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The Ed Mylett Show - Episode Summary
Episode Title
The New Rules of Branding in the Modern Era with Rory Vaden
Episode Description In this episode, Ed Mylett is joined by Rory Vaden, a personal branding expert and New York Times bestselling author. They discuss the importance of simplicity in achieving success, the myths surrounding personal branding, and the true essence of entrepreneurship. Rory emphasizes the significance of building trust over chasing followers and explores concepts such as "depth over width" in business relationships.
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Key Concepts and Discussions
The Essence of Personal Branding
- Trust Building: Personal branding is fundamentally about creating a mechanism for building trust. It is not about the number of followers but rather the quality of relationships and reputation.
- Digitization of Reputation: Rory suggests that personal branding should be viewed as the digitization of one's reputation. This is vital for both personal and business growth.
Importance of Depth Over Width
- Quality Relationships: Instead of seeking a broad base of followers, focus on deepening relationships with existing clients. This creates real impact and trust.
- Fractal Math Concept: Rory introduces the concept of fractal math, stating that 10% of customers would invest at a level 10 times what they have already invested. This means enhancing service to existing clients can lead to significant revenue growth without needing new customers.
Simplifying Success
- Single Income Stream Focus: Rory challenges the notion that multiple streams of income are essential for wealth. He argues for mastering a single income stream to build wealth effectively.
- Three E’s of Content Marketing: He mentions the three E's: Educational, Encouraging, and Entertaining, stating that the highest converting content for sales is educational.
Entrepreneurship as Expression
- Rory frames entrepreneurship as a form of personal expression, where one's work can be their art. The ability to serve others through business gives it value and purpose.
The Peace vs. Profit Paradigm
- Peace as Profit: Rory highlights that true satisfaction comes from service rather than financial gain. The fulfillment of helping others contributes to personal peace.
- Impact of Service: The act of serving others can offer deep satisfaction and a sense of purpose, which transcends monetary rewards.
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Key Takeaways
- Building Trust is Paramount: The foundation of a strong personal brand lies in establishing trust with your audience and customers.
- Depth Over Width: Focusing on the quality of relationships and the depth of service can generate significant revenue and impact, rather than merely increasing the number of followers.
- Master One Thing: Concentrate on one income stream and excel in it, rather than spreading effort across multiple ventures.
- Entrepreneurship as a Service: The act of serving others can lead to personal fulfillment and peace, making the challenging journey of entrepreneurship worthwhile.
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Resources Mentioned
- Free Strategy Call: For those interested in personal branding, Rory offers a free strategy call at [freebrandcall.com/edmylett](http://freebrandcall.com/edmylett).
- Research Study: Rory discusses a national research study on personal branding which can be accessed at [freebrandstudy.com/edmylett](http://freebrandstudy.com/edmylett).
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Conclusion This episode serves as a powerful reminder that simplicity, trust, and depth are crucial in personal branding and entrepreneurship. Rather than chasing superficial metrics, focus on creating meaningful connections and delivering value to those around you. If you aspire to enhance your brand or service, consider reaching out for guidance through the resources mentioned in this episode.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:28So, Hey guys, listen, we're all trying to get more productive. $10 ,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with the app. Also, some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content in there on a regular basis, like having the Avengers of personal development and business in one app. And I'm honored that he asked me to be a part of it as well and contribute on a weekly basis, and I do. So go over there and get signed up. You're going to get a free tuition-free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also.
0:53So go to growthday.com forward slash ed. That's growthday.com forward slash ed.
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2:19This is The Admirate Show. Welcome back to the show, everybody. So today's guest has been highly sought after by all of you because he was on the show a few years ago. One of the most popular guests we've ever had on. Most direct messages, most shares, you name it, because his content is so good and you learned so much the last time. And so I've asked my really good friend to come back here today. New York Times bestselling author, one of the all-time great speakers. He's sort of a coach behind the scenes for many of the names and brands you know out there. myself john maxwell lewis howes amy porterfield trent shelton he helps people get their books on the new york times bestseller list like nobody else in the world he's an expert on personal branding entrepreneurship i just think on life as well he's also a great man of faith he's become a very good friend of mine over the years as well his company brand builders group is the ultimate in helping someone build a brand and convert a brand into revenue in their life as well Rory Vaden welcome back to the show brother man what an honor to be here I'm so I'm so enamored with the idea that I get to be your friend and know you in real life uh we were talking before this all started about I think the reason that so many successful people follow you is people with real success and people with real money they're not impressed by fake fluencing they're not they're not impressed by fake followers they can spot people who are talking a game that they're not walking and they follow you because they go they can look at you they can listen to you and go this is ed's the real deal he's done it he's doing it and thank you to get to walk alongside of you a little bit is amazing well i feel the same way about you but it's great to have you in our home too and incredible yeah we're gonna get you out to the island this summer as well so anyway this brain i'm going to pick for the next hour because i know what's going to benefit everybody else i I consider you the brains of this industry and a very unique person in the space.
4:17So hang on, everybody. We're going to get into some great stuff. So let's start with branding first, personal branding. But I know right when I say that, there's a percentage of my audience that immediately disengages and goes, I don't need one. I'm in the trades. Or I own a chain of dry cleaners. Or I work at a job. And so as a result of that, I don't really know why I would need a brand. So in general, what's the necessity of having a brand and what does having a brand even mean? Totally. Yeah. So to keep this simple, building a personal brand just means you have a mechanism for building trust, which is really what all this is about.
4:53We don't even call it a personal brand. We just think of it as the digitization of reputation. We've said that it's the formalization, the monetization, the digitization of reputation. So when you hear personal brand, I want you to think reputation, which I understand because I'm a real business person and I do real life business and I'm just digitizing it. And so there's power to that, but I would still say, and I would, I would, I stand on this ground. Like even today, offline is greater than online. Even today, you think offline is greater? Absolutely. Why? Because we're still human. We're still human.
5:33We, We connect differently with people. And many of the people who have built huge online businesses, it's come from offline relationships. And that has never changed and it never will change. And I don't care how much AI comes around. I think it's only more and more causing us to go, I'm hungry for the connection of humanity, to look into somebody's eyes and to go person to person. Who are you? And that's what personal branding is all about. It's just going, can people trust you to do what you say you're going to do? Can they trust you to solve a problem for them? And so having a personal brand matters exactly to the extent that having trust matters in your business.
6:17Does it matter how many followers you have? Is that an overrated thing? Like followers, right? I think people go, okay, that's great. I'm a realtor. I've got 2 ,100 followers on Instagram. so I really don't have a brand because you got to have x amount of followers in order to have something that converts to any kind of revenue massively overrated in fact we asked this question so we did a national research study phd led you know academic statistically valid weighted to the u.s census called the trends in personal branding national research study and we actually asked this question directly which of the following is most likely going to cause you to buy and we listed has a New York Times bestselling book, has a top podcast, has YouTube, has a nice website, has social media followers.
7:01Do you want to know what the number one thing is that the general public says, this is the thing that will actually cause me to buy from you? You want to know what it is? Testimonials from your customers. Testimonials from your customers. Not how pretty your website is, not how many followers you have, not how many downloads you have on your podcast, show me real humans who said, I bought from you and you delivered a result for me. It costs nothing. It's, we could do it. All of us could do it by this afternoon. And it shows you to go like, that's what we want. That's what we trust. We trust people who say you're awesome.
7:45It's crazy to me. Right before we got on here, I was going through some messages and I'm not on social media right now, as you know, for some health reasons I've taken the year off but so I still I'm on there in the sense I'm not posting but I still check messages from different people and you know at my peak I was probably getting about 5 ,000 DMs a day on my social media right so I wouldn't see most of them so today I was just poking through some of them and I happened to stumble upon a few of my followers one of them was an insurance agent one of them was actually a realtor yeah and they had great brands I like their their branding and stuff but I've noticed most realtors most insurance people their brand looks almost identical.
8:22It's almost like, here's a photo of my open house. Here's a just sold sign. Like what, what would you say to somebody who's like, I'd like to distinguish myself to some extent online. Let's talk about online right now. What's something I could be doing with my brand that probably isn't the norm that could get me some traffic or some, some traction? Yeah. Well, so I'll say this. I think people have over indexed too much on unique value proposition. I think there's this idea of like, you've got to differentiate yourself from everyone else in the world. I think generally speaking, that is not the most important advice.
8:58Because when people try to differentiate, they do something stupid, which is they try to be clever and cute. And here's the reality. Clear is greater than clever. Clear is greater than clever. When it comes to making money, clear is greater than clever. I need to understand what the heck it is you do if I'm ever going to buy from you. And now what I think people do wrong is they go, okay, to use your example, it's like, oh, just listed, just sold. Now, all of a sudden, if that's the content you're posting, you are only relevant to somebody who is looking to buy at that moment in that market directly from you.
9:40So here's how you adapt the strategy to suddenly become relevant. So if we don't differentiate based on what we do, because I think that's hard. If you're a real estate agent and you go, if you try to differentiate on what you do, you're going to sound like a flake. You're going to like, oh, I help people, you know, live their dreams by finding the ideal structure for them to abide in with their family. And it's like, what? So no, I'm a realtor, but you don't have to be the world's greatest. You just have to be trusted. and what makes you trusted is simply being useful. So I think content marketing, again, very overcomplicated.
10:21To me, there's only three content marketing strategies that work. We call them the three E's. It's this simple. You either have to be entertaining, you have to be encouraging, or you have to be educational. That's it. Entertaining, encouraging, or educational. The most viral content is going to be entertaining, the things that move us emotionally. But that's not the highest converting content when it comes to making money. So good. Okay. So you don't have to go viral. You don't need millions of followers to make real money. What's the highest converting? Education? Highest converting is education.
10:57Okay. Because we buy from people that we trust and we trust people who we learn from. So when I hit your feed, I should be able to tell you, you are either someone who specializes in entertaining people or encouraging people or educating people, being useful. So you got to ask yourself, what information do I have that would be useful? Now, it might be some mix of those three strategies, but a realtor should, like, here's what I would do differently. Don't create content about your product or service. Create content that is useful for the type of person who would buy your product or service. Give me an example.
11:43Let's use real estate. Just listed, just sold is only useful for people looking to buy at that exact moment. If I were a realtor and I was going to use everything that we've learned and I'm going to go, oh, now I'm going to Rory, the real estate agent. What I would do is I would instead post information about a specific geographic area. Every single thing about all the schools, which schools are the best, which dentists are the best, which CPAs do you use, what churches, where can your kids eat for free? What do you do when it's cold outside and the kids are stuck inside, like information that is useful for the people who live in that area.
12:17I want to be the mayor of the town. I want to be adding value to people to where when someone new moves to the area, everyone in that town goes, are you following Rory? Oh, you got to follow Nashville Rory because Rory tells you everything that's going on in Nashville. And it's like, and by the way, he's also a realtor. So like if you need someone and that's the difference. Now I'm useful to the kind of person who who who does what i need and um and that's it it's going how can i be relevant to to the people following that's very good right there okay let's step out of branding let's talk about some like just real life entrepreneurship stuff because just so you know everybody the ride with rory can be we can weave in and have a lot of different topics because of how big his brain is and he's one of the few people that you'll have on your show where he's thinking through every answer there's not some like regurgitated response that's why when you watch rory's brain working as he's talking, he's actually working his brain as he's talking.
13:16It's not just rote material, if you're on the YouTube version. And so I just want everybody to understand the story when you hear someone this brilliant, you think, well, they just always had this big old vision for their life. Well, this is a dude that grew up basically with just his mom in a trailer, ends up working through college door to door. But when I hear you did the door to door stuff and all that, I'm thinking what experience. Oh, yeah. That explains your ability to communicate. It explains your ability to persuade. It explains your ability to close. And so I just want everybody to understand that.
13:42Here is the secret. The secret is to serve the person right in front of you, right? You don't need millions of followers to make millions of dollars. Most of us would have our best years ever if we had a dozen of our perfect clients, not millions, not hundreds of thousands, not even hundreds, not even dozens. Most of you, if you had a dozen of your perfect client, you could double your income. And everyone is so focused on the width of their reach, trying to reach millions of people. They're overlooking the depth of their impact. And the true story of success, the fastest path to cash is to serve the people who are right in front of you to go, look, if every customer you have, like, how do you double your business?
14:31We all think, oh, run ads, have a huge podcast, be Ed Milet, speak in front of millions of people. Okay, those are good things. It's rare that people can do those. The truth about how to double your business for most people is to get every customer you have to give you one more customer. That's how you double your business. You serve the people who God has put in front of you. You go, who can I serve in the deepest way? not I'm off to the next and ignoring the people who are here. And that's why it's like people don't grow on social because they're trying to reach the masses instead of trying to reach the one, the power of one, of going change one life, get really good at changing one life.
15:16If you can transform one life, then you can multiply it, but you don't need to to make lots of money. You can make a huge amount of money if you over deliver on the people who are right in front of you. I have to tell you, there's such a through line on this depth, not width thing. So just this morning, what did I tell you before you said it? I said, I just had an incredible interview today. Who did I tell you I interviewed? Jasmine Stark. I said I had an incredible. One of the takeaways from that interview, she was talking about creating content. Same exact thing she said in terms of everybody thinks they have to go wide, but if you would go deep in one area, one type of content as well.
15:47And I just want everyone that's listening to the show today, I want you to just think about how does that philosophy apply to you in your business, in your marketing, in your branding? Maybe it's even in your family as well. Whatever it might be. Friendships. The older I get, I got to tell you, the value of width of friendships is almost worthless to me. Like how many friends I have. It's the depth with the ones I do have and going deeper with my great friends. When I was young, I used to look at my dad as he got older. I thought, gosh, you know, my dad doesn't have that many friends. I remember thinking that, like, I wish my dad had more friends.
16:22I remember asking my dad one time, he goes, Eddie, the older and older you get, your circle's going to get smaller. You're going to realize it's going to come down to a handful of friends and your family. That's what you're going to have in your life. And as I've gotten older, the richness of my life is the depth of my friendships, not the amount of them. And for some of you even that feel lonely right now, like I just don't have that many people in my life. You know, I mean, I'm going to be hokey with the power of one more in my book, but you're really one new friend away from having a completely different life.
16:49Like that one brother or sister, that one ride or die you end up meeting in your life, and you go deep in that friendship, I really believe that what you're saying right now, what Jasmine said this morning, what we're, conceptually, the world has become obsessed with width, likes, followers, like the amount of something rather than the quality of it. And you're so right. Like we were talking about earlier, you walked into the house, you're like, my gosh, what paid for the first house? What was my first business, my financial business? I went deep in that business. I didn't have 80 different businesses.
17:20I had one business, I became tremendously successful and I went deep in that business. So everyone really review that in your life. How does that concept apply? So, hey, guys, I want to jump in here for a second and talk about change and growth. And, you know, by the way, it's no secret how people get ahead in life or how they grow and also taking a look at the future. If you want to change your future, you've got to change the things you're doing. If you continue to do the same things, you're probably going to produce the same results. But if you get into a new environment where you're learning new things and you're around other people that are growth-oriented, you're much more likely to do that yourself.
17:52And that's why I love Growth Day. Write this down for a second, growthday.com forward slash Ed. My friend Brendan Brouchard has created the most incredible personal development and business app that I've ever seen in my life. Everything from goal setting software to personal accountability, journaling, courses, thousands of dollars worth of courses in there as well. I create content in there on Mondays where I contribute as do a whole bunch of other influencers, like the Avengers of influencers and business minds in there. It's the Netflix for high achievers or people that want to be high achievers.
18:21So go check it out. My friend Brennan's made it very affordable, very easy to get involved. Go to growthday.com forward slash ed. That's growthday.com forward slash ed.
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19:39And then business-wise, what are your thoughts on this? This really popular concept on social. actually just in really the world today is multiple streams of income. You better have eight, 10 because Ed Milet's got 10 different companies and Sarah's got this. But what do you really feel about that? The first way to get wealthy is it like having 15 different streams of income? I feel like multiple streams of income is a narrative that has been advanced by people who want to sell you investment tools and investment strategies. It's a complete lie. Look, first of all, the idea that the average millionaire has seven streams of income at best is a pretty unverifiable statistic from any reliable resource.
20:28So look it up, right? Put it in chat, GPT, go to Google and be like, try to find the original source of that statistic. the typically it leads you back to people who are selling investment schemes is is if you follow the trail back but let's let's grant and say the statistic is valid okay so i would challenge that but let's let's say it's valid here's the problem with this yes maybe the average millionaire has multiple streams of income but that's what they're doing once they are rich Amen. It's not how they got rich. Nobody gets rich with multiple streams of income. You can't. And just use common sense, right?
21:13Go, how did the richest people in the world get rich? By doing one thing. How did Ed Milet get rich? He had an insurance company. He freaking crushed it. How did Sarah Blakely get rich? With Spanx. How did Elon Musk get rich? I know everyone goes, well, what about Elon Musk? If you don't know the story of Elon Musk, he made his money from PayPal. One thing, Jeff Bezos, Amazon, Bill Gates, like Microsoft, that one thing, our friend Jamie Kern-Lima, It Cosmetics. Michael Jordan was a basketball player. Dr. Dre was a rapper. Jerry Seinfeld, Ellen DeGeneres, they were comedians. The Rock was a wrestler.
21:47These people got rich not from multiple streams of income. They had one stream of income, and that is what you need. You don't need multiple streams of crappy income. You need one amazing stream of income. And the way you create one amazing stream of income is by focusing on it, working on it. The way you get rich is not through diversification, it's through concentration. You gotta go all in on the thing. Now, once you're rich and you got a lot of money, and we talked about this in our first interview together. Look, if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. We talked about that with your brand message in our first interview.
22:27If you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. The same is true with money, right? We didn't talk about it on our first interview with money, but money is the literal expression of that. If I have 10 units of resource, call it time, team, technology, capital, prayer, whatever they are. But if I have 10 units of resource and I spread them out across 10 initiatives, Each initiative gets one unit of resource. You can't compete with the best in the world with one unit of resource. You can't like, you think you're going to compete with the best speakers in the world, the best coaches in the world, the best realtors in the world with one unit of resource?
23:10No, you've been lied to. You've been lied to by people who want to sell you things. And do we want to sell you stuff too? Yes, we want to sell you what works. We want to sell you the truth. We want to go, ask Ed Milet how he got freaking rich he'll tell you the true story yes it's uh one of the best things ever said on the show the multiple streets of income thing when someone's really wealthy is a fact that's not true meaning yeah once you're wealthy you end up taking that platform the rock went from wrestler to actor to entrepreneur to blah blah blah right Elon Musk went from PayPal to SpaceX to blah blah blah to Twitter to etc but that's not how they got wealthy and that's the concept you said prior of depth versus width.
23:50You got to go deep in the business you're in. You got to be the best in the world at what you do. If you become the best at whatever you do, and you go deeper and deeper in it, the reward, I believe, eventually comes your way. From that place, you can go whatever your passion play is, whatever your second thing is, you can go do that. He is right about what he just said. By the way, it's a perfect time to just say this. Not only do you help people with this, but you are actually willing to do it for free. So this is the best brand building expert in the world. And I can tell you he is the mind behind the scenes of most of the people you follow online or to some of us, whether that's marketing, business, books, entrepreneurship, branding.
24:29It is Rory and AJ. I'm just letting you in on the insides why he's been on the show twice. People, it's amazing to me because you don't have the biggest brand because it's not what your focus was, that one of the most listened to shows of all the famous people I've had on my show. One of the most shared shows is you and it's because of the content. So you're willing to do a free call with someone who needs help with their entrepreneurial journey or their branding journey, correct? Yeah, absolutely. If you, if you go to freebrandcall.com slash Ed Mylett, freebrandcall.com slash Ed Mylett, we will talk to you because this is how we, we work not in the masses.
25:02We work through individual people. Like we go deep and that's why we're a one-on-one like training coaching company. We work with individuals one-on-one. We have strategists that talk to people and we do the first call for free because there's no perfect one size fits all answer to what's the right business model. What's the right social media strategy. What's the right way to grow your podcast. It's a custom, it's a combination lock for each person based on where they're at and what they want, who their team is and how much capital they have and how much time they have and you know what what age are their kids and like it's all unique for each person but the but the principles are there and it is about depth so i want to come back to the depth thing okay okay um so and that's why we do these calls because we want to know you as an individual person okay so if you look at income and impact okay the the depth thing is the thing so let's talk about impact for a second.
26:02You can impact a lot of people. You impact a lot of people. You reach millions of people with this show. It's amazing to me. And you do impact them in a very, very deep way. And I think it is a worthwhile endeavor for anybody who wants to impact more people to go ahead and do that. I also think that the person who adopts one child makes an arguably equivalent amount of impact in the world. That is one life impacted in perhaps the deepest way. Right? Now, I'm not saying one is better than the other, more valuable than the other. I'm saying that we all pay attention to width and we ignore depth.
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26:52So that's on an impact, right? You go, well, only 30 people liked my social media, so it's a waste of time. I'm going to stop doing it. If there were 30 people in a room next door and you had a chance to stand up and speak in front of 30 people, your heart would start pumping. That's right. Because it's 30 people, but we forget that somehow behind the screen. So now let's talk about money. Okay. So since we've been talking money, I want to introduce a framework that we call fractal math. Okay. Okay. I'm a nerd. I'm a nerd on you for a little bit. Okay. But for the, for the analytics, you'll, you'll love this and I'll try to break it down.
27:28So fractal math is a concept that has kind of floated around like conceptually, but we, we formalized it and codified it when we noticed some consistent patterns in the monetization streams of the wealthiest personal brands. So here's the rule. Okay, here's what fractal math is. 10 % of your customers will invest at a level 10 times what they have already invested at. 10 % of your customers would invest at a level 10x what they've already invested at. So I'll walk you through it with a little bit of math, all right? So hang with me, math people. So let's say that you have 1 ,000 people who have bought a$30 product.
28:13okay that's thirty thousand dollars in revenue a thousand people each gave you thirty bucks so you go how do you double your revenue yeah there's two ways to double your revenue one way is to go get a thousand new customers but anyone who knows anything about business strategy will tell you the most expensive customer is a new customer so the most expensive way to double your revenue is to go get a thousand new customers. That's width. The other monetization strategy is depth, which is fractal math to go 10 % of your customers. So we had a thousand customers. A hundred of them. So 10 % would be a hundred.
28:56We'll invest at a level 10 times what they just invested at. So instead of giving you 30 bucks, they'll give you$300. Very good. So now we had 100 people give you$300, that's 30 ,000. You doubled your revenue with zero additional customer acquisition cost. It keeps going though. If 100 people give you 300, that means 10 people, which is 10 % of 100, would give you 3 ,000. That's another 30 ,000 in revenue. You tripled your revenue. And then that means if 10 people gave you 3 ,000, that there's one person who's already in your cell phone, who's already in your CRM, already in your database that would give you 30 ,000 in revenue.
29:42So you go, whoa, I could quadruple my business without adding a new, single new social media follower, a single new download, a single new customer, running a single new ad, hiring a single new salesperson. I'm not saying that's the only way to do it. I'm saying that's the overlooked way. That's the way that nobody does it except for people who are super rich. You're right, brother. You're right. By the way, you just, everybody, you were just given an MBA in business and marketing in the modern era and you didn't need to go to Harvard to get it. That is a hundred percent correct. And I could give everybody 10 different examples from 10 different businesses I've owned and been involved with where that is precisely the case.
30:21And you, I don't know how comfortable you are sharing this story, but we were talking before we hit record. Right. You had one person offer you an insane amount of money. That's a great point. For one-on-one coaching. That's right. I mean, I'm willing to say that. I won't say who it is, but so I do one-on-one coaching. By the way, you can go to edmylett.com. Actually, you can go to erica.edmylett.com, but it's very expensive, and it's six figures to be coached by me. But anyway, I just did have somebody in my audience who wants much more coaching with me, and it's at$10 million a year. And so that's that one of the one of the one of the one that you're referring to, the 10 % of the 10 % of the 10%.
31:01And in that case, it's somebody that can absolutely afford that, no problem, and I'm going to help them double their net worth so it'll be a drop in the bucket. But the point is that exactly what you just described has happened to me and all of my different businesses as long as I focused on depth. And you're completely right about it.
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32:12So, wanna drive? CarMax. Pickup not available everywhere. Restrictions and fee may apply. you know one thing i was just thinking when you were talking i want everyone to hang on and listen to me that has kids or that is young or if you're listening to this and you know somebody young that you should be sending this podcast to when i started to do well on social media i wanted to protect my children from attention they didn't want to get when they were young i also have started to strongly build up opinions about what age i even think someone should even be on social media. And I think that's a difference in every family, but I certainly don't think it's preteen for sure.
32:51However, I wish now sooner, believe it or not, so much I believe in personal branding in this day and age, I wish sooner I would have encouraged my children to begin to focus a little bit on that as they were in call. This is something that's probably never been discussed on any podcast, literally anywhere ever. So I want to talk about this with you. And I want you to listen to it if you have children or you've got a niece or a nephew or a friend or an older cousin or something like that. I don't know what the age is. Maybe it would have been 16, 17. I'm not sure. Maybe it was younger for a mature kid who could handle it.
33:26But like my son, Max, now is playing professional golf, but he's built a little bit of a brand and he's now generating, you know, thousands of dollars a month in brand deals as he's playing golf. It's sort of helping fund his golf career. Max Milet, everybody. But had he focused on building that brand two and three years sooner, I'm convinced that revenue could have been triple or quadruple what it is now. So what are your thoughts on that? I bet you've never been asked this before. At certain age, someone's starting to build the brand equity because it's going to take years to build a brand more than likely.
33:59Could they start being educational or entertaining as you described? What's the third one again? Encouraging. Or encouraging. And is there an age where like, why are we all waiting around until we've got a full-blown career to start building the brand? Why aren't more people that are of college or maybe even high school age that are younger beginning to build at least the foundation of a brand, beginning to create content? I think probably that's a huge miss. Like you have kids that are, I'm just thinking this out loud. We spend six figures on a kid to go to college, whether they do or don't go to school, right?
34:31And most of them come out of here with a degree and some information and no brand. Yet when you get on, once you're into business, we all go, I need a brand. Right. So I wonder if we're almost putting one of the most important things completely last or on the back burner for young people as well. Like sooner the better, probably when they're mature enough to handle it, right? Yeah. Well, so here's what, here's, no one has ever asked me this question. Here's where I would delineate when anyone should start posting specifically on social and creating a brand this way. and it's when they have the ability and the desire to serve.
35:10Sure. Where people get in trouble on social is when they go on there to extract self-worth and to when they're just, I think one of the dangers of social media is when it's just inherently social. So do I. Now you've got like social pressure and social comparison and that's where it's like you have to be super mature to handle that. from a business strategy, you should start doing it when you have something to say that adds value to the lives of others. And this is the whole secret of personal branding in general. Everyone thinks personal branding is about vanity, but it's about service. It's not about vanity.
35:49Building your personal brand is not self-centered. It's service centered. It's not what can I get from this? It's what, what can I give? How can I add value to it, to, to the community and, And the tools of the day give us more ability than ever before to deposit value into other people's lives. And so I'd say as soon as someone is mature enough and has the desire to add value to other people's lives, so they have to have the desire to do that, and they have to have the ability to do that. Max clearly has the ability to add value to people's lives. He has a depth of expertise even at his age. and this is what's powerful about expertise is like anyone can develop expertise if they go deep this is another place where people go wide we talk more about this on the first our first episode together is they try to talk about a million different things and they're just they're saying a little about a lot instead of saying a lot about a little but but max can go deep he can like he knows that space he's an expert right i'm thinking about let me tell you what i'm thinking about.
36:55I'm thinking about like a lot of you that have children or that, or again, you just know a young person. My son's passion from a pretty young age became golf. He became someone who knew a lot about that topic and had a passion for it young. I think sooner he should have started posting about the correct thing on a golf swing or the club he just discovered or this. What if you have a niece or a nephew or a child who loves horses and you almost know inevitably they're going to get into the horse business someday, training and riding horses, or they want to be a veterinarian. You know, they love caring for animals.
37:27They're going to school right now to be a veterinarian. And almost everybody's always known they were going to do that. Or you've got a daughter who's now passionate about business and marketing. And so why is she waiting to get her degree when we know she's going to go build a brand anyway? Maybe she should be sharing a little bit of what she's learning for all the kids that aren't in college online or a particular project she's doing or being encouraging for people. Maybe you come from a particular group of people who not everybody sees in that space. So many young people now discover passions early in their life, and yet they're doing what everybody else is doing.
38:02They're posting the drink from the fraternity party. And I'm thinking, yeah, that's great, but you already know when you get out you want to do this or you're studying for it. Start building that encouragement, education, or entertaining stuff sooner. Now, I think the reason they don't do it, and I'm being serious here, is they don't know how to do it. And that's where someone like you truly, by the way, I'm trying to stuff something in there. You said the website earlier quickly. Freebrandcall.com forward slash Ed Mylet. Okay. Okay. Ed Mylet, not Ed. Ed Mylet. Ed Mylet. Okay. So the reason I'm only want that in there is because you did say it quickly earlier.
38:37If it's not for everybody, don't go do it. But if it is for you, go get the free call. Who cares? But I just, I didn't know we were going to go there today, but the more I'm thinking about it, there's so many kids leaving college with college debt right now. There's so many kids right now that have college degrees that are working at Starbucks that are just trying to make a living, that are moving back home with mom and dad. There's a part of me that's like, you know what? If they had a brand, who knows what they could have done with it? Who knows what could have happened? Maybe they'd have found a job with that brand.
39:07In a lot of businesses, if I'm interviewing two people and their brand is a good brand, but they haven't posted a bunch of stupid things that disqualify them, which is what a lot of people do when I interview them. I'm like, I've seen your social media. I can't hire you. But having said that, two clearly equivalent candidates, similar backgrounds, similar capabilities. One has an online brand and presence that may bring our firm revenue or credibility, and one doesn't. Who am I hiring? Of course. I'm hiring the one with the brand. So I don't know. I mean, you could just go spend$50 ,000 on getting your kid a college education sure you could spend a few bucks on getting to learn how to build a brand.
39:41Yeah. And when you, when you talk about building a brand, to me, a brand is, um, you know, like if you look at it on a, on a, on a balance sheet in a business, right, it's usually intangible. It's, it's goodwill. It's, it's hard to put an economic value on what a brand is like, what is your reputation worth? But it's definitely worth something for all of these reasons you talk about, but an audience is an asset. Like an audience is an actual asset. Many businesses buy and sell just for the customer list. Like a group of people with contact information who are all organized around some interest or buying a thing is an asset.
40:21When you build an audience online, you're building an actual asset, an asset that can produce income and revenue for you and your family and for, you know charitable causes for a lifetime yes for generations right so well what i think rory is since we're going back and forth in this is i don't know what it's worth to have one but i know there's a huge cost for not having anything heck yeah in most careers if you have nothing you've done no work on that you're almost working in an old economy you are almost working in an economy that doesn't exist anymore there are some careers where you don't need a following at all or any type of a brand.
41:00There are probably some, but they're pretty few and far between. Well, and we have the data on this. So coming back to that research study, do it. So first of all, 74 % of Americans say they are more likely to trust someone who has an established personal brand. When we broke it down and we said like, which of the following, is it important to you that this person has a personal brand? It's, we asked like coaches, you know, consultants, speakers, authors, you would expect those people to have personal brands. The number one profession on the list. 61 % of Americans say they want their doctor to have an established personal brand.
41:36They want lawyer is very high on the list. Financial advisor is very high on the list. And at first that was surprising because we're like, why do we, why would we care about their personal brand? And then you go, Oh, it's simple. The higher the requirement for trust, the more important having an established personal brand becomes. The data in that study says people are more likely to buy from you. They're more likely to recommend you. They're more likely to work for you. And they're more likely to spend more money with you if you have an established personal brand. So it's not just your opinion, Ed.
42:09It's not just your intuition, which clearly you've been spot on with building your own brand over the years. The data is point blank, black and white on this. We want to buy from people that we trust and we have to know something about you. Yeah, and don't you think, by the way, unbelievable statistics right there and validation of that. But when we say brand, it doesn't mean that when they go see you, you've got 350 ,000 followers. It means that you've actually produced social proof that you're good at what you do, whether or not there's a big following for it or not. If you're my doctor, I'm going to go look.
42:42And when I look, if you've got content that educated, entertained, or encouraged me, no matter how many people liked or followed it, it's social proof. It's business proof that you exist and that you're good at what you do, correct? It doesn't even have to, the following itself is an ancillary benefit, but not a necessity for credibility. Absolutely. It is totally ancillary. We actually, the data in the study is on there. By the way, we've been talking about the study. Yeah. If you want me just to give it out for free. Okay. So we invested over$100 ,000 on this study. Thank you. So if you go to freebrandstudy.com forward slash Ed Milet.
43:16So freebrandstudy.com forward slash Ed Milet. You can download the research study. I mean, literally we spent a hundred grand on this. And that there's data on this specifically that says it's not the quantity of followers that makes people trust you. It's the quality of the content. And so it's like, I don't care how many followers my dentist has. Like, I don't care. I'm not hiring my dentist because he's a celebrity. I care when I go like, do people say he's awesome? Does the work look good? Like, does the office look clean and nice? Like, is he sharp? Is he, you know, it's just that. You're 100 % right.
43:51It's like I bought many houses that I found online. Probably some of you have bought your home you're in, you found it online. I didn't check to see how many followers the realtor had, but I actually was familiar with the home before I even looked at it. And if I had not seen the home, I probably wouldn't have gone to look at it. Well, if they can't see your office, if they can't see your dental chair, if they can't see that you have an assistant, if they can't see that you actually operate a business, how is it they're going to come close to you and do business with you? So you're totally right about that.
44:18This episode is brought to you by Indeed. When your computer breaks, you don't wait for it to magically start working again. You fix the problem. So why wait to hire the people your company desperately needs? Use Indeed's sponsored jobs to hire top talent fast. And even better, you only pay for results. There's no need to wait. Speed up your hiring with a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Now, let's get off of digital for a second. By the way, everyone, hope you really appreciate it. I know Rory very well. Rory's calling in life is just to serve people.
44:58He's a servant leader. In fact, I get frustrated with him because I think the way he prices most of his business things is so far below what they're worth. But him and AJ are servant leaders. His face is even changing when I say that. This man works so hard to help other people in his life. It's just something that I really admire about you. And, you know, I have, you know, I put out thousands of hours of content that most people charge a lot of money for because, I mean, I do charge for other things, but for the most part, I don't because I just want to serve and I have a business second. I really do.
45:30And in your case, you truly want to serve and then you have a business second and it's very rare. And I just want to acknowledge that about you. I love that about you and your wife. You're both that way. Well, thank you for that, Ed. and we've talked a lot about money in this interview and I think it's a lot of people want to make more money. That's the world I came from. But a concept that I've been wrestling with a lot in the last couple of years, which has really blown my mind and I've wrestled with whether or not this is true and I've really come to deeply believe this, that peace is the new profit.
46:12Peace is the new prophet. See, when I was young, I thought that success and the approval of others would give me what I wanted. Then I thought having more money would give me what I wanted. Then I thought it was like having a lot of followers would give me what I wanted. The only thing that actually gives me any sort of deep satisfaction is service. So it is a selfless thing, but it is also a self-centered thing to go, money, there's only a certain amount of money that you need before it doesn't really motivate you that more. but service is where it's at. And you used an analogy one time on a different episode, wasn't it with me?
47:12But you were talking about eating a steak and you said you can be enjoying every bite of a steak. Do you remember when you said this? You said you can be savoring each bite of a steak and yet still want more. That's right. And that's what I really believe service is. Service is the only thing that deeply satisfies me immediately, even if I'm only serving one person. And yet I also have an insatiable desire to serve more people. And that's available to all of us immediately. Like you don't have to have lots of followers. You don't have to have lots of money in your bank account. You can serve a person.
47:52And I think so many people are trying to find happiness. And the reason they're not finding happiness is because they're looking for happiness. Happiness is a self-centered pursuit. If you look for opportunities to be of service, happiness shows up as a byproduct, right? And that's where I go. And this is one of the reasons that I love you and admire you is I go, you, there's only a couple friends that I have where I'm like, you don't need anything else. Like you've got all the money. You have all the influence. You have all the relationships. You've got the followers, the, the, the, the fame you've got every, every, uh, possible possession and plenty of money to buy more if you need it.
48:44And yet you work, you work hard, you work long and And you work like you don't have any of it. And it's not because you don't have it. It's because I know that deep down in your heart, you have an insatiable desire to serve. And that's why you're still on fire. And this is my issue with you, is that you work too hard to your own detriment, just like we should probably raise our prices. I think you should work a little less. I appreciate you saying that. I have to tell you, some of this was Rob Dyrdek, who's, by the way, another person's been on more than one time because he's so incredible. But Robbie and I were talking about this and we were talking about the six human needs and significance being one of them.
49:27And at one time we were both like, I don't need any more recognition and significance. I've grown through that. And we were at a football game together and he goes, bro, I just thought about something. And he leans over and he goes, I actually do love feeling significant, but I get my significance through contributing to other people. I feel good about myself. So in some ways, service, working hard, to some extent is still a selfish pursuit in the sense that I feel the best about me. And when I'm pursuing happiness, it's about me. I'm self-centered, which is sort of an ego thing. And when we're all about our own happiness, it's very difficult to acquire it because real happiness comes from serving other people.
50:04And so I've never heard it said as beautifully as you just said it. The truth of the matter is I love work and serving and doing what we're like right now. You and I could be anywhere in the world. We're in this studio today on a beautiful day inside the doors are closed two men just talking to one another hoping to contribute to other people's lives yet i feel far better about myself doing this than i would if i was just sitting out there on the beach today like i would rather be doing this and i know you would be right i feel the most alive and for most of you if you're just not quite you feel a little bit helpless you know get more helpful and when you get helpful in your life you'll feel a whole lot helpless this conversation by the way is already an hour and it doesn't feel like it to me whatsoever i feel like we've been talking for about 30 minutes.
50:46So I want to ask you an entrepreneur question, I guess, last. You're in the throes of raising a family. You've got a tremendous wife in AJ. You work very hard at your business. And I asked another person this today, actually, it was Jasmine. And I'm going to begin to ask this question more. And I really want the real answer. Okay. I think if people knew how hard it is to build a business, they may never start it. There's a great clip of the guy that founded a very big tech company. And someone asked him, He's a billionaire now, but they asked him, what advice would you give yourself if you knew what you knew now, everything you know about building the business?
51:18And he says, I would have never gotten started. If I knew how hard it was, I would have never gotten started. And so I think social media makes entrepreneurship look very glamorous, very easy. Anybody can do it. You just need a phone and a thought, and you're going to be an entrepreneur. And most of those are fakes. There's fakes. That's the hard thing for consumption is who's real, who's not real. It's a grind. It's difficult. It does cost things. It's hard. It costs time. It costs energy. It costs, you know, emotional burden of carrying a business in a company is not easy. You and I were talking today about different personnel changes required in your business, et cetera.
51:53Is all of that what you thought it would be? Is it different than you thought? And if it is different, is it still worth it? Building a business? Yeah. I mean, the real. Or was it easier being like a number one or a number two somewhere else, do you think? Well, I'll say this because, you know, we built an eight figure business and should have never had to work again and then started over. It wasn't any easier the second time we knew what to do. Like we were more confident about what to do, but it wasn't any easier. Like building brand builders group from zero to eight figures, which, you know, I don't think we left, we left that part out of the story, but we went from zero to eight figures in five years, like went from zero all the way back.
52:35and it wasn't easier. I think it's important to ask this question about what makes entrepreneurship worth it. And it's right on the pulse of what we were just talking about. I don't think money makes it worth it. I've been around enough people who are dying, who suddenly found out they were going to die, who then looked back and said, I would give the money back. I wish I had more time with whoever or more time doing whatever. I think what makes it worth it is the deep desire to serve. What makes it worth it is to go, I mean, I became a New York Times bestselling author when I was 29 years old.
53:27I don't even look at my book sales every week. I look at all of our clients' book sales. And it's like, man, when this book sold 117 ,000 copies, like we'd never pre-sold before it even came out. Thank you for doing that for me. It had little to do with me. But it was like to be a part of that was so invigorating. There's a speaking event called the Global Leadership Summit. We've been trying to get you to speak there. They should have you. It's one of the biggest leadership events in the world. We had four brand builders group clients speak on that stage. Like arguably one of the most illustrious stages in the world.
54:06Four of our clients were on that stage. That's incredible. I mean, I was giddy. I was just like, this is amazing. We've had 10 clients hit New York times this year. We've had 13 clients grow their annual revenue more than a million dollars a year. Now to some people, that's not a lot. That's not a lot to you. But, but some of these people, I go, this is life changing. There's this guy named Ian Konyak, who we actually met in our sales training days. And he knew us from there. And then he became a client and we were, he was like, man, I think I want to like post some videos on sales. And I just said, dude, make a video every day.
54:42Just make a video every day. Just make one tip. He did it for two years on LinkedIn. Cause he was like, I can't figure out the other stuff. I don't know how to do a blog and YouTube just did a video. He made a multi-million dollars, like his fourth year, multi-million, life-changing. And I go, nothing fills me up more than seeing that. But that's part of what gives me peace. But I also can't sacrifice my family. I mean, when I say that peace is the new profit, it means money is part of peace. A family that you're proud of is part of peace. Looking yourself in the mirror and being proud of yourself is a part of peace.
55:21And also your purpose in the world is part of peace. And, you know, we talked about this last time we were together. We believe that you're most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. It's the story of your dad and now the story of you and the story of so many. And that's a part of peace. And so I go, if being an entrepreneur only takes away your peace, if it gives you everything else, but it doesn't give you some deep sense of peace, I don't think it's worth it. but if being an entrepreneur gives you enough money to do what you want to do and need to do for your family it it creates the kind of environment that your family grows up in that you're proud of it shapes you into becoming a person that you look in the mirror and you're proud of and it adds it creates a context for you to create contribution in the world that gives you peace, then it's all worth it at any size.
56:26What a great answer. I totally agree with you on all fronts there. You know, I have a perspective on it, and then we'll put a bow on this. First off, I think entrepreneurs change the world. Amen. I think they change the world. I think they change them in big ways, like you look at a Musk or a Steve Jobs, but I also think that realtor in Houston, Texas is changing her part of the world. Heck yeah. One family at a time, one safe home at a time. And so in big ways and small ways, entrepreneurs make a difference in the world. I don't think political figures change the world. I think that's a false thing that people sort of buy into.
56:58Whatever party you're in, that's great. That's awesome. I think political figures can hurt the world. For sure. If they can just get out of our way, let the entrepreneurs take over, and entrepreneurs can really make change. They innovate. They create. They save lives. They change lives. They push the universe and humanity forward. Amen. But I also think for those of you that are considering entrepreneurship or are an entrepreneur, at least in my case, it's become my form of expression. It's how I express my being. It's one of the ways. It's one of the primary ways. My speaking on stage is certainly my art form and my form of expression.
57:34But that's tied to the businesses we build. It's tied to this podcast. This is a form of expression for you today. The businesses that you do every day, if it's a form of expression for you. See, I can't play the guitar. I don't play the piano. I can't sing. I don't paint well. My art is entrepreneurship. And for a lot of times, and a lot of you that are listening to this, in your own way, it may not feel like it every day, but this is the music of your life. This is your art. This is your form of expression. And although the world may not have seen all of it yet and may not, some of the greatest artists in the world only have two paintings.
58:06Some of the great singers in the world only had one great hit. And so the scope of it and magnitude of it is overblown in the world. But if you've helped, like Rory said, one family, one person, and you've gone deep in that, it may be worth it for you. And if you hadn't looked at it that way, maybe that's how your business could begin to give you peace. Because when he asked you if you got peace from it, maybe it's just chaos all the time because being an entrepreneur is chaos. But if you step back on a Sunday sometimes and just think about the work you do and the form of expression it is and the lives you're changing and making a difference, maybe that'll give you some sense of peace that you don't have.
58:41Give them the website again, Rory, because you're going to do a free call, which blows my mind. If you're going to give something away for free, I'll promote the heck out of it on the show. Thank you. Yeah. So go to freebrandcall.com forward slash Ed Milet. If any of this resonates with you in a way that you go, I should bring more attention to what I'm doing. I feel a little bit like the world's best kept secret, or I just have a calling on my life to play bigger, to serve more people, to impact more people. And building a personal brand doesn't mean you have to become a speaker or write a book or, you know, do dances on TikTok.
59:11It means that you're going to digitize your reputation and we're going to scale what you have. You're going to help encourage people. You're going to entertain them. You're going to educate them. And what that's going to do is it's going to drive warm leads to your doorstep for the thing you're already doing. The fastest path to cash is to monetize the thing you're already doing. Just use your personal brand as a lead generation tool to drive to the thing you're already doing. But even if it doesn't make you a dollar, it's still a way you can make a difference. So do it and let's talk. Let's be a part of your journey.
59:49What a great convo today, dude. Thank you for being here. This was awesome. All right, everybody. All I ask is you just share the work we're doing here. Share the episode. God bless you, everybody. Max out.
1:00:06show.
From the publisher
The Secret to Unlocking Success Is Closer Than You Think!
Have you ever wondered if you're overcomplicating the path to success? My guest today, Rory Vaden, reveals that the real key is simplicity. Rory is a personal branding expert, New York Times bestselling author, and the mastermind behind some of the biggest names and brands in business. We tackle the myths of success, personal branding, and the real meaning of entrepreneurship—and let me tell you, this conversation is packed with game-changing insights.
Rory breaks down why building trust—not chasing followers—is the ultimate goal of any personal brand. He shares how the digitization of your reputation can create life-changing opportunities, even if you’re “just starting out” or running a local business. You don’t need a massive following or slick content; what you need is to add value by being educational, encouraging, or entertaining. Rory's "depth over width" strategy will completely reframe how you approach your business and personal relationships.
We also dive into why multiple streams of income aren’t the secret to wealth. Rory’s approach? Focus on one thing, master it, and let depth create abundance. We explore his concept of "fractal math," which proves you don’t need more customers to scale—you need to serve your existing clients better and deeper.
What struck me most was Rory’s perspective on entrepreneurship as a form of expression. Whether you're a small business owner, a creative, or climbing the corporate ladder, your work can become your art. But it only becomes worth it when it brings you peace.
Key Takeaways:
Why trust is the foundation of your personal brand.
The truth about scaling: Depth, not width, creates real impact.
How to focus your energy on one income stream to build wealth.
The connection between service, peace, and success in business and life.
Let this be your wake-up call: Success isn’t about doing more; it’s about doing better. Start serving, start simplifying, and start building your life on principles that last.
If you're ready to take your personal brand to the next level, I highly recommend visiting freebrandcall.com/edmylett to book a free strategy call with the experts at Brand Builders Group. They specialize in turning your reputation into revenue and can help you identify your unique value, craft your message, and develop a monetization plan tailored to you. Don't miss this opportunity to gain clarity and accelerate your journey to success.
Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it today. Let’s keep spreading the impact.
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