Welcome to Strategy + Action
April 21, 2022

Ep40 Cameron Toth - How to Build Your Brand and Your Network with Live Video

Today on the show, Strategy + Action = Going Live to Build Your Brand and Your Network.

In this episode, we've got Cameron Toth.  He is doing an amazing show called Biz Dev Live on LinkedIn, as well as a one called the Master Connector Show with wonderful past guest, Steve Spiro.

And they're both bringing it when it comes to showing up and doing these Live episodes on LinkedIn. It's such a powerful platform. The choice to be on camera and interview folks and have that kind of content going out there is certainly strong.  But the specific choice to do it live brings with it a next level of confidence and professionalism that needs to be there.

Part of that choice that we get into is not wanting to edit anything, which can certainly save you time on the backend.  But also, it forces you into a consistent schedule. It's powerful, and not only inviting guests but having those guests show up when you have this set schedule that Cameron talks about. 

We get into these benefits, long term and short term benefits of doing this kind of initiative to grow your business as well as your personal brand and how the two certainly go together. 

We also dive deep into what Cameron has going on with his main company, Toth Event Staffing, how that can grow because of the show, and the benefits of having the show to him as a person, not just a business owner. 

Check out this full episode and certainly, connect with Cameron!

Transcript

Jason Croft  0:00  
Today on the show strategy plus action equals going live to build your brand. Welcome to Strategy and Action. I'm your host, Jason Croft. And today on the show, we've got Cameron Toth, he is doing an amazing show called Biz Deve Live on LinkedIn as well as a show called the Master Connector Show with Steve Spiro past guest you may have seen on here as well. And they're they're bringing it when it comes to showing up and doing these these Live episodes on LinkedIn. 

It's such a powerful platform, inherent in that choice to not only be on camera and interview folks and have that kind of content going out there for you. The specific choice to do it live is really strong and powerful. Part of it, you'll hear too is like I don't want to edit anything, I just want to go live, you know, and that's a choice too. And that's, that's, you know, that's a benefit of it. But some of the things that are really powerful is that, you know, it forces you into if you're doing even halfway right, it forces you into a consistent schedule. It's powerful, and not only inviting guests, but having those guests show up when you have this set schedule that Cameron talks about. So it's really strong. And so we get into these benefits, long term and short term benefits to doing this kind of initiative to grow your business as well as your personal brand and how the two certainly go together. We get into you know what Cameron has going on with his main company, Toth Event Staffing, and how the two can you know, grow together how they have and the benefit of having the show has meant to him as a person, much less a business owner. It's really, really strong. 

So let's jump in with Cameron Toth. 

Welcome to Strategy and Action everybody. Cameron Toth. How are you sir?

Cameron Toth  2:36  
I'm doing well. Thank you for having me on. I like the title already.

Jason Croft  2:42  
Nice.  I appreciate that. I had the good fortune to be on Cameron's show here this week, actually -  Biz Dev Live.  Such a blast, great show, he has way more way more confidence than I by going live every week, just you know, free flowing and all that I screw up a lot. And you guys don't see that because I get to edit all that out. So hats off to you.

Cameron Toth  3:08  
Like I said to you before, Jason, hats off to you, because for anybody that isn't good at post production, I have iMovie with Mac. And so if you have a Mac, you may or may not know, I know for a long time I didn't. But if you have a Mac, you have iMovie. And you can go in and you can actually do post production edit videos and you should for your content, right? If you're listening to this, you're probably thinking, let me go and create some media, I probably need some media content. And so you have that ability, just having a Mac computer, right. And I didn't know that for a long time got iMovie and go in there. But it is painful to do jump cuts. And for anybody that doesn't know what a jump cut, you've probably seen a jump cut, right? Where like, Jason was saying, maybe you made a mistake in the video. And so you're able to edit that out, just going in and especially when I was starting JC to go in and edit out all the arms and the this and then I would have spent an hour making the show and 20 hours editing the show. And I was like, You know what, I'm just not up for that I'm going to get better at speaking that's going to be my priority. And I'm just gonna hit this thing live. And so 313 episodes later, it's been working out all right, we got the production because at the end of the day, like I think we're gonna, you know, talk about it's about producing the content. It's about getting your stuff out there so that people can search for it. I don't know, I was listening to somebody the other day and they said, if you're Google if you're a ghost on Google, right and that's what you don't want to be so putting out that content right? is at the end of the day if it's bad content, good content, great content, doesn't matter if it's just content out there that searchable and, and building in the search analytics for

Jason Croft  4:54  
you. Absolutely. Just like anything else, you you, you work to get better but but that's self aware. So I mean, we're laughing joking about it, but it's a really critical level of self awareness to go, Okay, where's my time? Best spent? Maybe, you know, in six months, I'll change the format, and hire an editor and do all of this because, yes, it's it is a bottleneck. I mean, I've been doing video for 30 years, I've been editing for 30 years, it's still a bottleneck. For me. It's just the nature of the beast. It's, it's where things slow down if you're having to do it yourself. And, I mean, I did the same thing on on my second show, where I'm driving, people are out, like, I took the, the, you know, where's the where's the time? So I'm here doing this all by myself. So what are the constraints I can apply and still have a bigger, I need it to be a single camera. So I'm not editing a bunch of things around it to make it simple. You know, all of that. So I hear Yeah, for sure. It's, it's, it's been?

Cameron Toth  6:00  
Good. We were talking about that, right? It's as hard as you want to make it right. And so if you're thinking you got to compare your first day to somebody's, like, 10th year, right, so I'm looking at, you know, Team Gary Vee or some other social media guru or broadcast television, and I'm trying to put together something that looks like what they're producing with multiple cameramen and sound crew and everything else that goes into like, a live production telecast, you know, at a studio, and I'm trying to do that in my, you know, home office, you know, you're setting yourself up for a lot of frustration, I went through a lot of frustration, just trying to set up a basic setup that I have here. And, you know, thankfully, it's working better than ever, but I gotta tell you, from Wi Fi, you know, router issues, internet connect, you know, doing a live show, you're, you're running into all these things with, you know, is my internet loading, what is my face look like as, as the speeds are messed up? And I had to learn what, download speed versus upload speed because I had no idea. So anybody that's getting started, you know, push the dang button? You know, I would not have gotten to 313 episodes. Today, if I didn't just push the damn button and start the first episode.

Jason Croft  7:27  
Absolutely, absolutely. It's, it's so huge. And that's what I really want to get into today. I want to cover, you know, what you're doing, you know, business wise, overall. And we give some people some geography and some context to that. But that's really what I want to dig in. Today with his is that power of, you know, video, specifically on LinkedIn, kind of specifically, the live version two, I think there's, there's, there's a, I don't know if it's extra power, but a certain, you know, it means something different. There's a different dynamic, right, not just the live aspect, but how LinkedIn feels about it, and all that things, which is which is positive? And how that's mean, the decision to go into that and do it, and how that's affecting the show itself, being consistent, like you have been for 300 Plus episodes, and then affecting your your other business, right? And so give some people some context of what you've got going and then what was that decision, like to go like, you know, what, I need to I need to, I need to jump on LinkedIn, this is my home. This is where my clients are, what can I do to stand out?

Cameron Toth  8:39  
Right, there's, there's a lot there. So let me impact this with with the LinkedIn story. Right. So I was on LinkedIn early. I don't know the year offhand. I know I was on YouTube, probably around 2006. And, and I wasn't on LinkedIn much longer than that. And I mentioned YouTube, because I wasn't taking YouTube as seriously as I should have. And I wasn't taking LinkedIn as seriously as I should have, as I think most people that are on LinkedIn, don't take it as seriously as they should, because there's a really, really, really huge opportunity for your business. From both a relationships point of view and a sales numbers, impact reach point of view, you can you can pay for advertising, or you can create these networks that advertise for you and you can put out basically, content that you make and get more reach then you could potentially pay for you could put a little bit of money into putting together a team and have a lot more reach than what you could just go and you know, work with an agency or are by advertising space, right and so the strength of your what you're doing in the team can be magnified so Much more. And then you get a professional like yourself, Jason to work with you. And then you can take that to the limit if you're really utilizing LinkedIn, but for so long I wasn't. So let's go back to 2020. I have a staffing company that started in 2011. So in 2020, is fairly successful, six figures a year. I'm not, you know, killing it seven figures that are done 2020. Right. I'm not running around a Lamborghinis. But I'm leading a very comfortable life, I see my children every day. That's part of the reason I became an entrepreneur, right 18 years, this past Monday with my wife, we've been married for 18 years, we have four kids together. So actually seeing her seeing them that's big been a big part of my push to being entrepreneurs to sort of own the keys to my own schedule. And so that was all going well get to 2020. And I get a little bit of time to think because I have a business that sends out waiters and bartenders and chefs in Westchester, New York, lower Connecticut, NYC, Westchester as my home base, that's where the majority of my businesses, pandemic, you know, the story, world shuts down live events, social events are basically made illegal, like illegal, illegal, like the cops are coming to tell you, you can't do this. Well, that's kind of hard for a business that sends out staff to work, live events, it's hard for my my staff, it was hard for me. So I had a little bit of time to be introspective. And luckily, I had time to be introspective, because I had actually built a business. Not necessarily just a job, but a business. And that's what I talked about in bizdev. Live is building a business, you know, with structure and you know, you have you have some some options then Right. And so I learned all the lessons the hard way, I learned what it is to run a business as a DBA and run into tax trouble. I learned all those lessons early on 2015 and became an S corp. And so an S corp. For anybody that's, you know, looking on the business side of things, you can actually pay yourself as an employee pass through organization, it's a great tax kind of thing to take advantage of in the United States, if you're in business. And so, come to the pandemic 2020 It's bad, but PPP, I can pay myself, I'm not panicking, right, I got some options, I got some things. And so that was great. And so I felt like, you know, even though things were challenging, I had some things to share and teach. And so a big part of my story is that I'm passionate about opportunity and education that stems from my own education. I've been involved with a nonprofit for the last 26 years. Because I started with a nonprofit because I was interested in the music industry. And that's how we pull kids down, you rope them in with their interest right now. It's the performing arts than it was the music industry. I was a DJ in high school, I was calling record labels, I was getting swag. I was faxing record labels to date myself a little bit. We were getting cassette tapes, again to date myself, right? 9096, right. But, and I stayed apart because I got to do some of the fun things that I loved. And I liked the business aspect, I was learning how to do that stuff. But I stayed involved because I was like, Man, I shouldn't have this when I was a freshman or sophomore in high school, because I got to my senior year of high school, all four years, you know, blah, blah grades, but still didn't graduate because I didn't dot my I's didn't cross my T's. So that's the start of my journey. didn't graduate high school that I have a child with a woman that I'm not planning to spend the rest of my life with, at 19. So I'm making these really, really hard choices that aren't, that aren't just hard on me, but they're hard on the people in my life, this this new child that I love, it was gonna be hard on him, it has been hard on him and it's been hard on us. We don't have the relationship between four years old and I don't I don't get to talk to him. You know, I'm very fortunate that you know, I in 2004 I got married with my wife, we have four kids together and it's been a beautiful thing and I love raising my kids and it's an passionate part of my story. But I can't watch a movie that has a male you know, bonding relationship between father and child without going into tears because of that relationship. So that drives me and that was my my early start in life. I wasn't looking at financial resources, educational resources, but I was saying to myself, Man, I need a college education right but I'm not looking at anything so I'm, you know, they're young father, get my GED, chasing the college thing but I'm not not looking at what you know, opportunities are there and what what I really need to look at and I wasn't focused so One pound the ground, the red leather pants, I just had a child with a woman, and I'm still focused on on the assets, and the red leather pants is, um, you know, going into school. So I went to Eugene Lang college and new school in this in New York City. And two years later, I'm dropping out because it wasn't focused. And so I'm really passionate about helping people connect their moment right now 20 years from now. So 2020 You know, I've built this, you know, business, and I got a break, and I got a little time to introspect, I'm like, you know, what, I need to take advantage of these channels, YouTube and LinkedIn, I need to take advantage of them. I posted videos for the nonprofit that I work with in 2009. I wasn't smart with it. I didn't put thumbnails that, you know, were very attractive. I didn't have keyword strategy. I didn't know any of that stuff. I've learned that since starting bizdev live and really getting into how like how to grow a channel. But you know, I didn't know any of that stuff. But between 2009 and 2020, those those handful of videos that I had posted on my rinky dink YouTube channel that had no phone, it generated 40,000 views. Jason 40,000 views and 40,000 views on very little effort.

Jason Croft  16:23  
And that's a little piece to that. I think that's why I think so many people sleep on YouTube, because of the immediacy of the social channels. I can see yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, this one works as well, you know, but that evergreen aspect of YouTube is massive. And I'm actually seeing a big, big swing back to YouTube from some of the largest folks doing this out there. Because of that factor, just like, you know, slapping themselves going, Wait a second, you know, they look back at their YouTube channel, just like you're talking about and go, Oh, my gosh, I didn't do anything with this and look at these 1000s of views. I'm going to start paying more attention to that and be more intentional there.

Cameron Toth  17:06  
Yeah, absolutely. And for anybody that started a YouTube channel, you're gonna know that it's tough. I mean, it's very difficult, you know, to land a video that goes, quote, unquote, viral, there was a young woman alumni of the program, that I work with a nonprofit, and she had had a breast reduction surgery. And so she posted that video, and it got a ton of views. I mean, that alone may have had 4000 40,000 I don't remember that it was, you know, into the 1000s of views. And you could see that she was struggling with the content afterwards. Because while that video hit what was she talking about? What was her brand? What was she you know, what was going to continue to hit and you can see these there's these YouTubers out there, they you know, once you have a following obviously becomes easier to maintain it. But they're they're doing a lot to maintain it they're spending on it becomes a production thing. Once you're making money with it, you're continuing to spend money to keep the money rolling it and Mr. Beast, you know, being the greatest example of I forget the amount that he's spending on a YouTube video, but I think it's like a million dollars like a YouTube is crazy. It's wild the amount of money that they're spending to be these top performers. Again, don't compare your day one to somebody's, you know, year 1020 30. I have another example that sort of made me make that decision in 2020 that I needed to get serious with my media get serious with LinkedIn was, you know, looking at the example of Oh, wow. 2009 who was getting started? Oh, Joe Rogan was getting started. You know, Gary Vee was getting started basically on on stuff he had saw a little bit earlier, but you know, getting serious on YouTube. These folks, you know, you know, the story with Joe Rogan. I mean, he started his podcast in 2009. And in 2018 2019, sold it to, and we, you know, the number originally was like, what was it? 200 million?

Jason Croft  19:12  
Yeah. 100 million. And then

Cameron Toth  19:14  
later, later, you found out it was really closer to like, 200 million. Right? It's, it's, it's time, you know, amount of time times consistency times Effort, Right. And I think just putting it in. I don't I don't know about you, but I'd be happy with 1% of Not, not even under the 200 million of the 100 million, right. I mean, just to be able to say there's a show that I like doing, I enjoy doing it, and I get to make something from it, somebody's willing to pay for it. So I think that's that's a big deal. And so take this to the LinkedIn piece. So when I started this blog, I didn't even have access to LinkedIn live. So in March of 2020 items, you know On YouTube, I would certainly think fairly soon, you know, I became aware of, of LinkedIn live and I was applying, but I wasn't getting in. And so I was, you know, on stream yard, broadcasting to YouTube and Facebook without very much engagement. So I was just looking into the camera, talking into the abyss, not much following not much engagement with the shows, you know, maybe somebody made a comment on Facebook, that kind of thing. Certainly nobody was commenting for the most part on YouTube. It's bleak, you know, it can be be challenging in that retrospect. But eventually, bizdev live was getting noticed by people that was making noise. And certainly people in my network like, Oh, that's cool. All right, that's going on. And we go to November of 2020. And a gentleman that I met through master networks and networking organization, he has a considerable larger following on LinkedIn than I do, then he's currently up to 16,000. At the time, you know, I was probably, I was definitely at 2500 followers connections on LinkedIn. And he had LinkedIn live, and he was like, I can't have access to this LinkedIn live thing. But I don't, I don't really know what do you know, I have it, but what do I What do I do with this thing, and I was so happy that he was reaching out to me because I was like, Well, I don't have access to LinkedIn live. And I would very much like to be on LinkedIn live. And so we started doing the show called The Master connection series, which has morphed into the master connector show around his brand, being a master connector. And it's been a great partnership between him and I, and we did this for anybody that's like, oh, you know, am I producing so what I did it for free, I did it to learn, right? You know, again, we're in the middle of the pandemic, I just want to get better at this, I want to expand my brand, because eventually I want to, I want to connect what I'm doing right now. 20 years from now, I want this brand, I want the ability to impact the world, I want to be able to start the camera and Toth foundation for bringing opportunity to every young woman and child in the United that sounds grandiose.

I like big dreams. And I liked the idea that a small child growing up in a trailer park someplace, can have the same access. And not only can they have the same access to opportunity, right? But somebody's there, to show them the ropes that they have a mentor. That's what the college career preparatory program is all about. That's based on a Philip Randolph campus high school in Harlem that I work with sound business.org. That's what we do. And we're connecting mentors in the business community alumni to these high school kids so that they're getting a little bit of a vision on how to connect right now 20 years from now. And so I'm dying to do that for myself, because I want to have a bigger impact on the world. So I got involved with Steve, so that I can expand my ability, we can have a little bit more reach and impact with the show. So took off, we based it on a model that I had seen work on Facebook, which was a gentleman by the name of Charles Wilson, who founded master networks was bringing community leaders from the organization from different parts of the country. And because there was several people on the show, they were bringing viewers with them. And so they were creating a community. And people were fired up because their their connection, their hero was on the show. So it brought more people than Chas could just bring by himself. And suddenly there was a large following. And there was a reason to tune into the show. Because while people were tuning in, and people were in the comments, so you could network in the comments. You could connect with people. It was fun. And that's what we did. So we started biting and Steve, by the way, Steve spirit is a beast. He is called the master connector for a reason. We were putting shows together we've done 55 episodes, I believe now and early on. We were using this model of you know, having like three, four guests on at a time. And we never had a problem getting guests he would connect connect him at conversations. I don't know how he schedules the phone calls. He gets done in a week. He's a miracle worker in my mind. I was like I can't get through all this stuff I got to do in a week. I can't meet with all these people. I have such an ease meeting with people left and right neck and I'm like oh my goodness, and we connected off Have a great day. conversation where he recommended a book to me he was here, I'm like, he's just this, this is a great networking guy. So we started the show together.

Jason Croft  25:06  
And in real quick, if, if you haven't checked out the episode, by the time this one is airing episode with Steve will have aired. So make sure you go and check that out too. And you'll you'll understand exactly what Cameron's talking about here, for sure.

Cameron Toth  25:21  
He's amazing guy, amazing guy. So we started that show and, and then later on, you know, I kept on asking for LinkedIn to give me access to LinkedIn live. And eventually I got access to it. So you know, the moral of that story is, you know, endeavor on keep, keep pushing, keep pushing, and eventually, the thing that you want to happen happens. And so now bizdev, live, goes live on LinkedIn. And the value of being live on LinkedIn is, you know, I have a business oriented show. It's about entrepreneurs. It's about connecting people networking in the comments, it's about learning, it's about education, there is no better platform for that than LinkedIn. And so bizdev lives true home is on LinkedIn, the repository for all the content, the way that you can most easily view an episode is YouTube. But the place you want to go to View bizdev live alive, is LinkedIn, because you're gonna go and you're gonna have some great conversations, you can ask questions of the guests live, it is fun, it is fun, and it's a great way to create content is a great way for me to experience the people that I'm interviewing, it's a great way to bring energy, because not every guest, you have is going to be an electric Dynamo. So hopefully, there's some great comments and questions in the audience. It's a way to keep it really interesting and fresh. And if you're creating something, there's no better way to create energy around it than having a community.

Jason Croft  26:59  
Yeah, big time. And as a, as a guest interviewer, it is so much fun, that dynamic is you dynamic is great. And then you you have a good balance to have engaging, pulling up those comments, you as the host getting that, you know, keeping that running that through line, but it doesn't feel interruptive either that I've seen on some lives of somebody just on there, and they're in the middle of a thought. And it's just like, Oh, hey, Doug, you know, shout out to Doug like, and you're just watching this thing going, like, why don't you finish what you're saying? And then

Cameron Toth  27:40  
listen, you know, for anybody that's doing this using a platform like stream yard or restream to go on LinkedIn live, I think, you know, it's more accessible than ever before. So if you want to get out there, and for anybody that's like, oh, everybody's streaming, everybody's doing it. It's so crowded and populated. Listen, I think the metrics on it are, there's like, less than 1%. Now, forget about LinkedIn lives, there's less than 1% of the 700 plus million, but then forget about the 700 plus million number, because there's like 700 million people on LinkedIn, which, you know, we hear these big numbers 700 million, what does that mean? Well, the population of the United States in total, is less than, like 350 million, I believe. And he's right at right around there. Right. So you have a population on LinkedIn. And there's a big international community that is larger, literally larger than the United States, almost times to write on LinkedIn. Now, out of those 700 million people that are on LinkedIn, 380 million, I believe, are actually active people that are checking into LinkedIn accounts. And then out of that out of 380 million, right, not even using that big seven, out of the 380 million, less than 1% of people are posting on LinkedIn. So you might be connected to a lot of people that are posting on LinkedIn, but for the majority of people on LinkedIn, they are consuming content. They are not posting content. So for you and your business, that should spell huge, huge, huge, huge opportunity. And everyone posting is not everyone posting. It's just your feed. Yeah. It's always going to be populated because that's what the social media engines do they populate your feed with the people that are posting, do you want to be one of the people that are posting or do you not want to be one of the people that are posting that's the choice you have to make?

Jason Croft  29:52  
Yeah, big time. And and to go back to what you were saying too about, you know, growing this channel and you got more Trouble reasons for it right? Growing this platform of yours. And you you think back oh, you know, Joe Rogan did this? Now he's to this. And all that's great. Some people have zero desire to, you know, be that even have a platform and all of that. And what I what I mentioned to those folks and try to shake into them is that that's icing on the cake for some people. I mean, again, you talked about percentages, a tiny percentage want to even go down that road, they've got their thing, their business and what they're doing in life. And what I try to get across to them is all that's icing, every all the promise of content marketing that we've we've heard is,

Cameron Toth  30:46  
we're definitely we're definitely mentioning like the outliers, right, like Joe Rogan is, and we're sure there's a lot of podcasts out there that are not successful. I'm not saying you're gonna start a podcast and be Joe Rogan,

Jason Croft  30:58  
of course, but you can have like point

Cameron Toth  31:01  
0000 1%, of the success that Joe Rogan's have and still be pretty comfortable.

Jason Croft  31:09  
Yeah. Not only that, though, but that's that's the, I would say the typical view of starting a podcast starting to show this and that is like, that's how it's beneficial is X amount of years later, I can have advertisers I can charge I can blah, blah, blah. But the whole effort in doing this, you can have value tomorrow, by doing this, and getting this started to your existing business. And that's the biggest thing. And then all of those other amazing things might happen, you know, they're evergreen, they're gonna grow all the promise of content marketing is going to be there, that evergreen aspect of it. But when you have the right intention, and you structure things the right way, then you can benefit your business right now. Immediately. And that goes into?

Cameron Toth  32:04  
Yeah, let me let me talk about that. Just just really briefly, because I know there's some people out there, they're gonna be like, and I know I've had the conversation, Steve has asked me the question, right? You're doing this bizdev thing, you know, how does that actually benefit your business? And so, and I struggle with it. Listen, I know I should be creating more media for Toth and staffing. If you go and you go on to the Google review page and you check out my website, there's there's some imagery there, there's some video there, I can be doing a lot more. There's a total event staffing, Instagram account, there's a total event staffing Twitter account, no one the last time I've been on that, I could definitely be doing a better job with creating media around Totem and staffing. I've done some I have an event coming up. We're scheduling a photographer to make sure that this large event that we're capturing our photo of our staff, but the reason I do the biz dev live, and it's not a hospitality, podcast, and it has nothing to do with total non staffing other than the fact that it pulls from my experience as an entrepreneur, to educate other entrepreneurs. The reason I do it, and the reason that benefits to them in staffing is that it improves me it makes me a better speaker makes me a better leader, I get to learn from people I spoke to you Javi St. Clair, you can connect with him on LinkedIn, he's got his own podcast. And he was talking to me about how it's helped him. Really just get educated, be in the room with other intelligent folks and learn from them and become a better speaker in his own right for his business, which is a personal fitness business. And so anybody can really benefit from that. And I don't care who you are, I don't care if you're, you know, brain surgeon, neurosurgeon, well educated every career everyone can benefit from becoming a better communicator and becoming a better listener. Period.

Jason Croft  34:03  
Yeah, and I think I think there's some I think there's some direct ways that you could very easily shift and pivot even what you're doing with biz dev live the existing show existing brand, that could directly impact truth event staffing, whether it's, you know, inviting some some folks on who make those hiring decisions, you know, bring them on the show, like I'm gonna get intentional

Cameron Toth  34:32  
or not now you're gonna get me here with my my, my pencil starting to make some notes.

Jason Croft  34:37  
But that's exactly right. Because it doesn't go outside of the show, because they're another business owner, right. But it's the greatest thing in the world, this platform that

Cameron Toth  34:48  
we just wrote down. I just wrote down invite caterers to be on biz dev live so worth the price of admission right now.

Jason Croft  34:55  
Absolutely perfect. But it's so powerful because and there's there's a couple lessons here that I want people to soak in is, is that that aspect, right? Like I tell people all the time, when I create shows for clients, it's for that like, invite on your ideal client, you know that person you've been trying to get a phone call with a meeting with, invite them on the show, have this conversation, shine a spotlight on them, it benefits your audience, it benefits them, it benefits you. And now there's a relationship there. Right? There's it opens up. There's inherent follow up in that, you know, and everything. But secondly, what you've done, I did that with my second show that driving around show what I what I did poorly, was connecting that to business connecting that to an outcome for my business. What I did great was doing it anyway, doing 80 Plus episodes driving, successful people, smart people multimillionaire, you know, around having this interview in this conversation. Yes, everything that you described, better communicator better, you know, brand new built my network, right? All amazing stuff. But the other lesson in this is that now, even if you don't know how you're going to connect those things, or if you can, and all of that. It's like having a running start, instead of once you go, Oh, you know what I could do with a show, you know, six months a year from now? Well, now, you've got 300 Plus episodes, right? To where you've got this existing platform. And you've got this validation of Oh, yeah. Hey, so it's okay to come and be on the show. And they've got all this to look at and go like, Oh, wow, awesome. And you're in it, you're just going you're having this conversation? It's not like, Okay, well, I finally getting to talk to so and so how do I be a host? How do I? How do I do this? You know, and so it's just having that running start. That's so powerful.

Cameron Toth  37:02  
Yeah, the muscle has definitely been flexed, it's been worked out. And certainly gotten into it. I've had a gentleman that runs a rental company. So that's a referral partner for me on the show. And so I've definitely utilized it, I've had the thought before, sometimes you work in an industry where people are a little bit more camera shy than you, you would like, you know, for these kinds of opportunities. And so figuring out the right way to ask the right way to position it has been sometimes a little bit of a challenge for me, and definitely something that I'm thinking through. But you're absolutely right. I think once you got the platform, it becomes so much easier for you to make it work to create these really, really nice touch points in these existing relationships that you have. And I see how it already, you know, even even without that, and these are things I think, you know, I love talking to you because he is like, Alright, I'm a little bit focused now on how I can actually tie this to, to the revenue and increase the prosperity of these relationships. But one of the things that's really great about having your name out on social media, especially YouTube, right, YouTube is the second most colossal search engine on planet Earth, only topped by Google, which is you know, both owned by the same company. So now when you type in Cameron Tov, you can type in biz dev live, my name pops up, you know, it's that SEO factor. And so being able to say like, you know, Google me and you pop up is such a big deal. And that plays over because Toth event staffing is tagged on a lot of a lot of stuff from not like total event staffing, total and staffing until the best staffing, Santa now right now. Now, people aren't gonna believe me, Jason, but I don't really talk about the my company a lot in the episodes. I don't say it. But I can see it now. Even as we're coming back, I know that it would be busy. But I know that it's busier because of the name reputation, that that is magnified by the social media presence. I've always talked about social media being not so much a place where you get new clients from, but you stay in front of clients that have had touch base with you. So if you're, if your name is ringing out, if you have content that's ringing out, really doesn't matter what you're posting on as long as they remember who you are and what you did for them. The fact that they're seeing you you're more memorable, you're more quick to be called when they have the need.

Jason Croft  39:50  
Absolutely another past guest Julian Pacino, good buddy of mine. He has just done a phenomenal job and I loved his term. Go for it. And his focus on it is, you know, passive income for your reputation. You know, I thought, oh, that's, that's such a great way he can put out a piece of content and for the life of that that's just going to keep growing, you know, out there. That's so strong. And yeah, and I think, you know, I think there's so much, there's just so much value in, in what you're doing and having this and, and there's a discipline to the way you're doing another proponent of the live aspect is that, not just that you're going live, but every week, at this time, I'm doing this show. And that's a big piece that gets missed certainly has, by by me, in all of my shows, I would say is that consistency, and the viewer or potential viewers love that consistency. But the algorithms really love that consistency, when you can have consistent upload to YouTube consistent going live on LinkedIn. And you don't have to get mired in the algorithm and all of that. But there's certain but there's certain big levers that, you know, you can you can know about and pull that will just help you wife, you know, fight upstream, when you can, you know, flow with it.

Cameron Toth  41:26  
Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think one of the things that's been really great, I mean, obviously, you know, having bigger reach on content, you know, going through a LinkedIn class with Jordan Mendoza right now, and just optimizing content call to actions are a big deal, right? You know, and remembering to call people to action, and doing it in a way that plays nicely with the social media interaction. So I see a lot of people, and they're creating these posts, and they're sharing a link in the post. And it's really interesting with LinkedIn, because you could be advertising a LinkedIn live, and that could be the link in the post. And still, because a lot of people are told this is probably not necessarily new information, if you've been dabbling in the social media game, that the algorithms penalize any post that has an outside length, while LinkedIn doesn't really distinguish that much between a link to a LinkedIn live and a link to an article outside of LinkedIn, they want you to stay on LinkedIn. And doesn't matter what link is in there. Even if you're tagging a lot of people, they're penalizing the content. So your call to actions, if you're posting an event, a show, something that you want people to click on and move to, you're a whole lot better off, especially if you're not some person that has a major huge following listen, if you're, if you're Gary Vee, if you're Oprah, you know, you can get away with it, and there's gonna, you got so many people following you, people are going to click through. But if you're starting out, and you got a smaller amount of people, and I have, you know, I've seen this true for folks that have like 16,000 20,000 people following them on LinkedIn, they're posting content, and they're getting like three or four likes, meanwhile, you know, I got my measly 6000 connections, and the content is moving, there's a lot more engagement on it than some of these folks that have much larger followings than I do. And it's, it's falling. You know, basically the rules of the algorithm, you know, if you do a word only text only posts that spaced out easy to read for folks, that's usually going to be the best performing thing on LinkedIn, especially if you post it early in the morning, you got some people engaging with it in the first hour, that thing's going to take off, it's going to do well, if you have an image, that'll also do well, videos perform, you know, and we're always told video is like the number one thing and all the platforms, but actually, for LinkedIn, the video performs not so well, compared to some other content, because LinkedIn pushes the other content more. I don't know why that's just just wait. It's interesting.

Jason Croft  44:13  
There's still, that's what I've been in, I think it's really been a shift in that even the last, I don't know, I've seen in the last four or five months, that I used to be getting a lot more reach with, you know, clips from this show, right? But then if I do a steal from it, or just a text only, like it's so much more,

Cameron Toth  44:34  
it doesn't like and then and then link in the content comments, right link in the comments. Oh, comment, right and so that's the way it and it's surprising that that also works on like Facebook, and also works on some of these other crap. Well, and

Jason Croft  44:50  
that was, and that was just logic, right? Like that was easy for people to get when it's explained it to them. You know that these platforms want you to stay in their ecosystem. They want you to stay where You are. So anything you do to encourage somebody to leave. They're gonna penalize that. Yeah.

Cameron Toth  45:05  
CTA call to action, click down in the comments, put your emojis in there make it visually interesting, give people a reason. What's in it for them? Steve spear likes to say that with them, right? What's what's in it for them, give them a reason to go click on the Content, you'll see that your content gets a lot more reach and make sure that your content is actually something that's, you know, giving value. I mean, you know, there's a lot of people that are posting commercials, and I don't recommend that right? People don't want to see the commercials, but they really do. Appreciate value. So, you know, I think the difference between a commercial for anybody that's listening and value is, it's not much it's just simply, you know, is it focused on the person or self focus? Right? Is this a all about me thing? Or is it all about you? Is this something that's going to benefit? You by reading it experiencing it? It actually provides a purpose? Or is it just hey, look at me, look at what I'm doing. Look at this cool thing. Hey, if you click here, you know, there's this amazing program that costs $1,000 that you want to do. All right. You know, are a, these are the three things that I think will benefit you if you do them every day?

Jason Croft  46:20  
Yeah, they are. It's, that's certainly true. But there's also a place for, for both, and I would say both in every single post, you can lead you can have you and then a nice little like, oh, by the way, you know, I can do all this for you if you want. If that's of interest to you. Here's the thing, you know, click in the comments below.

Cameron Toth  46:41  
And we got into this on our show, right? Like, just because I'm saying don't do commercials doesn't mean, you're not open to receiving and I love the Go Giver, right? So I think the Go Giver lays out this better than anything else. Don't choose to not receive in your content, be open to receiving let people know what you got going on. And that if they choose to if they want to, you're open to working with them. I think anybody that's afraid to say that they have service of value to offer is being stingy. Right? I mean, I think you need to put out with people that you have a valuable service or product, because somebody needs that service or product. So it's not about not talking about how you help people. I just think that a lot of poor communicators are doing it in a way where they're not demonstrating value. They're simply stating that they can provide value. And in a world where everybody's shields and defenses are up, if you're not showing me if you're not giving me any kind of social proof which LinkedIn, by the way, for anybody that's on LinkedIn, there are so many ways to create social proof. If you work with somebody, I hope you're asking them for a recommendation on LinkedIn that's like your Amazon in yourself, right? I can go and see, oh, man, I work with Jay Z. This guy worked with Jason Croft, they gave him a recommendation on LinkedIn pop stars, right? Boom, I'm buying it right. Because that's what we do. That's, that's the value of being on these platforms, creating great content, making sure that your profile, it's got some great call to actions. And then people can go and see, hey, this product that is Jason Croft, man, people have endorsed that they've worked with them, they like him. He's connected, he's got a big network. And that's, that's the whole thing, right? That's why you're putting out content. That's why you're providing value is to drive the people to the funnel, which is your LinkedIn page, your business page, your company, page, your website, and let them see the value that you bring, provide the social proof video, I think, does such a great job of that when you can capture the video testimonials, you know, for my business, you know, and I'll just show it here just to show the evidential piece of it. You know, here's a video that, you know, had a company in Westchester put together for me that showcases me talking about the hiring process and the waiters. And so, you know, I have a business I could tell you all day I have people that look professional and they're awesome and amazing and all this but there's nothing that's going to prove that to you short of seeing it right you know, yes, your friend can refer you but even seeing is Oh, that's how they look. That's what it looks. Oh, wow. That's what I want.

Jason Croft  49:48  
Big time. Yeah. I really like what you're doing this this is awesome. I you know, it's so impressive because there's there's even even before you show up to one of your shows, all those elements are there. And that's, that's, again, something else that you know, kind of help people with. Yeah, you can jump in and start doing a show tomorrow. But if you have these, not only the strategy, but also certain elements in place, that people just have to glance at it and go like, okay, you know, there's a, there's a legitimacy there. It gets you the next step, you know, if somebody can just look at your YouTube channel, like not even click on the video, and it just wow, okay, that's sharp, you know, and that stuff can be done with just a little bit of intentionality, you know,

Cameron Toth  50:38  
you're talking about the visuals, the the Logos, the imagery around it, the bizdev live theme intro videos, outro videos, which, you know, I love, I love, love, love when somebody's got their stuff, and it looks like it's, there's some thought and character around, it's refreshing. And I've gotten a lot of comments. And it's not, you know, not anything that I spent huge, huge, huge amounts of money on, but it's definitely paid off in dividends, because it makes it easier to have those conversations. And I'll say one thing about the live thing, too, you know, for anybody that's doing podcast recordings, if it's live, people show up, and they know, right, like, it's live. And so there's a urgency and an emphasis on that it's important, and it can't be rescheduled like it's promoted in advance. So that makes it a little bit easier for me at least to have that consistency there because people aren't rescheduling at a whim because they know you're putting some effort. And there's some some drive behind it. Absolutely. Yeah, that's

Jason Croft  51:46  
a good point. You mentioned I'm closing a loop here. You mentioned a book that Steve recommended to you in the very beginning, right when you guys met.

Cameron Toth  51:56  
Yeah. So he recommended because he was hearing about, you know, I was talking about business, I was actually sitting in my office in the Chrysler Building, across from Grand Central having this phone call with Steve and I was talking about, you know, my business is expanding, I have these kinds of challenges with growing the company. And he was like, Oh, you need to read the E Myth Revisited by Michael E. Groover. And man, I took his advice or read the book. And, man, why didn't I read this book? You know, if I would have been ready for it, I would have read it. In 2011. It would have made a much easier path for me. And I was reading the book and saying to myself, yep, I made that mistake. Yep. I did that wrong. Yep, I had that challenge. So for anybody that is thinking about the entrepreneurship game or in the entrepreneurship game, and you have not read the E Myth revisited. Take it from my man, Steve Spiro, take it for myself. It is a really, really important book to read.

Jason Croft  53:10  
Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely that big shift. When you get you out. Have you created a job for yourself to I'm going to build a business? You know, it's great foundational for that, for sure. So talking calls to actions, give us give us some?

Cameron Toth  53:30  
Yeah, I'm about relationships. So the best place really to get in touch with me is on LinkedIn. And I love LinkedIn. For anybody that's wondering why LinkedIn? Why don't you go you know, camera, why don't you send me to a website? Or why don't you give me your phone number or something like this, you know, it's a great social proof way for somebody to connect with me, I can sort of see what you're about and I can, I can help somebody more when they connect with me because I can sort of see what their emphasis is on it, especially if they've laid out their their profile Wow, and maybe even told their story in their about section I can find ways to identify with them before we've ever talked and then I'm always open for actually setting up a call with every single person that I connect with so that I can actually get into the nitty gritty of like, who are you? Let's let's understand who we are people. Do you like mountain biking? I like mountain biking. Do you have family? I have family I do you enjoy Netflix and shows like bridgerton I love bridgerton It's a really good show and it's not the usual type of show for me usually I'm a sopranos you know guns and blazing you know, action guy but I really dig bridge. Yeah, so we can get into those types of conversations have some commonality, and whether we do business together or not. It's just really great to have a friend in the network. You never know. When one of my Friends is going to need a Jason Croft in their lives and you never know when, you know you contact you reach me out on LinkedIn, whatever service you provide, you know, maybe one of the 6000 plus people I'm connected to on LinkedIn really needs and I mean really needs your service, your help. And the only way that I'm going to be able to make that connection is if you reach out connect with me, and we get to know each other a little bit and build some of that know, like, and trust factor so that I know that you're a good recommendation from my friend or colleague that needs a hand.

Jason Croft  55:38  
restaurant that's strong. Are you always looking for new guest in that connection process? Who is second part question to though is who is your ideal client on the catering side or not catering side of the event staffing side, I'm assuming caterers and different folks like that.

Cameron Toth  55:58  
So the ideal person that's a client, for me, is a catering manager, director owner that is in the more corporate kind of side of things that is trying to fulfill staff for the events that they have going on during the week. caterers are great recommendations in the West Chester, NYC, lower Connecticut, for people that want to come on the show. And where you know, that Venn diagram can either line up, you know, if they're, you're an entrepreneur, and you're trying to get more people to know about your catering company, I would love to have you on and network that way. And if you're an entrepreneur that has a story to share, and some lessons to teach, that is my ideal gas, because we are trying to educate entrepreneurs and give them the advice on whatever industry you're in. There's an entrepreneur out there that needs your mentorship that needs your guidance. And, you know, either they're a potential client, they're a potential employee, there are potential collaborator, if you don't do the show with me, they'll never know your story. If you do, there's a possibility that they might. So that's, that's the ideal gas to somebody that wants to come on and tell their story and help and start building some of those relationships.

Jason Croft  57:19  
Awesome. Cameron, thank you so much for being on this has been an absolute blast.

Cameron Toth  57:24  
Jason, you're awesome. And I got to tell you, you know, can sounds simple, but you know, recommending to a guy that has a staffing company that have caterers on your show. I know for some people out there like, well, that's a no brainer. But you know, we all get lost in our stuff. Sometimes we were having the conversation about tick tock, I know, we should be creating content for Tiktok. And I create all this content all the time. But for whatever reason, I'm just getting lost in it and not turning on the camera. And speaking even though I turn on the camera and speak every day, for some reason that Tiktok thing is messing me up. But just getting people in your network like yourself, Jason that remind you, Hey, bring that bottom line thinking into your relationships, and it's not a thing about it makes me any less relationship focus or any less giving back. It's just like, hey, you got connections over here that could actually benefit you, hey, why not? And I love that kind of steering in the right direction. We need that mentorship, I need that mentorship, thank you very much for the action, then the strategy from the strategy and action show.

Jason Croft  58:25  
Perfect, because Isn't it always the case with all of us that it's so much easier to see it? What the other person the other business needs to do? Rather than read in that's, that's the critical, amazing, wonderful thing about that kind of dynamic from connecting with people having mentors, all of that, man, I can't tell you how many times that you know, someone, just that little outside perspective, and just be like, you could just do this and you're like, oh, yeah, thank you. I needed that.

Cameron Toth  58:59  
Isn't isn't that the beauty of being a consultant, though, because a lot of times in order just to have a good conversation with somebody, it's not very polite to offer them advice. Even if you think your advice is worldly, you know, they don't care. They want to tell their story, their side, they're on their side, but when somebody hires you and says, I value the information, the knowledge that you have, you have now permission to provide that advice and you got somebody that obviously they're paying for it, the ears are open, that's what they're committed to. And I think that's the greatest thing about being consultant is that you have somebody that's that's is willing to listen and take the advice and like you said, you know, it's it's always easier to be on that end of like, hey, you know, I've been been where you are. Let me show you how to tweak this up because I can see it. I might not always be able to see the stuff in my office but i can i I can see what's going on in yours and help you out. And it's a mutually beneficial conversation that we're going to have that I love it.

Jason Croft  1:00:07  
Yep. That's awesome. All right. Thank you again for being on. And everyone out there. Thank you so much. We'll see you next time. 

Thanks so much for tuning in and being a part of this show. If you ever need help building out custom strategies for your business or deciding what actions to take next, head over to medialeadsco.com and let's connect. I'll talk to you soon on the next strategy and action.

 

Cameron TothProfile Photo

Cameron Toth

Host & Founder

Cameron Toth knows that for his life and so many others being able to take advantage of the opportunities in a world of abundance can seem impossible when you are blind to the possibilities.

Biz Dev Live, Cameron's internet super show, provides education for entrepreneurs from other entrepreneurs.

In 2011 Cameron started Toth Event Staffing and built a high 6 figure business that has allowed him to pursue fortune and see his kids everyday as they come home from school!

With four kids, a wife of 18 years and while still running Toth Event Staffing -- How did Cameron create 300+ episodes of content for Entrepreneurs in under two years?!

Welcome to the show the energetic excited entrepreneur - Cameron Toth!