I do wonder how many business owners find themselves where I've been, feeling like they're working hard and doing all the things they see industry leaders doing but not experiencing even a fraction of their success? They're burning rubber with the wheels spinning and have barely crossed the start line, let alone the finish line.

I first encountered my guest today through Pat Flynn's YouTube channel. Pat is someone I've been following for a long time and this guest said that you can't expect people to take you seriously in business if you don't have anything they can buy on your website. It was a wake-up call for me and the start of my learning from someone who has now become a business mentor and a friend. His name is Chris Ducker and he's the author of several best selling books including Virtual Freedom and Rise of the YouPreneur.

In this episode:

1. Chris' biggest influence builder
2. Why most entrepreneurs are starting in the wrong place
3. How to level up your business
4. The damage done by shortcuts
5. Why Chris started a podcast
6. The power of being prepared and more...

This is an unmissable episode if you are in business yourself, especially if you're not taking off and feeling frustrated. Chris gave several book recommendations on the show:

1. Zig Ziglar's See you at the top
2. Gary Vaynerchuck's Crush It and
3. Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman and Mark Winters

You can find out more about Chris, his books, the incubator program, his round table, podcast and more from his website https://www.chrisducker.com/coaching and he's always happy to connect with people on social media. Let us know what your takeaways have been from this episode of Speaking Influence.

Visit https://strategic-speaker.scoreapp.com to take the 2-minute Strategic Speaking Business Audit and find out what's blocking you from getting more bookings, re-bookings, referrals and bigger fees. There's a special surprise gift for everyone who completes the quiz.

Want to get coached for free on the show? Fill in the form https://forms.gle/mo4xYkEiCjqtz9yP6, and if we think your challenge could help others, we'll invite you on.

For speaking enquiries or to connect with me, you can email john@presentinfluence.com or find me on LinkedIn

You can find all our clips, episodes and more on the Present Influence YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PresentInfluence

Thanks for listening. Rating the show 5* on Spotify helps their algo recommend the show, so please take a moment to follow the show and leave a rating.

Welcome to the show.

My name is Johnny Ball.

This is speaking influence.

For now, anyway, I'll tell you more about that a bit later on.

This is the show where we delve into the world of influence and persuasion

to help you build your professional authority and to become a more

powerfully persuasive communicator.

And maybe on the way, learn some of the skills to help defend ourselves against

the misuse of the tools of influence and persuasion in life and in business.

Each week on the show, I have conversations with people from all

sorts of different industries, like the personal and professional development

world, public speakers, other podcasters, marketers, branding experts, neuroscience

experts, and much more besides.

This show is to help you develop all the tools that you will need to be able to be

effective with influence and persuasion in your professional life, and maybe

even in your personal life as well.

My guest on the show today is one of my own personal business heroes

and is actually a mentor of mine.

Someone who I spend a lot of time learning from.

And if you haven't already come across Chris Ducker before, by the end of this,

you are undoubtedly going to want to check out more about Chris and what he can

potentially do for you and your business.

Now, I know Chris, as an author, as a speaker, as a podcast, as a

course creator, as somebody who has built an amazing professional

ecosystem and product system, and is teaching other people to do the same.

In fact, I'm one of those people who he is teaching, and we

will talk about some of that.

And we, these probably start off with me fan-girling a little bit over

Chris, because he is a really cool guy and I was super happy that he agreed

to come and be a guest on the show.

One of the things that was really special for me, which I unfortunately can't share

with you is the conversation that Chris and I had after we finished recording,

which was a testament to me, of how much Chris really gives to the people who

he's helping and how much he really cares about wanting to make a difference and

helping entrepreneurs like you and I.

To be able to build sustainable businesses that are profitable, helping making

an impact and making a difference and

not just spinning our wheels at the start line.

Think so many people end up doing and often not really

getting anywhere and succeeding.

So this show really is going to be all about building your

influence as a business owner.

And we're going to be talking with Chris about what he has found to be

some of the most effective ways to do that as someone who has seemingly

done all of these different areas of influence and persuasion and

done them all incredibly well.

So whether you're listening to this show on the go, or you're sitting

down to take notes, all that remains for me to say is enjoy the show.

I always think we should have a mentor, right?

And today I get to introduce you to one of mine, someone who is an incredible

teacher, someone who I have been learning and progressing through because, and

who I still very much enjoy working with and connecting with just last week,

had the most amazing one day event.

Let me introduce to you.

And to anyone is listening, Chris Ducker.

Hello, sir.

I'm super happy to be talking to you, Chris.

I'm a big fan, of course, as I need to be, being part of your incubator community.

But the reality is for me, that's just before we really get into it.

I first really got came to with you.

I saw you for the first time on a video with Pat Flynn,

who I've been following for a very long time.

And on that video, you just said something that really impacted me about if you don't

have something for sale on your website.

How can you expect people to take you seriously?

Yeah.

and, and I was just watching that thinking, oh my, Yeah.

that makes a lot of sense.

And I started following you a lot more.

Then I read your book.

And then I, of course I got into your incubator community.

In fact, even just connecting with your online, I was convinced when I

was speaking to you that it was a bot or someone in your office, and then I

realized it was actually was speaking to

you and it's like, oh man, that's amazing.

The whole journey into coming into working with you.

Well, I appreciate all those kind words, dude.

And yeah, I mean, Pat.

And I have known each other for a long, long, long time on me while

over a decade of friends now.

And he's actually godfather to my little girl, Cassandra and you know,

It's very interesting because when Pat and I first kind of got to know

each other, he was the freebie guy.

He was giving everything away for free like the literally everything.

And I used to just beat him up, like just beat him up about it verbally.

And eventually he sort of, You know, doing more and more affiliate marketing, and

then he got into courses and then he got into speaking and then he got into running

events with me as well as on his own.

And he's the perfect example of somebody who, understands the power of the personal

brand, understands the importance of being respected and having a strong

reputation, but also understanding the opportunity that if you don't monetize

itin a proper way then not only will you not really be taken all that much

seriously, but also you're kind of letting yourself down as well as the other people

that are within your ecosystem within your community that do want to invest

in themselves to be able to spring board their own growth based on your experience.

Right.

And that's really what fires me up more than anything about anything

else about this whole situation.

When we talk about mentors and coaching and personal branding and

things like that, that we're in a position right now where people are

investing way more in themselves than they ever have done before.

And.

The vast majority of people are doing it because they want to go further, faster.

It's that simple?

I didn't have a mentor when I was, 30, 32, 33, 35 even.

But I know that, looking back, yeah.

I had people that would take mentorship roles for me, but.

It wasn't a transactional relationship.

It wasn't a long-term relationship.

There was no real accountability built in, in any way whatsoever.

And so for me, that's where the power of working with mentors and coaches

is, is that you can ultimately.

Really move much faster in terms of everything you want to achieve, because

they've already been there and done that and they can help you avoid those potholes

and focus on kind of doing the things that you need to be doing rather than the

things you think you might have to do.

Yeah, I, I can attest to that since joining your incubator community,

my progress has been rocketing and I've

Dude, you're crushing it, man.

You serious don't hold back like you are.

You're doing your it's night and day compared to when you joined up night

yeah, totally, totally.

I think you, I feel like I know where I'm going and I'm on the path,

but also that's one of the things that you did, which we'll come to.

I think we'll hopefully get to touch on a bit later about laying out that path to.

Making it happen because I think so we get lost in the weeds

when we're starting out with businesses.

Certainly one of the reasons why I was so excited to have you on the show.

Isn't just because I've learned so much from you even just in that, I think

it's probably only about 12 months learning from maybe even less than that.

But but not just because of that, but because you are probably one of the few

people who are having on the show who

really has been in involved in pretty much all of the areas of

influence and persuasion that I generally like to talk about.

Like public speaking, like writing books, like podcasting, and I'm going to run out

of breath before I finish that sentence.

But that's one of the reasons why I really, really want to speak to you.

I think you have a bigger view picture than probably many people do who, who

have been on for more, more specialist.

It's like people coming to talk specifically about public speaking

or talk specifically about the books, whereas with you, I think we can.

Probably encompass a lot of that as well.

You're certainly someone who I look up to in terms of business

or learning from, I look forward to continuing to learn from you.

Who is someone for you though, in terms of influence and persuasion, who

you would say you look up to and for how they've utilized their influence.

Oh man.

So many great people.

I think it's interesting.

The one person, whenever I get asked that sort of type of question, the

one person that just instantly comes into my mind and I do mean quite

literally instantly is Zig Ziglar.

Which is pretty amazing, cause I never met Zig at all.

But there's something about the way and I've been, I've been listening to Z.

Since I was like 15 years old, I used to get his audio tapes at the library.

And there's something about the way that he would string his words together.

I mean, it was incredible public speaker, incredible trainer of sales people.

And when I left school and I started my sales career I instantly kind of went

back to, you know, to read, See You At The Top and all those other great Zig books.

And for me, it it's just something about his teaching and the way he taught.

That I've always connected with the stories that he tells the, the lessons

that are embedded in the stories as well.

Like he would see those lessons so well inside of the stories that it

was almost impossible for you to not sit up and pay attention to it.

And if anybody's watching or listening this and they haven't consumed

some Zig Ziglar, Either audio or video, go to YouTube, Google his

name and just watch a video or two you'll know what I'm talking about.

And even now it's impossible for me to read a Zig book and

not hear his voice in my head.

They kind of, you know, that American accident and he does

the whole thing with his voice.

I'm just like, I love Zig Ziglar, man.

Bruce Lee has been another massive inspiration for me.

I discovered Bruce in the.

Of 85, 86.

I was around a friend's place and his dad had an old beta max video.

There you go.

Show my age now.

Betamax video of enter the dragon and I must have watched that

film 20 times at summer holidays.

I just fell in love.

And so, you know, what a lot of people don't know about Bruce is that he was a

lot more than just a Kung Fu movie star.

He was a big time philosopher.

He was a philosophy major at university of Washington.

And he was just an incredibly inspiring guy.

And if you read anything that he put out, you realize he was a lot

more than just kicks and punches.

And so, I got back to those two guys pretty regularly.

If I feel like I'm struggling a little bit, or if I feel like I need a bit of a

kick up the pants, or if I need to kind of just double check on how I'm doing

or why I'm doing certain things, one of those two guys will usually tick a box

for me.

Now bringing it to kind of like present day.

I'm very lucky to have a lot of very, very good friends who are

also ridiculously successful people.

Dan Miller, 48 days fame has been a long-time mentor of mine, Michael

Hyatt you know, even people like Carrie Wilkerson who, you know,

who was The Barefoot Executive.

I stalked Carrie online when I first got active online for years.

So you should be admitting to that on a podcast.

Chris.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, she knows we've become, I mean, we're like brother and sister

now, so we've become very, very close and you know, over the years she has,

there's something about that mama bear approach that she takes to helping

people that I just really resonate with.

She's super smart.

Super just full of empathy and knows when to shut up and just listen.

And I think that's a big part of coaching and mentoring as well.

So yeah, I'm blessed, man.

I've got a lot of great friends, great mentors and coaches that I've learned

from and continue to learn from for sure.

Yeah.

I mean, on a, on a personal, I think Carrie and many of the people who have

been introduced to through your community has just been phenomenal people who

I'm so happy to now know about and

be connected with, because I learned so much from them as well.

We can, I think we can pretty much judge people by the company we keep.

Right.

And

you keep, you keep some UK some pretty, some pretty top company

Chris I have to tell you that and say, maybe we go from that.

I mean, in terms of your own business life, what, what really moves you

to want to do the work that you do?

People winning.

That's what I want.

I don't ex I don't expect anything of my clients actually, other than them

just doing the work, that's it like, I don't, I don't expect, although,

you know, every August when it's my birthday and every Christmas, I get great

gifts from people, which is amazing.

One of the best gifts I ever had actually was a signed

vinyl, a record of one of Zig Ziglar's seminars from like

the sixties or seventies.

Or so.

.And it was actually signed to George, see you at the top Zig Ziglar.

I'm like, well, I'm not George, but I'll, I'll take the gift.

That's phenomenal you know, so little things like that, bottles

of whiskey I get, cause I'm a whiskey and bourbon collector.

I get lots of cool whiskey and you know, all of that to one side, what I

want my clients to do yourself included is for you to follow the path is to

not try and deviate away from that.

And to genuinely, just take it one step at a time and not try and

do too many things all at once.

I often say that, as you know, we work on 90 day sprints, right?

So every 90 days we come together at our intensive event and we look at

what's happened in the last 90 days.

We learned something new.

We listened to lots of cool people, and then we plan for the next 90 days.

Well, that, that planning it's super important.

In fact, I'm anything you could dump the rest of it and just focus on that

last hour that we spend with each other,

and you still get plenty because if we don't work our plan and we can't

get, or rather if we don't plan the work, we can't work the plan.

Right.

That's important if it doesn't get scheduled, it doesn't get done.

And so when I look at that 90 day plan, if you have any more than like

two things on that plan in the next 90 days, There's only one reason

that I won't pull you up on it.

And that is that if you've got a team in place, right.

If you've got a VA or a bunch of VA's or a bunch of team members

that can help you execute on those individual tasks, then that's great.

Have as many as you want on there.

But if you're a one man band or maybe you just, you're a solopreneur and you've

got maybe one VA full-time, you've got to look at where you're spending your time.

And so I just want people to do the work, man, and, and by the

way, if you don't do the work.

And you don't get the success.

You can't blame me as your coach is I've given you everything, right?

I've given you everything you need.

You need to just go ahead and put your foot down on the gas and make it happen.

And so that's what drives me.

That's what drives me whenever I'm putting training content together.

Whenever I show up live to do a training call or when I'm on stage, or even

when I'm being interviewed like this, like, I just want people to understand

the importance of taking action and not BS ing themselves about it.

It ain't going to fall in your lap.

There's not a leprechaun.

That's going to turn up with a pot of gold for you.

You need to get up every day.

You need to put your big boy pants on and you need to get to work.

It's really that simple, you know?

Yeah.

But many of the things that you've done on your journey have created a

level of influence that you're right now, where a lot of people know who you are or

people would have encountered your book.

A lot of people may be listened to their Youpreneur podcast.

They have some connection with you.

Maybe they're maybe they're in one of your Facebook communities.

Of all the things that aren't, you've done on your journey in terms of

building that level of influence, what do you feel has been the most effective

for you, or what's really been the most bang for your buck in terms of

where you put your time and energy?

I think probably my books, if I, if I had to put out

a big, just one thing out of all those things, probably the books.

Because if you look at everything else, like the podcast is

successful as it has been.

You know, if you're not, I don't know.

There's something about it.

Like being on stages being interviewed, putting out your own show, doing

all these things, it's all.

It's all well.

And good.

If like you say, if people can discover you in a way where it's

kind of almost like that six degree of separation thing, right.

Where, oh, he said they good light.

You just said it yourself.

Like I met Carrie through the incubator through me and, you

know, it's things like that, where.

That's great.

And there's nothing wrong with that at all.

But when we think about how we've learned for decades for hundreds of years, how

we've discovered things out, how we grown on knowledge basis for decades

and hundreds of years, books have been at the very center of everything.

Right.

And they still are, as far as I'm concerned, even in this digital age.

And there's just something about having a name on the front cover of a book

that provides pure value from cover to cover that you can't, I don't think you

can really put a dollar amount on it.

I mean, you know, if you traditionally publish it, you'll

make a couple of bucks a book.

If you're lucky, if you self publish it, you make four or five times that amount,

if you're lucky, but at the end of the day, the real success, the real wins

attached to being an author is, you know, you're seen as a leader in your industry.

You're instantly recognized as that leader in that industry or that niche, because

you've got a book with your name on the front cover, and also more importantly,

more than anything else, the people that pick up the book and read it and hopefully

put into action, what they learn.

And we're talking obviously business books and things like this right here.

You know, that's where the real win is, because if they discover something

that was in your book and put it into action and get a win out of it.

They're not going to sh they're not going to keep that to themselves.

They're going to share that.

And that's how you get to the point of selling 10, 20, 30, 50, a hundred

thousand, 150,000 copies of a book.

It's not because 150,000 people are out there ready and waiting to buy it.

No it's because their friends are talking about it.

And that just takes us back to, the oldest form of persuasion and influence.

And that is word of mouth.

Right.

Word of mouth you're after your own opinions, you're way more likely

to believe the opinions of somebody that you know, like and trust.

And so that's where word of mouth comes into play as well with everything.

So yes, long-winded answer, but books, I could have just said books

and that would have been it, but you would have missed all that gold there,

We would have an ID, prefer it with my guest, expand on their answers.

At least a little Chris, you know, it makes my life easier.

One of the things I love about the Youpreneur incubator, and I know

I'm sort of going back to that lot, but I mean, it's been very valuable

to me because I've done all sorts of courses on programs I've learned

from all sorts of different people.

And yeah, I feel that.

none of them have.

So I'm not going to say help my Hamlin quite sorry.

Cause it's not really handholding, but no, one's really set it out quite like

you have for me anyway, that you build this foundational level, then you build

on that and then you build on that.

You that, and you keep going up these levels with it to see what these are,

the things you need to have in place, or at least most of them, depending on the

kind of business you have and to see it all laid out like that just made so much

sense for me now in your, in your roadmap.

The book is kind of high up on other levels.

So there's a lot of foundational stuff to do first.

And I think maybe this is some of the stuff where people do get maybe not lost

in the weeds being lost is the wrong word, but maybe tongue run before they can walk.

Most people don't want to, I don't know how to, I don't want to take the time

to set up all the foundational stuff.

That's actually going to lay the groundwork for that stuff in the future.

Is that something that you, you saw very clearly creating that.

Over and over and over again.

Yeah.

People like the idea.

I mean, we were using the concept of the book.

We're talking about that as an example, really a Bumble and everything else,

but people like the idea of having a book and saying I'm an author

and selling their book on Amazon.

Right.

But if that's all you've done as a business owner who is building a business

based around your expertise, then when people pick up that book, And they

like what they see and hear from you.

And they want to reach out and end up doing business with you.

What else have you got for them?

Nothing, which is why we see everything else, you know, above or rather

below in the roadmap towards that book part there that you mentioned.

Is all geared up to not only actually a have something or other things to

sell to people who come to you that want to invest in learning with you.

But also it's also about making sure that not only can you sell something, but also

you've already built up a certain level of community in a certain following over

the work that you've done before the book comes out so that when you do release the

book, it's somewhat of a success, right?

And when you look at the fact that 97% of all nonfiction books never sell any more

than a thousand copies in their lifetime.

That statistic is horrific to think about all the, all the let's just

bring it down to brass tacks, all the trees that have been chopped down for

the paper that had been printed onto, you know, used for books to print.

And no one's buying these books.

Like it's brutal if you think about it.

Right.

So I, I just feel like it's just a smart way of setting it up.

Number one, so that you've got a community that you can launch the book.

two, that you've got other things that you can sell to those readers

as, and when they come your way.

And by the way, on the subject of books, things have changed a lot in the last

10 to 15 years or so 15 years ago, if you had even even 12 or 13 years ago,

if you had a good book idea and you could get an agent to sell that book,

to publishers through a proposal.

If it was really good, it was likely as a first time author

that you'd get a book deal.

It might not, you might not have made a six figure advance or a

seven figure advance, but you probably could have got a book deal.

Right.

Nowadays publishers, they don't want just your book.

They want your email list.

They want your podcast listenership.

They want your YouTube videos.

They want your social media followers.

So all becomes part of the proposal now that if you don't have all those

things in place before you put the book out, the chances are, you're

probably not going to get a tradition.

Book publishing deal anyway.

So yeah, there's pros and cons to it all, but ultimately this is the way

that I like to teach it because I've seen people do it the other way round.

And generally it's not the best business.

Yeah, no, I would say from, from my own perspective, one of the.

Things I used to as well, I like podcasts.

You put somewhere a bit higher up the ladder as well.

And, and there's someone who maybe started a podcast quite early on.

It makes sense to me now.

It's like, oh, I wish I had known.

I wish I'd had that realization before, because I know how much work

goes into a podcast and I know how much I'm not supposed to have because

have more, more systemized things on.

I have.

I'm more familiar with doing it, but it just makes sense to me

that, yeah, it's probably not one of the first things you should do.

Because so much needs to go into it.

It's not going to be a horrible thing to do, but it's probably

not going to bring in the income.

And it's like all this stuff that you really do need to take care of

these foundational levels first.

And I need them for myself, I think.

Yeah, there were times, many, many times where I damaged myself as an

entrepreneur, trying to get to those higher levels without doing all the stuff

that needs to happen to get you up there.

Exactly.

And that's the, you know, again, going back to the concept of, Bill, building the

community before you launched the book.

So the book can be successful exactly the same with the podcast.

Exactly same with a podcast, you launch a podcast.

No problem.

Go straight up onto apple and everywhere else.

And yes, it will be discovered by some people.

Absolutely.

But if you could launch it and you had an email list of 500 people, and

half of those people opened every email that you sent, you would have

250 people ready and waiting for.

Not only listened to the show, but subscribed to the show, the

download your launch episodes.

And before you know, what's happening, boom, you're at the top of the new and

noteworthy and you're ready to rock and roll with lots of new eyeballs

seeing you way more eyeballs than if you'd have just launched it into the

ethos with, you know, sort of not, you know, with nobody following you at all.

You know what I

which is kind of what I did.

I w I was having, I was having, having that discussion with Mr.

Mark Asquith a few weeks back in the, yeah.

Very aware that it's it's one of these, you don't, you don't know what

you don't know at the time, I guess,

but, uh, it.

does make sense to reach out and try and get a strategy or a plan before

you start doing anything, especially if you're looking to potentially

do it as some kind of business.

I guess my issue was I didn't start a podcast as part of my business.

I started it as a fun project And it

ended up becoming a

And that is, you know, I don't want to kind

of like discouraged people.

That's absolutely fine.

There's nothing wrong with that at all.

If you go into it with the mindset of, I'm not looking to make money out of this.

Yeah.

Right.

If you're doing it for fun, if you're doing it for connections, if you're

doing it for relationships and stuff like that, then go, do you, do you think

it's all good, but if your, if you're going into it thinking that you're going

to publish a show once a week, and that you're going to make, you know, $10,000

a month in sponsorship you're kidding yourself, plain and simple, you know?

I I'm a regular listener to your podcast.

And I wonder for you, what were the things that made you want to start that?

What said you're right.

It's time for my time for me to do a show,

Well, so I've had, how many have I have 1, 2, 3, 4 different podcasts.

In the last 12 years, the first one that I started was in April, 2010, which

makes me a veteran podcaster apparently.

Um, I did, this is the reason why I have gray hair and what little

hair I've got left is great as well.

So I feel pretty qualified to talk about this as a medium.

And although there are way more successful shows out there.

I will say the reason why I started it to begin with was entirely selfish.

I wanted to get, cause I was, although I had been online since the mid nineties

I'd never really utilized the internet for anything more than like email.

Google searches and like watching cat videos on YouTube.

Right.

And so when I got in, once we got started with our kind of online journey as a,

as a group of businesses, I thought, well, if I'm going to do this, what's

the easiest way for me to be able to springboard off and piggyback off other

people's lessons and, and growth habits.

I know I'll find these.

And I'll interview them or start a podcast.

And my wife said to me, you'd never done a podcast before.

We're like, we've only heard about them like six months ago.

Like, what's the deal?

And I said, well, I've got a computer and I've got Skype and I've got a call

recorder and I've got headphones right.

With a little mic on it.

I don't need anything more.

And so what I did is I launched the first show, virtual business lifestyle where

I talked about building a business and we were, we were piggybacking a little

on Tim and the four hour work week, a little bit, outsourcing and delegating

and automation and all that kind of stuff.

But it worked brilliantly.

And so I started reaching out to, these old school veteran internet folks like

Chris Brogan and You know, David Meerman Scott and all these guys that have

been doing this for like 20 years and slowly but surely over the course of a

couple of years, I just got to connect it to more and more and more people.

And every time they came on the.

I would just ask them questions that I wanted the answers to myself, but it

just so happens that everybody else that was tuning in was in a similar position

that I was, they were learning all this stuff for the first time as well.

So they absolutely loved it.

And then in 2014, I launched my first book, virtual freedom to

which I attached a a limited 25 episode series as a podcast to help.

It in the run-up to the book coming out and that worked brilliantly, then

myself and Pat Flynn got together.

And we did our one day business breakthrough podcast, which was, I

think we did three seasons of that.

I might be wrong, but I think we did three seasons of that.

And we only ever was supposed to do one.

And if, almost like, we want more so fine, we'll do another one.

And then they want more, we do another, and then we're like, that's it.

And then.

There's the Youpreneur show and the Youpreneur shows coming

up on 8 million downloads now.

And I still, to this day, when I'm interviewing people on

that show, it's purely selfish.

I just want to know the secrets man.

And because I know that that formula works.

I know that my people like you, who listen into the show, they also

want to know the secrets as well.

And so, you know, I will.

When you say, like what's been the biggest needle mover in terms of the overall

growth of my personal influence, it's been the book hands down, but in terms

of building my network and relationships and you know, my Rolodex to use a very

old fashioned word the podcast has been the biggest game changer there without a

doubt, all of the super close friendships that I've got in the industry now with.

Lewis Howes and Gary Vaynerchuk and Amy Porterfield, and a whole bunch of other

folks that, you know, the list is so long.

Now these are people that genuinely spend time with I've broken bread with.

I can text them whenever I want.

You know, these are the people that I've, I've met all of them, all of

them pretty much through my podcasting.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that was one of the things I had no idea about when

I got into podcasting and was one of the unexpected benefits, the

amazing network that you build up.

And mainly I find that it's because the vast majority of people who

do podcasts are not doing it with the sole intent of making money.

I'm not saying that that's not bad, though.

There are shows that are like that, but the vast majority are not they're

doing it because they have a passion for what they do because they care

about it because like you, they want to have those interesting conversations

and find those secrets with people.

Although I will say I also get just as much value out of your

solo solo exercise as I do.

If any of the ones that you have with your guests as well, So.

Yeah, well, and I appreciate that.

And that is very specific for the longest time.

I was just an interview show.

I mean, we're talking years and years and years and years.

And then probably around 2017 when I kind of started doing more coaching,

more mastermind sessions more programs, you know, that sort of type of thing.

It was very like, I needed to position myself as a genuine expert in the niche.

And so you can do that through solo shows.

So for anybody that's thinking about starting a show with.

They want to be able to create those relationships, but they

also want to be able to position themselves as a leader, as an expert.

The easiest way to do that is to flip flop between the two formats.

So one week you'll have an interview the next minute, you'll have a solo

show, then interview solo, interview solo and so on and so on and so on.

And that's pretty much what we do now, you know, week for week, pretty, pretty much.

Yeah.

As, as someone who's where you are in the industry as a whole.

Presenters with big enough, you have a confidence, you have experience.

And I just wonder if you were always someone who was very comfortable

speaking and presenting, or if it was something that you really

had to develop for yourself.

It's a good question.

I, you know, when I was younger, I was pretty shy.

I was quite short up until kind of like I reached and reached like 13, 14, and I

threw like something stupid, like eight inches in one year or something crazy.

I was pretty short dude.

And the one thing that I always did enjoy doing though, was making people laugh.

And so I would do, silly impressions and back in those days, my

impressions were like, there, I say it, Jimmy Savile and you

know, prince Charles.

You know, uh, you know, all those, well we'll bleep out, his name and you know,

all the people at Prince Charles, I used to do this thing, oh, well, mummy,

you know, and all this kind of stuff.

And now it's a horrible impersonation, but when you're like eight or nine years

old or 10 years old, and you're doing it at a family, barbecue or something, and

everyone's had a little bit of alcohol.

It's pretty funny to see a kid doing that.

And so I think that probably helped me build up the confidence.

And then what happened was actually going into sixth form, uh, after high school

you had to do presentations, right?

You've got to, you've got to show your work.

You've got to talk about essays that you've written

and the light kind of stuff.

And I realized that I was actually pretty comfortable standing in

front of my classmates and my teachers talking about things.

'cause I was always prepared, Johnny.

That was the thing.

I think the people who mess it up for the people that get up on the stage

and kind of don't have a game plan.

They, they figured, oh, well, I'll just talk about this for half an hour.

That's a recipe for disaster.

You might be able to talk for half an hour on a topic, but it

doesn't mean that any of it's going to hit home with your audience.

You know what I mean?

Like there's a big difference between, you know, looping in stories.

Punching out the odd joke and, and writing pre-writing and rehearsing certain

sections of a talk such as your opening line, your closing line, and maybe two

or three other what I call tweetable moments where you say something and

everyone's like, oh man, that's good.

I've got to tweet it out.

That kind of thing.

And I've actually been on stage with people where I've said something

and I've said, yeah, I know.

You want to grab your phone and tweet it right now?

Don't you, in fact, you know what, I'll wait at Chris Ducker hashtag event.

And this is what I said, and I'll literally wait for people to tweet it out.

You know, these are the things that I think that know, that's the difference

between like a presenter and a real kind of true note keynote speaker.

Um, and although speaking is not something that I go out to, to, kind

of get on my schedule on an annual basis, it does come to me probably

around about six to eight gigs a year.

I do.

And they're always at good events.

They're always with good people in attendance and I enjoy doing

it, but I don't say I'm a speaker.

Right.

But I can speak because I know, I know, what I'm going to talk about.

I've got a good amount of experience to back it up and people can argue with me

and put their own opinions their way,

that's absolutely fine.

But I'm comfortable enough being in a position where I feel like I can get

up on stage or, present to a group of people online where I know enough to

be able to not fall flat on their face.

Th there is an interesting thing.

I think may people don't consider that a lot of the times w well, I think

probably we'll have clever things.

We could say.

Why isn't it?

Because like, but it does make a difference who's saying it.

And in what context they're saying it, you do have to have that level of

credibility and authority for people.

All right.

I should be paying attention to that.

This person knows what they're talking about.

This is someone I should listen to because you know, you could say something

deeply wise and very valuable to people.

But if you have no track record, no credibility, nobody knows who you are.

They are going to be thinking, why should I care?

Yeah,

I listen to that?

Yeah, absolutely.

And also, you know, when you do have that track record and you've got

that that, that influence, if you want to call it understand that you.

These one liners these little takeaways that you can convey to

the people that follow your work and subscribe and things like that.

Like they can come to you at the weirdest moments as well.

Like, you know, middle of the shower just before you're going to

go to bed when you're walking the dog, you know, or whatever it is.

And actually it's it's, it was really interesting about two weeks ago.

just, just under two weeks ago.

My wife and my kids went to the Philippines for three week holiday and I'm

just kind of left in the house on my own for the first time, literally quite ever.

And I thought, well, okay, I can, I can keep myself busy during the day.

There's lots going on, which is the reason why I'm not going with them.

But in the evening it's going to be tough.

So I need a show to watch on Netflix, something I can just watch an episode of.

Every night and I don't know what attracted me to it at all, but I started

watching the show called Top Boy, which is about youth drug dealers in London

on like housing estates and stuff.

And it's so not my usual kind of drama, but two or three episodes in, I was

actually getting into it, Johnny.

Every now, and then one of these, you know, street kids, uh, you know, or,

or, you know, street drug dealers and everything, or money launderers or

whatever they had in the show, they would come out with something that was so good

that I hit, I hit the pause button and I'd have to come running into my own

office here and write it on the board.

And there's two or three things on the board behind me that

I've kind of like rewritten.

So the, I can pass them on either in videos or podcasts and things like that.

But, you know, th they're not word for word for what was in the show, but now

I've rewritten them in a way that I can convey them to my audience and my

clients in a way that hopefully it's home.

And they, they understand that and kind of go with it.

So these opportunities to be able to get these little jewels will come to you

in no matter, you know, where you are.

Uh, it's the weirdest moments.

Really, intentional about capturing them when you hear them or see

them because, you know, a minute later they're gone, you'll

never remember them, you know?

but that's pretty important.

I was listening to a while back Gary Vaynerchuk on Jordan Harbinger's podcast.

And, and I guess if you're going to go on a show like Jordan Harbinger's

is one of the biggest podcasts out there and you want to be well prepared.

Like if I was coming as a guest on your show, I would want

to be really well-prepared.

So Gary has.

Something.

He very clearly had prepared that quotable stuff, stuff that he knew was going to

pop and stuff that was not yet, you will want to write this down and you will.

And I said, that was so clever.

It was

just so clever to have that stuff.

And Yeah.

most people would just go on blah, blah, blah.

On a podcast.

He went on there that this is quite simple stuff.

This is the stuff that when you

have those memories, Yeah.

Being prepared for this stuff is, is all the difference to just

going out there and winging it.

And.

One of my buddies Stu McLaren, who runs like a membership

training education business been in the business for a long, long time online.

And he, his big thing, the way he sells his products and

services through telling stories.

He does it better than most people on the planet, quite frankly.

And I remember I had him on my show a while back and I asked them, like,

you tell all these great stories when you're being interviewed or

when you're live on Facebook or like, how do you just quantifiably?

How do you remember them all?

Because in one hour you want to tell one or two, he'll tell like

seven or eight to make a point.

Like, how do you remember it?

And he said, you know, it's not rocket science.

You want to know.

I just have bits of paper stuck up all over my office.

I bought the name of the person in big black letters and then like two

or three talking points of where they were at, what I worked with

them on, and where they're at now.

And I'm like, this is gold.

Like, why are we in.

this, like I have a number of clients stories that I can pull

off relatively easily, but having those visual cues in front of us

means that we get the stories right.

Every single time.

And that is very, very powerful.

Indeed.

Very

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think a lot of people rather than just delivering information without the

stories and the stories are actually a really key part of persuasion factor.

When, when we do get the opportunity

That's what keeps people tuned in.

I mean, you know, it's all very well wanting to learn something, but if

you can back it up with a real story behind it, then, you know, it's just

so much more endearing, so much more.

I know we don't have that much time next.

I want to get to a few things before we do start to wrap things up, but yeah.

One thing I'm going to say, I don't not from you.

And I've learned a lot from your book and I have a very kindly sent

me a copy and I have the audio book already and greatly appreciate all

of that and keep learning from me.

I wonder for you, like, if I can to use that Chris, other than your own

book, which everybody should read, what books would you recommend?

The ones that are may be made an impact on you.

If we just have one or two of those books, what are the ones

that you would most recommended?

So, okay.

Let's go with three books in terms of, particularly in terms

of business, if that's okay.

First up, I'll go back to Zig see you at the top.

Zig Ziglar, one of the best books ever, plain simple.

Number two.

I would say, although it's probably a little dated now Gary's crush it.

I remember picking that up in like 2009, 2010, thinking.

I'm going to be a YouTube star.

This is going to be great.

You know, just the power of like personal branding and how you could genuinely

make money off of what you enjoyed.

I think he said cash in on your passion or something on the, on the subtitle.

Just a great book.

And still to this day, you probably could still pick it up and pick up

some incredible, incredible lessons.

And then the other.

There's another book.

God, there's so many, there's another book called Rocket Fuel

that I read for the second time, just recently by Gino Wickman.

And it talks about the really important relationship between

the visionary in a business.

Usually the owner, the CEO, and the integral.

All right.

Somebody who does all their dirty work, right.

The managers, the team, and all the rest of it.

That that's been a very, very important book to read as well.

But I mean, if I'm, to be honest with you, Johnny, like, you know,

I probably have close to three or 400 books on the shelves behind me.

Here they go right up to the vaulted ceiling.

And there's so many great ones to pick.

It's so hard to quantify it into just a few.

Yeah.

it must've been, I struggled myself sometimes because I get through maybe

a two, two or three books a week.

and so yeah, it's hard to pick the

Yeah.

Particularly if you're listening to them as well, right?

Like when you're out and what, you know, there are times now where, you know, I

don't know about you, but like I used to buy books at airports all the time.

But, but I realized that I would read a book, you know, in the crappy lighting

that you get in the cabin on a plane.

I'd read a book for 30 minutes and my eyes would get all tired.

I'd have to rest.

If I had an audio book on my phone or my iPad or something, I

could listen to the entire thing.

LA the New York Bosch, I've just done the four hour work week.

You know what I mean?

So it's it's yeah, it's interesting.

The way that we consume stuff nowadays as well.

I'm a huge fan of audio books.

I want to ask you, this is one of my last questions for you now.

I have so many more what's

your,

through some more ground.

We

can, we can go for a little bit longer.

Go

Okay.

But what's your influence and persuasion.

Super power.

I'd like to say my incredibly good looks and wit and charm.

I don't know, actually, I, I think that a super power, I think the one thing that

I am pretty good at, and yes, this would be influenced personified actually is.

Bringing people together.

I'm a very good connector of people.

I think I've been running, events from, 10 seats around

table, private masterminds, right.

The way up to, four or 500 people in a conference kind of thing.

And, you know, I always say it and many people probably hear me say it more than

five or six times on the, oh, that's just the S you know, that's a, that's a bit, he

says that all the time kind of thing, but I mean, it genuinely, I'm really blessed

to have the overall worldwide community that we have around everything that we do.

And when we do, you know, when you put on the vent on, in London, England,

and you've got people flying in from 37 different countries around the world, as

far as Australia and as close as France, you know, there's something to be said

for the person that's making that happen.

And I think that, you know, having the ability to bring all these different

people from all these different walks of life and backgrounds together

to genuinely learn with each other network party, have a little fun

and do all those things together.

That is a super power.

And I don't care like what language you speak, what color your skin

is, who you love, who you don't.

We're just all the human race.

And I just love the idea of bringing people together to further

their goals and their dreams.

And that's genuinely, I think something that doesn't necessarily

come easy to everybody.

But it does come easy to me.

So I'm, I guess I'm kind of lucky for it.

Yeah.

If we were to go in a few minutes more than I would like to ask

you, what has been perhaps one of your own toughest challenges as a

business owner or an entrepreneur?

Oh, that's an easy one to answer.

Delegating letting go, you know, getting out of my own way, whatever

kind of way you want to put it.

You know, I burned out in 2009.

We'd been building the business for a few years.

One morning I couldn't wake up, you know?

Oh, well I could wake up, but I couldn't get out of bed.

My wife called the doctor, we went to the hospital.

We did blood panels.

We did scans and all the rest of it.

And I was basically I was diagnosed with acute exhaustion, acute

dehydration and mild depression.

And that came about as a result of sitting on a chair for 15 hours

a day for three years, building my business six days a week.

And.

I was the reason why that was happening.

It was because I wouldn't let go.

I would do everything.

I would do the hiring.

I did the training.

I would do the managing.

I would do, you know, I'd walk around our it server room in

our facility looking at cables.

Like I knew what the hell they did.

Like it was ridiculous, Johnny.

It was ridiculous.

And the moment that I got out of my way, and we S we actually hired eight people

in 2010 to replace me in the business.

And this is a business that is a multi seven figure annual revenue

business still to this day.

And now I spend about 30 minutes a month on that business.

I talk with my general manager, 30 minutes every month we have virtual staff

finder, which has just hit 12 years.

I spent about 30 minutes a month on that as well.

So I've become really, really good at delegating now.

But that was the biggest.

The biggest hurdle, the biggest stumbling block was understanding

the power of surrounding yourself with really good people that you

don't have to do it all yourself.

You don't have to wear all the hats as being the biggest game changer.

No doubt.

Yeah.

it's interesting that I was writing about that in my blog last week.

And then I think a lot of people are heading towards this burnout journey

themselves because they are trying to be everything and do everything.

And.

Be everywhere, be on all the channels and see that we always

get these new force coming up.

Someone who's direct killing got on Tik TOK.

All right.

I need to do that.

I need to go out and take time.

I'm killing, got an Instagram.

Oh, I need to do that.

And he's go, we get all that all the time and this, the shiny object

syndrome and this, or this thing, what we should be in all of these

places.

And yet most of us are trying to do that when we're not really

ready to expand beyond that.

What, what do you think is the cure for people who are like maybe spinning

their wheels at that moment or trying to bang their heads against the wall?

Trying to do too much.

Well, I think genuinely, they need to look for a coach.

They need to look for somebody to show them the way just like I did,

you know, I don't know the exact dollar amount that I've invested in

masterminds and coaches and mentors over the year, but in terms of.

You know their fees along with travel and hotels and you know, the whole

kit and caboodle man, quarter of a mil, maybe more even quite literally.

And that's because I'm not superhuman, I've got problems.

I need to fix them as well.

Halfway through the pandemic, I started getting all these gut issues.

I says, well, why is my stomach so bloated all the time?

Why am I, why am I waking up with a painful stomach and things like that.

And so I hired a nutritionist who specializes in gut balance.

It ain't sexy, but it cured the problem.

I was eating too much crap, not working out at the right times,

drinking caffeine at the wrong time of the day and all the rest of it.

Right.

So, you know, If they're really struggling, if they're spinning the

words, they're trying to do all these things that they see everybody else doing.

One of the easiest ways to get over there is to hire somebody, to help

them figure it out because sometimes you're too close to your own situation

to realize, you know, where the exit is on, on the issues that you're

experiencing and having a coach or having a mentor or being part of a mastermind.

You know, I put them all in sort of the same category.

Is a great way to be able to make sure that you overcome those problems, but

then even more importantly, make sure that you don't experience them again.

Right.

and

and stay on the right path and, and forget about the shiny objects and

bloody TikTok and all the rest of it.

Like you don't don't need tick tock to build a successful business.

You don't,

I know this because I'm not on bloody TikTok and I'm doing just fine.

you don't want to do those silly dances and

now.

I'm not doing that.

It's interesting, Chloe, as you know, my daughter, she runs all of our

social and she's always saying to me, you know, cause I'm quite active on

Instagram and she says, yeah, dad, we should get you doing some reels.

I'm like, okay.

Yeah, I can do a reel or two, you know, what, what do you want me to do?

And she goes, you know, these ones where they point, you know, and then

text appears, I'm not doing, I look a right plonker, I've got no intention of

wanting to do anything like that at all.

So it goes back to what we talked about, you know, at the beginning of.

Do the things your own way, you know, you only have one life.

And if you are particularly building a business based around your experience

and your influence and the things that you are known for, or want to be known

for, then you shouldn't try and copy what Gary Vaynerchuk or me or you or

anyone else for that matter is doing.

You should, You can use some of their tactics and strategies.

Sure.

You've got to do it your way as early on in the journey as possible.

And if that means you need to kind of correct the course a little bit and

move in a slightly different direction.

So the one that you've been going then, you know, spin, you know,

spin the helm right there, man.

You got to spin that wheel at the helm much earlier on as possible because

you've only got so many time, so many days in the week and so many years on the.

There for, from, from my own journey.

That's what I recognize that.

And I see that very early on.

I think maybe I didn't do that as much as I should have because I,

I didn't really have the feedback.

I didn't really have the following or the things that, to show me

that, And it was only really sort of understanding these foundational elements.

Having to build up as like, oh, it has to be that it has to be you being your

authentic self, because anything else you will get, you will get cold ass in it.

If you're trying to be a Tony Robbins knockoff, or a Gary V knockoff or a

Mel Robbins knock-off or whatever, you will get caught out on it.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you know, and then, and then it's done, then you're finished

right then you're finished.

So yeah, just do you don't lie.

Don't BS.

For you all the time and you know, just

help people, man, you know, to, to end on Zig Ziglar, he said that you

can have anything in life that you want as long as you help, as many

other people get what they want.

And so amen to Zig.

that onboard every single day, man,

every single day.

absolutely.

Chris, I could talk to you for hours, but I know that you don't

have that kind of time, but I am looking forward to spending some time

with you in person in a few months.

So, and getting to

meet you for the first time as well.

I'm very excited for that.

Thank you so much for your time today.

it's been an absolute honor to have you on my show and I look forward to

continuing to learn for you in the future.

There'll be links in the show notes for anyone else who would like to

start taking that journey with you.

Thanks, man.

It was a real pleasure.

You're an inspiration do to keep doing what you're doing.

Thanks for tuning in.

I hope you've enjoyed the show.

And if you did, please make sure that you are not only subscribed to future

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Sometimes I record a show and I just know that I'm going to have to go back

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And for me, this is one of those shows and maybe for you as well.

So it's well worth going back and taking a note of all those different things,

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I mentioned right at the start of the show that speaking may not be Speaking

Influence for that much longer.

This is because things are going to be changing, but not that much.

So you're still going to be getting great guests and we're still going

to be talking about influence and persuasion, and we'll be having

more of a focus on the podcasting side of influence and persuasion

speaking with more people who are.

Building their professional authority and extending their influence and persuasion

through podcasting, not exclusively, but certainly it's going to be a more

guiding feature of the show is coming up in the future and with that, the name

of the show will be changing as well.

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Wherever you're going, whatever you're doing, have an amazing rest of your day.