The Achieve Podcast - Bill Dolan (Spirit Media)

Welcome to another episode of the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs who are building meaningful businesses, shaping their industries, and having an impact. And I'm Taylor Baker Baker, your host, and excited today to go over Bill Dolan and your story and your book and the 30-plus years you've had helping businesses identify their story Taylor Brands name. So Bill, give us the backstory, how you got into the space and who you're currently serving.

Great. Well, Taylor, it's an honor to be here. Thanks so much for having me today. Um, the backstory is pretty simple. Look, I, I grew up, uh, in Portland, Oregon, uh, only child, kind of had a troubled childhood. Um, and it's funny, whenever you're struggling or you have issues, you kind of like, where's my retreat? Where's my release? What is it going to be? And I hid in my bedroom watching old movies, not realizing not realizing that what was an escape from a difficult situation was actually teaching me about the art of storytelling. And as time went on and I went through different things in high school, it's like, "Hmm, maybe I want to get into television. Maybe I want to be a reporter." So, I went to school to study television, was very blessed to get an internship with ABC Network. And when I was 20 years old, This is why I was still in between my sophomore, junior year. I actually got hired, and that's when I started my career. And it was fabulous because I learned from the best of the best, from agencies, directors, I mean, different talent, different celebrities, uh, different— all these people that, that surround the story of not just of, of telling stories but also how to distribute them became my living university. And I did that, married my high school sweetheart, um, if children, um, and then realized I need to expand this. What do I want to really do? And that's when I started Spirit Media. Spirit Media as an agency, uh, was really born out of the storytelling that we did in television, but it opened up doors for me to work in the entertainment space. So as a live director, I went and directed shows with Gwen Stefani and the Black Eyed Peas and Maroon 5, and coaching the President of the United States for a documentary project, things like And I did that up until 1999 when I signed a deal for a documentary project. And on my way to Nashville to collect the check, so to speak, I died. And, you know, it's funny, we talk about business and business obstacles. That's a good one. Yeah, you know. Because, uh, look, let's face it, if you're in business, you've already had multiple deaths. Maybe you've had the death of a dream, maybe you've had the death of a relationship, maybe you had death of your finances. I mean, the thing is, each one of us go through seasons that are dark, difficult. We have to face obstacles, and it really causes us to dig in to say, who are we, why are we here, and what am I going to press through and why? And for me, the— I'll just say the short version is this: it's one of the best things that's ever happened to me. It's so great, I wish everybody could die and come back because it would change the way you live, totally change the way you live. Because you move from, you know, just, you know, conducting transactions to start thinking, what does it mean to live transformation? What does it mean to make a living to actually making a life. And ultimately, it asks that question, why am I here and how can I have the most profound impact during the season that I have? And our business changed. I was no longer traveling, being an absentee father and husband, which I was, you know, all the trappings of success. Good money, lots of cool things I did, travel the world. Um, all that stuff is garbage if it costs you the most important relationships in your life. Wow. And, um, let's face it, you can tell I'm a guy, and guys don't always get this right away. We don't. I mean, sometimes we come out of high school, we're still playing for to win the prize, whatever the prize is. And in business, we just change those prizes for another thing. Maybe it's that car, that house, that career, that title, you know, that bank account, whatever it is, instead of what's really important. And look, and I can't tell you what that is, that's for you to decide. But it's so important for us in business to be cognizant of Truly a purpose why you're here. What are the missions you need to accomplish? How are those goals that you're actively pursuing aligned with really a mission and not just a want to be nice or GI Otto's? And how do you live your values? Really define them and let them fight and battle every day so that you challenge yourself to live according to those values. You know, and then How do you— how does that vision look? What does it really look like? What does real success look like? Does it just look like, you know, the other person that you think is successful and you cut out your face and slap it on their, their heads? Or does it mean something unique to you because you've actually invested the time into understanding who you are, why you're here, and the impact you can make? So those are— that's a lot that's led me to today. And We still work in the entertainment space and I've worked with, you know, some of the biggest names in the television world and film world. We love telling people's stories. So we work with a lot of CMOs, a lot of founders, a lot of entrepreneurs who want to produce their brand story. We either help them shape it or we'll produce it for them. And then we produce a lot of live events and so I'll teach it. Or do it for them. But that understanding of brand story really is— takes soul work, not just what's going to look good, let's throw a paint job on it. Let's really find out what you're really about, because when you understand that, trust me, life changes. The quality of life changes, and the impact you can make and the differentiation you make as a business changes. And I mentioned to you, so you don't look like another warmed-over plate of oatmeal at the Motel 6. Okay. Yeah, which is what a lot of businesses look like, you know. They haven't done the hard work, they've just done that. And we listen to a trail of lies telling us you need to be this, you need to look like this, you need to like— and most of it are garbage suggestions, most of them. Because they're right, trying to get you to conform into their perception of success and not yours.

So, I love that.

Long intro.

No, that's wonderful. I love that. So many good nuggets where it's— you can't just copy, cut, paste your story because it's not the same as everybody else's. And you have to put in that effort to really articulate it, to really boil it down. I love the question, what is your purpose and how do you live your values? Like, nobody else can answer that, and it takes time to dig into that.

Yeah.

And so with where you're at right now with the organization, what is driving growth for you guys?

Well, always driving growth— I mean, there's, and there's different types of growth. Let me just start with probably the most important growth, and that's really the transformation of our personal transformation, the transformation of our organization, what we do and how we do it, because let's face it, the economy is going through all kinds of undulations. There's a lot of things going on, and, and some of them are big because the waves have hit the beach and we realize, oh my gosh, this is changing. Um, AI is changing, uh, the role of, of, uh, the employee is changing. Um, and that's hit the beach, but You know, if you've ever watched tsunamis, the history of a tsunami, it means something has shaken. And for a season, it just looks like a wave, a bump in the water, because it hasn't hit the shore yet. And I really do think there's a tsunami of activities that are happening not only in corporate America, in technology, in AI, the use of AI, but for All of us that are— look, we're not Fortune 500 companies, but we have to make critical decisions about our people and how we will take care of them. And that is causing probably the most growth because it's creating a transformation in us. And in the middle of that is— and this comes back from my death experience— our values. I count it an absolute privilege to use our giftings to serve others. Now, that serving others certainly does mean our clients, but also means my employees, my contractors, my team members. And I approach the same— I approach them the same way I do with any relationship, that these are per— people that are worthy to be loved, respected, honored, and that creates a stretching, a growth opportunity. Because to navigate— I was just talking to my team about today in a staff meeting— to navigate serving with excellence, but to navigate doing that with the physics that are now being introduced. People want things faster. They want— I mean, the urgency for some of the things that are coming on our plate is like, when do you want it? You know, tomorrow, yesterday. That creates a pressure and that's stretching us. But then to do it in a way that I'm able to honor my team and not have them live in a cycle of urgency, but to encourage them to live in a cycle of deliberate personal growth that helps them be the best they can be and delivers excellence to our client. That's probably one of the biggest, most profound growth experiments that we're going through right now.

Wow. Yeah, that's hard to have that, would not have them become workaholics and say, you know what, we can do all these things, just work more hours. It's like, nope, we're going to respect our clients and our family time and our personal development.

I love them. And just a note there, you know, I mentioned earlier about values. You know, by the way, that comes out of my book. One of the first things I encourage people to do that I see as a best practice among any great leader or those that have been the architects of movements is they're living what I call a mission manifesto that is rooted in purpose and missions and values and vision and goals. They come together and together then decide who do we serve and how are we going to serve them. That values piece, picture this, that they're not just these cute little sayings on a PowerPoint that go on the wall of the employee manual. Picture them as 5 brute forces wearing overalls and having a mud wrestling fight because that's really what's happening in business. That one value that says, "I want to be a good father and a good husband." That's a good value. I want to serve my clients with excellence. That's a good value. I want to take care of my team and let them know they're loved and respected and compensated well. That's a good value. I want to live a life where people are not always living in a pool of anxiety, but recognizing I'm going to work hard, but what I work hard for is going to be meaningful and fulfilling. That's a good value. Now throw overalls and throw them in the ring because they will fight every single day. And it's one thing to say them. It's another thing to live them. And I think this is the call of great leaders, is to first declare those values and then to be able to say to your team, today, these are how we're going to navigate those values. That's, that's a powerful, powerful step I encourage every leader to seriously consider.

I love that. That is so good. You're not just saying them, we're going to live them, and this is how we're going to navigate them. I can bring you that clarity.

Wow.

Now, as you guys try to grow and expand, what have been the biggest bottlenecks or obstacles that keep showing up for you guys?

I would say distraction, quite frankly, is distraction. Um, we live in a world where, you know, when I started in television And one of the assignments when you work for a regional affiliate, for example, is all television media for the most part is in the business of selling eyeballs. Okay, we monetize eyeballs. It's the same way today in virtually all media environments. We're monetizing eyeballs. But now we have so many vehicles coming at you, and where at one time Back in the old days, we might have CBS and NBC and ABC or whatever. These were these big media entities that came at us and then maybe buy a record or listen to the radio and read the newspaper, maybe see a billboard. That was kind of it, really. Along with the most powerful marketing tool though is word of mouth. Today, we estimate, scientists who do studies on advertising say we get an a minimum of 5,000 to 10,000 brand impressions a day. A day!

Crazy overload.

Yeah, and of course the old adage rings true: the answer to confusion is usually no. And so what happens is that people are being bombarded saying, you need to buy this, you need to buy this. That causes confusion. And that creates a noise in the marketplace that is more confusing. The other thing, and this is probably the tragic mental health issue that every human being has to face now in this media-saturated world, is this: that for me to sell you a solution, chances are I have to also sell you that you have a problem. Mm-hmm. And when you consider those messages, 5,000, 10,000 brand messages, boldly, profoundly, and sometimes subtly telling you you have a problem. It elevates the constant level of anxiety that— and comparison that exists in our world. So take what we do, for example. We believe that great marketing is about telling the truth exceptionally well.

I like that.

And part of that truth is telling your story in a way that's meaningful and relevant to those you're called to serve. Not just anybody, those you're called to serve, which is a critical, critical question. When you do that piece and believe in that piece, it means that I have to help you understand and believe in that concept of marketing truth versus what we often see in this marketing deception. And the more people are saturated with marketing deception, uh, get rich quick, 10x this, blah blah blah blah blah, I have to— great businesses have to cut through the noise. They have to rise above the noise. And that's going to be a constant challenge. Because I don't see the world getting any quieter.

Yeah, that is beautiful, and I love that. The marketing truth, like living your truth but first knowing it versus deceiving. And the stats— I mean, I've never thought of it that way, where you're getting bombarded with 5,000 to 10,000 problems a day, inefficiencies, where you're lacking, where you're not enough, where you need something. And that builds that anxiety. So I, I love it. Marketing through truth. Now, when it comes to your marketing systems and reach, your messaging, what have you guys found that's been working well, and where do you find the biggest gaps and frustrations?

Well, I think always the, the, the classic model of once you understand who you're called to serve, uh, one of the things we do with our agency is we do what we call our, our 10 10-digit human address. And I won't go into all of it, but the short version is you need to understand their wants, their interests, their needs, their objections, their fears, their frustrations, their media behaviors, their influencers, their psychographics, how they process information, things like that. And so finding the right people is critical, but it starts with identifying them. A lot of people say, who's your ICP? And we use these tragically broad-sweeping things like, are you a guy, are you a girl, are you 40, what's your title, da da da, the kind of stuff, and I say this respectfully, things that Salesforce might be able to go, oh, that's what it is. But what we have learned, and again, it comes back from my death and really getting to the heart of human relationships, is that great marketing is not just telling the truth, your messaging needs to be as intimate and relatable and relevant as a love letter. And the reason that I say love letter, because when you write a love letter, you know, there's always the Hallmark version where someone writes it for you. And we've got enough of that going on. If you want to, if you want a nonspecific love letter, just, you know, grab AI or grab Hallmark. They'll tell you, you're sweet and kind and I like you and I think you're swell. You know, love me. Well, we know that's about as meaningful as taking a box of chocolates and throwing it at the front door, like a paperboy dropping off a paper. You know, somehow it doesn't hit the mark. And I will say, I'm not saying I know that from experience. I'm— that's it. Ask my wife, she'll say, nah, I figured it out.

We're all learning.

We're learning. But, but when you say growing your market, then knowing who that is, then you have to think, what are their media behaviors, their marketing behaviors, and their buying journey? Okay. So in the case of a lot of people in our space, for example, we find out that people have established some sense of need. They don't know exactly what it is. And they start doing searches. So it's important for us— I would say for any business now, um, almost any business— is recognizing that 80% of the buying process is done before they even meet you. And showing up and deciding how you need to show up in the space that is the vehicle your clients will use to find you is critical. Now, there is no one recipe for that. I mean, I can't say, oh, you know, do this or do that. But some general rules are, is that search and, and our artificial intelligence search vehicles are now going to literally explode. I mean, we can see that.

Yeah.

And so that means showing up means you need to find the vehicles that are going to show up in that space. And I will tell you, from an AI standpoint, they're scouring a lot of things. Do you have a good website? Do you have a good social presence? Uh, do you write articles? Are you on television? Are you doing podcasts? Are you— anything that's electronic that might be seen, that's a valuable tool. So showing up brings credibility. Showing up brings authority. Showing up brings celebrity, by the way. It's another thing I offer in my web class is what I call the 10 keys to never being ignored. And those are— I just gave you 3 of them. Okay. And so that part of showing up where they are is really, really important. The next thing comes into what we call surgical. It's like the example of— everybody remembers the story if you went to Sunday school and Jesus turns to the people on the beach and says, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. Well, guess what? They got it. But we don't always get what that is. I mean, because there's a lot of ways to fish. You can, number one, you can fish with a hook on the dock. And if you know that the people you're targeting are within proximity of that dock, go to that dock. Maybe it's an event. Maybe it is a trade show. Maybe it's whatever. That's dock fishing, by the way, in a way. You just go in, drop your, do that. Sometimes if you're doing big fish, you gotta get in the boat and you gotta go out to them, okay? If it's marlin fishing, you've gotta think about those vehicles that are gonna get you in front of them. Are they on LinkedIn? Maybe, but they might not be posting. So how do you find them in social media? Are they at the trade show? Or do you go back through the door? In fact, one of the number one ways to connect really big fish connections is to find other connections within that group and get connected with them. That's networking.

Yeah.

Um, another way to fish, by the way, is to use a net. Use an ad off the dock or go out and use it and do mass type of stuff. It depends on the nature of your offer, okay? Whether you have a big ticket offer, something that's only purchased once a year, once every 10 years, or whether you have something that people purchase on a weekly basis and you want to create a recurring revenue model. But in either one of those cases, um, Identifying your market and going to them in the way that they want to be received with a love letter, speaking a message of relevance and meaning, right there you've covered 80% of every great business model.

I love that analogy of a love letter that was relevant. It's like the time and effort you put into their need, their problem, their solution, and telling the truth versus scare tactics.

Yeah. Now I say that with respect for all those people that are doing cold emails and doing all those things. Look, the truth is the old adage that if you throw enough mud against the wall, some of it will stick works. It does work. You're gonna get, you're gonna get clients. You're gonna get someone who's gonna find out a way to buy. But just keep this in mind. If all you want is a transaction, all bets are off. There's a lot of ways to do that. All you're looking for is a one-time sell. Boom, all bets are off. But real brand equity, and I think real leadership for any organization, is to actually build a brand that's rooted in those values. Maybe one of those values is I want to treat others the way they want to treat me. I want to respect them the way I desire to be respected. Yeah. Okay. I'm just throwing those out as maybe crazy possible values. And if that's the case, remember this, that every touchpoint will build or undermine your brand. And if there's a CFO listening, let me say it again. Every touchpoint will build or undermine your brand equity. And we're doing work for companies right now that the storytelling that we do for them is not just for a transaction. They're trying to build brand equity. And we have some of them that they build it and then they sell their company for $150 million. They build it. And we have one company we worked with for years that's right now in the middle of a $22 billion merger. That's brand equity. But it's because they paid attention to the touch points, did not throw mud against the wall. They were deliberate, strategic, and mission-driven in how they marketed and grew their market. I love that.

Now, you talked about AI a bit. Where have you guys found ways to utilize it, and where do you still see opportunity on the table?

Well, I think it's probably the biggest opportunity, and I, I say this from a Look, I'm a guy that came from the media world. I'm still in the media world, and I'm an artist, and I believe that intellectual property, true intellectual property, um, belongs to humans. Those humans that make it, those are the real authors. The authority comes from authorship, and expertise comes through lived experience, not just to be able to aggregate and distribute.

Yeah.

And so if in fact you want to maintain that level of integrity, there's a line that you draw with AI that says you can be my editing assistant, you can be my inspiration assistant. If you have tasks that need to be done and you can use AI as a vehicle to duplicate those or do those types of things, I think AI is going to blow up opportunities in that space. And for that reason, I will warn those that if there's people doing rote tasks for a living, you won't be in the future because rote tasks are going to slowly slide as AI steps in to be able to perform some of those. But, and here's the big but, if you're a writer, producer, developer of content, you want to be truly an authority in your field, the line you draw with AI is it's your assistant, but it is never the author.

I love that distinction. I love that distinction.

And there's going to be thousands of ways it's going to be able to assist us. I mean, I think we're just touching the tip of the iceberg right now.

Yes, I love that. And I've seen that where people lean to it to lead, to guide them. They lean to it to, to, to navigate. And I'm like, okay, no, you have to navigate it. Like, it's, it's the student, it's the assistant, not the author.

And it can be the programmer. I mean, there's, there's so many things that you can do with it, from software to app development, again, wrote type of things. It's going to explode and it will change the workforce. And in some cases, I'm just warning for, you know, if there's employees watching this, your managers watching this, a lot of people think, oh, AI is going to replace me. Oh, will it replace a robot moving boxes at Amazon? Absolutely. If you move boxes at Amazon, a robot's taking your job. That's all there is to that. However, if you're a manager, a leader in an organization, be ready for your job to shift because there may be a number of things that you're doing right now that will be replaced by AI. So maybe 50% of your value to the company may be diminished. That is, unless you learn how to bring more value, more value that's unique to you. I don't want to harp on this too much, that's why the idea of understanding your brand story. Your brand story is like your fingerprint. And if you think about what fingerprints, they used to be the way that we found criminals. Now your fingerprints are the way we open safes. The fingerprints are the way we open precious things. The fingerprints are the way we define you like nobody else in the world. And that's the power of the diamonds that are embedded in your story. By learning your story, being able to tell that story and to leverage that story into what you do in the lives you can impact— AI can't take that away from you, ever.

So true.

I love it.

The diamonds that are embedded in your story. I think every person has those, and that is a very well-put illustration of that. Value, and it takes time to uncover those diamonds. And often we just don't want to do enough soul searching, enough digging to find them. Yeah, you gotta copy somebody else's.

So let me do some cubic zirconium over here.

Yeah, so true. Now, Bill, when it comes to your next stage of the business, what are you most excited about, and what do you feel like you need to build or fix to reach that next peak?

Well, the biggest thing, you know, I've been doing what I've been doing for decades and I love what I do. I really do. But I recognize that in this season I want to have greater impact and I want to be an inspiration to the next generation and help cultivate that young talent that is trying to find their way either as artists writers, producers, marketers. And so I want to find ways to do that, and I think I've found a way that we're developing. And then I think I told you I wrote my first book, The Seven Disciplines of Relationship Marketing. That's one way of distilling life wisdom and sharing something. But the thing that I've learned is that, um, people like to do it with you. You know, it's one thing to read a book, and there's some people that reading Buying a book— not to say you shouldn't buy my book. Buy my book, get the audio, you'll love it. You really will. But there's a unique group of people that can actually read a book and then apply it. Yeah, I mean, it really does. And I'm not one of those people. I read a book, I absorb the knowledge, and maybe later on it comes out. So I realized what we're going to do in this next chapter, along with— we're still producing stories, we're still producing live shows and events and multiplying multipliers. That's what I want to do, multiply multipliers. So we're launching a masterclass series. And one of the very first masterclass that we're testing right now is really the power of discovering your own brand story, how to discover it, how to tell it, and how to distribute it. And, and that's a piece I think can literally impact millions of lives because when I was in television, I had the luxury of doing the show and say, how many people watch? Well, a million people watched. In this next season, I'm hoping for tens of millions of people to be impacted by the power of their story and the power of learning that you can tell the truth and make a profound difference in the world, be profitable, be powerful, be influential, influen— influential. And hey, maybe do something that I struggled with. Maybe you still could be a good husband. Maybe you still could be a good partner. Maybe you could still be a good parent. Maybe you still could be a great friend. And maybe you could have a great relationship, you know, between you and God. If you can have those things, I'm all for that. And I'm on a campaign to see that happen.

I love that. That is so beautiful. So Bill, thank you. And for those who want to reach out, spiritmedia.com— is there anywhere else you want to send them or direct them for more material?

Well, right now I'm probably most active on a regular basis, and you can reach me on my LinkedIn. And it's— I know LinkedIn, you can look up Bill Dohlen, there's not too many of them, and reach out to me on LinkedIn. Uh, can hit follow and, and see our content. And if we are doing promotional things with an upcoming web class, we have a new book coming, that's where we're going to put it. And obviously you can DM me and contact me there. I'm, I'm, I'm there to help.

That's awesome, thank you. So one final question for you: if you had to pick one constraint to focus on and solve over the next 90 days, what would it be?

Focus. It's, it's, it's, it's really It's one thing to have your values. It's one thing to have clarity of purpose and mission, but it's another thing to live it out. And I would say that we're in a stage— well, I think we're probably all at a stage that, be really honest, we don't know when our last breath is going to be. So true. Every gift we take is really, it's a gift. And when you really stop to think about what a gift it is, all of a sudden it makes time precious. And it makes every engagement precious. And it makes you think, for example, like when I left that morning when I died, I can tell you, I'm not sure that— I'm not even sure I told my family I loved them because I was so busy to get out the door. And so when you say, what do I focus on? Is I, I focus on focusing on loving the people in my life, letting them know that they are loved. And that includes my clients, my employees, my family. And trying to live a very, very deliberate life that, look, Taylor, if we wrap this up and that's the last words I say and I die, I will have known that I have given my best. I will have shared something that I believe would have a lasting impact on someone else's life. And and you'll have a fun story to tell.

Thank you, Bill. Like, you have a heart of gold and it shows. It comes through, and I appreciate you sharing that with us today. I, I love your approach to this, the, the authenticity, the real, the— it's not pre-packaged, it's not commercialized. Like, sure, it's, it's part of business, but it's get real down to the heart.

Of it.

Who you— who are you serving and how are you serving them? I get to know these— take these hard— take the time to ask yourself the hard questions. And you've done that, and, and it shows. It shows your work, it shows in your demeanor. I appreciate you sharing that so much.

I appreciate Taylor. It's great to be here with you.

Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you for coming on again. And for those who want to reach out again, LinkedIn or spiritmedia.com. Reach out to Bill and the team, they'll help you out. And thank you to today's sponsors of today's episode, Achieve Fractional, which provides fractional executive leadership for growing businesses. And if you enjoyed today's episode, share it with a friend, with a leader, with a business entrepreneur, anybody who is wondering about their own personal brand. Go through these steps. Bill's lined them out. He's been very generous in helping. A lot of people, and he's got a proven track record. So reach out to Bill and the team, and we will see you in the next episode of the Chief Podcast.