Category: Brand Communications Podcast

Brand Communications Podcast Category for the Brand Communications and Optics Strategist Loren Weisman Website.

Brand Communication Podcast
Discover episodes from the Brand Communications and Optics podcast hosted by strategist Loren Weisman, covering authentic messaging, optics, ethical marketing, and practical brand strategy. Episodes feature solo insights and guest discussions on positioning, compliance, audience trust, content protection, and scalable communication systems for authoritative experts and organizations.

This category curates audio posts with show notes, links, and episode structures that align with entity-based SEO and topic clustering across Brand Communications, Messaging Strategy, Optics, AI ethics, and book/author positioning. The collection reinforces the site’s podcast hub and connects to related archives and transcription entries for accessibility and search depth.

What you’ll find
– Podcast episodes from Wait What Really OK and related series focused on brand messaging frameworks, strategy blueprinting, and optics methodology.
– Show notes with links, references, and cross-links to companion transcriptions to support accessibility, quoting, and research workflows.

– Practical breakdowns on topics like mission statements, positioning, publishing pitfalls, guest booking, and reputation protection in communications.
Who this serves
– Founders, authors, and executives building compliant, transparent messaging systems that can be measured and scaled.
– Content strategists, producers, and marketers seeking repeatable optics frameworks and real-world podcast applications.
– Researchers and accessibility-first audiences who benefit from paired audio, notes, and transcripts.

Key takeaway
This podcast category centralizes Loren Weisman’s brand communication methods and optics strategies into structured episodes with actionable show notes, strengthening topical authority and discovery across the site’s audio and text ecosystems.

Loren Weisman is a Brand Communications and Optics Strategist focused on building truthful, transparent messaging and optics foundations so authoritative experts and organizations can stand out authentically in competitive landscapes. His methodology centers on strategic blueprinting before marketing, aligning brand strategy, messaging refinement, communication optimization, crisis communication and optics, and digital media/marketing strategy to create clear, uniform, and effective presence. His background includes participation on 700+ albums as a drummer and producer, TV production credits with ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, and TLC, and authorship of Music Business for Dummies and The Artist’s Guide to Success in the Music Business.

Fake Authors Using AI. Podcast Links and Transcription
Fake Authors Using AI. Podcast Links and Transcription for Wait What Really OK Podcast Titled “Fake Authors Using AI: Examining the false authorship trend.”

Fake Authors Using AI. Podcast Links and Transcription

Fake Authors Using AI, Examining the False Authorship Trend.

Released on August, 9th, 2025

🎙️ Tune In: Listen to this Wait What Really Ok Podcast Episode Fake Authors Using AI: Examining the false authorship trend on Apple Podcasts Spotify iHeart Radio Pandora Amazon Music Spreaker YouTube and other platforms.

Fake Authors Using AI Chapters

*** Fake Authors Using Ai Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction & Theme Song 00:20 – Host Introduction: Loren Weisman 00:28 – Dishonesty in Modern Publishing 01:11 – AI Book Writing: Real Authorship or Not? 01:26 – Fake Authors Using AI: Speedy AI Prompts & Ethics 01:41 – The Integrity Crisis in Self-Publishing 02:04 – Transparency in Writing & Book Creation 02:34 – The True Author’s Journey: Time & Effort 03:12 – Using AI Ethically for Editing and Proofreading 03:39 – Algorithmic Writing vs. Real Human Craft 04:10 – Copyright and Ownership in AI-Generated Books 04:34 – Fake Courses: AI Content and Deception 05:15 – Businesses Seeking Dishonest Creators 05:44 – Transparency in Marketing & Education Products 06:27 – The Authority Problem: Real vs. Fake Experts 07:05 – Human Input, Editors, & Authentic Voices 08:13 – How the Term “Author” Is Losing Validity 08:35 – Prompters vs. Genuine Writers 09:29 – Public Normalization of AI Cheating 09:56 – Be True to Yourself: Preserving Authority 10:37 – Identifying Fake Experts & Coaches 11:44 – Anthology & Mass Authorship Scams 12:21 – Questionable Motives in Content Creation 13:10 – Why Prompts Don’t Equal Authorship 13:31 – Ethical AI Use: Sharing Your Process 13:59 – Creating Genuine, Original Content 14:49 – The Ethics of AI in Content Creation 15:59 – Spotting Fake Experts Through Social Media Surges 18:02 – Evaluating Whether an Author Is Real or AI 19:40 – AI Detection Advancements & Accountability 21:18 – Transparency & Integrity as Competitive Advantages 23:59 – Real Authorship: Blood, Sweat, and Tears 25:49 – Final Advice on Honor, Truth, and Professionalism *** Fake authors using ai transcription

Fake Authors Using AI Transcription

Song: Wait What Really OK, OK. With your host, Loren Weisman. This is a fully licensed theme song for the show about stuff that makes you say, Wait What Really OK, OK.

Loren: The state of publishing, writing, and putting out a book to me has become terrifyingly dishonest. And right now, in this time of dishonesty, there are more and more companies using AI models that allow for these books to be written, as they even profess, in minutes. One of the strangest issues that I notice with it and that I have with it is how incredibly popular these ads are on sites like Instagram, where it’s not just the ad.

And, yeah, okay, there’s a whole bunch of fake people saying, oh, wow, this is really neat. This is really neat. But people saying, real people with real profiles saying they’re genuinely excited about this. The fake authors using ai problem shining bright.

They’ve always wanted to do something like this. They’ve always wanted to write a book. But you’re not writing a book. You’re adding in a prompt. Some of them claim that you can set up a prompt in two minutes and then have a complete book. Some of these ads, they’re stating, oh, just go in here, add this prompt. You’ll have this. You’ll be able to upload it. You’ll be able to go out with your friends and have lunch. And now you’re an author.

I find that pathetic. I find it to be dishonest.

And as someone that I would consider myself a real author, it makes me not want to tell anyone I’m an author anymore. For all these people that are out there saying, oh, you’ll be able to tell people you’re an author, would you.

Would you be that honest with it? Would you share with someone exactly how you wrote your book? Would you put on the front and the back a little note stating below by your name that I did a prompt, I filled out a couple questions, I added this part, and then AI wrote it for me, that you are one of those fake authors using ai.

Most people, probably not, and yet so many are out there doing it. I’ve authored three books of my own. I’ve helped from a messaging standpoint on a series of other books. It’s a long process, and people saying, it doesn’t have to be that long. It can be done in minutes.

I was proud of my third book, which I knocked out in just a little shy of four months, that also included, on average, four to five hours of writing on a given day, five days a week, as well as going back and forth with the editor and the proofreader and legal and all that stuff and not saying that Other people shouldn’t be involved in a book.

Fake Authors Using AI Transcription Continued:

You should. And it’s not saying that AI can’t be involved in a book. It can be. You could give certain stuff to A.I. for a developmental edit. If you’re being honorable, that is, you could give stuff to A.I. for the grammatical. You could use some of these A.I. systems for proofreading.

You could use some of these AI systems for legal aspects of compliance. You could use AI in a series of ways. That doesn’t take away from the validity if you actually wrote the book. And yet this is being bypassed now inside of algorithmic learning, it’s not necessarily artificial intelligence, but algorithmic learning. For you to put in such a simplified pattern or answer just a couple simple questions, and then all of a sudden you have a book. How does the copyright work on that for the fake authors using ai?

You know, are you sharing? Are you honestly sharing a copyright? Would you to state, okay, well, you know, I wrote this with this given site or this given model. I mean, the same thing could be said for these courses, too, these fake courses where it’s fill in, oh, this stuff is easy. It’s 10 minutes of filling these things in, and a course will be created for you. What a deceiving ripoff. If you can fill out something for five to 10 minutes and that in turn gives you a course that makes you look like an expert that you’re selling. I question your honor, I question your morals, I question your professionalism, and I question you as an individual.

And it’s so sad that there are so many companies that are looking for people, questionable people that will simply use their little model, flip this thing through. And in a sense, they’re looking for liars. They’re looking for people that are happy to deceive. They’re looking for people that will use their information. Oh, they’ll scrape pieces from here and from there and maybe even from a couple of these courses. Maybe you do learn a thing or two.

But would you share that with your students? So for your little. My $99.00 course, my $499.00 course, my. My, that course. Oh, and all the marketing with it, would you put right on that front page in that scroll down section and your special. And your discount, would you list. These were the questions I was asked, this is what was prompt, and then it was returned to me, and I packaged it, marketed it, and I’m selling it to you now. For those that, that have no problem with that, who am I to judge?

I have my feelings, I have my opinions on it. But to those out there looking for genuine authority, for those out there that are looking for genuine education, for those out there that are looking for real intelligence, it’s time to dig a little bit deeper and watch out from what you’re being presented and from what’s being presented to you and even those that have authority. There was one particular lawyer that had a. He had a book and a course. And this guy, I believe in some of what I heard from him, he definitely knew his stuff inside of family law.

But what he didn’t realize, or it seems he didn’t realize, was that he used one of these little course creators and it took away his authority and it turned it into fluff. And because it was probably a five minute prompt, it put a whole bunch of stuff in there that did not show the efforts to write a book means or used to mean you wrote it.

Yes, you would have editors. Yes, you would have, you know, people to proofread. You’d have technical editors, you’d even have developmental editors. My second book, there was an entire team at that publishing house to help make that book what it was. But the voice, the narrative, the message, the experience, the authenticity, the wisdom, the intelligence that came from me. And it was heartbreaking to write that book. It took a very long time. It was better part of. I say it was a better part of 12 and a half months of writing.

One of my books

Fake Authors Using AI Transcription Continued:

And then we went into the editing phases. Things had to get moved around. It was. There was a lot there. I wrote 1200 pages that got, you know, shrunken down into 478. And I needed help with that. And I had. There was an amazing, amazing guy. I still just, I. He took the time to read every single one of those pages. And it wasn’t the cheapest. It wasn’t the cheapest situation, because that’s time. It wasn’t just AI, but these days, like, you know, so there’s certain people saying, why don’t you share? Why don’t you lead a little bit more that you’re the author of these books?

Because the term author to me has lost so much of its validity and authority. It’s been dropped back. Because these people are calling themselves authors that are actually liars. They are prompters. They’ve prompted the idea of a book.

They’ve used an AI system that can then from that prompt generate stuff. And from that prompt you can state, who are you aiming for? And now it’s generating content that does not come from this individual. Oh, great. Maybe you even say, okay, well, I want your prompt and pull from a Whole bunch of my blogs on my website and blogs that you wrote. So it’s pulling certain information, but it’s still this, this initial process, the, the majority of the process is a lie.

Loren Weisman Cartoon

And that to me is so unfortunate. I don’t understand and I mean, I guess I don’t understand with a lot of the AI and I don’t understand how not only cheating, which at one point it was, let’s do it really quietly, has now turned into a thing where people are advertising how you can cheat. They’re advertising here, here’s the ways that you can do it. All you have to, all you have to do is this. You will appear as an authority.

And I kind of like that whole appear as an authority because in a way there’s a little honesty in the middle of this because you’re not an authority, you’re not an author if this is the system you’re using. And I think that if you’re using these kind of systems, it reduces your authority. Be true to you and look a little bit deeper. Look, you know, when you, when you see a book, if you’re not 100% sure about it, is all of a sudden this person, they were just doing this and doing that or they were this kind of.

Because I know this is very popular with that life coaching and the business consultants, oh, they’ve regurgitated so much crowd and there are many that have written books and they regurgitated it too. But search some of these chapter names, search the title, search the opening, the closing, see if that tone, see if it’s showing up anywhere else. Look at, I mean, you know, some of these people now and they’re stating, oh, you could put out a book a week.

Nobody writes a book a week. And even some of these larger scale authors, even some of the, you know, the romance authors of the, you know, when it was that supermarket buy the book, some of these people had their ghost writers, had their writing team. It was almost like the early stages of AI but it was with real people where it’s okay, you’re going to scope out the concept, you’re going to hand it to some other people, let them develop it, let them add to it.

It wasn’t really a developmental edit, it was really having a series of co writers and then bringing it back to the author. And the author had paid these other people and they zapped their name on it. The other one I can’t stand it doesn’t seem to be quite as popular these days. And I think the lack of the popularity Is because now you have the ability to make it all your own.

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Podcast Transcription

Fake Authors Using AI Transcription Continued:

Is that book of 20 different authors on something which is somebody who’s trying to make a buck and say, oh, I’m going to promote you. It’s going to give you a great promotion. Write this little section here. I had people coming to me with some business books where they’re like, write this section. Here’s what you pay me, and I’ll put this in the book.

And it’s going to do great for your business. And I would say, I don’t want to be associated with some of these people you’re talking to. Oh, no, these are big names. I’m like, yeah, they’re frauds. Some of them are frauds. Some of them are hype machines. Some of them don’t know what they’re talking about. And yet you’re claiming it’s this authorship of all these people together.

No, it’s a product. Is it a product that you want to create to try to hype yourself? And if so, if a book is not in, you don’t write a book. If a course is not in, you don’t create a course. I don’t care. If you need money and you can’t organize your content, your expertise to be amplified in the best way possible for you, that you need to lie, cheat and steal, then it’s time to get another job. Or I guess with some of these people, it’s fine. Just do what you’ll do.

Think with a foundational transparency realize. And even with these AI things that they’re telling kids to use in college, use this. It’ll hide the AI writing we’ve come into this time on these sites like Instagram and these product models and these business models of here’s how you cheat. Here’s how you don’t get caught. Here’s how you create something amazing. Here’s how you become an author.

Discerning and defining a project manager role. (Podcast Transcription)

Fake Authors Using AI Transcription Continued:

The last time I checked, becoming an author does not consist of creating a prompt and trying to sell people BS. And again, the option is there yet. Just because something is available doesn’t mean you should do it. Just because a whole bunch of other people you know that are doing it doesn’t mean you should do it. And maybe you can take some pride and maybe you can take just some, some foundational, ethical, moral, just honesty and be able to fire back and say, here’s how I used AI.

I used it for this part of the editing. Here’s how long it took me to write it. Here’s how much I wrote here’s where I got my help. I create. The bulk of my stuff that I’m putting out these days is more so videos and podcasts. I create a couple one minutes, three days a week. The other two days a week, I create the fuller length, but they usually stand at between 3, 4, 5 minutes max. I create those ideas. I’m not going to use some kind of trending software.

I’m not using a script thing from AI. These are my thoughts from my experiences. Now, once that video is done, I bring it into sites like Submagic and it automatically, with AI, creates the video, the captions. I also am a fan, a partial fan of Vidiq. Not for it to sit here and tell me this is what I have to film and this is what I should film. And here’s the latest trend. So just hop on this train. No, I like that. I can upload to.

Branding an authentic book from the start to maintain messaging endurance.

I can upload to Vidiq a video I can upload. I can also add in and say, okay, here’s. Here’s the captions, here’s the script, here’s the point of what I’m going for. What would be some good keywords to add to that and add to the description? It’s the same thing with descriptions. I create my videos. I will say, okay, I have just created a video. This is what the video is. This is the title of the video.

Here is, Here is the. The transcription from the video. I’m looking for a couple keyword phrases that would be strong from what’s been created to amplify the marketing. And that feels completely moral and ethical and transparent to me.

I’m happy to share that with the world. While it’s strange that some people from the faceless YouTube channels to others that will go, okay, what’s trending? What’s hot? What do I need? Oh, gosh, I gotta write a script. Not anymore. You can click on it and Vidiq will do it, and some of these other ones will do it for you.

That’s not honest. Using AI as an editing tool, using AI to bring, to enhance or assist on authority, I find to be a moral, ethical thing. And it’s something that I have no problem sharing how I use it. To these people that choose to hide that, to these people that choose to deceive, to these people that use it so that it completely creates their content, all their authority, all their knowledge, because it’s built from somewhere else.

That to me, is dangerous. And that to me, it makes me wonder, you know, for the people that are looking into it. What is it? Not only are they scamming, but they’re. They’re holding themselves with no liability to anybody, no accountability. So if you start seeing somebody that just pops up out of nowhere, watch for some of the signs.

Brand Messaging Mission Statement and Brand Communications Methodology

Fake Authors Using AI Transcription Continued:

Do you notice that for all of a sudden they didn’t seem to have much going on? They had a couple blogs here, they had a couple posts here with social media, and then all of a sudden they’re drenched in social media. They have all these blogs coming out day after day after day after day. And many posts in a given day that might be AI, it might not be them.

Do they all of a sudden have they gone from never writing a book to all of a sudden they have five books in a series of months to all of a sudden having these courses that just seem to have come out of nowhere? Might be. Again, might be AI? Yes. There are people that are working and they’re putting together and they’re prepping certain stuff for a given launch, and that’s one thing.

But when all of a sudden the content, the courses, a series of books, a whole bunch of stuff seems to all of a sudden come into play, that fake authors using ai red flag can go up, that might have been the time when they signed up for their little subscription, they paid their little fees, and they’re in full exploiting mode of you don’t get caught in trying to buy into the hype.

That is not true. And even inside of some of this, you may notice, see if you can get something where you can test out and read through it. Does it look like it’s just a call to action?

There’s one individual I worked on with a book and I stepped away from working with him because at first it was truly a stewarding, gifting, intelligent book from an amazing individual that had great knowledge and great experience.

But then he turned it into a call to action. Everything was a call to action about that book. And it’s not saying that a book can’t promote your authority, but I don’t believe a book should create your authority. And I don’t believe that a book needs to be a call to action. From that book, if someone gets a good enough sense, wow, well, this is who he is.

This is how he does it. These are his experiences. This is a sense of him.

Fake Authors Using AI Transcription Continued:

Okay, great. But if in a chapter three different times to learn more. Oh, to learn this. Oh, to get this, you just got to work with me. Oh, you just sign up here. Oh, just, oh, pay me this then. It’s not a book, it’s an ad pamphlet in My opinion and for you, for the individuals that see these things, yes, I get it. It can be enticing.

It’s kind of like, you know, sugar candy of like, I’ve always wanted to have a book. This scam site says I can have a book. I think deep down most people know that, wait, I’m going to be an author in two minutes.

Fake Authors Using AI Transcription Continued:

They know that there’s something wrong with that. The fake authors using ai, slowly being exposed… Go with your gut, think about it, pray on it. Stand on a foundation of truth and transparency. Because as you build, as AI gets smarter, AI is also beginning identify more and more the fakes. And for people saying, oh, well, we’re able to hide this AI.

We’re able to hide the AI writing, more themes, more patterns are showing up, more is coming out. Are you prepared in your business, with your product, with your service, are you prepared to go truly transparent for who you are, for what you know, for where you learned it, for the knowledge, the wisdom, the discernment that you’ve grown?

Does it prove out or did it magically appear overnight because of an AI system? Did you hire some kind of marketing AI thing to give off the appearance, or did you genuinely go and learn these things? It’s even awful. You know, some of these colleges, you don’t need to go this long. You don’t need this long to get this master’s. How do you know this individual might need that? It’s looking in and it’s vetting and it’s digging deeper and it’s choosing the path that you want to go. In the end, it is your choice.

There are more options now than ever to lie, to deceive, to cheat, to steal, to rip off, to appear as something that you are absolutely not.

But there’s also, in the middle of this honesty, there’s integrity. There’s the ability to stand out and shine like a bright, beautiful light of truth, of love and of transparency, of being able to share transparency. Hey, this. You know what? I did use AI, but I used it this way. Here’s what I did to create this.

Here’s how long it took me to write the book. Here’s how I wrote it. Talk about those things. Showcase so that you can share. If you’re going the moral route, if you’re going the transparent route, so you can be seen differently in a sea of fakes, in how you stand and how you wrote, in where the book came from, in where the experiences happen, in how you put this together, having that little story that may end up being a series of videos, it may end up being a series of blogs, a post of pictures of the process, of the time, track it.

When did you first sit down and start writing?

When did you. When did you stop?

I’ve been writing something. It’s a. It looks like it may be another book for me. It started off not intentionally at first. It was. I’m just going to get this out to now becoming something that goes like, okay, this, this may be a book. This may be a book for a side of the story that I feel I want to have seen.

And I’ve gotten to the point where it was started in June and the last I wrote the opener and the closer, I guess you could call it opening and closing thoughts for the whole thing this morning and in that may be my next book.

I’m not sure yet, but I can state, here’s what I did, here’s how I worked on it, here’s how I created it, here’s how. Here’s the process, here’s the dates, here’s the timeline. I’m going that extra distance right now to showcase this came from me and did not come from a prompt or an AI system or some cheap software thing. That this is me. I am not one of those fake authors using ai.

Music business ghost drumming. Being a ghost in the machine.

Fake Authors Using AI Transcription Continued:

And that’s where I want to leave you with this one. Be you if you’re going to be honorable, if you’re going to show that integrity to stand out against this sea of lies, of deception, thievery, false fronts and fake people and even those with some authority but trying to shortcut, share how you didn’t.

A great deal of your marketing and your message and part of that narrative can be shown in how you did it to prove that you did it and in that how much better would it feel to be able to say no, you know, oh, this guy’s an author and this guy’s. Are they. I can’t say if they are. I can’t say if they’re not. But I can tell you this is the blood, sweat, tears and time that I put in. And with anything that’s worth anything, it is blood, sweat, tears and time.

And while they claim and many of these fake false flag companies and scam artists, oh, you just do this in two minutes. Somewhere deep down, I believe everyone knows it’s fake, it’s wrong, it’s untrue, and it’s a way to make a quick buck. And I’d like to see, I’d like to see, you know, accountability on that. I like to see that if you had to use those things that you would not be allowed a copyright or it would have to be stated somewhere in the book what this was and how it was created.

That’s not coming anytime soon.

But at the same time, for you to counter and be able to tell the truth of your process, your system, how you came to get from point A to point B and the details in there, then in that transparency, you’re blowing the others out of the water and you’re showcasing the truth of you, the truth of a book, of where you stand, of what you have for experiences and, and what you are capable of over so many others that have so little capability to do anything that they’re looking for any way to appear as something they’re not. And they don’t care how it could come off. If they’re lying, if they’re deceiving, if they’re cheating, as long as they can make that quick buck and hold no accountability in the moment, they’re thrilled.

Shame on them.

And instead of being like them, consider standing in honor and transparency as you be true. Be true to you. Be true to the audience that you may want to build or that you’re trying to build. I believe it makes all the difference in the world and really highlights who you are as a person and who you would share that with.

I mean, the last thing I’ll say, would you tell a daughter or a son, this is how you created a book. Would you tell a family member? Would you tell somebody that you look up to. This is what you did and this is the process that you did. And if you don’t feel comfortable or there’s something tugging or nagging, then why do that to the public at large?

Fake Authors Using AI Transcription Continued:

Honor yourself. Be true, be transparent, be professional. Even in a world where everyone is saying you don’t have to and you can go the other way, take that route that a little less people are going through, go through that gate that’s a little skinnier than the other one. It’s something that may allow you to be a little bit more proud of the achievement of what you create and how you created it. So that’s about it. That’s my rant on this one.

Maybe a little more emotional than it needs to be, but that’s where I stand on this. This new practice of the. The two minute prompted book and the type of people and the choices that people are making right now to appear as so much more, while in a sense it only amplifies how much less they are as a person. Wait What Really OK, OK.

An ai book tsunami

Fake Authors Using AI. Podcast Links and Transcription

* Loren Weisman is a Brand Communications and Optics Strategist who specializes in illuminating authoritative intelligence and amplifying authentic experts. * Weisman is also the host of the Brand Communications and optics podcast; Wait What Really OK. * LW Website * © 2011 to 2026 Loren Weisman. All Rights Reserved ® ℗ * Fake Authors Using AI. Podcast Links and Transcription

Related reading
August 9, 2025
Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book: Steps for Real Authority
Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book: Steps for Real Authority Podcast from Wait What Really OK and the transcription as well as links to the episode.

Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book

Released on June, 5th, 2025

🎙️ Tune In: Listen to this Wait What Really Ok Podcast Episode Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book: Steps for Real Authority on Apple Podcasts Spotify iHeart Radio Pandora Amazon Music Spreaker YouTube IMDB and other platforms.

Brand Strategy Blueprint Chapters

Brand Strategy Blueprint Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction: Why Write a Book Today 00:24 – Authenticity vs. Authority in Book Writing 01:18 – The Problem with Quote-Filled Books 01:57 – Writing Workshops and Publishing Courses 02:37 – Self-Publishing Scams and Amazon Bestseller Myths 03:30 – The Truth Behind Amazon Best Seller Claims 04:22 – The Hype of Bestseller Status 04:51 – Building a Foundation for Your Book 05:32 – Self-Publishing, Hybrid, and Traditional Publishing Options 05:48 – Hybrid Publishing Explained 06:11 – Working with Major Publishers 07:11 – Book Revenue vs. Speaking and Services 08:08 – Children’s Books and Book Revenue Risks 08:40 – Multiple Book Formats: Paperback, Ebook, Audio 08:58 – Audio Chapters and Staggered Book Releases 09:30 – Flexible Book Formats and Reader Choice 09:45 – Staggered Audiobook Release Strategy 10:20 – Testing Book Chapters as Marketing 10:55 – Customer Journey: Audio to Ebook to Print 11:13 – Courses vs. Genuine Teaching 11:45 – Building a Book Foundation: Speaking and Consulting 12:21 – Protecting Intellectual Property and Book Integrity 13:03 – Outlining and Blueprinting Your Book 13:36 – Using Flashcards and Chapter Organization 14:06 – Structuring and Writing with Flexibility 14:42 – Overcoming Writing Challenges and Finding Inspiration 15:29 – Organizing Chapters and Sections 16:26 – Writing in Sections and Avoiding Burnout 17:01 – Creative Writing Process and Idea Capture 17:41 – Importance of Chapter Titles and Taglines 18:35 – Designing Engaging Chapter Titles 18:57 – Drawing Readers in with Chapter Openings and Closings 19:49 – Media Outreach with Chapter Snapshots 20:31 – Using Opening and Closing Thoughts for Promotion 21:06 – Leveraging Quotes for Book Marketing 21:52 – Making Your Book’s Quotes Stand Out 22:34 – Pre-Optimizing Quotes on External Platforms 23:37 – Blogging and Sharing Your Own Quotes 23:57 – Authority and Reputation Through Original Quotes 24:30 – Building Buzz Before Book Release 25:36 – Securing Domains and Social Media Handles 26:18 – Book Proposals and SEO-Driven Titles 26:56 – Pre-Release Marketing and Promotion 27:34 – Early Visual Branding and Social Media Assets 28:10 – Simultaneous Content Creation and Book Writing 28:38 – Outlining and Blueprinting for Security and Exposure 30:07 – Staggered Audio Chapters and Brand Analytics 31:00 – Investment Opportunities for Books 32:11 – Reading Contracts and Avoiding Pitfalls 33:04 – Learning from Publishing Mistakes 34:01 – Building a Brand Strategy Foundation 35:45 – Closing Remarks and Final Thoughts

Brand Strategy Blueprint for your book Transcription Text

Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book

Transcription:
Loren: This is Loren Weisman in this episode of Wait. What really, okay. Is focusing on those that have decided to write a book while it’s turned into a time where anybody can write a book, it seems. And many of these books that are coming out are AI generated and AI prompted.
And there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of reasons for a lot of people not to write a book. If you’re really looking to the point of, oh, I’m trying to appear as an authority, so I’ll write a book, or I’ll use AI or I’ll use these Chat GPT prompt lessons and how to write a book in 20 minutes, you know, not really a great idea, and I’m not trying to get off that path.

But if you genuinely have an authentic, authoritative, true story and there’s something that you want to get out, and regardless of whether it’s to sell some books to open up speaking opportunities, to move toward, you know, move something to clients that genuinely has a foundation that is true and that is you, then hopefully this podcast will be helpful.

However, it’s really a stop point and turn it off. If you’re just doing the book thing because they say everybody has a book in them. I don’t, I don’t believe that.

I don’t think everybody has a book in them.

And I think it’s shown more and more in these last number of years with so many people trying to push out these double spaced, large font, all these images, images of other people’s quotes, other people’s stuff, that model of chapter openers where it’s some famous Zig Ziglar or Dale Carnegie quote. Where is the authority in that? It’s sort of like those videos that you see on YouTube or Instagram or anywhere else where it’s. Somebody else is commenting on an actual authority, but they’re not really bringing anything to the table.

So I guess that would be kind of the preface of this. Let’s say that you are not one of those people and you have a genuine story and it’s a story that you want to get out there. While many say, okay, well, you’ve just got to write and you got to join these writing workshops and you’ve got. And here’s how you write a book, and here’s how you do this, and here’s how you do that, that does work for some, but not necessarily for all.

And many of these people that are pushing the here’s how to publish a book, many of them have, you know, not really all that successful books for themselves and they’ve put together some kind of course or some kind of model to try to get other people to do it so that they can cash in. I would be very wary of these courses. And also when you’re looking up about publishing, there are a number of self publishing scams out there. And the thing is, anybody, oh, we’ll hook you up with editors, we’ll hook you up with this, we’ll hook you up with distribution, we’ll get this thing to be an Amazon bestseller.

Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book Transcription Continued:

I’m going to touch on that before we dig into the book an Amazon bestseller and look at the expert. You can become many. There are genuine self publishers out there, but a lot of these are scams where they’re looking for money to basically build a book that has no solid foundation, no security and no real stability, especially in today’s market with AI, with plagiarism.

And as all these things have just increased and gotten worse. And then that last touch on the whole Amazon bestseller, I don’t know what the price is, I’m sure it’s gone down now, but these people claiming to have Amazon bestsellers, isn’t it amazing?

Take two seconds to think about it. Isn’t it amazing how many people have claimed to be best sellers that you’ve never heard of? Amazon has thousands of categories. And just to touch on this and then move on, what some of these book consultants will tell you to do is to pick a category that’s very, very low and then you attack in there and then…

You can buy this little program where it’s going to get a whole bunch of robots to download your book at the same time and it’s going to bump you up to number one in a given category and you’ll be there for a minute or five minutes or ten minutes, who knows? And then they’re going to grab a screenshot when that happens, they’ll send it to you and all of a sudden you’re an Amazon bestseller.

That’s a lie, that’s deceptive. You are a best bought download for a momentary time for seconds, minutes, maybe a few hours, and then it went away because you didn’t see a single sale from that. You ended up spending money for this hype position. And more people are getting onto that. Again, if that’s something that you want to do and you want to claim on the Amazon best seller thing, this podcast might not be for you.

I’m not trying to turn people off in a way, but if you genuinely want to put out a book Consider doing it in the right way, in a foundational way, in a secure way, and moving away the assumptions and the connotations of an industry that has become more and more flawed. I’ve published three books. One was completely self published.

It was, it was self published through an agent and it was a self publishing house of sorts. So a lot of it was paid for. I was guided through, I was guided through their process. I had paid out of pocket for that. And then there was baseline distribution.

The second book was a hybrid publish and these are publishing options that you can have. The second book was a hybrid publisher. It was a great publisher that took some of the cost, I took some of the cost. It’s a very fair percentage that comes back. You’re going to get paid a little bit more when you have some skin in the game.

And it worked out decently well. The third book was a major publisher and I ended up brokering a deal with that major publisher, knowing where the state of the book industry was, where I really wrote on the front side and gave royalties and extended elements on the backside back to the publisher.

And in that it was an advantage for many years for me because the level of promotion went up, up that much more because I wasn’t necessarily getting the royalties. Now some jumped on me for that saying, okay, that’s foolish. But even with certain major publishers and with hybrid, you are paying or money is being spent that you have to pay back, that comes to the warehousing, comes to the transportation, parts of printing, all of these different costs that come into line.

And what I felt was I’m going to get on the front side before the bulk of these costs come in, handle some of these costs, take the advance, take these payments and I’ll be good to go. And in that book that still is marketed and out there today, it helps to promote me.

Is Honesty Still Valued in Reviews Today Video

Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book Transcription Continued:

And I guess as we jump now into the actual foundation, are you looking for a book where you’re trying to make X a quarter and most of the books, major publishing, they pay quarterly or are you looking at other elements? Because if you’re looking solely to have a living as an author, that’s a very challenging world to be in and more than likely it really is impossible these days.

I would advise that if you have a story, if you’re tying that to genuine speaking, if you’re tying that to services that you provide, if you’re tying that to other elements, it’s going to put you in a greater position than trying to put out this book.

Now the Same thing goes. It even goes a little bit worse for children’s books. Children’s books pay even less in some. In some cases. Is it something you want to do genuinely from the heart and tie it to a company that you’re with, a nonprofit speaking clients product, anything like that, that can be a great connection, that can be a great bridge. But sitting there solely operating purely on just book revenue is a dangerous way to go.

Now adding the numerous elements can be a good idea and that can up the. Up the revenue too. And this is kind of on the front side. Thinking about not just the paperback, but are you going to do a hardcover, are you going to do an ebook? Are you going to also do an audio? I really recommend all of those. Now, my second book, it was a music business book.

One of the things I did with the audio and I highly recommend it for people that are putting out something that might be a little bit more. If you’re a strategist, a consultant, coach, you have a series of different topics run through different chapters and you’re able to have a book that can be read from any space. And I prided myself on my second book that you could read.

You could read The Artist’s Guide to Success in the Music Business. If you just wanted to read chapter nine, you could read chapter nine. If you wanted to read 10 and go, then go to two, you could do that. You could read it front to back. It had a format to it, but it also was a choose your own adventure. And in that when I released the book with the hybrid publisher, I went to them and said, as opposed to okay, we’re putting out the paperback, the hard copy, the ebook and the audio all at once. I opted to go a different route. I said, let’s get the ebook out first, get it warmed up, get some press releases going, then put out the paperback and the hard copy.

Then from there, a month later, we staggered for 12 months an audiobook coming out once a month. And in that audiobook was just a single chapter. So chapter one came out a month later, chapter two, and inside of the promotion that was online and also in press releases and in major media. It wasn’t the same concept of buy my book, buy my book, buy my book, you got to buy my book, review my book. There was an element of this is available right now, the audiobook for chat, you know, the audio chapter for this book is available now. And it ended up being a cool and almost. It was humble in not saying, okay, buy the book, but run me for a test drive.

Try this 99 cent chapter. I think some sites might have charged a buck 99, some were up to two 99. But try this chapter, see what you think of it. Maybe you’ll want to wait till next month and get another chapter. Maybe from there you’ll want to get the ebook, or maybe from there you’re going to want to get the paper back. And I found in looking at sales over time that many people went to a couple audio chapters and then they buy the ebook. And then even some of them, when I was out speaking, they said, well, I bought these four chapters, then I bought the ebook, then I bought the paperback. I wanted to have the physical copy as well. So that one customer ended up being an array of purchases which then help with the profit as a whole.

Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book Transcription Continued:

The other points inside a profit are not necessarily courses. And I know that people say, oh, you need to have a course, you need to have a course. I don’t believe it. If you’re not a genuine teacher, if you don’t genuinely have a course in you, don’t use one of these AI things to fake it, because people are going to know. And right now, more and more these courses are getting slammed and attacked for people that maybe they did have a book in them and maybe they can serve well as a coach or a consultant or a strategist, but then inside of a course, it just looks like crap.

So if you don’t have a genuine course in you, try to move away from products like that, please. Getting back to the foundation, though, we’ve talked quickly about the different models of what you can put out. You talk about the speaking element, the consulting element. These all become part of the foundation even before you write the book. And as you go to write the book, thinking about ways to protect the property, the intellectual property, the integrity, and at the same time to look good for.

If you want to go to a major publisher, if you want to go to a literary agent, what are ways that you can do that can stand out in a world where everybody supposedly can be an author, but really are they selecting you or are they going to look at you? Or do you become worth the investment? Does your story stand with authority? And in that, as you begin to outline it and you begin to almost blueprint it, this may open many more doors, opportunities, and even advances to do the book in the way that you’d hope to and in a way that can really protect you.

What I mean by that is outlining a blueprint of understanding the shape of the book. What are you Know, as opposed to the. I’m going to sit down and write the Great American Book, and I’m going to start writing from the opening point to the closing point. Consider laying it out, maybe even using flashcards. I used flashcards for my third book, and I moved them around. I wrote down. I’m like, okay, is this a chapter? Is this a section? Is this, you know, a subheader? I would call them. I did one of the For Dummies books. So Is this an H1, a header 1, a header 2, or a header 3? And in slowly moving the pieces around and getting this sound foundation of what this looked like of what was going to be written, it became much more comfortable.

I wrote my third book in just under four months, and I did that after I put together the blueprint and this baseline foundation. And in the book I was talking about, it was another book on music, but I was talking about different things. And some of the same things from the second book, but in a different format. And I really wanted to collect my thoughts in a way to make it easier to write. I’m not an author. I dropped out of college to become a drummer. I was in music and television for many years.

I’m not an author. I was not a writer. There was a bartender in Seattle, Washington, gosh, what was his name? John Moroney, said, you need to write a book. And I laughed at him. And my first response was, as he was serving alcohol, so you must be drinking. And he kind of ripped me for a while and just kept going, you should write a book. You should write a book. And the more I thought about it, I said, okay, I’ll try. And with that first book in kind of looking at, okay, I’m not going to write something front to back.

Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book Transcription Continued:

How am I going to remember all these things? Let me break it out. I began to design chapter ideas. They weren’t the chapter titles, and we’ll get to that in a bit. And then I began to say, okay, what sections will go where? And then I began to see a form and inside of this format. The idea was not to write it front to back or write complete chapters. It was to write from the standpoint of not being a writer. I had sections and eventually I made on my computer files for each chapter. I made file sections of, okay, so this chapter is here, that chapter is here, okay? And I had a little, you know, notepad, word docs that had notes in them of this will go into this chapter.

Let’s cover some stuff on this. Let’s cover some stuff on that. And I was able to, in a much more comfortable way, write the first book by writing what I felt in any given day. At that time, I was producing full time. I wasn’t really on the road. I was speaking a little bit. And I would get up in the morning, I’d usually go for a swim, the, you know, have a little bit of breakfast, and then I just try to write for, you know, an hour or two.

But in that, it wasn’t just writing fluff or writing, who knows where this is going to go. I would think about where I was, where the inspiration was, and I would see, what chapter is that going into? And then inside of that file for that chapter was, okay, here’s some loose ideas, but this is what it’s going to go, and I know it’s going to go in this chapter. And then eventually inside of those chapters became sections. Then I could hop around this model, which made it a lot easier than people if they were back in the days of typewriting or writing by hand. I could jump from place to place.

And I never got burnt out in writing because I never felt the restriction or the constriction of being stuck or like, okay, I’ve got to fill this in. I could be sitting here working on this section, you know, some subsection in chapter three, and all of a sudden I’d have an idea. And I’d either pop that idea into a notepad to address it later, I pop that idea on a page in another chapter file, or I take a break and then just go into that other file and write from there. In this, it brings almost a greater creativity, or it did for me, and a greater relief to jump around, to have the freedom and at the same time to get all the thoughts out.

And then this master notepad that I had that was right on the. Right on the front of the laptop. I don’t know where this is going, but here’s a note. And oftentimes when I was checking emails in the morning, I would look at those notes. Where does this belong? And I moved that around myself. And then the foundation grew into large chapters. And then there was a format, and that’s when the editor came in, and so on and so forth. The other element in this initial phase can be titling and seeing almost the chapter titles as something more important at first than the title of the book itself.

When we sit here, I need to have the great name. I need to have a great name. I need to have a great name. Maybe consider that having a great chapter title name something that can stand on its own. So if you do an audio chapter that can stand out, something where there’s a tagline, not just a tagline for the book, but a tagline for the chapter. I believe in more of the educational books, and even some of the ones that aren’t as educational, a little bit more story. Having that chapter title, designing that tagline for the chapter, and having an opening thought and a closing thought to that chapter can be a great tool to get people to read, and especially get people to read that might not necessarily want to read.

So the concept here, and some of this can also be, if you choose a different writing mode of saying, okay, I’m going to work on chapter titles, taglines, opening and closing thoughts, and then I’ll fill in and write the chapters in from there. Or you might end up writing inside and going backwards. But either way or either direction that you choose, please consider having the importance of that chapter title. Almost like a headline, probably under 70 characters, a tagline to it, it brings an extra piece to that and an opening and closing thought. Here’s one of the leads for the idea of the book as a whole.

Publishing a book does not make you an authority or an expert.

Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book Transcription Continued:

Could somebody go into each chapter, read just the opening and closing thoughts, and get the gist, or from there be drawn in that much more to want to read the rest of the chapters? I believe this to be a great way to draw people in and at the same time to draw media in. There are many people inside of media where they’re handed a number of books on a daily basis. What’s going to draw them to review? What if you sent out with a review packet saying, okay, here’s the book.

By the way, there’s opening and closing thoughts for each chapter. So if you just want to skim, you can get a much better idea. One of my promotion points and promotion docs that I sent out when I was doing pre reviews and pre release of the second book was a PDF document that was just the opening and closing thoughts of each chapter, as well as the opening, the opening of the book and the conclusion of the book. I got a lot more interest and a lot more return on the investment of the time that I put in of people asking for the entire book, of people wanting more, of people wanting to dig in.

So consider that opening thought and that closing thought, and even inside of some of those opening thoughts and closing thoughts, when you get them honed in and you’ve now designed a chapter, even before that chapter is completely done, some of those opening and closing thoughts can Be used in advance of the book being put out through social media, by audios, by videos, and especially quotes. And getting to the quote part, jumping over to quotes, please consider inside of your book. If it’s, let it be your book. Be the author of your book. Don’t put other people’s quotes all over your book. Don’t let these opening thoughts, like so many choose to do, have somebody else’s authority, somebody else’s expertise, make it yours.

If there’s a certain quote that you are tying in some kind of knowledge or some part of the story to, by all means, but don’t have these segments and these books with these people where it’s just quote unquote, on quote unquote of other people’s authority. Let it be yours. And as you find a quote that might be important, that might be something going, okay, this is definitely in the book, this is definitely here. You can make it as you can have it be something that’s pulled out as a pull quote in certain images as opposed to just having a chapter and a whole bunch of pages. You could have something enlarged, something italicized, something bolded, something to stand out, something to break it out for the eye for someone to read.

And if you know, okay, this quote is going in, this quote is going in here. It’s going in the middle of chapter two. It’s on this subject. I really like it. I know it’s going to be there. Boom. That is in chapter two. Feel free and please consider doing this to add that quote to Goodreads and you can add a quote to Goodreads before your book is published, to sites like quotes.net to quote fancy and to many of these other places where you can begin to pre optimize the IP of your work so that as the book comes out, when people look up some of these quotes, they find them located in all these other places. Every so often it can be good to put out that blog of your quotes and add it on a website inside of an article.

Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book Transcription Continued:

Quotes that you can be quoted on inside of interviews. Would you quote me on this? That’s great. Let’s say it’s one of the Kirkus reviews and it goes through a major publisher. That’s a quote that’s going to have some high authority and point back to you. Recently, right now, in just protecting some of my older quotes, I ended up doing a, you know, I ended, I titled it Top 100 Loren Wiseman Quotes. Now, this isn’t a look at me. These are quotes that I hope people are happy with.

But the main point was to reestablish quotes that were from my book, from my three books, quotes that I’ve had on my website, quotes I shared in interviews, quotes about how I operate, how I like to work with people, what I advise people to do. And again, it’s a re energizing of these are mine. And so at the same time, you can do that in advance, these are yours. Creating elements in advance can also help whether you’re going to a literary agent, whether you’re going to a hybrid, whether you’re going to a major publisher for them to see the strength of what’s being created, to begin to see the buzz of what’s happening, whether you end up with a working title, whether it ends up having the title ends up having to change somewhat, that can happen too.

But coming back to the blueprint, in really designing chapter titles, in designing a title for the book, in looking, in doing a brand discovery, and that’s something you can do with someone like me, that’s something you can do with other brand strategists that understand this methodology and this model to work in, to understand what is the chapter title, what is the title of the book going to be when that’s searched on. Are you buying some of the domain names already? Are you securing a social media Are you securing a social media set? Do you have this stuff taken?

Maybe you don’t know what the cover of the book is necessarily going to be and you have just a holder image, but this is where your ex is going to be or formerly Twitter. This is the Facebook, this is the Instagram, this is where you’ll have your YouTube having these things set up. Not only does it set up a primary level of security for you, for your IP and for the book, but it can be a great preliminary marketing element to go to, to go to a publisher and state, this is what I’m doing. When I had put out a book proposal, put out a book proposal on a Friday and it came back on a Monday afternoon saying we want this. And what I sent in the proposal, it was one chapter done, it was 11 chapters stated.

Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book Transcription Continued:

These are the names, this is what I want to call them. I understand certain things are going to change, but from an SEO standpoint, from a competitive standpoint, from a comparative standpoint, from a connotative standpoint, these may be the strongest. Here’s the opening and closing thoughts as they are at the moment for the rest of the chapters. And by the way, here are the domains I purchased. Here’s the social media sites that are all up, there’s nothing on them. And here’s the outline in the direction of where I’m taking it. I became less of a risk and a safer investment to be viewed for what I was doing and what I was doing in advance while the book was still being written.

And in that it brought a level of promotion and it also helped once the book cover came back, I believe that was. Oh, book came. It came back in. I think it was like December. I don’t even remember the year now. But then I could use the image of the book. And the book was still five months out from being released. And I was able to get the images of the book, the fonts, all the typeset, all the look up onto all these social media headers. I was able to get the front in the backs for the YouTube videos. I was able to get a lot of just the watermarking done. And then I was even starting to put out from there the videos about going a little further into this is what I talk about in this chapter.

These are some of the ideas. Here are some of the quotes. I was putting the quotes up through Goodreads, through Quotes.net, OwnQuotes.com and through these other places I was building simultaneously while writing the book. And then yeah, it went to editing and went to, you know, tech editing and proofreading and the whole nine yards and a lot of that stuff. Yeah, that’s down the line. And again, the writing process, it might be a little bit longer for you. Not saying you have to write it in four months, you might write it in two years. But still in the first phase in this security, stability, foundational phase, consider the outline, consider the blueprint.

Brand messaging blueprint strategies for creative careers.

Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book Transcription Continued:

Consider putting this together for yourself, working with someone like me, or working with me on one of these so that you have all the formats in place, so that whether you’re pre pitched to a hybrid, a major, a literary agent, whether you’re doing this yourself and you just want to protect the story as it goes out, whether you want to build up the advanced traction before the book comes out, you’re setting a precedent with a better foundation that’s that much more stable to build and get the exposure you’re looking for.

Consider taking your concept, and this is part of where you protect it as well, into a level where it’s showing up in. It’s almost like blockchain book writing, for lack of a better word, that it’s not just I’m working on a book and it’s coming or something that you pop out on your personal, your business, social media, but that the domain is taken, the social media handles are taken, the outline of what you’re creating is out there. That this begins to showcase a strong, viable product that has the legs to it to run for a long distance.

Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book Transcription Continued:

That idea of stating if you can, multiple audio chapters released over an extended amount amount of time discussing in options if there are other books inside of you or other books that tie to this, that here’s the book that I’m doing, here’s the outline of it, here’s the opening thoughts, closing thoughts, taglines of chapters, tagline of the book as a whole. And from here I would go to here figuring out some of the market and some of the analytics and the brand of where this may impact the best. Not, excuse me, not shortcutting. If this is to be something a little bit bigger than that local little, you know, mom and pop self publishing publishing house that can pop you up on Amazon and print you 500 copies is not going to be the answer. There’s also in between the self, the hybrid.

There’s also investment opportunities, there are ways to go for investment for your books. And once you showcase what’s going on, you may be able to draw out investment. So the main point being and kind of summing things up and then a last thought, prep the best foundation that you can for the authenticity and the authority of your story so that even while you’re in the midst of writing it, you’re promoting it, while you’re building the message across it, you’re marketing it and that you’re already bringing in all the authentic structures prior to the editor, the proofreader, the tech reader. You’re authoring out and advertising what this thing is going to be to the public, to media, to literary agents in advance.

And in the last part of this, and this impacted me with a particular book in the last part, read carefully the contracts and the deals that you get into. Look for the warning signs, look for situations that don’t maybe appear at first. This goes with anything I would say. And I used to say I don’t say it anymore. And I really corrected myself shortly after one of the books came out that I felt a little bit screwed over by a situation that occurred. And in the end it was my fault. It wasn’t.

These people chose to do something that was not very moral, not very ethical and absolutely questionable. And it cost a lot of. But I didn’t take the time to read a section of a contract that I thought I just buzzed across it. It seemed fine to me, but it wasn’t fine. And it cost me a lot in the long run. And while I’m still proud of the work and the work still is out there promoting, there was also a piece of that that it was very harmful, but it was harm that I caused because of my lack of due diligence, my lack of vetting, and my lack of double checking.

If you get right as you’re getting to that point of whether it’s signing or distributing or whatever deal that you might end up cutting, look very carefully. And if you’re not 100% sure and really in all to get a lawyer to review a contract or if you’re really clear on parts of it, to say, okay, I’d like to book this consultant, because there’s this one page or this paragraph or this that I’m a little unclear with. Having that legal person review that with you, it can make all the difference. So in close, consider the brand strategy of your book, the optics of your book, the foundation, even before you’ve written the whole thing.

Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book Transcription Continued:

Consider moving away from the idea of I need to write a book and complete this thing. Before I think about any of that, I say do the very beginning steps simultaneously to create the greatest foundation so that the IP stays yours, so that people know. Begin to learn your quotes, begin to learn parts about your story, things that you can feed into podcasts, into videos, into short videos, into the quotes that go out, into articles, even into parts of it, of a little bit of the story of where you’re at with how you’re writing it and bringing this whole product that goes beyond just the book itself to a finish line that is a starting point for the book, for the subsidiary elements of the book, the ebook, the audiobook, whatever else, the speaking, if there are seminars, whatever else is involved, or if it’s cross promotion of products or your services, whatnot.

But when you add that different view and when you power up a little bit more with this blueprint and this foundation and you have that genuine story, I believe you can have and create a greater impact in media, in the publishing world, and then in the launch, sales and recognition, as well as genuine reviews, and be able to get that just that much further out to the world, that’s all I got. My name is Loren Weisman. Have a good one.

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Podcast

* Loren Weisman is a Brand Communications and Optics Strategist who specializes in illuminating authoritative intelligence and amplifying authentic experts. * Weisman is also the host of the Brand Communications and optics podcast; Wait What Really OK. * LW Website * © 2011 to 2026 Loren Weisman. All Rights Reserved ® ℗ * Brand Strategy Blueprint for Your Book: Steps for Real Authority

Related reading
June 5, 2025
How My Daughter Changed My Approach Podcast Transcription
How My Daughter Changed My Approach Podcast Transcription from How My Daughter Changed My Approach to Business Integrity Podcast.

How My Daughter Changed My Approach

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Podcast

Released on May, 13th, 2025

🎙️ Tune In: Listen to this Wait What Really Ok Podcast Episode How My Daughter Changed My Approach to Business Integrity on Spotify Apple Podcasts iHeart Radio Pandora Amazon Music YouTube and other platforms.

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Podcast Chapters

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction to how my daughter changed my approach 00:25 – My Reflection? My daughter changed my approach 01:09 – Working as a Ghost Drummer 02:24 – Music Industry Deceptions 04:02 – Shifting to TV Production 05:15 – So easily accepted by the public 06:50 – The Artists Guide to Success in the Music Business 08:37 – Transitioning to New Opportunities 09:28 – Couldn’t do the same thing 10:45 – The Revelations in Discoveries 11:50 – The Impact of Fatherhood 12:59 – Pride in my daughter and her awareness 14:46 – Disturbing and dishonest business coaches 15:20 – Not my place to judge but I won’t support that approach 16:03 – Navigating Ethical Dilemmas 16:59 – Selling out the soul 18:14 – The Separation from my ex 19:08 – Moving away from guarantees 21:09 – The Abuse of AI 22:12 – The Role of AI in Business 24:20 – Embracing Transparency and Honesty 25:30 – How My Daughter Changed My Approach Because of my daughter 26:32 – Having to hold things back from her 27:29 – A Message for My Daughter 28:45 – A Message for the Future 29:30 – Final Thought and Conclusion

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Podcast Text Transcription

How My Daughter Changed My Approach to Business Integrity Podcast Transcription

No one, nothing has ever had the impact on me as much as my daughter, and not just as being a father, but what she did to me and how she’s affected me with my work, with my life, with my faith. I point so much of it back to her. So, how my daughter changed my approach… let me count the ways.

My name is Loren Weisman. This is Wait What Really Ok and this episode is titled “How my daughter changed my approach to business integrity”. A podcast that has not been updated all that much. But I’m to trying, trying to get better at that.

And this episode is based around my daughter and how my daughter changed my approach to much of my life. And this may be a little bit more of interest to those that may be working with me or may want to work with me to understand where I come from and where my foundation stands.

And a lot of my foundation and my present foundation has been secured and stabilized and reinforced because of my daughter. I was not an immoral person. I did things that I am not proud of. When I was in the music industry, I did certain albums that I automatically knew were going to go nowhere. I worked as a ghost drummer and as a session drummer. And I remember when the boy band phase was happening.

How my daughter changed my approach continued:

Many of the sort of organizational or investment groups, when it came to that, it wasn’t pick up this one band and develop them. That wasn’t very often the model. It was pick up five to 10 bands. And oftentimes a lot of the session players, they would work with all of them. And the plan really was to get out 1 max 2 and use the others as a write off. So there were times going into the studio and seeing the excitement of some guys thinking, you know, this is it, we’re putting it together, knowing that from a meeting that I had been privy to, that these guys were basically a write off.

And from elements of using songs that were written from them or rearrangements or reproductions, these guys were soon to be dropped and to never be heard of again. And there was a thing that stinks. It stung a little bit. It didn’t bother me as much as I think it would now, but I let it go. And then as I moved into music production, I found myself wanting to work with more authentic artists.

I was hungry to work with artists that could genuinely play. I think that there was a. There was a lift in that. It was, I want this to be better.

But then there was a time in that when it was, okay, you know, we’ll get him, as long as we get him in this range. We’ve got the auto tune. We don’t, you know, it wasn’t. It wasn’t striving to get them to hit the note. It was striving to get them close enough to the note so that autotune could be applied at that time and it wouldn’t be noticeable. It was an aspect of deception. It was the aspect of deception of what a lot of my early career was.

Library of Congress Visit. The psychology and perceptions of a brand misread

How My Daughter Changed My Approach continued:

Where if somebody was too drunk, they didn’t show up, they couldn’t play the part that I would cover it and they would get credit for it and I didn’t complain. And on those sessions I ended up getting more to shut my mouth.

But it was also a deception of what the music industry was. And that was a deception well before I started it. It goes back to the days of Ringo. Wasn’t always Ringo on the drums. Wasn’t always, you know, the Wilson Brothers or Dennis on for The Beach Boys.

There was a lot that came out and it’s less of a thing now. I spoke to somebody a few weeks ago and they were saying, how do you become a ghost drummer? I really think that’s pretty much expired. Many of these bands are coming out flat out stating, oh, we had this session drummer come in and he played the part.

More people are coming out right now explaining and even telling stories of this guy came in. That guy came in to help me out. This guy came in to, you know, fix this. So that’s not really there anymore. There was a part of deception there. And then going into.

As I shifted over into television, it jumped up a bit. There was an infomercial that I worked on and it was fun to do, but it made me physically sick at times in what was being done and what was being made up. And things that were lied to. Briefcases of money being handed to doctors to just sign off to sedate. Oh, yeah, no, this is actually healthy. I endorse this.

Library of Congress Visit. The psychology and perceptions of a brand misread

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Continued

They endorse it because they get a check and there used to be a list through a production company that would state, these are the doctors you go to that will happily endorse whatever you have and say, this is the thing to do and this is the right thing and this is good for your health. Just make sure it’s not even. Make sure the check clears.

Make sure the briefcase of cash gets in their hand. And there was something a little bit off at that time. And it also tied in a little bit to some of the work with the reality shows. And it was just putting out these things where it was a game and it was so well behind the scenes.

And it was amazing how the deception just. It was so easily accepted by the public. We could sit here in a room and come up with this idea. And I remember one particular show and one particular idea. I’m not going to dig into it, I’m not going to name names, but it was this thought of, the public will never go for this. They’ll never buy this.

And then I was on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle and somebody had handed back a USA Today. And this idea that a couple of us had come up with a presentation of, hey, wouldn’t this be cool if we push this out this way? If we pushed it through these channels, made it seem like it was coming more so from the public, but was really contrived and built by us for promotion. And boom, there it goes. And all of a sudden it’s on the COVID of USA Today. And there was this element of going, wow, that’s really cool. And there was an element of, wow, that really isn’t cool.

How My Daughter Changed My Approach continued:

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Podcast Transcription Continued…

This continued on for some time and I got myself. I knew I had to get out of Los Angeles. And I know that there are. I’m not saying all la, and I know that there are some moral and ethical and faithful people that still work there, but the energy of it and the vibe of it, it just wasn’t there. And getting out of there, it was. I mean, it was good for me. It was good for me. I’d gone onto a book tour for the summer and it was this idea of not going back.

It’s, you know, the end result was to go somewhere else and not to return there and only to go back to LA for a specific date, if need be, for a specific job, if need be, and not anymore. And as I shifted the, the, the second book that I wrote, I had formatted because I was starting to touch base with other businesses.

And it was as I was going into the messaging and the branding and the optics, communications. And the second book opened up many more doors outside of music. The Artist’s guide to success in the music business was for musicians.

Yet a lot of the people and the buyers were parents of musicians, friends of musicians, spouses of musicians. And it was. It served well. It was. It was what I wanted it to be. It was sharing that this is a viewpoint from all my experiences, from all my albums, not some here’s the trick or here’s the template, because there isn’t one. And here, you know, in some of these books that were put out in the music industry, it was somebody that had one linear line of success.

And so then they tried to attribute that as the answer of all success, which is just not true. And so I Was proud of how that put out. That was put out. And it became exciting to me to experience people that were outside of music starting to reach out. It was confusing at first, but I started working with real estate companies, small businesses. I worked with a law firm, I worked with a hospital. I worked with a group of some, you know, individuals. I worked with some media professionals.

How my daughter changed my approach continued:

I even helped some other consultants and coaches. I was still doing stuff with record labels, I was still doing stuff with independent artists, a couple larger scale artists. But it was this great shift at the time into working with other businesses. And as I found myself enjoying that and moving away from music and moving away from entertainment.

And I loved what music was and I loved what entertainment was. And I was asked the other day, like, but do you miss it? Do you miss drumming? Do you miss the studio? No, I don’t.

I loved it for what it was, but when I was a drummer, I practiced many, many hours a day. And I love the practice. And then I go right to playing. And I love playing and I love the audiences and I loved the studio. I love the one off experiences of it was you go in and you’re only with a band for a night and learning the charts or writing, even sometimes writing the charts on the plane on the way there and then returning and never hearing from them again.

To me, that was more satisfying than looking at some of these bands that have just been together forever playing the same songs. You know, they put out the new material, but they play the same songs every night. And then they go out on that next tour and maybe they’ll pop out a new album.

But it’s the old songs that people want. That to me would have been torture. And so at that time when I was a musician, to be able to jump around to just hit from, it’s gonna be a jazz thing this night. It’s gonna be pop here, it’s gonna be rock, it’s gonna be metal, it’s gonna be reggae.

How my daughter changed my approach continued:

That was fun and it was beautiful and it was exciting because I didn’t know what it would bring, I didn’t know how it would go. I didn’t know the people that I was necessarily working with. So it was just brand new experiences over and over and over again. And for that I loved it. And so when I got out of that and I started shifting to more of the communication, more of the optics, more of the strategies with, you know, elements that were outside of music and entertainment.

It was sometimes bringing an entertainment eye to something that was outside of entertainment, but staying out of entertainment, staying outside of music. And as people started to call and I got involved, I was involved at the time with, you know, there were some shady businesses, there were some shady individuals.

And in that, you know, I’d start. I’d start a project. And then as I dug in, when I do my discoveries, it reveals a lot. And with some of these people, it was, well, this is great money.

I’m just going to let this go.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuTDgH-9A7E[/embedyt]

How My Daughter Changed My Approach continued:

There was one particular couple, it was. It came. It came away very soon that not only was their business shady, but that they were even harming other people. And what I was doing inside of the communication and the optics was presenting the image that they wanted to have come across, the optic that they wanted to have come across as strong as possible, which is something I love to do.

The problem with it was it was to hide what they were really doing. And it was around this time that my daughter was born. And it had a massive impact on me. It felt bad for that. But then it was really this experience of holding my daughter the first time I had a sense of how she was impacting me and how my daughter changed my approach from the minute she was born.

And I was moving away from some of the more immoral practices in business, in music and entertainment, outside of it. But it was this feeling of, how am I going to be the best father? Who am I going to be to you? What can I share with you as you grow, and how can I share it? And what would I need to hide from you? And that had the biggest impact on me. And it started me changing in what and who I was working with. It was an element of, I can’t just do this to do this to make money. I can’t just do this to survive, to support, to profit. This realization in it self was a big part of how my daughter changed my approach.

It has to be on a completely different level. It has to be something where with transparency in the stuff that I discuss inside of communication, that transparency had to be there for my daughter with me. And in that, it shifted me. And yes, it cost me some money.

It was making a little bit less, it was being more picky. There were times when I was going, well, you know what? Be easier, be less time, be more fun to just pop this this way. But I couldn’t do that anymore. And I was proud of that shift. I was proud of through my daughter in her early years that she could come into my office, in the house, and she could sit and draw. There was nothing that she had to be kept from. That was a big part of the transparency in How My Daughter Changed My Approach.

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Podcast Transcription Continued…

The conversations I had were not, okay, you can’t overhear this. And she was great. She was quiet. She knew when I was on the phone. She knew through Covid, when I was on Zoom, she would, you know, excuse me. I mean, it was her. The way, even if she needed to interrupt, it was perfect. She really was just so aware of the surroundings and when I was working and what she could do. And, I mean, she knew if I was on a phone call, she could come in and even sit on my lap and just hug and hold me and be quiet while I was on the phone.

And she also knew if I was on Zoom that she couldn’t necessarily do that. I mean, she’s just. She’s. She’s amazing. But as. As she grew and as she grew on me, I thought about the elements of what I want to be able to present to her and not say, okay, yes, okay, I’d love to be, you know, uber wealthy and be able to provide every absolute thing that you could ever need, and that would be great.

But however, inside of that wealth, what is that at the expense of? And that’s something that affects me to who I work with and who I will work with. I will not profit at the expense of anyone. I’m not going to just throw something out there. And it’s become a scary time that people are trained to do this.

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Continued:

This is how you sell. This is how you 10x. I mean, these 10xers, this 10x thing. I think Grant Cardone is mentally disturbed. I do not like the man. I respect he’s got his business, I respect, he’s got his success, but where he’s chosen to go with his morals, fine, that’s on him.

But the presentation and the presence of what he shares, and, I mean, it goes the same for the cats like Gary Vee and Tony Robbins, and I think that they must have fantastic, amazing, outstanding lawyers that protect them, that set up settlements, because some of the things that they’ve shared and some of the things that they’ve done and some of the things that they’ve kept hidden, it feels very off to me.

To each their own. I’m no judge, I’m no jury. I just know I can’t operate that way.

And it’s scary to me when these businesses that just say, okay, I’ve got to raise my prices, and this whole, you need to raise your price to this. Do you. Are you doing that because the value of your service or your product is worth it? Or are you just buying into this because you’re trying to make more money for you?

We’ve come into a I’ll screw anyone over culture and not care, but at the same time present this. Oh, I’m just Loving. Oh, I just want to see everyone succeed. Oh, I’m so. I feel so humbled that I made this money on breaking the backs and hurting who these cats like, the dude that they’ve, you know, put up on a pedestal. The.

Was it Jordan Belfort? The dude they did the thing, the movie Wolf of Wall Street. This is a celebrated criminal that hurt people. And now some of his new optic and his message. Oh, it was all, you know, it was all wealthy people, and they could handle the loss.

So you’re admitting it’s fine that you took a whole bunch of money from wealthy people, but you’re also not talking about how you screwed over small people, how you harm people, how people, I mean, that were that negatively impacted, and yet it’s shoved to the side. And you see the optic and the constant trend that keeps coming up about sell me a pen.

How My Daughter Changed My Approach. My daughters impact on me.

How I work now and working with me

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Continued:

No, to me it sounds like sell me your soul. You sold out, in my opinion, a total sellout. And claiming, no, he’s in this better place and he’s learned all this? I don’t think so. And I think that that’s scary. And even right now, there’s been some things that have happened to me in the last couple years that have been just absolutely devastating that I’m still fighting through right now.

And I’m able to operate. I’m able to work with people. I haven’t been able to get out and speak. I’m in a. I guess you could say health crisis and dealing with a series of surgeries that have to take place and dealing with a whole bunch of issues that I never. I never imagined and never fathomed, I have never been in as much pain physically and. And even on some levels, emotionally as I have in these last two years.

Yet in the middle of everything that’s happening, and even in the middle of a time where I’ve been away from my daughter due to an incredibly unfortunate, you know, period, this finalization of a, you know, to. To state it, lightly contentious divorce.

And it’s not something new. I. I was not with my. My ex. We were. We were apart. Apart seven years ago. But it felt the. The. The intensity of certain things that happened in the past couple years, and then the finalization of it. It. It. It’s been. It’s been something. But even in the middle of all of that, I will not work with someone that is trying to get.

Get somewhere or get something over someone else. I will not work with a fraud. I will not work with anyone that I can’t immediately get on the phone or Facetime with my daughter and tell, this is who I’m working with, this is their product, this is their service. Because she’s interested and she wants to know, I will not hide that thing and I’m not going to shortcut, I’m not going to harm someone. I mean, it’s. What is it that Hippocratic oath that doctors take. Be nice if we saw more people inside of business development, inside of strategy, inside of communications taking the same thing. Harm no one, only do good.

It would be interesting to see someone sign, or a series of people sign that as a document guaranteeing the guarantees and not making the promises where they shouldn’t make the promises, because too many do make promises.

I guarantee your business, I guarantee your product, I guarantee your online presence, your YouTube views, your monetization, your sales. Sales, your distribution. And you turn around and you go to some of these people and something I’ve shared with my clients said, you know what, all this guarantee stuff they have online, make sure that when you do something with them that they have that guarantee written down. Not the one not on social media, on a contract with you, that if that stuff does not come through and present that you’re.

How my daughter changed my approach continued:

You’ve got your guarantee and you’ve got your money back or you’ve got whatever. And it’s funny to hear them on, almost not funny to see, oh, well, we can’t exactly do this. And there’s certain things here, you know, you look at the small print still, it’s a lie. I ask people, just as I do, to step away from the claims. I ask people, just as I do that I hold clients accountable.

I can work with you with your communications, your optics, your messaging. I can help you through a series of different areas, an array of options. However, if you’re not going to do the work, the continuity of it, if you’re not going to put to the solid foundation of it, it’s not going to work in the long run to switch out from something and say, okay, I’m going to build and develop this to.

I’m just going to cross over to AI and do three simple prompts. And that’s what I’m going to use. It will fail because it’s not artificial intelligence. It’s almost this algorithmic popularity. And AI is for another day. And there are people, oh, you know, I can, I can just get your information, I can just get what you do on AI if you can, good for you.

I’ve not really found that with a lot of people and they say, oh, it’s just fixing your prompt and doing this. It’s a little bit more than that. And there are a lot of people that choose to use AI and they use it. I mean, it’s in such immoral and awful ways, and yet it’s so heavily promoted.

Musical Influences that impacted me

How my daughter changed my approach continued:

I mean, there are guys that are bragging on there saying, gosh, you look like your stuff looks like it’s from a major brand, looks like it’s from your major competitor. I mean, are you stealing their stuff? Is that illegal? No, it’s not illegal. I can go in and I can. I can copy all this stuff through this AI prompt. I can figure this out, copy it, and then shift it just enough to make it mine. It comes. It comes in just crossing too many lines for me. And I. And I’m not knocking AI.

There are things inside of AI. There are things inside of prompts, inside of organizing that can be incredibly helpful, but at the same time to sit there and steal and come up with things that aren’t yours. These people that come up with AI books, they pop in, you know, what should be my chapters? Okay, what should be in here?

They’re filling this in, and then they’re bragging and claiming they’re an author. I don’t even call myself an author anymore. I have three books, and I’ve worked with a number of authors on a number of other books in formatting them. I don’t take any credit to that, because right now, to be an author, it seems to be a simple task and a simple prompt that you pop into AI.

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Podcast Transcription Continued…

And that, to me, is a problem. Staying in this idea of where it changed me, how my daughter changed my approach, and where my daughter changed me, all of this grew and continued to get stronger. And even in these times with this stuff that I’m dealing with, with my health, when I’m on the phone or FaceTime or seeing my daughter, I’m prepared to tell her what I’m doing, how I’m doing it, and why I’m doing it.

And in that is honesty, and in that is love. And if I can’t do that directly with her, then what I’m doing is wrong. And I don’t want to be wrong. I enjoy working with those that maybe they were in the same position, maybe they were doing. Maybe there’s been a calling on them, whether it’s a child or something else that’s brought them to a place of going. I can’t work the way I used to work.

Maybe it’s something inside of them saying, I’ve got To I gotta flip the switch. I’ve got to adjust, to do right, I’ve got to do it the right way or I’m having a hard time standing out where all these people are shortcutting, where they’re popping up claims, where they’re making hype, where they’re stealing, where they’re lying, where they’re cheating.

And those people that don’t want to join that crowd but want to stand firm on stability, with security, with love, with faith, those are the people I want to connect with because those are the people I feel happy to share with my daughter and say, this is what I’m doing, this is what I’m building, this is what I’m working on with this person.

My sort of vetting stance for a client. If I get in into a discovery, if I get into development, if I get into even strategic sessions. And I am not 100% sure that I can share what I’m not giving my daughter all the every single detail, but that I can’t share the basics of what is happening, that I’m working with someone I shouldn’t be working with.

And yes, it was that way for a long time. And I did a lot of things I’m not proud of in the music days, in the television days. But the impact that my daughter had, that I will not settle, that I will not lower a standard, that my standards have been raised up by her, is everything to me. My daughter is my inspiration to do the work that I do.

My daughter is the inspiration to get healthy again from the things that have happened. Just one of the ways in how my daughter changed my approach to so many different parts of my life.

How my daughter changed my approach continued:

My daughter is the inspiration for how I’ve found new elements in communication and new ways of understanding how to communicate. That is a key element in how my daughter changed my approach.Because of her. She is at the root of my business. She is at the root of my heart and at my soul. And it’s because of her that I’ll only work with those that I know are true to heart, true to form, true to honor, because I have to be that for my daughter.

I can’t hide and say, okay, I’m just going to be so honest with you and I’m going to share all these things, but I’m going to hide this over here. It’s hard to hold things back. It’s hard. And it’s not about bad mouthing an ex, but kind of sucks when there’s, you know, things in those divorce decrees and whatnot.

You can’t discuss this and you can’t share this and you can’t state this and it’s not bashing the ex, but it’s unfortunate that there are times that legally I can’t discuss that. And it’s not in like, okay, I need to get that out and I need you to know. But to hold anything back from her harms me. It hurts me, and I don’t want to.

Now, legally, there I have to. And even with some of the confidentiality agreements from the past that are, you know, were signed for a very long period of time, there’s certain stuff that has to be held off.

But I’d rather with everything that I can share with everyone that I’m around, that I can openly share it with my daughter. And I close with this thought and maybe this is a little bit of a ramble and not something that many people will listen to, but maybe it just feels good to say, maybe it’s something that my daughter will come upon someday and listen to this podcast and hear it and know.
I know that she knows where I stand.
But maybe this will, in the end be a reminder for one and a reminder for her and exactly how my daughter changed my approach.

And if you’re listening at some point in the future,

I love you, Olivia. You are my everything. You have changed my mind. You have amplified my faith. You have made me a better man. You’ve made me a better strategist, a better communicator. You’ve made me better for what I do and how I do it and picking carefully who I do it with. And I owe so much of that to you. And I love you very, very much.

How my daughter changed my approach to business integrity continued:How my daughter changed my approach continued:

And to anybody else, I hope, I pray that when you choose to switch paths, maybe from doing something a little iffy to standing on a better ground, that you build up to that point that you could communicate with your family, with your loved ones, with total transparency, with total love, the ability to profit and expand and extend, but not at the expense of hurting anyone else.

And in that many of us doing it together, what kind of impact and how great would that be for young entrepreneurs, for older entrepreneurs, for businesses to, in the time and age where accountability is shoved to the side, if the volume on accountability could be turned up, if expectations could be raised, if morals, honor, all of that could just be turned up and amplified that much more. What an impact that could make for business. In how my daughter changed my approach, it was the biggest impact to me.

Fake Authors Using AI. Podcast Links and Transcription

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Podcast Transcription Continued…

And at the same time, how much could that protect businesses, consumers and others that go out there to expect just a little bit more, a little bit more, and look in just a little bit deeper, to make sure that the people that they’re involved with, that they’re working with, that they’re buying from, that they’re selling to stand just a little bit stronger.

I think that would be amazing. I think that would be everything. And while I can’t change the world, I’ve made that change for me and for my daughter, Olivia. And in that, and even in the times and the health and all that, I can still stand strong. I can still be proud of what I’m doing, how I’m handling what’s in front of me and how I work with people and who I work with.

So probably because it’s more of who knows how many years down the line for Olivia. I love you. For others, stand your ground or find your ground off of what you know. Because when you can be that open and that honest, it may just open up that many more doors and the right doors for what could be something that you could never imagine and be so much greater and so much more profitable in your heart, in your mind, and in your soul.

I’m Loren Weisman. This was a podcast about how my daughter changed my approach and what I would call a different and interesting episode of Wait What Really Ok. And I’ll call it there.

How My Daughter Changed My Approach to Business Integrity Podcast Transcription

* Loren Weisman is a Brand Communications and Optics Strategist who specializes in illuminating authoritative intelligence and amplifying authentic experts. * Weisman is also the host of the Brand Communications and optics podcast; Wait What Really OK. * LW Website * © 2011 to 2026 Loren Weisman. All Rights Reserved ® ℗ * How My Daughter Changed My Approach Podcast Transcription from How My Daughter Changed My Approach to Business Integrity Podcast.

Related reading
May 13, 2025
Shop local shaming and small business messaging missteps.
Shop local shaming and small business messaging missteps is the topic and touch point for s8. E6. n129. of the Wait What Really OK brand communications and optics podcast.

Shop local shaming and small business messaging missteps.

If you are telling me how terrible I am for shopping somewhere else and how I need to shop local or shop at your place, where does that create a desire to do so?

Using guilt, shaming and passive aggressive behavior and tactics to try to attract customers tends to deliver the opposite results.

When we take a step back and look at the situation as well as the perceptions of others, it can allow for a more engaging messaging in the advertising that can invite and market that many more people to local shopping.

The Full Episode of this podcast can be found here on Castbox as well as on most sites, stations and apps where you may like to listen to podcasts.

Shop local shaming and small business messaging missteps.

Full transcription of this podcast

On the other side of it, focusing only shop local shaming style campaigns and using a yell, tell, sell and insulting vibe is not drawing people in, it is pushing them away.

Moving the methodology and strategy of small business messaging to a place of authenticity, humility and respectful engagement can bring greater results.

Aggressive and fear messaging tends to keep other people’s walls up and ears closed. So many of the campaigns tend to trash the corporate stores and big business, while making an obligation statement about what you need to do, what you have to do and why you have to help, by shopping local.

You can get your point across without being rude. At the same time, being honorable and do not be selfish.

And… Telling me I don’t care about my community because I didn’t buy a product locally can be taken as very offensive, very assuming as well as very judgmental.

“Invite by explaining about you and your store. Market by educating about what you have. Message by sharing why it can be an advantage to buy from you… And consider staying in an authentic, sympathetic and relatable tone.”

It might not be true for everyone.

And, even in all of it, there is truth, but it is not going to be true for everyone. It is contradicting where someone having a hard time with their local business is telling others they are supposed to shop with them.

Yet, they give no consideration that those people might not be able to afford the costs required or for that matter, the ease of shopping.

By flipping the switch and considering a different way to explain with small business messaging that honors everyone, the chances of opening up that many more minds can happen.

Moving from shop local shaming with aggressive and fear messaging to a place of love and engagement can do worlds of good.

“Invite by explaining about you and your store, market by educating about what you have, message by sharing why it can be an advantage to buy from you and stay in an authentic, sympathetic and relatable tone.”

Consider taking a more honorable, understanding and respectful approach to draw in customers over using tactics that tend to insult, shame and push people away.

Shop local shaming and small business messaging missteps…

is the topic and touch point for s8. E6. n129. of the Wait What Really OK brand communications and optics podcast.

Top 100 Loren Weisman Quotes: Considerations for Branding, Communication and Marketing

This brand communications and optics podcast is available here on Podbean as well as on most sites, stations and apps where you may like to listen to podcasts.

Episode Podcast Links: Pandora iHeartRadio Apple Podcasts Amazon Music Spotify Radio.com Spreaker Radio Public Stitcher Google Podcasts * Opening Theme Song Credit What Really Ok Theme Song” by RKVC. Copyright 2016 eMbloh Music (ASCAP)/ Cienzo Music (BMI). Administered by Ass Backwards Music (ASCAP)/Bass Ackwards Music (BMI) RKVC Website * Closing Theme Song Credit: “News and Information Podcast Percussion Outro” by Doug Hinrichs. Copyright 2016 Dig And Be Dug Music (BMI). Administered by Bass Ackwards Music (BMI). Doug Hinrichs Website

* Loren Weisman is a Brand Communications and Optics Strategist who specializes in illuminating authoritative intelligence and amplifying authentic experts. * Weisman is also the host of the messaging and optics podcast; Wait What Really OK. * LW Website * © 2011 to 2026 Loren Weisman. All Rights Reserved ® ℗ * Shop local shaming and small business messaging missteps.

Related reading
April 5, 2025
Brand Messaging Mission Statement and Brand Communications Methodology
My Brand Messaging Mission Statement and Brand Communications is the topic and touch point for s8. E5. n128. of the Wait What Really OK Podcast (Repeat – Old Episode).

My Brand Messaging Mission Statement and Brand Communications Methodology…

Or brand messaging and optics mandate of sorts from Loren Weisman sharing his views from the culmination of his experiences and education that leads him to approach brand messaging this way.

There is a Mission Statement shared in a famous movie that is titled as

“The things we think and do not say: the future of our business.”

In a little flip on words and a focus on brand messaging, optics and communications,

I would call my Brand Messaging Mission Statement and Brand Communications Methodology;

My Brand Messaging Mission Statement: 30 Minute Podcast Version and Loren’s Brand Communications and Optics Strategist Intro

This is my brand messaging mission statement and Brand Communications Methodology.

My view on what I do and why I do it…

as well as why I believe part of the root issue lays in how we say…

what we think we are supposed to say,

what we are told to say and

what to say in order to funnel, entice, and sell.

Still, to me what is missing in the messaging of many is the authenticity, the authority, the humility and the integrity of each individuals story.

To me, when messaging is built on the strongest foundation with the best soil (rooted in the right foundation to grow), every piece of content, every marketing element, every story and every event will compound the brand and its messaging to make conversions to connections and sales faster and more affordable.

Not trying to be like the Fonz and jump the shark or the great white shark they just found in Miami, but more so, attempting to showcase who I am and where I come from regarding messaging.

“Methodically messaging in a harmony of honor, humility, authenticity and authority may create more resonation for your story to be heard by that many more connections.”

All too often, brands and businesses are pulled toward the momentary marketing and messaging tactics of the here, the now, the spam and the attack that is becoming less effective.

Many look to get likes, views, shares, comments and reviews, but they do not look to engage, share, connect and allow a greater connection that in turn. Allows for greater results in the long term. These short cuts end up costing much more in the end.

To me and part of my brand messaging mission statement bullet points…

◦           When the messaging is build with the authenticity to connect, there are better bonds in those connections.

◦           When the messaging is rooted in authority, trust is able to grow in the best ways.

◦           When a brand and the messaging is protected, it allows for the security of the voice, and that messaging to stay true.

◦           When a brand and its messaging showcases clarity in its story, it helps to differentiate from anyone else copying.

◦           When a brand and its messaging maintains consistency, every piece of content, story or advertisement compounds.

◦           When a brand and its messaging showcases compliance, it protects itself, it is investors and its reputation.

◦           Lastly, when a brand and its messaging maintains engagement…it draws more people to stay engaged and not feel sold, pressured or pushed. It allows for the new customer to be drawn in as much as the existing customer wants to stay engaged. By using the strategic patience as well as telling your story not someone else’s…

the result allows for the authenticity, authority and integrity to sing its own melody with its own story while standing out from the harmony and unison many others showcase.

Methodically messaging in a harmony of honor, humility, authenticity and authority may create more resonation for your story to be heard by that many more connections.
In our honest and honor to the truth and to our story, we can build and connect in truth, not the false truth we wish to appear as. Our journey and our experiences may change our story, but when all messaging is connected to the truth and not created for the hype, the ability to connect will grow.

Brand messaging blueprint strategies for creative careers.

Brand messaging mission statement and message methodology is the topic and touch point for s8. E5. n187. of the Wait What Really OK brand messaging podcast.

This brand communications podcast is available on most sites, stations and apps where you may like to listen to podcasts.

In our humility and in our understanding of not following those trying to tell us how our stories are supposed to go… and switching those concepts out for the structuring of your authentic story and a strategy that is tailored for you, the results will allow for a true resonation of truth and not just overly saturated and overly generated false hype.

In recap of sorts.. My Brand Messaging Mission Statement and Brand Communications Methodology: 30 Minute Podcast Version and Loren’s Messaging Intro and links

* Brand Messaging and Communications Podcast Listening Links for this episode Pandora Apple Podcasts Amazon Music iHeartRadio Radio.com Spotify Spreaker Castbox Stitcher Radio Public Google Podcasts Podbean Podcast Addict * Wait What Really OK Podcast Music Credits 1: Opening Theme Song “Fully Licensed Wait What Really Ok Theme Song” by RKVC. Copyright 2016 eMbloh Music (ASCAP)/ Cienzo Music (BMI). Administered by Ass Backwards Music (ASCAP)/Bass Ackwards Music (BMI) RKVC Website * Wait What Really OK Podcast Music Credits 2: Closing Theme Song “News and Information Podcast Percussion Outro” by Doug Hinrichs. Copyright 2016 Dig And Be Dug Music (BMI). Administered by Bass Ackwards Music (BMI). Doug Hinrichs Website *

* Loren Weisman is a Brand Communications and Optics Strategist who specializes in illuminating authoritative intelligence and amplifying authentic experts. * Weisman is also the host of the messaging and optics podcast; Wait What Really OK. * LW Website * © 2011 to 2026 Loren Weisman. All Rights Reserved ® ℗ * My Brand Messaging Mission Statement and Brand Communications Methodology

Related reading
March 26, 2025