Why Ryan Hanley Says Every Insurance Leader Needs a Personal Brand

Ryan [0:00:00]: The more targeted your content is, the more it speaks to your target audience, the more consistently you're put out your value structure, who you are, what you can do, who you help adding value, contra ideas, thoughtful stuff.

Ryan [0:00:12]: Whatever it is.

Ryan [0:00:12]: The more you do that, the more people see it, the higher that trust bar goes up before they ever speak to you.

Callan [0:00:21]: Welcome to The Insurance Growth Lab, Where we go deep on the growth campaigns and strategies driving real results in the insurance.

Callan [0:00:28]: Industry.

Callan [0:00:29]: I’m Callan Harrington founder Flashgrowth and in each episode, I sit down with marketing and growth leaders from carriers, shirt tech and top brokers to break down one specific initiative, whether it's holiday marketed a product, scale a channel or solve a specific growth challenge.

Callan [0:00:46]: It's no fluff, just tactical insights you can apply in your own company.

Callan [0:00:51]: Welcome back everyone to The Insurance Growth Lab.

Callan [0:00:58]: I'm Cow Harrington and today, I'm joined by Ryan Hanley.

Callan [0:01:02]: Ryan is the president of Linqura.

Callan [0:01:04]: And if you've been in the insurance space for pretty much any amount of time.

Callan [0:01:08]: You've heard Ryan's name before.

Callan [0:01:10]: In addition to a success at Linqura, Reg, Bull penguin and many others in the insurance space, he's been one of the most successful content creators in speakers in the industry, especially within the agent community, So for our deep dive today, I wanted to break down his content process, and that is exactly what we did.

Callan [0:01:33]: If you know, Ryan, you know he's super passionate about what he believes in and he did not disappoint.

Callan [0:01:40]: We talked about how he generates ideas for content, what his content flywheel looks like and what he would do today if he was starting from scratch.

Callan [0:01:51]: I know founders and marketing leaders, everyone's really kinda trying to crack that personal content flow, and this is a great episode for that?

Callan [0:02:00]: We even got into a great debate about the importance of having a personal brand.

Callan [0:02:06]: Do you have to have a personal brand to be successful these days?

Callan [0:02:09]: Or can you still be successful without one.

Callan [0:02:12]: These are both great questions and it was super fun, debating Ryan on them.

Callan [0:02:17]: So with that, let's get to the show?

Callan [0:02:20]: Right.

Callan [0:02:28]: I think one of the things that's obvious.

Callan [0:02:29]: Anybody that's put in the space for any amount of times knows you're one of the biggest voices within the insurance community.

Callan [0:02:36]: And three reality is...

Callan [0:02:37]: You've been one of the biggest voices for a pretty long time.

Callan [0:02:41]: And if you look at your career, you know, you've been on both sides.

Callan [0:02:46]: Right?

Callan [0:02:46]: You started in an agency.

Callan [0:02:48]: You had your own agency, sold an agency to Si.

Callan [0:02:50]: You've been on the tech side with An, and you've been on the tech side with Bull penguin.

Callan [0:02:55]: And then you've been on the actual trade Association side with trusted choice.

Callan [0:03:00]: And, you know, what are the things that personally, I always found really interesting is even when it wasn't necessarily directly beneficial to you and what you were doing, you always created content that was beneficial in helped agencies improve.

Callan [0:03:18]: What was the initial spark that led it at?

Ryan [0:03:21]: I wanted them to be successful?

Ryan [0:03:22]: I felt like I had figured things out and I knew how hard this industry can be if you don't fit kind of the classic.

Ryan [0:03:30]: Traditional mold of either what a producer looks like or Csr looks like etcetera, Agency owner.

Ryan [0:03:35]: And it's tough when you don't feel like you fit the standard mold.

Ryan [0:03:41]: There's not a lot of resources for you, you don't get the hype or the pub that kind of the the tried and true grinder get those chest numbers.

Ryan [0:03:48]: And not that those people aren't important.

Ryan [0:03:50]: I love those people too.

Ryan [0:03:50]: I want them to listen.

Ryan [0:03:51]: But I just always felt like, I was a mis fit.

Ryan [0:03:55]: I've always felt like, a mis fit in this industry.

Ryan [0:03:57]: But I know there are many others.

Ryan [0:03:59]: I know not alone.

Ryan [0:04:00]: And I just felt obligated to tell my story in a way that hopefully showed other people that they can find their own path.

Ryan [0:04:09]: Doesn't don't have to be mine.

Ryan [0:04:09]: But that they could find their own path to where they fit in this space.

Ryan [0:04:13]: And I think sometimes I still fl to find out to figure out, like, exactly where I fit into the insurance world.

Ryan [0:04:21]: That's a very unique and Nuanced.

Ryan [0:04:23]: Community.

Ryan [0:04:24]: And I guess I just always wanted to help.

Ryan [0:04:27]: I always want to help.

Ryan [0:04:28]: I'm really bad at monetizing my content by bad.

Ryan [0:04:31]: I mean, like, if a consultant were to come in and spend time with me.

Ryan [0:04:35]: You know, I don't have enough lead magnets.

Ryan [0:04:37]: I don't have a load ticket program, I'm not selling a mastermind yet.

Ryan [0:04:41]: I don't...

Ryan [0:04:42]: You know, there's, like, plenty of things that I don't do, but I've always created because I don't know.

Ryan [0:04:49]: I take so much inspiration from other people's work that, like, if I could do that for someone else.

Ryan [0:04:53]: Than I wanted to.

Ryan [0:04:55]: Like, I just...

Ryan [0:04:55]: It's like, I do it for free.

Ryan [0:04:57]: I do it.

Ryan [0:04:58]: It's like, I can't help but not do it.

Ryan [0:05:00]: I can't help but not share these things that I either figure out or know or learn or just find inspiring because It's like saying hi to somebody on the street.

Ryan [0:05:10]: Like, you never know which piece of content or which hello or which message is gonna resonate with someone and turn their day around, turn their hour around, turn their their week, their month, their career around.

Ryan [0:05:22]: It's those things that keeps you going.

Ryan [0:05:23]: The money's is great.

Ryan [0:05:24]: I love getting paid to speak.

Ryan [0:05:26]: I love coaching people.

Ryan [0:05:27]: I wanna do more with sharing with helping people in a more direct way to be successful, and some of that will come out with time.

Ryan [0:05:34]: But Dude, I just have always felt this pull to share and to communicate and to help inspire or teach people.

Callan [0:05:44]: You're get about six things I wanna dive into on this.

Callan [0:05:46]: But I wanna start you.

Callan [0:05:47]: You mentioned your mis fit.

Callan [0:05:48]: Were you wanting to talk to the other mis fit?

Callan [0:05:51]: Or what was it that you were thinking?

Callan [0:05:53]: Like, when you first got into this?

Callan [0:05:54]: Right?

Callan [0:05:54]: When you first started.

Callan [0:05:55]: What was it that?

Callan [0:05:57]: And I think I have pretty good feeling in what you're talking about.

Callan [0:05:59]: Like, a lot of people are saying a very similar thing what was it that you weren't hearing that you were like, okay.

Callan [0:06:05]: I would be that voice?

Ryan [0:06:07]: So, dude, I've been in this business for twenty years.

Ryan [0:06:08]: Right?

Ryan [0:06:09]: And there are a lot of people that been in for twenty, but I wasn't in insurance guy.

Ryan [0:06:13]: I mean, my parents were Blue cop My mom was a receptionist.

Ryan [0:06:17]: My dad was a labor on the railroad.

Ryan [0:06:18]: I knew nothing about professional services.

Ryan [0:06:20]: I knew nothing about sales.

Ryan [0:06:22]: I knew nothing about insurance.

Ryan [0:06:23]: Basically, my...

Ryan [0:06:25]: At the time, father, made me a kind of mafia so style offer I couldn't refuse.

Ryan [0:06:31]: Like I had no intention of coming into the insurance space, but he basically was, like, if you're gonna marry my little girl, you're gonna come sell insurance for the Murray group so I can keep out.

Ryan [0:06:39]: And you can make sure you're not a you're not a bum, which I appreciate.

Ryan [0:06:42]: Now as a parent.

Ryan [0:06:43]: I appreciate that thought process.

Ryan [0:06:45]: So I did.

Ryan [0:06:46]: But I'm not I'm not wired to just go out and ground and pound and make a hundred cold calls a day and and drop off a hundred business cards.

Ryan [0:06:56]: It's just not the way that I was wired.

Ryan [0:06:58]: It's not something that I enjoy doing.

Ryan [0:07:00]: It doesn't fit my sweet spot.

Ryan [0:07:02]: I think I'm an educator at heart.

Ryan [0:07:04]: So I almost got fired really early Like when I say it was admit, Like, eighteen months into, two years into my career, my father law fires me.

Ryan [0:07:12]: And I literally have to beg him.

Ryan [0:07:14]: Like, on my knees in his office, like, you don't wanna have to tell your little girl you fired me.

Ryan [0:07:19]: I don't wanna have to have that conversation with her.

Ryan [0:07:21]: Like, let's not do this.

Ryan [0:07:22]: Let's find out something that works.

Ryan [0:07:23]: And that's when I kinda turned to content marketing and building a brand.

Ryan [0:07:28]: And and I knew nothing about that stuff.

Ryan [0:07:30]: Dude, I went to college to be a mechanical engineer because I thought...

Ryan [0:07:34]: Because I was good at math and science.

Ryan [0:07:36]: I hated that.

Ryan [0:07:36]: All I really wanted to do was play Baseball.

Ryan [0:07:38]: I kinda grind it out and cheated my way through a math degree just so I could graduate on time.

Ryan [0:07:44]: Like, I had literally no idea what I wanted to do.

Ryan [0:07:46]: I knew I was good at talking to people.

Ryan [0:07:48]: I was always good in front of a crowd.

Ryan [0:07:49]: I'm good at deal making.

Ryan [0:07:50]: I knew I had some skills, but I didn't know what I wanna do.

Ryan [0:07:53]: And when I found insurance and I was thankfully educated enough to understand how lucrative our business model is, as well as understanding things like, you know, we're an inflation adjusted industry.

Ryan [0:08:06]: There's a lot of opportunity because we don't recruit nor do we recruit very well.

Ryan [0:08:11]: So it's not like you're playing in the financial adviser world where it's doggy dog.

Ryan [0:08:16]: You can stand out pretty quick here.

Ryan [0:08:18]: There's tons of blue ocean, you have a lot of people who just are lag or late adopters of basically every process, every system, every piece of technology, which, for fast movers, people who are willing to make decisions, people are willing to kinda F a, it's all blue ocean.

Ryan [0:08:35]: This industry is all blue ocean because of how traditional our spaces.

Ryan [0:08:39]: And that's not to knock the people that go about at the traditional way.

Ryan [0:08:42]: You can be highly successful, and those are the people that built the industry and set the foundation for where we are, and I appreciate them and maybe early in my career, I didn't have as much appreciation for but now twenty years in, I get it.

Ryan [0:08:54]: However, and so it's not a knock on the traditional way of business to say that there's blue ocean and these other forms are going...

Ryan [0:09:01]: Getting after it.

Ryan [0:09:01]: It's just there aren't a lot of entrepreneurial people.

Ryan [0:09:05]: Like, most agency owners are not entrepreneurs.

Ryan [0:09:07]: Maybe technically they are, but they don't operate or think as entrepreneurs.

Ryan [0:09:11]: Most of them are just really good salespeople sales people who were smart enough and understand understood the concept of equity enough to go out and build their own space.

Ryan [0:09:19]: But they don't operate as business owners.

Ryan [0:09:21]: So if you're a business owner, competing against an agency owner, that business owner is gonna win all day over the long term because they're gonna be adaptable.

Ryan [0:09:29]: They're gonna be thinking out into the future.

Ryan [0:09:31]: They're gonna have replace themselves in the agency and they're gonna be thinking things like scale.

Ryan [0:09:35]: They're gonna be thinking about how do I reduce my cost of acquisition, my c?

Ryan [0:09:39]: How do I increase my conversion rate.

Ryan [0:09:41]: They're gonna work off of metrics.

Ryan [0:09:42]: They're gonna be constantly testing new tech.

Ryan [0:09:44]: They're gonna be getting feedback from customers and thinking about user experience.

Ryan [0:09:48]: They're gonna be creating content and not making excuses not to, hiring culture.

Ryan [0:09:53]: Like, this is what it means to be a business owner.

Ryan [0:09:55]: We act like, oh, my god.

Ryan [0:09:56]: I can't believe I to think about customer experience or I don't have time to think about my sales process.

Ryan [0:10:00]: Well, you're unique in that.

Ryan [0:10:02]: Every other business in the world when it comes to insurance has to think about those things.

Ryan [0:10:07]: So when you come into our space and you know how to be creative or you're a conversion optimization specialist or insert outside of traditional agency function or mindset, all of that activity is blue ocean, because you're just not competing against that many other people who are even thinking in that way.

Ryan [0:10:26]: So that was very obvious to me early.

Ryan [0:10:29]: And I started to push into those spaces, and what a lot of content creators today and our space don't understand is that...

Ryan [0:10:36]: And this is gonna sound, I don't mean it to be, but, like, basically Cass and I plowed the road for all you guys.

Ryan [0:10:44]: It was when we first started talking about anything digital, cultural, social media, anything outside of the traditional way business was done.

Ryan [0:10:53]: I used to have heck at my events.

Ryan [0:10:56]: People would heck me from the crowd while I was giving a keynote or a workshop.

Ryan [0:11:00]: That shit does not happen anymore.

Callan [0:11:02]: What was that moment?

Callan [0:11:03]: What was the moment when you're, like, oh, this is working?

Callan [0:11:06]: People are g to this?

Callan [0:11:08]: What platform did you start to have this

Ryan [0:11:11]: from a insurance content creator or as a creating content for the agency?

Callan [0:11:16]: I'd like to focus this one because, you know, it's funny.

Callan [0:11:18]: It's interesting.

Callan [0:11:19]: I remember you were talking a lot about these videos, and we known each other for years.

Callan [0:11:24]: But you start a road risk.

Callan [0:11:25]: And I and I don't think we were super in touch

Ryan [0:11:28]: twenty twenty.

Callan [0:11:28]: Between that, yeah.

Callan [0:11:29]: I yeah.

Callan [0:11:29]: And But I remember going.

Callan [0:11:31]: I was, I'm curious how some of these videos that he's doing?

Callan [0:11:33]: I, like, how are they actually doing on Youtube, But I went and I'm like, oh, okay.

Callan [0:11:37]: This is this actually, your numbers blew away what I thought would have been possible because...

Callan [0:11:42]: Not like Youtube was a nascent platform at that time.

Callan [0:11:45]: It had been around and you built these.

Callan [0:11:47]: And what I thought was interesting is you were teaching all of this that entire time, Like, to come bring a full circle what I was mentioning earlier.

Callan [0:11:53]: So I would love to dive in on the content creation for the agency audience as opposed to the consumer and business audience.

Callan [0:12:03]: But I wanna say business prospects to your business as an agency.

Ryan [0:12:07]: Yeah.

Ryan [0:12:07]: So I learned the power of content marketing in general through my work direct to consumer through the agency.

Ryan [0:12:14]: I learned the power of what it meant to build a personal brand and have a voice and a take through my first podcast, which was called content warfare.

Ryan [0:12:24]: So I started a podcast in twenty eleven called content warfare.

Ryan [0:12:29]: And it was all just...

Ryan [0:12:30]: I was marketing, Sales and marketing podcast.

Ryan [0:12:32]: And this was really when Hubspot was coming up and content marketing was all the rage and how do you tell a story and now all these businesses are taking on the task of not only performing what they do, but now they got...

Ryan [0:12:46]: Now they're telling their story and and using content to do that.

Ryan [0:12:49]: And I was having so much success at the Murray group that I just started sharing what I was doing there out into the public.

Ryan [0:12:58]: Now, there's a few reasons for that.

Ryan [0:12:59]: So, philosophically, I believe in a few things that may or may not be true, but I act as if they are.

Ryan [0:13:06]: I believe that at all times, you have the muse and the resistance sitting on your shoulders.

Callan [0:13:12]: Mh.

Callan [0:13:12]: War of art.

Ryan [0:13:14]: Yep.

Ryan [0:13:14]: It's the war of arts, Steven Pre.

Ryan [0:13:15]: And you cannot harness serendipity without doing the work.

Ryan [0:13:20]: Right?

Ryan [0:13:21]: The muse is your gateway to serendipity.

Ryan [0:13:23]: Serendipity being unforeseen value coming to you, essentially, in a broad stroke.

Ryan [0:13:29]: And the muse only responds to doing that work.

Ryan [0:13:34]: So if I wanted speaking events if I wanted coaching clients.

Ryan [0:13:38]: If I wanted to be on another podcast podcasts, if I wanted to expand my region influence into our space so that I could have conversations with people that I may may want to do business with or more may wanna partner with or just wanna have as a mentor or a contact, the best way to do that is to share who I am consistently online.

Ryan [0:14:00]: And at this point, I don't have a resume.

Ryan [0:14:03]: Even at a resume in years.

Ryan [0:14:04]: If someone wants to know what I'm all about what I believe in and who I am, they just can simply look at my content.

Ryan [0:14:12]: Listen to the podcast.

Ryan [0:14:13]: Go to my Linkedin.

Ryan [0:14:13]: Go to my Instagram, go to my newsletter at finding peak dot com.

Ryan [0:14:17]: Like, go check those things out, and you will know exactly what I believe and who I am.

Ryan [0:14:21]: And I don't need to necessarily apply for jobs.

Ryan [0:14:24]: Now it doesn't mean that I wouldn't have to put a resume something together, but, like, I don't have to really work my way into places.

Ryan [0:14:31]: Like, I used to have to.

Ryan [0:14:32]: There's a lot of doors get open, a lot of people come to me because they know what I'm about.

Ryan [0:14:37]: And if they want that thing, they come to me.

Ryan [0:14:40]: Because that they know exactly what they're gonna get.

Ryan [0:14:42]: And now I get to choose whether I want that opportunity or not, but that was brought to me.

Ryan [0:14:46]: So I've always been a staunch believer that when telling your story consistently your value structure, what you believe in your thoughts, your takes.

Ryan [0:14:55]: Etcetera.

Ryan [0:14:56]: What that does is, yeah, It builds an audience and some people do it because they wanna be a celebrity.

Ryan [0:15:02]: That's never been the reason for me.

Ryan [0:15:04]: It's never been my goal.

Ryan [0:15:05]: My goal has been...

Ryan [0:15:06]: I like to work on projects people that I like working with that challenge me that, etcetera.

Ryan [0:15:12]: And I want to be able to filter out those ideas, the the the people who are just kicking the tires or wouldn't be good clients through my content.

Ryan [0:15:20]: So when someone approaches me, there's a very good chance that they're either going to become a coaching client or it's gonna become a speaking gig or whatever that opportunity is because they've got so much that they've been able to vet exactly who I am that there's no misconceptions on what you're getting.

Callan [0:15:37]: So I wanna pull in this thread.

Callan [0:15:39]: And I hear you.

Callan [0:15:40]: I'd hear you to the t.

Callan [0:15:41]: Like, you want your content to attract just as hard as it repel the right people from the wrong people.

Callan [0:15:47]: And there are ton of benefits.

Callan [0:15:48]: Like, that just kinda come out of the blue when you are consistent in what you're putting out there.

Callan [0:15:54]: But I wanna get into weeds on this.

Callan [0:15:56]: I wanna get super tactical?

Callan [0:15:57]: What does your content plan and strategy look like today.

Ryan [0:16:02]: So today, everything starts with either the newsletter or the podcast?

Ryan [0:16:06]: So newsletter, in podcast, podcast podcasts is finding peak.

Ryan [0:16:10]: Newsletters finding peak dot com.

Ryan [0:16:11]: You can get the both through there or wherever you look.

Ryan [0:16:13]: And really, it comes to me as an idea.

Ryan [0:16:16]: So I consume a lot of content.

Ryan [0:16:18]: Mostly, it's just the way that I'm wired.

Ryan [0:16:20]: I just I'm interested in a lot of topics.

Ryan [0:16:22]: I'm constantly trying to see where the world is going.

Ryan [0:16:25]: I read finance.

Ryan [0:16:26]: I read philosophy.

Ryan [0:16:28]: I follow politics, which isn't probably the most healthy thing for me mentally, but I think it's very interesting.

Ryan [0:16:33]: So I'm constantly taking things like Alright.

Ryan [0:16:36]: There's this finance concept.

Ryan [0:16:38]: There's something happening in the market.

Ryan [0:16:39]: Like, couple of weeks ago I shared on Linkedin, this graphic of chat growth versus internet growth.

Ryan [0:16:44]: And obviously, Chat growth.

Ryan [0:16:46]: Like, it takes, like, two steps to the right and go straight up.

Ryan [0:16:49]: And Internet growth is, like this nice steady over twenty years that gets to the same place, but it's like three years versus twenty years.

Ryan [0:16:56]: Right?

Ryan [0:16:57]: And my comment was around the economic implications to how we think about leading through this age of Ai.

Ryan [0:17:05]: So I took this finance, this finance article that I found, which shared this graph.

Ryan [0:17:11]: I then took that idea, mash it up against leadership in this age of Ai, which is something I'm incredibly interested in and talking a lot about, and a lot of my keynote lately have been around how do we lead through Ai.

Ryan [0:17:22]: So I'm taking in information for a topic I'm interested in.

Ryan [0:17:25]: I'm pulling that in, making it relevant to leadership in the age of Ai.

Ryan [0:17:28]: And then putting a third filter on it, which is how that exactly applies to the insurance industry.

Ryan [0:17:33]: So now I've taken this piece of content over here that I found because I'm consuming and, you know, I we can talk about how I save content and come up with ideas, etcetera.

Ryan [0:17:41]: I've passed it through a filter of a topic.

Ryan [0:17:43]: I'm really interested, leadership through the age of Ai, then pass it through a filter of insurance and applied it to insurance.

Ryan [0:17:48]: And now I have a wholly unique take on this growth and chat Versus the Internet and its implications to us as leaders.

Ryan [0:17:56]: In the age of Ai inside the insurance industry.

Ryan [0:18:00]: Now that might come out that might start as a linkedin post that might start as an article or it might start as a video.

Ryan [0:18:07]: Wherever it starts, take one of those three places.

Ryan [0:18:10]: Because those are usually where I'll post my ideas first.

Ryan [0:18:12]: So if it's an un baked, it's not a fully baked idea, I'll usually put it on Linkedin.

Ryan [0:18:16]: If it's fully baked, then it's either gonna go out on the newsletter or the podcast first.

Ryan [0:18:22]: And the reason I say newsletter or podcast is some ideas come to me, and I feel like they're better initially portrayed as videos.

Ryan [0:18:30]: Right?

Ryan [0:18:31]: Seven to ten minutes hard hitting, bang bang bang, Here's what I'm thinking on this topic.

Ryan [0:18:37]: Right?

Ryan [0:18:37]: If it's a solo episode, or I'm like, this is more tactical or more appointed, I'm gonna start with the newsletter article.

Ryan [0:18:45]: And then from there, if the newsletter article does well, I will turn that into a video.

Ryan [0:18:51]: If the video does well, I'll turn it into a newsletter article, and then whichever direction I go, I'm creating subs notes.

Ryan [0:18:59]: I'm creating Linkedin posts.

Ryan [0:19:01]: I'm creating tweets or an Instagram carousel or something out of that as well.

Ryan [0:19:05]: So it's it's create one time, and then work it through the rest of your channels, that idea in an appropriate format.

Ryan [0:19:12]: Now the mistake a lot of people make is they'll take one idea and then just copy and paste that idea in every place that they have an account.

Ryan [0:19:20]: Those days are over, that does not work.

Callan [0:19:23]: Yep.

Callan [0:19:23]: You have to optimize.

Ryan [0:19:24]: We have to optimize for the platform that we're sharing on.

Ryan [0:19:27]: Right?

Ryan [0:19:27]: So if I'm posting, a longer form video on Linkedin versus Instagram, right, that's gonna need to look differently.

Ryan [0:19:34]: It seemed to be cut differently than for Instagram.

Ryan [0:19:37]: So we wanna make sure that these are things are different.

Ryan [0:19:39]: So if I were gonna give everyone listening a plan I would start everything video first.

Ryan [0:19:45]: If I were starting today, and I wanted to start to have a voice that I was talking to say my industry, I was looking to build a platform or influence versus market my business, although they are similar,

Callan [0:19:58]: actually real quick.

Callan [0:19:58]: I wanna hear this, but you just brought up a potential hot take here.

Callan [0:20:01]: Do you see content creation as separate from a marketing content plan in a business?

Ryan [0:20:08]: Yeah.

Ryan [0:20:08]: My take is that every person in a leadership position or every person that desires a leadership position should have a personal brand.

Ryan [0:20:14]: Doesn't mean you need to post as much as I do, but you have to.

Ryan [0:20:17]: And the reason is because when I hire...

Ryan [0:20:19]: Let's say I'm gonna hire somebody.

Ryan [0:20:21]: I'm going out and checking out what have they written.

Ryan [0:20:24]: What are they posting about.

Ryan [0:20:25]: What's important is it all pictures of their family, which is fine and cool.

Ryan [0:20:28]: If there's not a wrong right answer, but I'm using what you wrote.

Ryan [0:20:31]: If I can't find anything about you online.

Ryan [0:20:33]: If you're one of those people it's, like, I don't like to post on social media, but you're in business?

Ryan [0:20:37]: You better be rich or just you better have a billion dollar business.

Ryan [0:20:42]: Because if you haven't done something so incredibly spectacular that everyone knows your name because of that individual thing that you've done, then you need a personal brand.

Ryan [0:20:51]: Because when people wanna partner with you, they wanna know what you're about.

Ryan [0:20:55]: They go to your Linkedin.

Ryan [0:20:56]: If someone wants to get find out more about you as a person, maybe they go to your Instagram or your Facebook?

Ryan [0:21:01]: If someone wants to see what does this person actually believe, What's their philosophy around?

Ryan [0:21:06]: Sales or marketing or Hr or customer experience or web design or whatever thing it is that you do?

Ryan [0:21:13]: Are you writing about it?

Ryan [0:21:14]: Are you talking about it?

Ryan [0:21:15]: Is there a place where I can go and actually get a feel for who are you following?

Ryan [0:21:19]: Like, if you're big into Seo and you're re repo Rand fish king and, you know, I'm missing some of these names here.

Ryan [0:21:26]: But...

Ryan [0:21:27]: Or if you're in content marketing, you know, Ben Me, Justin Walsh, Cody Sanchez.

Ryan [0:21:30]: I see you, Okay.

Ryan [0:21:31]: I can tell.

Ryan [0:21:32]: Maybe, hey, maybe not, You're not a creator, but you're commenting or res sharing or liking this people that I know know what they're doing that I know, hey.

Ryan [0:21:40]: This person this individual, this gal or guy is...

Ryan [0:21:43]: Their mindset is similar to what I'm looking for.

Ryan [0:21:46]: I know at least in part who I'm getting because they follow the same types of people or they file people that I know are respected and know what they're doing in that space.

Ryan [0:21:54]: So it's you don't have to be this massive content creator.

Ryan [0:21:57]: But if you're in sales, and you don't have any sales takes You're less valuable to me.

Ryan [0:22:04]: It doesn't mean you're not valuable.

Ryan [0:22:05]: Because I know everyone out there that just that doesn't post and social media My, You don't understand.

Ryan [0:22:09]: I'm an Epic salesperson person.

Ryan [0:22:10]: Yeah.

Ryan [0:22:11]: No.

Ryan [0:22:11]: But I don't know that.

Ryan [0:22:12]: I don't.

Ryan [0:22:13]: You can tell me you're great at sales.

Ryan [0:22:15]: You can show me the six other sales positions you've been in.

Ryan [0:22:17]: But how do I know?

Ryan [0:22:19]: Right?

Ryan [0:22:19]: I don't know.

Ryan [0:22:20]: And but if I can see, wow, look at this take on inbound call answering.

Ryan [0:22:25]: Oh, look how they're advocating for using an Ai receptionist to a distributed round robin call team for high volume inbound or Man, the way they positioned this little sales script that they shared On Linkedin about doing cold calling, that's really thoughtful.

Ryan [0:22:39]: I like the way they went through that.

Ryan [0:22:41]: Now I'm starting to develop a picture of who that person is.

Ryan [0:22:43]: And if I'm recruiting or I'm thinking about doing another project, or I'm looking for a speaker or a coach or whatever.

Ryan [0:22:50]: Right?

Ryan [0:22:51]: That's Ser opportunity, and I can't find you online.

Ryan [0:22:54]: I'm gonna move on to the next person that I can.

Ryan [0:22:56]: Is there's just too much content in the world today, to me, it's a net negative.

Ryan [0:23:01]: If you're telling me that you're great at what you do.

Ryan [0:23:04]: And you haven't shared a single take or haven't commented in a forum or haven't written a an article or a white paper or done a few videos on what you do, how much do you love what you do?

Ryan [0:23:16]: In today's world, ten years ago, this is not the same thing.

Ryan [0:23:19]: But today, if you wanna be a leader or you're a leader, I need to know what you're all about.

Ryan [0:23:24]: If you wanna be the person gross the top income.

Ryan [0:23:27]: The person who who recruiters are reaching out to who the company or the Ceo that's always getting inbound partnership requests, etcetera.

Ryan [0:23:34]: Right?

Ryan [0:23:35]: You have to have a brand.

Ryan [0:23:37]: You have to be out there sharing your thoughts and feelings.

Ryan [0:23:39]: And I have heard this from many many people.

Ryan [0:23:41]: People hire me because they know I'm not going anywhere.

Ryan [0:23:45]: The I create content every day.

Ryan [0:23:47]: They know where to find me.

Ryan [0:23:49]: They know I'm not going anywhere.

Ryan [0:23:51]: With my brand, if we did a business deal Cow, and I screwed you over how easy would it be for you to wreck my entire brand with one post.

Callan [0:24:00]: I think everything you're saying interesting.

Callan [0:24:01]: And I will say I probably agree with eighty percent of it.

Ryan [0:24:04]: Yeah.

Ryan [0:24:04]: Once in twenty percent you don't agree with.

Callan [0:24:06]: Well, I'll get there.

Callan [0:24:07]: I I promise you.

Callan [0:24:08]: I love debating on this and on the show just in general.

Callan [0:24:10]: The eighty percent I agree with is that if you are out there.

Callan [0:24:15]: One of the big things is, like, you're just showing you're displaying a trigger that you are willing to do more than what's generally required for the job.

Callan [0:24:25]: And it's not even so much that.

Callan [0:24:26]: It's like, you're doing this...

Callan [0:24:28]: It's just you have a general interest.

Callan [0:24:29]: You're showing curiosity.

Callan [0:24:30]: And you're showing a willingness to put yourself out there.

Callan [0:24:33]: And I think

Ryan [0:24:34]: you can I cut you off real quick?

Ryan [0:24:35]: This is the most common misconception that I get about.

Ryan [0:24:38]: Me.

Ryan [0:24:39]: The number of people that...

Ryan [0:24:42]: And it doesn't happen so much, I think maybe I've just been around long enough, but there was a period of time before Covid, where I would have multiple people at a keynote, especially if it was the first time I had been to that event who'd be like, oh, you're different in personal.

Ryan [0:24:57]: I thought you're gonna be a dick.

Ryan [0:24:58]: I thought you're gonna be this.

Ryan [0:24:59]: I thought because they would look at the content work as me, like, promoting myself.

Ryan [0:25:04]: They thought that what I was doing was, like, promoting myself.

Ryan [0:25:07]: Like, I wanted to be this celebrity influencer, and I was like, no.

Ryan [0:25:10]: That's not the reason.

Ryan [0:25:11]: It's trust.

Ryan [0:25:12]: Like, when I said, if I have this big personal brand, I screw you over, you could wreck that brand one post.

Ryan [0:25:18]: To me, it is a safety valve for someone who does business with me to know that I don't wanna wreck my personal brand.

Ryan [0:25:26]: So to me, I tend to defer to people who have personal brands because I know even at the most selfish secular self oriented level to protect that brand to keep getting business to have people keep going...

Ryan [0:25:40]: They need to do a good job.

Ryan [0:25:41]: They need to make good on their promises.

Ryan [0:25:43]: That's not to say there are Hoe out there, but Hu are few and far between today versus ten, fifteen years ago on the Internet.

Ryan [0:25:51]: It's just...

Ryan [0:25:52]: They can't hide.

Ryan [0:25:52]: They get called out too quickly.

Ryan [0:25:54]: So that personal brand is also, like a soc to compliance for doing business with you.

Ryan [0:26:00]: Right?

Ryan [0:26:01]: Like, you know it's gonna be...

Ryan [0:26:02]: You know there's a high likelihood of safety because I can't not do my job and have you posting that I didn't.

Ryan [0:26:08]: So it's that trust factor.

Ryan [0:26:10]: And in my keynote, I talk about what we're trying to do as sales and marketing people is I think about it, like a video game.

Ryan [0:26:16]: Right?

Ryan [0:26:16]: Every prospect starts at zero trust.

Ryan [0:26:19]: And when you get them to a hundred trusts, that's when they buy.

Ryan [0:26:22]: Content is the mechanism to fill that trust gap before they ever talk to you.

Ryan [0:26:28]: The more targeted your content is, the more it speaks to your target audience, the more consistently you're put out your value structure, who you are, what you can do, who you help adding value, contra ideas, thoughtful stuff.

Ryan [0:26:41]: Whatever it is.

Ryan [0:26:41]: The more you do that, the more people see it.

Ryan [0:26:44]: To higher that trust bar goes up before they ever speak to you.

Ryan [0:26:48]: So now someone calls for a speaking gig, they're ninety percent of the way there.

Ryan [0:26:52]: All I really need to do is validate that I am who I say I am online, and once someone feels comfortable with that, that last ten percent is there, Bang, I booked that gig or whatever the sale is.

Ryan [0:27:03]: Right?

Ryan [0:27:04]: And that goes for anything and everything that we want.

Ryan [0:27:06]: Right?

Ryan [0:27:07]: We want people out there researching us and building that trust up.

Ryan [0:27:10]: And then our job at the end is just to take them to the close.

Ryan [0:27:13]: That is way easier than having to take somebody who doesn't know anything about you because they can't find anything about you online and pulling them from zero to a hundred.

Ryan [0:27:21]: It's why in the insurance industry dude, so many people work off referrals.

Ryan [0:27:25]: It's because we're lazy with content.

Ryan [0:27:27]: We love referrals because the trust meter in some cases already at a freaking hundred when we get a referral.

Ryan [0:27:32]: Easy.

Ryan [0:27:33]: It's lazy selling.

Ryan [0:27:34]: Not that it's not good business.

Ryan [0:27:35]: I'm not knocking it as a business practice.

Ryan [0:27:37]: I'm just saying the reason that we all intrinsically love referrals is because Cow calls up and goes, hey, Ryan, you know, I just talked to my buddy Mike the other day who does business with you, and he told me you're the guy.

Ryan [0:27:49]: Your trust is already there.

Ryan [0:27:51]: You already believe I'm the guy.

Ryan [0:27:52]: Right?

Ryan [0:27:52]: And that's because I created content.

Ryan [0:27:55]: You went and mike gave you the referral.

Ryan [0:27:57]: You went to my website, check me out.

Ryan [0:27:59]: It looks great.

Ryan [0:27:59]: You watched a few of my Youtube videos looked at my Linkedin and said, Ryan is the guy.

Ryan [0:28:03]: Amin in.

Callan [0:28:04]: So I agree with all that.

Callan [0:28:05]: Circling back to the twenty percent.

Callan [0:28:07]: So for me, and obviously, like, this is coming from the angle of somebody that consistently does content as well and that every single thing that you just said, I I agree with that.

Callan [0:28:18]: The twenty percent that I would debate is I don't think it's a requirement.

Callan [0:28:23]: And I think that depending on what you're doing.

Callan [0:28:26]: There are tons of people that are ultra successful that you've just never heard of whatsoever.

Callan [0:28:31]: But the caveat to that is if you have a personal brand, if you're putting thoughtful content out there, it is absolutely a catalyst.

Callan [0:28:41]: And the opportunities that can come your way that you're not expecting, are a hundred percent there.

Callan [0:28:48]: Like, there's no question.

Ryan [0:28:49]: Yeah.

Ryan [0:28:49]: I'll say, I think today it is mandatory.

Ryan [0:28:52]: And the reason I think it's mandatory is so many more people are doing it are creating content sharing their voice.

Ryan [0:28:59]: Right?

Ryan [0:28:59]: And I'd say a lot of those people who are highly successful with zero brand either, built their business in a time when brand didn't matter, so we'll say, pre two thousand ten, two thousand five.

Ryan [0:29:10]: Personal brand didn't matter.

Ryan [0:29:11]: Business brand is always matter.

Ryan [0:29:12]: Personal brand didn't matter.

Ryan [0:29:14]: We'll say pre two thousand ten, maybe even twenty twelve, twenty fifteen at the latest.

Ryan [0:29:18]: Or they were able to leap frog success through family member or situational.

Ryan [0:29:26]: I don't think there are a tremendous number of people who can build in silence forever and stay obscure and continue to win.

Ryan [0:29:36]: You see this with all these tech entrepreneurs Ceos.

Ryan [0:29:38]: Right?

Ryan [0:29:39]: Maybe they do build that first in silence.

Ryan [0:29:41]: And they just have a product that hits, and they're able to be so good because their product is so good and the brand is so dialed in from a business perspective that they're able to grow.

Ryan [0:29:50]: They all eventually to get to the next level of partnership of growth, If you're a publicly traded company just to get your brand out to the marketplace, they all start to step out in front of the camera over time.

Ryan [0:30:01]: And the other thing I'd say is a lot of those people, I think our survivor...

Ryan [0:30:06]: I think it's survivor bias.

Ryan [0:30:07]: And there's not a lot of them.

Ryan [0:30:09]: I mean, there are not a lot of people who have built in silence forever that we just don't know about that didn't build pre pre two thousand ten two thousand fifteen, There's not a lot of them, and a lot of it is survivor bias.

Ryan [0:30:20]: It's...

Ryan [0:30:20]: They just hit...

Ryan [0:30:22]: They're the one in ten thousand product that was so good so dialed, perfect timing, perfect situation, the product hits grows, and they never had to do it.

Ryan [0:30:31]: But I think for the vast vast majority, and certainly the majority of people listening to this podcast, if you're going head to head with someone else for a sale for a job for a partnership, and they have a strong trusted consistent personal brand and you don't, you're behind the.

Ryan [0:30:48]: Doesn't mean you'll lose the deal or whatever.

Ryan [0:30:50]: But you're behind.

Ryan [0:30:52]: You're not ahead.

Ryan [0:30:53]: The other person's ahead.

Callan [0:30:54]: Just why I love this.

Callan [0:30:55]: I love the debate.

Callan [0:30:55]: I definitely agree that it's a huge catalyst, and it is a net positive doing it versus not doing it, and it helps you personally set yourself apart.

Callan [0:31:07]: Who knows, I could be wrong.

Callan [0:31:08]: I could be wrong in six months.

Callan [0:31:10]: I could be wrong in a year.

Ryan [0:31:11]: I don't think you're wrong.

Ryan [0:31:12]: I think...

Ryan [0:31:12]: Well, the good news is being that this is America, you can do whatever the hell you want.

Ryan [0:31:16]: Right?

Ryan [0:31:16]: So that's the good news.

Ryan [0:31:17]: I think that.

Ryan [0:31:18]: I think we skipped a step in this discussion, which is what do you actually want?

Callan [0:31:24]: A hundred percent agree.

Ryan [0:31:25]: And I found this with a lot of a lot of the coaching clients that I've had, people tend to come to me when they're...

Ryan [0:31:31]: Growth stalled or they're just frustrated with their team or they feel completely overwhelmed, and they don't know how to take that leap from launch to passing escape velocity with their business.

Ryan [0:31:43]: And in that process, a lot of times, depends on the person and what they're struggling with, but if we're kinda starting at the very beginning, I'll spend time on I'm, like, what is it that you actually want out of this?

Ryan [0:31:54]: Because I could give advice from seven different directions.

Ryan [0:31:56]: But if you wanna have a nice lifestyle business, and you wanna be at all your kid sports games and you don't wanna travel, and you wanna be the mayor of your town someday day or sit on the school board.

Ryan [0:32:07]: That's a path.

Ryan [0:32:08]: And there's, you know, maybe intellectual business oriented content marketing is not your best path and that scenario.

Ryan [0:32:15]: Maybe it's just occasionally commenting on local community posts.

Ryan [0:32:19]: So there's all different flavors for what this looks like, but we have to understand what we want.

Ryan [0:32:23]: The only reason I've survived in this industry is my personal brand.

Ryan [0:32:26]: I was fired by agency nation.

Ryan [0:32:28]: I was fired by Si.

Ryan [0:32:30]: I was fired by the fitness business that I worked at for a year when I couldn't travel.

Ryan [0:32:34]: And the only reason that I was able to survive those moments is because even though those situations or projects didn't work out exactly the way that I would have liked.

Ryan [0:32:45]: I think even the people who fired me would tell you that I was never coming from a bad place that it just wasn't a fit for a bunch of different reasons, but that, you know, I think through my content and through consistently showing up, I've been able to have more opportunities because, eventually, I'm gonna find the home that just clicks and all the skills and experience that I have will be able to provide real value.

Ryan [0:33:09]: If I didn't have that personal brand, I don't get the job at bull penguin after trusted choice dot com.

Ryan [0:33:15]: That personal brand got me the fitness job.

Ryan [0:33:17]: So the founder of that fitness, he had six locations when I kinda made it known locally that I was looking for something he came to me, sat down, bought me coffee and said, hey, like, I'm a gym guy, gross is stag.

Ryan [0:33:31]: I think we have a really good product.

Ryan [0:33:32]: I need someone who knows business to take this to the next level.

Ryan [0:33:35]: That's because of my personal brand.

Ryan [0:33:37]: If I had to apply to that job, how the hell does he know what I do, what I think he would never even reach out to me and everything even think to reach out to me.

Ryan [0:33:44]: Right?

Ryan [0:33:44]: All the appointments that I got early on.

Ryan [0:33:47]: People always ask me with Rogue Risk.

Ryan [0:33:48]: How did you get all these appointments.

Ryan [0:33:50]: Some of it is, I knew how to set up a marketing plan and just had been in the industry enough and I'd like to believe I can sell the vision.

Ryan [0:33:56]: But the other part was a lot of those conversations were because marketing reps knew my personal brand.

Ryan [0:34:01]: They knew that I was a high growth, digital marketing person that I was gonna have a unique way of approaching the business, and they wanted to be associated with that.

Ryan [0:34:08]: And How did I get bought by Sa?

Ryan [0:34:10]: My personal brand.

Ryan [0:34:11]: They knew that I was trying to build something?

Ryan [0:34:12]: I had had a relationship with matt Yellow.

Ryan [0:34:15]: I had recommendations.

Ryan [0:34:17]: I had been around.

Ryan [0:34:17]: I had been very open about what I was building with Real g, why I was building it, how I was building it.

Ryan [0:34:23]: And that's how I was able to get that business sold in two years.

Ryan [0:34:26]: So if you think about it, yes.

Ryan [0:34:28]: If you are at the same place forever in the same small town or a town in which word mouth and going to events is enough of a enough marketing for you to be.

Ryan [0:34:36]: Happy, make enough money and to be happy as hell.

Ryan [0:34:39]: God bless you don't do it.

Ryan [0:34:41]: Don't start creating content.

Ryan [0:34:42]: Right.

Ryan [0:34:43]: Right don't do it.

Ryan [0:34:44]: I'm saying, if you're out there, I think unless you are the majority equity owner of a business.

Ryan [0:34:50]: You can't trust anybody.

Ryan [0:34:52]: Anybody.

Ryan [0:34:53]: You can't trust anyone.

Ryan [0:34:54]: Everyone in every business will always act in its own self.

Ryan [0:34:57]: And as long as you're adding value to that organization, you'll continue to have a position, but the minute that you don't, they will let you go.

Ryan [0:35:03]: There is no loyalty and business anymore.

Ryan [0:35:05]: And Granted, if you're a twelve person local agency, maybe you think of yourself over the family and your loyal.

Ryan [0:35:10]: That's great.

Ryan [0:35:10]: I'm talking about individuals who are trying to grow in their career and ascend positions move up, build businesses and be true scalar.

Ryan [0:35:18]: It's that personal brand that keeps people coming back to you and knowing what you're all about and keeps opportunities coming to you over and over.

Ryan [0:35:25]: It's not just for top end growth.

Ryan [0:35:27]: It also provides you with a safety net and the eventual individuality that you fail.

Ryan [0:35:31]: Right?

Ryan [0:35:32]: You have a leg up for new opportunities and being able to find your next project or your next career, your next job because that next company already knows what you're all about.

Callan [0:35:42]: No arguments on that.

Callan [0:35:43]: I totally I one hundred percent agree with that.

Callan [0:35:45]: Having that.

Callan [0:35:46]: Brand having that reputation goes a super long way when it comes to opportunities and things like that.

Callan [0:35:54]: So one of the things I wanna pull back to is we talked about your content strategy.

Callan [0:35:58]: And so what I'm hearing is, like, you find something it's interesting.

Callan [0:36:01]: You overlay on a couple of different things and how that ultimate relates to insurance, which just...

Callan [0:36:05]: I love that.

Callan [0:36:05]: Like, the hardest thing that you can you can possibly do when creating content is have a blank page.

Callan [0:36:10]: It's so difficult.

Callan [0:36:12]: And you've built in these guide rails, which whether you're doing comedy or whatever that might be, like, everybody's got those guide rails.

Callan [0:36:18]: I love how you did that.

Callan [0:36:19]: That's excellent.

Callan [0:36:19]: And what I...

Callan [0:36:21]: That's pretty interesting.

Callan [0:36:21]: I didn't...

Callan [0:36:22]: So you'll...

Callan [0:36:22]: What you had mentioned is that you even started out with the Linkedin post that could turn into a long form piece content.

Callan [0:36:29]: Which on the opposite, I go long form.

Callan [0:36:31]: I do the Hub and spoke model where long form content then creates the short form content, which for me my key pillars are Youtube slash podcast, in Linkedin.

Callan [0:36:42]: Just because the majority of my audience is is where they're at.

Callan [0:36:44]: Now you mentioned what you would do differently if you were starting creating content right now?

Callan [0:36:49]: I'd love to circle back to that.

Callan [0:36:51]: What is that?

Callan [0:36:51]: Actually would I'd love to kinda go through is what would the ideal content plan look like.

Ryan [0:36:58]: So for someone who's trying to build a brand in their space?

Callan [0:37:00]: Yeah.

Callan [0:37:00]: I mean, I think the easiest example would be, like, founder sales.

Callan [0:37:04]: This always gets talked about in founder building a name.

Callan [0:37:07]: Or, but three out is it similar to what you said, I think it's Ceo, I think it's executives.

Callan [0:37:11]: The only thing I would actually disagree on what you said is I actually might take this one a little bit step further, and I don't know that you...

Callan [0:37:17]: I think most marketing is going to ultimately be content marketing because we don't know what's gonna happen with paid search.

Callan [0:37:25]: And paid search could obviously be here for a while, but Ai is cutting into that already big time.

Callan [0:37:29]: And I do think that these things are going to be x exponentially more important, which is why I was, like, I could be wrong on this.

Callan [0:37:35]: I could be wrong in one year.

Callan [0:37:37]: If you're not out there, you don't have some sort of brand.

Callan [0:37:39]: But I think if you're an executive or a founder, your brand is the company brand.

Callan [0:37:43]: And that's even up to, like, the biggest companies.

Callan [0:37:45]: Do you see travelers doing a good job of this of their executives are posting making it more personal, not just a share of the company content, but I wanna hear from you on how would you build that in that case.

Ryan [0:37:58]: So if I were starting from scratch, today.

Ryan [0:38:00]: And let's say, let's take the founder, the founder brand.

Ryan [0:38:03]: So let's say, twenty seven years old.

Ryan [0:38:06]: I sold insurance for three or four years.

Ryan [0:38:08]: I saw a problem that I wanted to solve and I went out, and I created a company, Fairly, fairly common scenario that happens in our space.

Callan [0:38:15]: Hundred percent.

Callan [0:38:16]: Great example.

Ryan [0:38:17]: If I had done nothing up until that point.

Ryan [0:38:19]: And I'm in professional services, insurance etcetera, You gotta be where your audience is.

Ryan [0:38:23]: If you're in the creator, if you're in the retail space, etcetera, you're gonna be on Instagram or Facebook, etcetera.

Ryan [0:38:31]: But if you're in politics or finance, you wanna be on next if you're in professional services or other business oriented things and Linkedin probably the best place to start.

Ryan [0:38:39]: So take the time to build out your profile to make your profile look professional, you can use Can for a lot of this stuff.

Ryan [0:38:47]: Right?

Ryan [0:38:47]: Like, if you have no background or your background is ridiculous or some blurred home photo of the above ground pool or whatever that you just shoved in there.

Ryan [0:38:56]: Or like, you and your bros, like Cl beers at the game.

Ryan [0:39:00]: That stuff is fine until you're trying to be professional, and not that you can occasionally drop that stuff in, but you want your profile, And I again, I would start on Linkedin to be as professional.

Ryan [0:39:10]: You know, to be a good it could be fun if your brand is fun.

Ryan [0:39:14]: It should just match what you're trying to do.

Ryan [0:39:15]: Right?

Ryan [0:39:16]: It's an attraction.

Ryan [0:39:16]: It's a filter.

Ryan [0:39:17]: We wanna think of every piece of content as a salesperson working for us twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, whether it's Linkedin, Instagram, your blog, your website, subs stack newsletter, Youtube, every piece of content is a salesperson working twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

Ryan [0:39:34]: So what is that selling?

Ryan [0:39:36]: What is it doing?

Ryan [0:39:37]: So if someone goes your profile, and you've have no other content from your profile from your profile image, to your background image, to your title, to your description, to your products, to your about section, what does it say about you?

Ryan [0:39:49]: Could I determine whether or not I wanna do business with you from your profile.

Ryan [0:39:53]: You should be able to do that.

Ryan [0:39:54]: Now your life is always changing.

Ryan [0:39:57]: It doesn't have to be a hundred percent all the time exactly.

Ryan [0:39:59]: But have it be a nice professional setup.

Ryan [0:40:02]: And then from there, I think the easiest thing to get going on is just start commenting.

Ryan [0:40:07]: So if you're uncomfortable with posting or you don't know what you wanna post.

Ryan [0:40:11]: Right?

Ryan [0:40:11]: Use the Linkedin search feature or just follow some people in the space that you know, create and watch what they write and comment on it.

Ryan [0:40:20]: Just add some value.

Ryan [0:40:21]: Hey, I had this experience or have you ever thought about this or here's a really good quote that goes along with it or my experience or I heard once or there's this study that or whatever.

Ryan [0:40:31]: Right?

Ryan [0:40:32]: Or just just a, hey, man.

Ryan [0:40:33]: I appreciate what you're doing keep going.

Ryan [0:40:35]: Right?

Ryan [0:40:35]: Just some positivity.

Ryan [0:40:35]: Just start commenting if you're really uncomfortable creating because what that'll start to do is get you used to the process of hitting of hitting submit on that comment and on that piece of content.

Ryan [0:40:45]: A lot of people struggle with, they feel like they're gonna be judged for every single thing that they write, And, I mean, I guess a certain extent you are, but the goal is people judge you for the pieces of content that move them, not for the pieces of content that don't, and you have no ability to gauge which piece of content is gonna move someone in which is...

Ryan [0:41:05]: I could write twenty piece of content.

Ryan [0:41:07]: If I were trying to market to you.

Ryan [0:41:08]: Right?

Ryan [0:41:08]: Like, let's say you were someone who I wanted to sell something to or I wanted to partner with whatever.

Ryan [0:41:12]: I need one piece of content in which you go, oh, I like to wait thinking about that.

Ryan [0:41:18]: This is a guy I need to reach out That's pretty interesting the way he thought about that.

Ryan [0:41:21]: How the hell do I know?

Ryan [0:41:23]: Which piece of content is gonna do that for you.

Ryan [0:41:26]: Because I could post the same piece of content and on one day, it's meaningless to you on the next day.

Ryan [0:41:30]: It changes your entire world.

Ryan [0:41:31]: Yeah So we have to get over this idea that every piece of content we create is gonna be amazing for everybody.

Ryan [0:41:38]: I've had a piece of content that have done two hundred and fifty thousand views, and I've had piece of content to do two hundred and fifty views.

Ryan [0:41:45]: Just sometimes the hour than doesn't hit.

Ryan [0:41:47]: The image doesn't hit.

Ryan [0:41:48]: The text doesn't hit.

Ryan [0:41:49]: You post too late.

Ryan [0:41:50]: You post too early.

Ryan [0:41:51]: You...

Ryan [0:41:51]: You know what I mean?

Ryan [0:41:52]: There's a million reasons why something might work or not work.

Ryan [0:41:55]: And there are a lot of nerdy tools that you can pay money for that'll I'll tell you.

Ryan [0:41:58]: Here's the best time to post and Blah blah blah.

Ryan [0:42:00]: And all that is good if you wanna be that detailed about it.

Ryan [0:42:04]: My best advice early on is just to start creating.

Ryan [0:42:07]: Just start hitting publish.

Ryan [0:42:08]: Just hit publish on Linkedin, make once a day.

Ryan [0:42:12]: Once every other day, you need some consistency to it.

Ryan [0:42:15]: And what it's gonna get you doing is start thinking in content.

Ryan [0:42:19]: Right?

Ryan [0:42:19]: Like thinking when you see a headline?

Ryan [0:42:21]: You start going, oh, how would I spin that back to what I'm doing here?

Ryan [0:42:24]: Jeez, there's a really interesting take here in Hvac contractor insurance.

Ryan [0:42:29]: Right?

Ryan [0:42:30]: You're running...

Ryan [0:42:30]: You you gotta start up Mg for a contracting product.

Ryan [0:42:32]: You wanna tie something back to the contracting industry, and you wanna tie something back to the insurance industry and you wanna tie something back to underwriting and you wanna talk about a, a part of the process that you've hacked a solution to and or why you decided to only have five boxes when most of your competitors ask for seven boxes of information or all these little touch points.

Ryan [0:42:54]: Right?

Ryan [0:42:55]: And again, most of them are gonna go nowhere.

Ryan [0:42:58]: And this is what people get messed up about, particularly with Youtube because of counts.

Ryan [0:43:02]: Insurance people will post a video on Youtube, and he'll get fifty seven views and they'll be like, What if you don't need five thousand views, ten thousand views, fifty thousand views.

Ryan [0:43:13]: The right fifty seven people watching your video is all you need.

Ryan [0:43:17]: That's all you need.

Ryan [0:43:18]: It's just...

Ryan [0:43:18]: And you have no idea which one.

Ryan [0:43:20]: I mean, I've been saying this for years to people from stage.

Ryan [0:43:22]: The reason I I created four hundred and seventy something videos for the Murray Group and four hundred and ninety something plus videos for her Rogue grit is because I had no idea which videos would hit and which wouldn't.

Callan [0:43:34]: You can't.

Callan [0:43:35]: You really don't know.

Callan [0:43:36]: You have no clue.

Ryan [0:43:38]: It could be Seo perfectly with a perfect Youtube thumbnail with the perfect description and tags and keywords and blah blah blah, and it could go nowhere.

Ryan [0:43:47]: You have no ability to control.

Ryan [0:43:49]: What the algorithm shows, who's it shows it to, how they react, what people are on at that time because how most algorithm work is when you post something, the algorithm will take that piece of content and will show it to a portion of your connected audience.

Ryan [0:44:03]: So your followers, or your connections or whatever.

Ryan [0:44:06]: And it'll show it to that portion.

Ryan [0:44:08]: And then based on the performance inside of that group, it either the this depends on the platform, but the algorithms work in in kind of one or two ways.

Ryan [0:44:17]: They then either show it to more of your connections, or they'll start showing it to people you aren't connected with and see how they respond.

Ryan [0:44:24]: And if you get good responses from each constituency, that's how you get viral spread.

Ryan [0:44:29]: But if at any point, one of those constituencies is, again, I'm broad str this, there are nuances.

Ryan [0:44:34]: But If at any point, one of those constituencies doesn't respond, most of the algorithms will then stop showing it to a similar constituency.

Ryan [0:44:41]: So if you think about that.

Ryan [0:44:43]: Right?

Ryan [0:44:44]: You have to post the right piece of content with the right message, the right image, you know, the right hook, the right text, at the right time and hope that the right people are on at that moment in order for that thing to spread viral.

Ryan [0:44:56]: Now when you have a million followers, there's a higher likelihood that's gonna happen.

Ryan [0:45:01]: But especially early on, we're gonna be talking to tiny little audiences.

Ryan [0:45:04]: So just keep creating, keep creating keep creating and eventually, one of those will hit.

Ryan [0:45:11]: And when it does, and if you continue to be consistent, that's when you start to get that exponential growth.

Ryan [0:45:16]: But most...

Ryan [0:45:17]: People drop.

Ryan [0:45:18]: Most people stop in what Seth Gordon would call the dip.

Ryan [0:45:21]: Right?

Ryan [0:45:22]: That you start posting, everyone's like, oh, Cali posting.

Ryan [0:45:25]: Way to go, man.

Ryan [0:45:26]: You're the best, and you get all these people, like, congratulating you for whatever.

Ryan [0:45:30]: And then that fades.

Ryan [0:45:31]: It's gonna fade even if you're amazing?

Ryan [0:45:34]: It's gonna fade?

Ryan [0:45:35]: And it's can you survive that dip.

Ryan [0:45:38]: Can you keep creating through that dip when you're just grinding out content it looks like your audience isn't growing and it looks like no one's consuming?

Ryan [0:45:45]: And if you can grind through that section, it's almost like the muse is watching to say, do you have the guts?

Ryan [0:45:52]: Do the have other persistence, the dedication, the discipline to keep posting even though I ain't showing your content to anybody.

Ryan [0:45:59]: And if you do, It's almost like you earn, you know, the universe, the creator, you know, the the creator gods go, you know what, Cow, you've been creating for x long, like, here you go.

Ryan [0:46:10]: Here's some...

Ryan [0:46:10]: And I'm telling you it just works that way.

Ryan [0:46:11]: I know that sounds silly because there's all other technical reality.

Ryan [0:46:14]: But that's literally how I think about it and how I've seen it work over and over and over and over again on every platform.

Callan [0:46:20]: And, honestly, I would probably extrapolate that to any creative activity period.

Callan [0:46:25]: Meaning, like, you don't know.

Callan [0:46:27]: That's why Like stand up comedy takes seven years to find your voice.

Callan [0:46:30]: Seven years.

Callan [0:46:31]: And everyone, everybody that does it, will get into a, like gas, it's not gonna take me seven years.

Callan [0:46:35]: It's gonna take you seven years.

Callan [0:46:36]: It's like, that number is there for a reason, and I certainly found that personally from, like, just my journey on, like, the comedy side.

Callan [0:46:43]: I totally agree that everything, especially the comments.

Callan [0:46:46]: Like, I don't know if you've saw Richard Van Just released his October update.

Callan [0:46:50]: Comments are almost becoming equally as important as post right now, which is wild, and and if you comment, it'll increase the reach of your post.

Callan [0:46:59]: And to your

Ryan [0:47:00]: point earlier though, it's like, you

Callan [0:47:01]: can get so caught up in the algorithm and trying to game it, and it'll change it at any moment, do the best that you can, but consistency is more than anything, and I love what you said about if those are the right fifty seven people this all matters, and it's true because one of those could be a million dollar deal.

Callan [0:47:16]: You don't know.

Ryan [0:47:17]: Yeah.

Ryan [0:47:17]: I'll give your audience a little hack for commenting.

Ryan [0:47:20]: So I created a custom Gb in open Ai for commenting.

Ryan [0:47:26]: So I put in a bunch of my work, my experiences, transcripts from different videos, transcripts from different things I've written or blog posts to essentially see that Gp with my voice.

Ryan [0:47:39]: Then I gave it a bunch of instructions instructions on how I liked the comment, how I comment how I want the comments to come across, and then I gave it three voices.

Ryan [0:47:47]: I gave it Tony Robbins voice.

Ryan [0:47:49]: I gave it the Cody Sanchez voice, and I gave it the Ryan Hanley voice.

Ryan [0:47:52]: So one of the things that I'll do in the morning is All pull up Linkedin or I'll pull up subs stack.

Ryan [0:47:57]: And if you have the Atlas browser, you can do this right inside of the browser if you don't, you just have to have a separate tab open and Chad.

Ryan [0:48:05]: But I will just scroll down.

Ryan [0:48:08]: And see a post that I like, and I'll take the link from that post.

Ryan [0:48:11]: I'll put it in, say create a comment.

Ryan [0:48:13]: It creates three different versions of the comment.

Ryan [0:48:15]: I take the version that I like.

Ryan [0:48:17]: Copy and paste it in, make any changes that I want, hit publish.

Ryan [0:48:20]: And then just do that five to ten times on Linkedin and on subs stack every morning.

Ryan [0:48:26]: It takes twenty minutes while I'm drinking my coffee, and you just got ten to twenty comments on important platforms out, that are in your voice.

Ryan [0:48:36]: It sound like you that are adding value that are contributing to the conversation, and it's not automated.

Ryan [0:48:42]: It's not like, I'm using Chat To come up with the bones, but it's coming up with the bones out of my own work with my own voice with my own tone, and then I always make any, like, adjustments, either punctuation or if there's words I wanna change, etcetera, but it drastically reduces the amount of time that it takes to be active and contribute and add value to the community and setting up that Gb took me fifteen minutes.

Ryan [0:49:08]: So fifteen minutes of setting up custom G.

Ryan [0:49:10]: And now I have this commenting engine that's constantly learning.

Ryan [0:49:13]: So now I'm not just getting the comments out.

Ryan [0:49:16]: It's not just in my voice, but it's also ce some of the ideas that I wanna consistently be associated with as well in those comments.

Callan [0:49:24]: That's a great.

Callan [0:49:24]: Idea...

Callan [0:49:25]: Do you have a newsletter that you broke down this process by chance on?

Ryan [0:49:28]: I haven't broke down that one, but I do this all the time.

Ryan [0:49:31]: If anyone's interested in this stuff, go to finding peak dot com.

Ryan [0:49:34]: It's basically where...

Ryan [0:49:36]: We talk about leadership, performance and influence.

Ryan [0:49:39]: So how do we...

Ryan [0:49:40]: Become the best versions of ourselves and tell our story online in a way that generates interest and attraction.

Ryan [0:49:45]: So, yeah, finding peak dot com is the newsletter.

Callan [0:49:48]: Alright.

Callan [0:49:48]: Last question I have for you.

Callan [0:49:49]: You started all this from the beginning.

Callan [0:49:51]: What is one thing that you would do differently.

Callan [0:49:53]: And the answer can't be nothing.

Ryan [0:49:55]: I mean, Tactically, there's a ton of things I would do differently early on.

Ryan [0:49:58]: I would have started everything with video, video, to long form, long form to short form short form to image and created that process.

Ryan [0:50:07]: I would have developed an outsourced editing team way earlier because as much as we look at it as an expense, the amount of time that you waste on editing is insane.

Ryan [0:50:21]: Now I think with ai I've actually gotten rid of.

Ryan [0:50:23]: I got rid of my last Va for editing because of how much I'm doing with Ai now.

Ryan [0:50:28]: And most of that is I wanted to learn the systems and processes that then I could re hire someone else and train them because I've I've researched a ton of tools and have really come up with some systems and processes that allow me to create at a incredibly rapid rate.

Ryan [0:50:41]: So, like, all the content I put out, I have no one helping me today.

Ryan [0:50:44]: It's all edited using various Ai tools and and systems and then kinda that create one's publish multiple times philosophy.

Ryan [0:50:52]: So I would have gone even harder deeper and been more consistent on video early.

Ryan [0:50:58]: I obviously do a lot of video now, but would have gone even further and learned Youtube even more early.

Ryan [0:51:05]: Youtube is just an a gold mine.

Ryan [0:51:07]: It's just an absolute gold mine.

Ryan [0:51:09]: And then I would have outsourced production quicker because if you have a job to do, and you're gonna buy into this leader creator idea.

Ryan [0:51:18]: You're not gonna have time.

Ryan [0:51:20]: You know, you're just not gonna have time.

Ryan [0:51:21]: I'm kind of a man, and this is as much a hobby for me as it is what I do for work.

Ryan [0:51:27]: But now that I kind of have my systems in process with the ai set up, it's time to go find someone and and outsource that again because you can't be your best creator if you're also doing all the editing and you have a full time job.

Ryan [0:51:38]: It's almost impossible.

Callan [0:51:40]: I couldn't agree more on that, and I've got a team behind this for all the...

Callan [0:51:43]: Because you just, like, it's maximized your strengths.

Callan [0:51:45]: Right?

Callan [0:51:46]: Play your strengths.

Callan [0:51:46]: What do you do best?

Callan [0:51:47]: Doesn't mean you can't be a good editor as well, but odds are if you're a great host and all that, then then you're gonna probably maximize that.

Callan [0:51:54]: Ryan, this has been awesome, man.

Callan [0:51:56]: I very much enjoyed the debate left to get you back on here and pick this up and see where we landed.

Ryan [0:52:03]: Yeah.

Ryan [0:52:03]: Dude anytime, I can talk about this stuff all day.

Ryan [0:52:06]: I feel like we just scratched the surface and with Ai, content creation has become so much easier.

Ryan [0:52:12]: It doesn't mean it's easier to get stand out if anything it's harder to stand out today because you have to be more nuanced, more specific, you have to really make creating a a skill.

Ryan [0:52:24]: Not just something you do in order to stand out.

Ryan [0:52:27]: However, the ability to get content out has never been cheaper or easier or faster, and I highly recommend every leader.

Ryan [0:52:35]: Everyone who's is in a position of leadership, everyone who wants to grow their career it is paramount in my position in my opinion that you have some sort of online brand.

Ryan [0:52:45]: It doesn't have to be yours or mine, but there needs to be something.

Ryan [0:52:49]: Needs to be something.

Callan [0:52:51]: Ryan, thanks for coming, brother.

Callan [0:52:52]: This was a ton of fun.

Ryan [0:52:54]: Appreciate, dude.

Ryan [0:52:54]: Thanks for having.

Callan [0:53:02]: I hope you enjoyed Ryan and I's conversation.

Callan [0:53:04]: I love diving into other people's creative processes, and I all always find myself taking at least one thing from them.

Callan [0:53:12]: If you wanna learn more about Ryan, you could find him on Linkedin in the show notes.

Callan [0:53:16]: Also, if you like this episode, you can find me on Linkedin to let me know.

Callan [0:53:20]: And if you really wanna support the show, subscribe to us on Youtube or give us review an Apple podcast podcasts or Spotify.

Callan [0:53:26]: Every time you do, it is very much appreciated.

Callan [0:53:30]: Thank you all for listening and I'll see you next week.