Troy Sandidge - Strategize UP!

Jim Fuhs [00:00:01]:
The strategy hacker. He just wrote this amazing book, Strategy Up, and he didn't pay me to say that. And he didn't pay me or I didn't pay him. He actually said something about naming the book, and I was touched by that. I totally shocked. He's just an amazing guy. I mean, when I grow up, I want to be like Troy. I mean, podcaster extraordinaire with Digress on the HubSpot Network. He's not just on any network.

Chris Stone [00:00:29]:
He's on the HubSpot Network.

Jim Fuhs [00:00:30]:
I mean, he is killing it. If your business needs help, which a lot of them do, you should be talking to this guy. But he's not going to let you pick his brain. There's no brain picking going on with Troy Sandage. So without further ado, the number one draft pick for the Chicago Bears someday, Troy Sandage.

Troy Sandidge [00:00:53]:
There's a fun possibility I would be working with the Chicago Bears right now, but we're going to talk about that later. Never told anyone that, but because you said that there was a chance and there's a chance.

Jim Fuhs [00:01:12]:
Everybody, it's great to see you, Troy. And and we are going to have some fun, though. Speaking of football, right? We're going to do a repeat of our Twitter Spaces Draft special coming up. And part of the reason maybe I'm talking about football, Chris, is think about what's coming up in the fall. This halat form that we're on Amazon is taking over Thursday night.

Troy Sandidge [00:01:35]:
Thursday Night Football.

Jim Fuhs [00:01:37]:
Troy, you're going to be one of the announcers.

Troy Sandidge [00:01:38]:
Oh, my goodness. What's that guy's name? I'll be better than booger. Yeah, well, I'll be better than him.

Jim Fuhs [00:01:49]:
You got a better name? Oh, my gosh.

Chris Stone [00:01:54]:
That's awesome.

Troy Sandidge [00:01:54]:
That's awesome.

Jim Fuhs [00:01:55]:
Yeah.

Chris Stone [00:01:55]:
Amazon is apparently taking over the world. They announced today that there's Amp I don't know if you saw that, Troy, where it's basically like a lot of people took the headline and said, all right, Amp is Amazon's Clubhouse Killer or whatever, but it's really more about, like, radio. So you're a DJ, so you basically integrate your Amazon account with Amazon music, and then you become a DJ, and you can spin, just do whatever, playlist, but then insert yourself and talk about the song. Have callers come in. So you create your own individual radio station on Amazon through this app called Amp, which is now, I don't know if it's in beta, but you have to get on a waiting list in order to get in. So I think that's kind of a cool thing.

Jim Fuhs [00:02:43]:
Put at the head of the line. Do you got LinkedIn audio?

Troy Sandidge [00:02:48]:
I do not access. I was on it, but I don't have my own access to LinkedIn being LinkedIn.

Chris Stone [00:02:55]:
So, Troy, we saw you at Social Media Week. Lima, and just out of the blue, I think we were talking about something else. We could have been talking about football. We could have been talking something at Karaoke. And you just said, I'm putting out a book, y'all. And we just went, what? He goes, no, it's happening, it's happening. And so we were just like, wow, really? Lo and behold, you just didn't say it. It showed up. And this is just a phenomenal book about simplifying strategy. I want to get into it, but before we get into this book, for those who have been hidden under a rock and don't know the story of Troy Sandage and how you work not only with businesses to just bring whether it's fractional CMO, whether it's being brought on as a consultant, but also you're also a podcaster. So if you could just kind of maybe catch those who have been under a rock up before we start getting to the goods here and strategize up.

Troy Sandidge [00:04:08]:
Sure. Goodness. Where does it begin? I'm a sad Bulls Chicago Bears fan. I'm just kidding, just kidding. Bulls are doing pretty good this year, but I digress. I'm originally from northwest Indiana, suburbs of Chicago, so really been a Chicago boy my whole life. And electrical engineer turned digital marketer rose at the ranks of corporate America to CMO VP, built three agencies. I know, it was crazy. And now I'm a growth marketing strategist and I help people. Whether you're an SMB, you're a B, two B, or even I've worked on campaigns with Fortune 500, scale their growth through growth marketing strategies. And so that's kind of the lane that I stay in of most of my time, has been in the B, two B space. I do live on LinkedIn and Twitter. I do have a podcast called I Digress FM. I did write a book, so we're going to get to that. But I think the core thing to think about is I make complexity simple. I find that's always been one of my biggest challenges my entire career in a lot of different situations. And once I found the way to simplify it, for me to understand it, I could take action. I think no matter what business, what industry you're in, if you can simplify the playing field and make you feel like a home foot advantage, sport analogy is on ten right now, then we can move forward, take action, get those touchdowns, get that win, get that championship, and keep them moving.

Chris Stone [00:05:25]:
I love that. When I started reading it early in the book, you talked about businesses failing, and most businesses do. Those are facts, those are percentages. This is not just some sort of hyperbole to sell what you do with your books. Most businesses fail. And you talked about how a lot of people don't feel like they can do it. Like it's just so much that they end up just folding up the tents. And the way you explained it was sort of like when you were young and you knew how to do addition and maybe subtraction and maybe a little new enough to be dangerous about multiplication. You never thought when division was a thing that you could ever do that, but all it took was someone to show you the simplified steps in order to do it, and your mind just kind of goes through those things. Like, well, if you do this and carry this, and the teacher gives you little hacks, little things to be able to understand how to do that. And that really hooked me into the book because I was like, okay, that makes sense to me. If I can look at growing my business like that, that's what really hooked me in. So is that sort of like the approach that you've used with businesses in the past that brought you to that mindset? And if so, any examples or any stories that relate to it?

Troy Sandidge [00:07:00]:
No, that's a phenomenal question. I definitely agree. I think we can get so inundated with just what all this required for us to get to the finish line, and we don't think about what's the simplest thing I can do with the highest chance of success? And if I just keep making those steps happen, I'm going to get to the finish line. I mean, what is it, 5280ft in a mile? If I got that right. I'm really bad at math. So if you think about that, you go, of course, how many equivalent steps that is? We're so focused on just finishing the marathon that we not think, just focus on taking the next step. And yes, it's very cliche. You can get that on a self help book. But how does that apply to strategy? Is that people see strategy not as an action. And I want to debunk that. Man. Strategy is an action. It is literally the ability for you to map out what you need to do at the pace where you are comfortable with to get to your goal and you're taking action toward it. It's not something that you just said it, and I don't want to worry about it. I don't want to talk about it. It really requires you to take action. And so when I thought about that analogy, because I'm like, yeah, long division is long, obviously tiring and exhausting, but when you request short division, okay, I could skip some of these steps. Now, you still need to understand the framework. You still understand how this works, but you can speed through the process a little bit faster, and it'll be easier to understand. And the biggest reason why I wrote the book really was simply because I didn't hear enough people making it make sense from where I'm from, from who I am, from my community. There's a lot of people of color in business. There's a lot of people who work from different socioeconomic statuses. They don't have the ability or the access to hear all these different jargon that they don't understand. And so that's also a big part of why I wrote the book and why we need to think about strategy and simplifying it, the easier it is for everyone to understand. Everyone has a chance to be successful. But if you think about the businesses that are successful, over 70% fail. Most of them have access and the understanding and the funding and the community and the support. Whereas if you compare to the old school fail, they don't. That's a big, massive margin that my intent is with the book, is to show, hey, yeah, you don't need to know all these crazy numbers, all this stuff, but if you could just remember Clover and just apply that to your business, you'll start getting results in your marketing. If you start following people I mentioned in the book, jim's one of them in the book, and just consume what they're doing, they'll start understanding a little bit of how it works. Because when they can see it, they can imitate it, and then they can do it. But if they don't know, the people who's approachable, who's going to speak on their language and on their level, how can they learn? If they can't learn, how can they grow? They can't grow. Can they be in business anymore? No, they can't be in business. Wow.

Chris Stone [00:09:54]:
I love the fact that you said because so often when you think about Strategizing, you think of maybe the people in the war room, right? They got the blueprints out. Strategizing so often is thought as something that is not action, because it's like you're planning. Right. But planning is an action. It's not something it's either you're moving this way or you're moving this way. Right. Planning. And strategizing is not just staying, I guess, grounded and not going anywhere. But we've got a number of people here in the chat. One of the questions from Dan is when do you stop with the strategy and start with the actual work?

Troy Sandidge [00:10:49]:
Well, I love this, and I'm going to keep it on the sports analogy train. Does a coach ever stop coaching because he got good tongue and they're up by ten? No. Coaching is an action. Strategy is an action. So you never stop strategizing. So that's the first myth to debunk, is that people planning and strategizing are two different things. And normally they associate planning as strategizing, as a strategy. Yes, planning is a subset of strategy, but strategy is manifesting that plan to action, and it's constantly modifying, because a plan is just a plan. A strategy is applying that plan. And as things come up, as obstacles come up, you evolve, you adapt, you modify, you pivot, you switch that to fit the situation so you can win. And so I always like to think when it comes to strategy, a coach, you still need the coach. Even if you're winning, you still need the coach. You need to coach the whole duration, not just one game, the whole season. And so if you think of strategy as associates of a coach, you're always seeing it as an action. And so I would say the problem that most people have, they get stuck in just the planning phase of strategy. They're in the hamster wheel. They're doing all this, look how much stuff I wrote down. Look at my content plan. I'm seeing Jim and Chris, and I'm like, you know what? I want to do a live stream show. Instead of pressing record and do live, I'd have mapped out 50 different videos, who I'm interviewing, what I got, my optics, my lights, my cameras, my script. I've done all this stuff. But you've never taken action. You've never pressed record. So what are you doing? And so it's understanding that when it comes get out of that situation is that planning is only for subset moments throughout. It's like checkpoints. You drive down, you get to a checkpoint less plant, you drive into checkpoint. Another plan based off what you've seen from the observing team and things like that. But when it comes to strategy, it's always with you. It's your GPS. Literally your GPS. When it comes to the grand scheme of things, you're always navigate. And so when you're trying to get out of it, you got to get out of the planning phase. The strategy is always constant. It's the planning that most people can't align themselves out. Now, some people attribute it to posture syndrome, to perfectionism. They have fear of failure. But surprisingly enough, most people are used to failure. Most people are used to going work. I knew it wasn't going to work. I throw my hands up. A lot of folks are more afraid of, what if it does work? What if you are successful? A lot of people are actually more afraid of success than failure, because failure used to that from the jump you're expected to fail. The reason why businesses are successful, they continue to try despite the obvious chance of failure. They keep trying anyway. And we look at a 15 2nd reel of someone doing here's. Before, there's nothing. Then Poof. Now is everything. That Poof might have been two years, five years, ten years, 25 years, money spent, loans, sacrifices, all the things that we don't see in this window. Because social is immediate. It makes us seem a certain way. So to get to the point of that person's question answer I'm long with, I'm sorry, is that when you look at it from the grand scheme of things, is that when you have an Identifier, that's your plan. Now, you go across and activate that plan. As you come across obstacles that veer you off that plan. That's where strategy comes into place to observe and look at, where am I at? Let me compare to this, okay? Let me compare to this, okay? Let me make adjustments and keep it moving. And most people are stuck at only the planning, and they're not taking action. And yes, I understand you need a plan. But also the best way to have the best optimal strategy is to take action to see what works. Because for one of my clients, they'll say, well, I need to do these things well. Have you tried any of this stuff? If you haven't tried it, I don't know where your audience reaches. I don't know where your pain points are. Is it your messaging? Is it your UX? Is it your content? Is it how you deliver? Is your brand positioning? I don't know your pain points yet because you haven't taken enough action to have enough data for us to assess the data to then make an optimal strategy to help you grow.

Jim Fuhs [00:15:03]:
Yeah, and I think Troy and this kind of touches my heart as a guy with a military background where I think people sometimes get messed up, right? Like, as an example, we're hearing this talk about like, oh, well, you got to do the work, okay? But if you're using the wrong tactics, the work, you're never going to get there, right. What's your strategy? How are you adjusting things on the fly? Right. Sometimes, as we like to say, when the plan hits execution, it goes out the window. So if you don't have that strategy in place and the tactics, so to speak, to get there, because we know a lot of people, right? All three of us know people. They're very busy, but they're not making progress because they don't have a strategy.

Chris Stone [00:15:50]:
Yeah, I think a lot of times people think that when they're planning something. And it could be a podcast, could be your LinkedIn profile, it could be writing a book. It could be any of those things. They think that it has to be not necessarily perfect, but they have this vision of how it should look and.

Troy Sandidge [00:16:15]:
What it should be.

Chris Stone [00:16:16]:
And so they get so stuck, I guess that's perfectionism, but they get so stuck in creating what that vision is that it's not ready. It's not ready. It's not ready. So what's a strategy hack to get someone past that point to where they're so in their own mind about what it needs to be? You just talked about, like, trying something and then looking at it, evaluating it, and saying, here's what went right, and they got to keep going in that direction.

Troy Sandidge [00:16:48]:
Here's what went wrong.

Chris Stone [00:16:49]:
I'm going to move away from that. What's the strategy hacks that somebody could, regardless of what kind of content or business that they're in?

Troy Sandidge [00:16:58]:
I love that question. I think this is me. This is what catapult me to be. Whoever you all see before me is today. They said, how dare you? If you lay me three people that inspire you, that motivate you, that you would attribute to you becoming who you are today, or who you want to become, right? What if they didn't take action? What if they didn't write that book? What if they didn't go live that day? What if they didn't push out that podcast what if they didn't get on stage? You don't know what happened in their personal life. Their life could have been a wreck before they went record, but they went record, left it all outside of you, of the camera, came back, showed you what it is, gave you the tea, whatever that gym you needed to then catapult you to become who you are or who you aspire to be as a person, as a professional, as a business. And so if they didn't do that, that literally would have changed the trajectory of your life. How dare you delay doing what your purpose you're called to do to impact someone else's life. The time you're wasting, that could have been someone trajectory turned sideways because you didn't answer the call to produce or create or to do or to speak or to share or to write whatever was in your heart called to do as a person or as a business. Now, if you put it like that, well, I guess I better get off my seat and do what I need to do because the time is ticking and it is my social responsibility. If I'm called to do something, it will work out. Now, it doesn't mean you won't have obstacles and challenges. No, but at some point something's going to shift. The universe is going to manifest itself where you're going to be like, you're going to go get it and you're going to help somebody. And so I always tell people, what is that you're trying to do? Trying to write a book. Troy trying to launch a podcast. Troy try to do a live stream. Jim, Chris, I'm trying to do this thing. Okay. What is the intent and purpose of this thing? What do you want it to achieve and why? It's not enough to just do. There's that action behind every single thing that we do. So what is it that you want to do? What do you want to accomplish? I want to impact people. I want to help people insert whatever it might be. The whole list goes on. Okay, cool. Think on that and less on how you feel the person who is trying to help you get to where you need to be. I assure you there are days Jim and Chris did not want to do this, but they showed up and gave you their best and did what they had to do. I assure you there are times that I probably didn't want to do certain things, but I showed up because I felt my obligation to go beyond my feelings to make it still an impact. And so not sitting woo because I don't do woo, but I do want to give a perspective of no one can do what you do. Now, there may be similarities of other people, but they don't have your specific life experiences. Look at Jim. I don't know anybody that your specific life experiences doing exactly what you do, and no one can do it unlike you can, the way that you can. And so you're living and doing what you're doing, and it's making a big impact. That's why put them in a book in the grand scheme of things. In the same way, just knowing that your purpose is meant to help somebody and you not living into your purpose is actually hurting. I don't know about you. I'm an empath. I feel obligated now to rise to the occasion, to do what I need to do. And the last thing I'd say we think about, what will people say if I think about the grand scheme of things? It's a small percentage of folk who actually know you and will give you negative feedback that will actually hurt you. Outside of that small amoeba of individuals. Everyone else, they didn't say what they said, and they're not thinking twice about. So why am I holding myself from not doing something? Because someone who doesn't know me from Timbuktu telling me my idea is terrible, my business won't work. They don't know the impact. And the lesson with that is that your vision is your vision of your business. Whatever your brain, whatever you're calling it, was not given to anyone else because it was meant to you. I can't show Jim and Chris my vision. It's not their vision to see. They may even see highlights or ideologies, but they can't see it till it's manifest. And so for you, you have to lift that vision in your business. And people think, well, troll, that's not a strategy. No, it is, because how you perceive yourself in your mind, what you show up in your confidence, in your message, in your positioning, in your sales pitching and your conversations, we can sense when you're not passionate and when you're not in it. We may not can put a name to it, but I don't feel like he's in it. I don't see their confidence. And so that's a thing to really think about when it comes to those.

Chris Stone [00:21:53]:
Man, that's so good. I talk to content creators all the time. Not like you, but I used to feel this way. Troy I would say because you've heard of Pod Fade, which is generally like, someone will start a podcast, right? And then they'll get six or eight episodes. Either they don't see the immediate sort of gratifications of downloads. They're not achieving. They never figured out what their why was, which is what you're talking about, who they're speaking to, solving their problems, using it for something to benefit what they're doing it. And so they just get stuck and they fade. And I used to be, Come on, you got to stay consistent. We got to keep down. And then I finally said, you know, why am I telling someone to do something they don't want to do? And you just talked about it. One of the great things I love about live streaming is. Here we are on this show with Troy Sandage on our screen, and every word that you said, you could see we're live and you believe it. This is not a facade, ladies and gentlemen. We have met Troy and spent time and broken bread with this gentleman. This is the man you get, and that's it. He's passionate about this. He's passionate about working with businesses, working with people like even us, who I mean, we can call this a business, right? But we can get inspired by this and be able to take some of these principles that you've got going on in your book, which I want to this is what we call a segue. Troy, I want to get into the book because we've got a lot of folks here on Amazon that are chiming in, and there's a lot Randall Constance here in it to win at tina, I see you in here. There's a lot of people in here that are being inspired by the words of Troy Sandage. So strategize up, man. There's another thing that I want to touch on, because early in the book, you talk about your marketing philosophy and you break it down. And the last one is the one that I really want to kind of dwell on because I feel like it's important. Imagination is the engine, content is the fuel. Social media is the highway, marketing is the roadmap, sales is the destination. And then finally, culture is the GPS. When we talk about culture, there's a lot of different ways we can go. We can go great resignation, company culture, we can go general culture. But I really wanted to kind of open that up to you and kind of talk about the culture aspect of your marketing process.

Troy Sandidge [00:24:39]:
I love that you brought that up. When I think of culture, I think in chapter five, I break it down to three subsets. I don't know from hand, but really thinking of the global culture. So that may impact what's going on internationally and around the world. With the outside of that, that's the outer layer. Then the inner layer may be your community, your audience, your business, somewhere in that subset. And then that inner slater is you, your culture, your beliefs, your identity, all the things that make you you and who you are. And so I think until the pandemic really happened, I think sometimes people put culture on the back burner when it comes to business, when it comes to themselves. And why will culture be the GPS? Is that even if you're getting sales, if culture is saying, that ain't the bridge, that ain't the direction you should probably go in for the sanity of your business, or beyond that, maybe you should listen to it, I would almost encourage you to listen to it, but even beyond that, you can make money. But in the mannerism of how you make money, culture is going to tell you and shine light on areas where that might be questionable or that doesn't be in line. That doesn't mean that you have to be actually on trend all the time. I'm saying still remain unique, be you. All the things I'm not very that line of I want to make that very clear. What I am articulating to you is that let's go back from me. I can speak on myself. That way it doesn't feel like no one's projecting anyone else, like, to play it safe. I'll speak on myself. For all intents and purposes, I'm an African American. I'm a black man. I think we can clearly see that. And I'm also a black business. I'm a black caster, I'm a black creator. So all black, everything is out. And so when I think back to the summer of 2020 and what happened in the summer 20, I won't rely them on with everyone. I think we all know at this point what happened after was a call to action to have people of color and diverse backgrounds and marginalized communities speak on how they felt in regards to where we at with business, where we at with production, where we have with all the different things that would be of value to us. And we recently just got out of Black History Month as of now. So what's the difference between summer 2020, what we just spent in black history? A lot of stuff hasn't changed. We've had more conversations, but we haven't had as much action. So where does the business fall? Because I know where I was like, sure, get to the point about the business. And the thing I say about the business is that depending on understanding that your audience is very diverse and so it's not just enough to have imagery that caterpolts and talks about different subsets of cultures and individuals, that's the bare minimum that's not you actually joining. Let's take action as far as let's bring on diverse strategists or workers or employees in the boardrooms and people on leadership decisions to give us a full view of how we're conducting our business. I also commend. Christian jim. They've always been so supportive of making sure they're bringing on diverse individuals on things that they work on. And I found that very powerful. I've had many of conversations with them off screen, how authentic they are. And so just understanding that when it comes to culture, it requires us to understand things that we don't understand. It's seeing the world through a lens that is not your own lens. And if you're not willing to open up and consider your audience that don't see the same lens as you but are willing to buy your products or your services, that's something you really have to dig deep on and make sure that you're in alignment. You speak to their pain points, not just to your pain points that you identified in your own mind from your own experiences, but to. Identify pain points and experiences from someone else's, experiences that are not your own, that you have no data history to back on. But if you have conversations and if you build a diverse community, the community is going to protect your business because it's going to alert you of things that you don't know. So you can prepare yourself to be a sustainable business and continue to grow in a very holistic manner. And that's the best way to do it, because there's always a trail when you don't do it that way. You may still get there, but at what cost did you do for your business? But if you want to build your business sustainable, wise culture would be the GPS to make sure you're in that alignment.

Chris Stone [00:29:02]:
Wow, I would stand up right now, but you would just see my stomach. But I'm applauding that and I certainly don't mean to make light of that because it's so important, because I think a lot of times we don't realize there's so much that we're not in control of. And one of them as a business or even as a content creator, is who are the people that are buying what you're selling? Who are your customers, who are your ideal listeners? So you have this vision of who they are. Well, you know what? You might be wrong, right? So you better be open to being able to sell and speak and be all things to those people who are your customers, who are your listeners, who are your viewers. And so you have to be a lifelong learner, and that includes learning culture of your customers, of what you're doing. Because we're not in control of who's watching Dealcasters right now. And I'm sure there's a lot of people I'm seeing Rosalinda here, and she's got all kinds of emojis in all capitals here in the Chat, and I know that means she loves it, but I think, you know, you have to be you have to be a person that's open and not just say you're open. Actually take action and use that and create business for yourself. But not only that, it's good as a human being. Am I wrong? We got a friend that says, if you want to be a better salesperson, first be a better person. How do you be a better person? You talk to people, you give to people, you find out what their problems are and then you work to solve them. So I'm glad that you were able to touch on that. Jim, what do you got? Man? I feel like I'm hogging the mic here.

Jim Fuhs [00:31:08]:
No, I mean, Troy is just dropping manhole covers of wisdom.

Troy Sandidge [00:31:16]:
Never heard that one. That's a new one.

Jim Fuhs [00:31:19]:
People say dimes and I'm going to manhole covers because it's just amazing. Troy the term strategy hacker, right? I think there's so many people that miss out on the importance of strategy. Right. And just even the way you wrote the book, you really broke it down to where anybody should be able to understand it, let's say. What are the three key points that you think people need to really walk away from, if anything, when they read this book? What are three things that they should take action with?

Troy Sandidge [00:31:56]:
I think the first thing is that the book, even down to the font and I've never shared it, person shared it, even down to the font that I chose for the book. I did so much testing to make sure that it was applicable for people with different versions to read it, and it was easy to read, easy on the eyes to read. And so I think the first takeaway to think about the strategy is power. And that when you have alignment and know how to strategize your business, you have the highest opportunity, the highest chance, the better odds to make your business become what it is. Because without vision, you can't manifest anything. You can be doing the work, but if you can't manifest how you're going to get to the finish line, you can't then do it to get to the finish. The second thing I would say within the book is really the three acronyms that I have that I've been saying for the last four years. And now it's like it's all mine because it's in the book. I didn't plan on being the mnemonic or acronym marker. That wasn't my jam and that's why I didn't brand myself that way. But the reason why I did it that way was because it's easy to remember. I'm all about bringing the level down where it's equal to everyone can eat at the table, whether you've been in a marketer for ten years or you don't Google watch one Gary Vee video, you're ready to go, right? I want to make it that level easy to understand. And so I think just that collective is called Clover, Dart and Lee's. Those three, one for marketing, one for operations and business, and one for sales. Acquisition together as a unit I think would be a strong takeaway because it's just a clever way for you to just know what are my steps to get to where I need to go. And obviously you align to what you do. I think the third thing I would say is just how things have changed. Marketing has changed completely on a flip, but what I've shared in the wood is really at its core, it's going to still be the same minus different apps and things that we use, because it's rooted in the reality of understanding your confidence and conviction, but also leaning into your community. And I think we're going to see a resurgence, if not an abundance, of people hiring for community managers. Double down on community, give those conversations because that's where the real currency is. It's really in community because community makes crypto what it is. Community makes NFTs and blockchain what it is community makes, Facebook what it's not and what TikTok what it is. Now, literally, community is the shaker and the decision maker to make things happen or not happen at their own decision. And so if you can cultivate a community in your favor to be aligned with your purpose as a business, you're always going to stay in business. Because I always think, and I say this time and time again, has anyone thought of the nonprofits people have to donate money for them to stay in operations during a pandemic, a worldwide pandemic. And guess what? A lot of them are because they had community. And community, even though their money was tight, they still put money toward maintaining that purpose of that nonprofit function. So in the same way, for a for profit business, community literally does the same thing. So I would say those would be my top three. Take us for the yeah.

Jim Fuhs [00:35:18]:
And I want to go back to this community piece because I think that is so important. I mean, we both know friends with Mark Schaefer write his book Marketing Rebellion. He talks about that as well, about the importance of building a community because you have these businesses that are succeeding because they've built a community and basically everyone is their fan and like, oh, you got to try this, you got to try that, and those that aren't right. We've seen a lot of doors shutter, and I think that's happened because they thought it was all about them as opposed to it's really about building those relationships just like we've built the relationship we have with you when we first met. It's more just about to get to know, like and trust each other in friendship. It was never like, oh, well, Troy, when you write that book, we're going to put you on our show. It was never about that, right. It was like, naturally happened, right? You're going to write a book, right? So I think that that's what people have to understand is how important is community is. I think even as Tim Son would say, now more than ever, community is extremely important for businesses to build. And I don't know if you've jumped on it yet, Troy, because usually you're first at everything, but I just jumped on this new app called Volley and there's already communities getting built in there where people are volunteering back and forth. And it's just fascinating, all these tools being out there to help us build communities so that we can all help each other out.

Chris Stone [00:36:54]:
So, Troy, we would be remiss because I know you are tech inclined and we are on Amazon and we do have some products in the carousel. So we could maybe look at some of these things and talk about maybe some tools of the trade that might help others kind of get to well, I'm not saying like, buy this mouse, you're going to become Troy Sandage and write a book. There's more a little more disclaimer than that. Yeah, exactly. Disclaimer. But what are some maybe products that you sort of lean into that your go to things here that are available on Amazon?

Troy Sandidge [00:37:46]:
I definitely think a scanner, document scanner, because you think about it. For me personally, I'm an organized person in the digital world, but outside the digital world, thank God I have people to help me. And so when you know your strengths, you have to make sure you can be right then and there. If I get a document and someone signs a contract and I'm out of state or whatever my case might be, if I have a scanner, the left was this, not to scale, but the scanner, and I can scan the document in and organize it or send it. Time is money. And sometimes between maybe someone choosing me over someone else is because I was able to sign a document and send it to them ahead of somebody else. So I can win the deal, win the trade, and also just keep yourself organized for taxes and all the different things that, hey, I don't got to think about right now. But what if you had this moment and now you're looking for a scheme? Like just simple things, it seems like, oh, I need this big expensive thing. No, like very minute, simple, functional things as a business for you to win the day. I don't want to lose out. And especially as a person of color and a black business at that, we're judged by every single thing that we do. And so if I can have something, just the tools, as simple as that, to ensure I scan it, I'm in it, I'm out, move on. Cool. They show them I'm punctual, I'm on it, I'm ready to go. That perception goes a long way to close some deals. I know. I was like, Whoa, you went really deep. I need to go buy me important. But I'm just saying it's simple things to help your business grow in a way that maybe you might not have thought of, because a lot of us go to the library or our printer probably got no ink in it. This is a whole situation. Don't even scan without ink. I don't understand. Get yourself a cheap little one and keep it moving.

Chris Stone [00:39:41]:
Let's pause there for a second because you talked about this, and you said, this is an item that helps me. And you mentioned the preconceived notions about a person of color, and you said especially that. Lean into that a little bit more to some of our listeners and some of our viewers. When you say that I need to especially do this, what are you saying.

Troy Sandidge [00:40:06]:
There when you think of perception of a black business? I can say it because I hear it all the time, so it's not projected. I'm just saying it coming from me. So that way I reflect here. They may think the business is lucky or the business is lazy or they're always new. They're new, they're not established. They don't know how to do certain things a certain way. And you'll find a lot of black businesses actually don't personify that they're a black business. Not that they're not proud, but it's strategic to avoid some of that friction and some of that false realities and perceptions that is being thrown off. Implicit bias because they look to a website and now they're seeing a wider diversity group. I feel more inclined now. That's a reality I can't change. I tweeted this two days ago that one obstacle I can't change is privilege. But I'm still proud to be black and I'm still going to make change happen. I'm still going to make an impact. Right? And so as a business and that's why I do frame that a little bit in my book as well, because I was speaking to people of any marginalized community type that feel that they can't break that ceiling because they have certain obstacles that will never change. Now, some obstacles will change. You get funding, cool, you can go. But some obstacles just won't change. But I can still win. Despite the obstacles, I can still win. And so it's just understanding, how do we make that work? So for me, if I know that's the perception, I can't change the perception, but I can prove them law by beating that, going beyond that, if that means I show up. So what? I'm trying to get the deal because I have to get back my mind. That money is going to help me fund, bring more black businesses to light, help me protect care of my family. So it's also when you're doing a business, you kind of got to have a balance where sometimes you take it personal, but other times you can't. Because your vision, your goal for why you started the business is bigger than you. So I'm not going to let somebody's perception stop me from doing my business.

Chris Stone [00:42:01]:
Come on. I love that. I love that. If that doesn't inspire you, then you must stop be watching. You must be on mute on Amazon.

Troy Sandidge [00:42:12]:
But now I'm never going to look at this portable scanner the same way again. Exactly. Never again.

Chris Stone [00:42:20]:
I've got 20 in my cart right now. Another thing we do have in the carousel, if you're watching on Amazon, if you're listening on the audio podcast after we've gone live, we'll definitely tag it in. The show notes is I digress your fantastic podcast, which is on the HubSpot Network. Troy, man, I told you this. I don't know if it was LinkedIn or how or we did it, man, I'm so proud of that. Let's just be honest. Anybody can open up an anchor account and do a podcast, right? That's part of the problem. There's a lot of noise out there, but it's really hard to do a good podcast and to achieve the success that you have already achieved with this podcast. And so I wanted to shine a light on that. But talk to me, to us and to the four Gazillion people that are here on Amazon about the podcast as they downloaded here for free on Amazon Music. Talk to us about. I digress. And just maybe some of the stories as you were maybe started working with HubSpot and sort of started launching this podcast that have come out of this thing.

Troy Sandidge [00:43:46]:
I have to give credit because just how people unmarbate what you all doing, because anyone can press record, they can't do what you all do. But I digress was my journey. Honestly, if you listen to I Digress, it's going to feel like you are with me on the journey to creating this book because literally, you can almost align up the dates where that's where Clover had okay, that's where that part happened. Okay. That's where you found this confidence. So it's really kind of a journal, a log, if you will, of me progressing onward. But I said this from the top of the job when I started that I didn't hear folk who talked about marketing, business strategy, growth, all the things that I am, who can come in and break it down. Like I'm at the barbershop, they'll talk above me. And I have to now go buy a book. I have to buy encyclopedias, I have to watch a ton of videos to understand just the substance of what they said. And I don't mind learning it, but it was very intimidating. I'm a driven person, so I'm going to figure it out and learn. But a lot of folks that stops them immediately if they can't understand. I like to say it this way and I use it. I think the last three or four episodes, I mentioned this example in Atlanta for people. You could be saying, I'm going to help you. Ten x your business. What you just said was in French. Now I don't understand French. You can keep saying it over and over and over again. You can bring on other folks who also speak in French, saying over and over and over again. This is the top marketer, the top business expert, he just got done doing 300 speaking engagements, but they're all speaking in French. Guess what? I can't understand it. So it doesn't matter who they are. If they're not speaking my language, I can't understand it. Now, sure, I can go try to teach myself the language, but now I got to learn the mnemonics of the language and then hear it, stop, pause, learn, read, try to match it up. By the time I'm finished, I'm tired and I ain't getting away. I ain't getting nowhere. How long has it taken to learn a language? You know what I'm saying? So in the same way, I'm like, let me take this podcast thing and let me break marketing growth strategy, community sales, branding, social media, all the stuff down into a basic level where a basic person can understand it using analogies and things that okay, that makes sense. Now, sure, they may have to go deeper into certain things, and I do sometimes switch and go a little bit deeper, but my purpose is always to make it understandable where it's actual. And the last thing on that I said from the jump, we're never going past 30 minutes. Now, granted, I did not know when I started podcasting I would do in the hardest possible podcast scenario, solo hosted under 30 minutes. It's a whole situation. It's very challenging. It's much easier. We have guests and go for an hour. It's much harder. We got to cut down gyms down to that, literally under that 30 minutes mark. But the intentions were, if you can't spend 30 minutes of your time listening to something that's giving you actual takeaways to help your business, what are you doing? I want to eliminate as much friction as I can from it. They know I'm going to speak simple in your language. I'm going to do what I'm doing right now. I'm going to have my voice high and have it low, and we're going to get some mentor, we're going to have some fun. We're going to play some music to give you hyped up, maybe some music, get you attention, some hard, tough moments. But by the end, we're going to come back better people for like a graduation day type of thing. And that's my intention, that's the goal. And it's very hard to do a podcast. I want you to know, kudos to my wife has been so patient what I need to do, but go listen to it. I think it's good. I think it is. I'm starting to let go of the impostor syndrome and saying I'm doing a decent job. I need people like her to tell me it's good, because you are. Sometimes, I don't know, but I say this, and I'm done with my high horse. I'm done. For me to go from one episode, I went the first five months, I had a total of 32 listeners. The first five months, I started September 28, 2020. Yeah, I know. Pandemic podcaster, baby. I know. I needed something to do, and so then I just started committing to it. Now, the number says after seven episodes, if you get past seven episodes, you're already in the top, like 35, 25%, right? And so you just keep going. Just keep going. I got the 30 and I'm in the top 15 percentile. Now, granted, my downloads were getting better, but I didn't care about the downloads. I knew that if I create the podcast, it's going to help me boost my SEO. It's going to force me to have conversations of my best stuff that I can use in my sales cycles, my marketing funnels. Now let them regurgitate content and reference key points at my best self from that podcast. And it's forcing me to be consistent in the conduct creation we all struggle with consistent conduct creation. Can I be real? So that was my goal. Now what happened was I positioned the podcast in a certain way that regardless of how many downloads I got, regardless of who knew who I was, oh, look at me. I got accepted to be a part of the Hustler podcast network. Now, I'm not nobody compared to everybody else on that network at the time, I was completely nobody. But I positioned myself as, I have something you don't have on your podcast network, and I can deliver on that. So they didn't care about downloads. They knew that I could bring something that they didn't have to better their audience in a diversified way. And the benefit of the podcast network aligned on our team as well. That's where I leaned on. And so if you're a person who's doing a live stream podcast, you're a creator, you're like, I'm not going to get the sponsor. Just be consistent, be passionate enough and position yourself. The people will find you. The people reach out to you, and then you'll get opportunities. The FedEx opportunity that I able to spread the news about the grants came from my podcast. I'm a nobody. But they heard the podcast and came out and reached out to me. There's a few other things that came to my way from the podcast that no, I didn't make money directly from ad sponsorships. Kind of the same way people do for YouTube. They're trying to get AdSense. No, look beyond that. Just make good content consistently on your positioning. That speaks to a specific audience. People need to talk to their audience. They're going to talk to you because they know you have the direct line to that audience. I'll grant it. Now, from September 28, 2020 to February 28, 2022, I hit over 200,000 downloads. I'm now at episode 48. I need to crank out an episode for tomorrow. But that window of two years was a lot of nothing until it became something. So me, I don't see it because I'm in it. I'm building it just like you are. You're building it, but those on the outside, whoa, short just showed up. Where does pockets come up? It's been at it the whole time, y'all, it's been there the whole time, but I just got to keep going. So where you're a creator, you're a business, there's going to be a lot of times where you're in the blind spot, nobody sees you. And I like that sometimes because you can really scale. It's called flanking that flank marketing style. And then after people get the spotlight on you, oh man, now I feel now I feel pressure because people like Chris and Jim, your pocket is pretty good. Now I feel a little pressure because now I got delivered each time because the bar said before, if I messed up, no one knows about it.

Chris Stone [00:51:03]:
That's the rising tide.

Jim Fuhs [00:51:06]:
Yeah. But I'm going to say, Troy, one thing that you said earlier that I'm going to have to vehemently disagree with you is you are somebody. I mean, you are an amazing young man. You're still young. I think there's a meeting he could actually go to. He went to San Diego that Chris and I aren't allowed in because we're too old. But you're doing great for yourself, Jim. In fact, I say, if anything, it's a little bit of right? We get in that impostor syndrome, like, oh, I'm not good enough. I mean, sometimes I almost had to pinch myself. It's like, I can't believe that me and Chris are here live on Amazon. I would have never have imagined it. But it goes back to what you said, doing the work, believing in yourself. Don't listen to what other people have to say. Right. You got to look at that person in the mirror and say, this is something I want to do. And, yeah, same thing, right? Things are happening that I don't think Chris and I ever envisioned in July of 2020, just because we've kept at it and we've believed in each other and have had the support of our spouses to let us do this. And it sounds like you have the same at home as well.

Chris Stone [00:52:15]:
Well, you know, what I really liked about what you said, Troy, is that, well, first and foremost, talent aside, because you are a talented spokesman speaker, and so getting in front of a mic and talking clearly is not an issue for you, and speaking eloquently and delivering valuable information. So the content of a podcast for you is not an issue. A lot of people, they have beautiful sets and microphones, and they've got the best hosting service, and they even have sponsorship deals because they've come from another spot, and their content is like, what are you saying? Right. So I think, to credit you, you're putting out content that's valuable. But what I really loved about what you said is and it kind of goes back to what you're saying earlier, you know exactly who you're speaking to, and you probably can envision who your fans, your superfans, the people that you're speaking to, you can envision them, and so you know what their problems are. And when you're talking on your podcast, your content is solving their problems. And that's how content, that's how podcast, that's how that works. And I think a lot of people you said it before a number of times, it's like, stop talking about yourself.

Troy Sandidge [00:53:46]:
Right?

Chris Stone [00:53:48]:
Nobody knows who I am. Most people don't know who I am. I mean, there's a handful of people that know who I am. Why am I going to talk about myself? I'm going to talk about the reason why we do this show is because we want to help people launch their show. That's why we do it. And that's 100% it. And so when we're on the show and somebody says, hey, what are the headphones that need? What's the hosting service? All of those things. We're going to answer their questions. We get to the end of the show. People are starting their podcast. I don't care how much money we make, what stages we're speaking on. That's why we do it. And if we stay grounded in that, the other stuff just a byproduct of why we're doing it, because it's fun, too. We get to hang out with Troy Sandage. I mean, how cool is that? For an hour, right?

Troy Sandidge [00:54:41]:
It's fun.

Chris Stone [00:54:42]:
There wasn't a question there. But I just wanted to underline what.

Troy Sandidge [00:54:45]:
You were saying, man to bring on home. I shared at the toward the end of the very last chapter of the book, I don't know if you all remember the polar vortex of 2019. The wife and I was coming back sober on my birthday at the time, flying back into Ohio, Chicago, and on my way back, I looked at her and I kid you not, I remember it so vividly. I said, I'm going to start speaking on stages. Never done that before in my life. Now I've spoken, but nothing like on that scale. She said, Why do you want to do that? I need to get used to being uncomfortable. And I know that if I master getting better at articulating my thoughts with no hesitation to people, they'll see the conviction, they'll see the confidence, they'll take it more seriously, and they'll help me with sales and help me scale my business. And she's like, you looked at me with so sincerity, like I was like, yes. And so I had started doing I made a speaker profile, and I made a lot of mistakes. I spoke at my chamber of commerce, all these different things. So the elegance that you hear of seed me now was not talent. Maybe I'd say that I did have some talent, but I think it was regurgitated challenge, refined talent through constant practice and execution. And so I put myself and made a deal with myself to speak at 300 events, virtual, in person in one year. And I did. I think I got to like, 325 or something like that crazy number. And I said once I got to that point, I had enough reps to feel comfortable, to push that impostor syndrome aside, because I've done enough reps to say that I could speak. I know what happens when my slides mess up. I know what to say or what to think or how to process when I go blank. I know when things get weird, I can stay rooted and grounded. And so I hear when you said that, I'm like that's also. The book, too. All of the stuff that you can learn and if you put enough effort into it. And have a foundation and a strategy to apply it, you can get it, but you have to take action if you want to get better at anything. And you won't see the progress of where you've gotten until much later, because you're always going to be, in your mind, way ahead of where other people are seeing you. But you also I'm a worker proppers. Accept the compliments, accept the thank yous. Accept the acknowledgment, and know that you're worthy of that. And so thank you, Chris, for correcting me for me to try to take on that more.

Chris Stone [00:57:06]:
All right, folks, if you have not yet picked up strategize up, this gentleman has wrote, written, wrote see, I need to read more so I can speak better. Has written a fantastic book, and you all need to pick it up. And the other quick little sales thing that I'll say is that it's not one of those I can pick this up and open to a spot. Troy that's the other thing I noticed, because I've told you I haven't finished it completely, but I have gone through and picked out spots and have gotten something out of just reading a few pages. And I think some of the best books are like that. I jumped in and I read what you talked about on TikTok for Business, and then I jumped into another spot. That's another thing, too, is if you're not necessarily someone who just reads three books a week or something like that. Right? I love books that you can just you know what? I'm going to pick up something out of reading this for just even if I have just a moment, I'm going to be able to do that. So man fantastic book. Everyone here that is watching it. And if you're listening on the podcast, we're going to have that link for you in the show notes strategize up by Troy Sandage. The simplified blueprint to scaling your business. And one last compliment. Troy. I love the Detroit Lions colors.

Troy Sandidge [00:58:35]:
No, I got to change everything.

Jim Fuhs [00:58:39]:
That'll be the next edition. That's a good yeah. Troy, it's been awesome. So glad that we were able to get you to join us. And when your next book comes out, welcome to Come back. And even before then, and I can't remember what the date is, but for those of you that don't know what Twitter spaces is, come hang out with us. We'll be talking NFL draft. And that was a lot of fun. Megan I want to say Joe, Dexter, Fred, hopefully we'll all be back to join us. And who knows? Maybe we can get Russell Wilson of the Denver Broncos to goodness.

Troy Sandidge [00:59:26]:
Roger is still in our division. Chris oh, my goodness.

Chris Stone [00:59:30]:
I know. Don't remind me. Don't remind me. Another four years of Aaron Rogers, another four years of Hail Mary's and all of that good stuff. So thanks again, Troy. We appreciate you spending so much time with us. As always, it's been amazing. So for those of you who joined us on Amazon and all the other tubes, we appreciate it. And as always, pick up, strategize up, and don't fear the gear.

Jim Fuhs [01:00:02]:
Thanks for listening to Dealcasters. Congratulations. You've taken another step forward in your content creation journey. Please don't forget to hit the subscribe or Follow button here in your favorite podcast player so you can be reminded every time we drop an episode.

Chris Stone [01:00:18]:
We'd love hearing from our listeners and viewers, and if you're wanting to watch our shows live on Amazon, feel free to follow Dealcasters Live as well at Dealcasters live. Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to our YouTube channel, where we also included added content that you cannot find anywhere else.

Jim Fuhs [01:00:38]:
If you have questions about this episode or have something you want us to review, you can also email us at dealcasters at dealcasters live. Thanks again for listening, and you know the deal. Don't fear the gear.