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About Social Pros Podcast:
Social Pros is one of the longest-running marketing podcasts in existence (10 YEARS and counting), and was recently recognized as the #1 Audio/Podcast Series by the Content Marketing Awards.
Our purpose? Making sure that we speak to real people doing real work in social media.
Listeners get inside stories and behind-the-scenes secrets about how teams at companies like Google, Reddit, Glossier, Zillow, Lyft, Marvel, and dozens more, staff, operate, and measure their social media programs. With 600+ episodes, the Social Pros Podcast brings the humanity of social media to the forefront, while providing incredibly useful marketing strategies that listeners can immediately implement.
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To inquire about becoming a guest or show sponsor, please email our Executive Producer, Leanna Pham, at leanna@convinceandconvert.com.
Apple Podcast Reviews:
The Social Pros podcast has quickly become a favorite in my feed! I'm consistently impressed by the engaging conversations, insightful content, and actionable ideas. I truly learn something every time I listen!
@Arlie KThis is absolutely an awesome listen for anyone in communications or social media!!
@Will31CThis podcast has become one of my staple weekly podcasts for learning about marketing! Love the conversations that they have and it's always enjoyable and educational!
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@MissTriathlon
Mark Schaefer, Author and Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, joins the Social Pros Podcast to share his learnings from interviewing nearly a hundred people from different walks of life on what it means to become known and how anybody can join them.
Outlasting the Competition
A lot of focus is spent on building your network. Being recognized as an expert or well-known voice in your field is about getting in the right circles and front of the right people.
Mark knows that while that is true, it’s not the whole story.
Achieving the title of a “known person” takes more than riding the coattails of another’s success. It involves persistence, purpose, consistency, and listening to yourself.
Did you notice that none of those involves another person? That’s because the key to success in being known lies mainly with you. A lot of people tire quickly in the race to the top, which is why half the battle is being persistent in your pursuit and consistent in your message.
That message needs to resonate first and foremost with you. If you are trying to become known in a field that doesn’t excite you, then you will run out of gas long before anybody knows who you are.
In This Episode
- How being consistent leads to overcoming lack of talent or experience
- Why finding your tennis ball means knowing what makes you tick
- How finding qualitative improvements in your life leads to understanding your momentum and when it’s time to stop
- Why getting to being known means listening and finding your purpose
Quotes From This Episode
“Nobody’s born an expert. Everyone that we look up to had to earn their way, and that’s something we know, but for people just starting out it can be very overwhelming.” —@markwschaefer
“Just outlasting people makes a difference and being viciously consistent can overcome a lot of things. It might be more important than raw talent. It might be more important than a big idea.” —@markwschaefer
“The biggest problem is that people give up too soon.” —@markwschaefer
“If you can prevent yourself from becoming tired or bored, eventually some of your competition fades away.” —@jaybaer
“This whole thing about ‘if you can dream it, you can believe it, you can be it, follow your dream.’ You know, the world just doesn’t work that way.” —@markwschaefer
“If the momentum isn’t going, then you need to reevaluate. You need to go back to the book and say, all right, what were the assumptions that I made that were wrong?” —@markwschaefer
“When I started getting into the research about what makes people resilient, one of the foundational principles is purpose. It had to be about something more than just making money.” —@markwschaefer
“I challenge people to think about if you were being interviewed on a podcast in two years, or you are on a stage ready to give a speech, what would you be talking about?” —@markwschaefer
“It may seem that there’s all these things that are not connected, but if you listen, if you really listen, there’s almost always something that there’s this connective tissue that keeps all these interests together and that’s what you want to be known for.” —@markwschaefer
“The overwhelming consideration should be, is this something that I’m going to have fun with, is it going to be joyful?” —@markwschaefer
“We live in a world of incredible information density.” —@markwschaefer
“There’s been no better time in history to start than now. There’s no better time in history to start to become known than this day.” —@markwschaefer
“The wrong reason to be known is because you want to be like somebody else or you feel pressured to be somebody else. You have to look at your own goals, your own life, and create something that’s sustainable for you.” —@markwschaefer
Resources
- Mark Schaefer on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and SlideShare
- Schaefer Marketing Solutions
- Grow Blog
- KNOWN: The handbook for building and unleashing your personal brand in the digital age
- The Marketing Companion Podcast
- Is Twitter About to Make a Huge Mistake?
See you next week!
Transcript
| Jay: | Welcome everybody to Social Pros, the podcast for real people doing real work in social media. I am, as always, Jay Baer from Convince and Convert. Joined as per usual by my special Texas friend from Austin, he is the executive strategist of sales for some marketing cloud, the one the only Mr. Adam Brown. |
| Mark: | Jay, it is great to be here and I am indeed a real person and I am doing real work today as compared to the other 364 days of the year. |
| Jay: | Mostly we’re just recording Podcasts today, so I guess that’s what- |
| Mark: | That’s right. |
| Jay: | -constitutes as real work in social media, then we can check that box, baby. |
| Adam: | I love it. I love it. But, so glad to be here and I tell you, as we were just getting set up, I’m so glad that we are talking to a Knoxvillian on the show today. That’s pretty special, but doesn’t happen that often, and that’s something that’s going to be near and dear to my heart as you know. |
| Jay: | We do not have that many Vols, or people assisted with the Vols on social present. In fact, our special guest here on episode 263 made an appearance on the show, I think it was episode 134, just 30 months ago or something like that. Every two and a half years, we just drag his old bones out of the show. It is Mark Schaefer, who is the executive director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. Proprietor of the Grow blog, author of a million books including his brand new one which is spectacular. We’ll talk about it today, called ‘Known’. The handbook for building and unleashing your personal brand in a digital age and co-host of a very fine podcast in his own right called The Marketing Companion with our mutual pal, Mr. Tom Webster. Mark, welcome back to Social Pros. |
| Mark: | I’m glad to finally be back. Thirty months! That’s a long time. |
| Jay: | That is a long time. |
| Mark: | What did I do to piss you off? |
| Adam: | Well, that’s the lifecycle of the social media expert. That’s exactly what it is. Thirty months. That’s what we decided. |
| Jay: | Seriously. I love the new book. It’s really great. |
| Mark: | Thank you. |
| Jay: | There’s a lot of books out there about quote unquote personal branding. I know you hate that term. |
| Mark: | Mm-hmm (affirmative) |
| Jay: | As many people do, but there’s a lot. It is a book about that. We just don’t want to call it that, but there’s a lot of books out there about it. This is the finest book anywhere close to that topic I’ve ever read. It is super practical, it is super true, and it is digestible and achievable by just about anybody, which is really the thesis, is it not? |
| Mark: | It is, and thanks so much for the very kind words. I am proud of the book and the reaction to the book has been unexpected in a way because as you said, I’ve written- I haven’t written a million books. |
| Jay: | You like this one. |
| Mark: | Yeah. Shut up. |
| Jay: | The other five, you’re like nah. But this one you’re like, man, this is good. |
| Mark: | Well, the other five books have done very well and they continue to do very well, but the difference with this one is that people are coming back to me and they’re sending me messages saying this is a book that’s changing my life. The first Audible review on this said this is the most inspiring book I’ve ever heard. And I did not expect that. It’s a book I’m very proud of, but I was just so close to it for so long I didn’t expect it would have that emotional connection with people that it’s had. |
| Jay: | Really, I could see how that could be the case. You didn’t write it to be inspirational, necessarily, but the stories contained in the book of what we consider to be I think real people who have managed to use content marketing, social media, sort of digital presence to improve their own notoriety, and therefore, their career, and therefore, their life. It is inspirational because it is so achievable. I think that’s where the inspiration comes from this book. That you don’t need to be somebody who has a massive following to begin with. You don’t need to be an executive of a huge company or you don’t need to have some degree in social media, you can actually do this if you follow the lessons in the book and obviously put the considerable time required against it. |
| Mark: | Yeah. And I was intentional about that. About connecting the stories and the path to real people and not just marketing people, but people in all different walks of life, and it was also intentional. It was a difficult decision but as you know in the introduction of the book, I kind of talk about my own life and I talk about a dark part of my life. A very traumatic part of my life, which is really the beginning of my journey to become known. That’s where I was. And the reason I did that was it was kind of a literary way to put my arm around the reader’s shoulder and say, look, wherever you are in your life, I was below that. Come on, let’s do that. And I interviewed nearly a hundred people for the book and I think maybe 60 kind of made it into the book. Some just little mentions, but the big stories in the book that I chose, it was from people that started with nothing to show that nobody’s born an expert. Nobody’s born, at least everyone that we look up to, they had to earn their way. They had to work very hard for a long period of time, and that’s something we know, but for people just starting out, it can be very overwhelming, it can be intimidating, and I did want to inspire people through the stories in the book to show, look, if these people can do it, you can do it, too. |
| Jay: | You interviewed so many people from all walks of life. |
| Mark: | Mm-hmm (affirmative) mm-hmm (affirmative) |
| Jay: | How did you pick them? Was there like a open casting call? So You Think You Can Dance opened up a theater in Knoxville and said come tell me your story of notoriety and then you had a panel of judges, Jennifer Lopez et cetera helped you? |
| Mark: | Well, it was very simple. I went out to a lot of my friends and I explained what I was trying to do and I said, I want to find people who are known in their industry, but not marketing. |
| Jay: | Anything but marketing. |
| Mark: | Because I didn’t want this to be just about social media marketing and I had a hypothesis going into the book, but I learned a lot too, Jay. I mean when I write a book, I let the research write the book. And I heard certain themes come through these stories and these people that it was a great lesson to me too. So, I learned a lot and I let them tell the story of how to become known. |
| Jay: | What surprised you the most about doing all of these interviews? |
| Mark: | You know, two things, I think. Number one was the last question I asked every person was if you could give some word of advice or encouragement to someone who’s reading this book, what would it be? And almost every person used some form of the word consistency or resilience or tenacity and what I learned, Jay, it came through in such a powerful way that just outlasting people makes a difference. That being viciously consistent can overcome a lot of things. It might be more important than raw talent. It might be more important than a big idea and I don’t know if you remember this or not. Maybe you do, but the genesis of the book really started with a conversation between you and me, and I think I might have- |
| Jay: | Get out! Where’s my royalty checks? |
| Mark: | It’s in the mail. |
| Jay: | Thank you. |
| Mark: | I promise. So when I was working on The Content Code, you and I went back with this dialogue about can anybody become known? |
| Jay: | Oh yeah that It factor. |
| Mark: | Yeah. Your response. You came back you said I don’t know. It just seems that there’s an it factor and people have asked me how do I become known, how do I become like you, and you said I don’t think I can train someone to do it. And that was really the thing that kickstarted this. I never forgot that conversation and I became obsessed with this idea, is there a path? Is there a process? Can anybody become known? And what if I was the people that interviewed, they all did the same four things. You almost might include persistence or consistency as a fifth thing, but that’s the overarching thing is that the biggest problem is that people give up too soon. On average, it took two and a half years for people to really start realizing their goals. And it’s not just about money. You want to be known for a lot of things. You might want your ideas to be spread, or you might want to be invited to be a board or you might want to raise money for a charity so whatever your goals are, it took about two and a half years and I think that kind of passes the sniff test for me too. Is that the people we know, who have worked hard to be known, there is no overnight success. It takes a lot of time and a lot of work and I’ll be honest with you. I would have loved to written a book called Six Months to a Powerful Personal Brand. Or A Powerful Personal Brand in Under 100 Days. It’s just not there. Nobody, not one person I talked to, made it under a year. Kind of one year was the low part. Five years was the other extreme, so that sweet spot was between really your two and your three. |
| Jay: | I couldn’t agree more that in some cases you succeed because everybody else gets tired or bored. |
| Adam: | Mm-hmm (affirmative) |
| Jay: | And if you can prevent yourself from becoming tired or bored, eventually some of your competition fades away. I’m also not entirely certain how I feel about you writing an entire book to disprove me wrong. But that seems like you could have just said, no. I disagree, but if you want to write a whole book about it- |
| Mark: | Well, I didn’t know. |
| Jay: | -then that’s fine. |
| Mark: | I honestly didn’t know. That’s fine. I mean, that was the intellectual prompt. Yeah. I love it. That was the intellect. One of the things in the book, I talk about for each stage, I have lots of exercises in the books and prompts. |
| Jay: | Yeah. |
| Mark: | And one of the prompts- |
| Jay: | That’s one thing I love about the book is it’s so actionable, you actually have to- |
| Mark: | Because I just- |
| Jay: | It’s a workbook in a book. |
| Mark: | It was my passion because this whole thing about if you can dream it, you can believe it, you can be it, follow your dream. You know, the world just doesn’t work that way, and I’m just begging people, have a plan, have a plan. And I wanted to have exercises in the book, just so there’s no excuse. And one of the exercises in the book, one of the prompts is what is your tennis ball, and the analogy is sometimes you see a dog that chases a tennis ball and just won’t let go. What is your tennis ball? And my tennis ball, for three years, was not being able to answer that question that you and I had. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind. I became obsessed with it. And it led to insane amount of research and I went down this rabbit hole of interviewing way too many people, but it just got really interesting and fascinating and every person I talked to just opened up a new idea, opened up a new coloration and a nuance to the book. So you were my tennis ball Jay Baer. |
| Jay: | Oh, thank you. Thank you. You mentioned a moment ago this concept of score keeping. Of why do you want to become known. |
| Mark: | Mm-hmm (affirmative) |
| Jay: | And how do you know when that has happened? Do you have advice for listeners to social pros who want to become known? And I think it’s very very common among people who are social media professionals that they feel like they need to create more notoriety for themselves and that will help propel their career. What is the measuring stick? How do you- it feels to me in some cases, people do this for a long time and they never really know what the goal is or what the finish line is and so you’re in this constant state of, I’m not there yet, I’m not there yet, I’m not there yet. And you’re always moving the goal post on yourself and that can be unhealthy, I suspect. |
| Mark: | Yeah. This is something I spent a lot of time on because I think this is a very fair question, when do you know it’s time to quit? When do you know it’s time to pivot or when do you know, I can’t give up? I’ve just gotta keep going, and so I did develop a little scoring system and actually it’s been interesting, Jay, because a lot of people started to use this now. And they found it very helpful and in the workbook that goes with the book, there’s actually a template you can download. You can keep your own scorecard and the thing that I was puzzling about is, look how do you keep people incented when we know it takes on average two and a half years, thirty months, for most people to have those goals start to gain traction. And so the best thing that I could come up with was to look at qualitative events in your life that indicate progress because for so many people, nothing really happens and then it does. So what do I mean by qualitative event? Something quantitative is something that you can count, like money or a sales lead. A qualitative event might be someone asks you a question. That’s an indicator that your awareness is going up, that you’re being appreciated, that you’re becoming known. Maybe being invited to speak to a local group. To be invited to be on a podcast. I have a whole list of these subtle, qualitative things that you can pay attention to and keep track of. And as long as those things are happening and building, you gotta keep going because you’re on the right track. There could be easy measures of awareness, just like your Twitter followers are going up, or your mentions are going up. Now it can’t be that alone, but if you look at all these little things put together, it could be some indicator of some momentum, and getting yourself in this thirty month mindset that, look, let’s reevaluate things after year one. Let’s reevaluate after year two. And if you still have this momentum building, keep going. If the momentum isn’t going, then you need to reevaluate. You need to go back to the book and say, all right, what were the assumptions that I made that were wrong? Do I have the right sustainable interest? Did I pick the right thing that I wanted to be known for? Am I creating my content? Is my voice being heard in the right space? Or did I underestimate how competitive this was? Am I getting a good reaction to my content? Or do I need to try something else? Am I building the right kind of audience that’s really focused on my goals? Instead of getting a follower account based on my ego. So, those are the steps that we need to do if you’re not getting any traction after a year, I would say, it’s time to reevaluate and figure out if you need to pivot or not. |
| Jay: | Mark, I’m fascinated by this idea of a score card, in terms of as you try to aspire to be more known and I can assume that the score card includes a lot of things that you need to do and do more of. I’m curious, though, as you’ve talked to these hundreds of folks, and the ones that you’ve included in the book, did you find one or two things that these folks that are aspiring to be more known, are doing too much of instead of not enough of? |
| Mark: | I would say they’re trying to be in too many places at one time. They look around and they say, oh, Jay started a podcast. Oh, Mark’s on Instagram now. Oh, I need to do this. Oh, I need to do that. And I think a key, and certainly, a common theme I saw in the people that made it in their fields was that there was a focus. That they picked one area. It could be writing, it could be video, it could be a podcast, it could be Instagram, in some cases. And they just mastered that. They did it well. They built their audience there for a year or two before they ever thought about diversifying. There’s one great case study in the book. There was a fellow. He’s a wealth management advisor in a small seaside village in the UK. And for him to be successful, he had to be known out of this little village. So, he started blogging and he had some traction with the blogging and he did some experimenting with videos, but where he really started to get some interesting traction was on a podcast. And he was just dabbling in this and dabbling in that, but he didn’t really have the breakthrough until he committed to a weekly podcast. That’s when things changed for him. And like everyone else, he didn’t get his first customer from the podcast, until 18 months. Again, not an overnight success, and he’s continued to build momentum. Now, he’s one of the most widely known financial advisors in the UK because people love his podcast. There’s one other thing about that case study I wanted to mention. When I interviewed him, he said, I wanted to do something in my life other then make rich people richer. And I heard something like that from every person. They told me they want to make an impact. They want to help people. They want to something more than just sell things. And I thought, this just can’t be a coincidence. And when I started getting into the research about what makes people resilient. One of the foundational principles is purpose. So, it wasn’t a coincidence that to have that consistency, to be able to sustain it, it had to be more then about you. It had to be about something more then just making money. Some people knew their purpose up front. Sometimes the purpose followed them after they got into it, but everyone to do it that long, they have some sort of purpose. |
| Adam: | Do you see that concept of purpose? Because I can totally agree with that. I think that’s certainly an important part of kind of what I’m about, Jay. I know that’s important to you. My question is, are you seeing that in everyone? And as you said that, I’m reminded of a research study that I read earlier this year, and I’m going to paraphrase it, but basically the gist of it was that more millennials then any other age group, believe that they will be famous more then any other generation before them. Now I know one of the things I talked about in the book is the difference between being known and being famous. |
| Jay: | Right. |
| Adam: | How do all those things begin to reconcile with millennials and younger people? |
| Jay: | Because I believe purpose is extremely important. At least what we learned from a marketing and branding standpoint. Purpose is so important to them. |
| Mark: | That’s exactly right. That’s exactly what I was going to say is that almost every generational research study points this out. That the millennial- I hate to pigeon hole a group at all, but there certainly are generational trends. And one of the generational trends is that they want to know what you stand for. They want to know that you believe in something greater than just selling stuff. You know, you see it everywhere, you’re starting to see it in a lot of important marketing. And that absolutely is congruent with what I have in my book as well. There was one of the people that I talked to was absolutely delightful interesting person. She’s an artist and there really is something to being a starving artist. Most artists can’t make it financially. And she had actually given up on an art career. And for fun, she took a class at a college about creating a business case for art. So, as part of the class project, she created a business case for herself and to keep her hand as an artist, she said, I’m going to create a piece of art every single day. And the only piece of art you can complete in a day is something very small. So she creates this highly detailed piece of art only about as big, not much bigger than a quarter or maybe a silver dollar, and she does it everyday and posts it on Instagram. Now, she didn’t start out with a purpose. She did it, really it was the evolution of a class project. But as she got into it, she recognized that when she became known, she can support others that she believed in. She could support galleries she believed in. She could promote causes that she believed in. And her original commitment, she was going to create a piece of art everyday for 365 days and when the first year was over, she just kept going. She’s created a piece of art everyday since January 2013. And one of the reasons she is doing that is because of this purpose that it provides because she can help other people, other venues, other causes that she believes in. |
| Adam: | One of the things that we were actually talking about on the show last week with Marcy was this idea of influence and kind of clout score. And the idea that you can be influential from a wide standpoint, but it’s actually more important to be more influential in a very narrow area. I think, Jay, your analogy was, you could be influential as it relates to technology but if you’re tying to sell a boat, that really isn’t going to help. I’m curious, Mark, from a known standpoint. Is that important, too? Is there kind of an inflection point where you become known in a particular industry or with a particular group? Or is known something that is more broad based? |
| Mark: | Well, it depends. It has to be something that’s aligned with your skills, aligned with your values, something that I think is most important, that you’re going to have fun with because you’re going to be spending a lot of time with it. And I think it has to be aligned with your goals of where you want to be in a couple of years. I challenge people to think about if you were being interviewed on a podcast in two years, or you are on a stage ready to give a speech, what would you be talking about? What are people ready to hear from you? And that’s kind of the aim. That’s kind of the goal. It’s wouldn’t necessarily be tied to an industry. It could transcend industries, but I’ll give you an example. I happened to be actually coaching some executives now on how to become known. And I was talking to this executive at Cisco and she said, I just don’t know what I want to be known for. I’m interested in so many different things. How can I pick one? And as I listened to her, she said, well, I’m interested in martial arts, and I do grief counseling, and I’m a psychologist and I’m into extreme sports. And I said what is the moment in your life that makes you come alive? And she said, I love it when I bring people to their moment of courage. And I said, that’s it. |
| Adam: | Wow. |
| Mark: | That’s the thing. And to some people it may seem desperate. It may seem that there’s all these things that are not connected, but if you listen, if you really listen, there’s almost always something that there’s this connective tissue that keeps all these interests together and that’s what you want to be known for. That is what is unique about you. And it might take a little exploration to figure that out, and when I said, wait a minute, wait a minute. That’s it. You want to be known for bringing people to their moment of courage. And there was this pause on the phone and I thought she was going to cry. She said, absolutely. That’s it, and by the end of the week, she had a blog that she had started called Bringing People to their Moment of Courage. |
| Adam: | I’m glad you mentioned blogs. You wrote a book about blogging a while ago and you’ve got a very successful blog and have for many, many years. Do you feel like blogging is still a good place to start if you’re trying to become known or given the rise of audio content, video content, that if someone’s trying to become known from scratch, they might opt for a more multimedia approach to doing so. |
| Mark: | Well, there’s a number of different considerations on picking what is your platform going to be? You have to look at where is your audience? That’s gotta be a consideration. You’ve got to look at where are your competitors? That has to be something to think about. But, I also believe that it has to be something that you love to do. If you don’t love it, your audience will see that. If it’s not fun, you’re going to quit, and I don’t want you to quit. So, I think the overwhelming consideration should be, is this something that I’m going to have fun with, is it going to be joyful? Now, blogging, it could be seen, it’s not growing as fast as other media, but my view on that is that people learn by reading, by seeing, or by listening. And so the reading part of social media is pretty mature and video is growing very quickly and the audio part is catching up. Which is why podcasts are growing so fast because it’s been an underserved way to learn, so that’s starting to catch up. And I don’t want to necessarily call it blogging, because writing is showing up in so many different places now. It could be your blog, it could be on Facebook, it could be on Linkedin, it could be in a trade journal, let’s say. So, writing, audio, video, in some cases, visual, something like Pinterest or Instagram, might work. But, basically you gotta choose one of those. And doing it well, and stick with it for some period of time and if blogging is your thing, don’t worry about what everybody else is doing. Don’t worry what the statistics show. As long as people read, there’s gonna be written content. So, if that’s what brings you joy, go for it. |
| Adam: | Do you feel like it’s going to be, or is easier or harder for today’s young people to become known. So, you have a daughter who’s in her early mid twenties. |
| Mark: | Mm-hmm (affirmative) |
| Jay: | I have a daughter who’s eighteen. |
| Mark: | Mm-hmm (affirmative) |
| Jay: | Compared to old farts like you, me, and Adam, will it be easier for them to become known or harder because of all the platforms and people creating content? |
| Mark: | Both. You probably know what I’m going to say. But, look. We live in a world of incredible information density. And I saw the statistic that between 2015 and 2020, the amount of information on the web is going to increase by 500 percent. And a lot of people think that’s a very conservative number. And all that content competes with all that content. So, it’s harder to find a niche, perhaps today than when you and I started maybe nine years ago for me. I think it’s been ten years for you. However, there’s so much innovation taking place. There are so many- I mean, look what’s happened in that last six months with Facebook and Instagram stories and now Facebook stories and Facebook live and all these content forms are exploding and they’re fragmenting and if you look at what’s happening even with visual content. It’s becoming interactive. It’s becoming addictive. And the thing that inspires me, is to think, we’re just at the beginning here. We’re at the beginning. And if we look back ten years from now at 2017, we’ll think, oh my gosh, I wish I was alive in 2017. The internet was just a baby. There was so much going on. I wish I could go back. There’s been no better time in history to start then now. There’s no better time in history to start to become known then this day. Then today. That’s the biggest problem. Is taking that step and starting because the ideas and the people and the content that are going to impact us the most ten years from now haven’t started yet. Hasn’t begun yet. Hasn’t been invented. It could be you. So, the hardest part is just starting because it is hard and it is scary. But, it’s going to be less scary and less difficult and more fun six months from now, then it is today, but you gotta start. |
| Adam: | I think that is so important to go ahead and just start. Don’t stop talking about it and actually start it. I have one last question before I pass it over to Jay for our important messages from our sponsors. |
| Jay: | So, let’s assume, Mark, I’ve read your book and I know it is focused kind of around a four step path to becoming known. And let’s say over the course of a couple of years, I indeed get known. Now, after that takes place, now what? Can I continue to use those four steps to kind of maintain. To kind of lather, rinse, repeat? |
| Mark: | Champaign and Lamborghini, baby. There you go. |
| Jay: | Mark, do I have- |
| Adam: | Like Jay. |
| Jay: | Yes. Exactly. Living the dream. Yeah. That’s right. Caviar dreams and whatever memories. Casey Kasem talked about, do Mark, do I have to, after I become known, use those same processes, those same steps to continue my known ness? Or does it take a different strategy or tactics to maintain my network and my sense in place? |
| Mark: | You know, I love the quote in the book. There’s this amazing young guy I interviewed named Zander Zon. And if you can imagine, he has a successful youtube channel that his entire career. This is what he is making his living doing. He seats by himself and plays a bass guitar. Just a bass guitar. |
| Jay: | Oh, I know him well. |
| Mark: | And his music is incredible and what Zander, what I loved about his interview is he just has this sense of urgency and he said, look the thing that I have in common with other people that have become known is that I’m willing to put in an insane amount of work and I’m always learning. I’m always improving. I’m looking at new ideas and new technology. And new cameras and I sweat over the details and I think it’s that sort of passion and drive that keeps it fresh. You know, I know in my own experience, kind of my commitment to my audience, is I am never going to let them down. I’m always going to be looking for fresh ideas and interesting ideas and content that is worth their time every single day. No matter what I do, a podcast or a blog post, or whatever I do. So, I’m always exploring and stretching and trying new things and trying new angles and I think you do have to do that because you do have this purpose. The other thing Zander said, he said, I’m not in this so much for the money. I’m doing this because of the reaction that people are loving my music. And that’s what keeps you going. That’s what keeps driving you. |
| Jay: | I love that reaction part is so true. One of the challenges for podcasting, actually. |
| Mark: | Yeah. |
| Jay: | That you don’t get as much direct feedback and audience reaction- |
| Mark: | It’s difficult. |
| Jay: | -as you do on blogging or certainly social media. You mentioned content that won’t waste your time. I’ve got two options along those lines for you this week at Social Pros. One is from my friends at Sales Force Marketing Cloud, who continue to pay Adam Brown each and every week to be their executive strategist and they also have this great book that you should download, e-book, called The Future of Advertising. It’s all about how to get better at your paid social, something that most of us need to know how to do. Go to bitly/salesforceads, so that’s bitly/salesforceads. They actually took tons and tons and tons of their clients. Adam gave one today. I came up with a bunch of interesting patterns and ideas for you to improve your paid social. It’s bitly/salesforceads. Also, our friends at Yext. The leaders in mobile marketing and reviews have a new e-book called How to Win Digital and Real World Foot Traffic With Local Reviews. Which was written by me and my pal Daniel Lemon, who’s the head of consulting at Convince and Convert. It’s all about how to get more reviews from your customers. How to handle reviews, and how to make reviews part of your marketing arsenal online. Grab it at offers.yext.com/reviews. That’s offers.yext.com/reviews. Adam. |
| Adam: | Jay, thank you and Mark Schaefer is so great to have you on the podcast today. Mark is the author of Known, the handbook for building an unleashing your personal brand in the digital age. Mark, you’ve written five best selling books, you co-host an unbelievably great podcast called The Marketing Companion. You’re one of the most retweeted marketing executives in the world. I’m curious, because obviously you are known by any shape or form. I’m curious, as you wrote this book and as you spoke to these hundreds of people, did you learn anythings that they were doing on their quest or their already success in becoming known that you didn’t do, and you said, oh my gosh, if I had only done that just a couple of years or a couple of decades ago? |
| Mark: | As I mentioned. I started the book with a hypothesis. Because I kind of have been around. I know a lot of people who have leveraged the technology out there to find a way to be known. So, I would say that mostly it was a validation. I would say the two things that were different were number one, the profound impact of consistency. Almost really trumping anything else that you do. It can just overcome a lot. I interviewed this lovely lady who’s an author and a poet out in the middle of nowhere. She’s out on the prairie in Colorado and she’s become a well known poet and author, especially when it comes to books about horses and the human relationship with horses. And she said, I just stuck with it. I just built an audience. It took me a long time. I started small. I knew I had a book in me, but I was never going to be able to have a successful book unless I had an audience. So, I started a blog and built an audience. So I think it really, to me, it quantified my process. I didn’t really think of what I did in these four segments, and I probably underestimated the power of consistency and purpose. Those two concepts weren’t even really on my radar screen. So, I wouldn’t say it’s really changed anything that I’m doing. It kind of explained it and reinforced it and maybe gave me validation that I’m on the right path to- I do definitely feel a deep sense of purpose in what I do. I’m a teacher in my heart. I can remember when my daughter now is in her late twenties. When she was a little girl, I would help her with her homework, and she said, daddy, you should be a teacher someday because I get so confused at school, but when you explain it to me, I can understand. And I think that is my gift. That’s my gift and that’s my purpose and that’s what keeps me going. When people tell me I’ve had some impact on their lives or their business. I had that I end the book to kind of end the book with a sad story at the beginning and a happy story at the end where a young woman came up to me in a conference and said, I do what I do because of you. Your blog, your content, your books. You’ve inspired me. I am who I am because of you. And I responded to her, that I am who I am because of a moment like this. Because that’s what keeps me going is that I’m at a great place in my life where it’s time to send the elevator back down and share the things that I’ve learned. And to help people and nurture people, and that’s what drives me. |
| Jay: | You mentioned recently in a conversation with Phil Gerbyshak, who is a terrific coach for media. |
| Mark: | Yeah. |
| Jay: | You talk about in the book as well, the difference between being known and being famous. And the example you use in that conversation was Gary Vaynerchuk on this podcast two or three times. I’m sure everybody who listens to Social Pros has at least heard of Gary and you say people shouldn’t use him as the template for becoming known. That’s holding yourself to a standard that is frankly, unachievable. |
| Mark: | Right. You know. I think you and I joked about this a couple of years ago. There was a time when every single business book had a case study about Zappo’s and I actually wrote- sometimes I’ll do a summary of different books that I read on my blog and I actually reviewed like ten different books that had a Zappo’s alert. Which book. Because every single book and it was weird because case studies is a two edged sword where it’s great to inspire, but to be Zappo’s, you’ve got to be Zappo’s. You’ve gotta have Tony Hsieh at the helm. You’ve gotta have a little culture that’s a little off center. And it’s the same with Gary. Gary is the new Zappo’s. He’s the icon. He’s the case study. He’s the hustle. Everybody wants to do that. And Gary’s been around a long time now. He’s been around as long as you and I have, maybe a little longer. |
| Jay: | Absolutely. |
| Mark: | And how many new Gary’s are there? None. Because there’s only one him and there’s only one Zappo’s and so you can’t. The wrong reason to be known, is because you want to be like somebody else. Or you feel pressured to be somebody else. You have to look at your own goals, your own life. And create something that’s sustainable for you and your family and the people that are around you and what’s comfortable for you. And I think too many people are looking at Gary like they looked at Zappo’s and said okay, look. All I gotta do is listen to Gary. And Gary has done a wonderful job inspiring people and energizing people. He is a super smart guy that gives a lot of great advice. But you have to stay centered. You have to look within yourself and create your own path and your own journey. Not something that’s based on somebody else. |
| Jay: | Yeah. If you’re going to wake up everyday and say well I’m not Gary yet. You’re going to have a lot of bad mornings. Its just the reality of it. All right. I’m gonna ask you the two questions we ask every guests. We asked you these in episode of 134, I presume, but I’m going to ask them again because that’s how we roll here on Social Pros. By the way folks, just another plug. If you don’t listen to Marketing Companion, which is Mark’s podcast that he does twice a month with Tom Webster, listen to it. You’re going to love it. It’s fantastic. And they just celebrated episode 100 this week. |
| Mark: | Mm-hmm (affirmative) |
| Jay: | I sent you a message about that. I don’t know if you guys dropped that. It had all kinds of messages from fans. |
| Mark: | We did. We used that. Yeah. |
| Jay: | Good. |
| Mark: | Thank you. |
| Jay: | My pleasure. So, question number one. What one tip would you give somebody looking to become a social pro other then read the book Known, available in bookstores and websites. |
| Mark: | You know the thing that a lot of people talk about, but still isn’t really being activated is this idea to be more human in your social presence. It’s something that I teach at my classes at Ruckers and I have lots of case studies. Where even big companies are learning how to do this. I think it’s very difficult to love a logo or love a slogan, but we do love people. We create emotional connections to people and I think that is a real key to marketing as we go forward. Not just social media marketing, but all kinds of marketing is to create that emotional connection and I think the root to do that is going to be connecting our people to the people out there who need us, who are suffering, or who love us. And create those emotional connections with people. |
| Jay: | Last question for you. If you could do a Skype call with any living person, who would it be and why? |
| Mark: | Oh. Any living person? Well, this is going to be a little off center, I think. The other day I was talking about if I was in a room with a person, who would be there that would make me star struck? That’s a pretty short list. It’s a pretty short list. I think number one on the list would be Bruce Springsteen. |
| Jay: | Nice. |
| Mark: | I saw- |
| Jay: | We heard Bruce before. |
| Mark: | I saw Bruce when he was first starting out. He was playing a ball room at a college I was going to. And I was immediately hooked and he’s just been a big part of my life and I don’t know how many times I’ve seen him in concert and it’s and incredible, almost a spiritual type of thing for me. His concerts are like a revival almost. And I just love his writing. I love his music. And I love his new book. It’s incredible. It’s almost like a book of poetry. It’s so well written. Just made me totally jealous, but that would mean a lot to me to have some engagement with Bruce Springsteen. |
| Jay: | All right. We’ll see if we can pull that together. You should just send him the book Known. Be like, hey, you actually did this, you just didn’t know it. |
| Mark: | Yeah. Right. |
| Jay: | I’m sure he would appreciate it. |
| Mark: | Yes. |
| Jay: | Mark, thanks so much for being on the program. Congratulations on yet another terrific book. Ladies and gentlemen. |
| Mark: | Thank you so much fellas. Appreciate it. |
| Jay: | It’s called Known. The handbook for building and leashing your personal brand in the digital age. The podcast is called the Marketing Companion. You can get Known on Mark’s site. You can get it on Amazon, of course, et cetera, et cetera. And I will see you out there on the speaking circuit my friend. |
| Mark: | Thank you Jay. Thanks so much both of you guys. It’s been a lot of fun. |
| Jay: | We’ll do it again in exactly thirty months. |
| Adam: | Thirty months. |
| Mark: | Uh. Thirty? |
| Jay: | I am, as always, Jay Baer, from Convince and Convert, he is Adam Brown from Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and this my friends, has been Social Pros. |
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