RTR S2EP1 - Season 2 Kickoff: What You Need to Scale Your Voice

Welcome to Season 2 of Revenue Through Reputation! As we move forward, we're diving deeper into how leadership visibility is evolving in today's fast-paced digital world. In this first episode of the season, I reflect on what we learned in Season 1 and share new strategies to help you turn your leadership voice into a revenue engine.

- Season 1 Recap: What We Learned

In Season 1, the focus was on emotional resonance and human connection. We learned that in today’s world, content is no longer just about volume—it's about credibility, consistency, and authenticity. Leaders who show up online and share their human side are the ones who build the strongest connections and get the most engagement.

- Why Content Alone Isn’t Enough Anymore

Let’s face it: cold outreach, static funnels, and old-school sales tactics are no longer effective. In a world full of automated content and AI-generated outreach, people crave genuine, human connection. Content alone isn’t creating conversations anymore—leadership visibility is the missing link.

- Introducing the AAAA Framework

1. Align: Start by aligning with your audience’s challenges and needs.
   • Example: "Are you struggling with X, just like most of the leaders we talk to?"
   • This builds immediate connection and trust.
2. Agitate: Once you’ve aligned, it’s time to agitate. Pose a question or highlight a pain point that your audience is experiencing.
   • Example: "Why isn’t your content creating the conversations you want?"
   • This gets people thinking and encourages them to engage.
3. Assert: Now, it's time to assert your solution or perspective. Offer your insights, backed by your experience or expertise.
   • Example: "Here’s what we’ve found that actually works..."
   • Be clear and confident in presenting your answer.
4. Invite: Finally, invite them to take the next step.
   • Example: "Want to learn more? Click here to download our guide."
   • Keep the invitation authentic, avoiding any overly salesy language.

- The Power of Leadership Visibility

Your leadership voice has immense power, and in Season 2, we’re focusing on how to scale that voice to turn it into a revenue engine. Leaders who share their personal stories, their humanity, and their expertise build trust—trust leads to revenue.

- Why Should Leaders Take Action?

Why should CEOs and leaders invest in creating content? It’s simple: Your reputation drives your pipeline. The more visible you are, the more opportunities will come your way. As I always say, "Our network equals our net worth."

- What’s Next?

Season 2 of Revenue Through Reputation is all about scaling your leadership visibility and turning it into a business asset. We’ll go deeper into strategies that help you leverage your reputation to create meaningful, revenue-generating opportunities. But the most important takeaway is this:

Ready to turn your leadership visibility into revenue?

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.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: Kicking Off Season 2
• 2:43 Season 1 Recap: Emotional Resonance and Visibility Strategies
• 5:43 Why Content Alone Isn’t Enough Anymore
• 8:43 Building Trust-First Systems for Business Growth
• 11:13 The AAAA Framework: Align, Agitate, Assert, and Invite
• 15:43 Why Leadership Voice is the Most Powerful Tool
• 18:43 Practical Steps to Start Using Your Leadership Voice
• 21:43 The Importance of Consistency in Executive Content
• 24:43 Moving Beyond Funnels: The Power of Genuine Engagement
• 27:43 Wrap-Up and Call to Action: Taking the Next Step with Your Voice

Transcript

0:00:00
 (Brandon Lee)
 Hey everybody, it's season two of Revenue Through Reputation. Welcome to season two. I am trying to get Instagram to go live over here as well, and it doesn't seem to want to go live over here. So we're just not going to worry about it, I guess. See you later, Instagram. Hey everybody, I am really excited. And for all of you that have been on, um, revenue through reputation before some of you came because you knew me from

0:00:31
 (Brandon Lee)
 mastery, modern selling, which is still going, we're actually moving in, I think to season four is what we're calling it. We're over just over three years and about 150 episodes into the other one. I wanted to do Revenue Through Reputation to get a little bit away from the hard focused of selling and really talk about what does it mean for us

0:00:53
 (Brandon Lee)
 to use these digital channels and content for building reputation, building awareness in order to do outreach better. And so that's what this show is about. And season one, we did it as a 10 episode kind of sprint to kind of learn, not kind of, but to learn what are people talking about?

0:01:17
 (Brandon Lee)
 What do you want to know? What's resonating with people? So let me give you a little bit of, uh, an introduction to what season, what we learned in season one. And then at the end, I'm going to tell you a little bit about where we're going with season two. We actually have some great guests lined up. Um,

0:01:34
 (Brandon Lee)
 we've got some new styles coming to the show, which is going to be really exciting. Um, I'm excited about it. Doing some curated, uh, content shows like the news. Let's go find out what everyone else is talking about. What are the experts talking about? And bring their advice and their wisdom and their experience into our conversation as well.

0:01:55
 (Brandon Lee)
 But let's get into, I wanna start by talking about the framework that we talked about with creating content that resonates. We've talked about emotional resonance. Emotional resonance is a word, a term that I kind of backed into over the years. I've been doing content marketing for a really long time.

0:02:21
 (Brandon Lee)
 I used to tell everybody it was 1998, but I realized how old that makes me sound. So I won't say 1998 anymore. I'm just kidding. I've been using content to help leaders, especially CEOs, use content to build their reputation. Why is that so important? Well, when we go to events and people go, Hey, I know you because of content,

0:02:47
 (Brandon Lee)
 or you pick up the phone and you call somebody and they answer it because they say, Hey, I feel like I already know you. I get your content. There's a difference between content and there's a big value difference, especially now as AI has become so prominent and so much content sounds like it's AI, so much content is promotional. So we'll talk a lot about creating content that builds emotional connection or emotional resonance

0:03:17
 (Brandon Lee)
 versus content that promotes, especially because content that builds connection gets engaged more, it has higher visibility. It gets, yeah, it just gets a lot more content, commenting and engagement. And why is that important?

0:03:36
 (Brandon Lee)
 They remember us. They'll remember you more. I know Jeff Leisure, who's joined us on the show a few times in the comments Has shared over and over again that his personal post content And I'm going to rephrase that because I actually don't like using the word personal because it could lead to different images Humanity post when we're sharing more about our humanity, that type of content gets more engagement

0:04:07
 (Brandon Lee)
 because people can relate to it and they don't feel like they're getting pitched. So when we're focused on using these digital channels, not to first talk about our company and what we do, but first to build a reputation, to build personal awareness, to become more well-known in our industry, that humanity type of content is what connects to people's heart.

0:04:35
 (Brandon Lee)
 And I know in a lot of times when I start talking about the heart in business, people get all, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute, this is business. Yeah, I get it, but there are human beings on the other side. And the way human beings operate is, if it hits the heart first, it's gonna go to the brain. But if it hits the brain first, it's probably gonna go out, right out the door and be forgotten.

0:05:01
 (Brandon Lee)
 Here's what I mean. Pitch, promotional, here's what we do, here's what I mean. Pitch promotional. Here's what we do. Here's what we are type of content. Unless somebody is in buying stage, they're thinking about buying stage. They're curious. That type of content generally gets passed. I mean,

0:05:20
 (Brandon Lee)
 think about how you scroll and you notice like we've got these human filters, right? We're going we're going like up pitch pitch pitch We just scroll past pitches because none of us want to be pitched. We don't want to be sold and so What type of content can we do that's going to stop the scroll to capture attention to get people to? Pay attention to it and actually engage. Well, it's our humanity,

0:05:50
 (Brandon Lee)
 especially because our humanity is our best uniquifier that we have about ourselves. And yes, I know that's a made up word, but isn't it such a good word, uniquifier? It's your uniquifier. And if you want to get really creative,

0:06:04
 (Brandon Lee)
 spell it with Y-O-U, unique-ifier. And then you're really getting to it, right? It's that uniqueness about you. So this is really what we've talked about in season one. And we shared about our framework to create content that resonates.

0:06:24
 (Brandon Lee)
 Now, we've got two types of content that we've been talking a lot about. There's the humanity content, which I just shared about highly engaged. Many more people will engage with it. They'll remember it. They'll remember you. Remembering us is so important because our network equals our net worth, right?

0:06:47
 (Brandon Lee)
 The more people we know and who know us, then it gives us so many more opportunities to ask people for introductions or say when the emails go out or the calls go out and people go, oh yeah, I know who you are. I've seen your post on LinkedIn or i've seen your content. Everything really comes down to how do we get more conversations and in any business in any sales or c suite isn't it all about getting those conversations show. We have our humanity content, but then we also can do the same thing. We can build that resonance with content that's more focused on the business. I don't want to leave that out. I love the humanity content.

0:07:33
 (Brandon Lee)
 I think for me, it does more than any other content. If you go look at like my post today, I talked about my running regimen and why I use it for consistency to help me be more clear of thinking and to build up my energy and all that. That's getting a lot of engagement, a lot of traction. People are sharing their own morning routines

0:07:57
 (Brandon Lee)
 of what they do and their own strategies. Some people are talking about, oh, I love to run too. We're getting all this engagement in these conversations, but in the process, I'm also looking at people that are coming and go, oh, that's an ideal customer of ours. I need to reach out to them and keep the conversation going and have a chat and build that relationship. They may not be ready to buy right now, and that's okay, but I'm using my time to build

0:08:24
 (Brandon Lee)
 deeper relationships and deeper conversations with people. So let me give you the framework that we're going to talk about with more of your business-oriented content, but doing it from a way that builds that emotional connection. And that framework has been align, agitate, assert, and invite. And the rest of today,

0:08:47
 (Brandon Lee)
 I'm gonna talk a little bit about each one of these, but it's a four-part framework for content. Align, we need to align with them. Hey, I know you, I've been through this, I know what you're going through, I've talked to a lot of people like you

0:09:01
 (Brandon Lee)
 who are going through it, here's what we're learning. You'll recognize this type of content in some people that will share this type of, this style of content. Hi Tish, sorry, I got distracted. I saw Tish.

0:09:18
 (Brandon Lee)
 I haven't seen Tish in a long time. Tish, I miss seeing you and Wendy, but yeah, Uniqueiquifier, exactly. That's our uniqueness. And so you keep sharing those posts on Instagram on your travels because that's uniquely you.

0:09:35
 (Brandon Lee)
 Good to see you, Tish. Align, you'll notice this strategy of content will be something like, are you like most add to title who are struggling with A, B and C? That type of content helps people align.

0:09:54
 (Brandon Lee)
 When they read it and they see the title or they see the struggle points, they go, oh yeah, that's me. And they get more pulled into it because they resonate with it, right? It sounds like me,

0:10:06
 (Brandon Lee)
 or it sounds like something that I'm going through. So that's align. And then agitate is where we need to agitate them a little bit. Hey, this is a problem, and if it's not solved, these are some of the things that could happen.

0:10:20
 (Brandon Lee)
 We'll talk a little bit more about agitate. And then we assert. The assert is great because this is where we can give just a little pop into what's the solution. We know the answer. We've experienced this. We've helped thousands of people. That's where your assert part comes in into your content. And then the invite,

0:10:42
 (Brandon Lee)
 Hey, what should you do with this? You know, go get this, you know, join our free community or download this or go take a look at that, or here's a link. Invite them to spend a bit more time with your content. Now, I'm hesitant to use the terms funnel with any of this.

0:11:04
 (Brandon Lee)
 Like we want to invite them and push them into a funnel. And the reason I'm hesitant is, I mean, think about you. I mean, if you guys, whoever's out there, can't you smell a funnel from a mile away? And none of us want to be in a funnel anymore. We don't want to go get something

0:11:23
 (Brandon Lee)
 and get a bunch of phone calls, a bunch of emails. We're just curious. We're just trying to learn more. I think we need to be careful with going too quickly with people that are engaging with our content because it's a big turnoff if we go too quickly. Now, here's my example. I love Salesforce content. I read it a lot. I'll go to their website and I'll see someone go, okay, here we go. I'm going to download an ebook and they do great content. They have great research.

0:11:54
 (Brandon Lee)
 They have huge budgets to go do great research. But I also know every time I download something from Salesforce, I could pick up my phone and within 60 seconds I get a phone call. Even when I don't give them my phone number because they already have me in their database, within 60 seconds of downloading anything from Salesforce, I get a phone call. Now, I'm not going to be a Salesforce client.

0:12:20
 (Brandon Lee)
 I don't use Salesforce. I don't have an interest in using Salesforce. It's not the right tool for me, but just because I download a piece of their content, they're calling me and trying to sell me on it. Now I get why Salesforce does it. But I don't like using it. I mean, on this side of it as a potential buyer or a prospective customer in their mind. I don't like that process. I don't want to be bothered. Most of us, we don't want to talk to people until we want to talk to people, right? So we've got to be a little bit careful with that. But let's go back to what we learned in season one about emotional resonance content and how we create it.

0:13:01
 (Brandon Lee)
 So a line is where we want to build connection with people. And then we move into the agitate stage. So agitate is posing good questions or stating facts about what they're probably experiencing. Right? Hey, we talk to B2B leaders all the time

0:13:33
 (Brandon Lee)
 and here's what they're saying. And this is very true. Here's what they're saying. Our outreach methods are not fruitful right now. They're not producing the numbers that we need, and we don't know what else to do.

0:13:48
 (Brandon Lee)
 So an agitate could be posting a question. Hey, why isn't your content alone creating the conversations you want? Why isn't cold outreach or cold outreach is stalling or it's static or the funnels aren't producing? You know, I spoke with the marketing person yesterday and she was telling me, she's like, you know, all the activities that we've used for a super long time, they're just not producing and

0:14:15
 (Brandon Lee)
 we're picking our head up going, what else can we do? What's different? So if you're like that, right, this is the agitate safe. If you're like a lot of other marketing or leaders or CEOs or sales leaders who are saying, hey, our funnel is anemic. We don't have enough top of funnel to build the opportunities that we want. That is the agitate safe.

0:14:42
 (Brandon Lee)
 But it's.

0:14:44
 (Brandon Lee)
 Here's here's the thing with agitate says, but it's, here's the thing with agitate. Agitate and creating that agitation with your audience is really easy if we listen.

0:15:02
 (Brandon Lee)
 Listen on your calls, listen in your conversations, listen to your prospects' posts or things that they're sharing. When we listen, they're going to tell us what the challenges are. They're going to tell us what they need and what they're struggling with. So that agitation for you should be pretty easy if you just talk to your sales team, right? If we just talk to them, then they are going to be able to tell us what it is and we move that right into our content. And I want to go back for a second. I realize I've kind of skipped over one thing that's

0:15:38
 (Brandon Lee)
 really important is leaders. We can't hide behind our titles. We have to get out in front. As more and more AI content comes into all of our worlds, whether it's in our newsfeed or it's an email, I don't know about any of you, my email has just gone crazy over the last,

0:16:01
 (Brandon Lee)
 probably three to six months with all the AI tools and AI creating more personalization. There's a lot of companies out there selling AI automation, AI email and AI content creation. And what's happening is we're all very, very quickly getting used to it, identifying it and ignoring it. So when we get into this concept of align and agitate

0:16:29
 (Brandon Lee)
 and assert and invite, the best thing that we can do for any of our companies is leader-led content and sharing your journey, your thoughts, your experience in it. Because then when your leader is saying things like, hey, we've talked to, or when we chat with,

0:16:50
 (Brandon Lee)
 and what they're telling us is this, whether we like it or not, it just has a lot more power, a lot more authority when it's coming from a leader's voice instead of the brand voice. Especially because, again, think about your own engagement with content.

0:17:08
 (Brandon Lee)
 Would you rather engage with a person or would you rather engage with a brand? And I'm not saying brand content shouldn't be done. What I'm saying is when content is created from the voice of a human, a person, especially the higher up they are in the business and leaders, more people stop and pay attention because of their

0:17:32
 (Brandon Lee)
 title, because of their role in the company. So going through whether it's humanity content or whether it's the professional content following the framework, the more we can put it into people's voices and their personal LinkedIn or in emails coming from individuals instead of the brand. Again, that human connection

0:17:56
 (Brandon Lee)
 is going to increase responses. Okay, so we talked about, we want to align, we wanna share content at the beginning that aligns with them. And then we talk about the agitate and how we get them to pay attention

0:18:12
 (Brandon Lee)
 to what we're talking about. And then we go into assert. We want to move into some sort of an assertion. What we're doing with moving into season two is sharing more about how we do this with the assertion stage.

0:18:32
 (Brandon Lee)
 Give me one second.

0:18:41
 (Speaker 4)
 Okay.

0:18:42
 (Brandon Lee)
 I think I'm here. Sorry, I was getting all these things popping up that I wanted to get rid of. I thought I turned off my notifications. Okay, as we're moving into season two, I want to share a lot on the assertion stage.

0:18:59
 (Brandon Lee)
 I think it's a challenge for a lot of people to assert their solution or their challenge, or their, their opportunity with people in a way that doesn't sound salesy. So we have to be really aware of that, of that stage and how we do it. What I'm doing in in season two is we are going to have some new themes, we're doing in in season

0:19:27
 (Brandon Lee)
 two is- we are gonna have some new themes we're gonna have some new- strategies for our show with- curated content and things like that so we're gonna be able to bring in information

0:19:41
 (Brandon Lee)
 from lots of other people not just me talking but- looking at what other people are doing what's the right way I've got a guest coming on that we're talking about the right kind of video and how we're going to create video, and using video and using leader led video in order to get this information out. The more leaders are sharing the hey,

0:20:01
 (Brandon Lee)
 this is what we found, this is what we've seen works, this is what people are having success with. Again, it just gets much more of a, um, engagement and belief because it hits that, that human heart. So, um, the last stage is invite, uh, invite is asking them, uh, or telling them or inviting them into take a next step. For us, what should CEOs do with all of this?

0:20:33
 (Brandon Lee)
 What should leaders be doing with this? Well, we have to remember that our reputation builds our pipeline. We want to invite them into this kind of, this digital based relationship with us as we're creating content, as we're sharing insights, we're talking to customers, we're talking to prospects,

0:20:55
 (Brandon Lee)
 we're coming more and more knowledgeable in the industry and becoming that voice in the industry. It builds that credibility. So when we do invite them to take the next step, they're much, much more likely to do that, especially when it comes from a leader.

0:21:14
 (Brandon Lee)
 So that's the four steps that we've talked about throughout the first season. What I wanna end with today is just this, kickoff coming into season two. I want to encourage leaders. And I know it's hard.

0:21:36
 (Brandon Lee)
 I know creating content is scary. We don't really want to put ourselves out there. I remember in my second company company and my team was saying, Hey, Brandon, we need to get you out. I'm speaking and events, and this is pre social media. They wanted to get me out speaking in events and what I did with a lot of

0:21:58
 (Brandon Lee)
 leaders to, Oh yeah, absolutely. Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it because it was the right thing to do. But then when they started bringing opportunities to me, I kept finding reasons why I couldn't do it. Like, oh, I'm gonna be going to a different event

0:22:13
 (Brandon Lee)
 that week, or oh, I don't know if I can make that one, or is that really the right event that we should be doing? And they were all just excuses. They were excuses because I was scared. I mean, you've heard the expression, right? Or what is it?

0:22:30
 (Brandon Lee)
 The data, I guess is what it is, that more people are, they're more scared to speak in public than they are of dying, which means at a funeral, they'd rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.

0:22:44
 (Brandon Lee)
 I know that's a little

0:22:54
 (Brandon Lee)
 tongue-in-cheek humor, but putting ourselves out there is a real, it's scary. And I think we're,

0:23:02
 (Brandon Lee)
 I hope we're coming out of this cancel culture that was so prominent for a while. It made a lot of leaders really, really nervous about putting themselves out there and creating leader-led content. But we're in a season where the unique-ifier that your company has is your voice, your experience, your history, what you're thinking, what you're observing in the industry and sharing from that

0:23:30
 (Brandon Lee)
 experience. Our reputation is our pipeline, our reputation, I like, I like sharing this. And if you've been here, I've probably said this, you know, a million times you've heard me. But, you know, when I look at a lot of companies, especially if I go back to when Apple and Microsoft were really just starting to grow, depending on how old you are, but if I say the company Apple, who do you think about?

0:24:00
 (Brandon Lee)
 You probably thought of Steve Jobs. And if I said Microsoft, again, depending on your age, a lot of people think Bill Gates. Maybe you think of Satya or other leaders. But we think of people.

0:24:15
 (Brandon Lee)
 Why?

0:24:16
 (Brandon Lee)
 Because they had a large PR campaign where they were on planes, they were going to events, they were being interviewed, they're going to events, they're being interviewed in magazines and newspapers, and they, they built their company brands by building their personal brand, their personal reputation.

0:24:36
 (Brandon Lee)
 They had multimillion dollar budgets every month to go and do these things and get out in front of the world. And for all of us of companies of any size, because everybody carries these, because we have tools like LinkedIn or YouTube or Instagram or other tools,

0:24:56
 (Brandon Lee)
 we have the ability to put very, very strategic and consistent PR campaigns in place featuring you as the leader. So, our reputation is one of the best tools that we could use to help grow our business, to help our sales people create more leads,

0:25:20
 (Brandon Lee)
 to create more conversations. I love my friend, Alice Hyman, as she's been a guest on Mastering Modern Selling multiple times, and she says, if you as a CEO, you are not active on LinkedIn especially, then you're actually a sales preventer.

0:25:37
 (Brandon Lee)
 You are preventing sales from happening in your company. If you do not have a consistent and strategic plan to show up, to share, to be visible, and to be a part of your industry's community. So I want to invite you all to come back every week with Revenue Through Reputation. We're going to, as I said, we've got some new formats. One thing we decided, like we want to be part of the news.

0:26:09
 (Brandon Lee)
 We want this place to, we want this show to be a place where you can show up for 30 to 45 minutes a week and learn about all the industry. What are other people talking about? And we're gonna bring in some guests that are gonna help you as leaders find

0:26:27
 (Brandon Lee)
 the best way for you, the easiest way for you to create content. Video may not be your strong suit. Not a problem. What about writing? What about a podcast? What about being interviewed? There's lots of ways that leaders can create content. And I want to bring a variety of ways into the community and say, here's all the different options, but all of it is really going to come down to this leaders. We can't hide. We can't hide in our offices.

0:26:59
 (Brandon Lee)
 We can't hide behind our titles. We have to lead by being the voice of our company, by putting ourselves out front and leading with content. So here's the last question. What part of your leadership voice has been quiet? And how could showing up differently benefit your company?

0:27:25
 (Brandon Lee)
 Now I know a lot of leaders are quick answer is, Oh we're doing just fine, marketing's got it all covered, marketing takes care of content, marketing has it. I'd encourage all of you to go talk to your marketing team, because I would wager pretty high that your marketing team would be thrilled to get your type of your content, to get your voice, to get your person out in front, because they know that the personal content from the leader, talking about the business, talking about the industry, talking about your experiences, talking about your history is the best type of content that we could put into any of our outbound engines.

0:28:14
 (Brandon Lee)
 So come on back, we'll be here next week, Tuesdays at 11 a.m. Eastern every week. We are going to be talking about how do you help your company grow your revenue by building your leadership reputation. If you have any other topics or things that you're thinking about, you're considering, you're wondering if it'll work,

0:28:40
 (Brandon Lee)
 bring it to me, send it to me and I will do my best to make sure that we can get those topics brought to it. And just like my other show with Mastering Modern Selling, I'm also out talking with lots of experts in various industries or different topics. I chatted with somebody yesterday about coming on and talking about a leader-led video. So I got him coming on here later next month. But any other topics that you want to talk about, shoot me a direct message or put it down in the comments

0:29:12
 (Brandon Lee)
 and I will do my best to get those topics covered for you. So everybody, thank you so much for joining us today with this episode as we kick off into season two next week with Revenue Through Reputation. Appreciate y'all and hope to see you again soon. Appreciate y'all and hope to see you again soon.

0:29:32
 (Brandon Lee)
 Bye everybody.