way, introduce people, let the referrals flow both ways.

AJV (12:32):

Hmm. I love that. I think that’s so, and if you guys are not writing this down and taking notes, pull over and write this down. How do you ask for referrals? You don’t. You simply give referrals first.

SH (12:42):

Love it.

AJV (12:43):

It’s like you provide value. And one way you can do that is you make a referral. Right? Exactly. It’s don’t want somebody else to do for you what you’re not willing to do for them first.

SH (12:55):

Yeah. And we have this we have this long list of 20 plus ways you can demonstrate value, those demonstrations of value. One of them is introducing a professional contact. One of them is introducing a non-professional contact, that babysitter example, right? But there’s loads of other ways that you can add value and kind of get that referral ball referral conversation going, handwritten notes, sending a voice memo, just following up with someone after you had a meeting and realize that their kids were homesick. And you can be like, Hey, is there anything I can do to support you in this, in this hard time? Right? So I think it’s, yes, that is absolutely the best way to get referrals, like give referrals out but also just give something, demonstrate some sort of value and that will come back and if you frame it right in the form of referrals.

AJV (13:46):

Yeah. I love that. And I think that’s so important because, you know, I was actually I’m in this mastermind and we had our, they call it a pod. We had our pod meeting yesterday, and this was like a really great example of that as we tried to do a best practice. We rotate, like somebody do like their like little 10 minute TED talk. And yesterday was on like social media growth and at the end, so she did her whole 10 minutes. She was like, I have a whole course on this. I’m gonna give you my top 10 minutes. Like, these are the things that I think would be applicable to all of you. And at the end of it, we were all like, so how do we buy your course ? You know? Yeah. But I think that’s the whole thing. It’s like, it was just 10 minutes of value and she was like, no, no, no, I’ll give it to you for free. And literally we were like, no, that warrants payment like that 12 minutes, that’s what you gave us for free. And I think one of the things that’s so powerful for everyone to hear, it’s like, make your content so good. Make the value so good that people are like, no, I need to pay you. Like, I want to return the favor.

AJV (14:47):

You know? Yeah.

SH (14:48):

I I love that you just brought that example up because I think sometimes the gap is where we add all of this value and then we don’t know how to receive people’s gratitude or payment or whatever that looks like. So we need to be strategic about like, okay, we’re gonna add all this value to a relationship, but also be prepared for them to come back and be like, Hey, how can I help you? What can I do for you? And that’s when you need to have that referral communication ready of like, I’m doing this in 2024. This is what a good referral looks like for me. This is what a bad client looks like for me. Like, give people who want to help you a clear vision of how they can help you, especially in the referral world. And that’s where like the idea of having a referral conversation with someone, we call it a clarity conversation. Get clear on two people’s needs rather than having just like a quick referral ask. And you’re like in the parking lot, like, bye, okay, hope, hope you send me somebody. Right? that is where like the real difference comes in. I think a lot of business leaders have a gap there.

AJV (15:58):

That’s so, and you know, it’s so interesting. I’m so glad that you brought that up. ’cause One of the things I have on my little question chart for you too,

AJV (16:06):

When, when someone says, Hey, that was amazing. How can I help you? Like, Mm-Hmm, , what, what do we need to be prepared with in terms of, you know, assuming our ask is referral? So right, this is on the context of yeah, you can help me by telling everyone, you know, right. But like, what is, what is that clarifying conversation? What do we need to have prepared in order to make it easy for someone else to get a referral? And I’ll just give you one quick case study. Yeah. I get asked for referrals all the time, and I don’t mind it. I love it. But I literally have heard people say and I will ask. I’m like, okay, well tell me exactly who I can refer you to. And they’re like, anyone, what I do applies to anyone? And I’m like,

SH (16:54):

That’s not helpful, .

AJV (16:56):

I’m like, because it’s literally, it’s like, it’s like literally brain overload. I’m like, if it’s everyone that’s like, I genuinely need to think about it. And genuinely, I probably won’t make time to do that. You know, I’m just being honest. But it’s it cannot be for, like, you cannot talk to everyone in the world, right? So, no, what would you say are the most important factors? So when someone does say, Hey, how can I help you? Yes. That you have a clear up going, this is exactly who I would like to talk to. So my brain had like a little radar going off. Like, what, tell us what, tell us what we need to think.

SH (17:31):

Yes, I will, I will answer straight and simple three things that we teach everyone to have clear in their own mind, and then also be able to communicate clearly to someone who is asking you like, how can I help? What referrals can I give? The answer is never anybody, anyone, exactly what you said. Then you’re putting them into like this decision fatigue cycle where they have to think and they have to think about their whole network. And, and that’s not helpful. So the three really clear points that are key to this clarity conversation that we teach. Number one, what client do I serve best? And be able to paint a picture of that to somebody that can be like business size or personality, put in some psychographics. Like you really want to be able to paint a picture of if they’re walking down the street and they run into Joe who’s a financial advisor and X, y, Z deals with these types of clients and lives here, they’re like, oh my gosh, I have to introduce Joe to aj.

SH (18:31):

Right? So what client do you serve best? Paint that picture really well. What client do you serve worst? Like, make sure you communicate that because creating that dichotomy for them then allows them to, to not, you know, live in the world of their whole network of anybody they can like clearly sort and be like, not, not for aj, for aj, not for aj, for aj. And then the third piece, which so many of us I think just, just miss and this makes it hard for people to refer you, is how do you want to be referred? Hmm. Good. Be clear about that. I prefer a three-way text message. So everybody who may be providing me introductions, they understand that and they send a a three-way text message. Why do I like that? Because I like to send a video. And this was John’s specialty too. I learned it, learned it from him, and learned it from the best. But being able to clarify how you want to be referred three-way, text message, email, phone call, like give people those simple steps to refer you business and more referrals will, will flow through.

AJV (19:39):

That’s so good. You know, it’s interesting ’cause I’ve heard lots of people say before it’s like, hey, to be super clear on who you wanna be referred to. Yes. I have not heard anyone say like, also describe who you do not want to be referred to. And as I was going through this in my brain, ’cause you know, sometimes the perks of being a podcast coach or or a podcast coach is like free coaching. So this is like, so good. You know, perk of job over here. Yeah. Consulting. But it’s like, you know, I was just thinking to myself, it’s like, as I was taking my notes, it’s like, honestly one of the things in case anyone wants to send me a referral, you can do so. But you know, it’s like what we have discovered is that we are not great.

AJV (20:22):

We are not well positioned to serve someone who is in the position of I have to make money in the next 90 days, or I can’t pay my bills. And that’s different than somebody who’s just starting out who has a runway. Right? And that was, it’s a really, ’cause I think a lot of people referred us, people in the past are going, oh, they’re starting to build their personal brand. You need to talk to Brain Builders group. And it’s like, actually we’re, we are best and most well positioned to start to serve someone who is already probably a little bit more established, not the super beginner in terms of I have no runway has to work. What can you do for me? That’s not who we serve best. And just even being able to clarify that little thing in our referral ask will be a monumental difference for our ability to serve people the right way.

SH (21:10):

Love it. Yeah. That, that clarity is so, so important from a personal and your business perspective. And then also being able to communicate that. And what I’ll say to, to your point of people who have referred you business in the past, and maybe it isn’t that right fit, right? Mm-Hmm. being able, and a part of our system in this referral partner transformation course is going back to those people and refining the referral. This is a key step that we just don’t do. If something doesn’t work out, we usually are just like, thank you so much. We didn’t end up working together. Right? But like, I appreciate the introduction. No. Like strategically communicate back to that partner potential referral partner that, Hey, me and Susie, we didn’t end up working together, but here’s why and here’s what we can like identify as who you can look for better. That’s a better fit next time. Right? So being able to continue this referral conversation, again, it’s not just one ask, right? It’s a conversation. Refining that referral reporting positive progress. These are all like the strategic communication skills that, that we really lean into and, and want people to nail.

AJV (22:22):

And I think that’s really important. And if you’re, I’m being serious. Like if you are like listening to this while you’re driving or something, I hope that you go back and actually sit down and do some of these exercises. Mm. You’re not good at it and you, or you’re maybe you’re good at asking but not good at receiving them. Or maybe you’re not asking at all. Like this is legitimately, legitimately what you need to do to get better at it. It’s your job to be a good asker. It’s your job to be a good communicator. It’s your job to paint the picture. That’s your job. It’s not the other person’s job. ’cause I know I’ve heard of, I’m sure you have too, Sarah, of like, well, I ask all the time, but I never get ’em. I’m like, tell me how you ask .

SH (23:03):

Exactly.

AJV (23:04):

Yeah. And I think that this is the fine tuning of that. And I love what you said too, is include how do you wanna be referred? What’s the best mode of communication here? Yes. and I think that too is significant, right? Of going, let’s do this in a way that we can be responsive and do all the things that we do and include, I love that. Including a video in the text message. I think those are things that are also super helpful. So this is kind of in the same lane as that, but I’m curious, well, knowing all of that, which I think is so great, when is the best time to ask then?

SH (23:39):

Yeah. I will tell you the absolutely worst time to ask to start. And that is like right after a transaction or right after you sign on a client or a lot of people, they sit down and have like a 30 day, 60 day annual review with a client. Like, that is not the time. We want to separate the time that you are working for your client or adding value to someone else from the time that they are going to add value to you. So I will answer that with absolutely don’t ask at the transaction points. And that’s always been our philosophy from a gifting lens too. Like, don’t gift on the day a deal closes or at the time of transaction, right? Like, we wanna show up for people in uncommon times, in uncommon ways. When is the best time to ask? That’s why we’ve created a system around this. So you can actually like start, go through your contacts, start building those relationships, start having the referral conversations that then get you to a point where you’re sitting down with a potential partner and having a clarity conversation. So there’s not like a set time that we’re like, you have to ask now. But you definitely should be building up the relationship in a meaningful way before you ask. And that’s why we kind of need a system in order to get there.

AJV (25:02):

That’s good. You know, , and I love that because I’ve been through so many sales trainings in my life and my former life was a sales consultant. And, and every single time I heard best time window of opportunity right after we make the sale, honey,

SH (25:19):

We are definitely different in that regard. And that’s what I mean, even from a, a gifting perspective, right? Like that’s what is so different about our philosophy. We do things very, very differently over here at Giftology because we really are strategic about you showing up for this person in a relational way, period.

AJV (25:38):

That’s the difference.

SH (25:38):

That’s the difference. And of course, like there probably is studies, statistics, all those things that show that window of, of opportunity. If it feels right, go for it. But if you are looking to build a relational referral based business, we need to show up relationally for people before they do something for us, before they add value, before they send us a referral, right? So being able to systematize how you’re adding value, warm up that conversation and then ultimately make sure again, like it is a conversation where y’all are seeing how you can add value to each other. That clarity conversation, it’s not just about what you can do for me, how you can refer me if you’re a business leader. I wanna know the same thing about you if you’re a client of mine. Like what’s going on in your world that I need to know about that we’ve never talked about before in the, on the transaction table. Hmm. So I, I think that’s really important, the separation for us at least.

AJV (26:37):

You know what? I just had an aha moment in my brain for the first time ever of why I think so many people are actually reluctant to asking for referrals. Hmm. I actually think it’s because they correlate it to sales and they’re reluctant to selling. Right?

SH (26:52):

Absolutely.

AJV (26:53):

There is that transactional element of it’s so hard for so many people to ask for the business, right? And it’s that kind of like rejection moment, right? Yeah. And I think as you were talking of like, yeah, don’t ask at the point of of transaction, it just clicked in my brain. I’m like, oh no. Like people are actually seeing this as like a defined sales conversation. It’s a transaction. And if we can shift that mindset to be like, no, this is, this is a relational conversation, don’t ask then this is a a give to give. Not even a give to give. It’s a give to give. Yes. and give. So well give so much that people naturally go, wait, how can I help you? Right. That’s a completely exactly different mindset. And I just, I know I’ve been through, I have been the person who’s like, all right, just power through. I’m gonna ask every single time. This is when I do it. This is my process. And I think that’s fine for some people, but I don’t, I don’t believe that will get you probably the best and most quality. It may get you the quantity, but it may not get you the best and most quality. And at the end of the day, that’s what we’re after.

SH (27:57):

Yeah. The, the quality, the quality piece is huge. Like having that conversation with somebody to get clear on who your best worst clients are, right? Clear vision of your business, who you work with, that conversation allows for them to go out and really talk about you well, in a way that they can bring back pre-qualified pret, trusted referrals to you. And, and that’s, that’s the goal. Like if people are just out there, you ask them to refer you business and they’re out there like referring everybody and their mother to you, but, but they haven’t done the work for you, right. Of like, I am out there selling you on your behalf. So then all you have to do is take my introduction. They’ve already said Yes. I’m so excited to work with aj. Like that’s the type of referral partner we want. And and our belief is like, if you just get a core group of partners, that is so much better than just like asking every client that you have, like for, for a referral. We, we joke like our course, a lot of referral trainings and things like that, it talks about how to get the fish, how to catch the fish, how to get the referral. Ours is all about how do you collect a crew of fishermen that will go out and find the fish on your behalf? That’s good. Yeah. Like shifting the focus from, it’s not about the referral. Those will come, it’s about the referral partnership who can get you the referral. And I, and I think that that shift is, is what’s needed.

AJV (29:32):

That’s a good word. Because that’s a, that’s a mindset shift. It is. And I, and I love that. And I know that this is a part of, you know, this, this entire course that you guys are launching out into the world, which I’m so excited about. And you guys have this awesome acronym called Rich. Yes. Which is reciprocal, influential, connected, and humble. And I’d love to just talk about that for a second. ’cause This is, that’s very much what you just said. It’s like, Hey, don’t go out fishing. How do you, you know, recruit a crew, a fishermen Yeah. To do fishing on your behalf. And so I think, I think one of the things I lo and I love that where it’s like any good relationship is reciprocal. Like at some point, if it’s one sided going burn out, right? But also influential.

AJV (30:17):

So they have access to the people that you wanna be, you know, you know, have influence over the people they have access to, connected, have access to ’em. And humble is doing it in a way where no ego is involved, right? And I think that’s really important for everybody. But I, I, what I wanna, I love to talk about for just a second is how do you identify these humans, right? Yeah. It doesn’t matter. Like I know some people listening, maybe you have thousands of product purchasers, others have maybe dozens or hundreds of service clients. Maybe you’re in a very niche environment where you have maybe only dozens or hundreds of a a book of business. And I think this, this is universal. It doesn’t matter how many clients you have, it’s like, how do you find your crew, right? Who’s your, who’s your fisherman crew? That’s gonna be my new term. Who’s our fisherman crew. Yeah.

SH (31:02):

AJV (31:03):

So what, how do you do that? Like, what are, what are you looking for? How do you identify it? Like do they all need past clients, current clients? Like give us some high level what, what you guys think about this?

SH (31:15):

Yeah, that, that’s great. I think Adam Grant’s book Give and Take gives a really like high level picture of this. That there’s givers, matches and takers in the world. Most of the time we can’t really move people from one category of the other. So in what we’re describing, the reciprocal relationships, right? Like someone who’s gonna add value to your business, you’re gonna add to theirs. We want people who are in that giver category. Sure. You can maybe dabble in the matchers like you’re giving referrals one way and, and referrals are coming in the other way. But being able to identify and also realize like, look, there are gonna be people that I add so much value to and they’re just not going to give me anything in return. And that qualification process, that prioritization process of your network, of your clients, of like whoever’s at your networking group, right?

SH (32:12):

That is actually really important. I think a step that we don’t do all the time. We give, we give, we give. And ultimately what, what Adam Grant’s book says is, givers always win, but givers also always lose. So to be strategic about who we are giving to is important. So to kind of answer your question about how do you identify those people, I think it’s through a process of qualification. First we ask questions of like, about referrals and things like that, that before we rely on them as a referral partner, we’re adding value and seeing how they react to that value. And if they reciprocate before, we rely on them as a referral partner. So if you also like the relationships, they are a little bit of a gut game, right? Like, if you genuinely feel like you’re giving, giving, giving, and someone is not receiving that, well, someone is not adding value back to them or back to you, rather, then that’s okay. That doesn’t mean stop giving, stop, be generous. That just means they’re probably not gonna be a referral partner for you. That’s gonna change your business. And ultimately we need to prioritize a different relationship. So collect, organize, prioritize your relationships is really important. And then energize them to be really good referral partners. That’s our, our COPE system.

AJV (33:35):

Hmm. What okay, so I have a comment and a question. Yeah. What I just heard you say, Mm-Hmm. Tell me if I’m hallucinating and wrote this down wrong, but this is what I heard is really look for people who are natural promoters of what you do.

SH (33:50):

Yeah.

AJV (33:51):

Who are Yes. You know, ’cause I’m just thinking like through our own, we have roughly, I don’t know, 880 monthly members in our brand builders group community and another 200 annual clients. And I’m going, there are just some people who screamed from the rooftops will tell whoever will listen, you have to know about this. Right? And then there’s others that would, but we usually would need to ask. Right? I think the only difference is just, I don’t know, season of life enthusiasm projects, they’re working on natural personality tendencies could be a variety of things. And I think that’s one of the things that I just heard is like, who’s already in your ecosystem? Who is just a natural promoter of what you do and who you are?

SH (34:36):

A hundred percent. And what I’ll also add to that is sometimes the reason why people are not those natural promoters in our orbit is because they don’t know how to promote you. Hmm. So yes, absolutely. There’s gonna be people that are just going to like ultimately be your cheerleaders and those are gonna be the best referral partners for you. But there’s likely people in your network that maybe, maybe they’re, like, they refer other people’s businesses, right? They are a natural referer, but they don’t understand what you need, who you’re looking for, what you actually do, that they don’t feel comfortable or they don’t have the tools to go out and refer you business. So I would say it’s like an and or of, yes, there’s absolutely these cheerleaders, but also there’s probably those diamonds in the rough in your network that you just haven’t taken enough time to sit down with and explain how they can refer you. And, and so they just haven’t yet. So being able to, to run through a system, to go through your network and, and see who those, those star cheerleaders are is really helpful. And then you can add value to those relationships and, and keep the referrals flowing.

AJV (35:51):

That’s so good. It’s so simple, but so impactful of just taking the time to have a strategy around this. And that’s, this is a lead generation strategy, right? Exactly. If you’re gonna spend all this other stuff, why not also have a referral strategy, right? Yep.

SH (36:08):

Yep. I, I joke all the time. I’m like, we have literally systems and strategies for everything else. We hire people for everything else. We have a team, we have scheduled calls, we have all these other things, but when it comes to relationships and referrals, we’re like, oh, like when I think about them, like I’ll give them a call or like, we have something in our CRM that sends an automated birthday text, right? But those are not the things that are going to make people show up for you. And so we do have to build a system around it. We build a system for everything else, why wouldn’t we for referrals and, and relationships.

AJV (36:43):

I love that. That’s so good. All right. So that was my comment. So then here’s my question. Yes. Yeah. what is the best way to incentivize

SH (36:51):

Incentivize, Ooh, tricky word. Because I think a lot of times the objection coming from the gifting side of the business, right? Is like, I don’t wanna bribe people into, into giving me referrals. I don’t wanna incentivize people Mm-Hmm. into giving, into giving me referrals. And where we try to really tell people like, there, there absolutely is a fine line of incentivization and bribery. We don’t totally believe in the whole like, you know, percentage referral programs, all those things. Like we really want to build partners that love and care for us just as much as we love and care for them. So I would say like the incentivize question is just about in general, adding value. Like incentivize them with showing up for them in really uncommon ways. Mm-Hmm. that’s probably more than maybe what you would do for just a client that you work with or, or just someone in your networking group. Like show up for them in the times that they need it. Show up for them in uncommon ways. And that’s, that’s where again, our reciprocity reciprocal, like that’s where the law of reciprocity comes in. And you don’t have to quote unquote incentivize people then to refer you business.

AJV (38:06):

That’s good. I love that. You know, it’s so interesting ’cause I think there’s such a, what what’s the word? An affiliate mindset.

SH (38:19):

Yeah. Which like everywhere

AJV (38:20):

Is everywhere you go right now. And that’s not a bad thing. No,

SH (38:24):

Absolutely.

AJV (38:25):

How can we add in to add in addition to that, and it’s, I guess I honestly believe ’cause we, we pay 10% lifetime referral fees on any of our customers. You have to be a customer. Yeah. But if you refer us business, we’ll pay you 10% lifetime referral fees. I think our decision around that is like, Hey, we’re whether gonna pay that and other advertising vehicles, or we’ll pay you, we’d rather pay you. So, you know, but I also know that deep down no one would ever put their name on the line for something they didn’t also believe in. Yeah. It’s like, at the end of the day, I’m not gonna refer you for a dollar because my reputation’s attached to it. So it’s like, even though we have that kind of rewards program it, it is also on the back of no one’s gonna do this just for a dollar to people they know now. Maybe they put a link out and somebody clicks on it that they’ve never met before. Yeah. Different story. And I think that’s really the difference between referrals and affiliates. Yeah. It’s like, are you referring people that you know, like, and trust, or are you recommending something to you an audience? Right. Not saying either is better or worse, but I do think there is a subtle difference there of that whole process.

SH (39:37):

Yeah. And, and all’s

AJV (39:38):

Take is just no. Provide value and however that value comes, figure out what the value is and then provide it.

SH (39:45):

Absolutely. And what you said, like there, there is room in the marketing mix for all of these things, for you to have affiliates for maybe you to pay out some referral partners. Right? But where we have not made room in the past is these systems for adding true value and caring about the relationship first. Like those are all things, some people are quote unquote incentivized by some sort of payment, and that’s great, but other people like maybe don’t care at all. And they would really rather just understand like, wow, I’m helping AJ so much, right? Like, I, I am helping by giving this client, or I’m helping Susie by, by introducing her to aj. Like that fills a lot of people’s cups. And I think we have to recognize that like, we’re not the only givers in the world. Like a lot of other people do want to help, do wanna refer you, do you wanna give, but you need to give them the tools to do that successfully.

AJV (40:48):

You know, it is so funny that you say that because there’s, I think there’s two things that’s like light bulb moments for me that might resonate with everyone who’s listening is what I want more than anything else when I give a referral, I don’t know, this maybe sounds selfish, but I want gratitude.

SH (41:07):

Yeah.

AJV (41:07):

I can’t tell you how many times that between Rory and us, we’ve referred people to speaking engagements or to different podcasts or connected them with like, you know, someone they wanted to meet. And we never even got a follow up. We never got a thank you. Mm-Hmm. . And there is a part, I think there’s like a deep ingrained part of that of like, wow. Like probably would’ve been like, like the next time we hear we hear about it, it’s because we saw something on social media with them on stage and we’re like, would probably would’ve been good. So that, you know, and I think that’s a part of it. It’s like I I think back to if I’m just like sitting here thinking about like, figure out what the value is and then provided it’s like, man, that, that, that’s all I really want is I wanna know what happened and was it beneficial. And if it was, Hey, thank you so much for doing that because at the end of the day, I did take my time, put my name on the line. Right? And that maybe that sounds selfish, but that’s the honest truth is I’m sitting here going, I do not do it for dollars and cents. Like I, I just, I don’t, that’s not what I do it for. Or gifts or, but I do love a good old fashioned thank you.

SH (42:16):

Yes. Yes. And we all do. That’s the thing. Like gratitude is so needed, wanted, desired. And to actually bring that into your strategy, into your follow-up strategy for referrals and make sure it happens, like exactly what you said. Sometimes you refer somebody and then it goes dark for a couple months, then all of a sudden you see them on stage. Right. The difference in making sure there’s a system of, oh my gosh, AJ referred me business, I’m going to send her a handwritten thank you note. Oh my gosh, we ended up landing so and so on this stage, I’m going to report positive progress back to aj. Like those steps, to your point, they need to happen for our referral partners to feel good about referring us. And the only way you are going to continue to refer to that person is if you feel like that follow up cycle is solid, is if you feel like you are appreciated. Like, why would we do all this stuff if it’s not appreciated? I don’t need to refer you business like I, you know, it, it takes a couple minutes outta my day. Whatever that looks like. But for people who are grateful and, and use gratitude in their follow up and in their strategy for operationalizing referrals, it’s a game changer.

AJV (43:36):

So good. You know, I’m just making a note to myself. It’s like you know, even for like the people who don’t, of like even me being willing to go like, hey I, I would love to refer you, but I would really like an update. Like, I would really like to know what happens with this a hundred percent if it go anywhere or not. Because if it doesn’t, I wanna know that too. Like right. It’s like yeah, referring people when it’s quick, it’s on the other side. But I think that’s just even me adding that in of going, Hey, I would happy to be connecting you to X, Y, and Z. Would you please let me know how it does?

SH (44:11):

Exactly. And here’s the thing, aj, that’s awesome that you say that, but you should not need to be the one that that says that. Right? You should,

SH (44:18):

You shouldn’t need to be the one that follows up in that way. Like the person that is receiving the referral needs to have this down, needs to have this communication down so that you feel good about who you sent. You feel good that like, okay, next time I send my friend to so and so, they are gonna take good care of them because they took care of the last person I sent and they told me about how they did it, right? So that, that communication cycle, like we as people who are receiving referrals, we need to run that system. We need to have that communication stack, not you, I love that you do that because most people don’t. But I think it’s the people receiving it, it’s on us, the people that are receiving referrals to exude that gratitude to follow up to report positive progress as we say, and make sure that they know that the person they referred has been taken care of in one way or another. Even if it doesn’t work out, that’s okay. Come back and let me know and let me know what I can do better next time to refer you a better fit. Right. That’s all.

AJV (45:24):

So good. So, so helpful. Okay. I’m watching the clock. I know we’re almost out of time here. So here is what I wanna talk about next is yes, there’s, so like what you said, there’s so much strategy that we all put in all these different other things. And I can even tell you, I don’t know if I would say we have a clean articulated strategy, even a brain builders group after this conversation, if you would’ve asked me before, I’m like, yeah, we do . But now I don’t know if I would say like, okay, maybe it’s not as clear as I thought it was. But one of the things that I think is really important is understanding what you’re asking for, who you’re asking who, who you’re asking it from why are you asking it? And like one of the last questions that I had for you is, you know, I think one of the things that I, I struggle with even sometimes is the, the best way to help someone else get introduced.

AJV (46:20):

So this is the last question I have. And then actually before I do it, before I ask this last question, I wanna just like, before we get in and I forget, like I wanna tell everyone, y’all, this is a high level, amazing training of a full course that you need to go get . And I don’t say that promotionally speaking, I say that factually speaking, this is an area that most people struggle with. And if you’re gonna invest time and money into your social media and your business, like this is, this is, this is worthy of investing into. And so Sarah, where, where would be the best place for someone to go and be like, okay, what is this course? What is it all about? Where, where do I go to learn about it?

SH (47:00):

Yeah. Love that. Before I tell anyone where to go to learn, I always like to say like, step one is committing to building a relationship based business. Like make that commitment that you want referrals to be a strategy for you. You want more referrals, you want better referrals, right? Like, make that commitment to your business of this is going to be a way that I gather leads, I’m going to transfer some investment, some thought, some strategy from cold email and social media and all these things to my relationship. So step one, commitment, step two when, when this episode goes live, there will be a link I believe in, in the show notes where y’all can buy the referral partner transformation course. We are doing a grand reopening of, of our course as and it’s gonna come with a bunch of bonuses from John’s amazing friends and networks and colleagues and some live coaching sessions as well. So there’ll be a link for y’all to get connected. And then once you, once you guys are connected there you are always welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn. It’s Sarah Hardwick and you can, you can find us Giftology on, on all platforms and just plug in to really how you can better your relationships and make that a fruitful referral strategy for you.

AJV (48:23):

I love that. And I’ll put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes as well as the website for Giftology. But y’all, this referrals course is really what you’re looking for here. Yeah. And if you, if you got any value from this episode, and I’m telling you I know that you did, it’s impossible not to. I literally have a page of notes to take back to our team. And I’ve been doing this for 20 years, so I know that you did get value if you actually listened to this episode. So please go check out this referrals course. I will put it in the show notes. This is, this is kind of one of those things, if you’ve been asking yourself, how do I wanna grow my business? We’re telling you, yeah, get good at building relationships and getting referrals. That is the cheapest, fastest, easiest way to grow your business.

AJV (49:09):

It is. So get good at it. Make a commitment that this is worth investing into, and then go and do it. Now the last thing I wanna say I wanna ask you and then we’ll wrap up is one of the things that I struggle with is I actually really love introducing people. I I would consider myself a connector, however, I get really bogged down when I have to write all of the different intro emails or make all of the videos and say, I would say, is there a tip for everyone out there? So I’m not telling ’em, you can tell ’em what’s the easiest way that you can make it for someone else to introduce you on your behalf?

SH (49:44):

Yeah, I think those, those questions that we went over of the clarity conversation, giving them like where you want the introduction is maybe that first step. But to your point, sometimes the bogged down of like writing out what this person actually does, if you guys sit down, I, I wouldn’t recommend just like sending a PDF to someone and going, Hey, refer me. Right? but if you do all these relationship steps, these relational systems, you build a referral partnership with someone like you are describing and you guys are referring each other business, it doesn’t hurt to shoot an email or send a PDF or whatever that looks like to be like, Hey, you’re sending me so many amazing referrals. Like, just so you don’t get bogged down exactly what you just said, here’s a quick copy and paste that you can save, pin it to the top of your inbox, throw it in a folder, right?

SH (50:31):

And you can just copy and paste this into into our chat or whatever that looks like. I think also like the, my my favorite way of being referred, the video or the text message, like, just, just send a quick text. That’s all it is. Some people live in this space of email referrals. And I do think it is important to edify the person that you are referring, but that can be done over a different medium. Hey, I told so and so, so much about you, aj, they already know how much I love you. You guys should connect, like periods, send. That’s all. And trust that your referral partner did did the hard work for you by selling you already. So I would say that is definitely a problem for amazing connectors like you, aj. But we just need to equip our referral partners better.

AJV (51:19):

Yeah, I think that’s back too. It’s like having a crew versus asking everyone because that’s where it’s probably a little bit exhausting and it’s like, oh, now it’s this and that. So if you have your crew, then it’s like, this is, this is how you do this. ’cause They’ve already heard about you from them. And so it’s, hey, just what you just said, it would be so easy. It’s like, Hey, I’ve done the good work of doing what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s like they already know everything. Here’s the connection. Take it from here. Let me know what happens. Right, exactly.

AJV (51:47):

So good. So, so many like, so many golden nuggets. So much value in this episode. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on and also just being so generous with the content. These are very likely things that are in the course that we’re gonna have to pay for. And I know there’s so much more, but this has been such a generous episode of some really great strategic tactical things that people can go and do. Everyone who’s listening, again, please go to the show notes, check out this referrals course, the brand new relaunch of the this updated program helping you grow your business through the best way possible relationships. Check it out and then come back and tune in next time to the influential personal brand. We’ll see you next time.

SH (52:32):

Thank you, AJ

Ep 530: How to Monetize Live Events with Jennifer Kem

RV (00:02):
Well, every once in a while I will meet a client who is someone who has been a vendor to several of our clients. And anytime that happens, I pay attention because this is such a small world that we live in. And because all of our brand builders, right, all of you mission driven messengers, are always looking for good vendors and asking us, who can I trust? Who can I do stuff with? So I really, really pay attention? Well, one of those people is Jen Kem, who I’m gonna tell you about. And she became a client of ours after I had been hearing her name. And so here, let me tell you a little bit about Jen. Okay. So she works specifically with thought leaders and personal brands and she helps them to make more impact and make more money. She has been named by Forbes as a top brand strategist.
RV (00:49):
Her company, master Brand Media represents influencers, celebrities, CEOs, experts, authors and really helps them with brand collaborations, live events. Kind of monetizing specifically through live events is what we’re gonna talk about today. And she, some of our brand builders, group clients that she has worked with is Selena Sue, Chris Winfield, Jen Gottlieb, Nicole Walters, all really high level clients that I know personally. She’s also worked with people like Lisa Nichols on an event called Speak and Right to Make Millions. They, they did that event together years ago. And anyways, when Jen became a private client of, of mine for BBG, and she was telling me what she did, I was like, I want to have you on the podcast. I need to learn about all that you do. And I know there’s gonna be people in our community who are doing this. So we’re gonna talk about how to make millions of dollars through live events and through creating and curating event experiences. Now, she has a book coming out also soon, so later next year called Unicorn Team Build and Scale, an Unforgettable Brand from the Inside Out. So we’ll probably touch a little bit on that, but I really want to learn from her about how she does what she does. So, Jen, welcome to the show,
JK (02:07):
Rory. I’m so pumped to be here,
RV (02:09):
Buddy. I am too. So, so how did you get into producing these live events and like how did you get into this live event world and business?
JK (02:20):
Well, you know, it’s a long yarn, but bottom line is I came from corporate. I used to be the head of go to market launching of big products and services. And so when I jumped the pond, if you will, over into entrepreneurship and started my own consultancy and agency around helping companies, products and personal brands do the same, it literally was one of my first mentors who then became a client. I’m sure this happens to you too, Rory, as we’ve talked about. Now, you are my mentor on the book side. And, and, and I had a mentor, her name was Lisa Nichols. And I wanna give full credit to Lisa because I hired her to be a mentor, to just make sure that from a leadership perspective, from a, the way that I looked at the world perspective, that I had a very, a bigger awareness of what was possible for me.
JK (03:10):
And in that relationship, I can’t help but like share with her, gosh, you know, I see these amazing things that you’re doing and I’m curious if you thought about doing X, Y, and Z. And she was like, I’m always open. And I think when you work with mission driven messengers, like Lisa, yeah, they are open to hearing how can I expand my message to the world? And so, bottom line, we created this amazing relationship. And it was her who encouraged me and said, because I said to her, I think you should be doing, she was already doing amazing events. She’s a very highly requested and hired speaker, and she had already a New York Times bestselling book under her belt called No Matter What. And I said, I think that from a next level perspective where we need clarity for your audience is like, what are really your offers that you’re making? Because people loved her, they would show up anywhere she would go. So she had all the charisma and the the of a visionary. And from a high ticket perspective, people were used to purchasing from her books, smaller bundles, things like that. And she was only available for higher level mentorship in a one-on-one capacity, which she was my, she was one of my mentors that I was paying a high.
RV (04:23):
Oh, so you hired her to be your like one-on-one private coach.
JK (04:26):
Yeah. And then what she did was she, like, she changed my entire life and, and I always teased her, ruined it at the same time. Just kidding. Lisa because she’s like, you really need to be helping entrepreneurs. ’cause I know that you are crushing it with corporations. ’cause I had taken my corporate experience and a lot of my clients were corporate people and executive types who wanted that type of strategy and, and working with their go to market teams. And she said, I feel like the way you’re teaching me as my student is what entrepreneurs need more of. But they don’t know anybody like this. You know, we’ve been told you can do events and experiences but a lot of times the conversation is more about logistics and event planning. And I would totally come into a place of,
RV (05:08):
It’s always like strategy. It’s always like, how do we get the coffee and what’s the AV and like all this stuff, all that stuff. But like you, so you have a framework, it’s called Million Dollar Experiences, is that what it’s called? Yes.
JK (05:18):
It’s called the Million Dollar Experience Model. Yes.
RV (05:20):
Million Dollar Experience Model. And so this is all about basically how to create an awesome experience that also translate into more revenue at the event, right?
JK (05:29):
Yes. And, and, and post-event, because even the model itself accounts for, you know, what’s all the pre things you have to do, obviously what happens at the actual event to create the transformation that makes the people who come. And the key is that the people who come in that pre-work are people who are ready for a transformation that understand they want more after an event and are are already primed because we’ve done a good job before the event to invite the right people into the room so that the offer itself is a perfect fit for the problem that they wanna solve. And then the post event is cared for as well. Because a lot of times what happens is, and also with the events, people don’t wanna do them because it’s exhausting, right? Physically strenuous a lot of the things
RV (06:19):
Totally. It’s, it’s, oh my, it’s stressful. Anytime you have to print name tags, that’s what I tell people. Like, if it’s small enough that you don’t eat name tags, it’s all right. Once you get into name tags and taking lunch orders and like the, the gets crazy if you bingo, it’s
JK (06:33):
Crazy. Bingo. And so the thing is that I always tell people like, you’re always gonna have the fatigue because you’re showing up for big work. But it, the fatigue doesn’t have to be toxic or unnecessary. And I think that a lot of times, because I always, one of my ways that I live my life is, I call it I work on the right hard things. And so if one of the hard things, and Rory is correct, friends printing name tags and lunch orders, it’s like, what we shouldn’t focus on. But it takes up so much energy, you just don’t even understand it. And my philosophy is, you know, treat a live event or a live activation, by the way this works online or offline. ’cause When you mentioned Selena Sue, she’s made the most income and impact from actually us architecting the right experience for an online three day event. She did. And she did it three times and made millions of dollars from it. And it just shows that when you have the right model, and Rory and I can geek out about models all day. ’cause He has like the most amazing models around
RV (07:35):
Oh, frameworks. Like frameworks and Yeah.
JK (07:37):
Models and systems. And me too from a place of using a live event vehicle, if you will. It’s a vehicle really to then I think amplify really all of the things you got going on, whether it’s a book and then turning that book into a high ticket offer that then, you know, gives you nice cash injection and, and income, but also anything really. So it’s also back to that post-event caretaking that allows people to, if they don’t choose yes at that time, they are ready for the next or the next time. And, and, and hmm. You know, I know brand builders and Rory and AJ are very much about the relationship building. And that’s what I also love about live events. They’re the best way to get closer to people and create relationships and not just sell more, but frankly, partner collaborate, creation, ship opportunities. Mm-Hmm.
RV (08:36):
There’s just, and there, it, it takes so much energy to your point. It’s like, ’cause you’re giving so much energy and it’s like mm-Hmm, it’s transformative because you have the human experience of like, we’re pouring into each other and like we’re bringing the, bringing the energy. So I, I think that in and of itself is a really big insight for people to understand that. I think a lot of people miss is just going, there’s a pre-event strategy that primed people and preps them. And then there’s also a post-event strategy, which is like, you keep in touch and you build a relationship. ’cause We play the long, we’re playing the long game constantly. And I, I’m just shocked at how many people are like, well, nobody bought in my funnel. Nobody bought my webinar. This sucks. It doesn’t work. And it’s like, no dude, it’s like a great funnel converts at like 3% for anybody, like 5% maybe. So your whole life is, that, is is nurturing the 95%. That’s where the, the magic is. It’s not like the 5% who buy, it’s going, how do you build a relationship and add value and stay in touch with the others? So just the idea of even pre ’cause sometimes they’ll be like, this event sucked. We didn’t sell anything. What a what a failure. And it’s like, oh my gosh, did you totally have the wrong motives and the wrong sales strategy going in, in the first place?
JK (09:55):
Right,
RV (09:56):
Exactly. So walk us through the model. Walk us through the, okay, so, so, so walk us through like how, how does it work?
JK (10:01):
So there’s three parts of the model the million dollar experiences model. And from this point, you’ll probably hear me call it MDE. So just remember those words, m France, m, m, d, e, million dollar experiences. Okay? And the model is comprised of three stages. So the three stages are strategy, sales, and scale. Okay? And under the strategy, strategy track, if you will, are three important components. Experience, design, offer, clarity, and the campaign plan. And so experience,
RV (10:31):
Design, offer, clarity and campaign des
JK (10:36):
Design, campaign plan.
RV (10:37):
Campaign plan. Mm-Hmm.
JK (10:38):
. Mm-Hmm. .
RV (10:38):
Okay.
JK (10:39):
And so I’ll, I’ll go through the two, three tracks and then I’ll just give you a little tidy taste under each one. So the stage, the next stage is the sales strategy, right? So that includes your event marketing, your offer invitation, and the agenda and zones, which is the way that we architect the right way to create a room of transformation. Like
RV (11:02):
A physical, like the physical space.
JK (11:04):
Yeah. So it’s the physical space. So the agenda and the zones are critical components to making sure that the sales strategy works. Interesting. mm-Hmm. . So that’s, that’s the game that’s actually a game changer. So we can even touch on what I think of this whole model are game changing things that people, most people are not doing, but the unicorns that are winning are doing because of this model. So the third stage is called scale.
RV (11:28):
Scale, yep.
JK (11:30):
And that is the seamless logistics, the unicorn team that you need to actually do the thing. Mm-Hmm. And then the money, math and metrics. So those are the, the nine, if you will core parts of the model that really make what you were mentioning earlier, Rory. It’s like, what’s so cool about this model and why I am kind of obsessed with it, and I’m proud that, you know, we’ve been able to create such phenomenal results is because it, it speaks to my soul around leverage. You know? Because it’s leverage for all the right reasons. There’s you know, you get to grow your personal brand because people who see people in the front of the room, you know, Rory as a speaker, it’s, and when you produce your own events, you create a lot of authority. And then you have the income piece, which again, this model is so great if you have a mid to high ticket offer.
JK (12:24):
And then the third piece of it is actually you compress the amount of time to make cash. Because within online funnel, which again, you need those systems. I have online funnels, I have all the things, but when you are committed to a live activation, you actually can make the same amount of money in three days that you can make in 365 days. That then gives you the capital you need to be better at marketing online in an ongoing way. So this is why I love this way of doing things. And I, I think that most people don’t look at live events with that mindset. They look at it as like, oh, I just have to do it because people seem to make pretty good money. Or, you know, again, Tony Robbins is doing it. Maybe I should be doing it. And I’m like, no, it’s not about it. Do it because you wanna create leverage, you wanna get your time back actually, and you wanna like have the biggest impact in the smallest amount of time. Mm-Hmm. . So that’s what those,
RV (13:17):
Let’s talk about the offer part. Okay. So when you say mid to high ticket offer Mm-Hmm. , what price point is that exactly? Like, is this a a hundred thousand dollars something or a $20,000 or a 5,000? Like what, what’s the range that this model kind of like Mm-Hmm. works for?
JK (13:37):
So I think it’s based on also the stage of business that you’re in. So I will say that at the minimum, it’s, it’s, it’s more worth it to do an MDE type of activation. If you have at least a $5,000 offer. When I say that, please listen to me, like perhaps you’ve written a book, right? And say you have this storied career, but right now people are starting to know you for a thing you want them to know you for. That’s why you go work with brand builders, right? You, you, you’re building your personal brand, you’re writing a book and you want to take some of what you’ve learned, but you know that people don’t really know you fully for this offer yet. An MDE event is great at that stage because let’s say it’s a five to $10,000 offer and you can get 50 people in the room, right? So let’s do easy math. ’cause This, I don’t wanna mess this up since we’re live on a podcast, but basically, let’s say you get, imagine if you could 25 of the 50 people to buy a $10,000 offer, right? That’s 200,
RV (14:34):
That’s $50,000
JK (14:35):
Right? Now. That’s some nice money. And imagine that the cost of you bringing 50 people into a room with a $10,000 offer, right, is only 20 5K. So now we’re talking about not is that 20, that’s 10%, right? Which a lot of events only break even, or they cost more than they make because they’re not doing MDPE. So now your profit is 2 25. And for you, if you’re just, you’re, you’re just getting known, what a great way to go. Now if you’re already known, oh my gosh, the amount of money you can make, right? So a lot of times what we suggest to clients is do you have a 20 5K offer and a hundred k offer, basically, again, everyone’s gonna be different depending on a lot of factors inside of the model I just shared with you. But generally speaking, when you talked about Chris and Jen or Selena, those were the price points because they had already built, they had a platform, you know, they were good marketers that type of thing. And so then you can elevate to that. And I’m not saying at when you’re starting that you don’t have, you can’t have a hundred k offer. Absolutely. You can’t. It might make a lot of sense. And that’s why the offer clarity is so important of like, how does it fit in with the audience you’re inviting to the event? Yeah. Because it fits with the audience you’re inviting. They’re gonna say yes, they’ll figure out the money.
RV (15:59):
Well, and I just, I think it’s, there’s some, i I know there’s people listening right now that like, it’s challenging. They’re limiting beliefs to go, wait a minute, you can sell something that’s a hundred thousand dollars at the end of an event. Is it, is it, is it always two days or three days? Or does the agenda change?
JK (16:15):
Yeah. So the be so the best practice and what we’ve seen work the best for clients is a two and a half to three day event. Yeah. Generally speaking. And what I wanted to also mention is because
RV (16:24):
People aren’t spending a hundred grand after 20 minute webinar, that’s for sure. Correct. That’s, that’s not usually how
JK (16:28):
It’s going down. That’s, that’s for sure. If you have a sales call maybe, and you have a good sales team, or you’re good at sales, you might be able to do it right? But in a live event, if you want to get 30 to 50 to 70% of the people in the room to move towards a big offer, right? You have to you have, you need some time, you need some time to lay it out. You need some time to help them understand why it’s for them. So,
RV (16:53):
But you could, you think so, so, so first of all, how do you get 50 people in a room for 25,000? I mean, 50 people’s, not that many people. Mm-Hmm. . But it’s also gotta be the right people, right? In order to do this. Exactly.
JK (17:05):
So here’s the mon, so this is when kind of, I’m gonna pop up to the third track that I mentioned, which is the scale scale part scale, okay? Which is the money, math and the metrics. Okay?
RV (17:15):
Money, math, and metrics.
JK (17:16):
So to get what we know is like if we know the offer is a hundred k, let’s say, right? We gotta go find people who could demonstrate that they could pay that, right? So we build our traffic and marketing strategy as part of MDE based on those people. And so let’s say you know, you already have a list, I’m gonna go, we have a segmented list for us and we tell our clients you should do that too. Or part of the process is we’re gonna have to segment them first. So to find out who are our bigger players, right? Who are the people who are doing, let’s say a million plus in their business or more they’ve been in business for five years or more for a hundred k offer, generally speaking, that’s who’s gonna pay, right? So if I know about how much I have a hundred k offer, I’m gonna be looking for those people.
JK (18:07):
And there are three types of traffic, right? There’s what I call OPP organic paid and partnership traffic. And so in the strategy of who to get inside of the room, we ask ourselves what are our lowest hanging fruit in that OPP traffic model? So for example, if it’s partnership, I might say to Rory, for example, Hey, I have people, I’m doing this MDE event about MDE, and I could say, Hey, r Rory, I know we seem like great collaborative partners on this. It could be a win-win for some of your people. And I don’t even need you to nail anybody. Do you know anybody, like three people that you feel like could work for this? And when you take that type of care for a hundred k offer to actually ask partners to do that, you’re gonna have better qualified people in the room, right?
JK (18:59):
I don’t run paid traffic generally to events where I know my offer’s gonna be a hundred KI will run paid traffic to an event where I think my offer will be between 10 and 20 5K though. Because what’s cool about the MDE model is that getting somebody to pay you 10 or 20 5K is actually, and I say this with respect and humility, it’s quite easy if you use this model a hundred k little bit different treatment. You gotta work on the, the marketing strategy upfront in that pre piece that we talked about earlier. But that’s why it’s so important to architect a unique pre-launch in the event and post-launch strategy for your specific brand and where it’s at, at this moment, right? So that’s why I said it’s about timing and moment for you versus how much the offer should be.
JK (19:47):
Mm-Hmm. , I think that I, like, for example, when people build a funnel, and again, I love online funnels, but when they build a funnel and they wanna make 250 K, which I use that example, it actually will still take a ton longer to make 250 k with the regular funnel or a webinar than it will to do a three day, two to three day event, a two to three day event. I, I, I could bet my son’s future college tuition on it that you’re actually going to get a higher ROI if you choose this model because you cannot, an online funnel or an online webinar will never do what a live event does, which creates belly to belly conversation, right? Belly to belly conversation and energy that’s created in the room that’s palpable. And, and that you brought, if you bring the right people in, then everybody feels like family, right? Everybody feels like, oh, you’re like me instead of us trying to just push a bunch of people in a room who have nothing in common. And so that kind of caretaking is part of the model of like, oh, let me be smarter instead of mm-Hmm. Even just try
RV (20:52):
To get even. So even I hear you saying though that like a 10 to $20,000 offer is something that very legitimately could happen in like a, you know, a fairly mass market way in terms of running paid ads. If you, you, you’re following the system, hopefully you pushing ’em to a two to three, three day event, and then you’re, you’re, you’re making an offer, walk me through the event, like high level agenda. So you said experience design, but then you also had agenda and zones that was in Yes. Underneath the sales. Like, you know, there’s a lot of things you can do with two and a half days, right? It’s like we could sing songs, we could do exercise routines, we could bring in guest speakers, we could do, you know, small workshops, round table. Like there’s so many, there’s a lot of time to, you could use differently. And it, I mean, it makes sense to me. If someone’s coming in and then, you know, investing at a 10,000 or $20,000 level, you’re, that’s gotta be pretty intentional about how you’re using the time while they’re there.
JK (21:50):
Yes, exactly. And such a great question. So that’s why the experience design and the offer clarity that I mentioned earlier are the most important components to do first period. Okay? You don’t need to think about where you’re gonna have it. You don’t need to be thinking about even how many people you want there, okay? What you need to be thinking about is what’s your offer? And then you architect the experience around the offer. Okay? So that’s number one. Then the agenda’s job is to make sure that the offer is the star of the show, right? When you’re building your personal brand, I think of it like this, like Rory is the man, and Brad Builders is the company around personal brand development. This is what I call your monetization product strategy, right? So it’s like the product that’s associated with me, right? How do we make it the star, right?
JK (22:42):
And so the agenda is, and then make the messenger, the me driven messenger, which is the personal brand that’s delivering the show, is amplifying, look, you love, you want me, but what you really want is this process, this model, this thing that we have. And the agenda should reflect the model. So for example, here’s a little trick you start with, if you have a model, right, like I do, and Rory has a ton like MDE I’m gonna teach them MDE as the baseline of the agenda, period, nothing else comes into play. Then I ask myself, day one is always about challenging the limiting belief, working on the mindset, helping us all speak the same language while we’re here together for three days, right? So we work with our clients to be like on day one, when you open with your story and, and the model or the framework that you’re gonna be teaching over the next two to three days, what is gonna make them see themselves in the story and the, the framework, what is gonna do that?
JK (23:49):
And whatever that experience is, we create that as the first agenda item because now we’ve set the primer for all of the other things we’re gonna put on the agenda to support them in having that transformation. So that’s day one, generally speaking, day one is all about that. And whatever experiences you create, whether it’s breakouts, perhaps other speakers, which again, other speakers by the way, you gotta, they’re part of the primer. You pick speakers that not only help people come and elevate your brand, but also can buy into the framework. Because if it’s a separate conversation, they get confused, right? The audience goes, oh, I should go work with this person, or I should do this, or I should do that. And we wanna make sure that they’re laser focused. The reason that they’re here is to work with us. And when I say that, it’s because we done the work upfront to right. To invite the right people. You know, it’s, it. So, so we do that on day one. Day two is about one
RV (24:46):
Thing to just, just to double tap on one thing you said there. I I’m, whether it’s in an event model or for the purpose of making money or anything in general, I’m such a huge proponent of make the framework the hero, not the messenger, the hero. Yes. Like, you cannot scale a company when the messenger is the hero. It’s like, it has to be a framework, right? Like that, that’s such an important idea. And, and it’s also something that if you really care about impact, it’s one thing if you, it’s one of the best ways I think you’d tell about where someone stands in their ego. If if it’s really about ego, they’re gonna have a hard time making it about the framework because they want all the attention on them. If someone really cares about impact, they’re gonna work really hard. And that’s one of the things we do is help people create their frameworks in our captivating content. But it’s because you go, a framework can outlast you, A framework can be taught to other people, A framework can scale, a framework can be duplicated. Yes. So I really, really, I really, really love that. So, okay, so day two, so tell, tell me what happens day two.
JK (25:52):
Day two is, now obviously if you have a two and a half day to three day event, you have to be able to emphasize the most important parts of the framework that solve the problem that they came to solve. Right? So you have to do that by lunchtime on day two, because lunchtime at day two is the first time you’re gonna invite people into play bigger with you, right? Using the work. And so ev we call it like the hemispheres of the event, right? So think of the lunchtime on day two as like a tipping point moment. So everything before that is mindset and making sure that you’ve taken actually the best parts of your framework and taught it the best, not the weakest, not the least important. None of that give them the best, right? And, and the key is to show them that it’s better to do it with a trusted proven guide, a KAA group of people who understand the framework better than you do, which is usually your team, right?
JK (26:55):
Or your company. And so day two, morning is all about making sure you’re emphasizing and solving the problems. So they’re like, oh my gosh, I got so much value already, right? Then you’re making the invitation at lunchtime. Now after that moment, it’s all about emphasizing why it, the framework will solve all the problems that they came to solve. So all the content on the agenda after that is about choosing the top problems that they think that they have and using the framework to solve it in the agenda period. Okay? And, and you can do that in a very cool, interesting, fun way. There’s a lot of ways to do that. That’s where like, it’s, that’s fun for me to be your thought partner on like, here’s a way you could do it that doesn’t feel like academic or boring, but sometimes it, parts of it will have to be academic.
JK (27:46):
And, and it again depends on the offer and, and the type of crowd that, that you, you attract. So that’s what day two after lunch is about. And the reason we know so much data on the people who come is because in the pre-launch process, after they’ve chosen to come, we have this amazing sales tracker that is like magic, okay? Where we put all the attendees in and we sort them based on their problems. So we’re gathering all those data ’cause we ask them before they come and then we architect the agenda around solving the problem period, right? That’s where the magic happens. ’cause They’re like, oh my God, they’re reading my mind. Oh my God, this framework really like, does the job, you know, oh wow, I really trust her or him because the me, the mission-driven Messenger, our job is to tell stories and share other people’s wins to elevate how the framework has helped us become successful in whatever we’re teaching.
JK (28:50):
So that’s a key part is a lot of people do not look at the data, the people coming. They don’t ethically stalk their amazing people that are coming, that are getting in a plane, train or automobile to come to you and taking time away from their families, taking time away from their business to come. And so to me it is our responsibility and that’s why I love this framework to actually study them and go, what are they really meetings that we don’t waste their time? Because when you do that for people, they are like, I gotta have this thing. And it’s actually a good quality product and experience that they’re having in an ongoing way. And then now they’re telling everybody about you because they’re like, oh my God, that three days that I spent at Brand Builders or with Mass Brand Institute or you know, super connector media or impacting millions all these people, like, they’re gonna go, wow, I, I, I really got and I met some of my best friends and colleagues there because they’re like me. You know? And so that’s really what the other side of the invitation on day two is about, is amplifying those things. And then by the end of the day you know, you’re gonna look back and go, wow, I got a 50 or 70% conversion at least 30% and that was a lot more than I got from an online funnel and webinar. So mm-hmm, , yeah, it’s fine. And you can actually then extract all those pieces and turn it into content obviously too.
RV (30:09):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, so you, you talked about like offer structures, like being the most important. What are the parts that you have to nail about that, right? Because like I feel like there’s a lot of, I mean, clarity to me feels like, I mean, you said that and that’s why I feel like most of the time it’s just not that clear what’s included and what’s the result or the, the benefit or the outcome of if someone takes it up. But like, what are some of the keys around the offer clarity piece that either you see people screw up or you’re like, you know, make sure it’s this and not that. ’cause It’s not just the price point, right? I mean, a price is just a number. It’s really gotta be engineered from something other than just grabbing an arbitrary number out of thin air,
JK (30:55):
Right? So the two, the two things that I think are missing the most, and we touched on one already, is framework, framework, framework. Selling the process, not the person. Okay? So important and actually training yourself as a visualizer, right? The person who’s the messenger to realize that the business you, not the brand you, but the business you needs the framework, right? Your, your team, your company, your ability to serve more people is a, is gotta be a business decision, not a brand decision. And, and the framework is almost like your little clone. It’s your cloning device, if you will, that allows you to you know, replicate like you said and scale. So number one, we’ve already touched on that. Number two is you gotta nail what I call your rich niche, okay? And how I define niche, the rich niche. The rich niche, right?
JK (31:52):
Nail the rich niche. Yes. So I define niche a lot differently than I think other people. And I call your, to me, a niche is not the demographic or the psychographic or the person, the niche is the actual problem that you’re solving. And once you know the actual problem, then you go find the watering holes where the people who have the demographics and psychographics hang out. And then you use that to like focus your marketing efforts around. And so part of why offers don’t sell is because they really don’t know the problem that they’re solving. They really don’t. They, they think they do because then if I give you x amount of calls and a community platform and access to all of our educational content, and we’re gonna also assign you an advisor or a coach, those I know people will be like, oh yeah, I know those are just features and benefits.
JK (32:53):
They are literally just features and benefits and maybe they don’t need a coach, but you think they do to buy a 20 5K offer offer to you. Maybe they don’t. Maybe what they need is we do a kickoff for two hours with you, build your entire custom strategy using this process. And if you want, you can get a coach later, but that they’re getting a, a real win that’s palpable. And I think a lot of times again, we bloat the offers, we add a ton of bonuses. And by the way, I love bonuses, I love extra things. But the truth is that we live in a world now. And, and the way that you market online and offline is actually quite different than five years ago. Like, so if you’ve learned something five years ago, it’s not gonna be as relevant right now because people are in a state of overwhelm and over consumption. And that’s why we gotta like that. Like we gotta cut through all that noise and go, Hey, I see your problem. You actually told me this is problem.
RV (33:52):
I love this. And that’s so true. Like people bloat their offers with bonuses and it’s like more is more is not better it, and it, it, it really isn’t. It’s mm-hmm, , you know, Amy Porterfield, I asked her one time, I was like, okay, you’re the queen of courses. Like I get this question all the time. What’s the right amount of what, what, how long should a course be? And like if I charge this much money, it should be, you know, how long and this much money. And she said, that’s totally the wrong way to think about it. The right length of the course is as short as it possibly can be to solve the problem. And I was like, oh, ninja master , bingo. I was like, that’s so good. Like the right length is to be as, as short in the least amount of stuff to solve the problem. How do you know if you hit the right problem? I mean, one way you’ll know is you didn’t sell crap is that means you go, man, we, we didn’t, we didn’t hit it. But before that, like, are there things you see where you go like, ah, this person is really dialed in on the problem they’re solving and this person isn’t.
JK (34:47):
I keep, I keep coming back to, so two things, two tools inside the Mte model, you’re asking such quick questions. So remember when I said like stalking people ahead of time? Yeah. So first is architecting the right intake form when they’re choosing to come to your event and asking the right questions that really extract and make the problem come to the surface. You know? So asking better questions like be a better coach in your intake forms, meaning like, ask better questions so that they, it it, it brings to the surface what their problem really is. ’cause Then you can study that and make that part of the agenda, as I said earlier, the
RV (35:23):
Second. That’s good.
JK (35:24):
Yeah. The second piece of it is you know, asking, oh is to create a diagnostic that supports your framework. So for example, and you use that as part of either the pre-launch of the event or during the event depending on the space you have. Okay? And what I mean by diagnostic is a simple way for them to score themselves at solving the problem on their own. Okay? You do that early and you use your framework as the scoring mechanism. So it’s like, look at me, I just shared MDE, which is a nine part system with the three tracks, right? So if I were teaching MDE and inviting people to an MD workshop, I would say, there are nine things you need to create a million dollar experience, right? Score yourself on these nine areas. And I guarantee you there’s gonna be two or more areas where they’re gonna have a gap, they’re gonna have an atrophy. And people don’t buy from what they have, they buy from the gap. So they
RV (36:28):
Know. It’s also about that too is like, if you told them this is what your problem is, they’d go, no, I don’t have that. I got that covered. But the moment you have ’em fill out assessment, they’re like, oh dang, like, I really suck at this. Yes. And it’s them, it’s the it it’s them making the realization on their own of their blind spot versus like a salesperson telling them. Exactly. It’s so good. Y’all, I hate to cut this off there, there are few podcast interviews where I’m like, I wish we had more time. I wish we had more time. I have to cut this off. I don’t mean for this to be a cliffhanger, but like we, Jen and I both have a hard stop, as you could tell. This is why I had, I was like, we gotta have her on the show.
RV (37:04):
Like she knows what she’s doing and here’s what I want you to do. Go to brand builders group.com/mde MDE for million dollar experience brand village group.com/mde. If you are someone who is putting on a live event, thinking about a live event, maybe one day I’ll have a live event. But like, if you’re going, I want to do in-person events, you know, and virtual too. But I think it’s like, especially if you’re like one of those people that’s like, ah, screw virtual, I hate Covid and Zoom. Let’s get people in the room. Like, if you’re doing that, like, and that is your model, you gotta go check Jen out and her team brand builders group.com four slash mde. I mean, she’s given you so much value just on this call alone. I mean, structuring the agenda, structuring the offer, structuring the pre-event questionnaire, the diagnostic making, the framework, the hero.
RV (37:56):
Like, if you can’t turn this one podcast, and by the way, go leave us a rating on iTunes about how awesome our podcast is. ’cause Like I really believe that this podcast episode alone could make you tens of thousands of dollars. Like, so I believe that this woman can help you make a lot more than that if, if you have more time. So, so check that out. And Jen, this is so cool. Like, I, I just, it’s such a, you’re such an example too, of someone with like, such a specific problem you solve is monetizing live events. I don’t know, but like, I can’t even give you, but like three people in the world who even claim to be able to do that, that it’s like, that’s the the thing. So this is so good and, and we’re so excited about your book coming out and I think we should probably have you back to actually talk about that. ’cause That’s like building out your team and we could probably tie it back into this. But anyways, friend, you, this is awesome. This is so powerful. This stuff is great.
JK (38:55):
Well, I’m so glad it was valuable and I can geek out all day long with you, Rory Vaden, and I appreciate how much you’re helping the world and helping me, not just with my book, but getting messages that of people who have this intellectual property and, and expertise and helping us all grow even bigger. So thank you. It’s been so much fun.
RV (39:16):
It’s my pleasure, buddy. We wish you, we wish you the best. We’ll, we’ll be following your journey very closely and we’ll have you back again sometime soon.

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Category: SELLING

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