Want to grow your influence? Start by giving more than you take. Join Derek Dombeck for an inspiring conversation with Josh Elledge, founder of UpMyInfluence. Josh shares his unique approach to growing influence and authority without relying on paid advertising. Learn how he transformed his business, SavingsAngel, into a six-figure-a-month venture by consistently giving value to his audience. Discover how you can leverage platforms, intentionality, and generosity to attract the perfect audience and establish yourself as a trusted leader in your industry. Josh’s insights on networking, building authentic relationships, and utilizing your journalism credibility will equip you to navigate the digital world effectively and create a sustainable path to success. Tune in to this episode and start growing your influence today!
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Influence Through Generosity: The Unique Approach To Building Authority With Josh Elledge
Today’s show is another killer. We’ve got Josh Elledge coming on. Josh is not only a former US Navy veteran, but he’s launched several businesses that have gone into the seven figures. He runs a company called UpMyInfluence, which helps entrepreneurs to attract the perfect audience and grow their authority and influence, but doing it in a way where he is constantly giving and not coming across salesy.
Before I bring Josh on, though, I really want to thank everybody who has been following the Generations of Wealth podcast for any period of time. For those of you who just found us, welcome. You can always go to TheGenerationsOfWealth.com to listen and read any shows that we’ve released in the past. We’ve also got resources there for you. You can get my books, Next Level Your Life or The Transformational Journey, and really just want you to embrace the Generations of Wealth family. Jump on Facebook, and join the Generations of the Wealth Facebook group. All of this is really just to bring you as much content and information as possible. If you would, please, go out there and give us the likes, follows, and five-star reviews everywhere that you find my show. With that, I bring you Josh Elledge.
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Josh, thanks for joining me. I appreciate it. I did get to chat with you a little bit before we started the show and found out that you are a Midwesterner at heart and birth, and actually lived not too far away from me for a period of your life. Could you just tell the audience who you are and where you come from? We’ll dive into your expertise.
A Midwest Boy
A Midwest boy living in a lonely world. Originally, I was born in the UP, and then lived all around the Great Lakes. After that, I joined the United States Navy and became a Navy journalist and actually learned from Adrian Cronauer, who was the subject of the movie Good Morning, Vietnam, played by Robin Williams. I’m not saying he was my mentor or anything. It wasn’t like a Miyagi-Danielson situation, but he did come in and really inspired me.
When I was wearing the uniform in the United States Navy, I thought that journalism would be a fun job, but then I realized, thanks to great leaders or mentors like Staff Sergeant Cronauer, that when we get behind a microphone, when we are writing an article, when we’re producing a video, when we’re creating content and serving in service of audiences, it’s a sacred obligation. Our audiences deserve our best. Our audiences deserve our transparency. They deserve our honesty because intention is something that is exceptionally transparent.
When we're creating content in service of audiences, it's a sacred obligation. Our audience deserves our best and our transparency. They deserve our honesty. Share on XYou can’t fool audiences as easily these days because everyone’s skeptical. Everyone’s analytical. It’s like you can’t fake a vibe. I think all of us have had that experience of seeing someone, and you’re like, yeah, something’s not right there. I’m picking up on something. We know that’s the X factor.
Anyway, that’s what’s led me to a string of businesses, ultimately culminating in SavingsAngel, my last company, that did quite well. It became a six-figure-a-month company. I grew that company with zero paid ads. I grew that company just from serving audiences. I was a consumer expert. I’d teach people, and you give and you give.
You don’t bother trying to hit people over the head with sales messages, but because you do that, you earn the trust and you earn the relationship, and therefore, that’s how you win. The most generous leaders win. The most generous entrepreneurs and marketers win because they serve their industry. Anyway, we’ll get into a little bit of that. I think you just asked me about the Midwest, and I started going down that road. Eventually, we’re going to get to UpMyInfluence. Essentially, when SavingsAngel was doing quite well, I was serving pro bono in our local startup community, serving on boards, mentoring, and conducting workshops of my own.
One of my fellow service-minded leaders said, “You’re really good at the PR stuff. Can we hire you?” I said, “I don’t know.” I asked one of my friends who actually was a PR practitioner, and he said, “Yeah, go ahead. If someone wants to give you money, don’t say no.” That was the iteration of UpMyInfluence.
Derek, just to bring it to the close of my bio and who I am and what I do, we are on the other side of the platform, where initially, we were helping our clients get seen and celebrated on these stages. What we figured out is that if you own the platforms, if you own the stage, it allows you to connect and network with about anyone you want, and because of the technology, it has never been easier to really start using that journalism cred or that stage credibility to network your way up.
When you can get in the room with about anyone you want, you don’t have to worry about business and business development and sales development ever again because you have such a huge network that can empower you. That’s what UpMyInfluence does. We’re very firmly on the other side of leveraging noble intent, generosity, platform, and a little bit of authority to basically absolve any decent leader from ever having to do any kind of lead gen ever again in their life. It’s a really great feeling when people want to come to you, and you don’t have to go chasing for them ever. That’s what I do in a nutshell.
That was definitely a nutshell and a lot of information.
That was a whole big bag of nuts.
Growing Authority
That was perfect. Primarily, with UpMyInfluence, what are you doing to actually get that authority built up?
Listen, authority is not anything that can be done in a day. I think you can work with a branding person, I think you can communicate the authority that you have, but authority is generally something that is earned brick by brick. Rome wasn’t built in a day. You’re not going to be an overnight success, and I think that some people try to fake it. Very quickly, we all figure it out. We all know what you’re doing. Just because you’re crouched in front of a Lamborghini, that doesn’t make you an expert.
You could buy followers, you can buy engagement, you could buy and fake all of that stuff. Your audience knows that. Sure, you can fool some noobs for a little bit at a time, but you’re not going to fool the big people. The world that we generally operate in, Derek, is we work with very sophisticated agency owners, consultants, coaches, like they’ve been around, like they’re in 6- and 7-figure territory, and they want to work with folks that are on their dream 100. These are very sophisticated leaders. They’ve seen it all.
You can’t fake it there. In that case, when you’re asking about authority, you either have it or you don’t. If you were to walk into a room and start mingling with the type of people that you want to do business with, how is that going to go for you? If it’s going to go well, it’s because, as you start talking with people, you’ve got stories to talk about, and you’ve got examples of your work. Because of that, the leaders are going to lean forward and go, “Oh, tell me more about that.” They want to hear your stories, they want to hear your case studies because what they want to know is, have you worked with people like me?
What were the results? If you can answer those questions, you’ve got authority. You need to communicate that. If you’re in a one-on-one environment, we can base that all upon how you’re presenting yourself, but in the digital world, you’re going to need to communicate that on your social media and on your website. Again, I think most of us can do a quick five-second test when we go to anyone’s website or social media profile, and we can figure it out pretty quickly.
My recommendation to our friend who’s listening is, if you’re a three in your industry, my recommendation would be to identify the fives and sixes that are out there in your industry, take a look at what they’re doing, and work your way toward that. It’s not going to be done overnight. In fact, I don’t think that this is even the secret to your success. I think it’s valuable. Honestly, you’re going to have to couple this with a lot of relationship-building and networking, because if you can do both of those things, you’re going to be all right. You can earn that trust in those relationships, and you’re going to be in a really great position.
I love what you’re talking about because you’re talking about building authentic relationships, not “what have you done for me lately” relationships. That’s really key. It’s part of why we started this show, and we run the Generations of Wealth conference on a cruise ship and all these different things to basically give. Over time, we get the network, we get the connections, and that is going to benefit us, but it’s a give-first mentality. I love that because there are so many people, especially in a marketing world, which is changing so rapidly with AI and everything else that literally weekly changes. For me, I’m not a marketer, I don’t understand the marketing side of things, and I don’t want to. I’m a real estate entrepreneur first and foremost, but no matter what business you’re in, building authentic relationships is definitely the key. I love that you touched on that.
Ancillary to real estate, let’s say that you were a real estate agent. There are a couple of things you could do to drum up business. You could do a lot of postcards and mailing letters and go right for the jugular and say, “If you need a salesperson, doggone it, I’m the salesperson for you.” That’s one way you could do that. I think a lot of amateurs can do that. Anybody can do that.
I don’t want to say or, it’s a yes. Another thing you could do is you could really focus on building deep, meaningful relationships where it’s based on friendship and trust. When you get to a place where you have 200 people, again, you’re going through the friend door, not the real estate agent door, you don’t want to be that person at the mixer who’s slapping business cards in people’s hands and saying, “I’m just going into your pitch.” People will avoid you like the plague. Everyone starts pointing at you and saying, “Stay away from that dude.” Don’t be that person.
Don’t be that person in a mixer, don’t be that person on social media. Just start giving, just start being a good person, being valuable, and helping out. Derek, the idea here, oh, there’s the full circle on real estate, is if you can get to a point where you’ve got 200 to 300 people that when asked, “Who do you know, or who do you like?” or “Who do you trust?” “Who’s a friend that is in real estate.”
Your name comes top of mind, it’s game set match. You are effectively set for life if you can get to that position. In the beginning, you’re not going to have that. You’re going to have to be out there just building and building and building those relationships, but that’s generally the idea. Again, you don’t want these to be transactional relationships. You don’t necessarily, you don’t want them to be just Facebook followers or just social media followers.
These are people that truly do like you. What that means is you’re going to have to take your sales hat off, and that’s going to feel uncomfortable. You’re just going to have to trust the process of putting in the time and leading in service, which is going to allow you to spend more time. Here’s another really great example. I was just interviewing or was just doing a little mini masterclass with Alex Sanfilippo, who’s the founder of Podmatch. He was sharing the example, because this is where we’re going to be just, I’m signposting where we’re going to be going in this conversation.
In this example, Alex was working with a real estate professional. He’s like, listen, everyone’s trying to get lunches with the mayor. Everyone’s trying to get lunches with all these notables and stuff. This real estate professional was having a really tough time earning that time because he was just cold pitching. He said, “Hey, let’s grab lunch and let me pick your brain, blah, blah, blah, blah,” that sort of thing. Alex said, “Why don’t you start a podcast and then just interview the movers and shakers in,” and I think it was in Jacksonville, Florida, “and so he did it.” Guess what happened? Because he was giving first, he was leading in generosity.
He was getting the time with the “movers and shakers.” They built a relationship together. Reciprocity kicks in a little bit. Again, you’re saving your asks. You’re not even making asks. You’re letting people know what your superpowers are.
The goal is not to get people, the goal is not to pitch people. The goal is not to convince them that your product is amazing. Your goal is to evoke in the other person, your friend, your partner, your colleague, the sentiment of, “Oh good, now I have a friend who does what you do.” That’s your goal. Because if you can do that a couple of hundred times, you will never want for business ever again. Derek, like what I do, I’ve been 100% inbound since November of 2019 before the pandemic, which means we’re getting close to five years where I haven’t had to do anything for business.
I don’t share that to brag. I share that because what I’m teaching, I did that thing and it worked. We’ve replicated this exact same pattern more than a couple of hundred times for clients that we work with. This stuff works. By the way, I’m not the author of this. A lot of what I talk about is based on Go-Giver, The: A Suprising Way Of Getting More Than You Expect by Bob Burg, which is one of the most incredible books around sales.
It’s the most leadership relationship. It’s a great manual. Lead in generosity. Stop with all the nonsense that these gurus are telling you to do. Spray and pray. Just bombard people. Ascension model.
Treat people like numbers. People don’t like being treated like numbers. People like being treated like a human and a friend. Stop with the amateur stuff and start leaning into doing business in the way that high-level leaders do it. Leaders use the language of generosity. That’s the language that they use to recognize one another. Amateurs use the language of scarcity and desperation. Don’t be like that. Stay in the generous zone. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
That is fantastic because especially with the way the Generations of Wealth is run and what our mission is to help people and live their visions for their lives. Their visions typically, if they’re being honest with themselves, should be structured where it is about helping. It’s not just about making another hundred million dollars or whatever most of the shallow people in the world are putting onto their vision boards or the wall of their office or on the mirror in their bathroom, whatever it is.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Money is great. Money is just an energy. I’m sorry, Derek, for jumping in there and interrupting.
Platform
It’s fine. I guess my next question is going to be, I hesitated for a long time to start my own show. I think a lot of people have that same thought process, “What do I have to bring to the public, or why would anybody want to follow a show?” What I’m hearing you say is really, everybody should have some form, whether it is a podcast or just giving information on social media. What I’m hearing is everybody should consider this.
Maybe. Here’s what I will say. Platform is this universal thing that we all have access to. What is platform? Platform is essentially, basically, any social media is a platform. Why? Because anyone can say something and some people will see it. Some people have bigger audiences than others, but it’s almost irrelevant because of the way that these are set up. If you use a platform, and here’s a big clue here, I see people who do this on Facebook, and, listen, I might come across as critical of it. I’m not an expert in this, but I do see people who, on their personal Facebook with their friends, family, and neighbors, are just in low-key selling mode nonstop. To me, if I’m walking around the neighborhood and I know that if I bump into a neighbor, I know eventually every single day he’s going to try to turn the conversation into some, I don’t know, try to convince me to join his religion or his political party or his business or whatever the thing is, I’m going to not be real interested in talking with him.
Again, as best as you can, try to stay cool. It’s cool to keep people updated, but if it’s every day, it’s just weird. Don’t do that. Instead, use a platform, and here’s a shocking concept, what would happen if you used a platform to celebrate other people and you shined the spotlight on other people? What do you think is going to happen? First off, with those others that you talk kindly and fondly about, celebrate, and showcase.
I’m going to give you an example of how anyone can do this, even if you don’t have any “followers.” When you do this, you are going to find that people want to be associated with you because of your generous nature. Most people, in the desperation to build their own businesses, constantly shine the spotlight on themselves. I think that short term, I understand why people do it. It’s exciting.
Imagine these amazing audiences that are following them and then doing business with them, and all their wildest dreams will come true. What is the reality? Everyone’s doing that. If everyone’s doing that, then it’s all noise. To differentiate yourself, be the giver. What you’re going to find is, because everybody wants to be on the stage, everybody wants the exposure. You’re going to find yourself in a very unique minority that makes you exceptionally attractive to all of those other people who are clamoring for attention. You get to be the tastemaker.
To differentiate yourself, be the giver. Because everybody wants to be on the stage and wants the exposure, you're going to find yourself in a very unique minority that makes you exceptionally attractive. Share on XPlatform, it could be social media, it could be YouTube, it could be LinkedIn. Maybe you’re doing some stuff for LinkedIn. Maybe a podcast is a great way to do this, which, again, I’ll get into some reasons, and some advantages that are inherently baked into podcasting for what I’m talking about. Let me give you an example of someone, let’s say you are a baby, brand new. You don’t have any following. Let’s say there are some things that you’re just passionate about. Here’s a great example of what anyone could do, and you don’t have to have much authority or anything. I think we’ve all had experiences when we’ve gone to a conference, and we’ve just been a face in the crowd.
Nobody knows us, maybe we don’t really know too many people. There’s not a whole lot of authority walking into that room. You probably make some friendships among some other anonymous attendees or whatever. That’s our best hope, from a networking standpoint.
There are some of us that have also gone to events, and we’ve been the featured keynote speaker. That’s cool. What I can tell you, having spoken for Social Media Marketing World, podcast conferences, Podcast Movement, Podfest, Tony Robbins’ organization, did some virtual events with them, it is a completely different experience. People come up and want to get selfies with you, and they want to do business with you. It’s cool. It’s a really cool feeling. I share that because I just have empathy for those folks who go to events and nobody knows you.
I went to this one event, and it was for my wife’s work. She’s a licensed marriage and family therapist. She’s a licensed sex therapist, and she works with very high-demand folks who are recovering from some high-demand situations. She’s at this conference. I’m just there to support her because she’s giving a quick presentation. She’s not the flashy public speaker or whatever, but I’m just there to support her. I’m just hanging out, and I’m waiting. I am a part of this Facebook group that is loosely associated with a lot of the folks who are at this particular event.
Again, not my people, but I’m sitting there, and I saw the event organizer, like the woman in charge of this whole thing. She’s just over there, sitting on her phone or whatever. I’m like, I’m in this Facebook group, and I’m thinking, I’m not doing anything anyway. I go over to her and say, “I know we’re both in this particular Facebook group. It looks like it’s totally fine for me to do a livestream into this group. I’m just a member. People know you, you’re the celebrity. Would you mind doing a quick Facebook Live? I’ll just ask you a couple of questions.” Derek, what do you imagine her response was?
She was either terrified or super excited.
In her case, fairly entrepreneurial. It wants to, “Yeah, totally cool.” She didn’t even know who I was, and I don’t care if she knew who I was. I just said, “Great.” I typed up a quick post. I said, “Go live and say, ‘We’re here at the such-and-such event, I was so-and-so. Tell me about what’s going on here.'” Over the next couple of days, she immediately goes into like, you know, she’s on stage. She’s electrified when she gets to tell her story. A lot of us like to tell our story.
Why are you doing what you’re doing? What’s your vision? What’s your mission? What’s your purpose? Why are you doing this? Why do you care about this? What’s some of the transformation that you’re taking place? I’m just asking.
I’m just basically teeing it up for her, and she’s doing 99% of the talking. If she ends a question, I just ask another question, and name it back to her. We do this for about eight minutes or so, and she’s loving it. I’m like, “Hey,” and we’re in the vendor area doing this. I’m like, “I see that you have some booths set up here. Should we go say hi to some of these people?” Do you see what I’m doing here?
Yeah.
First off, how much does this cost me? Nothing. These aren’t even my audience. These aren’t my people. This is easy for me to just ask questions. Here’s what we do then. We start going, and I’m just following her. She’s the one in charge, and we’re going from booth to booth, and I know her business model.
I do know that events will make some decent money from their vendors. That’s a significant source of income in many cases. In this case, it was the lifeblood of this event. I knew that. We go from booth to booth, and she ends up talking to 4 or 5 of the people at the booths who are overjoyed because they get to share what they’re passionate about. We do that. I say, “Give a final, tell people how they get here or how they can join virtually or whatever.” That’s all I did. She goes, and then I said, and then I clicked stop.
Afterward, she goes, “Who are you?” is her first question. She’s like, “Who are you? Thank you. That was amazing.” I’m like, “I’m just here to support my wife. I don’t know if you know her, she works with Natasha, blah, blah, blah,” and so I made some connections there. She goes over and hangs out at my wife’s booth for a little bit. Look, do I need anything? No. Did that cost me anything? No. Did I make some connections and help bring people together? Absolutely. I created good in the world, and I am okay with whatever the outcome is from that.
Again, that should give you a clue about the type of energy that I try to evoke when I do this. This is how I grow my company and how I work as a chief revenue, as a fractional chief revenue officer for those folks that are in the B2B world as well, you just serve in generosity with noble intent, leverage platform, come in with just a little bit of authority, and you can have all the business you want. Because, again, most of our clients that we work with end up doing business about 15% to 25% of the time with the people that they celebrate. That’s just on their primary offer. Secondary engagement opportunities are enormous.
That’s the norm, introductions, collaborations, partnerships, and maybe a few small projects. Now, maybe it’s not today, but down the road, like a year from now, this high-level leader needs you. But because you’re the friend whom they like and trust, of course, they’re going to want to do business with you. It’s like my neighbor, when we moved into our neighborhood, I got to know her, and I said, “What do you guys do?” She goes, “We own a landscape company.”
I’m like, “Brilliant.” I’m going to hire you, guys. I’m not just going to call someone that was on a street sign or something like that. I don’t care about who those guys are. I’m like, I’m going to hire you guys. She goes, “We’re a little bit more expensive.” They were 25% more expensive than the other guys. I’m like, “I don’t care.”
I’d much rather work with my friends than just some anonymous, random person. Leaders will move heaven and earth. Leaders love doing business with their friends. That’s another thing you need to know about this culture. If you’re not constantly in this friend zone and you’re on the outside, and you’re on the hamster wheel of lead gen, that’s why.
Leaders will move heaven and earth to do business with their friends. Share on XI can help you fix that, and it’s based on what we’ve been talking about. Go read Go-Giver, The: A Surprising Way Of Getting More Than You Expect, and come find me, and I’ll teach you this stuff for free. I don’t need to do business with you unless you want to do business with me. I am always open to opportunities. This is what I teach. By the way, I’m not sharing a lot of data. Normally, like in my full presentation, I’d have slides with some data and some stats on the current state of the lead gen world, why this works, what’s going on psychologically. I can really break this down, and it’s going to transform your business in a way.
You can watch that. I didn’t mean to start going into pitching my thing. Honestly, this is only for people who are really interested in this topic. You can go to my website and you can watch, I don’t need your email address. I don’t need you to opt in on anything. You can just click and play, but it’s called our Attraction Mastery Workshop. If you just go to my website, you can watch it. The website is www.UpMyInfluence.com, or if you just Google my name, you’ll find my website, Josh Elledge.
Again, what you want to click on is “watch the Attraction Mastery Workshop” or just “watch the video.” Click that, and then click and play. I’m going to go through about 1 hour and 15 minutes. I’m going to go through a lot of data, and I’m going to give you a lot of really good ideas on how you can fill your schedule. Get remarkable because advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable. When you’re remarkable, you don’t have to pay for ads. You don’t have to pay for introductions. People come to you because of who you are and the platform and generosity that you lead with.
I really like the way that you’re talking about this because if you’re coming from a place of giving like you did at your wife’s event, there’s no pressure. If you’re always giving and giving, there’s no pressure to perform. There’s no pressure on results. I feel like most people don’t want to go out there and put themselves out to the world because they know they’re coming from a place of taking, and it just creates all of this internal struggle. Doing these podcasts, the Generations of Wealth podcast specifically, I love these days when it’s time to record. I get to meet incredible people.
I get to give back, and the end result honestly doesn’t matter. Yes, I want to spread this message far and wide, which everybody listening to this show, please share this and go join our community on Facebook and follow us on YouTube, and give us all the likes and the shares. That helps all of us grow our family. The reality is if one person listens to this show versus a million people listening to the show, I know I get to at least help one person, and that’s what I get back from this. I love your message. I do want to get a little bit more specific to podcasting, though, just because I know you’re incredibly experienced in this. I guess we can just dive into that. How does your approach to podcasting really help?
Podcasting
There are some really unique aspects. I have to tell you that what I believe in is generosity. I also see that platform is about the fastest way to extend that generosity. In other words, if you think that your show of generosity is just DMing white papers all over the place that sell your stuff, yeah, you’re going to have to do a little bit better than that because that’s what everybody does. Your generosity has to go beyond what amateurs are willing to do. Amateurs, again, lead in desperation and generally with a spray-and-pray approach, that’s just the red ocean.
You’ve got to get out to the blue ocean and operate and give what leaders truly want. What I find is that most leaders have a mandate to serve audiences, to evangelize for what they do, who they are, and what their impact is in the world. That’s why, again, I lead more toward the platform. Okay, we look at what are some examples. I gave you one, and you can go live in a Facebook group. We’re looking for something that’s going to provide consistent and predictable results.
Here’s a fun fact regarding podcasting. In the podcast guesting and hosting world, Derek, I know this, I’ve been podcasting since 2007, and there has always been an enormous supply and demand gap in the guesting and hosting world. So much so that if you want to guest on podcasts, the best guests, the most successful guests, usually hire somebody to do that work for them, and they spend big money to PR agencies in some cases to be seen on these stages. These guests are having to invest a lot of resources to get out there. What do the hosts have to do? Not a whole lot. Pretty much just keep showing up and being of service. It’s a good game.
I don’t want to be too crass here, but it’s ladies’ night, and you are looking fine. It’s that kind of dynamic. It’s a really great position to be in if you have noble intent because you’re here to do a job. You can’t do this just simply because you want to pitch and sell to people. You cannot do that. If you do that, not only with that kind of energy, not only are people not going to like that, but people will hate you. They will literally hate you if you are just stepping into these relationships, not even with a bait-and-switch attitude, but even with a transactional mindset. That’s not good enough.
Go back and read Go-Giver, The: A Suprising Way Of Getting More Than You Expect. If you’re just stepping into relationships because you want to just do-si-do, that’s not good enough because you could just do that with your money. That’s just commerce. That’s no different. A true go-giver separates the outcomes, or what their intention on the outcomes is, from the activity of that relationship. You’re just there to do good and just trust the universe. Where you plant your seeds is not necessarily where you’re going to reap your harvest, but you need to plant those seeds because if you just do this, and I’m going to get specific going back to podcasting here in just a second, but if you plant those seeds and you keep planting your seeds, you will get to a point where you will not be able to out-give your industry. You will have opportunities fall in your lap every week.
I know that because that’s the same pattern that we’ve done internally, that we do with all of our clients. It works. It takes a little bit of trust and faith on the front end. That’s why it’s helpful to work with someone like me because I’ve been down the road. I can say, hey, don’t worry about that. Here’s what you need to focus on. Podcasting, enormous supply and demand gap. If you can earn a little bit of influence and a little bit of authority as a podcast host, it doesn’t take too long.
I generally tell our clients, listen, it’s probably going to take 6 to 8 months. What you want is, again, your number one job starting this podcast. Yes, you’re serving an audience. You’re building an audience. That’s one of the benefits, but the primary benefit is this is going to give you an opportunity to be of service to your ideal connection. Who’s in your dream 100? Start giving to them, start serving them, and start doing nice things for them. Use your time, try to get in the room with them together.
What you want is proximity leads to familiarity. Familiarity leads to known trust. If you can generate some familiarity bias, meaning that your guest feels like they know you a lot more than they do, then you’re going to get what you want. If you ever have a call with someone who reads your book, and Derek, I’m sure you’ve had this experience, if they’ve already spent a lot of time in your content and then you have a call with them, chances are that call is going to go pretty well.
What you want is proximity, proximity leads to familiarity, and familiarity leads to know, like, and trust. Share on XIn your guests, you’re just going to round robin, and every week you’re going to interview 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I do listen. My inner podcast, The Thoughtful Entrepreneur, has over 2,000 episodes. I’ve done business with a good chunk of those people, so what you’re hearing me do is be of service to potential clients or partners of mine. I don’t know what we’re going to do. Quite frankly, I’m okay with whatever the outcome is. If there’s nothing that we do together, I’m okay with that too. I’m just there to be of service to everybody equally, but what I know is that generally, about 15% to 25% of the time, I’m going to end up doing business with them.
Those are just the numbers, and again, it’s the same numbers if you were to walk into a room of your ideal people, everyone was relaxed, you’re not in a sales environment, and you’re just mingling, hanging out, being a cool person. You would probably end up doing business with about 15% to 25% of those people anyway. It’s that same environment. That’s what we’re replicating, it’s just the same thing.
Week after week. Podcasting has never been easier. Most people fail at podcasting. When I say most people, I think it was like an interview with Alex, and Alex knew the numbers. I think it was something like 90% of independent podcasters never make it to episode 30. They throw in the towel. Why? Because they’re too focused on getting value from the audience.
That’s not how YouTube works. In order to make it big on YouTube, you just have to be consistent. You really have to break through where, once you break through where everybody else gives up, that’s where you find success. Here’s the good news with the podcast. The audience is a secondary benefit. The social media content that you’re going to create is a secondary benefit. Your SEO you get from this is a secondary benefit.
All of this blog content, all this micro-content you’re able to create, that’s a secondary benefit. The number one benefit that you get is that one-on-one relationship. It’s the quiet conversations in what we like to refer to as a whisper network. You’re quietly doing business in the VIP lounge, in the speaker lounge. That’s where most of my best business came from before we started really doing this about five and a half years ago. I would go to an event, I’d speak. I wouldn’t necessarily do a ton of business with people in the audience, but in the speakers’ lounge, that’s where I was doing all my business, connecting with people. “What do you do?” “What do you do?” “Wow. Cool.”
Let me give you an example. Let’s say that you’re on a panel at an event, and you’re teaching an audience, and then you have a great experience. Anyone who’s ever done this knows exactly what happens. You get to know the other panelists in that process. There’s the behind-the-scenes, there’s the production, there’s the coordinating some stuff with the moderator, and it’s cool.
It’s fun, and then afterward you all have that lived experience. If you were to lean over to one of those panelists afterward and say, “I really liked what you had to share. Listen, let’s grab a coffee or something sometime, or let’s grab some time together. I’d love to see if there’s something we should be doing together.” One hundred percent of the time, I’ll tell you, I’ve done that exact same thing with my podcast guests. That’s my question. If they say no, cool, but it never happens. In fact, I shouldn’t say never. In over 2,000 interviews I’ve done, I’ve only had one person ever say, “I don’t want to talk with you,” and then they ended up sending me a referral anyway. It’s cool.
Anyway, that’s just what leaders do. Start networking like a leader and stop spamming like an amateur. Again, I don’t want anyone to feel bad if you’ve just been doing lead gen bits, and I want to wrap up into a close with this concept, if that’s okay because this is important to me. With SavingsAngel, I became a consumer advocate. That’s what I do. I consider myself a chief, well, a fractional chief revenue officer, a bit of a small business advocate or SMB advocate. I believe in the success of people who are experts at what they do. They care passionately. They’ve got some decent authority.
Sometimes we stress out because of the instability, the ups and downs. If you’ve been doing what you’re doing for any length of time, like if you’re in your thirties or forties or something like that, it’s demoralizing when you have a couple of bad months. It sucks. You start to think, “Oh, it’s my fault. There’s something wrong with my product. There’s something wrong with the market,” blah, blah, blah. We come up with all of those excuses when, in fact, probably not. It’s probably that you just need more at-bats. Honestly, you just need to be talking with more people because the more people you talk with and build a relationship with, the more people you’re ultimately going to do business with.
If your offer is fine, if people have bought it before, chances are it’s not your offer. It’s probably not you. You’re probably just fine because, again, you’ve done business in the past. You just need more at-bats. This method is something that can keep you busy. I also want to reject this notion that if you have ever felt like, “I love leadership consulting, it’s my favorite thing,” or “I love branding,” or “I love this,” or “I love CFO work,” or whatever your thing is, that’s what you’re passionate about, and then someone says, “Oh yeah, no, you can do that, but you’re going to have to do all this yucky sales and marketing stuff.” You’re like, “What’s that?”
“Yeah, you’re going to have to do TikTok dances. You’re going to have to send out a bunch of cold emails and outsource to AI, outsource to cheap labor. That’s how you get to do what you really love.” On the inside, like in your heart, you’re like, “I don’t like, I wouldn’t do business that way. I don’t like that, but if you’re saying I have to do that, okay.” That feels out of alignment with you. Even if you’re outsourcing it and letting someone else do your dirty work, that’s still your brand. That’s attached to you. That is your company. That’s your brand. There are consequences to just bugging people.
If you’re tired of being an annoying pest to try to drum up business but you’re only doing it because some guru told you that’s what you’re supposed to do, I’m here to tell you, you don’t have to do that ever again, anymore. Especially if you’re in your thirties and forties and beyond, you’ve got enough authority. You just need to be in the right room. To get in the right room, you’re the one that needs to open up the room and start. Instead of chasing butterflies with a butterfly net, running up and down the road, plant a butterfly garden instead, and the butterflies will come to you.
If you're in your 30s, 40s, and beyond, you've got enough authority. You just need to be in the right room. Share on XI do want to be respectful of your time because you’ve given us so much awesome information. The thing I think that I’m taking away from this the most is that, as a podcast host, we know what it takes. We know what it costs to produce these shows. Figuring out your return on investment is challenging, but it is, in my opinion, an infinite return on investment because of the relationships. You said it, you never know what’s going to happen.
I have awesome relationships with a good majority of my guests. Usually, it ends up where we do swaps. I go be a guest on their show, and that again helps grow the relationship. Josh, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all your knowledge. Again, everybody can go get your information at TheGenerationsOfWealth.com/influence. You can go check out UpMyInfluence and get in connection with Josh if you need his assistance. Any final thoughts, Josh?
Always looking for great podcast guests as well. If you’re B2B, you’ve been here, again, you’ve been around a little bit of time, and you’ve had some success in business. I’m always looking for really smart people for my podcast. We have over 2,000 episodes. We have over a hundred thousand on social. I would love to share and promote your story to our audience. Who knows, maybe there are some opportunities for us to collaborate or partner in some way. Don’t know, but I’m happy to be of service regardless. Derek, thank you so much for having me.
Josh, and everybody else, thanks for listening to the show and watching the show. If this is your first time, thanks for finding us. If you come back every time, thanks again for that. Again, please go out there, whether it’s Josh’s show, my show, or anyone else’s podcast, we need you to help spread the word. Give us the likes, the love, the shares, all that. Until next time, go out, live your vision, love your life. See you.
Important Links
- Reicot.com
- Gowvoyage.com
- TheGenerationsOf Wealth.com/fbgroups
- TheGenerationsOfWealth.com/Influence
- TheGenerationsOfWealth.com/YTChannel
- TheGenerationsOfWealth.com/Instagram
About Josh Elledge
Josh Elledge is a U.S. Navy veteran who became a serial entrepreneur who builds the companies he needs most in the world.
In 2014, He launched UpMyInfluence to help entrepreneurs like himself attract the perfect audiences and grow their authority and influence.
However, while growing their better-than-PR agency, UpMyInfluence discovered that building 7-figure B2B Sales Systems for consultants and agencies (with zero paid advertising) is actually what they do better than anyone else on the planet.
UMI was the natural outgrowth of his first startup, SavingsAngel.com which had grown to more than 50 employees and grossed more than $6 million in sales with zero paid ads.
He did it all through building authority and serving audiences in the media.
Josh is a frequent speaker at business and startup conferences including Social Media Marketing World and a Tony Robbins event for his Business Mastery grads.
He’s a weekly consumer expert on Fox 35 Orlando and News 13, writes a syndicated column for nine newspapers (with total readership above 1.1 million readers), and regularly appears on more than 75 TV stations across the country.
All told, Josh has appeared in the media more than 2500 times.
Passionate about his family, physical fitness (an avid fitness geek and 5K to marathon runner), and breaking out of Escape Rooms, Josh now lives in Orlando with his wife and three children.