Episode 248 – Kate DiLeo

Richard Matthews: [00:00:00] One of the things

that makes heroes heroic

is that they live by a code

for instance Batman

never kills his enemies

he only ever puts him

in Arkham Asylum.

So as we wrap up the interview

I wanna talk about top one

maybe two principles

that you live your life by, right?

The principles that you run

your business by.

Maybe something you’d wish

you’d known when you

first started out on

your own heroes journey.

Kate Dileo: I think then one

of the biggest ones

is to being able

to navigate life

with a sense of curiosity

I think that being able

to just be curious

about what’s in front of us

is really important

I think the other thing

that is a critical value for me

is a great sense of humor

I think that so much

in the world of business

can be done in a beautiful way

when we can laugh

at ourselves and laugh

at the situation

and really create a sense

of camaraderie around

a point of humor

another thing

that’s really important

is gratitude

being thankful

and being thankful

in all the stuff

that we have been given

and what we give out.

And recognizing

that when we approach things

with a heart of gratitude

really great stuff can happen

and relationships are forged

And it allows us to never

transactionalize relationships

it allows us to really

create relationships

that are [00:01:00] lasting

and by the way

I’ll tell you three principles

my dad told me

and my dad

was a serial entrepreneur

very successful

and I went to study anthropology

and he said good luck

I want you to study

and enjoy academia

but there’s three rules

that you should always live by

I said what’s that dad?

He said well, listen

if you ever wanna make

a diamond do well

he said number one

never burn a bridge

number two

you live and die by your Rolodex

and number three

you have to know

how to sell something

those were the three best pieces

of advice I ever got from my dad

as I stepped into this role

of being an entrepreneur

​

Richard Matthews: [00:02:00] and welcome back to the Hero show. My name is Richard Matthews and I have the pleasure today of having Kate DiLeo on the line. Kate, are you there?

Kate Dileo: I am here.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. So glad to have you here, Kate. And I always like to start find out where, where are you calling in from? Where’s, where’s home?

Kate Dileo: I am calling from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Richard Matthews: I like Minneapolis. We actually went there not this last year, but the year before. And we went to go see the the Mall of America and, you know, I was under the impression that my wife and my kids and I, we could go like, you know, hey, this afternoon after work, let’s go explore the Mall of America.

Um, And we showed up there and I was like, [00:03:00] oh, this place is gigantic. Like you could spend eight hours and not even see half of it.

Kate Dileo: It’s what we call a two-Day adventure in Minnesota. Although what’s hysterical is, and by the way, I hope you didn’t visit Minnesota in the middle of the winter. ’cause that’s never fun. We’re like Canada light with our weather, but Mall of America, you know, locals, we never even go, we don’t even go there.

There’s so many tourists. We skip it, but it’s a great place to visit.

Richard Matthews: like, that was our goal. It was like we were touristing in the Twin cities and you have to go see the Mall of America. So we went and did that. But yeah, that was that was my, my only experience with Minneapolis St. Paul in the Twin Cities was going see the Mall of America.

So, anyways, my, for my audience who follows us around. We travel full time, so we’re currently in Las Vegas. We’ll be here for a couple more days and we’re off.

Kate Dileo: Love it.

Richard Matthews: What I always like to start the interviews with is just to do a brief introduction for my audience so they know who you are and then we’ll dive into your story. So what I’ve got here is Kate. It is a brand architect, the number one best-selling author and the founder of the brand trifecta. The [00:04:00] top brand and building platform that has helped thousands of organizations, craft brands that bring more prospects to the table.

More users who click, and more customers who buy Kate’s approach is rooted in a belief that brand is the path of least resistance to revenue. She teaches you to eliminate complex and in fact of storytelling by delivering a simple yet provocative message that tells prospects what you do, how you solve their problem, and how you differ from the competition with the outcome that brands conversations that convert.

So that’s a a great introduction that I think encapsulates is what you do really well. So I always like to start first question is what, what are you known for, right? What’s your business like? Who do you serve? What do you do for them? Like what’s your main offer in the marketplace, I guess?

Kate Dileo: Yeah, so I am a brand architect, brand writer, so I’m really known in the marketplace for handling the messaging side of brand. And you know, when we heard the word brand, of course that’s a very nebulous thing, right? Because it can include of course, the creative side of logos and colors. But my slice of the pie is helping organizations create the brand message that’s going to [00:05:00] drive revenue.

And so that’s really what I’ve been known for for the last decade. And the way that I’ve built my business is I’m a solo entrepreneur and I’ve been one intentionally for almost 10 years. And I provide consulting services in the form of short term projects. So meaning I’m coming in and helping companies refine their message in a matter of weeks.

Richard Matthews: Cool. So the choice to be a solopreneur, what inspired that choice versus building a bigger team and, and scaling out?

Kate Dileo: Do you know? Okay, so this is funny. I was, I had my business as, as a side hustle for a number of years. By the way, I don’t know if anybody listening here is, has been a professional side hustler, but definitely for me, for a number of years, that’s what it was. And I realized in my corporate job while I was building my business, I was not very good at managing large teams.

I had done it, but it wasn’t my joy, it wasn’t my sweet spot. I did really well when I was able to do the work on my own. And so I made a decision that actually [00:06:00] it’s probably best if I stay as solopreneur. Now, that isn’t to say that I don’t have people that help me, but what they are is they’re independent business owners themselves, their fellow entrepreneurs whom I hire to certainly help shore up parts of the business, and they can bring in their expertise.

Maybe it’s marketing or it’s operations, but I, yeah, I chose don’t have employees. If that’s not really what you focus on is, is your strength Kate, then don’t stay in that lane.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, as someone who, who chose the opposite path, we just hired employee number 14, I can tell you there’s a lot of things that go into that that I wasn’t aware

of and until I started doing it, and you’re like, oh, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of stuff from payroll to HR to you know, just like team communication and leadership and making sure that everything is going smoothly.

It’s there, there’s a large aspect to deciding, you know, I’m gonna have employees. And part of it for me is like, also like employees means like, your revenue is not just putting food on your table, it’s putting food on everybody, employees

Kate Dileo: And And it’s a responsibility. Exactly. [00:07:00] And you know, there’s so many flavors of entrepreneurship, which is what I love about it, because I think that a lot of us have this choice of how do we wanna build our business and do we decide that we want to have large teams, small teams just work on our own?

And it does come down to what’s our core strengths and innate character, and how can we best deliver value to our customers?

Richard Matthews: So I wanna dive into your origin story, right? How you got here and started building, you know, the, Brand T Trifecta And so like every good comic book hero has an origin story. It’s the thing that made them into the hero they are today. And we wanna hear that story, you know, where you bit by a radioactive spider that made you want to, you know, start a brand business.

Or, you know, were you born a hero or did you start a job and eventually move over to become an entrepreneur? Basically, how did you get here?

Kate Dileo: I am what I call an accidental brand strategist. I’m that superhero that had no idea she was a superhero for many, many years. And you know, the thing is, is that may, a lot of us don’t even realize that what we’re naturally good at, what we’ve grown our skills in actually is our superpower. Sometimes we can’t connect those dots, and it took me a long time to connect the [00:08:00] dots that that was really my strength and the thing that I was able to turn around and productize and market as branding.

But my story actually began, if you rewind here, I fell into branding after taking my first job right out of college. Out of pure necessity, I took a job because I was. Actually Richard, I was planning to pursue a PhD in Linguistic Anthropology and when the market crashed I had a professor that said, you should probably leave academia and go pay off your undergraduate debt and then maybe come back after some real-world experience.

So I took a job to cold call it professionals and sell them training, which is pretty much the dumbest job you could take. Right? ’cause it, people love to be called and sold. But I took, so I take this job and it was in that job that I realized that everybody’s sales scripts were absolutely terrible and I was struggling to actually maintain staying on this job.

And so I had to find a different way to get that person on the other end of the phone to stay on with me. And so I [00:09:00] reverse engineered it and thought, well, if I was on the other end of this call, what would I want to know? And so I came up with a recipe that I now call the brand trifecta, which is I simply said, hi, my name’s Kate.

I’m with such and such company. This is what we do. This is how we can solve your problem, and this is how we’re different. Boom, boom, boom. And that formula worked and I ended up getting pulled into the marketing team to help build brand pitch for other sales team members and push that out in through our marketing channels.

That was the beginning, Richard.

Richard Matthews: And so how does that turn from being a, you know, cold call salesperson into building your own company? what was the path there?

Kate Dileo: The path was interestingly enough that it started with my fellow employees. I began to realize that I was getting pulled by other teams and employees to write this brand pitch. By the way, I didn’t even know what the word brand meant at the time. I just knew it was what you said to get the prospect to wanna chat with you, right?

And so I started that. [00:10:00] Then I got recruited into the marketing department, and then I actually got recruited out by an agency, a marketing agency, to start to build brands for clients. And that was the first taste. When I got into the agency world, I started to go, Ooh, wait a second. I could do this for companies.

I didn’t even think of that. And so that agency experience in my early 20s was, was absolutely priceless. I started to side hustle where I had friends that were building their small little businesses on the side, and I said, well, listen. How about I do that for you? And so I just dabbled. I dabbled for years and then finally about five years into side hustling, there was a tipping point where the demand for me doing branding really well was so much that I was able to, actually at that year I produced over 60% of my day jobs, you know, a salary.

And I realized that was the tipping point for me to go out full time and actually do this.

Richard Matthews: How, what was that decision like when you decide, you know, I’m gonna quit the job and become an entrepreneur? ’cause I know that’s, that’s a common [00:11:00] path is people start as in, in the job world and they, they make that transition. So, you know, it, was it scary? Are you excited about it? Like what was the I don’t know, what would you call it?

The, the impetus to want to do that and to take that risk.

Kate Dileo: Well, you know, it’s interesting. I, in my life at that time, I actually within a a six month span, I. I was going, started a divorce process and then left my day job and I became a single mom. And people thought, wow, that’s crazy. Why would you do that? Why would you leave a stable income? But I’ll tell you the emotional side behind it, I was so emotionally exhausted of where I was in my life and I knew that there had to be a better way for me to live a life of freedom and joy.

And that entrepreneurship was actually going to be the path of that for me and for my daughter. And so while it was scary, there was a sentiment of there’s no other option, like it’s time to do this. It’s time. I was so tired as well [00:12:00] with my day job in general that Have you ever felt like that? Where you’re just like, I’m so bored, I’m not getting anything out of this.

I feel like it’s sucking years off of my life. It, at that point I realized the only way to live a happy and healthy life was to to leave and to go out on my own.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I, I have definitely been there long time ago now for me, but the transition into entrepreneurship, I realized early on that I was not a great employee and probably never will be a great employee, but I’m as entrepreneur. So like that was, you know, when I’m, when I’m in that in that space, I am, I’m not, I don’t do well.

And so, you know, this, this is definitely more my, my speed, so. I wanna talk then a little bit about your superpowers, right? So every iconic hero has a superpower, whether that’s their fancy flying suit or you know, their ability to call down thunder from the sky or their super strength in the real world, heroes have what I call a zone of genius, which was either a skill or a set of skills that you were born with or you developed over the course of your career that really help you.

They, they energize all of the rest of your skills, right? And it sets you apart, allows you to help your [00:13:00] people slay their villains, come on top of their journeys. And the way I like to frame it for my guests is if you look at everything that you’ve developed over the course of your career, all the skills, there’s probably a common thread that ties all those skills together and that common thread is where you’d find your superpower.

So what do you think your superpower is in the brand trifecta business?

Kate Dileo: For me, the superpower is being able to simplify and improve language in such a way that it people can make meaning of it very quickly. I see pattern in the 35 ways that somebody says something, and I can help you boil that into the 1, 2, 3 in the right order. That’s my superpower, is the linguistic side of it, and to help people articulate the value that they’re delivering to the world and their purpose and their why in a very short but impactful way.

It’s going to be resonating on both ends for you as the entrepreneur and for your audience.

Richard Matthews: Language is such an interesting aspect of what we do because it’s, it’s like the magic way that we, we, we communicate with each [00:14:00] other is through language. And I always liked the the concept that like, you know, we call, we call the, you know, spelling the root word is spell, like you’re actually casting a spell on someone else.

And so when you, when you communicate effectively, the spell, the spell casting works. Right. and so I, I, I’m interested, I wanna, I wanna tie a little bit into how did your academic, academic career as a linguistic anthropologist sort of, inform what you do now as a brand director?

Kate Dileo: Yeah. So it didn’t form from the standpoint that, that background in linguistic anthropology, which by the way, if it, it sounds very convoluted The entire philosophy around that is understanding how language shapes culture and how culture shapes language. And so it’s really about that. And so that background is played into the work that I do quite heavily by taking a step back and asking why, why do we use the words that we use?

But in a practical sense, there are pieces that I bring into the daily work that I do, for example, of thinking about everything from two [00:15:00] sides. So when we write a brand message, we’re looking at it from not only, how would I say it from an authentic way, what’s my authentic brand’s tone of voice and personality, but what is the message that’s going to most deeply resonate at a heart level with my target audiences?

Not just what I do, not just all the things I deliver, not just all the features and benefits, but language is really about creating a pro provocation. Not being pretentious, but pulling out this emotional response. And so when you can get that, you create this really big, oh my gosh, you get me moment with somebody else,

Richard Matthews: Yeah. That’s, that’s really fascinating. And so your, your ability to do that, to look at language that people use to describe what they do, and then boil it down to like the simplest thing that’s gonna get that emotional response, that’s what you’re calling your superpower. And what I wanna find out from you is how, how does that generally impact a business [00:16:00] when they can go from having, you know, for lack of a better term, a convoluted message to having a clear, concise message.

Like what does that actually do for them? What’s the result look like?

Kate Dileo: you know, at, at its most critical sense, it impacts revenue. You know, when we think about what this really impacts is, is revenue from the standpoint of. A brand message gets at the heart of those three things that I call the brand trifecta, by the way, which is tell me what you do. Which is, by the way, your tagline followed by, tell me how you solve my problem, which is a value proposition statement, and then tell me how you’re different or better than the rest.

Those are differentiator statements, okay? And it’s really those three things. When you can tell a prospect, tell me what you do. Tell me how you solve my problem. Tell me how you’re different. It creates a conversion moment. It creates the opt-in moment where that person goes, oh my gosh, that makes sense.

Now tell me what’s included, how it works, [00:17:00] what the price is, etcetera So what brand really does Richard, is it allows the right people to opt-in and want to go deeper into the dialogue with your organization where they’re like, this makes perfect sense. And now I wanna understand how that applies to my business today.

So we see a direct impact on revenue, the right kind of people coming to the table at the right time.

Richard Matthews: Constantly struggling with, but always working towards is getting into like the people that we’re actually speaking to know who we are, what we do, and how, you know, how we’re different earlier in the process. So it’s taking less of our time with having to filter those people manually when you get on the phone with them.

Kate Dileo: That’s right. You know, it’s funny you say that because I think a lot of us, we tend to feel like we are in convincing land, but the reality is that we’re not in the business of convincing. We’re in the business of converting. And so the thing is, is that it’s not our job or a brand’s job to try to get everybody to understand what we do and why they should buy from us.

It’s our brand’s job to really connect with [00:18:00] the right people who have the highest level heart pain we can solve, and who are going to most deeply resonate with our message and ultimately have the highest probability of buying. And so when we can get our message really clear and concise, we create these, you get me moments much faster, and we allow the wrong people to opt-out of the conversation with us where we are actually protecting our bottom line, not trying to go after the wrong people.

Richard Matthews: One of the things I like to tell all of our clients and anyone we work with is like, you know, if it’s your website or your podcast or anything that they’re, you know, interacting with your business, someone should know in seconds whether or not you can help them.

Right? And like, if your brand isn’t clear enough, like you have work to do. Yeah. And, and so it’s like that, that first hero shot at the top of your website or the first introduction on your podcast, they should be able to to know, or the first line in the email is like, yeah, this is, you know, these people can help me or not.

And your goal is not to get the Yes. It’s to get the no as fast as possible. [00:19:00] Right.

Kate Dileo: that’s correct.

to you get only the right yeses from the right people. Right. You want, you want nos as well, and a lot of us are afraid of that. Isn’t that interesting? You know, we think of, do you ever see that too? I remember earlier on in my career and earlier on as an entrepreneur, I remember sitting back one day and I was struggling because I wasn’t.

Seeing like people close with me, this was like right when I began to kind of side hustle. I was like, well, what’s going on? And I remember just thinking and one day asking myself, you know, am I leading from a place of invitation or desperation?

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Kate Dileo: And what’s fascinating is like, if we are leading from I need everybody to buy from me, nobody’s gonna end up buying from us.

There’s just a sense of desperation there. We’re trying to, to get everybody to, to, to come after us. And that’s not the right method.

Richard Matthews: On sales calls. Like, listen, I’m, I don’t need you to buy from me. Right? You know, I only need you to buy from me if that’s something like that, that you’re like, yes, this is exactly what we want. Right? And this [00:20:00] will solve the problem that we have. And if it’s not like an enthusiastic yes, it’s a no, right?

Like that’s, that’s where I want to be with all of our all of our clients. So it’s, and it’s useful that you’re talking about being able to do that early on with your brand messaging, like with the stuff that’s hitting the marketplace. I assume like pre someone even becoming a lead that your brand messaging is filtering them before they even hit your opt-in pages or your sales call applications or any of those things that they’re already, because your brand is just so clear, they know Yes, I want to talk more with these people.

I want to engage in this conversation further. So

Kate Dileo: That’s spot on. Yeah, that’s spot on. I, I always think it’s the, your, your, your the job of this brand trifecta concept by the way that we’re talking about. You know, Because your brand is the promise you put into the world. But what I teach is that tip top of the iceberg. I want us to almost think about it as like the top of your content hierarchy.

You know, the, that first line of defense of your tagline, your value proposition statement, your differentiators, that’s the first stuff. That first 15 to 30 seconds of what [00:21:00] somebody really needs to know in order to want to go deeper. And it opens the door, by the way, for other interesting story-based content that might be really relevant for your organization.

Podcasts, you know, periodicals, blogs, white papers, case studies, maybe it’s video content that you’re sharing about the founder. All of that is relevant information. But if we inundate buyers with all of that before getting to the heart of what they care about first, we’re going to lose people.

Richard Matthews: yeah. Yeah. And, and you’re, you’re going to lose people before they even decided whether or not you’re a right fit. Because they, you haven’t, you haven’t answered the burning question. The burning question is, is who are you, what do you do and how, how are you different, right? Like, if you can answer those things first, then they actually will care about the rest of the message.

Kate Dileo: Exactly. You’re, you’re spot on.

Richard Matthews: Sweet. So I wanna talk then about the flip side. So if you’re a your superpower, is your ability to help people build that and build that language. The, the fatal flaw is you’re kryptonite, right? Just like every Superman has a kryptonite or wonder woman can’t remove her bracelets of [00:22:00] victory without going mad, you probably have a flaw that’s held you back in your business.

For me it was it was perfectionism. I struggled perfectionism for a long time. Still do sometimes where, you know, I, I want it to be perfect before I put it in the marketplace, which means then you never ship anything and then you haven’t done anything. So it’s useless. And the other one that I struggled with for a long time was self-care.

And self-care is like, you know, letting my, not having good relationships with you know, my clients, letting them walk all over me, not having good relationships with my time and like, you know, spending 8, 10, 12, 15 hours a day working or, you know, not taking care of my body the way that I should have.

And having that, how that impacts your bottom line. And so what I wanna find out from you is, is what is the flaw, and then how have you worked to overcome it so that you can continue to grow your business and do what you do now?

Kate Dileo: That is such a good question. I definitely resonate with what you’re talking about. Probably the biggest one for me is, has been over the years that self-care piece of not necessarily having really good boundaries on my time. And I think a lot of that is just due to ambition. I’m a very driven type, A, high energy person, and while that’s great and that allows me to do [00:23:00] great work for people, I, and I love to, to be out in the marketplace and network and do all these things.

It can take a lot of energy outta you. And I have a family of six of us, right? I have four young children under the age of 10. And I started to see that this was impacting my health and how I was showing up for my family and for my husband. And I realized that, gosh, I better do something to rectify this if I’m gonna actually, you know, provide the best level of, of service and work to my clients, but more importantly, live the life that I really want.

And so I always say that there’s no such thing as balance, but there are such things as boundaries. So what that has begun to look like is creating just a really solid time blocking approach on my calendar. So I used to start my day at like 7:30 or 8 and now I don’t start my day until about 10 A.M.

because what it allows me to do is get my kids on the bus and then actually have some time for myself. And now instead of warning my day until 5 P.M. I end my day at [00:24:00] about 3:30 before my kids get off the bus, so that I’m able to be mentally and emotionally present for them. I’ve begun to realize that my ego was getting in the way.

My workaholism also was a, a, a indicator of I thought everybody needed to hear from me. You know what? The emails can wait. Nobody needs to hear from me at 7 P.M. They can wait until the next morning to get the email. And I think that was a really big maturing process I had to go through.

Richard Matthews: I feel like that’s something that we have to, we struggle with a lot as entrepreneurs and we have to learn that lesson and realize, I’ve realized personally, like when I started putting in those boundaries, that giving yourself those boundaries also gives your clients the permission to have those boundaries themselves.

Right? It’s okay to take the evening off and go spend it with your family, right? Not only is it okay, it’s probably important for your business and for mine and for our relationship going forward. And so like to the, to the same point, like, you know, I’ve also got four kids. Mine are a little older, like 5 to 14.

But the same thing that I, I ran into was realizing that I needed, to put the boundaries [00:25:00] in and realize that creativity thrives with boundaries. Right. And so before I was putting the boundaries in right on my time, I was like, I would solve all problems with, I will just throw more time at it.

And that’s how you get to 12 and 14 and 15 hour days and eight, you know, 8 7 day work weeks and that kind of stuff, which doesn’t actually grow your business. It just, you’re spending more time doing the same things. Because you, you know, we like to fill up the amount of time that we have available and if you give all the time, you just fill it all up.

And so what I started looking at was, what if I start using this boundaries thing on time? And so, you know, what happens in my business if I, you know, only work 6 days a week or 5 days a week, or only, you know, 6 hours a day, or only 5 hours a day, or only 4 hours a day, or only 4 days a week.

And what I found is like every time that I put a tighter restriction on what I was doing, like on, on what I had available for work, the more productive I became because. Because it, it forces you to focus on the things that are [00:26:00] going to move the needle or on focus on things that are gonna unlock other people, right.

To, to help you get things done. Or help focus on getting the systems in place to make those things happen. And now, you know, I’m like 4 or 5 years in now to my business operating on 4 hours a day, 4 days a week. Right. And that’s where, where we’re at and we 8 X’d our business last year.

Right. So it’s not, it doesn’t have a negative impact on revenue. It has a positive impact on revenue, which is not Yeah. It’s not, it’s not a correlation that you think it’s one of those, like, you know, if I want to grow, I have to give it more time. You don’t, what you have to do is you have to get more things done in the time that you give to your business.

Right. More of the important things done. And so the, the boundaries actually force you to do that.

Kate Dileo: And it also really requires us as business owners to be, be masters of a single domain. You know, a lot of times as entrepreneurs and leaders we’re visionary in the sense that we see a lot of opportunity in a lot of different things. But one of the things that I’ve really leaned into is just being an X being an expert of my single domain, a brand.

I actually used to build [00:27:00] websites. I used to do a lot of ad copy. I used to do this, I used to do that, and that’s great. But again, sometimes I have to say no to really good ideas, to say yes to the great right thing that’s in front of me. And so I’m able to do much better work and by staying in my lane in my zone of expertise, and I’m also then able to do a lot more and a lot less time because I’m only focusing on the one thing that I’m trying to monetize.

Imagine trying to monetize 20 things. That’s 20 things you need to talk about in the marketplace, 20 things you need to sell. But when we have one, maybe two things that we’re really, really good at that we can speak to, it actually frees up from a practical sense, our sales and marketing efforts, the amount of operational support we need, and all of a sudden you realize the team is far more efficient and doing a lot more and a lot less time.

Richard Matthews: Absolutely. I had that same, the same lesson. One of the things that I’ve been, we’ve talked, I’ve talked on several of our last episodes about is the, the thing that unlocked [00:28:00] our business, that allowed us to hit that 8 x x’d revenue growth last year was learning how to say no so that you could say yes. Right? And so the learning how to say no was a, was a key part of like narrowing down to like, Hey, this is the one thing that we do. We do podcasts, post-production services, right? And I like, that’s, we do that one thing. That’s it. And we only have one offer. Only one thing you can buy from us. It’s the only thing that has any way to you, for you to give us money.

It’s this one

Kate Dileo: right.

Richard Matthews: And if it doesn’t help us grow, that it’s a no.

Right? It’s

always a

no. That’s, it’s really easy to do that part. Once you’ve got that, what that does for you is, and this is where the magic is, and where I’ve discovered is, is once you have the ability to say no to everything else, you can say yes to everything in your lane.

Kate Dileo: Mm-Hmm.

Richard Matthews: And so we started doing things. One of my, one of my mentors actually said to me, he was like, he is like, once you’ve mastered no, say yes till it hurts, and then fix the pain, right? And that’s how you grow. And, and so saying yes till it hurts was like, for us, it was saying yes to [00:29:00] as many podcast appearances as we could.

Saying yes to stage invitations, saying yes to joint venture partnerships, saying yes to strategic partnerships, saying yes to cold outreach and email outreach, and like all these different things, all these, all these things that fit, like in the, the one thing we could say yes to all of these things and saying yes to all those things was like we could have so much growth because it was all focused on, it’s like having a whole bunch of like lasers, you know, pointed at the one thing.

And so anyways, it’s, it’s a massive growth. Part of your business is learning how to say no so that you can say yes.

Kate Dileo: Absolutely. I, I wish I could clap right now because we really are on the same page with that, Richard. Absolutely. 100%.

Richard Matthews: I’m flabbergasted how long it took me to learn that lesson.

Kate Dileo: Yeah. Right. You know, you talk about the growing pains as an entrepreneur, you know, and you talk about the journey of an entrepreneur and it’s, it’s, you know, I feel like we, every couple years too, we have these big milestones where we realize like, wow, I had to kind of walk through some trial and error [00:30:00] and a little bit of pain, and then I finally, it clicked.

I learned it the hard way. Now the cool part is when you have a community of other great entrepreneurs around you, you hopefully learn from some of their mistakes and some of their pain points to not repeat those for yourself. Right. That’s always the goal.

Richard Matthews: One of those lessons, you know, it’s lesson repeated until lesson learned. Right. And, and as long as you are Not getting the lesson, it will keep repeating itself. And so for me, it was, I kept saying yes to projects and kept saying yes to things that were like, oh, that would add revenue. And sure they do add revenue and I’m good in a lot of areas. And our team was good in a lot of areas, but it didn’t actually it didn’t actually help us scale because they were all distractions from our core competency and from developing our core competency.

And then what I, the other thing that I’ve found is like, once we’ve really narrowed it down to like, just the one thing that we do, all of our systems, all of our operations, all of our teams, all of our process documents, all of everything is all going towards making this one thing better. Makes it easier to sell.

It makes it [00:31:00] easier to sell at higher price points. It makes it easier to have a consistent message in the marketplace. It makes it easier to practice your message when you get on podcasts like this or to, on your sales pitches, you’re only talking about one thing, which means you can refine your message.

And, you know, it’s, it’s potent. Anyways. It’s a, it’s a good lesson, I think.

Kate Dileo: Absolutely it is,

Richard Matthews: Awesome. So I want to talk then about your common enemy, right? And every Superhero has an arch nemesis and it’s the thing that they constantly have to fight against in their world. In the world of business, it takes on a lot of things, but I like to put it in a context of your clients, and it’s a mindset or a flaw that they come to you with, that you have to fight to overcome so you can actually get them the result that they came to for.

So in the world of the brand trifecta, what is the common enemy that you constantly have against?

Kate Dileo: believe it or not, is that well Kate isn’t brand all about storytelling. I know, but hang on a second. Bear with me for a second here. [00:32:00] Okay. I love storytelling, but brand at its core is more than just simply telling a story. When we think about brand, the number one thing that people have to kind of remember is it’s about order of operations of our content.

If you walked into a room, Richard, and you shook hands with me, right? And I ask you, Richard, so nice to meet you. What do you do? And you launched into some complex story. You ever done that before and you can see their eyes glaze over and you like lose them halfway through, you’re like, oh no. I think what we try to, I’ve tried to constantly fight, fight against is that this beautiful concept of storytelling, which I love is great and, and content at its whole does require story, but a brand pitch on the front end when people are saying, I’m struggling with sales, I’m struggling with revenue generation.

I’m struggling to get the right prospects to the table. That is an issue of creating a simple message that creates a brand conversation and doesn’t just tell a brand story. [00:33:00] It’s how do you actually deliver your message, the 1, 2, 3 big components in such a way where at every sentence, whether somebody sees it or hears it, is actually opting in to go.

Really? What do you mean by that? Hang on, tell me more about this. Interesting. How is it like that? That’s the number one thing I have to come up against.

Richard Matthews: So I find this really fascinating because we’re a podcast company and storytelling is like the foundation of what we do, and so we have a similar concept. One of the things I talk about regularly is you have to get permission to tell your story.

Kate Dileo: Yes.

Richard Matthews: You can’t just tell a story. You have to have permission to tell a story.

And whether that’s, you know, at a networking event or you’re at a family, a family gathering, or you’ve met someone new and you just wanna say it like, you always have to get the opt-in to tell the story. Right? Would you like to hear?

Kate Dileo: Opt-in Yes. And that’s what I’m creating is the opt-in moment from the brand trifecta. You’re spot [00:34:00] on.

Storytelling is great. Once they’re ready.

Richard Matthews: once they’re ready, they have to, they have to give you permission. And so there, there’s the, what do you call it? The, I’m gonna forget the term for this. It’s the, like the buzzword right now going around is permission based marketing. And I always, I feel like that misses the market a little bit.

Little bit. And ’cause really it’s permission based storytelling is what you’re looking at. And so what you’re looking at is like, you have to figure out the permission piece. How do you get someone’s permission to share your story, right? To

share what it’s that you’re doing. And so the permission, what I’m hearing from you is you have a system.

for

Kate Dileo: get

Richard Matthews: that

Kate Dileo: Yes

that’s exactly right. And it is based on basic buyer’s psychology That’s what’s so fascinating about it. So when somebody first engages in a conversation with you, or they engage in a moment with your brand psychologically, they want to clearly understand what you do and how you consult their specific problem, their specific heart pain, and then how you’re different.

And it’s, it’s not rocket science, [00:35:00] but it’s actually only until you clear those three things up in their brain that studies have shown that they’re finally going, oh my gosh, now that makes sense. Now tell me the details of how this works and who’s behind this product. And wait a second, you know, the, who’s the team?

And so it’s just. We have, we know how this works in an everyday verbal conversation, but as marketers, we’ve gone so rogue with this idea of storytelling and we’ve made it all about us before anybody cares about us.

Richard Matthews: so the mental framework that I use for explaining this to people, like the, the metaphor so to speak is, is like a coat hanger, like a mental coat hanger, right? If you come into someone’s world, into their, you know, into their mind, like you have to have a place to like hang your story

in their head. and so like, if they don’t have the coat hanger for them to hang your story on, they’re just gonna, you’re just gonna be like, piling things up in their arms. They’re gonna be like, what’s happening here? Why do I have all these coats? Right? Like, they don’t actually, so it, it doesn’t do anything for them, but like, if you help them put, you know, put the [00:36:00] space in their mind for your business for like what you’re doing, that’s what those questions do.

Your trifecta, you’re talking about.

Is it like set, it sets up the place in their head for them to be like, okay, I know where to put this story, right? I know where to put what. Anything else you tell them, they’ve gotta have the spot in their brain for it. And that’s what your brand trifecta does, is it gives them that spot in their brain, the coat hook, so to speak, to put, to put the rest of your brand story on, onto.

Kate Dileo: That’s right. It gives context. Brand Trifecta gives context and time for it. Right? it’s the title page and the table of contents. And I like to say the back page synopsis that somebody goes, mom, I’ll open this and read this. Great, now I’ll read this book. But you know, it’s, they have to know enough.

If they don’t know the title or what’s included, are you gonna, are they gonna read it? Probably not. You know, that’s flying blind. So it’s really giving consumers, whether you sell to a business or to an end consumer, an individual. The goal of the brand Trifecta is to really provide that context and allow for them to opt-in And, and the [00:37:00] beautiful thing that I love about this is most of us as entrepreneurs did not get into business to be salespeople. We got into business because we knew we could add value and help somebody. And we were like, how do I monetize my zone of excellence, my zone of expertise, right? But heaven forbid I have to be a slimy salesperson.

And so what the brand Trifecta does is it creates this self-selection moment where that prospect is opting in now to want to have a different type of conversation. And when that happens, it frees you up from having to convince them to buy and instead they’re coming into the conversation at the next layer down going, how does that work for me?

What’s included? What’s the price? What a beautiful place to be at as an entrepreneur.

Richard Matthews: the interesting thing about, to me about that is it’s such a, it’s such a great conversation to have with someone when you can take them, when, when they’re asking you about how the, your business fits into their lives, right?

And

it,

changes the perspective of the sales conversation.

And [00:38:00] the other thing that I think is interesting is like people. They, you know, the whole people judge a book by its cover, right? Is it’s a reality

of,

of life, right? It’s not something you get to escape. And so what you’re talking about is like, you actually are going to just, you have to develop the cover for your business so people can pick it up and they can, you know, you, I like your, I love your metaphor of

like the title and the back page and the table of contents.

Like that’s, ’cause that’s how people are gonna judge a book, and that’s how they’re gonna your business, right? They’re gonna pick it up and look at it and be like, okay, yeah, I wanna hear more about this, or No, I don’t. Right? You know, I, you know, I’m not into young adult picture. I’m gonna stick that one back on the shelf.

I’m into, you know, self-improvement books and I, you know, it’s gonna, it’s going to help them self-select, get to that know faster so that when the people who do wanna read the story,

They actually wanna read the story.

Kate Dileo: It is so true.

It’s,

it’s when they begin, then they, you know, that’s when people too, when they understand the brand trifecta, they’re willing to understand maybe the other things that are more you focused. Things like your vision and mission. You know, you can have the coolest vision and mission statement and brand values in the world, but if you slap those on the homepage of the website, is that gonna [00:39:00] compel somebody to buy?

No. Not at all. And that’s okay. But you know what? If they saw your brand trifecta, then they were curious to go. Now interesting. Who are the humans behind this organization in this promise? See, maybe they’ll go check out your about page and then they’re curious about your vision and mission and why you built the organization and you know your personal story.

But it’s only after it’s about them first.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. I love that. And

I love,

I love the way that

you,

you just articulate it because it’s,

and,

and the metaphors you used

to,

to describe it, because it’s something that, like, I’ve never really had a great way to tell people I’m going to steal all of your,

Your just. I don’t teach it, but

You know, I’m be like, Hey, this is a thing you need to do first because, because we do the storytelling part really well.

And

it’s like,

it’s like you have to have this other thing in place, right? You have to have the permission aspect.

And, you know, any, the other side of the storytelling is you also have to have like your call to action, your ask on the other side of, you know, to actually close the sale.

But yeah, this, The brand trifecta on the front end [00:40:00] is really where you get that permission.

So

My next question for you then I think will probably, you know, just dive right into the why on this, and it’s your driving force, right? So, you know, just like the flip side of your common enemy,

Is,

is your driving force. So just like like Spider-Man fights, to save New York or Batman fights, to save Gotham or you know, Google Fights to Index and categorize all the world’s information.

What is it that you fight for at the brand trifecta? What’s your mission, so to speak?

Kate Dileo: It is to help people authentically live their purpose. And

my

deepest,

deepest goal, the thing that drives me is to help them really operate, help entrepreneurs and leaders operate in their purpose by having a brand that enables them to articulate what they do and who they are and how they help.

Because when you can articulate that, when you have the words. To express that to somebody. How powerful is that? That’s the one. It becomes shared. That’s when you can live your purpose. It’s just a vision. It’s just an idea if you don’t know how to talk about it. And so really what drives me is to give people the language to actually share that [00:41:00] compelling offer with the world and enable them to actually deliver on it.

Richard Matthews: I don’t usually do this. How fast you at this

Kate Dileo: How fast am I at this? Very fast.

Richard Matthews: If I gave you a thirty-second version of our pitch, could you do an example of like how you might do a brand trifecta

for,

for our listeners, just

with,

with my business?

Kate Dileo: Yeah. So if I asked you, tell me what you do.

Richard Matthews: So

we,

we run a podcast post-production company, right? And we work with,

You know, coaches, consultants, service professionals, and we help ’em use a video podcast as a way to be like the cornerstone of their content marketing system.

So, turns into, you know, one, one recording once a week, turns into their YouTube channel, all their content on there, turns into their audio podcast and all the content on there turns into their blog post content and all the stuff on there. And then daily social media content. And we do that as like a white-glove service.

And so they just record, hit

stop record,

stop record. That’s the end of their involvement. Because we need their face and their voice. And then we just do everything else to make sure that their whole content marketing system happens for them.

Kate Dileo: And [00:42:00] why does

that matter

Richard Matthews: So why that matters is a couple of reasons. So the first one is there’s the,

The sort of like the time leverage that comes into, you know,

most,

most of the businesses have a lot of things that they’re doing on their plate, and so they ignore the content marketing aspects of their business.

Right now. ’cause like YouTube and TikTok and whatnot, they’ve sort of destroyed the whole information marketing place. And we’re in what I call the trust age, right? Trust age. You have to get someone’s trust before they will even become a lead. And so content marketing helps you to establish a relationship with someone earlier in the buyer’s journey, right?

Before they’re,

before they’re ready to become a lead.

Right? Or maybe when they first learned about their problem. You know, like you go through all the stages of buyer’s journey, that’s what content helps with. So that’s like the first one. The second one,

Is that you can actually use your podcast and your content marketing as a way to drive leads and sales by having conversations like this one, or having conversations with particular strategic partners and other things.

So you can both build the aspects of your business to,

To create all the content that you want and create that trust and authority in the marketplace, and you can use the creation of that [00:43:00] content as a way to directly drive revenue into your company. So those are

the two,

the two big ones that we about for.

Kate Dileo: So I think in a value proposition statement, I would talk about how podcasting creates proof of the value you bring to the world. You enable people to deliver on that. So you’re creating proof points. The thing that I would ask you is, how do I sum that up in 5 or 6 words with a tagline? For example, is it podcasting without the pain?

Is it content marketing without the, like, what’s the ultimate thing that you’re solving for? So

for,

for us, it sounds like you’re removing roadblocks that typically hinder people from producing this type of content that is super value adding. Is that accurate?

Richard Matthews: That’s exactly right

Kate Dileo: Okay. So I think that I would speak to pain, the real, you know, podcasting creates proof

of,

what makes you great. However, the problem is that in today’s world, creating a video podcast that actually enables more prospects to come to the table is exhausting. And that’s where we step in.

Richard Matthews: You’re,

you’re quick and good at that. So, so, so real quickly,

You know,

I

I, and I know [00:44:00] that was a little self-serving for me, but the,

what I,

what I wanna say for our audience is what’s your process that you go through when you hear someone give you sort of their story to turn that into what you just did there in a couple of seconds?

Like, what’s happening behind the curtain that we didn’t see?

Kate Dileo: Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Richard Matthews: yeah. So what

Kate Dileo: So what happens does that matter? So the number one thing that is when I do target audience analysis it before we write the message, is we’re uncovering what’s the bottom level heart pain you solve for somebody. So I actually do root cause analysis with my clients, and I go through a five-wise analysis to go, okay, that’s great.

This is what they need from me.

Why, why, why,

why? Why do they actually care about it? So what we’re getting at here is not just what is it that they’re asking for from you, but why that actually matters. And that’s the stuff that creates a value proposition statement that is, oh my gosh, you get me moment.

So I’ll give you a silly example. You have a tax services company, right? And you provide tax services. Okay? So the tagline could be making compliance effortless. The value proposition [00:45:00] is, the reality

is,

is tax is a major part of your business, but it does not need to be a major part of your day. Protect your credibility and your profits with worry-free tax consulting.

So you see how

the, the,

the value prop right there is speaking to the whole reason these people are coming to even find a tax service provider versus TurboTax versus H&R block is they need somebody that’s gonna actually take this completely off their plate. They know it’s important. So by calling that out, you’re creating an, oh my gosh, you get me moment.

This is why I wanted to look at you versus doing it on my own on TurboTax or using H&R Block, who just checks a box. These are the kinds of things that are that,

Doing the target audience analysis to uncover the bottom line heart pain, that is critical work so that when you actually write the message, you move well beyond features and benefits to really speak to ultimately what’s subliminally going on.

You’re kind of calling it out.

Richard Matthews: My question for you is about you’ve mentioned features and benefits. And so one of the things that you know is really common in the copywriting world is to talk about [00:46:00] your fab statements, right? Your feature advantage benefit. And so, you know, the silly example is your car comes equipped with an airbag, right?

That’s a feature. The advantage is that it deploys on impact cushioning the blow, right? And the benefit is it saves your life, right? Like, so it saves your life in impact. And so that’s, that’s where like people, it is like you have to get to that save your life portion of, of what you’re talking about. Is that, is that what you’re talking about?

Or you’re

Kate Dileo: That’s exactly right. Yeah, that’s exactly right. And often it’s if you think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, there’s like a hierarchy of values and things that we need as buyers. So oftentimes what I’m asking people to get into is, is it an ego play? Is it a fear-based play? Is it an altruism play?

Like what’s really going on that somebody needs this? And when we, when we can get on that, all the other features and benefits are there, is just supporting context for what they really, deeply desire.

Richard Matthews: makes a lot of sense. And hopefully is a, this is just a useful exercise for people to sort of hear how you do it live. And so I wanna I wanna [00:47:00] talk a little bit then I, I always like to shift gears here and talk about something that’s really practical near the end of the show. And the practical portion is, you know, the hero’s tool belt.

And just like, you know, Spider-Man has his web slingers, or you know, what’s his name, has his laser eyes, Superman, or you know, Thor has this big magical hammer. We’re gonna talk about the top one or two tools you couldn’t live without in your business. It could be anything from your notepad to your calendar, to your marketing tools to a framework that you use to create what you create.

It something that you think is essential to getting your job done. What is number one or maybe top two practical tools you use every day to do what you do?

Kate Dileo: Okay. So I absolutely love Post-it notes. Now I don’t hand write a whole lot of stuff, but I’ll tell you about something that I love. I love Post-it notes because there’s something extremely powerful when you are in the ideation phase and you are in the writing phase, that sometimes more concepts is better.

And what you have to do is get it outta your brain. What a lot of people don’t do is they don’t write it down. And so I use Post-It notes as cues for [00:48:00] myself for innovation, for ideas on how I’m gonna promote something, on how I’m going to bring that next thing into my client’s work, whatever that might look like.

So Post-It notes are one of my favorite tools that I use day in and day out. The other thing is, the way that I do my work, and you might find this silly, is I don’t have some complex dashboard. I actually use a 30 page workbook that is built in Microsoft Word. It’s a word doc, but I’ll tell you what, there’s something really powerful about that because I always say, you can never underestimate the power of paper.

People buy paper. And so what I did early on that has become one of the most important things is I productized my consulting service, my advice by writing it down and creating a playbook that allows me to get in the room with somebody and type live as we go, and really fill in the blanks and ask the right questions and create the charts and document the details in such a way that it’s extremely robust and it’s tactical, it’s practical, and it’s tangible for my [00:49:00] client.

And that’s, I think one of the most important things is when they walk out, they know they have a document that summarizes all of that hard and incredible work we did. And it can continue to come back to this time and time again as the brand grows.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, I love that. We did the same thing back in the day when we were helping people build courses is we built, it was, it wasn’t a Word document, it was a mind map, but it had, it was really in-depth mind map. And like the reason we use the mind map for what we’re doing is because like when you’re doing courses, a lot of times you’re like, okay, that’s a great idea, but it goes up here so you have to like drag and drop things around.

So it was really useful that way. But having it all in a document that. Have your framework worked out. And then when you sit down with someone, you just ask the questions and you fill in the blanks. Right? And so like you’ve, you’ve productized your delivery of you know, it’s mind work.

And so mind work, a lot of times people think to themselves, and I hear this a lot in entrepreneur space, it’s like, I can’t, I can’t like expand what I do because it takes, it takes a lot of my time. That’s a, that’s like a super secret, like ninja power there is being able to take everything that you have and put it into like a step-by-step, like a workbook or a [00:50:00] mind map.

It’s like, I, I like to refer to as like a journey map, right? It’s like, Hey, here’s the journey that I’m gonna take you on. And then when you actually sit down with someone and you hear where they’re at and everything, you can like show them on the map. Like, okay, here’s the map. Yes. And these are the things that we need to, we, we need to get accomplished in order to get here.

And it’s, it’s one of the reasons how I had imagined you can scale your operation. It’s how you can charge, you know, things that are, you know, charge, you can charge what you’re worth there. ’cause you Yeah, sure. Yes, exactly. It allows us to productize our knowledge in a way too, that, again, like we can feel a sense of pride being able to hand something off. And I think that’s always important is you, you can have the greatest expertise in the world, but if you can’t translate that and communicate that in such a way that your customers can feasibly use it, you know you’re missing a big opportunity, then you just become another person talking another coach that doesn’t have a deliverable.

Kate Dileo: Not that I don’t love coaches. I love coaches, but I think what I’m saying [00:51:00] is, is is being able to productize, being able, whatever that looks like, even if it’s the most simple form, is such a smart way for us to scale our business and scale our profits and really provide tangible value to customers.

Richard Matthews: I couldn’t agree more. I’ve got some ideas for you that I think helping make that even better. We can talk about after the podcast.

So because it would be outside the scope of this it’s just like new thing that I figured out with ours that I think we, we’ll really love.

Speaking of heroic tools, I wanna take a few minutes to tell you about a tool we built that Powers the Hero show and is now this show’s primary sponsor.

Commercial: Hey there, fellow podcaster. Having a weekly audio and video show on all the major online networks that builds your brand, creates fame and drive sales for your business. Doesn’t have to be hard. I know it feels that way because you’ve tried managing your show internally and realized how resource of intensive it can be.

You felt the pain of pouring eight to 10 hours of work into just. Getting one hour of content published and promoted all over the place. You see the drain on your resources, but you do it anyways cuz you know how powerful it is. Heck, you’ve probably even tried some of those automated [00:52:00] solutions and ended up with stuff that makes your brand look cheesy and cheap.

That’s not helping grow your business. Don’t give up though. The struggle ends. Now. Introducing Push Button podcasts, a done for you service that will help you get your show out every single week without you lifting a finger. After you’ve pushed that stop record button, we handle everything else.

Uploading, editing, transcribing, writing, research, graphics, publication, and promotion. All done by real humans who know, understand, and care about your brand. Almost as much as you do empowered by our own proprietary technology, our team will let you get back to doing what you love while we handle the rest.

Check us out@pushbuttonpodcast.com slash hero for 10% off the lifetime of your service with us and see the power of having an audio and video podcast growing and driving micro-celebrity status and business in your niche without you having to lift more than a finger to push that stop record button.

Again, that’s push button podcast.com/hero. See you there.

And now back to the Hero show.

Richard Matthews: So I wanna, [00:53:00] I got one more question for you, and it is your guiding principles, right?

One of the things that makes heroes heroic is that they live by a code, for instance Batman never kills his enemies. He only ever puts him in Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up the interview, I wanna talk about top one, maybe two principles that you live your life by, right? The principles that you run your business by.

Maybe something you’d wish you’d known when you first started out on your own heroes journey.

Kate Dileo: I think then one of the biggest ones is to being able to navigate life with a sense of curiosity. I. think that being able to just be curious about what’s in front of us is really important. I think the other thing that is a critical value for me is a great sense of humor. I think that so much in the world of business can be done in a beautiful way when we can laugh at ourselves and laugh at the situation and really create a sense of camaraderie around a point of humor.

Another thing that’s really important is, gratitude. Being thankful and being thankful in all the stuff that we have been given and what we give out. And recognizing that when we [00:54:00] approach things with a heart of gratitude really great stuff can happen and relationships are forged. And it allows us to never transactionalize relationships.

It allows us to really create relationships that are lasting. And by the way, I’ll close with this. I’ll tell you three principles. My dad told me, and my dad was a serial entrepreneur, very successful, and I went to study anthropology and he said, good luck. I want you to study and enjoy academia, but there’s three rules that you should always live by.

I said, what’s that dad? He said, well, listen, if you ever wanna make a diamond do well, he said, number one, never burn a bridge. Number two, you live and die by your Rolodex, and number three, you have to know how to sell something. Those were the three best pieces of advice I ever got from my dad as I stepped into this role of being an entrepreneur.

Richard Matthews: And that Rolodex one is something else too. Like people don’t understand when people say your network is your net worth. Like, until you’ve got a network, you don’t realize how true [00:55:00] that is. And I, all of the major breakthroughs in our team and our hiring and our revenue and our growth have always come down to you know, one of those three things there.

But the, the Rolodex has been huge. So thank you so much for coming on and and sharing your story with us today. Kate, I want to I always wrap our interview with a with a really simple challenge. I call it the Hero’s Challenge. And when I, you know, we do this to help get access to stories we might not otherwise find on our own.

So the question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or in your network who you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? First names are fine. And why do you think they should come share their story with us here on the Hero Show? First?

Kate Dileo: The first person that comes to mind is a gentleman named Dave Newell, and he is somebody that you should talk to because Dave is a person who. Really has revolutionized the way that people can actually make sense of what’s misaligned in their organizations and tangibly, practically right that ship. He is a brilliant human who is helping people and will never self-promote, [00:56:00] will never talk about it, and yet he is creating big, big waves in the companies that he’s supporting.

Richard Matthews: Cool. Well, we’ll see if we can get an introduction. Maybe get ’em on the show. They don’t always say yes, but when we do, we get to cool interviews out of it. So I appreciate that. So, you know, in comic books there’s always the crowd of people at the end who are cheering and clapping for their acts of heroism.

So as we close, what we want to do is find out where can people find you? Where can they, you know, light up the bat signal, so to speak and say, Hey Kate, I’d love to you know, get your help with our brand Trifecta. And I think more importantly than where is who are the right types of people to raise their hand and ask about you.

And I think maybe it’d be a good time to also talk about your revenue acceleration event as well.

Kate Dileo: Appreciate that. Well, the best place to find me is on my website, which is www.KateDiLeo.com You can also find me on LinkedIn. By the way, if you’re checking this post out or if it’s linked on LinkedIn, please do connect with me. And I do have a book that I’ve written that does walk you through this entire Branch-Trifecta approach, including that target audience analysis we [00:57:00] touched on.

That’s a great resource. If you’re curious, how do I get started? How do I get started on refining my brand and getting at the heart of the matter? The other thing is we’re beginning to launch revenue acceleration events. two-and-A-half day events in held in Minneapolis, Minnesota four or five times a year that allow companies to come on in and in two-and-a-half days, build their brand trifecta as well as come out with brand new sales assets as well as updated website copy all in two-and-a-half days.

And we’re capping it at only about 20 companies to ensure that you’re able to do intentional networking among like-minded entrepreneurs. And so you can check out our website to learn more or send me an email at kate@katedileo.com

Richard Matthews: So the revenue accelerators coming out in June, June this year

Kate Dileo: June. June 19 through 21st 2024 more details will be posted on LinkedIn in the next few weeks.

Richard Matthews: If you are listening to this in the future you know, past the June event, they can check out your website to get whatever the next dates are

for the regular commuter event.

So, you know, thank [00:58:00] you so much for coming on today, Kate. I really appreciate just having you come on and share your story. You know, despite our technical glitches here with the audio, not wanting to work for your side of it appreciate your, you know, just coming on and sharing what it is you’re doing and how you’re doing it.

Do you have any final words of wisdom for my audience for hit this stop record button.

Kate Dileo: You know

what? Own your story. Build your brand trifecta, and you’re going to see a shift in who’s coming to the table, and you’re gonna be able to help more people.

Richard Matthews: Thank You

so much

Kate Dileo: Kate. I

Richard Matthews: appreciate your time today.

Kate Dileo: Thanks, Richard.

​

[00:59:00]