How Dan Shinder Reaches 5 Million People Per Week and Never Pays for Advertising

Be present, be relevant, and be helpful. Be inclusive, and show what differentiates you from others. It's not hard to do. It's just a matter of knowing how to do it, and being aware. Come learn with us!

Some of this weeks episode highlights are:

18:08 We always need to remain as objective as possible. We have to sit at the grownups table and realize there's always a lot more to learn.

23:50 Always be willing to learn and know that you never know it all.

30:15 Five things to check off in every piece of content marketing: stay present, stay relevant, help others, be inclusive, and position yourself as an expert.

--- Full Raw Transcription Below ---

Dan Shinder (00:00:00):

And that's the thing. Your content, no matter what you do, your content has to be for everybody else. Which leads me to the number one mistake everybody, every brand, every company, every entrepreneur, makes on social media. The secret sauce is to create content that matters for them.

Speaker 2 (00:00:22):

Welcome to the SideHustle Lounge. If you're looking for flexible ways to earn income, grow your mindset, and live the lifestyle you've always dreamed of, you are in the right place. So lower the lights. Grab your favorite beverage and join your host. Founder of NotaryCoach.com and Amazon bestselling author of Sign and Thrive: How To Make Six Figures As A Mobile Notary And Loan Signing Agent, Bill Soroka.

Bill Soroka (00:00:56):

Cheers and welcome to my next guest, Dan Shinder. Dan is Founder CEO, executive producer, and chief cat litter box changer of Drum Talk TV™, as well as Founder and CEO of Advanced Social Marketing (https://advancedsocialmarketing.com/) and creator of Social Media On Steroids. Dan, thank you so much for joining us and spending so much of your time away from the cat duties with us today.

Dan Shinder (00:01:22):

Thank you so much for having me Bill. I really truly appreciate the invitation and hello Bill Soroka's community, everybody that's listening.

Bill Soroka (00:01:31):

Yeah, thanks! Guys, I think you're in for a treat. Dan brings a lot of energy and a lot of wisdom to the business solopreneur sharing dreams. What we're talking about today is pursuing your passions and bootstrapping your way to success. And Dan has a very unique story about how he did that and then ultimately has built an empire that every single week Dan's brand reaches an average of 5 million people with 2 million post engagements, 4 million video views, and he's never paid for advertising or boosting a post. So we're going to get into exactly how he made that work a little later on in the show. But first Dan, tell us how this journey all began starting with you just pursuing one of your passions.

Dan Shinder (00:02:23):

So it includes a backstory where I fell in love with the medium of video. When I had this crazy idea, I had a really good job. It was a bit more than a nine to five, but it was a job. I was the sales manager for a company that sold accessories and gear and the audio visual industry. And during that time I had a crazy idea for a cooking show, but I didn't know. I love cooking. I should wait 432 pounds, but I'm corporate about 157 and I love eating. And I came up with this idea, but I had no idea how to sell a TV show. Like how do you do that? So I thought I'm just going to do the show myself. And I was living in Ventura, California. At the time I got connected with the community access television station, who I found out, my daughter, one of my daughter's best friend's dad works there.

Dan Shinder (00:03:22):

So he kind of got me, started guided me through, I took the certification classes to be able to use their cameras, use their lighting system, understand basic editing, basic patient editing. And so after taking that, I thought this is really cool, but F that I don't, I don't have the time or the patience for the learning curve of the post-production stuff. Even though I had a deep, deep background in audio production as a musician, my whole life. So I hired three people that worked at the television station to work on my show. And I, I designed the whole show, the brand, it was called Chewww On This with three W's because it was online and there was already a fishing show called Chew On This, which is still out there. Actually this is 20 years ago, by the way, folks is this is being recorded in August of 2021.

Dan Shinder (00:04:13):

So we're talking you know, years and years ago. So anyhow, I got started. I lost it. Long story short, I fell in love with the medium. It did so well that I had to make a choice. I quit that other job. I had benefits. I had a great salary, was getting overrides commissions. It was fun. I loved the guy I worked for, who I'm still in touch with and did the show for about four years, went through a horrific divorce. The only divorce I went through that didn't involve biological kids with this particular person. So that was the end of that, but it really took all the wind out of my sails. And I stopped doing the show. And after a while I started doing corporate videos, started a video production company that lasted 14 years doing training videos, product, launch videos, marketing videos.

Dan Shinder (00:04:59):

I was doing video marketing before those words were even put together. You're like a pioneer in this kind of, I mean, it was all, you know, there wasn't even social media at the time and I was doing it for websites. So my deal was I would go to main street businesses and I have gone through the website already. And I'd show them, look at all this text. No one's going to read all this. And why would you leave the interpretation of people just skimming through that to decide whether or not they want to come in order from you? Whatever. So I, my, I made my job to convince business owners to turn 70% of the text on their websites, into video modules, bite-sized video modules. And it pretty much worked really, really well. And then I moved to Las Vegas. I ended up going to work as a producer for a multi-level marketing company that was one of the very first streaming video companies. The consumer side was called Hello World. The MLM side, the affiliate side was called DM Direct. And I did all their all their marketing videos for the product, for the affiliates to sell to the consumer. And I did all the promotional videos for the company for all the sales events and big, big things to the affiliates. And also directed three live two or three live news shows. We had a soundstage there and everything. One was for the affiliate side, two were for the consumer side. So I really was able to advance with technology and beef up my chops and kind of learn stuff as I went, as we all should always be doing no matter what we do. And then I met Tad James who recently passed away. Tad James, his wife, Adriana, the founders of the largest NLP and hypnotherapy training companies. Started making videos with them.

Dan Shinder (00:06:50):

And they invited me to, I got so busy. I quit that job and then started the video production company up again. And they were my primary account and connected with the guy to the streaming video company who is in the charter yacht industry in Australia, went to Australia to do this big project with the (inaudible) company. My wife went with me. I went for two weeks and stayed for two years. Basically. Got so much work from the charter yacht industry from my friend Mark, who is an American guy that had lived there for 20 years, worked at the Sydney to Hobart yacht in a yacht race that year. So that would have been 2009. I remember it. Yeah, I think 2009 and came back and didn't want to do anything because … I came back… My wife shipped on my computers there so I can finish the project while I was working with the ad industry.

Dan Shinder (00:07:43):

But my father was literally dying and I came back in time to, they thought, I'd walk into the room. He'd look at me. Hey, how you doing? And that would be it. Well, that guy ended up living another 16 weeks, which was great. So I was his 24-7 caregiver. He had added onto my sister's house and his, his suite had to be kept at like 8, 6, 2 crews really wanted to go in there, blah, blah, blah. So I lived in there with him for the last 16 weeks of his life, took care of his, every need. You have a doctor come every other day that would visit him. It was just an amazing, amazing experience. And when he passed away, I grabbed my duffle bag and went home to the new house that my wife moved us into while I was gone. I'm glad she told me where it was rather than, Hey, go get some peanut butter and then move, you know?

Dan Shinder (00:08:33):

And I didn't know what I wanted to do. I really, I was 49 and I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I said to her, let me just work with you. She's a professional artist. She does art therapy. She does murals. She teaches art. She's a professional seamstress. Let me just do your marketing. We'll want it together. It'll be great. And she said, okay. So we did that for about three months. And then she came to me one day and she said, her words said, I think you need to find something that fills your cup, but the thought bubble above her head said, this guy needs to find someone else to play with. I think it was just got a little too close for her. And that's when I said, I don't know what I want to do.

Dan Shinder (00:09:13):

I don't want to work with big companies anymore. I just don't know what to do. And she said, well, you told me you used to give drum lessons. Why don't you teach drumming? And in that moment, I realized I am a certified trained NLP trainer. So I know how to train people. I did use to give drum lessons. I've toured, I've recorded. I've produced a concession work of some well-rounded in that musical area. And I know video and I know video streaming. That's what I'll do. So I started an online platform called Dan's Drum Clinics. This is where I started a really seriously cut my my social media marketing chops. And wasn't even on Facebook until that last little stint in Australia. And a guy said, so Dan what's your Facebook lets connect - I'm not on Facebook. So you and some little old lady in Nebraska are the only people not on Facebook.

Dan Shinder (00:10:05):

This is a guy in Australia. So he scooted me over. What's your phone number? What's your email, you know, he caught me on and I was on. So I used Facebook as the launch pad for 10 strong clinics. I had followers in 64 countries before I published my first lesson. Now here's the key, and this is what I teach. This is what launched. Drum Talk TV a few months later, I knew that the drum lessons didn't matter, unless there were people present to watch them. So what's the chicken or the egg? How do I get people to the chicken? That's going to lay the eggs so they can get the gold that's in the egg. Right? So I thought of all these other content ideas, I took zero webinars. Didn't read any books, didn't follow with blogs to use a little critical thinking and uncommon sense, I guess.

Dan Shinder (00:10:53):

And I came up with about 10 categories of content to attract people to my channel and my website, so that when I started publishing lessons, there were people there. And within about two months, I had people following me from 64 countries. Then I started publishing lessons as well as kept curating this other content. Well, a few months later I was going to leave. We were living in Las Vegas and I was going to leave for a week or few days to visit two of my sons in San Diego. And I had some Pelican camera cases and stuff stacked by the door. And my wife said, what's up with that thought you were just going to go see the boys. And I said, well, on the way down there, I'm going to get with this guy and that guy, and I'm going to interview them about, you know, what they do in drumming.

Dan Shinder (00:11:37):

And she said, what do you mean interview them? And I said, well, I think that drummers can learn from other drummers experiences and perspectives from the unique experiences, rather than just to have practice patterns in the drum kit. And she said, oh my God, that's what you should do. And I, what did she say interview? I said, what do you mean? She says, just do the interviews because she saw me do interviews in the charter yacht industries. She saw the news shows I produced. And sometimes when on camera and I said, no, no, no, this is just a separate little thing on the Dan's Drum Clinics. We'll say, I'll call it drunk talk or something. I don't know. And I left and I came back with these two interviews and we watched them and she's like, punching me in the arm saying, see, see, that's what you should do.

Dan Shinder (00:12:19):

Sound like a crazy woman. This is just a separate thing. It's all about the lessons. It's not about the interviews. I showed them to a friend of mine who I knew, who I had known since I was 28, who went through the cooking show journey with me. In fact, he asked me at the time, what do you know about producing a cooking show? And I tongue in cheek said, I know everything I need to know. We have 7 tv's in the house. I know all about TV. So he's watched this one of these two interviews. He said, oh my God, that's the Chewww On This guy? I said, what do you mean? He said, that's the Chewww On This guy. The guy on Cheww… yes it's me dummy. It's me. He says, I know, but it's like the same persona, the same. I said, well, I've gotten pretty good at being me. I don't know how to do anything else.

Dan Shinder (00:13:02):

And he loved it. He said, you really should just do this. And I'm like, oh my gosh, if you've been talking to (inaudible), whats up with that? He ended up telling, showing a guy in television that had called me out of the blue and said, look, no offense. But the drum lessons are watering down this gem that you have, you really should just do interviews, call it. I don't know. Drum Talk TV because he knew about the Drum Talk just add TV at the end. That's when the name came from. I can even think of it. So within about a month, I closed Dan's Drum Clinics, and officially opened, Drum Talk TV, January 6th, 2013. We're in our ninth year. And it's just been amazing. I took all those embryonic strategies and applied them to Drum Talk TV. 47,000 followers. And we're reaching 999,000 people in our seventh week of existence.

Dan Shinder (00:13:52):

So just one more little answer to your question, sorry. Cause there's a lesson in all of this. So about three months later, I had hired a woman who became a very close friend. She doesn't work with Drum Talk TV anymore, but she had redesigned the user experience for Toshiba, which in Silicon valley, working with the backend of really providing great user experiences on websites and content marketing. I hired her to be our chief digital officer. She came to me with a report from a third party, statistical measuring company called Simply Measured. And she showed me, she said, look, we're reaching 900% more online reach and engagement than all of our industry peers, combined industry peers is a fluffy word for competitors. Okay. So, so that means Modern Drummer Magazine, Drum magazine, Drumhead magazine, Rhythm magazine, Drummer, World Drum Channel, Tom Tom magazine and (inaudible).

Dan Shinder (00:14:53):

So there's a (inaudible) of right now, we were achieving 900% more online reach and engagement than all of them combined. And some of them had, they had been around for between 12 and 38 years at the time we were four months old. So at that moment, I knew why I knew it was because of my strategies that we implemented and everything. So I instantly had an epiphany. I need to start a new company to teach others how to do this so that others could thrive doing what they love, helping other people getting great results. Cause even way back then eight and a half, nine years ago, I saw that no one had a clue how content marketing really worked even other agencies, even other people teaching this and charging people for courses and workshops and webinars. I just, I poked around at some of that to see what people were doing.

Dan Shinder (00:15:44):

And it was like, all wrong. The instruction they were giving was all wrong. So I started a branded line of products and services called Social Media on Steroids, which is what most people know that side of me by as opposed to the company name, which is Advanced Social Marketing. And that's what the website is advancedsocialmarketing.com. So that's how I parlayed the success of my strategies for my founding brand of Drum Talk TV and to starting a whole new business, to teach others. And we all should do that. We all should leverage and capitalize in a positive way on what our expertise is. And I learned that that was something I could do that with to help other people with. Could I have kept teaching drum lessons as well? Which of course, could I have taught other people how to do interviews? Of course, but this was much bigger, much broader, a much wider net to help people.

Dan Shinder (00:16:40):

And I started teaching at the music industry to Gold, Platinum artists, up and coming artists, makers of all kinds of instruments. And then I branched out and started working with everybody. And just about every industry you can imagine. And it's just been an amazing journey. I will admit that it's been a little challenging having two 80 hour a week careers at the same time with 11 kids, 19 grandkids, a wife and a cat that gets a little time consuming, but that's kinda that's that's from seeds to where we are now in a nutshell, no pun intended.

Bill Soroka (00:17:16):

I don't think that was a nutshell, Dan, just by definition. But that was an amazing story. I love that. And you, you touched on so much and I've got to go back a little bit here on a few things, because I wonder if … I love how you, you, you said that you parlayed what you learned working one business into an expertise that you could turn into another business and help other people. I think that that's an amazing skillset. Now you had a conversation with (inaudible) that kind of like shook you and said, Hey, this is what you could be doing. Along the way, aside from serendipitous conversations with people who kind of point us in the right direction, is there any thing, any other advice that you'd give to somebody who's maybe working one main business and how do you step back and see where the rest of your expertise lies?

Dan Shinder (00:18:08):

When you say 'step back', that's one of the most important elements Bill. We always need to remain as objective as possible. We have to sit at the grownups table and realize there's always a lot more to learn and we need to, and we all want to think our stuff is cool and great. And don't ask your friends cause they will tell you what they want you to hear. They'll hold your hand, smile and nod. As they watch you all the way to the cliff and watch you fall off because they didn't have the balls to say, you know what? This stuff sucks. And this is why I think so, you know, we need to fall down the stairs a few times objectives really within ourselves or listening to other people who will be that honest with us and make those adjustments. Nothing we do has ever set in stone.

Dan Shinder (00:18:55):

You can change your branding you can change the voice of the brand. You can change what archetype your brand is, whether it's from (inaudible) brand, Advanced Social Marketing is a Sage brand. But if you could start out as a Sage brand and go to the hero or the Explorer, we have to always be… Ray Kroc's work dimensions four work dimensions they insisted everyone at McDonald's had is you've got to be motivated. You have to have a high energy level and you have to be flexible and adaptable. And there's entrepreneurs. Those same four keys are the four pillars to help us advance high energy level, be motivated, be flexible and adaptable and be flexible and adaptable with your own stuff. Don't be so married to things. And when, when you talk about key conversations, another one Lori had with me near the beginning of Drum Talk TV, April of 2013.

Dan Shinder (00:19:47):

And she, she was new. You know, we were new working with each other and getting to know each other. And I knew her background. She had an amazing pedigree. So when she came to me and said, you know, I think we need to change the visual branding of Drum Talk TV. And I said, okay, what are you thinking? And she kind of hand in hot a little bit and said, well, I don't know. I just think it needs to be, the look needs to be refreshed and updated and you know, the font and the glowy letters. I said, well, what about, what about she's? Okay. It looks like a 50 year old man did it two weeks before this. So I was 49 and eight twelfths when I, yeah. And she happens to be six months younger than me, but still that was her perspective.

Dan Shinder (00:20:33):

Another person really created objectivity. She wasn't objective being close to 50 herself that may have never occurred to her. And I said, okay, well, let me ask you something. In the short time we've been working together. Do you feel, you know, her audience enough to understand what would resonate with most of them? She said, I do. I said, and I know your background and everything. So don't be offended by this. But do you feel you have the chops to design a branding palette with the visuals and everything that would fall in line with that? She said, I do. I said, so why don't you come up with three or four examples? And let's, let's go over them together in two or three weeks. And she, her mouth dropped, she said, are you sure? And I said, and now I'm puzzled. And I said, well, yeah, isn't that why you brought this up?

Dan Shinder (00:21:14):

She said, yeah. But in all my years, having worked as a consultant when I bring this up, people say, oh, but the fluffy cloud with the unicorn and the lollipop, that's my thing. And those are my colors. That's my font. And I interrupted her and I said, Lori, I understand that. But let me tell you something. I am never personally going to buy a fucking thing from Drum Talk TV I don't even have to like how it looks. I want the rest of the world to like it. And that was the beginning of an amazing symbiotic working relationship because she knew that I'm on board with what's going to work the most, not what my personal sensibilities are. It's not the Dan Shinder show. It's not what Dan likes as far as music and drumming and all of that, we are truly the only online, well print online or anywhere…

Dan Shinder (00:22:03):

We're the only media company covering the world of drumming. That is 360 well-rounded most, no offense to them. We've worked with a lot of them, but most of the other magazines and their online presence, they cover the big rock stars, the big pop stars, the big jazz stars, the big educators, and a couple of new people on the block. We cover all of that, but we've been to Japan to film two Tyco drumming documentaries. We've covered the Singapore Drum Fest in Singapore, three years in a row. I've I filmed we, we curate content of all genres, west Africa, from north Africa, which is the middle east all over Europe, different parts of Asia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, all types of drums and things that you, you would never even imagine, even if you are a seasoned drummer. And that's one of the things that makes us different.

Dan Shinder (00:22:54):

So it's not about what I like. And we do. We do curate content. That is not my thing as a musician, but it's not about me. That's not what it's for. And that's the thing. Your content, no matter what you do, your content has to be for everybody else. Which leads me to the number one mistake everybody, every brand, every company, every entrepreneur, makes on social media and with content marketing is that, is that all they do is advertise, advertise, advertise, advertise, promote, promote, promote. If that's all we do, there's no reason for our target market to follow us. If all we're going to do is constantly advertise what's for sale. Buy this, buy that, download this QR code. Here's the coupon. The secret sauce is to create content that matters to them. We certainly need to still advertise, but that should be 20 - 30% of our content.

Dan Shinder (00:23:47):

The rest should really be of the common interest. And no matter what you do, folks, whether you sell potato chips, swimming lessons, you have a boat dealership. You're a platinum artist and the music industry. You're a leader in dental tech. You're real estate turn around what it is. There are at least 12 different categories I can teach you that are going to keep you from jamming down people's throats, only what you have for sale and attract people like I did when I started Dan's Drum Clinics - followers from 64 countries before I even published the first lesson. So that's really a big part of it is objectivity and always be willing to learn and know that you never know at all.

Bill Soroka (00:24:28):

Yeah. That's a hugely valuable lesson and you dropped so much in there, but I want to take the…, That's great. No, I want to take the freshest thing that you just said here. And I love that we've connected because I'm of the very like-mind on the 80 - 20 rule on social media content. But a lot of the people in my audience right now, the people listening to us, they amazing people listening. Many of them are mobile notaries loan, signing agents, they're side hustlers, they're on the road a lot. And they oftentimes struggle with what to talk about. So they forget who their ideal customer is. Maybe they end up talking to other peers in their industry as opposed to their ideal customers, because they it's when you're in it. Sometimes I think it's, it's difficult to realize what maybe people want to talk about. Do you have any tips for how they can find topics to talk about?

Dan Shinder (00:25:27):

Yeah, I do. But before I give those, I need to learn just a little bit more as I would with a client about what a notary's week is like. So for instance, who are some of the primary target market people that they're striving to do business with and who they do business with and what is the problem that they solve? If you could tell me that.

Bill Soroka (00:25:54):

I absolutely can. Okay, this will be great too. Cause I think this will help them identify their ideal customer as well as they're listening, but let's just take mobile notaries and loan signing agents as the example. A lot of times our ideal customers are going to be escrow officers, if we're real estate transactions or closing agents or closing attorneys, and then the attorneys in general for estate planning, documents and other what we call specialty notary works. So escrow officers, closing agents and attorneys.

Dan Shinder (00:26:27):

Okay. So we're talking about things that involve real estate were things talking about things that involve estate planning. And we're talking about attorneys in what field mainly mostly those two or outside of that as well. Yeah.

Bill Soroka (00:26:44):

In some states that would be closing attorney. So a real estate closing attorneys and then every niche within that is a possibility as well as the general public, because people need a notary when they need a notary. And there's all kinds of circumstances in their lives that result in that. But yeah. That's

Dan Shinder (00:27:03):

Yeah. Yeah. Then there's another factor I heard in all that Bill that they're mobile, correct. Or mobile notaries. Right. Right. When I think mobile, no matter what business you're in, it's automatically fair game to talk about road trips, road trips, and the mode of transportation. And everybody's got road trip stories and mode of transportation stories. So as a mobile, here's a post for y'all and it let's put a picture of a 1958 Porsche Boxster, the orange that they had orange with a black leather interior, and it's Cabriolet. So that the top is down. And there you are in your Cabriolet Porsche Boxter giving a thumbs up and use the post says what would your dream mode of transportation be as a mobile notary warrior? What would it be? And, and get people to say, what's your base, say, what's your dream car?

Dan Shinder (00:28:00):

You know, what would your dream road trip be as a notary and maybe give three examples of the California coast? Would it be across the south? Would it be up the Eastern seaboard? You know, fun road trip stories I think are great. What was the most recent road trip? And it can all be related to work as well. What was the most recent road trip? What was the farthest road trip was the most fun road trip was the craziest thing that happened on a road trip. Do you pack a picnic or a lunch? Do you stop somewhere traditionally whenever you do this what's the craziest thing that was at the end of a road trip that you had to sign another report. There's six ideas right there that you can constantly recycle. There are also six ideas that you could do as a meme, a funny meme, which is a graphic with the texts on it.

Dan Shinder (00:28:46):

It's also one that you could do make a video. Hi, I'm Dan, you're a local Southern Arizona notary. I live up in the Globe rural area, and I got to tell you, that's a challenge for me sometimes when I have to travel to the big city, kind of out of my element, even though I drove in the big city, what is your mobile notary warrior challenge and, and, you know, put your comments. So that's one. And then all of those are also fair game for doing 'lives'. When we do 'lives' on either Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, that's the number one relationship builder between our brand and its audience, because you're using one of the five elements that I call five to keep your brand alive. And it's the element of being inclusive. They get to participate. You're able to ask questions, answer questions. So if I did that same post as a live, you might chime in and say, oh my gosh, there was this hail storm.

Dan Shinder (00:29:41):

I was in my convertible. I couldn't get the top of nowhere to pull over. Everyone's got stories, whether you're a traveling sales person, a traveling medical technician, whether you're a traveling notary, whether you're a traveling musician that gives lessons, whatever, we've all got road stories. And that's something that a lot of people, even if they're not notaries and they are, your clients can relate to. It's also a great way to show your soft underbelly and show, you know, what you went through. Our personality comes out when we tell stories, even if we're typing them in the comments. So just real quick, I mentioned the five to keep your brand alive, and I want to leave a loop like that open. So five things to check off in every piece of content marketing, you do folks, whether it's for sales or community building content - that 80 - 20, always make sure that you can check off these five boxes.

Dan Shinder (00:30:32):

Every post is to help you stay present, hope you stay relevant, help you to help others. Which means we should always be offering value. Number four, my favorite being inclusive and number five to help position yourself as an expert. So again, as an example, not just an expert to your target market market, but expert to others in your field. It's great when we can, as a community, as dentists or as shoe salespeople or as artists, or as mobile notaries, when we can be a community to get ideas and tips from other people talking about road trips, talk about road trip hacks. You know, where did you got to go somewhere for three days, spend the night, but you got to pack light. Was there, how do I take this three piece suit and make sure that it's not going to be all wrinkled. Then I got to find a dry, clear that personally, what I do is I put it all on one hanger and I roll it all up.

Dan Shinder (00:31:27):

Whoops microphone got away from it. I get to the hotel. First thing I do is turn the shower on as hot as it goes, hang the suit up in there in separate pieces, close the jar, let it steam for half an hour. It's not my water bill and pay for the room. Just little road trip hacks like that for each other, you know, do you belong to the automobile club or, you know, whatever it is, what's your favorite thing to eat on a road trip? Do you take your clients out? Do they take you out? Do you, you know, do you give them a gift or, you know, those are some of the things that will not only make you attractive to your target market who's seen it, but where you as fellow mobile warrior notaries could learn from each other and gain tips. Now, I think that's what being in the same industry together is all about.

Dan Shinder (00:32:10):

There's such thing as a competitor and there's such thing as a community and we can all be both at the same time. It doesn't mean that it's an us and them thing. You know, we can all, there are people who I teach what I do to other agencies, and it's not like I don't want to teach them my secret sauce, because what if we're not going after the same customers. And even if we were, even if we only worked in music or in the professional speaker field, or only with notaries, we're never all going to get and no one's ever going to get everybody. So, so what helped somebody out? You know, it's, I am a true believer in karma. What goes around, comes around and just like a computer life is garbage in, garbage out, help people out, give stuff away. I really think that's important.

Bill Soroka (00:32:59):

Yeah, it is. And thank you for that incredible, incredible .. more gems! And I, I'm having a hard time keeping up with my notes. You're you're, you're bringing so much value to that. Yes. This is great

Dan Shinder (00:33:11):

For your notes up again. One more time. If I may please do one more topic, one more topic. We talked about the road trip. One word topic that if you notaries are mobile and you're working with escrow agents and closing attorneys, what does escrow agent tell you real estate? What does real estate tell you? Post amazing pictures of mansions and castles, and even just like a really neat Airbnb on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a lake, you know, that's a whole fair game topic, real estate and architecture, because those are some of the people that you work with that are related to that journey. Same thing with estate planning. If there's one thing that you could take with you to your next life, that you don't want to live, leave to anybody, what would it be? You know, I had a, maybe you've all had this experience, but one of my sons came here to visit and we have this room set up here, my wife and I collect old books. So we have this room that we call the family room or the library. And we've got just bookcases and bookcases of old books going back to the 18 hundreds and all kinds of other, really neat, funky stuff in there. So my son, Alex, is walking around just kind of looking up, looking down, I'm like, you're looking for something. He says, I'm just taking note of what I'm going to put the post-its on with my names to make sure I get them.

Dan Shinder (00:34:29):

You know, funny things like that. Like how do you talk to your family about estate planning? Do you ask your kids what they want? You do not want any of them to get anything. I know someone like that, who's not leaving anything to any of his kids. Cause it just turned out that, so those are real estate, estate planning, road trips. Those are three things related to everything that you all work with, you know?

Bill Soroka (00:34:49):

Yeah. That those are huge. And that's I call it sharing your passion, that journey, if you're excited to be here and you're open and you're aware of what's going on, there's always something to talk about. So I love that you said that and I want to talk to about, it sounds like you have a really positive mindset on this, the how do you, how did you reconcile that leap from competitor to colleague and really, truly embracing that?

Dan Shinder (00:35:24):

Let me think about that for a moment. When did that first happen? I think I'm not sure if this is the first time it happened, but we're started to open up is when about five and a half, almost six years ago. Now I, I joined the national speakers association and I didn't, I was not aware of it before then, yet I was speaking all over the world about content marketing and all this stuff. And a gentleman saw me speak somewhere here in Arizona and Arizona chapters, the founding chapter of the whole national organization. So he said, I've never seen you before. That was great. Are you a member of NSA? I said, ah, he said national speakers association. He said, what's that? He says, oh my God, you don't know, you've got to come to a meeting with me. When I heard the words, you've got to come to a meeting with me.

Dan Shinder (00:36:19):

I immediately had some aversion because my wife and I don't join things if I've joined two things in my adult life. That one, the first one was only about six years ago, national speakers association when I was 52 53 and now alliances where we met. And I, so when I heard you got to come to a meeting with me, I immediately started to like I'm coming. I got to go. Someone's calling me. You know, that's like what I want to do. But I liked this guy. He had a really nice demeanor and everything. So I said, well, okay, what is it? And he said, he was just coming to a meeting as my guests. You don't have to, there's no obligation, just check it out. And he told me a little more about it. So three weeks later, I go to this meeting. I meet him there.

Dan Shinder (00:36:58):

And after 10 minutes, the giant light bulb went on above my head. Now I have to say that before that I was having a bit of struggle with my business. And the struggle I was having is that I was primarily working with people in the arts, with all the love in the world and with all due respect, most people in the arts, even if they have a business, they think so heavily with the right side of the brain that the left cavernous side have moths and cobwebs and bats flying around. And they don't think like business people. I happened to be a business person that is in the arts. My wife is the same way. She's a business woman that happens to be in the arts as opposed to an artist, trying to fluff her way through business and not wanting to learn. And it was getting so frustrating because we all know who needs us, but that, but that doesn't matter unless they know they need us.

Dan Shinder (00:37:54):

And sometimes there's a mindset that no matter how well we market and promote ourselves, that won't change their model of the world, that their mindset is, is developed on. And they will never be our customers. And that was really getting frustrated. Cause I saw all these people taking a nosedive in their business and with their marketing, it just, oh, it was so cringe-worthy, it was horrible. And here, most of them don't want to learn from me when I joined the national speakers association. That's when I started teaching it to people in real estate, people in real estate training people in dental tech, life, coaches, people in health and wellness professors at universities that taught XYZ that wanted me to me to dumb drummer that didn't go to college, come talk to their, their class of people, working on getting their PhDs. And, and I would always say, and I still do. You know, the folks, this is so easy. Even a drummer can do it.

Dan Shinder (00:38:47):

If I can do it, you can do it. And it's like, anything else there's, it's not difficult to do. It's a matter of knowing you need it. And then learning how to do it from someone who has had amazing results. So when I joined the national speakers association, I was there to be a speaker getting business from it. Even though my friend Kevin said, not so much money, they're waiting for you. These people need what you have. I really joined because he started thinking about, wow, I can really learn to be a better speaker. You'd never know it from listening to this, but I couldn't be a better speaker, better presentations together. That's really why I joined. And they always say, what Cavett Robert, the founder who's passed on of the national speaker association in the late eighties said is there's a big enough piece of the pie for everybody.

Dan Shinder (00:39:36):

And that was already kind of my mindset, but I didn't, I didn't so much congregate with fellow teachers of content marketing. If you were here. Now I was in this community of professional speakers where we're all learning from each other and, and you've got to be open-minded to learn from someone who just is, maybe they're still sleeping in their car, trying to start a business. They went through a divorce, they lost everything and they have a gambling problem. You know, who knows, learns from that guy or girl all the way to someone that's been doing for 40 years all over the world. We need to be open and know that these gems can come from anybody in a different industry at a different level, in their journey from us, a different culture, whatever it is, it's so important. I think that is not the first I thought it was the first I thought of the first back in my days of being a performing musician, I grew up playing up and down the Sunset Strip in Hollywood.

Dan Shinder (00:40:32):

I toured the United States a few times, but playing in Hollywood at the clubs like the Troubadour, Madame Wong's the Whiskey, the Roxy, House of Blues, stuff like that. I loved hanging out with the other bands that were on the bill. And that's one thing that is different about drummers. There are the musicians that do this, but drummers are just different drummers show each other their gear, Hey, show me that technique you were doing. Yeah. Let me show you that. We're just guitar players don't even want you to know what effects pedals they're using. You know, it's, it's really a silly thing, but drummers will stand on the side of the stage watching the band before them or after them play. And that's when I think I developed more of a communal mindset. I know that sounds real, sort of cheesy liberal hippy dippy.

Dan Shinder (00:41:16):

You know, when I use the word communal but it, it truly is what it is. And I just think like the reason I started Drum Talk TV because I thought drummers can learn from each other, from each other's experiences and perspectives and not just sitting at a drum set and learning the mechanical stuff and about music. And to me, I have that I've realized I have that whole mindset with business. I can learn from a dentist. I'm not a dentist, but I can learn from a dentist and his or her journey. I'll give you an example. Noel Lee sold his company, but he owned Monster Audio. Monster Audio was a consumer and prosumer line of everything from oh, do I have them here? No. they're in my bag, had professional headphones. Consumer headphones, Bluetooth, boombox, ports, cables, all kinds of fun stuff like that.

Dan Shinder (00:42:09):

Bazillionaire lived in Vegas and I was living in Vegas at the time. And somehow we met, I don't even remember that, but he invited me to breakfast. Hey, Dan, let's go to breakfast. Let's get to know each other. Oh my God, you sit and ask this guy who started his company, like out like Microsoft or apple in the garage. And now he's got 180,000 square feet and 4,000 people work for, yeah, I think I'll be at breakfast tomorrow morning. So I said, no, he said, ask me anything. If you want to ask me anything about business, then I got some questions to you. So the question I asked him was golden and I'll never have (inaudible). I ain't got no aspirations to have a business like his and neither do any of you. But his answer was amazing to my question, which was no.

Dan Shinder (00:42:52):

When you went from starting this on two work benches by yourself, in your garage to where you are now, all along that way, what was the one singular challenge? Was it funding? Was it technology changes? Was it? And he blinked and said it was scaling. My biggest challenge was scaling and keeping up with growth and figuring out how to grow properly and not too quickly so that it would crash and burn. That was my biggest challenge. And that's where everyone needs to really be aware of it, but take their time doing it. And I have learned since then, this was about seven years ago. And I've learned in the last seven years that he could not have been more right. Scaling has been such a challenge for me, not getting to the point where I could scale. We are scaling and we always have it, but executing the scale, a getting the right people in the right positions, not that I've made, excuse me, bad choices.

Dan Shinder (00:43:56):

Well, a couple of times electing people for positions, but finding the ideal person that has the right skills that understands the company culture. And that has the chemistry that fits in. I'm a little demanding I work for, I'll just say it because I'm would get done kind of guy. And I don't want to be bogged down with the science of details, you know, let's just figure it out and let's do it based on other results we've gotten into. If it doesn't work well to, okay, well, let's constantly be moving forward, moving forward. So a lot of people are really analytical and that's okay and they need to think an ABMC tested and all that is fine, but it doesn't fit my personality. And I don't want a bunch of Dans working for me, believe me, I wouldn't go tolerate one more of me let alone 30, but I just, you know, to find that right mix of people that have the right skill sets and the right a variety of different ways they work, that's been a challenge and I'm having that challenge right now. And it's, I think of know every day we haven't talked to in a little while. I think if I'm every day as I go through that, and it's, it's very important for us to always be learning from each other and have a communal mindset is important. Yeah. Three association or Guild or, or sisterhood or anything.

Bill Soroka (00:45:15):

It'll blow your mind, Dan, there is an entire world of notaries, you know, there's about four and a half million notaries across the country. So we have, we have a National Notary Association. We have state associations, we have the California League of Independent Notaries. We have all, all kinds of them across the country. Yeah. It's so under the radar, like…

Dan Shinder (00:45:41):

The only, so that makes sense. But give me, if you don't mind, I'm really curious about this. Give me three things that a mobile notary gets out of being a member of one of those associations. What is that association provides? What does the experience provide that makes a mobile notary want to be part of that and go to the big convention in Vegas or national every year and, you know, do whatever the big thing is that they do what what's like, what's all about.

Bill Soroka (00:46:11):

Yeah. I'll tell you. There's there's a couple of big reasons, so, and I'll just, we'll just, just choose one that I happened to be a member of the National Notary Association, I think.

New Speaker (00:46:21):

The audio kind of weird, what's the name of it?

Bill Soroka (00:46:24):

National Notary Association or the NNA. So they provide educational resources. They provide a hotline for members. So if you are in any state, if you run into a problem with a notarization, you're not sure what to do. You can call this hotline during their office hours and get guidance and assistance. Where to find the answer. And then there's some legislative stuff that happens in the backyard at back the back area, defending notary laws and notaries in general, all kinds of supplies and all that good stuff. And then there's some..

Dan Shinder (00:47:03):

Like kind of make sure people stay in their guidelines as well…

Bill Soroka (00:47:08):

They helped design some national standards for the loan signing industry as well. And then, you know, there's so many emerging laws and changing with remote online notarization. Now, ER, posties are coming down the road. So you have organizations like the California league of independent notaries or clin that are really focused on the legislation part. So they're acting as advocates for notaries because it's really fun to watch the evolution of this industry just come alive in the last 5, 6, 7, 7 years.

Dan Shinder (00:47:44):

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm sure some, some common topics and things are also the evolutions in technology software and services available to you. Like, like you've mentioned, you know, things like that. That's fascinating. It's, I'd love to talk to you more about this offline. That's really neat.

Bill Soroka (00:48:06):

Yeah. I can talk about it all day long day. I really can.

Dan Shinder (00:48:09):

That's great. That's a sign that you love, what you do. There's a difference between talking about what you do all day long and complaining about what you're doing. So it's great that you can. I love that. I also want to mention something when I talk about the fact that there are different topics, other than what you're promoting, like I use the Roadtrip example, real estate and architecture. The one objection, I get to that sometimes. And I got to tell everybody that it's mainly been in the arts is where I get to subjection people in music, particularly, let's say, I don't want to do that to you. I don't want to ask my audience questions. I don't want to ask for a on question to me. That's just chit chat is pointless. If you want to learn how to do it, right? Learn what works and learn from someone who's made it work.

Dan Shinder (00:49:01):

It's not chit-chat, it's not pointless. It's a way for you to learn about your target audience as well. If you're not providing something for them to comment on, you'll never know what they like, but they don't like they want more of what they want. Less of what questions do they have? Answer questions, ask questions. It's so important that when we look at the statistics of social media channels, let's just take Facebook. What matters the most is comments and shares and video views. And one more beyond all of that. Number one is reach. If you're not reaching well, none of the other stuff matters. The likes, the emojis, the hearts, all that, that means nothing. And some people could argue and say, well, I got 120 likes and hearts on my posts. That means a hundred people liked it, but why, if they didn't comment, you don't know why.

Dan Shinder (00:49:49):

And you're not learning anything from them. On the phone - take your smart phones out people - on your phone. Think of how you use social media. You take your finger and you're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. You're scrolling. It's too easy to just quite like, like part, part, like it just, we can't learn anything from that. As business owners bean counters or content creators, we learn from the comments. We grow organically from the shares and it all starts with reach. And if you remember what Bill said in the introduction of me, I've never paid for advertising. I've never paid for boosting a post on Facebook or Instagram. Never advertise on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn. It's all been a hundred percent organic. And it works. I hear all the time. People complaining. Now it's pay to play. Now it's pay to play. That's how they have it designed, but we still are not paying to play and our numbers and bigger than ever.

Dan Shinder (00:50:42):

We reached, I checked before we got on line - 7.3 million people last week. I mean, we're still doing it all in understanding our audience and providing exceptional content to share with them that matters to them. And guess what folks, that's not always going to be what your service offers. So we build these other conversations around that, such as the architecture, the real estate, the road trips and things like that to keep people's attention so that when we do drop an advertisement in front of them, that you don't have to pay for, but a post on your channels, they advertise is what you do. Now. You've got a captivated audiences paying attention without that, it doesn't matter how good these interviews are. It doesn't matter how big an interview I do, who it's with or how important the event is that we're covering or how snazzy the documentary is and how much news, none of that matters if we're not reaching people. And if gained a lack of trust, likeability, and brand love, otherwise they're not gonna pay attention to us. And the product means nothing. It goes the same way for any other services or durable goods.

Bill Soroka (00:51:53):

Yeah, that's so true. I mean, value is truly in the eye of the beholder. We often think we know what people want, or we know what we think they should know, but they're just not interested. You got to give them something they're interested in. And I love the suggestions that you gave on the peripheral of real estate or the peripheral of estate planning because that stuff that can make a difference in people's lives. And then they get to know you like you and trust you. And that's, I think that's the biggest gift of content marketing and social media is, is because it's true that people do work with who they know like, and trust that gives you an opportunity to show your personality, to show your value, to show your expertise so they can get to know you a little bit.

Dan Shinder (00:52:35):

You know, that's a great point you made at the end of that Bill because all things being equal. If you take two people that are, let's say health and wellness consultants, okay. Let's say they're both going to talk about fitness and dietary stuff. Things like that, all things being equal, they both been doing it for 30 years. They both have huge followings. They both have bestselling books. They both have an awesome blog, an awesome YouTube channel. They both provide value. Her programs are about the same price when it comes down to that. And it all boils down to who are you going to go with, Joe? And they're going to spend $10,000 with one of them.. they're going to go with who resonates with you the most personality wise when it comes down to it, that be the last little factor they check off, but it ultimately could be the most important one in making that decision.

Dan Shinder (00:53:30):

And with content marketing, like you just articulated that is our chance to show our personality. And, you know, the, if I may just tell everybody to please, there's a podcast that I did. And it talks about the 12 archetypes of brands. The difference between a jester, a Sage, a hero, the Explorer, the regular guy, or gal, all these different things. It's really eyeopening. If you're not familiar with that. If you're trying to be, or project yourself as one brand, but then you read through these lists of 12 that were developed by Carl Jones psychologist. You might read another brand to go, oh my God, that's not what I thought. You know, it's really amazing. And it's on my website. I'll send Bill the link. And if you don't mind, you can add that. I really recommend people listen to that. So you can understand how you can also resonate with people as well. That's my point, the voice of your brand is everything. Yeah. You know,

Bill Soroka (00:54:28):

I'm so glad you came back to that. Cause that's one of the notes that I have here to explain that I had never heard that either. So I will post the link in the VIP room to that podcast. And maybe even that's going to spark a whole other rabbit hole for me. So thanks for that, Dan. Just what I need another rabbit hole to jump into, but I love that now, but here's, I, I, I also want to touch on that a little bit because our go back up. Oops, I'll go back a little bit on what we were just talking about with the differentiation and your personality, and what's your thoughts on, on how much personality to include and hold back or do you, you just let yourself out.

Dan Shinder (00:55:08):

So I want to comment on the rabbit hole comment first, because I think all the expert for giving people more stuff to do than they already don't have time to do, but I guaranteed a thousand percent to anybody out there. If I recommend it, it will work for you. If you do it exactly how I teach it it'll work. When it comes to your personality. I really think that's the X factor. We can all go to school, get the same degree. We can all go to a company's training and get the same certificate. We'd all get the same stuff that we buy into a franchise and all of that, we can all do the right things, make sure the restaurants clean. The menu board is up to date. You know, all these different things. It all comes down to the voice of the brand and the personality.

Dan Shinder (00:55:48):

So if I could use Drum Talk TV, as an example, Drum Talk TV is through and through a gesture brand and gesture brand is playful. It's silly. It's fun. It wants to bring joy to the world. That's exactly who we are. And we are 100%, 190 degrees different. The opposite from all our media peers, our media peers recognize that music and drumming is fun, but they're very academic. So like most of them are, if you can imagine walking down a long fluorescent, we lit hallway with vinyl, tile floors and the clickety clack heels of your shoes. That's most of in creased sleeve, starched color. Creased pleats in a women's pants suit dress. It's very academic constraint lace. Drum Talk TV. It's kind of like going to the circus and I'm the ringleader and it's fun and it's snarky and as playful. And it's why people love from Drum Talk TV.

Dan Shinder (00:56:43):

It's also why some people don't like Drum Talk TV and why modern drummer resonates with them more or drum channel, which is more, much more, much more all about education. And that's fine. There's something for everybody. Be that something for somebody or letting your personality drive the voice of the brand. Why is Drum Talk TV a Jester brand? It's based on me it's and I don't do anything unless it's fun. I'm not putting on an act when I do interviews and I start out with our silly intro and it's just me being me. Like I told my friend years ago when he Drum Talk TV and compared it to My Chewww on this Cooking show, I've gotten really good at me. And I bet all of you out there are pretty good at then you don't worry about bouncing off the walls if it sounds like I am, no coffee required. By the way, don't feel you have to be a radio personality type or a television presenter. I'm not a professional speaker. I don't go to … and don't worry about any of that. I was just asked those questions that relate to that on a, on a show the other day, doing a workshop, a free workshop about podcasting. And they said, you know, you got a lot of energy. This and that your a professional speaker. What if someone doesn't have all that? Can they still do this? Yes. Just be yourself, whatever that is. You know, it's the most important thing. So to answer your question, Bill in, in short, don't pull back there's whatever someone's personality is. There are we're, none of us are so unique that there's no one else like that out there that it's not going to resonate with.

Dan Shinder (00:58:21):

So I it's most fun to attract more people like you. I like to have fun. I want to attract for people that are fun in, in both businesses. Obviously when I'm teaching content marketing, just that phrase is academic, but I make it fun. I make it really fun. I don't want people… I made the mistake Bill. First time I ever taught this in person, I had an eight hour course, all taught in one day with a half hour lunch break to 15 minutes by the end people, I think either their ears were pounding or they had questions…. That was like wait… I really learned a lesson there. And I was trying to make it pump was just way too much at once. We all have the ability to leverage whatever our personality is to either make it fun, make it more spiritual, make it more academic. If that's how you are.

Dan Shinder (00:59:13):

If you're more of the engineer type mentality than academic do that because you will attract people that resonate with it and then put the number one reason why the answer is yes to that question is because I think everyone can tell when people are authentic versus putting on an act or trying to be someone they're not. And it's so easy to be authentic, just be yourself. And we, I think present better. We sell better. We teach better. We consult better. We're easier to be around. And people believe in us and trust us and fall in love with us more easily when we're clearly authentic. So that's really the number one reason.

Bill Soroka (00:59:52):

Yeah. I think you nailed it there, especially as a solo preneur, right? You can't have a split personality. You can't be two different people. You've got to be authentically you. And why would you want to attract people who are not of your, like, that makes it creates a riff. So it's it's it is. I totally agree with you, but there's still, I know there's still people listening right now that think. Yeah. But. What about when people don't like me? Or what about if I do turn people off? Is there going to be enough business of people who like me? How do you, do you have any advice to help people be okay with not being liked?

Dan Shinder (01:00:34):

Oh yeah. So I've been … a married for the fourth time. So in saying that there's a few people out there that don't like, thankfully two of them came around and I'm very, very close with two of my ex wives, but that's kind of a joke, but it's true, but it's but yeah, I can. So we, this goes back to something I said much earlier and that's removing that emotion part. Strive to be liked, but know that not everybody's gonna like you. Not everybody's going to like how you look not, everyone's going to like how you dress, not everyone's going to like your accent, your dialect, where you speak from in the country. Whether it's like, my wife is from the Bronx. I'm from Los Angeles, you know, others are from Oklahoma. We're all gonna talk differently. Especially when we get passionate about something. That's when our dialects come out even more.

Dan Shinder (01:01:27):

Right. But what about someone that's been here only for three years from Arabia or Iraq versus someone from (inaudible) or Japan, we're all going to talk differently. And unfortunately, sometimes people hold that against us or sometimes they just want someone that's more like them. Oh, this guy, guy's funny, this guy is bouncing off. Oh, this woman's really elegant. She won't understand me because I'm very elegant. Oh my gosh, she's got the same SUV I have. Hey, let's have tea! You know, it's so we really have to remove that emotion. There is enough business out there for everybody, the entrepreneurs, no offense to anybody, but the entrepreneurs who didn't put it together during these horrible 18, 19, 20 months of COVID didn't do what Ray Croc said, but his other two elements being adaptable and flexible, they didn't pivot. I'm going to use musicians as an example, most of all performing musicians, their business crashed.

Dan Shinder (01:02:27):

Some of them were smart and they started doing session work, trading files long distance. Some of them were smart and started educational programs. They didn't have, most of them just stayed in their little box and whined about it the whole time. And still are that had happened in every other industry as well. You've got to be able to take advantage of what happens. My wife and I, respectively both had our best year, last year. And by June, this year, we surpassed that year and you would need to see the gold in everything. And thank goodness, the people that you don't resonate with. Thank goodness. They're not going to do business with you because it doesn't always turn out right. I follow one of my two big heroes that I follow is Michael Port. Michael Port says work with people who enable you to do your best work.

Dan Shinder (01:03:22):

And like Bill said, if you don't resonate with someone and you're so different, it can cause a rift. And when I first heard Michael Port's book yourself, solid audio book with him reading it, my wife and I were still living in Vegas. We were on our way to Arizona to visit someone in the middle of nowhere. And we both had a problem child customer at the time. So we're driving along and we're listening to Michael Port and he talks about the red velvet rope policy. Don't even go after everyone to do business. They need to qualify to do business with you because you all have value. So you all need this red velvet rope policy. So we started talking about it and he said you need to know when it's okay to fire your dead clients. My wife and I whipped our heads at each other or sharply.

Dan Shinder (01:04:08):

I almost drove off in a ditch about three miles south of Wickenburg. I could not wait. You can fire a client. Hello? I couldn't wait to get to our destination and write this email, explaining to someone who is paying me 500, 5,000, I'm sorry, $5,500 a month for my program who argued with every F'ing thing. I taught him. I finally wrote him a note saying, if you know everything, you don't need me have a good day. It was actually 18 paragraphs longer, but that was the message. Nothing ever felt more liberating or that. And that's why you, we can never trip out more stress or call it a failure. When we don't resonate with someone that they don't like us, that that just can't be part of the success map in any way. It really can't/.

Bill Soroka (01:05:00):

Question for you Dan, on that when you, I know there's all the, I agree with you firing a client. A problem. Client can be the most liberating feeling I've been there, but you still that building up for it. I mean, you're thinking about, oh, that's $5,500. Am I going to have another client to fill in when you did it? Did it open up anything for you? There's something better step in besides peace of mind?

Dan Shinder (01:05:22):

That's a great question because I did think about that $5,500 who couldn't use. I don't get how successful you are, who couldn't use $5,500 a month. Right? So yeah, I've thought about that for a moment. And then I thought that just opens the door for more to fill that space is the way I looked at it. And I'll give you another more recent example in the last year, less than a year. So I teach this stuff. I consult and we also operate as an agency where we can provide the service in part or in full, in the last nine months. I lost three clients that decided to discontinue our service because quote unquote, wasn't working for them. These are the only three clients I've lost for, excuse me, not working for them in the last nine years of doing this. And all three were for the same reason is because they didn't follow my instruction.

Dan Shinder (01:06:17):

They didn't give us exactly what we needed. And it broke. Simple as that. Now I'm not trying to lay blame. Maybe I didn't do as good a job as being more firm with them. You know, I'll take the blame, but it's all for the same thing. And each time it was emotionally a little frustrating for me because I, I love to get to know my clients and make friends. And, and now you're telling me you don't want to work with me. I admit I, I had some emotional angst there, but I replaced each one of those with new clients that were paying three to five times more. Wow. Experience is a learning experience. Whether it's a poor experience, an unexpected experience, a successful experience, we need to be able to learn from everything. And those were learning experiences for me. So I added a ton of stuff to my onboarding process to make sure that from the beginning, my clients get like a huge portion of one of my courses.

Dan Shinder (01:07:14):

Even if we're providing the service a hundred percent so that they understand exactly what we need, how we're doing everything, why we're doing it this way. So that when me or Abby asked someone, Hey, we need five videos like this. They don't say what do we need those for. Whenever they do that before it was up to start out that way. And what about this? And then it eliminates all of that to just give us what we need. We make it happen. And everybody is successful. So always look at something going away, making room for something much bigger and much better that you can fly with even more. That's the way I look at.

Bill Soroka (01:07:48):

Yeah, you're really doing one that I think the philosophy that I've adopted in life that has really brought peace of mind for me is that I now trust that life is unfolding for me. So even when it doesn't feel like it, you, when it feels like the shit's hitting the fan and I'm losing clients or, you know, things aren't going the way I wanted them to. I've learned now to just trust that there's going to work out differently, but better.

Dan Shinder (01:08:13):

Yeah. And by staying aware, you can recognize what those differences are and what's going to make it better and, and not be so stuck in our ways of, it's kind of worked out like this. It's gotta work like this. And there's no right turn. And there's no, you don't pause here. You know, we, we need to watch things at a granular level, every step of the way so that we can be flexible and adaptable and polish it as we go and make it even better because stuff happens. Life happens, you know, you have a vision and A to Z, but around G this can happen amd around S and T you hit this roadblock and you end up that you look back once you get to Z. Oh wow. That squiggly line is nothing like that straight line I drew, when I first envisioned this, we still the destination and it was being adaptable and flexible. That helps you do that and open to learning.

Bill Soroka (01:09:08):

Yeah. That's so huge. Dan, I feel like I could probably sit here and talk to you all day, but we've been here for about an hour and I want to, I would like to wrap up. I know I'd like to wrap up though, and there's no time limit or anything, but you … I'm going to go back to one section of my notes because we just danced on the five alive. And I think that that philosophy on social media strategy could really benefit those who are listening right here. Can we go through each of those five and maybe just elaborate a little bit more?

Dan Shinder (01:09:40):

Yes, definitely. So I learned that these five elements are…. About 13 years ago, 10 years ago, I was reading about blogging and I didn't really know what a blog was or why to do it. And a few different places. I looked there were sort of saying the same thing you need to blog so that people are always aware of you to stay present. You need to blog so that you can help others give value, give stuff away. You need to blog for the… And so I put all this together is what I call the five to keep your brand alive. So, number one, we always want to stay present. I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs who say, I don't want to learn that yet, or I don't want to do that yet. I'm going to wait until my new book is out. I'm going to wait till my new DVD is ready.

Dan Shinder (01:10:31):

I'm going to wait till we launch our new iteration of the product. I'm going to wait till our new POP display is ready. And then they wait. Then they learn it and launch it to crickets and tumbleweeds because they didn't build a following ahead of time. So staying present in the meantime is so important so that when you do learn something new and you've got people already in love with you, you know what the biggest thing missing is from crowdfunding campaigns, why most crowdfunding campaigns are unsuccessful? To start, they're missing the crowd process. So they don't build up a cause. They're just so eager and pasty and desperate to run a crowdfunding campaign. You think one person told me if I build it, they will come. Well, guess what they didn't. And it came to me afterwards and gave me credit in this book that he wrote at the end of how he learned the lesson the hard way I should have listened to Dan, build the crowds first under the crowdfunding campaign. So stay present, always in between all your new launches and new products and all those things.

Dan Shinder (01:11:32):

Number two, be relevant, know who your target market is. And they're never going to be made up of the same people, even if they're there to buy the same thing from you understand them and be relevant because people need to see themselves in your marketing and promoting. And here's what I mean. Let's say I had a hiking boot, Dans Boot, get the boot, but if all my television commercials and YouTube videos and Facebook and Instagram videos, all had seniors like me, I know I sound like I'm 15, I'm on recording, but I'm not. I'm a senior. Okay. Then the 18 to 24 year olds would see those videos and go, all those boots are for old people.

Dan Shinder (01:12:12):

I'm young, I'm I'm going on a real hike. But if all our videos were for the 18 to 24, 25 to 34 year olds, the old people like me would say, oh, those boots are for their kids. I need boots from my wrinkly ass, worn out feet. They're the same product. So we need to consider gender age brackets, even cultural things for a moment, three personas, one like me who grew up in Los Angeles, California, and has had the fortune to travel the world - have been on three, four continents, another person is someone who lives in Shawnee, Oklahoma, 70 years old, never left. Shawnee except that one time they had to find a new mechanic because Biff was closed on Tuesday. Person 3 is someone who lives in a Manhattan apartment. Who's never left Manhattan. Those are three completely different people with different models of the world. And I'm not saying you need 50 versions to sell whatever you sell.

Dan Shinder (01:13:08):

But if you have people that you sell only, let's just say C-suite managers that are going to make the decision. You might want to consider gender, a couple of different age ranges. Is it a big city talk? And visuals, is it out in the rural area? Things like this matter. So that's why relevant matters. So present relevant.

New Speaker (01:13:28):

Number three, be helpful. Give away value. About 13 years ago, this was real difficult for me. A guy was trying to convince me to blog. I had my video production company and he was trying to tell me that I should be doing this blog to talk about video production, how to make videos. What, that's the service I offer? Are you crazy? Why would I teach people how to do what it just didn't make? I couldn't get my head around it fast forward. Drum Talk TV. He has all the successes start the social marketing company. And I, for a long time was afraid to do a podcast. I was afraid to do a video series because I was afraid. What if they watch all 1,323 episodes and don't even need to take my coirse. That was the stupidest thing I've probably ever said. But it, it does the opposite. It endeared people to me and what I have to offer. It told some people, oh, this guy's kind of funny. He sounds fun. He sounds young. That ended up being a surprise, real answer. You know, I want to work with them other people's guys, just too loose. He's too. He's just silly. He's bouncing off the walls. I need someone who's going to take my business serious. This is how I do things. And when I did my cooking show for, for more than half the time I had a co-host and executive pastry chef. So you you've all gotten a taste of me. So I'm like this and Ed. So Ed went to the CIA, the culinary Institute of the arts. And before Ed went to that CIA, he was actually in the other CIA that you've known about.

Dan Shinder (01:15:03):

So he would talk about making a red velvet cake like between a military Colonel and a chemist. And (inaudible) running back and forth in the background. We were so opposite. Some people totally gonna resonate with an Ed. Some people are totally gonna resonate with a Dan, something we're totally gonna resonate with. Like my wife - someone. Who's a sear and very spiritual, not fufu. She's a business woman. Believe me, black Jewish woman from the Bronx. She can get down on a very serious matter, believe me, but we all have these different traits. So when we're helpful, give out your nuggets, give out value, teach people. I teach people all the time, how to select a service provider. I offered that if you don't choose me, that just means I wasn't for you, but at least learn what to look for. There's everyone.

Dan Shinder (01:15:56):

I know you folks. When I see this, I'm going to hold it up to the camera for bill, I'm holding up a $8.99 cent computer keyboard. Anyone for 8 99 can get into social media marketing because all they need is a fucking keyboard and they think that's all they need. My point is that the helpful part is a huge thing. If you have the roadblock I had let go of that and give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give value, tell people how to find a mobile notary. How to select a mobile notary? What sets you apart out? There's only so much that can set us apart. But for me, what sets me apart is I teach from experience of having the hands-on experience of achieving tremendous results myself. I didn't read three blogs, a magazine, article, a book, and go to three webinars and then say, Hey, now I'm going to do this.

Dan Shinder (01:16:40):

You know, you all have great experience that make you great at what you do from writing a state planning, notaries from closing attorneys from working with people in escrow that make you better and better for your next client. Talk about that. And if they don't choose you, don't worry about it. They chose someone that's better for them because they resonate with them for whatever reason. And they made room for the more perfect client for you to get.

Dan Shinder (01:17:02):

Number four. My favorite inclusive. If I got a story for you on inclusiveness. I'll nut this down so i don't take too much time. So we talk to you for the first year. There was no video on Facebook. Maybe it was the first eight months. Then they did video. People saw that we were achieving all these crazy numbers. We, people were writing into us constantly, constantly, constantly multiple times a day.

Dan Shinder (01:17:27):

We share my video. Will you post my video? Can I be on time to talk to you? Hey, here's a video video video figured out constantly. And I was like, no, we have this automatic response message. That was probably stuffy. It wasn't meant to be. I wrote it. I'll take the blame. And it said, it said something like the Drum Talk TV Facebook page and YouTube channel is to curate content that we create working with the artists that we interview and the events we cover. There are plenty of Facebook groups where you can share your video, have a great day. And this went on for about three months. And one day I saw that there were like 223 messages. Okay, let me watch one of these videos. And I felt my body language go from a frown with crossed arms to my arms, dropping to my side.

Dan Shinder (01:18:12):

My eyebrows went on top of my forehead and my mouth with this huge smile because that's what watching one of the videos made me do. And then I thought, oh my gosh, the video makes me do this on the member of the community we serve…. That means stuff like this will resonate with our community. I got on the phone with Laurie right away. We've got to build a portal so people can submit their videos. But I thought we weren't doing that. I'll explain later, let's just talk about this right now for the last eight years, we've got this whole system where people submit videos, they fill out a form. It teaches them what not to do, what to do, what to include, shoudn't be a horizontally, all this stuff. And being inclusive in that way was the biggest game changer. We gained a hundred thousand new fans in three months just by making a more apart of what we do.

Dan Shinder (01:18:59):

You all could do that with, as notaries to you, even if you don't have people submit stuff, definitely have people submit testimonials by the way. Hi, I'm Sally and Bill helped me. And one of the hardest parts of my time with notarizing or estate planning that had did that get testimonials from them and teach people how to do it real easy. Who are you? How did we help you? And what would you recommend? It's simple. It's not difficult. But you could do the same thing by asking questions for people to share their best notary experience, their horrific experience. What are you challenged with in regards to estate planning? What's a horrific or wonderful escrow experience you had before and get people to partake in the comments of your posts and then graduate to doing a live. I teach how to do this, by the way, did I mentioned that (inaudible) lives and when you're inclusive, wow, is that a game changer?

Dan Shinder (01:19:50):

If you do all of that stuff, it pretty much takes care of number five, which is position yourself as an expert in your field because now you've remained present, you've remained relevant. You've been helpful. You've become inclusive. They love that. And now you've also talked about what's a differentiates you from others in your field and the successes you've had now, he's automatically positioned yourself as an expert in your field. Again, none of this is hard to do. It's just a matter of knowing how to do it and being aware. That's all, that's all it is.

Bill Soroka (01:20:24):

Dan. That's so huge. If, if, if somebody was interested in working with you, I know we're going to … they can subscribe to your email newsletter. You'll get your six steps to daily success, free PDF. If they do that. Plus I would imagine they can visit your website at advancedsocialmarketing.com as well as our VIP room at SideHustleLounge.com. Dan will have his whole little section in there and the social media sections. You can connect with them that way. Listen to this episode as many times as you'd like as well.

Bill Soroka (01:20:59):

Dan Shinder thank you so much for being here - so much value to our audience. I've loved this time and I'm sure we're going to do this again.

Dan Shinder (01:21:10):

I would love to. And Bill, thank you so much for inviting me and for those listening. Thank you so much for putting up with me for those of you. Who've listened to this again. Thank you very much and if you're listening to this for a third time, seek out a support group. When you look through my website, you can just email questions. Don't be shy. If you just have a question, don't think like I'm going to try to arm twist you. Just ask questions, just fill out the form, email me a question. I'm happy to offer that. And I'll send you the link to that podcast with the 12th archetype as well. And by the way, the six steps PDF six steps of daily success. It's basically a cheat sheet of just what to remember every day to make sure you take care of with your content marketing.

Bill Soroka (01:21:55):

Beautiful. Thanks again, Dan.

Dan Shinder (01:21:58):

Cheers!

Bill

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