Confidence Comes Later: Why you should start building an audience now

Jeffro (00:01.199)
Welcome back to Digital Dominance. Today we have a guest who’s not only empowering entrepreneurs to reach new heights in their careers, but also helping them find balance, fulfillment, and clarity in the process. Angus Nelson is an executive coach and host of the Evolve Leadership Podcast, where he shares strategies to transform high achievers into their best selves. So today, we’re going to dive into how Angus has built up his empire and discuss any digital marketing lessons that he has learned on his path to becoming a top speaker and an advisor to Fortune 500 leaders.

@angusnelson (00:29.752)
Hmm.

Jeffro (00:30.476)
So without further ado, welcome to the show Angus.

@angusnelson (00:33.582)
Thanks so much for having me, Jeff Rowe. We were just saying before we got on this, I just interviewed you on my show. So for all of you fans, you can hear my show on the other side of the microphone and now I’m on this side getting to sweat. So bring it, let’s go.

Jeffro (00:41.153)
you

Jeffro (00:47.436)
All right, I’m ready to make, no, I’m not gonna make you sweat. You know, Angus, you do have a really compelling story though, which I find it interesting. Hopefully you guys can go read about that on his website. You you made some serious mistakes and then you took that wake up call and you made big changes. But I love that you let the mistakes be lessons and not simply the end of the story. But today, in keeping with the focus of this show, I wanna focus on how you’ve built your company. You know, obviously you’ve had to learn some skills along the way and I can only assume you’ve leveraged digital marketing

@angusnelson (00:50.283)
You

Jeffro (01:17.016)
to help you get your personal brand and company to where they are today. can we start by having you tell us about your experience using digital marketing to grow, evolve leadership and the wealthy entrepreneur circle.

@angusnelson (01:28.612)
Yeah, I’ll give you just a little context too. So I started my first business, you know, back in 1998, 99. And so marketing back then was very different, you know, it was like email marketing was kind of the thing. Seth Godin was just kind of like starting to like push the envelope on email marketing. This is what it was all about. We didn’t have.

Jeffro (01:41.344)
Yes.

@angusnelson (01:53.72)
the internet speeds that we have today and the access we have to the internet that we have today, let alone flash forward to artificial intelligence. But all the way, one of the biggest things was just staying adaptable and creative. So for me, from that first business, I got into marketing, really started to enjoy that. I started building some websites and then I started with another company.

And I did all of their marketing and built a podcast back when making a podcast was much harder. We’re talking 2008. And the degree you had to go to, be able to upload to a server and have that, you know, out into the world. And then secondarily, moving from that was how to tell a story. And I think if we just start at any kind of basis point, the one piece that was really missing in my early marketing days was

how to tell a story. It’s one thing to use marketing and your audience is far more mature, they’ll know better than some that I talk to, is that we just want to attract eyeballs. But in this day and age, you can’t just like scream at people and say, my thing, buy my service. It’s really about can you bring people into a story where they can find themselves, where their problem and their challenge, my gosh.

Jeffro (03:16.705)
Well, there’s so much competition.

@angusnelson (03:19.672)
That’s one of the biggest pieces, right, is the noise. All the more reason why the compelling parts of your story are necessary. So I anchored that into working for an agency. worked in influencer marketing, built one of the largest fatherhood brands on the internet at the time called Life of Dad. And so I headed up the agency and built that up and was able to gather a number of different influencers.

from the dad space. And back then, it started off as just dad bloggers. But then we got into video and other areas where fatherhood, where men who had chosen to take that role seriously, and many became stay at home dads, and I had a stint of that for three years of my life. And suddenly we were building these things that people could feel a part of. And as a father, when you see somebody talking about this precious opportunity for you to be, you

embracing that role, it became a really powerful message. And that was the story that we leaned into was empowering fathers, A, not to take it too seriously, and B, just show up. They just need your time and attention. They don’t have to be perfect. And so we started doing campaigns for, I don’t know if you remember back when they were stacking Cheerios on sleeping babies, but that was one of our, that was our campaign.

Jeffro (04:41.288)
Yeah. Nice.

@angusnelson (04:44.976)
where we even had President Obama at the time was stacking Cheerios on a stuffed animal and it was a ripoff from one of our things. And we ended up being on all the talk shows, et cetera, et cetera. That became part of my background of how to tell stories. And then I got into the B2B space and I was doing technology marketing and it’s a completely different kind of story. And so if I were gonna wrap it all into the pieces that now what I’m using with Evolve Leadership,

Most of the people who need what we have to offer don’t know it. They don’t wake up in the morning and look at their bank account and say, there’s that budget line item I’ve been saving up for coaching to develop my self -awareness and emotional intelligence. No one does that. So what we have learned is to tell stories for people to see themselves.

Jeffro (05:35.659)
Yeah.

@angusnelson (05:41.442)
And when they see different circumstances, see different situations, they can identify, say, my gosh, that’s me. And that begins a conversation. Conversations lead to cash flow.

Jeffro (05:53.088)
Yeah, and I love that you touched on that. In these different areas, you’re entering the conversation at different points, right? Because in this last one, you kind of have to educate a little bit in order for them to even realize that I have a problem. And then you can tell them about the solution, right? And so the way you craft that story and those videos or your messages is going to be very different. It’s not going to be stacking Cheerios on a baby’s head, maybe. But you’re going to have to think about this intentionally.

@angusnelson (05:59.608)
Mm

@angusnelson (06:08.496)
Yeah.

@angusnelson (06:16.482)
Yeah.

Jeffro (06:19.249)
as to what’s going to make sense, what’s going to draw them in and how you can lead them to that next step.

@angusnelson (06:20.088)
you

@angusnelson (06:24.226)
Yeah, and I think one of the things I’m just like epiphany, I’m kicking myself, it’s taking me this long. Anytime I include my children and my wife in our content, it’s way more compelling. And now, mind you, there’s a vanity metrics just to get likes, just to get comments. However,

On the back end, and this works in the agency world too, is we start conversations from all of it. So if somebody likes and engages with a comment or what have you, I’ll jump into the DMs, hey, thanks so much for your support and this comment. And then I’ll ask them a question about the piece of content or what they liked about it. And that becomes a conversation. We all know on LinkedIn we’re getting spammed all the time with people who are just like.

Here’s my thing. Here’s my agency. Here’s my insurance. Here’s my… Well, but if you can be human and you can actually give a rip and you can contextualize who that person is with the conversation you’re having, my gosh, the probabilities are way higher in your favor.

Jeffro (07:38.322)
Yeah. Well, and it feels less salesy or to some people sleazy, right? Because you’re not just like pushing something on someone. You’re actually entering a natural conversation that could happen anywhere at the mall or the store. When you bump into someone you notice they have the same shoes. You like comment on the shoes and then you can talk about parenting because you see the kids or whatever. And with your videos, you’re kind of almost creating that moment. And then when they do raise their hand and say, yeah, I like that, then you just respond.

@angusnelson (07:56.046)
Hmm.

Jeffro (08:07.078)
and say, yeah, what was your favorite part? you know what, I really relate to this part of it. What about, like, it’s natural, it doesn’t feel forced, and then you can lead down to the next step. I love that.

@angusnelson (08:07.522)
Mm -hmm.

@angusnelson (08:15.18)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, it’s, you know that build it and they’ll come philosophy and I think that’s what most people think about marketing is like, if I just start doing this, if I just start posting these static images about posters and sales, people are gonna rush into my doors. And the world doesn’t work that way anymore. And I would say too, when you start these conversations, like,

you’re dating, like don’t try and like put a wedding ring on them right away. Don’t dive in heavy and hot and you come off all thirsty. You’re like, hey, you want to start a conversation around my service? It’s like dial it back, build rapport, get to know them. And I would say also if you’re a service based organization, don’t.

Like ask the probing questions that people smell salesy right from the get go. It’s actually be human.

Jeffro (09:21.748)
Right. And it’s kind of a context shift too for a lot of people to think about selling through social media DMs because in the past maybe it’s like, that’s personal. do you, no, I’m not like selling, right? Am I? Right? But it’s not, it’s a conversation and you’re just leading towards that. And so at a certain point in the conversation, it will feel natural to be like, hey, would it make sense to hop on a call next week? Cause I can help you with XYZ. Like there it is, right?

@angusnelson (09:33.134)
Mm -hmm

@angusnelson (09:45.263)
Mm -hmm.

@angusnelson (09:48.61)
Yep. And if you took that extra step to like go and see their website or go and visit their store, know, walk through the aisles or, you and I don’t know what the scale is of whoever the listener that you might be hearing my voice. Think of the creative ways that you can get a peek into their world. And now it’s personalization that artificial intelligence can never touch.

Jeffro (09:54.365)
Yeah.

Jeffro (10:17.289)
Well Angus, that sounds like hard work to do that with every single person coming across my feed. I don’t think I could do that.

@angusnelson (10:25.016)
Think of it as lead flow central. And one of the things that we talk about in our masterminds that we have at Evolve Leadership is, you know, just five opens a day is what we say. Open five conversations a day, just do that. So for everything that you’re putting out into the world, if you could just start five conversations a day, you basically have a business.

because eventually those might take a couple weeks, might take a couple months, sometimes it might take a couple years. But you’ve started this funnel of relationship. It’s the most authentic funnel you can do and all of your content that you’re putting out now supports the power of that relationship. And if you’re already engaged in the DMs, the algorithms say, y ‘all must know each other. Let’s show you some more of their content.

and your stuff starts showing up in their feed again.

Jeffro (11:21.64)
Yeah. Well, I like the five target as well, because that’s manageable. think in a lot of you know, for a lot of us, we think, that sounds really overwhelming, like a ton of work. But if you’re just doing five a day, you’re going to get better over time. And even maybe you have days where you can do 10 because your schedule is more clear. Sure. Why not? It’s not saying you have to stop at five, but at least doing five makes it feel doable. And you can check that off your list and make progress every day.

@angusnelson (11:36.792)
yet. Yeah.

@angusnelson (11:46.692)
100 % and I’m past five. I’m always starting conversations and I’m kind of an extrovert too and for me it’s fun and I just block off a certain amount of time and it’s just exclusive there. Outside of that I’ve got other things to do. I’m not gonna like sit there and get sucked into it and I’ll tell you this, if you start doing this you actually have to discipline yourself to treat your social as your business.

I mean, unless you’re into pets and grooming, you shouldn’t be like, spend all your time on pet videos, know, cute cat, like, you’re gonna find yourself in the tick tock, like suck in, two and a half hours just went by. I don’t know what just happened. You have to stay disciplined.

Jeffro (12:35.196)
Yeah, well, it depends which part of the app you’re in, right? So move away from spending time in the feed, spend more time in the posting and the messaging, right? And that’s the difference, right? You’re producing content, you’re producing and nurturing relationships as opposed to simply consuming the content that someone else created.

@angusnelson (12:43.298)
Yes.

@angusnelson (12:52.77)
When you tell stories, because I’ve seen your content too, and your crafting, what are some of the I don’t know, cheat sheet or secrets that you do to create your hook in your content?

Jeffro (13:09.66)
So I feel like I’m always striving to get better at this because I feel like I’m never quite there. But I do try to make the first six seconds, if I can make someone watch for six seconds, there’s a good chance they’re going to watch the rest of it. So I got to start with something interesting. You always hear people talk about a hook. That can be a visual hook, it could be words, could be audio, even all of those at the same time. So something visually interesting on screen where people are like, wait, what is he doing?

@angusnelson (13:25.166)
Mm -hmm.

@angusnelson (13:34.534)
Yeah

Yeah.

Jeffro (13:37.88)
or even me saying something controversial or confusing or interesting, like peeking curiosity. So I try to start with that if I can. And I think part of the challenge is not thinking of this as a gimmick so much as how can, like I know I have value to bring, so how can I start off in a way that draws someone in really right off the bat? And that’s the challenge, right? Back to your conversation about storytelling, that’s what we’re doing.

@angusnelson (13:47.402)
Mm -hmm.

@angusnelson (13:56.972)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Jeffro (14:06.992)
If you think of a book that has a really good open, what makes it really good? It just set the stage in a few words and opens this huge curiosity gap that makes you want to keep reading. So that’s kind of what we need to do in those first few seconds. I don’t always get it, but I try.

@angusnelson (14:07.648)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

@angusnelson (14:19.041)
Yeah.

@angusnelson (14:24.47)
You said something interesting and I’m just was kind of turning that phrase in my head. It’s like you have something valuable you want to share and by front loading with the hook, you’re actually showing value for someone else’s time.

And I think that’s, I just came up with that here on the spot, but that was something that just was an epiphany. I I’m like, that’s why we do that. That’s because if I can value your time, it means I can say something or speak something in such a way that you know I’m talking to you, that I’m doing this for you. Like you’re the right person that should be listening to this. And you’re like, this is for me. Not just another cat video. Bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, you know? Jeez.

When you do the story of content, and you were in a meeting that I was at where they said something about you, and I’m guilty of this, I’ve been doing this for way too long. The very thing I want to say, I don’t say till the end. And now I’ve learned, pull that, extract that concept out and throw it in the front.

And so it’s like you have to land the plane first and then you take people into what it is, know, that little punch. So if you’re listening and you’re saying, what are you talking about the hook? That’s like the best way I can describe it.

Jeffro (15:50.344)
It’s an attention grabber or curiosity grabber, something that makes them stop and want to see more. So it’s an ongoing challenge. And I think just the more you do it, the better you get at it. So just, again, that consistency, posting every day, trying different things, seeing what people respond to, and that’s how you get better.

@angusnelson (15:52.846)
Hmm.

@angusnelson (16:06.18)
Mm

@angusnelson (16:10.448)
And I also want to state for you who are listening, who perhaps you’re a solopreneur or you have a small team or you feel like you’re not very creative. Like I would be remiss if I didn’t just pause for a second just to speak to you and say you don’t have to over complicate this. You can find tools that can make it simple and fast for yourself. Right now, CapCut, inside of CapCut and has now

put in a teleprompter and if you hold the phone, know, basically at arm’s length, maybe, you know, just a little bit further if you have to put it on a tripod or lean it against a tree or something, just so that you can read it without your eyes being able to be sensed that you’re tracking. But you can actually just do your videos right there with a script if you’re not comfortable to free flow.

and verbatim be able to say what you want to say and then inside the app be able to do all the things that everybody does to make it fancy. Even like B -roll, they’ve got B -roll. You want different colors? They got different colors. Do you want different fonts? They got different, like there are tools like that. It’s just one example that you can simplify the process and you back that up with a little chat GPT or some Claude or you know, one of these other AI tools.

Magi is one I just discovered, it was really cool. Plug, plug Magi. So if you look at some of these tools, you can take your content of who am I actually trying to talk to? That creates your ideal client. This now becomes a profile that you can base everything off of and say, wanna write a story, I wanna create a piece of content for this person around this pain point, around this struggle, around this challenge.

really simplified what we’re doing. And if you’re an agency, you’re probably thinking, I should do all the things I do for all my companies. And like, yes, yes, you should do that. And isn’t it always true that we’re kind of like, you know, Cobbler’s kids never have the nice shoes. But for yourself, it’s like, what if you saw your marketing as the experiments, like you treat yourself as your own guinea pig to try new things.

Jeffro (18:13.935)
you

Jeffro (18:25.253)
Yes. Yes.

@angusnelson (18:27.534)
to step up to the next level, to push the envelope on new market, and then you can just rinse and repeat for your clients only to elevate the results they get to.

Jeffro (18:37.189)
Exactly.

Yeah, I love that. Now I want to dive into something that we’re kind of dancing around because obviously we know, all right, we’ve heard social media, got to be doing videos. I know the tools are out there to help me, but a lot of people still don’t feel confident for whatever reason. Right. So you talk about the confidence paradox, which kind of challenges the idea of confidence as we traditionally understand it. So I want to hear your definition of confidence and how this has come into play for you as you built up your business.

@angusnelson (19:01.582)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I’m really glad you brought this up because this is a book that I’m writing right now that says confidence comes later. Because we always think we need confidence in order to do a thing. But confidence only lives in the past. You can only be confident of things you’ve already done. Nobody, nowhere has ever done anything with confidence. They’ve done it with courage, but they didn’t do it with confidence.

Confidence is this, more than competency, it’s a comfort in that particular role. But the problem is everything that we do that’s new to us is uncertain. And so it’s impossible for you to be confident. But the more that you flex that muscle of belief in yourself, that level of self belief, that becomes the resilience, perseverance, the audacity for you to step into new and better things.

And so confidence when we’re looking at creating content and someone would tell me, I’m not good in front of a camera. Well, guess what? I sucked when I started too. I was horrible. I found an old YouTube video that I did when my kids were like just babies and I was a stay at home dad at that season. And I’d make these little motivational videos. would hold the camera up and I found this video. I’m watching it with my son who now is doing my editing. He’s actually gonna be editing your video, the front end of your video. And he’s 14 now.

Jeffro (20:30.371)
Nice.

@angusnelson (20:33.564)
And I said, okay, so tell me about what daddy’s saying in this video. And we’re like a minute and half in. And he looks at me and goes, daddy, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I looked at him, was like, you know what? Daddy didn’t know what he was talking about either. Because back then I didn’t know how to put thoughts together. I didn’t know how to do things. I was super uncomfortable. And you have to start in that place where you’re uncomfortable when you’re uncertain. So confidence, as we understand it,

If confidence is only because of what I’ve done, then leverage that. Meaning, hey, I was confident when I did this thing and it didn’t go right, I made some mistakes, I went through some stuff, but you know what, I lived. I’m here to tell you, I’m here to talk about it. I’m alright, I survived. And so now you start to see these patterns in life. So here I am, I’m now 53 years old. I know I look like I’m 20 years younger because my right is living.

But sorry for those of you listening in audio. If you see the patterns of history, it’s like, we went through a recession. We had downturn in the 80s. I remember in the end of the 90s when we had the dot com boom or the bust. And then we had the 2008, 2009. I remember when things slumped during 9 -11. Like I remember all of these situations when we see the world in flux.

And now here today I’m looking at the world, like, there’s more flux in the world and we’re gonna be okay. We’re gonna figure a way out or it doesn’t matter who gets elected, we’re gonna figure it out. It doesn’t matter like whose voice is louder, we’re gonna figure out. It doesn’t matter whether my income goes up or it goes down. We’re gonna figure it out. And now the belief is in the fact that you know how to figure stuff.

Jeffro (22:06.565)
Mm

@angusnelson (22:30.36)
That’s how you walk into the next step in your journey, that I’m gonna be all right. You don’t need confidence, you just need courage.

Jeffro (22:33.295)
Mm

Jeffro (22:36.899)
Yeah. No, I love that. Yeah. And it’s, in some ways it’s ironic because you have to be okay with trying things and failing in order to become good and confident. And I think there’s just, that’s, don’t know if it’s a self value thing or just the fear of judgment of what’s going to happen if I do look bad. Like you’re never going to get past it. If you never play your first soccer game, you’re never going to play your hundredth soccer game. Right. And so whatever.

@angusnelson (22:46.113)
Mm

@angusnelson (22:58.989)
Mm

Yeah.

Jeffro (23:04.033)
It’s easier for us to think of it in physical things, maybe like sports, but with business, it’s the same thing, right? It’s just iterating and going through it.

@angusnelson (23:07.776)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

And I think business is such a great reflection of this whole human dynamic. I can’t think of a more powerful personal development course than entrepreneurship because it throws your shit up in your face real fast.

Jeffro (23:23.403)
the

Jeffro (23:28.953)
You gotta deal with it or you’re done.

@angusnelson (23:31.108)
And I was just, I’ve had multiple conversations just this week of people who are in some flux and they were laughing about it. And I’m like, you know, if anyone else were in some of these rooms listening to us, they think we are crazy. But it’s because we’ve been on this circus before, or it’s like, and we’re gonna be fine. We’re gonna figure it out. And it’s like, the moment you think things are like dire, a client pops up.

some person returns, someone gives you referral, something like, it’s a magical thing when we just trust the universe and our gift. And again, it helps us to walk away from the thought that we need confidence and just understand like, no, I just need to believe. Just believe, yeah.

Jeffro (24:21.622)
Yeah, just got to start moving forward. All right, well Angus, thank you so much for joining me today. I always hate stopping these great conversations, but I want to respect your time and our listeners’ times. I am inspired by your humility and your hard work. I congratulate you on the success that you’ve had as you help others. For those of you guys listening, you can use the links in the show notes. Go connect with Angus. He’s got his new book out soon. And I love the title, Confidence Comes. Is it Confidence Comes Last or Later? Later. Confidence Comes Later.

@angusnelson (24:34.936)
Hmm.

@angusnelson (24:43.862)
Mm

@angusnelson (24:47.19)
Later comes later.

Jeffro (24:49.269)
So hopefully it will be available by the time this episode is released. But I have one last question for you, Angus. What do you think keeps entrepreneurs from learning the big lessons sooner?

@angusnelson (24:54.51)
Mm

@angusnelson (25:00.244)
Ego. Ego. You don’t know what you don’t know and you already know that. But if you want to learn faster, bring somebody else in your world because you cannot read the label on your own jar.

You need somebody else that can reflect back to you to be your mirror and say, hey, here’s the opportunities you have, here are the challenges you’re facing, stop lying to yourself and just own it. And all of a sudden, the world can be clearer because you’ve got somebody else who not only can show you that stuff because if they’re the right person, they’re doing it in love and they want you to succeed. But second of all, it comes back to someone that can believe. Because people who are allowed and invited into your world,

also want to help you with a shared destiny. They speak into your life because they want to see you succeed and when you succeed, it helps them feel like they were a part of the process. Find those kinds of people and surround yourself with them.

Jeffro (25:57.716)
That’s a great way to end this. So thanks again for being here Angus and sharing your wisdom with us. Thanks to all of you guys for listening and we’ll be here back soon on the next episode of Digital Dominance. So take care.

@angusnelson (26:09.87)
Thanks Jeffrey.