0:01

Welcome to the three degrees of freedom podcast, where we explore lifestyle engineering with our expert guests to bring you in alignment with your own three degrees of freedom, location, time, and financial independence.

Derek: 0:14

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show today. We’re pleased to have Mr. Emanuel Probst, a global lead in brand thought leadership at Ipsos. Am I saying that correctly? Awesome. Adjunct professor at UCLA and a best selling author with over 20 years of combined experience in market research and marketing, Manuel has honed the unique ability to intertwine his three occupations to consistently propel his career forward. His proficiency lies in aiding Fortune 100 companies to comprehend their customer journey across a broad spectrum of industries. Not only is he shaping future marketers at UCLA, But his insights are influencing the broader business community through his writing. So we’re excited to have you on the show, Emmanuel. Thank you so much for being here. How are you today?

Emmanuel: 0:59

First, thank you for the great introduction. Also, I’m feeling great. And last but not least, I think I’ll steal the introduction from you. I’ll copy and paste from the show notes because it’s very, very good. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. That’s great. You know, I have to say that, I have to give credit where it’s due. The, the, the introduction I just read you today and that I use for all of my other, um, all of my other guests as well, is heavily AI assisted. I take credit where it’s due. Your bio, and then I have a very specific prompt that I put together, that, that, that puts that out there to fit within a specific time frame. So, anyway, we can talk about that later, but I’m more interested to hear about you, though, sir. So, let’s talk about the three degrees of freedom first. This is the same question I use to start off with every one of my guests, which is, The three degrees of freedom, location, time and financial. Which one of those do you feel that you are the strongest in right now? And which one do you feel like you want to develop further? Yeah, I’m doing really well on location and time. I have some work to do on financial. We’ll put it this way. Location because, well, I live on the west coast, but most of my clients are in Europe, on the east coast, and what this means is I start really early in the morning, and my life tends to be quite regimented, so I start early, and first I do the the hard work first. If I have something to write, if I need to create a new idea, that’s what I do first. And next, I have a few calls, as we all do, and towards the end of my day, which the end of my day, is around 4 p. m., for the next two hours, call it 4 to 6, I’m going to do some reading and gather some ideas for the next day. So, location and time are really linked. In my case, again, because of the various time zones I work with and here at home, I built a full studio with, great mic sound technology, three point lighting system and all that. And with that said, I can also work on the go. So, and frankly, dialing into Europe, it doesn’t get any worse than being on the West Coast, right? Ha, ha, ha, ha. Exactly. You’re literally halfway around the world, I think. It’s eight hours with the UK, nine hours with the rest of Europe in terms of time difference. But hey, I’m not complaining in any way. This is because in Los Angeles, as with all large metros in the US, so Chicago, Washington, Dallas, Boston, New York, traffic is heavy and discouraging. We spoke about location and to talk about time, I don’t waste much time and that is something I enjoy, you know, even if I have to drive, I can listen to podcasts or audio books, but I don’t feel like I waste much time and that makes me feel good about time management, if you will. Now the third, third pillar, and you spoke about financial freedom, uh, you know, I’m, I’m still a few years away from financial freedom. I have expensive children. We’ll put it this way. Which children? I was going to say, which children aren’t there? Well, when I did my MBA, you see, that was Wow, 20 years ago now, but students used to ask the marketing professor because he was doing, you know, two, three jobs like, like I do basically. And we would ask him, we will tell him why you must be doing pretty well financially. And he would say, I have expensive children. So um, yeah, that’s where we’re at. Excellent. Well, thank you for the for the background. We appreciate that. So let’s talk a little bit first. I want to get before we talk into your superpower of leveraging and weaving together different careers to create something bigger than you currently have, which is super fascinating. And I’m hoping that most people on the, on As audience members right now are thinking about ways to leverage some of their skills into other things. That’s the way that you build successful companies and start to build some of this freedom, right? I wanted to get, get some of your knowledge behind what is it you do for brand hacks and assemblage. Those are your books, right? That you’ve put together. I want to. understand a little bit more about what is a customer journey? how does branding fit into all of this? And if you could give us just a high level view of what these are and how it’s important to people, maybe. Yeah. Okay. So the work I do with clients doesn’t matter if, that’s a fortune 50 or four. Fortune 10, if you will, or if it’s a personal brand, meaning an individual contributor, think of an entrepreneur or a small medium business. My work is about creating a competitive advantage for people and for companies and for this competitive advantage to be sustainable. And how do we do this? By creating brands that are unique, that are different, that are differentiated. And, my unique approach is to start with the standpoint of your audience. To start with the consumer. That is, we don’t want to obsess about your product and your service first. We really want to, demonstrate empathy for your audience. the audience you’re trying to reach, understand what keeps them up at night, which is hardly ever your product. And right. And from there, once we understand what is meaningful to people. And what are people trying to achieve? From there, we build your unique brand again, whether you’re an independent professional or you’re a small medium business or you’re a startup or you’re a fortune 100, fortune 50, fortune 10. So that’s the process. Now you spoke about my books, Brand Hacks and Assemblage, and that’s really the backbone for those books. That is to understand people first and from there create successful brands. And the one liner across both books is to say people don’t care about most brands and people don’t care about most advertising. What people are trying to do They’re trying to achieve two things. Number one, in brain hacks, we see that people are trying to find meaning. So engage in endeavors, in activities that feel fulfilling and meaningful to them. Number two, in assemblage, we see that, people want to transform. So who, who am I and who do I want to become? And the brand is here in a supporting role to help me transform from, who am I, who I want to become and help me make an impact on my community and the world around me. So once we understand those quests, we, once again, from there, create brands that enable. People to find the meaning they seek and become, become who they want to be. I love this. So can you help me understand, you know, if this is useful or if what you do is useful for people who maybe have like a full time job right now, and they’re looking to start something else up because they’re trying to, you know, build a side hustle or create some extra streams of income for themselves. I know the answer to this question because I went through this journey and we can kind of talk about this in a little bit as a case study, I’d love to be able to share that. But can you talk about where someone should start, when they’re thinking about building a personal brand if they know they want to do something to escape the W2 world or escape, you know, doing just a full time job and just being in a full time job for forever. How do people gain clarity on that and, you know, what do you recommend as a consultant there? What are your skills and the knowledge, and those don’t necessarily have to be unique, but here’s where I think you start. You list your skills and your knowledge and how you can help people, how you can make a difference in your customers. Or your audience life and some of them once again might not be unique, but what you’re going to do is you’re going to combine the ones that will make you unique, meaning what you’re going to bring to market is a unique or unique enough combination of skills and knowledge that are going to enable you to stand out now in an ideal world, you build a system whereby your day job Even if it’s W 2, as you said. And by the way, for now it pays your bills, which is completely fine. You build a system whereby your day job feeds your side hustle and vice versa. And so, in my case, writing books is a side hustle that is not directly connected to my employment at Ipsos. However, the work I do at Ipsos, and what I learn from my interaction with people and clients, it feeds my thinking, my writing, and vice versa. Those books support Ipsos’s mission, and My work with clients at Ipsos. So in an ideal world, and I’m not talking about time allocation and money and travel and all this, those are logistics. I’m saying at its core, your skills, your knowledge, your value proposition ideally is somewhat going to overlap between your day job and potentially your hobby and potentially Your future side hustle. So if you’re media manager at an agency in a W2 type of job, if you will, but you also love baking on the side, or you also, maybe you are a fitness addict and you want to become a personal trainer. Well, you’re going to combine your passion and your knowledge in baking or personal training with your skills in social media management to propel. The marketing for your side hustle in baking or personal training. Love this. So if you come through with an idea, or you have two similar skill sets that don’t seem to relate to one another, how can you try to like bring those two ideas together? Or should you just develop a new skill set? Let’s say for instance, I mean, this is, this is a little bit. a little bit difficult. But let’s say that someone is, I don’t know, working in a particular job at a government’s job, right? Like they’re working in the post office. And they discover real estate investing and they realize that they have a skill to be able to maybe network with other people, right? Maybe that’s what it is. And then they get super excited about trying to build a side, you know, real estate portfolio, buying homes or stuff on the side. Those two things sound like completely different. you know, worlds, right? A real estate world. And then the post office, we’re working there. And if you have the skill underpinning everything, could you walk us through like how someone would think about combining those two or what would you recommend to them in that sort of situation? If you work in the post office, you really have people’s skills. Now those are much shorter and candidly much shallower interaction. At the post office, then they will be in real estate. That’s because real estate is for most people, the largest investment you make, a home and a car. And obviously that’s not the case when you go to the post office. However, What you learned from working at the post office is reading people, is interacting with people, is making a first impression. And that’s going to be crucial. So, see what I mean? Your skill set here is not so much, or not all, only, should I say. Do you know a lot about the local real estate market? And do you know a lot about different shipping and handling methods? Yeah, those two skill sets are fine. They’re absolutely relevant. And here, the core skill set that feels the most valuable, the most important to me, is your ability and your in depth practice, extensive practice of making a first impression because at the post office you have three to five minutes to interact with someone and realistically you have 15 to 25 seconds to make a good first impression. I would argue that it’s the same thing in real estate. How many dozens of real estate agencies are out there with white teeth type of advertising and swanky taglines. Is it, that’s not how I’m going to chase a real, choose, I’m sorry, an agent. I’m going to choose an agent based on how relatable she or he is based on his ability or her ability to demonstrate Empathy for my needs, for me and my family. So that’s your skill set right there, which in my opinion is way more unique and important and way more valuable than figuring out VMLS because that you will take whatever., online self taught course, and you’ll figure it out in, in a matter of hours.

Derek: 14:32

I love. So this is, I want to share with you a personal story about this, and then I want to get your take on whether you think this is a smart move or not. And then we can talk about practical tips for people to help brand themselves in today’s day and age, where it’s the attention economy. I’m sure you’re aware of a lot of this, right, and how important branding is. So for me, I started out as an engineer and then turned, like, went into project management and eventually started becoming obsessed with financial, like, becoming financially free. And I used to think that it was mainly just the Dave Ramsey plan, which is pay off all your debt and then just You know, and make no investments, just pace, just basically pay off all your debt and then just ride off a stock investments for the rest of your life. I found that didn’t work out well when I did that. Some numbers, a crunch, some numbers didn’t quite work. So what I ended up doing was I started looking for investment alternatives and went into real estate and after buying a few rentals on my own. And then showing other people how to do it. I wrote a book, I started a podcast and really went doubling down into showing people how to invest in multifamily to help create wealth for themselves while I was working a full time job. But then I came to the epiphany that I should be serving people’s need, the interior need, which is a need to be free. Right? I need to feel free. That’s what people are really looking for when they’re investing in real estate, right? They’re trying to find a way to have less, you know, to have more financial choices because when they invest in something, they’re expecting a return. And then they want this lifestyle of basically being able to be totally free time wise and location wise. And so I realized that no one is really having this type of angle in the multifamily business right now where it’s serving the actual person and their deep needs through real estate. And then also I have offerings through time investment where I’m helping people. Multiply their time with systems, right? And because that’s what I do. I had to build that in order to build the portfolio that I have today. So I consult there on that front and then location freedom. We’re basically digital nomads. So we’re living examples of all three of those. And I guess for me, it was important to be able to back up and understand why it is. That I’m doing what I’m doing. And I used my project management skills and my engineering skills to help like supplement the logistics behind all of this and to be like kind of synergistic with the whole business, both in my w two at the time when I had it to be a really good w two employee, but then also to be an excellent real estate investor and systems builder and teacher. And so. I guess I’m telling you this whole story, to ask you, how do you think that I did? Do you think that I maybe missed some points here? Or do you think that You know, there’s other things that a real estate investor should think of before rebranding or attempting to rebrand the entire company, you know, after years and years of effort of trying to build something. I

Emmanuel: 17:30

sincerely think that you demonstrate the thinking that’s in my books. That is, you didn’t start with functional features. Very often people starting a business, operating a business, they’re obsessed about the product, the service, the features, the benefits. And, That’s what I meant by saying we take a step back and we start with your audience. So in what you said, you could target someone like me, say, for sake of argument, that I’m in your target audience. And even if you tell me, hey, I’m going to make you rich, quite frankly, that’s not even that exciting, even though I’m not rich, by the way. But now that you tell me you’re going to make me free, that’s a much deeper, much more meaningful, much more fulfilling goal. And you, you’re not Approaching your audience with a bunch of technicalities on whatever backend tool that is super important, but you know, I’m sure you have some spreadsheets and calculators and algorithms and projections on how your wealth is going to evolve over time and rates and all this is very important, but first off, it’s not very glamorous. It’s not very sexy and it’s unlikely to be very unique. I think what’s unique, what’s differentiated in your approach is You coming to me? You’re prompting this transformation to take me from who I am today to who I want to become, and I want to become free of constraints. I don’t need to have a 17 bedroom mansion in Bel Air, and I don’t need to have a boat and two private jets. I want to Experience a sense of safety with my finances, something that feels sustainable, and I want to be free. And that’s what you bring to market. So, that really demonstrates how, with all due respect, the core offering in and of itself Is not necessarily very differentiated from another 100, investment advisor out there. Yet, what is very different is the promise you go to market with. And I think that’s your winning ticket. And of course, what really works. especially in the United States, because we love a success story, is that you did it for yourself. And therefore you’re going to do it for others, which is exactly what I do, in personal branding. That is, I started from scratch and I didn’t go to Yale nor Harvard. And As you guys can hear, I have a slight accent. I obviously was not even born in the United States, but I managed to build a sizable social media following and numerous engagements. In 2023 alone, I did 77 media engagements and obviously wrote two books and working on the third one. And that’s all to say that I’m not a genius. I just have a method. to get to this, and I’m happy to share this knowledge and help you become whoever you want to be. Just I, I did it for myself and I can do it again for you. This

Derek: 20:35

is wonderful. How do people go about asking these questions that you and I have both More or less stumble. I stumbled upon it because I came upon a realization when talking with my brother in law because he asked, he kept asking why over and over again. Like what, you know, and then I was able to kind of like pull out some of these things from my knowledge. What, what do you think like is the best way to, to approach someone who’s in search of this? Like, I don’t want to call it like a unifying, type of, you know, one liner or a unifying purpose. Yes. That is a personal brand, but maybe can you talk about like how people can stumble upon this or how they can start asking the right questions to maybe get there or, you know, to find themselves to you, to, to,

Emmanuel: 21:19

I’ll take a step back and say, I encourage people to ask a lot of questions, a lot of questions. And too often people are shy not to be asking the right questions. And look, I mean, if you ask. 15 questions. Granted, three of them will be completely irrelevant. And another three will be, you know, middle of the road. And you’ll have an epiphany on one or two questions, one or two answers. But I often tell people are too shy. And see, call me old school, but that’s where the social media and the internet is not that great. Because people feel that they can Google everything. And Search engine and social media does not demonstrate any empathy. And that’s all to say that instead of asking Google, you should ask you Derek, or you should ask me your questions and we should. Craft an answer to your questions together, and I very often tell my students almost every week I tell them you guys need to ask more questions first Because if you have a question in mind, or if there is something you need me to clarify for you chances are 30 maybe 40 percent of the audience has the same question is in mind and or is as Uncomfortable as you are with a concept the way I built my My knowledge, I was going to say my career, but my, my expertise is you don’t need to find one mentor. You can find several mini mentors, if you will, and you invest in taking these people out for coffee or for lunch or for a very nice dinner, depending on the caliber of the individual. And, even if you take someone out to a really nice steakhouse and, uh, that dinner is costing you two, three hundred dollars. Yeah, I mean, it’s a lot for a dinner by all means, but it’s way cheaper than failing. And it’s way cheaper than hiring most consultants. And it’s cheaper than buying a bunch of self help books that you will end up either not reading or not applying, uh, what it, what those books prompt you to do anyway. I have a feeling other than provoking, a bunch of people to be calling you, for dinner invitations, I think you’ve provided a whole bunch of, at least those who live in LA or maybe even in the, in the whole West coast, to come out and do that. I think that is awesome advice because man, you know, if I had one, I’m thinking of one conversation in the past 10 years that I’ve had, if I had that conversation 10 years ago. in school, when I was in school, my life would have been dramatically different. And it would have costed me an expensive dinner to do. But I know if I had been in this person’s shoes, like the whole trajectory of my life would have been completely changed just from that. And I love the fact that you’re like, we need to be more a society of asking questions, because in questions, invite curiosity and active thinking. And there’s a lot of people these days that are more into Google searching and finding the silver bullet to a solution, right? Or trying to find like some sort of answer in air quotes, even though there never is really true full answers in life, really. And so that really resonates with me quite a bit and to that point, can we shift gears a little bit and start talking about social media and how, you know, I know that, like, where we live in this attention economy right now, and there are many people out there, including maybe some of the listeners who are looking to try to find a way to really reach through. To, to, to convey a message or to convey something that really resonates and start to get more people to be attracted to their brand. My mistake was not having that. Why, but can you talk a little bit about the importance and maybe put some data or numbers, if you have any to like how important, you know, branding is in social media and how people can use the branding to leverage there. Yeah. Branding in social media is crucial one to differentiate two. To establish consistency for people to become aware of your brand and also accustomed to your brand in, in the long run and your content and social media is the opportunity to build a presence and form a perception in people’s minds for what your brand is. stands for, and do so, at a reasonable cost. I don’t think it’s free anymore to build a following, but you can do so at a very reasonable cost. So, here again, before Jumping to a conclusion on what you should write and how you should write it. The work is, the work I do with clients is to take a step back on what are your skills and knowledge, how is this different from your competition and or how can we articulate this in a tone of voice and in a format that’s going to be different from competition. It really depends on who you are, and you see, that’s where you cannot Google the answer to that question. You can Google the answer to, how do I fix my, my garbage disposal? That’s something you can Google, but you cannot Google the answer to, how should I differentiate my personal brand in real estate investment? I mean, you can, but, the answer is going to feel very generic. So, the custom work, if you will, is, that we do is to craft this unique tone of voice. This unique positioning can be many different things. It can be, hey, I’m going to become very provocative. It can be, hey, I want to be very quirky, right? Quirky whereby instead of matching schools with neighborhoods, you’re going to, show how walkable. a neighborhood might be, or you’re going to show access to wildlife and trails, right? Do something that’s going to be very different. It can be a very expert tone whereby you’re going to show up with a lot of data to demonstrate that you know way more and your knowledge is way more current than anyone else, and so on and so forth. We want to find first a tone of voice that you’re comfortable with, that reflects your personality that’s going to appeal to your audience and that will make you stand out from the competition. And then. In terms of the implementation, we will create a plan to scale the content creation and dissemination, meaning how often are you going to post? What are you going to post? And what is going to be the test and learn, meaning we’re going to monitor what works and what doesn’t for you. And obviously in the future, put the emphasis on what works and dial. back what doesn’t. So that’s really the path. And it always starts with meaning, and it always starts with a lot of listening, a lot of questions and a lot of empathy and something that is always 100 percent custom and one on one. And, Never, cookie cutter approach, if you will, this, this really resonates with me, all of these questions that you have been articulating are things that I’ve considered in myself, but not in that clear of a structure, to be honest with you. So I really appreciate you being able to kind of put it out there for folks to be able to recognize that this is the beginning of a conversation with yourself. right? And then hopefully with, with the manual here, to start talking about how you can bring this, this, this unified brand that is this authentically you. To the world, right? The voice, the message that you’re bringing and the why behind it, all of those things kind of all come together. And so the reason I wanted to bring you on today, is because I’ve experienced that for myself, or at least I’m still going through it. But I wanted to share that wisdom with the audience because it’s so important to have this type of, you know, , this type of knowledge when you’re trying to build a personal brand. Now, I wanted to ask you, for your personal story. I wanted to, I had a chance to basically tell my story. I would like you to basically start talking about how you started to like tie all of these different synergies together and how, you know, your consulting career and, you know, your UCLA professorship kind of started to all like come together. So if you don’t mind giving us an overview of how that all came together. Well, we can, thank you, Derek. We can apply this reasoning that you Just, covered for yourself and I covered for our audience today. Can just apply this to my brand now. And, So, starting point, what do I like to do and what do I want to do? Well, I like discovering, creating knowledge and sharing this knowledge with people. That’s what I love doing. I could have become some investment banker and I would make at least ten times more, but that’s not really what, feels exciting to me. So, knowledge and skills, that’s my thing. From there, how can I acquire more knowledge? Well, at the beginning it was educating myself. Now I educate myself every day, but obviously it’s more ongoing than when I did some academic work. And then how can I best. Leverage this knowledge to advance my career and to advance visibility for my personal brand and give back to my audience and my community. And that’s where my system is a upward spiral. And what I mean by this is that my education helped me get My, gig at, at the time the company was called Research Now, which then helped me get into UCLA and then UCLA. The credibility UCLA carries helped me get a book deal, and then this book deal helped me advance my position at Ipsos, and so on and so forth. And therefore, I don’t rely on one company. pillar or the other, the book helps Ipsos, which helps the book, which helps UCLA, which helps my next book, and so on and so forth. And one thing, one important, very important takeaway I feel for our audience is I actually, I’m actually not the best in neither of those three. Territories. Here’s what I mean. I can write books, but many other people can write books, and Let’s be honest, many people sell more books than I do. Someone like Jonah Berger or Seth Godin, those guys, you know, they, they have more books and they sell more than I do. I can teach at UCLA and I have a very decent academic background. With that said, you have 3, 500 faculty members at UCLA and look, let’s be honest, I’m sure 2, 500 are more accomplished and publish more than I do. And then, Of course, I know about market research and brand strategy because I’ve been doing that for 20 plus years. Anything that has to do with brand strategy, consumer understanding, marketing, market research. That said, we have 17, 000 associates at Ipsos, and I can guarantee you that, I don’t know how many exactly, but in North America alone, I’m confident that a good thousand of them are at least on par, and in all likelihood, stronger methodologists than I am. So the point is not to be the best in any of those three categories. The point is to combine all three into a unique combination of skills, knowledge that is different and distinctive from competition. And so if we go back to our listeners today, if you like, so if your social media, in some agency by day, and you also like Meditation, and you also like fitness. Well, with all due respect, it’s unlikely that you’re the best social media manager in the United States. You might be, but even if you are, there are dozens of thousands of them. And then, I’m sure you’re fit, but so are the other 17 personal trainers. And when I say 17, I mean it, personal trainers that work at my health club. And then you meditate, that’s good, but guess what? I have what? 15, 20 books on medication on my shelf, and there are how many apps out there. So, and again, I’m saying this with all due respect for people’s talents, but my point is, in all likelihood, you’re not the leading voice in neither of those three territories. You might be really good, and even if you are, people don’t know about it. Now, if you bring to market a mindfulness based personal training program, whereby you’re going to show people how to lift weight, Okay, that’s the tactical outcome, but do so in a mindful fashion so that my session with you as a client benefits both my body and my mind. And you’re going to advertise market this by leveraging your skills as a social media manager. You have a winning combo that very, very few people in the country are going to replicate. Can I

Derek: 35:03

ask you, when you start consulting with people, how many folks are self aware of all of their multifaceted talents and the ability to bring them

Emmanuel: 35:14

together? Yeah. 99 percent of people worry about the tactical outcomes. And again, what I meant by the functional features and benefits. And we want to shift from the get go to the emotional benefits, the emotional fulfillment. Fulfillment and their hidden strengths, because if I go back to my example of a personal trainer, people wouldn’t think that mindfulness is a skill that is important. Well, I will say it’s extremely relevant, is very timely, and it’s highly differentiated in combination with something else. So, people are quick to jump to, I had that question from a fractional CEO the other day. What font do you think I should use for my logo? You know what? Doesn’t matter much. I mean, I’ll help you find a font. And in fact, if, if you are really into graphic design. I can even hook you up with someone who is going to design a font for you. But people are not going to buy your service based on a font. It’s not going to happen. Nor will they, you know, that’s it. They come to you based on empathy, based on the ability to relate to you and your ability for you to relate to them. And based on this transformation, you’re going to facilitate for them to take them from who you are to, from, I’m sorry, from who they are to who they want to become. And then we can argue if we should do a serif font and if we should go for, that. Pantone color of the year, which is a kind of beige pinkish color of this year. You

Derek: 36:54

know, no, to all fairness, I was just going to add that when people think of brand and branding, I would say that the majority of folks, they actually, their mind goes to what fonts do things look like. And that’s very, very superficial. That’s like an output, like one of the very, very, like. One of the very small outputs that come out of this. So if there are listeners out here, they’re thinking that branding is just like logos and colors and like fonts. I hate to tell you this, but like, there’s a reason behind why those fonts and colors and logos are there. It’s to convey a feeling it’s to convey a journey. Right. And so all of those things kind of. bring out the essence of who it is you’re trying to talk to and how you’re trying to tell them what it is that you’re, that your why is now. That’s at least my takeaway. You can tell me if I’m wrong there, but I want it. And we like great

Emmanuel: 37:44

phones. And of course, at some point, the output is important. The book cover that you see behind me for those of you watching the, the podcast. I mean, it took. What, five, six weeks to develop and, it’s a pretty significant budget. So don’t get me wrong. Colors and fonts are important. But as you, as you said, Derek, and I’m absolutely with you here, that is not the starting point. That’s tactical output.

Derek: 38:06

Right? Sometimes people decide that they want to start there to inspire themselves and give them external validation, which is unfortunate because this happened to me when I was designing my book. I had to redo my cover like three times when I finally got the voice right, you know? Now, one last question that I have for you here, Manuel, before we jump into the rapid round, which is five quick questions that we ask each one of our guests, is that there is a book that was influential in me before I knew what I knew about This, you know, brand strategy and it’s called building a story brand. I forgot by, I forgot the name of the author. Correct. Yeah, that’s right. And it was very influential with me because it was basically trying to build a brand around a story. And I can see that that’s a valuable piece, but I think that that’s only one part of the brand strategy. I was going to see what your thought is, and I’m pretty sure he’s not going to be listening to this podcast. So feel free to say what you’d like to, but I’m curious, you know, what your thought is with the approach in that book versus the approach of asking questions. going through and doing the hard work yourself and getting a consultant or getting someone to help you with this. Can you, can you compare and contrast

Emmanuel: 39:14

those two approaches? Yeah, I don’t think it’s versus one or another. What’s good about his book, so we’re, we’re, we’re back on point, Derek. The, the good thing about Donald Miller, by the way, to be clear, I’m not affiliated with Donald Miller. I don’t earn commissions or anything. I’ve never met the guy, but I read his book and he’s relatable and he’s telling this. important story of, hey, that’s how I was broke and I had credit card debts and I built a business that’s now a multi million dollar business. So, and his content really resonates with small and medium businesses. That regard is great. The second point is, and again, I don’t mean to advertise his book, but you cannot go wrong buying and reading that book. And frankly, you cannot go wrong buying and reading any book. or listening to a book. And here’s why. Let me guess, that book’s probably 17 on Amazon, you know, and it’s one credit on Audible, just like my book. And that’s the price of not even a round of drink, of drinks these days. And just like you never regret a workout, I don’t see how you would ever regret spending 17 on, a book you’re going to listen to for two or three hours in your car and extract one or two tips. So, in that regard, it’s a great starting point. Now, the shortcoming of that book, as with virtually all books that are out there, is, it’s by definition boilerplate. It’s by definition the same book you’re, the good news is it’s cheap, the bad news is that one book you’re reading is also read by thousands, potentially dozens of thousands of your competitors. So, and the last thing is books, particularly Miller’s books by the way, they tend to make it sound easy. You know, oh well, you just have to do this and you just have to do that. I think, I’ll go back to my analogy with fitness. If you want to build strength and lose weight, you can just Google it. And for free, you’re going to find 25 workouts on at the click of a button and you can find hundreds, if not thousands of videos. That’s great. You can do this and that’s free. And your next step is you can join a health club and that’s going to cost you a little bit more money. And the next step is you can join a class. That’s going to cost you. potentially a little bit more money. And next step is you can enroll a personal trainer, do some small group workouts. So at the end of the day, a dumbbell is a dumbbell. It’s the same dumbbell across this continuum, this value chain, which is described. However, your body shape is obviously, and your, your health and fitness levels are obviously very different from everyone else’s who, has watched that video. Or join that health club, or join that particular class. So, to make a long story short, you start with reading a book like this, that’s absolutely fine. You cannot go wrong with spending 17 on a book that’s going to entertain you for three hours. And you’ll walk away with two or three good ideas that is, however, by no means any substitute for the one on one work that you’re going to do with someone like you, Derek, or someone like me, which is going to enable you to craft a unique, specific solutions to you as an individual and to your business. A hundred percent.

Derek: 42:47

Could not agree more there and I think that’s very well said and I appreciate all of that. I didn’t expect, you know, to, to get that answer because I definitely, you know, appreciate everything that you do and have looked at some of your work already and it’s, it’s fantastic. So I highly recommend that folks get out there and pick up, his book, Brand Hacks and Assemblage, and then also the new book, which I’m sure we can talk about in just a minute at the end of the podcast, but, I can’t believe that it’s already been 45 minutes. Time has just absolutely flown by, and I still have a ton of questions, which is unfortunate. I would love to cover them, but what we’re going to do is move into the rapid round right now, which is the, the last part of the show where I’m going to ask you five questions, um, that are each meant to be answered in a quick succession in about 30 seconds each if you can. And so if you’re ready, we’re just going to go ahead and ask them, ready to go. All right. Number one, name any resource that was or still is essential in your journey to pursuing freedom. Now,

Emmanuel: 43:42

LinkedIn because of the ability to both acquire knowledge and connect with people in the same place. I love it. And also the algorithm rewards people that add value to others. So if you comment on other people’s posts, with value and people follow that, like that just supercharges your presence there. So love it. Number two, if you woke up and your business was completely gone and you had 500, a laptop, a place to live in some food, what do you think you would do first to rebuild? I would go to Starbucks, step out of my house to be in a different environment. I would look for some white space. If I have a laptop, any laptop I can have. Even a 10 years old laptop, I can do this, look for some white space. What, does the audience need and what can I bring to market to differentiate again? And then I would invest this 500 in the core tools that I absolutely need. Meaning personal email address so that I don’t show up at gmail. com, a, a, a G drive so that I can safely store my files or Microsoft or whatever cloud computing solution you want. And anyway, I will go for what I absolutely need. Those tools might be visible sometimes like the email address, or they might not be visible if it’s a scheduling system, or a website management software. But I would. What I mean by this is it’s highly unlikely that I would invest those 500 in advertising. I would invest this 500 in the tools I absolutely need and find my first clients the old fashioned way that is on reaching out to people one on one.

Derek: 45:30

I love it. Great answer. Never gets old. Great stuff. Number three, what does your self reflection and goal setting practice look like if

Emmanuel: 45:38

you have one? Yeah, we’re starting the year 2024, just reflecting on 2023. What I’m trying to do differently is not to beat myself up. I exceeded, many of the goals, the goals. I missed is by a great margin, meaning, I’m, I’m nowhere near achieving some of those goals, but really, what I want to do, what I’m trying to do differently is find pride and peace in what I have achieved. And, maybe me be more reasonable next time, if you will, in terms of how much and how many goals I can chase. I love

Derek: 46:16

that. I think also if you set. Your sights on the stars and you end up on the moon only. That’s like dang good, right? Number, number four. What do you think are the core work habits or parts of your personality that you most attribute to your success today?

Emmanuel: 46:31

It’s a combination of routine and creativity. And what I mean by this is to have a structure in terms of when you wake up and what you eat and what you drink. And I don’t live like a monk. And with that said, you cannot really go out until 2 a. m. on a Tuesday if you have a 6. 30 a. m. call on the Wednesday. So if you will, I have to be diligent. I have to be careful about all those things. So that’s That’s the part that’s routine, the routine, if you will. However, I also build pockets of time for creativity, whereby I might have nothing scheduled on Friday afternoon so that I can spend two hours, three hours roaming around to find new ideas. I think that’s

Derek: 47:19

super great. Like I, that’s love. I love that. I actually do that on a weekly basis. All my Tuesdays are generally blocked out. And then I also take off the last week of the month also. So I have all this focus time just to work, on the business and not in it. So I think that’s amazing what you’re, what you’re doing there. Okay. Last question I’ve got for you today is what tool or process has become one of your most important time, money, or energy saving ninja magic tricks that you use nearly every day?

Emmanuel: 47:47

Is there a tool in particular? Oh, yes. It is to listen to podcasts or book or content at 1. 5X. And in fact, I do this at work also. Some webinars, I want to be able to interact. So I’m going to dial in live and interact with the presenter and all that. However, for some of your skills that I need, that I want, I don’t need to be there live and I will. Almost always listen to the replays, so I’m very, diligent in that regard. Yet I’m going to do so at 1. 5, because I can grab the gist of it, if you will. And so, well, again, it depends on the content. And it depends the extent to which you need and want to pay attention. De facto, listening to something at 1. 5x is saving me 50 percent of time.

Derek: 48:44

That’s really good. I love it. Fantastic. Well, I appreciate you sharing that tip. It’s been almost an hour already, and I’ve had such an awesome time talking with you about this and we have so much in common. Again, I just want to reiterate too, that I’m no branding expert. If you guys need help with branding, please make sure that you reach out to Emmanuel and Emmanuel before you go, why don’t you tell the audience a little bit more about what you’ve got going on? Some of your books, the new one coming and how people can reach out to you for consulting or any help or just, yeah,

Emmanuel: 49:12

thank you. They’re pretty appreciate having. You’re having me on the show again and this opportunity to connect with your community. Well, so my name is Emmanuel Propst and, people can find me on LinkedIn and you can also find me at emmanuelpropst. com. And I encourage you to reach out, to start a conversation. Again, here, let’s not obsess about the fees and the costs and all that first. That’s not, that’s not the first step. And I’m not saying it’s irrelevant, but that’s not where we want to start. We want to start exploring together and building a relationship. And that’s free, by the way. Of course, my books are available. My latest book, Assemblage, or Assemblage, The Art and Science of Brain Transformation, is available on Amazon. And what am I up to? Well, I’m very optimistic about the year 2024. I’m working on a new book, which I hope to Tell you more about in a few months. We’ll keep it on the wrap for now. And I also aim to help more people. That means work with more clients one on one. And of course continue to service my Ipsos clients. And at the end of the day, I want to do more of what I love doing. That is create knowledge, share knowledge, create a sustainable, distinctive, competitive advantage for the people I work with. Amazing. And just real quick, how can people find out how to get more about your consulting services? Do you have a website? Absolutely. So people can, go to emmanuelprops. com. Or the easiest way really to connect with me is to find me on LinkedIn. Again, my name is Emmanuel Propst. P is P as in Peter, R Robert O, B as in boy, S as in Sam, T as in Tom. My first name is Emmanuel and I always reply. Excellent. So thank you so much for coming on the show. It was an absolute pleasure to have you here. so much, David. everyone for listening today. Absolutely.

Derek: 51:12

Yes. And the audience, thank you guys so much for listening to this point in the podcast. Really want to thank you for listening here. So please, wherever you are engaging or listening with us, please leave a like a thumbs up, a comment, a notification bell, hit it wherever you’re seeing or listening to this podcast. We really appreciate that because it appeases the algorithm gods. And then we’re able to reach more people just like you and also get. more incredible guests, just like manual to come on the podcast with us. So Emmanuel, thank you so much again for coming. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Derek.. Thank you all. And we will see you guys next time. Take care. Yeah.