Hey there, welcome to rise above noise. So each week in this series, I have the honor of shining a spotlight on somebody in the rise above noise community. Who's making a real difference and who's helping others with their own business growth before we get started. If you and I haven't met yet, I'd love to introduce myself. My name is Susan Finn.
I am a digital marketing strategist. The name of my business is rise above noise. And for the past 15 years I've been working with transformation creators, right? I've been working with energy healers, Lightworkers coaches, creatives, teachers, to guide them to their own personal roadmap in a digital marketing journey that feels like flow to them. So together we create your system to show up in a way that feels generous,
and it feels that you're showing up in service so that you can show up consistently and with, with flow and ease for the people who are already searching for you, your business will grow more consistently when you show up in generosity. So that said today, I want to encourage you to listen to our interview with Josh. He is the idea archeologist,
what is that you'll find out. So you're going to really love hearing from Josh and how, how you can stand out in a sea of sameness. He's going to talk about differentiating yourself from the crowd. He's going to talk about speaking human, which is really the most powerful and attractive language in the world. And he's going to talk about being human.
Let's destroy that line between business and personal sounds great. Right here we go. Welcome to the, my rise above noise, weekly spotlight, where I get to shine the spotlight on, on people who come into my life, who I, I just have to share as a life, as a lifelong connector. I, I feel like I have to just share the people that I meet in my life and,
and the rise above noise weekly spotlight is a great way to do that. So each week around this time on Thursdays, it could change you. If you're in the rise above noise group, or you're a follower or rise above noise on any of our platforms, you will get to meet somebody that I just think is fascinating. Who is going to give you some kind of a takeaway,
like you will never leave one of our spotlights without having written down something on your pad on, on something that you will take away with you and think like, oh my goodness, this was amazing. So with that, I wanted to share. And some of you have heard this a few times, because we've been doing a series this week, but I am going to share my screen for for just a second. And if you're listening to this on audio, no worries. I'll be talking to you about this and it'll be in the show notes. So when I talk about the people that I want to bring that I do bring in this series,
they'll all be kind of focused on one or more of the areas of the rise above noise, five pillars. And as we've talked about the rise above noise, digital marketing system for transformation creators is how you take the step by step actions, follow a roadmap, like get in the car, put the headlights on and know where you're going. And that way you get to show up with consistency and generosity and ease and flow in your marketing.
And so what I've created here in, in listening to the people that I've worked with over the past 15 years is to take away that chaos take away that feeling of maybe you guys have this, when, when people say digital marketing or email marketing, that that integral feeling that you get, because you don't understand it all. And it seems very, it seems like something you should know,
but you don't know. And it seems chaotic and I want to make it easy and flow. So it's as simple and it's calm, calming, and it's strategic so that you can attract and nurture and engage your ideal clients. So the five pillars starts with knowing your message. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. Know what your message is and know how to say it in a way that people understand your mission,
or are you speaking to them? Like, what's the problem you're solving is that for them? And that they're going to remember it right in a room full of coaches. How do you stand out as, as different than the others in a room full of insurance, patient people or financial strategists, how do you stand out differently? How are you speaking to that one person in the room that is meant to be your client?
So let's talk about that today. The other pillars in the rise above noise process is to create compelling content. I do have a strategy for that. We went over that yesterday in our, in our group. And I will put those in the show notes as well. Testimonials proof of concept, case studies. That's So people understand - because you can put out all the data in the world.
And I love sharing data. I am such a data geek. However, people respond more to the stories and what's the transformation that's created. And so they, they like your stories, of course, and I love your case studies, but they like hearing from other people that they can say, oh, she's just like me. He's just like me.
If he had success, I probably can too . Organizing, scheduling, protect your time, protect your energy. I've said this a million times, time and currency are only true time and energy. I'm sorry. Time and energy are our only true currency. And so you've got to protect your energy and you've got to protect your time. So set up the systems that are going to give you that ease and flow,
to know that you've done the right things, you're following the roadmap and that you can go and be in your brilliance. Don't worry about the tasks because you know, they're going to get done on a schedule, keeping in touch the fifth pillar that some people are really great at phone calls. I love that. It's not me. There are others that are really good about sending cards or gifts and things like that as another way to keep in touch,
of course, because I'm in digital marketing and I love all of the key performance indicators and the analytics. And I love all of this. I want to know that my clients can show up. And in particular, I'm going to talk about email marketing show up with consistency. And when they do that, when they share, when they're generous in their emails,
let's say, how does that affect the numbers? How does that affect the key performance indicators? Who's reading it? What are they reading if they're reading this and not that we create more of what they, what they're loving, all of these, these five pillars in the rise above noise process are so that you can show up and be of service within your core values,
within your messaging so that you can attract clients who align. So I'm going to stop sharing here. I will put this, put this document in the show notes in case you haven't seen it yet, or would like to see it again, go back to stop share. And here we are, here we are. So I love talking about that. I can talk about it in my sleep,
but it's, it's interesting because knowing that, knowing that the people that I aim to serve, they're aggressively humble, and they get that. They don't want to feel like they're pushing. And so when we talk about attracting, when we talk about showing up in generosity, then it's a whole mindset shift. Now marketing doesn't feel like, oh, I got to write an email today.
No, it's like, okay, what am I writing about today? Right? It's not today. You've written it weeks ago. It was on your schedule and protecting your time, protecting your energy. Okay. So that's my friend. Josh has been very patient in everything this morning. And I can't wait to tell you guys all about him. So hang on a second.
I'm going to pull this up. Josh and I met just so you know, Josh and I met in a very interesting group with Tyson sharp and Camille Miller run. I'm going to give them a shout out, run a Wednesday, a first Wednesday of the month in the evening, a, an open, I don't know, networking, connecting. What'd you call it Josh situation where heart centered soul centered businesses get together.
And with intention, we go into breakout rooms and talk about whatever the intention they pull a card and what the intention is. I have met the most interesting people in that group. We've had lots of conversations and you know what, what I love about that similar to the rise above noise Facebook group is that we're having different conversations. Even though I'll talk to you about an analytics,
even though I'll talk to you about key performance indicators, I'm going to also say yes, that's so that you can show up and make a difference in the world. All right. So my friend, Josh Zepess, is making a difference and a friend and a friend, and we made friends.
You guys will be his friend. He calls himself the identity archeologist. You guys, I love this in a world where dreams are crushed, souls are forgotten and rust never sleeps. Josh. I had to look that up. It's true. Isn't it? It's a truism rust actually never sleeps.
They never stopped. Well that I didn't know about, but I, so I searched. And was that a thing people say, but it's a Neil young it's Neil Young and Crazy Horse song is what I found out. Right? So we didn't talk about that too. So anyway, Rust never sleeps. Josh. the identity archeologist is on a mission to ensure talented solopreneurs,
turn your business first impression into a second impression, which is where the sale happens. He calls this raising your R O C, right? Like, I'm going to talk about your ROI return on investment. He's talking about your ROC return on conversation, so you can profit without the grind. So I totally love this. You should know that when he's not digging for business gold,
he flies airplanes, brews beer runs a long distance obstacle course races and sets the bar low as a semi-professional comedian. And then he has in parentheses, not the funny Kind. That's true. I'm not the funny, You're funny. We always want, I asked Josh what his superpower is. And he said, it's converting a vomit of information and distilling it down to a clear,
powerful, compelling message. And I think that's probably a really good place to start our conversation. That's your superpower. Tell me more about converting this stream of information. Yeah, absolutely. First of all, it's honored to be able to share time with everyone. So I'm very, very excited for this. Yeah. Vomit of information. So look, we're all busy.
Aren't we everyone's got crap going onto their minds and their brains. They kind of have an idea of what they do and where they want to be in life and all of this kind of stuff, but it's all frazzled up there. It's all moving around very quickly. And when someone says, Hey, what do you do? Or they just ask a very simple business question.
We don't know how to articulate it. We can't get all that noise into a very clear, compelling, persuasive, effective message. And I just that's one of my super powers is vomit your information on me. Tell me everything you actually want to say that you're actually afraid to say to other people, and let's put it into a message that gets people leaning forward,
interested in what you're saying and wanting to be in your circle, because that's the first sale you have to make. This is the stuff they don't teach in business school that people buy you first, your product and service second. But if they don't buy you, if you cannot make that connection with someone upfront there, it doesn't matter what you're selling. They're not there.
They're never going to, no matter how much they need it, no matter how great it is. They're not going to take a look at your product or service. So it's how do you distill this? How do you create an, this is a brand, how do you create this brand that gets people magnetically attracted to, to you and to your services?
So there's so much I've, haven't had going through in my head right now. There's so much, But I think I'll, do you want me to simplify for you? And I'm just kidding. No, because I didn't know which way to go with my questions, but I'm going to bring the question back to you. So this is your superpower. This is what you do.
How do you do that? Like, there's, there's so much out there, right? How do you do that? Yeah. Well, and, and this goes back to why I'm called the identity. Archeologists. People always ask that question like Josh, what does that mean? Well, at the, at honestly at the surface, it means I have no competition,
which is kind of a fun place to be in business, but that's a separate story, but really it's my process. It's how I take, I dig deep into someone with questions. I go really, I go past all that crap conditioning recall growing up about, oh honey, there's no money in that. Or you can't do it or just follow the rules.
And that's the path to success. That's the best, the crap I was told. And I believe we dig through all that crap conditioning and we find the treasure. We someone's treasure their value, their purpose, their stand, their mission, their cause, all that good stuff. And we bring it to the surface. And when we bring it to the surface,
we get rid of all that crap. That's been covering it for years and we Polish it and re we refine it until it's shine. So bright people have to come from thousands of miles to see if it's that attraction process. So it's basically how I did with questions, how I find that and help people articulate it to the world. Awesome. Well,
now that, but again, that's a talent, that's a skill. I know you've done so much in your life, in your professional life and in your non-professional life. What were you before you were the identity archeologist? How did, how did your journey bring you to this place? Well, pretty much I lived a shy. My entire life is the best way to put it.
And you know, some people live a lie. I lived the shy. I was just that good soldier. I grew up as a soldier. Yes, sir. Yes ma'am. I did everything else. All to do. Went to school, got grades and about good grades, but I got grades and multiple degrees got the safe, secure job as an engineer for 20 years,
I sat in a cubicle, designing semiconductors and being a manager and all that good stuff and doing all the stuff I was supposed to do. And then one day I figured everything I thought was right. Wasn't so right. I just, I wasn't as happy as I want it to be. I wasn't as wealthy as I needed to be. And I wasn't free Susan.
That's the biggest part. My favorite efforts today is freedom. Just having that choice. And I didn't have my favorite effort back then was a different one, by the way, everyone can figure out what that is, but I had to get out and I got into the financial industry after I escaped, I got into, I was in the gym industry at the time,
doing competitive bodybuilding. And I'm doing all this stuff as an entrepreneur. And I was like, all right, I'm making money, but there's still something missing. And I said, timeout, Josh, what is your genius? What is that thing you do better than everyone else? You know, what is all this expertise you've built up over all these years of blood,
sweat, and tears. And where do you want to play? Where do you want to in your heart make a difference in the world? And I took all this stuff and I kind of, I compressed it like a diamond and it crystallized into what I do today. So this has been a long process. This is not an overnight thing. I don't want to make anyone.
I don't wanna make it sound like it was easy, or it was obvious. This took a lot of craziness, a lot of failure. And I just kept, kept pushing and kept crystallizing until I found out this is, this is what I'm designed for. This is where I want to play. It's amazing. It just, this is, this is why I do the work I do,
because everybody has a journey that they go on. And, and what's good for you now that works for you. Now, if you're evolving, it'll change, it'll change. And it's very interesting, really how all of us, I know feathers on the call and she was in the tech industry for a long time. Right? And you've just all of a sudden realized I've got more,
but then being an entrepreneur is a challenge. And then one of the things that stuck, stuck to me all the time was all the coaches I've worked with were like, well, first you have to know your mission. And I'm like, I'm not sure what my mission is. I know I love digital marketing. I know that I love, I love the dopamine hits.
I get by figuring things out and by pressing the buttons and making the magic of automations happen and helping people figure out strategies that give them that ease. Did I have a mission? Well, then I found my mission was to help transformation creators go out and transform the world. So, but that took me a while. That was a sticking point when I would work with my coaches and they would say,
what is your mission? I didn't know. But then I knew who I wanted to work with. And that helped me figure out what my mission is. Can you give me an example? And I know you work with different types of professionals. Can you give an example of somebody messaged you helped, helped kind of refine for them? This one recently I worked with he's in,
he does executive. He helps technical leaders become managers is I think is the simplest way to kind of put what he actually does, but it turns out after we dug a little deeper, his biggest thing that he really focuses on his, his tagline now is no more bad bosses. He's trying to, he says, nobody wants to be a bad boss,
but why do we have bad bosses then? Why are people now unable to take their from a technical Matt from a technical standpoint? Why can't they become good managers? And we built an entire brand, a personal brand around this, where he's out there shouting like no more bad bosses. That's his message now. And it's so beautiful because it resonates with people.
People are like, yes, you're right. I don't want to be a bad boss. So why am I? And he's, he's got this inroad now into some people's hearts, because again, no one wants to be a bad boss. So he's able to help them not be a bad, bad boss to help them shine, to help them advance their career in technical fields.
So people that, especially in our, in our very high tech areas, we tend to get very informational, tend to be very professional and very kind of a little bit of the ego. And here's my titles. And here's all the stuff I do is in this. Cool. It, that is the wrong approach. If you want to actually get people to make a decision and work with you,
you've gotta be able to talk to someone's heart. First. The heart is what leads to the mind. It's a one-way street. You don't, you don't talk to the mind and expect to get to the heart. It doesn't work that way. And it's not human psychology. I just wrote that down with three stars. I like that the heart leads to the mic.
Can't get to the man of the heart. That's awesome. That's awesome. What other, what other, do you have any other break breakthroughs that you might be able to share with us, where you were able to, like, that's amazing that he brought it down to four words. I have a tendency to be too wordy, right? We all do.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think what happens is we're so the reason why we have a trouble articulating and have trouble really shining by a lot of us are shy is because we're afraid to take a stand. We're afraid that I hear people say Josh, but if I say what I really want to say, what are people going to think about me?
I'm like, wait a minute. You're in business. You should, you should hope people ever think about you again. Cause the number one killer of business is obscurity. The number two killers being forgotten. So don't worry about, but they think about you, but you've got to take a stand stand for something or stand against something. If you can just start there just where's what's that injustice in the road you want to eradicate?
What do you want to stand against? Or what do you stand for that will help guide you into start getting clarity, which is what you have to do. Get clarity around why you exist. That's that's one of the keys. So many people are afraid to take that stand, but you've got to, you've got to stand up for something. Otherwise people fall.
People want to follow people that are going somewhere. If you can't explain where you're going, if you can't talk at the higher level, you know, people get so caught up in product level. Talk. If you go to any networking group, if you look up, listen to any presentation, it's all about here's my product. Here's my service. It's better than this.
Person's over here better than that. Guy's product. And it's all of this product. Talk a low level, low energy. What if instead of talking about product, you brought it up to the mission level. What if you never talked about your product? What if you just talked about, this is the mission I'm on. Here's where I'm going. Here's what it looks like.
Here's what that finish line looks like when I get there and you want to hop on the train with me or you want to stay at the station either way, perfectly fine, but I just want to let you know nothing's going to stop me. That kind of level of conversation is damn attractive and that brings people in bend. It doesn't matter what you're selling,
by the way the sales done. They're already selling used cars. Are you selling cable subscriptions? Are you selling coaching services? It doesn't matter. I love where you're going. I'm in you've you've got me now. Let's do business. I love that. I'm thinking then about the influencers, right? The influencers that I follow and you know yep. Just bought another program last week from Stu McLaren.
I'd probably follow him anywhere. Amy Porterfield, Donald Miller. I will follow them anywhere because they, they have that higher mission. They are constantly providing value and over-giving over, over over-giving, which has been one. They've all been wonderful experiences for me. And you're on that mission. There's no more selling. Like you said, all you're doing is sharing constantly sharing value and the sales takes care of themselves,
but this is a place for people they're afraid to really raise that level. They're just unsure of themselves are unsure what they stand for. They don't have clarity. They don't really truly know why they get out of bed in the morning. Like we have to wake up. That's biological. You got to wake up, but I want to know why do you put two feet on the ground and go do it and please tell me it's something more than money.
Please tell me the only reason there's, there's gotta be some bigger purpose that you get out of bed in the morning, then just to make money. Well, I'd have to say in the people, let's say the rise above noise community and the people that I work with and attract. I don't think that money, money. Yes. We need to pay our bills and money is in change of energy.
And in that they're very clear on, you know, I need to make money so I can like change that energy. But I ha here's the conversation I have often with my, with my clients, when we're trying to figure out their messaging in their emails, in their welcome email, in their lead, their landing page, right? They have to be short and clear.
Nobody has a long attention span and everybody is searching for somebody to solve their problems. So very often some of my let's say this, some of my energy healers will say something like I help heal your childhood trauma. And so that's true. They do. And that is their mission is to help people become fully where they are and healthy humans now. But often the conversation I have is I'm not sure anybody is necessarily thinking I have childhood trauma,
right? They're thinking I can't sleep. I sleep too much. I can't eat. I eat too much. I fight with my family. I don't speak up for myself. Any of those day-to-day nagging little things. And I also know that it takes them a long time. It takes people with those. They have, there's a lot of, I guess,
obstacles for people to finally take that step even to just sign up for a freebie, right? Like that's that little step closer. As we're bringing people on a journey of getting to know each other is to give them something, to help give them a quick win. And then maybe they get on a free call with you or they consume one of your videos so that they learn more about you.
Because they've had a lot of stories in their head. I should be able to figure this out on my own. It's just me. I have bad willpower. I just don't get along. It's them. It's not me. Right? All those things. So in that I find that sometimes it's hard for my, for the energy healers. Lightworkers coaches,
teachers that I work with to get to that point where it's not what they're doing, but the problem that they're solving. Yeah. And you're getting to something really important here called brand message. Because those are two separate things and people get those confused. So the energy healers brand could be that they help get past their childhood traumas. Right. They recognize the trauma,
they get past it. But the message has to translate that brand into a language that their ideal client understands. So there's two parts to that one. You got to know who you're talking to. I'm talking specifically, why is your ideal client waking up three o'clock in the morning in a cold sweat? What is this tack that they're sitting on? That's so uncomfortable.
That's bothering them 24 7. And then you got to talk their language. If it's sleep, lack of sleep. If it's a, that they get angry very quickly that they don't have control over their life or their career. You've got to speak that language to get them into the circle, right? Like you're saying so it's, but it's getting clarity on who you're talking to.
I always recommend people write a diary page of your ideal client. Like, I want to know what they're thinking to themselves, what their, and these are called external problems. What is that external problem that they're thinking to themselves? Cause they don't really know their internal problem. They don't know that it's trauma. They know something happened, but maybe they don't know that as trauma.
They just know they can't sleep. They just know that every time their kid uses sarcasm, like I did growing up, that was my original language. My native language is our tests. So they don't know that every time that their kids use a sarcasm, they flip off the handle. They don't know why, why do I get mad at my kid for being sarcastic?
That's just the way, you know, it's fun. So they have these challenges and they don't know why it's happening. And when someone comes along and says, Hey, do you want to know why you flip off the handle? Every time your kid says something, a little smart, watch this video. I'm going to tell you exactly why that's happens.
And so you're not talking about trauma because trauma is the internal challenge. It's the internal struggle. You need to talk about the external struggles with people, how it manifests in their life. And then that will bring them in. So that's the kind of stuff that you've got to develop and help people with that hook right there that kind of catches our attention on,
on that kind of thing. I love this. We could talk all day of this, but I want to be mindful of the time. So this is the work you do. And you gave me some links to share because of course we want people to follow up. So I'll put these in the links. So tell me, so we have a webinar people,
a free webinar they can watch, right. Is that a free webinar? Yep, absolutely. It's called the lighthouse effect. Yeah. Tell Me about that. Yeah. It's very simple. It's how to have to, I, I love your rise above the noise cause it's so wonderful. We're so much in alignment, but I say shine above the noise of a crowded industry.
So how do you create, how do you differentiate yourself in a crowded industry? In the sea of sameness? I call it, how do you become that lighthouse? When all your prospects are out there drowning in the sea of sameness, how do you find them? How do they find you? So I go over some, some really cool steps and how to do that.
And then I think I have one other offering with is a 30 minute master session, correct? Yes. Free one-on-one master session to create the unique, compelling answer to the question. What do you think? Yeah, the number one business question we're going to get asked and I see so many people do it, struggle with that, you know, and they give a title or a borrowed label or something like that.
If you want to create a real, truly powerful answer, we'll do that. One-on-one your unique answer. We'll actually take about 15 to 20 minutes and we'll, we'll break through that and I'm happy to answer any questions about branding or messaging on top of that. But that's a fun experience that I get to learn more about you as a person, as,
as what you're looking, what you're actually bringing to the world. And then you get to watch me work real time, and then you get this business asset you can just take and run with. And it's so much fun. It's like a public service. I love doing that one. I'm looking forward to mine. We'll be scheduling that right away. Okay.
Josh, thank you so much for spending this morning with me. If there's any questions. I mean just Facebook real quickly. Feather is asking what is the most dramatic archeological discovery with the client? I like the one that you've talked about earlier, is there another one? Yeah, that one was good. Yeah. Okay. Here's the most dramatic one,
honestly, to date would be someone who just a few months before I met her, she came out as, as having mental health issue, a mental challenge and she started to own it. And we were able to, we were able to take her mental illness and turn that into a superpower. And it's just, it's changing the way she's seeing the world is changing everything about how she approaches business.
And she's a beast in business anyways. But now that she's owned this and it's become, it's becoming her brand, it's, it's starting to change everything. And it's it's that to me is, is really cool because we all know about their mental health challenges and, and the crisis going on in our country that we've developed ourselves. We've kind of created the own poison,
our own poison, and we're struggling with it, but for someone to take it and own it and to just like make it and she's standing for other people she's helping other people do the same. Like that that's so far has probably been one of my favorites, to be honest. That is so good. I mean, cause when you can show up fully as yourself and,
and there's nothing behind the curtain, it's all right out of shame and you're not ashamed because right then you, I guess then you just right. We're talking about flow and ease today and shining your light. I think that that's a really important thing for people to kind of hold onto. Not easy. No it's simple but not easy. Right? Yeah.
Being human. This is all about being human it's so, so, so profitable on that. I'm going to end this recording and thank you so much, Josh. I am so very, very grateful. Well there you have it. That's Josh S and honestly, I think I could have talked with him for ever. That was, I really enjoy our conversations.
I love how he brings humanity into business and that you get to authentically be yourself. If we haven't already, please do schedule a free discovery call with me. Let's talk about where you are in your business growth journey, how you can show up with, with consistency in generosity for the people that you are meant to serve. Schedule your discovery. Call with me,
join the rise above noise Facebook group. And if you're ready for a deeper dive, why don't we talk about the rise together, inner circle with weekly accountability and learning steps together. All right. Till next time