The Power of Mini Conversations with Riaz Meghji
The Setup:
👀 Learn a fresh perspective on how to engage with your audience
👋🏼 Meet Riaz Meghji: television broadcaster, speaker, and author
🛠 Learn how to listen and speak to maximize impact with conversations
INTRO
On a mission to help leaders elevate meaningful human connection, Riaz joins us today on the PBB to share some personal branding wisdom.
Riaz Meghji is a human connection expert and author of the book Every Conversation Counts: The 5 Habits of Human Connection That Build Extraordinary Relationships. He is also an accomplished broadcaster with 17 years of television hosting experience with Citytv’s Breakfast Television, MTV Canada, TEDxVancouver, CTV News, and the Toronto International Film Festival.
I first met Riaz at a Vancouver event in the pre-covid days. I can’t remember if it was a BC Tech conference or a Daily Hive event, but his enthusiasm and spark for life caught me right away and I’ve been following his work ever since.
If you ever hear Riaz speak, you’ll find he has the highest value density per word I’ve ever come across. Each of his sentences are crafted so particularly so I thought he’d be perfect to do a deep dive with for the newsletter. Let’s dig in! ⛏
JH: What’s your #1 tip for building community around your brand?
RM: Listen to what they need, before you start serving them.👂🏼
It’s easy for our enthusiasm for our offering to overshadow the initial curiosity to understand where the community is at and where they want to go.
If we can listen first, we lead with a service mentality that will build deeper relationships.
JH: What’s the best weekly habit that drives relationships in your life online?
RM:Treat the audience like gold. If they respond, make them the star.
Engage with every single comment, ask them questions, and keep the conversation going.
Aside from Joel: after doing a poke around on Riaz’s social accounts, I can attest that he certainly lives up to his word:
JH: How intentionally do you build your brand? When did you start?
RM: Intentional action has been a big part of the strategy.
I started almost 9 years ago with the ‘Every Conversation Counts’ message, using this mantra as a title for a TEDxSFU talk in 2012.
9 Years Ago
Ever since, I’ve shared ideas surrounding this theme in talks, YouTube Videos, interviews and more, to support the objective of building open and honest human connection.
Aside from Joel: powerful reminder that after 9 years of living this message out as his core mission, he’s only starting to ramp up the energy of publishing a book and going all-in on his video series.
JH: What do you think people often forget when trying to build a personal brand?
RM: Emotion.
We are bombarded by information.📚
Aside from Joel: Forbes claims Americans see 4,000 - 10,000 ads/day.
RM: If your storytelling or interviewing is going to make a difference and move the audience to take action, look for the emotion in every story you are going to tell.
🔍 How can you help someone? How can you invite your subject to speak from the heart? How can you deliver a sense of hope in your writing and delivery?
These are all objectives with a high emotional component.
JH: What are you most excited about?
RM: Releasing the ‘Every Conversation Counts’ book in 2021 has been a passion project years in the making.
Given our challenging year of isolation and loneliness, I’m excited to share this book that addresses the problem of disconnection and delivers five key habits of human connection that help deepen and build extraordinary relationships.
Aside from Joel: as a fun side note, Riaz was kind enough to send me a copy of his book (with a personal note) to welcome my feedback on the topic. Here’s the tweet I posted last December. It was a perfect read over the Covid-Christmas holidays.
Also, Riaz is to humble to say this, but he's already received praise on the book from folks like Mark Shapiro (President & CEO of the Toronto Blue Jays) Jim Treliving (Chairman/Owner Of Boston Pizza International and former CBC Dragons Den Judge) and Tracey Moore (TV Personality).
JH: What’s the best piece of brand advice you ever heard?
RM: Don’t sacrifice authenticity for approval.
If you’re building a brand with approval being the priority, it will never be enough. Be you, do what lights you up and your consistent drive will become contagious.
Joel: What a powerful reminder to close with. Thanks again for taking time to join us, Riaz.
If you’re not already following him, be sure to check out his LinkedIn, YouTube, and his new book, Every Conversation Counts.
📲 ACTION BYTES
Two action steps for you today. Pick one. (Or if you’re feeling ambitious, do both.)
How can you intentionally listen to your community this week? For example… Reading comments you’d usually overlook? Creating a poll? DM’ing people for feedback?
💬Make it your mission to learn 3 new things about your community this week.How can you reveal another layer of yourself this week? Do you need to filter your posts to make sure they're true to who you are? (Check out this article on finding your authentic voice.) Do you need to share more failures? Maybe you’re not sure how to share about your successes?
💬 Try to engage with your community as your authentic self. A great way to do that is to share a learning experience you’re having, especially if it shows you don’t have it all together.
💼 JOB BOARD | Featured Roles
If you missed it last week, I decided to open up a job board. Check back each week for new roles in marketing, communications, or tech. Want to feature your job in the next newsletter? Email hello@joelhansen.com for details.
Best Buy’s hunting for a Digital Marketing Coordinator. Let Polly Tracey know you’re interested.
Beedie Luminaries–a scholarship program for smart, gritty, resilient students who are facing financial adversity–is hiring a Student Coach. Contact Ben Huckle with your questions.
Hootsuite’s hiring a Customer Marketing Programs Specialist. Give Andrew Steven a shout if you want the job.
Bain and Company’s looking for a Senior Specialist in Marketing Automation. Slide into Derek’s DMs here to let him know the newsletter sent you.
RIFF OF THE DAY
On the topic of knowledge gems, here’s a creative tweet I came across that summarizes all of the top lessons from Jeff Bezos’ 23 years of Amazon shareholder letters.
If you’ve been enjoying the newsletter, it’d mean a lot if you sent it to a friend or two. I try hard to make it an email you look forward to each week. (Feel free to let me know how you think it could be better, or send any ideas my way.)
Stay outta’ trouble and catch you next week.
✌🏻 Joel