TSP016 | Scott Eddy –Transcription

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John Livesay:
On today’s show, The Successful Pitch podcast, we have Scott Eddy who is a social media influencer. In fact, he was named by Klout one of the top ten global travel influencers out of 74,000 people. He is also the Global Brand Ambassador for a new startup Zipkick. Scott talks about how important ROI is in social media and that the R in ROI really stands for relationship. He talks about how to have 608,000 followers like he does on Twitter by having the right voice that’s consistent and non-stop.

Whenever he travels and he’s traveled around the world and lived in several different countries like the Philippines and Spain and Thailand, he said, I chase the conversation, not the big names and that is a key takeaway from today’s interview where he said, Twitter allows you to follow not just what your competition is doing, but what the conversations are that they’re having and that allows you to make strategic decisions to get you funded fast. Enjoy the interview.

Hi and welcome back to The Successful Pitch podcast. Today’s guest is Scott Eddy who is a social media influencer, so much so that Klout named him one of the top ten global travel influencers out of 74,000 people that they measure. Scott as an amazing following on Twitter alone of 608,000 followers. Can you imagine that? And he’s only been on Twitter since 2009, so that’s quite an impressive growth pattern that he’s going to share with us today. Scott, welcome to the show.

Scott Eddy:
Thanks, good to be here.

John:
Scott, you are quite the man of the world. You have literally lived in Thailand, Spain, UK, Philippines, and Portugal and, of course, now the US. Tell us about how you went from being a stock broker to a digital nomad and such a social media influencer.

Scott:
Well, my path here hasn’t been normal at all. I was born in Michigan, but I was raised in Fort Lauderdale and my father was a Fort Lauderdale police officer. So, you know, how I grew up in my mind, my whole life was mapped out. I finished highschool, I join the police academy, I become a police officer, get married, have the two and half kids, and, you know, retired.

My life was literally all mapped out. So, that all came to an abrupt end three weeks before I graduated highschool, my father was killed in the line of duty and it sort of turned my life upside down and I had no idea what I wanted to do and long story, very, very short, about six months later I ended up going to an orientation for an investment banking firm and, you know, I got accepted in the training program. I was a stock broker for ten years.

In my opinion, and I try to look for the silver lining in everything that I do and if all of that wouldn’t have happened, then I wouldn’t be where I am today and as much as I would give up everything that I had and everything that’s in the future just to have five more minutes with my father, you know, I’m grateful for one thing. When I was a stock broker, I learned the most essential skill that you can possibly learn and that’s sales, because it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in anywhere in the world, sales is definitely the most important tool that you have. So, in combination of my sales skills and being raised in an insanely strict household, you know, I was literally thrown to a wall if I didn’t say yes, ma’am and yes, sir. I think that molded me the way that I am today.

John:
What did you learn – what are some of the things in selling from being a stock broker, because obviously the people who listen to The Successful Pitch realize they have to sell themselves and their ideas to investors. What are some of your favorite takeaways on what makes a good sales person?

Scott:
You know, I learned the most aggressive type of selling that you can possibly learn. I sold stocks over the phone to generally people in the beginning of the call that didn’t necessarily want it or you had to convince, you know, it was a very, very hard sale. I liked that because I learned the most aggressive part now, I can just let off on the accelerator anytime you want. I think you have to be very genuine. I think you have to believe in whatever product or company or idea that you’re pitching. If you’re not, I think it’s apparent. I think people can tell that you’re not genuine, that it’s not something that’s real and tangible and something that’s going to follow through with everything that you’re saying it will.

John:
One of the things that you have on your homepage on your Twitter is storytelling is the key to success, which of course, I love because that’s my favorite part of pitching is storytelling. Can you give us some examples of where you’ve used a story to create success for you and who you’re working with?

Scott:
You know, I use storytelling as part of an everyday part of my life, you know, partly because of social media, but partly because I don’t think just saying what’s on your mind works anymore. Whether you’re pitching, whether you’re selling, whether – I think everybody needs a little bit of story just for clarity, just to paint the proper picture.

So, I think being a storyteller – it’s funny because when I was growing up and I’m sure when you were growing up, being a storyteller, that means you were a liar and it’s so amazing that today it’s one of the most integral parts of business that it’s unbelievable how the whole world shifts, how a term can just, again, be turned upside down and mean something completely different in ten years, in 15 years, but it’s a very important part of the startup world for any entrepreneur out there. It’s an necessary skill that I think even if you don’t have it, you need to practice it. You need to go to friends and family and say, give me 90 seconds. Let me try and explain this to you and then you tell me what kind of picture did I paint. You know, something like that.

John:
That’s great. I knew we were going to get a lot of tweetable moments from your episode, if you don’t have the skills to be a storyteller, practice it. That’s definitely a tweetable and what I really love is storytelling used to mean you are a liar ten years ago and now it means you have a compelling way to express your ideas in an authentic way that people see your passion and make it memorable.

Scott:
That might be more than a 140 characters.

John:
Yes, I’m sure it is. Well, I’ll let my experts edit that out, but it’s definitely a takeaway in the show notes, for sure. Everyone I’m sure is really curious, I don’t want to tease them anymore, tell us how did you get 608.000 followers on Twitter, because no matter what business you’re in, social media and getting a following and getting word of mouth is key to success and growth.

Scott:
Yeah, so, you know, again, I have an insatiable desire for developing relationships. It might sound weird coming from my background as a stock broker and an entrepreneur that I have lots of success and failures, money means absolutely zero to me, because I’ve lost everything I’ve had twice just because I go all in on everything that I actually do.

So, for me, it’s all about the relationships that I have and my global network, you know. I just love dropping down into a new country where I know one person or zero and just building up a whole new network and the only way you can really do that is on social media. I mean, you get out there and you find out who’s having a conversations and I chase those conversations. I don’t chase the big names.

You know, if I find out who’s the most active people, just like when I came to San Francisco, I came here in mid January and before I got here, a couple of weeks before, I’ve been to San Francisco a couple of times, maybe 15 years ago, but I haven’t been down here since social media took off, so I found out who were the active brand here, who were the active online magazines, who were the active individuals. What conversations are they having? Do they follow back? Do they talk back? Do they retweet? Do they share? These are the people that I’m getting into bed with, so to speak. These are the people that I’m following. I don’t care about the big names and the white check next to your name, your verified account. I could care less if you’re a celebrity. I want to know are you human on social media. Do you talk, do you have conversations.

John:
I love it. Chase the conversation, not the big names. That’s a tweetable moment, for sure. So, this leads us to another great story, which is Zipkick found you on Twitter. Tell us how they found you and what Zipkick is.

Scott:
So, for the past, like you said, I have been on Twitter since 2009, but I really haven’t been active. I did what everybody else does. I setup a Twitter account. I tweeted a couple of times and said, this is just a Facebook status update over and over again. I don’t understand it and I’m leaving it. So, I went away for probably a year and a half. I really didn’t get super active on Twitter until probably to mid to end 2010. So, I really have only been active on Twitter for maybe three and a half years, maybe four years at the most, but you know, I realize that it was a platform.

This is where the conversations take place. 94% of the accounts on Twitter are non-private, so they’re completely open to the public. So, if I’m starting someone that’s going to rival Burger King. I can go on McDonald’s, Wendy’s, you know, any of the competitors. I can see how they’re marketing, who they’re talking to, what are their conversations. There’s no industry, there’s nos platform in the world where you can go on and see the conversations of your competitors so out in the open like you can on Twitter. It just blows my mind. It’s amazing how everybody doesn’t take advantage of this.

John:
I think that’s such an important point, Scott, because when you’re crafting a pitch deck for investors, one of the key slides is who is your competition.

Scott:
Exactly.

John:
And to do that research on Twitter is a no brainier as you just described it, but I don’t think a lot of people think to do it, so that’s a huge takeaway.

Scott:
Not only who are my competitors, what are they talking about. How active are they on social media. Like, you can get so, you can get the stats can just be mind blowing.

John:
Right.

Scott:
They can really blow you away, so yeah, okay. I built up my following just because I’m aggressive, following the right people and they follow back and I conversate and people can actually see, hopefully, that I am human and that I have etiquette, I have manners, and this and that. That goes along way in social media, because a lot of people don’t.

John:
Let me just point something out, which I think is so fascinating, which is, your childhood of being raised by a police officer where manners were so important in the home has now – a key success to you getting 608,000 followers on Twitter because of your manners. I love that so much and I love that you’ve learned that from your father, so in a way, his legacy is living on through you in Twitter.

Scott:
Yeah. I mean, for me, it’s very important, you know? I mean, let me tell you. I don’t really throw people under the bus on social media. I would rather not talk about you than give you, you know, because bad press is still good press, so I rather just not give you any press rather than throw you under the bus. I could have six million followers if I just sat down and crushing everybody all day on Twitter, because people like that. There’s a certain aspect. I would much rather have 600,000 of the right crowd, the right mentality, people that, you know, I like conversation rather than six million of and just being negative all the time. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

So, getting back to the story, for the past three years, 100% of the opportunities that I’ve taken advantage of have found me on Twitter or through Twitter and then contacted me. So, Zipkick is no different. So, mid January the co-founder, Jason, who you’ve met.

John:
Yes, great guy.

Scott:
He found me on Twitter and asked me a question. We went back and forth a couple of times. I really like to, when I meet somebody that I click with right away, I like to translate that into a Skype call as soon as possible. Within a few hours we hoped on Skype and we had a conversations and, you know, at first they just wanted me to be beta tester for his app and it quickly jumped and he said, look, why don’t I bring you out here and you be our global brand ambassador. Long story short, 12 days later, I was on a flight to San Francisco and I’m still here.

What Zipkick is, it’s a travel booking app. If you think Expedia or Kayak, you know, they give you 4,500 results and there’s all kinds of advertises and check boxes and scroll bars. Think Expedia, but also think Google and Facebook and if they all had sex [cuts out]. Okay, the baby would be Zipkick and what I mean by that is this, it’s a simplified travel search, travel booking app that’s starting out with hotels and then moving into flights later, but we give you five highly personalized results and nobody has given you the personalized service that you need.

You know, Facebook gives you a personalized timeline. Everybody is going down the personalization route, the travel industry is still stuck 25 years. They’ve been using the same model, same search techniques. Everybody comes out, you know, there’s a new site, there’s a new this, there’s a new that, but it’s all the same business model. It’s all the same search. You know, why not personalize something for you, John, or for me, Scott, or for somebody else. Everybody’s search preferences is going to be the same, but yet, if we all go on Expedia right now and look for a hotel in LA for certain – for specific dates, we’re all going to get the same results.

John:
It’s a fascinating model, that’s for sure. I know investors love to invest in their team. That’s their number one criteria, even more than the idea. They like to say, we invest in the jockey, not the horse, so having you as part of the jockey and the team for Zipkick is really quite clever on Jason’s part, because you are the secret weapon, the secret sauce because of all the followers you have on Twitter, eliminates a need for a huge marketing budget, because now when you’re tweeting something out about Zipkick, you have people who are travel enthusiasts who are going to be these early adopters to use it and I think that’s really a great example of what makes you and Jason and Zipkick so smart to getting investors to jump on board.

Scott:
I got news for you. The real secret weapon in this whole process. I may be in the spotlight because of my following and my influence and my association with all the travel bloggers all over the world, but Jason is the real key to the driving force behind this thing. I mean, he is such a genius when it comes to this area and what I mean by that is this, I can’t think of any startup in the world that has ever used an influencer to replace a marketing budget.

I mean, think about this. If you have an app that’s coming out. I don’t care what sector it’s in, the most important thing when you raise money is for technical resources. To make the app as good of a user experience as absolutely possible. You gotta hire the best of the best of the best to have them on your team, because then you’re going to have the best app possible, but typically, how much of the money that you raise is dedicated to getting in front of eyeballs and marketing budgets and things like that. Anywhere from 20% all the way up to 70%

John:
Yes and you hope it resonates and some of that money, the ads may never get clicked on as oppose to you – so the new trend in advertising is native advertising, which is making it authentic from a blogger, for example, but you already have all that creditability with these early adopters, so it’s really smart.

Scott:
Myself and Jason, but definitely Jason, but myself and Jason are definitely a deadly combination when it comes to his mindset, his strategic planning, his, I mean, his way of thinking, we just resonate so well together with everything that we do, both in business and personal life. So, I mean, it just makes for a person marriage, so to speak.

John:
Well, it’s interesting that you use that analogy, because investors tell me time and time again they look for not only who is on the team and what their background is, but how well does the team get along, because it is like a marriage and they said the average marriage lasts 7.2 years and when they are investing with startups, they typically goes for ten years. So, it’s very important that they see you get along well and have a rapport and have the skills to deal with bumps that come along the road.

Scott:
Yeah, it’s just a really, really good thing. Plus, they have a patent pending surrounding the algorithm that gets the search. I mean, the whole business model of Zipkick, it’s just going to explode.

John:
We would know because you are certainty have your finger on the pulse of the travel zeitgeist from living in all these other countries and engaging wherever you are. Recently I read about KLM using social media for booking flights and being a source of revenue. They actually have people dedicated within KLM to engage with people on social media, to deal with things like customer service almost, and then from there when they couldn’t get through any other way, when problems were happening, some people were trying to book connecting flights through social media. What are your thoughts on brands using social media beyond just the typical use of it?

Scott:
Well, you know, thank God 2015 came along, because these travel brands are finally starting to get it. I saw that article. I think it was – because I tweeted it, I think it was, they have a direct correlation of $25 million dollars a year directly comes from their engagement on social media affects their bottom line, which is what I’ve been preaching for the past three years when I’ve been working with all these travel brands.

They don’t understand, you know, some of them get it, but the majority of them are still dinosaurs as far as the mindset is concerned. They just don’t understand that the ROI doesn’t come in five minutes. It all starts with a conversation. You have to be human. You gotta get out of the brand mentality and you have to have the right brand personality, the right voice on social media. You gotta be consistent and you gotta have no stop conversations. Some of those conversations will turn into ROI. I always say the R in ROI definitely stands for relationships.

John:
Oh, I love that. Can we tweet that out please? The R in ROI is relationship. Oh, that’s great. Really great. Having the right voice and getting away from being a brand and being a real person and be consistent and non-stop, that certainty seems to be the formula for your success in having so many hundreds of thousands of followers and it takes dedication and passion. You can’t fake it. You said earlier the key to being successful in sales is being genuine and having a strong belief in what you’re doing and people can feel that even in a tweet.

Scott:
100%. You know, I’m completely transparent and authentic with all my tweets and posts and videos. I mean, if anybody ears me on a podcast or sees me on a video or meets me in real life, they’re like, wow, you really are the same. It’s the first thing I hear, all the time, and I’m like, you know, there’s no other way to be. I don’t understand. I know the saying, fake it till you make it, but that doesn’t apply to the way you are and the way your personality is. That’s just a mindset and a way of thinking. Yes, if you’re in a certain position in your career, you don’t want to dress like that, you want to dress for the position you want. Yes, I understand that, but you still have to be authentic in your personality.

John:
It’s true. Well, having the opportunity to meet you face-to-face as well as doing this podcast with you, I can verify that you walk your talk, you are consistent in all of your interactions whether it’s a tweet, in person, and email, setting this all up, you know, you just, easy, nice, fun to be with, and that’s what investors are looking for. They want to be with people who they like and that likeability factor is another thing that you can’t fake. There’s a great book about that that Tim Sanders wrote called The L Factor. Speaking of books, what are some of your favorite books that you like to read when you’re traveling or that you think the audience should be reading?

Scott:
You know what, I don’t read a lot of books. I have read quite a few in the past, but now I’m into more podcasts, coincidentally, and I’m not just saying that because I’m on here, but you know, I’m a massive, massive, over top the Gary Vaynerchuk fan. I just think his mindset, because he’s not from the digital industry and he talks like a real person. So, you know, I love his show. I love John Lee Dumas. There’s a few guys that I just, I’m hardcore addicted to. You know, Grant Cardone. I just did his show, actually, Power Players. He has another show called Young Hustlers.

You know, these guys. I love optimism. I love positively. I can not stand pessimists. I can not people that are negative. You know, that old saying that everybody uses is so true where is, you are the sum of your five most closest people. You know, if you surround yourself with shit, guess what’s coming out of you.

John:
It’s true because you get people commiserate how hard it is or how tough it is as oppose to, you know, you know what? We’ve been knocked down before and we always get back up and we’re going to make it and all that good stuff that keeps you motivated, keeps you going.

Scott:
Let me tell you something, if it was easy, everybody would be a God damn success.

John:
Now, of all the countries you’ve lived in, you’ve seen so many different cultures and mindsets. I’d love to get your perspective on what’s it like in other countries that you’ve lived in, again, Thailand, Spain, the UK, the Philippines, Portugal, how do those countries and they’re all different, I know, but you can just pick one or two, differ in their perspective in entrepreneurship.

Scott:
You know, for me, my favorite place on the planet is Thailand. I just absolutely love it. I love the organized chaos everywhere in Bangkok. It’s like living in New York, but in Asia without the insane crime, but everybody is warm and nice. It’s like, it’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen in your life. It’s the last thing you’d ever expect. You know, but the startup scene there is huge. The social scene there is massive. I don’t know, most people don’t know this, but Bangkok is considered the most social city in the world.

John:
I didn’t know that. Hmm.

Scott:
Now, I’ll tell you, more than any other big cities in the states as well. In Bangkok, there’s 8.9 million people in the city center, not including the suburbs, which brings it a total of probably 12.5 million. So, in the city center, 8.9 million people. Out of those, 8.6 of them are daily active Facebook users.

John:
Wow.

Scott:
Active! Logging on several times a day. Outside of that, three out of the last four years, the most Instagrammed place on the planet was in Bangkok.

John:
Really?

Scott:
So, when I tell you that Bangkok, first off, it’s the center of South East Asia. It’s much more developed. If you’ve never been to Asia, don’t think that everybody there is riding around on elephants like all my friends that have never left the US. It is more developed than some of the cities in the US. The shopping malls, the public transportation, they blow away any city in the US and what I like is, it’s super, super developed, but then right next door, you can see a street stall. They keep the local culture, they keep the local flavor. They keep the local pricing. You know, you can get as seven star as you want or you can get as one star as you want and you can get anything in between.

John:
Wow. That’s great. Well, no wonder you feel so at home there if that city is so engaged with social media and you are so engaged with social media. Now, besides Twitter, are you active on LinkedIn, Pinterest or Instagram, Facebook? What’s your other favorites.

Scott:
So, in order of my importance is Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. You know, I need to get more active on YouTube, because videos are becoming more and more important basically everyday, especially, I would say, in the startup world as well. One thing that I’ve noticed is there’s a lot of VCs in South East Asia. What they’re doing for, you know, wanna-be founders or people that have ideas and, you know, they want to pitch them. They are having them send them short videos along with the pitch deck or the plan.

John:
Ah.

Scott:
So, it might not be a bad idea, you know, again, it doesn’t have to be professionally edited. It doesn’t have to be Universal Pictures production, you know, just hold up the thing, just like we’re doing right here and blah, blah, blah, let’s do it. Again, super, super important for all industries, but it’s getting really important in the startup world.

John:
Speaking of video, what do you think of Meerkat vs Periscope with Twitter?

Scott:
You know, I’ve sampled both. I haven’t really jumped on the band wagon, you know, full steam. I know some people that do and some of them are having success, some of them aren’t. I just haven’t jumped on board yet. I use the Twitter video, upload a lot, and I see my engagement double or triple than my normal tweets. So, listen, the platforms that I concentrate on are keeping me quite busy right now.

John:
Yes, indeed.

Scott:
Every time there’s a new platform comes out, I’m like, oh my God, because, I don’t, it’s only me! I’m not one of these people that, okay, can you tweet for me today because I’m busy in meetings. It’s all me, all the time.

John:
Right, and that’s what makes it so successful, yeah.

Scott:
But, having said that, my Instagram is probably, if you look just, you know, follower per follower size, my Instagram is growing faster than my Twitter right now. So, it’s interesting.

John:
And do you have suggestions beyond some of the great suggestions you’ve already given about, you know, have the right voice, be consistent, be non-stop, but if a startup wants to grow their Twitter following, let’s say, do you think that they should follow and retweet – anybody that follows them, should they instantly follow them back, do you have any basic tips?

Scott:
I have a couple thoughts on this subject. Number one I would say, if you are founder or a potential founder or a startup guy or whatever, I think you need to build up your personal brand. Concentrate on that much more than the company you’re developing, because if you build up your personal brand, you never know what tomorrow is going to bring. Say tomorrow this idea gets scratched and you have to start over, then what are you going to do? You’re going to start over from scratch. If you have your personal brand, you can talk about anything.

John:
Yes, great.

Scott:
So, concentrate on that much more than the company, but you do have to incorporate company and your conversations and, you know, for me, I think it’s high twitter etiquette to follow back. The reason most people don’t follow back is out of pure laziness and I’ll explain what that means. That means, they say, I don’t want to follow too any people, because I don’t want my timeline to get clogged, but realistically, why don’t you segment your lists, that way you only follow your lists and you can have, you know, finance or sports or social media, digital, whatever, entrepreneurs, and just follow specific lists, so you can really get the subject down and narrow your focus instead of just taking the shortcut and looking at your timeline.

John:
Got it. And speaking of lists, I noticed that you have a lot of lists that you follow. What’s your philosophy on that?

Scott:
I only follow my list, because my timeline, it’s too – it moves too quick and obviously I can’t follow 600,000 tweets. So, if I see good content from you or I know you or I expect good things from you, I’ll add you to a list right away and I constantly monitor my list for deadwood or deleted accounts. I remove and add people from my list, everyday.

John:
Wow. I love that.

Scott:
So, it’s the most time consuming part of my day, but for me it’s worth it.

John:
Sure, it’s curating your stream. Scott, obviously we want to encourage people to follow you even though you “don’t need it”, but they’re going to be so inspired to want to watch you as you travel around the world and share your words of wisdom with us. What are the best ways for people to follow you on Twitter and all the other places and how should people keep up with what’s going on with ZipKick?

Scott:
So, my website is MrScottEddy.com and I’m on every social media platform @MrScottEddy or just Gogle me. I’m all over. As far as Zipkick is concerned, go to Zipkick.com. You can sign up for the releases and it’s actually in the app store now, but we’re just finalizing a few bugs that we have and the official launch is going to be sometime in the next couple of weeks, but good things coming, big things are coming.

John:
Exciting. Scott, I can’t thank you enough for being on the show. Your insights are fantastic. I think my favorite is the ROI and the R stands for relationship. That really encapsulates your strength and your wisdom and your success and I’m excited to watch you and Jason kick butt with Zipkick.

Scott:
Alright, John. Thanks a lot.