My Confident Live Journey & What’s Next
Confident Live Marketing Podcast
Episode 101
Episode Theme: Confidence & Mindset
March 26, 2021
In today's show, I'm going to be talking a little bit more about my journey. My Confident Live journey, what I've learned over the years, what I'm doing now and what is happening next.
What You’ll Learn
[13:19] How it all started...
[21:17] How blogging kicked-off my career...
[23:43] The importance of finding the right mentors...
[31:39] How I got into live video…
[33:08] How imposter syndrome affected my success...
[36:39] How to become a brand ambassador..
[39:12] How I overcame a crisis of confidence…
[42:23] Where I am now…
[47:15] What’s next?
This episode is sponsored by Restream and Launch Your Live
How It All Started...
Listen at [13:19]
When I was younger I was massively into music, tech and science - basically a bit of a geek. While I was at school I moved from England to Scotland and was bullied because of my accent and that really affected my confidence levels.
The experience that I had at school has made me into a very empathetic person. I really care for people, particularly more eccentric people and those who are misfits.Click To Tweet"The experience that I had at school has made me into a very empathetic person. I really care for people, particularly more eccentric people and those who are misfits."
I was (and still am) an introvert, but music and tech were my outlets.
All the skills that I learned from music and from my treatment in school made me who I am today, and allowed me to help other people. For me, I’ve been able to forgive and let go of the past.
While at the Royal Northern College of Music training to be a professional classical singer, I met Helen. We became great friends. We also knew each other from the church we went to. For the first 6 years, it was purely platonic, but then it progressed to something more. Helen was my first girlfriend, and her believing in me and my potential contributed massively to my confidence. After three months we just knew it was right and I asked her to marry me - thankfully she said yes! We got married within the year.
After I got married, I had to go into the real world and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I started to sing around the country and teach singing as well.
But the geeky tech side of me was also surfacing again, and so in the early noughties, I started a web agency building websites called Select Performers with my Dad. Initially, we focussed on building websites for musicians but then broadened out to businesses.
How Blogging Kicked-Off My Career...
Listen at [21:17]
In 2011 I decided to launch a blog and iag.me was born. I'd always wanted a blog and I wanted to help people make the right choice about the tech and tools. One of my first articles was called "7 Reasons NOT to use Hootsuite",
I was sick of only seeing positive, sales-y type blogs and I wanted to look at the other side of it.
This changed everything as this article went viral. I had never planned on monetizing, it was just for fun. And I think that was important because the passion was there and I was really delivering value.
That blog was followed by more people, which led to me speaking at conferences.
So, blogging really changed things for me and led to me finding people that really believed in me in a professional capacity.
The Importance of Finding the Right Mentors...
Listen at [23:43]
Due to my childhood, I didn’t have a very high opinion of myself. I saw myself as a bit of disaster, and a failure.
I had zero confidence in myself, but there were other people out there that saw the value in what I did. And I started to gain confidence in what I had to offer.
Emeric Ernoult, the CEO of the social media management tool Agorapulse became my first unofficial mentor. He told me that I had to go to Social Media Marketing World in San Diego. And, he kindly bought me my first SMMW ticket which was enough of a push for me to book my flights and hotel.
This was another thing that really changed things for me. I met so many amazing people at that conference. I met so many people who became great friends such as Mark Schaefer, Jeff Sieh, Steve Dotto, Ian Cleary and more.
This resulted in me being asked to speak at Social Media Marketing World - and I've spoken there every year since SMMW16.
"If you're not in a mastermind, if you don't have any mentors, people who believe in you, you need to find those people because we all need encouragement. We all need those people that allow us to become more confident and to see ourselves as the way we actually are."
By having people that believed in me, I started to believe in myself. We shared our struggles and successes and they also gave me constructive feedback so that I could continually improve.
How I Got Into Live Video...
Listen at [31:39]
In 2016 Facebook Live was released, but it was only if you were in the US and used an iPhone. I was in the UK and used an Android, so I couldn’t use it.
However, I found a way that you could broadcast to Facebook live from your computer using a technology called OBS Studio.
My first ever Facebook Live in May 2016
I decided to write an article about it because I was frustrated at all the articles that were making it too complicated. My passion for teaching and my passion for making things easy to understand came together.
And so I wrote the article, "How to broadcast Facebook live from your computer".
This changed everything for me. The article was an instant hit, went viral and was shared by many top influencers in the marketing world. As of today, that article has over 6.5 million page views. I became known as an expert and an influencer in the world of live video.
I then decided to launch a course on how to do this. The course was a success and I sold my OBS Studio course to hundreds of amazing people out there. That, in turn, led me to being asked to speak at conferences on the topic of live video.
But there was a problem...
I was good at talking about live video, but I was nervous about actually going live.
I was scared. I really didn't want to go live.
It was time to learn to get over the fear and to become more confident going live!
So I launched a live show with my friend Julia Bramble called The Free Range Social Show and I did my first ever live Christmas Carol of the Day challenge.
Free Range Social Show in November 2016
Christmas Carol of the Day, December 2016
How Imposter Syndrome Affected My Success...
Listen at [33:08]
In 2017, imposter syndrome hit. There was definitely a bit of self-sabotage because of all the success I had in 2016. I felt that I didn't deserve it.
"I was worried that other people would find out I was a complete fraud."
I launched a course that was a flop because I never really tried to make it a success. It was almost as if I was willing it to fail and I didn't deserve the success.
Paradoxically, this was also the year that The Confident Live Marketing Show was born. And I did start to do a lot of live videos.
But it was a very scary and uncertain time for me.
How to Become a Brand Ambassador...
Listen at [36:39]
Relationships with people are so important. But so are relationships with companies.
I’ve been lucky to find support from some great companies and become their brand ambassador.
As you know, I talk a lot about Restream, Agorapulse and Ecamm Live. I now have an ambassador relationship with those companies.
But it didn't start out that way. I was just a fan who used their services. There was no payment involved, but I was able to build relationships with those companies and add value to their brand.
It was a real privilege to be able to get to know these companies. And from these brand relationships, I was then able to pay myself more of a monthly income, which up until 2015 had not been something I was able to do consistently.
Brand ambassadorships also helped build my authority, which led to more coaching clients.
"You can’t help people if you don’t have a profitable business. The problem that I had was that I was so worried about the money side of things, that I wasn't able to help people as much as I could."
You can’t help people if you don’t have a profitable business. The problem that I had was that I was so worried about the money side of things, I wasn't able to help people as much as I wanted.
You can’t help people if you don’t have a profitable business. The problem that I had was that I was so worried about the money side of things, that I wasn't able to help people as much as I wanted to.Click To TweetIt was a slow burn, but over time I built it. And I think having confidence in myself early on would definitely have helped me get there faster.
How I Overcame a Crisis of Confidence...
Listen at [39:12]
In 2018 I had a crisis of confidence and so I hired Kelly Baader and joined a paid coaching and mastermind programme. She was great and was great at 'kicking me up the bottom' as we say in the UK.
2018 was the first year I invested in coaching. Maybe that was my year of coaching?
From 2019, I started naming my years, and 2019 was going to be my year of visibility.
"I’m not a great fan of manifesting, but I think there is some truth in it. And so I named 2019 the year of visibility. So that year was when I leveled things up in terms of my speaking gigs."
After my previous years of hiding and feeling like I wasn’t enough, stepping up and being seen was so important. As well as speaking at Social Media Marketing World, I spoke at another US conference - Content Marketing World. And at Andrew & Pete's Atomicon in Newcastle, InfoShare in Poland, Build Your Audience Live in London, InOrbit in Slovenia, Social Media Bootcamp in Belfast and more.
Where I am Now...
Listen at [42:23]
If I had known that in 2020 COVID-19 and a worldwide lockdown was going to happen, I probably wouldn’t have called it my year of growth! But I did name 2020 as my year of growth.
The exciting thing was that 2020 was absolutely my year of growth because I wasn't able to get distracted by all the shiny things due to having to stay at home.
I had the opportunity to really focus on my personal and business growth - putting into place all the things I had been putting off for years. I was also really consistent with my live show and podcast.
All the previous years and difficult times over the years and the lessons I learned came together in 2020.
Now we're in 2021 and it's my year of community. This year is one where I want to give back to you, my community so that I can help you grow and be confident in who you are.
So, What’s Next?
Listen at [47:15]
I’ve got some amazing guests coming up, which I’m really excited about.
"My focus is on delivering value. I've always wanted to get better at what I do, so I'm working on a new intro and outro."
My live video background isn’t the best, but you work with what you’ve got. I'm moving house soon so I'll be able to build my studio from scratch.
There will be another course soon called Launch Your Live, which is all about how to launch your live show with success. This time I'm going to be teaching how to repurpose your live video into a podcast. The aim is to make it into a community because that is so important to me.
I’ve got loads of really exciting stuff coming, and I can’t wait to share it with you all.
So, how about you? What is this year for you? What has been your Confident Live Journey? I'd love to know!
Resources
Watch Episode 101
Brought to you by Restream & Launch Your Live
Restream
Restream is the complete multi-streaming suite for entrepreneurs.
With Restream you can stream to multiple platforms all at the same time. They have a plethora of destinations including:
- LinkedIn Live
- Facebook Live
- YouTube Live
- Twitch
- Periscope and so much more
You can stream from another tool to Restream and Restream will take care of the multi-streaming for you really easily. Or you can broadcast directly from Restream to your platform of choice.
Restream also has chat, analytics and a scheduler. With the chat service you can view and engage with your audience from all the destinations you stream to.
I've been really blown away by the Analytics section - this shows your stream metrics - now many viewers, watched minutes, new followers and more.
And finally, the scheduler allows you to broadcast pre-recorded video live.
To sign up and have a play, visit iag.me/restream
Please Subscribe!
Don’t miss an episode! You can subscribe on Apple podcasts here - or on other podcast players.
The Confident Live Marketing Show
The Confident Live Marketing Show is a weekly live video show and podcast. It’s aimed at established entrepreneurs who want to level up their impact, authority and profits through the power of live video, webinars and podcasts. We’ll focus on knocking down the 3 main barriers these entrepreneurs face when creating live content - camera confidence/mindset, tech/gear and content marketing.
It’s hosted by Ian Anderson Gray. He is the founder of the Confident Live Marketing Academy and is the host of the Confident Live Marketing Podcast. He helps entrepreneurs to level up their impact, authority and profits by using live video confidently. He’s founder of Seriously Social - a blog focused on live video and social media tools. He’s an international speaker, trainer, teacher and consultant. He has a passion for making the techno-babble of live video and social media marketing easy to understand. As well as being a geek, husband, and dad to two kids, Ian is also a professional singer and lives near Manchester in the UK.
Listen Now
About Ian Anderson Gray
Ian is the founder of the Confident Live Marketing Academy and is the host of the Confident Live Marketing Podcast. He helps entrepreneurs to level up their impact, authority and profits by using live video confidently. He's a geek, husband, and dad to two kids, and trained as professional classical singer. He lives near Manchester in the UK. Find out more
Comments