On relaunching my podcast and re-branding as Podfluence, I knew who I wanted as my first guest and am super grateful he agreed. Bob Gentle is not only a friend but one of the most insightful business coaches/consultants I've met. He's really well-clued into what's going on in the business world and knows a great deal about leadership branding.

I wanted to speak to Bob because he's a fellow podcaster with a show I still enjoy listening to and he's also appearing on more shows as a guest and is someone who not only believes in the power and potential of podcasting but has actively grown his business and professional authority with podcasts. Those things make him an ideal first guest for Podfluence.

In this episode we discuss:

• Why being really authentic is hard
• What makes someone charismatic
• The law of balance in business
• Is there still value in podcasting
• The fear of niching
• The #1 difference between you and the names on the books on your bookshelf

and a few other things besides.

I mentioned I'm a fan of Bob's podcast, and it's true. It's called The Personal Brand Entrepreneur Show and you can check it out here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-personal-brand-business-show-personal-branding/id1439009077

I highly recommend Bob's Facebook Group The Personal Brand Business Dojo

& you can download a free copy of Bob's Personal Brand Business Roadmap, just Like I have: https://amplifyme.agency/personal-brand-business-success-blueprint/

Want to be a part of the Podfluencer Community? Join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/971673626709254 and subscribe to the Podfluencer Weekly Newsletter on LinkedIn or on Medium.com

Are you a podcaster looking to grow & monetize your show? Check out Kevin Chemidlin's podcast Grow The Show & join us in the free Facebook group.

Did you enjoy the show? Did you learn anything new or useful? If you did, the best way to show appreciation is by sharing the show with your online network. Tag me and I'll give you a shout-out on an upcoming episode. Leave a review and I'll read it out on the show.

Of course, if you REALLY liked it, you're welcome to support the show financially using the link below.

Support the show (https://speakinginfluence.supercast.tech/)

Mentioned in this episode:

Podfluence Weekly

Join us for the official Podfluence Weekly newsletter https://present-influence.ck.page or Subscribe on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=6882642444815519744

I think this is the thing is the more I think I could easily pretend

to be someone else, and I think this is important for everyone to hear, but

the problem is if you pretend to be somebody else, you will attract people

who are attracted to somebody else.

They're not attracted to you for the right reasons, and the more you

show up as authentically yourself, even if you feel that that's really

awkward, even if you feel you should be someone else, the more you can do it.

The more you will attract people who are attracted to you for who you are, they're

gonna be pre-sold on your personality.

They already know you.

They already like you.

They already trust what they will meet when they work with you.

This episode is with my good friend, Bob gentle.

Bob is a leadership brand expert.

And someone who not just happy to say my friend, I'm really happy to follow him.

I love his podcast.

He has a cool Facebook group and he's a really great guy with incredible insights.

And if you're not already following him, like if you like people

like Chris Ducker who had on speaking influence a while back.

You're going to love Bob as well.

Bob has So many insightful things to say, and a very gentle way

to me listening to Bob is like listening to ASMR is very soothing.

And so you'll find that as well and also enjoy this conversation.

Let me know your thoughts And make sure you're subscribed and enjoy

this new episode of performance

Well, welcome to the show, and today I'm really happy to be joined by

someone who I've had the pleasure of getting to know over probably

just the last six months really.

And yet it feels like so much longer because he's such a cool guy.

And this is someone who is really someone who I would go to in terms of

thinking about branding and launching a business and getting yourself

seen in the right places about that.

So much so that.

I do follow him on Facebook and other places as well.

Let me properly introduce the show.

Bob Gentle.

Great to have you here, Bob.

It's my pleasure.

I'm really excited.

I have no idea where we're gonna go, but I know it's gonna be fun.

it's interesting that we thought, or you thought that you had

already been on the show because we've sp I guess because we've spoken a lot.

Yeah, we speak a lot and we had spoken about me coming in the

show, and I know you've been on mine.

But I was convinced that I had, and.

I think I have a couple of guests on my show, and I hope they're not listening.

I've accidentally lost their recordings because the interviews were a car crash.

Now, this hasn't happened for a very long time, but I thought I might

have been one of those for you.

Um, uh, yeah, I guess I could say the same has happened to

me, Bob, but yeah, I know that yours isn't going to be, and I'm glad that

mine wasn't one of the ones that you that you accidentally lost either.

But I have been looking forward to speaking to you and I have had other

guests who've thought that we've recorded when we haven't before.

So you're not the first, but maybe that's a good sign of that.

I'm more ubiquitous than I thought I was and maybe people just have

a more of an idea of maybe I have a bigger presence than I realize.

What I would like to ask you as we get things particularly started, that's

what I've been, something I've been asking people at the start of every

show, but who is somebody maybe industry related for you, but doesn't have to

be who you particularly look up to, respect and, admire for their use of

influence and persuasion in what they do?

I think there is one person who immediately springs to

mind and he's somebody that not a lot of people have heard of.

He's very well known in particular circles.

But it's a guy called Richie Norton and he wrote a book called The

Power of Starting Something Stupid.

And he is another book coming out quite soon, which is loosely

around time management and how everyone has got it wrong.

But the reason I love Richie and he has a podcast and like I said,

he's an author, is he's influential for all The right reasons.

He's Unashamedly authentic.

If you, The first time I met him was at an event, a big event, and he was

just a guy in the back of the room and I thought, he looks like fun.

He just looked like a random surfer dude had walked into the room.

Now I completely misjudged him.

Thankfully I spent a bit of time, I got to know him, and it was only after the

event I realized how big a deal he was.

he was the only person in the event that didn't even have to pay

because he was that well connected.

way.

and for me, he's kind of my social media spirit animal.

he's somebody I look up at to as a really strong role model in how to

be authentic and how being really authentic and as much as giving

yourself permission to be yourself, not worrying about how you're coming

across, that's often the most engaging.

When you can meet somebody who's not worrying about the

impression that they give.

They've got that natural confidence and charisma.

Richie, for me, he is that I look at his content every day as my sort

of north star, my compass bearing as to how to show up 100% authentic.

do you think then that that is part of charisma in that scale of being

able to let go of the need for people to like you or to validate you or anything

like that and just say, No, this is it.

This is what you got.

I think it's hard, but it is, I think, not worrying about the outcome

of an engagement or a conversation, but being there to use a phrase I saw

Mike Kim use recently of your content being almost a sacrificial event.

It's 100% for other people, it's not for you, like, allows you to approach.

Content and every engagement and every relationship without any agenda.

And there's a universal law that I live by, which is balance.

The universe wants to keep everything in balance.

So if you give unapologetically, the law of balance will take care of you.

and I've found that hard to, how would I put that?

Hard to trust.

But I think when you meet somebody who embraces that,

that's when you meet charisma.

That's definitely interesting and some nice stuff to think about and

probably for result to even aspire to.

One of the things that I love talking about on my show is charisma.

It's a particularly important factor for people like us for people who have

their own business and especially who are appearing on podcasts, hosting

their own podcast particularly.

I'm wondering for you since we are now on this show, focusing much

more on podcasting as the tool of influence, what first brought you

to podcasting and I'd, we'd love to really hear more about your journey

into podcasting and how that's evolved.

I think for me, I, when I started my podcast, I was

living in the northeast of Scotland, very remote and isolated from

what you would call the industry.

And if you're listening on audio making air quotes.

And my business was entirely built through referrals, which a lot of

people would think is brilliant.

But when you live in a small town, if you are depending on referrals for your

business to grow, you have a natural cap.

On your business, you're gonna struggle to scale.

And I knew that content and content marketing would allow me to scale.

And there's also this whole thing of, well, maybe I, I'll be honest.

When I started my podcast, it was purely from a content perspective.

I wanted to create content, which would essentially build me an audience and

that audience would want to hire me.

Didn't work out like that.

Initially what happened was I started interviewing people who became

role models, who I learned from.

And as I learned, my business pivoted and my podcast pivoted.

The podcast for me was really the catalyst of a, a learning journey.

I started to learn when I started to spend time with amazing people.

This whole thing of your.

Your income rises to the sum of the five people you spend most time with.

I was spending most of time with some of the most incredible people in my industry,

in the world on a very regular basis.

so my business pivoted, and as a consequence, my business is

completely transformed as more profitable and it's ever been.

It's more productive than it's ever been.

But more importantly, that education continues.

In terms of influence, the podcast for me has been a game changer.

I mean, I've gone from being somebody who nobody had ever heard of.

I'm, if anybody had heard of me, probably for the wrong reasons, to walking into

the room in social media marketing world, and the speakers running up to give me

a hug in front of hundreds of people.

And you think.

What a difference a few years makes.

so I can't even remember what your question was, Johnny, but

was, really about how you got, how you got into podcasts and like

what drew you to it in the first place.

So you, I think you have answered that in terms of, you saw it as a potential

content source or, or somewhere to where creating and distributing content, but

it's become a lot more than that for you.

I know that's from some of the conversations that,

that we've had over time.

We get things that there's a certain.

Sometimes a certain idea of, you're supposed to be a certain way to

be a podcast You're supposed to have a certain kind of personality.

And I think maybe just I was even chatting together is proof in itself that you don't

have to be one particular kind of person.

I I listen to your show a lot and I really enjoy it.

It's the personal brand entrepreneurship is, it's a really great podcast

and I am very selective about the shows that I listened to.

One of the things that I really appreciate it about it is it's,

for me, it's almost like vocal ASMR it's, your voice is so soothing and

there's a very chill start to it.

And I really like that.

I resonate with that a lot and I'm sure a lot of other people do too,

but you could have easily been tempted to try and sort of ramp it up and be

a bit more energized and see people.

But you know, that wouldn't really be you.

I think this is the thing is the more I think I could easily pretend

to be someone else, and I think this is important for everyone to hear, but

the problem is if you pretend to be somebody else, you will attract people

who are attracted to somebody else.

They're not attracted to you for the right reasons, and the more you

show up as authentically yourself, even if you feel that that's really

awkward, even if you feel you should be someone else, the more you can do it.

The more you will attract people who are attracted to you for who you are, they're

gonna be pre-sold on your personality.

They already know you.

They already like you.

They already trust what they will meet when they work with you.

Right.

So authenticity really, really works.

And I think a lot of people, again, this comes down to if you walk

into a room with 50 people in it, there's this very small proportion

of those people who will be into you.

That's just the physics of relationships.

But when you're walking into a room with thousands or tens of thousands

of people as you are, when you go out with content marketing, there's gonna

be a much larger number of people who are into you for who you actually are.

So you can afford to show up as you knowing that you're not gonna be for

90% of people and celebrate it cuz the numbers work very differently.

Yeah, I wonder if there's any element to which that your journey in

podcasting has helped you in some ways of figuring out more, like what's really

authentic to you and what is your style and what does and doesn't fit for you?

Cause I feel for me that's very much the case and probably continues to be so.

It absolutely is.

I think podcasting for me is now natural.

It's like breathing.

I feel really, really comfortable in the host role.

I continue to struggle in a solo role.

I would, I still struggle with solo podcasting, but bizarrely,

I'm now doing video content on YouTube, and that for me is painful.

it now less so, but I would urge anyone to go and look at my YouTube

channel on the early videos.

It's horrific.

You can probably see a parallel to my podcast journey in the YouTube

journey in that it's probably only now starting to look like it's

vaguely natural and I'm enjoying it.

It's, I think a lot of people when they come to podcasting and things

like personal branding again and making air quotes, they think about

the personality they need to create or what do I need to present in

order to persuade or convince people.

But actually for me, it's been much more of a process of sort of knocking off if,

to use a sculpture analogy, you create a sculpture by removing, not by adding.

And so the more you can take away the inauthenticity, the pretension

the faking it, The things that you've probably always done, The more

you come to actually who you are.

And it's just as much work on the inside as it is in terms of

what you're creating to put out.

And I think if you keep those in balance, it's a very healthy thing.

It seems that more and more people are thinking

about starting podcasts.

I mean, I saw some statistics recently, which I'm pretty sure must have been asked

to a very select group of people where they said something like, nine out of 10

people are thinking of starting a podcast.

I think that can't be true.

I just can't imagine that nine out of 10 people and I if you went and asked

around Google or something that, and that was your point your, or anywhere in

probably Silicon Valley and you started asking people there probably, Yeah.

Or in LA where everyone wants to be famous.

Yeah.

Probably would get those sorts of figures.

But I think more generally, I doubt that it's anything like that high.

But then also I think, well, how many people say they want to be

an author and never write a book or anything So, so it could just.

Would you like to do that?

And perhaps, perhaps there are quite high figures for people who'd

like to do it, but probably won't.

But do you still think there is a very strong draw for people to come

into podcasting now, or do you feel that it is sort of wearing off and

that people aren't so attracted to it?

I actually see podcasting as still a huge growth industry.

if you look at the number of podcasts relative to the number of YouTube

channels, then you would have to think we've only scratched the surface of what.

Podcasting can achieve in terms of penetration.

I think what I would say is if you're looking at getting into podcasting

as somebody who wants to build a massive audience and monetize that

massive audience through advertising and things like that, you're

gonna have a very long journey.

But if you take podcasts like mine and like yours, we're not for everyone.

We're very, for a very small group of people.

And if that's you, there is so much opportunity in podcasting.

I have clients, I'm not a podcast coach at all but I do, my, my business

is what you might call the leadership branding or personal branding space.

And I work with people.

To help them cultivate their personal brand, their visibility and their

authority in lots of different ways.

And some of those people are working with podcasts.

And even now, I've one client who has gone from zero to the number one

personal finance podcast in the UK in a matter of a couple of months.

and it's changed his business.

So, and that's a competitive space.

So with the right, format and the right attitude and the attitude

is important, you can still do it.

Absolutely.

And yeah, so much opportunity there.

This is, this has been one of the things that is why

people be seeing that this show is now called Podfluence rather than

Speaking Influence, which it was.

And speaking of influence before that, and let's not even go back to

what I first called the show, which was ridiculous, but That has been an

evolution in itself, but I recognize for me, that even then there was some fear

in nicheing down the target and scope of the show that I might limit myself too

much in what I speak about or the appeal that it would have to other people.

And yet now it, to me, it just, the direction that I'm going with this

just makes so much more sense to me.

But it has taken a long time to figure out and also for me to maybe.

Yeah, expression.

You have to kill your darlings.

Like I had to be willing to let go of stuff I was doing before and just maybe

let it die or just let it steep somewhere else for a while whilst I focus on this,

which is where things are happening and clearly what I get excited about talking.

Like I really love talking about the podcasting industry and I personally

think it's one of the best tools available for us right now to establish

thought leadership, to be able to have those interesting conversations

that we love to have and to be adding just substantial value to people in

particular niche areas do you think nicheing is essential now in podcasting?

Cause I think it hasn't been before, but I think maybe it might be.

I would have to say, why would you not want to?

If I think nicheing is a very easy thing to tell people to do, but it's

a very hard thing to actually do.

It's like eating vegetables and exercise.

Yeah.

It's, everybody knows that it's a good thing, but it's still hard because

you're saying no to so many people that you know would be interested in you.

You have a lot of value.

Everybody has a spectrum of value.

But to get down to the essence of who are you most valued to, and.

Where does your fulfillment come in?

That's really, really important.

I think the real reason you need to niche but that's probably more true

of podcasting than with a lot of things, is you want people with a very

specific set of needs to discover you.

And if you, the way I, I often speak about this is in terms of a signal.

A signal has various components.

It has a receiver and a transmitter.

So there are receivers out there waiting for your signal.

They have needs, but your signal is probably too diffuse

for them to really pick up.

They can't notice it.

probably that signal's not very strong because you're not really committed.

And a lot of the time the frequency is all wrong because

you're never talking about it.

So if you're not talking about it, you're not talking about it With

any enthusiasm and more importantly, you've got a very narrow bandwidth so

that your signal is very clear, then those people will receive your signal.

So you need to set that beacon out into the world with an singular tone

so that the only person who are going to their heads are gonna snap around

to the people who just need that.

This is the value of a niche.

If you don't niche, you won't catch people's attention.

From a business perspective, if you've got that niche, you've got

one person with one set of needs, one consist problem, and you've got one

way of consistently serving them that consistently meets their needs, so you

then become a very attractive proposition for them as a service provider.

So, and this is the thing in a local business setting where you've got a small

catchment area and you need a lot of people to say yes to you in order to make

a living, you can't afford to niche But when you're in a global market, actually

you have to niche because it's more profitable, it's more productive, it's

more fulfilling and it's easier to market because your signal is strong and clear.

I like that.

Yeah, definitely important to have that.

And that's the only way you can really cut through the noise of everything else

that's going on around, but, and there's a lot of it, there's a lot of noise.

You mentioned that people coming into podcast now have a big journey and I've

often said this myself, Well, this is not generally something you can just

come into and it just works and happens.

I mean, I'm sure that does happen on rare instances for some people that they just

have the right thing at the right time and there's already a following and it just

hits and connects and and does very well.

But I think that's probably rare.

But for most podcasters, it's a much longer journey and one that

maybe has ups and downs in it.

And I wonder what your own experience of that has been.

I think I have a couple of perspectives on that.

So most people come into podcasting because they want to build an audience

because they want, the, their emphasis is really on what they can get from the

podcast as an audience building tool.

And I think when that's the case, they're often looking at it from

the wrong perspective because that was my perspective and I feel it

was a mistake to come into it with that, because on that side of things

generally is going to be a long game.

But if I look at where has the real value been for me in the

podcast, Yes, now it's the audience.

Now it's the recognition and the authority.

But for the longest, Actually the real value was building relationships with

people like you, with people who I would look up to as heroes with most of the

authors of the books on my bookshelf.

I can now count as friends and mentors, people that I could never

have accessed in any other way.

for me, that's been the real transformation in my business.

it's, and That is not a long game.

That is an immediate benefit that you can enjoy on day one.

Because here's the thing.

If I wanted, let's say I worked in telecoms and I wanted to sell telecoms

systems to big or organizations, I can call them up and say, Hi, I'm

Jimmy from the telecoms company.

And they'll go, Ah, sorry.

No.

If I call up the chief of the IT division and I say, Hi, my name's Bob

Gentle from the Global Telecom Show.

I'd like to profile you on my podcast.

He's gonna say, Tell me more.

And at the end of that podcast interview, he's gonna say, So Jimmy, what is it?

You do say, Well, I'm glad you asked.

Bet.

I provide telecom systems to the world's biggest companies.

Oh wow.

We have to speak.

this is the immediate benefit that you can get from a podcast.

Yes, it gives you content.

For me, I think content is really important and

audience is really important,

Yeah, it has to be that trust factor as well though, right?

I mean, when people get to know you a bit like you, you can't just randomly

really walk up to someone unless you are a very smooth operator and,

and just starting to that hey, you know, this is why I do this, what I'm

selling and here's why you buy it.

And that's, most cases probably not gonna work or have people trying

to get away from you very quickly.

But when you've created that relationship and given the sense of like, you're

not just there to to start, you can actually just have a conversation.

You've broken the ice, you've created almost a friend relationship there,

and that gives you the grounding to be able to have those potential sales

or opportunity based conversations, which you may never have had before.

I think another to build on that, if I'm introducing myself

as, let's say, how would I put this?

So at the moment, If I'm comparing one potential supplier with another

potential supplier, one potential supplier is perfectly competent.

They take all the boxes.

Another potential supplier is exactly the same, but the person offering it

is from one of the leading podcasts.

I go to check him out, think, wow, they know this person, and this person.

They've moved from the ordinary to the unusual, to the

exceptional, to the celebrity box.

Now somebody's got to decide between the ordinary and the spectacular.

Which one are they gonna pick?

Which one carries more trust, more authority, more pod fluence.

dare I say It's obvious which one you're gonna pick, so it's, it puts you in a

category that's completely different from all your competitors almost immediately.

You don't need to have been doing it for two years for that to be true.

Yeah, I've loved that podcasting has made me braver in some

ways because there are connections I will make there or thing, actions

that I will take, that I will do for the greater benefit of the show that

I probably wouldn't do otherwise.

And that has been very powerful for me.

And also I do those moments where I sit back and think, Oh, I was quite

brave I contacted someone who I never would've reached out to before.

And maybe they come back, maybe they don't.

But more often than not, they do.

And sometimes they even say yes to come in on the show as people would

see from my previous guest list.

I wonder for you, have there ever been any really challenging times

in your podcast journey where you are like, Oh, fuck this, I'm done.

No, I'll be honest.

I think quite the opposite.

And I think this is probably what.

I would warn against, there's been times where it's become really

easy to the point where I think I need to level up a little bit.

And so there was a period, for example, when I was doing my weekly show, my show's

always been weekly thought, You know what?

This is getting really easy.

I had an editor and I really enjoyed it.

Thought, you know what?

I could do a daily show.

and I toyed with that idea for a little bit and I nearly did it, but I had so

many people telling me, No, don't do that.

Do you've got this?

Just get better at the interviews.

Get better guests.

put more care and attention into the show you've got.

Make it as great as it possibly could be.

The same is true of YouTube that I'm thinking.

It's now getting easy to the point where this doesn't really

occupy an awful lot of my time.

How can I make it really hard for myself again?

that's probably where I struggle more.

Right.

Yeah.

That, that's interesting.

That's interesting to me.

I think for me it's hard to Say exactly why I've kept

going with the show as I have.

But I am glad that I did because there have been times where I've been

like, Why am I doing this Or is a lot of it feels like a lot of effort

for not always a lot of results.

But when I look at some of the things you mentioned, like the network that I've

built up through this, the connections that I've made the audience that is

following this show, and then for those of you who are enlisting, I really appreciate

you and thank you for tuning in.

But you don't always think about that when you're making the show because

you're in, you are in the process of it.

You're not, you don't have those people gathered around you to that are watching

it or that you don't have expectant faces.

When you walk out into a stage to deliver a talk.

It's a very different somewhat hermetic process.

I think.

I think what I would say is the reason I found my podcast easy is

because I quite intentionally designed a podcast that I would enjoy doing.

That for me, I get to speak to people that I'm genuinely interested in and

genuinely curious about every single week.

And there is a, joy in that that eclipses any stress or trauma that

there might be cuz there is stress and trauma from time to time.

Yeah.

But for me, the podcast is a joy, and this is again,

an important thing that, as.

Interest and your curiosities change.

Let your podcast change.

Don't feel that just because that's the podcast you started.

That's the podcast you have to do.

It's your forever show.

It shouldn't be The podcast is an outlet for curiosity for me, and so as

my curiosity and my enthusiasms and my passions change, my podcast will sort of

pivot and tilt to the wind, so to speak.

Mm.

It's interesting you seemly started your show with a business mindset.

I certainly did not.

And so people who've tuned, people who've tuned into my show before will know that

I started this show as a project in my Toastmasters club be, but I had been

thinking about doing a podcast for the longest time, and I had done a podcast

back in 2012, which didn't last very long.

And I always wanted to come back to it.

But you know, I did it completely in ignorance, just sort of think I had no

idea how to do it other than having a microphone and that I was gonna video

it and put it on YouTube as well.

And had no idea about podcast networks.

I really knew nothing much about podcasting.

And so the whole learning curve was really, really steep.

And I think that, Probably one of my biggest challenges in podcasting

because I just decided to keep going.

I had fun with it.

I went from monthly to biweekly to weekly episodes and that all evolved as well.

But it took me a long time to start thinking of it as something that might

actually be professionally beneficial to me and worth focusing on in a business

sense, especially as I didn't think there was really ever gonna be much

chance of making money from the show.

Because certainly a few years back, you only ever heard about people getting

sponsorships for the shows, and you had to have very big download numbers to be

able to look at those kinds of options.

So, so you had a plan when you started that, but what did that look like?

What did your launch plan for your show look like?

I think I, I don't like big launches and I think like a lot

of introverts, I, when I launched my show, it was a very soft launch.

There was no fanfare, no big launch party, nothing like that.

It was just quietly pop it up on iTunes and see what happens.

and that was fine.

And I think for a lot of people, like me, they're very anxious about

what people will think of them.

Being a podcaster, check him out, thinking he's all fancy.

but you don't have to tell anyone.

You don't have to make a big fanfare if you design your podcast

so it brings genuine value to people who have a specific need.

They'll find it, they'll find it on an Apple Podcasts on and Spotify

without you having to go ram it down their necks so that's pretty

much how I launched the podcast.

Now I'm much more confident with it because I know it meets a genuine need.

But back then it was just a vanity project really.

what are some of the things that you perhaps didn't know when

you started your show that you have that have been important for you to

learn and realize on your journey?

I didn't know how much I knew.

I didn't anticipate, and again, this is gonna be true for most people, not

just me, but the difference between pre podcast Bob and the people who

are sitting on the shelves of my bookshelf, the only difference is action.

It's not intelligence, it's not knowledge, it's not experience, it's action.

And if I had, I'll tell you a story, Johnny, you will really enjoy this.

I probably bought my podcast microphone four or five years

before I started the podcast.

That's how long the gestation period was.

And I.

This is why for me, action is so important now that a lot of people,

they spend so much time not moving because they don't have a big plan.

They don't have all the pieces in place that they never take a any action at all.

Because here's the thing, all the pieces are never in place, ever.

even in I made a YouTube video today, although I was looking for some

content ideas and I got distracted and I started scrolling through YouTube

and I came across a YouTube video if you're listening to this, at the

beginning, at the end of April, 2022.

Then Johnny Dep and,

Amber

Amber heard busy knocking bits of out of each other

in court at the moment, and Johnny Depp was asked what he thought of

the Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

He said, You know what?

I've never seen the Pirates of the Caribbean movie because

he couldn't watch it and.

It reminded me of something that I'd heard I was that if you're listening

in the UK, you'll know who Blur are.

One of the biggest bands of the nineties and the drummer from Blur was in a

room with some of his biggest fans, and the experiment was, let's see what

happens when this guy listens to his own biggest selling album with some

of the people who love it the most.

And he admitted, You know what?

I never listened to this album because all I can hear are the flaws.

And if that's true of Johnny Depp and the biggest drummer from the biggest

rock band in the world, what chance have we got to love what we hear and expect

that we're going to see it as perfect?

It's gonna be rubbish.

Everybody is.

Every artist is going to look at their own work and see only its flaws.

So don't wait for perfection.

Jump into it knowing that it's always going to be rubbish.

You will always think it's rubbish and embrace it.

Yeah

the action.

And that's where all the, that's where the, magic happens.

that's a great thing to highlight.

and it was one of the things that was coming up for me when you were mentioning

about your YouTube stuff and some of your not so long ago YouTube stuff you

were describing as sort of been crap.

And I'm thinking, well, I've seen some of that and it's really not, your

stuff has got better, but from your own perspective, you look back and think,

Oh, you know what, I'm a lot better at this now than I was when I started.

So I look back on that and think, well, that was crap.

That was where I, but that's where you were then.

But there, there will be plenty of people who would look at that and.

It's not crap.

Bob It's actually pretty good because it's better than a lot.

But, so it is really just from our own perspective when we look at the

stuff we do, because hopefully we are always growing and learning and

developing and getting better at the things we do, we probably should look

back and think, Yeah, what I did before wasn't as good as what I'm doing now.

How could it be?

But you have to do that stuff to get to where you are now and from

where you're gonna be in the future.

It's the action thing that you said.

Yeah.

I think that's the price of being good is you have to embrace being garbage.

That's just, that's what it costs.

but here's the thing, you don't have to be good for it to work.

My first podcast interviews were probably terrible, but I still got to promote

the fact that I was speaking to this person on a podcast show to LinkedIn

and people who I knew were going, Maybe I misjudge Bob and the phone would

ring and I would have a new customer.

And that continues to happen every day.

Like you, I don't have huge download numbers on my podcast.

they're ahead of the industry norm for a show in my niche.

But even though the numbers are low, it still works for me tremendously.

Well, if I post my show on LinkedIn for example, I can be pretty sure that

somebody's gonna reach out who again, they might have known me for years.

These are another good story that this isn't a podcast story, but it's a video

story, but it's the same thing is true.

There are people who have known me probably for 20 years and because

they've known me for 20 years, they still think of me the way they met

me the first day, which was a young guy running web design company and.

Yeah, I don't really rate him well.

Things have changed, but the thing is, if you never show up in people's

lives, you never influence them.

So I posted a couple of YouTube videos onto LinkedIn, and

suddenly the phones ringing.

Two in one week, two people who in my, the city that I used to live in, these

were two of the biggest, most charismatic business owners in the city, who I

thought actually really didn't like me.

They called me up and said, We love what you're doing.

I really need to talk to you.

I need your help.

So I've gone from the very back in terms of being able to help them to the only

person that can help them through content.

Content will completely change how people perceive you.

Because if you're not shaping that perception, well, what's

doing the shaping for you?

Their false memories, their assumptions, and what other people have said about

you, if you don't control what people are thinking about you, they'll fill the gap.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's, it's interesting.

I've often said that my earliest YouTube stuff was.

Bad.

Like bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

And, and it was, I mean, I had no clue what I was doing.

I was probably really inauthentic trying to be something,

someone who I really wasn't.

So it wasn't very natural either.

I got caught out on all that stuff.

But, I do remember doing a video that was like some personal development stuff.

I was, I just gonna put this out there.

I had this idea.

It was really enjoying it.

It was based on some stuff that someone else had shared and I thought, let's

just put it out there and left it.

Probably thought nothing of it, but probably I think something

like five years later, somebody had seen that and contacted me and

wanted to work with me as a client.

And, well, you just, you just never know.

And so I'm thinking compared to what I would do now on

YouTube, that stuff was crap.

But it.

got someone's attention.

It still had value to someone.

And so we shouldn't judge ourselves always too harshly.

You have to get the stuff out there and get connected with people and that's how

you, that's how you make a difference.

And hopefully we get better at that as we go along.

I mean, I've, I remember it was just a couple of years ago,

I wish I could remember who it was.

Like I mentioned, I built my business through networking events.

And somebody, I wish I could remember who it was, told me that I'd said something

at a networking event probably 20 years ago that had shaped her entire future,

Her whole life had changed on that day.

I didn't remember it as whole.

You cannot make any assumptions about what people will take away from what You see.

and for me, there's something that's profoundly important and it's you

and I, we both know Chris Ducker.

Something that he said.

A lot of people misunderstood, possibly including him.

He says, You need to market like a magnet to attract the best and repel the rest.

This is something that he's used in a couple of books, I think.

But what a lot of people take from that is the attraction side of things.

They think I need to attract the very best people.

But what they don't understand is the importance of pushing away.

And in physics, there's this whole e equals mc squared.

For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction.

So if you want people to be strongly attracted to you, you have to

celebrate actively pushing others away.

And so this may puts you in a very delicious space where you get to choose

who you attract and who you push away.

So what that means is, if I'm going to be pushing people away and I'm going

to be attracting people, wouldn't it be good if the people who were attracted

were attracted to what's actually here?

And it becomes, For, me, that was one of the most liberating things when

I understood one third of people.

They're just not gonna like me.

Doesn't matter what I do, I can scale up my content to the point where I've got

millions of YouTube subscribers, but one third of those people will not like me.

So how about I make content specifically for the third, that

I'm really, really into the people who like me for the right reasons.

If they met me in the street, they'd still like me.

and that's, I guess why, that's what allowed me to really relax into

the podcast and not feel I had to pretend to be, somebody that I was

just always gonna find it work to be.

Hmm.

We have in our industry a lot of negative association with the word influencer.

Maybe it's justly, maybe it's rightly and from things that have been done

and the abuse of that term over time.

But I don't I dunno, I've yet to be able to find out a word that,

works better or equally as well.

I think it's something that we, it's just gonna have to work on reclaiming

and moving away from that, instagram shiny influencer thing that has given

in being an influencer, a bad name in the past, and that people are not

wanting to be associated with it.

If you or anyone else has better suggestions as to another word to use

instead that is just as effective, then I'm definitely open to that.

But, it's a, it, is really still about becoming an influencer And when

we talk about this show but we're talking about influence and persuasion.

If you're gonna have influence, you have to become an influencer.

You have to get yourself into a position, be a part of the

conversation, be part of where people are looking to for information.

Be someone who is out there sharing and adding, hopefully adding

and contributing to be in that.

And part of that is influencing and being, an influencer.

I think you're right.

I've also thought influencer is a difficult word to find a replacement

for, and it's often misunderstood.

It's a little bit like celebrity.

and if you, if I've met a couple of people who've thought, who've expressed

the desire to become influencers, and their idea of what that meant

was completely different to mine.

The word leader for me, works a little better.

Vi visible leadership.

that's probably getting closer to the meaning, but it is a tough one.

I think if this whole thing of great leaders don't tell you what

to do, they show you what to do.

I think this for me is influence somebody who is showing you their workings

to use the math teacher's analogy.

somebody who's doing the work and not just talking about doing the work.

And you can see that that's happening.

or thought leader is another one I've had when there was a brief period

where I had a PR division to my company and people would come to us

and say, I wanna be a thought leader.

Make me a thought leader.

And he Oh, okay.

What they wanted, what they were understanding was we were gonna write

them some blog posts and that was gonna make them a thought leader.

Thought leadership is where you lead with your thinking.

You express yourself, you create content.

This is what creates thought leadership and has influence.

So yeah, having a large Instagram account doesn't mean you're influencing anybody.

It just means you're creating an impression.

It's different thing.

and I think you're a billboard.

You're not an influencer as such.

Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense to me.

And I'm very aware as someone who's been very much in public speaking

space as well as podcasting that.

leadership is a huge part of the influence and persuasion thing.

And that, you know, we think about, a lot of times in the show we'll talk

about things like rhetoric and we'll talk about all the different tools

and aspects of influence, persuasion.

And one of the most fascinating parts of me is how that is used in leadership.

We see it in politics every single day.

Leadership is essential to this.

And we, I guess we just don't necessarily have that common connection

between being someone who is a thought leader and, or influencer and

being a sort of more general leader.

That there's, we have different interpretations.

This.

so much.

This does just come down to how do we actually understand those words

and the different meanings and associations that get attached to

things over time and they change.

Language evolves, meanings change.

but, you specifically have been moving yourself away or starting to move away

from being a personal branding expert.

to a leader, brand expert.

And I would like just to give you the opportunity to tell us a little

bit more about why that's the case and what that means for you.

I think personal branding as such is the space that I've been focused

on probably for the last year or so, and the, if you to ask anybody what's

the definition of a brand, they'll tell you that a brand is what people say

about you when you're not in the room.

It's actually quite passive.

It's everybody has a brand.

You have a brand, I have a brand, my dog has a brand.

the personal brand.

is a passive thing.

a le a leader brand is really the where I'm leaning now in terms of my niche,

so to speak, because I want to work with people who want to take that in hand.

They don't want to, they don't want to leave it to chance, but alongside that,

they don't want to cultivate an artificial one, which is something that I see a lot.

it's very similar to the word influence.

Now you'll see personal brand creeping into the public lexicon as

an artificial front, and I don't want to be associated with that at all.

For me, personal branding goes hand in hand with personal development

and actually doing the work to understand who you are in order that

you present a, that you're not only presenting yourself as authentic.

But that you're getting closer and closer to what that actually

is in genuine terms for yourself.

That there's an acceptance of who you are alongside a greater presentation of it.

And this is important for a lot of reasons that, if you are running

a large organization, for example, everybody's working remotely,

we've got things like artificial intelligence coming down the line.

Virtual reality and organizations are becoming further and further away from

the people they serve, but they're also becoming further and further

away from the people who serve them.

And what that means for organizations is there's no loyalty from consumers anymore.

But there's also a real danger that there's no loyalty from

your own team anymore because there's no relationship there.

The ties that bind, they're all afraid and loose.

And something that I'm seeing is really becoming true, and this is particularly

the case, be through things like new privacy regulations and artificial

intelligence and virtual reality that the way that we used to connect with them,

connect with our customers through things like targeting and that kind of thing.

It's not gonna be possible anymore.

And so the companies that are gonna win are gonna be the companies that

create the strongest sense of belonging.

And that's both in terms of attracting customers, but also

attracting and retaining your own team if everything else is equal.

Where do I feel genuinely at home?

And this is where leadership and leader brand really comes in, that people.

Need the tools and the wherewithal to show up internally and externally

in ways they've never had to before.

But they're also not going to be able to hide behind memos and corporate videos.

They're going to need to present authentically and with a sense,

with a degree of humility because this is what's going to work.

And I dunno, have you seen the film Ready Player One?

I have.

So at the End of Ready Player one, there's a huge

virtual community rallying around one character to support him.

And I think why would they do that?

And it's because of the leader brand that he cultivated in that film.

In a virtual environment, authenticity, charisma, mission,

he was clearly embracing his own hero's journey with humility.

His so charismatic.

This is what I'm looking at with Leader brand.

It's how to help large organizations cultivate that

kind of energy, for themselves.

So it goes way beyond personal branding.

It's much more about the magic in the background rather than

trying to fake it in the front.

Yeah.

I wonder from your perspective then, where does that really need to happen?

You said about people needing to get in their own heroes journey, We've

talked about how like podcasting has been part of that evolution for us and

figuring ourselves out and getting into that authenticity state, and how do you

then go about helping a business or a business owner to figure that stuff out?

for themselves?

Here's the good thing.

When you create content, everything that we've just discussed, once you start

putting it out there that this is a thing and it's available and you talk about it

often enough, you become known for it.

And the people who need to hear about it will find you.

And this is what I'd like everyone to understand.

Marketing doesn't have to be about pushing things at people.

It's simply setting a fire so that the right people see it.

So if you talk about something regularly, if you're seen to be

on a mission, if there's a passion there, the right people see it.

And enough for me.

I want to bring things back to the podcasting thing because I

think it's such an important thing to be focused on it, and really it's one

of the reasons why I sort of niche the focus of this show a little bit more

and want to have more conversations with people who are in podcasting to,

to really understand like, what are they getting out of it and why would

other people want to be coming into it?

How important do you think it is now for a business owner, for someone

who is a business leader, to be thinking about having a podcast

as part of their professional?

e.

I think it's extremely important but I understand why a lot

of people are intimidated by it because it's very, Most people's reaction

when I suggest a podcast is imposter syndrome immediately, or, I dunno if

I could do that because I dunno if I know enough, I couldn't go out and

talk to some of the smartest people in the world in my industry because

it'll be quickly apparent that I don't know everything I possibly claim to.

And what I would urge those people is to approach it from

a very different perspective.

Approach it from the perspective of being a student about making your

curiosity visible and celebrating that.

I don't know that much about the leadership business space.

I honestly don't.

However, knowing that I want to move into talking much more about

leadership in order to further my goals for Leader brand, I'm going to

be reaching out and connecting with and bringing on as guests, experts from.

The leadership space in the world.

So like the biggest names.

But I'm going into those conversations with complete humility.

What my friend Neil would call asking the da laddy questions

because he was a senior policeman.

So you always asked the DAF laddy questions because that's what people

love to listen to because those are the questions they want to hear answered.

Cuz they've got the da la questions too.

So if you're asking the questions that your listeners want to hear,

then you're pitching it, right?

So if you're going into it trying to look clever, trying to look like the

expert, you're gonna struggle because your guests will always know more than you do.

They're always smarter than you are a present company accepted.

Um, but that is the right attitude to go into a podcast with.

And if you go into it with that attitude, You're always going to look good.

You're gonna look respectful.

You're gonna look like the host.

I mean, any TV talk show host will tell you they're usually, they're the only

person on that show that's done nothing really, other than have a talk show.

It's, but they become synonymous with the celebrity of their guests

and that's where the real value is.

So I get interesting perspectives from different

people that I speak to.

And over the last couple of months I've had a lot of people who are professionals

in the world of podcasting who are known in podcasting in general, and

also people who are very successful podcasters, rather than necessarily

teaching things about podcasting.

And so the perspectives seem to be quite different as to the

benefits on what, what is the best.

sort of position to go to.

But if it was a choice for you between being a guest or being a

host and you could only do one or the other, which would you choose?

Host a hundred percent.

Because I get to choose, I get to choose my journey.

I get to choose my story.

I get to follow my curiosity.

If I had to choose between all of the things that have happened

to me through the podcast that aren't to do with the audience.

I mean, here's the thing.

My podcast would've been a success if nobody had ever listened.

That's the thing.

And that would not be the same if I were guessing on other people's shows.

that's where I would come back to.

Yeah.

I know.

I think that as, as well, I think, I love being a guest on other people's

shows and I'm always fascinated to see what kind of questions people

are gonna ask me, and that you get challenged to think on your feet.

I also think it gives you opportunities to develop how you communicate.

maybe you find this is a, this is I'm gonna talk about podcast editing for

a moment because it's not something that really gets thought by very much.

And I know you don't really edit your own show anymore.

You get someone else to do that.

But you have edited podcasts and when you do edit things like a podcast

conversation, you immediately start to notice how much people say the same

kinds of things over and over again.

You'll hear a lot of, you know, you'll hear a lot of like, you'll

hear kind of these expressions that get said over and over again that we

are not really consciously aware of.

They're filler words they're like uns and rs, but they're.

They sound like they're part of the conversation, but they're not.

And I always try to work more myself more consciously towards having

pauses and speaking more clearly than trying to, I'm sure I have plenty

of those ette still, but I try to avoid them as much as possible.

So I'd rather take that pause.

And I think people are still generally afraid of having those

pauses, perhaps more so on a podcast because there's this idea that it's

dead air whilst you're having a conversation, but of course it's fine.

In fact, it's beneficial I think, to have those pauses.

But I just wonder if there are things like that that you've picked up on

through the logistical side of podcasting

a couple.

One is always tell your guest how long the show is at the beginning.

because people will assume wildly different things.

I had one podcast guest who by the time we got to 40 minutes, it became

apparent he was, he had an agenda, he was telling a very particular story,

and he wasn't even halfway through.

alternatively, you'll start an interview assuming that you're having a 40 minute

conversation only to discover the guest that only allocated 20 minutes.

and, and so that's probably the biggest thing for me.

in, In terms of the editing, I make sure I give people quite a comprehensive

pre-flight briefing so that they're properly put at ease beforehand.

I think some podcasters will, sometimes particularly, Inexperienced

guests roll into the show too quickly without having built up

the rapport before you hit record.

at the same time, if you've got a, a very, how would I put this?

If It's a big name guest and you know, they're a big name, don't waste 20

minutes on small talk when they've, they've done this a hundred times.

Uh, just get into the show as quickly as possible and respect their time.

Um, you you need to know who you're talking to, um, and take care

over those people who need care.

But if somebody's a pro, treat them as a pro and get them straight into it.

Um,

It's wise words and stuff that you have to sometimes figure out on the

journey, but great if you have that kind of knowledge and information and advance,

I think it's particularly helpful.

You know, I've learned more and more on the journey how important it is

to have guests feeling as relaxed as possible in the conversation.

Not just because it gets people to open up more, but because you actually

start to enjoy the conversation a lot more when it's relaxed.

And that doesn't always happen.

You're not always gonna click and gel with everybody who you speak to

and some people more than others.

But the better you get at that, the more likely that that's going to happen.

You know?

I mean, just this morning I was doing another recording and it started off.

Not cold, but a bit.

The rapport developed very much throughout the conversation.

And as things got more comfortable and as the guest was having more

fun with the show the conversation got more engaging, more interesting.

It's like, okay.

I started off being like, Oh, is this gonna be a good show or not?

To being like, Oh yeah, this is great.

This is fantastic.

I didn't have to worry about that so much with you, Bob,

because we, we know each other.

But I think, coming onto this thinking, Maybe, maybe want to have a reasonable

approach of perhaps every guest, you should be thinking of them as like a

friend that you've known for a long time.

Not to be cheeky and over familiar with them.

You still have to be respectful.

And as you say with big NA guests, you might not really be able to do that.

They might actually take it and cry quite personally, but in most situations

it probably isn't a bad approach to how just aim for the friendliness, the

connection, the fireside chat kind of approach that like you're going for a

coffee, going for a beer or whatever.

Those are the kinds of conversations that can be much more fun listen

to and in my opinion anyway.

I think with the bigger name guests.

You create your connection slightly differently.

In my experience that most of the big name guests that I have on the show beforehand,

I will make sure I do my research.

I will at least have read an outline of their book, for

example, if not the actual book.

Um, and it will have had an impact.

And I'll make sure I tell them that, so that they're in a positive frame of

mind and they don't come on the show thinking, Does this guy have any idea.

who I am?

Um, so let them know they're in a friendly place.

That goes a long way.

Yeah.

Um, there was something else I was gonna say, which is a lot of people

when they're new to podcasting, they think I'm not gonna go for a big name guest.

I'm gonna get a few sort of, um, easy interviews in first, so to speak,

and then I'll go for the make names.

My advice would be not to do that because if you are if you haven't

launched your podcast yet, then.

The people have nothing to judge you on.

And the assumption will be, Well, if you're inviting me, they're probably

having this person, this person, this person, this person on as well.

You might want to hint that that's the case and they're

far more likely to say yes.

Uh, but here's the real benefit.

Those people know how to be a podcast guest.

So you as an inexperienced, insecure podcast host, might have a far easier

ride with an experienced guest.

So what I would do is look at other podcasts in your niche.

You'll, you'll notice they just have the same guests circling around all the time.

Go and invite those people, get warmed up with them, get established with

them, and then start getting creative because those people know how to behave.

They'll run your show for you in the first five or six.

I.

Yeah, that, that's a really good idea.

And I think there are, more and more people who are aware of just how

powerful podcasts can be for you now, not even just getting on the top

level podcasts, but just getting on particularly niche podcasts that are

focused to the kind of audience that are relevant to them and their business.

Is especially effective.

And I think we're gonna see probably a lot more of that as well.

And I know that it's gonna, it's already interesting how I think

it's easy now or easier now for somebody to come into podcasting.

I'm gonna make this my business.

Whereas I think perhaps around the time we would've started our shows, I don't

know that many people would've been coming into this thinking, I'm gonna

make podcasting my business but now that's very possible, is very doable.

And there are clear strategies and people around to help you do that.

And and I wonder for years, I if if you, have you ever thought about

maybe being a full-time podcaster and making this your main thing?

I kind of think of myself as a full-time podcaster just

now, but only in as much as it's something that I do all the time.

Um, it, I would say it in its own right.

It's not monetized at all.

I don't have sponsors, anything like that.

However, through the audience, I have a membership community that I support.

It influences an awful lot of my prospects to become customers.

It impacts my retention because if I can't get them what they

need, where are they gonna go?

What's the alternative?

I do look ahead and think I would like content if possible, to become a bigger

part of my revenue model, so to speak.

So I would love to have, the YouTube channel monetized.

I would love to have the podcast sponsored alongside that and looking at things like

virtual summits, which are going to be part of the same ecosystem as if you like.

What the podcast has allowed me to achieve is that I've moved away from

what was an exclusively done for you service where I was on the tools,

doing people's stuff all the time to now it's almost entirely consulting,

advisory, coaching, that kind of stuff.

So already that's the difference it's made just in a couple of years.

So project that out.

The podcast will still be central.

To my business, but I, I don't, unless I were to start other podcasts, which

is something I hadn't considered, but I, if I were to go out now and think,

okay, maybe how could I design a podcast that was designed with monetization

in mind, I'd approach it differently and I, yeah, I could probably do that.

And I think I may be going to my whiteboard after this call.

You know, I have, I have at least three other podcast ideas

that I would love to do and just don't have the bandwidth for at the moment.

But some kids What would you do if you could do anything?

Would I do podcasting full time?

Yeah.

But I probably couldn't turn down this.

Speaking opportunities that have come up from it.

I probably couldn't turn down or the, or I probably couldn't

avoid the desire to, to write.

I love writing my blog now.

I love writing content, I love creating the YouTube stuff.

I wouldn't be able to stop doing that stuff as well.

But yeah I absolutely love podcasting and would love to have more shows

that right now I think one is enough.

One is about as much as I can handle right now.

And this the thing of people, I think a lot of people don't

recognize how much work goes into this and how important it is.

I think, I was talking with Chris Ducker last week and Chris was, I

sent to Chris like one of the reason.

That I look at his roadmap that he has for helping people rise up through on,

through the entrepreneurial levels, through the income levels, and podcasting

is not in the lower levels of that.

It's not one of the foundational parts of it.

It's quite high up as he's having a book and is that, those are all things that

I feel maybe I've done a bit asked about face and gone the wrong way, but I'm glad

I have, but I also understand I would've been far better off as an entrepreneur

with business thinking to have started off with those foundational things

first, rather than the high level stuff.

That really only need to develop into, and because if you've got the money and

the team to be able to delegate out a lot of the grunt work, the time consuming

stuff that goes into all of this, it's gonna be a much easier process for

you than trying to do it all yourself and do all those foundational elements

as well, which is what I found it.

It's it makes a lot of sense to me.

Like, no, I don't think podcasting is necessarily the place to start unless

you're making that your business.

I, I think there's no right path.

There's no true path.

There's no sort of wondering to rule a mo.

Sure.

Everybody's opportunities are different.

Everybody's life situation is different, everybody's experience is different.

So you leverage what you have.

And I think for me, the podcast was exactly the Right.

place to start because it was the catalyst that led to lots of other things.

I think the mistake that I see a lot of people making, and I probably fall

into this track myself sometimes, and I think it's what you're alluding

to, is you can achieve a certain level of success, but leave out some

potentially important foundational steps that later on lead to your

inability to move forward significantly.

Um, so you might have a great podcast, for example,

Yeah.

but.

You have no product ecosystem whatsoever, so it's impossible for

you to now make any money out of being very successful as a podcaster.

Or you might have built the most amazing products in the world, but if you

have no audience, what was the point?

So understanding that you need to have the foundational elements in

place, then you need to have the authority in in place before you start

necessarily worrying too much about your visibility and that kind of thing.

And then you can worry about monetization.

There is an order to these things.

Um, it is something that you will see all the time that incredibly successful

businesses struggle to move forwards because they didn't have fundamental

foundational pieces in place.

They go back and fix those and suddenly everything's released.

Yeah.

I think that's been a lot of my experience even over the last six months of

realizing that I had a lot of foundational elements missing, and I'm still working

to sort of fill, fill those gaps.

But one of the challenges that I found in doing that is there's already

time commitments with the podcast.

So what do I do?

Do I put the podcast on hold?

Do I stop doing?

It's like, I'm not prepared to do that.

I love doing this.

I, the podcast isn't going anywhere.

So I definitely want to keep that going.

So I just have to live with that and, At least for now.

At least

uh, where, where I make my money is actually helping

people identify those gaps because the mistake a lot of people make

in that situation is I have gaps.

So I try and plug them all, every possible gap, I will try and plug it and.

You don't have the time and people end up getting paralyzed and doing

nothing, just carry on doing what they were doing before, when actually in

most people's situations, there's just one or two places they need to focus

and everything will fall into place.

And it's actually a lot less time consuming than you would think.

Um, so Yeah.

if anybody wants a good steer on that, they can visit my website and get my

personal brand business roadmap, which is what I put together to help primarily

myself and subsequently clients.

But, uh, a lot of people seem to get a lot from it, and it does

help put some orientation in there.

And they definitely should.

I would encourage them to also come and check out your podcast because

I get a lot of value personally from listening to the show.

Is the name of the podcast going to change along with your rebranding, or is

it gonna stay the personal brand entre.

don't know because there are competing priorities here.

I think the.

The artwork will change a little bit in order that the Leader brand

logo essentially becomes visible.

The nobody searches for leader brand.

So to change the title of the podcast to Leader Brand might be shooting

myself in the foot because it's ranking very well as it stands just in

the personal branding niche of which a subset of that is leader brand.

So I, I haven't fully decided on that, but I'll probably change the artwork shortly.

But you will see my face all over it.

And you just search Bob Gentle in any podcast player.

I'm easy to find.

Yeah, and also you have a great Facebook group too,

which I love being a part of.

Yeah, again, the personal brand Business

Dojo, I think that's called.

It's good fun.

I don't quite give it the love and attention that I wish I did,

but I'm every day trying to do a little bit better in that.

Um,

You, you do post some great content in there and I've certainly

been enjoying that and enjoying those aspects of the stuff that you share.

I enjoy watching YouTube videos as well.

I shall continue to follow you, Bob, because I think you're

great at what you're doing.

I love talking to you as well.

And and it isn't just because we are connected that, and like you're

talking, I'm very selective about what I would give my time to, to

listen to and pay attention to it.

And to me, you are someone who is definitely someone to keep an

eye on as a thought leader who is really starting to be more seen

in terms of what you're doing.

And I hope that continues to rise and rise for you.

And one thing that I do want to ask you what would you see your super powers being

when it comes to influence and persua?

in terms of influence and.

persuasion, it's a tricky one.

I would say listening is something that I know I'm good at.

And I think my superpower, and this is something that has caused me some

embarrassment on many occasions, is actually helping other people

recognize where their own is.

Because a lot of people don't understand where their own superpower is.

And something that has happened to me on multiple occasions is I'll be at a table

of people and they'll be telling me how confused and distressed they are by their

inability to move their business forward.

And I'll make a suggestion and they'll start bursting into tears

and, and the relief that suddenly they can see a way forward.

My influence is on a micro level.

It's not typically on a macro level.

I'm, I'm looking for having an impact.

in, in as intimate a way as I possibly can, and generally that's helping

one person have, a breakthrough.

That for me is, it's like playing with fireworks.

I just love it.

Really helping other people unlock their own potential.

That's what I live for.

That's great.

That's a wonderful superpower to have, Bob, as I really like that when it for

people who are wanting to connect with you, they'll be able to find the links

to your to your website, to your Facebook group, to your podcast in the show notes.

So please do go and take a look there whilst you're having a look around.

Make sure you're following the show and that you're subscribed as well.

Well, I do like to get book recommendations from my guests and

I wonder if I come to you and say, Hey, Bob, what's a book that I should

read or that you think everybody should be reading at the moment?

What would.

I would.

say there's a.

Richie Norton's, The power of Starting Something Stupid is a, a brilliant

book about why you should just stop worrying about, Do I have enough money?

Do I have enough time?

Do I have information?

Do I know enough people?

All the answers to those things are no, but you need to do it anyway.

Um, then there's a book called The Alchemist by Pablo Coello, which is really

a narrative illustrated hero's journey.

This is what life looks like and what it's for.

Um, for me, that book was really, really profound.

And another One I think that's helped me tremendously is Todd

Harmon's Alter Ego Effect.

I am a terrible introvert.

I've always been very, very shy and before the alter ego.

I couldn't do any of this.

None of it.

I had to read that book to discover the tools that would allow me to break

through that and show up when it mattered.

So three books

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

One of them I know pretty well, the Ments, but the other two definitely will be

wanting to go and check out for myself.

And certainly as an introvert, as a fellow introvert, I am very

interested in the alter ego effect.

If there was one thing above everything else you most hope people

will take away from the conversation we've had today, what would that.

make it about the other person.

That for me, is the most important thing that this whole thing, if people won't

remember what you said to them, but they will remember how you made them feel.

So, like I said, make your content almost.

A sacrificial gesture.

It's not about what you can get.

It's entirely about what you can give both to your guests, to your

listeners, and to everyone, everyone else that could encounter it.

If you do that, the universal law of balance will keep things

in check and you will win.

Um, that for me is probably the most important.

they say still, waters run deep, Bob.

And certainly they do seem to, Huh.

, we're talking influence supervisor, I'm thinking, one of yours, and maybe you

don't see it as your own, is that You, the gentle nature that you bring to things

like gentle by name, gentle by nature.

But it is, I think it makes people need to lean in and pay attention.

And it's that, that soft voice that you just have to listen to

because it's saying radical stop, I think that's a real strength.

That and a great power, and I'm very glad that you do lean into it.

It's been an absolute delight chatting with you today.

I knew it would be, and I'm sure we'll get you back on the show again in the future.

And and we'll definitely be connecting more over time.

But I hope that everyone at home listening as well has also enjoyed this as much.

And I look forward to hearing people's feedback about our conversation.

But Bob, thank you for coming and being my first guest on the new Pod fluence brand.

I

Well, it's my absolute honor and I'm sure it will be a stellar success.

Thank you so much.

Oh, it's good to be back.

I hope you've enjoyed the show.

And if you aren't already subscribed, please make sure that

you ask describing and following us for future episodes next week.

I'll be back with a solo show and then very soon I'll be bringing you a show

with the amazing Lee Carter and she has an incredible book about influence and

how to influence in a world where facts don't matter, fascinating conversation

and I really incredible person as well.

And I know that you're going to love that conversation as much as I did.

If you're not already following the Podfluencer weekly newsletter, you

can subscribe either in LinkedIn or a medium, the links are in the show notes.

Please do go and check them out as well as links to everything

mentioned with Bob in the show.

Do you come and join us in the Podfluence Facebook group?

You'll find the link for that in the show notes.

And if you are a podcast that looking to grow and monetize your show, well,

go and check out Kevin Chemidlin's podcasts, grow the show again, link

in the show notes and join us in the Grow the show Facebook group.

We'd love to see you there too.

That's it for this week.

I am super excited to be publishing episodes of the show again.

Um, I do promise I will do my very best to be as consistent as I possibly can

with getting these episodes out to you.

Do you think you'd be a great guest on pod fluence or, you

know, who would make a great guest?

Well, do reach out to me on Facebook or LinkedIn.

And send me a message and let me know who you think would be a great guest and why.

I should have them if you really want to go the extra mile, you can

find the application form to be on the show at present influence.com.

I look forward to seeing you next time, wherever you're going, wherever you're