← The Goal Digger Podcast | Top Business and Marketing Podcast for Creatives, Entrepreneurs, and Women in Business
The Goal Digger Podcast | Top Business and Marketing Podcast for Creatives, Entrepreneurs, and Women in Business
831: How to Build a Brand that Turns Your Reputation into Revenue
00:54:31
With Rory Vaden and Jenna Kutcher
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- [00:02]
Rory Vaden
We don't have a huge audience and you don't need one either. The myth is thinking you have to have millions of followers to make millions of dollars. The truth is, the fastest path to cash is to find the smallest audience that you can serve in the deepest way.
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Jenna Kutcher
I'm Jenna Kutcher, your host of the Gold Digger Podcast. I escaped the corporate world at the age of 23 with nothing more than.
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A $300 camera from Craigslist and a dream.
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Now I'm running a seven figure on business that feels even better than it looks, all from my house in small town Minnesota with my family. Here, we value time as our currency. We mix the woo and the work and we are in the pursuit of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love.
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I've always loved turning big goals into.
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Reality and I'm here to help you do the same. This isn't just a peek behind the curtain. Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle practical, no fluff marketing strategies and host on honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence.
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Pull up a seat and get ready.
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To be challenged, inspired and empowered. This is the Gold Digger podcast. What if your personal brand could do more than just make you known? What if it could actually lead to revenue and create a legacy for you and produce wealth for you and your family? Today we're exploring how you can turn your influence into income with none other.
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Than my friend Rory Vaden. Last year, Rory joined me on the.
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Gold Digger podcast and it was one.
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Of our most downloaded episodes of all time. So I knew we had to have.
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Another discussion to dive even deeper into building your own personal brand. In case you aren't familiar with him yet, Rory is a New York Times bestselling author, a world renowned speaker, and a co founder of the Brand Builders Group where he's helped entrepreneurs and leaders design brands that don't just stand out.
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But brands that sell.
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From the Wall Street Journal to Forbes and millions of TEDx views, Rory's insights have reached across industries, giving people real.
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Strategies to build and monetize their personal brands.
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In this episode, we're chatting about what holds most personal brands back financially, Rory's unique take on why multiple income streams.
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Might be misleading, and his paid formula.
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For the five key ways that you can actually make money as a personal brand.
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Real quick before we dive in, if.
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You are ready to take the next Step in your own personal branding journey.
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I put Rory on the spot in this interview and asked him if he'd offer this to you again because last.
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Time so many of you found this to be valuable. Rory and his team at Brand Builders Group are offering a free one on one strategy call to help you uncover.
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The exact problem that you solve, to.
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Help you clarify your message, and to help you map out your path to income.
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If you want to book a one on one free call, head to Jenna kutcher.com forward/brand to book yours today and.
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To start building a brand that generates real revenue.
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That's Jenna Kutcher.com brand, which will also be linked in our show notes. All right, without further ado, Rory Vaden.
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Welcome back to the Gold Digger podcast. Picture this.
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You're at a party and someone asks.
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You what you do as a marketer.
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Like, how do you even begin to describe it?
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You have to generate leads, score them, contact them, create content, gather data, and tomorrow you have to do it all over again.
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And you also are spending time wondering.
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If all that you're doing is even working. Marketers are spread way too thin. But HubSpot has a better way. With the help of HubSpot's collection of AI tools, Breeze and features like Content Remix, you can turn one piece of content into a suite of assets. You can also pinpoint the best prospects with predictive lead scoring and level up your campaign KPIs with a new analytics suite so your day to day becomes less busywork and more driving revenue through the roof. And most importantly, you'll have a way easier time describing what you do at parties. Visit HubSpot.com marketers to learn more. That's HubSpot.com marketers.
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Okay, Rory, I want to kick this thing off with a bang. I want to know, why do so many personal brands struggle to make significant income?
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Rory Vaden
So this is something that a lot of people make harder for themselves than they realize. They're overcomplicating things. And the answer to the question is very simple, because when you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. There are so many ways to make money. We can talk about a lot of them. Like there's so many different ways to monetize a personal brand. And a lot of times you hear about them on podcasts, you hear about about them on social media, whatever. But then the one recipe for disaster is to do lots of them. That is where it all falls apart. And so, you know, one of the things that we hate is we think is the myth of multiple streams of income. So I'm sure you've obviously heard that. And the problem with multiple streams of income is that it doesn't actually work. It's not actually the thing that made rich people rich.
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Jenna Kutcher
Yes. Okay, let's talk about that. Because people on this, listening to this podcast are like, wait a minute. The average millionaire has blank streams of income? Like, this is what we hear. Let's be break this down, because your thoughts on it are really interesting and funny story, Rory, but when we were looking at questions like, what do we want to ask you? This was something we wanted to talk to you about because I think it's a hot take on this notion of what we're being sold, especially online. So talk to me about this.
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Rory Vaden
So, first of all, let's talk about why multiple streams of income is a total myth. First of all, the idea that the average millionaire has seven streams of income seems to be a wildly unveiled, verifiable statistic by any reliable resource. So a lot of people quote that, but nobody seems to be able to pinpoint the natural, like, original citation of some reliable source of that. Now, even if that data point is true, the problem here is understanding the difference between what rich people do now that they're rich versus what rich people did in order to get rich. And this is the problem. You can't look at what rich people do now once they're rich, even though that's what we all tend to do. We go, oh, look at this rich person. I'm going to do what they do, but you have to do what they did. And the true story, and I'm telling you, there's so many examples of this, the true story of how every person who got rich got rich from one amazing stream of income. Not 20, not, not seven, not. You know, they weren't renting their bedroom on Airbnb and flipping houses and doing Bitcoin and launching a video course and writing a book like, it's not true. And if you go, look, let's play a game. We're gonna play a quick game, okay? This game is called how did this Rich Person Get Rich? Okay, so Reese Witherspoon, in the beginning, how did she make her money? What was the one thing that she did? Jenna?
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Jenna Kutcher
Acting.
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Rory Vaden
Acting. Exactly. Sarah Blakely, in the beginning, she did one thing. What was the one company she did that got her rich?
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Jenna Kutcher
Created Spanx.
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Rory Vaden
She created Spanx. Jamie Kurnlima also sold her company for a billion dollars. In 10 years, Jamie Kurnlima made the massive majority of her money from one thing, one company. What was it?
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Jenna Kutcher
It Cosmetics.
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Rory Vaden
It Cosmetics. Oprah Winfrey was a talk show host. Jennifer Lopez started as a dancer. Like, we can go down the list, I'm telling you. And those are female examples. Same is true with male examples. But I'm telling you, you can go down the list of people who have gotten rich and you will be able to say, oh, they were a chef, they were, you know, the Rock was a wrestler. Like, Jerry Seinfeld was a comedian. Ellen DeGeneres was a comedian. Like, they started out by mastering one thing. And yet when we all go online and we're scrolling our feed, somebody showing us like, hey, you should flip houses. Hey, you should do cryptocurrency. You should buy this investment tool. Like, you should rent your room on Airbnb. And then, of course, in our universe, it's like, you should do a coaching program, you should become a speaker, you should do high end retreats, you should do a membership course, you should sell your own app. And like, any of those things can work. So this is not a knock on any of those things. In fact, AJ and I have made millions of dollars doing many of those things. We're experts at teaching a few of those things. But the problem is trying to do all of them. Because when you're a small business, you have limited resources, you have limited time, limited team, limited technology, and limited capital to deploy on different things. And if you just think of it as like, let's say you have 10 units of resource, whatever those are, time, team, technology, capital, prayer, those are the ones that we think of. And you go, If I have 10 units of resource and I spread them across 10 initiatives, each initiative gets one unit of resource. There's no way you're going to become the world's greatest, the world's wealthiest, the world's best, anything with having one tenth of your resources deployed across different initiatives. Because you're going to be competing against people who have three and four and five and 10 sets of their resources on one initiative. And that's the thing. If you actually do that, the likelihood of you becoming rich is actually, it's not only more likely, it's much simpler, it's almost inevitable. It becomes closer to guaranteed. Because you go, the likelihood of you failing at something if you put all of your resources into one thing statistically goes up exponentially versus this myth of multiple streams of income. And most of us are listening to stupid advice on the Internet, and that's why we're broke.
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Jenna Kutcher
I love this.
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And I feel like it's so powerful. It's often why. And I'm sure we'll talk about this. I talk about the early days of my journey, right? Like some people would say, jenna, that's over a decade ago. Like, let it go. And I'm like, no, no, no. This is how I got here, right? Like, I was a wedding photographer and.
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A very good wedding photographer.
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I wasn't a senior photographer, a pet photographer. I was a wedding photographer. And that was the only thing I did to scale up to six figures within three years. And when I think about this, I do think that a lot of people are almost entering the book at chapter 20 and they're not recognizing that there were 19 chapters before that. And so I do agree that there can be that confusion or there can be that desire. What would you say, Rory? Because here's like something that's in my head as you're talking about this is I am a multi passionate person. I have adhd. I have always wanted to do a million things. And I know that a lot of my listeners here are saying, so are you telling me that I have to like, put myself in a box or like, I have to do only one thing? Because that sounds like the most boring life of all time. Talk to me about that because I have a ton of multi passionate people in my community. And so what would you say to somebody like me?
- [11:51]
Rory Vaden
Well, first of all, I would say you don't have to be solo passionate in order to have one effective stream of income. But what I would say is, again, if you just look and go, how do rich people get rich? And you are great example of it. You start as a photographer. Even today, Jenna, you have so many opportunities to make money and you stick pretty tight inside of the podcaster. First, there's speaking opportunities, there's hosting. You know, you could have a high end mastermind, you could do coaching. You've referred a lot of the one on one coaching to us because you're. I know you could do, of course you could do it. But you go, just because I could doesn't mean I should. And so you are following this rule and, and look at your podcast has grown. Why? Because it's your main focus and you've been doing it for years and you're all in on it and you protect it even now at this stage. And that's what I want people to see. So, yes, you have some other streams of income that have developed over time, but I feel like the podcast is the thing that gives life to everything. Else and you continue to prioritize it and hold it as first and it's why it wins. So couple things. Back to the multi passionate question. So on the first interview that we did together, which was less about making money and it was more about brand strategy and messaging and uniqueness and mission and purpose, I introduced a concept called Sheehan's wall. And I use this a lot. We named it after Peter Sheehan, one of my colleagues who originally taught me this idea in more of a corporate environment. And now we've applied it to personal brands because I think it's really powerful there. But basically, you know, if you look at any given. Let's just look at money, okay? On one side of the wall are people who don't have much money. On the other side of the wall are the people who have lots of money. The people who have lots of money have multiple streams of income because they have capital, they have team, they have technology, and they are diversifying it. But if you try to break through a wall by hitting lots of different spots on the wall, you're just going to get frustrated. But if you hit the same spot over and over and over and over, eventually the paint's going to chip and then it's going to crack and then there's going to be a divot and then you're going to carve a little notch in the wall and then there's going to be a hole. And then once you break through and you pull back on that hole, the whole entire wall comes crashing down. That is the same with money. The people who got wealthy did one thing. We all hear about diversification when it comes to money. I promise you, the way that you get rich is not through diversification, but concentration. Once you are rich, it's different. So if you're a multi passionate person, two things. Number one, you can be multipassionate, but have one primary business model. You can talk about lots of things, but really only focus on selling one thing, right? You can be someone who is kind of like multidimensional or multifaceted in terms of who you are as a person and still only sell one thing and only monetize one specific type of audience, and you're going to be much more likely to become wealthy that way. And by the way, later on, once you have a bunch of money and you can hire a bunch of people and you have a bunch of technology, and now all of a sudden you can diversify and you can create multiple streams of income later. So it's not that you can't do it. But look, when you're starting out and people don't know you, yeah. The most important thing for them to be able to buy from you is for you to be clear. In fact, one of the things that we say a lot around Brand Builders Group is that clear is greater than clever. Clear is greater than clever.
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Jenna Kutcher
Yeah.
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Rory Vaden
Everyone tries to be cutesy and clever with their subject lines and their headlines, and it's like, what are you? Well, I'm a transformational empowerment person who helps people who are on a mission to find themselves, to discover what they were meant to do. And it's like, I don't know what that means, right? Where it's like, I help you find a better job, right? I help you grow your revenue, I help you grow your following. That's clear. And so I can buy from you. And so much. There's been so much focus on, like, unique selling proposition, and I think we have massively overdone it. People don't buy from you because you're unique and you do something that no one else does. People buy from you because they trust you. They like you. There's a million accountants, but the one that does my taxes is the one that I know. It's the guy that I trust, right? The woman who sold my house. There's a million real estates. The reason that we use Lacy is we know Lacey. We like Lacy. We trust Lacey. I don't know if she's the greatest realtor in the world. I don't know that she does things radically different than everyone else. But I believe that she cares about us and that she will have our best interest in mind. And so everyone's, like, trying to be the world's greatest plumber. Do you really need the world's greatest plumber? Do you really need the most innovative plumber? No, I need someone who can solve my problem, that I trust. And so there's too much emphasis on when it comes to monetizing on, like, we do something that the world has never seen before, that goes. That means I don't understand it, and that means you got to explain it not only to me, but to everyone else in the world. So clear is greater than clever. Clear is greater than clever. If you could just tell me what you do. I may or may not buy from you, but it also makes you more referable, which is a huge part. Like, that's how you make money quickly, by the way. And we should talk about how you make money quickly if you don't have a large following, because this is there's a whole nother area of like massive misconception. But you can be multi passionate and still be singularly focused in revenue. And you can also eventually monetize multiple passions once you have more resources to deploy.
- [18:04]
Jenna Kutcher
You know, running a business is a lot like growing a garden, which is something I am obsessed with. You start with an idea, you nurture it, and before you know it, things are growing and fast. But here's the thing. Just like any garden, running a business has its weeds. The payroll, the hr, the paperwork.
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And that's why I have to tell.
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You about a move we just made in my own business in switching to Gusto. Gusto takes a hassle out of payroll and hr. They're like that expert gardener who steps into weed water and make sure everything's blooming just right. Like imagine having all of your payroll taxes filed automatically, onboarding a breeze. And benefits that work with your budget because Gusto makes all of that possible. Plus, they genuinely care about small businesses like yours and mine. I mean, it's no wonder Gusto is rated the number one payroll product for small businesses. Four out of five employers say Gusto helped them stay compliant with federal and state regulations. And with Gusto's simple guided software and user friendly interface, payroll and HR are no longer exhausting. They're rewarding. Do you want all of this and more with no hidden fees? Try it out for three months free@gusto.com gold digger that's gusto.com gold digger let's talk about something I think most of us can relate to, which is last Minute Card Panic. It's a holiday season, and instead of scrambling to find stamps or digging through those generic store bought cards, you can actually be ahead of the game for once. That's what Moonpig is all about. Moonpig lets you create the most thoughtful personalized cards you can add. Your favorite family photos. Write something that'll make your loved one smile, laugh, or even tear up a little. And they'll even give you a nudge if you need some inspiration for exactly what to say. And here's the real magic. Get this Moonpig mails the cards for you. No stamps. No late night trips to the post office. Just you on the couch with your cozy blanket. Making holiday magic. Think about how much joy you can spread this year. Whether it's grandma getting that sweet family portrait or a friend unwrapping a gift card that you've slipped inside the holiday card itself. It's so easy to add that personal touch. And with Moonpig, you can send cards to everyone on your list in a few clicks so you never forget anyone again.
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It'll make you love sending cards all over again.
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And because I want for you to try it too, your first card is absolutely free. Just head to MoonPig.com/US Gold Digger. Again, that's MoonPig.com US Gold Digger. Go make someone's day. Everyone deserves a Moon Pig card.
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Unknown
Okay.
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Jenna Kutcher
I love all of this for so many reasons. And it, it honestly brings me back to like how I built my brand in a lot of ways. And you know, I often talk about like the difference between a brand and a business. And I think a lot of people have great businesses, but like a business is a product, service or offer that you're selling and a brand is the personality behind all of those. And a lot of times for personal brands, obviously it's you. You are the personality. And I think for people that are multi passionate, one thing you need to hear is that if you think of some of the principles I teach, like the JK5 where it's like connect with people over five different categories and monetize one of those categories, you are giving.
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Unknown
People opportunities to connect with the parts of you that they already know they like or they're curious about or they're interested in or that they can relate to you on. And that gives them time to learn about the one thing that you're monetizing on.
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Jenna Kutcher
Right?
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Unknown
And so it is like, Rory, the reason why you and I get along so well is because we have such similar philosophies and we really believe in.
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Jenna Kutcher
Like the heart of people, but that you have to get really crystal clear. And I agree there are so many times where people will DM me or ask me a question about their business and I'll click over to their profile and like I have no idea what they do, right? I even scrolling their posts, I'm like, I don't understand it. And I think that you made one valid point. I mean, you made a lot of valid points. But one valid point that I wanted to touch back on is that as people, and I would argue as women specifically are trying to launch as the best and they're waiting to have it all figured out and they're waiting for it to be perfect. They're not actually moving forward at all.
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And I would bet you that there.
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Are a lot of people listening to this podcast who have a deep desire to have a personal brand, to have a business that is actually making money, and yet they're Telling themselves, I'm going to wait until I have the perfect website or the perfect logo or until I look perfect in my headshots or all these different things, because they are buying that live. Like, I have to be the best. I can't just be just like everyone else. And you're kind of arguing against that.
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Rory Vaden
Absolutely. I mean, here's another myth that people have, is that you think you have to be perfect in order for people to buy from you. You don't. People don't even need an expert. They just need someone who is useful, right? They don't need the world's best. They just need help. They just need support. They just need encouragement. They need someone who can solve a problem, right? It's like, I don't need the world's greatest, world's smartest. I need someone who's available, someone that I understand what they do, someone who I trust, and then someone who can deliver a result for me in my life. That's it. And my wife and business partner, A.J. as you know, Jenna, my wife, is actually the CEO of Brand Builders Group. We're 50, 50 business partners, but she's the CEO. And one of the things that is. There's so many things that is amazing about her, but one of the things that she talks about all the time is she says, look, to be an expert, you just have to know more than the person you're talking to. Like, that's a very relative term, right? So what? And to go, okay, as long as I'm useful to people, they will buy from me. I don't have to compete with everyone else necessarily who does what I do. It's more like I'm competing for the attention of the people that are around me in my life who need me, and making sure they know that I'm available and making sure it's clear to them what I do and helping them trust that I can help them solve a specific problem and then they'll buy from you. And this, Gosh, this leads right into another myth about making money, which everybody seems to have. Everyone thinks that you have to have millions of followers to make millions of dollars. You freaking do not. You do not need millions of followers to make millions of dollars. In fact, this came up in one of our. You know, so when people. When we coach people one on one, we also have events they come to every year in person. And at one of our meetups, someone said, rory, it's interesting that, you know, you're a strategist that's been hired by Lewis Howes. And John Maxwell and Ed Mylett and Jasmine Star and Amy Porterfield. And you've been on Jenna's show, and all of these people that you have relationship with, they all have so many more followers than you. Why are they hiring you? Why are they paying you for advice when they all have more followers? And I said, well, that's a. It's a funny question because it's not wrong to have lots of followers. It's great to have lots of followers. That means it's a lot of impact. But it should tell you a lesson to go, I personally am not as impressed with someone who makes a lot of money, who has a lot of followers. That seems hard to replicate. What is super impressive is people who make a lot of money with a small number of followers. Like, we don't even have more than 100,000 followers. We got a $15 million plus business that we started six years ago. And the reason is we only serve one type of person. Mission driven messengers. That's it. And we said, yeah, we could do branding for companies. Yeah, we could teach salespeople stuff. I could be out there speaking a whole bunch and doing all that. But we said, we want to dedicate our lives to helping the people who feel like they're the world's best kept secret. And we want to help them do one thing, build and monetize their personal brand. And so we don't have a huge audience. And you don't need one either. The myth is thinking you have to have millions of followers to make millions of dollars. The truth is, the fastest path to cash is to find the smallest audience that you can serve in the deepest way. Whose life can you radically transform? Whose life can you powerfully change and go, I'm not trying to sell the whole world one kind of small thing. I'm trying to find a few people who. I can walk with them in a deep, deep way. And there's. And it's not that one is better than the other, but they both make impact. And I think it's a good thing to reach millions of people. It's an amazing thing to reach millions of people and make lots of impact. But there's two ways to make impact. There's width and there's depth. Right? If I have 500 million people listening to my show, there's a good chance I'm covering a fair amount of width. I'm probably talking about relationships and spirituality, and I'm probably talking about making money, and I'm probably talking about, you know, these health, very universal Topics, that's not bad. That's not wrong. But it's width. And it's also not that easy to replicate. It's hard to compete with that. The other way to make impact is to adopt one child. You adopt one child, you tell me who made the greater impact in the world. I'm not actually saying it's one or the other, but I'm saying there's a really strong case to say the person who adopted one child made as big and maybe a bigger mark on the world. And so many of us are so focused on the width of our reach that we're completely ignoring the depth of our impact. And when it comes to making money, it's much more likely that you will make money by serving a small audience in a deep way than it is by growing a massive audience and serving a massive audience in a shallow way. It's just not as sensational or sexy, and people don't. It doesn't work as well as clickbait on ads. And so all you hear is the alternative. The reality is the people who are making tons of money, they don't always have lots of followers. And we're examples of that. And you were an example of that when you started. Everybody who started started that way. So it's just a different message I think people need to hear.
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Jenna Kutcher
Yeah, and I. I think too, it's so interesting because so many people are so focused on getting more followers that they're forgetting to serve the people who are already there. And that is like, what's so interesting to me. A lot of times people will say.
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If I had your platform, this is.
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What I would talk about. Or if I had. And I'm like, talk about that now. That's how you get the platform right. Talk about the things that you're passionate about and those people will connect with you. And, you know, there's recently a post that I saw, and it was just like, how silly is it that the Internet has tricked us that like, 40 likes aren't enough? Like, imagine if 40 people connected with you today that understood your mission and your message, that gave you a compliment or supported your dream. Like, that's a lot of people. And so I agree. I think that depth is so key. And I also just think too, especially when you're coming up and you're learning, the closer you can be to that ideal client and hear their questions and walk them through the process, the more that you understand how to potentially scale.
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It, if that's what you desire.
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But how to make a deeper impact In a really clear way. And, you know, even when I did my first online course ever, I had 25 students. I had three one on one calls with every single student. And I learned so much about that person and who they are and what do they need. And, and so I totally agree with that. I think that a lot of times people are just trying to go wide and, you know, there's so many people out there teaching, you know, like, make a $24 guide and sell it a hundred times, and here you can pay your mortgage and things like that. And what an awesome business if that works for you. But I think that especially the people that you speak to, like you said, mission driven messengers, they want to go deeper than that. And so that's a beautiful way.
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Rory Vaden
Yeah, well, and a thing to realize too is that when it comes to making money, people don't pay a lot for information. They pay for application.
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Jenna Kutcher
Yeah, right.
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Rory Vaden
They pay for someone to help them take the information and apply it to their business. And you go, all right, if you're going to make $10,000 a month, you know, which is a good bit of money.
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Jenna Kutcher
Yeah.
- [30:57]
Rory Vaden
For most of us, the likelihood of getting 10,000 people to each pay us a dollar is pretty difficult. But if you could get 10 people who each paid you a thousand dollars and you only had to serve 10 people, you didn't have to serve millions of people. 10, like 10 people. And you go, what type of person could I radically help them so much that they would pay me $1,000? I only need 10 of those people. Like, I don't need millions of followers. I don't need hundreds of thousands. I don't even need hundreds. I don't even need dozens. Like 10 people. 10 people. So go, what skill do I have? What thing could I help with that I could rock 10 people's lives? And again, I'm not saying you can't make money the other ways you can. I'm saying this is the more likely path to cash. This is the fastest path to cash. And, you know, just to like, you know, I guess stand on my soapbox for a minute if you're a mom. Like, you have an unfair playing field when it comes to making money because you're taking care of a family, you're running a family, you're running a household, you're raising children, you're running. Anyone who runs a family is running a business. Right. Like running a family is running a business. So you already have a business. Plus you might also have a job that you're using to Contribute. And then you have a dream and a side hustle and you go. Your time is so limited. It's so limited. And if you're listening to this show, there's a good chance that your priorities are set in a way that making money is not the most important thing to you. You're probably listening to this show because your family is the most important to you. And so making money is like, you have a limited space, a limited set of time, a limited amount of resources to dedicate to making money. And so you've got to be really efficient and really strategic and really deliberate about how to deploy those resources. Because I mean, look, mom is the one who does the work. I mean, I got five year old and a seven year old. I like to think I'm a good dad. I really, you know, I've, I'm around a lot. I'm just trying to be there. But look, when something is going wrong, they want mom. Like mom, you can't replace mom. Right when they're hurt, they want mom. When they're sick, they want mom. When there's something new going on, like mom is just making decisions. So like, if you're a mom, you have so much more obligation than I think guys do right out of the gate to things that you hold space as a higher priority. So the amount of resources that you have available to dedicate to the side hustle or to your business, it's probably less. At least that is in my house and with our clients. You know, about 60% of the clients that we work with at Brand Builders are female. And I just go, I don't, I don't know, like, I don't mean to speak in generalizations. I'm just going, this is my experience. My observation is like, it's, it is harder, it's harder if you're a mom.
- [34:13]
Jenna Kutcher
I mean, you literally know. I flew onto this interview and I was like, getting the kids out the door to school is crazy. We're doing homework, I'm trying to do my makeup while we're making pancakes, while we're playing with Polaroid picture. Like it, it's just, it's wild. And I agree. And I think that, you know, can you people. Oh God.
- [34:33]
Rory Vaden
Sorry to interrupt, but you did this awesome post, Jenna, about mom math.
- [34:38]
Jenna Kutcher
Oh yeah.
- [34:40]
Rory Vaden
Can you, can you do that really quick? Like walk us through the, walk us through the mom math.
- [34:45]
Jenna Kutcher
My whole life is mom math. So even this morning, getting onto this podcast by 8:15, I had to wake up at 6:40. I had to get my kids dressed. By 7, I had to get myself dressed. I had to nurse my daughter. I had to get the pancakes ready. I had to make sure the school lunch is packed, which means that we have to get ready and sit at.
- [35:02]
The table by 7:30, which means we.
- [35:04]
Have to finish breakfast by 7:40, which means we have to get our shoes in and coats on by 7:50, which.
- [35:09]
Means we have to pack up the.
- [35:10]
Car by 8:00, and I need to plug in my computer, get my microphone ready and sit down to sit with you. By 8:15, I was three minutes late.
- [35:18]
Rory Vaden
But it's.
- [35:19]
Jenna Kutcher
I mean, our mind.
- [35:20]
Rory Vaden
Wake up.
- [35:21]
Jenna Kutcher
Yes.
- [35:22]
Unknown
I mean, the minute we wake up.
- [35:24]
Rory Vaden
Let me tell you what dad math is. Yeah, dad math is, hey, babe, what time do we need to leave? Yeah, like, mom does all the math, all the planning, and Dad's just like, hey, babe, what time do we need to go? It's different. It's different.
- [35:37]
Jenna Kutcher
Different. It's different. And I think, too, it's like, when I look at, especially as my mission has evolved as a brand and as my story has unfolded for my audience to see, like, at the core of my mission is to help people do the work they want to do in the least amount of time while being incredibly effective so that they can live lives that they love. Right. And so it's like, for so much of my career, it was. It was really about work. And once I finally was able to become a mom, I recognize, like, I want strategies that work, that move the needle, but that don't take up so much time. Because at the end of the day.
- [36:15]
Unknown
I live my life like time is my currency, and I know my listeners do, too. And I think what's interesting, Rory, and where I want to take this conversation next is we've been talking about different ways to monetize. And I think, you know, the model that's become really clear is, you know, if you had a personal brand and you could help other people, you could get paid to help them. But there are there other ways to monetize a personal brand? Because I think a lot of people like this idea of having a brand, but they're like, what does that mean? And, like, what would I even do with that? So are there other ways beyond coaching or consulting or teaching that would allow somebody with a personal brand to make money?
- [36:54]
Rory Vaden
Totally. In fact, there's only five ways to monetize a personal brand. I mean, like, we've worked with thousands of clients now, and you go, if you have passions and interests and an audience, whether that's an audience of 5 or 5 million. There's only five ways to convert that audience into money. In fact, we call these the paids P A I D s. Okay. So the P, it's an acronym. So the P stands for products. So you can invent a product. Right. You can go, I'm going to create a day planner or I'm going to create a clothing line. Right. Sarah Blakely created Spanx. Right. Jamie Kern Lima to come back to the she's got a cosmetic line like you create a physical product that you sell to the audience.
- [37:37]
Unknown
Yep.
- [37:37]
Rory Vaden
The A in page is ads and affiliates, which means I'm going to build an audience and I'm not actually going to sell anything to my audience. I'm going to just serve my audience and then I'm going to sell other people access to my audience. And the reason we group ads and affiliates together is because ads means they pay a flat fee for some set amount of impressions. Affiliates is something that they pay for results. But you know, it can be a super scalable thing which is I think, a big part of your model. Right. It's one of the reasons that we work well together is our business is set up to pay affiliate fees and we do the handholding one on one, nurturing, get to know people. And so that works really well with people who have large audiences that cannot serve all those people one on one. So that's ads and affiliates is going if you're good at throwing a party and you just want to serve people, ads and affiliates. The I in page is information so you can make money selling information. So these are, this is where there's been an explosion. There's courses, membership sites, certifications, assessments, you know, apps. Like you're commoditizing your knowledge into a vehicle that makes it super accessible and there's lots of really great money to be made there. I mean, your best friend was a close friend of mine, right? Amy Porterfield, she's the master, she's the queen of teaching people to make money with courses. That sits inside of that information. And by the way, how did Amy get rich? She sold 38,000 people the same course over and over and over and over. One thing, one product, one course. Year after year, tens of thousands of people buy one thing. So that's information. The d in paids is deals. And deals are anytime there's a royalty involved, right? So there's music deals, there's licensing deals, TV deals, book deals, sponsorship deals where you're getting paid usually in advance against some future Earnings, you're being paid in advance for some type of creative work and then there's usually a royalty involved. If the, that creative work, you know, performs really well, those usually come later in your career or if you have a really, really big following. And then the S is services. Services trading time for money. And this could be, this could certainly could be speaking, coaching, consulting, training. That's a lot of our expertise. I'm, I'm the youngest person in history to be inducted into the Professional Speaking hall of Fame. I was a two time world champion of speaking for Toastmasters. Last year at the Global Leadership Summit, which is the biggest speaking event in the world, we had four Brand Builders Group clients speaking on that stage. Four of our clients on the biggest stage in the world. We have a lot of success in that world. Our real business model at Brand Builders Group is coaching. Right? We're a coaching company and AJ and I started a coaching business in 2006 that we sold in 2018. And now Brand Builders Group is one on one coaching for mission driven messengers. So we really do that. But services could also be anyone who's in professional services, you're, you know, cpa, doctor, lawyer, real estate agent. We work with a lot of those professional services. Anyone in direct sales who's like recruiting people, that's also services and that's a time for money exchange, which is honestly the fastest path to cash. We love services and we love the time for money exchange. But those are the five ways to make money right there. That's, that's pretty much it.
- [41:04]
Jenna Kutcher
I love that.
- [41:07]
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- [42:15]
Think that it's so powerful for people to just understand branding. And why I love the work that you do and why I talk about branding, literally since the inception of this show, is that I believe that because I've had a personal brand, I have been able to basically do anything that I want to do and to make it make sense and to take my audience on the journey with me. Right. I did the early work of doing the one thing very well and getting known for it so that I unlock the freedom to launch a book or to launch a course or to speak on a stage or to do the different things that I want to do. And I believe, too, that there's so much power in getting to share who you are and the evolution of who you're becoming and getting to kind of just let people in and to see the human in you and connect with that. And so I just, I love the work that you're doing and I love.
- [43:13]
The way that you do it.
- [43:14]
And I know so many people in my audience have worked with you and your team and just really skyrocketed and.
- [43:22]
Unknown
Gotten so clear on what their mission is and who it is they're serving. Rory, last time you were on this podcast, I want to see if you'll do this again, but you offered a free branding call, and my audience went nuts for it. Is this something you do again? And can you explain what it is and why it was so impactful?
- [43:41]
Rory Vaden
Yeah, absolutely. So if you go to jennacutcher.com brand so jennicutcher.com brand you can request a free strategy call with our team. And the reason we do this, Jenna, is because we specialize in the, like, real life human interaction, right? We are a coaching company. So some people sell through courses and membership and they do things. We are old school, like talk to you. We want to hear your dream. We want to hear your story. We want to know who you are. And when we get to know you, we can then say, hey, if you want this dream, here's the dreams that we help people achieve, right? And then we can show you the entire path to go. Here's how we work with people. These are the exact steps we move people through. And then somebody can go, gosh, that is a dream that I have. You know, I mentioned speaking. The other thing is just last week we had our 10th client this year hit the New York times bestseller list 10 times. This year that a Brand Builders Group client has hit the New York Times bestseller more than 50 times, we've hit the national bestseller list, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, when it was out. So we know a lot about helping people create a book, get a book deal, sell the book, sell the book in a way that the book gets recognized, those sales get recognized and reported. So we know a lot about that. We know a lot about helping people clarify their position and their monetization strategy in the market to go. It's not what's the best business model? That's not the right question. The right question is, what's the right business model for you in this season of your life with your time, your team, your technology, the resources, your capital that is available? What's the right business model for you? That's a one on one conversation. We can't just go, you know, everyone should be this or everyone should be that. So we do that through working with people one on one. And the first call we do for free. So if you go to jennacutcher.com brand, we'll do that first call. Now you only want to probably do the call if you go, I am serious about this. I have a calling inside of me to go to another level. I want to create financial freedom for my family. My family is the priority. And when we talked about your family earlier, your family, even though I think it is harder to be a mom and do that at the same time. I was raised by a single mom. My mom had a side hustle. She did Mary Kay cosmetics. I learned about success principles from women at all of these events. And that's how I got involved in this. And for my mom, the fact that she was a single mom, she didn't let that be the reason for why she couldn't succeed. She made that the reason why she must succeed. She made that the reason that she had to create something different or show me and my brother that a different life was available. And there are different avenues. And so we just have a real heart for that. So anyways, that's why we do the first call for free. And if you feel that calling, you should talk to us. Like if you feel that poll, we believe that that is, that the calling you feel on your heart is the result of a signal that is actually being sent out from other people in the world who need you. And those people need you actually more than you need them. And so we just want to help empower you with the knowledge and the information, but also the motivation and the accountability and the community to like hold your hand and help you get to that dream as fast as possible.
- [47:26]
Jenna Kutcher
Well, thank you for offering that again because I know so many people in my audience, sometimes they just need a sounding board or they need someone to ask the questions that helps them go deep to get to like, what is the why?
- [47:39]
Or what do I do?
- [47:40]
Or how do I get more clear and not clever? And I just think it's such a powerful way to connect with somebody. And oftentimes I will say I think it's easier to connect with a stranger than somebody that you love.
- [47:54]
Right.
- [47:54]
Like your mom's not going to ask the heavy hitting questions. Your mom's going to be over there like snapping her fingers and saying, that's great, honey. And so I would just highly recommend if you are someone who this spoke.
- [48:05]
To you or you know, you want.
- [48:06]
To build a personal brand or the model of paids held something that is a means that you want to monetize. Get on the phone.
- [48:15]
I have worked with Rory's team.
- [48:17]
Oh my gosh, they are so good.
- [48:18]
At what they do.
- [48:20]
And I feel like one of the things that your team is so incredible at is not only recognizing the human journey. Right. And that we're all coming from different places and perspectives and backgrounds and ideas, but really helping you get closer to that clarity that you need to know what your next step is. I think a lot of people listening to this show have listened to so much information, but they haven't taken action. And so maybe this is the first action that they'll take. So if you want to book a brand call, head to jennicutcher.com brand book a call with Rory's team. Rory, thank you for coming on the show. I have to say, your episode was one of our most downloaded episodes in the past. So I can't wait to see what this one does. Thank you for coming back and helping crystallize the power of a personal brand even more. Do you have any closing thoughts before we sign off?
- [49:11]
Rory Vaden
Yeah, of course. I mean, thank you, Jenna. Like, one of the shortcuts to building and monetizing a personal brand was a pattern that we only realized a few years after we started. And we discovered that for all of us, you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. You're most powerfully positioned to serve the person that you once were. And our job is to just help you get really clear on that and to understand what that is and then to help you turn it not just into money, but into a mission, and not just into revenue, but reputation, and not just into income, but impact. And you do that Jenna, like you do, that you model it, you are serving every day like the person that you once were. And you're constantly growing and improving and challenging yourself, even at your level, to get better. And so I just, I genuinely feel honored to know you and to be in your orbit and to see how you live and how you actually live out. The ideal of going, you know, family is first and business is second. But you're such a superstar. Like, you're such a magnificent, magnificent businesswoman, and you do it in such limited time. And most of all, you do it with such a heart of service to serve the person you once were. And your whole audience goes out and does the same thing. It will work. It can't work. So just go out and teach everything you know to the person that you once were, just like Jenna has. And I hope we get a chance to help you along the way.
- [50:49]
Jenna Kutcher
Thank you so much, Rory. This was awesome. And I have a feeling you'll be back. So we'll say see you soon is what we'll say.
- [50:57]
Rory Vaden
I love it.
- [50:59]
Jenna Kutcher
If someone were to ask me today.
- [51:01]
What has been the secret to your success? I believe I would say it's having a personal brand.
- [51:06]
Having a brand that has allowed me.
- [51:09]
To grow and evolve and show up.
- [51:11]
And share and make an impact and.
- [51:12]
An income like, it doesn't get any better than this. And so this is why I am obsessed with Rory. I've known Rory for years. He's helped me with keynote speeches, he's helped me with my book launch. He's been on the inside of so.
- [51:24]
Many of my friends, businesses, and I've.
- [51:26]
Gotten to watch the way that he.
- [51:28]
Helps people get the clarity that they.
- [51:30]
Need to take their idea and turn.
- [51:32]
It into impact and income in a.
- [51:33]
Way that no one else can. So I hope that you loved him coming back onto the show. Like I said, his last interview was wildly popular and I have a feeling this one is going to be the same.
- [51:44]
And of course, if you would like.
- [51:45]
To take advantage of his free one on one strategy call, go to Jenna kutcher.com forward/brand and book that call. Take that action.
- [51:54]
Get that clarity.
- [51:55]
You have literally nothing to lose and everything to gain. And of course, gold diggers. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Gold Digger podcast.
- [52:04]
Until next time, keep on digging your biggest goals. Thanks for pulling up a seat for another episode of the Gold Digger podcast. I hope today's episode episode fueled you with inspiration, gave you information that you can turn into action, and realigned you with your true north in life and business. If you've enjoyed today's episode, head on over to gold diggerpodcast.com for today's show notes, discount codes for our sponsors, freebies to fuel your results, and so much more.
- [52:31]
And if you haven't yet, make sure.
- [52:33]
You'Re subscribed so that you never miss a future show.
- [52:36]
We'll see you next time.
- [52:37]
Unknown
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