IAM260-Co-founder Helps People Stay Updated With Their Peers and Colleagues Through Video Blogging

Vikram is the co-founder of phoneBlogger.net & Videosocials.net, both are word-of-mouth marketing services, designed for attorneys, accountants & consultants. Vik has been published by Forbes, quoted by many, and is a frequent presenter at Bar Associations, CPA Societies, and other professional associations. While his staff works from across the country, Vikram works from his home office in Harlem, NYC.

• CEO Hack: Having awesome people on my team
• CEO Nugget: Build that team, build that infrastructure
• CEO Defined: Being the orchestra and maestro, the best you can be

Website: https://www.videosocials.net/

Full Interview

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:24

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresham from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Vikram of phoneBlogger.net & Videosocials.net Vikram is awesome to have you on the show.

Vikram Ranjan 0:27

Gresham it's great to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

No problem super excited to have you on and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Vikram so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. is the co-founder of phoneBlogger.net & Videosocials.net, both are word-of-mouth marketing services, designed for attorneys, accountants & consultants. Vik has been published by Forbes, quoted by many, and is a frequent presenter at Bar Associations, CPA Societies, and other professional associations. While his staff works from across the country, Vikram works from his home office in Harlem, NYC. Vikram, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Vikram Ranjan 1:09

Yeah, looking forward to it

Gresham Harkless 1:11

Awesome let's do it. So the first question I had was to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story, what led you to start your business?

Vikram Ranjan 1:17

It's quite simple, maybe 10-15 years at this point, it's been a little bit. So I first started as my Father's right-hand person, his apprentice, so to speak, and my job or when he left the main phone company here in New York, he decided to be a management consultant for small companies.

And so my job was essentially to introduce him to referral relationships where mainly transactional attorneys CPAs, would bring my father into their clients, and help them with transition and process development. Along the way, about six, or seven years after doing that, I wanted to bring my own clients and so on at that point, I was in my early 20s to my late 20s.

And a good number of essentially family, friends, attorneys, and accountants that were family friends around Long Island, I turned to on the kind of hoping to do the same thing to be brought in for as a marketing consultant.

And a few of them wanted my help, in the same way that I was helping my dad and I was honored. But I didn't really realize what I was getting myself into, and that there's a rather large cottage industry around practice management and practice marketing. And then there are rules of the road attorney advertising rules or federal obligations.

The AICPA governs how gents to kind of learn the do's and don'ts, what they're allowed to say, can't say my say, along with of course, fine-tuning marketing for them around word-of-mouth referral marketing. But using the internet as I was kind of fast-growing on it, of course, continues to be fast-growing, as you know. And that became our focus.

So created, practice marketing advisors. And then my book of business got really filled up, I brought on a partner Mark Bullitt, my current partner is plagued our full. And then we started scaling to create a service called phoneBlogger, and now Videosocials, and go a little bit about the lessons around that. That's how we got started.

Gresham Harkless 3:07

Nice. Well, you know, I know everybody always has the focus and goal and I was here to make sure the niche was down and I think you spoke to it a lot as far as like understanding your market, front, back side aside, up and down, you understand all the things you can do and cannot do. And that definitely is very important, as you know, as far as marketing is knowing your audience.

Vikram Ranjan 3:27

Yeah, yeah. And you know, knowing what makes them tick. Also knowing what, what they need, even sometimes before they even know they need it.

Gresham Harkless 3:35

Exactly, exactly. So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper and hear you know, how you're working with clients, how you're serving the clients that you're working with, with your companies?

Vikram Ranjan 3:43

Yeah, sure. So phoneBlogger, it's kind of our main company. So the main need is that our clients, mainly attorneys, they're more lucrative businesses through word-of-mouth referrals. Very often from other lawyers, it's very similar to how specialized doctors recommend each other because they can't all do it all. They can't all be experts in everything.

So attorneys are very similar in that way. So they need to stay top of mind with their peers, but also past clients and other referral relationships. One of the simplest ways to do so is to send out an email newsletter that doesn't get nearly as much hype as social media. But more people check email more time today, more than any other social media combined and the issue with email newsletters is the content who's going to actually sit down and write the articles, and getting our clients to do it was a real pain in the neck.

So we said, well, what if we brainstormed article ideas with our clients, and we just set up a series of telephone interviews and if they can say it in five minutes, we can type it up so that someone can read it in five minutes. blog articles should be well about three, or four minutes.

So that made sense and sort of working on we started now having a regular weekly session with our clients and literally a five to 10-minute phone call and everything else is taken care of. And that's really what we do at phone blogger. And nowadays, when you go onto any of these social media sites, you go to LinkedIn level on Facebook Every other post is a video.

And we want to figure out a way in a very similar creative way, for lack of a better word force our clients to start doing video blogging, they're all subject matter experts, and they know what they're talking about. They're steeped in their practice and the area for decades. So there's no reason why they should suddenly become nervous when there's a camera on them. But I think to some extent, we all do.

And so we want to create a safe environment, a place where they can practice place where they can feel comfortable, and literally just talk to each other, and present a topic and make it really easy. So for example, we're using Zoom right now. So we bring together eight to 10 of our clients onto a Zoom video meeting a video call. And we each take two to three minutes to present a topic of the country talking around the room, and everyone uses their laptops from their offices.

They're around, essentially the New York area now, but it could be around the country. And once they record that two to three-minute topic, we then stop and get some feedback from their peers right on the call, and maybe over a period of time, even introductions like hey, Gresham, I know someone should watch that video that was really great. We just talked about it, I'll introduce you to that person.

And that's powerful, just referrals right on the call. And then the next person goes, and it's like a round table. So 45 minutes later, everyone on the video call has just recorded their video blog for the week, they had fun, they got it done, and they can click a couple of buttons right on our review page to post it on YouTube, on Facebook, LinkedIn, they can put it on their website if they think they can do better and come back the following week. And they record the same topic and get some more feedback and introductions.

And afterward, you dress rehearsals, they got it down really well. And that's all they really need. And after they do this by two-three times as kind of a video socials call or we have members now who are essentially good enough where they're happy with the result and they're doing weekly video blogging, it's more like hey, can we beat the clock on how close to minutes can we get like breaking the four-minute mile we can actually do it and do it consistently and make it where they are video blogging on their social media and on their website effortlessly again, together funded done.

Gresham Harkless 7:08

I don't know if you already touched on this but I want to ask you for what I call your secret sauce and this is what you feel kind of distinguishes you or your organization when he feels kind of sets you guys apart

Vikram Ranjan 7:15

Convenience, and comfortability you know, and community happens to be LLC, but that was not planned. Definitely, the secret sauce of what we feel we're starting to really catch on right video socials is the community aspect. Whether it's the technology behind it, we have a review page, which upgrades video to HD and you know, APIs work with LinkedIn and Facebook, YouTube. So there's the technology behind it.

So that's a little bit of a secret sauce. But we feel what really makes this powerful and magical is how we're able to engender that community and camaraderie, you know, I have a saying that I don't use too often that people come to record, but they stay for the report. And it's the way that everyone's able to help each other I really see one another grow up because not only do we grow when we get feedback, but even when we give feedback. We're reaffirming, edifying ourselves.

And also, of course, helping that other person. So that nurturing of relationships, it's really powerful. And you know, they can take that offline and become referral relationships. But right in the room to do video blogging together fun and done is really that central core. So it's, it's making sure everyone's helping each other.

Gresham Harkless 8:22

I want to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Vikram Ranjan 8:30

Tremendously having awesome people on my team.

Gresham Harkless 8:33

That's what everybody's looking for.

Vikram Ranjan 8:34

That's the answer because, like, my greatest hack, is to make sure that it's somebody else's responsibility. And they do a better job at it than I could do because they're focused because they do it so often. So it's like, the faster I can get it off my plate, the better. It feels almost like, the faster I can hit the ball back to the list, the better. I know I said one thing once my wife wasn't like meant to be a pity cliche, but then she brings it up every now and then and sometimes uses it against me that I know if I'm having to do something, something's going wrong in my company, something like that, to paraphrase it where it's like, Look, if it's on my shoulders, something's wrong.

And really, and that was really because of my partner Mark. And before Mark, I was a solo professional and everything was on my plate. Not that everything got done, but it was on the plate and somebody fell off and I didn't realize it, and Mark A- was my partner so then I stopped being solo but for a long time we were cut to solo it's kind of like that like binary Stark, I think.

And then as the phone blogger started, we had to bring on other people. We just couldn't do all the interviews and the edits. And so we started developing this infrastructure of people and that's really what transformed it. None of them are on staff or employees but didn't turn out that way contractor so I think anyone will operate Grow is another type of tenant co grow happens to be my father's company.

So if a tenant in there has a team making sure that it's not all on you, I think it's better for the clients, it's better for you and your own lifestyle and happiness and being able to be with family and work work work makes a dog boy and Tommy's great for other people, you know, look, you know, sometimes it's said, sarcastically that we're job creators, but we ought to be job creators.

And it's not literally an employment job where we're helping someone else in their business, because if they're a freelancer or a contractor, I think the more that we're trying to take it all on ourselves, is a disservice to the client to service to our family, your service to our country, and economy and other freelancers and other people around the world where we could be actually creating a better organization.

So I think all around is the triple with work, create a team, my staff is phenomenal, I'd marvel at what they're able to do. And I know, look, a lot of it is because they're able to focus on one aspect. But you know, they're great at that aspect. And it's hard to be great at everything, you know, can't be a jack of all trades, master of none, that's not a good way. Unfortunately, a lot of CEOs, or at least CEOs of smaller companies feel that way.

And you know, we need to be more of a Maestro and can't see the forest from within the trees and all those cliches. So I think it's extremely important. It gives us that headspace to really think of strategy vision, knowing how all the pieces fit together or to fit together can be improved. And that is really our role. I mean, look for me as a day job, so to speak, on the sales professional on selling phoneBlogger, selling Videosocials. So I try not to get into a sense that, you know, I gotta bring in clients.

So that's my day job. So, unfortunately, sometimes I can only really be the CEO. And in its true form, in the evening hours, and on weekends, or something, I have to carve that out during the day with my partner, but the more I can put that hat on, the better off everyone is gonna be.

Gresham Harkless 11:43

And that might be what I was going to ask you for next, which is a CEO nugget. And this is like a word of wisdom or piece of advice. And I sometimes say like, if you can happen to a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Vikram Ranjan 11:53

Build that team build that infrastructure? You know, it's easy to say build systems, but then you end up with a bunch of manuals with no one else to do it. So it's like, alright, yeah, it's like writing a cookbook for yourself. It's like, Well, that's nice. But I already knew how to make that meal, if you didn't have anyone to teach it to.

And it's actually I think, better to have that other person start writing the cookbook, they may not get everything, right, it may not be 100% your vision, but at least in the interim, they're writing it down, they can kind of follow a manual, and then you could kind of go in and massage at it.

And my staff understands that happens all the time. We, I believe, make a small mess first, then clean it up, or that mess up, bring someone on someone that you can trust has that character has that work ethic, and a few skills there. They don't have to be an expert, I think it's like I forget all the cliches, but it's kind of like hiring for character and offering competence or something, you know, it's not that you don't want someone competent. But it's harder for the character.

That's way more important. Because the trust is there, he or she will figure it out, because they're going to do the right thing. And of course, sometimes you really need that, you know that degree or certification, you need to know they know what they're doing. But if all things are equal, obviously, we want the person with integrity, everything else will work itself out. Well, education. Good question.

Gresham Harkless 13:04

Nice. And I know you touched on this a little bit as well. But I want to ask you what my favorite question is, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote unquote, CEOs on the show. So, Vic, I want to ask you what has been a CEO means to you.

Vikram Ranjan 13:16

um, I would say it's like being a maestro of an orchestra, you know, the maestro may have gone through cast classical training through maybe a violin or the strings or, or one other title or the brass instruments or what have you. But now he or she, when they're in the maestro role, they know they're an expert musician in any one of those instruments per se, definitely not at the level of proficiency of the current musicians he or she is conducting, but it's really helping them be the best that they can be.

And really keeping everyone in time and in tune and having that bigger vision and being able to hear and see the forest, because it's hard when you're actually playing that one instrument that we are that Maestro. And that is our role.

Now sometimes we may have to step in and play an instrument because that's just kind of the nature of real life. But the more we can spend time out while appreciating that they are experts, and we want to affirm and empower their expertise in each person's instrumentalization I think that's more of the empowerment that goes into a lot of that we need to empower each of our staffers or our teammates to make sure that they are doing their best and allow them that freedom, that autonomy to make mistakes, get better teach others to create kind of a core chat around them create kind of a unit around them so that they feel empowered, and they can get it done because not you know, no one should feel like everything's on their plate. The CEO should suddenly be you know, the maestro that's like, Alright, I'm going on vacation for two weeks.

Everything's on your plate now. Like that's not cool, like so. So you always need to be that backup. So hopefully that helps with a metaphor that leaves that a lot.

Gresham Harkless 14:50

That makes sense. That makes sense. Well, Vic, I appreciate you for taking some time out. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and our listeners know and then Of course, how I can get ahold of you.

Vikram Ranjan 15:01

Yeah, any questions anyone has, you know, I love doing these kinds of things. I do a lot of presentations, you know, my core market is lawyers and accountants.

So that's really where we work. consultants have also gotten attracted to what we do, because they're, of course, subject matter experts, I would almost extend the invitation not only to you Gresham but to any listener if they want to ever come onto a Videosocials call as my guest to get a free video out of it and present a topic, try it out, I only ask that they tell their friends tell their colleagues about what we're doing. Because I think what we're doing is kind of fun and special. But anyone you know, just kind of send me an email, and it'll be fun to find the right type of video blogging club that fits into what they do.

And there's gonna be room and we'll find time and it'll be great for them to take a spin. I'd be honored if they wanted to join as a member at a very low cost, but nevertheless, take a spin get a video out of it, and tell their colleagues

Gresham Harkless 15:51

Definitely sounds good. And the best way is it for them to go to the website to take advantage?

Vikram Ranjan 15:55

You can go to Videosocials.net. They can shoot me an email directly, which is vik@phoneblogger.net. And that's the easiest way to reach me. I mean, easily find me on LinkedIn and Facebook, they could probably find me but that's really where I'm hanging out with friends and family. But you know what, we'll figure that out.

Gresham Harkless 16:13

That sounds like a plan and we'll have all those links in the show notes as well. So Vik I appreciate you for your time. Appreciate all the awesome things that you're doing. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Vikram Ranjan 16:21

Thanks for the follow Gresham.

Outro 16:23

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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