Hey welcome to Social Media Hangout Time. I’m Janet Johnson and I’m here today with Lisa Sailne.
Hello everyone!
And I’m here with with our special guest Gary Loper, welcome Gary.
Greetings, greetings! Welcome, it’s great to be here.
Thanks, thanks for coming on. Now first I’m going to explain a little bit, we don’t have Kimmy today, instead we have Lisa so there will be two of us that are going to be delving in to ask questions to Gary all about, we’re going to be talking today he’s a big Twitter expert but I also want to read his whole entire bio so you really understand who Gary is and then we’re going to get in to ask him questions.
So Gary Loper, he is a recognized Twitter expert, as I just said and mind set coach, motivational speaker, trainer, former talk radio host, life and business coach, and highly respected entrepreneur, helping people master the business of life by building better relationships, which is absolutely critical in social media here. So in addition, Gary’s strong background in marketing sales and his 30+ years of superior customer service and 15 years of direct sales adds more depth to who he is. He teaches his audience strategy and tactics on how to become successful to produce and maintain positive solutions. To stay in a positive mind set and attract and manifest true wealth. He empowers people to discover their hidden assets, develop confidence and create better relationships with themselves first before creating life and business relationships. I already have a lot of questions for you just reading this. So, also Gary’s worked with some of the top coaches in the world including Bob Burg, Loral Langemeier, and Eric Lofholm. And he’s also the author of 3 ebooks: Master the Twitterverse – Guide to Get More Followers and 37 Keys to Better Networking Relationships and 20 Secrets to Building Better Love Relationships. So welcome Gary, you have quite a background in relationships.
Thanks. Well we’ve been studying it my entire life. We always, we taper our lessons and I think early on in my life I saw some of the inabilities of relationships that was happening in my family. My parents really weren’t equipped to be able to deal with a lot of things. So I started studying relationships on other people. I’m looking at how to be able to model them. And it’s just been a constant theme through all my life. I’m always looked at how we’re relating to one another, how we’re relating to ourselves, how we’re relate to our environment. How we relate to our finances, our exercise. So we’re always in relationship to something. And I think that’s the magic key. If we work on building a better relationship with ourselves and get that mastery, we can be able to have better relationships with anything we choose to be able to bring in our lives.
And you know relationships that are so key and I see that a lot in social media. So we’re talking today about how do you stand out on social media. Well I think if you understand relationships it’s a lot easier to have a voice on social media.
Yes.
You know how to connect and communicate. So tell us a little bit about your theory with your relationships in social media.
Well one of the things social media has really leveled the playing field. So everybody has an opportunity to be able to play with the big guys, the little guys and going through their end. One of my other clients had mentioned, she said that there’s over 10,000 baby boomers who are no longer working everyday. Either by choice or by being pushed out. So that means there’s 10,000 other people who have a lot of other experience, consultants they can be able to do a lot of things in addition to everybody who’s already here. So one of the things that we picked up from Bob Berg’s teachings is his golden rule of business networking which states that all things being equal, people are going to do business with and refer business to people they know, like and trust.
Right.
A lot of people get that know-like-and-trust part. But what I focus on all things being equal. I’m a life coach, I’m a mindset coach. If there’s a thousand other people who’re doing the same type of thing what differentiates me from everybody else – whether you’re selling lipstick or juice or something else, the consumers are looking for a connection. They’re looking for something additional that they can be able to tap into other than just the product. Because the days of the Yellow Pages or the Sunday newspaper, we see an add, we run to the store and that’s the only choice. They’ve got choices. And they’re looking for something beyond just the purchase. They want more value. They want a sense of connection. They want to be able to belong to something better and bigger which is going to be able to solve their current problem and may give them a path to be able to trust that you’re going to be able to help them with their future problems.
Yeah.
How did you, you’re a big, we met actually through Laura Longmire through Twitter. I was twitting your little hashtag and that’s how we connected. And then we just had a lot of fun conversing on Twitter. Tell us a little bit, how did you get started on Twitter?
Well actually it was through a Bob Burg events. Back a number of years ago Bob and his business partner Tom Scott do a series of events over 5 years called Extreme Business Makeovers. So it was a once a year event where they had a 2 or 3-day, motivational bringing in a lot of speakers. Well in 2008, it was in April or June, there was a second extreme business makeover. One of the speakers had mentioned, ‘hey Twitter is this new thing, get on there go figure and just get on.” And Twitter has just started mid-2006. It was just like a little over year old and it was just kind of stumbling, people were trying to figure out what was going on.
Right.
And so I was just stumbling along with it and didn’t really fully grasp and see the potential until November of 2008 where I have lost income and emotional support. I was working as massage therapist doing massage for people with disabilities.
Okay.
And the funding for that program was eliminated. They decided that, the state legislature decided that massage wasn’t necessary for people with disabilities. So 90% of income, I’m an internal rewards person so a lot of emotional support that I got, they all went away. And I sort of fell into the couch. I got kind of blue, got into a funk like what am I doing, all these things were gone. And a way to be able to, one of the ways I use to be able to pick me up is I started studying personal development. When I got introduced to Tony Robins with his weight league through video tape when I went to school for my marketing degree back in 89. And I started studying everyday at personal development. I collected a lot of tweets, well they became tweets – the motivational quotes. So I had a whole library of them and I’m going I’m going to start tweeting stuff selfishly to lift myself up. To get myself out of the funk I was in. And what I found instantaneously was people were responding to those motivational messages. You know, great message, thank you, they had questions. And then I took that as a call from university saying “okay Gary, the coaching certificate that you got 10 years ago, it’s time to be able to get that hat off the shelf and start wearing that because that’s what you’re doing next. And then I just really saw that the connection and be able to be available in twitting with people, talking to them — that was one of the things that differentiated me from other people who are coaching is they were broadcasting. They weren’t actually conversing with people and responding to what they are talking about. And so it’s going on 6 years, my 6-year anniversary is coming up the first weekend in September on Twitter. And so I’m thrilled and we’ve just grown and touched a lot of people’s lives in a lot of ways. By just for today affirmation people would always respond to them and actually this is the power of 1 tweet. So look at my blog posts, never underestimate the power of a single tweet.
Right.
And what happened was there was a young girl who was contemplating suicide. And she was ready to be able to take her life and then one of my tweets, which was automated, so I wasn’t really I didn’t control it. I didn’t say okay you’re scheduled to go at this time. An automated tweet went out and it touched her her at that point where she changed her mind and said, “okay, I’m good to work with the disease that I have. I’m going to help others be able to get through what they’re going through.” And so it really resonated with me. It was like there’s a lot of people we can be able to touch, whether we know it or not. I’m fortunate enough to know that I got that message and couple other ones where I know that my messages have made a significant difference in people’s lives and be able to help shift them. And I believe, I’m more motivated to share more of those messages because I know it’s going to touch people’s lives.
Right.
And I know that by doing that I’m going to attract other people who are going to like the way I’m doing business, like the way that I’m interacting, like the way that I’m serving. And they’re going to be able to say, “okay Gary’s here everyday for 6 years. He’s doing this in the same way. I know that I can be at least trust him a little bit to start the processes are working together.” And I think that’s kind of the formula, just go out there. Go out and serve, go on and connect, be social. Serve a higher good, solve people’s problems — you’ll attract people.
So Gary are you building like a prospecting list of targeted people that you would like to work with or maybe you wanted, I see that you’re a speaker. So are you connecting with people to help get you speaking engagements on Twitter? And if so can you tell us little bit about how you might be doing it?
Well I’m reaching out to the people who are already connected to me because I think one other ways, people that you already know. And I think this is a, remember the story Earl Nightingale told, you know, Acres of Diamonds? And so I think our email list , our Twitter list, the people who have already connections to probably already have some introductions waiting for us and we just have to let them know that it’s available. I have some tweets that put others, they have Gary speak at your next event, contact Gary, I put out all the radio shows and podcast that I’m on so those links are always there. So it let’s people know in a service. Here’s what I’ve done and subliminally we’re saying bring Gary on as a speaker. But then I’m also starting to be able to reach out and so I would go back, for example, I would go and look at your Tweet stream. And so one the ways that you can be able to make a connection with that person of influence is to be able to get that introduction is you got to be able to let, I got to let ways to know that I am watching her, that I’m available.
Right.
Seeing things. So I’m going to go and watch your stream. I’m going to put you on a list and I’m going to start re-tweeting you periodically.
Right.
And letting subtly, oh Gary re-tweeted me again, he re-tweeted me again, he re-tweeted me again. So that’s kind of the dance that we do in the beginning of a relationship. We just get to know each other, like passing notes in school, whatever.
That’s a great way to put it, yeah — passing notes in school. That’s about it because you just got that little space to do that. It’s fun.
And if you just start making those little connections and start getting, just refreshing them, oh what’s going on!. And then give you both a chance to check each other out and be able to say, ‘alright, what’s going on?’ and then you once you establish that relationship you have something then you invite them for a Skype call or a phone call and start exploring what you can be able to do. There’s a lot of people are looking for the big splash right away. You know, I got this program let’s get on there and,bring me on to your list and let me sell my $5000 program. Well, that’s kind of like asking, that’s asking for marriage. They want to lure things, asking marriage on the first date. Sometimes it does work.
Rarely, yeah. But that’s old school marketing, in a way.
But what you want to be able to do is you need to be able to build that relationship, foster it and it’s like, closing the deal on the first date. Maybe fun and exciting on the first thing but dates take 5, 10, 15 dates to go through before the deal’s closed is much more enhancing for both people. So when you start out, start out doing something small. Start sharing each other’s links on Twitter. Do a little highlight in your email on how you can be able to hey Lisa’s got a new program, Janet’s got something that you need to be able to take a loot at. And that way you’re doing a little small things see if it works out, see if you’re both talking the same kind of language, having the same kind of ethics and want to be able to continue working together before you take that next step.
Love it. Now are you, Gary, you’re talking a lot about Twitter but could this pretty much be brought to any platform that you focus on be it Google+ platform that we’re using right now, or even Facebook. What are your suggestion there to other than Twitter?
It’s a secret but it works also in real life.
Oh cool, that’s a good point.
It’s basic relationships. And just because it’s over computer I think people forget. It’s not B to B or B to C, it’s P to P.
You’re right, people to people, right? Definitely.
And some will say, “well my customers aren’t done on Twitter,” or something else like. Well, yeah they are.
Yeah, they just aren’t your customer yet.
And if you look at the power of these things and the same rules apply whether you’re dating, on Twitter, on Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever it is, it’s still about building connections. Understanding that everybody has a primary need to be validated, heard and understood. So if you look at first using this go-giver philosophy is look at how can I serve you, how can I help you first. And look at it not so much as what can I get but what can I give to other people. And if you make that a focus and you work on giving as much as you can give and not for the sake of getting something and knowing, this is important, knowing that something else is coming to you. I think Bob calls it the law of left field where things would come from unexpected places and unexpected time from unexpected people. If you just plant enough seeds some of them will start blossoming for you.
You know if we could talk about planting seeds there’s a lot of discussion, yes, people to people build relationships. However a lot of people are busy. So what is your feel or take on automating some of the tasks that you need to do to publish some of the Tweets or publish them on the Facebook updates? Because you hear conflicting information from people. Some say it doesn’t make you look real but the other thing is everybody’s on social media at different times so I think there are certain platforms and there is a need to automate some of that.
Well it’s one of the the things that it’s not an either or it’s an and. You blend the leverage of technology to be able to go through that. When I first started, and it’s still a little hard for me to be able to press the enter button when I’m promoting something. I have a little anxiety about going out there and doing that self-promotion. So for me to be able to load my blog posts and my radio interviews and all those other things that I hope people would click on, for me to automate that takes away the anxiety for me.
Oh that’s good.
So that’s one thing specially for a lot of new entrepreneurs . I’ve worked with lots of healing arts people so they have that reluctance to be able to do some of those things. But you also want to be able to look at it, one of the clients that I work with because I also automate several clients’ accounts. And she saved over 30 hours a month when we automated her account. She was looking for her tweets, compiling her tweets, writing her tweets, scheduling them up so they may be able to be spread out during the day. And she figured there’s 30 hours a month that she was doing them all, compiling all that information.
Wow.
When we gathered all of that and we automated that for her. And we got to go out where she’s setting 20 messages a day. She was able to save that 30 hours and be able to invest that back into Twitter to engage and talk with people. And be able to look at their sites, be able to find out what’s going on with them. And she wound up getting graphic arts business, editing business for her things. She also created a friendship with a singer who she wound up actually meeting because she went up to be able to meet her brother in New York. And this singer that she met on Twitter was performing in a small town 5 minutes away from where they were staying.
Love it. That’s cool.
That’s the combination of it. And what I teach them in my Twitter class is there’s a lot of things that you can be able to do to be able to leverage things. When you first get on Twitter it’s overwhelming and you can’t catch up with everything. And people are trying to be able to do that, they try to see everything is going on and you don’t want to know that. It’s like being in a stadium full of people. You’ve got 50,000 people and 20,000 different conversations going on .
Right.
You’re not interested in all of those. So we teach them how to be able to utilize list, utilize the searches, to find the topics that they want to be able to add to the conversation, listen in to and be able to do that. And when you’re able to do that segment those list and then you can scan a list for things that saved another client over 20 hours a month. Just realizing how they will be able to create the list so they can find the conversations instead of getting muddled down into all of the sand that’s out there.
Well that’s what I’ve seen a lot of and so basically to recap what you just said is if you do believe in scheduling, you do believe if you take care of that ahead of time then you end up with not having to concern yourself so much about what you’re going to say but more concerning yourself with the connections and building a rapport and the connection afterwards.
Yup and like, exactly. And what I shared with the young lady and the suicide. So just for today’s affirmations my Twitter tips, a lot of those other things are again, it’s automated. And again I’m going to expand my schedule because now with over a 160,000 people on my main account, I’ve got people all over the world. And so what I realize that there’s a lot of, for a lack of a better word, voyeurs. There are people who are watching what you’re doing, what you’re saying. They may never do business with you but they’re watching what you’re doing. And if we start expanding our presence and we start having people in the UK and Africa and Australia. In India who are all watching our stuff. Why don’t, I figure it out – why am I not scheduling things to be able to go out there and make it easier for them to be able to see some new content. And be able to broadcast when they’re going to be able to see it and thus expanding my reach and my market. People will get my eBooks, then they take my classes, we may create partnerships in some other way and it’s just like the world just opened up.
It’s great information.
You know Twitter, too, one of the things that I really like is the Tweet chat of the hashtag where we’re following free events. And if an event, if you have a Twitter hashtag or hashtag for an event and you do that before the event. And I’ve a lot of success connecting with people that I have known before and then I’d hop on Twitter and we introduce each other because we’re going to an event. It’s so much fun, it’s like seeing an old friend when you are in a live stadium or at the hotel. You connect with them before and so just gets that kick start to an event. I just think it’s a great way to build camaraderie if you’re hosting an event.
It is and there’s so much. But I know that again, with Extreme Business Makeover the third year, that’s when they really started embracing Twitter and they started using the #xbm. And so they started doing some pre, the promo for it so there was a lot of other connection and this was actually really amazing because, again, internal rewards – I’m not one of those people who go will go around the room and pump hands and slap backs and kiss babies. I’m not one of those who forward networking. I have more of a tendency to be able to go find a strategic place where I can be able to be seen and allow people to flow to me. What happened, because I got involved in that #xbm conversation before the event and I was there for the other two events, the previous ones. Three quarters of the people on that room all came up to me because I was on Twitter and they had a connection. And it was amazing about some of the stature of the people that I’ve connected with. And I didn’t realize their stature. It’s just okay, it was just Lisa, it was just Felicia, it was just Rebellus, just these people that I was talking to. I had no idea about their experience or anything else. It was just that P to P again. And hashtags for events like that are essential and those hashtag, the hashtag for that event lasted probably a couple of years past the event’s light.
That’s cool.
It is. That’s amazing. But you kind of brought it to the P to P, like you said. You brought it off of Twitter and brought it live which is even an extra connection. which is just even incredible. But it all came, they came to you because you were connecting and conversating before this even happened.
Correct, exactly.
Now what would you say other than, I think you’ve kind of answered this but I do want to reiterate it because I believe you’ve answered it but I’m going to have you re-answer it. What is going to make you, what do you think it is, what would be a “magic key” you can tell our audience that would, nothing’s magic in social media, but tell our audience what would make them stand out the most. What’s going to make them unique in the social media world?
Probably, well what’s great about social media and specially it’s Twitter. If you go back and look some of the interviews with the Twitter founders. They founded Twitter to be a virtual town square. So it’s anything for anybody. So people can be able to come in, and they can be able to sell your jellies, sell you sweaters, sell your rugs, sing a song, talks of politics, whatever it is, so there are a lot of different things that work for a lot of different people. But I think that what we probably talk about is differentiation is what is it about you that drives you, that motivates you, that helps the conversation. You know one of my friends, Felicia Slattery is a speech and communication coach. So she shares a lot of things about how to get your signature speech together and a lot of things about those presentations. Couple of years ago she has a bout with lung cancer, never smoked and anything else and she wound up tracing that back to a gluten reaction.
Wow.
So she started talking about her whole episode — the whole diagnosis, going through the treatment, all these other things – talking about gluten and looking at healthier lifestyles. So it’s really, you know, that’s just an example. What are you passionate about? What else it is about you that makes you stand out, that makes your friend finds you fascinating. Integrate that into your stuff. One of the other social media tools that I use, see a lot of the people’s different profiles and they just become news feeds. They got rss feeds in and there’s no personal engagement. There’s no talking. Go look at my page and re-tweet something and go like there’s nothing here. There’s nothing here that I can be able to go grab that in the sense like I want to be able to introduce my audience to Lisa and Janet. So here’s a little thing, here’s a little quote, here’s something she personally said. So go take a look at it and allow them to be able to go find your stuff. And I think if people really look at coming from service, helping other people. If you put that as a primary thing you’ll attract more. This is another lesson, one of the advanced things we teach in our Twitterverse Flight School. Because look at how you write your tweets and keep in mind that anytime anybody ready your stuff, there are two subconscious thoughts that run through their mind: it’s either tell me more or so what.
Yep, that’s true.
And when you look at other people’s social media streams, how many times are you saying, “so what!” I just posted this, I did this, I did that … so what!. Realizing that other people are looking at your stuff because they’ve got problems and they’re looking for solutions. So if you write your posts in a way that answers their questions and solves their problems, they’re more, they are enticed then to be able to click on, to be able to go find out what you can do for them.
That’s true.
So let’s finish up by and that could have been the tip but let’s give another one because you’re full of, a lot of tips. Let’s give 1 thing to our audience that they can take action in the next 24 hours that could make a difference in their Twitter feed, let’s say.
Well one of the things is I think, alright, profile. Profile’s probably the most valuable real estate on Twitter. Anytime that you go to any website, again, there’s a subconscious thing that people are going to go on a site, they got 4 to 10 seconds to be able to tell me who you are, what you do, what can you do for me and why should, you know, what am I supposed to do next. And if you don’t have a current picture, head and shoulders, smiling, something the people will identify you in the grocery store and they don’t have that connection. If you don’t have that, a glamour shot from 20 years ago, or your kids, or a cartoon, again we’re P to P. People want to be able to connect with people. Your profile, there’s a 160 characters in your profile. Again what separates Twitter from the other social media sites is each of your tweets, your profile is search engine optimized. So each word in your profile should be the same keywords you’re using on your website so when people’s going and be able to do a web search, what are they looking for? You’re looking for a Twitter expert, I’ve got Twitter expert on my profile. You’re looking for a mind set coach, you’re looking for life those other things. Look at having those keywords in your profile so people can be able to find you through Google or Bing searches or Twitter search is absolutely incredible, to be able to do that. And to if you make that connection and take out a lot of the superfluous words – I like to, I work with, you got a 160 characters, jam it for those action words that people will want to be able to connect with.
Good idea. That’s a great tip.
I’m going to Twitter right after this.
I know I have to update, too.
Every time we have it’s like what does it look like? I haven’t done it.
Well you want to tell a story in a 160 characters and it’s a little difficult. But when you think about it in action words and think about what keywords people are looking for for help, I guess that you just got to get over it so that you show up.
There’s another thing is you can also incorporate those keywords in your profile and those into your tweets.
Yes, definitely.
And so if you integrate that into your tweets, again, that increases your searchability so people can find you.
Makes sense. Absolutely! Oh my gosh, well we are going to have you on so you can meet Kimmy again because we haven’t get in to the information we want to talk about but we like to keep it around the half-hour mark to 45 minutes so let’s have Lisa, go ahead and finish up so we can talk about where to find Gary.
Okay, excellent!
Yeah, we just wanted to say thanks for coming to our show today Gary and if you could share with us little bit about how can people get in touch with you or where would you like them to connect, that would be awesome.
Well the obvious place is to go to Twitter @GaryLoper, just drop a note say hello. Let me know that you saw us here, Social Media Hangout Time, I’d like to be able to connect my website, it’s garyloper.com. You can read a lot of blog posts, we do a lot of things on Twitter, a lot of my other guest appearances are also listed there. But also people, well there at garyloper.com, in the center column you’ll be able to see the links to my 3 eBooks that we talked about in introduction. And so you can be able to check out, check those out and get access to those and see how we can be able to help you build better relationships both online and offline.
Excellent. Well, we’ll definitely connect with you and thank you so much Gary for your time and all your inspiration.
Excellent. Janet, Lisa, thank you very much and happy tweeting!
Thank you.
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