Leverage the One Moment of Authority to Build Your Business

Do you know how to use the one moment of authority to be able to build your business?

A lot of people don’t understand that you need one moment, one event, one speaking opportunity, or one podcast episode. It’s like how Russell Brunson wisely puts it, “You’re just one funnel away.”

I will show you what to do when you get that moment. I’ve been fortunate enough to experience a few of these moments, thanks to individuals like Dan Ulan, who is generating most of these one-moments. A lot of us have these moments where we’re with someone who is well known, or we get the opportunity to teach.

However, we often fail to capitalize on these moments, perhaps due to humility, busyness, or the perceived difficulty of doing so.

So, I want you to think about where, in your past, recent, or even a long time ago, you have this one moment that you can leverage.

Let me show you an example that has nothing to do with whatever industry you’re in, but think about how this applies to you.

I believe these moments are like gold nuggets that we aren’t mining.

A Transformative Keynote Speech: The NFDA Conference

A few days ago, I was the closing keynote at the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) conference, the biggest conference for funeral directors. We shared light-hearted funeral-related jokes, like “people are dying to get in.”

I was introduced by Jack, the president. He read my bio. I’ve got the video for all of that. They paid me a lot of money to speak at this convention. However, though I’m a seven-figure speaker, I’m not doing it as a speaker. I’m doing it because I have a greater mission to teach people through examples. The session was about the future of AI  and its practical implications for funeral homes.

Empowering Young Adults in the Funeral Home Industry

Instead of just being on stage and giving a keynote talk and walking off, which would be easy to do, I wanted to do this with a different approach. So, during the planning call, I said that I would like to adopt a few funeral homes that the association could select.

So they picked some large ones that had many locations and some small ones. We then had a Zoom call, and I asked each of those homes to pick a young adult who is either working for them or they’re a sixth-generation funeral home trying to get their children, who don’t think it’s cool or there’s no angle for them, motivated in their business.

I asked them to go through our training on how to do Dollar a Day and make one-minute videos, especially using these AI tools, creating the one-minute videos, editing them using Descript, posting them on Facebook, YouTube, your website, on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, all that kind of stuff, and boosting them for a dollar a day.

Not surprisingly, the results were remarkable, and the panelists shared their successes, eventually leading to a published book.

Repurposing the Impactful Moment

During the presentation, I highlighted that all of this work and these great results were not even done by a fancy agency or me. I wasn’t even involved except to encourage and coach them. This was all done by these amazing young adults. I then asked those young adults in our program, sitting in the first row, to stand up. There was a lot of applause.

I had Jacob, who’s the older of the young adults, coordinating all of them, demonstrating an idea that had become a reality. This single moment opened the door to various ways to repurpose the experience. That’s an idea that came to fruition. And then there are so many different ways to repurpose this one moment that we’re talking about.

So I could take this picture and talk about public speaking. I could take a clip from this video and say that public speaking is about sharing and caring so much about your audience. You don’t even think about yourself because if you’re afraid, that means you’re selfish and you’re thinking about yourself.

Or don’t stand behind the podium. Stand up front and break the audience into threes, the middle, left, and right, and this is how you present to a larger audience.

Also, make sure that you are capturing footage from all different parts of the stage, like here’s behind the stage, welcoming the other panelists, making sure you’re documenting what’s happening when you’re walking up, making sure that you say thank you. How do you run a panel? How do you run Dollar a Day?

I could take, for example, this moment here, where I’m asking Larnique here on the far right.

So, what was your experience with running the Content Factory and boosting these posts for a dollar a day? So I can insert this in my training because it’s one thing just to show this diagram of the four-stage Content Factory. It’s another thing to show it in practice and show it with authority.

Do you see the difference? So you can take any existing training that you have, and then you can spice it up by showing how it’s being used. And people love these sorts of shots.

Capturing Authentic Moments for Marketing

Isn’t it great to have all these moments that are shown below?; you couldn’t even pay to get footage like this. How much would you have to pay to get the president of a major association to say all these great things about you?

You just have to leverage that moment. This happened just five days ago, and I’ve been getting flooded with emails with more speaking opportunities and coaching people.

So, these young adults are doing great. They have their agency leader meeting every Tuesday. Will Troup is the one leading that group, which is awesome. So here, Jacob changed this to his timeline cover, and you can see this post.

I tagged him in this post. And I said, so proud of Jacob for presenting on the big stage. And people love that.

Am I saying, “Hey, I’ve done 800 keynote speeches like this. I’ve done this so many times. I’m good at it.” Am I saying, “Hey, I make more than a million dollars speaking? Companies pay me a lot of money. I’m really important.” No, you don’t do that.

You promote by showing the results and by honoring other people. So here I said, we did this successfully at the funeral conference. We can do this in any other service-based business agency, real estate, or tax; it doesn’t matter what it is because we can equip young adults.

Get that video, chop it up, process it in a certain way, and target it against the right audience: Indian moms who are wealthy, whatever it might be. And you can see that this is what worked well.

David Stacey Hernandez, who owns 11 funeral homes, the biggest in New Jersey, is saying great things about Jacob and that he did an amazing job, leading to his SEO doing much better.

I wasn’t even looking for a testimonial. But what we got is better than a testimonial. And this funeral director, as we were leaving the convention, made this video for Jacob:

Why would Jacob be posting this story of Ruth? And how is that different than Jacob saying, “Hey, are you a funeral director? And you want to get help with your digital marketing. We have a great program for you.”

First of all, let’s not just forget the passing on of energy that’s going on. Look at the smile on her face talking about this.

So many people came up afterward, and they said, “I’ve got a young adult, and it’s my son and I’m 65, and he’s 24. He’s not sure what he wants to do, and he doesn’t know if he wants to come into Dad’s business, even though we’re a sixth-generation funeral home. Now I see the angle, the social media, the digital, the technology. This is exactly the kind of stuff that’s up their alley, and I know it’s a stereotype of the younger generation versus the older generation, but it absolutely is true.”

Especially since funeral home businesses are generational businesses, at least in New England, where I grew up, and here in California,

So this was the perfect message. It works super well. And I had to be careful, too, because I didn’t want to stereotype all old people as fussily or whatever. And I said that whether you’re an adult or not and you want to learn technology, we have created this guide so that you can own your marketing.

Jacob made this post five days ago. Jacob’s honoring me. And instead of me talking about myself, he’s talking about me.

So, here’s the key point.

None of us should be marketing ourselves. None of us should be talking about ourselves. Who cares what we have to say about it? We have much less credibility talking about ourselves. It’s the old PR principle. What other people say about us has much more credibility; it’s been validated by what other people have to say.

So it’s that outside validation, that outside authority, that builds you up from the inside. How many of you guys are unconsciously guilty of being self-promoters? Talking about yourself because you want to drive business. You want to drive lead. So, of course, you should be the one talking about your stuff. Otherwise, how are people going to buy from you and know about your thing?

But look at what Jacob is doing. For example, here, this is behind the scenes, this is behind the stage, and he’s giving everyone kind of a ride along. Come along with me. Let me show you what it’s like being behind the stage before they play the walkout music because if you’ve ever spoken, it can be a nerve-wracking thing where it’s 10 minutes before, and you’re about to be on stage, and these guys are here. They’re a little bit nervous, too, but they’re pros.

And even just look at this. Can you imagine in just a few minutes, all those chairs are going to be full of people? What is that like? So he’s making a video as we’re walking up from the back of the stage to the front to get miked up to coordinate on some of these AV sorts of details and look at where the confidence monitor is. Make sure we know who’s walking; you walk out on the left, exit on the right, those sorts of things, right? Just giving people a tour of what’s that.

Here it is behind the scenes. Look at all these cameras and tables, Navy staff, and all of these, all this kind of stuff. Here’s Patty. Patty is the organizer of this thing.

Here are some of our young adults. We’re handing out our books. This is before everyone’s walked in, but think about the poise that it takes to remember instead of, “Crap, we’re starting in 10 minutes,” to remember to capture that moment.

Why is that? Why is a moment like this more powerful than the professional shot showing this huge audience and us speaking in front of this, in front of lots and lots of people?

Because they’re intimate and personal, and they holograph the event in a way that is very personal.

Empowering Local Businesses with Authentic Stories

Let me show you what happened yesterday. I was in Milwaukee, and I did two things. One, I was with my client, Dr. Zelko, who’s a cosmetic surgeon. He does liposuction, tummy tucks, this kind of thing.

And he has a daughter who is now in the business. And she’s making videos talking about what it’s like having dad as a surgeon. They printed out a flyer for her. But she’s not smiling in the flyer.

And I said, Sydney is so bubbly, and she’s got such a great charm and personality to her. Why don’t you show that? And she said, “I’m scared of the camera, and I don’t want to be on film.” I said, “Just talk to me. Don’t look at the camera. Just look at me.”

So you can see she’s looking at me. And I’m coaching her, and I’m asking her some basic questions.

So you have to repeatedly say who you are and what you do, and if you’re a local business, you have to keep saying where you are from.

So you can see that I’m just capturing a series of these stories, and she doesn’t have to be this spokesperson Sham Wow on camera.

We’re just having a conversation, and then her dad comes in. So I asked her some questions, and then I said, “What do you think about your dad?”

So you see how these sorts of moments. If it was just her talking, it’s not the same as the interaction with her and her dad.

Similarly, the lead esthetician talked about what happens before, during, and after a liposuction procedure because a lot of women have questions about how long it would take, whether it would be painful, or if they can get back to work the next day.

It’s just scary because they don’t really know. And here she is, explaining the whole thing, but what makes this angle different is that she also had liposuction from Dr. Zocco. So, she can talk about it from the standpoint of a patient, too. Not just some woman behind the front desk who’s answering questions, but she knows.

And she says here, “I know, ladies, the questions that you have, I know what it’s like. I was a patient, too. I can tell you exactly what happens, exactly how it feels. I know your concern is there might be pain along the way, but let me tell you, there’s no pain. They massage you, they play music…”

The Power of Genuine Moments and Their Impact

Given what you’ve seen here with this one moment on stage and then this one moment yesterday in Wisconsin at Zoco Aesthetics, how are these things in common?

Why is this different than how most people might make marketing videos?

You’re dealing with people; you’re talking to families. They’re not selly. There are a couple of rules. People don’t want to be sold to. They want to buy, but you’re not even convincing people to buy. You’re talking with people about their businesses, about the things that they love, and so you’re celebrating them. You’re creating connections with people, and you’re allowing them to create connections with you.

Also notice. Am I using a $ 60,000 red cinematography camera or any of this fancy kind of stuff? And am I using a tripod? I’m using my hands to hold the camera, and it’s not exactly stable. It’s moving around using a $1,000 iPhone.

One of the most beautiful things to me was the interaction between the father and the daughter. It was just lovely. We project ourselves into these, and people are like, “Yeah, look at this. I can see myself in this story, or I’d like to see myself in this story.

Let me show you what brought the house down at the National Funeral Directors Association conference. So we’ve made so many different videos, and you can see a lot of these are here. My favorite moment, which we played on stage, was when Larnique’s 15-year-old son, Skylar, who’s super shy, held the camera and recorded all these videos, like 50, 60 different videos.

Isn’t that cool? And this is the moment that really personalized this mortuary, and it’s a funeral home. What do you expect when you go to a funeral home website? You expect to see all this somber casket, wear black, very sad grieving. And then you see Larnique, you see her veteran stories. This is a family business; for some reason, people believe that funeral directors are just at the mortuary all the time, like embalming bodies, that you would never see the funeral director shopping at Costco.

And here she’s humanizing herself and bringing her son in and her son having a fun moment.

Building Relationships and the Impact on Audience Perception

So think about how you collect these kinds of moments. You cannot script these moments. This goes against the expectation. If you’re showing this within the funeral director business, they’re going to get this. But one of the lovely things showing this outside the funeral director’s business goes against expectations. So it’s a pattern interrupt.

But God forbid, if one of your loved ones dies, you’re not going to want to see these people joking around. So then, why are we making these videos?

It’s because we’re building the relationship before that moment happens. So funeral directors have been accustomed to not having to do any marketing because when that moment happens, it is a very stressful situation, but imagine Larnique is educating and saying, “Hey, one quick tip. Don’t contact the insurance company first because that’s going to hold up everything. And here’s a reason why…” So she’s sharing all kinds of great stories, and that way, you’re prepared. When the moment happens, by concentrating on the mid-funnel and by sharing stories, when that time does happen, when a friend of yours has to deal with this and needs a recommendation, then you can recommend Larnique. And she’s the number one rated funeral home in Las Vegas. Two years running. She’s about to win it again, hopefully this year, too, to make it three in a row.

But you can see why she’s the top-rated funeral home. Is it because she uses the best embalming fluid? Is it because her hearses are the most modern vehicles? No, it’s because of the care that she has, and that shows through. And if you look at her reviews, it confirms that. She’s such a family person. And she told her story about how it wasn’t that she wanted to be in the funeral industry. It was that she cared so much for people, and she was just a people person. She didn’t know what she was. It wasn’t that she had to go through the mortuary school or whatever to learn how to run a funeral home. Because of some circumstances, she was thrust into the situation, and as she was a people person, she was able to figure it out. But the thing that caused their business to succeed is because of how much she cares.

The same thing happened with Dr. Zelko. You can see that it’s about his family that extends to his patients.

Of course, we turn it into all kinds of content, as you see in the Content Factory. We captured those moments on stage, too.

Utilizing Moments to Showcase Your Work

So I want you guys to now think about this: do you have something in mind for that one moment in time?

It doesn’t have to be this big highlight speaking on stage, career accomplishment kind of thing. Are there some moments that you’ve collected on your phone, or maybe they’re on social media somewhere, and you can leverage those moments to show the connection that you have?

It doesn’t even have to be directly with your audience. As you can see, the cosmetic liposuction surgery guy is not even talking that much about what happens in liposuction. Yet, how are these women where they’re carrying a little extra weight because, after pregnancy, you carry that extra weight, making decisions by what their friends are doing, by whether they like Dr. Zelko versus the other ones?

And if you go to the other cosmetic surgery websites, what do you see? A bunch of stock art of clearly these fake women that are not even you could like it’s the same fake women on all the other websites, you know that those aren’t real patients. And you go to his site, you go to his social, and it’s all real. It’s a real story. It’s not shot in the best lighting. It’s almost better that it’s not perfect out of the brochure.

I understand, “Oh, I’m dealing with this high-class, wealthy audience. They expect this like perfect kind of thing.” Sometimes you want that. And sometimes you don’t.

If, for example, Kim, your client, is a little bit introverted and feels weird when promoting herself and when somebody else can say, “Hey, I’m here with Kim,” it just takes away all of that weirdness from her as a person as well. And so you’re giving that gift to the person you’re promoting. When you’re videoing them in a natural space with their natural relationships and their natural connections and that kind of realism, you’re just short-circuiting the weirdness of self-promotion anyway.

Natural Conversations and Building Closer Connections

It’s much better to co-create content with someone else in a natural conversation.

I think the idea of talking to a camera is just so unnatural versus you’re talking with a friend and maybe you’re having food at the same time.

It is like what David Attenborough said: when animals are eating with other animals around, that means it’s safe; they feel safe. So, this is how deep the psychology goes. I love showing pictures of breaking bread with other people because it shows that it’s safe.

So, two or three days ago, I had dinner with Brian Eisenberg, one of the top guys for conversion optimization. Two days ago, I was in Austin and eating at the Brazilian Barbecues, where they slice you unlimited, and the thing is red or green. And until you give up, they just come at you with the meat. That’s what we did. It was incredible.

The day before that, I was at Perry’s with Christian Goss. He runs Leeds Bridge, and I coined him as the Conversion King, and now he likes that so much he’s running with it. I believe he truly has earned this title.

If anybody on the planet can talk about how important it is and how you track conversions, it is he. If you don’t track conversions, you can’t even play the game because you’re just wasting money. You’re not passing back the right signal. The system can’t optimize your ads. Your ads aren’t effective. They need conversions.

It’s a lot closer than you guys are both wearing your conference badge, and you’re taking a picture with just a hundred other people taking a picture with so and so who’s a speaker, right? See, that’s the difference. So we’re trying to do things that show a closer level of connection. So, I’m going to go back to the main point here. Do each of you have a moment in time that you can pull out these snippets, write a blog post, LinkedIn, Facebook posts, whatever about that, and boost it for a dollar a day to be able to show what it’s like working with you?

The Role of a Behind-the-Scenes Videographer

You want someone who is on stage behind you that’s capturing some of these moments, as I was showing you. They’re moving and capturing some that are vertical and some that are horizontal.

I have a few training showing how that person could be a colleague or young adult or whatnot, can capture those moments and be able to process them. Because if you’re relying, depending on how big this event is, upon their cameras, which are usually fixed in the back of the room, that’s just capturing your presentation. It doesn’t capture the vibe; it doesn’t capture the audience. It just doesn’t give you what you want. So conferences, and you saw that one there that I was speaking at, they have a bunch of big TV cameras, sorts of those big cameras that are in the way back, but they’re not capturing the kind of video that’s good.

Or as you’re preparing, getting your slides ready, about to go on stage, or getting miked up, think about all those steps along the way, capturing those moments. We have a guide on that. It’s in our one-minute video course. It shows you what are the shots that you need.

Launch the Content Factory

And then the Content Factory training, which you guys should all have, shows how you process that and repurpose it into different channels so that it can turn into ads and help you rank on keywords.

Conclusion

To wrap things up, let’s dive into the heart of what we’ve discussed – unleashing the true power of authentic moments in your marketing journey. Whether it’s an exhilarating moment on the big stage, a heartfelt connection with a client, or the daily grind that shapes your business, these are the stories that capture your essence.

By shining a spotlight on these real, relatable experiences and crafting them into a strategic narrative, you’ll create an emotional bond with your audience that’s hard to break. Remember, it’s not about you and your self-promotion; it’s about fostering connections and celebrating the amazing individuals and experiences that define your business.

So, think about the treasure trove of authentic moments you’ve got, and use them to forge deeper, more profound connections with your audience.