Avi Arya | How To Tell Your Hero’s Story

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And now your host, Joel, Mark Harris.

Joel: Hello, and welcome to the publishing for profit podcasts. This is your host, Joel, Mark Harris. As I record this, it is Canada day. So happy Canada day to all my kitty viewers and listeners. Hope you had some time off from work. You got to spend some time with family or whatever you do on Canada day. We have a very special guest on today, Aria.

He is a digital marketer. He owns a couple of boutique hotels in India. It’s his family business. And these are two industries that have been hit really hard through COVID. so we talk about how he’s pivoted, what he’s doing now. Ivy is primarily known for his Abby, sorry. He’s asked Abby show. which you can find on YouTube, it’s a podcast.

You can find them on social media, like Facebook and Instagram, but now he is pivoted towards, webinars. And now he’s teaching. businesses, how to make money and how to profit from webinars. so we talk about that. We also talk about the hero road journey, what that is, how to create a hero story that your clients and your customers identify with, and how you can profit from that as well.

So hopefully you enjoyed this wide-ranging conversation without further ado. We have Abby.

Hello and welcome to the show. It’s a pleasure having you here.

Avi: It’s a pleasure being back with one of my old digital marketing friends from, and Google, you met ages ago when digital was still coming off the scene.

Joel: And we haven’t been in contact for a while. So it’s definitely great to reconnect. And I’ve obviously been following you online and seeing all the great things you’ve been doing, and they’ve been amazing. So congratulations.

Avi: Thank you. Thank you. Lord above has been grind and we’ve got a good team. And like you said, we were able to be consistent for the last year, at least. Awesome.

Joel: So I want to start with somebody who I believe has had a lot of influence on you and that’s Gary Vanderchuck, who is also known as Gary Vee. For those who don’t know, he is a social media influencer. He runs his own digital marketing company. But can you tell me, like, how has he influenced your, your life and your path that you’ve taken?

Avi: So, you know, that’s a great question. I love to talk about Gary because I travelled back and forth between Vancouver and wherever I would find business.

And yeah, I started listening to this guy’s story and he said that. He was looking with his father. And you know, when you’re working with your father, some things, you know, you saw eye to eye sometimes not, but he stuck to his, to his work ethic. And, and then he started his own agency. So I was like, hang on, working with your father, having those daddy daughter, daddy, father, daddy, son conversations.

And then after starting a digital marketing agency is exactly my trajectory. So, you know, my dad, my dad lost everything in his business when I was. You know, when I was growing up and I thought I moved to goes abroad. My only dream in life was to study abroad because I wanted to meet people from all over the world.

And I wanted to race cars. I thought maybe I worked for somebody and I, you know, and somebody responds to the tires and somebody will, I was getting it all set in my 18-year-old head. And one day all the dreams came crashing down with my dad called me to his office and he said, ‘we lost everything’. And I got a small motel started working with me and then my journey started discovered the internet, in, you know in a nutshell it completely changed our life in five years.

And that I was known as the guy who did something with the internet and, you know, changed their fathers. You know, we were able to pay off all the debts and we bought another hotel. Now I was not really talking about that story a lot because I didn’t want to talk about my dad being in debt. And, you know, I lost my dreams and, you know, I wanted to be covered.

I was not talking about it. And then I see this guy could talk about the fact that they had no money and these are challenges that he went through and all of that. And then how we came to the agency, I said, this guy talks about what happened in his life. So I started talking about that as soon as I started talking about it, I started seeing, you know, people started gravitating towards me.

It also started helping my business and I was like, I owe it all to this guy. Who indirectly urged me to start telling my story. So then I was like, you know, he’s no longer a celebrity in my head. He’s I want to, I want to be friends with this guy. It was a December in Vancouver and we were sitting and we were doing a goal setting.

And I always believe you do your goal setting with your spouse and your kids because when people do goal setting and the spouses, like maybe my wife wants to do something different. I want to do something different. And how will we visualize it? How will that all come to be if you’re all going in different directions?

So we had four large chart papers. It was a snowy day in Vancouver. And we were making a chart and everything. And I said, meet Gary Vaynerchuk. 2000 whatever the year was the next year, my wife was like, Hey, why are you waiting for the next year? The year after? Why not?

I said the next year is just few days away. She said, so what I said, I’m supposed to fly to India. She said, so go meet him on the way and then go your, you mean, Gary Vaynerchuk is going to meet me just because I want to meet him. I’ll take a detour. She said, at least try we’ll visualize thing and be doing dream charts and goal setting and all of that.

So I said, yeah, why not inside? So I wrote it down and then I, you know, I went out and I took out my phone and I started making videos all up my team, as it is, do some bit of research. And you know, how many people want Gaddy to come to India? He said, what should we do so that my, what I, to meet somebody you need to add value to their life.

I knew that Gary has been contemplating coming to India. Should I come to that? Not come. So I thought maybe that, so I told my team, I said, can you do a research outside? It’s somebody from our team traveling. They said, yeah, there are three or four people who are traveling to different parts of the country.

I said, just tell them to do a survey and got even a chat comes to India when you come out and all of that. They all went and they did it. They send us videos, we put those videos together. We put a nice grip and we send that clip to one of Gary’s team members. And he was like, this is amazing. You must come to meet, Gaddy, Thomas come to the VaynerMedia office and then another story started from there.

So, you know, so yeah. In a nutshell, that’s how. Because the story was, relatable to mine with his dad and the agency. And because he’s like tell people your story, tell people our story. And when I told the story, this thing’s really changed my life. Like everyday I tell a story. I tell people every single day I try to meet 10 people on the former zoom call.

I tell them. Hi, my name is father of two girls. Six dogs has been to a superwoman, a streetcar receptor hotelier. Now social media marketing. Didn’t found it of internet mobiles, and I help people run profitable webinars, sitting at home without having to travel now. Because I believe the shortest distance between two human hearts is a story.

And a story read told on the internet can completely change your brand. So, you know, I took from him and obviously I improvised and made a different, and now I teach people storytelling and webinars, but I also, it all to this man. Who, and then I was able to meet him, you know, three, four times. And we did a lot of podcasts and webinars, YouTube shows and all of that.

So yeah, all that for Gary Vaynerchuk, four miles to the guy inspiring so many people

Joel: I want to push back because I don’t think you owe it all to him because I think you are a very, you know, you’re a great entrepreneur. You hustle you. you’re a man of action, I think. And so all the teaching and all the learning in the world, it won’t do anything unless you go out and do it.

You’re inspired to go out and do it. So I think that you are obviously a big part of your own success is I guess what I’m trying to say is you put it all together and give maybe like, just a couple of tips or a couple of things that you learned from him.

what would those be?

Avi: Number one, when he was with me, I felt like the most important person in the world. And while I was feeling like the most important person in the world, I am asking myself why I’m excited and you know, I’m feeling, you know, overwhelmed with all the. All the support that he gave me in terms of all the advice that I asked for back of my head, there’s a conversation happening.

It’s a hang on this. Guy’s not convenient. People don’t want to meet him. And he’s sitting with me, the 30 people waiting outside and look at the calm on his face. And that sort of humbled me more after that every time I’ve met any other human being I’ve started, I’ve been more present in that meeting. So that’s number one that he taught that he said to me, a number two, what he said was that, The second thing that I learned from him was like, you, like, you just correctly said.

More action leads to more desserts. Like, I mean, sometimes you’re tired. You want to take a couple of days off just because, because then also you’re preparing for action or sometimes there’s lots of what we eat and then we digest. So when you’re digesting doesn’t mean you’re not doing anything, right. So information is being digested.

So you’re doing that work as well. So every time I listen to him, I feel I can, something more can be done. Don’t just give up yet something more can be done. So that’s the second thing I learned from him. Third thing I learned from him was. That he has been consistent for the last 10 years, interviewing people on his podcast still date, because he knows that he needs to make connection with the topic.

Even though the whole world wants to meet him, he still wants to make connections with the Jessica Alba and all of those people of the world. So as you becoming bigger and bigger, he’s still, he’s not changed his path. He keeps it basics intact. Like you go to the gym, you do your pull ups and your pushups, and you have a great body.

You start doing your calisthenics and you do your CrossFit, but you still don’t a forget your pushups and your basic workout. So that’s, those are the three things I learned from.

Joel: So I’m doing something right with this podcast is what you’re saying.

Avi: 100%.

Joel: Okay. Can you, so I’m going to take you back, when you went into your family business of hotels, What was that like?

Was it tough trying to fill such big shoes?

Avi: So my dad did not have hotels. He had just one small motel at 27 rune motel, which was under debt and some rooms were leaking and some rooms were broken. And so we could never hire out all 27 rooms together because, you know, we had to take furniture from here and put it there.

And, you know, we were making things work, but because my dad was such a, he was such a, he loved this guy. But he loves his customers even today. So everybody felt warm and welcome. And so the hotel was doing was doing well. The challenge I had was that all of a sudden from. Wanting to become a streetcar is I used to be very good at racing cars.

And I thought, you know, I was, and I’m very good at meeting people. And I love talking to people and I’m genuinely am my mother’s son. And I, and I genuinely like people and I, you know, I’ll never forget about it and I’ve never, you know, if you’re not, well, I’ll be the first person to land up with a soup in your, you know, to your doorstep or leave it outside in these in today’s times.

And I’m saying it because all my mom has given me that. But in this situation with the hotel, everything changed. I, I didn’t know where to put my empathetic side. I didn’t know where to put that streetcar. I had to build my own image in my own head while going to sleep every night with that conversation that I hear from my dad saying, Oh, we don’t have money.

We don’t have money. We don’t have money. What’s going to happen. It’s going to happen and we need to work harder. And why are you working on it? 12 hours a day? Why don’t you work 14 hours. Why don’t you sleep in the order? Why do you come home? Like my dad was like, he was, you know, I said, you’re such a slave driver, but I obviously I learned everything from that.

Like today I don’t get tired and think, you know what? Work is 12 hours of work. If I get tired, if I have to push harder, that’s the easiest thing for me to do thinking, and other, other parts are something that I’m learning strategic thinking, but pushing harder. 12 to 14 hours or 15 hours. That seems to be the easy thing for me to do.

So everybody teaches you something. But to answer your question directly, the big shoes to fill well, to say the elder son of the house has to take over and contribute. The money. What are the trends on over the weekends? You know, just because we lost everything, I still had friends from where to do families and they would still go to restaurant, which I wanted to go out with them and they, that cost money.

And now I’m working. So I did want to spend a little bit of that money, you know, to have fun and not just keep saving money to pay off the debt. So, you know, it put a bit of a struggle when we need to understand where. What I should do.

So this new phenomenon called the internet, everything changed. Sorry. Did we lose the internet? Go back. I think we’re back. As soon as we discovered new phenomenon. Go to the internet. Everything changed for me. There was an ad in the people one day called September, September computers, looking for cyber cafe partners.

And I was looking for an internet connection and I reached out to this guy, his name is Rohit, and I call a royalty, still a friend of mine. After 22 years, I bought that Roy. I said, I need the cyber cafe. He said, You know, what a cybercafe is. I said, I’ve been studying this for the last one year. I know. I, it, I gave him the plan of my dad’s small model.

He gave us a cybercafe with six computers. And after that, Joel, I had 24 hours, 24 hour access to the source internet on the plant. No, I would open a page, go for lunch, come back. The rest of the page would open, but I knew that I had a power. I had a superpower that I could now connect with people from different parts of the world.

And those people were, you know, I have a hashtag in my office and in my dad’s office as well, which says, hashtag people are good. You know, people are always good. You always, they’re always there. Maybe they are busy sometimes. Maybe they get back to you later. Maybe they forgot to reply to your email.

Maybe they had, you know, somebody was unwell. People are good. Reached out to people. I said, what should I do? They said, somebody said, develop a website. The other person said, do a query form, put a toll free number, get your SEO done. Nothing. I understood. But you know, found places, found people, developed a website.

Did all of this, took another one year of this uncertainty. That also taught me how to live, being uncertain as a youngster, trying to fill in shoes, big show his parents, you can do something, prove to himself that all is not lost while trying to make things happen. So when you’re in that uncertain environment early in your age, 10, when you look back, even now in these uncertain times, you’re like, hang on.

Oh, this is a pattern it’s never forever. Your mind. You don’t allow your mind to say this is the end. So all I’m grateful to all of those uncertain times in my life that allowed me to essentially rebuild our business based on the internet. And we paid off the debt and we built from one guest house. We had two beautiful, you know, like if I see it with all humility, we have two of the most well known boutique hotels in the country that we run the pride and, you know, yeah.

And with the story in the story,

Joel: if you always had a entrepreneurial spirit and did that, and if so, did that come from your father?

Avi: No, I was the, I was 118 kilos. I used to stammer. So ideally I should have been an introvert and, you know, I should not have gotten out of the house much because every time that I did try to make new friends or get into new things and you don’t have any kind of spirit.

You know, it was trampled upon because of my weight and because I couldn’t put two sentences together because I used to stand up. So, no, I don’t think I had that spirit initially, because I just wanted to eat lots of chocolates. That’s why you see my eyes lit up and you tell your wife that the chocolate business, I just wanted to be, not such chocolate, watch some movies and maybe racecars because I don’t want to move so much.

I don’t want to raise it. So, no, I didn’t have that. They did, but when we lost everything and dreams were shattered at an early age. And then I see my mom and my dad both working so hard to date, even now, like the last in our background, my bedroom is thinking about how to revive their business and all of that.

So at the age of seven 70, so I’ve always seen them. You haven’t really, you know, I mean, you haven’t worked hard enough, so all you haven’t taught. Either think of a plan. And when you’ve thought of a plan, then go execute the plan. I don’t understand why. So, you know, on Joel at our dinner tables, we’ve never been allowed to crim creeping.

He’s never been alone. Say, can you replace that with going back to the office? So you come back at eight o’clock and grip, right? You’d rather stay in the office at 12 o’clock and work out the solution. So. So, so that spirit game from both of them, for sure.

Joel: And how has that served you through COVID and all of these challenging times?

Avi: So like I was mentioning earlier, thank God. And I say this with all, humidity and thank you to God and universe weapons out there. Who’s, you know, I always see that. You need to be very mindful of the people you’re surrounding yourself with. Because if, if there are people who are like, you know, what the world is coming to an end and all of that, I, some of my good friends or some of my cousins or whatever, I mute them on the WhatsApp.

You can mute that notification because you know, it affects me. So I don’t want to, so when go would happen though, obviously the hotel business took a beating the agency of mine, which is that building from scratch. This was my first venture on my own. I’ve done it for 10 years. And all of a sudden the agency business is paused.

Yeah, it was very surreal. But for the last one year, I developed a new coaching program on how people can use videos and start super profitable webinars without having to travel. You know, my, you met my family, you know, I want to be home. My daughter travels so much away from Vancouver. So I developed this program only so that parents and entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial parents or parents who are entrepreneurs, can stay close to their families and work from home with their webinars setups and all of that.

So I was teaching people and I said, I promised myself on the first of Jan, 52 weeks, 52 webinars. And that was my work ethic plan. And this is what I had done when, so we were already teaching people that when Paul would hit and I saw both my hotel and agency businesses, you know, take a nose, dive. From the very next day that we moved our offices, we closed, we shut down our office it and moved everything to people’s homes.

And I moved my office to my house within the last 75 days. We’ve done 75 webinars. So we went all in on what we were thinking would be a, you know, another business of art, it just became full. So again, that work ethic of saying, Hey, if you can work harder, And that should be the easier thing to do. Right.

So that’s what we that’s that. Same thing comes back to me. So if you were saying that, you know, working 14, so my challenges are not working 12, 14 hours a day. My challenges are, if something is broken, how to look at the different,

got it from a different strategic view. So my thing I need to take time off focus. My mind goes all over the place. Those are challenges. Walking beggar. Horse is not a challenge for me right now. I

Joel: think what you just said is super important. I just want to reiterate it a little bit is that you can work hard, but also what’s important is looking at these challenges from a different perspective and seeing things from a different lens, because if you keep.

Running through the same challenges and you still, you keep, I think a lot of entrepreneurs, they keep, you know, kind of hitting their heads against the same wall and they don’t look at, at these challenges differently. So I think that’s a really important point that you just mentioned. so I just, yeah, I just wanted to, to make sure that was not lost in, in all this great, content that you’re, that you’re providing.

so I, I want to go back to your streetcar, racing days. And was that something that you grew up doing and how did you, how did that become such a passion of yours?

Avi: No. So, my dad, he, I mean, we never came from a very well to do family. We were okay. We mean, we, we were, we were absolutely fine. I mean, that is.

feel the need for everything, but at the same time we couldn’t buy everything. So it was, it was pretty okay. And my dad had a very ordinary car and he used to go to sleep and take his car out on neutral gear and, you know, Well, Reese with people in the streets and, you know, and then I started betting on those races and I said, you know, $5 or whatever, 500 rupees or 200 rupees for a race.

And so I was like, this is fun. And then I researched and there, people said that there are companies who allow you to go for, you know, peer Malian rallies, or, and then sponsor your car and all of that. So I started getting those forms together. You know, who’s gonna respond to my DIYers. How’s this going to happen?

Sounded learning. What about this started hanging out with other people who were professional racers. And I used to actually go and spend time in garages where people are fixing race cars and getting them ready for, you know, like a Malian rally race or whatever. And, one day I remember going to my mom and I took a form.

I said, I got a form. Guess what? I don’t have a car yet, but somebody is ready to sponsor my tires. And I figured out the car part from somebody else, but can you sign this? She just saw this and hemophilia rally is on the mountain cliffs and all of that. He saw the form and see the store and pardon, this is not happening.

So that was my first, That was the first time that I, you know, I, I, my bed is told me very clear the Yukon, you know, you can’t do this. It’s not safe. And the second time was that life happened and I couldn’t do it. So that’s why you see every time I want a jacket from the last 20 years, every time I want a jacket with my favorite number that I used to put on the car, I wanted to put it on the car, which I never had.

And so in my head, I’m a street Carissa and yeah.

Joel: Did your dad let you take the car out and did he know what you were doing?

Avi: No never. So one day what happened was that, he got a call from, somebody saying that, you know, your son has crashed the car and the dire has come out or something. I came home and I was like to get it fixed.

My dad is like, I said, I told him, I said, you know, I crashed the tire and it’s going to be okay. And he said, you’re lying to me because I’ve got the keys under my bed. I said, yeah, but I’ve got to duplicate me. So, so I, he didn’t know that he would, he would never allow it.

Joel: So, how did you, go from street car racer, which is primarily thought of, I guess like a jock sport type, but the gambling and, and all the, I guess, lifestyle that comes with it to an internet marketer.

Cause I think that’s quite different.

Avi: Of course. yes, yes or no. You can find analogies or parallels in anything that you want if you go looking for it. But, The thing was that for me, obviously at that age, the need for speed and, the need for, I mean, I like to see what’s under the car, what’s under the hood and I was not really a crazy racer, but I’ve just liked cars a lot, but then everything changed in my life.

And my dad said, you know, you have to start working with me otherwise, there’s only way only way or the other option is get out of the house and all of that. So he gave me the ultimatum stop, you know, because I used to come back late at night and. You know, not pay attention to my studies and all of that.

So he said either you work with me or get out of the house. So, so when I started working with him, I discovered this new phenomenon called the internet. And we started ranking web. I had no idea what I’m doing. And somebody said, rank a website, write an article, put in these keywords. I will doing all of that.

And we started ranking. I’m talking to Joel, I’m talking about 19 nine 98, 2000 2001. It used to take a week to rank any keyword hotels in Delhi, Debbie hotels, five star hotels in Debby boutique hotels in Delhi, hotels near the airport. I was ranking on every single keyword in at least five position on every page.

Like I was dominating searches, not just because nobody was doing it. It was maybe a Marriott or Hilton, maybe, maybe a Thomas book, but there will no Indian company who was doing this thing called SEO. I was, I was the first mover by far. And so that’s how I bought into it. And that completely changed our business.

By the end of 2005, I had 120 plus websites. All of them are not doing well, but I had tourism, India, tourism, tourism, tourism, Carola, tourism, Goa, India, cheap air tickets, India cheaper. So I had all sorts of websites. I was trying to rank all of them. Only four of them did well, but they were doing giving me excellent profits, like almost to the tune of maybe $2,000 a day in net profit back then.

So all of them, well, these things, the internet gave me back. My self confidence gave me a standing in my own family understanding of the society. So that’s the internet and whatever I could discover from the internet became my identity. And then in 2009, when people said, why don’t you do this for us?

And I’m like, no, I’m doing this for my own family business and my own travel websites. So there’s a, can you do it for us? That’s when in 2009, I started a digital marketing agency called internet mobiles with a four-member team. And that’s when I separated, you know, businesses from my dad. And I said, you know, I, you know, we live in the same house, so we have some common things together.

But in terms of the business, no money, no funding, nothing. He started on my own with a four-member team and bootstrapped the agency from day one, never borrowed, never, went to the, I mean, we tried to get money, nobody gave it, but, but, but we’ve been profitable from day one and ran the agency from.

Four two, 225 pre-COVID after COVID, there’ll be a different number for sure. And yeah.

Joel: And so how did you learn all that? Cause I mean, SEO is, is very technical and it’s not, I think it’s, it’s so easy to learn now. Cause now you just go on YouTube and you watch a couple of YouTube and then you’re an SEO expert. So how did you learn back it back then?

Avi: I used to go to forums. You know, there were Yahoo forums and Yahoo were basically the main forum and, starting meeting people over there. And then we made a small community of about 10 people in India who knew what we were talking about and used to talk over email and we made a chat group and, and that’s how we started.

We just experimented. Honestly, I still don’t have a step by step guide for anybody I experiment. And things work out and some do some do some don’t, like I said, last go with 75 days 75 webinars. I grew my email list, 250,000 subscribers. My followers went up by 40,000. So, and my Facebook group is not 27,000 people who know me.

These are not people who just came into the group 24, two hours. So these are people who really know me. So now today, when somebody says how to create a brand in under one under three months, I’ll tell them if you’re ready to work hard every day, I’ll tell you that webinars can change your life. So now my new mission is to teach.

Everybody, how to do webinars to grow their brand, to get leads, to become famous on the internet and to be able to make money without having to leave your house and stay away from your family. Like I did for the longest time. It’s all about webinars to me now.

Joel: So if I want to start, I guess, promoting myself, you know, through social media webinars, What are a good couple first steps to take.

Avi: Excellent question, Joel. So I always say that three, three steps. Number one, discover your micro-niche. Number two, become a video influencer in that niche. And number three, start your webinar journey. And I tell you how that works. A lot of people think that we know what we’re doing. And that’s fine, but people have no idea.

Even after 10 years of mean by business, maybe somebody doesn’t let that discriminate. People should be a five year old child should be able to explain to anybody what you do. So instead of saying I’m a digital marketer, I will say Juul, I help authors. Like you find business on the internet in using webinars.

Hmm. How do you do that? I mean, we’re stoners at what you do or how that means I’m now on a, well, on my way of getting the, your business. If I need a travel agent, you know, and I work with travel agents as well. So I say I help travel agents find queries to sell their tour packages without having to travel using webinars.

So I need to be able to tell people. In a short format, now that I’ve worded a deeper into that a story. And then it also, so what is the story? My name is  father of two girls, six dogs. I spend two  now social media marketer, and founder of internet bloggers, and I help small and medium sized businesses.

Find their customers using webinars without having to up. Okay. So that is why I don’t. I spoke about my wife, super woman. I spoke about my kids. I spoke about my dog. I spoke about my company because when two human beings meet on an, at an airport at a railway station at a coffee shop, we are always trying to find common ground.

It’s like, it’s like you and I meet for the first time your internet, antenna goes up. My goes up and we try to find common ground. Or were you born in London? No, not London. have you ever been to London at least I’ve been to London or did you go to the Trafalgar square? not Trafalgar square, but you at least had those, the Guinness beer from London.

So we somewhere connect or is your mother born from this part of the world or did you go to UBC as well? We’re always trying to find common ground. And that’s when the relationship is built. And then when that’s, when we do business, but on the internet, when people have very little time, the shortest way to explain and make that relationship is through what I call the hero story.

My name is  father of two girls. Six dogs has been social media, marketer, and founder of internet movers. I help small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, find their clients using webinars without having to travel. So. That’s supposed spot connections through stories. Number two is like I said, what can I help you with?

So I can help if I’m going for an author’s meet like an altar like you or a content person like you USA. I help content people find content gigs. using webinars without having to travel or do any PPC ads or Facebook ads. You’ll at least ask me how so that’s the second part. Third, then I say, become a video.

Once you found your niche where I’m, who am ,I and how do I position myself? So I said, my name is Joel and I help digital marketers. Right. Get all that content. Done by the 20th of the month and delivered to their clients. Now you’ve made it so specific. Like how do you know, as a digital marketing agency, I need my content to be going on.

Diamond is always red. How did you know that I needed on the 20th? And nobody understands that they all give it to me on the 30th because you’ve researched one niche. And now, you know, the problems of that niche. Right? So when you say that, I know, you know, my pain as a digital marketer, So, what is the story?

Second is the offer. The offer third is become a video influencer in your niche. So I always tell people every day, go live and answer people’s questions around your topic. Even if there are two people coming in every single day, do it for 28 days in 28 days, you will become the go to in your small niche.

For example if I service, say content writers or you service digital marketing agency in that niche, you’re answering people’s questions everyday in 28 days, you become a video influencer in your niche. And this guy talks about content for digital marketers. So you become an, and then you continue it after 21 days, 28 days as well.

So once, once you do that, But you know what? I have only 200 followers. How am I a video influencer? I’m seeing a video influence in your own niche. Those 20 people can add enough to feed your business for the entire year. That’s all you need sometimes. So video influencing your own niche. Third part is when it comes to marketing.

And I always tell people, start a webinar. Get the first 50 people in give them enough value and then don’t send anything. If you don’t have anything to sell, right. Then just book appointments out of those 50 people, maybe 25 is data in the very end of those 25. If you get five appointments, five 30 minute consultations by working on a 90 minute webinar sitting at home, that is the best use of your time.

Do a webinar. Do a webinar every single day, I’ve done three webinars a day as well. Because for me, I’m trying to tell entrepreneurs, think of webinars as meetings. You never said, Oh, I can’t do one more than one meeting a day. And why is it, why can’t you do more than three webinars a day or do a recent webinar today?

So, number one is the hook story of, you know, your story and then your offer become a video influencer. And then, you know, then actually go out, do your first free webinar, give them a free piece of information and then book calls with them and you see that it completely changes the way people approach you.

And you’re sitting at home. You can work half the time. If you do it efficiency.

Joel: So, so, so much, so much great information there. One thing that really stuck out for me was that people always they’re looking at numbers like how many likes I like, and or how much, how many likes do I have? How many views have I got?

I think what you said about some, you know, sometimes only 200 people, if you only have 200 people, but those are your ideal clients. That’s all you need. You don’t need to go out and try to get more likes views or whatever comments it’s about servicing the target market. So I think that’s what really stuck out for me.

Avi: I saw one of Gary’s videos and he was speaking at an event and there was this one gentleman who spoke about his business and Gary was saying something about, and this guy said I’ve got 20,000 YouTube subscribers. No, I’ve got 2000 YouTube subscribers and all of them are my target audience.

I help them and I make $200,000 a year from that it it’s happening all over. I feel Juul. A lot of people want more and more followers and they go there because sometimes as human beings, we’re scared of actually asking for the sale. So I don’t want to ask for the sale. I keep telling myself, or let me get more followers.

You have two people in front of you, make sure both of them come and work with you. Give them an offer, give them a money back guarantee, give them a first month free drive out offer. See what I can do for you. There’s so many ways that you can get money today.

Joel: Can you tell me a little bit more about how do I discover my hero story as you call it?

Cause I mean, I’m just like a regular guy. I don’t, there’s nothing special about me. I grew up in Vancouver, lived here my entire life. What are some things that you listen for that you can say? Yes. That’s part of your hero story?

Avi: Nobody’s asked me that question. How do you define a story? In fact, the webinar, we teach that as the first part. Because that’s why I tell you this number one. And, I owe it to my teachers. I went to New York film Academy to study filmmaking, and this was one of my scriptwriting teachers who taught me, about what I’m going to tell you. Now, the first thing that everybody looks Johnny Depp, or, Sylvester, Stallone, not any of these big actors, they do need.

Not the big stars, but we still don’t go to the movies on this. Be like the trailer and the trailer has to be solid for us to say, okay, here’s my $10, right. Just $10. But I still that they have to send it to me.

A hero or a heroine, the story has to be relatable. Please take off that mask of how I want to show up instead, say that I used to stamp it and I could put two sentences together. Talk about the fact that I was 118 kilos. And when I got out of the house and I tried to get into game of cricket, people ridiculed me and threw me out of the field once 10 times in a row.

And I was always a tall and large man. It was difficult for me to cry, but I did cry because I had no other option. This was happening too often. And Joel, I didn’t have the guts to talk like this a hundred years ago, but now I do. Because I, because of two reasons, a, you know, I’m 44 years old and I’ve gone through it, doesn’t bother me as much.

The other thing is I know when I see it, other people get inspired to share their stories as well. So share your story. Be vulnerable because the hero is somebody who’s exactly like you and me having all these challenges is a normal person. And then all of a sudden. We talk about a hero in his values. I say, you know, my father of two girls, six dogs, that’s going to go on.

My mom and dad were entrepreneurs. They taught me to work 12 hours a day. And then what happens in your life? A challenge happens now the whole world, which is a CS. Is this guy going to succumb or is he still going to uphold his values and virtues? And if you do throughout your challenges, that’s when the world says you’re a hero.

You never call yourself a hero. The world calls you a hero. So look at any many incidents in your life. When this happened with you, when you went through challenges and you came out and it came out, doesn’t have to be where I came out and I got a Ferrari or I came out and now I’m a rich man. Skip out of that situation.

And you said I was going to Starbucks the other day and it was really cold. It was so difficult to walk in that hole. I just barely made it to the Starbucks, got a coffee, ran back in and I sat in my car and I’m like, Oh my God, that was feeling like I was feeling really broadened inside because I saw a beggar on the street and I ignored the beggar because I was like, it’s too cold now.

And I should not have done that. My mom has not brought me up to. Get something from a coffee shop just for myself. Now that meant I needed to go back into that coffee shop and, you know, brave the winter, which I did. I got a sandwich for the, for the, for the gentlemen and I came out and gave him the sandwich came back in, that’s it.

End of story. A story is who I am, my values. I came through a challenge and then what happened? So always look back at your life and say, what will my. Most vulnerable States. What happened then? And what, what did I come through? That’s that’s number one. That’s number one, always remember a good story is somebody is your authentic story of who you are, which is like you said, a regular diet, we’re all regular people.

Number one, number two, you talk about now, the thing is the story has to relate to the other person. So then it has to have an awful. So my dad also threw me out of the house, was wanting to throw me out of the house. You know, this thing happened, discovered the internet realized that the elder son in Indian family, I have my own responsibilities worked hard.

Luckily he discovered the internet understood it worked very hard, learned, completely changed the way the business happened. And now, because of that experience, Juul, I can help you run your digital marketing because any event your customer, a story’s a story. Did they treat you as a customer? A customer is always losing.

Why are you telling a story and why do you think, or a house sweet. How beautiful is my heart? There is a. Signaler in his brain thing. WIFM – What’s in it for me. So you need to connect your story with Watson. It for him is so, because I will be able to do this from my dad. I became an internet marketer.

I started my own agency and today I can help you. So instead of saying, if I came to you and said, Joel, You know, I’m an internet market. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. Like what 18 awards for my digital marketing. You’ll be like, how do I get this guy off the phone? But if I tell you a story of how I came about doing my digital marketing, you will never forget the story.

And I’ll tell you how I came about doing this. Now you’ll be like very interesting. You’ll at least never forget my name and my story. And that’s when the next, the aim of a good story in a business context is to get to the next question, which is like, To answer that question. What’s in it for me. I should be able to have to answer that question for you.

Joel. I can do this. So those are some of the ingredients of a good story.

Joel: I think that’s super important. And what you said about people, remembering stories it’s really bang on because you’re right. People don’t remember how many awards they won or what, you know, what clients necessarily they had, but they remember, Oh, that’s the guy.

Who, he owned the hotel and turned it into a digital marketing agency and, and, you know, whatever that story is. Right. So, I want to go back to the videos for a little bit. Is, is it as simple as just turning on your cell phone camera? Is there any equipment that you need to use or what should you think about, when you’re shooting video?

Avi: See, the thing is the first day you go to the gym and you want to get in shape. Just start going to the gym, go for a run, hang out with your buddies, play squash, do whatever you want. Start gluing into the gym.

That’s what I always say, but, and especially today’s day and age, when it comes to videos, all you need is the smartphone, pick it up, put it right in front of you, make sure the light is. And the audio is good only because you want to respect the time of the audience by when you’re giving a message. So in terms of equipment, you need nothing else.

The best YouTube channels in the world, and the best Netflix documentaries today are going to be short on these smart phones. So we don’t need to overthink things. I need a better camera with the best of the best. All you need is a good story and you need a good storyteller. You all. This is ancillary, right?

Number one, when you do start a video, then I do have a few suggestions because people don’t have time. You start a video by saying in this video, you’re going to learn about how I Joel. Can help you get your content ready for the entire 30 days in less than three hours. So you tell me initially in the first five seconds, why I should watch this video, then you say, then you’d come into a hero story.

My name is Joel, Mark Harris. I look like a regular guy, but I’m one of Vancouver’s best looking content writer. And I get, I go from my BNI conferences at six o’clock sharp. I never miss it. I’m always there that talks about my ethics and about 200 of my family members will meet me at six o’clock. So if you happen to cross by downtown Vancouver, whatever.

So what are you want to see in the video, then your story, and then instantly jump into the three things that you’re going to teach. So you said I’m going to help you. design your 30 day content in less than three hours. So what is the strategy secret? Number one, always, you know, whatever is your secret.

Number one, then you give your secret number two, then you give you secret number three and then summarize. So in this video you learned about secret number one, secret number two, secret number three. And this is how you can do your one month content in three days. Right? Once again, my name is Joel Mark Harris.

I’m the best looking content right in Vancouver. Meet me at the six o’clock six o’clock BNI, every. if you liked this video and would like me to send you a free PDF of how you or your team can also plan that. and thank you very much for watching this video. So when you give somebody that free PDF guide, you have inter they’ve given you their email address or their phone number. So there’s a subscribe to your knowledge and information.

So that’s how you get people into your subscription list. You keep building nurturing a relationship and that’s your take it to another level. So, but you asked me a question how easy it is to make videos. You need equipment. I said, forget about the equipment. Focus on this process, the first five seconds.

What are you going to find in this video? Then talk about your story. Then give the three steps. Then at the end of the three steps, summarize it. Talk about your story again, and then give a free offer PDF, whatever. And that’s it.

Joel: Thank you for, the couple of minutes, by the way. that was very nice. so social media, I want to, let’s talk about social media a little bit. it can be a little bit overwhelming. What, or is there some, you know, you mentioned that you, you mute to your WhatsApp chats and how do you, how do you stay, on top of things yet?

Don’t let it overwhelm you.

Avi: So I bought two phones and on one phone I’ve got only my family members and some of my friends who I just have a good time with. And on the other phone is I’ve got three Facebook groups. One is for digital agency owners, the other’s for webinars. The third is for, you know, for social media.

So I go there every morning. I answered a few questions. And I put in a post of the day, which is informative, or I do a live video, which is informative so that when people get up and start coming to the group, they’re like, Oh, I remember that’s why I joined obvious group because it was every day. He.

Motivates me to keep being consistent and also gives me ways and means to do webinars, to make money. So, because that’s the promise of the group, I go and fill up the group every day with my promise. So it takes me about an hour, do a post that I’m supposed to do. If, and if I, if I have time in the evening, I’ll go live and take a few questions again.

So at best it takes an hour or two to engage with people. And I say, give me a week. I won’t get back to you instantly earlier on. It was like, Oh my God, I need to get back to people in time. Now, want to give me a week? But Mike, you make a community so that other people can respond faster than you. And, you know, people can help each other.

So I’m not overwhelmed anymore. because of that. And when I do get overwhelmed, when I go out for dinner or whatever, I leave my work phone at home and I take my other phone.

Joel: So should people be looking at sort of the new social media platforms, like kick talk? Like how do you think about, or how should businesses think about the different platforms?

Avi: Interestingly, today, because of the India-China standoff at the border dog is banned in India today. So anyway,

Joel: you don’t have to worry about tech talk anymore.

Avi: I don’t have to worry about taking off for awhile, I think, but see, I’ll tell you one thing. I think less than 10%, I’m not sure, but less than 10% people make more than a hundred thousand dollars a year.

And a hundred thousand dollars is a beautiful income in a nice place. Like Vancouver to have a nice life balanced life. You can travel. You don’t need to go crazy running around 20 hours a day and you can do easy a hundred thousand dollars by selling your products or your services by focusing on just one or two channels.

It could be a Facebook group. I love Facebook groups and a YouTube channel answering people’s questions on YouTube every single day. Create a Facebook community. Answer that question every day, within less than a year stack two 65 days.  Least 365 people and got them. There’ll be enough business that you can do just on the base of these two channels.

Yes. I have a content calendar plan. When I say Reebok it, everything puts something from the up posted over there. I can tell you that as well, but the first part was you can do it without going crazy. Just two channels, answer people’s questions, but. Let me give you a more aggressive plan and I call it the MVM, which is our program.

MVM turnover, your system. How do you turn the wheel? I mean, you know what? My business, I’m not able to turn the wheel. We call it the MVM turnover system. You could call it the wheel Turner system as well, but we set on a wheel so that people remember it, but it’s a bit, bit of a tongue twister. A turnover system, we say every day, 11, o’clock go like, put a poll on your Facebook group or whatever.

What are the three things that I can help you as a doctor, as a lawyer, as whoever you are, and then give them an option three, four, and people will say, I want to answer, I want help with this or branding or marketing or content writing grid, and then go live at four o’clock every day. I mean, you can look at your times based on how your audience reacts.

But this is what I do. 11 o’clock. I put a post four o’clock, I go live and I answer questions for an hour life. So in one hour, I’ve got about 10 questions that I’ve answered and I take those 10 questions and, that that’s one hour of content. I take that, put a nice topic to it, how to, how to subject line.

And then I posted on IGTV. I take that, I posted it on YouTube. I break up the 10 questions into six minutes each and put it on all my different channels. And so I’ve got enough content for the whole day, if you want to go crazy and repurpose and all of that. So you can do that as well. I told you one strategy, which is nice and simple concept, make a Facebook community of only those people you want to serve very important.

If you’re a content writer and you’re serving people with content. It’s, it’s not a micro-niche, it’s a niche. But if you stay content writing for digital marketing owners only add the micro-niche. Now people would like to be part of that group because you will give them information that only they know they would subscribe to.

So if you have a group like that and you have a YouTube channel like that, say digital market content writing only for digital marketers. Maybe you would have only 400 people who are your followers, but all 400 agency owners who want solutions every single day take care of them for one year. And you’re in business.

Joel: I want to switch topics a little bit. You’ve, you’ve written two books, one that has particularly caught my eye. And I just want to make sure I got the title correctly. So bedtime stories for tomorrow, tomorrow is entrepreneurs are there right there. What’s inspired you to write this book?

Avi: No, this is my favorite question.

Thank you for asking that. Because I was spending so much time away from my daughters in Vancouver and I’m traveling back and forth. This is a couple of years back and I’m, I’m sitting on my couch and I’m a very guilty father. I never thought I’d be a father like that. You know, my, my mom and dad were very involved in my growing up.

So I’m like, I’m feeling guilty and my I’m not feeling good about myself. My wife is like, Don’t worry about what, when you’re not with the kids, but when you’re with the kids, give them all your types. I said, how do you do that? She said, read bedtime stories to them and spend time with them.

I would read bedtime stories to them, Joel. And they would go to sleep in five minutes and my wife would say, well done. And I was like, no, this is not the idea. The idea was to have a one hour conversation, but they went to sleep. A marketer like me should have known that the story is about the audience and not about me.

What’s in it for them? I forgot. So I changed it and my elderest one is called Riah. My younger daughter is called Aviana, so I combined their names together and we made a company. Now that company needed a business for the business normally should be around your passion. The girl’s passion at that time was around chocolates.

So we said, Hmm. Yeah. So, okay, cool.

And every week they call their mentor and they ask questions about the business. So why, why is the chocolate not nutty as much as it used to be last week and all?

So they’re running a business. So Rubiana chocolates with the factory and weed. And we started telling our friends and family about all of this and this became, Hey, this is a cool idea. And when everybody started saying, it’s a cool idea. We said, why not put a comic book around it series? So put a comic book series around it, bedtime stories, sort towards entrepreneur.

We got a graphic writer. The girls wrote every chapter of the book and, they spoke at different schools in Canada. They became speakers. this September one of my elder one is, supposed to audition for kids because of that. It allowed us to spend more time together and we made a whooping profit of $550 on Amazon.

So, so, and we, we bonded as a result. So that’s how this venture came about.

Joel: I don’t know how much you read, but is there any author that, you know, and you can say Gary V but maybe there’s somebody else who has really influenced you and, whose book you really enjoy.

Avi: Robin Sharma Robin Sharma by phone, the jet, this guy, and he’s won many books, but this is one of my favourites.

The 5:00 AM club, it talks, he calls it the fiber. Nobody talks about many other concepts here as well. And this guy is by far the, you know, East meets West kind of guy together. He’s from India, zipped his life abroad. He lives in Toronto. I love what he said. I understand what he says for both angles and, speed talks about like one thing that changed my company because of him 10 years back when I started my company around that time, I’d read his book when he said PYNW – plan your next week.

And that just, those are many rituals he talks about, but that just one ritual, which I cannot live without. I cannot have my people in my company and my wife and my kids and all of us sit down together and said, we have no idea how the week is going to be. Well, if you want the week to be without a plan, that’s you it’s that too is a plan.

Right. But have a plan. So to this guy is amazing. Robin Sharma is a, and he’s got this event called, the Titan summit that happens in November, every year in Toronto. I’ve never been able to go for it. And I hope someday I’ll have the time. And, I’ll be able to afford the very expensive tickets.

Joel: Well, thank you so much for being on the show for people who want to learn more about you, reach out to you, where can they find you?

Avi: Joel, the pleasure is all mine. Instagram at AskAvi is the best place to find me. And, I just wanted to say that I’ve known you for such a long time, and I was really humbled and honoured that you just started a new venture and you wanted to send me that invitation.

in the last two years, the Lord has been God, Lord universe, whatever you call, it has been extremely kind and honoured our hard work. And, I’ve learned a few things about lots of things. I’ve made a lot of connections. And if it, any of those, if I can help you with anything in your business, I just want you to know that I’m only a phone call away for you.

Joel: Thank you. And next time you’re in Vancouver. Let’s get together and have some chocolates.

Avi: I said, when I tell my daughter about this, my daughters about this, you got to get an order from us very soon.

Joel: Please like and Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.