Mic Drop

The Biggest Stage in the World (ft. Emily Ford, Jordan Tarver, & Giselle Ugarte)

Episode Summary

Today's episode of Mic Drop will transform how you think about social media, from a scary monster that we all have to feed to a powerful and even inspirational tool that we're lucky to have on our side. We’re joined by three social media experts who will bust myths, challenge assumptions, and inspire news approaches to the way we think about and use social media in our careers.

Episode Notes

The Biggest Stage in the World (ft. Emily Ford, Jordan Tarver, & Giselle Ugarte)

Three experts help make the monster of social media a lot less scary

OPENING QUOTE:

“We are in the business of impact. And the way I've changed my approach with social media is that social media is another stage, but it's a stage that has the reach of millions of people.”

-Jordan Tarver

GUEST BIO:

Emily Ford has built businesses and organizations with hundreds of thousands of active customers, launched sales teams across multiple countries and generated nine figures of revenue in her own company. She's also a masterful force in the social media world with tens of thousands of followers across multiple platforms.

Links:

Jordan Tarver is an author and keynote speaker whose book You Deserve This Sh*t is a bestselling self-help success story with over 10 million social media views.

Links:

Giselle Ugarte has been producing online video content for longer than most people have even known what Instagram was, generating tens of millions of views and creating a career out of helping other people do the same.

Links:

CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:

[12:21] - A Message for the Haters

Don’t like social media? This is for you.

Whether you’re a speaker who doesn’t care about social media or simply isn’t very good at it, it’s time to change your mindset. Social media isn’t some “other” thing that’s separate from your speaking. It’s just another room, another stage — one that has the potential to reach millions of people. When you’re on social media, you should be every bit as “you” as you are when you’re onstage. It’s an extension of your brand, your message, and your purpose.

[13:08] - Finding Your Voice & Your Place

Master social media by mastering yourself

Finding your footing on social media is about being honest with yourself, rather than trying to fit yourself to whatever is the “it” platform at the moment. Where are you most comfortable? Where is your audience likely to be? Which platforms do you enjoy the most? Start there, and then hone in on what your unique voice really is. Trying to chase content trends is often a losing game, because by the time you’ve imitated them, a new trend has taken their place.

But authenticity will always be in style.

[14:17] - Stocking the Refrigerator

We get out of social media what we put in

Many people avoid social media because they consider it toxic. They don’t want to be fed a stream of content that will make them feel insecure, unhappy, and as if the rest of the world is doing better than they are. But social media gives us what we put in — like stocking a refrigerator. If we seek out content that’s relatable, inspiring, and positive, then the algorithm will give us more of it. If we put fruit in the fridge, then guess what we’ll find when we open it up?

[20:59] - Embrace Our Algorithm Overlords

You can’t control what takes off. Focus on what you can control.

It can often be frustrating when you see a post or piece of content by someone else get picked up by “the algorithm” and make a massive impact, while your high-quality content is getting ignored.

Our experts’ advice? Let go of that frustration. Control what you can control: your output. If you continue to put out quality content that connects with people, eventually you’ll have something hit. You just have to be patient.

RESOURCES:

[2:18] You Deserve This Sh*t, by Jordan Tarver
[5:33] About Montessori Schools

Follow Emily Ford:

Follow Jordan Tarver:

Follow Giselle Ugarte:

Follow Josh Linkner:

ABOUT MIC DROP:

Hear from the world’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing tipping point moments, strategies, and approaches that led to their speaking career success. Throughout each episode, host Josh Linkner, #1 Innovation keynote speaker in the world, deconstructs guests’ Mic Drop moments and provides tactical tools and takeaways that can be applied to any speaking business, no matter it’s starting point. You'll enjoy hearing from some of the top keynote speakers in the industry including: Ryan Estis, Alison Levine, Peter Sheahan, Seth Mattison, Cassandra Worthy, and many more. Mic Drop is sponsored by ImpactEleven.

Learn more at: MicDropPodcast.com

ABOUT THE HOST:

Josh Linkner is a Creative Troublemaker. He believes passionately that all human beings have incredible creative capacity, and he’s on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar.

Josh has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million and is the author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners.

Today, Josh serves as Chairman and Co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award.

Josh is also a passionate Detroiter, the father of four, is a professional-level jazz guitarist, and has a slightly odd obsession with greasy pizza.

Learn more about Josh: JoshLinkner.com

Episode Transcription

Jordan Tarver:

We are in the business of impact. And the way I've changed my approach with social media is that social media is another stage, but it's a stage that has the reach of millions of people.

Josh Linkner:

Hey, Mic Drop enthusiast, Josh Linkner here. Delighted to be bringing you season two of Mic Drop. I love our conversations with speakers and industry leaders alike so we can unpack the industry and we can all perform better. Let's get after it and get better together.

Maria Cairo:

Mic Drop is brought to you by Impact Eleven, the most diverse and inclusive community built for training and developing professional speakers to get on bigger stages at higher fees with greater impact, faster. They're not just elevating an industry that we all know and love. They work with thousands of speakers to launch and scale their speaking businesses. Accelerating time success, earning tens of millions in speaking fees, landing bureau representation, securing book deals, and rising to the top of the field. To Learn more about the Impact Eleven community, schedule a free strategy session today by visiting impacteleven.com/connect. That's impact E-L-E-V-E-N.com/connect.

Josh Linkner:

I have a confession. I stink at social media. I haven't focused on it and never really understood it until today's conversation with three keynote speakers who are experts at social. Today's episode of Mic Drop will transform how you think about social media, from a scary monster that we all have to feed to a powerful and even inspirational tool that we're lucky to have on our side. Speaking of lucky, we're lucky to have three remarkable guests to show us the way. Emily Ford has built businesses and organizations with hundreds of thousands of active customers, launched sales teams across multiple countries and generated nine figures of revenue in her own company. She's also a masterful force in the social media world with tens of thousands of followers across multiple platforms.

Jordan Tarver is the author and keynote speaker whose book You Deserve This Shit is a bestselling self-help success story with over 10 million social media views. Giselle Ugarte has been producing online video content for longer than most people have even known what Instagram was, generating tens of millions of views and creating a career out of helping other people do the same.

In today's conversation, we learn how to develop our own authentic voice on social media. By social media is like a refrigerator, how the platforms we use give us back what we put in. What to do when you just don't feel natural on social media and how to stop worrying and love the algorithm? Let's figure out this whole social media thing together.

All right everyone, welcome to Mic Drop. Thanks for joining me today. So let's dive in. I've got three really remarkable guests with me today who have very different experiences. Before we get into what you're doing now, I'd love to hear a little bit about your backstory. How did you get to this point in time in your speaking business, your professional life, your personal life? I'd love to know just the backstory that led you here. And Emily, why don't we start with you?

Emily Ford:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I started when I was 23 years old, so about 15 years ago. And honestly, I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I was selling products and I had to learn how to present in front of the room and I quickly realized the person with the microphone makes the most money and has the most influence. So I didn't necessarily want to be a speaker. I wanted to create the life of my dreams. And so that led me to being in front of the room and I just wanted to get better and better and better. And then I wanted to train sales teams knowing that the better the team is and the better trained they are, the better the whole organization does overall. And so I just got into it and got so into it that I'm like, "I want to be creative when I write keynotes" and there's so much creativity that can be involved. And then I realized how much it can really transform lives. And so over a decade later now, I am doing this professionally.

Josh Linkner:

And before we move on, what type of audiences are you speaking to? I look at you and you span so many different genres to a degree. You're an influencer, you're an official famous person at this point. Who are you often speaking to in doing professional speaking?

Emily Ford:

First, the network marketing profession. So distributors teaching them how to build their personal brand, mindset, but then tomorrow I'm leaving to speak to insurance agents and helping them crush it. So a lot of different entrepreneurs that are in sales.

Josh Linkner:

And what are some of the core messages that you bring to life in those engagements?

Emily Ford:

I have a keynote called Unleash Your IT Factor. So it's really helping people understand their unique makeup and what's holding them back and how they can integrate all that into their personal brand. And then I also teach personal branding.

Josh Linkner:

And it's such a crucial thing, especially in this current era that we're in. Thank you for that. Jordan, what about you? I know yours started to a degree with a near miss tragedy.

Jordan Tarver:

Yeah, so my story dates back to... I attribute a lot of who I am today to my elementary school experience, which is not something you usually hear. I went to a Montessori school out in the country in Northern California, so my learning experience at a young age was different than the traditional route. But the school really, I would say it supported individuality, which I think has given me the confidence and courage to step into my power as my true authentic self. I've always from a young age wanted to be just creative. I've been really attracted to creativity and things like that.

So in college, my creative career started in photography, not in writing or speaking, but in college I was doing photography, just finding ways to express myself. And I got in a car accident in, what was it? It was 2013, I believe, about 11 years ago. And that was the ultimate wake up call for me to redefine how I was living my life and the types of choices I was making. And it really just inspired me to help others on that same journey. And that's what led me into this world of self-improvement. And so I've been on this journey for the last decade of finding ways to impact other people through my self-expression.

Josh Linkner:

And as a result of that, I know you've written a couple books, you are speaking. Can you maybe just share a little bit about the types of audiences you're speaking to, your body of work, your content?

Jordan Tarver:

Yeah, so my work originated just from social media and then I wrote a couple books, but the last book was released in 2021. And so through all that kind of stuff, I really focus on individuals. These are people that are either, they could be at a low point, very stuck in their life and trying to find the next best step, or they could be someone who's a little bit further on their growth journey and looking for ways to capitalize on stepping more into their power. I deliver that message both through keynote to corporations and also online to just normal people.

Josh Linkner:

I love the title of your book, You Deserve This Shit, but the subtitle, Get Unstuck, Find Your Path, and Become the Best Version of Yourself. That's a really powerful calling and it's probably a really good segue over to Giselle. So you are doing quite a bit of that for people too. As a performance coach, you're obviously out there, as a content developer. Maybe give us a little bit about your rise to where you're today.

Giselle Ugarte:

Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, I just want to say that Emily, your voice makes me feel warm and fuzzy because I'm a Minnesota girl too, and Jordan, it's been fun to get to know you online and see that offline you're exactly the same, which is going to be a theme of course of our conversation. But like Emily, I too got started about 15 years ago where I've been creating and studying online video content. And for me in my previous life, I was a TV host, I was living in Los Angeles and came to find very quickly that nobody gave a shit that I went to a top journalism school and I was trying to figure out how to get in the rooms, get in front of the right people, and also I was what the industry called very "Green," which meant very vanilla, could read a script really well, but had no personality.

And so I started to put videos up on this little platform called YouTube where I thought no one would see them. Really truly, I had to explain to people what the word B-L-O-G was and how to pronounce it, which if you're listening and you're a little dyslexic like I am, that's blog. And so for me it was, I suddenly realized at the time, and again this is 15 years ago, if I wanted someone to see me, I had to send them a demo reel, like a DVD, I had to send them a manila envelope with a folder and a printed out resume and my clips and I was broke as a joke. I didn't do the nine to five thing. I went all in to pursue my dreams and I didn't have $25 per manila envelope to send to casting directors with the risk that it would end up in the trash.

And all of a sudden I noticed, "Wait a minute, YouTube has this thing called copy and paste," and I could email people and give them relevant videos to show what I was capable of. And even though it was in my bedroom, it was allowing for them to see what I would be like in the audition room. And I was showing them not just my highlight reel, but maybe relevant things that made sense to topics or networks or languages even. And then I accidentally got opened up to this whole world of subscribers. I'm doing air quotes with my fingers if you're listening to this, which there were these extraordinarily average kids who had hundreds of thousands, if not millions of subscribers making the most average low quality rambles the videos in their college dorms. And nobody was talking about it.

At the time I saw it is so beneath me because I wanted to be on TV. But long story short, fast-forward, we are in a pandemic and everyone's making fun of these teenagers who are on this little platform called TikTok. And I just knew, oh my god, history repeating itself. That was at a point in my career where I wanted to pursue speaking and all of a sudden we're locked into a pandemic. And I knew in that moment, "Okay, now I've been studying this for 10 years, I'm not going to miss out on this opportunity and now I've learned a thing or two." And so now what I speak to a lot on stage is having a healthy relationship with social media, using technology to bring us closer. And that in a nutshell, storytelling and personal brand as well. So it's been a fun journey.

Josh Linkner:

I love it. And by the way, I think nobody on the planet would accuse you these days of lacking personality, quite the opposite, your charisma fills the room even remotely. It's awesome.

Giselle Ugarte:

If you watch my older videos, my voice is like 10 octaves higher. I'm like 40 pounds less. I'm at least four shades oranger. It's not something that happened overnight to even have this type of comfort level that I am able to have right now. So my hope is to be able to accelerate people in that process of just owning what they see.

Josh Linkner:

Staying with you for a minute because you mentioned helping people form a healthy relationship with social media. This is really going to be a fun session because I suck at social media to be clear, and I entered the speaking business a while ago and I didn't need it. And I was one of these grumpy "Who needs that crap?" I was really dismissive, to my own detriment, by the way, completely was a fail. Now you can't avoid it. It's everywhere. And it's really a crucial business tool. It's not just for fun or sharing what you had for dinner. It's really an important part of building a platform and followers and ultimately revenue. When you start to think about advising a dinosaur like me on social media, what are some of the first steps that a speaker could take to go from fairly dormant to at least sort of getting started? What are those early moves that we could consider?

Giselle Ugarte:

The first one is to let go of the phrase I suck at social media and just flipping your mindset about the space entirely because social media, it's just another room for you. But what's really awesome is that in that room you can multiply your presence and at scale. So yeah, if you want to go into a physical room with a whole bunch of people and physically shake hands with all those people and hug them, that's great and that totally works. But then how awesome it is how, for example, we're here in this virtual room, I've never even met some of you in person and every single person who hits play on this audio or this video, if that didn't take any additional energy than this moment right now. And how cool that, unlike when we're on stage and we're fighting for everyone's attention for eye contact, I get to make eye contact simultaneously with every single person who watches this video.

So you're a business person, Josh, you know what it's like to scale a physical corporation. This is just learning how you can scale your personal brand. So the first thing is mindset. The second is picking a platform and finding a place that you actually enjoy. So if you genuinely enjoy Facebook, go play on Facebook. If you like LinkedIn, go play on LinkedIn. If you feel like by joining a platform that you don't know anyone and you want to go play somewhere else, go to TikTok or even start a newsletter. All of those are just different rooms and wherever you put your energy is where you are going to be able to thrive.

And then beyond that, it's I believe that your following count is just as important as your follower count. And by that I don't mean the number itself, I mean who are you following? Because if your social media feed looks like a dumpster fire, that's because you yourself are following people who suck and you like to spray gasoline and enjoy the conversations. Because right now, every single social media platform is paying attention to watch time more than anything else. So what you see on your feed is a direct reflection of you.

And so I like to say that social media is like a refrigerator. It's a tool. If we're calling it toxic, we're giving it way too much credit. You get to decide what's in your refrigerator, you get to decide how much you want to eat, how often you want to eat, and if you want to fill it with takeout and greasy stuff and alcohol and have that every single day, you can. Or you can find a feed that inspires you. You can follow people who motivate you, you can watch content that educates you and then hopefully that too will help you to figure out what your own personal style is and how you want to show up. Because if somebody is driving you nuts or you think that they're annoying, cool, find someone who makes you feel good and who you really enjoy it and then figure out how you can make it your own. But you do not suck at social media, Josh, you don't.

Josh Linkner:

Brilliant advice and thank you for that prompt. You're right, there's no positive telling ourselves that we suck at things. I appreciate that dramatically. And speaking of people who don't suck and who are really engaging, I only have looked at some of your stuff online and just brilliant is the way I look at it, you're a black belt master at this. What would you add onto this conversation about what we as speakers can do to start building a following, nurturing that platform and ultimately converting it to speaking revenue?

Emily Ford:

Thank you. I really love my content blueprint guide. So I am all about working with intelligence here and buying back your time and not letting social media own you. And so there is some strategy behind it. And so creating strategic organic content like us filming this whenever you're on calls, going ahead and putting it on a phone stand and getting some of that BTS if you will, and have some of that value, value, value all crafted. In my office, I have a calendar and it has a bunch of different post-it notes with the five different themes of stuff that I talk about. It's all on there. And there'll be days where it's more like off the cuff and I feel something and I just post it or change it. But then throughout the days, you're just taking people on a journey with you.

I have so many amazing thought leader friends and some of them are legends that have been in this industry longer than I've been alive. I was coaching one the other day and I was sharing with him like, "Bro, all you show is yourself on stage and that's beautiful, and I know you're a world-class speaker, but I want to know what are you doing this weekend and what does your home look like and what is your process when you even make a keynote and what are you going through? And it's not like you have to share everything, but just take people on a journey with you and let them in so they learn how to or they really like, know and trust you because they feel like they actually know you."

And so that's what I would say, but don't let it own you. Giselle said that so beautifully, but I look at social as a way to serve and a business. That's it. And that's my energy with it. And so every day I'm like, "Who can I bless today? Who can I wake up today from their slumber?" And it helps me get out of my own head and into my heart and then create epic content that might wake that person up.

Josh Linkner:

It's so good. Such good advice. Jordan, I want to switch over to you and maybe give us a sense of how you're using social media today and perhaps tying it back to some of the impact you're seeing in your speaking craft.

Jordan Tarver:

Yeah, I think a big part of what I've been grappling with lately is content, in my eyes, it should be evolving because your content is a reflection of who you are. And so if your content is saying the same on your page, I think that's either a reflection of your own growth or the fact that maybe you're not actually revealing all the things about yourself, like what Emily's saying. I think right now with so many people using social media and a new generation coming through, to cut through the noise, you have to be a real person. It's simple as that. And so if you're just showing the stuff that's on stage, like Emily was saying, you're not showing that full body of work, of your personality, of your character, your humor, and so your audience has less to connect with you.

And I think in my own content, I'm trying to find more ways to bring more of my own personality, more of my humor, more of who Jordan really is beyond just the things I do on stage and just the things I do with my work. And so I'm trying to leverage it as a place to deeply connect with my community and audience because if I can deeply connect them, I feel like I can also serve them better.

Maria Cairo:

Becoming a keynote speaker is an amazing profession. The top performers earn millions while driving massive impact for audiences around the world. But the quest to speaking glory can be a slow rot with many obstacles that can knock even the best speakers out of the game. If you're serious about growing your speaking business, the seasoned pros at Impact Eleven can help. From crafting your ideal positioning to optimizing your marketing effectiveness, to perfecting your expertise and stage skills. As the only speaker training and development community run by current high level speakers at the top of the field, they'll boost your probability of success and help you get there faster. That's why nearly every major speaker bureau endorses and actively participates in Impact Eleven. The Impact Eleven community provides you unparalleled access to the people, relationships, coaching and accountability that compresses your time to success. To learn more about the Impact Eleven community, schedule a free strategy session today by visiting impacteleven.com/connect. That's impact, E-L-E-V-E-N, .com/connect.

Josh Linkner:

So good. Emily, I have a question for you, and others may want to weigh in also, I find this tension where I see people posting stuff sometimes and it feels really basic, really obvious things like "Believe in yourself, I believe in you too." And that's not a bad thing, it's not hurting anybody, but it's like really? And then [inaudible 00:20:34] there'd be like 8 billion likes and 7,000 shares and everyone's like, "Oh my God, it's the greatest thing." And then I'll post something that I think is rather pithy and challenging and I'll get one share and it's covered with dust. So how do you strike the balance between saying... I'm sensitive to, I don't want to be inauthentic and spoonfeed content that I think is trivial, but at the same time I want people to embrace it. How do you strike that balance between sort of substance and sizzle?

Emily Ford:

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean because I see the same thing. I'm like, "How does this even work? There's no creativity in that." And then you'll spend hours or not even hours, it's just something more profound and it doesn't hit. And so what I love to do is see what hits. So I'm constantly asking once a week in the question box, in the Instagram stories, I ask people what do they want to see more of? And I watch what resonates. And I'm testing always to see, and I'll just give you a little example. I've gone through my own journey of healing through my upbringing and finding love and just my whole thing with that has been...

I've been very open about it and here's why. Because I shared a couple things and women just were like, "Oh my gosh, thank you for saying this." And they're like, "Because I didn't have a dad growing up, so I was really protective and very alpha female and I couldn't figure out how to let a man love me and I'm just going to go there." So I finally shared this and oh my gosh, I'm like, "This is what women want to hear." And so I took that as feedback. So that's something I talk about a lot now is healing and the reality of it. So I'm constantly looking for that feedback. Again, there's days where it's just the algorithm. It could be something great, but the algorithm doesn't work in your favor and that's why you can't be so hell-bent on "This has got to fly." You just got to do it every day and then you go from there and see what resonates with people. And I think that's just the way to do it. I really do.

Josh Linkner:

Great advice. Giselle, building on that, one of the things that strikes me, which is again my own view, is I tend to really celebrate humility and I tend to have a real aversion to boastfulness and a lot on social media. You see people standing in front of their plane whipping a hundred dollars bills into the wind and big gold watches and diamonds everywhere, and it just makes my skin crawl. And so if someone doesn't feel that in their heart... I could never do that. It's not who I am, I would never pretend to be, but when you see people like that and they have these massive social followings, can you give us some insight on how someone who doesn't want to be boastful, doesn't want to scream their accomplishments from the mountaintop, can still actually engage and build a meaningful platform?

Giselle Ugarte:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that it starts with figuring out what meaningful metrics are for you. Because for example, if all you're after is the likes and the views and the followers, that's great, but it won't pay my rent. So I really want to think about, okay, what type of an impact is it that I want to make? "I want to book more gigs," for example, or "I want to get more clients" for example, whatever it is. And that's something that I learned 10, 15 years ago where my only goal, I didn't care about subscribers, I just wanted to get my check, I wanted to be on TV. And that eventually it was working with brands and getting the right attention by the right people.

Knowing that though, you have to understand that you can't just have a strategy for the ones who know you and love you. You also have to think about who are the people who don't follow me yet or who may never, the unfollowers, the lurkers. Because for example, it's possible that an event planner, since we're thinking about speakers here, they don't even want you to know that they were there. They're going through and creeping through your profile. They don't want to accidentally double tap anything. They don't want to leave any evidence behind. They won't even look at your stories. And so then you want to think about, "Okay, who do I really want to even see my content? Who are the people, the happy hour assortment? Who are the audiences that I want that attention?"

Because for example, Josh, you mentioned you're like, "I don't want to throw out a hundred dollars bills, I don't want..." Great, that's fine. I don't want you to, because chances are the person who is doing that is trying to attract a different audience. Or for example, Josh, when you're looking at someone's post and they maybe have hundreds of thousands of likes or comments and you're like, "This is so stupid." It's possible that for them, their audience, they're eating all of it up, either because they love it or they're still maybe a beginner in personal development or they're a beginner when it comes to entrepreneurship. Or I think about, I have real estate clients who they're trying to attract $10 million buyers, for example. Okay, then stop making first-time home buyer content if what you're trying to attract is that $10 million person.

So with that, then you have to figure out the balance between, and this is the ongoing creators' struggle, which is okay, what's the intersection between what my audience enjoys, what's going to attract more people who don't know me yet, but also what's going to make me happy? Because if you're also going after only the likes or the views or the approval of your following, then as Jordan mentioned that beautiful point before, then you're not growing. And like your own social circles in real life, you're going to outgrow your friends, you're going to outgrow your followers. And that's also okay because... And Josh, you talk about this all the time at bootcamp, which is having a perspective, having an opinion, that might turn some people off or I use the F word sometimes that might turn some people off, but for other people they're going to go, "That's my girl, that's my person."

And those are the relationships where if you want to grow fast and grow viral and get to a million or be a Kardashian, that's great, but for me personally, that's not part of my objective. I want to build meaningful relationships and I want to be able to grow at a pace to where I don't lose myself. And so it's just knowing and I think what's so awesome and an advantage that a lot of speakers have, or maybe you're still in this weird place, but if you have a good sense of who you are and if you have a life off of social media, it's a lot easier to then figure out who you want to attract and what your community looks like there. Versus you have a lot of these young kids who this is their identity, this is how they're building themselves, this is how they're building their self-esteem, and then they have no idea who they are or they grow overnight.

And so just reminding yourself, "Okay, why am I doing this in the first place?" And no, you don't have to post every day, just remember other metrics that matter. Maybe it's posting once a week, getting comfortable on camera, and then you're not going to get trapped into some of the mind-fuckery that gets you stuck.

Josh Linkner:

That's so good. Hey, Jordan, I wanted to switch gears a little bit and think about... So you mentioned you're constantly evolving, reinventing yourself and your content [inaudible 00:27:29]. I'm sure also reinventing your social strategy. And like I do in music, I study the great, those who have gone before me. Do you have any social media heroes? I'm curious who you follow, not only for their content, and again, not to plagiarize what they're doing, but to learn new ideas and continue to advance your game on social media. So my question again is who are some of your social media heroes, so to speak, and what do you take from them in terms of their social strategy that perhaps you are also embracing?

Jordan Tarver:

I think one of the biggest things in general social media is just being on the pulse of, one, where the attention is and two, who has the current attention. And that's honestly the landscape of social media changes basically on a daily basis. So I wouldn't say I necessarily pick one hero or one avatar for me to always look at, but I'm trying to look for the people who are currently gaining the most attention and looking at not necessarily just their message, but how are they presenting the information? Is it through story? Is it through stage content? Is it through a blog style? So I'm trying to look more at the whole landscape of social media and where is the attention going because the attention is changing on a daily or weekly basis, and the more you can stay on that pulse, the better you can be at getting your content in front of more eyes.

Josh Linkner:

Yeah. Hey, Emily, I'm curious when you think about social as a strategy, as you've talked about previously, how do you measure or even think about ROI? I've done some things, I made some investments and I look back and it's probably because I didn't stick with those investments, I'm sure I could have done a better job. But how should you and how should we think about ROI on both the time and economic investments that we're making into social media?

Emily Ford:

Yeah. I think your personal brand is everything and everyone needs to build it because it's an asset. And whether you change and pivot and you write a different kind of book or do a different kind of thing, it's free. First of all, it's free. And so everyone should be investing in it and their strategy and ways to do that. Like I hire people to help now that I'm at this place, but just to give you an example, I'm going to speak in Dallas and leave tomorrow. And yes, they cover the basic things that are in my fees, but the clothes I wear are sponsored, I will tag them on social media. The makeup and hair I get done is sponsored.

I always look at everything of how can we maximize the moments? You got to think that way or you should think that way because it's really, really fun, but it's an asset and it's a way for you to collab with other businesses. When they look at your account, they'll see what you're about and are they someone that wants to collab with you? I'm launching a perfume with another female owner and it's like she saw me on social media, we made the connection. And if I hadn't invested all these years when only my mom liked my posts. I had 900 Facebook friends, started from the bottom and I was just sharing what I was passionate about and I didn't stop. Consistency wins the game.

And authenticity, as much as that word is overused, that is what wins the game. Because people literally say to me, "I literally feel like I watched you grow up." And I'm like, "That makes me so proud that I've showed you all that because you can too." And so I look at this as an asset. No matter what happens, I can go back to my social. If I were to lose one of my businesses, it's okay, I've got a network and we know that your network equals your net worth, so why not build it? I'm speaking in Poland in August and they found me on social media and I'm speaking to 500 women that sell makeup and I'm staying in a castle and it's going to be so fun, but they would've never found me if it wasn't for me showing up. And so asset, asset, asset all day long, just find a way to make it work for you and for your life.

Josh Linkner:

I absolutely love that and thank you because I think people are reluctant because they don't see the clear ROI. And I think you've done a beautiful job of sharing that. I just want to call out, in addition to getting gigs in Poland and castles, your clothes, your makeup, your hair, all that stuff, that's badass. And I know other speakers who are now starting to have... They're monetizing their expertise and their influence beyond just speaking things. If I wear a Hugo Boss suit and I have a deal with Hugo Boss and all of a sudden that's revenue stream for me, and then maybe that translates into doing a series of unique content for them. So I just love the way you're thinking about this, this monetization, and then the social really becomes the feeder to that strategy. Brilliant, brilliant. Hey, Giselle I had a question. Oh, go ahead. Did you want to comment on that?

Giselle Ugarte:

I just wanted to add, with the ROI thing, you can ask people how they found you or you can pay attention to what people say to you because for example, one of the things, and part of why I joined Impact Eleven is I was like, "Listen, I've never had to pitch myself for anything." I'm a great salesperson, but in terms of my speaking career and even my coaching clients, they all find me, they all come to me. Or it's word of mouth. And so I was clueless about am I doing the outbound thing? Am I thinking about it correctly? But also should I be raising my feet? There were so many technical pieces of the traditional method, and so very often, and now we even have our own talent bureau where what we're seeing is now people aren't necessarily having a ton of stage experience, but they go, "I love you on social," or "I love your videos," or "I love your perspective. I love your opinion. We want something fresh. We don't want the cookie cutter. We want a little bit of edge."

And so knowing, that as far as ROI goes, figure out how are people finding you? Are people sliding into your DMs? Are people saying, "I've seen your videos," or you can even add that as a dropdown in your contact form or make sure that your agent or your manager asks. But we've noticed, and even a handful of people who I work with, my colleagues, my friends from the community, the pitch time or even the closing time or the conversation time between inquiry, and "We want you," it's so much smaller if not non-existent because people feel like they already know you before they meet you. And that's part of the gold of social media is just feeling like, okay, that's our person and we feel like we can trust them even though we've never even seen... I don't even have a demo reel, I don't even have a speaker. I know I need one. And again, I'm not saying that my way is the only way, but there are multiple ways to be able to build that credibility and social media is just one of those.

Josh Linkner:

Yeah, I totally agree. Staying with you for a second. You said something earlier that I wanted to double back on. You said that you help people establish a healthy relationship with social media, and I know that that can be... I have four kids and that's a whole thing, body image and all that stuff, but you made a comment a little bit on professionals and their relationship with social media. I do this, I've had some nice success, I'm proud of what I've done, but I go on social media and everybody's tanned and fit and they're billionaires and jumping out of private jets or whatever. Again, I'm pretty healthy emotionally and I still, you have those moments like oh it's self-doubt and insecurity. What are some tips or thoughts that you have professionally on how we can have an okay relationship with social media, when of course we don't see people's setbacks and [inaudible 00:35:07], always see is the perfect shot on the perfect cliff?

Giselle Ugarte:

My hot take there would be that if your social media or if you still believe that social media is a highlight reel, that's because you're still treating it like that yourself. And so I actually say that social media built my self-esteem because, again, if we're looking back 15 years ago, 20 years ago when I was a teenager, there was one look. You had a certain amount of TV channels, you had a certain magazine, a lot of the magazines were airbrushed, and there were more people in that magazine who looked like Tyra Banks than there were like me. The Latina, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, they went blonde. So all of a sudden I'm on social media and I even went through something in my early twenties where I put on 40 pounds really quickly because of an autoimmune disease, and all of a sudden I had these new curves that I didn't know how to deal with.

I found women on social media who looked like me. I found women on social media who also were going through the same disease that I did. Social media for me has helped to remove the stigma of depression, anxiety, panic attacks. And even now, I talk a lot about how I have my own personal relationship with sobriety. Previously, all of those conversation topics, totally taboo. But now as long as you know how to look for it and find it, you'll find other people and you'll realize that the world is actually a lot less lonely. Where it can get more lonely is when you're stuck in that mindset and your feed is only filled with that and then it feels toxic, and you're in that place of comparison, and "I should be so much further along."

But how cool it is when now you have all of these channels, all these platforms, all of these users, that if as long as you know how to pull yourself out of it, pull yourself out of that eating binge or the whatever, with social media you get to decide what you consume and you can actually find more confidence as long as you know how to use that tool correctly.

Josh Linkner:

Perfect advice. And Jordan, I wanted to ask you a question. When I think about your body of work, helping people become the best versions of themselves primarily, you do that through your book, you do that from the stage. We've talked today a lot about social media as a tool to drive revenue and such. How are you using social media to lift people up and to help in your mission, the message that's on your heart that you write about, that you speak about? How are you using social media to make a positive impact and help people achieve their full potential?

Jordan Tarver:

Yeah, I feel like... My biggest thing in all of my work is to simplify the process of personal growth. I think a lot of that stuff can be overwhelming and complex. And so every single day is basically me setting an intention to provide that through my content. And the reason why I love intention so much is because I feel like it creates the energetic charge of a piece of content in your message. And so the way I look at it is like if you're shooting a bow and arrow, if you pull back the bow and arrow halfway, the arrow is only going to make it maybe halfway or less to the target. And if you pull back all the way, you have a chance of hitting the bullseye. And that difference is the intention you put into your content. And so my goal with each piece of my content is to be intentional with the message that I'm putting out and making sure that it's a positive message that simplifies the process of personal growth and makes it understandable and easy to digest for whoever's on the other side of the screen.

Josh Linkner:

Yeah, it's so good. I just feel like this is a masterclass not only for me, but for our listeners today. I'm so grateful for your time and I want to be respectful of it. As we round out the conversation, I'd like to just do a quick lap around the room, and if you could just provide one tangible or tactical tip for professional speakers to either, wherever they may be on their social media ascent, how they could best... Something they should try and experiment perhaps, or that they might want to consider in their own social media experience. So Giselle, let's start with you.

Giselle Ugarte:

I think it's learning that social media is not a trend. Video is also not a trend, we learned in 2020, whatever that was, the pandemic that felt like 20 years, that Zoom's not going away. And you can either continue to resist it or I'll go ahead and touch on the fact that you mentioned being a parent. You, Josh, you can embrace it and recognize the ways that this is actually an incredible tool where you can meet people who you otherwise never perhaps would've met. And if you learn how to use it, you can also be an example for your children as well, because if you have an unhealthy relationship with it or with yourself, then that's what your kids are going to reflect and that can be the most dangerous setback to them. So use this for your business, use this to connect and keep it social first and foremost.

Josh Linkner:

Perfect. Jordan?

Jordan Tarver:

I have two parts to that. One, building off what Giselle just said is being a professional speaker, we are in the business of impact. And the way I've changed my approach with social media is that social media is another stage, but it's a stage that has the reach of millions of people. And if you are truly in this business for impact, you would approach social media in that same way because you see it as an access point to expand and maximize your message. And that understanding and perspective shift for me, allowing me to approach social media in a much new energy with a different intention because I saw that it truly was an opportunity for me to leave my positive impact on many more lives than it would have just in person on a stage.

And then the second thing is, going back to my simplification is I think one of the biggest challenges in starting your social media journey is knowing where to start when it comes to what content to post. And I think Emily alluded to it earlier with her content buckets, but I think that is one thing that's really helped me in my content creation because when you identify, let's say five buckets or five topic areas that you want to address, it makes your focus just align much easier when it comes to a day of like, "Oh, what should I make? What kind of content should I make this week?" Instead of not having those buckets and then having to think of a universe so wide and vast of anything you could talk about to the point where you become paralyzed. And so for me, the content buckets has simplified the process of a content creation and just given me direction of where I need to go next.

Josh Linkner:

Love it. Emily, bring us home.

Emily Ford:

Everything has been spot on. What I would add to this, and this is what I think about, you cannot be consuming and creating simultaneously. And so make sure that you are spending more time in that creative zone, which takes a tremendous amount of discipline, but it is so well worth it. On Sundays, I shut off my phone and I put it in the kitchen, and I let that be a mental health spiritual day for me where I read, where I write, where I worship. I really had to learn this because there was a phase of my life where it was like it felt manic, and that's not how I wanted to do this whole thing, and I wasn't creating good work at all. And so we have standards in our home, in our bedroom, we don't do social media, and this might sound like funny to some, but you've got to set these standards in the morning. When I do my morning routine, my workout, my prayer, my journaling, my brain dump, I don't go on social until, until.

And then I only follow consume people's content that are really feeding me really good information or people I mentor just to give them love and encourage them. I don't consume a lot of stuff because I truly want to create. And if anyone's listening to this, they probably have a message they want to get out. They don't want to be a copycat. And I believe creativity is the new commodity. And so you've got to spend more time in that creative zone, so then you can really grow and scale.

And then lastly, I'll say one day a month is when I do my whole content dive for the month and I spend about four hours creating content. I also have a podcast, so we have our guests and we run everything for the month, and this has given me so much freedom so I don't have to wake up going, "What do I post today?" And it just gives so much freedom so I can operate in my zone of genius, which is more strategy. And so that's what I would say. And have fun with it. Have fun. Honestly, life should be fun. Don't let it steal your joy, and if it is, you got to rethink that because that's not what this is about, truly. That's what I would say.

Josh Linkner:

What a beautiful place to leave our conversation. I'm so grateful, again for your input today. You're helping not only create your own impact through your work, but sharing some of these strategies can help many of us create even more impact as well. So Giselle, Jordan, Emily, thank you so much and wishing you continued success on all fronts.

Giselle Ugarte:

Thank you.

Jordan Tarver:

Thanks, Josh.

Josh Linkner:

I never thought that one conversation could completely change my perspective on social media. There was so much said that I'll be thinking about this for weeks, but here are some of the highlights. Number one, speakers should think about social media, just like another room where you're on the stage, except it's a room with potentially millions of people watching. What a great opportunity to expand our impact. Number two, we don't have to be some fake photoshopped idyllic icon. In fact, we're better showing up as our authentic selves. Social media is a place where we find realness and openness and connection. And number three, we don't have to achieve our social media mastery all at the same time. Small daily baby steps can add up over time to create a strong presence and maximize impact. And finally, I'll never again say that I suck at social media. Instead, I'm going to say from this point on that I'm learning and growing. Thanks so much to Emily, Jordan and Giselle, and thanks for listening to another eye-opening episode of Mic Drop.

Thanks so much for joining me on another episode of Mic Drop. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. If you love the show, please share it with your friends and don't forget to give us a five star review. For show transcripts and show notes, visit micdroppodcast.com. I'm your host, Josh Linkner. Thanks so much for listening, and here's to your next mic drop moment.