Humanizing Business – with Chris Brogan

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Chris Brogan is a powerhouse in the new media space. He charges Fortune 100 and 500 companies lot’s of money for his time, and for good reason – he’s been in the game for a long time, knows what he’s talking about, practices what he preaches, and his results speak for themselves.

Chris took 30 minutes out of his day to speak with me and to offer insight and advice on where new media is going, and how to take advantage of it. Rather than asking him for the tactics though, we discussed his thoughts on what he calls the “humanization of business,” and it’s impact on media and our lives.

Take a listen to what Chris has to say, and then let me know what you think in the comments below.

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Prefer to read the entire thing? Here’s the full transcript.

Transcript

Robert Dempsey:  Hey everybody, this is Robert Dempsey with Life of the Freelancer, and I am speaking today with Chris Brogan.  Chris, how’s it going?

Chris Brogan:  I’m the best I’ve ever been.

Robert:  Awesome.  So Chris, I’ve been preparing for this interview for a bit, because I’ve been trying to figure out, what is it that I can ask you?  And first of all, I am going to link to all your stuff in the introduction, because it would take me, I think, just five minutes to even list out all of the stuff that you are into.

But I’d like to start off with, really, how…and I’ve read the “About” page on ChrisBrogan.com and all of this kind of thing.  But how would you describe what it is you do to other people?

Chris:  Mostly I just tell people I’m a typist.  If they don’t take that for an answer, I do a few different things.  I run a business called New Marketing Labs, which is a new media marketing agency for bigger companies—Fortune 100, Fortune 500 types.  And then on the other side, I’m just now launching something called Human Business Works, which is an online education and mentoring and community platform for small businesses—solo to, you know, 10-20 or so.

And so on one side I’m doing strategy and execution type work, and on the other side I’m actually doing education work, wherein which I have facilitators for different businesses.

In the meantime, somewhere in between that, I’m incubating a couple other things, and/or it looks like I’ll be unveiling a small blog network, a blog content network, pretty shortly, although very small, not like one of these everybody join and we’ll all be rich together.  Just kind of a cluster of blogs I like.

Robert:  Right. So talking about Human Business Works and that kind of small business incubation.  And I’ve seen that the site is starting to come out.  I think I hit the page before anything was there.  So just really talking about all of the things that you are into.

So there’s a lot of talk out there of, OK, you gotta specialize, and then there is the complete other side which is like, no, don’t specialize.  And so because you are into a number of things, is there really a common theme that goes throughout all of them that really gets to the core of what it is you are trying to do?

Chris:  Sure.  I would say there are a couple of common themes.  It’s a great question, by the way, Robert.  I think that sustainable relationship-minded business matters to me.  I think making business that helps people sort of live on their own human terms matters to me.

So, for example, we are in this economy where, in the US, it’s 9.9% unemployment all over.  In some places, say up in Michigan, it’s 20-something percent.  In Minnesota it’s hovering around 10% or so.  And I think that at the same time we’re having these problems with finding work, we’re also accidentally mistaking jobs for work and thinking of that single unit of measurement as the only way that people can make a living and have the life that they really want.

And I’m not one of these make money online types.  I’m not one of these, you know, “You too can get rich”.  But I am somebody who thinks that there is a lot of people who deserve to sort of live life on their terms and have a business that wraps around what they believe in with all their heart.  Because I think if we work from passion, and if we work from sustainable business mindedness, we’re just going to have a better sense of it.

So I guess the minor themes that go through everything are sustainable relationship minded business and also being helpful.  Because, to me, I think at the core of any successful business is that desire to be helpful and to make it sustainable, ere go profitable for both sides.

Robert:  And is that kind of what has led you now to this point of doing Human Business Works?  Because I mean that’s right at the core of what you were just speaking about.

Chris:  Yeah.  So with a lot of my projects, I do something where I experiment and do stuff on my own, then I execute and make it a business.  And then I try to extend it into a community and I try to learn how to have other people work and learn and do thing similar, because that might be of value to them.

So Human Business Works, in a way, is an offshoot of some of the things I’ve learned over the last few years that I figured I could help and educate and give back.  It’s also a way for me to extend and expand myself, because I’m finding other facilitators.

So, for example, I’m going to be launching a nonprofit community through Human Business Works, and that’s through somebody who is much smarter and much more into the nonprofit world than me.  And I’ll just help with the marketing, but that person facilitates and kind of keeps that community alive.

I’ll be doing one for business writers.  I’ll be doing one for real estate.  So in every one of these I’m going to have someone who kind of embodies that to me, and/or they’ll be the facilitator.  They’ll kind of keep that project rolling.  And I’ll just sort of add my little glossy filling to the top of it or something, like a good cinnamon roll.

Robert:  Well, good cinnamon rolls are good.  Do you ever go to Cinnabon, and those things are like as big as your head?  Oh no, you are in Boston, right?  Are you in Boston?

Chris:  I am.

Robert:  Right on.  And do they have Cinnabon where you are?

Chris:  They do.  We actually have that, paved roads, and sometimes cable television.

Robert:  Oh, hey, good stuff. So you got the whole bit in Boston there.  I’ve been to Boston.  It’s a really cool town.

So now, you just also had PodCamp for, did I see, the fifth year?

Chris:  Yeah.  PodCamp Boston just had its fifth year, and we’ve had over 110 or so events all over the world.  But this is the fifth one of the founding location, and that’s sort of our flagship one.  So that went on this weekend, put on by Michelle Wolverton [sp] and some people like Ellen Mercano [sp] Lois Ardido [sp], Steve Sherlock—all these people helped.  And I’m just a figurehead at this point.  So I just show up like a big fat man and go, “Heyyyyy!” and then leave.

Robert:  Talk to the people, wave a little bit, and then go about your business?

Chris:  Kiss the babies and do that sort of a thing.

Robert:  Right on.

Chris:  But to talk a little bit about that event, I mean it’s not necessarily just about podcasting.  What we’re trying to do is sort of spread the fact that everybody has something that they can share.  Everybody has a network that they should work on extending and building into.  And everybody has offerings that they could really bring to the table so that we can do a better exchange of information, a better exchange of ideas around likeminded things.

And I think that what was exciting this year is I think that message went through better than it ever had in any of our previous experiences.  And I really got the feeling that people were going to leave that event having made relationships that they didn’t have before, and to focus the tools that we teach at PodCamp on things that are much more of their passion.

So, for example, The Life of the Freelancer, you know, you would have gathered with other people who think it’s really cool to kind of grow and develop the freelance world.  Those kinds of happenings were happening at PodCamp.  And so I’m really excited for where people take that next.

Robert:  Right on.  Actually, I’d like to take this conversation back to something you said, because I think it’s very pertinent for folks that are watching this interview.  You are talking about people kind of working on their own terms and working in human terms.

And so, without getting to preachy and up on a soapbox, so I’ve done college, I did the MBA, and I saw the mentality of a lot of people in that.  People wondered, “Rob, why the hell are you doing that when you have your own thing going on?”

But it seems, and a number of people agree with me, that things are set up almost kind of factory style, where you go to college, you get the job, you work there for some number of years, you retire, etc.  And all of that has kind of come to a major grinding halt, especially in this economy.  And so more and more people are finding self-employment, whether forced into it or otherwise.

But really, it seems like what it’s coming down to is people want more freedom.  They do, as you said, work on their own terms.  So, for instance, I cannot see doing anything other than what I’m doing, because I want to see my daughter grow up.  I want to spend time with my wife.  I want to travel.  I want to have that opportunity, as you said, experiment with different things without being kind of hemmed into this box.

So can you maybe elaborate more on some of your ideas around those thoughts?

Chris:  Sure.  So, I agree with you.  I think that there’s a lot of this kind of space that’s around us that says, “You will do this, then you will do this, then you will show up here.  You will get the house, the picket fence, the dog.  You’ll start spawning children.  You’ll do this thing in this order.”  And that’s just sort of the reality that we’ve been taught all along. And that’s actually the reality the public school system is set up for, and actually, what college is set up for, for the most part.

So I think that there is a lot of gravity and force keeping us thinking that’s the way we should get it done.  At the same time, this time is just as opportune as it was in the 1800’s and the early 1900’s when people saw work all around them and not jobs all around them.  They saw opportunities to sort of stick their stake in the ground and do things their own way.

There’s a risk at this because there’s just too many little people plucking at stuff, and there’s a risk, with too many single entity jobs, that there’s no mass, so you can’t really do as much as you used to be able to do with, say, a factory.

I mean a factory is a way to concentrate a lot of work into one place, and it’s a way to sort of up your output by that.  You know, there is a lot of economy of scale of having a widget go from here to there that gets lost when you disassemble and sort of spread all over.

So there are things that are good about factories.  There are things that are good about having clumps, and mass, and size.  What I think, though, is that the new way of working sort of allows for a velocity that wasn’t there before.  It allows for an alliance and then a breakup, and an alliance and a breakup that doesn’t happen in typical corporations, because corporations are sort of set amongst…one of the things they value the most is predictability.  And one of the things that we are sort of striving for, as humans, is unpredictability.

We like certain things to be predictable.  We like to know the floor is going to be solid every time we step on it. We like to think we are going to get fed every day.  But beyond that, I mean we want to sort of be challenged by new ideas, and we want our integrity to matter, and we want our families to matter.

And, you know, the number one and two things that people think about is their integrity and/or integrating their work with their family.  And the number one and two things that work doesn’t allow for quite often are those two things.

I stole that from Stan Slap’s book: “Bury My Heart in Conference Room B”, but I think it’s a really important point, because I think that’s the real crux of the issue.

Robert:  So having been in business for a number of years, and now you have a rather larger audience out there and whatnot, and you are working with these bigger companies.  So again, going back to what I was kind of taught in my MBA, and the hearing what you are saying and knowing that you are walking into these companies.

And so, for instance, I remember hearing Gary Vaynerchuk speak at one conference, and people are like, “Gary, what do you say to these big CEOs when you go into these companies?”  And he’s like, “Well, sometimes they listen to me, sometimes they think I’m totally full of crap when I start talking to them about actually listening to customers, or engaging, or whatever.”

I don’t want to put you on the spot too much and then you not like me, but how well received is this message when you are bringing this into large companies?  I mean are they really trying to shift their way of thinking out there to being more, like, really people oriented, whether it be their employees or their customers?

Chris:  So there’s a few things to answer there.  One of the reasons that I’m a little more successful at it is that I have enterprise background.  I have experience in real big companies.  My job in wireless telecomm was essentially to spend a lot of time talking to real big companies—the AT&T, the Southwest Bell and all those companies, back when there was, and saying, you know, “Here, CEO guy, this is what I’m telling you.”  And also, at the same time, “Here, chief engineer.  This is what I’m saying.”

And at the same time, because I was a technical guy there, I was a project manager, but also a guy underneath the floorboards and could really talk all the way down to the bits.  And so I have that background.  And so when I talk my message to big corporations, I understand the flow.  I understand that there is a long lapse time between “Let’s do it” and legal, and all those things that have to happen.  So integration is tricky in the enterprise world.  So I’m a little successful there because I just have the background.

Two, it’s not like companies are coming me to me going, “Gosh, Chris, we really need to be more human.”  They are getting a lot of varied messages, and one of them, “We’re told this social media crap is selling stuff better and we want to sell more stuff.”  And I say, “Great.  I love selling stuff.  Here’s how we’re going to do it.”

Or, if they say, “This is cheaper than what we were paying for marketing,” I go, “I love that, because I will cost you one zero less than whatever your marketing was using traditional mainstream.”  And, of course, I get the sale.

But what I’m really doing is I’m showing them…David Zinczenco, the guy who founded Men’s Health Magazine, has a story about six-pack abs.  If he doesn’t write the phrase, in some form or another, “six-pack abs” on the cover of the magazine, that magazine’s sales are lowered by like 38%.

If he puts in it, “Great diets for improving your six-pack abs,” and it’s really just a diet thing where he’s written the words “six-pack abs” in the title, he’ll sell plenty of magazines.

That’s me.  I go in and I say, “Yeah, social media is cheap,” and then I tell them what they really need to know. Or I say, “Yeah, you have to do it because all the kids are doing it,” and then I tell them what they really need to know.  Because ultimately, it’s a gateway experience.  They see me as whatever they thought they needed, and then I try to convince them and communicate them over to what they really need.

But also, I cheat a little bit Robert.  I only go on calls where the people actually have a sense that that’s what they want to do.  I’m not in the convincing business. I’m not a proselytizer.  You either are on my boat or you are not on my boat.  It’s OK.

Robert:  Right on.  And so, that brings up something that I was…I did follow your blog for quite some time.  And it looked like…Well I’ve seen some of your comments back to people, where they get on you for little nit-picky things, and I’m like, you know, “This guy’s being a freaking troll.  What the hell?”

But it seemed that, at one point, like, on your blog, and I don’t know if this was kind of the turning point where you started getting like a much larger audience or not, but you seemed to be kind of upset at one point where people’s expectations of you seemed to change or something.  And you kind of pulled back a little bit, and you are like, “All right, people.  Things have to change here a little bit.  I can’t be as accessible, just because my time…”  Well, you have the whole list of stuff that you are doing, and speaking, etc.

And so, I mean can you talk maybe a little bit about that as well, where there was this kind of, maybe, shift in expectations and your handling of that, as well?

Chris:  Sure.  Thank you for that question.  So there was a really recent NPR piece that I wished I had paid a little bit better attention to, because I didn’t know I was going to like it.  You know, you are just kinda driving along, you are half listening, and you go, “Oh!  That’s pretty useful!”  And then there is no reiteration of what you just heard.

So they were talking about the fact that we went from following celebrities around about their bigger exploits, to following celebrities around about their smaller exploits.  And then we went on to learn that we’d have just as much fun following normal folks around about their exploits.

And this is sort of what this Internet celebrity is like.  I mean I’m an average, normal dude.  I pay someone to put my pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else.  But, at the same time, I’m at a Storyland in New Hampshire with my kids yesterday, and as we were getting off the train, my little boy and I, the woman behind me goes, “Excuse me, are you Chris Brogan?”  And I was just like, “Wow, this is just getting creepy!”

Robert:  [laughs]

Chris:  I mean, she was lovely, it was just that sort of feeling where I’m like, “Holy cow!”  You know, I get that a little bit more often.

So the radio report was saying that nobody really prepares you for Internet fame.  No one says, “This is what’s going to be cool about it.  This  is what stinks,” blah, blah, blah.

So what I was having was people were feeling a certain level of entitlement, I feel, to more than, say, my blog access or whatever.  They were feeling like, you know, “I can’t believe you don’t do X for me,” or, “I can’t believe you don’t do Y for me.  Seeing as you already do all this stuff for free, how come you are not doing this?”, or etc.

So what I kind of had to do was sort of redraw, and that’s one of the you probably are pointing to, is one called “Redrawing”, wherein which I was saying, “I can’t answer every single email by myself.  I have contact forms.  Please use the form and I’ll get back to you even faster than normal.”

I mean when you connected to me, Robert, it was just a couple of days.  It wasn’t horrible and overblown.  It was personal and personalized, and I tried to keep a human connection to it.  But, it’s not the same.

And people will say, “Why do you use auto follow on Twitter?”, not to get totally into the weeds of the technology.  And I’ll say because I’m followed by an extra 600 or so new people every single day.  If I took one minute to evaluate every single profile, that’s 10 hours.  So I don’t really have 10 hours to decide every day who should I follow or not.  So I follow them all and I delete the losers.  I delete people who want to sell me foreign exchange trading software.  And what’s the other one?  The Trump Network.  Evidentially, I really should join the trump network according to Twitter.

So I think that in my growth, the other thing I wanted to show was, I’m pioneering a lot of what’s going wrong with social media, like when is too much?  And so the other thing I want to show is, here’s how I pulled back and here’s what I think we all can learn from it, should you find yourself in a  situation where you have 158,000 followers or whatever.

Robert:  Right on.  But you are happy, right, today with everything?  Everything’s cool.

Chris:  Oh, I’m happy most days.  And to your question about angry Chris Brogan, the other thing I wanted to point out is that I am human, and there are emotions, and that anger is an emotion.  And I would say that it’s amazing how we try to sterilize so many things in business.  Like, we disallow for passion unless it’s business passion.  We disallow for, you know, the idea of love.  I mean, my God.  If people use the word “love” in business, you’re a freak, unless, of course, you are famous like Tim Sanders, who wrote the awesome book “Love is the Killer App”.

So I think that it’s…you know, my part of the goal is just to keep beating back the fact that we are all people.  And another thing is people who didn’t grow up online the way I did.  I was a digital kid.  I was on modems and stuff back in the ‘80s.  I was on Bolton Board Services back when, you know, 1,200 baud was awesome.

If you don’t grow up being part of that digital culture, you forget there is a human on the other side of the line, so you act like a real  jerk sometimes, not realizing that you are impacting emotion.  And so, I try to combat that one a lot as well.

Robert:  Right on.  Yeah, it’s always funny. So I used to go to a lot of marketing seminars for like AMA, and not to slam any of those folks, but it was like marketers selling to marketers.  And people were always asking, “Well, what are the rules of social media?”  And it’s like, “Well, what are the rules of us sitting here talking with each other?” Only, you have to be more cognizant of what you are doing.  Because if you are an ass, you know, it’s like not only will we know, but it’s like everybody is going to know.

So yeah, very interesting.  So now, is that what your second book is going to be about?  I know you are writing a second one, I think with Julian again?

Chris:  Julian Smith and I are writing…it’s my third book.  It’s my second with Julian.  In between I wrote “Social Media 101”.  The book with Julian, we haven’t really divulged too much of the detail, but it will be about part of what I said in the intro: how do we experiment?  How do we execute?  How do we build that into something?

And we both are kind of plucking through the question of: What’s a repeatable way of…How do you turn an idea into an executable idea, and then how do you turn that idea into success?  And then, how do you branch that idea out even further?

And I think it’s sort of self-improvement/personal development meets business development, because in our mind, they are very closely linked, even if you use the word “business” loosely for anything.  It could be for church groups for all we care.

Robert:  Gotcha.  So, now looking at things on the grand scale.  And, you know, the current state, like, with social media and business, with where you see things going.  So I’m getting the feeling, and please tell me if I’m wrong, that we’re kind of going back to, again, putting the people back into business, putting, as you said, that human side back on what it is we do.

I’ve heard a number of people say that we’re kind of in this big transitionary period.  For instance, I love what social media has done to businesses now, where it’s like, you know, you can’t just be some jerk company running over people, because lots of people are now going to know about it.  They are going to talk.  They have a voice . The technology is there.

As you said, right, you are a typist.  You put out a lot of information.  A lot of people can have a voice.  So do you feel that we are in this kind of transitionary period, maybe societally?  Generally, where do you see things kind of moving?  What direction do you see things moving in?

Chris:  So yes and no.  So what I think is, and I Tweeted about this the other day, just sort of this thought of, the real revolution is fleeting.  It’s the after party, where we think we’re still having a revolution, that goes on for a long time.

If you look at the ‘60s, there were a lot of people who really felt like they had this movement on the go.  And they really were going to change society.  And then companies and government and everything kind of co-opted that and used it for ad campaigns, and used the trappings of it for what they need to do.

And I would say that we’ve done that even faster with social media.  I think the revolution has already come and gone, and I think that we’re dealing with the after effects of that now.  I think that where we do go with it, I think, will be: how do we weaponize it?  How do we execute on it?  How do we actually do something with it?

And I think that, you know, it’s not too late.  It’s not like you can’t start using the tools or anything like that.  But as you are just getting into whatever, I think that the Hype Wave, the Gardner Hype Cycle, for example, is floating off now, and I think we’re now getting into the “Now do something” phase.

I, for one, am excited about it.  For example, I pitch a lot of email marketing because I think that people are like, “Oh, Twitter’s neato and Facebook is neato”.  I can cite one example of stats where 93% of people, individuals 18 and older, have an opt-in daily relationship with a brand versus 15% on Facebook, and versus 4% on Twitter.

So if I have 93% in email or if I have 4% in Twitter, which tool should I use if I am a smart marketer?  So I just think that the revolution is over.  And you can still come and be part of the aftermath of it, but I think the sort of up-curve of “Gee whiz and Golly!” I hope is gone.

Robert:  Right on.  So you are into a lot.  Have you really found what it is that you want to do, or do you feel that, as people, we never really find that one thing, we just keep doing cool stuff?

Chris:  I just keep working on…See, I try to think of myself more like what a movie producer would think of themselves as, or as a record producer or something.  I guess I’m trying to make unitive, interesting experience happen. I’m trying to make execution of something happen in a package.

And outside of that package, I can then go create another next something.  So New Marketing Labs is now two years old, and I feel like I nailed it.  I feel like I did really well.  We hit really good business numbers.  We work with so many huge brands.

And, you know, there are very few new media marketing agencies out there that have the playlist that I do.  And whether or not I helped any of those companies make billions is a whole ‘nother issue.  I sure didn’t, but boy, it was fun.

And with Human Business Works, I’m in a whole new package.  I am on the opposite side of that package.  I’m dealing with, like, you know, plumbers who could give a rat’s ass about what their clout score is, who just need more plumbing gigs.

And what’s after that?  I don’t know.  I have a few things.  I have a peer driven social platform, wherein which it takes advantage of the fact that we’re all having crappy economies and we don’t necessarily want to buy everything, so there’s things we might want to share.  And so I have some ideas in that arena.

And man, I really, really want to create another Groupon, or another Daily Candy, or some crap like that, and someone give me a couple hundred million.  So I’m shooting for that, too, but we’ll see.

Robert:  Right on.  So if you have been listening to this interview and you want to  hand Chris a few hundred million dollars to do some work, you know, make it happen.

Right on.  So Chris, again, thank you for your time and speaking with me today.  And just to wrap up this interview…and then, please don’t hang up…but to wrap up this interview, for someone that’s watching this, so I know that you’ve been at this for a long time.  I loved your Overnight Success series.  Nothing, I think, is gained without hard work and patience, and just being out there and kicking ass as much as possible.

So for someone that’s watching this that’s becoming self-employed, thinking about becoming a freelancer, what advice would you give?  Just something that you want to make sure that they absolutely leave this conversation with.

Chris:  Wow.  So if you have a choice on whether or not you are going to be a freelancer, don’t just leap.  I’m so baffled by how many people think that’s how we all did it.  Like we just said, “You know, I have a job, I was paying for my bills and taking care of my wife and kids, and I just thought I’d just quit and see how I did.”

That’s crazy.  That results in divorce and living in cars.  Make a plan.  Achieve escape velocity.  Start looking at ways that you can start supplementing your money and having your existing company or some side project start to seed fund your new idea as a freelancer.  So that’s my first one, is achieve some escape velocity.  Don’t just leap off the bridge.

Second, the best successes are from people who really didn’t have any good model to work from,  so don’t wait for people to come and knight you and put their hand on your shoulder and say, “You may now go be a freelancer.”  No one is coming.  No one is coming to save you.  Do it your damn self.

But, find lots of mentors.  There are lots of free an inexpensive mentors out there.  There are these personal MBA programs all over the place that all exist from the fact that there is such an abundance of material that you could learn from, that as long as you had to do the next step of learning.

Here’s what we do wrong.  We read books; we don’t read books and then apply what we learned in the book.  I think the book “Attention!” by Jim Kukral is an incredible book.  I think that “The Referral Engine” by John Jantsch is a really good book.

If you worked on those two books for the 33% of your day where you are out finding new business, you’d kick it!  But people don’t.  They are like, “Yeah, I read that.”  That’s great.  I see it a lot in Twitter because of my books.  So they are like, “Yeah, I read ‘Trust Agents’, now I’m going to read ‘Engage’, or now I’m going to read ‘Crush It’.”

And I always write back:  “Thank you for reading it.  What did you do different after?”  So that’s my other big piece of advice.

Robert:  Fantastic.  So, Chris Brogan.  ChrisBrogan.com.  Thank you very much for your time, sir.  I very greatly appreciate it.

Chris:  Thanks Robert.

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