How to Build a Personal Brand That Gets You on Bigger Stages

Growth Triggers: Content Marketing & AI

In this episode, host Luis Diaz interviews Chad Durfee about the strategic transition from referral-based marketing to building a high-autho

Key takeaways

Chad Durfee utilizes a 'signal sandwich' strategy, placing prospects between his direct marketing signals and indirect third-party endorsements.
The concept of 'authority stacking' involves accumulating assets like bestsellers and top-ranked podcasts to build undeniable trust.
Visibility is not synonymous with credibility; the hosts emphasize that AI should be used for distribution rather than replacing authentic long-form content creation.
A centralized personal brand website is crucial for SEO and AEO, acting as a hub for all consolidated authority signals.
Securing TEDx stages requires recent, relevant speaking experience to satisfy independent licensees who prioritize event stability.

Main topics

Personal Brand Authority
Speaking Engagement Strategies
The Signal Sandwich Concept

Notable quotes

Visibility isn't credibility.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a masterclass in moving beyond mere online prese

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Two stages can unlock 200 paid stages. If Apple has me ranked as a top 10 podcast globally, that's Apple telling the world, hey, Chad's one of our top 10 podcast hosts. That's Apple now communicating the signal to the market indirectly about my expertise. Or if I have a bestseller, that's New York Times or Amazon communicating to the market something about me. Or if I'm on a TEDx stage or a celebrity stage, that's TEDx communicating something to the market about me. And so... If you can sandwich your prospects in the marketplace in between the direct signal you're putting out and the indirect signal those trusted third parties are putting out, and they're communicating the same story, you've now effectively controlled the narrative. You're controlling the lens through which people perceive you. I've helped generate over 50 million podcast downloads and work with Speaker 2 (0:47) over 250 different podcasts. And the great thing about that is that I get to use all that information to share at least one helpful tip every single week to help you grow your influence and your online presence with video podcasting. Hey, my name is Luis Diaz. I run a company called Top 10 Podcasts, and this show is dedicated to helping you learn at least one helpful tip every single episode to help you grow your influence. and your online presence with video podcasting. So that sounds good. Let's get into it. Speaker 2 (1:17) It's fun to reconnect because so for a little bit of backstory, at least that I can provide is that you were in a completely different space when we first connected and you pivoted into like helping people get on podcasts, when people speak, helping people launch podcasts, which is really cool, dude, to see you. Yeah. Yeah. I knew you as like the, the performance, like the, the referral based guy who helped build crazy referral programs. So. It's good to speak, man. Today, selfishly, and people know that I'm pretty selfish on this show, I want to talk to you about booking stages because that is everyone's, at least that I talk to, everyone's focus. And I guess to hyper-focus in before we get into how you got here, stages regarding like TEDx talks or live in-person type stages. So if you're good with that, dude, how'd you get here? And then talk to me about stages. And this year. Yeah. Well, Speaker 1 (2:11) I mean, shoot, we met, was it back in 2020 when we were partnering with Rudy Moore? Yeah. Yeah. And my stuff that I do is all referral stuff. And we crushed it for the people that wanted to do it. I mean, Joe, if you remember Joe DeRoma, he ran that referral program we built for them and they made $1.5 million in seven months. And then he was... you know, singing it everywhere, but nobody wants to do referral stuff. So like the more I got into it, the more people were like, yeah, it's nice. Cool that you made a million and a half in seven months, but too much work. Um, you know, so it got more and more difficult to get people that wanted to lift a finger to do stuff on the backend. It wasn't quite like bleeding neck problem. Um, so yeah, man, this last, uh, two years was an exercise in completely reinventing myself. Um, it actually started, uh, referrals actually started what we're doing right now though. You know, so we started transitioning to B2B kind of JV type stuff. We were doing LinkedIn outreach to begin those conversations. LinkedIn is so saturated now with, with cold outreach and like just people, you know, you, you connect with somebody and there's an offer in your inbox. And so we were like, how do we, how do we kind of cut through the noise there? And I ended up starting a podcast with one of my clients. I didn't really know what I was doing. I was like, let's figure it out. Let's figure it out. And then, um, we figured out, uh, that that's a great door opener to get actually like people that have tons of clients and big audiences on the show, if you can structure it right. You know, so, um, that became a great way to get guests on podcasts and then turn them into referral partners on the back end, um, through that reciprocity and that conversation. And so that kind of started it. And, uh, then we were like, man, like most of our podcasters were writing books. I paid 30K for my first book. And it was, it was tedious. I was like, man, I don't have time to read books, let alone write a book. Then I had to write a book and then they sent me the, the edits and I had to basically, and it was a whole book. So I had to go reread the entire book that I just wrote. Yeah. I was like, this is crazy. So we figured out a faster, more efficient way to. write clients books, you know, through audio recordings and different things that have to write it out. And it really is still a process to where people get to get it done in a month or two. And it's all still their book. It's all their, you know, their unique IP and their words and their voice. So we added the publishing house to it. So now we do podcast. Obviously you are incredibly supportive on that front. So anybody who is like looking for high level podcast work, Lewis's team helps us a ton. Started the publishing house. And then speaking was just the natural progression in that. And people were like, hey, how do I, you know, fly with all this into more speaking engagements? And that's where we ran into a big roadblock, honestly, in the beginning. Because getting on stages is not easy. You know, like you either have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to be in a mastermind that might let you on their stage once a year or twice a year. But that's pay to play, right? Or you can go to an industry event and you still have to probably pay to be on a stage, which is fine. You know, like nobody gets paid right off the bat. You got to put your dues in. But it just was getting difficult to find stages to put our clients on. TEDx was what everybody wanted, but... I'm sorry if I'm talking too much. I'm Speaker 2 (5:35) just Speaker 1 (5:35) kind of telling you the history. Speaker 2 (5:36) No, no, Speaker 1 (5:36) keep going. Just cut me Speaker 2 (5:38) off. Yeah, I want Speaker 1 (5:38) to hear the process. Yeah, just cut me off if you need to. But like if you know much about TEDx, they're all independent licensees like you and me. They've either given a TEDx talk or they put on an event before. That's it. And then they put on their event and they don't really even care about the big idea or how good the talk is. Like they're more interested in. putting on an event and making sure that when the lights come on and there's a live audience and cameras, the speaker doesn't wet the bed and forget their words on stage, you know? So we started finding like, if you haven't spoken in the last six months with a relevant like TEDx style talk, like no licensee wants to put you on their stage, no matter how good you seem to be. So we were like, shoot, we gotta, we gotta put our clients on stages before we apply them for TEDx and enter Elevate. And then we're, you know, we, we created an idea that we're like, well, shoot, this is going to compete with TEDx. Let's just run this, you know, we'll still do TEDx, but this just, this makes it easy. I like it. So what were the, Speaker 2 (6:37) I guess, cause, cause people listen to this is like, okay, like I'm irrelevant. I have an expertise in something, some kind of subject matter experts. What were the roadblocks besides like relevant speaking experience that you found that somebody. you know, needed to, to fix before they got on stage? Was there anything else that you found that was a big blocker for getting people Speaker 1 (7:00) on