EP9. How Matchmakers Build Trust, Authority and Clients Through Storytelling and TEDx-Level Positioning

0:00 Welcome to the Matchmaker Mentor Podcast with Arlene Washburn, the show where love, industry professionals, coaches, and matchmakers come to learn, grow, and elevate their craft. Each episode dives deep into the art and business of matchmaking, featuring expert insights, real world strategies, and inspiring conversations designed to help you create meaningful connections and lasting success. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting your journey, this is your space to be mentored, motivated, and moved to make a difference in the world of love. Now here's your host, Arlene Washburn. Bobby, welcome to the Matchmaker Mentor podcast. Thanks, Arlene. I'm happy to be here.

0:41 I'm so excited for this conversation because I secretly have some kind of story to tell eventually and want to do a TEDx talk, so I'm so impressed that you've done it five times. I don't know too many people who can say that. Yeah, I think that TEDx is a perfect platform to share a story and message with the world. And I think everybody has a story. In fact, people have many stories. That's why I've done 5 TEDx talks. And I think, you know, if you want to leverage the TEDx talk platform to share your message, impact people, change lives, that's what it's all about. And at the same time, you can leverage it for your brand, for your authority, for your visibility in many, many ways. So that's one of the things I always tell all my clients. Find those stories, share them, and then use the TEDx platform to amplify your brand.

1:30 Yeah. And So what I find interesting is that the 10X speakers don't always talk about their area of expertise. To your point, it's usually a story. So how does 1 figure out what story to tell, what's compelling, what's going to be interesting to the public? And I know you work with professionals to help them kind of garner that, but how do you go about that? Yeah, usually what I do is I go through their life story and I kind of ascertain which stories I think would be a really good fit or TEDx worthy as we'll call them. But then what we'll do is we'll test them out. We'll validate with our network. Because when you put a story out there or share video, there's certain ones that people are going to love and there's certain ones that people are going to surprise you like, oh, that's a really interesting story.

2:13 Tell me more about that because you never know what's going to really appeal. And by having that validation process, you'll know the ones that people really love versus the ones that people like. That one's OK. So it's really to kind of put out there, and that's why I also say that no matter what you're doing, put stories out there, share knowledge, share ideas, because that one post that goes viral, that goes a long way. And I, the other thing I'll say is that the reason why we don't focus on expertise that work with people, I'll say, look, share a story that's based on expertise. Sure. Share another story that's based on your personal story, maybe something else wrong with your objective. Well, what we found is that from the tech talks that I've done and what other people have done is that the personal story has greater chance of viral virality.

2:55 It builds greater trust and relatability. And so even though your TE DX might not be about your expertise, it still leads to greater business because people like you more and that talk itself has more visibility out there. I struggle with storytelling because I have a lot of stories, but one of my struggles with storytelling is knowing how vulnerable to be versus like not getting too deeply personal and going down a path that takes away your credibility as a professional and a leader. Because I've seen people do this where they start telling things that are like way too much information, too much.

3:38 It kind of takes away a little bit about who they are in their profession. And so how do people balance that? Being able to be vulnerable, authentic, and tell a story without going overboard. OK, so first let's a couple things here. Number one, vulnerability as we know, and Brittany Brown has shown us as well that it's one of the deepest connectors with people. So that's why it's so powerful to be able to use that and leverage it. That's it. Every single person is different in terms of what they're comfortable with, but the truth is the more vulnerable you are, the more deeper the connection, the more deeper the trust and the more deeper the potential virality, what you're sharing. Now that said, the issue is not about how vulnerable you are, the issue is how you say it.

4:28 So I think what I've seen is 2 things that go wrong. People express things in a way that it doesn't really read well, doesn't really come across well. People like like if someone comes across as over sharing, they're doing it the wrong way. There's a way to share in a way that doesn't come across as oversharing. So that's the first thing. The second thing is you have to sit. You have to differentiate between what is personal and what is private. So let's say for example, I'm going to talk about my divorce and I want to talk about, you know, it's really hard. So if I start talking about my divorce, but then I start talking about my partner and how they're terrible, or I start talking about my kids in a way that interrupts their privacy, that's not the way to go. What I should be doing to talk, I could talk about. I got divorced, I felt like a failure. Here's how I felt personally.

5:17 But I don't throw anyone else under the bus. Now there are exceptions, of course, for people who will share other people like in case of abuse and whatnot. But generally speaking, you have to difference between what is personal and what is private because the private stuff, it impacts other people negatively. You don't want to do that, but being vulnerable, if you're willing to be vulnerable, you'll see the darkest stories that people have of trauma, but they do it the right way. There are people who share all the time about trauma, but they do it so often, so frequent in the wrong way that people like, oh man, like there they go again, right? And it's like, it doesn't come across well. So it's really in terms of how you say there's always a way to express a story and vulnerability in the best way possible.

5:58 And there's also a really bad way to do it too. Yeah, and I know a few matchmakers who have done TEDx talks and I observed how they went about it. And I've been kind of paying attention to TEDx for a while now because it's eventually something that I'm hope to do. And maybe I'll be working with you on that, Bobby. But I noticed like, for example, your hand gestures are really important. In some cases they look really awkward and they just didn't have the gestures that make it feel natural and stuff. So I mean, like the TEDx talks, it's also the story. It's your voice, it's your movement. There's so many things that go into it, which is kind of nerve wracking for me.

6:44 That's why it's something that I've put off over the years, even though I've been thinking about it for a while. So what advice would you give people who are seriously considering this in terms of all the different elements that go into it? Yeah. So First off, it's important to understand that the first step is you have to land the TEDx talk, right? And a lot of people, they spend too much time working on the talk itself without actually working on how to land it. And if you work on the top all the time, let's say it's not even a good idea. What's the point of that? You're going to waste a lot of time and energy. So the three-step process, you want to land the text talk. You didn't want to design and craft a world class winning, effective and viral talk. They want to leverage that talk for your brand authority, visibility and awareness, right?

7:30 But in terms of how you do that properly, it's important to really go through all your stories and try to find what the best 1 is and then learn actually how to express that idea very simply in a way that people get. Because if you can't do it, if you can't express it, it becomes an issue, right? Because the people who see it don't get it. And the people you're pitching to, they're not really sure what you're talking about. For example, my 5th test talk, I like to talk about my idea was very simple. It was 22nd hugs. And the idea was when do we hug someone for 20 seconds that's not our intimate partners or our family. And the answer was during tragedy. And so I talked about that specifically, why it's so important. Why do humans feel the need to hug for 20 seconds or longer? And so when I pitched that idea, simply it people. Oh, yeah, that's a good point.

8:19 I understand. I can visualize it. And so I think for a lot of people, I think they get caught up in the number one issue to stop you from doing a tennis talk is the mindset of who am I and do I deserve one? And oh, I'm sure I have the right story and whatnot. But the truth is, look, there are 10 year olds who have done Ted talks. There are 20 year olds who've done 4 TEDx talks. And why? Because it's not about success, it's not about achievement or status. It's about what is the idea, what is the story and why does it matter? And if you can come up with that, then you can, and you should do a TEDx talk. And then in terms of the mechanics and things such as like the hand gestures and things like that, is that something that you need to hone in on as well? Yeah.

9:05 So once you once you land the tennis talk, you're trying to optimize the talk, right. So there's things like your stance, your voice projection, the pacing, the slides, you might have everything you have to do. You have to design it all very, very comfortably. You also have to be very mindful of the audience and the theme. And you also have to learn to be a better speaker. So, you know, being a better speaker and presenting that includes everything. And so that's why you also have to rehearse it multiple times. I'm the type of person that I just speak off the cuff and I don't know necessarily rehearse stuff. But when I did my first Teix talk, I can tell you I rehearsed that thing like 30 times because I really wanted to make sure I got it just right. So they typically most Teix organizations will bring in a, a speaker coach from the organization to watch you the VB feedback. I also give feedback to my clients too, to say, hey, look like one of my clients, he's done 2 Teix talks. He did one in January.

9:56 He's doing 1 actually in a couple of days, so I'm coaching and just making sure getting it right and say it right and things like that. The pacing, because all that stuff matters. But I'd say for a Tenix talk, the most important thing is the opening. And what exactly? How do you open people? How do you immerse them in the first like 2 minutes? That's incredibly important. The 1st 5 seconds in the 1st 2 minutes, incredibly important. And of course after that there's different structures you can do to make sure your Tenix really stands out compared to the other ones. You have an interesting background because while people now know you as leadership and speaking and all that good stuff, your background is in engineering and corporate.

10:37 Tell us how you went from that to this and is this exclusively what you do now? You no longer in engineering all that good. Stuff, Yeah. So I started as an engineer, I studied engineering and my first job was in mechanical engineering, worked at design the aircraft. And while I was there for four years, I was kind of bored, like I didn't enjoy it at all. And so while I was there, I decided to start my own musical theater company. I started producing directing musicals on the side, which a bunch of young people and I was great. I grew the organization and after all four years I was like, you know what, I don't really feeling I'm fitting in here. So I decided to I want to go to entertainment in it initially, but I couldn't get in. So I did my MBA when I switched to marketing and I worked in brand marketing. So I did brand marketing for another four years and again, I wasn't really feeling it.

11:21 I dabbled in a bit of performance. I did, I dabbled a bit of teaching. But eventually after that I was like, what do I want to do with my life? And so I decided to dive my personal brand and really understand what I cared about. I interviewed with lots of people what they thought I was good at. What do you guys like about Bobby? What does Bobby mean to you? You know, what's my brand? And what end up happening was I identified 5 key brand elements and they basically screamed that I should be a motivational speaker and a coach. And that's what I did. I launched that 20 years ago and I haven't looked back. The things from those other careers. I take problem solving from engineering. I take brand and marketing from my brand marketing days. I persuasion influence for my teaching days. I put all those things together in terms of how I speak and how I coach.

12:02 And then what I started doing was I started speaking initially and that became really, it was hard at first, but then once I got a coach, once I got a community, and then once I land that first TEDx talk, things just completely took off. Started traveling around the world. At this point, I've done over 1000 keynotes and workshops across 4 continents. And then the first TEDx talk with the second TEDx talk, which led to five TEDx talks. I've actually been invited to four other TEDx talks, so that actually turned down. So I'm actually a nine time TEDx invitee. And then I just built on social media too. I've saw social media as a great tool to build my message out there. And so I started building on LinkedIn, Instagram, on Twitter, and that also helped me too as a brand, as an authority figure. And I also actually led to the TEDx talks and things like that.

12:44 And now at this point, what I do is there's three things I do. I still do keynotes and presentations on personal branding, vulnerable storytelling, how to use LinkedIn, things like that. But I also help people add TE DX talks to leverage their brand and their authority and things like that. And then on the lower level, I have people in the beginning, people just starting out, business owners are trying to level up their brand, level up their thought leadership, level up their authority, their digital strategy. Most small business owners don't know how to monetize properly. They don't have to get the sales acquisition. And so I run TLV Club as a membership committee for small business owners to help them level up. So those are the three things I do, but it's all in the path of beginning at beginning. Get clear in your brain, go through your target, your business, build it up, build that authority, become a file leader, get that 10X talk, and then really live the life you want to the fullest. That's really what it's all about. I love that and it's so cohesive and it makes a lot of sense. And I know you talk about turning stories into strategy. What does that like actually mean for professionals trying to build credibility?

13:47 Like, how did they go about that? Well, I think a lot of people don't know or have really fully explore their entire story. So even before I was doing the TEDx stuff, I was helping people with personal branding and I was helping people become paid speakers. In all three of those cases, personal branding, paid speaking and TEDx talks, diving in your life story and understanding every single thing you've done and how it created the person that you are today and what that how the what the meaning of that was. Those stories are really what you can use and leverage for your brand, for your speaking, for your content strategy, for everything you do. And so for me, you're taking those stories and it's turning the strategy because the strategy, your story, because your brand, your brand, your story.

14:29 And that leads to the strategy because if you know, if you know what your story is, you know what your brand is, you know what your target audience and your objective is, you then create a strategic objective around that. So for me, going back to my early days of my, of what I was doing, the stories of my life were like, here's where the place where Bobby loved what he was doing. Bobby loved to perform and present. He loved to persuade an influence. He loved people, he loved diversity. And because of that, that led to me realizing that I want to be a speaker and a coach because that's more diverse for me than just being a, for me, engineering was kind of boring. And so for you, if you know what your stories are and you know what your overall story is and where you want to go with that, it will basically fundamentally create the brand and the strategy and ultimately the tactics for you to grow to where you want to go. And that's kind of what I focus on with everybody, whether they're doing TE DX or they're small business owners or whether they're want to work on a personal brand, it doesn't really matter.

15:22 It always starts with your story, because that defines your values, your interests, your skills, your passions, and really all the things that you do care about. Yeah, and I agree with you wholeheartedly. People really connect with stories and they'll remember those stories and they'll remember how they felt when they heard it and how they connected. So I couldn't agree more. I'm curious though, I didn't realize that you were helping people with LinkedIn. And that's my social media home away from home is LinkedIn. I just, I don't know, I'm really into it. It started out as something very different. It's become a little bit more social. What are your thoughts about LinkedIn for professional matchmakers? Because I noticed not a lot of them are posting on LinkedIn.

16:04 And of course, I run a school for matchmaking, so it's a little different. It's more career oriented and more about people looking for an opportunity to do something different. And they hadn't thought about matchmaking. But do you believe Matchmaker should be on LinkedIn and should they be posting their stories and really communicating with people there? Well, it's a couple things to think about. The first thing to think about is where are your clients, right? So where are your clients that you may want to talk to? So let's say you're a matchmaker, you're targeting tech executives. Well, they're on LinkedIn, right? And if they are on LinkedIn, then you want to start messaging them and talking to them and then getting them to see you in terms of what you're talking about. I should have a matchmaker in my TLB club community.

16:47 And we've encouraged her to post on LinkedIn more often because a lot of our target audience is there. And so it's important to actually start those conversations. The second thing to consider is also what kind of medium you want to present it. So for example, let's say you are an excellent writer and you write lots of long blog posts. Well, OK, we use LinkedIn, but maybe should be using sub stock. Maybe you're really good at video content. So if you're a great video person, then you know, TikTok and Instagram are great and YouTube are great tools to use to get your message out there. At the end of the day, what we're all doing is we're getting our message out there. We're demonstrating our expertise, we're starting conversations and ultimately we're building relationships with people and LinkedIn. And the other is the LinkedIn also has some of the best organic traffic right now. So you want to take advantage of that versus like, you know, Facebook is not more pay to play, you have to pay for ads, but on LinkedIn is you still get great organic reach and you want to make sure you leverage as best you can. And the last thing I'll say with LinkedIn is that it's very professional.

17:43 So if you post your story about you being a matchmaker and what you do, you share case studies of the people that you've served. You talk about the challenges people have when it comes to matchmaking, love and things like that. Those are great things that people resonate with. We also know that LinkedIn is pretty strong with personal storytelling as opposed to the ones that just talk about the corporate talking points here my three financial planning eight points. So if you tell a story, something that people can really resonate with on a personal level, that's actually going to do well in the LinkedIn algorithm. So you should take advantage of that every chance you get. And then you reach out to people, start those relationships and conversations, and that's going to lead to business for you. Great advice.

18:25 What would you say about how you know in terms of branding, right? Because some of the students that come to us are brand new, they're just starting out their business and they don't know where to begin and how to build their brand. And I know this is your area of expertise. What would you say to them in terms of here's where you want to begin to build a brand? Obviously I talked to them about picking a niche if at all possible and things like that. But beyond that, what are your thoughts? I think the first thing I think about is what exactly is your objective? What are you trying to do specifically? So is it a business? What's the objective? Who's your target, right? Understand them.

19:06 So let's say you know what your target is, understand what is their pain point? Because from that you're going to start to extract what your wife statement is, what your vision and mission are. And now we look at your story, your expertise, your credibility, your credentials, education, all that kind of stuff, how you came to where you are. And we want to match that with the objective and target of what we're trying to do. And we want to seamlessly integrate those things. So now we can position ourselves, position ourselves as that person is going to help people. And if you know what you bring to the table from a personal brand perspective and you know what pain those people are feeling or what kind of bliss they're seeking, you can then create content and a profile and objectives and strategies that will address those things. So for me, when I think about Ted X, I specifically talk about the dream of Ted X and why it matters, the goal of trying to use it to leverage your business, the goal of telling a story, creating an impact.

20:01 I'll talk about that. When I talk to small business owners, I talk about the issue of being lonely as an entrepreneur, not having support or resources to hitting that ceiling and not growing. And so when I talk of those pain points in my content or even on the website, people start to resonate. The hell? You know, that's really interesting. I want to learn more about this. Let's talk about it. But to me, it's when you're starting out. And the other thing I'll say about starting out too is I see two types of people. They do a lot of stuff, posting, posting, posting, but they don't have a backbone strategy or they're constantly planning, planning, learning, learning, planning, planning, learning, learning strategy, and they're doing nothing. In fact, one of my best friends, I'll tell you this, she was a relationship dating coach and eventually she branded into the idea of being a breakup specialist. But for like 3 years, literally, she would never share anything. I was like, come on, put something out there, let's do an event, let's develop this.

20:54 Do it, you know? And I kept talking and then she kept going to my branding courses and my branding workshops. I was like, OK, when are you going to put it out there? She's like, oh, I'm taking another course. Like no, don't take another course and get out there. And when she finally did it and it was great, I was like, look, you're ready. You've been ready for two years and you're so articulate. You know your stuff to put stuff out there. And then what happened was once she did it, she got a lot better really fast because start getting feedback and pretty soon she's a Good Morning America talking about how to break up before Valentine's Day, like really great stuff. Her name's Natalia and I'm just really proud of her for doing that. And now she's built a huge 6 figure business for herself. That's the way to go. But she avoided for so many years.

21:35 So people are either out there doing stuff without a proper rudder, further ship or how the sail, how the ship should be directed, or they're researching for too many years. You should be doing both. You put stuff out there, just start and why you're doing that and you're putting stuff out there. People give me feedback and engaging. You adjust the rudder in terms of how you want to go. You do both things and that's how you start to build and create that success. Now that is so true. I see people take really messy action. But to your point, I think it's important for them to pause and see what worked, what didn't work, instead of just continuing down the mess. But there are people who are addicted to learning, and I'm someone who's addicted to learning, but I imposed on myself that I would always implement something from what I learned. Otherwise, it's just knowledge, knowledge, knowledge that doesn't get used.

22:29 What is your advice to someone trying to stand out without looking like everybody else in their field? And of course, you know, we're talking to matchmakers, and sometimes we have people who are really down the street from one another, and matchmaking has become very collaborative. But you still want to stand out from your colleague down the street so that people can notice you and work with you. I mean, there, there are different ways to stand out, Arlene. I mean, so, you know, one of course, is the brand. What exactly do you say about your brand? That position was in a different ways. Some people do some very simple things like they wear blue glasses with a blue scarf and blue jewelry and that's branding.

23:11 One of my friends, she uses drumstick chicken fried chicken in all of her posts as a way to just differentiate herself. You're thinking fried chicken. Think of me. I'm like, OK, great. And that's what she's doing. So the branding piece is a way to set yourself apart. The second thing you can do, of course, is the manner which you present yourself and what you talk about, how you talk about it. Because if you're a matchmaker and you talk about matchmaking, great. There's lots of people will talk about matchmaking. There's a lot of people talking about coaching, lots of people talking about speaking, but how do they set themselves apart? It's how they say and what they say. So for example, the matchmaker is willing to be very vulnerable about the challenges of this and the struggle that people have. Great, that's a differentiator. The matchmaker that's willing to share lots of case studies of success that other people are not doing, that's a differentiator.

23:58 So the person who puts together flashy videos that can go viral and it could be like a nine second video, but it just, you know, that's a differentiator. The person who uses humor, right, we know that humor is very, very viral on TikTok, Instagram and and YouTube. So if you're someone who can put humor in, man, that's fantastic. It's learning how to do that kind of stuff to set yourself apart. But, and then I think the last thing I'll say when it comes to differentiate yourself is you have to constantly be learning and growing and evolving. Learn and grow, evolve. So you listen, you learn, you grow and evolve and you adopt what you're doing because you can't be doing the same thing all the time. I met a few people, business owners, and I actually know quite a few matchmakers and people in the love industry, which is why I want to do this podcast with you because it's a great, I love the topic.

24:48 I kind of want to be a matchmaker myself. I have been as an amateur matchmaker. I matchmaker some of my friends, which is kind of fun. But what I see them doing along is they're saying the same old stuff over and over again or they're not evolving to what they need to do. So a good example was some people are too slow to come to LinkedIn or some people too slow to start doing videos. I mean, look, there's certain types of industry like real estate or baking or fitness and matchmaking, which to me has a huge visual appeal. You should be doing videos. You should be putting stuff out there and showing people the visuals of what life around your story is. And so I encourage them to get better at video as well because video content is really one of the best ways to stand out. And nowadays it's not the social media age they call, it's called the interest age, right?

25:34 So it's the age of interest. How can you get people to be interested in what you're talking about? Because nowadays you can't even get, it's not really organic content what you're doing. You're trying to get interest in what you're talking about. And how are you talking about and what you were saying? If you can gauge their interest, then that's how are you going to stand out big time. Oh my goodness, such great advice. You know, matchmaking is one of the oldest networking professions in the world. And how does modern networking differ from like traditional networking? Well, I think a lot of people now are big online, right. So I think that the traditional networking was you go to conference, you go to networking event and meet people.

26:16 And I think then the pandemic can happen and we got, we went on virtual and now we're on Zoom and Riverside and all these different things. What's interesting is that now people are still, especially the younger generation, now they're struggling with how to connect in person. So, you know, I have Gen. Z not sure how to do this and millennials maybe a little bit. But the truth is we've forgotten how to do that. And so I think there's an opportunity to get better at it. But I think that you have to learn how to navigate both in person and online. So online, knowing what people's preferences are, one of the things that I had to adjust over the last 10 years is my text messages. So a lot of younger people find text message to be more personal and intimate in terms of a conversation. OK, great. So then we adjusted that in terms of how we engage people.

26:59 You know, young people don't really care about getting emails, right? So it's for the DM. So that's something you have to adjust as in terms of what your business is right now. If you're targeting older people, they prefer the emails. OK, great. Some of them even prefer phone calls and that's fine too. And then the other thing is we also still have to balance the in person stuff. Do you know how to start a conversation with somebody in a grocery store, in an elevator, on a park bench? Do you know how to do that? Do you know how to start a conversation even at a live public networking event where networking is the context? But still, how do I approach that person? What do I say? How do I make it meaningful? And more importantly, how do you then from both online and in person, how do you suss out the the conversations that matter versus the one that's just chatter and not meaningful?

27:46 Back in the day when I was teaching networking, I would teach people you need to learn how to leave a conversation in 5 minutes. In 5 minutes, you should be ascertained whether this is worth another 10 minute, 10 minutes with this person or you're going to move on and you have to find a way to exit. And people have a hard time exiting a conversation. And so I was teaching that back with 1020 years ago. But the same thing applies to online and in person now. You have to figure those things out and really target and filter, target and filter and keep moving on. Because if you are stuck in a conversation with somebody for let's say 20 DMS or 1/2 hour conversation in person, there's always other people that are probably potential clients that you're missing out on.

28:27 So make sure you know exactly how to filter that out. Yeah. And I know you often say that connection precedes opportunity. What does that mean in practical terms for business owners in particular? Yeah, so at the end of the day, everything we do is about cultivating relationships. They say that the best relationship was cultivated 20 years ago when you plant the tree, But really, you should plant seeds now. So if you haven't done that 20 years ago, fine. Start planting seeds now. You're cultivating something. This is for everything. This is for your brand. This is for your clients. This is for your network. This is for your community. This is for both personal and professional. But the idea is that when you cultivate that relationship, you plant the seed and you build that connection. You build trust, you build relatability. You build memorability and that's what's going to matter when someone starts thinking of you. Oh, you know, I had that interaction with Bobby and he was so nice and I really appreciate that. So when he comes back, comes at me three years later with a message for help or maybe a message I'm inquiring about business.

29:32 They're OK with it, right? They're fine with it. They don't think I'm spamming them because we're first connection LinkedIn or whatever that might be. And so, yeah, that connection piece is how you create the influence is correct create persuasion of how you create the change you want. And that's ultimately leads to business. So you have to work on those relationships. You have to work on that connection piece. And and this includes like not just networking, but also like your content. It includes your sales, your landing page, like is everything there making feel accessible? Like one of the things I try to do is when you come to my sites or come to my content, you engage me, I'll respond. One thing I'm known for my brand is if you message me and it's not spam, let's just say if you're messaging me via DM, e-mail, LinkedIn, text, I respond right away. I'm very fast.

30:23 Most people, they don't get overwhelmed by my phone and have all the stuff to deal with. But that's my key talking. But I am very responsive and people like that. They like the fact that I'm responsive and I'm accessible, which again makes them trust me more because when you talk to people and you respond quickly, you respond thoughtfully, you respond with the depth and the intent and the genuineness that people appreciate. They will remember that too. So yeah, everything has to do with the connection piece. And that's why my first 10X talk was the five season connection, how to create deep, authentic connection with anybody. And it takes time. It's an investment, but it's something that I think is incredibly important for everybody across the board. Yeah, it's so worth it.

31:03 And it's funny that you used the term planting seeds, because I say that all the time. I was at a resort with a couple of friends of ours, and they sat through a presentation. Folks there were trying to get them to join this membership. And the young kid kind of flipped out when my friends didn't move forward with him. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's so immature, first of all. But secondly, you're always planting seeds. And then later on, they went back and spoke to another guy. They ended up buying a membership. He lost the sale because you don't always get that sale immediately. Just being there and being helpful and like you said with content, giving actual value, not just trying to get people to buy from you is so important.

31:55 And sometimes people don't realize. I've had, I had conversations with someone a year later they come back and make a big investment in something that we're doing together. And so, yes, you always want to be planting those. The thing to think about too, is that not everyone's your customer, and that's OK. And the other thing I think about is what will people remember? Will they remember you had a hissy fit because you're the person don't want to become a customer? No, like that's what they're going to remember. And we also know that when people have a negative experience, what happens? They tell lots of people when they have a positive experience, they're less likely to say how great it was. And it's nice when people do that. But negative experiences are definitely shared. And so you don't want that. You want everyone to, from the first time they meet you all the way to the very end, you want them to have the most positive, pleasant, memorable experience.

32:41 That's branding. Excuse me, that's branding. That's connection and that's how you make yourself memorable. I love that, and I love what you just said about not everyone is your customer. And I know many matchmakers rely heavily on referrals. What are the most effective ways to cultivate a strong referral network? And also, I'm a big believer of if they're not your customer, refer them to someone that you know can do a better job because that's also part of your brand. If you're taking on clients that you shouldn't be taking, it could put you out of business very quickly. But what are your most effective ways to cultivate referrals? I think going back to what I said, which is when you create a positive experience from start to finish, that goes a long way for them wanting to refer you if you maintain relationship with your clients long term.

33:33 But even if so, let's say the service is done, I think you would still maintain a relationship with these people longer term and next thing you know, they're going to refer you. And the other big thing I think that a lot of people forget about when it comes to referral is that you got to ask. Ask the question, ask for the referral. There's nothing wrong asking for it. When I reach, the people say, hey, look, I'm looking for people look to do a TEDx talk. I'm looking to do more speaking training. They say, oh, well, I'm not looking for that right now. OK, great. Do you know one or two people that might like this? Ask for the help, ask for the introduction, ask for the referral. I think that goes a long way. A lot of people don't do that. And then the other big thing is a lot of people have referred me or I referred back and forth, but someone refers to me and then I'm engaging them and then they're they ghost me.

34:15 It's embarrassing. And one of my contacts, if I refer my contact to somebody and they don't follow up, I'm like, yo-yo, dude, if you only refer you for stuff, you need to be responsible with this stuff and do it the right way. It doesn't have very often anymore, but the few times it happened, like I called them, I was like, look, I'm not going to refer you to things if you don't act on it to be responsible. So you have to make sure that because it's your brand too. And I give feedback to people saying, you know, your contact did nothing and then it ghosted me. Like that looks bad. So you should probably tell your friend, let's stop there because making you look bad and I think that's important to people, understand. That is so true and it's so important to actually know the kind of work that people are doing and not just referring particularly if you getting referral fees because there needs to be a level of duty of care where you're like, OK, I am getting a referral fee. I'm always very big on disclosing that. In some cases it's required, right? But also making sure you're sending people to the right folks because it is extending your reputation and it's just not smart to do that.

35:21 But I hear you. I've had a couple of times where I referred someone and they didn't even bother contacting the individual, which really is not good. And they asked me for the referral. Like they asked me and you didn't follow up like you asked me and I did it for you. Like what happened like last year with somebody And she did it twice. I was like, OK, I am no longer referring you to anybody because she was a tech person who would always ask for referrals to not just me, but lots of people. And then I gave her two and I was like, you know what, I'm not doing this again for you. I'm sorry. Say no, no, Bobby, it doesn't matter, honestly. Like I just can't count on you. But you know what? Go to this ship and show me a reliable for a couple years and maybe I'll do it again. But right now I had to set boundaries on her because she had to ask me for those referrals.

36:06 Yeah. And I think it has a lot to do with just being very disorganized. And like, I'm impressed that you're you are very responsive. I will vouch for that because I did reach out to you on LinkedIn. You got back to me right away. Yeah, You actually even had an auto reply, which was really cool because then I was like, wait, you can do auto replies. I'm going to do that. Too, that's a premium feature, LinkedIn, so some people. And so there's the odd person that doesn't like it, but I'm like, look, thanks for your message. I'll get back to you. In the meantime, check out this, this, this and you know, like that. That's great. I think people, I think it's a good thing to have. Oh definitely. I loved it and I learned something new from you right away. I'm like, I'm impressed with this guy. I'll show you a little quick tip, which is when it's your when your birthday comes up on LinkedIn, you're going to get a lot of messages. So you add an auto reply that's very specific to that. You say, hey, thanks for you know, it's my birthday, it's my birthday week.

36:56 Thanks for the wishes. If you're open to it, here's one thing I'd love for you to do. And I tell them what I want them to do. And it's, and you can even add like a GIF with a happy birthday kind of celebration. Like that kind of stuff is great because on my birthday I get hundreds of messages. And so I want to auto message people who are going to send me happy birthday messages. That is so funny because I hated that feature. When you move positions or start a new job, you know you want to. It's like if you announce it, everybody starts congratulating you. And I always feel like I have to respond. And then you get thousands. I mean, I don't know how many. But you know what, Arlene, you want that. Here's the thing, like if you have any chance to announce a new job or a new position or some sort of project or a milestone, you take advantage of it. So I coach all my clients on doing that. So for example, when my client got a TE DX talk, I said turn that into a milestone announcement on LinkedIn. And he did with a photo.

37:52 I said, put a photo in there and then explain the milestone. Because what happens is LinkedIn will push that out to your network and you get all those congratulations. But that's awareness building that. That's authority building, so take advantage of the milestone, the project, the anniversaries, all that kind of stuff because it's a huge way to build your brand out there. So I totally recommend people doing that. That's great. Wow, you got some bonus tips in there for everyone. I think it's great and maybe we need to have you come back and do AQ and A with our students. We do monthly Q&A with students that where we would talk about LinkedIn because I think it is a missed opportunity for so many people who are not using it. And it's funny, I went to a networking event that I was invited to and I mentioned that I work with professional matchmakers, that I train them.

38:48 And someone in the event said to me, well, I wouldn't post anything about that on LinkedIn because that's more of a Facebook topic. I was like, what are you talking about? And then I posted a rant. But when I say rant that you know, I'm very professional. Sure, sure do. That kind of, Oh my gosh, that thing went viral. Everybody chimed in my favor. Thank you very much everyone. I love you for that because I'm like, wait a second. Why is love and relationships not a priority? Everyone on LinkedIn, everybody in life needs love relationships and it's such an important area of people's lives. The person that you choose to marry can create wonderful experiences or they can ruin you like this is so it's. Can you think of anything more important, really? Because I love love.

39:43 I mean the idea of Facebook and this is old school thinking. The truth is people post about anything and Everything Everywhere. It just that's the way it is now. Every single platform people are shared because the truth is you, if you go to a workplace event or you go to a business conference, do we not talk about the latest movie or a restaurant or something cool? We do not talk about politics and social justice, do not talk about love and girlfriends, boyfriends, wife's kids. Of course we do. So when it's my kids birthday, I post on LinkedIn about that. When it's my wife's anniversary, I post about that. And because these are things that people talk about in the workplace, but the truth is it also gets people's attention. Those people who were like, oh, this isn't Facebook. They don't even understand Facebook anymore because Facebook. It's a huge platform for business.

40:24 People are talking about business on Facebook all the time because we do talk about Everything Everywhere. So it's important to just share what's important to you and do what makes sense for you. But I think that, yeah, one of my clients, she was a sex therapist and I convinced her post on Linked as I go. Do people want to talk about sex? Look, your audience are people who have sex challenges. So talk about it. Someone will see it and put as you respond in a private DM. And that's OK. That's exactly what she started doing. And they always say don't talk about social stuff or politics. But what if you work in politics? Then you would be talking about politics something because if you work for a political organization, you should be talking about politics or talk about your 'cause if you work in sex therapy, you should talk about sex therapy. Like you should talk about things. And you can mix it up with some of your personal stories too, or some fun things too as well.

41:12 But that's the type of brands that people like. People like brands that are more human, they're more personable, they're more fun. That's the steps to get people attention. So typically what I do is I do kind of 80, twenty, 80% is targeted towards my brand message to my target audience. Do you like 20%? I experiment personal stuff, crazy stuff, social stuff, whatever I want because you never know, like something will go viral. One of the most deeply vulnerable stories ever shared on LinkedIn was I talked about binge eating and body image and how I struggled with my body image and how many years ago, I never took my shirt off in public for 25 years because I was so ashamed of my body. And I shared that. And then what happened to me, Wow, how I changed was my three-year old son.

41:53 We're at a beach. He was like, daddy, aren't you going to take your shirt off? And I was like, of course I am because I didn't want to pass anything to him. So I did that. I was terrified. I shared the story. That post went viral. Be like, wow, I cannot believe you share that story. But it's like, yeah. And that was a big change for me. And I've been way better ever since. And when you share that kind of stuff, yeah, someone might say Kemp. If someone said Kemp, believe that you talked about that and I wouldn't hire you as a speaker, fine. Don't. If you're the type of person that judges me for that kind of stuff, I don't need that. The majority of people, 98% of people love that kind of stuff and they appreciate it. And there's always someone who comes back to you. Five years later, I met one of my extended family members at a wedding, came up to me and said, hey, he's like, hey, Bobby, uncle, can I tell you that you post about binge eating a couple years ago?

42:39 And I couldn't believe that some of my family, especially if I'm a brown family, would do this. I just want to know that I struggle with that too. And I really appreciate the message. And I was like, this kid has never talked to me in five years. And now he's a 22 year old. Back then he was a kid and I was like, great. Like, I'm glad that you saw that message and he came up to me. There's always something that comes to you five years later having read the message, and that's really meaningful because we know that vulnerable stories show people that they are not alone and we are all human, and that's OK. Wow, it is so powerful and definitely I agree with you. I think that's such an incredible story to tell and that so many people will connect with you. It just it makes you real because people forget we're all humans and we're all going through stuff. And so that's amazing.

43:31 What would you say about AI in terms of branding TE DX to all the things we've discussed right now? How does AI play into all of this? And I'm a big avid user of AI figured look. The technologies. Here, I know there's a lot of fear and trepidation and all of that, but you got to use it. And what are your thoughts on AI? Yeah. So AI is a very important tool. It's probably the most important tool currently in our lifetimes because it is here, it's not going anywhere, and it's just only get bigger, stronger, faster and more prevalent. The majority of people. There was a post actually the other day about how few people use AI.

44:15 But the truth is, the way I see it is that I'm kind of riding the bicycle of AI, which means that I'm learning, I'm doing stuff, I'm getting better and better and better. Now there's some people who are driving a car really fast. No one's driving a jet, and people are driving cars really fast. I'm riding bicycles. Some people are walking, but the majority of people are just sitting there. And if you just sit there, even the Walker will be 100 miles away. I'll be 1000 miles away. And the people driving a car 10,000 miles away, if you don't get up and start noticing what's going on because you want to be the type of person that doesn't 20 years ago, there are people who didn't know how to use social media or do not even use e-mail or attached documents and things like that. And they were way behind the curve. You don't want to be that person. You want to be able to understand what's going on. Now that said, yes, I think there's a huge opportunity for AI with many different things.

45:06 I do have to AI robot from my TE DX program. I teach people in the, in the my business how to use the AI effective because most people don't use it effectively. So they turn, step out and then it's nonsense or it's garbage or it's not really good. So you have to learn how to do it well. Get feedback on what you're doing. Make sure one of the things I did was I also have trained my AI tool now and I showed my community, OK, here's 4 posts I did. Two of them I wrote myself. Two of them were written by AI. Can you tell which one? And no one could figure it out because I have trained my bot and my voice over 2 years and I used to edit a lot in the early days like you edit a few things now like I all I rarely edit anything. It's pretty good. It's pretty bang on in terms of what it produces in terms of my voice.

45:50 So I think the truth is that AI saves you a ton of time. One of the things I had to do was put set a proposal for a speaking gig before it would take you 10 hours. AI helped me do it in two hours. I just put in the inputs and it put it all out. So there's lots of huge benefits with it. But I would say fair game. You should know how to use it and you should also know how to differentiate and make sure your stuff doesn't sound AI ish because a lot of people are still doing that. Like we're seeing a lot of AI slop out there. It's just the way it is. So you have to make sure that if you are going to use it, make sure you're you're not part of the slop, you're a part of the stuff that really hits home. Yeah, you still need the human in the middle, especially if you are not as sophisticated where you're actually training your AIS to understand your voice and I highly recommend you do that.

46:35 But you need to be the human in the middle of them. Just copy and paste cause. And I still think you should I still, you should all be sharing videos like like what we're doing here. Hi, here's what I believe in. Here's what I think about. Hey, how about this? You should be doing that. Don't do AI stuff of yourself. And just, I mean, you can if you want, but try to use your own stuff every once in a while. It's so important just to be able to breakthrough the clutter because that's what's going to, people are going to start to see AI, and then you can breakthrough the clutter by just being a personable, accessible human. That tells a really good story. This is gold, Bobby. Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your insights on thought leadership, connection, personal branding. What do you have going on?

47:20 How should people get in touch with you? I think a lot of folks will definitely reach out because I think that what you're sharing here is so important for business owners to really understand that you could build it. That doesn't mean they're going to come. You need to have that brand. You need to understand how to connect and you need tools and stuff like TEDx talks. Once someone has a TEDx, they just really distinguish themselves as very different, a thought leader versus a content creator. That's huge. So what's the best way for people to get in touch with? You. Yeah, I think the starting point is actually to check out what I do on a regular basis. I have, I hold weekly events through my TLB membership committee.

48:03 You can come to one of the calls and see what it's all about. And to me, that's the best way to access me. But come to the calls, we do master classes, we have coaching calls, we do LinkedIn and tech clinics, but basically teaching people how to start on branding, how to look at their content strategy and learn how to monetize, how to actually get clients versus just being a social media content creator. That's a great starting point. If you want to do more high level stuff like for my Ted, except that's something we can also talk about as well. But the starting point is really come by come to a call with me because I am accessible. You can get on a call with me and I'm happy to share my knowledge to introduce other people in my community. And that's a great starting point because one of the biggest challenge for people is starting. The other biggest challenges for people show up.

48:44 People just don't show up. So if you're someone that's willing to show up, you want to start, I'm willing to show up for you and I'm going to help you start. That's wonderful. And look, matchmaking is a profession that's built on trust, credibility and relationships. And today's conversation highlights how powerful Clear communication, authentic leadership can actually build a reputation and relationship driven industries like the matchmaking world. So for those who are listening, who really want to learn more, I highly encourage you to reach out to Bobby. We will include all of his links, including LinkedIn in the show notes so that you can reach out directly and check out what he's doing on sub stack. And for those of you who are maybe thinking about becoming matchmakers and who want or you're an existing matchmaker who wants to strengthen your systems, your standards, your business structure, I highly encourage you to explore three of our resources.

49:47 We have our business intelligence brief, which has a 70% open rate because we're not trying to sell you anything on there. We're just giving you great information that's exclusively for matchmakers, existing matchmakers. And then there's the Love Pro Mastermind Academy where you can learn more, and the imcboard.org. Thank you so much again, Bobby for joining us. Until next time, we'll see you soon. Thank you. Thank you. If today's episode resonated, make sure you're subscribed to the Matchmaker Mentor Podcast.