583. Build an influential brand - with Rory Vaden

All the tools of today, the digital marketing and, you know, media, etc. Give us the ability to like live our highest selves and do it as a business, which is really an incredible blessing and an opportunity to live in this time in history.

Welcome to the Earn youn Happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of The Bliss Project, 3 Time Fitness World champion, fitness expert and cover model turned self love junkie, lifestyle entrepreneur and author. Each week I'll bring you a guest or a thought that will help you bust through your fears, connect to your soul and get focused and clear so you can elevate your life, business and relationships. We don't wait until we're ready for someone to tell us we're good enough. We take what we want and we anoint ourselves, get ready to earn, own and unapologetically rock your happiness every single day. Are you with me? Here we go. Welcome back to the show. My guest today is somebody who we have gotten the honor of spending a lot of time with. Whether he was teaching in a mastermind that I was learning at or we've gotten to share a meal with him and his wife. He's absolutely amazing. Um, truly one of those people who a lot of people that you probably follow have used for strategy in their businesses. So Rory Baden is my guest today and he is the New York Times bestselling author of Take the Stairs and Procrastinate on purpose 5 permissions to multiply youy Time. I literally love that book. His insights on personal development, leadership and influence have been featured in Wall street, in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNN Entrepreneur Inc. And on Fox News, national television and several other major media outlets as a world renowned speaker. His TEDx talk has been viewed more than 3 million times. He's a two time world champion of public speaking. I mean seriously. And he recently introduced was introduced into the Professional Speakers hall of Fame.

Wow.

Can I have a little piece of that confidence while speaking, please? He is also an eight figure entrepreneur who serves in his new business as the co founder of Brand Builders Group where he teaches people to build their influence, reputation and personal brand. And you guys, that is what we talk all about today is his epic program on building your brand and building influence. You guys are going to love this even if you don't have your business idea yet. This is all about the different things that it takes to sell yourself and something that you love. So, so important. You guys, let's get started. Rory, I'm so excited to be doing this show with you. Thank you so much for coming on, of course.

I'm so honored to be here and to just be in the presence of the harder family, presence of greatness. I love you guys so much and what a privilege to have a chance to speak into your audience's life for a minute.

Well, my new rule of thumb is to only have guests on whose names rhyme with mine. So Rory and Laurie.

The Rory, Rory and Laurie. That's right. Welcome to the Rory and Laurie Show. What are we talking about?

Welcome everybody. I'm so excited to have you here because number one, you have impacted our lives in so many ways in such a huge way. I got to meet you at Lewis Howe's Mastermind, and then you've had a profound impact on my husband's life and so much that we do. You've come into our mastermind. You've helped so many people build their personal brand, which is what we're going to talk about today. I would love to know, Rory, what on earth got you even interested into starting helping people build a personal brand? How did you know that you were even good at this?

Yeah, so that's a funny question. So the true story is that my wife and I, we met as business partners back in 2006. And so in our former business, we had a mutual friend and we started a company as completely platonic, didn't know each other outside of work, both were dating other people relationship. And over the course of about 12 years, we grew that to an eight figure business. We had 200 people inside of that company and that business did sales coaching. So we taught salespeople how to sell more. Right. So it was like a lot of just commission based salespeople. But through the course of that time, we also built my personal brand up quite a bit to, you know, I had been, I had always wanted to be a speaker. And so my, my vision was to really be a speaker. And I was in the world championship of public speaking. And then that business that we were in had multiple businesses inside of it. So we had a seven figure public seminar business that like sold tickets to our events. We had a seven figure like business doing keynotes, just booking to go speak at corporate events, one on one coaching, we did consulting. And then also when released, Take the Stairs, my first book, and then getting up, you know, having a viral TED Talk and all of these different things. And when we exited that last business we had, we couldn't be in the sales training space. And so we were kind of going, what are we going to do next? And we had never taught anyone how to do what I spent my life learning, which is build a following and impact lives and get speaking engagements and get book deals and grow social media followings and do digital marketing. So that's how we stumbled into it. That's the long story. The short story is the day we exited our former business, I got a call from a guy that I hadn't talked to in a couple years, and randomly, he called me out of the blue, and he said, rory, I don't know why, but I feel like I really need your help right now. And I had met this guy a few years ago because I had been on his podcast and I had helped him with a couple things with his book launch, just as his friend. And I hadn't heard from him. And he came and I was like, hey, we're available. And so he comes over to our house in Nashville and we spend a couple days, you know, and we're like, just kind of spend over. Over the next few weeks, we spent more time working with him. And he said, this is amazing. This is your new business. And that guy's name was Lewis Howes. So he was. He was a good first customer to have. And, you know, so that was a big part of the start, too.

There's always that point when you kind of reach that glass ceiling, no matter where it is, that you kind of. You just. You need somebody else. You need a strategist. And it's funny because that is also when you were introduced into our lives. And even in the Mastermind, just being able to hear you speak, like, oh, wow. Especially for creatives, especially in a room full of, you know, creatives and I think people who have ideas and entrepreneurs, we can get these ideas. But the most fun, frustrating part can be how do we get them out and how do we actually say what we are, and how do we speak to all those people? I have so many questions for you, because this is and was me, and I'm finding myself in this position again. So this is perfect timing. I don't care where you are in your business, you can always be more clear. And the more clear you are for yourself, the more clear you are for your customer, and they can find you for your client, for whoever that is. So I absolutely love this. So what do you think is the greatest challenge that someone has to overcome in becoming a successful personal brand?

Yeah, well, you could use several words here, but I would say noise, distraction, obscurity, competition. Generally speaking, the problem is a lack of focus. And there is, you know, when somebody wants to become a personal Brand. They want to talk about all things to all people, have all business models, all different price points, and they want to change the whole world. And that's, you know, like, that is very natural, like the calling of, you know, we say that our audience are what we call mission driven messengers. So we're looking for the people who are like, they don't want to just make money. We like making money. In fact, AJ said one time in a Bible study, she said that her spiritual gift was making money, which was awesome. I was like, yeah, sugar mama. But we're really focused on people who are focused on mission first and purpose first. And, and that person often is torn because they, they want to help everybody and they, they know a lot and they, you know, they just, and so they, they go out and they, they do all these different things. In fact, there's a, there's an illustration that we use for this which we call Sheehan's Wall. And if you can just kind of picture, you know, in any different industry or market, there's, there's these two groups of people. So it starts out on one side of the wall is like all the people who are unknown. And then on the other wall, on the other side of the wall is the people who are known. So these are the industry rock stars or the celebrities or you know, you could say the famous people in the world or the famous people in that space. And everybody's trying to break through the wall. But what happens is we say, oh, I want to talk about this topic and that topic. And so they have lots of different topics and they bounce off the wall or they have all these different products. They're like, gosh, well, you know, I want to have, you know, T shirts and I want to do whatever live events and I want to have a video course and I want to have a mastermind. And they've got all these different products or these different business models. They also have all these different profiles, right? Like you can relate with this. Like, I'm trying to keep up with LinkedIn and TikTok and Facebook and Insta and yada yada yada, different business models. They're doing all these jobs. Like if you're, especially if you're a solopreneur or really small business owner, you're doing marketing and sales and operations and finance. And in short, they've got too many ideas and not enough execution. And so what happens is they bounce off the wall. And the real key to break through the wall is to become focused on one thing, to become known as like the world's expert or the leading authority or one of the world's few leading authorities on this one thing. And that is how you break through the wall, by becoming known for one thing. And then once you're on the other side of that wall, you can expand into other things if you want to. And there's a lot of really great examples or illustrations of this. You know, like Gary Vaynerchuk is a really good example because people say, well, Rory, Gary doesn't talk about just one thing. He certainly doesn't. He talks about tons of stuff, you know, rap music and sports and personal branding and digital marketing and investing and all sorts of things. But in the beginning, he did talk about one thing, primarily on one channel. It was WineLibrary TV. It was all about wine on YouTube. And he broke through and built that first audience on that one platform. And the greatest personal brands tend to do that. They're going to break through on one thing. Another great recent example who I really, really love, who doesn't love her, is Brene Brown. And Brene Brown talks about she spent her life studying one thing which is kind of the genesis of the personal brand. And we say, can you answer this question in one word, which most people cannot? What problem do you solve? And for Brene A. Brown, it is shame. She talks about shame and her solution is vulnerability. And she built a monster, massive personal brand by being the world's expert on that one thing. And once you become, once you break through the wall, you can expand, but that is how you break through. And traditionally that's how every celebrity is. They have one breakthrough moment and then they expand into other stuff. So you can't model what the celebrities do. You have to first, like focus, focus, focus.

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Oh man, that's so powerful. I want to. That's so powerful for me right now just to it helps you know what to put out for your content every day. It helps you kind of know where you're going to structure your whole voice around because I had Never answered that question, to be honest. Honest. Which I actually can't believe. Like, what is the one thing. If I could. If I could. I've never been asked to summarize it in one word, and that just completely helped me with this new platform I'm going to build out. So thank you for that. Wow. And it just didn't make me feel like I had to keep it the one word, but it gave me a North Star. So that was very powerful because Brene talks about a lot of other things, too. Right. But shame is kind of the theme that is super consistent through everything. So. So, like we were saying, clarity, I'm telling you.

Yeah. And if you. If you have, you know, if you have. This is from my Take the Stairs book, which has now been out several years, but if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. Simple as that. Right. Like, and it's really hard to answer that question. And it boggles my mind how you have a. An author who wrote an entire book or a professional speaker who can speak on stage for eight hours, but neither of them can answer in one word, what problem do they solve? Or in one sentence, what do you want me to do after I'm done. After I'm done reading your book? What is the one thing you want me to do differently in my life? Or after hearing you speak, what is the one thing you want me to do differently in my life? Most authors and speakers cannot answer that question in one word or one sentence. It's like. And so absent that, that focus, people don't know how to engage with them, and they don't establish and carve out their sort of space in the world.

Well, if somebody's having trouble right now, and maybe this is kind of where we're going with this, but if someone's having trouble right now, even getting that one word, like, how do I. You know, because if you would have asked me this even two, three years ago, I don't think I could have gotten to my word at all. Like, I think I would have needed a little bit of guidance to get there.

Sure.

Because I was. I was attached to wanting to do this and to that and to this. And you kind of. It's almost ego that didn't want to allow me to pick one word, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. So that's really good. And I'll tell you this. The best piece of branding advice that I've ever received came from a guy named Larry Wingett. So this is not a Rory original. This is one I wish I would have said, but I didn't. Larry said this. He said, find your uniqueness so that you can exploit it in the service of others. Find your uniqueness so that you can exploit it in the service of others. And at the moment I heard that, I was like, man, that is freaking brilliant. Like that is it right there. The problem was Larry didn't have a process to help anyone find their uniqueness. He wasn't in the business of doing that. He just like said that randomly in this course that he was teaching, you know, like a side thing, he was teaching for speakers. And so when we started Brand Builders Group, we were like, okay, this is this process we're going to develop and it's called the Brand DNA Helix. And so what it is, is it's effectively just six questions that we take people through. And there's a bunch of sub questions to each one, but there's six main questions. And if you were to just do like a brain dump to all six, what we would be looking for, and this is actually what we teach our strategists to do, is we teach our strategist to look for what we call thematic overlap. Thematic overlap. So it's like you dump, you just brain dump on these six questions. And at the intersection of those six questions is where the person's uniqueness lives. And there's a lot of clues and things that we can look at. But I'll say this, our process is a lot of work. A lot of times people kind of want to just go like, just tell me that, just tell me the answer. And it's our, it's more. Our whole process is like an exploration. We can't just tell you the answer. We have to kind of just go on the journey with you and then point it out. Because it's not about. There's not a right answer. There's nothing. A truth. It's your truth, it's your answer, it's your uniqueness. And so that's part of what we have to kind of uncover. And, you know, we can walk through as many or all the six questions as you want or as we have time for. But the first question is, what problem do you solve? So if you just said, let me brainstorm as many answers to that as possible. Now there is a corresponding question. So question number two. So this, the Brand DNA Helix, these six questions, they work in pairs. So there are three pairs and they corroborate off of each other. So the corresponding question to what problem do I solve? Is what am I passionate about? So if you listed all the problems you could solve as an example. A lot of people don't know this, but I happen to be incredibly good with spreadsheets. My undergrad was accounting, and so I love a spreadsheet. And as a nerdy, intro, introverted, like tech logical person, I really am good with spreadsheets. But I'm not passionate about teaching people how to do spreadsheets. So it shows up as a potential candidate to one question, but it is eliminated by. By the next question, which is, what am I passionate about? And so we have to look at both of those. And the problem question is really important because what you have to realize is that people, we think in terms of the idea that we want luxuries. We all have dreams. I want a nicer car, a bigger house or a better vacation or whatever. Whatever. But in reality, what people spend their money on is getting problems solved. I may not take that vacation, I may not buy that house, but if I get a flat tire, you better be dang sure that I'm going to come up with the money to get the tire fixed. If my kid gets sick, I will find the money to get my kid taken care of. Like, if the water heater goes out, we're getting the water heater fixed. And if you are clear about what problems you solve, that makes it easy for people to do business with you. But if you're not clear about what problem you solve, there's no way in freaking heck that anyone else is clear about what problem you solve. And so they don't even know to come to you because you're not super clear about it. And it's like Brand Builders grows really quickly because people, anytime someone meets someone who has like brand confusion or like they're struggling to get clear, they're like, oh, you know, like, you need Brand Builders Group, or if you're struggling to scale or something, then it's like, oh, this is the only thing we do. And we don't work with companies. Like, we only work with personal brands. We only work with faces. So if Google calls us, it's like, I'm sorry, we can't help you. We could work with the executive, one of the founders, but what problem do you solve? And then reconcile that against? What are you passionate about? That is the genesis of the conversation. That's the genesis of where a personal brand journey begins.

I'm just so excited that I finally figured that out. It only took this many years. Questions are. Asking the right questions are everything. So I know that you said there's Six questions, right?

Yeah.

Do you want to go? I would love if we could get to as many as we can.

Yeah, sure. Well, let me. Yeah. So. So here's how this works. I'm gonna. Let me show you. Yeah, so the. So the brand DNA helix. So here's. I'll explain the next two questions in pairs, since we're, like, looking at them in pairs. All right, so the next question, question number three is what do I research? What do I research? So one of the places that we're going to look to is where do you have academic knowledge or expertise? What topical areas do you study? Or do you enjoy studying? Or do you have formal training or formal education in Your uniqueness is going to be pointed to that in some regard. There's a reason why you have studied all of the things that you have studied. Now, it may be that it gets thrown out by the passion question, right? It's like, hey, you ended up studying accounting, and that's not what you're going to spend your life to. But there is something about. There's something about that that drew you in that direction or something about your past that pushed you in that direction. And so we're going to look at that. Because when you build a personal brand, a part of it is about perception, a part of it is about credibility. And so your formal credentials play a part in that, and the depth of your knowledge plays a role. So we need to unpack and look at, okay, what have you studied? Or what are you drawn to? Because some people are like, yeah, I got a law degree. I hate law. So we go, okay, well, we know it's definitely not that, but what are you studying? What are you drawn to? The fourth question, which is the corresponding question here with what do I research? Is, what do I have results in? And this is different than the research question, right? The research question is all about, what do I have knowledge of? What have I learned? The results question, Laurie, is, what have I freaking done? What path have I actually walked? What have I achieved? Not what do I know about, but what have I proven? And one of the things that we have come to see to be true is that you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were.

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You're most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were because you know that person. You know their fears, you know their dreams, you know their limitations, you know their skill set, you know how they feel, you know where they hang out, you know what they do because you were that person. So whatever you have overcome is one of the strongest hints or the strongest, you know, points that we look at for driving us to what somebody's uniqueness is. So that that balance of street smart or, you know, book smarts, the research and street smarts, the results, or education, the research and experience the results, those two are corroborating questions that we kind of do the brain dump for, you know, and that's, you know, that's part of the overlap here. So those are the next two questions.

Okay, that's so powerful. And it's actually the most powerful. Just reminder for people who are in the middle of something right now, like, your job is actually to feel it, experience it and get through it. Because it's so true. I've been in moments where I'm like, wow, I am struggling with this. And because I now know that, I truly know that that's all I've ever done is I serve the person that I was. I speak directly to her, to her pain points to. Because I can access it real, like in two seconds, you know, it's still right there. So when I'm going through something, I'm like, okay, this is for your next phase of life. Like, this is going to be most likely again what you do and what you teach. So it moves it from. It's kind of been a cool perspective because it moves it from, like, why is this happening to, wow, what can I extract from this? Like, how much wisdom can I get from this? How many lessons can I get from this? Because I'm going to be sharing it. So it's so powerful. I love that question for the two.

What you just said, what a great perspective to go through life, right? Because part of that, this is beyond personal branding, but this is almost like a spiritual conversation is to go, wow, the thing that I'm going through today that is so difficult has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with the person that I'm being cultivated to becoming because someone else is going to need me to have been through this in the future. That is where uniqueness lives, right? Like, that is where power is and that is where purpose of your life lives. And it's like the difficult things you're going through, they're preparing you for the person you need to someday become.

Oh, my goodness. Yes.

That.

You know, my dad probably, I think it's been three years now, he had a stroke and it affected him where he feels like a different man. Like, he has some mobility issues and he really used his. He was in construction forever, so it's really impacted him in a huge way. And this is kind of the first year that I really see him creating some potential future purpose into feeling passionate about helping people who've gone through strokes somehow. So that stories or that kind of, like, thought process is beginning. And I'm noticing it's like he perks up. He perks up when he starts talking about, like, wow, there could be some purpose behind this. So it's very. Yeah, it's, you know, devastating. But at the same time, maybe. Maybe it could be more beautiful than what you ever thought, or maybe it's more purposeful than what your previous purpose felt like. So that's been an interesting thing for me to watch.

Yeah, so you totally. And going back to the passion question, I should have mentioned this before, but, you know, when we ask, what's your passion? People, their mind tends to go to, like, sunshine and rainbows, like, ooh, I really want to help, whatever. Which is great. But some of the sub questions I mentioned, there's sub questions. A couple of the important sub questions to the passion question are, what pisses you off? Like, what makes you mad? Like, what makes you so angry? And then another one is what breaks your heart, like, what makes you cry? And, like, for your dad to have had to go through something so difficult and to know what that feels like puts him in a position to be able to, like, coach, advise, mentor, encourage, teach somebody else going through it or has just gone through it or knows someone who goes through it, that he is uniquely equipped to serve that person. He's deeply equipped. He's positioned to serve that person more powerfully than anyone else in the world that, you know, hasn't gone through that experience. And so, yeah, that speaks to. That's what I think is the beautiful part of personal branding. Like, you said that word beauty is like, when you know all the. All the tools of today, the digital marketing and, you know, media, etcetera, Give us the ability to, like, live our highest selves and do it as a business, which is really an incredible blessing and an opportunity to live in this time in history.

I always think about how lucky we are that we can literally decide tomorrow that we want to do something else or to get. Do something on the side or to start pivoting and we can truly just decide to do a different Instagram post that could start drawing people to you or start answering, like you said, like, what's the. What is the. What do you solve? Like, you could start solving Something different tomorrow that you're passionate about. And I just, it blows my mind that we live in so much opportunity. It's so, so exciting for anybody who's, you know, listening, who maybe felt like they're not clear or they're too overwhelmed or they don't know how because there is a place. You guys have a place. This is the place to start getting clear and to start getting some clear strategy in steps. So I love that. So did we have, did we have two questions left?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Okay. So the last two questions, you know, I mentioned that we serve mission driven messengers, but we really, we really do enjoy money. The last two questions address the money part, which is something that I do think is actually part of our uniqueness. A lot of, you know, we're not a branding firm. Like, we are on the back end. We do agency stuff for our clients, but we're really a personal brand strategy firm. When people hear brand, their mind goes to like website design or graphics. And that's not like we're talking about how do you make money and how do you expand your reach? So when you look at these next two questions, they help drive the monetary consideration and going, okay, what problems do I solve and what am I passionate about? Kind of address the kind of issue of like, what do I want to talk about or what do I want to teach? What do I research and what do I have results in that addresses the question, what have I earned the right to talk about? Or what have I earned the right to teach? Which is one of my mentors, David Avert me that. And then these next two are, how do I make money? Like, which of these can I actually do making money? And so the fifth question is, what are all the things that people would be willing to buy from me? And then the sixth question, which we're going to corroborate that with, is what business do I want to be in now when you ask the question, what are all the things that people would buy from me? This has been an interesting thing over the course of time, Laurie, that we have learned is that there's a great big difference between a pile of Instagram followers and a pile of cash. And there's a lot of people who are Instagram rich and dollar broke. You know, they're not even close to the same thing. And then, you know, we know a lot of people who are very wealthy who have almost no social influence, no, you know, reputation, like digital, you know, brand or digital platform. Neither one of them is a great place to Be in, you know, in the world today. It's like you need both, but there's really only five ways. Basically there's. There's these five ways to turn a pile of followers into a pile of cash. We call them the paid. There's five ways to get paid from a personal branding. So P A I D S. The P stands for products. So physical products. So this is like one of the things that you're venturing into is like, you know, an alcohol, you know, an alcohol line or a drink could be, you know, people can do clothing, you could do day planners, there's all sorts of things you could do, but it's just a products. And if, you know, if you're Sarah Blakely, your money comes from selling Spanx, right? Like she's got a physical product that her personal brand is connected to. The A is for ads and affiliates. This is an interesting business model because in the ads and affiliates model, you're not actually selling your audience anything. You're selling other people access to your audience. And there's kind of two ways they pay for that. One is a set fee for just impression, which is advertising. The other would be affiliates, is like if you're good at hosting a party but you don't love selling ads. And affiliates can be a great model for you. In fact, this is funny. This is one of the things we helped Louis get clear on. When he first came to us, he had all these different revenue streams because he just was in the space and doing all these different ideas that he heard of everyone doing. And his one thing that could be his one thing that he could be known for worldwide was not even on his radar as a part of his primary business model, which is the podcast itself. He was doing video courses and all these other things where it's like, no, no, no. Your podcast is the thing that can be your thing. And that was a couple years ago. He was at 30 million total downloads. Now he's over 100 million just in the last couple years. Now, there's a lot of reasons why that is, is far, far above and beyond what, what we've, we've helped with. But just that clarity of going, oh, I don't even have to create a product. If I can build an audience, I can make a great living with ads and affiliates. The I is information. So these are information products. So these have been really popular in recent years. Video courses, membership sites, assessments, certifications, those. It's like you're selling a body of knowledge. Ebooks would fit into this self published Ebooks would fit into this category because they're not physical. So those then D is deals. So the D in page is deals. And deals are when third party people pay you money for some kind of creative act, like a movie deal, a TV deal, a book deal, licensing deals where you're not paid for your performance, you're just paid for the creation of, you know, like a piece of content or a piece of art. And then the S IS services. So services is the fastest path to cash. So that would be coaching, speaking, consulting, training, masterminds. They are typically time for money exchanges. So services are interesting because they are typically the fastest path to cash in the short term. But they are the least scalable of all business models long term. So if somebody comes to us and we're working with them and we're trying to help them create like an escape, an escape path from the corporate life, we're probably gonna push them in the services model for short term. But there's a lot of people who come to us and they're stuck at like, you know, whatever quarter million in revenue or a half a million or million even up, you know, even up to like 1 or 2 million. But they can never get past that because they don't have an actual scalable business model, which is what the sixth question is all about. So those paids are what would people buy from you? They could buy any of those five things, but then you're going to reconcile that against what business do you want to be in? Which is the sixth question. And we have an acronym for that too, which is one of my favorites. We call it dares. So we encourage people to look for dares, things that are digital, automated, recurring, evergreen and scalable. Digital, automated, recurring, evergreen and scalable.

All good things.

Yeah, all good things. And we have not found a single business model, Lori, that does all five of these. Um, so it's typically a trade off. Like, and there's advantages and disadvantages to each one and there's a lot of considerations you got away. And that's why it's like, you know, normally when we're working with somebody one on one, we're helping them figure out like, okay, what are you good at? Like, what is your team good at? What technology do you have? What, what, what relationships do you have? Those are all going to be factors that help make a strategic decision about. This should be my primary business model. And it's different for everybody. And you know, like Brand Builders Group as an example, we do one on one coaching. Very few people do One on one coaching because most personal brands, you know, don't like you. As an example, you could certainly do one on one coaching, but it's like you probably don't have the time to take on more than a few people, maybe a couple dozen at the most. And so it doesn't become scalable. Our kind of experience is scaling coaching companies. So we do that, but it's not digital, right? So we got, we have humans that deliver the coaching. It's not automated, but it is recurring. And in some ways it's evergreen because a lot of the curriculum and content, you know, stays more or less the same. A lot of social media stuff changes, but. And we figured out a way to scale it. But if you have a video course, it's digital and it's automated, but it's not recurring. People aren't going to keep paying you for it, they're going to pay for it once and then. But it is evergreen depending on the content. Now if you have a membership site, a membership site is recurring, they're going to pay you for it every month. But it's not evergreen. You have to keep updating it. Right? Like if you have a workout program, you're a fit, you know, you're a fitness app or something, you gotta be putting in new workouts if you want people. So it's this constant trade off and there's again, there's not a perfect answer. There's only your perfect answer. There's your perfect message, your perfect audience, your perfect problem, your perfect business model. So anyways, that's like, I guess, you know, at a high level we call this phase one, there's 13 phases in the brand builder journey. But you know, theoretically, if you were able to do everything, like we just kind of did like a pretty full overview of most of phase one, the six questions.

Yeah, that's amazing. And it's so fun to see because I've gone through so much of that journey with the, I think you had said the brand DNA, just asking the questions and then the dares. Like I've watched my businesses go through recurring and evergreen and trying all the different things. So it's like there's almost like this evolution of your business that you're kind of like, well of course there is. Right. An evolution to your business. But it's for each one, it serves such a beautiful purpose and it gets you to this next place where it is a bit more kind of like automated or doing more of what you love. So it's so cool because you, I know that you guys help people figure out where to go and which one to do first and what's good for their business. And I think that's where people get so confused, is there's so many options out there that we tend to look, you know, online at what this person's doing instead of asking those questions. Because I'm telling you guys, I have done this before. I have thrown stuff at the wall or done things because I see people doing it and because I didn't ask the previous questions that Rory had mentioned above. I burn out. Like, I burn out. There's no passion behind it. All of a sudden, even in my workout, I had an online membership and I didn't ask the deep enough questions, and I found myself with a ton of members and making money, but I couldn't get my willpower and passion back up to a place where I wanted to be in the place to do that. So it's kind of funny because now I can look back and say, of course that wasn't time wasted. But I got to this place where I was like, wow, I feel like I really was just doing something I didn't love for a few years. And while it's helpful for me now, because this conversation is great and we help teach people, but it's so powerful that you. That brand builders, what you do is rooted in these very important questions. Because, yes, it's about growth and the business and skills scaling, but you also include the person who is the heartbeat, right? Like, this is. It's a personal brand. So if your heartbeat is not there, I'm telling you, I've done it. Like, it is hard to motivate yourself into something that you didn't truly ask yourself. If you wanted to be doing this long term, like, what would that actually look like for you? And do you enjoy it?

Wow, I got gooseies. Like, listening to you say, like, that is so powerful. And I'm like, that's so transparent to share. And I think that is true is like, people do stuff all the time because they see other people doing it. Like, oh, I need to have a video course, or, you know, I need to launch a book, or I, you know, I need to have a podcast, or, you know, I need to do. And there's a lot of good things to a lot of those things, but that's the wrong reason to do it. And I think that, yeah, that's. That's. That's one of the reasons we got into this space was just going to everybody. There's so many people like Teaching you. Here's how to do Facebook ads, and here's how to do webinars, and here's how to do membership sites, and here's how to launch a book, and here's how to build a speaking career, and here's how to do a podcast. And nobody sitting on top of all of it, who has frankly done a lot of it, you know, most of it going, how does this fit together for any specific person and what's the right sequence and the order? You know, like, for example, Facebook ads are a great thing when you're ready for them, but that's like step 73 on the journey. And it's like, you know, you're doing it because you watched some free webinar on how to run Facebook ads, and it's like you don't even know what you're selling and you don't know why you're doing it. And, you know, and one of the things that we talked about, Lori, is just like, if anyone's listening and they're struggling with this, we will actually do a free call with anybody. If you go to freebrandcall.com laurieharder freebrandcall.com loriharder we will be able to tell that you were listening to this conversation. We will do. You know, we have a team of people, we will do a call, we'll kind of walk you through the helix, we'll explain like, the, you know, like the 13 phases of the brand builder journey and like, just get to know you a little bit and hopefully we'll be able to help, you know, give you some clarity and, you know, it may turn out that we, we can actually work with you, and it may not, but we will certainly be able to give you a good start on the direction I think of, of where you should go next and, you know, hopefully save you some major headache and pain of like, doing the wrong thing because it's easy to get sucked into the wrong thing for sure.

That is the personal branding. Like, it's the. That is where I, I've watched. So people just be in pain. It is the circling around something that they weren't necessarily good at, meant to do, called to in the beginning because they just thought that's where they should go. And there's so many options out there for people. So this is amazing that you're offering that because I'm telling you, my pain point through personal. Building a personal brand was just lack of clarity and it could have been cleared up. And so I just don't. I didn't know who or where you were, so I'm wishing that I could have had access to you earlier.

We weren't there back. We weren't there back then, so we found you pretty early, as soon as we could. Yeah.

This is amazing, you guys. So if you're feeling that way, like, you wake up and you're just not sure what to focus on or what direction to go, or you feel like you could be scaling or doing something bigger, more, whatever that looks like, Definitely go to freebrandcall.com loriharder because even just the call, Rory is going to bring them so much clarity. So I'm so, so grateful for that. That is like, the most epic, awesome offer ever. Thank you for that.

Of course. Yeah. Well, we, you know, we're personal brand company, and we, like, love to get to know the people. We want to actually, like, talk to you, hear your story, you know, and. And then. And then share. And I want to mention this, too. Like, you know, you've. You've talked about some of the people that we work with, Right. You know, Lewis Howes and Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank, and, you know, Julie Solomon. Like, we have a lot of Mike Johnson from the Bachelorette. Like, we have a lot of celebrities or, like, quasi celebrities on our roster, But I want everybody to know that's like 5% of who we work with. Most of the people we work with are either, like, some of the people we work with are literally just beginning, like, they're still in a corporate job or whatever going, hey, could I do this? And then, you know, a lot. A big part of our community is kind of like, they're out there doing it, and they've been kind of like, you know, stumbling around and kicking the tires a little bit here and there, but they're really trying to go, you know, I need to. I need to turn this into a real business and grow this and scale this. But, you know, so just don't be intimidated by the fact that we work with, like, you know, people that you've heard of. Like, a lot of our clients are people you've never heard of, and. But you're gonna hear about them because they're awesome.

Yeah. And you guys are amazingly, in my personal opinion, amazingly reasonable and approachable and all of the awesome things, because you really have, you know, just different people that they can work with in different levels and all the things. So, yeah, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where you are. If you're feeling confused, which is the whole piece of the journey. I would definitely go and check this call out. So is there any last bit of wisdom that's coming up for you that you want to leave with us or information, no pressure?

Yeah, yeah, totally. Actually, I want to. I'll share with you a little bit of this is. Some of the stuff that's been on my heart lately is, you know, like, I had the dream for me, I wanted to be on stage, right? Like, I was a kid in high school and saw a speaker and was like, oh, my gosh, that would be the dream, you know, and that led me down a whole bunch of things. And so I always wanted to have a viral TED Talk. I always wanted to be in the hall of fame of speaking. And so that was what started me on the journey, and it's been awesome to achieve those things. And so when somebody wants to be a speaker, I really capture their heart. Like, Mike, if you want to stand on stage, like, I have been through the journey, but now that we get to sort of help others, there's really only one reason why people wouldn't do this, and it is fear. And what happens is they talk themselves out of it because they feel like this prompting on their heart, right? Like, gosh, I could do. You know, I really want to do this. Or I've always thought about doing this or that or whatever. And then what happens is they go, yeah, but I only. You know, I don't have a big enough following. Or there already is. There already is a Tony Robbins, or there already is a Dave Ramsey, or there he is, a Brene Brown. Like, why would anybody listen to me? Or, you know, I don't even know if I'm good enough or I don't have a college degree. Like, all of this stuff comes up, and here's what's crazy about it. Everything that they're thinking about, but. And you listening. This may be you. The reason you're scared is because it's all about you. Am I good enough? Am I smart enough? Am I big enough? Do I have enough of a following? Do I have enough tech savvy? And the reality is, what we've come to believe and see just from taking so many people through this is the calling that you feel on your heart. To share a message is the result of a signal that is being sent out by somebody else. Somebody else out there needs you more than you need them. They. They need you. They are begging. They are struggling. They literally perhaps are on their hands and knees praying for the answers to questions that, you know, like, the back of their hand. They're looking for solutions to problems that you have walked through. They are trying to find a path that you know exactly where it goes. And the only reason you wouldn't go serve that person is because you're consumed with yourself. And fear is totally this self absorbed thing and you never feel fear when the mission to serve is clear. So if you just realize that that calling on your heart is the result of a signal that's being sent out from someone else and you just focus on that, you can't lose. There is no failing. The thing about personal branding is it gets better and better and better and bigger and bigger and bigger. And it's the hardest it ever will be when you first start. And so you just gotta stay focused on helping that person and it'll sort itself out. Thank you so much.

I'm so grateful for you. Thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for all of the wisdom we just solved. Rory, you just solved the world's personal branding problems. So now that you guys got so many answers, I'm sure this just actually I know what this has done for me is it makes you want to get it even more clear. So definitely, you guys, I'm going to say it again. It's freebrandcall.com Loriharter, you have personally helped my husband and myself in our brands, in our life. So it's so exciting to be able to bring you on so that you can help everybody who listens to this. Because to me, truly, clarity is freedom. I have sat and lived in frustration and it is a painful place to be. And there's no reason that we need to sit there alone. We're not meant to do this life alone. You actually need to go and seek the people who have the wisdom and who can help you so you can get that message out. Because it's the message not getting out that's causing you so much pain. So freebrand call.com Loriharter and Rory, I'm so grateful for you coming on.

Well, thank you so much for having me. Lori, you and Chris are so generous and so kind and you dedicate such a big portion of your life to encouraging and educating people. I mean, and I know it comes back to you, but you guys just give away so much for no reason other than helping people. And the, you know, I, John Maxwell, shared one time with me, he said, I asked him, we were backstage, we were sharing this event together and I asked him, you know, like, what does, you know, what is success to you these days? And he said he said at this point in my career, Rory, it's super simple. It's about having the people who know me the best respect me the most. And the more I've gotten to know you and Chris, the more I have respected you and the more, like, in love with you guys, AJ and I have become. And that's just really, I think, and that's rare, you know, in the world of personal brands, like to get to know you closer and just, you know, appreciate you more. So, anyways, thanks for having me.

Well, they made I'm words of affirmation, so, yeah, that was great for me. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah. Well, we love you guys. And again, like, beyond grateful, so thank you so much. And you guys, I hope that you love this. If you loved it as much as I did, what I would love for you to do is to tag Rory. Rory, what's your handle on Instagram?

Roryvaiden. Rory Vaden. Just Rory Vaden.

Rory Vaden. All right, so tag Rory Vaden. Tag myself. Let us know what your biggest takeaway was from this. So I always think it's such a gift to be able to not only let Rory know what you learned and extracted from this, this, but it's so important for us to be able to see who we're talking to so that we can continue talking to you and answering all your questions. So, you guys, until next time, earn your happy. So grateful for you. Bye. Bye. Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the earn your happy podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it, it that would be absolutely amazing and we would be forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so moved by going to itunes and leaving us an honest thought, an honest comment, tell us what you think, Tell us what you want to hear more of it would really help us out on our journey to helping thousands and thousands of people. Until then, don't forget to earn your happy. Thanks again, guys. Bye. Bye.