How to Use a Personal Brand for Exposure, Leads, and Sales
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Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner. Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing Podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners and creators who want more exposure, more lead, and more sales. Today, we've got a doozy of an episode for you.

If you or someone you work for desires to be very well known in your niche, and you believe that if that could happen, all of a sudden, more leads, more sales, higher ticket costs, or average orders, or whatever, all that's possible with what we're going to talk about today. And we've got a real genius on the show. He's a returning guest.

He's a good friend of mine and his name is Rory Vaden. And we're going to talk about how to use a personal brand for more exposure, leads and sales. And trust me, this is one you might even listen to twice because it is that good. With that, let's transition over to this week's interview with Rory Vaden. Helping you to simplify your social safari. Here is this week's expert guide.

Today, I'm very excited to be joined by Rory Vaden. If you don't know Rory, you've got to know who he is. He's the co-founder of the Brand Builders Group, a company that helps experts build and monetize their personal brand. He's also co-host of the Influential Podcast.

personal brand podcast. He's also the author of Take the Stairs and Procrastinating on Purpose, books that I absolutely love. And his latest book is Wealthy and Well-Known, Build Your Personal Brand and Turn Your Reputation into Revenue. Rory, my friend, welcome back to the show. How are you doing today? I'm doing great, brother. Always good to be here. And I know you've got such an intelligent, engaged audience. So thank you for the welcome back. It's awesome to have you here, man. So

So today, Rory and I are going to explore how to use a personal brand for more exposure and more leads and more sales. So before we get started, many of you might work in a business where you have nobody who has a personal brand, or maybe it's the owner of the business and it's not you. I still think you should pay attention to what we're going to be talking about today, because if you're trying to position anyone...

to represent your actual brand as a person, I believe that's something really important. Now, before we get underway, I want to explore a little bit of your personal branding journey, Rory, because the last time you were on the show was like almost six years ago. Tell us a little bit about the journey you've been on. Yeah. So we had just started Brand Builders Group last time that we were here and Lewis House was our very first customer. And

When we first started working with Lewis, we had become friends years earlier. And when we exited our former company and started Brand Builders Group, we started working with Lewis. And it had taken him about eight years to get to 30 million downloads of the School of Greatness podcast. And then in the next two years that we were working together, he went from 30 million to 500 million downloads. Wow.

Neither one of us knew how that would change both of our lives. And after Lewis, we got introduced to several other people, Ed Milet, Amy Porterfield, Trent Shelton, Jasmine Starr, John Maxwell, Dr. Henry Cloud. And so we've, over the last six years since I've been on the show, we've worked with several of the biggest personal brands in the world behind the scene to help them

kind of grow their impact and grow their reach. But most of our clients are not at that level of celebrity. The vast majority, like 95% of our clients are entrepreneurs and experts, right? So they own small businesses, professional services,

And we're just teaching them many of the same principles that the biggest personal brands in the world use to drive more leads for their business, warmer leads to automate trust at scale and just use their personal brand to do more of what they're already trying to do.

How has your personal brand evolved since the last time you were on the show? What did you have to do for yourself? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, you know this story, you know, when we suddenly exited our first business, which was an eight-figure business, that company owned my social media and owned my podcast and owned my email list and everything.

So in 2019, we had to start all over. I had a podcast that had millions of downloads. I had been speaking on many of the biggest stages in the world. We had 200 employees, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of followers on social, and we started completely over from scratch.

So we have rebuilt all that. It took us about five years to get back to eight figures. So Brand Builders Group is an eight-figure business. We now have around 50 employees now.

And we've rebuilt our email list and rebuilt our podcast. You know, you mentioned the influential personal brand. So, you know, we're back at it. Rory, that's an incredible story. I love the journey that you've been on. I know that a lot of people listening right now who might be creators or marketers or entrepreneurs might be like, why should I focus on my personal brand? You've already mentioned some of the things you've been able to do with some of your clients, but when this is done well,

What's possible? Speak to that a few minutes, just for anybody who might be a little skeptical about something like this. Yeah, well, you know, to the point of skepticism, which I also have had about all of this, let me answer with some data. So we invested over $100,000 into a PhD-led national research study that's weighted to the U.S. Census since last time we were on the show to understand exactly what you just asked. Like, does this matter? Why does it matter? How does it matter?

And I'll share a couple of highlights. So first of all, 74% of Americans say they're more likely to trust someone who has an established personal brand. And when you dive into the specifics, 63% of people say they're more likely to buy from someone who has an established personal brand. 57% of people say they're more likely to recommend you.

Fifty five percent say they're more likely to do business with you. Fifty percent say they're more likely to work for a company that is led by someone with an established personal brand. Twenty nine percent of Americans actually said they're more likely to go on a date with you just because you have an established personal brand. So, you know, Mike, you used to have to be charming and good looking. Now you just need a Canva Pro account like that's that's that's all there is to it. But

And it's not just, you know, the industries of like,

coaches and speakers and authors and consultants, which what you might think. In fact, the number one profession where Americans said that it matters most to them that their provider has a personal brand is their doctor. Number two was their employer. And then other ones at the top of the list are lawyer, financial advisor, banker, accountant, chiropractor. And then you get into like coach and consultant. And so here's what we realized.

At first, that was unexpected to go, wow, this has gone beyond just like dancing on TikTok and YouTubers and podcasters. This phenomenon is infiltrating our everyday business because what becomes obvious when you look at the data is the higher the requirement for trust,

the more important having an established personal brand becomes. Ooh, I like that. It's actually really clear, right? And then 67% of Americans. So if you're an executive, listen up to this. So 67% of Americans say they would be more likely to spend more money on products or services that come from companies where the founder has a personal brand that aligns with their personal values.

So, you know, if you look at Sarah Blakely, right? Like you think of Spakes, you think of Sarah Blakely, you look at Virgin, you think of Richard Branson, that we buy products and services and we will spend more money on products and services from the companies where it's not just a faceless logo, but that there's an actual human representative of that. So this is now even, I would say, going beyond,

It kind of started as like influencers, then it has become massive in the world of entrepreneurship. And now it is extending aggressively into the world of executives at major corporations. At least that's what the data points to. So those are some reasons why I think this matters for all of us. Okay, folks, I'm going to translate some of this. It doesn't require a lot of translating, but I'm going to speak truth here. If you have a personal brand,

You're going to be more valuable in the next hire that you work for because they're going to realize that that's like something they're going to pay a premium for. Your customers will pay more if you have an established personal brand. And I will speak from my own case. I have a moderately established personal brand and I sell premium products and it works. And.

You don't have to be Rory Vaden or Michael Stelzner or Ed Milad or Lewis Howes to be able to do this. And we're going to get started on this right now. So I guess the first question really for you, Rory, is where do we begin? You know, how do we get started? Just to jump right into the tactical, like first step, you may have heard start with why, right? Simon Sinek. I love Simon Sinek, by the way. He's one of my favorite authors. I think he's a brilliant communicator. And Simon wrote that book, Start With Why, which was like a worldwide phenomenon in the corporate world.

Well, what we've discovered with building a personal brand, which is different from building a company, is that when you're building a personal brand, you actually don't start with why. You start with who. Because the moment that you're clear on who you're serving, every single other downstream decision becomes clearer.

Right. If you know who you're serving, you know where to advertise, you know exactly what type of messaging and words to use to attract their attention. You know how much those people can afford. So you know how to price your offerings. You know what to include. You know what type of people you need to hire to staff that, which means you know exactly what type of infrastructure you need to build. And just like all the way down the line.

Contrast that, however, with someone who is unclear on their who or with somebody who makes the huge mistake of saying, well, my brand is to help everyone.

Well, when you help everyone, that means you have to advertise everywhere. You have to use messaging that applies to everyone. You have to offer products and services that are ubiquitous and relevant to all people. And by the way, that only works for water. That's the only thing I can think of. Water bottles. But even water, you got vitamin waters, right? So...

We keep going anyways. That's the definition of commoditization. Right. Is it's like you have to dumb down your message. You have to have really broad products that are low price that apply to all people. Your content has to become very general in nature. And what happens is you don't develop loyalists. You don't have specificity. And even if you are narrow in an industry and even if you're narrow in a topic, in a service offering, and even if you're narrow in a geography, you're

If you just think for a second and go, if you're broad in the size of the business you're trying to reach,

I mean, just use common sense for a second, right? If you go, if I'm trying to sell to enterprise organizations, they have wildly different needs, wildly different terminology than medium-sized businesses, right? That might have like a few hundred employees. And even a medium-sized business has wildly different needs from a small business with 10 employees. So if

If you're trying to like even just be specific in a niche, but not narrow in who you're trying to serve, you're going to be swallowed up in the noise. You're going to bounce off the wall and be consumed. Real quick on this. A lot of marketers are listening to this and they're saying to themselves, I know who my who is. Great. But maybe you don't know who your who is.

for your personal brand, right? And talk to me a little bit about how to find out the who, right? Because like amongst my who's, there's lots of who's. Does that make sense? Like if I think about from my perspective, I've got marketers, I've got creators, I've got entrepreneurs, right?

And I know that they generally work for very small businesses, but that's still pretty broad. So when it comes to personal branding, how do I actually know who the who is? Give me some guidance on that. Yeah. So our flagship two-day experience is a process we created called Finding Your Brand DNA, where we take people through a whole series of introspective questions and

exercises that we're workshopping to answer four questions. What problem do you solve in one word? Who do you solve it for? How do you solve it in one sentence and what one revenue stream matters above all others? So there's a whole process to this. Now we don't have two days on this podcast, so I'll give you the shortcut. Uh,

I'll tell you the secret because six years ago when I was on this show last, we didn't actually know this then. We only discovered it after we had taken a couple thousand people through the process. And really, it was when we started hiring strategists, right? Our strategists are full-time employees who now guide people through it. It's not just me and AJ. My wife is my business partner and co-founder. And so here's what we discovered, the pattern that we identified.

For all of us, Mike, you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were.

You're most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. It doesn't mean that's the only person you can serve. It doesn't mean you have to do that, but it means that the most natural place, the most natural momentum, the most obvious opportunity, the deepest connection, the path of least resistance is to ask yourself, who is the person I once was?

That is where our power comes because nobody is more qualified to speak to that person than you. Right. You can argue with someone's credentials. Right. You could take issue with our research methodology. Right. I cited our study earlier and you could go, oh, well, you know, this is only plus or minus three percent margin of error. But you can't argue with a person's results.

You can't argue with a person's experience. You go, the credibility is in the fact that you've walked the path. And so what we ask people and part of the journey we take people on when we're working with them, because we're still a very human based company, we work very intimately, like with people in the flesh, is we ask, what challenges have you conquered?

What setbacks have you survived? What obstacles have you overcome? What tragedies have you triumphed over? Because therein lies your deepest area of credibility, your deepest level of expertise, and thus the most opportunity for your brand and

and for your business to go, what audience can I serve in the deepest way? I can serve the person I once was. That is where the magic is. That's what we call finding your uniqueness. What I love about this is if you go back to who you once were and then you filter it through the lens of who you need to serve, particularly for your product and service, right? Because you might've once been a broke out of work, living in your car kind of person, right?

And maybe you're not selling personal financing stuff, but maybe instead you're actually selling something completely different. So you got to find that lens, right? Like, hey, I once was not in a position where I could afford to invest, for example, in a coach. Maybe that's what you say, right? I don't know. But I realized that that was the key to unlocking what I needed to do. And that's what allowed me to start this business that you're all familiar with.

So I'm going to speak to the people who feel like it's impossible for them to achieve their dreams because that's what it felt like for me. I mean, maybe that's like an angle that I could go at. I don't know, but you got to find that lens between, it sounds like, cause you know, like for some people who they once were and who they want to serve do not match. Does that make sense? Yeah. So if you just use your example there, which I think is a great one. And by the way, I did not live in my car. I just made that up. And there's different ways to shape that narrative, right? So you go, okay,

Yeah. Maybe you start a business teaching people how to go from homeless to like real estate empire, right? It's like, okay, that would be a very literal thing. But the other way to do it is to go, well, what skill did you learn that got you out of that place? It's not just making money. Maybe it's- Let's say it's scrappiness, right? Yeah. It could be more of a personal development thing. It could be a mindset thing, right? It also could have been related to networking. It could have been

related to building relationships or it could be that you learn to become a graphic designer or a photographer or you became a chiropractor or a CPA and what

whatever the skill is that got you pragmatically out of that situation becomes the thing you teach. But then you have your stories all talk about the mindset change, right? So, there's the mindset piece of any transformation. There's a mindset piece and then there's a method piece, right? There's like a tactical piece and then there's like a motivational piece. And so, there's different narratives and angles. It doesn't have to like

literally be the thing that you once did. But that's the area that we start on, right? I mean, to use you as an example, right? You were and are a social media enthusiast. But before that, I was a writer. Okay. So that's the important part of my narrative.

I knew how to communicate and I knew how to persuade. So keep going. The other thing about you, Mike, is people probably know this, but you are a data driven person. You're an extremely objective, logical person. So the way you come at social media is not just, oh, here's the trending audio in the algorithm. It's you're coming at it through data and you're looking at a topic that's relevant to the world through a unique lens that is specific to you. And other people get to experience that.

the topic of social media through your lens. Also, now you're like going into the world of AI. You're applying your same lens to this topic. And that's what people are following, right? I love it.

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Okay. So listen, we're going to get into some more stories here in just a second. You've set up a really good couple of things I want to echo back to you. First of all, don't start with the why, start with the who. You need to know who, not necessarily is going to be the thought leader or the brand that you're building, but who is the audience that you want to reach?

and get as narrow as you can, right? And if you're not sure who that who is, well, the easy route is to serve who you once were. You don't have to follow this. This just seems to be something that works really well for people because then you can understand their motivations. You can understand their barriers, their struggles, their emotional triggers, and all these kinds of things that can serve you really, really, really well. So let's say now we've been doing this for a little while, and there's some people who have been doing some of this

but they just have not been getting the exposure that they want, right? Because obviously your building of a brand should ultimately lead to getting that brand in front of an audience. So what do we need to know about how to get more exposure with our personal brand? Yeah, so exposure is a great topic because this is where...

the intersection of sort of some of our imposter syndrome and our emotional issues directly intersects with the tactical strategy, right? So a lot of mission-driven messengers, which is how we define our audience, these people who are like experts and entrepreneurs who are really like want to make a difference in the world. Sometimes they go, oh, well, I'm not good at this because I don't want to be vain, right? Like I don't want to be conceited. I don't want to be self-serving.

And what they failed to realize is that if you're doing those things, you're doing it entirely the wrong way. The way to get exposure is the opposite. The way to be exposure is to not be self-centered, but service-centered. It's to be so useful that people can't ignore you.

to be so helpful that they have to pay attention. It's to make such a positive impact on their life and their business that

They're not showing up for you. They're showing up for them. And that's how exposure comes. And there's really only three types of content marketing strategies that we employ or that we see that really work for exposure. We call them the three E's. And there's really only two of them that our clients even focus on. So I'll tell you the three E's. So the first E is entertainment, right? The second E is encouragement.

And the third E is education. This is how you get exposure is you clarify and you go, okay, my content marketing strategy, if I want people to pay attention, not for me, but for them, for what they get out of it, I need to be either incredibly entertaining, incredibly encouraging, or incredibly educational. And maybe some mix of the three, but like

You know, if you think of some examples of this, right. And by the way, so the first one being entertaining is not really what we do at Brand Builders Group. I mean, just to say. It's hard to do. It's hard to do. Yeah. Like I'm not naturally like the world's funniest person or entertaining. I mean, there's nothing wrong about it. It's just not what we're good at.

It's also not the business model that we chase. So if you look at entertaining, like a great example was Adley. You had Adley speak at your event. Adley Kinsley, yep. Yeah, Adley Kinsley. So she's a delight and she's a wonderful person. She very much is an expert on understanding the algorithm and stuff. But most of her videos are kind of like

pranks and their emotional heartstrings and their gimmicks and it's entertainment. And the thing about entertainment is that a lot of people think personal branding means doing those things.

That is one way to do it. That is the one we do the least of because the only way to really monetize entertainment is through like brand deals and the platform paying you and sponsorships and eyeballs and impressions. And that's just not the game that we personally play. You can play that game. It's very difficult, right? You're competing with the best content creators in the world. The games that we play would be more of encouragement and education.

So, you know, in the encouragement world, like Ed Milet would be a great example of this, right? For those that don't know him, what does he do? So Ed Milet has a podcast called The Ed Milet Show, which is one of the biggest podcasts in the world. He wrote a book called The Power of One More. That was really part of what we helped him with. We helped him pre-sell 117,000 copies of his book before it came out. But he has become...

Pretty much, probably the highest grossing motivational speaker in the world. He's getting $100,000 a speech. When we first started working together with Ed, he was landing around like $40,000, $50,000 speech. What does he talk about? He talks about motivation, the power of one more and getting yourself to push harder and do more than you're capable of.

And he tells the story of redemption, of his dad was an alcoholic and was verbally abusive to Ed when he was little. And then he tells the story of how his dad redeemed his own life through sobriety and really –

You know, Ed developed this level of toughness and then they became very close in later years. And his dad dedicated his life to serving others and helping others break free from alcohol addiction. Right. And Ed talks about how to put your life in service and push yourself to the next level and achieve. And he talks a lot about wealth building. He's very, very wealthy. You know, several hundred million was the last article that was written on him, which was years and years ago.

and he makes millions of dollars just from speaking alone and other things that he's got going on, right? So he talks about wealth and mindset and motivation, and he's a tremendous speaker. I mean, one of the best, if not the best speaker in the world right now in terms of a motivation, like you listen to him and then you want to run through a wall and it's also tactical, right? So-

Okay. So, but that sounds out of reach for a lot of people too, right? So let's talk about this next one because not everybody has the gift of encouragement, obviously, right? That's true. Yeah, exactly. So, and I would say our number one focus is education. And this is the world that we play in at Brand Builders Group, right? Like, how can I teach what I know, right? The secret here is to teach everything you know and

And we say teach it for free. And the reason you can teach it for free is because people don't pay as much for information anymore. They pay for organization and application. So you can teach everything for free, but in small bite-sized chunks in all random miscellaneous order. And what they pay then for is the organization of those ideas.

into a book, a course, a system, a coaching program. And what they pay the most for is application, the support and the assistance, right? Most of what we teach at Brand Builders Group, we've given away for free. And if you wanted to spend thousands of hours listening to every podcast I've done, go download every single YouTube video, go watch every social media post, listen to every podcast I've been a guest on and listen to all of those and you could organize it.

Or, you know, you could request a call with our company and we can walk you through it systematically and only teach you exactly what you need in the moment you need it directly related to your specific journey. Right. So that's what people are paying for is they're paying for the organization and the application. But our content strategy is education.

Right. There's nothing that I'm holding back on this interview. I'm trying to share the best of what we know for free because we're using our education. We're demonstrating our expertise and somebody who's a real expert, they can't give away everything they know in an hour.

right? If you can teach everything you know on a subject in an hour, you're not an expert on that subject. That's not what you should be trying to monetize. You're going to struggle because you're going to be selling smoke and mirrors. But if you are serving the person you once were, then you're going to have days and days and days of wisdom and advice that you can teach them. And that's what education and expertise is all about. By the way, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is one of our clients that's a living, breathing example of

this. She's not the most entertaining. She's not the most encouraging, although she's wonderful, but she is a true expert, a true medical physician who talks about protein and muscle-centric medicine.

And she's crushing it. I mean, she's now got millions of followers. She's on the biggest podcast in the world, became a New York Times bestselling author and just teaching what she knows as a true expert. Okay. So what I'm hearing you say is that if you want to get exposure, you need to create content. And ideally you create content either that's entertaining like Adley Kinsley or anything

highly encouraging like Ed Milet or educational, which is kind of what almost every single guest on this podcast has ever done, including yourself. That seems to be the one that's the easiest to do for those of us that truly understand what it is we have to say. Now, we're going to start to get to the marketing side of this. So let's say that we built a personal brand and we want to use it to generate prospects and leads for our business. How do we go about doing that? Yeah, so...

I mean, first thing I would do today, right? In the modern era, I would go hit chat GBT and I would say, what are the 30 biggest questions that, and then insert your avatar.

Right. So in my case, let's just say experts. Right. I would say that experts have about and then insert your topic, you know, building and monetizing their personal brand in my case. Right. Boom. You know, if it were you, Mike, you would go, what are the 30 biggest questions that social media marketers. Yeah. Marketers face about AI, for example. Yes. And ChatGPT in 10 seconds is going to spit all this out. Then what I would do is I would answer questions.

Each one of those questions systematically, one at a time on a video.

That is the content, right? Is to be so useful that people can't ignore you. Is to give it away because you don't have to be afraid of giving away too much. What you have to be afraid of is not giving away enough and then they never return because they're getting yanked over by Adley's videos and Ed's videos, right? That are much more entertaining and inspiring. So it's like one of our brand builders group mantras is save the best for first. I like that. Save the best for first.

The next thing that you teach, the next piece of content you put out should be the next best thing you can think of to say. The next best, most useful thing to say. Because all that building a personal brand is, right? So by the way, we haven't defined this yet. But the way that we define personal branding is simply the digitization of reputation. Right?

The digitization of reputation. So don't get caught up in all the new terms and don't get caught up thinking your personal brand is a website or logos or colors or fonts or topography or like, oh, I have to be on this platform or that platform. None of that stuff. Those are all just details. When you hear the word personal brand, what we teach our clients and what the way we think of it is just make it synonymous with the word reputation. Reputation has been around since the dawn of time.

You can't ask, do I need a personal brand? That'd be like asking, do I need a reputation? Well, whether you need one or not, you have one or the absence of one is harming you perhaps the most of all. The only difference between a personal brand and a reputation, it's the digitization. It's the multiplication of reputation. And then in many ways, the formal monetization of reputation. So you're going just like in real life,

I wouldn't walk up to a stranger on the street and say, hi, my name is Rory and try to sell them something. I would build a relationship. I would get to know them. I would want to understand. I would want to be useful. I would add value to them. And then if an opportunity comes that I'm able to help them, I would maybe let them know about that. So that's all we're doing digitally as well. So here's the formula. We call it QAC, QAC.

Question, answer, call to action. The formula for what exactly? Sorry. So answering the 52 questions, right? Or the 30 questions. I said 30 questions. Would be like one a month as an example. Okay. So the first words out of my mouth on the video would be the question.

Right. Don't say, hi, everybody. It's great to see you. Or how are you doing today? Right. You've got three seconds to capture people. And one of the best hooks of all time is a question. Right. A hook is anything you say that gets people to continue watching. And one of the best hooks of all is to tell people what you're about to tell them.

A question is a natural hook because you tell them exactly what you're about to tell them. You tell them what you're about to talk about in the form of a question. You say, have you ever wondered what do you think AI is going to do to short form content?

Or how do we use AI to improve our short-term content? Or are you wondering whether AI is going to take your job away? That's the big question, right? Boom. And then you give the answer, right? Presumably. But this is really important for a second. Let's pause on the question. Okay. First of all, I love how you talked about how you can go to ChatGPT and ask it. What are the biggest questions that the audience in particular you're trying to reach is facing on this particular topic?

I would also add that you could also look through some of the comments, don't you agree, that you get on your existing social platforms? Absolutely. Right? Because ChatGPT might only be so good, but you might already be creating content and you might be getting DMs and comments on your YouTube. That could all be thrown into a little bucket, don't you agree, for coming up with these questions? Yeah, absolutely. Or surveying your audience or surveying your customers, right? Like what are their biggest needs? Okay, so this formula, you mentioned the first part, strategizing.

state the question, what was the rest of the formula? Yeah. So QAC, so state the question, then answer the question, right? And when you answer the question, I would encourage you to talk about both the things that people do wrong and

And then what's the right answer? So mistakes and the best way or something like that, right? Yep. Yep. Mistakes, mindset and method. It's like, you know, I sort of talked a little bit about that earlier, right? I got to just say you are the king of like little isms. Okay. Like literally you are the king. Mistakes, mindset and method. Like I've never met another person in my life and I'm good friends with Rory, but so I can just say this.

This guy, man, I don't know where you come up with this stuff. Like, I think it's just like all they're floating in front of your brain. I love it. Keep going. So thank you for that. We actually have one of our courses is called captivating content. And we teach this thing called the thought leadership list, which is a

which are the 17 ways to structure your content, that it's really memorable and catchy and pithy. So it's a system for teaching the creation of these little systems. Well, and let's be honest, it makes you look like even more of a professional. And this is a little tangent we should go down. When you have your own methods and you have your own systems and you can...

Sam, like that on the fly, doesn't that make you look more like a professional? Absolutely. Yeah. Right. And you go, this is tight. It's a methodology. And by the way, when we say serve the person you once were, one of the most powerful parts about that is you start to teach things that nobody else has said before because nobody else has solved that. Other people might address that problem, but they don't address the problem the way that you address it because you're teaching what you actually did.

What most thought leaders are doing is really parroting other thought leaders. They're really consolidating and rephrasing and repackaging other people. Well, in a world of AI, that's a super dangerous model. And ironically, I think as AI takes over, the personal brand matters even more. It's going, what is your unique way that you solve the problem, right? So we use chat to BT to come up with the questions, but we would never,

ever, ever lean on ChatGPT for the answers, right? That's the most commoditized, boring, mainstream stuff ever. The best answers are not even the right answers. The best answers are your answers. They were the right answers for you in your life. I can only get that information from you. And then if you do the work of packaging it, like we teach you, which is what you're sort of talking about, if

If you can just learn to package your own ideas and present them, now all of a sudden it just sounds smart, right? Like even if it's not that smart, it sounds smart because you've got it structured in a way that is, you know, like a mnemonic device. It's more memorable. Okay. So wait, just bringing it back to your content formula. We've got state the question, right? Which is the cue, answer it. And by the way, when you answer it, you can address mindset.

mistakes and methods. I threw you off by doing it out of order and then address the best way or your way to like, like here's, here's your mindset shift or here's a method or here's a mistake. Right. And then blah, blah. Okay. So somehow that's what you talk about on the second part of this formula. State the question, answer it. And then what's the C? C is call to action. So give them a call to action. You have to tell people that

what to do next, right? I mean, this is another version of saying QAC, another version of this formula would be tell the audience what you're going to tell them, tell them what you're there to tell them, and then tell them what to do next, right? That's the QAC just said a different way. You have to tell people go. And so when we use calls to action, there's a gradient spectrum of commitment,

Right. So the easiest thing to do would just be to say, hey, if you enjoy what I said here, like this post. Another would be, hey, share this with a friend who you think needs to hear this. Right. Another would be, hey, make sure you subscribe or give me a follow so that we can stay in touch. I've got lots more of ideas to share with you. Then a gradient or again, this is a gradient spectrum of commitment here. Right. As I would say, hey, leave a comment down below and tell me if you agree or give me what is your best answer.

And it's also becoming more intimate, right? Is going, and then I would say, hey, what questions do you have on this? Send me a DM. And then as you get more committal, it would be like, if you want more on this, download my free lead magnet.

And then a level more committal than that would be like, hey, I'm running a free training on this next Wednesday. I'd love to invite you if you want to come just, you know, text this code or QR code or blah, blah, blah, whatever. And then it's, hey, if you want to learn more, I actually created a course on this. You can check it out. It's available right now or buy my book or whatever, right? So that's like the spectrum of calls to action. But there always has to be a call to action. It doesn't have to be the same one. It shouldn't be the same one, but there's got to be one. Love it.

Okay. That was amazing. And this is a perfect transition in my next question, which is how do we actually get our personal content to sell? Meaning how do we make money with it? Right? So you've already kind of addressed this a little bit, but I know that you have kind of a process or a method because you do for everything. So how do we actually move forward?

this to dollars. Yeah. So, this is another technique we teach. It's called the four Fs. So, the four Fs. So, I love this question, right? Because you go, here's what everybody thinks about how to make money on the internet. They think it's like, let's broadcast as many people

With as loud of a message as possible and sell them like the most expensive thing all at the same time. The reality is the way that at least what we're doing and what we're seeing in the personal brands that are making real money, you know, and again, we went from zero to eight figures in five years. I've got to pause you. Do you guys realize he's doing exactly what he just said we should do?

what you just did was you said, here's the mistake everybody's making. Right. And then here's the reality. So keep going. I love it. I just had to like break in there and say that. Keep going. Okay. That's so good. Yeah. I didn't even realize I was doing that, but yeah, we try to, we try to keep going. We try to like, you know, actually drink our own Kool-Aid the mindset here. Okay. So that's the mistake. So let me teach you the mindset, the mindset.

is I'm not trying to sell to the masses. The mindset is I'm not selling to people, I'm selling to a person. The mindset is sales still happens most effectively in a one-on-one environment. And so the method is that the dollars are in the DMs.

The dollars are in the DMs where all the money is being made is not from like, oh, I made 60 cents from YouTube because 5 million people saw my video. Right. And it's not, oh, I got $400 from a brand deal because I like held up their soap and tried to tie it in. Those aren't bad things. Right. Those are fine. A lot of our clients do that and a lot of them do it can can do it gracefully. Right.

But where the real money is being made is in selling the thing you already have, right? It's selling the business you… You're a lawyer, right? You're not going to make money selling courses. You're going to sell legal services. You're a chiropractor. Like, get people to come to your office, right? You're a nutritionist. You're a CPA. You're a financial advisor. You're an esthetician. You're just using your personal brand to get people to buy the thing you already do. Now, how do you do that? You do that in the DMs. It doesn't happen like a giant commercial. It usually happens in the DMs. So…

Here's the four Fs, right? So, the four Fs are simple. F1 is, how did you find me? How did you find me? The goal is I'm moving them from the masses from like my profile. Think about it as moving… Now, this is after they've already DMed you, presumably, right? Right. We're trying to. And that's one of the calls to actions, right? It's like, if you have any questions, shoot me a DM. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, right? Or what they'll do is let's say they'll comment, right?

One of the best ways to do is you go to the comments and you say, thanks for your comment. I just sent you a private message with the answer. So the transition here is my mass market content, which is in the form of my QAC video, they engage either by sending me a DM directly or they leave a comment, right?

This is something that is so stupid that content creators do. Content creators think of comments as like annoying and like, oh, I'm too busy to answer these comments. That is stupid. Comments are like people raising their hand saying, I like you. I trust you. I want more of you. And you should have a red siren going off in your brain when you see a comment because that is one step away from saying, I will buy from you.

So the comments and then the DMs is where all the action is. And you don't need millions of followers, right? To make millions of dollars. You just need a few. I mean, most of us only need a couple dozen of our perfect customer to like double our business. That happens in the DMs. So I'm moving from mass market content to comments to then saying, hey, thanks for the comment. I just sent you a message in your DMs. I'm deliberately moving the conversation out of the public domain

to a one-on-one environment, which is what sales is. And then you go, well, oh gosh, I don't know how to sell. Like, this is so simple. You just say, how did you find me?

And they'll say, oh, you know, I found you here. I heard you on so-and-so's podcast or I saw you wherever. And then the F2 is, oh, what was your favorite part of what you've seen from me so far? And they'll say, oh, I really loved your interview with this or I really loved the video you did on that or I loved your podcast solo episode you did on whatever. Then F3 is, tell me about your future goals.

Tell me about your future dreams. This is where selling happens. When they are talking, you are selling, right? Sales is not about talking. It's about listening. And the more they're talking about specifically their dream. So that's what F3 is all about. Tell me about your future goals. Like tell me about your future desires. What are you hoping to accomplish with your future? And then F4 is free. Give them a free resource. And in our world, we offer free calls.

We went from zero to eight figures. Our whole business model, by the way, is doing exactly what I've been teaching you to do, right? To your point, Mike, like we're very transparent about it. Our goal is to teach at as much value as we can for free. And then we offer everyone a free call

And then our free calls are super casual. They're conversational. They're not high pressure. Like most of the people that do a free call with us won't work with us, but a lot of them will. If we've added value, we've automated trust. And then we have a one-on-one conversation about their dreams, their hopes, their goals, their future.

And for some number of those people, our services naturally line up to help them achieve those things. For a lot of people, they don't. But there's enough that you make more money than you've ever made before serving the person that you once were. For those of you that are in the business of selling things, this last part has been absolute freaking gold. Okay.

How did you find me? Could be, how did you find us? Right. Yep. What's your favorite part about what you've experienced with us so far? Right. Whether that be whatever content they're consuming, what's the future look like? What's the dream, right? What do you want to achieve? Right. And then giving them something of value, which is maybe some free advice or maybe giving them some free PDFs.

or offering them a free call, it makes so much sense, right? Because it's the way that feels natural. Nothing about it feels slimy. It's in complete alignment with the way many of us actually converse privately one-on-one. And

I imagine if their goals are in alignment with what your service offering is or your product is, it's going to be an easy close, right? Bingo. They sell themselves, right? They've already sold themselves because they're showing up, right? They've watched your content. They've engaged with a comment. They came over to the DMs. They had a conversation with you and then your free resource. And by the way, you know, we usually use free calls for selling high dollar offers, right?

but we also use, we call them trust soldiers, right? Like you could think of it as a lead magnet, but we don't think of it as a lead magnet. Like, Oh, we're trying to capture them. We think of it as a trust soldier is going great. Let me give you a free resource. That's so helpful, right?

that again, the goal is to be so useful and so helpful they can't ignore you. And even if they don't buy, they're like, man, I got to send this to my friend. Like I have to send this podcast to my friend. I have to send this book to my friend. I have to send this PDF to my friend. If you do this right, your customer force becomes your sales force.

And it's all through abundance and generosity. There's no slime needed. You don't have to be slimy. You can be totally service-centered. And the more you lean into that, ironically, the easier it becomes, the faster it happens, and the more money you make. I mean, it's crazy.

Rory, this has been amazing. I could talk to you for hours and I just love everything you're sharing with us. If people want to connect with you on the socials, where do you want to send them? And if they want to work with you, where would you send them also? Yeah. So, you know, if this is speaking to you, I would say request a call with us. If you go to freebrandcall.com slash SME, right? So for social media examiner, like SME, freebrandcall.com slash SME.

then you will just request a call with our team. We'll get to know you and we'll want to hear your dream. We'll want to hear what's the vision you've got for your personal brand, your business. And then we'll share with you, here's the process that we take people through. This is what we've done with everybody.

And if you go, hey, I think that could help. There's all different price points and ways we work with people for all different budget levels. We may be able to help. And if not, we'll point you towards free resources and go, here's some other free resources to help you on your way. Like simple as that. So freebrandcall.com slash SME would be the place to go.

And if people want to connect with you on the socials, do you have a preferred platform since this is the Social Media Marketing Podcast? Yeah. Yeah. Instagram is really the place where I'm like the most active and hang out. Yep. Would be on Instagram. Rory Vaden, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today. Yeah, buddy. Thank you for having me. And, you know, just for everyone, just remember there is no fear when the mission to serve is clear.

If you're focused on selling and you're focused on accomplishing, there's wins and losses. But if you're just focused on serving, there's only wins. So just make that the focus. And I promise it'll work out. Hey, I forgot to mention this at the top of the show, but if you're new to this podcast, be sure to follow us on whatever player you're listening to us on because I've got a lot more great content coming your way. And the show notes for this are found at socialmediaexaminer.com slash 673.

Also, do check out our other shows, the AI Explorer podcast and the Social Media Marketing Talk Show. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving. The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner.

Just a quick reminder before you go, if you're ready to become indispensable in the age of AI, the AI Business Society is your solution. Join now and secure your discounted membership by visiting socialmediaexaminer.com slash AI. I can't wait to see you inside the AI Business Society.