Please share with me your first, last name, where
you're located, and the name of your business
or businesses. Sure. Adam Adams, real name, and
located in the Denver area. And I've got a couple
small companies, a real estate investing company
that I've been doing for 20 years now, which
is surprising. And then I do also have a podcast
agency that's been going for about six years.
do all the editing and post -production, help
podcasters get ranked in the top 1 % in the world.
And I also have found a co -founder of a new
fitness company from just 2024. And we analyze
blood work and help people look and feel their
best. Okay. So are you busy? No. Well, a couple
companies that don't really do much. But the
new startup is keeping me at 20 plus hours a
week. So I feel a little busy compared to before.
I love that. So I'm going to say this. My home
is Denver, Colorado. Yes, I am currently in San
Antonio, Texas. So two big. In different ends
of the spectrum. I love, love, love to talk about
Grow Your Show, if you don't mind. This is big.
This has been really, really big for entrepreneurs,
business starters. I will even say I went to
the Podfest and influencers. So talk to me about
Grow Your Show. Absolutely. Well, I'll back up
a little bit and say that if somebody is an entrepreneur.
There is three things that will help them get
massively successful. And you can use almost
anybody who you know is making money in as an
entrepreneur. And they all have these three things
in common. Number one, they all have a thought
leadership platform. Grow Your Show helps people
get a strong thought leadership platform. Number
two, they're going to be active on social media.
Gary Vaynerchuk said back in like 2015 or 2016,
like nine years ago plus, that if you're not
active on social media by the year 2023, then
you will lose in business. And he's got a podcast.
Grant Cardone has anyone that you know that's
doing well, has a thought leadership platform
and they have. social media presence. But the
third one is that they meet people in person.
So they are their host events or they attend
events or they sponsor events or they have a
storefront or they're meeting with their clients
at least over Zoom, their potential clients.
That face -to -face is a thing that really helps
people to be able to know, like, and trust each
other. So I think of it like a funnel. At the
top of the funnel is like the know part of the
funnel. the way that people share your content
get to know you you're in front of the most amount
of people that's your thought leadership platform
so at the very very top of the funnel to get
in front of the most amount of people it's your
thought leadership platform in the middle is
the social media so that's how they start to
like you get to know who you are might want to
work with you and then the trust at the bottom
of the funnel is when you meet with them one
-on -one so we're talking today about the top
of the funnel. Okay. If you don't grow a big
enough top of the funnel, then you don't have
anyone for the middle or the bottom. So you want
to get in front of the most amount of people.
And that is through a thought leadership platform.
It could be a book. It could be a YouTube for
our clients. We support them to get a top 1 %
podcast. Okay. So do me a favor and define thought
leadership platform for me. Yeah. Well, I define
it like this. It's an area that you go to have
people talk about you behind your back. What
I mean is when you're asleep, you basically record
one thing one time or you write that book one
time. And while you're sleeping or you're on
vacation, you don't ever have to do something
again. That episode is getting shared with that
listener's friend. So you're. Brand grows without
you. So if you have a strong enough thought leadership
platform and one tip or trick for the listener
who's an entrepreneur who might want to have
a thought leadership platform or probably should
have, then one tip for them is to make sure that
you draw your line in the sand. And I have like
a fictitious story to help explain what does
it mean to even draw your line in the sand. So
there's this cave person. His name is you got
to hit your chest also when you say his name.
I don't know why. That's just what they did back
then. So was one of the members of the very first
tribes. But he, in particular, learned how to
utilize fire. And he was so excited about it.
One problem that people had in caveman times
is saber tooth tigers. They were always eating
the babies. They were always eating the kids.
And as he was figuring out fire, one of the coolest
things that he figured out was if he put it on
the end of a stick, he could scare away saber
tooth tigers. He actually had his first kid eaten,
but his second kid, he was with him. And this
fire scared away the saber tooth tiger. And he
thought, oh, this is the new thing. This is the
thing that nobody knows about. And I got to tell
the chief. He got excited. So he goes to the
chief and he's like, hey. We got to start using
this fire. Look what it can do. And he named
all of the benefits. And just one of them was
your kids don't get eaten anymore. But unfortunately,
the leader of the tribe was like, that's the
devil. That's dangerous. That's hot. Watch what
happens when I put my finger in it. See, it burns
me. You don't want to mess with this. So I had
a decision to make. Listen to the leader or become
his new. leader so he grabbed the stick because
that's all they had in caveman times he drew
a line in the sand and he said on that side of
the line your kids keep getting eaten by saber
-tooth tigers on this side of the line your kids
are safe yeah so if he if let's say uh was thinking
about being a new thought leader okay if he went
and drew a line in the sand and said hey everybody
that's a chief i'm a chief i want to be a chief
Anyone want to follow me? Would anyone follow
him? No. Because he doesn't stand for anything.
He doesn't have any differentiation. People say,
oh, well, I've already got a chief. I don't need
a different chief. So he has to show what's the
problem with what's going on now and the difference
on his side. So if you have a podcast, you've
got to be able to answer a question, solve a
problem in a different way. I used to host a
meetup group and ended up becoming a very famous,
well -known meetup group. One of the top six
most attended meetups in the world out of 255
,000. Why did it become successful? Because I
drew my line in the sand. I differentiated myself
every single time. We met every week instead
of every month or every quarter. So I drew that
line in the sand like I did. I said, hey, when
you go to those other meetup groups, it's great.
You're going to meet people. It's wonderful.
But I want to show you two differences about
this meetup group. One, we meet at lunch instead
of at dinner. When you meet at dinner, you can
have all the newbies in real estate. This was
a real estate investing one. You can have all
the newbies. And so you're going to have like
70 to 90 percent of the people haven't ever done
anything. When you come here during lunch, it's
different. Everybody in here has done a deal.
So let me ask you, if you've done a deal, at
least one, that's not your single family residence,
raise your hand and show us that you're a real
investor. The whole room raises their hand. And
I say, that's what happens when you meet for
a couple of hours in the middle of the day. You
only are allowed to have the serious people.
So on that side of the line, you're not with
serious people. On this side of the line, you're
with serious people. Another one is the rest
of them meet once a month or once a quarter.
And science will show us that it takes you six
to 13 times to meet people before you're trusting
them enough to do business with them. So you
can go to the other meetups. But if it's meeting
every quarter, you might have to be going for
three years before you ever do a business with
somebody in that room. When you come here, we
meet every week. And so in the next six weeks,
maybe 13 weeks, you can already be doing business
with other people in this room. And then I'll
ask, raise your hand if you've done business
with somebody else in this room. We get a bunch
of hands. I say, what was that deal? How much
did you make? What was that deal? How much did
you make? And then we differentiate it. If you
go to the others, it's going to take you forever
to get to this success. When you come to this
one, you're going to have this success. So for
your listener, who's an entrepreneur, They have
to draw their line in the sand anyway for their
company. But if they're going to do a thought
leadership platform, they have to say the other
podcast missed this thing. This podcast has this
thing. So it's almost like thinking outside the
box and doing something no one else is doing.
And then that's what you help with. Yeah, exactly.
We figure out how do we show that we're doing
something different. Yes. Yes. And set them apart
from anyone else. But also, I believe, Adam,
that you have other you have an expertise in
this background. So, you know what other people
are doing. So interesting enough, if if if the
individual is trying to do this on their own
and not really. For example, this is a true story.
I went on a networking event. I met the founder
of Vision Pros Live and now I'm on podcast. Never
been on podcast before. You get what I'm saying?
So interesting enough is that I have the second
piece. Right. So for someone like myself, but
who's never done podcasting before, how do you
set yourself apart if you've never been a part
of podcasting at all? One of the things that
we do is we've got this thing called an avatar
questionnaire. Yes. So in our avatar questionnaire
and I can. Actually give access to it to your
listener if you want. It's a four page thing.
It takes like usually two hours. So there are
four pieces. Each piece is about a page. The
first one, it talks all about the geographic
of your perfect avatar. So regardless if somebody
downloads this sheet or not, one thing that they
can do is they can thoughtfully consider. their
perfect avatar okay the easiest way to do this
is to pick only one person yes a lot of people
when they say avatar they're like somebody who
makes quote over a hundred thousand dollars or
they might say somebody who makes between one
million and two million what is it is it one
million or is it two million yes okay you know
is it when you say over a hundred thousand is
it a hundred and one thousand is it nine billion
dollars a year like who is your f an avatar you've
got to pick someone you know and another thing
that people are like okay so my avatar is somewhere
like between 35 and like 60. so in that small
range and it's like no your avatar her name is
javanka her name is emily her name is andrea
his name is adam or bob he adam isn't between
30 and 50. adam's 43. he's specifically 43. oh
he might have kids no does adam have kids or
not yes he's got two boys okay so my avatar has
two boys oh his kids are like maybe in their
teens or their 20s no no who is your specific
avatar It's Adam. OK, how old are his kids? 17
and 13. Perfect. You now know your avatar. And
so that's the geographic. When we get to the
geographics, it's like, where do they live? You
don't say somewhere in North America, you know,
a primary market in North America, which could
be L .A. or Boston or Denver or, you know, this
or that. It's like, where does Adam live? He
lives in Denver. That's all you need to know.
It doesn't mean you can't serve somebody who
is in another city, but your avatar isn't a range
of people. It's not a range of names. It's not
a range of, oh, it's any guy or girl or trans
or this. It's like your person is a person. They
pick the one thing that your perfect, perfect
person is. All right. So you think about the
geographics. Where do they live? The demographics.
How much money are they making? Their psychographics.
who is this what keeps them up at night what
are their goals what's holding them back from
their goals not oh some of my avatars are like
this and some are like that no just who is your
perfect avatar so i i'll say even like cory peterson
that's my avatar he's my avatar when he was 43
years old now cory has grown he's already become
a client of mine so things have changed But him
as my avatar is the day that I asked him to be
a client, the day that I said, hey, it's 2019.
I've got a podcast agency. I can help you take
off all the hard work. Perfect avatar that day
and everything that was stressing for him, everything
that kept him up at night, all of the things
that was going on in his life is who I want to
serve. So I might even put a picture of Corey
Peterson specifically. Yeah. Put it right on
my on my computer. Yeah. And I will look at it
and I'll be trying to pour into him. So instead
of jumping on, this is important as well. Instead
of jumping on and saying, hey, everybody, it's
Adam. You know, you're not talking to everybody.
You're talking to Corey. You might not say Corey,
but you say, hey, it's good to be here. And I
bet you are having a good day or whatever you
would say to. that person if you're worried about
x y and z not if you guys are worried not if
all of you or what hey javanka could you tell
the audience no it's can you tell the listener
because you only have one listener you only have
one perfect avatar and if you think about it
like how many times and it's sad that this doesn't
happen how many times does your podcast listener
listen in a whole crowd of people the whole building
is listening to your podcast at the exact same
time and so you can they can look around and
see everybody else no they're having an intimate
experience with you they've got their headphones
in they might be at the gym they might be driving
they might be cooking or cleaning but they are
with you so stop saying hey everybody or hey
you guys or hey audience Stop acting like you
have so many people and just focus on Corey or
whoever your avatar is. I love that, Adam, because,
OK, so I'm nerding out and a lot of these things
are just coming off the top of my head. I am
a full time real estate agent. And so they speak
about avatar. Never once did I believe that it
crossed over into. everything that we truly decide
to build, right? Brand, entrepreneurship, business.
And so when you say that and you put it in the
words of podcasting, I'm like, that makes a lot
of sense, which makes it a lot personable. And
it's just you two that are having this conversation
and yet just another individual that is listening.
And that is your avatar. that is that that's
crazy so how did you come up with that of course
well some of the things that i share i learned
on my own but most of them i learned along the
way so it's hard sometimes to really pinpoint
everything i just i know that if i'm listening
to somebody's podcast and they're like hey everybody
i don't think that that person's talking to me.
My brain immediately thinks that he or she is
talking to a thousand other people, but nothing
he's saying is to me. But if he says, hey, I
want you to know that I know what you're going
through and I'm going to help you get out of
this position. I'm like, whoa, he's talking to
me. OK, I got to listen. I got to pay attention.
So I feel. A lot more like that person's talking
to me. So I don't know exactly where I learned
it, but I had a podcast that I started years
ago and I sold it in 2019. And this podcast,
I recall a lot of listeners. It was a very well
-known podcast in the real estate space. We were
one of the top ones at the time. So almost everybody
who listened to real estate podcasts listened
to me as well. They listened to a few. There
wasn't very many back then. So I didn't have
a lot of competition, but everybody knew who
I was. And when they listened to the show, something
that was extremely common was them telling me
that they felt like I was talking just to them.
And I may have been doing this naturally or I
don't know where I picked it up at the time.
But after selling that podcast. for a good amount
of money to another podcast host that wanted
to uh take it on i thought about everything that
i did a little bit different i listened to my
podcast and listened to other people's podcasts
and i noticed that when other people had their
shows they were they were trying to act like
they were talking to a million people or whatever
and and i think some of that is the ego hey i'm
so famous because i got a podcast and so it's
not just one person you have to think you to
the listener you have to know that it's not just
you because i'm so famous and when you're worrying
about yourself you can't really serve your avatar
you can't really support your avatar so you have
to just switch it and just talk to that person
directly like a person another takeaway here
is When in this conversation have I ever sounded
like I was the valedictorian speaking from a
stage? Hey, everybody, I need you to know this
and this and this. I just talk to the listener
directly. Yes. And I hear that on other things.
And it's like, OK, well, if you're talking as
a valedictorian, if you're talking as like the
smartest person ever or acting like you're so
famous, you're going to miss the mark on connecting
with your avatar. Yes. Yes. And you know, what's
interesting is that goes back to the trust that
you spoke about, which is on the third tier,
is that people want to trust that you're speaking
to them. People want to trust that you have their
best interest at heart. And as I connect all
of this together, Adam, I'm realizing that if
you're speaking to your avatar and the listener
is feeling that same trust, I believe that they
would continue to keep hearing you. which in
turn is the goal of you setting podcasting to
a 1%. You know what I mean? I think that that's
pretty much key to it. I love that. With that
being said, I also think of podcasting like eavesdropping.
It's like eavesdropping into a conversation.
Have you thought about it like that before? Yeah,
a lot of people say if you're a podcast listener,
sometimes you're a fly on the wall. Okay. for
for you know the the host and the and the guest
having their conversation so you can kind of
learn and grow from what they're sharing yeah
I it's yes, because I sit here and I'm just and
I'm speaking to you and I'm like, if if anyone
could hear this, you know, who who would love
to hear this? So I know that I didn't ask about
your vision, which is Vision Pros Live. And that's
the goal of asking about your vision. But I feel
like there's so much passion in you, Adam, that
that it's interesting how you sold a podcast
and now you want to help others get to where
you were. And now I just want to ask you. what
are the greatest joys of what you do i try to
honestly make the greatest joys not about work
if i'm honest um you know like being healthy
and fit uh being having good relationships with
their kids so my vision really i will share it
my vision is to spend time with my kids and growing
memories and to have a business that allows me
to do that And so my greatest joy is having my
companies. And one of them, I work 30 minutes
every other week. The other one, I work maybe
four hours a week. And the new one, maybe 20.
But we're going to get it to a place where we
can grow it and have assistant coaches and I
can pull back to four hours a week in that one.
So to answer your question, based on vision and
based on, you know, what I love and what keeps
me going. It is focusing on the things that are
truly important and not letting the business
get in the way. How long did it take you to get
to that point? It took a lot of years. I I'm
an entrepreneur who started in 2005 with a real
estate investing and I started having my own
companies at that time. So I've got an 18 year
company. I've got a 20 year company. And I made
tons of mistakes for a long, long time. I think
it took me until 2018 or 2019 to get to a place
where instead of working 120 hours in a week,
I was working four hours in a week. And one of
the things that gets you there or your listener
there is. to hire, like maybe start with a virtual
assistant as fast as you can so that they can
take over some of the administrative stuff. So
you're more likely to have the time and energy
to work on the business and think about the business
and plan where it's going to go and let somebody
else handle the hard little details that are
not worth your time. So I was scared because
I was making maybe 60 ,000 a year. And I was
by myself and I was already working over 100
hours in a week. And people kept saying I needed
a VA, a virtual assistant. I didn't even know
how I could train a VA. I didn't even think I
had time to do anything with a VA. And I didn't
feel like I had money because. I think $60 ,000
is like barely scraping by. You make like five
grand a month and you've got cars and bills and
kids and everything else, taxes. And so I was
thinking to myself, no, I can't do that. But
I ended up doing it anyway. And now I have 37
virtual assistants and I work barely at all.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy
that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking
forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes
continue to move forward. This is going to get
more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement
as well. We'll invite people to participate in
the show. And thank you for giving us your time
and attention. Have an excellent time building
out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.