Latest / The Inner Wealth Podcast / Ep154. From Stuttering to Showing Up: A Powerful Discussion about Courage with Brad Starnes.

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Ep154. From Stuttering to Showing Up: A Powerful Discussion about Courage with Brad Starnes. · The Inner Wealth Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I do a lot of interviews on this podcast but when I do, it's typically because there's a transformation that's happened in the person's life.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: I love a good from two story.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I want to show the world that transformation is possible in any circumstance.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: On this podcast, I've had from broke the wealth from golden handcuffs to successful entrepreneur.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Today's a little different.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I brought my man, brad Starnes, on to this podcast, and Brad is a lifelong stutter Now.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: He used to have a debilitating stutter when he was a child.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: At some point he got the help he needed and it started to go away, but then later in his life it came back and it got in the way and it almost paralyzed him.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Now he's gotten the help he needs.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: He's stepping into the world and he's an entrepreneur and he's starting to really, really show up in the world.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: He's got an awesome digital marketing agency, but he's also showing up on social media and really showing up where it matters on stages, on podcasts, on content and he's really stepping into his authority in the world.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I can't wait for you to meet Brad.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: He's got a heart of gold and I hope you see in him what I see in him.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Do you ever wake up feeling like there's something missing in your life.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: You ever feel the need to escape your business.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Are you running your life or is your life running you?
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I'm Mike Kitko, and I'll help you design and create a life so authentic and aligned with who you really are.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: You'll get excited just to wake up.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I'll help you create real wealth, success and freedom from the inside out.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Inner Wealth Podcast, where we learn and choose to live inspired each and every day.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: All right, listen, today I've got my man, brad Starnes, here and Brad and I have known each other.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: You know it hasn't been a long time.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Six months now, six, four months, if that, yeah, january.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: And Brad is a husband, he's a business owner, he's a great ally in terms of you know, he's one of those people that when we connected, you know, when we first met, we connected quickly because, you know, because a big heart knows a big heart, and I connect the people with big-ass hearts that are kind.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Nice isn't my jam, but kind means you tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: But he's a kind man, he's a very driven man, he's a great entrepreneur, he's getting started in the entrepreneurial world getting some traction, but he really shows up for people that he believes in and he you look at the interviews that I do.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I don't do a lot of interviews, but when I do an interview it's typically a transformation story, it's from two.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: So I've got from poverty to wealth.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I've got from golden handcuffs to, you know, successful business entrepreneur.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I've got all of these from-to stories, and Brad is a from-to story that I can't wait to dive into.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: So first of all I guess without further ado, I guess, if you want to use those words, meet my man, brad.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Brad, give us an idea of who you are and the role you're playing in the world.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: I've been.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: You mentioned in the intro kind of just getting going on the entrepreneurship where I like to joke and say I've been in the entrepreneurship world.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: So I was like eight years old, I got got got in trouble back then for trying to submit a patent for a cleaning machine that cleaned the house for us.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I was before the iRoombas and all that stuff and if my parents wouldn't have put the hammer down on that, I'd probably be sitting on a crap ton of cash right now.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: But it goes way back then have had all kinds of businesses from lawn care company did network marketing the whole nine yards.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Prior to this business had a software company that was essentially a mobile app that allowed roommates to share and split automatic payments.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: So if you had electric, gas, water, anything like that, we would automate that whole process, raise six figures in capital from friends and family and crowdfunded investments and all of that with that business.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: It unfortunately didn't work out.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: After about 18 months Closed that down August of 2022.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: My wife and I moved our entire life from Kansas City back to St Louis, moved in with my mom and dad and by April of last year we were able to kind of get back on our feet and I went full-time into my agency that I have now.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: And that's the entrepreneurial journey that I was talking about.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Talk about your agency.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: What is your agency right now?
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: So we are a full-service marketing agency.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: We work primarily with your home service companies so roofing companies, HVAC, plumbing, lawn care companies, anything along those lines and our main focus is helping these companies get found online, whether that's through running Facebook ads, Google ads, doing organic search or otherwise known as SEO, any content marketing.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Those are a lot of the things that we do for our clients.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome, listen, we're going to get to the business part in a bit.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: All right, but the business part is a part of your story and I definitely want to get to that because I want to.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I want to make sure that that that people utilize your services, but that's not why I invited you on here.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I invited you on here for that too.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: That from two story, so maybe you detected a hint of it when Brad was talking, but the fact that it wasn't prevalent is important.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Brad has been a stutterer his whole life.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I'm getting emotional.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: The fact that Brad is on this podcast is an act of courage.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Brad has battled a courageous battle and had a courageous journey of really stepping from a place of hiding in the world into the limelight, and we're part of Builders of Authority with Adam McChesney.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I've had Adam McChesney on this podcast a couple times, on the show a couple times, but every single day Brad is showing up more and putting himself in the limelight, and that is why you're here, because that wasn't always the case and I want to dive into that.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Brad, talk about your journey of of the stuttering.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Uh, you know and and and and what you know, the kind of the, some of the pain you went through and some of the you know the.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know the the trials that you endured, yeah, so it goes back to, I think man, I was probably like second or third grade and all of a sudden I get pulled out of class because I'm I'm gifted, I'm special in a way, and I'm going to this class and I'm you know learning how to you know talk and different things like that.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: And quickly I picked up and realized that, like it's not because I'm better than everybody else or whatever, like it was made out to seem, uh, it's cause I had some sort of disadvantage or setback to other people.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Um, and so that began back then.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Um, by the time I hit probably my junior, sophomore, junior year of high school, like it almost basically went away.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: By my senior year, like it was gone.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: So I worked my entire life basically to get it to go away.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: And from that point forward, until about, uh, middle of 2018, 2019, um, I I went through five, six, six years or so of, like me, being able to talk as fluent as possible, it not being a setback for me, anything along those lines.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, kind of out of the blue, it came back and I was always told, kind of growing up, that you know some major life event would happen.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: It would cause it to come back.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: You could hit your head, it could cause it to come back.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: You know all these different things.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Whatever the reason is, it doesn't matter at this point.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: And I went through this journey of almost like I was afraid to acknowledge the fact that I was coming back and I was afraid to seek help.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: And so it got to the point where it got so bad that I couldn't even go through a McDonald's drive-thru and order a cheeseburger, a fountain soda, anything like that.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: I would have to pull in, I would drive, my wife would lean over and yell across the car to the intercom at McDonald's to order whatever we were trying to order.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Um, because I wasn't courageous enough at the time to show up and try to get the help that I needed.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Um, and so after a point I I hit a wall.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: I remember with my last business, um.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: I remember with my last business, um, showing up for a pitch competition here in St Louis and um, I was in Kansas state at the time.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: This was like the life or death for my last business.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: It was a one $100,000 grant with St Louis arts grants.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: I remember showing up and saying like hi, my name is Brad.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: And I just like went into the pitch and I kind of like didn't introduce my last name, the business name, anything along those lines, and actually I think I made a joke.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: That was like, uh, I, you know, I have a problem with us, so I can't even say my business name or last name, so I'm just going to go on for the rest of the pitch.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: And I remember leaving there feeling like I, I can't even say my own damn business name to save it.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Like that is how far back I was set in there.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: And, um, obviously uh did not get that funding and everything, but it was kind of right before.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: That is when I had decided like enough was enough.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Uh began seeing a speech pathologist again.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Um, and like, my wife's been there for every single like meeting I've had with her, except for maybe one or two cause she was out of town.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: But as you kind of talk in your mastermind, it's not an I thing, it's a we thing, we do it together.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of been the same thing with this.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: She's been my peer, my supporter in all this.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: And there are things from my point of view that I don't realize.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: And from an outsider point of view, she does.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: And so when we show up to these meetings and I'm like, yeah, things are going great, she's like, yeah, they're going great.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: But here's some things that I've, that I've noticed, and so I mean it's been up until recently, week after week, um, showing up to these calls on zoom, working with my um speech pathologist to try to get myself back to where I need to be, and then with what we've been doing with Adam and the builders of authority group, like it's all been an exercise for me, in a way, to try to get out of who I was then and who I'm becoming now.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Um, my podcast, doing these Facebook lives, all of those things are, in a way, part of my project we call it in terms of getting myself back on track to where I was before this kind of all took this downward spiral.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, as you were ending there, I was thinking that's the entrepreneurial way, man, that's the entrepreneurial way Find the fear, find the pain and run right into it.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: And that's how we survive, and that's how we thrive in business.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: We don't run from the challenges, we run into them and you're doing it, and that's how we, that's how we survive and that's how we thrive in business.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: We don't run from the challenges, we run into them and and you're doing, and that's it's also a Marine mentality too, right Just find that, find the gunfire and run towards it.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Hey, so I want to, I want to back up Brad because I find this story fascinating, right Like the drive through, the story you just told about the drive through.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: It's just fascinating to me and I want to dive into your, your child, when you were in school, because kids can be fucking brutal.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, talk about that.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: What are some of the things you endured from?
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: You know in school with these kids that where there's nothing off limits and the more they can hurt you, the more they win, right?
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: So we talk about that.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Tell us some stories there.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: You know, a lot of it was like I'd hear like uh to to today junior, like that kind of crap, all kinds of things.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Um, and you know, it got to the point where and I do even do it a little bit now um, where I would just I would crack the joke and make the joke before it was available for them to make the joke.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: So I nipped that in the butt pretty quickly where, like, in a way, nobody really messed with me and said those things because like I was the one that's always cracking the jokes.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: I used to be you know, I'm overweight now I used to be even more overweight when I was a kid and so like I would crack, like my nickname growing up was fat Jack because like I created that nickname for me.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: If anybody's gonna call me fat, like it's gonna be me kind of thing.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: And so that was kind of the same approach I took with this.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Um, but even even now, like I'll joke with people if I'm on a zoom or call like this, and I kind of like freeze up a lot of times for me it's not even the stutter necessarily more, it's like the freezing right there, like the blocking on words.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Uh, like, hey, that that wasn't zoom, that wasn't your connection, like that was me, um, and so now I just have fun with it, because I'd rather me be the one to crack the jokes rather than somebody else to be it.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's wonderful you ever seen the movie eight mile?
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: I don't think I have no with eminem.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: So there's a scene in eight mile where, you know, em, eminem grows up in the trailer park.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Got to watch it, it's a great movie.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: He grows up in a trailer park and his mom's a prostitute and, like you know, she's all the men in and out and there's just so much baggage in his life and it's so much drama filled and he gets in.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: The final scene is a rap battle.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: He was, he's going to get up on a stage and every, every rap, every rap artist in that area that knew him always put his family down and always put his mom down.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Well, it was a rap battle and at the very end, he was going to go up against this guy and they flipped a coin to see who would go first and Eminem went first and he said here's what you're going to say.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: You're going to say something about my mom.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: You're going to say this, you're going to say this, but that's old, these things.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: And he just he listed every single thing that this person could use against him and then, when the other guy got the mic, he had nothing to say, so he took, he took all his power away and that sounds like what you're doing, is you?
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: You not, not that, not that it's a power struggle, but you take away, you make it, you make it light so that they don't have to be.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: You know, and yet I want to throw this to you, but these are some, some valid points.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: When, when somebody speaks on a stage and I do a lot of speaking when somebody speaks on the stage, the audience, even people that don't like the speaker, want the speaker to do well, because they feel more embarrassed if the speaker messes up, then so you do.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: You find a lot of people pulling for you and rooting for you now?
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: So do you find a lot of people pulling for you and rooting for you now?
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and like it's things like I used to do.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: I don't do as much anymore, but when I first was getting going with my agency, I would go to all these like in-person networking events and with our business name, the Calbrain, I would just get up and one of the techniques we call it that I found that works for me is like me saying, like Starnes, as an example, or like my business name, like that's where I get hung up a lot, cause it has to do with the S's and it's things that are more personal is where you get hung up on Um.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: But I'll just show up and like I'll get to a networking thing and I'll just go like moo and I'll just make a cow moo.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: And at first it was kind of like okay, that's kind of weird.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Then people would hear the business name and my little like elevator, like speech of what the business is.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: They'd start laughing, realize what it is.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: So now I would get up there and like I would move and everybody would move back at me or then everybody else in the room is like what is going on, um?
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: And so I began to do a few of those things which have helped take off the edge, um, but then also it's kind of had a effect that I didn't realize would have.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: An effect where now, like people associate that with me and it's like I'll be walking around town, that there's a guy named, uh, chris Lay, who's here in St Louis and like he's the director of, like I think, the Kirkwood Chamber of Commerce, and anytime he sees me, like he just moves and like it's like anybody in the room is like what is this guy moving about?
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: And so it's actually become a pretty good marketing technique for me as well.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: That was something that I used to help offset my disfluency when I talk.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: And listen, you're a gifted marketer, but I think you missed something on the marketing side.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Screaming cow should have been S-S-S screaming.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: You see what I'm doing there.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: What's funny is on our podcast, the Unfair Advantage I don't know if it's the current cover photo, but one of the iterations had like a you, you, you to kind of emulate that and and at first I was like no, no, no, let's not do that Like I was kind of afraid to do like we would if I messed up in my intro after I got off with the guests, I would rerecord the whole thing.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Now I just let that thing right.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I'm like.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not editing this or anything because like that's not me being my true authentic self.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: I'm not editing this or anything because like that's not me being my true authentic self If I'm going in and recording it afterwards like to then edit it and everything.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: So if it's not like that, I definitely need to go back in and find that old artwork and update our podcast cover and everything.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: So I love it, man.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: I love your courage, brad, I really do, and it's a great story.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: And again, this is the from to, from hiding and not playing small and being afraid to go through a freaking drive-thru.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Most people can't fathom the depth and severity of that kind of issue.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about Screaming Cow.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: So what do you do in the marketing space?
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what we primarily do is revolved around like the organic search and being found online.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: So if you got like, think of, here in St Louis, we've had all of this weather recently, hail and everything.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: So if you're searching for, like, a roofing company near me and how fast or how far up on Google they are found, is essentially what we do, both organically and also for paid search.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: So a lot of companies will run ads on Google to get up to the top, and the same thing for Facebook as well.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: We'll run Facebook ads for our clients.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: That's really where our niche is at.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: We have like a graphics team who will design like door hangers and postcards and all that stuff for our clients.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: But we only keep that service for our clients that are on retainers.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: And then we do like the actual development of, like their websites, and all that as well, nice.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: So so why marketing?
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Like you, you talked about a couple of things.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: You bounced from a couple of years from industry to industry.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Why marketing?
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: So it you know, when I made the jump from going, you know, from my business that closed, into working this sales job for six months to then going out on my own.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: I went through this period where I was lost of like who I was and I my wife made a comment to me which is what drove me to quit the job of like you are a walking zombie.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Only thing that lights me up, that she sees me like have joy in, is when I'm working with these companies I was working with on the side, which at the time was just to try to pay off the debt that we accumulated from the last business, and it was like I was finding so much joy in talking about how I've helped them level up their business and help them increase their revenue and all those things.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: And I was sitting there thinking about it and my first job was with a company called Glaze Confused which was a paint your own pottery shop.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: I walked in there thinking it was a donut shop exact opposite of what it was and the owner of the old owner of that company she is, you know, one of my greatest supporters and mentors to this day but I remember just kind of like, kind of like pushing the envelope, of like hey, I want to try this, I want to try this.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: She's had like this old, like push button cash register, upgraded her to like the full digital POS system, all that stuff.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: And I remember this was my first instance where I was like this is what I am meant to do was we're having some trouble growing revenue with the business and everything.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: It was right when the movie Frozen came out and I was like why don't we do a painting party with Anna and Elsa and just have them come paint pottery?
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: They can take photos and everything.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: I mean we sold out weekend after weekend after weekend for the first six weeks or so.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: And so when I was going through that process of like I don't know what I want to do anymore, this business just failed.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: I could go out and do this agency.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: I kept thinking back to like what about the cause?
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: I've always built websites, but it was like what about that did I like the most?
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: And it was the consulting side of things, it was the helping them grow the revenue side of things.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: And so that's ultimately what got me to like make a pivot and leave my full-time job after six months and kind of go in and all in on the marketing side of things.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: So nice, nice.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: So you've been at marketing for how long?
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Been full-time in the agency for about 16 months, 17 months, 16 months.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Talk about one of your biggest wins with a client.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so biggest win for us is so we just brought on so I guess we're right at a year of like our first client that's been on like a retainer with SEO.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: So August is when I made that pivot of like trying to try to get some of those clients and everything.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: They are a lawn care company in Kansas city and for them, whenever we brought them on, like, only about 25% or so of their traffic was coming from organic search.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: That means that any other webs of the traffic on the website was people who were typing in their their website URL or finding them from like Facebook and clicking on their website.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Um, the other 25% was people searching for, like lawn care near me or something along those lines.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Now, roughly depending on the month, about 60 to 65% of their traffic to their website comes purely from organic search.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: We're now running ads on them.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: We just had a where I was on a call last night or last month with my client's success manager and that business owner and he like made a joke.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: But he's like how can I get my phone to quit ringing on Mondays?
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: And and I I've known him for a while so I knew it was a joke and at first she was like well, I mean, if you want, we can turn it off.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: He's like no, no, no, like I'm just.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: I'm just playing, but like that is the kind of work that we're doing on Sundays.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: And people do all this work over the weekend and they get done with the weekend and they're like I just need to hire somebody to come do this, because I just wasted my entire weekend doing this.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: And so first thing Monday morning their phones are off the hook.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and what I found in the entrepreneurial space is the biggest challenge as an entrepreneur is lead gen.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: And my experience is there's not.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of marketers out there, but there's not a lot of effective marketers out there.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: So when you hear somebody where the client is saying, hey, turn off the leads, jokingly, tongue in cheek, like as a business coach, I want to solve those kinds of problems, Like I aim to solve those problems.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: That's atypical.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: So the, the, the, the typical is that you spend a lot and this is from experience.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: You spend a lot of money with a marketing firm.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Um, they make a lot of pivots, make a lot of adjustments, Don't get a lot of uh, don't let, don't get a lot of results and then say, well, the client did something wrong and wasn't patient enough.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: So it's, that's a typical experience.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's all about having those like organic and transparent conversations, like we always say like hey, are you getting?
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Like that same client?
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: They got calls a month or two ago after we had just turned on the Google ad campaign and they're like hey, we're getting a ton of calls for, like, lawnmower repair.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: So there was some ad dollars that were wasted on keywords for lawnmower repair.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: But then we were just like we've set up that, that relationship where we're just having those organic conversations and so he has no problem saying to us like hey, this isn't working.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Or we're noticing we're getting calls in this area and that wasn't happening before, but we don't want calls in that area.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: And we make those quick pivots and adjustments.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: And that's part of the reason why, like part of what we have set up is all of our clients get notified immediately as tasks are being done throughout the month.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: And so if at any point in between those monthly check-ins we have because to me that's one check-in a month is not enough, but two check-ins a month is almost too much so these automated notifications letting them know here's what's going on with your campaign that allows us to have that communication in between each checkpoint that we have each month with our clients.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when we were talking about your business on a different call, but when we were talking about your business and I asked you a question offline, I said, brad, what separates you, what differentiates you?
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: You used the word transparency.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: So talk about that, dive into what that word means and how you employ it in your business.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so for me, I like to say that I'm almost more transparent than I need to be.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: A lot of times I also call it like getting getting naked in a way with my clients, like I want them to see everything that we see.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: So our clients go in and they can see, like, exactly you talk about like impressions and rankings and all that stuff, and so, like, what we see is what our clients see.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: They have access to all of that.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: They can see exactly what we're doing.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: You know 30, 60, 90 days out.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: So they know our content plan for the next quarter of what we're going to do in terms of what we're posting on their website, what we're posting on their Google business profile, all of those things.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: And then, as those things are being done, like I said, those are being kind of marked off in real time.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: So that's one aspect of it.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: The other aspect of it is we have a platform Again being more transparent, I should.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: It's called WhatConverts.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Anybody can go up and sign up for it.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: It's meant for agencies, but it's a call tracking dashboard, so it's basically a number that forwards to their number.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: So if somebody visits their website and we have, like, their phone number listed at the top, rather than it showing their actual phone number, it shows this call tracking number and when somebody types in that number on their phone and it calls the lawn care company, we see that in our system and see the caller ID.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: We get a recording of the call of like exactly what was talked about, and then we can see exactly how they landed on the website.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: So we can see that this call, call A, came in from website visit A and connect those together.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: But we take that a step further and within there we can go in and track like the estimate value of like, what that job cost or what the potential revenue is out of there, and then, if that job converts, what the value of that job is.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: And so now we're not having a conversation about like impressions or clicks or anything.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: It's dollars in versus dollars out, and so all that's transparent.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Not every client gets hooked up to that platform.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Some clients are like, hey, I don't want you guys having access to it and that's great.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: We have the conversation of okay, then our campaign is going to be over the conversations of clicks, impressions, conversions, of what we can see, but any data we can't see, then we can't talk on that.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: So when in the in the process of of building your business, 16 months and a year since you really started the current model I know you're doing a lot of work behind the scenes to to grow yourself, to grow the business, talk about your personal development journey.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Talk about the things that you're doing to kind of sharpen the sword.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so a lot of it is for me being in coaching programs, being and going to different like I've only been to a couple of different workshops and like intensives and everything but going to those have been huge for me.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: But then doing things like I try to listen to at least one podcast episode every day, at least Monday through Friday I've slacked the last couple of weeks but like reading a book every day or reading pages of a book, that has been something that's helped tremendously with my personal development.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: And the one thing you actually taught me at your intensive I guess what that was in February, the workshop you had over the weekend In January Okay yeah, that was in February.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: The workshop you had over the weekend In January-ish Okay yeah.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: And so one of the things you taught me was like you have this piece of paper that's like here's, like who you are in terms of like your wealth, in terms of your health, in terms of your business, those different things and so I read that every day.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: I don't have a physical copy, I read it on my computer, but that's the first thing I do.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: I look at it, but that's the first thing I do.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: I look at it and it's like I tell myself that I'm worth like three and a half million dollars every single day.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I am far from that, not even close, won't happen this year, won't happen next year.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: But I tell myself every day that I am, and so it's those types of things that I began to do which have also then helped.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Like I tell myself every day I am not a person who stutters, like that is what I tell myself every day, because eventually I'll get to the point where I won't even say, hopefully I'm not, but that, like it's something that I identify with want in your health, in your wealth, in the impact that you make in the world, in your relationship with your most intimate people, your most intimate people in your life.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: But what do you want in those?
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: And it's affirming that they're already real because you're tuning, you're tuning the subconscious mind into, into creating the future now, the future now.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: And then the psychological distance changes and shrinks and as the psychological distance changes and shrinks, then it starts to materialize.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: So you talked about the workshops, talk about the work that you're doing on social media and on showing up, because I think that's a valuable part of this, it's a big piece of this journey.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Because I think that's a valuable part of this, it's a big piece of this journey.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: So I joined Adam McChesney's Builders of Authority group in December, like right as he announced it and everything, and that was something that I was just on a live with him earlier and I was like I didn't even know what I wanted to do with the personal brand or showing up online.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: It was just like I knew that Adam had brought his agency from nothing to something in such a short period of time and I'm like, if I'm going to learn from somebody, I'd rather get close to my competitor than try to run for my competitor.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: And so now what this has turned into me, it's kind of like a daily journal in a way, where I'm talking about what I'm going through as a business owner, what I'm going through as a as a person, as a husband you know my wife's 17 weeks pregnant tomorrow.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: So I'm going through some of those journeys.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you've seen my memes with like her, like we got hibachi, and I'm like the baby wants hibachi.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Like BS, the baby doesn't know what hibachi is.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Um, but it's just, it's become part of who I am now.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Um, and what I love the most out of it is I was just at a volunteer program last week and a guy came up to me and he's like, hey, like I've been loving watching your journey, what you're going through.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: He's like I've been thinking about going out on my own and open up my own agency, but focused on, like lawyers and dentists and everything.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: He's like I've been having a hard time making the jump, but, like, watching your content, like I'm finally there and I'm like finally ready to go out on my own and like begin at least do this as a side hustle.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, and I'm like I could have taken that as okay, like great, like thanks for the support, everything I said.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, I know I'll see you in October.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: So in October, my expectation that by October you have, like, the plan is in place and you are leaving your job by the end of October.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Um, and it's because of my content and what I've been doing on a personal branding side of things and a self-development side of things that have now helped somebody else go down the same path that I'm going down.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: That's awesome Influence and changing the world.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: And, basically, through our personal branding, what we're doing is we're increasing our trustability, our trustability, our likability, where we're inviting people to get to know us and and as they we people do business with people they know, like and trust that they can count on for results.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: And that's what we're doing through our social medias, with testimonies and with just sharing our personal life.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: And you've you've shared a lot of your personal life and I, over the last six months, as I've gotten to know you, you know I've seen you really step up and step into the world.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: There was, there was still, even in you know, january, when I got to know you, you were still, you were still a little scared to put yourself out there.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: But but, brad, the more you do so, the more people get to know who the real Brad is and and behind the scenes, I know who Brad is and the Brad that I know behind the scenes is starting to show up in front of the screen too.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I just want to say I'm super pumped for you, man, I'm super proud of you, I love your journey, I'm I'm inspired by you, I love your from to story and just I just want you to keep crushing it.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: But if somebody, if some, let's say this what is, what is your competitive advantage in the marketing space?
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Let's, let's, let's, let's hit that really quickly.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I think I like to joke and say that's, that's a loaded question.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: And, like I asked my clients the same thing, there's a thousand lawn care companies, there's a thousand roofing companies and everything, but what?
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: For us?
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: There's a few things that set us apart.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: The, the transparency aspect is huge and is one.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Now a lot of companies like say they're transparent, and then it's like what does that mean?
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: We actually go through and show, like exact what that is.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: I give people access to everything, but at the same time like I always like to use the phrase that it's also about the jockey behind the horse, in a way.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: There is not another marketing agency out there that has gone through what I've gone through, and so I tell my clients all the time I wear the weight of their business's success on my back.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: I had a business that failed, went out of business, we didn't have product market fit, a marketing agency and marketing were part of what put us out of business, and the last thing I want is to be the reason as to why that happens.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: And so, on top of that, my clients know that that is what I go in every single day, what my team goes in every single day, knowing that this isn't just for us to make a bunch of money.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: I could care less how much money I make, as long as I'm helping a bunch of other people make a crap ton of cash on top of that Awesome Well.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: I care about how much money you're making.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Yes, you do.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, you do.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: And I would encourage you to care how much money you're making, because if we don't make a lot of money, then our business folds and if our business folds then we can't help anybody.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: So I want you to make a lot of money and I want you to be proud of making a lot of money, and I would encourage you to drop that idea and that concept.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: So I want their success and our success.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: All right, well, listen, with that competitive advantage, you know really being transparent and honest and open with your clients and with the people that you serve.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Also, being really passionate about their results and being vested in their results.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: That's a game changer, because I have worked with marketing agencies where you could tell it was very transactional and you could tell that you were just more, seemed like you were more of a nuisance than you were, you know, an ally.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: If somebody really wants to get ahold of you and wants to explore working with you, maybe see you on social media, see your journey, understand the.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: You know the from two or the stuttering.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: You know where, where can they find you, connect you and how do they get ahold of you.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, All of my platforms online, my I guess you call them handles.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: I don of you know what they're called.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Now it's at bradstarnsofficialcom.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: It's everything on there.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Dm me, message me on there.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: I'm happy to engage in conversation.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: I hop on calls all the time for a quick 10-15 minutes just to say hi, here's who I am, here's what we do.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: I like to say that I am the crappiest salesperson out there.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: I like to say that I am the crappiest salesperson out there.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: I get up and I provide value first.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: That's the first thing I do.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: So if we hop on a call and the best that happens out of it is that I've provided you enough value to help kind of have an action plan for what you need to do.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: I know that that's going to come back to me tenfold down the road, and so don't hesitate to reach out.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: You won't get pushed, you won't.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: You won't have this marketing person like uh, breathing down your neck like you have in the past or anything like that.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: That is the last thing that we do.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: So Nice, and Ginger O'Dwyer is the one that is in the comments and she said nice job, brad.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you sharing your story, so keep sharing it, brad.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Keep showing up, man, keep being courageous, keep stepping into your power, man, and the world's better because you're stepping up.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Hey, mike, if I could just real quick, I want to plug you.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: You've talked a lot about me and everything.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I've been through my business and everything like that, but I'm not in your mastermind yet.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: That is something.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: That's like I'm gamifying in a way as I unlock different revenue milestones.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: Like Mike's mastermind is on my list.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: As I hit this next level I'm going in.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: I know you and I have talked about the fear of money and how, like, if I just join, like I probably would already be at that revenue milestone.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: We've talked through a lot of that milestone.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: We've we've, we've talked through a lot of that Um but um, through Adam's mastermind and kind of some offline conversations you and I've had, like I've received so much value out of you and that's what your mastermind is.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: It's you and the members that you put in it.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: There's members that are in your mastermind that have now become clients of mine, friends of mine, um, and so, for anybody who's listening, that's part of my network, um, like it's, it's worth a call with you.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Um, you've absolutely changed my life these last six months, my, my mentality, who I am, who I show up to be, um, and so it would be wrong of me to not take a few minutes to at least highlight you.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for that.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: And Ginger said yay, Mike and Angie are the real deal, so yes, they are.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Ginger's a fan of yours and of ours.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: So, Ginger, thanks for showing up and thanks for being you a great supporter of our content and of our business and our life.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: So listen if, if you need I know there's a lot the marketing space, the digital marketing space, is very, very cluttered and there's a lot of noise, but if you really want someone who literally gives a shit about your results, who isn't just interested in taking your money and making some adjustments, making some pivots and then blaming it on you when it doesn't work, If you want someone to really move the needle, Brad's your guy, Brad.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Any closing thoughts before we?
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: jump off.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Only thing I'd say is show up and do the work.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: And that's in every business.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Nobody can do it for you.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Show up, do the work and you'll get the results.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Act, learn, revise and believe in yourself.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Guys, thanks for joining us.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed what you heard and you want to learn more, go to wwwinnerwealthglobalcom for more tools and resources.