Intro:   

Hey friend, welcome back, or welcome to the Trend Report. I'm excited that you've joined me for today's conversation. I'm Sid Meadows. I'm a business advisor, coach and longtime student of the office furniture industry. My goal is pretty simple is to share information with you that will help you and your business grow and move forward each and every day, and today's episode is something new, actually, that we've never actually done before, and this is a follow-up show.

We received such great feedback from all of you about my conversation with Adrienne Leal about sales, content and thought leadership. I mean it really was amazing. Some of you reached out on LinkedIn, commented on our LinkedIn posts. Others of you picked up the phone and called me, text me, sent me emails just about the ideas that we shared. You had questions about it, and so I thought it'd be really great to have Adrian come back today as a follow-up show, and we're going to dive into the basics of how to go about starting your content journey. So that's what we're going to do today. It's going to be a bit like a brainstorm, where Adrian and I share back and forth ideas that will help you start or improve your content journey. So let's dive into the show today.

Sid: 

 Hey Adrian, welcome back.

Adrian:  

Thank you, Sid, thanks again for having me back, and I just want to say thank you to the audience. I got a lot of really kind messages on LinkedIn, a lot of great feedback. So thank you to all of you who reached out and just found the episode valuable and found kind of some of the things that I said on the episode valuable too. So thank you, and I'm excited to be back today Just kind of share, like Sid said, some practical steps to how to get started and some different tools you can be using, some different tactics, just so you can kind of take the pressure off yourself a little bit.

Sid:

That's right. We wanted to make this simple and easy and we don't have a framework, you know, a five-step framework for you. We have some ideas and we're going to kind of go back and forth about each of these and hopefully maybe we end up, Adrian, with a five-step proprietary framework that we could, you know, trademark and publish and sell to the people right?

Adrian: 

That's the goal. And remember everybody, this is meant to be fun. Content creation posting it's meant to be fun. It's meant to put yourself out there. So just take a load off, take the pressure off yourself and just have some fun with it. You're going to have some laughs and find some blooper reel content too, and don't be afraid to make those videos too. I love doing blooper reels for myself because it helps bring just the pressure off myself. Okay, we're all human. Have fun. Content creation is meant to be fun.

Sid: 

Yeah, it is, and it's funny when people like post a B roll is what they call it right.

Adrian:

Yes.

Sid: 

Blooper reel B roll. But it's funny and I like doing it from the screenshot perspective of when I take 25 takes to record a one minute video, because I can't get my thoughts out clearly at one time because I don't edit right, and so I screenshot it and put it on Instagram. How many takes does it take to make a one minute video? Reminds me of that owl. You won't even know this, but how many licks to get to the center of the lollipop?

Adrian: 

Oh yeah.

Sid:  

I just dated myself. 

Adrian:

Oh my gosh. Oh, it's a great commercial.

Sid:  

Anyways, let's dive in.

I want to start with a follow-up question from the previous episode, which is a couple episodes back. It'll be linked down in the show notes for you. If you haven't listened to that one, go listen to that one first. But, Adrian, let's just briefly talk for a moment about why is it important for people, specifically sales age, to create content?

Adrian:  

Because it sets yourself apart from your competitors out there, especially working in a commoditized industry where a lot of the products that we're selling and services are very similar across the board, and one of the things that can help you stand out is to be consistent on social media, positioning yourself as the subject matter expert in whatever field that you're in. Because what's happening right now is decision makers are getting a lot younger, and one of the things they're doing when they're making a decision is they're not making it based off of the company's website. The first thing they're going to do, either before they meet with you or after they meet with you, is they're going to social proof you, so they're going to go to your LinkedIn, or they're going to go to your Instagram or Facebook and they're going to see what you have out there. They're going to see what message you're putting out there, and so if you've already created kind of a credible presence on social media, it's going to help give you an extra advantage when you're out there trying to win deals.

Sid: 

Totally agree with you and I believe everybody should have a presence, specifically from a business perspective, on LinkedIn. You don't have to have a presence on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook, right, but definitely on LinkedIn you need to be present and you need to show yourself right, show your picture, what you do, why you do it, those kinds of things. Because at the end of the day, if you can't be found, then customers aren't going to come to you, and we talked about that a little bit in the last time. We are definitely in a seeking economy. I mean, people are seeking information, they're seeking solutions to their problems and you want to be discovered as someone that can provide a solution to their problem, and you can't do that if you're a ghost right.

Adrian:  

100%. If you were in sales, you need to have a presence at least on LinkedIn. There's no excuse not to have a presence on LinkedIn anymore. And think about it this way In sales, we're making relationships with people in person, and then we're sending them emails or via phone call. So this is a traditional way of developing relationships in sales. Imagine you'd be able to develop relationships with clients on this digital platform which is social media and LinkedIn is a big one. So if you're putting content out there and potential clients or people that you have relationships with are interacting with your content, they're developing a relationship with you just off of that content, just off of them interacting with that content, and you didn't have to do anything but just post. So you can be out selling, you can be out calling and your content that you've created, that you've posted, is out there developing relationships with people without you having to do anything, Just post.

Sid: 

Yeah, totally agree. That's it, totally agree. So, to a couple of you that reached out, specifically Sean, I know you're listening, so this is a step-by-step guide for you. Sean, I still have not seen the video that I've been waiting on. Yes, I'm calling you out, Sean, but it's okay. Wyatt also reached out to me. We had a great conversation with Wyatt about his ideas, and so we may reference a little bit of the things we talked about with some of you in today's conversation. But, Adrian, let's dive in. So for me, I think, the very first thing that you, the question that you need to answer, as you're considering your content journey, is why do you want to do this?

Adrian:  

100%. It's got to be a why behind it. You can't just post, just to post. There has to be a messaging and a reason. There has to be something that you're passionate about and that you stand for, because it has to come across in that content. 

Whether you're making videos or posting articles, or posting you know a bunch of words on screen, something, but you have to stand for something. You can't be the you know, the gal or guy that's just posting random things here and there because this has no meat to it. So find a why, find something that you're really passionate and excited about, and it should be something within your field, or at least relate it to something within your field. I'll give you a great example I use. I'm very passionate about mental health and so I use a lot of mental health statistics, a lot of mental health talks in my videos that are related to sales. So I relate sales with mental health, I pair the two and I create content based on that, because that's what I'm passionate about and it shows when I go and make this content and post it.

Sid: 

I love that and being passionate about it, I think is really important, because your belief, your passion for that topic comes through when you're being authentically you in content, especially video content. Your passion comes through in that right. So it's really important to do that. So I believe the first step is why do you want to do this? And the answer to that question should not be because my boss is telling me to do it right.

It shouldn't be that you got to want to do this in a way that is really impactful for you. So, which I think leads to the next question, which is what's your goal? So, when you think about your content journey, Adrian, what is your goal, as it is to relating to creating a content. 

Adrian:

That's a great next step, because you should have a purpose in mind. What message are you trying to portray right? What are you actually trying to get accomplished? Besides doing this because I have to do this right, it just should be a passion behind it, and for me it's always been about taking the pressure and anxiety away from selling, Because I noticed that especially younger folks out there getting new into sales because they want to make a good living but they don't understand the hard work that it takes to actually succeed in sales. And it can be very stressful, it's a lot of hard work, but there's a way to have fun, there's a way to take that stress and that pressure off. So the reason why I started making videos and most of the videos I make is just to help. Just one and a half minutes, just a simple piece of advice that can help take a little bit of that pressure off and create some practical advice for anybody listening to whatever I'm posting so they can go out and feel more confident selling whatever it is they're selling.

Sid:  

So, when you think about the goal, I think there's a lot of different ways to approach this. 

One of your goals could be to be established as a thought leader in your industry whatever industry that is, whether it's furniture, interior design, architecture, construction, real estate but that could be a goal is to be considered a thought leader or to establish your thought leadership. But I also want to say that it can be as simple as your goal is just to have fun and share information about what you're passionate about, and we're talking right now a little bit about business related. But if you want to go create TikTok videos that inspire people to go and do a hobby like pottery or candle making or whatever, and you're passionate about that, that's great. That's just having fun and sharing your knowledge. But you need to dive into what is your goal with doing this, Because it's kind of like when you're shooting a target with an arrow. If you just shoot it and there's no goal, there's no target for you to shoot at, you're just shooting an arrow in the wild and that's really not a strategy that's going to work.

Adrian:  

Yeah, and I want to share something a little bit deep that not everybody might agree with. But it's not about you. You remember, when you're posting content, it is not about you at all. It's about who you're reaching and, if you can take that mentality, it's like it's about. And if I'm making a video from posting content, you just think. Think about the people that you're trying to reach. Think about what one person that can take away, whatever it is you're saying in your video, whatever it is that you're going to post, just think about that one person and how that could impact their lives and take yourself out of the equation. It's going to help you feel so much more confident. Take the pressure off you and always remember that it's not about you. It is about who you're reaching.

Sid:  

I love that, and it actually ties into what my next point is. So, when you think about this, Adrian, what's your goal?

Adrian: 

My goal is again is to help people feel more comfortable in whatever it is that they're selling. I want people to come and have a great sales career and to feel comfortable in their own skin and to feel comfortable whether they're selling real estate, safety and security equipment, j&s office furniture, glass, it doesn't matter, I think, in any field that you're in sales. I love having a career in sales because it gives me a lot of flexibility. I have three kids and it just allows me to live the life that I want to live. But I know that there's a lot of hard work that comes with that and so I want to just share.

My main goal is to share that message, share my experiences, but also share like hey, these are some practical steps and blocking and tackling that can help you get at least 80% there. And then throw in some of that mental health aspect right. Throw in some of those stress relievers to help take care of that other aspect of sales, which is the mind F that you will have. We're dealing with rejection right, dealing with all these hurdles that you're going through. So I just keep that in mind every time is I'm just picturing a no matter what age sales rep watching my video getting prepared for a call or getting prepared for a big presentation, and they come across my video and it makes them feel better.

And the amount of DMs that I've gotten from people that, hey, I just was so nervous about my presentation. Your video popped up on my feed and I actually used whatever you said in your video as practical knowledge and used it in my presentation. It made me feel so much better and that, to me, makes this all worth it. And I've said this before a hundred times I don't care if I have one follower, 100, a thousand or a hundred thousand. If I can just impact one person at a time, that's all that matters One person.

Sid:  

That's all that matters, right? So for me, I think about what my goals are, and I have different goals based on the platforms that I'm on. So my LinkedIn goal is to give you information, tools and resources that will help you grow and your business grow. It's also the goal of my podcast. I say that in the very beginning, right, and so if I can share ideas or stories whether they're personal stories or videos or tips about certain things that help you think differently, or tips about certain things that help you think differently and as part of my goal, I want to challenge you. You may not agree with what I say, but if I make you think about something that's going on in your business and you take action to change it whether you changed it the way that I recommended or not is irrelevant. The fact that you heard me and it challenged you and you took action then I feel like I am accomplishing what I want to accomplish with my content. But less than 1% of the people that consume my content will actually reach out to me, which is okay. The people that do, I love it. If you've reached out to me in the past. It's heartwarming for me If you haven't reached out to me and you want to reach out to me, please do. And on that note, by the way, I keep forgetting to talk about this little feature On the top of the show notes, on the podcast and on the landing page, where you can see on the website, on Spotify as well as on Apple, there's a little link at the very top, for the show notes says this has send me a text. 

So if you want to it's not live, but if you want to send me a text about something you heard in the episode, like oh wow, that was great what Adrian just said about thought leadership, do it. Just click the little button, send me the text. It doesn't tell me who you are. It gives me your phone number, but that's it. I don't get your name, but there's a feature there that you can use. And if you disagree with me, send me a text. I want to know. Just kidding, put your name in there. No, but I love the feedback. So thank you all of you for that feedback, but I want to keep going, because I could talk about this for a while. The next thing that I think here is who is your audience, who is the one person that you're talking to. So, Adrian, how did you discover, or what was it that, because you said salespeople, is your one person, right, you know, in our industry, not in our industry, but sales people. How did you discover the one person?

Adrian: 

Yeah, it's just honestly. For me it started back in COVID because we just had a lot more time to just kind of observe what's going on in the world and observe people. And I just started noticing just a trend and it started with sales reps at dealerships and it was majority of them were the younger sales reps and you can just tell a lot of them felt very comfortable opening up to me and venting about the struggles that they're dealing with, on the rejections that they're getting, on not being able to get to inside design firms, and you can just visibly tell how stressed out they were. Because this is, they want to make a good living right, they want to succeed, they're hungry, but they're running into basic roadblocks and not every dealership, or not every organization in general, has the funding or the capabilities to be able to provide practical sales training or even to be able to provide any sort of guidance to help these individuals create a roadmap for them to at least get some wins under their belt, to at least create some confidence to go have a great career within that organization. So I started noticing this trend and that's when the light bulb went off. 

For me is if I can just create content that is light. Again, it's blocking and tackling. It's not spin selling or all these complex sales ideas that you read in these sales books, like the challenger sale and all these different books that are out there. For me it was like how do we get back to just blocking and tackling? Let's talk about the fundamentals that it's going to get you again 80% of the way, and then tying it back to mental health as well and how to deal with that. So it's just honestly observing the young set. 

I was upset within a dealership and seeing that there's a need out there. There has to be a voice in on top of that. For me it was of younger voice, a voice that they can resonate with, somebody that's gone through that not too long ago but can resonate with them, can kind of speak their language as well, because there are a lot of great sales tools out there. But me being able to speak kind of their language a little bit and come down to their level, especially the younger sales folks, helped me position myself as a subject matter expert with them as well.

Sid: 

So I think, when you're thinking about your audiences, there's a lot of different ways to do that, but I do think one thing that influences who we want to talk to is who we were 10, 15, 20 years ago, and what did we need back then? So, to a degree, Adrian, you're actually talking to your younger self when you were at a dealership. You're laughing. If you're listening on a podcast, he's got this big grin on his face. He's smiling. You're watching on YouTube. You can actually see it. So did I hit that nail on the head?

Adrian: 

You did. I feel like I'm in therapy right now. You should totally hit that and I actually, unknowingly, have been doing that. So you were a hundred percent right. I'm speaking to what I went through when I was in my mid twenties at a dealership, grinding it out, cold calling, setting up showroom tours, trying to hit my numbers each month, because at the time it was very rewarding, and so you saw. You see, the reward that you get for working hard and closing those deals. But, man, was it so stressful and I wish there was somebody there to help me guide me through, give me the fundamentals. But I just kind of figured it out on my own, and so you're correct. As I'm watching these other dealer sales reps during that time I started thinking about myself. It's like what advice did I need? What would have helped me through this dark time, to get me over that hump, to have the success that I need to make the financial amount that I would like to have to have a comfortable life?

Sid:  

So I want to give thank you for admitting or acknowledging that was spot on.

Adrian:  

That was great. Spot on, dude.

Sid:

I look back in the mirror and think, oh gosh, if I heard that 20 years ago, how would my life be different. Right, and honestly, people enjoy hearing about your journey. Whether you're directly sharing an experience or not, people really enjoy hearing about the struggles, the challenges that you went through. It's not all about the wins, right? 

I think the content creators that just share, win, win, win, win, me, me, me not really the right people, but I want to share something that I was talking to somebody on the phone about in content creation. We were kind of going through some of these questions and he wanted to share his journey of how yoga and jujitsu had changed his life and how he had gone from being bad habits, unhealthy, to yoga less stress, jiu-jitsu, you know and the impact that it had on him. And so I basically said well, who are you talking to? And there's two different people in this particular case that you could talk to. You could talk to young people, like 20-year-old boys in this case. I'm just going to use this as an example. 

This is not a consulting, but this is an example. You could talk to 20-year-old boys that need calm and structure in their life and it could impact. But you could also be talking to men over 50 who are at a point in their life that maybe their marriage isn't exactly what they want, their job isn't exactly what. Their stress is through the roof, their financial stress to the roof. They got three kids in college, I mean. There's so many things here and you can share your journey, in this particular case, of how yoga and jujitsu impacted you and help you become a happier, healthier person. So that's something really easy to do and you're thinking about your journey. Think about the people and go talk to both sets of people, because you can talk to both sets and you can actually see which one resonates more. Learn from your audience right, and then lean heavily into the ones that are actually engaging with you. So I think that's a way to do it too.

Adrian:  

Yeah, 100%, and being honest with yourself too. I think you know when no one's perfect and even if you're creating content and I've been posting a lot of, especially on Facebook and TikTok and Instagram a lot more broad mental health style content and sometimes I go back and when I'm struggling and going through some dark times, I go back and watch my own videos and I take my own advice. But it's also being vulnerable and you know being honest with yourself and that because if a viewer watches that, you know they will resonate more with somebody that's also struggled, it's also gone through some of those pain points and showing you how they overcame those pain points. It's you know, the audience resonate a lot more that way, versus somebody that just puts they're just perfect all the time. You know what I mean. So just being more authentic and real.

Sid:

Oh, a hundred percent. So this is an off the wall question, but somewhat related how much of the content that you create? Do you actually remember what you said?

Adrian:  

Oh, man, I would say a lot of the content that I create is based off of books that I've read. A lot of the content that I create is based off of books that I've read and I post the highlights and these great points. You know, when you read a book and you're like, oh, that's great, and you note it down and you hope you remember it. So I take it a step further and I actually I make a video on it and I and what I try and do, Sid, is I try and relate it to my life, yep, and so if I catch something in a book, boom, this is great. How do I relate it to my life? And I make a video and I create kind of my own piece of advice based on what the book was reading. So I'm not directly copying and pasting what the book is saying. I'm taking the knowledge from the book and I'm kind of routing in my head a little bit and I'm creating a way that I can portray that same message in my way that may resonate with people a little bit better. So, yes, I do remember a lot of the content that I post, because that's why I do it A lot of the times. 

I post is to remember a lot of stuff that I've read and I go back yes, and I and I've done this thing where on all platforms Facebook, Instagram and TikTok you can't do it on LinkedIn. And I've done this thing where on all platforms Facebook, Instagram and TikTok you can't do it on LinkedIn. But I've created these pictures. So if I you go back and go to like reels or you go back and go to like your TikTok stuff, the picture shows a description in the front. It'll say you know three steps on how to be a better seller. It'll say you know, learn how to lose control, so you can see what the topic of that video will be before you click on it. So it helps people go to your profile and pick and choose what they're going to watch, but also helps me go back and be like okay, I did post about this. Curious what I said and listen to it. And then I kind of listen to my own advice.

Sid:  

I've done that many times too. Actually, I think there's a lot to be said for identifying who you want to talk to. Right, try it, test it out, know the person. The person might be you 20 years ago, but I always encourage people we call this in the content creation world and, honestly, in business, you need it too your ideal customer persona, icp, google, icp. Go to chat, gpt as an example. Let's talk a tool for saying describe what you're doing. It will ask, ask it to ask you questions about your ideal customer. It'll create a persona for you. 

Right, there's lots of things that you can do to really understand, but I always picture somebody. Like in my mind. I have a mental picture of a person that has crossed my path or been the customer, or you know somebody that was part of my that. That's who I'm trying to talk to, and I visually see them and it might be me and it might be part of me that I went through something similar. So, try to visualize the person. A lot of people name them, because it does help you to remember. Hey, I'm talking to Susie salesperson today. Right, you can make them fun little names like that, but knowing who you're talking to is actually really going to help you zone in on the message, which is the next point that I have, which is what's your message, what's the message you're trying to get across and what are you going to talk about? So we started out with why do you want to do this, what's your goal, who's your audience and now, what's your message? So, Adrian, you've mentioned salespeople, mental health. How did you find your message?

Adrian:  

Yeah, it started with blocking and tackling of sales. If you go back and look at the my early YouTube videos and go back to my early tech talks, a lot of them are very sales driven and it's fundamental sales. It's how to generate buy-in, how to have a conversation in a meeting, how to cold call. It's a lot of how to's and just based on, again, blocking, tackling the fundamentals of what you need to succeed in sales. And what I've noticed is and I learned this from a content creator and this content creator has over 500,000 followers. I met him at a bar one time, showed him my content and he's like I love that you have one consistent way of doing things, which is the one, two and three. So if anyone's watching my videos, I do these videos where it's like hey, here are three ways to have a better presentation Number one, I list that. Number two and number three. So ways to have a better presentation Number one, I list that. Number two and number three. So that's my consistency, that's my core content that I create and, again, it's blocking and tackling sales.

But one of the things I did is I started venturing out to okay, that's my core, so I'm going to try something different and post it and see what kind of reaction I get. And that's when I started messing around with kind of ranting more about mental health topics and it's more me being raw, less scripted, more raw, speaking to the camera, speaking to the person that's looking at their phone, looking at their computer, and just speaking to them and giving them just a little bit of advice or making them feel better if they're going through something tough. But it's really mental health related. It's more meant to be inspirational and motivational, and so I sprinkled those in in my post and I started noticing that that was getting a bigger audience than the practical stuff.

So I kept my core, which was the practical one, two, three videos but I started really incorporating some mental health into those videos to retain that audience on top of my sales audience as well. So you'll start to notice if you play around with different things and don't get me wrong, there are some videos that I posted that got like 10 views. It was just bombed. There's some videos that just bomb and you're like you know what? That's just a bomb video. You don't need to delete it. Don't delete it, just keep it up there. But keep going, keep trying new things and you're going to start to see, feel who your audience is and you start to tailor kind of your messaging based on what the audience is resonating to.

Sid:  

So a couple of points here how many views you got, how many likes you got, how many people commented are considered vanity metrics. People look at them, people look at them. I look at them from podcasting, like how many downloads I get, how many in the first seven days? Right, I look at my likes and I get those are considered vanity metrics. But I believe if you do what Adrian and I do, which is create content to help people, which is what we do right, our messages are different, but that's what we do. The metric to me that really matters is when the people reach out to you directly, when you get the phone call, when you get the text message, when you get the email that says the article that you wrote today changed my life. The video that you put out helped me think about something differently and I changed my approach to a customer and I want to sale and those, to me, are the ones that really matter. So my encouragement to you don't get hung up in the vanity metrics. Don't get hung up on how many views it has and how many views it doesn't have. And oh well, last one got a thousand, this one got five. All it takes is one person. Just think about that one person that you're trying to help. It just takes that one person to take action. And here's the other thing I'm going to say about this you may never know that they took action. And so you're walking down the hall at Neocon and somebody grabs you by the shirt and says are you Sid? And I'm like yes, I am, and they thank you for your content. That has happened to me so many times. The first few times it happened to me I was embarrassed, like my face was turning red. And then I got. I became very humbled with it, and now I like bring them in and like sit down and talk to them and take pictures with them and want to know them more about them, because your content's helping people. You don't even know that it's helping yeah, helping businesses too. So there's another story about the power of content.

I had an episode that went out. This lady reached out to the brand that was on the episode and said hey, I heard you on the trend report. I really like what you have to say. Could we set up a meeting so that we could learn more about your product? A dealer reaching out to a brand ideal customer dealer for the brand asking for more information because she listened to the podcast. I'd never met her, she'd never commented on anything. I had no knowledge that she existed. I sent her a LinkedIn connection and thanked her for listening to the show and thanked her for reaching out to the client, because that's so important. So you may never know the things that are happening based on the content that you're putting out. But you may never know the things that are happening based on the content that you're putting out. But you got to know what your message is.

Adrian:  

Yeah, and focus on the impact that you're making. I have a quick story, Sid. It's somebody that reached out to me on Facebook, and this person I've never met in my life was a person that found me just based on the algorithm. This person lives in New York and I had been posting a lot of consistent mental health brands and I posted one in particular. That was about it's okay not to have control. We don't have control over what's somewhat over what's going to happen in our lives. You just don't know how things are going to pan out. So you just really got to have to focus on today, be the best version of yourself today, and that's going to directly impact what tomorrow's going to look like, cause if you focus on tomorrow, today's going to go by and you're going to waste the day.

So I posted just a simple video like that, and I'd had this person reach out to me, send me a big DM, said hey, I just want to let you know how big of an impact your videos have had on my life. I lost my husband three years ago to suicide and I've been contemplating that for the last few months and I started watching your videos and it's motivated me to keep going to work on myself. And that message alone, I was like I'm going to post forever. I'm going to post forever. I'm going to post forever. I don't care if I have one of you, two of you, it doesn't matter, because if I can create that level of impact in someone bigger than myself, that's why I said in the beginning it's not about you, it's about the impact that you're making. Take it all by yourself. It's not about you, it's about the impact you make and that right there. That's a beautiful story, by the way. It is yes, and that's why I do it. 

And that's a story that'll stay with you forever, forever, you'll never forget that story and I remember that every time I get in front of the camera and I think I look stupid or I think I'm not feeling it. Today, I remember that one DM and I was like no, there's someone out there just like that that can use this message. And again, it's about the impact that you can make.

Sid: 

That is a beautiful story. I really appreciate you sharing it, and there's so many that I think, between the two of us we have out there right and for you listening, the same exact thing can happen for you. You just got to be patient, you got to try it right. So we're on step number five now, and I want to keep going. Number five, yes, and this is actually one you threw in there which is how do you find your style and make it uniquely you? I know what my style is at least I think, but how did you find your style?

Adrian: 

It's just having fun with it. Honestly, I found my style, just by blocking time, to just record myself talk, and it's going to take a lot of that, and so one of the things that I used to do and this is practical advice, take notes right here is hit the record button and just talk. Have topics ready that you want to talk about, have bullet points ready that you want to talk about, and just act as if you're having a conversation with yourself. Come on, we all talk to ourselves. You know this.

Sid:  

You talk to yourself okay, I won't tell you how many times today I've talked to myself already, so it's good, come on, we all talk to ourselves.

Adrian: 

So when you're recording these videos, act like you're just talking to you. You're giving yourself advice and have fun, smile, laugh through it and just keep recording yourself, talk. So step two what you're going to do after you do that. You watch yourself, but you mute, hit the mute button and watch the way you're talking, watch your mannerisms, watch your face, watch how many times you smile, take a look at your gestures and how you present and then start picking out things that you like and don't like. And then the flip side, take the video off, turn the audio on, so then you can hear yourself talk without watching yourself. So then you can start picking on yourself.

Okay, how do I sound? Play with your voice in fluxation, like, am I being too monotone? Can I be more exaggerative in certain areas? This will help you play around with the type of style that you want and feel confident in, to go out and start creating the real videos so that you can start posting, and then, from there, your audience will tell you what is your style. You'll start to see what people are resonating more with, based on how many views you get per some of these videos that you post or how much engagement you get, and then you just keep walking through those doors that open up. I love that you get more engagement on one post. That's a door just opened up for you. Walk through that.

Sid:  

This four steps that you mentioned in a framework record, whatever, whenever, record yourself, record, watch it on mute so that you're looking for facial expressions, body language, hand movement, that kind of stuff. Then listen only without the without watching the video, put the phone in your pocket or whatever, and listen to the video and if you're me, you're going to be like did I really say that? So that's deep southern x. And I've caught myself so many times like did you just say that out loud? And then listen to audience feedback because they will tell you what they like and what they don't like, right. So I love that simple little framework and for me, I found my style because I don't edit.

I hate editing. I know you love it and clipping this together and clipping that together, yeah, I am just. I am who I am. I grab the phone because I do all my videos on my phone and I hit the record button and I just record. Sometimes I can do it in one or two takes. Other times, like when I posted the other day, it took like 25 takes till I got it to sound like I wanted it to sound like could I have uploaded it into some editing software, like I use the edits from Instagram is what I'm using, yeah, only to clip the front and the back end and add the add the words on it. But I just be me, like, I'm just being me. That's my style Natural, real, raw, authentic. If I can post a video about business lessons learned from Taylor Swift after listening to a podcast while I'm walking with a baseball cap on, with my sunglasses on, dripping wet in sweat and watching the sweat drip off of my nose down onto my shirt on the video and post it on LinkedIn and get huge engagement with it, you can do it too. So I'm just. Mine is real and authentic. You don't have to do that way. You do you right. That's one of the beauties about creating content is do it your way. You may be a text, only kind of person, you don't want to create video, but the same rules apply, right, and I use some of the four steps that you mentioned in my articles that I write. Only kind of person, you don't want to create video, but the same rules apply right, and I use some of the the four steps that you mentioned in my articles that I write for viewpoint magazine. 

I write it Grammarly, checks it to make sure. God, I sometimes put it in chat, gpt to fix it up a little bit, right. Then I read it. And then I read it out loud, like how does this sound? I read it. And then I read it out loud, like how does this sound? I read it just like you would read an article. But then I read it out loud and like I want to hear what I think you're hearing, and if words sound weird, right, and then I publish it, right, then I send it to Rob and have him publish it. So you can do this regardless of the type of content you have. But you got to find your unique style because, friend, there's only one of you, right. and that's what people want is you'

Adrian:  

And that's what people want is you, and this is why I highly recommend video. If anybody can do video, highly recommend it because one of the best pieces of advice that I've ever gotten is communicators get promoted, good communicators, get promoted. If you can use this opportunity to record yourself as an opportunity to learn how to better communicate, learn how to use your voice as an instrument. Your voice as an instrument. It plays different keys. I can go really low like this. I can be really quiet, I can pause to emphasize a certain topic. So there's different ways that you can use your voice that you don't even know how to right now because you haven't in and taking a look at how you talk and get rid of some of those bad habits. But if you just do this simple exercise of recording yourself talk, you don't have to post it right away, but just do the exercise, get used to hearing your voice. It's your voice. Get used to hearing it.

Sid: 

Do you know how many people say I don't listen to myself and I'm on a podcast because I hate the sound of my voice? That's how people listen to you. Get over it.

Adrian:  

That's your voice Like, get over it. Yeah, If you're out and you're out in public, you're having dinner with a friend, you're hanging out with family that voice that you were listening to on the podcast that's what your friends and family are listening to is your voice. It's unique to you. It's your instrument, so learn.

Sid:  

I love that your instrument and your instrument can have a flat chord or key or a deep Southern accent and you can correct that right. 

Adrian: 

100%.You could always correct that. You could always correct that Good communicators get promoted Right.

Sid:  

I love that. All right, so let's keep moving forward. We've got three more steps that I think I want to cover, which is now. The question is so you've been through. Why do I want to do this? What's my goal? Who's my audience? What's my message? Finding my unique way to do it, like my style right, find your style, or what's your style, keep it with the W's. Now, what type of content do I want to create? Adrian just mentioned video highly encouraging video. There is text, there's carousels, there's articles, there's podcasts. I mean, there's so many things, and I know your favorite is video. But what would be another type of content that you really like to create? And then how did you discover that video was what you wanted to create?

Adrian: 

Yeah, I do do stills, Like I would do like a still professional photo with a quote in there and it's a topic. And then you, you flip to the next picture and it's just a larger quote of a topic that I may have covered in the past, but there's still photos. It's not, it's not my voice, right, it's not my video, but it's just a still photo. Is there still a picture of me on there, like I use one of my professional photos and then I use just a regular backdrop that has that quote on there and that still gets a lot of engagement too, because it's something quick. Somebody on whether it's on TikTok or LinkedIn, they can just see it, get the message real quick and move on.

Sometimes people don't have a minute and a half to get through the whole video. That's why I keep my videos a minute and a half or below. I noticed that some of them that are like 40 seconds get more engagement because they can make it through the video a lot easier than a minute and a half even shorter, sometimes even better engagement. But it's just all about playing around with it, having fun with it and just kind of trial and error. It's really all it is. But yeah, I do, I do still as well. But videos is my best because it gets people to understand who I am and they get to kind of see my style and create a connection with me. That's just different versus just reading text.

Sid:  

So, when I think about content for me, specifically on LinkedIn and we'll talk about TikTok in a minute specifically on LinkedIn video performs best, get a lot of engagement, a lot of views, and that may be because right now currently in September of 2025, a lot of views, and that may be because right now currently in September of 2025, LinkedIn is really pushing video to its creators and pushing it to its audience, right? But the other things that work really well for me are not curated photos like you talked about. I did them before. They don't do well for me. I've done them with quotes and that kind of stuff.

But what works really well is a candid photo of me, whether it's a selfie or a picture with my family, my wife, my kids, or with my business colleagues like Michelle and Aaron and Julie, and then I post something around it daughter, 20 minutes after she tore her left, ACL playing a soccer game, sitting on a bed in the trainer room with ice wrapped around her and me share. It's a picture of her me sharing text this is pinned on my LinkedIn profile and me sharing text that talks about the lessons I learned from my daughter that day, that moment she tore ACL right my journey as a dad and what I learned from her in that moment. And that post, literally, I wrote that while I'm standing with her being examined, because it just hit me Like this hit me and I posted it while she's still there and it's my best performing. So it's a real picture, it's raw emotion, it's raw text about what I'm learning honestly in this moment. So my message to you, any of you, is just try different things.

Adrian:  

Yeah, try writing Real, and rawness, though, does get a lot more engagement. I will say that Anything real and raw, it puts you in a vulnerable spot, and I had a similar situation, but mine was not involving my kids or anything like that, but I caught myself doing a podcast with someone and we were talking about a controversial topic in work from home versus going to an office, and I knew I knew I said it, I prefaced it. When I said this, I said people are going to hate me for this, but I went on and ranted. I'm on how I felt about that topic and it was passionate, it was real, it's how I really felt and you can feel it in that video, and I remember cutting that part of the interview and just second guessing do I post this? Do I am I going to? Should I do this? Should I do this? And I finally did, and it got.

It blew up. I mean it got like over 20,000 impressions, tons of comments and engagements, both trolls and then also also people applauding it too. You can. If you go to my LinkedIn, you can go back and see it. It's still posted up. You know people on either side of the topic, but I was just passionate at the time and I said you know, this is raw, this is real. I'm going to post it.

Sid: 

It's how I really feel and that gets a lot of attention too because we talk a lot about every almost everybody that I talked to been on the show, that I talked to in person. We talk about the industry. Every person says this is a relationship sale. We are a relationship industry. Well, the reason raw and real works is people want to get to know you. They want to feel connected to you, even if it's through a screen, because they're going to remember that when and you may not even know them you're going to remember that when they pick up the phone and call you and say, hey, can I get a quote on 50 glass boards? Right? Or whatever the case may be, I'm simplifying it for the case. But just go down this journey of content, figure out what works best for you, lean into it and do more of it. So I want to share a quick story. Then we'll go to the last two.

Okay, so I am a LinkedIn creator first. That's where 99 of my content goes. That's the platform that I focus on. I share a lot of personal stuff on Instagram, more on stories than actually in the Instagram feed. So I do create over there. I'm a consumer of it as well, but I'm not as much of a creator over there as on LinkedIn.

And you will never see me post the same piece of content on multiple platforms on the same day. You'll never see that, In fact, most of them are completely different. So what I post on Instagram is not anywhere near what I post on TikTok or excuse me on LinkedIn. So I'm a huge consumer of TikTok and I occasionally will create a video for TikTok. I love watching TikTok and so occasionally I'll post something, and so I just had this.

I read this book and I had this moment of you know this make a great TikTok video because I'm on book talk. If you're a TikToker, you know what that means and so I posted this video and every book video I've done has done really well, and I wasn't paying attention to that. Then I posted this one and it blew up. It's got 16,000 views I don't even know how many likes, saves, shares through the roof, comments a couple of hundred comments, I think, and that was four weeks ago and it's still getting comments and views today. And so TikTok was sending me a message like Sid, TikTok wants book review videos from you, so I've been leaning into it. Now that's the only one that I've had. That is quote, unquote. I'm doing air quotes viral because that is considered. Anything over 10 000 is considered viral. So I have my one viral 15 second of fame video right. 

But I've been doing book reviews and it's going really well. People are liking the book reviews and I love reading and I love sharing my passion for reading and so I could share that on LinkedIn. But I don't, because I adjusted my content to fit what the audience was telling me on a platform specifically that I have fun doing it. And TikTok is very raw and real right, and I just turn the camera on and hold the book up and talk about the book and what I think about the book and you get some haters. People hate the book and they're not afraid to tell you I just ignore those comments and move on. I always tell you I just ignore those comments.

Adrian: 

I always like them. I put a heart next to the one.

Sid: 

Oh, you do.

Adrian:  

Oh yeah, oh for sure. If there's one, somebody that doesn't agree and they comment it, I heart it every time, because you know any feedback is great feedback.

Sid: 

Yeah, okay, I will agree with you on that. There are a couple of them that have gone really political on me and I just like totally. I'm like, oh, okay, you got to bring your conspiracy theory stuff up in here. I was just talking about a book that I enjoyed reading. Okay, just cause you didn't like it and because he talked about this doesn't mean you got to all of a sudden be political. I ignore the haters, but that's okay. Some people I know lean into them.

Adrian: 

You know, when you know that you've gotten a lot of traction on your video is when people try to sell their company through the comments, through sell services. I've had that happen to me where it's like somebody just commented, it's like if you need help with your plumbing business, you know I am Mr, your contact using your Mr Robo router.

Sid: 

Call me.

Adrian:  

Advertise their business. That's what you know your videos done Well. That's when you know your video's done well.

Sid:  

I love that, I love that All right, so two more. The next one is what platforms? So I think we talked a lot about platforms. I chose LinkedIn because it's business first. That's where it helps me build my brand, build my authority, build my influence, build my businesses plural. So that to me is I am a LinkedIn first creator. I assume you are too, because you talk a lot about LinkedIn too. How did you choose LinkedIn, or why did you choose LinkedIn?

Adrian:  

Yeah, I thought LinkedIn was a good way to grow, to help grow my credibility in my career. I mean, it was just a really good way to get out there and to show people who I am, people that don't get to interact with me all the time, and also I've covered different territories, so it was also a great way to stay connected with my network. I still have people that I used to call on in Florida that are still connected with me today. We're great friends because I've just continued to interact with them just through my content throughout the years on LinkedIn, same with Minnesota and Iowa and all these other places that I've covered. Just a great way to stay engaged, stay connected.

It's great to develop relationships with people that you don't get to see all the time. But I've used it as a tool to not only help people, but it's also a way to create just a personal brand right. A presence Like this is who I am, and so it works with my career, especially right now with Claris, and then also it's helped kind of build my business as well. You know it's. It's really helps kind of connect with people who do need help with content, who do need help with sales strategy, whatever it may be, so that's why LinkedIn has been a number one for me. That's great.

Sid:  

So you got lots of choices out there. Think about your ideal audience, your customer persona that we talked about earlier, and when you're answering questions about them, one of the questions you should ask is where do they hang out? If you're trying to target CEOs, they're going to hang out on LinkedIn. If you're trying to target moms stay-at-home moms then they're probably on Instagram. So think about where that person stays. And again, this is a great question to ask chat, gpt, based on my customer persona, which platforms would you recommend in order that I create content on? So choose what you want. You've got LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, blue Sky, twitter. I don't know all the ones, right, I don't do any of those, like I don't do Blue Sky or Twitter. I have them on my phone. I haven't opened up X, I think.

Adrian: 

I even took it off my phone?

Sid: 

Yeah, probably five years. So I, literally I have them, I don't look at them. You know, there's social audio apps too. There's a couple that you could go on. There's one called Chatter I'm still in Clubhouse. I'll go on Clubhouse every morning and talk to my podcast friends. We talk about podcasting. So just choose where you want to create, try it. If it's not working, then try another one. Take small steps with this, but just look at where your customer is at, or who your target's at, and then what platforms they're on, and go from there, which is what's your cadence like, the consistency of what you're doing. So what is your cadence? And then, how did you come up with your cadence?

Adrian:  

Yeah, my cadence is twice a week and it's every Tuesday and every Thursday and sometimes, if I want to switch it up, I will just do just one post for the week and it's right in the middle of the week Wednesday. But consistently I'm doing Tuesdays and Thursdays and you can get this involved, chatgpt but those are the two most engaging days when it comes to social media, especially just the type of content that I create. Those are the most engaging days and then ChatGPT can also just break down specific times based on the type of content. What time do you post? So typically on Facebook and this is very interesting on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn Tuesdays, 9 am that's like the hotspot and they tell you 9 to 12, but typically people are jumping on at 9 am and LinkedIn on Thursdays, typically right after lunch, is a pretty big LinkedIn hour.

Sid: 

You're doing central time zone Like your time, whatever time zone you're on.

Adrian:

It'll tell you your time zone and then LinkedIn. Thursday afternoons, TikTok for me is always 5 pm. Anywhere it's like 5 to 7 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays as well. On TikTok you can schedule them out. There's apps out there that can schedule your posts. I like to do them. It's kind of fun, it's easy, it doesn't take much time for me, yeah there's strategies around this.

Sid: 

Right, I do not use a scheduler tool either. My cadence is not that specific. In fact, I'm probably a lot more sporadic. On Mondays, every other week, I'm posting about my podcast. This week I did a video about it. Normally, I'm posting about my podcast. This week, I did a video about it. Normally, I'm doing a text post with a picture or a link to the show, but LinkedIn has decided they're going to not push out posts that have links in them, so I'm putting links now in the comment rather than actually the post itself, and then I switch it up and do a video. So Mondays are about a video.

Tuesday is email to our email list. If you're not on our email list and want to get information about our podcast, you can head over to Sidmeadows.com and join our community, super easy. I send one email every other week. That's it, Nothing else. It's always about the podcast. Then I try to be consistent with at least one or two more times on LinkedIn during the week. So I try to do three times a week on LinkedIn, right, my schedule's not as committed as yours is, so a lot of my content is in the moment Like I just I really I'm feeling this. I've connected to this content idea and I want to post it. So it's yeah, content experts will tell you this is not. It's not the right strategy, Sid, but it works for me and you know I like it. So you got to figure out a cadence that works for you and you can just start by doing once a week. You don't have to do in there.

Listen, I didn't post it all last week, I just wasn't feeling it Like I wasn't I mean, I like posting natively to the platform to Adrian and I, and so I just wasn't feeling it Like I didn't feel like I had anything to say last week, so I didn't say it, but I got lots to say.

Adrian: 

Yeah, I know same. I usually have a solid inventory of content that's just sitting in my editor app and some weeks, if I, if I'm the same as you, if I'm not feeling it, I'll save the content for a week, and sometimes you can. You can feel engagement throughout the week, like the week after Labor Day or the week before Labor Day. There's time periods, especially around holidays, where it's not as engaging. So you do want to prioritize content that you think is important and you thought you did a really good job. You posted it at times where you think you're going to get the most engagement.

Sid:  

Okay, Adrian, I'm not really sure how long we've been talking, so sorry guys if we've gone on a little bit long, but so much information I want to share, so I really want to recap quickly what it is that we've talked about so far. So, basically, we talked about why do you want to do this, what's your goal, who's your audience, what's your message, what's your style, what type of content do you want to create, what platform? And then what's your cadence. And I think that we could talk. There's more to it, I believe, but the one thing I want to say to everybody listening is don't overcomplicate this, Don't make it more complicated than it actually is, and just know you're on a journey here. Don't expect bazillions of results in the first few things that you do. The point is that you get started, that you start your journey. You learn from your journey. So, Adrian, what kind of encouragement would you say to the person, Sean, who's on the fence? Sorry? Sean, I'm calling you out.

He's on the fence about creating video. What encouragement would you say to somebody that's really thinking closely about creating content? What would you say. 

Adrian: 

Just go. Don't overthink it. Just go do it. You got nothing to lose. And think of it this way You're just having fun and you're recording yourself so that you can better your communication skills. That's all you're doing. And whatever you record that you capture is great. Post it and then just keep posting consistently. You're not going to get a hundred views in your first couple of times. Like Sid was saying, it takes time to build. The point is not to get the views right. The point is to get the message out. You got something to say. You have a message you want to go say out Do you have an audience out there? You don't even know there's an audience out there for you. You just don't know it yet. And how? How are you going to figure that out if you don't start posting? So best advice I can give you is just go.

Sid:  

Do it. Do it, Nike, right, just do it. So, as we wrap up, I hope that today's conversation was helpful to all of you, kind of a take two or a part two of this content creation journey. Lots of good stuff shared today. So go back and listen again, take notes if you want to. But, Adrian, I think one of the best things to do when you're going along the content journey is to educate yourself. You know I'm a huge everybody knows I'm a huge advocate of professional development, learning and growth, right, and one of the best ways to do that is to follow content creators. Is there one or two content creators besides me and you, obviously, that you would recommend that people follow, connect with? If you know, just say if it wasn't LinkedIn, tell me. You heard them here on that trend report. Who would you recommend? One or two?

Adrian:

You know mine are going to be more TikTok related because I have a few that I consistently follow and listen to. One of them, his name is Vin Yang and he is a. He's a Vietnamese person born in Australia. He's got an Australian accent but he's a big. Big topic is communication skills. So a lot of what I've talked about in how important communication is and using your voice like an instrument and playing with the different dialects, that's directly from Vin. He is great and he's getting, he's blowing up. He was just on Jay Shetty, he was just on the Diary of the CEO, he was on Mel Robbins. So let's see now when they do that circuit. You're getting big as a content creator. So he's a big one, vin awesome guy.

Sid:  

That's a circuit for sure right there to you oh yes.

Adrian: 

And then number two has always been Jay Shetty. For me I just love everything he stands for. I read his book Think Like a Monk. It's very kind of broad advice, a lot to do with personal relationships, a lot of self-help style talks, but it really does resonate with me, especially when you're in sales, in a high stress environment, high anxiety. It just kind of helps me bring me back down to earth. And then the third, tony Robbins. This guy doesn't get a lot of views and stuff on TikTok but he posts consistently and the thing I take away from Tony Robbins is the way he talks. This guy commands a room and his breathing. So I kind of focus on his style of speaking and then incorporate some of the other influencers kind of ideas and topics. But Tony Robbins is a good one.

Sid:  

So we will be sure to link TikTok and LinkedIn and, if we can find it, Instagram handles to all of these people in the show notes so you can easily click on them. They shouldn't be that hard to follow. So I've got three and you did two really famous ones. I'm going to do one famous one, okay. So my first one that I'm going to recommend is somebody that I met in 2020. I've never met in person, but I met virtually. He's been on a podcast with me. Anyways, I've shared space with him. He's a great guy. His name is Niraj Kapur.

Niraj lives in Belfast, Ireland, and he talks a lot about sales. He's written several books Ireland and he talks a lot about sales. He's written several books. His first book was called Everybody Works in Sales. He's always giving sales tips and he's always sharing personal antidotes and how they apply to sales, right? He shares a lot about his personal life, too, and Raj posts every day of the week and but follow Naraj, if you do connect with him, be sure you send him a note and says hey, I heard Sid talk about you and he'll go oh, Sid, great, blah, blah, blah. I'll follow him on Instagram, too, where he says he's kind of like me on Instagram. He shares more personal stuff on Instagram. All right, so that's the first one.

The second one that I would say is Jefferson Fisher. If you've not read Jefferson Fisher's book called the Next Conversation, you need to. It's an amazing book. Jefferson is an attorney. He lives down in Beaumont, Texas, which is far southeast Texas on the Louisiana border. He's a good old Southern boy and when he's talking he calls his mother, he calls her mama. My mama said that I need to do this. I resonate with that because I'm a Southern boy. But he got his start sitting in his car making 47 second Instagram videos about how to better your communication, and he does it in threes, just like you. He's three tips to you know. Shut down a narcissist or whatever he's talking about.

Adrian:

Right.

Sid: 

And they're just amazing. And that's how he started. He got thousands upon thousands of followers and then that led to him a book and then a tour. He's been on Mel Robbins podcast. He's been on all these podcasts so you can certainly go find him. I got a lot of creators I would tell you to follow, but I really like how Jefferson talks about communication style, right. 

And then the third one that I would say I actually met this guy. I found him on TikTok. His name is Tyler Gardner. He goes by your money guide on the side. He's a former financial planner. All of his videos are him walking in the woods, talking, sharing an antidote or some kind of financial like hey, you should think about doing this. He's Instagram and TikTok. He's not on LinkedIn that I'm aware of. I inadvertently met him two weeks ago at Podcast Movement. Somebody saw my podcast player. They were asking me about something. I opened my podcast player and they said, oh, he's here and I turned around and literally he walked in the door. So I kind of got to meet somebody I follow on TikTok and then he just recently started a podcast, nice. 

So, Tyler Gardner, if you're interested in financial money things which I'm always trying to learn about that stuff, and that's the other thing go find people that you know, follow people that are creating content of something you're interested in. If you want to talk about real estate, I got 10 real estate podcasts that I listen to, but these six people will give you some great examples of content that they're creating the different types and go follow them, connect with them and hopefully that inspires you by following other people. So, with that, anything else you want to say bud.

Adrian:  

No, that's it. This has been a lot of fun. Thank you so much, Sid. I hope everybody listening took just a few things away from what we talked about today and remember it's not that serious when you're creating content, just have fun with it. Have fun. The key is to post. You need to be out there, especially if you're in sales. You got to be out there, you got to be posting. Just do it, it's fun. What's the worst that can happen?

Outro: 

So we went long today. Thanks for hanging out there with us. I didn't think we were. I thought we were going to go short. We went long today. Thank you for being with us today. I hope you got some amazing value out of today's conversation. Go out there and make today great, and we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Take care, everyone. You.