Social Selling with Chris Naugle

All right, excited. First episode here on LinkedIn Live, we are going to talk all things social media content. Today I am excited to have Chris Noggle join me. If you haven't heard of this man, you're going to learn a lot about them. You're going to learn to like them really quick here. Go check them out@chrisnaugle.com that's Chris. N a u g l e.com with that being said, Chris, welcome aboard.

Hey, thanks for having me.

So, Chris, we're going to talk social media, and I'm having you on episode one for a reason. You create a crapload of it. And so where I want to go with this is the audience at large is made up of folks who, quite frankly, aren't showing up on LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook like they should. They're hesitant. They don't know what to post. Before we get into the tactics of how to do it, I'd love to have you share with the audience how you started your social media journey. When did you hit that moment that, hey, I gotta be creating content and take us back to that day.

Yeah, that's perfect. And, you know, it didn't start where it is today. You know, today we've got several videographers and editors and systems and all sorts of stuff for our social media content. And we put out about a hundred posts almost on a daily basis. But let me take you back to kind of how it started. I always knew there was strength to, you know, social media platforms getting your message out there. And really the number one thing people make the mistake on social media is they go out there and they try to sell something. I started there, too. I'm like, okay, great. I can. I can try to sell a product on my social media channels. That is the fastest way to fail. What you got to do on social media is solve people's problems and you got to do it very efficiently. So how I started was I came up with a show. It was every single Sunday. So not all people want to give up their Sundays. But I did a show called Sunday Flip Funday. This is back when I was doing flips and lots of them. So every Sunday, I would go out to a new flip and I would just do, you know, a how to today at this flip, this is how we're doing that. And at first, you know, one or two people showed up and most people would just give up. And if there was only one or two people that showed up, but I was committed, and that's what all of you are going to have to do. You're going to have to get committed to this process of doing it. I don't care if no one's on your life. I don't care if you do it for the one person that's a friend of yours on Facebook. It doesn't matter. That's where you start. And I just started doing it consistently and persistently. And in doing that, I started building a follower. And then more people showed up and. And then as you're doing it, they would share it. And then I started, like, learning a little bit about how to actually build it by telling people. Because the funny thing is, you know, when you're speaking on a live, you need to think of that as you're speaking in front of a thousand people, because it's no different than standing on the stage and commanding the audience to sort of do and, you know, listen to what you're saying by telling them what to do. So here, everybody here, let's do something. I want all of you right now to think of one person this would benefit. And I want you to share this video with them. And you do that, you start continuously learning how to command not the audience, but it is the audience. But it's a social media audience. But the other thing, too, let's just go back to when I started doing this. It was just on Facebook. That's all I knew back then. And I would do a live every Sunday. Then what I started doing is throughout the week, I did lives about my life. I was either snowboarding and I learned a lesson, or it was pouring rain and I was miserable. But then I changed my mindset, and I went out there and rode with the kids and had a blast in pouring rain. There was always something that I was trying to teach people while I was doing the Facebook lives. And then if there was a POW day, I would just grab my phone, I'd hit, you know, the Facebook Live, and I'd tell them, all right, we're going to ride POW today. And I'd show, you know, stuff going through the.

The.

The woods now, you know, some of you are thinking, yeah, Chris, but I'm not a snowboarder. I'm not a skateboarder. Like, why? What does that have to do with money and your brand and all this stuff? It has everything to do with your brand. It has everything to do with money. Because people don't just want to be told, like, how to manage their money and what you can do from. They want to get into who you are, what your life Is like, because a lot of people are going to look at you on social media and look at you as either an influencer, a role model, or someone that they like and want to be like in one capacity or the other. So if you show your personal life, maybe it's, you know, you just at your house with your family, or maybe it's on a vacation, you'll find interesting things. People want to see that and, you know, just put yourself in the audience's shoes. When you watch people on social media, what are you watching? Why are you on social media? Are you there to be entertained? Are you there to learn something? When your car breaks down, you go to YouTube and actually watch a how to video. And when you watch a video, what are the things you don't like and what are the things you like? Because I can tell you, like, when I'm watching a video and I'm trying to learn something, I hate it when it's just a talking head sitting there with this, you know, a camera that just has one angle on them and they're not showing anything visually. They're just telling you how to do it. Now, maybe that works for some people, but for me, I need to see it. So, like, if you're showing me how to change an alternator in a truck, I don't know why I picked that. Not like I'm changing alternators, but let's just say you were trying to change your alternator. You could find a YouTube video of someone showing this. Now picture two YouTube videos, two pieces of content. Teaching. This one is just a guy telling you how to do it, do this, do that, take the screw off, put the new alternator, you know, whatever. I, I don't change alternators, but let's just imagine that. And the next person actually says, hey, I'm going to show you how to do that. And they show you where they bought the part. This is the store where I bought it. There's other choices. They show you coming back, and then they're under the truck or in the hood of the truck or car. And they're actually showing. This is a 12 millimeter. You take these bolts off, be careful when you take it out not to pull this off. And then they put it back on, they tighten it up and they tell you the do's, the don'ts. And they actually show you which one would be more valuable to you. Of course, the one where they actually walk you through the entire process visually. So when you're creating social media content, I don't Care if it's Instagram stories, I don't care if it's Instagram posts, I don't care if it's Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter. Think of yourself as the person that's watching it. Put yourself in their shoes. Why are you on it?

Well, and I couldn't agree more, Kris. You know, the personal stories, the vlogging, whatever you want to call it, where you're just sharing pieces of your life that have taught you lessons about business and life that you want to share with others, hands down, is probably the number one revenue generating content that I have. Not that I'm here to just do business, but when people hear that stuff or see it, like you said, it allows themselves to put themselves in that story. I played pro ball, you were a pro snowboarder. Very few people got that opportunity. But when we talk about the lessons learned from those journeys, everybody has gone or has been taught that same lesson. So a question I want to ask you, because I get this a lot, is, you know, okay, Andy, I know I should be sharing more of my life, more of my personal stories, but, you know, my life's boring. I don't even know where to get started. What tips or what. What advice would you have for that person, Chris, who's like, okay, how do I start opening up my life a little bit on social media? Where do I start? What do I make a list? What do I do? What would your thoughts be?

Yeah, I mean, a list isn't a bad idea. Normally on any of my studio desks, I would always have a list of the different things I want to teach. Like, because I always think of social media content as what message am I trying to get out? But then what I do is after I think about that, the single most important thing that we focus on that most people miss is the title and the subtitle. So we put a ton of time into the title. Like, what is the title of the Facebook live or the YouTube or the LinkedIn, you know, post you're going to do? That's what people are going to see first. You got to remember people are seeing tens of thousands of ads every day. Heck, it might even be every hour now. Who knows? It will be eventually. What makes yours stand out? Oh, it's not the shirt you're wearing. It's not the things you care about because you know what you care about. Oh, if I do a live at my house, people are going to think, oh, what a look at that messy laundry basket. Or look at the shoes that aren't organized. So you're spending all these time, hours cleaning your house, getting it all ready. Do you realize nobody cares? Matter of fact, if your house looks perfect, they're going to be like, oh, I can't relate to this guy. My house doesn't look as perfect as that. He must have a maid or someone that takes care of that. Like, your life is what people want to see as it is. Don't manipulate your life so that other people see what you think they want to see. They don't want to see that. They want to relate to you, which means they want to see that you do laundry. They want to see that your children have food everywhere after they eat, right? Because that's just life. That's just how it works. And they want to see how you react to that and how you actually handle it. That's the lesson. So now take that lesson. Like, if that's your, your environment and what you're doing, you're like, my life is boring. Like, I, I have kids. Like, I go to work, I come home, and my kids, you know, run around and make a mess. Perfect. That's what people want to see. They want to see that you're real. They want to see that your kids make a mess. Like their kids make a mess. And they want to see you having fun with that mess. Like, oh, you know, your, your wife's cooking dinner, your kids over there making a mess. And you look over at your kids and you're like, you know, you give them a thumbs up and then you take your food and you throw it on the floor too.

And.

And you video this whole thing happening. That thing would probably go viral. But then the other thing you got to think about is like, what is the title that's going to get somebody to stop on your video instead of the other 10,000 videos that they saw and watch it. Maybe it comes down to you just edit in a little tidbit of you throwing the food, right? And that's like the starting video. Because there is some editing you're going to have to get good at. And editing is not hard. Tick tock. You know, like, if you're on tick tock, maybe you are, maybe you're not. You're like, oh, that's for kids. It is not for kids anymore. Like, it's, it's not. It's. It's like Disney. Disney makes children's movies. But who watches a lot of the Disney movies? Parents. You got to think about the same thing. TikTok is our number one source and Tick Tock allows you to edit everything right on there and you can make it fun. You can cut pieces out and put them in the beginning. You, you can edit it so that the first thing someone sees is exciting or the first thing is a big banner ad, almost like a billboard when you're driving down the thruway that says, this is what the video is about. Making a mess with my kids. I would watch that, that'd be cool. But in that lesson of you making a mess with your kids, it's your after it, you could just say, hey, listen, this is, you know, how we have fun. But you know, at some times, you know, I, whatever your profession is, you maybe just throw a like 30 second hook in about what it is you do and that, that's at the end. Entertain them, show them that you're relatable and then just tell them, hey, listen, if you want to learn more about, you know, money and managing your finances, check out my other posts. Like they're not all me throwing food on the floor with my kids and getting yelled at by my daughter or by my wife. You know, think about like that. How relatable is that? That's the content you need to be thinking about. You think your life's boring you. To everybody else, your life isn't boring. Your life is just like theirs, which makes you incredibly relatable, which makes you relevant. Stop thinking that just because you don't have the Ferrari, the Lamborghini or the big thing that people don't want to watch you. More people probably would not watch you if you posted a picture of you, you know, in the rented Lamborghini, being like, oh, look at, I just bought this car because I make so much money, you know, you should call me because I can help you get your own Ferrari, you know, with managing your money and making you millions. Gone. Like you're not relatable, man. You're just trying to sell something. And it's purely evident right from day one when you see those ads. Those are the people that get nothing from.

Well, and you know, the unrelatability is such an important topic because, you know, this has nothing to do with social media, but it's in my public speaking career, Chris. I can remember I usually share stories from my program, baseball career. Right? But as you're sharing those stories, how many people in the room have actually played pro baseball? Not many, if any at all. And there's just no relatability to that. But when I started sharing stories from my pro baseball career where I failed, you know, the mindset, failures and things I went through. It was the first time in my life I had people hugging me after my keynote talks because they could relate to the failure. They couldn't relate to playing pro baseball. They could relate to the failure. So I'm so glad you brought up the relatability. What would you say, because we're on LinkedIn, what would you say to the person because you still, you still see this today in 2021? LinkedIn's for business only. What would you say to that individual who still is trying to throw that argument out there that, oh, we need to bring LinkedIn back to what it was? Resumes and job searches and business content only. What would you say to that person?

I would say that person knows nothing about marketing. And I would say that they need to pay better attention to ads that are on TV and the radio. Like, take Arby's, right? I'm a vegetarian. Vegetarian. Arby's did a poll to find out who their customers were. They were thinking about adding a vegetarian menu and a vegan menu just to appeal because, hey, everybody else is doing it. So we need to offer that because we're missing those customers. But when they did the study of all their customers, they found out that their customers weren't vegetarians, for the most part, didn't care about a vegan option. They wanted the meat. So Arby's did an anti campaign. We've got the meat. It is the single biggest campaign Arby's has ever run. It is their most successful marketing campaign. Domino's did the same thing. They said that their pizzas tasted like cardboard and they were changing the recipe to make it so it didn't taste like cardboard. But most big companies would never, ever, ever allow an ad to be put out exposing that data. Your pizza tastes like cardboard. It's like a piece of paper. I don't really love that. That was the feedback they got from their customers. That's what their customers cared about. The company wasn't thinking that when they exposed that and they said, hey, listen, we've learned that our pizza tastes like cardboard from some people. And we are changing the recipe so that we don't have cardboard pizzas. So something like that. But when you're. So how does that relate to LinkedIn? If you think LinkedIn is just for business, you are thinking just like every other corporate exec that focuses on the wrong thing. When their customers are over here, they're focusing on what's over there. You got it all wrong. If LinkedIn is perceived as only for business, then be the blue ocean for LinkedIn and go out there and create a different environment, a different experience for the viewers on LinkedIn. Sorry, you won't be the first, but I'm just saying, if that's what you think, then go in there and show pictures of you making a mess with your kids. Show pictures of you doing things, you know, on vacation with your children. Show a picture of you sitting at your desk having a bad day and throwing your copy machine across the room and letting it explode on the wall. Copy machine or printer or whatever it is, you know, they're only 100 bucks. That would be a pretty cheap market marketing budget. And if that sucker went viral, that might work. So if you just, you gotta think different, folks. I mean, Steve Jobs said it best. Think different. Everybody thinking LinkedIn's for business. So be the one that thinks LinkedIn might be for business. But I'm gonna make it fun. And that's where you're gonna rise to the top. You know, on, on TikTok, like if you watch everybody and you're like, oh, it's just for kids. It's just, you know, kids wearing skimpy clothes, maybe that's where it started and got off the ground. But what you don't know is today the average person on TikTok is you. And me is somebody in their 30s and 40s who are there to learn something in a very condensed period of time. Because, hey, that's the only thing that we all have to focus on is time these days. Everything is condensed because there's not enough time and it's valuable. So TikToks like these little 60 second videos, maybe a three minute video. That's it. It's short form. So that's the hardest part. How do you get your message across in 60 seconds? You don't know how to do that because you're used to just talking and trying to get into the details. Skip the details. Get you, we've got the meat or our pizza sucks because it tastes like cardboard. And here's what we're doing to fix it. Like get it. Like, you don't need all the details. People don't want the details. And all you're trying to do is hook them, get their attention so that then they watch more of your content, they check out the bio, your bio in the feed in the link tree or in your, in your bio. I'm saying it wrong. In your bio they find all the rest. If they like you, relate to you and find value in you Then they will go out and watch all your other stuff. These are the things that I missed in the beginning, folks. I wish I knew what I know today, but what I thought in the beginning was social media marketing or me putting time into it should have instant gratification. Instant gratification instead is something, unfortunately, that none of you will ever get on social media. Because if you think you're going to go on social media, create a couple videos, put a couple ads up, spend some marketing dollars, it will all completely fail because you simply don't understand the algorithm and the reasons why people are on social media. They're there to be entertained. They're there to learn. They're there to relate to people and find somebody that can show them how to solve their problem. So you, in your life, boring or not, have a superpower. Figure out your superpower. Figure out how to make it fun in 60 seconds, and go out there and practice, and you're gonna suck in the beginning. Congratulations. You're. You're actually human. Like all of us. We all suck in the beginning. You're gonna be nervous. Your palms are gonna sweat. Maybe you're sweating in the beginning in the video and your forehead sweating. If that's the case and acknowledge it and be like, oh, man, this is my first. You know, my first video I've ever done. I'm nervous as hell. I don't know if you guys have ever done this, but, like, the first one sucks, but I'm not gonna. It's not gonna be my last. I'm just gonna wipe the sweat off my brow and I'm gonna keep doing this because I gotta get some. I gotta get this done. And I'm not gonna stop here. You know, I'm going off in a tangent, but you need to be relatable. Your weakness is your superpower. Your weakness is the same weakness everybody has. So expose it. Domino's did. Arby's did. Steve Jobs did. We all do it. We talk about, like, what makes us suck. Like, Andy was, you know, a baseball pro. Baseball player, but there was times he sucked, and he talks about those, and that's the stuff people want to hear. When I was a pro snowboarder, nobody wanted to hear about the perfect Cab 9 that I did. They want to hear about the time where I caught my edge going up the lip and I smashed my back into the. The. The landing, and I got. I got carried off in a stretcher. That's what they want to hear about. They want to hear about the times when I sucked the Times when I was scared to death, they don't give a about when I was successful. They care about when I failed. Because through failure is how we grow. Through failure is how we get better. And if you don't fail or you're scared of failing, and that's your big thing, you, oh, my God, I don't want to fail. You already failed. You have to fail. And if you're not willing to fail, you can't get any further in your business or in your life because I'm sorry to tell you, failure is the magic trick because failure is what's going to get you to the next level. So just get it out of the way, rip the damn band aid off and get going. Because time's a wasting. And I normally have a watch on that just says now, but now is the time. Get out there and fail fast.

Well, you talk about compressed time, Chris. I love it because I use a phrase called exponential awareness, and that's what social media content allows you to do. You know, think about. You and I have been in the sales industry for a while. When we first got in, we were taught what, how to pick up the phone and go pound the pavement. Well, that's linear awareness. I can call one person at a time. That's it. But social media content, to your point, allows you to get one piece of content in front of thousands of people at one time. So you're condensing time for the viewer by bringing them a lot of value in the short amount of time, but you're also compressing your own time because you're getting your one piece of content to get in front of a lot of people at once. You can't deny that value.

Absolutely.

And talk. You know, it's funny. You talk about perfection, trying to be perfect, trying to be. You know, it's funny. And I come from the insurance industry and I think people, People have this philosophy that the only way they're going to get hired is if they're perfect. They can't show any failures. They can't be. They can't show vulnerability. And I'm like, listen, did you. You, you do realize what happened two years ago? The pandemic. We've been in the pandemic state for the last two years. Everybody's going through the same thing. We're all human. So just show the human side of you on social media. Now, I want you to talk about this because you've been talking a lot about video, right? And so if you think about social media content, how do you create it, well, you can do video. You can show pictures, you can write articles, you can do audio. Why do you believe video? I know the answer. I believe. But why do you think video is the most effective way to get that message out?

Well, I just, I mean, the cheat to that answer is, I know because of statistics and because I follow some really, really smart marketing people. But I also, if I didn't know that, let's just pretend that I didn't know the statistics and I didn't know what works and what doesn't. And I was just thinking of video versus, you know, just a photo ad. When I'm looking at social media, what excites me? Is it just that ad of somebody sitting on a beach, you know, but I'm right by that. Or is it the video showing me how to solve a problem that I have today? Or is it a, is it a video that like really touches me or like, you know, some of the stuff, you know, like on Veterans Day that came out, you know, like, those really are touching videos.

Videos.

There's just something about video that allows us in our mind and our heart to kind of take, to get into the journey, to get into the experience. A photo takes you only so far and then your imagination has to kick in. A video can take you from start to finish. So it's really simple to understand why video is probably the best source. It's simply because you, when you're looking for something, probably choose a video to teach you something or to get you emotionally involved in something over just a photo. Photo or stagnant. Now, I'm not saying that that's the only thing you should do because if you do, it's, it's just like investing, right? Like I come from the Wall street world as well. Diversification. You need to have a little bit of everything. So you know, there's different platforms for different things. Twitter, short little burst of information. Okay, YouTube, long form or 15 to 20 minute videos, fully edited. Really showing you something on a how to Instagram, you know, is either short stories or posts that can be up to, I think a minute long. So like you can, you can kind of take your different things and you can decide how to do them. And all I would say is think of when you're getting into social media, think of Instagram, right? You've got stories which are videos you can do, telling a quick story, kind of like TikTok. And then you've got your main post. You can post, you know, just photos or they call memes with a message and then you can post videos. So what I'd suggest is come up with a content calendar. All right? On Mondays, I'm just going to post a meme with an important message or a quote that I love. You know, Will Rogers quote, the biggest problem in America is not what people don't know, it's what people think they know that just ain't so. Maybe that's one post. Monday, Wednesday, you just do a quick video telling a story about your life. Oh, you know, today I've made a huge mistake. You know, I did this, this, this, this, and this is the result. And I made a mistake that allowed me to fail foul. And I will never make that mistake again. And then Friday, you just do another post that is maybe a video, but it has a bunch of text on it. You see what I'm saying? You're diversifying your content that you're putting out there. And the other thing, too. And I'm trying to find a video here on my YouTube that I want to stress because I never would have guessed that this was something that would ever work. But when I actually did it, and I did it simply because during COVID we all had some hard times. And I had some hard times, and I got thinking to myself, I'm like, I bet you I'm not the only person struggling, feeling down on myself, feeling compressed because I can't go out. And life changed so fast. And then all of a sudden, somebody sent me an SNL skit. You guys all know Saturday Night Live. They sent me this skit and I laughed my ass off. And for the first time in weeks, maybe months, I felt human. That laughter brought me to another level. It changed my state, okay, of where I was. And I thought about that and I'm like, you know what? I keep always trying to find ways to give and ways to help other people solve problems. Well, this stupid video, the Saturday Night Live 2 minute long little skit, just changed my state and it just solved my problem. So what if I just go out and create videos with subtle messages that solve other people's problems by making them laugh? And that's what I did. And I've got a whole bunch of them. But if you don't mind, I'm just going to play. I got. I'm just trying to find a short one to play here, but. All right, let's. Let's do this one. I'm just going to play this video for you guys really quick here. Hang on. Now, on YouTube, I do monetize. So I got to wait for the ads to end. So here, let's do this. No pause.

Boom. All right. And did you mind if I share my screen and just show your audience what we're talking about here?

Yeah, let me see.

I think it's letting me do it. Yeah, I got it.

Cool.

There we go. All right. Just let me know if you can't hear it, but I'm pretty sure you'll be able to. Can you see that screen?

We can't. Oh, here we go. Let me bring it in. There we go.