Being Resilient with Scott Aaron

Today's guest Scott Aaron is an award-winning online marketer, 3x best-selling author, top podcaster, and speaker, and the go-to specialist when it comes to  building personal brands on LinkedIn. With 2 decades of work in leadership, sales training, lead generation, and marketing tactics, Scott has learned the importance of being resilient, creating the life that you deserve, the business that you love, and the impact the world needs.

"If someone were to ask me, “What is your superpower?”, that would be a no-brainer……BEING RESILIENT!" - Scott Aaron

Empowered Within Host:
Hi, I'm Jennifer! Empowering You to Be You! Welcome to my cozy world, our "ah-ha" place of growth, insights, healing, inspiration and empowering success!

Jennifer Pilates has been  transforming clients body, mind and spirits worldwide for over 20-years as a Celebrity Trainer + Empowerment Mindset Coach, World-Renowned Intuitive -Medium Advisor, Writer and Host of the Top-Rated Podcast Host Empowered Within.  Jennifer is a  multi-passionate entrepreneur, detail-loving, stubborn-as-heck achiever, unshakeable optimistic, philanthropic, self-care activist, fur-baby momma and ocean loving intuitive-empath. 

From her coaching to training, from her advising to writing, to her top-rated Podcast: Empowered within, Jennifer has been leaving her inspirational, empowering and transformational touch on clients and celebrities worldwide for well over two decades! 

"My mission is to help you discover your own truths, gain self-empowerment and in turn transform Body, Mind and Spirit.”   – Jennifer XO

Claim Your First Grocery Delivery Order FREE - Click Here
I Love the convenience of working while someone else is grocery shop

Jennifer Pilates Exclusive 8-week Pilates  program will give you a total Body, Mind and Spirit Transformation of health and wellness! JOIN TODAY! 
Use Promo Code: EWSpecial for $200 Savings!! 

Transcript

0:59

Welcome to Empowered Within a Soul Quenching transformational podcast that will set your soul on fire through candid and inspiring conversations. Leading experts, celebrities, healers, and I share our journeys of how we've overcome challenges to living an empowered life from within. I'm your host, Jennifer Pilates. Welcome to another episode of Empowered Within. Well, hi there and welcome to the show. I am excited to have with us our guest, Scott Aaron. Scott is award-winning online marketer, three times bestselling author, top podcaster, and speaker, and the go-to specialist when it comes to building personal brands on LinkedIn. With two decades of work in leadership, sales, training, lead generation, and marketing tactics, Scott has learned the importance of creating the life you. The business that you love and the impact the world needs. Welcome to the show, Scott. Well, Jennifer, grateful and honored to be here and, and looking forward to the conversation. Me too. Well, I'm honored because you have been incredibly vulnerable with some of your story that you've shared offline, and I'm hoping that you'll be willing to share that with our audience online, because I know that that's gonna bring so much compassion and empowerment to them through the journey that you've had. Absolut. So I know life hasn't always been easy for you. Take me back to that pivotal moment that shifted the trajectory of your life, both personally and professionally. Yeah, it was within about a, a six month timeframe. I was a sophomore in college, so I was 19. And you know, looking back, some people are not equip. at that age to be on their own. I grew up in a, in a very giving and, and loving household. And, you know, I, I never really experienced, quote unquote, real world or real life, outside of the bubble I grew up in. And when you're kind of thrusted into. A somewhat of an adult role going off to college where you know you're left to your own devices. Um, classes are not required. They're mandatory. They're suggested that you go, so you do well. Uh, but I'm also a, a big social person. I love people. I love being social, love, having fun, and that got the best of me. So at the time I was about to go. for my, spring semester, my sophomore year. So this was going into my fourth semester, finished three, and my parents said, you're not going back. You're staying here. You know, you're, you're failing out and you're gonna have to figure out, you know, going to a, a community college or a local university here. So you can, you know, really figure out, what you need to improve. And that was in December of, of 1998. And by, may of 1999, the other part of my journey really shifted, and that was with my father, who had made some bad business decisions in a, in a company that he was helping run. Uh, they ended up getting caught up in a 9.5 million insurance fraud. That ended up landing my father in federal prison for two and a half years. So within a six month time period, my dream and goal of of being away in college, was flushed down the toilet. I had failed out and one of the biggest inspirations, and, you know, people that I looked up to in my life was now pulled out of my family unit and now spending two and a half years in federal prison. Now, not only was I having to refigure. my educational journey, you know, what do I wanna be when I grow up? You know, uh, I, I, I do believe that education is important, you know? Do you have to graduate from college to succeed? No. Uh, I did. I ended up graduating with graduating with a bachelor's in HR from Temple University. But more importantly, my career path was kind of laid out in front of me, whether I liked it or not. You know, prior to my father getting sentenced to two and a half. He had purchased a, a fitness club in downtown Philadelphia. Uh, fitness was a big passion of his, it still is to this day. At 70 years old, he still competes in bench press contests around the world. And when he was going away, he said, listen, you're gonna have to take over the family business. Not only did I have to refigure out my educational journey, I now had to figure out my professional journey at the very same time. So I had to grow up really, really fast and I would say, enabled me to still continue down the path of my own self-education in, in college was the fact that I was in that professional world now because it, it kind of gave me a track to run on. It gave me, uh, structure, but also the desire to consume. Uh, information to learn, but also to make my family proud. You know, they're there. I, I have something to really look back on the fact that, you know, I was able to, to graduate college and help grow a successful family business in those two and a half years that my father was gone, and that's something that I'm very, very proud of. But I would say the culmination of those two events in, in a six month time period. Uh, was absolutely the, the pivotal moment in my life that, that, again, laid down the path in front of me to go down, to get to where I am today. That is such an amazing journey. What do you think was it that helped you truly keep it all together in those moments? Because I can only imagine being a young person going through all of that. I think it was being a young person at, at 19, I really, I had no life experience. I had nothing to compare any experience to. You know, I, I was only a year and a half out of high school. I was, I was a baby. So I think looking back my age definitely attributed to the resilience that I had because I had nothing to compare it to. It's not like I was. working in the real world for someone else for a couple of years, and, you know, taking those bumps and bruises and I buying a house and all that stuff, I didn't experience any of that at, at all. It was basically graduating from high school, spending a year and a half away in college. Boom, now I'm running a business. So I, I think that the fact that I was so young enabled me to step into this role because I was still at that, that mindset. That I wanted to make my family proud. You know, I, I wasn't, I was still living at home. I didn't move out till I was 22, so I was still in the nest. So, when you're living in the nest, what do you want to do? You wanna make those around you, proud of you, and you know, you, you love being told and, and heard, you know, you're doing great. Congratulations. Keep up the great work. So I, I think it was those things that, that fueled me and motivated me to. Not look at this as a negative situation, just look at it as, you know what, this is the hand that I'm dealt. You know, I have two options. I can crawl up in the corner in a little ball or I can lean into this and make it work. And that's what I decided to do. And you did it so well. So now thank you. Fast forward, bestselling author. The IT man when it comes to LinkedIn. What today lights you? What are you living for today? I th you know, my wife and I talk about this all the time, that you'll never work a day in your life if you love what you do. And we love what we do, and we want other people to love what they do. Now that, that could mean various different things. Right. You know, if, if you want to be a stay-at-home mom or stay-at-home dad, and that's what you love to do and that's what you would love to be, go for it. If you love working for another company just because of their values, their morals, their standards, their community, their culture, then love it. Or if it's running your own business and being your own boss and and having your own company, you have to love what you do. And I think for us, it. knowing that everything that we've created under our company umbrella is following that. That strategy of defining a problem, providing a solution, getting someone a result, there is no better feeling than seeing others. With something that you've created on your own, and everything that, that my wife and I have created together, that we now teach others how to do. All of those victories that were constantly, uh, are being shared with us. I mean, it, it fills us more than anything, but we've enabled ourselves, not only from a business standpoint to be very fulfilled, but from a personal stand. We live a very fulfilled life, and that's not tied to any sort of monetary accomplishment. You know, my wife and I had a goal, uh, a few years ago of living more and working less, and we've accomplished that. We work three days a week. We don't work four days a week. You know, we're very present and available for all those in our lives. We take as many mini vacations as we want, and that's what we want for other people. You know, the adage of living life by design is real. We can design life to look any which way you want. You just have to go for it. And knowing that where you are now is not a depiction of where you're gonna be 12, 24, 36 months from now. It's a journey. And I. You know, positively and confidently say with what we're doing right now and working on right now is a culmination of the years and years and years of things that we've been putting into place. And again, things may shift in the next year, two years. You're always evolving. Uh, what I live by is that the peak of one mountain is the valley of the next. So you're always climbing, you're always reaching and showing other people how to do the same. That's what lights us up and, and has us doing what we're doing each and every day. I love your mountain metaphor. It's so freaking true. It's so true. So how does that bring us all to LinkedIn? How did LinkedIn become this love of your. So I was in the health and wellness industry for 18 years. I started obviously going to the backstory in 1999 and in 2013 after owning and selling two gyms, opening a third, you know, going from making millions to losing millions, being in financial debt, losing a house, filing for personal bankruptcy, you know, multiple divorces along the way. There were a lot of ups and ups and downs in that. I was asked one question, in 2013 that really shifted my perspective of how I looked at doing business moving into the future. And remember, 2013 was the beginning of the uptick of leveraging social media to build a business. It was still, you know, new and unfamiliar to a lot of people. People were just used to trading time for dollars or having a brick and mortar or working for someone else. I had the brick and mortar, but also I had a sports nutrition counseling business, personal training and everything else. But a friend of mine said, if you get sick or injured or you can't get to the gym, you can't train people. The gym goes under, how are you going to earn money? And it got me thinking like they're. You know, I've put myself in a very vulnerable situation where God forbid something happens to me, my monetary streams are completely cut off, and, uh, my son is gonna be 11. Um, he was only about a year old at this time when this question was asked to me, and it really got me thinking, okay, I, I need to look at other ways of generating business, other ways of generating income that doesn't require me to physically have to be. This is what led me to looking into the online space, uh, helping people with online workouts, online nutrition plans, coaching other online wellness professionals, how to do the same thing. And it was LinkedIn that afforded me to land on a platform that supported my needs in the business that I was looking to grow. I was looking at. To connect with business professionals that had the monetary means to invest in a premium price for someone like myself that was gonna be providing them nutritional, and workout regiments that could benefit their body, their mind, their soul, and their life. And that's where it initially started and it quickly took off where I was onboarding client after client after client. And I then, I would say the side effect from all of that is I had other wellness professionals reaching out to me that had heard about the success that I was having, leveraging LinkedIn, and they were saying, can you teach me? Can you show me what you're doing? And I'm like, huh, that's interesting. These people wanna know what I'm doing. So one friend in particular reached back out to me after I told him what I was doing. So I didn't take any LinkedIn course. This was me being the entrepreneur that I was and still am was okay. There's a problem. I'm gonna provide a solution, I'm gonna get a result. So I was just building a organic strategy of what I was doing every day. Taught it to a couple of friends. One reached back out and said, listen, we need to talk. So I got on the phone with him and I said, what's up? And he said, listen. He goes, I don't know what you figured out or what you're doing with LinkedIn, but it works. He goes, I have 14 appointments booked this week. He goes, I've never had that many appointments in one week before. He said, you should be teaching this. I said, what do you mean I should be teaching? He goes, well, just like you teach people how to work out, eat better, why can't you teach other wellness professionals or other online coaches how to leverage LinkedIn the way that you are? And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. He goes, you know, shoot some videos and sell'em for like$47. So this is back in 2013. So, I had downloaded something called Zoom, which was unknown, you know, 10 years ago. And I remember I was sitting, I was in my kitchen, I was in a one bedroom studio at the time, not really knowing about camera angles. So I had my laptop there. It was pointed straight up to the ceiling. So you see like from my chin to my head and the wood beams of the roof of my, of my condo, and I shot a bunch of video. uh, uploaded them into a Google Drive file and started selling them for$47 and, and people were paying for them. So at the same time, I ended up guest guessing on my business coach at the time, his podcast. And this is going back to the days of 1-800-CONFERENCE call.com. This is when you would have to dial in some 18. like long number pound, three or four times. And, and basically I, I was giving some tips and some strategies and some, facts about why LinkedIn could really shift your business. And at the end of that interview, I hopped onto Facebook and I had eight inboxes. And each one of those messages were from people that knew me. They said, how much do you charge for your coaching? What can I pay you to, to teach me how to do this? And I'm like, people actually will pay me to teach them how to do this. And that was kind of the birth of the coaching side of things, where I was able to charge an even more premium price because I was getting people, you know, fantastic results. Still to this day, the same thing, but that's where the lid was then taken off, where I'm like, okay, you know, I can help people. really fill the gaps and the holes in the aspect of their business that they have right now, which is not having. Organic, and genuine connections. Not generating enough leads, not acquiring enough clients to move the needle of their business forward, but also having a content strategy on this platform where you're not selling, you're not pitching, you're educating and informing. And that was kind of the, the, the basis, I would say, the foundation of, of how it all began. That obviously brought me to where I am. I love this. I recently, was guided over to LinkedIn and then came across you and then, you know, we met and we're sharing each other's podcasts, which is amazing. So help our listeners is someone's like LinkedIn. Wait, what? Like, I'm not looking for a job. What are their top three tips that you would give someone and say, this is why you should be on LinkedIn and here's what you. Well to, to that point, yes. At, at one point LinkedIn was for people looking for a job and recruiters looking for people who were looking for a job. But when Microsoft bought out LinkedIn about nine years ago, they diversified the platform. So there's actually three platforms in one. So there is LinkedIn, which is the, the regular platform. There's recruit. Which is for people that recruit other people for jobs. And then there's sales Navigator, which is for certain sales positions that are looking to generate sales, b2b, b2c. So we're gonna not, we're not talking about sales navigator or recruiter, we're talking about LinkedIn. So LinkedIn is now a space for. business professionals to position themselves as the experts in their space through different means. And I would say the first mean is being a content creator, as I mentioned, that educates and informs your audience on a topic of subject, or specific business skill that people need to know that once they learn your specific. Could obviously be implemented into their business to get a desired result. The second aspect is networking. And I think this is the lifeline to any business, much like how you and I connected on LinkedIn. We're considered power partners and, and for those that don't know what that means, that that means people that can water each other's businesses, right? So, you know, Jennifer came on my podcast. and, you know, is watering my audience I'm now guessing on, on her podcast, watering her audience. It's a way to grow a business together. So every single person, no matter what you do from a professional perspective, you have a power partner where you can water each other's businesses where. someone's gonna hear your message, whether it's you guesting on a podcast or just having a general networking conversation where you're forming referral partners. So if you're in conversation and, and a certain topic comes up, now you're gonna have all these different people to refer people to. So you're growing your business organically. And I would say the third means is really positioning your personal brand. And this is what I love most about LinkedIn, is that also when Microsoft bought them, they allow us to optimize our LinkedIn profile, much like the homepage to a website. So when you really optimize your LinkedIn profile the right way, not only will you appear in more searches on LinkedIn, you'll have more profile visits on LinkedIn, but also your profile will be more easily searchable on the larger search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. So if I would. Streamline that message into the top three tips of what people need to do on LinkedIn. It would be number one, first, optimize your profile. If your profile is not being seen, if it's not being visible, if it's not attracting the right people to it, much like a website, nothing else is gonna work on LinkedIn because your content isn't gonna get engagement because it's landing on the wrong eyes. And if it's landing on the wrong eyes, guess. They're not gonna resonate with it, which means they're not gonna engage with it. So really taking the time. to build out and fill out your profile from that, what I call, the passenger side perspective. The person on the other side of the screen, if you're looking to attract an ideal client or a power partner, what is the message that I'm looking to convey with my LinkedIn profile? What key words, because again, we're talking about search engine optimization, right? So we're not talking about key phrases, we're talking about key words. What key words do I need to have in my headline, in my about? In my experience section that when that passenger side perspective is using the search engine is punching something into the search, my profile will populate. That's the mindset of where you need to be. You need to think about how are people gonna find me? What keywords do I need to scatter all across my profile that will allow it to populate. Once you have your profile optimized, the rest of the layers fall into. And the second tip, much like what I talked about earlier, is building your ideal network. And this is the one thing that people end up doing. I call it spraying and praying, right? They just connect with anyone and everyone hoping that they're a good fit for whatever they're offering is or whatever connection they want to have with them. Uhuh, that's not how you want to do things. You need to compartmentalize. Two types of connect. the first compartment is your ideal client. This is the person that you serve best with whatever offering, whatever program course coaching you have. It could be a product, it could be a good, it could be a service, but the people that you should be connecting with in that first compartment are the people that are best served by what you. The second compartment is power partners, much like Jennifer and myself, seeking other relationships where you are vying for each other's businesses. Forming allies and partnerships will allow your business to grow organically because you have people not so much going to bat for you, but again, if they're a natural networker, like. They're gonna be having a ton of conversations. And again, the topic of what you do may come up in those conversations, which makes it very easy for that person to refer business to you based on the connection that you formed with them. So building that ideal network. And I would say the third thing is providing value added content. Now I feel that there's a lot of people. Consistently say, well, I don't know what to post. How often do I post? What should I say? So I break this down very, very simply for people. LinkedIn is one of those platforms where you do not have to post three times an hour or three times a day, three times a week, and you'll be doing more than 99% of the people on LinkedIn. And here's your strategy. You want to do a post on Monday. A post on Wednesday and a post on Friday. Now, on Mondays you want to do a piece of video content. This could be pre-recorded, 30 seconds, up to two minutes, and this is basically just you hopping on there giving a tangible tip. Or two or three of what your ideal audience can do to move the needle of their business in a positive direction. So it could be, you know, two tips of how to get clarity on your ideal client. Tip number one is this. Tip number two is that hope you enjoy today's video. Comment below what your biggest takeaway was, and I'll see you next time. Very simple, give without expecting anything back in return. So showing up on camera cuz people can see you, feel you. And. On Wednesday, do a temperature check of your audience through market research doing a LinkedIn poll. Now, there are a lot of people that use LinkedIn polls improperly. It's not for your place to ask people when they put up and take down their Christmas tree. It's not a place asking for people if they like cats or dogs. And it's not a place to ask people how they take their coffee with or without cream and sugar. Now, the way that you wanna leverage the LinkedIn. Is asking relevant questions to answers that you want to know. So it could be as simple as what is your biggest struggle in your business right now? You know, number one, generating revenue. Number two, generating clients gen, uh, you know, number three, generating leads for other comment below. What this is gonna do, it's gonna give you what I call content ammunition. It's going to give you a means to go back and look at that poll to see what your audience is voting. if the most popular answer is they are having trouble generating leads. Then what you can do is you can take that content ammunition from that market research poll, and on Friday you can type out a long form post up to 3000 characters, giving people one, two, or three tangible tips. of what they can do to organically generate more leads on social media or whatever platform you're teaching on. So everything kind of works synergistically together. It's building the no like and trust, positioning yourself as the authoritative figure in your space and showing up three different ways on the platform. Video market research, long form content, those three things, optimizing your profile, building the. An ideal network and then providing value added content that educates and informs your audience is gonna position you not only as the expert in your space, but it's gonna get you the traction that you do want on LinkedIn. Absolutely. Oh my gosh, Scott. I mean, can we have a mic drop right there? Like that's everything. That's everything. And a bag of chips. Thank you for that. And I hope that every. You need to pause, replay, take your notes because this was huge and I thank Scott for sharing all of that. So we are coming to the time in the show where I asked this one question, are you prepared for this question, Scott? Yes. Always What is one thing that no one knows about you? I mean, people that don't know. Uh, I would say the one thing that they do not know is I was a huge, huge hippie back in the day. I used to follow a band called Phish, starting in 1995. And, I've been to almost 90 phish shows in my concert career. And, uh, it was a great time in my life. You know, we used to do the mail order tickets and my, my buddy Alex and I, we would pick a starting point. We would drive down to Atlanta, Georgia and just go up the coast and see as many shows as we could. And, uh, it was a great time in my life. A lot of wonderful memories. And, you know, people that see me, Uh, couldn't really picture me in, in that aspect. But, uh, yeah, that's, that's a little known fact that I was a, a really big phish head back in my, uh, my teens and twenties. How fun. I might've been to a couple of shows out in Colorado. I mean, uh, you know, red Rocks is one of the, the, you know, the ultimate places to see any show. Not, not just Phish. Absolutely. Oh, this has been so amazing, Scott. I am so grateful for you being here today. Will you share where our community can best reach? Yeah. So if you go to my website, scott aaron.net, there's actually a free gift. It's actually six steps to optimizing your profile. And then there's actually a secondary gift where it's called, the five layers of LinkedIn. If you use the coupon code, five layers, the number five, and then layers all one word at checkout. It actually gives you free access to this$197 course for absolutely free. So you get the infograph, you get the free course, and also you can find me on LinkedIn. That's a great place to connect with me. I do two freight trainings a week every Monday and Thursday between 10 and 10:30 AM Eastern. So definitely check me out. That is wonderful. Scott, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for Your heartfelt journey that you're sharing with us. So many valuable tips and inspirational moments that you've shared today. Thank you so very much for Thank you. Taking some time away from your family today. Well appreciate you and thank you again for the opportunity. Thank you so much. Well, as we say, until next time thank you so much for tuning into another episode. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe to Empowered Within with Jennifer Pilates. Your feedback is important. It helps me to connect with you and gives me insight into who you are and what you're enjoying about the show. For today's show, notes and discount codes from today's. Head over to jennifer pilates.com. Until next time, may you live an empowered life from within.