How To Make Your Business Exponentially More Referable With Guest Expert Michael Roderick

Lauren: You built your product, you launched your business, You saw success, money in the bank, growing team, happy client, but now you feel like you’re drowning. 

I’m here to help you get your head above water. I’m Lauren Goldstein. My clients call me the Business Doctor.

Together we’ll diagnose the root cause of your business worries, whether it’s your people, your process, or your product. We’ll clarify your business needs so you can scale without the burnout, and then we will simplify it all so your business can do what it’s designed to do. Make a profit. Welcome to the Biz Doctor Podcast.

Welcome back to the show. I’m beyond excited about today’s show because I have my friend and special guests, Michael Rodrick joining us. On today’s episode, we’re gonna talk about something we could all use more of, Referability specifically how to create a referable brand and what most people get wrong when they’re trying to be more referable and influential.

It’s gonna be an episode you do not want to miss. Michael and I are gonna jam about something that I see entrepreneurs struggle with, in which I personally have struggled with over the years, making your business easily referable. So when people meet others who need what you offer, you’re top of. But before diving into today’s juicy goodness, let me properly introduce my guest expert, Michael.

Michael Rodrick is the CEO of Small Pond Enterprises, which helps thoughtful givers become thought leaders by making their brand referable, their messaging memorable, and their ideas unforgettable. He’s also the host of the podcast, Access To Anyone, which shows you how you can get to know anyone you want in business and in life using time tested relationship building principles.

Michael’s unique methodology comes from his own experience of going from being a high school English teacher to a Broadway producer in just two years. Bottom line, Michael is gonna help us successfully stay top of mind with our network so we can help more people with our business. Welcome to the show, Michael.

Michael: Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here. 

Lauren: I know, I’m excited to have you here. I’ve, I’ve been on your show and, and now it’s, it’s time for us to, to jam on something that is so. I think so important for businesses. Um, and today we’re gonna touch on three key points, which I’m very excited about.

Accessibility. So the three things everyone cares about and how to weave them into your message, influence what most people get wrong about it. Super intriguing there, and memory, how to get people to remember more by focusing on less and less as an acronym. So I’m, I’m very excited to dive in. But before we dig into those juicy pieces, I would love for you to share a bit more about your story and how you work with business owners, especially that little piece about English teacher to Broadway producer.

Michael: Yeah. So, uh, so yeah, so I, I went from being a high school English teacher to becoming a Broadway producer in under two years, and there was a lot of curiosity as to sort of how I moved that quickly. And I was getting my masters in educational theater at NYU. And one of the things I had learned about was the power of simulation.

And basically if you have people act out a scenario, Even though they know they’re acting, they pretty much do exactly what they would do in real life. Uh, so I started hosting these workshops where I would simulate networking experiences. I actually had people act out one-on-one meetings, job reviews and cocktail parties.

And I noticed a lot of patterns in terms of how those people interacted. And from those patterns, I built frameworks. So I started teaching all of these relationship building frameworks, and I became really well known in that space to the point where I ended up being featured in some books about being a super connector.

I ran a conference for connectors for a number of years, uh, but probably about five or six years ago, I, I sort of had this moment in the business where I realized you can’t sell. Networking education, it is a very, very difficult business to sell. Right. And the reason for that is that there are far too many variables to whether or not somebody will be successful as a result of your teachings.

So I could teach you all of the best stuff, but it’s gonna depend on who you meet. It’s gonna depend on what you’re offering. Like there’s so many elements. So people would spend very, very little on networking education. So I had this moment where I was like, this isn’t going to work from a business standpoint.

So I asked myself if I took networking out of the equation, what was it? Mm-hmm. , that still got me into all the rooms I got into. And I had this realization that it was, that people would talk about me when I wasn’t in the room in a good way. So I was like, Wait a second. If I was able to package my stuff in such a way that everybody started repeating it and sort of sharing it with others, the networking kind of took care of itself because everybody wanted to introduce me to their friends to share these frameworks or to share these models or to share these ideas.

So I was teaching one of these networking workshops and I took 15 minutes to talk about this theory. I had that if you create a referable brand for yourself, if you make it so that others will talk about you when you’re not there, then all of that’s just gonna refer back to you and people are just gonna wanna introduce you to their friends.

The networking piece takes care of itself. It becomes inbound as opposed to outbound. And I got to the end of that, uh, workshop and I asked everybody what they wanted their hot seat to be on, and every single person said, I wanna learn how to create a referable brand. I want a referable brand for myself.

So when I saw that, I basically said, Okay. People who are really great at doing the work for their clients, who are really great at the service side of things, deprioritize, packaging their own intellectual property. They don’t come up with that catchy phrase. They don’t come up with that framework or that model or that way of thinking that basically can completely change the way that they’re perceived because they’re too busy just doing the work for their clients.

So I realize, oh, if I can come in and help them deal with that piece, work on that piece, well their business could completely transform just like mine did. Because suddenly, rather than, you know, trying to get people to buy networking education, I had people coming to me about creating a referable brand for themselves.

Lauren: Oh, I love that so much. I mean, there were so many good, good moments there of, of  reflection, at least for me, when I think about my business, and it just, it brings up actually a really funny story that, that will tie into our first, our first subject. But I remember a few years ago, uh, there was a rumor going around Austin that I had a marketing business and I was like, how did this happen?

Like, I don’t have a marketing business, like I do teams and operations. And then like I finally followed the thread and it was back, it was back to this lovely guy who was referring me because he had like picked up. One thing I said that was about something related to operations. And then he just like ran with the ball that I was in operations and I was so great and like, you need to hire her.

And it was like nine months of getting these really weird referrals around marketing. And I was like, What is happening? And it was just because I said like one thing that he just remembered and I happened to be at this thing called Internet marketing party where a lot of people are in marketing and then it just snowballed.

And so what I love about what you do is you can take that, I don’t know, that activation, that like thing that runs on its own and actually leverage it in the right way. Like that’s magic. And then you don’t have to work so hard to get, to get out there to help the people that you’re, you wanna help and make a difference.

I just love this. Yeah. And I know we’ve jammed on this before, so I’m excited to dive in . 

Michael: Awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s so interesting too because it’s like, we, we often will say that word of mouth is like the thing that we want, right? And we wanna have word of mouth for, for a business. But really what we want is we want our words in other people’s mouths, right?

Yes. We want it really crafted so that when they’re going and they’re talking, they, they say what we want them to say rather than whatever they’re gonna, you know, pick up, Like you’re the, like the marketing example that, that you, uh, that you ended up dealing with. 

Lauren: Yeah. And that’s, that’s exactly right. And so I, what I love about the way that you work with people is you make it so simple and so easy to, to make what you do, like stay top of mind so that when, cuz inevitably entrepreneurs talk, business owners, we talk and we’re like, Hey, I’m having this problem.

Who do you know? That’s like the number one question we have when we’re trying to solve a problem. Who do you know? And so if somebody can like instantly say, Oh, you need to hire Michael or Lauren for this or that, then that’s, that’s where the magic comes in. 

Michael: Exactly, exactly. 

Lauren: I love it. Okay, so let’s dive into accessibility and that’s three things everyone cares about and how to weave them into your message.

Michael: Yeah, so, so basically every single person, no matter what industry they’re in, no matter what level of business they’re at, has what I like to refer to as a TCM index. And that is an index of time, connections, and money. Every single person has some concern around those three things. Sometimes there’s one that’s more prominent for, for them than the others, but you will not meet anyone.

Who doesn’t have at least one concern in their life about their time, the relationships, and the connections that they have or their money. It’s just these are things that everybody cares about, everybody pays attention to. And as a result, that is one of the most powerful keys to accessibility because if you’re talking about at least one of the three things that every single person cares about, you’re going to instantly get the attention for that product or service.

So let’s say for example, time is a really, really important thing for you, and you’re always concerned about how much time you are spending, Yeah, on things. Uhhuh, , if I have a service and I frame that service up as a way for you to save time. It’s gonna hit you completely differently than somebody who is hyper concerned with money.

Interesting. So if I tell you that my service is cheaper, it doesn’t matter to you because you care about time. Mm-hmm. . Whereas if I say my service is able to save you time, you don’t care how much it costs because you want that time back. 

Lauren: Interesting. Interesting. I love this cuz I see, I see a lot of business owners, myself included in the early days where I was trying to either be everything to everyone or I was trying to be cute instead of clear.

Michael: Yeah. It’s a very, very common thing, right? That, that happens. And uh, often what I’ll tell people is if you wanna really get at the heart of what it is that you’re doing, uh, you wanna. Think about sad Okay. And it’s easy to remember because if you don’t do at least one of these three things, you’ll, you will be sad.

And that is solve a problem, alleviate pain or decrease friction. Ah,  right. Yeah. So you always have to ask that question. It’s like, Emma, like what is the problem that I’m actually solving for people? What is the pain that I’m helping get rid of? And how am I decreasing the friction? How am I making this thing that maybe takes them a really long time?

How am I making that thing take less time? Or how am I making this thing that feels super annoying to them feel less annoying? Right. And just always, when you think about that and you think about that in the context of, uh, this time connections, money sort of idea, what it does is it helps you kind of strip what the jargon mm-hmm.

out of what you’re doing. Right, Because you start using words that everybody relates with and and understands, and you stop using all of, I call them container words, where it’s like we have these words that everybody else is using, so we decide to use them because we think they’re gonna give us credibility.

But what they do is they just basically cause people to be like, Oh yeah, I already know what that is. , 

Lauren: I think you just hit the nail on the head with what I struggled with in the beginning when I was trying to des describe what I do in operations. Cuz operations is such a huge buzzword. That means a lot of different things, but at the end of the day, Yeah, in your framework, I’m solving a time problem.

I mean, I’m solving many problems, but really I’m elevating business owners out of the trenches from business operator to business owner. So giving them true entrepreneurial freedom. , you know, helping them manage their team better, helping them maybe even have a vacation. So like, it’s touching a lot of those things in a very simple way.

Where in the beginning I was probably making it way too complicated. 

Michael: Well, that’s the thing, right? Operations is a container word, right? So people hear it and they’re like, What does that mean? Mm-hmm. . And the last thing you want is for people to ask you, What does that mean, ? Yeah. Right. You don’t want that.

Like, if you describe your business and somebody says, What does that mean? You know that you’re in a bad place. Yep. Right? What you want is you wanna describe what you do and you want somebody to say, Tell me more. Yes. That’s what you wanna hear. Mm-hmm. , Yes. That’s what you wanna hear. And there’s a, a major difference between creating curiosity.

And creating confusion. , yes. Right? 

Lauren: Yes, Yes. Definitely. Confusion is not your friend at all. 

Michael: No. 

Lauren: as, as my father said, he said, Keep things simple, stupid. But I think Donald Miller actually said it best of like, Does this pass the caveman test or the fifth grader test? Like, does, can a fifth grader understand what you’re talking about?

Cuz if the answer’s no, you probably need to readjust. 

Michael: Yep. Exactly. 

Lauren: Exactly. So I know you’ve worked with a ton of businesses. How many businesses, like percentage wise, would you say get this right versus how many are really struggling with this? 

Michael: I mean, I would say it’s very, very large percentage that struggle with it.

Um, because when you are an expert, you are overwhelmed by your own expertise. That’s the only way I can really describe it. Right. Like you. Understand things to such a high degree that the metaphor that I often use is it’s like your face is pressed up against the TV screen of what it is that you do.

Yeah. And all you see are colored pixels. Hmm. So you’re trying to tell people, you know, Yeah, I’ve got blue over here and green over here, and yellow over here. You know, all this other stuff. And, and really you need somebody behind you to tell you what’s on tv. And even more importantly, to tell you if you need to change the champ

Right. And what I see, what so  many businesses is that they’re so overwhelmed by their, their own expertise that they get so caught, caught up in what they think the value is for others. That they never actually really question it. Mm. And talk to their, the people that they’ve worked with in the past and say like, Well, what is it that I actually did for you?

Because it’s usually not what you think. Whenever we think, Oh, well this is the value I provide. If we are just doing that on our own, we’re probably not. Right. Uh, if we talk to somebody and we say, What was the value I provided? And then they give you those words, you’re gonna be way closer to describing what you do in an effective way.

And when I was a teacher, the, the thing that we would do is we would do a check for understanding. So if I’m up in front of the classroom and I’m teaching something and you know, Johnny’s in the back, like trying to break the air conditioner, , and I’m going and I’m teaching something and I say, Hey, Johnny.

Um, what did I just say? Can you say it in your own words? And Johnny would go, Oh, . Right? And, and that would be my way of knowing whether or not he got it right. So in business, we wanna do those check for understandings. We wanna go to people and basically be like, tell ’em what we do. And then, So I’m just curious, especially if you’re like sitting down with somebody who, like you’re, you’re developing a relationship with or you’re like getting to know them as another business owner.

A great question is be like, I’m just curious, what did you hear when I said that? Hmm. I love that. What did you hear that I do? ? Like, what? You know, what did you hear? Because going back to your marketing example, right? Imagine if you had asked that person, you know, what did you hear when I said that? Yeah.

It’s like, well I think you’re a marketing genius in operations, so you need to be out there in the marketing world. And you know, Right. That’s, that’s what happens. Mm-hmm. , you know, when we, when we get that check for understanding. Yeah. 

Lauren: I think there’s a really valuable lesson in that across the board. Cuz even when you’re consulting with a client, like one of my favorite questions is, what did you hear me say?

Or what are you taking away from this conversation? To make sure that that, what I think I’m saying, they’re actually hearing because so much is filtered out with like, are they distracted or does this word mean something different to them? And so I, I love that presence of, of having that conversation and really making sure that when you say this, that’s really what they hear.

Um, Yep. . Cause I, I’m, I’m, I don’t think I’m overestimating this, but I feel like when you master this, you have the potential to double, triple your business for like half the work. 

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Cause most of the time the reason why people are paying less is because you’re not being specific.

right there, there’s, there’s basically two types of buyers. There’s aspirational buyers, and there’s excellence buyers. And aspirational buyers. Basically, they believe that one thing is gonna fix everything for them, and they will spend the least amount that they can spend for whatever that silver bullet is, right?

Mm-hmm. , like, they’ll just be like, So, so they’ll place all of this weight in whatever the course is, whatever the program is, whatever the consultant is, and then they’ll just be like, so caught up in having this person be their savior, right? Mm-hmm. . Whereas the excellence buyer, the excellence buyer, already knows where they want to go and they understand that there’s somebody else that they can hire who has expertise that they don’t have.

So that person is a partner on the journey. Yeah. Right. They’re a partner in the success and [00:21:00] the excellence. Is the skeptical buyer. Mm-hmm. , right? Because the excellence buyer isn’t gonna, isn’t gonna answer the email from the Nigerian prince, right? The excellence buyer is gonna be like, I need to understand what the value is here and how this works.

And when somebody’s skeptical. Mm-hmm. , the way that you win over a skeptic is getting hyper-specific. And that’s the thing, if you have, like, if you’re able to get hyper-specific and be like, I  can solve this hyper-specific problem for you, then the other person’s like, Okay, if you really can solve it, then I’m gonna spend a good amount of money to solve, to solve this problem because I believe you.

Because you’ve actually gotten way more specific than all of the other people who are trying to sell something to me. 

Lauren: Hmm. I love that. And that. I think alludes to a really interesting phenomenon that, um, our mutual friend, Hillary and Weiss and I were talking about a few weeks back about value stuffing of where, of, where you have this, this offer that’s great.

And then you just like stuff, all this other stuff in it because you’re like, Oh, it needs to be more valuable. And we kind of just lose our heads for a minute and forget that they’re really paying for the expertise and the experience and like yeah. The years of, of distilling down to that like really potent solution.

Um, do you see value stuffing a lot with the, with your work?

Michael:  Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. I, I can’t tell you the number of times where I’ll meet somebody and they have just all of these, all of these offers or all of these things that they’re kind of adding on to the experience. And when you talk to them and they sort of break it all down, you just.

That’s the only thing that’s really valuable here. This other stuff is, is filler. It doesn’t, it doesn’t make any sense, you know, But they think I have to give you more, I have to do more. I have to create more in order for you to spend more. Mm-hmm. . And the thing is, if somebody can solve a hyper specific problem for you in a very, very short period of time, and that problem is worth a lot of money to you, you don’t care how long it takes, you don’t care what other things you get, you care.

Do you get that problem solved? And how much money is it going to make you? And then you ask yourself, Okay, well based on how much money this is going to make me, I’m willing to spend this percentage of what it could potentially make me. Yeah. Right. Most people are, are, when they’re looking at an offer, when they’re looking at something that you know they wanna buy, they’re asking themselves, Am I buying money at a discount?

Right? Mm-hmm. , like that’s what they’re asking. Yeah. Because they’re, they’re really thinking through how is this investment going to have some kind of return? Mm-hmm. . Like in my, you know, in my life, like how is this thing, if I implement it, if I do the things that this person is saying or if I use this product, whatever it is, how is it giving me this thing on the other side that is making me more money, saving me more money, giving me more time, giving me better relationships, right?

Like those type, that TCM comes into our heads when we’re making that purchasing decision.

Lauren:  Yeah, I love that. And, and I see with my clients, yes, there’s a huge roi, but the r o t, the return on time invested of optimizing your team and your operations to, you’re out of the day-to-day trenches and actually enjoying your business again and letting it scale without you is, is huge.

And I don’t think, I think that to your point, you can’t put a value on on your time. Cuz that’s like the one non-renewable resource is once it’s gone it’s gone. Yeah. So, If you, if you’re really time poor, which a lot of the business owners that I work with are, that’s like the biggest thing is how can I, how can I create more time?

I love that. Yeah. All right. Now I wanna dive into influence and you said what most people get wrong. So I’m really curious, especially in, in today’s influencer, wild world, um, and like, what is influence, what are people getting wrong? Like I’m just, I’m so curious about this topic. 

Michael: Yeah. So influence has always been presented from the angle of persuasion, and that’s because there’s been a lot of content, there’s been a lot of material out there about the idea that to influence someone is to get them to do something.

We use certain tactics to try and make them do something, you know, make something happen, right? And the thing that we get wrong, Is that we think that the reason why somebody is sharing something or talking about something is that we’re persuading them to do it, but really they’re doing it because they look good when they do it.

Interesting. So true influence is when we share something because of how it makes us look. So if you ever think of a, like, think of a TED talk that you share or a podcast that you share or a meme that you share, what does it do for you? It shows your network that you are a good curator, that you identify good content.

It shows that you are thinking about these types of, these types of topics. It shows that you are the funny one who found the meme. It, it basically gives you a reputation. It makes you look good. Right. So the interesting, the mistake that gets made is that we spend all this time developing content, developing ideas, developing material with the focus of making ourselves look cool.

And what we really should be doing is thinking about how do I make this content so that if somebody else were to share it, they would look cool, they would look interesting, they would be the compelling. I literally , 

Lauren: I think you, I think you just, I’m sorry. Interrupted. I think you just broke my brain. like, so when you’re sharing com, when we share content or when we’re creating content, somebody is sharing it so that they look cool, they look influential, they look, What was the third one you just said?

Michael: Uh, that’s a good question. Uh, memorable, I guess memorable. There you go.

Lauren:  Yeah. But that’s like, [00:28:00] that’s like putting, like literally taking influence and just flipping in on its head. Cuz I’ve never, I’ve never heard it put that way. And I, I’ve like, literally I feel my brain short circuiting cuz I’m like, Oh, I don’t think I’ve ever created content with that lens.

Michael: Yes. Yeah. And that’s the thing most of us never do. Right. And, and it goes back to the, it goes back to when I was a Broadway producer, right? When mm-hmm. , when you are in Broadway, what do you need to do? You need to think about  how the audience is going to react to the way that that thing is marketed, right?

Like, you have to think ahead. Like, you have to basically be like, Okay, what title are we gonna use for this show so that if a tourist comes. They’re gonna know what the heck they’re going to see see, even if they don’t speak English. Right. So that they fill our seats. So you had to always think about like, okay, how do we make this, [00:29:00] you know, how do we turn this into something that is really accessible for these people and that they would want to go and then brag to their friends that they went and saw.

Right. Wow. Like that’s, Yeah, that’s, you know, and, And that’s where Off-Broadway, most of the successful off-Broadway shows were experiential because the thing that sold those off-Broadway shows was that everybody would go and tell their friends that they just went to this experiential, interesting show.

And again, it made them look cool. It made them look cultured, it made them look interesting. So then more people come to the show. 

Lauren: Wow. Yeah. I’ve literally never thought of this, this way before, and I can see why most people do get this wrong, cuz we’re not, we’re not taught that. No. Nope. Like, not even, not even a little bit.

Yeah. And see, this is a perfect example of how I’m not in marketing and You are. But, um, so what’s, what’s like, like to start, like, to get the creative juices or shift this perspective, Is there like a question that you recommend people ask when they’re creating 

Michael: content or, Yeah. So basically what I, what I do is I, I recommend you start experimenting with what I call magic trick.

So if you’ve ever seen a magician perform, almost every magician has at least one show, one trick that basically they will show you exactly how they do the trick, right? So they’ll show you the trick and then they’ll be like, Okay, now I’m gonna literally show you how you can do the trick yourself. And then what is the thing that you do?

You go, now that you’ve learned that trick and your next party, you go and do the card trick for somebody, you go and do the, you know, put the salt shaker through the table, whatever the, whatever that, you know, popular trick is. You are the one who goes and does it because it makes you look interesting and cool in front of everybody else.

You become a magician for a minute, right? Is basically what happens. Mm-hmm. content and thought leadership. That can be a magic trick. So what you can do is you can start to think about what is something I could create, do, um, have, be part of a talk or a presentation that I’m doing have, uh, be part of a podcast interview that I’m doing whatever it is, right?

That when somebody hears it, they then want to go and share it with others cuz it’s gonna make them look really cool. It’s gonna make them look really interesting. , right? So, mm-hmm. , you have very likely evangelized for certain assessments in the world, Right, Right. Where you’ve said like, you gotta go and take this test because it will change your life.

Yeah. Yeah. Those tests are magic tricks. Interesting. They gave you something that then makes you look even more interesting to your audience. It makes you look even more resourceful because you’re able to say, I know about this assessment that will tell you what type of worker you are, or what type of person you are, any number of those types of things.

So that’s one example of a magic trick. If you’ve ever seen a talk where somebody did something physically during the talk and then you said, Oh, I want to go [00:32:30] and, and show other people how to do that, and then you did it in your next boardroom meeting, or you did it at your next, at your next gathering.

That was a magic chart. 

Lauren: Interesting, Interesting. So what I’m taking away from at least this moment in time with influence, is I think a lot of us just create content because we think that’s what they want. And so we’re just, we’re just churning it out. But if we take a beat and we actually are proactive with it and thinking about it in this different way, then again, much like accessibility and referability, it’s gonna start working for you because people are gonna start saying, Hey, I learned this great thing from Michael or Lauren, and then that’s gonna again go back to your referability.

But it takes, it takes time and it takes consistency and it certainly takes like sitting down and planning. Versus, you know, even if you have a content plan, I think there’s a, there’s a fair amount of like, well, we’ll just talk about this today. Yeah. , um, like even my podcast, I’m like, well, I had this really interesting conversation with a client.

I’m gonna like, talk about that. And so I, I love this perspective change on what influence actually is. Thanks. You’re welcome. You’re welcome. . Um, and so the last part of today is memory. Yes. And how to get people to remember more by focusing on less. Yes. So what, what is that? Yes. And it’s l e s s for those of you that are not reading my document right now.

Michael: Yes. So, so less stands for language, emotion, simplicity, and structure. Uh, so I’ll start with language. The reason why most people know who Shakespeare is, and only English majors know Christopher Marlowe is, even though they were writing around the same time, is that Shakespeare added new words to the English language.

If we were to go into the dictionary, there are words that were not there before Shakespeare, before Shakespeare’s place. Wow. There are words that we use today that they were coined in Shakespeare in place. Right. I had no idea. Yeah. So, so the thing is our brains are basically these like swaths of real estate, right?

And words claim little spots of real estate in our brains, right? So the second somebody has a, has language that ties to them, it becomes a memory trigger for us. Right. So if I say venti, there is no question as to exactly right if I say Muggle, Oh, Harry Potter, right? Yep. Right. So if I say, Use the force, Star Wars.

Yeah. Right? So do you see, Yeah. Like any time that there is language that somebody is taking the time to create, that is their own language, what does it do? It refers back to the person who created that language. So this is the thing, going back to what we were talking about with accessibility. Most people use container words.

They come up with all their, you know, they use these phrases and these things that everybody else is using, right? They talk about synergy and authenticity and leadership and, and growths and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All, all live long day, right? Mm-hmm. , how many people coin their own phrases, come up with their own words, come up with their own language for what they’re doing?

Very few. 

Lauren: Like less than 1%, 

Michael: right? Very, very few. Yeah. So as a result, those people who take the time to do that hold a place in our memory. Mm-hmm. , right? Just like you, when I said those words, you were able to recall them sort of instantly. Yeah. Let’s say for a while people had been following my stuff, right?

And sort of listening to, to my, my things. Eventually you’ll have somebody say, TCM and they’ll be like, Oh yeah, that’s, that’s Mike Rodders thing, right? Like, it’ll just like, boom, it’ll just start to hit after a while, right? Mm-hmm. . And it, sometimes it can be a new word, sometimes it can be the way that you frame words, right?

So one of the, one of the things that I do all the time that a lot of people get a kick out of is that I call Facebook the Book of Faces. . Yes you do. Very simple, you know, just change of the language, right? But what ends up happening, people pay attention. People remember me as having said it. People then start to quote it or use it, you know, in their own, in their own conversations, right?

So, what have I done? I’ve carved that piece of memory. Yeah, right. From that language. Mm-hmm. , 

Lauren: I, um, so I mean, there are a few episodes on here that are explicit because my guests like got a little crazy or I said, uh, tits up one episode. But most of the time, like something I’m known for is my very creative non curse words.

Mm-hmm. . So I see this working cuz you know, somebody will say like, shut the front door. Yeah. Or um, or something like, or Sweet baby Jesus or something like that. And so I see this happening in my personal life and I’m like, well, why am I not doing this in my business life? There you go. 

Michael: Right, Right. Yeah.

And it’s the thing, like it, and again, it’s the thing that we put off because it, it doesn’t seem important to us a lot of the time, like it do, or it seems like something that we should work on, but it never feels like a. . And I think that that’s the thing that you always have to just be aware of is that thought leadership is the thing that you will always put off until you decide it’s important.

Hmm. Like, hands down, you know, when, when you’re trying to develop your own concepts, your own ideas, you will always put them off until you actually make it a priority. And most, most of the time, it’s never made a priority. Yeah. 

Lauren: Well, and I think there’s also like, at least I’ve seen this in, in my work and, and chats with other entrepreneurs, There’s this like, um, I don’t know, resistance to being a thought leader because it’s such a buzzword these days.

Yeah. And then I know sometimes in me, even though I’ve been doing this for 11 years Yeah. I still have this like a little imposter syndrome that’s like, who am I to be a thought leader? Sure. Right. I’m not Elon Musk or whatever. And so, um, Like, I think that to your point, it, if we, if we don’t think of ourselves as thought leaders and we don’t prioritize it, then it’s just never gonna happen.

Michael: Yeah. And a brand, somebody who has an established brand is always going to get the preference, even if you are the, the one who has more skill, more, more ability. Even if you are the one who delivers, the better result, the person who has the brand is the one who’s going to get the business. Right. So, mm-hmm.

it’s, it, it’s along the lines of if you were to go into the store and you are gonna buy Oreos and you’re at that store and you’re thinking about buying Oreos, and you see Dwayne reads sandwich cookies, even though the, the description is exactly the same, these are the exactly the same ingredients, and the sandwich cookies are cheaper.

most people are gonna buy the Oreos. Yeah. Because of the name. Right? 

Lauren: Because of the  name. I actually had this conversation with somebody when, you know, we were having like all the paper good shortages and I couldn’t get bounty and like I’m such a bounty loyalist. And somebody’s like, you know, the Costco brand is Bounty, it’s just labeled Costco.

And I was like, Absolutely not. Yeah. And I could never pull the trigger, even though in my mind somebody had explained that no Costco like takes all the best brands and they just label Miss Costco. But I was like, Nope. Yep. This doesn’t have the brand. I’m not buying it. I don’t trust it. It’s not the quicker picker Uper.

Michael: Yep. Exactly. Exactly. And that’s the thing, right? Bounty has language, right? Mm-hmm. , did you just see what happened with your memory? You know, the quicker picker, upper right? Like, like, you know, I, it’s, it’s got the real estate. I know it, it’s got the real estate, it’s got the preference, right? So the thing is like mm-hmm.

what ends up happening is people put this off and then somebody else whose less experience comes along and takes the, the time to actually package it, and then they get more market share because now they’ve got a name behind it right. That everybody else is following. Right. So for every single brand out there, there’s what I like to refer to as an also brand.

So you’re familiar with the term also ran, Right. , There’s, there’s lots of also brands where it’s not the top brand, it’s seen as Okay. Yep. That’s, that’s another version of, of. Right. It’s, it’s the reason why when you go to a restaurant and you ask for a Coke, the waiter doesn’t say, um, doesn’t say, Oh, we only serve Pepsi.

They say, Is Pepsi okay? , . It’s, it’s isn’t awesome. Apology . 

Lauren: Yep, a hundred percent. That doesn’t happen as much in [00:43:00] the south though. Cuz when we say Coke, we actually mean Coke, but ah, yeah, that’s, that’s so true. That’s so, Except in some parts of the south, when they say like, Coke, it actually just means a soda.

And then they’re like, What kind of coke do you want? Yeah. Anyway, I digress. , I, I mean this is, this is so fascinating and like, I think cuz it, cuz there’s a little bit of chicken egg, I think in, in marketing. Yeah. And for ability and branding of. , Well, do you wait until like, you’ve got a really proven process and you’re like, making good traction, or it’s like this something that you kind of squeeze in when you’ve like, mostly figured it out?

Like what, what’s the right timing to like even have this conversation with yourself?

Michael:  Yeah, so I, I think now, you know, like, it, it, you know, it’s, um, because it’s, it’s gonna come up no matter what. Um, but the way that I, I think about this is rather than do content marketing, I do content market research. So what I do is I will write out a concept or an idea, I read a daily email and I’ll sort of riff on, you know, a bunch of different topics, right?

And every once in a while in one of those daily emails, a bunch of people respond back to whatever that concept is or whatever that idea is that I shared. And now I know. That there’s a lot deeper that I can go with this concept, right? Or I’ll post, uh, about this  idea or this concept on social media in some way, and I’ll get a lot of comments, or I’ll get a lot of people saying, Oh yeah, I, I went through that, or I’m dealing with that, or whatever the scenario is.

And as a result, then I’m like, Oh, okay. I should flesh out this idea. I should build a framework around this. I should tr you know, and then just see how does it work? Mm-hmm. , you know, what does it, what does it do? And I think that, So I see in the world of thought leadership, I basically see like, there are three components of thought leadership and there’s three like types of people out there.

And the true thought leader combines these three things. And that’s the scientist, the celebrity, and the magician. Hmm. The scientist. Just really knows their stuff. Right. They’re fantastic at what they do. They’ve, they’ve, they’ve done the study. They, they really think about things they can prove to you the things that they’re talking about, right?

Right. They’ve really taken the time, but they usually spend all their time in the lab. Right. and they never really, you know, take the time to sort of get out there. Right. The celeb. 

Lauren: Guilty. 

Michael: Guilty. There’s lots of scientists, Right? Lots and lots of scientists. The celebrity is really good at like, promoting themselves, Right.

Sharing their  ideas, getting their stuff out there, being bold and, and hitting record and all of the things, Right. Writing that email, sending the stuff out. Most of the time they end up being very all flash, no substance, right? Mm-hmm. where it’s like you go and it’s like, Okay, yeah, that’s great that they’re out there all the time, but like, what are they talking about?

Like, is it any, you know, is it, is it actually useful? Can they back any of this stuff up that they’re talking about? Mm-hmm. , are these just their opinions? Right? Yeah. And then the magician is really, really good at coming up with the catch phrases, coming up with the interesting ways to say things got, like really creating these like intriguing sort of, uh, sort of elements.

But very, very often the magician struggles with feeling like, Oh, I’m being too promotional if I talk about what I do. And, you know, all of those type, you know, types of elements. Mm-hmm. and they very likely have not spent a lot of time in the science of it. So, mm-hmm. , what you wanna do is you wanna kinda look at it as like your thought leadership triple thread.

If we gotta go back to the, the acting metaphor of singing, acting, dancing, it’s like, well, which thing are you really good at? And which things do you need to bring up? So if you’re a really great scientist, then you want to ask yourself, Okay, what are the tools, What are the things I need to do to become more of that celebrity?

To sort of tap into some of that celebrity element, and what are the things I can do to add that magician quality to the material and to the content? Because when you bring together the celebrity of the scientists and the magician, that’s really when you start to get a lot of traction and people start to pay attention to your stuff and, and things become significantly more referable.

Lauren: Yeah, I love that. I love that. Reals is a new challenge for, [00:48:00] for me. Yes. good. Um, that’s, that’s a, I love that triple threat and I. I do see a lot of, a lot of business owners who are very good at their craft, especially clients that I work with that are highly specialized, where it is a little bit easier to be in the business working with clients Yeah.

And working on the business and like getting that exposure and referability. Um, so we talked about the L Yes. In language Yes. The E and the Ss. Yes. So the, 

Michael: let’s go, let’s dive into those. Yeah. So the E is emotion and emotion solidifies memory. And the best example I can give of this is I could go into a room and I can ask everybody to tell me what the opening scenes of the movie Titanic are, and nobody is going to come up with a very clear picture of that.

Right. But I can say to that exact same room, What image comes into your head when I say I’ll never let go? And almost everybody can tell me what they see in their head. Yep. Yep. And why is that? This is so sad. Yes. Right. When we’re in a heightened state of emotion, our brains become like a sponge. Hmm. We absorb as many details as humanly possible when we are in heightened states of emotion.

And as a result, those things basically imprint themselves on our memory. Hmm. Right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Think of, think of the last time that you laughed so hard that like you couldn’t stop laughing. . Yeah. Right. Uhhuh. And I can guarantee you that you have a very specific image in your head. You probably know where you were.

You probably know who you were with, right? Yeah. 

Lauren: Mm-hmm. . Yeah, I do. 

Michael: And that’s what happens. You were in a heightened emotional state, so your brain absorbed more. 

Lauren: Yeah. Right. I mean a little bit like a, hopefully most of the listeners here are old enough to remember this, but I think this is why almost every American knows exactly where they were on nine 11.

Michael: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Cuz it was a heightened emotional moment. Right. That was collectively shared. Right. Yeah. And that’s the other thing is that if you’re in a, if you’re in a heightened emotional moment where everybody is collectively sharing the emotion, it basically takes that level of memory and 10 times because everybody then has their own story of that particular moment and start sharing that which triggers other people’s memories.

Right? So when we’re in a heightened emotional state, we remember those details that much more. But most of the time when we’re coming up with something, when we’re writing something, when we’re talking about something, we very rarely tap into emotion. Right? We very rarely get into that emotional state.

And if you watch a lot of the most shared, popular TED talks that are out there, mm-hmm. , you’ll notice that many of them start [00:51:30] with a personal story that has some sort of intense emotional component. Mm. Yeah. 

Lauren: Right? 

Michael: Mm-hmm. . Yep. Where they’ll tell you about a near death experience, they’ll tell you about losing all of their money.

They’ll tell you about, you know, something that happened to them that has a heightened level of emotion and what happens as a result of that. We now are open to hearing. What their framework is, what their way of thinking is, what their model is. Right. Because we’ve been hit by that emotional moment and our brains are sponges to take the rest of the content, to take the rest of the material.

Lauren: I love that. Yeah. And it’s a, it’s a good reminder that at the end of the day, all, all businesses are made up of humans, and humans have emotions. And it’s not like we’re not going around just being robotic, like connecting with our customers, our audience, our clients ourselves [00:52:30] is, is a key to success. 

Michael: Yeah.

Yeah. So anytime that you can we emotion into the content that you’re creating, into the material that you’re creating and get people into a heightened emotional state, you’re going to have a much better chance of that thing being. 

Lauren: I love that. Um, and then the last two 

Michael: Yes. So the first is simplicity.

Mm-hmm. and academics have always rewarded complexity. Mm-hmm. , So when we were in school, we were rewarded for, for using the biggest words, for writing the longest papers, for being the smart one who knew all of the complex things. Yeah. Right? Yep. We go out into the world and we think that the way that we need to prove ourselves and to prove that we know what we’re talking about is to be as complex as possible.

Right. We try to show everybody how intelligent we are by using all the jargon, using all the big words that we learned. We, we do all these things, but while academics have always rewarded simplicity, uh, complexity, rather, the memory has rewarded simplicity. Yeah, because our memory can only hold so much material at any given point in time.

And the easiest way to think about this is if I say to you, Can you go to the grocery store and get me milk, eggs, and cheese? You don’t need to write it down. Right? Right. Yep. You can just go and get and and, and get the stuff, because your memory can hold that small number of things, no problem. Mm-hmm. . But if I said, um, I’m going to need you to go to the grocery store and get me 34 things, and the first thing is milk, and I just went down the list not getting my groceries right, Like it’s just not happening.

Not happening. Because your brain can’t hold all of that information all at one time. So this is the mistake that we make when we want somebody to share something, when we want somebody to remember something, we often give them too many things to remember. , and going back to what we were talking about with influence, if we can’t remember all of the things that we learned or that we got, we look awkward in front of others when we’re trying to share that idea.

Hmm. Right? Yeah. So if we’re like, Oh God, there were 15 things, and I can’t remember the 15, like, we look silly in front of our friends. Whereas if we’re like, You won’t even believe this. There were three things, and it was accessibility, influence, memory, you know, like, Right. It’s like, yep. Boom. I, I know that, I know I can remember it because I know it spells the word aim.

Right? It’s like it’s all straight, like straightforward. Right? But if there’s too many things, all of a sudden it’s, it’s so, so hard to keep it in our memory and to wanna share it with others. And that ties to the very last piece, which is structure. And our brains need order in order to process information.

Yes, they do. We always need to sort of have things in a sequence in order to be like, Okay, well this is what comes for, This is what comes second. This is what comes third. And to be able to share that information and to keep that stuff in our memory. The second that something’s out of order or we don’t have an order for it, it becomes harder for us to remember all of those pieces, right?

Mm-hmm. . But the mistake that gets made is that we don’t give people a structure to remember the material that we’re giving. Oh, yeah. 

Lauren: Right? Yeah, 

Michael: absolutely. We just give a bunch of stuff and we’re like, Here you go. Figure it. Right. And, and, and it’s literally like, it’s, it’s literally like taking like a box of IKEA furniture and just like dumping it on the floor and being like, Good luck,

I’ll see you later. Yeah. I hope you, I hope you figure it out. Right? And like, that’s what we do. So, so often with our ideas, with our concepts, with the work that we’re, we’re doing, we don’t give people any kind of structure to be able to know what comes first, what comes second, what comes third, right? We don’t give them any way to.

Put that information in order. And sometimes that doesn’t even necessarily need to be a chronological thing. It can literally be a visual thing where it’s just like, Okay, I put these things in the Venn diagram and now you understand this concept. Right? It’s that structure that helps us understand concepts.

So the more that we think about structure, the more that we focus on structure, the easier it is for people to remember. This is why everybody know is able to remember at least one joke, , because the structure never changes. Right? Right. Set up, punchline. That is it, right? Mm-hmm. , we just plug in different things every time.

The structure never changes. Mm-hmm. . So when we give people a structure, they will remember that content. They will be far more likely to share it, right? And get those ideas out there. Just like when I talk about the idea of accessibility, influence, and memory. Spelling the word aim, that gives you a structure.

Yes. And then you can process it and use it. And just like when I say less language, emotion, simplicity, and structure, I am giving you a structure to process that information. 

Lauren: Oh, solid gold. Solid gold. It even takes me back to, uh, my college years and even when I was in the medical field, we had acronyms for everything , so we could remember and somebody wasn’t gonna die on our watch cuz we had to follow, um, you know, the, the structure.

So I love Exactly. I love that so much. Um, geez, this, I mean, I could talk to you about this for hours, like we jam on this a lot, but this episode was so impactful and packed with so many valuable takeaways and golden nuggets that we can go implement today. Thank you so much for being on this show. Um, before I let you go, tell our listeners a little bit about how they can connect with you or sink their teeth into more of your brilliance.

I have a feeling that anybody that listens to this is gonna be like, How do I hire you? So to give the audience what they want, , 

Michael: that’s very, very kind. Um, so they can go to my referability rater.com and that is a, uh, referability rate where they can basically answer some questions. It’ll give them a referability score, and then, um, you will be signed up for the Referability Weekly, um, which basically, The best of my daily email.

So I write a daily email. And for some people that’s just not good for their inboxes. They just can’t do it. Right? Yep. So what it does is it takes the most popular email from my, uh, from my daily and sends it every Friday, uh, with just like whatever was the most popular topic, whatever was the thing that people were most interested in.

So they can sign up for that, and then if they decide that they, they’re like, Oh my God, I need more, They can always sign up for the daily if they want to do that. 

Lauren: Okay. Awesome. I love that. And then last question I’ve started asking guests, what is a book that you think every entre entrepreneur should read?

Michael: Yeah. Um, there’s so many that, that immediately, you know, that, that sort of pop into my head. But the one that really stands out is, uh, Essentialism, um, by Greg McEwen. And it’s, it’s. All about that aspect of sort of just making the choice of what is essential in your life and cutting out the rest. And it’s just really, really great in regards to like helping you understand how to get better at saying no so that you are not overwhelmed.

Right? Um, there’s, there’s a lot of just really great material in there about that, but also just like getting super clear for yourself on like, what really matters to you, What’s, what’s useful for you, what’s really gonna serve you, versus all of the things that kind of fit into that shiny object category where you’re like, Oh, I could do this and I could do that, and I could do this and, and, and that side of things.

So I just think. That is such a powerful book, and I think that for many, many entrepreneurs, that’s the question you need to ask, especially as the business grows. Like you have to get better at saying no. And that’s what that book will really help you rethink and, and, and, and nail down. 

Lauren: I love that. I’ve actually never heard of this book, but it plays perfectly into my philosophy of, yeah, your business should get more simple as it scales.

Not more complicated. And it sounds like it’s the Marie Condo of Life book. . 

Michael: Yes, 100%. It’s, I mean, it’s it, it’s an amazing book. It’s really, really powerful book. 

Lauren: Amazing. Well, thank you again so much for being on the show. It was such a pleasure, and I cannot wait to see all the great feedback and takeaway that our listeners get from this show.

Michael: And thank you so much for having me. It was an absolute blast and such a great, really, really fun conversation. 

Lauren: Of course. Until next time, we might have to have you back to dig the E, even deeper . 

Michael: Love it. 

 Lauren: All right, everyone. That’s it for this week’s episode. Thanks so much for listening. It’s because of listeners like you that we create these episodes, so we’d love to hear from you and your biggest takeaways.

Make sure you’re following along. Go ahead and subscribe, and don’t forget to tag me on Instagram at it’s Lauren Goldstein or LinkedIn or wherever you hang out on the interwebs. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you next week.

So, which part of your business needs love and attention? You might be wondering that. Hmm? Here are your next steps.

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