One of the hardest aspects of being an entrepreneur is realizing that we have created products that no one wants. We might have a passion for creating something that we are passionate about, but if we didn’t validate the idea in the first place we will be wasting our time.
Author and business development coach Brian Dixon says that if a business is not doing well, the answer is to start with your people.
In Proverbs 22:29 it says “Do you see someone skilled in their work? They will serve before kings; they will not serve before officials of low rank.”
When we focus on one skill and get good at it, people will start to notice. When you are good at a skill you’ll get recognized for your talent, and your talent will always make room for you.
As Christians we can make more impact when we are doing well financially. When we serve people ethically, communicate clearly and charge fair prices; we can market services that we can be proud of.
Listen to what Brian has to say about how starting with your customers, clients and followers will help you build a wildly successful business.
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Guest Bio
Brian Dixon believes that you were made for a purpose. By clarifying your calling, discovering your audience, and creating your products, you can navigate a clear path to impact and income.
Brian helps authors, speakers, and aspiring messengers create a sustainable business through growing their platform, and creating compelling online courses.
He helps to remove the clutter and focus on what really makes a difference in your business.
Links
As a Mindset Coach I’m here to help you shift your thinking and unlock your full potential! If you’re needing support, encouragement and accountability; consider joining my group coaching program Unstick Your Mind.
TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1: Welcome to me Mimika TV. I’m your host Mimika Cooney. I’m honored to be with you on this journey towards empowering you to succeed with pay leadership and business.
Speaker 2: I actually believe that as Christians we can make more impact in the world when we’re doing very well financially and the way to do well financially is to serve people ethically and to charge fair prices and and you know, communicate ethically, market our services in a way that we’re proud of.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Mimika TV. I’m your host Mimika Cooney. It could be today we are talking about a topic that I know is really relevant to you. If you are a Christian entrepreneur or somebody building an audience or somebody who serves customers in any way, I’m sure you probably want to know; how do I find more of them and double customers with what we, what we would hope is little effort. Well, there’s a second way that you could handle things in the way that as Christian entrepreneurs we are guided by different principles, maybe what the world thinks that they should do. So I’ve got some great content that our guest today is going to share with you. Brian Dixon believes that you were made for a purpose. By clarifying your calling, discovering your audience, and creating your products, you can navigate a clear path to impact and income. Brian helps both as speakers and aspiring mason jars create a sustainable business through growing their platform and creating compelling online courses. He helps to remove the clutter and focus on what really makes a difference in the business. So welcome, Brian. I’m so excited to have you on the show today.
Speaker 2: You Bet. Thanks for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
Speaker 1: Well, we have been connected for a while and I was occupied. I saw something. I was like, what did he say? North Carolina? What did you like like a couple of miles away and now I’m like, I totally have to connect with you because I know you from way back, but now you on the land of trees so should I say, welcome.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me and I’m super excited to serve your audience today. Where ever you’re listening right now, whether you’re in your car or on the treadmill or wherever you are. I’m going to help you figure out how to increase the number of customers that you have because we know that customers are the lifeblood of our business. The only way that we continue doing what we’re doing is by having somebody that we can serve. So we’re going to focus on your people today.
Speaker 1: Exactly. And you mentioned that you have a book that you’ve written called, Start with your people, which is something that the world might think, well, how does that work? But as Christians, we know what God’s word says. We are to serve our brothers and never let them down. So they’re really, that’s what businesses are, right? Finding a need and filling it, serving those who need we can offer. Yes.
Speaker 2: I love it. Yeah. It’s called start with your people. So it’s all about putting people first in your life and in your business. You know, I’ve, I’ve found myself, uh, two years into the entrepreneurship journey, I had led up to six figure job in education. And there’s not a lot of six figure jobs in education. So I, this kind of dream job, if you will. I was running my own charter school, had a chance to start it from the ground up. I got to make all the decisions on everything from teachers in the building to the curriculum and the uniforms. Just every decision. It was really fun as an entrepreneur or a, but there I found myself and kind of at the top of my career and realizing that there was something more that I wanted to go help people get their message out in a bigger way.
Speaker 2: I had written a book and my first call with the publisher of this book that I wrote about education, my first call it the publisher. I asked them, what’s our Facebook ad marketing budget? And they laughed on the other end of the call because there’s a, we don’t do any Facebook ads and I just thought if my book is not going to get promoted and is not going to do well, and it’s just about how to use social media. What about really important message to just, you know, like how to prevent teen suicide or how to divorce free or marriage or, or how to, how to grow your Christian business. And I just realized that, you know, if somebody is not going to help get the message out then I need to go figure it out myself. And then once I figured it out, I wanted to help other people learn how to get their message out in a bigger way.
Speaker 1: And that really is, you know, administrating itself because it’s Christian entrepreneurs. We always think they’ve ministry means you got to be in the pulpit on Sunday, but we spend 80% of our time, in the workplace, which is Monday to Friday we are affecting people. So customers, our readers, our audience, these old people that, God starts in us to serve and they are wasting, we can actually do it because I don’t know about you, but I come from a marketing background and this is so many marketers out there were like, oh, just do this one thing and you’ll make sense I guess over not as if that’s not how it works. But I think there’s a lot of ethical principles that if we just applied them to business, we’d be surprised how the actually bring the results. So we know you do, we started an education and now you started to tell us a little bit more about the story, how you started and doing what you’re doing today.
Speaker 2: So you’ve got involved. So, yeah, this first book, it was more of a textbook for teachers. So it wasn’t something you’d necessarily see on the bestseller lists at Barnes noble or on Amazon. You know, it was a pretty niche book. But as I wrote and got that book out, I just researched everything I could about sharing your message and about and about getting books out. So I started to learn about webinars and online courses, email campaigns and all these sorts of things. I think what happens is as you get good at a particular skill, people start to recognize that, right? That’s a biblical principles is that, is recognizing excellence and recognizing a talent. We’re seeing seeing someone who’s really good at a particular skill.
Speaker 2: I think it’s a proverb in the proverbs. It says, see a man who’s good at is labor and he will not go without wants. Something like that. Right? The concept is focus on one skill that you’re really good at and people will start to recognize, that you’re the one to help them. Like for example, my team and I just took a call with somebody yesterday who was focusing on on email open rates and she gets 80% email open rates. Well she’s a skilled worker in the world of email open rates. And of course we have an email list. We want to learn from her. And so that’s what happened with me. I started using video to promote my book and other people start to say, well, you use video to promote your book. How can you help me use video to promote my book?
Speaker 2: Which kind of led to launch videos for books, which led to the videos actually ended up being more popular than the books themselves. So we started doing online courses. It kind of as I partner with a book and then eventually just doing online courses. Then as we’ve continued doing online courses, what I realized is not everybody is ready for an online course. One of the hardest things, hardest realizations as an entrepreneurs, when you create a product that nobody wants, it’s regularly. It’s very disheartening. It’s hard, right? You spend all this time, especially doing an online course or even writing a book, same concept applies. You’re, creating something that you’re passionate about, but somewhere along the way, you didn’t validate. You didn’t check in with your reader or check in with your potential customer.
Speaker 2: And so you created this thing that nobody wants and now you feel discouraged and stuck and some of you are listening are probably there right now. You’ve got this product or this company or this business and it’s not going well. The answer is start with your people. There are people in your life right now who already know the answer where you’re stuck. They already know how to get you unstuck. But sometimes in our own sort of, I don’t know what it is, ambition or, or, or sometimes it’s, it’s pride, but often it’s just not knowing that they’re available to help. We don’t ask, you know, and when we ask will receive, right? And so when we say, hey, how can I make this better? Or how can I serve view? They’ll tell us, they’ll let us know. And that’s usually where the gap that I see with business owners is that we’re not checking in with our people and that’s why we’re not making any sales.
Speaker 1: And that’s where our businesses are not growing. So kind of like we had this great idea that built a 10 they will come, which unfortunately doesn’t work anymore. That’s a dream is not so much. People are more in the age of specificity. They want to know that what you have to offer is something that they want. I was talking about this before we hit record, I have a a library of content that I have. It’s going to use that I created to thinking of it except it wasn’t. And there’s a whole lot of wasted time, but that’s how I feel at this piece. You think about big business you about all the big companies, big brands before they start an advertising campaign or even movies. All our TV, they do a pilot try, they do a once off try like, hey, let’s put it up there. Let’s see if people like it. If it’s going to do well, they will like order a whole series, not create the series and then can’t sell it. So how do we as Christian entrepreneurs, of course, we don’t want to be the salesy slimy kind of tactics we see out there. How do we double our customers by serving them? Cause I think, would you say there’s a little bit of a misunderstanding of what serve to looks like in business? Cause it’s not in the four walls of the church.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it sounds like there’s a number of, you know, layers of that to take, to get through. I think as, as Christian, so I’m a preacher’s kid, right. I grew up in the church. My parents were part of the Plymouth brethren denomination, which is a very conservative denomination. And so the fact that I do marketing for is hilarious, you know? But I think that we all have our faith baggage and some of it’s great, there’s great traditions and there’s great knowledge that I gained, but there’s also some things I had to work through. And one of them is my money mindset. You know, having a money mindset, their money is not the root of all evil but the love of money, the pursuit of money above people, above serving the Lord, right? That’s where money, when when we misplace money’s important in our lives, that’s where it becomes an idol. But it’s in and of itself, it’s just a tool, right? It’s like a knife. And then if can be used to make a delicious meal or a knife, can you start to hurt someone? And so I think money is actually an incredible tool. If you look at the people in the Old Testament that God use, most of them were very wealthy, right? They had cattle and they had land and they had a team, you know? And so I actually believe that as Christians, we can make more impact in the world when we’re doing very well financially. And the way to do well financially is to serve people ethically and to charge fair prices and, communicate ethically, market our services in a way that we’re proud of. So if our pastor sees our Facebook ad, it’s congruent. It’s, it’s full of integrity, it’s congruent with who we really are. There’s just, we live in 2019 it’s the most incredible time in the history of the world to live because we can reach anybody in the entire world. They say there’s riches in the niches. Right? The more that we focus on our dream in person, there’s so many people out there that we can serve and we can reach them now with the tools of the Internet. So there’s really no excuse anymore for not having a six and seven figure business. As long as you’re focusing on being excellent at what you do, serving people well, an ethically communicating the value of your services.
Speaker 1: Yes. Kind of like, you’ve found the need, you fill the need within you, the way in which we display our Christian characters, how we deal with things like not using unethical methods or, I mean it’s not to say that we don’t, we have to totally throw it all out the baby out with the bathwater too. They’re all great concepts that we can use. So what kind of tips can we break down for our audience today if they had to make some notes? What did you, what would your advice be about how they can start doing this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first, the first thing that I would do is I would ask, okay, I would start with the customers that you currently have. So I’m just going to go ahead and assume that you’ve made at least one sale so you have at least one person you can ask. And getting those testimonies y’alls can really impact to things. It impacts your mindset about why somebody is doing business with you. And it also impacts future customer decisions because there’s nothing, there’s no more powerful sales tool than a customer testimonial. So that’s the first thing that I would do. I would go to your customers, I would call up your existing customers or I would schedule a time to meet with them in person and I would film them or audio record them, obviously with their permission and ask them, what was your life like before we started working together? How did you discover my service or my product? What? What did it help you accomplish and what’s your life like now? Just walking through that four step framework. Okay, what was life like before? How to discover me? How did I help? What’s your life like now? Is that alone right there? A really solid customer testimonial, even just one.
Speaker 2: Okay. I worked with a landscape company a few years ago, helped them with their marketing, no customer testimonials on their website. So I said, okay, go and just schedule a time. Bring just a GoPro camera or even your iPhone and just say, Hey, I’d love to ask you a few questions about what it was like to work with me and just posting that video on their Facebook page. Really help them identify their dream customer and get more customers. So that’s an action step right there. Go get some customer testimonials because what you’ll start hearing, I’d say do three or five, three, four or five of those because you’ll start hearing, they all heard about me from Yelp or they all heard about me from a Google search. Well that’s interesting. So maybe double down on that strategy g cause that’s where people are hearing about you. You know, what’s the solution that you’re providing? People do not buy lawn care services as an example. What they’re doing is they’re buying back their Saturday, you know, so what is the solution that you’re providing? It’s, it’s meeting a tangible need that they have. Usually it’s about pain point, right?
Speaker 2: People pay for the pain to go away. So if you don’t know the pain that you are a product or your service solves, that’s why they’re buying. So figure out what that pain is. And that’s how we ethically market, because we just say, raise your hand and if you struggle with this pain, is this something? So one of the businesses I run is called Hope Writers hopewriters.com and we help people navigate the publishing process in an ethical way to help get their message out. And so we just say, raise your hand if you’re frustrated with the process of writing and publishing a book. If you think about it, if you were to stand up in a stadium, you know, or at a large larger auditorium, imagine even just the church and you know, it’s a Saturday and everybody’s gathered and so it’s not during a regular service, but it’s like maybe a special event and you were given the microphone for five minutes.
Speaker 2: If you could say, hey everybody, I have one question for you. Raise your hand if you struggled a little with this. And then you name the pain that your product or that your service solves. The people that are raising their hands are your ideal customer. So that’s how to double your customers. Identify the pain. And the way you do it is through testimonials. So identify the pain and then and then figure out who else has that pain. So if your product solves the pain of overwhelm or business or frustration or disorganization, whatever the pain is that it’s solves, figure out who else has that pain and then communicate to them. That’s kind of like, it’s the strategy of thinking first before you create the product and knowing absolutely this is what you could find. And along the way, like I’ve done exactly what you did and after so eye opening to me like I literally just like we’re doing now on Zoom said, hey my cousin’s previous customers that, oh, I’m cutting costs.
Speaker 2: I said, hey, could we pop on zoom for five minutes? I just have a couple of questions to ask you and some of the things I mentioned is like, Huh, I never thought about that. I didn’t realize that that was part of what I offer, that it really was a neat for you. So I think it’s so, so important. Of course we know the power of video, right? Being able to see that, because now again, these so much stuff out there that you kind of with written stuff, sales copy. What do you believe? But when it comes out of somebody mouth, I think that’s totally awesome. And what would it be? Another would be another thing. So if we know it with the messaging, what the pain is, what’s the next step? That’s right. Well even just to take that further for a second, you know, one thing that we did for hope writers is I went on a website called thumbtack.
Speaker 2: So thumbtack, you can hire local people, hire somebody to paint your house. You can do that on thumbtack. But did you know there’s videographers on thumbtack. We’re both in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. You go on thumbtack, Charlotte, North Carolina. You’d say, I’m looking for somebody to film customer testimonials for four hours. You’ll probably pay somewhere between 85 to $100 an hour. So think about that. Of $400 investment. Okay, $400 investment. You reach out to your current customers, you say, Hey, come by the office on Friday afternoon we’re going to have pizza and coke or whatever, and I’d love to interview you for five minutes on camera and imagine the powerful testimonials that you get there. You don’t have to be a video expert, you can hire that out. But now you have content for your social media, you have content for your website.
Speaker 2: You could transcribe those videos and now the articles that you can put. So when somebody’s searching for your product or your service, now it’s search engine optimized because it’s an article based on a video. So there are, you already had, this is what I believe, you already have what it takes in order to be successful. You don’t have to go learn some new strategy. You don’t have to go take some new course. It’s a matter of turning to the people in your life and asking them where they’re stuck. So the customer testimony, number one. Number number two is I would say, if it’s possible for you to have some sort of a quiz quizzes for us right now are the most valuable, what we call a lead magnet in terms of getting people on your email list. So if somebody, so for example, you know, is as such and such, right for me, you know, is lawn care service, right?
Speaker 2: For me is hope writers write for me is, you know, whatever the services that you offer, is it right for me? And having a little quiz where they click through a couple questions and then you give them a result. And the answer is, it’s right for you. If you know these, these factors are true. So like people love to be, they’re looking for personalized service in 2019 where we recording this. It’s all, it’s the age of personalization, right? When I log into any software program, any website, it changes because I’m logged in as opposed to my wife, right? So when I log into my Facebook or my answers, she’s gonna show me the people I’m following. It’s going to show me the things that I enjoy and said, oh, the more that we can tailor our services to our customers, um, the better that they’re going to feel respected.
Speaker 1: They’re going to feel listened to, they’re going to feel served, and they’re going to want to stay with us. Kind of like that Facebook algorithm love until, I hate it. But it’s the whole, it’s designed like when my husband scrolling on Facebook and then this tiny different stuff that he’s saying basically who I follow that. And of course that is a little cookies. Oh my gosh. They follow me around everywhere. But you know what, as you said, it’s not on purpose. Yes, that’s right. That’s some great ideas. And I do love that idea of the quiz, this spraying it down a bit. So with the quiz, the cause some people say, well, I don’t want to put push, we’ll put off people. Like I want to be able to serve everybody. Tell everybody about that concept and how that’s an issue.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, uh, so as an example, you know, one of the, I’m sorry, I work with an author and a speaker who is a career coach and he has a monthly membership site. So people pay a monthly fee. And then every week we have a different teacher that comes in and, and so it’s sort of like his like exclusive group online. Most of his stuff is for free. This is something that you pay for. Um, and what we’ve identified is that this group is going to help for different kinds of people. It’s actually going to help, two kinds of entrepreneur and two kinds of employees. So the employees who want to improve their job, like wanna want to raise in the ranks of their job. So we call that the ambitious employee or the disgruntled employee, somebody who wants to get a new job. So that’s customer Avatar A and B. And then customer Avatar, C and D would be the business lead. You’re one is somebody who wants to start their own business and that would be letter C and then one who wants to grow their business.
Speaker 2: And that’d be letter D. So we have ABCD. Those are the ideal customers for this membership site. And your product or service probably serves more than one kind of person, right? You don’t just create your thing for, you know, 35 year old stay at home moms with a household income of $110,000 in three kids. Like it actually serves a lot more people than that. So one of the reasons a quiz works so well is because you can use a quiz to identify which customer Avatar you’re talking to, like which customer you’re talking to. So if you are talking to the stay at home mom through the quiz, you can customize your email messages, you can customize the blog posts that they get, you can customize, even just the way that you address them when you’re, when you’re on a sales call or when you’re meeting with them in person.
Speaker 2: So that’s why a quizzes really effective. The end user who takes the quiz, is self diagnosed and we love to know our label. You know, you look at the rise of that personality type quiz called the Enneagram, right? Everybody’s talking about the enneagram. We built a course on the enneagram and it just did really well because everybody wants to know what their type, you know, you look at like the love languages. Everybody wants to know their love language. Everybody wants to know their strengths finder or disc profile. So if you were to say, these are the four entrepreneur types cause you serve entrepreneurs, now they want to know what type are they? And, and the theory is true, which is the one who can explain my pain. The clearest is also the one to solve it. So that’s why a quiz works so well.
Speaker 2: So for hope writers, going back to hope writers for a second, we have identified that there are six stages in the writing journey from, from not even having an idea, not writing a word, to being a successful published author. There’s six steps, if you will, on the journey. And so we’ve identified each one of them and our number one lead magnet and a number one way to get people on our email list is to ask, where are you in your writing journey? Take our 2nd quiz. So they take the 2nd quiz, they find it, I’m a stage for writer and now they’re like, what’s this stays for writer, you know, so explain it, uh, on the page and we say, if you want to learn more, we have some training just for stage four writers enter your name and email to get access. And that’s how people get on our email list. They feel heard, they feel validated, they feel listened to because they are. And then we create content and bring in experts to serve stage for writers. And our goal is to help them go from stage four to stage five. So it’s not like we’re saying no to everyone. What we’re doing is we’re customizing our service says based on our, our ideal customers in order to serve them well and help them accomplish what they want to accomplish. And it reminds me of the book by Ron S, which is yeah, Brian’s a friend and mentor. And I’ve learned a lot of this from Ryan
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I love his concept of putting things in buckets. As I said, you know, the old way of you want my products? No. Okay, bye. And leaving things, sometimes it’s not, it’s not a no, maybe it’s not enough now or maybe it’s the stage standing. So yeah, I love that idea. And as the marketing note to me, I like funnels and things gets me excited. That’s important because when you are speaking people’s language, the likelihood of you doubling your customers are tripling them or increasing your revenue. It goes there. The rate increases, the more particularly we can be, right. So what other, are there tips?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let’s get really actionable. I think it’s Dean Jackson who created this phone and give credit, but it’s called the, I think it’s like the seven word man. I check email if you can. If you Google like several more magic email, you’ll find this. But real quick, this is, this is called the reengagement email. And so what we’ve talked about so far, first of all, get testimonials from existing customers. Number two is bucket your customers. Figure out what bucket through a quiz. And so that’s action step number two, action. Step number three is what do you do? Do with all those people that used to work with you? So people that I’m used to pay you monthly and now they canceled or those people that you know that bought from something from you a year ago, but they haven’t bought anything from you recently, what you do is you send them the seven word magic email and the subject line that works the best for us is their name.
Speaker 2: So, so if you send me an email, it would say, Brian, question mark is the subject. So I’m like, yeah, it is me. So of course I’m at like, I’m going to open this cause like what are they saying? Right? Curiosity based emails work. They’re the best ones. Um, and so I’m going to open it and it’s going to say, Brian, are you still interested in question mark? And the question and that, those, the question mark thing is the service you provide. So Brian, are you still interested in improving your lawn? Brian, are you still interested in video editing services? You know, and it’s actually the opposite of the pain. It’s, it’s the pleasure part. It’s the, it’s the other side of the coin. So if for example, that you know your business, how smooth grow there the ants and the pain is my audience isn’t growing.
Speaker 2: So the question that you’d ask in that email is, Brian, are you still interested in growing your audience on Instagram? Okay. What’s going to happen is first I’m going to, I’m going to open it cause a great subject line. First name question mark. That’s it. Best subject line ever. Second, I’m going to hit reply cause I’m going to say, of course I’m interested and I’m going to be a little offended. But what happens is, emotion attracts action, right? So what’s going to happen is now I’m thinking, oh like is this person coming out with a new program? Is this person offering some kind of service? Like how are they going to help me? Cause they’re asking if I need help. And so right, we assume that the person is asking if we need help is the one to help us. And so that’s just an amazing way to reengage people that used to do business with you or maybe you know, subscribe to something a long time ago and never signed up.
Speaker 2: Just say, are you still interested in growing your platform, still interested in writing your book, still interested in, you know, becoming a path. Are you still interested in like whatever the thing is, the coaching that you offer and, and that will be, like I said, it’s a magic email. It’s going to have the highest open rate, the highest response rate you’ve ever received. So what about this and those who don’t necessarily have an interest or maybe they starting from scratch or they, you know, they haven’t had people they could cause that’s the thing is the one problem that I ran has with the ESC formula is you need to have people to ask.
Speaker 1: So if you done, what advice would you give for those who are starting out, who building an audience or getting their name out there, what would be some great tips?
Speaker 2: I love it. We’ll here’s the funny part. We used to live in a culture and a society where relationships were transitional, where relationships were based on geographic location. You know, the people I went to elementary school with and then moved to a middle school. I never really saw this elementary school kids anymore. You know, and the people that I went to high school with, I might see them one more time at my 20 year reunion. But that’s it. But the reality is I see them every single day on Facebook. Right. So you know, everybody you’ve ever met in your entire life, you are somehow still connected with for the rest of your life. Like that’s completely insane, you know? Um, and so you already know all of the customers that you could possibly serve. You already have access to them. And so it’s that six degrees of separation kind of concept.
Speaker 2: So what I would do is I would post on my Facebook, just my personal Facebook and I would say something like, I think that, so as a Christian audience, so just give me a little bit of rope with this one. But I think voyeurism is the number one reason that people use social media. We’re curious about other people’s private lives. Okay. That’s why reality TV has done so well. And that’s why posts that go viral are usually a little embarrassing. So with that being said, I would start, my posts was something like, I’m a bit embarrassed because people will immediately stop and we call it thumb stop, right? Where they’re scrolling through their news feed on their phone and then they see I’m a bit embarrassed and they’re going to stop. They’re going to be like, why is he embarrassed?
Speaker 2: Right? So there’s some curiosity or some voyeurism and you’d say, I’m a bit embarrassed. Uh, I recently realized that the one thing I’m really good at is helping people write books. And there are many people that know me include being, you reading this right now that know someone who’s looking to write a book. But I’m kind of embarrassed because, I’m not sure who I can help. So if there’s somebody that you know who’s trying to write a book and is feeling stuck, get them to private message me or just tag them below. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it. That’s all you have to say. And you know how many people are gonna respond to that post? It’s not saying I’m looking for new customers. It’s sad across salesy, right? It comes then to, you’re really embarrassed him posting it and so it’s like perfect.
Speaker 1: Like I’m going to try that. I’m so good Fridays and let you know the results.
Speaker 2: Cause one of the things social media does. Okay. So there was like this interview with Mark Zuckerberg Zuckerberg like three or four years ago. He said something like, he basically said what? Love him or hate him. Right. But, but one thing that he said is his, one of his goals that Facebook is to bring in, uh, bring both identities together because in reality we’re one person, we don’t have our online identity and then our offline identity. He said that’s the difference between Facebook and my space and, and other tools like that. I remember, you know, I’m old enough to have had a my space. Yeah, me too. What we would have like this, like this fake person on sauna like this, my space persona. And then you would have like your person in real life.
Speaker 2: Like you didn’t have to be a real name. It didn’t have to really be a picture. You didn’t have to say where you live. Like there are all these differences between that and Facebook. Facebook is supposed to be, it’s like your driver’s license. That’s really the goal of Facebook is to be really you searchable directory of people. That sounds started right. It was the Facebook, my, my little Bible college that I went to, we had a Facebook that we would publish every year. It was a picture of every new student and we literally printed them and put them in all the mailboxes of all the students. So we could go, Oh, who’s that kid I’m in class with? Oh, that’s their name. Where are they from? Like that’s the idea of Facebook is it’s a director of human. And so when you are really being a human on Facebook, that’s what connects to people. So the feeling of embarrassment or the feeling of shame or the feeling of vulnerability, these are things people relate to. So why not talk about it? You know, people love to see the journey where I think we’re really turned off by the idea of like the what they called the glittering rich, like showing off all your stuff. But when you say version of famous?
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of my friends who’s a pretty big Instagram influencer person, you know, there’s got a huge following on Instagram. She said every time I post a really a pretty photo on Instagram, I have to make sure my caption is a little self deprecating. Other wise it get haters like crazy. So she’ll post this really beautiful picture like model and sunsetting and the gorgeous outfit. And then she’ll say, this is the seventh time I tried to take the shot without, you know, stuff’s stuck inside and my teeth, or of or without be squinting too much, you know? And it’s like, oh, she’s a real human, like be a human. And so by saying, I’m a little embarrassed about this, but I figured out that I can really help, you know, car dealers increase their online sales and you probably know a car dealer. Would you mind connecting me or do you know somebody like this? People want to help people, you know, the people help support people support what they help create. So allow people the opportunity to help create the solution with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. It’s kind of, I considered feeling like you have to be authentic and then come out and oh, here’s my product. Everyone’s like, was even as an author myself, I got a phone, with my, my books, with the biggest lesson that I learned is that involving my audience in the process. Like when I did my books last year, I took photos and I was like, Hey, what do you think I should start on the cover and what title resonates with you more? And I’ve written about this bio, does it speak to you? And people will come in and said, no, you need to eat that. Oh, your grammar is wrong there. And I’m like, yes. So when the book came out,
Speaker 1: being part of the process, like they’re kind of owned part of the process because they’re like, oh, I’m so glad you picked him. I picked for the cover and I know they’re all proud. And that’s what the whole community was. And I’m like, okay, I totally doing this again. So every time I’m just got stuck trying to be perfect. Stop trying to have the perfect Instagram posts and kind of just like be real and yeah, definitely. I mean, the age of social, social media, we, it needs to be social, but it also needs to be real.
Speaker 2: So that’s so true. It’s a funny balance. You know what, what I’ve realized is that most people want to do things but they don’t actually go ahead and do them. And so you as an entrepreneur, you listening to this right now, we’re watching this right now, the fact that you’re taking action. Yes, it will attract haters, but most people will look at you and go, man, I wish I was that brave. I wish I was that brave too. You know, record a video and put it on Youtube. You know, I wish I was that brave to be on a TV. Guess I wish I was that brave to start that business. And if they have a way to help, if they have a way to be a little oh, brave and helping you, right. What do they, what do they call ’em uh, encouraged. I’m basically putting my courage in you. Right. Um, encouraging you. And so that’s all you’re looking for as a business owner is to say, Hey, I’m doing this really cool thing. If you want to help out, here’s how to do it. When you start with your people, well when you bring people along it, it’s like they’re part of the success. You know, they start using the word we instead of you. And that’s where, you know, it’s really powerful. You know, we’ve experienced that with hope writers where it’s not like we’re so excited for you. It’s like us. You know, it became an us, it became a community. I really think every business is a community. You want your customers to feel like they’re part of a community.
Speaker 1: Definitely. Well I think you guys have really done a great show cause that’s also, I’ve seen in lots of people have told me about it and how they’ve really benefited from it. And I know we’ve covered a lot of content and you pretty much just wrapped it up in one thing is, you know, make business community, right, which is so important. So would you be willing to pray for our audience, for those who are listening, who really just want to be activated into?
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I love that you do this. And so yeah, let’s go ahead and pray. Lord, we love you and we just thank you for the gift of your presence and of the tools you’ve given us of the talents you’ve given us. We know, uh, that all good things come from you and a, and we pray that we’re good stewards. We prayed that we take the gifts that you’ve given us. We don’t bury them in the ground, but we know that you’re a good father and so we trust you with these tools and we pray that you give us the wisdom and the strength to use them effectively. Uh, we pray that you give us the encouragement that we need, that you open up doors of opportunity, that you give us the words just like you did from Moses. Just like you did for the disciples that you sent out.
Speaker 2: Um, and that those who don’t open the door, you know, just like in acts as you, as you sent the disciples out two by two, um, that when someone is not hospitable, that we can turn and we can move on to the next person and without a feeling of guilt or shame or judgment. But just moving on knowing that there are more than enough people that need our products and our services that we are here to serve. So I just pray for almost like a flashlight, you know, just like a, um, a spotlight on the customers today that you want us to serve. We pray for your divine guidance in all of this and we just thank you for this opportunity to be part of your creation and just part of advancing your kingdom under name. Amen.
Speaker 1: Amen. Thank you everybody. I appreciate you standing in agreement and really want to help and support each other on this journey. Cause it can’t do laugh a lot. I mean we’re not built to be in isolation. That’s right. How can they get in contact with you? With what’s the best way to find you online?
Speaker 2: I love it. Well, you know Brian dixon.com B r I a n d I x o n.com. We have a quiz. I follow my own system, right? It’ll help you get unstuck in your life. So that’s number one. And then number two, really excited, but I’m brand new books. Start with your people. That daily decision that changes everything comes out in the fall. So I’d love it to just head over to briandixon.com get on our mailing list. You’ll see, you’ll find out more information about the book and we’re offering all kinds of bonuses when you preorder the book. So yeah, head on over there. Follow me on social and I’d love to connect with you, love to serve you.
Speaker 1: If you’ve seen Brian Online, have you had heard this? We’ll watch this online and make sure you connect with him online and let them know that you saw him on Mimika TV. We love to connect our audience with that guests. Just so you know, we get everybody connected. That’s the whole point. And if you enjoyed what he had to say, make sure to share it with your friends. I’m sure you know somebody who could really benefit from today’s conversation. I think those little buttons, no matter what platform, and then comments, we love to keep the conversation going, any Aha moments, any insights, any revelations or questions, make sure to scroll through the video and add those comments. We do take those and we’ll keep in contact with you. They, and if you want, we’ll freebie resources that are only shared with my newsletter community, go to mimikacooney.com and we have a freebie section and you can grab a bunch of goodies, including my book my mindset makeover, and a new one that’s coming out. How to build your platform with a purpose. If you want to help with building your audience using, you know, Christian principles that are not sleazy and slimy, they definitely come along. I have a group for book launch just like we talked about getting them involved in the process. Like, Hey, what do you think about these? So if you want to be involved in the behind the scenes coming to join me, I’d love to have you with me. But I’ve got to say thank you so much Brian, for spending your valuable time with me today.
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.
Well, until next time everyone take care. Are you ready to build a platform with a purpose? Come to mimikacooney.com and download your free checklist. How to build your platform in 30 days.
