How to Build a Brand People Trust with Scott Harrison: An EOFire Classic from 2022

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/abba2af10a63f46e

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Regrock today, Fire Nation, JLZ here, and welcome to Entrepreneur's on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. And on today's classic episode, we'll be breaking down how to build a brand people trust.
And to drop these vibe bombs, I brought Scott Harrison into EO Fire Studios. Scott is the founder and CEO of Charity Water, a nonprofit with the mission of bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing countries. And today we talk about how being born in a village without water changes everything about your life.
And how being a brand that inspires the best of people, not shame or guilt, and encourages them to contribute time and money to help others and to owe so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Scott and our sponsors.
Fire Nation, is your business stuck? Join Eric Trump and Clay Clark's life changing business conference, November 5th and 6th, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Learn the specific proven systems Clay Clark has used to create thousands of success stories today at ThriveTimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Again, request tickets today at thrive show.com slash EO Fire.
If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award winning 247 supports. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15 minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com.
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Scott, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people
Disagree with.
What's up, man? It's great to be back. I think it's uh four years uh since we last chatted.
I I think
Maybe the idea that you can't give
What you don't have.
Uh I think a lot of people when they're building their company or when they're building their organization
You know, they're not giving. They're not giving money uh to their own organization or to other things'cause they're they're trying to achieve this milestone.
Uh, you know, it's like when I get to this milestone, then I'm gonna be generous, then I'm gonna give money, then I'm gonna have margin.
And I've found
You know, giving along the way as you're building.
Is uh is one of the greatest secrets to success.
And you planted that concept in Gary Vaynerchuk's mind long ago, and he has utilized that and preached that.
From the pulpit. Yeah, I think he was gonna buy the jets and then he would start giving. And I'm like, Man, you're gonna miss out on twenty years of opportunities to use your time and your talent and your money
In the service of others, you're gonna miss out on getting involved in all of these great causes.
you know, living vicariously through your money at work.
As you try to buy the jets.
So uh yeah, I I think he's he's done a lot of good.
In uh in the ten years since that meeting.
Just uh
commitment to giving now that like you said can be so amazing and so impactful and
Can again just help you achieve your dreams.
congruently, which is super cool. And as I mentioned in the intro, we're talking about how to build a brand that people actually trust, which when it comes to a charity, um, that's very important, trusting that charity. And it's actually
Like you mentioned, been a long time. We had you back on in twenty sixteen, then again in twenty eighteen, so now it's been four years since our last chats. So give us a little reminder. What is charity water?
Well the beauty is it's exactly what it sounds like.
We are a charity.
Uh which helps people get clean water to drink.
And you know, since we've talked, I think the world has made a lot of progress. Yeah.
We are now down to seven hundred and seventy one milyen humans.
Without clean water.
Uh and I'm I'm a little tongue in cheek there, but it's now only one in ten people alive.
And it used to be one in six people alive.
And
However
It's seven hundred and seventy million people right now.
that are drinking disgusting water.
you know, two Americas full of people. So you know, we think that number should be zero.
Uh
And and we continue to uh to try to grow the movement and the brand.
Uh to
To bring that to zero, to make sure every single person on earth has the most basic need.
Met.
Uh clean water.
Yeah, the most basic need for life.
There's many things I love about you, Scott. One of them
things that I'm really fascinated and impressed by is the fact that
You really live what you preach because you were a nightclub promoter in New York City. We're talking Manhattan for ten
years and you went from being a nightclub promoter
to founding a charity'cause there's a lot of people listening right now that are like, I'm in this industry or I'm doing that. Like I'm so far disconnected from running a charity or from committing to a charity or from giving to a charity. And it's just
not true and you prove that. So
Tell us the story of how you went from that nightclub promoter to founding a charity. Yeah, well, I moved to New York City at 18 to rebel against my conservative Christian upbringing. You know, I gave church the finger, I gave family the finger, I wanted to drink, I wanted to smoke, I wanted to have sex, and I wanted to do drugs.
And I wanted a party for a living.
And
I I I learned there's actually a way you can get paid to do that as a nightclub promoter.
And I thought I was, you know, the king of New York.
Ten years working in nightlife.
Working at 40 different clubs, uh, you know, driving the BMW, wearing the stupid Rolex, you know, dating girls that were on the cover of magazines, because I thought that those were the markers of success. And I was trying to collect.
You know, all of these things.
That I thought would
Bring me fulfillment.
And
Ten years later, you know, I woke up one day at twenty eight.
And I had most of the things I was chasing.
And I was miserable.
Uh
I I I was
Morally bankrupt, I was you know spiritually bankrupt, I was emotionally bankrupt, none of my relationships you know had any depth.
And I realised you know if I if I left the earth
At twenty eight.
I would have left.
A negative contribution to the planet.
Yeah, my tombstone would read, Here lies a guy who got a million people wasted in clubs.
And you know, kind of realized how far I'd come from
Yeah, the way I was brought up and and
And you know, w how far removed I was from living a life of any purpose.
And I just made a radical change. I
Sold everything I owned.
And said, you know, a pivot is not needed.
The opposite.
of everything I do and say
and think is needed. Let me go and try that.
And that led me to the poorest country in the world.
volunteering on a medical mission in Liberia, West Africa for one year.
Uh and
My entire life changed when I
was exposed to people who were drinking dirty water.
And in contrast, I was selling Voss water in my nightclubs for ten dollars a bottle to people who wouldn't even open the water.
And I
landed in a country where half the people were drinking from swamps.
and ponds and and rivers. And half the disease in that country was because people
We're drinking dirty water. And uh you know
There was just something about that extreme you know, the extremis.
That I said
Maybe I could do something about this. Maybe I could come back to New York City at thirty years old and instead of
Getting people drunk instead of partying like an idiot.
Maybe I could promote something
That actually mattered. Maybe I could promote clean water.
For the world.
And see if anybody wanted to join me.
Well, sneak peek Fire Nation, seven hundred million dollars plus raised
And
Bringing clean water to fifteen point five million people and growing every single day. But before we get into that
You did.
really decide to reinvent yourself. And we talk about this on the show a lot about reinventing an industry, a niche, a product, a service, becoming the best solution to a real problem in this world. You found a real problem in this world and you said
What is a solution that I can create, but you realized that you didn't want to do it the standard way, but you wanted to reinvent charity with charity water. What does that even mean?
Well, I had the advantage of coming back from Africa, you know, my heart on fire, uh having this issue I wanted to solve or or make a dent in. And I didn't have any experience. Like I wasn't a philanthropist. I had never worked at a charity before.
So I just started talking to my friends who went to clubs
And who worked at MTV.
Or Goldman Sachs or Sephora.
You know, in the mall.
And
As I was talking about this issue, I realised so many of them didn't trust charities.
They were skeptical.
They were cynical.
Where does my money go? I'm gonna give into a black hole. You know, I don't trust the people running these things.
And I realized there was an opportunity to
Uh to maybe reimagine.
the way a charity could function, the way it could operate, the way it could interact with its supporters.
And I just had a really simple idea, which was
What if
A hundred percent.
Of every donation that was ever given to Charity Water.
Went directly.
To build these wells and water projects.
In Africa and India and South East Asia.
And none of the public's money ever went to overhead.
No salis.
No office rent, no flights, no you know, toner for the Epson copy machine.
What if we opened up a separate bank account?
And I tried to find, you know, a small group of people to pay for those
nasty, unsexy overhead costs. So that man, I remember going down to Broadway and Bond, it was a commerce bank at the time in Manhattan, opening up these two bank accounts, not knowing if this would work.
But believing that
Maybe I could take the most common objection people had.
And just take it off the table.
And say if you give one dollar
Or a hundred thousand dollars.
Every single penny
will go to people in need.
And then the second big idea just
Well,
Actually, then we could use technology to show people
Where their money went.
Іно, вот if I could show a satellite image to a donor.
Of a well they sponsored.
and said, Hey, your money went exactly here to this village in Uganda. Here's a picture of the well. Here's the picture of the two hundred and fifty people drinking clean water, and here's a satellite image.
Of what you made possible.
So this kinda proof idea.
Closing the loop.

And then you know the third thing was, man, just wanting to build a brand that was not shame based or guilt based.
You know, that that invited people
To bring
the best of themselves to bring their time and their talent and their money
І не сервис од
And it wasn't a bummer.
You know, we we believed that
People would find
Purpose and joy.
Through giving, through generosity.
Not because they had to, not because they bought too nice of a car or were wearing, you know, clothes that were too expensive, but because it was an opportunity
To use what we've been blessed with.
Ен провидет.
Right, an inarguable common good in clean water. And I just put those three things together.
Uh and and you know, wow, fifteen years ago, through a party in a nightclub
Gave everybody open bar for an hour and just asked for a twenty dollar donation.
at the door and the money that we collected that night built our first well.
And that was over a hundred eleven thousand wells ago.
And it just started from one.
And just taking those simple principles.
hyper transparency.
You know, showing people where the money went.
Closing the loop um and then asking them to engage again.
you know, has has allowed us to to build a movement.
that is the definition, Fire Nation, of reinvention. So ask yourself
How are you reinventing
your business, your industry, your niche, your product, your service.
If you want to achieve these kind of levels of success
This Scott has achieved over the years, and we're gonna be talking about this in a lot more detail when we get back from Thanking Our Sponsors.
Fire Nation, is your business stuck?
Join Eric Trump and Clay Clark's life changing business conference, November 5th and 6th, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Learn the specific proven systems Clay Clark has used to create thousands of millionaire success stories. See thousands of success stories and testimonials from real people just like you, who Clay Clark has mentored and coached into prosperity at thrivetshow.com slash EOFIR.
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Today.
Scott, we're back and as I mentioned before the break, you've raised
Over seven hundred million dollars since you were founded. You've brought clean water to over fifteen million.
Point five million people.
This success is stratospheric. How have you achieved
Such success.
I think we just show up.
I mean
You know, it it it it started
With one weld and then
You know, it turned into ten, and then it turned into a hundred, and then it turned into a thousand, and we
You know, we were so clear on where we were going. If you'd asked me fifteen years ago.
What are you doing?
I would say
I'm on a mission to bring clean water to every single person in the world before I die.
Or I'm gonna die trying.
And we have never wavered from that hyper focus.
People need water.
Let's invite people into this movement. Let's invite them to give.
And then let's deliver clean water in the most transparent, effective way possible.
And then show them those results.
So I
I don't know. I mean, I guess I'm just still here, right? We talked in twenty sixteen and you know, the impact was much less. And then we talked a couple of years later and I'm still kinda here saying the exact same thing.
Um, and last year we raised over a hundred million dollars.
You know thanks to the generosity of
of a community now that that spans a hundred and fifty countries of of kids out there selling lemonade, you know, of tech founders writing big checks, of companies getting involved.
Uh
You know, we've just continued to say the same thing and invite people into into the mission and it continues to grow. Stories
I mean I've built entrepreneurs on fire on the backs.
of stories. I mean I love how history is broken up into his
Story.
her story. I mean it's so powerful.
Scott, what are one or two of your favorite stories out of the over fifteen and a half million people who now have clean water?
Well the first one's a rough one and
You know, it's a it's a really personal story from Ethiopia.
Uh, I've been to Ethiopia thirty-one times now. Um I we work over twenty-nine countries and it's just it's a country I love. Uh it's a place I keep going back to. It's a place we make an impact. And you know, I was there years ago and I was in this crappy five dollar a night hotel room.
And the hotel owner comes into the the the little room and uh kind of the waiting room and he recognizes me and he says, You're the water guy.
And I said, Yeah, and he said, Let me tell you a story.
And he says, I'm from far away.
I'm from hours from here. I grew up in a remote village, and all the women in my village used to walk seven hours a day.
And he said,
One day one of the women walked seven hours.
And she was carrying this clay pot.
And she comes back to her house and she's got this heavy clay pot.
And he said she slips and she falls, and before she got home.
She smashed her clay pot.
And the water that she'd spent the entire day walking for.
spilled out on the ground.
And he said, Let me tell you something about this woman. He said she didn't go back for more water.
She didn't pick up the pieces.
She took a rope.
And she hung it around her neck.
And she climbed a tree and she jumped.
And he said we found her.
With a noose around her neck.
And he let that sit.
And he said the work you are doing here is important.
And walk back in the kitchen.
And man, I remember thinking
There's no way that's true, right? Like, you know, checking snopes or whatever. Like that's what you tell
An international aid worker.
To encourage them about the work.
But
I just couldn't get this visual picture out of my mind. And uh couple weeks later, I sent our local partners out to his village.
And they confirmed that a woman named Letakiros Hailu had hung herself in this village and
A couple of weeks later I asked my wife, I said, I need to go there.
I need to walk in her footsteps. I need to
You know, connect in the most visceral way with the urgency of our work.
And I wound up, you know, flying back to Ethiopia.
hiking nine and a half hours to her village and living there for a week.
And I walked in her footsteps and I met her friends and I met her family
And I visited her grave.
And
At the end of the trip, I remember standing on that path looking at the tree.
And
What I didn't know going into the village was that she was thirteen years old when she killed herself.
I had imagined this to be a woman at the end of her life, it was a thirteen year old girl.
Who was just
Too tired. Too
Despair.
Two
Walk for water anymore.
And the shame of slipping and falling and spilling the water and breaking this clay pot, which was a valuable asset.
It was too much for her.
And I remember standing near her grave.
uh just this little pile of rocks behind a a small church.
And thinking to myself
Yeah.
Thirteen year old girls should not be hanging themselves.
Because they spilled water.
And no one should live like this.
And you know, those unfortunately I've heard stories like that, you know, from from all over the world of the you know women being attacked by hyenas or crocodiles, women being raped on their way for water.
The just the this thing that so many of us take for granted. The ninety percent of the world that lives with water coming out of taps. You know, water we buy in bottles that we don't even need to.
But yet if you were born
In a village without water, your life is so different.
Um
Maybe just one story not to end there, there was a woman we were able to help in Uganda named Helen.
And man, Helen uh was this radiant sixty five year old Ugandan woman. We went into her village, we wanted to see the well, and we said
You know, Helen, tell us how your life is different now.
You have water next to your house, you don't have to walk anymore.
And Helen said to our team, she said
Well I'll tell you how I'm different.
Now I am beautiful.
And I remember we're like
Of course you're beautiful, Helen. You're a beautiful, radiant Ugandan woman. And she said, No, no, no, you don't understand.
She said I always used to walk.
Throw water.
And I had a family to support. I had kids. I never had enough water.
And I would have to make these decisions every day.
Do I clean?
My house with the water. Do I
Keep my kids' school uniforms clean. Do I keep my kids' bodies clean?
Do I cook?
Right, do I garden?
She said I was making choices every day.
And as a Ugandan woman
I always put my family first.
And she said, I didn't use the water.
For my face and my body and my clothes.
And she said now that there's a well in my village
She said I can take all the water that I want.
And now I am beautiful.
And she said, Look at me, I'm looking so smart, right? I'm so pretty.
And
You know, maybe the contrast of a of a thirteen year old girl in despair.
Is a sixty five year old woman who waited her whole life
To feel beautiful.
To have
Her dignity.
restored through something as simple
as clean water.
And you know, knowing we've been able to make that possible for, you know, a hundred thousand or so villages is is what animates us and what drives us to keep going.
uh and inviting more people into this.
I mean Fire Nation, look around right now.
I bet.
All of us, myself included, I'm raising my hands.
At least the vast majority of us.
Have some form of water.
or drink with an eyesight right now, or a way of turning a faucet on to get that, or pressing a button on a water fountain.
And it is true. We we do take this for granted and it's crazy that
Two
America's seven hundred and seventy one million people.
every single day are struggling with the very thing that we take
for granted on such a high level. So if people are listening right now and they're inspired, and I know they are, because you
can't, you know, be an empathetic human being and not be inspired by the stories that you just shared, Scott.
What can
We do.
To help.
Well we have an amazing community of people uh that that show up. Uh sometimes people give once. We have this community of people called the Spring who show up every single month. In the same way they you know, they show up for Netflix or Disney Plus or Hulu or Spotify.
uh the spring is a community people who give whatever they can
Knowing every month 100% goes directly to help people get clean water. And then we show them the impact of those gifts. So
Uh it's called the spring. I'm a member, uh my family, my my uh my wife is a member, uh my kids are are still kinda giving allowance money, they're really young, but that's that's that's a it's an amazing community of people.
who are just showing up for others. Um, and that's the spring dot com or just charitywater.org.
Fantastic. The spring.com charitywater.
Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with SH and JLD today, so keep up the heat. If you head over to EOfire dot com and type Scott in the search bar.
The show notes page will pop up with everything we've talked about here today. And by the way, go ahead and listen to twenty sixteen and twenty eighteen's episode.
value bombs were dropped there as well.
And I know Fire Nation
When you see that monthly
bill come in or that monthly I should say um money go out to an organization like Charity Water to the Spring
You're not gonna be like, Oh man, that's
That's that's money going out. You're gonna be like, No, that's
a feel good moment that you know
That you are helping somebody
And people.
In a place
in dire need, and that's so impactful. So I really hope
You take
that call to action and you know, whether it's
you know, giving up one of your
you know, probably six or seven streaming services you have, like, and you know, taking that seven dollars a month and and giving it to the spring.
Or if you are able to do more, you know, I again I know that every time you see that come through on a monthly basis, you're gonna be like, That feels good,'cause it will. So Scott, thank you, brother, for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we will catch you on
The flip side.
Hey Fire Nation, a huge thank you to Scott for dropping value bombs. And Fire Nation, what can three thousand of the world's most successful entrepreneurs teach you?
How about how to achieve financial freedom and fulfillment? My first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Want Common Success, is a revolutionary 17-step roadmap that will lead you to the lifestyle that you've been dreaming about.
This book took me ten years of accumulating the genius of the world's top entrepreneurs, and you can get it all in one place when you visit uncommon
Successbook dot com and I'll catch you there.
Or on the flip side.
Fire Nation, is your business stuck? Join Eric Trump and Clay Clark's life changing business conference, November 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Learn the specific proven systems Clay Clark has used to create thousands of success stories today at Thrivetimeshow.com slash EOFIR. Again, request tickets today at thrive show.com slash EO Fire.
If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award winning 247 supports. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15 minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com.
High level fire.
Dot com