EP944 - Tom Schwab on how we are all one conversation away, not one funnel away

Welcome to Chasing the Insights, the podcast for entrepreneurs who refuse to settle for average. Hosted by best-selling author and award-winning neuromarketer, Vince Warnock. Hello, beautiful people. Welcome to another episode of Chasing the Insights.

How are you doing? I'm Vince Warnock, and thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy day oh my goodness to join me here as I get to talk to you know what not only some of the most skilled not only some of the most talented but genuinely some of the nicest people you ever meet and and you'll know what I mean very shortly because I'm about to introduce you to Tom Schwab but before I do that very quickly I don't want you to miss a single episode of this show so whatever platform whatever app whatever tool basically however you're listening to this right now if you haven't already reach out and give that subscribe or follow button to push that way you're notified every single time there's a new episode.

Anyway, my friends, you are in for such a treat. I'm here to introduce you to Tom Schwab. He is the founder of Interview Valet, and he's the category designer behind podcast interview marketing. He's known as, get this, the godfather of podcast guesting, something I definitely do not disagree with.

And he earned that title by proving something that most marketers miss. A podcast interview is not a megaphone, it's a Magnet. It is such an honor having him on the show. So excited to have me here, Tom.

Thank you so much for joining us. Vince, I am thrilled to be here. It's going to be a great conversation. Like it or not, you'll learn something here.

I'd love that. Yeah. I've been looking forward to this mainly because we're going to be talking about something really important, which is we are all one conversation away, not one funnel away, but also you and I get to hang out together, which is always a lot of fun. And just so you guys know about what goes on behind the curtains here, Normally we jump on a call, we do a little bit of preamble before we get into the recording, and then we get in the recording.

We're probably going to be over time with this one here because Tom and I just can't stop talking to each other before, and it's so much fun. But Tom, before we get into your backstory here and before we get into your topic, I do have one very specific question because you're the founder of Interview Valet. I love this term. Explain to us what an Interview Valet is.

Interview Valet, we've been around 11 years. We're the category leader in something called podcast interview marketing, right? And some people say, oh, yeah, just being on podcasts. I'm like, no, that's a hobby, right?

It's a marketing channel and done correctly with the data, with the strategy. You can use this to talk to your ideal clients. And today, the AI that refers them, I believe it's the most powerful marketing channel out there. And we'll dig into that today.

Oh, I love that. See, I knew everyone's going to get buzzy about that term. Well, look, Tom, before we get into the whole concept of we're all one conversation away, not one funnel away, tell us how you got to where you are. Give us your backstory.

Well, the backstory only makes sense in the rearview mirror. I'm an engineer by degree. I ran nuclear power plants in the U.S.

Navy, went to the corporate world. My last company was HubSpot's first e-commerce case study. We built it up. We sold it off, and people said, how'd you build your business?

And I said, well, you tap into other people's audience, right? At that time, it was guest blogs, but by 2014, blogs didn't work anymore. So Vince, I hypothesized you could use podcast interviews, right? To get that know, like, and trust.

The first few years, I'd give my elevator pitch and people would say, what's a podcast? But it gave us the chance to figure out the systems when podcasting took off in about 2018. Our business took off and when COVID hit, all of a sudden corporate America realized that they could use podcast interviews instead of conferences, instead of travel. And then in 2024, it became obvious that AI is indexing all the podcast interviews.

So every time it's gotten more and more powerful here. And I always look back to the same mindset that I used in engineering is what I use today to figure out what works and what we're optimizing for as business owners. Oh, my goodness. I love that journey.

You and I are so aligned, man. I didn't even realize your background was in engineering. I trained as an electronics and computer engineer and then kind of realized that actually people are far more interesting to me than anything that I could build. So that kind of intersection between psychology and understanding people and then technology became marketing.

So we kind of both fell into this. But yeah, I was going to say something too. You talked about the fact AI is indexing podcasts 100%. But even before that, and this is the thing that people miss.

We look at signals from Google, for example, and this is just from an SEO perspective, so from a search engine optimization perspective. We look at what does Google index. Now, we all know that they index your page, your website, all this kind of stuff. We know that they index backlinks.

We know that they index videos. But what people didn't realize is all of our podcasts are getting pinged by Google bots now, which means that they're indexing that as well as the AI search engine. So if you are really serious, you're going to end up, you know, top of your category through SEO and through GEO, AEO, every EO that you can find on the planet. Very much so.

And today here we are, you know, talking the summer of 2026, there is talk now that the AI is going multimodal. And I was at a conference about a month ago. And one of the gentlemen there used to work for the national security agency in the U S right. our spy agency.

And he's like, he believed that AI was starting to go multimodal. And they're not only just looking through the text of our conversation here, but they're listening to the conversation. They're watching the videos because that is so much richer. You can tell somebody's conviction, their passion.

And that's what AI is looking for today. Not the content that it made. It already knows that. It's looking for fresh content like we're having right here.

I love that. Yeah, we did a test across all the different AI large language models. And we do this test once a year just because everything changes. But one of the tests we did was basically we need to know how many hallucinations it has, so how many times it goes wrong.

So what we do is we get it to research something that we know intimately, and we would know immediately if there's something wrong. So we got it to index me. So we're now there. And Gemini was the really interesting one for Google.

And it does this across the board now. But with Gemini, when we said, look, find us the most interesting facts about me, find what I'm about, like try and understand who I am, blah, blah, blah. And it produced a 24-page report. And in that 24-page report, it quoted about probably 10 times in there.

Vince talked about this on this podcast. And it quoted me from that podcast. But we went to the reference links for those and realized there was no transcript of that podcast. So it actually was listening to me being interviewed, pulling the extracting out the kind of key points from that, which is crazy.

And people have to be intentional then when they're putting out the content there. Exactly. And we're very big in strategy. And I hear so many people that will come back and say, I did 50 interviews last year.

And if you analyze them, it's like, no, you did one interview 50 times and you don't get any credit for it. Right. It'd be like me saying I did a weekly blog last year. Well, I don't get credit if it's the same blog every Monday.

Exactly. Actually, I know you're kind of half-joking about this, but the hilarious part here is I literally had this the other week where someone said, I did four blogs. I went, really? And they said, yeah, I wrote this for LinkedIn and then also pushed it to Medium and pushed it to Substack and pushed it to Facebook and said, that's not four blogs.

You just distribute it to four platforms, you idiot. Right. I love this. Well, man, let's dive into this then because, as I said, we're talking about we are all one conversation away, not one funnel away.

And I really love this topic for a few reasons here. But one of them, I'm going to start basically getting everyone on the same page here. So we've all heard the term one funnel away. Can you describe to us like talk us through what one funnel away concept is and then we look at why that is broken Okay It was made famous by a company that imagine this Senn sells funnels right And it this idea of oh all you have to do is get our software and you put all these leads into a funnel and they'll come through and instantly out of the bottom, you're going to get cash, you're going to get sales.

And I think that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen, right? Because a few things, one, it's not a funnel, it's a sieve, right? Because all those people that come in the top, most of them are leaking out, right? So you get a thousand leads in to get one out.

That seems like to me the most inefficient way to get sales, right? The other thing too, is just look back on our lifetimes, the best clients, the best employees, the best things in life. Did they come through a funnel? No, they came through a conversation, right?

My bride, um, I love her dearly. I did not have the perfect funnel and run Facebook ads to find my wife, right? No, it came from a conversation. It came from a conversation with a buddy of mine who knew me, knew her and made the introduction there.

And I think this idea of the sales funnel, while it might've been good marketing speak, it just doesn't work, right? One of our clients, Eric Galper, I love how he said, I don't want the sales funnel. I want the sales cylinder. I want to have conversations with five people and get four clients.

That seems much more humane for the business owner and the clients. So this idea that, you know, oh, you can automate everything. You can put everything in funnels. Now with AI, you can even do it.

It's like, no, it doesn't work. It can be very efficient, but we're getting more efficient at things that are less effective. I love this so much. And the company that you're talking about on funnels, the founder, Russell, I've had a number of conversations about this because their whole mantra is you're one funnel away.

You're one funnel away from success. You're one funnel away from wealth. It's bollocks. And I'll tell you why it's bollocks, because he doesn't even believe that.

Blake, their own company doesn't believe that. Because the whole thing is you're one funnel away. And when that doesn't work, you do another funnel. And if that doesn't work, you do another funnel.

And then you tweak that funnel. Or maybe go back to that funnel and tweak that funnel. And I don't think I've ever seen someone create a funnel and then go, ta-da, I'm rich. It's stupidity.

Yeah. And the sad part is that they build the funnel, then they spend a fortune filling the funnel. And then they become so proud that they sold a million dollars, but then you, you pull out the advertising cost and, um, the affiliate costs and everything like that. It's like, you would have been much better just having a handful of conversations and you would have made more money.

Oh my goodness. I won't name this person. Uh, and I think you might know them actually Tom, but, uh, this happened a couple of years ago where someone came to me and they were like they desperately needed help converting leads and with their marketing and i'm like oh and i looked at their marketing i'm like why are they coming to me it's like march and they put a post out there saying they've already made a million dollars this year and i'm like what but it turned out that was a million dollars revenue and their overhead was like 800 and something thousand what's going on here this is ridiculous so you help and also don't go out and tell people you made a million dollars if you technically haven't.

Like people care about profit, not revenue. And I think as an engineer, I'll say there are times where I would hide behind the automation, right? I'll just sit in my desk and I'll tweak this and I'll tweak that. And that's how we'll make money.

It's like, no, the way we've always made money, right? We've always impacted the world is through conversations. And so often, you know, you'll say to see somebody that's worked on this, all this marketing, the automation and everything. It's like, have you talked to any clients?

Well, no. It's like, that's a really good first step. Yeah. I love that.

We went through, I don't know if you've ever heard of Startup Weekend, but many, many moons ago when I was a much younger man, we had a Startup Weekend. And we got to the end of the weekend. There was, we had 160 people, I think, that were involved. Every one of those 160 pitched an idea.

They chose 12 of them mine was one of them uh chose 12 ideas and everyone then joined teams and things like that but the funny thing is we got it down to the end there was a first place in the second place we came second we didn't come first because of bias uh and that's that's my theory um not the favor the pitch from the person that came first was just freaking awesome uh but that but of all of those 12 companies only two of us actually went on to do anything else and only two of us were really in contention and the difference was we were the only two that took time to go out on the street and actually talk to people and actually ask people, you know, first of all, would you pay for this?

You know, like I get them to describe the idea to you. Would you pay for this? And everyone would say yes, because that's what they do when you're interviewing them. You go, okay, well, if I was to ask you right now, what would you pay for this?

And then they suddenly get squeamish and they're like, well, I might pay a little bit for it. I've got these other priorities. And I'll go, if you don't validate your idea with real people, it's a non-real idea. I love this.

And you think about it, that's sort of what we're doing here in this conversation, you're asking the same questions that clients would and other things. So you don't have to put this great keynote together. Just, you know, as Marcus Sheridan, who wrote the book, They Ask You Answer, great marketing strategy. That's what you do on podcasts.

And that's really a powerful, powerful marketing. Yeah, exactly. And this is why one of my principles behind this show is really simple. All you're listening to this, you're going to hear me ask some dumb questions sometimes that's very deliberate because not like here's the interesting thing if you're an seo expert we could go deep on seo and we could use every bit of jargon and every bit of lingo and and some of the audience will understand that the rest of them they won't be inspired to research more they'll come away feeling a little bit dumb and they'll come away feeling like oh that's too complicated that's too complex it's not so actually i ask the simple questions like so what does the s stand for in seo what does the e stand for what yeah break it down to the really dumb questions, because that's probably what's on the mind of most of the listeners.

So I love this. Well, let's dive into this then. If we, as you said, we're one conversation away, talk us through that principle, talk us through how it works and how we can kind of bring that into our podcast guesting. Yeah.

And I'd say even larger, how can we take this into our marketing? How can I have conversations with my ideal clients, with the people that refer my ideal clients. And today that's also AI. So you think of it strategically, where are these people?

Where are they listening? Right? There's certain people that'll tell you, you need to be everywhere. Well, no, you just need to be where your clients are and where they're making buying decisions.

So being very strategic, right? If you just want to have conversations, just go out and talk to trees, right? It won't help your business. So you have to have this idea of who do I want to talk with, right?

Where are they that they're listening, right? Don't interrupt them because they won't hear you, right? Whereas right here, everybody is opted in. They're listening.

If they get distracted, they can pause it. They can rewind it. So all of those things of thinking, where Very sure you have the conversation with who, right? And then being very strategic in what do you want to talk about?

What do you want them to know? What do you want them to feel? What do you want them to do afterwards, right? Start with the end in mind there.

And I think that is very strategic as opposed to, I just want to go out and make noise. I love that. My only problem with this episode is my wife's probably going to listen to it. when you said talking to the trees, I know for a fact she's going to look at me and go, yes, because I talk so much.

She'd be like, just go talk to the trees. Leave me in peace for a while. I love that you brought up a principle that we use in our publishing company. Because whenever, and I guess it's really the same principle when I think about it, when we're getting people to write books, we get them to start by asking, what do you want them to know, feel and do?

because if you can articulate that before even starting on a book, you know A what needs to be in there That the no part You know what do you actually need to include What are the kind of core principles that need to be in that book It also by the way helps to not throw in things that they don need to know But then what you want them to feel is how you approach the writing of the book. If it's a very technical book, but you want them to feel like they can do this and they're empowered, then you're going to write that very differently to just data and just, you know, like this is a step-by-step.

And then lastly, what do you want them to do? Because people forget when you're reading a book, writing a book, you need to get them, prompt them to do something at the end of that or do something during that. Or, you know, so I love this man. Just you and I are way too aligned.

I think we may actually be twins. Years ago, I had a client give me the weirdest compliment ever. He said, you guys are just like preparation H and in the U S that's hemorrhoid cream. Right.

And I was like, excuse me. And he's like, no, it's a compliment, right? You came recommended. You gave me fast relief.

And it really struck me that nobody cares about our product or service. They care about the pain in their rear end. And if you can show that you understand that and you can solve that, now they'll want to listen to you or read your book, right? Nobody wants to read my memoir, right?

My wife, my mom doesn't want to read my memoir. Exactly. I love this. I'm never going to unhear the preparation age, my man.

You should totally leave it. I'm just picturing you with, Side effects may include clarity, may include wealth, may include success. I love it. Awesome.

Well, I mean, there's something I do want to dive into here a little bit more because we said in the intro in your bio around the fact that you prove what most marketers make. So podcast interviews, not a megaphone, it's a magnet. And I think this ties really nicely into this conversation piece. So talk us through this principle and how you recommend people when they're wanting to have a conversation, for example, on a podcast.

They're wanting to bring this into podcasting into an element of their marketing. How do they approach that and how do they bring it in as a magnet, not a megaphone? Yeah. So, so many people believe more is better.

Bigger is better. No, better is better. Right? And so this idea of, well, if I can just get more exposure, if I can get more listens, whatever more is, they think that's going to work.

And too many people are lulled in almost by ego of, oh, just go on all of these podcasts and just keep telling your story and keep repeating it. It's all about repetition and volume. them. It's like the one funnel away.

It sounds good until you think about it and you're like, well, that doesn't make any sense, right? It might help your ego. It might make you feel famous, but you're not going to get business results out of it. So I always look at podcast interviews, really marketing, it should be a magnet, right?

I want to attract the right people and repel the wrong ones. And by, when I say wrong ones, I don't mean they're bad people. I just mean we're a bad fit. So let's get that out from the very beginning.

So it's very important that when you go out in any message, podcast interview, to be very clear of, this is what I believe. This is what I reject, right? Here's who we work best with, who this is the people that are wonderful people, but we don't work well with them. We don't bring value, right?

And because it makes people easier for them to say, to turn you up or turn you off. And it's the same way for AI. If you want to get great leads, you've got to tell your referral partners or the AI of who you are and what you do. So often I'll say, you know, we do a lot of book tours, right?

Podcast book tours are a great way to launch a book, but we have found over 11 years that it only works for nonfiction books where there's a business behind it, right? Because you don't have to know who the author is for a fiction book. And it doesn't make sense if it's, you know, you're making one or two a book, right? So right there being very, very clear.

Now AI knows not to give me leads for fiction books or to say podcast interviews. We work a lot with category designers, professional services, coaches, consultants, these people that can really serve people throughout a nation or a region or heck even the world. Because if somebody hears me and they're like, oh, I've got a friend of mine, got a great audio and stereo shop, right? And he's asked me, how can I get on podcasts?

It's like, Terry, somebody's got to drive to your store, right? If you're not within 10 miles of his store, you're not a customer. And would it be a way that you could grow your business? It's not a very efficient way, right?

So it wouldn't work for you. So I think that idea of making it a magnet, uh, right. You've got to be very polarizing and not in a bad way. Right.

Uh, I, I'm bad at, um, at, um, quoting scripture, but there's one in there that says, you know, be hot water or cold water. If you're just warm water, you're going to get spit out. And I think it's the same way on podcast interviews. I love this.

I love everything about this, man. I just, this is something I had to learn. The non ego aspect of this is something I learned the hard way actually tom um i remember someone actually pitched to be on the show i won't name him but very high profile entrepreneur not aligned at all with me and that's fine uh he doesn't have to be he's quite happy not being aligned with me um but i had him on a pre-call purely because i thought that would be good for my brand and i thought this is bigger this is bigger like this guy's the biggest guest i would have ever had on my show um he's a household name in entrepreneurship in the US.

He's also a complete another jerk and treats people incredibly poorly. So I'm like, I'm listening to him. And I was about five minutes into the prequel and I thought, what the hell am I doing? I'm only talking to this guy because of my ego, because I thought, oh, that'll make me look good on the show.

I don't want him in front of my audience. He's not aligned with you guys at all. Like he is, his whole thing is, is wanting to line his own pocket. That's what he wants to impact is wallet not anyone else and all of you listening to this you know you're an impact driven entrepreneur you are someone who genuinely cares about the world and things as well so i kind of gave myself a couple of slaps internally and just went what are you doing you moron uh turned around and told him look i don't think you're a good fit for the show and at that point by the way he did prove that he wasn't a good fit for the show because he swore his head off at me but anyway um he got over it in the end funny enough uh but it really did show me exactly what you have already teach people, which is that it's not about your ego.

Better is better, not bigger is better. I love that concept, man. Oh man, this is so good. I will say this though, you're talking about the magnet concept.

Anytime I'm listening to you, man, I'm applying it to, and I'm looking at different areas and interactions I've had, and just to see how I line up with this and things like that. But it can work so powerfully. And I found this out, this has never happened before, but I found this out recently. I was a guest on somebody else's podcast.

He wanted to be online. He said, said hey come on come on mine i said sure and we were halfway through the episode and we were talking about you know authoring books and he was like oh i've never thought about doing this before then and i said well blah blah and i was just chatting with him he kind of forgot he was the host of the show and i kind of forgot i was on a podcast and we just started chatting about this and then he goes hey vince i mean he goes um i'm gonna have to edit this bit out but i i need to work with you and i'm like okay well this has never happened before like I was a guest on a show and halfway through I made a sale without even trying to make a sale.

And he just goes, I don't even care what the cost is. I just, I know you're the person I need to work with on this. And I went, okay, so it does work. It's crazy.

I would just say, you don't need to edit that out. You can leave that in there. I was kind of hoping you would leave it in, but no, I think you were pretty keen to edit that out. Yeah.

So yeah, sometimes people call this a podcast interview. Right. And I think the interview is, is a misnomer, right? You don't have the list of questions that you going to uh ask me like it a job interview This is the same discussion you and I would be having if we were sitting down over a cup of coffee or a beer or a whiskey yeah definitely over a whiskey yeah there be a lot more laughing and loud noises with the whiskey but it still be fun yeah no 100 and and actually there was the I think I may have even said this to you before Tom but the whole premise behind this show started because of a conversation I remember catching up with a marketing guru back in New Zealand like someone who I respect a lot uh kind of in New Zealand and digital marketing there were like four names that people would always turn to myself and three others and one of them was in town and I'm like well you and I are catching up and he's hell yeah so we didn't even have whiskey beer a pint of beer got it we're sitting in this pub and we had only just started and to clarify to all of you had not actually been drinking had two sips from the beer he did two sips from his and there was a tap tap tap on my shoulder and I turn around and there's a woman standing there it was quite confusing for me uh wearing a tiara a sash holding a wand uh in this white dress saying excuse me can you guys keep it down and it was a hen's party like a bridesmaid's party and they couldn't hear themselves because we were so animated and excited about our conversation about marketing and how we're challenging the industry and everything so i we were like so apologetic i said i'm so sorry we'll keep it down she goes no worries no worries it's a really good interaction but she walked away and we were laughing i turned to my mate and he just looked at me and said we are telling everyone this story and i said oh hell yes hell yes but all of a sudden one of the bartenders come over and he said hey hey guys don't tone it down he said i am learning so much from listening to you too and that made me think that's how i like to learn hearing experts talk to each other hearing people with experience talk to each other so it makes sense conversations are so much more powerful man oh yeah you got me too excited now i mean this show is going to go on for about two hours now but actually we are at the point of the show where i probably need to ask you the same question I ask everyone, Tom.

And I'm very cognizant in the back. In fact, I'm going to ask you for three practical tips for everyone. But the reality is you've already given us probably about 20 practical tips interspersed in this conversation anyway. But what are your three practical tips you advise every entrepreneur do right now?

Okay, the first one is what are you optimizing for? This comes from my engineering basis, right? Are you engineering for profits, for leads, whatever that is? Figure out what that is because you're going to build the system that gets you there, right?

That's the first one. The second one is something that I, it's one of my favorite phrases. It's on the coffee cup that I've got. What's ordinary to you is amazing to others.

As business owners, as people, we often underestimate what we know and overestimate what other people know, right? So you've got expertise that you can help people with. And the final one is something that I write on the bottom of my emails. And it's to remind myself too.

It's stay strong. The world needs to hear you now more than ever. Oh, yes. And there's a lot of darkness, a lot of problems in the world.

But I believe that entrepreneurs and business owners are going to save the world, right? Nobody's coming to save us. We've got to do it. we didn't make the problems, but we'll say, we'll, we'll solve the problems, but you know, we need to be strong and we need to have our voices out there.

So if there's just three things I could tell people, those would be the three. Oh my goodness. So well put as well. I love that.

Oh man, this, I knew getting on the show was going to be awesome. Tom, you're, you're an absolute legend, but this has been amazing. Uh, now I'm going to leave links to everyone to everywhere. You can connect with Tom.

Um, so you know what to do, go to chasing the insights.com look for Tom's smiling face. You're going to see a bunch of hyperlinks there. You'll see links to interview valet.

You'll see links to where you can connect with them on, on social media, highly encourage you to do so. Tom is one of the good ones. Uh, Tom, you're an absolute legend. As I said, man, it's been a privilege having you on the show.

Thank you so much for your wisdom. Thank you so much for your time. This, I appreciate all you do. Anybody that says doing a podcast is easy, uh, has never done it or never done it well, right?

80% of podcasts die within the first 10 episodes. So what you're doing makes a difference in the world. Thank you. I appreciate that.

And I appreciate you. And there you go, everyone. Like I said, go to the show notes, click on all those links. You are not going to regret it.

As you've heard here, Tom, this is the thing. Tom not only knows what he's doing, and you can tell even just listening to Tom, how experienced he is in this. He has a proven track record in this. But more than that, he's actually genuinely a decent guy.

So go and connect with him everywhere. Get more Tom in your life. Simple as that. Plus, if you haven't already, reach out and give that subscribe or follow button a push.

That way you're notified every time there's a new episode. Anyway, my friends, that is the formal part of the show out of the way. But before you run away, I know you're all dying to go and check out Tom's stuff, which you need to do. But first, pause, be present, and I want you to hear something.

And it's actually something that Tom brought up at the end of the show here and it's practical tips. But it's something that I really, really want to drive home to you because it was such a small sentence in what Tom said, but it has so much weight and so much power, which was the whole concept of be strong. Your voice needs to be out there. And that is so true.

And I know it's true because it makes me uncomfortable on the inside, just like I know it makes you uncomfortable as well. Because for most of us, we're very, I'm trying to think of a professional way of saying we're dicks to ourselves, but no, we're just going to use that term, you're dicks to yourself. You would never treat other people the way that you treat yourself at all, but you diminish yourself. And I'm here to tell you that that is so wrong, right?

You need your voice out there. I don't care how you feel. That's irrelevant in this, right? You need your voice out there.

You were designed to make impact. Simple as that. That's why you have a business. You think about this for a moment.

You're an entrepreneur. You've literally seen a need that people have and you want to fill that need, right? Yes, you want to make money. We were joking about this before the show with me and Tom.

We just say, hey, nothing wrong with making money. More money means more impact. So yes, we know you want to make money. But the fact is you also want to meet that need in people.

So you are someone who genuinely cares about others. Well, let me tell you something. That's why your voice needs to be heard. There are people out there that are genuinely waiting for you to show up, waiting for you to tell your story, to give your expertise, to be that amazing that you feel is ordinary uh in their life because you are the person that's going to help them move forward and i learned this lesson myself um speaking to some of my heroes in the industry and i was talking to seth godin and if you don't know seth godin you need to the guy's an absolute legend um but he gave me a really interesting concept because both him and i had a book coming out around the same time that was relatively similar in topic and i'm like oh well there you go i'm gonna fail I can't compete with him and he told me off and explained that actually think about this he could put a book out on the same topic as me and I could put a book out and there'd be a pile of people that obviously would read his book and go wow that was amazing, blew my mind my whole life's changed now or at least my marketing's changed now and there'd be others that read it and go okay that was alright yeah that was good, good principles but then they'll read my book talking about the same thing and they'll go wow that makes sense to me now The difference is not because I'm a better orator or he's a better orator or storyteller or anything.

It's due to the fact that it's you writing it. It's you. It's your stories, your experience. And that is going to make them feel seen and make them feel understood.

Because they're like, well, Vince has been through what I'm going through right now. Or you've been through or Tom's been through what I'm going through right now. So when I read them, when I hear their stories, when I hear them out there putting themselves out there, it makes me feel like I can break through as well. So don't hold back, my friend.

Put yourself out there. Those little negative voices that tell you you need to stay small, those are liars and they need to be dealt with. And on behalf of both Tom and myself, we just want to wish you all of the health, all of the wealth, all the happiness, the success, and the love that you so rightfully, and I really do mean rightfully, deserve. Anyway, my friends, this is Chasing the Insights.

I'm Vince Warnock. You are an absolute freaking legend, and I'll see you in the next episode. Welcome to Chasing the Insights, the podcast for entrepreneurs who refuse to settle for average. Hosted by best-selling author and award-winning neuromarketer, Vince Warnock.