This is the Social Strategy Podcast, episode lucky number 21. Welcome to the Social Strategy Podcast, where it's all about making the most of your business with smart tips on what's working now in social media, online business, and good old-fashioned network. And now your host, who's also known as Ross PR on Twitter, Vernon Ross. As a business owner, you know that you need to have on mobile website.
Duda Mobile is going to take care of that for you. Just go out to DudaMobile.com and enter promo code Ross15 to save $15 on an annual subscription and get a new mobile website in minutes. Check them out, DudaMobile.com, promo code Ross15. Hey guys, this is Vernon Ross and welcome to the Social Strategy Podcast.
We're going to do the best in online business, social media, and good old-fashioned networking. And today my friends, I have a guy on here that I've been wanting to get on this podcast like before it started. He was on my list of podcast, bucket list people to get. And today it is Chris Brogan.
He's a CEO and owner of Owner Mac. He also runs a company called Human Business Works. Really interesting company. It comprises of coaching, speaking, courses that you can take online to better yourself.
And just all around entrepreneurial improvement endeavor. Chris is all about innovation, everything social media. And here recently, just published a book, The Freaks Shell and Herothi Earth. It's a book about entrepreneurship, weirdos, misfits, and world-dominated.
That's actually all in the title I'm going to have in the show notes. Chris, how you doing, man? Welcome to the podcast. Best I've ever been.
How are you? That's good, man. I'm awesome. I'm awesome.
Quite a few difficulties today starting the podcast, but sometimes you got to pay Murphy, right? Sometimes it happens that way. But with passion, vision, and creativity, we can move through anything, can't we? There you go.
That's tweetable. It's your line. I'm just stealing your stuff at this point. Right, right.
So, question. I have to wonder, I was looking through the book and some things I've been reading about maybe two or three books right now. And one of them, you know, I'm listening to slash reading is The War of Art. And some of the things that Pressfield talks about in the book, I think they parallel to what you're talking about in Freakshell and Herothi Earth, at least from, I think, your overall perspective on the way you view business.
And so what I wanted to ask you and what I've always wanted to ask people like you that achieve this higher level of business is how did you know when you actually had gone pro? Because Pressfield talks about going pro and you talk about, you know, basically weaponizing your freakishness and your weirdo factors to, you know, maximize business and go forth and do your thing. How did you know when you were becoming pro? That's a good question.
And it's one of those kinds of things where it happens a little bit over time. You have to understand that, you know, there's a scenario where you think for a while that you're not and anything for a while, maybe you are. And then there's a kind of thing where even when you are pro, it doesn't matter. I mean, you still have crappy days.
I mean, I didn't make payroll March or April in my business for the first time in having a business. And it was like, yikes. Now I have to work even harder because Robin and I did not pay ourselves. And we made sure Ron, our third guy in the company got paid, but that was it.
So you know, first off, once you quote unquote make it, you can still have crappy days. You can still lose the whole farm. Everything can still go just as wrong as it does when you're starting out. When you're pro is, I would say when you start to feel like you have a sense of domain knowledge that you're doing a lot more than just a lip service, but that you can actually deliver on all kinds of different levels on what you're trying to deliver on.
So, you know, in my case, I am a business advisor and I do strategic advice as well. And so I find that if somebody asked me questions and I know enough of the answers and I don't have to say I don't know anymore, then I'm probably doing it wrong. So, first off, you have to really be willing to not know things. Second, I guess what the deal is, is that you hope that people will start to understand what value you bring and what you're, you know, what you charge and why there's value in that.
And I would say that when you know is when you make the choice to say, you know, here's how much I charge and no one laughs at you the first time. You know, I think that's probably a good day. Right, right, right. That is awesome.
Yeah, I've had that actually where somebody's laughed when I told them how much I charge. Like, oh, really? Why is that? But, you know, again, it's one of those value things.
So, so with that, when you, you kind of figure it out over time. And I think most entrepreneurs go through that where they, they get to the point, they get to that, that breaking point, that matrix moment where they're like, oh, I'm awake and I understand exactly what I need to do. Then the how to part. And I think your book covers that actually pretty well as far as building a framework.
But how do you, how do you get to people, you know, to that framework? Because I don't think everybody can make that. And of course, not everyone's going to be an entrepreneur. But I know that there are people that really want to do their own thing.
And they've got the passion and they think they've got the drive. But how do you, in your book, how do you get them to that, that next level where they're actually taking the right action? Wow. That's pretty much the question, Vernon.
I would say that a lot of times where everyone goes a little crazy is, you know, everyone has a lot of the answers and they just don't execute on them. You know, I'm very big fan of saying, you know what to do. You know what I mean? There's a lot of times when you are, say, for instance, you're dying and you're like, wow, it's really weird.
This scale hasn't moved in a few weeks. I better go find some new diet book because clearly this isn't working. And then you're thinking, yeah, and I had a slice of pizza the other night that wasn't on the diet and I ate a whole sleeve of wrist crackers. And you know why you're not losing weight.
You know, your diet's not broken. Your discipline is broken. And so with execution, I mean, I guess one thing that I would say for people is that a lot of people are so overwhelmed that they don't know where to start. And so one of the things I did with this book was I started by helping people understand what a good definition of success might look like.
I showed people how to look for different kinds of business goals. Most people don't start because they're afraid that they don't know enough. And I said, you fall in love with not knowing it. And I walked right through the system of how someone could do this.
And then I made sure that the very last chapter of the book was kind of a summary, but also a whole push to make sure that people took action. And I think that that's, you know, giving people permission, giving them all the steps and then giving them kind of a push to do it is what separates this from most book books. And then also I think it's what separates lots of people's choice from thinking about it to I'll do something. And you know, once you start taking those actions, at least I've found it in my own business and the way that I go about trying to do things is that of course you have the impostive syndrome when you really start doing stuff and you start moving and things seem to fall in place through serendipity and other stuff that just goes on and goes right in your business.
But it's sometimes it's hard to give your permission, your self permission to be successful. How do you deal with that? You know, there's a lot to that question. I mean, there's a whole lot with regards to making sure that people understand where we set our high watermarks.
I mean, there's this thing where we say, you know, man, fully I could make whatever it is, you know, if only I could make 20,000 a month, can you imagine what life would be like if I made 20,000 a month? And then you finally get there and you're like, oh, I'm making 20,000 a month. And you think that's see, I hit my goal and I got it. And you never start to say, well, if only I could make 50,000 a month or you say, this is enough and here's why, you know, there's all kinds of ways that you can look at it.
And I always make sure, especially in the chapter I wrote about doing the success, I make sure that people understand that success has a lot of different definitions and you've got to pick the one that's important to you. And why is because, you know, for instance, somebody will say to me that their big goal is to make a millionaire and I go, oh, that's great. That's 84,000 a month. Then you go split that into, you know, four point something weeks.
Do you know what that number starts to look like? It's a big number. And so, you know, once you start looking at 84,000 divided, it's 20 something thousand a week. And then I say, how are you going to get that dead air?
Then they always come back and say, you know, maybe not a millionaire. So I would say that that's part of the process as well is just really understanding that, you know, the future is made up of every day. The future is made up of now. And so if you don't work on what daily life looks like, you're not going to figure out what's your success.
And so in setting those high watermarks and trying to figure out where those are, you have to always kind of recheck yourself. You have to start thinking, you know, all right, this is what I consider the high watermark, but what is it or what could it be or how big could I get? And you have to keep saying, I'm good enough or I'm worth it. You know, that's the weirdest thing I've ever had in my life for.
And so in a very small arena, I'm internet famous, you know, such that people see me and they get star struck and they can't speak and things like that, which is the nuttiest weirdest thing in the world to me because I'm just like, you know, I pay someone to put on my pants one leg at a time just like you. And when I think of that, I'm always, you know, humble. I'm always like, wow, I can't believe people feel that way. But then second, of course, I've had my shots too.
You know, the first time I got to shake Tony Robbins hand, I had to say to myself multiple times, I am enough. Like, I am such the right guy to be in this room right now. He was interviewing me for his internet money master series, this guy that I grew up listening to his tapes in my car. And I was like, wow, I'm the guest.
Like, I'm the vaunted one. You know, it was a really weird feeling. But I'll tell you this, once you start believing that and once you start thinking, not that your poop doesn't stink because it's really important to remember your poop always stinks, but that you're definitely worth it, then things kind of open up. Yeah, that's amazing.
I don't know how I would react if I met Tony Robbins. Really? Do what I did. You'd be like, holy crap, you're huge.
Like he's six foot a million. His hand could like a golf my hand to my arm and part of my shoulder. That's hilarious. So, you know, with that, it's funny when I was, I was kind of, you know, thumbing through your book and just thinking about stuff in general.
And one of the questions that I get from people, you know, I do a little bit of speaking here and there. You do a lot of speaking everywhere. Sure. How did you first start getting booked for speaking gigs?
Was it because you knew your craft and you knew what you were doing and people kind of caught wind of it and sought you out or did you actually seek out speaking gigs? Oh crap, I wish people just started ringing the bell. That would be amazing. No, let me see.
So, first off, I went to an event called Bar Camp, which was this event where anyone could speak if they wanted it. If you knew something about technology and you wanted to share it, you just did it. And then I was there with my friend Christopher Penn, who I met at that event. We became friends and I started an event with him called PUBC Camp.
Yeah. And it was all about podcasts and all that. Yeah. So, we found it back in 06.
Pretty easy to get speaking gigs if you start your own event because you just speak at your own event. From there, my first paid gig was to go speak at constant contact headquarters and that was kind of fun. And another bunch of small level speaking gigs showed up. And then my biggest break, I was walking down the hallway itself by Southwest and Guy Kawasaki stops and he says, hey, did you get that letter?
And I said, I get a lot of letters, guy. Which one? The one where I make you a lot of money. Oh.
And he said, you know, it's for Thompson Reuters, they're having a big merger. We got invited to speak there. I told them you have to be on the list and make sure you charge them a lot of money. And so I lean in really close and I go, guy, I charge 2,500 a speech.
What should I charge him? He goes, 25,000. And I was like, oh, okay. So I said, yes.
And I asked the question. And so we get the phone call and they're like, so what's your speaking fee? And I say, 25,000. Like I said it every day of my whole life.
And then there was this pause. And honestly, the pause is probably like 42 seconds. But in my head, it was 20 minutes long. And it's just dead air.
And I'm sure that they have their fist over the phone going, this is baloney. I don't even know this guy. And so the time passes and they say, would you take 20? And I swear that by the time TY had come out of their lips, I said, yes, that's great.
20 is good. And that's when I started charging 20,000 a speech. Shortly afterwards, trust agents hit the New York Times bestseller list. And I could charge 20,000 a speech because I knew I was worth it.
But really, I mean, I've mastered it by doing thousands of speeches. I've done as many as a few hundred a year since 2007. And some of those were free in the old days. Some of them are still free nowadays.
If it's some really important friend of mine, I didn't charge anything to be at the new media expo, for instance. But it was fun. I wasn't even on the list to speak. I just spoke with him.
Everybody was calling it a storm. It was stormy. And the massive snowman getting. So by all means, be available.
I think it's a deal. So with that, you mentioned that guy Kawasaki stopped you and was like, hey, did you get that letter? How do you establish? I got this question from a guy.
He's like, dude, how do I network? I see you all over the place. You're doing all kinds of stuff. You know, your podcast is great.
You're doing it. And I'm like, yeah, I'm doing it at a just I'm just at a different place on a timeline you are right now. But he didn't really understand how to get those kind of advocates that basically turn you on opportunities. Because what I've noticed is that if there weren't people who are further down the timeline than I am, advocating for me to, you know, be in the club, then I just I wouldn't be there.
How did you make that connection with somebody like guy? How did you level up like that? Jeez, I have no idea. He just randomly poked those head out and said hi to me.
That's totally true. And there were things like there were things like that that happened a bunch of times in a row. And I just said, you know, and he runs Giga Home on the media and all that and he's an investor and all that. And he just said, wow, I guess I hadn't really noticed you before.
And he tweeted a bunch of links to some of my blog and suddenly crapped tons of people showed up. There's lots of situations like that in none of those situations that I ever come kissing up to anybody. I never like when I made friends with Seth Godin, it was just as peers, you know, we were peers. We showed up at the same event.
It was kind of fun, but there was never anything, you know, never anything that where I had to like love him. I believe me, I'm a fanboy of Seth Godin. I'm a fanboy of all these guys. But never in that way that like I ever felt like I'm not worthy.
Never in that way that I felt like I needed there not to do anything. That's doing it wrong. That's like the absolute opposite of a good idea because the real opportunity is to just realize you're already worth it and then find cool, interesting, up and coming people. The way I got where I got was that I really just showed as much love as I could to the up and commerce.
And that's really the big opportunity because there's so many more people out there who are like you and who are in kind of a rough spot than you are going to do your best to connect with them and show, you know, your value in other ways by giving them love, et cetera. You know, I just did an interview with a pretty good friend of mine, a met him at a new media expo and we just connected and hit it off. Got a name Toby Sillgato. And one of the things that he said, and I don't know if it's his or if he got it from somewhere else.
You know, we hear so many things and listen to so many things who knows. But he's like, you know, you got to know your why. And I know I've heard that before, but I think people have a difficulty in knowing their why. Just like the example you gave with, oh, I want to make a million dollars, you know, a month or, you know, $20,000 a month and they don't know the why behind that, you know, that dollar amount.
How do you help when you coach people? How do you help them find their why? What do you do? You know, that's the number one question for an because a lot of the different people that are working with right now as a business coach, it's been having them start to define that kernel, you know, like the bottom of their operating system, the thing that makes them invited to the table.
It's a blend of things. It's sort of, if I gave you sort of a formula, it would be what can you do really well, A, that people would pay you for, B, and then you actually know how to reach those people, C. That's the real thing because what people get around all the time is they talk about why they're this or that expert or why they're important or why they're valuable or why they're worth it. What most people want in life is how do you solve my problem.
And that's really what they're looking for. Yeah, that's interesting. Nobody ever identifies the issue. They're always talking about their credentials and this and that.
And I think you did a recent blog post about credentials, didn't you? I don't know, maybe. I do that kind of stuff. But yeah, I mean, a lot of times it's this whole scenario where, you know, what everyone's looking for in life is how can you make my life better?
That's not everyone's walking in. What's in it for me? So if you get in wonder of the people to say, you know, I'm the kind of person who, you know, or I help you buy, then that's way more interesting than, you know, I once shook Jay-Z's hand at a concert. Which by the way would really give me a lot of, you know, I would love that because I love Jay-Z, but it wouldn't really help just any old person.
Yeah, watch out for someone angel. She might be in the elevator. Yeah. And I thought you were right about that.
So no, I think, you know, think about two questions ago, you asked me, you know, what's it like? How do you get established? How do you get people to notice you? You know what you did?
You came up to me and just talked to me in the hallway and you were like, just who you were and you were a regular person and you were friendly and lovable. I didn't care about your podcast, you know, as a credential. I just said, geez, Vernon seems like a really nice guy. And that's all I had.
You know, I mean, like it didn't take much more than that. I mean, be nice, be helpful, be friendly. Awesome. You know, Chris, I know that you're busy and you got stuff to do and I know you got to run.
Hey, I appreciate you jumping on the podcast for a minute to talk to me and spend some time and giving us some knowledge. I think it was a really good interview, even though it was short because a lot of useful information. I thank you for that. Well, my friend, thank you.
And you will find that brevity is a wonderful tool for getting all the best stuff. I have been experiencing that. Yes, indeed. All right, man.
Hey, I do appreciate it. And thanks so much. Oh, my honor, pleasure. Thank you so much.
We'll talk soon. All right. Thanks, bye bye. So let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor, do the mobile.
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They just plug your site right into the templates and it makes it look amazing. You guys really should check it out and it's free to try. So just go out to do the mobile.com and enter your web address. Check it out and see what your site looks like on mobile.
And remember, if you sign up, you can save $15 on an annual subscription with a promo code Ross15 or in the multi-screen experience, promo code Ross20. Thanks a lot and let's get back to the interview. Okay guys, you know, that was an amazing time I had with Chris. I hope you guys got as much out of that as I did.
It seemed like a short interview. I know, but there was so much information in an interview about going pro, becoming an owner, being your own boss and doing your own thing on your terms. That's what freaks, the freaks shell in here at the earth is all about. It's about doing your thing on your own terms, taking that passion.
And then finally, say passion is not enough and it's not. It takes that passion and it helps you put it into a framework. And then the very last part of the book drives you to action. And I think that's what makes this business book instructional book for entrepreneurs that just have a freaky passion for whatever it is you have a passion for.
If you're weirdo about this or you're passionate about that, like coffee, like a buddy of mine, the barista at Starbucks, Max, he is insane about coffee and the new clover system that they have here at the local Starbucks. Max is crazy about coffee. If he wants to do his own coffee thing, he's going to be one of the people that is so super hyper focused on what he's doing. That is what's going to make his business great.
The first thing is that you do need a framework around what it is that you're talking about doing. And I thought it was interesting that Chris pointed out that there's three things as far as getting noticed. So getting your business noticed or whatever it is that you're pursuing. It's A, what can you really do well?
B, that people are going to pay you for? And C, do you know how to reach those people? Those three things are so important. You know, what do you do?
Have you figured out what you do well? And if people will actually pay you for it, that's the that's the mark of becoming pro. Not that you're just passionate about something, but whether or not people are going to pay you for it is hard. It is a struggle, my friends, to find people that want to pay you for the thing it is that you want to do.
And I think that's the way that you know business that gets passed. And as you guys may have heard, Chris shared that this is his first time back in April that they weren't able to make payroll. And so him and his business partner had to go, you know, without salaries so that their other employee could get paid. You would think that somebody at Chris Brogan's level doesn't run into that, but you run into that kind of stuff all the time where you have to pull back on expenses or being able to enjoy a salary personally so you can take care of your suppliers or take care of your employees if you have employees or whatever the situation is in your business.
There was so much in this interview, you know, one of the funny things and I don't know if you guys caught it, but in my Twitter profile, I have passion, vision and creativity. And in the very part, first part of the interview Chris goes because this was the second step up and get ready for the interview from hell. Everything went wrong. My internet connection wasn't acting right.
I had a reboot. My Mac wouldn't reboot. It got stuck in the middle of coming back up a minute before we were supposed to jump on the phone. And you know, when I talked to him, he's like, yeah, man, I'm pressed for time.
But yeah, I got a few minutes to jump in with you and talk to you and I love to do your podcast. So, you know, we agreed, set it up and then technical problems, of course, technical problems. So yes, I was paying Murphy today. And he quoted me my own saying with passion, vision, creativity, you know, we can we can go through anything.
I can't wait. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. You know, it took me a minute. I'm like, holy crap, that is my stuff that Chris Brogan just quoted me on my podcast.
That is all kinds of awesome. Anyway, guys, I know this one was short and I'm not going to just drag it out. I just wanted to say that. And oh, by the way, look for a video.
I'm going to do a video about do the mobile and just showing you guys the actual conversion process because I've got a couple questions about that and some of the stuff you can do. I think you guys are going to be pretty amazed about that. Also on June the 8th, if you go out to free Friday coaching.com, I'm going to be launching a new site and it's just for my coaching stuff, just for the coaching stuff and some of the free information I give. There's a membership site that you can sign up for that for, you know, some of the free coaching stuff that you can sign up for.
I'm going to be able to get the recordings because I'm not actually making the recordings available for the general public to just download. I'm not going to do it in a podcast or anything else like that. It's just a half hour, you know, a quick phone call every other Friday. We may be moving the time to seven o'clock PM because a lot of people can't make the one o'clock PM central standard time, especially my friends on the East Coast because it's right after lunch.
So it's two o'clock there and people on the West Coast. I don't think they're up yet. So knocking my friends on the West Coast. We may be moving those times to seven o'clock instead of one o'clock, but I will let you know because we do have a call coming up in the next day.
So look for the tweets with the image of the free Friday coaching call with the phone number and the pin number you need to use. Remember, there's only 10 spots to get in. So get in and ask your questions. We're going to be talking about how to get noticed.
And I actually just went over that in the notes. We're going to talk about how to get noticed, how to get noticed, how to make those connections. I'm getting a lot of questions about networking and how to get noticed and, you know, how you meet influential people and how you connect to them. So that is a great subject to talk about in a coaching call.
So looking forward to that. So we didn't get a chance to talk about where to find Chris online. You can find Chris online at ownermag.com. That's the owner magazine website that we talked about.
You can also find him at humanbusinessworks.com. That's the business side. So if you need a book, Chris to speak, you want to look at the blog, you want to hire them, you want to take some of the courses that we talked about, O-M-F-G. That is actually a course out there.
And you guys should take it because it's only like nine bucks and it is an awesome amount of value. So definitely check that out. You can also find him at Chris Brogan.com or you can track him down on Twitter at Chris Brogan. So guys, check him out online.
That's all Chris's contact information that we didn't get a chance to share during the episode. And in the next episode, I'm actually going to be dropping another one this week. If you can believe that. I want to get this one out.
Good friend of mine. You guys are going to enjoy this one millionaire telling you how to become a millionaire. This is going to be awesome. So until next time, guys, I will see you in the next episode.