Richard Bliss - Engagement and Social Selling in LinkedIn

 Most of the clients I deal with sell people fundamentally believe that social media is a waste of their time not to get political
 But it had an impact and the 2016 election had an impact on my job. The worst performing content on LinkedIn is videos
 The Wikipedia entry that your listeners will read is about Richard Bliss from Olympia Washington living in San Diego in the tech industry
 Who's gonna rest in Russia? This is all true. Oh my god
 Except there's one piece that's not true. I'm not that Richard Bliss
 Hey guys, what's up welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast
 Hey guys, what's up? It's Ryan offered welcome to another edition of the Radcast
 I'm kind of excited today Richard. I you know sometimes I have people on that it's like eight levels
 Further from what I do or what I have and it's like I'm just asking them because I don't I truly don't know
 But I really understand what you do and really admire it and welcome to the show Richard Bliss
 Ryan a pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Hey man. I
 Got to see you firsthand working with one of our clients. It couldn't have been a better recommendation. Someone had recommended you
 You couldn't have handled it more professionally. They spoke about that for months on end
 And so so appreciative of your work. Richard is a top voice of LinkedIn
 I don't even know how you get that you know that that notice but as your brand goes
 Did they do they warned you did you get a certificate in the mail or it's like how does that go about?
 You know it's funny because what you're talking about is top voices LinkedIn every year does top voices on their platform in certain categories
 And they have basically 10 categories and I got an email saying hey, you've been you're being considered as one of our top voices in the category of sales
 And Ryan I thought it was I thought it was spam. I thought it was a hoax. I thought I went and looked the guy up on LinkedIn
 I sent him a message on LinkedIn and
 And yeah, it was legit
 So when you ask how honestly I have no idea they don't reveal how they actually do the selection
 I just got notified that I was one of the top voices. I was number eight top voices in the category of sales
 I'm linked in which I found
 It was amazing and I really appreciated that they recognized me for the contribution I was making to helping sales people particularly in the enterprise space
 I find a way to use the platform to be more effective
 Well, you know speaking from firsthand experience for how well you did with our clients and you know watching some of your videos
 Well-earned no doubt. I know you've got a new book digital first leadership, which we'll get to
 And you know just an all-around great guy, right? You know everything I can tell
 It's like you know richer bliss come from California. Are we we're in sunny California today, right?
 Yeah, I mean my tent in my backyard in sunny California been here and the last time you night dock was last fall
 I was still here. I've been here over a year now
 I've got this it's one of those farmer market pop-up tents and I got some custom walls made and I've settled in
 I got an air conditioner and carpeting and my wife's wondering if I'm ever coming back to
 Into the house, so the first time you had that call
 You when you told me that you know you you actually showed us around make Alex from my team and I were on with you
 And you're showing around and I think we home to my wife. I was like I met a guy today. I like this guy
 He's in a tent in his backyard
 It's in California living the dream, you know as we've gone we went to the zoom world that I guess we're still sort of in
 But hopefully coming out of I guess I want to talk a little bit about that too
 But I know you're known Richard. You know, let's give everyone a little bit more. I know I've dived right in
 You know to you know some of your specializations, but let's give everyone listening
 That may not have read your book yet that's just coming out or
 That should read it and we'll get to that but I know everything about Richard bliss. Let's start there
 Uh, there's a lot to say but I'll keep it short so the company is called bliss point
 I'm the president of the company and we focus on helping
 Companies salespeople. This is what your client was in need of of understanding how to navigate this new digital first world
 I help executive CEOs VPs directors understand how to build a presence online
 So so many of them today are just woefully unprepared for how rapidly we move to this online world
 And my background is the companies a couple of years old
 I have worked for a variety of tech companies over the years. I've been the vice president of marketing for a variety of companies
 going back to
 pre-2000 and
 During that time I've constantly kind of reinvented myself
 Accolades. I've been on CNN a couple of times. I've been on good morning America
 I've been covered in wired magazine Fox News across the board talking about a variety of topics over the years everything from
 Security and anti and viruses email viruses back when those first started to crowdfunding and Kickstarter when that took off to today
 It's social media and helping executives particularly CEOs understand how to navigate
 And so that kind of gives you a little bit of background if you google my name. Oh here's something why you probably don't know if you google my name
 There's a couple of stories out there, but one is is I'm also
 Well-known in the board game industry and have competed for watch
 I've been mentioned in the news in Italy
 Press releases because of board games. I have set world records playing board games
 So that's one of the side things that maybe we didn't bring up last time
 I love it man, and you know what I just a hunch you know having done and I have no idea if this is your specialization
 But this wouldn't surprise me like I used to do the trivia the one the local pubs here a trivia night
 You strike me as someone that I would want on my team for trivia or you have trivia
 I tend to be I'm well known. I'm well traveled. I speak multiple languages
 Yeah, so yeah, usually I'm now have some gaps. I know nothing about Shakespeare
 Okay, so there's so when it comes to that category in jeopardy
 I do terrible, but yes my wife and I sit down and watch
 Jeopardy almost every night and have some fun with that. So yeah, I'm not too bad. I love man
 So you're helping companies and individuals and CEOs and in general with social selling it's such an interesting thing
 I want to get your opinion on something you know
 social selling
 Versus social marketing like the age old
 Question of marketing versus sales and the difference between the two
 I mean, where do where do we fall? What's the difference between social media
 general marketing content development versus and I go what people know what selling is but like where do those lines
 Cross and fall and is is there a large distinction anymore
 That's a big conversation. Let me let me try a couple of ways one
 Inside most organizations. There's this pyramid of or a triangle
 You have the corporate communications team which usually handles the social media for the company and you're very familiar with that
 They have a very specific purpose and a very specific message that they put out and usually PRs involved and
 English relations that are involved
 Then you have executives and they are starting to develop a voice
 But they have a completely different purpose and voice their job is to be considered thought leaders and to be setting vision and direction and where are we going
 And then there's this third group and it's your sales force and when it comes to social media your sales force
 Yeah, they can use the content from an executive, but they really are concerned about content that allows them or social media
 That allows them to open doors so they can close business
 That's really what they're involved with and as you think about it those three
 Can sometimes be at odds with each other
 The corporate team wants to put out a press release and a general announcement is out something in the sale people like no
 I need to find this individual at this company and what they're doing so I can get and not going to door and get a call with them
 And in the CEO the corporate team is like we're not going to write content for the CEO
 Or the VP of sales and so that's where you see this whole
 We're using the same words
 But incredibly different meanings when it comes to social the sale people hear social and they think that's responsibility
 The corporate team the corporate team here selling and they think that's a responsibility of sales and executives are somewhere in the middle saying hey can somebody help me out
 And generally and I don't need to but generally oftentimes your social team is much younger
 And they and they don't understand why an executive doesn't understand what a hashtag is
 And the executive doesn't understand
 How to even ask a question to the social team
 About what's a hashtag because they don't want to look foolish and so I use the hashtags coming as a tongue in cheek
 But you literally have these teams at odds with each other and that's what makes it so challenging today
 For the for all of us are kind of maneuvering because when we think about social media might right you've got a strong Instagram following
 I'm well known on LinkedIn. We've got tick-tock out there going crazy
 Well, is that all under social? I mean kind of how does that fall and so that's kind of where that's what we find ourselves
 Yeah, it's interesting and in the challenge and the opportunity is companies
 You know want to book it social media into one thing and they do
 There's not only now
 Eight viable platforms or more, you know like when you add them all up
 Then you have the nuance of the messaging that you just described in between the different
 Partitions of our groups of the organization and so it's it's such a demand that it puts on companies for the volume of content
 The diversity of the content that they have to develop right
 Absolutely, and then don't even and then we didn't even get into paid media
 With a buying right they're buying Facebook ads. They're buying Twitter and LinkedIn ads with that
 That adds a whole nother winkle. I will tell you when people ask me about that. I'm like no
 I do not even touch that side of the well you could send us
 We buy about a million dollars worth of paid media quarter. So
 All of mine is organic. So because they're too. They're so different worlds
 They they look the same, but they are completely different. And so yeah send them to you go to the experts and so yeah, but the expertise
 I am curious though like
 You know for for companies out there like B2B
 You know, and and you obviously have marketing you have sales
 If you have a company that's wanting to use social media to grow sales
 um
 How can they leverage it?
 You know
 For themselves like because you know the the company role versus the sales rep role like do you have those discussions a lot
 Yeah a lot and this goes back to the question you asked earlier that I didn't answer completely
 What is that difference between marketing and sales? And the sales people here's here's what happens
 Companies buy a employee advocacy tool
 The marketing team creates content with pretty pictures and pretty videos and pretty links
 Pass it out to the employees who do tofully hit those share button and push it out to their Facebook their Twitter their Instagram or LinkedIn
 And they call it good and everybody thinks they're doing a good job
 When in reality
 That's marketing's perspective marketing is that bullhorn how can we tell as many people as possible about what we're doing
 Well sales is like no how can I find individuals who I can solve a problem for and and
 Marketing not that and I live in my life in marketing
 But marketing's job is not necessarily to solve people's problems
 Marketing is to let people know that they're that we understand your problem and we might have a solution
 It's informational. It's a sales person's job to help them identify what the problem is and then how to solve it
 And that's a big difference between between the two and so when it comes to social media
 Sales people need to understand how can I
 Generate generate a unique
 Authentic genuine relationship with the prospect so that I can get that that conversation going and
 That requires a very very different approach than simply clicking the share button and ghosting what we call post-in-ghost
 And think okay, I've done it and the problem is that so often because they follow this habit
 They most of the clients I deal with
 The sales people fundamentally believe that social media is a waste of their time
 Complete and the executives as well and it's a complete waste of their time
 Because there's really only three reasons that you people would use it
 Well, no, there's three there's I'm gonna call them three myths. I don't have a time. It's all self-promotional
 And I really don't have anything it value to add
 That's what I hear come back from executives and even sales people
 And the marketing team still trying to share share this share this
 And they're sharing it but it's getting no coverage and they don't know why and then when we step in
 I gotta tell you when we step in and you experience this and I start talking to
 Sales people if there's a marketing person on the phone on the call
 They're basically going holy crap. We're doing this all wrong
 Because
 They don't because I'm able to bridge the gap and tell this marketing people what the sales people need and tell the sales people how to use what marketing is sending them
 And oftentimes there's a complete disconnect between those two teams
 Yep, and it takes
 I'm you know been in marketing and advertising for 20 years and I think one of my best skills is not being afraid of
 Competition and wanting to continually learn and the moment I saw
 What you were doing for companies and you were referred to me by another partner
 Uh for our for our client scans horse and the moment I saw what you did and had the first call with you
 I was like this is the missing piece like this is it, you know
 It was like how fast can I and put you know put this guy in front of my clients not like oh god
 He has the key. I was like what but that's the that's it though and you know marketers do historically
 You know we all have our sandbox as we like to think we we belong in
 But again where we've moved into this space where we've got such an opportunity with these channels
 I want the companies we work with seeing and advocating for social media not the opposite yep
 And that now it's changed radically over the last 18 months
 Yeah, and then and also not to get political
 But it had an impact and the 2016 election
 Uh had an impact on my job and what I mean by that is up until the 2016 election when I would speak to a senior leader
 And try to talk to them about social media those three myths got in the way
 I don't have the time. It's also promotional and I don't have anything to say
 And then they would say it really doesn't have any impact
 After the 2016 election we saw the impact that social media can have
 By an individual particularly a leader
 And how they can use that and again depending on it doesn't matter where you're on the political spectrum
 It just showed that in Max it does have an influence
 I didn't have to compete convinced executives anymore
 Then they were like okay, how do I do this not rather why should I do this but now how do I do this and that was a big transformation
 And then when COVID hit
 Then it was like okay now
 Crap how do I do this right now and that's and that's where yeah the missing piece is kind of how we we stepped into that role
 Do you consider you know social selling and in in the way you guys approach it
 You know, there's so many acronyms and terminologies and sales and otherwise, but ABM account-based marketing
 I mean do you consider what you tell people to do more about raising their overall
 Uh authority is it or is it two sides both raising authority as well as
 Presitioning them with specific prospects like you know when you guys approach you know the selling side of it
 Is it is it down one path together or all all things
 It is
 It's a little bit of both so we teach and you've seen this we teach our clients
 The each platform is unique and so we focus on LinkedIn because all business people have a LinkedIn account
 They don't all have an Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, but they all have LinkedIn
 Yeah, and LinkedIn operates fundamentally different than all the other social media platforms. So
 Techniques you use on Instagram and Facebook are going to sabotage your efforts on LinkedIn
 Which is why oftentimes when you see the influencers come over from those platforms
 They just wash their hands of LinkedIn because they're like they there's nothing here. It's a it's a wasteland
 And yet
 I can then demonstrate. I had one prospect
 Who I had worked with for quite a while. He'd been in politics
 He'd been a variety of things and he was very heavily involved in Instagram and Facebook and YouTube
 And I kept trying to get him involved with LinkedIn and finally he listened and we sat down and we crafted a couple of posts for him on LinkedIn
 His post generated just shy of
 100,000 views in less than a week
 Not a dime was spent on advertising not a dime was spent on promotion
 It was because of the way he understood how the LinkedIn algorithm worked
 And he understood how to take advantage of it
 And there are certain things that detract from your LinkedIn activities and certain things that will promote it
 And we helped him understand how to navigate that
 He became sold
 Because there was no way he was getting that kind of coverage on Facebook or Instagram
 And that happened in just a short amount of time and so that's where we've been able to step in and help these
 Individuals understand how to take advantage of these different platforms
 And to be part of that. Is there any
 Now there's you've got some of your secret sauce and we we're gonna link to everything so we could do where to find you
 And and to come get the entire recipe
 But are there any you know for anyone listening out there we can give them any
 Of the richer bliss
 Oh, not freebies, but yeah, like any short short tips. Yeah
 And that's one thing I love about we almost you give you like you're not you're you're like me
 I'll give away my free advice my best advice because you know executions everything and your experience is everything
 Execution is everything and might sometimes my team or other people outside my mother
 She's always worried. Oh, you're giving too much weight now
 Give away your most valuable information and sell everything else
 I mean, that's the philosophy we live by and so and you said it right. It's all about execution
 There's nothing new nobody everybody knows pretty much everything. It's just about executing
 So here's some pieces of advice or example. This is always a shocker the worst performing content on LinkedIn
 Is videos
 The absolute worst performing content if you put a video up there
 You'll get one tenth the amount of views on that no the one tenth number of people will see that video post
 Then if you just simply wrote out in text what you said
 Why is that I know that to be true, but I did get them
 We just started a little number one and but I why is that do you know why that is you think they want more content? Yeah
 There's
 There's several reasons one is the nature of our human nature if I'm on LinkedIn
 Let's suppose I'm on my mobile device and I'm scrolling along and I see a video
 So many people don't include subtitles so an 85% of users on social media have the sound turned off if you're not concluding subtitles on your video
 You're losing your audience. That's number one number two is
 That video is going to be three minutes long
 Holy cow three minutes of me just sitting here maybe
 Maybe getting some information out of this
 I'm not willing to take that risk and so I move on
 I might like it click like and move on because that's what Instagram and Facebook have taught me to do
 I'm just gonna click like and move on
 If you add subtitles, so here's another example. I had a client did this exact thing they added put the video up there
 They got six likes
 We came to them and said we're gonna redo this post. It was four days after that. He's like well wait
 No, I just did the post if you redo it people see that we said trust me nobody saw the first post
 Nobody saw it
 What we did is we wrote up
 What the post the video was about all the detail as much as we can put in there of details
 We then added subtitles we kept the video and then we added three hashtags and we can talk about hashtags and LinkedIn
 He then hit that made it go live
 In eight hours now the the first one was a week long he got six likes in eight hours after the post went live
 He had 4500 views 171 likes and 70 comments on that post
 Why or because nobody watched the video
 They all read through his text so what he was talking about
 Commented and responded and started a conversation going
 So often we believe that oh, I don't want to give any way if anything about my podcast
 I don't want to give anything away about my video. I want them to go watch it and get the information from themselves
 No, I'm sorry. I don't have the time to hope to get some information about a video that you kind of hinted that should be a good idea
 No, just the opposite that's number one
 Number two, so does that answer the question line? Oh, yeah, it does. Okay, there's another two and they'll drink
 Yeah, so give it to them. Yeah, don't make them go work for it. Yeah, number two is
 If you so when you put up a post out on LinkedIn, it only goes to 10% of your network now you have 43 hundred connections
 Right, and I'm looking at your LinkedIn profile right now
 We got 43 which means
 About 400 people 430 people are gonna see a post that you put out as a test group
 LinkedIn always puts out every piece of content to a test group only 10% of your network
 It then watches what that test group does with your content over the next hour, but here's the kicker
 If you have a link in that post
 It will cut that test group in half
 So now you're 430 people is down to 215 people
 If that link is to a YouTube video
 It'll cut it by another 20 to 30% so you'll be under sub 200 people. So you'll be at about
 Maybe even less than a hundred maybe 80 to 90 people out of your 4300 people will see that link you sent to YouTube
 Why
 Well, that's an easy one
 Who makes money off of advertising linked in or YouTube when you put that link in there?
 YouTube Bill Gates
 Bill Gates is gonna make
 In this case, it's gonna be Google because Google makes the money. Bill Gates makes the money off of like
 He wants him staying on LinkedIn, right?
 He wants him staying so if you add now that's gonna be a shock to a lot of people because almost every post I see
 Is a link to somewhere else a Forbes article a HBR article a ink
 magazine a YouTube video
 Because we're trained by Facebook and
 Instagram and Twitter which don't penalize us for pouring in all that media
 And it's about more about the social and let us about the media
 What if we put it here the link in the comments same
 Algorithm is used
 Yeah, so a couple of ways you can do this one is you can add the link to the comments
 Which is gonna be fine the algorithm won't see that but here's another way you can do this and this is what we do with our clients
 It's what you do is you write up the post and I did this this morning with the CEO if you'd like to read the blog
 Follow this link I put that right in the post except I didn't put the link
 I then hit post I hit post I then a second later hit edit
 Go back into the post cut and paste and drop the link in boom and save the post
 Hmm now the post I
 Tricked it I'd bypassed the out because the algorithm is gonna scan it the moment I hit post
 I tricked it added a link afterwards and now I'm not being penalized because I had it I had a link in there
 You dirty dog now
 But here's something
 It doesn't pre-load the image when you do that
 Which is a good thing because the second worst performing content on LinkedIn is
 content that has
 pictures
 If you add a picture to your post you will usually see a 50% decrease in the number of people who view your post
 why
 Because
 LinkedIn it wants to
 Motivate you for a different kind of behavior
 LinkedIn is looking for you to
 Cause people to stop and engage with your content
 Well if I put a pretty picture of people are going to stop and they're going to click like
 That's not what LinkedIn counts as engagement
 Because LinkedIn measures how long people spend on your post
 And it only takes less than a second for me to see your post click like and move on
 That's what Instagram and Facebook train us to do
 The best performing content on LinkedIn is text only
 The more text the better and text that drives comments
 So here's a promise I can make to your readers
 I don't want to be cognizant of our time so that we don't have time here. Excuse me your listeners
 If you go write a text only post
 About a hundred to a hundred and fifty words
 Add three hashtags and get ten of your buddies to comment on the post in the first hour
 That's all you have to do
 Text only three hashtags ten comments
 The LinkedIn algorithm is guaranteed
 To share that post with a minimum
 Of 1,000 to 2,000 people within the first 24 hours
 Guaranteed
 I've done this with people with 30 connections who have just got their LinkedIn profile
 It works every single time it does not matter the size of your network
 And it doesn't even matter the content
 Except for the length
 How long does it how long a text
 The longer the better 150 to 200 words is about optimal
 They just bump that up to now 500 words, but
 150 to 200 words is just fine
 Because LinkedIn is measuring how long people actually spend on your post is called dwell time
 So if you're causing them to read
 LinkedIn is tracking that and the longer you keep them reading and commenting the more people it's going to show to that post
 Immediately and so those are there you go. There's some secrets to a few secrets that we share
 About simple things you can do and I challenge anybody who's listening
 Look go if you don't believe me go test it
 Go create 150 word post put some lines it text it uh breaks in the line. So it's not one body text
 Get ten comments on it in the first hour just go ask your friends. Hey
 Share your opinion and I promise you that you will get one thousand to two thousand views in 24 hours
 If you've never gotten more than a hundred you'll still get that same number
 And so it's always interesting to see people come back after they've taken up my challenge
 Because that number will sometimes climb into the five to ten thousand views and they're shocked
 There it is folks linked in bliss
 Ha
 Three freebies here on the radcast to get absolutely linked in bliss which is blessings which is views which is engagement
 Which is what all this crazy game is all about more people. Hey, that's what it's about reach and frequency is
 It's immediate term, but it's so it's relevant across platforms and across the dynamics. I love it
 It's so fascinating to you. It makes sense once you hear it out loud
 It frustrates me a little bit because we create so much content here. I'm like dammit
 Like we create so much content like where I now want them to watch these videos, but it makes a lot of sense. Yeah
 Is um you want can you read it like the whole linked you know trick you know adding the link back
 I don't even know if you can you edit a post adding a picture or video after the fact
 I don't know if you can actually change the content
 It became you can add you can modify some of it, but you don't want to put it's not the so the algorithm is not going to
 Modify based on a picture or a video. That's human nature and how the algorithm interacts with human nature
 The link is actually the algorithm itself
 And so you we strong you can use the videos and and images
 Sparingly, but if you really want people to start paying attention to your content you will start writing text only posts
 And that will get people starting to engage with your content talking looking at your LinkedIn profile
 And we even teach in our training how to get your prospects to call you
 Long before you actually have to call them. So that's one of the things that we teach
 Is how to start using this platform to start building those relationships where all of a sudden a stranger who's a prospect
 sends you a message saying hey, I saw something you posted could we connect?
 I'd like to talk to you about this and that's what we start teaching
 What um
 You know you've done a lot in your career just to take a step back and then I'm going to talk about digital first leadership
 Any career moments that you know stand out you know like at this at this stage or things that
 You know you look back on you know everything's a learning lesson right, but is there things you look back on more fondly than others or
 Uh, anything you can talk about there
 Yeah, there's a couple of one is one of my first management roles as a vice president marketing back late 90s
 Uh, it's when I ended up on CNN that type of thing, but working with a young man out of Ohio Dayton Ohio and
 We built the business up and he was able to sell it for 40 million dollars and I look back on those those times
 Because I invented something that now is just common
 But it was like we saw an opportunity. We saw something. I understood how technology was operating and so I invented something
 and ended up
 I gave it away for free. We thought about patenting it, but then we just like it's system of my nature
 I just gave it away for free. We charged people for it, but the idea we gave away for free
 And all of a sudden we had competitors popping up everywhere one of those competitors got sued by Google
 Because Google had bought a company
 That did this very thing and now this company had a patent on this idea
 So Google is suing this other company
 Over this patent infringement so that the guy calls me up
 Hey Richard, I'm being sued by Google patent infringement. Didn't you invent this?
 And I said yeah, I did
 So I dug through a historical record and a young man that I'd work for we dug through a historical record provided to him and refuted the
 patent it invalidated the patent
 Here's the thing Ryan the law firm
 That was filing the lawsuit for patent infringement for their client
 Was our customer who was using our service
 To do the very thing that their client supposedly was patenting
 Because the lawyers at the top weren't talking to the IT guys at the bottom the IT guys were using our service
 They pick up a client who learned it from us
 Who tries to file the patent successfully
 And then later on when they went to sue
 It became aware that your law firm was actually using the technology
 That you were trying to
 Yeah, that's one of my highlights
 You can't make that
 Here's the other one
 No, you can't make it
 Here's one you cannot make up at all
 And it's it
 I was
 I built my career over the years and I became very what like I said
 CNN headline news all kinds of different things
 And I was working for a company and international company as the vice president marketing
 and
 I how do I frame this shortly but they hired my company
 And so they didn't hire me in that role they hired my company because I was in the US they were in Canada taxes all that type of thing
 Well one day the founder calls me up and he starts talking to me and I realize
 He's firing me
 And I had to ask him three times
 Wait, are you firing me and he was really hesitant to actually say the words
 He was French Canadian and he struggled with it and finally he admitted he was firing me
 Okay, I've been fired from jobs before but here's the kicker
 He then turned around the next day and gave the job to my wife
 Oh my goodness
 Yeah, do you know what was your wife?
 Yeah, because remember I said he hired my company. Yeah, so my wife worked she and I had a company together and we had some employees and so
 He fired me and how much he paid me
 But he hired her into the role didn't pay her the same fees that he paid me
 So yeah, I like she's now we got divorced
 So many years ago and I think that probably led to so when you talk about there's highs and lows
 That's once that's one story story you can't you can't make up no
 How did that go over at home?
 Hi honey. How was your day? Well, I got fired from a client then the next day your wife's like
 I took your job. No, no, it went
 She was already on site at a big Microsoft event. We were supposed to be hosting
 I was going down because I was the
 Gonna be doing the I'm seeing the presentation
 She's already down there setting up booths and everything I had to call her
 And say hey honey. I just got fired. I'm not coming
 And then the next day they had a company wide meeting which she was on and oh it gets worse
 A month earlier a buddy of mine had reached out to me saying he was looking at a new role
 And it would I'd be interested in coming to work for him. Of course. I'd known him for years. Yeah, I said sure
 The next day when they made the announcements of the change guess who is the new CEO
 My buddy
 Oh had reached out to me the month before and it made sense now when the guy fired me
 He said well, you've been looking for a new job anyway. I'm like no, I haven't
 Yeah, my buddy was testing the waters and when I said I would go to work for him that got back as Richard
 Loyal and it's gonna leave and
 He got put in a CEO and my wife got put into my position. Oh, man. It gets
 Yeah, that is that is a story man. I've he like unbelievable. I don't that one didn't happen to the book
 Okay, I got one to top it you want one more?
 We only have a couple more minutes. I and and I have to drop off here
 So here's one more. This is in the book. Did your first leadership?
 And we're talking about googling my name. So if your listeners will Google Richard Bliss
 San Diego and here's why the first entry is gonna catch their attention. I am from Olympia, Washington
 I am named Richard Bliss in the tech industry and I lived in San Diego
 Actually, I was living was I living in San Diego. Anyway, that's a side story. I'm from I lived in San Diego
 I have a brother named John
 Okay, a whole bunch of random facts about myself unless you Google my name Richard Bliss San Diego
 Then all of those facts come to the forefront with the Wikipedia entry
 The Wikipedia entry that your listeners will read is about Richard Bliss from Olympia, Washington
 living in San Diego in the tech industry who's been arrested in Russia as a spy
 And he is now in a Russian prison
 And his brother John is quoted in the press as saying my brother is not a spy
 The president of the United States and the
 Secretary of State had to get involved to have Richard
 Released from prison. He was not cleared of the charges. He was simply told to never come back to Russia
 And he was released from the Russian prison. This is all true. Oh my god
 Except there's one piece that's not true
 I'm not that Richard Bliss
 I
 Get a phone call from my mother and I'm in Dayton, Ohio. Where are you?
 And I said I knew why she was asking. I said I am not in a prison in Russia
 The fact that she thought she could call me and actually talked
 But the reason I am so passionate about this idea of an online presence is because if you don't control your online narrative in today's digital first world
 Something or someone else will
 This Richard but Richard Bliss was valid. He lived in town. He lived we grew up in the same city
 We're kind of in the same industry. We moved to the same San Diego
 He got hired by Qualcomm to go set up cell phone towers in Russia back when GPS was brand new
 He was caught with a GPS and cell phone tower near a military base hired it and then arrested as a spy
 Oh my god. That is the true story
 You're Clinton and Madeline Albright got involved
 But I have been asked and now whenever I have a client and they need to do a background check
 I send them the link and an email
 I will fail your background check
 Oh my god because this is not me
 And so this is why I'm so passionate about what we're doing here in the book
 I love it so but uh it's a great story for all of uh that's a good uh
 I
 Spreaker for you when you meet people
 Don't look me up and say Diego
 Or I when I was dating, right? Yeah, before I got married
 They're back and they're like wait. We search on you wait. Are you a Russian spy?
 This right
 No, it's like James Bond, you know
 Yeah
 So at one point I went to work for a company that had a major office in Russia
 And the CEO who was in Boston kept saying hey you need to go visit our Russian office
 I went to the Romanian office
 But I said there's no way I'm going to the Russian office. He's like why I sent him the link and the story
 Because if my own country can't figure out who I am
 Hell no am I going to Russia and having them look my name up
 All of those data say oh yeah, you we told you never to come back
 It's not me
 Cool, so the book's out digital first leadership pick it up on Amazon. You can look it up
 It's on Amazon. I saw it there earlier today. I was looking around. I'm gonna get a copy
 You got one minute for a quick one-word ratter fad to close us out. I do all right. What do we got?
 Instagram messaging automation
 Ratter fad
 Instagram messaging automation. Yeah, they're coming out with tools. They're coming out with tools. It's gonna
 Automat that's gonna automate all of that. Yeah. All right
 House slash social audio
 Ratter fad
 Fad and I said fail as in Spanish ugly the last thing I hate is automation and the worst thing about today's world
 Why am I not on clubhouse anymore? I don't have time. I
 I time shift all of my social activity
 When I have time in a line I will plug in but for me
 Live audio
 Doesn't allow me to capture it doesn't allow me to share it doesn't allow me to use it
 And it forces me to shift my time and priorities to their time
 I can go back and listen to it but I'm about you
 But how many people do not go back and listen to a recording later on but record and listen to your podcast
 But they're not gonna go no and so while it's really exciting and everything
 The impact it's having on business people professionals who are busy
 I'll listen to mpr maybe
 If I'm in my car in my commute, but I'm not in my car in commuting
 I don't have that time anymore and so it's a very so yeah short answer
 Fad it is not going to last simply because it's such a social disruption
 Bad way that it just people just aren't gonna make that change. So there you go. There's my answer and
 You're one of the smartest people I know and I have been saying the same since beginning
 I don't have enough time for either and I think it's a fat uh tiktok for b2b
 And it's not necessarily here yet
 Ratter fad
 Fad you just heard me say videos the worst performing out there people just don't have the time
 Marketing's gonna love it
 Sales people aren't gonna use it all right
 The cookie-list future that's coming. I know you're not an ads guy. You're more in the
 PR space, but uh
 Good or bad fat rat or fat? I'm hoping that I'm hoping it's a I'm hoping it's a rat. I'm hoping it's rad
 Yeah, because
 I just got off the phone with Europe and Asia doing training and
 It was acknowledged there a lot more sensitive about giving up personal information than we are here in the states
 And I would hope that we would start to become a little bit more cautious about it. So I'm hoping
 rad zoom calls
 Now that pandemics hopefully gone going away. We're getting to the the final turn hopefully
 Uh here to stay forever
 Here to stay forever. Yeah here to stay forever
 I talked to CEOs who are like why would I make way people go back into the office
 I talked to executives who are like look if I have to go into the office for two people to be on the call and three of them are at home
 Why are we even going into the office? No, it is here to stay. We have learned
 We did not believe it over a year and a half ago. We thought we had to be in person to be more effective
 But we have learned no and I will take zoom fatigue over commute fatigue any day
 So it is here to stay last one
 Seltzer beer all the seltzers
 Rad or fad
 I don't drink never have a terrible person to ask but I'm gonna say that's a fad. Yeah
 Now that's just sounds disgusting, but back to the wine coolers of the 80s, you know, I don't know
 Well Richard man, I couldn't be more thankful that you came on a lot of great knowledge
 We had our LinkedIn bliss three as I'm uh, you know, branding it here on the show
 Uh, but I really appreciate your brother
 Ryan my pleasure take care. I'm gonna go and and thanks for the opportunity to talk to your audience
 We'll talk to you soon real quickly. Where can people keep up with Richard bliss
 Richard bliss on Twitter
 Richard bliss on Facebook
 Bliss on LinkedIn LinkedIn.com slash in slash bliss
 uh
 Richard bliss on Instagram pretty much if you just type in my name don't put in San Diego
 You're probably gonna find me on some one of the social media platforms. There we go
 We really appreciate Richard
 You know where to find us the radcast.com at d.rad.cast on Instagram and I'm at Ryan Alfred on all the social platforms
 We'll see you next time on the radcast