E141 | Brendan Kane: Hook Point- How To Stand Out in a 3-Second World

What would you say or do if you only had 3 seconds to grab someone’s attention? In other words, what’s your Hook Point?

These days, attention is a form of currency.  And with the number of stimuli fighting for this attention, one needs to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Without it, it won’t matter if you provide something of value – no one will hear you. Luckily, today’s guest can teach us how to do this in an authentic, non-”salesy” way.

Brendan Kane is an outside of the box thinker, speaker and author who empowers brands to scale by helping them stand out and beat competition in crowded and oversaturated markets. He is the author of the international best-selling book One Million Followers and the newly released Hook Point: How To Stand Out In A 3 Second World, as well as the founder and CEO of the Hook Point agency. Brendan has worked with hundreds of individuals and brands providing business and digital strategy for more than 15 years, including MTV, Taylor Swift, Rhianna and many others.

Today we talk about:

• Crafting your hook point without being cheesy or “salesy”

• Social media and personal branding 101

• The secret to authentically reaching more people with your content

• Why you should get rid of your slide deck and listen

Connect with Brendan

Via his book: https://book.hookpoint.com/

Via Instagram: @brendankane

If you want to learn more about social media and branding, we have another great episode for you! Click here to listen to Shanté Cofield discuss her strategies for mastering the social media market.

In this episode you’ll hear Brendan discuss the importance of listening and asking great questions. Check out my latest blog for a breakdown on the 5 types of listening that every leader must learn.

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Learn More About My Courses, Clinics, and Live Events At: www.ArtofCoaching.com

Brendan Kane  0:00  

I never want anybody to feel uncomfortable about something that they’re putting out or the way they’re approaching it. Is there a game to be played? Absolutely, there’s a game to be played. But I would see, in my viewpoint in the success that we have, and all the data we collected, the game that you’re playing is attention is can you grab that other person’s attention long enough to understand the value that you offer? Because there’s people all over the world, yourself included, that can have a tremendous impact on a corporation on a brand on an individual, you just have to gain their attention long enough for them to realize it.

 

Brett Bartholomew  0:51  

Welcome to the Art of coaching podcast, a show aimed at getting to the core of what it takes to change attitudes, behaviors and outcomes in the weight room, boardroom classroom, and everywhere in between. I’m your host, Brett Bartholomew, I’m a performance coach, keynote speaker, and the author of the book conscious coaching. But most importantly, I’m a lifelong student interested in all aspects of human behavior and communication. I want to thank you for joining me. And now let’s dive into today’s episode.

 

It’s an awful feeling. You’re trying to help somebody you’re trying to add value to their lives, but you just feel like they’re not paying attention. They’re not hearing you. And no matter how you try to craft your message, it doesn’t seem like it’s getting across. Now, inevitably, most of us reach for more research, or we try to educate them, or we try to talk them through facts and statistics, a lot of those things I just said are the same. Or maybe you try to appeal to them through a motion. Or maybe you tried to make a joke out of something, and you come at it indirectly. But sometimes it just feels like you can’t find what works. You can’t find the right fit for that context. And you don’t know what to do. Our guest today studies this stuff relentlessly. And his name is Brendan Kane. Brendan Kane is definitely an outside of the box thinker. And I know that term can be used a lot, but just listened to this episode, you’ll appreciate that a speaker and an author that really focuses on empowering brands to scale by helping them stand out and not stand out in the cheesy salesy way that we’re all so used to right. But many of us, and no matter what field you’re in, it just always feels crowded and oversaturated. And you’re not quite sure how to get your point across. I mean, if you have three seconds, what are you going to do? And that’s what his book hook point talks about. Now, Brennan has previously written a book called 1 million followers, and he is the CEO of hook point agency. He’s worked with hundreds of individuals and brands, guys, including MTV, Taylor, Swift, Rihanna, and many others. And you’re gonna hear a lot of things discussed on this episode, you’ll hear us talk about social media. Now I know that’s always polarizing, right. But he makes some great points about how you need to view or rethink your view on social media. If you want to be an authority in your field, and how it’s not about your followers. And it’s not about these things. It’s about, again, gaining attention so you can make a difference. 

 

We also talked about managing stress and a world where we feel like we always have to be on. I know that’s a big issue I have, I always feel like to a degree, I’m getting overstimulated, because I’m trying to balance so many things, just like you, me and Brendan are real people. So we talk about managing stress, we talk about getting through to people with egos that seem impenetrable, even our own at times, I really think you’re going to enjoy this episode. So make sure to listen up and listen to it. And finally, if you are somebody who continually struggles with these things, and you’re trying to get points across, or you just feel like, Listen, I’m somebody that I know I have value. I want to build an audience so I can help more people. And I’ve got to figure out how to get my message across to them. We have a lot of things on this especially on imposter phenomenon. And if you want more of these resources, I encourage you to go to artofcoaching.com/begin. Again, if you want to know what you’re good at, really help identify your biggest strength. You want to be able to find the audience that needs it the most. And you want to be able to get that stuff to them. It all goes hand in hand with what we’re going to talk about today. Go to artofcoaching.com/begin to get updates. We have something coming out very soon about this and it’s going to help you on your journey. Alright, without further ado, Our guest Brendan Kane

 

 guys, you’re jumping into a conversation with me and Brendan Kane Bren. Thanks for joining me today.

 

Brendan Kane  4:48  

Thanks, Brett. It’s great to connect with you and all the listeners out there.

 

Brett Bartholomew  4:51  

Yeah. And I think these things are always increasingly interesting because you’re somebody we’ve never met face to face, right and even prior to COVID but your stuff is always spoke to me because just one pragmatic, no nonsense not really fluff driven. I think you’re somebody that if I’m interpreting correctly, and you talked about it before this call, right? I hate selling. And I’d like to know, selfishly just because I’m somebody that’s like that, too. I don’t like fluff. I don’t like selling even though we all sell ourselves every day to some degree, right? But how we kind of see people sell in this weird kind of over inspirational way? What turned you off to that? Like what in your life kind of made you jaded to what we see so much of in the social media world, the book writing world, just the business world? Do you have a story kind of that really led to your pragmatic, no nonsense approach?

 

Brendan Kane  5:42  

It’s interesting that you say that I always come from the standpoint from my earliest years of how I can provide value to people instead of trying to sell now, you know, just as you asked that question, maybe that there was a point, I think when I was like six or seven, that I picked up my toys and tried to walk around the neighborhood, knock on the neighbor’s doors and sell my toys, which probably wasn’t successful, I don’t really recall it entirely. But maybe that turned me off to it. And I always just kind of from a very early age, just will try and understand somebody, and how we can connect with them and provide value to overcome some type of obstacle or challenge that they’re facing, as a way into connecting on a deeper level, or forging a relationship, whether it’s friendship or business wise. So even when I just think about selling now, it just makes me feel uncomfortable. Like I just don’t, I don’t like doing it doesn’t make me feel good. It’s what makes me feel good is really talking to somebody understanding who they are, what they’re about how they perceive the world. And then diving in as like, well, how can I help them on this journey? is it you know, referring them to a book or something I did, or maybe somebody I know, a partner or an expert in the field is like, I’m always just out there trying to find a way to help people on their journey to be successful.

 

Brett Bartholomew  7:08  

I think with that, and the interesting thing to me is, there’s still this idea and the fact that in life, sometimes you got to play the game, right? Like you’ve worked with people like Rihanna and Taylor Swift and many other people who are influential behind the scenes as well. And whether we like to sell or not, there are many times where it’s like to get somebody to pay attention to the value we’re trying to provide, you’ve got to hook them, right. And that’s an expertise of yours. That’s your latest book hook point. And just to give context to the listeners, and you because we’re still getting to know one another one area that I’ve found that to be a struggle and where I’d like to learn from you, is you know, crossing over from the performance around getting into more corporate stuff for a while that was a hard sell. Because, you know, the the corporate realm had seen Navy SEALs crossover, they’d seen tech people crossover in sport. They’ve even seen like the Nick Saban’s and Bill Bella checks who gives speeches and what have you. But there really wasn’t like a strength coach, right? They perceived me as a personal trainer. And so I learned early that whether I like to sell or not, I had to have two media kits, right? One was very much about me as a strength coach, and everything I’ve done in athletics. And the other part had to be like, hey, no, these are the organizations and corporations we’ve done stuff with. And talk to me a little bit about that of somebody that doesn’t like selling where, how do you even approach knowing that sometimes you still have to play the game, and show a version of yourself that you don’t want to have to show but you know, it’s like necessary to get your foot in the door, if that makes sense.

 

Brendan Kane  8:33  

Yeah, it makes total sense. So first, I want to start off by saying that, and I get this question a lot. And people get kind of nervous about, you know, do I have to change who I am? Do I have to change my message to play this game. And the way that we work with clients and even for our own brand, is we never change anybody’s message. We never change who somebody is at their core, we take we change the way that they contextualize that message, so that it can attract. So I never want anybody to feel uncomfortable about something that they’re putting out or the way they’re approaching it. Is there a game to be played? Absolutely. There’s a game to be played. But I would see, in my viewpoint in the success that we have, and all the data that we collected, the game that you’re playing is attention is can you grab that other person’s attention long enough to understand the value that you offer? Because there’s people all over the world, yourself included, they can have a tremendous impact on a corporation on a brand on an individual, you just have to gain their attention long enough for them to realize it. And the world that we’re living in today, both online or offline, let’s talk about corporate where a lot of those conversations happen online, offline through email or like through LinkedIn. But I consider it kind of more of an offline conversation because more like a business development b2b play. But what you need do is when that first three to five seconds, because as you know, like a VP of a big corporation or a big celebrity or a CEO of a company, they’re getting hit up 1000 times a day I look at my email every day I probably and this is including, like, all the offers and stuff, I probably receive 1500 emails a day So it’s not that I don’t want to pay attention to somebody that can offer value. It’s like, I only have so much time in the day. So that’s where most people go wrong is what they try and do is express all of their value everything they do, what they represent, what their purposes what their Why is in that first three to five seconds. And that’s just so overwhelming. what I always and this is why I, you know, looking back of how I closed an MTV, Viacom or Taylor Swift as a client, it comes down or even generating million followers on online for it comes to that first part of the conversation, you have to work when that first three to five seconds, so that you can then get to the story that you want to tell them. And that’s where I think most people fail with it. It’s not that they’re not good. It’s not that their message isn’t their message or their product or services and strong. It’s just the way that they contextualize it to make sure it stands out. So that you can enter the next part of the conversation.

 

Brett Bartholomew  11:24  

That’s helpful. And I think the key word I want to get in on there is context. Because I know in my field in so many fields, well, I was brought up that really highlight your experience, right? That’s the classic, like resume advice, highlight your experience and do this, especially in science based fields, that can be something where people want to know, hey, so who have you worked with? What have you done. But then the interesting thing is, right, everybody’s started seeing examples of successful resumes, or profiles, or this or what have you, or the way people frame themselves on LinkedIn. And then just like every business now has separation, world class, service, customer service, right passion for what they do, committed to excellence, everybody ends up sounding the same. And so then you have this dissonance now where one of the most educated people I know, and said to me the other day, I just hate social media, I can’t get with it. And I don’t think it makes an impact. And I looked at him and I said, Listen, I get that that might be the reality in some things. But these are publicly traded companies for a reason. And we don’t all like that medium, right? There’s going to be many mediums that we have to engage with over the course of our life. But you got to learn how to leverage it. Was there ever a point in your life Brendan, where you just like social media, you were like, I do not want to do this? Or have you always been drawn and fascinated to it because of that science of understanding attention and other people and what have you.

 

Brendan Kane  12:43  

It’s a great question. And I get posed that question all the time. It’s like, I hate social media, but I know I have to be on it. Right? You’ve got to find some redeeming factor in it, otherwise, you won’t be successful. Now, that redeeming factor can be leading towards an end goal, you know, and then dream for yourself, and social media is going to get there to you. But if you go into it every day, like oh my god, I’m dreading this, I’m dreading creating this piece of content responding these messages. Don’t do it. There’s other ways to be successful. For me, yes, there are definitely times where it’s frustrating or overwhelming, or not really rewarding. Like, for example, with my social content, for Facebook, and Instagram, we really haven’t posted anything in like months. Because I get hyperfocus. Like, because as you know, from my first book, when I get it got a million followers in 30 days, it was an experiment. It wasn’t, hey, I’m trying to become famous or become an influencer or become a celebrity. Yeah, it was really a social experiment to test and learn. And that social experiment is ended. So we’ve moved on to the next one. You were launching an agency, we launch a new book, we’re diving deep into YouTube. And, I do those things because they excite me, because I see the potential in it not because I feel like I have to do it. So that’s kind of the mindset, like I’m like anybody, I’m a human being that I have bad days. I have good days. There’s days. I hate social media. There’s days I love social media, but I know why I’m doing I have a solid mindset and foundation under why I’m putting in the timeline, putting in the effort. And that helps me get through the challenging times.

 

Brett Bartholomew  14:27  

Yeah, you bring up a good point about you have to find a redeeming quality because there is that stigma. People think that to be unskilled if you’re on social media that you must be on it to become an influencer or guru or what have you. And I remember telling somebody because I got a lot of crap from it in my community because I was a relatively early adopter and Instagram because I just felt like I hated Twitter and in our job, like, especially working with athletes, there’s a lot of context that’s missed when you don’t have a photo or an image or a video right people can jump to conclusions. So Instagram for me was more of a way of like I wanted something less formal than a blog. because I didn’t want to have to feel pressured to write scientifically all the time. I do that for books and journals and what have you. I wanted some less formal than a blog. I wanted something that was quick, snappy and easy. And then that turned into a following. But there are, there’s that stigma of people thinking like, well, I don’t really care about this and that it’s like, well, what do you care about? And how can this medium be shaped to utilize that, you mentioned, you have an agency now, is that something your agency helps people do kind of find their place in that? Or what is this? How did your journey lead to an agency? Now?

 

Brendan Kane  15:32  

It’s a great question, because I was suggested by advisors for many years, you should create an agency. And I was so adverse to it, because I just didn’t feel like I had something that I could really drive the most value and do it at scale. And then when I came up, looking back on over the course of my career of identifying what really makes me successful, most people will see me as like a social media person from the 1 million followers. But my experience is way beyond that. I’ve done b2b deals help companies scale to like 100 million dollars in revenue. I understand business development, raising capital, closing big strategic partnerships. And when I looked at that, combined with my social media experience asked me so what is the through line that has made me successful and made my clients successful. And this is the concept of a hook point is differentiating yourself in over saturate and overcrowded markets. So that’s where that spark, the idea is like, okay, that’s where I can best serve people is help them really stand out to get those big corporate deals, speaking deals, to get the book deal to increase their row as an ad spend, to increase followers if they want, to increase engagement, it all comes down to mastering attention. And that’s one part that people don’t realize about social media, is I can give you a million followers tomorrow. And if you can’t gain attention, it doesn’t mean shit.

 

Brett Bartholomew  16:56  

Right Yeah, the number of followers really doesn’t. I mean, I think I’ve been relatively stuck in this range the whole time. But what I do have is good engagement, people that are super loyal to the like, I don’t even think people should want that, you know, beyond a point, a certain amount of follow, because you’re just getting people that are kind of just lurking, right? if they’re not interacting, they’re not engaging, they’re not giving feedback, that what’s the point there, it’s kind of like the person that comes to a party and just wants to eat the food, and they don’t want to meet anybody new. I’d have to say, 

 

Brendan Kane  17:24  

interestingly enough, it’s oftentimes it’s not that people aren’t engaging as the algorithms aren’t giving you reach. Because if you can’t gain attention and get people to stop and create that pattern interruption as they keep scrolling up the feed, then the algorithms see that and they’ll suppress your reach. And that’s what limits growth, it was limiting engagement. So you even if you have 60,000 followers or a million followers, you’re not guaranteed to reach all those people with your content. Because the algorithms have a very tough job to do. Most people think it’s to get you to pay more for reach. It’s not, it’s because if you open up Instagram, right now, there’s probably 1000 pieces of content the algorithms can see to you, based on all the people you follow and all the content you’ve engaged with. Obviously, they can’t push 1000 pieces of content into that main feed right soon as you are not going to be overwhelming. So they have to prioritize what are the first five or 10 posts that I think have the best shot of maintaining this person’s attention for the longest period of time? Because that’s how they make money.

 

Brett Bartholomew  18:25  

And that’s why they’re prioritizing from what I understand video, right? Like they would 

 

Brendan Kane  18:28  

they hold people longer 

 

Brett Bartholomew  18:30  

that holds people. And I think that’s what ironically, though, it keeps so many people who have high quality information off because, you know, I have number of friends that have so much going on during the day and the idea of being able to shoot the video, which is easy enough, right? Like, I’ve told them I’m like, Hey, shoot a quick video, don’t worry about all this stuff. But then they’re like, ah, but then I got to edit it and make captions. And I you know, I know even I tried that at one time I tried to hire having a VA you know, just as I’m not always buy my computer on buy it more now with COVID or what have you. But I tried hiring a VA, you know, transcribe this, but then you got typos. And you got these things. And it’s interesting that you would think they’re going to continue to find ways to make things easier for people to see instead of more challenging, because it’s never the charlatans that are dissuaded to come on these platforms, right. They don’t have anything to do, right like fakers and pretenders don’t have, like the shit to do at the time where a lot of people with high quality information are usually pretty busy. So I just think it’s it’s always surprising. Yes, these apps to a degree are intuitive, but what could they do to lower or what could people do to kind of lower this perceived barrier of entry of being like yeah, I got knowledge, I don’t really like this thing. What’s the minimum thing that they should you feel like be in least engaging in?

 

Brendan Kane  19:43  

Well, I think again, as I mentioned before, is first starting off with a mindset exercise of understanding why am I entering into social media? What is it going to do for my business? Was it gonna do for my revenue, what is it going to do for my career, whatever that goal is, you’re going after? And then reverse engineer it from there. because If it’s going to drive meaningful revenue for your business, then maybe it makes sense to invest in a videographer. I mean, you look at like Gary Vaynerchuk is the extreme example. He’s a team of like 35 or 40 people now looking at his personal brand, there’s another guy, Ryan serhant, who started off with a team of a few people. Now, he just launched a whole media company around his brand and his real estate business. And why because they see it works for them. And it’s amazing. So many, people have run into that they don’t know their numbers or their business. And they think that I’m just gonna launch a social media account, and all of a sudden, something magical is gonna happen. I’m not sure what that magic is gonna be. But I think I need to be on there versus like actually measuring. Okay, did I get a lead this week? Did I get a lead this month? Or did it help me close that record deal or that book deal? And looking at it from that perspective, so that you can then ask yourself, How much am I willing to invest? Because I get asked the question, how much should I pay a contractor? How much should I pay an agency? Should I hire somebody full time? And for each business? It’s a different and 

 

Brett Bartholomew  21:08  

yeah, it’s the same thing when we’re to have people be like, hey, what’s the best training program? If somebody wants to run a faster 40? This that what have you right? It depends on a lot of things innumerable. And we will get that question a million times. I think the thing that’s still fascinating to me, Brendan is, you know, in some industries, and again, in mind coming up, you’re almost penalized for having social media, because these organizations and I was told this at one point in time, we don’t want to brand we want to coach. And I’ve always thought that’s fascinating, because there’s all these people that want to help and do more in the world, yet, you know, you can get penalized for these things. And I’m curious, have you seen other industries for your clients or what have you, and you can speak broadly, I know, you can’t use names, right. But that there’s that fine line between they need to have a they should have a presence, because it’s always good to have some kind of narrative or function or tool in the world to help others find your work. Even if you’re a researcher, right, that has no desire for fame to get your research out there. Social media can help. But have you seen any other industries that it’s just like, we have to walk this line, because if it’s almost negative, if you have a quote, unquote, brand,

 

Brendan Kane  22:16  

I honestly haven’t run into it of brand versus individual. I will say that, specifically in the entertainment industry, you have a negative impact if you don’t do a good job with your social, especially on the acting side of things. And also I’ve I’ve seen that with authors as well struggling to get like a publishing deal or to get or even even if it’s not a publishing deal, they may have a publishing deal, but then the retailers will want to see Do you have a meaningful social presence? Before they do a large purchase? Or it’ll dictate the amount of books that they purchase? But to me, I would say it’s in the positioning, again, going back to context. Yeah. So I would say that, that accompany saying that they don’t want to brand they want to coach is either they’re misunderstanding the context in the way that it was presented? Or maybe they’re just not that interested in it’s an excuse for them. But I think context solves everything. In terms of overcoming those obstacles or hurdles?

 

Brett Bartholomew  23:15  

Yeah, no, it’s a good point. I just remember telling that to a friend. It’s something I’ve told on the podcast before telling a friend that at one point in time, like even getting, you know, hey, we don’t want you to have social media, we don’t yet want you to post a said, mate in my profession. If I had written a book, and I had done these things that would make the company look better, right that companies need talent. Like there’s one thing that the leadership research makes clear. Any organization no matter how big or small, I would imagine even your agency, I know our company, and fortune 500 It’s hard to find talented people. So if you bring somebody in that is talented, and they provide value to others. I mean, that makes you look good. I would have to imagine even though Brendan, you have a great brand yourself, you have an agency, do you want to be the main figure of that in perpetuity? Or do you want other people that rise up, you know, within your organization that can continually add value to people? Like what’s your desire in that? 

 

Brendan Kane  24:05  

Yeah, I mean, definitely, I don’t want to be the only person reliance on it, because then people only want to hire you, right? And if they can’t afford you, and you push them off to your team, which are just as qualified, maybe in some cases more qualified, together. That’s the whole concept is like hire people that are smarter and better than you that it can be typical to transition that authority. So for me, and this was, again, this is an experiment is it led with me, and now I understand the pros and cons of it leading with me. And now we’re making a well rounded strategy. But as you know, in creating an agency or business, it can’t rely on one person. you’ve got to build the authority of the other people in the organization. So that is definitely something that I’m looking towards. And we’re doing it right now in terms of how we’re building up the team and the agency.

 

Brett Bartholomew  24:56  

Yeah, I love it. Use the term authority because like you said previously Social media can be used in so many contexts. If you’re just trying to worry about followers or what have you, you’re missing the point. For me, social media tells me a lot about a potential hire. Right? Like somebody can send me all the resumes and cover letters they want. But like, I’m always going to dive deeper, right? And if you don’t have a social media profile, I’m sorry. Like, in my opinion, to me that that kind of hurts you now again, if I’m working for a government contractor, right? Whether it’s DOD, or we’re looking for somebody to do that had previous Special Forces history or what have you, because those are some of my clients, I get it. But if I’m hiring you, and I can’t see kind of some of your values and what have you, like, it just shows you’re not really that adaptable. And I know there’s a lot of people that are going to disagree with me. But if you think a resume is gonna get you a job, or notoriety or the clients you want, or what have you in this world, I just think you’re naive at best. Would you disagree? And feel free to this isn’t a show where you have to agree with, with everything I’m saying by any means?

 

Brendan Kane  25:53  

To me, it depends on how you get in the door.  And how you position yourself? Are there certain people, like I’ll give you an example is most and this has shifted over the past, I would say five years, maybe longer. But your college education used to be so important. And people would ask, you know, where you go to college as a part of, I’m not going to do deal with this person. And I didn’t go to an Ivy League school. And honestly, I could care less when I’m hiring where somebody went to school, And also, when people are hiring me when I was like dealing doing a deal with MTV or Viacom or Taylor Swift. They asked me like, where I went to school? No, they focused on my message. And what I was delivering and do they believe that I can drive the value that I’m looking for now, with that said is if you position yourself in a certain way, if you’re positioning yourself as a social media expert, or position your or contextualize your service or brand in a certain way, and then they go to your social profile, and it either falls flat or is non existent or the contents not good. Can that heavily impact you? Yes. But I would say that, the better you do that job in contextualizing when you’re communicating through an ad in person through a zoom call, whatever it may be, I think it eliminates that need to go deeper and deeper and deeper to see if it’s the right fit.

 

Brett Bartholomew  27:23  

Yeah, I think that brings up some good points. And I’d have to imagine whether it’s you individually or through your agency. A lot of this is less about getting people to even you embrace social media and more about overcoming some level of imposter phenomenon or syndrome, like people feeling like, they don’t have a lot to share. Do you feel like that’s a fairly common thing with with some of your clients, even some of the bigger names at some point, like they’re either indecisive, what should I share today even make those decisions? Do You guys tell them? How does that process typically work?

 

Brendan Kane  27:52  

Yeah, we see it a lot. And I see that myself. I mean, I get it all the time, too. so I have those questions in my head. And yes, with those bigger clients, we do have those conversations. Because you’re under a microscope, you need to be more careful when you’re at the highest levels, then, when you’re just starting out, you can make those mistakes, and most people won’t really pay attention and recognize it.

 

Brett Bartholomew  28:16  

Yeah. And I’d have to imagine to just and from listening to you on other podcasts and researching you and watching you from afar. You’re always kind of this picture of equanimity, I don’t see a lot of highs and a lot of lows. Right? Just kind of steady Eddy, I’d have to imagine that served you well to when working with these clients, because a lot of people, you know, they feel like they have to prove themselves, right. Like we talked about it art of coaching provide value, don’t try to prove it. You know, when you feel like you have this scarcity bias of there’s only so many clients that we can work with that have a certain stature or there’s I’m only gonna have one opportunity to prove myself as an authority in my field. You know, what are your thoughts about, you know, just giving people strategy or how you approach Hey, no matter whether you’re in a huge meeting, like you’ve mentioned MTV and some other things or whether you’re just trying to get to know somebody, how do you approach your communication strategies differently? Like, I mean, obviously, the hook points a part of it, you like you said you only have a small amount of time, but giving that hook point without seeming cheesy salesy or trying to pound your chest is tough, if you wouldn’t mind elaborating on that a little bit in the process.

 

Brendan Kane  29:18  

Well, I think that to your point of being cheesy, that’s like 15 years of experience of doing it like I am, well, adverse to cheesiness and coming from the entertainment industry, you see a lot of it. So that’s like a big focus on where we provide a lot of value to people as we know how to craft something that’s not going to come off cheesy or even salesy. Like if you look at my first book, 1 million followers how I built a massive social audience in 30 days. I’m not selling you anything. I’m just saying, Hey, this is how I did it. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  29:49  

It’s an experiment and check out the results.

 

Brendan Kane  29:51  

Yeah, and I did a Facebook ad even before the book came out, talking about it and applied it to an application to work with me and I got 16,000 people to apply I didn’t sell anything, I didn’t tell anybody to sign up, or anything like that I just pushed it to a blog post in the blog post is like, hey, if this is interesting to you can apply here. But to your question, once we get past the attention when we’re dealing with the biggest meeting you’ll ever have, or even just the smallest meeting, I treated the exact same. And I just go in as a fact finding mission, I am completely zoned in to this person, just start asking them questions and start understanding who they are as an individual. What are their obstacles and challenges? How do they perceive the world? How do they communicate? How do they like to be communicated? What is their body language telling me what is their facial tones, telling me, and I just go straight into that I’m not thinking about a sale, I’m not thinking about a pitcher, I just want to understand this person. And then when I get that base understanding, then it’s very easy to be like, Oh, well, I can see this would be helpful, or this would be helpful. And I can give you an example of if it would be helpful is 

 

Brett Bartholomew  31:03  

Yeah, examples always help. 

 

Brendan Kane  31:05  

So I, have a business partner, that’s one of the top entertainment managers in LA, and he will often put me in meetings with people with no context. So without any explanation to me, or to the other person, and I’ll always take the meeting because they’re high quality meetings. So he’s like, hey, I want you to go meet with this guy, Michael Right. And he was at the time he was the CEO of Steven Spielberg’s company, Amblin entertainment. I had no context what the meeting was about. And when I sat down in the first 30 seconds, I knew he had no context. He’s like, okay, what are we meeting about? So I had probably 25 minutes because super busy guy. So I just started diving in, I spent the first 10 minutes asking him questions of like, what is he working on? What’s exciting to him? What are his biggest goals for Amblin? Were his biggest challenges. And through that, he’s like, Listen, what my biggest challenge is, and he came out and right said is like, I’m tasked by Steven Spielberg to make Amblin a household name, like Marvel, everybody knows Steven Spielberg in his movies here, but they don’t really know ambulance brand, in the same way that they know, Marvel. And he said, well, one of the projects that we’re working on is launching a new online destination for Amblin. But my biggest fear, and what’s causing me anxiety is I know, we’re going to launch this thing, and we’re going to have 100 people on it. So he told me exactly what his need was exactly what is challenging and problem, I said, I can solve that. And he was like, Oh, really, how and then I broke down a case study that I did with Katie Couric and Yahoo to drive millions and millions of visitors to their online destination. Each month, and then he after that he was super excited. And he was like, Okay, let’s talk about next steps. Let’s move forward. Right. And that all happened in a 25 minute period,

 

Brett Bartholomew  33:01  

you build by on by listening by being thoughtful 

 

Brendan Kane  33:03  

By listening. Yeah, now, the biggest mistake is most people make is they go, they sit down, they open up a presentation and start pitching. And that gives if you start doing that you can’t shift, you can’t understand. And even if you have a deck presentation, if you start off the first five or 10 minutes understanding this person understanding their problems, how they perceive things, you may throw out the pitch deck completely, or you may skip over slides, or you may speak to a differently, because what they need may be different than what you think they need,bAnd let them tell you the minute they tell you then you can communicate in that way.

 

Brett Bartholomew  33:41  

And that’s a perfect example. Because what you’re talking about is a combination of interviewing skills and listening things that oddly enough, we’re really not taught to do and I don’t care who you are, we’re all bad at it to a degree, right. And even if we’re pretty skilled at it, situationally, right, there’s going to be times where we mess that up. But there’s a system that has essentially been designed to make us respond this way. I mean, think about all the interviews, you’ve done, or maybe I least I know whether I was interviewing for grad school early on, or whether I was interviewing for a job or a promotion, you’re almost put into this. What I want to say, it’s like this Pavlovian or operant conditioning where we’re so used to having to talk about ourselves to earn a reward, right? We’re so used to having to, hey, this is me and leadership books talking about this. I’ll be vulnerable, empathetic, put yourself out there, be transparent. And then we brush over this shit that’s like, Hey, how about you just listen, and then adapt? Because it seems so obvious that we don’t want that, you know, we don’t want that. Just like I’m sure people want all your tactics of, hey, how should I do paid ads and how should I do this? It’s like, timeout. Do you do the base level stuff? Well enough, right. And for listening, you know, I’d have to imagine you’ve worked on this to a degree whether it’s formal training or you just learning through Holy shit, I blew that meeting. I need to listen more How have you grown? With respect to how you communicate how you listen all these over? Whether it’s the last 2 5 10 years? or what have you, what were some lessons where you really learned like this is a skill I have got to hone in on and I can’t keep taking for granted.

 

Brendan Kane  35:14  

Well, first it goes back to childhood is Luckily, my father ingrained into me and it was annoying at the time. But every time I would say something stupid as a kid, he would smack me over the head and say, he would say, Son, listen, before you speak. And he would do that over and over and over again. So I think that that was really ingrained into me from an early stage. But another example, when I was helping advise a social media advertising company that was optimizing social spend for Fortune 100 companies and like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, it was really a learning experience for me, because in the beginning, we would go in with a very preconceived pitch and a deck, and we would still listen. But we were stuck to that deck. And we got to a point where we felt that the deck was doing a disservice to us, because it was really locking us in this box, and we throw it out the window, and nine times out of 10, we wouldn’t use it some cases, we would to provide some additional context. But we just through that process, we just realized we are better suited just speaking. And I don’t think that I ever use a duck anymore unless it’s absolutely necessary. And I think that that was really a great learning experience. Because again, as I mentioned earlier, is if you go in with a set presentation that you want to deliver, there’s very little wiggle room, if somebody perceives the situation, or doesn’t like the way that you’ve worded something or doesn’t agree with what you say, it’s hard to shift gears and when that trust back or when that attention back after that.

 

Brett Bartholomew  37:00  

And given that how important would you say the ability to just when you’re in those situations, the ability to improvise is?

 

Brendan Kane  37:06  

Oh, it’s 100%. But improvisation is huge. But again, we’re not saying throw everything about who you are what you do out the window, it’s changing the context. So one of and I talked about this, in both of my books, we have a communication framework that we haven’t integrated into our agency and everything that we do. And it’s used by the likes of like Pixar, NASA, Bill Clinton, Audi. And what it does is it allows us to understand that people perceive the world in different ways. And the problem that most people make when they’re creating an ad, or social piece of content, or even going into boardroom is they’re speaking based on how they perceive the world, and not really understanding that the other person may perceive the world differently. So there’s a subset of the population that precedes the world through thoughts and logic. There’s another percentage, a big percentage of the population that sees the world through feelings and emotions, how it makes them feel, then there’s people that see it through humor and fun. Then there’s others, it’s through values and opinions. So if I go into a meeting, or I am creating an ad, and I perceive the world through thoughts and logic, and I’m just talking about facts and data about why you should do this, why you should work with us rational person. Yeah, the other person, the other side of table just perceives the world through feelings and emotions. It’s like, we can be completely missing each other. So I need to make sure that when I’m crafting my message, I have a well rounded message and speak through the thoughts and logic, the field, how it makes them feel, how it’s gonna be fun and engaging. And why and share my opinions about it. And then also going into that boardroom is listening. What are the words that they’re saying? Are they saying, feel? Are they saying think? Are they saying value? Are they saying opinions, or I believe, and then tailoring again, the words that you use and the phrases and whether you ask questions or give statements, those are all the things that we intertwine when we’re developing hooks. And then also correlative, really, when we’re going into a meeting, or an interview, to win a big piece of business,

 

Brett Bartholomew  39:13  

you and I are really in the same business. You know, this is a lot of what I talked about with what we do with building buy in, you know, having to work with you talked about going into these boardrooms and the decks and everything that you’ve got to do without you know, a lot of that was my career working with athletes, you might have somebody from Dade County that they see training and sport is this and then somebody from rural Iowa sees it this way in Calif and if you’re running a group of 30 50 100 people, or even if it’s one to one, you still gotta be able to speak that language and get out of the jargon in their head. And I think the troubling thing for me, Brendan is this is stuff that people know, right? And because whenever I told him tell this to people, they’re like, oh, it’s kind of like love languages. I’m like, Well, yeah, but it’s a little bit different than that and that it’s not just about defining some kind of one hook point or one love language or one influence tactic. It’s about matching them with the people in there. perception, right? And that’s going back to context, again, is people don’t ever reverse engineer that it’s so easy for us to be like, well, that person didn’t understand what I was saying, when that person doesn’t see the vision, or they’re gonna have a hard lesson. Ego is such a tough thing to break through, especially when it’s our own right? Talk to me about how you’ve kind of addressed that in the past, whether it’s dealing with somebody else that no matter what you suggest to them. And no matter how you frame it through emotion, through humor, through fax, through any of these kinds of things. It just doesn’t seem to get there, like what has been a situation where it was almost like, alright, this is my last ditch attempt here. What do you feel like that barrier was? And how do you pivot then? And if that’s not a clear question, I’m happy to reframe it, because I know as well,

 

Brendan Kane  40:44  

yeah, no, it’s great. So first, you could do the best job of communicating and connecting with somebody, and it still doesn’t work. And that happens. Sometimes it’s that, well, everything that we’re talking about is not about manipulating people to do what you want. It’s about getting them so that they can hear what you have to say, and hear the value that you can express and sometimes just one person won’t get it or they won’t like it, and there’s just not for them. And you got to be cool with that. Other times, maybe you don’t have product market fit. And then that’s a lesson to go back and readjust from there. So I want to lay that groundwork first. And again, I’m not perfect with this at all, like I’m a human being, I have an ego, I have emotions, I get upset sometimes and I detailed a story in the book about a meeting I had with Sirius XM. So I had a great meeting with a top executive at Sirius XM, about a project. And he’s like, Well, I want you to go meet with our lead developer on this project and just walk them through what you walked me through. As soon as I sat down, he was resistant. He’s like, I don’t know what it was. And honestly, I wasn’t in the best state of mind to kind of deal with that resistance. Because I was in meeting in New York. And I think I took the red eye in. But he was just, it was around social media and driving traffic to a platform they built. And he’s like, I don’t believe in social media. I don’t believe social media can do this. Yeah. And I kept trying to work with him. But there was just no way I could do it. And I this was an example where I lost my cool. And I just, I couldn’t deal with it. And I was like, You know what, I can’t help you. And I just picked up and walked out of the meeting. I shouldn’t have done that. But that was an example where I don’t think there’s anything I could have said or done to win this guy over. And you’ve got to be okay, that that’s going to happen. Now. If you go into 100 meetings, and 99 of them turn out that way, then you probably don’t have product market fit, or you need to change the way you’re delivering it. But it’s even even in it’s hard to deal with from a mindset per second. I’m not saying it’s easy, but even with my first book, we get negative comments, you if you scale you’re gonna get it now. You know, we kind of keep a tab on it, we don’t really want to go over 10 or 15%, negative, otherwise, we got to see if we’re adjusting. But I get I’ve gotten ripped apart by people. I’ve gotten death threats from people. And it’s like, you’ve got to understand, like, you’re not going to please all the people all the time. And I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not because I’ve been there. And it’s hard to deal with. But just understanding are you dealing with one specific instance? Or is it a reoccurring theme that’s happening over and over again?

 

Brett Bartholomew  43:35  

Yeah, that’s a valuable example. And timing plays a huge role without, right, we’ve talked about fit emotions, context, all these things. You could get somebody on a bad day, some days, you’re not going to be in the right spot, you know, and I remember one time I had an organization asked me to tell my story. And I felt like I had told my story so many times, that I just kind of blew through it. Because I’m always conscious of somebody’s time. And I made the mistake, that person actually really wanted to hear that story they were looking for, you know, something to relate to, and to get to know that. And here I am trying to be brief. And it didn’t end up being a fit because it just felt like well, we didn’t connect with you. Because sometimes the point without being the reason you may not connect may be the most banal simple thing possible. You know, and it’s that Bruce Lee quote, the teacher appears when the student is ready. You know, we had somebody one time say, Hey, I worked with this athlete, and the parent comes in and just overzealous and wants to hammer them over the head. And they kind of override me and how can I build buy in with them? How can I get them to understand that’s not healthy for their kid, I go, Well, you’re swimming uphill. This is their kid, somebody they, you know, brought life. They gave this child life, they care a great deal about them. They think they know what’s best. You’re not yet a respected authority in their eyes. So for you to try to tell their kid what they need. Right? Like it all has to be about context fit and timing. And like you said, sometimes it’s not going to work. You know, I know that. We’ve talked about even hiring in our organization. Somebody could easily say, well, you’re, you know, so much of my focus on my doctoral work is under You’re standing people and psychology and change behavior and influence and persuasion, yet, we’re going to have people that we’re going to have to let go, we’re gonna have people that didn’t work out. Now somebody could easily say, Well, if you’re a great leader, and you understand people as well, as you think you do, that’s never going to happen. Okay, right. Like, that’s like saying a chef is never going to prepare a dish that’s less than stellar. Not everybody’s palette for these things is the same. And you’ve had organizations, right, like, think of the apples that have fired somebody they came back in, and the timing was right. Have you ever had somebody that, to that point? You, it wasn’t a fit, it was awful, you know, whatever. It was a disaster. It just didn’t work. And then a couple years went by and now you clicked, you know, has there been anything like that where it wasn’t a fit at first? And then he gave it a second chance? And it worked?

 

Brendan Kane  45:45  

Well, I would say that I’ve lost deals in the beginning, and they came back. it just the right timing? I don’t know if I’ve been in a situation where it was just completely a horrible experience. And then they came back, because typically, for myself, if there’s not a connection, or I say the word appreciation, because I think that’s a better word, does somebody appreciate the work that you put in, it’s not just about the money, like money is a part of it. But if they don’t really appreciate you, I don’t think it’s the right fit. So I’ve definitely had instances where two or three years later, you know, a deal comes around that in the beginning, it just didn’t work, because it wasn’t the right timing, or maybe they just didn’t understand that. But not from a conflict standpoint, because I typically stray away from that as much as possible, because there’s only so many hours in the day, and you want to be focusing on clients that appreciate what you have to offer, and also are going to put in the work to make the partnership successful.

 

Brett Bartholomew  46:48  

Yeah, I mean, you bring up a good point, I think the growth point I know for me is you have to know when to quit trying to I’ve made mistakes in my life of trying to win everybody over to a certain subject or topic, right? If I’m taught, like, just like you said, there’s certain people that don’t want to use social media and what have you. Well, there are some people in my base field that they always just want to believe talking X’s and O’s and technical aspects of performance is where these things are. And that’s not right. You’re in a people based industry, like nobody’s going to perform any task, regardless of the field you’re in, whether it’s a musician, creating a song, somebody at a desk job doing what they need to do a coach leading an athlete, nobody is going to do what they do to the highest their ability, if they don’t feel there’s trust, and a relational element and some level of influence there. And it’s just not worth your time. You know, and keying in on the term appreciation, you’re somebody that’s a giver, again, in every podcast I’ve ever heard you on, not that I stalk you, but you know, we do our due diligence on guests, you’re always very focused on giving value. And you’ll, continue to go in depth and give examples. Let’s talk about how you manage that stimulation and not getting burnout. Because I think that’s something that our society doesn’t really appreciate enough is that as a giver, right? You’re gonna have somebody that reaches out to you non stop. How have you learned to manage your energy, not your time, Brendan. But like your energy in terms of knowing when you just need to be like, Alright, I’ve got enough projects. I’ve got enough clients. I need to bow out of this for a moment. Can you talk about that a bit? 

 

Brendan Kane  48:15  

Yeah, it’s a great question, because it’s something that I work on every day. And I’m definitely not perfect at it. And it’s something that I have to work on, because I do burn myself out a lot. And it was interesting that, and I think you’ll have an appreciation for I’ve had mental burnout ever since I was like 12. And I couldn’t figure out why I’ve been to so many doctors and everything. And a part of it is to push myself hard. But I actually realized about six months ago with a friend, that’s a doctor, cuz he was experiencing similar issues. And he’s like, Well, why don’t you just try breathing differently. And I realized I was breathing the wrong way for 30 plus years. And that helped immensely. But I think a few of the lessons that I’ve learned along the way is patience is a huge one is when I was young, you want everything to happen now, and you push hard to make things go fast instead of put it out there and see if it closes or see if it comes back to you. But then move on to it. In addition to knowing when you’re going through burnout, or you’re pushing yourself hard and just taking a break, whether that’s a nap, or taking your few hours off or taking an afternoon off or taking a day off is a big one. And also a big thing for me is and I’m Structuring the agency in this way, is what drains me. What gives me energy like this gives me energy. I love sharing and doing this. It’s my passion. I love teaching people and sharing information. But diving into my email and having to dig through 500 is draining to me at me. And I know that there’s a part of the business I have to do it but that’s where I’m structuring who I hire to really under Then what am I good at? What am I bad at what drains my energy? What gives me energy? Because I think that’s a huge part of it as well, that I’ve, it’s taken me 15 years to figure that out. It’s not like it’s something that happened overnight. But I think that’s another part that people should really ask themselves, that we, it seems, again, is something that seems simple that we all know conceptually, but we get so caught up in our daily routines and everything that we don’t really realize it. And I did an exercise a few times where I write down on a piece of paper throughout a day is like, Okay, I was doing this task, and I felt like shit, I was doing this task, and I felt great. And just seeing if there’s like themes or trends there, because that will also, you know, help you in that path. But by no means have I mastered the art of dealing with burnout, I constantly push myself hard, but it is something that I am intently focused on it as a big passion of mine of a really paying attention to 

 

Brett Bartholomew  50:59  

Yeah, and something you see as a common theme with you is you experiment with a lot of trends, right? And that goes hand in hand with some of your strategies. You’ve even talked about on social media, just the concept of A B testing, see what works, see what doesn’t see what resonates. everything right? Social media is just a microcosm of the things that we already do in life trying to find fits between what we want to express and the people we want to relate to and bring into our lives. And I know, something to go along with that if I can share that I’ve learned is I used to think I was burnout in some aspects. And then I realized I was overstimulated. And I used to think that was semantics, right? I thought, Well, okay, they’re kind of the same. But as I research they weren’t, you know, I’m like you I like sharing. I like educating I like connecting with like, thoughtful people. But I’ll find that even after conversations like this, I’ll need some downtime, I don’t just open up my, I don’t open up my next project and start getting to work. And I think that that’s a really toxic idea that has been permeated throughout society that we go from a Zoom meeting to this to writing a book to doing this, I have large stretches in my day now where I need to be, quote, unquote, unproductive if I’m ever going to have me being on because my, like, I don’t know how your time zones are. And I’m interested, feel free to share. But I know, with the people that I work with right now, my mornings are busy. And then I’ll have a mid afternoon latency period. And then from six to 9pm. I’m back on work, like I have to lead calls, I have to do this. We have a mastermind group, what have you. And so there’s this kind of dip. And so when I read these books that tell you how to manage your time and your life, they just never worked for me, you know, but what does work? Like you said it just take inventory. I know, okay, if I have more than three or four intense meetings a day, I can’t do it. If my phone if I’m getting texted throughout the day, I’ve got to set limits on that I’ve got to set limits to access not because I want to be big time or rude or what have you. But because I’ve just learned neurologically, it just wires me too much. You know, does any of that resonate? You mentioned breathing and other things? Are there other trends that you thought of

 

Brendan Kane  52:55  

100%. And I love what you said that you had studied all these other books about scheduling and things and it just didn’t work for you. Everybody’s different. And you’ve got to find what works for you. Now, interesting. I’ve been experimenting a little bit with timezone. So I’m based in LA, but I’m probably moving to the east coast. And I spent the past month on the East Coast and then also in Europe. And what I noticed that is that there’s so much stress because I’m such a my thought process is very regimented, and schedule and everything. And when I’m on the West Coast, you’re my calls start at 7am. Pacific sometimes 6am. So what I’ve noticed is that causes a lot of stress on my sleep, because I am like, oh my god, I gotta get up early. It has the alarm gone off, is it going to go off versus when I’m on the East Coast or even in Europe, where I have this huge buffer, where most of my meetings don’t start until the afternoon, I feel like I don’t even need the alarm clock and I can just sleep and wake up whenever I want. And that’s helped me relax a little bit more. Now. I have to stay up later. But that’s something I’m playing around with. And again, that’s different than what most people would tell you. But I love that you share that because I’m constantly experimenting and finding what is the right path for me.

 

Brett Bartholomew  54:15  

Yeah, I’ve just it made me feel like a failure sometimes because I’m like, Oh, well it says do this. And this system says that I’m like my day just is not predictable. And then you’ll read a book that’s like if your day is unpredictable, you’re not prioritizing. Well, I’m like, running right and running, running a business during COVID with a new baby, like talk to me about priority. You know what I mean? It’s kind of that stuff’s crazy. All right. You’re on the homestretch here because you shared a lot I did. There’s one question I’ve been dying to ask you though. I don’t think I’ve heard anybody else ask you that. I’m sure I’m wrong. But you know, you subject yourself to a lot of q&a. A lot of people peppering you for details. I just want to ask you is there one question you wish people would ask you more often is or is there something that people haven’t asked you? And it could be about anything brand and it doesn’t have to be about So, your latest book hook point, your your business, your agency, is there just something that you’ve gotten off podcast before? And you’re like, Yeah, that was a thoughtful conversation. But it just disappoints me. Nobody ever wants to talk about blank. What would that be?

 

Brendan Kane  55:14  

So me and I don’t know that it’s really a question. But it’s a topic that we don’t really dive into too much that I think it’s critically important in this mindset is like and i did this in my 1 million followers book for the second edition is I started off the first chapter talking about mindset, because I didn’t have that in the first version. And your mindset is going to dictate whether you’re successful or not, I can give you all the information, I can give you all the strategy, all the tactics in the world. But if you’re not willing to put in the work, and be relentless about testing until you find out the right answer, you’re not going to be successful. maybe you’ll get lucky once. But that’s so I think, overlooked in a lot of the conversations, especially when people interviewed me about the 1 million followers in 30 days, they just want to know how did you do it? How did you do it? How can other people do it? 

 

Brett Bartholomew  56:03  

They want to skip over all the fight? 

 

Brendan Kane  56:05  

Yeah, yeah, it’s like, okay, I can tell you like the process for doing creating hook points for creating followers for creating growth and revenue is simple. But it’s not necessarily easy. It’s like, that’s where my, a friend of mine I interviewed for the hook point book is one of the top creative minds in the world, he created an agency that serves like Nike and other big companies. And he I don’t know if he came up with it, but he said it and it made so much sense to me is it’s simple, but it’s not easy. There’s like, it gives the example of like, the Iron Man is like, the Iron Man is simple. You have to swim up X number of miles, you have to bike extra miles, and you have to run X number of miles. Put it I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s simple. And it’s like that with anything that we’ve been talking about today. it’s relatively simple, you have to capture somebody’s attention in three to five seconds, or you have to AB test to generate followers or create content that engages people. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be an easy road or an easy process 

 

Brett Bartholomew  57:05  

no and you’re right, it’s so disappointing to because the thing that I find, then you get forced into this situation where you try to tell somebody, if they asked you a question, and you understand what they mean, whether it’s a well framed question or not, you get what they’re getting at. You want to tell them, you want to help them. But you also need to help them understand that it’s much more complex than any answer you’re gonna give them in a DM. And the the issue I find that I have pervasively is me, like you, I have many resources, and many mediums, whether it’s a 300, page, book, online courses, whatever. And so I typically will say, hey, here, I’ll try to provide value. First, I tried to make sure I understand the question. It seems like you’re struggling with this. I can’t answer this in depth over DM. But here are some things that consider and by the way, if you want to go more in depth and really understand, here’s this and then it’s like, oh, well, you’re just trying to sell and I’m like, here’s the thing, right? People create things, restaurants, make food, hotels, provide beds, you provide a book, I provide resources to help. So of course, yes, we’re going to tell people about the thing. Because if people just think that they can go get these bite size, one size fits all answers with like, without you saying, like, dive into the deeper context, you’re going to fail. And it just frustrates me that we’re so devoid of trust in today’s world. And I find it less and less with entrepreneurs, because entrepreneurs get it and they want to support each other. But there’s this group of self righteous people that think that you Brendan or me or anybody listening, owes them all of their time. And if they don’t, they’re selfish, and they’re not really trying to help. And it’s just that stuff is super frustrating. And the other thing is, there’s no blueprint, whether it’s your book, hook point, or my book, or anything that can ever help them not be selfish, non discerning people. That’s a lesson life’s gonna teach them, you know, 

 

Brendan Kane  58:49  

100%, and I’ll give you an example somebody, and I get DMS, like you do all the time. And what is, and this is a recurring theme. But one example that stands out is, you know, somebody said, I want to get a million followers helped me. And I said, Well, have you checked out the book, we reveal all of our tactics and strategies there, we don’t hold anything back. And they said to give me link to the book, and he’s like, Well, I don’t have $10 to spend. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  59:10  

It’s the worst, it’s so much.

 

Brendan Kane  59:14  

Well, you could go off and borrow $10 And to me, I would give the book away for free. I don’t really care about the $10. But just that response tells me they’re not going to be 

 

Brett Bartholomew  59:24  

so disrespectful, you know, 

 

Brendan Kane  59:27  

they’re not serious about it again, it’s not about the $10 I I’ve given my book away to many people for free it’s not about that but I just know this person is it’s ultimately not going to be successful. That mindset and approach

 

Brett Bartholomew  59:40  

Yeah, no, I love it. And guess what, I want a shit ton of people to buy your book. And I’ve taken a lot of your time so I would love to learn more obviously guys. You can buy it on Amazon. Let me save you from having to say that one because there’s people Hey, where can I buy? You can buy the book where most books are sold, Amazon but I’d love to tell them any links anything you want to share. I want them to support you.

 

Brendan Kane  1:00:02  

Yeah if they go to masterclass.hookpoint.com We sell a masterclass on there. And then you get the book for free. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:00:09  

Love it. 

 

Brendan Kane  1:00:10  

So it’s actually and it’s for the same price as a book. So we give you the masterclass which is an hour and a half of content of how to create hook points, we give you the ebook, the audiobook. And once you complete the masterclass, you get a free strategy call with our team. So that’s probably the most bang for their buck. If they want to learn more about just hook point in my agency, they can go to hookpoint.com.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:00:31  

Great, simple clean, and as always, guys, these things are gonna be loaded in the show notes. Remember, our guests have full time jobs, they’re just like you, you know, and support them, right because they take time out of their day. Brendan is pulling no punches. We don’t allow guests on here, every now and then one may sneak through but we certainly don’t allow people on here that do pull punches or want to give you the cliches so support this man support his work we all needed. Attention is the commodity of today. And if you want to make a difference, you got to realize that there’s ethical ways to do it and everything he shows you fits into that category. There’s no tricks or gimmicks or anything like that Brennan I can’t thank you enough man.

 

Brendan Kane  1:01:07  

Thank you so much for having us. Great to connect with you. Yeah,

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:01:10  

likewise guys until next time, this is the art of coaching podcast with Brett Bartholomew will speak to you soon.