​Russ Johns 0:00
So I'll let you get back to it.

Oh, and it's another beautiful day in the neighborhood. A little bit hectic, a little bit crazy. However, we are lucky to be here on the Pirate Broadcast and interesting people doing interesting things. And I just want to remind everybody that some of the things that you're doing in your life right now are absolutely important to have a little patience, a little consideration, a little empathy on what others are going through. And I just want to let you know that we're here at the Pirate Broadcast and building a community to help you understand and appreciate what other people are doing. And today we have we have an amazing guest, Bob Umar, How are you this morning?

Bob Umar 1:23
I'm doing well thank you Russ and it's a little bit hectic and crazy with everyone at home, but we're doing the best we can.

Russ Johns 1:30
Well, it's you know, it's one of those things that we, you know, circumstance allows us to go through this process of really understanding and appreciate what we can do. You know, when you're forced to do things that you wouldn't necessarily do normally. You just have to go with the flow, understand and appreciate what the circumstance is and just continue to move forward. So Oh, and Happy St. Patty's Day I don't know. I don't know. If that's something that you I was completely oblivious to, it's like,

Bob Umar 2:06
Yeah I came by and didn't notice. I mean

Russ Johns 2:10
Yeah it's like

Unknown Speaker 2:12
I'm mindful of it because you know my kids are part, half, Irish so like, you know, we should you know so there you go but yeah it's it's gone by

Russ Johns 2:22
yeah so get get us caught up I haven't you know we've been connected for a while but I haven't caught up with you for a while and I just wanted to catch up you know and see what you're up to now so catch us up to speed What are you doing here on on LinkedIn and are you I know you're on Facebook as well you're

Bob Umar 2:40
Yeah.

Russ Johns 2:40
doing are you still speaking and you know you're doing

Bob Umar 2:43
Yeah.

Russ Johns 2:43
or?

Bob Umar 2:44
Yeah.

Russ Johns 2:45
What's Bobby up to today?

Bob Umar 2:47
Yeah, I mean the main stuff that I'm doing as always I start off as a speaker but you know, and people get thrown off by the word speaker because you know, I was doing speaking and training and things like that. But essentially I was an expert in certain areas. So my expertise Leadership Development it started to break down into different expert areas like networking, authentic networking, relationship building, it broke into personal branding and then social media and digital influence things like that. So that's how I started speaking but then I started doing more training consulting as well as now coaching in terms of what's been going on well a lot has changed the speaking industry has shifted and last couple years in terms of what people are looking for what conferences want what companies want in terms of training. Training is always there which is great. But it's always hard to hard sell to get in there and you know, to build a sales funnel over like over sometimes takes a year. And then the other big thing is more recently things are really difficult because of the shift with this with this crona pandemic because events are being canceled speaking is being canceled some of them being shifted like so I had one in April that was moved to September. Add another one May move to September, it feels like everything's going to September for some reason. And then I have two more that I anticipate that are going to be shifted as well and other ones are being cancelled. So some are shifting, which is fine. And that means you get paid later, which is not great.

And then other ones are canceled completely, which again is worse. So how am I dealing with that? Well, I mean, one of things I'm trying to do now is try to focus more on coaching, consulting, because I can do that online with people. So I bought a coaching client earlier this week to talk about to do career transition coaching or public speaking, coaching or concentration coaching, so things like that. So I'm trying to switch to that I'm also working on some online programs. So I have an online program that I'm launching virtually and online that you know, try to promote that to first, my speaker mastering course, as well as one on personal branding. So I'm trying to navigate that do a lot of work now online. At the same time, I'm a very social guy. So you know, I get lonely. So you know,

Russ Johns 4:17
Yeah.

Bob Umar 4:18
I so having interaction like this, or I'm going to do like a daily zoom call with my friends on Facebook and just like start chatting people and even an hour a day is enough to, you know, fill me for the rest of the day. I mean, my kids and my wife are great, but I also it's nice to have someone to the external world. So that's kind of what I'm doing in terms of love women in LinkedIn, for the most part. It's always been about creating a thought leadership around who I am what I do. Using using contents, I was doing a lot of video content. I now have a company page, which has about 20,000 followers. That's been pretty good. And then my personal profile, which I've switched to do videos every day, and then it's got to be too much and I did five times a day they did three times a day and then I started doing once a week because it's kind of crazy but too busy to engage with everybody. And so now I primarily focus my profile page with live streams like so I'll do a live stream. It's not consistent. But I typically do a live stream on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday in the morning. And if I have a guest, I'll get a guest. And if I can talk about something as important to me, I'll do that. But mostly, that's the main stuff I'm doing on my profile page was live streams. And then on my company page, that's where I share usually daily content Monday, Friday, around again, pulling engagement, leisure development, personal branding, the power of connection, as I call it. That's what my broadcast is called so but in terms of the time spent on that definitely scaled back my time used to be quite a lot like 1520 hours a week. Now it's probably, I'd say five to 10. It is the place where I spend most of my time on social media like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, the other three but LinkedIn is the primary source of where I create content, engage people start conversations, mostly because I'm trying to build a business and do more like with my work. Yeah, that's that's that's pretty much where I'm at at this point.

Well yeah.

Russ Johns 7:00
That's fantastic. Because, well, for myself, you know, I've been on most social platforms, because I've been doing this for years. And one of the things that I've discovered is, you know, most recently, LinkedIn has really been more productive for me. It's been a place where I've actually built some really amazing relationships.

Bob Umar 7:03
Yeah.

Russ Johns 7:26
And, you know, real friends, you know, honest friends. And it's like, I have a relationship. I have communities and I just want to give a shout out to some of these people that are here today because you know, who wants to be a pirate? Well, Ted Lizner wants to be a pirate. He's a pirate. And Laurie Knutson. Good morning. Thank you so much. I owe some people a tutorial on how to connect because LinkedIn. Overall, I don't know if you found this to be true Bobby or not on your live feed. But Gabriel's saying good morning, but the live feeds on LinkedIn are difficult to find And it's also difficult to find out who is actually on the feed and getting the comments. You know, it's okay, we were doing the comments here. And you can do the comments from Facebook, you can do the comments from Twitter, you can do the comments from YouTube, but not LinkedIn.

Bob Umar 8:27
Right.

Russ Johns 8:27
So I'm a little I'm often frustrated, you know, on occasion with LinkedIn, only because I can't see the comments from LinkedIn.

Bob Umar 8:38
Yeah, and I've already met with the LinkedIn technical lead for LinkedIn live. So I've gave my feedback you need to this is a bandit solution, right now having a third party software to you know, like, unlike Facebook Live or Instagram Live or even Twitter live, you can see people commenting right away, like it's this way it ends one machine so

Russ Johns 8:57
Yeah.

Bob Umar 8:58
You know, they need to they need to fix that. You know, they have Microsoft owning them, like, get to it guys. So I'm looking forward to when that happens. I think it's gonna happen at some point, but they're definitely behind in that area. But, you know, I can see the feed to everyone's comments. That's great. Like, you know, the only way to know they're there is they're commenting. So we appreciate the comments. I think that's great.

Russ Johns 9:15
Yeah. Thank you for the comments. Let me know that you're here. So I can comment back, because I do go back in the comments, and I respond to the comments. At least I attempt to do that as often as possible. And I just want to make sure that people let me see whose hearing today. So there's a couple people Sherry Lolly. Yeah, Saeed, thank you so much for being here. Wendy. Yeah. And Gabriel. We got Gabriel in here and Steve Sullivan. watching live from Georgia. You know, The thing about what we're doing, you know, and I did this I did the pirate broadcasts is an exercise to practice how I could actually implement this for other people. And I've built that out now I've launched the pirate syndicate. So I do production. And I've trained a team to do this production for other people. And, and I've got a couple of launches coming up. And in fact, I have a webinar tonight. That is, is going to be going tonight and tomorrow. And I think we're, I think I have a workshop on Thursday. So the whole point, though, is,like you a share what, you know, do what you can to help others. And it always seems to come back to you. I mean, is that what your experience has been?

Bob Umar 10:45
Well, I think the general idea and this is something that I also espouse is, you know, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, what's your objective, right? So you know, I have an objective here to build a brand for myself and help people in this in a certain way. So I usually focus on, you know, creating more alignment filaments in your lives for personal branding, and to build and develop leaders and things like that, and develop thought leadership for people. So that's, my objective for being here. Number two, then you know who is your target audience? So who are these people? What are they going through how they feel? Or their pain and bliss points, and you serve them? And the third part is okay, now how do I then create value for them? So everything I do, from my post to my programs, to video content, whatever I share, it's about creating value for these people. And then once I do that, that's when you start conversations. You start connections, you build relationships, and that's when the magic happens. You either you either build a business, or you build friendships.

Russ Johns 11:47
Yeah,

Bob Umar 11:47
And I've had some amazing connections already built community. And so for me, I'm blessed to have community mostly some great friends on this platform. Like, I think that people that have just, it's amazing. I've met like good examples, Lila Smith. I met Lila Smith on this platform. And then pretty soon she came to Toronto and went spoke at my event. And then I brought her to a conference I was at in Africa, we both went there together, we hung out. Like, it's amazing.

Russ Johns 12:12
Yeah!!

Bob Umar 12:13
That's so cool. I just think that's really cool. And then there's a community people that you know, when sometimes when I'm going through difficult stuff, I'll show share with a community here, and people will comment and offer support and offer advice. And I just think that's really amazing.

Russ Johns 12:28
Yeah, I got her coming up on the show here shortly, so.

Bob Umar 12:31
Great, great and then I think in terms of the business thing, I think that's one where I think for me, it's hitting Miss sometimes it works well. And other times I don't think it works as well. So

Russ Johns 12:39
Sure,

Bob Umar 12:39
I think for many of us, you know, we have to figure that out. We've tried what said what's the best way it works for us? I'm not I'm not much of a seller, I don't like the you know, like hey, Blah Blah Blah. And whenever I do a post where I say okay, here's my program sign down below. I just feel so Oh God!

Russ Johns 13:00
I think having been in comedy and stand up and in improv, you know, it'd be really great to have, you know, that skit going on. I've talked to some people about doing a skit, you know, when it's like, Okay, first as soon as I hit submit to the button that says, Here you go, and this is what you do. And this is why you're doing it. Hey, buy my stuff. It's like crazy.

Bob Umar 13:33
Yeah, you know, I don't do enough comedy. I mean, I one time I did. I did a bit on networking fails, and I just started acting. So here's a little network failure. Right and, and people loved it, but I was like, I just don't do that. I mean, I should probably do more comedic stuff on it, because it's, it's so easy.

Russ Johns 13:52
Yeah,

Bob Umar 13:53
here's how to setup LinkedIn. You know, and I could do this whole thing about that.

Russ Johns 13:56
I think, you know, I think you can really create some of those short, quick improvs on Tick Tock and then bring them into LinkedIn. Yeah.

Bob Umar 14:11
Oh, for sure, for sure.

Russ Johns 14:13
You know, do some spoofs, you can do like, the whole thing. You know, it's like, okay. So I want to talk a little bit about how long have you been on LinkedIn? And and what's your process for starting a conversation? I mean, do you have a system that you like to follow and work through? Or do you do come on? You know, it's like anything else? life gets busy, and it slows down and then you come back online and and do that. Are you are you fairly consistent on your LinkedIn process?

Bob Umar 14:45
That's a good question. So first off, I've been on LinkedIn since the beginning, like I was one of the first million users back when they started. So that's great. And then I basically did nothing for a long time. I just posted articles all the time and nothing, no engagement. But then two years ago, when Microsoft bought them out. I was born by swish Goswami Bobby's he engaged more like okay, and so I started testing things so I just did like a daily tip. And within five days within five days of the of my daily tip it just started to take off and wow, okay, there's major occasion you're better than anything I've seen on the other platforms. So then I was in now in terms of and then again that process has evolved in terms of text content, video content, election content, daily versus three times a week versus once a week, and then I'm shifting back and forth all the time. But the general take is at this point, my system currently is on my company page because a company page took off about a year ago and

Russ Johns 15:42
Yeah,

Bob Umar 15:43
Wow, $20,000 I kind of couldn't believe it. So I now post there Monday through Friday, once a day, once per day in the morning, and I'll just share a piece of content sometimes it's fun. Sometimes it's insightful, sometimes image. Sometimes it's a video but it's a mix of things. think they're interesting to the people that are on that page. And then for my profile. Usually it's going to be I booked an interview with somebody for a live stream. So let's do it. So for example, I booked one this Friday with Stuart Knight, although it was meant to be live. So it may be it'll have to be, we're not going to live anymore. He has kids, I have kids, we're both staying at home. Yeah, we have to ship that but typically do that. And so how do I create conversations? Well, really so the content if you create content, and you ask them compelling question to ask people to engage, then that's where the conversation start. They then message your you message them and you start conversations and pretty soon you pick up the phone and see what happens. And so that's, that's really my primary way. Ivan. I also sometimes do direct messages, you know, like I'll send one of the things I've been doing recently since about, I guess the Fall is starting to email people more like emailing, emailing people. 20 people a day. You know, like, Hey, what's On how can I help you What's you know, like just offering to start a conversation, see if I can leverage my network to help them you have 35,000 followers on LinkedIn, why not to help people with connections? And you know, and if it provides value great if I can share their posts on my Twitter feed, which has like almost half a million followers, I can share them on LinkedIn to help them great. I mean, you know not to have influence why not be able to help people with it?

Russ Johns 17:23
Is or do you feel that video play is a big role in maintaining a connection with people?

Bob Umar 17:31
video is huge. I think it's the biggest way to create content and I often I often state this in my keynotes where I say, you know, video, video is the future now. And there's a great stat from forces research that says that, you know, the picture tells 1000 words, a one minute video on that. One minute video is worth 1.8 million words. So it's so like, it's just incredible connection because you see my face and you see my tone. You see my body language. There's just all there's so much more connection with this, it's the second best thing to being in person, right? And it's far better than any sort of video or image or text based post you could ever do. So whether you send video message to people or whether you do videos or live streams, it's just so powerful. So I'm a huge believer and advocate for it. And I try to encourage everyone and people who are scared, I'm like, Look, I get it, but like, it's pretend it's just you and me in person.

Russ Johns 18:26
This I just this basic radio. I don't know.

Bob Umar 18:30
I feel the same way. I feel the same way. But, you know, I go to live networking events and I'm talking to people it's the same thing no matter where you are. Just pretend your talking to people and that is it.

Russ Johns 18:39
Just talk to the individual in the camera. Yeah, I had Roger Wakefield on yesterday, and we had a really great conversation about how he had have utilized video and he was, I mean, his business was ready to fall down. It was a great story of a very powerful story about how videos made a huge difference in his business. And it's just taken off. And he's

Bob Umar 19:02
Just told my favorite story is, you know, the plumber. So,

Russ Johns 19:07
yeah,

Bob Umar 19:08
Everyone knows him that Roger Wakefield the plumber.

Russ Johns 19:09
Roger the plumber Like Yeah, he's amazing.

Bob Umar 19:13
Yeah.

Russ Johns 19:14
And that's the, I mean, I've been passionate about video for a long time. And I started out and you know, I've radio and television and advertising and, and so this doing this that we're doing right now, Bobby, you know, five years ago was really difficult 10 years ago it was impossible. And you know, just even, you know, podcasting was was more challenging, and it's just, it's become easier and easier access. And I just think that the people that are willing, able to take advantage of it, you know, to be seen, be heard, and be talked about. It's an incredibly Results. However, I think the people that are interested in Bullen building authority in the market and being an influencer or an encourage or like, as I like to say, it's really powerful tool. And I think I encourage everybody to join in that and to what they can do. So

Bob Umar 20:23
I agree, I agree. And you know, a lot of the work that I'm doing, you know, even when you so like, whether I'm coaching people to transition their career, or build a foundation or brand or to get into public speaking, I always talk about content and creating video content. So it's something I'm always I'm pushing everyone to who I don't care who you are like this. Even if you're feeling shy or you're an introvert. There are ways for you to take ownership and empower yourself to create content that works for you, and you practice and rehearse for you in a way that you feel comfortable. And then you start to see the results.

Russ Johns 20:59
I've been doing that I've been through the pirate broadcast five days a week for a while now over well over 110 episodes.

Bob Umar 21:09
Wow.

Russ Johns 21:09
And I convert it into I convert it into a podcast, I post I create content from it, I generate this content, because if I highlight people like yourself, and I share, you know, the bigger the community gets, you know, we build the community, the pirate community. So it's really powerful tool to be able to generate this conversation, you know, and it really what it boils down to a social media is just a tool to start a conversation with you.

Bob Umar 21:40
What's interesting is that I get a few messages from people saying, you know, why do you bring other people on your program? Why don't you just talk about your stuff and share your content? It's not it's not focused on like, Look, I'm happy to provide the value and my expertise to my audience that wants to see SR for me, but I think that is good for To show that I'm also willing to learn from other people and give their insights. I'm also willing to expand my network, even if even that even if that conversate is not necessarily aligned to my current network. It's about building relationships and showing connection and sharing insights. I just think that's so important. I had someone on my broadcast who was a matchmaker, I'm a matchmaker for people you know, love, right? I mean, who doesn't want love? Now, does that match my target audience's needs? Probably not. But you know, even if it helps a few people or gets them to think about matchmaking as a business, as a brand, as you know, what it's like for the for workers or someone else who's struggling to find a relationship? I think it's great. So you know, I totally do that. I think it's so important to show people that

Russ Johns 22:47
well, and I think there's, I think there's power and diversity in topics because every conversation that we have Bobby can strike an idea or a thought that we would would not normally have if we weren't having this conversation, right? Yeah. It's like, okay, I, you know, I've had some amazing conversations about subjects that I'm my curiosity always has always been. What is it that brings people to where they are today? You know, you started out, you didn't wake up one day and say, Hey, I'm going to be a keynote speaker and coding, right? It was a journey. So what was that journey? like for you? I mean, where did you start out? I mean, where were you? 10 years ago? What were you doing 10 years ago?

Bob Umar 23:38
Well, for me, personally, I was still doing speaking. But, you know, I started I started my journey about 14 years ago.

Russ Johns 23:44
OK

Bob Umar 23:44
So essentially, I mean, the way I describe it from

Russ Johns 23:48
my point is there was a beginning, right.

Bob Umar 23:51
Yeah, for sure. For sure. For sure. You know, I mean, for me, it started out I was I was thought of myself as I say a loss leader. So like, I felt Lost my first job as an engineer, I felt unfulfilled in my job, my work doing Performing Arts, I felt stuck when I was doing brand marketing. And so I took the time to dive in my brand to figure out what I want to do. We also deal with a health crisis. So I became diabetic and my wife we're almost out of the COLA and we're like, wow, what will happen with a span of like three months? And really wow, what are you gonna do with ourselves like what is important to us? And we really revisit what you know, Spain time to think about doing things we really cared about. And so that's when I build my brand and failed. Okay, you know, what is it that I really care about? What is it I really want to do because I wasn't feeling any sort of direction. And having done that process, I found I came up with five things. Number one, Bobby loves people. Bobby loves to nurture and nurture bottles to persuade influence. Bobby loves to perform present and vibe, a little diversity. And you think those five things it kind of gave me one of the things I could do and that's why I decided to come professional speakers and You know, having done that, I haven't looked back. And I think that that's been a great part of the journey to dive in your brand. And then you know, I revisit the brand. But you know, like, what I'm doing now is the same thing I'm doing for 14 years and it's been great night, I evolve as I go along, they things change and shift a bit. But for this, but my number one thing is I love to be on stage, I'd love to like just walk in a while a crowd and get 1000 people riled up and get them excited. And that type of stuff really feeds me. But in doing so I'm doing other things as well that are directly or indirectly aligned to that, including coaching, training or even running events. Because I'm doing that I'm running the tournament, the local events, we've done 16 of them so far. So I help run those through DUI, PB my discovery of personal brand startup. So I'm doing that stuff as well. So it's fun. It's fun.

Russ Johns 25:47
Yeah. But it's more exciting when you can live in your genius zone, right? And it's, really fulfilling when you can do something that you enjoy and you really appreciate And you feel that you're giving back to the community, you know, you feel like you're contributing your value in the best possible way. And that's really gratifying. And I think a lot of people they get in this groove or this rut of not knowing what to do next and and how to deal with it and how to produce results next. So I think it's really important for us to really think about you especially now right now in history, there's so many opportunities out there to look and decide and actually understand what other people are doing. You know, it's like I tell my, my son and some my nephews and nieces about hey, go out and interview some people find out what the job that you know, find out what more about what it is day to day, you know, and and understand what they're doing in their day to day activities. And see if that's something that sounds appealing. or not, because if you go down a career, a career path, and you get to the end, and you think, well, this isn't what I imagined it was, it's like, well, you didn't do your homework. It's really, it's interesting and fascinating to me. And it's, it's one of the things I love to share on the pirate broadcast is the idea of what others are doing. What's it like, you know?

Bob Umar 27:23
Yeah, because it's not all roses. I mean, it's very difficult and challenging. I mean, I remember the first little bit, one of the hardest things I have to deal with was just knowing my value. Right?

Russ Johns 27:35
Yeah!

Bob Umar 27:35
You know, am I doing something worthwhile? Do people really care about this stuff? Will they pay me How much do I charge?

Russ Johns 27:42
Yeah!

Bob Umar 27:43
You know, and I act and never when someone asked me how much to charge Oh, well, you know, and it was

Russ Johns 27:50
Know your value.

Bob Umar 27:52
Yeah, knowing your value is a very difficult thing and being and even now, like, I still struggle with that. I mean, there's certain things I know boom. This is one of my keynotes, boom, this is what happened to me for GE messed up doing this well, because I've been doing for so long. But there are new stuff. How much is it for your new program? Oh, well, you know, I'm thinking about this place, I don't know. If, you know, it's a constant struggle, and then you know, being alone all the time and trying to stay focused on what matters to drive your business. Like, it's, it's, it's a constantly a big challenge with it. And now we have this new challenge of, you know, working from home and trying to navigate that. So there's always something around the corner that's gonna challenge you, but it also is kind of exciting. Being on tour is very exciting.

Russ Johns 28:36
It's absolutely exciting because, you know, growth comes from challenges, right? That's where the growth happens. So Bobby, before we check out and take off and go about our day, what's one thing that you really want to leave, you know, one impactful message that you want to leave with the community and the Pirates now that you're a pirate and part of the community, you have to leave something with get released. Something with pirates, right?

Bob Umar 29:01
Yeah, I think, I think the biggest thing that I would want to leave with everybody is that it's okay to ask for help. Every single one of us struggles in some way or another with whatever we're doing, like I struggle with my weight, I struggle with fitness, I sometimes struggle in my business or selling and so we all struggle, we're all there. We're all human. So it's okay. It's actually courageous to ask for help. And so many people just don't step up and just ask for help. They're too afraid of being vulnerable or, you know, feeling like a failure or whatever it might be. But like, it's completely okay to do that. And I think that if you ask for help, and you're authentic and real about it, then people like myself and you and others will step up and help you. And then it can be something as small as just asking a question. Yeah, it could be even bigger as having conversation. But just tape the tape, have the courage just start and ask for help. And I think that that That, to me is the biggest lesson for a lot of people out there, whether you're in the corporate space with an entrepreneur, or whether you're in between jobs, but there's help out there for you. And there's people like me that want to help you and other people that want to happen as well.

Russ Johns 30:14
That's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Bobby, for taking the time. I know you're at home with the family and stay safe, stay sane, and have a little patience. But as always, kindness is cool. Smiles are free and you enjoy the day. Thank you.


Historically, pirate broadcasting is a term used for any type of broadcasting without a broadcast license. With the internet, creating your own way of connecting has evolved.  

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