Brand Communications and Optics Strategist Loren Weisman

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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

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August 9, 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.

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May 13, 2025
Messaging Before Marketing Transcription
Messaging Before Marketing Transcription for the Messaging before marketing to create a sound foundation Podcast from Wait What Really OK.

Messaging before marketing transcription

Release date – September 10, 2020 (United States)

🎙️ Tune In: Listen to this Wait What Really Ok Podcast Episode Messaging before marketing to create a sound foundation on Spotify Apple Podcasts Pandora Amazon Music Youtube and other platforms.

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Messaging Before Marketing Transcription Chapters

Messaging Before Marketing Transcription Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction to Messaging Before Marketing 01:07 – Common Marketing Problems & Pitfalls 02:41 – Why Marketing Hurts Brands Without Messaging 04:19 – Building a Strong Messaging Foundation 06:48 – Authenticity in Brand Messaging Strategy 08:30 – Maintaining Messaging Integrity Across Platforms 10:03 – Steps to Create Effective Messaging Plans 12:55 – Avoiding Marketing Hype & Assumptions 15:14 – Aligning Messaging with Business Goals 17:28 – Compliance & Security in Brand Messaging 19:10 – Engaging Audiences with Authentic Content 21:30 – Messaging as a Strategic Branding Tool 24:36 – Final Thoughts on Messaging before marketing

Messaging before marketing transcription text

Messaging Before Marketing Transcription

Song: Wait What Really Really 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 Really Ok.

Loren: Hi, this is Loren Weisman. This is the Wait What Really Really Ok. Podcast, a brand messaging podcast. And today I’m talking about the concept of messaging before marketing.

Messaging before marketing, to create a sound foundation before you go to advertising, before you go to PR and before you go to marketing. I’m going to identify, and it’s not every single marketing agency, but I’m going to identify a very common, very high percentage of marketers that showcase a problem that end up hurting and harming many businesses, entrepreneurs, products, startups and even establishing establish businesses.

And then I’m going to go into a concept and an idea to consider when it comes to your messaging, that it might even be time right now, if you can, to put the brakes on a marketing campaign, to put the brakes on marketing as a whole and make sure that your messaging and the messaging palette for your business, your brand, your product, your service is there, it’s sound, it’s laid out and then the restart, the reset, re-ignition of marketing to work with maybe who you were working with already or finding the people that can market and stay on point, resonating, stay with the foundation of what you’ve created.

So in breaking this down in a couple parts, the first part is the problem. I’m going to run through some things that you might be experiencing or maybe you’ve even been questioning. There are a lot of businesses that find themselves deep into a marketing deal, deep in with a pr, a publicist, an advertising plan, and it just doesn’t feel right to them. And then they continue to move on with it because they get a lot of hearsay and they get a lot of information about, oh, we just need to do this. Oh, it takes time.

Yes, marketing does take time, but is it taking too much time? And is this marketing company person, whoever, making it almost like it’s going to take that much longer, that it’s going to be that much more challenging or at the same time harming your brand, your messaging or what you’ve created in the first place?

Authentic messaging strategies for transitioning businesses

Messaging Before Marketing Transcription Continued:

Then I’m going to go into a couple different ideas to keep in mind to put in check, to say, do I have these things in place? And maybe they might be there on the tip of your tongue. Maybe it’s not an entire, you know, revamp.

In some cases it can be, but maybe it’s not an entire revamp. And some of the things that are just so obvious to you, adding that to your messaging, getting away from the assumptions, getting away from the issues of what you think you’re supposed to be doing, according to a lot of these hype, popular professionals that don’t necessarily know what they’re talking about has pushed your authenticity and your authority to the side.

I believe, I hope that in some of these words that they reignite words in your mind that maybe you just put to the side saying, well, I don’t need this. Maybe you do and maybe it’s right there. And then lastly, the sort of checklist, if you will, of some things to hit before you go to marketing.

And then when you go to marketing or you go to a marketing person, whether it’s online, whether it’s physical, a mix of both a publicist that you are in tune and resonating with them and understand what they’re doing with you, not necessarily what they’re doing for you. Because sometimes when you’re unaware, your reputation online can be harmed by the static template, overly hyped, spamming marketers that are doing you more harm than good. So first, let’s identify.

I call them the four A’s.

I’m not big into the whole acronyms and this and that, but here are the four A’s. Are you marketing or is somebody marketing you in authenticity and authority? Or are they marketing in the other two A’s? Assumptions and arrogance.

And many companies, many brands, they’re pushing through to marketing companies in assumptions and in arrogance. And sometimes the intention isn’t even there. The individual is saying, well, this is what we have. This is the best thing in the world. Would you want to hear somebody else say that? Could you say this is the best in front of 10 high level, relatable, comparative, competitive businesses?

It’s not losing your confidence, but it’s removing the arrogance and being as inviting and engaging to those that may be competing with you. Because there’s plenty of room in all these markets as those that you’re trying to capture. It’s hard to make mention of that right now when you’ve got so much negativity around different political campaigns where it’s, I don’t want you to vote for this person because they did this, or, you know, they’re naming out things and sometimes they’re legitimate.

Messaging Before Marketing Transcription Continued:

But it goes so incredibly negative. And even if you’re in politics, maybe it’s time to go more toward that authenticity and not come off with that arrogance still here. When you have the messaging and maybe even differentiating some marketing People say, oh, we do the messaging. What are they doing in the research of the messaging?

That’s where the number one problem I find lays. They want to look for a bio, they want to look for a poster, they want to look for a template. They want to fit you into a box so they can get to the part where they’re pushing you out via online ads, via content, via areas where, in the end, for many of these people, this is where they’re making the bulk of their money.

This creative standpoint for marketing agencies, it costs them too much. They don’t want to spend a lot of time there because they’re not making the revenues that they want. They can make a lot more money in automating a marketing campaign. And again, this is not everyone.

There are some legitimate, authentic, you know, they have integrity, they have morals, but they’re also limited and they’re a rare find. You find a lot of people, you find a lot of organizations. They just want to push and they want to get to that point. So the messaging isn’t that important.

And because it’s not that important, here’s the new tagline. What if that Tagline belongs to 20 other people? Here’s the new pitch that we’re going to do. Oh, we all loved it in this room. Okay. Everybody in the room love to pitch. How about, is that pitch similar to something else? Does it have negative connotations? Does it compare?

Does it compete with another one? Is the timing of that pitch really. Is the wording in that going to resonate? Or is it hitting with something you really don’t want to touch on?

These are some of the psychological, the strategic, and the fundamental foundational aspects that are oftentimes skipped in those marketers that claim, oh, we’ll knock out the bio. And yes, that bio can look good and it can be great and it can be in English and it might have better grammar than I write.

Still, in writing that and keeping in this closed door of marketing, the intention that you have and then aligning the intentions with a marketing agency without looking at the perceptions and all the other elements inside of an audience that’s receiving spam and advertising and marketing every day on everything, without those considerations, in some ways, you’re flying a little blind. Now, here’s some elements, and jot these down.

If, if it’s of any help. Are you identifying, auditing, and reviewing these three sections, these core discovery elements of your brand? And sometimes it may be time to get somebody else to look at. Maybe you’re too close, but you’re identifying the pros, the cons. Are you identifying the aspects and understanding the actions that have been taken to date and the mistakes that you’re not trying to shove under the rug, but recognize and see? What are we doing with these? How are we handling these?

As challenging as it can be from businesses to relationships to anything else, if we ground ourselves in the respect…

All of that comes in a great level of humility that gives information that can help, that can create the right message, that can create the right brand. And it’s not just reviewing for right now, next week, next month, it’s looking across and the next three, the core timeframes. Are you looking where you are in the present? Call it the utopian, the past, the traditional and the plan for the future. The existential.

Is your messaging in what you’re putting out, the shockwave you send out in the moment. Is that being looked at from where you came from and where things are going next? When you’re looking at the trifecta of a timeline, that consideration can be so incredibly helpful to the uniformity of your messaging.

And your messaging will change, it will shift, it will alter, things will move. But when the root and the foundation of the brand and the brand messaging and the core foundation is locked in place, then you move, you switch, you swivel, you change.

Maybe the blueprints are slightly altered for this floor, but your foundation was laid with the consideration that things would change. So it doesn’t send the entire building crumbling down. Now, the operational touch points of your messaging and even this messaging. Remember, messaging is not just the words. It’s not the bio, it’s not the cell.

It’s the messaging inside of the operational aspects of what you have, the protective, the secure aspects, the compliant aspects. Let’s look into the world of cbd. Look into the world of cannabis, thc.

Messaging Before Marketing Transcription Continued:

Look into the world right now of vaccines, different health things, how you can make claims, how things can be mistaken, misunderstood and they can come back to visit you later to create more problems.

One of the roots of foundational messaging in the compliance and the protection and the security is that element of the messaging. From the look to the feel to not only the words that are going out to the public, but the documentation from the non disclosure agreements, the confidentiality agreements.

Your messaging is bigger than marketing and knowing how you’re protected in that protection too, in how you’re protected, it can allow an investor, a sponsor, a partner to feel that much more safe to get involved with you or to gift you something or donate or invest.

That’s the messaging. That’s where it goes in to the security, it goes into the Compliance, it’s not just what you’re putting out there to the world, it’s what you have going on behind closed doors. Is your brand, your brand messaging.

The messaging that you’re putting out, the messaging internally in the company, the, the privacy, the security, the compliance, is that all set in a solid foundation that can be trusted? If it’s not, it’s going to make it, it’s going to make problems for the, the marketing, messaging and everything else that you put out.

People look, look at it from a campaign standpoint, come a circle back around to politics. How much is cleaned up in your foundation and what is prepared for if somebody is going to come at you. And there are many people that are specifically doing that. They’re attacking companies, they’re attacking products, they’re attacking brands.

People say, I don’t need these documents. We’ll deal with that later. Different companies that are sending things themselves that don’t necessarily have the liability and the delivery and return coverage of Amazon, those are spotlighted by people. They want to get a bad package, they want to insert something into it, they want to set up for a lawsuit.

You have people out there that are looking to destroy you. It’s not being overly negative, it’s not a conspiracy theory. There are specifically people out there that are thinking the best way to make money for them is to attack somebody else that can showcase a weakness. And when they identify that weakness, they’re coming after you.

And it’s not saying that you have to be perfectly strong and your foundation has to be completely done. But having that blueprint, that messaging in place before you go to marketing can set you up to be that much more secure, that much more sound and that much more strong.

Messaging Before Marketing Transcription Continued:

Looking over the methodology, the morals, and not just here are our core values. I don’t care. And many people don’t care about your core values. And this is the difference between words and messaging. Is your messaging standing in authenticity, in integrity, in intelligence?

And is that integrity, intelligence, performing across all your internal documents, your external documents, your marketing, your messaging, your advertising, your branding, when it is now you’re harmonizing in a way that’s going to be a lot more challenging to attack and at the same time, in a way that can build trust so much more organically and authentically than going to some spam campaign.

Let’s say, well, we’re going to try this and then we’re going to do this massive ad campaign, we’re just going to push here. And then, well, nothing came from it. We’ll try this differently, I like to see. And this is a very specific example, but it’s amazing to me where people will push a massive online ad and they push it everywhere. They don’t test individual markets.

Why not take that time to say, hey, I’m going to push something out in the Southwest, maybe San Diego, I’m going to do it for a week and then I’m going to try some other campaign and then I’ll do something up in Boston, the Northeast, maybe I’ll do something down in Orlando and then go up to Seattle. These small little tests. And this is a different element that comes with the metrics.

And understand also, though, let’s hit with the metrics right now. Somebody explaining when it’s time to post. Wrong answer. So, yeah, when is the best time to post? There is no best time to post. There is no best ad. Yes, certain things begin to see conversion and results. But then there’s a series of metrics that may not relate to you whatsoever.

For example, if you were to go to a local radio station, a small market, and they sit there and then their references say, well, Kia advertises with us, okay? And let’s say you’re, I don’t know, you make business cards locally. So you’re doing business cards and printing.

And here’s Kia, you have a small mom and pop shop. They are an international brand. You have a very limited amount of marketing money to spend. They’re spending on local radio, national radio, satellite, they’re spending on tv, they’re spending on print. So when they come back and say, oh, they’re great, and we really love our, our engagement with this particular radio station, are you really getting the metrics to make the best decisions for yourself?

And yes, there’ll be people that come back and state, oh, it’s amazing. And these people heard me on the radio. I would rather smaller businesses look to their comparative and their competitives and seeing where that marketing worked and where that messaging worked.

Because oftentimes it’s a lot more about the authenticity and the authority over just slamming and spamming people. This again is why the messaging is so crucial and why inside of marketing campaigns that continue to fail and that continue to cost more, it’s because the messaging was not secure enough to begin to spend and it’s going to take time and it’s going to cost.

Marketing ends up costing. But inside of planning that messaging and having that blueprint, it will cost less. It will take less. It’s still a long game. It’s not a race.

Everyone says you know, it’s a marathon. But getting away from, I call them the myths of opportunity. People see this myth of I’m just going to advertise here, or this person’s going to say this or this one thing, or I’m just going to put all my eggs in one basket.

Messaging Before Marketing Transcription Continued:

That idea. But setting up that foundation basket of your messaging, figuring out from and circling back around the morals, not just the values that you have or stating the values that you have, but getting content out that supports it.

So I don’t, like I said before, I don’t care about your core values. Tell me one of the reasons why you started this business, why you do what you do. And it shouldn’t be that it’s going to take me to get to a website and it’s going to take all this time to find that out or to actually sit down with you.

What if it came to a point where I could find a video and it talks a little and it’s on YouTube and it’s been shared through social media?

Maybe it doesn’t have all the views in the world, but the people that are getting to it and seeing it really get a sense of what your values are, what your morals are, what your approach is, what your methodology is.

Many times in marketing, and it’s interesting to me and it’s, it’s scary at the same time, so many of these certified life coach programs, certified business expert programs, they’re spending 5% of their time on templates that they want you to learn.

And they spend up to Some up to 95% of the time explaining how to market. And in that marketing, they’re sharing fear tactics, spam tactics, ways to dig in, psychological approaches.

Messaging Before Marketing Transcription Continued:

It’s a common place. It’s 5% authority, 95% going after popularity. So in your authority, inside of your authenticity, bring in the messaging and the support systems and the arms and the branches of that messaging that will be so clear for everyone else. It’s not setting up the Facebook page or the Twitter page and say, come like me here.

It’s inside of messaging. After you have the fundamentals, after you’ve covered and you’ve reviewed these elements, you’re looking at the past, the present, the future. You’re looking at the methodology, the morals, the materials, the metrics, what you’re doing, that there’s content to be found. Once someone sees an ad, the biggest execution problem that I see inside of marketing is that it is a singular linear. I’m going to have you see this ad, hear this ad See this image, see whatever, find this search and then it just leads them right to the cell.

It disrespects the audience, it disrespects the engagement inside of your core messaging. And for even his established business to circle back around. Do you have some videos talking about your methodology, about your morals, about why you started this business?

Oh, you know what? Oh, I hate when, and I get this a lot, I hate when people assume this about me or I assume this about my product. Completely understand that where online do you have anything that addresses those perceptions?

Well, I don’t.

I mean when I sit down or I talk to someone, YouTube is free. You see certain things come in, you understand, you address the perceptions. That’s positive, humble messaging that can go to the marketing so that when somebody, when you’re at that time and it’s an ad and it’s testing around with phrases and it’s moving things through different channels, that it’s not just leading someone right back to the cell, but it lets them make some choices.

It’s not well produced videos, it’s not extended podcasts, it’s not long blogs, but beginning to set the foundational blueprint.

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Messaging Before Marketing Transcription Continued:

The footprint of your messaging online can then supplement the marketing that comes. So that if someone’s coming through, maybe they’re not ready to buy, maybe they don’t know yet, maybe you still sound like somebody else. But inside of the root of your messaging and the content that you distributed, they have an opportunity to find this out for themselves and find out you are different, you are what you say you are.

And the best part of it inside of messaging, that the perceptions that they begin to have are matching the intentions that you want to put out. For you to go from just your core intention and not consider the perceptions, not consider the over saturation, not consider all of those other aspects and elements that are oftentimes skipped in those marketing stages.

When you respect that audience, that audience will respect, engage and convert with you. And it’s not even necessarily trying to treat an audience inside of your messaging as come buy from me, come hire from me, come do this. But more so to engage in a time when everyone’s selling, to sit back, step back and give them reasons to engage, to learn about you not.

And in the core of the messaging, not that overly dominant, like me, follow me, find me, you know, convert here, leave a review, push, push, push. But shifting the tone to here’s a video on why I started my business.

Here’s something that I do, here’s something that I don’t do one thing I would love to see for more businesses. Here are the type of people I like to work with and here are the type of people I just wouldn’t fit well with. Instead of trying to come off like these, Sir Spamalot, grab everybody 10x your way to the top. Set your standards.

You say you have the morals. Showcase them. You say you have the authenticity. Explain it. You say, oh, once you understand this, I just, I need you to understand me. Teach them, invite them, teach them, engage them authentically.

Move them to be able to make a choice for themselves. If they want to move that much more toward you or learn more, then we go to marketing with that messaging in place. From the taglines to the bios to the understanding of the internal, the external, what you’ll do, what you won’t do. Seeing where some of these phrases have show competition, show too closely compared to something else are oversaturated.

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Messaging Before Marketing Transcription Continued:

When you look at the temperature and the tone, the timing of a message, and yes, that part does shift at times. Then you create this palette of sorts. It becomes your messaging palette. It’s this personalized integrity intelligence performance guide. I’m going to say that one more time. A personalized integrity intelligence performance guide.

From discovering the elements of your messaging, of your brand, of looking a little bit deeper than just your intention of looking across a series of different discovery elements, timeframes, operational touch points, how you’re leading with your message, where you might need to shift, where you might need to protect a little more, where you might not want to go, where you might want to go.

Then in connecting with a marketing agency, you’re giving them fuel, a great amount of fuel. This means they can also go to the areas where they want to be the most, but they’ll have the best fuel, they’ll have the best ammunition.

They’ll have the best firepower to move forward and not just throw things at a wall. And again, it’s not every marketing agency that’s doing it, but I stand firm in saying it’s the majority because marketing, to a certain extent, from my experiences, is one of the biggest scams out there as a whole. It’s people that specifically don’t necessarily need to say, okay, well, you’re messaging. We’ll just keep doing this.

Oh, we’ll just keep. We have to keep switching this up. Oh, let’s try this, let’s try that, let’s try that. You’re still going to have to test, you’re still going to have to play. You’re still certain things are going to work great. Other things aren’t.

But with that foundation, that palette, and that initial guide, so that all the changes, all the shifts, all the alterations, all the adjustments still stand on the foundation that is you, your brand, and your messaging, that will allow for marketing and the execution of marketing to work that much better for you. And that’s why I believe messaging comes before marketing.

That’s why, through the Fish Stewarding Group, FSG Messaging and Optics, we believe messaging comes before marketing, because when the messaging is sound, then the marketing can resonate that much farther, that much further, and that much more effectively for you. Wait, What? Really? Okay.

Messaging Before Marketing 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 ® ℗ * Messaging Before Marketing Transcription

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Reviewing authentically Transcription
Reviewing authentically Transcription from the Reviewing Authentically over demanding them for popularity

Reviewing Authentically Transcription

Release date – September 6, 2020

🎙️ Tune In: Listen to this Wait What Really Ok Podcast Episode Reviewing Authentically over demanding them for popularity on Spotify Apple Podcasts Pandora Amazon Music Youtube and other platforms.

Reviewing authentically Transcription Chapters

Reviewing authentically Transcription 00:00 – Introduction to Authentic Reviewing 01:15 – Why Authenticity Matters in Reviews 02:06 – Problems with Popularity-Driven Reviews 03:30 – Impact of Fake Reviews on Trust 04:16 – Building Trust with Honest Feedback 05:45 – Avoiding Bias in Review Practices 06:30 – Indirect Messaging via Authentic Reviews 08:40 – Enhancing Reviews with Personal Stories 10:52 – Staying Subjective in Review Content 12:10 – Balancing Criticism and Positivity 13:19 – Creating Engaging Review Narratives 14:50 – Tips for Credible Review Delivery 15:35 – Authenticity Over False Positivity 16:45 – Ethical Standards in Reviewing 17:55 – Long-Term Benefits of Trustworthy Reviews 19:20 – Reviews as a Tool for Connection 20:15 – Strategic Reviewing for Brand Authority 22:40 – Connecting Through Authentic Engagement 24:35 – Closing Thoughts on Review Integrity Reviewing authentically Transcription Text

Reviewing authentically Transcription

Song: Wait What Really 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.
Loren: This is Loren Weisman. This is the brand messaging podcast. Wait, What? Really? Okay. And how many times have you experienced just that obnoxious push? Don’t forget to review. Please review. Some people are asking people to come in and leave reviews before they even ask them to experience their business, their product, their, their show, their coffee, their restaurant, their hotel or whatever else.
It’s overwhelming, it’s inundating. And at the same time, there are many of us, we find ourselves at that fault. We are in that place. We are asking. It’s this. Please review. Please review. There’s a false sense of authenticity in attacking people to try to get popularity from others. It’s also really. It can be perceived, not conceived. It can be perceived as disrespectful as someone is getting a chance to connect with you.

Reviewing authentically Transcription Continued:

If the first thing they’re being told to do is, is to review you. That really doesn’t honor that they just came through that they might want to experience, that they might want to learn. I don’t like it when I see people that are immediately say, okay, I just did this, now review me. If it’s a certain product, I want to use that product for a while. If it’s a certain business, I want to, I want to experience it. I mean, there are certain, there are certain elements when it comes to restaurants, hotels, other sort of right off the bat things, that’s one thing.

But this, this push to just review. And then at the same time, it’s.They’re, they’re the false reviewers. The people that just go out and they five star everything, the greatest, the best ever. Oh, this is just wonderful. And they’re going for this false, almost immoral popularity. What I’m talking about in this episode is reviewing authentically over demanding for popularity in looking at adding to your messaging. And it even ties to your marketing sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, the Google business sites. And this is reviewing not to market, not to try to steal the. Steal the thunder or redirect someone, but to use the. Use one or all of these sites or other sites to showcase who you are.

What I mean by that is this is indirect messaging to build up your authenticity and your authority in a way that may not even tie to your service or your product, your business, but it’s worth gold in allowing someone to connect with you, even Indirectly, whether they’re going to need you down the line or not. Maybe they follow your restaurant reviews and after a couple restaurants where they feel in line, they dig in a little bit more. They want to learn more about you. Of course, in TripAdvisor, Yelp, Google Business, you make sure that you clearly have your information listed. So it is a soft motion into what you do and not that you’re out there reviewing to try to grab new customers.

Think about reviewing from an authentic standpoint, from an engagement standpoint. And a lot of real estate agents especially you could be doing so much better as opposed to the blast of I am your trusted agent. I know this area better than anyone else. Prove it. Here’s a way where you can prove it. A real estate agent in my neighborhood, I live in an area called Windermere, Florida. I haven’t really experienced, I’ve experienced the real estate agents that are in this area that they’ll go into a place, they’ll add a billion hashtags.

They say it’s the greatest thing in the entire world. And you know, they pop that out once a month. But then going down, I don’t know anything else. Especially inside of real estate and positional, locational, regional people review that restaurant review that park review that service in real estate review the contractors, the independent contractors, the people that fix things, allow for people as they’re learning you not expecting them to trust you, but more so you building trust with them because there’s an ongoing compounding piece of you that shares information about others around you.

Think about it as a different way to engage. It’s indirect engagement and okay, well I just want to lead people to my website. Why not get a whole bunch of people that could be seeing you on sites like TripAdvisor, which is just shy of the top couple hundred or it’s in the top couple hundred of the most visited sites in the entire country. It’s in the top 500 of the world. So the chances of a lot of different people coming across your reviews there’s are a lot more likely than them accidentally stumbling upon your website. The same thing goes with Google. Google’s right up there in the top 10 on both international and national.

Reviewing authentically Transcription Continued:

So reviews that you take ways that you extend and expand yourself, it opens up indirect, vicarious at sometimes and engaging ways for people to learn about you. This allows you to help some of these business. Let’s say you go to a pastry shop or you know, a cafe. I went to a Cafe in Greenville, S.C. Le petit croissant I saw these beautiful croissants. They tasted wonderful. I took a really cool picture. I have one of the iPhones, so I did the little F1. I don’t know what I’m doing. I took a nice shot. And it wasn’t just the I’m going to post this on my page. I’m going to post this on my Instagram. I posted it on Google Business, the Google.

Through the Google Business Reviews. Google Reviews. And I also did it on TripAdvisor on Google reviews. That picture of the couple croissants has been seen I think the better part of 4,000 times. Later that week we went to a barbecue place. We were still in Greenville. There’s one particular picture there and they didn’t really have an outside picture. So I’m thinking, how do I help them and how do I bring at the same time a more authentic, authentic and authoritative awareness? I took a shot out front inside of that, that’s 400,000 views. It’s not the numbers in the count or anything like that. And it’s not even necessarily okay, you popped up a review and now you’re expecting someone to see that review and come to you as a client.

This is a long term play, a long term compound and a long term build of authenticity, of trust and authority. When you begin to get out there and say, even if it’s once a day, once every other day, if that’s all you can do or that’s all you want to do, but get out there and review, take the pictures that aren’t up on these pages, showcase that. Because if people are looking for that, they want to look for the experience and as they begin to see people and like I said before, not those people that just do five star and say everything is the greatest thing in the world, it’s the best thing ever till the next thing that they review is the greatest thing in the world. And the next thing, best thing ever until the next thing comes along and this then comes to the actual review. This is when it dials back to your messaging.

Your messaging for who you are, your product, your business, your service, what you’re providing. If you take this and shortcut this and just begin to say, I love this, I love this, I love this, is the best, is the best, is the best. You’re in one way, boring in another way, it can be immoral. And even if it is the greatest thing you’ve ever had, stay subjective, share that it comes from a subjective place because that’s a place that we need to be in our messaging and in our communication. And if we’re not that in our posting, from being penalized online to aspects of compliance, to aspects of reputation, it ends up being dangerous. So not just this is the best sandwich ever.

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Reviewing authentically Transcription Continued:

What was so great about it? Say it in a way that differentiates you and brings up your offense, your authenticity, your message and your authority. And in the same way that you do those reviews, maybe that can become a voice in how you want to share about what you do in business. So as opposed to the greatest sandwich in the world. I love that the bread was warm. It felt like it just came out of the oven, like it was baked right there. I’m not sure if it was this really. It was the right amount of this. It wasn’t too peppery. It wasn’t that. Give. Give a little bit of eff. It’s not clicking down in five star. Five star or going to these podcasts. I got some guy and he spoke, he’s some podcast guru, I guess, and he emailed me and said, I just gave you a five star review and a great rating on your podcast. I don’t think the guy ever listened to it. And then the close of his email, of course.

So, you know, I’d love it if you’d review mine. How about if you love it if I listen to it? You want to talk about authenticity? Be authentic. You want to review to build your authenticity and your authority. Be authentic. And you can be authentic by being true to what’s going on. Not just everybody said in the hotel it was a great night’s sleep. Was it a quiet room? Was there something about the bed, the bathroom, the lobby, the service, the layout? Something that people may not have heard before.

There’s a… It was a doubletree. I think it’s switched brands. I think it’s still under the Hilton in St. Louis. And it’s this really cool hotel that was the old train station. And everybody talks about. They do this. This light show and this visual show on the ceiling in this. In this bar area. It’s really cool. And inside of seeing that review, many of the reviews, they talked about that, but a lot of people didn’t talk about at the time, you could go down the stairs out the back and there was an area where you could feed these koi fish. And then it was walking distance to a new Hard Rock Cafe. And that was what my review was about. It was looking at a couple of the top reviews and saying, what can I bring that adds something that supplements.

I’m not trying to take it over. I’m not trying to be better than anybody else, but I’m trying to add to something. The show on the ceiling was amazing. I took, yeah, I took pictures of it and that I shared on my personal page for those that might not have been there, but on the TripAdvisor page, on the Google page, on the pictures that were coming up there, many people had already taken pictures of it. So why do I need to add to that? How can I embellish? How can I supplement? How can I compliment with compliments? How can I create content that would engage someone?

Reviewing authentically Transcription Continued:

And that’s not just what we create for our business, but it’s also what we can create for other people. And when people get that sense, when they feel like they’re getting something different as opposed to being saying, I’m completely different, then they look into you from when you say, oh, just, it’s a great cup of coffee. Is there somewhere you can compare it to? Is there somewhere, you know, I mean, I love this coffee in this city and it really reminds me of this. Or I put it on the same level as this, or this is really familiar to here.

Again, strategically taking five minutes out of your day to look at how you can indirectly engage and potentially not just off of one post or two, but time and time and time again, you can build up a beginning level, psychologically of trust of someone authentically beginning to say, hey, I like his or her reviews. I’ve gone to some of the places, I’ve tried some of the products. Maybe you went to Amazon, maybe you listened to a podcast. And in that podcast review, it came off like something where you could tell somebody listen to it. Not this cat that just, wow, he’s really great. He pretty much took the second and third sentence of my bio for the podcast, flipped it around, pop five stars on it, and then signed it with his name and his podcast.

Okay, that’s one way to market. But it’s not authentic. And right now, and it’s, it’s Sunday the 6th of September, I think it’s both ironic and really cool that yesterday in the Kentucky Derby, the horse that won was authentic. And it, it beat out the expected, was something like by the law or, you know, law abiding or something like that. The new law, to me, and maybe this is an overshoot, the new law is authenticity. And not just the word and not just pretending to appear to be, but being authentic to build authority. And sometimes in building authority, it’s not all sales and marketing. It’s not all motivational quotes. Somebody else wrote, maybe it’s what you thought of a croissant or a sandwich or a hotel or a podcast or a new television show. And inside that the next step.

I mentioned it before, stay subjective.

Art, hotels, food. These are subjective things. I have friends that love certain hotels with where they’re laid out and it doesn’t bother them at all with the noise. To me, noise is a factor. When I’m in a room, I want it to be quiet. I don’t like some of those bigger hotels, the, the Hyatt Grand Cypress in, in Orlando. Again, beautiful hotel, beautiful grounds. They got some kind of parrot or bird that they bring out in the lobby or at least they did when I was there three or four years ago and some kids loved it. For me, I found it obnoxious. It’s not, it doesn’t make it a bad hotel. It doesn’t take away from those other things. But for me it’s just, it doesn’t work.

Reviewing authentically Transcription Continued:
So as I posted about the hotel, when I reviewed that hotel, I said, you know, this was a top notch experience from the staff, from the food, from getting around to the conference center to parking to everything else. I’m not a fan of this. I didn’t like the fact that they had a bird in there and I remember laughing at the bar with a couple other people saying, let’s go kill the bird. I know that’s awful to say, but we weren’t going to. But that, that again, it’s not stating this is this. Some people love Dunkin Donuts coffee. Why do you want to offend them? Some people love Starbucks. Why do you want to offend? We’ve come into a place where we’ve shifted the subjective to the objective. We’ve turned it into a fact and that turns people off in our own messaging for our businesses, as it does in review.
Look at the, look at many of these reviews where and I mean it was a South Park (You’re Not Yelping) episode a few years back. They were worried about the I’m a yelper, I’m going to give you a bad review. And they had some kind of power and then, you know, places were shut down. It’s kind of pathetic. You as a reviewer with authenticity, staying subjective, staying true to your voice, what you like, what you don’t like and then state it, my wife doesn’t eat sushi. She’s not going to be a fan of a sushi restaurant. But at the same time she can still respect it and say, hey, if you like this I’ve heard this, or my friends say this or my husband has said that about it. That’s still subjective, that’s still authentic, that’s still engaging. And in that, it becomes an indirect way to compound a lot of reviews to potentially connect you and to bring more awareness to you.

My TripAdvisor account in 2014, I used that and the Google business reviews and Yelp I reviewed while I was on a book tour. And you can even track through. You went to all these different places. It wasn’t, oh, hey man, we’re pulling into Cincinnati tonight, look at us. It was more of a, this is the hotel I experienced. This is what I experienced here in Cincinnati. This was the coffee the next morning. This was the venue. If it was a more known venue. Elements like that, they bring together a story and it’s a story that people can relate to over the stories where all we’re doing is just trying to sell, sell, sell. So really consider building a book, if you will, a story through these other places, both by picture and by review and inside of both of them.

Allow them to be authentic and maybe scroll down a couple reviews and see what other people are saying and where you can add to the conversation and you can bring a new melody and not just be in harmony. Now, last part. It’s not so nice to be too nice. Brought that up before with the real estate agents and the people that are just out there and the podcast guy, you can still stay subjective. You can still stay humble and moral and honorable and authentic. When you share something that you don’t like, don’t give everything five stars or if something was just that bad and you’re not prepared for that to be out there, or you’re not prepared to, you know, get countered on that. Don’t put it up on the other side of it. If you have a bad experience, maybe, and this different from this episode, but maybe instead of going online to bash the people, you go to corporate or you go back to that place or you go to that individual and try to resolve it first.

It’s kind of getting off track into a different subject. But again, you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be five stars across the board. People are going to read into that. They’re going to know it’s not true and it’s not going to help with your authenticity. It’s not going to help with your authority. So, you know, to, to not be Mary Poppins everywhere and, you know, adding in some thoughts, adding in when it wasn’t the greatest. That can be good. The other thing too is as you build this up, you think, oh, wow, I’ve been all these places back review doesn’t have to be from here forward.

Reviewing authentically Transcription Continued:

If there’s certain places that you remember, if there are pictures you took of food that maybe you put on Instagram and it only got, you know, your, your 50 or 60 or 100 likes and it didn’t really go anywhere, maybe using that photo on the Google reviews or on the TripAdvisor reviews, maybe that becomes 50 or 60,000. Maybe that becomes a photo that they move up and it showcases for them. And then at the same time, your name’s in there, your brand’s in there. And as people scroll down and see that from the pictures you take to what you share, to how you share it, then they want to learn more about you.

Yes, it’s not the Tony Robbins, Gary Vee, you know, super aggressive forward in the moment right now, but it’s a beautiful, true, moral and authentic way to bring an indirect audience to become aware of you that invites them to crossover to find out where the rest of or the bulk of people out there are just screaming to be, you know, come to me, come to me, come to me, Review me, review me, review me. And when people see from that other end that you’re reviewing others, that’s inviting, that’s different. And now you’re, now you’re at a point where it’s as opposed to being the person, oh, I, you know, don’t forget to review me. Add a review here. Add a, like, add this maybe in the middle of your marketing on your business pages, you’re stating this week is a review of this, and not just my review, but if you’re in this area and looking for something like this, here’s the review I did link it there or add it in Facebook or, you know, put a link to, to TripAdvisor inside of your Twitter.

Take this authentic journey when it comes to reviews. You’ll build something. You’ll build something that has an element of authenticity, that can build an element of trust with some to stay engaged with you. And maybe some of these people, even if they don’t need you, your product, your business or your service, when they look through and find out what you are. And then somebody, they come, they come across, you become a true referral because these people are connected and engaged with what you review, with what you like, with what you don’t like.

Reviewing authentically Transcription Continued:
And then they hear somebody stating something that resonates with one of Those reviews, they’re going to think of you, they’re not going to think of you as a whole if all they know is that person completely marketing them all the time that has something they don’t, you know, they don’t need. Think about this as organic. I’m going to say the word again. Authentic. It’s a trust and it’s a translation. It can be a psychological translation from what you see and how you see things to how this may operate inside of your business, inside of your product, inside of your services. And for those regional people, those real estate agents, this is, this is an area to put some focus into. Because as opposed to just telling people you know an area, show what you know about it, as opposed to telling people, I’ve got information on all this stuff and you just go here and I’ll send you this pack and I’ll send you that.
Allow them to see your footprint, your digital footprint, your reviewed footprint of the authentic words and the messaging in you showing up in all these places. So, yes, this isn’t immediate, front side aggressive or assertive marketing, but add this as an embellishment because it can get a great deal of eyes on you, on your words, on the pictures that you post, on the sense of your authenticity. And from there it may just capture a whole bunch of people that come to you and come through these reviews to what you do, what you sell, what you’re about, how you serve in a way that you would have never had in any other marketing campaign.

Yes, it’s not the sexiest approach or the most high profile approach, or the most amazing, immediate approach, but this sets a soil and plants, a whole bunch of seeds that can grow and flourish and thrive for you for a long time to come. And inside of all that cacophony of reviews and all that harmony of people saying the exact same things, putting up the same stars, just jumping out there, you may be able to in this, build a melody of authority, to allow a series of different people you never would have reached otherwise, to have a look, to have a listen, to have a read, and then potentially have a conversion or emotion towards you, what you do and how you do it.

I’ll close with this.

Many people are finding that they’re connecting to stories, they’re connecting to experiences, they’re connecting to content that whether they’ve been a fan of yours or used your business for years or they just met you, or they’re hearing about you in passing, that they feel a greater connection from gaining something and in that gaining where it doesn’t feel like whenever they connect, it’s only a sell, it’s only an ask, it’s only a demand. It puts their walls down. It makes them feel more comfortable in listening and open to hearing more.

And that’s where communication and messaging is going right now, to make people, and not even make, but ask people to take a chance to be a little bit more comfortable, to take down the wall, to not feel attacked, to not feel told, to not feel demanded. And in that place they get to choose and they get to feel the sense of wanting to engage that much more. And the more you put out, the more they feel safer about that. Allow people to feel safe, not attacked. Allow people to feel a sense of love and not fear and not pressure and not hate and not force.

Allow people to have their own opinions. And what a great place inside of reviews to be able to state something authentically, humbly, in your opinion, but open to hearing others in a time when a lot of people are not able to hear other opinions. And in that culmination and that compounding of that, it may build that trust so that they want your opinion or they want your product or they want your service because of it.

This is Loren Weisman. This was. Wait, what? Really? Okay, stay authentic, my friends. Wait, What Really? Ok.

Reviewing authentically Transcription

Headshot of Brand Communications and Optics Strategist Loren Weisman.

* 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 ® ℗ * Reviewing authentically Transcription from the Reviewing Authentically over demanding them for popularity

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First Discovery Steps Podcast Transcription
First Discovery steps Podcast Transcription for First Discovery steps I take with clients and onboarding approaches Wait What Really OK Podcast

First Discovery Steps Podcast Transcription

Released on January 10th, 2025

🎙️ Tune In: Listen to this Wait What Really Ok Podcast Episode First Discovery steps I take with clients and onboarding approaches on Spotify Apple Podcasts Pandora Amazon Music Spreaker YouTube IMDb and other platforms.

First Discovery Steps Podcast Transcription Chapters

First Discovery Steps Podcast Transcription Chapters: 0:00 Introduction to Client Onboarding Discovery 0:35 Working with Loren Weisman: Process Overview 1:46 Authenticity in Client Relationships 3:05 Avoiding “Boxed In” Client Approaches 3:50 Honesty and Integrity in Messaging 5:15 Why You Shouldn’t Chase Trends 6:50 Setting Boundaries in Client Onboarding 8:31 Final Thoughts and Key Takeaways

First Discovery Steps Podcast Transcription Text

First Discovery Steps Podcast 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: This is a mix of a podcast as well as an overview of how I do initial onboarding or starting of a discovery when it comes to working with me. And at the same time, if you’re not working with me or you’re working with someone that does messaging and optics or strategy or even for that matter, marketing, some of the things that I do, you may want to look to ask those people that you’re working with to do as well.

All too often, those that are looking to rebuild their messaging set, their branding, they’re oftentimes setting you into a template. It’s something that pre exists. It’s something to really just take, you know, as they claim, we think, out of the box, except they’re using all the same inbox terms. Something that’s very important in the initial onboarding time with me is to learn a little bit more so that the words really can reflect the individual. I feel we’ve come to a time where, and I’m sure you’ve seen the emails, it’s appear as an expert, appear as an expert, be seen as an expert.

But here’s the problem. Morally, ethically, faithfully, what if you aren’t an expert? What if they aren’t an expert? Many of these people are setting up words, framing phrases and optics to appear as something that they’re not. So if you truly have that expertise, if you genuinely have that authority, if you have real experience, to work your messaging, to work your brand foundation, to work the foundation of everything you’ll do from any kind of content to social, to press releases, to what you put on the web, to take that time to ensure it has your voice and not a voice is key.

A lot of people choose to jump away from their voice because they might not have enough to be a voice yet. So they use a lot of these tactics. I ran across someone a couple days ago. This guy had great authority, great knowledge, great background, excellent. And yet everything that he was putting out on social stuff, on his call to actions, on his, you know, the masterclass, I kind of disagreed with that thing. Masterclass thing.

He was using hype and messaging tactics of someone that had no authority. And in turn, it took down his true authority. He used hype, he used processing, he used this, you know, false involvement. And in that. And inside of those words, it took away from him.

How My Daughter Changed My Approach Podcast Transcription

Is Your Tribute About Them or You Video

First Discovery Steps Transcription Continued: He didn’t need to do that. Whoever he was working with that put him into a box and took out all the elements that made him special. And in turn, he just sounded like someone else. And he sounded like someone that, for that matter, was kind of lying.

In that same case, many of these marketers are stating, this is what you say, this is how you say it. You need to do this, you need to do that. You’ve got to do this to be seen. And in many cases, when some of these tactics that they’re using are for people that don’t have the ability, the authority, or the expertise. So if you are true to heart in your word, if you are true to heart in your honor, in your morals, then it’s crucial to find your voice.

Not the voice, not a voice, but your voice, and work through the tactics and the honesty and honor and even humility. You can show off and highlight your authority without an arrogance, without making false claims, without making claims that are going to shut you down and push you out.

Think along the lines of where you come from, where you are going, what you’ve done in the past, not even necessarily trying to hide things that may be different from the given career that you’re in, because some of your expertise could have evolved, evolved from another area of expertise and that combination and that truth and that for someone to be able to vet you, would you be open inside of your messaging, inside of what you’re putting out there for your biggest hero, to see it, for the person that’s looking up to you, to see it, for a son or a daughter or a family member, or do you have certain stuff and do you find yourself switching?

First Discovery Steps Transcription Continued

But you know, depending on the audience, if you have the authority, there is a stability, and there can be that stability that can make a greater foundation for your voice for what you share. Don’t jump on the latest trending thing. I have a friend that’s a chiropractor I work with. One of the things I’ve had him stay away from is the fart joke.

I mean, it’s a fart joke. It started going a couple months ago, and it was somebody that was bending somebody and they’re. Do you hear the crack? And then all of a sudden you hear fart. And the chiropractor says, oh, that’s natural. Don’t worry about it. And then the person on the table being cracked is not embarrassed because they say, well, that was you. So that was funny the first thousand times when all of these chiropractors jumped on it. This trending copycat vibe doesn’t Bring any kind of authenticity. Okay, great. There’s a funny joke.

Okay, well, maybe my audience hasn’t seen that. Well, maybe it might honor you a little bit more to share the root content, but at the same time coming back to you to find the content that is about you, to find the message of how you deliver, that’s about you to find the right people to work with you.

Stop thinking along the lines of you need to cast the net to get absolutely everybody, because that isn’t necessarily true if you are casting the net to decide the people that you most want to work with, that you most want to sell to, and even talking about the people that, hey, you know what? This product isn’t for you. I’m not for many people.

If you don’t have that authority, if you don’t have that honor, if you aren’t prepared to be completely transparent, I’m not judging you, but I won’t work with you. I have my boundaries. And inside of setting your boundaries inside, in this initial onboarding, of knowing what you will do, what you won’t do, who you work with, who you won’t work with, what’s been done before, looking at the subjective to the objective, looking at the compliance, looking at what you’re allowed to do in a given field, especially if you fall into medical or law or other areas, to look at the complacency in a given field, to look at the competition, not to copy it, not to one up, it’s not to hype it, but to find your voice.

First Discovery Steps Transcription Continued

The cornerstone, the core cornerstone or the cornerstone of what I look for inside of onboarding is a discovery to learn an array of the individual, what they’ve learned, how they execute, how they work, all these elements that I’m talking about.

And then inside of that, building a genuine, authenticity, individualized message and messaging packet that then can be used for content, can be used for web, it can be used for bio branding, the outline of a book, setting up plans, if there’s going to be a podcast, if there isn’t, and making sure that it’s an individual journey and an individual map forward, it can align and have similarities to other things. But if you’re out there not being true to you and having to lie, deceive, copy, cheat and steal, and if that works for you, I mean, by all means do your thing.

But I know that there are a lot of people out there that genuinely want to create, connect, sell and do business from the heart and from a solid foundation. And if you do, then make it, you make it true, make it transparent and don’t buy into so much of the hype of so many people not telling the full story or claiming they have all the secrets or all the answers or exactly what you need to do to appear as something you’re not or on that same token to to hear use this to appear as an expert when you already are an expert and as opposed to using that you can build a foundation to showcase, amplify and illuminate the expert you have.

Brand messaging blueprint strategies for creative careers.

First Discovery Steps Transcription Continued:

Be true to you, be true to your experience what you do, how you’ve done it, what you want to do and you may just connect then with a greater more sound individualized message that will reach the type of people you want to work with and impact them in a way where they may hear just their their ears opening a little bit more their eyes opening a little bit more to see the difference that the truth makes over the constant fails that hype marketing basically lies about.

First Discovery Steps 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 ® ℗ * First Discovery steps Podcast Transcription for First Discovery steps I take with clients and onboarding approaches Wait What Really OK Podcast.

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