Latest / Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan / How to Build a Brand That Stands Out and Attracts Clients with Jason Vana

Transcript

How to Build a Brand That Stands Out and Attracts Clients with Jason Vana · Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan

• 0:00
  What is the cost of not doing brand?
• 0:02
  Oh my. Gosh, can't AI just do my brand
• 0:04
  strategy? Someone asked me this question
• 0:06
  like 3 years ago. What do you think's going on
• 0:09
  with LinkedIn, if you had to guess, honestly, sharp fall off
• 0:11
  the Cliff. Yeah, honestly.
• 0:13
  There's a lot of opportunity on LinkedIn, but your approach is
• 0:15
  different now. Is my content really coming from
• 0:18
  the heart anymore? I kind of feel like honestly
• 0:20
  man, I got to a place where like.
• 0:22
  I've struggled with happiness this year and a lot of that is
• 0:25
  calm. Like your audience doesn't know
• 0:27
  this but. All right, Jason Vanna, round
• 0:32
  three, brother. Cheers.
• 0:33
  Round 3, my third. Time, first time was at my house
• 0:36
  when I was first starting my podcast in your bedroom, in my
• 0:39
  bedroom, which sounds weird, but that's also where my office is.
• 0:44
  Maybe it doesn't sound weird. Maybe it just is weird.
• 0:48
  Dude. I had a bunch of people there
• 0:49
  too. I like 20 episodes in there.
• 0:52
  You know, just people would be like, oh, I'd be like, don't
• 0:54
  mind my bedroom, It's right there, but this is my office.
• 0:56
  And be like, all right, People were fucking cool with it.
• 0:59
  And then we moved to the other office, which was just like a
• 1:01
  little closet basically. Yeah.
• 1:04
  And it was just, it got so small that we couldn't kind of do the
• 1:06
  things we wanted to do with the cameras and lightings.
• 1:08
  And then we moved in here. So here we are.
• 1:10
  Man, It's nice. So for people that don't know
• 1:12
  you because you're LinkedIn famous, but for people that
• 1:15
  don't are not on LinkedIn because he has 8485 thousand
• 1:18
  followers there, what do you do in maybe a sentence or two?
• 1:22
  Yeah. So I am a brand strategist,
• 1:24
  which means I go into a lot of B to B service companies, figure
• 1:28
  out why they cannot create revenue, like new revenue, and
• 1:31
  build out a system to help them understand like the unique value
• 1:36
  they bring to the market, for whom and how, and then build out
• 1:39
  like a marketing and content strategy on the end of that.
• 1:43
  And what is the cost of not doing brand?
• 1:47
  Oh my gosh. Like I saw a post that you're I
• 1:49
  think you liked or you're in or whatever.
• 1:51
  There was like that was a good question too.
• 1:53
  And there was a video and they were like, people talk about
• 1:55
  like why they should do brand right?
• 1:57
  But rarely do. People are like, what's the cost
• 1:59
  if we just don't focus on brand at all?
• 2:01
  Yeah. And I think, I think the answer
• 2:04
  to that question depends on like what you see as brand.
• 2:07
  Most people see it as like logos, fonts, colors.
• 2:09
  That's not brand. I mean that's design, but it's
• 2:12
  not really brand, you know, right.
• 2:13
  Woo, really the cost of this is monetarily wise we could look at
• 2:21
  however expensive your offer is, you're missing out on clients
• 2:26
  when you don't develop a brand. So what tends to happen is you
• 2:30
  have a business that looks and sounds like all the other
• 2:33
  competitors in the market, which then as a consumer, whether it's
• 2:37
  B to B, you know you've got a group of people that are buying
• 2:40
  or B to C or you've got one person buying.
• 2:43
  You look at all of the options and you say, well, you all sound
• 2:46
  the same. So which one do I go with, the
• 2:49
  one that's going to be the least amount of money or the one where
• 2:54
  I connect with the face of the company more?
• 2:57
  And so if you don't have a brand, you don't have that
• 3:01
  strategy, you don't know like your messaging, you don't know
• 3:04
  who you're going after. It is costing you opportunities.
• 3:07
  When you say the face of the brand, is that personal brand or
• 3:10
  you know the person or what do you mean by?
• 3:11
  That it, it can be, yeah. So like like you or I kind of
• 3:15
  have a personal brand, like people connect with Jason Vanna
• 3:18
  and then want to work with shift.
• 3:20
  For most smaller businesses, that's kind of going to be the
• 3:23
  case. Larger businesses like Nike, the
• 3:27
  face of the brand might be a an athlete that you see in a a
• 3:31
  campaign. Maybe you connect with that
• 3:33
  athlete and then you like Nike. Or it really is the actual like,
• 3:40
  not that you're connecting with a logo, but you're connecting
• 3:42
  with the personality of Nike and the message of Nike.
• 3:46
  Right. Can't AI just do my brand
• 3:49
  strategy or marketing or marketing strategy?
• 3:52
  So I them are fighting wars God. Just storms out.
• 4:00
  It's funny someone someone asked me this question like 3 years
• 4:04
  ago. Kind of when when ChatGPT.
• 4:06
  Man, that wasn't early too it. Was it was kind of when ChatGPT
• 4:09
  first came out because I was still living in Monmouth at the
• 4:12
  time. And I was on someone's podcast,
• 4:15
  I don't remember who. And they're like, are you scared
• 4:17
  that AI is going to take over your, your job as a brand
• 4:20
  strategist? And I literally on the podcast
• 4:22
  just laughed. And I was like, there is no way
• 4:26
  AI is going to be able to do this because when you understand
• 4:30
  how AI works, it's not this, at least the way it is now.
• 4:34
  It's not this like it's its own brain that can create new things
• 4:39
  out of nothing. It takes what's already in the
• 4:43
  market, create like brings that all together and then creates
• 4:47
  the average of it. So if you're wanting a brand
• 4:51
  strategy that's gonna make you different, AI doesn't actually
• 4:55
  help you do that. And like, I have tried, I have
• 4:57
  spent a year trying to get ChatGPT to pump out even
• 5:02
  something like good enough that I could take and edit and tweak
• 5:07
  and be like, hey, client, here you go.
• 5:09
  Nothing comes close. Because I look at their
• 5:11
  competitors. I'm like, you're telling him to
• 5:14
  do the exact same thing as competitors do.
• 5:17
  That's not a brand strategy. That is you are taking the the
• 5:21
  like average of everything and saying just do this like that
• 5:25
  doesn't it doesn't work. You know, you know, what's
• 5:27
  interesting man, is I recently stopped writing my, well, I was
• 5:32
  using AI to help write some of my copy based on like videos.
• 5:36
  I would transcribe it and then have AI help me and that kind of
• 5:38
  stuff. And even my e-mail newsletters,
• 5:40
  I would give it the thought or the perspective and then I would
• 5:43
  have AI help me like formulate those thoughts, right.
• 5:46
  Recently, the last couple weeks since I took a break from all
• 5:49
  this stuff, I came back and I was like, I just want to write
• 5:51
  everything myself now. Like I just don't feel like it
• 5:54
  sounds like, I mean, it can sound like you, but there's
• 5:57
  something to be said about like writing your own stuff, you
• 6:01
  know, And, and if it can, if it can come out just as good as you
• 6:04
  know, it can with using AI, then more power to you.
• 6:07
  That's fine. But for me, there's almost like
• 6:09
  it's not even how it comes out always.
• 6:11
  It's like the process of me writing the content and getting
• 6:14
  my thoughts out there. And it's almost like therapeutic
• 6:16
  for me. Sometimes it's like journaling,
• 6:18
  you know what I mean? Like I kind of want to do that.
• 6:21
  Like I think it's, we get in this age and time and place
• 6:24
  where it's like everything's got to be faster and this and AI and
• 6:28
  it's like, how can we optimize for systematization?
• 6:30
  You know, it's like, it's like, but sometimes we don't.
• 6:33
  Sometimes we lose ourself when we try to use AI too much.
• 6:38
  Well, and I'm, I'm right there with you, 'cause like I have
• 6:40
  tried, there's a an AI writer called Stanley that came out, I
• 6:44
  think Justin Welsh like is an investor in it.
• 6:47
  So he was promoting it. Now I'm always like down to try
• 6:50
  tools and yeah. For sure.
• 6:52
  It, it worked well. Like it ties to your LinkedIn
• 6:55
  account and like reads everything you wrote.
• 6:57
  And I've got six years worth of content on there.
• 7:00
  So I'm like, if anything's going to be able to like mimic my
• 7:03
  voice, it's something that's pulling six years and it can
• 7:08
  mimic some of the stuff like it knows to end my post with the
• 7:11
  like, you know, Sassy Jason now the peace sign and the hashtag
• 7:16
  shift your brand and all that. And it it can mimic my voice
• 7:20
  somewhat. But like, I was like, I actually
• 7:23
  never took one of those posts and actually published it.
• 7:26
  It was, I wouldn't actually say it.
• 7:29
  I don't know where you got this. I wouldn't say it this way.
• 7:32
  So it was a lot of editing, and after a while it became like the
• 7:36
  same stuff again and again. And I'm like, I'm just going to
• 7:41
  write these. Like, I've done this for six
• 7:43
  years. I enjoy writing.
• 7:45
  Like there's some people that are like, oh, AI helps me write
• 7:48
  faster. I'm like, AI makes me slower
• 7:51
  because it doesn't get me to the level I want to be.
• 7:53
  And then I'm sitting there nitpicking and changing.
• 7:55
  And like. Throw it away and just write it
• 7:58
  the way I would write it. So yeah, and and just this idea
• 8:02
  of like slowing down. Yeah, you know, like I think
• 8:05
  that's what made me do it is I, I went to, I did a post about
• 8:08
  it, but I went away, took two weeks off of posting content,
• 8:11
  which I hadn't done in six years.
• 8:13
  Dude, I was like ready to text you because I'm like, I don't, I
• 8:16
  don't know if the algorithm was hiding it from me again.
• 8:19
  Or very well, what's going on I'm.
• 8:21
  Like I haven't seen Alex at. All in weeks and then when we
• 8:25
  were gone, me and Amanda, my girlfriend, for those that don't
• 8:28
  know you've met Amanda, she's awesome.
• 8:31
  We took the trip and for the days that we were gone in a way
• 8:35
  and actually like on the road or at where we're at, which is
• 8:37
  northern Michigan beautiful by the way.
• 8:40
  I didn't like log on my e-mail. I didn't log on social, which
• 8:44
  that was the first time I've taken like days in a row.
• 8:46
  I think it was like 4 or five days of just no logging in
• 8:50
  whatsoever. And it felt amazing.
• 8:52
  And it, it, it brought me back to that like slowing down and
• 8:54
  like, is my content really coming from the heart anymore?
• 8:58
  I kind of felt like honestly, man, I got to a place where like
• 9:01
  it was so 5 videos a week this on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn,
• 9:05
  and it became like a system like it was just like a conveyor belt
• 9:08
  of like a post going out, post going out post going out,
• 9:11
  someone else's posting it. I'm using AI to help write the
• 9:13
  copy. It's like, and I just like, I
• 9:16
  didn't find it fun anymore. I kind of felt like it was just
• 9:19
  like a job versus I used to think I put my heart and soul
• 9:21
  into my content. Now AI is doing everything and
• 9:23
  like the system's taking over. It's like there's definitely a,
• 9:26
  a time and a place for all that stuff for sure.
• 9:29
  But it just, I kind of had like it brought me back to like my
• 9:32
  foundation of like at least for now.
• 9:35
  This may be totally different than six months, you know, who
• 9:37
  knows? But for this place and time, I'm
• 9:40
  going to take some time and just write my own copy and get back
• 9:42
  into it and maybe even gets creative with some of the
• 9:45
  videos. Just like it's your art, it's
• 9:47
  it's your perspective and your stories.
• 9:49
  Well, and I've, I've definitely been in that place.
• 9:51
  Like when I saw your post on Monday, I was like, yes, this is
• 9:56
  this is what I've been feeling because ever since the LinkedIn
• 10:00
  algorithm changed, I think it was back in like March or April,
• 10:03
  I I forget now it has affected my business.
• 10:08
  Like most of my leads came through LinkedIn for sure.
• 10:11
  The the last few weeks. Like while you were gone, the
• 10:14
  last few weeks, my posts don't even hit 100 likes.
• 10:17
  Yeah, which that hasn't happened since 2019.
• 10:20
  Yeah. I'm like, what is what is going
• 10:22
  on on LinkedIn? And I'm going to.
• 10:23
  Talk about that in a second. Yeah, I I've gotten to the place
• 10:26
  where I'm like, I don't actually enjoy doing this.
• 10:28
  Right, I know it. Is this like it's a system it's
• 10:31
  I have to write 5? Pros and like.
• 10:34
  I last week I was thinking I myself like why do I have to
• 10:38
  write post 5? Days, right?
• 10:39
  Right. Like why do I have to put myself
• 10:41
  through this? Because I'm like, I think some
• 10:43
  of the content now maybe isn't my best because I'm like just
• 10:48
  trying to fill a slot on a calendar.
• 10:50
  Exactly. And not like, this is something
• 10:52
  that's actually on my heart. This is something that I believe
• 10:55
  in. This is something a client asked
• 10:57
  me and I want more people to understand.
• 10:59
  So yeah, I'm kind of shuffling. I haven't.
• 11:01
  Like I'll be taking a few days off as well, especially in
• 11:06
  October. My my brother and niece are
• 11:08
  gonna be here for a week. So I'm like, I'm not even gonna
• 11:11
  try. Oh, that's cool, they're coming
• 11:12
  in now. Yeah, they're gonna be like
• 11:13
  sleeping in my office on an on an air mattress and I'm like,
• 11:17
  I'm not even gonna be able to pull my chair out to get to my
• 11:18
  laptop so that that's like sign I don't go off And then at the
• 11:23
  end of the month I'm going on a a three or four day business
• 11:26
  retreat. And so like I'm like, I'm not
• 11:28
  going to create content while I'm there.
• 11:30
  So I'm kind of looking forward to having that moment too, where
• 11:34
  it's like, OK, maybe now I can come back with like just renewed
• 11:38
  energy of now I want to create the content that I want to
• 11:42
  create and. I highly recommend it.
• 11:44
  Highly recommend it. It's exactly what happened to me
• 11:46
  came out. I mean, I would recommend
• 11:48
  definitely putting those apps, those distraction apps as I call
• 11:50
  them in a separate folder to the far right of your phone and just
• 11:55
  put it in. I I labeled it like a vacay
• 11:57
  folder and I just put like LinkedIn, e-mail, Instagram,
• 12:00
  YouTube, you know, all those platforms in there.
• 12:02
  Anything I would even like my like my investment apps like
• 12:05
  stock market crypto. I don't want to check anything.
• 12:06
  I'll put all of it in there. And it was so nice, man, and I
• 12:11
  wasn't tempted to do it because I was having a great time with
• 12:13
  my girl and I was like, we were having fun and I was like, this
• 12:15
  is great. I'm going to, I really enjoy
• 12:18
  like being in the moment here and not being glued to these
• 12:20
  apps because dude, they just like take you away so fast.
• 12:23
  You're checking this and that and that and you're not even
• 12:25
  like aware of it half the time you're on autopilot.
• 12:29
  But so it was nice, man. I highly recommend doing that.
• 12:32
  I think you do come back with like for me, I was like, it
• 12:35
  wasn't maybe instant. It wasn't like I came back.
• 12:37
  I remember come back the day we we came back and got home and
• 12:40
  stuff and I was like expecting some like magical feeling of
• 12:43
  like, I feel so refreshed and glad to be back.
• 12:45
  And I was kind of like, I kind of watched the vacations a
• 12:47
  little longer, you know, but. And usually I kind of feel like
• 12:51
  I'm ready to get back, but I was kind of like, I don't know, I'm
• 12:53
  kind of like, that was fun, you know?
• 12:55
  And but it was a few days later that I kind of felt the effect
• 12:58
  of like, yeah, I need to like slow down on certain things and
• 13:03
  like reflect on why I'm doing what I'm doing and where am I
• 13:05
  putting my focus. And am I all that in love with
• 13:09
  social media, like, or do I like doing this stuff more, you know,
• 13:12
  leaning into that And like, so I don't know, it's I reflected a
• 13:15
  lot. The other thing I thought about
• 13:17
  too that's interesting that you would relate to is this is the
• 13:20
  first time that like a big since we started our businesses, which
• 13:24
  we started around the same time 2020, 2021 I think for you,
• 13:28
  right? Yeah, But we got LinkedIn around
• 13:30
  the same time. We've been build our, we've been
• 13:31
  going this journey kind of together, right, right.
• 13:33
  But it's the first time in our careers that a big number one
• 13:38
  content channel for us that generated a lot of leads all of
• 13:41
  a sudden slowed significantly. Yes.
• 13:45
  And I thought about that. I really was like, cuz you were
• 13:47
  like, we were aware of what how LinkedIn is now versus how it
• 13:49
  was a year ago, 2-3 or four years ago.
• 13:51
  But I didn't really stop to think, wow, this is the first
• 13:54
  time in my entrepreneurial journey that I had like a big
• 13:56
  marketing, you know, roadblock. And thank God we have the
• 13:59
  podcast and we've done YouTube and e-mail and other things, of
• 14:02
  course, as you have other things too.
• 14:04
  But LinkedIn was a goldmine, man.
• 14:05
  It was the number. It was the GOAT, you know It was
• 14:07
  the best. We, we had a, so I'm in at this
• 14:10
  coaching group and we had our like weekly call this morning
• 14:14
  and they asked the question of like, is one of your existing
• 14:18
  clients or your, your highest paying client and ideal
• 14:20
  customer? And I'm like, yes.
• 14:22
  And they, they asked the question like, where did they
• 14:23
  come from? And I'm like LinkedIn, but that
• 14:25
  was a year ago before LinkedIn started like sucking.
• 14:28
  And I'm like, they, they literally came through because
• 14:31
  they binged my content, jumped to my website, downloaded some
• 14:35
  guides, went through it, realized they couldn't.
• 14:37
  And then they're like, we just need to hire this guy.
• 14:39
  And they've been a client for over a year now.
• 14:42
  And I've got him on a contract till at least till January that
• 14:46
  I'm just like that, that I haven't seen coming out of the
• 14:50
  platform anymore. And you're right, it's the first
• 14:52
  time. Like Linkedin's had these dips
• 14:55
  for sure all the time. And it's like you just wait a
• 14:58
  month and it bounces back and you just tweak some stuff in
• 15:01
  your content. It's fine.
• 15:01
  And now all of a sudden it's like nothing works, you know,
• 15:06
  like what is going on with this platform.
• 15:09
  What do you, what is your mindset when you're going
• 15:11
  through something like that? Because I think this is a good
• 15:13
  lesson for founders too. And if you're a founder
• 15:15
  listening to this, you're like, oh, man, I've had so many of
• 15:17
  these moments. Whether it's social media or
• 15:20
  your operations or, you know, whatever it might be, we've all
• 15:23
  had these moments. But how do you kind of process
• 15:25
  that? I think like first, I try not to
• 15:28
  freak out about it because you know, with LinkedIn, what we've
• 15:31
  seen in the past as it lasts about a month.
• 15:33
  So it's like, I'm not going to freak out.
• 15:35
  I'm not going to change anything.
• 15:36
  It's going to bounce back when it didn't bounce back and it's
• 15:39
  like still hasn't bounced back and it's actually getting like I
• 15:43
  looked three weeks ago, my content was getting in the
• 15:46
  hundreds. Now it's like hardly hitting 100
• 15:50
  and I'm like, this is. Ridiculous.
• 15:54
  It's like. I even, I even pulled up the
• 15:56
  analytics from the start of this year and like from January to
• 16:01
  end of March, I think I had like 20 million views on my posts and
• 16:06
  now from like March till now it's like 100,000 and I'm like.
• 16:11
  It's that big of a dip, and it's not just us, it's everyone
• 16:13
  across the board. And so for me, it's more like if
• 16:17
  something isn't working, 1, I don't freak out right away.
• 16:20
  I'd give it some time. But then if it's proving that
• 16:22
  it's not working, that's when it's time to try the things that
• 16:27
  I hadn't tried before because this thing was working.
• 16:30
  And I think like you said, you know, I've got not as regular on
• 16:34
  YouTube as you are, but I've got YouTube, I've got Instagram,
• 16:37
  I've got my e-mail newsletter. Like I have other avenues for
• 16:42
  generating leads, so I'm not worried about it, but like that
• 16:47
  would be some of the biggest advice is take some time and
• 16:50
  test some other channels. And Bill, even if you've got a
• 16:53
  channel that's a goldmine right now, it will change at some
• 16:57
  point. And being multi channel is just
• 16:59
  going to be a safety net for when that thing breaks, which it
• 17:03
  will, something will happen either like someone else will
• 17:06
  come on that boots you off or or whatnot.
• 17:09
  Like you or I mean, there's been people you and I know this, like
• 17:13
  there's been people that have been randomly banned from
• 17:16
  LinkedIn for no reason. Yeah, you had to start over from
• 17:18
  zero. Like, that stuff happens.
• 17:21
  And if you're reliant on one platform, it's just not gonna
• 17:23
  work. Well, it's interesting because
• 17:25
  when we got into social media, seriously, maybe 2019, let's
• 17:30
  call it, we heard about Facebook and Instagram and how those like
• 17:34
  were good in the heyday and then they faded out and Twitter good
• 17:39
  in the heyday faded out, right? But we didn't really, we came
• 17:42
  into LinkedIn and it was like, it was like the man, the gold
• 17:45
  rush, you know, it was just like, no one's here and there's
• 17:48
  gold everywhere. Like what are y'all doing?
• 17:50
  You know, and for years I spent and you spent scream from the
• 17:53
  rooftops. Get on LinkedIn.
• 17:55
  Like Linkedin's a great opportunity, you know, and
• 17:57
  people are just like do to do maybe.
• 17:59
  And now it's like, it's not too late, but it's much, much harder
• 18:03
  now. But we actually got to
• 18:05
  experience what it was like to go from this is the greatest
• 18:09
  channel ever. I mean, I'm sorry, but in its
• 18:11
  heyday, nothing replaced LinkedIn like it was
• 18:14
  organically. Even just organically just leads
• 18:18
  out the freaking. I have one video and I'm not,
• 18:21
  I'm not a video guy like you, but I have one video that has
• 18:24
  had like 3.4 million impressions on.
• 18:27
  It Yeah, yeah, they used to be somewhat common a year ago.
• 18:30
  Not even close on TikTok or Instagram, any other platform.
• 18:34
  I have never had a had content go that far yeah, you know yeah
• 18:38
  now now I'm boosting that post because I'm like I will pay for
• 18:42
  more people to see that I. Don't know, it's just
• 18:44
  interesting because like, you know, yeah, again, we, that was
• 18:46
  our first, I really thought about that their day.
• 18:48
  Like this is our first experience, like having gone
• 18:50
  through this. And it's like a gut punch too,
• 18:53
  you know. But I, I similar to you, I think
• 18:56
  one like, how do you get better at the thing that you're doing
• 19:00
  that's not getting you results? Obviously you got to assess and
• 19:03
  say, is it time to move on? And it's not time to move on
• 19:05
  from LinkedIn. Like if you're listening now,
• 19:06
  like there's a lot of opportunity on LinkedIn, but
• 19:08
  your approach is different now and you can't just rely on great
• 19:12
  content and get that out there and people are going to come to
• 19:14
  you. It's, it's a different game now.
• 19:16
  Maybe you need some more engagement and outbound
• 19:18
  strategy, a little bit of ads mixed in there, like with some
• 19:21
  organic content like being able to take people to other channels
• 19:25
  for sure. But but I also think it's to
• 19:28
  your point, what other channels are you going to invest in that
• 19:33
  are built around your business strategy and that you really
• 19:35
  enjoy too? Because I think like before,
• 19:38
  it's like easy to be like, all right, I'll go to like Instagram
• 19:40
  or Twitter or like some other YouTube or some other platform
• 19:43
  where it's like, I don't want to, that doesn't excite me, you
• 19:46
  know? So for me, it was a good chance
• 19:48
  for me to like, really reflect on what do I enjoy doing.
• 19:51
  And it was this stuff. It was like the deep
• 19:53
  conversations. It was the back and forth.
• 19:55
  It was being able to create content from this.
• 19:57
  It was like in person connections that you just can't
• 20:01
  get on social media, you know, So I was like, cool, I'm going
• 20:04
  to use this as a leverage point to really dive deeper into the
• 20:07
  podcast game. And, you know, we made some
• 20:10
  upgrades and we've changed some things and we're getting more
• 20:12
  guests on and we built, we hired a couple people to build around
• 20:15
  the post production process and management of it.
• 20:17
  And. It's going well and like I just
• 20:19
  talked to a client earlier today that he was on the podcast 2
• 20:21
  weeks ago and now he's going to sign up to be a client.
• 20:24
  So it's like, yeah, it works. You know, it's, it's works, but
• 20:27
  I really enjoy it and I'm passionate about it.
• 20:29
  And I think that was what I had with LinkedIn and that was part
• 20:32
  of why it worked so well. It was like the passion.
• 20:34
  Plus I was adding value to the platform for the audience, for
• 20:37
  y'all listening. And then also it was tied into
• 20:40
  the business strategy. So it's like a combination of
• 20:43
  things. And I think that's key because
• 20:45
  like when we build a brand strategy, we do the brand
• 20:48
  strategy first. What makes you different?
• 20:50
  Who are you attracting all that? And then we build a marketing
• 20:53
  strategy. And when we do the marketing
• 20:55
  strategy side of it, I do a workshop where I sit down with
• 20:59
  the founder or the team that I'm working with and I basically ask
• 21:01
  the question, what kind of marketing do you like to do?
• 21:05
  And what kind of marketing do you hate to do?
• 21:08
  And now some of these companies are like, oh, we've never done
• 21:10
  marketing. And it's like, that's great.
• 21:11
  But like, are you a video person?
• 21:14
  Are you a writing person? Like who are you?
• 21:17
  And like, I've got a client right now.
• 21:19
  He's a recruit, A recruiting agency for the energy sector.
• 21:24
  And he's like, I love video. I can sit in front of a camera
• 21:29
  and spit out videos till I'm blue in the face.
• 21:31
  But if you want me to write something, I will punch you.
• 21:35
  And I'm like, so we're not going to create a marketing strategy
• 21:37
  for you around writing. Or if there is a channel like
• 21:41
  you probably should have an e-mail newsletter we're going to
• 21:44
  base it on. Emails still works good by the
• 21:46
  way. Yeah, yeah.
• 21:47
  We're going to base it on a video that you record, find a
• 21:50
  way to transcribe it or get you Ava to transcribe it and write
• 21:54
  the e-mail for you. So you folks focus on what you
• 21:57
  enjoy, what brings, like what energizes you.
• 22:00
  Yeah, because at the end of the day, it has to be something you
• 22:03
  stick with, right? And if you can't stick with it,
• 22:06
  it's not going to be effective. And so for you like if this is
• 22:10
  what energizes you and you're excited about two more of this
• 22:13
  and that's exactly and this like that's.
• 22:15
  Exactly what I did. That's the.
• 22:16
  Goal and yeah. Like and I still love doing
• 22:17
  videos too, like short form videos, you know?
• 22:19
  Yeah, but. To your entire audience like
• 22:21
  that. Like if there's one channel that
• 22:23
  just you, like if you, I don't know anyone who is this anymore,
• 22:26
  but if you're a Blogger and you're like, I just love to
• 22:28
  write blog posts, make that the most effective channel that you
• 22:32
  can make it because you will stick to it and you'll put the
• 22:35
  energy and the creativity behind it to make it epic.
• 22:39
  Yeah, yeah. The other thing we did is just
• 22:41
  learn how to run effective ads. You know, we've run ads now on
• 22:44
  LinkedIn, generated revenue results, Facebook even recently,
• 22:48
  wow, yeah. Which was good.
• 22:50
  It was like 14 bucks a day. We got books and podcast gas,
• 22:52
  potential clients like localized Geo targeting like, yeah.
• 22:57
  So just it forces you to get better.
• 22:59
  And I think the, that's the like the, the silver lining in these
• 23:02
  challenging times or moments is that whenever in, in
• 23:06
  entrepreneurship in general, is that when something challenging
• 23:09
  happens, it forces you. If you are, if you approach it
• 23:12
  the right way, it forces you to pick yourself up and be like,
• 23:15
  all right, like, let's deal with this reality.
• 23:17
  Let's find ways to get better and improve.
• 23:19
  And we'll look back on it like, wow, I'm glad that happened.
• 23:22
  Because if it didn't happen, that wouldn't have done all
• 23:24
  these other things. Well, and I, you know.
• 23:25
  That's what I've noticed is like this year has been a rough year
• 23:29
  because of the LinkedIn stuff and stuff with my mom and all
• 23:32
  that, like being caregiver and like there were key things that
• 23:36
  I did not have in place because I just didn't have the time or
• 23:40
  the energy to do it. And so when this hit, yes, I was
• 23:43
  on other channels, but I'm like, there was a lot of stuff I did
• 23:47
  not just have in place that would have made this a little
• 23:50
  easy. And so it's been forcing me to
• 23:52
  be like, OK, I need to sit down and look at everything I'm
• 23:55
  doing. What's effective?
• 23:57
  How do I get better at it? How do I look at it as less of
• 24:01
  a, well, I have to do an e-mail newsletter and how is this
• 24:04
  actually going to drive business for me instead of trying to just
• 24:09
  get something out there to get it out there, which is kind of
• 24:13
  the mindset I had end of 2024, start of this year, it was just
• 24:17
  like I just got to get it out there, just.
• 24:18
  Got to do the same and. Now it's like, OK, if it's not
• 24:22
  driving business and it's not doing something, I need to
• 24:25
  either improve it or I need to cut it because like this isn't a
• 24:29
  hobby. This isn't like this isn't a
• 24:31
  side gig. This is a business and it needs
• 24:34
  to like right now. Like this is I've, I don't know
• 24:38
  if you're this way. It's kind of the the old adage
• 24:42
  of like the the cobbler whose children have no shoes or
• 24:47
  whatever. Like when you run the business,
• 24:49
  you tend to not do or take your own advice all the time.
• 24:53
  And like, one of the things I noticed was in my e-mail
• 24:57
  newsletter, which I'm blowing away and starting over.
• 24:59
  But in my e-mail newsletter, I didn't really have a welcome
• 25:03
  sequence. I had a, hey, thanks for signing
• 25:05
  up. This is what you could expect.
• 25:07
  And then like here's 10 of my best resources.
• 25:12
  Enjoy. It was all this like, I'm just
• 25:14
  going to give stuff away and I'm working on this new e-mail
• 25:17
  sequence. That's like pushing people to
• 25:19
  buy a low cost offer. There you go.
• 25:23
  Like some kind of guide or something just so that they
• 25:26
  become a customer and then I can work them up to being a client.
• 25:31
  And I'm like I've legit written these 4.
• 25:36
  Clients and those that you do. And I'm like, I don't have it
• 25:40
  for myself. So like now this season has been
• 25:43
  a season of like fixing that stuff in my own business.
• 25:46
  So it operates more like a business than a This is Jason's
• 25:51
  thing. You know, yeah man, what do you
• 25:54
  think's going on with LinkedIn? If you had to guess cuz this is
• 25:57
  sharp fall off the Cliff. Yeah, honestly, I, I think, and,
• 26:03
  and I think I've mentioned this and you're like, I don't know if
• 26:06
  I, I believe that, but like, I think they're getting to the
• 26:09
  place where they want to pull what Facebook did and be like,
• 26:13
  we want you to boost posts in order to get more reach.
• 26:16
  Because right around the same time that my content took a
• 26:20
  massive dip, I started noticing like when I would log in and see
• 26:24
  my own post, it'd be like, boost this post right here.
• 26:27
  And I'm like, I've never seen that before.
• 26:30
  And I've boosted posts before. Like I've done that.
• 26:32
  I've gone into the ad platform and done the thought leadership
• 26:35
  and I'm like, why on every single like if I go on my
• 26:39
  profile and scroll through every single post is like boost this,
• 26:42
  boost this, or if it's a carousel, it's like not
• 26:44
  available to be boosted like that kind of stuff.
• 26:47
  But. Might still pay us anyways, or
• 26:50
  we'll decline all your reason. But I, I think that's some of
• 26:54
  it. I think they're trying to do
• 26:55
  that and I think. I agree with that.
• 26:57
  I think there I think there's definitely a shift to pay to
• 27:00
  play for sure. That has to be and that's kind
• 27:04
  of a natural progression to every platform where it just
• 27:07
  tends to organic reach kind of runs out and it's like there's
• 27:09
  too many people here now, there's too many ads now.
• 27:11
  Yep. So so that's.
• 27:13
  One, I think that's some of it, and I think the other thing is
• 27:15
  they were trying to, at least this is what I heard, they were
• 27:18
  trying to shift to an interest graph algorithm instead of a
• 27:23
  social graph, so. With the videos, right?
• 27:25
  Yeah, well, or within general? All in general, so like TikTok
• 27:30
  is an interest. Graph.
• 27:31
  Sure. Yeah.
• 27:32
  Meaning if I in same with Instagram, like if I like
• 27:35
  something I'm going to see more of that thing.
• 27:38
  It's going to feed you content it thinks you're interested in
• 27:40
  versus who you're connected with and who you engage with, right?
• 27:42
  Yes. And so I think they were trying
• 27:44
  to switch to that, but I don't think they made the full switch.
• 27:48
  And something happened that like now it's in this really weird
• 27:52
  'cause like. I will, I don't know what it.
• 27:54
  Is I will like your content and engage on your content, but I
• 27:57
  will not see content in my feed about about like video and
• 28:02
  social and stuff. It won't be that.
• 28:04
  So I'm like, it's this weird. It's not who you're connected to
• 28:07
  anymore, but it's also not an interest graph like I I think
• 28:10
  it's stuck somewhere in the middle and doesn't know what to
• 28:13
  do. And so then you've got like some
• 28:15
  people who had a massive audience and would get like
• 28:19
  thousands of likes are the ones that get 3-4 hundred likes on
• 28:23
  their posts. And the rest of us that were
• 28:25
  kind of in that 102 hundred, 300 level are now like 62.
• 28:31
  You know, maybe I, I haven't had a post in the last two weeks
• 28:35
  that hit over 100. What is going?
• 28:38
  On You know what's funny though? Like it seems like what used to
• 28:43
  work on LinkedIn really well still works today.
• 28:46
  Which is the picture post with a story that ties into your
• 28:49
  business or mission or something that seems to still connect and
• 28:53
  work and it seems like video's been throttled back quite a bit
• 28:57
  significantly. It seems like it was very
• 28:59
  obvious there were pushing video right last year during the
• 29:02
  summer. I mean you just got millions of
• 29:04
  impressions a week. It was just like flying off the
• 29:06
  freaking. It was like I could post like,
• 29:07
  hey guys, hope you have a great day.
• 29:09
  See you and it'd be like 5070 thousand like it was just like
• 29:12
  the worst post ever would do well, you know, and now it's
• 29:15
  like, I don't know what I could post to get could reach on
• 29:19
  videos. I'd have to come up maybe
• 29:20
  something really creative. Even then, I don't know if it'd
• 29:21
  be worth it. To be honest.
• 29:23
  I don't think they'd push it out to where it'd be worth it to put
• 29:25
  together some really creative skid video or something.
• 29:28
  I'll test it out. We'll see.
• 29:29
  But but my picture post on Monday was kind of going back to
• 29:32
  the fundamentals of LinkedIn, like good picture post, deep,
• 29:36
  well thought out, some value, some perspective tie into a bits
• 29:40
  generated a lead who hopefully will become a client from it and
• 29:44
  we'll also be a podcast guest. And it did well.
• 29:48
  It did over 100 likes and you know, not crazy impressions, but
• 29:52
  it's just like, I think that formula still works for LinkedIn
• 29:56
  to a degree. I don't not as well as it did
• 29:57
  though. Yeah, because I so I think it
• 30:01
  was last week. I'm, I'm in Justin Welsh's
• 30:04
  unsubscribe newsletter. It's like a paid 1 and then you
• 30:07
  got the it's on sub stacks. How's his reach these days?
• 30:10
  Still great is that? He's like, he's like top voice
• 30:15
  like. Is it still the same engagement
• 30:17
  it was last year though or do you think it's dipped it's.
• 30:19
  Probably. It's probably dipped a little
• 30:21
  bit, but he's still in the thousands, so it's like.
• 30:24
  I guess for people that are listening don't know who he is,
• 30:26
  Justin Walsh is like a huge LinkedIn creator and he's got
• 30:29
  this whole LinkedIn operating system that he sells.
• 30:32
  And I think he's done a nice job.
• 30:33
  Oh, yeah, you know, growing his business and, you know.
• 30:36
  But like, so he did this quick, like Q&A ask me anything type
• 30:41
  thing and some stack. And I was like, what can someone
• 30:45
  do? Who's LinkedIn content like just
• 30:47
  is not performing? And I'm like, you cannot tell me
• 30:50
  that my content sucks because every time someone reads it, I
• 30:53
  get DMS all the time. Like this is the best content I
• 30:56
  read on LinkedIn. Yeah, on LinkedIn.
• 30:58
  And like, I learned so much. I'm like, it's good content, but
• 31:01
  it's not working. And he like jumped onto my feed
• 31:04
  and he's like, well, you're posting all these like pictures
• 31:06
  of yourself with with like he's like great content.
• 31:09
  It's pictures of yourself. And I'm like, yes, I'm trying
• 31:12
  out the what used to work on LinkedIn and what like I see
• 31:16
  everyone who's got awesome reach right now is doing the they post
• 31:20
  selfies of themselves and like it works.
• 31:23
  I'm like. But I think if it's attached to
• 31:25
  a good story and the picture ties in with the story, right?
• 31:28
  That's what I mean. That's what I've.
• 31:29
  And that's what it's. Just a selfie of like, here's my
• 31:32
  message for today. With a selfie, yeah, it doesn't
• 31:34
  work as well. So if you've got a story and
• 31:37
  that picture ties into the story and then you can tie it back
• 31:39
  into of the business. I mean, that's worked since
• 31:42
  2020. And that, and that's what, see,
• 31:45
  that's The thing is like I've never done those.
• 31:48
  Even in 2020, I never did those posts.
• 31:50
  It was always very practical. And so and I knew this because
• 31:54
  I've tested it in the past that like selfie posts for me, maybe
• 31:57
  I'm just ugly and my audience is like, oh God, don't want to see
• 32:00
  that guy. But I'm like every time I've
• 32:03
  posted selfie posts, even if it is just like, Hey, I was
• 32:07
  speaking at a conference or something, they never performed
• 32:10
  well because I never really did them before.
• 32:13
  And so I tried it for a week. It was either last week or the
• 32:16
  week before. I tried it for a week just to be
• 32:18
  like, will this work again? And I was like, no, not for me.
• 32:24
  It's not working right now I think.
• 32:25
  There's a little bit of like. It's kind of like when you're,
• 32:30
  you want to get a girl to like you and like she can sense that
• 32:33
  you want her to like you, you know, and it's like, and, and
• 32:36
  you kind of put off those vibes of like, I kind of want a girl,
• 32:39
  you know, versus like, because I think then that's what I was
• 32:42
  falling into with LinkedIn sometimes where it was like, I
• 32:44
  want to like, how do I get supposed to perform the best I
• 32:46
  can? You know, versus just like, I'm
• 32:48
  just going to play it cool and put out shit that I think is
• 32:50
  valuable and that I enjoy and shit, right.
• 32:52
  Instead of trying to chase the algorithm, you know, every
• 32:55
  single week or like have some calendar metric that I have to,
• 32:58
  you know, I think there's a little bit of that where it's
• 33:00
  like people in almost sense, like if you're trying too hard
• 33:03
  to make the girl or the algorithm, you know, the the
• 33:05
  people really is what it is. Not so much an algorithm, but.
• 33:08
  When I think because the algorithm did take that reach
• 33:11
  and the likes away the last few months has all.
• 33:14
  Been, of course, what? Works and what?
• 33:16
  And so like, it's trying so much different stuff and like, I'm
• 33:20
  just kind of going like you, I'm going back to like, what do I
• 33:23
  actually want to just create? If it doesn't perform well in
• 33:26
  the algorithm, So what? I'll boost it, I'll get clients
• 33:29
  that way, and we'll just play that game until LinkedIn decides
• 33:32
  to fix its algorithm or it stays this way.
• 33:35
  And that's just the game you play now on the platform.
• 33:37
  It's like I always tell my daughters, I'm like, don't worry
• 33:40
  about what other people think of you.
• 33:41
  Come into a room and just embrace yourself.
• 33:44
  Like really be true to who you are as a person, your values,
• 33:47
  what you believe in, and even where you're standing.
• 33:49
  Like don't worry about like, I got to stand cool.
• 33:51
  You know, always thinking about, you know, we kind of do that as
• 33:53
  human beings. We're like, all right, am I
• 33:54
  cool? Am I good?
• 33:55
  Look at, you know, it's like, and it's like, dude, don't worry
• 33:57
  about it. Because guess what?
• 33:59
  The people that other people respect and you'll respect
• 34:03
  yourself more importantly are the people that come into and
• 34:05
  like, this is just me. And if you think that was silly,
• 34:08
  what I did, cool. Maybe I'm silly.
• 34:10
  You know, it's like, it's all good.
• 34:12
  Yeah. And the same thing in dating,
• 34:13
  too. Like people pick up on that
• 34:15
  confidence and that just I'm cool being me.
• 34:18
  And just because you said you love to do this, this, and this
• 34:21
  doesn't mean I have to respond back.
• 34:23
  I love that too. I can be like, you know, that's
• 34:25
  interesting. I love that that you like that
• 34:26
  stuff. For me, I like a little
• 34:28
  different perspective, you know, a little different aspect of
• 34:30
  this and this and I think that's AI think that carries over to
• 34:33
  social well. And and.
• 34:35
  Sales calls and all that stuff too, you know?
• 34:37
  Yeah. You were talking I'm like that
• 34:38
  actually carries over to brand too, because 90% of what I do
• 34:41
  with the client is they don't know who they are as a business
• 34:47
  they. Don't.
• 34:47
  There you go. Like.
• 34:49
  That's a great, Yeah, they don't know like good segue.
• 34:51
  Their offer, they don't know what makes them different.
• 34:54
  And when you don't know that stuff, it is the well, I want
• 34:57
  you to like me because I need revenue and I want you to like
• 35:00
  me, but I shouldn't actually want you because you're a Dick
• 35:04
  and you're going to pay your bill and you're not like, you're
• 35:06
  not actually ideal, but it's money and I need money right
• 35:10
  now. That's right.
• 35:11
  Building a brand really is figuring out as a business who
• 35:16
  is the business and who is the like the, the face of the
• 35:21
  business. Is it going to be a business
• 35:24
  brand that you lead with? Is it going to be a personal
• 35:26
  brand you're going to lead with? And if it is a personal brand,
• 35:29
  how does it feedback into the business?
• 35:31
  But you need to understand who you are as a business.
• 35:35
  And like so I I mentioned I'm rewriting this e-mail.
• 35:38
  And embrace it and be able to be because I think that's the other
• 35:41
  thing, the greatest brands out there and even the smaller to
• 35:44
  medium sized companies that do it really well, they're not
• 35:47
  afraid to be themselves, disrupt, you know, ruffle the
• 35:49
  feathers. And I think too many brands out
• 35:52
  there right now are trying to play it safe.
• 35:54
  If we say this a little bit, what if it what if it makes
• 35:58
  these people mad? What if it doesn't make these
• 36:00
  people happy? And it's like it goes back to
• 36:02
  whether you're an individual or a brand or a company, you have
• 36:05
  to do you. Yeah.
• 36:06
  And the bolder you can be with that and the more you can
• 36:08
  embrace that, the more the right people are going to come to you
• 36:11
  and go, wow, I love the fact that.
• 36:12
  Wow, I wish I could do like that, you know, Like, you're so
• 36:14
  bold. You're so brand like you, you
• 36:16
  know. So many clients like when, when
• 36:18
  we do these workshops, a lot of times I'm helping them find
• 36:21
  their like, brand voice, like, yeah.
• 36:23
  Hey. You've said in the workshop,
• 36:25
  you've said it this way 100 times, but on your website you
• 36:28
  say it this way. Why?
• 36:30
  Well, that, that's. Professional.
• 36:32
  Yeah, that's professional. That's what the industry does.
• 36:34
  And I'm like, screw the industry.
• 36:35
  Like if I read that I'm not getting you.
• 36:39
  And you is who is different? You is who is going to like I'm
• 36:42
  going to connect with and resonate with like those points
• 36:45
  of view. And so like not just being
• 36:48
  scared to be yourself, but like being scared to like break that
• 36:51
  industry norm and be different totally.
• 36:54
  And like if if another company says it this way doesn't mean
• 36:58
  you have, it actually means you probably shouldn't.
• 37:00
  Say it that way, right? Say it the way that you're going
• 37:02
  to say it. Like my current, the, this
• 37:05
  client I'm working with right now in the recruiting space, he
• 37:08
  was like one of the things we started like when he came in as
• 37:11
  a client, he was like, I need help with my voice because I
• 37:14
  really struggle with. I look at everyone else and I
• 37:17
  don't know how to say stuff and blah, blah, blah.
• 37:19
  So we're working on this, but like, we'll sit in workshops.
• 37:23
  I'm like, dude, you know exactly what you're saying.
• 37:25
  You just said it 100 times in the last hour.
• 37:28
  That's what you say in everything you write.
• 37:31
  And he's like, I can do that. Yeah, it's your business.
• 37:35
  Do what you want. Exactly.
• 37:38
  Like this is insane. And what's the worst that's
• 37:40
  going to happen if you do it? You know, like you.
• 37:43
  Alienate the wrong people. Yeah, exactly.
• 37:48
  I think and that's true. You're just even like LinkedIn
• 37:51
  or the content that you're posting, the more people can
• 37:54
  feel like it's really is you and not what you want people to see
• 37:57
  or like some professional facade that you put on, I think the
• 38:01
  better it does. You know, I really respect
• 38:03
  creators that are like, wow, like they just tell it how it is
• 38:05
  and they just show up like the, their genuine self.
• 38:08
  And it doesn't mean that the strategy is like, just be
• 38:11
  yourself and like, you need a fucking strategy.
• 38:14
  But the, the, the delivery of that strategy and how you bring
• 38:17
  that message to the feed should really be authentic.
• 38:20
  Like that's where authenticity is not a strategy.
• 38:22
  It's something you do as you're executing your strategy, right?
• 38:25
  You're like, how do I be authentic in my content?
• 38:26
  Like, well, don't worry about what other people think of you
• 38:29
  and just say the things that you would normally say.
• 38:32
  Do the things you would normally do and build a strategy with
• 38:35
  that and get that out to the public.
• 38:37
  And it's so important because I think people miss this and I
• 38:41
  explain it to all my clients, like if you have a certain way
• 38:45
  that you explain a topic or a point of view or like, hey,
• 38:49
  we're going to do it this way, this way, and this way.
• 38:52
  If you change that in your content, they're going to like
• 38:57
  read your content, assume one thing, get on a call with you,
• 38:59
  and you're going to start using verbiage that they haven't seen
• 39:02
  you use. And it's like that's where the
• 39:04
  inauthenticity comes because it's like, well, you didn't, you
• 39:08
  didn't talk this way, you didn't use cuss words in your content,
• 39:11
  but you use it in your workshops or you explained it this way in
• 39:16
  your LinkedIn post. But like when I got into the
• 39:18
  workshop, you explained it that way.
• 39:20
  And like there's this like, did I make the right decision?
• 39:23
  Like what's going on? Authenticity is 100% important.
• 39:27
  Like you need to be able to use your voice, your words in
• 39:31
  everything you create. But it's not like you said, it's
• 39:34
  not the strategy. You need a strategy with
• 39:37
  authenticity on top of it. To make it all work.
• 39:41
  That's right yeah. One thing I love hearing too is
• 39:43
  like when people get on a call and you probably get this too
• 39:46
  and people get on calls with you, prospects or customers and
• 39:49
  they're like man, you're you're just like you are in your videos
• 39:52
  yes, it's like thank you. Like I cuz to me I don't think
• 39:55
  about that. I just kind of them doing me,
• 39:58
  but when people meet me in person, it's like, what's Alex
• 40:00
  like? It's like kind of like he is in
• 40:01
  his videos, you know, like he's like he's got some good point,
• 40:04
  but he's also kind of funny and quirky.
• 40:05
  You know, he likes to have fun. Like he but he's also serious,
• 40:08
  you know, it's like, and that's how it should be.
• 40:11
  You know, you should kind of come across.
• 40:12
  And I don't share a lot of private stuff in my content.
• 40:15
  So that's different. That's not I think people get.
• 40:19
  Disclosing private information with like I'm being authentic.
• 40:22
  No, you're not being authentic, but just because you're not, you
• 40:25
  know, just because you're showing private information, you
• 40:27
  can disclose whatever you want to be.
• 40:28
  All being authentic is showing up in your true self in that
• 40:31
  environment, right? Right.
• 40:33
  So like, and it's OK to when you're in different
• 40:35
  environments, you do change a little bit, right.
• 40:37
  If we're here now in the podcast, cameras are going
• 40:40
  slightly different, not a huge difference, but slightly
• 40:43
  different than me and you grabbing a beer or dinner or
• 40:45
  something, right? Little different, right?
• 40:47
  The cameras are not on, but it's not wildly different.
• 40:50
  It's not like you'd be like holy shit you guys are totally
• 40:52
  different, but if. You really think about it.
• 40:54
  And I've, I've used this in LinkedIn post in the past, like
• 40:57
  you are different depending on the relationship around you.
• 41:01
  Like, yeah, you're going to be different with your spouse than
• 41:04
  you are with your neighbor, right?
• 41:06
  I hope anyways, like if not like your marriage might be in
• 41:09
  trouble, but like and and your kids see a different side of you
• 41:13
  and then your neighbors see a different side and you're
• 41:15
  totally see a different side. And the stranger down the street
• 41:17
  sees a different side. Is it all you?
• 41:20
  Yes, but they see a different aspect because that's what the
• 41:25
  relationship requires. And the same is true like in
• 41:28
  your business. My clients don't need to see
• 41:31
  certain aspects of me to trust me and know me and like me and
• 41:34
  and want to work with me. In fact, certain aspects might
• 41:37
  make them be like, I don't know about this guy, you know, like,
• 41:41
  and and it's not that I'm hiding, it's I am being
• 41:44
  authentic who I am in the way that you need me to be for the
• 41:47
  relationship that we have. I'm not going to share with you,
• 41:50
  Mr. Client, the struggles I'm going through personally.
• 41:53
  I'm not going to like, you don't need that in order to trust me,
• 41:57
  know me and like me because I am authentic.
• 41:59
  And I think people confuse the vulnerable with authenticity and
• 42:04
  authenticity builds businesses. Vulnerability can sometimes ruin
• 42:09
  your business like there are people.
• 42:12
  Do you remember that phase on LinkedIn?
• 42:14
  Oh my. Gosh.
• 42:15
  The vulnerability phase. Oh gosh, I hated.
• 42:17
  It I remember and I won't say his name because I, I do like
• 42:20
  him and consider him sort of a friend.
• 42:24
  But you know, there's people that used to play the whole
• 42:26
  personal brand. Talk about whatever you want.
• 42:29
  It doesn't matter. You're going to funnel people
• 42:31
  back into your offering. It doesn't matter what you talk
• 42:33
  about in your content. As long as your offering is good
• 42:36
  and your profile is good, you're fine.
• 42:37
  Because people need to get to know you and like you and they
• 42:40
  need to like you need to get the engagement on places like
• 42:43
  LinkedIn or whatever it is. And then they'll come to you and
• 42:46
  see what you do. And I was pushed back on that so
• 42:49
  fucking hard. And so did you, right?
• 42:50
  And I was like, no, you need to talk about the things that you
• 42:54
  want to help customers do and accomplish and the
• 42:56
  transformation you make and the feelings they get on the outside
• 42:58
  of that. On the other side of that, you
• 43:00
  need to talk about customer success stories.
• 43:03
  You need to help teach and educate and shift perspectives
• 43:06
  around your area of expertise. And if you want to do that while
• 43:10
  letting people get to know you a little bit, that's cool.
• 43:13
  And you should probably should do that, but it wasn't the basis
• 43:17
  of the strategy. And it's funny because that
• 43:18
  person now has come back and I'm not rubbing and I'm not like
• 43:23
  going there to be like I told you so.
• 43:25
  But it's just, it's interesting to watch people kind of come
• 43:28
  back because after doing that for a long time, they realized,
• 43:31
  like, people don't even know what I do.
• 43:34
  And no one cares about your personal or what your hobby is
• 43:37
  or this or that. Like you got to build around
• 43:39
  what people are going to come to you and pay you money for it
• 43:42
  and. When you when you build around
• 43:44
  like your hobbies and stuff, people aren't going to give you
• 43:46
  money for you build an audience around that hobby gonna buy.
• 43:50
  Yes, right, exactly. Got like hot like I know a
• 43:55
  different creator that. You know who I'm talking.
• 43:56
  About. Oh, I do, and I know.
• 43:58
  I like him. He's a good yeah.
• 43:59
  Yeah, I know a different creator who like raced him.
• 44:02
  Yeah, in like, let's get to 100,000.
• 44:05
  Followers. Yeah, and like he even had to
• 44:07
  back up and be like, that was the dumbest thing I did because
• 44:09
  I built an audience that would not buy from me.
• 44:12
  Right. These numbers and and you and I
• 44:16
  have talked a lot about, well, my post doesn't get 100 likes
• 44:18
  anymore. We we're talking numbers, but
• 44:20
  like these numbers are only important when the audience is
• 44:25
  the right audience. Yeah, like if it's the wrong
• 44:28
  people that are not going to buy from you, you can have 300,000
• 44:32
  followers, right? And make $0.00?
• 44:35
  And we've seen that so many times.
• 44:36
  So many times. I've had so many people,
• 44:37
  hundreds of thousands of followers, 5060 thousand,
• 44:40
  whatever it is, and be like, I just can't make any money.
• 44:43
  Yeah. And it's like, really?
• 44:44
  And I'm always like, really? But then I look at the content,
• 44:47
  I'm like, yeah, dude, you're not building around anything.
• 44:49
  What do you people just could give you money for like being
• 44:51
  yourself on video? Like no, man.
• 44:53
  And there's even a lot of influencers that are like that
• 44:55
  too, that struggle because like they don't really have anything
• 44:57
  to to there's no foundation, right?
• 44:59
  There's no like, why do people come to you?
• 45:01
  Why do people consume your content?
• 45:02
  Well, I think what what's happened for a lot of these
• 45:04
  creators is they've looked at the bigger influencers like the
• 45:10
  like Gary Vee or like a celebrity that had like an Elon
• 45:14
  or whatever. That's like, well, they don't do
• 45:15
  it, so I don't have to. And I'm like, Gary Vee spent 10
• 45:19
  years as the wine guy. He did podcasts around wine.
• 45:23
  He did blog posts around like he was a very specific person
• 45:27
  before he branched out. And I'm like, until you have
• 45:31
  years of being I am. When you think brand strategy,
• 45:34
  you think Jason Vander, when you think, you know, videos you
• 45:37
  think Alex shared. And like that, if you don't have
• 45:40
  that foundation, you never are going to get to the place where
• 45:42
  it's like, well, I'm just going to post that I had tacos for
• 45:45
  lunch and people are going to, you know, 2000 on it.
• 45:48
  And I'm still going to get a client.
• 45:49
  Like that doesn't happen when you haven't built that expertise
• 45:53
  first. And people look at the well, you
• 45:57
  know, so and so built an audience and look at how many
• 46:01
  followers they have. And they don't do it that way,
• 46:03
  but they also don't make money. So what do you actually want to
• 46:06
  do? Here, you know, yeah, that's
• 46:08
  interesting about the, the Gary Vee thing.
• 46:11
  Do you think Gary Vee is out of touch with the modern content
• 46:14
  strategy in a lot of ways? Because I, I see like, obviously
• 46:17
  he's like an OG and like has done a lot of amazing things.
• 46:20
  So we're not definitely not shitting on him, but and I've,
• 46:23
  we've all learned a lot from him.
• 46:24
  But I feel like it's interesting because I, I feel, and maybe
• 46:27
  some of it's taken out of context.
• 46:28
  I don't know. And I have a feeling he'll reel
• 46:30
  back and come to the side too. Oh yeah, I think so.
• 46:33
  But I, I hear him a lot of times like talk about this, talk about
• 46:35
  that, talk about sports teams, talk about this.
• 46:38
  But it's like, but you didn't do that though, to get to where you
• 46:41
  were. You started talking about more
• 46:43
  things, at least from the YouTube wine show and that kind
• 46:46
  of stuff. Like I'm pretty sure that he was
• 46:48
  very niche and spent years talking about wine, becoming
• 46:52
  literally the wine guy. He was literally the wine guy.
• 46:55
  And then like, was like, I'm going to take everything I built
• 46:57
  at, you know, him and his dad's place and he's going to build
• 47:00
  his own marketing company. And then he started talking
• 47:02
  about marketing naturally, because he had done marketing at
• 47:05
  a high level and done really well.
• 47:06
  So like, cool, that makes sense. And then he was like the
• 47:09
  marketing guy. And then after a while he was
• 47:11
  like, I'm noticing that it's so much beyond marketing or this or
• 47:15
  that. It's a, it's like people
• 47:16
  psychology. And I get it.
• 47:18
  I get this. And I see the same shit, right?
• 47:20
  And so now he's talking about like happiness and fulfilment
• 47:22
  and like doing things that you really want to do and whatever
• 47:25
  it might be. But if he had started off doing
• 47:28
  that and not had the credibility from building a business, you
• 47:31
  know, his dad's why his dad's liquor store turned into what it
• 47:34
  was today, that wouldn't have been there.
• 47:37
  Like if he was just like the guy out of nowhere that was just
• 47:39
  like an, you know, starting something and like happiness and
• 47:41
  this and that, like I don't think it would have gotten to
• 47:43
  where it where. It is.
• 47:44
  I don't. I don't think he would have the
• 47:45
  money to hire all the people that follow him around with
• 47:48
  cameras. Definitely not.
• 47:49
  Like all of that came out of being very specific on this is
• 47:54
  what I want to be known for and that's all, all the content I'm
• 47:57
  going to create. Like eventually you can become
• 48:00
  the guy that sits there and talks happiness because you've
• 48:03
  got millions of dollars coming in through a business that you
• 48:07
  built by being the wine guy and then being the marketing guy.
• 48:11
  And I think like to most. People never get there though to
• 48:14
  be honest. But to your question, like you
• 48:16
  asked, like do I think he's a little bit out of touch?
• 48:19
  I think, I think a lot of influencers end up getting out
• 48:23
  of touch when they get to that point where it's like, look, I'm
• 48:29
  not talking only about marketing, so you don't have to
• 48:32
  either. It's almost like they forget
• 48:34
  what got them where they were. And it isn't until like either
• 48:38
  they have a moment where it's like, OK, wait, this isn't
• 48:41
  working. Like something's not working
• 48:43
  with the business right now that they come back to it and and
• 48:47
  refocus. And so, yeah, I mean, I, I think
• 48:50
  also dude, like he's put out a lot of great content.
• 48:52
  But yeah, like it's not, I'm not going to go in and start talking
• 48:57
  about live the happiness life you are because it's not going
• 49:00
  to build my business. Right.
• 49:01
  And I think if he was listening to this, you would say that's
• 49:04
  not what I'm telling you to do, right?
• 49:06
  He's like, he's like I'm telling you to do to talk about the
• 49:09
  things that you want to talk about.
• 49:10
  So if that's building a business, talk about building a
• 49:12
  damn business, you know, but but I think the audience knows if
• 49:16
  you know, Gary Vee what I'm talking about.
• 49:17
  And I think part of it's probably just like he's found a
• 49:19
  lot of success talking about all these different topics.
• 49:22
  So naturally he's like, do it, It's working, it works.
• 49:25
  And you see maybe some other people do it.
• 49:27
  It's like, yes, but that's a very specific situation, you
• 49:31
  know, that you're in. On the flip side, I do think you
• 49:33
  can make money and build a brand off of things that you're really
• 49:37
  interested in, but you that's you got to build the audience
• 49:39
  for that. To your point, if like
• 49:40
  pickleball's your thing, you 100% can make hundreds of
• 49:45
  thousands of dollars talking about pickleball online and
• 49:48
  start a YouTube channel and then you do it.
• 49:50
  You know, some courses, just some instructions you do some,
• 49:53
  you know, in person, virtual that whatever it is, you get
• 49:56
  paid through YouTube at a certain point because your
• 49:58
  videos are doing so well that you do pays you money.
• 50:00
  You have a TikTok account, you know, you have different people
• 50:03
  bring you in to train them personally that are high net
• 50:05
  worth, individual, whatever it is.
• 50:07
  Like that's a business. Yeah.
• 50:09
  So it's like whatever you want to talk about.
• 50:10
  But I think when people getting confused is they take it's
• 50:13
  probably more people just taking like a bite sized piece of
• 50:15
  information of like talk about this, talk about whatever you
• 50:17
  want, right. And they just take that and go,
• 50:19
  well, they do it and it's like, but look at their journey or I
• 50:23
  heard this somewhere, but did you really hear it?
• 50:25
  Did you hear a part of it right? You know?
• 50:27
  And that's where, like for me, well, that's a tactic.
• 50:31
  What should I talk about as a tactic?
• 50:34
  You need the strategy behind it. What is it you actually want to
• 50:38
  do? And even like I've started with
• 50:40
  a lot of my clients, starting the journey with them asking
• 50:45
  like what type of business do you actually want to build?
• 50:49
  Like is this going to be, do you want to build a mega business
• 50:53
  with like 30 employees and like that?
• 50:57
  Or do you want to build a lifestyle business where like
• 51:00
  you work 4 hours a day and you are done Because you've got like
• 51:04
  one of my clients has 12 kids and I'm like, my goodness, good.
• 51:07
  More dude, stop, stop. But like, but, but he's like, I
• 51:13
  want to build a business that I get more time off of.
• 51:16
  And I'm like, well, that's a very different strategy than
• 51:20
  building a team. Because he came in like well I
• 51:23
  need to, I need to hire like 5 people and I'm like the business
• 51:28
  that you want to build is not you hire.
• 51:31
  Right, right, right. It's.
• 51:31
  You hire a few VAS to do the work and you just charge more
• 51:37
  for the clients that want to work with you.
• 51:39
  You become the premium in the space and you give a much better
• 51:44
  experience so you can charge more and work less.
• 51:47
  Yeah. And he's like mine one I'm like.
• 51:50
  Because if you hire a bunch of people W two people, you're
• 51:53
  going to have more to manage. And it's just like, you know, I
• 51:55
  think the dream of like scaling as much as you can.
• 51:59
  It's like a fleeting dream. You know, it's like, it's not,
• 52:01
  it's you got to assess what is the best route for you.
• 52:04
  And I think as an entrepreneur, we're in this world of like, and
• 52:06
  you hear businesses, I just raised this, I'm doing this.
• 52:09
  My business got the 10 million, twenty 50 million.
• 52:11
  It's like I sold my company. It's like, it's easy as an
• 52:13
  entrepreneur sometimes to look at that and go, why am I not?
• 52:16
  Should I be doing that? Should I be on the path?
• 52:18
  Should I try to do this? And it's the scale.
• 52:19
  And it's like, not necessarily you should be doing what you
• 52:21
  want to do to build a life in the business that you want to
• 52:23
  build. Well, and that and that's the
• 52:25
  key is like ask yourself first, what's the life I want to lead?
• 52:30
  So I build a business that fits that and not the whole because
• 52:35
  I've been, I've been caught in this too.
• 52:36
  When I started shift, I was like, I want to build a branding
• 52:40
  agency that's got the cool office and 50 employee like like
• 52:44
  that's what I wanted to build and that's what my business
• 52:46
  partner wanted to build. Like we wanted that kind of
• 52:48
  business. Like we're the head honchos and
• 52:51
  we've got a bunch of brand strategists underneath us that
• 52:54
  are like doing the work. And as I've like journeyed
• 52:57
  through this, I'm like, that just means I'm going to be stuck
• 53:00
  at a desk damaging 50 employees. I don't want that.
• 53:04
  I want to be able to like, hey, I'm taking the next two weeks
• 53:07
  off and the business will survive without me.
• 53:10
  And there's not going to be fires that have to be put out
• 53:12
  like I want to be able to this this past weekend.
• 53:17
  I don't I actually don't know how it happened.
• 53:18
  I was like super ahead last week, but I took Friday
• 53:21
  afternoon off not to do anything fun.
• 53:23
  I was painting a kitchen, but I was like that freedom to be able
• 53:28
  to say I can just take off, go by the paint, start painting the
• 53:32
  kitchen on Friday afternoon like that.
• 53:35
  That's the kind of freedom I want rather than, well, look
• 53:40
  shit because I, it's very easy for me to look at other brand
• 53:43
  agencies and be like, well, they've got these epic offices
• 53:46
  down in Chicago and like they've got pictures of their office and
• 53:50
  stuff like that. It's like, oh, that's super
• 53:52
  cool, but I also don't want the headache of making sure that 30
• 53:57
  people's salaries are being paid and making sure we're paying for
• 54:01
  this like multi $1,000,000 space just to look cool.
• 54:04
  Like I would rather have three employees that or like 221099
• 54:10
  employees that are located in other parts of the country or
• 54:12
  the world and be like, hey, I make the money that I want to
• 54:16
  make and I live comfortably. Like you have to know that to
• 54:19
  build the business and have the strategy that's going to get you
• 54:22
  there. Man, it's all about sometimes
• 54:24
  just putting your earmuffs on, closing your ears to the outside
• 54:28
  world, the noise and just saying what do I want, not what does
• 54:31
  the world want or what do I think would be cool.
• 54:33
  The flex for society, like, yeah, I don't have a business
• 54:37
  that's $100 million in scaling or some companies going to swoop
• 54:40
  for a billion, but I do. I'm able to pick up my kids at
• 54:43
  2:50 and 3:25 and I'm able to drop them off and I'm able to
• 54:47
  spend quality time with them. And I'm able to go on vacation
• 54:50
  and not worry about shit. And I'm able to have fun every
• 54:52
  day really enjoying what I'm doing and not all these other
• 54:56
  things that come from raising money or growing so fast or
• 54:59
  scaling. And there's nothing wrong with
• 55:01
  that. That's what you want.
• 55:02
  We need people like that. We need like Elon Musk and you
• 55:05
  know, people, I was going to say and it's.
• 55:07
  And it's understanding that makes it important like who
• 55:11
  you're actually listening to, who you let's speak into your
• 55:14
  business because if you're listening to the wrong voices,
• 55:19
  you are going to build the wrong business, right?
• 55:22
  And that like I learned that first hand because when I first
• 55:25
  started shift as like a side gig, I was listening to a guy
• 55:29
  that like started his business at the same time I did.
• 55:33
  And he was going the fast route. Like I'm want to scale this
• 55:36
  thing, I want to sell it, blah, blah, blah.
• 55:39
  And I was like taking his advice, listening to him like,
• 55:42
  yeah, that sounds great. And like I get halfway down the
• 55:45
  road. I'm like, this isn't actually
• 55:47
  the business I want to build. Why am I?
• 55:50
  Why am I taking advice? From you exactly.
• 55:52
  When, when like it was a website development company, I'm like
• 55:56
  that you can hire low cost people out of the Philippines to
• 56:00
  like do a web development, like do a web development project and
• 56:04
  that's fine. And it can still be good.
• 56:06
  But like a good brand strategist, you can't just hire
• 56:11
  them for like $500. Like, you know, I'm like, I
• 56:14
  can't, I can't do that model and build it the way I want to build
• 56:18
  it. And so understanding like, are
• 56:21
  you listening to the right voices?
• 56:22
  You might like Alex Hermozi, but his voice might not be the right
• 56:26
  voice for your business. That's right.
• 56:28
  And that's where you've got to understand what's the life you
• 56:31
  want to build? What's the business you want to
• 56:33
  build? So you listen to the right
• 56:35
  voices. Yeah, so going back to the
• 56:37
  branding stuff, yeah. How do you build an exciting
• 56:41
  brand when your company's kind of boring?
• 56:45
  Like what you do is not super exciting because I have fun
• 56:47
  little like, oh, it's easy. If like you're Liquid Death or
• 56:50
  your Apple, you're this, but you know, we're a logistics company
• 56:53
  or we're staffing and recruiting provider or we're, you know,
• 56:55
  whatever. I'm a consulting firm.
• 56:57
  Like that's not that exciting. Like what do how do you help
• 56:59
  those companies? Like what do you?
• 57:00
  What advice would you get? Most of my clients are boring
• 57:03
  clients, right? They come from the industrial,
• 57:06
  the manufacturing, recruiting, accounting lawyers.
• 57:09
  Like try try building a brand for a lawyer when most people
• 57:12
  are like, oh, lawyers suck. Like it's all these kind of
• 57:16
  businesses and so and. I don't think any of those are
• 57:18
  boring too. I'm sure you would agree.
• 57:20
  Like I think there's like most of those businesses, there's an
• 57:22
  exciting angle to them. If it's like an accountant and
• 57:25
  it's an Excel spreadsheet, yes. But if you're like talking about
• 57:27
  some amazing savings that you just did or some loophole you
• 57:30
  found from the tax or whatever, it is like that's kind of
• 57:33
  exciting. And that's how we do it is we go
• 57:35
  in and we figure out like what is it that you do that's unique
• 57:39
  to your business that no one else in the industry is doing?
• 57:43
  And that takes some time. Like you have to do competitive
• 57:45
  research and customer research and research on the company
• 57:48
  itself and all that. But like every client I've
• 57:51
  worked with and I, I think this is true of every business has
• 57:54
  something they do that's unique. What happens is your uniqueness
• 58:00
  often tends to be something that like you do every single day.
• 58:04
  So it doesn't feel special to you.
• 58:06
  It feels like, well, we just always do that.
• 58:10
  Well, yes, but no one else does. And so that is special to you.
• 58:14
  That's unique. And like taking that one thing
• 58:17
  and bringing it and making your entire brand around that thing
• 58:21
  instead of like necessarily around what you sell, but around
• 58:25
  that thing is where the excitement can kind of come
• 58:29
  from. And then it's like figuring out,
• 58:32
  OK, if this is your uniqueness, what's the point of view that's
• 58:36
  going to point back to this thing that you do that's
• 58:39
  different. And it's usually in that point
• 58:41
  of view that you can build something exciting and fun.
• 58:45
  Yeah. So like, we had a client we're
• 58:48
  finishing up, hopefully finishing up their website here
• 58:51
  soon. They do industrial vacuum pumps
• 58:56
  which I didn't even know. Were OK, maybe there is a boring
• 58:58
  yeah I think. Like like so if you, if you've
• 59:01
  ever seen like the inside of a of a Doritos Bay, it's kind of
• 59:04
  like shiny. Yeah.
• 59:05
  So in order to get that shine on there, they use a, the companies
• 59:10
  that make that packaging will use a like high industrial
• 59:15
  furnace that is driven by a vacuum pump.
• 59:19
  And my client builds and remanufacturers these vacuum
• 59:23
  pumps because they can be like 6-7, eight, $100,000 per what?
• 59:26
  Like they're expensive, they're big pieces of equipment.
• 59:29
  And so they re, they will remanufacture, take it, pull it
• 59:33
  all apart, fix it all up, all that kind of stuff.
• 59:36
  And there's a lot of companies that do that, which I started,
• 59:40
  you know, researching their industry, and I'm like, holy
• 59:42
  crap, there's more companies. Yeah, there always is.
• 59:45
  What's going on here? But like they all came in
• 59:48
  talking about quality and this kind of stuff.
• 59:50
  And my client had this like mentality of, you know, if you
• 59:57
  don't tear the whole thing apart, you don't know what's
• 59:59
  actually working. And so they kind of came in and
• 1:00:02
  and this isn't. Because I'm sarcastic and sassy,
• 1:00:05
  but they kind of have this little bit sarcastic twinge to
• 1:00:08
  them because they are the industry or they are the
• 1:00:10
  business that will look at the industry and be like, that's
• 1:00:14
  wrong, don't do it that way. So they're the company.
• 1:00:18
  Like they'll go into a client and they'll look at their
• 1:00:21
  equipment and be like, who the hell did this for you?
• 1:00:24
  Well, this company, whatever came in and did it and it broke
• 1:00:27
  down in a month. And they're like, well, yeah,
• 1:00:29
  because they did this, this, this, this and this.
• 1:00:31
  Why did you even do? Like they have that kind of
• 1:00:33
  personality because they've been in the industry for so long and
• 1:00:36
  people know them. Like they do like really high
• 1:00:38
  quality stuff, right? So we took their differentiator
• 1:00:42
  and built a personality and a point of view that allows them
• 1:00:46
  to, like, poke fun at stupid stuff.
• 1:00:49
  Nice. Which is what I do.
• 1:00:51
  Yeah. You know, So I'm like, I'm
• 1:00:53
  always careful sharing. This like this is going to be
• 1:00:55
  something I'm. Like, yeah, yeah, I was like,
• 1:00:57
  oh, I like you guys. Not every client becomes
• 1:01:00
  sarcastic, but it fit for them and that's how now they're being
• 1:01:05
  fun with their brand because they don't have to be this like
• 1:01:08
  professional stuffy like their website before it's actually
• 1:01:11
  still up there right now. It's like picture at the top of
• 1:01:14
  nothing but tax and it all talks about we're the best and blah
• 1:01:17
  blah, blah. And now like their new website
• 1:01:20
  talks a lot about like don't be an idiot.
• 1:01:22
  Do it this way like. That kind of stuff.
• 1:01:25
  And I'm like, that's what makes you stand out in such a boring
• 1:01:29
  industry when you add a little bit of personality that points
• 1:01:33
  back to who you are as a company.
• 1:01:36
  Yeah, a lot of brands try to be the best in their industry, but
• 1:01:39
  your advice is to do the opposite?
• 1:01:41
  Yes, what do you. So here's here's what happens
• 1:01:44
  when you look at positioning, there's a lot of companies try
• 1:01:48
  to position on what I call, oh, wow, my mind just went basic
• 1:01:55
  requirements of doing business. So like we care about our
• 1:01:58
  customers. That sounds good and sounds
• 1:02:01
  like, oh man, people are going to line up around the block
• 1:02:02
  because they care about us. But when you, when you actually
• 1:02:05
  think about it, if I'm going to give you $100,000 for your offer
• 1:02:09
  or whatever it is, or 50 or 20,000, I'm going to give you
• 1:02:12
  money to do something for me. You better care about my
• 1:02:17
  company. Of course, like if you don't,
• 1:02:19
  Yeah, if you don't, I'm going to tell people you don't like that.
• 1:02:24
  That's a basic require, basic expectation of doing business.
• 1:02:27
  And so many people say that, though I just watched a video on
• 1:02:30
  the website the other day. They're like one of our, what
• 1:02:31
  makes us different is that we really care in our customer
• 1:02:34
  service. And, you know, we take the time
• 1:02:36
  to really get to, it's like everyone can say this.
• 1:02:39
  Yes. And so it doesn't make you like,
• 1:02:41
  if you think about it, if I'm researching your company and I
• 1:02:43
  see every competitor says we care, we care, we care, we care,
• 1:02:47
  we care. Why should I choose you?
• 1:02:49
  Because you care, just like everyone else.
• 1:02:51
  Does. No, because we really care.
• 1:02:52
  Yeah. Yeah, that really that's the
• 1:02:54
  thing, you know. But like, being the best, like
• 1:02:57
  trying to position yourself as the best is the same thing.
• 1:03:00
  Because 1. I don't believe you because I
• 1:03:04
  know that you haven't gone out and looked at every single
• 1:03:06
  competitor yet, every single product.
• 1:03:08
  You haven't run like third party tests that aren't biased based
• 1:03:12
  on you. I know you haven't done that.
• 1:03:14
  So it's an empty way to say we're the best.
• 1:03:18
  You should work with us. That's.
• 1:03:19
  A good point. It's.
• 1:03:20
  Empty. But 2.
• 1:03:22
  When you try to position on the best, what you're really saying
• 1:03:25
  is we provide the same thing that you can get everywhere
• 1:03:29
  else. Ours is maybe just a little bit
• 1:03:32
  higher. So if you don't care about this
• 1:03:34
  little bit of difference between US and the competitors, you can
• 1:03:38
  get it cheaper down the road, right?
• 1:03:41
  Doesn't matter when you position on being different, when you
• 1:03:45
  find something you do that's unique and you say, I'm going to
• 1:03:47
  make the whole business around this one thing, this, this very
• 1:03:50
  unique thing. All of a sudden, while everyone
• 1:03:53
  else is fighting over, well, we do this and this and this and
• 1:03:56
  they're all doing the same thing and you're over here like screw
• 1:03:59
  that. I do this and none of them do
• 1:04:01
  this. All of a sudden it is this like
• 1:04:04
  easy way for a competitor or a client to say, huh, should I go
• 1:04:09
  with all these people who all look and sound and provide me
• 1:04:13
  the same thing? Or should I go with this company
• 1:04:16
  over here who actually does something different than they
• 1:04:20
  do? It makes the choice easy for the
• 1:04:24
  client. And that's really when we talk
• 1:04:27
  positioning, that's what we're trying to do is like make it
• 1:04:30
  easy for a client to choose you when they have like multiple
• 1:04:35
  options. Because like, and you're in my
• 1:04:38
  business, I'll use Shift as an example.
• 1:04:43
  You could come to me for a brand strategy.
• 1:04:44
  It's going to solve a lot of problems in your company, but
• 1:04:47
  it's not going to come in and like directly say this is what
• 1:04:51
  you should do in sales. It's going to fix the top stuff
• 1:04:54
  so everything else gets fixed. So there are some clients that
• 1:04:59
  might look at me and be like, well, really positioning, OK,
• 1:05:03
  that's great, Jason, but like, I just need someone to come in and
• 1:05:05
  train my sales team. I'm just going to go do that.
• 1:05:08
  They might need positioning help, but in their brain they
• 1:05:12
  need a sales trainer, right? So now not only am I competing
• 1:05:15
  against other brand strategy agencies and I'm competing in
• 1:05:18
  sales enablement and I'm competing against a company
• 1:05:21
  that's just going to come in and be like, well, we'll create
• 1:05:23
  content that makes you stand out.
• 1:05:25
  Like like, like all of that is my competitors too.
• 1:05:29
  And so if you don't have something that's like uniquely
• 1:05:33
  we do this that makes it easy for people to choose you.
• 1:05:37
  It's like walking down the cereal aisle in the grocery
• 1:05:40
  store when you don't know what you like and you stand there
• 1:05:42
  like, what do I want this week? That's what it feels like when
• 1:05:48
  you position on being the best, because it's like it's, it's,
• 1:05:54
  it's a vague term like, you know.
• 1:05:57
  It's subjective. Where have you changed your mind
• 1:06:00
  when it comes to brand over the last few years?
• 1:06:03
  Has there been a drastic thing that you're like, man, I really
• 1:06:05
  used to believe this thing about brand that I no longer believe?
• 1:06:09
  That's a good question. I don't.
• 1:06:11
  Know, let me think about this for a second.
• 1:06:18
  Maybe I'll think of my example. So I used to think like, and I
• 1:06:23
  think this is just the natural progression of the, of my
• 1:06:26
  company too. I used to think that like brand,
• 1:06:33
  and I don't know how to say this because I've never, I've never
• 1:06:36
  said it this way on social media, but like I used to think
• 1:06:38
  brand was like almost like it's own thing.
• 1:06:43
  Like you need a branding department.
• 1:06:45
  Now I still believe like if you're a bigger company, like
• 1:06:49
  gym shark has a brand like a ACBO, like a lot of companies
• 1:06:53
  have a chief branding officer and I think that's as you're a
• 1:06:56
  bigger company, you need that. But brand really effects
• 1:07:03
  everything you do and, and where I've got it wrong.
• 1:07:08
  And I'm, I've realized this probably in the last year.
• 1:07:12
  What I do is actually not brand strategy.
• 1:07:15
  What I do is. Cut that first part off please.
• 1:07:17
  I know, yes. Go back to the beginning Monday
• 1:07:20
  to have a brand strategist. I don't actually do brand
• 1:07:25
  strategy. I do business strategy and then
• 1:07:28
  build a brand around it because as I've talked to other brand
• 1:07:32
  strategists, they're like, we don't do that.
• 1:07:35
  We don't do, we don't, we don't touch marketing, we don't touch
• 1:07:38
  sales, we don't touch operations.
• 1:07:40
  We just touch like personality, purpose, mission, vision,
• 1:07:44
  values, like we do that kind of stuff.
• 1:07:47
  We don't touch everything else. And I'm like.
• 1:07:50
  But does that mean you're going to reposition yourself as a
• 1:07:52
  business strategist? I'm not sure yet because I I
• 1:07:57
  have this this position as like branding, but but like and This
• 1:08:03
  is why I I don't think I will because I still.
• 1:08:05
  I don't think you should. I I still build brands, yeah.
• 1:08:08
  Like I do the strategy first in order to build the personality
• 1:08:13
  in the story and all that. So like.
• 1:08:16
  But I think your message is good is that brand is yes, flows
• 1:08:19
  through everything where most companies won't say that, right,
• 1:08:22
  Right. Yeah.
• 1:08:23
  So about a year and a half ago was a year and a half ago you
• 1:08:25
  were on the podcast round one, yes.
• 1:08:29
  And I asked you, are you happy? And I'm curious what your answer
• 1:08:33
  is today. And maybe a better question is,
• 1:08:36
  how's your life? Yeah, I would say it's not.
• 1:08:42
  I've struggled with happiness this year and a lot of that is
• 1:08:45
  calm. Like your audience doesn't know
• 1:08:47
  this, but in 2023 I moved in into my childhood home.
• 1:08:52
  Build my business out of my childhood bedroom.
• 1:08:54
  That'll mess you up in the head to.
• 1:08:57
  To help the Hell's Going On Black Mirror episode, you are
• 1:09:03
  now your childhood bedroom. Looks different.
• 1:09:07
  I, I don't have all the he man posters and GI Joe and stuff all
• 1:09:10
  that they're all up in the they're, they're in the attic.
• 1:09:15
  They'll be coming down soon. But like, but like, it's, I've
• 1:09:18
  been, I'm the primary caregiver for my mom, right, because she's
• 1:09:22
  had some health problems and like the start of this year, end
• 1:09:24
  of last year started this year. It was like she was doing much
• 1:09:28
  better in mid 2024, more independent and was like, OK,
• 1:09:33
  this is this looks like we can build a good life this way.
• 1:09:37
  And like you'll have a lot of independence.
• 1:09:39
  And then she like ended up getting sick on Thanksgiving,
• 1:09:43
  ended in the hospital. And it was a downward spiral for
• 1:09:45
  five months. Like there was, I think it was
• 1:09:48
  in February, every single Friday of February, we were in the ER.
• 1:09:53
  Like it was. It was rough and so it was a lot
• 1:09:56
  of like missed opportunities to build relationship here and and
• 1:10:02
  be involved and stuff like I remember I had, I always take
• 1:10:06
  the two weeks between around Christmas and New Year's off.
• 1:10:10
  And I'm looking forward to that this.
• 1:10:11
  Year, so me too. I had so much stuff planned,
• 1:10:14
  like hanging out with people, getting together, like all the
• 1:10:17
  stuff, all of it got cancelled. And so like, am I happy?
• 1:10:23
  There's moments in my life where I would say no right now because
• 1:10:27
  they're like some of those foundational pieces weren't
• 1:10:30
  being able to be built, so more solid relationships stuff to do.
• 1:10:35
  But the direction my life is going in right now, yes, like
• 1:10:39
  I've got positive way forward for the business, for my life.
• 1:10:44
  If you would have asked me maybe like a month ago, I'd been like,
• 1:10:48
  no, my life sucks and I hate this right now really.
• 1:10:50
  But well, I mean, it's, I guess I wouldn't have said I hate my
• 1:10:54
  life, but it was, it's been a rough year, especially with my
• 1:11:00
  mom. And like when it's when your,
• 1:11:02
  when your life is like 1 catastrophic moment after
• 1:11:07
  another. We're like, I haven't shared
• 1:11:09
  this with you, but like we had a in July or August somewhere, we
• 1:11:16
  had another cancer scare with her.
• 1:11:17
  And I'm like, we just, we just got you through cancer in
• 1:11:20
  February and now there's another cancer scare.
• 1:11:23
  So it's it's just been this like constant, like reactive.
• 1:11:28
  Your life just feels like going like this again.
• 1:11:33
  I wouldn't necessarily say I hate my life, but there also
• 1:11:36
  wasn't like, yeah, I love everything about it, you know?
• 1:11:42
  And so that's humble, though, man.
• 1:11:43
  There's seasons, you know? Oh, yeah.
• 1:11:45
  I think that's why I try to like happiness is, you know, can I
• 1:11:49
  ask that question? But is like, is it the right
• 1:11:50
  word? Probably not.
• 1:11:52
  You know, it's more like fulfillment, like purpose, and
• 1:11:54
  you have good relationships and maybe quality of life is the
• 1:11:57
  better. Yeah.
• 1:11:58
  Kind of question. Like, do you feel like you and
• 1:12:00
  you're on the right path, you know, But life is not easy.
• 1:12:04
  You know, business is not easy. Life is not easy.
• 1:12:06
  There are certain times where you're riding high and other
• 1:12:09
  times where you feel like you're picking yourself up.
• 1:12:11
  Well, when, when people ask me that, a lot of times it's just
• 1:12:13
  like this is this is just the season where happiness is hard
• 1:12:19
  is the way. Like I've I've described it
• 1:12:21
  because there isn't, there aren't those solid relationships
• 1:12:27
  I used to have because for five months it was cancel, cancel,
• 1:12:31
  cancel, cancel, cancel. And like we get out of those
• 1:12:34
  five months and all of a sudden I'm like, you're a different
• 1:12:37
  person and I'm a different person.
• 1:12:39
  And now we got to play catch up because like I've been gone for
• 1:12:42
  five months because it was like every time we had the
• 1:12:45
  opportunity, I had to cancel. So so yeah, it's and, and I see
• 1:12:50
  this in life and I see this in business.
• 1:12:52
  It's lived in seasons. And when you understand the
• 1:12:55
  season that you're in, it takes a different strategy and a
• 1:13:01
  different approach in that season.
• 1:13:04
  And so because I have a lot of business owners that will come
• 1:13:07
  to me that like their business is struggling, you know, 2025,
• 1:13:12
  it's all been like, I need you because my business is
• 1:13:14
  struggling and we're not getting revenue and we're not getting
• 1:13:16
  leads and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, what you
• 1:13:19
  were doing before isn't going to work in this season.
• 1:13:22
  Yeah, this is a tough season. There's there's a different
• 1:13:24
  approach. Yeah, dig deep, baby.
• 1:13:26
  You got to dig deep. Yes.
• 1:13:27
  Yeah, for sure, man. I think part of it's like you're
• 1:13:30
  going to have your outside circumstances that do sometimes,
• 1:13:33
  like, suck. Yeah, but when I go through the
• 1:13:36
  and it's been in kind of a little bit of a it's been a good
• 1:13:38
  year, but it's been like there's been some tough spots in there,
• 1:13:41
  you know, and there's been some really good spots too, like
• 1:13:43
  anyone, but I don't know, I think it you think about what
• 1:13:47
  can I, how do I can I show up differently to give myself a
• 1:13:50
  better life? What can I cut out that I don't
• 1:13:52
  need? Where can I spend more time in
• 1:13:54
  places that do make sense for me?
• 1:13:56
  How can I show up as a better Alex, you know, father,
• 1:14:00
  boyfriend, you know, whatever it might be, friend, you know, son,
• 1:14:05
  brother. And I think again, those times
• 1:14:08
  just cause you to reflect, right?
• 1:14:09
  Like the the challenging times are they do build character and
• 1:14:12
  they do 'cause you to say, let me put some thought into this
• 1:14:15
  and and slow down for a second and think about what's going on.
• 1:14:18
  You know, dude, this has been an awesome conversation as always.
• 1:14:22
  I had so much more that I wanted to talk about, but like, we just
• 1:14:26
  didn't get there. And unfortunately, it's about
• 1:14:28
  that time. So where can people find you,
• 1:14:29
  connect with you, learn more about what you do?
• 1:14:31
  Yeah. LinkedIn, I mean, we talked
• 1:14:32
  about find me on LinkedIn. They're like really like my
• 1:14:36
  content please. Please don't make him get on his
• 1:14:39
  knees. I will be all right.
• 1:14:42
  Jeez, LinkedIn is great and then I have an e-mail newsletter I
• 1:14:46
  send out every week. You can get that on the website.
• 1:14:49
  It's shift dot agency without the ISHFT dot agency.
• 1:14:54
  You can sign up there. Got some freebies on there and
• 1:14:58
  actually getting ready to launch what I'm calling a goodie bag, a
• 1:15:01
  strategy goodie bag where like once you sign up for the e-mail.
• 1:15:04
  Right time for Halloween. Yeah, I know.
• 1:15:06
  You get, you get access to a Notion document that's got
• 1:15:10
  everything listed out by the problem you might be facing.
• 1:15:13
  So like, I don't know how to talk about my differentiation.
• 1:15:17
  And they'll be either a freebie or a product there that will
• 1:15:20
  help you in that problem. So sign up for the e-mail
• 1:15:23
  newsletter, you'll get a copy of that.
• 1:15:27
  And yeah, those are probably the two best places.
• 1:15:29
  Cool. Thanks for being here, brother.
• 1:15:30
  Appreciate you.