Angie 00:00 Good Monday morning, everybody. I am Angie Callen, host of the No More Mondays podcast, here with a little extra shot of espresso to help you kick off your week with some inspiring and action-filled advice from an amazing guest. Today we are talking about building influence, and we have an expert on this subject joining us. Austin Armstrong is a digital marketer, public speaker, startup founder, and social media influencer who has amassed over 3 million followers across his channels. It takes a ton of work to create that, which is why I thought it was so important to bring Austin here — because now he’s using that visibility to help others do just that in their domains. He’s leveraging AI, technology, and some really fun, creative approaches to do it. Austin Armstrong, welcome to No More Mondays.

Austin 01:10 Angie, I’m so glad to be here. And real quick — don’t call your 15,000 audience piddly. That’s a great number. That’s a great thing that you’ve built. Celebrate every win. I can’t even imagine a room full of 3 million people, let alone 15,000 — so you’ve built an amazing audience.

Angie 01:25 Thank you! I cannot even make fun of myself without being called out on my own podcast. I saw a graphic recently — here’s what 50 people look like, here’s what 500 people look like, and here’s what 10,000 people look like. And it was a stadium. Even 50 people looks like a lot when you actually see them all standing in a group. So don’t ever doubt the impact, because even if you make a difference with one person — that matters.

Austin 01:50 Look at the conference scene, for instance. You might think speaking at a 50-person conference isn’t worth your time, but I’d challenge that — because it might just be 50 of the right people. People who will make a connection for you, invite you on a podcast, give you that one unlock moment that gets you to the next level. And when you’re on stage, I don’t care how many people you’ve spoken in front of — whether it’s 50 or 5,000 — it can always be a little intimidating.

Angie 02:15 This ties into something we were talking about backstage. For any of you who’ve been listening regularly, I’m very fortunate for the amazing connections I made when I went to The Thing in Orlando — and it was exactly what Austin just said. It was a room of 50 to 60 highly engaged, highly present people who were ready to learn and connect. If you’re influencing 50 highly motivated people, you’re going to end up having more impact than if you’re kind of not really impacting a room of 5,000. Quality matters as much as quantity. Austin, as you’ve built your influence, what kinds of doors have you seen it open?

Austin 02:55 Gosh, it’s opened everything. It’s changed my life. Influence is defined in different ways — it’s not just having a vanity metric follower count, though I will say those do open doors, assuming they’re earned. But influence also comes from experience, expertise, consistency over time, and continuing to build trust and rapport. It’s opened wealth for one. I don’t have to worry when I go to a restaurant about whether I can afford what I want. It’s allowed me to stop cold pitching podcasts — I just speak at conferences and people reach out to me. I haven’t reached out to be a guest on a podcast in years, and I do five or six a week. It opened doors to speak at conferences like The Thing — Terry Weaver and I were connected online for several years and he invited me to speak because of my social media presence. It’s allowed me to scale multiple companies and help many different people. It’s opened pretty much every door I could imagine, and it continues to grow.

Angie 04:10 And probably some you couldn’t have imagined — because I think influence can build more influence, and at some point it becomes almost exponential.

Austin 04:18 One immediately comes to mind. I’m teaching a class at Duke University. I don’t even have a college degree, and now I’m teaching Master’s Degree students AI and entrepreneurship — because of my influence, my consistency, and my track record of growing businesses. That is a mind-blowing door that was just recently opened.

Angie 04:38 I hope anyone out there who feels self-conscious about a lack of academic credentials and what opportunities it keeps them from — Austin just debunked every single one of those limiting beliefs. Lesson number one of this conversation. Now — I want to be real about the flip side, because it could also take a whole lot of energy to constantly cultivate connection with 3 million people. What are some of the downsides or drawbacks?

Austin 05:05 Let’s call a spade a spade. I’m totally addicted to social media. My average screen time would shock most people.

Angie 05:12 I follow you everywhere and it is very clearly you, a lot of the time.

Austin 05:16 Nobody has access to my social media profiles. It’s only me. I’m on my phone from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep — and even in the middle of the night I’ll wake up and take a minute to respond to comments. It’s a socially acceptable addiction that has made me a productive member of society, and I justify it in different ways. I also have ADHD, and social media doesn’t help with that — but I’ve channeled it into a lot of successful things. The other downside is just the nature of being online with trolls. I’ve been a child of the internet since I was 14 on MySpace, so I’ve developed thick skin — I even troll the trolls, which is one of my favorite strategies. But you have to be okay with not everyone agreeing with you. We’re a very diverse world, and when you make stances or share opinions, people love to assert their egos. I’ve also faced burnout. I ran my own agency for over six years and got completely burned out — to the point where I had to step away and eventually shut it down. It was bringing me so much stress and anxiety. Now I’m ecstatic with where I’m at, but there are definitely periods of burnout.

Angie 06:30 No matter whether you’ve got five or 5 million people in your feed, the critical feedback thing comes at some point. I wanted to ask about this because I’m not a poke-the-bear content creator. I have plenty of it in my head and I know exactly what I could put out there to garner tons of engagement — but it stresses me out so much I won’t sleep for three days. So you also have to know your own boundaries. Even without being controversial, people have opinions. One of the things I come across with coaches I work with is this resistance or fear of putting thought leadership out in a visible place because it feels like they’re going to be made fun of or face critical feedback. What do you do about both the feeling and the actual feedback?

Austin 07:20 We’re our own worst enemies in every single way. And I hate to break it to you — you are going to face that as soon as you get started online. It’s natural. But if you are a thought leader, you have an obligation to share your information and help people. I came up through the agency space in marketing for the behavioral health industry — therapists, addiction treatment experts, clinical psychologists. We took the information from their heads and turned it into video for social media to drive clients. But just putting that information out there literally saves people’s lives. You don’t know when someone is at the end of their rope, and your video pops up at the right time, saying exactly the right thing, and you’ve just helped them step back from that ledge. Same with coaches — so many people have heard the same information over and over, but they’re looking for that voice they resonate with. Our unique personalities and communication styles resonate differently. That is the difference. And so give your best information away for free and sell the implementation.

Angie 08:30 Say that again — say that again.

Austin 08:32 Give your best information away for free, sell the implementation. You have to meet people where they’re at. There are different ways to get your thought leadership out there — outbound, ads, networking, conferences, public speaking, content creation, SEO. Video is the number one way to get your personality across online and make sure people know you’re the expert who can help them. The best marketing advice I ever learned: give your best information away for free and sell the implementation. Because they are going to know, like, and trust you — and then all of that together is when they reach out to hire you.

Angie 09:15 For those of you who’ve been through my business coaching — I did not plant Austin as a mole. I talk constantly about KTL. You do have to show up consistently over a longer period of time now to get someone to the consideration and decision stage. But if it’s having impact, it’s worth it. I want to go back to something you said about the behavioral health content. That’s such a potent example — if one person is saved or impacted or moves forward because of the thought leadership you put out there, you’ve won. I heard someone say once: you have something to put out there that someone needs to hear. Who are you to keep it from them?

Austin 09:58 So good. It’s almost selfish not to.

Angie 10:02 Exactly. And those 3 million followers came to you not because you were focused on getting 3 million followers — but because you were focused on meeting people where they’re at, taking them where they want to go, and being authentic as you did it. How did you find that voice?

Austin 10:18 Reps. Lots of reps. And ultimately — just being myself. When you come up in digital marketing, you study everybody. You read the books, listen to the podcasts, see the best speakers speak, buy coaching. You enter that space trying to emulate success. And what it ultimately comes down to is just be your authentic self with the information and experience you have. I tried all kinds of things. I tried to make wooden bow ties my brand for a little bit because I saw people have cool hats or fun glasses and I thought — I’m going to be the wooden bow tie guy. That’s not me. I don’t wear wooden bow ties in real life. I tried over-exaggerating my personality. But the version of me you see in my content is literally me. When I’m speaking on stage, that’s just my everyday life. I am a weirdo, and I’ve learned to own it. Pay attention to the data — notice when a piece of content does exceptionally well, validate that theory, and double down. Test, test, test until something clicks. Go deep on that thing until it doesn’t work anymore. Then test again. That’s the cycle.

Angie 11:25 I can attest to just saying it and putting it out there and thinking about it less — that tends to be when it resonates. My version of the wooden bow tie moment was that in the career coaching space on LinkedIn, there’s a lot of long-form, heavily researched thought leadership content. And for some reason, a two-option yes/no poll about whether you make your bed in the morning gets a windfall of response. Or me hurling myself down a mountain bike learning to ride at 44 years old. That’s the stuff that hits. And that’s where you have to remember — it’s not about what you’re trying to do, it’s about how people are receiving it. Pay attention to the data. It helps you identify actual trends versus what you think the trends are. But it starts with just using your voice.

Austin 12:15 Absolutely — personality in video is everything. Which brings up — what are some of the trends you’re seeing out there?

Angie 12:22 Yes — you talked about trends. What’s really happening in the world of digital media right now?

Austin 12:28 I’m in the AI space, so there’s a constant news cycle happening. There are different ways to create content — educational, entertaining, reactive, news-focused. I combine entertainment with education. A lot of my videos are breaking news or cool new websites, but I work in little corny skits. Every industry can ride news waves — if you type your industry into Google and click the News tab, you’ll find fresh content ideas. As far as formats, short form video is still crushing it. That’s been the thing for four or five years since TikTok came on the scene and it’s not going anywhere. I’ve also had a lot of success with text threads — on Facebook in particular, which is my top platform right now. I get the most engagement there, which surprises people.

Angie 13:20 That’s interesting — email marketing is still where it’s at for us too. I almost wonder if, because feeds are so overwhelming and stuffed with curated content, email and direct messaging are a better way to get directly to someone because they know it’s from you.

Austin 13:35 Email is very exciting right now. There’s a platform called Beehiiv that I’m just so bullish on for creators. Newsletters are still performing really well. And we have Threads, Blue Sky coming on the scene — people just like different styles of content. Some people like video, some like audio, some like long form, some like short form, some like to read. There’s all sorts of ways we learn and retain information.

Angie 14:05 And that ties back to what I teach — the educate, entertain, enrich, engage framework. Content in various formats appeals to a more diverse audience because of different adult learning styles. I’d bet if we looked at the psychology of it, we tend to consume content that aligns with how we learn. Knowing that about your audience is very, very helpful.

Austin 14:28 You can have compounded success from combining education and entertainment. On TikTok, I was probably one of the first people to combine two relatable pieces of delivery — educational content and entertaining skits — and remix them into something fresh and new. Now that style has gotten saturated, so I’m trying to reinvent. When you have a lot of success, everyone catches up and does the same thing. Find the gaps in content in your niche — find a delivery style that’s performing well in one area and hasn’t crossed over into your specific industry yet, and test merging them to create something fresh.

Angie 15:10 This queues up perfectly something I wanted to challenge you on — you merged memes and video in a way with faceless video. We talk so much about building authenticity through video because people can see us. But you’re specializing in faceless video. Walk us through that connection.

Austin 15:30 The reality is — even though we’re giving everyone on this podcast so much information to get out of your own way and create content — there is still going to be a percentage of people who say: I can’t do it. I’m not going to press record. I don’t like how I look. I’m in a regulated industry where I’m not allowed to be on camera. All of these reasons. Video and social media have changed my life, and I don’t want anyone to have an excuse not to get their idea, their message, their vision out there. Faceless videos are a perfect way to do that — you can create content that hits these algorithms without being on camera. A faceless video is exactly what it sounds like: a video without a face. There are different ways to create them — B-roll style with footage of oceans, people shaking hands, whatever fits your topic. There’s also AI-generated faceless video, which is what my company Syllabi specializes in. You provide a script, it reads the script, and generates unique images based on that script in whatever art style you choose. It stitches everything into a video with subtitles, background music, and an AI voice — or your own voice if you want. You can even animate the images so they’re actually moving. We have a community of about 23,000 members on Facebook called Syllabi Content Creators — people who have never created a piece of content in their lives, never recorded a video, and we’re showing them how to grow on social media platforms and learn affiliate marketing. Things that were completely inaccessible to them before are now accessible. That’s my mission: to help people wherever they’re at.

Angie 17:05 I got excited even before you said that was your mission. It feels so intentional. This wasn’t just a product gap you filled — it was created with a specific group of people in mind to remove the barrier they have to getting into content creation. I’ve had plenty of coaches say “do I need to be doing video?” And I ask: do you like it? Are you good at it? If no, and it’s taking a ton of your energy, then don’t force it — because it won’t convert if you’re not bringing energy to it. This fills that gap in a really meaningful way.

Austin 17:40 Thank you. And I want to be clear — it’s not just a faceless video tool. I wanted to create the best video marketing tool possible from A to Z. We show you topic ideas, trending data in your industry. It writes video scripts for you. You can upload an audio file — a podcast episode, a voice note, anything — and it’ll create a video from that. You can take a blog URL and turn it into a video. We have AI avatars, so if you’re okay with your face being on camera but don’t want to record, you can create a real clone of yourself that moves like you, talks like you, sounds like you. Or use our video editor to record yourself and edit the video however you want. Then you can schedule and publish across all your connected social media pages — it even generates YouTube thumbnails, trained by YouTube expert Jeremy Vest. Everything is optimized. Then you can track your analytics inside Syllabi as well. It’s truly an A to Z workflow. I’ve worked with thousands of content creators and business owners over 11 years in the agency space, and I’m trying to eliminate every single excuse not to be active on video.

Angie 19:00 It really is the ultimate enablement tool. It removes every possible excuse you could have for not being on video — and we know that video, in whatever form, is a critical and not-going-anywhere component of building influence online. Austin, this brings everything full circle — you built influence, saw an opportunity, and found a way to serve others in building their own. Before we let you go, tell everybody about what’s happening this fall in Dallas.

Austin 19:30 Yes — Angie and I are both speaking at my conference called AI Marketing World. It’s at aimarketingworld.co. I’ve assembled the best AI marketing experts in the world to Dallas, Texas, October 9 through 11, 2025. It’s going to be an interactive, immersive experience — not just talking heads for three days. I’m planning a pitch competition throughout, with AI martech startups pitching and audience participation to vote on the winner. We’ve got big sponsors, we’re going big with this. I partnered with Scott Simpson, owner of Video Marketing World, and we’ve rebranded that existing conference into AI Marketing World. We’re hoping for 500 to 1,000 people. Tickets are on sale now.

Angie 20:20 Aimarketingworld.co — and somehow I’m included in this. I bought in the minute Austin said he was doing it. I asked if I could come talk about how to be a human in AI — because as AI becomes more present and more leverageable as a tool, that grounding is so important. Buy your tickets and come give Austin a hug in real life.

Austin 20:42 It’s going to be great. And if you want to support Angie, she has an affiliate link in the show notes for this episode.

Angie 20:50 We’ll add that to the show notes. This has been so fun. Thank you so much for joining me today and for everything you’re doing to help people put their influence out into the world. One last piece of wisdom to leave everyone with?

Austin 21:02 Perfectionism is procrastination. Just post the damn thing.

Angie 21:07 Yes. Perfectionism is at the expense of progress. Think about it less and put it out there. The world needs to hear it — just like Austin is doing. Thank you so much for this fantastic conversation. I can’t wait to see you in a few months. Everybody out there — go put your influence out into the world right now. Rip off the band aid. We’ll see you next week for another edition of No More Mondays.