Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Richard Bliss - Engagement and Social Selling in LinkedIn

Episode Date: June 29, 2021

Welcome to this week’s episode on The Radcast! Get ready for Richard Bliss, CEO of BlissPoint, LinkedIn’s Top Social Selling Trainer, Public Speaker and Author of DigitalFirst Leadership.In this episode on The Radcast, host Ryan Alford talks with guest Richard Bliss about the difference between Social Selling and Social Content, his motivations and his favorite career moments that led him to build the Richard Bliss brand.They also dissect RAD or FAD from messaging automations to social platforms, products and more.To learn more about Richard Bliss follow him on LinkedIn, his Instagram or by visiting https://www.blisspointconsult.com/If you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, let us know by visiting our website www.theradcast.com or leave us a review on Apple Podcast. Be sure to keep up with all that’s radical from @ryanalford @radical_results @the.rad.cast If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Most of the clients I deal with, the salespeople fundamentally believe that social media is a waste of their time. Not to get political, but it had an impact, and the 2016 election had an impact on my job. The worst performing content on LinkedIn is videos. The Wikipedia entry that your listeners will read is about Richard Bliss from Olympia, Washington, living in San Diego in the tech industry, who's been arrested in Russia. This is all true. Oh my God. Except there's one piece that's not true. I'm not that Richard Bliss.

Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. Hey guys, what's up? It's Ryan Alford. Welcome to another edition of the Radcast. I'm kind of excited today, Richard. I, you know, sometimes I have people on that it's like eight levels farther from what I do or what I have. And it's like I'm just asking them because I truly don't know.

But I really understand what you do. and really admire it. And welcome to the show, Richard Bliss. Ryan, a pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Hey, man. I got to see you firsthand working with one of our clients. It couldn't have been a better recommendation. Someone had recommended you. You couldn't have handled it more professionally. They spoke about that for months on end. And so so appreciative of your work. Richard is a top voice of LinkedIn. I don't even know how you get that, you know, that that notice, but as your brand goes, did they award you? Did you get a certificate in the mail?

Or it's like, how does that go about? I got that, you know, it's funny because what you're talking about is top voices. LinkedIn every year does top voices on their platform in certain categories. And they have basically 10 categories. And I got an email saying, hey, you've been, you're being considered as one of our top voices in the category of sales. And Ryan, I thought it was, I thought it was spam. I thought it was a hoax. I went and looked the guy up on LinkedIn. I sent him a message on LinkedIn. And yeah, it was legit. So when you ask how, honestly, I had no idea. They don't reveal how they actually do the selection. I just got notified that I was one of the top voices. I was number eight top voices in the category of sales on LinkedIn, which I found it was amazing.

And I really appreciated that they recognized me for the contribution I was making to helping salespeople, particularly in the enterprise space, find a way to use the platform to be more effective. Well, you know, speaking from firsthand experience for how well you did with our clients and, you know, watching some of your videos, well-earned, no doubt. I know you've got a new book, Digital First Leadership, which we'll get to. And, you know, just an all-around great guy, right? You know, everything I can tell is like, you know, Richard Bliss, coming from California. We're in sunny California today, right? Yeah, I'm in my tent in my backyard in sunny California.

I've been here, and the last time you know I thought it was last fall, I was still here. I've been here over a year now. I've got this, it's one of those farmer market pop-up tents, and I got some custom walls made, and I've settled in, I got an air conditioner and carpeting, and my wife's wondering if I'm ever coming back to into the house. The first time where you had that call, when you told me that, you know, you actually showed us around. I think Alex from my team and I were on with you and you were showing around.

And I went home to my world. I was like, I met a guy today. I like this guy. He's in a tent in his backyard that's met in California, living the dream, you know, as we've gone,

we went to the Zoom world that I guess we're still sort of in. But hopefully coming out of, I actually want to talk a little bit about that too. But I know you're known, Richard, you know, let's give everyone a little bit more. I know I've dived right in,

you know, to some of your specializations. But let's give everyone listening that may not have read your book yet that's just coming out or that should read it. We'll get to that. But you may not know everything about Richard Bliss. Let's start there. There's a lot to say, but I'll keep it short.

So the company is called Bliss Point. I'm the president of the company. And we focus on helping companies, salespeople. This is what your client was in need of, of understanding how to navigate. this new digital first world. I help executives, CEOs, VPs, directors understand how to build a presence online. So so many of them today are just woefully unprepared for how rapidly we move to this online world. And my background is the company's a couple of years old. I have worked for a variety of tech companies over the years. I've been the vice president of marketing for a variety

of companies going back to pre-2000. And during that time, I've constantly kind of reinvented myself accolades. I've been on CNN a couple of times. I've been on Good Morning America. I've been covered in Wired Magazine, Fox News, across the board, talking about a variety of topics over the years, everything from security and viruses, email viruses, back when those first started, to crowdfunding.

and Kickstarter when that took off to today, it's social media and helping executives, particularly as CEOs, understand how to navigate. So that kind of gives you a little bit of background. If you Google my name, oh, here's something, Ryan, you probably don't know. If you Google my name, there's a couple of stories out there. But one is, I'm also well known in the board game industry and have competed for, I've been mentioned in the news in Italy, press releases because of board games. I have set world records playing board games, so that's one of the side things that maybe we didn't bring up last time.

I love it, man. And you know what? Just a hunch, you know, having done, and I have no idea if this is your specialization, but this wouldn't surprise me. Like, I used to do the trivia at one of the local pubs here, a trivia night. You strike me as someone that I would want on my team for trivia. Are you going to trivia? I tend to be. I'm well known.

I'm well-traveled. I speak multiple languages. Yeah. So, yeah, usually I'm, now I have some gaps. I know nothing about Shakespeare. So when it comes to that category on Jeopardy, I do terrible. But yes, my wife and I sit down and watch Jeopardy almost every night and have some fun with that. So yeah, not too bad. I love it, man. So you're helping companies and individuals and CEOs and in general with social selling. It's such an interesting thing. I want to get your opinion on something, you know, social selling versus social marketing, like the age old question of marketing versus sales and the difference between the two. I mean, where do we fall? What's the difference between social media, general marketing, content development versus, and I get what people know what selling is, but like, where do those lines cross and fall? And is, is there a large distinction anymore.

That's a big conversation, but let me try a couple of ways. One, inside most organizations, there's this pyramid of, or a triangle. You have the corporate communications team, which usually handles the social media for the company, and you're very familiar with that. They have a very specific purpose and a very specific message that they put out, and usually PR's involved and analyst relations that are involved. Then you have executives, and they, they, are starting to develop a voice, but they have a completely different purpose and voice.

Their job is to be considered thought leaders and to be setting vision and direction and where are we going. And then there's this third group and it's your Salesforce. And when it comes to social media, your sales force, yeah, they can use the content from an executive, but they really are concerned about content that allows them or social media that allows them to open doors so they can close business. That's really what they're involved with. And as you think about it, those three can sometimes be at odds with each other.

The corporate team wants to put out a press release and the general announcement is out something. And the salespeople are like, no, I need to find this individual at this company and what they're doing so I can get and knock on a door and get a call with them. And then the CEO, the corporate team's like, we're not going to write content for the CEO or the VP of sales. And so that's where you see this whole, we're using the same words, but incredible. different meanings when it comes to social. The salespeople hear social and they think that's a responsibility of the corporate team. The corporate team here is selling and they think that's a responsibility

of sales. And executives are somewhere in the middle saying, hey, can somebody help me out? And generally, and I don't mean to, but generally, oftentimes your social team is much younger. And they don't understand why an executive doesn't understand

what a hashtag is. And the executive doesn't understand how to even ask a question to the social team about what's a hashtag because they don't want to look foolish. And so I use the hashtags kind of as a tongue and cheek. But you literally have these teams at odds with each other. And that's what makes it so challenging today for the, for all of us are kind of maneuvering. Because when we think about social media, right? Ryan, you've got a strong Instagram following. I'm well known on LinkedIn. We've got TikTok out there going crazy.

Well, is that all under social? I mean, kind of how does that fall? And so that's kind of where that's where we find ourselves. Yeah, it's interesting. And the challenge and the opportunity is companies, you know, want to bucket social media into one thing. And there's not only now eight viable platforms or more, you know, like when you add them all up, then you have the nuance of the messaging that you just described in between the different partitions of, or groups of the organization. And so it's such a demand. that it puts on companies for the volume of content, the diversity of the content that they have to develop, right? Absolutely.

And then don't even, and then we didn't even get into paid media. Oh, yeah. Right? They're buying Facebook ads. They're buying Twitter and LinkedIn ads where that, that adds a whole other wrinkle. I'll tell you. When people ask me about that, I'm like, no, I do not even touch that side of the. Well, you can send them to us.

I'll send them to you. We buy about a million dollars worth of paid media quarter. So all of mine is organic. So because they're two, they're so different worlds. They look the same, but they are completely different. And so yeah, send them to you. Go to the experts. And so know your expertise.

I am curious though, like, you know, for companies out there, like B2B, you know, and you obviously have marketing, you have sales, if you have a company that's wanting to use social media to grow sales. How can they leverage it, you know, for themselves? Like, because the company role versus the sales rep role, like, do you have those discussions a lot? Yeah, a lot. And this goes back to the question you asked earlier that I didn't answer completely. What is that difference between marketing and sales?

And the sales people, here's what happens. Companies buy a employee advocacy tool. the marketing team creates content with pretty pictures and pretty videos and pretty links, pass it out to the employees who dutifully hit those share button and push it out to their Facebook, their Twitter, their Instagram, their LinkedIn, and they call it good. And everybody thinks they're doing a good job. When in reality, that's marketing's perspective. Marketing is that bullhorn.

How can we tell as many people as possible about what we're doing? Well, sales is like, no, how can I find individuals who I can solve? a problem for. And marketing, not that, and I live in my life in marketing, but marketing's job is not necessarily to solve people's problems. Marketing is to let people know that we understand your problem and we might have a solution. It's informational. It's a salesperson's job to help them identify what the problem is and then how to solve it. And that's a big difference between the two. And so when it comes to social media, salespeople need to understand how, How can I generate a unique, authentic, genuine relationship with a prospect so that I can get that conversation going?

And that requires a very, very different approach than simply clicking the share button and ghosting what we call post and ghost and think, okay, I've done it. And the problem is that so often because they follow this habit, most of the clients I deal with, the salespeople fundamentally, believe that social media is a waste of their time. And the executives as well. And it's a complete waste of their time because there's really only three reasons people would use it. I'm going to call them three myths. I don't have a time.

It's all self-promotional. And I really don't have anything value to add. That's what I hear come back from executives and even salespeople. And the marketing team is still trying to share this, share this, share this. And they're sharing it, but it's getting no coverage. And they don't know why. And then when we step in, I got to tell you, when we step in and you experience this, and I start talking to salespeople, if there's a marketing person on the phone, on the call,

they're basically going, holy crap, we're doing this all wrong. Because they don't, because I'm able to bridge the gap and tell this marketing people what the salespeople need and tell the salespeople how to use what marketing is sending them. And oftentimes there's a complete disconnect between those two teams. Yep, and it takes, I've been in marketing and advertising for 20 years, and I think one of my best skills is not being afraid of competition and wanting to continually learn. And the moment I saw what you were doing for companies and you were referred to me by another partner for our client scan source. And the moment I saw what you did and had the first call with you, I was like, this is the missing. piece. Like, this is it.

You know, like, it was like, how fast can I put, you know, put this guy in front of my clients? Not like, oh, God, he has the key. I was like, but that's the, that's it though. And, you know, marketers do historically, you know, we all

have our sandboxes we like to think we belong in. But again, where we've moved into the space where we've got such an opportunity with these channels, I want the companies we work with seeing an advocate for social media, not the opposite. Yep.

And that, now it's changed radically over the last 18 months. Yeah. And then, and also not to get political, but it had an impact. And the 2016 election had an impact on my job. And what I mean by that is up until the 2016 election, when I would speak to a senior leader and try to talk to them about social media, those three myths got in the way. I don't have the time. it's all self-promotional, and I don't have anything to say.

And then they would say, it really doesn't have any impact. After the 2016 election, we saw the impact that social media can have by an individual, particularly a leader, and how they can use that. And again, it doesn't matter where you're on the political spectrum. It just showed that impacts, it does have an influence. I didn't have to convince executives anymore. Then they were like, okay, how do I do this? not rather why should I do this but now how do I do this and that was a big transformation and then

when COVID hit then it was like okay now crap how do I do this right now and that's and that's where yeah the missing piece is kind of how we we stepped into that role do you consider you know social selling and in in the way you guys approach it you know there's so many acronyms and terminologies and sales and otherwise but abm account based marketing I mean do you consider what you tell people to do more about raising their overall authority? Is it two sides, both raising authority, as well as positioning them with specific prospects? Like, you know, when you guys approach the selling side of it, is it down one path together or all things?

It is, it's a little bit of both. So we teach, and you've seen this, we teach our clients that each platform is unique. We focus on LinkedIn because all business people have a LinkedIn account. They don't all have an Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, but they all have LinkedIn. And LinkedIn operates fundamentally different than all the other social media platforms. So techniques you use on Instagram and Facebook are going to sabotage your efforts on LinkedIn, which is why oftentimes when you see the influencers come over from those platforms, they just wash their hands of LinkedIn because they're like, hey, there's nothing here.

It's a wasteland. And yet I can then demonstrate, I had one prospect. who I had worked with for quite a while. He'd been in politics, he'd been a variety of things, and he was very heavily involved in Instagram and Facebook and YouTube. And I kept trying to get him involved with LinkedIn, and finally he listened, and we sat down, and we crafted a couple of posts for him on LinkedIn.

His posts generated just shy of 100,000 views in less than a week. Not a dime was spent on advertising, not a dime was spent on promotion. It was because of the way he understood how the LinkedIn algorithm worked, and he understood how to take advantage of it, and there are certain things that detract from your LinkedIn activities and certain things that will promote it. And we helped him understand how to navigate that.

He became sold. Because there was no way he was getting that kind of coverage on Facebook or Instagram, and that happened in just a short amount of time. And so that's where we've been able to step in and help these individuals understand how to take a difference. advantage of these different platforms and to be part of that. Is there any, you've got some of your secret sauce and we're going to link to everything so we'll know where to find you and to come get the entire recipe.

But are there any, you know, for anyone listening out there, we can give them any of the Richard Bliss, oh, not freebies, but, you know, like any short tips. Yeah. and that's one thing I love about you. You give a, like, you're like me. I'll give away my freest advice, my best advice, because you know execution is everything and your experience is everything. Execution is everything.

And sometimes my team or other people outside, my mother, she's always worried, oh, you're giving too much weight. No, give away your most valuable information and sell everything else. I mean, that's the philosophy we live by. And so, and you said it, Ryan, it's all about execution. There's nothing new. Nobody, everybody knows pretty much everything. It's just about executing.

So here's some pieces of advice. For example, this is always a shocker. The worst performing content on LinkedIn is videos. The absolute worst performing content. If you put a video up there, you'll get one-tenth the amount of views on that. The one-tenth number of people will see that video post. than if you just simply wrote out in text what you said. Why is that?

I know that to be true, but I had to get in the, we just started a little number one. But why is that? Do you know why that is? You think they'd want more content? Yeah. There's several reasons. One is the nature of our human nature. If I'm on LinkedIn, let's suppose I'm on my mobile device and I'm scrolling along and I see a video,

so many people don't include subtitles. and 85% of users on social media have the sound turned off. If you're not concluding subtitles on your video, you're losing your audience. That's number one. Number two is that video is going to be three minutes long. Holy cow, three minutes of me just sitting here, maybe getting some information out of this,

I'm not willing to take that risk. And so I move on. I might like it, click like, and move on, because that's what Instagram and Facebook have taught me to do. I'm just going to click like and move on. If you add subtitles, so here's another example. I had a client did this exact thing. They added, put the video up there, they got six likes.

We came to him and said, we're going to redo this post. It was four days after that. He's like, well, wait, no, I just did the post. If you'd redo it, people will see that. We said, trust me, nobody saw the first post. Nobody saw it. What we did is we wrote up what the post, the video was about. all the details as much as we can put in there of details we then added subtitles we kept the video

and then we added three hashtags and we can talk about hashtags and linkton he then hit that made it go live in eight hours now the first one was a week long he got six likes in eight hours after the post went live he had 4500 views 171 likes and 70 comments on that post why well because nobody watched the video they all read through his text saw what he was talking about, commented and responded and started a conversation going so often we believe that

oh I don't want to give any away anything about my podcast I don't want to give anything away about my video I want them to go watch it and get the information from themselves no I'm sorry I don't have the time to hope to get some information about a video that you kind of hinted

that should be a good idea no just the opposite it. That's number one. Number two, so does that answer the question, Ryan? Oh yeah, it does. Okay. Lead them to the water and they'll drink. Yeah. So give it to them. Don't make them go work for it. Number two is if you, so when you put a bit of a post out on LinkedIn, it only goes to 10% of your network. Now you have 4,300 connections. Ryan, I'm looking at your LinkedIn profile right now. You got 43, which means about 400 people, 430 people are going to see a post that you put out as a test group. LinkedIn always puts out every piece of content to a test group, only 10% of your network.

It then watches what that test group does with your content over the next hour. But here's the kicker. If you have a link in that post, it will cut that test group in half. So now your 430 people is down to 200. 15 people. If that link is to a YouTube video, it'll cut it by another 20 to 30%. So you'll be under sub 200 people.

So you'll be at about, maybe even less than 100, maybe 80 to 90 people out of your 4,300 people will see that link you sent to YouTube. Why? Well, that's an easy one. Who makes money off of advertising, LinkedIn or YouTube when you put that link in there?

YouTube. Bill Gates. Bill Gates is going to make, well, in this case, it's going to be Google. Because Google makes the money. Bill Gates makes the money off of Mike. But he wants some staying on LinkedIn, right? He wants some staying.

So if you add, now that's going to be a shock to a lot of people because almost every post I see is a link to somewhere else, a Forbes article, a HBO article, an ink magazine, a YouTube video, because we're trying. trained by Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, which don't penalize us, for pouring in all that media. And it's more about the social and let's about the media. What if we put the link in the comments, same algorithm as you? Yeah, so a couple of ways you can do this.

One is you can add the link to the comments, which is going to be fine. The algorithm won't see that. But here's another way that you can do this. And this is what we do with our clients. What you do is you write up the post, and I did this. this morning with the CEO. If you'd like to read the blog, follow this link. I put that right in the post. Except, I didn't put the link. I then hit post. I hit post. I then, a second later, hit edit. Go back into the post, cut and paste and drop the link in. Boom. And save the post.

Now, the post... I tricked it. I tricked it. I bypassed the algorithm is going to scan it the moment I hit post, I tricked it, added the link afterwards, and now I'm not being penalized because I had a link in there. You dirty dog. Now, but here's something. It doesn't preload the image when you do that, which is a good thing. Because the second worst performing content on LinkedIn is content that has pictures. If you add a picture to your post, you will usually see a 50% decrease in the number of people who view your post.

Why? Because LinkedIn wants to motivate you for a different kind of behavior. LinkedIn is looking for you to cause people to stop and engage with your content. Well, if I put a pretty picture, people are going to stop and they're going to click like. That's not what LinkedIn counts as engagement. because LinkedIn measures how long people spend on your post. And it only takes less than a second for me to see your post, click like, and move on. That's what Instagram and Facebook train us to do.

The best performing content on LinkedIn is text only. The more text, the better. And text that drives comments. So here's a promise I can make to your readers. I don't want to be cognizant of our time so that we don't want to have time here. Excuse me, your listeners. If you'll go write a text-only post, about 100 to 150,000. 50 words. Add three hashtags and get 10 of your buddies to comment on the post in the first

hour. That's all you have to do. Text only, three hashtags, 10 comments. The LinkedIn algorithm is guaranteed to share that post with a minimum of 1,000 to 2,000 people within the first 24 hours. Guaranteed. I've done this with people with 30 connections who have just got their LinkedIn profile. It works every single time. It does not matter the size of your network. And it doesn't even matter the content. How long? How long does a, how long a text? The longer, the better. 150 to 200 words is about optimal. They just bumped that up to now 500 words, but 150 to 200 words is just fine because LinkedIn is measuring how long people actually spend on your post. It's called dwell time. So if you're causing them to read, LinkedIn is tracking

that. And the longer you keep them reading and commenting, the more people it's going to show to that post immediately. And so those are, there you go. There's some secrets to a few secrets that we share about simple things you can do. And I challenge anybody who's listening. Look, If you don't believe me, go test it. Go create 150 word post. Put some lines, breaks in the line, so it's not one body of text. Get 10 comments on it in the first hour. Just go ask your friends, hey, share your opinion.

And I promise you that you will get 1,000 to 2,000 views in 24 hours. If you've never gotten more than 100, you'll still get that same number. And so it's always interesting to see people come back after they've taken up my challenge. because that number will sometimes climb into the 5 to 10,000 views, and they're shocked. There it is, folks. LinkedIn Bliss. Three freebies here on the Radcast to get LinkedIn Bliss, which is blessings, which is views, which is engagement, which is what all this crazy game is all about. More people, hey, that's what it's about.

Reach at frequency is, it's a media term. but it's so, it's relevant across platforms and across the dynamics. I love it. It's so fascinating, too. It makes sense once you hear it out loud. It frustrates me a little bit because we create so much content here. I'm like, damn it, I'm like, we create so much content. Like, I want them to watch these videos, but it makes a lot of sense.

Yeah. Is, can you re-add, like, the whole linked, you know, trick, you know, adding the link back? I don't even know if you, can you edit a post, add. a picture or video after the fact. I don't know if you can actually change the content. You can modify some of it, but you don't want to put, it's not the, so the algorithm is not going to modify it based on a picture or a video. That's human nature and how the algorithm interacts with human nature.

The link is actually the algorithm itself. And so you, we strong, you can use the videos and images sparingly. But if you really want people to start paying attention to your content, you will start writing text-only posts. And that will get people starting to engage with your content, talking, looking at your LinkedIn profile. And we even teach in our training how to get your prospects to call you long before you actually have to call them. So that's one of the things that we teach is how to start using this platform to start building those relationships. We're all of a sudden a stranger who's a prospect sends you a message saying, hey, I saw something you posted. Could we connect?

I'd like to talk to you about this. And that's what we start teaching. What, you know, you've done a lot in your career, just to take a step back, and then I'm going to talk about digital first leadership. Any career moments that, you know, stand out, you know, like at this stage or things that, you know, you look back on, you know, everything's a learning lesson, right? But is there things you look back on more fondly than others or anything you can talk about there? Yeah, there's a couple of. One is one of my first management roles as a vice president of marketing back late 90s. It's when I ended up on CNN, that type of thing.

But working with a young man out of Ohio, Dayton, Ohio, and we built the business up. And he was able to sell it for $40 million. And I look back on those times because I invented something that now is just common. But it was like we saw an opportunity. We saw something. I understood how technology was operating. And so I invented something. and ended up, I gave it away for free.

We thought about patenting it, but then we just like, it's just been my nature. I just gave it away for free. We charged people for it, but the idea we gave away for free. And all of a sudden, we had competitors popping up everywhere. One of those competitors got sued by Google.

Because Google had bought a company that did this very thing. And now this company had a patent on this idea. So Google is suing this other company over this patent infringement. So the guy calls me up. Hey Richard, I'm being sued by Google. Patent infringement.

Didn't you invent this? And I said, yeah, I did. So I dug through a historical record and a young man that I'd worked for. We dug through a historical record provided it to him and refuted the patent. It invalidated the patent. Here's the thing, Ryan. The law firm that was filing the lawsuit for patent infringement for their client was our customer who was, our customer who was using our service to do the very thing that their client supposedly was

patenting because the lawyers at the top weren't talking to the IT guys at the bottom. The IT guys were using our service. They pick up a client who learned it from us who tries to file the patent successfully. And then later on when they went to sue, it became aware that your law firm was actually using the technology that you were trying. That's one of my highlights. You can't make that up. No, you can't make that.

Here's one that you cannot make up at all. And it's, I was, I built my career over the years and I became very, like I said, CNN, headline news, all kinds of different things. And I was working for a company,

an international company as the vice president of marketing. And I, how do I frame this shortly? But they hired my company. And so they didn't hire me in that role. They hired my company because I was in the U.S. They were in Canada, taxes, all that type of thing. Well, one day, the founder calls me up, and he starts talking to me,

and I realize he's firing me. And I had to ask him three times. Wait, are you firing me? And he was really hesitant to actually say the words. He was French-Canadian, and he struggled with it, and finally he admitted he was firing me. Okay. I've been fired from jobs before, but here's the kicker.

He then turned around the next day and gave the job to my wife. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Did you know what was your wife? Yeah, because remember I said he hired my company? Yeah. So my wife worked, she and I had a company together, and we had some employees. And so he fired me and how much he paid me, but he hired her into the rule, didn't pay her the same fees.

that he paid me. So, yeah, we got divorced several many years ago, and I think that probably led to it. So when you talk about, there's highs and lows, that's one story. Story, you can't, you can't make up. No. How did that go over at home? Hey, honey. How was your day?

Well, I got fired from a client. Then the next day, your wife's like, uh, I took your job. No, it is how it went. She was already on site at a big Microsoft event. we were supposed to be hosting. I was going down because I was going to be doing the emceeing, the presentation. She's already down there setting up booths and everything. I had to call her and say, hey, honey, I just got fired.

I'm not coming. And then the next day they had a company-wide meeting, which she was on. And, oh, it gets worse. A month earlier, a buddy of mine had reached out to me saying he was looking at a new role, and would I be interested in coming to work for him? Of course, I'd known him for years. Yeah, I said, sure. The next day, when they made the announcements of the change, guess who was the new CEO?

Who? My buddy, who had reached out to me the month before, and it made sense now when the guy fired me, he said, well, you've been looking for a new job anyway. I'm like, no, I haven't. Yeah, my buddy was testing the waters, and when I said I would go to work for him, that got back as Richard isn't loyal and is going to leave, and he got put in a CEO. and my wife got put into my position. Oh, man. It gets, yeah. That is a story, man.

I mean, like, unbelievable. That one did the book. Okay, I got one to top it. You want one more? One more. One more. We only have a couple more minutes, and I have to drop off here. So here's one more.

This is in the book, Digital First Leadership. And we're talking about Googling my name. So if your listeners will Google Richard Bliss, San Diego. and here's why. The first entry is going to catch their attention. I am from Olympia, Washington. I am named Richard Bliss in the tech industry, and I lived in San Diego.

Actually, I was living, was I living in San Diego? Anyway, that's a side story. I lived in San Diego. I have a brother named John. Okay? A whole bunch of random facts about myself. Unless you Google my name, Richard Bliss, San Diego, then all of those facts come to the forefront

with the Wikipedia entry. The Wikipedia entry that your listeners will read is about Richard Bliss from Olympia Washington, living in San Diego in the tech industry, who's been arrested in Russia as a spy. And he is now in a Russian prison, and his brother John is quoted in the press as saying, my brother is not a spy. The president of the United States and the Secretary of State had to get involved to have Richard released from prison. He was not cleared of the charges. He was simply told to never come back to Russia. And he was released from the Russian prison, this is all true.

Oh my God. Except there's one piece that's not true. I'm not that Richard Bliss. I get a phone call from my mother. I'm in Dayton, Ohio. Where are you? And I said, I knew why she was asking, I said, I am not in a prison in Russia.

The fact that she thought she could call me and actually talk to it. But the reason I am so passionate about this idea, of an online presence is because if you don't control your online narrative in today's digital first world, something or someone else will. This Richard Bliss was valid. He lived in town. We grew up in the same city.

We're kind of in the same industry. We moved to the same San Diego. He got hired by Qualcomm to go set up cell phone towers in Russia. Back when GPS was brand new, he was caught with a GPS at a cell phone tower near a military base hired it and then arrested as a spy. Oh my God. That is a true story. Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright got involved. But I have been asked, and now whenever I have a client and they need to do a background

check, I send them the link and an email. I will fail your background check. Oh, my God. Because this is not me. And so this is why I'm so passionate about what we're doing here in the book. I love it. So, but it's a great story for all of, uh, That's a good icebreaker for you when you meet people.

Don't look me up in San Diego. Or when I was dating, right? Before I got married, they were dating. They're doing their search on you. Wait, are you a Russian spy? Right. But you might use that to your advantage, like James Bond, you know? Yeah.

Not so at one point I went to work for a company that had a major office in Russia. And the CEO, who was in Boston, kept saying, hey, you need to go visit our Russian office. I went to the Romanian office, but I said, there's no way I'm going to the Russian office. He's like, why? I sent him the link and the story. Because if my own country can't figure out who I am, hell no, am I going to Russia and having them look my name up, all of those data say, oh yeah, we told you never to come back. It's not me. Not me. No, they're not going to So the book's out. Digital First Leadership. Pick it up on Amazon. You can look it up. It's on Amazon. I saw it there earlier today.

I was looking around. I'm going to get a copy. Cardback, people back. Yep. And audio coming outside. You got one minute for a quick one word, rat or fad to close us out? I do. All right. What do we got? Instagram messaging automation. Rad or fad? Instagram messaging automation.

Yeah, they're coming out with tools. They're coming out with tools. It's going to automate all of that. Yeah. All right. Clubhouse. Clubhouse slash social audio. Rad or fad?

Fad. And I said, FAO, as in Spanish, ugly. The last thing I hate is automation. And the worst thing about today's world, why am I not on Clubhouse anymore? I don't have time. I time shift all of my social activity.

When I have time in a line, I will plug in. But for me, live audio doesn't allow me to capture it, doesn't allow me to share it, doesn't allow me to use it, and it forces me to shift my time and priorities to their time. I could go back and listen to it, but I don't know about you, but how many people do not go back and listen to a recording later on? They'll record, listen to your podcast, but they're not going to go, no. And so while it's really exciting and everything, the impact it's having on business people, professionals who are busy, I'll listen to NPR, maybe, if I'm in my car, in my commute, but I'm not in my car in commuting. I don't have that time anymore. And so it's a very, so, yeah, short answer, fad. It is not going to last simply because it's such a social disruption bad way that people just aren't going to make that change. So there you go. There's my answer. And you're one of the smartest people I know, and I have been saying the same since the beginning. I don't have enough time for it either, and I think it's a fad.

TikTok for B2B. And it's not necessarily here yet. RAD or fad? Fad. You just heard me say video is the worst performing out there. People just don't have the time. Marketing's going to love it. Salespeople aren't going to use it.

All right. The cookie-less future that's coming. I know you're not an ads guy. You're more in the PR space, but good or bad. Fat, rat or fad? I'm hoping it's a, I'm hoping it's a rad. I'm hoping it's rad. Yeah.

Because I just got off the phone with Europe and Asia doing training, and it was acknowledged. They're a lot more sensitive about giving up personal information than we are here in the States. And I would hope that we would start to become a little bit more cautious about it. So I'm hoping rad. Zoom calls. now that pandemic's hopefully gone, going away, we're getting to the final turn, hopefully, here to stay forever. Here to stay forever. Here to stay forever.

I talk to CEOs who are like, why would I make my people go back into the office? I talked to executives who are like, look, if I have to go into the office for two people to be on the call and three of them are at home, why are we even going into the office? No, it is here to stay. We have learned, we did not believe it over a year and a half ago. We thought we had to be in person to be more effective. but we have learned no. And I will take Zoom fatigue over commute fatigue any day. So it is here to stay.

Last one. Seltzer beer. All the seltzers. Rad or fad? I don't drink. Never have. I'm a terrible person to ask. But I'm going to say that's a fad.

Yeah. Because now, that just sounds disgusting. It's like we're back to the wine coolers of the 80s. You know, I don't know. Well, Richard, man, I couldn't be more thankful that you came on. A lot of great knowledge. We had our LinkedIn, Bliss 3, as I'm branding it here on the show. But I really appreciate your brother.

Ryan, my pleasure. Take care. I'm going to go. And thanks for the opportunity to talk to your audience. We'll talk to you soon. Real quickly. Where can people keep up with Richard Bliss? Richard Bliss on Twitter.

Richard Bliss on Facebook. Bliss on LinkedIn. LinkedIn.com slash in slash bliss. Richard Bliss on Instagram, pretty much if you just type in my name, don't put in San Diego, you're probably going to find me on one of the social media platforms. There we go. We really appreciate Richard. You know where to find us, theradcast.com at the.rad.com at the.rad.com.

And I'm at Ryan Alford on all the social platforms. We'll see you next time on the radcast.