Ep 55 - Dan Shinder Talks About Social Media On Steroids

Our guest today is built a global presence with over 1 million active followers, reaching millions more people a week and growing by 4,500 a week from over 130 countries reaching millions more people a month using content marketing on social media and brand building strategies that he developed on social media.

While growing the drum talk TV brand, the brand reached 120 plus million people in all of 2021. All of this was done a hundred percent organically, no boosting posts, no paid ads. The high level of engagement yields, an average of 5 million in reach 2 million post engagements, 4 million video views all in every seven day period.

He's never paid for advertising or boosting posts of brands. Content. With the social media on steroids courses and consulting, he shares exactly how he turned drunk, talk TV from an idea into a profitable business and how you can utilize these strategies to grow your business to no matter what stage you're at currently, what he teaches can work for virtually any business in any industry.

From a local model to global, he understands busy as he and his wife have a blended family of 11 kids and 19 grandchildren. He says, if you're serious about what you do get serious about how you market it without further ado, Dan 

shedder, Hey Craig mills. Thanks so much for having. Entrepreneurs over 40.

I'm not sure I could qualify. 

Well, I did qualify. 

I very qualified. 

 It's great to have you Dan, the next time I'm going to come up with something that's easier to pronounce than entrepreneurs for myself. I don't know how many times I'm slaughtered that. It's a fun word. Yep. Now, can you take a few moments and fill in the gaps from that intro and bring us up to speed with what's going on in your world today?

Yeah, and it is a interesting world. Indeed. Drum talk TV is nine years. And four months old. And a few days I started it January 7th, 2013. And I actually started my brand of consulting and courses,  social media on steroids shortly after that, technically I started teaching it before that, but it was when, in that first year of Trump talk TV, someone pointed out that we were achieving 900% more online reach and engagement than all of our industry peers, which is a fluffy word for competitors.

We were achieving 900% more than all of them combined. And it was in that moment that I decided to start another company called advanced social marketing and. Really developed these courses and consulting to teach people how to do what I've done so that they could thrive doing what they love, helping other people, whether it's a non-profit or a for-profit business in any industry, it really does all work the same.

 So both companies are doing really well. I'm having a blast.  Trump talk TV drives me pretty nuts. We're going through two or three major expansions, , simultaneously going into a couple of new areas that we've never been into. And that's a full-time 80 hour a week career. And then, doing my teaching and consulting as a full-time thing.

 I don't know how I keep up with it all, but it's a lot of fun. I love doing it. Otherwise I wouldn't do it. I don't do anything unless it's fun. And when I teach, I make it fun. I think that's the best way people. Yeah. 

Now once you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert. And I think I know the answer, but I want to find out straight from you.

Most people will think I'm BSE thing. When I say this, I am an introvert. I am, I played drums and performed and recorded professionally from the age of 15. I didn't start playing when I was 15. That's why I started getting paid to tour and perform in play. I was an introvert. I was after the shows backstage in the corner of the room with one or two people quietly having a conversation while this may have was going on.

 Years ago, like a couple of lifetimes ago, I had a cooking show on TV and, and I realized right before we started filming the very first episode, I thought I need to really engage people and bring them through. The television said, how am I going to do that? I'm kind of a reserved quiet person.

 I think like most people are, I love talking about things I'm interested in and I told myself, I've got to just flip a switch. And I didn't really think about it. Director said, action. And I just, the light bulb went on and welcome to chew on this. This is where we talk a bit. I just flew into it. And you know how mom used to say, don't make that face, your face might get stuck.

Like that. That's kinda what happened with that. I turned on that switch and I've not found that the off switch, unless I really, really have some forced downtime. So when I teach, when I speak at events and things,  people laugh when they hear me say I'm actually an introvert because I certainly don't come off that way.

I do several shows on Trump talk TV. I do the teaching. I do a podcast. I'm a guest on podcasts, like your wonderful show. So it's sort of like living a double life, I guess. 

I can understand that though. do you ever feel kind of awkward putting stuff out there? I'm not, I'm not even talking about sharing something, salacious I'm just talking about, do you ever feel awkward, posting something  on either LinkedIn or any type of social media?

Cause that's, that is really taken me a while to get over. 

I really don't. And I think because why is that? Well, maybe this'll help up out. I have so double life again on LinkedIn. I post pretty much no personal stuff for the most part. 99% of is not for my personal life. And almost zero is drum talk TV.

It's all related to social media on steroids and teaching marketing and marketing training, and being an entrepreneur, motivating, inspiring others. It's all of that. My podcast, all that on my personal Facebook page, there's almost zero business. From time to time, I might post a, a podcast episode or maybe a,  interview on Trump, talk TV with one of my biggest favorite influences.

Other than that, if you scroll through my personal Facebook page, it's my dog and my cat, my dog, my flowers. I love gardening the lizard in the garden, the grasshopper butterfly, my cat. I don't know if I mentioned her on my dog, him and sometimes them together, my wife and I sitting around the fire.

My dog and my cat, maybe a couple of the grandkids, the ones we like, none of the kids. Cause we don't like any of them.  It's all battle. Almost no business. Yeah. And the jump talk, TV pages are different. We've got like five channels. Of course they're all  almost 0, 0, 0 personal Dan, unless it's my wife.

And I wishing everybody well after a show that we did recovering an event or something and thinking our team and you know, that, all of that stuff, other than that, I keep it very separate. But  it's funny. You mentioned what you just mentioned and I'll tell you why Greg and this is for everybody else's edification as well.

 So I teach a mastery class that basically teaches everything I've learned and the 50,000 plus hours of getting content marketing. Right. And achieving tremendous results. And with that masterclass, we all build on. To a private Facebook messenger group so that we can all kind of talk about wins of the week.

 I do once a week Q and A's on zoom with just the members, but if they can't wait til Monday, if they're stuck on something and could throw a question in there, I might answer it. Someone else in the group might know the answer because they've been with me longer. I just shared something yesterday that popped up on my YouTube feed.

I cannot remember the channel and it's a very short video of a gentleman saying, get 1% better with every upload punch perfection in the face, get rid of fear, just do it. And that's always been my motto. When I did my cooking show. I had no idea how to do a cooking. But, you know what? I had seven freaking TVs in my house.

I thought I knew everything I needed to know. I was just going to do it, dove him, just dove in and do it. Um, did it, did it dove in and do it? I dove in and did it when I started out, 

I won't be corrected the old grammar on this show. 

 Trump talk TV, same thing. I had a plan, had an idea. Well, in a large part, it was really my wife's idea and I adapted to it and then I put it out there.

I don't know what, and I'm not criticizing, but I don't know what people are afraid of. No matter how long you've been doing something, no matter how good you are at it in three years, you can look at it and go, oh, wow. That was like caveman compared to how I'm doing now. It's all relative. People need to just get off their asses and just do it.

There's a lot of people bless their hearts. There's a lot of people who are forever learners with no actual. And with learning and no action. The knowledge is worthless without application of the knowledge. There's no progress and without progress, it's all for not just put it out there and do it. That's transfers to one of the things I do on Trump talk TV.

I've been playing drums 52 years. I should be a lot better, but I've been playing 52 years. I'm not chasing rainbows anymore. Trying to get a record deal or get a tour gig with this or record. I don't even have time to practice or work on. Once or twice a week, I do a show that's live on our Facebook page, gets archived.

Then we put on all our other channels is called. Dan's almost daily flog. And I think of a topic maybe ahead of time, maybe on the spot. And I just sit down at one of my two drum kits and I play and I talk to the audience. We share ideas. I asked for their feedback, ask for comments. I'm so comfortable in my skin.

I don't care how well or not. I play, I do this for exactly the reason of inspiring others to just make videos and get out there, get out there. Don't worry about it was delighting, right? Is my hair right? What will they say about the kind of symbols I have just make videos and get your information out there, folks, whatever it is you're into, whether it's hiking motorcycles, classic cars, entrepreneurship, gardening, music, just do it because until you do it, you won't move out of that box.

And wherever we are. We're in a box, Oprah Winfrey is stuck in a box right now. Now stuck doesn't mean it's going bad, but she's in whatever box she's in right now, which came from another box, which came from a box, which, and I'm sure at some point she'll elevate to even another box. We're all on that sort of staircase of a journey.

But if we don't take action to get out of that one box, we'll never get eight boxes ahead, let alone to the next box, which we have to, to get to that other box up there. So I really love that topic because I'm just a Schmidt. And I love just showing how easy it is to just not be afraid and just don't worry about what people are gonna think.

And the reason why Greg is because some people will love it. Some people will hate it. Some people won't care and you'll never change that no matter how good or bad we are, and that's all subjective at whatever we do, there's always going to be people who will criticize everything. We do. Those people don't matter.

Yeah. 

I think, and I'm gonna  paraphrase is probably pretty poorly, but my pastor said this when I was young. I thought everybody was talking about me when I grew older.  I thought they were talking about me behind my back. And when I got to my age now I realized they weren't talking 

about me at all.

Yeah. And it doesn't matter if they are either.  I really want to encourage people to just take action and just do it. My course, my main mastery mastermind group, course, people have access to it for a year, for 12 months. And you don't have to wait until you've learned everything to apply it and get results.

I tell people every session you're going to learn something, apply it right away. The sooner you apply it, the sooner you'll get results. It's that simple. And you don't need to go through sessions one through 17 for 17, to make sense. And for you to apply it, you got to start put, you got, gotta push that car to bump, started into gear to then get it to go 30 before you can go 60.

 If you're 1% better for a hundred days and you do it once a day, guess what? You'll be a hundred percent. In about three months, that's, that's an amazing leap. It really is. You know? 

Now, did you come from an entrepreneurial background at all?

Did anybody in your family have their own business? 

Yeah. But not until my parents were in their fifties.  My mom was, this came in handy when I had beautiful hair. My mom was a hairdresser is what we called it back then, for forever, until she retired in her fifties and then worked with my dad, my dad.

Didn't graduate. High school was a self-made man, extremely intelligent. And he had odd jobs, not odd jobs, but he had, he had looked welding jobs growing up, and then he owned a battery business, selling batteries to car dealerships, boat dealerships, stuff like that. And then he was offered a job to a friend who worked for the McDonald's corporation, who was put on a fast track program.

And he ran the training department for the LA region for about 16 years and then retired and bought two subway restaurants sold one of them. Within a year for what he bought both of them for, and then decide to get out of food service. Him and my mom, my mom was an artist. He did metal sculpture as a hobby when I was really young.

So they were both in,  art kind of crafty and they bought a fast frame store. And that's what they did until,  my father had a really bad heart attack. His fifth one that they say should have killed him. , and then they sold that store and then that was it. They neither from work after that. So that's a long answer.

I had to kind of think that through, I guess I, I do come from an entrepreneurial background and when I was 22, I had a glass carving business, making tables, room, dividers, different things like that. But then I went into, I still played music, left it for a while, went into corporate America, went back to music and,  I fell in love with video when I started my own.

TV show. And I had a great job when I started that show. I had a job as a national sales manager for a company that sold, audio, video gear. But I started this show and it took off and I got to a point where I had to make a choice and I made a choice to go with the show. I had my own sponsors. It was my full-time gig, fell in love with the medium of video, started producing a couple of their shows and doing post-production.

 And then ended up leaving that and having my own video production company for 14 years, doing corporate videos, video bios, or company bios, different things like that.  Lived in Australia for a little while, doing charter yacht, industry videos and different things like that. And then it was after I came home to take care of my dad's.

Towards the end of his life. And when he passed away, I went back home, my wife moved while I was away in Australia. I think I was supposed to know about that. And I was like maybe 12 miles from her when I was taking care of my dad, but I moved back home and I said, I don't want to work with big companies anymore.

Let me just do your marketing. Yeah. Well work together. Yeah. She's a professional artists and seamstress and does therapy as well, art therapy. And, after about three months, she said, you know, I think you need to find something that really fills your cup. And I was just about to turn 50 and I said, I don't know what that is.

And she said, well, you told me you used to teach drum lessons. Why don't you do that? And I thought, oh, I'm a trained trainer because I have a, a certification as an NLP trainer. I know streaming video, I know video production. I did use to teach. I still play. That sounds great. So I started Dan's drum clinics and online platform.

And after three months of that, I started interviewing fellow educators. And when she saw that, she said, that's what you should do. Just do a German interview show. And I fought it and I said, no, this is just a side thing on the website. It's just that separate. And then, uh, a friend of mine saw it and said the same thing.

So my wife really kind of came up with the idea of Trump talk TV. And I started that, like I said, January 7th, 2013 and in the first. We became, the biggest, best largest of our kind in the music industry. And I'm real proud of that. And I'm proud of the fact that, , those numbers, you ran off at front.

And the fact that we haven't paid for advertising or boosting posts by one people to understand something, whatever they do, whatever you do, you don't need a million followers and you don't need to reach millions of people a month. It was never a plan. It was never a target for me, but I teach from how I did that because how I did that, I used those same strategies to get to a thousand followers and 10,000 followers and a hundred thousand followers.

And so on a million didn't occur to me till we got to half a million. And I thought, oh, all we need to do is do that again. And we're at a minute, that's the first time it even occurred to me. And you know, twice a year, Greg, at least twice a year, Professed experts in content marketing that talk about these algorithmic changes.

These drastic changes that happen on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, whatever. And they say, you'll never reach the same amount of people. You'll never get the same engagement. You'll never that. And I look at the algorithm change. I say, you know, I think I could figure this out. And I sat there, while I choke him, say you drummers are super hyper-intelligent.

That's how I did it, but that's actually, yes, I I've just looked at things differently. Greg. I don't pay attention to the herd mentality. I have a saying that everyone's busy doing what everyone else is doing because that's what everyone else is doing. So that figures the right thing to do. But they're following each other over the cliff, doing it wrong.

I've always taken an objective view, used some critical thinking and some uncommon sense. Tried what I think a work I've been able to get around every algorithm. This is how we reach millions of people a month. Without ever paying for ads or boosting posts. So even if someone has a bakery and they rely on just their surrounding four zip codes, you could still take these strategies  and be the busiest bakery in your area.

I guarantee it. , so it's not that it's all about being this global amazing, but that's part of my acumen and what I teach from. And it works, like you said, in the beginning for even nonprofits and, garage bands to platinum bands. And I equate that to entrepreneurship startups, to people who are sold their third company for eight figures.

And now they're starting again. It can work for that. You know, my students prove every eight to 10 weeks, we do an exercise that's attached. It's a 12 point task where people pick out, they just throw out their favorite, big brand in whatever industry could be food, fashion, automotive, whatever.

And they prove that they know more than the agencies doing the work for, and the brands themselves like Tabasco Levi's Toyota subway. And it amazes them because we go to those channels together as a group and they audit it and they go, oh my gosh, I know more. I said, you sure do. And I taught you that from my experience, now keep applying it to your business and you'll be the best in your industry.

It sounds really simple. 

Now, do you really even feel like you're getting around the algorithms? Because as I understand it,  you're really just giving people what they want now. I'm not trying to, you know, belittle it or anything. I'm just saying you're doing what everyone should be doing.

And that should be obvious, but really isn't because we can overthink things 

right. When you boil it down, it's exactly that. What is it Zig Ziglar used to say? He used to say in my best executor voice, if you give 

people more of 

what they want, you'll get more of what you want. That's what Ziggy has to say.

And every brand from startup to legacy from a startup shoe brand in a garage right now to Nike, they're all making the same. And they're pounding us as consumers over the head with what's for sale was for sale was for sale advertisement, advertisement, advertisement. There's no reason to follow a brand.

If that's all they're going to do, we have to mix in a majority of content that is community building content, interesting content, entertaining content, edifying, educating content for us to keep following them so that when we do advertise something, we have a captivated audience that cares. And that's really in a nutshell, what I teach, how to do that, plus how it works on the different platforms of video work one way on YouTube, then it will, then it will on Instagram that will on Tik TOK.

Then it will on LinkedIn than it will on knickknack. Patty whack don't step on a crack. You'll break her mama's back platform. 

Now you, you went through and you kind of gave a little bit of how you did what your path was, but I want to still go back to that because a lot of times we just see the end result of somebody's success.

And in your case, you've got drunk talk TV, social media on steroids, call it, you know, the courses and consulting. And you talked a little bit about it, but I want to kind of take a deep dive into how all that came 

about. Okay. Well, let's see. I love to teach.  I love sharing. If I could use the word wisdom,

 Advanced social marketing, which is the home of social media on steroids. That's my marketing training company and consulting company. It's a Sage brand. If we look at the 12 brand archetypes, it's a Sage brand, the Sage brand is to teach, share wisdom, Edify people, drum talk TV is a primarily a jester brand it's to bring joy to the world.

It's silly. It's playful the opposite of every other brand in our space, in the music industry. So I love to teach. And when going back to, when it was pointed out to me, how much we were achieving above these other brands in our space with Trump talk TV that had been around. 10 to 37 years at the time, this is nine years ago.

We were seven or nine months old. That's when I realized I really had something. That was the spark of creating workshops and courses to teach this. And I started teaching it in the music industry, to startups, to bands that were on the rise or wanting to make it to golden platinum artists that were already there, but needed to really learn this new thing of content marketing.

And then. Someone saw me speak at an event. I was helping Billy Cobham run an event and make a documentary. Billy is the forefather of fusion music,  tremor from my Houston orchestra, played with George Duke, all this wonderful stuff. And someone saw me speaking and came up to me and said, that was great.

Are you a member of NSA? And I said, uh, what? That he said, national speakers association. And I said, oh my God, you don't know what that is. He says, there's so many clients waiting for you. There come as my guests, I'm a member, the Arizona chapters, the founding chapter, I'm in Arizona. And I reluctantly agreed to go.

Cause I don't, I don't join things. Um, my wife and I do not join associations or clubs, or we don't book tours. We go do our own thing, but something told me to go. I also knew. When I met this general, I knew that he was retired from Intel. He managed 3,200 people. He taught at ASU along with four other universities and had a business consulting firm.

I thought maybe I should listen to this guy and just go to this thing and see what it's about. And the first 10 minutes the light bulb went on and I thought, oh my gosh, Kevin's right. There's all these different leaders and beginners in all these different industries that happen to congregate through the national speakers association, because they all write books, they all do blogs.

They all speak at events on what their area of expertise is. And as they started, I joined, in fact, I joined. This was in November of 2015 or 16. And I joined right away in time to go to next month's holiday party. And I told my wife, if there's ever a time to really get to know what people are about, it's when their hair is down a little bit.

So let's go to this thing and check it out. See if it's worth sticking with amazing group of people from ages in their twenties to seventies, a few of the founding members are still alive and doing their things still one just passed away sadly recently. But it just opened all these other doors outside of music.

And now I started working with people in health and wellness, dental tech, leaders in a real estate training and just on and on and on. And then I found my way through other, Industries working with four dealerships and different things like that. Which was wonderful because it proved what I knew, which was that what I provide can work for anything.

It's just changing the suit that it's in. , it's really all the same strategies. Some people want to believe they're different. Some people want to believe their business is so unique that there's no way you could teach what worked for them. For me, they're in the potato chip industry. I am in hiking boots, freaking thing.

It's all the same. Yeah. So that was part of that pivot journey where I thought, okay, I'm going to teach this where's my tribe. It's right here, the music industry, but then going, joining NSA open a whole new, it was almost like when Dorothy steps out of the house and everything turns to color, that was the difference.

Okay. Yeah, there's been a few times in my life when I've had that, that mind shift and it's like whack on the side of the head, how that happened. Why did I not see that before? 

Yeah. And I think I didn't because I didn't have that tribe yet. I didn't have that connection. And even though I was suspicious of, or I knew it would work for any industry, I didn't have those connections yet.

And that one link, I mean, just think if Kevin didn't attend my session at that day's retreat and didn't see me speak up. I'd may have never found out about it. And it wouldn't have led me to work with these other industry. You never know who you're going to meet and how they're going to help. 

Yeah.

 So you mentioned tribe. How does somebody that, if they don't have a tribe, how did they even go.

Not only finding their tribe, but defining their target avatar and coming up with compelling content to attract their tribe for that. 

The real answer to that is in my course it's okay. But let me start with this in order to find your tribe, you got to find you, and in order to find you, I encourage people to take a piece of paper or they could do this on the computer and draw three circles that intersect in the middle.

So you get that sliver like this and in those three circles, and one of them, you write skills in one of them, you write opportunity. And in the other one, you write desire and your skills are, that's kind of obvious your attributes. What you're good at your opportunity is who are you connected with? Who are you connected with?

That's those are opportunities. Your desire is what do you really love to do? What makes you happy? And when you fill some things in those three circles where those three circles intersect with that sliver, that's what you should do once, you know, what you should do, it's easier to find or build your tribe.

So if someone just going to throw out an example, if someone says, I've always been handy with cars,  I'm not a professional mechanic, I'm an accountant, but I love tinkering and I've always fixed up cars. those are some of my skills. I'm handy with tools and I learned quickly and I'm, I'm kinda static.

I need to get in and feel it. Um, my opportunity is, uh, gosh, I live where there's a lot of, there's a lot of car clubs and, and things like that. And my desire is I've always wanted to get that 57 Chevy Bel air. I don't know. I love that 63 split window Corvette though. So I don't know, but were those three.

Maybe that person needs to start a lifestyle brand around classic American cars or Italian sports car, whatever their thing is. And when you put all those together, it's easy to find your tribe. Now you join some car clubs, you go to a museum, you go to some of these ride events. Even if you don't have the car, you go and you start talking to people, Hey, how'd you get into this?

How much is something like that? Well, really I can get a classic car to fix up for only $20,000. I thought, you know, it just, and that's just one example it could apply to pets could apply to horticulture. I know people that have come up with inventions because of their love for pets because of their consideration for people like me, that struggled with arthritis.

Does they invented a glove that helps with arthritis. Me coming up with social media on steroids, because I had such tremendous success with my strategies that I wanted to share with other people so that they could share that. That's to me, how you find him and build a tribe, building the tribe reflects on your other part of your question, the content marketing part in not just hammering people over the head.

So you got to do this. I just happened to have one handy. You got to put on the fans hat when you're designing content, ask yourself, is there too much? Am I just posting advertising? It might just selling, selling, selling, and then ask yourself also, is this content cool? I mean, you got to sit at the grownups table, really be objective and look through the fan's eyes where they're ha don't ask.

Don't ask your friends. Yeah. Well, in with their best interests at heart, they will walk with you, hold your hand and not all the way to the cliff. And then let you fall up this 81 to hurt your feelings that,  you need someone that's going to beat you up, kick you down the stairs, run down the stairs, kick you again.

When you're at the bottom of the stairs, tell you exactly what they think is wrong with what you're doing, but then as 10 other people that'll do that because not everyone's going to have the same opinion and not everyone's the same. Even if you think you've designed that one, avatar that you sell hiking boots to here's an example, let's have a hiking boot.

Dan's boot. Get the boot. If all my videos showed seniors like me, On hikes with Dan's boot, the young people, the 18 to 24 year olds would say, oh, those boots are for old people. I'm going on a real hike. I need some boots for me, for younger people, more agile people. But if all my boots featured the younger crowd, 18 to 24 year olds, the older people like me would see that and go, oh, those boots are for the young people.

I, I need some boots from my wrinkly ass, old mileage feet. They're the same boot. I hate 

that you're using yourself as an example because you're in a lot better shape than I am in. Could kick my 

ass. Well, people peop the point is people need to see themselves in the marketing and in the advertising and advertising and marketing are not the same thing.

And a people don't see themselves in either. It's not for them. Oh, that, oh, that's for them. And that's why in the last five years, especially, we're seeing more diverse. Cultural representation amongst people, you see a lot more mixed race couples. You see a lot more people who are mulatto mixed, white and black, or,  American, Asian, or American, , Asia major from India.

You know,  you could see this, you recognize it. And there's nothing wrong with that. My wife is black. I'm not. Um, and, and we, we used to joke and say, Hey, there's all kinds of new ads. What's with, they're copying us. We'd go to tractor supply to get some supplies. And they kept this kiosk of this porch swing.

And it's a black lady and they're copying us again. There's more and more representation because there's more and more of that going on. People. They just see themselves in it.

So we live in a police called global Arizona. It's a hundred miles east of. Up in the mountains, about 3,700 feet. And I'm from the big city I grew up in Los Angeles. My wife is from the big city. She's from the north Bronx, the bougie part of the Bronx we met when I moved to Las Vegas.

She'd been there since the eighties. I moved there.  December, 2007, we met three months later. A few years later, we, we decided to take the leap and get out of the big city. And here we are, we live in Mayberry. There's 7,200 people here and there's Andy, there's a Barney, there's an Otis there.

There's a, the barber shop. There's a, there's a low Floyd member, Floyd, Floyd, you know, they're all here. We live there. So there's a tractor supply here. 

Yeah, we're definitely rural. But we found out from one of our kids, seven of the kids live in Vegas and,  we found out just like a couple of weeks ago, there's a tractor supply there and we were like, what? And there are some outlines. Properties that are horse property and stuff, but it just didn't occur to us.

Yeah. Pictures, the casinos, people used to say, really, you live in Vegas casino. Do you live in for like, why would only when I can see, you know, it's funny.  But people need to see themselves, even if you have, will you think you have one avatar you don't because there's age ranges, there's genders, there's culture, there's race.

There's social strata, economically, politically, but don't get into politics. I'll use one more example. If I may, we have timed someone who's my age. So let's say 60 ish. We'll say someone's, who's 60 ish and lives in Manhattan and an apartment and never left. Manhattan is going to have one view of the world that same age and gender living in Omaha, Nebraska.

Who never left Omaha, Nebraska will have a completely different view of the world. Someone like me, male, 60 ish, white, who grew up in Los Angeles, but has traveled to four continents and lived on a different one for two years. I have a completely different, so we need to remember that we're catering to different people.

Even if we say target is late fifties, early sixties, white men were still. And we process things through our model of the world. And our model of the world is developed by our upbringing, our surroundings, and how much or not that changes over the course of our 24 years of life or 74 years of life.

And as content creators, whether you're podcasting blogging, whether you're doing email marketing posting on social, whether you teach, whether you consult, whether you have a hard product for sale, we all have to abide by that, or you're sunk. Don't ever think that you have one type of customer, and don't ever think that your product is so different from everyone else's that you don't have competition, a bowling tournament and town.

The same weekend as the carnival being in town that's competition. Cause someone might have to make a choice. Do I take the kids to the carnival or are we doing the bowling tournament that we've been working towards anybody who's in competition for the same dollar as your competition? Even if they're not in the same industry or the same space, if they're catering to the same people, we don't know half an endless expensive supply of money.

We have to make choices. It's important to remember that. 

Yeah. Now I will listen to you on a few other podcasts, including your own show and , I 

apologize for anything ahead of time. Right now, 

I was going to say, including your own show and you seem to have a really positive outlook on life and business.

Have you always been that way? 

Yeah, I have. However It's important to understand that when you see someone like me, that I'm not saying I do, but exudes that we all have our crap. We're either going through it or we've gone through it. And it's important for us as people to remember that.  And as successful as my two businesses are as much as I love doing them, there are frustrations and I have thrown things from time to time and I have found, invented new expletives.

If you, depending on how good you are, the Panthers might be interested in you. The quarterback 

that's funny, but when it comes down to it, it's your foundation. You'll only fall so far. If your foundations way up there, you got to have a positive attitude. I was fortunate. I know that not everybody is fortunate enough to say this.

I grew up in a very loving home. My parents had dated since they were 16, they got married early. They were 22 and 23 when they had me. Had one sister younger than me. So when I grew up, I wanted to be a dad. I had a great example of that. Most of the kids I went to school with in high school, there, they were the youngest of their siblings.

So their parents were as much as 10 years older than mine, and they couldn't relate and they always were bitching and complaining about their parents. And I didn't get it. ,  just a quick story of how that can have an effect on someone. So I started playing drums at seven and at 14  I was really good.

I was playing very difficult music. I was also playing in the school concert band and the Tuesday night jazz band. I wanted to be the next jock Cousteau. I wanted to be a scientist. My mom thought she had that all figured out when I was born my first two initials or Dr. For doctor, how hard could it be?

Right. It was all gonna happen. My dad, when I was 14, took me to my first concert of flash in the pan band. No, one's probably heard of the name was led Zepplin. And by the third song, Greg, the light bulb went on above my head and I thought, oh, you mean that could be a job. So a few days later I got my parents together and I said, I don't think I want to be an oceanographer anymore.

My mom said, oh, what do you want to be? And I said, I want to be a professional drummer, like John Bonham. So after we waived the smelling salt over her face and hit her with the paddles and revived her, she moped around for about a week. And then a year later to the. She found an ad for an audition that became my first paid touring gig around the country at 15 years old in between ninth and 10th grade.

And I went on tour opening for bands like blockbuster, Colts sticks, heart seals, and Crofts pap Boone at 15. And it's because my parents supported me. They believed that their kids should follow their interest in whatever that was, as long as it was legal and not going to hurt anybody. I got away with most of that.

They would support that. And none of my kids are musicians for the same reason I wanted. I was never going to force them into that. I went through so much harp. Growing up as a teenager and in my twenties chasing that record deal, and tearing up the sunset strip, playing at every place that existed in the late seventies.

And through most of the eighties, I did not want to force that on any of my kids. If they showed interest, I was there. I was going to be their support system, but none of them did. So I  never did that. Now my wife, one of her kids , is a professional entertainer and he's amazing.

That's part of my, where my positive attitude comes from. And it ties into what we said near the very beginning. When you said you're a bit apprehensive about putting stuff out there and I've always. The belly flopped in a friend of mine after he started my cooking show, he said, what do you know about doing a TV show?

And I choked. And I said, what I told you, I said, I've got seven TVs in my house. We had a bunch of kids at home at the time have 70 views in my house. I know everything I need to know. And after he saw a few episodes, oh, I should mention this same friend. I recorded a soundtrack for movies, demo playing all the instruments myself about maybe six or seven years earlier.

And then when he saw my cooking show, he said, you're so ignorant. You don't know that you don't know how to do something, so it doesn't hold you back. So you just end up getting it done. And I said, you're right. I don't ever want to believe I can't do it. I don't need to know how to do. To believe I can do it.

I'm going to just dive in. I'll figure it out. Someone will teach me, I'll get the right people around me. It has always worked. It's always worked and so I had that. I think that's part of that influence I had from that positive upbringing, you know, I said my, so my dad who wasn't even a high school graduate, get this high paying corporate job with the McDonald's corporation.

I mean, to me that showed me anybody can do anything. Yeah. 

I don't know how he did that, but it sounds like he had a lot of gumption and he was a pretty smart individual. 

Yeah. He was, he was recommended by a close friend who were already worked for the company.  He did the interview. They put them on the fast track program and he went from being a manager trainee to being the regional manager for Los Angeles for the training department.

In about, I think that took two years, he just zipped through and he was a smart guy. my wife will say that her dad and my dad were the smartest people. She's not including me in that, but include the smartest men she ever knew. And unfortunately, I didn't get to know her parents.

They had already passed and my mom had passed, but she got real close with my dad, especially when I was living in Australia for a while. And they spent a lot of time together. He was a neat guy, both my parents were. And so I think that's part of the answer was I always liked that. Yeah, I think so. I think there was one time when I went through one of my divorces where I was just so wrecked.

It was dark for a little bit. It was a little dark. , but I got through that and I got my bleep together and made wonderful things happen because of. Just felt the alternative was not very good. So, you know, you do what you gotta do, 

you know, just keep moving forward. 

Yeah. And I love inspiring people, that's a big part against why I teach what I've learned because it's served me very well.

So why shouldn't I share that for others? You know 

exactly. Now you mentioned on another podcast that the voice of your brand is everything. Now, what do you mean by brand? Is that just like your logo and your fonts and I'm throwing that out there cause I saw your podcast. 

Yeah, that's a great question. A lot of people think that if they're graphic artists and they create a logo and swag and merchandise that they created a brand that.

Not for the love of whatever you believe in people. That's not a brand that's branding. That's branding the brand. It goes back to the 12 brand archetypes. And if you don't mind me saying, I won't give it out now, but if you don't mind me saying, if anybody wants to email me and just put 12 brand archetypes in the subject line, I'll send that to you.

I'll send you the 12 brand archetypes developed by Carl Jong, the father of analytics psychology. You can look it up, but I'll send you my PDF that has my take on it. And the module from my course, no costs, no commitment so that you learn how this really works, because the voice of every brand is one archetype or another, or a combination of, but it's always going to be dominant.

In one, I mentioned earlier that advanced social marketing and social media and stories is a Sage brand because we're teaching we're sharing wisdom. And Trump talked to me. It's a silly playful snarky. Sometimes, maybe even sarcastic funny. I know this is tricky piling out of this. The B the VW.

No, I'd argue. It's infotainment. I'm not negating that. 

Yeah. And if you look at brands like let's compare apple to Microsoft, Microsoft 

is the clickety clack reverberation 

of dress shoe heels, walking down a vinyl tile floor with creased dress shirts, starched callers, and fluorescent lights.

Right. And endless hall of doors. Yeah. Everything's tip top. Whereas apple that's, you're laying on the ground. In a meadow, looking at the wind, blowing the clouds and trying to identify what flowers and birds and animals, the cloud. That's the difference between those two presidents shows in the company culture.

It shows in the voice of the brand drum talk TV versus modern drummer. And I can talk about them because, well, because I can now they are friends of ours. We've worked with almost every other media company in our space, but moderately, the drummer's much more serious. We've been around for 43 years. We're the go-to, we're the legacy brand.

When it comes to media companies in the drumming space, we're very educational and we're going to only pretty much only interview the legends. Whereas chump talks the VP. You know, it's damn as the brand of the voice is my voice really, you know, and we're going to do some things that others don't do. And it's not that serious.

You don't have to start your shirts. You don't have to wear a dress. You don't even have to wear a shirt for goodness sakes, and we're going to do all that. We're going to cover the legends for you, mixing a little bit of education, and we're going to curate content from all over the world, from our fans and over 130 countries and cover events and do documentaries.

And it's got to be fun and silly and playful, two different brands to serve two different kinds of people or to serve the same person and two completely different ways. And that's a big part, folks of what can set you apart, not your product, not your service, do come up with a way that you can articulate what differentiates your product or service from others.

But don't ever say there's no one like us, or you don't have any competition because we all do. But your voice of the. It's going to resonate with EFG XYZ, elemental P but it might not with ABC and a bunch of the others. And that's okay. Look, I have 11 kids and 19 grandkids. If there's one, one thing I've learned is you cannot make everybody happy with the same thing.

And there's no reason to try. So be yourself, let your brand be you. And don't worry about trolls and the criticism and the not everyone's gonna like it. And who cares? They're not your client. They're not your customer. Therefore they're not your prospect. Don't worry about. 

Okay. Going back to when we very first started, you know, I think imposter syndrome, number one,  that hits everybody.

Number two, you really talk about knowing who you're and I hate to use the word avatar, but who your avatar or your audiences and you're only posting stuff that's really geared towards that audience, you know, on your different platforms. 

Yeah. It's it does get tricky.

 But we have to drill it. We have to decide who, and I'd like to use the word persona. I know a lot of people in the industry do use average har I'm not criticizing that. I'll tell you what the difference is for me. The difference for me is that to me, avatar is a graphic representation. Representation of something like if someone's in gaming, their avatars, that, that thing that I like icon almost a visual icon to me, a persona.

Is what makes up that avatar? Who, what is that avatar's traits? There are men and women, 18 to 24. , they live in the city, they've got income from 50 to a hundred grand, you know, to me, that's what makes up a persona. But , it works the same way. Whether we call it an avatar persona or a bowl of jello, we have to drill down and say, okay, how far can we break it down in case, are the men and women.

Okay. So men and women are different. I think we could all agree. They're free kind of different content. Maybe this speaks to the men, different content that speaks to the women, even though we're selling the same thing to them, they live in the city. They make 50 to a hundred grand. We're selling the same thing, but they're men and they're women.

They're different await, but some are single and some have families. Oh, that there's another difference. We got to appeal to them and they're. You know, there's all these different factors that are important to recognize rather than assume that your avatar or persona is all the same person. Because the danger that we get into with that is a one size fits all marketing and advertising.

And that never works for the reason. I said with the boot example, they need to see themselves in the marketing and advertising. The marketing is what gets people to respond to the advertising. If the great marketing's not in place, an advertisement is like, okay, so, but the marketing is what edifies people about the brand.

What makes them fall in love with the brand? What makes them like the brand trust the brand. So when they advertise these ebook, I'll go check that out all by one of those. Yep. Give me the coupon. Let me try it. 

Okay. Now what are some of the common mistakes that people make when it comes to content marketing?

Oh, there's one. And that's not taking my course. Okay.

It really is not only the one size fits all approach, but that coupled with only advertising and telling people what the offer is, here's what I do. Here's what I do. Here's who I do it for. Here's what to do with this, for sale. This is Brazil. Here's our product here's abroad rather than building a tribe, a community around the brand.

And some people make the mistake mixed in with that, Greg, that they only need followers who were prospects, who are likely to become customers or clients. And that is another herd mentality. That's high on the BS meter because everyone knows someone who knows someone who's perfect for you for what you have to offer.

So we need people that don't, maybe they won't buy from us ever, but there'll be advocates. They'll still fall in love with our company. And there'll be part of that. Following part of that engagement, part of that crowd lined up outside the restaurant, you've driven by 10 times. You've never gone in and the one across the street, the parking lot is almost empty.

Which one would you go to? It ties into social proof and credibility and trust and all those things as well. So we can't limit our, I only want people to follow me who I'm likely to sell to. You've got your eye on the wrong ball. Remember what Zig said? You give people more of what they want and they'll give you more of what you want.

And sometimes that means just putting stuff out there to entertain info. Everybody make everybody happy and the right people will come to you to make the purchase or hire you, or at least come look or sign up for your email list, whatever it is. 

All right now in 2022 and beyond what online platforms do you see as being the best for small business owners to engage.

It depends on. That's a great question because it depends on what business they're in. At the same time, I do have a couple or three everything platforms and those are YouTube. LinkedIn and Facebook. And I know some people are hearing that thinking who my customers aren't on Facebook, or Facebook's only for older people.

None of that is true. I have all the data and not just me. There's plenty of data out there to support that the younger people are on Facebook, not every young person, but the younger demographic is absolutely on Facebook. And the seniors like me are also on Tik talking Instagram when people say, yeah, the seniors aren't on Tik TOK.

I say, really? I say, I'm a senior I've I follow tech talking, you know who I follow? I follow Anthony Hopkins, Al Pachino Brian May on a Schwartzenegger. So festers, they're all seniors older than I am. It's ridiculous herd mentality.  But Tik TOK is important as well. YouTube is number one or two to anything else because it's the number two place to be found owned by the number one, which is.

If you leverage and really master YouTube, it will be huge for you. I hardly ever look anything up on Google anymore. I look it up on YouTube cause I want to see how to do it. How does it work? 

Sometimes that works for me, but a lot of times, I like to see the written steps, you know, but I guess different strokes for different folks, but even we're wired.

Yeah. Some people are more digital. Like you are. I'm more visual. I, I can't, I'm not illiterate, but I can't learn from a manual. There's just too much there. It has no context cause I haven't done it yet. I need to see it, see how it gets put together. Put my hands in it. Then if I need help, I can go to the help menu and read and go, oh, okay.

I know what they're talking about because I've seen it or done it. And yeah, it's just how different people are. Absolutely. But those are the biggest platforms I think moving forward, there's something called the Tik TOK economy. Tik TOK is still kind of the wild west. It doesn't have all the reach sorting algorithms built in yet.

So Tik TOK is critical to get onto right now. You got to work LinkedIn. If you're a business person or in business of any kind or own a business of any kind and Facebook simply for two reasons, one, it has the largest population of any other platform, 3 billion people using it every day. Two, it has every bell whistle feature, function benefit app whose doodle knickknack, Patty whack thing that all the others have put together.

You master how Facebook works. You can master content marketing on any platform. 

Okay. And even more to your point, I've got an, a next door neighbor that she would say she's computer illiterate, but she's gotten a smartphone and she is now on Tik TOK with, I think she at last count was 6,600 followers.

Good for her, which is amazing to me. 

Yeah. 

Who knows. She may actually monetize it at some point. I don't think that's her goal or anything. I think she just enjoys doing it, but 

that's great. Yeah. So as the best things come out of the, sometimes the most lucrative things come out of just the love of doing it.

Jump, talk to me. You start out as a passion project. It really, I created it. My wife came up with the idea, but I did what I did with it because I didn't see that. And this and this and this and this anywhere else. So I made that all available in one place. Okay. 

Um, have a thought and it just left another senior moment.

Yeah. Entrepreneurs 

over 40. That should be our tagline. How to thought and 

yeah, exactly. I I'm going to use that. So you're saying that my space 

is out. Oh, it has been for a very, very long time. Yeah. Maybe 18 years. And I still see people that have it listed in their signature. I'm like, really? You're on mindspace.

Well, you can't take anything out of the signature. Do you want to ask? You wouldn't want to delete anything, you know, possibly first one there that might find you. That's hilarious, but yeah, exactly. So what are you working on? That's new and exciting. 

 Let's see. I'm actually. So with Trump, talk to beaches real quick, we're putting a subscription model together, which we've never done.

That'll have different levels of different access to different things. It'll be gamified. And with gamification, you can earn points and get another level or access to new things at no extra charge, really neat experiences with artists and things like that. We're also getting into the NFTE space with, NFT, content that is going to be our own intellectual property, as well as licensed stuff with artists that we work with.

I'm excited about that.  On the advanced social marketing social media on steroids side, I just came up and released. Today, pretty much it's Monday. Yeah. It's the official release of my mastery course that I teach in mastermind groups, but a self-guided version of it, self guided version of it that has, I say it as a third of the content, but it's the most robust self guided thing out there that no one else has comes from real life strategies, getting real life results from my 50,000 plus hours of doing it.

Right. And it's a fraction of the cost of my mastermind groups thing. And everyone who signs up for that still gets a, a group call with me once a month. I wasn't going to do that, but I decided, ah, this is just important. I think. So I added that. So I'm excited about that because there's a lot of people I want to help that just quite frankly, they can't afford the other thing, but this just about anybody should be able.

Okay. 

Yeah. Now, if you don't mind my asking, what are the prices? 

The master mind groups course, which is my highest level of what I teach the mastery mastermind course is a hair under $15,000 a year, access sessions, twice a week, access to the N folding library. But if you think about it, it's less it's, they don't teach this in college.

You can't go to any university and get a marketing degree and learn what I teach  and it gets updated as things change. How. Not everyone can just pay for it and register for it. There's no link to it, to register on my website because I have to make sure that people are a fit for it. It's not just about swiping their card.

Hey, you're in one bad. Apple can ruin that experience for everybody. And it's just not a fit for everybody. The new thing they can read about it and fill out a form and write me, and then I'll interview them. Uh, it's tremendous experience. It really is. Like I say, my students learned more than everyone working at the agencies for, in the marketing department for brands like Toyota, subway, north face, salvation army Levis Tabasco.

I can go on and on and on. The new thing is only 47 97. I believe is what is 40. 47 97 and, uh, it's self guided and there's over 30 hours of info that are taken from the other thing as from the archive library. So it's the same information you just don't have access to the live calls with me twice a week that the others have, um, it has the same exercises, tools, and homework attached to those relevant modules.

Um, and it's, like I say, it's less than a third of the fee and it's. Huge investment. And if someone decides they want to upgrade, they learn, they apply what they learn it starting to work for them. And it will, it's guaranteed a hundred percent. And the only way it doesn't work is if people don't do exactly what I teach, I've never had to give a refund.

Has it not worked for people? Of course, because some people get lazy or they reinvented, or they don't connect all the dots. If they do exactly what I teach, it will work. But if they decide to upgrade to the other thing, I give them a discount and they credit what they're already paid for this self guided course.

15,000, if it moves your business forward, it's well worth it. Oh yeah. And I just got to ask this, I know that. And I know that you're going to tell me that you know, that this happens, that people buy your course for 15,000 and they don't, they, they may not even log into it.

Has that ever happened? No, but. But or not completed it. 

I, well, I've had people not complete it yet. Cause it's, it's ongoing for 12 months and I just started this model in October and it goes about four months, then we reboot it and it starts from the beginning again with updated material and the same people are still in, but they have access to all.

Updated video modules and exercises and everything for a whole year. And I've even added, like we just rebooted it April 1st and I've added seven modules. I used to teach a podcasting workshop and how to monetize it. Someone at one of the Monday, Q and A's asks about podcasting and will this work? I thought, you know what?

I used to teach a podcasting workshop. I'm just going to add it to this at no extra charge. It's now part of your course. So I've, we're going to cover that in about four or five sessions in a row, just on that there's eight sessions just on video. I have a video marketing background comes in a little handy.

Um, but I have had people who there's a handful of people who have paid for it and they don't come to the live sessions. They're in the private Facebook group. They interact there a little bit. They do get all the emails. They do get all the updates, they have access to their own account. And they're just doing it under the radar.

Some people join as three or four people from a company, maybe only one persons attending the sessions and the other three are, have their own account. They're just going through the modules on their own. Okay. 

I could see that. All right. Now you've got two books on Amazon under the brand social media, more social media marketing for musicians that works volume one and three.

I couldn't find volume two. 

Oh. I was looking over to see if I've got one on the shelf to show it. Yeah. All three. Are there? Yeah. Yeah. Once, 

 Do you have any, plans to release something geared more geared toward entrepreneurs in general? Or is it, is the message just as 

applicable? It is. And I've been threatening to do that for four years, but the doing the sessions, those courses have evolved and just taken up my time and I, it takes so much time to sit down and to repurpose all this other stuff into, a thing I just haven't gotten around to it.

Um, yeah. 

Yeah. People tell me you should be on this. You should be all that. I need another job. Like I need a hole in the head. 

Yeah. That's how I feel.  

Let's get right and wrap this up.  What's the number one piece of advice that you can give for our listeners?

 Be open to the real information. Don't do what everyone else is doing, just because that's what they're doing. Think for yourself, learn from an expert. Even if it's not me learn from another expert or myself from someone who's had tremendous results doing it. There's not a lot out there.  A friend of mine who writes business books has never take advice from someone who hasn't done what you want to do.

Everyone on LinkedIn, everyone that has one of these lists, social media, as a skill, none of them are getting results. I don't know. It's like me wearing tennis shoes and saying I'm a tennis pro learn and learn from the best. And if it's not me, if I don't resonate with you, I'm not offended. But look at what someone's done and learn from them.

I can't imagine you're not resonating with somebody, but you know, we'll leave that there. I always 

the best some ex wives, but 

what's the best way for people to check you out, Dan, and get in touch with you. 

Thank you. They can go to www.advancedsocialmarketing.com, advanced social marketing.com.

You can connect with me on LinkedIn. Look up Dan Shinder that's S H I N D E R there's. No, see there's no L it's not, Schneider's not Schindler. Um, it's but, but yeah, it's, it's Dan Shinder on LinkedIn, or they can email me if you want to email me,  at, programs dot inquiry@advancedsocialmarketing.com.

And if you write me with 12 brand archetype, And in the subject, clients say what you're interested in and just, I'll also, if you have questions, I'll also send you my PDF explaining the 12 brand archetypes and a copy of that video module that you can just download. And that'll make its way to me.

If you have other questions and want to learn more about my programs, uh, that'll definitely get to me, but it's program inquiry. Is it inquiry or inquiries? You know what, how funny I got to look it's program dot inquiries and advanced social marketing.com and the.is lowercase. 

 I really appreciate this. I love what you're doing. Entrepreneurs over 40. That's an important topic. My wife was 50 when she became an entrepreneur.  

Well, Dan, have a great rest of your evening.