Chasing Financial Freedom
The Journey to a Legendary Brand featuring Scott Wozniak
Are you ready to leap beyond the ordinary and create a legendary brand? Join us in a groundbreaking conversation with Scott Wozniak, the mastermind behind renowned brands like Disney and Chick-fil-A. Trust us, branding is more than just advertising; it's about creating an influential reputation and building robust customer relationships. We examine real-world examples from McDonald's and share invaluable insights on how to make your brand stand out. It's all about delivering a stellar customer experience that keeps them coming back for more.
But how do you establish trust in business, especially in a world that's increasingly shifting towards digital platforms? We've got that covered! Let's talk about the pivotal role of trust, whether you're running a traditional brick-and-mortar business or thriving in the online marketplace. We share our first-hand experience of how effective delegation and smart automation can escalate your business success without losing the personal touch. It's a blend of maintaining authenticity while working smart and efficient.
We explore the power of podcasts, books, and TED talks as platforms for world-class learning. And if you're keen on building a legendary brand, Scott's book, "Make Your Brand Legendary," is a goldmine of step-by-step strategies. So, gear up for a journey of growth and innovation, culminating in a brand that resonates with your audience and stands the test of time. It's time to step out of the shadows and let your brand shine!
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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Thanks for Listening! Follow us on Tik Tok Facebook and Instagram
Are you ready to leap beyond the ordinary and create a legendary brand? Join us in a groundbreaking conversation with Scott Wozniak, the mastermind behind renowned brands like Disney and Chick-fil-A. Trust us, branding is more than just advertising; it's about creating an influential reputation and building robust customer relationships. We examine real-world examples from McDonald's and share invaluable insights on how to make your brand stand out. It's all about delivering a stellar customer experience that keeps them coming back for more.
But how do you establish trust in business, especially in a world that's increasingly shifting towards digital platforms? We've got that covered! Let's talk about the pivotal role of trust, whether you're running a traditional brick-and-mortar business or thriving in the online marketplace. We share our first-hand experience of how effective delegation and smart automation can escalate your business success without losing the personal touch. It's a blend of maintaining authenticity while working smart and efficient.
We explore the power of podcasts, books, and TED talks as platforms for world-class learning. And if you're keen on building a legendary brand, Scott's book, "Make Your Brand Legendary," is a goldmine of step-by-step strategies. So, gear up for a journey of growth and innovation, culminating in a brand that resonates with your audience and stands the test of time. It's time to step out of the shadows and let your brand shine!
Start for FREE
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Thanks for Listening! Follow us on Tik Tok Facebook and Instagram
Ryan Dement from Chasing Financial Freedom podcast. I hope you guys are having a great day. Today on the podcast we have Scott Wozniak. Scott is the founder of Swaz Consulting and what the consulting they do, and I'm going to add a little bit in them and go back. They're helping us entrepreneurs, small business owners, truly find your marketing space but also become a rock star. So what they're committed to do is demystifying the process of becoming a legendary brand in making dreams of greatness come true. They have proprietary tools and systems that help leaders transform their businesses through a series of concrete steps. Scott, welcome to the show. Yeah, ryan, great to be here, man. Thank you, sir. I know it was a little bit of a wait, but good to have you on. Before we get started, a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man. So I live in the Atlanta area, which works really well for the work I do, because I spend most of my time with my clients in their place. And, for those of you who have not traveled through this part of the United States, atlanta airport is what's actually the world's busiest airport, so I can get direct flights just about anywhere, and so I bounce around the country diving in all sorts of different companies having a blast. Excuse me, sorry, we can edit that little bit out. Yeah, and my passion is studying the great brands. I've had a really unique opportunity to be a leader inside some of the great brands, so not just read a book about them or go to their store, but work with their teams, see them come up with their strategies, actually be a part of coming up with a lot of the strategies. And I've been behind the scenes with brands like Disney and Harley Davidson and Newcore Steel and Procter and Gamble.
Speaker 2:I was a senior leader at Chick-fil-A headquarters for a long while, learned a ton on how they approach branding and building an organization. So I eventually started helping a bunch of other people figure this stuff out, turned it into kind of this model and this approach with a thing we call kind of a customer experience engine, and then built a consulting firm to help people do it. So it's been a ride, man. It's been not doing the stuff I expected I would be doing. In fact that's a whole other story.
Speaker 2:I started on a whole other career path and just kind of got pulled into this with some cool opportunities and so but yeah, man, it's really, I think, one of the fun ways I like to say it these days, because I feel like I get to be Merlin to the Arthur's of the world, right, like, you got a vision for Camelot, you got this cool thing you're trying to build and I love to come behind you and maybe work a little magic, maybe give you an Excalibur and help you say all right, you can do this, the world needs that Camelot. Let me help you figure out how to stand this thing up and make something happen. So yeah, that's the adventure.
Speaker 1:So first question I know it might be off the deep end, but we'll go deep is truly how difficult is branding, for maybe it's individual business, whatever. Do we overthink it as business leaders or businesses, or is it truly something that we need to have a better skill set in, tuned with the brand in or, sorry, the actual actions for the branding?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the first myth that we need to address when it comes to branding is that we think of branding as advertising and, and it's not. I mean, advertising is one piece of that, I suppose, but it might be one of the weakest, least important pieces. Branding is how you impact the lives of the people that you serve. I mean, that's, that's the deal, and and we've seen a lot of brands that have world-class advertising and really cool storytelling and the way they actually show up isn't great. In fact, let me, I'm going to pick on a brand right now that it's semi unfair, but I'm going to pick on McDonald's. So maybe you got listeners outside the US. That's a whole other deal. Mcdonald's International is an interesting study.
Speaker 2:Mcdonald's US, tragically, is kind of infamous in our country for lack of excellence. Kind of the cheapest experience, surly, staff, dirty place. You know, listen, it's convenient if you're on the road. You got nothing else and once in a while you get like you get lucky and the fries just happen to come out good. I mean no offense to my Chick-fil-A friends, but McDonald's has the best fries in the business when they're fresh, but but unfortunately McDonald's is in a place now where we don't trust them to do it with excellence every time. And so, listen, last year McDonald's spent over $1.5 billion on marketing and advertising it just in the domestic US. This isn't global and it's a world class art. I mean, you know, da, da, da, da, right, even if you don't eat McDonald's, you finish that little ditty in your head and like you know it and there's these cool, heartwarming stories and beautiful pictures. They have a world class advertising. And the truth is the brand of McDonald's is pretty dead gum, cheap and low. Because of the way they impact our lives falls short of what we expect or experience in other places. Their competitors Like it's just not great.
Speaker 2:So it's a little bit like you know, like if you and I are, brand is my, our relationship, it's our reputation, it's our connection. So you know, if I'm kind of a jerk and or you know, don't follow, don't follow through and do all that stuff, but every now and then I send you like really cool Facebook photos, like look me and my buddy Ryan, and at the end of the day you're like do that when we hang out he's actually not that nice to me, or he doesn't show up all the time, or he says stuff and he doesn't follow through. You know, I loaned him that 20 bucks. He still hasn't given it back to me. Six months later he asked me for another 20 bucks, like what's he do? So it didn't matter how cool your pictures are, if the actual relationship it.
Speaker 2:So the brand, the brand is not your advertising. In fact, you annoy people if you have really fancy advertising and it doesn't match the way you show up the brand. Really the heart of it is how are you impacting their lives? And everyone wants to go to this fancy stuff.
Speaker 2:And you heard me say the first major fundamental about building a great brand is building trust. The first question our customers are asking us is can I trust you? Will you deliver on the promises you make? Does it work? Are you on time? Or the people decent to me Like just fundamental, not the fancy stuff, and until they trust you, none of the other stuff matters.
Speaker 2:We say trust is first in sequence and in priority, and you get trust through operational excellence. So this is the first thing we usually dealing with. In fact, I spent just last business day like the end of last week is the beginning of a week when we're recording this. The end of last week I spent all day with a client and we just talked about their operational excellence, nuts and bolts, because that's where you live and die and until you get that right, nothing else matters. So, yeah, branding, yeah, yeah. Eventually we get to have some fun, cool conversations about how you get your message out and your core customer personas and all these beautiful fun things. But, man, that doesn't matter. If you don't get the, if your fries aren't fresh every time I walk in right, then I don't care how cool your advertising campaign is.
Speaker 1:Are you only working with brick and mortar companies, or are you actually working with internet-based companies too?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know totally, working with lots of internet-based companies, service companies, even nonprofits. The model we have is kind of a fundamental it's not the end Now. We have some industry specific folks on our team, so, like I got an AI guy who works with our tech folks a lot, we got three folks with software backgrounds. I've got 18 folks on my staff, so we've also got people whose specialty is in brick and mortar and retail, but we got folks who, especially, is like manufacturing. We got a whole construction division, so there's various applications. The examples I tend to use, though, are these visible B2C brands that everybody knows. Like you say, apple or McDonald's we all know what you're talking about, but probably 60, 65% of our clients are in that B2B technical space, including a lot of enterprise software communicators, folks like that. So no same deal. It's just what counts on.
Speaker 2:Trust changes right, so the details change. So if you're software, then what's trust? Is uptime, how smooth? The UX is right? Is this easy to navigate? Can I find the information? I mean all that basic stuff that the boring air quotes, boring stuff of like did I build the system with excellence so that it flows smoothly and that don't get the spinning circle of death and the computer and all that stuff. So yeah, it totally applies. Just, what's trust? Is it a clean table or is it a clean UX? So same principles very different details.
Speaker 1:So you said something about construction which is kind of near and dear to my heart because we're in real estate development. But the question that kind of goes down that path is, if it's trust and you have those, let's say it's construction, let's just go with that because you guys are working with it and you have a construction team and a crew. It's all about operations and efficiencies and I can tell you, with being in the space, the front end piece of trust starts with and people think I'm crazy is the actual bid. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:So, and I say this because I, literally before we got on this podcast, I was talking to one of our GCs that is doing a deal for somebody that's very near and dear to our heart and one of the markets we're in, and they've been three weeks trying to mess around with a bid and I told them you guys are going to lose the trust of that customer, one but two. You're also now going to start putting harm coming the other direction towards us, because we're the ones that introduced you to them and they see your work. The quality work is great. The problem is the GC doesn't have bandwidth to be able to effectively block and tackle his bids and time he needs to delegate. And we've had this discussion. That's what we were talking about is we've got to get on that delegation. So that trust piece and I circle back around is that is, how do we do that when we're solo peneurs or small business owners, to build that trust, when we just don't have the who in our life to make that really work?
Speaker 2:Oh, I totally relate to that. I think I mentioned a decent size team now, but that's not how it started. I mean, it was literally just a solo shop myself and then eventually, me and my assistant and slowly building it up over the last 20, some years now 23, 24. So, yeah, been there for many years. In fact that was one of the problems I had. I hit that wall where I was the bottleneck and eventually it was even that team going where I had I don't know, probably five or so consultants, maybe six at the time, but I was still the one writing all the proposals, putting the bids out to the clients. We'd have the conversation because I knew it best, right, like this is my baby, and that I tell you it was one of the most risky, like emotionally risky things to let go of. It was easier for me to say, oh, you go execute, but I know how to price and sell this up. And I also tell you when I finally trained somebody and got them going on, that they more than paid for themselves in that early, that first year out of the gate it's been it like totally took us to the next level in terms of capacity because and you know this, ryan, you've probably talked about this a bunch, but time kills deals. I mean, like every 24 hours it's like you lose half of the value of their interest and it's like dang, dang, dang. Within a week this thing is already like I don't know. Maybe I mean ideally, someone's talking real estate.
Speaker 2:We work with three or four folks. There are systems set up. You, within 20 minutes or less, have some immediate conversation. You can automate some of this stuff so that at least the first level of information starts getting sent immediately. But then, yes, there's that last intelligent touch. Right, you need somebody who's a pro, who gets your space, because you know some of the bids pretty basic. Right, here's the materials cost. That's pretty straightforward, plug and play.
Speaker 2:But you got to add your expertise. You have your own unique processes. You got your team, but, man, I would say one. It's not as unique as you'd think and I'd say that for myself. I'm like but who can do it like me? Well, here's what I did. I had somebody shadow me for a while. I'd just say, like, be a part of these conversations, join the call, watch and I'll write it. I'll talk to you about why I wrote through this. So I didn't.
Speaker 2:My training wasn't like stopping everything and do it. It just come with me while I do some of this stuff. And then I shadowed them while they did a few and they got most of it right and it was a couple of nuances Like I would say this right, and what actually happened is in the explaining and the processing. They just took a bunch of notes and they ended up creating a little rule of thumb like oh for this, we do this for this, and they put a bunch of little template spreadsheets together. You could just plug this in.
Speaker 2:And for a little while I observed, and by the end of the year I was like you got this and within 12 months now there was a little bit of a risk of money up front, right, I'm, but let me say it was part-time at first. I mean I got a full-time guy run. In fact have two people on my sales team now in addition to me that run and do all this stuff. That that are you know. So two, three of us full-time working on that stuff. But man, that was part-time, one guy at the beginning. I want to say 10 to 15 hours a week. I mean it wasn't crazy commitment. It was a contractor. It was a buddy who it was actually one of my consultants who knew my space enough they could start speaking into it, and I'm trying to give these details because maybe this would, maybe this will help the guy you're talking to. Maybe you can listen to this episode or or other folks in similar space. Pick one of your better leaders, one of your foreman's one, one of your agents, right, who gets your space a little bit and say, hey, let's just try this for two, three months. See what it's like. They shadow you a little bit, they help you do a few things, and it could totally change your business.
Speaker 2:Time is the most critical factor in all the sales process. Honestly, I'm gonna say this like shocking. It's more than even the nuances of the bit, because that's part of what I was rest like no, I'm gonna get that last, like one to two percent. I'll know the client in the story and be able to say, no, actually we should have rounded up a little. They wish it added that extra coaching session and they would have loved it and I can't.
Speaker 2:I mean honestly, ryan, I am probably still the best at getting the little last nuances out of the contract and I lost more deals, trying to get that last one to two percent. That then it would be totally not worth it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I made a little bit more per deal and I probably lost Six to ten deals a year Because I was taking two, three weeks just to reply. By that time it's like you got to be kidding me. And now my team replies within 24 hours with basic templates and then we customize, and every once in a while I probably could have got a little more. But man, that speed, it is so critical.
Speaker 1:So can we go back to that starting point, because I think that's that's a big thing and and I'll raise my hand because I have a little bit of that issue Just recently, in the last let's call it 3045 days, after two years of fighting the IRS, we got our 501c3 approved.
Speaker 2:That's a process, man I I've been through that with some of my organizations. That's uh yeah.
Speaker 1:I Honestly raised my hand and I could swear on bibles, whatever. I know nothing about 501c3, so I'm starting from the ground up. I've got a couple people on my board, but I really need to find somebody that can help me Do the grant writing and do donations and stuff like that. And I'm doing my goals for 2024 and I'm working through that. And what you just said really resonated with me is I need to find somebody that is willing to come on maybe 10 or 15 hours.
Speaker 1:I like that initially, have a little bit of a risk there, uh, on capital but also find somebody that can compliment me in skills and also show me but also I can show them the passion for what we're trying to do through the nonprofit, which is financial literacy, financial coaching to get people into homes to where they're not renters for the rest of their life. So I mean that's, that's a struggle and I hear you through that. I guess the question is we don't have to use my 501c3. I'm just talking about from the Getting from that stage to the next stage. What are some nuggets and some tips that we can? We can use To get us there and make sure that we take that next step?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's. There's three phases. I've been through this a lot in every different part of my business, when I help clients with this and then I Live it myself. Right, that's how we do it. So first phase I would say is learn before you hire. There are books, podcasts, articles you need to put in, and my rule would be you need to put in about 100 pages of learning Before you bring somebody on, because you don't know what you don't know, you don't know the kind of person you need, you don't know the kind of nuance, and this costs Almost no money, maybe free.
Speaker 2:It depends on you know podcasts and articles free. Maybe you want to buy a few books. You might shell out 50 bucks tops. You might shell out 15 bucks and get some Kindle books, but and just read some stuff, put at least 100 pages in, and I say 100 pages kind of quotes. Like you know, I would count a podcast like that. This count says, uh, I don't know, probably a good 40 or 50 pages. Right, it's a little mini book if you get a good episode. And so you, you've put in a few hours of of getting some some knowledge. Well, we're the best, are. Now.
Speaker 2:This is the second part, then I would say, depending on your situation, you got one of two options. If you have some capital saved up, then the ideal option is you get somebody who's world class for a very short period of time You're. The value difference between like A plus and A minus in some of these categories is a game changer. So, like non-profit grant writing I've done this. I'm the board of couple of nonprofits. We've been through this journey, started up. Both of these are start up nonprofits back in the day and so. So trying to learn like the grant writing process is like a lot of things, like a like real estate development and others. There are industry nuances, that off you get this and this and this and you say it this way oh no, these guys don't want that, but they want this. It makes a huge difference.
Speaker 2:And so in those early days you you get a basic understanding through some reading and then what you do is you know enough to know who's truly good and if you can afford them it might cost. You want to make numbers up right. You could get a cheap grant writer for 25 bucks an hour. Maybe you get a really good grant writer could be as much as 50 bucks an hour. It's twice as much. Okay, these might not be the exact number, depends on your type and your grant, but maybe it's twice as much as cost to get a good grant writer at first. It's worth it Because if they're truly good now this is why you do.
Speaker 2:Your hundred pages are probably five hours first, right, you put your five hours in. Now you have just enough context to tell the difference between the who's good and not good, right. Then you get the really good one and within three months six months tops you've just downloaded world class stuff into your system. But they're not a great long term play. No offense, I'm one of those guys. I'll tell my own clients please don't use me long term, right? I'm. We're not here to ultimately be your ultimate. The ultimate solution is that you learn and grow. So hire me and I will do it with you, and eventually you will be in a place where you can, we say, right off in the sunset without us, right?
Speaker 2:The metaphor we like to use is we're going to teach you how to ride a bike. Now, there are some folks you could say oh well, listen, you can read a book about riding a bike and then, good luck, you're on your own and that's. That's a rough way to learn how to ride a bike, because because there's some physical skill involved. But you could swing to the other end of the spectrum and you'll find partners who say, oh listen, don't worry about it, we have a two seater bike, like I, just hop on the back, I'll do all the writing for you. And that feels really nice at first. But the problem is, ryan, you still don't know how to ride a bike. You're dependent on them and they've kind of got you over a barrel.
Speaker 2:What I like to do best is find a partner and tell them this up front who's run alongside you while you ride the bike? They might like so we'll hold the backseat of the bike, right? I've got four kids. I helped them all learn how to ride their bikes. You kind of hang on to the bike and keep it a little balanced, and but they said then eventually you're just like you run, you let go of the seat and you're still running next to them and they're peddling, they don't even really, and at some point you're like you got this and that's. That's when they ride off in the sunset and they're like you can ride a bike.
Speaker 2:Now. That kind of partnership might cost more than like getting the the cheapest guy you know who's like. You know my aunt, susan. She can pull this off right. Maybe your answer world class professional, but my aunt is not a grant writer, so like. So you pull all that stuff together and you're like I could have probably save a little money up front. The first three to six months, if you can afford it. Spend a little money and then just get the world class pro and learn from them. They run alongside you while you do it right. And then you say great, contract over. Now that we have all this tools, guess what? And Susan suddenly is a really cool option, because I got all these templates from the pros and now we just got to go fill in the blanks and at that point in time you should know what you're doing and you roll forward, but it can be very part time. I mean five hours a week, 10 hours a week, you know, three month.
Speaker 2:You said a couple of deliverables, like, hey, we're going to help, we did this for some of our online program, brought somebody on and said hey, you're world class, we this our first thing. We just launched an online program where we'd running the beta right now, so about to make some tweaks, and then we haven't even publicly announced it yet. So maybe by the time this episode comes out, well, we'll have announced it, but maybe not right on that edge. So, but I said we brought in a team and said let's build this for me and figure it all out, because I know my content. But I've not done an online course before. Well, technically, I did one, like 15 years ago, back when 16 years ago, I was back on staff at Chick-fil-A.
Speaker 2:But just say, technology change a little bit in 16 years. So, yeah, yeah, we needed some updates. But yeah, once we got that figured out, now I'm taking it back, I'm going to make my own little tweaks and say, okay, I got the system, we got the tools, we've seen how other people do it. Now we'll make it our own and we'll run forward without them. That approach that three phases, learn a little bit, put in about five hours or hundred pages, right, get a pro to come help you figure out how the system works and then in house it. You outsource it at first, but do the specific kind of outsourcing, not the two seater bike, the kind of outsourcing this is come with me like I'll pay you to help us stand this thing up, and then you in source it and that's phase three. And then, man, you're running with a system at in house profitable prices and it takes off. Now the option I said, if you have the option, I'll just throw this little asterisk on here If you don't have the capital, because, honestly, when I started, man, I was running super lean.
Speaker 2:This was a great, grand, exciting, fun stuff, but it wasn't something I planned for in advance. I didn't have a year's worth of salary, any of that. I just did a ton of reading and ton of experimenting and self taught myself some of the stuff. And so you can, if you don't have cash, you can just, instead of reading a hundred pages than I I was, my, I say I say read five books. You can find five books on almost any topic in the world. Put in five books worth of time and, honestly, you will know more than 90% of everybody else in the world on that topic.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's a that's a good way. It's funny thing is you talk about reading and this can be a digress, but I'll come back is I read that the average American reads less than a book a year and I'm thinking that's, that's crazy, and I didn't think of that in going through high school and college. I was never a big reader. I left school, went to corporate America and probably in the last three or four years I become a consumer of reading to where I push myself every year. It started with reading 20 pages a day, then it became a chapter, then it became two chapters and now it's. Can I read a book in a week, dude, that's like. Well, it's the only way to self learn.
Speaker 1:But this is, this is where the challenge, this is where the challenge in the rub is, and I'm coming back to it is, if you're not willing to put that time in to actually learn your business and be that person that it could be I don't want to say the expert, but pretty close to the expert level how are you supposed to find the right person that will be the expert to replace you? It doesn't happen. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2:No, it. Listen you if you're not willing to learn in our given day and age. Man and and I say reading, I throw an asterisk on that right like this podcast can be quality stuff. It's about getting content in, get new and meaningful ideas. Podcasts I do. I read a lot, but I also listen to a lot of podcasts. I was listening to one this morning. Listen to podcasts, get books, put a Ted talks on during lunch. Listen.
Speaker 2:If you aren't willing to do some learning in our day and age, then I don't think you've picked. Maybe we need to back up and have another conversation. Like are you even in a field you care enough about? Like is this the right career? Are you doing work? Because it's never been easier to get world-class content I mean in interesting, entertaining, profound. You can get that. Listen even 15 years ago, trying to get some of the people you wanted to get. Like, if we want to have conversations with world-class guys, you'd have to pay Hundreds of dollars to go and travel to a conference, sit there, take notes, try to get 45 minute session with some of these big-time guys.
Speaker 2:Right, and I did that man, I did a lot of these things back in the day. Now you name it, everybody from Elon Musk to To Jim Collins I mean some of the big, huge, famous people pick your industry the best in the world. You can find them on podcast and articles. A lot of them have written books. It's just like get the dead gum content. So, yeah, I'd stop and do like a heart check. If you're not willing now, maybe they're gonna need to take some time to work up to Ryan level. I, you know, I don't know about book a week is that might be a?
Speaker 1:Star, I would say I'm short because I am not a book a week because everything else is going on. So right now I just finished my 14th or 15th book, so I'm a little bit a little bit 14 or 15 books more than most Americans.
Speaker 1:No, no, I got it, but I mean, but that's also because I'm reading stuff that I want to consume. I mean one of it I found books on nonprofits. I found books on, you know, fundraising. I found books on Mindset shift, and the one that I've read three times and it's just now starting to stuck is stick is. It's not how, it's who.
Speaker 2:And that's Dan Sullivan.
Speaker 1:Yes Dan.
Speaker 2:Sullivan.
Speaker 1:But it took me three times to read it to actually understand that it's the who in this process and that's why we're talking about it. We're talking about the who and it's like for the longest time in my corporate career and and also entrepreneurship, it was always how, and you wonder why I didn't get anything done sometimes Because we try to think we have to do it all ourselves.
Speaker 2:Listen, the job is not to do all the tasks. The leaders job is to make sure all the tasks get done. That might mean picking yourself, but it might mean picking somebody else to say this is just the list of things that have to get done. What's the best way to do that? So, 100% and so yes, this is kind of a gut check. If you're not willing to go get free world-class content, then do you even care about what you're working on? Because you're right, it's not. You don't just pick a random book. You I look at my goals and I say what am I trying to work on? What problems am I facing? And then I flip through my podcasts and book lists and like who wrote something or recorded something about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah and then, like I was already gonna think about this anyway. So here's the other bonus. I would say I'll say two other bonuses for getting content. Um, one is it doesn't have to be so. I read a lot as well, and sometimes people will hear how much I read and they're like, wait, well, you just like sit around for hours every day like I couldn't do that. Oh no, I I couldn't do that either.
Speaker 2:The ability to run this stuff in the background while you do other things is a game Like a life changer. While I drive, I listen to podcasts and audiobooks. Yeah, once in a while I'll put music on, but more and more I'm like I just want to get an interesting conversation going on in the background While I do dumb stuff like fold the laundry. I don't know about you, that's just mind-numbingly boring, but I Do my laundry. So there you go. There's 15 minutes, I get to listen to a little something and it makes laundry less painful. So there's things you just put it on the background. So that's the first thing get, find a good content source and then, if you can, put it in audio mode and put it on the background. Sometimes I'll even just pop my laptop open, just have it play like you know, put it on the bed while I'm folding laundry and it just runs. And Then the third thing is this and this might be more valuable than any other strategy stuff I say today you can listen faster than you think.
Speaker 1:I.
Speaker 2:Read an article, I don't know 10 years ago now, 12 years ago and the guy said hey, the human brain is capable of processing faster than most of us talk. And he said look down at your audio player. There's a little increased playback speed button. It's small, it's there, but it's usually, you know, they don't flash it with big colors and you just nudge it up. And, in my experience, most people I'm curious, ryan, I'll put you on the spot in a second to see where you're at here but most people can go to 1.25 or 1.5 speed without even blinking, like instantly. They're like oh, in fact, that might even be easier.
Speaker 2:I don't know how some of these audio book guys, I don't know who trains them, but they're like. And then the next point oh for the love, you're killing me, right? So 1.5 feels better to me than run for one speed for some of these guys. So so that's a get on. Get fine topics You're already wanting to work on. Put them in some sort of audio mode where you can play them and then Start fiddling with your playback speed. I have you. Have you done that if you you listening to it faster?
Speaker 1:I have, but I've done something different this year. That is really stepped my game up, at least for me. I use whisper sync with audible and Kindle. Yeah, so I hear I hear the words, I see it and I'm able to move it faster. Do I go past the one? Yes, but sometimes if it's something I really want to absorb, I'll just keep it at the one, but put my earbuds in and I just start going and I Literally can get lost in whatever I'm reading because I'm hearing it so quickly in my ears it's resonating, I'm visually seeing it. I'm like at the same time You're doing both, like have that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you're in the Kindle book it highlights where it's talking and it keeps going through it. So visually I'm engaged. But my brain is also hearing it at the same time and it's just now clicking and that's how I'm able to turn so many pages at a time and just like, okay, now we can speed it up a little bit. Some of the people that read yes, they're boring, so I speed it up a little bit. It makes their voice sound a lot better. But it's just, it's clicked with me. Someone it was actually one of my guests two years ago Told me about. I'm like nah, come on, man, how are you supposed to read? And then I tried it and I got hooked dude.
Speaker 2:Yes, this is yes, it's exactly the kind of stuff I'm talking about and you're right, there's some of them. I want to slow back down. It's, it's detailed and it's rich. Yes, maybe I even want to take notes. But let's be honest, some of this stuff, especially if you're reading three, four things on a topic, right like you get to the next one, you know half of it already and it's the, it's the in-between stuff that you're like, okay, got it, got it. Oh yeah, this chapter is the new stuff, and then you slow down and dig in. It's so much better this approach than than I listen. I still have hard copy books sitting on my desk right over there, but, but at the same time, adding that audio layer man, it's been a game changer, changed my life. So get better content in and you're gonna get better output out. In fact, I just was talking about this with one of my clients we 2024 planning, right, we're recording this at the end of 23 and we're starting that whole process and having all these conversations and everybody wants to think about your outputs.
Speaker 2:How hard do I work? Right, what can I? How can I squeeze tighter and get more? And I think the single easiest way to get better outputs is Improve the quality your inputs. Yes, better ideas. Maybe work with better partners, right. Hire somebody like who's a pro to work with you, get a better like, get a, get a new podcast in there, find a new person to give you advice, get a coach or join a peer group and Get better inputs. And what do you know? By natural cause and effect, without you having to squeeze tighter or grind harder, if you just get better inputs, well, guess what? Your outputs just increased and so you want to perform better next year. You could do everything you're doing now and just increase the quality of the ideas coming into your life.
Speaker 1:And you've got to put that effort into that, and that's one of the things on the front end I I'm not I struggled with in the past, but this year, in last year and this year I have not. I mean, I'm a looking on the other side of my camera. I've got my whiteboard and I have like a hierarchy of my goals. Now I tie my hierarchy of goals to the whom or the who, yeah, and that's where I'm. I'm trying to up my game this year. So I've got some questions and I got introduced and, by all means, I'm not bashful, it's have you heard a score?
Speaker 1:SC already yeah so I got introduced to them through a buddy of mine and I've got a meeting with so they're all retired business professionals in their specific field or whatever. And I was like I need help with nonprofit, I nonprofits and just operationally and setting up. I mean because I've done all the basic stuff. But there's so many other pieces that move within the business and I'm like Score, and I looked it up and I'm like, oh, it's funded by the federal government. Oh, okay, interesting, didn't know that, but it's all related around housing and that's that's really where our nonprofit is going.
Speaker 1:And I got to meet two gentlemen that are, I would say, world-class fundraisers but also world-class nonprofit Executives that have been on some pretty big boards that they're doing this for you know, kicks and giggles now because they're retired and they don't need to do it. So I have a call with one of them this week and I'm looking forward to that. But don't be bashful to use free resources, because that's how you get start getting to step up, because I'm hoping and I don't know if this is Going to happen I get introduced to somebody outside of the score model yes, that I could potentially, like you say, bring on board for five or ten hours. That's world-class that I can learn from and then start Moving up the chain to where more capital comes in. I have the, I have more ability to provide or spend more money on another world-class person and Grow and go and just it grows from there and I and this is going back.
Speaker 1:It's kind of about life we look at. We look at social media, as I got to put out a video. It's gonna. It has to go viral or I'm giving up, we're gonna. I kind of equate that to starting a business or hitting that wall, to where you're like I cannot do everything and you expect yourself to take the burden on your back, like you said earlier, and be able to do everything. But really we're the bottleneck, were the, we're the trouble in this whole process and until you get out of that mindset, nothing changes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah again, it's not. You don't have to do it all and you don't have to do it at famous, world-class level from day one and Find a process, find some area, some content that you enjoy Enough that you would read about it, that you would Post about it, that you would keep working on it, even even if it doesn't go viral overnight. Like it's fine. It's enough intrinsically meaningful and valuable to you, fits your skill sets, all that, and then just get the core done and then, as you start growing, you're right list your things, I'm gonna learn about them and I'm gonna find somebody to help me with them. When you put those two things together, magic happens. That's. That's how the game works, man.
Speaker 1:Hey, your background just went magic, whatever you apparently we got some sort of clever AI.
Speaker 2:Make they like my point there, right.
Speaker 1:That's yeah. Yes, I didn't. I didn't know because I've never seen that before. So that's interesting. I that'll have to be. We'll have to use that as a short reel. You know we'll get that. So that's that worked out really well. So we also talked earlier and I want to transition into it is. You just wrote a book? What's the book on?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's about some of this stuff. How do you build a legendary brand? That's called make your brand legendary and it's these what are the fundamentals? How do you build trust? How do you actually do that? Cuz, and it's not a hype book like, oh, you should try it's. It's a. These are the tactics and tools.
Speaker 2:And I bounce around from here's the principle and then I give examples from like software and Manufacturing and retail and just kind of go through the range and say here's the way people have done it. And then I give you discussion things, you know kind of homework questions hey, how, what does this look like for me and what's my number on this? And so we go through this model we call the customer experience engine and that's been all the like. You stack these systems and none, none of the systems are particularly Crazy or expensive. But what happens is when you stack them together, yeah, it comes out feeling like magic to your customers and they're like these guys, they're amazing. So I'm great. Brands are doing it and show you how you can do it and it's a very like how to step by step. Here's the. Here's the first system, here's the way other people done it. Go, figure out your version and so, piece by piece, you build your own customer experience engine. It's super fun.
Speaker 2:We hit number one on Amazon in our category in the last couple months of won some book awards. It's kind of exceeded my expectations, actually. So super fun. Man Name of the book yeah, make your brand legendary. And they can get information on the book or me or any of this stuff. Just go to my website, which is Scott was knee act calm, that's sco tt w o z ni a k com, and you'll see my book and my company and my newsletter and all the fun stuff that we're putting together for folks who Want to figure out how. What does it look like to be a world-class player?
Speaker 1:So I mean I will. I will have to check out the book. Thanks, I'm gonna. I will have to Put it on the Kindle. Do you have whisper sync? Did you do auto?
Speaker 2:You know I had to right totally, did all the bolt and I got to record the audio, which was fun for me personally. So yeah, it's not gonna be boring and Kindle so you can whisper, sync it. You know I had to do it cuz I, like I can't talk about this and not do it right, like a little almost an integrity check there. So heck yeah that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I will definitely check it out because it I Could use all the help I can get right now in the nonprofit night, which I think is gonna translate into our real estate side, and then maybe at the set at some point I'll work with my general contractors and get those guys going to. It's just it's a block and tackle, block and tackle, and I'm just at that point, to where we don't need in. I don't need much more blocking it's. It's more tackling and getting those people around and making that line work, because it's all about surrounding yourself with the who and and and how those people can help. I mean it's, it's big. I don't know why it took me this long, but it has been in this where we're at. So I mean it's, it is what is enough about me. Best place. I know you already said it, but could you repeat your website?
Speaker 2:Oh, oh. Yep go ahead. Yeah, one of the best again thing. I'm gonna try that again. Yeah, if you want again. Here's a repeat of the website. It's wwwscotwasniaccom. Scotwoz, niak, and that'll have links to me and all the stuff I'm up to.
Speaker 1:Awesome. And then you're are you bringing on clients today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, sure, we, we've always got space Open. You know I've got Depends on how big the project is. You may have to wait a little bit to kind of get in the queue, but we are always up for kind of checking out what your options are. So yeah, if you want to, whether you want just a coach to help you figure things out, or you want to kind of do a deep dive, we'll do an assessment of your organization and say, hey, here's your engine. You got these three pieces. This is the one you're missing and we'll build a custom plan for you. But or you just want to check out the book and get the content for yourself. We got a lot of options for folks.
Speaker 1:Awesome. I will make sure your website is linked and also the book is linked in the show notes. Sir, thank you very much for coming on. It's been a great conversation, but the Nuggets and the pieces he dropped were one invaluable, but two just reaffirms what we're trying to do. Is you got to download as much content as you can to get yourself in a better space.
Speaker 2:That's it. Yeah, man, learn it a learner. Keep it up, and you're doing great stuff. Thank you, sir.
