Right About Now with Ryan Alford - 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. 

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. It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now? 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 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 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? 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're being considered as one of our top voices in the category of sales. And Ryan, 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, uh, 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, uh, find a way to use the platform to be more effective. Well, you know, speaking from firsthand experience for how, 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, it's 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 and I talked 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've got an air conditioner and carpetinging and my wife's wondering if I'm ever coming back into the house. So there's no pot. The first time we had that call, when you told me that, you actually showed us around. I think Alex from my team and I were on with you and you were showing around and I was like, I met a guy today. I like this guy. He's in a tent in his backyard 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 just 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, you know, 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 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 many of them today are just woefully unprepared for how rapidly we move to this online world. And my background is the company is 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 uh 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 anti 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 ceos understand how to navigate and so it 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 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. Having done – and I have no idea if this is your specialization, but this wouldn't surprise me. I used to do the trivia at one of the local pubs here at Trivia Night. You strike me as someone that I would want on my team for trivia. Are you good at 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. 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. 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 where do those lines cross and fall? And 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 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 is involved and analyst relations are involved. Then you have executives and 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 of where are we going. And then there's this third group and it's your sales force. Visioning, direction, and where are we going?

And then there's this third group, and it's your sales force. 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 a general announcement is out something the salespeople 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 teams 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 incredibly different meanings when it comes to social, the salespeople here, social, and they think that's a responsibility of the corporate team, the corporate team here 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-in-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 in the challenge and the opportunity is companies you know want to bucket social media into one thing and they do 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 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 we didn't even get into paid media, where they're buying Facebook ads, they're buying Twitter and LinkedIn ads. That adds a whole other wrinkle. I will 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. 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, they, they look the same, but they are completely different.

And so, yeah, send them to you, go to the experts. And so, yeah, but I am curious though, like,

you know, for, for companies out there like B2B, 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 for themselves? Because the company role versus the sales rep role, 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 the 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 the 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 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 what we call we call posting ghost and think okay i've done it and the problem is that so often because they follow this

habit they most of the clients i deal with the sales people fundamentally believe that social media is a waste of their time complete and the executives as well and it's a complete waste of their time because there's really only three reasons that people would use it. Well, no, there's three, I'm going to call them three myths. I don't have the 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, 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 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 the missing piece. This is it. It was like, how fast can I put this guy in front of my clients? Not like, oh, God, he has the key. I was like, that's it, though. Marketers do historically, we all have our sandboxes we like to think we belong in. But again, where we've moved into this space where we've got such an opportunity with these channels, I want the companies we work with seeing and advocating for social media, not the opposite. Yep. And that now it's changed radically over the last 18 months.

Yeah. And then and, 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, depending on, 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 where, yeah, the missing piece is kind of how we stepped into that role. now. And that's where, yeah, the missing piece is kind of how we stepped into that role. Do you consider social selling and the way you guys approach it, there's so many acronyms and terminologies in 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, you know, the selling side of it, is it down one path to the other 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 and so 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 in 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 post 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 advantage of these different platforms and to be part of that. understand how to take advantage of these different platforms um and to be part of that is there any um now there's you've got some of your secret sauce and we we're going to link to everything so people know where to find you uh and 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 uh richard bliss uh oh not freebies but uh you know like any short short tips yeah and that's one thing i love about you almost you give you give like you're not you're you're like me i'll give away my free advice my best advice because

you know execution is everything and your experience is everything execution is everything and my sometimes my team or other people outside, my mother, she's always worried, oh, you're giving too much away. 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, right? 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 we just started on number one, but why is that? Do you know why that is? You'd 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. So an 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. 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, 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 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 LinkedIn. 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 4,500 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 for 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. 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. Yeah. So give it to them. Don't make them go work for it.

Number two is, if you, so when you put 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 215 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 LinkedIn. But he wants him staying on LinkedIn, right? He wants him 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 HBR article, an Inc. magazine, a YouTube video. Forbes article, a HBR article, an Inc. magazine, a YouTube video, because we're 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 less 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 bypassed the algorithm because 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. 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 it 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. 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 run out of time here. Excuse me, your listeners. 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 run out of time here. Excuse me, your listeners. If you'll go write a text-only post, about 100 to 150 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 does a post, 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, text it, 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 1000 to 2000 views in 24 hours. If you've never gotten more than a hundred, 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 five to 10,000 views and they're shocked. There it is folks linkedin bliss

three freebies here on the radcast to get absolutely 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 reaching frequency is uh it's a media term but it's so it's uh relevant across platforms and across uh the dynamics i love it it's so fascinating to you 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 where i want them to watch these videos but it makes a lot of sense yeah is uh you know 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 adding a picture or video after the fact i don't know if you can actually change the content it becomes you can add 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 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 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 where 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 stand out at this stage or things that you look back on? 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, uh, one of my first management roles as a vice president of marketing back, uh, late nineties.

Uh, it's when I ended up on CNN, that type of thing, but working with a young man out of Ohio, Dayton, Ohio, and, uh, we built the business up and, uh, he was able to sell it for $40 million. And I look back on those, those times because i invented something that now is just common um 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're just like it's just 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 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 yeah that's one of my highlights you can't make that up no you can't make it up here's one you cannot make

up at all and it's i was i built my career over the years and i became very well like i said cnn headline news all kinds of different things and And I was working for a company, an international company, as their 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 he know it 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 role. Didn't pay her the same fees that he paid me. So yeah, I lost,

she's not, we got divorced, uh, several, many, many years ago. And I think that probably led to it. So when you talk about there's highs and lows,

that's one, that's one story, story you can one story 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, I took your job. No, that's 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 gonna 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 ce CEO and my wife got put into my position. Oh man, it gets, yeah. That is, that is a story, man. I mean, like unbelievable. That one's in the book. Okay. I got one to top it. You want 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 talk 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? 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 me. 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.

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 the true story. Bill Clinton and Madeleine 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 and the book. I love it. So, but, uh, it's a great story for, uh, all of, uh, that's a good, uh, 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'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. 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 do it. Cool. 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.

Keep your card back. Keep your card back. Yep. And the audio will be out here in just a moment. You got one minute for a quick one-word rad 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 that's going to automate all of that. All right. Clubhouse slash social audio. Rad or fad? Fad.

And I said fail 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 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 and 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 it just, 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 gonna love it sales people aren't gonna use it all right uh the cookie list future that's coming i know you're not an ads guy You're more in the PR space, but good or bad, fat, rad or fat? I'm hoping it's rad 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 were 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. But I'm right back to the wine coolers of the eighties, 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 blistery as I'm, uh, you know, branding it here on the show. Uh,

but I really appreciate you, 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 uh 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 some one of the social media platforms there we go we really appreciate richard you know where to find us the radcast.com at the.rad.cast on instagram and i'm at ryan alford on all the social platforms we'll see you next time on the radcast