The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
041 – How to Build Your Personal or Church Platform without Being Selfish—An Interview With Daniel Decker
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast, a podcast all about leadership, change, and personal growth. The goal? To help you lead like never before, in your church or in your business. And now your host, Carrie Newhoff. - Well, hey everybody, and welcome to episode 41 of the podcast. My name is Carrie Newhoff, and I hope our time together this week helps you lead like never before. Hey, I'm so excited to introduce you to our guest this week. His name is Daniel Decker, and Daniel's one of those interesting guys who's often behind the scenes of some very influential people. In fact, some names you've got to know. So for example, he helped launch Michael Hyatt's platform to the New York Times bestseller list. He's worked with all kinds of interesting leaders. Mark Sanborn, he's worked with Crystal Payne, also known as Money Saving Mom, worked with John Gordon, and even people like Seth Godin. And Daniel has kind of become an expert in platform building. That's really what he does is he gets behind all kinds of people and he just helps them build their platforms. And we live in a really interesting age where all of a sudden anybody can have a platform. I mean, if you've got a social media account, you can have a platform. You can see if people follow you, if they listen to you. Million, literally, it's not an exaggeration. Millions of people have blogs. I mean, podcasting is exploding right now. I set up this podcast just under a year ago for like less than a thousand dollars and just a year. And you can do it on a fraction of that. I mean, you could be podcasting tomorrow for a hundred bucks. So I mean, getting a platform isn't that hard. And chances are a lot of you who are listening, you already have a bit of a personal platform. And a lot of you have like organizational platforms for churches. It's pretty normal these days, not only you have a website, but to have a podcast, even a YouTube channel, all the social media channels, Instagram accounts, so on and so forth. And obviously, we want to get our message out there. So if you got a message, you want to get it out there, but, and this is what we're going to really drill down on with Daniel today. How do you do that without being self-promoting? I mean, 'cause, I mean, we all kind of worry about crossing the line. And I guess sometimes you cross the line, it's like, oh, is that self-promoting? And none of us really wants to be that guy. Do you know that guy who's always just talking about himself or always, you know, bragging or that sort of thing? And how do you avoid that? And how do you do that? I mean, we're all a little bit narcissistic, I think, to some level, or you've got a platform, you've got a guard against that. So how do you do that? And it's just a fascinating conversation today. So if you're looking for tips on how to grow your platform, Daniel's got a few of those, but I really wanted to drill down with him on, on how to do it without, you know, becoming that guy or that woman, where it's just like nobody wants to hear from you anymore, or you're just so self-serving or so self-absorbed. How do you get over that? So it's going to be a really fun conversation. I hope a helpful conversation. And I really do hope it helps you and your team try to find that voice, try to find that line where you're not self-promoting. So it's going to be a fun conversation. And hey, I just want to thank all of you for listening and all of you for the incredible support. The podcast is coming up on a year in September. Can you believe that? So this is being broadcast like in the summer of 2015, but in September, we are actually, are you ready? Going to be a year old. So right now it's still June, but we are making some big preparations and get ready for that. The first week after Labor Day, we're going to be back. We got some big promotions. And I just want to thank everybody who's made it such a great journey. I mean, literally, when we started this podcast a year ago, we had no idea what would happen. We had no idea how many people it was going to reach. And it's kind of exceeded my dreams, that's for sure. And the reason it has is because you have been so amazing. So thank you for all the positive feedback. Thanks for the emails, thanks for the notes, thanks for the kind words. Thanks, by the way, a bunch of people have sent me like barbecue stuff lately. I've become a big green egger this year. And for all of you who've done that, thank you. And for all of you who kind of pay it forward by sharing this podcast, if it's helped you with friends and with coworkers and for all of you who have taken the time, not only to subscribe, but to leave a review and iTunes, I just want to say thank you. You guys are amazing. And you really do, like, I ran into somebody the other day 'cause like recording this stuff takes a little bit of time and it's sort of a hobby for me. And when you say, you know, thanks or keep going or that really helped, it helps me keep doing it. So just want to say thank you. So without much further ado, let's jump right into my interview with Daniel Decker, who is the president and CEO of the higher level group. Well, I'm super excited today to have Daniel Decker as my guest, Daniel. We finally connect, don't we? It's been a long time, but I'm very thankful for it. Yeah, we first connected, I don't know how this popped up, but I was in my computer just searching, I think your name to see if I had you on Skype already and it was like, you know, add it as a friend in 2012. So we sort of fake known each other for three years. Yeah, we've been best friends on the internet forever. We haven't, absolutely. And we've been, this podcast interview has been rescheduled what, like four times, I think. Yeah, so it's great to have you here. Tell everybody a little bit about what you do because you, I don't think I know anybody quite like you who's got like this really interesting job. Yeah, it's a blessing and a curse, it definitely is because there's a little bit of everything and it works, you know, for a lot of people having a lot of disciplines doesn't work, but for me it does. But basically I've been a marketing guy, my whole professional career, marketing communications strategy on how to develop marketing campaigns and launch them. And for the last 13 years or so, I've basically worked primarily with authors. I also work with a few organizations and churches basically in the marketing realm, but probably, I don't know, 70, 80% of my time is mostly spent with authors helping them build brands, launch platforms, launch books, products, all that kind of stuff. And I also help oversee the communications at my home church here in Jacksonville, Florida, Christchurch, which is something I really love and you know, is near and dear to my heart just to help them reach the community in greater ways. But really if you bold it down, kind of what I do is basically help multiply influence. Yeah, that's a pretty good job description. And you've worked for some people that I think a lot of listeners, a lot of leaders would know their names. So you've got, and that's not a secret. I mean, you've worked with, tell us some of the people you've worked with. Yeah, John Gordon, who is one of the authors I've worked with the longest, actually was the first author I started working with, 'cause I had no intention to go into the author world. John, who's now, he's the author of The Energy Bus, Seed, Carpenter, a lot of books. I think we're only eight book for him now. About 13 years ago, he came to me and said he were friends and he had a restaurant and I was helping him market for that. And he said, "Hey man, I wanna write a book. "Do you wanna help me market it?" Like, "Hey, sure, I have no idea, let's do it." And now 10 plus years later on that, he's sold over a million copies of The Energy Bus and all his books are just doing phenomenal. He speaks at big Southwest Airlines events and shares the stage with guys like Ken Blanchard. But I've worked with a lot, Kerry, honestly, over the years so many that it's hard to remember them all. I mean, a lot of leadership guys, Mark Sanborn, I've worked with Jeff Goins just recently where we launched his book. He's real popular out there, I've done a lot of-- - So you're behind the art of work, you were, man, that was a hugely successful one. It's the top of the bestseller list and its first New York Times, hit the New York Times list, did it not? - No, unfortunately it didn't. And that's one of those things that we can get into, into the call later too, if you're interested about how all that works. But yeah, with Jeff, we pre-sold 14,000 units before the book dropped, so yeah. And then even this week, we've got, as this podcast is being recorded, there's Dale Partridge, who has-- - Oh, I know Dale. - People ever profit, profit, yeah. - You're working with Dale? - Isn't that interesting, he's in Portland and we had dinner last year, met Dale. Hope to have him on the podcast, hey Dale, if you're listening. (laughs) - Yeah, he's a fantastic guy, and I mean, as of this moment, the book's in the top 100 on Amazon and we've worked with a lot-- - It's in the top 100 overall. - That guy, he's what, 30, 31? - Yeah, I think if anything-- - And he was behind Sevenly, so a lot of listeners, church world, would know him from Sevenly, he was CEO, founder of that. Just a serial entrepreneur, super nice guy, super driven guy, and people over profit, that's awesome. So, and you also worked with Mark Batterson, right? - Yeah, Mark, often along over the years, have kind of given him some insights. We haven't worked on a book specifically, but it looks like we might be about to, hopefully. But there's a lot of worked with catalysts and the guys with Giant Impact, they're behind Leadercast and all the catalyst brands. I helped their CEO launch a leadership book a while back, but Eric Metaxis, who's one a lot of listeners might know from Bonhoeffer, helped him launch his latest book, Miracles, which was a New York Times bestseller, Michael Hyatt is another one we launched his book platform if we're up with Michael often on for a lot of different projects over the years. And just the New York Times bestseller list as well. So, ironically, we're gonna talk about platform with the guy who helped platform become a platform maker to a lot of people. I don't know, that was a good idea, that just kind of bombed as soon as it came out of my mouth, but yeah, you know what I'm saying, right? So, you helped him establish his platform at a new level with the book platform. And that's what we're gonna focus on is all of that. So, that's a decent resume. Okay, this is gonna be a fascinating conversation, Daniel. And so, what is it that you do? Like, how do you advise them on strategy or what do you do? - Yeah, it's a lot. I mean, it's definitely strategy because what a lot of people don't do carry is that they don't look at it from a holistic vantage point. They don't look at all the assets that they have. I mean, someone like you podcast, blog, email newsletter, subscriber, how to leverage everything that they have to make it work for its maximum efficiency. So, I come in for those who are either have an existing somewhat sort of a platform, and we figure out how to strategically make it work better and how to accomplish whatever the goal is that they might have, or it's someone who will work with those who don't necessarily even have a platform. - Right. - And how to build it. - It's a good point, you know, because I think a lot of us stumble into this accidentally. Like, I'm not a professional writer, I'm a pastor. That's what I do. And this is my hobby. And my hobby just happened to connect with a lot of people. Like, I never thought it would actually impact millions of people, but that's what seems to be happening. And I have an email list because everybody says you're supposed to have an email list. And, you know, you do certain things because you read the literature and they're like, but then I don't really know what to do with it. And it bothers me every time 20 people unsubscribe from it. So, I think a lot of people, and churches. I mean, churches have email lists, right? And we're gonna talk about that today. Like, a lot of people are like, what do I do with this email list? Or what do I do with my every, almost all our listeners would have a Facebook account or a Twitter account or Instagram or something like that. And like, we end up with these things, but we don't know what to do with it. And I'd be the first guy to say, I'm not 100% sure. Like, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about how to strategically use my email list or how to better use social media. And you need smart people around you to figure that out. I just write content, that's what I do. - Yeah. - That saying, let the doctor be the doctor. - Oh, okay, yeah. - Now it's kinda goes, it's the same thing. I mean, there's a lot of folks, you know, people like you who are content creators or someone out there who's listening that is, wants to be a writer or a blogger, they're the idea people. And a lot of times people, or lack of resources or lack of funding, they try to be everything and to do the marketing side of everything, which is good for them to learn aspects of it. But when they don't know what they're doing, they can easily get frustrated or just do the wrong things and feel like they're wasting effort and energy and just, you know, end up giving up because they don't see the results that they really want. - Yeah. - And that's, you bring up, brought up a good point, you know, to carry about like all the different mediums that are out there. You don't have to be on them all. You know, that's a misconception that a lot get. And I tell a lot of my clients, it's like, you know, if you're not naturally someone who's gonna tweet and engage on social media, don't be there. You know, 'cause you're just wasting your time. - Yeah, or if you do it wrong, you can really alienate a lot of people too, right? You can alienate your audience as easily as you win an audience. And so you have to be really careful. Trust is far more easily lost than gained. And so I try to be really sensitive about that. I mean, that's one of the reasons you and I were talking before we did this. Like there's not a whole lot of monetization behind my platform if you wanna look at that. And part of that is I don't wanna erode, you know, at some point I probably will have some partnerships and so on, but I don't wanna erode the trust that's established between the readers and the listeners and myself. And I'm scared of that. I'm scared of that as a pastor. I'm scared of that because I really love, you know, listeners and readers and love the exchange and don't wanna become that guy. So what do you do with all that, right? - It's that, you know, a dragon head of self promotion. - Yeah, yeah. - That's what holds a lot of people. I don't wanna say holds them back, but it's a big fear that a lot have. But it gets into the goals. You know, it's who are you, who do you wanna be? I mean, for you, you're a pastor. You know, you're not necessarily looking to, maybe at some point you might, but right now you're not trying to get out of the pulpit and, you know, create courses on the back end of your blog. - Right. - So it's different strokes for different folks depending on what they're looking to do. - So let's dial this right back. Like, so everybody listening, I'm gonna just assume they're leading something 'cause that's who this podcast is for. So it could be a church, could be a business, could be a team. You could be leading volunteers. You might not even have staff. And probably you're trying to grow your mission, okay? And platform, really, in its purest form, is there to help you grow your mission to achieve an objective? So the question, and this is right down to 101, is simply this, should everybody have a platform? Should everybody think of themselves as having a platform today? - Well, I mean, I think if we take it, even a step back to what you just started out with, it's leadership. And if John Maxwell was right, if leadership is influence, then yes, we all have some sort of platform, whether we choose to recognize it or not. We have the power and the choice to use that platform for the benefit of others or the benefit of ourselves, or to just haphazardly not use it. - That's good. - And I think, you know, little simple things, like my wife and I made the conscious choice a few years ago when people were like, oh, I'm getting off Facebook, whatever. You know, not gonna engage. We said, no, we're not gonna do that. We're gonna stay there. And we're gonna try to say something encouraging every day about our relationship to just kind of live out loud and let our lives be an example to our friends and whatnot. That's a platform. We're not trying to grow it. We're not trying to monetize it. We're trying to influence others, I think. - So you're not even trying to accomplish anything other than maybe make a small dent in the universe and make the world a better place. And it's funny, like you and I have never met face-to-face. We talked on the phone and now we're video chatting. This will be an audio podcast, but we're recording it via video. But like, I met your wife last week when I was at, we're recording this in early May of 2015. I met her last week at the orange conference and like, I recognized her. It's like, oh, I know you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that was really cool because I felt like I knew her because I follow you on social media. So clearly that's a strategy that I have an impact. - Yeah. And I think, I mean, to answer the question specifically, everyone should have a platform if they're trying to influence others. And that goes for especially pastors, especially anyone who is trying to make a positive difference out there in the world, that you need to have that. I mean, a platform all it does is really just elevates your voice. So whether you have something to say, sell, whatever it is, it's just helping to elevate your voice so that you can influence more people. - Yeah. And again, if you're a leader, that's what it's about is, is you believe in your cause, you're passionate about your cause and how do I influence more people? So, a lot of our listenership is Christian as well. A lot of them are church leaders. So humility I see as a key characteristic of Christianity and not that I've mastered it. I mean, gosh, we all struggle with humility and pride and arrogance and all of that stuff. But I think the social media era that we're in and the platform era that we're in has just accelerated that or poured gas on it or made it more confusing or something. So is there something inherent about having a platform, something inherently like egotistical or self-promoting or arrogant and having a platform? Because I've heard that said, what's your take on? - Sure. Yeah, it's all about, I mean, like most things, it's the motive behind it. If you're in it, who are you trying to serve? Are you trying to serve yourself or are you trying to serve those who are following you? And that, we can all sniff that out. And I think a lot of people who subscribe to your podcast carry and read your blog, they know the humility, you can tell. You can just tell the way that people come across that the humility that they're trying to embark upon. And sometimes we can focus on it too much, but it's the, I'd rather err on the side of caution and have too much humility than not enough. But it just ultimately really goes back to, what's the goal? What are you trying to do? What are you trying to be? - So is there like a filter for that or is there a sniff test? Because I mean, for me, I appreciate what you said. Like, okay, so humility comes through. But like one of my biggest daily battles is just with pride. Like it's just, you know, guess what? I'm selfish, guess what? I think about myself first, guess what? I'm a sinner, guess what? There's a part of me, like I get excited when the stats go up and they don't go down. And but then, you know, I've got a word that I use that sort of I use as a focal point to try to make sure, okay, don't make this about you. But like, do you have filters for that? - I'll share mine in a minute, but I'm just curious. Like what, how do you know if you're being self promoting? How do you know if you're that guy or that woman? - I think when the attention starts to shift when you're excitement over the stats goes, look how many people are following me versus look how many people I am now helping or serving. It's that subtle shift that makes all the difference. And it's when the narcissist, I mean, every great leader that I know or speaker has a degree of, I mean, has that pride in the ego that helps them to be able to do what they do. - A little bit of sweat. - But it's also, yeah, absolutely. But it's at the same time, you know, has the danger to be, to envelope them and consume them when their platform starts to grow. So it's that continual self-reflection, the continual, just self-awareness too and having good people around you that are, you know, gonna call you out if you're starting to focus on the wrong metrics. - That's why I love coming home. - Nobody's impressed with me at home. - Yeah. - Like, okay, nobody's impressed here. I'm just me, right? And yeah, okay, so here's the filter, you use the word. This, my personal filter is simply the word helpful. Am I actually trying to help people? Am I trying to honor God in all of my work? And then, you know, when I write a post specifically, you know, with a message, I think it's a little bit different because you're bringing the gospel, you're bringing, you know, whatever that is that we do when we preach. Obviously, I'm trying to help people, but I'm trying to honor God. And obviously, I'm trying to honor God in this podcast, in my writing, in my blog, in my books. But like, I always run everything I post through a helpful filter. Like, you know, when I was writing the questions for this interview, it was like, how's this gonna help the person sitting there going, I don't have a platform. I'm not Mark Batterson, I'm not Michael Hyatt. So I try to keep that in mind. Like, is that one of those things that helps in that journey? Or are there other things that can help those of us who are like, I don't wanna be that guy? - Yeah, I mean, that's a great filter of the helpful. Someone once told me not, and I don't remember who it was, but, and it had to do with monetization. How do I make a million dollars? You know, stop focusing on making a million dollars, focus on serving a million people. And that really, you know, John Gordon, I mean, every author that I work with struggles with the same thing. Every pastor that I know struggles with the same thing, you know, I mean, it's the, it's that tension between not wanting to appear self-promotional and not wanting to fall into the trap of it, but also being able to get your message out there. And it's just the, it's the good with the bad. You have to take it, you know, the good with the bad and just focus on making sure that your attention doesn't shift from them to me. - Okay, so let's go there. All right, how do you have a platform then? Because if you have a platform, you're kind of talking about yourself, right? You're talking about, or it might be your church or it might be, and, and by the way, we'll link to this in the show notes. If you haven't read Gary Vayner Chex, jab, jab, jab, right hook. It's like almost two years old now, but great book. And he talks all about being generous with your platform and that. But that aside at some point, you're gonna talk about yourself, right? You're gonna say, hey, look at my book or look at the sermon series or look at that. How do you do that without becoming, you know, coming across as arrogant or egotistical? - I think it's inherent, you know, it's just part of the deal because you're the messenger in the sense, I mean, if God's given you a message and you believe that you are pursuing the message that God has given you, and especially if you are a believer and you're trying to glorify God in what you do, you gotta come to grips with the fact that you are the tool that the carpenter has chosen to use. And with that, it's that you're the mouthpiece, you're the one that people recognize. And I get that a lot, you know, to where an authors come to me and I don't wanna create a blog, I don't wanna make a, you know, a Michael Hyatt blog, I wanna make a XYZ group blog and it's gonna be, because I don't want it to be about me, I want it to be about, you know, this other thing. But that doesn't work because it's like, it doesn't work as well, it can. It's a lot harder because it's like when John Maxwell is speaking at an event, who do people remember? John Maxwell, you know, you remember the messenger, you know, who's delivering the message. So there's just a part of it, you know, that has to come with the territory. But ultimately, you know, it's looking at those who are doing it well too. People like you, people like Judas Smith, people like, you know, Stephen Furtick, you know, guys that are using their platform to advance the church or advance their cause or their mission. There's plenty of great examples. - Well, that's certainly the heart for it. I had a really, and I don't think you mind me saying this, but I had a really interesting conversation recently with John Acuff, whose new book, "Do Over," just hit the New York Times bestseller list, all the bestseller lists. And we were talking precisely about this. It was one of those just backstage, you know, off the record conversations. And we were talking about self-promotion. And he said almost exactly what you said, which I thought was so helpful, which is, you know, you can sniff it out. You can tell when people are self-promotional. And I don't think of John as self-promotional at all. Like, I love following because he adds so much value. He's funny, he's clever, he's interesting. And I'm really thrilled that he's sold that many books and that he's helped that many people. But he just said, look, if God has really given you a message or you have a message that you're proud of or you've got a message that's urgent or important, why wouldn't you talk about it? Like why, and you don't have to talk about it through a selfish filter, but like, why wouldn't you want that message to get out of there? If you've got a book or let's say, you know, a lot of listeners don't have books, but you've got a sermon series you're really excited about, why wouldn't you want a thousand people to hear it rather than a hundred people to hear it if you think it could change their lives? And I found that very helpful to think through as well. - Well, and you probably might experience this more or hear about it more. There's a big tension out there too of those who don't have a platform contend to try to discredit those who do. - My book didn't sell, so now I'm just jealous. - Yeah, basically. You know, it's like, oh, you know, such and such passer. He's got his own blog and his face is on everything and he's just in it for himself and he's in it for the money and it's like, that's when we get into dangerous territory because we're questioning someone else's motives. I mean, I personally don't think we should always assume the good and until someone has given us a reason not to, but it's just like what John said. I mean, it's when you believe in it, if you believe in it enough, then you'll need to find a way to get it out there and don't let the fear of self-promotion stop you because that's just Satan using a trick to keep that message down. - It's a good thought. And if you've got people around you who are rooted, who are anchored, who are not impressed with you and they've got permission to speak into your life, they'll tell you when you're going off the rails, you know? I'm married to an incredible woman. She tells me, so just listen. (laughing) - Exactly. - Okay, that's good, that's helpful. And, you know, I think it is a mode of check. I think it's a prayer check. I think it's a, you know, I love what Andy Stanley says. You just hold it loosely and if God puts it in your hand for a season, that's awesome. And if he takes it away, you know, so be it. Then it came and it went and that's fine. You're pretty passionate about people helping scale their message and having an impact. So if you're a local leader and like you're not famous and, you know, I talk to bloggers all the time who are like, yeah, I have like 12 people read my blog. You know, you got my team, my mom reads it. Yeah, she's just the repeat person. Otherwise, it's only 11. Or you've got like 100 friends on Facebook or 50 followers on Twitter. And so you have it really, like you're just starting out. What do you do, how do you get your message out when like not a lot of people are listening? - Well, I mean, the big thing is consistency. Making sure that you're consistent with some content, making sure that you're writing for them and not for you, that you're, you know, the filter that you use, am I being helpful? That's a big part of it, of making sure, especially when you're in any sort of vertical where you're self-help or Christian living or anything where you're, you know, trying to speak into people's lives in that way. It's just being helpful. I mean, it's a big part of it and staying consistent. There's a lot of tactical things that you can do. I mean, there's the things like you mentioned about the email growth. A lot of people focus too much on social media and not nearly enough on your email list. And I think churches could take a lesson on that too. I mean, my home church, we now have our general, I mean, it's a, it's a good-sized multi-campus church with about 5,000 people on the weekends. But we have an email newsletter that now has about 15,000 subscribers to us. - That's huge. - Yeah, it's people from all over. But it's our influence, you know, is reach and it's expand as a result of it. But it's the, it's just starting out, you know, and just being consistent and putting some of those tactics in the place that are gonna help to multiply your, your effectiveness as new subscribers come in or new visitors so that you're able to attract and retain them, that's important. - Yeah, so let's go there on email. I think the last time we really talked about it on this podcast might have been episode three with Casey Graham and I wanna have Casey back and drill down on it more. But there is something that everybody has. I'm sure, like if you don't have email, you're not listening to this podcast. So people might be, I'm not on Facebook. I'm not, okay, everybody's got email. And the business marketers I know tell me that is where they would say the money is. That's where, like if you're gonna sell a product online, you need an email list. And if you don't have an email list, you're not gonna do as well, which is really weird because like how many people really like email? I see email as a necessary evil. Like if I could, if I could banish email, I would. - We all complain about it, but it's still one of the most effective mediums that there is because the challenge with social media, and I forget the stat that I just read. I mean, like Twitter, when you post an update, 13% of your followers are gonna actually see it because they're not on all at the same time that you're posting and then their feeds buried down. And then the same for Facebook and when Facebook doesn't show all our updates to all our followers anyways. But email is the one that we have the chance that their open rate is gonna be there and you're gonna actually attract them. So it's really, I mean, it's a really important tool for those trying to build their platform and the churches too, I think don't utilize the email opt-in opportunities nearly enough. And just today, Gary, my wife's forwarding me an email that she got from you about communication tips and things, but it's that proactive nature. It's going out to them and it elicits a response. - Yeah, that's interesting though, because I think a lot of local leaders miss that because you have a database, right? If you're running a church of even 50 people, you got a database. If you're running a local not-for-profit, if you're running a local business, you've got some kind of client management system and people just don't think about emailing people, but it's a great way to communicate. I know we've got a good-sized email list for our church and I'm now, and I got challenged by Rich Birch, who was, we had him out as a guest, I think at episode eight. I don't know why, but people's names and episode numbers stick together in my mind, but Rich really challenged a few of us, he sent out an email and just said, "Hey, would you send out an email every week "to your people and see what happens?" So I've been doing that almost every week for like five or six months and like, the engagement is up and you ask people questions and it is a really good way to connect with people. - For you as a blogger too, Gary, I mean, I would, I'll ask this. I mean, have you seen a correlation between, as you've put more attention onto email list and integrating email capture into your blog, a correlation to with the increase in traffic? - Yeah, you know, probably not as much as I should. I'm, and this is bad, I've talked about this with a few people, but like, I'm still scared to email because I get unsubscribes every time and I'm like, oh, the list was like, so it's grown hugely. I didn't have a list three years ago now, there's like 14,000 subscribers on it and it grows by somewhere between 500 and 1,000 subscribers every month and it's got a great open rate. I think the open rate is like 40%, which is huge. - That's huge. - Yeah, it's huge compared to most in what you do. Open rates can be as low as 5%, 10%, right over to 25%. So I feel like there's a lot of trust there and I want to make sure I add value and I've got to explore that, but again, I'm a content creator and so what I try to do when I email my list, this is for my blog, not for my church is I try to add something I haven't maybe said on the blog or said recently on the blog, so you're opening it, it's not just recycled content, but like, I run pretty fast and sometimes there's just not a lot of new stuff to say or I've said it all on the blog or on the podcast, so I don't want to email the list, but I know if I'm going to get serious about the strategy, you know, I've got to do a better job of my list. - Yeah, I mean, you just said it right there too with the strategy of making sure that the content that you're delivering via email isn't always the same content that they can just get on the blog. I mean, that's important, that's an important strategy to make sure that you're nurturing the list and whatnot. But, you know-- - Yeah, and again, it's that like, I always ask myself, did I just waste 60 seconds of someone's life? And if they already read on the blog and then they took the time to open it and there was no added value, is that really great. And same goes for your church too, right? It's not just, hey, come to church on Sunday 'cause then people like every email he says would just come to church on Sunday. It'd be like, you know, five ways I struggle with prayer or do you have this problem too? And hey, on Sunday, by the way, we're going to be addressing this. But you try to, if somebody read the email, I always think there should be something in there that if all they did was read the email, they're like, okay, I'm a little bit better off for that. You know, 'cause you can't be massively better off every time you're just, people aren't that smart. I'm not that smart. - Well, 'cause you're gonna get people too, I mean, especially from a church perspective that don't attend locally. I mean, we've got, for my church, we've got, when we segment our list and look at it, we've got several thousand people that don't live in the area that have just, you know, maybe passing through, but they're still actively engaged. We can track the links and see they're going from email newsletter to watching a sermon replay online and that they've got giving units. You know, I mean, it's all reflective. We're kind of in a, even though we're local churches or local and personalities sometimes, it's a global marketplace. I mean, we have lots of opportunity that are, you know, that if we just choose to accept it. - Yeah, we hear from that all the time, even when people from our church and certainly, you know, I'm a Canadian, but like only 10% of my audience for the podcast and the blog is Canadian. But 80% is American and the other 10% is international, largely concentrated in like Western, what we would call Western countries. So yeah, it's really weird. You know, here I am sitting in an office, you know, my home office in the middle of the place nobody's ever heard of, north of Toronto, Canada. And, you know, there are-- - But you have an amazing view. I've seen the photos on the screen. - It is nice, you know? This is spring, like the grass is getting cut, the buds are opening, it's pretty cool. So-- - Hey, can I add something just that you brought up there a minute ago about the Unsubscribers and, you know, kind of being afraid to engage the list. That's not an uncommon issue. And now almost every person that I work with, especially is starting out. And this can be, you know, that isn't isolated to an email list or anything like that. If you're starting out on anything, you know, mission-wise or an initiative, those initial unfollows, they're hurtful. - They are. - You know, they make you question, what did I do? Did I do something wrong? And you gotta get past that. I mean, so, I mean, just speaking to anybody listening who's starting something, don't let those things stop you. Because it's just, you can't focus on the isolated incidents like that because eventually for every two that you lose, you'll gain six, you know? And as long as you're making a net gain, that's what really matters. And you hear it all the time from email marketers or people that are heavy into online conversion rates. I mean, it's just par for the course. You've gotta focus on those who you retain and not on those you lose. - And I think you can, yeah, for sure. And the weird part, Daniel, I mean, this feels like counseling session for me today. You're asking great questions, but like, I'm okay with people leaving our church. I've been at this 20 years. I know our church isn't for everyone. I've written about that. And if somebody said, hey, you know, we're leaving, we're gonna go down the road or whatever. You know, I'm sad to see them go, but I'm okay with it. But even on the church email list, 'cause we use MailChimp for it. When I get like 18 unsubscribes on a email that goes out to 1,200 people, I'm like, oh, I don't know why, it just hurts more. - Oh, yeah. - What you can learn and what I have learned. Like I had one, probably my highest-end subscribe happened with something I did recently. And I thought, wow, why did so many people unsubscribe? And like, I think it was 75 out of 14,000. And then there was like, if you follow this stuff, there was a complaint thing where they report you a spam. And it was like over a dozen, which is I never get over a dozen reports of spam. And eventually they'll shut you down if you keep doing that. And I'm like, what did I do? And I forgot to add value. - I was telling them to do something and I just forgot to add a tip. And I'm like, okay, remember that. Always, always, always add value. So I just broke my own rule and you pay for it. So you can learn from that. And I think too, if you're always being unfollowed, like I know when I started my blog, like I've had a blog for years, but when I started serious blogging in the end of 2012, and I decided to commit to three posts a week, it's like, 'cause I had read platform, the book that you worked on, I'm like, well, I'm gonna do seven Twitter updates a day based on content and five to six Facebook status updates. And I thought, for sure, I'm gonna lose all my friends, all my friends, they're all gonna leave and they're all gonna go, what happened to you? Just the opposite happened. I mean, I don't know how many Twitter followers I had, but like now it's 12,000 or so. And Facebook has doubled and the email list exploded. And again, I think because hopefully in the end, people find it helpful, but when you put it out there, you need to be prepared to lose some people. - Yeah, and we're so afraid of offending other people. And it's kind of like in church and volunteer world. It's like, don't say no for somebody else. And it's kind of, it's the same deal when you're building a platform or a following. We're so over cautious, just naturally to not wanna, and it's kind of counterintuitive a lot of times where you think, oh, I can't post five times a day on Facebook because everybody's gonna get mad. It's like, not everybody's looking all day long. They're probably in two minutes, yeah, exactly. It's like, well, you're missing out when you're not posting more frequently because it just frequency helps expand everything. - Well, and the other thing too is if the content you're directing people to actually helps them, they will be thankful for that. They will not be angry. And if they're angry, you lose a couple. But make sure your gains out strip your losses. That's a really good principle. And if they don't, then you're probably doing something wrong, right? - Absolutely. - So what are some best practices you've seen around ordinary people building platforms? Like, what are some tips that reach into your tool bag and tell us? - Well, I think, and I'm gonna flip this back on you a little bit if you don't mind because obviously everyone who's listening to this and who is a follower of you probably would love to see a little behind the curtain style of what goes on with Keri's blog and Keri's platform. 'Cause I think you've got a unique one. I mean, it's one that probably a lot of folks who are, and it's a good one, you've done a great job with fostering great content. You've got great traffic. You're doing a lot of things that are attracting a lot of people and you're doing it in a way that is loaded with humility. You're advancing the awareness of your church at the same time. So what are some of the things that you've done over the years that have helped you think, I mean, grow in the greatest capacity? - Well, yeah, I always say I'm the most surprised person on the planet 'cause I feel like I've been doing this stuff for years and people are like, how do you get all those people to read your blog or listen to your podcast? 'Cause I mean, blogs are all over the place these days and I'm like, I don't know, I don't know. I used to go teach some of this stuff and I get in my car and I go down the road and I teach at a church that I knew and they'd tell me everything I was saying was wrong and then I'd drive home, you know, but I'd just kept saying it for all these years. But there was a turning point for me at the end of 2012 when I released my second book, Leading Change Without Losing It. And I'd released an earlier one that I wrote with Reggie Joyner on parenting, parenting beyond your capacity and it had done really well. But we were using, actually I was Orange's first book, Rethink Group, Orange Same Organization and I was the first Orange publishing book that was being published. So they were a new publisher and I had just read platform which came out in 2012 and I took really good notes when I read platform and I thought, okay, I probably need a blog, I probably should try to help people and I really didn't know what to do 'cause I'd had a blog for five years and it wasn't that good. I mean, I would do fits and starts and I started the blog because we started Kinexis and it was an easy way to vision cast but then after that it was like, you know, I went for a bike ride today and I saw a cow, not a very good blog post, right? No, I think I actually have that. I have you Google, those bad posts are still there so if you need encouragement, just go way back into the archives and you'll see some horrible posts that I did and then you'll see like, I disappeared for months and like I wouldn't blog anything and twice I almost shut it down and then after I read platform I thought, no, I'm just gonna make a decision. So it was in like September, October of 2012, I just thought, I'm gonna write three times a week, just three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday and I just started doing it and almost immediately there was a traffic jump. But did your content perspective also shift? - That's when I decided I'm writing for church leaders not for myself. - You identified your market. - My market, my market was church leaders. That's a good point. Okay, so you're helping me figure out what happened 'cause I haven't really thought about it. No, I identified an audience and I thought, it's church leaders and you know, I've had that conversation, I've had, you know, really smart people say, so who is your audience? And I'm kind of like, is it senior leaders? And yeah, that's the sub-target, that's the bullseye but like church leaders, we all share certain things. I mean, you know, and I think that's true of volunteer church leaders as well. So if you're a leader in ministry, you're my audience. And I hear from all the time from business people who are like, I don't really lead in ministry but this is super helpful, I'm like, great. But, you know, I don't know much about business, I was in law for a year. You know, what do I know about business? I know about church. So I wrote, and then the other thing I did was I tried to figure out, I call it the content well. Like, everybody has several wells and the question is how deep is your well? And Reggie Joyner and I have talked about this a lot, like my parenting well isn't that deep anymore. My kids are 23 and 19, they don't live at home anymore while the summer that's different but like, they don't live at home anymore. And so I haven't got a whole lot of like baby changing, you know, middle of the night stories anymore like you at Daniel, 'cause you got, you got an infant or a toddler. And I just don't have that. Now, Reggie, he's even a little bit older than me but like, he just, he has stories that will never end because his well is very deep. But I have a deep leadership well, probably of all the subjects I've ever written on, leadership is the deepest. And so I thought, and you only, I only found that out by starting a blog. And 'cause I thought, oh, I'll be like communication. If you go back to 2012, I think I said, I'm gonna blog on leadership change, personal growth and communication. Found out I have like, I love communicating, I do it all the time. I speak all over the place and at my church regularly, I have like five posts on communication in me. That's it. Like I wrote them, Wells Drive. - That was it. - Yeah, okay, I said everything I know how to say, but so I think you have to figure that out. And then probably the biggest inflection point happened on social media when I decided that I was gonna break some rules and I was gonna publish, you know, and if you follow me on social media, you'll see I do this to this day. There's like dozens of status updates across different platforms for the blog and for the podcast and that, rather than alienating people, it's exploded. Like that, I don't know what the numbers would be, but like I've gotta have two and a half years, three, four, five times the Twitter followers and double the Facebook folks. And Facebook is a number one refer of traffic to my blog more than Google search. So, you know, those are some things that I did and then to run everything through a helpful filter. And I always tell, and the other thing that I started doing, I always remind myself, nobody cares what I think. Like they really don't. Nobody cares what I think. And so if you look at my writing, nine times out of 10, the word you appears in the first paragraph because this is about the reader. It's not about me. I may have an insight that I think might be helpful, but this is like, I'm not trying to tell you what I think. I'm trying to help you solve a problem. And so, you know, sometimes people say, "Hey, can you read my blog and give me feedback?" And like, well, all I see is I. I saw this or I think this or I did this. And I'm like, people aren't interested in what you think. They're interested in being helped. So those are some of my tips and tricks, but I'm sure you've got better ones. - Well, you answered some of the big ones right there. I mean, even unknowingly, I mean, because the biggest thing for anybody is they've got to find their voice. And you really normally, and that doesn't mean, I mean, there could be some senior leaders listening to this that, like you speak weekly from stage to platforms of thousands of people. But it doesn't mean that they've necessarily found their voice on how to write or how to communicate something that is beyond the pulpit or beyond whatever their main platform is. So it's important practice creates that and helps identify that, but it's two, it's finding the audience. And that's a lot harder than a lot of people think that it might be because most of us tend to not want to niche ourselves. We want to, you know, I don't want to be two. I mean, even like me doing this podcast, we're talking about platform. It's a little hard for me sometimes, because even though it's a big part of what I do, it's not all of Daniel Decker. There's a whole lot more to help people grow businesses. I help, you know, do a lot of the different things, but it's a part, you know, of what I do that I know is important and that I hopefully can articulate and add some value to. But it's finding that voice and finding that niche that you're going to be confident in speaking into that's the big foundation point. 'Cause without that, you're just, you know-- - Well, you gotta have a target, right? I think that's really important. And for me, the center of the target is senior leadership. And why? 'Cause I'm a senior leader, it's all I've done. I started as a senior leader. Now, they were very small churches. So there were no other leaders, but like, that's all I know, that's my context, that's my experience. Now, I know there's a ton of children's pastors, student pastors, next-gen pastors, discipleship pastors, exec pastors, campus pastors, you know, all kinds of church leaders, business leaders, volunteers who listen, but it's kind of like a radio station, right? Your target is 34-year-old males or 18-year-old females, but you happen to pick up the odd 55-year-old along the way and the odd 13-year-old and a whole bunch of 20s and 30s along the way. And I think the same is true in your church. You know, our target is a 30-year-old male living in suburbia, 'cause that's kind of our neighborhood. But we pick up lots of teenagers and 20-somethings and 50-somethings along the way as well. And at first, that feels very divisive. It feels like, oh no, well, I'm only gonna have a tiny little market, but you actually pick up more people that way, because you're very clear in your voice and then people understand, oh, and you don't even care whether I follow or not. No, I don't, 'cause I'm trying to reach this guy, which actually makes you more interesting, I think, paradoxically. - Well, I mean, a good example to use too is an outside of necessarily ministry space is Michael Hyatt, a lot of listeners probably know. I mean, Michael was the CEO of Thomas Nelson and was writing about publishing and leadership for a long time and definitely a lot more geared towards leadership. And as his trust level expanded, and as he built his following on those who were with him on that journey, he had a huge platform so that when he began to speak into other areas of life, like his life plan or platform or anything along that, he's just got a natural audience that's willing to continue with him on that. It's like you go niche and then you can go wide. - Yeah, you know, that's really interesting because I think Michael too has discovered his voice in public. Like, if you go back to 2010 or 2009 when he started blogging and his audience was smaller, he was still trying out different subjects and that's okay. I mean, it's a lot cheaper to fail on a blog than it is in a book, right? - Yeah, absolutely. - And so you can do that. So should everybody be blogging? What do you think? - I don't necessarily think everyone needs to be blogging. They need to be creative. If you wanna be, create a platform, you have to have some sort of content that people can engage with. - Right. - John Gordon is a good example of that. I mean, John doesn't really, he's not a blogger, but we write or he writes a weekly newsletter that's come out for the last 13 years every Monday via email. People subscribe to that and it's just, you know, it's not a very long article. It's a leadership or team building or something positive leadership and we've got 110,000 subscribers to that. - That's huge. - And that's just, you know, over time. You know, it's the story of the overnight success that takes 10 years. - Yeah. - You know, everyone's looking at you now going, "Kerry, how did you get so many followers on your blog and social media?" It's like you wiggled your nose and all of a sudden it happened. - Yeah. - No, it starts small. - Yeah, totally. And that's like with John, the email list now is so big that he just had a new book come out this week of recording to this podcast and the book dropped within the top 150 just from his email newsletter. - Nothing else, you know, he didn't promote it anywhere else other than his email newsletter. - But he's built trust. I mean, week after week after week. And that's another test I use too, Daniel, as all this stuff is unofficial. But like when people see your name, are they happy or are they upset? Right? 'Cause there's good email to get and there's bad email to get in the same way that, you know, we all have caller ID now on our phones and like there's calls we wanna take and calls we don't. Are you a call people wanna take? And, you know, when you show up on someone's social media stream, are they happy to see you? Or are they like, oh, what's next? Or what are you promoting now? Right? So you wanna think about how you're perceived in the community. And hopefully you end up being that person that people can't wait to get from because again, you've helped them, right? - Absolutely. - Which is good. - And the tangible parts of building the platform, whether it's a blog or a podcast or it's just, I mean, my suggestion to anyone who's doing it, if you don't have some sort of catalyst opportunity and a catalyst opportunity could be a book, could be an online summit, something that is a rally point that gives you an opportunity to launch. 'Cause when you're coming out with a book or you've got a podcast, you've got something that you can get other people to promote and share. When you don't have that, it's a little harder 'cause then you kinda gotta just trudge along, you know, and find your voice and build your following. But I always suggest, you know, if somebody, once they're getting going, once they've identified with their goals and what they wanna do, you know, is try to look at what is a catalytic opportunity that could be brought into the campaign to try to help boost things and give a rally point. - And could that be as simple as like an e-book? I mean, or a PDF that's just really high value? So you can create this on your computer using standard software. I mean, this doesn't mean, I don't know any publishers or whatever, but again, a piece that is actually gonna help people and then, you know, that becomes the conversation piece of the starting point or the shareable. - I'll give you a quick example of something that works pretty well, but I mean, it's also association. When you're trying to create your opportunities and your platform is, you know, just setting you above the crowd, it's raising you up so that your voice can be elevated, but it's association too. So I had an author last year who was a new business author and was looking for an opportunity. We were doing her book launch and wanted to, you know, come out with something that was gonna position her along other authoritative leaders. So we put together the higher level leadership summit, which was basically just an online leadership summit with about 15 other leadership experts, Sean Maxwell included and Tony Robbins, where they just did these short little 15 minute videos prerecorded that we created an online summit site for the people could register for. And we got 40,000 people that signed up for this thing. - So I said no to speaking of it. - Yeah, you said no. - Can you believe it? Would you ever invite me again? - Never. - Okay. - That's why I rescheduled the podcast. - I know, I know. - I know, you didn't. - I'm hurt. - Well, listen, man. It was just at the wrong time. I would have loved to have done that. - I'm just messing with it. - 40,000 people. - Yeah, wow. - But that's, see, that was a catalytic opportunity 'cause on her own, she had no platform. I mean, she was just getting started. She had no email list, but now all of a sudden, we kind of, you know, we thought creatively of what can we do to get her message out there, but to do it in line with these others and use something to create a big email list driver and that was it. - Well, I'm schooled. I'm really-- - Here you go. - You give me that opportunity. - Next time. - Next time, Kerry. - Yeah. - And subscribing to your email. - Right now. Daniel, see, that's brilliant, right? And you might know somebody who can help you out. And a lot of people are willing to help as well. Let's talk a little bit about social media. Here we are, we're recording this in the middle of 2015. What are best and worst practices you're seeing these days on social media? - The best is to make sure that it works for you. Too many people, like you said, are saying, you gotta be on this, you gotta be on that, you gotta do, it can be a fatigue if you're not someone who is naturally a communicator or someone who likes to communicate. And if you're doing it just because everyone says you should be there, then you gotta step back and rethink because it's better to step in with one medium and just get there and own that medium. I'd start with Facebook. I think Facebook still has the most audience potential to get them, outside of email. Email is like your number one thing, but social media-wise, Facebook is still one of the most effective, but it's like own one. Don't try to be on Google+, and Twitter, and Facebook, and everything and their brother, just start with one and own it and get yourself into a good position where you're adding value, you're getting some feedback so that you can then branch out to the next one. - Yeah, and so for me, I mean, that's looked like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, that's it. I'm on Instagram, but that's more personal in church than it is, I don't know how to link to anything on Instagram. So, yeah, you can do it, that's good advice. Who's doing a great job at platform building today? Like if one of the things I do is I try to follow people who I think are killing it, and who do you think's killing it? Who's doing a great job? Who's a great follow these days? - I mean, every one for me is put through a different lens because there's different goals that they're trying to accomplish. 'Cause being on the outside looking in, you can see someone and you think that they're successful, but that isn't always necessarily the case. They could be just killing themselves on the back end. But I think in the church world, Judas Smith's doing a great job. There's, I mean, you are doing a great job, I think, and I'd be curious once we get past this, I've got a question for you, but in the just general platform building world, Jeff Goins, it's fantastic, Michael Hyatt, obviously. Even John Gordon in a different sense where John's not necessarily using all, as many of the tactics that some use, but he's still just building from a great content perspective, but there's just, there's a lot. - John Acuff's doing a great job too, I think. - John Acuff too. - And there's this guy I follow on email, if you wanna learn how to write email. And now I'll warn you, if you're offended by colorful language, do not follow him, do not, do not. And I am, and I, you know, I don't swear, but I just, you gotta learn from everybody. His name is Ramit Sethi. Do you know him? - Yeah, absolutely. - His emails are hilarious, like really funny. And I follow him, I've done a course or two with him, but I follow him just to learn how to write better on email because he's brilliant, he's so engaging. - He really is, and he's got a great story too. You know, and you mentioned John Acuff, I think he's a good example of someone who just, I think he mentioned this at Orange too, that just a few years ago, I mean, the guy's doing a catalyst breakout at Catalyst and has two people show up. And now, John, you know, can go to, you know, unnamed city in Idaho and 80 people show up at a barbecue restaurant to do a meetup. - I know, he's pioneered that whole meetup thing, right? I did my first one ever at Orange Conference, and again, we were just straight off ripping off John Acuff, but so many people wanted to meet. It was like, okay, I can't do all these one in one meetings, but people actually showed up, and I was so nervous, like it was great. - But that's a good example of how, like, John is taking, you know, when a lot of us are focusing so much on building our online tribe, you know, of how to take it that step further and, you know, turn the offline into, I mean, online into offline so that your relationships are established. - He is brilliant on that. He is a high touch guy too, in that, like even signing books. Yeah, side hugs, the whole deal. Okay, those are some good ideas. You said you had a question, then I got one or two more. - Yeah, I mean, I'd just be curious, you know, I would think some of your listeners might be curious too of how does it work for you? Like with, I mean, you're the senior pastor of Connectsus, and you've got your own blog. I mean, are you doing all this stuff yourself? What's the, what's kind of the setup? Is the church pay for things? Is it you paying for things? How does that work? - Yeah, no, you know what? That's a great question, and the finances are separated. I don't ever wanna use church time or church dimes for that sort of thing. I have a very open relationship with the elders, you know? So there is income that I make outside of what I get paid at Connectsus. They know what that is. They know where it comes from. They have a right to speak into that. And so we just, you know, I try to be very transparent with the group that I need to be transparent with. And I'm just at a different stage of life too. Like I said, my kids are a little bit older. I could not have done this 10 years ago. You know, I had kids at home who needed my attention, but, you know, I have great marriage. We have lots of date nights. I cycle, but like I'm not heading to the tour de France anytime soon, and this is sort of my hobby. And it just happens to be a hobby that has garnered a big audience. And then I have a sort of relationship with the rethink group with Orange. And so it's a co-pay between what they, you know, this blog started, "Hobby's cost you money," right? So I would pay for that. Now the costs, I mean, I got my MailChimp bill, and it's like 150 bucks a month. I'm like, "Wow, I didn't even know it was that expensive." But I cover that. And, you know, eventually through book sales, and when I speak, you know, often I get paid, and so that offsets the cost. But it's pretty, it's not really a business right now. I mean, it's incorporated and all that, but we're trying to figure all that out. And again, maintain the integrity in the midst of all of it. So that's what we're trying to do. - What's good? Not that probably helps a lot of leaders that are out there in the same similar position. - 'Cause I get asked, like everybody wants to write a book now, and I'm just, you know, whenever people ask me, I'm like, you need to just talk about this openly with your elders and your core team, and you need to let them speak into that. You need to let them say, "That's too much," or, "That's not enough," or, you know, "Hey," and every church will be different. Ours have just been very generous, and I'm able to be generous back. So, you know-- - Good. - That's how we've navigated that. So, question for you, Daniel. Somebody wanted to get started or take the next step. Is there just like one piece of advice? They're like, "Hey, there's a ton of stuff in this interview," but like, where do I start? - Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing is it didn't, I mean, it's hard to know where someone's coming in in the continuum of stuff or who they are and what their goals are, but I think the biggest thing is just really to sit down and strategize with yourself of where do you wanna go? Who do you wanna help? Who do you wanna speak into? I mean, 'cause without knowing that, you're just shooting at a moving target and you're never gonna hit anything. And I can tell you 50 tactics, use lead pages to do this and do that, and none of it's gonna matter if you're not refined on who you're trying to reach and what you're trying to do. But I think the bigger part is just to start. I mean, so many of us kind of overanalyze it and wait and put a shit of wooda and maybe-- - I don't have a designer, so I can't-- I didn't have a designer. I had a blog theme that was out of date and built it to over a million readers before I switched. - That's all. - You don't need lots of money and you don't need partnerships. You just need to write and start. I think you're right. - And that's one thing too. If anybody needs inspiration, there's this thing on the internet called the Wayback Machine. Just Google it and go to Michael Hyatt from 2011 and you'll laugh because it's like, oh my gosh, but it's important to not let those things trip you up. I mean, if God's giving you a message, if you're really passionate about something, you owe it to yourself and to serving God to pursue it. - I love what you said to decide who you're gonna help. And I think that's it. 'Cause if you're like, well, I want numbers or I want money, you're not gonna get numbers, you're not gonna get money. If you just decide to help people, the others might come. - Now you can, I mean, you can, you know, short-term gain, you know, you can go out there and hustle and do something, but you're not gonna have the long-term effect and the real influence and the real impact. I mean, every client that I work with, I run through the filter of, you know, is this somebody who's genuine? Do they really want to help people or are they just in it, you know, for the game, trying to monetize or whatever? Not that making money's bad, 'cause we all, you know, need to finance things and yeah, absolutely. But it's if they're motive, you know, is rooted in really making a difference, then that shines through. And it's just like you're writing, you know, Carrie, that we all know and respect you and look at your email and look at your Twitter and Facebook as a, you know, a positive influencer because we know that you're giving us value. And when you build that rapport and you build that legacy, then that's what matters and gives you that credibility to withstand. - Oh, thank you, Daniel. I appreciate it. That is the heart behind it. You know, I'm thankful if that shows. I'm very grateful. So I know there's a lot of people who are gonna be like, I gotta get to know this Daniel Decker. What's the easiest way to do it, Daniel? - I'm the, you know, the typical plumber with leaky pipes. So, I mean, I've got Daniel Decker.net, but I never write on it. Just, you know, for me right now, it's just the season of life that I'm in with the clients and work with the church and maybe, yeah, it's just, but Twitter's good at Daniel Decker. That's a good place. I mean, I'm always, you know, people have questions. Email is good to Daniel@hirelevelgroup.com. Daniel at higher level group. I'm happy to answer questions if anybody has them. - That's great. Hey Daniel, thank you so much. - No problem, thanks, Carrie. - You've helped a lot of people today. - Hope so. - Well, that was a super awesome interview with Daniel. So much fun and one of those guys, we had a few of them on the podcast lately that I've never had a chance to meet in like real life, but we've just connected online. And he's just a guy you wanna spend more time with, isn't he? And watch for Daniel in the future because, you know, it's very, very true. Behind everybody is a great team and I hope you picked up, you know, some tips for your team. And maybe that's a message you wanna share with some of the people who are behind your social media or people who are thinking through your online presence as an organization. And I just wanna thank all the people too because often, you know, you just see the author's name or you hear the host voice or something like that, but there are some great people who even help out with this podcast. So I just wanna take a moment to thank all the people who work on this podcast because there's a whole bunch of people behind the scenes and they make sure that it uploads and do all the editing and even draft the show notes for this. I write all my other stuff, but Jessica drafts the show notes and then I go over them to make sure that, you know, they're where we need them to be. And so thank you so much to Kevin Jennings and Atlanta who sort of oversees the whole thing. Wanna do a shout out to Toby who edits this. I mean, he takes the interviews and then me and gets rid of all my flubs and does a great job. He's in Colorado. Big thank you to Joanna Easley who sort of project manages all of this from wherever she is in the world and it seems to keep changing last time was Turkey. And then also thanks to George who's joined the team very recently in helping us out. And Jessica who does the awesome show notes that so many of you love. She does the first draft of it and then I just have a quick review and make sure, you know, it just sort of works out the way we want it to. And she's just great. So thank you to everybody who does that because behind all the voices, you know, is always an incredible team. So we're gonna have a lot more next week. We are coming back with episode 42. Super excited for this episode 42. It's actually a guy named Brady Shearer and Brady's a fellow Canadian and he has at the age of 24 started something pretty incredible. He's doing pro church tools which among other things helps churches with their media and announcements. And it's a company that has just exploded. So fascinating interview from two perspectives. How do you lead something that is growing rapidly when you're barely into your twenties and then what is changing in church media? So that's next week with Brady Shearer for episode 42. The best way to never, ever miss an episode is to make sure that you subscribe. So head on over to iTunes, Stitcher or Tune in Radio and hit subscribe and it's absolutely free and we will catch you next Tuesday when we release another episode. And I really hope this has helped you lead like never before. - You've been listening to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast. Join us next time for more insights on leadership, change and personal growth to help you lead like never before. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) You