The Idea Climbing Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

In our more and more AI driven world meaningful relationships are harder to come by and maintain over time. We’re getting more and more disconnected from our social and professional circles. We’re using AI tools because we think they will make everything better. We think they will make doing business easier, which is true in some cases. They look fancy, they have cool reporting, so we think we’ll get more leads and then maybe we’ll get more clients. Unfortunately, often they’re putting layers of separation between us and our prospects and clients. When that happens, we don’t really understand what’s going on with our business outreach. We start to make up scenarios because we don’t have all the personal information to go alongside the data. We can end up not knowing much personal information about many of our prospects, instead we could primarily know what AI tells us about them.     I discuss how to create meaningful relationships in this AI driven world with my guest, Casey Cheshire. Casey is a seasoned marketer with over two decades of experience and the author of “Marketing Automation Unleashed,” a guide to leveraging marketing technology for business growth. As the founder and CEO of Ringmaster Conversational Marketing, a B2B podcasting agency, he helps businesses build authentic connections with their audiences. The Unfortunate Trend of Weakening Ties Prospect and client relationships are weakening. We no longer remember many of their names off the top of our heads, we certainly don’t know what’s keeping them up at night, so we just make up what we think is keeping them up at night. Then our products and our services start to morph in that direction. No wonder that email campaign you just sent out only got crickets back. Or maybe you had a webinar, and nobody showed up or just a few people did. AI is one of the big reasons. You wanted an in-person or virtual room full of people; why were those marketing messages falling flat? Because you’re disconnected, you didn’t know what your prospects wanted because you put apps in the way. The crazy thing is that AI isn’t making those scenarios easier. AI isn’t getting us more connected; it’s adding more noise to our world. Let me get this straight, it’s always been noisy but now it’s getting noisier. AI is behind tons of content, tons of marketing strategies, and at times it’s having fake conversations with people. Overall, it’s just going to be a noisier world for everyone. We’re not going to be able to do more of the same or do better than the status quo unless something changes. The old ways of doing business just aren’t working anymore. We must pivot hard to avoid getting wrapped up in all that disconnected noise. Getting Started on the Journey of Cutting Through the Noise How can you reconnect with your existing network or connect with new prospects or potential referral sources? It’s a revolutionary thought: By making calls. Having one-on-one calls whether you’re the founder or the marketer and so on. In the case of sales roles, they’ll reach out, but that’s a different kind of outreach. We need to be reaching out to learn, to ask personal questions, not just to make a sale. It means you’re asking things like what are your goals this year? What are you trying to achieve? What are your responsibilities? What are the things that are really bothering you? Get to know their real wants and needs. We’re not really inquiring. Sometimes if we do get on the phone with people, we’re just pitching them. We’re soft pitching and we’re not really listening to them. We’re just looking for an opportunity to talk about our product or service. We’ve got to take a step back and have a conversation where we’re trying to learn about the other person. Things change all the time. It makes it harder for you because you think you know everything. For example, when you think you understand the customer because you are marketers selling to marketers or manufactu...

Everyone faces emotional downturns, especially entrepreneurs. We can get caught up in a negative story. We can get caught up in an emotion that keeps us from achieving our goals. It is possible to get to that healthy place where you can feel happiness, joy, and the full spectrum of positive emotions.     Sometimes you’re going to feel anger, sometimes you’re going to feel sadness or defeat. You can come back to the joy of living and take your personal and business lives to the next level with the right strategies. I discuss some of those strategies in this episode with my guest, Dr. Dorothy A. Martin-Neville. Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD, is a speaker, author, consultant and master coach. She has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Network as well as the New York Times, the Huffington Post, NBC, and ABC. As a psychotherapist, Dr. Dorothy (or “Dr. D”) was in practice for 25+ years. As the founder of four companies, Dr. Dorothy has knowledge of the challenges facing leaders in business and in life. As a Business & Life Coach, her focus is on Mindfulness, Emotional Intelligence, and NLP. The Stories We Tell Ourselves When Dr. D works with folks, she asks questions such as what’s that bad place about? How did you get there? What’s the story you’re telling yourself in that moment? When you’re in a bad place you’re always telling yourself a story. You need to get to the root cause of that story. The story could be you’re focusing on one incident in your life and that’s the filter through which you see everything. So, if you were abused as a child you’re going to see abuse everywhere in your life. If somebody doesn’t return a phone call, they’re abusive. If somebody doesn’t recognize you at a networking event, they’re being abusive and so on. We create filters through which we see the world. If you’re in a funk Dr. D’s first thought is to examine what’s going on in your life, what is it you’re caught up in? If you can look at what you’re caught up in and begin to put that in the big picture you can get context for the situation. You’ll see there’s some legitimacy to what you’re saying but there’s a whole other big picture around it. You can choose to focus on that problem piece or see it in the perspective of the bigger picture. That will help you begin to shift your focus. Shifting Your Focus to Shift Your Story Dr. D trains folks to do a reality check. Let’s say you’re going through a divorce. All the sudden you’re caught up in betrayal, abandonment and other similar feelings. Ok, that’s what you’re experiencing, and legitimately so. How can you get beyond that? You have the option of spending the rest of your life in that space. Or you can recognize that’s a horrible thing that’s happening, it’s not what you’ve planned for your life but it’s there. How can you get through it and come out on the other side? Where do you want to land when you reach the other side? It’s not denial of what’s real for you in that moment. But that’s the situation that you’re in; that’s the period of life you’re going through. The funk happens when you’re caught up in a period of life and you see that as your whole life. How can you go through that and learn from it? What do you need to learn about yourself and life in general? Answering those questions will, again, shift your focus to the bigger, more positive picture. Challenges in Your Personal and Business Lives When you’re an entrepreneur it’s impossible not to have problems affect both your personal and business lives. Your personal life affects your business life, and your business life affects your personal life. You need to separate the life you’re living from the reality of who you are. If you’re consumed emotionally with what’s going on in your personal life that’s time you’re taking away from your business life. Emotionally it has you in a bad head space personally instead of focusing on your business. At that point your business is paying the price.

You need to stand out in the sales world to be successful and video is an excellent tool to leverage if you have the right strategies. I discuss how to do that with my guest, Jason Zygadlo. Jason, a seasoned expert with nearly 20 years in medical device sales, now channels his unique skills into Build.Your.Own.Brand., where he helps individuals and organizations stand out creatively and memorably.     Jason has always tried to do things differently to be memorable. He spent his earlier career in medical device sales. Fast forward to 2024, in his business practice, he was still looking for ways to be different and be more efficient. The video world was introduced to him by a friend who also sold medical devices. Jason was very quick to adopt the technology himself because he realized he could be more efficient by sending videos instead of regular emails. He particularly liked the analytical part of video technology. You could know if and when the video was watched and for how long. That allowed him to fine tune his messaging to get longer video views. Getting to Know Him It’s getting harder and harder to see potential clients. So how can you engage with them? If you’re not delivering your message effectively, then what good are you doing? If the information you’re trying to deliver to the potential client isn’t currently getting through, what other ways are out there? Email is the starting point. Almost everyone shares their email address now. You can also send the videos through LinkedIn. Jason realized he could be very efficient and send a lot of videos in a personalized and tailored way and then know when they were opened. When he did end up getting in front of the potential client in person he would often be greeted with “It seems like we’ve already met”. They would know him from the value that he had sent. It was usually a video introduction followed up by some kind of white paper or other material. Getting Your Message Past the Gatekeeper The beauty of videos is how versatile they can be. Jason would stop by an office and leave some information with the gatekeeper. He would then follow up with his potential client by sending a video saying he had left the information with the gatekeeper. Then (in the video) Jason would introduce himself and let the potential client “get to know him”. The next video would be a demo of the product Jason was selling. Once the potential client met with him Jason would send a thank you video. How Many Videos to Send You can’t just knock on the door once or twice, it’s a persistence game. Jason talks about being “pleasantly aggressive”. The videos don’t replace the stop-byes, the drop-offs and the traditional ways of doing things. Videos are a supplemental tool to tack onto the other things that you’re doing to close the sale. There’s no magic number of videos you should send. It takes as long as it takes to get what you’re trying to get and what you’re trying to accomplish. We also dive into topics such as: What the first meeting looks like after you get past the gatekeeper. Why you should create personalized videos and how to do that. The power of curiosity in the world of video and sales. How to be different and memorable. Why different is better for breaking through the noise. Examples of video platforms you can use to stand out. Why you should send thank you videos after the sale is closed. The importance of practicing being on video. The one thing, above all else, that you should do to stand out in the sales world with video. …and other golden nuggets of advice! You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea”         Click here for more outstanding interviews with entrepreneurs and thought leaders! About My Guest             Jason, a seasoned expert with nearly 20 years in medical device sales,

Recently I had a conversation about sticking with what you’re good at and delegating the rest with Bill Bloom. Bill is an abundant thinker, delegator and lifetime income specialist.  He just released his latest book, "Money Habits For Success." The first thing that he brought up is that he knows that he is a simplifier and not a multiplier. Simplifiers take things that are difficult to understand and make them easy to do and understand. Multipliers, sometimes called influencers, multiply ideas and other messages into the world. He takes retirement planning and simplifies it for people. Bill isn’t in the business of taking an idea, a book launch and multiply that into the world. He DOES work with multipliers that will do that for him. That’s a great piece of advice for you: If you’re not a multiplier or influencer don’t try to be one. Find those people to work with and stick to what you’re best at. On a day to day basis he takes complex situations and makes them easier to understand. Building The Right Team To Get Things Done The first thing Bill brought up when I asked him about hiring teams was personality tests. He uses one to assess potential candidates to find out if there’s a place on his team for them based on their personality. Bill then went on to discuss a book he recently launched. Because he’s a simplifier he doesn’t have a far reach on social media. He reached out to his multiplier friends and asked them to share the book on LinkedIn and other social media outlets. Delegating things that you’re not good at is so important – find the people that LOVE to do what you HATE to do. Listen In! In this episode we also discuss: How simplifiers and multipliers can collaborate. Why you should be investing in yourself and how to do it. The steps to successfully launching a book, pivoting your business or launching a new product or service. How to find the people that you need to collaborate with. If you enjoy this episode please subscribe and rate us on iTunes or your podcast platform of choice. About The Guest Bill Bloom is a husband, father, author, Retirement Income Certified Professional and a big soccer enthusiast.  Bill spends his time serving others by creating customized retirement income plans so that they can have purpose and clarity for his client's futures.  He also loves spending time with his wife, Jude, and his son, James.

Networking and business development are different things – you shouldn’t sell someone as soon as you meet them. That’s what I recently discussed with Steve Fretzin, who coaches and trains lawyers in modern-day business development skills, providing precise tips, fresh ideas, and actionable tasks that drive tangible results. Steve is also a three-time author, monthly contributor to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, and has his own podcast BE THAT LAWYER. Steve defines networking as the act of developing relationships and strategic partnerships. He defines business development as the next stage where you take strategic partnerships and relationships and identify needs to solve problems and create the opportunity for a sale as a result. The new way to do business development is to ask questions, listen and walk someone through the process of making a buying decision based on the need to solve a problem vs. the old school sales method of trying to convince someone to do something. Selling During The First Meeting? Steve doesn’t recommend trying to sell somebody something during your first meeting. Consider your first meeting with someone an opportunity to learn about them. This means you make the first meeting all about them – not trying to sell yourself and your product or service. If you discover that you can’t solve their problem or give them what they need then try to refer them to someone else. It’s better to make a referral than to make an unqualified sale. If you discover that you can help them set up another meeting and present solutions that they can decide to buy or not to buy. A Common Networking Mistake One big mistake is networking for the sake of networking. You might be joining multiple groups and, without realizing it, be meeting with the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Rather than doing that you should define who you’re targeting as a potential client and who you’re targeting as a potential referral source. Then answer the question “Where are they?” Once you answer that question go to where they are instead of just randomly going to networking events. Listen In! In this episode we also talk about: How to create a profile for your ideal clients and referral sources. How to successfully network during the pandemic. The positive side of networking during the pandemic. How to have successful virtual sales meetings. …And other golden nuggets of wisdom! If you enjoy this episode please subscribe and rate us on iTunes or your podcasting platform of choice. About The Guest   The host of the BE THAT LAWYER podcast, Steve has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, Crain’s, and Entrepreneur.com and has appeared on NBC News and WGN Radio. He has written three books on legal business development, is a regular contributor to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and has published articles in Attorney at Law magazine, the National Law Review, the American Bar Association and the Illinois State Bar Association.

There’s a lot of negativity in the world these days. It’s more important than ever to be happy and share happiness. In this episode I discussed HOW to be happy with Steven Lefkoff, the founder of Small Claims Academy, a business established during the pandemic in 2020 to empower individuals and businesses to perform as well as they can in small claims cases. When it comes to building a business during the pandemic happiness is key. Simply put, people like happy people. When you’re happy your happiness rubs off onto other people and they want to be around you and, when all goes well, work with you because of the happiness that you’re exuding. This is important because no business can exist in a vacuum. You need to surround yourself with great people to grow. How To Shift Gears Into Happiness When you wake up in the morning you have a choice of how you’re going to approach that day. This isn’t a focus on your schedule for the day or the tasks that you’re going to accomplish. The focus is on answering this question: “Am I going to approach this day and be happy, or am I going to be miserable?” When you start happy you’re at least beginning the day in the way that you want to begin the day. Yes, things will go off the rails and bad things will happen. When bad things happen, you have the choice to focus on the bad things for an extended period of time OR to recalibrate. You can take 30 seconds, close your eyes, take a deep breath and recalibrate by focusing on what IS going good in your life. In that moment you’re essentially starting over and choosing the path of happiness. It’s not difficult to do. The difficulty lies with remembering to do it – and then doing it. If It Works For Children… Steven has a daily practice with his children to help them start their day coming from a place of happiness. If it works for children, it will probably work for you! Steven’s children come downstairs around 6:45 in the morning in SOME kind of mood. Sometimes, unfortunately, they’re in a miserable mood. When this happens, Steven tells them to go back upstairs, get back into bed even if it’s for a short period of time, and start over. They’re instructed to come back downstairs with a smile on their face. When necessary this process repeats until his children choose to be happy instead of miserable. That’ just one of the happiness practices that we spoke about in this episode. It doesn’t benefit anybody, including yourself and the people around you, to be miserable. It DOES benefit everybody you come into contact with throughout your day to be happy. Listen In! In this episode we also talk about: How to shift your emotional reactions to negative situations. How to use the “Flip The Pancake” methodology to create more happiness in your life. Steven’s story about how he started a business during the pandemic. Why happiness leads to confidence for you and your clients. Why YOU being happy is helpful to OTHER people. …and more golden nuggets of advice! If you enjoy the show please subscribe and review us on iTunes or your podcast platform of choice. About The Guest   Steven Lefkoff is an attorney with a focus in helping people and business owners navigate the law in court without an attorney. Licensed in Georgia, Steven is the founder of Small Claims Academy, a business established in 2020 to empower litigants to perform as well as they can in their small claims case by providing individuals and businesses with products designed to help them navigate their state’s small claims court. Small Claims Academy's first product, Gavel (www.gavel.legal), is an online course to teach litigants the tips, tricks, and procedures of small claims courts.

Everyone is moving to Zoom for meetings and presentations and there are a LOT of mistakes that you can make. There are distracted learners, the ever-possible Zoom fatigue, multi-tasking and more that can destroy the effectiveness of virtual communication. The key is to know what NOT to do and what you SHOULD do instead. That’s what I spoke about in this episode with Matthew Confer, who is the VP of Strategy at Abilitie, an experiential learning company based in Austin TX that does simulation based learning with organizations and universities in more than 30 countries around the world. How Do You As A Leader Make Your Content More Interactive and Engaging? Matt’s company schedules a LOT more breaks for virtual events than they do for in person events. They just make the breaks shorter in duration, usually five to ten minutes. Matt also lets virtual attendees know to expect more and shorter breaks in advance. Otherwise the attendees go into an hour-long virtual meeting expecting to be sitting for an hour and that is not a good expectation to have. You can embrace the things in the virtual space that people usually look forward to during in person events. That helps to fight the dreaded “Zoom fatigue” that people are getting used to. Virtual events usually lose the networking benefits of live events – there aren’t the hallway conversations while you’re waiting in line to get food and coffee. To solve this problem Matt suggests scheduling virtual coffee breaks where you put small groups of people together in Zoom breakout rooms while they drink their coffee at home. This gives attendees the opportunity to meet new people. How to Create Success Online Interactions and Successful Learning Experiences There’s a BIG difference between active learning and passive learning. There’s a study that showed that learning that drives achievement and development shares two characteristics: It’s active and it’s collaborative. Whatever you do add activities to your virtual presentations, otherwise it’s too easy for participants to get distracted. It’s easy for participants to get disengaged when they’re only listening to you and looking at a screen. To make your virtual events collaborative you can assign teammates to groups or partners to individuals. This way they have people to interact with and bounce ideas off of. You can also use Zoom’s whiteboard features, chat features, polling features and more. How can you use them? If you want to keep your presentations engaging you must keep people guessing. You want them to know that the next 30 or 60 minutes of your presentation isn’t just going to be content coming at them. You want them to know that at any time they could be asked to add something to the chat or that during the next five minutes a poll might be popping up asking them to answer a question. Setting this expectation helps keep participants from getting distracted with email, texts or any of the other things that they otherwise would be taking their attention away from your presentation. Listen In! Is this episode we also discuss: The three kinds of key interactions that you NEED to have in your virtual presentations. How often you should meet virtually if you’re the leader of an internal team and what you should talk about. How to know when to have structured virtual meetings and when to have freeform virtual meetings. How to have engaging virtual mentorship conversations and what to talk about. If you only do ONE thing to enhance your virtual conversations and meetings, what that ONE thing should be. …and more golden nuggets of advice! If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe and rate us on iTunes or your podcast platform of choice! About The Guest Matthew Confer is the Vice President of Strategy at Abilitie, a Leadership Development company based in Austin, Texas that provides immersive business simulations to a global client base that includes over 50 members of the...

Mentorship is VERY much needed in the business world. You just need to know how to find mentors, engage with them and build successful relationships with them. That’s what I discussed in this episode with Matt Granados. Matt is an international coach and trainer working with individuals and teams to increase bandwidth, increase motivation, and minimize stress.  This ranges from CEOs of billion-dollar companies to individuals trying to get back to where they want to be. Matt and his team have created programs for individuals to get the exact results they desire in all areas of life. The first thing that Matt shares is that having a mentor is like going to a buffet, you don’t have to eat everything. When it comes to advice, pick what you like and take action with it while leaving behind the advice that doesn’t resonate with you. Why leave things behind? Because you’ll never find a perfect person who has all the answers. This means that you shouldn’t put your mentors on pedestals because if you do, they’ll fall down. Nobody can be everything to everyone. One caveat? You should be open minded when it comes to what you can learn from your mentors, even if it’s tough love that you might not want to hear. How Do You Find Mentors? With most of Matt’s mentor/mentee relationships there was never a formal agreement that they were in a mentoring relationship. That agreement wasn’t needed. How do you know when someone is your mentor? When they respond to your emails. When they take interest in what you’re doing. Then you’ll know that you have a mentor and that it happened organically. A BIG mentoring tip: Don’t try to engage with someone to create a mentoring relationship just because that person is famous or successful. Seek out people that have done what you want to do so you can find out 1) is it really what you want to do, 2) how do they accomplished it, 3) what did they sacrifice to get there and 4) if you really want to do what they’ve done and, when needed, sacrifice what they’ve sacrificed to do what you think  you want to do. How to Create Successful Mentoring Experiences One day Matt’s wife pointed out to him that he didn’t have any physical goals – even though his company is all about vitality. So, he “accepted her challenge” and signed up for an Iron Man competition. The first thing Matt did was to find someone that completed an Iron Man in the World championship and got the person to coach him. The tip for you? Find people that have done what you want to do and have done it WELL. Then talk with them and ask them how they did it. If they share advice that you don’t necessarily agree with, prove them right instead of wrong. As Matt told me about his Iron Man mentor – who is Matt to say that someone’s wrong who has successfully done something that Matt wants to do? Take your mentor’s advice, implement that advice, get a result, and then bring that result back to them. You’ll either: Share that you followed through with what they told you to do and didn’t get the right results – and then ask, “What else can I do?” Or you’ll share that you tried what they told you to do and succeeded and ask, “Now what do I need to do to get to the next level?” Either way you’re on a mission to move beyond the results that you’re currently getting to get new, and better, results with the proper guidance. Listen In! During the rest of this episode we discuss: Why mentee should guide the relationship, not the mentor. The four things that you need to come into a mentoring relationship ready to do. When and why you should put mentoring relationships on pause or end them. The sure-fire way to destroy a mentoring relationship and what NOT to do. How to respect your mentor’s time AND get more of their time for calls. …and more golden nuggets of advice! If you enjoy the show please subscribe and rate us on iTunes or your podcast platform of choice! About The Guest Over the last decade,

If you want to build your personal brand you probably know that writing a book will help. The challenge becomes know HOW to write a great book. That’s what I discussed with #1 Bestselling Amazon author and architect Bill Hirsch. As soon as you write something down and publish it you’re seen by your reader or anyone that’s hiring you as a consultant and expert in your field more than the day before you wrote the book. In the months before publishing his book Bill hoped that people would let them become his clients. Rather than writing a book as a marketing vehicle Bill wrote his book as a way to help people out and provide useful information. As a result of that his email inbox filled up and his phone started ringing with people that were eager to become his clients, a complete flipping of the script. How to Get Started With a Book Plan The best way to start? Start writing SOMETHING. Don’t wait until your ideas are perfect. Writing will help you collect your ideas so that they will start becoming your book. Writing out a book plan is a good way to start because if you don’t know where you’re going you won’t know when you’ve gotten there. Bill also hired a writing coach which further helped him organize his thoughts in a better, more readable book form. The start of your book plan can be as simple as an outline of and titles for your chapters. With a little further analysis beyond that Bill’s book plan let him look at each chapter to make sure that he had an equivocal amount of content for each chapter. This became the blueprint for his book and let him know where he was going. Find Your Niche There are a LOT of books on the market about general topics, such as leadership. Unless you have a huge marketing budget publishing and successfully selling a book about a general topic can be a daunting task. When you write a niche book that can work in your favor because you don’t have as much competition. Using this strategy helped Bill sell over 30,000 copies of his book. As a benchmark, traditional publishers need you to sell at least 5,000 copies of your book and if you don’t hit certain benchmarks a traditional publisher can take your book out of print leaving you with nothing. Bill chose to take the independent publishing route so he would have full control over the content of the book. Listen In! In this episode we also discuss: How to find the right creative design and editing partners for your book. How to successfully market your book and get your book reviewed in publications. The primary objective that you should have in mind for your book – and it’s not about promoting yourself. …and other golden nuggets of advice! About The Guest Bill Hirsch has spent nearly 50 years designing homes of all sizes that reflect the lives, personalities, and desires of his clients.  With a bachelor’s degree from George Mason University and a Master of Architecture from the University of Virginia, Bill has spent his career at the intersection of psychology and home design, creating dwellings that allow occupants to relax, rejuvenate, and recharge. Bill’s first Amazon #1 best seller, Designing Your Perfect House: Lessons from an Architect has sold thousands of copies around the world.  His newest #1 best seller,  The Well-Centered Home: Simple Steps to Increase Mindfulness, Self-Awareness, and Happiness Where Your Live, takes his design philosophy to the next level, moving from architecture to an even finer scale, encompassing the psychological and emotional elements of homes of all sizes and styles. A past president of the Delaware Society of Architects, a member of the American Institute of Architects and certified by the National Council of the Architectural Registration Boards, Bill now lives in South Carolina with his wife, Maureen.  They have four children and seven grandchildren.

Recently I spoke with Brian Wallace about influence. Brian Wallace is the Founder and President of NowSourcing, an industry leading infographic design agency based in Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH which works with companies that range from startups to Fortune 500s. Many people do not have a clear understanding of what influence is. There’s a gap between the word “influencer” and “influenced”. When you hear the word “influencer” you might cringe and think of people posting pet pictures on Instagram or people lip syncing on TikTok. Are they making money from it? Do they just want the rush of more likes? Oftentimes you just don’t know. It seems to be very self-serving instead of serving others. In this commencement speech the speaker discusses using your influence to positively impact others. Influence should be about empowering other people. Power doesn’t mean that you can take the stage; power is giving OTHER people the stage. “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” ~Zig Ziglar How To Expand Your Influence The RIGHT Way It all starts with looking in the mirror and knowing what you want to do and WHY you want to do it. Many people look at celebrities and extremely successful people and try to copy them. When you do that you can be aiming for targets that don’t exist. Instead of doing that you should be comfortable with who you are and be self-aware. When you are a fully transparent version of yourself without an act people will relate to you and naturally gravitate towards you. One thing you can do is explain the facets of who you really are. Let’s take LinkedIn as an example. Most people, in their headline, just put their work title. Some people think of it as an “elevator pitch”. As Brian points out, first you have to get INTO the elevator. Look at your headline as a getting INTO the elevator pitch. If a bunch of high-level executives or successful entrepreneurs were in an elevator that you’re running towards, what would you scream down the hall that would make them hold the door for you? Just a title, the line “all thoughts are my own” or a list of hobbies won’t do the trick. Brian puts his qualifications and why people should want to follow him in his headline. It’s about what he does and he makes it interesting. His headline is “Founder, NowSourcing - Infographic Expert | Google Board Member | #LinkedInLive | Podcaster | Featured: NYT, Forbes, Mashable | #SXSW Advisory Board”. Find Your Tribe Everyone is influential in some way. If they say they’re not it’s because they don’t believe in themselves. This is where being authentic can help because you’ll attract more people to you and feel better about yourself. Brian believes that the inauthentic “influencers” with a bunch of fake likes are going away. Rather than trying to be everything to everyone, find an expertise niche to fill with people that should be part of your tribe. Listen In! During this episode we also discuss: Tips for successfully marketing yourself to become an authentic influencer. The types of content that you should be sharing and how to be interesting. Why having true fans is valuable. Where to spend your time online if you want to become an influencer. …and other golden nuggets of advice! About The Guest Brian Wallace is the Founder and President of NowSourcing, an industry leading infographic design agency based in Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH which works with companies that range from startups to Fortune 500s. Brian also runs #LinkedInLocal events nationwide, and hosts the Next Action Podcast.  Brian has been named a Google Small Business Advisor for 2016-present and joined the SXSW Advisory Board in 2019. Brian can be reached here on LinkedIn.