The 13 types of entrepreneurial content to build your personal brand and a wildly engaged audience

Jim James: 0:00

Welcome to this episode of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur. Today, I have Nick Cavuoto joining me all the way from Denver, Colorado. Nick, welcome.

Nick Cavuoto: 0:07

Thank you so much, Jim. I'm so glad to Appreciate

Jim James: 0:10

Nick, thank you for joining me. And we're going to talk today about how you help entrepreneurs to get noticed, and using maybe the backdrop of how you grew a congregation from like a thousand to 10,000 people. Tell us about your background and how you help people to get noticed.

Nick Cavuoto: 0:27

Absolutely. Well, I help people get noticed number one, by helping them get unbelievably clear on what they want. I've mentored over 500 entrepreneurs and I ask them all the same question, ' What do you want?' And most of them cannot answer it. In fact, less than 10% can answer that with a hundred percent assurance and certainty. And so I developed a little seven minute drill of where I stand there in front of them, eye to eye belly to belly. And I asked them, what do you want? And what's really interesting is they usually start by saying what they don't want. And I said, no, that's not how this is going to work, there's two rules. Well, number one, that's the that's the preset, is you can't say what you don't want, but the first thing is you, you're not allowed to say, 'I don't know.' The second thing is you can't repeat the same thing twice. 'What do you want?' And often, Jim, by minute two, they're cracking like an egg because all of a sudden they're confronted with a harsh reality that they've been living someone else's calling, someone else's life. And they are desperate in order to achieve something unbelievably powerful to contribute to humanity. And by minute four or five, some of them end up on the floor feeling the weight of calling crushing them. And what my goal is, is to take them out of that place of uncertainty to give them the certainty of what they want and then help them catalyze into the best version of who they are.

Jim James: 1:43

Wow, Nick. That sounds pretty existential, really. I mean, and I often think entrepreneurs want, you know, to build a business. You're saying it's deeper than that. How, what sort of answers are you getting?

Nick Cavuoto: 1:56

Well, what I've learned is in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? You know, there's this foundational principle of finding safety. And a lot of times people skip over that step of safety because, you know, the way that humanity is structured today, we don't have the same survival needs that we had a hundred, 200 years ago, or even two thousands, you know, millions of years ago. It's very different. So for the first time, really in history, people are seeking happiness over safety. But what I've realized is there's a lot of people who just skipped the step. And so I bring them back to that safety, but in a spiritual angle of what is it that you really want? What, what do you want your contribution to be? Otherwise you cannot map to a destination that you don't know where you're going. When you do that, any road will do, meaning any business idea will do, any modality of being a practitioner will do. But I believe, and it's my belief that you are called to do something very specific. And we all have this hidden virtue inside of us of doing something incredibly great. And entrepreneurship is the best tool on planet earth in order to achieve what I believe is your highest ascension, be at your highest form of contribution and connection in the world attached to Maslow's hierarchy. And so without the safety of knowing that you're on the right path, you're going to arrive somewhere that you never wanted to be. And my job is to help reroute entrepreneurs and getting them back into their unique calling that they were designed and created to do.

Jim James: 3:15

Really powerful and real aligning. Can we, can talk a little bit about what you did to discover this calling that you've got? Because when we spoke, before we started recording, you talked about your experience out of, you know, leaving university prematurely and getting involved in a, church growing a congregation. Can you tell us how, how you did that? What were some learnings that you took out of that?

Nick Cavuoto: 3:40

Well, really, they were foundational in personal branding and hard work and all the entrepreneurial tendencies and then the personal brand, you know, kind of mastery of understanding how to build a brand around an individual. I've spent my entire life around public speakers my entire life. Since the day I was born, my first memory of sleeping under a pew at three years old. So I mean, to give you context on, you know, the amount of speakers that I've heard and understanding, 'Wait a second, people are the world's most powerful brands, not companies.' I'm ahead of the curve of the conversation, people are starting to notice this. But that's what I did is I spent the time putting in the work for two years I was an intern, I fell out of college twice, I went, you know, basically volunteered at non-profits that nothing else to do. So I found myself doing that, put in the work. Had all the layers of mastery of being a practitioner. Ran my first Facebook Ad in 2009. Leveraged Facebook Ad, personal branding, blogs, podcasts back in 2009, 2010, 2011, in order to help essentially create a point of where I knew that people were listening to the speaker more than they were attached to a corporate vision. So I just helped flip that upside down and distributed the most amount of budget for marketing in the personal branding, of it just like corporate marketing. And it's just amazing what happened. And I will say one other thing that contributed to the success was the highlight and pinpoint that transformation happens at the table, not on the stage. It was so important to understand that when you get 12 people in a room together and you allow them to have deep conversation about the things that they want, divinity forces humanity out of us. That's why I'm great at marketing is because I understand the intent of where people are truly at and their hopes and desires. It's much less about marketing and operations, it's about understanding the psychology of the individual. And so that's what I hacked. And then I attach digital marketing to it. You know, we went from one location to five locations. I mean, from there it was just a rocket ship.

Jim James: 5:39

And so, Nick, was that person, was that the preacher, that was the pastor, the person at the front of the church. So you're building the personality of the pastor rather than of the church itself. Is, is that the takeaway from that?

Nick Cavuoto: 5:52

That's, that's exactly. It's just like a company. You know, if you want to build your business based on your unique expertise, your big ideas, the difference you want to make in the world, you have to make it about human connection first. You have to make it about the, the mantra of what it is that you're doing, why you're doing it. And you have to have the clarity. Number one, you know where you're going, you know what you want to create. Because one degree after that, and you're going to end up somewhere that's completely different than where you ever intended to be. And then secondarily, you got to have the confidence. Well, what's the feedback loop? You've got to know that something is working. The strategy is working or, the methodology is working. And once you have the clarity and the confidence, then you're going to have a deeper sense of conviction. Conviction is that internal motivator and entrepreneurs have where they can't turn it off, that's called conviction. And when you have those three things, the clarity, the confidence, the conviction, I believe you are on the fastest path to achieving what you believe is your unique.

Jim James: 6:46

So, let's just take the back then. So, that works for a pastor. But like for someone talking about religion and faith to the congregation and new magnified, that amazingly from a thousand to 10,000 congregation. Are you saying that you can take that same, like approach, messianic approach to mainstream marketing? Is that what you're saying, Nick?

Nick Cavuoto: 7:06

We look at the 2016 election in the United States. You had somebody who was a complete outsider that no one even saw coming with the entire us election. It's a popularity contest. And the most amount of money in any industry that spent the fastest and the shortest amount of time as politics. So why not follow the blueprint that works, follow the money, right? Follow the general concept. It's all built on personal brand. And if you can become the US President of a personal brand, my goodness, thinking that within the ecosystem of what we do today online, that you can absolutely do your greatest work and absolutely enjoy every second of it.

Jim James: 7:43

That is actually really interesting then. So are you saying that for example brands, like, obviously we will know Tesla and Elon Musk or Apple and Jobs. Are you saying, that really the, the best way to build your brand, your company, is to build your own personal brand then as opposed to, sort of, a key messages and corporate and big website with lots of corporate messaging. Is that what you're saying, nick?

Nick Cavuoto: 8:06

Absolutely. I mean, I've been very skillful at taking founders from behind their logo and putting them back into the mix with their people. Because that's truly how the company actually got to where it is today. You know, a lot of people don't know the COO of any major corporation. Like who's the COO of Tesla? And I'm asking the audience. Now there might be one or two people who know, but out of the tens of thousands of people who listen to this podcast, the reality is most people have no idea. But everybody knows Elon. You know, let's remove Elon from the mix and let's just say an innovative Evie car company. Name me one CEO. Nobody knows. Why? Because it's built on personal brand. Personal brand is the rocket ship that gets you to the front of the pack. It happened to the US election, it happens in industries, it happens in technology. And the problem that I see is typically when people hit a tipping point of scalling, they position their, their process over their personal brand. And all of a sudden they try to extract the CEO or the founder out of the process and put him in an office, you know, with, the corner window. And having that is complete detriment for most people who are high performing CEOs that are not necessarily let's call it, you know, in the engineering side of things who may be enjoying that. They need to be out in front. And so that's the concept. Personal brand is 1000% the best way. Not only to grow your business, but sustain it. It's also It's also be, you know, a company that the world knows about.

Jim James: 9:31

Nick, that's a really interesting you, and I love that phrase you had about bringing the personality from around behind the logo. You know, that actually a lot of people put the logo first and then they have someone sort of almost like a puppeteer managing the logo as a brand. But actually what you're saying then, if I'm understanding you, is that you as the founder, it needs to be the, if you like the, the beacon of light for the, for the customers and the partners, is that right?

Nick Cavuoto: 9:57

Absolutely. You know, I had a client 9 million a year logistics company made a decision that they wanted to, grow the company. They built marketing operation systems for, you know, $350,000, they spent 15 months on it, nothing worked. Finally asked him, what do you want? He's like, I just want to be with people. I think that's just where it's at. I've exhausted every other effort. Took all the resources, the 350K the following year, put it in the masterminds and he doubled the company 17 and a half, a million dollars a year. So the proof is in the pudding. I've done it with startup founders who were doing 40K a month, you know, they're just getting their product out there. It's a SAS Product. 350,000 in 3 months recurring revenue. Why? I put the founder back out into the game. They've been sitting on the bench through the best player. We don't leave LeBron on the bench. I mean, come on.

Jim James: 10:44

Okay. Yeah, that's really interesting. And so you've a couple of things there. One is, you've mentioned the mental mind experience, which is something you've launched. Do you want to just talk to us about that? Because I think on the whole people don't talk about masterminds as part of a marketing strategy, but more of a, sort of almost an emotional or management tool. How Nick is involved in marketing and getting noticed?

Nick Cavuoto: 11:09

I think like attracts like. I think that the five people you spend the most around amount of time with are going to determine your future. I think that's been proven at this point, you know. It's rather a theory, but I think that we can all see the deductive reasoning to go like, 'Yeah. Who I spend my time around, that's going to ensure my levels of success.' And so, what I decided to do is create mentor mind, uh the mentor mind experience, which is a totally one of a kind mastermind. You've never seen anything like it before, which is cool because it's kind of a mashup of my unique experience. But it helps you get access to highly gifted, exceptional, motivated entrepreneurs who are focusing on solving business problems together. They're sharing advice or pushing each other forward, they're achieving massive success, they're sharing their Rolodex. Here's the deal, if you hire a business coach, you might have like the gentleman that I was mentioning before, you have one perspective. But when we look at Thomas Edison, and we look at Benjamin Franklin, these guys were in masterminds together, they were pushing each other forward together, solving unique problems together. What would life be like today without electricity?

Jim James: 12:09

A lot darker for sure.

Nick Cavuoto: 12:11

What would life be like today without a light bulb?

Jim James: 12:13

Yeah. That's right.

Nick Cavuoto: 12:14

If then if the mastermind was a part of that success, that's something I want to be a part of. End of story, I mean, it's just so simple. And you know, people and who are entrepreneurs usually do have a line item for coaching. Well, why not have on every single one of our calls, there's over a million dollars worth of expertise on every single call. You can't afford a million dollars with a coaching when you're an entrepreneur, there's no way. So why not get around the right people who propel you forward help you solve unique problems. And again, help you go do your greatest work. I mean, at the end of the day, we don't have time to waste. It's precious, it's finite. Although I have my own beliefs on, on how it mixes into the world, as far as how we judge time, I do believe that it's something that if we're going to do our greatest work, we might as well be efficient doing it. And that's the bottom line. Get around the right people, help those people see you and see you succeed. And my goodness, when you see other people who you respect and you see them see you uniquely for who you are, game changer.

Jim James: 13:07

Okay. So there's a lot of content in there, but as we were in marketing and I said, you know, getting noticed podcast. I just want to talk to you about how you're helping when that entrepreneur has been in the mastermind or is getting positioned, how you helping them to package themselves? Because that's one of the anxieties for many entrepreneurs is they're quite possibly shy. You know, they didn't start a business because they liked publicity, or they feel good about themselves. Can you talk to me about how you help people to build enough sort of content and that stream that helps them to be part of the conversation that they need to be part of.

Nick Cavuoto: 13:43

Absolutely. There's, there's two different things that I think are, absolutely, I know that they're worth sharing. The first thing is I have people focus on three topical structures that are professional within their industry. So, things that they like to talk about. So, if you're in marketing, you might be a really great copywriter. So copywriting is one segment. And then what else might be around the psychology of writing or around marketing. And what's last when the last might be about, you know, branding, let's say. So you have those three topical categories, professionally. What I do is then help and have the, have the folks I'm working with, assess who are the top influencers in those specific areas. for instance, Mike Kim is one of the best copywriters I've ever met in my life absolutely incredible guy. Mike Kim would be a key influencer inside of the copywriting niche. Then I would say, 'What are some things that Mike Kim has talked to you about, or that you've heard on this podcast? What are some of those things?' They're going to just, boom, boom, boom. They're going to listen to that really quick. Basically at an hour, I can have them come up with 60 different things that they can talk about with each individualized structure; three personal, three professional. Problem is most people just pontificate about what they do. The reality is no one gives a crap. People buy from people. And that's based on your story, your energy and your magic. And if you'd not, if you're not outlining both professionally, but also personally, what those items and what those ideas are. It's very hard because you're having an isolated conversation. It's like talking to a robot. I don't know anybody who really enjoys talking to an AI chat system online. 'Let me talk to a human', right. It's the same thing. It's human behavior. So, when you can identify those three categories on each side, you can identify the key influencers. After the key influencers, you can identify subtopics will allow you to then go create your content.

Jim James: 15:25

Okay, so you go and create the content, but for the person that isn't good at writing or making memes or videos, and they've got a business to run, how can they do that?

Nick Cavuoto: 15:34

Well, here's what I encourage most people to do. Live your life through social media, like a journal. Spend time having people observe you as a person, and as a human being first, and not an entity. An entity creates a wall, a person doesn't need a wall, a building does. So find a way to just talk about what's going on in your life. I teach entrepreneurs the 13 types of content that every business owner has to create. In that structure, the first thing is share a transparent story that connects you with your audience, because you're trying to create a line that is bringing them towards you like a magnet, not a megaphone. No one needs to hear, you know, a soap box preacher. They need to hear your heart and your intent around what you're doing and why you're up to doing something great. Then, they want to have a conversation with you. It's the first thing is to be transparent, tell a transparent story that connects with your audience. And when you do that, I have a stories on the hub. We don't have time for that today. But when you do that, the benefit is that you magnetize yourself. Then you can talk about your values and your principles or your lifestyle. Then you can get into the stuff around what you do, why it matters and how you can change the world. But I'd love to give that as a free resource. It's literally a Google Doc so there's no form gate. If you'd like that for your audience.

Jim James: 16:46

Yes, please. We can put the link to that in the, in the show notes. So, yeah, no, thanks for that, Nick, that's fantastic. So 13 different content types around these two sort of sets of both one personal and one professional content categories, right? Which presumably makes a matrix then of three times 13 and three times 13. And you've got lots of ideas then. Any, any tools Nick, for people to use for that content creation?

Nick Cavuoto: 17:12

Yeah, absolutely. One tool I've really loved recently is called veed.io, V-E-E-D.io. And it's a video content creation platform for micro content, with auto captioning, and it's also very affordable, and the team over there, they're just always innovating. but when it comes to having very relevant-looking So some people may be like, well, 'I'll create it, but I don't really know how to pick the right fonts and the right structures. And how do I do all that?' The benefit is all you got to do is have a clip, you drag and drop it in. And basically it gives you recommendations on different templates and ideas of what you can do to create that content unique for your unique message. So I really love to join that tool. So I think that's a great one for people.

Jim James: 17:52

Yeah, no, that's fantastic. And I think earlier on we were mentioning AI writers and you were mentioning conversion .ai

Nick Cavuoto: 17:58

Yeah, conversion.ai, which now is branded as Jasper. That's been by far the most effective tool that I've used in the last 18 months. And I know the founder, Dave. I would highly recommend. I think every entrepreneur needs have the tool, period. The conversion.ai, every entrepreneur has to have the tool. It's a hundred bucks a month. Just go buy it. Trust me. It's worth it.

Jim James: 18:18

Yeah. Well, I think that's one of the great opportunities now for entrepreneurs are these technologies, aren't they? They are available. Final question for you, Nick, as an entrepreneur. How are you getting yourself noticed? What would you say is effective way that it's working out for you? Because plainly you've got your four stage methodology, which is great. And you obviously have your clarity there about what you're doing. So how are you getting yourself, your magnetism, your magnetic field built?

Nick Cavuoto: 18:42

That's a great question. I got asked.a a recent keynote that I did the same question. Which is like you.know So, hey, um, in, in preparation where do you sit? As far as in making sure the message plans? I started just don't judge myself. It's the most effective thing that I've ever done when it comes to content creation and getting noticed is I truly am exactly who you see is exactly what you get. And I've made a commitment to myself in these small sprints of creating daily content, just one piece of content per day. And then I spend time engaging with people on their content, and that helps as well. I mean, I've gotten over a billion views online for other people, $200 million in revenue. I can go on and on about the paid ads, infrastructures, and systems. But if we're talking about initial steps, you have to have the intent to have a conversation that's worth listening to. And if you don't know how to do that, find someone who can help you, but it has to do with clarity, not messaging. Messaging is a by-product of having clarity. So just focus on what you want and go talk about it. Spend time doing that, find engagement groups, you know, whether for LinkedIn or Instagram. Find like minded people, ask people to share your content. You gotta do whatever it takes. It's kind of like, how do I start as entrepreneur? You just, you just do it. You just, you just get out there and do it. Getting noticed for me, it has a lot more to do with your intent of what you're creating and why you're creating it. And if you can help one person a hundred percent, it's better than helping a hundred people one percent. Focus on the individual. Focused on a unique person and do the freaking work. The way I was effective in what I did was because I showed up over and over and over and over again with high consistency and velocity. And it guess what, like attracts like. People will start seeing your magic, and you're going to get invited into rooms. You only ever could have dreamed at BNN.

Jim James: 20:25

Nick, well, I have really been delighted to be in the room with you today. Thank you so much, indeed. It has been a dream, Nick. Nick Cavuoto joining me from Denver, Colorado. Thank you so much for joining me today on The UnNoticed Entrepreneur Show.

Nick Cavuoto: 20:37

Jim, you are the best. Thank you.

Jim James: 20:38

Thank you so much, buddy. And enjoy those Rocky mountains. Bringing back some, some lovely memories for me as a child that living over there. Thank you so much again, Nick. Okay. I wish you all the best.