‘Ronsley Seriojo Vaz is a unique human being. Whatever he does, he does really well. He thinks differently, he acts different, he is different. And now he is sharing his knowledge on harnessing the power of conversation to grow a business. Ronsley is leading the global content charge in so many ways. Challenging the status quo, asking the hard questions and always looking for ways to do what we do better, smarter and with more impact. My advice is simple: when Ronsley talks, listen.’
– ANDREW GRIFFITHS, AUSTRALIA’S #1
SMALL BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURIAL AUTHOR
‘We’ve generated a clear, $60,000, $70,000 as a result of working with Amplify for just over three months. If I was to walk down the street and try and talk to someone about buying a $16,000, 40- week program that’s going to help position them as a Key Person of Influence, I’m going to have to really, really sell that person. And I’m going to have to talk to them about all those basic ideas. The beauty of what Amplify does for us is that they create a whole content marketing echo chamber of assets. I couldn’t recommend Amplify more.’
– GLEN CARLSON, CO-FOUNDER OF DENT.GLOBAL
‘I can tell you directly my podcast and Ronsley have brought me over $80,000 worth of business. Clearly commercially it’s been worth it, but for me the worth in question extends beyond the commercial return.’
– DR JESSE GREEN, THE SAAVY DENTIST PODCAST
‘For a long time I felt like my business was a million piece puzzle without the picture on the box. But today Ronsley drew me a picture. A clear, beautiful picture that brought all of those floating pieces together into one product eco system. I’m still scrambling under the couch looking for a few missing pieces, wondering if the dog ate some, but tonight, for the first time, I know what the overall puzzle of my business looks like. So thank you Ronsley!’
– DR LEANDRA BRADY-WALKER,
AUTHOR OF THE COSMOPOLITAN HIPPY
‘Finally, a book on business expansion that won’t ever go out date. I had the pleasure of reading the first few copies and I received more actionable creativity, branding and content marketing tools in this book in the first three chapters than the last five books I read on marketing combined. The strategies are powerful and innovative and most importantly, the delivery of the advice is delicious and makes the entire process of content marketing, business growth and brand equity achievable rather than overwhelming.’
– AMBER HAWKEN, AUTHOR OF THE UNFU*KWITHABLE LIFE
‘I thought I knew what content creation was, then I read Amplify. Finding your point of intersection and then having a systemic approach to how you can build a business (and brand) on the back of great content is hugely useful. I did have to be in the right headspace to read it, but once I was there I spent two days working through, making copious notes and starting to create a new vision. It’s a hugely useful read for anyone in business looking to truly take the next step up.’
– MICHAEL BROMLEY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, EA INTERNATIONAL
First published in 2016 by Grammar Factory
© Ronsley Seriojo Vaz 2016
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.
All inquiries should be made to the author.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Creator: Ronsley Vaz, author
Title: Amplify: Raise your voice, boost your brand and grow your business / Ronsley Vaz
ISBNs: 9780992317621 (Paperback); 9780992317638 (eBook)
Subjects:
Marketing.
Branding (Marketing)
Business enterprises--Growth.
Success in business.
Dewey Number: 658.872
Printed in Australia by Excite Print
Book production by Grammar Factory
Editorial services by Grammar Factory
Cover design by Designerbility
Disclaimer
The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based on the information in this publication.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
The problems with growing a business
AMPLIFY your business
CHAPTER 1: ANALYSE YOUR AUDIENCE
Start with you
Your ideal client
Your peers
CHAPTER 2: MOULD YOUR BRAND
Why is branding so important?
How to mould your brand
Five areas you might be missing
CHAPTER 3: PRODUCTISE YOUR ECOSYSTEM
Create a product ecosystem
Install technology
Drive traffic
CHAPTER 4: LAUNCH AUDIO
Who does audio work for?
Launching your audio
CHAPTER 5: INTENSIFY YOUR MESSAGE
Leveraging your audio across multiple platforms
How to reverse engineer your audio
CHAPTER 6: FOSTER ENGAGEMENT
Engaging your audience
CHAPTER 7: YIELD ON INVESTMENT
Metrics
Improving your return on investment through audio
CONCLUSION: WHERE TO FROM HERE
Amplify your audience
Amplify your partnerships
Amplify your success
ABOUT RONSLEY
SUPPORTING GIRLS’ EDUCATION
Free to Shine believe children should be in schools, not brothels. Through Amplify’s partnership with Free to Shine, buying this book will educate a girl in Cambodia for a week.
Share the cause, and your contribution, at: theamplifybook.com/share
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For Ricardo and Lafira, who did the best they could to deal with a rebel like me.
Thank you dad for setting the example of what it is like to be an entrepreneur; for your constant push to do the right thing and to be resilient in the face of obstacles. Mum, I thank you for the selfconfidence you’ve taught me and for the sense of responsibility that you knocked into me. Because of you, I know that everything that happens in my world is a result of me. Because of you, I will not be a victim to my circumstances.
A special thanks to Andrew Griffiths, Leandra Brady-Walker and Clarissa Rayward for your deep friendship and support. You help me see the world in a new light every time we have a conversation. To the Key Person of Influence community who keep raising the bar for what is possible. To my team at Amplify, and especially to Katherine Cooper for helping get stuff out of my head and onto paper.
I would like to thank Sara, Julia and Jacqui for making this book possible. Sara, you have helped me sound smarter than I actually am.
To Ryder, Roanna, Matt, Allison, Mike, Glen, Dan, Katherine, Jason, Amber, Kristie and the members of the Batman Group; your support through the tough times is what helped define what I could achieve.
To my first clients who gave me their money and believed that I could deliver on my promise. And, to all the potential clients who said ‘no’, you’ve helped me improve, get better and try again.
And finally, to my beautiful wife, Rochelle. My greatest victory has been getting you to sign on our marriage certificate. You are my compass. The apple of my eye and the pain in my backside (just kidding). Thank you for believing in me, especially when I didn’t believe in myself.
FOREWORD
Had Alicia Keys been around 100 years ago, she would have been a piano bar singer at best. Back then the radio was the only means of mass communication and it wasn’t being used for soul music. Her awesome voice would have filled the cavern of a small room, entertaining a few dozen people each night before she headed home to the modest little flat her tips could afford. No matter how good her voice was, she had no ability to reach a wider audience.
Even fifty years ago, her chances of success in the music industry wouldn’t have been good. A few music industry bosses controlled who went into the studio, who could record an album and who got featured on radio. Her chances of getting the green light to perform and record her music would be one in a million.
Fortunately for Alicia Keys, she was born at a time where her talent could be discovered, recorded and distributed to millions of people. As a result, she’s built a global brand and made millions of dollars doing what she loves.
Today the cost of recording and distributing anything has dropped to almost zero and no one is standing in the way of a global audience. If you have a message, you’ve been born at the exact right time in history for that message to spread. You don’t need to be talking to people one at a time or waiting for your fifteen minutes of fame on TV, you can be pumping out content weekly to people all over the world and building an audience or even a movement.
Podcasting is at the heart of this technology revelation. It offers the ability to reach people directly for an extended length of time, and to share big ideas that take more than a few seconds to explain. In a world full of tweets and whirling status updates, podcasts are one of the few mediums that people tune in to for hours at a time.
This offers a remarkable opportunity for you as an entrepreneur. For very little cost you can reach thousands of people with a powerful message, and you don’t need to make it fit into 140 characters.
This is important because trust takes time to build. The human brain likes to experience hours of contact with a person before it relaxes into a more trusting relationship. Up until recently, building trust with people meant meeting face to face for long chats. Now the same outcome can be achieved through digital media.
Human brains don’t care that it’s media either. In 2016, the world mourned the loss of many celebrities who passed away in rapid succession. Despite never actually meeting David Bowie, Prince or Muhammad Ali, people felt they had lost someone close to them because they had consumed hours of media from that person.
As we catapult into the digital age, every entrepreneur, leader and business needs to harness the power of media or get left behind. The customer who loves you today can easily fall in love with a new provider if they discover the right video, book or audio conversation. Don’t do it out of obligation though, be sure that you harness the power of media for the right reasons – you see the opportunity in it.
The book you have in your hands is designed for you to see the opportunity in being more media savvy. It gives you a place to start that is low cost, high impact and then it shows you ways to scale your influence.
Like me, you’ve probably been overwhelmed with the negative news that seems to spew endlessly into our awareness. The business of news networks is to deliver eyeballs to advertisers and they know that negative rapid-fire news gets more response than positive conversations that take time.
You’re not running that sort of business and therefore you have the luxury of being free to create positive media that tells a more empowering narrative. You don’t need to rush it; you can make your points clearly and powerfully and take all the time you need. Never forget how fortunate you are to be living in a time where all this is possible, in many ways it’s your obligation to create content that improves the world and enhances people’s lives.
This is a book that will lead to you living a new kind of life. No longer will you perform to a few people and hope to survive; instead you will have a pathway to your global audience and the fortunes that can be unlocked in these magical times we live in. You’ll have more value, more influence and more opportunities as a result of what you are about to read.
– Daniel Priestley, co-founder of Dent Global and bestselling author of Key Person of Influence, Entrepreneur Revolution and Oversubscribed
INTRODUCTION
‘The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.’
– BILL GATES
HOW CAN YOU create a marketing system that enables you to grow as a business with the least amount of effort?
Having been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, this was the question that annoyed me the most. Over the years, I collected a variety of designations, which include software engineer, software quality manager, tutor, financial advisor, restaurateur, chef, business owner, restaurant manager, bartender, podcaster, speaker and, now, author. I took part in different industries, negotiation standpoints, marketing struggles, c-suite egos and a variety of business challenges. But the biggest challenge remained the one above.
One of the most interesting things I’ve ever done is interview my dad on my podcast. In that interview, when I asked him if he wished I did something different, he reluctantly said that he wished I did something in ‘my field’. He said that with two Masters’ degrees from two different Australian universities, I should have been well-placed to build a computer business. Which is true. However, I’ve refused to play in one field. I don’t really associate myself with any one type of industry. I believe that I am a learner. A generalist. I am a person with shiny-ball syndrome, sure. But, most importantly, I am an entrepreneur.
I am one of those people who loves to put themselves in uncomfortable situations to challenge the status quo and bring a bunch of people together over that situation. Whether it was opening a restaurant that merged Portuguese flavours with Indian spices, or creating the first podcasting conference in the Southern Hemisphere, I loved bringing people together over a new theme and talking about it. And therein lay the answer to the question.
Speech is powerful. Think about every single change in human history. Whether it is race equality or having a phone with one button, we can all trace the big shift to a speech that moved a mass of people to make change possible. As a business owner, how many great conversations have you had in the last month that you just wish you recorded?
When I first got to Australia, if you told me that, as a person of Indian origin, my biggest asset would be my voice, I would have politely asked you to stop making fun of the way I speak. I would have tried extremely hard to sound more Australian and not be seen as a stereotypical Indian with an IT background who drove a cab while I went through university.
As it stands today, because of my podcast, I have a global audience in 133 countries and have developed relationships with over 200 brilliant people who have been guests on my show. That is 200 different perspectives on business and entrepreneurship, and works out to about four one-hour conversations a week for the last two years.
A lot of these people are hard to reach, busy business owners who would not have given me any of their time in another situation. While I was building these relationships with potential partners, I established a team and took the best bits of those conversations to create a marketing system that would not only get my business the right kind of attention, but also the right kind of engagement. The engagement that takes an innocent bystander from lead to customer.
So, despite having written a thesis on software quality systems, I am less than surprised that my book is on marketing and business growth.
THE PROBLEMS WITH GROWING A BUSINESS
There are six key problems that businesses face. Chances are, you do not face all six of them. You could be going through only one or two. Or you could be going through five. Regardless, these are the issues that stunt growth. As a result of having these problems, we make a bunch of mistakes. And this book is here to correct them.
Businesses are struggling because they are:
1.Vague
2.Nameless
3.Constrained
4.Invisible
5.Stereotypical
6.Naive
I’m not saying this is who you are. And I’m not saying this is who your business is either. I’m saying these are the problems that businesses face today, and, for whatever reason, we don’t really pay attention to them. Let’s go through them in more detail so you can see what I’m talking about.
#1. VAGUE
This is probably one of the biggest issues. When a business owner suffers from this problem, there are three things that they won’t be able to answer properly:
1.Who they are and what makes them different.
2.Who their audience is.
3.Who their peers are.
So why, exactly, should you figure out these things? Because if you don’t know who you are, and what makes you different, there’s no reason for people to choose you over your competition. If you don’t know who your audience is, you won’t be able to find them or help them. And if you don’t know who your peers are, you’ll never find anyone to partner with.
#2. NAMELESS
If you have the first issue, then you definitely have the second, which is being nameless. Basically, this means your messaging cannot be recognised without a logo being attached to it. You see this a lot these days. How many times have you noticed photographers put their branding at the bottom of images? They do that because, otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from each other.
There are, however, exceptions. I know one photographer – his name is Jason Malouin – who never puts his logos on his images. Why? Because you can recognise a Jason Malouin shot from a mile away.
If you think that the only way someone will recognise your messaging is from a label saying it is by you, then you’re nameless. So we’ve got to find a way to make you ‘known’.
#3. CONSTRAINED
This is a common issue, especially for businesses that have established and developed a product market fit. You’re doing something right in that you have customers, you have money coming in the door and you have transactions happening, but you have no room to grow.
This is what I mean by constrained. When the business first started, you didn’t think about growth – you didn’t think about scaling. This means there are no systems in place that allow the business to grow without adding new staff. So you hire new staff.
Why is that a mistake? You might think that the only way to grow a business is to add new staff. But that’s an ego thing. The number of staff really makes no difference to how good you are as a business. At the end of the day, new staff might mean more customers, but if they still give you the same bottom line in terms of profit, then you have an issue. You’re constrained. You have an issue with scaling. You have an issue with growth.
#4. INVISIBLE
Getting overlooked happens a lot. Why? There’s so much advertising out there. There’s so much marketing out there. You might as well be invisible.
Now, when you think about how people buy today, when they have an issue, they search for it. If they can’t find you when they’re searching for it, you’ll be overlooked. If you’re spending money to be heard, to be seen, and you’re still being overlooked, you’re making a mistake somewhere. Businesses are overlooked because they don’t have authentic and consistent content to attract the right people to them.
#5. STEREOTYPICAL
This is the other end of the problem – if people are finding you when they search their issue, but still not engaging with you, you’re being dismissed. Why? Because you’re stereotypical. They don’t trust you.