How Self-Belief, Self-Worth and Consistency Drives Success for Marketers

Speaker 1: 0:59

Welcome to today's episode. Our guest today is Alan. He is the CEO of Next Level University. He is a veteran podcaster who's done over 1,700 episodes of his podcast, as well as being a guest on many other podcasts. Welcome to the show.

Alan Lazaros: 1:20

Eric, thank you for having me. I do not take it lightly to be able to speak into the lives of other people. Nine years ago I found podcasts and I listened to so many of them and they helped me change my trajectory of my life a ton. So I don't take it lightly. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 1:35

Why don't you share a minute or two of context about who you are and what we do, a minute or two of context about who you are and what we do, a minute or two context about who you are and what you do, before we get into your story about?

Alan Lazaros: 1:48

some of the best marketing you've done. I went into computer engineering at one of the best tech schools I'm so grateful to have gone Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It's like a mini MIT in Massachusetts and then I went and got my MBA and then I went into corporate and I worked for a bunch of different tech companies in new england and one out in the west coast, and I learned a bunch and I actually worked on a product marketing team at irobot the roomba is what most people know irobot as and I actually got a bunch of free roombas because I was supposed to clean out the marketing closet, which was awesome, but anyways, so I've been In corporate. Then I got in a car accident when I was 26. And my father passed away in a car accident when he was 28.

Alan Lazaros: 2:28

So that was my sort of existential quarter life crisis that shifted me into personal development and that's when I found podcasts. That was nine years ago. And then I went and started my own company and so now Next Level University is the podcast that you were referring to, with over 1,700 episodes, and now we have a 21-person team and it's a global organization and I coach business owners all over the world. Now I have 26 people on my roster. My youngest is 18 and my oldest is 63. And so all different industries, all different businesses, all different walks of life, and you just start to realize these things that are common, one of them being marketing.

Speaker 1: 3:02

Thank you for that remarkable story about your background. We're ready to be inspired. Can you share with us some of the best marketing that you've done?

Alan Lazaros: 3:13

The best marketing that we've done at Next Level University has actually been the Next Level Hope Foundation, so the Next Level Hope Foundation. So Kevin and I are co-hosts of Next Level University. I got to provide context here and he grew up without a father. My father passed away when I was two my birth father and so we both grew up without fathers. He was raised by his mom and his grandmother. I was raised by my older sister and my mother for the most part, and so we both grew up without fathers. So we spent every father's day together ever since we started a podcast together, and so eventually we said why not start a charity for boys without fathers? And so we did. We created something called the next level hope foundation and we contribute. So the company grows a certain percentage per year. So last year we grew 18, so we also grew our contributions 18, so we sustainably give to Boys Without Fathers, and then we ended up expanding it to not just Boys Without Fathers but anyone of single parents, because we grew up with single parents and we knew how hard that was. So we do two events a year. One is during Father's Day and we rent out the YMCA and we get people together and we turn a traditionally sad day because Father's Day was always very sad for us into a really happy, positive day. And we have a photographer and a videographer and they capture the magic, and everyone signs video releases so that we can use the content and it's just become this really cool community oriented thing. That's really blown up. I mean, we hit our contribution goal in two days this year. Blown up, I mean, we hit our contribution goal in two days this year. So we published the GoFundMe and we hit our contribution goal and so and it actually exceeded our goal too. But that would be one example, one small example, of something that's near and dear to our hearts, that we want to do anyway, and we might as well amplify the generosity and the giving. And then the one more thing that I think is remarkable marketing. We actually just did this year. We started a 10 pound and 10 week challenge for people who want to lose weight and we've got a community of probably 25 people in WhatsApp that are just doing their weigh-ins and they're keeping each other inspired and motivated. And so our marketing is mostly community based, and I don't mean community based as in local, community based, as in listeners of our podcast. That's interesting.

Alan Lazaros: 5:27

So I have this business, I call it a business star and I picture a five-pointed star and business is in the center, and there's five things that I think matter most in a 21st century business, particularly if it's a personal brand or a podcast, that kind of thing. The first is branding, marketing, and then sales, and then delivery and then community. Okay, the first is branding. So branding, in my opinion, is what people think about you and what people say about you when you're not there. Marketing, I actually think and again, this is just my definition I think it's the message, the messenger and the channels in which you communicate. Okay, so for us, our marketing channels are Instagram, facebook, linkedin, whatsapp. We use Zoom a ton, and that's the way in which you reach your clients.

Alan Lazaros: 6:15

Okay so, branding, marketing, and then you have sales. Sales is one-on-one conversations with potential clients or customers that convert into dollars. Okay so, branding, marketing, sales, and then you have delivery. Most people I find this in business, most companies, are good at one or the other. I know companies that are so good at branding, marketing and sales, but they don't know how to deliver. They sell things to clients for high prices but they never deliver, so they don't get repeat business. I had one company in particular that I worked with that they were so good at sales and branding and marketing that they actually went out of business because they grew too fast and they couldn't deliver the products and so it just collapsed and they actually went bankrupt. So we're really good at delivery. We've come up on branding, marketing and sales as of the last couple of years.

Alan Lazaros: 7:03

And then the last one is community, and I think this is the one that's most important personally. We don't just have listeners. We call them listeners, longers and business owners. Listeners are people who want to learn from us. Longers are people who want to be like us, meaning they want to start their own podcasts and their own businesses and they want to build their own communities. And then business owners are people who have put the skin in the game, who have an actual business, an LLC or a corporation, who really are actually paying money to grow and scale an infrastructure business, and so listeners, longers and business owners Listeners learn from us. Longers want to be like us. Business owners already have an established business that they want to grow and scale, and so those are the five things that I track with my clients, which is branding, marketing, sales, delivery.

Alan Lazaros: 7:52

And then the last one is community, and if I track this in my own company too, if you're 10 out of 10, branding 10 out of 10, marketing, 10 out of 10, sales, 10 out of 10, client delivery and 10 out of 10 community, you have a thriving online business that is just going to build on itself over and over again. Of course, no one's 10 out of 10 in all five, and so you've got to go to work on each one individually, incrementally over time. And so, to answer your original question, though, about marketing, marketing to me is what is our message, what do we stand for, who are we talking to and why? Who is our listener? So our listener is women in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s who struggle with courage, clarity and confidence, who want more fulfillment out of their career and their intimate relationships.

Alan Lazaros: 8:34

Okay, my target market for my business coaching is someone who has a business two different types they have a business that has gotten a lot of revenue, but it's no longer aligned with who they are and it's not fulfilling. Or someone who started a new business, reinvent themselves. Now they're super fulfilled and they're passionate and purpose is on point, but they're not profitable. And so on one end it's the business is winning, but and you're successful but you're not fulfilled. The other one is you're unsuccessful, but you love your life and you want to be successful. And then the occasional third person is someone who is successful and fulfilled, but they want their life to be an amplified version of what it already is.

Alan Lazaros: 9:15

I have one client, yvette, who falls in that category. She said listen, alan, I already am successful, I already love my business, I already love my life. I want all of this to be an amplified version of what it already is, but I don't want to work 12 hours a day. And so that's my marketing essentially is you got to know who your listener is, you got to know who the longer is, and you got to know who the business owner is. And the business owners are going to pay more money because there's more at stake. And the listeners eventually, if over time they become gold achievement, dream chasers, they become longers, and then the longers become business owners. And so it's this evolution, this mountain, metaphorically, that you climb, and we help you climb it. And so the deeper down the funnel you go, the more accountability and the more you pay, but the higher you can climb on the mountain.

Speaker 1: 9:59

I really like the framework. I'm curious. I've listened to a bunch of the 1,700 episodes of your podcast. There's tons of great advice in there people should go listen and take advantage of. But if you had to give us a headline or summarize when you're doing business coaching, what is the main thing that you give people advice on? What is the best advice that you would give if someone was having coffee with you and said you're a business coach, I'm a business owner, give me your best advice.

Alan Lazaros: 10:40

A lot of people start businesses because they want time freedom, and that's got to be one of the biggest myths in the game, because you're not going to have time freedom for a decade. It's the two to seven rule, so when you go into business, it takes two years to go into debt, two years to get out of debt and another three years to basically become profitable. Typically that's like the statistics. So most people go into business to try to have time freedom and the irony and the paradox of that is that you're basically a slave to your business for the first five to ten years. Anyone who I coach, who wants to work less, unless they're already 10 years in, is in a lot of trouble, in my opinion. And the reason why is because it just I always say say this, I say Sam's Cola or Coca-Cola. You're always going to buy Coca-Cola because no one knows who Sam is and it's Sam Walton who owns Walmart or founded Walmart. I should say he's now passed away, but the point is that you're brand new. You're brand new. Why would someone? Sales and marketing and branding is about certainty. Why do they buy Jordans? Because they're certain. Air Jordans increase status. They're certain of who Michael Jordan is. They're certain of what Michael Jordan did.

Alan Lazaros: 11:48

It's ubiquitous and it took him a 30 year career to get to that place, and so you can't do that in three years, and anyone who thinks you can is just wildly setting themselves up for failure, because this idea that you can work four hours a week, like the four hour work week, is just not real in business. It's just not. And most people say go for passive income and all that kind of stuff. I have a real business and I've been in business for seven years and I, my business partner and I we work really hard and we were. I used to be bashful and not courageous enough to share things like this, but the truth of the matter is, if our goal was to work less, we would be in so much trouble Out of the gate.

Alan Lazaros: 12:28

Most of the people who say you need to work less are people that are already a decade in, who have a brand established and they've become the bottleneck to their own business, and I think that the best piece of advice that I can give to any business owner is it all depends on the stage you're in. The advice that I give you has to be dependent on the stage you're in. Some people I have to say take on more opportunities, say yes more, put yourself out there. But that advice is terrible for someone who's already overwhelmed and needs to focus more, like me. I should not be saying yes more. I already have 26 clients right. I have to say no more, otherwise I'm going to burn to the ground and not have my priorities in order.

Alan Lazaros: 13:06

Versus at the beginning, I needed to say yes and get myself out there, and so I think the best piece of advice is don't take anyone's advice at face value. You have to filter it through your own circumstances and your own context and your own goals and your own business and your own country and your own everything. And so that's one of the reasons why coaching, I think, is so valuable is because I can say on a podcast do X, y, z. But X and Y might not apply to you, z might, and coaching is one-on-one where I can cater the guidance directly to you.

Speaker 1: 13:39

That makes sense and actually I 1000% agree that being an entrepreneur, having your own company, is just a lot of work for the first five to 10 years. Some people get lucky and it's less work, but directionally I 1000% agree. It's not time freedom, it's just a lot of work to get something established. And I think your podcast that you've been doing for many years and doing 1700 episodes showing up being consistent, I think that's a lot of what it takes and a lot of people expect not overnight success, but they expect success a lot quicker. Right, that's a theme that I've seen is you wouldn't want to have to put in years, like you were saying, to get to the point where you have time freedom. But for most businesses I hate to say things in extremes, but I would say for most businesses that's probably the case, I agree.

Alan Lazaros: 14:41

Yeah, statistically speaking, that is the case for most businesses and I think that's important and you'll be pleasantly surprised if you exceed it. But it's very important to understand that out of the gate so that you don't feel like something's wrong when things aren't working. Things not working in the beginning of starting a business is totally normal. You're interviewing me now.

Speaker 1: 14:58

You wouldn't interview me in the beginning. Starting a business is totally normal. If you were, interviewing me now.

Alan Lazaros: 15:01

you wouldn't interview me in the beginning, so it's just you got to understand. The compound effect of staying consistent over the long term is I think business is about staying power who can survive the longest?

Speaker 1: 15:10

The most committed always win. Yeah, exactly.

Alan Lazaros: 15:12

Yep, eventually that's the key word Eventually.

Speaker 1: 15:17

So how do you build people up as a business coach? Because a lot of it comes down to the founder, the entrepreneur, the business owner, digging deep and just making it happen when you're just starting out, like you're saying. So how do you help build people up to be successful?

Alan Lazaros: 15:34

The first thing that I try to do is it depends on build them up or tear them down. For lack of better phrasing, I never tear them down in the negative sense. What I would say is all of us are inaccurate about three things, including myself. I just feel like I'm less inaccurate than I used to be. Number one is self, and that's the most important. Like most people do not see themselves accurately, it's very hard to see yourself accurately I still don't but I work on it really hard and I have a lot of good people around me who tell me really hard feedback about myself, but also positive feedback too. So if you're wrong about one thing, you're wrong about everything, and so I spent my whole life having a lot of self-belief.

Alan Lazaros: 16:11

I had very little self-doubt. I was very competent. I was born with a very beautiful brain. I always felt really smart and good enough, but I didn't get along with other people and I felt like people. I wasn't easily likable. I don't feel like I fit in easily. I always felt like I was the only one who was aiming as high as I was. So socially I felt less likable, but yet competence wise, I felt super, super good. And most people are the opposite. Most people don't feel. Most people struggle with self-doubt and they struggle with competence. They don't feel smart enough, they don't feel good enough, they don't feel good looking enough, that kind of thing. And so I always wondered why I was seen as so arrogant when in reality I just feel like I was capable of it.

Alan Lazaros: 16:51

So my point is I was wrong about myself. I didn't understand that self-belief is rare because everyone around me acted like they believed in themselves a lot. They were mirroring me. So my whole worldview was skewed, based on my own echo chamber. So number one is self. Most people are wrong and inaccurate about self. Number two is they're inaccurate about people in general. This is why you have to study psychology and behavior and understand human beings and economic behavior and all kinds of stuff. And then the third one is the world. To me, the thing that I do with clients when you said to build them up, what I try to help them do this is the point of my coaching I try to help them understand and be more accurate in the way they see themselves Accurate.

Alan Lazaros: 17:32

If you think you believe in yourself at level 10 and you don't, I have to be the one to say I don't think you understand how much self-doubt you really have Because ironically, paradoxically, you won't overcome the self-doubt until you own it. And, by the way, you might've thought you believe in yourself a ton, but not compared to me, or vice versa. There's two types of courage. There's competence courage and there's social courage. I was a social coward, but when it came to applying to the job, applying to the school, doing the resume, the cover letter, that was all fine, Right. So there's two types of courage and we get it all twisted because we think we're not fearful, when in reality we're just fearful of something different.

Alan Lazaros: 18:09

Okay, so you have to be accurate about yourself, other people and the world. Being inaccurate about yourself, other people and the world is how you drive your GPS right into a mountain or right into a lake the Tesla. I have a self-driving Tesla. It's actually a supervisor. I technically am in the driver's seat, but it drives itself. It's really cool. By the way, I know that triggers a lot of people, but it's awesome and that's where the world's headed, whether you like it or not. So it is what it is.

Speaker 1: 18:34

But, anyway.

Alan Lazaros: 18:35

So I remember thinking to myself okay, there's nine cameras in this thing. There's three in the front, there's two in the driver's side doors, there's two in the rear doors, and then there's if one of the cameras is occluded, it won't let you do self-driving. And the reason why is because if a truck's coming here, it won't recognize it and you're going to get in an accident. And I think to myself all the time that's all my coaching is, I'm just un-occluding your camera. And there's a camera in the car too, pointing itself, by the way as well and so that camera might be occluded. You might not see self. I know some people who cannot self-reflect at all. They don't believe in themselves enough to transform, so they just won't take any self-feedback. You ever meet someone who can improve the home, improve the business, improve their car, but they can't improve the self. Yeah, so that's what I do in coaching. I don't lift people up or tear them down. I help them be accurate, I. So that's what I do in coaching. I don't lift people up or tear them down.

Speaker 1: 19:31

I help them be accurate. I like it. I think that's really powerful. I know we're just about out of time. Final thoughts anything you'd like to share that I didn't ask that you think is important for people to know?

Alan Lazaros: 19:43

I had a client text me earlier today. She said I'm so frustrated with how full of it people are. People say about these things, about goals and dreams, and they don't act on them. And I said the truth of the matter is I think a lot of people are more walk than talk. I grew up in an environment that was definitely surrounded by a lot of talkers and not a lot of walkers, and mostly ego. It was not an environment that had any self-improvement in it whatsoever. So ironically, I became someone who wanted to spread self-improvement into the world.

Alan Lazaros: 20:15

What I would say is lead by example. When you say you're going to do something, keep the promises you make to yourself. If you had a friend who broke as many promises to you as you've broken to yourself, how much would you value that friendship? There's two things that matter self-belief and self-worth. At the end of the day, that's what it is self-belief and self-worth. Self-belief is I can build the castle. Self-worth is I deserve to live here and I'm going to honor and protect it. It took me 30 years to learn what I just said in 20 minutes and I just hope that lands for someone. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:48

Really appreciate you sharing these things with us today. I am going to link to your website and your podcast in the show notes so people can continue to listen in and follow and get more great insights with you. We appreciate you being on the show today.

Alan Lazaros: 21:02

Thank you so much, eric. I appreciate it. I do not take it lightly. It's been an honor, and thank you for letting me serve and help practice my craft of oratory.