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Connect with Mark
https://linktr.ee/marksavantmedia
https://www.linkedin.com/company/marksavantmedia/

Connect with Russ
https://russjohns.com/
https://thepiratesyndicate.com/
https://nextstepnext.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nextstepnext/

Audio digitally transcribed by Descript

Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns: [00:00:10] What a morning! What am morning. It's a great morning for a #PirateBroadcast™ and we're here talking to another pirate. Mark, good morning. How are you doing, my friend?

Mark Savant: [00:00:22] Russ. Good morning. Glad to be here. How are you?

Russ Johns: [00:00:24] I am great. I am fantastic. I am better than average and I didn't get up to wait to be normal and average. So that's how I start my day, #gratitude and just waking up and making sure that everything's okay.

Mark Savant: [00:00:37] And that #gratitude is so crucial. The more thankful you are for what you have, the more appreciation you have for what you have, because let's face it, it can get so easy to get caught up catching and chasing after that carrot. But that carrot is always going to be dangling there. So just be grateful for what you got. I love that.

Russ Johns: [00:00:51] Yeah. Just stay in the moment and make sure that you have an opportunity to reflect on what is important, what is great. So what is great for you? Right now going on in your business. And for those that don't know you, give us a little snapshot of what your business is and what you're focused on, and what's getting you excited these days.

Mark Savant: [00:01:12] There's so many exciting things happening, Russ. And we talked a little bit about this in our pre-show banter, but the world right now all revolves around learning how to evolve the way that you communicate with other human beings. And historically it was meeting for lunch or meeting for coffee and shaking hands, this and that. Now it's about how can I communicate via digital media. And there's a lot of really awesome things that you can do with that. You can communicate a ton of message just with the banner of your LinkedIn profile or with the welcome video from your YouTube channel. There's so many really cool ways that you could scale that out. So really what my obsession is, Russ, is how can I build my personal brand, communicate better with others, build my thought leadership and stay top of mind without spending all day on the social media hamster wheel and that social media treadmill. How can we accelerate that? So that's what I do is help people put processes in place so they can show up without spending all their time doing things that they don't love, they're not passionate about.

Russ Johns: [00:02:09] I know that there's a lot of people out there that they may not have the entire experience of what being on social media requires. All of the time and effort and energy that you can actually spend on social media. And it's a lot of effort when you know, it's not a shortcut, it's not a magic bullet and people fail to realize that. Oh, I'll just get on. I'll just get on social media and be famous tomorrow. It's not quite that way. So building systems, I want to key in on that because building systems for myself anyway and processes and building habits is what has really allowed me to scale and grow social media presence as well as for my clients. Some of the things that you can do, and then also just creating content. That's why I love the #PirateBroadcast™ and  the #PirateSyndicate™ is that it's a content creation machine that allows people to show up, you'll broadcast their message live, and then we can take and slice content out of that.

Mark Savant: [00:03:15] That's a fantastic strategy, Russ. I've been able to replicate a similar strategy with my show, the After Hours Entrepreneur, shout out to all the entrepreneurs out there because what it allows you to do is you building your network. You're meeting great people. You're having good conversations. You get to meet all the awesome people in the audience like Angie, Ronald, Tracie, Maureen, what is up? Thanks for being here.

Russ Johns: [00:03:34] Angie's here. Ronald Earl Wilsher. Hey, Ron, super rockstar, Tracie and Maureen. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here.

Mark Savant: [00:03:46] What's brilliant about it, Russ, is that scalability, right? Cause like you said, you have the right systems in place, you can chop up those clips. Now all of a sudden that 30 minute networking conversation lasts for weeks and shows up for weeks and reciprocates value to the person that you're on the show with. And it's a really powerful branding strategy. In this day and age. Yeah.

Russ Johns: [00:04:05] It's awesome. Wendy says, that's why the #PirateSyndicate™ loves you, Admiral. Welcome to the posse, Mark.

Mark Savant: [00:04:11] Arrgh. Glad to be here.

Russ Johns: [00:04:14] One of the things that the #PirateSyndicate™ is known for is the kindness and smiles. We love having the conversation and you're only one conversation away from getting a lot of times what you need to move you forward. And so you have a different background, you were in the insurance industry and then you transitioned into marketing and more branding. So talk a little bit about what was it that drew you into the social media marketing world from for the insurance industry?

Mark Savant: [00:04:47] I got my degree in college. I graduated in 2009 Florida Atlantic University. What's up Owls? Go Owls! And I got my degree in Business Management and Marketing. So I had always had an interest in the topic of communication, delivering a message, building brand. It was always very interesting to me. But when I graduated from college, like most college kids, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I got this great degree and now what do I do? So my father running an insurance agency was like Mark, I need someone to run the day-to-day operations, build out this business. And I got involved there, but. It just always stuck with me the importance and the power that we have to communicate messages right now. Like it's just crazy me.  My YouTube channel is very close to 600,000 views. 600,000 times two eyeballs have watched the videos that I produced on YouTube.  10 years ago or 20 years ago, that would not be possible. It just wouldn't be possible. And so it's a really unique time that we're living in right now where you can reach a lot of people with the right strategies, the right execution, the right collaborations. And  I realize that I recognize that. I actually got a chance to see Gary V on stage. And he said something that really, really just stuck with me and I'll keep it PG here because he put a Gary Vaynerchuk layer into how he said it. But the closing remarks of his 15 minute keynote were make more content, expletive, make more content. And it just, it made so much sense. So since I saw him say that or heard him say that, I said, how can I make more content in less time? And now it's allowed me to build up this pretty nice snowball effect on my digital media brand and other people are coming to me. People ask me, Mark, how much time do you spend in sales? And I'm like, basically zero. People come to me and say, hey Mark, how did you do this? And I try to find a way to provide them with some sort of value and anyway, I'm getting a little off track. The key is finding ways to make more content for less of your time. And that's really where I started diving deep.

Russ Johns: [00:06:52] I want to key on something in it because Ronald Earl Wilsher is in the house.  Ronald has a miscellaneous ramblings of you'll have to tell me  what it is Ronald. When I was in Houston, we used to have a show called the RNR. It was a show we had, I was in radio and one of the principles Ronald suggests is it's easier to attract and engage, than it is to chase and convince.

Mark Savant: [00:07:22] I love that.

Russ Johns: [00:07:23] And with content and what you just said, brings out that principle.  It highlights that principle because when you are visible and you have authority in the market as a thought leader and you're able to be seen, be heard and be talked about as a thought leader, then all of a sudden people are knocking on your door and say, hey, would you be open to doing something? Are you open to being engaged in this opportunity? And it starts conversations and that's the whole process. I don't necessarily need millions of people to see me. I just need the right people to see me. I just need to engage in the right conversation with the right people at that time.

Mark Savant: [00:08:09] It's while your messaging matters, too, right? That when someone lands on your LinkedIn profile, they look at your banner, they look at your picture, they look at your about section. What is that messaging saying to that person? Because if you don't have the right messaging there, you're not able to really connect because you're right, it's not about millions of followers, millions of likes. It's about reaching and connecting with that right person. And a lot of that has to do with the static effects, the static messaging that you're putting on your social media profile. And in your video content.

Russ Johns: [00:08:38] And the other thing I think is important and business owners need to understand that a lot of business owners come to someone like yourself or myself, and they say, I want to reach more people, or I want to make more impact. And that means a lot of different things for a lot of different people. So you have to really hone in on what their goal is. Is it just that they want to build authority or they want leads because those two are completely different things.

Mark Savant: [00:09:05] This is true.

Russ Johns: [00:09:06] And so we need to make sure that we're cautious about what the result is and what the expectations are because managing those expectations and managing that outcome is going to be key to our success.

Mark Savant: [00:09:19] A hundred percent. And I think that's something I learned very quickly when I started working with clients was make sure that you're clear on what their goal is, because if you don't know what your goal is going into a social media branding or marketing campaign, it's going to fall flat and you're not going to track the right people. You're not going to be having conversations with the right people. I a hundred percent agree.

Russ Johns: [00:09:38] Yeah. So how do you go about... what's your process? What's your thought process when you bring someone on and you say, okay what do you want to do? Is there  a checklist you go down or is there a discovery process? Everybody has a logic to their outcomes, so what is it that you like to do and how do you like to manage through that process for your clients?

Mark Savant: [00:10:02] Yes. I didn't expect our conversation to go this way,  but I'm excited that it did. This is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, Russ, is I onboard both new clients and new team members. Last week, I onboarded three new team members to the Mark Savant media team and I'm a work in progress, right? I think we should always be working on having better onboarding processes. But for me, when I'm working with a new client or saying, hey, what do I want to accomplish? Going through the list of questions, getting a better understanding, making sure that our descriptions and our titles have the right keywords. So we're driving SEO and whatnot. Make sure that our pictures are all on brand and in delivering that same message. But for me it's an eight week process of onboarding.  Someone new comes into your stratosphere, say, hey Mark, this is the goal, I want more DM's for more sales. Okay. Let's start with an eight week program. First week is, we're going to get X accomplished. Week two, we're going to start ramping up. Week three, we're going to tweak. Because I think a lot of people think that you just wake up and you have a social media brand. But it's just like going to the gym. The first time you step on the treadmill, you pick up a weight, it's gonna be like, wow, this is really heavy. This is really difficult. It takes a long time. But by the fifth, by the 20th, by the hundredth time you've done it, you get better and better. You get stronger, you become more competent and it works the same way with digital branding and social media in there might be certain exercises that you realize, I just don't like doing this.  I don't care about the size of my butt, so I'm going to stop doing squats.  Again, just to give another analogy, it's focusing on where is my ideal client and what's my ideal goal. What's the message I need to deliver  to resonate.

Russ Johns: [00:11:36] The funny thing about it is you started off and when you graduated college, you graduated in a marketing degree and you really had an idea about some things that you could try and you weren't sure if that was something that you really wanted to pursue. So it's like podcasting, a lot of pod fade happens because they get seven to 10 episodes into the podcast and they decide, oh, this editing is hard. Or the social media is difficult. It takes so much time and I don't get any results from it. And nobody's listening to me. Why should I be doing this? And the reality is you have to figure out what it is and how you pursue creating content that feels comfortable, easy to access, easy to create and produce on a regular basis and gives you some results, gives you some feedback that allows you to improve and increase that volume of content creation. And it's not always an easy process. So I suggest anyone out there struggling with that, talk to someone like Mark, talk to someone like myself and brainstorm a strategy that might work because this is something that we're doing on a regular basis for a lot of different people. So there's not just a single answer. There's a lot of different strategies that go into it. And I think it's important for us to understand that there is no right answer. There's just the right answer that works for you. So we need to make sure that's in place and you can actually maintain it over time, cause it's a long game. It's not necessarily a... you just don't fire up a Facebook account and be famous tomorrow.

Mark Savant: [00:13:13] That's true. But the long-term value that you get from focusing on delivering a message and creating some sort of show or a podcast specifically, you're learning all these skills that are super relevant in this day and age, the skills that you need to be successful in 2021, moving forward are going to look a lot different than the skills you needed going from 2001 forward. It's very different marketplace, but when you learn how to podcast, you're learning how to network online. You're learning how to promote. You're learning how to sound and look good on audio and video. You're learning how to meet new people on social media and deliver message. You're learning how to build out some sort of funnel or offering some sort of way to develop a stream of income. So you're learning all these skills that are incredibly valuable and relevant. And I was in a clubhouse room last night. Clubhouse is a great new platform. Hundreds of people going in and out of this room and this woman, the first person on stage was like, I know I want to start a podcast. I know we need to do it, but I'm just scared. I'm just scared to post that first episode and we went through it with her for 15 minutes or so, but at the end of the day that's a good thing. That's that challenge. It's taking that first step forward to doing something you know needs to be done. You just keep putting it off. And the sooner you get off that track and start taking steps in the right direction, you're going to start opening doors you can ever imagine. And it's been a really great journey.

Russ Johns: [00:14:36] Yeah.  It's amazing to watch how it evolves when you're willing to put yourself out there. You got to put yourself out there. Latoya says morning, congrats on your YouTube channel success, Mark. And I want to come back to that a little bit. Ronald says RonaldWilsherbook.com. Always the pitch man, Ron. Attract and engage is better than chase and convince. Yes.

Mark Savant: [00:15:01] I love that. I wrote that down, by the way. I wrote that down. I love that.

Russ Johns: [00:15:04] I use that quote all the time and I do reference it back to Ronald Earl Wilsher. Shandra says good morning from Houston. Thank you so much. We got to connect. I really feel that a lot of people have a huge opportunity. Everybody has a gift. Everybody has a message, and one of the things that I love about what I'm doing now is, let me ask you, how was your experience getting on the #PirateBroadcast™? How was the process for you? How was that process? What was your experience?

Mark Savant: [00:15:34] It was smooth, very smooth. Yeah. You have a lot of automated systems in place, which make it smooth. We get the links, we get reminders, things like that. Calendly is a great tool. That's what I'm using for that. This is an interesting conversation topic. I was in, again, just to reference clubhouse. I was talking to some other really great podcasters about how to land great guests, how to have a great onboarding process, how to make sure that they walk away with as much value. And you do as well. A lot of people don't like Calendly. They just don't like that automation. They enjoy that person to person touch or feel that the messages going back and forth and I have mixed feelings on this. Cause I love the ease of Calendly. It reduces all that back and forth are you available on this day at this time? No. Okay. What about this time? No, that doesn't work. Okay. Let's reschedule, but there's a little bit of intimacy that you get from that human to human touch. That connection. And different people have different opinions on this. I like Calendly because again, it's quick, it's easy, it's efficient, but there's other people that won't even touch a Calendly link. So this is something that I think is an interesting thing that came on my radar within the last two weeks. It's changed the way that I've booked guests completely. I've done over a hundred episodes, all using Calendly, and I've actually started to evolve that a bit based on the guest and based on their preference in the booking process. So interesting anecdote.

Russ Johns: [00:16:51] So podcasters, a lot of times they'll record it in advance and they'll edit and process it and then post it later on, which I used to start out.  I started broadcasting years ago. I've taught classes at podcast movement workshops at universities and journalists, students and things like that. I've been in the podcasting world for awhile now and helped people create thousands of podcasts, literally. And everybody has a different process. And I like live streaming because I don't like editing. So I got tired of editing, so I thought I'm just going to go live stream and I'm going to go put it out there and it's going to be live. And the other commitment I made because of the process is that I'm going to use Calendly because it simplifies the process. And I'm going to do my show every day, five days a week at 7:00 AM Arizona time. Now, Arizona time isn't part of the daylight savings. So half the year, it's in mountain standard time, half the year, it's in Pacific standard time or PDT, or, if you want to get technical, I don't know. The point is that I set it up for myself to be systematic so I could show up every morning, just like any daily show that anyone runs. So people know when to expect it. How do we expect it and when to expect it. So it goes back to the question, what works for the process that I'm building, what works for the goals that I'm achieving. And so if I can book out a month in advance  or if I can hustle and get guests in, it's super simple for the people to get into the show. And that's what I've built for the #PirateSyndicate™. So the #PirateSyndicate™ is the same thing. Building systems for the person that wants the results, but they don't want the technical requirements and the headache of dealing with the technology, the systems, the process, the notifications, the followup, and everything that goes along with that.

Mark Savant: [00:18:52] You're putting these standard operating procedures in place and that consistency is probably the most important facet of a successful show. So having that consistency, and that's another great part about Calendly and these automations is, what's going to happen every time someone clicks that link, it's going to be consistent. But again, going back to this point of... the kind of the evolution in the way that I'm booking guests for my show, it's been very challenging because we're losing that consistency now that I'm taking Calendly out of that part of the process for some of my bookings. It's reducing the consistency of how that looks.  I brought on a team member to help manage my email inbox and my calendar and my bookings and my outreach and all of those kind of messagings that are just getting out of hand for me right now, I brought in a team member. It reduces the consistency because now I have to train him. We changed this. What about this system? So to me, that's part of the fun. It's building out the standard operating procedures just to continuously improve. And going back to our beginning, your first episode, your first booking is probably not going to be very good, but over the course of time, it gets better and better. Your growth is going to be immense. Doors are gonna open and that's really what I try to help people out with is how can we open those doors? How can we show up? How can we deliver that message? How can we stay top of mind? And that's really, I think it's people always talking about stocks and bonds and going to college, but it's understanding how to stay top of mind, how to stay relevant and how to be a thought leader, how to be seen as a thought leader, because whether that's creating your own business or it's going to get a job somewhere in the future, the first thing that employer is going to do is they're going to go to your LinkedIn profile. They're going to go to your Facebook profile. They're going to see, what do I see? How do you want to be seen when someone lands on your profile? It is the most underrated, undervalued skill right now. If you're not on it, you're going to be left behind and I very much feel strongly about that. And that's I guess how I felt, where I'm at.

Russ Johns: [00:20:45] That's my tail and I'm going to sit on it, right?

Mark Savant: [00:20:47] Yeah.

Russ Johns: [00:20:48] The reality is that we all have an opportunity.  I was in advertising long before the internet and I've watched the evolution of everything take place. I've gone from painting billboards to printing billboards, radio going from a single radio stations to consolidate it. Radio stations where you have a transmitter somewhere and you don't even have any people in the market. All of these things have evolved and changed in the discovery process for individuals, like you say is really important. It's the possibility that we can actually stand out as individuals with our skillset providing value to... even if you're an employee in a large organization, it's still important for you to have a brand and an identity that you can actually stand on independently of that organization. And when you understand and appreciate that you're marketing yourself, you're marketing your skills, just like going in and asking for a raise. You have to have  not only the skillset, but you have to have the ability to be marketable. So if they say, no, you can decide is this the organization for me? Or is it not. And without that advertising leverage, it's difficult to move forward with that.

Mark Savant: [00:22:08] Life is all a game of, it's basically all high school. People think that, okay, I graduated high school. Now the real world...It's high school the whole way ladies and gentlemen. From where you're at now to the retirement community in Dell Boca Vista, it's all high school. So by having a reputation online, that's where it matters. That is your social capital. Is your social proof, your network is your net worth, like you've heard it all before. People just don't execute on it. And the reason why Russ is because it's not fun, it's not sexy to be up late at night booking out a week of guest interviews or editing your show or posting social media or queuing these things up. It's not fun or attractive. You'd rather be relaxing and watching Netflix with your wife or I sacrifice my Saturday mornings now, not only for work, but to put on an amazing show on clubhouse. If you're thoughtful about it, you can and do it on your own in a very smart, intelligent way. Or you can hire a firm to put a platform to hear that's really what I do in my eight week program and say, hey, let's show you exactly how to do it. If you want to work, get back to what you love. But also don't put this off. You can invest in Bitcoin and doge coin all you like, but your social capital is what really is going to matter over the coming years.

Russ Johns: [00:23:22] Absolutely. Absolutely. And Angie reminds us pod fade, pod fade, pod fade. Before we wrap up here, I want to dive back into your growth in the YouTube channel. I haven't spent a lot of time. I have over 700 -800 videos on YouTube and I've had lots of different activities on YouTube. And I think it's consistency is one piece of the puzzle. However, getting some focus on what you're putting out there and then making it, like you said, the message has to be available to people. So what do you see and what do you anticipate, or what have you noticed in your growth and what has made the biggest difference?

Mark Savant: [00:24:05] Yeah, so I love YouTube. I also want to give a shout out to Chandra here. Thanks for being here. My clubhouse handle is Mark Savant. You find me at Mark Savant all across the web. Basically every platform, whether that's Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Clubhouse, YouTube, Mark Savant. You can find me all over.

Russ Johns: [00:24:23] It's a little too  addicting for me right now.

Mark Savant: [00:24:26] It is. And they just introduced monetization. They just announced it last night. So I'm excited about that as a big clubhouse handler and host. I host a lot of rooms on clubhouse. So yeah, I'm very excited about that. But to answer your question going into 2021, one of my main goals was to grow on YouTube. It's the second largest search engine. It's immensely powerful. And if you're able to connect and communicate a message on YouTube, you're going to be incredibly valuable to any business organization network. You're going to be incredibly valuable. So learning how to leverage YouTube is very important. I tried a lot of different things, Russ and bar none it's going in there and just posting videos and not worrying about followers subscribers, how can I make each video more interesting, more compelling? How can I make my video look better? How can I improve my lighting? How can I sound better? How can I get to the point more quickly. Then after you've posted, 20, 40, 50, 60 videos, then start to look at your analytics. Where are my drop-off points? What are my click through rates? What thumbnails are hitting? So there's a lot that goes into it. But if I could give one tip to anyone, A - it's watch my YouTube channel, Mark Savant Media, you can see not what I say, but what I do, what I'm executing on. But I think that the one thing that people don't really understand with video and audio right now is not only is your video content, the visual and audio, but it's also written. It is written word because all these platforms are transcribing all of your words automatically using AI when you're creating a YouTube video and you start thinking about the first few words of my sentence, or the first few words of my video need to be very intentional because it's being transcribed and it's going to be used to push it out to other people. That's I think a concept that most people aren't aware of when it comes to YouTube and Facebook and LinkedIn, they're all doing this. They're transcribing all of your words. So if you start off your video with, hey everyone, Mark Savant here, I'm hanging out on my back porch. Nobody is searching for that on the web. Nobody cares about Mark's on his back porch. What they care about is how to grow your podcast. Five easy tips. Yeah. Grow your LinkedIn following with these simple strategies. When you start being thoughtful about the first several words you're using, you're gonna start to reach more people because these platforms are transcribing and using those transcriptions to match you with people that are interested in your keyword.

Russ Johns: [00:26:59] That's a great point. I love it. I love it. So wrapping up, you mentioned how people could get ahold of you, track Mark down, make sure that you're reaching out. You're now a pirate, Mark. You can come on, jump on any time and make sure that you can share things where you can have a great conversation. We can share these tips because ultimately we all have something to deliver. We all have something to share and the pie just gets bigger when you're helping each other out, and so any last parting words of wisdom that people can use to move on with their day, Mark?

Mark Savant: [00:27:37] Be better than yesterday, stop focusing on what everyone else is doing, just focus on being a little bit better than yesterday. That's really what I preach. You can definitely listen to my show, The After Hours Entrepreneur. All over your favorite podcast distributor, but The After Hours Entrepreneur is the name of my show, you connect with me all over the web at Mark Savant. And I'm just happy to be part of the process, Russ. Thanks for having me on here today. Be better than yesterday.

Russ Johns: [00:28:02] Thank you so much, everyone. And I love the fact that you're here. Thank you and share and subscribe and all the good things that social media encourage us to do right down below. Yeah, smash that like button.

Mark Savant: [00:28:14] Share this!

Russ Johns: [00:28:15] Yeah. And that's because #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree and we want you to #enjoyyourday. Thanks everyone. Be well.

Exit: [00:28:27] Thank you for joining the #PirateBroadcast™. If you found this content valuable, please like, comment and share it across your social media channels. I would love the opportunity to help others grow in their business. The #PirateSyndicate™ is a platform where you show up, we produce the show. It's that easy. If you want to be seen, be heard and be talked about, join the #PirateSyndicate™ today.

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