I'm here today with an amazing guest who I really admire, Brendan Kane. His first book, One Million Followers, did exactly what it said. And his second book, Hook Point, and the third one we're going to talk about today, the guide to going viral. If you want to go viral, if you want to get a million followers without buying them, Brendan Kane is your guy. I'm thrilled that you I'm going to talk. My book is called The Rules of Your Mind, but I want to talk about the rules. The rules for going viral, the rules for authentically getting a million followers. So let's start with your first book, a million followers. Everybody wants to go viral, but we don't know how. And you're the guy to ask. So can I ask you a very obvious question, Brendan? What do we have, what are the rules we need to apply in order to go viral?
SPEAKER_01So we have a five-step process that you could call like the five rules to going viral. So let's just go through each one individually. So the first one is we all use social media, but we're using it from a passive perspective. We're just constantly scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, but we're not really learning anything. So we have to make this mindset shift to go from a passive experience, a passive consumption, to active consumption. So what does that mean? We have to get under underneath the reason why some content breaks through versus why certain uh content doesn't break through. So one of the simple rules that you can do next time you log on to social media is if you see a video that goes viral, say it has millions of views, what we like to teach people to do is click on that profile of the person that created that video and then see have they used that same structure, that same pattern that went viral multiple times. If they've used it multiple times, now that's an account that's a content creator that we can learn from. If they've just done it once, then it's kind of a trend or a hack or a one-off thing that we can't really learn from. So again, that first rule is we have to make this shift from a passive consumer of content to an active consumer of content so we can learn. Then we move to the second uh rule, which is we want to continue that analysis process until we find a pattern or structure, which we call a format that we can use for ourselves. So, what is a format? Well, a format is basically a structure, a repeatable structure that has proven to work time and time again. So let's kind of just dive into a few examples of formats so people can kind of visualize it. So one format that I'm sure everybody has seen is called Man on the Street. So, what is Man on the Street? Well, you see a random person approach somebody on the street and the story unfolds. So you have accounts like The School of Hard Knocks that generates billions and billions of views, stopping people on the street and asking, How did you make your first million dollars? You have Simon Squibb that stops people on the street and asks, What is your dream? You have photographers like my friend Alex Stemp that approaches random strangers and asks them, Can I offer you a professional photo shoot? So that is a format, it's a structure that has had repeatable success. Another format that I'm sure everybody's seen is called Two Characters One Light Bulb. And that's where it's the same person that plays two different characters and they go back and forth and debunk a common myth or misconception about an industry. So Erica Kohlberg is a creator that has made that very successful. So she breaks down the fine print of what happens when your flight gets canceled, what happens when your airpods break. So those are examples of formats. So the rule number two is we want to find the format that matches the way that we want to, you know, show up in the world. So there are thousands of these formats. Um, our team has spent about 15,000 hours researching over 300 formats. The reason we spent so much time is I firmly believe you have to find a format that matches you authentically. Like we're not here to go viral for the sake of going viral. We're here to go viral to hit our goals, our business objectives, um, whatever we're trying to achieve. So we have to find a format that allows us to express our genius, our business, our brand, but also something that we feel comfortable with because you're an expert in the human in human behavior in the mind. We consume so much content on a daily basis, every person around us is a professional at consuming content. Which means is our subconscious is making decisions on what we're gonna watch, what we're not gonna watch in split seconds. So if you're doing something on social media that feels inauthentic to you, that shows up on screen, and the subconscious mind of your viewer says, no, we're scrolling past this, we're moving to the next one. So we have to find that format that fits us authentically. And then a part of that second rule is we have to understand that format. We actually have to understand and study it. And this is where most people go wrong is they just look at a viral video like School of Hard Knock or Simon Squib and say, you know what, that video has 10 million views. That's super easy. I'm just gonna go out on the street and I'm gonna go start interviewing people. If you do that, 99% of people will fail at it. Why? Because they don't understand the reason that it succeeded. Yeah, it's kind of the tip of the ice iceberg syndrome where on social media you only see the tip of the iceberg of the people having success, not the 99% of people that are trying that same thing and failing. So the way that we um do this is we've built a system called Gold Silver Bronze. So we'll take an account like Simon Scrib or an account like School of Hard Knocks, and we'll open up a spreadsheet. And our team will have the gold videos, which are the ones in that in that format are doing millions or tens of millions of views, then the the silver, the median, which are the videos that are doing hundreds of thousands of views, and then the bronze that are doing tens of thousands of views. And what we're doing is we're comparing and contrasting of like what's happening in those high performers that's not happening in those low performers. So we'll literally, our team will sit there side by side, they'll spend about 15 to 20 hours doing this for single format and a single account, and they'll play these videos side by side and try and spot the differences in those videos. We call the things performance drivers.
SPEAKER_00And what do you spot the most commonly that's happening and indeed not happening?
SPEAKER_01So each format has its own DNA, but it can be things like how well is the video building tension? You know, because every great story needs tension. Um, what's happening in those first three seconds? Like how good is the hook? Are you overwhelming the person in terms of what's happening in three seconds, uh, first three seconds? Are you differentiating what you're going to uh deliver in this video? Are you saying something that people already know that's going to be said, which will scroll people past? So things like the tension building, the storytelling, um, one of the big things is effect on viewer. One of the big mistakes people make when they're creating content is they're just thinking about themselves, meaning they're thinking about their objectives. Well, I want to get somebody to view this, I want to get somebody to like this, I want to get somebody to click on this, I want to get somebody to fill out a lead form, which disconnects you from the viewer. So, one of the performance drivers we talk about a lot is effect on viewer. Like, what is the feeling? What is the experience? What do you want this person to think, to feel when they watch that video? Um, another performance driver that people get wrong is work-to-wow ratio, meaning how long, how hard does the viewer have to work in order to get that wow factor, to get the value out of it? Um, which is another one is like, what is the value that you're providing with this? Are you are you delivering some type of perspective shift, uh, uh like an aha moment in that video? So each of these formats have like their own DNA of performance drivers, but those are a few that show up quite often.
SPEAKER_00You've probably seen Career Lender, he does that, doesn't he? Tell me what he's doing that's right.
SPEAKER_01So that format is just set up for virality. So there's a few different things. Yeah, it's just it's brilliantly designed. So, number one, it's it's a variation of Man on the Street. Because he's on the street. Um so there's So this is a trend.
SPEAKER_00So Man on the Now we're gonna say, okay, if I do Man on the Street, this is a trend. I could like go into that trend if I've got enough great information.
SPEAKER_01But the thing is, is I would not call Man on the Street a trend. I would call it a format. A format, okay. But the in the re because so a trend is fleeting. Okay. Trends only work for a compared to. But an interesting thing is when was Man on the Street first used in video form? Do you know?
SPEAKER_00No, I've seen this guy who offers you a thousand dollars if you help your business. Another one who offers you a thousand dollars if you stop smoking or stop vaking. So, no, when was it first used?
SPEAKER_011956 for the first season of the Tonight Show. Wow. So you're talking close to 70 years and it's still working. And it's still working. So it's obviously something so it's not fleeting, you're right. Well, the because the reason I, you know, designed this format or this this these rules with our team is I started my career in the film industry. So every movie follows the same format. So any movie that you've seen over the past hundred years, including we were talking before this about Citizen Kane because of my name. Of course, they all follow the three-ac structure, which is a format. So why does every movie follow? Why does every movie that Steven Spielberg makes, whether it's E.T., Jaws, Indiana Jones, use that structure? Because it works. Because it works, of course. And constraints allows you to become an expert. When you have the guardrails, then you can learn the rules of something, and when you rule learn the rules of something, you can become an expert at it. So that's why we move away from trends and move away from hacks, and we want to master storytelling. So, to your question, why does the career ladder work? Number one, there's an inherent tension that's built in all man on the street. Yeah. Is initially what's going to happen? This is an unknown territory. Like he's sitting on a ladder in the middle of the street and he's asking people, Do you want to do this with me? And there is this inherent, is the person gonna say yes? Is the person gonna say no? Exactly. And then when the person says yes, well, what's going to a fold here? So that's number one, is there's this tension. Number two, is there's a ladder involved. So that builds this curiosity of what is gonna happen with this guy on this ladder. Number three, it's purely built for retention because he puts a timer on it. It's two minutes. Am I going to guess what your career is? And if not, you can walk away without telling me. So there's this inherent retention built in of you're starting a story of trying to understand this person of what they do, and you're and you want to know A, is he going to guess it? But B, more importantly, you want to know what this person's. So you're gonna stay to the end. Yes.
SPEAKER_00And also you're gonna try and guess it as well. So you're gonna try and it's very much you participate because the audience are like, oh, I want to guess his thing before he does.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you said something really important, staying to the end. Why is that so important to social media? Because the thing that controls virality or distribution of the content, the thing that determines whether your videos get seen by a thousand people or 10 million people is the algorithms. So, what are the algorithms designed to do? Well, they're only really designed to do one thing, and that's not to suppress your reach on purpose to get you to boost post. They make billions and billions of dollars off of the biggest brands in the world's advertising. If it was all about that, the Mr. Beast wouldn't be the most subscribed person on YouTube. It would be Nike or McDonald's or Netflix, these companies that spend billions of dollars advertising their products. So the algorithms are designed to do one thing and one thing only, and that's to keep people on the platforms longer. Meaning, the more you and I and everybody watching this, we spend time consuming content, the more they can serve ads and the more profit they can generate. So they're always prioritizing videos and content that hold attention longer than others. Meaning the videos that hold our attention till the end get higher prioritization because it's playing to the algorithm's goals and objectives. And what do we know about human beings? What is the one thing that holds attention longer than anything else? Stories. Of course.
SPEAKER_00And storytelling.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. We've been telling stories for over 50,000 years. It's ingrained in our DNA.
SPEAKER_00And when we tell stories, if I tell you a story and you tell me one, I get into your brainwave and you go into mine. So it's a great way of connecting, you know, sitting around the campfire, stories. But yeah, stories are compelling.
SPEAKER_01The number one kind of rule of virality, and I kind of urge people to kind of almost like forget everything that you've been told about I need to post certain number of posts, I need to post it this time, I need to use this hashtag, I need you to use this trend or hack. Forget all of that for a minute. If I were to give you one rule of generating success in social media, is become a masterful storyteller.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If you master storytelling across these platforms, you will win every single time. I like to say that social media is essentially survival of the fittest of the best storytellers because stories build retention. And that's what the algorithms are looking for. They just want to keep people on the platform longer. The reality is we are the fuel that run them. This is not like Netflix or Disney where they're investing billions and billions of dollars in original content. They rely on us to create content. They're not creating content on their own. So they want to see us succeed. We just have to prove we're great storytellers and can keep people watching till the end.
SPEAKER_00And the best stories are they the ones where people can relate to them? Well, what would you say is the best story? You know, I write books and I talk about my clients' stories in every chapter. Okay, this client did this, and this is what happened to them, and this is how we transformed them. And people always say, Oh, I can see myself in that person. So, what are the best stories to hook someone in and to keep them? What would you think of the so many stories? What are the best if you if I was making viral content, what story would I need to tell to keep my audience?
SPEAKER_01Well, this is the beauty of social media. There's so many different ways that you can tell stories in in so many different formats. And again, I want it to be authentic to the person. But it's, you know, when we talk about man on the street, tension building, there needs to be tension, and it doesn't need mean that there needs to be an argument or anything. There just needs to be, it can't just be flat or monotone. Relatability can be that in terms of it, but it doesn't always have to be that. The big thing is in telling a story on social media, we we like to um we referenced what we call it at our company Hook Point, the generalist principle, which means how can we make our stories accessible to the niche we're going after that's gonna you know pay our bills, but also make it accessible to the average person? How do we make it interesting to the average person while still playing to our key niche audience? So, like to give you an example of it, um there is a luxury real estate agent on YouTube called Ryan Serhan. So he represents the most expensive properties in Manhattan, New York. So properties that start like 20 million go all the way up to 200 million. So his niche of who pays his bills is like a fraction of a percent. It's like the wealthiest of the wealthiest of the wealthiest. So when he tells stories on YouTube, he tells them in a way that plays to that core niche audience but makes it accessible to everybody. So how does he do that? Let me take you on a tour of a $7 million closet. Let me take you on a tour of a $200 million ranch. It makes it interesting. Anyone would want to see that, but at the same time, he's signaling to his core buyer, his core person that that um drives his business, his expertise, his value, his trust of knowing these types of properties. So he can tell those stories around those properties and play both of those audiences at the same time. Now, the amazing thing is again, social media is just history repeating itself. Do you remember the show The The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous? Of course. That's exactly what he's doing. I I don't know when that show started. I think it was in the 80s or even the the 70s. But again, the best stories that are being told today are taking patterns and structures from the past.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so they're not revolutionary, they're evolutionary.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Is that is that like people think that social media is this mystery black box that you need some key to magical key to unlock the algorithm, that you need a lottery ticket. But no, you just need to master storytelling.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I heard years ago that um Ten Things I Hate About You is really the taming of the shrew. Um I Claudius was reinvented as dynasty, which was so amazing that someone took um a book and made it into something modern in Beverly Hills, and then there was the other one, Pride and Prejudice again, which became clueless. Clueless. That that people literally took a book and said, Hey, I can I can redo that. And of course, then we had Romeo and Juliet readone with Claire Danes and Leo Snitch.
SPEAKER_01Judicap.
SPEAKER_00Amazing. So, yeah, this is all evolution, not revolutionary. Tell me something. I mean, I've never done it. I just refuse to buy followers because I think it's so inauthentic. And as a therapist, I have to be authentic. But I don't believe in it, but I I need you to tell me why it is a bad idea to buy followers.
SPEAKER_01Well, if you're talking about buying followers, you you really can only take one of two approaches. You're either buying just Pure On fake followers and bots, or you're paying for advertising in some way that equates to followers. Buying bots and things, I I just I don't know what the value is other than kind of putting a number to your name, and you need to have a solid strategy on how to leverage that number behind your name, whether it's getting on podcasts or stages or things of that nature. But the reality is the number next to your name, I think, means less today than your ability to actually reach people with your content. Whether you are buying fake followers or advertising your account to create followers, if you don't have the ability to tell a compelling story, your content is gonna fall flat. Your content is never gonna have the impact, it's never gonna have the reach. The the beauty of where we're at today is literally somebody with zero followers, zero views can go out and their video first video can generate a million views if they tell the right story. It wasn't that way 10, 15 years ago. So, to me, I would just tell people to focus like if you're gonna spend the money there, what why not just spend the money and the time to become a masterful storyteller so that you can generate the views, you generate the engagement, you generate the impact that you want, and then the followers will follow. Because again, is like maybe 15 years ago, like when you know there's less content on the platforms, they basically the algorithms will just cede your content to the people that followed you. The reach has consistently gone down over time because there's so much content on a platform. So the reason to not buy followers, the reason not to advertise to generate followers, is that if you don't have those core fundamental skills to reach the people that are following you, you're never gonna break through and thus it's gonna become you know a worthless exercise.
SPEAKER_00I'm always what's the word? Concerned is probably a better word about people like Bonnie Blue and Andrew Tate, who go viral by doing something really extreme. You know, I was watching Bonnie Blue, and obviously, you know, her life, if she wants to be a sex worker, that's great. But she said something that I thought was so sad. She said, you know, I I love sex and I've made millions and millions of dollars, but I can't leave the house. Someone might throw acid in my face, so I don't go out. And you saw her just doing jigsaw puzzles with her bodyguard, and I thought, wow, that's that's a big price you've paid. You've made millions and millions of dollars. You say you're very happy, you bought your family houses, but you can't actually go out. So you're sexually liberated, but at the same time, you're living the life of someone 500 years ago who can't go out because they're not safe. So I wanted to ask you about that. People who go viral using really extreme, like Andrew Tate is a good example. What what do you feel about that?
SPEAKER_01Well, again, I think everybody has their own purpose, everybody has their own message. Um the question, and I don't know either of them. My question would be why are they doing it? Are they doing it because they believe in the message they're sharing it, or are they doing it simply to gain the system and become wealthy?
SPEAKER_00I yeah, I guess you don't know, but it wouldn't wouldn't matter actually what why they were doing it. It's well look at Charlie, for example, what's the price that you're gonna do.
SPEAKER_01But Charlie, I didn't I don't know Charlie, um, but it seemed like he deeply believed in his message. And I think if you asked him, you know, if he were alive today, are is this message and what the work you're doing worth sacrificing your life for? I think he would say yes. Yeah, I think he would too. So it's just unfortunate I mean for 99% of people that go viral, it's not gonna be an issue. You don't have to worry about those things. I think you just Have to again look at authentically the message that you want to share and why and how worth it is it if you're gonna have a super polarizing message like that.
SPEAKER_00But what I see is hatred goes more viral than niceness. If you have a message of being kind, serving people, doing something for humanity, it doesn't really get the out it doesn't really get the views like being polarizing, being I don't know if I agree with that.
SPEAKER_01I think that that there I that type of content can go viral, but there's plenty of content creators or accounts out there that share a positive message and go through. Look at Mr. Beast Philanthropy arm. Like that is going viral. He's made that go viral. You look at um there's an account MD Motivator where he's going out to homeless people on the street and taking them off the street and um getting them houses or groceries or food. Um, you have accounts like the dodo that's all about resting animals and things of that nature. I think that we see a lot of the negativity and polarization that we oftentimes forget about the positive, the positivity uh side of things as well. Yes, people are trained for that flight or flight response to to oftentimes click or view content. But I think that there's a lot of positive content out there that sometimes gets overlooked.
SPEAKER_00So I never Well, that was my question. The very fact I mean, I'm glad you wanted, but the fact that it gets overlooked because it's positive.
SPEAKER_01Well, I will never, like in all the clients that we've worked with, I never lean towards doing something negative for the sake of going viral or breaking through. You do not have to do those things to be successful. You can do those things to be successful, but you're not required to. So, rule number one as a recap is we need to shift our mindset from a passive experience to an active experience. We want to start studying social media. Step two is we want to find the format that matches us authentically. And then we want to analyze that format. Again, look at the difference between somebody using that format to generate millions of views versus somebody using that format to generate tens of thousands of views and breaking down those performance drivers, those kind of like nuances of how they're telling stories that show up in those high performers and and not in those low performers. The third rule then that you move to is ideation, coming up with ideas. Now, the crazy thing is most people start with ideas. They start with ideas and then they create content from that. Well, why doesn't that work? Well, when you start with an idea, that means you don't know what your format is, you don't know what that structure is. So basically, you get thrown into this kind of mix of just throwing stuff against the wall and hoping something that sticks. So I'll give you a prime example of a client of ours, his name's Tanner Leatherstein. Um, and he came to us, like most people, he was really struggling with social media, didn't know why he was failing, he was stuck at 2,000 followers, and he was an amazing guy. At the age of 11, he created his first handcrafted leather good. He created a leather jacket and fell in love with the process of creating leather goods. To the point when he grew up, he wanted to do that for his living. So he created a company called Pagai where they create handcrafted briefcases and wallets and belts and things like that. But the problem is the way that he approached social media is like most business owners, he was just creating ads for his own own organic content. And the last, you know, if you just think about it, when was the last time you logged on to social media? Say, I want to see a great ad. It's never like that's not why you go to social media. So we helped him um uh find a format called Is It Worth It, where he deconstructs really expensive handcrafted leather goods. So like he buys a $5,000 Chanel handbag, deconstructs it on screen, and tells you whether it's worth the money that you paid for it. So this single format took him to over 2.5 million followers. What a single product on Etsy sold over a million dollars, and he he he's known all over the world. He gets flown to like VIP parties at at uh at fashion week at uh Paris Fashion Week and things of that nature. But the amazing thing is once he had that format, coming up with ideas is super easy, like high-performing ideas, because one day it's a Chanel handbag, the other day it's a Prada purse, then it's a Gucci belt. Like it's very easy to plug the ideas into that format and structure.
SPEAKER_00And it's a pair of Loubouton shoes. I can see where that's going. There's so much that you could deconstruct.
SPEAKER_01So once you have the format, the ideas become clearer because we talk to companies and individuals all the time as they burn themselves out just trying to come up with ideas that don't perform and they can't figure out why. So when you find the format first, you analyze it, you have this foundation that ideas just flow naturally. So that's the rule number three. Rule number four is one video at a time. So once you're starting out, you want to just create one video at a time in that format so that you can really learn and understand what's working and what's not. If you follow these five rules, there's no opportunity loss. Meaning if we if we choose our format, we study our format, we come up with an idea and it fails, well, what do we do? We just put our video on one side of the screen and the high performer that we studied on the other side of the screen, and we play them side by side. Yeah. And if you're really honest with yourself, you can see the differences. You can see what you're doing wrong. Maybe the hook is off, maybe the pacing's off, maybe the lighting is off, certain things that you can then fix with the next video. So when you approach it one video at a time, your learning accelerates dramatically. Versus if we take the batch-producing approach, is like the analogy like to like to say is like, let's say we're a chef and we're testing a brand new recipe for a cake. Yet we we bake 10 cakes at the same time with the same recipe, we throw them all in the oven, we pull out the first one, and then we taste it, and it's like it's too dry. Well, the problem is the other nine are gonna be the exact same. We can't fix it. And it's the same thing when people bash produce content is you produce 10 pieces of content, you post the first one, and you realize, oh man, this part's messed up. And you've got nine others, and you got nine others, and what's human behavior tell you? They're just gonna post the other nine. Yeah, um, versus like when you're kind of like testing a new pasta dish, you're just adding little salt to your vinegar, you know, these elements and tasting it each time to find that perfect dish. So I'm just saying in the beginning, you kind of crawl before you run and you take one video at a time. So that's step four. And then step five is just analyzing and improving. So with each video, you're analyzing it, you're improving it, and you're doing that process over and over and over again until you really learn what it takes to execute that specific format that you're going after.
SPEAKER_00So you've written three books. Tell me the rule that would get you to sit down and write. Because I think I read some statistics that how many people want to write a book, and only I think 12% ever do, and even less actually get it sold. How do you sit down and write? What are your rules for being a writer? Do you shut yourself away? Do you write in silence? Some people go to a cafe and write, but everybody, a lot of people want to write, but they believe it's lonely, it's isolating, it's hard to get started, it's hard to finish. Tell me your rules for writing.
SPEAKER_01I think the biggest thing is having a mindset of why you're doing it. Like what is your purpose of doing it? Because then you can push through it. For me, the only reason I created each of my three books was I use it as a marketing tool. I use it as A, I want to impact as many people as possible, but B, I want to drive growth in my business. So having that mindset of a specific purpose, I think really fuels me through that completion process. And I would say, like a lot of people, I'm not gonna say like I would say probably 90% of the people that want to write a book probably don't know why they want to write a book. They kind of just want to have a book. But the minute I think you have that purpose there, I think it can really drive the completion of actually getting it done and out there.
SPEAKER_00And actually writing a book, I find that kind of easy, but actually making it sell is another thing altogether. How did you get your books to sell?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think the first thing that I've learned is publishers don't do anything. No, you know, unless they're cutting you a seven-figure check up front, which is not going to happen for 99% of us, they don't really put the energy or effort into it. They're playing the portfolio play. Well, they'll publish hundreds or thousands of books a year and then they just bet on you know five or ten breaking through. So for me, it was a big learning experience. I think obviously, number one, social media is a massive tool of building a foundation, building a fan base that you can communicate with so that when your book comes out, they want to buy it. Now, I say a big mistake people make in terms of social media is they think social media is a tool to sell something, where social media is really a tool to build relationships. So we when we work with clients, we tell people social media is about getting people to know, like, and trust you. And if people know, like, and trust you, then they're automatically gonna want to buy from you. But social media is a massive tool if you can build that relationship. Like, I don't know if you know Dr. Julie Smith. Yeah, I do, amazing content creator. Her first book sold a million copies like that. And if you watch her content, she wasn't like saying, Hey guys, I'm gonna be, you know, selling or I'm gonna be creating this book, so be on this list or do this or do this. She just provided value, she built a connection with her audience. So by the time she published her first book, everybody was like, A, I want to support you, but B, I want to read the thing that you say. So that's one.
SPEAKER_00She did something quite clever too, because as a writer, whether it's a book or content, I find that people they want to buy a promise. So she had a promise. Open this book. The second book was called Use When Necessary. So I think if you can put a promise in your title, I can make you rich, I can make you thin, I can make you happy, I can make you go viral. You see, you had a promise in your titles, which is very, very clever because people want to buy a promise. Any book cover that has a promise in it, people want to buy it. So your books all have a promise in the title, and I love Dr. Julie. And she did have a promise. It was like, watch me, and I make you feel better. You know, people going for therapy have one question: can you make me feel better? Can you help me out here? Can you take me out of pain? And that was her promise. If you watch these videos, I'm giving you information and it's actually going to take you out of pain. So she did go viral and she absolutely deserved it. But it was very clever. If you look at, would you call it a format again?
SPEAKER_01Yes, so her format is a visual metaphor format.
SPEAKER_00But it and the promise inside that victory. I mean, I loved all the things she put pushing the balloon underwater, very clever.
SPEAKER_01But I think you mentioned something really interesting, is the promise of the book. So I would kind of call that a hook. And it's interesting, it's really critically important that you get that right because I've seen it across the three books of the different audience and the different the different people that pick up the book, read the book, reach out for help. Yeah. So, like one million followers, how I built a massive social audience in 30 days.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's a great promise. You see, some books have the promise, but you have the promise and the delivery. You can put a promise on a title, but you did both. You put the promise on the title, and then you delivered.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and the interesting thing though, there that there was like a it was a kind of a mixture of the audience that attracted. There was a lot of you know, people that had this massive dream that was were starting from scratch, you know, starting from zero that wanted to kind of go after that dream. Um, so you'll get, you know, musicians, you'll get artists, um, people that kind of just starting their career. And then there was like, I would say it was probably the of the people that read it, it was 80% of that audience, and 20% were kind of established people that you know have had a business or have a business and want to accelerate to the next level. But then my second book, Hook Point How to Stand Out in a Three Second World, it was almost kind of the reverse. It was like 80% people established that were trying to break through and 20% that were just starting out. So, like for that book, I had like a chairman of a $16 billion a year company read that book and reach out. And it just kind of like it's a completely different promise. Like one million followers, how I built a massive social audience in 30 days, it's kind of like I want a million followers, I want that audience, versus hook point how to stand out in a three-second world. It's more kind of appealing to kind of that professional that realizes I have all this competition, I live in a very noisy world. How do I get that extra edge to stand out?
SPEAKER_00In a three seconds, because you're right, our our attention span is just disappearing.
SPEAKER_01And then the guide to going viral, I would say, is going back to kind of closer of the one million followers. And it's funny because the guide to going viral is probably the deepest book of like really getting into the neat into the weeds of like how to succeed on social media. Yet the other two books sell sell out the guide to going viral like tender one.
SPEAKER_00Well, why do you think that is? That's so interesting. By the way, Brendan is very kindly giving you the guide to going viral at the end of this podcast. I'm gonna put up the link, and he's giving it you completely free because he's got such a generous heart. He really cares about helping you.
SPEAKER_01So I think it's a few things. Number one, um that title came about four or five years ago where I started using there's a good friend of mine, Ernest Lupinacci, that came up with that for me. Um, and I started using it in keynotes and things of that nature. It's like maybe even like five years ago. At that time, going the concept of going viral was kind of novelty, like new on social media versus today, like everybody and their mother is releasing videos about how to go viral, you know what? Because I've been in this space for 21 years, and then like you have people just being on social media for two, three, or four years that are all of a sudden like calling themselves gurus or experts on it. Sure. So I think that the concept of going viral has been oversaturated a little bit. But number two is I think people misunderstand what going viral is. A lot of people I think going viral means just generating views for the sake of generating views, just going viral for the sake of going viral. Or, like you said, I need to be polarizing, I need to be negative, I need to be somebody that I'm not. I need to do a TikTok dance video to go viral. When in reality, anything can go viral. Taxes go viral, real estate, mindset, yoga, it doesn't matter the industry, it can go viral if you package it in the right way. So I think that there's kind of a negative connotation to hearing I can help you go viral, because there's this misconception of what that actually means. So I think that that kind of works against it as well.
SPEAKER_00What rule has generated the most growth for you? Which one particular rule would you say if I look back that generated the most growth in terms of followers and income?
SPEAKER_01I think that there's two. There's there's there's one in terms of kind of like just kind of like social media growth, um, income, and that's always how am I differentiating myself? How can I stand out at the highest level? Um, and that's kind of like how you find your hook. But I've been doing that ever since I was a young kid. Like I've had that kind of um kind of drive to kind of look at the patterns that are happening around me and finding ways to break the pattern so that you can stand out. Because the minute you kind of get lumped in with everybody else, the minute people see you as just another person or think the thing that you're gonna say is something that they've heard before, they just move on to the next person because they've already heard it.
SPEAKER_00Between the age of five and fifteen, what did you love doing? What would you say was compelling and engrossing for you between the key ages of five and fifteen?
SPEAKER_01It's a great question. I don't have a tremendous amount of memory under the age of seven or eight. Well, seven to fourteen is the same. I think it was studying people, like trying to understand what's going on around me, trying to kind of find my way to fit in. Um because you know, like a lot of young kids, I was isolated a lot of times, bullied, and things of that nature. So I'm very much a person that would kind of study what's happening around me and trying to make sense of the world.
SPEAKER_00And how interesting that that's now your career. Because I'm a great believer that you're here to find your unique skill set. But actually, you are a great example. What you love to do is what you've made a career from. And the great thing is when you do what you love and you love what you do. Although you work very hard, it probably doesn't feel like work. So I love that that you've gone back to your unique skill set, the thing that lights you up, and you've turned it into a business. So, does it feel like you do what you love and you love what you do?
SPEAKER_01I think sometimes I think that the challenge, you know, I'm a very slow learner in some ways. So learning my strengths, learning my weaknesses, I the the way that I learn is through experience. Okay. I'm not the type of person that sits down, sits down and somebody teaches me something, I read a book, and then I automatically understand it. Like I I can understand it conceptually, but I have to live it to fully for for to fully sink in. So I think that there's been um a lot of experiences doing what I love, but getting bogged down by doing things I'm not good at in terms of, you know, because I'm an entrepreneur, I can't work a day job. So, like growing businesses and growing, you know, the business that I have now and businesses before, I think oftentimes I would get stuck in things that I'm not good at or I don't like, and trying to push through those things in order to get to the things that I love. So that's I think has been a bit of a challenge for me on that journey and just getting better at that.
SPEAKER_00But what will help you is one of the rules I talk about is that all people who are successful leave clues, and to be successful, you must be willing to do what you don't want to do. You know, people say, Oh, look at that person, they're so successful. I've never met anyone who hasn't said, I've got to do what I don't want to do. You know, I love writing books. I do not love line edits, you know, going, you've had to do the line by line. So the mark of a success is how much you're willing to do what you dislike and how much you're willing to do it first. If you can find out what you don't want to do, as part of the things you love to do, like you might say, Okay, I love being a chef, but I hate the washing up or buying all the vegetables. I love being a speaker, but I don't really like all the travelling involved. And you know, the last few flights I took, each one was delayed by six hours, eight hours, one was completely cancelled. But you must be willing to do what you do not want to do to get to where you want to go. And there are people who say, I'd rather give up my dream. I'd give up my dream for I do, I don't want to do another scale. Yeah, I want it so much. And marketing is part of that. People say, you know, I I don't want to market myself. It's it's not my personality. I'm an artist, but I can't do marketing, or I'm an empath. And you know, we have to teach our therapists because they go, I'm a therapist, I'm not a marketer. You must come up against that a lot. People who say, I I can do this, and that's my gift, but I don't want to do what I don't like. And of course, success is a lot of doing what you don't like. How much do you see that in the world of social media, people avoiding? And how do you hope we'll get past that?
SPEAKER_01So the first question I ask them is really why don't you want to do it? Yeah, and what do they say? I don't want to dance, I'm not an actor, I'm not a marketer. Yeah. And the thing I tell them is you don't have to be. You don't have to be any of those things to be successful in social media. You can be yourself. As long as you find that zone of genius, like that that format, that structure, like Tanner Leatherstein. He was, he did not want to be on camera. He's not an actor, he's not an over-the-top personality. But when we found that format to deconstruct these expensive leather goods, he like lit up because he loves doing that. You we talk about Dr. Julie Smith. Like she's natural because she loves sharing these things to help people. So it's just we all tell stories every day. Every single human on this planet tells stories. So, what is the way that you tell stories for yourself through this? Yeah. But then other people will just say, like, well, I just don't feel comfortable on social media. Then it's just like, well, what's really driving that? Yeah. Is it is it true or is it some hidden trauma or some past things that somebody told you that's holding you back from really pursuing that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, Sarah Blakely, who founded Spanx, and again, shapeware's been around since the fifties. I think it but it had a different name. I think it was called Girdles or Control Ware, something. But she was very clever. She created Spanx. She had a great idea. She had a great message, a promise. If you buy this, you'll look better in your clothes. And I think she rang Bloomingdale's many, many times. They're like, we don't buy from in we only buy from buyers. But she had this promise. If you stock Spanx, you'll sell more clothes. Women look better in Spanx. And eventually she got in there. But again, that wasn't revolutionary. Control underwear's been around forever, but she gave it a better name. And then, of course, straight after Spanx, the Kardashians created skins. Again, not revolutionary. They copied a great thing, but it didn't belong to anybody. But in there is a quite a clever message because people have this idea, you know, to be wealthy, I'm going to have to invent something amazing. But actually, you can take someone else's idea and change it completely. I mean, Starbucks didn't invent coffee, Lululemon did not invent little black stretchy leggings. What they invented was a better way to market them with a better promise. So I love that that today, you know, before it was like to be wealthy, to be, you've got to go to college, have a degree, come from money, and now it's like, wow, I can take an idea that's already there and I can change it. I can take something that exists already. I mean, I I loved the Sephora who took a beauty hall and made it into a standalone shop. So now today being successful is not about coming from wealth or even having a degree. It's about having the ability to see something that's already there, like man on the street. I didn't know that because in the 1950s, but to see something and say, hey, I could take this and I could change it, I could improve it, I could make it better. And in doing that, you can be wildly successful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no idea is original at this point. Everything's been said, everything's been done, everything's been built. Yeah, of course. And again, like to social media, Man on the Street, first time was used in 1956. The two characters, one light bulb, where the same person plays the two different characters, where Erica Kohlberg uses it, Mark Tilbury. A ton of people use that format. The first time was in the 1920s by Buster Keaton, who was kind of the Will Farrell of the time. Or even look back to I think it was 1997, where Austin Powers, where Mike Myers, the actor, plays Austin Powers and Dr. Evil and goes back and forth. We talked about Ryan Sirhant, the home property tours, lifestyles of the rich and famous. You look at Mr. Beast and like Beast games. Yes. Like MTV did that first in 1997 for a show called Road Rules, and then Survivor came in 1999. Like you have all of these uh examples of people using these structures over and over again. Again, every movie that you see is following the same structure that's been used for a hundred years. So, yeah, so it's don't try and reinvent the wheel. That is the mistake that people make with social media. I want to be completely original, I want to be completely authentic and creative. But the reality is the most creative people in the world use structure, use things that have been done and make it better. You look at the most one of the most valuable companies in the world, Apple. Steve Jobs wasn't the first person to create the PC, he wasn't the first person to create a phone, he wasn't even the first person to create a tablet. But he had the vision to make those things better. And the same thing applies to social media.
SPEAKER_00And look at Levi's and Seven for All Mankind, you know, how people and frame genes where you're spending $250 on a pair of jeans, that you didn't invent genes, you invented a promise. You look better in these. These make you look good, these have got a great label on them, these say you belong to this particular club. So, yes, of course. We see that over and over again. It's it's not new, it's rebranding, which is your expertise. So, what are the what are the great rules for rebranding? Taking a product that's already there and rebranding it and making it your own. What would you say is a rule for that?
SPEAKER_01Number one, understanding what came before you and why it was successful. Because most people just jump to creating something, whether it's a product, whether it's um a piece of content, but it's kind of like saying you walked out of a movie, let's just say you walked out of like Fast and the Furious, you just went and saw that. You're like, I love that movie, I'm gonna go create my own, without studying anything about what it takes to make a movie. So the first step always, the first rule is study what came before you, understand how and why it worked, and when it didn't work, what caused it not to work. Because if you don't have that foundation, then you have no chance of succeeding.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, I notice that because I've trained 20,000 therapists and they're all saying, you know, how can I be individual? Look at someone who's actually amazing out there and notice what they do wrong. Don't keep saying, Oh, they're so good, I can't compete. Find someone and say, What's the missing bit? And could you add that missing bit? Which is what Dr. Julie did because she had the visuals. No therapists are going online doing what she did with the pencils, with the balloon. So she found almost a missing link and very expertly used that, and she deserves all the success she's got. I'm a great fan of hers, but that was just something no one else was doing, just filming over and over again visual content because we like what we see much more than what we hear. Can you give me some examples of people who've done that? Who who would who's doing that now really well? Looking at someone else and saying, Well, this person's great, but I can see just something that could be added.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, uh again, one prime example is you look at School of Hard Knocks, what they're doing to Man on the Street. I mean, he's just absolutely killing it. I think he's got like 15 million followers across his accounts with Man on the Street, and he just he had a better hook of how did you make your first million dollars? Um, Simon Squibb is doing it Man on the Street in a beautiful way, in terms of um, you know, what is your dream? Like such a brilliant kind of way of it.
SPEAKER_00And he offers you money, doesn't he, to help you with your dreams. For some of them, yeah, he does.
SPEAKER_01Um, there's again we talked about like Erica Kohlberg using two characters, one light bulb, of doing the um Simon Squibb asks you why you're not following your dream, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_00What's your dream? Why and how can I help you?
SPEAKER_01So the beauty there there's so much nuance into why he's using that question. Like he was a former ad guy, like very successful ad guy. So the reason he's using that um is number one, it creates tension. What is your dream? You want to hear what that person's dream is, but then it gives him the opportunity to push the person. Well, why aren't you doing this? Why aren't you doing that? Yeah, I'll give you a thousand pounds if you quit your job right now. Yeah, he asks great questions, he's pushing them. Um, so it creates tension with each each question and each way that he keeps pushing them. On top of it, it gives him a vehicle to share his experience of cool. He's essentially coaching them in real time, and that's where I think what he's doing, if you're gonna use like Man on the Street as a personal brand building mechanism, I think what Simon's doing is far more valuable than what School of Hard Knocks is doing, even though School of Hard Knocks generates far more numbers, because School of Hard Knocks is just using it as an interview vehicle, where Simon is using it as a coaching vehicle, and he's creating value, and of course, in anything, if you want to have a relationship or a career, you have to say, well, value.
SPEAKER_00No, why does someone earn very little money and someone earn a lot? Because of the value they create.
SPEAKER_01So well, there's always a when he does that format right, one of the big performance drivers that we look at is is there a perspective shift for the audience? And there's generally his videos perform well because the viewer can see themselves. Of course, they relate. Yeah. Because everybody has a dream, and a lot of people are not following the dream. So Simon takes them on this journey to have the viewer feel that experience and have a perspective shift of like, well, why am I holding myself back from my dream?
SPEAKER_00Of course, because when he asks the person on the street a question, the viewer is saying, Oh. Yeah. I I hold it. Even if it's a bus driver, even if it's a bad man, it doesn't matter who it is. Yeah, we can all relate. We can all relate to that. I love that. Very clever that makes people and then they then think, yeah, the same thing. I I don't I don't want to do what I don't like. I don't want to take action every day. I don't want to get staffed out of my comfort zone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What's the biggest myth about social media? What would you say is something or all taught that's completely false?
SPEAKER_01I think there's several lies that people tell themselves about social media. Lie number one is virality is luck. Is that you need to have the secret key to the algorithm, you need to have um a lottery ticket, it's just random, it's not. There are clear patterns, um, it's really comes down to the science of storytelling. Number two is you need to have big budgets and big teams to in order to succeed. Most of our clients are just creating content on their own with their iPhone. It doesn't matter what level you're at. Like, literally, the the beautiful thing is we all have these things in our pocket. Of course. And with a great story, you can reach millions of people. You do not need to have you know some huge camera crew or huge team in order to do that. We've literally have clients that just create content on the iPhone that that break through. Um, number three, a big lie people tell themselves is my industry, my niche is not sexy enough. They think, oh, well, I'm a yoga instructor, I'm a meditation teacher, I'm an accountant, I'm a lawyer. That can't go viral. Any industry can go viral if it's packaged, right? I can point to multiple examples of that. And then I think an interesting thing is, and you could probably speak to this from your experience, but there's this kind of thing that people, and I think a lot of this happens on a subconscious level, is people just don't think they're good enough. They can't envision themselves actually speaking to a million people. Why would a million people care about what I have to say? So I think that there's a mindset obstacle that people put in their way that kind of really prevent them from going after it and succeeding.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I would say the belief that I'm not enough is huge. 80% of the population have it. I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy enough, I'm not interesting enough, I'm not educated enough. There are so many ways to feel not enough. And of course it's not true, but it's a huge blocker. If you start out thinking you're not enough, you can't really engage an audience. And even if you do, if even if you get to a million or five million followers, you might notice you start self-imploding because of this belief, I I didn't earn this. This came to me too easily. Have you seen that? People who've got there, but because they still feel not enough, they don't keep going and they actually start to self-destruct.
SPEAKER_01Yes, self-sabotage.
SPEAKER_00How often do you see that?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think it's it depends on what level you're talking about. If you're at like the top 1%, I would say it's it's rare, but if you're in like the top five or ten percent, you definitely see it. I think one of the the big things that really holds people back and stopping is they don't build a solid business foundation to capitalize off the attention. Because just because you get attention, just because you get followers, just because you get views, that doesn't make you rich. You need to have an actual business, you need to have something to offer to capitalize off of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, getting a lot of views with nothing to sell. What is the point that you've got all these views?
SPEAKER_01Or something that's not good thing. Yeah. It's not a good product. Yeah. Or it's just a product that's that just doesn't have the scalability to it.
SPEAKER_00Or that prime, that water everybody was buying prime, but that's came came and got what happens when it comes and goes? Do these people capitalize on the money they made, or does it all disappear? Because that was a that that was a an internet sensation for a period of time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think that there was a few different factors. I think one of the big factors that came out is the amount of caffeine that they were putting into the drinks, and the drinks were really targeted towards younger kids. Yeah, definitely. And I think there was a big backlash of health implications of giving kids um these drinks that do it. But to your point, is I think it's kind of the the analogy I would give is very similar to professional athletes. You have professional athletes that make a ton of money and then they go broke because they have no idea how to manage it, but then you have other athletes that you know won't touch a dollar of their salary and just live off their endorsement money and just you know build an empire. The same thing I think applies for people with social media success. You have people that are very savvy. You look at somebody like Mr. Beast, who's building a massive empire, hiring really smart people, reinvesting what he's earning into the business infrastructure, and then you have other people that will just flame out, spend all the money that they earn and not build that solid foundation, and and basically will go broke or will be out of the game in a few years.
SPEAKER_00And I think someone like Mr. Beast is very aware that he is earning that. And when you earn it, you keep it, but if you just get it and it's easy, it actually doesn't have any value. You you tend to get rid of something that you got too easily. We see that a lot also with movie stars and singers and people who say, Well, I just wrote this song and I got millions of dollars, but I never really felt I earned it, so then I had to get rid of it all.
SPEAKER_01And that again, like Mr. Beast, it looks like it's an overnight success and it's not. Like he puts so much time and energy into it. But it's the same thing with we were talking about professional athletes, like especially like uh NFL football players, their average career is four or five years. Of course, so they get there, and some of them are getting there just purely on talents, and yes, they put some work in, but they're so young that they got there so fast that they don't realize that that money is not going to be there, and it feels like kind of more of an overnight success where you have a lot of people burning through that. But yeah, it's it the the the mindset, the business side of it is critically important as you kind of look to to build an audience off of it. Because I know I personally know people that have leveraged social media to build billion-dollar businesses, but other people that have the same audience size as them that make like low six figures, you know, and it's just because the foundation of the business that they put into place.
SPEAKER_00So TikTok is the big thing. TikTok is Times Square right now, it's where you're seen. But in 10 years' time, will we still be using the same platforms? What do you think? If you could look 10 years ahead, will we still have Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or will there be something else?
SPEAKER_01So the real question and the real answer to that is dictated by the hardware. So are we gonna still be using mobile phones in 10 years? That's the real question. I'm not a technologist, I don't know. You know, if technology migrates to like glasses or contact lenses or a chip in your head, it's probably gonna change. But I don't know that it's gonna change that drastically in 10 years because you have to look at the fact that there's 5.2 billion people on social media today. In 10 years, are you gonna manage to be able to get billions and billions of people to completely get off a phone into another device? So I think that we are still gonna see YouTube. I think we're still see Facebook and Meta and Instagram and even TikTok because they're very smart in terms of how they engineer people staying on these platforms, and that's why you really haven't seen any new platforms come out recently. Like TikTok, people think it's like an overnight success. It has been around, I don't know what the time frame, at least 10 years. And how long's Facebook been around now? 2004, I think it first launched. YouTube was 20. I think the first year of YouTube was 2005. Um, Instagram, I'm probably gonna get this wrong, but I think it was 2008 or 2009.
SPEAKER_00So here's a question: how do you future proof your business if the algorithm changes and you've you just use the algorithm to get your clients? What happens when it changes and you can't use it anymore?
SPEAKER_01The thing is, I don't think it changes as drastically as people think it changes. What happens, there's there's more people and more content on the platforms, which means it's more competitive. So, again, the way we started out, the number one thing to focus on, the number one rule become a masterful storyteller. The better the storyteller you are, the more you hold people's attention, and the more the algorithm will cede your content to people because you're playing to its underlying business objectives, which is keeping people on the platform longer to serve more ads. So I would just honestly, I wouldn't worry about the algorithms, I wouldn't worry about the algorithms changing, just focus on on mastering storytelling, yeah, and that is where you succeed. Now, it's very simple for me to say that become a masterful storyteller. There's a lot of nuance and complexity in terms of doing it. Um, so it's just I would invest the time to learn the art of doing that, and that's where you will be you will be successful no matter what happens. You know, people are all scared about AI content. It's like, oh, everybody's gonna be creating AI content and I'm not gonna be able to compete. Well, AI is just a tool. If everybody woke up tomorrow and was creating content with AI, there's gonna have to be winners and losers. Just because you use AI to create content does not mean you're gonna succeed.
SPEAKER_00And actually, if you look at the artists that have gone viral, Adele, Lily Allen, Ed Sheeran, Eminem, they tell us about they tell their story. You know, Eminem talks about his life. Eight Mile was his life. Lily Allen talks about her life being cheated on. Adele talks about her life, you know, no father, and Ed Sheeran talks about his life and his love affair with his wife. But if you look at artists that really tell you their own an emotive story, every business that has an emotive story does better than one that doesn't. So Adele has an emotive story when she talks about, you know, I was just a child, I didn't know what I was doing. When Ed Sheeran talks about how he thought his wife was out of his league, when Eminem talks about being bullied, they're not just telling you a story, they're telling an emotive story, and it's about them. They're not singing someone else's song. When Lily Allen talks about, you know, what did you do with that girl next door? What did you do that for? You made me feel so bad, you messed with my mental health. She's telling you an emotive story about her. And I think it's the same with going on social media, have an emotive story about you, because the audience, we love to relate, we go, oh, you're like me and I'm like you, and then we have a connection, we're wired to find connection. So I I agree with you totally. The emotive story when it's your story, not someone else's, is amazing.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's it's wired in our DNA. It's like the first stories were told 50,000 years ago and they were around campfires, and those stories were not fairy tales or things of that nature. It was like, how do we hunt? Yeah, how do we survive? So, stories literally is how we built everything around us today. So that's why stories are so powerful, and that's what's always going to be the key to success, is you need to be able to tell a great story.
SPEAKER_00As a therapist, I've seen something from almost from day one, which is our greatest pain comes from the stories we tell ourselves. You know, your ex might say you're boring, your boss might say you're not up to the job, but it's the stories we tell ourselves. I'm not good enough, I can't be visible, what if you judge me? What if I don't look right? What if I mess it up? And our greatest pain comes from our stories that we need to edit and upgrade. So, what story must you tell yourself to go viral, to get and keep a following? What story must you tell yourself in order to be hugely successful on social media? What's the story?
SPEAKER_01I would start with what is what is what are you trying to do with the person on the other side of the screen? What do you want them to feel? What do you want them to experience? And how do I tell a story that delivers that experience? So I worked um with Taylor Swift very uh early on in her career, and and she said something that was really brilliant that she realized really before anybody else in social media, and that was social media is a one-to-one communication platform. Of course. People think it's a one-to-many, but it's one-to-one. Because when do most people consume social media? Well, they're on their phone, they're on the couch, they're on the bus, they're on the train. It's a one-to-one experience. So in terms of what you tell yourself as you as you master social media, is what am I trying to convey to this person on the other side of the screen? What is the experience that I want them to have? And what is the story that I can tell them that can generate that experience? That's kind of at a fundamental baseline that will really set you ahead of all of your competitors as they approach social media.
SPEAKER_00And of course, Taylor Swift is another one. She tells an emotive story. She writes her own music. She things about pain and joy, but she has a massive following of Swifties.
SPEAKER_01I think But why does she have a massive follow of Swifties? It's not because of her music.
SPEAKER_00It's because of the emotive story. But what else is it?
SPEAKER_01So she so I I did work with her I think it was 2009, 2010. And at the time, she wasn't like a superstar at the time, but she was close. Um she believed in one-to-one interaction, so she would respond to as many um comments and messages and things of that nature. At one point around this time, she did a 13-hour autograph signing session because her favorite number is 13, and she literally stood there for for hours to sign all these autographs. But then she started to grow bigger and bigger and bigger. But she wanted each fan to know that she deeply cared about them, that they meant something to her. So, what did she do? She would show up at bridal showers, at birthday parties, she would have sleepovers for her fans, and she would remember that and put it on YouTube, put it on social media, signaling to her fans, I want to be there for each one of you. I want to have this experience with each one of you, but unfortunately, I can't. So I'm doing this to show you that I care about each one of you. And that is why her fan base is so rabid. Yes, her music is good, but it's more that she has demonstrated that she cares about each and every one of them individually.
SPEAKER_00And Mel Robbins does exactly the same thing. She talks, you know, she talks to her audience when I write my books. I always say you, and I never say we. We can do this or we do this. I say you do this because, and you can do that, and you are doing this, and you can get better because it's always better to say you than we. You know, we do we humans do this, better than you as a human do this because we all want a relationship, we're all hardwired to find connection.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she does. Um, you know, we've we've studied one of her formats where she does coaching sessions on social media, she'll cut those into clips to show her giving free coaching lessons to or coaching sessions to her fans. Again, demonstrating I care about you individually. And this is how it would help you individually.
SPEAKER_00If you had to condense a piece of advice to someone who's out there and they've got their platform but they really want to grow, what advice could you consolidate down for them right now?
SPEAKER_01I think that the the the biggest thing is uh understanding there's a thing called a format. A format is a repeatable structure that has proven to succeed time and time again. Go out and study those formats and find the one that matches you best and uh don't just look at the ones that generate millions of views, but cross-analyze it against the ones that don't break through. And just study that. Just understand there's a format, find your format and study it. That is the recipe to success. It's very simple, it's very nuanced and deep. But if you just do that, you're gonna be ahead of 99% of people out there creating content. I mean, I work with social media teams for billion-dollar companies that don't even recognize the concept of a format. So that is my the simplest advice I could give people moving forward.
SPEAKER_00And I love the way you called it a recipe. Because someone said to me, you know, you're the Jamie Oliver of therapy, because I say to all the people I've trained, if you do this, this, and this, it's not rigid, but there is a formula for success. Ask this particular question. Really, where find the pattern, understand the pattern, change the pattern. And what you're saying is go out and look, find the pattern, understand it, and then make it work for you.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yes, the social media therapy is the same. Find the pattern, make complete sense of it, and then change it. That's what great therapy is. Find the pattern of why you can't stop drinking or binge eating. Find it, and then don't feel bad about it. Understand why that happened to you and when, and then change it.
SPEAKER_01But I think you you hit on the most important part is understanding the why. And most people will look at viral content or people successful in social media and don't try and figure out the why. It's like, oh, because they have a fancy camera, oh, because they're spending millions of dollars, oh, because they're lucky, oh, because they know the right hacks, or those and it's none of those things.
SPEAKER_00Same people say, you know, I I I've been to therapy, I know why I drink, but I still drink. I I know why I shout at my kids, but I still shout at my kids. And some of them find it, and some of them try to change it, but it's a bit in the middle, making complete sense. Oh, when I was eight years old, I believed this belief. You know, I I had a client who was hypersensitive to light. She couldn't go out of the house because she burnt so much. And when she told me her story, and it was a story, at 11 years old, she was very badly bullied. She said to Mum, can I stay home? And she said, No, you have to go to school. Single mum, didn't have anyone else. I have to go to work, I hate it, you've got to go to school, that's life. A few years later, she asked again, Mum, can I just want to stay home and never go out? And the mother said, No. And then she got this light sensitivity, she couldn't go out because she burnt all over her body because the child thing, gosh, I'd love to stay home, eat yog out of the fridge, watch cartoons. It's quite seductive. But she asked us that she made a statement, I want to never go out. Didn't go out, but of course, 30 years later, she's still running the pattern. So we found the pattern. Oh, you made a request at 11, I don't want to go out. That made sense, but no, I've got to understand it. From an 11-year-old kid, that made sense. It was seductive, it was quite exciting. A lot of kids go, I'd love to not go to school and watch cartoons all day. But in the understanding, you also realise that this is no longer relevant or appropriate or necessary. Not even interesting. I'd like to go out now and have a life. So first you find it, but you've got to make absolute sense. Often we think thoughts at 10 or 9, and we have no idea of the habit they're going to wreak on our life 40 years later. You know, I could look with infertility people say, Oh, 16, I thought I was pregnant, I thought, oh my god, that's the worst thing ever. But now, 30 years later, I can't get pregnant. So we find the pattern. Every time you take birth control, you're saying, I don't want a baby. And you've got to make sense. You spent 16 years saying I don't want a baby, that's normal. If you start having sex at 17 and we got up to 32, 15 years of saying, I want a baby. And the brain doesn't know how to go back until you now change the pattern. Yes, I didn't want a baby at 17, but now I'm 33, I would like one very much indeed. Because the brain is very literal, like saying I want to get pregnant. I'm trying to get pregnant. Well, trying is a huge failure because you trying is a word that is a misdirect, it implies failure. And getting pregnant doesn't mean you'll ever have a baby. Getting pregnant's not the end, that's just the beginning. And I think with success, too, when you say I'm trying to succeed, or I'm hoping, or I'm wishing, or I'm dreaming, you have to go back and say, No, I can see the formula, I can see the rules, I can, and I'm gonna follow it, and I'm gonna do it whatever it takes. So I think your advice is amazing. And I hope people watching here will really follow it because, as you say, it's a recipe that they can replicate, but they've got to have some confidence to do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and like you said, everything you just said about patterns, that's what social media is. If you're not having success with social media, it's because you're following the wrong patterns. If you want to have success with social media, you have to understand the successful patterns. Yeah. And those will allow you to understand what drives success and lead you to be successful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You know, I read a long time ago that pattern recognition is how humans evolved. We learned to recognise the pattern of seasons, and when we recognized, oh, it's always hot in the summer, that's a good time to water crops, it's kind of cold in the winter. If I plant these crops in the spring, water all summer, I can survive all winter. So pattern recognition is what made us live. And pattern recognition, when you can recognise, oh, when I'm stressed, I eat loads of cake. I can I'm out of my comfort zone, so I comfort myself with it. If I could recognise that pattern, now I can change it. But recognizing the pattern that someone else has done to go viral and learning and using it is a great thing. And I'm so glad you're here and you've helped us. It's amazing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, again, it's all pattern recognition. And that's where the success in social media comes, it's not some mystery.
SPEAKER_00But after you recognize a pattern, of course, you've got the next thing, which is apply it. It's one thing to recognize it. Oh, I recognize what makes someone successful. Yeah. But then we have applying a lot of people recognize it, but then it's like, oh, I I recognize what makes a book go viral, but you've still got to sit down and write it.
SPEAKER_01It's similar to kind of like music. You can recognize the the pattern on a music sheet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But to actually play it takes practice and time.
SPEAKER_00So the fear of rejection, which we're all wired because rejection used to kill us, and it still feels like it does. And of course, all these songs are die if you leave me. So human beings are wired to fear rejection. How can they overcome that to create this great content, go viral, and monetize it? How can they get past this fear of rejection?
SPEAKER_01I mean, there's two ways you can do it. Good. The way that I recommend is understanding what's underneath that fear. Because I think that there's something that has happened to you, probably in the past, of somebody did something to you, said something to you, some type of trauma that's holding you back.
SPEAKER_00Because no baby's one with a bit of rejection ever in the whole world.
SPEAKER_01Which is I recommend anybody do that because it's it's a harder way to do it, but it's a healthier way, and I think it's just gonna pay dividends to make you happy uh in life, just in general. The second way is you sever yourself from the entire process. So you create the video and you either have somebody work for you, you have a friend, you hire somebody to post it for you. You don't look at how many views it gets, you don't look at the comments, you don't look at any of those, you just completely separate yourself from the process, which is the easier part to it. Um, but I would recommend you know, the the the former of actually trying to understand what's beneath it because it doesn't matter whether you're speaking to an audience of one or ten million, you know, at some point you somebody is going to respond with something that is a criticism, or maybe that you take is a criticism that's that's a trigger um for you that you're gonna have to confront and and face at some point.
SPEAKER_00And the truth is the only person who can reject you is you. No one can really reject you. It's it's the lies you're telling yourself. You cannot be rejected. People can say mean, horrible things, and the bigger you get, the more you're gonna get some people who are mean and hurtful. But you still have a choice. Shall I let this in? Or shall I think, well, who sits at home and goes, I know my life is so great. Let me open up my computer and tell that Brendan Kane, tell that Marissa Peer, I hate them. You know, happy people praise and unhappy people criticize. So people who are very critical always have the most criticism reserved for themselves. Then that they might be saying mean things about you. It's not about you, and you always have a choice. I let this in, or shall I just say it doesn't matter?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think you said it brilliantly. It's what they're saying about you is about them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, of course. And you can let it in, or you can just say, I'm gonna let it go. You know, it's you the bigger you get, the more you're going to not everybody can like you. And here's a great question Do you like everybody? The answer is no.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, why do you want everyone to like you then? I like most people. I don't like every single person, and I'm sure you don't too. So if you don't like everybody, why does it matter that every single person doesn't like you? So, Brendan, you've been so helpful. I've learned a lot. Where can we find you?
SPEAKER_01Uh so you can reach out to me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook. Uh, if you want to learn more about what we do, you can go to hookpoint.com. And as a gift to your to your listeners, if you go to hookpoint.com forward slash peer, uh, your last name, they can get access to my latest book for free where it dives into these rules in super depth.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much. You've got such a generous heart. You've given us all this information, and now you're giving the readers your book too. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Brendan. Yes, amazing.
SPEAKER_01It's a pleasure to always connect with you and everybody tuning into this.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much. And remember, there are two types of people who watch it and go, that's good. And the second type says, I'm going to take action. So be group two. Group one watches because that was amazing. But group two says, let me apply this application, execution, taking action. Be the people who apply it, take action. Go into group two. Brendan's a genius, and he can make you one too, but you've got to apply the gifts he has so kindly and from his heart shared with you. Thanks for tuning in. See you next time. Remember, your mind, your rules, and your success is up to you. It's no one else's job, it's yours, and you could be phenomenal if you listen to Brendan and apply what he's told you because it works.