The most important things you and your brand are overlooking; Writing, respect, and LinkedIn replies

Everything you do in your company, the reason why it should exist or shouldn't exist goes back to the brand. In the book, I explain about the brand characters and why that is so crucial. Why if you don't have a centerpiece, you will always lose. But people tend to think that marketing is the standalone. What is up, beautiful people? Welcome back to episode number 2. You know what I like about episode number 2 more than anything in the world? We just doubled the amount of episodes I've recorded. I don't think this will happen very quickly. Well, maybe next week. My name is Nir Zavaro. Welcome back to another episode of The BS Show, The Business Storyteller. I know, the rants today, unbelievable. I wanna talk to you about 2 things today, respect and using your time And respecting other people's time. Ready for this? By the way, you know, I'm doing these shows not for you necessarily. I'm happy to help. I'm also doing them because it's a commitment, because I said I would do it. So I'm trying to figure out lighting and the audio and everything is— it never gets easy for me. I don't know why, but more than anything, it's about commitment. It's about passion. And if it's respect and passion we're going to talk about today, here it goes. I've been doing the newsletter, the Story Letter, for I think 70 weeks straight now, which is mind-blowing because for about 3 years I couldn't get it going. Every 2 months, every 3 months, I do it with email. I didn't know it wasn't working. And you've probably felt that quite often, especially when we talk about marketing and repetition and other stuff. The interesting thing was when I let go, passion struck. What do I mean by that? All of a sudden, I I wasn't writing and checking how many people are interested. I wasn't interested in what people were actually reading. I would love for everyone to open my email, but it wasn't the case. So I decided I'm just gonna write for myself. Every Saturday I started to write and guess what? It became this thing on Saturday mornings. I'll wake up, go out, grab a nice cup of coffee in a nice place, whether it was in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Vietnam, Tel Aviv. UK, any place. I think I also did a few in Australia. I did a few in South Africa. I did a few even in Rio. And the idea was that it's my thing. I hope people will read. I hope people will enjoy, but I'm doing this as my hobby, as my passion. And 70 editions later, something happened. And a couple of months ago, we made the decision that we should move it to Wednesdays. This way I can spend my weekends at home and I'm not stressed about if I wrote it or not, if I want to wake up late. If I want to go have a coffee, doing something else or anything. No stress. Weekdays. Fucking hours. So we said on a Wednesday. I couldn't get it done. I hated every minute. You know why? It felt like work. I wasn't waking up and going to my favorite place. I wasn't waking up and finding this cool place, a coffee shop or whatever. I had to get shit done. I wasn't enjoying. Suddenly it was work and not a hobby. So I said, you know what? I'll keep writing for myself and these 2 hours on a Saturday are my thing and I'm really enjoying it. By the way, the email, while it's growing pretty slow, it is still getting over 50% opening rate in most weeks, which is amazing. But more than that, the fact that people are responding and talking and sending questions, it's amazing. So my ask to you is find something in your niche, in your business, whether it's marketing, writing, whatever. Do it as a hobby because that's where passion happens. And it's funny because I love doing things that involve branding. And my next book, The Business Catcher, talks a lot about why brand is in the center. And I've been invited to do a keynote in a couple of weeks. And the company that's speaking just before me, they were the ones that invited me, are going to talk about branding and things you need to look for to understand if your brand isn't going the right direction. Interestingly enough, marketing people said it doesn't sound very interesting because they don't understand how branding is connected to them. I'm going to say this again. Marketing people said they don't understand why and how branding is connected to them. Everything you do in your company, the reason why it should exist or shouldn't exist goes back to the brand. In the book, I explain about the brand characters and why that is so crucial. Why if you don't have a centerpiece, you will always lose. But people tend to think that marketing is the standalone. And we're just wrapping up an amazing project I'm doing where we've been able to connect the marketing, the sales, the customer journey, and the messaging in such a way that we understand, inherently understand how our brand operates. By the way, we also understood that we had to split 2 brands. If you're doing anything with marketing and sales and do not understand your brand, please Stop, call me, we'll jump on a call, I'll try and help. I can't promise that, but I hope we can. Which takes me to the next spot, the next point of LinkedIn. What's happening? Are you guys freaking out? There are people who are freaking out about this thing. Engagement is down, organic is out, nothing is interesting. And then people who have an audience say, no, it works, this is what you should do. I think it doesn't. And the reason why I feel comfortable saying it doesn't is because over the last couple of weeks, I've been posting a lot more in different topics and it's getting somewhere, which is interesting. I'm just, again, having fun playing around with some different types of content. I think if you want to achieve higher interaction, higher engagement with people, you need to do 2 things. You need to write, hopefully in an interesting way, but more than that, you need to comment. Please stop doing these shitty AI comments. Nobody cares. I want to learn. Who you are, what you think about things. And I want a different opinion because that's how we grow. That's how it gets— it becomes more interesting. We can't just keep going with these AI answers and comments. And over the last 2 weeks, I've been meeting amazing people, which is— that's the point of social networks. So if you are scrolling, please find things that might be interesting for you. Leave an interesting comment because you want to, because you care. And if you connect with people, do that because of that and leave that in the message. And please, we can stop sending empty invites if you don't know the people, unless it serves a very specific point, which I don't know what it is. I prefer sending a note. If we did connect, do me this kind favor, say something because it feels awkward. And please don't try and sell me in a vague concept of this, hey, I think there's something that might be very interesting for you. Tell me what it is. If it's interesting, we'll talk. So comments is one thing, then engagement, then once we start talking, please answer. If you connected with me and I approved and you didn't say anything on the other side, I usually say, hey, it's great to connect. Let me know if you need anything. Nice. That's how I do it. If you do not reply, what does that say about you? And what does it say about respect between us? You reached out, you made a connection. I said hello. You should answer. More than that, if you do post and someone replies, please say something. Thank you. Thumbs up. Appreciate it. Answer. Could be interesting answer. Whatever you want. Don't leave people hanging because there's no engagement, because there is no interaction. Mind you, it's still somewhat of a social network. And it's interesting because people forgot that. They think that they will post, everybody will come. Why? Get to know people. My recommendation, 12 LinkedIn accounts a week that you add and try and create some sort of a conversation and interaction with people. Try and focus on people from your industries, people that you can learn from, or people that you can help, not just anyone. If done correctly, you will meet a few hundred people. Over the course of this year. That will fundamentally change your network, and more than that, the way you do business. And it doesn't take a few minutes every day, you're done. You're limited anyway on the free accounts, so, so you're fine. And another thing that is interesting, I often get people reaching out asking for my help to make a connection or an introduction, and I'm usually happy to do it if I understand what's the reason and how I can help. And I love connecting people That's easy. That's great. The problem starts when I make a connection, but they do not reach out. Not cool. If someone made an effort to help you, took their time, their reputation, and made the connection, please do me this kind favor because now both of your brands are on the line. You need to reach out and say, hey, I just got that email. I got that WhatsApp, whatever it may be. Please make that connection. More than that, what we call close the circuit, right? Go back and say, hey, Nir, thank you very much for making the introduction. I reached out, whatever, CC moved to BCC and whatever it may be. Do it in a timely manner, not in 2 weeks. I just had someone do it. It made me feel awkward. I don't trust the guy anymore. I don't want to help and I don't want to support. And another thing around that, and I know it's a long rant about communication, but it's— that's the key to everything. If you ask someone for a favor and they say they can help you tomorrow or they can help you in a meeting next week or whatever it may be, please don't say, that's great, I'll be in touch with you when that's relevant. You need something, you come on my time, I will help you, and then you use the information when it's relevant for you. Last week I got a call. I was very happy to help. Interestingly enough, when I said, hey, I can make the introduction and help you set things up, The reply was, yeah, I'm a bit busy, but thank you, but I'll be in touch in a couple of weeks. Not cool. You want my help? My help is offered now because usually people ask me for things that are what I call my job. No, it's actually my hobby. Sometimes it's my job. So if you need help, please do yourself this favor. Take the opportunity. Don't wait. It's annoying. More than that, they might not be available tomorrow. If you're asking people for free work, And they offer it, take it. And I had a very interesting call today with a very nice guy. He's building an agency and he wanted to talk. What I liked, he was very open, candid, explained his situation, what he wants, what he needed, and said, I'll take anything and please go. The conversation was so flowing and so nice that I want to help him more. So please, if you go on a call and you ask for our time, be explicit. Tell us what you need, what you want, how can we best serve you on those 10 or 15 minutes to help you. And lastly, I'll leave you with this. It's a trial and error, but it's about passion and respect. So respect yourself, respect your time, and repetition is easier when you find your passion. I don't know how this show will go. All I know is I'm willing to keep trying, and hopefully people will see it. I think we've had probably 30 views on the first show on YouTube. I didn't post it in any social. I don't think I posted it on my social, which is nice. I'm trying, I'm learning, I'm fixing the lighting and stuff. But the amount of people who reached out and had something to say— thank you, love it, amazing, interesting, but— and everybody has something to contribute, and that I appreciate. And thank you for that. That's amazing. And then if everybody gives one good tip, imagine how this might look in, I don't know, 50 shows, even 30 shows. And you know, they say on podcasts the main problem is, I think, um, the 6th or the 7th show and then the 13th. My hope is if we keep going, which means I keep going here and you guys start asking more questions and I get the chance to help more people, I want to celebrate the 14th show. So I'm Nir Zavaro. Thank you for being here. Thank you for taking the time. I hope you enjoyed this. different setup. I'm still trying to figure it out. There's so many places I've built here on the— in the studio. I'm learning. I'll get better at it. Um, and if you need anything, send me an email, a message, leave something on the comments. How can I help you? Branding, marketing, messaging, storytelling, customer journey, and sales. Anything I can help, I'm happy to. And I'll see you on the next show. Have a great one. Thank you.