Positional Authority

Episode 34: Positional Authority, with Tom Schwab

Positional authority, a podcast episode with Tom Schwab. Learn how the right conversation can help you establish a genuine positional authority.

Tom Schwab is an accomplished inbound marketer, speaker, entrepreneur, and author. He is the Founder and Chief Evangelist Officer at Interview Valet.

Have you ever thought how your digital marketing approach does not give you your positional authority and that it might actually be hurting your business? That you are not “breaking through the noise,” you are just adding to it? Perhaps you are not simply “one funnel away;” maybe that funnel is preventing the big fish you want from seeing your bait.

Tom Schwab wants you to consider that you are just one conversation away. Based on Tom’s experiences and data, working with over one thousand thought leaders as the chief evangelist officer at Interview Valet, Tom believes you are just one conversation away from a rich life and a profitable business.

What you will learn in this episode is about positional authority:

• Why connecting people with ideas is part of Tom’s mission
• Why Tom launched Interview Valet
• The strategies and processes Tom and his team of experts implement to leverage audiences
• How we can avoid chasing a transaction in favor of making a long term investment leading to profitability and sustainability
• Ways the podcasting format is an introduction to potential clients that can lead to building a genuine positional authority
• Specific ways of repurposing podcast interviews to turn passive listeners into engaged leads

Resources:

• Learn more about positional authority and Tom Schwab by checking out his blogs
• Website: https://interviewvalet.com/
• LinkedIn:
  • http://linkedin.com/in/thomasmschwab
  • https://www.linkedin.com/company/interview-valet/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InterviewValet
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/interviewvalet
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuSNLwNEIU787_7l34HaS8A
• Book: https://interviewvalet.com/pgpdownload/
• Listen to another related positional authority podcast but with Chris Prefontaine

 

Positional Authority: Full Episode Transcript

 

Positional authority: What is it and how to establish it?

 

Welcome to the Sell with Authority podcast. I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI. And my team and I, we created this podcast specifically for you. So if you’re an agency owner, a business coach, or a strategic consultant, and you’re looking to grow a thriving, profitable business that can weather the constant change that seems to be our world’s reality within you’re in the right place.

  

Do you want proven strategies for attracting a steady stream of well prepared, right fit prospects into your sales pipeline? Well, we’re going to cover that. You want to learn how to step away from the sea of competitors so you actually stand out and own the ground you’re standing on. Well, we’re going to cover that. Do you want to futureproof your business so you can navigate all of the next challenges that come your way?

  

What? Absolutely. We will help you there as well. I promise you, each episode of this podcast will contain valuable insights and tangible examples of best practices. Never theory. From thought leaders, experts, owners who have done exactly what you’re working hard to do. So I want you to think practical and tactical. Never any fluff. Each of our guests have built a position of authority and then monitor raised that position by claiming their ground, by growing their audience, by nurturing leads, and yes, by converting sales.

  

But all the while they did it by being helpful. So every time someone from their audience turned around there, they were given a helpful answer to an important question. So their prospects never, ever, ever felt like a prospect. I also promise you every strategy we discuss, every tool we recommend will be shared in full transparency in each episode so you can plant your flag of authority so you can claim your ground.

 

Interested to know more about positional authority? Check out these other blogs of Tom Schwab

 

Positional Authority: Tom Schwab’s Introduction

  

You can fill that sales pipeline with a steady stream of right-fit clients who, again, never, ever were made to feel like one of your prospects. Okay, I am super excited for you to meet our very special guest expert today, Tom Schwab, in case you’re meeting Tom for the first time. He is the founder of Interview Valet, an amazing team of experts who work alongside experts just like you to help them get booked on the right podcast so they can share their smarts with the right audiences and in the process build their positions of authority in the niches they serve.

 

So that said, I’ve just completely oversimplified the process and the strategy behind what Tom and his team do. Candidly, so brilliantly and also the why, the powers, all of it. So let’s explore that word for a minute. Simplification for Tom and I, when we see ads on Facebook or when we hear some guru say, You’re just one funnel away from building that seven-figure business, it makes us want to pull the hair out of our heads.

  

Well, candidly, Tom could pull the hair out of his head, but I’m already bald, so I’m kind of out of luck. But here’s the point. You’re not just one funnel away. Building a profitable, predictable and repeatable business and potentially a seven figure business isn’t a quick fix that someone’s email, suite, file or funnel can fix overnight. Here’s the reality.

  

It takes time to build a genuine authority position. It takes your willingness to be generous. It takes your desire to teach, to share, and to give the best of what you’ve got into selflessly. Pour all of that into your audience without any expectation of return. And to do all of that over and over and over again. And when you do that, this amazing thing begins to happen.

  

Your audience begins to trust you slowly at first, but they start to trust you because they see how you show up time and time again. They’re testing you. They’re collecting proof points from a safe distance at first. But eventually, they walk up to you at a conference that you’re both attending and say, Hey, Tom, your last podcast episode on such and such or your book on topic X, Y, Z was helpful because and then they share that insight with you.

  

And then after a brief conversation, they might say to you with a smile on their face, You know, Tom, you are exactly the person who I thought you were. I mean, that’s amazing, right? There are no shortcuts to getting there. So when Tom and I decided to get together again to record this and I say again because he was my great guest back years ago in the Onward Nation podcast.

 

Do you need more clarifications about positional authority? Attend our next open mic Q&A

 

Positional Authority: Connecting People with Ideas

 

So when we decided to get together to record this episode, and we thought about what to share, that would be helpful. I knew that I wanted him to share his perspective on authority and more specifically, his perspectives on what it takes to build an authority position. And the result outcomes. Once somebody does all that hard work because he has a unique dataset and perspective.

  

Here’s what I mean by that. Tom in his Interview Valet Team This is a really big number. They’ve worked with over a thousand experts. So his insights are going to be super helpful as you either start to build your authority position or look for strategies on how to double down and level up as we step into 2023. Okay, my friend.

  

So without further ado, welcome to the Sell with Authority podcast. Tom, Stephen, thank you so much. I am thrilled to be here. I am thrilled to have you here. Thank you for saying yes. And I’m really looking forward to this, this conversation and everything that we’re going to tackle before we do. And I know that I gave an introduction there in some context.

  

But before we dive in on positional authority, take us behind the curtain. Give us a little bit more context about you, your path and journey, and then we’ll dive in. Well, let’s start with, you know, the mission. Our mission is to personally introduce inspiring thought leaders to millions of people they could serve for the betterment of all. And I can remember my mom said, What’s that got to do with podcasts?

  

I’m like, It’s not about the podcast. She doesn’t know what a podcast is, but it’s really about connecting people with ideas. And, you know, my background is in engineering, right? I went to the U.S. Naval Academy. Anybody in the U.S., thank you for paying for my education. It did. The corporate world did. Inbound marketing. And one of the things I realized was that it was these conversations that we were having.

 

Interested to know more about positional authority? Check out these other blogs of Tom Schwab

 

Positional Authority: Assembling The Right Team

  

And, you know, back 15 years ago, it was with guest blogging. Right. Getting that authority position, getting that transfer of knowledge and trust back in 2000,before then I started to think that you could do that with podcast interviews. So we started to test it worked really well and launched Interview Valet in 2006. And really it’s a done for you podcast interview marketing service.

 

I always say my microphone makes me sound good. My team makes me look good. We’ve got 32 people now in Europe and North America. About half of them are military spouses. And we’re really working with thought leaders, right? High level coaches, consultants, agencies and brands to let them cut through the noise and really just get in on the conversation so that they can talk with their ideal customers.

  

They can, you know, the customers can self-select right and they can build that authority on other people’s platform and really leverage other people’s audiences. Well, you know that this morning. Well, I’m still sort of at a buzz, whatever the right way is to say that, because in the green room, you and I were just exchanging some thoughts here and there about Samantha Hartley, one of your clients, and you had reached out to your team, reached out to me and said, hey, would you consider having Samantha on the show and Holy bananas?

 

Am I glad that I said yes? Because as I mentioned to you beforehand, I mean, she was not only wicked smart, but incredibly generous. And for me, that’s like an intoxicating combination when somebody truly has a depth of knowledge, like an inch wide in a mile deep, and also is totally game to share all of it, right, for the betterment of the audience.

 

Do you need more clarifications about positional authority? Attend our next open mic Q&A

 

Positional Authority: Building a Business is a Long-Term Investment

 

And so when you’re talking about Interview Valet and the types of people that you work with, I mean, these are the types of people that you’re working with. So that are just what the embodiment, I guess, of the of the mission that you shared before. Right. It is. And you know, the one of the litmus tests there is inspiring thought leaders.

 

That means to me that they’re trying to make the world a better place and they’ve got something new and fresh to talk about. And then the last words, they’re for the betterment of all. And that’s so refreshing today, you know, where somebody is not just looking for that transaction or, you know, I when you lose, you know, how can I make, you know, seven figures in 7 seconds?

 

Right. No, everybody’s got a win on this. And that’s really what we focus on. And like you said, it’s not a short-term trick, Right? It’s a long-term investment. And, you know, there’s a difference between chasing a transaction and building a business. And so many people now are chasing the transaction. And I think it’s really going to be interesting when, you know, the water goes out and with the recession.

 

Interested to know more about positional authority? Check out these other blogs of Tom Schwab

 

Positional Authority: Provide Something of Value to Your Clients

 

Right. And you see who’s who’s swimming without shorts, I think the recession is going to really shake out a lot of people. You know, the people delivering value that have something and the other ones that are just trying to do a transaction well. And as a host, I always love it when Samantha did this or asked me this morning, you asked me this in the green room.

  

And this goes to your proof point of chasing a transaction because you and Samantha are not about that. But you both asked me, Stephen, how can I best serve your audience and I got to say, I love that as as as trying to do a great job for our audience when a guest and you know that they’re smart and you’re hoping that they’re generous, says, How can I be the most helpful?

 

Tell me more about the audience. How can I be the most helpful to your audience today? What is it that you think that I can share? I love that. I absolutely love it. One is aligned with your mission, but two, it’s where the perspective should be, or the emphasis should be. Let’s shine a bright light on the audience and how we can be the most helpful.

 

Right. Well, that’s one of the things that we teach all of our guests. And I always tell them your goal of being on a podcast is to make the host look like a genius for introducing you, that you get that much value right? Because if you bring value, they will promote you more than you ever could. You know, if you come out there and try to be self-promotion and, you know, try to use it as a, you know, infomercial, it’s not going to work.

 

Do you need more clarifications about positional authority? Attend our next open mic Q&A

 

Positional Authority: Let Your Clients Trust and Money Will Soon Follow

 

And the secret is this. There are a lot of recordings that get lost, right? Come in and try, use, and abuse in that audience. That is probably going to be one of those interviews where the file got lost. So sorry it never went live. Yeah, well, yeah, because it feels yucky for the host because he or she knows it’s going to feel yucky for the audience to write and part of the host’s job is not only to tease out the smart insights and that kind of stuff, it passes on to the audience.

 

But it’s also part of the role to protect the audience and to make sure they don’t violate the trust they work so hard to build with the audience. Okay, So let’s think about that, and I’ll take this into the authority piece, right? We’re talking about trust. We’re talking about delivering value and so forth. What are some of the components that you believe help establish a positional authority?

 

Well, I think it has to be conversations and conversations at length. Right. If you’re just trying to do a transaction, if you’re trying to sell a $2 widget, I don’t have to know who you are. Right. But if I’m going to work with you, I’m going to trust my business to you. I want to know who you are.

 

And that could be a personal introduction where somebody vouches for you like a podcast host. But it’s also, I want to know your backstory, right? I want to know why you do what you do. If we’re aligned there and today, more than anything, I, you know, there’s a great tweet from Brant Fishkin from SC. THOMAS Yeah. And he says, the best way to sell something today is not to sell anything, but to earn the awareness, trust, and respect of those who might buy.

 

And that’s really hard to do. And, you know, 2 seconds while you’re swiping right, if you can have that conversation, I think that’s really what’s going to drive that. If you want to build authority, be hard, be seen, and be there as the expert. Yeah, it’s so funny when you share that quote about Rand.

 

Interested to know more about positional authority? Check out these other blogs of Tom Schwab

 

Positional Authority: Don’t Be Dismayed If Some Clients Aren’t a Good Fit for You

 

Love, awareness. Trust, respect. Love that. And that sounds exactly like something he would say. I had a flashback to a conversation that I had with a prospective client probably maybe six, or seven months ago. And we did not take them on as a client. We just had very, let’s say, philosophical differences, because the question that he asked me was and this is almost an exact quote, how do I get my list to buy more of my stuff?

 

I’m like, my gosh, there are so many things that are just wrong with that question. And because going back to Rand’s, quote, awareness, trust, respect, like when you say, how do I get my list, which is full of people to buy more of my stuff, it’s like, how do I cajole? How do I persuade them to buy more of my stuff?

 

It completely violates awareness. The trust and respect. And I’ve gotten to the point now in my life of no judgment. Right. But if that’s the way they are, that’s not the way I view the world. I don’t look at it as a list. I look at it as people. Right. And so looking at it that way, and I think that’s the other great thing about a conversation is that it is really easy with time, too, for people to say, Yes, I relate to that or no, I don’t.

 

Right. With a good podcast interview. If you want people to do one of two things, turn you up or turn you off either one is okay. I’m not saying they’re bad. I’m not saying I’m right. But if we’re not a good fit, let’s figure that out early on. Right. None of us need more leads. We need more people that we can serve.

 

So let them self-select in that conversation. And, you know, do I have authority with everyone? Do you have positional authority over everyone? No. But the people that you want to know, who’s your ideal customer, that’s where you want to focus on. And you want those other people. God loves a tournament. They can turn you off and go on to somebody else.

 

Amen. When Drew and I wrote the book, you know, the Ten Truths are in chapter two, one of the truths is that, yes, we do have or excuse me, in authority would have not we in authority would have a focused area of expertise. Right. And in and for the people who care about that, the authority, the person who has that authority position.

 

Do you need more clarifications about positional authority? Attend our next open mic Q&A

 

Positional Authority: Provide Different Approaches for Different Clients

 

Super exciting, really helpful. But for the vast majority of people want to shove a fork in the rye bored to tears. And that’s 100% okay to your point, right? Like we are here to serve our tribe and we’re going to pour everything we can into that tribe. Right? But we’re not equally appealing to everyone. And that’s okay.

 

Right. Yeah. And the other thing that I love about this medium, too, is my natural tendencies, right? For me to write a blog is a homework assignment. Yeah, right. I’m not a natural writer. I am an engineer. So to have conversations, I love to do that. And now today, it’s so easy to create in the way that you want and reproduce it in ways that other people want to consume it, right?

 

So you can have any conversation or any interview. And some people want to listen. Other people want to watch it on video. That’s fine. Other people, you know what? Give me the highlights of it in a blog or an article. And it’s just such an amazing time here where you can take your content and repurpose that and, you know, talk about one conversation that we’re doing right now that can be turned into thousands of scalable conversations.

 

But let’s talk about that. In fact, let’s come back to that. So we’re going to put a pin in that for just a second because the repurposing piece is a big conversation in and of itself, which I want to get to. Let’s go back to a couple of minutes ago. You said conversations and conversations at length.

 

Interested to know more about positional authority? Check out these other blogs of Tom Schwab

 

Positional Authority: Engaging The Right Conversation

 

So tell us a little bit more about that, that it’s not just conversations, but it’s conversations at length. So, tell us a little bit more about what’s rolled up into the app length piece. I think the larger the value of the relationship, the longer the conversation needs to be. Okay. Right. If I’m interviewing someone to, you know, cut down a tree.

 

It’s not going to be as long a conversation as I had with my bride before we got married. Sure. Right. So with that, having those conversations at length and, you know, the higher the value that you’re bringing to the relationship as a culture consultant agency, whatever, the longer that conversation needs to be. And that’s why most of the time with our clients, we say podcast, you know, ideally 30 to 45 minutes because most of us aren’t tight enough in our soundbites that we can get our message out in under 20 flips.

 

It is if they don’t love me after an hour, you know, but another 2 hours of time is not going to change their mind. And the other thing, too, is there are conversations for the masses, right? What we’re doing here for everyone. And then the next conversation could be, you know, a discovery call, a sales call, maybe they go back and they watch more of my content or your content, Right.

 

To get more of that. And then at a certain point, it comes to that 1 to 1 conversation of, hey, would we be good to work together? And what I love about it is they feel like they’ve already known you and talked to you. And I’ll say it’s when I talk to you live or even like this. Stephen To me, it’s always weird because when I listen to podcasts, I listen to two X as I run at half X, right?

 

Do you need more clarifications about positional authority? Attend our next open mic Q&A

 

Positional Authority: Brand Yourself Well and Clients Will Identify You Right Away

 

So in this medium, they can listen to you where they want, when they want, and even at the speed they want and when they’re ready, they can come and start that sales relationship or see how we could work together. Okay. So you mentioned they feel they know you. Okay. So why do you think that your audience feels they know you before they’ve even used Drew’s analogy before they even come out of the wood line?

 

You even know who they are, right? You may not even know them by name yet, but they feel like they know you. Why? Why do you think so? A lot of research has been done on this, and I’ve read it. And then also what I know in my heart, right. I’ve read a lot of books in my life.

 

Right. I have. But do I know what the author’s like? No. But Zig Ziglar, I know his voice. I feel like I know him. Malcolm Gladwell in the same way. There was a futurist out of Stanford Johansen, and he wrote a book called The New Leadership Literacies. One of the points he made was that the future is vivid audio.

 

And I remember listening to the book and rewinding like, I must have missed her to that because he must have said video and he says, No, it’s audio. And one of the points he made that I thought was so good was that when you listen to somebody, we tend to be less judgmental, right? So we judge people on the content that, well, are they too old?

 

Are they too young? Do they look like me? And I’ll give you an example. My niece was studying for her real estate license, and she reached out to me and she goes, Uncle Tom, have you ever heard of Zig Ziglar? And I said, Yes, honey. And I didn’t have the heart to tell her, Honey, this has been dead for years.

 

And those were probably recorded before you were born, right? If she had seen the size of his lapels, you know, she would have stopped listening because, you know, this is so dated. But because it was audio, she could sort of picture what it looked like. You know, it’s like, why is radio so enticing? You know, with the morning deejays?

 

Interested to know more about positional authority? Check out these other blogs of Tom Schwab

 

Positional Authority: Your Unique Imprint Will Make You Stand Out

 

I think it’s because it’s an audio only thing and people feel like you know them because especially in this podcasting format, it’s real. It’s raw. You know, we talk about different things and you really start to feel like, you know, this person and I’m sure you’ve had this where somebody comes up to you and just starts to ask you almost like personal questions, like, how’s this house?

 

You know? And you’re like, how do they know this? Well, they consider you a friend because they have been listening to you every week. You know, their drive to work. Yeah. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at an AMI workshop. Agency Management Institute workshop? Drew’s teaching or mutual friend. Drew and somebody who she has not met in person before might even be from overseas.

 

But they decided to hop on a plane and fly to the U.S. to attend a workshop in, Orlando or Chicago. And they’ll walk up to him and say, You’re exactly the person who I thought you would be. You’ve been in my ears for the last two years every morning while I walk my dog. And I just knew that I needed to get on a plane and be here in one.

 

What an amazing, gratifying, yet also very humbling thing for somebody to say. But then to your point, it’s like you’ve been teaching and sharing and pouring into them the best of what you got for the last two years. And then they felt almost compelled that they had to meet that person in person. And then when they do, it’s like it’s like magic happens, right?

 

And you know, what’s amazing is that I remember the first time we met. I don’t know that I recognized you right away, but I heard your voice right, because you were a lot taller than I had in my mind. Right? Because on Zoom, we all look the same height. Right? But I heard your voice and was like, Stephen’s here, right?

 

And I’ve had that before in an airport. Somebody came up to me and recognized my voice. Right. And the thing is, is that, you know, sometimes, you know, you could be on a plane and on a family vacation. You’re going to look different than if you’re on stage. Right. But your voice doesn’t change. And the imprint that it makes on people is amazing.

 

Do you need more clarifications about positional authority? Attend our next open mic Q&A

 

Positional Authority: Don’t Stop Sharing Value to Your Clients

 

Right. And I would argue that your voice makes that imprint because you were delivering something of value and you were teaching and you were sharing. You’re being generous in your teaching and sharing about something that they care about their business issue or challenge you were providing their advice that they could take away and apply it to their business and that left a meaningful impact.

 

And so it’s almost like there’s a word for it, like when animals imprint on it, right? I’m sure I’m messing that up somehow. But like you, you left a lasting sort of memory that your voice, plus what was shared through that voice was helpful and especially in today’s economy. Right. Because it’s the attention economy.

 

When you stop adding value, why would they listen anymore? So you’re continually having those conversations, adding value, adding to that relationship, almost like making deposits, right? You keep making those deposits and you don’t know when it’s going to pay off, but I don’t always God, the universe, whatever the karma, you know, you keep making those deposits in that slot machine and when you don’t know it, it pays off more than you could ever imagine.

 

Man, the Lord works in mysterious ways, my friend. So now let’s take this piece into the repurposing, right? So, somebody is getting on stage in podcasts. It could certainly be that personally, of course. Right? They’re getting on stage. They’re sharing consistently in. They know their audience and they’re in. They’ve decided to niche down and be helpful for a particular audience and share whatever it is that they can teach and share that is helpful around business issues and challenges.

 

But that’s just like the first step. And so yes, they shared it with the audience. But to expect that that conversation is going to then, you know, fill the sales pipeline or they’re the lucky strike extras. Yep. Of course, that happens. I think I think you’re touching on the real magic and that is the repurposing, like when you said this episode could then become the thousands.

 

Interested to know more about positional authority? Check out these other blogs of Tom Schwab

 

Positional Authority: Understanding Your Audience Both Physically and Digitally

 

So, let’s highlight a few of those big golden nuggets from your point of view. Like somebody gets on a show, an episode or excuse me, a podcast, what should they be doing with that episode to slice and dice it or repurpose it using your words? And I love the word you use on stage, right? Because in this picture you’re on somebody’s stage, you jump on the stage 2 minutes before you’re supposed to talk.

 

You talk and then you leave and no one in the audience ever sees you around again. It’s not going to convert. Well, the people that convert best from physical stages are the ones that are there in the community beforehand. They stick around after they engage with that, Right? They’re tapping into that community. They’re not just using it as a transaction.

 

And so if that works on a physical stage, it works on a digital stage too. So think about that before you get on the show right? Connect with the host, and understand the audience. And after the interview, well, why wouldn’t you want to keep connecting with them? Right. 80% of the listeners come within the first 30 days after it goes live.

 

Do you need more clarifications about positional authority? Attend our next open mic Q&A

 

Positional Authority: Promote Your Content and Add Insight to It

 

So when the host is promoting your episode and tagging, you jump in there and engage with that. You should be promoting it to your audience too, right? Remember that old seen on TV logos that you used to put on everything? Well, why would you go on television and never mention anybody? You know, 50 years ago, Same thing with the podcast.

 

Make sure that you’re promoting the content, adding your insight to it. And then the other thing, too, is that you can repurpose this in so many ways, right? And you know, it is copyrighted material, right? But I have never had a podcast host saying, No, you can’t use this material. They all want it to be attributed to that, right?

 

Positional authority can be difficult to execute, right? Of course. But, you know, at the end of the day, you don’t care where people hear you as long as they hear you. So to be able to cut that up into chunks and it could be little video reels for Instagram or Tik Tok or whatever, it could be the transcript, it could be articles, it could be blogs.

 

Out of that. I remember we had one client where the team had been asking the CEO for all these frequently asked questions, and he’d probably done a dozen interviews, like going back to the interviews. Right, Right. All of the stories are there. They were able to get all the information out of the podcast, and they took the clips.

 

Interested to know more about positional authority? Check out these other blogs of Tom Schwab

 

Positional Authority: Produce Contents That Work in Harmony With Each Other

 

So now it’s the owner, the founder that’s actually explaining this so many times. If you’re a public speaker on physical stages, you’ve got to speak real you can do the same thing with podcasts, right? Take your best chunks and put it in there. Two years ago, around the year end holidays, when things were slow, I asked my team, how much content do you think you get from one of my podcast interviews?

 

Right? They were able to get a month’s worth of content from a single 45-minute interview with me, and it didn’t take any more of my time. And heck, you can even here’s a great trick. If you live anywhere near a university, there are journalism majors. Yep. And they did internships. Yup. And what do you think journalists do? They listen to a story, and they write up articles about it.

  

Those articles could be blogs, articles, press releases, and all the rest of that. If you’ve been doing podcasts or doing podcast interviews, help out a journalism intern having come work with you for a semester and they could repurpose all of your content and give you so much content from that in different formats.

 

So let’s take a quick tally here. Some blog post ideas that have come out of this conversation so far. Okay, so like if I wanted to, I could go back and write a blog post about, quote, Rand Fishkin. Quote: You talk about awareness, trust and respect and why that matters. Topic number one. Topic number two, I could write a really lengthy blog post around this, repurposing the slicing and dicing piece and why that’s helpful to an audience at a macro in a micro level.

 

Easy. I could write a blog post around conversations and conversations at length and why does that matter right? I could then write a blog post around your mission and tie that mission into building a positional authority and why that really matters and why that’s based on generosity and teaching and sharing and pouring into your audience because those two things are congruent.

 

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Positional Authority: Siphoning An Audience

 

The mission that you shared and authority position. I could also talk about the keys to success that you shared. I could also talk about why being helpful to your audience really matters. I could also talk about why chasing a transaction when the water comes out, talking about the recession, why chasing a transaction is really futile, and you really need to build something with some depth, like building your house on a solid foundation and not sand.

 

Right? That’s eight topics right there in 38 minutes. And we’ll see if I can repurpose that content before you could because the one thing that I’m going to change on that is when you said, you know, I could do this, I could do this, well, you’ve already done it, right? We’ve already had this conversation. You divested that time.

 

You could get someone else to do that. And they’ve got a different viewpoint on that. And, you know, with 45 minutes of your time for a discussion, you can have other people just multiply that out and just have so much content out there for people to consume the way they want. And that’s such a great point when I said I you know, that I meant my team.

 

I do. But my point is and I’m glad that you tease that out because I think sometimes people have the impression of, for Pete’s sake, yup, I could probably do all that slicing and dicing, but where am I going to find the time? Your point is well taken. It doesn’t have to be you. So something else that really struck me with Samantha.

 

One of your clients was big, and this is a really small percentage. This is why I want to tease this out, because as you’re teaching people how to get on these stages and also then how to show up as an authority and be smart and be generous and all of that. It’s also like asking permission for certain things.

  

And so Samantha, amazing blew me away. She said, Hey, I’ve got this thing we call a screaming call value exchange. I got this thing. I think it would be helpful to your audience. Is it okay if I share it? And of course, my answer to that is yes, that would be awesome, because it’s helpful to our audience, right?

 

It’s also helpful to her to build her list and all of that. Erik then once asked me, my business partner, Erk, who I know that you know, asked me, he goes, Hey, out of the thousand interviews that we’ve done between Onward Nation and the solo podcast, what percentage of guests ever ask? And I said I could probably count on two hands, less than 20 people total.

 

20 people total has ever asked me if they could do that, if they could take their level of helpfulness one step further. Samantha did. And I’m like, Good on her because that’s helpful to our audience. But it’s staggering to me how many times there’s this missed opportunity. We call it siphoning an audience to do that is staggering to me, but good on her that she did it.

 

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Positional Authority: Turning A Passive Listener to An Active Visitor

 

The vision I always have of that is chum in the water. Right? Right. Remember the old Jaws movie? Yeah, chum. The water and all the sharks came there. That’s what a podcast interview is like, right? You go out there, you put out this great content and it attracts them. And then at the end, people are just like, okay, well, just connect with me on Facebook.

 

Right? How does that help them? Right. There’s no next step. So you really have to look and say, how can I help people go from being a passive listener to an active visitor to an engaged lead? And, you know, one of the things with our testing has shown what works best off of a podcast interview, and this isn’t just my opinion. We tested it for eight years, meeting people where they are, right?

 

Give them a small yes. Give them a medium. And give them a heck yes. So that they can engage with you where they’re comfortable. Yeah. And it has to be something truly helpful, not not not gimmicky or whatever. And what she offered up was absolutely helpful. And so what I’m hoping that our audience takes away from your advice is, okay, if I’m going to take the effort to be smart, to be generous, and to be thoughtful and to really pour myself into the audience, that I’m going to want to take that even further.

 

How else can I be helpful to them outside of the show? And then it might be a dare a decade before they raise their hand or maybe never before they raise their hand and say, Hey, can you help me solve this problem? But like, if we don’t take that step, then then we’re not getting every ounce of opportunity out of that.

 

The other thing that Samantha did today, this is just so coincidental that we sort of have this case study because I spent time with her this morning. That was just so great. And I think this is a great reflection upon Interview Valet and of course her and that is this she was so totally prepared when we connected on Zoom she knew our audience.

  

She had listened to three or four episodes and it wasn’t passively like she asked me questions about the episodes. And so it wasn’t like a whole, you know, I’ve listened to the show. It was, you know, when you said this during that episode around that thing, I’m like, Holy bananas. She actually listens to the episodes. So she was prepared and ready to show up to be helpful.

 

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Positional Authority: It’s Not Easy Building a Profitable Business

 

Blew me away. Amazing. Totally amazing. Well, I’ll pull back the curtain here a little bit to be okay. Probably ten or 15 minutes before the interview. Yeah, I’m sure she locked into her dashboard. Okay. She has all of our interviews there and we’ve got a brief sheet on every podcast. So every time we learn something new about a host, about the audience, you know, when you podcast relationship managers talking to you, listening to an episode, well, putting it in there so that very quickly they can go through, read all of that.

 

It’s all the links to the social media so you can check out their LinkedIn, check out their Facebook. You know, it’s amazing. I listened to some podcast interviews and, you know, the host will ask the guest, you know, a question they ask everybody, and they’ll be like, I’ve never thought of that. And it’s like you just scream to the audience, I’m a carpetbagger.

 

I have never listened to this show, right? I had a boss in the Navy who said only kids and clouds were like surprises. Which one do you take me for? Well, we don’t work with either. That’s why we brief all of our clients beforehand, too. So to make it easy for them. Well, because again, when she showed up like that, I’m like, wow, she’s serious about her commitment to stand in front of, in this case, our audience and be really helpful.

 

And I know she wasn’t just doing that for us. It’s how she shows up over and over and over again. So the point is, is that going back to the way that I introduced you, it’s not easy building a seven figure business or whatever the target is that somebody is trying to build their business. It doesn’t matter.

 

I don’t care what the numbers are. It is not easy building a profitable business and you have to build positional authority. You have to do it over and over and over and over again, willing to have the conversations and the conversations at length, just like Samantha did this morning and just like you are now. It’s funny.

 

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Positional Authority: Make Your Content Stand Out Then Repurpose It

 

It’s the great ones. Make it look easy, right? You want to talk about any, you know, presenters, athletes, right? They’ve done it so many times. They’re prepared and they come focused with that. Right. And that’s really what makes the difference. And one of the things, you know, I preach a lot is that more is not better.

 

Better is better. Right. And we’ll have people that come to us and say, you know, I want to. I can think of one person. They want to be on 100 interviews in the month of June. And I’m like, Why? because I’ll have massive exposure. Well, you know, commit a crime and your picture will be in every post office, right?

 

That’s massive exposure, too. It’s like, no, it’s not exposure. It’s, you know, getting the results from it. So why don’t you do fewer interviews and do it better? Why do you do fewer interviews and promote them more? Why don’t you do fewer interviews and repurpose the content? Instead of doing Groundhog’s Day, make each one stand on itself so that you can repurpose it.

 

And that’s something that is heresy in our industry, too, because you know people are paid by the interview, right? So they want you to do more and more and more. I look at it as I want you to get more, more and more from every interview right? 100%. And I always get concerned when somebody leads with I want to be on 100 podcasts, for example, like it, it makes me immediately go to intent, right?

 

And it’s like I get the fact that my vital metrics and all of that stuff are important. I mean, heck, I named the business Predictive ROI, for Pete’s sake. I get the fact of the value of numbers, but I always question it when that’s the first thing. And I’m like, well, maybe let’s think about the right audience being helpful at the right depth, how we can help them solve problems and challenges.

 

And maybe that’s three instead of, you know, 97 more. Maybe those conversations aren’t as helpful because they’re not the right audience and that kind of stuff or whatever. So anyway this has been as awesome as I knew that it would be. Thank you very, very much for being so generous with your time and your expertise.

 

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Positional Authority: Get In Touch With Tom Schwab

 

Before we go, before we close out and say goodbye, what’s the best way for our audience to reach out and connect with you? Tom? Now I feel bad that I didn’t ask before. You know, you mentioned different things, like the book and everything like that. If I can be of any service to anybody, just go back to https://interviewvalet.com/.

 

All my social media links are there so you don’t have to try to figure out which Tom Schwab in Kalamazoo, Michigan I really am. And then I’ll also put my calendar. Like if I could be of any service to you, please just reach out at https://interviewvalet.com/. You are awesome, my friend. Okay, everyone, no matter how many notes you took or how often you go back and relisten to Tom’s words of wisdom, I sure hope that you do.

 

You have to take what he so generously shared with you, take it and apply it, because when you do, you will accelerate your results. And Tom, thank you again for saying yes to come on to the show, to be our mentor, to be our guide, to help us move our businesses onward to that next level as well as our positional authority.

 

Thank you so much, Tom. Thank you, Stephen.

 

Interested to know more about positional authority? Check out these other blogs of Tom Schwab