S2E10 Q&A: Building Trust, Crafting Ads, and Managing Teams

In this Q&A episode of Paid to Create, we’re answering your questions on growing your business, mastering marketing, and leading remote teams. We share strategies that actually work, from creating ads that capture attention to managing remote teams without feeling like a micromanager.

We’ll dive into the psychology behind irresistible ads, why authenticity is key in marketing, and how you can connect with your audience on a deeper level. Plus, we discuss how to build real engagement, like showing appreciation to customers without breaking the bank and crafting stories that resonate so deeply, your audience will keep coming back.

Managing remote teams? We’ve got you covered. Learn how to leverage individual strengths, offer flexibility, and keep people motivated—without the burnout. And when it comes to consumer personas, we’ll break down how understanding your audience helps you craft more effective, tailored messaging that stands out, even when you’re catering to polarizing customer segments.

Along the way, we’ll also share lessons from legal and operational mistakes and why having the right advisors can save you from costly errors. We’ll throw in a few productivity hacks, too, for delegating tasks and managing your time more efficiently. And if you’re struggling with low engagement as a content creator, we’ve got tips for staying focused on your creative journey despite the setbacks.

Tune in for practical, no-nonsense advice mixed with a little humor and real stories from our own entrepreneurial journeys. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, this episode is packed with insights you can put into action right now.

Here’s what we cover in this episode:

• What's your favorite way to make customers feel special without breaking the bank?
• What’s your go-to tip for making an ad truly irresistible?
• How do you keep everyone aligned and motivated in a fully remote setup?
• How do you adjust your marketing to appeal to both rule followers and rule breakers?
• What’s one ‘ups’ moment in your business journey that taught you the biggest lesson?
• How do you spot marketing trends before they become mainstream?
• What’s the first system every small business owner should put into place?
• What’s one launch strategy that always works, no matter the industry?
• What’s the secret to crafting a story that customers connect with?
• What’s the number one mistake entrepreneurs make while trying to build trust with their audience?
• What’s your best tip for staying motivated when things get tough?

Listen to - or watch - all episodes of Paid to Create at paidtocreatepodcast.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And so, when it comes to trust, if there is a moment
that just seems unbelievable ordoesn't seem quite right or
seems like it's embellished,people will unknowingly check
out and you lose them.
And so I think that's thenumber one mistake people make
is trying to portray an imagethey think the marketplace wants
to see versus who they reallyare.

(00:22):
Welcome everybody to thisweek's episode of Paid to Create
.
We've got a little Q&A for you,as always.
I'm AJ Roberts and this isSarah Jenkins Whee, so we're
just going to jump right in.
We did an episode recently onholiday promotion.
Some of the questions are fromthat.
Sarah has some questions.
I have some questions, so let'sstart off, sarah.
This one's for you.
So let's start off, sarah.

(00:42):
This one's for you.
Hey, sarah, this is Emma fromAustin, texas.
I love Austin.
You mentioned how important itis to reward loyal customers,
especially around the holidays.
What's your favorite way tomake customers feel special
without breaking the bank?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, without breaking the bank, is that
caveat?
However, I have donecustom-labeled Genesis Digital
champagne bottles to our top 10affiliates and then I've sent
out merchandise of cards to ourwebinar jam if they have been
our client longer than a year orwhatever.
We've done a couple little swagpromos that everyone gets

(01:16):
excited about.
You get a hat or a backpack ora notebook or whatever, and
people really really do love it.
The thanks-to-cards weimplemented with the thank-you
note from you and I back in theday and say hey, thank you so
much for buying, and just to saythank you for doing the trial.
And then, if they stayed longerthan trial, we sometimes
followed up with a gift like apen or a notebook, but otherwise
our customers were really happyto even get, let's say, even a

(01:38):
personal phone call.
I've had a couple of phonecalls or emails on Facebook
going back and forth saying hey,just want to reach out and say
thank you myself, and that thenmade the most difference was
getting the personal connectionfrom me.
I get time is money, but whenthey're your top clients or even
you pick some at random to justgive them a message yourself
from you, that's highly received.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yeah, I think that the caveat of not breaking the
bank creates limitations, but Ithink the mistake is to think
that people want gifts or someform of monetary reward, right,
and normally that a lot ofpeople they just want the
appreciation.
One of the things that I've donethat worked really, really well

(02:19):
and I've had other businessesdo, is Thanksgiving or Christmas
.
You just send a card.
Other businesses do isThanksgiving or Christmas.
You just send a card, but youinclude gift cards like $100
gift cards for your business inthose.
But you say to them this is atime of giving, I wanted to give
you a gift that you could passon to others.
So now it's a referral thing.
But it's also that you'resending them a thank you, a nice

(02:48):
card, which not a lot ofbusinesses are sending
Thanksgiving cards.
So you kind of stand out atThanksgiving.
Christmas is a little bit morenoise, but still a lot of
businesses aren't sending outcards.
So you get through the trashheap right and they'll put the
card up.
And then those gift cards, ifthey have people they think can
benefit from it, they can handthem out and so it's a way to
actually get referrals as wellas saying thank you.

(03:08):
So I think hopefully that givesyou a few ideas.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
That's awesome.
I got one for you.
Hey, aj, this is Mark fromChicago.
You're a master of marketingpsychology, agreed?
What is your go-to tip formaking an ad truly irresistible?

Speaker 1 (03:27):
It all starts.
So it depends on what platformyou're on Interesting, Because
it all depends on what's goingto grab their attention first,
right?
So if you're on like Google andit's just your regular search,
there's no images or anything,right?
So the first line, the headline, that's obviously the most
important piece to pull peoplein, you got to have a really

(03:48):
strong hook.
If you're on like Facebook andthey're scrolling, or Instagram
and they're scrolling like, it'sthe image, right, and the image
has to really capture theirattention.
Now, the mistake that a lot ofpeople make is they try to use a
stock image or something likethat and while they somewhat
work, like typically, if peoplecan tell it's an ad, they they

(04:09):
don't necessarily stop, becauseif they're not in a with Google,
someone's searching.
So there's an intent, right,Depending on what keyword
they're searching for.
It could be a buying keyword orit could be like a research
keyword.
So your ads can really becatered towards that keyword so
it aligns with them.
And congruency is the mostimportant thing with the

(04:32):
advertising.
If they see the ad and clickthrough, it all has to be
congruent.
So you shouldn't have adifferent image on the landing
page than you have in your adbecause wait a minute, it's
slightly different from apsychological standpoint.
The brain pauses, it doesn'tseem like it flows through.
But, in terms, to make an adreally irresistible, you have to
pull them in, which is going tobe either the headline or the

(04:53):
image, and then where does theeye go to next?
Right, and every singlesentence should create curiosity
or a desire to have to continueon on.
And you do that withcliffhangers, you do that with
open loops.
There's lots of differenttricks you can do, but what it
really comes down to isunderstanding storytelling and

(05:16):
what keeps people on the edge oftheir seat.
Because you want to build upthe suspense to the point where
clicking through which isusually what an ad's trying to
get someone to do it mightpre-sell them in the ad, but
nobody's buying from the ad.
They have to go to another pageto purchase right, and so the
click is what you're selling,whether it's an email, whether

(05:38):
it's an ad, because you run adsin emails, ads on display
networks, ads whatever it isthey're clicking through.
And so, when to get that clickthrough, you have to create a
big enough desire to know what'son the other side, and most
people don't think like thatthey think about an ad and they
think about the product and theydon't realize that, like every
single thing that goes into thead from the image to the

(05:59):
headline to the body copy has tocreate this huge, huge FOMO
feeling that if they don'tcontinue on, they've missed
something.
They've missed out on something.
And it's why you see a lot oflanguage around secrets and
things like that, because peopleimmediately think there has to
be something that they don'tknow Immediately creates an open
desire to learn.

(06:20):
So that's really the key withthe advertising or any marketing
in general, is that everythingshould lead them to the next
step.
It's like fundamental directresponse 101.
But even great content writersand I think that we're moving
into an era where, arguably,content is direct response,
Because even with contentwriting, if you're writing a

(06:42):
blog article and the person'sbored after the first few
paragraphs, they're not going tofinish it.
So you have to think about howdo you create suspense, how do
you create anticipation, how doyou create your turning points,
emotional roller coasters thattake them on a journey, and you
really have to think about thatand think through it, and each
phase leads to the next phaseand that's all you focus on is

(07:02):
how do I get them to move fromhere to the next step, to the
next step?
So like, obviously if you gofrom ad to landing page, then
the landing page, you have toget them to the buy button,
right.
And so most people don't thinkabout that.
They'll put a buy button in themiddle of a page because
they're like oh, it's prettylong, but it's like have you
pre-sold enough to get them atthat point to want to purchase?
If the answer's no and it's whyon long form sales letters,

(07:24):
oftentimes you won't see a buybutton until the very end,
Because the assumption is wehaven't built the desire if they
haven't gone through it.
It's why you know VSLs videosales letters we used to do we
would not allow the buy buttonto pop until a certain point in
the video because we wanted toforce the watching of the video
to create all of that desire, tocreate all of that reason to
move forward.

(07:44):
Now there's different tacticsand tricks and obviously, if
you're in an industry that isheavily using a certain
marketing tool, like a webinarfor example, you can't do a
traditional webinar because theperson on the other end has
probably seen a dozen, if notmore, of these things.
So they know exactly what'scoming.
So you have to do thingsdifferent.
But in general, generalprinciples know exactly what's

(08:06):
coming.
So you have to do thingsdifferent.
But in general, generalprinciples, you know.
The real key is you got to havea really strong attention
grabbing image or headline topull them in, and then you have
to treat every single sentencein the same way.
There shouldn't there shouldn'tbe anything in there that
creates confusion, boredom or isjust run on where like allows
their mind to drift off.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, remember we did a couple email opens like and
did one like why is the penguinin egypt in the desert?
And it's like everybody openedit.
I don't know if he led into thereason to click in the email to
the product launch or whatever,but he was good at having those
attention grabbing headlines.
And then the picture was yeah,penguin in the desert using some
photoshop or whatever.
Um, it's really fun to get thathook.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Um, okay, All right, what I got for you here.
So, sarah Michael from SanDiego, oh, oh, no Local hunt you
down.
Uh, you've worked in teams allaround the world.
How do you keep everyonealigned and motivated while
having a fully remote setup?

Speaker 2 (09:02):
We practice your one-on-ones with your supervisor
, but then you go down.
So once a month I did let's sayI'm talking to my top C-suite
right, you know you and I wouldhave our calls or whatever but I
pick someone random on yourstaff to say hey, would you like
a call with me Just to sayhow's it going?
Would you like to see somethingchanged?
You can tell me it doesn't goanywhere, anywhere.

(09:23):
But if I can make a change foryou, I'd like to know what that
could be, to see if there's anyconsistency of what people are
looking for and stuff on thelower level.
So it's kind of reaching outindividually.
We also have Bonusly becausewe're all remote.
So if you have someone that'sreally good at saying, kristen,
I love that customer serviceemail, that was awesome.
Here's a teddy bear emoji orwhatever you can also, with
Bonusly, add stars.

(09:44):
You get 300 stars a month togive away.
I think that's the limit andthen, with those stars that
you're gifting, you send anencouraging message and then you
turn in those stars in Bonuslyfor a Starbucks gift card or an
Amazon gift card.
So you're actually rewardingthem in small, little, tiny ways
that there's little gifts beinggiven by your coworkers to each
other and by you too, to yourdifferent staff that you talk to

(10:07):
periodically.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
One of the things I'll point out that I have
observed you do really reallywell, because I think it's a
skill that you have, that youdon't necessarily think about
right.
It's natural to you but, like,you do a really good job of
putting the right people in theright places.
So one of the things when youlook at remote is a true

(10:31):
extrovert who needs to be aroundother people, never fit in the
company, and you were reallygood at recognizing when you
were filling roles like is thisperson independent?
Are they somewhat of anintrovert, meaning they enjoy
alone time Because you'reworking at home alone and the
only connection is Skype orSlack.

(10:53):
We moved to right.
But we don't want people onthere all day trying to talk to
people just because they needattention or they need to be a
part of something.
And so it's interesting because, personality-wise, you're
really good at understandingthat and I think that that's a
key.
And we did a couple ofpersonality tests uh, wealth
dynamics I don't know talentdynamics, which is their one for

(11:14):
employees but to reallyunderstand, like, who these
people are, what are they reallygood at, what are they not so
good at?
And you know, beyond thequalifications for the job, do
they fit the environment we'rein?
Because, like, we have no wayto do in-person stuff very often
.
So if there's someone who needsquality, well, we're worldwide,
so no.

(11:34):
Exactly so they're not going toget that need met.
So you know, again, I thinkwe've talked about love
languages before but, like youknow, we did things to try to
hit those different marks.
Physical, you know, physicaltouch, that kind of stuff's not
possible.
Quality time, having thosephone calls that we would do
building in other, like companyevents, like I know, during

(11:57):
COVID there was a game night andstuff like that that the
employees, you know the team,put together for them and
whoever wanted to join.
We've done little challenge.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
We did a talent show.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Talent show where we submitted stuff and some of the
talents people had wasunbelievable.
And it just goes to show thatif you think remote and you just
think, oh, people are going tobe working at home, it's going
to be normal, no, no, no,there's still an environment,
there's still a workspace,they're still setting up the
home to be productive and it wasall of those things I saw you

(12:30):
do and work with.
That I think really made thedifference.
So that's just a little bitfrom my side which I witnessed
you do really well.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Let's say but we also , when you have an employee
that's not doing well in theirposition, we offer them a
different position.
We said, okay, you're asupervisor in this chat, Maybe
you don't want to manage, Maybeyou don't want to keep track of
the ticket numbers that peopleare giving.
You know the responses thatthey're giving, whatever.
If you have a different skill,maybe you'd be better in
accounting or billing.
So we move people around tothree or four different

(12:56):
positions before saying you knowthis isn't working for you or
us, or you're unhappy, whatever.
But if they came to us and saidthey're unhappy or we noticed
that their productivity wasfailing, we'd say, hey, why
don't we try a differentposition for you?
So a lot of our staff, like yousaid, we're trying to find
where they fit best.
They actually changed roles acouple times and I made that
normal.
It was like this is not aproblem, We'll just put you over

(13:17):
here, Make the same amount, orwe'll move little more over here
.
Like there's different thingsto make our employees really
feel seen and heard.
And we have just so many gamingI say basement dwelling, like,
just like, sit on the computerand play their games.
But they're really, reallygreat at this job.
So then they get off the joband start playing, and then
there's talking to their staff.
Still, they're talking to theirfellow employees that play the

(13:37):
same game.
I play the stupid dreamlikegame and a bunch of my staff
play it and I just found out.
I was like, oh no, now we haveso much more to talk about.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, exactly, I saw that too and it worked really
really well Shared interests,and after a while it seemed as
if, oh, this type of person isthe right type of person.
So you could ask people certainquestions during the interview
process because you knew thatthey were more likely to be a
gamer.
They were more likely to be agamer, you know.
They were more likely to be anintrovert.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
You know how good gamers are at communicating
online Because that's all theydo.
If you're in, you know Call ofDuty, you're talking to your
fellow people you've never met,you've never seen, you don't
know their name, you only knowtheir tag, sassy Dazzle, and
then you play, but you talk tothem all the time so you're
chatting.
So you get really good atchatting with the nice emoji,
the nice punctuation, like youget really really good at those

(14:26):
skills.
That's what I, that's what Ilook for in certain departments.
Um, we have from ethan, fromseattle, washington.
You mentioned working withdifferent buyer types, like rule
followers, rule breakers.
How do you adjust yourmarketing to appeal to both?

Speaker 1 (14:47):
You have to run different marketing if you're
going to appeal Like.
You can't be in the gray zone.
You have to be in order toreally be successful, and you
can look at the most successfulinfluencers right now.
I'll use Jake Poole versus you,Paul, versus going down the

(15:09):
political route, but Jake, Pauland Tyson just arguably had one
of the most successful fights onNetflix crashed Netflix.
So many viewers At the wrongtime.
Jake Paul is a new boxer who isbuilding his record.
He figured out he could build arecord by fighting non-boxers,
while he's improving and gettingpaid more money than any real
boxer is making, except for,maybe, like the Tyson Furies of

(15:33):
the world, right, sure.
And so when you look at it, yougo, well, why?
Well, he is a heel, right.
And if you have ever studiedWWE pro wrestling, you know
entertainment wrestling likeyou'll see that the Rock was a
heel and like people who arevery popular, like they're
either a heel or a baby face.

(15:54):
And if you're a heel, you wantpeople to not like you and so
you do things and you createscenarios.
So Jake Paul relies on the factthat everybody wants to see him
get knocked out.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yes, I do.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
That is exactly why people tune in, because they
want to see this guy get knockedout.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
His attitude deserves it, fictitious or not.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
Exactly so.
My point with that is is, ifyou have rule breakers and you
have people who break rules,they're not going to be
attracted to the same thing.
And so if you're trying to playin the middle to pull them both
in, what you're going to end upwith is people who are
wishy-washy on the fence.
You're not going to getpassionate, loyal, raving fans.
Now, that doesn't mean youcan't serve both people.

(16:35):
Right, it might have to be adifferent brand, it might have
to be different advertising, butthe reality is is that if you
want to successfully attractrule breakers right, you have to
be so polarizing to the peoplethat follow rules that you're
not going to bring those peoplein.
You know, and it's kind of, youcan look at brands that are out
there that play thesepositionings and use these

(16:59):
things to their advantage andthey don't want to attract the
other side, because there'senough people on each end of the
spectrum to be very, verysuccessful, and so we'll go back
to having multiple brands.
Car manufacturers do this allthe time.
Banks do this.
There's not a million banks outthere, there's a few banks that

(17:23):
have multiple branchesCommunity bank because they want
to attract the person who wantsto support local and feel safe
because their money's rightthere.
And the reality is a communitybank is owned by a major bank.
Same with the car manufacturers.
You know, and I don't know, thedifferent brands and who owns
what.
But you know Rolls Royce, Ibelieve.

(17:44):
I think it's Audi or it's oneof the other German companies
that own them.
But like they don't mix thebrands, they acquire a brand and
keep it separate because, again, it attracts different people
and they know the person who'sgoing to spend $20,000, they'll
desire the high end, but thehigh end buyer doesn't want to

(18:05):
be associated with the Kia,right, they want, you know, and
it's kind of like you have.
If we look at supercars, forexample, like an entry-level
supercar is like a Corvette, buta Lamborghini owner if it was,
they don't want.
You know Corvette, the brand,what it is, it's like okay, but
then there's Lamborghini, right,and it's not the same brand,

(18:27):
it's separate, but like aLamborghini.
Only, if that was just aMercedes or something like that,
they would be less likely towant it.
And so that's really all yougot to think about is how do we
attract the right people?
And now other people may beattracted to that messaging too,
that weren't on your mind interms of that.

(18:50):
But again, you have tounderstand the language that
you're going to speak to someonewho's a rule breaker versus the
language who follows rules istwo totally different like
conscious levels.
You know, and you could kind oflike rule followers, people who
need the 10 commandments,people who need to know the 10
rules for this the 10.
And then rule breakers arepeople who look at that and go
that's all bullshit, none ofthat matters.

(19:12):
And so how do you communicatethe same message to people who
fundamentally have a differentphilosophy of life?
You really can't, in my opinionand I'm sure I could be proven
wrong, because, like it seemslike no matter what, there's
always a way, but for me it'smore.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
it'd be be way more work to try to do one message to
suit them both than it wouldjust to separate it well, unless
you do the ascension thing,like with gen labs the 29 a
month to watch, um, how we dodifferent marketing strategies
for anyone that can afford the29.
But then we also have the 10000 masterminds.
So it's like people doing the$29 gen labs do want that
information, but they want themastermind eventually.

(19:49):
So it doesn't tie the two.
They're different products butthe same goal to make the sales
right.
And I guess yeah, it was funnyIn Europe there's a lot more
Mercedes than there are here, soI make fun of people here.
They're Mercedes than there arehere.
So I make fun of people herelike, oh, I have a BMW.
It's like because you can'tafford a Mercedes, because the
Mercedes here are a lot moreexpensive and in Europe they're
probably like nope, nope.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
But I mean, when I was looking at new cars I looked
at there's a Mercedes, it'slike 120k and I looked at it and
the inside is absolutelybeautiful, but from the outside
it just looked like a Mercedes.
So I ended up going withBentley because from the outside
to the inside it was all luxuryand it was beautiful.

(20:30):
But I really liked a Mercedes.
But it was the fact that fromthe outside there was no
distinguishing of value, therewas nothing about the look of it
that made me think, oh, this isworth that much more from the
25,000 C100 or whatever it isthey have.
And I think that that'ssomething you have to think
about in marketing is thatoftentimes affluent buyers and

(20:52):
this is slightly different thanthe rule breakers, non-rule
breakers, but affluent buyerspurposely buy stuff that other
people can't because they wantto show off in a certain way and
there's different levels andthere's different standards and
it's like when people get to theF, you money, they don't need
it.
They kind of go basic again.
Right, because they don't needanybody.
It doesn't matter what peoplethink.

(21:12):
But I think that if you'retrying to attract rule followers
, then they need rules and ifyou're trying to act rule
breakers, they need frameworks.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
So it could be the same product with different
messaging.
So there's two differentmessaging, exactly, yeah.
Well, you got Christian Carter,ketchum and Keaton or David
D'Angelo Double your Dating,same author, but hitting the
different markets for thespecificity that they needed in
that time.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, pretty fun, exactly All right.
Next one's for you.
This comes from Jamie in Denver, colorado.
In one episode you touched onoperations and avoiding legal
pitfalls.
It's comical.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
It is comical, we did it today.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
What's one oops moment in your business journey
that taught you the biggestlesson?

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Oh man, I don't even know what I'm allowed to say in
that one.
Well, okay, the one that reallykicked me in the head was the
VAT tax.
We didn't understand that weowed VAT tax and then all the
countries started sending meletters.
I was like, oh no.
So we had to go to everycountry we've made a sale in and
do the proper paperwork andfile all the backend taxes.

(22:21):
We had to ask for forgivenesson some penalties.
Some of them are forgiving,some of them are not.
I don't have any I have acertain grudge against or
anything, but the ones that madethe most amount of money for me
gave me the biggest fines.
I'm like shoot.
So that was a lesson.
I learned to be on top of thoseother rules outside of the
country and outside of the statethat we're not really aware of,
and I didn't think I was evenbig enough to need to know that

(22:43):
stuff.
But apparently, the financesgoing in and out of our SaaS
company, we did hit some ofthose minimum limits, which was
nice.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yeah, that's a real good point, Because even rules
are changing all the time, Allthe time.
You know where the fact thatyou know states are realizing
that, hey, these digitalcompanies are selling in our
state without collecting statetaxes, right?
So you had it at the globallevel, then we had it at the
local level in terms of states,and it's like, well, we're not.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
We owe 19 cents to certain counties.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
We're not in that, we're not in this and it's like
well, no, but if you have 100transactions in our state in a
year, now you have have toqualify, and so it was like
those are things that like I'msure there's a place you can go
look this stuff up, but likehard to find.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
I did my own little tabulation just to see where
what I was getting myself into.
And then, you know, had our cpado it for us, because we're
like, well, it's just too hardto figure out where the limits
are.
They're different for everystate.
Some states don't collect anyany tax on SAS and some states
do from the minute you startedyour company, like.
So everything is different inrules.
So that was the biggest one.
For me, that was a shock andsurprise.

(23:50):
The one that impacted ourcompany the most was our
operating agreement.
When you go into an operatingagreement, you need to have the
best lawyers you can find to dothe contracts in your operating
agreement so that it's airtight.
If you have a partnership, ifyou have a spouse of that
partner and the partner dies, doyou have a buyout agreement
already done?
Do you have a?
Now that spouse is yourmanaging partner?

(24:10):
Is that really what you want inthe first place?
Probably not, especially ifthey're, you know, a
stay-at-home dad or astay-at-home mom.
Like they don't know thecompany anyway, you don't want
them as your newest partner, butthey're entitled to those
benefits of that ownership.
So you need to have thosedetails written out very, very
crisp and clear, with noloopholes, which is another
thing.

(24:30):
To have your tax guy and yourbusiness attorney set up
mutually to look at thattogether and make sure you
haven't missed anything.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
And it's tough because a lot of times when you
go into a partnership you'relike buddies or you're, and so
you know you have the bestintentions.
And then you get into thesethings with lawyers, and lawyers
lay out like the worst casescenarios and at the time you're
like in your mind you're likethis is never going to happen.
But like, and those toughconversations give people cold
feet, they make awkwardconversations because it's like
well, now we have to think aboutscenarios that we weren't

(25:00):
thinking about.
But the reality is is that withpartnerships like you mentioned
, you never know.
And if someone does pass andall of a sudden their son takes
over the company and all of asudden wants to step in and like
, have all this stuff to say andthey haven't been involved ever
, like and you're the otherpartner or whatever, like,
suddenly you're like, wait aminute.
Like, and then you have to tryto buy them out and now they

(25:21):
want an unreasonable amount, andso now there's a lawsuit, like,
and this happens more oftenthan people realize.
And so you know, I'm not sayingthat your partnerships are
always going to end bad, but thereality is it's like you have
no idea what's going to happenand so you need the and that's
why you pay in the lawyers.
You need them to think throughthese worst case scenarios and

(25:42):
have things on paper becausewhen it, when it comes up, if it
comes up, well, you have theanswer.
You don't have to now.
You're not in this, like youknow, place of mystery where
you're trying to figure it out,and you know lawsuits are
happening because they'reallowed to happen, because
there's nothing there todetermine which way it goes.
And it's horrible because,again, when you start in a

(26:03):
business with someone, or evenjust a relationship, there's no
like thought process that thisis going to be the worst thing
ever and at some point, and it'sgoing to be like a hell and a
nightmare that I have to livethrough.
And when they, when the lawyers,write the contracts, they write
it like that.
So you're reading through goingoh my gosh, this is terrible,
and you kind of feel likesometimes you're getting the
short end of the stick.

(26:23):
Or they feel like they'regetting the short end of the
stick, but it's absolutelynecessary because at the end of
the day, like you mentioned,death is the big thing you have
no control over and you don'tknow.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
You hope nothing bad happens and it happens to all of
us Exactly, eventually, I meanyou've lived through it.
I have, and that's why Iactually I don't mind being the
boring spokesperson, the posterchild for these lawyers and
these contracts.
I think of lawyers andcontracts like insurance.
It's just like man.
Oh, it's so expensive.
Look at all the stuff I've gotto think about.

(26:59):
And that's why you pay, going todo a buyout or, if you don't
sell your company, you're goingto end up in some of these
situations that you're notlooking forward to with your
partner.
If your partner's son stealsmoney out of the business bank,
takes the dad's credit card andempties it, guess what?
You have to deal with that too,because now you've lost money
because of not your partner buthis son.
There's other people that cantouch stuff that you don't even

(27:20):
know is coming.
So I'm the one that's like,okay, you hate insurance, you
don't like it at all.
But when your car is totaled orwhen your house burns down,
you're like, oh good, okay,insurance will write me a check
and I'll, you know, move in theright direction.
So lawyers are the same they'llkeep you a out of jail.
They'll keep your potentialpartner hopefully out of jail
and they'll keep y'all fromsuing each other and just losing
revenue, losing money andlosing love for each other by

(27:41):
having those corrections done.
All right, what about Liam fromTampa Florida?
You have shared insights we didabout trends like the
anti-sales strategy.
How do you spot marketingtrends before they became
mainstream?

Speaker 1 (28:02):
I think my advantage has always been that I never
studied one industry.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
That's fair.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
And so I had an early mentor, ryan Lee, and he would
come up with stuff and it waslike, where did he get this idea
from?
And then you realize prettyquick that he was paying
attention to the porn industryand he always felt like the porn
industry was way ahead of likethe fitness industry and so he

(28:29):
would look at like the way theirmembership sites were and the
way they were delivering contentand the quality of the video
cameras, and so I can't say I'vefollowed the same path in terms
of studying that.
But what I'm often doing is I'mlooking at all the different
industries, right, and I'mlooking at who's doing what.
What's innovative, what's not.

(28:51):
Who's leveraging new tools likeAI?
How are they leveraging them?
What could the future be?
Is there a way to prepare forthat?
Now?
You know, like, for example, twoyears ago, when video like uh
avatars came up, they were, theywere not good, and I was like
someday they're going to replacethe need to stand in front of a
camera, but you're still goingto need good scripts, right, and

(29:12):
so so what's the most importantthing?
Well, script writing.
Well, ai can script write foryou, but you need to know the
prompt.
So, okay, you need to be areally good prompt engineer to
get the most out of AI.
So, even though the technologywasn't there at the time, it's
getting now to the point wherepeople they have AI avatars that
are really good, and it's tothe point that people are able

(29:34):
to clone themselves and it'd be90% good.
Right, there's still some weirdmanomerisms and stuff that, if
you're paying a lot of attentionto the video, you'll catch and
be like well, that wasn'thuman-like.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
I love catching them.
It's fun.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
But even the voice training and stuff like that,
and so when you're payingattention to other industries
and how they're using this andhow they're using that, then you
could pull it over intoindustry and be one of the first
.
I have a client right now inthe UK I'm not going to say what
industry they're in because ifanybody's listening, I don't
want them to beat us to the markbut we started looking at how

(30:06):
could he expand across the wholecountry and we started digging
in.
I'm like wait, like none ofyour competitors are doing these
things.
And he's like I know.
And I'm like this is weird.
And at first I was like, well,does this mean it doesn't exist?
But there is enough businessesthat offer the exact thing he's

(30:30):
doing in every single city thatwe want to target that.
I know there must be enoughbusiness.
They just don't do essentiallydirect response marketing.
And I'm like this is wild.
And then he's been teachingother people how to do this, and
so I've found people that aredoing it.
And I come to him and say, oh,I found it.
And he's like, oh, that's myclient.
And I'm like, oh, no wonder whythey're doing this stuff.

(30:51):
So we're building the plan outand he tried before and he had
some small things that he didwrong that kind of didn't allow
the scale, but that like kind ofdidn't allow the scale.
But that's what you're lookingfor.
Is you're looking for somethingthat doesn't have to be the
first time it's ever been done,but is it the first time it's
ever been done in your industry?
And that's really what we'relooking at for trends.
And so, when you think about it, if you know and I haven't

(31:15):
really ever got into TikTok, butour Ryan Megan, you know, he's
arguably the best TikTok creatorin the world, or short form
video management company in theworld.
But it's because, like, henoticed that this TikTok was a
huge trend and so he startedgetting business people on it
and it worked.
And so then he, you know, afterhe got like a million followers

(31:37):
for someone, he was like, wait,I might have something here.
And it's like he built that up.
But it was because he saw thathumans were attracted to this
very short form, the type ofcontent it was, and he
understood the formula.
And you know, I think his, hisguarantee is like I'll make you
go viral in the in 90 days,right, and he does it over and

(31:57):
over again, but again it was.
He was there at the beginning.
He was very good at video, sohe understood video and he saw
where the trends like what wastrending in terms of reels and
shorts and that and he was justable to see like I think this
will work for businesses.
You know, right now it's mostly,like you know, comedians and
content creators but, like, butI think it will work for, like
the standard you know businessand it has, and I think that's

(32:20):
really the key is, like you'vealways just got to be paying
attention to all the differentthings and even if just from a
perspective of observation, whenyou're traveling, when you're
going places, how are thingsdone?
What do you not like, what couldbe improved on?
It's like very rare that I go toa restaurant that I'm not like
analyzing the entire experienceand like mentally criticizing
them for like dropping the ballon getting more money out of me.

(32:42):
But you know, it's somethingthat I think if you're, if
you're someone who is a marketeror is involved in marketing,
you have to like eat, sleep andbreathe it and always be looking
through the frame of like whenyou're watching a movie or
you're watching a TV show, oryou're watching a play or you're
at a conference, like alwaysthe frame of like you've got the
content that's being deliveredand then the environment and the

(33:04):
framing for that delivery.
And if you're paying attentionthrough these different lenses,
you pick up on these things thatare working and you can take it
back to your business and soyou know if there's a conference
that has a hundred thousandpeople at it and it's in, you
know, and it's an educationalconference, how they get a
hundred000 people there.
Well, let's go see, let's gofind out and you can learn
through observation.
So I think that's always been abig advantage for me is I've

(33:26):
never, even though I started inthe fitness space, I wasn't
studying fitness businesses.
I was studying other businessesand seeing how they were using
marketing, and then my brain wasable to go oh wait, we could do
this over here.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Brain was able to go oh wait, we could do this over
here.
That's what we did too.
We started saying directresponse marketing.
That's in newspapers, from thefirst newspaper print.
It's the same style ofmarketing, so it works from back
then and it works now.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah, all right, we got more.
This is from Riley in Portland,oregon.
So I love your.
I love your thoughts, sarah, oncreating systems to free up
time.
What's the?

Speaker 2 (34:05):
first system you think every small business owner
should put into place.
Oh man, usually small, I mean.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
I think it's email for you.
You always talk about that one.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
Well, when you think of small, is it like one guy at
home with his one product?
That is very small.
So systems are harder.
They're personal systems to getyour shit shit done.
Um, oh man, yeah, if email issomething you have to be doing,
you have to get the emails out.
You have to do them, whetherit's holidays or not.
We already talked about that.
Um, it's that.
You know the cart abandonsequence of emails that go out

(34:36):
when someone doesn't buy yourproduct the entry email.
When you first get the exit popto get someone to give the
email.
What is their gift or whateverthey're giving you their email.
You want to retouch them.
Thank you for blah blah blah.
You have to have all of thatright now and all of that plans.
If you don't have it planned,you're going to have a week.
You don't feel like writingemails.
You can't do it every week.
So if you have those six monthsor whatever, or even three

(35:07):
months of out two or three timesthis week, these are the
headlines, these are the salesit's going to lead to or this is
the bottom line of the email,if it's even just informative.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, I think that is the best thing that a small
business owner could do fortheir company.
I think probably knowing how torank your to-do items in terms
of what's going to producerevenue for your company is a
system that I would highlyrecommend people figure out,
because most people will createa to-do list and nine out of 10

(35:31):
things on that list are justoperational busy work that
doesn't Easy.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
You can check it.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
It's really fun, Well it might not be easy, but it
doesn't produce revenue, itdoesn't produce an ROI, it
doesn't produce cash flow, andthe reality is is without that
your business won't survive.
And so the first thing youshould be doing every day, in my
opinion, is customeracquisition.
And customer acquisition it'snot just getting a new customer,

(35:58):
it's getting a new customer andthen reselling your old
customers, right, because at theend of the day, if someone's
already purchased from you andyou give them good stuff, right,
let's assume that you'reactually giving value, like, why
would they not buy somethingelse from you?
And so, customer acquisition,you're getting new customers.
And then you're keeping peopleyou have, especially if you have

(36:20):
a subscription or a software orsomething like that, and most
people will do nothing for that,and so the day will go by and
then the next day they're going.
Well, we didn't make any moneyyesterday.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
Weird.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
And so I think that if most people started their day
and so they had a personalproductivity system and the
beginning of that is what am Idoing to get new clients, or
keep or sell to old clients Liketheir business?
Everything else can beoutsourced when it's needed so
that they can have a system foroutsourcing.
But it's easier to outsourceyour bookkeeping than it is to

(36:56):
try to do your bookkeeping whenyou have no clients, I know
right.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
But once you do have the clients, the thing that I
did that maximized my businesspotential the most is I got a
virtual assistant.
I do not do emails.
It's really funny.
Some people make fun of me.
They're like what kind of CEOdoesn't do emails?

Speaker 1 (37:10):
I'm like this one A lot, a lot more, a lot more than
people realize.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
Well, I think it's a waste of your time.
What are you going to answer?
What are you going to say?
Now you're taking your creativebrain that began with your
entrepreneurship and you'remaking it look at emails and
respond to things that, frankly,don't necessarily need a
response.
And if you have a virtualassistant telling you these are
three things you have to dotoday, here's the two things, if
you're feeling productive toget done, and here's the three
things you have to do tomorrow,so you might as well get them

(37:36):
done today if you can.
Having someone just pinpointstuff for you that you need to
get done to make your businessmore profitable, like, get that
off your plate.
So your creative brain is going.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
It also stops you going down the rabbit hole with
just noise that isn't necessary,right, like if you have an
email that doesn't need animmediate response, but you open
it, you start reading it Now.
your brain is still thinkingabout it, versus, if you haven't
seen it.
It's funny because when I wentto Necker Island, that was
something I observed withRichard Branson was he had his

(38:05):
assistants and they would printhis emails out the ones that he
needed to respond to sit withhim, he would dictate to them
what to do and then after liketwo hours they would disappear
and he was done, and so he wasable to essentially get through
email without ever opening acomputer.
Right Now I don't know if that'sbecause of his dyslexia and

(38:26):
it's just easier for him to doit that way, or if it's an
efficiency thing, but it dangseemed efficient to me to
basically similar to what you'resaying.
They probably didn't have allof his emails, they probably had
what was most important, whatneeded to be responded to today,
and they sat with him, got hisanswers, went away and did what
they needed to do, and for himit was just two hours of focused

(38:46):
work without ever having to go,you know, get off track or be
distracted by something you'renot supposed to look at, cause
even the fact of not having toopen the computer is a huge
productivity boost If you justthinking about what needs to be
done, because, like, it's reallyeasy to like see an ad or see a
message.
Click through, pay attention,watch a vsl.

(39:08):
You know, look at, look atsomething on facebook scoot over
to youtube.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
It's super personal.
Sarah, we know you love legos,so you think you might love our
bookkeeping.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa so all of those
things like even from thestandpoint because I had a lot
of people who use social media,like DMs and stuff for business
now but like, how many times youjust go on and look at your DMs
versus like looking at thenewsfeed or the messages or the
notifications, right, so it'slike a way to eliminate the
distractions and just focus onwhat works, and I think that for

(39:38):
a lot of people, that's reallythe key to success is
eliminating the distractions.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
It's huge when I get the.
Here are the 10 emails you got,even if they're like a spam
from you know Harry and Davidchocolates or whatever, I can
just be.
Here's number one, it's thatadvertising and go.
Number one delete, unsubscribeand I'll never see it again.
Okay, number two respond thisparagraph or whatever, and then
then it's written all like shedoes the greatest job, right,
but everything is just done,done, done, done, done, and I

(40:06):
don't have to think about it.
I'm very decisive.
So I get that that that done,and I don't open my computer.
It's not opening, clickingunsubscribe, going unsubscribe,
click done, then delete it.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
Then, whoa, that's just such time suck yeah, I
think that's probably the numberone thing especially ceos deal
with is just time vampires thatare just sucking up all their
creativity, all of theirthinking time.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yep, time is money, but when your creative brain
that made you an entrepreneur inthe first place is shut down
and just degraded by just doingsix hours of emails, like on a
Monday, because you got them allweekend, it doesn't help anyone
that you do that.
What about Julie from Phoenix,arizona?
You worked on so many productlaunches.

(40:47):
What's one launch strategy thatalways works, no matter the
industry?
I know it's a good question.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
I mean, the truth is a launch only works if there's a
buildup to the launch.
I think the thing that alwaysworks is if you have a bunch of
affiliates.
I think that's probably thehardest thing for new people
with launching is thatoftentimes they don't have the
support.
And the thing with a launch isa lot of times when you have

(41:17):
enough people saying that thisis something they should go
purchase, enough people sayingthat this is something they
should go purchase, and a shoeyou're, you could assume that
multiple people are on multiplelists.
And so when there's this likemoment in time where everybody
seems to be saying, like you gotto go get this thing, it's so
good, that is what drives thesuccess of a launch and and I've

(41:40):
seen launches go where, likeaffiliates didn't, because it's
like a long launch right, twoweeks or something like that,
and we'd call it the W rightYou'd get sales when you first
opened and then you didn't getany.
And then you'd get sales in themiddle and usually cause you
would do an event or something,bonuses, and then it would tail
off and then the last day you'dget the most sales because the
cart was closing A lot of times.

(42:02):
Like affiliates stop promotingin the beginning because they
didn't want to be promoting yourproduct for two weeks.
So it's a big ask, right, andso they're planning to do one
drop or maybe a couple of drops,but, like, if you can get them
all to buy in and you have tocreate a lot of reason for them
and incentive for them to do it.
I think that's the one thingthat has I've seen.

(42:25):
Work for every launch is, if youhave affiliates, it doesn't
even matter if anybody knows whoyou are.
Even you have your own list.
I mean, my first product launchwas my own product and you know
, I made like $40,000.
I had no list, it was just allfrom affiliates.
Now, I didn't get to keep muchof that because it was all from
affiliates, um, but, like, I hada successful launch because of

(42:46):
the affiliates, and I think thatthat's probably something that
a lot of people don't spendenough time thinking their head
about.
And you know, if, if you don'thave any relationships with
people, you got to startthinking an hour out.
How do I build relationshipswith the people that are going
to promote me?
Like, where are they?
Like, what events do they have?
Do they have their own events?
Can I go meet them?
Can I go talk to them?
Am I a successful student oftheir product where I've given

(43:07):
them a case study testimonial sothey do know who I am because
I'm someone who's taken action,and so there's a lot of ways you
have to think about it.
But that's really what I believeis where your best energy is
spent for your especially for afirst launch is on building the
right promotional network to putyour message out there for you,
and it's um something that alot of people you could do all

(43:29):
of the, the, the product launchformula, stuff without
affiliates and you won't havehardly any success unless you
have a big list of your own thatyou really build an amazing
relationship with.
Um JV.
Affiliates are the thing thatmake.
They're really the gasolinethat you add to the fire.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
Yeah, our first product launch.
Yeah, we went to some of thetop people in our industry and
asked if they would be willingto promote and we would also
promote for them and vice versa,and kind of sharing lists at
that point, which helpseverybody if your products are
different and complimentary.
Yeah, okay, one more for youand then we've got a couple for

(44:08):
I guess both of us.
We could take turns.
Sophie from Atlanta, georgia,you talked about the power of
storytelling in building a brand.
What's the secret to crafting astory that customers connect
with?

Speaker 1 (44:22):
I think the most powerful stories you have are
the journey that you've taken.
Right, if we use the hero'sjourney and if you don't know
what that is, just Google,search it, uh, and look at the
images.
But if you, if you, if you lookat the hero's journey, there's
usually a call to action, um, orcall to adventure, and then a

(44:45):
refusal of the call.
And so if you think of we usedieting, it's the easiest thing
for me to think off the top ofmy head, but, like most people
know they need to lose weight.
They lose a little weight andthen they give up and they go
right back to where they wereand they'll do this yo-yoing
thing for years and years andyears, and then there's usually
a moment that they get seriousand that they hire a mentor.

(45:06):
Now, the mistake that mostpeople make when they hire a
mentor is they think that thementor is going to do everything
for them and really thementor's job is to help them
navigate the war path they'reabout to walk on right.
You're about to go through amass of ups and downs and a
complete roller coaster ofbattles that you have to face,

(45:32):
and the mentor, really thereason they're so powerful is
they've gone through this beforeand so they can help you
navigate to get to the otherside.
Those are the stories thatresonate with people, because
your journey positions you asthe mentor, as the person who's
gone through it, and your giftback to the world is how you
achieve this.
So you know, we use weight loss,but if you're someone you know,
like who is 200 poundsoverweight, and you lose the 200

(45:55):
pounds and then you gain itback and then you lose it and
then you gain it back and thenlike, maybe not not gaining 200
at a time, but like you'relosing significant amounts of
weight and then finally you loseit and you keep it off, well,
what's the difference?
That's the magic gift you haveto share.
And so the story that theyresonate with is if they see you
just like them and understandthat you've gone through that,

(46:16):
like they're going to be way,they're going to lean in harder,
they're going to have a greatertrust, they're going to connect
emotionally more with youbecause your stories are going
to be the same as their stories,but you're just on the other
side.
For those that like and I don'trecommend this, but there is a
lot of people who serveindustries that they don't
necessarily have those personalstories with Um, but they have

(46:36):
clients, and so it's the clientstories that are the most
powerful stories.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Like doctors.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah, because the, because the client is the person
that the, the, the client who'sgotten the results is the
person they want to be, and sothat's where the most power
comes from is in literallysharing that path through and
the understanding, the emotionthat person went to.
If you're a male who is tryingto work with post-pregnant

(47:01):
females, well, at some level,from a subconscious standpoint,
that woman is looking at youlike you have no idea what it's
like to be a woman, have a baby.
How are you going to help me?
And so the only way youovercome that is if you have a
bunch of people you've helped,right, and so those are the
stories you tell.
Whereas if you're a woman who,who did go through that,
suffered postpartum, like, had abunch of weight they gained,

(47:24):
lost it all, kept it all off,has the confidence back, is a
great mother, like moms who aregoing through this stuff, or who
have lost themselves, you knowthey had the baby a year ago and
they're still holding the babyweight.
Like, they resonate and aredrawn towards your stories
because they know you knowexactly where they were.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Well, I'm trying, okay, but once the baby is three
, I think it's just my weight atthis point.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
But you know what I'm saying?
Right, the people you connectwith are the people that have
the stories that are where youwere and then they're where you
want to be.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Well, yeah, but actually this is going to be a
weird sort of pivot to yourbeautiful wife, jenny.
She talked to me about my goalsand she's super, super fit.
I'm very strong.
I really admire her.
She's got the two kids too.
She's had kids.
She understands what you've gotextra baby weight after that
baby You're not proud of you,don't like you wish you could
snap it off.
But she took me down thescience route.
She's like okay, let's do allof these chemical tests.
Let's take your, your blood,your urine, your spit, let's

(48:25):
look at every part of your bodyand see where it's failing.
Where in your body aren't you?
If you're on these diets andthey're not working for you, if
you're exercising this way, whyisn't it working for you?
And it came down to likecortisol levels and stress and
stuff like that.
It's a big surprise, but Iliked her scientific approach.
So I'm like the science is goingto show you these things.
I'm like, okay, that I will do.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
And then she touched me and the trust is there,
because I've seen her do itherself.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
And I like that she did the whole time I was on the
vitamins she gave me and thoseenergy things that helped me a
lot just start to lose weightand start to understand why I
wasn't and where my body wasfailing because of these habits,
these sleep habits, thesestressors, whatever.
She coached me the whole time,holding my hand, she's like how

(49:09):
have you done this week?
Did you take your?
Her?
Science was, like I said fordoctors If you're not the client
, then your clients will be yourbiggest testimonial.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Exactly.
Yeah, you want to answer a fewmore?
Wrap it up.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Oh, this is actually a good one.
This is sort of almost like acheese and whiskers question.
Aj and Sarah, this is Bellafrom New York, New York.
You've both talked aboutbuilding trust with your
audience.
What's the number one?

Speaker 1 (49:41):
mistake entrepreneurs make while they're trying to
create that trust?

Speaker 2 (49:43):
Lying, wow, yeah, I was going to say anytime you use
the word, I'm super transparentabout this thing, but then
you're not, or you're notallowed to be for whatever
reasons.
You've lost the trustimmediately.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
This will sound woo-woo.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Probably.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
But everything is energy, right, plain and simple
and, while you might saysomething, there is an energetic
connection between you and theviewer, the person on the other
side, whether it's in person orthrough the camera, and they can
often tell if you'rebullshitting.
Now they might not know whythey don't trust you, they might

(50:20):
not know why they'requestioning what you're saying
or they don't want to moveforward or why they don't want
to engage.
But they don't, and oftentimesit the the, the thing you wrote
or the video you've made.
There is just something thatlike isn't right and they can't

(50:40):
consciously recognize it, butit's kind of like people who can
read body language when theyobserve someone I'm not nervous,
they know yeah, and I rememberI got this is this is gonna be.
This is funny.
But I got.
When they observe someone, I'mnot nervous, they know.
Yeah, and I remember I got thisis this is going to be.
This is funny.
But I got stopped at an airportby DEA because I had gotten a

(51:00):
big bonus and then I booked aflight the next day one way
ticket, and then I went to twoother cities on one way tickets
and then flew home.
And so I guess, when you get adeposit in your bank account
greater than $10,000 and yousimultaneously then book airline
tickets, like the day beforeyou fly, they assume that maybe

(51:26):
there's like stuff going on,right.
So this undercover agent walksup to me it looks like a street
thug, flashes his bag, a badge,and then a cop comes up like uh,
in uniform, comes up with rightbehind him and he just starts
asking me questions and he doesnot take his eyes off me and I'd
done nothing wrong.
So I'm answering the questionsand like I'm clueless, like to
the fact that he's reading mybody language, but at one point

(51:48):
I remember kind of looking overand like thinking and then
looking back and he had nottaken his eyes off me and I
realized he was reading me andall of a sudden he just goes
okay, so you're free to go, andI go, that's it.
He's like yep, you're free togo.
And of course you're like youknow, I was nervous the whole
time but I'd done nothing wrong.
There was no, you know, therewas nothing that the drug

(52:09):
enforcement agency had on me.
But it was the weirdestexperience ever because he was
paying no attention to my words,he was just watching my body
language and as soon as herealized that clearly he could
tell I had done nothing, it waslike okay, so you're free to go
because he had nothing.

(52:32):
And so there is people who aretrained in this, but most people
not trained in it, but theystill subconsciously pick it up.
And it's the same thing whenyou write copy, like if there's
a moment of pause, a moment ofconfusion, like you lose them.
And so when it comes to trust,if there is a moment that just
seems unbelievable or doesn'tseem quite right or seems like
it's it's embellished people,people will unknowingly check

(52:53):
out and you lose them.
And so I think that's thenumber one mistake people make
is trying to portray an imagethey think the marketplace wants
to see versus who they reallyare.
And it's like the reality is.
Is that you're like there's notmuch you can do.
That can destroy a brand.
I mean look at Snoop Dogg, lookat Martha Stewart can destroy a
brand.
I mean look at Snoop Dogg, Lookat Martha Stewart.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
What a team.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
Look at.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
Unexpected.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
So many people who have had like Kim Kardashian
have had moments that peoplewould be terrified of Going to
jail, having a sex tape leaked.
These kind of things makepeople this gives people
nightmares to get exposed likethat.
But did it hurt their brands?
No, because they owned it.

(53:38):
They didn't run from it, theydidn't try to hide it, they just
owned it and move forward Atthe end of the day.
Those probably aren't thegreatest examples, it's just
what came to me.
But the truth is humans are veryforgiving and they don't expect
people to be perfect, and theonly people who seem to struggle
are the people who try tocontinue the lie, you know, try

(54:00):
to pretend that it's all there.
And it's like I mean even tothe point, like Tiger Woods.
Now, obviously he had a severeaccident and has never quite
made it back to where he was,but even after what transpired,
with his wife and him being awomanizer if anybody hasn't
watched his I think it's afour-part documentary HBO did
kind of stems from his fatherand what he witnessed growing up

(54:22):
and you kind of realize like,oh okay, this will make sense,
but from a brand standpoint,even after that, he bounced back
.
Before his injuries he bouncedback, kept his sponsorships
because he didn't shy from it.
Right, I'm a flawed human.
He came out and that's really,I think, the thing we're scared

(54:42):
of most is our secrets beingexposed.
But if you actually look atsome of the most powerful brands
out there, like all of theirsecrets have been exposed.
There's nothing left to hide.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Well, welcome to the internet.
If you have children, you haveno secrets.
They're putting it out on theTikTok, they're telling all
their best friends, they'rescreenshotting and telling
everyone because it's reallyinteresting.
It's in your house.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
I have zero secrets.
Yeah, the future is interestingwith social media and the
amount of data they probablyhave on individuals from the age
of like 14, 16, 18, you know,I'm sure everybody has a picture
they regret sending or acomment they regret saying or a
tweet they regret making.
But you know.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Yeah, if we go back to the stupid first podcast at
United, we had some reallyincredible great interviews, but
I had a lot more of that babyweight we talked about and I
don't like him at all.
I'd like to delete them andforget it ever happened, but
well there's probably atechnology coming soon that we
can just edit just like slim,yeah, yeah ai will have that I
can learn editing better.
You know, I just can't editanything I don't know.
Um, all right, and then I meanthis one's a little bit tricky.

(55:51):
Aj and Sarah, this is Oliviafrom Miami Florida.
You shared a lot about buildingand maintaining momentum.
What's your best tip forstaying motivated when things
get tough?

Speaker 1 (56:07):
It's kind of a vague but a little bit tricky question
.
I think movement is the keyright.
So most of the time when welose momentum, we lose
confidence, so we stop doing thethings that work or we stop

(56:28):
putting ourself out there,because the things that you've
got to get moving and momentumbuilds.
It's like a small pebblerolling down a snowy mountain
right, like eventually it buildsand builds and then it's a huge
ball and you've just seen thatin cartoons and stuff, get out
of the way.
But like, if that rock neverrolls, then the momentum never

(56:49):
builds.
And I think that a lot ofpeople, you know they'll post a
video and they'll get like twolikes on it and they'll post
another video and they'll getzero.
And then they'll post anothervideo.
They get five likes and theysee that as like no momentum and
what they miss is that sevenpeople have liked their videos
right.
And so I had a uh, a friend who, um, I was like hey, you got to

(57:14):
start making videos Like you.
Just you have to.
And so he's doing long form andshort form, and his long form
videos were getting like noviews on YouTube.
And so I'm like just cut themup and do shorts.
And um gave him one of thesoftwares that I used.
That makes it really easy.
And so he started postingshorts and he'll have videos
that get zero views and thenhe'll have videos that get 500

(57:36):
views, 600 views.
And I'm like, imagine in 10years if you're getting views
now with no audience, imagine in10 years what you'll get.
And so a lot of times peoplethink of momentum in a very
short time frame a week, twoweeks but you have to spend it
out and say if I'm going todedicate my whole life to this
right, and the reality is is 10years seems to be about the

(57:59):
right timeframe for people to gofrom unknown to overnight
success.
Be willing to stick for it for10 years, and so when your
motivation gets low, you have tojust continue to operate
regardless of your thoughts,feelings and emotions, and it's
the hardest thing, but it's likeone of those things that you
got to figure out ways to notget in your own way.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
That was actually a really good question for you,
since you're always pushing,challenging yourself and doing
other different things.
It's very cool.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
Yeah, I think that's a good place to wrap up.
Yeah, We've answered a lot ofquestions we have.
If you do have questions,please send them in comment.
You know we love to answer themand we'll be back again with
another episode very soon.
All right, everyone.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
Thank you.