Chris Reeve Why and How everyone should build a Personal Brand CamBro Conversations Podcast 097

hello and welcome back to another episode of cambro conversations today's conversation i'm delighted to be joined by a recurring guest mr chris reeve chris welcome back thank you carl and uh what your audience won't know is that when we started this we had a little uh dance just to kind of like get the energy up and up and going before recording so i'm excited for this one yeah sometimes i wish i hit record for the preamble that i have with a lot of guests especially ones like you that i know so well and i'm friends with like we generally have such a bit of hype before it and you're like oh maybe maybe the audience would like to hear that but we promise in the next however long we're speaking for will bring the same energy yeah absolutely 100 really looking forward to it and uh for the people that that have probably thought i swear i know that guy from somewhere you do because i was on and i was on this podcast really early days wasn't i called and uh that was a bit more of a bit more of a random episode it encumbered lots of various subjects so it we're going to niche it down a little bit today to make sure that you guys get a lot more value which i'm so excited about yeah generally chris episode 4 in the podcast back in april 2020 it's still heavily listened to we still get shares on instagram stories from people don't we and you still get people speaking to you about it and that shows the value that that gave but like you say today we'll be a little bit more focused and a lot has happened since april 2020 you've got engaged you've got married norwich city got promoted to the premier league and you wrote the the tnc shanty song as well now i know all of this because of what you share on social media and what you've built up as a personal brand but my first question for you chris would be how have you built this personal brand over this number of years now do you know colin i probably fell into the world of personal branding if i'm honest and i i was just unapologetically myself which is something that i encourage everyone to be in it's really easy to say but quite difficult to do so hopefully we'll give people the the the railway track to follow on that um during this conversation but basically just because of the journey that i've been on which we obviously spoke about in the last pod around mum dying and i wasn't too smart at school i didn't i wasn't really academic i'd say i always just wanted to get out into the world of work and just do things and get going and be busy and have fun and so um i guess to use a gary vaynerchukism and i'm all about documenting and not creating and i take people on the journey with me and the more vulnerability that i showed people the more they trust me want to do business with me but also they want to be a guest on my podcast which is obviously covering this dodgy team nora city and um and yeah like it's it's great fun i would i categorically would not be where i am today and not have made the progress that i've made if i didn't double down on personal brand as i say i fell into it originally cole but but then i quickly realized that hang a minute this is one hell of a tool that if you really focus on cold you're an example of that you know i think if you can if you can almost get over yourself and accept the fact that actually people do find you interesting and they want to hear from you as the person rather than your corporate brand if that makes sense and you end up winning in all of your different areas of life no matter what industry you're doing or or or career you want to go down and so yeah i cannot recommend the world of of doubling down on personal brand enough col you mentioned there about vulnerability and you obviously have shown so much of that over the years and one of the reasons that i was drawn to like speak to you over the years and like we went back and forth of course away from the public discourse as well as publicly was that element of like realness that you show is there a line you draw though chris there's surely some stuff that you don't show do you know i think that i think the lines being blurred more than that before and and those of those people that are listening that are on linkedin for example you would have seen someone say this isn't facebook or any of that type of thing and i understand that there there is a line um but i think you set your own boundaries based on what you feel is appropriate to not share of course there's certain things which are hot topics around um around sharing uh for example swear words on linkedin or something like that so of course there are those boundaries that some people don't feel comfortable with but honestly there's never been a time where i've been brave and it's not paid off twofold and i'm not just talking vanity metrics like a few likes and shares on social media i'm talking i've shared something on social someone's then actually sent me a a dm or a private message off the back of that going wow chris that that content really resonates with me oh and speaking of which i've been meaning to speak to you a long time about social media management or social media coaching and so i just think rather than there being a corporate line as such i would just almost get my mindset in the just be more vulnerable just show more authenticity be be more you that doesn't necessarily mean going over the mark of of being rude or or or you know like there's various things that that you know that it's fairly common that people would would know like when when you share a political view on social media you know you're probably going to get a little bit of heat for it so you know where these red flags are and ultimately as long as that they are pushing you further towards what i would call your north star then it's great i always say to the companies that look after cole you know what's stopping you from posting that social post and they say oh i think i'll lose my reputation or i might annoy my manager or something like that or this and that and and it's now it's always just catastrophic thinking it never ever happens um and you know what if it goes wrong you've got an opportunity to show your exceptional customer experience and and customer service by responding to them with kindness with empathy or ultimately you can just take it down and anything that goes out on social media that doesn't hit the mark you delete it and people have forgotten about it 24 hours later it's just so fast moving col yeah one of the observations that i thought about before pulling this episode together with you was around relationships and i don't know i don't know your thoughts on this but i when i first met you i probably knew you were in a relationship but i wouldn't have known as much about it whereas i think in more recent months and years where you've shown you're getting engaged you've shown you're getting married it's obviously very clear that you are in a very serious relationship and it's one that's moving forward did you consciously start to share more about that or was was ever a thought process for you um do you do you know what's been um that's a really interesting question actually i i mean i'm very blessed and lucky and grateful to have been with becky basically my whole life i don't even know what a day is i'm a bit of a weirdo on that front i've always been with the same girl so i've always felt comfortable with with sharing that although what i will be honest about is that as my podcast that i'm on with with with jack and and stuff covering narcissists that grew in popularity there is almost this sense of you don't want to put um a family member out there or a partner out there because you're worried that they're gonna start getting abuse um but that's social that's the risk that you take and ultimately again it's paid off by me doing that i'm not i'm not sharing loads on there about you know what me and becky doing at the weekend or here we are in nando's again or anything like that but yeah like key life moments what why the hell not you know i think i think people when they it's just it's being relatable and it and it's and it's getting yourself on this grounded level with them to enable them to trust you and that is what i preach to all my clients all the time social media is a tool to help your prospective customers trust you more and speed up the process between prospect and customer that's all social is and so the more trust that you can inject into these social platforms the more you'll get out of them it's as simple as that yeah i can certainly speak to that both in my kind of fitness self-developing space but also in my corporate career as well with that in mind who should be building a personal brand cause you and i are speaking as two people with over 10k followers on instagram both with podcasts we're relatable in many senses but but hard to relate to in others because we've maybe taken personal branding to an extreme where it's such an important part of what we do but for many people listening to this they're probably that they're probably much further down the ladder when it comes to thinking about like how often should i post on social what should i be doing should i do i even need to show up on social is that important for me so who do you think should be building a personal brand well what i would say first of all to just to zoom out on that terminology personal brand and because that might be fluffy and that might really not hit the mark with people so let's actually just change personal brand to reputation management okay put it in a corporate way okay that's all this exercise is and therefore there are lots of people listening to this now call that are in more corporate sectors and that makes sense to them okay it's just reputation management it's almost personal pr it's you are your own marketing team okay so whether you are trying to um work for a certain company in the future or you want to build your own business or actually you just want your customers to to to trust you more as we've spoken about it's always worth posting on social we i mean i don't i feel like i don't need to say it anymore like social is here to stay it's not going anywhere it's part of our everyday lives as much as it can cause mental health challenges etc it's something that when you embrace it but most importantly take control of it and make it work for you carl that's the key point there make social work for you rather than it's a chore you know and and so no matter if you're you know i work with accountants i work with um physios i work with people in like the world of legal now and you know these are all people where you would say oh i'm not sure they should be posting it on social but actually the more they have the more people trust them so they've kept their customers for longer increase their client lifetime value etc etc etc this goes on so honestly it's gonna sound cliche but i would genuinely say anyone anyone should want to and explore reputation management more on social media the number of sectors you've listed off there and i know from a personal perspective that you've been involved with is hopefully reassurance for people that they should be diving into this regardless of whether they want to end up with a podcast about their football team or they want to have a my protein affiliate deal it's not about that it's about reputation and i've got a bezos quote which i absolutely love your personal brand is what others say about you when you leave the room and that resonates so hard to what you've just said about reputation because what is your reputation if it's not what people say about you behind your back and obviously we've got negative connotations there speaking behind your back but ultimately you want people to say that chris reeve guy knows a lot about social media wow like did you see what he did with this account or did you see and what he said on his post the other day people speaking about you from a reputational standpoint and having good things to say can only be enhanced by you showing up and sharing the highlights of course they are on social media about what you're up to a hundred percent colin i i think i think just again just to try and get my headspace into more of a corporate world to help people understand this if you think about your career progression or or anything when you turn up in just the room in a physical normal real world space and that's where you're improving your reputation you're on the dance floor then you're in front of people and that and by the way this isn't just like a corporate speech or something like it could just be a cup of coffee with someone right that's where the energy exchange is but for me i'm like well hang on a minute i want to get to where i want to get to a lot faster than just when i can turn up in rooms for the people so what i'm going to do is i'm going to prove my improve my personal brand or my reputation each day on social media so because you never know who's watching you never know who sees something who comes across it and and all of these little seeds that you're planting on this consistent basis carl it always adds up it always adds up and people are just so what i mean we'll go into more detail i think a big part of the reason why people don't do this is that they think that they've got to create this perfect social media post this 10 out of 10 piece of content i've got news for you it doesn't exist just post something that you know about give value to people show vulnerability and authenticity and it can just be a one-liner on linkedin as long as it's about who you are and what you do you are moving the needle forwards and i i think you you nailed it cole i'm not saying that everyone needs to be an influencer i'm not saying everyone needs to grow this huge personal brand empire and start selling my protein or something you don't have to do that if you enjoy it because the sector in great and you know i i have companies approach me now to to to leverage my audience and my engagement but that's been a consequence of building over a number of years you don't have to think about it to use this to hit your goals not to become an influencer because i understand that's not for everyone yeah there'll be a lot of introverts listening and i and i say that with respect by the way because introverts are awesome you don't have to be an extrovert but even an introvert you need to be posting on social about who you are and what you do to get to your got to hit your goals sooner simple as that i'm going to put a pen in the introverted piece because that will be our a decent percentage of the audience we're going to come back to that okay but before we do i think it'd be helpful for us to bring to life on a smaller scale what you've said around you never know who's watching because linkedin shows you sometimes who's visited your profile instagram stories you can see who's watching your stories if you spend the time scrolling down that i would strongly advise when spoken with mental health do not start looking at that because that's just bad for your head but you never know who's watching and on a smaller level away from we've just spoken about my protein deals and people who wanted to sponsor your podcast chris or send you to a nice restaurant in norwich and all that kind of stuff that you get up to i've had job offers through linkedin i've had people want to get do business with me who have been watching my stuff never liking it never commenting but continually seeing it sometimes not even following or connected with me but they've been checking in and seeing what i've been up to and it's ended up in either money in my pocket or enhanced reputation in a sector that i want to be well thought of in and i wondered if you could give some examples that are similar to that on that kind of smaller scale away from maybe where where we're shooting at just now because like for example again like amazing example chris and i had the most powerful episode in episode 4 of this podcast and some of the stuff off the back it was great some clients worked with chris but also we got involved with a brand together in in slater menswear which is incredible we created brilliant content off the back of it with inside men's minds so a lot of good things happen at that kind of higher level but a lot of stuff happens way before that with your regular social post 100 call like i i guess the message here before we go into the why and the story and stuff is actually by just making the conscious decision to get yourself out there to talk about who you are what you do you instantly win that example i want to talk about cole and and and i came on your podcast to support you as a friend of mine and of course i was using these clips for social and stuff to again get those consistent posts out for people to trust me so they know i know what i'm talking about now i you know i'm based in norwich in in norfolk and you know most of my clients at the time were here i wasn't international then for sure and all of a sudden i had slaters knocking on my door going chris you know what we like to cut to your gym i want to get you involved in our in in our in our brand and i'm thinking to myself hang on a minute i've got a receding hairline i'm not particularly attractive i'm not a model i don't take pit i don't take photos and i'm thinking to yourself why do slaters want to work with me but this has all come off the fact that i just chose to put myself out there and i would have never got that opportunity if i hadn't and you you you raise a brilliant point carl about people you don't know who's watching and i think the very basic understanding of social his likes is comments is story views and stuff like that i think of i think of social actually sometimes again using as a tool as network penetration which sounds quite aggressive but what i'm trying to do is i'm trying to get into people's networks right because i don't have to spend necessarily lots of money on that in terms of marketing budget for myself or my business by doing a piece of content with someone so i'm gonna do this with you today carl then what's going to happen is i'm going to complement my experience about what we've done on social you're going to share it with your network and then all of a sudden i'm going to be exposed to all of your network and vice versa you're going to be exposed to my network um and yeah like people are more conscious than ever before about leaving a digital footprint as well which is a key point so i think people are always disheartened by they put a link didn't post out that they spent 20 minutes writing or they put an instagram caption on that only gets i know 25 likes or something and they're really down heartened by that and even sometimes worse they delete the post that they've worked so long on because it didn't get that public-facing vanity metric but you don't know that two days later a director of business is going to look at that and make the decision i trust that guy and then they're going to end up working with you or giving you an opportunity so i think though that's maybe like my main points on that because um is choosing to go for it is not being that not being um downbeat around the vanity metrics of social and also think about social from a network penetration point of view as well you know breaking into the networks that you want to get to because you might feel quite small on social i've only got to i've only got 20 connections or i've only got 15 followers on instagram or i don't really use facebook but as soon as you just get your headspace out of that the the latent potential for anyone listening is ridiculous it's mad it's also the quality of who's seeing it as well so i could have like for example i could post particular types of content on my instagram which was primarily built through fitness and self-development content and if i'm posting about furniture which is the industry that i'm in now there's going to be a very very small number of people within that that find that valuable and might take me up on that and want a quote for me to refurbish their student house or whatever it is they're up to but if i post on linkedin with my fitness and my self-development content a lot of my connections on there will not find that as valuable because they're not in that niche either so it's quite often about the quality of who you're speaking to and it could be the case of that again chris hope maybe you know this but that kind of it's like a thousand true fans that people speak about and it's not so much about having this gigantic terrifying size audience it's about having people who really really resonate with what you're up to and if one or two of them convert into customers or friends or whatever your metric is of success then that's a win rather than growing it to an extent where all every one of my posts get gets 500 likes yeah great but how many people inquire about your services none it doesn't mean anything like like honestly i say this time and time again and it's getting to the point where maybe i'm about to be i might get penalized for it in some way but i'm so anti-likes cold they're they're just pointless the only metric on social that matters is conversation started it's social media you're meant to be sociable on social media it's not a billboard that you post stuff to and and you know you just get these little ticks so it's not just like tinder where you get like all your swipes and stuff not that i'd know about that but you get my point colors that if i post a piece of content that gets 100 likes zero comments that's when i'm a bit like oh that thing goes well as i thought but if i get one like and one comment i've started a conversation with someone boom that's the only metric that matters on social media it's as simple as that yeah undoubtedly that leads me on to asking about some of the platforms we've named loads already in the conversation so far but i know there's some that you're particularly passionate that people dive into what are those and why absolutely i think a bit of platform reality might be a good thing to start with as well cole which is that facebook and instagram and now more than ever before especially facebook very much what i would call pay to play platforms and what that means is that if you want to if you want to progress quicker you're going to have to put additional spend into that platform to increase your reach to create more of those conversations there's two two key platforms for today that people need to at least know that they need to do it and stop living in denial one of them is linkedin it's crazy called the amount of people that are on instagram twitter facebook but the only uh they only upload their digital cv to linkedin they're not posting content to linkedin linkedin apart from the platform i'm about to mention it's got the best organic traction right now so you can go viral on linkedin so much easier than any other platform any other platform and it's it's incredible like incredible i've spoken to people all over the world as a consequence of just one linkedin post which has been shared and shared and shared and i don't think that's happening in my observations on facebook and instagram as much anymore the other platform call is tick tock people have tried to i've called it ostrich people have put their head in the sand on tick tock for so long they've gone oh it's just a phase oh here we go it's just another platform i don't need that for my target market and then they're seeing okay doctors are on it accountants are on it people legal are on it all of these people with something niche to talk about are just publishing content on there and they're getting famous cole because the the traction on tick tock right now is unparalleled it's the number one platform for audience growth and if no matter what niche you're in if you decide today to start your tick tock account and you just get yourself on camera doing a selfie video giving value talking about a subject and edutaining i call it either educating or entertaining people you're going to make a tremendous amount of progress and i know what someone's saying right now in the head they're saying yeah but i can't get business from tick tock nonsense absolute nonsense that's a complete myth because again it's a trust tool you will get business through tick tock if you consistently post there i promise you that first things first on linkedin then the the viral capability on linkedin is incredible uh again to give an example from my life to try and bring this to life for the listeners i know you're very successful in there i love linkedin because it goes direct to the eyes of the people that are in my target market or in my peer group and that is who i want to see my thing and the way it works is if we think back to like facebook when maybe we first got it like 2009 2010 like towards the end of school for you and i chris when you liked a photo or a post it showed up on your friend's feeds that you'd like to commented on something and it used to get people in trouble because they would maybe like a photo of a girl and the girl they were talking i can't believe you've just gone and liked sarah's folks when you're like oh god i've been caught but the fact that it ends up on their feed like increases your reach exponentially and you and i were joking about instagram at times before we hit record i posted this a very similar post similar photo similar caption a little bit more businessly for linkedin because i was trying to drive inquiry about it being my six month anniversary in my new job and that was that was posted yesterday i have uh i have around 2000 connections on linkedin so a decent number of connections but my reach was more than triple that so i had about six thousand on instagram where i've got almost 15 000 followers my reach was less than that so that should tell you everything you need to know about which platform is rewarding you for showing up with same level of content obviously tweaking it slightly so it's more appropriate for that platform and and and hitting the kind of spot you want it to but there we go there's the there's the live example just yesterday yeah i call you you're so right and you've you've spoken about it from your personal experience and i and i'll share some industry insight with with the with the listeners now and that is the this is the you this is the journey that every social media platform goes on okay it was easy to grow a facebook page when it first started twitter it was so easy to grow a following on twitter i actually think that i probably got 60 or even 70 of my twitter audience from back in the day because it's so easy to grow and then when more ad spend goes and the platform grows up matures naturally things get more difficult to grow so please for god's sake listen get yourself on tiktok get yourself on linkedin and start publishing content is it it's an opportunity that you've got now but i would honestly say in a year's time it's going to be it's going to be even more difficult so get going and get going now and just start publishing content and you raise a really good point about linkedin cod as well in terms of business people just post content there but one of the uh daily activities that i did uh for i think an entire year actually was i connected with 20 people in my target market every day okay so i'm not just posting content and just kind of hoping it flies i'm putting more people into the top of my funnel and that's the great thing about linkedin you can you can genuinely target the people you want to see your content now that's really cool because it's an opportunity you don't really have on these other platforms from an organic perspective so yeah linkedin huge opportunity please listen to our experiences with that i mean i've got something like 10k connections now and i'll be honest with you i accept anyone on linkedin because i think as soon as you just open up your network more opportunities come your way some people keep it really strict really tight i'll only connect if i've shaken their hand and if you do that you are all you're doing is you're just slowing down that process you're literally just slowing yourself down yep yeah i i love linkedin for that very reason i use it for my prospecting my my cold approach to decision makers all the time but because i slide into the dms which we love to do and i ask them for a meeting or ask them for a phone call or whatever that is the next step when they go into my profile i'm incredibly credible i am extremely well presented and well set up my content's great it's active it's regular i look like somebody that you would want to do business with whereas if i was just sitting in the shadows on linkedin and maybe bringing out messages to finance directors and managing directors or operations managers whoever i'm going after and they go on my profile and i've maybe got a photo of me great i've got my education i've got the place that i work they're like oh right okay we don't really know too much about this guy whereas if you go my profile you know for a fact that i i transform student accommodation from to great or i replace hundreds of matches whatever it is you know what i do it's very very easy to identify quite quickly that that's what this guy does and he does efficient accommodation whereas if he went on somebody's profile that maybe is just as good at the job as i am but hasn't shown and shared what they've been up to on social media they're probably yeah it looks a bit shady i'm probably gonna speak to colin because he looks trustworthy and we use that t-word again well and also as well just from uh just from like people think about speed more over time people are so wide into time more than ever before and i'm pleased that they are and from like a buyer perspective cole let's use your example there say i'm thinking about doing business with you or one of your competitors now i'm thinking well not only do i need credibility not only do i need i'm obviously going to get your price eventually and i need to know that you can actually help me but the other thing is is this guy going to get back to me fast because i need my problem solved and i don't need it solved next month i need to solve this i need it solved as soon as possible so therefore if i know call that you posted on linkedin only yesterday i know that you're just straight away i'm just expecting that you're going to get back to me before the competitor so you've already got one up over the competitor so that's why that activity and that execution is more important than ever before and there's no excuse carl you can sign up to a buffer account you can queue up all your content you can use copyright free images through unsplash through raw pixel through pixels i've got a ton of those let me know if you want any more yeah you can fit it all up you can get it firing out and best by the way there'll be people listening to this then this is this is a nice little cheat as well which which worked for me for a while until people found out is that my boss actually came to me colin that he was like chris i just want to say well done to you know when what do you mean i was like a bit taken back by it and this was when i worked for it for another agency he didn't really compliment me often and he said i've been seeing that you've been posting content at court to eight at night i know and i was like hmm okay i was thinking well i've just i've just put it into buffer for me but i know that people aren't on linkedin during the day on the whole because that's when they're doing their priority tasks their jobs but they are on linkedin thinking about the problems they need to solve one once they've had their dinner and put their kids to bed at that time at night so again you can get really strategical with your content and actually fire it out at a time that best suits your target market i've been singing the praises of linkedin because i'm on there i'm benefiting from it i am one of those people with my head firmly buried in the sand on tick tock mostly because i'm somebody that's a bit of a digital minimalist as you know chris and i know that that app is just a massive attention black hole because people love spending time in it but that also means if i'm showing up on there i'll get more eyes on my content i can funnel them to where i want to go whether that's listening to the podcast with the clip from it or whether that's here's a renovation i've done inquire this email address what is it about tech talk that's just doing so well and why well what people need to realize is that social media platforms are built with the same ux as gambling machines as slot machines and you will know this if you've been on tick-tock people it's just a big slot machine and it's difficult to actually exit it really is quite difficult and actually the longer that you're on that home page the more it serves up the content that you watch for longer so therefore you spend more time on it so it is a black hole for for your personal time which is why i'm desperate for them to give 30 third party um uh software the ability to post on there because if i go on there manually at the moment all of a sudden i'm down a garyvee black hole and i'm getting motivation or social media tips or i'm watching a cat climb up a tree that i love or you know anyway so that's just not good but but that's the reason why tick tock is so blooming powerful is the other side of it so from you for a user having that discipline to get off it is crucial but also knowing that the upside of that is that people don't have that discipline so therefore they will consume more of your content seriously all the stats all the data facts don't care about feelings cole tiktok is the fastest growing platform it's the platform that's keeping people the most attention more people signed up to tick-tock this year than instagram like that's big that's seriously big like this isn't just a start-up anymore this is an animal and and you know you can continue to put your head in the sand but the longer that you do the the more you're losing out on that latent potential and it's not just from a business point of view like i'm not saying you have to go in there as a business you can just go there as a person like the other night um i just uploaded a video of me singing along to avicii like you know just bit of good vibes just thought i'd decide to get it out there uh just because i felt happy in the moment and all of a sudden it's had like 700 800 900 and all these views coming i'm thinking i'm not i don't know these people they didn't follow me either they're just finding it in their home page and that's the thing with tic toc that's an incredible opportunity is unlike the other social platforms you get things thrown at you consistently even when you don't subscribe to their content so that's why it's a key opportunity certainly going into next year you've got to get yourself on there how do we identify which platforms we'd be good at because again trying to bring it to life for me i have showed up on instagram for a long time because i can take quite good photos of my physique i can post viable content in the caption and then i can talk to my camera and my story so i've got a skill set that's reasonably good on there linkedin i'm quite confident writing and in the podcast i like doing it because i like presenting and work i like having long-form conversations so i kind of tip those boxes to do well on those platforms how can other people think about where their skill set might be rewarded on and which platform that might be well you're you're very lucky well i say you're not lucky because you've grown and developed that skill over a time called to to be multifaceted in having all of those different skills the number one skill there though is video and that is the thing before i go into this scholars that although a lot of people don't like getting themselves on camera it kind of that is the most important thing from social is getting that video content done whether it be lives reels on instagram stories tick tocks all of these things yeah showing your face is really important that's why there is a big there is a big mindset jump there but it's just so important to to do that for sure and i think the other thing as well is you need to be you need to be i think i think just the the more i talk about tick-tock the more i just think people are just saying this is just such a this is a mindset conversation i'm having more mindset conversations than ever before collins and so in terms of like you asking me what's the best platform for my skill um well you can kind of work work your way around that quite nicely anyway for example if you're too busy and um you can just write short punchy comments we'll post them on twitter screenshot your tweet and put it out on the other platforms right and there's all these little things that you can do but the reason why i'm saying go video is there's something called a content pyramid which i quite like as a visualization to understand how to be clever and smarter with your time and with your content so if i film a long long form piece of content with you today carl what here's what i'm gonna do with it i'm gonna download the whole thing and i'm gonna get it transcribed on a platform called otter io okay or ai one the two and then that's gonna then spit out me a transcript of this whole conversation do you know what i'm gonna do cole i'm gonna have four articles out of it which are gonna go out on linkedin throughout the month then under that i've got all this preset written copy for me for all of my social posts oh and then i'm gonna do a video covering and do you see what i mean it's all started from that one video thing so the brutal it's not the answer that people want it's the answer that people have to be told cole is that you can't hide away from video if you want to be successful on social media that's the truth now yeah so that one piece of video content creates multiple pieces of social content that can be shared across different platforms other than the line okay i think that's that's powerful it's uncomfortable being on camera is difficult it takes time to get good at it it's a skill like anything else you and i are both into our fitness so it's it's grooving the movement and getting stronger at it over time and progressively overloading in order to be better at it and there's not many harsher task masters than video but it's extremely rewarding as you've just said there because it has dividends that it pays in other areas too because yeah i love the fact that you've just shared how you can create linkedin content that's written off the back of a video that's just blown my mind well it's not it's not difficult it's just how i promise you it's not difficult i'm not just sitting here and preaching it you know i'm practicing what i'm preaching you know it's just so easy to get a transcript of a video conversation and all of a sudden you've done all the work you just need to tidy up and and and that's why it's just that this is the thing people are overthinking social all the time i go back to that first comment earlier on call about stop thinking that everything's got to be perfect on social media through fear of losing face because it doesn't happen and you know what actually sometimes someone will say to me something like there's always some someone that says oh chris you spelt that wrong and i've and then i've gone cold thanks so much for highlighting that i'm such a plonker and truth be told i needed an extra cup of coffee uh wasn't so good at english at school i'm gonna edit that now thanks for highlighting okay you now like me more for being honest other people are seeing that i'm polite respectful i'm humble do you see what i'm constantly showing my skills so even if i make mistakes the mistakes that you make on social are actually going to help you in in a funny sort of way so yeah huge so that's that's the content pyramid where we generate something at the top and it filters down how else do we think about what we might even post in that first place so how do we think of like topics or subjects for that video to get started well there's there is a there is a a great tool called answerthepublic.com which is great no matter what industry industry you're in and so if you type in onto the public.com into google and what you can then do is search your industry so say for this conversation sake i type in fitness call what it's then going to do is then going to spit out me questions but not just any old questions the questions that people are most searching into google over a time that you can customize right so again and people in the corporate world will love this because you're not just doing it through feeling you're doing it through fact okay i'm gonna create a con a piece of content answering this question because i know that people are searching that this month so therefore i'm solving someone's problem facts don't care about feelings you know it doesn't have to come from from you and your gut instinct what your audience want go to answer the public.com type in your sector it will tell you all of your video topics by the way for the rest of 2022 if you want you can get it all organized there's no excuse you need to be executing carl and you're executing answering questions of frequently asked questions by the way so therefore you know that it's more likely to be highly engaged with on social but going back to our conversation even if it doesn't leave the vanity metrics you will leave a digital footprint and on these platforms for people to find that that that crumb trail if you will to eventually find you and do business with you yeah brilliant and that digital footprint piece is massive because when eventually maybe one of your posts does pop off and i'm just i'll link i'll link this back to when i maybe send that code dm to decision maker when they visit your profile you have this credibility and this backlog of content where there's bound to be something else you posted that's interesting or gives them further reassurance about who you are what you do would you be good for this job would you be a good person to business with would you be a good person to reach out to for a coffee whatever it is they can go back and look and best believe you've got an archive of stuff sitting there to give them further reassurance and a bit of a an understanding of what it is you do and how you do it and even if some of those posts got one like or two like it doesn't matter because that might be the perfect post for them and because you showed up and delivered it you're in a better position than the person that maybe just got that one post that banged and didn't have anything behind it nailed it don't have anything to add nailed it for sure chris and i think both you and i are confident individuals and comes back to that introverted piece that i put a pin in earlier what would you say to people that are maybe considering themselves a little bit shy and find some of what we're talking about something they're enthusiastic about but they're daunted by it they're very daunted by it what would you say to them well first of all on a platform like tiktok what you can do is you can speak into it with an overlay which is quite cool so actually maybe as a little warm-up what you could do is say for conversation's sake and obviously me being in the world of social media and and if i wanted to take a screenshot of like the latest tiktok data or linkedin stats or something i can speak to the camera with that overlay so people don't see my face but they can still hear my voice if that makes sense so that's quite a nice thing to just kind of smooth yourself into it to warm yourself up into it a lot of the clients that that i coach on a monthly basis call one of the things that i get them to do as an exercise is rather than just throwing them in the deep end and say right off you go brian you can crack on and start doing selfie videos and he's thinking oh this is this is this is hard for me because i'm a 40 plus year old bloke i've never done this before i'm worried that people are judging me blah blah blah but the key thing is to actually have a recorded conversational camera with someone else so it's conversational that's another way of warming yourself up into it so if you're struggling to create video content but for example your colleague is in the same sector as you why not have a conversation on camera on a zoom call record it and publish it and actually your colleague's going to thank you because you're doing the work for your colleague as well so that's another way of warming up into it i think what i would just say called is having you know just done it for a number of years is i i or when i when i record something i think i'm not i don't know have i maybe not got the facts right oh i think i coughed halfway through oh i messed up on a word there but every time i just go for it and i post it i i then go my mind that was just absolutely nice i didn't need to worry about that and quite often the things that you criticize yourself for on video people don't even pick up people don't even think about it for example i might have made a mistake on the in this conversation carl but people that are listening have and they're not even going to realize that i've made that mistake unless i actually say it so again it really is all in your head around video but there are a few things you can do obviously regarding audio which we've spoken about and but but also as well you can obviously do it that way you can have you and your colleague on camera having a conversation and just just take the plunge i promise you like i i i don't think i've i think i've had the right the right personality to be an extrovert but i don't think i've i don't i think that's been a skill that's been developed over a number of years through just taking those those little risky video jumps each and every day on on social media another step-by-step process isn't it where you get better with time you by practicing or getting under the barbell you're getting stronger and you're getting better at it and it's it's is something you're gonna do do over time i think that is a good entry level particularly like a conversation between you and a colleague about something that you feel that you have a level of expertise in and it's slightly more than the average person that's all it needs to be because the average person or somebody in your sector that doesn't know that is who you're looking to speak to you're not looking to speak to somebody that's two steps further they're wrong than you that that's not your target audience you're looking to help people they're slightly behind you on your journey and in the fitness space the big one for me is most people are like oh well i don't like i don't have the most amazing physique well if you are healthy and doing whatever you're actually probably in a better position than the 60 percent of the population that were the measured as a beast last year so you could you could be in a much better spot than them and you could help them rather than worrying about helping the the person that i don't know gets paid for a living to take their top off of fitness shoes it's very different well and and again a lot of the conversations i have cole when i when i get hold of my coaching clients the first time and quite often i'm having to grab their head and say hang on what are you doing focused over there you need to be over here and what i mean by that call is they're so they're thinking about what their competitors doing all the time they're like oh well my competitor doesn't talk about that or they don't put themselves out on camera or they've got more followers than me or they've got as far as me doesn't matter about them all that matters is your target market you don't need to do what they're doing or you don't need to act all that matters is are you giving value to your target market it doesn't matter you need to stop fear being judged by your competitors because your competitors guess what i've got news for you they ain't going to buy from you so it just doesn't matter and and it just it's just vast like the huge amount of opportunity what what's what's coming out of theirs isn't sorry what's coming out of yours isn't coming out of theirs if that makes sense i think i've cocked up that that phrase there but you get what i mean carl is like people are so there's just so much business for everyone out there you may as well just just try it because you never know who's going to come across your content even before your competitors anyway exactly that and i think if we're thinking about presenting skills and speaking you and i were laughing beforehand that one of the most sizable competitive advantages that you and i have had over the years on social media has been our ability to articulate ourselves quite well but that didn't happen overnight i actually looked at your youtube channel before before this i actually watched the uh tnc shantae song which is just so so funny so like shout out to that so make sure you check that out after this episode but chris is asking you not to be he doesn't mean it so i would say that you're one of your youtube videos from was from like 2014 i want to say of 2015 and it's you and jack outside the etihad like reacting to losing to city i think it is now at that point you are infinitely better now than you were then as a presenter and as a as a speaker and and but so many people are worried about comparing themselves to how you present now and maybe how you and i are holding this conversation to what they would maybe put out as a as a video post or as a speaking post on on linkedin or instagram wherever they're showing up and it's not about that it's about being better than you were the last time you did it yeah yeah absolutely comparison is the thief of joy cole so the saying goes and it's so true in the world of social not just from an instagram or he's got a better border than me or or anything like that the same goes for that that speaking exercise as well don't expect to be amazing on camera straight away it does come through publishing and as i've said already it's not about video itself it's not about the tools itself it's about you and you taking that mini risk that mini plunge that mini commitment each week to publish a new piece of video content about who you are what you do and how you how you help people on linkedin for conversation's sake is going to naturally improve you and as you say you know that well i mean i guess talk nora city has been a pool a pool vehicle for me in that sense because it has really helped me progress a lot faster than a lot of other people but that's just been i've just been committing to it each week i'm just getting myself out on camera i'm trying it i'm messing up i'm falling over but do you know what that's human and no one expects you to be this corporate slick polished robot straight away and and often i found that the more raw authentic and actually informal conversations carl have been the ones that have actually won me um not just any business but higher value business because again i'm sounding like a broken record they trust me more because i'm acting like one of their mates down the pub and i'm not i don't mean that in a bad way in like a derogatory way or a way in which is like that's not the way you should be i just mean that relatability i relate to that because he kind of reminds me of my mate gary down the pub do you know what i mean and i think the the braver you can be in that respect regarding your speaking and publishing video content the the the better you are and actually quite often as well another upside to video content call is not only once you're used to it does it take less time but also you can put so much more emotion into it and heart and soul and often things are so misinterpreted like a linkedin post or a facebook post or an instagram caption people can take away different things from that but on video you can look into their eyes you can feel their warmth how much does he mean this or what does he really what's he really trying to say and what's the context to that and and that's another an upside of doing video you're putting more emotion into it naturally not over egging it you just naturally do if you're putting yourself out on camera yeah and i think just to go back to a little bit more on the video piece before we move on to the kind of final area that i wanted to talk about with you chris was i'm quite often my own harshest critic when i film a down the lens piece and i look back at it but i think there's value in doing that because if you can produce a piece where you whittle down the number of things that you're critical of the public are probably going to be like oh wow that was really good i put stuff out before people i'm like oh wow you're such a like that was so articulate that was really eloquent and i'm thinking well at one minute 30 i actually fumbled on this and we've just said there about the criticism but you can do multiple takes on these things you don't have to put out the take number one like the first video that i did that i started doing as a prospect until i would film myself on zoom speaking directly to finance director about what i knew about their business and how i could potentially help them and the first one i did i think took me eight takes i've been doing loads of social stuff before that but i had colleagues that did the videos and it took them 20 25 and 30 takes before they were even happy enough and even then they didn't really like it but it's a case of like time served and if you're even slightly happy with it after five takes ten takes whatever it is it's going to be better and the person that said you send it to probably knows how difficult it is what you're doing and acknowledges that so accepts what they receive as long as it's delivered in the best possible way that you're happy with i think you can go with that and i wonder for you chris like are there particular texts or things that you become aware of when you watch back your videos where you're like i always do that i need to work on that well actually i'm gonna i i am i am lis i've listened to your question and i'm gonna answer it i'm kind of gonna just put it onto a different track actually call here which is that actually you need to flip that because what you've said there is i watched it i watched it back and oh i had to retake it eight times blah blah blah the the if you think of it as a football as a football team quite often the manager will come out after after a loss and they'll say yeah i want my team to feel that and what i want them to feel that you know you see all that stick they got from the fans you see when we conceded that goal you see when we made that mistake they've felt it because they've gone out there and they've done it they've this isn't before there's no you don't get the manager in the changing room uh before the game saying well you know if we go wrong you're gonna feel like this so don't do that blah blah blah that's just a complete waste of time and so to again to go back and maybe say a different way execution over perfection and i flip this so when i publish my video content called because i'm publishing so consistently i would watch it back after i've published it and people might go oh that's a bit risky chris well to begin with it maybe is a little bit but the more often you do it you can then feel where you've gone wrong rather than being a harsh critic you've just got yourself in that mindset of i'm just publishing this i've done it enough i know i know i've got it eighty percent right if you've got something eighty percent right get it out there stop wasting time the world of social is so fast moving that by the time that it's gone through the procurement process of five different ones of your of your colleagues and your mom or your long-lost aunt and then you've you've then retaken it just because you messed up one word oh guess what your competitors put out a video and they've won the business that you're pitching for too late execution over perfection yeah i'm on board with that entirely you spoke there about getting stick from the fans what about stick from people online in terms of when you publish stuff like how do you deal with the backlash kindness always i'm full of cliches i am you'll have to forgive me but kindness always wins that's something that i really live by so for example very recently i put out a piece of content and someone responded to it with a personal jibe which is obviously out of order and and i could have just ignored it but i've completely changed that person's mind by killing him with kindness and i actually reached out to him and i said hi adam thanks so much for your feedback i'm always happy to listen to constructive feedback and i'm going to send you a dm now so we can talk about this more and i'd like you to send me your address because i'm going to send you out create a beer because i really appreciate your feedback and people go oh chris is that not just a complete waste of time like what are you doing that for me like that's crazy but guess what having done that i've now created an ambassador for myself you know he's now he now likes me he's not gonna he and actually i'm being the change i want to see we spoke about this on our state of menswear mental health piece call that we did which is available on the slater mentor youtube channel and we spoke about that being the change you want to see so when i get criticism or um or something joby in response to a social post i'm going all in on kindness all in on empathy and actually as i've said already before it's a great opportunity to show your customer um your customer experience your customer service skills how fast do you respond how professional are you and people will look at that and go wow cole's dealt with that so well i would have told him where to go but then that's brilliant because now they hold you in high regards so again it's kind of just a case of there is just no loss in going for it and you have to accept the fact that you are always going to get criticism when you post on social media you are going to get it at some stage yeah people don't get it for maybe a few months maybe a year and actually do you know what color i would argue if you're not getting criticism your content isn't isn't actually um isn't authentic enough because if you're being being unapologetically you and you're just publishing content you know you want it to be emotional you know content that's just meh that isn't getting opinion that isn't getting responses you know that that's not going to help your cause either way so so let's just change that that that question and that that conversation from all criticism oh and people trolling me all of that well actually no no um this is great this we're going to use the trolls to show off our customer service skills we're going to use the trolls to prove this or this is going to in keep with our values or this is why i respond in this way and it's again it's a great opportunity and it certainly shouldn't hold you back through posting on social but what i would say khan if i'm really honest if i could go back i wouldn't have gone all in on football media world because football media world is particularly toxic and it has definitely affected my mental health over the years and the trolling has been just oh my lord just another level but you're not gonna get that in most industries i think if you're uh if you're a fashion blogger or you know you're you're in the world of beauty i think you would probably agree cole is a little bit of it in fitness but not lots um but on the whole if you're in the corporate world and you want to start publishing content to improve your reputation your personal brand you're not gonna you you're not you're just not gonna get that sort of level of criticism agree so so many good points there chris and i think if anyone's wondering about how best to deal with criticism you hold yourself up as somebody that's doing it very very well and i always like when you answer that question the only other thing i really want to dive into on that side of things is what about criticism from people that you know that are maybe like laughing at the fact that you're jumping on camera they're belittling you and i'll let you answer that and i'll share some of the things that have happened to me over the years in that regard but it's very common because what you do makes people uncomfortable doesn't it absolutely first they laugh then they hate then they copy i promise you this has happened countless occasions to me over the years both in the football media world in the social media world in in even just on facebook with like my with like family members or friends on facebook you know i'll be publishing a piece of content that will get like a bit of a jive or something or at least i've interpreted that way because don't forget like i've actually probably just misinterpreted it because it's not on video and i just just that i i'm quite often just finding myself in this position of i'm just gonna it's all just mindset again cole like the whole thing is just mindset and you you just you stop worrying about it just go just get it out there just do you know what i'm trying to say here cole sorry probably not explain that that well enough but he's just he's so much more simple than you think the the the simplest answer was exactly what you said first of all which was first they asked oh well first they mock or they make fun but then they'll eventually the last cow and they'll not understand it and i was continually screenshotted and putting grip chats with me and my top off being like what are you doing like your joke like why are you talking about bench pressing and protein and all that stuff you you don't know what you're talking about and then when i did videos they were like oh who do you think you are jumping on a camera like oh like you've got buck teeth or whatever else it was and it was all things that were coming from places where they were uncomfortable that i was doing something that they themselves would have been like i don't know yeah they're not brave enough to do it and no absolutely and um yeah just like honestly once you get through that first might be three or four months where you get some stick because you're trying something different you're putting yourself on camera for the first time once you ride out that storm that three or four months storm of friends or families or group chats or sport chats or anything like that once you've ridden that out people will start copying you and then it's like a case of well i told you it works this is yeah but i think on the whole though collet is becoming more of a normal thing to do i don't think it's as brave as people are making it out to be anymore i do think people are understanding now that it just makes complete sense to get yourself out there on camera because it then just helps people trust you more yeah that's it that's a great point too i guess has spite ever driven you in that regard i'm a bit naughty that sometimes if somebody's been like i think somebody once said to me and i do remember this which was maybe wrong but they were like oh you're just doing this for a 10 discount code for some t-shirt and i was like no i'm not doing i'm doing it because i like creating content i like talking about this i like sharing these things and now i'm the one laughing because i wasn't doing it for 10 discount code for some random tv like i i've i've got deals that like i genuinely cherry pick i don't i don't run to a company like can you give me a 10 discount code in a free t-shirt that doesn't matter to me so like spike drove me a little bit where i could basically put two fingers up for that person that kind of called me out and i knew that person quite well and they just belittled like my my efforts which i found quite sore but now i feel like i feel vindicated of what what i've been up to i don't know if you've ever felt like that chris but maybe i'm just projecting my negativity onto you no not really it's it's not an ideal driver but it's a driver that is very natural in in in in humans maybe in more blokes dare i say um it's you know you want to prove them wrong but actually that's just fuel to your fire so great accept it lovely thanks very much because you've given me more determination to produce more content which is going to move the needle for me to improve my myself and my world so so that's that's great i i think i think you you should use that to yeah as i say poor pets on your fire and to continue to publish content and ultimately you spoke something there call about and the fact that you just enjoy creating content right and if you can get your mindset into that that i i tip my hat to you because if you can really go into that mindset and i would probably call it enjoying the journey then instantly because you're just doing it because you enjoy it then that's an even better way to be because then you don't expect anything to come off it and if you don't expect anything to come of it then everything that comes as a bonus and therefore it's just so much easier to just do it it is isn't it chris i've absolutely loved that conversation as i always do when i chat with you whether it's recorded or not but people want to continue the conversation where should they head towards well i'm everywhere as you'd like to as you'd like to to think so um i think probably the best place for for your audience maybe call is um by heading over to my um my youtube channel which i've just chucked a load of content on um little short tiny little tip videos broken down into playlists that you can easily find that you think that you need help on regarding the world of social and whether that be management or content creation or that mindset piece that we've spoken about today so head over to my my youtube channel obviously connect with me on linkedin and anywhere really i don't mind i'm i'm really flexible and i'm happy to help whether you're a business owner wanting your content created and managed or whether you're just starting out on your journey and you just want some some coaching i'm i'm happy to help because i just love helping people because i've i've been on the journey and i've and i've got the the the jumper to prove it so um yeah happy to help in any way shape or form in any way call any platform brilliant chris i'll link the youtube your linkedin and your instagram in the notes below if you've enjoyed this conversation guys take a screenshot pop on your instagram story tag me at call.cambro tag chris chris.revo and make sure you share this with a friend that you think would benefit and i'll be back to speak to you all again very very soon

Channel: Colin Campbell

Views: 48

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Id: yVQpbVIxa3o

Length: 65min 35sec (3935 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 14 2021