A developer and a marketer walk into a podcast studio...
This is a great one. Rob Broadhead and I are on our respective soapboxes about the lost art of genuine relationship building... especially as AI becomes more prevalent. Forget cold outreach and spammy tactics - we're making human connection STUPIDLY simple. I couldn't script this one if I tried - Rob brings the real talk and together we'll have you rethinking your entire outreach strategy.
Can't-Miss Moments from This Episode:
Grab some headphones and let's reconnect over what really matters... listen now!
Rob's bio:
Rob Broadhead is a professional software developer in Nashville, TN and the founder of Develpreneur.com, helping developers advance in their career.
Rob received his MBA (with a concentration in e-Business) at the University of Phoenix. He also holds a BS in Computer Science from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
He is a single father of five staying busy watching them grow up. This occurred after losing the mother of those children and his soul mate of 18 years to cancer.
Rob usually can be found in front of a computer working on his latest project, but sometimes gets away from the desk. He is an avid fan of ballroom dancing and playing hockey in his free time. He also enjoys writing and has authored both technical books and one detailing his wife's battle with cancer.
Resources and links:
Let's collab:
Let's connect:
If you dig the show and want to help bring more episodes to the world, consider buying a coffee for the production team!
A developer and a marketer walk into a podcast studio...
This is a great one. Rob Broadhead and I are on our respective soapboxes about the lost art of genuine relationship building... especially as AI becomes more prevalent. Forget cold outreach and spammy tactics - we're making human connection STUPIDLY simple. I couldn't script this one if I tried - Rob brings the real talk and together we'll have you rethinking your entire outreach strategy.
Can't-Miss Moments from This Episode:
Grab some headphones and let's reconnect over what really matters... listen now!
Rob's bio:
Rob Broadhead is a professional software developer in Nashville, TN and the founder of Develpreneur.com, helping developers advance in their career.
Rob received his MBA (with a concentration in e-Business) at the University of Phoenix. He also holds a BS in Computer Science from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
He is a single father of five staying busy watching them grow up. This occurred after losing the mother of those children and his soul mate of 18 years to cancer.
Rob usually can be found in front of a computer working on his latest project, but sometimes gets away from the desk. He is an avid fan of ballroom dancing and playing hockey in his free time. He also enjoys writing and has authored both technical books and one detailing his wife's battle with cancer.
Resources and links:
Let's collab:
Let's connect:
If you dig the show and want to help bring more episodes to the world, consider buying a coffee for the production team!
Welcome to Permission to Kick Ass, the show that gives you a virtual seat at the bar for the real conversations that happen between entrepreneurs. I'm interviewing all kinds of business owners, from those just a few years into freelancing to CEOs helming nine figure companies. If you've ever worried that everyone else just seems to get it and you're missing something or messing things up, this show is for you. I'm your host, angie Coley, and let's get to it. Hey and welcome back to Permission to Kick Ass.
Angie Colee:With me is my new friend, rob Broadhead. Say hi, hi or, as we were saying before the recording, rob Broadhead, some little inside baseball for everybody listening. There's a lot of things that go into producing a podcast, including this little pre-flight checklist I run people through and the very last question is always please tell me how to pronounce your name, how you would like me to introduce you, and I'm just waiting for the day that somebody is a smart ass. Rob was not a smart ass with me, but I wanted him to be, so you know. There we go. Now that I've rambled a little bit, tell us a little bit about your business.
Rob Broadhead:I am. I've got sort of two things I do. They feed into each other. The primary thing that I've done for about the last little over 20 years is RB Consulting, which is software IT consulting, and initially it was more building software and over the years it has grown into something where it's more about not just building a solution but helping a company build their IT environment, and so it's maybe building a solution, but it's also making sure they've got all the pieces in place to actually use it. It's like somebody buying a car. You sell them a car but they don't have a license or they don't know how to use it or maintain or anything like that. It's that kind of extra work that we tend to put in. And then the other thing that is a large portion of my time is Developanur, which is one of those Magle names. It's D-E-V-E-L-P-R-E-N-E-U-R and also known as Building Better Developers. We've got a podcast. We've got a blog. We've got education. We've got a mastermind starting up next year.
Rob Broadhead:We've got a little of everything there and it's really to help those that are not technical, that want to be better, and it's also sort of for our own purposes to go out and build a community when RB Consulting wants some more people or wants to find more skilled and experienced workers. That we've talked to those people, we've been able to vet them, we've been able to build them and it's one of those like that rising tide lifts all boats kind of an approach.
Angie Colee:Oh yes, I love that approach to everything, and I know there's a certain amount of cynicism in some sectors of the industry that like, oh, okay, yeah, the path is for entrepreneurship, right, you do the thing for a while, then you create a program or a course, and then you create this, and then you create that and it ends up in the masterminds. But I think that that's become such a trope because it works and it's such a good way to exactly like you said. Well, I've built connections with people that I now have great personal relationships with and I know their skills and I know the value that they bring to the table. So whenever somebody inevitably asks me on the consulting side, can I hire? I can't hire you, okay, who else do you know? Well, I've got these great relationships with people that I already know and trust that I can introduce you to. Like, I mean, it helps you build your own business, but it also is just a win-win-win on the highest level and I love that.
Rob Broadhead:Yeah, it's very much one of those things that I think if you're in it for the right reasons, if you're in it, if you initially get in it to share which I think most people can be jaded. But I think most of the people get into this kind of stuff, they're doing it to help others, to share their experience, so that others can learn from their mistakes and also learn from their successes, and it's sort of a natural regression. It's like you think about it. You're hanging out with somebody and you meet them in a bar, at some social event or something like that, and you get to know them a little bit and then you end up having like instead of a big group and you have a little bit of a networking. You later have a better, more detailed kind of conversation and then you talk about what you're doing and where they're going and you may eventually get into what is a mastermind or a mentor or coach kind of relationship and particularly if it's a junior, senior kind of thing.
Rob Broadhead:So if you've been out in the real world and worked for somebody, then you may have teammates that you you know that eventually, maybe you were, maybe they were coworkers, maybe you were a lead or something, and you become invested in them and it's really hard to not keep invested. You know you spend that time, you get connected. Yeah, the job you may move to different jobs these days used to not happen, but it happened now.
Rob Broadhead:And you want to keep that relationship going. You've invested in that person, you want to see them grow and that's where those kinds of things I think that's just that natural progression of a better, stronger, tighter relationship and, as you said, it's sort of that's now that you know them, you understand them, you trust them, it's easier to work with them because they vote, you trust them and they know you, so you don't have to tell your whole story and try to reset and get a good foundation with somebody new.
Angie Colee:Yeah, build that connection from scratch. I think that's the biggest myth that I bought into when I first started my business. Like I don't, I don't know, brains are weird, they build compartments in interesting ways. And when I first started in my business and I would read books that talked about like building your network, for some reason the mental picture my brain came up with is like go to a network, meeting, networking like a chamber of commerce or something to that effect with a bunch of strangers and like hand out business cards. That's not actually the way it works. It's the.
Angie Colee:The reason that I say that is because I think you hit the nail on the head with something that you said about investing in that relationship. Look, relationships pay off, but you got to put something into it. Much like putting something into the stock market or putting something into the bank. If you hope to withdraw someday, you've got to be putting something into it. So the network is, yes, these professional connections that maybe your local chamber of commerce or professional groups in your niche or field, and also friends, family. You never know who knows who. So be careful when you're building your business. And I don't know why this is coming up, but it is. So you know, here you go, you're welcome, like everybody listening, you never know who knows who. So put as much time into your friends and family as you do your business relationships. One is not more important than the other.
Angie Colee:One of my really, really good friends. When I first started out on my copywriting business, I had no idea that her brother was the co-founder of masterclass, and so when I started reaching out to people, I didn't put this weird dividing line between my personal and my business relationships. I shared with everybody that I would share good news with that. Hey, I've left my job, I've started this business, I'm doing freelance copywriting and if you know anybody, I'd be grateful for an introduction.
Angie Colee:And if not, hey, let's catch up. I'd love to hear from you. Like, either way, let's chat, I'd love to talk to you. And she writes back and was like, yeah, let's get on a call. I miss talking to you, miss your face. Also, my brother is in masterclass with that help. And I was like, would that help? Yes, masterclass is one of the biggest online learning platforms and that's how I wound up writing a launch package for Christina Aguilera's singing training and that's not meant to be braggadocious, it was just a random thing that I never would have known was a possibility if I hadn't been talking to friends the same way I talked to business owners.
Rob Broadhead:Yeah, yeah, it is, and I've been doing this. As I'd mentioned, I was working for 10 years professionally before I started in consulting, and it is amazing how many times there have been these like small world moments where I'll have something happen and I'll find out that, oh, the only reason I got to meet them was because this other person that I'd known for a while that was in some completely unrelated place. Yeah, sometimes it works out. I'm just actually just now, just now, wrapping up with a customer that the only reason I'm there is because I had a fraternity brother that I hadn't talked to in probably 10 years, that I'd known him really good years before that, but then, just sort of out of the blue on LinkedIn, he said, hey, what does the solution architect do? And the next thing, you know, I'm working with him and with his company for a couple of years and it was one of those that I hadn't even I had invested way back when and we'd grown apart, but then it came back together and there's there been times that I've had people reach out to me and say, hey, we're, we've heard, you're maybe looking for a job or you're in this kind of work or things like that.
Rob Broadhead:Yeah, I don't even know how they got to me. They just they heard it somewhere through a grapevine and it's those networking things. It's because instead of just it's not just throwing a, you know, that's like the first step. It's almost like hi, my name is Rob. It's like, and I always feel sort of awkward too If you go to the network events like my name is Rob, here's a business card. Here's a business card Cause everybody wants to collect business cards, like ears from their, you know, trophy ears or something, but you know, but you don't really care.
Rob Broadhead:What's your elevator pitch? Yeah, All right, here you go. You got 60 seconds to make it. You know it's like speed dating or something for businesses, but that's not nobody care. Like, you walk away with a hundred business cards and you really don't care what you're going to do, especially like a conference. You're going to be like, oh, where's the business card for that person that I talked to at lunch? That was really interesting, or you know, something like that. It's not. It's not that thing that you can just like real quickly go bam, here it is. It's something where you've spent a little time, you've invested, and then those things, you know, snowball, you're not going to get it. I mean, maybe you'll get lucky. Okay, I don't want to shoot. You know rain on everybody's break, You're probably not going to get like that huge customer, 30 seconds walking into a networking thing You're going to.
Rob Broadhead:You're going to spend time, you're going to get to know people and somewhere down the way you know it's going to, those kings are going to bloom and you're suddenly in. The longer you've spent doing it, the more you've built those relationships the more for those things will start to. You know, it's the wherever you, whatever you, wherever you sew there, where you will reap, kind of thing.
Rob Broadhead:It's like you, if you're out there and, like you said, friends, family, all that just be nice to everybody. And then people are going to like you and they're going to trust you and then that's going to help you wherever, whatever your business is, even if, like you said, like even if you quit one job and you go into another career, another job, whatever it is, those people will come with you because they still like you and then they know you and then they'll be like oh, you're really great and I trust you to write my copy. Or if you're like oh wow, she became an auto mechanic. I bet she's a good one. All right, I'm going to have her go work on my car.
Angie Colee:Well, and isn't that fascinating. She made such a switch from copywriting to auto mechanic. I got to hear more, I got to catch up with her and find out what's going on there and then maybe I wind up fixing their car. I think we've made, in some senses maybe it's a convergence of kind of the technology and how comfortable we've gotten creating relationships via screens right that sometimes it gets awkward to go into a mastermind or a networking event or something like that and actually make a genuine connection. But I also just find it so funny how we've gotten wrapped up in the techniques for conversation, starting to a point that it was like I was just talking with somebody on a different podcast about how I get spammed this week.
Angie Colee:I think it was like six different people sent me the exact same word for word script and I was like God, like if you could just slow down for half a second and picture that I'm sitting on a stool at a bar and you went oh shit, that's Angie and I've been wanting to meet her, I'd love to work with her. And then you just walked in and was like, could you use 20 to 60 more leads per week with my proven system? That is absolutely no sp. Would you talk to me like that, on a human level, would you Cause? If you would, I'm just gonna look at you like what are you? Hi, my name is. That's usually how we start a conversation. Could we start again, please? Yeah, that is.
Rob Broadhead:That's interesting Cause I hadn't really thought of that, but it really is formulaic. I mean it's in some cases it's almost like its own little spoof of itself, if you ever if you find anybody out there that like particularly picks on, for example, we'll pick on ourselves. Podcasts is there's like there are in YouTube videos. There's certain like, especially in a certain like, you know, like Gen Z and millennials. There's just certain way that like they start, they the middle, the end, the sign off, because these are the things that people were taught somewhere usually through probably a hundred of them went through the same school and it's like do this, do this, do this, this is how I'm gonna do it and this is the this is approach, this is that, this is the recipe and that's what you follow, and the ones that are successful don't follow that at all. I mean that's like podcasts.
Rob Broadhead:The great one I always bring up is Dan Carlin, who does hardcore history releases like once every two years or something like that. I mean it's and it's. It's basically it's more like an audio book as opposed to a podcast, but he doesn't have. I mean he's fascinating but he doesn't have any of the things that you would normally associate with the podcast and that's you think about anything. That's great. The reason it's great is because it's not formulaic. It's not that they, you know, followed their, their recipe and said okay, I have to say hello to you this way and I have to use I have to use these three words six times in the first five seconds sort of like an elevator pitch.
Rob Broadhead:You know it's like you don't walk up to well, some people do. You don't say hi, my name's Rob Rob is meeting you right now. I'd like to you know that I'm Rob or something like that to try to, you know, point in like they do with what about 60 or 70 leads? Hey, have you heard about I could increase your generating 60 or 70 more leads?
Angie Colee:You know that's repetitive stuff that like you see it right away and you're like, okay, trash I don't need to hear it, and it's funny because, like it doesn't, it doesn't take as much as we think it does to build a connection. But I think we spend so much time in our heads and maybe it's the screen that leads to I was talking to somebody else recently about that too that we're spending so much time thinking about how we think we have to be instead of just being and just letting it be a conversation. I wanted to circle back to something earlier that you said that I thought was brilliant. It was like yeah, I've got this collection of business cards Also, I am very ADHD.
Angie Colee:I don't remember names, I remember faces and I've also developed a tendency over the years to go I know, I know your face, please help me out with your name. I'm just comfortable with the fact that that's who I am. Now, if we encounter each other, I'm going to eventually remember. But I take home a bunch of faceless little business cards. I don't remember who any of those people are, unless I happen to write a note on there. That was like introduce me to the best burger joints in town, like fellow foodie. If I remember some sort of detail about who you are as a person, notice, introduce me to the best burger joints in town, fellow foodie, was not business related, because I actually want to do business with humans. Funny how that works.
Rob Broadhead:Well, if you're like me, then you're not going to remember the name, but you're going to be like you're the foodie, aren't you?
Angie Colee:Yes.
Rob Broadhead:That reminds me because I'd never thought of this analogy before. But if you ever look at the memory masters and stuff like that and these are people that, like you, can they're sort of it's not magicians, but it's like that it's. What they'll do is things like they will take a standard deck of cards 52 cards and they can look at it and there's a world record, I think, of like 60 seconds or less. They will flip through the deck and they will memorize in order, the deck and the way they do it. When you hear them explain it, what they do is they have a way which in itself is fascinating. They can do it this way, but they will build a story. Instead of memorizing the pictures like the business cards, they have a story and they had a guy do this on.
Rob Broadhead:I wish I could remember the show. This is years ago. I was watching this, but he was like he went through, he had like 10 cards and he had this story about the king and then the queen and then the five and then in the suits and it was. It was a cool story because by the time he got done, you would remember it. It's like I can remember the order of those because of how he did the story. And it's the same thing with your business cards the card is useless. But if you can create a story for that person with the card, which is, honestly, is what the cards are trying to do, that's why you have all these funky little things. Sometimes it's a weird card just to be a conversation starter, but then you're going to remember, or maybe it says on the back hey, ask me about the greatest burger joint encounter, or something like that. And then suddenly, that is a point that you would remember. You don't care about the card, the card could get lost and you're going to remember the person and that's really the point. It's not give out, it's not to have, and that's oh.
Rob Broadhead:This is so much like social media and all kinds of. It's not about people liking and it's not about people like just followers and friends. It's the people you actually know. And that's where I think we've. We, like you said, I think we've lost. It is we've, we've let it fall too much into, like the technology, and it's the oh. If I've got 50 friends that are you know, whatever the site is, then it's I'm more likely to show up on a search or something like that Versus, if I have 50 actual friends, one they probably aren't going to search for me, or they're going to know enough about me to search for me, correctly, anyways, and so it's it really is. It's like we're we're trying to formula as just make it to formula egg, and like I pictured you sitting a bar and somebody walking up with that, with your initial thing there, and it's like for me, I'm thinking the first thing to do is just going to swivel that chair away. I would rather talk to my drink than you, if you're, if that's your approach.
Angie Colee:My face would definitely be something like yeah, okay, cool, I'm going to be over where you're not over there. Thank you, thank you, no, thank you. Yeah, we like we're forever in the in. This drives me nuts, so I'm I'm kind of grateful that the generations coming up behind me are more focused on work life balance than hyper productivity, like my generation and the generations before, because I think that hyper productivity got us to this place where it was like how efficient can I be with reaching out to as many people and some are really good at it Like, it's hard to tell.
Angie Colee:I've seen some LinkedIn connections where it was like I was looking through your profile and this like you said something so smart that I knew I had to connect. Yes, always open with flattery and also the generic, vague non-specificness of this leads me to believe that you have sent that message to at least 50 people in the last couple of weeks. So I have a. You've triggered some skepticism instead of actually building a genuine connection. So like maybe take two minutes to scroll through recent posts or look me up somewhere and be like hey, I just I just came across your profile, but I saw this thing that I loved and I'd love to connect right Like there's a genuine thing and it took a couple of minutes, versus the spray and pray approach that triggers skepticism.
Rob Broadhead:Yeah, it's really, I think it is. It's the, it's almost quality, it is quality over quantity. It's like, hey, if I talk to one million people really with some vague thing and I get a you know a half a percent hit, then oh, that's great as opposed to. Well, what if you get a you know a 30% rate on and only talk to 10,000 people, or something like that, and I've granted, you know, you can automate stuff and send it out to billions and billions of people and you suddenly have aliens from other planets contacting you. But it's, it's not the same and it's, it's, it's not going to get you the same kind of quality response. Cause what you're, you know, if you're just throwing everything at the wall and hope some of it sticks, you're going to get that kind of quality back. As you said earlier, it's what you invest. If you'd invest nothing into it, then you're not going to get it, really not going to get anything in back. And they, they realize that 99.9% of the time, probably, people realize that you did invest in it.
Rob Broadhead:This is just like you said. You're like okay, I'm a little skeptical because I've heard this a hundred times and it was vague and it's like that's almost to me. It's like tell me more about myself. What is it that you really liked about that or what is it you know? It's like give me something specific in there so I can know what it is. I know that you actually like, you know, listen to my podcast or read my blog or write my comment or whatever that is, because there's too much of that. It's. It's like I laugh at it sometimes, like I. You know, I was just reading your article on blah blah blah and then you and I love how you said this I didn't even say that it's like that wasn't even close, I wasn't, you'd missed the point entirely, or something like that.
Angie Colee:It's like come on. I get that all the time with pitches for people who want to be on permission to kick ass and I'm pretty sure somewhere on the form where they would have to apply to be on the show. I say specific things like this is not an X ways to Y year Z show. Please be prepared to come on and talk about your experience, your story, building a business to like, share what you've learned, warts and all with people. Something that's pretty explicit about what kind of show this is, and so I love it when people go oh my gosh, I just came across permission to kick ass and I had to binge watch it. It's so good.
Angie Colee:I I think I would make a great guess because I've got three ways to grow your social media audience using AI, and I'm like you ran face first into the point you stabbed yourself through the eye and you still can't see it.
Angie Colee:What no like you're. You're showing me through that blanket pitch that you don't actually give a shit about the show, that you haven't listened to a single episode and you don't understand what I'm about, and you're trying to build a connection on a very superficial, like you're trying to stand on a mountainous sand and that that thing is going to come tumbling down. Nope, nope, I would rather somebody. I don't care if it takes two minutes, but if you make that effort to make a personal connection and be like I was only able to listen to like the first five minutes of the last episode, but, wow, that was great and I was like I need to. First of all, I'm going to listen to that episode later. Second of all, I knew I had to stop what I was doing and apply for the show while I was thinking about it. It's going to make a much bigger impression on me than the blanket. Like I'm such a big fan, I just binge listened and then immediately showed you I didn't listen to any episodes at all.
Rob Broadhead:Yeah, those are fun words, like the intro that they've sent to a billion people, and then the three lines that are really what matters, which is their pitch. It's the hey. I can do this, this and this. It's like, did you? And this is a perfect example is when you have a conversational podcast and people are sitting there saying, okay, this is great because I'm going to do x, y and z. It's like, no, that's not, that is a that's like that's a that's an advertisement.
Rob Broadhead:That is not a discussion. It's like it's and it comes out because I don't care how awesome you are at what you do and how excited you are about what you do, if really all you're doing is selling to me in the audience. It's going to come out and people are like I'm going to go to the next thing.
Angie Colee:Yeah, and that's that's another thing that I talk about on. I call it my ideal guest manifesto. Like I am in business, I coach people who are in business. I am not saying I'm the last person to say sales is a bad thing. If you are coming on the show to sell things, this is a bad fit. I will like we could record. You might get past all of the phases of screening my wonderful assistant, the application and everything but if we record and it turns into a 40 minute sales pitch, I still ain't going to air it. So you would have just wasted all of our time plus made an enemy out of me for wasting my time.
Angie Colee:And it's not like I'm going to rain hellfire down on you or anything, but people ask me hey, you know, I I'm looking for guests or I'm looking for other podcasts to be on, and I've created this incredible network of people who host other shows and who have been on other shows.
Angie Colee:Guess who's not getting my recommendation? Because you can't follow the fricking directions and only I think all of this stuff that we're saying just kind of circles around the main point, which is make it about the other person, not what you're trying to achieve. You're actually going to build a genuine relationship when you show interest in the other person, not in them as a means, to an ends like how can I use them to grow my business? Wrong energy? How can I get to know this person? How can I find out if I can even help them? And the answer is you're not going to be able to help all of them and you're not going to remember all of them and you're not going to get along with all of them, and that's why making those personal relationships winds up being the crucial thing, even though it seems like the volume and the numbers and the sales conversations are well, I think that's what.
Rob Broadhead:I think that's what gets lost sometimes, is it's it? People turn it into a numbers game and it's really not because you, you know you sort of touched on your, your ideal guest.
Rob Broadhead:You would, I think everybody, if they really sat down, whatever their business is, whatever their, their job is, if you could, if you know who your ideal boss, ideal job, ideal customer is, you would rather do 10 of those than 100, not ideal and this is and I've actually had a couple episodes and articles just recently because this has sort of been in my head is the whole idea of of serving that other person, sometimes because by sending them somewhere else, and this is that it does go back to that networking thing. It may be that you come to me and let's say because we've already put that out there is that you're into auto auto repair and somebody comes to me, I'm not but.
Angie Colee:I'm like you know what?
Rob Broadhead:I was talking to Angie the other day, and she's getting into this and she's got a cool story how she got there anyways, so here let me point you that way.
Rob Broadhead:And then it's I've served them, I've served myself because it's not going to do me any good to to steal that, that repair business, because I'm going to stink at it and and sometimes I think you know we are like, oh well, this is close enough, so that's what I need to. I can steal this business, this is going to help me. But then you realize it doesn't help you, doesn't help them, burns the relationship. Sometimes it's better off to pass that off to somebody else and be known as just somebody that's going to help you out, period, whether it's going to help them or not. And then when they do truly need you or they find somebody that is your ideal customer.
Rob Broadhead:Now you've got that referral kind of thing where people are out there and they're they're your fans, for lack of a better term. They're out there and if they hear something that's in your niche in particular, you know if you've got something that's different, then they're going to. When somebody hears that it's going to connect, they're going to say, hey, I had lunch for this person two months ago and they do exactly what you're looking for and I haven't heard anybody talk about it other than you too, and I've been in those situations. You're like I'm going to go back and remember who that was. Find them out, get their contact information and get it to you, because we all recognize that like if there's two unicorns.
Rob Broadhead:You wanted to go meet each other, or?
Angie Colee:something like that, where it's like you know.
Rob Broadhead:It's like oh, I do know somebody that does that, I do know how I can help you. So here I'm going to point you in that direction. So instead of trying to be everything to everybody, like those those vague emails are, it's like, actually go find out who it is you want to talk to, who you want to work with, who fits with you, and then go with that and then everybody's happier.
Angie Colee:I think it's brilliant you brought up that, that concept of the connector. I know I'm definitely a connector, but that's been one of the fastest ways that I've actually grown. My business is by doing exactly what you said, recognizing that I can't help certain people, but I might know somebody who they can either help you because they specialize in that thing that I do, or my, my playdiscount and I can't help you right now, or that problem that you're experiencing is not within my field of expertise, but I know this person over here that might be able to help. I connect you to them. They get my borrowed authority so they're much more likely to get a sale. If they've got a good relationship and they get along, then they see me as the hero for introducing them. It's just like win, win, win all around to pass on business, and that's interesting to me.
Rob Broadhead:So you know, if you think about that's really what the the influencers are, is they're really that pass on, but it's, it's fake. I get it's. It's usually because influence if you've got a million followers, you don't know your million followers.
Rob Broadhead:You know that it's not the real thing, but this is you being a, you know, maybe a lower instead of a capital I, a lowercase, I influencer within this, but it is a much more powerful kind of influence, because then it's like if they say they know you, they, they mean they actually know you not.
Rob Broadhead:Yes, watch your show all the time and they've never actually had a conversation or you don't know who they are. It is a, it is a mutual thing, and now you have that connection and then you have that value of being able to help them out, they can help you out, and those networks and those connections are the ones that I think really move us forward. It's it does all come down to who you know and who trust you and who you trust, and we've grown away from that and, I think, growing back to it, and maybe that's part of it. Maybe that's where people are starting to see that, yeah, you know, sometimes these, these influence, are things, and that they're just it's a house of cards and you're just waiting for something to go wrong, and then it's like, okay, I don't trust you.
Angie Colee:It's about the wrong thing and that trust actually oh, you jogged my memory Because, like, if you get to that point where you're passing off business and you're connecting people, that trust naturally develops as a result of somebody not feeling like you sold them or that you used them as a means to an end. You genuinely cared enough to try and help them find a solution to the problem, even if yours wasn't the solution right. And that's how you become a trusted expert in your network of people and you start to raise your star and, like you talked about, a rising tide lives all boats. As my reputation raises in the industry, I get to bring up all of the guests on the show that I've had with me. All of the people that I've coached and mentored with me get to come up with me too, and the cool thing is about building genuine relationships. Then you have more natural content to put out into the world, like these conversations, like I had a. This is going to air so many months after all.
Angie Colee:Of this has become a hindsight, but it's interesting because right now I'm just dealing with a bit of drama where my publisher I'm self-publishing a book. They dropped the ball on customer service in such a big way. I was just like jaw on the floor going. How could you get it so wrong? So I wrote a post called my Honest Thoughts on Self-Publishing and put it out into the world like with the whole saga, with their exact emails, my exact emails, just going well. Usually, when invited to take my business somewhere else because they don't have a solution for me and I have to decide what I can live with, they actually told me this I take my business elsewhere because I was invited to do that. So I'm in the process of pulling that link down from everywhere and we're switching everything over to Amazon and I didn't want to give this business to Amazon, but my book coach assures me that we can still make this launch happen.
Angie Colee:And it was in the process of talking about. This is what's happening. And I just said and my book coach and probably within 10 minutes of posting that somebody said, hey, I saw everything that's going on with the book Like I'm so glad you got that taken care of about your book coach. I got a book coming up soon and if she helped save you from this spectacular meltdown, like do you think she could take me on too? And I was like oh my God, yes, you need to meet, you are both awesome people. Let me fire off that introduction. So I'm not talking about using your relationships as a means to like content, but these things come up where you get to mention awesome people in your network in a very organic way and then invite connections and then get business that way too. It's like when you approach it from that right aspect of lifting people up, creating genuine relationships, being a human instead of being a marketing machine, then this can get pretty exponential pretty fast.
Rob Broadhead:Yeah, you mentioned, because now one of the things I've done on my podcast is I do vary quite a bit the people I talk to, is it? Even though it's like it's sort of a focus of technology and that, especially early on, I was just like you know? I just because I like talking to people, I like finding out what their businesses and what their problems are and those, and then I've met a few people that do podcasts that are like that, that are very general, like all kinds of different people that are guests, and the stories that they have so often are an introduction into what they do. Is that I'll be talking to somebody and they'll say and it'll be slice of life stuff, it'll be things like you know. So, hey, you know, my parents are getting older and I'm trying to figure out a home for them to go into, and then that triggers that, oh, I was talking to this person the other day and this is what they did and this is what they went through. And then it comes out that, oh, by the way, and they're you know, they sell real estate or they do that and like, oh, wow, that's cool because I'm actually looking to sell a home right now.
Rob Broadhead:Or you know something like that it's not when it's a secondary or tertiary or somewhere down the line connection makes like for me, like if I can make that, it makes me feel that much better, that somehow that like all of my rambling actually connected to me, but also that like that's the stuff that is really genuine. Because then it's like yeah, like you said, you weren't selling them, you weren't selling that other person to them. It just happened to be that, oh, you guys know each other, like you got with, you know, like you got into the masterclass. It's like, oh, you guys know each other, you can work together. I like both of you. You're going to like each other. And then you're off and running.
Rob Broadhead:And that is where the real value comes and that's where real growth comes. Because now those people they're not going to say, ah, she sold us. They're going to say you know she was, she's great, we both know her really good. This is what she does and this is what she can do for you. And now you've got people singing your praises, which are even better.
Rob Broadhead:I would much rather anybody else do it than me.
Angie Colee:You have to sing mine, because I don't sing well, so I sing well, but I I always get profoundly uncomfortable when it talks, when it comes to talking about myself and my accomplishments and like, make no mistake, I have worked incredibly hard to achieve everything I have achieved. And also I've been socialized as a woman and told, like don't, don't brag, nobody wants to know, don't do that. And so it's been a very hard reason like rationale to unpack of no, but sometimes you got to be your own biggest cheerleader. But the cool thing is I've built this really awesome network of really cool people who go out there and cheerlead for me Like, oh my God, you don't know Angie Angie's awesome. Oh my gosh, you have to meet her. And then I go. That clip is going on social media somewhere.
Rob Broadhead:I have to use that from time to time. It's a good that's still a favorite Shout out to was under Bullock and I mean I'm thinking what? I can't remember what that was, but that movie where she does the cop and she's in the beauty pageant. Oh miscongeniality, miscongeniality. That's where I still look from, so yes, everybody needs to go watch that, just so you can, and then you can come back and watch the clip.
Angie Colee:I really do. I had no idea that this would turn into like the relationship building, networking episode, and I also had no idea that there would be so many like need for try the tears, try the tears, it's going to be okay. This is fantastic. This is what I love about the show and having conversations and exactly why I don't go into it with an agenda, though, like I've been on shows that had like, this is the interview questions and this is the flow and this is the time we have allocated to each thing and we're going to go and then there's going to be a break here and I'm just like, if I wanted to be that rigid, I would still be somewhere that required me to wear a suit and pantyhose, but if you think of Angie and pantyhose in the same sentence and go, what bizarre parallel universe is this that she's wearing pantyhose thin that's the accurate assessments of me and my personality and exactly why I didn't become Do something smart, like become a lawyer, like I was advised.
Rob Broadhead:Yeah, I've had the same thing, as it's actually now. It's part of my, like my intro, because I just saying, I just say I do a really brief introduction. It's not, doesn't even, you know, comes nowhere close to them. Because then I go okay, now introduce yourself, yeah. And now I even put it on like look, every time I've thrown it to them, I don't really. I mean, I've got a rough idea of who they are and stuff like that, so I may have a question here there, but and it's that's why I want to talk to them, because there's something I know interesting about them.
Rob Broadhead:There are multiple times that I've done that introduction. We've talked for an hour or more and I never touched any of the reasons that I was originally gonna talk to him. And it's like and now it's like I put it on like, look, I haven't had a single, I haven't had anybody. That's boring, because I don't start with the questions. I just I get your introduction and I start I talked to you about you, about your introduction, yeah, and I come out of every one I'm like, wow, I really got to know this person. You know, we had a great time, and I don't know how often it's like said it, it goes nowhere close to where I thought it was gonna go, but I get done. That was. That was a good for me, a great use of time, I think for them a good use of time, and then for the, the audience.
Rob Broadhead:They usually are gonna get something out of it, maybe not what we were actually planned on, yeah, but they get something out of it and even if that person didn't get to sell their Product or service or whatever they are, if you spend an hour listing somebody, now you know them and then by the way, here's the service I offer you're more likely to go visit their site just just to go see, like, okay, what is this about? And that, to me, is the One it makes it a lot easier for me from a podcast, because now it's entertaining, now I enjoy it. Now I'm not like Alright, blah, blah, blah. You know what's your favorite color? What should you know? That kind of stuff. It's just is. Yeah, it just gets boring to go through it. It's like I would rather meet people than interview them just from a list of questions.
Angie Colee:Oh yeah, okay, a man after my own heart, because that's exact. I've made a joke on the show before, but I was like, look, I made the show that I want to listen to. I'm having conversations With people learning things that I want to learn and then, trusting that there are other people out there, they go. Oh, I, I didn't know. I wanted to know that, but that's pretty cool and that's pretty fascinating and they get drawn in by that too.
Angie Colee:They want to be a fly on the wall listening to somebody else's conversation and getting to to. I wanted to say legally but I know it's not illegal legally, eve's, drop on it. You haven't invited to listen in, you're not. You're not doing anything shady. So I love that. I'm like, and if I'm having fun, somebody out there in internet land is having fun with this too. If it's only me, only me and you, then that's fine too.
Rob Broadhead:That's right, because we're the ones investing our time. So there you go. Yes, they could listen to it at high speed.
Angie Colee:I think I reviewed this the other day and saw it was like I can't believe I said that. So let's, let's just say it again, cuz I already said it once and I was like well, and if you disagree with me and you don't think that that's what podcasting is about, too bad, because I have the microphone and you can't talk back to me right now.
Rob Broadhead:And I could delete comments.
Angie Colee:Yes, and I can delete comments and I can put you from the conversation, it's all good. Oh my gosh, I feel like I'm gonna go down this crazy rabbit hole about trolling people. So instead, for before I open up this conversation for two more hours, I'm going to say Rob, this has been an incredible conversation. Like I had no idea where it was gonna go and I thought this is brilliant. Please tell us more about your business, where to find you, where we can get involved in your business. I have a feeling people are gonna want to know.
Rob Broadhead:Like I said, there's developing. Wordcom is D-E-V-E-L-P-R-E-N-E-U-Rcom, which is where we got the blog links to podcasts, links to videos. We've got YouTube stuff. All that kind of lot of content, lots some varying technical levels if you want to get really technical or if you're more business level, you just want to understand technical terms. We've got that covered Coming up soon and because it's we do an annual and we we sort of pause it. We're gonna go into mastermind next year. So technology mastermind 2024.com is where we've got stuff. That's all influx. I don't know how long it'll be before this comes out, so maybe it'll be in time, maybe not, but you can go check that out. And then RB-SNScom is RB consulting and all of our consulting stuff, where we've got the you know, the obligatory hey, 30 minutes free, and I honestly that's one of those that it's not. I'm not gonna sell you or anything like that.
Rob Broadhead:I actually enjoyed doing those like Introductory calls, because you get to again, you get to, you get to find out like, what are people struggling with what? What are whatever their businesses, what is it they're struggling with? What are they running into? And sometimes, actually a large portion of the times, it's that kind of stuff that it's a common problem, where it's like hey, have you tried this? Because it's common enough that there's, there's, there may be something that you can like go spend 10 bucks a month and suddenly your problem solve, you know. Or something like that, where it's like the solutions out there and I love those where it's like you've been sweating bullets about this and in a 30 minute conversation we solved your problem you walk away, you skip away happy and everybody wins.
Rob Broadhead:So those are causes that you know. Those are ways to get a hold me, rob at RB-SNScom, and contact forms and all that kind of good stuff. So I really want to get to me. I would be more than happy to talk and just like in this, you get top and we will go down rabbit holes all day.
Angie Colee:Yes, like, just listen to this. You know you can have a conversation with Rob about just about anything, so I'm going to make sure that they have clickable links to all of these in the show notes so that it's as easy as possible for them to get in touch. And thank you again for being on this. This is this is my final podcast of the day and it's such a high note to end the day on. It's fantastic.
Rob Broadhead:Well, thank you for being so awesome. This has been great. This is really bad. I'm towards end of my day as well, and so this is a great way to, like you know, recharge at the end of a long day.
Angie Colee:Oh, that makes me happy. That warms my heart. Thank you again. That's all for now. If you want to keep that kick-ass energy high, please take a minute to share this episode with someone that might need a high octane dose of you can do it. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the permission to kick-ass podcast on Apple Podcasts, spotify and wherever you stream your podcast. I'm your host, angie Coley, and I'm here rooting for you. Thanks for listening and let's go kick some ass.