Don’t miss Paul’s high energy interview with Pat Hilton, of Acoustic Force Media, on the importance of marketing your brand on social platforms.
Show Notes
“If you can find those slots of peoples’ lives that need a solution, and it’s your solution, your product, your expertise, that’s where you find the sales.” Pat Hilton
The #1 reason decision makers are willing to meet with a salesperson is because “it appears they can solve a business problem.”
“Salespeople have these ‘bad vibes’ that go with them, when in reality, these are the people that are stimulating the economy and keeping innovation and entrepreneurship alive. They’re actually the good guys.” Pat Hilton
People define value in their own terms. We have to understand that. We’ve got to speak their language.
“What are people missing out on by not buying your product? You’ve got to be a wheel in peoples’ machines.” Pat Hilton
Visit www.ToughTimer.com to get started on the 30-Day Tough-Timer Challenge!
Order your copy of Selling Through Tough Times from Amazon or Barnes & Noble!
Click here to purchase the latest edition of Value-Added Selling!
Want to find out more? Just Google Pat Hilton. He’s the handsome one, not the old soccer player.
Also mentioned in this podcast, Who Not How, by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
Thanks to our production team at The Creative Impostor Studios! Click here to book a complimentary consultation with Strategist and Producer, Andrea Klunder, to find out how to launch, produce, and grow your company’s podcast.
***
Thank you for tuning in. Our show is updated weekly with the questions you ask. So, please go to the home page to ask the question that you want answered.
Be sure to follow our show in your favorite podcast app and share this episode with a colleague or friend.
And most importantly…make it a big day.
How can I use social media to create more sales? with Pat Hilton
(Transcribed from podcast interview)
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Q and A Sales Podcast. On today’s show, we’ve got a very special guest. His name is Pat Hilton. Pat Hilton is the Acoustic Force and the epitome of the word hustle. Now Pat helps leaders market on social media platforms, and he took his career from playing acoustic guitar in beach-bar corners to the biggest stages in the business space. He has created viral video content on Instagram and TikTok for top influencers like GaryVee, Grant Cardone and Brad Lea. Now, as Pat often says, “Social media changed my business and my career. It can change yours too.” As you will soon learn, Pat is a dynamic and passionate guy. I hope you enjoy listening to Pat as much as I enjoyed interviewing him.
Now, before we get into the interview, a quick shout out to our sponsor, Andrea, over at The Creative Impostor Studios does a wonderful job of editing, producing, and supporting our podcast. She has helped it grow; it is now almost in 80 countries. A large part of that is due to Andrea and her team over at The Creative Impostor Studios. So if you need help with a podcast, supporting your own podcast, getting it started, whatever it is, reach out to Andrea and her team.
Secondly, Selling Through Tough Times is now available on Amazon or wherever you get your books. In the interview today, Pat and I talk about hustle and about resilience and how important mental strength is. Selling Through Tough Times is your go-to guide. And, actually, it just hit the number-one new release for sales books on Amazon. So, guys, it is flying off the shelves. Pick up your copy today.
(Music and rap by Pat Hilton)
Paul: All right. I’ll let you kick it off and do your thing.
Pat: Oh man. You know, for me, I think it’s really cool that we have the ability to do these conversations. I built an entire business out of using audio and video. All this stuff that I was doing 10, 15 years ago, just to get bar gigs around St. Louis, I’ve built into a touring business all over the nation. And then now, all those skills that I learned that I was promoting myself with are in demand now in 2021.
I mean, if you’re not on, you know, the LinkedIns and the Facebooks and the Twitters and the TikToks, people can’t find you. And this idea of personal branding, which is like, I don’t know who came up with the term, maybe Gary Vaynerchuk might be credited with that one. But like back in the day, it was just people like Michael Jackson or Elvis Presley or them, they were doing this personal branding idea in the music industry a long time ago. But now entrepreneurs have adopted this kind of music-promotion mindset of like videos and graphics and podcasts and content. And the word content is essentially just what multimedia producers have been doing for years to make people famous in the music industry. And so all the stuff that’s happening in the business world that I trained on in the music industry, like it all merged together. So it’s a really exciting time for people like me, because the skills are now heavily in demand. Like you said, you got a guy, you send your stuff to? A lot of people send their stuff to us too, and there’s plenty of work for everybody. It’s a beautiful thing.
Paul: Yeah, it is unbelievable how branding has changed, and how it’s become unsophisticated in a way. And I say that not in a sense to dumb down marketing, but one thing I’ve noticed, I’ll get into a video studio, high-quality video studio and shoot some footage, things like that. I’ll post something on LinkedIn or Facebook that may get a little bit of play, but what gets more play is when I get out my iPhone, when I’m just talking to the community and that authenticity piece. And that’s something, that oozes from your pores just have following you for a number of years.
So let’s do this, Pat. So, you and I went to high school together. And we had not seen each other in a long time, but I’ve been following you. In fact, I was just watching some YouTube videos. I was—you know how you get caught in the scroll where you’re just scrolling up and down. All of a sudden, I see Pat Hilton and I think it was like Entrepreneur Magazine or something was interviewing you. I’m like, “Dude, I went to high school with that guy!” And they were calling you “the embodiment of hustle.” The embodiment of hustle.
So, man, what I like to do to kick this off today—. Could you maybe just share a little background about Pat Hilton—what you do? I’d love to hear more about, from a marketing perspective, branding perspective, all that. But let’s talk a little bit more about Pat Hilton and what you do, how you got started and all that good stuff.
Pat: So, Paul and I went to high school at CBC in St. Louis. And so how many people do you think were in the school? 300 people per graduating class, maybe 1500 people max?
Paul: Yeah, probably around there.
Pat: So, I mean, it wasn’t like a huge school. But I think that what we learned, and this was a huge takeaway for me from CBC was, be authentic, trust in God’s plan, and always stay transparent, work hard, and like, be a man. Like it was an all guys private school, so it’s like, “Be a man and go out there and do what you gotta do to win.” And I think that seems so old school now, but in reality, those core concepts just resonated with me in the fact that like, I’m going to do this music thing that I love to do. I was the best player, even when I showed up as a freshman. As a trumpet player, I could outplay the seniors. But, you know, you had the thing in band class. It wasn’t like sports where you just put the best player on the varsity team, band class had a little bit of politics. It’s all good.
I played my role and we started our own band where we wrote our own songs. And this is where a shift happened for me because we started marketing our own, we recorded our own albums. We were marketing our own shows. We were selling out Tropicana and Concord Bowling Alley when we were 16 years old. And so it was really cool because we had a female singer from St. Joe high school, a saxophone player from Kirkwood (Paul: Was that Colleen?) Yeah, Colleen Barrett. And then we add Will Clipple from Kirkwood, Will Bets and Johnny O’Neal from Webster. We had me and Tom Delaney. Tom was in your class. (Paul: That’s right.) And then Christian Kirk was transferred to Webster, but went to CBC for two years. So it was this mix of different guys and gals from different high schools.
And I think it taught me that, like, my message can resonate with anyone as long as I channel it correctly. And so, I took that away from the whole build-a-band thing was marketing. We got to get people into this room or we don’t make any money. And I want to make more than I make at Imos playing my trumpet. So I better figure something out. And so we started thinking differently than the other band kids or the other sports kids. Cause we are trying to use our talent to create an audience and get paid.
And that’s exactly what people are using podcasts and content and marketing for right now in social media. It’s kind of shifted to my advantage, because I’ve been doing it for 20 years. And like you said, maybe in a non-conventional way, but I think that what’s happened is authenticity—using this right here (indicates phone). Everyone has one in their hand. And so when you talk to them through it, it feels like you’re really communicating with them on their level.
And so, Dan Fleischmann, this guy, I know he’s a big-wig entrepreneur and speaker said that the things that he posted on his phone—it was exactly what you said—get way more hits. Cause it doesn’t feel like we’re being advertised to. When we’ve got our fancy camera, I got my little lights and everything, it’s a little bit more of an advertisement rather than me just talking to you and telling you, giving you information, or “How can I help you with this?” Or “This is a great template that you can use for this type of post,” or whatever I post about, or sales tactics for you. But that’s what you talk about. Like your value selling, that’s what we had to learn as a kid. And so I’ve taken that. I built a whole touring schedule for myself as an acoustic performer. And then I shifted that into the corporate entrepreneur world. And now I’m an MC and a speaker at all these business conferences, and I turned it into a media agency where we manage people’s social media pages and podcast shows and video production and all kinds of different stuff. And it’s blowing up. This has been my biggest year ever.
Paul: Dude, that’s awesome. And in the midst of a pandemic when conferences are being canceled and all that. And what’s interesting Pat, cause you’re such a dynamic guy, and just hearing your thoughts come through and everything, it’s really powerful.
So, let’s walk the group through this—the community here—because you take your experience as starting this band, getting all these different people together and in your marketing, you’re promoting it. let’s talk about hustle, because that’s one thing that seen you, throughout your career, is you are a hustler, man. You, you get things done. One thing that I’ve noticed, and this is with salespeople right now. The past few years have been a real grind for them. I say a few years, really, since the pandemic started. People are trying to work from home. They’re trying to hit their quotas. They’re trying to homeschool their kids. They’re doing all this kind of stuff. And it’s been a different kind of grind. What are some thoughts you can share with salespeople that are just struggling with staying focused, with pushing through the adversity that they’ve experienced. Because I really do believe it—you’re the embodiment of hustle.
And I remember you—. I saw you on TV one time and you had this shirt that said Dues Paid. And I was like, “Oh, that’s a really cool shirt.” I don’t know if you remember that shirt, if you still have it, or the interview, but you get out there and hustle. So what’s some advice you have for salespeople or even some entrepreneurs, small business owners, people getting started in their career and they’re facing tough times, they’re facing struggle and they need to get out there and hustle. Any advice? Any thoughts for them?
Pat: I would say to kind of flip the script—it’s hard to talk about how hard it is. Okay. So like I talk about all this stuff and it sounds really glorious: “Oh man, you toured all over the country and you played with, the Coolios and the Cypress Hills, and the Tom Morellos—Rage Against the Machine guys. And it’s, that’s all cool, and it’s all true. But what people don’t see is a lot of those nights, I slept in my van. I wasn’t making a lot of money. I was earning my stripes with people and building relationships. And, the same thing I had to do with the GaryVees and the Grant Cardones, the Uncle Gs or whatever you want to call them. And so, I would say to talk about it. Throughout the whole time that I was doing that, I documented everything. From 2008 playing at Six Flags or whatever in St. Louis all the way to moving to California and then to moving to now, Texas and launching the media brand. I kept track of all of that. And I was open about where I was going, what I’m going to do.
And I think that it’s important for salespeople to tell people where they’re at. If people trust you and you put out your weaknesses or your shortcomings, and you say, “Well, this is really hard for me right now. Maybe you resonate with it as a fellow entrepreneur, small business owner corporation, but here’s the solution that I can provide for you.” (Paul: There you go.)
That’s how I got in with people like—. Like Grant Cardone needed a solution for all the downtime at his conferences. There’s a whole bunch of time where he’s spending a whole lot of money and nothing’s happening. Throw me up there with a 10 X hat and let me sing and bounce around and be happy, and fill that time with some value.
And so if you can find those slots of people’s lives that need a solution, and it’s your solution, your product, your expertise, that’s where you find the sales. But the tough thing about it is that you’re going to have to get vulnerable and talk about where you are, why it’s tough for you, too, so that the consumer understands, “Well, they’re feeling my pain, too. This hurts for both of us. But boy, they’re really good at solving this. Why don’t I exchange some dollars to get this problem solved in my life so that I can make more dollars over here on this side of the court, not worrying about that.”
Paul: Man. That’s great. That’s powerful. And that—. You know, what’s interesting—and I’ve mentioned this on previous podcasts—anytime there is a problem to be solved, there was profit to be made, both by you and in the customer or the consumer, right? And the problem you solve for Grant Cardone, right? Which is a huge name. Being on that stage, you identified a problem—all this downtime in between speakers or whatever. You created a solution. You didn’t just solve the problem. You didn’t have something off the shelf. You created a solution to solve that problem.
Here’s a little nugget too, for the audience, since we’re talking about problem solving. When we did the fourth edition of Value-Added Selling, we surveyed all these buyers/decision makers, and we asked them, “Why would you be willing to meet with a salesperson?” And the number one reason why they would meet with a salesperson is because they told us it appears they can help solve a business problem that I’m currently experiencing. So that proves what you just said and felt, and what you’ve known. This has probably been instinctual to you since you started the band and really progressed throughout your career. Unbelievable.
Pat: Yeah. And it’s like, we had to target, like I even said in the funny little song, like we were the blockbuster era. So what’s happening on Friday nights. Like people are going to rent movies for the weekend, but like, how can we get those people to show up at like 7:30, before it’s too late, pay $10, see us rock for 30 minutes. And then we all go heavily after-party, watch a little movie or whatever people are doing at that time. And that kind of progressed into, even when I was older, the bands in California were like the big cover acts. They started at 10 o’clock at night. Well, what’s going on from 7:00 to 9:00? What’s going on from 6:00 to 8:30? Why don’t I be the acoustic act that goes from 6:00 to 8:30 when the music venue or your business is full? Why don’t they have entertainment during that time? So I would find like brunches, happy hours and all these kinds of gigs. And I had six or seven gigs a week—full-time schedule—in the most competitive market of live music in the country, because I found those open spots and I filled them with a solution for that business owner.
Paul: There you go. Finding solutions, identifying problems, identifying opportunities. What’s interesting—. So I got a new book that just came out,
Pat: Congrats, by the way. I’ve been looking at that. That’s awesome.
Paul: I’m gonna talk to you about doing a little, maybe a little rap on the book. It’s all about selling through tough times, but what you just said made me think of this. In the book, we talk about tough timers. These are those individuals who just seem to thrive. They press on. They continue to move forward in a humble manner and they find success one way or another. One of the characteristics of tough timers is that they’re opportunistic. And you hear that word sometimes in business or in life: “Oh, they’re opportunistic,” and it takes on a negative context. I think it’s a really positive thing to be able to find opportunities.
You know, throughout your career, as an entrepreneur growing your business, can you think of tough times that led to greater opportunities for you, where you were able to just see something, that maybe other people couldn’t see. Or anything—does anything come to mind?
Pat: Yeah. So a lot of those tours that I got on with big names, especially early, I made stuff for those people for free. Whether it was a song advertisement. That’s how I got Vaynerchuk and Cardone’s attention was I made, yeah, I made custom songs just like I did for you. This was probably 2016/2017 when Instagram was first popping off. I made videos, songs of them in the corner of the screen with my guitar, singing about them, and then they’d come in at the end and advertise whatever they were advertising. And I sent it to them and their teams, and that’s how I got their attention. And then I just followed up and followed up and followed up.
So I think that people need to ask, if they’re hurting for sales or if they’re hurting for opportunity—. Like you said, opportunistic or salespeople have these like bad vibes that go with them when in reality, these are the people that are stimulating the economy and keeping innovation and entrepreneurship alive. They’re actually the good guys. And so, you’ve got to think about “Where do I fit in?” Get in where you fit in—the old guru-ism is so true. What does it look like for you, depending on what you’re selling. If you’re a landscape guy, a great way to get 10 clients on one block is to say, “Hey, you know, we’ll give you a prorated rate if you do it this month, and let’s see how you like the service. And then if you like the service, you sign on for the whole season.”
Some guy came to our door and was so enthusiastic about us using whatever it was, “Green Machine-whatever treatment for our lawn. And they cut and do our bushes. And it’s like, I don’t know, $35 bucks or something? Dude, it’s worth it. It saves me the time. If you’re selling something to someone, you have to make them understand that what they’re buying from you is buying them time—time—we cannot get back time. And so, whenever I was exchanging this value-added selling that you’re talking about is everything that I’ve done to get noticed.
I wrote songs for Coolio and Afroman, and MTV Jack Ass crew. That was who I was targeting then. But then I use that same tactic to target Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone and Tim Grover and all these people. And the same thing worked. I just had to change the lingo. (Paul: Sure. A hundred percent.) So you also have to kind of speak people’s language a little bit, too.
Paul: And that’s one thing we talk about is people define value in their own terms. (Pat: Exactly) We have to understand that. We’ve got to speak their language. We got to see as they see, feel as they feel. And by doing that, we create something that’s powerful, that resonates with them.
Pat: Yeah. And so, for the opportunity searchers out there, what are people missing out on by not buying your product? So like for me, I usually just talk about from my experience, cause that’s what I’m the best at. If you don’t have someone potentially managing your social media pages, are you on Pinterest? Twitter? Facebook? Instagram? YouTube? TikTok? Because if someone’s not managing that social solution for you, if you’re not managing it yourself, you’re missing out on opportunities. Well, if you’re missing out on opportunities, how much money are you losing by not spending the X amount of dollars a month to have a professional team do that for you?
Same thing like with you. If you have to spend three hours editing this podcast, how many calls and opportunities and meetings are you missing out on by taking time to mess with this audio? You can’t possibly have time for all of that. So you have to outsource that so that this podcast can create more opportunity for you. And so I think you’ve got to position your sale as if you don’t pay us, imagine all the opportunities that you’re losing by not doing it. And by not adding a wheel to your machine—. You’ve got to be a wheel in people’s machine.
Paul: Love that, be a wheel in their machine. It’s so timely that we’re talking about this. I’m reading a book right now. It’s called Who Not How, and it’s by—Dan Sullivan is one of the authors. Oh, who’s the other, guy’s Bradley something. I’ll put the full name on the transcript for this podcast. But it’s, a great book because it changes your mindset. Rather than asking “How do I do this,” for example, we talk about podcasting. How do I edit this podcast? Rather than asking how, ask, “Who can I get to do this for me?”(Pat: Exactly.) It frees up your time to focus on what you are the best at, what you can be the best in the world at. I know, for me, it’s creating content, it’s speaking and training. If I can free up my time to do only those things, I’m a happy guy. I’m growing my business. And for you, I would imagine, I mean, the creativity—that’s probably a part where you thrive.
Pat: Yeah. And so, it’s similar for me too. I almost built the business as a solution for myself. Because I was spending so much time making content for Pat, and then when other people wanted to finally order content, or order this or order that, I’m like, “Okay, I’ve got to drop everything to make this video or that video.” And so I built a team that knew how to break up long-form content and find keywords and get on calls and record with clients and ask them the right questions. We cut up the answers, position them as an authority. Those people are only taking an hour out of their month to record a whole month of content because our team knows how to chop it up, add captions, add subtitles, add designs and all of that kind of stuff. How important is that one hour a month for entrepreneurs to have content? It’s the same thing with this podcast. You can now chop this up and create a micro-content strategy that pushes out little valuable nuggets. Who knows how many views or sales one of those nuggets can produce? But if you’re constantly focusing on those little things, you’re unable to build the bigger picture. (Paul: Absolutely.) So I had to practically build the solution for myself, and then I realized everybody needs that solution too. And social media is free. So if you’re not promoting yourself on social media, I mean, you’re literally losing money. You’re leaving money on the table that someone else that’s got the attention is going to get.
Paul: Absolutely. You’ve got to capture it and it’s, it is free. You invest your time as part of it, but it’s a great equalizer. What a great time to be in business, right? Because you can, you can now compete in ways that you couldn’t compete and get your name out there, the brand, everything.
So, one thing I would like to ask just, I got a couple final questions here for you. (Pat: Cool.) So, this community—The Q and A Sales Podcast community—we’ve got a lot of salespeople that are selling in the business-to-business world, whether they’re selling software, industrial equipment, they could be in the banking industry. If you could give—. Just think about regular salesperson out there, hustling every day, trying to hit their quota. If they’re trying to fully leverage social media, what are some things that maybe just a salesperson could do on a regular basis, whether it’s LinkedIn, Twitter, any platform? Do you have any tips or ideas for just the average salesperson to go out there and leverage social media more effectively?
Pat: Absolutely. So if I was starting from scratch, and I was listening to this podcast with this wild guy that’s toured all over the country, booking gigs off MySpace and stuff, even until now, building an entire social-media agency, I would start with video, and I would start with your phone.
So, what I would do is I would learn how to use the camera on TikTok, and I would film 15 to 30 seconds of value-driven content that starts with a hook. So, what you’re going to do is hook–value-driven content–and then call to action. So this is a three-step process. So what you’re going to do is you’re going to say: “This landscaping solution I have for you is so good it shouldn’t even be legal.” And then you say, “Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. If you dig this follow for more.”
Like Paul might say, “If you’re a salesperson and you want to close more deals, here’s my #1 tip.” That’s your intro. That’s your hook. And then he says “1, 2, 3, 4.” And then, “If you like it, follow me for more.” Cause you’ve got to call-to-action on people too.
And then here’s what I would do. After I filmed that and I posted it, I would go to Snaptik. That’s S N A P T I K dot A P P (app) snaptik.app, and I would download the file without a watermark. And I would repurpose that video for Instagram reels, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. So off that one video that you just made with that content strategy, you’re now posting that to six different platforms. Now you’re in six different places with one piece of free content. I would do that at least three to four times a week to get started. That is a free tactic that I give people. Even if you never work with my company, you need to be doing this for you. That would be my #1 tip.
Paul: Boom. Pure gold right there (laughing).
Pat: I know that’s kind of advanced. You guys might need to rewind that. We only have so much time, but I’m telling you, that is gold. We do it for tons of our clients. It works. I built literally a six figure multimedia agency off that strategy.
Paul: Awesome. The basics and principles work. And what a tip. Thanks for sharing that with the (Pat: Absolutely) the audience here.
So, man, Pat, I’ve got to ask, how can people get a hold of you? I mean, if they need some help with their social media, or they just want to hear more about Pat Hilton, what’s the best way that they can connect with you?
Pat: So, I mean, you can literally Google my name, and there’s this soccer player who like shows up: Pat Hilton, some soccer player from England. But I also show up. You just have to click on me. And then it has all my links: my Twitter, my LinkedIn, my Facebook, my TikTok. I’m there on Google. Not the old soccer player, the real good looking entrepreneur guy. That’s me.
Paul: There it is. The sharp-looking, the stunning Pat Hilton. (Pat: That’s the guy.) That’s the guy we want. All right.
Pat: So yeah. I would encourage you—there’s another tip. If you Google your name, here’s something to think about. If you Google your name and you can’t find anything about you, well, you need to also think about what your consumers, potential clients, are typing into Google to find you, are going to see. If they can’t find you, but some other solution comes up—we don’t want that for you. So I would encourage you to get on these social media platforms, because again, it’s free and the SEO ranking, the search engine optimization that these platforms use, you will skyrocket to the top of Google just because you have a LinkedIn or Twitter or a Facebook account. So I highly encourage you to build pages on these platforms. Get a team member or an assistant to do it if you’re busy, and use that exact method, I taught you to start making some content about what you do.
Paul: Awesome. Man, Pat, that’s a great tip. And man, I hope the audience just reaches out to you just for anything. I mean, you have such a creative way of marketing, getting your name out there. Man, I really appreciate you sitting down with us today and answering all this.
Pat: Hey, thanks for having me. And like I said, I encourage people to jump on this. I call it digital real estate. And the more land that you can grab and the more attention you can grab, the more business you can get. And I’m telling you, I’m proof that it works because I was able to convert people and build relationships with top-notch entrepreneurs, just based on the fact that I was, A-willing to learn, B-didn’t act like I was anybody other than a hard working dude, which is what I am. And that converted to me getting all kinds of gigs and using my talent and improving my talent and just getting around, again, better clientele, better potential customers, better networks. And so, I encourage you to use this opportunity with social media to pivot into digital sales and creating relationships online because it can change your life.
Paul: Pat, that’s awesome, man. All right, folks. Well, that’s the episode for today. What a great time sitting down with Pat Hilton.
Make it a big day.
