RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call, hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:02) So you have an opportunity. You’re about to learn from one of the first people and one of the most important mentors in my life. And certainly in the trajectory of my career, David Avrin has become one of my closest friends and he was one of the first people I met on my journey when I was just a young kid with a dream. And so technically, so here’s what David does today. He’s gonna talk, we’re gonna, I’m going to interview him to share with you his process. He has a very systematic process for acquiring keynotes and growing a keynote business. And we’ll talk about why that’s important, but as a speaker, he is one of the most in demand customer experience and marketing speakers in the world today. And he speaks all over the world, Singapore, Bangkok and tour bueno Situs, Srilanka Brisbane, Johannesburg, I mean, London, Barcelona, Dubai on and on and on. RV: (02:04) And he’s speaking for companies like Harley Davidson, Remax, PPG ups, and he’s the author of a couple of books. Okay. so it’s not who, you know, it’s who knows you visibility marketing and then his latest book, why customers leave and how to win them back, which was named by Forbes as one of the seven business books that entrepreneurs need to read. So he has done it and he has spent a lot of time teaching people like myself. And it, those of you that are members of ours, you know, when you go through our phase one experience and we talk about the brand DNA helix, and I talk about questions, like what have you earned the right to talk about? You’ll hear me quote, that that is directly from David Avrin. What problem do you solve? What do you do better than anyone else in the world? These are, these are things that I learned from this man. So brother, thank you for making some time to come on the show. DA: (03:01) Well, I am humbled. I am honored and, and isn’t it ironic over the years that when we look back to that was decades ago, when we all started our friendship, our relationship and how much we’ve learned from each other over the years, I, I loved the idea when the master becomes the student and the student becomes the master and you were a kid and you no longer now you have kids of your own. And and I love seeing where you are. I love being able to have these conversations and then letting other people listen into what it is that we talk about, but we continue to learn from each other because the world is changing. And so how we do what we do has to change as well. RV: (03:40) Yeah. Well, amen to that. And I think one of the things in recent years, and this is, this is where I kind of, you know, I definitely want to step into the student’s seat here again, because I’ve been so impressed. I mean, you, you kind of like, we’re a marketing consultant. And so you were advising companies on that, and then you were advising speakers on that, and then you kind of stepped into becoming a speaker and then you built this really fast speaking career. And one of the things that I love about how, how you’ve done it is, is, you know, too many people teach the business of speaking like, well, Hey, you throw up a website or you, you do a demo video and people just come or Hey, you write a book and people just come, but it’s not that way. It’s never been that way. And most people don’t have such a systematic process that they follow and, and watching you develop that I think has been inspiring for me because I think it’s something that is teachable and it’s scalable versus, Hey, you know, you gotta become famous. And then you’re a speaker. DA: (04:47) I think it’s the only thing that’s scalable. I mean, that’s, that’s the whole point of it. I think it’s, it’s, I think the tragedy of our profession, whether you are a professional speaker or you just speak as part of what you do to share your message and build your audience, whether it’s consulting or otherwise as well. I think the big tragedy of our profession is all of the false information of what it takes to be successful in doing this. And we have, and I think you’ll agree with this one. It always makes me smile a little bit that I think we’re the only profession for those of us who actually do this for a living where most people become speakers, because they’re encouraged to become speakers by people who have no idea what it’s like to be a speaker, right? It’s like, you have to tell that story. DA: (05:29) You got to go and inspire people. And all of those people say, listen, I just want to touch people’s lives. I want to, I want to share when to help inspire people and sheer joy, you know, it’s like, yeah, don’t quit your day job. I mean, it doesn’t mean that we can’t do that. It doesn’t mean we can’t inspire people, but the reality is this is a business and meeting planners. Aren’t going to pay you $10,000 for you to have a cathartic experience on stage. They’re going to pay you $8,500 for you to live your life’s dream, touching people’s lives. However, they will pay you to solve a problem of theirs now in doing so you can live your dream. You can, you can, you know, indulge your passion, but this is a business and speaking, isn’t speaking, isn’t a business. Getting the gig is the business. DA: (06:14) And that’s the key that most people don’t realize you and I both know that most people will enter and leave this profession within two years, because they’re literally starving because they took it. I took a class on storytelling or hand gestures, and why won’t my phone raise like pick up the freaking phone. And so what, what you talked about sort of very quickly, I don’t know that it was quickly. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years now. And I am a 20 year overnight success in that we spend a lot of time myself and my staff in learning what works and what doesn’t, and what doesn’t work is, is promoting your passion. And here’s what I, it it’s solving somebody’s problem. Now, if you can connect what you’re really good at and what you really love to do with a problem, somebody willing to pay to solve, you have magic. You have Nirvana, you have the chance of being successful in this business. RV: (07:08) I love that. I love that. What you said there about speaking, isn’t the business, getting the speaking gig is the business. And that’s like that one insight alone, I think, is just people overlooked DA: (07:25) Dramatically. We, we love inspiring people. We love teaching. We are by definition. I think all of your brand builders, of course, I’m part of your brand builders group as well. We’re all teachers, to an extent, aren’t we, we have something that we want to share with somebody. We believe something, we know something we’ve learned, and we want to impart that to others. And we can do it through consulting and online courses and books and everything else, but it’s not about us. And this is where this is where I will differ from some very big names who talk about it’s important that people buy your why. And I don’t think they buy your why. I think they buy their why. I think you have to be very clear on your why you have to know why you’re doing what you’re doing, but you have to connect it to their why, why are they buying? DA: (08:10) What is their problem? What is their challenge? What are they looking for? And not everybody has a problem. I mean, sometimes their problem. My problem is I just need a bigger flat screen TV than Phil does down the street. That’s an, that’s a, that’s a that’s my, my problem is I need a bigger snowblower than my, in my neighbors. But but speaking in general for no matter what you do, if speaking as a part of it, there is a process and the system. And, but don’t confuse that with automation. Cause I’m not an automation guy. I am everything for us. It’s very highly personalized. And I think part of our success in finding and converting paid speaking gigs is that we are very systematic in our approach, but very personalized in our outreach. Does that make sense? Say that again. You’re very say that again. DA: (08:57) We’re very, we’re very systematized in our approach. We have a process in this system that helps us be efficient with our time. It helps us to make sure that the activities that we’re engaged in are effective activities. They are strategic. We know why we’re doing what we’re doing and when we’re doing it, but how we’re doing it is not about how many can we do as quickly as we can. It’s very easy to get a list of associations, craft a general email and send it out to everybody in 45 seconds. And it’s the worst possible approach ever because you’re just going to be thrown in the bucket with everybody else who spams them with that information. So that’s super efficient, but it’s not effective. Part of what makes us very effective. And we are, is that we take the time to look up every prospect. DA: (09:52) That would be a good fit for what I do right now. I talk about customer experience as a meaningful, competitive advantage. I speak to corporate audiences and association audiences about how to achieve advantage over their competitors by being remarkably easy to do business with. And so as we call that list and go through and see which one would be an appropriate audience for me, like if somebody is in business and they’re in a competitive marketplace, it’s a great audience. So the national for the international glove manufacturers, which is a big deal, of course, during the Corona virus, it’s a thing I’ve spoken for them before. That’s a great audience for me, but the national society of operating room nurses, not a good audience for me. They’re not in business. They’re not competing against other amazing people, but not an approach for me. So strategically we would never pitch them because it’s wasting time. Cause they would never hire me. So we’re very selective in terms of we will buy lists or on the, on the association side, on the, on the government side, on the corporate side. RV: (10:58) So can we, can we, can we tell about that? I wanna, I wanna cause I wanna, I want to hit that part first. Cause I do think a lot of people miss that step and, and I think even that as a first step, there’s a lot of people that go, Oh my gosh, I didn’t know. You could do that. And then the ones that do it, they buy a list. They send a broadcast email to everybody, nobody buys and they say this to them. DA: (11:21) It didn’t work. Right. RV: (11:24) How do you get the list though? Let’s like, sure, do you, where do you go together? DA: (11:28) Let me back up. First of all, not only does it not work, but you’ve actually just poisoned the well for future outreach that you’re gonna do. So there’s listen. A lot of places. I will be honest. My staff does a lot of this. So I’ve got you know, Tiffany’s met with me for almost nine years. So there’s association list. You can look them online. A lot of them are free. The Hoover’s list, which is the Dunn and Bradstreet for of us who grew up in business dun and Bradstreet is probably the most current UpToDate corporate database of major associates or not association, corporate executives, personnel it’s updated constantly. And so the mailing list sort of part of that is called Hoovers. So if you look at Hoovers, it is not inexpensive. You know, it might be, I think as much as $3,000 or so for a year. DA: (12:21) But, but for many of us, that’s 15 minutes on stage with one gig, the advantage elite to sort of go through both of these. Cause I think this is really meaningful for those who are, who are listening the association side, they tend to pay a little bit less, but every association, every industry has an annual meeting or multiple meetings look around the room wherever you are right now, listening to this or watching this, everything you see in that room. Somebody makes that, and they have an annual meeting. So the lights and the switches and the, and the fixtures, everything you see there, a there an association and they meet every year, look them up. And here’s what we do. We go to one of the associations that we go through a little matrix. So with everyone we look up, we look up, when is their next meeting? DA: (13:06) We, we market in their, in, in our form. When was their last meeting, who were their speakers? So we’re you and I have been around the business for a long time. We know who’s basically making what, if you don’t know, just go online and look them up. You can get a general idea of what their fee is. So if I see some very big names, if I see a Rory Vaden or a Jay bear or a, or a Sally Hawk said, I have a pretty good idea of what they paid for that person. Last year, we look at when their, when their next meeting is coming up, coming up. So we get all that information phone numbers, everything else. And then that’s in our database and our CRM we’ll use that to craft a personalized pitch letter. Now we’re not writing them all from scratch. DA: (13:48) 95% of is done, but we will tailor their name, the name of their event. We’ll pitch me as a good prospect for it. And it’s about how many of those can we crank out, but they’re very personalized. They’re different one at a time and we’re sending them one at a time. But, but think about it this way. If you were able to do, maybe it takes you 20 minutes or so, and you could do maybe three an hour and you treated this like a job. Cause it’s a job that people sleep until noon. You know, I mean, success is being willing to do the things that other people aren’t willing to do. Where did I learn? Where did I learn that and take the stairs. And so if you treat this like a job and safe it four hours a day of just pitching and you could do three an hour. So that’s three times four that’s 12, a day, times, five days a week. That’s 60 organizations who now know who you are, who wouldn’t have known otherwise multiply that in a month. That’s 240 organizations. You’ve with a personalized, tailored pitch, which makes you stand out from others as well as somebody said to us, how are you converting such a big portion, big percentage of the pitches that you’re, that you’re sending out. I want to hear that quickly. And I, and I say, I don’t think we are, but RV: (15:09) Yeah. So, and I do want to hear about that process, but one of the things I think that stands out to me and what you described is there, isn’t a magic list. It’s not like there’s some secret list that you know about that no one else knows about it’s the same place you’d buy any lists, the business journal, you Google stuff like it’s, there’s not like a magic clean list that has it. And some of those lists are probably inaccurate and you’re sorting through some of that. And when you send the email, you get a bounce back and you got to call them DA: (15:38) While we do do some of the research, we look up something and think, well, that takes some time. Sure. And for what we get paid, we’re not selling widgets. You know, if you’re at, whether you’re at $7,500 or $15,000 for a keynote, we make a really good living for what it is that we do. It is worth that investment. If you’re doing that and you’re doing 12 a day or five a day, it’s more than you’re doing now. And you’ve got a hundred pitches. If you pull out three or four gigs in a month, that’s more than 99% of the people in the world will make, this is a job. You got to treat it like a job. And so, but you also have to be very strategic in how you pitch. When we craft our letters. For example, we give them an easy out at the end of the very first paragraph we say, I think David David ever would be a great fit for your, your event, blah, blah, blah. DA: (16:28) And this coming up on this date so that we know, they know we did some research. If you want to skip the rest of this letter, click on this link to watch his preview video. You’ll know in a few short minutes, why he’s one of the most popular customer experience speakers in the world today? We give them a digital link in an analog letter letter, essentially, right too. I’ll say that again, just because it kind of jumped down in case you want to take this quote, it’s a digital Lincoln, an analog letter that allows them to skip everything else to skip ahead. Cause everything we do is about getting them to watch my preview video. If they, that is our one key factor that is our leading indicator. People will watch my preview video, which is pretty good. It’s got me speaking around the world. DA: (17:13) If they watch that I’ve got a good shot of getting the gig. If they don’t watch it, I have zero chance. So there’s a whole bunch of other things that we don’t have time to go into in terms of what they need to make this successful. But in terms of our process, we will go through. Now, let me talk about the other side. So that’s the association site and it’s just it’s work. It’s being clear on who your audience is. Don’t pitch and waste time on ones that aren’t make sure it’s personalized. And your whole goal is one of two things. Either get them on the phone or get them to watch your video. And if you can get one of those two things, you got a good chance. Knowing the corporate side, they tend to have a bigger budget. The problem is, and this is the Hoover’s list and others is they don’t post anything in terms of their events because they’re not public. DA: (17:57) And so you’re kind of going in a little bit blind in terms of pitching a specific event, but we have a strategy for both of those. So our strategy is it’s timing, it’s followup. And I’m happy to give you some of what that is. I mean, there’s certain days that we pitch in certain days that we don’t write no pitching on Fridays. Cause even if somebody likes you, they’ll forget about you by Monday, it’s all trial and error. Friday is when we’re, we’re filling out RFPs, which is contrary once again to what most speakers will tell you don’t fill out RFPs. They’re just for breakouts. Nobody pays. I made six figures on RFPs last year, six figures, but we have a template. So we just cut and paste. Here’s our takeaways. Here’s the, you know, what are the three takeaways from session, outcomes, outcomes, all stuff. DA: (18:47) And so we just cut and paste and we’ve got it now. Cause we’ve done so many. If it’s a healthcare organization, if it’s retail or restaurant or, or financial services, which we do a lot of, we can cut and paste and get those in. Some of those have turned into keynotes, but what else are you doing on a Friday? Now, granted, there’s a lot in, in, through the brand builders group. Of course you, you teach a lot of great systems and processes, but the best way to get in front of people as you build your audience, as you build your visibility is to treat the speaking part as a business. And we do so, and we’ve had good success because of it. RV: (19:21) Yeah. You know, and I think that’s, it’s really interesting. I say this a lot to people as much as we’re virtual and you know, automated and scalable and all these things that we talk about, the there’s still, nothing does such an effective job as converting someone who is a complete stranger, never heard of you to an absolute lifelong raving fan in one hour as being in the same room, physically with you watching you do a P a well-polished crafted and delivered keynote, which there’s a lot to it, but that is the shortest distance between stranger and raving fan. Now we try to emulate that with a webinar experience online DA: (20:09) And you can to an extent, and I do that as well. We use all the vehicles in venues that we can, yeah, RV: (20:15) It does. It does to some, some, some fraction or percentage of that. But I think that the tricky thing about the speaking business, like what you’re saying that I really love is I go, it is a job. You have to treat it as a job. And the bomber is that it’s not super scalable. Like you have finite inventory. Now you could still make a couple million bucks. DA: (20:37) Maybe I can be a one stage at a time. I can be on one airplane at a time. But that said, the effectiveness during that interaction is, is Speaker 4: (20:48) Infinitely greater than the, you can, you can have 10,000 people on a call or you can have 500 people in an audience, but the impact you’re going to have on those people is going to be that much more so. And nobody knows that better. And I’ll brag for you for a minute. Then Rory Vaden, who at a very young age, as a young kid was top 10 in the world for world championship of public speakers. The next year, he was second in the world in the world, like 25,000 people started, but there’s something about charisma and there’s something about about communication and that, and yet you’re not equals. Here’s the other thing that that is so beneficial for what we do. When you have an opportunity to get that stage, you are not equals, you are not meeting Ida. You are elevated both figuratively. Speaker 4: (21:33) And literally they’re seeing somebody who is a passionate messenger for whatever it is that they’re espousing and you have a captive audience and they’re listening to you and if you are practicing and it doesn’t mean that you’re overly rehearsed, but you know what you’re saying, you’re teaching what you do. There is a power in that. And if you are, as we are generally, pardon the gender specific reference. If we’re the good guys and we’re teaching something that is important, that’s going to help them and benefit their lives. There is a power in that and it’s, and it’s, and it’s using that power for good, as opposed to using those super powers for evil. But in terms of galvanizing them as followers, as somebody who wants to know more, that’s why people line up for us afterwards to get a signed copy of our book and to take a picture with us. Speaker 4: (22:23) It’s surreal, right? It’s not real. Most people don’t have jobs where people clap for them. At the end of the day I come home and my, my beautiful wife is like, Hey, big deal, go take out the trash, like planting trees, my backyard yesterday. But that moment there is something surreal. There’s something powerful. And it certainly energizes us. And I am passionate about what I do, but this isn’t my passion. It’s my job. My passion is my children. I love what I do. I’m doing exactly what I should be doing, but my passion is my family. And so that, that part of, as sort of dovetail of what you were saying of being able to be on stage, it’s a really effective way to deliver your content in a way where everybody is touch. You, you can’t sit back in your office and throwing a tennis ball against the wall during a, you know, during a webinar. That doesn’t happen when we’re on stage. RV: (23:19) Yeah. And, and I, you know, I was processing it too, is like, I think speaking is the greatest job in a world, but it’s not a great business because it doesn’t actually scale beyond you, but it’s the best form of marketing for a business that ever could be it’s. So it’s like you have this great job on the front end and Speaker 4: (23:42) Treat it right. It feeds into whatever the, whatever RV: (23:46) The business is on the backend. That is the scalable, that is the scalable thing. But that front part of it, of just going, it starts, it starts with a list. It starts with figuring out who to reach out to, and then tell us about the followup process a little bit, Dave. So you have that first outreach, your first outreach, there is a, is a, is a tailored email. That’s what I hear you. Right? Speaker 4: (24:10) We actually have a schedule and I don’t mind sharing it with you. We have a video series that we weave to do a, a live bootcamp that we just don’t do any more than we recorded it. But here’s our basic process we pitch on on Tuesday and Wednesday. Sometimes on Thursday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday pitches might go out. It’s the first email. And as soon as we do in our CRM system, as soon as we send that first email, we set a task to follow up in two weeks with another one. If we get no response, we’ll follow up in two weeks, but here’s something different than we do. So on Friday we actually send a hard copy brochure letter, follow up saying, Hey, we sent you an email last week. We send them on Fridays for a reason, because it’s a hard snail mail. Speaker 4: (24:55) It’ll arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday of the next week. So now we’ve gotten two touches one week apart, one virtual, one physical. If we get no response from them in our CRM system, we’ll get a tickler two weeks later, that will say follow up with so and so, so we have a second email and here’s, what’s interesting. Our response for the second email is three times what it is for the first email, to an extent, I think people go, Oh gosh, I was going to get back to her or whatever, because we get, we all get overwhelmed every day. We try and work really hard to make sure it’s not spam, right? So the second one emails are very simple. One, Hey, sent you a pitch, but David ever would be a good fit. Let us know if there if we can find a time to talk and, and we’ll get response, it doesn’t mean they all say yes. Speaker 4: (25:42) Some say, Oh, I’m so sorry. We’re not meeting till whenever or something else. If they don’t respond to that, we do not reach out a fourth time. So it’s two virtual, one physical, and it’s all within a two week period. If we don’t hear back, we don’t reach out again. We just put them back in there and we set a responder for the following year. Now here’s the most important part, and this is our big secret that I’m going to give out to everybody and I’m not selling it. Oh. And, and this is people who paid thousands to come to our boot camp, which we don’t do anymore. It’s the win because our business tends to book eight to 18 months out in the U S overseas. They’ll do a shorter time period. When I’m, I was just in Mumbai India, we launched our book out there. Sometimes they’ll book six weeks out, but here we generally do that. So RV: (26:32) 17 to 18 months, that’s what he’s 18 months Speaker 4: (26:35) Sort of when the window book out. But here’s when they start the process. This is the important part. If we look up an organization and let’s just pretend people are listening to this right now, and it’s may, and their event is coming up in July, they’ve already got their suite. We’re not going to pitch them. Now if their event is in July or August, because don’t forget about us. So what we do is we always give them 60 days from their last event before we pitch this, honestly, for those of you listening, who will do something, this is worth a hundred, $200,000, just this tip of knowing when to pitch them. So if we reach somebody and their events coming up, we just put a tickler in the system for 60 days. From that date, it’ll pop up on our screen. We know into pitch them. Speaker 4: (27:21) If we pitched them too soon, they forget about us because they’re already in the throws of their event, scheduling take a monk off. And then they’ll start thinking about when to form their committee to work on the following year. And so it’s been very successful. We’ve learned it’s taken nine years to, to decipher this part of it. So whenever their event is 60 days from that is the day that we pitch where sometime within the next couple of months after, but never before that. And that alone gets us so many more responses. And everybody’s in the system. Our goal is to get them to click on my video. And then once, if they say within that two week period, if they come back with any kind of interest, this is about taking a contact and turning it into a lead and a lead into a prospect and a prospect into a paid speaking gig. Speaker 4: (28:11) And we know what influences each step of us. Initially, there were contacts or just somebody we have in the system. The minute we email them, they become a lead. And if they respond in any way, other than how did you get my information, please stop emailing me. They become a prospect. And so if they say, yeah, we’re interested, send us some information. We’ll then, then all the rains are offering and we love them up. We send them a signed copy of the book. We set up a I’ll do a virtual, a BombBomb video email message to them. We will send them a try and set up a followup conversation because here’s the reality. I can’t let everything be equal when I know I’m a finalist. I don’t cross my fingers because my competition is guys like Rory Vaden it’s it’s it’s women like Connie Podesta and Sally Hogshead and Peter sheen and just amazing speakers. Speaker 4: (29:07) I can’t let everything be equal because my competitors are phenomenal. So that’s when we really, when we know somebody has an interest, we send them information. I do a video email that tells me where I can talk to them specifically and tell them what I know about their industry. And when I do a BombBomb video email, for those of you understand where bomb bomb, it’s a horrible name for a company, but it’s a great service because we can track the email. We’re over 80% success in landing the gig. But at that point we’ve already know that they have an interest in me. You’re saying if they’re, if start opening your video RV: (29:42) Emails, then you’re like, you’re Speaker 4: (29:44) No, no. I’m saying those who I record a BombBomb video email and send it to a prospect, consort express, some interest, we convert over 80% into paid speaking gigs because I’m granted, they’re already interested. The point is we are methodical about our process. But we’re very personalized in how we do what we do. We just need to be efficient with our time, because most pitches I don’t get. But even when, even when I don’t and they said, we’re going to do you for next year. And my staff will, you know, cause to what extent their part of their compensation is, is a commission and they’re frustrated. It says, okay, I need to pay my mortgage next year too. We play the long game to create a sustainable business in this business is absolutely rare. But to do so and much of what I’ve learned from Marie and AIJ in terms of process, we have to, we treat this like a business and we get, I get up every morning and I look at my beautiful wife and my, my, my absurd house and my high-maintenance children and I get my butt. RV: (30:57) Oh my gosh. That’s so funny. Yeah, I mean, I think that’s probably the, the, the, the, it seems like the big, consistent part here is methodical about the process, but personalized about the pitch. And that is, that is so powerful. And then, like you’re saying playing the long game, I mean, the one thing that AIJ always says that I found to be so true, particularly in the speaking business, not just personal brand at large, but in the speaking business is like, if somebody engages with you, like if you get to that point that they’re engaging with you and you send them a book, if you just stay in touch with that person, they will eventually book you. It may not be this year. It may not be next year, but if they have engaged with you at all, it’s like, eventually that person is going to book you just because at some point it becomes easy for them to do it because they trust you just for the sake of the matter that you have been around forever. Speaker 4: (32:05) Right? Well, and sometimes those people book you and they no longer work for the same place that they worked before. You just rubber organization. And then they book you. RV: (32:16) Yes. When they book you and then they move and then they book you again for the exact same. Speaker 4: (32:21) We had a thing last January, not this January a year ago, January, I did. I had two gigs that Tiffany and my office had been working on for three years. And it was just, it was weird, but literally three years that she’d been working on both of them and two very big organizations, and it’s not like she was bugging them. It’s just, she pitched them. We didn’t get the gig and put them back in the system. We pitched them again the next year, sometimes it was a tweak or it was a new keynote tide or something else. And ultimately it booked and she made the point that she’s not like I’m going crazy. She’s like just, it comes up in my system. We do a crafted pitch and we don’t get it. We pitch them again next year because the organization isn’t going into wasn’t going away. Speaker 4: (33:03) So I get down to Phoenix. I’m, I’m speaking for this organization. I walk in the door and the guy says to me, he goes, your assistant is a pit bull. And I just, she has persistent. And of course it went great. And they booked me a second time since which is, which is wonderful. But I, and to be clear, I love what I do. You love what you do, but the only way I get to do it, as much as I want to do it is by treating it like a business. And so the delivery part of it is the part that we all love. Even when I, when I’m there and they’re asking me like, well, how much more for this? And Tiffany in my office, she tells client. She says, Oh, you’re just paying for him to leave his kids. He loves it. He’ll, he’ll do as much as you want while he’s there. You want him to facilitate your lunchtime panel discussion. You want to break out, even though he loves this, but, but the fee is for him to leave, to leave his family, but he loves doing this. So we very much treat like a business and have been able to grow and scale in terms of the the other offerings as well. RV: (34:08) I absolutely love that. So I got one more question for you before that. Where should people go if they, if they wanna learn about Dave Avar? And if you have a video, I mean, if you have a video course somewhere, we’ll put a link to that. Speaker 4: (34:22) Sure. Here, my speaking and consulting, look, we have a David [inaudible] dot com and it’s a V R I N. David alburn.com and my, my greatest initiative and part of what I learned from Rory Vaden, as well as I, every wonderful subscription model initiative that I’ve launched, I think is the most powerful work I’ve ever done. If you look at customer experience, advantage.com, you can see some samples, great URL, just customer experience, advantage.com take a look and and reach out. I’m not hard to find and look my name up online, and I’ve got videos and, and everything else, but I appreciate the opportunity with my, my little brother, my best buddy, for all these years. I’ve loved watching your success and in holding and squishing your babies. And I couldn’t be more impressed and proud with of what you’ve done and who you are. So there’s me sucking up to you a little bit, but how fun is this when you think about where we were 20 plus years ago? RV: (35:29) I mean, it’s, it’s crazy, Dave, and, and I’m so grateful for you. I mean, I, I literally just in so much of what teaching now is built upon the tenants and the principles and foundations that you shared with me that, you know, I paid you in chips and appetite, Speaker 4: (35:48) Nacho cheese. Yeah. I was to say, RV: (35:52) And that we now sell for thousands of dollars. Speaker 4: (35:58) We’re all helping each other, but isn’t that, isn’t that the best part about the brand builders group and everything else that you do is there is a, there’s a community of people who are learning and sharing best practices. And some of them will ultimately become best practices because they’re new practices. And until we realize what works and what doesn’t, but what a perfect time to get into this business, but what you do and what UNH and your team do is you help people slice 10 years off their learning curve and to be able to, to share their message and their, and their brand and build all of that and do it in a shorter period of time, it gets them to the port where they can do the work that is impactful much, much sooner. And and I applaud you for that. RV: (36:47) Well, thank you. And so here’s, my last little thought is if, if, if there were somebody listening right now, right? Think of me, think of me 20 years ago, or even yourself, you know, 20 years ago, in many ways it was like just stepping into the industry. Now they kind of, they have the dream, right? Like Speaker 4: (37:05) What, you know, what, what is the, RV: (37:08) What is the one thing that you feel like they, you know, they need to know, or they need to, they need to hear in terms of, you know, being able to go, this can become a sustainable way to feed your family and make a difference in the world. Speaker 4: (37:27) You know what I, I, and I, I want you to listen and take this in the right way, because it will make sense. It’s not about you, but it’s not in lieu of you. Does that make sense? So it is about them. It’s what can you do for them? But it’s what is special in you? What you’ve learned, what you can do, your unique gifts and how you can apply that to better somebody else’s life or their business. So I think the biggest mistake people make is they get so caught up in their own story and who they are that they forget. There’s an old exercise that says, take everything you’ve written about yourself and your sales sheets, your brochures, your website, and look at all the content and everything you say about yourself. You highlight in green and everything you say about your customers or clients or prospects and their life and their business. Speaker 4: (38:16) And when you highlight in yellow and they’re supposed to be more yellow than green, but there never is. Cause we do most of our time talking about ourselves. It has to be about them, but it’s not in lieu of you. So it’s not just what is there, what is your unique way of helping them, your unique that you can apply to better their situation or life. So they’re both very important. The challenge that most have is, are so focused on their passion. You, I just want to impact people. I just want to spread joy. People are going to pay for that, but they will. If you can do that in a way that helps them. So the advice I would give is, is, is uni clarity on the front end? What are you really good at? And how does that impact somebody else in a positive way? Speaker 4: (39:04) And that’s the key to the messaging is what do, it’s not what you do. It’s what they get and how you do it is important. And some people will be too, there’ll be too stringent in through this thing. It’s not about you. It’s all about them. It’s not all about them, but it is about them. But, but it’s, it’s what you can do. So don’t focus all on. You. Don’t focus on them, but it’s, it’s be clear on the front end and feel free to, to work with others in online chats, with your social group, your, your mastermind groups and others to try things out. But ultimately it has to be, what’s slipped down to what it is you provided. I love it. Well, thank you brother. We appreciate you. And I appreciate you as well to you and your family and your lovely, amazing kids and yours as well. My friend [inaudible].