How to Stand Out in a World Of Social Media Noise with Brian Fanzo

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTSmall businesses are where the passion is, and that’s who people want to spend their money with. It’s no longer big companies and high budgets, so everyone has an equal chance.Tell your personal story with social media and people will want to buy from you.People that are listening to speakers want to be a part of the conversation. They don’t want to be talked at, but instead brought along on the journey with you.It’s not about knowing your audience and knowing your subject matter, its about conveying things in way that makes people want to listen, learn and do.Whatever you’re doing in store or in person, you need to do online. Tell stories, care and show you’re interested in your clients and customers.3 out of 4 people would rather buy into an ‘experience’ than a product, so tailor your website and social media to reflect this.Limitations inspire creativity.It’s important to have good relationships with people to help grow the speaking side of the business. The more times you speak, the more speaking gigs you will get. Put yourself out there and be willing to immerse yourself into events to show your worth. Own everything that makes you a success.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Although it may not seem like it, digital marketing and social media creates a level playing field for both large and small businesses. You don’t have to have big budgets to succeed where it comes to marketing as it’s all about telling your story and focussing on where the heart is.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSIntroducing Brian Fanzo – 03:50Tell your story with marketing – 14:00Brian’s story and how he got started - 20:09Being a natural on stage 30:30Being the same person offline as you are online 37:30Growing the speaking side of your business 44:00LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODEiSocialFanzFomo FanzSMAC TalkBrian Fanzo TwitterBrian Fanzo InstagramTranscript below Hello and welcome to episode 37 of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast and as always, I am your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. This week there's gonna be no hanging about, we're gonna jump straight into it, because I am batching content right before I go to the States. I'm heading off to California and Laguna Beach for a conference, so I'm trying to get ahead. By the time this airs actually I'll be back, but I'm trying to get ahead, get these podcasts recorded so that I can then relax, maybe, for a little bit while I'm in California.So the inspiration for today's episode is all around how we're standing out in a really noisy environment. Social media world in particular is very noisy. There are a lot of people that do it, there are a lot of people that do what I do, lots of people trying to build their businesses, and I'm sure in your world, unless you're in a real niche area, there are also lots of other people that are trying to do what you do.Back on episode 26, which we'll link in the show notes, we talk about the five tips of building a personal brand, which if you're trying to stand out in a noisy industry, building a personal brand can be a great way for you to do that. And one of the areas we looked at when we talked about the ways to build your personal brand was speaking, and how if you're willing to speak and put yourself on stage, this can really help you stand out. Now personally, I love it. I know it's not for everyone, I know some people ... I think there's a stat that more people would be willing to bungee jump than speak on stage, I think. I could have just made that up.Anyway, I love speaking and it's an area that I wanna grow in my business. That's why I was so excited to interview today's podcast guest, the amazing Brian Fanzo. Now he spends about 80% of his time speaking and travelling all over the world to speak, and about 90% of his revenue now comes from speaking on stage. And to think that my business could be predominantly spent speaking would be like a dream come true.So Brian is the founder of iSocialFanz, and he says that he translates the geek speak and is on a mission to empower great people to connect with great people, and ideas to create life changing experiences. He's a millennial speaker and he mainly talks around change, collaboration and community. He's the proud dad of three beautiful girls, and is the host of the podcast FOMOFanz and SMACtalk. He used to work for the Department of Defence in Cybersecurity, so has taken quite a leap to do what he does now. As I've said, he speaks for a living and has travelled to over 70 countries, and has spoke at some of the world's largest events, including Social Media Marketing World, SXSW, CES Mobile World Congress. And Brian is a huge advocate of being authentic and showing up as his true self. He was a pleasure to interview and I know you are going to love him. So I'll waste no more time and we'll jump straight into that interview. Introducing Brian Fanzo Well it gives me so much pleasure to welcome you, Brian, to my podcast. Thank you so much for coming on.My pleasure, excited to be here.Oh, and honestly I am really, really excited. I've been following you for quite some time and watch your stuff, and actually last year you were meant to speak at Marketed Live weren't you, and-I was.There was a problem with your flight in coming out and you didn't, and you sent a video. So this feels like it's been a long time coming, which is cool, because I've been watching your stuff ever since.I know, I missed out on that opportunity but I'm glad we're able to still make connections and I get to watch the event from afar for the last two years, and very proud of those guys so maybe I'll have to make a trek out there next year.Oh do you know we'd love that, and honestly it's a great event. And one other thing that's really interesting, because one of the things I really want to talk to you about in a bit is about you speaking, but the funny thing is the UK does not have a lot of good events. We are not very good at it. You guys in the States do an amazing job, whereas over here we are terrible at it. We tend to do quite boring conferences, so we're starting to see some of that cool stuff coming over from that side of the world and actually Marketed Live is one of those that are really trying to up the game. We've got a couple of others that are over here that are quite good, but yeah, I think that's gonna be a really nice thing to watch and hopefully grow and see how that goes. So fingers crossed you can come across for that again.Sure.Brian I love your story and I love hearing where you've come from, and what you used to do, and how you got to do what you do now, which seems a little bit of a jump. So I would love it if you would share with my audience where you started and how you got to do what you do now.Sure. I guess I'm known for digital marketing social media today, but I went to school, I went to University for Computer Science, and I then I actually worked in Cybersecurity for the Department of Defence here in the United States for nine years. So it's definitely not your tradition path to marketing. I actually joke a lot that my guidance counsellors in school didn't really tell me very much about marketing. They always positioned it as, you just help the sales people sell. And to me I was like, eww I don't wanna do that, so I loved computers, I fell in love with computers, and then I had an amazing job. I had 32 direct reports that worked for me, employees that are on my team, and we grew a giant cyber security team that we were deploying training courses at all different military bases around the world.And so I got to travel, I've actually been to 74 countries, which is a tonne of countries, and it was great. I worked for the government, I travelled on government money, I did three trips to Iraq and two to Afghanistan during the early war years, and I got to work with the military. And I know you said your husband is in the military-Yes.And I have so much love for the military, I have military families that I love. I wasn't in the military, but for me it was my little ability to be able to educate them, help them do their job better. I believe the sacrifice that the military makes, anyone that's in the military, is beyond amazing right? It's something that I was able to do. I fell in love ... I went to school, I thought I loved computers. But what I learned in that job over my first 10 years of my career, was that it wasn't computers that I loved. I loved collaboration, I loved community, I loved changed, and really computers were what were facilitating collaboration, facilitating change, facilitating ... and so computers ended up being the byproduct, and I started working outside that realm and people would come and tell me, "Brian you don't really help me with technology, sometimes you help me remove technology, but what you're helping me do is be better at connecting in this world that is around technology".I think that's the quick segue of how I left the Department of Defence. I decided I just needed a change. I went and worked for a little small data centre company. I became