RTR S2EP2 - Why Trust Doesn’t Come from Volume: Clarity Creates Connection

In Season 2, Episode 2 of Revenue Through Reputation, Brandon Lee explores why volume doesn’t create trust and how clarity in content is the key to building authentic connections. With the rise of AI-generated content and the overwhelming volume of information we are bombarded with daily, standing out is about more than just posting more. It’s about sharing content that resonates emotionally and engages your audience on a deeper level.

• Are You Mistaking Visibility for Trust?
  It’s easy to think that getting your message in front of more people will lead to more trust. But volume is just noise. The key to creating trust is clarity and authenticity in your messaging.

• The Clarity Gap:
  If your content isn’t landing, it might be because you're focusing on quantity rather than value. Clarity builds trust; confusion pushes people away. Leaders must focus on sharing their authentic experiences, not just promoting what they do.

• Volume Isn’t the Villain, Confusion Is:
  Overloading your audience with content doesn’t work if it’s not clear and emotionally resonant. The goal isn’t to flood the market with noise but to create real connections by being human.

• Building with Clarity:
  In this episode, Brandon shares how to shift from noise to signal in your content. By leading with your personal experiences and observations, you create the type of content that builds trust and drives conversations.

In today’s world, content quantity doesn’t equal quality—and visibility doesn’t automatically build trust. The key is to focus on clarity and share content that resonates emotionally with your audience. Trust isn’t built by sending out more emails or creating more posts. It’s built through authentic leadership and personal storytelling.

In Season 2, Episode 2, Brandon Lee discusses how to shift from noise to signal, using personal experiences and authentic content to drive real connections. When you lead with your humanity and share your true beliefs, you’ll create trust and build demand in a way that traditional sales strategies can’t.

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: Why Trust Doesn’t Come from Volume
• 2:58 Are You Mistaking Visibility for Trust?
• 5:43 The Clarity Gap: What’s Really Holding You Back?
• 8:43 Volume vs. Clarity: How to Cut Through the Noise
• 11:43 Leaders Leading with Authenticity
• 14:43 Building Content that Resonates and Builds Trust
• 17:43 From Noise to Signal: Creating Content with Impact
• 20:43 How Personal Experience Creates Engagement
• 23:43 Practical Steps for Creating Clarity in Content
• 25:43 Why Confusion is the Real Villain in Sales
• 28:43 Building Trust through Human Connection
• 31:43 Conclusion: Shifting from Promotion to Connection

Transcript

0:00:00
 (Brandon Lee)
 Hey, good morning, everybody, or whatever time of day it is, wherever you are. It's 11am on the East Coast or where I'm sitting my butt here in Atlanta. So whether you're in the morning or the afternoon, welcome. Thanks for coming. I appreciate you. Hey, this is the revenue through reputation showutation show. We've got kind of three different audiences here, which is kind of cool. If you're watching this live on video, which I don't even know

0:00:34
 (Brandon Lee)
 which channels we connected to today, because honestly, I was running late after a really good meeting. But if you're watching this live, usually LinkedIn, YouTube, somewhere, you can comment and it'll pop up and you can ask questions. You can tell me I'm wrong. You can tell me you think I'm right. You can say something funny. I mean, come on, you know, it's me. Dad of five. I love dad jokes make me

0:00:58
 (Brandon Lee)
 laugh. But if you're live, you can you can add a comment and we'll see it and I can address it and have a chat with you. If you're watching it on video, of course, you can still comment and I will get a notification and I will come back and answer questions or comment on your comments

0:01:15
 (Brandon Lee)
 or have a chat with you in the comments. And then lastly, if you're on the podcast, don't wanna discount you. Thank you so much for watching Revenue Through Reputation show. On the podcast, hey, if you like what you're hearing, would you mind like give me a give me a review and or

0:01:33
 (Brandon Lee)
 you know, snap a picture of it on your phone, send it to somebody and go, hey, this kind of makes sense. This guy's not completely full of crap or whatever you want to say. But yeah, that would be great. Look, I am I'm so excited. You're all here. I love doing the shows. In fact, I've had some really interesting feedback over the last week of people saying, Hey, I came across your show and I'll share with everybody what I love about this and my 30 years of

0:01:59
 (Brandon Lee)
 entrepreneurship and, and then doing some consulting and fractional work in between companies that I've owned and some that I've owned and sold, woohoo! And some I've owned, started, and failed, woohoo! I've been able to work alongside some really great companies in fractional consulting roles.

0:02:19
 (Brandon Lee)
 What I like to do with the show is just share the things that I'm hearing, what I'm seeing, what I'm experiencing, what other people are telling me their experience, experiencing. And today's topic is really, really important. The title is why trust doesn't come from volume. And you know, the subtitle was

0:02:36
 (Brandon Lee)
 clarity builds connection, volume just adds to the noise. But I want to I want to get everybody if focus on why trust doesn't come from volume. And we're going to talk about that. We're going to go through four segments today. And we'll be very clear with where we're going.

0:02:54
 (Brandon Lee)
 The first one is called, are you mistaking visibility for trust? To be thinking about that. But before we go there, I want to let everybody know if you are a CEO in professional services space, tomorrow, Alice Hyman and I, my friend Alice, who's been a guest on my other show multiple times, we are leading a roundtable discussion for CEOs on lead gen, what's working, what's not working.

0:03:24
 (Brandon Lee)
 And here's what's really important. Roundtable discussion, this is not a sales pitch. It is not a webinar. We're not trying to teach you anything. Nobody's gonna try and sell you anything. It won't be recorded.

0:03:39
 (Brandon Lee)
 So if you want the value from it, you have to show up. And here's where I think the value is. Right now, I think we have about 28 or 29 CEOs. The last one we had about 56 people registered. This one we didn't promote for as much but as long a period of time. But these are CEOs in professional services talking

0:03:59
 (Brandon Lee)
 and sharing with each other what's working, what's not working, what their big questions and concerns are moving into the rest of the year. So if you're a CEO or C-suite and you want to be a part of it, I'll drop the link down in the comments. If you don't see it, you could message me on LinkedIn or comment any way you're seeing

0:04:20
 (Brandon Lee)
 this and say, Hey, I can't find the link. And I will bring you the link, but that is tomorrow at two o'clock Eastern, if you're interested in that. So let's get on, let's get into this, cause this topic is really, really important for everybody. I think, especially now, I don't wanna beat this part into the ground,

0:04:44
 (Brandon Lee)
 but AI has completely changed everything as we know around content, generative content, the amount of content that is out there now, the amount of phone calls we're getting has increased because of AI, you know, automation calling, and the amount of emails that we all receive has increased because generative AI makes it even faster and easier for companies to create email, yada, yada, yada, you all know the story,

0:05:17
 (Brandon Lee)
 you're experiencing it as well. I mean, this topic came out because of conversations I've had with people that just said, oh my gosh, the volume of messages, the volume of information, I didn't think it could be even more, and it is more. So, as a business owner, as a business leader,

0:05:39
 (Brandon Lee)
 the big question is, are you mistaking visibility for trust? So, look, I get it. It's really easy for all of us to say we just got to get our message out there in front of a lot more people. If they just knew we existed, they would want to talk to us. And the flaw in that, in my opinion, in what I've seen lately is that

0:06:13
 (Brandon Lee)
 the flaw is really just in timing. That thought, that strategy of just get and tell enough people about it, and they will want to talk to us. It used to work. And it used to work really well. Which is why cold calling, you know, call centers worked really well. It's why email automation worked really well

0:06:42
 (Brandon Lee)
 for a while. It's it's why that mass direct mail worked really well for a while. It's why the mass direct mail worked really well for a long period of time. The strategy, the rationale behind the strategy is very logical. If we just tell enough people, enough of them will go, wow, this is interesting and wanna have a talk. And we would have more conversations and therefore have more opportunities and therefore close more deals. And we won't have a problem with revenue

0:07:16
 (Brandon Lee)
 or cashflow anymore. The logic is sound until we realize how much all of our customers are being bombarded with information and the reaction that it has had. So I wanna ask you all to take your hat off

0:07:38
 (Brandon Lee)
 as being a content creator or a sales person or a CEO of a company from a sales perspective, and think about it as a recipient. What captures your attention? Is it people who post more, or is it people who post things that help you, that make you want to engage with them,

0:08:02
 (Brandon Lee)
 that make you be curious, that stop you in the feed and make you go, Oh, that's interesting. I'm kind of curious about that. Like when you're on the receiving end, what starts to build, and you may not even think about this, but what starts to build some sort of a trust with people's content, with people through their content? It's a really important question as we think about ourselves as content creators

0:08:35
 (Brandon Lee)
 and trying to get our message and our company out there is our tendency is to think let's post more, but I want to encourage you to think about what you're posting more instead of posting more. Did you get that?

0:08:52
 (Brandon Lee)
 That was kind of cool, right? I want you to think about what you're posting more, like more thinking about what you're posting instead of just posting more. Because if our content isn't stopping people, we're not getting them to engage,

0:09:06
 (Brandon Lee)
 it's not creating engagement, then we're just not building trust. We're just more noise. I believe marketers were in a really hard spot. Go back 10, 15 years when it came to website traffic to email open rates, like we got so caught up in data, that a lot of

0:09:32
 (Brandon Lee)
 times we didn't ask ourselves if we're really even looking at the right data. So, you know, we get vanity metrics that are Oh, I got 15 people that liked my post. But if you look at the 15 people and 13 of them are on your team and two of them are, you know,

0:09:53
 (Brandon Lee)
 one's your neighbor and one's your mom, are you really building trust with your buyers? Or are you just getting applauded by people who like you already and just want to encourage you. We need to not look at the amount of content we're creating,

0:10:13
 (Brandon Lee)
 but the value, the engagement value of the content that we're creating. What I've found recently, and those of you that may engage with me or connected with me on especially LinkedIn, you may have noticed a shift in my own content. I'm sharing a lot more from my personal journey.

0:10:31
 (Brandon Lee)
 I'm sharing more about as a CEO or as a founder, as a leader of a company, when I've been in alignment with my authentic self and when I haven't been in alignment and what the differences are and how they played out in success or revenue, I'm talking about how as I've gotten older, I've shifted the definition of success. And ironically, for those of you,

0:10:54
 (Brandon Lee)
 it's as I've shifted the definition of success in my life, it's actually more financial success has come from it, which tends to be the way in our culture we define success. And I just stopped defining success that way. And realizing that through focusing and being grateful for the other areas has actually helped the the revenue area grow more really weird phenomenon, right? You know, the irony of it, when you spend less time focused on it, it actually grows. Things that we know, but my point is that I haven't been worried about posting every single

0:11:32
 (Brandon Lee)
 day. I post on a regular basis. I have been less rigid about do I do it on the same days at the same time every time. I've just been sharing more about what's going on in the journey, what I'm thinking through, what's going on, what I'm experiencing. And my engagement volume has dropped, but my engagement quality has increased. I've increased more direct messages from people that have sent me messages saying, you know, their opinion or like, hey, thanking me for what I posted or asking me questions. And through that, the depth of those conversations

0:12:09
 (Brandon Lee)
 or the depth of those connections has actually created more customer opportunities and more referrals. Here's what's happening. The trust, the connection, the resonance, the emotional connection is with for

0:12:25
 (Brandon Lee)
 me with some of these other other people is actually creating them to introduce me to more people. Or them going, Hey, I'm not really sure exactly what you guys do. But I want to learn more. I mean, I had a conversation with someone yesterday that there's absolutely no pitching whatsoever. In the conversation, There was no sales conversation.

0:12:45
 (Brandon Lee)
 I was just there to try and serve and ask how I could help. And then the conversations is like, well, Brandy, tell me a bit more about what your company does. Like, I wanna figure out how to work with you. Didn't know what we did,

0:12:57
 (Brandon Lee)
 but said, I wanna figure out how to work with you. And it's because the trust factor was built. The foundation of no like and trust was built from me serving them with my content, with a few other things. And in the conversation that we had was so focused on them and what they were going through and what the CEO's challenges were, that he just felt more compelled to go like, I mean, basically what I heard,

0:13:27
 (Brandon Lee)
 and this isn't, this is just sharing an example. What I heard was, man, I really appreciate you pouring into me. I appreciate how much you're helping me. What exactly do you do? Because I like you and I wanna work with you.

0:13:39
 (Brandon Lee)
 That's really what I heard and what I experienced. So the theme of this, are you mistaking visibility for trust, is clarity creates trust, volume creates noise, but the clarity isn't just what we do,

0:14:02
 (Brandon Lee)
 but it's part who we are.

0:14:04
 (Speaker 8)
 It's a big part part who we are.

0:14:05
 (Brandon Lee)
 It's a big part of who we are and how we show up. You know, last week I talked about your humanity a lot. And our humanity is our uniquifier, right? It's the one thing that we are totally different than everyone else in the entire world. Our experiences, our, our journey, what we think, what we what we've that humanity into the business conversation, that uniqueness, the you-nique-ifier, Y-O-U-nique-ifier, right? Really cool, right? Plenty of words. I'm sure somebody's used it before and tag, you know, trademarked it, but I think it's a great way to remember. That humanity bit and sharing our

0:15:05
 (Brandon Lee)
 experiences, our journey and what we think, what we what we experienced, what we feel, what we observe. Nobody else can do that like us. And it's the content that people are resonating with now because it can't as easily, I'm not gonna say AI can't produce it, but it can't as easily produce it.

0:15:34
 (Brandon Lee)
 It brings in humanity into our content. It brings personal experience. It brings personal thought, observation, attention and feelings, which other people's human hearts connect to personal thought, observation, attention and feelings, which other people's human hearts connect to, because it's not

0:15:50
 (Brandon Lee)
 pitchy, it's not trying to sell us something, it's not dry and boring. It's human. I don't know how else to say that. I've expressed I've experienced this over my entire career. And and I know there's a lot of voices out there, especially in LinkedIn about, oh, it's business, business, business. And I just think it's bullshit. You know, business has never been a thousand percent about business. Business has always been relational

0:16:16
 (Brandon Lee)
 and getting to know people. And do we like this person? Do we do we trust them enough to do business? Do we trust them enough to have a second meeting and go have a coffee, or go have lunch or go golfing or go do something with them? At a happy hour? It's always been a progression of small steps that lead to the opportunity. And then as we've got all this technology and social media and email and everything else, a lot of

0:16:43
 (Brandon Lee)
 companies just move straight to the fight, straight to the sale, right? Hey, we do this for these types of people and if you have this problem, look, I get the desire for quantity, I do, but it risks the value of quality

0:17:01
 (Brandon Lee)
 and quality creates trust. So let's get into into let's go to the next step, which is the clarity gap. If your your message isn't landing, if you've you know, you're like a lot of companies, we've worked really hard on our messaging, we're sending it out,

0:17:28
 (Brandon Lee)
 we're not getting the responses that we want. We're sending out the emails, we're having the conversations the best that we can, we're leaving voicemails, and we just aren't getting the conversations that we want. So the real big question then is

0:17:47
 (Brandon Lee)
 if our messaging isn't landing, what I propose is that you haven't built a foundation of trust in order to get people to want to respond to your content. And that foundation of trust, like we just talked about in the segment one

0:18:04
 (Brandon Lee)
 of are you mistaking visibility of trust, like we just talked about in the segment one of are you

0:18:05
 (Brandon Lee)
 mistaking visibility for trust, is that your content is more about quantity. It's about telling people who you are, what you do. It's about building promotion instead of building connection. And so your message isn't landing because there's not a foundation, an emotional foundation that people even feel like, oh, I like this person. I know this person.

0:18:31
 (Brandon Lee)
 I've been paying attention to their content. I like what they have to say. They make me think, I've been entertained by their content. Whatever the cause is, they don't have that foundation of feeling like they even know you or like you or want to trust you. And so your messaging from the get go is it's in one ear out the other. So those of you on the podcast might, what that

0:19:00
 (Brandon Lee)
 means is that the, the, this, the, the visuals I'm doing of pointing in one ear and out the other. I know messaging just doesn't land. Trust is the new pipeline. Trust is the foundation of the new pipeline. Trust is the foundation of the new pipeline, right? Funnels really push people away

0:19:33
 (Brandon Lee)
 and a flywheel can attract when the content is focused around human experience. So here's what I mean is, and again, if you're paying at all attention to my content, you probably already resonate with this because I find most people that don't like my content

0:19:57
 (Brandon Lee)
 because they think, oh, emotion has nothing to do with B2B business and we're not focused on building connection, we just need to go promote and tell people who we are and what we do and then they will come the whole if you build it, they will come mentality. Those people don't tend to stick around. They tend to tell me I'm crazy. It doesn't work. I had

0:20:18
 (Brandon Lee)
 somebody tell me one time, oh, you're one of those true believers that think this stuff actually works. And I'm like, well, I built and sold three companies following this. So yeah, I'm pretty sure it works. I've, you know, done hundreds of millions of dollars over the years across multiple companies from this. And so I know it works. I know it works,

0:20:40
 (Brandon Lee)
 because I know that human, the foundation of humanity and the psychology of people is not changed. When when buyers feel connected to someone, they're much more willing, interested in talking to that person or somebody from their company. The, when, when you as a leader are creating content from your experience, from your journey, from your observations, you something unique that only you can share, not, Oh, we do one, two, three, four ABC companies in order to help them solve these things, right? Gone

0:21:30
 (Brandon Lee)
 in one ear out the other because so many messages are just that. But when it's sharing, hey, what's going on in the market right now reminds me of what we experienced five years ago. And this is how this is what I learned, or what we experienced five years ago. And this is how this is what I learned or what we learned five years ago and how we're applying it today. That is bringing your humanity into your business and sharing insights that nobody else can really create. I mean, they can

0:22:02
 (Brandon Lee)
 from their own experience, but it'll be different. Because their experience is different than your experience. And here's the other thing. And I know this is really, really difficult. It's really scary. You know why another reason why this type of content really, really works is because very few people create this type of content. Very few people are creating this type of content. Very few people are creating this type of content

0:22:26
 (Brandon Lee)
 because most others are scared to share their observation or their belief or their feelings. And so this emotional resonance framework that I created as a way to get aligned in your messaging is a good way to get started. So if you've been creating content that promotes,

0:22:54
 (Brandon Lee)
 instead of this style of content that comes from our humanity, from our experience, the content that builds connection, here's a way to think about it. So the emotional resonance framework is this. And if you don't, emotional resonance means how do we create content that builds connection, here's a way to think about it. So the emotional resonance framework is this, and if you don't, emotional resonance means

0:23:06
 (Brandon Lee)
 how do we create content that emotionally resonates with people or they will emotionally resonate or emotionally connect with us because of our content. And the reason this is so important, and we know this all from psychology, right? Logic makes people think,

0:23:24
 (Brandon Lee)
 but emotion makes people act. And after all, don't we want our behavior that we do as leaders or as salespeople, don't we want that to get our customers to take action and not just think? Especially because everyone else, all our competition,

0:23:40
 (Brandon Lee)
 if they're getting people to think, they think for a minute and it's gone. But when we get them to, when they come to a place of emotion, it leads them to act. So I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to the conversation I had with with a CEO yesterday. As a just an example, it's fresh in my mind. Everything I've done with this person has been serving them,

0:24:05
 (Brandon Lee)
 asking questions, learning about them, learning about their business. It's all been building that emotional connection. I did a lot more listening than talking. I'd asked a lot of questions. I was very curious about him and his business

0:24:22
 (Brandon Lee)
 and what they did and where they were going and where they were finding success and where they were finding challenges. And what evolved from it was him saying, tell me more about what you do. I want to work with you. And I know, I know, I know, I know, I know it It's hard because it feels very passive. But let me ask you this, all your active outreach, how's it paying off? What's the ROI? Right? What's the return on that investment? What's the return on that effort? How many hundreds or

0:25:01
 (Brandon Lee)
 thousands of cold calls do you have to make to create an opportunity? And then how many opportunities do you need to close a deal? I mean, I would just say from this perspective, I'm having a lot more fun doing what I'm doing now in this emotional residence framework

0:25:17
 (Brandon Lee)
 and I'm gonna share with you. I'm having a lot more fun and watching the deal stack up without doing the hard, cold, annoying outreach. So let me share the emotional resonance framework with you. At the very top, it's leader-led content. Ideally C-suite, but sales leaders,

0:25:37
 (Brandon Lee)
 customer success leaders, operationally, anybody in leadership. I mean, that's really what your customers wanna know, right? Like, who are you and what do you think about? That's, that's really what people care about. And I like Butch and Dr. Joe, thank you guys so much for joining today. I really appreciate that. I didn't see those those comments before. I'm not sure why. But thanks, Dr. Joe. Talk to you later today,

0:26:00
 (Brandon Lee)
 too. I know we're on our calendars together. But the emotional residence framework, leader led content, leader content, specifically sharing content around what have you experienced? What do you observe? What do you feel? And sharing that from your own personal journey. That type of content is going to tend to more naturally get people to engage and build that emotional connection with you, okay? So the second phase, that's the top, but the second is making sure that that content

0:26:38
 (Brandon Lee)
 is designed to build connection instead of promotion. And this is just, the second step is really a gut check. And I'm gonna talk a little bit about this in, in, in segment three or four, I can't remember. I think segment four about building clarity today. But it's really making sure that your content

0:26:59
 (Brandon Lee)
 is more of sharing story and journey and thoughts and feelings and experiences, because that builds connection versus content that promotes, because most of us, including you, we all have a knee jerk reaction to being promoted, anything being promoted to us these days.

0:27:18
 (Brandon Lee)
 Unless it's perfect timing, fine. But most of us, it's like, I don't wanna be pitched. I don't wanna be pitched again, don't sell me anything. And we just put up a wall. And hey, you've experienced right? Maybe they smile and they shake their Oh, yeah, that's great. And then they just can't get away from you fast enough, or they ghost

0:27:36
 (Brandon Lee)
 you. The second call you they agree to do a follow up call, and then they cancel or they don't show up, right? What's happening there? We didn't build a connection. We promoted, we got false positives. We thought it was great because we felt so good about all the information we were sharing, but we didn't pause to go, is what I'm sharing connecting or is it promoting? Connecting or promoting? And then the third step, and let me go first, leader content, second, content that builds connection,

0:28:10
 (Brandon Lee)
 sharing human journey experiences, instead of content that says, we do ABC for one, two, three companies in order to get X, Y, Z outcomes, right? Third step, that content then fuels your entire outreach

0:28:25
 (Brandon Lee)
 system. Just stop sending the problem. I mean, you already know the data, your emails aren't getting read, they're not getting open, they're not getting clicked. The answer is in send more. I certainly say pedal faster. That's that's my thing. Oh, yeah, just pedal faster. You'll get there just pedal faster, send more, do more, use AI automation, get more out there.

0:28:47
 (Brandon Lee)
 You're just gonna have a lot more rejection. We have to shift, we have to change the way that we show up in that. So there's your emotional resonance. Let's move to section three for today. It's volume isn't the villain,

0:29:01
 (Brandon Lee)
 although when you focus just on volume alone, it is big part of being the villain, although when you focus just on volume alone, it is big part of being the villain. But really confusion is the big villain, big villain, big villain. Grab some water. You know, I get messaging is hard and clarity is getting harder with so many companies out there and we want to differentiate. We want to be clear, but we want to be complete. And I'm going to come back to, I mean, you're going to see these recurring themes with me over and over again is executive conviction,

0:29:48
 (Brandon Lee)
 executive point of view, executive voice, executive journey, executive experience, executive thoughts, executive observations. That will earn more engagement. And that type of engagement or comment goes from, oh my gosh, this resonates with me.

0:30:10
 (Brandon Lee)
 I'm going to comment to I remember them.

0:30:14
 (Speaker 5)
 It does.

0:30:14
 (Speaker 6)
 Does that make sense?

0:30:15
 (Brandon Lee)
 Like if you're on the podcast, I'm doing is I'm pointing to my heart when, oh, I want to comment on this because this relates to me as a human being. And they comment and then that comment goes from the heart, it goes to the brain, it goes to the memory, right? Because really, we're all led by the heart more than the brain, like we remember that, right?

0:30:36
 (Brandon Lee)
 It's really easy for us to think that we're more logical than feeling, and it's just a fallacy that we all wish that we had more control over our emotions than we actually do. So volume isn't the villain, confusion is.

0:30:50
 (Brandon Lee)
 And the way that we cut through that confusion is leading with that humanity, leading with the human experience, because that's where humans want to engage or more naturally, I guess that's the right way of saying it. It's not that humans want to engage or more naturally, I guess that's the right way of saying it's not that they want

0:31:08
 (Brandon Lee)
 to, they will naturally do it without thinking. Because the emotion, the heart connection, leads them to act. And that's where I say logic makes people think emotion leads them to action. So a couple of filters, a way to, am I, am I focused on confusing? Is my messaging off? Am I, is my messaging confusing people? Am I just trying to say too much and not the right thing?

0:31:41
 (Brandon Lee)
 So here's, here's a couple of tactical, like human filters, personal filters. Before you say, before you write something or you create content or even do a video, would I say this out loud if I was face to face with somebody, with a peer or a prospect or a customer? Would you say this out loud? And you might, and this isn't a perfect filter. If your style is to always be selling, then this filter may not work with you.

0:32:11
 (Brandon Lee)
 But for a lot of us, when we're face to face, we're different, we have different conversations. We have different approaches to our conversations than when we sit around and we type something or we create a video. So one filter would be,

0:32:25
 (Brandon Lee)
 hey, would I say this face to face with a peer? And the second one, and this is a hard one if you haven't done the work. Does the, here's the filter, does this reflect my true beliefs? Is this really aligned with who I am at the core?

0:32:46
 (Brandon Lee)
 Like, this is a big one and this goes into my, gosh, what I love, like, my driving force, everybody is about alignment. It's like, we gotta know ourselves to lead ourselves. And if we know ourself and lead ourself into the right things and we have alignment,

0:33:04
 (Brandon Lee)
 then everything in the world becomes so much easier, including sales, including revenue, including relationships. But if we don't take the time to know what our actual beliefs are, and we don't know ourselves, and then we put ourselves in a place where we're not aligned, and then we get really, really frustrated at the outcomes.

0:33:23
 (Brandon Lee)
 And it really just comes down to, well, you know what? You're probably in a role or you're selling something from a position, from a place it's not aligned with who you truly are. And it's just not gonna resonate. I mean, the energy that comes from that

0:33:37
 (Brandon Lee)
 is gonna create confusion instead of creating connection. So getting the clarity of who you are and how to position yourself with your product or your service, how you're out earning trust by serving, by sharing, by educating, by being other oriented, then creates the demand. So that flywheel is clarity, trust, and demand. And look, I know for everybody

0:34:22
 (Brandon Lee)
 today, throw in the comments if this is deep, right? Throw in there, and they're like, man, Brandon, this is deep. And I know it's kind of deep, but it's also the foundational work that leads all of us to more success. Like I've been reflecting in,

0:34:41
 (Brandon Lee)
 pay attention to my LinkedIn content for the next few weeks, because I'm on this kick. I've just been reflecting on my career, but also my role as husband and dad at the same time. And one thing really just like brutally stands out to me.

0:35:03
 (Brandon Lee)
 When I walk in alignment, everything's easier and better, more enjoyable, and more joyful. And when I've walked out of alignment, everything's frustrated and challenging and difficult and loss and just, yeah. And that's why I'm bringing some of this in is that we all can do so much better with our content In order to support our outreach in order to build our network and grow our reputation In order to create more opportunities and close more deals Which is ultimately what we care about if we come back to the foundation of?

0:35:44
 (Speaker 5)
 Knowing ourself

0:35:45
 (Brandon Lee)
 in order to lead ourselves, I mean, I'm gonna go back to, are you mistaking visibility for trust? And this segment of volume isn't the villain, but confusion is. So often when we're confused, we create confusion around us.

0:36:04
 (Brandon Lee)
 And then we wanna blame like, oh, this tactic isn't working or that tactic isn't working. And the reality is we're just confused ourselves and therefore we're confusing the people around us. So we're gonna land this plane today on segment four of this,

0:36:21
 (Brandon Lee)
 which is from noise to signal or building with clarity. So what is one little shift that you can make this week? And here's three different ideas or practical, tactical things that you can do as a leader. Number one would be take a LinkedIn post that you've written before or a blog article you've written before, or maybe it's even a video you've created and look at it and look at it from this perspective. What would that look like if you had a very bold

0:37:06
 (Brandon Lee)
 point of view, if you had a very bold emotional stance or a point of view or a belief around that from your personal experience, from your personal journey? What would that piece of content look like? And here's my prompt to help you.

0:37:33
 (Brandon Lee)
 What did you think? What did you feel or what did you observe? Those, when we create content, whether we're speaking with somebody, or we're writing it, or we're creating videos, when we say, I observed this,

0:37:52
 (Brandon Lee)
 and you explain what happened and why it was relevant to you, why it caught your attention. Hey, I've been in this industry for 30 years. I have been growing companies for over 30 years, and one thing that I am observing right now, is that I

0:38:08
 (Brandon Lee)
 have more and more leaders that I talked to that have said, Hey, our cold outreach is simply not returning an ROI. And I don't know what to do. Right? That's a that's a bold statement from your experience. What I have found over the last three to four years is that our data shows that cold calls are getting less returned phone calls and less answers than ever before. So what does that mean? Well, if I look at the data, not just my data,

0:38:48
 (Brandon Lee)
 but I look at the data that's out there from the big firms, it's that when prior years ago,

0:38:59
 (Brandon Lee)
 it used to be, oh,

0:39:00
 (Brandon Lee)
 common theme was to go and make 50 calls a day in order to create the amount of work, the amount of conversations. And then that increased and increased and increased and increased and increased. And now I think that the number I see

0:39:13
 (Brandon Lee)
 is up over 400 messages a day that a human being can't possibly do in a single day. And so we use automation. When we share from our experience, like I just shared my, hey, I built a company with a call center. It was awesome, because it worked. But now that it doesn't work, you got to find a new awesome to to hang your, your, your pipeline building on. But here's, so here's my suggestion, rewrite an old LinkedIn post or an old blog article or a newsletter article, but come at it with a very strong, bold point of view based on your experience and your journey. The other piece I would say is, number two would be, share more stories that illustrate your strong point of view.

0:40:06
 (Brandon Lee)
 That your observation, your belief, or your feeling, right? So I'll take a story that I've shared already in this episode. I was on a conversation yesterday with a CEO. So here's my strong point of view. I have found the best thing that any company can be doing right now for pipeline building is not cold outreach, but starting with actions that build relationship with your ideal customer. And that means in non-sales actions, because as soon as we start

0:40:46
 (Brandon Lee)
 selling, they pull back or they pull away, or they put a wall up, or they don't return a call, or they don't respond to an email. But when we do relationship building actions, like invite them to an event, or lead an event, or do, you know, share data or information that helps them in their business today, right now, whether it relates to our company or not. That is working better than any other pipeline building activity that we've experienced over the last year. And then I can tell my story that I've experienced over the last year.

0:41:29
 (Brandon Lee)
 And then I can tell my story that I've already told you about being on a call with a CEO yesterday and just being all about them. Asked a lot of questions, was curious about their business, but what it led to was the door opening from their part, not my part. Now I would have gotten there if it didn't get there on, if he didn't open the door, I would eventually try to open the door.

0:41:50
 (Brandon Lee)
 I don't want this sound like it's completely passive. We just sit around and wait for gold to fall from heaven. That's not what I'm saying. But because the door opened quicker by him just saying, and I got to know more, Brandon, about what you do because I want to work with you.

0:42:13
 (Speaker 3)
 There's my story that would support my bold point of view. Now, the other the other number three tactic, I would say, and this is something you can do, is go back and look at your previous content, whether it's a video or something you wrote.

0:42:29
 (Brandon Lee)
 And this is a tough question. And this is just reflecting on our own stuff. And you don't have to answer it publicly just between you and no one else. But did that content really say anything that mattered? Was there anything that truly mattered to somebody reading it?

0:42:49
 (Brandon Lee)
 Did it have an impact on a human? Or were we just pushing more information around and trying to promote ourselves?

0:43:03
 (Speaker 3)
 Right.

0:43:04
 (Brandon Lee)
 I know that's a hard question because we wanna to, I mean, I know I do this, my ego, my ego always wants to say, oh my gosh, I created amazing content. But my ego isn't always right. Right? My ego, my ego is rarely right. So take a look at our content and say, did I say something in there that truly mattered to my prospective customers that's valuable for them, regardless of whether they need my product or service right now?

0:43:33
 (Brandon Lee)
 Because right now that's the only way we're gonna get their attention. It has to be all about them. So what would change in your content if you said more, I'm sorry, if you said less, but had more impact or meant more,

0:43:51
 (Brandon Lee)
 had more emotional resonance to it? Here's my big invitation to you for today. And if you wanna send it to me, I'd love to hear it, is what message do you really, really want to be known for? There's a guy on TikTok that I found and I love his stuff. He says that he can help people discover the topic

0:44:24
 (Brandon Lee)
 to make them a multimmillionaire within two minutes. I forget his name. I have to look for it if you really want it. Let me know and I'll find it. He's a British guy. And as I've seen a few of these videos, he's so brilliant because what he says is most of us work in areas that are misaligned with who we are and what we truly care about. So if you can find what you truly

0:44:54
 (Brandon Lee)
 care about, then that alignment is going to help you be more passionate, be more energetic, be more excited and, and be more attractive to other people. And I would say in my successes, that's exactly what happened when I look back on it. I used to think I was so good at selling on it wasn't that I was aligned. And, and, and God in the universe, you know, responded appropriately, because I was aligned with what I was supposed to be doing. But what

0:45:23
 (Brandon Lee)
 message do you really, really want to be known for? And I'm not telling everybody to go find a new industry or go sell a different product or go become a CEO of a different company. When I had ByDesign Publishing, one of the best things that we did in training salespeople

0:45:45
 (Brandon Lee)
 was helping them understand what motivated them to sell the service that we offered. And I get it, number one for everybody is money, we gotta pay our bills, great, let's put that aside. What is it about what we offer that truly resonates with your human being, with your

0:46:07
 (Brandon Lee)
 person? Because when you discover that and you lead with that, then you're going to have more

0:46:16
 (Speaker 4)
 success.

0:46:19
 (Brandon Lee)
 If you heard nothing else today, hear that. Because when we're able to discover what is it about this thing, this widget, this service, this offering, that really resonates with my human, from my history, the good, the bad, the ugly,

0:46:40
 (Brandon Lee)
 when I can align with that, then everything else becomes easier. And I'll share this to end this today, because this is a personal example. My dad was an entrepreneur. He was an entrepreneur and I pause on this because I want to be respectful, but my dad was also a very stressed out business owner and caused quite a bit of havoc and chaos

0:47:18
 (Brandon Lee)
 in our lives. And I always thought as a kid, because I've always had this entrepreneurial thing and I've always looked at businesses to go, how can I create systems or make something more efficient in order to take stress or take work off the plate and create more revenue?

0:47:35
 (Brandon Lee)
 I was just wired to think that way. And so I used to think about that as a kid. I wasn't in a position to do anything to help my dad, but I did start applying that to my own entrepreneurial journeys as I walked up and down the street with my lawnmower, I had my paper route, all the things that I did that were very

0:47:53
 (Brandon Lee)
 entrepreneurial was always like, how can I take work off people's plate and help them make more money? That was what I like to do. In my first company, I honestly had forgotten about it. But I had a customer call late at night, I was in California. So Pacific time, it was like 830 at night, I was still in the office didn't have

0:48:17
 (Brandon Lee)
 cell phone back then maybe I did, but I haven't answered the office line. And it was a customer from the East Coast 1130 their time going, my gosh thank you I'm so glad you answered I need help I know today's a deadline da da da da da and I helped him and he said something like hey thank you so much because what you're doing is really helping my revenues be consistent in my in my business and you're taking a lot of a lot of this stress

0:48:41
 (Brandon Lee)
 and this work off my plate and I really appreciate it. And it was like this ding ding ding ding ding. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is what I thought of. So from then moving forward, I aligned that like everything that I do needs to be from this. I'd like to help business owners create systems that help them make more money and take stress and work off of their plate. That's a core of who I am. As I do that, I tend to be a lot more successful

0:49:10
 (Brandon Lee)
 than if I start selling other things or doing other things that aren't aligned with who I am. So that's my example to you. And so the big invite is, what message do you want to be known for? Right? I want to be known for helping business leaders have systems that help them make more money and take stress off their plate. And that's why I do a lot around lead generation and demand creation.

0:49:46
 (Brandon Lee)
 And how do we create revenue from our reputation? This is what I love doing. And when I'm doing it from my place of personal integrity, which means I'm showing up saying the things and who I am and what I truly believe. And trust me, 10 years ago,

0:50:04
 (Brandon Lee)
 I was saying things in lead generation that I didn't really believe to be true, but I felt like this is what everyone's talking about. And so I positioned it that way and I got a whole bunch of failure to, to show for

0:50:16
 (Speaker 3)
 it.

0:50:18
 (Brandon Lee)
 But as I got back into my alignment and who I am, um, things have gotten a lot better. So what message do you want to be known for? And how do you align that part of your humanity with what you're selling, with what you represent, with what you're doing? Because I tell you what, you figure that out

0:50:41
 (Brandon Lee)
 and everything else gets a lot easier. So, all right, hey, thank you all so much for joining me today on Revenue Through Reputation. Again, if you're on any of the video platforms, you comment, I will see it, I will get notified, I will come and comment back

0:50:59
 (Brandon Lee)
 and I will thank you in advance for that. Any questions you have, you can DM me, if you want on LinkedIn, that's usually the easiest. And then hey, if you're on the podcast, hey, thank you so much. And like I said before, if you're finding value with this, the reviews would be awesome. I'd really, really appreciate it. And if you

0:51:16
 (Brandon Lee)
 want to share this with anybody, I would be equally grateful for that as well. So hey, thank you everybody. I will see you next week. I do not know the topic for next week. I don't remember it. So I will I just leave you with that. I usually like to tell you that next week we're gonna talk about this, but I will add this if you're still on here tomorrow July 30th at 2 p.m. Eastern I am moderating a CEO roundtable with Alice Hyman. I will get the links out in here as well. But we are, we've got I don't know, there's over 30 CEOs, I

0:51:53
 (Brandon Lee)
 think in there that have registered. It's peer to peer discussion. There's no sales pitch, there's no selling. There's no webinar, we're not trying to teach you anything. We just want to bring a bunch of CEOs together and say, Hey, what's going on? Share what's working, what's not working. What questions do you have for your peers? And like I said, we've got over 30 CEOs, I think registered for that one for tomorrow. And if you want to be a part of that, let me know. Like I said and I'll get that link off to you as quick as I can. So, all right, everybody, thank you so much. Have a great rest of your Wednesday.

0:52:27
 (Brandon Lee)
 I appreciate you and have a great day. I appreciate you and have a great day.

0:52:30
 (Brandon Lee)
 Talk soon.