Transcription
The vast majority of people who are so-called personal branding experts really are talking about marketing. We're not doing personal branding, we're doing personal branding. We're just sterilizing or sanitizing everything that's unique and different and weird about us. So much of the content I look at that's failing is a sales pitch. If we're not doing that, when can we sell?
A product or service without a story is a commodity. And nobody wants to be a commodity because commodities compete on price.
Say you're doing this but you're not getting many views. Should I quit or should I keep going? You need to become a better storyteller. I noticed Bobby Fle, he often wins these master chef, iron chef cooking things all the time. Bobby cheats a little bit. Did you notice he always comes in with the sauces pre-made because that's his source code. So I would like for each and every single one of you to kind of build up a warehouse of brand assets. So each and every one of us has at least three stories in us. There's your backstory. All right.
So we're going to do something a little different today. I'm shooting a live podcast today with Chris Doe and we're in studio with about 10 15 people here live in the audience so we could do some Q&A and this conversation I believe will be the best personal brand conversation on the internet because there's so much BS out there Chris right now and I just want to break through all the noise and give people the real deal like the real framework for success because uh they're getting you know just conflicting advice on social media and on YouTube and so just before we get into the conversation what do you think is the biggest lie being told to people about building a personal brand.
Well, first of all, the people who are telling you about personal brand, see if they have a personal brand. That's usually a pretty good sign. I don't think you would take cooking lessons from someone who hasn't cooked before. You wouldn't want to buy a house from someone who actually hasn't bought a house or sold a house or anything like that. And I think it's kind of funny that there are so-called so many personal branding experts. Then you look at it's like you have no following. I don't believe in your message, but for some reason, you seem to be an expert. I think what happens in the industry is anytime there's a term that is hot, then people just grab it and use it as an umbrella term or a suitcase word and they start saying this is what it is. And I have a strong opinion about this that the vast majority of people who are so-called personal branding experts really are talking about marketing, conversions, funnels, um what is that called? A lead magnet. And they're talking about high conversions into something else. We already have a term for that. It's called marketing.
Personal branding is something very different. And if you can just look at the word person or personal, like who's the person? What is your story? If they're not really good at telling their story about being vulnerable and real and transparent with you, then it's just left with branding.
Yes, this is something else and this is a really important distinction because there's a ton of videos and I do videos on this Chris and I teach on direct response marketing. I teach on monetization and these are important things for a business for sure. But that's not personal brand. No, that's that's something different which you may have a personal brand plus you're doing some marketing and doing some great things to get more clients to make more money. Um, but I think the reason why personal brand is so important is it just makes for me it makes all those things way easier if you're doing this correctly. And so, um, I've just found like no matter what I wanted to do, it's like the one thing that would make all those things easier. So, if I go back and like think, okay, well, I need to get better at my landing pages. I need to get better, like you said, lead magnets and this and direct response this idea and uh, how can how can we convert more people? But like if you go backwards, if you just had a better personal brand, you would have better clients. You wouldn't have to be the best salesperson or the best marketer. I would argue that you're a poor salesperson.
I am a poor sales person when it comes to conversions.
Correct. But you don't need to be a great salesperson.
Thank you.
Because you have a strong you have a really strong personal brand. So uh before we get into the strategy and we're going to share frameworks today with everybody that are going to be super powerful, can you just define what is your definition of personal brand because I've heard so many different ones.
Okay, let's break that apart. If we look into the corporate space, a brand is a person's gut feeling about a product, service or organization. And it's a feeling. And if enough of us share that feeling, then you have a brand. And what how do you define enough? I don't know what enough is. But say a majority, so 51% of the people think this. And all of us from the time in which we were born have a reputation. Your parents think of you a certain way. Your siblings, your classmates, your peers think of you a certain way. And if they all have different views of you, you have a pretty scattered and unmanaged unintentional personal brand. It's like when we start to show up and we understand who we are and we're able to communicate that not just through words and our writing, but also through actions because actions speak louder than words. We do something called, I guess, trust building. We're building trust at scale. So, we all have personal brands, big and small. But what we're talking about, I think, is how we build it at scale using open platforms like social media. And when you do that enough times and you keep showing up consistently, people start to expect certain things from you. And there is some equity in that. And when you launch a product or when you have people sign up for a list or something, that trust that you built up over time, it just loosens the levers. It kind of removes some of the friction and allows them to say, "Yes, I know who you are. I trust you. You keep showing up and every time I check under the rug behind a door, you're still squeaky clean. I believe in you."
Yeah. It's like um why is it that Chris can be a poor salesperson? Why is it that I don't have the best funnel, but I still we're still rich, you know, relatively.
Relatively.
Yes. Why? Why is that? Because personal brand. So, it just it just uh it does the selling for you if you're doing it correctly. Because people have a feeling associated with you. not unlike how you have a feeling associated with certain brands, big brands. And that same thing can happen for individuals. Um, and also think about it like this, Chris. It's like what do people say about you when you're not in the room.
Mh.
So, you know, both of us are kind of blessed where people might say some good things about us when we're not there. As a result, you might get an email hiring you to do something or you might get a referral just because that. So I think even though people are maybe watching and listening and they're like you know what Neil I don't really have a big following online I don't have a bunch of content out there I want to and we can get into that strategy but you do have a brand whether you like it or not because people are saying things about you hopefully you know good things uh unless you don't come up at all then you then you I guess you you have work to do there.
Yeah, there's something that there's a an idea that I've been trying to move in in this space, which is a lot of us show up as a persona. And a persona is who you show up to be accepted, to be liked, and to be respected. And a lot of us have a professional persona. And it's the funny thing is whenever we write something on social, we try to be professional so that people see us a certain way. That's not really you. That's just who you show up as. and what we where we define our professionalism is what everyone else is doing in our space. You can see there's a problem with that because if you do what everyone is doing, you're going to get what everyone's getting and that's not what you want. So, we're not doing personal branding. We're doing personal branding. We're just sterilizing or sanitizing everything that's unique and different and weird about us and we're putting that out into world. All you have to do is if you don't trust me on this, scroll through your feed. See, it's like every person is saying the same thing. There's no seasoning in it. Everyone is just so bland about everything. And if you can switch the names of whoever's making that post, and it could be from John or Jane or Mary or Bob, then that's the world in which we live in. And you take that and you amplify with AI and now it's getting even worse. Like not a little bit worse, it's getting a thousand times worse.
Yeah. It's like um I wouldn't know it was your piece of content. It could have been said by anybody. And that's the problem. I think uh if you're saying the exact same thing that everyone else is saying, it's just noise. And most people are not only saying the same thing, they're saying it in the same way. There's not even a differentiation there. And I think it it's because they're just doing the tried and true or they're doing what they think would work. Um, but I found, and uh, we're going to get into some strategy on specifically how you could separate from the competition, but I've honestly found that the things that people are hiding would be literally the thing that would connect you with the most customers.
Yes.
It's the craziest thing. And like people are like I'm like, "What are you into, bro? Besides work, you know, and and they'll be like, "Well, I'm into fashion or I'm into this." And I'm like, "Well, how could we blend, you know, them?" And I think they think of it as two different buckets. And I have found with my brand journey of like the more I talked about what I'm passionate about personally and talked about what I'm doing work-wise, it came like one blob.
Yeah.
And then I got like the best customers and the best partners and the most referrals.
Yeah. So there's this thing about uh Sir Ken Robinson, late Sir Ken Robinson, he did this talk on education, what's doing to us in our creativity. He says that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. So in our desire to be accepted, to fit in, we lose so much of ourel in that process. And that's why it's so hard for us as adults to find that thing that makes us unique again. And there's a quote something that says, "The artist is the child that survives adulthood." And there's something that our mutual friend Trevor said one time which I thought was a pretty apt description of what I'm trying to do. He goes, "You remember when you were a kid in first grade or kindergarten and the happiest moments for me, you got a block of like three colors of clay, you got a bunch of crowns, probably more than what I had at home cuz we didn't have a lot, and a pair of scissors, and you got to make stuff." Whatever happened to all that stuff? As we grow into adulthood, we become more mature and professional. They take away your crowns, they take away your clay, and they said, "You must fit in a box." And if you're an abstract thinker, then they say you're being weird and you get ostracized by your group. If you dress differently, if you speak differently, you're made fun of in your teas. So we learn really early on, we go along to get along. And that's a problem. And so now we're like, why do I sound like every single other person? And it's easy to understand. It's very hard to do. You just have to be yourself. It is the easiest thing to do to be yourself. but we just can't do it because we have a lot of BS belief systems that prevent us from doing that.
I hope you're enjoying this video and I want to continue to put out the absolute best content that's going to help you move your business and brand forward. But I need your help. So many of you guys are watching this channel, but you're not subscribed. And that's the number one thing that's going to help me grow. So, if you haven't done so already, hit that subscribe button. Normally, I'd have a fancy ad read and promote some product, but today all I want you to do is just subscribe to the channel. And now, let's get back to the episode.
You know, we talk about being a contrarian.
Yes.
We're going to talk about that. But before we get into a framework for content, cuz there's a couple that you have that are really powerful, what are the other reasons that people fail before they even start? Because one of them is, like you said, not being authentic. Uh being scared. I think it's the biggest one I see is being uh just afraid of people's judgment because um I think over time you start to care less. But I don't know what this is, Chris. I'll tell people the concept. We'll go through it together. We'll both agree it's going to be effective. We'll go through the whole thing. And some of them even write it down. They might even film it and it never sees the light of day.
Yeah.
And I'm just like, "Dude, why don't you post it?"
And my wife was like, "Neil, there's probably another reason." Cuz I was like, "Oh, they're just lazy. They don't post it. They got busy and they they just disregarded what we were doing, the work we did." And she's like, "No, no, no. There's probably something going on internally that's causing them to fail before we even start."
Yeah.
And I don't want to get like too woo woo, but you know what I mean? Like there's something there.
That's not woo. We have to fix that first.
Yeah. There is a psychological need for safety and we don't feel safe when we put ourselves out there. So that all of us have done things we're ashamed of that we have guilt over. All of us. And I think of some of those things myself. I'm like, who is that person? And it's that shame and guilt that hopefully for many of us that prevents us from doing that shameful act again. I forget who said this, but when your body feels weak, I think it's Jordan Peterson. Your body's feeling weak. And there's something about you feeling weak. It's because your uh your sense of right and wrong the the gauge is going off because now we're doing something we know is not right yet we still do it or we don't stop something else from happening and we're we're living in that guilt and shame. So when you recognize that part you stop right.
Yeah. So you stop doing that thing. So when we want to make this post the very most difficult step is the very first step. So you can outline the plan. You give a sevenstep plan. Step one is a very small thing to you or I. We've written the post for you. We helped you craft the video. It's I'll even edit it for you. And all you have to do is hit this one button. It says send and you just won't do it. And there's something deep inside of you. It's and it's mostly fear. Fear of I'm not important enough. Why would I write this? Who would want to listen to this? I have nothing to say.
That impostor syndrome.
Yeah, there's a little bit of that and their sense of worthiness and a lot of it is baked into to our the way we were raised as children that if you had said something radical, if you did something that got too much attention as a parent, I'm trying to keep your ego in check. And so I may say something that feels pretty innocent, that's good parenting, but in the child's mind is just massive. I might run to my room and cry and say, "I hate you, dad. I hate you, mom." from something very small. And so we associate that pain with this action. Pain and action. We go into adulthood. We forget those moments. And now we can't do that anymore because who do you think you are? Neil Dingra, you're taking up too much space. Leave some room for other people to shine. Right? You came home. Mom, mom, I I hit the home run and we won the game. Uh my team celebrated me. The first action of the parent is like, calm the ego down. So instead of celebrating with you, they'll say something like, "No, Neil, relax if they're if they're okay." And they might say something much worse than that.
Yeah.
Which would tear your little child mind and heart apart. And so that's what we carry with us into adulthood.
Yeah. So it's like um I see people that don't believe their advice matters. They don't believe, you know, and they feel like they have to be they see people who are way ahead of the game and they feel like, "Who am I? Chris has a million followers. I've got 1,000. I've got 100. Who am I to give out advice? And so I found that, you know, people may have gone from step A to step D, E, and F, right?
Yeah.
But if you've just gone from A to B, you're actually highly qualified to help someone go from A to B because you've just you've completed that thing. So I like we said earlier in the beginning, who are you to give advice? You don't have a personal brand. If you're but that's if you're teaching personal brand. Like if you've done things in life, you've had some success. Even if it's not amazing like crazy millions of dollars, you've done something. You've helped people or you've done something personally, you can share that and it's going to help someone else even if you're not way down the path. So I think people disqualify themselves in the beginning when they shouldn't.
Yeah.
I found people like are more like they might want to learn from me even though I'm not at the final stages of this thing.
Yeah. But I will say this, don't go on the internet and give advice.
Yeah.
Shock, right? So, we're saying like maybe you shouldn't, maybe you shouldn't. Why don't you just develop a skill?
Yeah.
Do the work first. And your your previous guests at one of your conferences, Alex Ramoszi, said it using different language, but he said, "Do epic stuff and then talk about epic stuff that you did." The problem is we live in a culture and this is probably it's going to trigger a few people is I'm a new graduate or I didn't go to school and I hear there's this coach who's done cool stuff. Then this coach tells you or sells you the program of how to coach other people but you haven't done that cool stuff but you're using all the templates. You're using all the same phrases like look in your DMs. Uh I'm a high ticket closer. I'm an appointment setter. I'm a clip farm guy. And it's like you haven't done anything. you look at it and they have four posts and they have 17 followers, you haven't done anything, but they're using that template without the experience because as coaches, we know it's easier to teach people how to sell the thing that we did than the actual skill that it takes to do that thing first.
So, the rule of thumb is do stuff first. Develop a skill. That should be number one. Get good at what you're doing because getting good is not that easy. And when you're doing that stuff, if you'd like to talk about it, say, "Here's what I'm doing right now. Here's what I'm going through. Here's what I'm learning. Notice the difference. It's not how to, it's how I. And if you can start writing from that place, that gives us all permission to say, I'm not an expert. I'm not a pro. I'm not a master at any of this, but this is what I'm doing, and you can't deny me of my own lived experiences.
That's where we should go with this content.
I love that. Okay. So, uh, I want to get into a framework that you talked about on on another piece of content. But before I do that, what Chris just brought up is so important for people that you know who are maybe they're like they haven't done epic things, but they've done something. Maybe they're in my industry, real estate, and they've helped clients over the years. They've done 10 years of things. They've uh amassed a portfolio for themselves. So, you've done something. You can talk about it. Even if you don't have a big audience, you can talk about it. But it's the way you talk about it. Like, uh I've just noticed people scroll past experts content. So, I have this framework where I've been teaching this and I just stumbled onto it by accident. I would love for you to give your feedback on this. I have found when I want to get more views, and this works even better if you have a small audience. When you want to get more views, I would start the video by making an observation instead of lecturing. So one way like I'll just break it down a simple example like say I want to tell you the best credit card uh to get right now based on uh these uh rewards and points. So I say this is the number one this like here's the number one word credit card that you need to have and I would here's why and I could explain it or I could say like did you guys know that 80% of millennials are getting this credit card? It's pretty crazy. Check this out. Here's what it has in it. And I'm just making observation. I'm not saying it's my idea and sometimes we'll use news clips to say this, but I've noticed those videos get like double, triple, sometimes 10x the views and then you can insert your opinions and and your uh point of view within that. But it starts off with an observation instead of telling people what to do.
Yeah. You're doing what Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about is either tell me something I didn't know or tell me something I knew but got wrong. So when you're like did you know millennials 80% of them do this? That's something I didn't know. So, you're starting with a fun fact.
And people want to be in the know. Like, I've just noticed a lot of people on social um maybe they don't want to be told what to do. And I think they're thinking and maybe you can uh clarify this. Do you I believe that people are thinking, "Who are you to tell me this?" Even if they don't say it out loud, they're subconsciously. So, if you said, "Here's the three tips to buy this or here's the here's what you need to know about this." And they're like, "Well, who are you?" And maybe they go look at your audience. Maybe they don't see the social proof like you said or maybe they just uh subconsciously don't believe you. So, I was thinking if you're in that mode, you should make more observations to grow your following rather than trying to be the expert.
Yeah. When you tell people whatever bit of advice that you have, they're naturally cynical, a little guarded as to what you're about to say because like Neil's going to pitch me something. So, you might get into this whole like factoid thing and then people are like turned off by that. But if you draw them in with a story or some fun some some piece of information, there's something about a momentum that will carry you through. So the first 5 seconds or 6 seconds of your video can be like this kind of eyebrow raise moment and before they know it, they're halfway through the content and you you probably will want to stick to round to the end. So just by changing that, you draw people in and we kind of want to know how it finishes. Take for example any series that's being streamed on any of the big networks, any of them. Could you ever just watch one episode? That's the thing. They always end it on somebody's about to get shot or somebody does get shot but we don't know who who got shot. Of course, now you're into episode two and they do a quick recap and they delay it and then they tell you and then they set it up again. They're always building tension and that's what you need to do in your content. You got to build tension by creating a curiosity gap.
Okay. So how does the person who's creating content now maybe not getting a lot of views how can they build curiosity gap with their content to start?
Well, we have to get into something specific.
Okay, so let's design a scenario.
Okay, so let's talk about this. Uh let's go with the real estate person and there's many people in different industries, but let's say they're trying to give expertise. Uh we just did this right before he got here, so it's a great example. Somebody in here wanted to give some expertise to the market uh to the followers to his followers about opportunities he's seeing in the market today.
Okay. And why is that relevant to me?
Well, we don't it may be relevant, it may not be relevant. So, we're trying to make. We have to start with why do I why should I care about these opportunities?
Yeah. And so, that was um what we were struck on stuck on. So, we're like we're thinking how could we make this more interesting for the person? So, one of the ideas was coming up with a better hook. Like, you know, the I guess level 101 would be like, don't introduce yourself. Let's just get straight into the content. So, we're assuming someone's past that already. So, you're starting off the video with a good hook. Um, and that would be like here's the biggest opportunity in the market. An observation hook would be here's a strategy I'm seeing a lot of people use in today's market to find success or here's a strategy I'm seeing people use to save thousands or something like that. But I found that when the one that you brought up, the curiosity gap, those do way better. Like those videos get a lot more views. So, how do we structure that?
If you're talking about opportunities, I'm just freestyling here. I wasn't prepared to answer this question. So, we'll try something that could suck or could be okay. If you're talking about opportunity, I don't know about you guys, but it would be great if we could all see the future. If we knew that um investing in Apple would have been good. So, here's my story. I had Apple stock and this is when Steve Jobs was still alive and running the company. So I would buy when it dropped because because it was up and down all the time and fluctuating massively and then uh I would sell when it was high and I just kept doing this and I kept increasing my portfolio really fast 30% 40%. And during the financial crisis in 2008, I believe all stocks went like that and I had a little panic attack because I was thinking all this really disciplined investing I guess if you can call it that for the years that I've been doing this and just slowly growing that and growing it was all gone. I was like oh my god that was the lesson in greed. So I thought so as the market was recovering. I called my financial planner and I said, "John, sell that stock when it hits a certain number." He goes, "Chris, I don't I don't think so." I'm like, "I'm I'm really nervous. Steve Jobs has already passed and I'm worried that it will never recover." Okay.
Yeah.
Now, we know how that story turned out because Apple stock is like 10x that. And I sit there and look at that decision. I'm like, [laughter]
I could have been somebody. I could have been a contender.
Yeah.
And and that was an opportunity that's missed.
And here might be one of those moments in the market that you're not seeing either.
Yes.
And that's how it would transition to that.
So it'd be like a personal story.
Yeah.
This would be a great. Yeah. I love that. Um.
Does that work?
Yeah.
You all understand that?
Yeah. I think so. It's like what's cool about what you did there, Chris, and and we this is like just off the cuff. We could refine it and make it tighter, but the thing that he's saying here is something that has broad appeal. So, I think that one way to get more views or to when you're building your brand, you want more people to see your stuff, right? Everybody inherently wants that. Well, I found that they're talking about like very niche topics. And I know there's riches in the niches, the whole thing. But I found like if you can take it and tie a tie it um put it underneath an umbrella of a topic that has broad appeal or everyone would understand. So, if I'm talking about real estate opportunities and credits and things like this that are available today, some people might be interested. Many people are not. They don't even know what that means. But everybody knows Apple stock, right?
Yeah.
So that has brought appeal.
Well, there's a couple of things. Number one is I'm telling a real story that only I can tell. Yeah. Okay.
And I'm giving you specifics. So like you're like it's not generic. He just didn't make that up. There's enough components to it that you believe it to be real. It is real by the way. And then we sit there and think the audience is listening thinking I've done things like that or I've regretted decisions of not moving or selling or buying and I don't want to miss that opportunity again. So now our our two stories are overlapping and integrating. So now maybe if you relate to that story you might feel a little bit more sense of trust and the next thing I'm going to say it's like oh maybe that is an opportunity versus I just ripped something from the headlines. I want to sell you something and pitch it to you right now. And that's probably not the best way to build a relationship with a stranger who's tuning in for the very first time.
Yeah. I found that most people who are supposedly building a personal brand are just running sales pitches like ads.
All their content looks like ads.
Yeah.
It's all self-interest content. You're promoting your services almost in every video or if it's not said, it's like embedded in there. What you can do is you can just write the ending of a lot of stories, put them in a jar, and if you're stuck on what to post today, you know, go around that thing and pull out one like, "Okay, I know how this one ends." And so, if you gave me an ending, I can pretty much search my memory banks and find a personal story. Hopefully, it's relatable, that has broad appeal, that's vulnerable, and I can land it on that. I had a conversation with you. I was like a couple weeks ago. It was right before an event. I had something planned, and I was like, "You know what? I want to tell this story, but I don't know who would find value in it. And you're like, Neil, of course there's value in it. You could tie it to this, this, this. There's always a lesson in the story. So, I think that's the part that you're talking about, the ending.
Yeah.
Like, if I knew that ending, I work backwards now.
You know what I mean? Like, I can I can I know where it ends. And uh the worst feeling is when someone's talking and you don't know where the plane's going to land. Like, you don't know how like we're just lost. You know what I mean? Like, it just rambles on and on and on.
That's right. So, I think uh storytelling is going to be great, but there's something you talked about, Chris, when he talked about content strategy. And you said it's the source code, your source code. What do you mean by that?
Content strategy.
Yeah. Like uh when you're talking about your personal brand.
Yeah.
Uh this comes up a lot where like you have some sort of underlying thing where we've done some work before we start doing the content rather than just going into straight doing it. So, this is like if you've already been making content, you haven't been getting results, you could go backwards and do this. or if you're just getting started, this is something you should do in the beginning before you start.
Okay, I think I know what you're talking about. I'm going to say something. If it's not right, just redirect me because I feel like you might know what it is already. You ever watch those reality cooking shows and they're like, "Okay, uh the theme is bok choy and snap peas or something. I don't know what whatever." And you have to make dishes around that. And they gave them time to run into the pantry. I think the part they don't show you is they sit there and write the menu. they kind of figure things out so they can find 17 different ways to express express this theme and then all we see is the chaos. They run in there and grab stuff and I think a lot of us for storytelling we are the chef without that part edited out. We just run into the pantry we start grabbing stuff but wouldn't it be better if we knew what those components were and we had an idea and we had a very curated pantry. I noticed Bobby Fle. You guys know Bobby Fle. He often wins these Master Chef, Iron Chef cooking things all the time. Bobby cheats a little bit. Did you notice he always comes in with the sauces pre-made? That green Verde sauce he has or the red sauce. He's Those things take a long time to make and he's always pulling them out, drizzling it on things like, "Whoa, where'd that come from?" Cuz that's his source code. He knows there's flavors that he's well known for and that really delight a broad audience in a jury. You know that. the rest of you run in there with salt and vinegar and just trying to mess up stuff and we don't know what we're doing. So, I would like for each and every single one of you to kind of build up a warehouse of brand assets, story components, so that if in a pinch you don't know what you're doing, you go to those sauces. So, each and every one of us has at least three stories in us. There's your backstory, which is like how you came into this world. It's the easiest story to tell. It's often the most overlooked because it's so easy. It's so obvious. And that is the story of your parents. Who are your parents? What did they do in their lives? How did they meet? And this brings you into the world. Your birth order matters. The city in which you were born matters. And the city in which you choose to reside in matters. So just by telling that part of your story, it says a lot about you. I went to a family therapist and we spent the first one or two sessions just talking about my parents, their siblings, the birth order of each and where we came from and where we are. and she had a pretty good map of who I was before I even said anything to her. And she was able to astutely point out, "Chris, you're a constant improver and you're a caretaker." I agreed with one, I disagreed with the other, but I was wrong cuz I was a middle child. And she's just like, "I know you're a caretaker." And I challenged her. I was like, "No, cuz in my house, I'm the king of the house. My wife takes care of everything. My parents take care of everything. I have to do nothing." And then she asked me like three or four questions, and she nailed me. She nailed me right down. She said, "When you're growing up, um, who helped your whoever did the laundry? Who helped them with laundry?" I'm like, "It was me." And who helped to clean out the bathrooms? It was me. And who helped with the the lawnmowing stuff? Oh my god, you are right. I am a caretaker. I just didn't even know it. And this ties into an adult problem that I have, which I have a hard time establishing boundaries. when people would challenge me, I was more concerned about how they felt than how I felt. And it's really messed up. And I went to her to get help for this thing. And by her pointing this out, I'm so much more aware like, uhoh, I'm going to repeat a pattern from my past versus being the person I aspire to become.
Yeah.
And so that really helped me.
Okay. So this is like one of the stories.
One of the stories, the origin story. The other one is a a um [sighs] like some kind of event that triggers a big idea inside of you. All right. Um I'm spacing because my brain's like racing.
Okay. So something where everything changed for you. Some transformation.
It's about to change.
Or a fork in the road.
A fork in the road. Yes.
And it's a hint as to who you're going to become. It's a compelling event. Something happens in your life that's about to change. And you know this point. It's an inflection point, right? uh for me in my life it was the point in which I decided I'm not cut out to do traditional things and then I'm going to become a designer and there were key people to help me with that and I just reduced it down to three names it's Rudy and it's Brad and it's Dean three men in my life sort of connected unconnected help me to get on my path to becoming a designer and so if you know your story you can create little pneummonic devices things to help you remember them by just bringing two or three words and instantly you can recall those stories.
Yeah. And.
So it's a turning point.
And then somebody who's watching and listening and they're thinking, well, what does this have to do with my business? You know, how am I going to make money with this? And and I get that, you know, the cynical people because I I talk to business people all the time. I will tell you that so many people will do business with you because of these things that you share. You know, it's not like you're doing it for the purpose of getting clients or doing this, but this is part of the whole thing we talked about in the beginning, which is building a powerful personal brand, which will make your sales and marketing everything else easier. So, I'll give you example. Um, I was thinking about stories to tell. One of the stories to tell on my list was like, uh, an inflection point for me as a child, which I think I did not tell the story. I'm like, uh, six years into making content, and I was telling myself, nobody gives a crap about this. Why would I even tell this on social media? So, what I chose to do was uh it was a it was something my mom did for me as like when I was 13 years old. She got me a drum set and then it set me on this path and then it led to me doing business. And it ties like I had a little story about this. So, what I did was I had this whole story. I'm like, what is how are we going to format this for social media? Um and I just kind of word vomited the whole thing into AI. And I used Claude, you could use chat GPT, whatever you want to use. And I just said, "Help me refine this, you know, because it's it's got all the components. It's a story I can tell." And it kind of organized it for me, organized my thoughts. And then I played with it a little bit. And I ended up just putting it into just a few lines. And I did it in the form of a carousel. And um a and I got so much feedback, like so many conversations, so much uh comments, so much engagement from a story that I thought no one would give a crap about. You know what I mean? Like, and I'm in real estate and marketing. Why would they care about this moment when I was a kid? And they did. Like it was really cool just to see. So I would just encourage people like hey you might think this doesn't matter. Well these are conversation starters. This is how people remember you. And uh it just separated me from everybody else who's not telling anything about their past.
I have a whole philosophy behind this. So there's a gentleman his name is Michael Margolus and he wrote a book called story 10x. I interviewed him for a pod and he said very clearly a product or service without a story is a commodity. Everybody understand that? And nobody wants to be a commodity in any regard because commodities compete on price. And what we're trying to do is be premium. Yeah.
Okay.
Stories actually shape our thinking and our actions way more than you think.
So you see those white acoustical panels on the wall there.
They they serve a purpose, right? They're to absorb sound and.
Reflection of sound waves, right? But if I told you that is a white painting by uh Jean Michelle Bascat, all of a sudden those aren't just functional anymore, it's powerful or it's it's a mother well or something like that. You're like, whoa. And if we put little titles underneath it and this was a museum gallery like setting, you would sit there and pontificate the meaning of life staring into a white canvas. It's because it's a story and stories move us. And if I gave you a print and I told you it's just a print, you would feel like it's not very valuable, right? But then if I told you it was an original, all of a sudden becomes much more valuable and all I did was just change the story for you. And if I told you this artist has passed away and people are paying 10x for it. You don't you cannot verify any of those things, but all of a sudden in your mind like wow, I have a one of one from an artist that's passed away that's really really valuable. See, I I I want to do this test sometime into the future, but it's a thought experiment. You know, if you ever have somebody who is painting like your house, like a house painter, they put a canvas drop cloth and things spray all over it, right? That's what its job is to collect those sprays. If we were to cut that out and put it on a frame, hang in a gallery, and say this, that's a Jackson Pollock, people would flip out. It'd be worth millions of dollars. And the difference between a Jackson Pollock and there's argue, you can argue this and I would surrender and just someone else dripping painting on the thing is the story that's attached to it. One is worthless. One is going to be thrown in the bin. One is cherished and is going to be sold at SE at an auction somehow.
Yeah.
And it's story. So when you deny the world your story, you are saying please treat me as a commodity because I have nothing here. And that's the problem.
Yeah, that's huge. And most people aren't telling any of these stories.
No, they're not. Cuz they're like, "My story is not important."
Yeah.
And so all of those people who don't want to tell the story, keep doing that. Makes my job a lot easier to stand out.
Yeah. Well, this is the cool part about content and personal brand is people will tell me it's saturated, but it's not because most people aren't doing the things we're talking about. They're not they're they're doing theformational content, but they're not sharing personal stories. They're not sharing mistakes they made. And it doesn't always have to be business uh it doesn't always have to be personal stories.
It can be business stories as well. You've told a lot of business stories about, um, you know, how you got into, how you left your client work and got into starting your personal brand, and the guy who helped you do that, and all these things. Like you've told in various pieces of content over the years, and it gives this connection to you. Like a lot of people feel connected to you, and then those are the same people who end up hiring you and, you know, working with you in the future. So there's some, there's like a lot of business strategy behind this.
There's two things I want to cover before we wrap this up. One thing is, uh, one another way to stand out from this sea of bland, like you talked about, is, uh, to be a contrarian. And we can talk about this for a moment. And then the last part, which I think people are interested in when they're building a personal brand, is a one idea for monetization. And I know you did it recently, and I want to, and I have a, a take on this. So we'll do those two things. Okay, I'm just letting you guys know.
"You remember?"
"Yes, I'll remember. I got it written down. So you told me this before. You said you need to be contrarian. You need to have a unique point of view. You have a U, YU, and POV."
"Oh, you remember this?"
"Yes, I remember things, bro."
"All right, cool."
"I took my medication that day. So, it's like a, it was a cross. All right. So, POV, unique point of view."
"Yes."
Now, um, I have found in my journey of like years creating content and making a lot of money online and all these things, that the number one way to stand out is to have a contrarian belief, like to be different than what everybody else is doing.
"Yeah."
"And it might not be that you're that much different. Like you might even, you don't have to say outlandish things. It might be just you're the one that actually says it in a way that people connect with. Like there might be, uh, I've noticed sometimes somebody will watch a video and be like, 'Man, thank God somebody finally said it.' Like you could have said it too, bro. You don't have to wait for me to say it, you know? But a lot of people are thinking it, but I just said it. So, um, you said don't be a contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian. You said you have to be a correct contrarian."
"Yeah."
"So, but like people are scared of being incorrect. So, how do you balance that?"
"Okay. All right. You all know what contrarian means. To go the opposite, against the grain, uh, to, to defy conventional wisdom. Anything that the mass is doing, you some do something different. And I have to give credit to this. It's a Mark Manson concept, and he's the guy who wrote The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F."
"Yeah."
"Mark Manson. He's a..."
"Even his title is a contrarian."
"Yeah, pretty much. And he said like, if you want to be a 1%er, not 1% in wealth, but just a 1%er, like different than a 99%, you have to be a contrarian. But everybody can say something like the moon is made of cheese. That's contrarian. Or the earth is flat. And some of you might believe that, but that's contrarian. But then you're just like a crazy person. So what we have to do is we have to say things that go against the majority. That is correct. That's the difficult part. To be a correct contrarian is the key. Because if Neil's like saying something like, 'The world will end in three days.' Contrarian. And if it ends, doesn't end in three days, then he's just a fool. And after a while, we're like, 'We don't believe them anymore.'"
"Yeah."
"It's like a dumb prediction."
"Yeah. I'm not telling you to be different, to be wacky. I'm just telling you to look inward because you have a lot of different ideas about things that is rooted in a deep core philosophy or belief system or value system. Speak from that place."
"I have a, and I have an idea for this. I would, I would love to hear your opinion on this if you think this is a good exercise."
"Okay."
"So, I was like making a list of things that people say in my business or things that people say in my niche on social media that I don't agree with, that either they need more nuance or like they need more explanation, or like I think they're just flat out wrong. And, uh, sometimes it's stuff I'm like afraid to say. Like I hate, I hate how in real estate, in my industry, people always say, 'It's a great time to buy.' Well, sometimes it's not. You know, it may not be the right time, but it's always a good time according to them because they want to make money. So, that's like a basic example. You know, you should always buy. Well, maybe you shouldn't. That would be like my opposite of that one basic example. But, I make a list of this. Um, and it might be life things, it might be business things. Uh, there's like one of the things that people say about, they might have a, a, a teaching about debt and they might say, 'Debt is bad.' Well, I believe debt is good. Like I believe debt made me rich, and I want to tell people about that. So these are like contrarian beliefs I have. No. So I'm just thinking of, is that a good exercise for people to just write this stuff down? And then what is the, what is the thing that everyone's saying, and then what is your opinion on that?"
"Yeah, there's lots of ways to do this. So let's take this exercise and chop it up a lot of different ways. Okay."
"Okay."
"Number one is, if you make a list of what everyone in your industry is saying or your peer space is saying, then that should be your no-fly list. Don't say that because you're just contributing to more noise. What happens here is, what if you believe one of the things?"
"Don't say it. Okay? Because here's how it works, right? This is being said. If you say it, the person who's most well-known in that space will get the credit for that and say like, 'Oh, you're just ripping off John or Mary.'"
"Yeah."
"And you're like, 'I didn't.'"
"Well, you can't go where they're going. Right. Um, that and that that's one, one problem with that. So, there's a couple different ways. So if you make a list of what everyone's saying in your space, you cannot say that. You can then say, of these things, which do I disagree with, if any? That's what Neil is saying. That's an excellent exercise."
"I'll give you another one that's a little bit easier to do potentially. It's just look at that and say, can I alter any of these things ever so slightly to make it my own? So I can take any one of these things, mostly probably because I'm a creative person. I'm trained to think like this. I'll give you an example right now, right? I was talking about something on social and somebody said, 'Chris, yeah, the more you earn, the more you learn, the more you earn.' And I didn't want to disagree with them, but I disagree. 'The more you learn, the more you earn.' That is a cliche. Everybody knows this, right? Knowledge is power. This is what everyone's saying. So, I was like, do I have a different take on this? And then I just use that creative muscle to say, what's a different way of saying that? So, I, I wrote, 'The more you apply, the higher you fly.' So learning is great, but application is way better. So I can take a cliche and just twist it ever so slightly in the same cadence and then make it my own. Now I've come up with a phrase that I think is ownable. I don't know if anybody has written that before. I haven't read it, so maybe I can own that for a minute."
"Yeah, I can see that on the slide in a presentation."
"You can see that, right? And so you and I, when we talk about keynotes, and I'm like, 'Oh, Neil, you're so close to a phrase. Why don't you just tweak it like that?' And you have a phrase you, you use a lot. 'I don't believe doors are closed, it just means you have to push harder.' "
"Yeah."
"And if you, if you work on the phraseology of that, you could probably have one of those brand assets that become part of your source code."
"Yeah."
"So what we're doing is we're, we're world-building. We're building assets. So Neil has a few assets, right? His assets is probably the hat wearing backwards. So anytime you see a guy wearing his hat backwards, you're like, 'That must be Neil.' And if other people in the room started doing that, even though they didn't see Neil, you would automatically assume you were influenced by Neil. That's why you don't want to do what Neil's doing, right?"
"Yeah."
"And if you had, it could be anything."
"Well, it could be anything. It could be the tone of your voice."
"So, there's this guy that has a really deep voice. He's a white guy, and he gets in his car, and he knows this about himself. He's a pretty good-looking white guy. Gets in a car, and he starts talking about nothing, but his voice is so deep. Women are just going crazy in there and it's like, 'Oh my god, my ovaries just dropped.' Or something like that. I'm like, 'Holy cow. Holy cow.' Right."
"Just from his voice."
"Just from his voice. Because that was one of his gifts and he figured it out."
"Dude, now that you say that, reminds me there's a guy in our group, uh, our content group. His name is Steve. He has a voice like that. It's, it's like made for radio, and he grew the fastest I've ever seen in the group. He like had 100,000 followers fast."
"And he's not doing content that's that much different than me. He might even say the same thing I said, but his voice is better."
"The voice is better, bro."
"The voice is better. Yeah, it is."
"So, it doesn't necessar Like there's so many cool things like it could be the way you shoot the video. There's a guy here shoots his video playing drums, you know? That might be his thing. You know what I mean? Like, who knows? Or you still while she's on the running path, something."
"There's no way I can talk while running. Like, I'm so, I'm so winded. So, like she could do it and that would be her thing. So, I think packaging and delivery style can be your way of of being different as well. It doesn't necessarily have to be something totally different as well."
"Yeah. All you have to do is play against type, by the way."
"Yes."
"So, in Hollywood, you're a typecast, right? You're the leading person. You're the villain. You're the shifty blah blah blah. You're the gangster. You're always the criminal. They, they get cast into these roles and they're stuck. They're typecast. So, one thing you do is you break the typecast by playing against type. Everybody understand that? So, Brad Pitt is almost always the leading man. He's almost always the good guy. When he's not, we are like, 'No, Brad, you can't be that guy, right? You have to be the strong guy.' Looking Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he's a carpenter, I think, and a gopher. And when he, he gets into trouble, we're like, 'He going to be all right. He going to smoke these people cuz he's going to be all right. You can't beat him up.' Because if we did, and we saw him weak, we would flip out, right? So, what you do is you play against type, right? You're the, uh, and I see some, I, I, uh, some British black people and some African-American people do this where they are really super eloquent and highly educated and their vocabulary is ridiculous and they're, they were saying something like, 'Don't just say it's nice weather today.' Then they would do it 17 different ways like, 'Oh my god.' That is also playing against type. Like we assume something of you, and you do something totally different. You're poetic, or you're this, or an old person being physically strong. That's cool. That's interesting."
"You just play against type. Whatever you can do, play against type. And that's an easy way to stand out. That's a, that's a hack."
"Yeah. I think like, what would they expect people of your, uh, position to say? You said the opposite."
"Yeah."
"That's against the grain, against type. Basically."
"There was a super flamboyant gay guy who does makeup and he's a right-wing Republican. That's playing against type."
"Exactly."
"You understand? Like, do they accept you?"
"And he goes, 'Yeah, they do, I guess.' Yeah. Yeah."
"And so, okay, this is how we stand out. This is contrarian frameworks. We're talking about storytelling. We're talking about how to be unique. Tap into stories only you can tell. Say things different than everybody else. And so, once you've been doing this, you'll notice that a lot more people remember you. You're, it doesn't necessarily mean your videos go viral, but I've noticed a lot, you stand out from from everybody else. And in this, in this, um, content that I'm seeing right now is doing the best because I think as you talk about AI, there's a new term, it's called AI slop. There's just so much AI. It's just slop. It's just, and it's just regurgitating the same things. So what we're talking about right now is literally, I think, going to be the cheat code. It's just getting back to like, okay, what are the things that you could do to be different than all this garbage that's out there? Um, and it will get you through the valley. And this is what I wanted to just quickly talk about, Chris, before we wrap up. Say you're doing this, but you're not getting many views. You're not getting many impressions."
"Most of the people I found in, as I've been teaching this, quit during that time period."
"I call it the valley, or the pl, I guess it's a plateau. It's a valley. Okay. So..."
"What's your advice to someone who's, okay, they've taken our advice, they started making the stuff, and it's like, dude, I got like 18 views, or I didn't get any likes. Should I quit or should I keep going? Do I suck? Like you said, does that, is that an indication from the universe that I suck?"
"Yeah, maybe you do suck. I don't know. We'd have to look at it. And it's an individual case. But I will say this, each and every one of you has a voice. You have stories that when you tell it, and you do a really good job, you empower a whole lot of people who identify themselves as you, as you represent them, and you encourage them. That's a pretty good reason to get good at this. If every one of you aspires to be respected a little bit more during meetings, to win a few more pitches on new business calls, to be able to not crumble when somebody's like, 'Hey, can you say a few words about X?' or to be up on stage delivering a powerful keynote, influencing folks and teaching them in a very powerful, persuasive way. The secret to all of that is just to become a better storyteller. Right? You can think about your entire life and from from the time which you can understand words to now. Who are we drawn to? The people who can tell really good stories. Your, your uncle, your cousin, your aunt, your mom, grandma, whoever. Or there's a reason why video games and and TV shows and movies are so big. They're stories, and they allow us to experience the stories in ways that we feel like we're reliving something. We're not being told something, we're reliving it with them. So, if you can be a better storyteller, I think you're going to do really well. And it's a life skill, and you can use this everywhere you go."
"So, if you're not getting views or engagement, you just need to become better at the skill."
"Yeah. You need to become a better storyteller. And so, when you're not getting views, it's just like human expression here. It's part of your existence to do this. And so if you're worried about the metric of likes, I think your motivation might be wrong."
"Yeah."
"We're playing back into the game of what we're supposed to be doing. Like, each and every single one of us should just want to do that. And if we get somebody showing up, that's just the cherry on the top."
"You can have your cake and eat it."
"And so the reward is, as you get better at telling stories, first of all, you'll learn a lot more about yourself, and you'll embolden other people to do the same, which is freaking awesome. And you might help someone who's in a really dark spot in their life right now, just to breathe a little hope into their life."
"Yeah."
"And I think that's the, the journey humans are on. The internet is filled with really negative content, and it outperforms positive content. But positive content also does really well. Like, I'm in bed crying my eyes out because somebody's doing something good for a cat."
"Yeah."
"And I send it to my kids like, 'Oh, dad, what are you doing?' I'm like, 'It's just so touching that they rescued this little cat or a squirrel or something, and they're best friends now. It reminds us of our humanity.' And I'm a humanist. I want to believe that there's good in the world. And when people do good in the world, I just feel so good inside. Yeah. And this is the thing that people bring up the most, uh, in my experience as well, where they'll come up, they'll see me at a web class locally, I mean, a, an in-person class here locally, or if we do an event, someone comes up and they're like, 'Dude, I love it when you told me about this,' or 'Hey, how's this going?' It's something I talked about in the story. And, uh, I think people don't realize that this is a form of connection. Small talk, but small talk leads to big talk. And the doors open for like, you know, transactions and and partnerships and business. But it starts off with the connection. So I think it's the biggest thing that people ignore when they're building a personal brand is like, they think, 'Oh, this doesn't really matter,' or 'I'm trying to do this business goal.' But I think most powerful relate, oh, we just had a conversation about this at my mastermind. It's the who, not the how, you know? And everybody's just one or two connections away from changing their business and their life. How do you get those type of connections? It's through this, what we're talking about right now, through personal brand."
"So, wait, wait, I want to say something before I forget because I don't have a notepad in front of me."
"I think one of the scariest things in life is to feel like you're alone. That no one can relate to you, and you can relate to no one. So if you're in a strange town, when the language is foreign, and everything is foreign to you, you're probably at your most vulnerable. Yes. If you've ever traveled anywhere, if you've been in a different state, you're like, 'Whoa, they do it different here.' And you don't see people like you, and then you see someone, you hear an accent, you're like, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa. What town you from?' 'Kansas.' 'Oh, I'm from.' And then there's an instant bonding. They could be a serial killer, but you're like, 'You got my trust instantly.' You know what I'm saying?"
"And con artists use this to their advantage. They know I throw a little twang in there, I mention this city or that state or that flower or that team, that sport, and all of a sudden they, we are in because we're so longing for connection. So when you tell a story, you give people an opportunity to connect with you. So my brother from another mother, Vin Jang, he says, 'Why do we tell stories? Why is telling stories so important?' He gave a very unusual answer, a contrarian answer to this. Did, did anybody hear his answer? Bing Jang. Okay, he's an Australian Vietnamese guy. He said, 'We tell stories to remind ourselves of who we are. So when people attack us, we remember.' That is a reason to tell stories, don't you think? Because if you're not telling your story, then others are defining what your story is. Oh, Neil's ex. Neil's greedy. Neil doesn't really care about people because Neil has no stories about when he cares about people."
"Yeah."
"You see what I'm saying?"
"So your story isn't for them. It's for you to know who you are."
"And without those stories, they can just, they write the story."
"They pretty much define it for you."
"Yeah. So it might be like, 'Why do you do this job?' 'Why are you so driven to do this?' And then somebody would come up with the wrong definition. You just said it. They might say, 'Oh, that person's just greedy.'"
"Yeah. And you know what the worst part? We believe them. Yeah."
"Maybe they are greedy. I don't know."
"I don't know."
"Yeah, that's true."
"That's like professional gaslighting."
"Yeah."
"They're rewriting your history because you haven't told your story because you don't know yourself."
"Yeah, I think that's, and that's a powerful thing of people just letting people know why they do what they do. Like, what got you into this business? Why do you do this? Why are you passionate about it? Maybe you're not. And so you can't tell that story. But most of the people I talk to, they have something that drives them, why they do this job every day. And they never tell anybody. They never talk about it."
"Now, to get back to your question though, you still suck at storytelling. What are you going to do?"
"Get help. Yeah. There are people who can look at your story, look at how you deliver it. So a lot of it can be tonality, diction, phraseology, learning how to put a breath in there, editing out all the junk. So there's so many different kinds of people who can help you. I would just encourage you to look for help from people who know how to do it, not people who talk about it theoretically, would have done it."
"That's a big difference."
"And if you look on social media right now, the number one content, um, that's reaching the most people is storytelling. When I went on YouTube, people that, that term right now is going viral in long-form videos. So like people are searching, 'How to tell better stories,' 'How to be a better storyteller.' So, there's a reason why because in this world of just bland content, this is the way to stand out. So, last step here before we wrap this, because we got like five minutes here. Um, people want to make money, okay? And we're talking about personal brand. This might be a hard left turn on this episode, but they're building a personal brand because they want to monetize. And I just figure, hey, the reason I believe that the reason why I had success, and maybe even why you had success, was you weren't doing it for the money. You're just doing it for the creative expression and you just want to put yourself out there. Maybe people watch, maybe they don't, but you just wanted to do that. I do think it's okay to also want to grow your business. That's, that's a valid thing people want to do. But it can't just be like so salesy. So when we earlier, I said so much pe, so much of the content I look at that's failing is a sales pitch. So if we're not doing that, when can we sell? And so one of the things I noticed you do, and I, and I, I love doing this as well, is you recently wanted to launch a new service for clients. And so the way you launched it was a webinar. And I've been talking a lot about this. It's a web class webinar where you get people on a Zoom call, essentially. You teach them, and then you offer them something at the end. And this could be done for any business, consumers, business people, doesn't matter. I've done it for home buyers. I've done it for people in my industry, marketing services, whatever. It works really well if you do it correctly. But I remember you were, we were talking about how am I going to sell? And you said you were working on a whole webinar thing, and then at the end, you, you, you messaged me back and you said, 'Neil, I'm throwing this whole thing out and I'm just going to do the anti-webinar.' "
"Oh yeah. Yeah."
"So what is the anti-webinar? What did you do that? Because it ended up working."
"Yes."
"And you, you didn't sell, or you did sell. I don't know what you did."
"Yes."
"Have you all been on a webinar before?"
"Yes."
"The ones that are good follow a very specific formula, and you think you're going to learn something. Like there's going to be three things I'm going to teach you today that might transform your life, and you're waiting for the whole thing to end. They're like, 'Where is this thing?' And what they do is they agitate the problem. They tell you like why you suck, why you're not happy, why you're poor, why you don't look good, or whatever it is that they're saying. And they really build that up, and then they tell you about how other people have been transformed. So like, 'Gosh darn it, when is the part where you actually teach me how to do something?' And the truth is, they never teach you how to do anything because once they teach you, they've created a problem for themselves. Do you know what the problem is? If you teach something, you don't hire them."
"You don't need them. Or you're like, 'Okay, I, I got to go do this before I join the program.' And you know what? We're all stuck in a state of inertia. We're not going to do anything. And so we're like, 'Well, why would I enroll in the program because I haven't done this one thing you told me to do?' And so that's what the webinar model is. And it's been perfected, like the Russell Brunson webinar model that he's taught into many people, and they do that to perfection. And I'm the kind of guy who's like, I don't want to manipulate you. I want to inspire you, and I want to be really honest and transparent with you. So I tell people, 'Here's the webinar structure. I even tell them like, this is the Russell Brunson technique, said we're not going to do that. I just want to let you know.' And then you could almost hear a collective sigh on Zoom, if you can. Chris is not going to do that, because they were getting real nervous that I'm going to go right down this path. So I said, 'Let's anti-webinar this. Everything that they do, we're going to do the opposite.' And so I just plugged that webinar model into Claude or GPT and said, 'I, I need an opposite version of this that's more aligned with my values.' And they told me because it knows enough about me, and it's like, 'Here's how you do it.' And I followed those instructions and I did the anti-webinar."
"Yeah. And this is like..."
"Webinar."
"And I, I've had the same thing. The people who trained me, I had a direct response coach a long time. I talked to you about this, and he told me how to do these webinars, and he said, 'You want to teach them this amount of stuff, but don't give them too much because then they won't pay for your thing or they won't hire you to work with you.' And, um, it didn't sit well with me. And so I found success in going against the grain and just giving people the playbook. So like, actually teaching. So if you came to this web class, you're going to learn these things. It doesn't matter whether you work with me or not. You're going to leave the call better off. Like you're going to be like, 'Dude, I learned something from Neil and Chris. That was awesome.' And you didn't have to hire us to get it. That was the whole point of the webinar. We were supposed to teach you something. So I just, uh, noticed the more I give, and you can, I guess you can over-teach, and you can give too many tactics. There's a, you can take it too far, but, uh, I've actually given more, and then at the end, I get more meaning. Like, dude, if he told me that much, imagine like, I think it's like they'd be like, 'I want to work with this person.' So I just think of this trend where there's this thing, everybody wants DIY. They want to do it themselves. Maybe they do need to hire you to be their, uh, real estate agent or coach or whatever it is you're offering, but in the beginning, they think they can just do it by themselves. So it's like going to IKEA, and you get the thing, but then you get home with the box and you're like, 'F this. I don't want DIY anymore. I need some help.' So, uh, I just think we need to feed into that and like just give it to them. Like, hey, dude, I'm going to give you the whole framework. I'll teach it to you. It's three steps. We're going to walk you through it. I do have something where I can help you if you want to take the next step. And this is going to be for a few people. Would it be okay if I let you guys know about that at the end of the call and let me know in the chat if that's cool with you? And sometimes it's like, you know, like they'll say yes, yes. Or you can just put it up. Like I just did this on, um, just just past week. Went to City Spoke, and I was offering a program at the end, and I literally told them upfront, I said, 'I'm, today's here's the plan. We're going to do this, this, and at the end, I'm going to let you know about a cool thing I'm doing. Is that cool with everybody?' And they said, 'Yeah.' And there was no like weirdness. It didn't have to change my tone or anything, and it worked great. So I think you don't, you can go against the grain and just be like, this whole play direct response marketing playbook, I just don't think it works anymore. And, uh, it doesn't, it's not authentic to like who, how I would do it or how you would do it."
"Yeah, obviously it still works because people are still doing it."
"Yeah. So, they're raking in the cash. And there is a price to have convictions and values, right? There's always a price, man. Like courage is great when it's tested. It's easy to be courageous when it's easy. You know, if you're 800 pounds and somebody's getting picked on, you could just step on that person and be over. That's not courageous. Courageous is when you're 110 pounds and you have to fight the 800-pound person knowing that you're going to lose, and you step in harm's way. That's a thing. So, when we do the anti-webinar, we're transparently talking about things that are not manipulative. We probably aren't converting as high, but I'd rather do that and be aligned with my values than to do it the other way."
"Yeah. Because, you know, money is fleeting, but the relationships that you build, the trust, the goodwill, you know, it's, it's a very hard thing to, to do is to build trust, and it's, I guess paradoxically, super easy to lose. It could take years, years, like four or five years for someone's like, you know, 'First I thought you were a jerk, and then I thought you were rude. Then I'm like, maybe you make sense, and then I really believe in what you're doing, and sign me up. I'm drinking the Kool-Aid with you if you keep showing up consistently and you act within your values.' That's what it means to have values. What's the point, right? So you and I, we probably could do 10x of what we're doing revenue-wise, but then we wouldn't be us anymore. And you know, here's the one thing, you know, every time one of those people fall, they dance on their grave. We dance on their grave. You notice that? So when every one of these internet scammers and fake gurus go out there and they're being sued or investigated or indicted, we're like, 'Whoa, finally government woke up. Enough people complained.' That's what happens. But when somebody that you care about falls, what do we do? GoFundMe. We start a campaign to help them. And we tell our friends, 'You need to support this person.' And like, 'Why? I don't even know that person.' Because it means something to the world."
"And, um, I'm forgetting who said this. Um, I'll remember it in a second. Uh, Anna Lope. She said that every dollar you spend is a vote for the world you want to live in. We want the people we like to win. And we want the people we dislike to die."
"Dang, bro."
"I mean, it's true, isn't it?"
"Uh, right."
"Yeah."
"I mean, if there's, okay, so let's just say, for example, one of your parents or somebody you really care about got effed up in the medical system and were driven to bankruptcy and then committed suicide. That's who you want to lose. Those companies that hurt people, that hurt somebody that's close to you. You already know this."
"Yeah. Right? We, I mean, I'm, I'm not missing words here. We want them to perish. That's it. Conversely, if somebody did something good, really helped you out. Like, for example, each and every one of you probably has a great customer service story from some big, faceless corporation who did right by you. I have several. They want me for life. For life. They didn't need to, but they stepped up. Maybe it took a little coercion via social media, but they did the right thing at the end, which [clears throat] I'm like, 'Okay, you're good.' By the way, life hack. If you ever have a problem with any company, go on Twitter and talk about it and at mention the CEO of that company. You'll be shocked at how fast it gets resolved."
"I had that happen to me with Coinbase."
"Did it work?"
"Yeah. I mentioned them. I was having a customer service issue for over a year."
"Yeah."
"And they solved it in like one minute."
"Yeah."
"They DM'd me like, not one minute, but about 15 minutes a day. So, it actually works."
"It does. So, social media is horrible, and sometimes it, it's good."
"And those are the moments when it's good. Twitter."
"So, this is, uh, in the description, Chris, I'm going to put links so people can connect with you and follow you. I know you have like something you're doing right now."
"Yeah."
"With people to help them with their content."
"Yeah."
"And if you guys have questions or things you want Chris to go deeper on on a future episode, put them in the comments because I read all the comments. I respond to every single person. And, uh, this actually informs future episodes. I've done this a lot where people said, 'Hey, I wish you guys would go deeper on this.' We'll literally make a piece of content about that. So, thanks for being here, man."