101: Fine Tune Your Greatness and Optimize Your Branding with Business Advisor, Speaker and Author Loren Weisman

Robert Plank: Loren Weisman is going to talk to us about the marketing and branding worlds, and connecting businesses to audiences and doing that with a more direct style of engagement, conversation, and communication in order to create authentic conversions and so much more. Tell me what about everything that it is that you do.

Loren Weisman: Well Robert, I came with ... I'll summarize it quickly. I came from a background in music. I was a session and ghost drummer which meant that I worked behind a lot of people for a lot of years, about 700 albums in very behind the scenes fashion. I saw the largest successes, the biggest failures, the smallest successes, and everywhere in between. As I went to producing music, I went over to television, I started to venture out and see that a lot of the blueprints around marketing and branding really applied to every type of business from real estate to restaurants, import, export, hair styles, lawyers, and everywhere in between.

A lot of people spend 20 some years getting into music. After 20 some years in music, I found myself opening some new doors and talking a little bit more about branding and the different levels of engagement and conversion with businesses outside of entertainment.

Robert Plank: Okay. What's really cool about you coming from a music background is we all come across those people who have really good talent or they're really passionate about some subject. It's a shame because they don't know how to get themselves out there or they don't know how to build their own brand, their own tribe, or their own list, or any of that stuff and it's just like you kind of have to both sides of it, right?

Loren Weisman: Absolutely and that's where it flies so much into business as well. When you think about that band that you saw and you just love them and you couldn't understand why they couldn't go anywhere while the band you weren't as big a fan of became superstars. The same thing applies to business. You could have the greatest concept. You could have the best business plan, but if you don't have the branding, the marketing behind it, even to go into the funding stages, you're going to sit there and spin your wheels. I'm sure that there are so many amazing entrepreneurs out there, maybe even some listening to this show that feel like, "Wow, I've got this concept but it just won't catch. Is it my concept?" Usually the answer is no. The creativity, the improvisation, the ideas that people come up with are amazing. It's just the fact that they're not quite connecting with the ability to market that out to whether they're soliciting for funding, partnerships, networking, money, or just sales.

Robert Plank: If I'm getting this right, so what it is that you do is that you were a consultant mostly for musicians. Is that right?

Loren Weisman: I used to be for musicians. Now I'm the ... Like I was sort of in the back for musicians, I'm the consultant in behind businesses and actually other consultants. A lot of the business advisors out there, I work behind them with branding projects that they're working on. I do work with some individual clients, but I like to be one of the guys behind the curtain of other guys. Then looking from a whole of what they're developing with a given client and then saying, "Okay. I see this as a possible run. I see this as an area where developing at a lower cost." You might say to a client of yours, "This needs six months of development in this area." Then I would come in and say while you're working, doing this with Robert, let's talk about the branding before this product or service is even out there and slowly begin to allocate a little time to create and build the brand of that non-existent product yet so that upon launch or upon solicitation for funding, or upon selling, you're already out of the gate that much further.

Robert Plank: You could say you're like the guy behind the guy behind the guy behind the guy, right?

Loren Weisman: Exactly.

Robert Plank: I love that movie. Could you give me an example of some kind of situation where that happened where maybe you came in and say someone's consulting business or something wasn't doing too well or could use improving and you kind of added your magic touch to it?

Loren Weisman: Oh well moreso a consulting business and the consultants that are out there, they're doing a great job but they are so focused in the area of, okay, we've got to pull this together. We got to figure out how to put together your project. How to put together your workday. The coaches and consultants out there like that, they have all this great information that allows them to share their stories, just like your story and where you went. I love on your website, by the way, the I had worked. You switch, I am working. I had worked at this as a day job and this is when I left in 2009. I love that kind of stuff. At the same time, that's not me. I'm more from looking at a client that somebody has and saying okay, what could they start to do for different levels of content? What could they start to create? Where is their bio or the questions that people ask?

A lot of this stuff, it's not keyword searching and spending a fortune on AdWords. Even if you go and ask Siri on your iPhone, or if you have an iPhone, how do I add music to my radio show or podcast? Immediately it's going to come up with an ad that I did, a podcast I did for a client that wanted information about music publishing. In other cases, where should I eat in this town? These new phrases and algorithms in YouTube, in podcasts, can upreach and outreach so much wider and the beautiful thing about it is all of this can be built simultaneously while this client's consultant is taking care of all the organizational stuff that they know how to do, that they know how to organize.

Robert Plank: Would you say when you have the consultants or the clients like this and you go to get them more traffic or get them more business or whatever, would you say that you kind of look at it and you eyeball it or is there a specific step by step sequence that you go through in this process?

Loren Weisman: I find every client to be really individualized and that's what I love about what I do. I feel like a detective and it's where are the strings? Where are the weaknesses? Where's the potential funding? I find myself that I'm a lot less about traffic as much as I'm more about conversion and engagement. While certain sell points are put together to sell an offer, I like to make sure, okay. Do you have a content management system, an editorial calendar of what you're going to create to talk about who you are, what you're doing, how you're doing it, or even how you're going to do it, how that allows you to stand out. From the funniest things and the most humorous things.

I was on a book tour for my second book. We drove through Albuquerque, New Mexico. We stopped exactly where they shot this one particular scene in Breaking Bad, and I grabbed a shirt and a pair of tighty whities at a Walmart, I stood there holding my book and made the joke for musicians saying, breaking bad habits. That got a lot of engagement. It got a sense of humor. There was another guy, he was talking about cleaning computers and as opposed to these very boring, mundane videos that he put up that had no engagement, we shot an iPhone video of him walking into a car wash. Just walking into the front, it was only cold water, nobody got hurt and no real computers were damaged.

That got so much more engagement because there was something there that was reaching, the term I call the three audiences. The people that already know you, are engaged with you, have bought from you or plan to buy from you, the people that are familiar with you but haven't converted yet, and the people that have no idea who you are. When the content branding and marketing is angled at all three of those, I found in the conversions that I've seen across the board inside and outside of entertainment, you keep that much more engagement happening in the people that have already bought every single product you have to the person that's never even heard of you.

Robert Plank: It's like you have your hot people, your warm people, and your cold people, right?

Loren Weisman: Exactly. By keeping those hot people hot as opposed to the inundation of the sell, then they become sales people for you. If the call to action of your sell, the buy button, and all those elements come down in the bottom where you start on the top with some kind of funny content, with something to draw everybody in, they're sharing that as opposed to the sell pitch right out of the front where it's, well I'm already buying. I don't need to pay attention to this.

People use that fact in many businesses of continuing and engaging connection with their best customers because their best customers then are going to serve as their best testimonials as they share a funny post or an interesting post or something informative that they haven't necessarily seen and oh, I worked with this guy or I bought this or I did that. They become some of your best free advertising.

Robert Plank: Cool. You do a lot of different things but out of the last couple of scenarios that you've described, you kind of do these PR stunts, in a sense.

Loren Weisman: We create the concepts around more of an editorial calendar. I'm not as much going out there to shoot. I left Los Angeles. I live in Vero Beach now so I telecommute to clients around the world and really, most of my sessions with either the other consultants or the clients themselves, it's creating these editorial calendar plans and figuring out, not just the ideas of this will be funny and this would be a stunt, but what ties in at this point down the road. The more that they can learn to take over the marketing internally and not always necessarily have someone doing it outside where they have the templates and making it so that a two minute video is shot and it's thrown into an iMovie template and its saved and everything from those little rules of more than 35 characters, less than 65, it's popped up very simply, very quickly, and reaching the most people and capturing the highest level of conversions with spending the least amount of money, or in this case, no money. That's where I'm seeing a lot of people thrive.

Robert Plank: Cool. I think that what's cool about what it is that you do is when we see all these people who ... I mean, they're too close to their own storefront, their own brand, their own book, whatever, right? They don't see it from that outsider point of view and they don't really know what would be kind of like a viral video or they don't know what would really catch on. It sounds like that's what you're for.

Loren Weisman: I'm definitely about that. Also, it goes into more of the breakdown and I think that you discuss it on your site. I'm forgetting the exact wording that you used. I call it compound content. I think you call it ... What do you say? You said something about a stronger ... Oh. Blanket.

Robert Plank: There's like repurposing content in different modalities.

Loren Weisman: Oh, no, no. I think what you mentioned was content muscle.

Robert Plank: Oh yeah. Content muscle, like basically if you haven't created any content in a while it's tough to do it but if it's something you do on a regular basis, the muscle's strong.

Loren Weisman: Exactly. I liked that when I was going through your site because in the same way, I tell most people, and this goes for everything all the way down to auto repair shops. I just spoke with a guy up in Greensboro, North Carolina and it was an idea of saying if you can put out one blog a week, and it doesn't have to be this ... And people get overwhelmed. They're like, "Well I have to put this out and it's got to be perfect. It's got to be edited. I have to shoot a $5,000 video." I view that like the Ruth Chris or the strip house evening that you have. You're not eating Ruth Chris for lunch every single day and dinner to. You're going to go there on special occasions but certain mornings you might just make that healthy shake or you might have the wheatgrass shot, or I personally do that apple cider vinegar, cayenne pepper, lemon in the morning.

Robert Plank: Oh, that's nasty. So gross.

Loren Weisman: It's so terrible but my skin, the energy I have in the morning before going for a walk. It tastes awful but it's so good for you. I'm 42 years old and not to sound like an infomercial but people are surprised. It's kind of hard. It's really good for you but I wouldn't recommend it.

Robert Plank: Nice.

Loren Weisman: With the content muscle, the constant compounding of templated content that's created inside of an editorial calendar that lines back into your brand, it bumps your SEO so you're not spending a fortune on keyword advertising or YouTube advertising. You're not wasting too much time in saying okay, I just built this amazing $5,000 video and now I'm going to keep sharing it. Now people are tired of seeing it and not enough people have seen it but they lost it. I say if you're going to do one of those big videos, do them twice a year and the rest of the time, once a week, put up a strong video that hits your point. That point, and that video, and those keywords, everything compounding, it allows for that much more.

My podcast, it's the Business Marketing and Branding Podcast, went really okay. We're only 22 episodes in. We've got three-quarters of a million listens on a starting of podcast and it's all, again, it's not advertising. It wasn't excessive marketing. It was planning the brand and naming the podcast and really directioning the content to fit what the message is and when people are creating the message, the other consultants are really organizing this is what you can do, this is how you can do it. This is everything from the style of webinar things that you do. The, what is it? Your double agent marketing. Then behind the scenes, you got all these great ideas for Robert, here's a couple twists and turns to embellish. It's why I love doing what I do because I don't have to be out front and I get to work with some really cool people that have excellent ideas and we just add all the fine, the plumbing and the electric that nobody scenes.

Robert Plank: Right. The behind the scenes stuff. Right, because it seems like you and I kind of have the same kind of problem where it gets boring in your own business, right? It gets kind of boring talking about the same five to ten things to be able to kind of jump into someone else's business and maybe for the past five or ten years they build up this huge list, so there's a huge following or all these, whatever, repeat customers that are offline business and you can just kind of take their potential and make it way better, right?

Loren Weisman: Absolutely. I think on the standpoint where you and I differ, I mean, you have that great concept with the email auto responders and the different elements your backup creators, the member genies, all those elements, it's why I contacted you. I saw what one way to connect with you and then when I saw what you were doing I'm like okay. I want to connect and have a conversation that goes out there but I want to network and potentially see where we could work together with somebody that you're working with or vice versa.

I like to bring, again, it's being a couple steps back behind and watching different things work and it's fun. Everywhere from import to export businesses, to an auto shop, to small restaurants. It's fascinating to me and every day I get up and it's so much ... To me, it's newer than it was in music and television. In music and TV, there's such this block of this is what you do and this is the publishing option. I wrote a couple books on the music industry. I did Music Business for Dummies. I did Artist Guide to Success in the Music Business and I dealt with a lot of people that have that excess of arrogance of if it's good enough, it'll just go.

As I've stepped out into business, I see people that are hungrier. I see people that are more driven. I see people that are saying okay, I've got something amazing here, but I want to treat it right. I said it in music and television, I say it everywhere else. I'm like, treat your business and your dream like a child. Are you really going to shortcut in this area or are you really going to pre-launch when you're ready to? Are you just going to take a two year old and put them in their own room, turn off those little monitors and say hey, have a good night. That's what a lot of people unfortunately do with their businesses, their models, and their products and it's part of the reason that they don't mature or develop.

Robert Plank: It seems like a lot of them have already done the work or they've already ... You know what I mean? The things that you do or with the editorial calendar or putting out a real campaign type of deal every single day. It doesn't seem like it's that much extra work for them. It's just doing more of the right things, right?

Loren Weisman: Exactly. In so many cases we make the joke ... One of my companies is called Leveraging Smart and the tagline is, you're smarter than you think. Make it work for you. The concept that you've done so much, you've built up, you've learned so much, you learned about all these things, you created this, now take everything that you've learned, take everything that you've done and put these final touches to allow it to reach that many more people. You made a great point about people that get so close to it and they think, "When I put this message out, that's great," or, "1000 people shared this post."

Okay, that can be amazing but you can buy that for $20. Then of 1000 people that share a post, what converted to your actual clients. We get lost in views, in likes, in friends, in shares and we feel good because a lot of these only SEO experts and the social media maven artist crazy life-coachy types explain that it's so hard and it's so difficult. When simple steps are broken down, not to be overwhelming, to have conversations with your clients instead of talking at a client, that gives them the information to say hey, you can achieve this. Creating videos for YouTube, creating your own simple podcast, it doesn't have to have tens of thousands of listeners, but it's more information that markets, you, your knowledge, your persona and personality, and draws in that much more.

The other thing I really like and turning it back to you, when you're giving people information, that makes them that much more feeling a sense of trust and wanting to work with you. Going right down your main page with your updates. You've got quotes, you've got tools, you've got mind hacks, you've got rules of content creation. You give so much to showcase the information that you know and the people that you work with or talk to or interview that makes you that much more of a reliable, experienced, and professional source as opposed to the BS artists that are like, "I guarantee you'll be making this in two weeks," or, "Welcome to my pyramid scheme," or, "You just need to sign up." That's a beautiful thing that I see that makes you stand out.

Robert Plank: I think that ... I mean, a lot of what you're describing like all the stuff not to do, a lot of these guys that kind of repeat what looks good or kind of just takes someone else's hype and make their hype better. I think that what's really cool about what you ... The big thing about all the things that you've described so far is that it seems like that you really personalize everything you do. When you go and help a new business, it's whatever strategy or whatever actions to be taken are super just for them, and even when you're talking to me you're making sure that the things that you're explaining relate directly to me and what's really cool about all this is that it's like you're taking your musician skills and putting towards business, right?

By the way, what do you play?

Loren Weisman: I was a drummer for a lot of years.

Robert Plank: Oh, right. Drummer, that's right.

Loren Weisman: I played trombone for horn and cello for sting.

Robert Plank: All kinds of stuff. It seems like with all this music stuff, I was in band for five years and there's the mechanical part, like there's the rules, the reading of the music part. There's the creativity, there's the undefinable part where you actually have to think. Then there's the part where you got to do the repetitions and repeat and just get better at what it is you're doing and I think that as it relates to you and your consulting and your coaching clients and stuff like that, it's just you being the social butterfly that it seems you are and just plugging away and putting yourself out there and networking and stuff like that.

Loren Weisman: Absolutely, and testing out things. Certain people find ... They find results don't come immediately and then they jump ship. It's like you went on a diet and you had a really healthy lunch and you didn't enjoy it and you didn't lose any weight so you stopped. Like I said before, we're hitting about 15 to 17,000 listens per episode. That doesn't mean anything until I see the conversion. Now when I'm on Periscope, I have only 10 to 20 people. Now because Periscope is new and I'm testing it out, I'm trying it out for three months. I'm constantly looking at the change as opposed to some kind of rule of, it's all here, it's all there.

I found with YouTube there was a while where everything was YouTube. I was getting 90% of my conversions for speaking, for consulting, for networking, and for cross-marketing with other consultants on YouTube so I dropped everything else and I just made videos five days a week. Then as that shifted and it was like, okay, this is starting to pull back. Now I'm going to play in blogs. Now I'm going to play in audios. The ability to create not just a calendar that it's not so rigid and linear, but stating let's play with time. Where can we touch on this? The hot, cold, and warm audience, the things that are happening, the things to be careful in like last night.

I'm not pointing at a Republican, I'm not pointing at a Democrat. I turned on the DNC and watched a terrible performance from Paul Simon, and I love Paul Simon. I tweeted out, I said, "I love Paul Simon. I mean, I love Paul Simon. But this isn't coming from being a part of a DNC or being a part of the RNC. This was just B-A-D. This was an awful performance and where's Art Garfunkel?" In a sense it's funny. It's not hitting one side. It's not pro-Trump, it's not pro-Clinton, it's not anti-this. It's connecting with the widest audience. For too long, and I think with the emails, that funneling exactly where you want to go, I'm all the way behind that but when it comes to the social media, the more people you can reach, the wider your stretch it, then from there, even if someone isn't necessarily interested, they might dial it in.

For example, one of your things, your episode 98. Content ideas. How to never run out of ideas for WordPress, blogs, posts, and iTunes podcast episodes ever again. I would dial in that just a little bit more into a question. I would shorten the length to make it more of a headline online, and how do you never run out of ideas for blogs and episodes?

Robert Plank: You got to listen to find out.

Loren Weisman: Exactly. Not only that, but if you optimize that and then have that phrase repeated a couple times, then you did into Siri without having to pay Siri. You have that fly into YouTube or a blog or Google or Bing or Yahoo and you didn't spend a penny. Again, it's all the fine tuning. Most of the consultants ... I mean, I do the strategy stuff and sometimes I work along side them, but a lot of time I'm just that background, fine tuning of you've got something great here and I'm not taking away from it. In a sense to summarize my job is I want to take the greatness of someone or the greatness that's being created with a team and make sure it can get out just that much further to up the conversion.

Robert Plank: You're basically looking at all the different things they're doing, right? All the things they're doing correct, all the things they're doing incorrect, and you find the hot button, the hot topic. When you were looking at my blog, it didn't even occur to me to expand or make that term of the content muscle to keep on repeating that or even make a whole book or make a whole series just based on the content muscle. I like they way that you termed it is the fine tuning.

In all of your adventures with helping out these businesses, helping out these brands, what would you say is the number one mistake that they're all making, off the top of your head?

Loren Weisman: I'd say the number one mistake is as soon as they get everything dialed in and in line, they just don't have the patience to maintain the execution. That, where they get things to a great point and then money starts to come in. Some conversions begin to create, and then they sit on their laurels. I've seen these washes of money come in and profit and it's like, okay, this is part of the proof of concept that this working. Next week, now, now that you have the money to pay your team, your self, now that you're able to quit your job, now reinforce your marketing that much more. I've always played that after you get to that level with the extra moneys that you have, that it's 90/10 marketing. 10% into what needs to go on with product development after the fact, but 90% different styles of marketing and not making the assumptions or the mistakes of, well this is going to go great or. Like you said before, repurposing content can be a great thing, but continually repeating content for the fans that have seen it or the customers that have seen it, that hurts.

The other thing too is, the other mistake, I would say these are the top two. The summary of who they are. The who, what, when, where, why, and how is such a big thing for me and so many people are not justifying those elements. They're having that assumption of no, no. You'll read a little bit deeper. If you go to youtube.com/lorenweisman, every single video has two weblinks that immediately take you out. Just like you say, I think you said somewhere if you don't know what to put, put a buy button there. I like that.

Having those links, having those correct titles, and knowing how is that summarizing and that summary. What do you put on your business card, if you don't mind me asking, Robert?

Robert Plank: I honestly don't know. I think I have my name, my picture, I'm digging in my wallet.

Loren Weisman: What's your tagline?

Robert Plank: I don't think I have one. Let's see. Okay, I'm looking at one that I have and it says backup clone protect. WordPress plug and makes it simple for you to backup, restore, and protect your WordPress blogs.

Loren Weisman: Okay, but you're bigger than just that. You are, from a marketing standpoint, from the web standpoint, you've got more of a renaissance vibe going on and an array of experience. It's summarizing that thing. One of the things, and it becomes a bit of a challenge, but I always tell people, "Put on your card what someone could search for that tagline online and lead it right to you." My card says business advisor, speaker, and author. If you search that on Google, I come up number one. You go to images, you see me. You go to videos, you see me. Dialing in some of those simplistic, tagline one-liners so that it immediately takes over.

This isn't knocking anybody. You do what you do and you do it well and I work with million dollar companies and famous artists that even still apply these things to get to that next level. About Robert Plank. There's a problem. You've been led to believe that running your own online business requires a huge amount of time and tons of technical know how. I love that sentence, but that's not about you. You're so much more with the speaking element, the podcast. I want to get the smack hit me with who you are so that from the most negative connotations or the people that have felt sold by snake oil salesmen that right off the bat, they know you're not one of them.

Even with your reach, even as successful as you are, it doesn't matter at any level. I've worked with some of the biggest names where they've even said, okay. This audience knows me but I still need to reach further. Okay, we're going to flip the bio around. We're going to find the one-liners. We're going to develop the tags and it's being humble in a sense of going, okay, yes. I'm continuing and I've got my audience, but I'm going to dial it in for the people that have never even heard of me so that when they're looking for what I do, not looking for me, they end up on me.

Robert Plank: With all that, with getting it dialed in and everything, how do you avoid either being too cutesy or how do you avoid being like everyone else. I think your phrase, business advisor, speaker, and author, would you say, doesn't that kind of sound like what everyone does?

Loren Weisman: In a sense, it does but because of how I've optimized and setup the editorial calendar, when you search that, it lands right on me. Even if your phrase, like you said, without being cutesy, if that phrase is individualized and it's something that you can take over and not have to spend money on, then you become that guy or that girl. That's the beauty of it. It's finding the words and the phrases that lead to you. That in itself is so much more powerful. I challenge you or any of your guests, type it right in. Business advisor, speaker, and author.

Robert Plank: Oh yeah. I did. You own that whole front page.

Loren Weisman: Right, so in a sense as wide as that is, I don't need to worry about it. You can go into YouTube and type in IHeartRadio Business Podcast and there are a lot of business podcasts that have been around much longer and have much larger audiences than me, but I still come up right in the top. That's some of that cross-branding for, it's SEO without paying for it and without being overwhelmed for it, so finding those phrases that dial you in. I end up being more strategy. I end up being more behind the scenes. I'm a consultant to the consultant. I'm the guy behind the guy behind the guy behind the guy. All these different phrases become subsidiary lines, but I can attack in and from the proof of concept for what I create for myself, that's how I try to help other people.

In the same sense for you. Even with all the people that follow you, all the clients that you have, just as that extra thing about finding that one phrase that makes you that much more identifiable, and then people realize all these other aspects about you, as opposed to, and I'm sure you've seen it. You get those people that hand you the card and it's got like 90,000 different things on it. I try to stay in the three area. IT's like, okay. Advisor, speaker, author, we're going to tie it in with music. I get these people that are entrepreneur, investor, venture capitalist, marketing, branding, promoting. It's like okay, so you're doing all these things but nothing really dials in.

Now for you, you're doing an array of things, but dialing it all in to a shorter term that leads everyone to find out all these other things you do, I mean, I did that in music. I don't have on my card or my websites I'm on 700 albums and I don't sit there and list out my discography. I find it better that when people search or find out certain things, they're like, "Wow, you did this and you didn't even bring it out front. What else did you do." You vicariously engage someone to want to connect with your knowledge and with what you can deliver and it helps you stand out over all these people promising millions of dollars in Lamborghinis overnight.

Robert Plank: It sounds like even though you might have all this cool stuff to list about yourself, only narrowed down to just three things, that way you can kind of capitalize on their short attention span. As we're kind of winding down this discussion, can you tell me if someone was just getting started or someone had nothing built up yet and you wanted them to build up their business to the point where they could hire you, what would you tell them that they should be doing or focusing on?

Loren Weisman: I would say in a lot of cases to begin to build the brand foundation. Know as you're working to create your business, your product, or your service, work to create the content that's going to drive behind it. From your logo to your font to the tagline that goes on your business card to the one-liner to the different content elements from videos to audios that will describe things and optimize for you. That brand foundation is probably my biggest service that I do both for clients and consultants alike and a lot of people, it's horses midstream. They've taken the business to this far and then they do that but right in the beginning to really be able to brand as you're trying to put things together, it makes it easier to find the capital and find the team.

If you're creating a concept and a vision and you're beginning to brand it, you're not lying or saying it's available when it isn't, but when people see the aspect of that brand already in motion, it takes the risk of investment or the risk of involvement down exponentially. My advice would be as you're working with someone like you, work that brand. Get the foundation of that brand. Have those call to actions, the signatures. You still got to learn all the elements that you talk about, that you teach, and you coach on in your webinars, but having that brand behind it and reinforcing that brand behind, it becomes a service and something that once it's templated, it will make life so much easier and make marketing so much cheaper.

Robert Plank: All that makes a lot of sense to me and it seems like once you kind of repeat or you have your catch phrases or your terms or your brand, it kind of looks like you actually know what you're doing for a change, right? Compared to everyone else.

Loren Weisman: Absolutely. That becomes part of the beauty of it. You have this sense that it's like, okay. This is coming. How isn't this there yet? Well I want to be involved with that. To talk about, to open a restaurant and you're doors aren't even open but you've prepped and cooked the dishes and you start doing some video, some audios, and some pictures about what's coming, why you cook that. You're beginning to showcase what people can have and that hits people and it resonates with people so much more than coming soon and wait till you see this and the best this and the most that. Even in development of different services. I work with consultants to help pre-promote webinars that they haven't even completely created.

It's not just, you need to come to this, you need to subscribe to this, but it's all what I always call the foreplay and the teasers. I'm going to lead you in for a minute and half. I'm going to talk about all these things and right as I get to a point where you need to hear this, I'm going to cut off and say hey, this webinar will be up in two months. Apply these little things where you can and then come back and visit me later. Those teasers and that engagement, it's so much better than just saying look at me, like my, buy me, share me, find me.

Robert Plank: Right, and I agree. I really enjoy, and I think you do too, pretty much the marketing aspect of everything. You were mentioning the RNC and the DNC and stuff like that and I really enjoy when if a movie's coming and sometimes they'll put out a five second clip. The trailers not even but they'll give like a trailer for the trailer and they'll say here's five seconds but next week we'll have the actual trailer. Then a month later they'll have an even better trailer and then they'll have the final trailer. By the time the movie comes out you're like, for the past six months I've been so hyped up, now I really want to see the movie as opposed if they were just like, here is the movie, go see it. The anticipation is half the fun.

Loren Weisman: Oh exactly. You take last week in San Diego or last weekend in San Diego, people lining into a room, even just to stand in the back a quarter mile away or 100 yards away from some actors to try to be the first to see the Walking Dead premiere clip for season 7, and people flipping out about that to see it first and then it comes out online. The constant element to tease and keep that foreplay of marketing happening. It's amazing and yeah, I definitely rather see five seconds of, oh my gosh, what's that? What am I drawn into? As opposed to some extended trailer of movie that's not going to come out for nine months.

Robert Plank: Right. I think everyone who has any kind of business wants that kind of effect, the Comic-Con effect or whatever. I don't want to keep you too long but I want to send people over your way so that if they have business that could always be improved or they have a business where they don't know the branding, where should they go to hire you and find out more about you?

Loren Weisman: Well they can go to LorenWweisman.com, and with that same name you can hit YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. There's a lot of information there, free tips, and my podcast which I'll have to have you on Robert if you like. I'll say this right now to your guests. I do a lot of interviews and I see a lot of people and there's a lot of hype behind it. I really like what you're about and if anybody's working with Robert, and I can get confirmation of that, I'll do a special discount. We'll do a 25% discount. If you're working with Robert, I'll do 25% off any of my hourlies or any of my branding services because I really love what I'm reading and have heard about you. I think that if you're taking the right step with Robert, I'd be happy to help out and I think that saving some money, it probably end up saving me time because they've already learned from you.

Robert Plank: Yeah. Might as well reward people for coming from a good place. LorenWeisman.com, tell them Robert Plank sent you.