Latest / The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast / You Don’t Have to Be Famous to be Worth Listening To with Dominic Forth (stage 2) - Ep. 441

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You Don’t Have to Be Famous to be Worth Listening To with Dominic Forth (stage 2) - Ep. 441 · The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast

• 0:00
  Scott Ritzheimer: Hello, hello, and welcome, welcome once again
• 0:03
  to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast-the only podcast that
• 0:06
  grows with you through all seven levels of your journey as a
• 0:10
  founder. I'm your host, as always, Scott Ritzheimer, and
• 0:13
  most solo or even early level founders think that their
• 0:17
  revenue problem is a lead problem, when often nobody
• 0:22
  trusts them enough to buy yet, especially those who are in this
• 0:26
  startup entrepreneur stage, and that can be infuriating because
• 0:30
  there's this trap that we feel like we're stuck in between a
• 0:33
  rock and a hard place. Of well, if nobody knows about me, then
• 0:35
  how can I prove that they should know about me? And if they don't
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  know, it's just it's so frustrating for founders, and
• 0:42
  I've found that it has a nasty habit of poking on that imposter
• 0:46
  syndrome thing that we deal with as founders. Well, today's guest
• 0:51
  helps founders get credible visibility and fast. Dominic
• 0:55
  Fourth is the CEO of Thought Leaders America, and he's
• 1:00
  creator of the Media Millionaire Method. After 20 years inside
• 1:04
  the world's biggest newsrooms, he relocated from the UK to the
• 1:07
  US. He built a seven-figure business generating over a
• 1:10
  million dollars in under two years, using media as his sole
• 1:15
  growth channel. Even before establishing a traditional sales
• 1:20
  funnel, he's placed hundreds of clients across 200 U.S. TV
• 1:24
  stations and helped founders and CEOs turn a single three-minute
• 1:28
  interview into a revenue-generating asset. After
• 1:33
  a near fatal rafting accident on the Zambezi River, when multiple
• 1:38
  Iron Man finishes have shaped him to help him with calm,
• 1:42
  clarity, courage in his leadership framework, which he
• 1:45
  uses to help leaders stop being the best-kept secret in their
• 1:50
  market. He's here with us today, Dominic. Welcome to the show. So
• 1:53
  excited to have you here because this is it. I mean, like every
• 1:56
  founder goes through this, regardless of how much publicity
• 1:59
  we're going after. There's this frustration of needing to be
• 2:03
  known but not being known yet. How do you help founders to to
• 2:08
  start taking steps in that direction to solve for that
• 2:11
  problem while they go about all the other things that they have
• 2:15
  to do to build their business?
• 2:17
  Dominic Forth: Yeah, Scott, thanks for having me. And this
• 2:19
  is a topic I love discussing because I've been through it
• 2:22
  personally myself. In fact, I was once described as the
• 2:26
  Phantom, which in a nice way because I was always behind the
• 2:29
  scenes booking other people on TV and podcasts and everything
• 2:34
  else, and yet I secretly wanted to be on the spotlight myself.
• 2:39
  But again, like even though I book so many people, like how do
• 2:42
  you break through and take that first step? And so I'm really
• 2:46
  excited for our conversation today and to talk through it.
• 2:50
  Scott Ritzheimer: That's fantastic! It's fantastic. So
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  that that's really what this is about. Because again, for folks
• 2:54
  that are listening that are in that level two, you know,
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  there's various degrees of success, but it's early on for
• 3:00
  just about everyone, and and one of the one of the challenges in
• 3:04
  this level is it's so hard. It's so much harder than we thought,
• 3:08
  and and feels like everything is hard, and and so it would be one
• 3:12
  thing if we had this successful business and we had clients and
• 3:16
  everything was great, and we went to do a PR campaign and it
• 3:19
  flopped a little bit. So what? Who cares? But in level two,
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  when when you don't have all those other things established,
• 3:26
  it feels really vulnerable to put yourself out there. How how
• 3:30
  do you help coach folks through, especially those first early
• 3:33
  interactions, and and maybe even the first couple knows?
• 3:37
  Dominic Forth: Yeah. So you know the old saying that you can't
• 3:39
  see yourself in the picture when you're in the frame, I think one
• 3:43
  of the best things is to get a coach and get some or someone
• 3:45
  from outside, and that could be someone in your organization
• 3:48
  that can give you feedback. But what I've seen really help found
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  is is podcasts, and I'll tell you why. Because sometimes press
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  releases, written articles, they can be so manufactured. Not all
• 4:00
  of them, but they can be so manufactured. All there's such
• 4:02
  limited contribution that is actually maybe it's a quote or a
• 4:07
  few lines. Does that is that going to move the needle from a
• 4:09
  business outcome? But what I love about podcasts is number
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  one, you get time with the hosts, and often the questions
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  and the curiosity from the host will create these little aha
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  moments as you're talking, and often hosts have interviewed
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  hundreds, if not 1000s, of guests. So they've they've got a
• 4:29
  whole range of benchmarks, and so putting yourself as a founder
• 4:32
  onto a podcast suddenly you're being asked questions where
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  you're thinking, "Huh, that's the third time I've been asked
• 4:38
  on a show about that question. I hadn't thought about that. Maybe
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  there's something there in our own client or customer journey
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  that we should start putting into marketing, and so some of
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  your best podcast interviews can become really great marketing,
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  you know, projects in a way because you're getting real time
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  feedback from a host without the pressure of a sales. Because
• 5:00
  often prospects, I mean, talking to sale, like being on sales
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  calls, is is huge. But prospects always have the guard up; they
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  don't always tell you the truth. Whereas being a guest on podcast
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  is phenomenal because you have those kind of the you know the
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  sleeves roll up, you have those real conversations. So that
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  would be the number one place to start. And two, the other reason
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  why is it's very forgiving. So on TV, you've got three to five
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  minutes, and if you don't quite nail that sound bite, you're
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  like, oh, and it's over in a flash. But a podcast host
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  suddenly tell me more. Well, why do you think that way? So that's
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  the starting place I'd start with.
• 5:39
  Scott Ritzheimer: I love that. I love that. And one of the one of
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  the things about that or or this world in general is there are a
• 5:45
  lot of people who reach out to me. I think everyone gets this,
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  but you know they're they're really you know if not spam
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  themselves close to it. But there's this like we'll get you
• 5:56
  on all these shows, we'll do this, and you can buy your way
• 5:59
  into a lot of Opportunities, but I think what I love about what
• 6:05
  you're sharing with podcasts is the real opportunity is not
• 6:08
  necessarily just getting onto those, but it's what you learn
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  and and how how you develop and change. Would you say that's
• 6:14
  true?
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  Dominic Forth: Absolutely. So my Zambezi River story I kept very
• 6:19
  private because it was quite traumatic, and I don't even
• 6:24
  know. It came up on a podcast one time, and I was just
• 6:28
  describing the story, and the host was like, "Wait, what? You
• 6:31
  almost drowned in the Zambezi River? How did you feel? And I
• 6:34
  said, "Well, it took me three attempts to resurface. Like
• 6:37
  three attempts, yeah, and like, but the first time I was quite
• 6:40
  calm, like really, I was like, yeah, it was so strange because
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  I wasn't expecting to be calm. The second time I went to
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  resurface, though, my head just went very clear. Like I'm going
• 6:51
  down the river with the raft on top of me. I'm not getting out
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  anytime soon. I got to do the complete opposite and fight like
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  you know as hard as I can to get free from this raft, and so had
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  this courage, and this all came from discovery on a podcast
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  interview. And next thing you know, I was thinking about it
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  that night. I was like, "Huh, that was a really, you know, I'm
• 7:11
  going to start talking more about this. And it's the same
• 7:15
  with client case studies, and you learn in real time what
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  lands and what doesn't land. And the best part is, sometimes
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  people have sort of an imposter syndrome. Like, well, I'm not
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  ready yet. You know, I'll I'll share my story when it's ready.
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  But you're getting this this feedback in real time, and it's
• 7:36
  it's honestly like some of the best feedback that you can get.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: I love that because I think one of the one
• 7:42
  of the things that we have a tendency to do, especially for
• 7:46
  the more thinking oriented founders, is we kind of want to
• 7:48
  think our way out of every problem. We we want to like
• 7:51
  perfect it all in in the background, and we think that
• 7:55
  we'll be more confident as we get more competent. But I think
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  the thing that drives more confidence than anything is just
• 8:02
  reps, just time doing it and sharing it. And I love, I love
• 8:08
  the approach for that reason and others. The other thing I want
• 8:11
  to switch gears just a little bit because the other thing that
• 8:13
  I really like about your approach, and you've already
• 8:15
  alluded to this a little bit, is just the focus on business
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  outcomes. Because for a founder, especially in level two, like PR
• 8:24
  is useless unless it produces outcomes, right? And and so like
• 8:30
  you just don't have money to to to waste in that environment.
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  It's like it has to produce something, but what like what
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  what are those outcomes? How and and how do you approach PR
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  publicity or or these different purchases or strategies from a
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  business outcome based approach?
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  Dominic Forth: Yeah, yeah. Start with the end in mind. So, what
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  is the end goal? If the goal is to write more six figure
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  contracts, how are we going to get the attention of those
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  decision makers? And so, it's using media as an asset. So the
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  interview is just the beginning, and then how do you build the
• 9:08
  infrastructure so that media can be used as an asset? So a great
• 9:11
  example: there's a interview that happens. There's a really
• 9:16
  strong clip of you making a point that's directly relevant
• 9:19
  to a pain point of your ideal client, and then you use that as
• 9:22
  part of an email campaign to connect with the founder and
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  saying, "Hey, not sure if you've seen this. We were just featured
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  by X, and these are these three pain points. Are you feeling
• 9:33
  something similar? Or if it's a sometimes if it's a higher
• 9:37
  profile placement, sometimes it's like, "Hey, I was just
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  featured on ABC last night. Thought you might enjoy this.
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  I've worked with companies where we've-I say we-where they've
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  generate. I don't want to take credit for it. I just do the
• 9:49
  media part, but help them with the rest. But they have closed
• 9:52
  five-figure deals off a simple email that's just reignited
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  something that's stored in the pipeline. So you know, it's just
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  a great excuse to reach out to someone. You they had a proposal
• 10:04
  six months ago, and they went cold on you. They started
• 10:06
  ghosting you. Suddenly, you're back in their inbox. Like, hey,
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  I was on ABC. Hey, check out this podcast. Hey, here's a
• 10:11
  great article I thought you might like. But it's the founder
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  of the company saying it. It really helps to reengage that
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  way. And then the other way, which I love as well, is getting
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  the founders booked on stages once they're ready, because when
• 10:27
  you're booked on stage, you can command a booking fee, and
• 10:30
  sometimes one speaking engagement pays for an entire
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  three months of retainers. You know, if it's the right event.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, and one of the again, one of the things
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  I like about this is because one of the reasons why deals,
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  especially in that category, so if you're a coach or a
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  consultant or any kind of like high ticket personal service
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  type offer, trust is such a big part of that. And with as much
• 10:57
  noise as is going on, just more emails with more text. What's
• 11:02
  that really going to accomplish, right? But being able to to give
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  more than that, to have you know the recognition of an ABC or
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  something that speaks directly to their problem, but from this
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  third party source feels so much more trustworthy than just me
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  saying more about myself. Would you agree?
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  Dominic Forth: Absolutely, and that's the power of PR: is that
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  third-party credibility, where you're not self-promoting a
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  verified third party, a credible third party is saying this is a
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  great company to work for, this is a great person, you need to
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  listen to this person and trust them. That's the goal.
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  Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, yeah, Dominic. There's this question I
• 11:41
  want to make sure we have some time for it because it's a
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  question I ask all my guests, and it is this: What is the
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  biggest secret that you wish wasn't a secret at all? What's
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  that one thing you wish every founder watching or listening
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  today knew?
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  Dominic Forth: So you don't have to be famous to be worth
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  listening to. Everyone has a story, and I like to think of
• 12:02
  two blacksmiths. So there's one that he's working on. It's you
• 12:06
  know he's building a sword, and he has his door closed. He's
• 12:09
  like, "I'll talk when I'm ready. And then in the same village,
• 12:13
  there's another blacksmith, and he has his door open. He knows
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  it's not finished yet. He knows it's not ready, but people are
• 12:18
  coming by. They're seeing how the progress is being made.
• 12:21
  They're looking at how things are going, and you can guess
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  which one people are more relatable to, who people start
• 12:28
  to follow, whose people really start to trust. It's the one
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  with the door open. So there's an invisible tax on silence, and
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  often waiting for till something's perfect, you're
• 12:39
  taxing yourself, and so you don't have to be famous to be
• 12:43
  worth listening to. People will advocate for you and support you
• 12:47
  just by sharing the journey, sharing the failures, sharing
• 12:50
  the challenges, and then sharing the successes as well.
• 12:53
  Hopefully,
• 12:54
  Scott Ritzheimer: yeah. Wow, not what I expected, and it was
• 13:00
  fantastic. I I love that, and I love the illustration because I
• 13:05
  I know I'm guilty of that. Is like, hey, close the doors, let
• 13:08
  me get this thing sorted, and then let's get back out there.
• 13:11
  So I think we can all relate to that. Speaking of relating to
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  it, Dominic, I know there's folks that are listening to this
• 13:18
  that you know it's just exactly where they are, you know the the
• 13:22
  nature of being unknown, that desire to be seen and to be
• 13:25
  trusted, to do great work for their clients. If someone wants
• 13:29
  to know more about the work that you and your team do, how could
• 13:32
  they reach out to you? What what would a next step be?
• 13:34
  Dominic Forth: Yep. So our website's
• 13:36
  thoughtleadersamerica.com, and then we also have a newsletter
• 13:40
  called the Authority Brief, and that is at authoritybrief.com.
• 13:45
  And we talk all about press and just ways to get featured, do's
• 13:48
  and don'ts, some of the mistakes that I've made personally, and
• 13:52
  then just some of the patterns and trends that I'm seeing as
• 13:54
  well. So authoritybrief.com,
• 13:57
  Scott Ritzheimer: fantastic. Authoritybrief.com. We'll get
• 13:59
  links to both of those in the show notes for you all, so you
• 14:01
  don't have to go looking for it. With that, Dominic, thank you so
• 14:05
  much for being on the show today. Really, really privilege
• 14:09
  having you on. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. Thank
• 14:11
  you so much. And for those of you watching and listening, you
• 14:14
  know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you
• 14:17
  got as much out of this conversation as I know I did,
• 14:20
  and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care. Hey
• 14:27
  everyone, Scott Ritzheimer here. Thank you so much for listening
• 14:30
  to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast. I hope this episode
• 14:33
  gave you exactly what you need for the level you're in right
• 14:37
  now. If you want to discover what level you're in, take our
• 14:41
  10 question Founders Evolution Quiz for free at
• 14:44
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• 14:49
  exactly where you are and give you tailored tips to move
• 14:52
  forward and reach that next level in your journey as a
• 14:56
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• 14:59
  forget to subscribe. Rate or review. It helps us reach more
• 15:02
  founders like you, and let's be honest, it means a ton to me, my
• 15:06
  team, and all our incredible guests. So keep starting,
• 15:10
  scaling, and succeeding, and I'll see you in the next
• 15:13
  episode.