In this episode of the Friday Field Notes, Ryan talks about how a man can become a better marketer and how to market himself to potential partners, friends, family, and potential business partners. He also talks about the importance of fatherhood and how you can help usher your son into manhood.
00:00:00.000You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
00:00:06.020When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.
00:00:10.500You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong.
00:00:15.500This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.
00:00:19.760At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:00:24.720Hey men, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler and I am the host and founder of this podcast, The Order of Men.
00:00:32.080I am glad that you're tuning in today. This is your Friday Field Notes where you get to listen to me ramble and talk about some thoughts and ideas that I've had from throughout the week.
00:00:41.160A lot of these topics and conversations that we have on the Friday Field Notes come from members of the Facebook group.
00:00:47.880So if you're not part of the Facebook group yet, we've got I think 48,000 roughly guys over there having some amazing, amazing conversations about what it means to be a man and how we show up as husbands, fathers, business owners, community leaders, whatever area of life that we're showing up in.
00:01:03.240And again, I get a lot of these topics and ideas for the Friday Field Notes from that group.
00:01:08.940Outside of this Friday Field Notes, we also have an interview show.
00:01:12.480If you haven't heard it before, we interview the world's most successful men, entrepreneurs, athletes, scholars, New York Times, bestselling authors, you name it.
00:01:20.260If they've got an interesting story to share and an incredible journey and some lessons to impart and share with us, then I interview those guys, ask them great questions and then get their responses so that we can take their information, their hard fought wisdom and apply it into our lives to become better men ourselves.
00:01:37.080So guys, we've got a great one lined up today.
00:01:39.520It's about how a man markets himself, such an important component, such an important topic, and we'll get to that here shortly.
00:01:46.800I do want to mention very quickly, I was going through the registrants for our very first father-son event.
00:01:53.820It's called Order of Man Legacy, and it's an event designed to foster and forge the relationship with you and your son between the ages of 8 to 15.
00:02:05.100It's a three and a half day experience, September 20th through the 23rd, 2017, and there aren't a whole lot of spots left.
00:02:12.740This is designed to be a rite of passage.
00:02:15.820So we're going to equip you with the tools and the resources and the conversations that you need to have in order to help usher your son into manhood.
00:02:48.960You can learn a little bit more about what we're doing and claim your spot.
00:02:53.300All right, guys, that's all the announcements today.
00:02:55.680Let's talk about how a man markets himself.
00:02:58.040Again, such a critical, critical conversation.
00:03:01.740And it's so important that a man learns to market himself because everything that you do in life has an element or at least a relationship with another human being.
00:03:11.840And when you have a relationship with another human being, you have to be able to market yourself effectively to produce desired outcomes for yourself and for other people that you might be leading.
00:03:23.480And so your ability to market yourself effectively will spell the difference between your success and your failure.
00:03:32.280So we're going to talk about, I think I've got seven tips here.
00:03:36.480Yes, seven tips that are going to help you become a better marketer.
00:03:41.120And I know this is a tough one because a lot of times when I talk about sales or I talk about marketing, a lot of guys think, well, it's about manipulation.
00:04:03.660And again, I'm talking about creating win-win situations for you and the other people that you're working with, whether that's your family, your clients, business partners, employees, you name it.
00:04:14.760And if you look at your life, I mean, think about this for a second.
00:04:17.540You need to learn to market yourself with a potential spouse or even your current spouse.
00:04:23.640If you're trying to move the family in the right direction, well, you need to be able to build the credibility and have the credibility that your wife will follow you and that she'll take your advice and want to move in the same direction.
00:04:36.380And it's the same thing with your children.
00:04:38.180If you're trying to get your kids to do chores or do something, maybe they're a little afraid of, whatever that may be, then, well, it's pretty important that they listen to you, that you have trust and you have credibility with them.
00:04:49.800And the only way to do that is to market yourself effectively.
00:04:54.840I know when I was in the financial planning practice and even here, you listening to this podcast, I need to be able to market myself effectively so that at a minimum you think, well, maybe this guy has something to share.
00:05:06.420Maybe this is a man worth at least listening to, if not doing business with.
00:05:11.400It's the same thing with your potential employer.
00:05:14.540If you're trying to secure a promotion, I mean, the people that get promotions, yes, they work hard and yes, they do the work and yes, they're successful.
00:05:21.080But they also know how to market themselves because I know plenty of people who are talented and educated and gifted and yet they haven't quite learned how to market themselves.
00:05:33.020And it seems to me from my experience that the guys who know how to market themselves always get the girl, always get the clients, always get the promotion, their kids listen to them.
00:05:43.180And this is why it is so, so critical that we learn to develop this skill of marketing ourselves.
00:05:50.140So with that introduction and talking about that, let's break this down.
00:05:55.240These are seven strategies, tips, tactics, whatever you want to call them.
00:06:00.240I'm hesitant to use the word tactic though, because again, this is not about manipulation.
00:06:05.160This is about painting yourself in the best light possible, but it's got to be accurate.
00:06:19.540This is the most important one from my perspective, and that is becoming a man of value and having integrity.
00:06:27.560You have to be able to be a man of value.
00:06:30.760And when I talk about being in integrity, what I'm talking about is that your words match your actions, that your words match your deeds, because if they don't, you might have temporary success.
00:06:41.700You might be able to trick and fool a few people into believing that you have things figured out more than you do.
00:06:47.540But over the long term, over the long haul, if you are not a man of integrity, if you don't actually provide any value and you talk a big game, but you can't back it up, you will never achieve any level of long-term success.
00:07:01.600This is why you see those guys who have the silver tongue and they're very smooth and slick.
00:07:06.060They'll have short-term immediate success, but they bounce around from job to job or relationship to relationship.
00:07:43.200Go out there, earn, provide value, have a track record of success, develop yourself, learn new things, apply new information, read new books.
00:07:54.860The more that you can consume yourself with improving who you are and showing up as the best version of yourself, the less that you're going to have to manipulate this idea of marketing yourself.
00:08:05.480So again, number one, become a man of value.
00:08:08.260Now, number two is you've got to know your audience.
00:08:11.300If your audience is a potential spouse, well, you've got to know what you're looking for in a woman.
00:08:17.140You've got to know what she looks like and what she needs to be interested in and the activities that she's engaged in and her level of education or her goals for family.
00:08:27.000You've got to understand these things.
00:08:29.700If you don't know what your clients need or want or the solutions that they're looking for, how are you ever going to market yourself effectively?
00:08:37.240I also use this scenario when it comes to promotions or getting a raise.
00:08:42.240A lot of people will ask, Brian, how do I secure a raise?
00:08:44.820Well, you've got to understand what your boss is looking for.
00:08:48.100And your boss is looking for increase in the bottom line.
00:08:51.080Your boss is looking for additional revenue.
00:08:54.700And if it's looked at purely as an expense by giving you a raise, then that's never going to help him win.
00:09:01.160If, on the other hand, you know that your audience is after a higher or a greater bottom line,
00:09:06.420well, in that case, you can actually go into a salary negotiation equipped with showing a potential employer or your boss what exactly you're going to provide in order for him to increase his bottom line.
00:09:21.700Why it's in his or her best interest to give you a raise or to give you that promotion or to create the new department that you're after.
00:09:29.400Please understand who your audience is and that way you can cater your message to your audience.
00:09:36.460And this is, again, not about being manipulative.
00:09:39.300It's not about being somebody different than who you are, but it's understanding what the other party is after so that you can craft a message with integrity that will highlight and illustrate what that other party is going to receive.
00:09:54.140And how they're going to be benefited by giving you what it is you want, whether that's a date or a marriage proposal or a promotion or just getting your kids to do the chores.
00:10:08.100Now, number three, you have to be able to communicate vision and expectations.
00:10:13.660I've never met a man who didn't have an idea or a vision for the future.
00:10:18.620Every single person that I've met has ideas and things that they want to accomplish down the road.
00:10:23.200But I think it's infinitely harder to find a man who's able to articulate that message in a way that's meaningful, in a way that's credible, in a way that's inspiring to other people.
00:10:36.240And frankly, that's what I've been able to do here with Order of Man is I've got a vision.
00:10:44.120And because I'm fairly good at communicating what that vision is and what those expectations are, we continue to see exponential growth on the podcast.
00:10:52.460We continue to see exponential growth in our Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and other social media platforms because people are inspired by what we're doing.
00:11:03.260It's not that I have a vision and I'm not able to share it.
00:11:05.680It's that I have a vision and I can communicate it effectively.
00:12:48.080What I'm suggesting to you is that you've got to be able to articulate what is in it for the other party that you're working for.
00:12:57.020Too many men are self-centered and they focus all of their wins and attention and everything else on themselves.
00:13:03.760And they completely forget that this is a relationship with another person or a group of people.
00:13:09.940And the better you can get at articulating what's in it for them, what's in it for the other party, the more likely it is that that person will follow you, will be led by you, will be inspired by you.
00:13:22.100And will eventually buy whatever it is you're offering, whether it's again, the date or the promotion or having your kids do the chores.
00:13:36.620Is it excitement and adventure with a potential date?
00:13:41.240Is it allowing your kids to get the chores done so they can go out and do the fun stuff or hang out with the friends or go swimming or do the things that they want to do?
00:13:47.980Or is it maybe even earning an allowance, for example, so that they can go spend money and buy the things that are important to them.
00:13:54.900Frame the dialogue so they know what's in it for them.
00:13:57.840Now, one word of caution that I would give you here is there's a lot of what I refer to as, quote unquote, nice guys, where men will bend over backwards and succumb to everybody else's wishes and desires at their own expense.
00:14:11.200Guys, this has to be a win-win situation.
00:14:13.680So you can frame the dialogue in a way that it will help other people succeed.
00:14:18.080But if you're out and you're not winning because of that dialogue or negotiation or conversation, it's not a good idea.
00:15:00.520So if you are in a business, for example, and your logo looks like crap and your website looks like it was built in the late 90s or early 2000s and you've never updated it, you're going to have a hard time convincing clients to do business with you.
00:15:17.300If you want a date with a woman and you're a slob and you're overweight and you don't dress well and you can't communicate and you can't articulate your points, trust me, she's not going to be convinced that she should spend her time and attention on you.
00:15:33.240Now, some people hear this and say, oh, you shouldn't judge a book by a cover.
00:15:38.840Yeah, maybe it is, but it's the truth.
00:15:40.680Every single day we're walking around and basing who we're going to invest our time, our energy, and our other resources, including our money, based on how people look, based on the way they present themselves, based on the way they communicate, based on their logo, based on their website.
00:15:56.720So if your stuff looks like crap, including yourself, if you're the product, you need to learn to improve that, up your style, improve your ability to communicate, enhance the website, enhance the logo, have professionals help you with these things so that you can look the part.
00:16:17.200Understand that your message and your goal and desire matches the way that you present yourself.
00:16:23.860I'm always blown away at how often I see men who don't care about the way they look.
00:16:30.820They don't care about the way their products are packaged.
00:16:33.580I've had people reach out to me and say, man, how long have you been in business with Order of Man?
00:16:37.440When I say three years, a lot of people are shocked because they look at our site and they listen to this podcast and they hear the things that we're doing and they know that it's professionally produced.
00:16:47.660Then we have experts that are helping us with design and colors and packaging and communication.
00:16:52.620They're always blown away by that, but it's important.
00:16:55.200It's the first thing people see and they're making a judgment based on that before you even open your mouth and propose an offer.
00:17:03.580So guys, people are not attracted to ugly.
00:17:14.800We have constantly got to be doing after action reviews.
00:17:18.700And this is difficult because it's very hard for us to have an objective look at ourselves.
00:17:23.020Nobody wants to face the fact that they are inadequate in certain areas, that they can't communicate or their style needs to be improved or their hygiene or the way that their product or their website looks.
00:17:34.300And so we wander around in ignorance, believing that we're actually presenting ourselves in a way that's not congruent with that way that it's being delivered or received.
00:17:47.580You've got to do after action reviews.
00:17:49.760You've got to be brutally and ruthlessly honest with yourself.
00:17:53.640If you want to improve in any area of life, whether that's fitness or your marriage or your business, any area of life, then you've got to be evaluating yourself after the fact and being objective as to what you did.
00:18:06.740Well, what you struggled with, where you shined, where you fell behind and what you're going to do moving forward.
00:18:14.460Do you maintain the course of action or do you change?
00:18:17.860Do you change the way that you communicate?
00:18:20.980Well, if it flopped, then you need to know why it flopped.
00:18:23.820Maybe get some feedback from other people so that you can improve.
00:18:26.880And next time you do that presentation, you're better.
00:18:29.980But don't bury your head in the sand and pretend that you have it figured out or that even if you produce some desired objective or result, that you can't make it even better.
00:18:41.940Next time, constantly be looking to improve.