Steve Olsher -America's Reinvention Expert - The Art of Authority Podcast with Mike Saunders - Ep 21

Welcome to the Art of Authority podcast, bringing you interviews and episodes to help you radically optimize your authority and influence to become the go to expert in your field. Here's your host, authority positioning coach, Mike Saunders.

Hey guys, welcome back. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. And today we have with us Steve Ulscher, who is America's reinvention expert. Welcome to the summit, Steve.

Hey man, thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.

So first of all, give us a little bit of insight on what a reinvention expert is, and then we're going to move into how to expand authority influence and just build that platform of expertise for coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, and people that really want to go deep with their target audience.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's one of those terms that has evolved over time. Right. Because once Burger King starts talking about reinventing the hamburger.

It might be time to use a different term. But reality is, for me, it's just, it's really about helping people and businesses get back to the core kind of to the essence of who they really are and just shed the shackles of a lot of the outfits and personalities and whims and agendas that we've piled on over the, over the years. And really, again, just gonna get back to why we were created either again, as individuals or as comp. As corporations.

So almost like getting better clarity around what you're doing in your business.

Reconnecting with why you started in the first place. Yeah, because I think a lot of us end up just kind of chasing that dollar, you know, and then we, we wake up and we're just like, geez, how did we, how did we get here? And so I think for a lot of folks, it's just a matter of really getting back to, you know, why they, why they started in the first place, I think is the easiest way to describe it.

Yeah. And then that reconnects you with your passion and your vision and that kind of got you, you started in the first place. And then that you can kind of put in some extra layers of what you want to do impact wise for your target audience is do you feel like people also get a little bit wayward on who they serve as a target audience?

Yeah, because they end up serving those who will write them a check.

Yeah.

And so it's just, it's, wait a minute, how did I get down this path? We got down this path because somebody said, hey, can I write you a check for this? And will you do it? And you said, yeah, I'll figure it.

Out as I go.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, sure, yeah, I'll do that. And then the next thing you know, you've got a, you know, a six or seven figure business doing things that you just were like, what the heck is this? You know, but that's, that's the reality of what happens.

Yeah. You know, it makes me think with that concept that you just get spread so thin and you're not really being really expert. Expert at anything is really where we're headed with that because you can't really go deep and do that. Malcolm Gladwell, 10,000 hour, you know, deep dive. If you're trying to be all things to all people, do you feel like that that leads into, you know, being able to, if you can get clarity, figure out why you started and then. And then go deeper on that, then that kind of helps you come into your own, you know, skin and your own voice, business wise?

Yeah, I mean, look, that's, that's definitely, I think, a big part of it. But at this, at same token.

I just, I know that in this society of ours.

We tend to feel like we have to keep up with the Joneses or like we have to do what other people are doing or we have to.

Simply adapt to what's popular in the moment. Right. And so I think for a lot of folks, it's easy to get distracted by what others are doing and feel like maybe that's the better way, when in fact it could be. But most often it's just a better way for them and not necessarily for you. For sure.

Yeah, it gets back to the old what's in it for me? And if we can think about that as it relates to our target audience, what's in it for them when we're talking. But too oftentimes it's me, me, me, I, I, I, you know, I have this great product, I have this great service, and you need it, and here's what it does. And you're like, wait a minute here, I didn'. Questions. And I think that impedes and creates that frequency disconnect with how we communicate our message to our target audience, because they're hearing one thing and we think we're saying another. And so I think a lot of that listening and a lot of that research comes into play there.

What do you feel when you're, when you're thinking about helping an entrepreneur develop that influence? And I think that a lot of, you know, we can define that whole lot of different ways, but basically to be seen as that trusted advisor in whatever realm that you're in. It could be, you know, H Vac systems, but people want to be able to come to you for that, you know, honest and transparent expertise. Right. Where do you start when you advise clients to start building this and being seen that way to their target audience?

Well, I mean, it really starts with understanding how you are naturally wired to excel first.

Right.

And so a lot of the work that I do and the book that I put on the New York Times list, which is called what Is yous what? Discover the One Amazing Thing youg Were Born to do, is really built around.

Understanding what your core gift is. And then the primary vehicle that you use to share that gift and then the people that you're most compelled to serve. So to me, I mean, it really, really, really starts with understanding what your what is and then going from there. So.

That'S really where it all begins. Because so many people just aren't even clear on how they're naturally wired to excel or really what puts fire on their soul. And then they may have a sense of what they want to use from a vehicle perspective in terms of sharing that gift, but oftentimes they really have almost no clarity around the people that they're most compelled to serve. So that's really where you have to start, is getting that what is your what framework in place and then going from there. But what I have found is that most folks start out with a pretty good understanding of at least a chunk of that, but then end up just ending up, you know, God knows where, as I said, because of following the whims and agendas of others and just really going off course.

Yeah. And I think shiny object syndrome comes into play there because they get into the building out of their, what, their competitive advantage, their. Their, you know, area of expertise. And then what happens is something else pops up in their newsfeed or whatever, and they're like, ooh, that looks good. So once you can define what it is you do and what you want to, what difference you want to make in someone's life, meeting the target audience, you to serve, now it's a matter of connecting with them. So where does someone start with deciding on platforms? And so I'm thinking of, you know, may public relations and the media and blogging platforms, because those tend to be the things that people start with first and think those are the mainstream steps for initial start.

Yeah. And look, those platforms obviously can work and can work well. But like you said, I mean, if you're talking to H Vac people and that's, you Know, that's your area of expertise and those are the folks that you want to serve. Odds are pretty good they're not going to be falling in line with the typical channels. One of the reasons why I have become such a fan of podcasts over the last eight years, almost nine years now. We started podcasting in 2009 and certainly more so now is because of the fact that you can multitask. Right. So you could be an H Vac pro and out there in the field doing your thing and you could be listening to a show while you're doing your work. Right. I mean, so that would be a perfect example actually where blogging or videos wouldn't be the right medium to use. And in this case, actually audio would be the best medium for sure. And so.

That'S simply a matter of understanding your target market and where they gather. And reality is, you, you may be actually better suited just doing speaking. You know, maybe speaking is the best place for you to find your people. Right. I mean, it just again, it depends on, on where they gather. So if you're an H Vac guy, I mean, you could be going to associations, you could be going to unions, you could be going to trade shows, you know, those sort of things.

It's probably not going to be the typical channels.

Yeah. So when you think about typical channels and a lot of people think of aligning with people that already have kind of that know, like, and trust with either a wide audience or their target audience. Yeah. What are some recommendations on aligning with those kind of people so that you can be thought of, seen as, spoken of in the same light as them, whether it's someone in the media or whether it's a well known blogger or podcaster. So you know, you want to be mentioned in the same breath is them. Well, that doesn't start with step one and then boom, you're right there. It's a process, Right. You can't just go right into that.

It's hard to for sure. I mean, but at the same token, every industry has its, its influencers and has its platforms, right. So I think it's really just a matter of understanding who really moves the needle in that particular industry and aligning yourself with them as best you can. And of course that's usually going to start with adding value of some sort and getting onto their radar so that you can develop that know, like, and trust factor. But the truth is there are rock stars in every industry. I mean, I don't, I don't care what that industry is and Those are people who can make things happen within their industry, literally with the click of a mouse. Right. So those are the folks that you want to be able to connect with. Those are the folks that you want to align yourself with, and those are the folks who you want at some point for them to be able to hand you the microphone and say, hey, you know, here's someone I trust, here's someone I believe in. You guys should listen to what he has to say.

You know, and as you were mentioning that, I was thinking a common thought would be, what do I say? What should I say? When you're, when you're connecting with these influencers because you want to be seen on the same level or in the same breath as someone in that, in that realm, but you don't want to come off and say, I sell this, buy my stuff. You need to have that educational. I'm coming at this as.

From a teaching mode, and maybe, I guess what I would wonder is, should someone think of the top three frequently asked questions or deeper points that you help your clients with so that you can have some of those talking points working so that when you do get on that interview as a guest blog or mentioned in the media, whatever that platform may be, that it starts to have some congruency?

Yeah, I mean, of course, that's a great way to start. My friend Mike Koenigs, he talks about.

In terms of content, what could you possibly write about it? What could you possibly create that would be of interest to your audience? And he actually suggests Starting with those 10 frequently asked questions, questions that you get all the time about your expertise, about that industry, etc. And then he suggests moving into what he calls the should ask questions, you know, which are, these are the questions that people don't ask but really should be asking about this particular area of expertise. And then, you know, the last piece behind that.

After the frequently asked questions and the should ask questions are some sort of call to action in terms of how do you implement, how do you leverage those teachings, how do you bring those ideas, those thoughts, those questions, those pain points really to fruition. Right. And what exactly can you do then in terms of taking action to resolve those questions? So I think if you've got a handful of each of those, you're going to be well on your way to establishing yourself as that credible authority who can really help people.

Yeah, I agree. And I love that whole concept. I've heard that years ago as well. And I think these days marketing calls it the buyer's journey, because I Think buyers always have certain questions that they're always searching for. They go online and they Google, you know, what's the best way to whatever, fill in the blank. And so if you had those frequently asked and should ask questions out there and you're the one teaching on each specific one. Now I think the thing that people have a big mistake on is they just blah on everything all at once. But if you really go laser focused on that first frequently asked question, then that second should ask question and you build a piece of content around that. And that piece of content could be, you know, I shot a video or I wrote a blog post or I got mentioned in the media because I spoke on this. I think then that leads some digital, you know, breadcrumb trails online for people to come along and find that and consume that. And they feel like you didn't sell because you're, you're explaining, you're teaching and it becomes a piece of content that people kind of understand from your perspective of being an educator, and I think that's a big piece of it, right?

Yeah. I mean, again, I think it.

You have to understand.

Of course, the pains that your avatar, your potential prospect is experiencing and what that journey is that they're going on. Right. I mean, there is that.

Natural sort of customer journey that they go on from being a passive, disinterested prospect, to being interested prospect, to being a potential lead, to being an active lead, I mean, and so on and so forth, right. So it just, it runs, it runs the, it runs the gamut. So I really do believe that the best companies meet people exactly where they are in each phase of that customer life cycle, if you will. And so you got to put yourself in those shoes.

Of, you know, hey, this is, this is what they're going through as they're thinking about working with me. And the more you can address those head on, whether they're through the frequently asked questions or through the opt ins and the freebies and those sort of things. Just put yourself in those shoes, right?

And I think you'll be able to create continuous solutions to their problems. I mean, that's how we think about it in terms of. So for instance, we do an event called the New Media Summit. And the New Media Summit is a live event, an in person event where we give 150 attendees the opportunity to meet 40 of the world's leading podcasters, pitch them on who they are and what they do, and literally get booked on the spot. And so we created that event because it was a pain point that we were seeing a lot of people having, you know, we have our own shows, and we get hundreds of pitches every single week. So we knew people wanted to be on the shows. But as we backed it up to this whole customer journey, this customer life cycle, if you will, it really started with giving people understanding of who the people are in the industry, who shows they could possibly be on. So someone might be sitting there saying, you know, I'd love to be on a show, but I don't even know where to start. Right, right. So we put together something called the Ultimate Directory of Podcasters, which basically is just this mammoth directory of 670 podcasters. And we give them their phone number, another phone number, but we give them their photo and their description, the area of focus, and even their email address, right? So we give them everything that they need, so now they understand who all of these podcasters are. So the pain of I don't know who these people are is now solved by, okay, here's the directory which creates a new pain, right? It creates a new problem. And that new problem is, I want to get booked on those shows, but I don't really know what to do or how to do it or what to say, etc. And so we then turn around and say, well, look, obviously you can do X number of things to develop a real relationship with them. And so here's a report of 17 Ways to Develop real relationships with influencers. So that answers that question. And then, of course, the positioning is, of those 17 ways, the best way to really develop real relationships with influencers with these podcasters is to meet them in person and to be able to develop those real relationships and pitch them and get booked on their shows. And that's where the new media summit comes in. So we give you that forum, right? So it's understanding the pain, providing a solution, understanding the pain, providing a solution, understanding the pain, providing a solution, and so on.

I love it. And I think that a lot of people would feel like, okay, I did that. Meaning I got on a handful of podcasts or guest blog posts or whatever platform we're thinking of. But I would like to ask you, what then? What's the next step? Because I think a lot of people feel like, wow, I came from doing nothing to now. I did this. Yay. Right? And where's the business? But that really is. You're at the starting line, because you now need to use that thing. I call it an authority positioning asset. You need to use that link. You know, hey, I was just mentioned on, hey, I was just interviewed on. You need to use that then in your business development strategically, because maybe you get asked a question from a prospect that says, hey, you know, I got a question on your service, how does this work? And you might be able to respond, you know, interesting. I'm going to answer that, you know, in this email with this link to the show I was just interviewed on because I covered that in depth. Here's Listen to this and it'll answer that question plus some. So can you speak to then once someone starts developing these appearances and these assets, what should be done with that? What could be done with that for business development?

Well, and so that's when you know, you have to think about it from the standpoint of you don't want to just appear on a show without having understanding of what your own profit path is. Right. So.

That'S for example, like right now, I mean, we've, we've talked about two things. We've talked about three things already, right? We've talked about my book, what Is yous, what. We've talked about the Ultimate Directory of Podcasters. We've talked about the Media Summit, all within the context of the conversation. It's not like I'm just sitting here saying, you know, hey, let's just have a, you know, a random sales pitch and this is a, you know, half whatever, however long, you know, sales pitch about these things. It's within the context of the discussion, but might, but I have clarity around what the.

You know, around what the profit path is. Right. So the profit path for me is to eventually get people into our year long program where we help people massively up level their influence and give them the business skills around marketing, sales and operations that will serve them for the life of their business. Right? So it's a, it's not an inexpensive proposition to be a part of that year long program, but we give them the tools that serve them for life, right? So the reality is when I come onto a show, it's leading people in that direction.

Oftentimes it's just through seating. Oftentimes it's just simply through sort of future pacing, if you will.

Very seldom will it be blatant, but I wouldn't go on to a show without clarity around what my profit path is. I mean, even just my saying profit path now gets people thinking, geez, I need a profit path which gets people thinking, maybe I need to work with Steve and his team to develop my profit path. So, you know, again, not trying to be blatant about it, but this is this is the reality. And the reality is if you're going to go on to a show, you have to have, I don't want to say an agenda, but at least you have to have clarity around why you're investing. I mean this is, you know, this will end up being however much of my time, time that I'm not doing X, Y or Z. So if I'm investing my time into this, there has to be a return on that investment. And that's how you have to think about it.

Yeah, I agree 1000% because you know, what's the end game? You know, what do you want out of this? And let's just even use writing a blog post. Why are you writing that blog post when you put it on your blog or influencers guest blog relationship, what do you want out of that? What's the call to action? So I think that's to your point, that's the.

Why do anything in business, right? Why don't we just give away everything we have for free? All of our services, all of our products? Well for one thing, people won't appreciate it. Number two, they won't implement it because it was too easy. Because what people associate with a monetary investment will actually do. So I agree with that 1000%. And then there's things that we have to do in our business to use those assets strategically in our social media, in our, you know, email updates for the week. You know, hey, this week's wrap up, you know, today I was interviewed on such and such and we talked about this or hey, you know, I just posted that Facebook Live video that I did where I taught on this topic right here. Hey, reply back and let me know if you have any questions. Be happy to help. And they see that way differently than deadline, last call. Buy this because there's a time and place for that. But when you're teaching and advocating for someone to understand, here's how we provide a solution to your problem. It lets that target audience know that you understand what the problem even is or pretty close to it. So I think that tells the story of being that influencer without you saying, I'm an influencer, I'm an authority. You don't need to say those, you never say those words about yourself. But the more you teach, the more you come across as helpful, then that just is the Persona you create for yourself.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I mean there is a fine line though between being overly helpful and not asking for the business.

And always asking for the business and not being nearly as Helpful as you possibly can. So it's. It's a little bit of a dance. I mean, my hope is that there's enough meat here for, you know, for you, the listener and the viewer here, where it helps you with what it is that you're doing in your business as opposed to just being this blatant, this blatant pitch. But that's, you know, that's only. You can determine that, right. In watching this and knowing if this is helping you in any way. If I'm doing my job, it's both helpful and it's also. It's helpful for you, the viewer. The listener, and it's helpful for Mike and it's helpful for me. Right. I mean, that's, that's our job. So hopefully it becomes a win. Win. And in a lot of cases, you know, having done thousands of interviews over the years, I can tell you that it absolutely runs the gamut of people providing absolutely just an unbelievable amount of value and have no profit path and no clue how to monetize what they're doing to people who are only focused on the profit path and only focused on monetizing what they're doing. So definitely a happy little medium there somewhere.

I agree. So, Steve, let's wrap up with. For people that would like to learn maybe a little bit more about what their. What is or their profit path is, or maybe look at getting onto some of these platforms, you know, the new media platforms. And I feel that, you know, a lot of times, public relations or media, so much of an old school term that in reality these days, the new media platforms, like the podcasting or like the guest blog post and these influencers out there, you know, that's media, that's public relations.

It's not just media. It's not just pr. Man. I was actually having a conversation the other day about it, and frankly, some of the shows out there, and let's just stick with podcasts, some of the podcasts out there.

Are crushing. What, even like the Today show, its prime.

Wow.

You know, crushing what Larry King did in his prime. So, you know, it's not just new media versus old media. It's like this is some of the best media in terms of reach that we've ever seen.

Yeah. And Google picks up those things. I think that's another aspect that people don't realize. They think for that time I was on that podcast interview, people may listen, then they might listen the week later when it goes live or whatnot. But what they don't realize is Google then indexes that show on whatever platforms that that show is on, and people can find that digital breadcrumb trail for months and years to come. And that's a big. That's a big plus.

Yeah. And if we're talking about. Well, for sure. And that can run the gamut from blogs and videos and so on. But in terms of podcasts, specifically, what is interesting is if you ever find a new TV show, like on Netflix or Hulu or something like that, you know how you go and you watch the first show so you can see exactly what it's about, like, you know, I don't know, Breaking Bad or whatever, you don't just jump in on the last episode. You start at the beginning. That's what happens with a lot of podcasts, too, is people find a show and they're like, oh man, I want to hear as much of this as I can. So they go to the first show, which means an interview that you did a year ago or two years ago or three years ago can actually still bring you business because it does live on in perpetuity, unlike old school media, where literally once you are on, if you are not watching at that particular moment in time, you miss out.

So I do think it's really interesting. I'm not going to get into case studies and all that, but I know for a fact, having spoken to a lot of people over the years, that they still get business over podcast interviews that they did sometimes two, three, four years ago. So it's pretty cool.

Well, I know that myself. I have frequently in the last few months found a podcast that I liked and then gone straight down to episode number one and start looking at the titles and going, oh, that doesn't apply to me. Oh, that one, that one, that one, and that one I'm going to listen to. So it definitely happened. So what's the best way people can reach out to you and your team and pick up some more information on your book as well as your download?

Well, lots of options there. You know, we've been talking a little bit about shows and podcasts. Our show is called Reinvention Radio, so definitely check that out. And we feature lots of different stories around people who have reinvented their lives and are just doing some pretty amazing things as a result. The book what Is yous what? Happy for you guys to figure out what your what is for free. So you can grab a copy of that@whatisyourwhat.com and then we mentioned the Ultimate Directory of Podcasters, which is basically detailed contact information for 670 of the world's leading podcasters and you can get that@myultimate directory.com and I think those are great places to start. Mike Yep.

Well, Steve, thanks so much for your time. It's wonderful talking about these things. You come from such a wonderful past of success and proving that these things are not just ideas but you've done them and you've been recognized New York Times best sellers and as well as all of your radio success. So thanks a million for your time today.

Yeah buddy, appreciate you having me on. Thanks so much.

You're welcome.

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