5 Keys to a Successful Brand — Lewis Howes, 10X Growth Con 2018 (video + transcription)

Key number one for me is relationships.

Really I focus on one thing and that comes down to that I think about it every time I connect with someone, I had a lot of people come up and connect with me over the last 24 hours its been great to me. And some of you have done an amazing job just meeting me for the first time and the things you say, and to some of you I will give some constructive feedback on how to connect with someone like me or anyone else.

Right away I can tell someones agenda, anyone can. We can all tell someone’s agenda. Whether I’m getting a cold call or meeting someone in person, or I’m up here on the stage — you can tell my agenda. And for a while when I first started in business I was focused on being the king of diamonds id want to make as much money as fast as possible so I was doing things not to build sustainable relationships that last us forever or with influencers and with my audience. I was doing things to generate as much money as possible. I was in survival mode and I said I can make money now. That’s what I needed. So sometimes I think it was out of integrity but it wasn’t the highest level of value. I wasn’t trying to become the king of hearts. I think some people are focused only on how can they make as much money as possible as opposed to how can I have a lot of power and make money and we all win together?

So I’m always thinking about can I make a king — if you’re a lady you want to be the queen of hearts in the relationship, with my audience, with influencers, business partners, affiliates, anyone in your life. How can you be the king or queen of hearts

When you become the king or queen of hearts you become the richest man or woman in the world in my mind and that’s what I try to live my life by.

(applause)

So that’s the first thing, relationships that I’m thinking about my relationship with my audience in combination with everyone, my team, my company, influencers, everything.

The second thing is consistent content you gotta be thinking about consistent content again this is something Grant taught me seven years ago. He said if you’re not being consistent with your information, putting it out on a regular basis whatever schedule works for you you gotta stick to it.

So what I did is I started a podcast, I started the podcast five years ago. So it was two years after I first originally interviewed Grant, I started the School of Greatness and I said “I gotta do something that’s unique that I can value and something that I’m passionate about”, so I started this podcast where I started interviewing these individuals, and I’ve been consistent for five years, every single week I put out decent information. And the first year it was one interview a week, second year it was two interviews a week, the third year it was three podcasts a week, and now if I’m going into year six it’s still three pieces of content a week and it was just all of a start that invested in a brand that put more money back into resources, invested in videos you could see our each — — we always have great interviews with quality individuals that give just stupid free value to my audience. That’s how I’m building a mass audience. By creating consistent content, and that’s where you get the key.

Someone asked last night and said I forget his name but he was talking about I want to launch a real estate podcast can you give me some keys for launching a podcast. The first thing I said is do not launch a podcast because unless you’re going to be committed to doing it every single week or every single two weeks consistently for two or three years why are you doing it? You gotta think about the long term value you’re building with your audience if you just wanna do it cause the cool kids are doing it it’s just not gonna last long term. So key two is consistent content and that’s what I focus on, how can we streamline that process.

Key three, is promotion and press. So once you have the content out there you’ve gotta be so consistent with promoting it to your audience and getting them to share as well, but also get bigger audiences to promote — The press. When I get mainstream press it always adds more people to my audience it always brings in new people that didn’t know about me. I met a few people last day and they said I saw you on Ellen, and then I started to follow you afterwards.

There’s nothing more than the panicle of getting press where Ellen holds up your book and says this is one of the most inspirational people I’ve ever met, go read his book and download his podcast. It really doesn’t get bigger than that for someone like me in my space.

I’m constantly thinking how can I elevate my message so that the press wants to have me on.

and I started the press early on just local. People from Columbus Ohio doing local radio, local TV, local magazines, local newspapers it went regional then national, global so it starts in progression over the last eight, nine years it wasn’t this overnight thing where I put out one book and Ellen is like “that’s what we wanted” it doesn’t work like that, you know it’s been a progression over years.

Key number four, is epic design and branding. I learned this early on. I learned this early on because I remember back in like in 2010, I was going to a lot of internet marketing conferences. And all these internet marketers were like screw design. You don’t need good design, you just need, like, headlines with yellow or red and it doesn’t need to look good. It just needs to have manipulative copy that gets people to buy.

And so I was like okay seems like you guys know what you’re doing so let me just write this copy and have this ugly looking design. And it worked. right? I was getting sales. But I wasn’t building my audience, I wasn’t building my brand. And then I said: You know what? I want to get into press and I remember interviewing someone from the media and they were like just taking one look at your website we would never have you on. When we look at your website we would never interview you for this magazine or things like that. This was earlier in my business, we would never have you on we would never promote you because you aren’t mainstream media request worthy yet. Your brand does not match the press. So I said okay I need to invest in this.

When I started investing in design, I really figured how can my website look so unique so different than other people in my industry. Not better or worse just unique, just different and how could I really elevate it to really be thoughtful and potential and the messaging, the words, the images. Not be a manipulative brand but more to inspire and attract people back to my message that’s when the press really started to knock on my door. And I’m gonna say if I can write my emails following the people locked into my newsletter and when they come to my site, I want Oprah to come to my site, or Ellen, or someone in the press to look at it and say wow this is really clean and unique, powerful design and opt in to your newsletter they don’t feel sold, they feel inspired. They feel like there’s a story happening when they connect.

So I started telling better stories through my design, and I really believe that design allows you to attract mass audience and in long term generate more sales.

Key number five, a unique product, a unique product. For me, I wanted to stand out from my competitors. I wanted to stand out from the people in my industry. I didn’t need to dominate, or be better than them. I just wanted to stand out and be different. And so I started early on creating new products. Unique offers. Things that were just a little bit different. You know, early I had the second book ever written about Linkedin back in 2009, and there’s probably like 1,000 Linkdedin books now. I wrote a book called “The School of Greatness.” It was a New York Times best seller. There were a lot of people in my space who were going more mainstream with bigger books than that. Then I pivoted and wrote a book about Masculine Vulnerability. There are no online marketers talking about that. I guarantee it, it’s just not many people that are willing to reveal themselves in the space and talk about those things. For me I felt like that was the thing that I needed to do to help support my growth. And there were so many men that I was connecting with who were trapped, who were suffering, who were starving for healing and support. So I wanted to create a resource that allowed men to drop the mask or guards that were holding them back from living their truest lives and to fully feel free for the first time ever in life. And letting these things go. It’s been a beautiful journey.

(applause)

Thank you, so I’m constantly thinking about what’s the product I’mma create that’s different? Maybe the thing that’s not gonna make me the most money cause this book doesn’t make me a lot of money, but it gets me the press, it gets me the attention, it gets me the audience, it gets me the people that it connects to their heart on the deepest level. And when I connect to someones heart I believe that they’ll stay around for a long time. They just want to be in the eco-system of the content we’re putting out.

So you got to have a unique product. In my opinion its got to stand out its got to be different.

It’s easier to sell something when you stand out and you’re different. So I just want to share a quick slide, you’re not gonna be able to see it. When I realized that the slide and screens are like so far away from us. I guess you’re not gonna be able to see it, this is a high level formula that i use to build my business, it’s kinda just like a high level from all the things I do, from branding, to consistent content to how I promote, see what I use to promote, to building a new product to my relationships to managing my time. Of the opportunities.

From unique products we create, to maximizing time: I really learned in the last ten years how to maximize time to the press all these different areas my team’s branding it all centers around a unique vision. You know, where we’re going, the direction to impact a couple million people and we want to have people make a full time income doing what they love.

So everything is revolved around this vision, of impacting people to make a full time income of what they love. I truly believe, that when we’re doing something that we’re fueled by, when we doing something we have passion and joy with, we treat ourselves better, we treat our friends better, we treat our partners better, our intimate partners our relationships between our clients and customers — everyone is treated better in the world. Humanity is better when we do things that are just lit up with every single day, and earning a full time income. Somebody say “I believe” if you believe in that!

Audience: I believe!

I like that. I’m learning Tim. I’m learning from Tim Storey. I’m trying man, I’m trying. He got that preacher mentality, I like that.