Ep 508: My Entrepreneur Bookshelf with AJ Vaden

AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody, and welcome to a special summer edition of the Influential Personal Brand podcast, AJ Vaden here. And today we’re gonna be doing something a little bit different and unique. And instead of having a guest on the show, I am going to have a solo episode highlighting not just my summer reads, but what I would consider my top 10 books that you should read if you are in business for yourself. So, whether you call yourself an entrepreneur, solopreneur, a small business owner, perhaps you’re in direct sales, or you just want to aspire to grow into a, a time in your life where you are doing your own thing, or perhaps you just want to be better at being a leader or your own professional development, wherever it is. I am, I’m kind of calling this episode the Entrepreneur’s Bookshelf, and it’s not just for entrepreneurs, but really for someone who has that entrepreneurial mindset, that’s really who it’s for.
AJV (01:08):
It’s for the person who was looking to grow in business and in leadership. And a lot of this is widespread in Universal, regardless of what you do. But over the last 20 years, which it’s kind of hard to say that out loud, I cannot believe that I have actually been in business for 20 years. But there, there’s a collection of books, some oldies but goodies some newer ones, some that you will likely know, have heard of or even have read, and, and maybe a few that are brand new to you. And what I have found is that over the last 20 years, there are 10 books that stand out to me that I refer to constantly. I recommend constantly. And also it’s like even when I was going through all of my books, these are the ones that look more like workbooks than they did like books.
AJV (02:00):
These are the ones that had dozens and dozens of dog years highlights, stars, underlying circles notes. And even looking through my phone where I keep a lot of my like, kind of like recap notes these are the ones that stand out to me. These are the ones that I remember. They are memorable. I have used them, and some of them have transformed me as a person, as a leader, and some of them very uniquely and specifically have transformed how we do business at Brand Builders Group. So, without further ado I’m going to jump right in as a summer special edition of what I would consider the top 10 books that you should read or you should know about if you are an entrepreneur. And these are in no particular order. Some of them I have the hard copies and some of them I’m just going to have to refer to the audio book version that I did. But these are
AJV (02:59):
My top 10 and what I would consider books that you should read, that you should know about. Number one, it’s The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. So if you’re watching this I’m holding a, a picture of the book. This is one of the ones that I actually read, not listened to. And one of the things that I love about going back through these is like, how much of them are highlighted and everything. And here’s what I would say of why I think this book is so important. It’s the subtitle is Timeless Lessons on Wealth, greed and Happiness. And what I love this what I love about this book is it is not about the tactical aspects of how to make money, save money, or invest money. It’s about the emotional side of money, of what grit does it have in your life, and how does that emotional side actually dictate how you make it, save it, and spend it and invest it.
AJV (03:59):
And what I love when I look back about this book and the particular lessons that it taught me is that nothing should be done in extremes, right? And I think a lot of times as entrepreneurs or business owners and or just as humans, we get all kinds of tips and information on, you know, how do you get rich fast? How do you make money while you sleep? How do you, you know, build a million or a hundred million or billion dollar empire with the least amount of work possible? And or the other thing that we hear all the time is, you know, work hard, save lots, retire early. And there’s just something to every single one of those sayings that I fundamentally don’t agree with, and I don’t believe in. I personally don’t for myself believe in retirement. I believe that way beyond retirement age that I will continue to work because one, I love it, but because I believe that there is purpose in what I do.
AJV (05:04):
And the whole concept of retirement is somewhat a phenomenon. And only really did it start to exist in the last, what, 75 years. Like prior to that, there was no such thing as retirement. And not saying that people should enjoy their golden years, but why not enjoy them with the utmost wisdom and the utmost life experiences. And it’s kind of like at the peak of our learning we look back and go, okay, we’ve done all this work, we’ve saved all this money, and now we’re, we’re going to leave the workforce. And it’s like you’re kind of at your peak opportunity to mentor people to share your wisdom. And this book isn’t just about retirement but it’s about the way that we make, save, spend and invest to get to this point of life where we are no longer contributing in a way that we have maximum potential to contribute.
AJV (06:03):
What I also love is the way that it talks about this concept of, of richness and, and wealth and redefining really what that is in terms of money, but more importantly outside of money. And that is really the heart. And why I love this book is that money clearly is necessary to live. And there’s nothing wrong with having it. There’s nothing wrong with spending it. But it cannot have a hold on your life. It cannot be the number one reason of why we make decisions. It it cannot be the ruler of our life. We have to rule over it not the other way around. And so the psychology of money really helped me let go of some of the false beliefs that I had about money and investing and spending and saving. Because it, it is a book about like all the things, it talks about investing and spending and saving and making.
AJV (07:00):
So don’t get me wrong, it is not anti any of that. But at the core, it’s making sure that the decisions we make when it comes to money are not making money King of our life over family, God or, you know, just even yourself, right? And I think that is why I think this is so important, knowing that money is a tool and it is not a ruler, it’s a tool and we have to rule over it. So psychology of Money, number one. Number two is Traction by Gina Wickman. And I would say this is a entrepreneur’s guide to getting organized in your business. The subtitle of this book is Get a Grip On Your Business. And here’s what I love, and this is definitely one of those books you can even like look at this if you can, if you’re watching this versus listening like every other page is dogeared.
AJV (07:56):
I’ve got bookmarks and every, and here’s what I would say about this, is this really outlines how to start the operational side of your business. And this is just kind of one of those things. This is the opposite of the psychology of money. This is extraordinarily tactical with lots of step one, two, and three. This is how you outline your meeting. This is how you do an org chart. These are how you do job descriptions. These are how you run your meetings. These are how you set goals. This is how you get the team on the same page. It’s extremely tactical, extremely framework oriented and it really works more like a, a workbook than it does a book. And it goes through financial strategy, marketing strategy, operational strategy. And I really do believe this is one of the fundamental things that has helped us in terms of operations at Brand Builders Group.
AJV (08:54):
I picked this book up probably six or seven years ago when I joined eo, which is the ENT Entrepreneurs Organization. And a ton of people follow EOS which is kind of like the guide tool of traction. But I really started putting it into place at Brain Builders Group about five years ago when I realized like we got a whole bunch of people running in different directions, and we all have different priorities, and there’s not an overarching priority of where is everyone running, right? And instead of having some people go left, some go right, some going forward, some going backward, it’s like we needed to pull all of that together so that everyone was running in the same direction. And we run hard and we run fast, but we were not running in the same direction, right? And it, it felt like you were like, you know, being drug between four horses being quartered.
AJV (09:47):
And when we started doing traction, not that it has worked perfectly, but it has given us a a format. It has given us a tool where we can all speak the same language. We all talk about rocks, right? We have quarterly rocks. We all decide on those together. We then subdivide them by department and role. And we know that once we make these decisions, and this is the most important part, if we all agree on the decisions we make together, then we know what always takes precedent, what always is a priority amongst the other priorities, right? And if you’re in a fast growing company or a startup per se, then everything can feel like a priority until you say, no, this is the priority. And everything else sub is subservient to this priority. And I think that’s one of the things that I will mention in my next book that I’m gonna talk about which is procrastinate on purpose.
AJV (10:45):
You cannot have priorities, you can only have priority, right? That’s singular. And that’s what I think traction really helps you do as a small business owner, as an entrepreneur, is go, what are the task, the priorities that make up the primary priority that we’re all running towards? And how does everything else fit in its place? How do we talk about it? How do we operationalize it? How do we have meetings about it? How do we get everyone on the same page? So it is a very tactical workbook for anyone who needs a little organization in their business, right? So Traction, Gino Wickman which would lead me to my third, which is Procrastinate on purpose. Shameless plug, this is my husband’s book, Rory Vaden. And it is similar to the Psychology of Money in terms of what so many so many time management books talk about are the, the tacticals and the tips and techniques, which I do have another book that we’re gonna talk about that talks about that when it comes to productivity and time management.
AJV (11:53):
But what I love about Rory’s book, procrastinate on Purpose, you know, five permissions to Multiply Your Time, is it’s about the emotional side of time management. And I, I love the psychology part, the emotional side of a lot of these books, because that’s usually what we’re not tapped into, right? We’re we’re being taught all these new technologies and all these tools and all these tips and these tricks, and to-do lists and schedules and apps and all the things. And at the end of the day, those things only work. They only work. Same thing with the money, books, psychology, money, like all the investing strategies only work once you understand the emotional drivers of how you spend your money in that book. But in this book, procrastinating on Purpose, it’s the emotional drivers of how you spend your time. And both of these book made my top 10 because time and money are pretty much most commonly talked about things in business.
AJV (12:52):
At least in our business. It’s what do we have time for and what do we have money for, right? It’s what do we wanna spend our time on? What do we wanna spend our money on? It’s where do we need to save time? Where do we need to save money? Where do we need to invest time? Where do we need to invest money? It’s time and money. Time and money are also the two most common objections in sales, right? Time and money show up everywhere. And that should tell us if it is everywhere personally and professionally, we need to invest adequate amounts of time and understanding both the, you know, tactical side, but just as importantly, the emotional side, right? There is a logic to money and time. There is an emotion component though, to time and money. And what I love about Rory’s book is one, he’s, he’s so gifted a god give and talent and consolidating lots of ideas and thoughts into simple processes and frameworks that visualize how things go together.
AJV (13:51):
And so his focus funnel is one of the most probably talked about things. He has a very widespread Ted talk called How to Multiply Your Time on this. If you wanna get the highlighted version, even though I do recommend reading the book. But the focus funnel is a simple way of processing where you need to spend time. And I’ll, I’ll go through it really quickly. It’s like, you know, step one, when a task comes onto my plate at the first decision I need to make is, can this be eliminated? Right? And if it can’t be eliminated, then can it be automated? And if it can’t be automated, then can it be delegated? Okay? And if it can’t be delegated, can it be procrastinated on or does it become a priority? Right? And a priority means it has to be done. Now, procrastinate means it does need to be done, it just doesn’t need to be done now.
AJV (14:45):
But just walking through all the tasks in my life of what are the things that I’m spending time on that I should not be spending time on one because it shouldn’t be done at all, but I’m doing it for some reason, or it needs to be done. But there is a system that can be, it can automate it, or it, it does need to be done and it can’t be automated, but there is someone else who can and should be doing it. And that’s probably where I struggle, right? I struggle from the, I can do it better syndrome, or I can do it faster syndrome. It’s the curse of knowledge because I’ve been in the business a long time. Many business owners have this. And the truth is that’s actually only true for a short amount of time because once someone else is hired and trained and efficient in it, they actually can do it better than you and faster than you because they do it more than you, right?
AJV (15:34):
But that does take time, money and energy resources to pull that off. But it’s all about investing time into something now that will give you more time later. And that is the heart and the essence of the book is helping you understand when you say the words, I don’t have time or I’m so busy understanding why, where does that come from? Because those are all choices that we are making. So what are the choices that are causing responses or feelings like that? And then what can we do about it? One of my favorite books of all time, not just because my husband wrote it, but because we all struggle with those two words. I’m busy. And this will help eliminate those from your vernacular. Maybe not immediately, but if you follow it, eventually, eventually those start to fade and going, it’s, no, I’m not busy.
AJV (16:29):
These are choices I made. This is a priority, or I’m gonna do something about it. Right? okay, moving right along. On the same kind of topic of time management, there’s Rory’s book, procrastinate on Purpose, which is more of the emotional side. That is more of our choices that we make and what do we do about that. But then there’s another book by Dan Martel, don’t have a copy of it to share to show a picture of, because it was an audio book for me, but it’s called Buy Back Your Time. And to me as an entrepreneur, this is one of the best tactical books of systems and processes of how to do things like automate and delegate and prioritize. This is so, so helpful. Buy back your time. If you are in a place where you are actually ready to start delegating where you can afford staff and you have the time and energy, or even if you don’t have the time and energy, but you can afford it, and you have to make the time and energy, it is an amazing tool of working with a team and getting things off of your plate and how to get it on their plates.
AJV (17:39):
And I’m not talking about just an executive assistant or chief of staff, even though it does go into great detail about finding the person, hiring the person, training the person, getting them up to speed, how to meet with them. I love it. I use it with my chief of staff. It is a very important tactical tool in how I run my personal and professional life. But also, more importantly, how do you just get your team members up to speed, right? And this is a really great book about operationalizing systems, specifically SOPs, right? And you should only have to teach something one time. Let me repeat that. Dan talks about how you should only have to teach something one time, because if you do it the right way, you only have to do it one time. And the right way isn’t training a person, it’s building a process.
AJV (18:22):
It’s documenting an SOP. And he gives an amazing formula of how to build SOPs that are quick, efficient, and what the people will actually use using video tutorials and keeping all of your SOPs two pages or shorter. That’s right, two pages. We actually have some SOPs that are 56 pages at Brand Builders Group, and we are working our tails off on how do we get those down to two or three pages with bullet points and video tutorials. And that is a huge part of, it’s one thing to spend all this time into building SOPs and training people, but if the people leave and nobody will use the SOPs, that was time wasted. So how do you get it right the first time? And you only have to train something once because when you train it, you’re actually building the SOP, you’re building the video tutorial, so you never have to do it again.
AJV (19:10):
Such an amazingly tactical book and how to buy your time back, right? And that is buying it back through processes and SOPs and also people, so people and processes buy back your time. Dan Martel, such a good book. All right. I am staying on this kind of time management train for a second because it’s not just that important to me. It’s that important to all of us. This next book is one of the most life changing and business changing books of my entire life, and is also by one of my favorite authors. And this book is called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, by John Mark Comer. And I have read almost every book he has written, but this was the first one. This is when I fell in love with his writing. And I fell in love with it because it changed my life.
AJV (20:00):
This is, this is a book that I can literally point back to and go based on the changes that I made in my life. I am a new and better person. I am a new and better mom, a new and better wife, a new and better leader, a new and better business owner. And I can also trace back the quarter that I read this book in 2022, which was Spring of 2022, quarter two. I read this book and had an epiphany that we were just doing too much. ’cause At the end of the day, a a hurry is a byproduct of being over committed, of trying to do too much. And I had this epiphany of I was feeling burnout and going, I don’t know if I can continue running at this speed. I, I don’t know if I have it in me.
AJV (20:49):
I don’t, I don’t know if I want to have it in me. And after reading this book, I sat down and created a brand new business plan for Brand Builders Group. This was four years after being in business. And we were addicted to saying Yes, yes, we can do that. Yes, we’ll figure that out. Yes, we’ll add that. Yes, we can try to do that for you. Yes, yes, yes. Because one, we love ideas. We’re little idea factories, but we also, we, we wanna be a place of innovation and change and listening to our customers. And we were really plagued with saying yes to every opportunity. And I rewrote a business plan for Brand Builders Group and the business plan, including cutting half of our offerings. And that was scary. It included changing our pricing structure, how we priced it, what we offered how we did things. And we went from seven service offerings down to three in the matter of three months. And over the next year, we doubled our business.
AJV (21:59):
Not only did our business double in terms of revenue, but our business actually doubled in terms of client count and employee size. And that was pretty extreme growth for us. ’cause We were experiencing 10% growth, 15% growth year over year. And from 2022 to 2023, we doubled in business, doubled in size, both clients employees and in revenue. And I can trace, trace that change back to implementing some of the things that were ahas for me from reading this book. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, of How More is not better always. There is not this incessant need of always doing more, but there needs to be an incessant need of always doing better, right? Better is better, not more is better. And I’m not saying less is better. In this case, less was better. It was better for us. ’cause It allowed us to focus in on our expertise, focus in on our avatar, focus in on our service offerings and double down.
AJV (23:03):
But what it really allowed us to do is by doing less, we were allowed to do those things exceptionally better, right? And that’s what it’s about. It’s not about doing more or less per se, but it’s about choosing less so you can do it better and have it be more enjoyable and less stressful, and actually enjoy the other components of life and business. And that all stemmed from the ruthless elimination of Hurry. And I was, I was ruthless in 2022 about removing stress, anxiety, busyness, and hurry from my life. It’s probably one of the books I need to go back and read at the beginning of every year. This is, this is a reread. Like I would say this is one of those books that I would encourage a, a read every year because these are the things that we forget so often and we get caught up in the rat race once again.
AJV (23:56):
But this is one of the most impactful and significant books of my life. The Ruthless Elimination of Harry by John Mark Comer. So if that is not a testimonial, I don’t know what is. Okay, next books are kind of taking a slightly different turn. Talked about money, talked about time and now we’re gonna talk about some other things that I think are really important. So I’ll start with leadership, right? Clearly it’s an entrepreneur bookshelf. We should have that. This is one of my favorite books on leadership. It’s Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek. I love this. It’s like the subtitle is why some teams pull together and others don’t. And this is an oldie. I probably read this 15 years ago, but still reference it, remember it. And you know, what I remember the most is the actual title.
AJV (24:51):
And I remember shortly after reading this book my, the first company that I was a part of went on an incentive trip. This is not Brand Builders Group, this was pre-and Builders Group. And we went to Belize and I was the part of the executive team organizing this trip for our top producers. And we just happened to go to Belize during this tropical storm . It was great timing. And I was at the checkout desk and I was making sure everyone had got, everyone else got checked in, and it was a small boutique hotel. We had pretty much reserved 50% of the rooms in this little boutique hotel on the island. And one of our top producers was checking in. And I had already checked in, and I had a king bed with my husband, Roy Vaden, who was also a business partner there.
AJV (25:39):
And I heard them tell this top producer of ours who is, you know, a guest on the trip, Hey, we are out of King Beds. Not the most convenient thing to hear as you’re checking in with your wife. We only have two double beds left. And I just saw the look that they had on each other’s faces. And I am not the hero of this story. The book is the hero of this story. And I remember reading this book and going, leaders Eat Last. And in that particular case, what it meant is leaders get the two double beds, the team gets the king bed. And I walked up and I just said, Hey, can you please swap our rooms? And it wasn’t a big deal to me at the time. It really wasn’t. It was a, a conscious decision to go, you first, me last.
AJV (26:33):
And it was a conscious decision to go, I will be the first one to step forward. And I’m gonna, I’m gonna take the bullet on this one. We can manage four nights and two double beds so that you can enjoy a trip that you earned. And again, I am not the hero in the, in the story of the book is. But doing that, what it did for the producer was probably one of the most impactful things in my life that I didn’t even expect of the gratitude and the, the, the loyalty and the thankfulness of going, you didn’t have to do that. It’s like, yeah, but I did because I, I chose to be the leader. Here I am choosing to raise my hand first to forge into battle first, to take the first risk. And that’s what you’re doing as an entrepreneur, right?
AJV (27:22):
I actually, I, I love, like on the back it says, leaders are the ones who run headfirst into the unknown. They are the ones to rush into the danger. They put their own interests aside to protect the team or to pull us into the future. Leaders would soon sacrifice what is theirs to save, what is ours. And they would never sacrifice what is ours to save what is theirs. That is what it means to be a leader. It means to choose first to go into danger headfirst into the unknown, right? And that’s just on the back of the book, right? Like, like who’s not inspired to read that? A little bit of okay, what, what does it really mean to be a leader? And in this regard, it’s, it’s choosing to put others first. And how do you do that, right? How do you do that in business?
AJV (28:09):
How do you do that in your team when there is a, a, a self-centered self nature to all of us? I, I promise you it was not my heart’s desire to give up that king bed on that trip. And at the same time, it wasn’t also the ultimate sacrifice, right? It, it was a choice of going, no, I made the decision to step into this leadership role. So I have to make the choice to also put others first. That’s what I’m choosing as a leader. And I can think of countless other times through my life, even though I may not remember all the words on the pages of this book, however, like many others, it’s dogeared throughout. And I still have bookmarks highlighting the pages that I refer back to constantly. What it, what it really is, is the reminder that as a leader, I am choosing last, I am choosing to put the team first.
AJV (29:03):
I am choosing to put others ahead of me. I’m choosing to serve them above myself, right? And not serve anyone person over the whole, that’s not what I’m saying. It actually talks a lot about that. But what are the, the micro decisions we can make every day? And what are the macro decisions that we can make that affect a whole lifespan of a business or a team or a person? And I think that’s why I love this book, and I can just, I, I, I think I probably even said, remember, leaders eat last hundreds of times over the last 15 years. And without any explanation, the team gets it, right? Other leaders get it. They’re like, yes, I understand this is a decision I made, I step into this. But reading this book helps you understand what are those micro decisions to make?
AJV (29:54):
How do you step into it and how do you do it on a daily basis, but also on a, a much larger scale. So one of my favorite leadership books, leaders Eat Last Simon Sinek. I could go on and on about it. All right, in that same vein, I know, right? I’m, I’m trying to make up some time here. Another one that I would, I would, I would call this for me, a leadership book, extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Le Babin. And I don’t have a physical copy because it was an audio book. And if you have read the book and haven’t listened to the audio, I would highly encourage you to do that, because I think the storytelling component of Jocko and Le and this book is so powerful, and it’s kind of like a, an audio page turner.
AJV (30:38):
Like, I remember going like, okay, I need to go on a walk, or, or I need to go on a drive so I can put this in and listen to it. It, it’s one of those things that it’s just really enjoyable to listen to the storytelling components of it, the emotional side. So, hey, wife, if you haven’t listened to it, highly encouraged, but Extreme Ownership was actually a mandatory read two years ago at Brand Builders Group. Every quarter we put a book that the entire company reads together. And Q1 of 2023 was a mandatory read of extreme ownership. And it was one of the best decisions that we ever made as a, as a company to go. One, we’re going to read books together, mandatory. And two, this book. And I think one of the things that I love about this book is, well, one, I do have mad respect for our military and Navy Seals and the stories and the lessons of leadership that come out of that.
AJV (31:35):
Because like, when I think about my daily battles in leadership, they are microscopic to the significance of the ones that these people are making in our military. And just, it puts it in perspective of when I’m stressed out about a formula on a spreadsheet of the stress that carries, and knowing that you carry someone’s life in your hands, a true life or death. And it’s a really good book on perspective of what we call stress and anxiety and where we worry in the scheme of things, right? And it’s been a great reminder to me of like, this is not a life and death situation, aj, it is okay if there was a, a, a spelling error on the PowerPoint, chill out. And at the same time, knowing that there is a power and ownership of stepping in and as a, as a leader, right?
AJV (32:31):
This is a leadership book of going, at the end of the day, someone’s gotta own it. And I’m not saying that as the entrepreneur, you own all of it, but at the end of the day you’re the business owner. It comes to you, right? You own the discipline of your team. You own the structure and the operational excellence. You own it by creating a culture of ownership. And I think this is a pH phenomenal book, both in storytelling and anecdotes and stories and examples, but also the emotional and the tactical side, which I really love. There are lots of strategic components to this paired with real life stories and examples both military speaking, but also business case studies. And I think it’s a really powerful thing to step into any business of going the end of the day, whether we succeed or fail, I’m gonna own it.
AJV (33:26):
And again, that’s for everyone in the company to have that attitude. It’s going, Hey, if this didn’t go right, I own the mistake. And if it did, I get a part of owning some of the win. Not all of it. ’cause You know, it never happens alone. But also having someone who steps in and who can quickly go, my bad, that was my mistake. I won’t have, I won’t make it again. It won’t happen again. Versus the person who’s going to, you know, pass blame, not own it, not tell, try to cover it up. This is about transparency. This is about teamwork. This is about honesty, integrity, and it’s about ownership of how do we, how do we create ownership in a task, in a project so that no one is looking around going, so who’s to blame here? And instead, everyone is going like, my part, my part got done.
AJV (34:19):
But at the end of the day, what matters most is did the thing get done? And that’s what I would recommend about this book. If you feel like you have a team where people are going, Hey, I did my part, but yet somehow the whole project didn’t get done, then we gotta, we got an ownership problem because someone’s gotta own all pieces of it. And that’s where I think teams really come together or fall apart, is for the person going, oh, no, I did my part Uhuh, that was not my department. That was not my role of going. We need a team of going, it didn’t have to be my job. I ensured it got done. It didn’t have to be my department. I’m gonna be a part of making sure it gets done right. And that’s what I love about Extreme ownership. So extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Le Babin, amazing book.
AJV (34:59):
And I think just really important on a cultural standpoint of do you have a team who comes together and gets stuff done, or does it fall apart? And the projects linger and deadlines extend. And if that’s it, you got an ownership problem. And this is a great book to read in that vein. Now, on that note, there’s another audio book that I love. This is a new read. I actually just read this book this year in 2024. It’s called Hidden Potential by Adam Grant. And one, i, I would say it is also to me in the leadership vein because it’s about seeking and searching for the potential within your team, right? And I actually am gonna pull up some of the quick notes that I took on this. And just to kind of give you some highlights of what I love what one person can learn proves that almost anyone can learn it if provided with the right learning opportunities and environment, right?
AJV (36:03):
And I think that’s kind of the first thing. It’s like what one person can learn proves that almost anyone can learn that too, if provided with the right learning opportunities and environment. And I think therein lies the heart of hidden potential of going, they may not believe it, you may not believe it, but if somebody else has done it, then someone else can do it. But the opportunity and the environment have to be structured in a way that allows that potential to emerge. And a part of our job as leaders is to provide those opportunities and environment, right? And I, I love that as I look at my team here at Brand Builders Group of going like, where are there opportunities of hidden potential in every single person and every role in every department? And where am I not providing the right opportunities for those things to emerge?
AJV (36:54):
And maybe that opportunity is an invitation. Maybe it’s training maybe it’s a conversation, whatever it may be, but it has opened my eyes to seeing our team and the roles we have and the gaps we have in completely new, in different ways. The second thing I would just say this is I think really important in general for someone like me who’s a little bit type A high D likes to get things done, eight on the Enneagram this is a really important one for me, is potential is not about where you start, but how far you travel. And that’s one of the things that I’ve looked back and I’m going, wow. It, it’s, it’s not about where we started, it’s about how far we’ve come. And if someone can go, you know, completely from, you know, left to right in terms of growth and change, it’s like there is potential of going, there is more to be done, right?
AJV (37:53):
And looking at the span of what people have overcome, have learned that is an enormous thing that I now pay attention to in interviews of what were they able to overcome, how far have they come from where they started? And that shows so much about work ethic and personal growth and determination and endurance and perseverance. And those are things, those are the things that I wanna build a team around, right? I also loved this whole thing. It’s like, if you’re comfortable, you’re doing it wrong to Ted Lasso quote and Hidden Potential. And I love that, and I love that as a reminder for me, for my own hidden potential. And I think one of the reasons I loved Hidden Potential so much is it wasn’t about just our team, it was about me too. It’s like, where am I comfortable? Like, where do I still have potential to grow, change and evolve as a human, as a leader, as a business owner, as a mom, as wife?
AJV (38:55):
And so Adam Grant Hidden Potential, I think this is also in line with a, it’s a, it’s a people book. It’s a leadership book. It’s about looking for intentionally and finding ways to see the hidden potential all around you and the people on your team and the people that you’re interviewing. And I think this is about exploration into how do we help people tap into what they were meant to become. And just because they aren’t, that doesn’t mean they can’t be that. And just kind of going back to that first thing, it’s like what one person has learned proves that almost anyone can learn it, provided that we create, and that there is, you know, a created opportunity and environment that allows for it. So what can we do to cultivate such an environment? I love the book. I thought it was so good.
AJV (39:44):
Okay, moving right along here, unreasonable Hospitality. This is also a newer read for me, unreasonable Hospitality, will Gera is now on my permanent, probably top three books of all time that I’ve ever read. And I would also encourage if you do listen to audio to read this, because I think Will is an amazing storyteller, and he’s so animated and it, the whole thing feels like an adventure. It, it feels like you’re on this journey with him. From, you know, being a restaurateur to having the top rated restaurant in the entire world 11 Madison Park, to building a team and building a culture and to be one of the top restaurateur and not be a chef, right? To be from the operation side. And knowing that like he actually did what he went to school for and had a passion for it as a young person.
AJV (40:41):
And then to make the decision to leave that for the betterment of the business and for the team. There is so much in here about creativity and a service and hospitality that I feel like has been lost and unreasonable. Hospitality is really, how do you love people? Well, how do you love your team? Well, how do you love your customers? Well how do you just love people? And in this particular book, it’s through the Art of hospitality, of making people feel welcome and cared for, paying attention to the little details. And they don’t have to be expensive. But they do need to be personal. They need to be curated and unique so that people don’t feel like they’re a, a number, they feel like a person. And, and also providing your team with just enough opportunity to make decisions on their own, right?
AJV (41:41):
Nothing that’s gonna financially break the bank, right? We all have to have ownership back to extreme ownership of the health of, of the business, but also just enough, you know, bandwidth to be creative and unique, to do something on the spot. Or you don’t get caught up in a bunch of bureaucracy and red tape, and you, goodness, you can’t even buy someone a, a thank you card without getting higher approval. Right? And I think this is a beautiful story and a tangible book on how do you love people really well through hospitality, through gifting, through experiences, through words, through food, which I loved, right? Through food. But how do you care? How do you serve people and unique ways through the, the gift and the art of unreasonable hospitality unreasonable amounts sometimes to go. It is not always about a dollar.
AJV (42:37):
And I might lose on this one, but it’s worth it because I know that at some point it’ll come back. It you just love and serve people really well. That is the best marketing you can have, right? We say this all the time at Brand Builders Group, is that the best thing in the world is to turn your customer force into your sales force. How do you do that? You serve your customers undeniably well, and if you love them well and serve them well and provide for them well, they will become your sales force. And that is word of mouth marketing, right? That’s referral marketing. That is why 11 Madison Park had unbelievable reservation wait lists, . It was impossible to get into. And with the prices they charge, you would not think there was that many people, right? But that’s because it was experiential and it was, it was custom and unique.
AJV (43:29):
And also one of the things that got them to be rated one, not be one of the best, the best restaurant in the world. And I think Will’s story of creativity, of leadership, of culture is unfounded in this book through the Art of Loving People really Well, one of my favorite books of all time. This was also a mandatory read at Brand Builders Group. If that tells you anything unreasonable Hospitality Will Guera. So, so good. Okay. ninth book it’s called Nothing to Prove, Jenny Allen. And subtitle is why we Can’t Stop Trying So Hard. And out of all the books that I’ve recommended this is probably the one that is most personally associated because this book is really tailored, catered to the person who finds their worth in their work. And that was me. I, it, it’s still me.
AJV (44:28):
I, I’m overcoming this, right? But this was specifically designed for, I believe, entrepreneurs who find their identity into what they do. Or, you know, it could be the stay at home mom who finds her identity and her kids. And one day those kids grow up and leave. And as a mom, we look in the mirror and we go, who am I? And as entrepreneurs, sometimes we sell our businesses, we retire or the business doesn’t work out, and we look in the mirror and we go, who am I? Like if I don’t have this, who am I? And I know so many friends who have built wonderfully successful businesses that went on to have wonderful exits, only to find that they now felt lost, lonely, empty, and without purpose. And that happens when we have made our work, our identity, when we have found our worth and what we do versus who we are.
AJV (45:32):
And I love this book. This is author, the second book that I would say in my list that has radically changed my life. People will look back at me and be like, man, you’re, you’re different. You, you sound different. You seem different. Like your energy is different. And I will trace it back and go, if you think. So, it’s because of this book. Nothing To Prove by Jenny Allen. She’s also one of my favorite authors that I have gone on to read almost every other book that she has written. And it’s because I’m her avatar. I am the person who struggles with finding my worth and what I do, and my productivity and my accomplishments and my ambition. And I am the person who struggles with finding my identity in work. And that is a conscious thing that I’m working through to overcome.
AJV (46:20):
But if, if that is you, this book was written for you. It was written for your heart, it was written for your soul, and if you allow it to, it will change your life. So Jenny Allen, nothing to prove one of the most life changing books I’ve ever read. And it has changed the way I approach work and how and how I work, because now I know that is not who I am. That is not my worth. I’m so much more than that. And it is no longer my identity. My identity expands way beyond that. And even though we know that when you’re faced with it being gone it’s a whole different reality. And might as well be proactive. Let’s get ahead of that. And this is a book that will really help you do that.
AJV (47:07):
Nothing to prove. Okay? actually that was number 10. But I had a, I had a bonus one sitting over here, so I forgot. So those were my top 10 books. So I, psychology of Money, Morgan Housel, nothing to Prove Jenny Allen, hidden Potential. Adam Grant, unreasonable Hospitality Will Guera Extreme Ownership. Jocko Willink and Le Babin, the ruthless elimination of her. John Mark Comer, procrastinate on purpose. Mother of One and only Ry Vaden, my awesome husband. Buy Back Your Time, Dan Martel Traction. Gina Wickman and Leaders Eat Last Simon Sinek. And then I have an 11th bonus one. Because I, I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention take The Stairs but also my amazing husband, Rory Vaden. And this was his first book released in 2010. And here we are 14 years later, and this is still probably like the most requested keynote that he gets.
AJV (48:07):
This book has been out for 14 years. It’s still, it, it still, it, it’s, it’s a, it’s an evergreen classic of, you know, what are the things that you need to know about business and life and yourself to achieve true success? And defining what true success is. And take the Stairs is, it’s really a, a metaphor for just because you don’t want to doesn’t mean you should, right? And I think there’s a, a lot of truth in going, like, man, there are things that we don’t want to do, but they are good for us. And they produce character and endurance in ways that nothing else can. And it’s not that we should only want to do hard things, but it’s, it’s facing the challenges and facing the hard things are what build character. Nobody looks back on the easy days and go, man, that really defined me.
AJV (49:01):
That doesn’t happen. Nobody looks back on all the victories and successes and, and, and said, man, that, that success is what made me who I am today. We don’t do that. We actually look back and go, man, that valley that I was living in a really long time that defeat, that failure, that loss, that’s where I found my strength. That’s where I found who I am. And I think a lot of what I love about this book, take The Stairs, is it’s embracing hard things and it, it’s choosing to do things even when you don’t feel like doing them because you know they’re good for you, right? And it’s determining what those things are. How do you make those choices? That was my bonus pick for my entrepreneur bookshelf. Take the Stairs by Rory Baden, seven Steps to Achieving True Success. Y’all, there you go. This is our, my solo, summer solo episode, the Entrepreneur Bookshelf 10 books with a bonus, 11 of what I believe every entrepreneur should know and read and embrace to not only do work that you love but to actually do good in the world. So check ’em out, let me know what you think, catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 476: How to Go From 0 to 8 Figures in 5 Years with AJ Vaden

AJV (00:02):
How do you go from zero to eight figures in five years or less? That’s what we’re gonna be talking about today. And I gotta be transparent. I gotta be honest. I was actually in the shower this morning and I was brainstorming, what am I gonna do for this solo episode for our podcast today? And I, I looked over at my husband, Rory, and I said, Hey babe, what do you think would be worthy of doing a solo podcast episode, which is what we’re doing right now? And he said, babe, you gotta talk about the growth trajectory of Brain Builders Group. Because what’s what’s been done is something that has happened organically and the lessons that we have learned are extraordinary for entrepreneurs. And mainly because of all the things that we’ve done wrong. But luckily over the last five years, there’s been a few things that we’ve been blessed to do right through the grace of God and good coaches and mentors and amazing community.
AJV (00:54):
And in a fantastically awesome team at Brand Builders Group, we’ve been able to pull some pretty cool things off. And so we’re gonna talk about that. It’s what are eight things that you should know to help you go from zero to eight figures and five things and five years or less, right? So number one, focus on sales and revenue first. And don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not saying don’t focus on people or service. What I am saying is you have to know how to sell your product and service as the first thing you do. You have got to have a sales oriented mindset, a revenue focused effort before you start thinking of things that are ancillary, which I’m gonna throw out there would be marketing, right? And this will hear, hear more about this over our story, but it was sales first. It was like, we have to bring revenue in the door. If we’re going to make it, we’ll figure the rest out later. We’ll get better as we go, but we have to figure out how to sell this first. So it was figuring out what problem we solve, who we solve it for, the unique way in which we solve it. It’s what at Brand Builders Group, we call your brand positioning statement. It’s what are the offerings that
AJV (02:03):
We have and the price points, which will inevitably change. They will evolve. They must evolve. They must change as you grow as a company. But first and foremost, you have to know how to sell what you offer products or services alike. So, sales mindset first, revenue focused first. Not in lieu of service, but you’ve gotta bring clients in the door. You gotta bring money in the door in order to serve them well. So that was number one. Number two,
AJV (02:35):
Make more than you’re spending, right? Simple Law of Economics. Spend less than what
AJV (02:43):
You’re earning, right? In our case, it was like we, we were focused on making more than we were spending. And that means that us as the business owners were the, honestly, the, the lease paid people in the company for a minute. ’cause We could afford it. We had lots of savings. But
AJV (02:58):
We were not getting big office spaces. We still work from home. Still don’t have a permanent office space. We still use coworking spaces. We’ve decided that’s not the right capital investment for our company. We are investing in other things first. Website. We, we had, we full launched as a company way before we had a website. We didn’t even have a website until we were almost a full eight months in to Brand Builders group. So yeah, it’s a little bit amazing that this thing took off the ground, but it did. And we’ll talk about why. But just focus on spending less than you’re making, right? Be wise with the money. We did not take loans. This was all self-funded. I’m not saying don’t take a loan, I’m just saying we didn’t. ’cause We were sales focused first and we were focused on making more than we were spending, right?
AJV (03:43):
That was number two. Number three, build and adjust as you go. We were not tied to, it has to be this way. In fact, we were tied to the fact that we don’t know how it’s supposed to be. That we’re very open and very quick to adapt. And I think that’s one of the, the great blessings of our team and our company at Brain Builders Group is we are quick to pivot and rather everyone that is a part of our team is naturally this way, or they have adapted and adjusted to be this way. Our team has an incredibly high tolerance for change. Myself and my business partner, my husband, Rory, have an incredibly high tolerance for change because we know that in a startup, that we know in order to survive, in order to succeed, things have to change. And they, we have to be able to change them quickly.
AJV (04:27):
There can be no bureaucracy. We have to see a problem, fix a problem, right? See something, say something. Airport policies, we gotta be able to quick to pivot, right? And as a smaller, more nimble company we’re able to do those things. So we have been very willing to build and adjust as we go knowing that what we build today very likely won’t be a fit for even a year from now. And we’ve bought into the idea that that means we’re growing. That means we’re succeeding. So we’re buying into that. That’s a choice. It’s not a choice everyone wants to make, but it’s a choice that is necessary to make. And that with a changing market, a changing economy, changing technologies, as you have to be willing to build and adjust as you go, you cannot build it to be perfect and wait till it’s perfect to sell it.
AJV (05:13):
‘Cause That date never comes, right? It’s never gonna be perfect. It’s never gonna be exactly the way that you want it. There are 1,000,001 things I could list out right now that I wish were different, that I wish were better, that I wish were X, Y, and Z. But that doesn’t mean we don’t launch. That doesn’t mean that we don’t continue as is because what we have is good. And that’s how you know that it’s ready to sell. ’cause You know that it works. You know that it can help people. And we work to make it better every day, every week, every month. But it’s not the best. It’s better. And that’s okay. So build and adjust as you go. Number four, hire, right? Hire for the long term and set the vision for the people hiring, right? You’re gonna probably hear me mention the importance of team members again, in just a, a second.
AJV (05:55):
But hire right means hiring for the long term. And what I mean by that is like, when we bring on somebody literally on our first interview, I tell people and I think that’s something that I would just, I would like to mention, I’m a part of every single interview process. I do not hire anyone for any position in our company without also getting to meet them and interview them. This is a family. This is not just a business to us. This is our ministry. This is our calling. This is what we feel like we were put on this planet to do. And we wanna do it with people who share those values and beliefs and who are in it for the right reasons and who are in it for the long term. So on the very first interview, I say, I’m not asking you to sign a 50 year contract, although I would if I could.
AJV (06:37):
But I am asking you to don’t take this position. Don’t continue this interview if you don’t think this is a company that you could be with in 10 years, right? And I think that says something because we want to hire top talent. That doesn’t mean we can’t afford all top talent, but it means we want to hire the top talent so that we can afford top talent. And you do that with having a long-term in mind of like, Hey, we see the potential in you and in this company, and we want you to be here when we can afford to pay the top, the top pay for the top talent. We don’t want to grow and replace, grow and replace. We want to grow and promote, grow and promote, grow and promote the team that is here today. I would love to say that we hired so well, and so, right?
AJV (07:21):
It’s almost the same team that you’re gonna see in five years or 10 years, knowing that of course there’s gonna be turnover. We have had turnover. We have made not ideal hiring decisions based on fit and skills, but that doesn’t mean that’s not what we aim for, right? It is not hire just a body or hire the lowest, you know, paid person I can find it’s no, I hire the right person and I see if we can, we can make it work. And as we grow, their income’s gonna grow along with us. But that means you’ve got to sell the long term. You’ve gotta know the vision and sell the vision. Being a great recruiter is one of the most important assets of a leader. And as a CEO and an entrepreneur, recruiting is one of my number one jobs as the owner of Brand Builders Group.
AJV (08:07):
And it needs to be one of the number one jobs of our team recruiting, IE selling, right? But recruiting great talent is a skill that can be developed and honed. But a part of that is knowing where you’re going so that you can sell the vision and bring people along with you and actually fulfill the vision and the process, right? Number five, ask clients for feedback and then actually act on that feedback. It’s one thing to get feedback, and I think that’s humbling enough to, to constantly ask your clients like, what are the things we’re doing not so well? As well as what’s, what’s, what’s going well? What can we do more of? It’s a whole nother thing to go, I hear you and I’m gonna do something about it because I want the clients that we have today, just like my team to be the clients we have 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 year, 10 years from now.
AJV (08:52):
I want them to feel like they’re a part of building this company because honestly, our community at Brand Builders Group has been, they are the people who come up with the ideas. They are the ones who give us the feedback. And sometimes it’s not awesome feedback to hear that often is the feedback that is necessary to make that next move to growth. I can give you countless examples of things that I’ve just grabbed off of a survey of going, yeah, why aren’t we doing that? Or a conversation that someone said, Hey, would you be willing to hear me on this? And it created a whole new event or a product line or a service line. It’s ask for it. Genuinely, genuinely ask for it and then actually act on it. Help your community be a part of what makes you great. Because they know, they know where your weaknesses are.
AJV (09:39):
They know where your strengths are. And if you’re humble enough to ask for it and to listen to it and to act on it, it will make you a better company, a stronger company, and it will create more loyal customers. Okay? Number six, dev or sorry, give 10 times the value of what you charge. That’s a core philosophy of brand builders group. Every single time that we look at our, our suite of offerings for each of our product products or programs, we go, do we feel like they’re getting 10 times the value of what they’re paying for? And if not, how do we add more? It’s not, how do we constantly increase prices, although we’re in business at some point, we have to do price increases with the rate of inflation and the, the, you know, just cost of economies. Like, yes, those are things that we have to do to adjust with the rest of the world and the markets, but we are going to add more as we do that.
AJV (10:28):
Why? Because retention matters. Our customers matter. Our team matters. We don’t wanna be a revolving door. We want the, we want lifetime customers just like, and to some degree, I want lifetime employees, right? Again, but it’s, are you giving 10 times the value for what you’re charging for? So instead of thinking, what should you be charging, just be like, how much value can I give? And how can I make it such a no-brainer that it’s impossible to say no. Like I would be so dumb to leave. I would be so dumb not to do this. Like, I’m getting what? Like, is there a catch? Is there a trick? Like you want people to be like, this is extraordinary. How do you afford doing this? In fact, one of the most often questions I get from other people I know in our space is, why aren’t you charging more?
AJV (11:12):
Like, you know, you should be charging more, right? And I’m like, I mean, I know we could be charging more, but I don’t know that we should because we are aiming to do a very specific thing for a very certain group of people. Not to say that our prices won’t increase over time, they will, but always subservient to the value that we’re providing. So give 10 times the value than what you charge. Number seven, care. I’m just gonna pause for dramatic effect. Care, care about your team. Care about what you’re doing. Care about the numbers. Care about the details, care about your clients. Care about how things are done. Care. And I don’t mean you should be involved in every minute detail, that’s not what I’m saying. But in order to care, that does mean you need to stay on the front lines. You need to have contact with your customers.
AJV (12:06):
What we call our community. They’re way more than customers to us. They are our community, they are our friends, they’re our family. These are the dreams that we’re, we are working to empower, to come to life. These are not clients. This is our community. These are people that we care deeply about serving and helping. That’s why we’re doing this. And back to, it’s like we treat this as our ministry, not just our business. This is, these are friends and family. These are relationships, not clients. Customers and employees care. Stay on the front lines. Know your people. Know your community. Know what they’re about. Know what their brands are doing. Know what they’re up to on social media. Now, if you’ve got thousands and thousands of clients, I know that gets harder, but that doesn’t mean you can’t stay on the front lines. You read the surveys, you show up at the events, you get on customer service calls.
AJV (12:59):
You meet with the sales team, you meet with your team of people who deliver your products and services. You stay on the front lines. That’s how you show that you care, right? There’s places that you can care and there’s people that you can care. And what I mean by that is that there are some places that you need to be. And then there are some people that you need to be with. Know the places and know the people, the care, stay on the front lines. And number eight, develop your team so you can trust your team. And that has a lot to do with the mindset of no one is going to step into any role perfectly. It doesn’t matter what their experience is. It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been with you. There are nuances to every day, every role, every market, every year.
AJV (13:52):
They need developing just like you do as the business owner or as the leader. Develop your team. Provide them books to read, classes to go to courses to part, to participate, to participate in events, to go to coaches, develop your team so that you can trust your team. If you are a leader right now who questions your team, then I would question how much time you have spent developing your team. When you develop your team, it grows trust in your team because you know that they are getting equipped with the skills that they need. And they don’t all need to come from you. They cannot all come from you. They should not all come from you. They need to learn things outside of you so that they bring new things to the table. And that means they need developing. And that means you need developing.
AJV (14:44):
So who is your coach? How are you growing? What conferences are you going to? What classes are you attending? What courses are you participating in? Develop your team so that you can trust your team. And if you can’t do it together, right? Have a book of the month, have a book of the quarter, go to events together atti, you know, participate in courses together, whatever it is. Like, do things together so that trust grows at the same time, in the same ways, in the same places. But develop your team so that you can trust your team. Now I have probably like 88 more things that I could have listed, but when I reflect over the last five years of brand builders group, these are the eight things that we have done to go from zero to eight figures in the last five years. Now, there is one overriding thing that I would be remiss if I did not mention, and it is the fact that more so than anything else over the last five years, we have had open hands and we have said, God, this is yours.
AJV (15:46):
Do with it what you will and equip us to do what you want. Now, regardless of what your religious beliefs are and your affiliation with any sort of faith or religion, I would just encourage you that there is power and surrender of holding your business with open hands of going, this is not me. This is not my identity. This is something I do. It’s something I’ve been entrusted with. There are people here that I care about and that I have the opportunity to grow, trust, and develop. I have been entrusted with them. That is a responsibility I carry. It is not a burden. It is a responsibility. It is an honor, it is a privilege. And I hold it loosely knowing that this is not mine. There is no way that we could have done what has been done in the last five years on our own.
AJV (16:42):
And I don’t just mean our team and our community. I mean, this was a, God did it company, it is a God did it company. And it is because that we have been obedient and disciplined and we have listened. We have made lots of mistakes. But you know what? We didn’t stop. But it is holding it with faith of going, whatever is happening, I believe it’s for a reason. I believe there is a lesson for me to learn. I believe there, there is something to garner out of every bad situation that’s going to make us better. And for every ounce of faith that it has taken to do this. When we had to sell our car to make payroll, we said, okay when we had to you know, battle a lawsuit in order to start the company, we said, okay, when we gave up our life savings to start this, okay when it required us taking no pay so that we could pay our team, okay, there is an element of faith.
AJV (17:39):
IE trust that what you’re doing is significant enough that it’s worth the risk. But that doesn’t mean you don’t work. You must work. We, we work, we work hard, and at the same time, we do what we can while letting God do it. Only he can. And that’s where the trust and the faith has to come in. And again, regardless of your religious beliefs, I would just encourage you holding it loosely of knowing your business is not who you are and it is not your identity. It is something that you’ve been given. It is something that you’ve been entrusted with. You have skills that align well with you being successful at this, but it is not who you are. It’s not your identity. And if you hold it loosely there, the success has come a little easier and with a little less ego, but the failures come a little less hard. So five years, eight lessons to go from zero to eight. Hope this was helpful and I can’t wait to hear your story in the next five years.

Ep 284: How to Double Your Business In 12 Months with AJ Vaden

RV (00:02):
Oh, we have a special edition today. Super special very uncommon format where you actually are going to get to hear from our CEO AJ Vaden. My co-founder my wife, of course, and she is actually going to be our guest. So obviously, usually either her or myself are leading the interview today. I get to play the role of interviewer. AJ is going to play the role of interviewee and our guests, because we’re gonna talk about something that is really, really important and really, really powerful, which is how to double your business in the next 12 months. AJ, as you know you probably know many of her credentials for being with brand builders group, but one thing you may not know about AJ is that she also is a million dollar producer. She is someone who spent personally produced over a million dollars a year in revenue by herself, many years in a row, both in as a in a speaking business, a consulting business, a coaching business. And so she just has a lot of experience growing businesses, coaching businesses, consulting, speaking. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. Specifically, she’s gonna share some tips on how to double your business in the next 12 months, AJ made and welcome to your own show. We’re glad to have you,
AJV (01:23):
happy to be here. Happy to be here on the other side of the mic today.
RV (01:29):
So yeah. So talk to us just a little bit about, I mean, obviously most of the people listening here know about brand builders group, right. They know what we do. But tell us a little bit about your past like pre brandand builders group. What were some of the types of businesses that you built? How were you a top producer and, you know, just what were some of the different business models that you were involved in?
AJV (01:53):
Well, it’s not me. It’s not just me. It’s us. It was our I think most of you probably know that brand builders group is Roy and I second business together, but a little known fact, I’m not sure how many of you listening know this, that we were actually business partners before we fell in love and got married. And so we started as business partners and then broke the Cardinal role fell in love, got married. Luckily 15 years later, it’s it worked out, it worked out in our favor. But prior to brain builders group, you know, we spent the first 15 years of our professional lives building a coaching speaking consulting, training business, but it actually started as a seminar business. So in the first four years of our very first business we lived on the road full time lived in 14 cities and five years was moving pretty much every 16 weeks for the better part of four and a half years putting on large motivational sales conferences.
AJV (02:57):
And that naturally involve evolved into a one-on-one coaching business, which then involved into a consulting practice. We started a speakers bureau brew. It, it was very successful. And when we departed from that company and sold back our equity to our former partners we had over 200 coaches. It was well into the eight figures business. On the coaching side, we had a healthy, a seven figure consulting business, a healthy seven figure speaking business. And so there’s lots of different components of, of what we did, but it naturally evolved over time from large public seminars to one on one consult or one-on-one coaching to full service consulting. Did training as a part of that, and then also built a speakers bureau.
RV (03:44):
Mm-Hmm , I mean, it’s, it’s sort of wild, even just walking down memory lane here a little bit, and hearing you talk about those that, you know, for most people, you know, building, building a seven figure business is not easy. And we’ve done that in many different formats between the seminar, the public seminar company, and then coaching of course, was the eight figure business consulting with seven multi seven figures, multi seven figure speaking business, and then brand builders group, which is very much on its way. I would, I feel comfortable saying very much on its way to eight figures here in the next couple years. And so recently you kind of decided you wanted to put together a training on how to double your business in the next 12 months. So talk to us about what that is, and, and I know we’re gonna talk a little bit about it, but let us know where we can, where we can go to get it.
AJV (04:36):
Yeah, well, it’s not just double your business. It’s really niche down to a really important sub segment of all the audiences we serve, but it’s one that’s really near and dear to my heart and it’s coaches, speakers, trainers, and consultants. And part of why that’s really important to me is I could still consider myself one of all those things. But that’s really where I started. It’s where I grew. It’s it’s challenging, it’s hard and it’s as everything is challenging and there’s pros and cons to any business out there. I know this business, this world inside and out, and as a part of brand builders group, a huge part of our community find themselves in one of these categories. Even if it’s not their full time right profession, but they do consulting, they do training, they do speaking, they do coaching, they do all these things.
AJV (05:28):
And many of you want to figure out how to make it your full time gig, or maybe you’ve gotten into one of those. And you’re like, oh, I do not want this one particular piece to be all that I do, but I want to do these other pieces. And I think this is a really interesting, unique part of my life and my past and my expertise that I can really lend some really good solid tips and techniques. But also mindset to help any of you who are in that particular business model of a coach consultant, speaker trainer really truly help you amplify your business and, and double it in the next 12 months. And I think those are the things that are really unique. But I think they’re applicable to any business, as you said, it’s how to double your business, but we put together this training webinar hyper specific to that niche group of individuals, trainers, consultants, speakers, coaches to help them leverage five simple ideas, five simple. And I didn’t say simple, not easy, but five simple things that you can do to start doubling your business. But I do think there’s universal appeal and I think anyone can do that, but this specific training is really unique to that. So that’s what it’s all about.
RV (06:40):
Mm-Hmm and if you, so we’re gonna, we’re gonna do a little bit of a preview of it right now, but if you’re listening and you wanna watch the full training, it’s free. If you go to double dot brand builders, group.com, so go to double dot brand builders, group.com, you can watch the whole training you know, AJ sharing your screen and showing, showing different things. So before we jump into some of the five ways to do it, talk to me about what are, what are some of the reasons why people fail at this, or why some of the people that struggle, obviously we struggled for several years. You know, it was, it really wasn’t until I feel like maybe four or five years into our last company, that it started to finally scale and grow. We got a pretty fast start, but then we sort of stayed stuck in plateaued for a while. Brand group has been a rocket start, but then we’ve had, you know, hundreds of people. I mean, thousands of people that we have coached collectively in our, in our teams, what are some of the reasons why you think that these I’ll just use the term experts? Like you say, coaches, speakers, trainers, consultants, but like the experts really struggle to grow their revenue.
AJV (07:44):
Yeah, it’s, it’s a really simple answers. They try to do it all and there’s just so much of you and there’s just so many hours in the day. But for most people in this profession, you’re a solo entrepreneur, right? Which means you are the salesperson, the marketer, the accountant, the operations person, the HR person you are the bill collector. You are the bill payer, you, and also you deliver all the client work. So you do all the customer service work. And even if you bring on a staff person or an executive assistant and you start outsourcing some of those things, it’s typically not in the beginning. And I know many people who are very successful in this, or they’re six figure seven figure businesses, and they’re still trying to do it all with one, maybe one and a half staff, people, and some outsource vendors.
AJV (08:27):
And at the end of the day, what, what happens and what I find so often for so many of these individuals, is that the reason you started this is cuz you loved doing what you wanted to do. And now it’s the least amount of time that you do it. It’s like what you did is you loved coaching or you loved speaking and you loved this, but it’s like, that’s not the only part it’s like, you gotta have contracts and agreements and signatures and sales calls and follow up emails and, and interviews. And you track people down and there’s customer service issues. And it’s like, there’s all the different things that start distracting you from keeping the main thing, the main thing. And that’s, that’s the biggest thing. And I find it’s distraction it’s that your, your attention is pulled in so many different areas so quickly, cuz there’s so much to do. And then in really in order to be really good at any of those things, you have to practice your craft, which means you need to be reading and learning and going to conferences and getting coached yourself and networking and learning in all these different atmospheres. And guess what? That takes time too. And let’s not forget any amount of time for yourself, your spouse and your families. Oh yeah. That’s important too. And so I think time distraction is really the number one thing that gets in the way of people scaling this kind of business.
RV (09:48):
Hmm. Yeah. That what you just said there, I think is absolutely true. Right? You start because you go, I wanna help people. I wanna make a difference in the world. Like I wanna change lives. I wanna meet people. I wanna like, see, look people in the eye and like share with them what I know and how I’ve helped. And then it’s so quickly can turn to invoices and bills and taxes and technology and operating systems and payroll and, and you know, documents and all of that stuff. Like this is a little bit of a dis a little bit of a disheartening reality, I think in, in, in many cases. So, so what are, what are some of these things that you’re talking about in terms of how to double the business or, or, or what are some of the tools that you think can help alleviate some of that pain and help experts, coaches, consultants, speakers, authors, help them actually make more money, faster, get back to spending more time doing what they love and, and return to the original reason they started in this space.
AJV (10:48):
Yeah. So in the training webinar that I host, there’s five things that we talk about that will help you double your business. I won’t probably have time to go into all five of those today, but we’ll cover as much as we can, but here’s one of the things that I thought was really interesting when putting together all of this information, which really just started as some value add for our brain builders group, community, our audience people like you who are listening. And I started looking at all these different research reports that were out there about the coaching industry and I found some really staggering statistics that made me stop in my tracks and go, I’m gonna spend a little bit more time here because I really just naturally got curious about, wow, like I wanna learn more about this phenomenon that is coaching training consulting.
AJV (11:33):
And where is it trending? And how does that relate to what we do in personal branding? Right. and I just think personal branding is applicable to anyone who has a reputation. All of you, everyone who is listening has a reputation. But there’s, then there’s a really unique group of people where the more dependent your business is on your reputation, the more important it becomes and being intentional about that reputation, which is personal branding. And so I was spending some time looking at some of these stats and here were a couple that really stood out to me that I thought were fascinating, is that right now coaching, the coaching industry is the second fastest growing industry in the world. Wow. It’s the second fastest growing industry in the world. And some of the backup statistics around that I thought were equally as interesting this year alone it’s, it is expected to exceed a 20 billion industry.
AJV (12:33):
Wow. And I thought, well, that’s a lot of money out there. How many people are involved in this? Right. And so on LinkedIn, and now this is just on LinkedIn, right? I thought this was so fascinating. If you just type in coach as a title on LinkedIn, there are more than 4 million people just on LinkedIn that have the title as coach. Wow. And then I narrowed it down to just the United States and in just the United States alone, it’s approximately 1.8 million people who have the title of coach. And so I got really sucked in one day like really sucked in and I probably spent an hour scrolling all these titles, scrolling all of them. Because I wanted to know like, what kind of coaches are these? Like who are these 1.8 million people? And how come I’ve been in this industry for this long? And it doesn’t seem that prevalent.
AJV (13:31):
Now I know there was a season a time where it’s like, everyone was a coach, right? You’ve got spiritual coaches, dating coaches, marriage, coaches, life coaches, business coaches. In fact, I remember being at a networking meeting. This was probably, gosh, it has to be 10 years ago. Right now has to be 10 years ago. And I remember being at this networking meeting, I think it was like a BNI meeting. I used to be like at every single BNI meeting I could go to. And I remember introducing myself and someone said, well, what do you do? And I said, I’m a consultant. And they said, oh, you mean you’re unemployed? And I was like, am unemployed. And they said, well, I just figured like most people who say that don’t have jobs is that the reputation that coaches and consultants have is that they couldn’t cut it at what they’re doing.
AJV (14:27):
So they go off and do something else, like the old saying, it’s like those who can’t do teach. And I was like, that’s some serious BS. Right. I was like, no, I’m employed. And I’m doing really well. And I’m a consultant. I was so offended. but then it really got me thinking over those next few years of what causes that trigger. Right? And then for a really time, I didn’t have a large network of coaches and consultants outside of the team that we were building at our former company. And I thought that was really interesting. And I’m a part of different associations and different groups like the national speakers association and do tons of work with different franchise groups that sell coaching franchises. And we have lots of friends who do this. And what I found is like, there’s not a lot of deep, well now, well networked community driven groups in these industries.
AJV (15:19):
And so when I saw that number 1.8 million people, I was just fascinated around who are all these people. And so I started going through there and, and where are they? Yeah. They’re apparently they’re everywhere. Apparently they’re everywhere. But then it, it was really interesting cuz I was scrolling through all these titles around, this is why people think we’re unemployed. And I looked at those titles and they were so vague and so generic and so general that as I was scrolling, even someone who was in this industry who dedicates her life to helping people in these industries grow and build their businesses, build their reputations in these fields. I was really thinking through here would never hire. You don’t even know what that means. And I was like, whoa, pause right there. And that was like one of the biggest aha moments of going, I’m putting a training together.
AJV (16:15):
I need to talk about this because these are the same problems that I suffered from our team member suffer from our clients are friends suffer from, is that someone says, what do you do? And he says, I’m a life coach. What is that? And what do you do? And you hear that term so often, or I’m a business coach, I’m a sales coach. And those were these like wide broadening terms that I kept running into. And then it just started like triggering the triggering, that old experience that I had from this BNI meeting where they go, oh, that means you’re unemployed. And then it just all hit me at once. It’s like, yeah, like that is the problem. It’s because we’re not clear on what we do and who we serve as the coach, the consultant, the trainer, the speaker. And instead we go, I can help anyone with anything which why they have this, these ridiculously broad terms like life coach, like what can you help me with exactly in my life?
AJV (17:14):
Like, what is it exactly, same with business. There’s so many different things. And we try to be, you know, the master of many thus while mastering nothing. And then I tie that on all in with what we do at brain builders group. And that’s one of these things, all these dots started connecting for me and it’s like really, truly to break through. She hands’ wall. We talk about this all the time. Like to break through the wall, you need to become known for one thing. Yet most of us try to do everything we say yes to everything. Right. I did that for years as a consultant, they were like, well, can you help me with this? Sure. Can I’ll figure it out before I invoice you. Right. It’s like I said yes to whatever it was leadership. Sure. Marketing, sure. Sales, sure. Retention.
AJV (18:01):
Sure. Can you help me with collections? I think so. Yeah, sure can do that too. It’s like, did it matter what it was? The answer was, I’ll figure it out. And I think there’s a time and a place for that and that’s really short lived and then you need to figure out what exactly am I supposed to be doing and who am I supposed to be doing it with? And for, and then I ran into a few of these titles as I was having, like these revelation moments of these are all the mistakes I made. Right. I did it for years and it was really hard and it was exhausting, but it doesn’t have to be that way. It really doesn’t. And then I started running into some titles that said this high business growth coach for young CEOs. And I was like, BA click.
AJV (18:47):
I wanna see what you do, why I’m in a high growth business. And I’m a young CEO. It was so clear. It was so clear. They had niche down so much that I could literally just read their title and go, I think they could help me. Right. And then I saw other ones that were like, you know, a financial growth coach for small businesses. I was like, what do you do? I wanna go to your website. And then I started like paying attention to which ones caught me. And the ones that caught me were really, really specific. This is actually something you say all the time I steal it, but I always give you credit. Oh, okay. It’s the more specific, the more terrific, right. It’s like, however cheesy that is. I have never forgotten it. The more
RV (19:33):
Cheesy, wait a minute. We weren’t talking about cheesy. We were talking about brilliant, but okay. I’ll take cheesy.
AJV (19:39):
Brilliant. Yes. But the more specific, the more terrific. And that’s a huge part of this. It’s like, if you really want to double your business and double your income, if you really want business finding you, if you want other people to explain what you do in layman’s terms, without them having to go to your website, it needs to be that clear. You need to be able to niche down so that anyone who knows you, who has heard of you, who has worked with you can say exactly what you do and who you do it for in one sentence. It is so important for the ability for other people to think of you and to refer you to people because they think about what you do and who you do it for. Right. And I think about like us at brain builders group, like we see all the time, it’s like we help experts become more well known. And then I thought about the first decade of my life as a consultant coach speaker, I had no clarity. I was like, I can help any sales team grow revenue. Oh, well how specific is that? And it was like, then it just dawned me as I was reading through all of is like, they aren’t clear on what they do. And for someone who’s just scrolling of going, what do you do? It’s gotta be that clear in your title. So it’s, it’s ne it’s, nicheing down. It’s getting so specific that someone can read your title, read your business card, right. Scroll through literally a one line statement on your LinkedIn profile and go, I want to learn about how you could help me.
RV (21:15):
Mm-Hmm yeah. And that’s a good formula. Like a, I, I help who to what, like, that’s a really simple, we, we, we, that’s part of our formal curriculum, the elevator pitch formula, just, I help blank to blank. We help experts to become more well known in our case. And I, I mean, I, it’s a, it’s amazing how, you know, like people talk about how focus is power. We’ve written about that as time has gone on, I have realized that precision is power mm-hmm like the more narrow it is. It’s like, you could be in this crowded room full of people talking. But if someone just tings the side of a glass, it like cuts through the whole noise. And that’s what I, the, the visual that made me think about when you were talking about nicheing down and going, there’s 1.8 million people in the us alone that are coaches on just LinkedIn, how are you differentiating? How are you differentiating? And it’s just specificity. Like the specificity does a lot.
AJV (22:15):
Yeah. Like one of the things it’s like, and I think about this in my own life, it’s like, I have, as you know, I have a business coach and I have a life coach. Right. And it’s like, both of them, their reputation preceded them. Right. And it wasn’t like, I probably would’ve just picked a random business coach or life coach off of a LinkedIn title. But it’s enough for me to go. I want someone like that. And so I always think about it. It’s like, do my friends, family, acquaintances, you know, people that I’m in the community with. Do they know what I do that specifically? And it’s part of, it’s a conditioning. Like people ask me all the time. I get asked this all the time. How can I help you? And I’m like, the next time that you hear someone say this, refer them to me. And it’s like, you gotta help people think about you. It’s like, when they say this, refer them to me, that’s how you can help them.
RV (23:12):
Yeah. That’s really good. Those literal like kind of triggers like yeah. And I think about like our speaker friends, like when someone comes up to you after you’re on stage and they say, how do I get to be you mm-hmm that’s when you need to like send them to us. That’s a really good, a really good conditioning point. So so that helps. Okay. So I, you know, when I hear you talk about that, you go, Hey, the like one of the key things here in terms of doubling your business in the next 12 months is being clear on exactly what you can help people with and who you, you can help specifically it’s
AJV (23:47):
It’s speech down. Do not in general, do not be broad. It’s like, you are not a life coach. You are not, you, you focus on some component of life. What is that? Is it spirituality? Is it health? Is it mindset? Is it nutrition? Is it relationships? You do not talk about life. There are so many things to life. It is impossible, right? So it’s like, tell me exactly what you’re gonna do for me in my life, in my business, with my financials, with my team and with my leadership potential, like it’s not a leadership consultant. Like what part of leadership, what part of sales? What part of marketing, what part of business get so clear that it’s polarizing? And that, that is like, it’s not just get clear on what it’s like, be so clear. It’s polarizing. People need to say, I don’t need that. Or where have you been my whole life? Right. It’s like, here’s my money. Or I’m just keep on going. It needs to be that clear.
RV (24:45):
Yeah. I love that. And again, so the, the URL is double dot brand builders, group.com, double dot brand builders, group.com. You can watch this whole free training. We got a couple minutes left here still.
AJV (24:56):
I got two more. I got, I’ll go fast. I got two more. All
RV (24:59):
Right, go
AJV (24:59):
For it. I’m gonna start, I’m gonna start the second one with a story. So about a month ago, I was on a podcast with this amazing interview with Mo tepo right. And we were talking about negotiation and sales and mindset, right? And the reason that people aren’t sometimes considered good negotiators mainly by themselves or good sales people. And the reason is why. And we have a, a a distorted view of what is negotiation and a distorted view of what is sales. And that’s really true, right. I used to be embarrassed to tells people that I was in sales because I didn’t wanna be viewed as you know, that old cliche, a used car salesman today is the proudest thing. I tell people I’m like, I might be a CEO and I might be these, but at the end of the day, I’m a salesperson.
AJV (25:47):
And I now hold it in such high regard because it’s a skillset that’s so few really possess. And I have come to learn that over the years. And I really took for granted the sales skills and sales training that I was able to get at a really, really young age and just get beat around for a really long time. And really build up this Rere, this rejection proof mentality of it’s not a no, it’s just not right now. And those were decided mindsets that I learned over time. And, and then I realized it’s like, most of the reasons why people don’t grow their business has to do with one thing they don’t sell, they don’t sell. They don’t tell people about what they do. They don’t market what they do. They don’t quote unquote self promote. And here’s the reason why they don’t want to be seen as salesy or markety or self promotional.
AJV (26:42):
So they don’t talk about it. And instead of leveraging the people who know us and trust us and like us the most to help us grow our business, we somehow think finding strangers on the internet is what’s going to be this, the solution. How bizarre is that? Just stay with movers for a second. Just take a moment and think about the people who love, trust and believe in you more than anyone else. How much time do you spend with them talking about what you do? Do they know what you do? The clients who serve their results, do they know? And then think about how much time and energy you spend on trying to attract complete strangers who have never met you before to buy your products and services.
RV (27:28):
Mm
AJV (27:29):
It’s bizarre. Y all it’s crazy. And it’s because we don’t wanna come across as salesy. We don’t want to rub anyone the wrong way or offend anyone. And here’s the real problem is you’re only concerned with yourself. You’re so focused on what, how I don’t wanna look, you pay no attention to, are there people right in front of me who need what I do or do they know someone who needs what I do? And so I believe in something called the six foot role and the six foot role means that you have to be willing to tell anyone within six feet of you about what you do it is that simple, not always easy, but simple. And that is because you feel compelled to talk about it because you were that passionate about it, because you believe in what you can do so much, that you cannot contain it because you have seen lives change.
AJV (28:25):
You have seen businesses change, you know, the transformation that will happen with the work that you do with people. So you feel compelled to share it. It’s not about a sale or marketing or being self promotional. It’s about being of the belief and of the mindset that I do. Something that has the power to change your business and change your life. So, yeah, I will tell any single person who is in six, within six feet of me, about what I do, because I believe in it. And that’s a di a slight shift in mentality. And I’ll give you two quick examples about this. And and then we can just like, kind of go from there, but there are two things that I have found
RV (29:00):
In that that was fired though. Like just to put a punctuation point on like that little clip, like we have to cut that clip for social media, like rewind that and listen to it. Like that was so powerful. And, and you nailed it. Like, we’re so afraid of how we don’t want to look to people that we are ignoring all of the people who are right around us, who need what we do like that is that so sorry to stop you. But that was just like,
AJV (29:31):
Why preach
RV (29:31):
It preach it? Vaden
AJV (29:32):
Believes that some sort of digital marketing tip or some social media formula somehow going to help your business grow it ain’t let me just be honest with you. It’s not, what’s gonna make your business grow is getting incredible results for people and having the courage to ask them to share it and having enough courage and belief in yourself to talk about it and to put yourself out there, right? You don’t need clients from around the world. You need clients in your own community. It’s amazing to me that some people and it’s amazing to myself, right? Our, our, our mindset is so limited. It’s frightening. And we were at a, a recent brain builders group event that I had the privilege of MC and one of our customers was in there. One of our clients and actually has a very expensive package.
AJV (30:19):
It’s a six figure package. And she needs like 12 clients who are willing to pay a hundred thousand dollars with her on retainer for what she needs to do to hit her goals. And and I just, I paused and I said, you know, Joe, can you just listen to yourself for one second? And you’re like, I need 12. And I’m like, no, you only need 12. There are 358 million Americans. You need 12. What’s keeps for some perspective here. Y’all and it’s like, we get so consumed. Where am I gonna find the next person? And it’s like, let me say that one more time. There are almost 360 million Americans. There are almost 8 billion people on planet earth. Most of us are looking for 30, 40, 50, a hundred clients. That’s it? Y’all, that’s it. You do not need to look outside of your own, you know, zip code to find 10 clients you don’t, but somehow we’re trying to far reach far and wide, and we’re not looking right in front of us.
AJV (31:21):
It’s a huge miss. And I just one I’m super passionate about the second thing that I was gonna share is that most of us miss opportunities, because we’re not present in the moment. And I’ve got two stories about this. I wanna share. We’re so sucked into our devices that we can’t see human beings all around us. We’re so sucked into catching up on texts and emails and posting on social and trying to get ahead that we forget the people who are willing to buy our products and services are sitting right next to us on the bleachers. So what if we’re a second, you actually engaged in human conversation? What would that do for you? If every single time you had a spare moment in line or sitting, or on an airplane that you weren’t sucked into some sort of technology and you actually engaged in actual conversation, how much business could you get from just that?
AJV (32:09):
And it’s free. Y’all two quick stories. One of the best consulting clients I ever picked up, I picked up at a softball game brewer. You should probably remember this story. Mm-Hmm, kinda, we flew to Las Vegas to watch Rory’s niece, Peyton plan, a softball tournament. And it was hot in July in Vegas. And my nephew was there and they were really young at the time. And so I had my phone in my back pocket. But I wasn’t on my phone. I was just chatting. I was, you know, getting icy with Carter. I was watching Peyton play. And I noticed this book of a sales book that I had read sitting next to this gentleman. And I looked over and I said, have you finished it yet? And he said, oh, I’ve got like five pages left. And I said is your daughter on the same team or the competing team?
AJV (32:51):
And he said, oh, they’re on the same team. And he goes, what are you doing here? And I said, oh, I’m here to watch my husband’s niece, Peyton play softball. And he goes, no kidding, Peyton, Gale. And I said, yeah, Peyton, Gale. He goes, that’s my daughter’s best friend. And I said, no way. I said, hi, my name’s AJ Dayden. I said, so what do you do that? You’re reading this book. He goes, oh, I’m the VP of sales for this, you know gifting company. And I said, really, he goes, what do you do? And I said, oh, I actually help individuals. Like you build and grow their sales teams. He goes, what do you mean? And I said, I work with a company that does sales consulting. That specifically is looking to help improve their sales team and their sales processes and sales philosophies.
AJV (33:30):
And he goes, can you tell me more about that? He ended up being one of my best clients of all time, that one conversation at a softball game because of a human conversation led to a book, being sent a conversation, being had a proposal being accepted and more than $350,000 in business, because I was willing to have a conversation with someone sitting on the bleachers at a softball game. It would’ve never happened. If I was stuck in my phone, texting, emailing it, would’ve never happened if I wasn’t just willing to say hi, how are you doing right? More recently we were in The Bahamas for mother’s day. I told my husband here on this interview with me. I wanna go to The Bahamas from mother’s day. So that’s what we did. And we were our second day and our also our second trip to the water park.
AJV (34:18):
And it was at the end of the day. And it was a long day. And so I walked over to the Dery shack because that’s what I’m gonna do on mother’s day. I’m gonna get myself a Dery. And there was this very sunburn gentleman in front of me who was very hot and sweaty. And he had his two daughters and he was like, had a whole tray of drinks. And he was getting these lemonades for his kids. And he looks back at me and he could tell, I was also really sunburn sweaty. And at the end of like the five hours at a water park, and he said, you’re having fun. And I said, I am sits in a long day, but I’m having fun. I said, how about you? And he goes, yeah, we’re here on a big family trip. And I said, that’s awesome.
AJV (34:53):
And I said, your, your little girls are so cute. And he said, thanks. And I said, I do have kids. I know I’m by myself. They’re over there in the pool. He said, where are you in from? I said, I’m in from Nashville, Tennessee. And he goes, let me guess, you’re a musician. I said, I’m the least amount of musical talent on planet earth. He goes, wait an actress. I said, Nope, definitely not that. And he goes, well, what are you doing in Nashville? And I said, oh, my husband and I have a personal branding firm. I said, we help entrepreneurs build their personal brands. And he said, no. I said . And I said, why, what do you do? He goes, I’m a restaurant here. He goes, I have 73 restaurants all over Florida. And I said, really? He goes, yeah, I get asked to speak all the time.
AJV (35:38):
And I said, guess what? That’s what we do. We help people actually build their speaking business, craft their content and become better speakers and get booked to speak. He goes, you do that for people like me. And I said, I sure do. And I said, do you have your phone on you? He goes, yeah. And I said, pull up your phone type in www dot brain builders, group.com. So he pulls it up and I said, go to the about S page. So he pulls up the about S page. I said, scroll down. He scrolls down to the very end. You see that person right there. He goes, yeah. I said, that’s me. I said, that look really different. Not in a baby suit. I said, that’s me. I said, that’s me and my husband. This is our company. And so I took him to the next page and I said, scroll down.
AJV (36:13):
You see that little button where it says, request a call. I said, click that button. And I said, there’s a little form there where we’ll actually give you a free call to see if we can help. And if not, we’ll send you a bunches of free resources. And if so then we’ll, we’ll, we’ll help you build your personal brand and we’ll help you go speak all around the world. And he said, are you kidding me? I can’t believe I’m staying online. And I just met you. I was just telling my wife about this. And I was like, I don’t believe in coincidence. So click that button. Y’all wow. You have to be welling to tell anyone about what you do. If you believe in it, the person sitting next to you in the bleachers or the, you know, sweaty sunburn person and head of you at line at the Zachery, you know, at the Dery shack at the beach, it’s gotta be compelling. It’s gotta be just coming out of you. And it’s like, maybe he got a call. Maybe he did. And I haven’t looked it up. The point is, is I’m not afraid and I’m not ashamed cuz I don’t find it as self promotional. I’m like, I believe it. So I’m gonna tell you about it until the point where you go. It’s not a fit and then that’s cool too, but you cannot be embarrassed or ashamed about it. You wanna know why your business isn’t growing. You’re not telling anyone about it. That’s why.
RV (37:26):
Hmm. Wow. That is so good, babe. Like you all need to go watch this training and spend time with AJ double dot brand builders, group.com. She’s gonna walk you through this and just give us like 60 seconds this free training. One of the reasons that we put it together is we, we are launching a program, something we’ve never, ever, ever done before. Just give us a little 62nd hint on, on what, what that is.
AJV (37:58):
Yeah. I mean, this it’s part of the webinar too. Is this doing all this research? And again, coincidentally running across this research report, which I truly don’t believe in coincidence. I believe God puts every single thing in my path. It’s just, am I alert and aware? Am I present enough to see what he’s doing in our life and in our business? And I don’t believe coming across that study and getting sucked into this deep dark hole of wow, like that is what I struggled with. I just don’t think that was on accident. I think it was well intended. And a few of the things that I think are really unique is that one of the reasons that people really struggle with this is they don’t solid content to jump off of. Right? It’s like they know that they wanna help people. They know that they wanna coach or train or consult or speak, but creating content is freaking hard work.
AJV (38:46):
Y’all like, let’s just like, it is, it is work. And it takes energy and time and resources. And personal branding is a really popular topic right now. And we get approached all the time by individuals who are going, man, I don’t wanna be like a personal brand strategist with you, but I wanna be able to teach personal branding to my executive clients. Right. And they’re, everyone’s asking about like, do I need a personal brand or what is it? Or you know, how do I become more well known or in this age of there’s a lot of distrust in the marketplace, how do I create more trust? And so one of the things we said is like, well, we may not be able to do everything for you, but what we can give you is a really solid set of content that we know works.
AJV (39:27):
And that we wanna be a launching pad for people who claim themselves as consultants, speakers, coaches in this world. And we wanna be a launching pad of giving the tools and the resources. We’re not gonna give it all to you. Right? Part of this is like your own unique twist, but we’re gonna give you the, the certification and a personal branding curriculum, finding our brand DNA to give you that launching pad of content where you can take someone through a really secure methodology and a process of helping them identify their reputation and use it to help ’em grow their business. For those of you wanna be speakers, it’s like some of the, the hardest work is like, how do I get everything I wanna say about something into 60 minutes, right? It’s easy to talk for hours. It’s really hard to talk for a little bit of time about something really important.
AJV (40:10):
So we’re gonna give you a keynote. We’re gonna give you a webinar. We’re gonna give you all these different tools to be a launching pad for your business. Now for us, it’s unique in that personal branding reputation space, but I really do believe it’s like everyone has a personal brand. If you have a reputation, you have a personal brand. It’s just a matter of how we, we leverage that to help you become an expert or be known as an expert in your space. And that was the Genesis for all of this. And then along the way of going, maybe our curriculum isn’t for you, but you just need some, you need some insights of what really works and what doesn’t. And that’s why we put this training. You know, this free training together for you whether or not ever licensing our content or being a part of, you know, our community is a fit for you.
AJV (40:54):
We wanna give you free resources. And I’d say, that’s one of the things we talk about in the webinars, don’t be afraid to give it away. People are like, I’ve had a few people who are really close friends of mine who were coaches watch this. And they’re like, aren’t you afraid that you just gave it all away? And I was like, no, no, absolutely not. I was like, I’m gonna give it all. If I had two more hours, I’d give away some more stuff. It’s like, don’t be afraid to give it all away. This is, if you, like, there are two simple formulas to building relationships, give value, build trust at the end, give so much value that the person says, oh my gosh, I feel like I have to pay you for this. Right. Give so much value that they feel compelled to go.
AJV (41:35):
What can I do for you? Like I just learned so much, like I cannot believe how much you gave away in 60 minutes. Like, why would you do that? That’s how I want you to feel. Cause that’s how you should feel. That’s how you garner trusted followers and you don’t need millions of ’em. You need a few, remember you don’t need millions of clients. You don’t need thousands of clients. You don’t even need hundreds of clients. Most of you just need dozens of clients. Right. and it does, you don’t have to do a whole lot of work to get that, but you gotta, you gotta do some right. You gotta do some strategic things to help minimize the distraction that you’ve got in your business. And so this webinar’s gonna give you five of those.
RV (42:11):
Oh, so good. Again, check out the webinar, double dot brand builders, group.com. AJ goes through us whole training about how to double your business in the next year. Also you know, at the end of that, she’ll talk to you a little bit more about kind of our licensing pro program and what we’re doing. And there’s so much it takes to start a business. Creating content can be one of the things that we can take off your plate. I mean, our content has been so proven and well utilized the last few years by very, very recognizable personal brains. And also those just starting out. So we’d love for you to be a part of that. And we have
AJV (42:43):
No shame in saying we believe it is freaking awesome. We have awesome contents.
RV (42:49):
Our content is awesome. You
AJV (42:51):
Should not be ashamed either, right? It’s like brag on yourself because you believe in what it does. I got no problems bragging on Roy Vaden, who is the mastermind behind most of our content. It is life changing. It works. It’s methodical, it’s systematic. It’s all the things it’s entertaining. I will, I will happily sing our contents phrases and yours Rory because I believe that’s, if you believe in what you do that much, that’s what you should be doing. I believe in ours that much.
RV (43:21):
Well, thank you, babe. And, and thanks all of y’all. If you, if you are interested in that you wanna go straight to learning about the licensing. If you go to license dot brand builders, group.com, license dot brand builders, group.com, you can go straight there and start learning about that right away. But if not go to double dot brand builders, group.com. Listen to this training with AJ. Thanks for being here. We love you. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.