That’s when she started charging brands for posts. At first, one Instagram post with the brand mentioned in the caption was $100. If the brand simply wanted to be tagged, she’d charge $50. When the people on the other end of the phone expressed surprise, “Oh, only $100?” she knew she was underselling herself, so she upped her fee to $200 per post. Then one day, an established jewelry line e-mailed her and proposed one blog post and one Instagram post for a fee of $1,000.
Xavier wasn’t a seasoned influencer yet, but she was smart enough to know that a company’s first offer was almost always less than what it was ultimately willing to pay.
Again she raised her rates, and soon she was earning as much or more per day as she was at her insurance marketing job. After three months of matching her income, a year-and-a-half after starting the blog, she left her day job so she could network and accept more invitations for brand meetings and to preview new collections. There she also met other bloggers who were willing to answer questions and help her calculate her worth. At her husband’s suggestion, she also started getting more personal on her blog, starting with a post titled “I Quit.” The response was so overwhelming, in particular from other people wanting advice on how to start their own blogs, that she started posting weekly blogging tips. The first, “How I Started My Blog in 5 Steps,” remains one of her most read posts.
Today Xavier has a manager who negotiates her fees and helps her get branding work, but she still tags brands she’s wearing, and she only posts brands she really loves and believes in. The blog has also expanded from strictly fashion to a lifestyle brand. Xavier travels a lot for work, but she uses the opportunity to produce travel content on the go, photographing herself at hotels, resorts, and restaurants that she likes and that she thinks her readers will appreciate. For this reason, she has developed good relationships with a number of hotel brands, and now when she and her family travel on their own, their stays are usually comped. She is also frequently invited to visit openings of new resorts or hotels so she can share the experience with her readers.
In May 2016, Anthony quit his job, too, a move he announced in a blog titled “He Quit Too.” The pair tries to shoot all their photos during the day so that they are available when their daughter comes home from school. Jadyn’s life changed as well. Her father is present for every school event. She no longer attends after-school care. Sometimes brands request pictures of Brittany with Jadyn, especially for child-friendly or Mother’s Day events or promotions. When that happens, Xavier’s rate goes up, and she deposits a portion of the fee into an account created for Jadyn, which she’s using to teach her ten-year-old the basic principles of financial literacy.
The multiple deadlines and the inability to turn off the machine, even for a short vacation, can create a lot of pressure. “I’ve been doing this for almost four years, the same thing every day. We’re taking photos, we’re shooting content, writing, thinking about future trends.” But the couple’s daughter helps keep everything in focus for them.
Having a child means that Xavier refuses more jobs than a lot of other lifestyle bloggers. It’s not always an easy choice.
I turned down a really great job from a well-known jewelry line. They wanted me to attend a two-hour dinner, and post to Instagram and Facebook while I was there. The job was more than a three-month salary at my former full-time job. As far as posting requirements, this was one of the easiest jobs I probably could have booked, but I had agreed to go on a school trip to Sacramento with Jadyn. It was killing me, but I had to keep it in focus. The whole reason I did this was so I could go on these trips with Jadyn and be there for her. There will be other jobs.
The competition in the fashion and lifestyle blogosphere is fierce, but Xavier still sees room for newcomers. “Even though it is saturated, if you can do it in a unique way or have your own style, you can definitely stand out in the crowd. Brands are always looking for what’s new. They’re also pouring more money into [influencer marketing], because they’re seeing more of the conversion of blogs versus a radio ad or a television ad, where they have no tracking. But through blogs, they’re able to track exactly where the links are coming from and exactly the conversions.
“Brands are definitely catching on more, and the ones that are not using affiliates or not doing the campaigns are figuring out how they can get into that.” In fact, digital ad sales are expected to surpass global TV ad sales by the end of 2017.2
On screen Xavier and her family’s life seems effortless, but she expresses surprise at how many people don’t recognize how much work it takes to build a successful blog and Instagram account.
So many people write me and say, “I wrote a post and no one read it. So how would I grow that?” I’m like, “You didn’t even do any consistent work.” I worked so much on the weekends and nights while working my other job. I didn’t go out with my friends. I didn’t go out on dates. We literally stayed at home and worked on our computer after our daughter went to bed. It’s a lot of writing; it’s a lot of research. You don’t just sign up. For the first year, I wasn’t making any money, maybe $100 or $200 a month. It was nothing. People don’t understand that part. They’re like, “Why would you do it for a year when you see no return?” I was seeing a return on my readership, and my following was growing, and that was motivating me. But for someone starting a blog who wants to make it specifically for money, it’s a hard way to start, because you’re not passionate about what you’re doing. You have to love what you do.
14
Podcasts
Podcasts are a godsend for two reasons.
Most people aren’t comfortable on camera. They think they look stupid. They worry about their hair, their glasses, or their makeup. They fuss over the lighting. None of it matters, but it’s enough to distract them from concentrating on providing the best experience they can for their viewers. Podcasts are far less intimidating.
Podcasts sell time, which is why everyone, including people who rock on camera, should try to create one. In this hyperspeed world, multitasking is everything, and it’s a lot easier to listen to a podcast while you check your e-mails and pay your bills than to watch a video. In addition, as of 2014, the 139 million total commuters in the United States spent 29.6 billion hours traveling to and from their workplaces.1 A lot of that commute time is spent in cars where drivers can’t watch videos (for now). They can, however, easily listen to podcasts. In the information age, podcasts allow us to efficiently and effectively maximize our knowledge.
I’ve had a podcast since October 2014, right around the time that the podcast Serial, produced by NPR’s This American Life, became a sensation and thrust podcasting into the mainstream. But the truth is, I wasn’t following my own advice. At the time, I felt stretched too thin to produce yet another piece of original native content for a platform (yes, even I reach my limits sometimes), so all I did was put up the audio track from the AskGaryVee show. It didn’t do badly—I was always in the Top 25 podcasts in the business category—but I knew with more attention it could do better. In December 2016, I finally figured out how to rebrand it as The GaryVee Audio Experience, which was liberating. Instead of exclusively posting AskGaryVee content, now I could post a rant I’d recorded into my phone while boarding a plane, a clip from one of my keynotes, or an excerpt that didn’t make it into the DailyVee. Inserting variety and creativity helped the podcast’s popularity surge. Today my podcast sits comfortably and consistently in the list of the Top 150 podcasts on Apple’s Charts. Some of those who listen are brand-new to my content, and others already follow me on other channels. Either way, it gives me one more way to share my content, build my influence, and help people get started building the life they want.
Podcasts 101
Whether you’re uploading onto Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Stitcher, or any other podcast distribution platform, there will be very little you can do to differentiate one from another. You can run ads on Spotify and SoundCloud, but they’re still extremely exp
ensive. Other than that, as of this writing, there are really no original, creative ways to build a personal brand within the podcast platforms other than by producing the best content you can. You’ll have to promote your show through your other social-media channels and encourage symbiotic relationships with others who have bigger platforms than you.
The good news, however, is that iTunes will open podcasting analytics, so podcasters will be able to see exactly where people pause, skip, or sign off within their content. This will be invaluable in helping you learn faster how you can better tailor your content to serve your audience what it wants.
Imagine This
Let’s say you’re a seventy-five-year-old woman named Blanche. Your best friend is Judy. You’ve been inseparable since you were young girls growing up on the same block, and you’ve never lived more than a few miles apart. The two of you have raised a combined total of six children, been married three times, buried one husband, taken twelve joint vacations, adopted eleven pets, and over the past ten years, the only time you’ve missed your monthly standing date for a movie and lunch at Ruby Tuesday was that time when Judy was hospitalized with gallstones.
One night, in line to buy candy before seeing Wonder Woman at the movie theater, Judy says she thought Kathleen Turner’s best performance might have been when she did the speaking voice of Jessica Rabbit. Here we go again. One of the reasons you like going to the movies with Judy is that you two rarely agree on the merits of a film, and it makes for great debate over burgers and fries afterward. But this time she’s taken you by surprise. You raise your eyebrows so high they climb right over your hairline. Better than Turner’s role in Romancing the Stone? Better than Prizzi’s Honor? Better than Peggy Sue Got Married? Judy holds firm. As you bicker, you can hear people chuckling behind you. Someone says, “They’re the new Siskel and Ebert.”
That gives you an idea. After the movie, you and Judy head over to your favorite quiet corner at the local RT, but before the two of you exchange your thoughts about Wonder Woman, you pull out your iPhone and hit the voice memo button. You record your conversation. You go home, and the next day you call your nephew, who has a podcast about muscle cars, and ask him how to upload your “tape” onto the Internet. He gently informs you that you’re going to need to upload the MP3 file onto a podcasting platform, and that if you can wait until the weekend he’d be happy to show you a few simple steps and teach you to use the basic equipment you’ll need to get set up. If you can’t wait, he says, you can find all the information you need on the Internet. “Just Google how to upload a podcast and distribute it.” You decide to wait, but in the meantime, you call Judy and tell her that you want to go to the movies again next week.
Thus begins the Blanche and Judy Show, a movie review podcast in which two elderly ladies share their thoughts on movies past and present. Your personalities, deep friendship, and chemistry make it a riot for listeners, but you also make it uniquely 2018 by recording your conversations in the theater before the movie starts, on such topics as your strong conviction that Raisinettes are a disgrace to the grape and Judy’s memories about the ushers that used to escort ladies to their seats. You also interview four people as they walk out of the film to get their take.
In three short years, yours is one of the Top 150 podcasts on Apple. The podcast is your pillar, but you use it to create microcontent, too. Judy’s sense of humor is often good for a quote, so you create memes and post them on Facebook and Instagram. You engage with people on Twitter and raise awareness of the podcast there. The two of you are interviewed by Entertainment Weekly and Variety. In time, it gets harder for you to get out of the house every week—your back often aches, and you’re most comfortable in your La-Z-Boy—but it doesn’t matter anymore because the studios are sending you and Judy their movies to preview. Thanks to the branding opportunities that have come your way, all of your living expenses are more than easily covered, and you are thrilled to know that you will be able to pass much more of the savings you and your husband accrued over a lifetime to your family.
How I’m Crushing It
John Lee Dumas, Entrepreneurs on Fire
IG: @johnleedumas
“I was dying a slow death in the cubicle.”
Sound familiar?
If you’re still young or in school, is it something you are trying like hell to avoid?
“I had this whole world of creativity inside of me, but I wasn’t able to use any of it. I felt like I was almost choking on my own creativity because I had to be in a suit and tie and very formal. Everything was black and white, and I needed some color in my life.”
Until he turned thirty-two, John Lee Dumas’s life had been as traditional as apple pie. The grandson of two military veterans and the son of a JAG officer, service to his country was in his blood. He left his small town in Maine in 1998 on an Army ROTC scholarship to major in American Studies at Providence College in Rhode Island. A member of the first round of officers commissioned after 9/11, a year to the day after graduating college, he started a thirteen-month tour of duty in Iraq. He spent four years on active duty before returning to the civilian world. He was at the start of a four-year stint as a captain in the reserves, but otherwise he had no idea what to do with himself.
He tried law school but dropped out six months later. He then worked in corporate finance for a few years, but when he’d look at the people working in the positions above him, he knew he didn’t want their jobs. He had a feeling that he was destined for entrepreneurship, but he didn’t know what it really entailed or how to even begin. So he started reading self-help and business books. In 2009, one month after its publication, he read Crush It! That was the book that inspired him to quit the finance job, move to San Diego (where he’d never been), and become a real estate agent.
He kept at it for three years, but the job still didn’t feel like a perfect fit. He kept rereading Crush It! every year, though, and in 2012, something new struck him. I emphasized that, no matter what industry you worked in, you had to build a personal brand. He realized that he wasn’t doing that at all. He had a personal Facebook page, but he wasn’t even on LinkedIn or Twitter in any professional capacity. So he knew that needed to change right away.
The other thing that caught his attention was the idea of podcasting. He wasn’t really sure what a podcast was, so he decided to research it. He discovered that they were free and offered focused, targeted content. All those self-help books and audiobooks were getting expensive, and now he had to listen to even more if he was going to build a personal brand. Podcasts sounded like they were right up his alley.
“And that’s when I fell in love with the medium. I became a super-consumer. For eight months, I listened to as many podcasts as I could. And it struck me that, jeez, I’m driving to work every single day, I’m hitting the gym multiple times per week—I need to find that seven-day-a-week show that interviews an entrepreneur and talks about their failures, lessons learned, aha moments. So I went to iTunes to find that show. It didn’t exist! And I thought, I can’t believe this. Why not be the person to create that show?”
So what if he had no experience in production or interviewing people? “I thought, Well, if I do a daily show, I’ll get better quicker. Because all these people, they’re doing four episodes a month with their weekly shows. I’m going to be doing thirty episodes a month. I just need to step into this void and do it, and I’m going to be bad. I’m going to do a hack job for a decent amount of time. And you can listen to today’s podcast and go back to episode 15, and you can see, this guy isn’t the same person. I was so bad. I was nervous, I was naïve. I was just hacking my way through it. But I kept doing it every single day.”
He didn’t just turn on a mic and start talking. Instead, he researched, diving into YouTube, absorbing all the free content and advice made available by other podcasters, and he found two mentors. Unnervingly, both strongly advised against doing a daily show, explaining that they made all their money doing other things
beside podcasting. A daily show would preclude all those other activities. It was the only piece of advice Dumas rejected.
“I was like, ‘You don’t understand. I’m so bad that if I did do what everybody else is doing, nobody’s going to listen. It’s just not going to be good. So I have to do something different. I have to be unique. I have to do something that’s going to raise people’s eyebrows.’”
Those two mentors, with their large virtual Rolodexes, were invaluable to helping Dumas land his first interviews. They weren’t going to introduce him to A players, but they were willing to introduce him to the B, C, and D players who were still building an audience, publishing books, and eager to share their stories with a neophyte in exchange for additional exposure.
It might sound as though Dumas has more confidence than the average human. Yet despite his conviction that podcasting every day—learning by doing—would be the best way to create a quality product, and despite many of his early guests’ relatively low profiles and the public’s almost immediate positive response, Dumas found himself almost paralyzed by imposter syndrome. Who was he to reach out to anyone for a one-on-one conversation? But he soldiered on and worked through his doubts and fears.
I started my entrepreneurial journey with one strength, and that was discipline, and I can tie that directly back to the army. But discipline alone is not going to get you anywhere. The two biggest areas I had to develop to go along with discipline were productivity and focus. People who are “just disciplined” can do something all day long, but what if they’re producing the wrong content? That’s where productivity has to come in. And you’re not going to be able to consistently produce the right content unless you’re able to block out what I call the weapons of mass distraction.
Crushing It! EPB Page 21
