In this special replay episode of the Top Advisor Marketing Podcast, Matt Halloran and Kirk Lowe share how financial advisors can accelerate their influence – which they define as the ability to get people to like, know, and trust you – in order to grow your business and spend less time chasing prospects and more time doing what you do best: advising.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, everybody. Matt Halloran here, your friendly neighborhood
influence and podcasting expert. We're gonna do a
replay of episode number 435. And you might
be saying, why why are you doing this?
I'm gonna tell you why we're doing this.
If influencers are starting to become even more
ubiquitous in the industry now these are unlicensed
people who are giving really bad financial advice.
And so many of you have really resisted
(00:21):
the word of influence. And so we distill
what influence marketing truly is in this episode.
We wanted to replay to remind you of
the importance
of influence marketing and how it can help
you achieve the level of success you truly
want so that you can stop being the
best kept secret and really start talking to
fans. Alright. Here we go.
(00:44):
Welcome to the top advisor marketing podcast brought
to you by ProudMouth.
I'm your host, Matt Halloran.
Being your own loud is not new to
marketing, but the mindset, strategies, and resources to
help you get there are evolving faster than
this industry is keeping up. It is time
to find a new perspective on what works,
why,
(01:04):
and how to move your business forward.
Listen as I interview guests to help you
learn from them how to be your own
loud.
Let's get to the show.
Hello, and welcome to another top advisor marketing
podcast. I am joined by my partner and
cofounder of ProudMouth Kirk Lowe. Again, listen, if
you're a growth minded adviser and you want
(01:25):
to become more influential,
you need to spend less time chasing prospects
and more time doing what you do best,
which is advising.
And the best way to do that is
to accelerate
your influence.
You have to have the opportunity to scale
your communication to make it so people can
like, know, and trust you when it's convenient
for them and when you do that, it
is a freaking
(01:47):
game changer. But there are 3 aspects that
you have to keep in mind when we
talk about accelerating influence. 1, it actually takes
effort and work. Number 2, it's never gonna
happen on your timeline. And number 3, you
have to make sure that you have the
right mindset and the right outcome. So, Kirk,
welcome to the show.
Gonna be a doozy today.
Oh.
Doozy. Where is that in the dictionary?
(02:09):
Yeah. It's totally in the dictionary. I love
that. Is that my East Coast Canadian
thing or is that We we say that
it's universal?
I think it's I definitely don't hear that
much in the south, but I definitely hear
it here in the Great Pine North. Okay.
I'll try to refrain from
weird Canadian
jargon.
(02:31):
No, dude. You need to lean into the
Lean into it.
Alright. So where do we begin today?
Dude, I gotta ask you a question right
out of the gate here because you get
to talk to to meet with so many
influencers. You're on their podcast.
They're sometimes they're on your podcast.
So honestly, you've interviewed thousands of experts. And
(02:52):
how many would you say
have achieved
authority level influence versus celebrity level influence, or
maybe even are still living in expert
level status. I think what we need let's
do some operational definitions here so that everybody
understands. So we we've got 4 stages of
influence here at Proudmouth. We got apprentice expert
authority and celebrity.
(03:13):
So an apprentice is that nobody's really paying
attention to who you are. You're you have
begun the journey, but people aren't picking up
the phone and saying, oh, it's Kirk Lowe.
Right? Expert is people are actually paying attention
to you. This is where most of you
are. Most successful financial professionals, they are really
in what we refer to as the expert
phase. People know who you are
(03:34):
but it's not scalable. You're still having to
do an enormous amount of shaking hands and
kissing babies. It just doesn't really have the
scalability.
And then we talk about achieving escape velocity
and part of that is moving into authority.
And this is when people are actually really
paying attention to you. You're
starting to get more and more attention.
(03:55):
Referrals are actually coming in without really you
needing to ask But then the ultimate level
that we all want to get to, many
people wanna get to, is what we refer
to as celebrity. Now this isn't the next
viral TikTok dancer. I'm not talking about being
a Hollywood star or a television star. What
I'm talking about here is
people are fans. You've heard me say this
over and over again on the podcast. We
(04:16):
want you to move from skeptics to fans.
When you are a celebrity and the way
that we couch the word celebrity,
people come in presold,
but most importantly,
they're telling other people about you. So your
initial question, Kirk, how many people do I
talk to or who I've interviewed
that are in the celebrity phase at at
less than 5%.
(04:38):
Less because And you're you're talking
to people who are
influential. Like, they're on a they're on a
path to influence. Right? They're squarely in authority.
So the majority of people that we talk
to, especially in the world of marketing and
financial services,
they are an authority. So let's talk about
who is a celebrity
in financial services. So I would say people
(05:00):
like Michael Kitsis are a celebrity.
I would say, like, Dave Ramsey's, the Suze
Ormans of the world, the Rick Edelmans of
the world, the Ken Fisher's of the world,
Ron Carsons of the world, because
their marketing is has been so consistent over
time that people come in and they're like,
I use Ken Fisher. Of course, I use
Ken Fisher. He's everywhere all the time. And
then he made Ken Fisher specifically
(05:21):
made it very easy
for people to do business with him. Yeah.
It so I I wanna leave you with
this, and then I've got a question for
you.
Acquiring and building influence. So accelerating your influence
isn't a secret.
It's a
system. It's a system.
Advisors love systems. Great businesses are built on
systems. Guess what else is built on systems?
(05:43):
Influence.
If you really truly want to accelerate your
influence and become
as notable as you want to be with
as much notoriety as you want,
you have to have a system.
And I know it probably doesn't surprise any
of you, but we built the system. Our
team here at Proudmo has an unbelievable system
that we have built over the last 7
(06:05):
years, and we're really excited about it. But
here's the deal, Kirk.
Now advisors are listening to this and they're
thinking themselves,
but shit. I'm not a marketer. Right?
I got into financial services because I wanted
to help people with their finances. Maybe they
want just wanna make a lot of money.
But great advisers know
that it's necessary
(06:25):
if they really want to achieve the levels
of success that they want, that they really
have to understand and embrace marketing
but advisors are super busy and they want
to outsource it and the buzz is out
there. Oh, we do everything for you. You
have some strong feelings about this. You and
I have had wonderfully passionate conversations about it.
So let's talk about the outsourcing of influence.
(06:48):
Problem with done for you
is there's this idea
or ideal
that an advisor doesn't need to be involved
in their marketing.
And I would suggest that as soon as
somebody suggests that you don't need to be
involved in it, it's not worth near as
much to you in the mid and long
term. Short term may be fine because their
(07:09):
system may be able to prop you up
quicker than
the lack of one that you have. But
I'd say and then done with you is
a lot more powerful. And that's, I think,
one of the biggest differentiators
of ProudMouth
for pretty much for most marketing companies out
there, if that's fair to say,
probably 95%,
(07:30):
maybe even more that that we've come across.
There are some who do it with you
and
most of them are trying to do it
for you, if that makes sense.
The real difference is that the advisers should
be part of the process because it's your
expertise and your influence you're trying to build.
And it's very easy to tell if you're
(07:51):
not involved in that.
And if you're just talking about somebody else's
expertise or if you're not there to deliver
it so they can experience you, those are
all big issues.
I think that a big part of
done
for you
is that your
you want marketing
to revolve around your world, which is a
(08:12):
good thing. Done with you is a better
place to be than just having to figure
it all on your own. But you do
have to try to work with your world
and the world of marketing. So you have
to try to find some
common effort. What do you wanna do? What's
what can you do that's gonna move your
marketing
(08:33):
and move forward quick? I heard this really,
I don't know if frustrating is the right
word, thing that happened with one of our
clients the other day.
Somebody said that they were eating lunch while
they were doing their podcast.
God. Oh my God.
And
honestly,
we're getting to this place here at Proudmouth,
(08:54):
where we want people to be
We do spend a lot of time on
expectations. So that's why that's so frustrating.
Everybody knows that works with us, that you
need to show up and be on your
A game.
And then we're gonna turn that to gold.
That's what you should be thinking about for
anybody you work with is when you're involved,
you give you put your best foot forward.
(09:17):
And
the thing about this is if you're gonna
spend money,
any money, and you're not
fully engaged,
you're not gonna get anything you're not gonna
get what you could and need to get
out of it. And therefore, you're just choosing
to fail.
We know
that influence is a journey. Like you said,
it's a system
(09:38):
and influential
advisors
use it knowingly or not
this kind of system. And we know that
the system is everything because we know that
advisors with a plan are always more successful.
Don't have to give you the specific stats.
Everybody knows this. You've all read
all the marketing
(09:58):
benchmark studies that happen in this industry.
Advisors with a system
are always more successful.
So the plan first and then the system
to push that plan forward.
Advisors who are efficient get to spend more
time with clients. So if you're if you
have a system that frees you up once
(10:19):
you get it built, that's the power of
owning your own system,
or working with somebody else's system, but you
still being involved.
And advisors who figured out marketing own the
growth in this industry, and they're just getting
started.
So
anybody who owns their own system, so their
own expertise
flowing into their own system
(10:39):
over time and who keep building and building
on the system as they have wins,
those people
own their audiences in this industry
and those people are growing their audiences.
Not everybody can grow their audiences at the
same time. Right? So just think about who's
growing their audiences and who's growing their own
system
and think about when you need to start
(11:00):
thinking about that or when you need to
take your system to another level.
The competition that is common, if you don't
think so, you're not paying attention.
Go to any conference,
influence
expertise,
digital marketing.
They're all the forefront of every conference talking
about marketing,
every conference.
(11:22):
And yes, AI and all those things are
happening to make systems come together more quickly,
more efficiently,
but it doesn't matter. It's the same strategy.
You've got to follow, pay attention to what
we're talking about, pay attention to what's being
talked about at the conferences,
and figure out who can help you or
who can set you up for success.
And don't delay on that.
(11:44):
There's a little reference here to talk about
the Lauren.
The Lauren Hong app. So you said something
in in it while while you're saying it,
it just really triggered something that Lauren Hong
said. So we just released this episode a
couple of weeks before we just were recording
this one.
And you said something, Kirk, that I really
wanna highlight here, which is
when an advisor's not involved in their marketing,
(12:06):
the advisor's
personality
isn't infused in the marketing. Lauren talked about
that, how it's so important for you to
have that personality built into your brand. And
you as a branding expert have talked about
that forever. Right? We wanna make sure that
the brand really does reflect the adviser.
I just I wanted to bring that up
just because it's it was very top of
mind and you just totally triggered that in
(12:28):
my mind. Yeah. I'm I wanna give you
this really I could ask this really great
question or we did yesterday by our team
who's working on content all the time with
us.
You know, as I didn't say for us.
So,
yeah, I'm talking to the listeners. They can't
answer me, but thank you for jumping in
for
(12:49):
them. Anyway,
they asked me,
how did,
it was Allison, actually. She asked how so
it wasn't our content creators. It was just
somebody at the company asked, how did, we
come up with the name PodRocket for Academy?
And so I was explaining, I'll explain to
our listeners here that when we were working
on
(13:10):
the ProudMouth brand,
momentum was a big part of that. How
do you create momentum?
What are we really doing for people? Then
we got to the academy
and talking about naming that, which was after
a year after that Prabhuputh was born or
conceived.
And Rob shared this story about
(13:32):
for him was an analogy, like influences, a
rocket ship trying to leave there's atmosphere.
Until you get escape velocity,
you cannot push through a rocket cannot push
through
your 7 atmospheres.
7 is a really convenient and serendipitous
number of atmospheres for us, because we have
7 rocket boosters, which help you push through
(13:54):
those atmosphere if you're pushing through. Anyway,
but escape velocity is really interesting. If you
ever seen a rocket ship trying to take
off,
the thruster, like it's is
it doesn't even start moving
until it has enough power generated. So you
have to overcome the inertia
(14:15):
and then you have to push through those
atmospheres.
So it's the same thing with influence.
You have to get enough influence moving in
the right direction
to start moving
through the stages from being an expert.
Most advisors that we talk to are experts
who wanna become authorities. They think they can
(14:35):
become an authority in 3 to 6 months.
I think that's why
so many people expect to get results
like in the Q1 or 1st couple of
quarters.
Just think about how long it actually takes
to build influence. Absolutely, there can and should
be wins along the way,
but it's mind boggling.
Still
with all the thought leadership that we're sharing,
(14:59):
I think really good mindsets that we're trying
to help build in this industry,
still think that things can happen in a
short amount of time or that's the the
sole
expectation.
Now our clients, for the most part,
don't think like that. And that's why they're
leaders and they're
innovators and they're trying new stuff. And the
(15:19):
ones who can figure how to do more
and more stuff, they just win more and
more. And it's not it's so obvious
that you
influence doesn't choose you, but you choose it.
You ever heard us say that before? You
choose
to pursue this. You choose to do marketing
the right way. You choose to put the
(15:40):
time and effort in for years to win
and own a system, right, and to build
an audience out of doors you it ends
up marketing for you. You choose all those
things.
Think about where we're at as a company.
And it was like six and a half
years ago,
7 years ago, whatever it is that we
chose to change directions
and where we go places, like, a lot
(16:01):
of people know about us. Big companies wanna
hang out with us. Advisors
adore listening to you, Matt, and your wonderful
interviews,
things like that. That's just
us
putting ourselves out there like we are right
now. But it's been a system and it's
by design. Like, none of this happened
just because we were like, oh, we're gonna
do this. No.
We have made mistakes, and we have learned
(16:24):
from those mistakes, and we keep trying new
things. But you just teased something that I
need you to elaborate on because I wanna
use this podcast in the sales process really
for this question,
which is time.
Right? So we talked about that you need
to there's a couple of things that you
need to focus on. Right? You need to
focus on how much effort you're gonna put
(16:44):
in, time, and then what the desired outcome
is. But let's talk about time a little
bit.
And you just brought up a couple of
I I brought up a couple of different
names, and we also talked about escape velocity.
So how long should an adviser really say,
I need to put x amount of time
into this to achieve the either celebrity or
(17:04):
authority outcome that I'm looking. It's the question
of all questions is when can I expect
results is what you're really asking?
Yep.
And I don't really know that
influence equals
results
like the most like their results come in
all shapes
(17:25):
and sizes, forms,
if you will. As an example, it's not
always just
advisors
line up at our door
to do business with us. Sometimes it's people
outside that vertical, which is fun.
Sometimes it's companies who work with advisors. Sometimes
it's companies who just wanna hang out with
us.
Sometimes
(17:47):
it's experts,
like peer experts who wanna hang out with
us.
Fascinating
sidebar here,
vet experts who also peers who work with
advisors
when they come on our show
typically have,
significant
influxes of opportunities after hanging out with us.
(18:07):
I don't know what that says, but
it's pretty consistent
and it's pretty powerful.
And I think it's one of the things
that ProudMouth tries to do is we try
to bring you guys value.
It's not always us winning. It's other people
that hang out with us that win win
a lot too.
So we don't,
We try to find the best people
(18:28):
and and a good diversity of
ideas
to to help you guys move forward our
audience. I hope you guys understand
that how much we care about doing that,
how important it is for us to serve
you and help you. And
I guess that's why our listenership just keeps
growing. So thank you for that. But
we know that a big part of that
(18:50):
is just us trying to do the right
thing for you. Anyway,
how long does it take? I am not
getting around this question.
The reality is it takes,
I'd say, a minimum of
2 to 3 years just to get some
momentum going, like real momentum going. Can there
be wins along the way? Absolutely.
What
form do those wins take? How do they
(19:12):
reveal themselves?
Really differs.
Some of the biggest wins, we've talked about
this many times on this show, is our
return on influence, our ROI.
Some of us just being much better professional.
Those are some of the wins that I
find it fascinating that more advisors don't think
about
just doing a podcast to become better at
(19:34):
their craft.
And
I know there's an expense to do in
a podcast if you wanna push it out
there and do it well.
But I don't really know. There's hard to
put a value on just being a better
pro, being better at communicating, coming up better
ways to communicate. It all happens here.
Our preparation for this episode,
(19:55):
and I'm not following the script
or outline as much as I should be,
is really important. But that some of the
gold comes when you veer off the
pathway a little bit.
2 to 3 would be the absolute minimum,
but I really think it can be like
as much as 8 to 10 years. And
that might scare a lot of people,
(20:18):
but I'm gonna tell you this,
anything that you've done in your life and
put a lot of effort in, and when
you get to 10 years and you look
back,
you know how much work it is, what's
worth it.
If you do it the right way, if
you follow the system, if you buy and
commit to it. If you're 10 years into
something and you're not that impressed,
take a look and think what you could
have done better and start doing that now.
(20:39):
If you've been in the business for 10
years or 15 years or 20 years or
whatever,
and you're still trying to figure out marketing
and you think to yourself, what if I
had started this 10 years ago?
If it doesn't hurt, it it should. It
ought to.
So don't have that pain in the next
10 years and stop being scared of the
of something that is 10 years. 10 years
(21:01):
is a long time.
It's a long time to have not done
the right thing too. I think it's a
lot longer if you're not doing the right
things. So you gotta figure that out, but
it it can take longer. Some of the
people that Matt mentioned
have been building their influence for 10 to
20 years
before they really hit it. And I would
say we're at
(21:23):
celebrity or you are, as the face of
our company,
but
face and voice of the company, whatever.
I love your face. I like your voice
too.
They're both
we still we wanna reach higher and higher.
Right? And you gotta put you gotta put
the effort in. Right? You don't
(21:45):
you gotta choose influence. You gotta choose that
pathway and hit it. Be aware of op
all the wins along the way, not just
the revenue wins. And they'll be there if
you do the right things.
But there's there are some things that we're
learning, Matt, as we go along here that
the wins aren't always the people who get
the the most outcomes,
they have things in their world that they
(22:05):
commit to and it makes a difference. And
I think one of the most important things
is showing up prepared for a podcast.
It's the reality. Right? And I think that's
really why I asked you the question is
I want people to have a realistic expectation
of how long this is. I remember the
Indigo Marketing had done a top 41 top
influencers and
you were on that list. Right? Yeah.
(22:28):
And some of the other people on that
list, if you asked any of them how
long they've been doing it, none of them
are gonna say less than 5 years. It's
not even close.
Oh. None of them.
And
most of them are gonna say we're we're
still on that journey to hit celebrity, and
some of them are already there.
And, anyway,
this is sound daunting.
(22:49):
I guess it does. But we're talking about
celebrity, though, and that's the vital thing here.
There are some people who don't wanna have
that level of notoriety.
They want to achieve authority where people are
paying attention to them. People like no one
trusts them. They're getting good referrals. They're growing
their practice, and they're actually stopped being the
best kept secret in the area. There is
a big difference. So you've been doing this
(23:10):
you've been doing this for a while, but
how does it
how do the wins
how how does it feel to you? Does
it feel
what was it easy along the way? Did
you get is it like, how does it
feel having gone from
the first time you and I said, let's
start a podcast before this even became a
business, before we became partners
(23:31):
to today?
What's the journey been like for you? Here's
the deal, dude. There was 10 years
before you and I ever started hanging out.
The first time so I I have it.
I don't know where it is. Now I'm
looking at my office. My first horse's mouth
article was in 2,007.
So my influence journey began then.
I was on the top ten list and
(23:52):
I was talking about communication skills and what
you could learn from Led Zeppelin.
So I haven't actually changed that much from
my messaging. I still talk a lot about
communications but it's been 16 years. Right? 16
years before I would and and the funny
thing is there are some places, Kirk, where
I feel like a celebrity and it it's
actually really cool. And then there's other places.
Nobody has any idea who I am at
(24:14):
all
and have rarely heard of Proudmouth. Right? Which
is interesting because I I don't know if
you I sent this in our chat this
morning.
We're in the top 3% of all podcasts.
Did you know did you know that? Like,
we're in the top 3%
of all that that's all podcasts. That's not
just in financial services.
That's not in marketing. That is because we
(24:35):
have put in the time and the work.
Now to put this into perspective,
Michael Kitsis' podcast is in the 0.5%.
Right? But again, he has fans. Michael Kitsis
is a celebrity in financial services. Samantha Russell
is a celebrity in financial services. But it
did take a a long time.
And from this first speech to the first
(24:56):
horse's mouth article
to I've written 2 books. I'm working on
the 3rd book now.
Everything
changed when we started putting out consistent
content, not just consistent
from a time standpoint
but a consistent brand, a consistent message, a
consistent feeling, and really trying to reinforce the
same sort of ideas.
(25:17):
There are absolutely times where people come in
and they feel like they know me, and
Mark tells the story in almost every sales
call about the first conference that he went
to for the FPA.
But here's the deal.
I, unlike many people,
want to be that celebrity. That is I'm
motivated that way. Right? I've always wanted to
(25:38):
be the face of the company. I'm the
guy who wants to be on a stage
in front of 10,000 people. I'm that guy.
Right?
There are many people in financial services
or people we know who don't, that they're
entirely fine with
actually getting to
authority
and just cruising there. And you can have
a great business and authority,
(25:58):
but it's still
4 years.
4 years from a stop to actually being
able to start feeling like you're an authority.
I agree. I was thinking it's interesting about
celebrity statuses. It feels like that means mass
acceptance since that's not really what defines celebrity
status.
It's
do you wanna read that again? It's on
(26:21):
our sheet. How do we define celebrity status
as people are telling or talking other people
to pay attention to us? So I'll say
that again. People are telling other people to
pay attention to you.
And so we're definitely there. Sometimes you get
caught up in this idea. We're not. Everybody
doesn't know about us. That's what we think
about celebrity. Right?
(26:41):
But there's celebrities
I went to a concert
with my oldest Christian and my wife
on Monday night
in Toronto at a small venue called the
Danforth Music Hall.
And the band is from the UK. They're
called Nothing But Thieves.
And they are
celebrities with their audience. Everybody went nuts all
(27:04):
night long listening to them. It was incredible,
by the way. And
one of the most spectacular
rock voices
you'll ever hear, guys.
Yeah. Great music,
but the guy's voice is just incredible. He's
a gift from God kinda singer. Anyway,
they are not world the world
(27:25):
they're were they're known worldwide, but they're not
celebrity
stars. They're not Coldplay yet.
But in my opinion, they're as good. Now
my my son thinks that they're a better
version of Coldplay, and he likes Coldplay, and
I love Coldplay too. But that's just the
way it is.
But they're on that. I I presume they're
(27:45):
on that pathway if they so choose.
But that's the thing about celebrity is they
played a small venue, 25100 people or so,
which was a real treat as you've ever
been to see a great band with singers
and musicians in a smaller venue. It's incredible.
Right?
I think we gotta think like that. Like,
you can be a celebrity and have
(28:06):
successes with your audience. It doesn't have to
be the biggest audiences. It could be the
audience that that appreciates you and will show
up
and talk about you on their podcast
because they were in Detroit yesterday, I think,
at the Fillmore. That's such an amazing venue,
dude. The Fillmore is one of the best.
Yeah. But, you know, I'm sorry. You brought
up Coldplay. Aim at the Amforth here in
(28:28):
in Toronto. It's incredible. I I wanna just
touch on Coldplay because Coldplay has this amazing
documentary,
and they follow them really from day 1,
like, from one of their first performances.
Right? And and and Chris Martin is being
interviewed throughout this whole thing, and
he wants to achieve that level of celebrity.
That was, like, entirely part of his focus
from day 1. But if they you interview
(28:50):
when they interview the other band members, they
didn't want that. Right? That's why they're usually
they don't really say much. Chris is the
one who talks for all of Coldplay
where I'm talking like I know the guy
but it was also it's fascinating the journey
that they went on and how long it
took them to achieve
that sort of authority and then into celebrity
which was just under 10 years. Right? And
(29:12):
so for those people who are listening right
now,
if you want to stop being the best
kept secret in your area, if you want
to make sure that you're actually rising above
the noise to be your own loud, you're
making a real difference in community and your
marketing starts feeling like it's working for you
instead of you working so hard for your
marketing,
(29:32):
everything can change. And even if you just
wanna stop at the authority level and celebrity
is not within your,
purview,
you have to have a system. And this
is gonna be probably the hardest I pitched
this ever in our entire life on this
podcast.
We have that system.
It is our managed influence system.
(29:52):
It is 2 podcasts a month. We have
all sorts of magnificent benefits, all sorts of
social media. We do some video now. We
write great social media posts for you as
the adviser,
but you have to be involved and sprinkle
your greatness, your personality into everything that's done
and if you do it with us, everything
(30:12):
can change for your practice in 24 to
48 months.
If you wanna put in the time and
the effort, we have the system that you
can plug right into. Kirk, we're running up
on time, dude. I'm just gonna go ahead
and close this puppy out because you and
I could talk about this forever. And in
fact, we need to talk about this more.
I I could talk about nothing but thieves
and
(30:33):
going to concerts and how they and their
pathway
to to success. There's something before you wrap
up. And Matt, sometimes, if you haven't noticed,
tries to wrap up and then I think
of something. Sometimes they say it, sometimes I
don't get to because he's really pushy when
I don't let him finish. But today, I'm
gonna take my chances.
Alright. Go for it. The
(30:54):
part of influence
and when we talk about you never really
know, the outcomes kinda hit you in different
places. The most important income is that you
grow your business and you learn from the
experience, become a better communicator.
You support the idea of clients hanging around
because they know you.
But I think the most important thing about
all is being ready for success when that
thing comes along.
(31:15):
And if an opportunity came along
like 5 years ago for Matt and I,
and we weren't ready for it,
our company wasn't ready for it, for example,
then that just flies by and we never
know.
Or we might know. If a large company
wanted to do business with us and they're
(31:36):
like, you guys aren't ready. They're not gonna
tell you. But now things seem to gain
a lot more traction.
That's the thing that I don't understand when
it's not as tangible. Right?
So but
being ready for success is, like, it's everything.
You we there's books written about being ready
(31:56):
for success, and
you don't always know when it's gonna hit
you.
But I know that
and you'll never know when it doesn't hit
you. That's the problem. We're such a
an interesting and frustrating species
with our brain. We think we're so smart.
Right? But we can all we we rely
so much on what we can
(32:17):
see, feel, touch, hear,
taste.
We just live in that world. But think
about the opportunity
costs
along the way of you not being ready
for success because you weren't
an authority,
at least an authority.
It will blow your mind if you really
think about how many things have passed you
(32:38):
by. And I think it may be one
of the biggest reasons to pursue influence
is to be ready for success.
And if you're not, man, what a bummer.
What an absolute bummer if somebody
thought about
all the opportunities that you and I would
have missed. We should I should have started
a lot sooner.
(32:58):
Although my first content marketing thing was in
2000.
I wrote a paper
that still has we talked I've mentioned this
a couple of times. Has some really fun
stuff. It was really fun to go through
that about a year ago when I said,
hey, I should go back and
Anyway,
I'm gonna let the master
close this up. But don't leave us. Don't
leave us. Don't leave us because, you know
(33:20):
So you just said something else and and
I will use that to to close-up.
You have to put in the time and
the effort and you have to make the
investment
in order for you to
understand and accept influence. But Kirk said something
else that I think is the hidden gem
of this entire thing,
which is
when you actually embrace influences the way that
(33:43):
you wanna do marketing here in the future,
It isn't just gonna help you grow your
business, but it makes you better at your
job.
We have our clients tell us all the
time, oh my god, Matt. I said something
on one of the podcasts that now I
use in every one of my client meetings.
I learned from Patrice or Wendy or one
of our voice talents how to listen a
(34:03):
little bit more effectively
and not try to think what they're going
to say, wait until they finish saying it.
There's all of these little things. When you
show up and you're ready to go and
you're not eating lunch during your podcast, when
you're actually sitting there in your present and
you're practicing your craft like an actual professional
does, everything can change. Listen. If you wanna
know more about who we are and what
(34:24):
we do, please make sure that you subscribe
to this show. But most importantly,
the year is coming to a close. You're
creating your budget for this next year.
You need to allocate
10%
of gross.net
for marketing. If you truly want to accelerate
your practice
this next year it is 10% of gross.net
and we would love to be one of
(34:45):
the benefactors of that 10% of gross not
net. And, also, we have lots of different
programs and systems that you can plug into
at various price points to make it so
that you can truly start accelerating your input.
So for Kirk and all of us here
at Cobalt, this is Matt Halloran, and I'll
see you on the other side of the
mic very soon.
Thanks for listening to the top advisor marketing
podcast brought to you by Proudmouth.
(35:07):
If you wanna know more about how you
can be your own lab, visit us at
proudmouth.com
and sign up for the PodRocket Academy.
Through courses and office hours led by professional
podcast producers and digital marketers, you will learn
everything you need to know to become the
trusted subject matter expert you were meant to
be.
Hey, everybody. Matt Halloran here, your friendly neighborhood
influence and podcasting expert. We're gonna do a
replay of episode number 435. And you might
be saying, why why are you doing this?
I'm gonna tell you why we're doing this.
If influencers are starting to become even more
ubiquitous in the industry now these are unlicensed
people who are giving really bad financial advice.
And so many of you have really resisted
(00:21):
the word of influence. And so we distill
what influence marketing truly is in this episode.
We wanted to replay to remind you of
the importance
of influence marketing and how it can help
you achieve the level of success you truly
want so that you can stop being the
best kept secret and really start talking to
fans. Alright. Here we go.
(00:44):
Welcome to the top advisor marketing podcast brought
to you by ProudMouth.
I'm your host, Matt Halloran.
Being your own loud is not new to
marketing, but the mindset, strategies, and resources to
help you get there are evolving faster than
this industry is keeping up. It is time
to find a new perspective on what works,
why,
(01:04):
and how to move your business forward.
Listen as I interview guests to help you
learn from them how to be your own
loud.
Let's get to the show.
Hello, and welcome to another top advisor marketing
podcast. I am joined by my partner and
cofounder of ProudMouth Kirk Lowe. Again, listen, if
you're a growth minded adviser and you want
(01:25):
to become more influential,
you need to spend less time chasing prospects
and more time doing what you do best,
which is advising.
And the best way to do that is
to accelerate
your influence.
You have to have the opportunity to scale
your communication to make it so people can
like, know, and trust you when it's convenient
for them and when you do that, it
is a freaking
(01:47):
game changer. But there are 3 aspects that
you have to keep in mind when we
talk about accelerating influence. 1, it actually takes
effort and work. Number 2, it's never gonna
happen on your timeline. And number 3, you
have to make sure that you have the
right mindset and the right outcome. So, Kirk,
welcome to the show.
Gonna be a doozy today.
Oh.
Doozy. Where is that in the dictionary?
(02:09):
Yeah. It's totally in the dictionary. I love
that. Is that my East Coast Canadian
thing or is that We we say that
it's universal?
I think it's I definitely don't hear that
much in the south, but I definitely hear
it here in the Great Pine North. Okay.
I'll try to refrain from
weird Canadian
jargon.
(02:31):
No, dude. You need to lean into the
Lean into it.
Alright. So where do we begin today?
Dude, I gotta ask you a question right
out of the gate here because you get
to talk to to meet with so many
influencers. You're on their podcast.
They're sometimes they're on your podcast.
So honestly, you've interviewed thousands of experts. And
(02:52):
how many would you say
have achieved
authority level influence versus celebrity level influence, or
maybe even are still living in expert
level status. I think what we need let's
do some operational definitions here so that everybody
understands. So we we've got 4 stages of
influence here at Proudmouth. We got apprentice expert
authority and celebrity.
(03:13):
So an apprentice is that nobody's really paying
attention to who you are. You're you have
begun the journey, but people aren't picking up
the phone and saying, oh, it's Kirk Lowe.
Right? Expert is people are actually paying attention
to you. This is where most of you
are. Most successful financial professionals, they are really
in what we refer to as the expert
phase. People know who you are
(03:34):
but it's not scalable. You're still having to
do an enormous amount of shaking hands and
kissing babies. It just doesn't really have the
scalability.
And then we talk about achieving escape velocity
and part of that is moving into authority.
And this is when people are actually really
paying attention to you. You're
starting to get more and more attention.
(03:55):
Referrals are actually coming in without really you
needing to ask But then the ultimate level
that we all want to get to, many
people wanna get to, is what we refer
to as celebrity. Now this isn't the next
viral TikTok dancer. I'm not talking about being
a Hollywood star or a television star. What
I'm talking about here is
people are fans. You've heard me say this
over and over again on the podcast. We
(04:16):
want you to move from skeptics to fans.
When you are a celebrity and the way
that we couch the word celebrity,
people come in presold,
but most importantly,
they're telling other people about you. So your
initial question, Kirk, how many people do I
talk to or who I've interviewed
that are in the celebrity phase at at
less than 5%.
(04:38):
Less because And you're you're talking
to people who are
influential. Like, they're on a they're on a
path to influence. Right? They're squarely in authority.
So the majority of people that we talk
to, especially in the world of marketing and
financial services,
they are an authority. So let's talk about
who is a celebrity
in financial services. So I would say people
(05:00):
like Michael Kitsis are a celebrity.
I would say, like, Dave Ramsey's, the Suze
Ormans of the world, the Rick Edelmans of
the world, the Ken Fisher's of the world,
Ron Carsons of the world, because
their marketing is has been so consistent over
time that people come in and they're like,
I use Ken Fisher. Of course, I use
Ken Fisher. He's everywhere all the time. And
then he made Ken Fisher specifically
(05:21):
made it very easy
for people to do business with him. Yeah.
It so I I wanna leave you with
this, and then I've got a question for
you.
Acquiring and building influence. So accelerating your influence
isn't a secret.
It's a
system. It's a system.
Advisors love systems. Great businesses are built on
systems. Guess what else is built on systems?
(05:43):
Influence.
If you really truly want to accelerate your
influence and become
as notable as you want to be with
as much notoriety as you want,
you have to have a system.
And I know it probably doesn't surprise any
of you, but we built the system. Our
team here at Proudmo has an unbelievable system
that we have built over the last 7
(06:05):
years, and we're really excited about it. But
here's the deal, Kirk.
Now advisors are listening to this and they're
thinking themselves,
but shit. I'm not a marketer. Right?
I got into financial services because I wanted
to help people with their finances. Maybe they
want just wanna make a lot of money.
But great advisers know
that it's necessary
(06:25):
if they really want to achieve the levels
of success that they want, that they really
have to understand and embrace marketing
but advisors are super busy and they want
to outsource it and the buzz is out
there. Oh, we do everything for you. You
have some strong feelings about this. You and
I have had wonderfully passionate conversations about it.
So let's talk about the outsourcing of influence.
(06:48):
Problem with done for you
is there's this idea
or ideal
that an advisor doesn't need to be involved
in their marketing.
And I would suggest that as soon as
somebody suggests that you don't need to be
involved in it, it's not worth near as
much to you in the mid and long
term. Short term may be fine because their
(07:09):
system may be able to prop you up
quicker than
the lack of one that you have. But
I'd say and then done with you is
a lot more powerful. And that's, I think,
one of the biggest differentiators
of ProudMouth
for pretty much for most marketing companies out
there, if that's fair to say,
probably 95%,
(07:30):
maybe even more that that we've come across.
There are some who do it with you
and
most of them are trying to do it
for you, if that makes sense.
The real difference is that the advisers should
be part of the process because it's your
expertise and your influence you're trying to build.
And it's very easy to tell if you're
(07:51):
not involved in that.
And if you're just talking about somebody else's
expertise or if you're not there to deliver
it so they can experience you, those are
all big issues.
I think that a big part of
done
for you
is that your
you want marketing
to revolve around your world, which is a
(08:12):
good thing. Done with you is a better
place to be than just having to figure
it all on your own. But you do
have to try to work with your world
and the world of marketing. So you have
to try to find some
common effort. What do you wanna do? What's
what can you do that's gonna move your
marketing
(08:33):
and move forward quick? I heard this really,
I don't know if frustrating is the right
word, thing that happened with one of our
clients the other day.
Somebody said that they were eating lunch while
they were doing their podcast.
God. Oh my God.
And
honestly,
we're getting to this place here at Proudmouth,
(08:54):
where we want people to be
We do spend a lot of time on
expectations. So that's why that's so frustrating.
Everybody knows that works with us, that you
need to show up and be on your
A game.
And then we're gonna turn that to gold.
That's what you should be thinking about for
anybody you work with is when you're involved,
you give you put your best foot forward.
(09:17):
And
the thing about this is if you're gonna
spend money,
any money, and you're not
fully engaged,
you're not gonna get anything you're not gonna
get what you could and need to get
out of it. And therefore, you're just choosing
to fail.
We know
that influence is a journey. Like you said,
it's a system
(09:38):
and influential
advisors
use it knowingly or not
this kind of system. And we know that
the system is everything because we know that
advisors with a plan are always more successful.
Don't have to give you the specific stats.
Everybody knows this. You've all read
all the marketing
(09:58):
benchmark studies that happen in this industry.
Advisors with a system
are always more successful.
So the plan first and then the system
to push that plan forward.
Advisors who are efficient get to spend more
time with clients. So if you're if you
have a system that frees you up once
(10:19):
you get it built, that's the power of
owning your own system,
or working with somebody else's system, but you
still being involved.
And advisors who figured out marketing own the
growth in this industry, and they're just getting
started.
So
anybody who owns their own system, so their
own expertise
flowing into their own system
(10:39):
over time and who keep building and building
on the system as they have wins,
those people
own their audiences in this industry
and those people are growing their audiences.
Not everybody can grow their audiences at the
same time. Right? So just think about who's
growing their audiences and who's growing their own
system
and think about when you need to start
(11:00):
thinking about that or when you need to
take your system to another level.
The competition that is common, if you don't
think so, you're not paying attention.
Go to any conference,
influence
expertise,
digital marketing.
They're all the forefront of every conference talking
about marketing,
every conference.
(11:22):
And yes, AI and all those things are
happening to make systems come together more quickly,
more efficiently,
but it doesn't matter. It's the same strategy.
You've got to follow, pay attention to what
we're talking about, pay attention to what's being
talked about at the conferences,
and figure out who can help you or
who can set you up for success.
And don't delay on that.
(11:44):
There's a little reference here to talk about
the Lauren.
The Lauren Hong app. So you said something
in in it while while you're saying it,
it just really triggered something that Lauren Hong
said. So we just released this episode a
couple of weeks before we just were recording
this one.
And you said something, Kirk, that I really
wanna highlight here, which is
when an advisor's not involved in their marketing,
(12:06):
the advisor's
personality
isn't infused in the marketing. Lauren talked about
that, how it's so important for you to
have that personality built into your brand. And
you as a branding expert have talked about
that forever. Right? We wanna make sure that
the brand really does reflect the adviser.
I just I wanted to bring that up
just because it's it was very top of
mind and you just totally triggered that in
(12:28):
my mind. Yeah. I'm I wanna give you
this really I could ask this really great
question or we did yesterday by our team
who's working on content all the time with
us.
You know, as I didn't say for us.
So,
yeah, I'm talking to the listeners. They can't
answer me, but thank you for jumping in
for
(12:49):
them. Anyway,
they asked me,
how did,
it was Allison, actually. She asked how so
it wasn't our content creators. It was just
somebody at the company asked, how did, we
come up with the name PodRocket for Academy?
And so I was explaining, I'll explain to
our listeners here that when we were working
on
(13:10):
the ProudMouth brand,
momentum was a big part of that. How
do you create momentum?
What are we really doing for people? Then
we got to the academy
and talking about naming that, which was after
a year after that Prabhuputh was born or
conceived.
And Rob shared this story about
(13:32):
for him was an analogy, like influences, a
rocket ship trying to leave there's atmosphere.
Until you get escape velocity,
you cannot push through a rocket cannot push
through
your 7 atmospheres.
7 is a really convenient and serendipitous
number of atmospheres for us, because we have
7 rocket boosters, which help you push through
(13:54):
those atmosphere if you're pushing through. Anyway,
but escape velocity is really interesting. If you
ever seen a rocket ship trying to take
off,
the thruster, like it's is
it doesn't even start moving
until it has enough power generated. So you
have to overcome the inertia
(14:15):
and then you have to push through those
atmospheres.
So it's the same thing with influence.
You have to get enough influence moving in
the right direction
to start moving
through the stages from being an expert.
Most advisors that we talk to are experts
who wanna become authorities. They think they can
(14:35):
become an authority in 3 to 6 months.
I think that's why
so many people expect to get results
like in the Q1 or 1st couple of
quarters.
Just think about how long it actually takes
to build influence. Absolutely, there can and should
be wins along the way,
but it's mind boggling.
Still
with all the thought leadership that we're sharing,
(14:59):
I think really good mindsets that we're trying
to help build in this industry,
still think that things can happen in a
short amount of time or that's the the
sole
expectation.
Now our clients, for the most part,
don't think like that. And that's why they're
leaders and they're
innovators and they're trying new stuff. And the
(15:19):
ones who can figure how to do more
and more stuff, they just win more and
more. And it's not it's so obvious
that you
influence doesn't choose you, but you choose it.
You ever heard us say that before? You
choose
to pursue this. You choose to do marketing
the right way. You choose to put the
(15:40):
time and effort in for years to win
and own a system, right, and to build
an audience out of doors you it ends
up marketing for you. You choose all those
things.
Think about where we're at as a company.
And it was like six and a half
years ago,
7 years ago, whatever it is that we
chose to change directions
and where we go places, like, a lot
(16:01):
of people know about us. Big companies wanna
hang out with us. Advisors
adore listening to you, Matt, and your wonderful
interviews,
things like that. That's just
us
putting ourselves out there like we are right
now. But it's been a system and it's
by design. Like, none of this happened
just because we were like, oh, we're gonna
do this. No.
We have made mistakes, and we have learned
(16:24):
from those mistakes, and we keep trying new
things. But you just teased something that I
need you to elaborate on because I wanna
use this podcast in the sales process really
for this question,
which is time.
Right? So we talked about that you need
to there's a couple of things that you
need to focus on. Right? You need to
focus on how much effort you're gonna put
(16:44):
in, time, and then what the desired outcome
is. But let's talk about time a little
bit.
And you just brought up a couple of
I I brought up a couple of different
names, and we also talked about escape velocity.
So how long should an adviser really say,
I need to put x amount of time
into this to achieve the either celebrity or
(17:04):
authority outcome that I'm looking. It's the question
of all questions is when can I expect
results is what you're really asking?
Yep.
And I don't really know that
influence equals
results
like the most like their results come in
all shapes
(17:25):
and sizes, forms,
if you will. As an example, it's not
always just
advisors
line up at our door
to do business with us. Sometimes it's people
outside that vertical, which is fun.
Sometimes it's companies who work with advisors. Sometimes
it's companies who just wanna hang out with
us.
Sometimes
(17:47):
it's experts,
like peer experts who wanna hang out with
us.
Fascinating
sidebar here,
vet experts who also peers who work with
advisors
when they come on our show
typically have,
significant
influxes of opportunities after hanging out with us.
(18:07):
I don't know what that says, but
it's pretty consistent
and it's pretty powerful.
And I think it's one of the things
that ProudMouth tries to do is we try
to bring you guys value.
It's not always us winning. It's other people
that hang out with us that win win
a lot too.
So we don't,
We try to find the best people
(18:28):
and and a good diversity of
ideas
to to help you guys move forward our
audience. I hope you guys understand
that how much we care about doing that,
how important it is for us to serve
you and help you. And
I guess that's why our listenership just keeps
growing. So thank you for that. But
we know that a big part of that
(18:50):
is just us trying to do the right
thing for you. Anyway,
how long does it take? I am not
getting around this question.
The reality is it takes,
I'd say, a minimum of
2 to 3 years just to get some
momentum going, like real momentum going. Can there
be wins along the way? Absolutely.
What
form do those wins take? How do they
(19:12):
reveal themselves?
Really differs.
Some of the biggest wins, we've talked about
this many times on this show, is our
return on influence, our ROI.
Some of us just being much better professional.
Those are some of the wins that I
find it fascinating that more advisors don't think
about
just doing a podcast to become better at
(19:34):
their craft.
And
I know there's an expense to do in
a podcast if you wanna push it out
there and do it well.
But I don't really know. There's hard to
put a value on just being a better
pro, being better at communicating, coming up better
ways to communicate. It all happens here.
Our preparation for this episode,
(19:55):
and I'm not following the script
or outline as much as I should be,
is really important. But that some of the
gold comes when you veer off the
pathway a little bit.
2 to 3 would be the absolute minimum,
but I really think it can be like
as much as 8 to 10 years. And
that might scare a lot of people,
(20:18):
but I'm gonna tell you this,
anything that you've done in your life and
put a lot of effort in, and when
you get to 10 years and you look
back,
you know how much work it is, what's
worth it.
If you do it the right way, if
you follow the system, if you buy and
commit to it. If you're 10 years into
something and you're not that impressed,
take a look and think what you could
have done better and start doing that now.
(20:39):
If you've been in the business for 10
years or 15 years or 20 years or
whatever,
and you're still trying to figure out marketing
and you think to yourself, what if I
had started this 10 years ago?
If it doesn't hurt, it it should. It
ought to.
So don't have that pain in the next
10 years and stop being scared of the
of something that is 10 years. 10 years
(21:01):
is a long time.
It's a long time to have not done
the right thing too. I think it's a
lot longer if you're not doing the right
things. So you gotta figure that out, but
it it can take longer. Some of the
people that Matt mentioned
have been building their influence for 10 to
20 years
before they really hit it. And I would
say we're at
(21:23):
celebrity or you are, as the face of
our company,
but
face and voice of the company, whatever.
I love your face. I like your voice
too.
They're both
we still we wanna reach higher and higher.
Right? And you gotta put you gotta put
the effort in. Right? You don't
(21:45):
you gotta choose influence. You gotta choose that
pathway and hit it. Be aware of op
all the wins along the way, not just
the revenue wins. And they'll be there if
you do the right things.
But there's there are some things that we're
learning, Matt, as we go along here that
the wins aren't always the people who get
the the most outcomes,
they have things in their world that they
(22:05):
commit to and it makes a difference. And
I think one of the most important things
is showing up prepared for a podcast.
It's the reality. Right? And I think that's
really why I asked you the question is
I want people to have a realistic expectation
of how long this is. I remember the
Indigo Marketing had done a top 41 top
influencers and
you were on that list. Right? Yeah.
(22:28):
And some of the other people on that
list, if you asked any of them how
long they've been doing it, none of them
are gonna say less than 5 years. It's
not even close.
Oh. None of them.
And
most of them are gonna say we're we're
still on that journey to hit celebrity, and
some of them are already there.
And, anyway,
this is sound daunting.
(22:49):
I guess it does. But we're talking about
celebrity, though, and that's the vital thing here.
There are some people who don't wanna have
that level of notoriety.
They want to achieve authority where people are
paying attention to them. People like no one
trusts them. They're getting good referrals. They're growing
their practice, and they're actually stopped being the
best kept secret in the area. There is
a big difference. So you've been doing this
(23:10):
you've been doing this for a while, but
how does it
how do the wins
how how does it feel to you? Does
it feel
what was it easy along the way? Did
you get is it like, how does it
feel having gone from
the first time you and I said, let's
start a podcast before this even became a
business, before we became partners
(23:31):
to today?
What's the journey been like for you? Here's
the deal, dude. There was 10 years
before you and I ever started hanging out.
The first time so I I have it.
I don't know where it is. Now I'm
looking at my office. My first horse's mouth
article was in 2,007.
So my influence journey began then.
I was on the top ten list and
(23:52):
I was talking about communication skills and what
you could learn from Led Zeppelin.
So I haven't actually changed that much from
my messaging. I still talk a lot about
communications but it's been 16 years. Right? 16
years before I would and and the funny
thing is there are some places, Kirk, where
I feel like a celebrity and it it's
actually really cool. And then there's other places.
Nobody has any idea who I am at
(24:14):
all
and have rarely heard of Proudmouth. Right? Which
is interesting because I I don't know if
you I sent this in our chat this
morning.
We're in the top 3% of all podcasts.
Did you know did you know that? Like,
we're in the top 3%
of all that that's all podcasts. That's not
just in financial services.
That's not in marketing. That is because we
(24:35):
have put in the time and the work.
Now to put this into perspective,
Michael Kitsis' podcast is in the 0.5%.
Right? But again, he has fans. Michael Kitsis
is a celebrity in financial services. Samantha Russell
is a celebrity in financial services. But it
did take a a long time.
And from this first speech to the first
(24:56):
horse's mouth article
to I've written 2 books. I'm working on
the 3rd book now.
Everything
changed when we started putting out consistent
content, not just consistent
from a time standpoint
but a consistent brand, a consistent message, a
consistent feeling, and really trying to reinforce the
same sort of ideas.
(25:17):
There are absolutely times where people come in
and they feel like they know me, and
Mark tells the story in almost every sales
call about the first conference that he went
to for the FPA.
But here's the deal.
I, unlike many people,
want to be that celebrity. That is I'm
motivated that way. Right? I've always wanted to
(25:38):
be the face of the company. I'm the
guy who wants to be on a stage
in front of 10,000 people. I'm that guy.
Right?
There are many people in financial services
or people we know who don't, that they're
entirely fine with
actually getting to
authority
and just cruising there. And you can have
a great business and authority,
(25:58):
but it's still
4 years.
4 years from a stop to actually being
able to start feeling like you're an authority.
I agree. I was thinking it's interesting about
celebrity statuses. It feels like that means mass
acceptance since that's not really what defines celebrity
status.
It's
do you wanna read that again? It's on
(26:21):
our sheet. How do we define celebrity status
as people are telling or talking other people
to pay attention to us? So I'll say
that again. People are telling other people to
pay attention to you.
And so we're definitely there. Sometimes you get
caught up in this idea. We're not. Everybody
doesn't know about us. That's what we think
about celebrity. Right?
(26:41):
But there's celebrities
I went to a concert
with my oldest Christian and my wife
on Monday night
in Toronto at a small venue called the
Danforth Music Hall.
And the band is from the UK. They're
called Nothing But Thieves.
And they are
celebrities with their audience. Everybody went nuts all
(27:04):
night long listening to them. It was incredible,
by the way. And
one of the most spectacular
rock voices
you'll ever hear, guys.
Yeah. Great music,
but the guy's voice is just incredible. He's
a gift from God kinda singer. Anyway,
they are not world the world
(27:25):
they're were they're known worldwide, but they're not
celebrity
stars. They're not Coldplay yet.
But in my opinion, they're as good. Now
my my son thinks that they're a better
version of Coldplay, and he likes Coldplay, and
I love Coldplay too. But that's just the
way it is.
But they're on that. I I presume they're
(27:45):
on that pathway if they so choose.
But that's the thing about celebrity is they
played a small venue, 25100 people or so,
which was a real treat as you've ever
been to see a great band with singers
and musicians in a smaller venue. It's incredible.
Right?
I think we gotta think like that. Like,
you can be a celebrity and have
(28:06):
successes with your audience. It doesn't have to
be the biggest audiences. It could be the
audience that that appreciates you and will show
up
and talk about you on their podcast
because they were in Detroit yesterday, I think,
at the Fillmore. That's such an amazing venue,
dude. The Fillmore is one of the best.
Yeah. But, you know, I'm sorry. You brought
up Coldplay. Aim at the Amforth here in
(28:28):
in Toronto. It's incredible. I I wanna just
touch on Coldplay because Coldplay has this amazing
documentary,
and they follow them really from day 1,
like, from one of their first performances.
Right? And and and Chris Martin is being
interviewed throughout this whole thing, and
he wants to achieve that level of celebrity.
That was, like, entirely part of his focus
from day 1. But if they you interview
(28:50):
when they interview the other band members, they
didn't want that. Right? That's why they're usually
they don't really say much. Chris is the
one who talks for all of Coldplay
where I'm talking like I know the guy
but it was also it's fascinating the journey
that they went on and how long it
took them to achieve
that sort of authority and then into celebrity
which was just under 10 years. Right? And
(29:12):
so for those people who are listening right
now,
if you want to stop being the best
kept secret in your area, if you want
to make sure that you're actually rising above
the noise to be your own loud, you're
making a real difference in community and your
marketing starts feeling like it's working for you
instead of you working so hard for your
marketing,
(29:32):
everything can change. And even if you just
wanna stop at the authority level and celebrity
is not within your,
purview,
you have to have a system. And this
is gonna be probably the hardest I pitched
this ever in our entire life on this
podcast.
We have that system.
It is our managed influence system.
(29:52):
It is 2 podcasts a month. We have
all sorts of magnificent benefits, all sorts of
social media. We do some video now. We
write great social media posts for you as
the adviser,
but you have to be involved and sprinkle
your greatness, your personality into everything that's done
and if you do it with us, everything
(30:12):
can change for your practice in 24 to
48 months.
If you wanna put in the time and
the effort, we have the system that you
can plug right into. Kirk, we're running up
on time, dude. I'm just gonna go ahead
and close this puppy out because you and
I could talk about this forever. And in
fact, we need to talk about this more.
I I could talk about nothing but thieves
and
(30:33):
going to concerts and how they and their
pathway
to to success. There's something before you wrap
up. And Matt, sometimes, if you haven't noticed,
tries to wrap up and then I think
of something. Sometimes they say it, sometimes I
don't get to because he's really pushy when
I don't let him finish. But today, I'm
gonna take my chances.
Alright. Go for it. The
(30:54):
part of influence
and when we talk about you never really
know, the outcomes kinda hit you in different
places. The most important income is that you
grow your business and you learn from the
experience, become a better communicator.
You support the idea of clients hanging around
because they know you.
But I think the most important thing about
all is being ready for success when that
thing comes along.
(31:15):
And if an opportunity came along
like 5 years ago for Matt and I,
and we weren't ready for it,
our company wasn't ready for it, for example,
then that just flies by and we never
know.
Or we might know. If a large company
wanted to do business with us and they're
(31:36):
like, you guys aren't ready. They're not gonna
tell you. But now things seem to gain
a lot more traction.
That's the thing that I don't understand when
it's not as tangible. Right?
So but
being ready for success is, like, it's everything.
You we there's books written about being ready
(31:56):
for success, and
you don't always know when it's gonna hit
you.
But I know that
and you'll never know when it doesn't hit
you. That's the problem. We're such a
an interesting and frustrating species
with our brain. We think we're so smart.
Right? But we can all we we rely
so much on what we can
(32:17):
see, feel, touch, hear,
taste.
We just live in that world. But think
about the opportunity
costs
along the way of you not being ready
for success because you weren't
an authority,
at least an authority.
It will blow your mind if you really
think about how many things have passed you
(32:38):
by. And I think it may be one
of the biggest reasons to pursue influence
is to be ready for success.
And if you're not, man, what a bummer.
What an absolute bummer if somebody
thought about
all the opportunities that you and I would
have missed. We should I should have started
a lot sooner.
(32:58):
Although my first content marketing thing was in
2000.
I wrote a paper
that still has we talked I've mentioned this
a couple of times. Has some really fun
stuff. It was really fun to go through
that about a year ago when I said,
hey, I should go back and
Anyway,
I'm gonna let the master
close this up. But don't leave us. Don't
leave us. Don't leave us because, you know
(33:20):
So you just said something else and and
I will use that to to close-up.
You have to put in the time and
the effort and you have to make the
investment
in order for you to
understand and accept influence. But Kirk said something
else that I think is the hidden gem
of this entire thing,
which is
when you actually embrace influences the way that
(33:43):
you wanna do marketing here in the future,
It isn't just gonna help you grow your
business, but it makes you better at your
job.
We have our clients tell us all the
time, oh my god, Matt. I said something
on one of the podcasts that now I
use in every one of my client meetings.
I learned from Patrice or Wendy or one
of our voice talents how to listen a
(34:03):
little bit more effectively
and not try to think what they're going
to say, wait until they finish saying it.
There's all of these little things. When you
show up and you're ready to go and
you're not eating lunch during your podcast, when
you're actually sitting there in your present and
you're practicing your craft like an actual professional
does, everything can change. Listen. If you wanna
know more about who we are and what
(34:24):
we do, please make sure that you subscribe
to this show. But most importantly,
the year is coming to a close. You're
creating your budget for this next year.
You need to allocate
10%
of gross.net
for marketing. If you truly want to accelerate
your practice
this next year it is 10% of gross.net
and we would love to be one of
(34:45):
the benefactors of that 10% of gross not
net. And, also, we have lots of different
programs and systems that you can plug into
at various price points to make it so
that you can truly start accelerating your input.
So for Kirk and all of us here
at Cobalt, this is Matt Halloran, and I'll
see you on the other side of the
mic very soon.
Thanks for listening to the top advisor marketing
podcast brought to you by Proudmouth.
(35:07):
If you wanna know more about how you
can be your own lab, visit us at
proudmouth.com
and sign up for the PodRocket Academy.
Through courses and office hours led by professional
podcast producers and digital marketers, you will learn
everything you need to know to become the
trusted subject matter expert you were meant to
be.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.