Josh Elledge 00:00:05 Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt in required, where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100% inbound in your industry over the next 6 to 8 months, with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to up my influence comm and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to up my influence. Com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you. Well, congratulations and welcome to episode 2000 of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur 2000 Conversations Times. Probably about 20 some minutes per episode, maybe about 20 minutes or so. that is a lot of conversation, and my life has been forever changed as a result of these 2000 conversations.

Josh Elledge 00:01:33 Seriously, that is 40,000 minutes. that is 666 and two thirds hours. that that I have been in service to you as a listener. And I am so grateful that either you've listened to a bunch of episodes or maybe this is one of your first episodes or whatever. Thank you so much. My intention here is really to provide a lot of value, help introduce you to amazing leaders who are very good at what they do. Have great insights if you're researching and stumble upon. Maybe your very first episode was you were searching for our guest. We get a lot of new listeners that way because you're interested in that particular guest and certainly the area of expertise that they have. And so every single day, quick little commute size, bite size, interviews, that's exactly what the thoughtful entrepreneur is about. Now for episode 2000. This is a very special episode, as we would call, and it's a solo episode. And that means I am going to spend some good time with you in this episode, and I'm going to share with you some stuff that you probably are not aware of.

Josh Elledge 00:02:47 unless we've done a lot of business together. Right. What I do professionally, I serve as a fractional chief revenue officer for B2B companies that do account based sales and are very relationship oriented in their sales approach because they usually have big ticket offers. That's who I work with, and that's the role that I step in as that fractional chief revenue officer. And my job is to increase the number of opportunities they have with consistency and predictability. We've done this close to between 200 and 250 times. We're really, really good over the past five years. We're really, really good at this. And I'm going to teach you the foundations in this podcast episode of exactly how to get yourself 100% inbound, how to stop doing the crappy amateur lead gen and advertising stuff that no longer works, help you feel more integrity and more in alignment with your own values, and help you to enjoy every single day that you go to work on behalf of the impact you desire to have in the world. So this episode is going to be very special, and I want you to also spend some time with me, because the next four episodes following this episode are going to be more insights where I share with you, how if you're in B2B or if you want to attract investors, influencers, partners, and clients into your world on a regular basis, you got to stop with the selling, the typical selling, you got to stop with the typical lead gen and sales funnels and all that other nonsense.

Josh Elledge 00:04:29 It's not working today in that world, you're going to have to lean into relationships. And the next five episodes, this episode, inclusive, are going to be a masterclass that will forever change the trajectory of your life. If you are in business for yourself so that I can get you to a point where you never, ever have to run around on social media and constantly do all this activity just to drum up business. Wouldn't that be amazing? And that's what these next five for these five, podcast episodes, free of charge and happy to be of service to you are going to include and I ain't going to even do a sales pitch on you. So I'm just delighted to be of service. So without further ado, let's get to my Attraction Mastery Workshop. Welcome to the workshop for Attraction Mastery, where I'm going to reveal the fast path to magnetizing high value clients partners week after week after week with no spam, no ads, no lead gen, just connecting with leaders through generosity. And I'm going to share with you why this works so much better.

Josh Elledge 00:05:36 It's so much more effective. It's faster. And quite frankly, it's far more elegant and enjoyable to connect with leaders in this way. So chances are you're very good at what you do, but what you want is a little bit more predictability when it comes to sales. And maybe you're attracting partners. Maybe you're looking for influencers or investors, right? All of these things can be created if you have the right system. Right. And that's what I'm going to share with you, because you might not have that right now. You might be dabbling with some other lead gen stuff, and you find yourself hustling and stressed out and and maybe you don't feel like you've just found that right strategy. Right? Everything that you've dabbled at either wasn't very successful, it wasn't consistent, or again, it just left you feeling a little bit icky. Right? So listen, you don't have a marketing problem going on. What you have is a relationship problem. And I'm going to talk about what that means and why that is so critical for you to understand today.

Josh Elledge 00:06:39 while you're watching this presentation. Right. This is probably going to be the most important presentation you watch based on all of the data and experience that I'm bringing into what I'm going to be sharing with you today, and I'll get into exactly where all of my information and data comes from. But listen, I'm sure we've all heard of that concept of your net worth is equal to your net work. You, my friend, are likely not one funnel away from success. You're just simply 200 meaningful relationships away from never having to hustle or sell ever again. Wouldn't that be great? So we tend to work with very authority focused, successful experts, consultants, coaches, B2B service providers, and agency owners generally not brand new baby entrepreneurs. These are folks that have gotten pretty good at what they do now. If you are good at what you do and you have the tiniest bit of authority, or you're committed to working on your authority, then there is absolutely no reason you should be competing and competing with the lead gen amateurs out there.

Josh Elledge 00:07:50 It's beneath you, quite frankly. So here's what you need, right? Number one, you need good perceived authority. Again, you might be very, very good at what you do. And we just need to communicate that a little bit better because it's all fair game. And I'll get into that a little bit more. And I think most importantly, why a lot of people are watching this presentation right now is that you need consistency with high level introductions to partners, clients, investors, influencers, whoever it is that you're looking to attract into your life. All right. So there's going to be some outcomes here I'm going to help you with in this presentation. Buckle up. Pay attention. Cancel your notifications. Stop scrolling Facebook and social media. This is really, really important. If you're serious about this and you want to get to a point where you're 100% inbound for the rest of your life, that's what I specialize in, right? We've been 100% inbound for four and a half years as of when I'm recording this.

Josh Elledge 00:08:48 And it is truly a joy to show up and do what I do every single day. All right, let's get back to the outcomes. Number one, you need just a little bit of authority. We're going to talk about that number two. I'm going to talk about platform and why platform is the absolute best tool that you could use to fill your schedule with 2 to 3 high level decision making dream clients or partners, week after week after week after week, and getting 100% inbound within the next 12 months. There is no reason that you shouldn't be able to do this. And I'm going to share with you exactly what we do and exactly what we've done for over 200 other high ticket clients that we've had the great honor of working with. Right. Number three outcome. I'm going to help you expand your network by helping you build authentic, high level relationships that lead to premium partnerships and more clients. Wouldn't you like that? All right, now, if you're watching this on the workshop page and I've just put the URL down below, just in case you happen to be seeing this video somewhere else, somehow else, maybe you you've got it full screen or whatever.

Josh Elledge 00:09:56 exit on a full screen for just a second here because I want you to go either scan this QR code that's on the screen right now. If you're not on the page or go to up my influence.com/workshop right on the page. There's a couple of free gifts just for showing up. Thank you. I really appreciate your time. and I want you to know that I have there's a lot of things potentially I may be able to help you with. Right. And a couple of things I'd love to just start with is I'm going to give you a couple things. Number one is I'm going to give you a 19 page strategy guide, a workbook that you can grab right now. So again, if you go to my influence.com, scroll down just a little bit right below the video. You're going to see a little opt in form. Don't worry. It's not going to kick you off the page. It's just going to email you the workbook so that you can have that now. Again, this is getting a little bit ahead of myself right now.

Josh Elledge 00:10:45 But if you and I were to work together and you were at the VIP level, this workbook is exactly what you and I would be spending our time doing together. So it's going to be on setting strategy right? Tactics without strategy is just a waste of time most often. Right? So what you got to do is come up with a plan, and you need to know why you are making the executive level decisions, that you are. No more dabbling and just testing stuff. Right? I want you to be very thoughtful about why you're doing what you're doing. Now, the second thing I'm going to give you is, again, as you get to know who I am and what we do, we have helped launch a lot of podcasts, and we're going to talk about just what a powerful networking tool and platform podcasting is, both guesting and hosting. Right. So I'm going to be talking about that in this presentation. But here's my second gift okay. Every week I send out one email. And in that email we send it to over 6000 PR professionals, people that are avidly looking to be guests on podcasts.

Josh Elledge 00:11:55 We publish really, targeted B2B interview podcasts. If you want to be seen and celebrated for what you do. Please get this email because I'm going to curate the podcast from our network that I know who are actively seeking guests right now. So these are hot opportunities. You don't need to pay me a dime. It's free of charge. I'm not going to charge you for it. Right? If you know some friends or if you represent, folks that you want to help them get on podcasts. Go ahead, use all of the resources that we make available. But again, that's up my influence. Com slash workshop or scan the QR code and these free gifts are yours today. All right. So let me share with you a little bit about who I am and why I'm qualified to talk about this stuff. All right. So I've started launched a couple of good seven figure companies savings Angel and then my company today up my influence. we have done that with zero ad spend. We just don't really advertise.

Josh Elledge 00:12:56 I'm not against it. it's just expensive. There are far better ways to attract relationships and build great business through just who you know. which we're going to be talking about this. So. But claim I guess my claim to fame is, again, I built two seven figure companies with zero ad spend. also, I've been a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist for 18 years, with my other company, savings Angel. I teach and lead on consumer behavior. I know what's going on in the brains of consumers, and I also know the tricks that marketers use. And so I stand very boldly as an advocate, not just for consumers, but for those business owners that are just confused with what to do. Right. And there's a lot of messages out there, and there's a lot of pros out there, and there's a lot of gurus out there that are telling you how you can have easy, automatic riches. All you have to do is just this kind of spray and pray tactic or funnel, and all your wildest dreams will come true.

Josh Elledge 00:13:58 All right. Chances are you've been burned a time or two or you see the noise and it's just blah, blah, blah. I hope that I can differentiate myself based on the fact that I'm willing to give as much value as I possibly can up front, and then just treat you like an adult and you know where to go from here. If you like what I have to teach, then you'll come and maybe want to do more things with me. But that is 100% up to you now. I've been in the media over 2500 times total, been on TV a lot, radio a lot. And then of course, my newspaper column. And I've also published, well, more than 2000 podcast episodes as a host, primarily with the thoughtful entrepreneur, which, by the way, I'm always looking for guests. So when you opt in on that free guest opportunity, that's the best way to know when the thoughtful entrepreneur has some openings. So make sure you opt in on that email and I'll let you know you know when the best time to apply to be a guest on The Thoughtful Entrepreneur is.

Josh Elledge 00:14:59 I've also appeared on over 300 podcasts as a guest myself. I love podcasting, I just really do, and there are just so many benefits that come in, and it's just such an enjoyable way of doing business with very good, collaboratively minded leaders. That's who I choose to associate with as much as possible. And I've also spoken at dozens of conferences, including Social Media marketing World Podcast Movement. I got to speak for the Tony Robbins organization to his business mastery audience. And that was just, again, quite an honor. And listen, the media thing is kind of my jam, which I've been doing since. Look at that. I was a journalist, by the way, in the United States Navy for five years. I got mentored for a day by Adrian Cronauer, who was portrayed by Robin Williams in the movie Good Morning, Vietnam, and Adrian Kroner. Staff Sergeant Cronauer instilled in me the love of serving audiences, you know, using the power of media to connect and always, always be honest with audiences.

Josh Elledge 00:16:05 And we're going to talk about this today because you are facing a population that has never been more skeptical, has never been more protective of their time. And it turns out the good advice from Staff Sergeant Cronauer was good advice for today. Always be honest with your audiences. But anyway, here you'll see on the page, my good friend Molly Morrell and I got to be on school news on WMTW and Kalamazoo, Michigan, back in 1990. All right, so listen, I want to welcome you to the adventure, and I want to use theme parks as an analogy. So as a kid, I loved theme parks. And you can see this picture on the page right now. That's me and my family at Disney World in the 1970s. and, you know, I just have so many vivid memories of, you know, we were poor working class family. And so the big treat was to be able to go to a theme park during the summer. And that's what we really look forward to. I would get the maps and I would study the maps.

Josh Elledge 00:17:09 I would, go to the theme park and then I'd bring the maps home and I'd be like looking at the maps and kind of tracing the whole route of like where we went and all the rides we went with my finger. and I've been able to replicate the same thing with my three beautiful children, my adoring wife, who I just absolutely love. We live in Orlando, Florida, and that's by design, because again, we wanted to always have a lot of fun things to do. Now when I go to theme parks, it is to leave the normal, humdrum, drab world behind. All the noise, all the stress. I like to get into the Disney bubble, or the universal bubble or the SeaWorld bubble, right? Or the theme park. you know, when I was growing up, it was Great America in Gurnee, Illinois, it was Cedar Point and Sandusky, Ohio. Right. but I go there to leave all that world behind. And and for many ways, I think you can identify with this.

Josh Elledge 00:18:04 If you are the founder of a business, of a business, you started that business because you found yourself. Maybe you felt like a square peg in a round hole working in corporate America. I did, and so I wanted to create a world for myself where I could enjoy every day's experience. Now, the sad thing is, is that many of us start a business and that we find out we have to do all this yucky stuff that we don't like. I'm here to tell you that if that yucky stuff includes the Legion and the business unit running around drumming up business, and that stresses you out and or you've ever had to engage in some sort of activity that just feels outside of your value zone or your values. Well, there's a reason why that that drains you. There's a reason why you get burnout is because you're doing stuff that's just out of character for you. You don't like being sold that way. So why on earth would you do that to somebody? Right. So, again, we'll I'm going to share some more data about this.

Josh Elledge 00:19:06 But again, what I hope for you is to give you that just custom design theme park experience every single day where you can enjoy every single day you get to do what you do. And if everything you do is integrity and everything fits within your zone of genius, There's no reason you shouldn't be enjoying every single moment of what you do. All right, so here's some stats. All right. Right now, about two thirds of us are just we're stressed when it comes to money, sales, revenue. Where's my next business going to come from. And because of that we end up experiencing, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of burnout, right? This is probably one of the biggest reasons, the number one reason why business owners quit, because the cash flow issues, they're just not getting consistent money. Now this happens a lot like you have good months and then you got not so good months. Well, unfortunately for a lot of us as business owners, we have a lot of fixed expenses.

Josh Elledge 00:20:00 All right. So when you have a couple of bad months, that is like a sock in the gut, right? And I'm just hoping that I can help inspire you to get to a point where this is never, ever, ever a problem again. Okay? Especially to my friends. And you're who may be in your 40s 50s or so and you're like, listen, at this stage of my life, man, I do not even want to worry about that kind of thing. Right. We got to get this fixed. I got to get you consistent and regular with introductions coming into your world. And it ain't going to come from spammy legion. All right, so speaking of this word and again, I use the L word, under duress because it's not my favorite vocabulary. I'll talk about that in just a second. But listen, here's the reality of it, okay? I don't care what you're stressed about in your business right now. because chances are it can be solved with some more sales, right? If you have a culture problem, if you have a leadership problem, if you have a staffing problem, if you have a tax problem, if you have whatever, you're probably a technology problem, okay? You need to make investments in order to fix those problems, right? Or you need more cash flow to solve your cash flow problems.

Josh Elledge 00:21:12 Right. So you just got to get more opportunities. And the number one way to drive more revenue is you need more at bats, right? Because we're going to talk about this as well. You're you if you walk into a room of your ten dream ideal customers, some are going to be in market, some are not going to be in market, and very few are going to be persuadable. And I'm talking about at the higher level, like these are experienced decision makers. If you sell higher ticket things, you know, $8,000 on up in terms of like an average lifetime value, usually that's going to be a fairly discriminating buyer. You're not going to be able to snow them, so don't even bother. Right. It's sophisticated buyers. They know every most tricks in the book. Right. And say they certainly can tell when you're being authentic or they certainly can tell when what you want is what you want and not, you know, looking out for them. We can all read that. So you're not fooling anybody.

Josh Elledge 00:22:15 But what you need is new introductions, consistently and predictably. So what are we doing? Well, these are kind of the six big areas. I'd say that most of us, you know, particularly if you're in B2B, we do in order to keep the wheels of progress spinning. Right. We're doing PR and visibility and speaking. You should be doing that social media engagement. You should be doing that. Hopefully you're evoking a lot of word mouth from and from partners and trusted partners and people that trust you. This right here is usually when I talk with a lot of leaders, and I've interviewed over 2006 to 8 figure business leaders. This right here is the gold standard. This is Nirvana, not the band. Although they're amazing. This is nirvana for business owners. When you no longer have to worry about where your business comes from, because you have such an amazing network that sends you business on the regular, this is where we want to get to. But we also want this to be consistent, predictable, and sometimes it's not very predictable until you and I have some time to do some good stuff together for some time.

Josh Elledge 00:23:16 direct outreach via email or DMs. I'm just going to be very frank. I'm not a fan and neither is the population right now. Business owners hate this garbage. You know it, I know it. We all hate being sold at this way. If you have done this, if you're still doing this, you are forgiven. But please stop, right? It's not your fault, right? You were just convinced or someone told you that that was just a necessary evil that you had to do in order to do what you really love. That is a lie. You don't have to do that stuff right. You can focus on these other things and you can be very successful at this. All right. Paid advertising again, very common. and I would suggest that you may do this. You may not have to do it. I want to share with you quote in just a second about what advertising actually is. And then finally, again, SEO and content marketing again, this is just one of these things you're going to just constantly be building a brick at a time, and it's probably not going to solve all your problems overnight.

Josh Elledge 00:24:18 It's a long grind in order to get to where that starts to get meaningful. And again, most people that we work with are kind of hoping for results earlier rather than later. Again, some of the most of these things on the page. Good. some are more effective than others. All right. So let's talk about cold outreach for a second, because I think when we think of like, how can we get immediate results? This is where a lot of us turn to. Well, I'm just going to start spraying and praying. I'm just going to start slamming the DMs. I'm just going to start selling sales and selling, selling, selling. And I'm supposed to not care what people think about me? That's hard, right? I can't do that. Right? Because I actually do care quite a bit about how I show up in people's lives. And if I'm showing up in an inauthentic or pushy or salesy way, that does not work for me. And it doesn't work for decision makers, right? 90% of top level B2B decision makers as a policy.

Josh Elledge 00:25:14 Personally, never respond to cold outreach or unsolicited sales calls. Ever. So right off the bat, 90% of your market is no way. So at best you're dealing. At best you're dealing with 10% of the population. Who gets the 90%? Well, you're not going to if this is all you're doing. So we're going to have to do a little bit more. But here's the rub, right? If you still do this so you can chase after that 10%, you know what you're doing to the market. You're burning it up, right. Just like all the other amateurs that are out there decimating the crops. They are the lead gen locusts that ruin everything for us, right? LinkedIn Sales Navigator used to be a very effective platform. Not so much today. Why? Because marketers ruined it. Not your fault. Not my fault. It's just the way that marketers operated. And again, I don't blame marketers because they're just doing what they were told, right? That's kind of how this works.

Josh Elledge 00:26:14 But again, you are doing reputational damage when you do this slimy spray and pray approach. Please stop. It's not worth it. If you plan on being in business for any length of time, just stay classy, right? So how do decision makers like to do business? Word of mouth, that is again, when it feels like it's organic and the universe just aligns and just connects people who who are, you know, where we've got this personal trust or endorsement that comes along. That's how we love doing business. So what I want to help you do is evoke this more and more and more and more, and again, do so with consistency and predictability. Now I want you to think about cold invites one last time. I'm going to put a nail in this coffin here. Which of these cold invites? Let's say someone hits your DM. and by the way, there's so many memes about just how annoying all of this stuff is. But unfortunately, it's the world today. And again, if you're classy, if you've got decent authority, please don't compete with these folks.

Josh Elledge 00:27:22 it's it's beneath you. You don't need to. All right, so you have gotten. I'm not going to read all this stuff. You've gotten it all. And you know how it feels to me. I feel a little ripped off, quite frankly, when someone approaches me like this. Because I see them as only wanting to have a transactional relationship with me. They don't care about who I am or even if they fake sincerity. It just it just comes across poorly, I think, in that kind of a platform. So I'm going to help you do something where you can earn this a little bit better. Yeah. So essentially, listen, VIPs just don't respond to this stuff anymore. It doesn't work. And again, you're doing damage to yourself. I mentioned about advertising. Advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable. Ouch. This is Robert Stevens, the founder of Geek Squad, who said this. And I would throw in all of these other things. It's this. So listen to leaders.

Josh Elledge 00:28:18 I got to tell you that what it comes across as is desperate and amateurish. So again, don't do it. Leaders speak a different language. Leaders use the language of generosity to identify one another. Amateurs knowing leaders, know that amateurs use the language of scarcity. What's in it for them? which again, that's not how it's not really the way to build business today. so, listen, I want you to think about and consider this. How many hours a week are you throwing away in the effort? Or you call it drumming up business? Because, which was you're supposed to do, right? All of the e-myth like you, you need to be out there growing your business. But in terms of like just kind of like more like kind of individual 1 to 1 just out there, you know, doing your best. With no clear strategy to what you're doing other than this is, I guess, what I'm supposed to be doing, right? again, please don't compete with something that anybody can do.

Josh Elledge 00:29:24 And I want to further drive this home by addressing the L word leads. How would you feel if if if someone thought of you as. Oh, we got a lead coming in right here, like, can they think of you as just a lead? And when you're talking with them, they're just making notes about who you are as a lead and they're going to try to convert you to whatever. Right. That feels icky. if there's one vocabulary thing I could help you with, and sometimes I use this word only to kind of like, refer to what I'm talking about, bring them in, and then we could kind of work on the vocabulary, but stop using the word leads to refer to humans. It's degrading. I wouldn't want to refer to you as a lead. I don't want you to refer to me as a lead. Listen, we are both fantastic, amazing humans. And maybe we could do business together. Maybe not. It's completely, I don't know, like, we got to figure it out.

Josh Elledge 00:30:18 And that's what leaders do. Leaders are going to check things out. They're going to do their due diligence and make decisions. Right. So I'm a big fan of this book right here. It's the Go Giver by Bob Berg. And if there's one book that you commit to reading this year, it's this book right here. Because this is how you should be building business today. Lead in generosity. We're going to talk about that a lot okay. So let's go through again this fast pass to attracting VIP guests. And it's going to come down to three simple elements. If you got these three things you're set for life. You're golden. This is all you need to do business today. Again, if you want to sell high higher ticket work with higher level types of clients. Folks that have decent budgets, which quite frankly, is a lot easier than selling to people who don't have money. so here's what you need. We've been talking about this noble intent. VIPs know what you want, right? Right.

Josh Elledge 00:31:17 From the moment you open your mouth. Or even before then. Right. So, you should be going for high value relationships, not sales. That sounds contrary. But again, if you come at me and I can tell you want a sale, it's going to really damage the relationship and your conversion rates, it's going to drop through the floor. If, however, you're out to do good and make other people's desires come true first and that's most important for you, then you're not going to have any problem doing sales, right? Because people know you just want to help them. And yes, you deserve to get paid for what you do, right? And that's another thing. Again, leaders, people have been around for any length of time aren't going to take advantage of you. Again, scarcity minded people, they will take advantage of you. So don't hang out in those crowds. You need to again, kind of level up here. Number two, we talked about this a bit authority.

Josh Elledge 00:32:06 And I'm going to talk just a little bit more authority before we move on to number three. But listen how competent are you at what you do. How I mean, you know, right. Are you good at what you do or are you just not great. Right. Well, you got to be honest about that. And you need to lead with your best foot. Now, if you and I met in person, would be really easy to kind of gauge your authority really quick. But unfortunately, most of us are doing business online, digitally, which is again, great. But how do I judge your level of authority? Well, there's going to be some things I'm going to look for prior to me even accepting a, you know, a meeting with you or whatever, I'm going to look this everyone's going to look at this, they're going to check you out. Right. So your job and we'll talk about this here in just a second. But your job is basically know every move on the chessboard and get there.

Josh Elledge 00:32:49 Anticipate that so that you know exactly what to give them when they're looking for whatever. Right. And again, authority is not anything you're going to design overnight. So and then finally I'm going to talk about number three here. And that is platform and a VIP appropriate appropriate invitation right. Not a discovery call. Not grabbing coffee with some, you know, person that's running a, you know, 100 person organization. They don't have time for that. And listen, they get hit up with all of that stuff anyway. So it's just not going to work. So you if you're going to reach out and extend an invitation, it better be something that they immediately want. Right. and that will allow you to earn the time with anyone you want. If you can come up with that VIP appropriate invitation, you're going to get your time with potential partners, clients, investors and influencers. All right. Listen, you probably like I'm going to teach you a lot of stuff. I think you're going to go, yeah, that's common sense.

Josh Elledge 00:33:53 Yeah. Now that checks out. Here's one. Let's say that your goal and you have a little bit of time to do this, but your goal is to collect and attract a lot of butterflies. Right. Because that's where success might be indicated. Right. Or measured. Right. So how would you do that? Well, unfortunately, a lot of the earlier stage or newbie entrepreneurs or again, folks that are just kind of really new at this, they hear tactics. And so what they do is someone says, well, you got to have a butterfly net. And so they cool and they go buy a butterfly net. And then they're like, now what? And they're like, well, just start running up and down and start selling to your family and friends on Facebook, right? Which is weird to me. but people do it, and they're constantly posting all these sales messages to their high school friends and stuff, which is just. And then their high school friends are like, oh, this is weird.

Josh Elledge 00:34:46 I don't want to follow this person. And then Facebook knows what you're doing, so they don't want to show you the people. So anyway, enough of that. All right? That is ridiculous. If you grab a butterfly net, start running up and down the street like a maniac, swinging your butterfly net around trying to catch butterflies. Listen, that is a way. That is a way to collect butterflies. It's a lot of work. And at the end of the day, if you stop doing that, how many butterflies are going to keep catching? None, right? It involves you in doing that tactic over and over and over again every single day. And it gets tiring. And again, there aren't. There may not be that many butterflies in your neighborhood. There aren't in mind. So if you wanted to attract a bunch of butterflies, what would you do? I think some of you have already come up with this answer. This is why a lot of this is so common sense.

Josh Elledge 00:35:33 You would plant a butterfly garden. Doesn't that makes sense? That is what you must do today. You have to create an environment where leaders want to engage with you. If you don't do that, you're just making life way too hard for yourself. There's a much easier way. All right, let's get back to authority. All right. This is my plan for. I think most of us can do these six items. And you know what I'm going to tell you right now? This isn't the answer to your problem. This is authority is just something that you want to work on on a regular basis. You're going to build Rome one brick at a time, and it's probably going to take you years to get like if you're, you know, in your industry, let's say you're a solid three, like you're not going to become a 4 or 5 overnight. You're just not right. But you can work at it. And in six months, sure, you can get to a four, 6 to 12 months.

Josh Elledge 00:36:32 From there you can get to a five, right? People earn their way. Okay. Please dispense with this idea. I know a lot of gurus talk about easy overnight success and fame and riches and stuff like it's a compelling story. It's really marketers or it's it's very easy to sell stuff when you promise people the moon. But I'm going to tell you right now, authority is not one of those things. Authority is earned. And savvy consumers and decision makers know how to read between the lines. I can tell when someone's being fake and phony and just, you know, again, throwing up a bunch of media logos. I can tell, like we all know when we see fake authority, don't fake this right. Just earn it brick by brick, one day at a time. And you know what? When was the best? When there's a Chinese proverb, right? When is the best time to plant a tree? All right. 20 years ago now, if you didn't plant the tree 20 years ago, when's the second best time? That's realistically that you could do, right? Is today you got to start planting.

Josh Elledge 00:37:28 You got to plant your tree today. And you know what future you sow. Future you, a year from now is going to say, thank you so much. Thank you for joining that workshop. The Attraction Mastery Workshop. Thanks for getting some good ideas. You know, hopefully by now it download that workbook that I talked but it's free. I'm just going to email it to you. Right. Download that because I'm going to spend a lot of time on stuff like this, including that I'm going to get you thinking about what you need to do. Right. But here's I want you to keep teaching. I want you to work on your social proof, work on your brand weekly work on PR and visibility, work on who you're associated with. And I really want you to start celebrating others, which is really going to get into my third area here. So let me ask you this. If you had ten times the authority in your industry that you currently have, what would happen to you in business? Chances are you would have shorter sales cycles, which means faster revenue.

Josh Elledge 00:38:23 You would have higher conversions because people can tell you're an industry leader. You're very good at what you do, right? That's has to be earned. So that means you're going to earn more revenue. Listen, I just want to tell you it gets easier if you're early or newer in business. I promise you, the longer you stay in it, the more consistent you are. It gets easier. You will be a household name in your industry as long as you stay in the game, and as long as you keep doing the right stuff and you keep showing up as a steward and, and and a voice in your industry and you're contributing now, you're not just out there taking, you're out there giving right givers. And here's one thing I've learned is that if you continue to give to your industry, you will get to a point where the industry will start rewarding you. And again, you've got to earn that, okay? You'll get speaking opportunities that you hadn't before. You'll get partnership opportunities that you haven't gotten before.

Josh Elledge 00:39:25 You're going to get a lot of inbound opportunities that you hadn't got before, and I want that for you. You deserve that. I truly believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. Okay, we just have to put our best foot forward. So let's get to number three here. The fastest path to increased authority is platform, bar none. It is the most elegant way to earn earn authority, and it is the most elegant way to build wonderful key relationships with your dream ideal connections, you must use platform. This is an amazing gift that's been given to you and unfortunately most amateurs are using platform. Wrong. They're using it to celebrate themselves when they should be using it to celebrate others. It's a gift that you can give to others that is going to earn you a lot of favor back. Have you ever used media credentials? Have you ever been giving a press badge? Have you ever been invited to be kind of like again? You don't. You're not part of the rank and file.

Josh Elledge 00:40:27 You're a little bit unique, right? I've gone to events where I've been given a press badge and it is a completely different experience. I remember one in particular I went to was like a it was an ink ink event and Greco and they gave me a press badge because, again, I'm a traditional working media. Plus as a podcaster, again, these are things that you can use if you are willing to do a job. Now you're not doing it just for the free ticket. Although free tickets are nice. you're doing it because you're there to work. You're there because you're going to be telling stories. You're going to be focusing your platform on other people. In my case, it's a newspaper column or a TV segment or radio or again, the podcast or however. Right. Because people recognize that I've got that press badge on, I've got that media badge. People treat me differently during that Greco event. By the way, the Inc, magazine event, I was harangued, for two and a half days in a good way.

Josh Elledge 00:41:20 Right? People saw that and we're like, oh, hey, what do you do media for? Right? And it was like, wow, this is I feel attractive. You know, I felt like like I was somebody important. And why? Because I'm known based on this indicator that I am somebody that has access to platform, and I use that platform to celebrate other people. This is why people pay such big money to PR firms, and rightfully so, because you get if you get favorable press coverage, it can make all your wildest dreams come true. It really can. I've seen it right. But again, you want you want to earn this both. You know, again, you know when you want to be celebrated, it feels really good. And I'll just ask you this. How do you feel when somebody celebrates you? How do you feel about this other person? It feels good, right? It feels good to be featured. It feels good for somebody to say, I appreciate what you do.

Josh Elledge 00:42:14 What you're doing makes the world a better place. How do you feel about the person who tells that to you, or shares their stage with you and recognizes you? You probably feel a lot of appreciation toward this person. Doesn't this doesn't this like you get where I'm going here? Like, doesn't this feel good? Doesn't this feel like, you know, if we lead in generosity, that we make other people feel good and then they feel good about us, and again, we do this with noble intent. We do this in full integrity. This is a really, really enjoyable way of doing business in the world. So listen, you're at a crossroads right now. You got two choices. You can move in the direction of serving and connecting with leaders organically and authentically through generosity, noble intent. Or you can go to the bro spammy, salesy, lead gen amateur route. Right. You're going to have to go one of two directions here if you want to increase your business. Right. And again, if you're comfortable with selling it leads and all that other stuff.

Josh Elledge 00:43:25 Okay. Well maybe that's just where you are right now until you get your nose punched enough and then you're like, maybe Josh was telling me something there that one day when I watched the Attraction Mastery workshop here, listen again. Leaders do number one. They just don't do number two because they don't need to anymore. And the reason that they the reason they're successful is because they committed to relationships. They playing the long game and they recognize that it is who, not how right you are. The combined average of the people that you associate with. All right. So let's talk about platform. Well there are a lot of platforms. You could use social media as a platform. YouTube is a platform and podcasts is a very unique platform. And there are a lot of inherent benefits when we think about how we can use platform in a positive way, and we can level up quickly. Nothing on the planet that I've ever seen and we look at everything comes even close, just because of some baked in, aspects to the how podcasting works.

Josh Elledge 00:44:32 So number one, podcasting is easy. You show up on zoom, record your conversation. That's a podcast, right? There are AI tools that have made this so insanely easy. Even if you dabbled with podcasting before and you're like, there's a lot of work, right? It doesn't have to be a lot of work. There's so many great tools and great experts out there that can help you with that. You just have to show up and hit record right now. Hopefully you put some thought in here. And again, we'll talk about strategy and intention and all that sort of thing. but again, it's podcasting is just not that difficult. You record someone else on zoom or whatever platform you want, right? And that's a podcast, right? There are some people that might want to gatekeeping what a podcast is. I wouldn't pay attention to that. Right. It's your podcast. You can do whatever you want. You create your own art. Number two, there are thousands of high quality guests for each active podcast right now.

Josh Elledge 00:45:24 If you were to start a show and start say, I am looking for guests, you know what's going to happen, You're going to get a lot of guests right now. They're probably not going to be the right guests for you. And we need to talk about that. So hit the tap the brakes just a little bit. but see, these guests are paying big money to podcast guest agencies whom we love and PR agencies whom we love. Why? Because they help us get recognition and celebration, increasing our authority and influence. Right. But they're paying big money right now to be seen on platforms. So if you're willing to show up in generosity as a giver and not just a taker and say, absolutely, I'll share my stage with you, I would love to have a conversation and share that with my audience. All of a sudden, you are like me at the Grocon conference with the press badge and people are like, oh me, me, me, me, me, me. And they want to associate with you.

Josh Elledge 00:46:15 Well, isn't that a much different dynamic than sliming up someone's DMs? Does this make sense? I hope right number three. This one is probably going to give you a lot of us who are watching this. A lot of relief. If you are new and you do not have a big audience, you can compete or level up a lot faster because of the way the podcasts are distributed. It's just a little bit more nebulous, right? So if you invite me to collaborate with you on YouTube, the very first thing I'm going to do is look at your numbers in podcasts. Again, it's just you can figure out with some, some degree of, of certainty, you know, where a podcast may be, but largely you can win over bigger guests, with a great guest experience and some decent branding. And again, just being 100% focused on being a great host, which means you're going to take very good care of your guests and you develop a track record and a reputation of that. So if you're earlier stage, I don't see anything better out there on the planet.

Josh Elledge 00:47:28 Okay. You might be asking. Okay, I see where you're going, but how am I going to do business with folks that you're telling me to start a podcast and. And then all of a sudden I'm going to be doing business with these people. Okay. Don't overcomplicate this. We are not in the business here of inviting people so you can pitch at them if you do something like that. We are all going to boo you. Like, not only will people be uncomfortable if you do something like that, like people will hate you if you do that. I mean, that feels like a bait and switch. You just cannot do that, right? It is. It is that reputation who you will get. You're going to get beat by the ugly stick from the PR community. If you start mis, if you start abusing guests, you cannot do that. You have to honor, you have to honor your commitment as a host, and you have to do good. So but you might be thinking, well, okay, go.

Josh Elledge 00:48:24 Go again. I promise not to do that. but I still do. I want to do business. Right. Because that's what we're talking about. Okay, again, don't overcomplicate this, all right? If you and I went to an event, and then we got invited to this special VIP mixer, and there are some legit, really great folks in this room. And you grabbed a coffee, you grabbed a water, you grabbed a drink. You're just kind of mingling around, getting to know people. You know what you're going to do just fine. Why? It's because you hopefully, hopefully you've relaxed a little bit. Okay. You're not going to be running around with sales breath. Right. And by the way, if you do that yeah. It's people are going to be doing 180 as soon as you show up. Right. Don't be a mean monster. You want to focus on service, right? Your goal if you if you have a goal here, your goal is not to get people to buy your things.

Josh Elledge 00:49:26 Stop with that right. You gotta relax, man. You gotta let go of the sales breath. All right, so what I find works best when you're working with leaders is you just have to be ready to be of service and just trust the market, right? Because if you talk with ten leaders in that room and you're genuinely, you know, just looking to help people and be good and you're open to whatever the outcome is, right? You want to get to a point where you become friends with this leader, because I'll tell you this, two leaders that, like each other, are going to find ways to do business together. Have you heard of this? Like the term that I like to use is doing business in our whisper networks. It's not showy, it's not flashy. It's the quiet conversations like it used to have that meme of, you know, doing business on the golf course or, you know, for me, it was in the in the speaker lounges or the VIP lounges, right? They'd hang out and we'd just get to talking like, oh, what do you do? What do you do? Interesting.

Josh Elledge 00:50:21 Yeah. Let's grab some time sometime. I don't know if there's anything we should be doing, but I'd love to find out. That is where my best business comes from. And when I talk with again. And I've done a lot of interviews over 2000, that is a common refrain I hear over and over and over again, where does your best business come from? Word of mouth, networking? Organic. It just everything feels like it was just designed to be that way. You have to support that pattern. If you try to interrupt it by being pushy or salesy, it ain't going to work. You're going to find yourself like it's going to feel like you're swimming upstream every day. I want you to just move with the flow. And this feels it sounds like it might be a little less effective. It's not. You will make more sales. You're going to make more sales faster. People are going to want to do business with you. And if they're not in market, right. Because some will, some won't.

Josh Elledge 00:51:08 And that's okay. Right? But if you can say if you if you can evoke in this other person, oh good. Josh now I have a friend who does what you do. Game said like it's good. That's my that's what I want right there. Like I'm not going to change their mind if they're not in market. I'm not going to bother changing their mind. How silly is that? Right? Instead, I just want to show up as a friend and as a friend would. I'm going to act in service. And again, leaders are not going to let you give too much before they're going to want to reciprocate, but you have to give them the space to reciprocate without those asks. Now, again, I think you should be intentional about evoking that. All right. And again, if you and I are working together, we're going to get real specific about the language and how to do this and how to create a really great environment for this. So you can do this week after week.

Josh Elledge 00:52:00 But again, I want you to maintain the pattern of generosity. This is the go giver. So let's talk just for a moment now about how we get the exact right people to show up. And very simply its editorial justification. So because this is your show, because this is your platform, you get to set the rules. Now, if you're ridiculous with the rules and your unicorn hunting, you're not going to get too many people, especially at the beginning, right? So you need to be able to, create an environment where you're attracting the right kind of people within reason. So again, you're the host. You get to decide what you talk about. Now, it's really easy to have an application for your podcast. And there are requirements. And you can say you need to be the founder of a company doing X amount, or you have this number of employees and, you know, be careful with this because you need to make sure that you're doing this with editorial justification, right? If you're just being too explicit or too on the nose, it's going to look like you're trying to pull some kind of funny business, right? So again, we want to celebrate great leaders and identify with them because you can't interview everybody.

Josh Elledge 00:53:14 Right. And even with a daily show, we end up having to decline about a third to 50% of all of the applications that that come in. And you'll need to do the same thing. And even Bob Berg, the author of The Go Giver, is a bit judicious on where and how he spends his time in generosity. Right. So there's just time that you can spend with everybody giving generously. And then, you know, again, for the right people who, you know, where there's a real opportunity there. we want to be thoughtful about who those folks are in the room. And you want to design a show that is irresistible to not just the demographic profile of who you're of your ICP or your customer avatar, or your partner or avatar, or the investor or influencer you're looking to attract. but you also really want to focus on the psychographic profile. In the download that I offer you. I think there's some resources around this. So you want to make sure you opt in for that.

Josh Elledge 00:54:09 Get that free, 19 page booklet, Workbook as we kind of go through this talk about your ICP or your customer avatar. All right. but again, values alignment is probably going to be the most important thing. What does somebody need to believe in before they engage with you? You know, from a collaboration or partnership or from a client perspective. And you want to front load that on the front end. So the podcast should be the perfect filter to let in your ideal people. and again, kind of let those that aren't necessarily really good fit that there wouldn't be necessarily good fit for this show as well. All right. So let's get thinking about this now. And I want you to do some math in your head, and start thinking about how your life could be completely different six months from now, 12 months from now. And if all you did was build two new ideal relationships week after week after week, what would happen six months from now or 12 months from now. Well, you'd have 50 or 100 by the end of a year.

Josh Elledge 00:55:16 New high level relationships. don't undervalue this. This can change a life and forever change the future for the rest of your life. This 50 to 100 people can forever change how you and who you are in the world. If you're focused on building relationships with the right people, right. We're creating one plus one equals 11 dynamics. Now, not everyone is going to engage or collaborate with you, but a majority should. And what I mean by that, I'll get to some conversions, some some numbers here, toward the end. So stick around for that. but again, I want you to think about what could happen if you built 100 new, meaningful relationships with your dream ideal connections or partners. Okay. Again, life changing. And if only. Say, only 20% of these people engaged on your primary offer. Again, do the math. If you're selling high ticket, this is pretty significant, and I'm not suggesting this is the only thing you do in business. But again, for those who are exceptionally qualified, this is a great fast pass lane for those who meet all those qualifications so you can do more business authentically, generously.

Josh Elledge 00:56:40 and again, show up in people's lives in just a very honoring and noble way. And also you're not captive to you can do more than two. I do about 6 to 8 interviews, 6 to 8 interviews every week. And I have been doing that for many years. So by now I have a pretty good network and I have a huge roster of clients. we have launched over 200, concierge level clients, through our podcast leader network. We're really, really good at this now. Some things I'm most things I'm pretty mediocre. This is my zone of genius. and so here is what we typically see when we work with the client. Just, you know, because I'm sure you're interested in, like, okay, I like this is exciting, this very intriguing. But how do the numbers work? Well, here are some pretty common numbers that we see with our clients. Again, at that VIP level, this is what we're able to co-create together. so we have huge network. So we do have some advantages in that.

Josh Elledge 00:57:42 We've already built a huge network of PR professionals who we love and serve with great guest opportunities, and we promise to always treat their guests with great care and really, really do all of our our best work to celebrate their guests so that we keep getting those introductions right. So it's really easy for us to kick in a few introductions each month. And if you can see my slide here, you'll kind of see month to month what the breakdown typically looks like. our clients coming in, it's usually pretty easy for them to come up with a few introductions out of their entire network, all of social media, all of the groups and networks that they're a part of, associations or part of their email list. Their lost leads list, which I don't like the L word, but you know what I'm talking about, right? People who you engage with and for whatever reason, didn't pull the trigger. Now you get to reinvest in those relationships and a very generous and giving and honoring way. But here is the beautiful thing about podcasts and why podcasts beat everything on the planet when it comes to setting up express lanes to get you time with your ideal people, it is simply supply and demand again.

Josh Elledge 00:58:51 For every decent interview show out there, there are hundreds, if not thousands of potential guests already looking to be on podcasts. So just show up and be the giver and you get to earn that time together, right. So look at this. And you get about 6 to 8 months down this road. Yellow is inbound. These people come to you. You didn't even have to do anything to attract them. Now I want to share with you a secret about where our business comes from. We have been 100% inbound as of when I'm recording this since November 2019, which is about four and a half years, 100% inbound. I just don't ever have to worry about where my business comes from. I want that for you too. Are you willing to lead in generosity? Are you willing to do what Joanna Panetta did right? Joanna has become a rock star in her industry. I mean, she's already, you know, doing good, right? She was already committed to building relationships and networking and truly, like, she showed up to the conferences and she's built some meaningful relationships.

Josh Elledge 00:59:59 But Then when she launched the podcast, she was able to activate this network that she had built and as a result, has done many. Well, we'll just say several big, big deals. And I'm so, so proud of Joanna because again, she's got the right energy, the right heart and givers win with this system. Takers don't take hers. Lose and then throw in the towel. Givers win. Joanne is a giver and she has closed multiple big deals. Six figure type deals. All right. David Lindsay, here's another one, by the way. Not everybody hits it out of the park in the first couple of weeks. David did. And I like that because that makes me look good when I share a story like this. David closed a huge deal on his very first podcast and has got paid speaking gigs as a result of this. So again, incredibly proud of David. He's he's an Aussie. Gerry Foster, if you've dabbled with podcasting in the past and you're like, that was a lot of work with not a lot of reward.

Josh Elledge 01:01:13 Well, Gerry could identify with that. and matter of fact, you can watch these videos. I'll share these with you. I'm going to give you, by the way, at the end of this, I'm going to give you a 14 day free trial, to just take poke around in our podcast Leader Network. And I want you to watch a video from Gerry because Gerry will talk to you, podcaster to podcaster. If you have dabbled with podcasting or you're an existing podcaster. Jerry was podcasting and probably would tell you didn't have a lot of direct business that was coming out of that work. We got working together instantly. Jerry, within his first 90 days, ended up doing a lot of sales. And by the way, this is not 375% on the the wheels. You'll see for our podcast Leader Network, which is now just a wonderful platform that anybody can use. Jerry was a concierge client, so he made some big investments, but it paid off big time for him. By the way, as a consumer advocate, I'm talking money.

Josh Elledge 01:02:08 So disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer your mileage may vary. I need to be very clear on that. I am not going to make income promises for you. You have a lot of variables that I don't have control over, so I can only back up the part that that I'm responsible for. And it's again, methodology you need to execute. So this I really love for Kelly O'Hair. Kelly is a self-proclaimed introvert. I would say, I dare say probably more than 50% of our clients would call themselves introverted. They don't want to run around doing TikTok dances to drum up business. I don't want to do that. I know I come across as, you know, loud or whatever you want to call me. but after stuff like this or when I spend a lot of time with people, I mean, I'm 100% focused and in service to that relationship, but I need to go lay down sometimes, so. so but Kelly would be someone that she just absolutely loves it because she doesn't have to stress about building new friendships.

Josh Elledge 01:03:07 These are people that are coming to her and want to spend time with her. Now, here's another thing. So she loves this system. It's perfect for people that, again, just don't necessarily want to throw themselves out there in a very visible public way. They can just quietly do nice things for people, earn relationships and do business. Now, here's another amazing thing about Kelly she is booked for the next seven months straight. Think about that from a business development or a sales development perspective. Imagine if you had seven months of sales appointments booked straight in advance. Okay, that is not even within the realm of like. That doesn't even make sense to say that, but that's effectively what she has. Again, it's going to not everyone's going to engage in do business with her, but more than 50% will do something right. and it could be a wide variety of things, could be collaborations, introductions, partnerships, that sort of thing. but again, generally we like to see about a 20% conversion on our clients big ticket offers.

Josh Elledge 01:04:13 Here's another great example. Annie Dickerson with good egg investments. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful service. What they do and they work with good people. And they were looking for investors. And she got them within her first five, podcast episodes. she had gotten two very, very good clients. And you can again, you can see the numbers on the screen and just very, very proud of good people who are committed to doing good things. Pace and BJ will tell you if and here we go. This is an interesting example. If you are somewhat flexible on your offer that you bring to the market or, you are open to getting some validation, there is no better validation process on the planet than starting a podcast, spending time earning a friendship, and then having a candid one on one conversation with your potential customers. Slash friends and getting their honest feedback about what they like or don't like about your offer. They'll tell you. And by the way, you're not smarter than the market. And I am not smarter than the market.

Josh Elledge 01:05:12 You got to trust the market, and the gold standard for validation is private. One on one conversations with people where you are asking them, would they consider paying for the offer that that you have? And they'll tell you, right. And pace and BJ will be the first to tell you that they completely changed their offer after they got about 15 conversations in, because when they started having the conversations, the market was saying, you know, that's good. But you know, what I really need is this. And they said, okay, we'll do that, which I think is pretty smart. And again, they do it consulting services. if you're looking for ultra high net worth connections. Here's Eric. Eric was a road warrior in order to build those kind of relationships. So if you've been getting good gigs or getting good connections through hitting the road and hitting up trade shows and that sort of thing, if you don't want to do that as much, well, we could just set up a system where they'll all come to you.

Josh Elledge 01:06:07 And that's exactly what Eric does. And he has built a lot of great relationships now, has a very, very classy mastermind that he runs. And all those folks, again, coming through the podcast, which is just a such a great way to deepen relationships. Alison Koski does events, works with a lot of fitness influencers. Again, she is booked out for a quite a while, and does phenomenal work. She absolutely loves the authentic nature it feels to her. Just absolutely elegant. No more sales, no more uncomfortable, awkward pitching in that kind of stuff. She just allows business to happen. And it does. Alison Kaye is amazing. And again, I'm just so proud of the success that she has created by being willing to lead with noble intent, generosity and platform. So how many chances do you need? or do you have to make a first impression? Well, you get one, right? And so listen, here's what you need. You need a precise and intentional plan. You cannot guess at this.

Josh Elledge 01:07:19 Please don't burn bridges by doing this in an improper way or in a way that just does not work very well. there's a lot of micro decisions we have made, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in mistakes. We've been at this for five, five years now, both ourselves internally and again working with pretty much anybody in the B2B space. Like if I learn what you do and who you're looking to serve. Chances are I can tell you exactly what you need to do. I can tell you exactly what your podcast needs to look and sound like. I can tell you exactly what your guest experience needs to look like. I can tell you exactly where to find those people. That's the kind of support I could help you if there's an opportunity for us. You do need a professional guest management system. You don't want to invite people over to your theme park, and then you give them a bad experience because that is not good for your reputation. So you don't want to do this haphazardly. You also want to make sure that you know how to get your content published and repurposed, and how to actually grow your audience, and how to involve your guests in that.

Josh Elledge 01:08:25 Most guests are not very good at helping you promote, but there are, again, best practices that we've been doing for over five years I can help you with if there is, again, an opportunity for me to be of further service again, in the free booklet that I workbook that I gave you, there's going to be some great ideas there and there's a whole lot more. And again, I'm going to give you some ideas on maybe some ways that we could work together. And I'm going to give you a free trial for some stuff. So it's free anyway so you don't need to worry. All right. Also you need and this is really important, you need the skills to lead leaders. If you are just guessing at this and your energy is off or it just feels weird, you're not going to fool anybody. So you need to make sure you're going into this with a pure heart with clear eyes. You know exactly what to say. You know exactly what to do so you can create favorable outcomes for everybody.

Josh Elledge 01:09:20 And then finally, you're probably going to need some support because you're going to have a lot of questions that are going to come up. We're talking sales, we're talking partnerships, we're talking big collaborations. And how do you create an environment that is going to very naturally, organically create that for you where nobody ever feels sold, to which you must adhere to. No guessing at this stuff. But again, I can tell you that there's a lot of stuff. I'm going to give you just a really quick overview of our system here. If you want to really do a deep dive. Again, I'm going to give you a 14 day free trial, which you may have already seen on the page, where I can go much more in detail during that 14 day free trial. If you want to learn exactly what we have figured out over the years, this is how it works. So up my influence historically with our VIP levels, we create, run and operate this podcast on behalf of our client. Now the client is going to come in as the talent or the host of the podcast, and we are going to magnetically attract their ideal guests, have them go through an application process, then schedule once they're validated and vetted.

Josh Elledge 01:10:29 And this part right here, you're going to see in the middle you see where it says reminder and SMS video confirmation video, edification video. This is so critical to get right, because what we are doing is we are shaping intention in a very natural way, where it feels like this is 100% your guests idea. I mean, ultimately they're calling all the shots, but we want to work with them. Now. I don't have a background in like sales mastery. I'm not I'm not a sales trainer. My background is in media consulting and PR, and so I'm the guy that you would call if you say, I got a 2.5 minute TV segment, I want to sell thousands of copies of my book, but I know I'm not allowed to sell. And I said, that's right, you're not allowed to sell. So how do you do that anyway? Again, you have to present things in a very story driven. You have open and closed loops. I mean, there's a lot that goes to this, but what you want to do is when these people are going through this flow, you don't want to have them show up cold and just think of you as some sloppy schlubby podcaster.

Josh Elledge 01:11:39 Otherwise, you've really missed the opportunity there because they don't respect you or they don't see value to getting to know you. What you want to do is evoke so much curiosity, and you want them to feel like, oh my gosh, Josh seems like someone I should probably get to know. I don't really know what he does exactly, but he seems like a pretty legit guy. That's your goal and this edification video. It is going to be 100% focused on guest service. Here are the questions I'm going to you deliver videos to your guests. You say, here's the questions I'm going to ask. Here's a little bit you probably want to know about who's in our audience. Here's some audio and video tips. And again you want to just start cultivating this relationship. And again you're shaping intention. You're using virtual proximity. That's going to create familiarity ultimately giving you familiarity bias. Where are they going to come in. And they're finally going to show up. And you're going to show up to show up for this podcast together.

Josh Elledge 01:12:31 And that's where you're going to get they're going to come in feeling like they know you already. You want that, right? What you don't want them doing is popping in like, yeah, I don't know who you are. I'm just here to promote my thing to your audience. You don't want that, because otherwise that's just an exercise in futility, right? So you want good people who really want to get to know you. So we want to shape intention. So now initially where they're like, yeah, I'm happy to serve an audience. Sure. I'm happy to talk about what I do. It's good for them. It's good for me. and now you want them to be very genuinely curious about who you are and what you do, right? So that we're shaping toward a collaborative relationship. You then truly do. The guest is solid. You are absolutely going to pull out all the stops and give them a great experience. If you're not willing to do that, it's not the system for you, okay? You have to be willing to give without any expectation of return, right? But when when you do that, that's where you give them the space to reciprocate, to return.

Josh Elledge 01:13:31 You can't ask for it. You just have to allow it to happen naturally. Now, let me ask you a question. If you were part of a panel and you got to know the other panelists, let's say in an event, and after that whole experience of being on the panel together, you turn over or you lean over to one of the other panelists, like, I really appreciate what you had to say about XYZ. You know, it sounds like we believe in the same stuff. Hey, let's grab coffee or something sometime. I'd love to see maybe if there's something we should be doing together. Okay, that's how I do most. That's how I did most of my business. historically, it's the exact same thing here. Don't complicate this. It's just two leaders who are friends getting to know each other. And again, as long as you're within the right, like you got the right people in the room, you're not unicorn hunting. You got the right people in the room. You're going to end up doing business with a lot of these people.

Josh Elledge 01:14:21 So then you would just say, hey, let's let's chat again next week. I don't know, you know, if there's anything for us to do, but I'd be happy to see if I can help, if I can brainstorm, if I got any ideas. I don't know if you know what I do or whatever, but happy to be of service, right? And that's it. That that is completely, 100% authentically your energy. And if you can't get there, go read the go giver and then come back and again, you'll be ready for me at that point. So but in this follow up meeting, your goal again is not to sell them. Your goal is to hopefully evoking them. But again, it's completely up to them. And you got to understand and honor the rules of engagement. Yes. Good questions. So, you know, obviously be curious about them. See if you can help. See if you can be of service. Right. Your goal should be to get them to say words to the effect of, oh good.

Josh Elledge 01:15:08 Now I have a friend who does what you do and that's it. That's your goal for this call. And then simply as two leaders who like each other would do, you'll just figure out how you can create the greatest value together. Now remember, because of who they are, there is a strong likelihood that they are going to need what you have to offer, right? And it could be something even better. Your life can change simply from the right connection. I'm sure if you think through your life of some of those most important client or partner relationships that you've built, that's simply what we are going to be able to tee you up for week after week after week. And we do that through this system, which we call the podcast Leader Network. And so through this system, it doesn't matter what stage of business you're in, if you're baby brand new in business, we've got solutions for you. If you are well along your way and you're in the six, seven, eight five, six, seven, eight, nine figure territory, we have solutions for you.

Josh Elledge 01:16:16 We have worked with all of the above. One of our core values is democratization. I truly believe that everybody has a message that can positively impact the world if you are a good person, and generally when you get around people, they feel that in you, then you just simply need to create the butterfly garden so that they will come and want to spend that time with you. And then, lo and behold, you have all the business you want. You can be 100% inbound. It doesn't take that long. All you have to simply do is keep showing up in service to your industry. You are seen as a giver. People love you for it and the meaningful relationships that you build week after week through the podcast Leader network that we are going to co build with you. We've got the whole system here. We have designed a podcast system in a box. It's more than just a podcast in a box. It is everything you need, including guests, nurturing and attraction and this incredible guest experience so that people see that you treat this very seriously and they want to associate with you because of who you are and the value that you bring.

Josh Elledge 01:17:36 You deserve this. You deserve to work with people that we get to associate in network with, in our network. so if you've enjoyed this, if what I've been sharing with you is resonating, then then this is absolutely for you. So again, we've got solutions all the way from free to 497 a month to if you want that VIP ultimate VIP experience where we can get really quick results and really substantial results, where we will take an ownership in those results, then we have solutions at that level as well. So next step is let's just chat now. if you scan this QR code, it's going to take you to a schedule page. And either myself or one of my team members, would be delighted to get to know you. I want to know what you do right, because Podcast Leader Network may be an incredible solution for you. There may be some other stuff we should be doing as well. I'm always looking for great guests for my podcast, The Thoughtful Entrepreneur, where I have interviewed more than 2006 789 figure business leaders and I would love for you to join the roster.

Josh Elledge 01:18:50 I have an amazing audience of what I call business adults. I would love to share your story. I would love to share your offer. Right. So we'll talk about that. And that begins when you scan the QR code. Or if you're watching this on our workshop page, you may see the schedule for the schedule form directly below. Maybe you've already filled it out, but that's the next step. We'll grab 15 30 minutes, get to know one another, and then we'll figure out where we go from here. But I am so honored that we've connected. I don't know how it happened, but I'm very, very grateful. Chances are there was a mutual friend that connected us. Someone who really, really loves what we stand for, our values and the revolution that we are creating. We're helping to dejonique the B2B world where we're working very hard and doing great work to cut down on all the just ridiculous B2B spam, where true business leaders can do business together in their own quiet whisper networks, and they can work together and service and create that amazing dynamic day after day, week after week after week.

Josh Elledge 01:19:52 And we live in such calm and serenity because it's predictable and people start scheduling weeks and months out in advance. So you just don't ever need to worry about where your next business is going to come from. I'm so honored that we've connected. Let's chat and I can't wait to learn more about what you do and your work in the world. And and again, the impact that you want to create in the world and how I can help you with that. Again. Up my influence. Com slash call or hit the QR code. Or you may see the form directly on the page. And as I mentioned, not only am I looking for great podcast guests, but as I mentioned earlier, we have launched over 200 podcasts in our podcast Leader network. I know a lot of great centers of influence, so even if you're not necessarily a fit for my show, I probably know some other great connections that my team and I would be delighted to help make for you and with you. Listen, thank you so much for spending your time with me.

Josh Elledge 01:20:56 I'm truly honored. I hope that I've provided you a ton of value. I hope I've inspired you with some amazing action steps already. And the journey is just beginning. Because when we chat, I'm probably going to have 2 or 3 immediate ideas potential connections for you right out of the gate, and we'll figure that out. And certainly we'll see if it makes sense for us to partner together through our podcast leader network or on other ways as well. Have a wonderful rest of the day. We'll see you on the call. I can't wait to learn more about you and what you do. Thank you so much for watching. Take care. Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit up my influence. Com and click on podcast. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders.

Josh Elledge 01:22:01 And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video that you can watch right now with no opt in or email required, where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100% inbound in your industry over the next 6 to 8 months, with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to up my influencer.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. Make sure to hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning. That's right, seven days a week you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes every single day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur movement.