RV: (00:00) Hey brand builder, welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. John DiJulius is somebody that I love that I trust, that I know that I have watched build an amazing business. And there’s people who have very public reputations, right? And some of our clients, some of our friends have very public figures, very high profiles. And you know, there’s something to be said about that, right? That’s very valuable. But I think what’s even more valuable is the private reputation of, of what do people say about someone behind their back. What do people say when nobody is around, you know, and it’s just the one on one conversations and everybody that I know that knows John de Julius fellow speakers industry, you know, Bureau’s agents, his customers, his team, they all say amazing things about him. And I love that. I love that about him because that is what reputation I think is, is really, really all about. RV: (01:05) So, you know, first and foremost, I just wanted to say that and make sure that, you know, and if you’re, you know, if you’re looking to improve your customer experience in any way, man, he’s, he is one of the guys. There’s a, you know, one of the, one of the people, there’s, there’s a handful of people who do that really well. But he’s, he’s certainly the top or one of the top. So so I thought it was cool to get a little behind the scenes look at how he became that way. And, and these were my three biggest takeaways two of which he didn’t even say. So one of which he did say, but two of them that he did not even really talk about. So my number one takeaway from John D Julius is practice what you preach, practice what you preach. RV: (01:54) See one of the things that I think is most compelling about him and it’s most amazing about him, it’s also something that a J and I aspire to and have always aspired to, is this idea that we’re not teaching, we’re not teaching people ideas that we’ve learned as much as we’re teaching people principles that we practice. We’re not teaching people ideas that we’ve learned. We’re teaching people principles that we practice. We’re teaching people to do the things that we actually do. Right. And I think that’s why in the personal brand community, brand builders group has grown so fast because so many of the people who advise brands haven’t actually built one that for themselves. And that’s not a, I’m not, that’s not a strike necessarily against them. I think it’s, it’s hard. It’s extremely hard to teach people how to do something and do it yourself at the same time. RV: (02:56) Like it’s extremely difficult. And, and so I think, you know, in many ways it is, it’s, it’s, it’s okay and it’s right for an agency to go, well, don’t look at me, look at my clients. But I think what John has done, which is unique and this is something that we aspire to, is to actually, in addition to teaching people to do it, to, to do it and to continue doing it ourselves because it also keeps you relevant, right? Like the fact that you are building a company yourself gives you ideas and lessons and struggles and stories and pain that you’re experiencing every day that you pull into your personal brand. I think where the risk of becoming irrelevant happens is where it’s like, okay, I’m teaching all the stuff that I used to do or that used to work, but because I’m not actively in it anymore [inaudible] nobody, nobody knows, including me, nobody, nobody knows if these things actually work. RV: (03:56) So [inaudible] I love that about him and that is something that we, you know, always aspire to bring to you. And, and everybody that we bring on our show, we look at them in some way. They’re a practitioner of, of what they’re teaching. And that’s, you know, if you, if you want a little interview tip about how I do the interviews is I’m always asking myself, what does this person, I don’t even really care about what the person teaches. I really ask, what does this person actually do in their real life that I want to learn? I want to understand the behind the scenes truth, not of what they teach or how they present themselves, but of the things that I look at their life. And I go, man, I really admire this specific piece of, of their life. And I think I think it was Mark Twain who said, every man is my superior in some way. RV: (04:54) And so I’m always, I’m not asking myself ever, can I learn from this person about anybody, about every single person I meet? I’m never asking myself can I learn something from this person. I’m always asking myself, what can I learn from this person? And there are people who I think I have despicable personal track records or polarized opposite philosophies on things that I have that I still go, Oh, I can learn a lot about something from this person. To me it’s not, it’s not an all or none, but anyways, I say all that to say, practice what you preach and maybe a better way of saying this is preach what you practice. That’s probably that, that’s, that’s actually as I’m talking this out, that’s what the big, the big idea is, is preach what you practice, teach what you do and then you will know there’s always substance and support and evidence and and data and real experience behind what you’re doing and I think John does that as good as anyone preach what you practice. RV: (06:04) The second thing is, I mean, gosh, I’ve heard John say this a hundred times. It’s like one of his signature things is making price irrelevant, but specifically the thing that he said in this interview, which I’ve never heard him clarify or it never sunk in with me until just now was he said, making price irrelevant. Does it mean you can double your fees and not lose your customers. So he’s not saying, Oh, you can just charge whatever you want. What he’s saying is you’re so good and your, your, your prices are fair enough for what people are getting that even if they are premium prices, your customers never stop to check what your competitors are charging. So be so good that your competitors never stopped to check. Well who your competitors are like they never stopped to to ask that could someone else because you’re servicing them so well. RV: (07:03) You’re over-delivering, you’re, you’re exceeding their expectations, you’re giving them what you said and more and, and that’s, it’s been, it’s hard to do that. It’s hard to do that. Like one of the reasons that we have gotten into the agency side of the business at PR, at brand builders group and started helping people build websites and build funnels and write copies and do video editing and manage their social media is because we have found it so incredibly difficult to find reliable vendors and agencies who will over deliver. And I’ll tell you now that we’re in the business, it’s really hard. Like it’s really hard. It’s a thin margin business. Yeah, people have high expectations and you know, if they want to spend the least amount of money and get the best product, it’s, it’s just like the nature of it is really, really challenging, but you have to aspire and push and, and, and even if you can’t do it on day one, you want to always be going, how can we make price irrelevant? RV: (08:02) How can we over deliver so that our customers never even stopped to go, ‘You know, I wonder if somebody else could do this better. I wonder if someone else could do this cheaper. I wonder if someone else could do this faster.’ That’s making price irrelevant. And really what it’s like making competitors irrelevant and it’s just keeping people locked in. So you’ve got to be that good. You have to be that good and always be, be striving in that direction. So that’s super, I think powerful and just a good reinforcement. The third takeaway for me from John is also something he did not say explicitly. And the way I’m going to summarize this as this follows one message, multiple modality modalities, one message, multiple modalities. Yeah. John has one expertise, one focus, customer experience that his entire career is built upon as an entrepreneur and the spas that he runs and owns and operates. RV: (09:08) It’s about customer experience. And then you know, as a personal brand, as a speaker, author, influencer, whatever term you want to use, it’s all about customer experience. It’s one message. And yet he has built this multimillion dollar business based upon multiple modalities, right? So he’s doing consulting, he’s doing keynote speaking. He is also has his own conference that people are buying tickets to come to. And then he has, you know, the customer experience executive Academy. So he’s got these four different like verticals, if you will, but all on the same, all on the same message, in the same market. It’s just, it’s a great example of what we call the services spectrum. And those of you that are members of ours, you know that we, when we talk about, I’m like phase three and phase four, we look at the services spectrum, which is exactly that. RV: (10:07) It’s, it’s one message, one market, multiple modalities. And that is what I think John has done really well. It’s going, I’m providing the same information but in multiple mediums and our event, you know, our, we have an event specifically captivating content where we talk about this, where we help somebody create their body of work for their, for their next book or their next course or their next thing. And it’s all the same thing. It is, you know, the way we design our content both internally at brand builders group as we teach personal brands to build and monetize their personal brand. And as the Rory Vaden personal brand, which is all about helping people, helping leaders overcome procrastination and move people to action. Those are, you know, how I designed my personal content is all around this thing we call the modular content method. And when you build it out this way, the book is, the co is a video course. RV: (11:09) It is a two day event. It can’t, it’s a half day training. It’s a keynote, it’s a coaching curriculum. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s a consulting program and you just build a body of work, a body of knowledge that then gets subdivided and broken a ProCon apart into a Ted talk, a keynote, a half day training, a full day training, a two day training, a public event, a coach, a six month coaching, yeah. Program. And it’s organizing your content. It’s one message, one market, multiple modalities. And John is just a really great example of doing that. It’s not creating a different product for a different business model for every different market. It’s kind of dominating one vertical and then servicing them and multiple, which is, you know, a simple idea. It’s just vertical integration. But it’s something that I think most personal brands don’t do very well. RV: (12:00) And I think we’re quick to launch different types of business models that serve different audiences instead of going, how can I serve this one audience fully? Which is a lot of what we [inaudible], you know, we talk about here and every, you know, you hear the guests come on and talk about that so consistently. Cause it’s like that is the discipline and that is what works. And that’s part of why we bring you all these different guests from different backgrounds is because you can see how these people have built, you know, high six-figure, multi seven-figure. Occasionally we get the eight-figure entrepreneurs on here that have just built [inaudible] deeply in one vertical. And that’s what we want you to do, is to go, you know, who can I serve most powerfully? Who can I help in the most profound [inaudible] in meaningful and impactful way? Because that is like the foundation and the heart of a mission driven messenger, which is who we’re honored to serve. And so I’m honored that you’re here. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.