How To Start A SIDE HUSTLE & Make Money From It TODAY! | Rory Vaden & Lewis Howes

You want to really impact lives. Impact lives. There's no barrier. It's easier than it has ever been in history to impact lives. And you can do it with text. You can record and make it a podcast. You can do video. You're one button away. Get. Get busy.

I think you got to have a dream.

The school of greatness. Really? Yeah. Please welcome.

We're talking about how to monetize your side hustle. How to turn a side hustle into something much greater than a side hustle, hopefully. And there are a lot of people listening or watching who have the dream or the goal to turn a skill set into something that could be financial success. Even if it's a few hundred dollars a month and eventually thousands of dollars a month or potentially millions from building their personal brand around their side hustle as well. Yeah. So once you figure out what your side hustle is and you say, well, I don't have that big of a following. I don't have anyone following me on Instagram or social media. I don't have a lot of money to buy traffic, paid media. How do I get leads and sales without being this begging, sleazy, salesy person? Oh, man, needy, please buy from me. How do we start the process of monetizing our side hustle?

Dude, this is such a good. That's such a good question. Because that's the thing, right? It's like, we want to make money. We want to help people. We don't want to be the desperate salesperson.

Please buy my thing out of pity.

Yeah, we don't want to be the needy guy. And, you know, and this is something I've spent my whole life doing. I went door to door. So I worked in retail sales when I was like, from my time, I was like 16 years old. And then I spent five years going door to door 14 hours a day, six days a week, interrupting people 14.

Hours a day, door to door.

14 hours a day, door to door, you know, interrupting people. And like, you know, pretty intrusive, as I sometimes say, that being a door to door salesperson is like being the human version of email spam.

Right? Telemarketer.

Yeah, telemarketer. Yeah. It's like telemarketers are, you know, than us, we bug telemarketers when they're eating dinner. And. And then, you know, we built a sales coaching company to eight figures, teaching salespeople how to sell. How do you generate leads? And then brand builders, we do more like marketing and digital lead generation. But whether you're like a Fortune 100 company, a personal brand, a professional service, or just a person with a dream for a side hustle. This is the question, how do you make that first sale? Like how do you get money? Where do you find the people?

Before you answer that, what was the greatest lesson you learned going door to door for five years about yourself and about selling in general?

You know, there was this thing that we used to say all the time that the answer's behind the next door.

You never stop, there's always another door. You'll find the answer in the next place.

Yeah, it was always like. But that part of it I think actually is good because this is, this is true about sale. I mean a part of the good news for both marketing and sales is that they are both a numbers game. They are a numbers game. It's not like it won't work right. Like you have the fear like is anyone going to buy this? No. Somebody will buy no matter how bad you are or how crappy your thing is if you talk to enough people, which is not what the goal is but that people will, they really will buy if you keep going. The truth about most sales is it's people think of it as like combat. Like, you know, I either have to put the magic marketing words on the page or I need to say like the voodoo mind trick to like convince you to buy something. And then it's kind of like this battle and it's more like an Easter egg hunt where it's like there is some number of eggs out there in the field that have candy in them. And no matter if you did anything or not to deserve candy being in there, they're just there. You, you just have to go find them. And there's a lot of empty eggs along the way. There's a lot that you're gonna open and it's empty. And so that is one part of it. But the biggest problem, the biggest problem that people have in selling is that they're self centered. The reason we don't sell more is because we're focused on how do I make money, how do I convince people? And it's, it's, it's. We approach it wrong. And I would say that sales has been taught wrong, done wrong, promoted wrong. I mean, you know, we're big fans of cleaning this up and changing the way that people think.

I think we're also self centered in the fact that we're afraid of people saying no and how it'll make us feel about ourselves when they say no.

Absolutely. Yeah. When I say self Centered part of that is kind of like the, you know, I don't necessarily mean selfish, like I'm going to take for me instead of you. Although there's a part of that where it's like, you know, the sale is convincing people to buy something they don't want. Right. That's not, that's not what we're into.

Right.

But it's, it's also fear is self centered. Fear is extremely self centered. You only feel fear when you're thinking about yourself. You know, we say there is no fear when the mission to serve is clear. When you're focused on helping someone else, you're not worried about it. Right. I mean, it's like if there's a car accident, someone's on the side of the road, you run up to them, you're not thinking about how's your hair look? And you know, your clothes are your, you know, is your outfit cute, you're going to help somebody. We're always at our best when we're serving others.

Yes.

And one of the magic, one of the magical powers of service is that being focused on service releases our insecurities.

So true. This is something I learned speaking on stages. I said there's different levels to my speaking life. There's the 13 years ago, being terrified to speak in front of three people without stuttering and sweating and being nervous and me saying, okay, I need to go learn how to get some reps speaking in front of people. So I'm not nervous. So I joined Toastmasters, which, which you famously got second in the world for.

What about you famously bring that up every time we talk about second place in the world?

Second place at the world championship of public speaking.

True story.

No big deal. And I did that for a year. And I gained confidence through the actions of repetition, of showing up, of preparing, of reviewing my speaking film and just improving through reps over time.

Yeah.

And I remember for about seven, eight years I was getting now paid to speak for my credibility, for my expertise through LinkedIn and everything else. And I would still get nervous for a week before a big speech. Then I got better over time and it was like, okay, it's only two days before I'm nervous. Then it was a day before and I remember it stayed a day before. But it wasn't nerves of excitement, it was nerves of insecurity. It's like I'm afraid of what people are gonna think about me. And I remember asking a coach of mine that I had hired for a while. He's a good friend of Mine. And I said, I'm about to go on stage in an hour. I don't know why I'm still so nervous. Like, I've been doing this for 10 years, shouldn't I be over this by now? And he said, because you're focused on the way you look, not on serving other people in the audience. And the moment, exactly what you said. The moment you start focusing on service, knowing that you will probably forget something, you might make a mistake and not worrying about those things, know that something might happen that's not perfect. But when your heart's on service, it's hard to be nervous. As you say. Ah, isn't that what something you said?

Uh huh, yeah. Years ago on our very first interview together. But yeah, that's it. And so, you know, somebody watching right now, it could be like, okay, well like how to make the money, you know, like, how do I get the lead? Yeah, but this is how you get the lead is you serve first. So in a, in a, in a digital world, you provide value, Value, value, value, value, value, value, give out. It's the three E's, right? You, you're putting out content that is either educational, encouraging or entertaining. And typically some mix of all three, educational, encouraging or entertaining. And your, the digital marketing strategy that we, what we employ at Brand Builders Group for Rory Vaden Personal Brand and for all of the clients that we work with that we teach these personal brands is teach everything, you know, for free, one bite at a time, but in all random order. Right.

So it's not packaged the right order as you would have in a book or a course or a workshop or an event.

Right. You know, we've said this before, people don't pay for information, they pay for organization and application.

Yes.

And we have a thing called the services spectrum which basically says, you know, information is down here, it's free, organization is here in the middle. You can charge a little bit like in a course or a book or you know, like membership site, but applications up here at the top, which is like a coaching program or consulting, you know, done for your services. Application information is social media, podcasting, blogs, YouTube videos. People don't pay for information, but you're just giving them bite sized chunks of information. You're teaching everything you know, but not all at once in the right sequential order. People pay for the right order. That's, that's organization. I mean, you know, we tell. One of the reasons people hire us at Brand Builders Group is because, is because we have a very set curriculum, the Brand Builder Journey and we say, look, one of the biggest problems with personal brands is that people do the right thing but in the wrong order. They're like launching Facebook ads the first month. And it's like, that's step 76. You're like, they don't have a funnel.

Yet, so they're launching it to nothing.

Yeah, you're driving it back to nothing. You're spending all this time on social media driving back to nothing. So the first thing is find your uniqueness, figure out what you're good at, then extrapolate that into a product. Create your service, your product offer. You may already have that. And then after that it's like, okay, how do I drive traffic? If we're. And there's two worlds here. When I think of marketing and sales, I think of the online world and the offline world. And we've done both, which is rare. Most of the people have done one or the other. You know, and it's like we. I've done the door to door thing. I worked for a startup IT company doing inside corporate B2B phone sales. Then when we started our former company, we did phone sales like B2B for like small businesses. And we did free presentations and we sold. But the fastest mechanism to generating a lead is to do a free presentation demonstrating your value, your expertise. It's giving people a sample and then offering them the next step. Yes, here's what it is. It is the food court. When you go to the food court.

Want some orange chicken?

And the orange chicken on a stick, man, tastes good.

I want the whole thing.

Now it's a sample. And if you want more, I'm right here.

See's candy gets me every time. Gets you a free piece of candy. Just going to the store and you're like, oh, I want the whole box.

Yeah, I mean, it's.

And it's a free presentation. You could do this through many different mechanisms. It used to be free workshops in person.

And by the way, like, when I say this is what everybody does. Like, this is what Jim Rohn did and Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy and Tom Hopkins. And like everybody in the personal development industry, they used to go do. This is how we built our former home.

This is what people in real estate industries do. They teach at a free seminar.

Free seminar. A 90 minute live free training financial advisors. Do this. Come to your free dinner presentation on 10 keys to retirement. Why? Because it works. Like you're giving value and you're leveraging the law of reciprocity. Right. As I give to you before Instead of ask, you don't. The way you make sales is by giving so much that at some point they like ask you to buy versus showing up and asking all the time. In fact, we use a rule called, we call it the rule of 10. And this is a pricing, this is more of like a pricing thing. But you know, people get really weird around price and asking for the money and you know, when it comes to collecting the credit card and, or if you're on like a webinar or a Facebook Live or if you're. It doesn't matter if it's Facebook Live, it's a webinar, it's a video funnel or it's standing on stage or it's talking to one person. You got to be convicted in the value you're bringing. And the way you do that is by over delivering. The number one way to drive your own conviction is over delivering. And everyone teaches sales as like, you know, the voodoo mind tricks on the person you're talking to. The real game is the mind is winning the battle in your own mind and being convinced that what you have is valuable. And the rule of 10 helps you do that. So basically when people are putting together their first offer, they tend to like swing for the fences and go, I'm going to charge for $2,000 video course or something. And they say, well, I saw a video and you know, my coach told me, charge what you're worth. That's terrible advice. Don't charge what you're worth. What should we charge when you're starting out? Don't charge what you worth. Charge what you can get. Charge what you're convicted on. Charge what you can massively over deliver upon.

Yeah, yeah.

If I'm charging what I'm worth, there's going to be a bit of reluctance when I deliver the price. They're going to feel it and it's going to massively reduce the percentage conversion.

Yeah. Someone once told me, charge what, 10x the value?

Yeah, that's the rule of 10.

Right. It's like if it's.

Charge 1/10 of what it's worth.

Exactly. If it's a Andousand, if it's $10,000 worth of value, then charge 1,000. Right. And if it's $1,000 worth of value, charge 100. It's 100, charge 10.

So you always, you always have, you know, if it were a bank account, you always have this like credit, this balance with people and you go, and it starts for free. It starts on social media, which is amazing. Like the power that Social media gives us. It's not that you have to reach millions of people. It gives us a mechanism to push a button and deliver value. Yes, because it's like people go, is it. It's like a chicken or the egg. How do I build an audience? You know, I want to provide value, but I don't have an audience. No, you provide value first. If nobody is watching, you record and you teach value, you deliver it and people will engage with that. Now we have a process, which I'm happy to talk about, of converting comments into customers. So I don't know if you want to take this more like online or if you want to do more offline.

Online is cool.

Okay, yeah, so let's talk about that. So, you know, it starts with the mind, okay? Self centeredness is the problem. Service centeredness is the solution.

Yes.

You never feel fear when the mission to serve is clear. You get your mind right, then you go, okay, I'm going to go out and provide value. So you start pumping out value. We have a thing called the content diamond, which I know, I've talked about another episode, we can touch on that. But anyways, you're putting out value. And now what happens is people like and comment. And what most of us do is we go six views, right? And it's just like, I mean, and we get self centered again and we go, I only have six views. Jay Shetty gets like 6 billion views. And it just makes me feel awful because I'm thinking about myself and you know, there's like a comment and then, and you're like, you're like, I don't have a. I don't. And then, and then what we do are like, I don't have time to deal with these comments. You know, someone sends you a DM and you're like, I don't have time to deal with these DMs and you're missing it. Comments and DMs are where the sale happened on social media. Like the dollars are in the DMs. The dollars are in the DMs because when somebody leaves a comment, they're saying.

Hey, I'm interested, I'm interested, I want to know more.

I like you.

Whether they're not saying I want to know more or not. They want to connect.

They want to connect.

They're coming to your door, they're knocking on your door, you gotta open it.

Bingo. Yeah, that's a great way of thinking it.

You're not going to their door. They've come to you.

They have Come to yours. And it's like, if you're too busy to interact with those people, don't be on social, period. I mean, unless you're just doing the thing where you're gonna do it for years and years and years, and one day you'll have more audience. But even it's like, if you want to really impact lives. Impact lives. Like, that's what pisses me off, is people are like, I want to impact lives. And it's like, great, okay, let's put, you know, put a video out there. Well, I don't have any followers. Well, I don't care. Like, I'm not getting paid to do it. Focus on one at a time, one person. You said you wanted to impact lives. Impact lives. There's no barrier to impacting lives. There's no barrier. It's easier than it has ever been in history to impact lives. You can. You, and you can do it with text. You can record and make it a podcast. You can do video. But you are a button from impacting. I want to change the world. Great. You're one button away. Get busy. Right? The truth is, we want to have millions of followers. We want to feel important. We want other people to respect us. And you go, let all that crap go. Just focus on what you originally said. Impact lives. And then, so anyways, so we use a little formula here. When someone comments, usually we will try to move the conversation from comments into DMs. If it's a sales conversation. If it's just chatter, we'll do it in comments. But when you go, I want to convert comments into customers. You do that in the DMs. So you move them over to your.

DMs, send me a DM. Or you message them.

You message them, and then you come and you say, hey, I just, you know, thanks for this. I just sent you a dm. Now, you might comment back on their comment related to what their comment was. And then you say, by the way, I sent you, you know, check your dm. They sent you a message. Okay? And then here's. We call this the. The four Fs. So super, super simple. Yep. Okay, so here's the four Fs. The first F is how did you find me? And that's it. I just say, oh, Louis, yeah, man, thanks for leaving a comment. How'd you find me? And they're going to say something, right? They're going to say, whatever, I saw your. I don't know, I stumbled across organically or a hashtag I was following or whatever. Right. And it's like cool. Then the second F. The school of greatness. Yeah, school. I mean, yeah, a lot of people find you if you get on the school of greatness, that's for sure. And I'll say, what was your favorite part? Right? So like what was your favorite part of that video? So wherever they found you, I read your book, I saw this video, I read your blog, I saw you in an interview, I saw you speak somewhere, I saw your ad. I mean if it's an ad, it's probably not the favorite part. Thing doesn't work. But usually. Well, we said you're not running ads yet because you're just starting out. So you just said what was your favorite part? Or what's your favorite thing you've seen me teach? Or what's your favorite thing to talk about? Or even if you don't have that, you could say what's your favorite thing to learn about? Which leads to the third F, which is tell me about your future. Tell me about your future. So in other words, what are your goals? What are you working on? Like before you try to sell somebody something, figure out what they care about, spend time learning about them, ask them. And this is what's so cool. And if there's, if there's one defining point about our sales philosophy and I would say specifically AJ So my wife, she's our CEO at Brand Builders Group. Her and I were business partners in our former venture and she is the greatest salesperson that I've ever seen. And I mean she outperformed three to one record breaking salespeople in 100 year companies. And her and I have a departing philosophy, defining philosophy about sales that has caused us to separate from other people and constructs because we believe that you should always win the relationship even if you lose the sale.

That's good.

You should always win the relationship even if you lose the sale. And if you focus on making sales, you're going to feel pressure. If you focus on building relationships, man, it's going to be great. Here's the other thing. If you focus on making sales, there's wins and losses. If you focus on building relationships, there's only wins.

Yeah, interesting point to that. The longer you've been adding value, whether it be online or offline or whatever, just in the world without needing to win the sale, the longer you'll have the ability to have someone buy that something from you later your life.

Yeah, you're multiple.

Yeah, I've had multiple people on webinars when I'll say, you know, how long have you known me for? I'll just ask people, how long have you known me for? When did you first find out about me? And people will say, I've watched your webinars back in 2009, 10, 11, 12, whatever it is.

Awesome.

And you always get a comment of Sam saying, I've never bought anything until now. Like, I've always just been a fan. I've always gotten great value, I've always learned and applied it, but I've never bought anything until now. Until it was the right time for me, it was the right season, until I was ready for this. Or until something you said clicked with me and I finally was like, okay, yeah, now I'll buy. But if I was just like, leave my life if you're not going to buy something now, as opposed to saying, here, I'm here to add value. I want you to succeed whether you buy or not. But we can support you in this process from our application, from our service, whatever it might be, from our program. We can support you if you're ready for it. And if not, then, hey, we've got other great free content here for you as well. I think when you have that mindset, you win.

Long term, you win. I mean, you're such a great example of that. And you have to be that. And people don't. It's just a win, lose. It's a combative. Most people do combative selling and it should be collaborative. It should be. You're discovering them in this question. Tell me about your future, your future goals, your future plans, your future dreams. What's so cool about that question is almost nobody ever asks you that question.

Very few.

Even when you meet a stranger, we always ask them, where are you from?

What do you do?

What do you do? We ask them about their past and their present. Almost nobody ever asks us, what's your hopes for your future? What are you working on? What's your dream? That's so inspiring, exciting, uplifting. And by the way, it's a great way to create a context for a sale to happen.

Absolutely.

Because if they something, gosh, I really want a blank if their answer to that question is something that you have done or you have a service for or you know something about. Right. Like when somebody tells me, I want to be a speaker, I want to be an author, I want to, you know, I'm like, oh my gosh, can I change your life? I mean, I spent my life learning exactly a roadmap that you can follow like a step by step for that dream to come true.

One of the things to add to that is if you can't sell them something, if they can't buy something from you or become a customer of yours through your products and services, you want to. I always try to ask people this question, like, what's your goal? What's your dream for this next 12 months or the next year, whatever. And if I can't help them in any way through my business, I always want to become the champion of an introduction to them who could help them.

Amen.

And that could be an affiliate partner or not. It could be. Well, I don't do this, but Rory's team does this extremely well. Let me connect you and he can accelerate this goal for you. But I've had that champion introduction mindset of like, let me just introduce to the person who I know can help you, and that always pays dividends in the future as well. You may not get the sale, you may not sell them something, but you help them accomplish their goal and they'll.

Always be grateful and they trust you. And you know, more and more this is interesting. Even if you don't have a product to sell, you can earn referral fees.

Absolutely.

I mean, any of us can go to Amazon and sign up for a link to like have affiliate links for everything. And lots of people have. I mean, our whole business runs on referrals. We actually pay our clients to. If they introduce us to somebody and they sign up, we pay them.

Right.

And that's becoming really, really common. That's actually a great tool, referral partner marketing. If it's not slimy, like you don't want it to be slimy again. Another thing that's kind of similar in this vein is never compromise long term reputation for short term revenue. Don't compromise long term reputation for short term revenue.

Yes.

Just because I can increase my conversion rates by adding a widget that makes it look like there's a million people commenting, even though there's not actually anybody there. You know, I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm saying you should think about that. You should make a decision consciously to go play the long game.

Yes.

Just play the long game. Like you're saying, even if you don't. I mean, we refer people to stuff that we don't have referral partners all the time. How can I help? And this is, you know, this is the problem is people go, how can I make money? Don't ask, how can I make money? Ask, how can I help?

Yes.

I'm telling you, if you ask how can I help? You'll make a lot more money. If you ask how can I make money? You may end up doing some things that are compromised. It's not that money's bad. I mean we love money. Like money is good. We are fans of money. We want lots of money. We're good at making money, we're good at making other people lots of money. We enjoy money. But money is not the goal. The mission is the goal. Service is the goal. Helping the person is the goal. And you make money as a byproduct of that. It's solving a problem in the world.

Yes. And that's the third F about your future goals.

Okay, great. Yes. Fourth F is where the close happens. The conversion, the sale is a free call to action. So free call to action, which is like, what's your next free step? The next free step is request a call. The next free step is check out this full length training I did. The next freestrep is so step is. Subscribe to my blog. What is the next free step? We always want to give them a free step, a free download, a free training, a free call and. And then eventually you'll, after that you make an offer. But whatever that free step is, typically it's going to be a free call or it's going to be a free training.

So you know a webinar. A training.

A webinar. Yeah. Or just an online. Yeah, demo. Like we do a lot of evergreen type stuff where it' just like there's just this video out here. Check it out. It's a hidden video, here's a link to it. And they watch an hour. Ish. It could be more, could be less, but let's call it an hour. And what do we do on that hour? We drop massive value bombs on them. We're delivering value, we're teaching. Teach as much as you can for free in the time you have and then they're going to want to take the next step. If you do a good job right now. The timing matters too. Some people say no because of timing. We actually had an event recently. There was a woman that was there. We actually this, this came up as a topic of conversation and we asked him, we said, okay, who's been following me for a really long time and this is the first time you bought? And it was like a woman. It was five and a half years. And then we asked, okay, who is here in this event that just found out about Brand Builders group like recently and there Was a woman that was like, I heard you five days ago on a podcast, requested a call. I'm here and now I'm here. Wow. And it was such a great testimony of that. When we don't make sales again, a lot of times we are self centered. We process it as I did something wrong. A huge part of whether or not they buy is the timing for them. It's not about you screwing up. Like, your job is give value, teach, and then make an offer. Which we can talk about the mechanics of this all the way down to collecting the credit card. Like, I'm very comfortable talking about the nitty gritty of the sale. And you should be able to do that without pressure. We call it pressure free persuasion. The pressure free persuasion method is. But just look how you're setting this up. If you're delivering value, you're teaching, you're helping, you're solving problems, there's so much less pressure when the time comes to ask for money. Because it's like, I'm just here to help, I'm here to serve. And I've got this, this great balance built up with this person of trust because they're like, wow, you're awesome. Like, you know, I've watched a thousand episodes of the school greatness podcast and never had to buy anything.

Right. And what if someone's not selling something that requires a call or a demo? What if it's a physical product or a lower price point of a course when maybe they wouldn't do a call?

Yeah. Okay, so great. So these are where you get in the different mechanics of sellies. Yes, selling, which is like there's a one on one sales conversation. We've spent a lot of time with that. Then there is one to many sales presentations selling on a webinar or in a video funnel or on a live stage. We've done a lot of that. And then there is a zero to one selling, which is you're not even there and they're on a sales page. So usually if it's. If you're trying to sell a widget and it's fairly low price, usually you're.

Not doing a one on one call.

You're not doing a one on one call.

You're trying to sell merchandise or a.

Hat or a T shirt. Yeah, I mean that a lot of times, you know, merchandise stuff, artwork or something, you know. Yeah. I mean a lot of that is creativity and how cool it is. But. But selling through the written word is a skill to learn. Yeah. We've got a whole Formula for this, we call it the 15 P's which is, it's basically in a, in a. You, you have to understand the psychology of the decision making process that in the absence of a dialogue through a conversation, I have to guide people through some steps.

A process. Yeah.

And the biggest thing to know, it's basically copywriting is. Would be the word for this. When you are doing copywriting. The number, there's. There's two. There's a few main things to focus on. Okay. What most people do is they focus on the features of their thing. It is this size, there are this many units. They're telling them about the thing. Sales is never about the thing. Sales is about what the thing does for the person, what the thing allows the person to achieve. What we call the promise and the payoffs. You think about it like this. There is, if we're going on a trip, there is the vehicle that we are in and then there is the destination. We are going to copywriting specifically and sales. But in specifically copywriting, the words that we use should be more about describing the destination than the vehicle.

Interesting.

Okay, so the vehicle is how I get there. You know, brand builders, we have a, we've got a curriculum that is a four phase process and there's 12 courses that we move people through. Right. And it's like nobody really cares about that. If we're working with them, it's because they want to grow their brand. They want to get more speaking gigs, they want to get book deals, they want to grow their social media following, they want to build their email list, they want to make passive income. Right. Those are destinations. So the more you talk about the destinations and the less about the vehicles, the more likely there is to sales to they are to buy. So you want to talk about the, what we call the promise and the payoffs, which are the destination. The other thing that you want to talk about in your writing, if you're selling through the written word, that is copywriting. Whenever you're writing a feature for the, for the purpose of persuasion, in addition to promise and payoff, you also want to describe the problems and the pain, which is basically like if you have the vehicle and the destination, the problems and the pain or are staying stuck where they're at now, which again is not about the vehicle. The vehicle is your widget. The vehicle is your thing, your service, your program, the way that you do taxes or the way that you do health or whatever your company, everyone talks about their thing. Sales isn't talking about your thing. It's talking about their payoffs and then their problem and pain. And people really struggle when it comes to writing problem and pain. And it's super simple. Here's how you write great pain language. Describe their life as it exists a day in their life as it exists now in the absence of your solution. Alright, so let's use personal brand since that's like what we do, right. I would say, you know, payoffs, promise and payoffs. You want to get, you want to.

A book deal, grow your following, book.

Deal online, passive income, speak on stage. But every day you're frustrated because you're consumed spending hours on social media and no one is listening. You are frustrated trying to write email copy and to find the words to describe what you do so that people will buy. You are overwhelmed at all the different technology pieces you have to integrate together. You are concerned that your brand isn't unique from other people's brands in the marketplace and that no one's going to notice your stuff. You don't understand how to drive traffic to your website in a predictable way. Right. And it's called pain. Because to the person that you are built to serve, when they hear it, they go, oh, oh gosh, yes. Oh, that's Mitt. You get it, you get it. You get me. Like this is. That is what I want. This is what I'm struggling with. And the more you can do that, here's what's amazing. The more accurately and viscerally you are in your ability to articulate the problem in pain, the more naturally and likely they are to trust you that you have the solution. Not because you have the perfect widget, but because you proved that you understand their pain. And if you understand their pain so well, we automatically assume you must also understand the way out.

Right.

Which many cases is true.

Yes.

The more adept someone is at empathizing and understanding and articulating and expressing the frustrations that you are dealing with. It is likely because they have been there themselves, they've worked with a lot of people who've been there and they have absolute clarity about what it takes to get out of that situation, to get over here. But all of marketing, sales, getting people to buy is actually pretty simple. Where do you want to go? Where are you now? That gap is the sale.

Yes.

If I can get them to tell me where they want to go and the frustration they're experiencing now in trying to get there, they sell themselves.

And in the 4F process, you're getting them to already share where they want to go. You're Already getting some of the data, the information, and then in the free call, you can start to ask them questions, I'm assuming, of what's keeping you from being there. What's the biggest challenge you're faced with from getting there right now?

Yeah. See the beauty about sales and a human conversation? Sales people have this all screwed up. Sales is not about being a smooth talker. It's about being a master listener. Yeah. In a sales conversation, I don't even have to tell you what your problems in pain are.

I can ask you, and you'll tell me.

I say, louis, what are you struggling with right now? What's the most frustrating thing you're experiencing? Where are you losing time? Where do you feel like you're underperforming? Where is your team not executing, literally? I don't have to say a thing. You say it. But. But if. If you're talking, you're also buying. The more you're talking, the more likely you are to buy. And I don't do anything. I ask questions. Now, in copywriting, it's a little bit different because there's not a dialogue. So I have to create the dialogue on the page as if we were talking, which means I have to understand what's going on in their mind without being able to ask. So sales is way easier. Marketing, you actually have to like your copywriting. You have to get really good, and you have to really dial this in, but still not that hard. Describe their life. Describe a day in their life as it exists in the absence of your solution. Yes, that's the pain. And then, by the way, when you get to the payoffs, all you do is the inverse of that. So pain and payoffs are inverse. So pain. Pain is I'm spending countless hours posting stuff on social media, and nobody's watching. Payoff is my content creation process is streamlined and my audience grows effortlessly.

Sounds good.

It's the same thing. Just turning it inside out. But in sales, again, all I have to. I just ask. I just go, louis, where do you want to be? What are you struggling with? How does that make you feel? If I could show you a way to go from where you're at to where you want to be. Is that something you'd be interested in? What are they going to say? Yes, of course. They just spent however much time telling you, I want this. I have this. And you say, if I could show you how to get there, would you be interested in that?

Yes.

The answer is yes. I already told you this. Their conversation. So it's not and once they say that, I haven't even said anything about my widget. My widget is insignificant. It's just a vehicle to get them from here to there. Now please don't hear what I'm not saying. Don't build a crappy widget. Build a freaking awesome widget. Find your uniqueness, your most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. Build something amazing. Do good work. I'm just saying that's not why people buy, Right? So do both. You should create a great product and create great marketing and create great selling. And most of all, it's about being service centered on what's really going to help them.

Service centered in your side hustle and in sales. The challenge is when someone might hear this, they might be saying, this sounds like a lot to do. Learning marketing, learning personal branding. All I want to do is do my thing and I just hope people like it and buy it. But it's hard to scale and grow your side hustle into a business, into a profitable 7, 8 figure business without doing marketing and sales. You can't just be the make a product. It's like the starving musician who wishes that someone would just recognize them at home playing the guitar in their basement, that they're the greatest in the world. No one's going to come find you unless you're putting yourself out into the world consistently. Marketing, promoting and selling yourself. Whether that's your talent, your skill, your product, your solution, you've got to be willing to put yourself out there if you want to grow.

Absolutely. I mean, it sounds like a lot. Yeah, it is a lot. Like, yeah, welcome, like, welcome to the club. Like, success is not easy. That's why not everybody does it. Like, greatness is not easy. That's why most people, people never get there. Like anything worth achieving is worth working for.

Yes.

But if this is your art, okay, if your craft is your art, very much at Brand Builders Group, I think AJ and I would consider this our craft. We have spent our life understanding the psychology of influence and helping people become more influential and helping them build their own influence. Personal, you know, call it personal brand. So this is our art. It's our craft when we create the four Fs and the content diamond and the brand DNA helix and all these things that we, the 15Ps, all these frameworks. It's our art, it is our craft. And here's what people don't, here's what artists don't understand. Marketing is art. Marketing is part of your art. Like there is the creation part which is art. But marketing is art. Marketing is an art form. Sales, when done right, is an art form.

Beautiful.

It's beautiful. It is beautiful to sit down and have a conversation with somebody where you go, man, I feel like I just talked to a therapist and I'm signing up for your thing. Right. It's not, oh, my gosh. What you don't want people to feel like is, oh, my gosh, I just got beat down by a car. Used car salesman type. Not all used car salesmen are this way. They just get the bad rap.

But you don't want buyer's remorse.

Yeah. You don't want to win the sale and lose the relationship.

Yes.

Win the relationship always. Even if you have to lose the sale.

Yeah, that's good.

But if you win the relationship, you serve the person, you provide value, teach. They will buy from you. You don't even have to sell. They will buy.

Yes. And for those that don't know, Rory is my, like, secret weapon when it comes to scaling my personal brand. Really around the strategy of influence, personal brand, and messaging with everything. For the last few years, I've worked with Roy and his team on how do we really scale school of Greatness, scale my personal brand, scale the team, scale the messaging, scale the content, the courses, the programs, how do we scale it and monetize it? All better. And so I've done many two day sessions with you, I think three or four now, two day intensive workshop sessions on a lot of these things that you teach your clients at Brand Builders Group. And so if anyone's interested in launching a New York Times bestseller, a viral TED Talk, launching a course, and just getting their ideas out of their head with some clarity and focus and a process on how to scale their personal brand over time, along with many other things that you guys do. If you're thinking of doing that and you want to build following, you want to create content, then make sure you check out what Rory is up to. Your team is offering a free call for anyone that wants to go there. If you go to lewishouse.com brandcall, people will get on a free call and they're gonna ask you these things. What are your goals? What are your challenges? What are you. You're gonna see this. You're gonna see this in action by them trying to see, like, how can they help you? How can they support you? Maybe there's something they can support you with, maybe not. But they want to support you in making sure that you even just getting on this free call will support you in Getting clarity on what you want, whether you work with them or not. So if you are interested in having greater impact in the world, greater influence, you want to earn more around your skill set, your uniqueness, and you want it to become more effortless. In the act of consistently showing up on a daily basis with your business or brand or side hustle, go to lewishouse.com brand call. You'll see a little video with us. It'll be a free call. You can sign up for. Check it out. Rory, anything else you want to add here to bring this to a close for people who are on the mat, on the mission and the path of building a side hustle, potentially turning it into a bigger personal brand and business for themselves?

Yeah. Well, just on the thing of the free call, number one, I would say we do have several clients at this very moment on the New York Times bestseller list, which is cool. But that most of the clients we work with are not at that level. Yes, 97% of the clients we work with are not.

Lewis, how they're getting started.

They are just getting started. They are in the beginning stages, intermediate stages, like you're, you know, in more that that that. That intermediate exploration. We do have a client also that has a viral TED Talk that's going viral right now, so.

Right.

But it's. Most of the people are just, I'm trying to build my side hustle. I'm trying to make impact. I'm trying to, like, help grow my business. Yeah, I think we can help you. And we won't. We won't. I want to say to them the same thing. I would end this on. Don't sell someone something they don't need. And we won't like if you do the call and we don't think we can help you, we will be the first to tell you because this is what we believe. We're playing the long game. And I know that your sales managers, some of your sales managers probably would never say that, and I may never get hired to do a corporate sales training again. But. But this is what we believe. Don't sell someone something they don't need.

Yeah.

Put their need first. And we've done that. And it's worked out really freaking well for us. And we're very young and, you know, we're not the richest people in the world, but man, we. We feel so lucky. And to get to work with people like, I mean, for you to even say that, you know, we get to be on the inner workings of your strategy and stuff, it's it's just an honor.

So serve people, serve people. You should always win the relationship even if you lose the sale. Something that you talk about how to be. There is no fear when the mission to serve is clear. It's hard to be nervous when your heart's on service. All these things that Rory says always rings true to me. So Rory, appreciate you. Make sure you guys check out lewishouse.com brandcall even just get on a call. Maybe it's not for you, but see what the process is like for you to implement this for yourself. But if you're looking to build your personal brand, I guarantee he's got a lot of great stuff for you. So check it out. The reason I keep coming back to you every year for some strategy on how can we continue to grow and scale and have more clarity around the next stages of our personal brand. So make sure you check out the call loosehouse.com brandcall Rory, appreciate you, man. Let me know some of your biggest takeaways in the comments below and make sure to share this with someone you think needs to hear it. And stick around for more inspiring content coming up. Right now, why is personal branding still such an important thing that everyone should be thinking about, whether you're entrepreneur, freelancer, employee. Why is this important for everyone or is it not important for people to build their personal brand?

I mean, it's huge. It's the future, right? I mean, that's one of the reasons why we got in this space is just look at how your life has changed, you know, as the school of greatness has grown. And I think here's something that's fascinating about the world today is that I think in many ways people are aspiring more for influence than they are for income.

Why is it?

It's because you can't buy influence, right? Like you, you in. In some ways you can, you can fake buy it. You can fake buy it by it.

Likes and followers. Yeah, but not real. True influence is by how you create something in the world or the way people perceive you or that people really want to hear what you have to say.

Yeah. And it's the difference between like, you know, a dictator can, can, can, you know, force things to happen, but somebody who has influence makes things happen. You know, Oprah has influence. She says something and people respond. That's different than I forced a lot of pass or I'm your boss and you must do this. And I think, you know, there's so many ways to make money. And I just think there's a big movement in the world where it's like we don't need more money, what we need is less stress, we need less complexity, we need more freedom, we need more peace, we need, we need to feel more aligned with our purpose. Doesn't mean we don't want money. But you know, like at brand builders, it's interesting because we say that our audience is mission driven message messengers. It's people like you. I mean, I think it is no accident that we started working with you so closely because it's not that money isn't important, it's just that money isn't the most important thing. So we want to make money the mission. It takes money to finance the mission. But at the end of the day, the message is more important than the money.

I wonder if you ask people a question, if they could have all the income in the world and no influence and they couldn't use the money to get any attention or influence or all the influence in the world, but no money and they couldn't use the influence to gain money, which would you choose? Which would you choose?

I mean that'd be a good question to put on Insta or something as a survey. Maybe people could leave a comment on the down on the blog for this.

We'll do that. Send me a DM also of your reply. What you would do. We'll share that out there.

But I would say this, you know, a lot of our clients, so our clients typically fit into two different categories. It's people who are sometimes, and I say this, you know, politely, they're Twitter rich and $ broke as we say, you know, they have a big following and they don't have any money.

They don't know how to monetize.

They don't know how to monetize it. So we're helping those people.

And then there's people who have all the money in the world, but no.

One knows who they are, Nobody knows who they are.

And they're trying to build a following and that's so hard for them. Right.

And it's different. Building a following is different than building a business. And there's some commonalities. But again, it's like I think people with money, what they really are aspiring for is influence.

Why?

Because I don't. I think it's just because you make, they want to make a difference in the world and you, you, you keep score or at some point in your life like by how much money you have, but then over time you realize.

That it's not fulfilling me anymore.

It's not Fulfilling. It's not like once you get past a certain threshold, it's 10 million in.

The bank or a million dollars.

I mean, it depends on who you are. But it can be, I mean, for some people it can be $100,000 a year. And it's just like there's nothing more I aspire to have, but there is always more that I aspire to be. There is, there is, there is more that I aspire to impact and to influence and to create in the world. And that is what is available through a personal brand. And people go, you know, I don't care to be the richest person in the world, but man, I would love to have the kind of impact that Mother Teresa has and Gandhi and Martin Luther King and even, you know, you see the, the modern business moguls you mentioned, Tim Ferriss and Gary Vaynerchuk and Tony Robbins, like those guys all make plenty of money. But they're not the richest people in the world. But they've made a tremendous impact. And I think that that is the currency of the day. That influence and impact has become more in pursuit than just income by itself.

Because a lot of people are to able to make the money, but after that they need something else. Then what you got to do something else with their life. A purpose. And impacting people is usually the way to have that purpose.

And so many people, you know, the generation before us, you know, our parents and things, like so many people that worked hard to give us the things they never had, which was, which was noble in many ways and wonderful, but it also taught us that many of us looked ahead and we saw people who were not happy and they were trading happiness for prosperity per se, home, everything. Yeah, yeah. And you know, the younger generation has said, screw that, I don't care. I don't need to own a home. I don't need to even have a permanent residence. Like, I'll go travel the world and couch surf and Airbnb and I don't need to have a car. Like, you know, I'll, you show, share a car with somebody. But the thing that everybody across every generation has in common is I want my life to count for something. I want to matter. And I think, you know, if you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I was just having this conversation with a client yesterday, as a matter of fact, and we were talking about how self actualization is like the highest, the highest thing. Right. It's like I have become all, you know, all that I can be. But I think there's a higher level than that. And it's, it's not self actualization, it's others actualization is that even when you become your, your highest self, which I think is a very valuable pursuit, there's still an emptiness in self achievement. We quickly realize. I mean and just to use myself as an example and see some realm, right. It's like I had the dream to become a world champion public speak, a public speaker and I basically did that. I came in second.

I'm going to be a New York Times best selling author.

New York Times best selling author wanted.

To build an eight figure business, build.

An eight figure company. Like the next thing, the next thing. And it started when I was young. It was my first thing was I wanted to be a black belt and then I wanted to be valedictorian. I wanted to get a full ride scholarship and my life was this sequential thing. And you realize even being a New York Times bestselling authority, wonderful as it is, and it's a worthwhile pursuit, the deep satisfaction that comes from that lasts for about 10 minutes. Because what you really realize is it's like I don't want to be on a bestseller list. I want people to read my book and have it change their life for years and years and years and years. And have many, many people do that.

Yeah.

And so it's, it's really others actualization and the vehicle of personal branding and the tools of digital media have made that more available and accessible than ever before.

So why are there so many people Twitter rich but money poor? Then why have, why have people who have started building a following been unable to monetize their personal brand? And what are the five ways to start monetizing your brand?

Yeah, so that's a good question. So at the other end of the spectrum, right, is, is the Twitter rich and dollar broke, so to speak. And these are people who have developed influence and now it's like, gosh, I would love for it to become my full time job. Like I would love to, I would love to have the thing I love become my full time job. And that is something that is available now. But it's like, well how do you do that? And there's a big difference again between growing a following and growing an income. So you, you still need to learn the skills of making money. It's a skill, it's a talent. It is. And to answer your question directly, there are five ways that we talk about how to make money. And so when we're working with a client, we basically we're going to lay out these five ways, these five primary ways. We call them the paids. Five ways to get paid. Basically to take a pile of followers or a pile of influence, give you money, and have them have that turn into money in your bank account. Okay, so here's, here's what page is an acronym? Right. P A I D S. So the P stands for product. Product. So you can take a bunch of people and you can sell them a product. A physical good.

Like a book.

Like a book, yeah. So a book would be a product. But I would say this personal branding is not limited to just people who do information marketing. And I think that's what's fascinating. About half of the clients we're working with at Brand Builders Group are Now executives, entrepreneurs, CEOs who never care to sell a video course or get paid to do a speech. They're just trying to bring awareness. Like Gary Vee. Gary Vee doesn't actually sell video courses and stuff. He brings awareness to the different ventures he's involved in. So anyways, your company might have water. Dave Asprey is a good example of this. Right. Like the bulletproof coffee. So it could be a food item. Sarah Blakely would be a good example of this with Spanx. Her primary business model is still a physical product. She's got a personal brand that draws attention to that. So physical products.

Physical products.

And by the way, there's no one of these five that are better than the other. They all have advantages and they all have disadvantages. Sure. Okay, so number two is ads and affiliates. Yeah, ads and affiliates. This is really fascinating, which is that you can monetize your audience without ever selling anything to your audience.

Ever having to create a product, a physical good deal with shipping, deal with customer support, with return content creation, product managers.

Yeah.

Never having to deal with any of that.

Yes.

And what are some examples of businesses that do that really well based off of a personal brand?

Yeah, so. Well, I think the school of greatness is one. I don't know how much you feel comfortable sharing your personal journey. Maybe we can talk about that, about the work that we've done together over the last 18 months. When you came to us originally, you had lots of these. Yeah. All of them. Yeah, you had like all of these. And one of the problems is that when you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. And so we help people figure out what is what we call their primary business model. And then we go. It is that which everything else should be in support of that thing. And in Your case, we realize that actually your long term primary business model is ads and affiliates. It's the podcast itself, it's the thing that you once thought of as just a traffic source that has actually become the main business model. So it's the, it's the, it's the ads. Right. It's, it's the sponsors of the show who make the show possible.

We'll tell the rest of the story after we do the other.

Okay, yeah, so we'll come back. So. But podcasts would be a good example of that. And affiliates. Right. Like you have a following, you can sell other people's products and they're paying you, you know, some percentage. The difference between ads and affiliates, by the way, is an ad is not a pay for performance, it's just a pay for impression. Right. Like for so many impressions, you're going to be in front of this many people.

I'm going to give you this much money if you post this on your social media.

This many times.

This much money if you share it on your podcast, whatever it may be.

Exactly. Right.

Based on the impressions, based on a calculation that you come up with or that's industry standard for that thing.

Yeah. And it could be your whole platform.

Platform.

It can include your newsletter and your social and your podcast, whatever. Affiliates is a pay for result.

Yeah. You get a sale, I give you a commission.

Yep.

A lot of people do this with Amazon on books. You can do it with books. You get a commission from Amazon, Audible. You see that all the time. From people.

All the time.

Okay, so products, ads and affiliates. What's the third way?

So the I is information. Yeah, this is the one that I think historically people have, have associated personal branding with because there's some elements of personal branding that sort of spun out of information marketing or even digital marketing. So this is the classic video course membership site. Assessments, certifications. These are information based products. Basically it's intellectual property delivered in a digital medium. Ebooks would be a great example of this. And in the last episode, was it 670?

670.

670 where we actually talked about dares. We look for things that are digital, automated, recurring, evergreen and scalable. The information line lends itself well to some of those, to some of those dares. So yeah, video courses and things like that. Information process, but also assessments and certifications are less common. But like, you know, we have some friends that do assessments really well and it's like that is their, their main thing.

Got it. Okay.

And the D D is for deals. Deals like being an agent. So it's a third party deal that somebody is paying you. And it typically includes both an element that is not for performance in advance, and it usually includes a long tail royalty feature. So a book deal, a brand deal, a movie deal, a TV deal. Some of the clients that we work with at Brand Builders Group are musicians. And we're actually helping them create other ancillary revenue streams. But their primary business model is. Is their music deal, like their publishing deal. So there's a third party that's usually like a distributor who's paying you a guarantee regardless of performance, plus a royalty. This is why licensing deals would also fall into this, which is one of the most underutilized forms of ip, which is people spend all this time creating their IP and they sell it to their audience and they never think about going, corporations. What corporation would just license this content from me? And you know, so, so those are, those are brand deals. But yeah, traditional book publishing.

So like Darren Prince, would he be an example as deals because he's an agent for all these athletes and Hollywood.

Yeah. So Darren Prince. So you met him when you had Rodman on the show? Yeah, right, right.

I just had lunch with him yesterday.

Oh, that's so great. Yeah, so I love, I love Darren. So he's a mutual friend. He's a client of ours. Right, so. So yeah, so Darren does deals. He's. He's on the agent side of it. So when you do a deal, there's usually like three parties. There's usually like the publisher, the agent and the talent.

Yeah, the brand or the company that's giving you money to the talent.

The publisher. The publisher, Right, yeah. Or it could be a brand or a distributor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then you have the agent, which would be like a literary agent or. Or a speaking agent. You know, Darren is kind of like an all encompassing agent, like a manager and then the talent, you know, like Dennis Rodman and Hulk Hogan. Hulk Hogan. He works with several. Magic Johnson. He works with several celebrities that he manages. But he is also an author now. Right, so he is also products. Yeah, so he's also selling a physical product. And the difference, by the way, a book that you self publish would be product, but a book that you traditionally publish would be a deal.

Interesting.

And they're different and they have a different set of considerations. Right. So when you get a New York publishing deal, as you well know, there's a different set of expectations and things that come with it, but also great benefits.

Exactly. Okay, so deals. And the last one The S. Okay.

Last but not least is services.

Services. So would that be coaching?

Yes, basically speaking. Coaching, consulting, training. Okay, now for anyone that's listening that is going, I hate my job, I want to quit and I want to pursue my personal brand. Usually when those people come work with us, we point them towards services in the short term because services are the typically the fastest path to cash.

It's easy to sell. Go on Instagram and say, hey, I'm doing coaching or I'm offering consulting. Send me an email. Let's jump on a call if you're interested. Literally like a thousand dollar client, a $5,000 client, whatever today.

I mean, you could say, hey, you know, put out some piece of content, you know, DM me for a free call. You do the call this afternoon. Venmo me some money. And we do our, you know, we do our first consulting or whatever. You know, like, whatever it is, it's just a. But, but any service. The, the problem with services is that it's a time for money exchange. So it's the most monetizable in the short term with the least amount of barriers to entry and the least resistance, but it's the least scalable long term. It has the least number of the dares. Digital, automated, recurring, evergreen and scalable. It's not digital, it's not automated. It's not. It can sometimes be recurring. Yeah, it's not evergreen and it's not scalable at all. Your calendar is your inventory.

Unless you're now hiring and training other consultants to do the coaching consulting for you. There's a scalability effect, but true, you can't scale yourself.

True. Which is what Brand Builders Group does. Right. So, so our team, we have certified personal brand strategists who basically, basically take our frameworks and they run people, they run process, they run people through the.

Process and if they want you, they pay a premium.

They do, yeah. Or they come to a group, like an event, like one of our little intensive booths.

So this would be speak services would be speaking, coaching, consulting, training, masterminds.

Yep.

Masterminds would be group coaching.

Yep. I would call a master. A mastermind is still a time for money exchange. There's some limit to the scalability.

Would it be workshops too? Same thing.

Yeah. Like a public seminar. Which would still fit into this. Now to some extent you can scale them quite far. Right. Like, you know, when I first started speaking, my first speaking engagement, I got 50 bucks. Right, right. My feet today is much higher. There's people yet even still with speaking fees. That are much higher than mine. So you can get $100,000 to go stand on stage for an hour. That's fairly scalable. Yeah, I mean, but you, you still only have so many days a year.

So many days. So many. Yeah. So many hours that you can get paid.

So many hours.

Yeah.

Now, you know, seminars are a little more scalable.

I mean, someone like John Gordon is a guy who. He's making millions every year just by speaking.

Yeah, John Gordon, Jason Dorsey, you know, Jay Baer. Yeah, that Carrie Loren, Sally Hogshead. These are people that are making multi seven figures or close to just in keynote fees.

Then they have their books, then you've got books.

And then they may have some of.

These other things, consulting or coaching.

But this is where the problem also comes diluted. Diluted focus gets diluted results.

And so this is what I came to you so for people listen on episode 670, which is really powerful, I came to Rory about. Was it a year and a half ago? 18.

Yeah, it was, it was. Yeah, it was about 18 months ago.

18 months ago. I came to Rory because I was doing all these. I think I wasn't doing software. What would software be under here?

Yeah, so software would probably sit either under information or maybe product, depending on.

I guess I didn't have software. What I had membership, site, courses, books, audio books, self published books, self published books, live events, ebooks, eBooks, masterminds, one.

On one coaching, one on one coaching.

And podcasts, sponsorships, affiliates, speaking. I was doing it all. Video, courses, deals. I was doing everything and we were doing great. But I remember feeling like I started looking out into the future and I was like, I don't know how to get the financial numbers I want to get to by doing all this. Unless I build a department and a team under each thing that we were doing so we could scale it all bigger. Because I was realizing my time and energy was limited by trying to do everything at the best level. So we were doing everything at an 80% level.

Right.

And that was frustrating me. I was like, ah, but I'm not like the. As best as I could be. I'm not living at the highest quality because my energy was diluted, like you mentioned. So I reached out to you and I said, I just feel like Rory will be able to help me. I don't know why you weren't doing any of this before.

Well, no, no. And we hadn't talked in like at least a year.

I don't know why I thought of it. So I remember calling You. And I was just like, hey, I want to come to Nashville and meet. Because I think you could help me gain clarity.

In fact, we were just in the process of exiting our former business. Yeah. Which did sales coaching. Like we were coaching salespeople one on one. The. This wasn't even on the radar. And then all of a sudden Lewis House calls me and says, hey, you know, can I spend some time with you?

Yeah. And we came down was a day, day and a half, two days or something.

Yeah, it was like two days. Well, you've been. You've been for three separate two day sessions plus other stuff that we.

First time was like a two day thing and we just mapped out the vision, the brand identity, the vision, figuring out what is my uniqueness. We talked about this on the last podcast and it's like really getting clarity on what your uniqueness is as a personal brand.

That's step one.

Yeah. And your vision for your business and your mission and everything moving forward.

Yeah.

Because I felt like we were doing a lot really well, but I didn't know where, how I was going to take it all to the next level. So I needed. So I was working hard for 10 years and it was growing and everything was great and we were creating new products and opportunities and revenue streams, but it didn't seem clear for the future. I didn't see the clear path. And for me, I'm really good at helping others with a clear vision and I've always been good with myself of having a clear vision. It was the first time I wasn't clear and that was a wake up call where I was like, I need someone else to help see it from a different perspective. So we came. We came to you. Matt was there too, right?

Matt was there.

Yeah, Matt was there. And we mapped out.

Matt was there the first time, the third time he bailed the second time.

It was a keynote one, right? Yeah.

On the keynote one. Yeah.

And so we came to you and we mapped out all of the paid. Then we do that. We mapped out all the paid.

We looked at them on. We took you through something we call the revenue assessment. We graded them all out, figure out.

What your business model is based on.

Revenue based on actual data. Right.

And so based on the data of like we mapped out all of our revenue streams and I think courses at.

That time, video courses was your number one revenue stream.

So we were a video course company.

Yet based on revenue. It was the probably the furthest disconnected from your personal uniqueness and your long term vision and your mission.

Like, and so that's why I think it was like, gaining that clarity was so powerful. Me, it was so eye opening. And we had. So we had products, we had deals, we had information, we had services, we had a mastermind. And the least revenue generating source was the podcast was affiliates and ads. Right. Sponsorships. And we had this kind of aha moment where I was like, wow, really? The podcast is aligned to your mission of impacting 100 million people a week. It's aligned to what you want to do of helping transform the world. And yet it's the thing you're kind of spending the least amount of time focused on. So we need to figure out how we get a transition and switch it to being number one as opposed to the bottom.

Right.

And that was 18 months ago.

Right.

And it's been like this transition. And you said to me, what'd you say then? You're like, this doesn't have to change right now, where you let go of all these revenue streams now, but in the future, sometime this will need to switch.

Yep. This is the. The analogy that we use is like launching a rocket ship, right? So when you. When you launch a rocket ship, you have, like, it takes everything, like, to launch a personal brand and just like, make enough money to pay the bills. It's just like, in some ways, you're doing whatever you can do to get the thing off the ground. But then over the course of time, you should be getting clearer and clearer about where you're going. And those side rockets, they have to fall off. And this is the tough decision that you've been willing to make that most people are not, which is the hard part, is not going from bad to good. The hard part is leaving behind good to go chase greatness so hard. And you were literally hitting Sheehan's wall. So if y' all didn't, you go back and listen to the episode 670 Where We Talk about Sheehan's wall. You were hitting Sheehan's wall not from a messaging perspective as much, but you were from a revenue perspective. Your team was fragmented and fractionalized and you spread thin. And when we created that focus, I mean, focus is power, Right. Like, I talk about this in the Take the Stairs book, that if you put a magnifying glass between the sun and a piece of paper, the piece of paper catches on fire. Because focus, like, literally, scientifically, focus is power. If you take the magnifying glass away, nothing happens. That is very, very much the description of how most. Most people's, you know, revenue Streams are, is they're, they're, they. And it's not like you weren't making money. You were making more money than you'd ever made in your life.

Right, but, but I wasn't breaking through the wall. I wasn't, it wasn't all aligned to my vision 100%. And I felt like I couldn't see a clear path to the future. And that was the challenge. So it wasn't like life wasn't bad or hard, it was just like. But if I want to continue to grow and make the biggest contribution for my life and have more mission and purpose, I needed clarity.

Yeah. And it's first being clear on your dream and then it is having the courage to chase it and let go.

Of really good things that are already successful. Helping people, making money, supporting my team, paying for a lifestyle, all that.

It's interesting, you know, so, you know, in Christianity this is kind of a random parallel, but, you know, I'm a Jesus freak. There's a concept that is called sanctification and that it's like, you know, when you, when you become a Christ follower, that's not the end, that's the beginning. Even though like that day is when you go to heaven, so that's done. Like heaven is a done deal, but then, then you go through it begins a process of sanctification, which is a gradual cleansing, like a steady improvement, not to earn your way to heaven. So it's not the perfect parallel, but because you're grateful for what you have. Similarly here, when it's like, when you're clear on this vision, the clearer you are on your vision, your long term vision, the more obvious it becomes what short term sacrifices need to be made. And inversely, the amount of our endurance is directly proportionate to the clarity of our vision. So if I can see something clearly, something that I want, something that matters to me, something that I believe in, something that I feel called to, like in your case, it's a calling. As you see that more clearly, then there is a strong connection to the decisions and the choices and the sacrifices that must be made today to forward you towards that vision. So it creates a context for action and discipline to take place. And your discipline engages automatically as a byproduct of the vision. But if you have a cloudy vision, or if you have too much stuff going on, or you have a clear vision, but you don't spend any time thinking, thinking about it, then there is at best a convoluted connection to how the sacrifices and the choices and the Decisions that need to be made today forward you towards something you care about. And so you get stuck. And it's not because you're lazy. It's not because you struggle from a lack of discipline. Most people think this is really like take the sides.

It's not because you don't work hard.

It's not because you're not working hard. And this is really like right out of take the stairs is that most people think they struggle with a lack of discipline. They're not struggling as much from a lack of discipline as they're struggling from a lack of vision. And so you have to get clear on that vision first and then you have to have the courage to chase it. And that is freaking hard. Especially when you're doing great, especially when you're already like, in your case, you are already a multi seven figure business. So for most people it's like, why would I, you know, why not just play it safe and play it cool? And the answer is because that's not what you're called to.

Oh, that's good. Just speaking some Jesus talk over here.

It's just, it's not what you're called to. And that's why, you know, so brand builders. One of the things that's I think also interesting and sort of unique about us, one of the reasons we got into the space beyond just that, you called us randomly at this time in our life where we had this wide open space and then and you said, you're the one who told us this is your next business. But everybody, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of skills needed to build a personal brand. You know, it's creating content, it is social media, it's building funnels, it's copywriting, there's Facebook ads, there's running webinars, there's marketing automation, there's SEO, there's graphic design, there's video editing, right? Those are all things that are probably skills. But most of the people who teach them, they teach it, they teach it. And it's a singular tool in the tool belt. And it's like when you're a hammer, all you see is nails, right? So what we realized is we said there's nobody in the space sitting on top of all that going, how do we coordinate all this crap in a focused direction to serve the person's mission? Not just how do I get more clicks on my ads or get more downloads on my podcast, but how does this all forward to the mission I am called to live?

So how does someone know which things they should be focusing on? How do they. Is it step one, get clear on your mission, your vision?

Well, yeah, my first thought was, come work with us for two days, take you through a process, but we can go through it now a little bit. So, so how do I, how do.

I know if I've got. If I'm Twitter rich and money poor, cash poor, like, so you would say, let me.

Yeah, so let me run you through a few of them.

Yeah.

Okay. So each of these has, you know, advantages and disadvantages. For example, products become extremely high margin after break even. So like, once you've sold your breakeven point of Spanx, everything beyond that becomes extremely profitable. But the brand development it takes to get there, the time and the logistical process of manufacturing and distribution and getting it, you know, in the proper places is not an easy feat. Okay, so there's. You go. One of the things we look at is what are my strengths? Right? So it's like, okay, if I'm good at logistics, I'm good at building a brand and I'm good at coming up with product ideas and I'm good at sourcing inventors and people, you know, and manufacturers. Maybe products is good, but if I'm not good at that, then maybe I should look at something else. The ads and affiliates. Here's who this is great for. If you are great at throwing a party, which is you, right? Like getting people together, get people together.

Rallying behind something, community.

Like, let's all like support each other. And like, if you create community and this is, you know, if you're good at creating a bunch of followers and fans and it's like, this could be really great for you because you know how to build an audience, you know how to throw a party. This is one that I realized that I'm not that good at. Yeah, right. Like, I'm much better at creating content and structure and stuff. I'm not one of the cool kids, per se. So I think you and I work well together because you know how to throw a party. And we know we do a lot of execution, like on the back end. But so if you're not, you know, if social media drives you nuts, ads and affiliates is probably not the right model for you. Right? Because you're not good naturally at building audience. You should go find partners who are good at building an audience and they're going to love you because all the stuff you do gives them a freaking headache and stress and adversity. Information. So information is an interesting one. There's a Low barrier of entry, which is why there's a lot of people getting into it. But one of the challenges is there's a lot of very mediocre information. And what we are going to encourage people to do is to create true thought leadership, which means intellectual property IP.

For yourself, for your own ideas.

Yes, except the challenge that we want to hold people to is to advance the thinking of what's already been done, not to regurgitate what is already out there in the space.

For example, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Not just saying here's Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but here's actually what's missing.

Yeah, like, here's from self actualization to others, actualization could be like furthering the.

Conversation that's already out.

Correct. And some people may disagree with, you know, could disagree with that or whatever. But that's fine. That's thought leadership. It literally means you're spending the time to advance the thinking that has been done, not repackaging and regurgitating, although you can get really far with doing that as well. So in information, generally, are you tech savvy? Like, if you're not tech savvy, you're either gonna have to hire or get a great tech team or people or let it go. Deals is kind of a special one that's usually like once you have a huge platform or you have to be extraordinarily talented. Yeah, extremely talented services is kind of a good one. It's low barrier entry, but again, it's not going to probably scale. So. But it can, it can get you to a point. Right. Like, it can certainly get you free of your, the job you hate or, you know, create more flexibility in your life or whatever. And some people, I mean, this is how I came up. Right. My dream was to be a speaker. Like, originally, I never knew what entrepreneurship was. Personal branding didn't even exist. I wanted to stand on stage and inspire thousands of people. And so I dedicated like my life to that for decade.

And get paid to do it.

And get paid to do it. Right. And you know, I still do that some, a few times a month, but, you know, mostly we're helping our clients now become speakers. And I got two little, little kids. And so I'm not wanting to be on the road as much. That would be a good example of a downside. Right. It's like, you know, it's ironic. I just got inducted into the Professional Speakers hall of Fame, and more than ever, I'm, I'm doing fewer gigs because I have, I got A toddler and a baby at home. So I don't want to be on the road. 70 dates a year. Like, you know, I have been in the past. So there's, There's. There's strengths and advantages, and it's like, what is your team and your assessment? Like, what do you love doing? What do you not love doing? But part of your uniqueness, we believe. You know, on that last episode, we were talking about your uniqueness. Finding your uniqueness as a message.

Yes.

So that's what that episode is like, your unique message. But this is. We believe that uniqueness also informs your monetization strategy. Like, to use you as a great example, you're great at throwing a party. Look at how the podcast took off, even though it was sort of like an ancillary thing, like, it gained all this traction. Imagine what would happen if you went all in. But the reason why people don't usually go all in actually, is because of money, because they're making good money, maybe better than they've ever done. And so it's a risk. It's a real risk to go all in. And there's no guarantee that even when you go all in, you'll make more money. But one of the things I love, this is a guy named Craig Valentine. He was one of my mentors and friends, world champion of public speaking, who mentored me early on. Craig shared this story one time with me. And the point of the story was that you have to decide that your dream is not for sale. You have to come to the conclusion that there is no amount of money that someone can pay me to forego the pursuit of what I am called to. And that takes tremendous courage and discipline.

And courage and everything.

And discipline and commitment and execution. Because it's freaking scary.

Scary to let go of certain things.

And it's not a guarantee that it'll work. But here's what I do believe, firmly, is that if you go all in on a goal, and I've actually, I can think of two great examples where I have done this. I went all in, and it didn't work out how I thought it did not work out. It did not work out quite how I thought. One of them was winning the World Championship of Public Speaking. As everyone knows, you always give me a hard time about. I came in second in the world in the Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking, but that was not my goal. My goal was to come in first.

If that would have happened, right, you wouldn't be here.

I may not be here. So here's the payoff. When you go all in on something, if it doesn't work out, you have the clarity and the blessing to know that it's because there must be some higher plan for you. Yeah, but.

And you went all in.

And you went all in. You had nothing left. The reason why I didn't go back to do the World Championship was because I had nothing left to bring to it. Like, I laid it all on the line. I honestly, honestly could not look back and say, gosh, I could have done this better. And I could have done this better. In fact, not everyone knows this story. I went to the World Championship twice. So I made it to the top 10 the first year and lost. But I knew I had more to give. I went back the second year and a whole year to whole other year, did it again.

You had the speech nailed. You had the stories, everything.

There's nothing I would change about the speech. The speech could have won. I believe it was good enough to have. Could have won. But here's the thing. It didn't work out. So I go, you know what? At least I know that's probably because there's something better waiting for me. But if you don't go all in, if you don't lay it all on the line and then your dream doesn't come true, you don't know if it's because it wasn't meant to be or because of a much more likely truth that you didn't show up and take the chance. You never took the swing, you never went after it. You never went all in. And so you will never know whether or not you were meant to do it. And sometimes you're not meant to do it. Like, the World Championship is a good example. Thinking about it physically, it'd be like walking down your hallway here. By the way, I love your new place. So it's like if I'm walking down the hallway, I have a climb clear vision of this door at the end of the hallway. And I get there and that door is locked. But then there is a door to my left that is open that I could not see when I was downstairs until I went all in. And so, you know, again, this is my spiritual belief, right as I believe God is leading me in a direction. And sometimes, you know, like, if you think about prayers, sometimes when you pray, the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is wait, and sometimes the answer is no. But I've got something better, and that is faith, right? Like, that is not even spiritual faith. That's just faith in the Trust. Sense of the word is to say, I trust my calling. I trust my heart. Willing to take a shot.

Yeah.

And I'm gonna go all in. And if it doesn't work out, I firmly trust that it will lead to something better.

Something greater.

Something greater.

And it put me on a different path that I was meant to go on.

Yeah.

This has happened to me in many areas of my life. I remember I wanted to be. I wanted to go to Ohio State to play football.

Yeah.

Didn't get an offer. They said I could walk on, but I was like, I don't want to sit the bench for four years or five years. And so I decided to go to a different school, and I transferred to three different schools and I was a two sport all American and broke a world record. That would have never happened at Ohio State. I got to have all these different experiences and meet people and tell the world and develop myself as an athlete, all these different things. I wanted to go to the NFL. I went to the Arena League and I got injured and it didn't work out.

Yeah, you're such. That's a perfect. You're a. You're a perfect living example of this.

And then I was like, buddy, and.

It wasn't like you weren't all in on football. You were all in on football on everything. You had no other plan, zero backup.

Plan, no other skills. I didn't have any other options. It wasn't like, oh, I have all these talents and this. Because there's a lot of people say, I want to do all these things. I have 10 great ideas. I have one idea, one dream. And so it was hard for me to. To not achieve it and be like, well, now what do I do? Because I have no skill. Right. And that was like a self discovery period, a transition, a reinvention.

That was sister spy identity.

Yeah. What's my identity now? It's discovering my. It's going on that journey of life. Let me go out and develop some new skills and do speaking and salsa dancing and all these different things, which led me to the next thing, which then led me to the podcast.

Which led you here.

Just let me here.

And you have a hundred million people.

150 million downloads.

150 million?

Yeah. 150 million. Gosh, man. 150 million downloads. That's not people. But that's 150 million downloads.

Well, you know, my podcast has tens of downloads. It's. It is. It's amazing. Right? Like, you would not be here if it weren't for that.

Exactly.

And you had to go all in.

Had to go all in.

If you weren't playing all in, maybe you never get injured, and then maybe you never end up right. The blessing is not getting what you want. The blessing is going all in for what you. What you think you want. And being open to the idea that.

It may not be for you, it may not.

There may be something better for you.

Better, greater for your purpose, for your life.

And that. So, by the way, that in the Take the Stairs book, that's the perspective principle of faith. It's the seventh of the decisions that the most disciplined people in the world make. It's choosing to believe that what is happening now is somehow for a greater glory later on. You know, an example of this we use this illustration is a flat tire, right? So if I was driving along and I got a flat tire, you know, I would probably be, you know, most of us would freak out and be like, oh, my gosh, I had this flat tire. And if somebody asked you, you know, inside of today, like, what happened today? You'd probably tell them about the flat tire. Like, that would be a big deal. But you could choose. If you knew that getting a flat tire saved you from being in a car accident down the road, you would completely think about that differently.

I'm so grateful for the flat tire.

I'm so grateful for the flat tire.

Exactly.

And that is how it is.

I miss my flight, and then the flight goes down. I'm so grateful I missed my flight.

Yeah, it. If you. We don't. And the thing is, absent the ability to see the entire future, we aren't entitled to evaluate the reasons why dreams do or do not work out. The only choice that we have is to trust that if I'm called to it, I'm going to chase after it. I'm going to go after it with everything I can. And if it doesn't work out, something better, something more extraordinary will show up in its place.

And that's why for me, over the last 18 months, when we talked about, okay, you're switching the pains and the opportunities to make money, you're gonna be switching them eventually. Where the podcast is the focus. Sponsorships, ads, affiliates will be the primary business model. I was like, but how am I gonna get there? I was like, how am I gonna let go of these things? And it's been one thing at a time, letting go of. First it was courses, and then we just started. We just. Last week, we paused the mastermind. We're like, okay, have you shared that on the podcast shared it yet, but it's like people have been applying for months to join someone who's makes it. Got a nine figure business, emailed me like the day afterwards and was like, I want, I want to join right? People that the. There's two billionaires that have applied. It's like there's hundreds of applications where people want to be a part of this thing that now I'm going to say, you know what, I'm going to put a pause for a year and see how it. See how it feels, go all in on the podcast, go all in on this mission and see what happens. And it's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, hold on a second. Because we need to back up a little bit because that's a pretty big bomb to drop on people about stopping the Mastermind. And I think it's important for people to know a little bit about why that happened and what happened behind the scenes. Because, you know, for those of you that are listening, Louis and Matt and I, we actually been talking for months about how we could help support the Mastermind.

Partnering on it.

Partnering on it. So that I could help, you know, you and aj. AJ is my wife and she's the CEO of Brand Builders. But like our team, how we could come and help carry some of the weight to free you up. We had this whole plan to be like, okay, how can we support this? Because you love the Mastermind, I love it.

You love the people act, the growth, everything.

And then we started doing it. So at the summit, I was there, led that one. And then a couple weeks ago, we led another one. And it's so funny, we made this, the decision, and it was great.

It was amazing. It was like everything, which keeps making me be like, second chance.

Maybe we should do it. And then even. Even the night before you were going to announce it to the Mastermind, we're up till midnight. You pulled me into the lobby, we're sitting there at midnight, and you were like, maybe we shouldn't. Maybe we shouldn't. Maybe we should keep it going.

Keep it going. Because the people were like, this is changing my life. Life. This is amazing. The money's great.

Like, it was amazing. It was amazing, but it's not your calling. Yeah, your calling is to reach a hundred million people a week on the.

Podcast and impact lives and transform lives.

And to impact lives. And for whatever reason, that's what your calling is. And our job isn't to judge it. Our job is to support it. And one of the things that's super powerful is the Clearer you are about your calling, the easier it is for people to support you in achieving it. And you have a shot. Like, this podcast has a shot to become a monster mainstream more than it is to grow exponentially beyond where it is. And that is the thing that you're saying and have been saying ever since I've talked to you, ever since you called me and AJ and we sat down with you and Matt in our home. Back then, it was in our house. It was like, the podcast is the thing. And ever since that moment, it's been like a gradual sanctification of going, what do we have to eliminate? Not because we don't like it, not because we don't love the impact, but because I'm called to this one thing. And look for any of you that are listening, if you've ever gotten anything out of this podcast, if you've ever gotten anything from this show, from any episode, Louis doesn't need you to buy something from him. He needs you to share the episode with everyone. He needs you to email blast it to your 50 friends and family like your Christmas list. He needs you to share it on social media. He needs you to text a friend. Like, we have to get this podcast to a million downloads an episode. That's the next real target. And if we can get this podcast to break through that wall, it puts you in a position to literally change the world and to be a voice for our generation, like, of influence and interviewing people. And that is what we need. And that's what you need, because that's what your calling is. Not because anyone told you that. It's because that's what you feel.

And that's why it's like, I felt called to call you 18 months ago to be like, I need some clarity. Because every personal brand is going to get a lot of opportunities. I could sell toothbrushes, shoes. Like, we can sell anything. Once you build an audience and you have people that follow you or support you in some type of way, listening, watching, you could really start to sell lots of different things. But you got to figure out what your calling is and start going on on that thing. Whether it's a product or book or ads, whatever, whatever it is, you got to go all, all in on it to the point where, you know, okay, I've maxed it out.

Right?

Then I can add the master. Yeah, if you want, I could do these things.

Right.

But we haven't maxed it out.

You haven't taken the shot.

We haven't taken the full swing on the map.

On the podcast.

We haven't. I mean, we've been consistent for seven years almost.

Yeah.

We've been showing up.

It's not the school of average.

It's not like we're barely showing up. No. But we haven't fully dedicated every ounce of energy from everyone on the team.

On one thing, which is crazy. Like, what does that look like?

Going all in.

Yeah. So that boggles my mind that you got here without doing that. That's also evidence that suggests that this is the thing. Because it's like, who else got their podcast to this size without like going all consuming in on it?

Right.

So it's like, what could it be?

What could it be?

What could it be? So you gotta take a shot.

So that's. Yeah, that's our mission. 2020 is going all in on the podcast.

All in the podcast.

Taking a pause in the mastermind. And everything we do has got to support the podcast.

Right.

Like the goal is to write another book that supports the podcast. The goal is to keep the doing the summit of greatness because it supports the community of the podcast.

It's the community of the in person event that supports the podcast.

So it's like it makes you. When you get clarity on these revenue streams and what your business is and what your mission is, which is what you teach in all the different workshops at Brand Builders, which I want to talk about in a second because we got to wrap up here in a second. When you get clarity on that, then it's easy to say yes and no to things.

It becomes clearer. Clear.

You don't have to say, well, what about this opportunity?

Yeah, it's not necessarily easier, but it's clearer.

Yeah. You still want to say yes to everything. Maybe, but yet you start to say, you start to draw a line in the sand and say, I'm no longer doing these things. I'm only doing these things. And that gives you more attention, more focus on the one thing, which, you know, Papasan and Keller talk about is like the book the One Thing.

The One Thing. Yep.

How it supports everything else when you do the one thing.

Great, guys.

So what can someone do right now if they've got a personal brand, they want to build a personal brand. You've got, I think, nine different workshops and sessions that help you gain clarity on your brand identity, your focus. Break us down really quick so people can go to you to get this clarity and support like I have in three different workshops I've done with you.

Yeah. So, okay, so Brand Builders group, what do we do? We help mission driven messengers build and monetize their personal brand. And I will say this too, for some of you listening, the best way for you to monetize your personal brand is not to create a course and a book and become a speaker. It's to take your personal brand and direct all those people to the thing you're already doing that is making money. Right. To your network marketing business, to your tech startup, to your financial advisory firm, to your accounting services, to your real estate. Like that's always the easiest thing to do, right? If you love the thing you're doing, then just use it as a multiplier to drive attention to that. We're big fans of that. Like, we're not gonna, we don't think everybody should become a speaker. And that's not, it's not like we have one formula. But yeah, so we have nine different two day experiences on all different components of this. And we also do one on one coaching as a part of that. So we kind of like have events and then we kind of supplement accountability.

And coaching along the way.

Along the way. Just where people can have a, have us have a strategist they talk to every single month to keep them on track. And then we have the events where myself and AJ and our strategists are in person. And they're smaller. They're typically like 20, 30 people. They're boot camps.

So intensive trainings. Boot camps. Getting clarity on the thing you need to work on.

Yeah. And we're going through these frameworks, like, you know, a few of them we've shared here. And then we're taking you through exercises. It's not, it's not an edge. It's not like and learn. It's a, it's a work. You're. You're doing work on the spot. And the idea is that you leave with stuff done, but you've got one.

On like crafting your, your perfect keynote on podcasting on.

Yeah. So we have. Phase one is called brand identification, finding your uniqueness, which is. We talked a lot about that on episode 670, which is what I did.

First and gave me the clarity to be here now.

Yep. The second one, phase two is what we call creating your revenue engine. So that's like a lot of the monetization components we've touched into that today. We have one. Phase three is called high traffic strategies. So that's like, okay, now, now that it's built, now that the house is built, how. How do I get more people to hear about it? So that's where you get into more like the deep dive into SEO and Facebook ads and affiliate launches and book launches and big time stuff. But that's Domino86 and people often start there and that's why their whole thing explodes, because they're working on Domino 86 because they saw a webinar for it. And it's like you need to go that you're weight, you're spending money in the wrong places. But then, yeah, we have world class keynote craft, which you came through.

That was great.

So that was working on your keynote. You know, the psychology of why people laugh and helping you like get your.

Signature stories, standing ovations, captivate people, everything.

And then we have one called Full Keynote Calendar, which is the business of speaking. So keynote craft is the art of speaking, but Full Keynote Calendar is how to get booked as a speaker, how to negotiate fees, how to set your fees. Like, you know, how does that profession work? We have one called Bestseller Launch Plan, which is specifically for launching a book or a course or a company. But like what are the steps to actually execute a launch? And then you went through captivating content was the other one, we sometimes call it Bestseller Book Outline line, which is creating your body of work. Right. What is going to be the content of the book or of, of the course?

So we've got, which you got like help it where you help me create my own intellectual property and my own thought leadership.

Exactly. Stuff like coming up with frameworks and diagrams and stuff.

And you're one of the best people that I've met that teaches strategy at a high level to make it simple for someone like me to go execute on and gain clarity. And that's why I love working with you. And we have, they can get anyone listening right now can get a free call with someone, a brand strategist on your team.

Right. And that's, that's what we love to do, is we love to actually talk to you. We want to hear your story. And we have a team of people to actually that want to hear your vision and get on the phone with you. And so we have, we have a special link for you set up for your audience. Right. Yeah.

Lewishouse.com so if you go to that link right now, you'll see a little video of me and Rory and then a little form to fill out to schedule a time to talk, to see how someone on your team can help them.

We may or may not be able to help too.

You may not be ready for it.

You may not be ready for it. I would say this, though, that we, you know, we work with some pretty big name people like, you know, like yourself, you know, you know, there's other people, celebrities and influencers, you know, semi celebrity or celebrities, some big musicians and stuff. But we also work with the person that's just barely beginning, like, doesn't have a ton of money. And so, you know, our program is designed to help you, grow you to the next level. So, you know, if you feel called to build a personal brand, I feel pretty confident that we can help. And we're one of the best in the world and, you know, let's just talk about it and if we're not, we'll tell you.

Exactly. Yeah. So go to the link lewishouse.com brand call schedule a call ASAP. I'm telling you, just getting on the phone with the people on your team, they're going to, they're going to ask you questions to see where you're at, just to give you clarity whether you sign up with something you guys have to offer or not. They're going to help you gain more clarity just from the free call.

Totally.

Yeah.

We walk you through a little framework on the call to help see where you are. Yeah.

So it's gonna be worth it for the call alone. Schedule the call lewishouse.com brand call and go there right now. Rory, every time I'm with you, we, we learn a lot, we connect a lot.

I got one more thing. I got one more thing. We have, we have to share.

Go ahead.

On the topic of monetization. Right again. We are all about making money. Like, we don't, we don't dislike money. Like, we're good at making money. We believe in helping people make money. But at the end of the day, it's about the message and it's also about the messenger. And my pastor, Kevin Queen shared something a couple weeks ago that really just like, blew me away. And I think it's important to understand that when you talk about making money, there's like a business side of it. It's processes and systems and structure and clarity and strategy. But there's also a personal side of it. There's a, there's a big heart side of it. And here's what, here's what Kevin said. He said, make sure your influence doesn't grow wider than your character runs deep.

Yeah, I love this.

Make sure your influence doesn't grow wider than your character runs deep.

What's that mean?

It means that if you're going to serve an audience, make sure that you are Developing yourself that you are on your own pursuit of greatness and getting better and integrity and living out what you're actually teaching people to do or promoting to do is kind of like having a life that the more people know you and if they, if they could see every private moment or if they could hear every private thought, if they could actually hear your thinking, that they would be more impressed with who you are.

That's crazy.

And it's a high level to pursue to. But, but, but the reason it also matters is because if it should happen that your influence grows faster than your character, then you run into problems. You have all sorts of stuff that comes all sorts of issues and ego and personal problems. Press, media, physical health. And so you have to be developing yourself. And I think that's one of the things I love about the School of Greatness Podcast is just like this is a place that people can come to develop their character, to keep growing in that pursuit. And that's why they need to listen, they need to stay here and they need to share it. Because we need to get to 100 million down. We need to get to a million downloads an episode.

That's the key. Well, if you guys haven't checked out Rory's stuff, he's got a couple of great books. This one is a game changer. Procrastinate on purpose, really, about being more productive and multiplying your time. Take the Stairs, also a classic New York Times bestseller. But get on the brand call lewishouse.com brandcall Sign up right now. Let me know if you signed up. Take a screenshot after you registered for a call. Let me know so I can support you and keep you inspired. A lot of people have gone through this from the School of Greatness community over the last year.

Yeah, a bunch of people.

When we did this, since episode 670, I think hundreds of people have gone on calls. And so many of them I've seen develop their brand over time and really grow in an amazing, strategic, processed way that you guys deliver and execute beautifully.

So thank you.

Make sure you guys sign up for it. You can check out Rory on Instagram, social media, website. You can check it all out, but we have all the information@lewishouse.com Brandcall and the show notes for this episode. We'll have it all linked up there. So, Rory, you're the man. Love you. Thank you.

I love you, brother.

Appreciate it. Go build your brand. Change the world.

The human brain is not designed for success. The human brain is designed for survival. Survival is about conserving energy. Success is the opposite. Success is about expending energy, doing things that are uncomfortable. If you do this, if you struggle with procrastination, if you've made bad choices, it doesn't mean you're doomed for failure. It actually means.