Austin Belcak on Thought Leadership, Careers, & Finding Your Niche

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.840 --> 00:00:09.180 welcome back to be to be growth. I'm Dan Sanchez with sweet fish Media And 2 00:00:09.180 --> 00:00:13.140 today we're continuing our new Siris on how to become ah, thought leader. And 3 00:00:13.140 --> 00:00:17.840 I'm joined with Austin Bell Sack, who is the founder of cultivated culture 4 00:00:17.840 --> 00:00:22.230 and is the mastermind of how tow land your dream job. Austin, Thanks for 5 00:00:22.230 --> 00:00:24.880 joining me on the show today. And thanks so much for having me. It's a 6 00:00:24.880 --> 00:00:28.610 pleasure to be here. Certainly today we're going to be talking about the 7 00:00:28.620 --> 00:00:32.990 impact of thought leadership on a career. But I wanted to start Austin 8 00:00:32.990 --> 00:00:36.950 with your your background as a thought leader yourself. I kind of want to know, 9 00:00:36.950 --> 00:00:40.830 like, How did you get to where you are today and what's your current thing? 10 00:00:40.830 --> 00:00:44.170 Help the audience get to know you a little bit? Yes. So the story really 11 00:00:44.170 --> 00:00:48.540 starts back in college, Dan. So for me, you know, I wasn't very academically 12 00:00:48.540 --> 00:00:54.480 inclined. That wasn't my big focus or my strength. And I think a lot of that 13 00:00:54.480 --> 00:00:58.440 stem from, you know, my my parents, my mom had worked a traditional career. 14 00:00:58.440 --> 00:01:01.920 She's done very well. My dad had been an entrepreneur who had also done well 15 00:01:01.920 --> 00:01:06.490 for himself. And I saw the freedom and the flexibility that my dad had running 16 00:01:06.490 --> 00:01:13.010 his own business and this whole idea of, you know, studying for tests. And, you 17 00:01:13.010 --> 00:01:16.550 know, here is the route that everybody takes that that didn't really make a 18 00:01:16.550 --> 00:01:21.690 ton of sense to me. And in college, I I ended up coming across some of these 19 00:01:21.690 --> 00:01:26.580 people who had started their own businesses in what I would consider to 20 00:01:26.580 --> 00:01:29.520 be a bit of a non traditional sense back at that time. So this was, you 21 00:01:29.520 --> 00:01:37.010 know, 22,009 to 2010, and that's sort of the rise of the online business, in 22 00:01:37.010 --> 00:01:39.710 my opinion of happened a few years before that. But that's really when it 23 00:01:39.710 --> 00:01:44.870 comes to the forefront. And so, you know, I wanted to start something, and 24 00:01:44.880 --> 00:01:49.180 I started reading these books. You know, Tim Ferris's four hour work week, and 25 00:01:49.180 --> 00:01:53.010 you know, following people like that and what they had built really 26 00:01:53.010 --> 00:01:56.120 resonated with me. You know, I wanted to be able to own my time. I wanted to 27 00:01:56.120 --> 00:02:01.010 be able to control my schedule, work on things that made me excited. But I also 28 00:02:01.010 --> 00:02:05.820 didn't want to be hindered by the structure of, you know, corporate 29 00:02:05.820 --> 00:02:09.120 America. Right where you wait x years to get a promotion. And you could only 30 00:02:09.120 --> 00:02:12.630 ask for a raise so many times a year. You know, I wanted to reap what I sowed 31 00:02:12.630 --> 00:02:16.340 essentially, and I wanted Thio. I wanted that to scale. And so that had 32 00:02:16.340 --> 00:02:22.790 been my focus from from Day One. But I didn't really know how toe execute that 33 00:02:22.790 --> 00:02:28.740 or implement that. And again, I was fairly lazy in college. So I ended up 34 00:02:28.740 --> 00:02:33.890 leaving college with a traditional job, and that was a job that I essentially 35 00:02:33.890 --> 00:02:37.760 got through one internship. I didn't apply anywhere else. I didn't interview 36 00:02:37.760 --> 00:02:43.210 anywhere else. And this job was not what I would consider to be the best 37 00:02:43.210 --> 00:02:47.480 set up. So my boss wasn't great. I wasn't loving what I was doing. I 38 00:02:47.480 --> 00:02:52.610 wasn't being paid very much. I ended up going into a lot of debt, and I really 39 00:02:52.610 --> 00:02:56.220 still just wanted to do my own thing. But I didn't have an idea and I didn't 40 00:02:56.220 --> 00:03:01.400 have anything to stand on. And so I was thinking about Okay, what can I do to 41 00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:05.380 set myself up for their success? here, and I sort of realized that from 42 00:03:05.380 --> 00:03:09.070 everybody I had seen, You know, there's obviously all these articles about 43 00:03:09.340 --> 00:03:13.030 learning how to start a business that makes 100 grand in six months. And you 44 00:03:13.030 --> 00:03:16.480 read enough of those to kind of realize, well, there was. There's a lot more 45 00:03:16.480 --> 00:03:20.880 going on behind the scenes than than that, and so it didn't seem realistic 46 00:03:20.880 --> 00:03:26.890 to just jump ship and start a business right away. And knowing that I I came 47 00:03:26.890 --> 00:03:31.540 up with a new plan which was essentially, let me find a job that I 48 00:03:31.540 --> 00:03:35.640 enjoyed that gave me flexibility but also gave me the skills that I needed 49 00:03:35.640 --> 00:03:40.240 to move into this path that that I wanted to dive into on. Then let me 50 00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:46.120 also side hustle. One is a means to get that job and two as a way to flush out 51 00:03:46.120 --> 00:03:51.580 these skills. So my first job was in health care, and I wanted to move into 52 00:03:51.590 --> 00:03:55.520 digital advertising digital marketing simply because you look at all these 53 00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:58.680 people who are running these online businesses where they great at their 54 00:03:58.680 --> 00:04:01.320 great at selling their great at marketing their great at doing both of 55 00:04:01.320 --> 00:04:06.670 those things online And so I knew that this would be the best path for me. And 56 00:04:06.670 --> 00:04:09.750 I realized I could sort of double dip and accelerate my results if I had a 57 00:04:09.750 --> 00:04:14.510 job in the space as well as you know, doing my own thing on the side to 58 00:04:14.510 --> 00:04:18.070 essentially shore up those skill gaps that I wasn't getting from my full time 59 00:04:18.070 --> 00:04:23.010 job. So I started freelancing on the side while I was still in health care. 60 00:04:23.020 --> 00:04:27.270 And that freelancing experience helped me make the transition into tech and 61 00:04:27.270 --> 00:04:32.000 long story short. I made this career transition and eventually ended up with 62 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:35.740 interviews and offers from Microsoft and Google. And Twitter accepted my job 63 00:04:35.740 --> 00:04:41.260 at Microsoft, and that was sort of the beginning of a new chapter. So right 64 00:04:41.260 --> 00:04:46.560 around that time, freelancing What kind of work were you doing? Yeah. So what 65 00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:49.800 ended up happening to me was that classic Catch 22 right where I applied 66 00:04:49.800 --> 00:04:52.620 all these jobs and people tell me, you know we like you, but you don't have 67 00:04:52.620 --> 00:04:55.650 enough experience. And I'm like, Well, I can't get experience if you guys 68 00:04:55.650 --> 00:04:59.550 don't hire me and and then you know, rinse and repeat, right? And so I 69 00:04:59.560 --> 00:05:05.250 needed a way to handle that. Objection. And I'd seen a lot of people take 70 00:05:05.250 --> 00:05:08.470 courses or read books and try to get jobs. And I also tried to do that 71 00:05:08.470 --> 00:05:13.180 myself. And what I had come to realize was that nobody is willing Thio take a 72 00:05:13.180 --> 00:05:16.670 chance on somebody who just got the knowledge, right? Like I could tell you, 73 00:05:17.240 --> 00:05:19.910 you know, Hey, Dan, I took this course in quantum physics like I don't have to 74 00:05:19.910 --> 00:05:23.210 tell you that I got a d in the course, but just telling you that I took it, 75 00:05:23.210 --> 00:05:26.650 you know, it doesn't necessarily mean I'll be good at at doing the thing, 76 00:05:26.660 --> 00:05:30.210 right? And so I needed a way to show these companies that I could get 77 00:05:30.220 --> 00:05:34.530 results in the real world. And that's when I decided to start freelancing. So, 78 00:05:34.530 --> 00:05:37.750 essentially, what I did was my main focus is we were talking about the pre 79 00:05:37.750 --> 00:05:41.780 show was S CEO and ECM. So search engine optimization, search engine 80 00:05:41.780 --> 00:05:47.720 marketing and I did s e o mainly for a lot of my own projects and side 81 00:05:47.720 --> 00:05:53.230 projects. And the ECM throughly generation was really the driver for 82 00:05:53.240 --> 00:05:57.810 clients. The, you know, working with other businesses and entities. So what 83 00:05:57.810 --> 00:06:00.880 I ended up settling into was, ah, business where I generated leads for 84 00:06:00.880 --> 00:06:04.010 real estate agents who worked in, you know, a very niche segment of the 85 00:06:04.010 --> 00:06:07.390 market, and I could get them leads for cheaper than they were getting them 86 00:06:07.390 --> 00:06:11.670 from a Zillow or Trulia or whatever it WAAS. And so I ended up with some great 87 00:06:11.670 --> 00:06:15.240 case studies where I was able to help. You know, these teams of Realtors sell 88 00:06:15.240 --> 00:06:19.600 a bunch of houses for, you know, less than their commission on a single house, 89 00:06:19.600 --> 00:06:23.790 and so it was really profitable for them and essentially took that 90 00:06:23.790 --> 00:06:28.790 experience. And I spun it up to a lot of these ad tech companies and said, 91 00:06:28.790 --> 00:06:32.310 Hey, look, I'm already doing this. I'm doing it in my own and I taught myself 92 00:06:32.310 --> 00:06:35.400 And so I bring a fresh perspective and hear the types of businesses that I've 93 00:06:35.400 --> 00:06:38.840 worked with, and it just so happened in my role at Microsoft was focused on the 94 00:06:38.840 --> 00:06:41.950 SNB space and real estate was actually one of the verticals we covered. So 95 00:06:41.950 --> 00:06:47.520 that was a really nice, you know, really nice transition for me. And so I 96 00:06:47.520 --> 00:06:52.110 started Microsoft and all of a sudden, you know, I had tried 34 ventures 97 00:06:52.110 --> 00:06:55.440 before I tried to start APS, I tried to start apparel companies like all the 98 00:06:55.440 --> 00:07:00.270 usual stuff. Nothing worked. And then finally, this idea materialized because 99 00:07:00.270 --> 00:07:04.330 so many people came out of the woodwork and asked me how I landed this job 100 00:07:04.340 --> 00:07:08.340 coming from the background that that I had, you know, health care, bad grades, 101 00:07:08.350 --> 00:07:11.220 the kid who never studied all these people from college. We're like, How 102 00:07:11.220 --> 00:07:15.730 the heck did you end up in Microsoft? And that was not an easy process. And I 103 00:07:15.730 --> 00:07:20.730 actually had to g o. I took a pretty unconventional route of getting to 104 00:07:20.740 --> 00:07:24.300 Microsoft Google Twitter, etcetera with the job search. That's essentially what 105 00:07:24.300 --> 00:07:28.820 my business is based off of teaching people that unconventional system. But 106 00:07:28.830 --> 00:07:32.220 I started by writing an article that basically laid out everything that I 107 00:07:32.220 --> 00:07:36.020 learned. I did some, you know, a little bit of promo behind it. I sent it to 108 00:07:36.020 --> 00:07:39.340 some you know, influencers in this space and, you know, blog's and 109 00:07:39.340 --> 00:07:43.540 newsletters and stuff, and I got lucky enough to have some of some of those 110 00:07:43.540 --> 00:07:47.180 people reply and pick it up and the article got a really, really good 111 00:07:47.180 --> 00:07:51.370 response, and that essentially validated the idea for me. So that was 112 00:07:51.370 --> 00:07:55.360 five years ago now and every every day, every year since it's just been 113 00:07:55.360 --> 00:07:58.900 building on that whole goal of, you know, let's share this job search 114 00:07:58.900 --> 00:08:02.160 system with people so they can get into a better career. They can start their 115 00:08:02.160 --> 00:08:05.960 own businesses, They could become a thought leader. And I'd say it's safe 116 00:08:05.960 --> 00:08:10.170 to say you are a thought leader in this space. I mean, you have 500 K followers 117 00:08:10.170 --> 00:08:13.460 on Lincoln and probably one of the most active. I mean, we know people that 118 00:08:13.460 --> 00:08:16.380 with more followers on LinkedIn, But generally, if you have over a million 119 00:08:16.380 --> 00:08:21.610 followers on Lincoln, you got famous somewhere else, right? You have a very 120 00:08:21.610 --> 00:08:25.660 engaged community, and you've helped hundreds, maybe thousands, thousands of 121 00:08:25.660 --> 00:08:30.020 people laying some dream jobs. Now, at this point, So you've amassed quite a 122 00:08:30.030 --> 00:08:35.940 micro empire of landing dream jobs in career success and essentially like 123 00:08:35.950 --> 00:08:39.539 when I hear your story, essentially, you were unhappy, but then you defined 124 00:08:39.539 --> 00:08:43.549 like, well, this is what I want and here's a good step towards it, and then 125 00:08:43.549 --> 00:08:46.730 you after you went after it, you failed and then just started building 126 00:08:46.730 --> 00:08:50.270 backwards like, well, I failed because they wanted this and I didn't have it. 127 00:08:50.640 --> 00:08:53.670 And what I really like about is that you want just kind of on your own. 128 00:08:53.670 --> 00:08:57.360 You're like, Well, I could learn S c I could do S e o by myself. Anybody can 129 00:08:57.360 --> 00:09:01.570 set up a WordPress site and just start practicing, get some little tiny case 130 00:09:01.570 --> 00:09:04.590 studies together. Let's, um, other businesses pay you a little bit of 131 00:09:04.590 --> 00:09:07.930 money to do it for them. Get some real case studies of business, how it 132 00:09:07.940 --> 00:09:10.940 affected their businesses. And bam. All of a sudden you have real world 133 00:09:10.940 --> 00:09:15.390 experience and it was fully under your control, right? Where most people are 134 00:09:15.390 --> 00:09:20.020 like, I don't know, I felt I feel like a lot of people like toe not take 135 00:09:20.020 --> 00:09:22.870 control and ownership over the situation when they're actually is 136 00:09:22.870 --> 00:09:26.360 options. It's just hard to come up with the options sometimes. So thanks for 137 00:09:26.360 --> 00:09:29.910 sharing that. It's fun to hear how people figured out ways around their 138 00:09:29.910 --> 00:09:33.930 hurdles. Yeah, and I mean, you basically nailed it, right? I started 139 00:09:33.930 --> 00:09:37.110 for free. And then I got some case studies. And then I started charging, 140 00:09:37.110 --> 00:09:41.360 you know, 100 bucks a month and then 200 then 300 you keep ramping it up. 141 00:09:41.540 --> 00:09:46.120 But for me, I mean, the last point you made damn was exactly exactly it for me. 142 00:09:46.120 --> 00:09:49.700 Like the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over 143 00:09:49.700 --> 00:09:53.000 again, right? And expecting a different result. And that sort of that was the 144 00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:57.340 traditional job search process for me. And so once you take a step back, 145 00:09:57.340 --> 00:10:00.890 though, when you sort of give yourself permission, Thio, step outside of that 146 00:10:00.890 --> 00:10:04.390 traditional process or the bubble or whatever it is, and you just think 147 00:10:04.390 --> 00:10:08.160 about you know why? Why do you? Why does any company higher or why does 148 00:10:08.340 --> 00:10:13.590 somebody bring on a freelancer? Or why does a person you know decide to close 149 00:10:13.590 --> 00:10:17.200 the deal with this company? It's not because you know that person had the 150 00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:21.840 best resonate or that company had the best pitch. That it's like at the end 151 00:10:21.840 --> 00:10:25.610 of the day for all of those situations, and anything we do is marketers or 152 00:10:25.610 --> 00:10:30.550 salespeople is we make the other people believe that investing with us is going 153 00:10:30.550 --> 00:10:35.610 to generate the most value for them. And so if you use that as your starting 154 00:10:35.610 --> 00:10:39.520 point, then you say, Well, how can I illustrate value? In a lot of cases, I 155 00:10:39.520 --> 00:10:42.900 think what you find is the traditional path tends to not be the most effective, 156 00:10:42.910 --> 00:10:47.590 like a resume is not the best way to sell your value. Or, you know, in some 157 00:10:47.590 --> 00:10:51.660 cases, a pitch deck isn't the best way to sell your value. Or in some cases it 158 00:10:51.660 --> 00:10:55.620 is. But figuring out what that looks like for you and then figuring out the 159 00:10:55.620 --> 00:11:00.010 best way to convey your value to who you're talking thio that is really 160 00:11:00.010 --> 00:11:02.660 where the magic starts to happen and pretty much anything you want to do in 161 00:11:02.660 --> 00:11:06.920 marketing and sales. So now that you've kind of got into the space, how do you 162 00:11:06.920 --> 00:11:11.710 define thought leadership in general? That's a great question. I think that 163 00:11:11.710 --> 00:11:18.670 thought leadership is just putting yourself out there and creating a bit 164 00:11:18.670 --> 00:11:24.120 of a presence around the ideas, the thoughts, the strategies that you've 165 00:11:24.120 --> 00:11:28.250 come up with either through your own experience. Well, really, all through 166 00:11:28.250 --> 00:11:32.190 your own experience, one way or another, I don't think it necessarily has to be. 167 00:11:32.200 --> 00:11:36.560 And I think the place that most people believe they have to start or the trap 168 00:11:36.560 --> 00:11:39.340 they fall into, they think that they have to come up with these like 169 00:11:39.340 --> 00:11:43.150 groundbreaking, you know, totally unique ideas. Right? And I actually 170 00:11:43.150 --> 00:11:47.250 just wrote a post this morning, having drafted up on this where, you know, one 171 00:11:47.250 --> 00:11:51.010 of the easiest places to get started is, you know, just sharing what you've 172 00:11:51.010 --> 00:11:54.440 learned from other people. So, you know, I listened to one of your podcast 173 00:11:54.440 --> 00:11:57.940 episodes and maybe I don't post content. And I learned something like, Hey, 174 00:11:57.940 --> 00:12:02.270 Austin said that this was the way that he did something. So I went and did it, 175 00:12:02.270 --> 00:12:05.870 and I got a result, like, let me post about that. Let me tag Austin. And then 176 00:12:05.870 --> 00:12:09.060 over time, you know, as you start sharing more of these strategies, then 177 00:12:09.070 --> 00:12:12.640 you start to come up with your own right. And so I think that, as is true 178 00:12:12.640 --> 00:12:15.810 with anything like, you have to learn the fundamentals before you can start 179 00:12:15.820 --> 00:12:20.500 improvising a successful rate. And so to me, you know, thought leadership is 180 00:12:20.500 --> 00:12:23.030 really somebody just creating a presence around their thoughts and 181 00:12:23.030 --> 00:12:26.280 ideas. but that is sort of the end goal. And I think thought leadership starts 182 00:12:26.280 --> 00:12:31.220 more with getting comfortable with sharing ideas in your own voice in the 183 00:12:31.220 --> 00:12:35.370 first place and then working towards that end goal. I do find that thought 184 00:12:35.370 --> 00:12:38.780 leadership can be a simple is like while leading the thinking of others in 185 00:12:38.780 --> 00:12:42.840 a particular nuance or niche of some kind. And it doesn't necessarily have 186 00:12:42.840 --> 00:12:46.560 to be unique or original ideas, though you probably won't be called a thought 187 00:12:46.560 --> 00:12:50.660 leader until you're adding unique or original ideas. And that's okay, right? 188 00:12:50.660 --> 00:12:53.900 Like like you said, like anybody could just start sharing what they've learned 189 00:12:53.900 --> 00:12:57.560 from others. Maybe like from Tim Ferris's four hour work week sharing 190 00:12:57.560 --> 00:13:00.710 how they've learned some things from that and how it changed their life. 191 00:13:00.720 --> 00:13:03.320 Other people start to do it. You're starting to influence the thinking of 192 00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:07.200 others, right? In the meantime, if you do that over and over again, naturally, 193 00:13:07.210 --> 00:13:11.090 just by emulating people, you will eventually start to deviate in. Your 194 00:13:11.090 --> 00:13:13.930 own thinking is you practice things to start to find a. Some of the things I 195 00:13:13.930 --> 00:13:18.520 learned are are different than what Tim said, or whatever subject you're in 196 00:13:18.520 --> 00:13:22.150 right, And that's when your unique ideas could start to come. Would you 197 00:13:22.150 --> 00:13:27.230 say it is a just about a simple Is that absolutely? And one thing I've noticed, 198 00:13:27.230 --> 00:13:31.750 too, is drawing from, you know, taking an idea from one context and moving it 199 00:13:31.750 --> 00:13:34.910 into into another, right? Like a lot of the job search strategies that I talk 200 00:13:34.910 --> 00:13:38.880 about are essentially just marketing strategies that that we that we re 201 00:13:38.880 --> 00:13:42.390 purpose. So you think about something like copyrighting, for example, and on 202 00:13:42.390 --> 00:13:46.700 a on a website, You know, the whole goal is to have your copy drive more 203 00:13:46.700 --> 00:13:50.390 conversions, whatever that issue. No sign up for my newsletter by this 204 00:13:50.390 --> 00:13:55.380 course, you know, do this thing. And we hope that the language on our pages 205 00:13:55.380 --> 00:13:59.410 will drive that action we'll resume is no different than that, right? And so 206 00:13:59.410 --> 00:14:03.770 the same copyrighting principles that we applied to a website or a headline 207 00:14:03.770 --> 00:14:07.430 for a block post they could be applied to a resume. And so this is actually 208 00:14:07.430 --> 00:14:11.210 something that I have done a lot with my clients where, you know, I would 209 00:14:11.210 --> 00:14:14.920 take a look and I would share with them the fundamentals of a great headline. 210 00:14:14.920 --> 00:14:17.950 Right you know, we want to include a number in a lot of cases because that 211 00:14:17.950 --> 00:14:21.480 tends to boost you know, your click through rate or whatever it is. And so 212 00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:24.590 on a resume. We also want to include a number because that catches people's 213 00:14:24.590 --> 00:14:28.900 attention for the same reason. But it also illustrates your value. And so we 214 00:14:28.900 --> 00:14:33.510 could draw these similarities Kind of threw something that that that was 215 00:14:33.510 --> 00:14:37.280 meant for, You know, one purpose. If you could take a step back and say, 216 00:14:37.280 --> 00:14:41.220 Well, this makes a lot of sense within this other context, you know, that's a 217 00:14:41.220 --> 00:14:45.650 great way for you to start building your own quote, original ideas. While 218 00:14:45.650 --> 00:14:49.140 the the idea itself may not be original, what's original about it is your 219 00:14:49.140 --> 00:14:53.510 ability to take a step back and use that idea or that insight in a 220 00:14:53.510 --> 00:14:58.180 different context. And so to me, that's actually where a lot of the ideas and a 221 00:14:58.180 --> 00:15:01.240 lot of you know, the compliments and feedback I get about. You know, Austin, 222 00:15:01.240 --> 00:15:04.260 you think about this in such a different way. Well, not necessarily. I 223 00:15:04.260 --> 00:15:08.790 just have a pretty broad range of information from, you know, all the 224 00:15:08.790 --> 00:15:11.380 stuff that I've learned over the years, and I've just applied it to the job 225 00:15:11.380 --> 00:15:15.940 search. And so just shifting context like that is, is, you know, another 226 00:15:15.940 --> 00:15:19.360 that that's like the intermediate step, I'd say, but yeah, it's it's nothing. I 227 00:15:19.360 --> 00:15:23.460 think people tend to over complicated when really, you know, the the answer 228 00:15:23.460 --> 00:15:28.530 is simple. Yep, one of the things you sharing your story that I find to be I 229 00:15:28.540 --> 00:15:31.310 don't know. It's part of my my hypothesis that I have on thought 230 00:15:31.310 --> 00:15:35.660 leadership currently is that the best first stepping stone to being a thought 231 00:15:35.660 --> 00:15:40.460 leader is being a fantastic generalist, right? Like kind of knowing having a 232 00:15:40.460 --> 00:15:44.450 baseline. You're you're probably in a player already, and you kind of 233 00:15:44.450 --> 00:15:48.690 understand the mark, like, whatever niche you end up getting into, you 234 00:15:48.690 --> 00:15:52.970 understand it really well, um, you pursued marketing as a thing and you 235 00:15:52.970 --> 00:15:56.900 did a lot of work in order to land your first job. I do find that the kind of 236 00:15:56.900 --> 00:16:00.560 the hard part of becoming a thought leader is actually trying to select. 237 00:16:00.940 --> 00:16:06.060 Where do you start to focus on as a niche, right, Because we all know like 238 00:16:06.060 --> 00:16:11.200 being different is better than better finding that area where you can excel 239 00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:15.690 in. That's not only, I don't know, unique to you. It might play. It might 240 00:16:15.690 --> 00:16:18.920 play to something you've done in the past. It might not, but that's that's 241 00:16:18.920 --> 00:16:21.790 probably one of the hardest parts is actually trying to help narrow down on 242 00:16:21.790 --> 00:16:26.590 that. You have any thoughts about how people can figure that out? Yeah, 243 00:16:26.600 --> 00:16:30.780 absolutely. And I think the piece that I want to emphasize that you you 244 00:16:30.780 --> 00:16:34.590 mentioned down is that niche as a differentiator, right? Because a lot of 245 00:16:34.600 --> 00:16:40.330 people I hear like the sentence that kills more ideas than or dreams than 246 00:16:40.330 --> 00:16:44.600 anything else is like somebody's done that already, right? And so you know, 247 00:16:44.610 --> 00:16:49.320 if if I had said to anybody, Hey, I wanna I wanna be a career coach or I 248 00:16:49.320 --> 00:16:52.370 want to share career advice. You know, all these people would have come out 249 00:16:52.380 --> 00:16:55.620 out of the woodwork and said, Well, you're not a recruiter, and all these 250 00:16:55.620 --> 00:16:57.930 other people have done that already. I think you type your coach in the 251 00:16:57.930 --> 00:17:02.250 Lincoln, you get something like 800,000 results or whatever it is. And so for 252 00:17:02.250 --> 00:17:05.910 me, though my differentiators that I teach people how to land jobs without 253 00:17:05.910 --> 00:17:10.750 applying online and so that that last piece is the differentiator because you 254 00:17:10.750 --> 00:17:12.980 could go to all these other career coaches for resume help. But when you 255 00:17:12.980 --> 00:17:17.119 come to me, you know that you are going to be taking a different approach, 256 00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:21.920 having a different focus. And so how do you get there? Well, there's really two 257 00:17:21.920 --> 00:17:27.940 ways to do it and they're a bit of a balance. So one is exploration, Uh, in 258 00:17:27.940 --> 00:17:30.960 terms of what's available to you and then the other is was really 259 00:17:30.970 --> 00:17:36.090 exploration through action. You will. So you know the way I landed on 260 00:17:36.100 --> 00:17:40.160 marketing in the digital side of things. I just started by jumping into 261 00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:45.280 marketing in general. So I'm taking 101 courses I'm taking courses on, you know, 262 00:17:45.280 --> 00:17:49.620 the inbound landscape and the ecosystem and reading books about marketing in 263 00:17:49.620 --> 00:17:53.860 general, and you kind of get those fundamentals. But then you you look at 264 00:17:53.870 --> 00:17:56.910 all the stuff you've learned and you say, you know what really sticks out to 265 00:17:56.910 --> 00:18:00.990 me like what captured my attention, You know, in the marketing example, wasn't 266 00:18:00.990 --> 00:18:05.200 email marketing Does that sound really cool? Or social media or CEO or 267 00:18:05.200 --> 00:18:09.280 whatever it is, and then you dip your toe in the water. And so I like to call 268 00:18:09.280 --> 00:18:13.220 these many pilots. But essentially, what I would do is I have I tend to 269 00:18:13.220 --> 00:18:18.030 have a bit of an action bias, sometimes to a fault where I just I don't measure 270 00:18:18.030 --> 00:18:22.520 twice and cut once. I just kind of start cutting. And, uh so I'll pick 271 00:18:22.520 --> 00:18:26.050 something and I'll say, Hey, I'm gonna give this 30 days and I'm just really 272 00:18:26.050 --> 00:18:29.060 going to dive it. And I'm gonna go deeper with the courses. I'm gonna try 273 00:18:29.060 --> 00:18:32.640 to start projects. I'm going to share some content about it if if that's your 274 00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:36.200 thing and then after 30 days, I'm the reassess, and I'm gonna give myself 275 00:18:36.200 --> 00:18:40.470 permission to drop it if it's not continuing to make me excited after 276 00:18:40.470 --> 00:18:44.840 I've gone deeper, and so this may take a couple of generations, right? But you 277 00:18:44.840 --> 00:18:48.390 know, when you start with that to your point in being the generalist, you 278 00:18:48.390 --> 00:18:51.470 understand all the options that are in front of you and you can draw from each 279 00:18:51.470 --> 00:18:56.040 one. But then at some point, you do have to you make that call on that 280 00:18:56.040 --> 00:19:00.230 niche and getting specific right? Because if I tried to start a blogger 281 00:19:00.230 --> 00:19:03.640 on digital marketing today, I think I would have a really, really hard time 282 00:19:03.640 --> 00:19:07.110 standing out because so many people have dominated that space and clear 283 00:19:07.110 --> 00:19:11.120 space to, You know, if I tried to start a blogged from scratch just about like 284 00:19:11.120 --> 00:19:15.550 career advice In general, that space is really crowded, and so the obvious 285 00:19:15.840 --> 00:19:20.990 general topics tend to have been taken. But when you have that niche, whatever 286 00:19:20.990 --> 00:19:25.610 it is like, I'm not just a fitness person or a personal trainer, like I 287 00:19:25.610 --> 00:19:30.930 teach working moms how to stay in shape or I teach people or mom's coming back 288 00:19:30.930 --> 00:19:35.360 from a pregnancy. How toe lose £30 or lose their pregnancy weight like those 289 00:19:35.360 --> 00:19:38.570 were just a couple of examples of, You know, I may have a fitness background 290 00:19:38.570 --> 00:19:43.420 that's general, but by by defining that niche all of a sudden, I've really 291 00:19:43.420 --> 00:19:46.260 focused into a target market, and I think it's much easier to become an 292 00:19:46.260 --> 00:19:50.200 expert in that market. And then what tends to happen is you can expand right, 293 00:19:50.200 --> 00:19:55.170 so once you've owned that niche, then people naturally want to know more like 294 00:19:55.180 --> 00:19:58.280 Okay, Austin, will you teach people how tow land jobs that applying online? 295 00:19:58.440 --> 00:20:01.580 What if I do need to apply online? What do I do? Well, they already trust my 296 00:20:01.580 --> 00:20:05.840 advice on the job search in general, specifically not applying online. So 297 00:20:05.840 --> 00:20:11.380 that's not as big a step for them to come with me to the online. And so when 298 00:20:11.380 --> 00:20:15.420 you you sort of start big and then you niche down and then you go big again, I 299 00:20:15.420 --> 00:20:18.200 guess it's kind of like a little bit of an hour. I've seen the trend. It's 300 00:20:18.200 --> 00:20:22.230 almost like you have to get known for one thing, and then you could slowly 301 00:20:22.230 --> 00:20:26.310 ADM or and grow it. I mean, Gary V started as the wine guy. And then he 302 00:20:26.310 --> 00:20:29.840 added social media. And then he added, I'm a business builder entrepreneur. 303 00:20:29.840 --> 00:20:33.470 I'm an investor. And now he's gonna by the Jets, right? I mean, that was his 304 00:20:33.470 --> 00:20:37.580 goal the whole time, but like he's known for a lot of things now. So in 305 00:20:37.580 --> 00:20:40.550 your case, a lot of people just started asking you for advice, and you're like, 306 00:20:40.560 --> 00:20:45.130 Oh, I think I found a market here of which is like finding the market It's 307 00:20:45.130 --> 00:20:48.620 not just about niche ing down. It snitching down where there's a sizable 308 00:20:48.620 --> 00:20:52.530 market, right, And that's the trick, because you could just niche down to a 309 00:20:52.530 --> 00:20:56.570 place where there's hardly any market or it just doesn't make sense, right? I 310 00:20:56.570 --> 00:21:00.460 mean, I guess if I were to try toe, follow your path in the niche down 311 00:21:00.460 --> 00:21:04.340 farther, I could say I help marketers Landry marketing jobs. But it's kind of 312 00:21:04.340 --> 00:21:08.020 like there's a lot of marketers in the world. Could that work? Maybe. Is there 313 00:21:08.020 --> 00:21:11.700 a market for it? Uh, are they searching for the same things other people are 314 00:21:11.700 --> 00:21:15.600 searching with the term marketer? Maybe not. I don't know. It's It's so hard in 315 00:21:15.600 --> 00:21:20.500 a way. Where to? Niche down, though I do think having listening to what other 316 00:21:20.500 --> 00:21:24.530 people are asking you is probably a good place to start, though it's still 317 00:21:24.540 --> 00:21:28.620 in my mind. Still kind of an unclear thing toe, where maybe exploration is 318 00:21:28.620 --> 00:21:32.260 the key, and then hopefully figure it out just by trying over and over again 319 00:21:32.270 --> 00:21:36.400 different things, right? Yeah, And that's where you know, to your point. 320 00:21:36.400 --> 00:21:40.810 The feedback comes in right like you can you can start with an idea, and 321 00:21:40.810 --> 00:21:44.670 very quickly you could find that that that needs to pivot. But that that's 322 00:21:44.670 --> 00:21:48.230 okay, I think, if you to your point, you start with that that generalist 323 00:21:48.230 --> 00:21:52.650 mentality and then even going a layer deeper like I'm not just a marking 324 00:21:52.650 --> 00:21:56.940 person, but on the S e o person or I'm the social media person or even the 325 00:21:56.940 --> 00:22:01.170 Lincoln person. There's still a lot of room to play in there, right? Like we 326 00:22:01.170 --> 00:22:04.490 talk about, Let's say, you know, the hierarchy is marketing social media and 327 00:22:04.490 --> 00:22:07.230 then linked in Well, what could you do on LinkedIn? You know, you could teach 328 00:22:07.230 --> 00:22:11.310 people to be better at Lincoln. You could teach people how to make their 329 00:22:11.310 --> 00:22:14.750 companies better on linked in B two b marketing. You could teach people how 330 00:22:14.750 --> 00:22:19.430 to find jobs on LinkedIn like there's a lot of different niches that you can 331 00:22:19.430 --> 00:22:25.540 choose from. And so I think I think the best thing you can do is get into that 332 00:22:25.550 --> 00:22:30.150 sort of first sub niche or sub segment, if you will, and then kind of explore 333 00:22:30.150 --> 00:22:33.790 in there, go talk to people, listen to what they're saying, you know, listen 334 00:22:33.790 --> 00:22:37.330 to their pain points this is, you know, the classic marketing stuff, and then 335 00:22:37.340 --> 00:22:40.560 it may take some iterations, right? It may take some testing. I mean, that's 336 00:22:40.560 --> 00:22:44.470 the name of the game for me. I like I said, I tried to start a lot of stuff 337 00:22:44.470 --> 00:22:47.700 in the digital space. I started a music block back in college on a WordPress 338 00:22:47.700 --> 00:22:51.670 site to your point, and it got like, 200 visitors. And and that was a 339 00:22:51.670 --> 00:22:54.770 complete flop from a metrics perspective. But I learned how to 340 00:22:54.770 --> 00:22:59.000 create a website, right. And then I went on Thio started this apparel 341 00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:02.250 business and I worked with a lot of freelancers that didn't get off the 342 00:23:02.250 --> 00:23:05.740 ground. But I sort of understood. Okay, here's where I could go find 343 00:23:05.740 --> 00:23:09.310 freelancers. Here's how to engage with them. Here's how toe Get them to 344 00:23:09.310 --> 00:23:12.750 actually do what I'm trying to dio. And then I tried to create an app and I 345 00:23:12.750 --> 00:23:15.900 wire framed it with the developer. And, you know, I ended up paying him a 346 00:23:15.900 --> 00:23:18.700 couple grand, and then right, right When we were gonna get started, three 347 00:23:18.700 --> 00:23:22.340 more APS came out that we're venture backed and did the same thing. So we 348 00:23:22.340 --> 00:23:25.970 kind of scrapped it. But I learned a lot about the ecosystem of how you 349 00:23:25.970 --> 00:23:29.280 develop a product. And how do you do these wire frames? And how do you 350 00:23:29.280 --> 00:23:33.050 create the user experience in the interface and all this stuff? And so 351 00:23:33.060 --> 00:23:37.230 now we get Thio cultivated culture. All these people are coming to me asking, 352 00:23:37.230 --> 00:23:41.200 you know, how did you do this? And I know how to build the website. I know 353 00:23:41.200 --> 00:23:46.400 how toe get their feedback and transfer that into copy and and experience and 354 00:23:46.400 --> 00:23:50.950 all that. So So all this was built on those past experiences and, you know, 355 00:23:50.950 --> 00:23:57.310 quote failures, right? So I think that getting out there and testing is a 356 00:23:57.310 --> 00:24:01.240 recipe for failure, which then is a recipe for success like it's very rare 357 00:24:01.240 --> 00:24:06.450 that you're gonna knock it out of the park in the first try. Hey, everybody. 358 00:24:06.440 --> 00:24:09.820 Logan was sweet fish here. If you've been listening to the show for a while, 359 00:24:09.830 --> 00:24:14.250 you know, we're big proponents of putting out original organic content on 360 00:24:14.250 --> 00:24:18.410 like dead. But one thing that's always been a struggle for a team like ours is 361 00:24:18.410 --> 00:24:22.100 too easily track the reach of that linked in content. That's why I was 362 00:24:22.100 --> 00:24:25.460 really excited when I heard about Shield the other day from a connection 363 00:24:25.460 --> 00:24:30.050 on you guessed it linked in. Since our team started using shield, I've loved 364 00:24:30.050 --> 00:24:34.300 how it's led us easily track and analyze the performance of are linked 365 00:24:34.300 --> 00:24:38.740 in content without having to manually log it ourselves. It automatically 366 00:24:38.740 --> 00:24:42.580 creates reports and generate some dashboards that are incredibly useful 367 00:24:42.590 --> 00:24:46.370 to see things like what contents been performing the best and what days of 368 00:24:46.370 --> 00:24:49.840 the week are we getting the most engagement and our average views 369 00:24:49.840 --> 00:24:53.600 proposed? I highly suggest you guys check out this tool. If you're putting 370 00:24:53.600 --> 00:24:57.610 out content on LinkedIn, and if you're not, you should be. It's been a game 371 00:24:57.610 --> 00:25:02.840 changer for us. If you go to shield app dot ai and check out the 10 day free 372 00:25:02.840 --> 00:25:08.290 trial. You can even use our promo code B two B growth to get a 25% discount. 373 00:25:08.300 --> 00:25:14.780 Again. That's shield app dot ai and that promo code is be the number to be 374 00:25:14.790 --> 00:25:22.740 growth. All one word. All right, let's get back to the show. The oh so 375 00:25:22.740 --> 00:25:25.880 essentially just have to fail forward and know that every failure is a step 376 00:25:25.880 --> 00:25:29.620 forward, a success right. So let's say you do figure out like you found the 377 00:25:29.620 --> 00:25:33.930 niche. You're like I finally got it. It's just connecting different than it 378 00:25:33.940 --> 00:25:37.280 has before. Everything else was just to grind. It was so hard to get anybody to 379 00:25:37.280 --> 00:25:40.670 buy anything or toe even sign up for my free newsletter. But now it's just kind 380 00:25:40.670 --> 00:25:42.950 of like a soon as I mentioned it, people perk up and they're they're 381 00:25:42.950 --> 00:25:47.960 jumping at it. What do you do to take advantage of that? And specifically to 382 00:25:47.960 --> 00:25:54.310 build your perception of ah, thought leadership? What did you dio? Yeah, it 383 00:25:54.310 --> 00:25:59.390 really comes down Thio Habitual, disciplined content creation. Right, 384 00:25:59.390 --> 00:26:03.690 because we have these tools out there which have been set up in a way that 385 00:26:03.700 --> 00:26:08.780 allows us to essentially test ideas, right? So we post on social media and 386 00:26:08.780 --> 00:26:13.820 we get a certain number of reactions or comments or views, and certain post do 387 00:26:13.820 --> 00:26:17.080 better than others. And why is that same with, you know, block posts or 388 00:26:17.080 --> 00:26:21.410 videos or whatever it is? And so these platforms have sort of the feedback 389 00:26:21.410 --> 00:26:26.020 mechanisms built in, And so now the question is, can you stick with the 390 00:26:26.020 --> 00:26:32.370 process? So for me, when I started. I think you know my my whole goal waas to 391 00:26:32.370 --> 00:26:36.180 not time the market, but just rather get my time in the market to borrow, 392 00:26:36.180 --> 00:26:40.610 you know, from the investing adage, My goal was to just show up every day and 393 00:26:40.610 --> 00:26:46.140 create content. And I knew that at the beginning I knew that I didn't really 394 00:26:46.140 --> 00:26:49.160 know what would work. And so the only way I would figure this thing out is if 395 00:26:49.160 --> 00:26:53.910 I just started throwing ideas out there and seeing what resonated and then 396 00:26:53.920 --> 00:26:59.710 tweaking My strategy is based off of that. And so there There was a lot of 397 00:26:59.710 --> 00:27:03.330 testing that went into this, and we just kind of hone in tow, linked in Was 398 00:27:03.330 --> 00:27:07.480 it just testing of the content, or did you go and refine your ideas by 399 00:27:07.480 --> 00:27:11.370 throwing yourself back into the job market and then blogging about it? 400 00:27:11.740 --> 00:27:15.350 Pretty much. Everything has come from my experience, right? So I went through 401 00:27:15.360 --> 00:27:19.840 essentially a two year job search that started the day I graduated in May of 402 00:27:19.840 --> 00:27:26.840 2013, and I got my job at Microsoft in October of 2015, so that space was a 403 00:27:26.840 --> 00:27:31.060 ton of testing, and for me I I when I was going through that process. 404 00:27:31.540 --> 00:27:34.620 Essentially, the reason I moved away from the online applications was 405 00:27:34.620 --> 00:27:39.080 because I spoke to somebody who said, This isn't the way to go And here's how 406 00:27:39.080 --> 00:27:42.070 some other people have done it on. I went and talked to some more of those 407 00:27:42.070 --> 00:27:45.370 people who have gotten in the door in a non traditional way, and so I sort of 408 00:27:45.370 --> 00:27:50.100 made it my mission to tear apart the process, right? So I applied to as many 409 00:27:50.100 --> 00:27:53.230 jobs as I possibly could. I spoke to as many people as I possibly could, and 410 00:27:53.230 --> 00:27:56.660 the goal wasn't to get the dream job. The goal was more to understand, like 411 00:27:56.670 --> 00:28:00.990 every step in the process. How does this work? What are people looking for? 412 00:28:00.990 --> 00:28:05.570 And I'm gonna a be test the crap out of everything. So summary on a resume 413 00:28:05.570 --> 00:28:09.640 versus no summary. What resume performs better If I do this type of skill 414 00:28:09.640 --> 00:28:12.330 section versus that type of skill section, what performs better? It's 415 00:28:12.330 --> 00:28:15.520 essentially like any a B test, but I did this with every aspect of the job 416 00:28:15.520 --> 00:28:18.370 search, and did you do this specifically to get a job at the time. 417 00:28:18.370 --> 00:28:20.950 Or were you doing this now to create awesome content? You were doing that? 418 00:28:20.950 --> 00:28:26.210 This was just to get a job. So this was I'm miserable. The process isn't 419 00:28:26.210 --> 00:28:29.930 working. Everybody I talk to is telling me to keep going back to that process. 420 00:28:29.930 --> 00:28:33.550 That's not working. This is super frustrating. So I'm going to figure 421 00:28:33.550 --> 00:28:39.030 this thing out myself. And that's just my approach. Thio like life. I would 422 00:28:39.030 --> 00:28:44.170 say your challenges like there there is a route, right? Like I saw people at 423 00:28:44.170 --> 00:28:47.570 Google who came from a nontraditional background. I saw people at Microsoft 424 00:28:47.570 --> 00:28:53.430 who were my age. So, like this was possible. The question was, How do I 425 00:28:53.440 --> 00:28:58.640 get there like, what is the route? And I think that the best way Thio, or 426 00:28:58.640 --> 00:29:02.310 sometimes the only way to figure it out, is to just get out there and throw 427 00:29:02.310 --> 00:29:05.180 stuff up against the wall and see what sticks and track your track, your 428 00:29:05.180 --> 00:29:08.650 metrics. And so that's exactly what I did. And so this wasn't for content 429 00:29:08.650 --> 00:29:12.760 whatsoever. This was literally at the beginning out of frustration, because I 430 00:29:12.770 --> 00:29:17.100 just I could not sleep until I figured out how the heck this whole system 431 00:29:17.100 --> 00:29:21.810 worked, and so that became great fodder for content. Right? That that was 432 00:29:21.820 --> 00:29:27.190 that's pretty much the basis of all of my posts. But what I would say is is 433 00:29:27.190 --> 00:29:30.320 when you get started, I mean, a lot of people have their own experiences, 434 00:29:30.320 --> 00:29:34.390 right? We're all successful at one thing or another, and if you're not, 435 00:29:34.390 --> 00:29:39.230 you can get started by sharing your learnings like I'm not quite at the 436 00:29:39.230 --> 00:29:44.590 level I want to be as a market or a software engineer, a CEO. But here's 437 00:29:44.590 --> 00:29:47.970 what I'm doing to get there and sharing that information. Eventually you will 438 00:29:47.970 --> 00:29:51.070 get there, and you'll have built this following who's who's seen the journey 439 00:29:51.070 --> 00:29:53.710 and that positions you as a thought leader or you've already done the 440 00:29:53.710 --> 00:29:56.560 journey and you have that experience and then you can share those learnings. 441 00:29:56.840 --> 00:30:01.360 But yeah, I mean, really, I made it my goal rather than I think a lot of 442 00:30:01.360 --> 00:30:05.440 people sit there and they read these articles on like, This is how you make 443 00:30:05.440 --> 00:30:09.380 a post go viral and people think, you know, if I get that one viral post like 444 00:30:09.390 --> 00:30:13.480 I'm good, I'm set and that's not the case, and I found this time and again, 445 00:30:13.480 --> 00:30:16.120 like I thought if I got featured in Forbes, you know, my business would 446 00:30:16.120 --> 00:30:19.720 take off, and I never have to worry again that the opposite happened. I got 447 00:30:19.720 --> 00:30:22.560 2000 views on my site, and then it all dropped off the next day. You know, I 448 00:30:22.560 --> 00:30:27.490 thought if I got 1000 likes on linked in, I'd be made and and same thing 449 00:30:27.490 --> 00:30:33.330 happened. And so it's less about, and you'll learn more about what works once 450 00:30:33.330 --> 00:30:36.230 you start testing. But at the beginning, I think it's more about consistency. 451 00:30:36.240 --> 00:30:40.270 Like, can I show rather than making a commitment to get 10,000 followers in a 452 00:30:40.270 --> 00:30:44.040 month? Can I make a commitment to for the 1st 30 days I'm gonna post every 453 00:30:44.040 --> 00:30:48.830 single day? And I think that, you know, eventually you wanna make the shift to 454 00:30:48.830 --> 00:30:52.310 Okay, I understand what's resonating. How doe I maximize that. How doe I 455 00:30:52.310 --> 00:30:56.120 optimize against that. But in the beginning, you're just gonna have no 456 00:30:56.120 --> 00:30:58.610 idea. So you just need to put a lot of stuff out there, and you need to get 457 00:30:58.610 --> 00:31:02.940 yourself in the habit of the content creation pressing post and everything 458 00:31:02.940 --> 00:31:06.150 that comes along with that, you know, handling comments, handling messages, 459 00:31:06.150 --> 00:31:10.670 handling snarky people who leave you snarky comments and handling people who 460 00:31:10.670 --> 00:31:13.660 want to get on the phone with you for a now, er and all these other things that 461 00:31:13.660 --> 00:31:17.610 come with creating a presence online. And then once you have a handle on that 462 00:31:17.610 --> 00:31:20.600 once you you're you're looking at those post metrics, You know what topics were 463 00:31:20.600 --> 00:31:24.960 doing Well, what format of the posts are doing well, I mean, I would go back 464 00:31:24.960 --> 00:31:28.390 through every one of my posts, and I would say, Okay, this did better than 465 00:31:28.390 --> 00:31:31.760 the average or this did worse than average. And why is that? You know, 466 00:31:31.760 --> 00:31:34.530 could I have written a better hook, or could I have written this hook 467 00:31:34.530 --> 00:31:38.940 differently? What if I, you know, used this formatting instead of this 468 00:31:38.940 --> 00:31:42.540 formatting? Maybe I break everything up into one line versus a paragraph. We're 469 00:31:42.540 --> 00:31:45.390 talking like, pretty much every aspect of the post, and I would just do that 470 00:31:45.400 --> 00:31:50.480 every single time I posted. And so, over the course of the first six months, 471 00:31:50.490 --> 00:31:56.140 basically the way my following went, you know, I went from 3000 to about 15. 472 00:31:56.140 --> 00:32:01.230 20,000 and six months. And then we went from 20,000 to 100,000 in the next six. 473 00:32:01.230 --> 00:32:06.530 And then we went from 100,000 to now 500 some in in the next 12 months. And 474 00:32:06.530 --> 00:32:10.420 I really think the reason for that is because in the first six months, it was 475 00:32:10.420 --> 00:32:13.390 less about, like, give me more followers, give me more followers. It 476 00:32:13.390 --> 00:32:17.970 was more like I'm just gonna analyze the crap out of every single post that 477 00:32:17.970 --> 00:32:21.200 I put out there. And I'm gonna understand what worked. What didn't 478 00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:24.330 what I could do better next time. And then on top of that, I'm constantly 479 00:32:24.330 --> 00:32:28.820 experimenting with new topics, new styles, new ideas on then, you know, 480 00:32:28.820 --> 00:32:32.600 after six months, it all compounds right. It's compound interest. So you 481 00:32:32.600 --> 00:32:36.420 get to the point where you know, like this Post is gonna be killer because it 482 00:32:36.420 --> 00:32:40.110 checks all these boxes that I've seen work in the past and and then at that 483 00:32:40.110 --> 00:32:43.410 point, you're sort of off to the races. It's a lot of learning a lot of trial 484 00:32:43.410 --> 00:32:47.050 and error to figure it out. Right, So you just kinda have to get used to 485 00:32:47.050 --> 00:32:52.350 failure. E know that like for every nine failures you're gonna get that one 486 00:32:52.350 --> 00:32:55.570 win that makes it all worth it. I'm going to circle back around something 487 00:32:55.570 --> 00:32:59.790 you said that I think is fundamental, that I think I'm just gonna reemphasize 488 00:32:59.790 --> 00:33:04.290 for the audience. But you said there is essentially two different ways to kind 489 00:33:04.290 --> 00:33:07.690 of begin your journey and thought Leadership One is if you've already 490 00:33:07.690 --> 00:33:11.240 done something remarkable. And now you're just creating content about it 491 00:33:11.250 --> 00:33:14.390 and explaining how you did something awesome, which is kind of your case, 492 00:33:14.390 --> 00:33:17.230 you've done something awesome. People are asking you about it, because how 493 00:33:17.230 --> 00:33:20.570 many people have gone through the lengths you went through in order to 494 00:33:20.570 --> 00:33:24.690 figure out something that is highly desired but hardly ever done? Because 495 00:33:24.690 --> 00:33:27.880 nobody wants to put in the work to thinking about it is strategically as 496 00:33:27.880 --> 00:33:31.890 you did and then actually do the deed, which is painful, right? So that's one 497 00:33:31.890 --> 00:33:34.710 way to go. But a lot of us are probably sitting here listening to this being 498 00:33:34.710 --> 00:33:39.690 like, I don't think I've done like I ran a half marathon once, but it wasn't 499 00:33:39.690 --> 00:33:42.900 that great at top. On top of it, you're kind of like doing inventory of what 500 00:33:42.900 --> 00:33:46.400 you've done. And that's where their second piece of advice, I think, is the 501 00:33:46.400 --> 00:33:50.070 key. Not only for people who want to become a thought leader or maybe you're 502 00:33:50.070 --> 00:33:53.510 a B two b marketing, and you've been tasked with helping an executive, maybe 503 00:33:53.510 --> 00:33:56.320 your CEO becoming a thought leader. This starts to become an interesting 504 00:33:56.320 --> 00:34:01.550 play, is to not play it based on the past, but do it based on the future. 505 00:34:01.940 --> 00:34:05.610 You ask a really big question. You're like, I don't know what it takes to 506 00:34:05.610 --> 00:34:09.080 accomplish X. I don't know what it takes to reduce this. I don't know what 507 00:34:09.080 --> 00:34:13.880 it takes to do this, but I'm gonna find out. Join me on the journey, right? And 508 00:34:13.880 --> 00:34:16.889 then the beginning of your thought leadership journey starts with you just 509 00:34:16.889 --> 00:34:20.820 being a student, Probably an equally good way. In fact, if you had done that 510 00:34:20.820 --> 00:34:24.469 in the very beginning, imagine if your first tweet was like, Look, I wanna 511 00:34:24.469 --> 00:34:28.469 land an awesome job, but I have no idea where to start. I'm gonna figure it out. 512 00:34:29.139 --> 00:34:32.219 Just saying that was your first tweet and you actually had the whole process 513 00:34:32.219 --> 00:34:37.270 documented the pains, the successes you might be in a different place, right? 514 00:34:37.270 --> 00:34:40.080 If you had started earlier, but it's hard to know exactly what that thing is 515 00:34:40.080 --> 00:34:44.929 gonna be. That's gonna connect. Would you say that? That is probably people's 516 00:34:44.940 --> 00:34:50.480 If they don't have the big win to go from, is that the best play they have? 517 00:34:50.940 --> 00:34:54.429 Yeah. So most people fall in that bucket, right? Like most people have 518 00:34:54.429 --> 00:34:59.550 not done the big thing yet. But we're all or at least you know, if you're 519 00:34:59.550 --> 00:35:04.180 listening to this podcast, right, you have a desire to learn and grow and 520 00:35:04.180 --> 00:35:08.620 develop personally, and the people who are out there reading content on 521 00:35:08.620 --> 00:35:14.410 LinkedIn, they have a desire to do the same. And so all you need to do is is 522 00:35:14.410 --> 00:35:17.980 just start sharing that journey like what we talked about earlier in the 523 00:35:17.980 --> 00:35:21.270 podcast. You know, original ideas aren't aren't necessarily going to be 524 00:35:21.240 --> 00:35:25.660 flying out of your brain for a minute one, and that's okay. Like sharing 525 00:35:25.660 --> 00:35:29.530 something valuable with somebody else is a form of value, Right? So let's say 526 00:35:29.530 --> 00:35:33.220 that for Lincoln. If you have the right keywords in the right places in your 527 00:35:33.220 --> 00:35:36.830 profile, you get more visibility. And let's say that That was something that 528 00:35:36.830 --> 00:35:42.000 you I had really wanted to figure out for a long time. And so you're reading 529 00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:46.570 through posts and articles and videos, and you finally find somebody who has, 530 00:35:46.570 --> 00:35:50.170 you know, a strategy that you really like. So you implement it and you start 531 00:35:50.170 --> 00:35:54.050 getting results. Well, there's your piece of content, right? So you come to 532 00:35:54.050 --> 00:35:57.950 the post creation page and you start writing and you said, you know, I was 533 00:35:57.950 --> 00:36:00.390 really frustrated because I couldn't figure out how the heck to find 534 00:36:00.390 --> 00:36:03.470 keywords from my LinkedIn profile. And I'm sure many of you are feeling the 535 00:36:03.470 --> 00:36:08.420 same way. Here's somebody who helped me and maybe you tag them to and then you 536 00:36:08.420 --> 00:36:12.090 walk through there step by step. You know, Step one was X. Step two is why? 537 00:36:12.090 --> 00:36:15.300 And step three was e. And here, where the results. You know, I saw 1000% 538 00:36:15.300 --> 00:36:19.610 increase in 10 days or something. Well, what have you done? Like one? You 539 00:36:19.610 --> 00:36:24.330 shared this helpful piece of advice with people who are on the platform who 540 00:36:24.330 --> 00:36:27.160 may not have seen it, right? Not everybody has seen every piece of 541 00:36:27.160 --> 00:36:31.380 content. Same as you. So you're adding value in that way. But you're also 542 00:36:31.390 --> 00:36:35.750 tagging the person who shared that, that piece of advice and so one you're 543 00:36:35.750 --> 00:36:39.550 giving them credit, which is nice, but to your giving yourself the opportunity 544 00:36:39.550 --> 00:36:43.300 for them to engage with you and say like, Dan, this is so cool. Like, I'm 545 00:36:43.300 --> 00:36:46.410 so glad that you got results out of this And that comment and that, like on 546 00:36:46.410 --> 00:36:49.630 your posts, are gonna boost your visibility. And on most social media 547 00:36:49.630 --> 00:36:53.900 platforms, Um, it's also going to give you some social proof, but that's the 548 00:36:53.900 --> 00:36:57.120 best place to get started. And then you document your journey is you grow like, 549 00:36:57.130 --> 00:37:00.650 what's the next tip and the next tip and so on and so forth? And I've seen a 550 00:37:00.650 --> 00:37:04.040 lot of people on LinkedIn and a lot of people I've connected with, like, 11 551 00:37:04.040 --> 00:37:08.120 guy. His name was Joseph. I connected with him two years ago. He works in 552 00:37:08.120 --> 00:37:11.460 Blockchain, and he doesn't have. There's no traditional like degree for 553 00:37:11.460 --> 00:37:14.550 Blockchain, right? So he got in because he made a commitment to himself the 554 00:37:14.550 --> 00:37:19.320 right 75 articles about Blockchain, and he eventually started getting published 555 00:37:19.330 --> 00:37:23.830 in, you know, on Coindesk and these other websites and people saw that and 556 00:37:23.830 --> 00:37:27.660 people recognize him as a thought leader and all he would have done was 557 00:37:27.660 --> 00:37:31.110 just read everybody else's articles and the white papers and stuff and learned 558 00:37:31.110 --> 00:37:35.030 about the space and then started sharing. You know his take on that? 559 00:37:35.040 --> 00:37:40.350 Another person who's on Lincoln as well. His name's Daniel. He basically has a 560 00:37:40.350 --> 00:37:44.090 post that that he titles every week. You know what I'm doing to become a 561 00:37:44.090 --> 00:37:47.070 marketer? And he basically says, You know, I tried this this week and it 562 00:37:47.070 --> 00:37:49.590 worked or didn't work. And I tried this other thing and it worked and it didn't 563 00:37:49.590 --> 00:37:53.280 work. And people glom onto it because well, on, everybody likes, like the 564 00:37:53.280 --> 00:37:56.540 rocky montage, right? Like we see him chasing the chicken and he doesn't 565 00:37:56.540 --> 00:37:59.020 catch it, doesn't catch. And then, you know, we're all waiting for the moment 566 00:37:59.020 --> 00:38:03.810 that he catches it. But then people are also gaining value out of the fact that 567 00:38:03.810 --> 00:38:07.930 this person is essentially sharing the advice that's working and not working, 568 00:38:07.930 --> 00:38:11.610 which is great for validation purposes, right? Like we all want to know what 569 00:38:11.610 --> 00:38:14.990 works and doesn't work. And so if we see somebody say, Hey, this doesn't 570 00:38:14.990 --> 00:38:18.040 work. We're not going to spend our time there. Or if it does, you know we will. 571 00:38:18.040 --> 00:38:22.640 But we appreciate that. And so you don't necessarily have to have done the 572 00:38:22.640 --> 00:38:26.360 thing already, right? You can share these ideas as you're going through 573 00:38:26.360 --> 00:38:30.510 that process, and you're gonna build that following as Ugo. And then when 574 00:38:30.510 --> 00:38:33.670 you get to the top of the mountain, you're already gonna have all these 575 00:38:33.670 --> 00:38:37.420 people who have been with you on the journey. And that's the easiest way. If 576 00:38:37.420 --> 00:38:40.450 you want to monetize at that point or do something else, what better way than 577 00:38:40.450 --> 00:38:42.880 to say like, Hey, you all have been following me and you've seen what I've 578 00:38:42.880 --> 00:38:46.840 done. And here are the results. Like, I've consolidated all this info into a 579 00:38:46.840 --> 00:38:50.670 course or a podcast or a workshop or whatever. And then, boom, you're you're 580 00:38:50.670 --> 00:38:55.440 good to go. But yeah, by no means do you have to be whoever you know what 581 00:38:55.440 --> 00:38:59.320 pick pick an influential person by no means you have to be them now. We all 582 00:38:59.320 --> 00:39:04.520 started somewhere. Absolutely, man, I love the illustration of going up a 583 00:39:04.520 --> 00:39:08.180 mountain. It's like e mean thought. Leadership kind of is like that right, 584 00:39:08.180 --> 00:39:11.540 like there's not a clear path. But you know, you're going up and you know, 585 00:39:11.540 --> 00:39:14.900 there's a lot of zigzagging. There's a lot of switchbacks to get there. A lot 586 00:39:14.900 --> 00:39:19.300 of relationships you gotta form content, you have to write. It really is kind of 587 00:39:19.300 --> 00:39:25.080 a rugged, rugged journey to get there. I think my last question for you is, 588 00:39:25.520 --> 00:39:30.370 where does thought leadership play into the role of your role of a career? Like 589 00:39:30.370 --> 00:39:34.050 obviously, you can use it to build a business, you know, sell information, 590 00:39:34.420 --> 00:39:37.820 Um, but where else does it play in? I think we're in a day in an age where 591 00:39:37.830 --> 00:39:42.700 there's a lot of flexibility with careers from side hustles, thio 592 00:39:42.710 --> 00:39:46.490 businesses to careers to part time careers, there's kind of like a mix in 593 00:39:46.490 --> 00:39:52.100 there. And where do you see it going? Yeah, I mean, where to start, I guess, 594 00:39:52.110 --> 00:39:58.540 is the best way to open it up building, building a presence online and and 595 00:39:58.540 --> 00:40:03.140 creating you know, we're positioning yourself as a thought leader is just 596 00:40:03.140 --> 00:40:06.940 one of the most beneficial things you could do for so many reasons, right? So 597 00:40:06.910 --> 00:40:10.330 when we when we think about what we talked about as it's sort of a theme at 598 00:40:10.330 --> 00:40:15.250 the beginning of this episode where now a lot of people are doing something 599 00:40:15.260 --> 00:40:18.600 right, and that may not necessarily be the best thing. So you're you're 600 00:40:18.600 --> 00:40:22.200 looking for a job you're applying online or you're wondering how to be a 601 00:40:22.200 --> 00:40:24.510 thought leader. But you haven't started posting yet, and you're just kind of 602 00:40:24.510 --> 00:40:27.990 holding off because you're afraid or you're worried or you don't know where 603 00:40:27.990 --> 00:40:32.020 to go or whatever it ISS. So they're these channels that most people end up 604 00:40:32.020 --> 00:40:37.190 in right, and when you step out of that, you start creating content and you 605 00:40:37.190 --> 00:40:40.500 start putting your thoughts out there. You automatically separate yourself 606 00:40:40.510 --> 00:40:45.350 because when there are so many, it's it's a zits. True with anything. When 607 00:40:45.350 --> 00:40:49.990 there is a high quantity in a channel, it makes it hard to differentiate right 608 00:40:49.990 --> 00:40:54.880 and especially when the means of differentiation aren't clear. So, you 609 00:40:54.880 --> 00:40:59.660 know, we've logged on Thio, Jimmy John's business coaching website, right, 610 00:40:59.660 --> 00:41:03.680 and it has the same stuff it's all like, Do you want to accelerate your results 611 00:41:03.680 --> 00:41:06.850 to extend a month like get a consultation with Jimmy John or 612 00:41:06.850 --> 00:41:09.770 whatever it is? And like the website and the layout. Everything is all the 613 00:41:09.770 --> 00:41:13.810 same. And so like, how do you pick Jimmy John versus 100 other coaches? 614 00:41:13.810 --> 00:41:17.950 Like I was just looking for, ah, coach for my business And I went and I 615 00:41:17.960 --> 00:41:21.720 Googled business coach and I went on LinkedIn and I typed it in, and it took 616 00:41:21.720 --> 00:41:28.110 me hours to find somebody who seemed like they got it, because everybody was 617 00:41:28.110 --> 00:41:31.500 just saying the exact same thing. And so that's usually true on a resume 618 00:41:31.500 --> 00:41:35.340 that's usually true in a lot of businesses. And so it's really hard to 619 00:41:35.340 --> 00:41:40.230 identify. You know who truly stands out, who's truly worth that time or the 620 00:41:40.230 --> 00:41:44.380 investment or whatever it's gonna be. And when you start creating content, 621 00:41:44.380 --> 00:41:48.580 you immediately separate yourself from the masses in that group. So there's 622 00:41:48.580 --> 00:41:53.370 this thing called the 99 1 rule or, alternatively, the 1% rule. It has a 623 00:41:53.370 --> 00:41:56.850 Wikipedia page. You can look it up, but it essentially applies to online 624 00:41:56.850 --> 00:42:01.180 communities. Or, you know, in this example, any community where when you 625 00:42:01.180 --> 00:42:06.230 have a critical mass of people, 1% of that group is gonna be creating content. 626 00:42:06.500 --> 00:42:11.750 So 1% are posting their writing they're creating videos. They're putting stuff 627 00:42:11.750 --> 00:42:18.110 out there. 9% are engaging, so they're not creating content yet. But they are 628 00:42:18.120 --> 00:42:23.400 commenting. They're sharing their liking, they're engaging. And then 90% 629 00:42:23.410 --> 00:42:28.050 are lurkers. Essentially observers who aren't interacting in any capacity, not 630 00:42:28.050 --> 00:42:31.740 creating content, not commenting, not sharing anything. They're just watching. 631 00:42:31.800 --> 00:42:36.270 And so when we put that in the context of thought leadership like, if you are 632 00:42:36.270 --> 00:42:41.290 not sharing your thoughts in anyway, you are part of the 90% and it's really 633 00:42:41.290 --> 00:42:46.880 hard to stand out when you're in the 90%. But when you as a baby step, maybe 634 00:42:46.880 --> 00:42:51.710 start commenting on posts, your you automatically shifted to the 9%. But 635 00:42:51.710 --> 00:42:56.430 when you start creating your own posts, you've moved into the 1%. And so when 636 00:42:56.430 --> 00:43:01.010 you're in the 1% you know, that's rare air, right? You stand out like, very 637 00:43:01.010 --> 00:43:05.280 visibly, and people know exactly what you bring to the table, and anything 638 00:43:05.290 --> 00:43:09.490 can happen at that point. So, you know, when you're looking for a job, you 639 00:43:09.490 --> 00:43:12.710 submit a resume or whatever it is, you know, the hiring team is gonna go 640 00:43:12.710 --> 00:43:18.080 search for your name, and what comes up is it. You know your your Pinterest 641 00:43:18.080 --> 00:43:20.840 profile, your instagram, your personal instagram That's private or all this 642 00:43:20.840 --> 00:43:24.490 other stuff. Or is it your block or is it Thies linked in post? Or is it a 643 00:43:24.490 --> 00:43:28.230 podcast that you have like those things matter and that really changes the 644 00:43:28.230 --> 00:43:33.280 perception of who you're hiring? And on top of that, that is the best form of 645 00:43:33.280 --> 00:43:36.520 networking. It's like scaled networking, right? Because I put a post out there 646 00:43:36.520 --> 00:43:40.540 and people see that post and they may be agree with it, or they're inspired 647 00:43:40.540 --> 00:43:44.690 by it or whatever it is. And now they're coming back for more. And so I 648 00:43:44.690 --> 00:43:49.950 just had a conversation with somebody who she was unemployed and she started 649 00:43:49.950 --> 00:43:53.780 posting on LinkedIn and she ended up messaging me. And I gave her a couple 650 00:43:53.780 --> 00:43:57.650 pieces of advice and she continued posting, and she ended up landing a VP 651 00:43:57.650 --> 00:44:01.310 of marketing role. She was in marketing previously, but she ended up landing 652 00:44:01.310 --> 00:44:06.880 this role because of a conversation she had with somebody who saw her posts. 653 00:44:06.880 --> 00:44:10.740 And they said, I really like what you what you're saying What what The idea 654 00:44:10.740 --> 00:44:14.080 is that you have. I think this is what we needed. Our company. Let's bring you 655 00:44:14.080 --> 00:44:18.350 in for an interview. And so, no resume, no online application, no, nothing else. 656 00:44:18.350 --> 00:44:22.820 Just I really like what you're putting out there, and these are the types of 657 00:44:22.830 --> 00:44:26.010 things that can happen when when you put yourself out there and you put your 658 00:44:26.010 --> 00:44:30.530 ideas out there and so I think just to sum it up when you're in the 90% when 659 00:44:30.530 --> 00:44:34.100 you're using the traditional channels, you don't have a lot of control over 660 00:44:34.100 --> 00:44:38.240 your message. And it's also a lot harder to understand the message that 661 00:44:38.240 --> 00:44:42.140 you're bringing to the table. Whereas if you own the message and you are, you 662 00:44:42.140 --> 00:44:45.440 know, pushing it out there it is what you want it to be, and it can be 663 00:44:45.440 --> 00:44:49.300 crystal clear. And that's so much easier to resonate with than you know, 664 00:44:49.300 --> 00:44:53.110 trying to decipher, resume or understand. You know how this coach is 665 00:44:53.110 --> 00:44:56.080 different from them from that coach, or how this piece of SAS software is 666 00:44:56.080 --> 00:44:59.600 different from this other companies piece of SAS software. So there's so 667 00:44:59.600 --> 00:45:03.000 many benefits. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's really about, you 668 00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:06.580 know, controlling your brand. Your presence what people think of you. And 669 00:45:06.580 --> 00:45:10.370 I think those numbers the 99 1 rule. I think that's the best way to illustrate 670 00:45:10.370 --> 00:45:14.270 just how how much you could stand out. If you start doing this. I love it 671 00:45:14.270 --> 00:45:17.480 because it's one of those things that you could just chip away at slowly. And 672 00:45:17.480 --> 00:45:20.910 if you you fall off the bandwagon, you're not starting from zero again. 673 00:45:21.190 --> 00:45:24.130 Like whatever you've made counts for you. Unlike working out or whatever you 674 00:45:24.130 --> 00:45:27.560 could go back down to near zero. Mentally, you get to keep it like 675 00:45:27.560 --> 00:45:31.530 knowing that you've gotten there before. But when it comes to content, all the 676 00:45:31.530 --> 00:45:34.700 work you've done before on that block, even if you lot you didn't touch it for 677 00:45:34.700 --> 00:45:39.220 six months like it's still there like it's still portfolio work that you have 678 00:45:39.230 --> 00:45:44.000 that represents you. So it really does make a difference to go and produce it. 679 00:45:44.090 --> 00:45:48.620 I'd say even the 1% is the one making content. But if you become and start 680 00:45:48.620 --> 00:45:51.910 contributing unique ideas or thoughts and become that thought were you become 681 00:45:51.910 --> 00:45:57.150 like the 10.1% of the 1% right, which really starts to get noticed and I love 682 00:45:57.150 --> 00:45:59.810 that idea. I'm gonna have to go find the Wikipedia page because I was like, 683 00:45:59.990 --> 00:46:05.630 Wow. Yeah, I'll send it to you, Dan. But the best example I have of what you 684 00:46:05.630 --> 00:46:09.460 mentioned, you know, the security blanket thing is so huge. So Pat Flynn 685 00:46:09.470 --> 00:46:12.400 of smart passive Income is a pretty well known person in the marketing 686 00:46:12.400 --> 00:46:15.810 space in the podcast space and all the stuff. But his story of how he got 687 00:46:15.810 --> 00:46:20.050 started is just the best example that I can think of, Especially given the 688 00:46:20.050 --> 00:46:24.400 times that we're in now. Um, you know, he was an architect and specifically 689 00:46:24.400 --> 00:46:28.140 focused on sustainable architecture back in in a way. And you may already 690 00:46:28.140 --> 00:46:31.910 know this story, but essentially, he was studying for this exam that the 691 00:46:31.910 --> 00:46:35.000 lead exam, which you know, if you wanna be in the space, you need that 692 00:46:35.000 --> 00:46:40.190 certification. And he just started blogging about his study habits and 693 00:46:40.190 --> 00:46:42.950 what was working for him and what wasn't. And this is exactly what we 694 00:46:42.950 --> 00:46:48.310 just talked about, right? Like I am, I am not an expert. Yeah, but here here 695 00:46:48.310 --> 00:46:52.650 is me, documenting the process of becoming an expert. And so many people 696 00:46:52.650 --> 00:46:57.470 in his space and talk about niche like we're studying for a sustainable energy 697 00:46:57.480 --> 00:47:02.400 architectural er exam like That's pretty niche down, right? And so he's 698 00:47:02.400 --> 00:47:04.940 checking all the boxes so far that we're talking about. And he just 699 00:47:04.940 --> 00:47:10.010 started putting out this content. He builds an audience and all of a sudden 700 00:47:10.010 --> 00:47:13.940 away, you know, the financial crisis hits and Pat gets laid off and what 701 00:47:13.940 --> 00:47:19.160 happens? Well, he compiles all that information into a study guide. He 702 00:47:19.160 --> 00:47:23.900 sells it and he ends up making a little bit of money. And then he continues on. 703 00:47:23.900 --> 00:47:27.500 And now all of a sudden, I mean, now he's bringing in, you know, 7 to 8 704 00:47:27.500 --> 00:47:31.810 figures a year with his business, and we're obviously 12 years removed. But 705 00:47:31.780 --> 00:47:35.630 at the very beginning, he was able to quickly replace his salary because he 706 00:47:35.630 --> 00:47:40.470 had already been creating this brand and positioning himself as a thought 707 00:47:40.470 --> 00:47:44.200 leader in this specific space before he needed it. And I think that's so true 708 00:47:44.200 --> 00:47:46.830 with anything in business, right? Like dig your well before you need to drink 709 00:47:46.830 --> 00:47:51.840 from it. But having that brand is the best form of security that you can have, 710 00:47:51.850 --> 00:47:54.920 and it really unlocks you know anything that you want to do? If you want a job 711 00:47:54.920 --> 00:47:57.380 at this company, your brands gonna help you get there. If you want to start a 712 00:47:57.380 --> 00:47:59.500 business, your brands gonna help you get there. If you wanna be a better 713 00:47:59.500 --> 00:48:02.480 salesperson, your brand is gonna help you get there like anything you want to 714 00:48:02.480 --> 00:48:06.560 do in your professional life. This brand is only going to accelerate your 715 00:48:06.560 --> 00:48:11.590 ability to succeed. So if you listen to this now, you're like hope you're 716 00:48:11.600 --> 00:48:17.970 inspired to get started and that you've gotten some advice and some tips on 717 00:48:17.970 --> 00:48:21.150 where to start. I think the best thing you could dio is to look at where 718 00:48:21.150 --> 00:48:25.400 you're at and just ask a big question and start two former journey to get 719 00:48:25.400 --> 00:48:29.670 that question answered for yourself and just start posting your journey as you 720 00:48:29.670 --> 00:48:32.850 get there. I mean, Gary V talks a lot about documenting, but it's always 721 00:48:32.850 --> 00:48:36.380 confusing. Like what do you document that journey? That's what you document. 722 00:48:36.390 --> 00:48:39.870 And I think that's the missing piece to his advice, actually, is that you need 723 00:48:39.870 --> 00:48:44.590 to call out where you're going and then bring people there as you go. Well, 724 00:48:44.590 --> 00:48:47.960 cool. Thank you so much for joining me on this show. Austin, if people want to 725 00:48:47.960 --> 00:48:51.780 learn more about you and crafted culture and how they could learn more 726 00:48:51.780 --> 00:48:54.440 about how to land their own dream jobs, where's the best place to find you 727 00:48:54.440 --> 00:48:57.750 online? Yeah, so definitely, You know, we talked a lot about it, but Lincoln 728 00:48:57.760 --> 00:49:02.720 is a great spot. I post there still daily for the most part, and yeah, so 729 00:49:02.720 --> 00:49:05.540 feel free to connect with me there. And then just the website called 730 00:49:05.550 --> 00:49:08.800 viticulture dot com. We have a lot of free tools for job seekers we have. You 731 00:49:08.800 --> 00:49:12.500 know, a lot of the stuff we talked about today is still, you know, it 732 00:49:12.500 --> 00:49:15.760 exists on the block, right? The first post I ever wrote that kind of kicked. 733 00:49:15.760 --> 00:49:18.920 This whole thing off is pinned right to the top. People want to take a look at 734 00:49:18.920 --> 00:49:23.510 that. So yeah, the site and linked in those air to great places. Fantastic. 735 00:49:23.510 --> 00:49:25.690 Again. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me down 736 00:49:27.070 --> 00:49:27.280 home. 737 00:49:29.770 --> 00:49:33.100 For the longest time, I was asking people to leave a review of B two B 738 00:49:33.110 --> 00:49:37.090 growth in apple podcasts, but I realized that was kind of stupid 739 00:49:37.100 --> 00:49:42.540 because leaving a review is way harder than just leaving a simple rating. So 740 00:49:42.540 --> 00:49:46.330 I'm changing my tune a bit. Instead of asking you to leave a review, I'm just 741 00:49:46.330 --> 00:49:50.520 gonna ask you to go to BBB growth in Apple podcasts. Scroll down until you 742 00:49:50.520 --> 00:49:54.470 see the ratings and review section and just tap the number of stars you wanna 743 00:49:54.470 --> 00:50:00.260 give us No review necessary Super easy. And I promise it will help us out a ton. 744 00:50:00.270 --> 00:50:04.320 If you want a copy of my book content based networking, just shoot me a text. 745 00:50:04.330 --> 00:50:07.550 After you leave the rating on, I'll send one your way. Text me at 746 00:50:07.550 --> 00:50:12.280 4074903328