Providing Service Through Speaking with Israel Duran

Israel Duran: Like, for example, Nelson Mandela. A lot of people know what he stood for. He stood, he spoke, he was silent, but he spoke, and he moved a whole nation. People like to talk about Martin Luther King. "I have a dream." Well, where did you hear that from? You heard it in a speech, right? He used the Service of Speaking now.

No, not everybody agrees and likes Vanessa Mandela or Martin Luther King. I'm not necessarily supporting them completely either. I'm just bringing it up because these are names that people know. So it's like in this life, if you have a message and you don't communicate that message, and you know it's a solution, and it can help others, for me,

that's called a crime.

Chris Hill: Welcome to We Built This Brand, the podcast where we talk to the creators and collaborators behind brands and provide you with practical insights that you can use in growing your own business. Today, we're talking with Israel Duran, an entrepreneur who is helping purpose driven leaders discover, design, and deliver their gifts to the world in a way that empowers them to build generational wealth, leveraging the internet.

Now, in today's episode, we talk about Israel's journey from working in cyber security to a life altering car accident, which helped him discover the power of the service of speaking. Israel is a dynamic speaker, and if you've ever been interested in talking to a large audience, I think you'll get a lot out of this episode.

So, without further ado, here's my conversation with Israel Duran.

Israel, welcome to the podcast.

Israel Duran: Thank you for having me, Chris.

Chris Hill: Great to have you, and I'm excited to learn more about you and what you do with the Service of Speaking and how you have built your own brand, but also how you help other people think about themselves as speakers and building their own brand.

So really excited to dive in that into that today with you.

So, I always like to start these off getting to know a little bit more about your background and kind of what led you to where you are. So yeah, tell me how you got your start and how you got here.

Israel Duran: Yeah, Chris, first off, I just want to thank you for the opportunity of being on and being able to speak into the lives of the listeners and super excited for this, this show.

I already feel that's going to be great, and to answer your question, Chris, you know, for me, I had a weird childhood growing up to say the least, but I kind of fast forward into my college years. Because that's really where things shifted for me. You know, I, my background is in cyber security development and that's, I originally wanted to work for the FBI actually, Chris. That was what I, what was what moved me, right? To get my master's degree in cyber security, but because I got married and I had a child, I didn't want to go into the FBI because then they would, they can ship you wherever they want to. So I went to the private sector, and one of the first businesses I started was a company called Hack Solutions and the Security Space.

And you know, I had, I didn't, I had an event that happened to me, Chris. That was a car accident that kind of like, got me to go from what I was doing with corporate making some good money, but really wasn't fulfilling my purpose, into what I'm doing now with the Service of Speaking.

Chris Hill: And why did that car accident change you?

Like, what was so significant about that?

Israel Duran: Well, you know, you know how, like when you have a feeling where you're like called to do something, but you're kind of like in your own way? Like, you know what you're supposed to do, but you're kind of like, you like to like at least where I, where I was, I was like procrastinating, like I know that I was called to, 'cause I had some businesses on the side.

My first one was a cyber security firm, still working a full-time job at a consulting firm as well. And I was doing coaching too on the side. I was making good money, right? I was comfortable, but I wasn't really fulfilled. And, and I kept feeling that like, dude, you need to go into the space. You should go into the space of speaking, empowering others, and the car accident was kind of like used in my life, I would say as a catalyst to kind of get me out of my own way and finally do the thing that I know I was supposed to be doing, which is the Service of Speaking, helping people with that.

Chris Hill: So it was just kind of an epiphany moment for you of like, what am I doing with my life?

I really need to be focused on these things, basically?

Israel Duran: Yes. People, they have a voice, but sometimes they don't know how to communicate that voice or get it out there. So like, for me, I have a responsibility to share the things that I've gone through to help somebody else. And what I found out, like in business and humility support, I wanted to make humility is not just about thinking less of ourselves.

Like, a lot of times people think about and they teach, right? It's like they say, servant leadership is about putting others first. Well, I see it a little bit different, Chris, if I could be honest, I see it in a way of, it's not only about putting others first, but it's not even thinking about yourself.

That's what true humility is. True humility is not even thinking about yourself and making sure that you release the things that you're supposed to release because it's your responsibility to do so.

Chris Hill: Yeah. I think, yeah, I, that resonates with me and how we try to operate too, because we want to, you know, our goal is to elevate other people.

We don't really think about ourselves in that process. I mean, there are times where you have to be vocal and advocate for yourself and things like that, of course, but for the most part, our goal is elevating other people, elevating their brand, elevating what they're doing. So, I love that perspective.

Israel Duran: It's like how Zig Ziglar said, right? He said, if you help enough people get to where they want to be, you will get to where you want to be, right? So, like in business, you know, for those of the audience that's listening, like if you're in business, and you know that you have a solution like they're, and many times people do this, they know they have a solution to help others, but they won't share it, Chris, because they think they're being humble, not sharing it.

That's not humility. That's actually keeping the world's best kept secret from people that need your help, right? It would be it's humility to stand in your value, right? To actually stand and share the things that you're called to share. But also when it, when somebody says, "Thank you, Chris, for helping me on my podcast," you know, "Thank you, Chris, you've been amazing."

You don't say, "Oh no, it's not me. It's not me. It was something else." You just take it face value, and you just say, "Thank you," right? That's part of the humility as well. And I see so many leaders, Chris, that were so good at giving, but it's very hard for us to receive.

Chris Hill: Yeah. Being on the receiving end is, is always, you know, a challenge, I think, you know, because you, you, you spend so much of your time just doing the work and be like, I'm helping other people when you actually get accolades for what you do or anything.

Like, yeah, it's definitely, definitely hard to receive.

So you got your start in public speaking. How, like you went from this car accident to just going and saying, "Hey, I want to do public speaking," or what was that journey like for you to get to that first opportunity?

Israel Duran: You know, let me take a little bit back to my childhood because, but really it started then. And my public speaking journey was getting in school suspension, Chris, because I was afraid of people speaking in public.

Chris Hill: Oh my gosh.

Israel Duran: I would be the child to go get in trouble on purpose, skip class because I didn't want to present for 5 minutes in front of my class because I was so introverted and so like shut down. And the reason was is because, you know, my dad, my father died at a very young age, 29-years-old of a massive heart attack.

I was only about three months when my dad passed, and it did some things to me as a child where I didn't have security, I didn't have identity, and, you know, through the series of, you know, different events in my life, I was able to kind of get that identity through God and, and kind of restore some things in my life.

And I started to do speaking, on just on the streets, you know, just speaking to people. Also, I volunteer in the prison systems as well. We go in there, and we also do a lot of volunteering there, and that's really where I learned how to connect with people and contribute and convey a message to probably people that most people don't talk to, you know? And because I've had that experience to speak in front of a business audience is like, for me, it's like a walk in the park, if you will, because as you, as you can probably see.

Chris Hill: Yeah, yeah. I can imagine talking to prisoners is probably not the, probably, probably a bit of a challenging audience to talk to.

Israel Duran: Yeah. You know, the prison that I go, that we go and volunteer is a federal prison, maximum security, and many people in there are doing, some of them are doing 200 years, some of them are doing 50 years, some of them are doing 10, but most of the, probably I would say about 60 to 70 percent of the people will never get out. And what we do, you know, we go in there as chaplain services, but we, we inspire hope, we instill hope, and they also need someone to speak to them, right? That's also part of what our philosophy is when we talk about the Service of Speaking. I believe that speaking is everyone's responsibility and everybody has a different area where they're called to speak in, depending on what their calling is and their expertise.

Chris Hill: That's exciting.

So, how did you land these early gigs and speaking? I know even for myself, like, I mean, I don't necessarily want to just go to speak to speak, but I've done some talks on podcasting. I know how challenging it can be to get doors open for you to, you know, to get in there.

Like how did that start? How do you go about that?

Israel Duran: Well, that's a very good question. I think in today's society, I think social media is everything. I mean, people think about like, I think the times are changing too, Chris, with AI, because before people used to think as a stage or a platform only being in person, right?

But we know COVID changed that drastically. And now we have this thing that's called a phone that we can, you know, go live and this is now a stage, right? I think it was, I forgot who it was this week that said we, the media no longer exists. We are the media, right? And like, when we use our, this right here, this is really the key.

So that's what I've used, right? I've used social media. I use the internet to not only land other opportunities, but build my own stage, right? Build my own platform because I think if you have your own platform, it just helps you to, like you teach, right? With podcasts, right? It helps you build more credibility, helps you build authority.

Sure, it takes a little bit more time than just borrowing somebody else's audience, but at the long run, it pays off in dividends.

Chris Hill: So, you started on doing some public speaking engagements. You grew that into something that was successful for yourself. And I've noticed that, I mean, this has basically become your business, your whole career and in what you help people with.

So tell me a little bit more about, you know, the Service of Speaking and what you do there.

Israel Duran: Yeah. So the Service of Speaking was inspired through a vision that I had, where I had kind of been frustrated in my business once I had the car accident, and I launched some things. Things were going well, but some things were still kind of like, you know, not where I wanted it to be.

If you make it like, like under my potential, if you will, and to be vulnerable. And I kind of like just put it out there, and I received this vision clarity, like a moment where I saw, okay, this is the message that I have to bring to the world, the Service of Speaking. And what that is, Chris, it's a five step framework that I teach on, and it's based on the following:

Number one, your stone.

So, when we talk about your stone, it's like, okay, what is your message that you're called to release to the world? And that's where I found that a lot of people they're stuck on. They're not clear. They need to refine their message. I'm sure you probably deal with this with a lot of the people you work with.

And helping them clarify their message to market and then being able to have a plan to command the delivery of that. So I don't want to keep going to each step, but I just stopped there at step number one. But it's, it's really that five step process of helping people to grow through speaking.

But it starts with really being able to identify your message to market.

Chris Hill: Yeah. Cause I mean, if you don't have a message, why would you go and speak somewhere? If you didn't have a purpose, why would you deliver something?

Israel Duran: Chris, you and I think the same. You'll be surprised how many people are trying to speak, and they, what are you going to speak on? Like, do you have a business? No. Do you, well, where are you going to take people after they want to, you know, they, they connect with you. Well, I don't know. I didn't think that much. Well, you guys, you should probably think about it.

Chris Hill: No, I can identify with that so much.

I mean, we do podcast production, right? And people come to us all the time and say, "I want to do a podcast." I'm like, cool. What are we doing it on? I thought you would tell me. And it's like.

Israel Duran: Well, if it was that easy.

Chris Hill: Yeah. Like you either have to have a vision that we come and help you with, or we have to help you better craft that vision.

So what you're talking about is very much in line with a lot of what we deal with when we're talking to people and getting people into that process.

Israel Duran: Now, we have processes to get people on several different stages. There's really three types of stages just for the audience to kind of like identify. Obviously you have online and an in-person, but what you have is podcasts.

That's one stage, which we're on at one right now, we have association meetings. Which typically are monthly meetings with different corporations, teams, whether you're doing corporate or different association clubs or, you know, nonprofits, et cetera, et cetera. And then you'll have conferences like annual conferences or quarterly conferences.

And I always tell people, like, the common question I get sometimes, and maybe somebody's asking this, like, "Israel, if I'm looking to do more speaking, where should I get started?" And Chris, you know where I tell them? Right here. Podcast, because if you still haven't spoken on at least 20 podcasts, 30 podcasts to refine your message, you shouldn't be trying to land a thousand to 5,000 person conference.

First build the momentum doing podcasts, and a lot of people, Chris, unfortunately they're missing the boat. They're missing out on podcasts. It's a mistake. Tell them. I'm like, guys, you need to, you need to either develop your own podcast. Chris can help you with that. Or you need to learn to get on podcasts, right?

Because that's the name of the game in today's age.

Chris Hill: It really seems like it's becoming that. I mean, even to, and not to, not to harp on it too much, cause this is not a political podcast, but like, even with this last election cycle, the question remains how influential were the podcast that Donald Trump went on and what influence and impact will that have on future elections, future politics?

Like there's all kinds of questions that are going to come out of this situation, but.

Israel Duran: Chris, I think you're touching on something politics or not. I think you're touching on a principle that's so important. I think it's relevant because you know, people want authentic conversations. They want to just listen to people talk unedited, you know, and I think, I think we all agree that the media, whether whatever people like the mainstream media, let me say that is not as transparent as we thought it was right.

And people are looking for more content like this authentic conversations that people get to know you. And they're able to learn, they're able to discover and it inspires something in them.

Chris Hill: Yeah. And I think that, you know, I mean, there's a lot of other things that come out of that both good and bad.

But it does create a bond with the speaker when you listen to them, even if the host doesn't do a lot of the talking. Like I've learned over time, like people that listen to podcasts and engage with these shows, they tend to connect with them and listen to them more. I mean, the statistics are all in, you know, advertising and everything.

It's one of the top forms of like influential, host-read advertising is one of the most influential forms of paid advertising there is right now. And so, how do you, you know, that also goes on to imply like a lot about the influence they have on their audience just from the content they create. So yeah, you're right.

But it does take having a strong, powerful message. It does take being able to craft that. Whether you're a host and you're hosting, like you have to have a theme and a focus and a message for your show. Or if you're on the guest side and the speaker side, like you have to know what you're coming in to talk about and be prepared to have your mission to talk about too.

So, yeah, it takes a lot.

Israel Duran: I think when people, some people may be asking, "Well, I get it. Well, you know, how do I start my podcast? Chris can help you with that. How do I get on more podcasts?" That's primarily what we have empowered people to do through the Service of Speaking framework. Step number five is the stage framework.

It's where we show you. And teach how to land, first off, build your own platform, your own like platform to teach. We don't do podcasts primarily. I'll leave that in Chris's hand. We do more of like helping people to show up as a speaker as webinars and challenges and things like that, but then we show them how to get on podcasts, how to get on association meetings, how to get in other groups, how to get on conferences once they have the track record, and we show them how to build the business behind speaking.

But it's funny, Chris, because everybody just wants to get on stages. But then I ask them, I say, "Do you have step number 1?" They're like, "No." "Do you have step number two?" They're like, "No," and then three to four, they don't have it. I'm like, okay, so you want me to go put you on the stage, but you don't even have a bio.

I think it's another statistic that's also interesting.

You know who Dan Kennedy is, right?

Chris Hill: I don't think I actually do at this point. No.

Israel Duran: Dan Kennedy was, he's one of the godfathers in marketing, but he wrote a book. And this is relevant to what we teach with the Service of Speaking. He wrote a book, No B.S. Marketing To the Affluent.

And there's three things that he essentially encapsulated around like high ticket, high premium buyers and what they consume. Like what, what is the material that they consume before making their buying decisions? And what's crazy, Chris is. The top three things were number one, it was magazines, right?

It was like luxury magazines. Number two, it was, videos like video content. And number three was podcasts. And podcasts, it's not that podcast was number three podcast was one of the main ones, as he's shared, and this is why I tell people, if you have a message, if you have a business, if you have a nonprofit, it is a message that you have.

And you want to get it out there, developing content that can be consumed as a speaker, right? In a video platform or podcast can help you not only grow your impact in terms of how many people you reach, but also grow your influence, and if you like, I tell people, try not to speak and see what happens.

Chris Hill: that's fascinating. I'll have to look him up ,and we'll put him in the show notes too, so people could check that out.

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Chris Hill: Yeah. So I mean, definitely as you build that audience, I mean, podcasting, I always like to say too, is, you know, a bit of a magic wand. Like when people get into it, just saying you have a podcast will open up doors that maybe you didn't have before, even without a huge audience. You know, people don't look at the numbers when they look at podcasts, right?

As long as you've got good branding, and they listen to it, and it sounds legitimate, they're not going to question too much. They're going to trust you and they're going to be like, "Alright, cool. You got a platform, and you want to put me on that platform. Great." So there's a lot of advantages there.

So that's another way that I know that your audience would benefit for sure.

Tell me about what a little bit more about the Service of Speaking. So people get involved. Is this like a course that they go through? Is this a consultancy? Like tell me a little bit more about how it all works.

Israel Duran: That's a very good question. So the result of the Service of Speaking is simply to help leaders, entrepreneurs, coaches make more sales through speaking, land more clients through speaking, and building their brand through speaking. How we serve our audience is a little bit different, right? We have a book, the Service of Speaking book, that is essentially a do it yourself way that they can go through the, you know, my framework on how to, you know, do that on their own. Then we have a, we do a challenge that we conduct, which is kind of like a training, a five day training where I'm literally revealing all of my secrets in that five day challenge. We've probably done a little bit over with our clients combined and ourselves, probably a little bit over $7 million in sales over the last five years or so. It's not a lot of money and, you know, compared to Amazon, right, and all these other companies, however, it's still been a blessing and been a way of being able to serve people and also make an income, right? So I share how we've done it and the whole framework in the five day training, and then we typically have an offer where people are able to join our mastermind coaching where we serve them, and we work with them hand in hand to, you know, to build, launch and scale their business through the Service of Speaking.

But I love it, Chris, because I'm in the servant leadership, and I believe that the highest level of service is speaking.

Chris Hill: Tell me more about that.

Israel Duran: I mean, think about it, right? When we just study history, I'm a, I'm a big student of history. Like you said, good or bad, right? They use speaking to get their agendas done. Like, for example, Nelson Mandela. Lot of people know what he stood for. He stood, he spoke, he was silent, but he spoke and he moved the whole nation.

People like to talk about Martin Luther King. "I have a dream." Well, where did you hear that from? You heard it in a speech, right? He used the Service of Speaking now. No, not everybody agrees and likes Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King. I'm not necessarily supporting them completely either. I'm just bringing it up because these are names that people know.

So it's like in this life, if you have a message, and you don't communicate that message, and you know it's a solution, and it can help others, for me, that's called a crime. Why do I call it a crime? I had one of my mentors, his name was Dr. Miles Monroe. He passed in 2014. Do you know who Miles Monroe is?

Chris Hill: I don't.

Israel Duran: He passed in 2014. He passed in a plane accident from the Bahamas. And he used to say this all the time, Chris, and this is something that I always like to bring up when I'm being interviewed. He said the richest and most wealthiest place in the world is the graveyard. When I first heard it, I was like, well, what do you, what do you mean the graveyard?

And he talks about this concept. Well, he's like, well, that's where the books that were never written are still there. That's where the podcast, Chris, that people were supposed to launch, they took him with them. That's where the businesses that were supposed to be launched. That's where the nonprofits were supposed to be established.

The new ideas and new inventions that were supposed to be released are all there because there's so many people that come into this world, Chris, and because of one way or another, I say it's because of pride, and not humility, they rob humanity from the greatness, the gifts that they have inside.

And many times it's because of fear. Many times it's because the unknown. It's a lack of belief. But I think in this day of age, if you truly consider yourself a servant leader, you have a responsibility to serve in your industry as a speaker, bringing awareness to the problems that you solve.

Chris Hill: For sure. Well, that's great.

And I mean, yeah, definitely, definitely understand. And get that a little better now. So thank you for explaining that.

So we talk a lot on this podcast about branding, marketing, how to present yourself, how to, you know, basically personal branding for podcasting and, or not for podcasting, but for all aspects of life.

So what do you recommend people that are looking to book public speaking events or go to that place where they're doing speaking, like, what are some tips that you give them as far as like personal branding goes?

Israel Duran: I love the question. I think how do we define brand is where I would begin.

Like the way I define brand is probably a little bit different than when most people have, most people teach out there. The way I defined it is. What do people say about you when you're not in the room? That's how I talk about brand, and brand is business identity, right? So that really determines everything.

I like identity is where everything flows. So depending on how you want to position your business brand and your culture that will then give clarity into okay, what stages are right for you? Like, where's your audience, right? People with like minded beliefs, is this a common principle? They congregate in the same place.

So for example, let's say, let's just use you as an example. You're somebody that's brilliant at helping people use podcasts and building their own podcasts, video editing to get their messages out there in a humble and most beautiful and authentic way. So that's your, that's part of your business brand.

And please correct me if I'm wrong. Is that that's the alignment though, right?

Chris Hill: That's that's a big piece of it. Yeah, for sure.

Israel Duran: And I'm sure you have other services and products that you could serve people at the highest level with. That's a beautiful result. Now, because that's part of your business identity or brand, now we can position you to now go at, go in front of more of your audience, like different stages. Perhaps different stages that literally have people that are authors, right? That want to maybe take their book now and create a podcast, right. Maybe you look for a podcast or association meetings or conferences that are now based on, authorship because you know, those individuals are probably most prone to launch their own podcast, leveraging their book, right? It's just, it's an idea, but that's kind of like the philosophy of my thought pattern to be able to just help someone answer the question you just asked, but in a way that can, they can think about it for them. You know what I mean?

Chris Hill: Yeah. What would you say to someone who says, you know, I want my brand to be something different than who I truly am. I want to brand myself or look a little different. I want to, you know, be perceived differently.

Israel Duran: I think that's amazing because I think like, for example, I use this example.

Let's say you go into a room, and there's a hundred people in the room, and out of the hundred people, everybody's wearing the color black. Now, I still happen to like the color black. I'm wearing it today, right? But then you have one of those a hundred and you as well, right? And you have one of those individuals wearing the color pink.

Now from the out, from everybody else in the room, they're going to be like, "Well, why is that person wearing pink?" But from the person that walks in, that's neutral, who they're going to remember is not the people in black. They're going to remember the person in pink. Why do I share that example? Because it's the same way with your brand.

The way you position yourself is by asking the question, how do you want to be remembered? But then you go deep with how you can pull on your history to position yourself with authenticity, authority, and connection. And it's exactly what I do, exactly what I've done, and it works. It works because people, again, like going back to that point, people want authenticity.

People don't want a counter copy of a counter copy. We're tired of that. We want people's truth and we want to be able to relate to each other. And if you give that and you position it in your brand and your, in your culture, the marketplace will respond.

Chris Hill: That's great. That's really good advice.

So as we think through things, you know, going back to this as a business, the thing you're trying to grow, you know, there's always that moment with building a business where you have what I call the moment of validation.

It's that moment where everything you've been working towards, everything you've been doing really comes together and you say, "This is it. I know I'm on the right path." Not just the car accident that maybe was the epiphany, but now it's like, okay, all these things that I thought, all these things that I envisioned, maybe the vision you have, like all these things are really coming to fruition.

What was that moment for you?

Israel Duran: Well, you know, I think it's a collective moment of series of events, and like, for example, I'll share a quick story. This coach, he was in his 40s, came to me, and he wanted me to help him to launch his brand. He was, he already had some success. He was making some good money, but he wanted to kind of like break some records, right? And in terms of revenue. And I sat down with him, and I had an agency at the time. This is where I learned a lot of the backend stuff when it comes to building out the backend of this business of speaking, and I was still coaching on the side too, but I sat down with him and we were able to ID a seven day event essentially where he was going to use the Service of Speaking to present his offer to the world.

And Chris, I gotta be honest with you. I didn't think we were going to hit the numbers we hit. I thought we were going to do, you know, maybe 100 K, you know, maybe 150 K, something like that. We end up doing the event. I consulted this team. We put everything out for him. I coached him on speaking on the presentation, all of it.

And this gentleman was able to do over three quarters of a million dollars, 770 K to be exact. In seven days, we got, we got about 19,000 leads for him for the event and because people hear that number and they're like, well, "How is that even possible?" It's through the Service of Speaking, right?

When like people are so used to selling one-on-one and just doing one-on-one, but, and this is why I love podcasts, the beauty of podcasts is, yeah, we're here one-on-one and people are listening, but this recording will go out and go in front of other individuals that will also hear it. So it's really a one on many opportunity to speak one message to many people.

And that's, when I saw the power of that, and how I was really the architect behind developing A to Z, that whole thing, I said, this is powerful. And I started to do several launches. I mean, I've done launches. It's not just about the money. It's about the really, it's not just about the return on investment.

It's also the return on impact. And that's really where I said, this is where I got to focus in on, but there's something that even trumps that to be honest, Chris, when I was at my recent mastermind event. You know, when you do events, you do podcasts, you, you ask people, Hey, what do you think about it? So I took out my little phone here thinking that I was going to take a video for 5, 10 minutes, you know, just to ask the students in the room.

"Hey, what do you get from this event?" Chris, I end up holding my phone up for 2 hours of pure emotional testimony, like pure emotional results. And my camera guy was like, "Dude, is your arm okay?" Like, cause I kept moving it back and forth, but something said to me after that, after that experience, it's like, "You need to go. You have to focus in all in with this."

Because of the transformation, like I'm talking about emotional, compelling, like, just, just things that bring you to tears. And I said, you know, talking about validation, I said, this is not only validation, but this is vision that's becoming a reality because I decided to just speak my voice to the voids that I saw in the marketplace.

Chris Hill: And having that bravery that, and the gumption to be able to get out there and say, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to speak this. I know it's what needs to be said. That's gotta be really powerful and validating. I've had moments in my business similar to where it's like, I can't believe I just made that impact. Like, you know, the, the impacts you have are you know, for me, the emotional ones are always the ones that get me of like, "Oh, wow, we helped somebody through this."

You know, we had a positive impact, like the content we created, the content we helped the client create not only impacted them positively, but also impacted their audience positively. You know, and that, that to me is always a thrill. So that's really great.

Israel Duran: That's what it's all about, man.

Yeah, it's, there's nothing, you know, I had somebody tell me one of my mentors when I shared that with him, he said to me, "You know what the good thing about this and the bad thing is.?" And I said, well, what's the, you know, when they tell you what's the good news and bad news, I said, "Well, what is it?"

He said, "The good news is that's how good as it gets." You can't really go, I mean, when you get that emotional result, that's the highest level. The bad news is you really can't go higher than that. You just got to keep maintaining it and you're only as good as your last success.

Yeah.

Chris Hill: Well last question before we wrap up, I always like to ask, cause this is branding marketing focused. What is the brand that you would say right now is like the brand you're crushing on the most or your favorite brand at the moment?

Israel Duran: I'm going to say the brand, and thank you for sending me the question before, and you know, I'm going to, I'm going to say the brand Amazon, even though I know it's kind of like one of those like, like controversial brands.

But the reason why I just think that Jeff Bezos is brilliant in his marketing ability. I think, I mean, for those of the people that know that story of Amazon, Amazon was going to go bankrupt several times, but he was able to create a flywheel with Amazon that the more partners he brings on, the cheaper the cost and the more money he makes.

This is why now Amazon's starting to get into every industry, and I know it's not good for the mom and pop, right? But you still got to respect the wisdom of the flywheel that Amazon's created and how the more that they grow and the more that they sell, the bigger they get, because that's just the way the business model is.

And that's, I really admire that about their brand. And their, their rapport.

Chris Hill: Yeah. I had the, the opportunity to go to the AWS's re:Invent last year, so I've seen a little bit of the craziness that they do, and it's impressive. Thee scope, the scale, the size of that event is just mind blowing for me.

I'm used to thinking of a conference is like a couple thousand people at most, and then you go and there's like 40,000 plus people in Las Vegas over four nights or whatever it is, and it's just, it's insane. it's a wild event, but yeah, I've had a little bit of a taste of that. So I can, I can see that.

I mean, they're, they're good in that regard. And then of course the retail side. It's fascinating too.

Well, Israel, thank you so much for coming on the show. Where can people learn more about you? Where can they find your book and connect with you?

Israel Duran: Thank you so much for having me, Chris. And I have some free gifts available for everyone at israelduran.com. We have some free trainings there and also my book. You can also grab it. It's on the homepage. But israelduran.com.

Chris Hill: Excellent. Alrighty. Well, Israel Durand, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Israel Duran: Thank you, sir.

Chris: Thanks for checking out this episode of We Built This Brand.

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