The Revenue Through Reputation Show

RTR EP13 - Buyers Trust People. Not Brands. Not Brochures. Not BS.

• Brandon Lee • Season 1 • Episode 13

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In this episode of Revenue Through Reputation, Brandon Lee dives deep into why traditional sales tactics and cold outreach are no longer effective in 2025’s digital-first world. The crux of the issue? Buyers trust people, not brands, brochures or cold calls. As leaders, it’s crucial to lead with authenticity and share your journey to build trust and capture attention.

Brandon explains why companies need to shift away from value propositions, features, and case studies, and instead focus on sharing human stories that resonate emotionally with their audience. This episode highlights the emotional resonance required to stand out and turn passive content into meaningful conversations that drive sales.

Brandon encourages leaders to share their experiences, their challenges, and what they’re learning in real-time. This human-centric approach to content will drive engagement, spark conversations, and ultimately fill your pipeline.

  • The Need for Human Connection:
    In today’s world, buyers aren’t responding to the same old value propositions and cold outreach methods. Instead, they connect with human stories—the lived experiences, the challenges faced, and the lessons learned. When you put your humanity into your content, you break through the noise.
  • Emotional Resonance Over Logic:
    Logic might make people think, but emotion makes people act. In the age of information overload, emotional content is what stands out. Sharing personal stories, like challenges you've overcome or insights you’ve gained, connects more deeply with your audience than any brochure could.
  • Trust is Built Through Visibility:
    Brandon emphasizes the importance of executive visibility. When leaders share their authentic journey, they build trust—not by promoting a product but by showcasing their humanity and authority. This makes your audience feel they know you, and trust follows naturally.
  • The Shift to Leader-Led Content:
    Content led by CEOs and other executives is far more impactful than generic brand messaging. Leaders must share their personal experiences and thoughts to drive conversations and engagement. Brands that focus on leader-led content create lasting relationships, not just transactions.
  • Why Cold Outreach is Failing:
    Cold calling, emailing, and LinkedIn DMs are becoming increasingly ineffective. The traditional cold outreach model lacks personalization and fails to make a meaningful connection. Buyers simply aren’t responding to the same old tactics anymore.

In a world where buyers trust people, not brands, it's time to shift the focus of your sales efforts. Authenticity and emotional resonance are the true keys to breaking through the noise and creating genuine, lasting connections with your audience. Leaders must show up, share their personal journey, and build trust—one story at a time.

As Brandon said, “The more you share your humanity, the more you’ll build relationships that lead to opportunities.” It's time to start sharing your journey and let your authentic voice lead the way.

The Revenue Through Reputation Show
Hosted by Brandon Lee
New episodes every Tuesday at 11 AM ET | LinkedIn & YouTube
Empowering CEOs, founders, and sales leaders to build high-impact digital reputations that drive business growth.

Brandon Lee: [00:00:00] Hey, good morning everybody. Welcome to the Revenue Through Reputation Show. Uh, I get to be the host. I'm Brandon Lee. And today, um, you know, we're so many I. Companies are struggling with cold outreach right now. Uh, it's not being effective or as effective as they want. And I get there's, there's a lot of new tools.

Brandon Lee: There's automated callers, there's ai, there's all kinds of personalization, and we're really, I, what I see in the industry is so much is focused on. Making cold outreach more effective. But what we're gonna talk about today is what I think is the real solution. What I've seen is a real solution, and it's the core channel, is that buyers don't trust.

Brandon Lee: They, they don't trust brands. They don't trust messaging, but they still trust people when they feel like they know them, that they've, they [00:01:00] get to come along for the journey. So we're gonna, we're gonna chat about that today for about 30 minutes or so. Um, I wanna welcome everybody if you are in on the podcast.

Brandon Lee: Uh, thank you so much, uh, for joining. And, uh, if you like what you hear, please subscribe. If you really like what you hear, I'd appreciate the reviews. That obviously helps us get in front of more people. Um, and if you really like it and you, you know, you think it's good for somebody, you know, capture a screenshot of it, text it to somebody and let 'em know.

Brandon Lee: What you heard and, and what you thought of it and, and maybe encourage other people to join. And if you're with me in live, um, we're streaming live on LinkedIn, um, we're throwing it into Facebook even, and Instagram and YouTube. So, um, if you're on live, um, and you comment, uh, I can see those comments, we'll pull 'em up on screen.

Brandon Lee: Uh, if you have a question. We can answer those questions as well. [00:02:00] And uh, hey, you throw a comment on there, tell me where you're from. Uh, I can give you a little shout out and thank you for coming 'cause I do appreciate everybody that shows up. So Butch, I see Butch there showing up and says, nobody cares about seeing another company brochure on social media platforms.

Brandon Lee: That is so, so very true. So, um, really wanna get into today is. Why building trust is everything and how to build trust differently. Now, the, the challenge I think for most companies is that we. Uh, good morning, Jeff Leisure. Thanks for joining me. Um, the, the challenge with trust is that we believe, and we want to, and I get this, I, I want this to work too.

Brandon Lee: It worked for me in past companies. Trust being built. By sharing the company, by sharing the brand, by sharing the [00:03:00] value proposition, by sharing what we do and sharing case studies and who we do it for, and testimonials, it's logical, it makes sense. It worked for a long period of time. The challenge now is that it's not building trust.

Brandon Lee: It is not building trust because it sounds just like every other company out there, you know, there's, there's so many coaches out there working on messaging and teaching messaging that companies all sound alike. If you experience this, whether it's your company and, you know, if you, if you go look at websites or you look at a, you know, a flyer brochure and you read what they do and you compare it with three to four other companies that are all competitive, what's the big differentiator?

Brandon Lee: Normally it's not there. Um, you know, a lot of companies will use, they got this new thing. There's a lot of ai. We get to do this differently. Um, we're looking for ways to [00:04:00] stand out and normally the easy way is to use features, functions, um, that we've built into our offering. Again, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna share this.

Brandon Lee: The challenge for all of us is. None of that is as different as we think. None of it is as different as we want. The second, uh, challenge that we have with that in is that our buyers are being bombarded. They are bombarded with information because there's so many automation tools. There's tools for cold calling.

Brandon Lee: People are hiring, um, as I say, put lots of butts in seats and have 'em smile and dial. We're just, we're getting so inundated and you know, we, we all have our phones on us all the time, but most of the time we look at the call coming in, we don't know who it is. I. We don't answer. I mean, ask yourself, when was the last time you answered a call that you didn't know who it was?

Brandon Lee: And the [00:05:00] same thing with your email. I think most of us in the mornings, um, when we first check our email, our first motion is, how do I get rid of all the things that I don't want in my way? How do I find what's important to me and delete all the other messages? That I don't want to deal with today. They might be totally relevant.

Brandon Lee: They might be great services, they might be great products, but the channel of coming in on our email and cold email, um, or even LinkedIn dms, it's not something that we're taking time to take a look at. And why is that? We don't need to. You know, as buyers, we don't, we don't need to take our time to go look at information because all the information is out there when we want to go see it.

Brandon Lee: So that's our big challenge. And building trust is so important because when they, when people feel like they know leaders. When they recognize them because they see them, [00:06:00] that goes beyond seeing them. When leaders are sharing content about their journey, they're sharing what they're going through.

Brandon Lee: They're sharing what they're living, what they're learning, what they've lived, what they've learned. That is different and it's unique 'cause nobody else has that perspective. Nobody else has gone through the experiences that you've experienced. And so when that type of content is shared, it's. A pattern interrupter.

Brandon Lee: I mean, think about when you're scrolling through LinkedIn or any other social platform, and it's like the same, the same, the same, the same. We just keep scrolling through what type of content captures your attention, what makes you stop and pay attention and read something, or pay attention and watch a video.

Brandon Lee: Most of the time it's something more human. It's something that's more personal. And I don't mean personal, like, let me tell you where I ate [00:07:00] lunch. But it's personal about the journey. Hey, here's something I've learned, here's something I've been experiencing. You know, I've been observing this. I've been in this industry for X amount of years, and I see this is taking place.

Brandon Lee: Um, hey, I feel this is going on. That type of content that comes from our humanity. Stops people in their scroll. It gets people to stop and pay attention because we want to learn and know what other people are going through because, well, one, we don't wanna feel like we're the only one, right? But it's also a great place for us to go and learn and join the journey.

Brandon Lee: So as we're creating that type of content, we're actually building trust. We're building. Excuse me. We're building recognition, but in sharing our journey, we're creating that authority and that thought leadership and that, um, that how we think and who we are and the way that we do things. So the challenge is [00:08:00] that traditional sales tactics are just not creating the results.

Brandon Lee: We look, I, I built several companies with call centers. And I loved call centers when they worked the challenge. Now I, I spoke with somebody this morning, a sales leader in a company, and I was asking about what they're doing and, um, how it was working and just, you know, being curious what the experience was.

Brandon Lee: And he shared with me basically what we we're talking about today. Um, we're doing the cold outreach because we're not really sure what else to do, and we're doing it in the same method that. I mean, this is my words, not his, but when I ask like, well, what are you sharing? What's it, you know, well, we call and we tell 'em about our, our offering and what we do, and we tell 'em why it's different.

Brandon Lee: We leave a voicemail and we're getting very, very few returned calls, um, with the same thing with email. We've got, here's what we do, here's how it different, [00:09:00] here's what the value proposition standard. Right. That's, that sounds good. The challenge is they're not getting the responses. And I'll go back to what I said at the beginning.

Brandon Lee: We're not getting those responses because there's so much information. Everybody sounds the same. We're not standing out. There's not a, Hmm, what's going on here? Moment to pause them because it all sounds the same. So when we're doing this, we're spending a lot. Of time. I dunno about you guys, but how much time are we spending with tactics that aren't really working?

Brandon Lee: We we're burning out our sales teams, we're burning out our marketers. Try something different, try something different, change the messaging. Um, we're we're trying to, trying and trying and really what we end up doing is spending a lot of money. A lot of effort and a lot of energy. And it leads to [00:10:00] stress, it leads to fear.

Brandon Lee: It, it leads to, um, teams that have so much uncertainty that they're, you know, team, team members are starting to look for other roles because I don't see the needle moving. This isn't going anywhere. Um, where I need to start looking for my next role. Um, and then. And they're divided, right? Their, their mindset's divided.

Brandon Lee: They're, they're trying to do something. Their passion and heart is in it, but it's not working. And it burns, burns people out. So, bottom line for us is we, we keep doing the same functions. We keep doing the same actions without change of success. And companies aren't moving 'cause they're not sure what else to do.

Brandon Lee: Now, what, what's at stake with all this is. Burnout is loss of revenue, lack of growth, and, and so much fear that comes with it. But the turning point is the, the change that's happening right now. [00:11:00] And I, I saw an example today that is, um, pink's window, uh, cleaning service, if you haven't looked 'em up. Um, what they're, what they're bringing in their content is their humanity.

Brandon Lee: They're showing the now look. I, I get it. It's B2C. Um, I've shared other B2B examples. I just, this saw this one this morning. It was relevant, but don't, don't throw it out going, oh, well, that's B2C. Our buyers are all consumers. Our buyers are all in, in business and buying for their business, but the way they've engaged with companies as a consumer is influencing the way they choose and want to engage with companies in the B2B environment.

Brandon Lee: So what we're seeing on Instagram, what we're seeing on TikTok, what's capturing our attention, maybe. Yeah, from a consumer standpoint. But it's influencing then the type of content [00:12:00] that they want to see, the type of content that's capturing their attention. And, you know, I, I always wanna just pause right there and not really talk about anything else.

Brandon Lee: I mean, that is, that is so important when we look at, I. All of us, whether we're in a business or we we're wearing the hat of being just a consumer, um, being a human, being, a parent, you know, being a homeowner, whatever it may be, um, the type of content that's capturing our attention. Is that humanity content we wanted?

Brandon Lee: We, we are, are, I think we're wired and I don't want to get into, um, you know, anyone's religion or anything, but I believe that we are all wired, and I see this with humanity. We're wired to connect with other people. And so when our content is leading. With people and sharing journey, sharing experience, sharing what we're thinking, sharing what we're going through.

Brandon Lee: It captures attention and it sticks more in the heart, which leads to the [00:13:00] brain instead of going straight to the brain. That tends to be up. Sounds like everybody else, and off it goes, and it doesn't have that sticking power. Our challenge is how do we get out of it? We've been doing. Content for say, the past 15 years-ish.

Brandon Lee: Really the same. Our blogs, our emails, our newsletters, our website messaging, it's all focused on the value proposition. It's all focused on features and functions. You know, a key thing for us to remember is that logic causes people to think. But emotion causes people to act. Emotion brings people back.

Brandon Lee: They wanna see what's next. They wanna see what you're gonna share. They want to be more involved because [00:14:00] we will naturally find community, even if we're scrolling and we find people that say things that capture our attention, we'll give them a follow. We'll subscribe. But if we just talk about the functions and the features, we're not inviting them into that emotion and emotion as much as we may not like it.

Brandon Lee: Humans, our buyers are emotional people, and they're gonna, they're gonna respond and act from those emotions. So, um, that emotional. Residence turns passive content into conversations. So when, think about this, when somebody reads your next posts, how do you want them to feel? We tend to create content to [00:15:00] promote and share our value proposition, which is very logical.

Brandon Lee: Instead of creating content that helps them feel something, what we found over the years is the easiest way to get people to feel and to be to, to like lean in is when humans are sharing their journey. They're sharing what they've experienced. I know I say this a lot, what have they experienced? What have they lived?

Brandon Lee: What have they learned? What are they currently living? What are they currently learning? You know, what are you observing? What are you feeling in the industry that captures attention because it's true. Thought leadership. Now, I don't mean like you got the, the big one or two people in an industry that really drive thought leadership, but your own thought leadership from your own experience is the uniqueness that you and your company bring to, to the table that nobody else can.

Brandon Lee: So [00:16:00] executives, we have to look if, if is, this whole conversation is about buyers trust, people. Not brands. The challenge for leaders is to show up. And share their journey and build that trust from human to human in order to get them more interested in the brand. You know, I, I look back, I'm a, you know, I grew up in the eighties, started going in business in the nineties, and I always look back and go, what did Steve Jobs do with Apple?

Brandon Lee: Like, apple was dying, right? They were, they, well, they were up and coming and, um, they were new. And then later they were dying and Steve Jobs brought him back, but he did the same playbook each time. What did he do? He showed up. Now they have big, big budgets, right? He was in magazines, he was in newspapers, he was in podiums.

Brandon Lee: He. But he [00:17:00] was sharing the lived experience of creating and what the creation was, was what the, the products the, the Mac was bringing. He shared what the community was doing with the product, how they were using it to build better lives. He showed up and was sharing from personal experience the journey that he was going through, and that elevated the brand.

Brandon Lee: Why did this happen? Because we relate with people more than we relate with brands, but when we connect with the person, we connect with their stories, we connect with their experiences, we connect with their thinking, then the brand comes along with it. So brands alone, they don't break through the noise.

Brandon Lee: So if your logo vanished tomorrow. Would people still know it's you talking? Would they [00:18:00] still have that connection to you guys? This, this whole episode is about connecting and not promoting. So what tiny slice of your life could you share this week that would start a real conversation? Think about conversations you're having with current clients or with prospects.

Brandon Lee: What questions are they asking? What challenges are they facing? If you, you know, it's not the, the call to, the call to action I have for you is taking that risk. Now, before, before I talk about this, I'm gonna say, I, I get it. It's hard. Um. Putting ourselves out there and sharing. It's risky. It's scary, it's uncomfortable.

Brandon Lee: It's a new muscle. But just like any, you know, workout or new diet or anything that we take on at first, it's [00:19:00] going to be uncomfortable. And our tendency is that we. We want to quit, right? We, we tried it. It didn't work. I tried it. Nobody responded. You know, I did a show. I only got a couple comments or people aren't signing up.

Brandon Lee: Um, it's, it's scary. I get it. But what I think is even more scary is. Doing the same activities that we've done for years because it's comfortable, but not getting the results that we need to help our company be successful. Um, I'm gonna take a look, Jeff. Jeff's got a comment here, um, that. I'm trying to read what I talk, so let me read it.

Brandon Lee: Does, uh, does the risk of sounding the same as everyone else challenge us to resist the use of ai, which by definition is created by everyone else? For me, when I share personal humanity in my posts, I. Whether a personal experience from my [00:20:00] day or a reference to my dogs, my impression skyrocket. Yeah, Jeff, thanks for that.

Brandon Lee: And I know I, I, you and I have been walking alongside each other for a couple years now, and you've shared that with me multiple times, and I wanna address something for people that are listening, going, yeah, that's great. Your impressions skyrocket, but so what? Here's the big, so what. People, trust people, not brands.

Brandon Lee: When we build that level of trust, because we're bringing our humanity, and I, I, I'll pause for a second again, doesn't mean we share everything, right? If, if you're struggling with that. You know, we do a messaging playbook. Get into your core pillars. It's three core pillars around the business side and one to two pillars around your humanity.

Brandon Lee: And it gives you a focus of the type of content that you're creating consistently. But building a strategy of saying, what part of my humanity am I willing to [00:21:00] bring into this public sphere? And I would say it's much like thinking if you're at a dinner. I have a couple clients there. Maybe you have a couple of prospects there.

Brandon Lee: There's a couple of colleagues there. We don't chat a hundred percent of the time about business. In fact, I would say it ends up being 90% non-business. It's all about connecting and, and building relationship and rapport with people. So the question is, what topics are you willing to talk about in that environment and where is.

Brandon Lee: The ability to create like pillars, to build a strategy around bringing that consistently into your content. And I would say for leaders. We don't even necessarily have to to pull in a ton of our humanity, but if you share what have you lived, what have you learned, what are you living and what are you learning?

Brandon Lee: That's the humanity that we bring into the [00:22:00] B2B world. That's the differentiator and as content that people are interested in because it brings our humanity, it keeps it focused in business. But it's sharing information that no one else in the world can share because it's coming from inside of your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences.

Brandon Lee: So I, I move towards a side like Jeff shared when I bring in references to my family. Um, and talk about me. One of my, one of my favorite things is how do we take more of a personal picture maybe and bring in your experiences. Like, I'll share pictures when I'm hiking or when I'm out working out, but I'll share what was I thinking while I was doing it around my business or around my customers or around the industry, and marry those together.

Brandon Lee: It's like building a, you know, this target that people wanna come to. It's like the humanity part is pulled in from the heart. Like, oh, you're on a hiking trail. You're here, you're there. [00:23:00] Um, I found when I travel and take pictures in the airports, my impressions go, why? Way up people are cured. Where are you going?

Brandon Lee: I. What are you doing? Is it cool? Have I been there? Like their own? Humanity comes in and is curious and wants to know more, and then when we add the message around what you know, yeah, where we're we're going. But you know what? I was at the airport waiting for my flight. I was thinking about a conversation I had yesterday, and this is what we were talking.

Brandon Lee: The challenge is this, so we're marrying the two together. And we're bringing humanity and bringing experience and standing out very, very differently than just brand content. That's about value proposition, features, functions, services. Even case studies. I mean, case studies are a challenge now because we have so many opportunities to go find out about, um, services, [00:24:00] um, and, and products from other people, from review sites, from our network.

Brandon Lee: Hey, have you ever used them that we, we even bypass case studies. There are a lot more people or bypassing case studies because we know the brand is obviously gonna bring their best foot forward. And then there's even the, the question of, well, I bought things before that didn't work. Do I believe their case study?

Brandon Lee: Will their case study be relevant to me and my unique circumstances? You know, I, I go back a lot to the book, the Jolt Effect, and Matthew Dix. Uh, Matt Dixon was, um, on my other show and we were talking about the concept of fomo. So years ago, when before, if you know, Matt was also the co-author of the Challenger Challenger Sale, which I got back here as well.

Brandon Lee: But Challenger Sale was a, a lot of pushing the fomo. You know, Hey, this is new, this is different. What if your customers grab a hold of this? And it and it, there was a season where it worked, but a lot [00:25:00] of companies got burned. They were buying SaaS products, they're buying services, they're buying tools that weren't really working.

Brandon Lee: And now there's a shift in buyers. And if you haven't read this, I mean full of data, full of research. I'm not just making this up. The shift now is not fomo. But it's fomo. It's the fear of messing up. They're just more cautious. So when our messaging, our strategy is led with people, leaders sharing their journey, sharing their experiences, trust follows quicker.

Brandon Lee: Let me say again, the trust follows quicker. Because they're resonating with a human and they're sharing the ups, the downs, how they think, how they approach things. It's no longer just, Hey, look at this case study. We achieved this. But when you're getting on the inside of, of how you're doing things, customers you're working with, what were their challenges?

Brandon Lee: How did you think about [00:26:00] it? How did your, your you solve it? What's the journey that they went on? What's the journey that you led them on? Then they're starting to get a sense of the holistic company, the people behind it. Now, I'm, I'm gonna, you know, the big, the big call to action for me with today is leaders need to lead with their voice.

Brandon Lee: Leaders need to lead with their person. Leaders need to lead with sharing their journey. And I know it's hard, I. I know it's challenging. I, uh, I loved it when I had a call center and it was working. You know, I had a call center and we were, you know, producing thousands and thousands of dollars of new revenue every day.

Brandon Lee: I would go back to that in a heartbeat if I thought it would work, but the data suggests it's not working as well. It's an expensive proposition. Now, that said. [00:27:00] I wanna throw all of it out. Leader, here's my model. Here's, here's what I've, we've seen work time and time again. The top leader led content, getting your leaders seen, heard, and sharing their journeys.

Brandon Lee: The next tier down is how do we do that? And it really is anchored in that. What I call emotionally resonant content. It's content that resonates emotionally with your audience, where they go. I feel that I've experienced that. I've been, I've done that as well. Oh my gosh, this makes sense to me. I get it.

Brandon Lee: That emotional resonance, not only does it make us stand out, but it helps us be remembered and then when we use that content to fuel the outbound engine. So it's, it's fueling all the content that goes out. It's, it influences your blog and your SEO strategy. [00:28:00] It fuels your paid ads, it fuels your emails, whether it's sales emails or it's marketing emails and newsletters.

Brandon Lee: The voice that the company is bringing is more human and that human element, I don't know any other way of saying it's, it's, we're leading with humanity and because humans are designed to connect with other humans way quicker, way better than they are with a brand message or a value proposition, and we created the leader.

Brandon Lee: We strategize it to make sure that we're, we're tapping into that emotional residence, and then we put all that content into the outbound and inbound engines. That's where the flywheel starts to work. You know, I've, I've shared a, a lot of different stories of either, you know, my friends or our customers and their experiences with it.

Brandon Lee: Um, I'm gonna, I'll share, I'll share a story that I just had recently [00:29:00] and it was somebody I ran into in our office and, um. Kind of an acquaintance. Didn't know them all that well, but they stopped me and said, Hey, I've been paying attention to your content. I've got a question. And we started having this chat about what leader-led content could look like in their business.

Brandon Lee: The reason I share that story, it's not one of these big ones, right? It's not like, oh, and they signed a million dollar contract and POS fell outta the sky. I wanna be realistic. But what it did is it got this person to stop me in, in a hallway lobby entrance of our, of our coworking facility and said, I've been paying attention.

Brandon Lee: And they, they came to me, they wanted to have a conversation with me. Now, the question is this, if, if all of our content was product service, [00:30:00] promotion, value proposition. Would they have stopped me? I don't know, maybe. But what the data would tell you is that content would've been highly ignored. I would not have been top of mind.

Brandon Lee: They wouldn't have had that sense of, I know this person, I wanna learn more, I wanna talk, I wanna have a chat. And they may have walked by and said, hi. But they wouldn't have stopped me and said, Hey, I have a question. I've been reading your stuff. I've been watching your videos. They said, by the way, I love the Jeep Thoughts video.

Brandon Lee: That's really cool. That style of content. I'll just unpack this as I wrap up today. I. That style of video, Jeff referenced his dog, and I know I've seen lots of posts with his dog and referencing back to different parts of business and sometimes not. He just talks about his, you know, his relationship with his dog and why it's so important to him.

Brandon Lee: But people out [00:31:00] there resonate with that, who have dogs and have great relationships, and they stop and they pause and they comment and they chat and they have these human experiences and Oh yeah, I remember Jeff and I remember what Jeff does.

Brandon Lee: But I shared, I shared that story because the, the need is to take the risk.

Brandon Lee: The need is to take the risk in putting ourselves out there. Um, I know fear is a big thing. Um, I'm very grateful. It seems like we're moving out of this cancel culture. Um, I mean, I think we say really, really stupid things. You know, we've gotta, there's consequences, but I think we're moving out of that and, and there's more freedom there to come alongside and with your business and say, let me start sharing more of my journey.

Brandon Lee: Let me share more of what's going on, the insights and the way that I'm thinking. I. So [00:32:00] today, this week, you need me to, need me to be an encouragement, keep you accountable. Um, I hate the word accountable, but be an encouragement to you. Um, you know, pull out your phone, think about. A conversation you've had recently with a prospect or a client, maybe even another business owner, another sales rep in a different company, and you shared like what you're going through, you bonded over, yeah, this is hard.

Brandon Lee: Or Hey, I found this is working well, what do you think? Take one of those topics and just share it. And here's a very simple framework. Um, I was having a conversation with. You don't have to use their name, you can use their title. They're in this industry, the topic or the question was, blah, blah, blah. And here's a couple of points from the conversation that we had that I thought [00:33:00] that I took away that were most valuable to me, and I think they might be valuable to you.

Brandon Lee: Uh, if you don't like video, I know a lot of, a lot of people, it's hard. I don't like seeing myself on camera. I don't like my voice. I don't like my voice. I had someone this morning on a call tell me, I sent him a voice note and we were on a call this morning and he said, Hey, by the way, I wanted to let you know you have a cool voice.

Brandon Lee: That voice note you sent me. I, I really like, like I want you to read Dr. Seuss to me is what he said. That was really cool. Especially 'cause I, I don't like my own voice. A lot of us don't like our own voice. So if you don't wanna be on video, you don't like your voice, then maybe you write it. Um, but take that step and the encouragement is what you've lived, what you experienced, what you're observing, what you're feeling.

Brandon Lee: It's relevant. I don't care if you're two days into a job or 30 years into an industry. [00:34:00] Not only is it relevant, but that's the type of content that stops people and gets 'em to pay attention, gets more people to comment and builds network, and at the end of the day. Not only do people do business with those who they know, like, and trust, but all of our opportunities come through people.

Brandon Lee: And what I've seen over the years, and I have not been the best networker throughout a large portion of my career, but what I've seen is those who have the biggest networks, the biggest, um, good relationships with people. They always seem to land on their feet. They always seem to be more successful. They always seem to be doing really well, and it comes through the power of community.

Brandon Lee: And we have this opportunity through these platforms. You know, I'm, as soon as I'm done here, I'm gonna go get my car, I've got a lunch meeting, I'm gonna go pop in on [00:35:00] a, on a little gathering of people. I wouldn't even say a networking event, but at, at the end of today, outside of my show, I might be able to meet with probably.

Brandon Lee: Five or six people, which is great in the face-to-face. But through my social content, through the show, the videos, the other, the other pieces, we send it out with our blogs and our newsletters and everything else. Um, I get in front of thousands, tens of thousands of people every week. And this is what you can do too.

Brandon Lee: Um, so leaders. Whether you're a sales rep, a sales leader, you're at the C-suite, my encouragement to you is, um, go find that muscle. I know it's hard. I know it's different. We go and do workouts and, and we find that we had muscles that we didn't know existed because now they're sore, but. With all the, all the challenges we have to be heard, to be [00:36:00] seen, to earn, to, to generate leads and conversations.

Brandon Lee: The data shows. The data suggests, the data proves that our humanity and that humanity style of content is really the best thing that we can do, uh, to fill our pipelines and to create more conversations and to. Give us a much, much better chance of being more successful. Now, I love saying this, and Carson TI was co-host in one of my my other show, mastery Modern Selling.

Brandon Lee: He always says, if there's something that I can do that's gonna give me a little bit more of an opportunity to be more successful, I'm going to do it.

Brandon Lee: Leader led content, humanity content. Bringing our person into our messaging and our content. It's not a little step into being more [00:37:00] successful. It's a huge step because as much as we're all scared to do this type of content, so are our competition, so are other people. That's why I think, you know, AI's affected this, but for, for the longest time LinkedIn had, it was like 98% of people did not publish content on a regular basis.

Brandon Lee: What does that mean? Well, it means the 2% that are, well, they're building their brand, their personal brand. They're building their reputation. They're building network. They're building relationships. So do we wanna sit on the sidelines? I. Watch because we're nervous, or do we want to jump in and start trying to figure this out Now?

Brandon Lee: I, I think back when I first started doing cold calls, when I first got out of school and became a sales rep, it scared the crap out of me. But after a while, I got better. After a while it was more successful. After a while, the heart stopped pounding. Whenever I picked up the [00:38:00] phone in mid dial, you, you know that right When the phone's ringing, you're like, your heart's going crazy.

Brandon Lee: You're like, ah. But after we do it for a while, it becomes second nature. So the question is, if you're not satisfied with the outcomes you're getting from the outreach that you're doing, maybe there's a better way of doing outreach and I think would not think I, I know I've seen it. This style of content creation fuels outreach to be much more.

Brandon Lee: Effective and builds a lot more conversations. And through conversations we have our opportunities and through our opportunities we get more, more, uh, signed contracts and grow our companies. So, hey, um. Thanks everybody that, uh, joined me this morning, Jeff and Butch and other people that, uh, if you're watching the recording or you're listening on the podcast, I'd love to know what you think.

Brandon Lee: What are you finding that's [00:39:00] working right now in content? Um, what are you finding, even if it's not in content, what's helping you create more conversations and more opportunities in a way that would benefit other people? I. No, I, I heard this thing this week. I'm gonna end on this and it has really nothing to do with, um, exactly what we're talking about today, but I had, somebody was sharing with me, they read on a blog article that everything in nature serves something else.

Brandon Lee: And the example they gave is A fruit tree doesn't eat its own fruit. It produces fruit for another bean to eat, and the ocean produces evaporation that creates clouds that move over land, and then drops water on the land and that nourishes and, and helps feed the land. And what it, what it [00:40:00] reminded me of is that the more we serve, um, the more we're aligned with the way the world is supposed to work.

Brandon Lee: So if you are finding. Something that's working well for you, share it in the comments, help everyone else out. Let's go and learn and, and do these things together. So, hey, if um, you know, this show is sponsored by Fist Bump. Um, which is a company that I, I started a little bit ago, primarily because I saw this big need to help leaders be more confident and create content to help lead their companies and help their, their teams create more opportunities.

Brandon Lee: Uh, so if you need some help in that area, um, everything from having a very strategic show, uh, to doing, uh, different types of content. The, the main thing is I wanna make sure that, that, we always remember this. It's not about creating content. LinkedIn is not a magic bullet, [00:41:00] but the style of content feeds the outbound engines.

Brandon Lee: Whether it's through social, it's through email, it's through SEO, even through calls, it's the type of content that captures attention and builds that emotional connection that then starts to create more. Yes, let's have a chat. Yes, I wanna learn more. I've been watching you guys. I've been paying attention.

Brandon Lee: Um, I want to carve out time to spend with you and learn more. And ultimately that's the goal, right? We all wanna be successful at what we do. So, uh, hey everybody. Thanks so much, Tom. I, I just saw your, your, um, your comment come up. Thanks for joining. Um, I'm glad the message hits home for everyone else out there.

Brandon Lee: Um, love to hear your thoughts, what's working, what's not working, and, uh, let's bring us into the community and, uh, all help each other do better. So thanks for joining us. Uh, the show's called Revenue Through Reputation because we only create revenue based on [00:42:00] how, how strong our network is, how many people know us, how many people we know, and that's what we're here to talk about.

Brandon Lee: How do we do that better to fill our pipeline? So thank you everybody. Appreciate you. Have a great rest of your day, and we'll see you next week.

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