48: Life is Not Scalable: On Ditching Tired Business Rules with Scott Stratten

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit jennyblake Me podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello everybody. Welcome to the Pivot Podcast. I am very lucky today to be chatting with Scott Stratton. Scott is the president of Unmarketing and author of four best selling business books. The newest is the New Customer Experience, which was named Sales Book of the year by 1-800-CEO Reid. He's an expert in viral, social and authentic marketing, which is all about positioning yourself as a trusted expert in front of your target market. So so when they have the need, they choose you. He's formerly a music industry marketer, national sales training manager and professor and ran his UN agency for nearly a decade before solely focusing on speaking at events for companies like Pepsi, Adobe, Red Cross, Hard Rock Cafe, Cirque du soleil and Saks Fifth Avenue, among many others. He has over 180,000 people following his daily rantings on Twitter and was named one of the top five social media influencers in the world on Forbes.com.

Fun Fact. Scott also rocks a beard, tattoos and a pretty infamous man bun. Scott, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, Jenny. I appreciate it.

I love all the ribbing that you get from our peers in the speaking industry about the man bun.

It's only out of love. It's a funny thing except and this is the weird thing is that I think about social media, which is kind of my world is and by we're just jumping into the heavy stuff right away is that we get this almost a false sense of intimacy where people think they're best friends with you and I'm best friends with a lot of people I've met online and people are allowed to say stuff if you know each other. But people who I've never talked to in my life but they follow the Tweet or something will make a joke insult about a man bun or my beard. And I'm like, who? What? Where does that come from? It's like a comment on my personal appearance. I'm like, am I allowed to now call you something? Like, is this how this works? That's the weird part about this kind of this virtual social world is people will. People I know that's half the reason why I wear a man bun is so they can take a shot at me. But people I don't. I'm like, where does that come from? Does that make you feel better? Does that make you feel part of the group or. It's a fascinating kind of dynamic.

It's very strange. And I think it's also fascinating that you're a very successful speaker and author and that sometimes you'll even show up to an event that you're keynoting and they treat you less than because of.

The way you look, which is crazy if they don't. Here's the funny thing is, I speak at 90, probably 98% of the events I speak at. I give about, like, 80 keynotes a year. And the majority of the time, nobody knows who I am before I go on stage. I'm not Seth Godin. I'm not Gladwell. I'm not Gary Vaynerchuk. I'm not that celebrity level at that size. And I always say, but they will know who I am once I get off the stage. And so when I walk in. But even the meeting planner. I'll walk in to do a sound check. And I walk into an empty ballroom, and they'll turn around and say, can I help you, sir? Like, I've wandered off the street, this bearded fellow who's just looking for a warm meal. And I'm like, I'm your keynote. They're like, oh, oh, okay, I'm sorry.

And I walk on stage, and you can see. Just. You can hear. You can feel the judgment. I walk on stage with my jeans and my golf shirt, and you can see the tattoos and the beard, and they're just like, what is about to happen? But I use that to my advantage because I play off that right from the start, and that works for me.

Yeah, that's one of the things that I love most about your message and your work. And you clearly embody it, which is you say, be your authentic self. And if you do that, you won't have any competition. And I like that you don't try and mold yourself to whatever the dress code of the event. Is you just show up and say.

This is me at the point of risking not getting the gig when I've had one company in the United States that was.

They were gonna offer me four talks. That's a big package of talks. That's four keynotes in a year, and that's some good money. And they said, buddy has to wear a suit. And the speaker bureau agent, my assistant Karen, who's been with me for over 10 years, doesn't even have to ask me. She's just like, nope, he won't. They're like, ooh, well, we're probably not gonna use them. She's like, that's fine.

That's awesome.

And then they came back and said, okay, can you at least wear a sport jacket? Nope. And by the end of it, I did all four gigs, and I used that in my opening at all four gigs.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. And that's. But here's the thing. Turning things down. And I always think sometimes principles are a matter of privilege. Meaning if I had no keynotes booked and I had no money coming in and they asked me, I would have worn a duck costume.

So principles, I think partially, are a matter of privilege that I am able to stand up and stand my ground. Like when I. I had long hair in high school and college, you know, big, you know, Metallica, Megadeth, metalhead guy, lead singer of a band. And a week before I graduated college, I cut all my hair off and put on the suit. And I'm like, my principles only go so far until I want a job. And I got a job. I was in hr. I worked at Goodwill Toronto's head office, and I asked my boss, three or four months into my job there, I'm like, I had long hair the week before I came here for the interview. Would you have h me if I still. If I had long hair? And she said, nope.

I think not. All principles, obviously, we have morals and certain things that are at our core that would probably never change. But I think having principles is a matter of privilege. And I can't sit here and say, well, just turn everything down because it's not fitting your mold. I'm like, you turn everything down if you can. That's the line. But that's also in business. If you're willing to walk away, it's amazing what can happen.

What was the tipping point for you where you realized, okay, I've established enough street cred now to really be myself?

The thing is, I never planned on being a brand. I never planned on this And I'm pointing at myself, and I know the ridiculousness of the audio and I'm pointing right now, but the tattoos and my beard and the hair and all this stuff is not. It's not a brand. I didn't say I want to look. Whatever you want to call it, I want to look.

It's an unbrand.

Yeah, right.

It's something. It's just me. And so my. My goal was to be the same person on stage, as off stage, as online, and have that kind of same exact feeling. If you've ever met somebody or you've seen them online and then you meet them somewhere and they're totally not what you expected. And that happens a lot, especially in social media. You see somebody who's funny or outgoing or something, you meet them and they're not. Or they're kind and wonderful, and when they're off stage, they're horrible. Which actually happens a lot. In my industry of keynote speaking, that I used to be on the other side of the table 20 years ago, and I helped book speakers in Toronto. That's one of the ways I got to know the industry was I was on a committee that booked speakers and paid them. And so I was like a speaker chaperone at an event. And, you know, one of my heroes. I watched him speak, we booked him. I was just giddy to have him there. And he talked about love and, you know, corporate and being in business, you can still be love, and it's all about love. And he didn't wear shoes on stage, like, his bare feet. That's how core love he was about. And he got off stage and he was a complete jerk behind closed doors. And I'm like, I never forgot. You never forget that.

No, you really don't.

And I wanted to be myself all the way through. And that's where I didn't decide, well, today I'm gonna do that. I just always been stubborn. I would have turned down that gig with no money. I think, you know, it's just, like, I've been stubborn with that. And none of this. Like, some people look at me and they kind of look, put their hand up and down, go, well, that's your brand. I'm like, what do you mean? This is not an act. This is not. This is me. And I just wanted to. I. 10, 15 years ago, I said, I'd rather be me and next to broke than be somebody else and have the money because I couldn't play the game. I've never been able to play a game. I've never been able to do an act. I've never been able to be somebody else. It just hasn't worked for me. And that's gone up and down though. Everything is wonderful right now. But years ago it wasn't and I had to be willing to go through those things. And people are like, well now you got this whole outfit. And I wear Doc Martens on stage and people are like, see, that's a badass thing. I'm like, no, those are good. It's like orthotics. Like it's good for my back. Like I wear Doc Martens because they're really well made boots.

It's not because, you know, my foot doctor told me to wear those things. Like how un badass can you get where it helps my spine wearing these things. So people think, well, you need your brand. Because I never felt of being one. Although, you know, unmarketing is like just is my Twitter account name this whole time and everything else. So the brand is partially me, but it's something that I don't ever have to think, well, how am I supposed to make this look? Or something. I just find good people to do the visuals for the business. And that's a company called Kite String out west of Toronto here in Hamilton. And years ago I told Chris, who's one of the principals there, I'm just like, make me look the way in the brand you think it should look. So find good people, find creative people and they'll do that part of it and you just be you.

Well, that's very much in line with your other philosophy of doubling down on your strengths, not trying to improve you on your weaknesses. And I know you give the example of the UN podcast. I would love for you to share how you took yourself out of being the bottleneck in that situation. Because I think strength is related to being your authentic self because that's your strength. It'd be a total weakness for you to try and show up on stage in a suit and still be yourself.

I would throw up. And with we're always through life, through childhood and through school, even in adulthood, we're always saying you got to improve your weaknesses. You gotta be better. If you're not good at math, you gotta get that markup, you gotta do this, you gotta do that. You gotta not good at admin paperwork, you gotta get that done, you gotta do this, you gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta. And for me, I am never about improving my weaknesses. I am very self aware. I know what I'm not good at, which is everything that Comes to outside of me opening my trap up and speaking, I'm not good at it. I don't focus well. I don't work well. I'm a horrible worker. I have no drive to do things that I consider work. And that's all the admin side of it. That's all paperwork. And so I first started with a virtual assistant like 12 years ago to do the stuff I didn't want to do. And it freed up my time because I realized as an entrepreneur and a lifelong entrepreneur, one of the hardest things to realize is that you are the bottleneck. You are the one that is slowing you down because you're doing the things. And because you can't have a boss and you want to be your own boss, you hate telling yourself what to do. You're like, I don't have to do that. I'm the boss. But now it doesn't get done. And you're the only one that suffers from it. So when I realized I'm the bottleneck and I got out of it, I've had my assistant, Karen, her title's a coordinator of awesome. And I've had her for over 10 years, and she does the stuff I can't do. And for the show, for the on podcast with Allison and I. So Allison being the co author of the books, who really she's the one that writes them. I speak 10 words and she writes 100. And the co host of the show and she's also my co host in life and she's my wife and I met her on Twitter. By the way, I have the greatest Twitter ROI in history because I got her. So here's the thing. So on podcast, here's really the story of the show is we've done 125 episodes now, and we've done it for over two years. And I've done nothing ever in my life for over two years straight. It's just not happening. So from episode one of the show, we wanted two things. One, to make it look like we've been doing this for a long time so it looked professional. And two, I could not be involved in any part of it except the show itself. So what we do is we go into a studio once a month and we record four episodes. We record almost a month's worth in the studio. We go into the show, we record it, and then we leave and go home. Then everything else gets done. We have at the studio. It's actual professional recording studio where musicians go and record albums. We have our audio engineer, Wayne. We have Adam and his team of videographers. There's three camera shoots we do. We have a hair and makeup person, mostly for me, and then we have a post production guy, James, who then goes through and creates all the notes and uploads every Wednesday. And here's the best part about it. I forget it's Wednesday, and people start tweeting an episode. I'm like, oh, that looks like an interesting show. And it's our show because I'm the bottleneck. And there comes a cost with that. And that's the thing. The problem is we look at things saying, well, we could save money here, we could save money here if we just did it ourselves. And I get that. I could save a ton of money by doing everything myself, and it would never get done. And that's the problem. Our costs probably now are about $1,000 an episode, but we have 125 episodes have come out. And if we did it ourselves, episode one would still be done. And that's the biggest thing. And now we have a sponsor. And Emma Email is our sponsor for now two years, then they sign up for the second year. But for the first 50 episodes, it was just us. There was no sponsor, and we just absorbed the cost. And it was a business. It was publicity for us. And it helped. But from day one, it was like, I'm trying to word this properly. I don't think any part of your content or your content marketing and your business should be like a training bra. It shouldn't be like, let's just try it and we'll just do it. We'll just test it out. And people say, if you want to write, just write and put out blog posts. And they don't have to be great, they don't have to be good. And I'm like, that's full of it. It's your business, and you've got to make it look like you belong in this game. And I don't mean perfection. I don't mean everybody's got to do something that gets read by a million people or watched by a million people or listened by a million people. I mean, you put it out there, and you're proud to put it out there. This is a representation of my business. Every blog post, every video, every podcast, every interview, that is a representation and a marketing piece for your business. You wouldn't put out a brochure in a mail half done. You wouldn't put up a sign on your store that's half colored in. And why would we do that with our Content just to put something out there. I don't believe in that. I don't believe in the just ship it mentality. I believe in the let's do it right, let's do it well. And we want to make a look at that. And that's how the podcast happened. I still haven't lifted a finger for the show.

That's amazing.

Absolutely love it. And we broke the rules. I took a course on podcasting. It was brilliant. It was Cliff Ravenscraft's podcasting A to Z or A to Z if you're in Canada. And I learned everything about podcasting, everything to do yourself, everything to all of the mics and the boards and everything else, and realizing all this stuff. I don't want to do those things. And we broke the rules. They said you have to have one host. Usually. We have Alison and I, we have two of us. You have to have guests every week. And we've had two guests in 125 episodes, and there has to be a fixed time, and we have no fixed time for an episode. So for us, it was the content that meant the most, not necessarily the rules.

I love your perspective around being proud of what you put out and that everything may not be 100% perfect, but taking pride in that and also the consistency.

That's what I mean. You gotta be proud. You just gotta. I don't. I've never done anything in my life that's perfect ever. But I will stand up and say, yeah, that's what I did. That's what I wrote, that's what I said. And I feel good about that. That's what I mean. It's just. I see people putting out videos or blog posts or podcasts on a forced frequency basis. We have to put it out weekly. Why? Because that I learned in a course somewhere or on a webinar or in a book or a conference that they said, you need to put something out weekly. I'm like, what are you talking about? I had somebody put up their hand when I was speaking once, and they said, when is the best frequency to send out our newsletter? And I said, as often as you have something to say that's useful for your audience. And they're like, okay, so you mean weekly. I'm like, you're not listening to me. I didn't say weekly. And it's like, what's the best time of day to send out a newsletter? I'm like, listen to me. Your newsletter's not getting read because of. It's not because of. It's Sending on a Tuesday instead of a Wednesday. They're not reading it because it's terrible, because you're just forcing content out there. You have to find the optimal line between frequency and quality. And when you can meet that apex, when you can meet that, where that intersection happens, that might be for some people monthly, that might be some people weekly. I blog once a year on unmarketing.com why? Because I'm lazy. But also I treat that list, my readers with that respect to say, I'm not going to fill your inbox with just content. I'm going to do it. So when you get an email, you're like, holy moly, Scott said something. And that means it's got to be epic.

I've always been the same way. I always felt like my job is to put out the highest quality content that I can so that people will share it. I don't think my readers care if they see something every Tuesday. I mean, I know we just talked about consistency, but I aim for consistency, but not at the expense of shitty work.

That's it. But that, that is the magical sentence, that's the point is, say, set up an editorial schedule.

Every Tuesday or Wednesday or whatever that is. But if you have a week and say, you know what, I'm stretching it here, let it go. I promise you, I promise you, our fine listeners. Right now, nobody is sitting at their inbox saying, where is the November chiropractic update I'm supposed to get from my chiropractor there? Nobody is waiting for your newsletter, including mine. If we can get over that fact and get over the fact that we think we deserve the right to be in somebody's inbox every week. We release a whole bunch of responsibility, but you can have a calendar to keep you focused. Hey, look, we've done 125 episodes in a row, 125 weeks of shows. So I'm wanting to talk about frequency, but if we ever had a week where we're saying, you know what, we're not feeling it, nothing would come out.

Right. I want to talk about you share in Unselling. The story of in 2010, unmarketing had just come out. You did a 30 city, 10 week book tour and you kind of talk about your experience at that time. You said, I was speaking numerous times a month while trying to build a consulting business and sell a book. I realized quickly that if I succeeded at everything I was working toward, I would burn out. I knew I couldn't risk starting from scratch again, leaving no time for my Family. And so that was the moment when you decided to stop offering consulting and focus solely on speaking and writing. And I find that such a fascinating pivot point in your career in business, where that can be a scary thing to turn down a very profitable and growing side of the business. So I would love to hear more about that decision and how it's gone since.

That was the pivot point, really, it was where it was because I was just coming out of the. Like everybody else, you're coming out of the recession. And I had my agency and we made viral videos, and we were really one of the top ones in the world making these things. And then everything just went gone. Like most people. A lot of things just were gone, and I had to rebuild. And so I started. And the one thing I knew was my brain. I gave advice and I gave consulting. That's what I've always done. And I started building it, and I created this again, this 30 city, unmarketing kind of speaking book tour. And I'm like, here I go. I knew I always was going to be a speaker. That was my goal since I was 12. I'd be on stage. That's what I want to do. And realizing the best way to sell consulting or an agency or anything is speaking on stage. Nothing beats standing in front of a qualified audience and having them learn something because then they want to do more with you. But I knew that if I'm going to be on the road speaking because you have to go to the gigs, I didn't want to then come home and have to do work because I'm already on the road. And I looked at it and said, well, what's going to make me happy? What's going to make a family happy? And it wasn't doing client work. I got to the point where I hated doing consulting. I hated it. I could not stand the coaching calls, the consulting calls. I'd have a call where I would give somebody an idea, we'd work on it. It would make them millions of dollars. And then the next week they're like, all right, so what are we doing this week? I'm like, whoa.

Oh, man.

I think you should just pay me for the next three years and not talk to me. It's just the way it is. And so that was like, you needed a grand slam every week. And I was just like, I was exhau. Exhausted to the point where I wanted to stop. I don't know word this properly. I didn't stop helping others. I wanted to stop building other people's businesses. And I said, so, what do I want? And really, it comes down to how much do you need? And that was important for me. So it was. I started building the keynote, the speaking side of it. I'm like, well, how much do I need? And how good am I on stage? If offstage I'm in my hotel room doing a consulting call and working on a project for a client, and then rushing down to the stage and doing my talk, and then getting off stage and doing that, and then you throw in all the planes and all the hotel rooms, I'm like, I'm just gonna be. Even when I'm home, I'm gonna just be wiped right out and working on client work. And I'm like, that's not the. I don't want the life where when I'm 60, I'm like, okay, that was fun. Children. What do you wanna do now? And they're 40. You know, it's just not like. It's not. It's not what I wanted to do. And I had to be willing to say, okay, I'm gonna drop consulting and see if I can make a living doing this speaking and whatever came with that, I had to be willing to do that again. A place of my speaking took off. But when I stopped taking consulting in, people ask me more to consult. It's like I would say on stage, I don't do consulting. I have nothing to say. That's one of my advantages of being a keynote against a lot of other ones where I have no back end. I have nothing I'm selling. There's no consultant. You cannot hire me. And as soon as you tell people you cannot hire me, they want to hire you.

Which is so funny. And then it's also a test from the universe or whatever you believe in. Are you sure? Are you sure you want to close this side of your business?

I know you said you can't. You don't. But can we talk? I mean, big brands come up and say, can we? Well, I know you don't you. But we are. Hey, we're this company. And I'm like, no, I don't want to. And the biggest thing I was last fall, I was in Frankfurt, and Alison and I were in Frankfurt in Germany. And like, such a wonderful life we have. And I go to a keynote, I get paid to go to see Frankfurt, and all I got to do is speak on stage for an hour. It's something I love. And we're sitting at dinner with one of the other speakers, and he says, so what's next. How are you growing this? Where are you going next? What's your thought? Because we're both entrepreneurs. And he's like, so what's next for you? And I just said. I looked him in the eye and I said, nothing. He's like, what are you talking about? And he's startup guy, right? He's just always going. He's like, what do you mean, nothing? I'm like, this is what I've always wanted and this is what I have, and I'm going to appreciate that. I have no goal to grow.

His brain was just like, I can't. What? You can't do that? And I'm like, this is what I've always wanted in my life and why we have this necessity somewhere in our brains that says always more.

Always more. The endless pursuit of more is what hurts me. We get a house, we want a bigger house. We get a car, we want the newer car. We get a phone. We want the newer phone. We got a business. We hit a million dollars, and now we want million five. Why? I don't get it. I really don't. I never have understood this. Last year. Last year, I made a million dollars keynote speak.

Amazing.

Why would I want anything more? Why would I want two? If that's where it comes, fine. I'm on the road and it was 140 days a year, and I'm home for 220. That's awesome. And I'm at home every day this week. I've been home this whole week. We've sat out in our backyard and listen to birds. I don't understand the endless pursuit of more. For me, at least. I don't hustle. I don't put my nose to the grindstone. I have found what I'm lucky enough, and I understand how lucky this is. I'm lucky enough to find something that I can do that most can't, that I get paid well for. Why would I want to ruin that?

Well, it's interesting you mentioned the startup guy, because I think in the startup world, it's all about scale. And this reminds me of the business and the fisherman story that I'll link to in the show notes. But essentially, how do you address or have you ever even had concerns one, about scale, this magical thing, or two, if anything happens to you or if you. I sometimes wonder this, and I can resonate with what you're saying because I don't do well at traveling to speak and getting work done. Even listeners can probably tell my voice sounds different this week than it be might other shows because I went to travel for a speech, I came home, the weather was funny, someone in yoga class was sick. Boom, I got sick. And it doesn't happen when I'm not traveling, but I love speaking. So how do you address knowing this is what you love, but making sure that it's sustainable?

Well, and that's the thing is the problem of scale. I'm not scalable. And with the main revenue coming in is me getting on stage, I have to go to the stage. And outside of getting a hologram of me hopping on all these stages or watching it via Skype or video, it's not going to work. And for me, I'm willing to sacrifice that part. I was talking to some, I used to be in the music business and I was talking to people who tour and on the road I'm like, so what's the road like? And he's like, it's 23 hours of monotony for one hour of amazing. And that's what speaking is. You're at airport gates and you're at hotels and it's a lot of waiting for the most amazing thing in the world once you're up in front of an audience. And I'm okay with that. That's the thing. I have to be okay with that. And will it last? You don't know. Nobody knows. So my job is to do the marketing side of things to keep me in front of everybody else. So I am that relevant keynote. Because those things, luckily for me, I'm not famous enough to do something famous that gets eroded. Meaning it wasn't like, oh, that was like five years ago. So my job is to stay on top of my industry and always have relevant talks and make them not feel dated and not rest of my and not sit back and go, oh, I can just then just book gigs and then nothing else is going to happen. You got to realize that.

Can happen. And my biggest fear, to be as transparent as I possibly can be, my biggest fear in life is to be felt no longer relevant. That I'm no longer relevant to the industry. That that's my fear, not about getting booked, not about business, is that I'm no longer deemed relevant and my job is to stay. So I have a huge drive. I don't like doing bit work. I don't do work. I never stop consuming content and analyzing and giving my opinion because I never want to be irrelevant. And that's what drives me. Because if you're relevant, you're also on stage. And I know I'M good at being on stage. I'm not going to fake modesty. I know I can keynote. I know I can talk. And I once had an interview with somebody. It's the funny thing is we all want everybody to be humble. And I had an interview with somebody in the speaking industry for a magazine. He's like, name me some of the best speakers in your part of the industry. And I said, me? And he's like, you want me to print that? I'm like, I can't get on stage as an opening keynote in an event for 1000 people and think I wasn't the best choice for this event. They're paying me money. You can't take a check from somebody unless you think you're the best choice in their price range for their circumstances. I didn't say I was the best, but I know I'm one of the good ones. You have to have that confidence. You can't, you know, you can't get out on the stage and go, well, let's see what happens, right? I shouldn't be. I can't believe you picked me. Yeah. Wow, this is weird. I think you got the email to the wrong person. But let's give it a go. Let's see what happens in our industry and speaking. You cannot just have this humbleness when it comes to saying, well, I'm just lucky to be here. You got to get up there and say, the reason I'm standing here is because I'm meant to stand here, and I'm honoring your time by giving you the best I've got. And I'm good at that. I'm really good at that. And I know everything else for me is not what I want to do. And if that means I lack scale, life's not scalable. It's not. It's not scalable. You choose where your time goes, but life isn't scalable itself. And I know people say, well, you need to scale. Look, I've made more money than I ever thought I'd make. I don't have endless revenue once. And I know, I know if I get sick or I can't be somewhere or I want to be at home, I get that. So I got to trade it off. So every time I get too busy, you start raising the fee, which is funny because they start booking you more, but you raise the fee. So you get a sweet spot. And my sweet spot is about 60, 65 talks a year. And that's where I know I'm good. That's where I know I don't get too tired and I know how exhausted I can get and back and forth, but I don't choose the gigs. I just, you know, I. They have to come through me or come through a bureau, come through my team. So I don't get to pick and say these 60, we don't have to do that. But I want to say I don't want to scale and I don't want to do something. And I had another huge person in the industry say you got to come up with a system and you got to have a monthly amount, like a membership site type of stuff. And I'm like, that's work, right? I don't want to do it. I don't want to do the work that requires this scale.

Well, it's clearly working for you. I mean, I love how much you love speaking and how clear you are and you've wanted to do it since you were a kid. And I've yet to have the privilege of hearing you speak. But I know just from secondhand and your own stories, you bring the house down.

I'm all over the Internet too. All over the Internet, YouTube, all over the place.

It sounds like a big part of that. Yeah, a big part of that is staying relevant. I would love for you to share because this is your total passion. What do you think are the, let's say, top three things that make you unique as a speaker or that really lead to bringing the house down every time?

Well, for me, a huge part of my world is humor.

The books are so funny. Everyone listening has to read them.

They're hilarious. The goal with the books, by the way, was when you read them, it sounded like me on stage. And that was my advantage. Being this contrarian, being against the grain when it comes to, which is totally with migraine, is that I get to stand out so much from the industry because most business books on the shelves aren't funny. And I put footnotes in all the books of just going through. And because of all these sarcastic little quips I've got on stage, people aren't usually. For me to be a funny business speaker, I only have to mediocrely just very slightly funny because everybody else is terrible at it.

In fact, I have to interrupt you for a second because I just want to read a line from the intro to Unmarketing because this cracked me up. You said, if you believe business is built on relationships, make building them your business. That's the one line you need to believe to unmarket. If you don't believe that Return the book. Trash talk me on Twitter. Tell me that cold calling is a great tool if you know how to do it right. Just put the book down. So funny. Okay, continue.

Right out of the gate. Right out of the gate, put the.

Book down and walk away.

That's the tone. Because look, I can't. I cannot please everybody. You cannot speak to everybody. So for my thing, it's just simply, look, you're going to love it or you hate it. I polarize. It's not an act, it's not a tactic, it's my brain. And we dull things down, we bring it down a notch. And this is also answering the question, because on stage, this is what I am. I polarize on stage. I've never gotten a perfect score from an audience. There's always going to be a few percentage of people who are like, I didn't like him at all, he's a jerk. I had once had a feedback where I got 99% of the audience, gave me 10 out of 10 from 1 to 10. And one guy in Rhode island at the event wrote in hand, wrote a zero beside me, oh my goodness. And circled the zero and said in his comments, if I wanted to laugh, I would have gone to a comedy club.

Oh my goodness. And you wouldn't even have laughed as much.

It is the greatest piece of feedback I have ever received that he was so passionately hating me that he wrote the zero in like he did. Like it's like a presidential election. He did a write in. That's how passionate he was about how he did not like me. I could just see him laughing like in the audience, like he's ha, ha ha, I hate you, right?

Hate laughing.

Can't stand this laughing. But I don't. Nobody draws a following when you sit on the fence. You just don't. And for me, I just couldn't be scared to speak my mind. So the three things on stage for me is one is humor, but be careful because humor is if you're funny at a party, doesn't mean you'll be funny on stage. So be careful with that. But humor, polarization, I have strong opinions and I tell them and so they're my opinions versus just telling the same stories and the same thing as everybody else. But I'm also the biggest part about me and an important part about that is, is that self depreciating side of the humor too though I make fun of myself. You can't walk out there and say you all suck, I want you to and stuff. You're not going to get any friends. My humor, first and foremost, is pointed inwards at myself. I make fun of the man bun on stage. I walk out. My first thing I say to the audience is, should we address the man bun now or later? And it breaks the ice greatly and it really gets them going. And I also. The third thing and the biggest change from going into being a keynote speaker versus somebody doing a workshop or concurrent is I. I know it's a performance that I'm there to perform. It's a show. And I'm not there for 25 takeaways. I'm not there to have to do Twitter 101 or something. My job is to kick off a conference. My job is to set the tone. And they want to have a show, they want to have a performance. And I give everything. I don't leave a thing. When I walk off stage, everything is on stage. I left everything on stage and I'm exhausted and I love it. And if I no longer love it, I can no longer get on stage. You cannot just go through the motions. It doesn't work anymore.

That's amazing. These are such great tips. One thing as we start to wrap up that I know is really important to you is also giving back. You're such a giving person. And when we first connected last year, it was right around Christmas and you were doing your unsanta project that I think is an annual thing. Can you just share how things like that fit into what you do?

Yeah. The unsecret Santa that was.

That's what it is.

Yeah. Four years now. And that's.

For me.

Anybody who gives to any cause, for whatever motive or reason, I'm fine with. And just giving money is a big thing, and I love it. I just find that the best type of giving is unconditional giving. I don't want to give because you shared something or tweet something. I don't want to match donations. I just want. If you want to give, just give. And Unsecret Stand started four years ago, and it was. We had gotten some affiliate gift card stuff from Amazon because of the books. The only way an author makes. By the way, this is a tip for you, Jenny. The only way an author makes money on a book is by using their Amazon affiliate link when they promote their own book. So put that into your strategy somewhere. Jonathan Fields gave me that advice, by the way, six years ago.

It's also good for tracking sales.

Oh, so good tracking. But here's the thing. You don't make money, by the way. When people buy your book, you make money. When they go look at your book and then go buy a cuisiner.

Yeah, exactly.

Yes.

Go buy an air mattress.

Yeah. A watch. Somebody buys a roll tip for everyone listening at the time, we had probably eight, $900 in Amazon. We're like, what could we do with this to make today better for somebody? And so we posted on the unmarketing Facebook page, and we just said, hey, why don't you post your Amazon wish list on here and we'll buy somebody's some people's stuff. And we said, you don't have to tell us your story. You don't even have to be in trouble without not having money or having issues. We just want to make some people's day. And people started posting their wish list, and they're like, this is so cool. And I put on it, you don't have to buy something first. It's not a swap. And at the very end, I said, we will give preference to family wish lists and people who are veterans, because that's what means a lot to us when it comes to causes. And it just took off. And people started posting their wish lists, and then people started posting theirs and going to somebody else's. And then the whole job was, you have to reply to the wish list to say something's on its way. And so people started getting gifts coming to them. We bought somebody a Batman Blu Ray for the first thing we ever bought was somebody. And they're like, what? That's so cool. So he felt great, so he went and bought something for somebody else. And it turned into this thing that just went bananas. And.

We get the most out of it because it's really turned into a cause. People start calling people in and saying, hey, my friend here has had a real hard time. There was a fire. There's some fires in. Was it either the Bronx or Brooklyn a year or two years ago? It took out a whole townhouse row. And one of the families came on and said, we've got nothing. And the entire group came and bought them everything on their wish list. It's like 43 things of their pots and pans, mattress, crib, stroller, Xbox, everything that they had on their list. And it's just. I love.

I love community. I love people helping people out. It's why I fell in love with social media before we called it social media. You know, forums and post boards and message boards. I love people. I always say I hate people in general. I love people helping people. I don't like people who Take advantage of others. I don't like bullies. I don't like people who think they're better than others. What I do love is community, and that shows it to me. And every year now, when it comes up close to December, people start posting on the marketing page, hey, when's it happening? When's it happening?

Oh, that's so great.

People have saved up their Amazon gift cards through the year just to go give to that. And then we put and said, hey, if you want to go. If not, send us a gift card and we'll use it. And people start sending us gift cards.

And they start sending us stuff. I think you sent one.

I did, yeah. It might have been for the Bronx house fire.

You did. And then you saw the result from it. Right?

That's incredible.

It was to me, it's so fun.

To participate in something like that.

Or from that. I get the most from that, by the way. It is 100% selfish because it makes me feel so good. I smile, I cry. I'm sitting right where I'm in our front, in the library at our house, right in the front room. I'm sitting exactly where I sit when it happens. And the whole family's in the room and we're just picking out things. And then Tess, our 10 year old, she'll go pick something out for another girl that she thinks she'll like and then she'll pick that it's the greatest day of the year for us and it's turned into this giant thing and then everything else that no kid hungry. We had a big drive yesterday online of raising money to make sure that kids don't go hungry for breakfast when they come to school. And I'm on the social council for that. And I just think we're put on this earth to help people. And in our front hallway, when you walk into our home, there's a big sign on the wall that says, you don't need a reason to help someone.

Oh, I love that.

That's what life is to me. So that's where I think we're meant to do, is that there's enough to go around and we're meant to help. And it's a concerning thing because. And it's something I'm gonna be working on writing about, is decide if we think sometimes alike is enough. And I don't think it is. Meaning you see somebody, a friend of yours or a family member puts out and says, we're doing something for a cause, and you click like. And you're like, well, I've done my job, and I'm like, that's not enough. We do need to help in different ways. And sometimes I think that, like, they call it slacktivism or something where the like makes you feel good inside. Like, I've done something today, and I just think if we're able to, we should do more. And I think that's what we're meant to do on this earth.

Completely agree. And it's such a. I've always struggled with Christmas in particular because it's so materially oriented, like, all the bonuses and Christmas presents. And between you and Allison, you have five kids. And I love the idea of everyone sitting around giving and doing the unsecret.

Santa that's just.

Alison's and my gift to each other. We don't buy gifts for each other. That's great. And I can't wait for this one coming up. I'm trying to be clear. I'm so selfish with it because I just. I get so giddy. I just sit and sit all day at the computer and just smile. And people are like, well, what happens if the story's not true or this? I'm like, it doesn't matter. You have faith in humanity and there's no conditions. It's not like a contest. So you can have the worst situation. We bought somebody, some guys at university. He's like, dude, I don't have this PlayStation game, and I'd love to have it. I'm like, dude, it's on its way. It can't yet. So that guy at school's like, what? It's like, it's this cool thing, right?

So everyone listening can remember to go visit unmarketing on Facebook around the holidays.

And here's the thing, we don't make people share it. That's the thing is like, well, you got to share it, and then we'll do it. It's like, I don't care if anybody else sees it. It's not a game to increase people following the page or awareness thing. It's just a hub we can use that we have a reach on that we can then help people have.

And to your point about community, I also have to say thank you because I avoided Facebook like the plague for two to three years. I just really didn't like it. I was one of those people that got anxiety every time, nor did I feel it was the best use my time until Michael Bungay Stanier added me to this speakers group on Facebook for professional speakers. And now, thanks to you, I'm on Facebook pretty much every day. But I love it. It's like this is my favorite place to hang out. I learn so much, I feel comradery. And so I have to thank you for resuscitating a big part of social media for me.

I don't think any platform is good or bad. It's what's done in them. And I think Facebook has a great potential to be. It's funny saying the word Facebook and potential on the same line, but we have the ability to then help each other out. And so when I run that group, it's a private group. It's like an invite only group. And I police it very adamantly because I don't think anybody's bigger than the group itself. And when you have true community, you have trust, you have transparency, and you have people helping people. And you're saying that's the reason you go to Facebook. It's my reason to. I love it.

Scott, thank you so much. I could talk to you all day. This has been incredibly helpful. Your books are amazing. I want to end with a quote from Alice in Wonderland, which is it is not impossible, merely unpossible, which I think is a nod to you.

I'm going to take it as a nod to me. Good luck on the book launch and I'm looking forward to it.

Thank you so much. Where can people find you online?

Unmarketing. Everything, really anything platform in the word unmarketing is where we're at. And the Unpodcast, the business show for the Fed up with Allison and I, comes out every Wednesday.

Amazing. All right, thank you so much, Scott, and thanks everyone for listening.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. To learn more and get in touch, visit jennyblake.com where I blog about systems at the intersection of mind, body and business. Or find me on Twitter at Jennyblake. And remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.