Ryan Foland speaks with Mitch Jackson, a lawyer and social media enthusiast.
In this episode of our podcast series, Ryan and Mitch talk about ‘Clubhouse’; an invitation-only audio-chat app which is currently available for iOS users only.
One of the key messages in this interview is how to make a more meaningful impact by intertwining multiple social media platforms.
Tune in for an interview full of ideas and advice on how to best use ‘Clubhouse’ to your advantage and to increase your engagement with like minded individuals.
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In each episode, we interview a professional speaker and reveal their very best tips and tricks.
You'll learn to improve your presentation skills, keep your audience engaged, and learn how to grow your business to get more gigs and make more money.
Here is your host, Ryan Foland.
Ryan Foland: Ahoy everyone and welcome to another World of Speakers podcast.
Today we have a familiar face or a familiar voice, or your most familiar lawyer.
He's a guy that's been streaming on all of the platforms as they've come out to the world.
He is the one that dives into the latest technology and trends, he is a test pilot for the next big platform.
We're going to be talking about how he is flying around on this thing called Clubhouse.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome Mitch Jackson to the stage— author, speaker, trial lawyer, overall a good guy and one of my friends here that I can say I really am excited every time that I talk with him.
Mitch, welcome to the show.
Mitch Jackson: Thanks, Ryan.
It's good to be here, you know, crash and burn, I don't mind being a test pilot to all these new platforms.
Most of the time it works out, it is big time with Clubhouse and that's what we're going to be talking about today.
But it's always good to cross paths with you whether we're offline or online, so it's a pleasure to be here today.
Ryan Foland: Awesome. Ditto.
I wanted to bring you on today because I hosted or co-hosted a room with you on this Clubhouse thing and as a speaker, I'm hearing a lot of buzz about it.
I'm looking to explore how I'm going to be using it, I'm following the lead of others, and what better way to test something than have somebody else fly the plane and crash it for you, right?
Mitch Jackson: Exactly.
I'm with you and I wouldn't think twice.
You killed it on Clubhouse, by the way.
I've hosted quite a few rooms, and Ryan, the feedback, the interactive back and forth that you shared with the audience members in the room, and we can explain the dynamics, you were a big hit, you're going to kill it on that platform.
So I can't wait to see you in more rooms being Ryan Foland and doing your thing.
Ryan Foland: Well, thank you.
I'll tell you one of my biggest barriers to entry for the platform, like a lot, is the time that you invest in it.
Now, something like Twitter I can jump on 30 seconds off, I can tweet something that comes to mind and it just happens in a snap.
What I've noticed about Clubhouse, although it's just audio, you still are there.
So I've tried to do it while I'm working out, it's not as easy because you're not focused, but I'm excited to explore more.
Now before we get into confusing people more without even knowing what Clubhouse is, and if this is your first time hearing about Clubhouse, for the rest of your life you will remember,
"Ah, I heard it from Ryan and Mitch on that one show."
So I like to start with storytelling.
Instead of telling us a story about you and your past, can you tell us a story from Clubhouse?
Tell us, maybe there will be a new thing, like let's talk about Clubhouse stories, like what is a story from Clubhouse that you've experienced and that might help people maybe understand what it's like to be on it, and we'll dissect it and we'll talk about it.
Mitch Jackson: Absolutely.
I've been on social media since day one, Ryan, and of all the platforms I've been on, I've never had a platform impact my life and my profession as a lawyer as Clubhouse.
The people that I'm meeting on Clubhouse, and I'll get to the story real quick, top business, entertainment, law, health, scientists, marketing, branding, personal development speakers, some of the top individuals around the world.
Just last night I mentioned to you Elon Musk was on and literally almost shut the platform down, thousands if not tens of thousands of people trying to get into Elon Musk's room to listen to him talk about aliens and rocket ships and everything else in between.
And so it's a platform that is audio-only and it allows you to connect by invitation only right now with some of the top business financial venture capitalist leaders on the planet.
So I think one of my stories was jumping into a room and having a chance to hop up on stage.
When you go into a room you're in the audience, and you can listen to other people talking and having conversations.
You can tap a button, you raise your digital hand, and you can be asked to join everyone on stage which is what I did with Ryan when he was on my show.
And I found myself on stage with one of the original co-founders of Constant Contact which is a CRM that everybody on the internet knows about.
And what he was talking about, I won't mention his name just for privacy purposes, but he's pretty public about his use on Clubhouse, but what we talked about was helping entrepreneurs that I represent moving forward after this upside down, crazy 2020 COVID-19 year, moving forward in 2021.
What advice, what tips can I get from him that I've already shared with my clients who are starting their businesses or have been struggling and what can they do moving forward?
And I got specific, actionable tips by a legitimate billionaire, he sold his interest in Constant Contact for well in excess of billion dollars, and his suggestions and advice, it was spot on.
Now, had I not been in that room, had I not been on this platform, had I not raised my hand and had I not jumped up on the stage, I wouldn't have had the chance to meet him.
I wouldn't have had the chance to ask the questions, and I wouldn't have had the chance or opportunity to take the value that he shared with me and then turn around over the next couple of days and message my clients.
I talked to them on the phone, did a couple of private Zooms with the feedback that he shared with me, and everybody else in the room.
So that would be one of about a dozen stories I've got just over the last 2 weeks.
I'm all in, I'm impressed, it's a pretty cool platform.
Ryan Foland: Okay.
What I heard from your story was some speaker vocab.
I heard that it was a show, I heard that you were in a room, in the audience and then you went up on stage, you talked about raising your hand.
And what I think is fascinating about just the verbs that you use to describe it, it's as though you were talking about a live event that you went to.
And I think for me, that's what people are craving right now.
And from a speaking standpoint, to have a platform that has an audience and a stage, and people can hear you— and you said, "Jumped up on stage", like, "I like to jump up on stage".
I haven't jumped up on stage for a while.
Mitch Jackson: I felt like I jumped up on stage, that's how excited I was.
Ryan Foland: I think that's why it's so important as a speaker, a professional speaker, to look at this as an emerging platform that is essentially almost like a real conference in a digital format with multiple rooms, multiple stages, going on, it's all day right, 24 hours a day?
Mitch Jackson: It's 24 hours a day so you want to monitor your time, you want to use some self-help, right/ I always just kind of multi-task with interesting rooms running on my iPhone over on the side.
It's iPhone only right now, they're planning on rolling out the android version, I believe in March if I'm not mistaken.
But it's exactly like that, Ryan, and that's why I with purpose and with intent reached out to you to have you in my room because human beings right now are longing for connection.
They want to be a part of a community, with social distancing and everything else.
You're a professional speaker, I enjoy speaking on stage.
A lot of mutual friends of ours are professional speakers that basically are now presenting virtually.
Well, Clubhouse, because it's audio-only, doesn't matter how you look, if you shaved, if you combed your hair, it's all voice.
And I thought to myself, "Why not have a professional communicator, someone that's literally written the book on how to communicate and make your point", your 3-1-3, your 4Vs, and have you come in and share with my Clubhouse audience, how to raise your hand, take the stage and make an initial, positive, meaningful impact to the conversation.
Because frankly, Ryan, a lot of people haven't had this experience and when they do take the stage, they stumble with how they introduce themselves, they stumble with how they're interacting with everyone else on stage.
And as you well know, it's something that we can all learn.
So I was happy to bring you in and really have you just share some concrete steps that everybody can follow when they're on stage, when they're interacting, maybe if they're co-moderating the room and they're trying to control who's coming up onto the stage, they're trying to control who's next in line to be part or included in the conversation.
And I think this is just a platform made for professional speakers, I think they're going to dominate this platform.
Anybody that's comfortable with communicating, with their voice, I think can build out a brand on this platform quickly and easily.
I think I picked up a couple of thousands of followers in the first week and a half, and I'm talking about meaningful, quality, human beings.
Because it's invite-only when you are invited onto the platform you are given 5 invites and you can extend to somebody else.
And if I was to extend one to you, Ryan, and I know you're already on the platform, my name is associated with your presence on the platform down at the bottom of your profile, it's my picture and my name.
So we're very careful about who we invite in, and the more you engage and interact on the platform the more rooms you host, the more times you raise your hand, the more clubhouses you form, you'll get provided with several additional invites.
And there is a back doorway to legally and officially become part of the group and we can talk about that if you want or offline.
But I think with all of this in mind, it's created a quality community where I am ignoring the typical nonsense marketing, get rich and make a million dollars in 60 minutes or less because those rooms are there.
But here's something a lot of people don't realize about the platform— if you're busy like I am, like you are, as you're swiping down you can swipe left or right and you can mute those rooms so you never see them again.
So it's cool, it's pretty slick.
Ryan Foland: There's the show, everyone, you have all the information you need.
That was great, that was a great starting point for me to take notes so that we can start to unpack the exciting elements that you talked about.
I think what might be beneficial, because there are so many nuances, is stepping through what someone would experience their first few times on and then in the process of sharing that experience, we can have some of these different acronyms that come up like you had the one the other day, I had no idea about refreshing your page which is an acronym.
Mitch Jackson: It's called PTR, pull to refresh.
Yes, that's something that I learned in Clubhouse.
Ryan Foland: Okay.
Let's walk through that initial journey almost as someone who is an audience member.
And I think that the more we as speakers understand the audience's perspective, it'll give us an idea of how we can, I'm not going to say take advantage of, I'm going to say take this tiger by the tail.
Because I think it's really your first-mover advantage, just like most platforms, and I feel like we went through this with Tik-Tok, and then we went through this with this, so we keep going through this.
But in particular, I didn't resonate at all with Tik Tok because I'm not a dancer, I'm not really into the little games, and just I didn't see that as a business-building platform for me.
Now, granted there aren't, you crush it on there, but I'm more open to Clubhouse because I feel like there's a stage audience interactive sense.
Mitch Jackson: It feels that way, doesn't it? It absolutely feels that way.
By the way, on Tik Tok, you kill it if you share a speaking tip once a day, a 60-second speaking tip.
But you can do the same thing on Clubhouse.
So when you come into the platform, what you want to do is you'll upload a picture and you will complete your bio.
And that bio can be short or long, the first 3 lines of your bio are the most important.
The reason is when you're in a room you're going to see a bunch of pictures of everybody in the room.
If you tap a picture you're going to see their first 3 lines of the bio, so you want those first 3 lines to be something that attracts attention, that is going to want people to click and expand the profile and follow you both in Clubhouse and at the bottom of your profile you can link your Twitter handle and you can link your Instagram handle.
You want to make sure you complete those items first when you join Clubhouse.
All of this can be changed on the fly while you're on stage, in a room, so don’t sweat it, just get that setup.
Once you get your profile set up, then you're going to click over and follow me and follow Ryan.
Ryan Foland: There you go.
Mitch Jackson: I'm serious, because I'm very selective with my time in the rooms that I'm in, I'm only hanging out in rooms whether I'm speaking, moderating, or listening, rooms that matter, okay.
And so if you're in business, if you want to move forward, I've got my finger on the pulse of Clubhouse as to which rooms you want to be in and if you tap the alert button like on YouTube, tap the little bell on Ryan and me you'll know when we go into a room, you just get a notice that says, "Mitch just walked into a room," or, "Mitch just took the stage."
And that's a quick way to kind of follow what's going on.
The next thing I would do is go to a room and just hang out, don't try to take the stage, don't even try to moderate your own room, although you can.
Get a feel for the room, the dynamics of Clubhouse, how it works, how people are moderating the platform which means they're managing the people onstage with those that are listening, they're trying to include everybody in the conversation, the conversation skills that have worked before, the internet and social media work 10 times better right now on platforms like Clubhouse.
Pay attention to what's going on in the dynamics, when you're ready to contribute if the room moderator says,
"Listen, if anyone would like to add to the conversation, if you got an answer to the question that was just asked, raise your hand and join us on stage”.
Then what happens is you tap a little button down on the bottom right, it looks like a hand, you'll get invited onto the stage.
When you get invited onto the stage, immediately mute your mic. When you get invited, your mic's live.
Normally, you're not the next in line to speak, everything gets picked up, so go ahead mute your mic, if you're moderating a stage and you invite somebody up and they're new and that's okay, and they haven't muted their mic, you can tap on their picture as a moderator and I can mute your mic, so we'll do that for you.
Now you're on stage and just wait your turn.
Normally the process goes top to bottom, left to right in order.
So if we have 10 people on stage, 3 on top are talking, they're inviting more people on, wait for your turn before unmuting and offering your commentary or your input in the conversation.
That's Clubhouse protocol.
Sometimes the moderators will say,
"Listen, we only have a few people here up on stage so if you've got something you want to share just unmute and jump in," so kind of follow the lead of the moderators that are holding that particular room.
Also, while you're on stage you want to PTR, pull to refresh.
All that means is by just pulling down on your phone screen, it'll refresh the order of everybody in the room so you can see exactly where you are.
The reason that's important is sometimes people will bounce out of the room to take a call, to grab something to eat, maybe to go into another room and when they come back in they're normally right back where they left off.
And if you don't PTR you're going to think you're ahead of them, where actually they're ahead of you.
Little things like that that aren't that important but I think they all do add up. I actually shared a post at Streaming.Lawyer on this, Ryan.
I could share it with you.
Ryan Foland: Yeah, we're linking it in the notes for sure, yeah.
Mitch Jackson: Okay.
So I shared a post 2 weeks ago but I had a lot of lawyers that were jumping in and we're kind of type A personality so we immediately want to get on stage, we immediately want to command the conversation and that doesn't work out on social media, that's not the way to do Clubhouse.
So I shared 12 or 13 tips for any of you who are interested in using Clubhouse the right way over at Streaming.Lawyer.
I think if you just go through those 12 tips, it takes about 15 minutes, I think you'll have a pretty good handle of how the platform works.
Ryan Foland: That was good.
So what happened there is that we talked about getting access to the platform, being an audience member first, raising your hand to potentially go on stage, etiquette as far as having your mute on, waiting your turn, #PTR.
There's a couple of things that I want to add to that initial experience that I noticed.
When I first jumped on the platform some friends from Haiti threw me a welcome party.
And I didn’t know that existed.
But there was an actual welcome party.
So one thing is that if you get on for the first time you will have a little party icon, a little party I think it's actually the horn where it's got like little confetti coming out of it.
So I was like why do I have a confetti hat, what is this, a welcome party, what is happening?
But apparently, there are people on the watch and they know when you're new and like literally they started a welcome party for Ryan and they started inviting everybody, and there was a welcome party.
Mitch Jackson: Let me clarify that.
The protocol on Clubhouse is if I was to invite Ryan with one of my invites and he comes into Clubhouse then what they would like us to do is for me to host a welcome room, a welcome party for you.
As your host, I set up a time with you and I bring you on stage and I can invite all of my friends.
When you have a room you guys, you can tap the plus sign and bring in people in your community into the room, you can let them know that
"Hey, I've got Ryan Foland here, let's welcome Ryan to Clubhouse."
Ryan Foland: Let's have a party.
Mitch Jackson: Let's have a party, and that's exactly what it feels like.
And so that's somewhat a sort of what you experienced, but it's a great way to bring new people in, have you immediately start building that community because people are going to follow you and then what you do with it from that point forward is completely up to you.
Ryan Foland: Yeah and I found that you actually have to spend a little bit of time, I don't know what it is, but you have to spend a certain amount of time on the platform and I think you even have to be in different positions before that little horn comes off.
Do you know the particulars on that?
Mitch Jackson: I was under the impression it was if you're on the platform for a week then it goes away.
But listen, I don't want anybody to worry about the party hat because it's not a big deal either way.
Ryan Foland: It says that you're new, kind of like gives everybody the heads up.
So one thing that I would suggest is to get on sooner than later and just work through it so that you don't have that party hat because Gary V doesn't have a party hat, you don't have a party hat, Elon Musk doesn't have a party hat, Grant Cardone doesn't have a party hat so that was one thing that I understood.
So get on to get your party hat off.
The other thing, I'm an android guy, I have an android and I really appreciate the operating software.
But I have an iPad and so that is the hack, if you are invited and you're like, "This link doesn't work," because it says, when you click on it, it goes to a waiting room on the android store.
So I use my iPad to access it and for those people that do have android and you want to get on earlier and you have an iPad that would be an option.
Mitch Jackson: Exactly.
Ryan Foland: Okay. So we got the party hat, we got the iPad, the rooms, the notifications, the following.
What are your thoughts initially as far as following versus following back?
Are you spending time initially just like trying to match all your contacts and just follow, follow as many people?
Or is that also a weird judgy ratio right now, what do you think on that?
Mitch Jackson: I went into this particular platform because it's new, where I'm following people who I want to follow. I am following people who are adding value, who are interesting, people who also support what I'm doing.
So I'm supporting them by following them.
And I'm being particular about who I'm following.
Now having said that, with a couple of thousand followers, I'm following over a 1000 people.
So even though I'm being particular I have no problem with following someone that's interesting, unique, memorable, adding value, someone who I know if I follow them other people will follow them too because they're looking at who am I following.
So just all of the above but I'm not just randomly following someone just because they follow me.
Ryan Foland: This is good stuff because you're really not sure on the newer platforms, right?
Mitch Jackson: Right. And so for me, I'm making a point to try to follow most of the lawyers who I see on Clubhouse or who follow me.
I'm also trying to use Clubhouse to mentor law school students.
A lot of law school students, there is a big contingency of law school students for whatever reason on the platform.
And so my friends and I are all following the law school students, they are following us.
And I'm also doing something different, Ryan, than what most people think about.
I think this is the beauty of Clubhouse, I'm not purposefully involved in a lot of lawyer rooms.
I'm going over to health and sciences, I'm going over to entrepreneurship, I'm following some amazing executives and CEOs that are running large studios out of Hollywood.
I'm connecting with venture capitalists out of the Silicon Valley, these are just all things that interest me.
And what I noticed, and I didn't think about this originally, Ryan, but you'll appreciate this, is all of a sudden I'm in a room with 50 or 100 people and we're talking about the entertainment industry.
And I look around and I'm one of the only lawyers in the room.
So when I take the stage what happens you guys, is when you take the stage most of the people in the room will follow everybody that's on stage or everybody that's moderating or hosting the room.
And so if you get on stage, that's a great way to build up your following.
But what I noticed, for example, in the entertainment rooms is I'm up on stage now and all of a sudden, by the time I hop off pretty much everybody in the room has followed me.
Like they want to connect with that lawyer, they want to connect with that professional speaker, they want to connect with that Harvard engineer/scientist.
So I would suggest give yourself permission to expand what's of interest to you in this platform and try to put yourself in rooms where you're the only professional speaker.
So, for example, if you're in a room with a lot of young entrepreneurs that are starting businesses or you're in a room with other business owners, they want to learn how to communicate better, they want to learn how to close more deals.
They need someone to come in and speak to the 1000 people in their companies about all of the above.
So I would position yourself to be in those rooms, yes, make connections in the speaking rooms and there are speaking rooms there, make connections with your friends that are on Clubhouse and support what they're doing.
But 90% of my time is spent in these other rooms building out completely new communities and it's one of the reasons I think things are really working well for me on the platform.
Ryan Foland: Let's talk about rooms for a little bit.
We understand that the room has an audience and then there is the stage.
So from a speaking perspective, I mean like for me, should I just go start my own room, or is it better to co-host at first?
Do you have any strategy around that?
And then the room, is it like this is my keynote, is it this is a workshop?
How long should you do it?
Talk about resetting the room.
Let's just talk for a little first about all things room.
Mitch Jackson: So everything you just mentioned, yes you should be doing.
Think of this as our old school before the 2020 conferences that we went to.
Clubhouse is kind of like that big hallway that you're walking down and you can step off into rooms where these private conversations, or smaller public conversations, or seminars are taking place, that's kind of how Clubhouse works.
What I would suggest doing is the first room you have I would go out and get a co-moderator, get someone else that played around in the Clubhouse sandbox a little bit, that knows the ins and outs of how to work the room, and you moderate it together. It's super simple.
You can set up the room and you designate each other when you're setting it up so it's done.
Or I could have a room and say,
"Listen, Ryan, when you come in, wave your hand, I'll bring you up on stage, and then I'll tap the button and I'll make you a co-moderator."
So those are the 2 easiest ways to have more than 1 person moderate.
And I think if you have a game plan as to how long is the room going to last, you can set the tone with the room, "Listen, we want to bring people up to share with us in 60 seconds or less who you are and what you do," that's where the 3-1-3 comes in, right?
That's the goal and everyone needs to know that.
And then you ask your question to Ryan, and then when someone comes up remind people and reset the room, that's what you're doing if there's a time frame reset the room so everyone knows, if you start getting too many people up on stage you can actually deactivate the hand-raising mode so you can control how many people are on stage.
And I think it's just a matter of stage management.
What we would do in the real world back in the day, we can do, it's even easier on Clubhouse.
And yeah, so that's the way I would start off with the rooms, Ryan.
And I would also encourage people don't be afraid just to start your own room.
This morning I had a cup of coffee, I was feeling a little bit sassy, February 1st, Monday morning early, and so I just started a room coffee with a lawyer, tell me what you're doing this week; if you have a question ask it.
And I would say within about 5 minutes we had 30 to 40 people in the room, other lawyers, a couple of judges, a lot of law school students. 3 or 4 coming up to the stage at once just chatting about the weather back east or what they had plans for this week or we talked about the Facebook group that I mentioned.
And it was easy, I mean I was on stage by myself for a couple of minutes, but people started to trickle in, and then as they come in what you do is you say, "Listen, hit the plus button, let's bring in some other people into the room,” and before you know it, the room will fill up, especially if you're having an engaging, interesting conversation.
That's the dynamic of Clubhouse, as it's all centered around community.
So whether you start the room on your own or you start the room with the co-moderator there's no wrong or right way to do it, you've just got to do what's comfortable for you.
Ryan Foland: One thing that I noticed when we set up our room, you actually gave me a link that I was able to promote on social.
So best practice, as far as I'm seeing, it seems to be you're creating the room on Clubhouse but then you're leveraging all your other channels to drive people to Clubhouse.
Mitch Jackson: I found that to be my best strategy just because I've got my platforms built out. Most people I don't think are taking the time to do that.
When you set up a new room in Clubhouse everyone, as you fill out the description, the title, the description, "I add Ryan to the room, we're co-moderating it together," down at the bottom you want to set up are your share buttons.
You can tap and share to Twitter, you can tap and copy the link to the room.
And so as Ryan described, what I do is I'll usually put my room information into Agora Pulse which is the platform I use to share content across social media.
And I'll do 2 things, I'll pre-promote the show so that it goes out, when somebody clicks the link it will take them directly into the room.
That's one way to promote your show.
The other way is your show pops up in a list in Clubhouse, recommended rooms, they're actually rooms, not shows, but recommended rooms or my rooms, or all rooms.
And so depending on how you have your filters, people can come through, they'll see your room, they'll tap and they'll come in.
A little trick that I have been using that works really well when I have a show or a room that I really want to promote is about 5 minutes after I'm planning on going live, I'll create an Agora Pulse, a social media post that goes out to Twitter, LinkedIn, a couple of my Facebook pages, maybe Instagram.
“Hey, I'm live right now with Ryan Foland, click the link and join us in Clubhouse.”
So it automatically goes out 5 minutes after we start and what I'll see is while I'm on stage having a conversation with the guest, bringing people up, all of a sudden I'll notice about 5 to 10 minutes after the show has started another 20, 30, 40 people come in, it's because of that subsequent tweet.
So that's an insider tip from me to you and your audience.
Ryan Foland: I like it.
Okay, when I was in the room with you and the other room experience that I had, I have to be honest, I felt a little weird about just inviting a whole bunch of people.
I felt that it was maybe like spammy and I didn't know the culture and I'm not sure what the notification was.
So talk to me about that, like are people going to be like, "Why is Ryan inviting me to this room for?" Or is it like, "Is that the way that it works?"
You've got to talk me off of this ledge because I was like, "Well, I don't want to pressure them to show up."
I kind of get annoyed with notifications, so I'm thinking like,
"I don't really want to notify them while I'm in the room," and I was like, "I'm just going to be here."
Talk to me about that.
Mitch Jackson: I will.
First of all, Ryan, take a step back away from the edge, we're going to be okay, all right, it's all okay.
That's just the protocol, that's just the way Clubhouse works.
Everyone that becomes part of Clubhouse they understand that if you have your notifications set then it's a setting, you can be invited to different rooms that your friends think you might find interesting.
Now, here's a little tip.
I actually have my notifications for the most part turned off.
On my iPhone, I have all my notifications from Clubhouse turned off.
Only when I'm in the platform do I get notified because I was getting notified, it was crazy.
But that's okay, you're in control of it. Here's a little secret— if I'm doing a room with another lawyer like I am tomorrow and what Saul and I are going to be talking about, yes he's a trial lawyer, but he's also got a trial lawyer consulting company.
And what we're going to be doing is talking about advanced trial advocacy tips to help lawyers get verdicts for their clients.
So when that room starts up what I'm going to do is hit the plus button, which opens up my invite page, and then I'm going to type into the search bar at the top "lawyer".
Then what happens is it filters so that all that's displayed in my feed to tap and invite you just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, that's how you invite people in, will be lawyers who follow me on Clubhouse.
Maybe I'll also, depending on how many options I have, I'll type in "law students" or I might type in "attorneys".
And so I'm filtering down who I'm inviting into a club that I think they're going to benefit from.
So that's a little secret.
Most people don't realize that you can actually search your contacts before inviting people and I think that's probably the best way to go about it.
So I'm not inviting, the person who invited me to the Clubhouse is literally a Harvard in Michigan trained brain scientist.
I don't think she wants to come into some of my trial advocacy rooms and so I try to be selective, I try to respect the time and attention of my audience, and it seems to be working pretty well.
Ryan Foland: Okay.
If I were on Clubhouse and I was in the audience or on stage and I heard you say that and I liked what you said, and I wanted to applause, how would I applause?
Because this is one thing I learned and I experimented with using it.
So how do you give applause on Clubhouse?
Mitch Jackson: If you are on stage, yeah, and sometimes our stages have 20 people, 50 people, 100 people, I would recommend keeping it to maybe under 10 so you can manage it.
If you like what you hear you can just tap your mute and unmute button on your iPhone and that's a way of applauding. It's also a way of showing appreciation for what somebody just said, talked about, it's also a way of confirming, like, yeah right on, that's exactly what's going on here.
So by tapping the mute button you can share 2 or 3 different types of emotions or reactions and it's fun to do.
I would love it if they expanded that to everybody in the audience, that would be really cool, so you could actually do surveys or,
"Did everyone understand what Ryan just shared with this 3-1-3?"
So that's kind of a neat little tool.
They're rolling out new bells and whistles, literally every single week, it's technically still in beta.
I know it has over a million users now.
Gary V was on, I don't know, maybe this time last week it went on record saying,
"Listen, this by far is I think the most powerful social media platform right now that you have the opportunity to engage on."
I mean he went all out on Tik Tok a year ago, Instagram 2 years ago, and he's like, "This is the platform."
Now, I don't know if it's going to be around in 6 months or 12 months, but right now this is where you want to be.
And that's why I'm here. I want to play in the sandbox that all of the other kids are playing in right now.
You may not like the sandbox, you maybe don't want to be over in the sandbox over there, but if you're over there by yourself and you might be the best business consulting or speaking executive in the world, but no one else is in your sandbox, it just doesn't really matter.
So I am using this with intent, with purpose, not only to build up my personal brand but also to develop relationships with lawyers around the world, to network, and, hopefully, result in new referrals coming to the law firm.
Ryan Foland: Okay so I'm going to blink my mic for you, blink, blink, blink, and I'm going to share a few things that I noticed that you did on the platform when we were co-hosting.
Mitch Jackson: Good things or bad things?
Ryan Foland: Well, you know I like sharing the good and the bad, but I didn't see enough bad for it to be notable.
Mitch Jackson: I didn't know if I had to go or not.
Ryan Foland: No, no.
Mitch Jackson: So Ryan, along those lines nothing bad, see that's just it, is I'm joking, Ryan knows I'm joking you guys.
If you get on Clubhouse and you make a mistake or something happens, or you close the room by accident, who cares, it doesn't matter, nothing is recorded, nobody cares.
So don't worry about that stuff you guys.
Ryan Foland: And I think that's a good point because I was in my welcome party and then I was playing around the app and then I left the party and I couldn't find it, then I came back, I'm like, "I'm so sorry," they're like, "No, it's okay."
You can be in a room and you can still function within the app to see what other rooms are happening.
I was scared to just like touch stuff because you don't want to break it, but I like the fact that sand is easier to hit your head on and it doesn't hurt as much, right?
Mitch Jackson: It doesn't hurt as much and it's a lot more fun to get out of your shorts, so yeah, absolutely.
Ryan Foland: Totally.
So here's a couple of things that I really liked how you engaged people. One is just whole resetting the room.
Every 15, 20 minutes you said, "Hey Ryan, let's take a quick break, let's refresh the room," I think that was nice so that if somebody comes in a minute 7 they're confused and you help to bring that back.
The other thing is that you encourage people to connect with you on other platforms.
You said, "Hey, send me a DM on Instagram, send me a Twitter DM, follow me over here."
You also said, "Go ahead and follow me and follow Ryan."
And that sometimes is not an easy thing to do but if you don't put that out there people won't think about it.
So it's just like if you have a YouTube channel you've got to say subscribe, hit the like button because you don't know if it's their first time.
Mitch Jackson: It's not what you say, it's how you say it.
Ryan Foland: Blink, blink, blink, blink, mic, mic, mic, just like that, right?
Mitch Jackson: There you go, yeah, go ahead because this is good stuff, this is important.
Ryan Foland: Another thing is that on our topic which was about the 3-1-3 you then shared with people if they wanted to learn more then all they had to do was DM you and you would send them a chapter of your book, which is just a fantastic way for them to connect to you on another platform, for you to give them an easy lead magnet or some sort of a tripwire just to get to know you more, and the guest.
So I thought that was a really interesting play to create an opt-in, essentially connection off the platform, right?
Mitch Jackson: Absolutely.
And there's something that you don't know about that I even sweetened the pie a little bit.
What I have is I've got a PDF version of my book.
I've got separate chapters and the audibles and everything else.
But for the dozen people that reached out to me on both Twitter DMs and Instagram DMs, I just went ahead, and this wasn't something I planned ahead, Ryan, I could just tell everybody was so excited about what you were talking about and I kind of thought, you know, a lot of people need to read this, they need to see what you're talking about in writing and they're friends of mine.
So what I did is I messaged them privately and said,
"Listen, I know I told you I would send you the chapter. What I'd like to do, my treat is here's a link to allow you to download the entire book."
And Ryan's chapter was you know, I've got it here in front of me, just in case you quiz me on any of this stuff, Ryan's chapter 42 the 3-1-3 method is ‘The Foundation to Your Online Success.’
So what I was trying to do is add value, remain memorable.
And also, look, I'm a lawyer, I want to be that lawyer that people understand who may not have met me before, the room that you and I were doing together, wow that was really cool, he actually went out of the way to help me do this.
A week ago I had Bob Burg in the room. Bob Burg, co-author of the Go-Giver series of books.
Bob's a friend of mine, he contributed a chapter of the book, great guy, right.
By the way, everyone, go to burg.com he's got a big announcement coming up, get on his email update list.
Seriously, this is a huge thing.
But there was a young lady who was listening to me just rave about Bob's book Adversaries Into Allies, which is a great people skills book.
She's getting ready to start law school and I told her,
"Listen, get this book, it's just outstanding, it's going to define your law school career, your legal career, it's really that good. More lawyers need to read this."
And anyway, while I was talking with her I realized it might be cost-prohibitive for her to actually pick up the book online, so I said,
"Listen, DM me with your address and I'll go ahead and have a book sent to you from the Amazon, my treat. Because Lois if you don't mind I'd love to just send you one, I'm sure he autographed it and wrote a little message in there.
That's being a go-giver.
And so what I've noticed is this platform allows you to be a go-giver whether you're sharing advice, whether you're Ryan Foland sharing the 3-1-3 whether you're Mitch Jackson helping an entrepreneur avoid certain legal mistakes, things that they're staying up at night worrying about that I fixed this problem a million times in the past and in 60 seconds I can get it fixed and we're good.
So that's what I like about this platform, is it doesn't matter how you look, what your hair looks like, if you shaved you can just pop on your iPhone and add value.
And I would encourage all of your listeners to think about when they start embracing the power of this platform, how can they add a little bit more value than just showing up in a room.
And the answer to that is think about Instagram DMs, direct messages, and Twitter direct messages because the links are there.
Also if you're talking about a course or a special link, before you go live, change your Instagram link in your profile to that link so that you can tell people,
"Listen, I've got the book set up in a special link on my Instagram profile, go to the bottom of my profile, click the button and click and it's all yours."
So I think just doing these little extra things really helps you stand out on the platform.
And if you've got any communication skills whatsoever, you can dominate this platform and have fun doing it.
Ryan Foland: Yeah, and the fact that it's an audio first platform and if you are a speaker and you're wanting people to hear you talk, you don't have to go onto a live stream, you don't have to create a video.
You talk about you can show up in any shape you want as long as your profile picture looks not disheveled, you'll look good.
Mitch Jackson: This is Ryan along those lines, so check this out, you guys.
I set up a folder on my iPhone with 10 different profile pictures because while you're on stage, while you're in the audience, you can tap your picture and you can change it out instantly.
So I have a little sign this is "be back shortly", so if I'm on stage waiting behind 6 other people to ask a question, or basically to take over the show and I have to step out for a minute for whatever reason, I've got to take another call, I've got to take a Zoom call from the court, I can just tap and put up that little sign and everyone knows I'll be back.
You can, for example, if you have a book you can create a little profile picture of your book so that while you're on stage talking about your book you can tap and have your book come up, you can have some fun with it.
So a little insider tip that I didn't figure out until after week one, but it's fun to use and it's a great way to kind of just stand out above all the noise of everyone else in your room.
Ryan Foland: Now, would you suggest, or do you see people doing regular programming?
Should I do every Tuesday at ___PM, it's a 3-1-3 room, or do you see this as more of an impromptu,
"Hey, I'm feeling inspired, let's have coffee with a ginger."
How are you seeing people doing it right now?
Mitch Jackson: I love it, man, you're so funny. I think that the marketing hat on me if you have the time and the energy to do a regularly scheduled weekly room, as some friends of mine are doing, I think you would just kill it.
Absolutely that's the way you want to go about it.
But on the other side of the coin, by you hosting the room people are coming to you, and that's great, most of them probably already know who you are and that's why they want to come to your room.
For me, at least half of my time would be spent going into other rooms of interest, where you may have directly or indirectly the opportunity to build new business relationships, new personal relationships, new business opportunities.
Ryan, I've never seen a platform with so many business owners and executives of huge companies.
And once this whole COVID things resolved, and they start having conferences again, I'm seeing friends of mine that are professional speakers making new contacts and they're already sharing on Twitter, "I just met so and so on Clubhouse, great sharing a room with him," or, "I've got to jump on stage and actually build a new relationship, just booked a new event for 2022."
So that tells me that smart speakers are placing themselves intentionally in the right rooms with the right business leaders, social media managers, conference executives and getting on their radars, radars that you haven't been able to get on in the past, I mean that's the power of Clubhouse.
Ryan Foland: Yeah and I've heard that people get really excited about that accessibility, the fact that the only way maybe you could have interacted with Elon Musk might have been a tweet or something or a news article.
Now to be in the same virtual room where he is talking, I think people are really geeking out on that.
So to give your audience a chance to get a piece of you, especially if you've been kind of hiding behind the scenes or under a rock or you just haven't had the stage time, this is a choose your own stage time adventure.
Mitch Jackson: It's paint your own destiny.
Do what you want.
Now, for me, last night, I was more interested in watching Arrested Development on Netflix, okay, whatever, I'm kind of past that point in my life.
But, there are a lot of people I noticed complaining they couldn't get into the room.
Look, here's the thing, in the last 2 weeks I've made connections with some amazing people that have changed the world and whether it's actors, executives, I hosted a show with a young man that I met on Clubhouse and we used this technique that I think your speakers would really like.
He was a Super Bowl NFL champ, he's now an executive coach, young guy, a great speaker, and so what he and I did, is we first did a 45-minute live video and talked about his career, we talked about being an entrepreneur and things like this, okay.
Then what we did is we told everybody, "Listen, there are 3 things that keep coming up during this conversation, we're going to take this conversation in 15 minutes over to Clubhouse.
If you are on Clubhouse and you want to continue the chat join us over there, the room's already set up, we will bounce over in just a couple of minutes."
We bounced over 15 minutes later, I started up the room we had some people from the live video but we had primarily a whole new audience, people taking the stage,
"Yeah, when you said this during the live video what did you mean by that?"
So we continued the conversation. It was awesome.
Ryan Foland: You had a live stream that then you cross-promoted and said, "Hey, let's go to the Clubhouse and hang out and have a more intimate experience there."
Mitch Jackson: We used to do that with Twitter chats, we bounced from Twitter chats to Facebook live, Instagram live and so I thought why not do it with these 2 platforms.
And so we signed off at the end, "Okay guys, we'll see you in 15 minutes over in Clubhouse and you'll see our names on the room and the topic."
The other approach I think that would work really well as if you were hosting a speaker's room, a ‘How to 3-1-3 speakers room’ for example,
"Listen, we talked about this for 45 minutes there's only so much we can do here. If you want to jump on to the live video that we have set up that starts in 20 minutes, come on over, join us live, let's walk through this together using our body language, our eye contact."
Yeah, I think there are all different types of ways to complement what Clubhouse offers with some of the other existing platforms that we're already on.
And I think the people that are doing this are the ones that are standing out, being followed, and adding even more value to their community.
So we're going to do that with our trial advocacy session, we're going to roll it over to a couple of different platforms.
Ryan Foland: Awesome.
Well, it's an early land grab, and so you're out there excavating the land and playing in the sand.
As you continue to use this I think you're a great person to follow on the platform because you are testing, you're trying, you're being creative and you have the depth of knowledge of the social media backdrop that you're using.
You're not just all of a sudden popping up on Clubhouse and you're like, "I'm all Clubhouse."
You're there, you're cross-promoting, you're pollinating, you've got all these different moving parts which I think is an exciting thing to jump into in 2021.
Get over that ho-ha blame and shame, now it's like you have a stage, it's as soon as you want to start it, you have an audience, as soon as you want to tap into it.
You have co-hosts, people that you've maybe wanted to present what, there's a number of people that like I was on the show I'm like, "Hey, hopefully, we'll share the stage some time."
But now I can contact those people and say like, "Hey, let's share a stage."
And now we're in this digital world, it's almost the same thing to share live as in digital like culturally we're getting there.
So I appreciated sharing the stage with you, I'm enjoying this stage and I look forward to continuing to do that whether it's in the club, or on the tweet, or into gram.
Mitch Jackson: Absolutely.
So next time you're diving, you could actually, I had a friend that was periscoping while scuba diving, he was 75 feet down, he's actually live video on periscope, and periscope first rolled out, so if they can do that with a live video you should be able to set up a Clubhouse room next time you're night diving and somehow communicate with us using some type of special device or when you're sailing over to the island.
These are all things I think you can bring into the Clubhouse experience to stand out, to attract the tension in the right way.
And if anyone wants to see how disastrous mistakes can be, which they're not on Clubhouse, just follow me.
I'm the guy that will shut down a room or raise his hand too early and you know what, I'm still standing and I'm still smiling.
So don't worry about it you guys, it's one of those things where I look at it as a welcome mat, and it's just another one of many welcoming mats into my law firm and into my life.
And I think right now in 2021 we all want connection, we all want to be welcomed into other people's lives.
And right now this is the platform I think speakers absolutely need to be on, to be relevant, to be proactive, and really position themselves for high-paying gigs moving forward, especially through 2022.
Ryan Foland: You've heard it here, the world is your stage and your boat can be a stage too.
Meet me in the boathouse is what I'm saying, I'm definitely going to go live, I guess it's going live on Clubhouse, on my boat, when I'm catching lobsters, we'll figure out that tech.
These are all great creative ideas.
Mitch, you've mentioned a few places to find you.
Obviously, we know on Clubhouse. There's a handle that you would communicate, correct?
Mitch Jackson: Well, I think it's just my name, just Mitch Jackson and if anybody wants to stay connected, the easiest way it's not my law firm website, it's my vlog, my social media stuff.
If you just bounce over to streaming.lawyer, streaming.lawyer all of my links and connections are there and I would love to answer any questions, connect with you guys on Clubhouse.
And frankly, Ryan, if you or anyone in your audience would like me to help co-moderate a room on a topic, that's a win-win, I love that stuff.
So just reach out and ask.
People are saying yes, the Clubhouse, co-moderating opportunities, and I think that's important for everyone to know.
I'm seeing people on there that I've never seen them say yes to an opportunity to speak and they're up there 2 or 3 times a week. It's crazy.
Ryan Foland: Wow, there you go.
The Clubhouse, the boathouse, the lobster house, the whatever house.
Mitch Jackson: As long as it's not the dog house.
Ryan Foland: As long as it's not the dog house.
Well hey, so for all of you who are out there and you are building your speaker presence, don't forget that this podcast is powered by SpeakerHub, it's a place for you to put your profile, it's a place for you to share your Clubhouse link, it's a place for you to find speaking gigs, it's a place for you to be a speaker online.
And in order to find me, it's very simple, you can find me at Ryan.online if you want me to come and charge up your crowd, if you want me to come and talk about the 3-1-3 or shoot if you want to co-host a Clubhouse with me, we'll figure it out.
But Mitch, on behalf of everyone here and everyone in the club, I appreciate all of your insights and I look forward to seeing you there and basically everywhere else you are online.
Mitch Jackson: It sounds like a plan, Ryan, thanks a lot. Thanks, everybody.
A bit about World of Speakers
World of Speakers is a bi-weekly podcast that helps people find their own voices, and teaches them how to use their voice to develop a speaking business.
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