059: Melinda Wittstock - What Is Authenticity, Exactly?

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done? I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have talent. Talk to Doxatalant and you won't be disappointed. Go to doxatalent.com Bill G. Again, that's doxatalent.com Bill g. One more time. Docsatalant.com Bill G. Check it out today. So today's show is all about the powerful, powerful idea of authenticity. But, you know, we all know authenticity is powerful. It's certainly got a lot of buzz. But what is it? How do you access it? What does it mean for you and your company? What does it mean for your thought leadership, the whole world of authenticity, Access to it, using it, leveraging it. That's what today's shawl is all about. And it'll surprise you. It is not all touchy feely. It's going to get real practical real fast. Hello and welcome again to the Scaling Up Business podcast. I'm your host and business growth coach, Bill Gallagher. On the show with me today is Melinda Wittstock, CEO and founder of Verifeed. It's Melinda's fourth company of her own. She's a recovering journalist of some real note. So this woman has done an awful lot of things. She's terribly bright. I met her through my wife and Lynne Twist. She was on a trip with them into the jungle to meet the Indians and change her whole view of life. We've both been supporters for years for an organization called the Pachamama alliance. And I'm just so excited to have her on. You can hear in the background she's in a lobby of a hotel. Where are you today, Melinda?

I'm actually in Virginia. I've just, you know, I tend to run a pretty virtual operation like my business is wherever I am. So as it happens right now, this lobby was incredibly quiet until we started talking.

Till we started talking. Well, it's going to sound like a cafe. It's atmospheric. We're going to have people include the background.

Exactly. Yeah. It suddenly got busy in here.

So we're going to talk all about Return Roa return on authenticity today. And we're going to get into a little bit, what is authenticity? How do you access it? What does it mean for you? You've actually created a score for authenticity, a computerized score that people can access?

Yeah, yes, yes, I have. I mean, go figure how you can use algorithms to measure someone's authenticity as expressed in their social media conversations. But we have found a way.

Super cool.

And, you know, it's really intriguing because running verifeed, we look at millions of social conversations and we understand from them, you know, people's habits, their motivations, their interests, all sorts of things about them. And we also.

So hold it, Wait, right, Before you go in and spill the whole beans, you're itching to tell me all about how it works, but let's hold up there for a second so that people get a little background of how you got interested in authenticity, your sort of personal connection to it, and we'll come back into how it works and how they can use it.

You know, I've been thinking about this a lot recently because the more I go on a personal journey that I think most serial entrepreneurs go on, you know, when you kind of start to figure out what it is that's actually driving you and what are your beliefs and subconscious beliefs and things that might limit your success, you know, along that trajectory. I began to really think about it because authenticity has been a theme in all of my businesses and certainly was an issue for me as a journalist when I went out. And I was always interviewing, you know, politicians or other folks and kind of looking for hypocrisy, you know, like a lot of journalists sniffing it out. Yeah, right, right. Like trying to get people off their prepared scripts and. And all this sort of thing. And, you know, recently I've come to the conclusion that the kernel for authenticity was. Was really as a young child growing up in a household with two parents who, you know, were arguing all the time and got divorced around the time that I was six. And my father had been a very successful stockbroker and with his own firm. And then he had lost all his money. He'd had this catastrophic turn of events and. And. But it left the family, or at least my parents thought they had to pretend that everything was okay. So we were in this really weird no man's land where, you know, like folks couldn't come home. You know, I couldn't have my friends over because they may see that we don't have as much money as we used to. Like stuff like that. Right?

Yeah.

Ridiculous. It was ridiculous. It was like living in a Fun house, where things are real but not real. And it was a very strange environment in a lot of ways for a kid to grow up. And I am sure that this is pretty obvious now to anyone that authenticity and concepts like truth and trust are very important to me.

I totally get that. And I think at many points, a lot of us come to a moment like that where there's something that's embarrassing and uncomfortable, that we don't necessarily want to talk about it frequently. I think for a lot of us, there's one kind of a moment that inevitably happens in middle school and then somewhere between the ages of 10 and 14 and where just the social pressure and the. And then there's another one that often come with family. Right. There's some family event or something like that that has us confront this, and we don't always see the lesson of it until many years later.

Yeah. I mean, it's fascinating that that one is so obvious, except, you know, I've only really recently seen it.

Yeah. In reflection. Right. In looking back at the whole thing.

In looking back, because. Yes, exactly. I think it's true of most people's lives because all these beliefs, you know, we're really a sum of all the beliefs that we've accumulated in our lives. Right. Some of them helpful and some of them not, and so many. When we think that at any given time, we have seven conscious thoughts and more than 21 million unconscious thoughts. And those unconscious thoughts are driving our behavior and driving the things that we do do in our lives and how we react to situations. I mean, that's astonishing. And so when you think, God, like, what's actually. What's actually driving me? You know, what is it that makes me go want to be an entrepreneur or try and figure out how to algorithmically code authenticity? You know, I mean, we all have these unseen drivers. So it's fascinating to turn my kind of investigative journalist in on myself in that respect and really go figure it out. I think it makes you a better entrepreneur when you go through that.

So authenticity is a subject that's near and dear to me, and I spent a lot of years both developing my own capacity for it and training other emerging leaders in developing their own access to authenticity, in becoming more authentic and our leading value. It's emerged at this point that our leading company value and sort of one of my leading personal values is courageous authenticity, the courage to really be yourself. But I think that when I talk to people and I get endless folks passing around like Brene Brown videos, so there's A lot of interest in this whole thing, except it gets for me confused with sincerity. Too much. Do you find something similar?

Yeah, I agree. And I think to me, I mean, authenticity is. Right now, it's in danger of being a very overused buzzword that people toss around. Everyone kind of knows it's good to be authentic and it can mean different things for different people.

Right.

I mean, to me, what it really means is a combination of things. It's about being true to yourself. And so it implies actually knowing yourself. And I love what you say about the courage to do that, because I think a lot of people are really afraid to show up as themselves because deep down we all have this. We all have a lot of things that we don't like about ourselves. Right. I mean, the self help industry is testament to that.

Yes.

Oh, like I could lose a little bit of weight or I should be more like this or I should be able to run that marathon or. Oh, man, I should, I should, I should, I should. Right? Yes. And so when we have these, these aspects of ourselves where we think we're not good enough. Yes. The, the temptation is try to hide those things.

Yeah.

And I think that gets us out of our authenticity. I think there's a very real reason to do it. I think the real reason to do it is fear of being not accepted socially or like not having friends or not fitting in. I think we're social animals. And at the root of it, it's just like the old kids book, the Velveteen Rabbit.

Oh, yeah.

You know, I read to my kids and, you know, and the toy rabbit is asking the real rabbit, well, how do you become real? You know, does it hurt? Yeah. And the real rabbit will maybe. But life isn't really worth living if it, if you can't feel right. And so it's really interesting to go back and read, you know, for a good definition of authenticity, go back and read this kid's book, the Velveteen Rabbit.

Really great.

I think it's really about getting to know yourself and being brave enough to show up, accept yourself, and just be who you are. And I mean, how this manifests in social conversations with the way brands and businesses talk about themselves is when they hide behind like a corporate facade or they don't come across as being human.

Yeah.

Or they don't get into conversations kind of human to human. Because all sales are like, we buy from people, not from corporations.

Right.

And so when they hide behind that or they, or they think they have to appear a certain way or when an entrepreneur Kind of. We all do this to some degree. You know, fake it till we make it.

Absolutely. Okay.

We can get out of alignment very, very quickly. And when that. And when there is a growing gap between the reality and the projection of what we want the reality to be, people, I think these days see through it in a way that maybe they didn't used to. Maybe used to be easier to get away with projecting what we want it to be. But in this era of always on social media, constantly, a profound lack of kind of trust in our institutions, in our politicians, in our government, in our media, you know, people just don't believe anything. So the only way to be heard is to really prove that you're actually showing up authentically as yourself.

Right. Yeah. I think that's really great. And you hit on something in the middle there. You said it's about the. The things that we're afraid for. I think the fear. Fear, embarrassment, shame, discomfort. All of those are clues on the things to share. Nobody needs courage to share and be authentic about their best traits. Right. Whatever I think my best traits are, I don't need any help there. And sharing more of that doesn't make me authentic. The other thing is like speaking the truth. Some people say, oh, I'm just speaking my truth, and it's a nice buzz phrase, but often they're dumping on somebody else or something else other than themselves. So it's like, okay, I'm just going to spout my opinion into the world. I don't think there's any real authenticity in that either, right?

No, I mean, a lot of people. I mean, I can speak as a. I guess as a recovering journalist on this one. I mean, a lot of people think it's okay to choose their facts. Right. We're just kind of apropos at this time in our history. But it's true.

Although it does go plenty both ways, Right. It's on both sides of the aisle.

It is on both sides. I mean, I think everybody does it because I think deep down we all have our kind of views and our opinion. We all see life through our own eyes.

Yes.

And those eyes are. What we see is shaped by our previous experience and how. How he grew up and, you know, as you were saying, what happened in middle school.

Well, and you know, you know that old cartoon, right, of the. It's like the Indian Wise Men or something, and they're seeing an elephant for the first time. And each of them sees it with their hands, Right. One touches the ear and the tusk and the trunk and the tail and the leg. Right. And they all have a. So we have this notion that there's an absolute truth out there rather than lots of possible interpretations and perspectives on facts, each given by a context that we live in.

Yes, yes, I think that's true. And I think as we get to know ourselves better and like with the kind of radical transparency of shining the light on ourselves, and this can be painful. I mean, a lot of people, it's hard work to do that, you know, because sometimes we discover things about ourselves we don't much like.

Right.

Or things, you know, we, we wanted to do better. But in, in, in doing that with a compassion towards ourselves, we're better able to do that with compassion towards others and really, actually understand and appreciate difference.

Absolutely.

And then the more we can accept ourselves, the good and bad, the more we can accept other people. So I think there's a need for a lot of, you know, healing to go on in that way, which would certainly improve our world. And I mean, one of the things that drives me is exactly that I am a big believer in supporting evolved enterprise companies, that is companies who give forward as part of their business models to change the world, you know, for better and for those.

Are you talking about things like a B Corp or something?

Yeah, a B Corp or even like pure for profit companies now that have as part of their business models, whether it's a buy one, give one, or any kind of give forward, are actually doing exceptionally well. Like they're, they're actually more profitable. Goldman Sachs and a lot of folks have done studies on this now and a trend that started with Ben and Jerry's and Tom Shoes, but more and more those sorts of companies outperform those that don't have a social mission. And this, of course, is being driven by millennials in a big way. Millennials are also really driving this movement towards transparency and authenticity. And the two, in my mind go hand in hand. So the more the. It's necessary to kind of show up with a real mission and a passion, the more it's going to be necessary to be really authentic and walk your talk on that. So you can't like be Kentucky Fried Chicken and stick a pink Susan G. Komen ribbon on the bucket and suddenly be, you know, that doesn't make any sense. Right.

Dressing on something, a facade. Right.

Yes, actually. So being in alignment with your values in terms of how you walk your talk or whatever is also a very, very important part of what we look at when we're scoring authenticity as well.

So an Old business friend and family friend for that matter was the late author J. Conrad Levinson, who wrote the best selling book series Garage Guerrilla Marketing. And Jay was an old ad guy and he used to talk about the distinction between brand image and brand identity. He's like, image is like a bad Hollywood set. You try to put a face on something that isn't really there. And brand identity is who you really are. Behind the B.S.

Yes, exactly. And that's the exact reason why I remember I used to work in television. I was a news anchor. And the most popular, popular part, that the best times, the highest rating spikes were when something went wrong. You know, like on, like with bloopers or one time the robotic camera, like knocked over the weatherman. And that was probably the best rated show, you know, that kind of thing. Right. Because people really crave spontaneity.

And yeah, we want to see something that breaks through the sameness and the predictability of all of it. It's why all our good shows and stories have a surprise.

Yes, exactly.

There's a reveal of some kind. We want a little drama. Yes, Go back to the business. At some point you had this idea for this business or it evolved the work. Tell us about that.

Yeah. So Verifeed started out as a big data platform that was using a whole series of machine learning and other data science algorithms to understand people from what they shared about on social conversations. So we could learn a lot about obviously demographics and location, but we could go even deeper with linguistic and unstructured data, search algorithms, clustering algorithms, a whole series of things to actually understand people's interests, their motivations, their tastes, their hobbies, habits. And from a lot of these conversations, get to really understand who a business's customers are. Like, who wants what you're selling? They just don't know you yet. Like, just because they're sharing, like, well, hey, I'm looking for, you know, God, my, you know, I promised my kids we'd get a swimming pool or you know, conversations like that or, you know, I really am so frustrated on this diet, or like whatever they were talking about, we were able to algorithmically match those people to our clients in terms of who are your customers. So we would actually use this platform for lead generation and also for influence targeting because we were able to understand who of those potential customers were the most influential. So we could drive really highly strategic and personalized messaging at scale to really increase traffic and conversion. So that's kind of Verifeed and why Verifeed was started. But here's what happened that was interesting. It's kind of like the chocolate peanut butter moment where you find something in your own data that you weren't expecting. And this is the authenticity piece. So about a year and a half ago, I began to say that companies, brands, businesses, folks that spoke with authenticity in a way that we could easily see or define through their social conversations, were outperforming those that did not. Whether we looked at within a vertical or a type of business, or just generally compared to all businesses, or however we chose to look at it, that folks who were genuinely connecting with individuals as consumers, you know, being helpful, speaking like a human being, I mean, a whole bunch of different things that we track, you know, we're just doing better. And I remember about a year and a half ago, just sitting there and I was just kind of doodling in my journal and I found myself writing, there's a return on authenticity.

Yes.

And immediately I went roa. And I thought, oh, wow, that's like roi. That's like the ROA score. We're going to redefine the metric for social media success. And so we started building that algorithm and I mean, it's a whole series of algorithms, in fact, for how we measure this. Moreover, not just yet measuring authenticity, but measuring the return on that authenticity. So, you know, is your impact and influence better are more and more people propagating your ideas? That's one return metric. Another return metric is simple traffic and conversions revenue. We even saw that companies that are very authentic and engage customers in a way that creates lasting customers for life and loyalty increase their company valuation. So it actually is becoming now a metric in M and A deals and at exits. If you have a lot of really, really loyal customers who are basically your virtual viral sales force, you know, because you've been authentic, you know you're going to get a much bigger multiple when you come to sell your company. So there's so many ways in which this plays out and it's fascinating. So we've decided now that, and this is because this is more. In my heart, I've always been more interested in direct to consumer businesses. So rather than taking this tool as an enterprise tool, although we may come back around to that at a certain point, we are in the middle of revamping ROA so it can be a mobile app and will literally, for anybody who is a thought leader or aspiring thought leader, whether they're someone like Lynn Twist who runs Pachamama alliance, or whether they're a politician or a CEO of a emerging growth company or anybody really in the gig economy that has to hang a shingle. You know, you have to be seen, you have to be heard above the noise. So really, for anybody, you know, how am I doing on social media right now and how can I do better? Am I connecting with my tribe, yes or no? How can I find more people, like the type of people who are really my customers? How can I make an impact? How am I doing? And so we're developing the ROA app to provide that concierge service within an app to not only help people score their authenticity, but get better at it and see the results in real time of their efforts. So I'm really excited about it and I think it'll kind of, you know, we're working on the minimum but viable right now, and that'll probably debut in full glory sometime next year. So we're really excited about it.

That's really cool. So you can actually measure that and see that in some form. And I imagine you continue to test and refine that and pretty soon it's going to be sort of available to all of us with a mobile app, right?

Yes, that's right. So right now what we do is actually we have a special offer for your listeners about this as well. We'll do our for you. And so all the algorithms are working really well right now. What we want to do is be able to go across an increasing number of social sources and it gets very complicated very fast on the data and all the data that it's pulling from. But yeah, so we're doing kind of ROA consults right now as well as the actual scoring for people right now as we build the app.

And then. So we're going to give that in just a minute. We'll point people to the website, into the trial offer so they can get their score. Are you able to give people feedback on saying, okay, do more of this and less of that or. Yes, because I think a lot of folks are like, what do I do? Wait, how do I. We need, like, practice. We need practice.

Oh, my God. Everybody's like that with social media. It's to do it right. It's so labor intensive, really. I mean, you know, think of what Gary Vaynerchuk does, how many people that he teaches.

He says the F word a lot.

Oh, well, he does that. Okay, so that's authentic with Gary for sure. Seriously, if you've ever sat with him, he is totally himself, like everywhere. It's awesome. But no, I mean, Gary built Wine Library by, you know, Tweet by Tweet, you know, YouTube post by YouTube post and comment. And, I mean, you know, really interacting with every single person. Right, right. And that's why he is where he is today. But, you know, most people don't have the time.

Yeah.

Or the inclination or the desire, frankly, to do all of that work. So we're thinking, wow, how can we be their concierge and kind of do that? Take the labor intensity and the pain out of it so you can personalize on that level of scale, which is a really big problem to go solve. So we just think that, you know, being authentic, however, requires people to be willing to do that. So there's a consultative aspect, surely, of what we do. I mean, I've spent a lot of time with a lot of our clients really digging deep into what the company's mission and values actually are. You know, what is the big why? Because when you can get in touch with your why either as a person, you know, you want to be a thought leader. Well, why? You know, you want to be, you know, create this big scalable company. Well, why? Like, what is the why? What is the mission? And often when we dig deep into that in a. In a consultative level, we find these AHAs that are just resonate so much with people. And once an entrepreneur or anybody is really in touch with whatever that is, that kind of pixie dust and starts then shaping their communications around that why rather than the how or the what. Like how it works or at those sorts of things.

Right.

Or being salesy.

Yeah.

Like me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Doesn't work.

Yeah.

Then we advise them, you know, so the score is just an interesting benchmark to see where you're at. We break it down into 10 different factors. So you can see, you know, how, you know, are you being too salesy? Are you not being responsive enough? Are you talking like a human being? Are you starting conversations? Are you responsive to conversations? People ask you questions, you know, that kind of thing. Are you in alignment with your mission? So we break down that score. You get a score out of 100, but we break it down in these 10 different areas. And that provides the clue as to how to kind of move the levers, you know, in each one of these things. And everybody starts from a different place. You just want to keep that forward momentum going.

Somebody said to me recently, oh, I heard feedback from somebody else. It wasn't, like, direct, but it was like, oh, you're too salesy. And I had, like, this defensive, embarrassed reflex for like, half A second. Because it's not one that I think of. And then I thought, oh, absolutely. I'm a total persuasive talker. Always pitching, always persuading, like that's just me.

But you're an entrepreneur. I mean all entrepreneurs are like that. Right. Because we're excited about this.

Came from other entrepreneurs.

We're excited and enthusiastic about what we're doing. The issue on social media though is if you come across as too much about your own thing, it can easily be confused for advertising. And advertising on social media in that genre is seen as spam. Like if it's. People just pass right over it. It's like self interested because it is. And so the only way you can really do this is to just be helpful and genuinely care about your customers. And of course, if you don't care about your customers. Right. That's not going to work so well, I think these days. God. I was, I was talking about this the other day to somebody that, you know, we sell B2B or B2C and I've come to the conclusion that the economy is now C2B. That is consumers. People are on social media and they're kind of sharing what they want and they're, they're, they're actually. Companies have to audition for their mind, for their mind, share for their attention.

Right.

And it's like the consumers are saying, okay, you can, this is what I need. Who's got the best offer? Who's going to make me feel good? Who's going to help me the most? Who cares about me?

Totally.

And so it's a really like the whole. It's completely flipped. So we all grew up with how you sell is advertising, but it's not like that anymore. It's more like a very consulted. It's almost like in a B2B context, it's kind of more like a consultative sale.

Yeah.

Where it's like, how can I help you? How can I help you? How can I help you? Creating value.

Right.

Just being, and just being like a good person, like just caring about the other person.

Right, right. Totally.

You know, until they say, hey, how can, how can I buy your thing? And you're there.

Right.

And, and the problem with this is I can go up and on. I know this works. We measure it, we see it all the time. But to someone who's a business owner, particularly a small business or someone trying to scale a business, it seems like the Sisyphean task, like pushing a boulder up a mountain to have to do all this work. On social media, and frankly, it is. And so hopefully we can solve that problem, take some of the pain and labor intensity out of it.

Well, going back to our elephant, right? If you want to sit down and eat the elephant, you're going to do it one bite at a time.

Yes, that's right. Yeah. It's kind of like the people who say, just start. I mean, you got to just start.

You got to start somewhere.

Somewhere, Exactly.

Right, right, right. Totally get that. Well, so this is really great. And I think people are going to be intrigued with the whole thing. So the notion is you can indeed work on not only your personal authenticity, but the authenticity of your brand and data and insight can help you do that. You've got a new tool to do that. So we're going to tell people to text to a particular number. You're going to text this number a short code. So you open a text in your phone and the text number is 442-224-4222. And you're going to text the word tribal. T R I B A L. Right. The other is Tribble. For the Star Trek fans.

Nothing will happen if you text Tribble. Okay.

Tribble. Don't text Tribble. Text tribal. T R I B A L. Awesome catch. Great. And to 44222 and you'll get verified. You can also go to verified.com and kind of check them out. But she'll get you the score and we'll do a consult for you and talk about super cool.

Yeah, everybody you get. You get me personally for 15 minutes because I just love to do this. Like I. It's awesome to get to know people and their kind of business issues and challenges and what they're doing. And I can give kind of tips on that. And they get their ROA score.

I think we should probably say while supplies last. Void where prohibited. Sorry, Tennessee. Your mileage may vary. Right. You may run out of time. I don't know how you may get a million or you may get five people who want to do this. So let me just qualify for your own safety.

Okay. Well, basically what happens is you get on my calendly or something.

Right. So you'll get from available time. Yes. Super awesome. Well, I think that's great. I look forward to seeing my own. And I'll comment something about that later as we do that when we promote the show out. So I want to thank you so much for being on the show today. This is super interesting area and I think nothing anybody else has done before is try to quantify and score your ROA and give you access to authenticity for yourself and your business. So super cool. Thanks for coming on the show today.

Hey Bill, it was great to talk to you. It was a lot of fun. Thank you.

Thanks. And a reminder to all our listeners if you want to get shows like this as well as our other tips and resources every week, we'll send them to you. Just go to Scaling Up Build Business. You can also find all the old shows there scalingupbusiness.com and subscribe there. See the old shows in our podcast and blog section. You can also download our free Growth guide which tells you how to get started. Scaling up your business tells you how to start to develop your strategy, get your team aligned and all pulling in the right direction. Scaling up effectively. You'll find that all@scalingupbusiness.com Once again, it's great to have you on the show. It's great to have you all listening and we'll see you next time. Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our Scoreboard software. Powered by Alignment, it's the official software for Scaling Up. With Scoreboard, you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go. With their mobile app you can rest easy knowing that Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software, it's what I actually use to manage growth in our Scaling up client teams. Unlock clarity and results with Scoreboard by Aligned to try it now, go to aligntoday.com Bill G One more time. Aligntoday.com Bill G that's aligntoday.com Bill G Check it out and try it now.