240 – Authority and Community Building: Tom interviews Warren Carlyle

Episode 240 – Warren Carlyle
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody, it's Tom here with episode 240 of Screw the Commute podcast. We're here with Warren Carlyle and he is one of the most brilliant people I know. When when Warren tells me to do something, I just do it because I know he's thought it out a hundred times more than I would have. And I'm going to introduce him to you in a minute. I hope you didn't miss episode 239, Nahaku McFadden. She is a retired Army colonel and she's also a messenger marketing and chatbot expert. But she's also on the board of Vetoga, a nonprofit organization helping veterans. So she had a lot of cool insights on episode 239. And I hope you didn't miss grabbing a copy of my automation e-book as a thank you for listening to Screw the Commute, a $27 e-book. But it's yours free for listening in. And it's a book that's helped me handle up to a hundred and fifty thousand subscribers and forty thousand customers without pulling my hair out. And we actually did some figures. This is no exaggeration and this was, I think two years ago when we estimated these figures. It saved me seven and a half million keystrokes. Okay. Just one of the tips in this book. So you want to check it out at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And everything we talk about, including stuff for Warren. You can go to episode 240 and the way you do that is you put screwthecommute.com and slash the episode number slash 240. And while you're over there, you may as well grab a copy of our podcast app. I mean, everybody gives you an app, but they never tell you how to use it. Well, that's not how we roll. We've got a complete screen captures and we're actually just making a complete video, screen capture video for you to show you how to use all the fancy functions so you can take us with you on the road and you can find that at screwthecommute.com/app. Our sponsor is a greater internet marketing retreat and joint venture program where myself and my staff work with you for a year to either get you started in an internet business or to use the internet to take your existing business to the next level. You can check that out at greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. Of course that'll be in the show notes also. But I got to tell you, it's the longest running, most successful, most unique mentor program in the field of Internet marketing. And I'll triple dog dare you to put anything up against it. There's so many unique features. You get an immersion weekend at the retreat center where you actually live in this estate mansion here to see all this stuff. And our whole crew is here helping you. And you come back, we shoot video of you in our TV studio next door. So all kinds are great. You have one on one access to myself and the entire crew of people that work for me. So it's the like I said, the most powerful, most successful ever. And the another thing is. Well, I'll tell you later. But the very unique thing a little bit later.

[00:03:38] All right. Let's get to the main event. Warren Carlyle is a community building strategist who partners with purpose driven brands and influencers to build highly engaged communities online. He's founder and CEO of Octonation. It's the largest octopus fan club. It's a non-profit organization that inspires conservation of the ocean by teaching the world about octopuses. I thought it was octopi, but I guess it's octopuses. He would know. Now he's been featured and gotten the attention of celebrities and global organizations such as Michael B. Jordan, Ellen DeGeneres, Joe Rogan and even the Facebook headquarters talk to Warren about his expertise and lots more than that. And Warren advocates the building of fanatical online communities as the lifeblood of brand's relevancy in today's crowded digital marketplace. Warren, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:04:43] Yes, I am. Let's do this Tom.

[00:04:46] Good talking to you man. It's has been awhile.

[00:04:49] Yeah, we I mean, we talk about dogs, but I love talking about community.

[00:04:52] Yeah. Community of dogs. We could be.

[00:04:57] Yeah. So yeah. So tell everybody what you do with this community building stuff.

[00:05:03] So community building to me. I mentioned, you know, a lot of brands right now they're looking they're kind of scrambling around. They want to build community and they want to find people who can build community because having the attention span of your followers is really important. And if you go to your social media accounts and you look what what people want to see is that you have tons of comments and tons of engagement on your posts. And so is community building. And what I do is I make sure that your engagement rates are high and that people are following you for the right reasons. Now, that means choosing a niche to go into and developing an radical community within that space and then going from there.

[00:05:50] So, I mean, that's really what community building is all about, you know, and you've done that with AutoNation. And, you know, I tease about a lot like you maybe your Monitise or you've been able to monetize that with a lot of different ways, right?

[00:06:06] Yeah. So when you have like a fanatical community or a highly engaged community, it means that when you go to post something, the majority of your community members are seeing it. And so it tends to people are just like, well, how would you monetize this or that? And it really is simple if you have a given niche, because when you go to post and you have a highly engaged community, they're going to want what you have because they understand why they're there.

[00:06:33] So if I go to work with an artist and we we say we do a 50 50 split on whatever they sell, then we're actually moving, you know, 100 to 200 prints if, you know, somebody wants to sponsor us.

[00:06:47] But this wouldn't be just an artist painting flowers, right?

[00:06:50] Yeah. No, it would have to. Would have to make sense for the community.

[00:06:53] So, yeah, there's tons of people who reach out to me and they're like, hey, I sell a watch. I'm like, does the watch have an octopus on it? Like, no, I'd like more than work, but probably not a fit.

[00:07:02] So you always want to make sure that all eight watches, you always want to make sure that there's a fit. And I go over that, too.

[00:07:12] Like respecting my whole thing with community building is that you want to respect the attention span and the you know, the reason why somebody always your account and so. Never would I ever randomly just one day say we're going to sell this off improvement book because this guy gave me $500 to post in this group unless that self improvement book had like, you know, a cover of, you know, somebody with octopus arms and they were like doing all of the thing. It was like heavy motifs in the book that were octopus related like that would make sets. So so. Yeah, so but it's not just that. It's also I have my own shirts. I have my own products that I sell. We have an Amazon influencer store that has every single octopus book, coloring book, piece of furniture.

[00:08:00] So hello, fellows. Yeah.

[00:08:03] So we have that. So to me, there's once you have the attention span and and you're deserving of someone's attention by the content that you post on a daily basis, then it's not as hard to sell to that the end.

[00:08:16] It's when you don't and you have a very broad market segment and you're trying to do all the things that it's unclear as to why you're promoting stuff.

[00:08:26] Even if some big sponsor came to you, you would you would get them to to twist their promotion to your crowd or something.

[00:08:35] Yeah. So when you have a community and say a sponsor or say brand wants to work with you, I wouldn't take their existing marketing material and sell their product. I'd say, hey, if you're interested, let's make this a win win.

[00:08:49] And how about, you know, if, say, it's a golf club with a like one of those protections? What do they call it?

[00:08:57] The little socks that go over the Xbox, say to say there's a golf company wanted to do that? That's a great idea.

[00:09:06] I'd say, you know what I was like, you know, I'm really envisioning like for our members a video where maybe somebody is wearing an octopus costume and they're hitting a golf ball and then the octopus turns to the camera and shows them the soccer or whatever. And then covers at the golf club like that makes more sense because our community is fun. It's informative. It's easy to understand. I wouldn't just publish, you know, a picture of a golf sock and be like, hey, guys, buy it right now.

[00:09:34] So I'd ask them, let's let's you know, let's have fun with this and let's get the majority of people on board and and playing with your brand so that we can increase the amount of people that buy.

[00:09:44] So you have hundreds of thousands of people. This is just the crazy, crazy, crazy. But but you've helped other people that didn't have such massive numbers, right?

[00:09:57] Yeah. And so there is to give you an example. There was a woman that came to me.

[00:10:01] I was at a conference speaking about community building. And she walked up to me and she was like. You know, I feel like I'm so close. You know, I'm a life coach and I work with people who have chronic pain and or who just feel like they're in pain. And I said, OK, you know, tell me more about your background. And, you know, come to find out. She suffered chronic, debilitating migraines ever since she was two. And the reason she actually got into what she was doing was because at a young age, a male doctor told her that was just all in her head and that she was just, you know, attention seeking and told her parents, you know, she's she's fine. Don't worry about her.

[00:10:38] And so it was in her head. It was exactly in her head. He had that right. So she didn't she didn't really know until later on.

[00:10:46] You know, she went to a doctor again and they said, you have a really bad form of of chronic debilitating migraines. And you'll have to mitigate it your whole entire life. And so she ended up getting her PhD. And so I said, OK, well, you know, that's it. Have you. Have you considered working with women who suffer chronic, debilitating migrate? And she's like, that's exactly what I want to do. And I said, great. So we made her.

[00:11:09] And she was trying to do every kind of pain, even emotional pain and physical pain and all of it. Right.

[00:11:15] Yeah. And the way the way Facebook is, the way a lot of algorithms work is every single time you go to post Facebook wants to know that you were creating content that applies and is tailored to 100 percent of your community. And the more deep, meaningful connections and that's a part of like when the Facebook mission statements, the the deeper you can go and the more meaningful connections that you can have with your community. And the more they understand that you are for them Facebook loves to distribute your content to those people when you start going out and being about, you know, fibromyalgia and then chronic debilitating migraines and then maybe like a lupus and whatever, it's impossible to give information. And then you're asking your community members to reframe the information that you give them to their specific illness. It just gets really messy.

[00:12:06] There's too much work for them. We're going to do especially.

[00:12:08] So we decided with her that she was going to help business women who suffered chronic debilitating migraines and that she was gonna help them get more done throughout the day because business women were saying, you know, I'm a high performer, you know, I want to get more stuff done. But I just had this thing that happens to me that just in pairs my my functioning. And so she helps them mitigate that. And so what we what we did when we had that knee issues, we got into authority building, which is something I can talk about later, which is we were like, okay, how do we reverse engineer the attention span of somebody who self-identifies as having chronic debilitating migraines and is a businesswoman? And so I did the research with her and we saw that there was dissociation, my brain disorders. There was a national headache foundation. There are brands of sunglasses that cater to women that had the protective shield on it. And I said, we need to get in contact with them and let them know that you're available as an expert on this given topic and see how you guys can play together. See what operates Tunisia is they have for you to speak to that audience so that you can help them with tools, tips and resources for those women. And so she ended up becoming the scientifically aizen of the Association of My Brain Disorders. She runs a podcast called Heads Up with the founder of the National Headache Foundation. And she's she's been featured as a speaker.

[00:13:29] That's very interesting because most people, if they go ahead, shake their heads down, you know, and there hold there for her. But she's turned that around.

[00:13:39] But she is now. She is running. She's running and she's running in any specific direction.

[00:13:43] And everyone knows how to follow her because they know that if they are a business owner who suffers chronic, debilitating migraines, that she is an unequivocally for them.

[00:13:53] She did have four hundred thousand. Now she has. Right.

[00:13:58] And actually, to tell you the truth, Tom, she should have migraines. I remember when we were discussing the branding and the name behind it. And she said, why don't we just call my great nation? I was like, you mean like oxygenation? Like my brand goes, yeah. She goes, I don't think about it. Let's just call micronation. I think. Okay, whatever. And so we ended up calling it that. And she's grown it. She had 100 that she had 200. Then she spoke on stage. She got like six hundred.

[00:14:22] And then she she was up to like over a thousand followers now and her migraines nation group. And it's targeted, heavily targeted. And everybody knows why they're there.

[00:14:31] And they haven't done anything like that.

[00:14:33] They respond when, you know, they've got chronic debilitating every single time she, you know, has a topic, it caters directly to them. So, I mean, it's just it's a highly engaged group.

[00:14:45] So, you know, I'm thinking of another possible niche here. See, so you say niche because you're a high class guy as country bumpkin, say, Mitch, but I'm thinking I got a big head, so maybe I should do my greens for octopus.

[00:15:05] Octopus. There were things.

[00:15:09] I'm not too sure. Yeah. You should put a poll up and say and ask, do you think octopuses have headaches?

[00:15:17] I know that their body contains all of their organs. They're basically like a bag with organs and arms.

[00:15:22] So it's the same as me. I'd be perfect for them.

[00:15:27] Hashtag relatable.

[00:15:30] So now there's some terms that I'm not sure myself for most of the people list of those totally understand.

[00:15:36] So. So you're a community building expert. Mm hmm. But you also talk about authority and then you have the term influencers. How does they all interact and work together? What do they mean?

[00:15:51] So community building, I would say that encompasses the process of what it takes to build a community.

[00:15:58] And, you know, one of those things is with community building. You have to have a clear set of core values. I guess I should backtrack the first you know, first thing that should have is clarity. So, you know, who is your community for and what are you talking about? What is the topic? And it can't be vague or broad. So there was a woman that I worked with who said she worked with all bloggers and she helped all bloggers monetize. And I said, unfortunately, you're going to have to reframe all of your information, whether it's a home decor blogger, if it's a food blogger, if it's a blogger that blogs about taxidermy. Like the fact of the matter is, is you're not an expert on all of those industries and you should have to be. And so she ended up I went to her her feed and I saw she posts about houses a lot. She posts about the interior of homes. And she works with people, her own home decor. So she shows that she's gonna be. She's going to help moms who are in the home decor lifestyle, Netsch on how to monetize their blog. So it's a great. I get that. That's clear. I can refer you to people that I know that are in that space. So we get clear with that. That's community building. And then we get into core values like, you know, what's the you know, the tone of the brand, you know, who is your community for?

[00:17:15] If you're somebody that likes to cast, then that has to be in your core, you know, core values that you should have a language, you know, thing because you want to attract at the end of the day, people that that follow you because, you know, you're very upfront with who you are and what you like and how you go about doing thing and really, really.

[00:17:33] Yeah, yeah, they relate. And then you get into the content. And I always tell people that your content has to drive your core values every single time you go to post. I should be able to tell what a core value of your brand is by reading what you're talking about. And so your core values serve to strength and your content. And so when you get into community building, it's like it encompasses all of those varying aspects. And then you mentioned the authority building and authority built thing is really positioning your community in the marketplace so that there is legitimacy behind your community.

[00:18:10] To give an example, always AutoNation the how I positioned AutoNation as the authority in the marketplace was that I started working with individuals like a New York Times best selling author of Soul of an Octopus, a world renowned underwater photographer. You know, researchers and scientists that were known in their fields. And because I curated information from them and had conversations with them, it position Doctor Nation as not just an octopus fan club, but as the authority for anything of octopus related by virtue of who we were doing 10 wins. Right. And so that's authority building is really figuring out who do people in your knee should look up to and how are you making a concerted, intentional effort on positioning your brand next to them. So if you were at a dog page, Tom, and it was like, say it was all about German shepherds, you're most likely going to want to try to figure out, you know, how do I get a conversation with Cesar Millan or how do I get into a conversation with, you know, the people that makes sense for your brand? What's really going to position that page as an authority figure?

[00:19:19] And then you mentioned influencer and influencer to me is anybody that influences somebody who's decisions. If you look at a business in a business sense, an influencer or somebody who influences somebody else's buying decisions.

[00:19:35] And then there's two different types of influencers, I would say is, one, if you work with an influencer day that has a large a large following and you're looking to make money off of them. That means that you're going to want to find an influencer that has high engagement rates, say they have a lot of followers. You want to make sure that they have clarity within their niche, meaning like if they are, you know, say they're a female who's 20 years old and or let's say twenty five. And she's. Swimsuit influencer, and you look at her and that's pretty much what her page is about, her at different swimsuits are her talking about health and wellness. But she's in that space. Then you'd want to work with her. And if you if you were looking to monetize her, you'd want to look at her comment section to see, are there girls in that comments? You know, why are there comments like are they saying, where did you buy that? You know, if that is that means they have an audience that's primed to buy and that you could potentially make money off of that influencer. Another another type of influence are for a brand is an influencer where they know how to work with that influencer and monetize off the back end with advertising. So not every given instance are brands relying on influencers to drive revenue from their communities. Sometimes you have people that are looking for influencers to build authority within a given space so that on the back end they can run ads to that audience. And so it's very it's two very different types of influencers. And you can't just make the assumption that if somebody has a lot of followers, that you're gonna make a ton of money off of them, because that's not the case. Sometimes influencers like, hey, what you do with the content that I make for you. That's up to you. I'm not going. I'm not promising that you're going to make money off of my audience. You're just using my likeness to advertise your product.

[00:21:29] So sometimes I've seen where you can pay it. Influencer for a showdown. But how do you. Are you saying that to check them out? It's in plain sight. It's it's all about their comments.

[00:21:42] Yeah. So I look at I look at the comments to see how he gives. His comments are like if there's comments where it's like, nice photo with FOTA O and there's like all these these weird characters, that means that influencer is most likely buying their comments or as a part of like, you know, somebody you're for.

[00:21:59] Yeah. Yeah, it's fake. You want you want people that are saying that's awesome. Or, you know, I have one from this brand or like where where did you get that? Or, you know, meet like more meaningful. Right. Like buying signal comics.

[00:22:13] All right. So which way did you get that? How many comments?

[00:22:16] I know you can't give an exact figure, but like what would be a ratio, the number of followers to number of comments. That's reasonable.

[00:22:24] I would say 3 to 5 percent of their total followers commenting on the actual post or engaging with the host, meaning like the likes or there. I obviously there's I pay more attention to the comments than I do the actual likes. By 3 to 5 percent is a pretty good organic meaning. You know, they're not paying for ads or anything like that. That's a pretty good number two to look at. Some people have more than that. But I would say you want you want at least over 3 3 percent through 3 to 5 percent of good government.

[00:23:04] You just can't look at the numbers. Yeah.

[00:23:08] So they have if they have 500000 followers and, you know, 200 likes and, you know, move past them, that means they're not clearly defined. They have a vanity profile and it's just not gonna work out well for you. If you're looking to monetize from their followers now, if you're an advertiser, that is just like, I don't care. I'm going to use them as a model and I'm going to monetize their likeness on the back end with people that look like them. Then that's the go for it.

[00:23:38] It's different. Different? Yeah. No, I understand you turned out to a nation into a non-profit, is that right?

[00:23:45] Yes.

[00:23:46] And what was the decision process when there are a lot of times your community is going to inform your direction of, you know, what what you're doing because your community will give you signals on kind of what they see your next level is or what they would want to engage with more. And so I started realizing my community kept saying, you know, what can we do to support, you know, the what you know, what what you know is a place where we can donate. And I was just like, well, there's really not. But after a while, if you get 100, 200 comments, you know, you better figure it out. Right. So it's like if people are wanting to give me money to do what I do or to build programs like we've received thousands of dollars to develop our website, AutoNation, because people kept telling me, is there a definitive Web site in existence that talks about octopus's funding and a formative way, a comprehensive way and that has really cool eye-catching images.

[00:24:43] And I said, no, there's not. And they're like, well, can you do that? I'm like, well, I guess I could. We will give you money for it. Okay.

[00:24:51] Good. Done. And so we raised we did a fundraiser.

[00:24:54] We raised money for it. Now I have a CTO or a chief technical off Sarah webmaster. And I have a couple of science writers that are really esteemed in what they do like. They settle upon researchers and they're writing content. And I'm going to have an editor look over it. And that's all because my community's paying for it because they want to see it.

[00:25:15] So how much hassle was it to go to get through 5 to 1 through C?

[00:25:19] It actually wasn't a hassle at all. Mainly because I work with a woman who. That's what she did. And so she filed everything. She made sure that it was under the right classes and she even trademarked my group name. So she did all of that.

[00:25:39] Now, are you equating likes with comments that carry less weight?

[00:25:48] Yeah, likes carry less weight. Just because there's not really any I mean, to me, I always like to see what are people saying, you know, how is then how is that influence or how does that influence are connected to their audience? Like if they have a lot of negativity in their comment section and one of the core values of my brand is like no disempowering language. I'm not working with an influencer. If there is like some say, there's a vegan influencer that's toxic, free, chemical free, anti-this, anti-that and alternations, core values is no disempowering language or showing massive pollution or having conversations around X, Y, Z that I don't care how many followers that influencer has. It's not a brand fit.

[00:26:29] It's not so.

[00:26:30] I've had a head that I've had Peto reach out to me and want to do collaboration campaigns and I go, sorry, you go against our fundamental core values. It just doesn't make sense from a brand point of view. So, I mean, they were doing something and it's just it's you know, they can do whatever they do and people have their methods for how they want to build communities. But I wanted to make sure that AutoNation wasn't a disempowering brand that used shock value tactics to make people rally around behind my brand. I wanted people to be good people. I wanted them to be happy, informative, positive.

[00:27:07] And you can't do that by, you know, throwing paint on people and doing, you know, massive protests and screaming at the top of your lungs. It just doesn't work.

[00:27:15] Well, no, I'm not sure if I have my terminology right here, but don't octopus squirt paint on people.

[00:27:24] Oh, yeah.

[00:27:28] And so it's it's more stories like her. You know, that I've helped people come to me and they have this vision or this big dream of I want to be, you know, like this one company called the UN High School out of Brazil. They wanted to be the premier like CGI school for four students who are looking to learn how to do computer graphics. And they came to me and they're like, if we want to be the world's best. And I said, well, let's focus on being the world's best for like Rio de Janeiro. And then we'll establish social proof in that area and then we'll go global. You know, I was just like and I gave them the example of Facebook. Facebook did not start out as this global powerhouse. They started out being a tool for students that were going to Harvard to be able to get access to their teachers prior to going to school to see who they were. Teachers were to see if there were other students in their class. That was the problem that Facebook solved in its infancy stage itself at a very specific problem. And so a lot of times people look at Facebook and they're like, well, Facebook did it.

[00:28:36] I'm like, no Facebook, you know? And I'm just like, and you don't have the ad spend to Facebook and you don't have the user, you know. So there's a lot of times where people wanna start their brand being like Nike or their Target.

[00:28:47] And I'm like, let's solve a specific problem for a group of people and let's let's let's knock it out of the park, establish social proof and then let's get broad. Like when you look at the For Dummies books, they didn't start out as like, you know, whatever for dummies.

[00:29:05] Every one of them is super targeted.

[00:29:09] And it's yeah. Caters to a specific demo like Instagram for Business for Dummies. They have they have two different books. They've Instagram for Business for Dummies and just Instagram for Dummies because it's two different audiences.

[00:29:20] And so every topic under the sun has one Instagram. I mean, not Instagram, but I mean, Archery for Dummies and I guess dummies.

[00:29:28] Yeah.

[00:29:28] So I guess the easy way to, you know, to tell this to your to your listeners is what is your for dummies books?

[00:29:35] I mean, I don't know if that's legal or you could do a poll like that, but every time.

[00:29:42] I wouldn't sell that. But I mean, just like, you know, it it's in it's like if you're just at home and you're thinking to yourself, what is that niche that you're truly going to own? You know, what's the who and what's the what? And just to give them one more example, like there's a if you're in like a service profession or anything like that. I knew in OBGYN his name was Dr. Dreon Bertsch and he actually got sued by Dr. Dre because he started calling himself Dr. Dre. And you're like, oh, it's marketplace confusion. Anyway, he won the battle.

[00:30:13] Because it's completely different fields.

[00:30:13] Yeah. Anyway, so he created a group called Medical Moguls and he helps doctors monetize their PhD. And so when we're looking at is his audience, I think there's like two point five million people in the United States that have a PhD. And so that's a pretty good audience range for him. And what he would do is if you're burnt out in the clinical setting. So you have a practice, a private practice or say you're worth. A hospital, he would help you create a an online personal brand so you could diversify revenue streams, and so that was his niche. And he has a multi seven-figure business doing that. But it's because he Netsch down too.

[00:30:54] I only want to help doctors who have their p_h_d_ monetize them and so start looking. You know, when you're developing your community, what are these issues that you want to knock out of the park?

[00:31:06] Absolutely. Abby said you're doing. You're darn right, Warren, you're here.

[00:31:10] Yeah. It's like a German Shepherd nation. Yeah. So.

[00:31:15] So we've got to take a brief sponsor break when we come back.

[00:31:18] We're going to ask Warren what's a typical day look like for him and his and his brilliant mind?

[00:31:23] So, folks, back around the year 2000, I kind of turned the Internet marketing world on its head because people at my level were charging like 50 or 100 grand upfront to small businesses to teach him how to do all this stuff. And I thought, you know, I'm a small business advocate.

[00:31:39] That's too much money. And a lot of the people I knew wouldn't come through anyway once they got their money. So so I kind of turned everything on the head and made those gurus mad and that I charge in an entry fee, which is way smaller and then a percentage of profits. That's cap. So you're not stuck with me forever. So for me to get my big money, you got to make way bigger money and then eventually you take off on your own or we part company. So it's it's been the longest running, most successful Internet marketing mentor program ever. Starting around the year 1997 formalized that with this retreat center in 2002. Has been about seventeen hundred students. And of course, tens of thousands of people seem to speak about this topic. So if you'd like to check that out, if you really want somebody and a whole staff of people that have been there, done that, helping you for a year plus, there's all kinds of interesting things. You come to the retreat center for an immersion weekend and you come back to our TV studio and all kinds of benefits or we throw in. So check it out at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com. And of course, this is episode 240 where you'll find that in all of Warren's great stuff when we give you the info for that.

[00:32:59] So, Warren, what what's a typical day look like for you?

[00:33:02] Typical day, it looks like for me. I check in with my.

[00:33:06] And it just depends on what kind of business I'm I'm working on. But for AutoNation, a typical day for me as I check in with my admins to see kind of like, you know, what happened over the night because I have some admins that work in different countries that they because AutoNation is a global organization.

[00:33:24] So we have tons of people in Australia, the UK. So you know what?

[00:33:28] Speaking of Australia, a lot of a lot of rough there lately with the fires.

[00:33:32] Yeah.

[00:33:34] Did you hear the figure that they said there was five? No. This is a low estimate. Five hundred million animal deaths. Just this was two weeks ago when I heard that number. I was just floored. That's half a billion animals, you know, got displaced in their food. And even if they live from the fire, their food was all gone. So the area was devastated.

[00:33:57] And I just think, you know, I think too, like because I'm so connected to animals, brother nation. Had there been cities where people were being burned alive like that? Something tells me they would have figured something out very quickly. You know, other countries would have stepped in. But I mean, just the fact that so many animals, you know, lives have been gone, it's just like I just wasn't crazy.

[00:34:20] Yeah, that was. I'm sure it's over a billion now and it's still going on.

[00:34:23] And another helicopter just just caused a spark and kicked off another fire.

[00:34:28] I mean, it's really, really bad, but I'm really devastated about that. So anyway, you get up and you check your admonitions.

[00:34:37] Yeah. Then as of as of right now, we're developing octonation.com. So I have a CTO that I'm working with and a couple of science writers.

[00:34:47] Ceo is chief technical officer.

[00:34:49] Yes, sir. He's also a web developer. He's he formerly created and ran bio. org. And so he's really good with site architecture because of the various species and families and Genisys. So he's like having a blast. No, I couldn't be more I could be more grateful for that. So make sure that they're on track with what they need for the day and then getting into a contact ice. I typically still like to respond and get in that comments. Just I have a feel for the group and what's going on. And a lot of posts are scheduled, so those are going out. And then I kind of put AutoNation to the side and I. I depending on what client calls I have that day, I get on those calls and we talk about the various. Sees a building, a fanatical community, so depending on where they're at. The community building process. Maybe we'll spend a conversation talking about collaborations like authority building like, hey, what do we do doing? Or, you know.

[00:35:54] So is this a group setting or one on one or one? Now, this is this is one on one with your clients, OK? Yeah. One on one.

[00:36:01] And and then I also. As of right now, I'm a coach for another course creator that is building fanatical or teaches people how to build communities on Facebook. And so I have calls with some of those students, some fast track coaching coaching sessions. So pretty much my whole day, this is community building, which is I can I love, you know, talking to people about various stages. And what I find more often than not is once we get past the first see, which is clarity then and people are centered, then they go far fast because they have they have focus. Right.

[00:36:48] So when I when those when they're going to see you on the Discovery Channel, overwhelmed, there's for a long time.

[00:36:55] Yeah. So, I mean, I have been building a relationship with PBS Nasir. They actually they actually reached out to us off donation because they were launching a program called Making Contact, which a scientist brought in an octopus and they created a documentary around him like, you know, observing the octopus. And it's, you know, Dr. Buss was observing him and his daughter was there. And it's a really cool thing. It's called making contact. But they reached out to us to promote it.

[00:37:24] And when we went to promote it to our audience and we have, I think, one hundred thousand on our Facebook page, just because we had a highly engaged Facebook page, I think it was seen by over 5 million people. Wow. They gave us the video to post on our page. We posted it and it went viral.

[00:37:43] And that's just a testament to we had the perfect audience for a PBS nature to be promoting there on that show.

[00:37:51] But they love you. Yeah. They were just like, wow. And so it just goes to show you.

[00:37:56] I mean, you can not necessarily beat out mainstream media, but if you have if you have if you know how to develop community and you know the skill set on how how to do this within a specific niche, I mean, you really are the future because you know, what you're signaling to the world by owning this community is that, you know, like you know, like, you know, this group of people.

[00:38:20] And so they have zinnia as any octopus ever been trained.

[00:38:28] Yes.

[00:38:29] To do what? There's wired home.

[00:38:32] Sit.

[00:38:34] It's so octopuses have long term and short term memory. They actually can remember how to do certain tasks. And that's why they also a lot of Aquarius. They have this whole enrichment manual.

[00:38:46] I think it's like one hundred and fifty pages because octopuses, while they live, you know, three to five years. They get bored really easily if they if they know how to do something. So if they give them like say something with a piece of food and they figure it out, the next time they go to do it, they do it in half the time. The next time they go to do it, I mean, it's they immediately go for it. They have it. So octopus is in captivity.

[00:39:11] If you keep them engaged, they start doing things like eating their own arms, you know, then getting really bored. But I think Sony paid for this campaign. It was called like autograph or where a octopus learned how to take photos. Like there's like kids would come in the room and an octopus would come down off of its like off out of its den. It would go up to the top of the camera and it would push the shutter button and take a photo of the kids.

[00:39:42] And yeah, it was a really funny thing. I'll send you the video to the video so you can put on the show.

[00:39:49] Yeah. All right. So.

[00:39:52] So you're home. I mean, see, this is what an expert is. There's somebody that lives and breathes what they do. They, like you just described your whole day, but you didn't throw in the part about your two cute little German shepherds.

[00:40:07] Yeah, I have to have Walt Milan and they make sure that I know to take them out. Yeah. Lillian is one of our newest additions to the family. She is about a year old. And so she is at that phase where she is restless and needs a job at all times, just like. Yep.

[00:40:28] Yeah. So. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. Shut him up.

[00:40:32] We're gonna out and pee now.

[00:40:35] Did I actually stimulate you to get the dogs.

[00:40:39] Oh, 100 percent. You're the reason we have two German shepherds and the fact that we rescued them. Yeah.

[00:40:43] Because I've always kind of been a person where like I like, you know, purebred or like, you know, whatever. But we we looked at that German Shepherd rescue page and we're just like, you like I don't know, we got Walt. And they really are special dogs. They're incredibly smart. They.

[00:41:02] I remember when we took Walt to training, we did air sensing and air tracking. And I didn't know if the training was working until like one of the last weeks of training where they're like, okay, let's let's put this to the test. And I ran out into the field like maybe like a mile away. And I was like, going left and right and and trying to, like, throw him off of my trail and you let him out of the crate to come find me. And he found me in like less than 20 seconds.

[00:41:28] Just like.

[00:41:29] And so I was like met. Their noses are like magic. I don't understand how they work, but yeah, you definitely you said you guys are up here.

[00:41:38] So it was rubiks room at the time or we really were definitely rubiks was around rubiks.

[00:41:44] And you guys have anyone to talk to me? Daugther. So how does somebody work with you? How do they get to work with you?

[00:41:54] They can come into depending on what platform I typically like to kneel down on who I work with. You saw in my about I like working with purpose driven brands. And so what that means for me is that your brand has a clearly defined mission and vision. It always, always helps when you work with somebody who's truly passionate and truly walks the walk, talk the talk like. And I think that's why I mean, you get along so well as we truly are attracted to practitioners. So not people that are selling you something, but people that are actually doing it. Doing that. And I almost sometimes switch between like doing it more and so I don't teach. And that's when, you know, you found, you know, somebody that that's a really good teacher when they just love doing so much. And so.

[00:42:41] So you have to have a vision. You have to have a mission.

[00:42:45] And then typically people get in touch with men. And I see if it's a fit only because I'm dealing with ordination right now and with tons of other brands. So it's just really on a case by case basis now. And then I have all these. If you're just starting out with community building and you kind of want to get your feet wet way that we have some courses like Instagram 360 and Authority building on Instagram, of course, that just tells you how to reverse engineer your authority in a marketplace by clearly choosing a niche and then how to strategically look in places like with Lindsay. I mentioned earlier on the call we said very similar to like what I did with AutoNation. We need to reverse engineer the attention span of somebody who self-identifies as a woman in business, who is suffering chronic, debilitating migraines, who in the marketplace is signaling to her or providing her with tools, tips and resources so that she can live a better life. And at the end of the day, we're only interested in talking to these people and figuring out how we can be featured speakers at their convention centers, you know, who are the people who are our micro influencers within the community.

[00:44:01] We're only interested in knowing them and going after them. And I did the same thing with AutoNation, whereas like, okay, I need to reverse engineer the attention span of somebody who self-identifies as an octopus fan. So who's currently serving them?

[00:44:13] Tone No. Which was the largest news Octopus magazine online. Sy Montgomery, the author of Soul of an Octopus. You know what? Brands are targeting them. You know, I looked at all of them.

[00:44:24] And then over the course of six months, I was heavily obsessed with only making connections with people and letting them know that oxygenation existed. And that's that's really how you do it with the course authority building course kind of goes through and gives you lists and gives you industries like magazines, blogs, and then you can fill them out and kind of, you know.

[00:44:50] So they were the two courses.

[00:44:53] One of them is Instagram 360. And this is specifically for Instagram. And then authority building on Instagram is another course. But I've had people buy it that just want to want the authority building roadmap. So maybe I might make that a separate thing. But as of right now, it does say an authority building on Instagram. But there's tons of people who buy it just for the roadmap on. How do you reverse engineer that authority?

[00:45:17] Right. Right. What with the what's your opinion on the I scuttlebutt about the ticking off the number of likes on Instagram? What's your opinion?

[00:45:28] I have mixed feelings about it because, you know, their their purpose.

[00:45:33] You know what they're saying, why they're doing it is because they want people to create more. Or they don't want to stall. People's creative energy is not. And I really think there I always go back to. OK, where's the money and what money could they be? What money could they gain by taking away likes? And so I kind of was thinking about it as well. If they created this like back end influence system or brands could have access to influencers likes by going through and so that they could track the money exchange and things like that, then it would make sense for them to take away like so that they could keep track of of the money that's being exchanged as a result of their platform. And so I kind of have my my. I mean, they're not doing that because of that. This is just me being, you know, using Instagram, right. LEVIN These are my thoughts on it.

[00:46:26] But yeah. So, I mean, it's kind of like a.

[00:46:31] A mixed bag, but I really feel like it's always goes back to money and not so much, you know, wanting to invoke, you know, creative juices from their users. If you look at Tick-Tock right now, which is higher downloaded right now in the app store than Instagram, but Tick-Tock is doing as they're artificially. And this is my hypothesis. They're actually artificially increasing vanity metrics like views and likes on posts because they know that their target demo, which is children love. I mean, there's a dopey me in here when you get 500 views or 1000 views. So I've seen on AutoNation we have in the past few months, I have over twenty four thousand followers on Tick-Tock.

[00:47:15] But I recently went live and I was just like, oh, this is great. I'm going to go live and attend to people going to be on because I'm twenty two thousand followers. I had less than ten people join me.

[00:47:27] So what what that tells me is that where Instagram is taking away vanity metrics like likes and like that tick tock is increasing them. And so their target demo is going to jump ship from Instagram to Tick-Tock because they're going to want to feel like they're being looked at and that they're being engaged with.

[00:47:48] And so I think it is a mistake and it's kind of short sighted on Instagram part to take those metrics away because people like being like right at the end of the day.

[00:47:57] Now, why did you suggest the other day that I should put my protection dog site on there?

[00:48:02] If you say it's a children's demographic or every every social media platform from ages up, and you can see that with I mean, you saw that even with Instagram when when when you first started, the joke was, well, it's ever going to take a picture of their sandwich for lunch posted on Instagram and then it aged up.

[00:48:20] Right. And then all of a sudden your mom is on Instagram so she could see what you're doing and your career, your grandma got on Instagram.

[00:48:26] And so it was the same thing with TikTok, which is happening is there is a fast rising as parents when I get on the platform to observe their kids and then they get stuck because Tick-Tock is as soon as you said that you killed it now or that day for me.

[00:48:42] But yeah, you give your kids.

[00:48:45] Yeah. It's super addicting. And so the parents are getting addicted to it and they're on the platform now, which means which means like they're looking for, you know, you're going to have a training.

[00:48:58] Yeah. I mean, I think I'll eventually have training on it. But the reason I suggested you for your dogs is because animals and especially smart animals and just animals doing extraordinary things is a niche that always goes viral.

[00:49:12] I saw a duck playing the drums the other day. Pretty good, though. So there is a crab.

[00:49:19] There's a crab that's wielding a knife.

[00:49:22] Yeah.

[00:49:22] When they call them they call them stabby crabby.

[00:49:25] Yeah. And there's a chicken playing the piano and the.

[00:49:31] But you can you can get your dogs. I mean even when your dog goes outside and they face face outwardly from the door. I mean that's extraordinary. Right. Right. There are so many people that were like that would tag their their like their parents or their kids and say, hey, why don't you teach, you know? Tell me how to do this. So it's just it.

[00:49:52] You know, the major part is what? Yeah. You're kind of right. As I think of it.

[00:49:58] Yeah, that happens, you know. So then where do they go to find this stuff or we're gonna have in the show notes. We're gonna we're gonna roll it up and show notes where you have to have links in the show notes for it.

[00:50:10] So. And then I'll also take you to where you can get in touch with Warren. So.

[00:50:15] So, Warren, thanks so much, man. You know what I think of you? Man, you just got a brilliant mind and a great work ethic. And you've helped a heck of a lot of people be something that they would've never been without you.

[00:50:26] I love doing it. Here you go. All right, everybody. So check out the show notes.

[00:50:31] This is episode 240. You know, get on that Instagram stuff. There's two courses are there for you. And the one will give you more than just Instagram. That'll teach you this reverse engineering method, which is so critical to quick success. Because if you try to do like that, my green lady did in the beginning. I mean, God help you. You'll spend months and months and months and spend loads of money and get nowhere.

[00:50:58] So and coaches will and coaches and whatever will take your money. Exactly. You have you have a great idea. And then at the end of day, they'll blame you for not being there. Do it, because maybe you don't have it, have charisma. Maybe you don't have this. It's like it's not it has nothing to do with you as everything you do is an issue that you choosing. Don't beat yourself up if you don't have it right now.

[00:51:18] Great advice. Alright everybody. We'll catch you on the next episode. See ya later.

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