Entrepreneurial Transformation & Brand Response with Dustin Mathews

A Personal Note from Orion

It’s time to get fired up about your life! Whether you’re an entrepreneur—like me—a businessperson, parent, student, artist, friend or all of the above, life is full of opportunities disguised as challenges designed to help you grow into the best version of you. Following your passion and making big changes in life isn’t easy. But no matter how scary it might feel to take a leap of faith, the universe will always reward your courage.

My guest this week, best-selling author, speaker and brand response expert Dustin Mathews has experienced firsthand the rewards of taking risks, both personally and professionally. Listen in to his inspiring story of how he built and then walked away from a six-figure business to pursue his passion. And if you own a business or dream of starting one, you won’t want to miss the marketing and brand wisdom he shares. This episode is a true gem and will light a fire in your heart so you can start living a bigger, bolder and more successful life.

In this Episode

[04:31] – Dustin shares how he felt about Orion when he met her, and points out that he immediately saw her fire and passion.
[05:27] – We learn a bit about Dustin, including that he was once deathly afraid of public speaking. He also discusses how he got into marketing.
[07:39] – How did Dustin learn about influence? As he answers, he talks about how he got out of public speaking in school, and how he eventually needed to give a talk in public.
[10:51] – Dustin discusses how it went when he finally gave his public talk.
[13:00] – Orion takes a moment to share some of her own fears before she speaks in front of an audience. Dustin then discusses the tools he uses to get over those limiting beliefs.
[15:02] – Many athletes practice in their minds, Orion points out. She and Dustin then talk about Japan.
[18:12] – What did Dustin visualize for himself?
[21:21] – Dustin discusses leaving Speaking Empire and what it was like to take on that decision after nine years there.
[25:07] – Orion shares a story of what happened the day before she went to Japan.
[27:53] – We hear about the spiritual aspects of Dustin’s transition.
[30:57] – Dustin discusses brand response and how we can become better at branding.
[34:37] – Orion has been putting a lot of good content out there, but doesn’t feel she’s getting the response she should be getting. What are Dustin’s words of wisdom for her, or for listeners in her situation?
[39:33] – What does Dustin do to increase his own brand response?
[42:04] – Dustin offers more advice, some of it very unconventional and creative, on finding and approaching potential affiliates.
[48:19] – Dustin squeezes in one last tip on the subject he and Orion have been talking about.
[49:55] – What are Dustin’s three top tips to living a stellar life? #1. Education, and always coming from a student’s mindset. #2. Be happy! #3. Move your body.
[53:58] – Where can people go to learn more about Dustin?

About Today’s Show

‏‏Welcome to Stellar Life Podcast! This is Orion. Thank you, first of all, for listening to the show, thank you for taking this time to improve yourself, I don’t take it lightly, I know that you are busy and you have so much to do, and so many other podcasts that you can listen too. Thank you for choosing this one. I appreciate you, you freaking rock! Today, I started a juice cleanse because I’ve been eating a lot of junk lately and not taking care of my body as I should or wanted to. Because this is going to be a new year for me, my birthday is coming up on March 31st, I’ve decided to cleanse my body, take care of my body, and really give her some nourishment, and cleanse whatever junk I put in my body because she deserves better, she serves me well, and she deserves to feel more energetic, and more vibrant. I’m really excited, I’m taking care of my body, creating an intention for my new personal year, creating a powerful intention for my business. This is the month of Aries, there is a lot of fire energy, and I’m fired up to go and become bigger, better, stronger, and just more! I want to feel more, I want to have more, I want to experience life to the fullest. My guest today is Dustin Mathews. He transforms businesses and brands. Right out of school, Dustin helped take company from $1 million to $14 million. And number 35 of Inc. list of Fastest Growing Companies. Along with best selling books in the arenas of marketing and sales, and life, Dustin quantified a process of creating and selling products, and services, and irresistible offers, and is currently innovating the arena of brand response. Dustin is a good friends, he’s also a mentor. I studied a lot from him, he’s just a wonderful, bright human being. I love surrounding myself with these type of people; they are super successful, they’re heart driven, they are leaders. Because when you hang out with the best of the best, guess what, something will stick. I’m happy to have him on the show. This conversation was super awesome, super fun, there are so many nuggets of wisdom, and so much goodness in this episode. I’m really excited for you to listen to it. Without further ado, on to the show. Hello Dustin, and welcome to Stellar Life Podcast! How are you doing?

‏‏I am doing fabulous, yourself?

‏‏I’m doing great! I’m so happy to be talking to you. We have a long history together. Don’t we?

‏‏That’s right. I’m excited! I’m really pumped today.

‏‏Yeah. This is really cool. First time I met you was at Speaking Empire, when I was learning how to become a better speaker. You know what, every time I interacted with you, even when we didn’t really know each other, I always felt this very kind vibe from you. I always felt like you were a very sweet person, very loving, and very gracious.

‏‏Thank you, thank you. I’ll share now too, from you I felt this fire, this passion that you have. I see you’re obviously up to big things but I just saw that immediately. Like up to conquer the world and share your fire or passion. Very motivated person. I’m excited to see all the stuff that you’re up to and excited to be here on the journey too.

‏‏Yeah. That’s cool. Last time we saw each other was outside of Traffic and Conversion Summit. We just left the party, my husband and I, we just saw you. It was like, oh my God! It was just so good to see you. It just felt good. You know how when you don’t see somebody for a long time but then you see them, and you get this great vibe. There is something there. This person is awesome and you should have them in your life. Thank you for being here. Why don’t we start by you sharing a little bit about yourself?

‏‏Yeah, absolutely. Folks find out about me online in a story, or even in this podcast. Probably the thing they won’t find online is that I was deathly afraid to do what I’m doing now. Let’s call it public speaking for now, but there’s more to share but I was the introverted, nerdy, techy—I still am—shy kid. Just found that if I keep stepping out of my comfort zone, that’s where I grew. That’s been my challenge and my opportunity in life, is find out and recognize, have awareness of oh, that feels a little uncomfortable, I don’t know if I should do that, but also recognize that’s an opportunity for growth. The way it started was I read a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad. Have you read that one?

‏‏Yes, I have. A few times.

‏‏That’s a classic book. I have two young boys now and I’m really excited when they’re of reading age to put it in their room or either just leave a copy hanging around. Because when I read it, I thought I was going to be the next real estate millionaire. In my journey, I found out that real estate wasn’t my passion, it was marketing. It’s this idea that we can put words on paper, we have this power to put words on paper, or in a podcast, or Facebook live, or whatever media, TV, radio, you name it. You can put words on paper that move people to do things, and you can get them donate to your charity, show up for you next podcast, opt in for your listener, all sorts of cool stuff. For me, this nerdy, techy, guy, I said, “Wow. This is pretty cool!” Because I had never taken any sort of business or marketing classes, and I never knew about it. That’s been really in my passion ever since is that this idea of putting words on something and that people will take action. It’s a pretty cool power that we have as entrepreneurs, business owners, and just people in life, walking the earth.

You can put words on paper that move people to do things, and you can get them donate to your charity, show up for you next podcast, opt in for your listener, all sorts of cool stuff. Click To Tweet

‏‏It sounds like God’s power. God said a word and the world was created. This big power, to the written word, to the spoken word. I love that too. I’m fascinated with influence. I’m excited to learn more from you in this hour to know more about influence. How did you learn more about influence?

‏‏Good question. I laughed because there’s no magical answer. It’s simply trial by fire. I read that book and went down to a real estate investor club and there was a guy who’s starting up a little old business there, I basically tried the Rich Dad Poor Dad line on him which was like, “Hey, Rich Dad, teach me how to invest in real estate and I’ll come work for free.” Because that’s the book said, “Go find your rich dad and do whatever it takes to be around that person.” That person’s name was Dave Vanhoose, who we both know very well.

‏‏Oh yeah. He was your rich dad?

‏‏He was my rich dad.

‏‏Oh my God. That’s funny.

‏‏I think he had done one deal at the time, maybe two deals at the time. What intrigued me was he had this service for real estate investors called Foreclosures Daily and basically they would just go to the courthouse and find all these foreclosures and put them online before it was so trendy and vogue nowadays. But before, everything was paper. He was launching this website, for those of you that don’t know Dave, Dave is like a man’s man, an athlete guy, a jock if you want to call him that. He had very little experience on the computer and he was looking for a guy like me to help him turn on the computer and use it. Fast forward a little bit, but because I was there, just volunteering, and helping Dave out, one day, Dave said, “Listen, I’m closing on a condo, you have to do a talk, a presentation in front of other.” One thing I neglected to share was that in school, I found a loophole to get out of public speaking. This was a class that you had to take in order to graduate. I got to share this one with you, Orion. I had previously, in high school, been chasing a girl, had my eye on a girl, I joined this class called Model United Nations, and I represented the country of Great Britain. I had to debate in front of others, and speak in front of others, all the fine points of Great Britain at the time. We went to this conference and I literally was speaking in front of 100 people but I must have been so blinded by the girl that I didn’t realize. What happened was when I found out later on in school that I had to actually take a class formally called Public Speaking, I became so motivated to not take this class that I had found a loophole and it said, “If you taken this class earlier in your career, that if you could get a teacher to write a note, you could get out of it.” What do you think I did?

‏‏Got a note.

‏‏I didn’t leave it to chance. I wrote the note for the teacher and said, “Listen, if you find this your tone and what you would write, just sign off on it. If you want to change it, change it.” But I didn’t want him to have to stare at a blank piece of paper and have to come up with something. I wrote it for him. He changed it, naturally, because he’s a teacher and he wants to put a stamp on it, and signed it. And I submitted it. I got out of it. When you ask me a very long answer to a great question, when you asked me how did I learn about influence, I was thrown into this situation when Dave closed on his condo, and there was no one else, my back was up against the wall, I had to do it. I got up there, and I just gave a talk, and I didn’t know about influence, I didn’t know all the things and the right way to do it, the format and the structure, and all that stuff that’s out there. I just did it. When I did it, everything just slowed down for me. Just like a pivotal point in people’s lives when you know that you’re doing something, something that make all through the course of where you’re headed. I recognized that and I also found out that there were people in the audience that was three times my age. That was my big self limiting belief. No one’s going to take me seriously. I have a baby face, which is a blessing. I found out later in life, at the time in my 20s, I must have looked like 14 or 13 and stuff. It was working against me or so I thought. When I did my presentation, and people almost triple my age were coming up to me, they wanted to know more and what I found is, listen, if you have knowledge, or expertise, or the cure to something, and you’re in front of the right audience, the age goes away, what color you are goes away, what sex goes away. Because at the end of the day, the people that are in front of you, the right people, they want to get better, and they want to learn. Often times people don’t look at who’s in front of them, they just want to hear the message. I think that’s an amazing environment. I don’t want to sugar coat things obviously, you show up somewhere where they don’t know who you are, or they’re there for other reasons, then yeah, it may be a little different experience. But ultimately, if you get the right people in front of you, and you have the right passion to share, people want the solution, they want the answer, they want your insights.

‏‏All the fears that you shared were and still are some of my fears before I go to speak in front of an audience. What if my accent, what if my English, what if they think I’m too young, too old–too this, too that. So many limiting beliefs. What are some of the tools that you use to getting over those limiting beliefs?

‏‏It’s funny you asked that question. I remember, when I had to do my first talk, I go back to the point of before I built up my chops, if you want to call it that, I remember going home and taking a shower, I think that was just a cool calm my nerves. I remember taking a shower and I remember actually visualizing and almost mediating. I didn’t know about meditation and I hadn’t read any books about visualize yourself doing the activity so that you’re familiar with it. Almost by instinct, that’s what I was doing. That would be a great example for people that maybe have those jitters or have that excitement as I call before you go up on stage is just like athletes, they practice and practice, they build up this thing called muscle memory. Speakers, or people that have to give presentation, if you really feel that and want to put everything on your favor, I like getting to the venue, if you can, the night before, the day before and just walk in the room. Your body takes in the experience, it gets familiar with the walls, the seating, just the energy of the room. I can’t explain that on a physical level, but you become comfortable so that’s one less thing that your mind can go to to psych you out a little bit. Because of you already are comfortable, then you can’t go there. I always do a walk through, if I can, if I get there early enough or just the day before, go there and practice your presentation, if anything, just walk around and just feel, and just get familiar with your environment.

‏‏Many athletes also practice in their minds. They see themselves winning over and over again. It tricks the mind to almost like have a muscle memory, almost have a physical muscle memory. I love what you said about visualization. When I was young, when I was 21 and I had this book, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy. I really imagined myself going to Japan and what kind of experience I’m going to have there, and I even imagined the boyfriend that I’m going to have. I found that book about Japan, I highlighted all the most beautiful places that I wanted to go to. There were a lot of them, almost all the book was highlighted. I gave a two week notice, I only had $700 in my pocket and I went to Japan. $700 back then, it was only good for few days in Japan. I found a job, every day I visualized where I want to be, who I want to be. That trip that I was supposed to be 3 ½ weeks ended up being 3 1/2 years because I met the person I dreamed of and I stayed with him and together we travel to, I can say I covered about 80% of the book, and Japan is pretty big. That was all visualizing, visualization and that strong belief in that energy that we might not be able to see but connect all of us because we’re all interconnected, and we are all connected to that greater subconscious, to that field of energy, that connects all of us without the boundaries of time and space. With our words, and with our intentions, and with our visualization, we are able to manifest things into existence.

‏‏Absolutely! Orion, I got to ask you, did you make it to Okinawa?

‏‏That’s the only place I didn’t make it to! I’m so bummed! Okinawa! I have been everywhere but Okinawa! I swear to God! I also didn’t go to Hiroshima. Have you been?

‏‏The reason why I asked that is I actually was born there.

‏‏Oh! I didn’t know that!

‏‏I have been, but the only challenge is that I was born there and I lived there actually for two years, my mother was there visiting our grandmother. I’m actually a quarter Japanese. I don’t remember, I haven’t been back. I was there, I was just too young to remember.

‏‏Oh man. I even went to South Aogashima, which is this tiny remote island that I had to take a train to another train to a taxi, to a ferry, to a taxi to get to that little island.

‏‏I love it.

‏‏Wow. That’s so beautiful. What did you visualize for yourself?

‏‏For me, what I did was I visualized the audience, I visualized my talk and my presentation. It’s funny. Everyone can visualize a theatre in their mind, but I do remember a story. I remember practicing for a presentation. I was in my little apartment. I had one chair there. I was practicing my presentation to one chair that no one was sitting in just to build that up. When you asked me what was I visualizing for that particular talk, I was just visualizing the audience’s reaction, how I would feel the emotion of it, but on a bigger level. I very much did what you did, Orion, and I remember once I discovered meditation and waking up and starting the morning with a routine, I would get up and I would meditate on how I wanted my life to be. When I was working for that real estate company for Dave, at that time I said, “You know what, I’m going to own my own company, and I’m going to work with clients that pay me large amounts, are going to be happy to me five figures to do that.” Over time I would visualize it and I would write out my day. I would wake up out of mediation, and I would write it. I remember discovering my notebook. Every day I would write out the perfect day. What was funny is when I discovered that years later, that would be the foundation of which I met you through Speaking Empire. I’m going to work with clients one on one because the other business, we weren’t really working one on one, it was one to many. We did power days, we would have people pay us five figures to help us write their presentation.

‏‏I still have my power day box. I haven’t opened it. I’m like, “One day I’ll get to that. But I have to do it because it’s so good.” Everything I studied from Dave and yourself, Speaking Empire was so freaking amazing. And you’re a brilliant man.

‏‏Thank you. It just goes to the power, like you say, you just have to visualize. If it helps some people to write it out, do that, but yeah, you just have to set that and be consistent with it, is what I found to get what you want.

‏‏You’re now branching out. You’ve left Speaking Empire, right?

‏‏That’s right.

‏‏How was it to leave and to take on this big transition? You’ve been there for a while. They’re like your family. It’s your comfort zone, you know exactly what to do, how to do it. How is it for you? How was it for you like taking on that, it’s a huge decision. You’ve been there for how many years?

‏‏Almost nine years.

‏‏Many people will settle on their comfort zone. They’ll reach a certain level, and even though things are maybe not 100% and they’re not 100% happy, they will stay there because it’s easier to stay in what’s familiar. It’s scary to face uncertainty. The reality is that nothing is certain in life. Even when you think that you have certainty, something will happen to shake you out of your certainty.

‏‏Amen! It’s funny, the first word I wrote or thought of was hard and then scary is more appropriate.

‏‏It was hard and scary, it was a dark night of the soul.

‏‏I’m kidding. You have to do it. I’ll rewind a little bit. I had this experience when I was working for Dave for Foreclosures Daily, the real estate company. Here I was, twenty something year old, was making six figures at that time without a degree in the thing that I was doing. I just decided one day I got to go. People thought it was crazy, family thought it was crazy. I made that decision like I’ve got to go do this myself. It’s not a decision for everyone. Meaning that going off and being an entrepreneur, listen, if you don’t want to do that, don’t do it. But for me, I got to have this life experience. I have to see what this journey is like. That was hard and scary for me, because I was investing in my education, I hadn’t saved a lot of money but I burned the bridge, again, that’s not for everybody, it’s just what I did. What happened was I ended up coming back to Dave and we started a company called Speaking Empire. For the last nine years, a lot of the things that are going on in my head, Orion, was this was it now a thing that I created. This was my baby. You can’t leave your own business, you can’t live the own thing that you create. One day last year, I had a lot of things happen in life. I think my defining moment was the passing of my grandmother.

‏‏I’m sorry.

‏‏That’s okay. Thanks for the words of encouragement there. But I think the big thing I want to share here is that it just made me slow down and just reevaluate. Like you said, I was comfortable, I have now have a family, all that headspace, I have to provide for them, I have to do this. It was just what I found, it was one thing after another. You are the CEO or you are the captain of your own life. For me, it was a lot easier just to stay where I was. I talked to my spouse, my significant other, Missy. I was really blessed and fortunate that she supported in it, because I think it would’ve been infinitely harder. I said, “Listen, grandmother passed and I was reflecting back and saying is this where I want to be in a year? I said no, just like the voice inside me said no.” logically, I’m like, “No! Don’t say no! Say yes! It’s so much easier.” I talked it over with her and I had to battle the headspace of this is your own thing, why would you leave, that sort of thing. Eventually I came to the reality and then I talked with my partners and we just arranged an exit. Wasn’t easy but it was amicable because we’ve all been together for about 14 years or so, and we’re all friends. It was like a break up.

‏‏That’s so hard!

‏‏I know! It was very hard because not only were we together for almost nine years at Speaking Empire, Dave and Debbie were at Foreclosures Daily as well. I’ve known them for 14 plus years. It was tough. I think the one thing I want to share or make extremely obvious is that it is beneficial to check in. I know for me sometimes it takes major life events, a break up, someone that passes, or something financial, I’ve heard from other people. It doesn’t have to be that way for all of us. I think for some people, if they just slow down and just check in with themselves and say, “Listen, is this where I want to be? Am I on the right path? Am I having fun on this path anymore?” Because there is no right or wrong. It’s just what’s for you. That was my journey and there were a lot of hiccups or not of hiccups but a lot of things I had to overcome and face along the way.

Because there is no right or wrong. It’s just what’s for you.

‏‏Before I went to Japan, I remember I was shopping for something just the night before. This lady heard that I was going to Japan, she started telling me horror stories about women travellers that went to Japan on their own and all the bad things that happened to them. Really inflicting fear, it seems like the universe will send you those people that will play the devil’s advocate. Out of kindness, usually, will inflict their own limitation onto you. They will try to hold you back so they will feel more safe and it is you test to say, “Okay I’m going to contemplate what’s in my mind and what’s in my heart and I will decide to follow my heart regardless of your limitations, regardless of what you think I should do.” I know it’s a scary move but all the people that are successful, all the people that created major things in their lives, they stepped out of their comfort zone and they achieved. Some people can be just watching them or stepping into their own greatness and enjoying their company.

‏‏I completely agree with you. The thing that I have come to realize, Orion, is that we all have life lessons to learn and they’re different. My lessons are going to be different from your lessons. As long as we have awareness around what those are, it makes it less stressful and easier. Because with awareness comes power. You can choose in any moment how you feel, or the path that you’re going to go down, but it’s up to you. If you don’t know that you have that choice, and what certain lessons are recurring things in your life, sometimes it’s easy to get super emotional or say the wrong thing or fall into things that don’t serve you. it’s that self-discovery that’s super powerful, which is why listening to the show, your show is good because you bring that awareness to people and yourself as well, and me.

‏‏Listening to my show is good.

‏‏Yeah. It’s a huge things for all of us, we’re all part of the process. I completely agree.

‏‏Tony Robbins said, “Jump and a net will appear.” You have to combine the visualization part together with strong faith. If it’s not faith in yourself, it’s a faith in the divine guidance, in the creator that will move you on the right path. It takes a lot of weight off of your shoulders when you relate to that power. you’ve been doing it through meditation. How was the spiritual journey for you in this transition?

‏‏I’ve learned a lot more in what’s unique. I’ll share what I’m going to share and you keep me in mind if I’m not answering it like you think I should answer or that would give me more insight. I will tell you instantly when I decided that things started to open up for me. I’ve learned a great deal, things I wish I had known while I was at the empire, as I call it. I have grown leaps and bounds, not that I wasn’t learning and growing as a person but like you said, when you get in a groove, sometimes you keep your head down and you just keep winning at the game that you’re playing versus seeing other games that are out there and incorporating them in. For me, spiritually, for me, mentally or physically, I learned a great deal just about running business, other relationships out there, new ways of thinking new models. But from a spiritual standpoint too, I think that dependence, like you said, I was in a groove with the people that I was in, in a spiritual groove if you want to call it that. We were all comfortable, in my opinion. Leaving that, I think they’ve learned a great deal, systems have improved over there, is my intuition. But also me too as well. I’ve learned a great deal and I believe grown 10x that because without these major life occurrences, whatever it is for you, these are opportunities, is how I’ll say. These are opportunities for growth. If you’re pretty comfortable, doesn’t mean you’re not growing, it’s just you can have massive exponential growth when you have to adapt, or transform, or transcend as one of my coaches says in your own life, in your own areas.

‏‏Yeah. When I met you, I felt it from you. I’m very in tune with the energetics and very feeling type of person. I feel people’s energy fields, I can read people very well. Sometimes it’s very uncomfortable because I can read them very well. They don’t like what I read.

‏‏I love it.

‏‏With you, when I met you, it was a shift in your energy field. I cannot really put into words but it was more you, you felt more vibrant, you felt more alive, you felt more alert. We only met for three minutes.

‏‏I believe you. I agree with all of it. I agree with all of it.

‏‏Yeah, amazing. Let’s talk about branding. Now you are shifting, you are branding yourself, helping other people brand themselves. That word brand, I don’t understand it, even though I got so many different definitions of the word brand. I was like you have to build your brand, and you have to have a good brand, you have to transform in your brand, something like that.

‏‏Brand response.

‏‏Brand response. Let’s start with what’s your definition of a brand. How can we become better at branding?

‏‏It’s funny, Orion, when I first started my journey in marketing and sales, really running a business and trying to get people to respond to certain things, and just figuring out my way to do that. There is this thing called direct response. It says that if I invest a dollar in advertising, I would hope like advertising, I should define that, like a Facebook ad or even a billboard that you see on the side of the road, or a newspaper ad, or Facebook like we said. If I invest a dollar in that, I ideally would like to get a dollar back, maybe $2 back, but if I don’t get a dollar back, I can keep running it over and over and over again and build awareness. I used to think that the only way to brand yourself, or to create action was only with direct response. Meaning a lot of times you see cheesy infomercials, “When you buy now, you’re going to get this, this, and this.” You see ugly advertisements or people that put magnets on the side of their car that are really obnoxious. That got a stigma of direct response. It can work, it does work. I used to think that was the only answer. And then I was saying, “Branding is not for us. Branding is crazy, it’s foolish.” Branding is when you see a Nike ad, or you see McDonald’s and they put up these really feel good commercials and they talk nothing about the product or the service they offer, and then you see a check mark at the end, or you see the golden arches for two seconds or one second. I used to think man, that’s foolish. Those big companies, they don’t know what they’re doing. But obviously, these are billion dollar companies so they must know a thing or two. I was very hard headed when I was young, it took me some time and I said, okay, there’s got to be something to this where people are feeling something off of a commercial and they’re tying that feeling to a logo or to a company. That’s branding. The last thing that I say as part of brand response is PR. There are some people that are just media darlings, meaning they show up on TV, they are on the radio, they do press releases, they do these community events, and they work the press machine. I used to think of all of these as separate, often I only did one of them. I had a realization one day that we really, as people that are thought leaders, or people that have companies, or maybe you’re running a sales department or marketing department, we really ought to combine all three of them and do it in a short window. If you can do a direct mail or a Facebook ad targeting your ideal customers, great! When you do that ad, if you could have your logo or you face in there, like your headshot, great! Because now you’re doing branding. And then if you can do some press release around it, you’ve done three short activates, three small activities, and if you can do it in small window, like a couple of days, or a week, or even a month, depending on your realm, you can create what I call brand response. That’s what people know about you, they feel great about you, and they actually want to know more and even take an action. That’s the whole goal, is that people take action towards whatever it is that you have to offer. Maybe that’s not give you money right away, but at least opt in, or join your Facebook page, or become a fan or subscriber, something like that so that you can create a real relationship with people.

As people that are thought leaders, or people that have companies, or maybe you’re running a sales department or marketing department, we really ought to combine all three of them and do it in a short window. Click To Tweet

‏‏For myself, I’ve been putting a lot of the content out there. I put beautiful post in Instagram, and Twitter, and on my Facebook, and I have the podcast. I still feel like I’m not getting the response that I should be getting because there’s a lot of good content out there. I feel like there is an invisible wall that I cannot break through with my influence and reach or getting people to really respond. What would be some words of wisdom?

‏‏Absolutely. I would just ask you we can do this on the spot, I love it. When you do your content, your calls to action, the thing that you would invite people to come check out. If you make that beautiful Instagram post or you put something on Facebook, your call to action or hey, I’ve got this cool thing to give you, what does that look like?

‏‏If it’s the podcast, then subscribe, and if it’s a quote, I have zero call to action. “Here is a beautiful quote for you!”

‏‏Okay. That’s primarily on Instagram, right?

‏‏Yeah.

‏‏In your profile, you can put a link there. This is really good because a lot of people listening in will identify and have the same challenge, which is a great way to market as well. When you can really describe and make your audience feel like you know what their challenges are, you know what’s on their mind, it really is magnetic. Then the next thing to do, especially for Instagram is have something in your profile, some sort of link that you can drive people to, and ideally you want to give them something of additional value. You made this great quote for them, and people resonate with it, saying something like, “Here’s a quote. This is one of my favorite quotes.” And then saying, “If you want more of this or if you want to make your days eternally bright, or more productive, or whatever your genre is, then make sure to check out the link in my profile.” That would be an example of an Instagram driving people to that. Sometimes we have to be a little forward, meaning like we have value and then we just tell people, “Hey listen, if you want more of this be sure to check it out.” We have to call people to take an action. Always leave with value and you’re doing that. But you can also add additional value and get them to opt in. I would say let’s take a look at the calls to action on each one of your channels and make sure that they’re optimized for that.

‏‏I’ve been putting a lot of tweets out there, a lot of Instagram posts out there, and I’m thinking to myself, maybe I should stop. It takes a lot of time and effort, and my team is helping me with that. I don’t see it converting, I don’t see it leading to anything and I’ve been doing a lot in the last year. I’m thinking to myself, am I just doing it for vain? Should I keep doing it and hope for something to change? Or is it just a matter of adding a call to action for every single post?

‏‏This is a great question. The big thing I think gives people fuel to keep going, motivation, is taking a look at the statistics. What I found, I’m extremely creative and I like to play with the words, and the images, I love to be there. However, without this next part, I often feel the way that you feel. That’s looking at the stats that come away with it. Ideally, if I question something, like, man, I just don’t think this is working. What I would like to do is set up some sort of tracking. Every platform there’s something different or you can use Google links or you can use affiliate links. Look at the metrics, you can actually see on Twitter, are my subscribers going up? Okay, great. And then are people clicking? If you don’t see clicks, then yeah, that seems a little disheartening, maybe that’s not the place to be. But it goes further, Orion, because clicks are great but if people don’t go to your page and then opt in, and become a subscriber where you can email them, that’s another statistic. Stats and KPIs are very important. If it’s not you assembling them, you should at least be looking at them. I know I get excited when I see activity, the right kind of activity. Opt ins, and people responding back, and sales being made. When in doubt, always look for a way to track, and often times you can Google this via the platform, or there’s other tools and services out there that allow you to see what kind of activates happening across all the different channels.

‏‏It just feels like there are growing pains in every entrepreneur’s life. I’m lifting, and lifting, and lifting, it’s still not there. What’s going on? When is it going to happen? What’s going on? You are now creating your own brand, which is about brand response, how do increase in your brand response?

‏‏One of the quickest ways to grow a brand from my experience is looking for affiliate partners, or people that already have a tribe or a herd, or a following online, and finding out a way to get them to promote or talk about me. Again, I’m not Nike, or McDonalds, or even Speaking Empire.

‏‏But I’m still lovin’ it.

‏‏We’re still lovin’ it. Good! That was great! I’m not these companies that have crazy budgets, so I get it. It’s not like, oh, I’ve got a $10 million dollar ad budget to send out. What I love to do is I love to find influencers and people with a following. What I love to do is ask them how can I build value for them, how can I compensate them to promote me, I just look for ways to get them to either send an email, talk about me on Facebook, there’s all sorts of ways. You can pay them, this happens, this product placements that you hear about happens on TV or Instagram, you can buy someone to tweet about you or post about you. Or, you can do affiliate, joint venture kind of relationships where let’s say I sell something, or we do a webinar together, you would talk about it, and anything that we sell together, I would give you 50% or 40% or whatever percentage we agree on in the deal. That’s one of the ways that I look to build, that’s how we built Foreclosures Daily, it’s how we built Speaking Empire, was getting other people involved that had the influence or had the list, and we would just figure out a way to make it happen, like a deal. We’d give out money, or maybe they were just friends and we’ve spent a lot of time together, and we did goodwill. Like you said, when you met me, I’ve given a lot of goodwill out there just to help people not expecting anything in return. And then there comes a point where it’s like, okay, I want to do something, would you help me? They don’t always say yes, I’m not going to sugar coat. But most people will, if you do good and buy them. That’s the quickest way I found to do it, with very limited means, meaning not having a crazy ad budget to just put out there.

‏‏Take me through it. I’m talking about affiliates that are not my friends, are not in my circle, they don’t know me at all. How do I approach them? How can I approach them in a more engaging way? What can I do to draw them into my plan?

‏‏Okay. Absolutely. Number one is research. A lot of people, they want to close the deal, they want to get to promotion right away. Just like anything in a relationship, we don’t get married right away, we invest in a relationship. It’s the same thing. What we want to do is make a list of people that potentially could be joint venture partners. You may not know about this list, because maybe you’re reinventing, or you’re entering a new market place, you just don’t know. When I first got started, I remember this, I made a list of people in the real estate space because that’s where I came from. I figured, gosh, if someone’s going to promote, they’re probably going to promote somebody that is like them, that’s a key thing. If you were to go into a completely foreign field, it’s tougher. People have affinity to people that are like them or do the same things as them. I put that list together, I remember staying up at night, really late, and I would go to people’s websites, and I would opt in, and I get their email address, and at the bottom of every email, if they were sending it to another responder, they’ve got their direct mail. Yes, old fashioned direct mail. I made a list. Number one you got to make a list, you got to do your research. Then two, it would be easier if on that list you’re like I think Dustin knows this guy, or I think, one of my friends is connected with them. In doing your research, if they know somebody that you know and you can be introduced, extremely, extremely more powerful when there’s a warm introduction. That doesn’t always happen but if you can do that, I would ask a friend to introduce you to this person so that you can start the relationship. Not to close the deal right away but just hey, I think you guys would benefit from knowing each other. I see a lot of possibilities as how I’ve written emails introducing people and I leave it up to them to work on the conversation and take it to the next step. The other thing that you can do is when you are researching them, everyone’s on Facebook now, not everyone has the LinkedIn but you can find a lot of information. What you want to look for a connection point, maybe if you had seen, Orion, like I was born in Japan, and you didn’t know me, you would be like, hey, my name is Orion, we know a lot of the same people because my Facebook and LinkedIn tell me that.

‏‏speaking in Japanese…

‏‏Man, real quick. My grandmother is not thrilled with me because I actually know more Spanish than Japanese.

‏‏It’s okay.

‏‏She’s kicking me. You would use that and you would reach out to people and look for the things that comes. Maybe they like a special sports team or maybe you saw a picture on Facebook, with them at Grand Canyon National Park or something like that. You look for connection points if you’re reaching out cold. You always lead with value. To make this even stronger, you can say, “Hey, listen. I came across your website and I was really fascinated.” Pat them on the back, “I was really fascinated by this and I think I could add some value in this way to you. I think I could send an email on your behalf about this article.” Or, “Hey I see you have an event coming up, I know some people in the area, or I belong to these meetup groups.” Or whatever it is. There’s infinite possibilities on ways that you could provide value. When you lead with that, again, not everyone’s going to be like, oh, I’d been waiting for Orion to email me about her story and how she’s going to help me, get it, not everyone’s going to be ready to pick that email and go. But what I would say is when you lead that way, you’re going to have a lot easier of a path. Often times, I would say show up like no one else.

‏‏What does it mean?

‏‏Perfect! I was going to say I just mentioned a secret and we were laughing about, is direct mail. I’m a big fan because everyone gets emailed and Facebook message, and Snapchatted, people nowadays are hit up every which way online. Very few are hit up or contacted offline. Meaning sending a FedEx package to them with maybe a book inside or some chocolates in there or a hand drawn letter, something like that that just so out of luck field is very powerful. I’ll tell you this, you can get past the gatekeeper if you send things like FedEx or priority mail. If it’s an important package and they’re hard to get a hold of, often times, the gatekeeper will not open it yet will put it on their desk. If you don’t want to battle the 57 Facebook messages that the person has, or the 233 emails in their inbox, I’m a big fan of showing up with direct mail and making it lumpy to get people’s attention.

‏‏What would you send them?

‏‏Again, I would do research. If they like baseball, I might send them a baseball card, just something cute. Here’s something that’s cute that’s universal, if you’ve been trying to reach out to somebody, and you just can’t get their attention, you can’t get them to call back, one of my favorite ones is sending a shoe. Don’t send an old shoe! Go to wherever, Nordstrom, Rack, or an outlet store. You don’t have to get a brand new pair of Nike Air Force 1s, but if you get like a $10 pair of shoes and you put one of them in there, and you say, “Hey, listen. I’m just trying to get my foot in the door.”

If you’ve been trying to reach out to somebody, and you just can’t get their attention, you can’t get them to call back, one of my favorite ones is sending a shoe.

‏‏Oh my God! That’s so cool! I know, but it’s brilliant.

‏‏It’s cool! Not everyone’s as happy go lucky as you and I and would say, “Oh wow, that’s really cool! I can’t believe someone took the time to do that.”

‏‏Somebody will say, “Oh my God! They just sent me a shoe! What do they think I am? How rude. They wasted my time, I had to open this box, and there is a shoe in the box! There’s a shoe!”

‏‏This is my favorite accent. We should do the whole show with that. I love it, Orion. That was great. You’re absolutely right. It just takes that out of the box thinking.

‏‏Literally out of the box? Literally? Did you get it? Out of the box. That was good.

‏‏Out of the box. You like that one?

‏‏Yes.

‏‏Sometimes it’s being quirky like that and doing things like that to get people’s attention. Last thing I’ll squeeze in here because I know we’re running on time here. I’ll tell you this, from my experience when people buy from me, I feel a little indebted to them. It means a lot that I would put something out and someone would buy that from me. If they give me $1 versus $10,000, the spectrum is a lot different of course. But still, at the end of the day, I’m a good hearted guy and so when someone buys from me and they show an earnest interest like, “I researched you, I bought your book!” And the book’s $20 or something like that. If they buy that book, I’m going to give them five more seconds because they did right. It means the world and I think a lot of people are like that, again, it doesn’t mean that’s 100% take rate on everybody. If you buy something and I’ve done this, where I FedExed the lady who I couldn’t get on the phone, I bought two of her books, I took a goofy picture, I was like smiling open mouth with me holding her books, I got it printed, yes printed. I went to Walgreens to print it out. I put it in a FedEx with the personal handwritten letter and she didn’t call me back but her secretary did to setup and appointment and I got on the phone with her. That lead to a conversation, that lead to us doing a deal. Sometimes it takes that leg. I bought two of her books off Amazon, I took a picture, I spent maybe like $40 or $50 to get that phone call but for me that was valuable because she was a very high level person, that deal could be worth a lot more than $50. That’s how I play the game.

‏‏I love the way you play the game. You’re a good player.

‏‏Thank you.

‏‏Before we finish, what are your three top tips to living a stellar life?

‏‏Number one, education. I don’t know what number two or three are, they’ll pop up. But number one, by far, hands down, that’s how important it is because it instantly came to me. Education. What I mean by that is always coming with a student’s mindset. I get sometimes like we’re in situations where we think hey we might not be able to learn from that person but I always look at it like listen, even if they’re not as educated as me, even if they’re not as whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever your mind is telling you, there’s always something to be learned. Like what can I learn not to do? What can I learn to prevent myself from being in this particular situation? I don’t mean to come out at it like that but always come with that mindset of like, listen, what can I learn in this situation and how can I better myself? That’s what I mean by education. Going to seminars, putting yourself in weird, unique environments because that’s your brain going. I know you’re a big fan of that. That’s number one. Number two, I think being happy. Again, I know we come across situations in our life. We have the choice in every moment to be happy, or sad, or to be angry, or surprised, or positive. I’m not saying I’ve got it all figured out but what I’m saying is when I bring a positive attitude, I feel like there’s infinitely more possibility. If I’m angry, if I’m emotional negatively, the way out of that seems very challenging. There’s not a lot of possibility in those moments, I found. I think if you can find a way to be happy or be the ever optimist in this situation, I think that opens up your world to possibility. I think it makes you magnetic to people, people that may have the answer or solution to your challenges or what you need in life. I think that’s number two. What do you think about that one?

‏‏I love it. What’s number three? One was to get education, and go and get yourself in uncomfortable environments. Number two was kind happiness, the way I heard that is managing your emotions and heightening your vibration because when you are of a positive attitude, when you have the attitude of gratitude, and you are a happier person, people respond to you better and all kinds of unforeseen opportunities open up because you’re able to have a wider perspective of what’s possible.

‏‏That’s exactly right. I like that you said grateful, that was going to be number three but I like it there. Being grateful and this is something I continually have to work on because I’m like, go, go, go. In the past, I’ve always been forward looking and not being as present a I could be. Just being grateful that we’re living, that we’re breathing, that we have food and family, and that were here. I’ll put that in that category. I think three which maybe a little sideline here is I think you have to move your body. Whether that’s go on a walk, I love tennis, so I play tennis once a week at least, I go on walks with my wife and my family, and I think that’s very important to either be in nature or just at least to move your body. I think there’s something to it and I’m sure there’s a whole bunch of science behind it. What I’m really getting at here is when you make that time for yourself and take care of yourself, moving your body, obviously, that benefits you physically but two, it gives you the time. Sometimes when we walk or we play sports, we meditate in a way. I’ve been learning to meditate without actually having to sit cross legged with the lights out and no distraction around. I think we can meditate by doing sports or going on a walk and just being silent. I know I’m cramming a lot into number three, but I think these are all great ways to live your life and remain positive and get what you truly want out of it.

When you make that time for yourself and take care of yourself, moving your body, obviously, that benefits you physically but two, it gives you the time. Click To Tweet

‏‏These are fantastic ways. Thank you so much for this interview. It was such a pleasure. I’m sure people want to know more about you, how to find you, how to learn more from you, where can they go to find you?

‏‏Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, big time. I have a book out and amazing value on the site there for you. If you like some of the business stuff we talked about or highlighted just a little bit here, check out nobspresentations.com. That’s got some free giveaways on there where you can just get value from me and build a relationship that way. If you want to give away a copy of the book, that’s cool too. And then number two, if you like to get access to me, check out dustinmathews.com. On there there’s Facebook and LinkedIn and all my social, I’m pretty active on social so you can connect with me that way but that gives you a little bit more background into who I am and stuff I’ve done and resources there for you. If you want to connect with me, I challenge you and I embrace it, reach out to me, ask me a question. I’m happy to answer, I’m an open book so I would love to engage.

‏‏Dustin, you rock! Thank you so much!

‏‏Thank you! I really had a blast! Thanks for having me on the show.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

✓ Take a moment to recognize the life-changing opportunities in your life. New opportunities may be challenging, but they are worth fighting for.

✓ Don’t hesitate to share your passion, thoughts, and insights to your tribe. You never know who needs to hear your message and follow your advocacy.

✓ Train yourself to become an effective speaker and catch your audience’s attention. Attend classes and find a mentor to elevate your skills.

✓ Build a strong brand that is recognizable and memorable to your audience.

✓ Get yourself out there and optimize your public relations by integrating a variety of strategies such as press releases, speaking gigs, and TV appearances.

✓ Always be the best version of yourself. Carry a strong, positive energy wherever you go and spread that positivity all around.

✓ Be social, approachable, and outgoing. Let this build opportunities for friendships and collaboration.

✓ Spice things up and change your style to keep your audience engaged.

✓ Analyze your audience’s response through their feedback. Make them aware that they can voice their opinions and their constructive criticisms.

✓ Take time to slow down and reevaluate your strategies. You can see your true purpose and the bigger picture by pausing to reflect.

Links and Resources:

About Dustin Matthews

Sought after by the biggest names in business to monetize their message, mission or movement, business builder and marketing expert Dustin Mathews is THE mentor and coach to the stars.

Dustin’s chief mission is advancing the human race by empowering leaders to communicate powerfully, unlock their fullest potential and ultimately step into their Greatness.