Meet Brian D. Evans | Founder of Influencive

It started as like a personal project because I wanted a platform to write on. I wanted to be a writer on Forbes and Entrepreneur magazine or Inc. Magazine, but they wouldn't give me a shot.

Right.

So I said, okay, I'm just gonna make my own site. And I had this domain, influencer.com, i love the name. So I was like, okay, I'll create a platform that I can just write on. At first, honestly, my content was trash. It was not very good.

Okay.

And what happened was, in time, I started sharing with my friends and stuff, and they would just give me feedback and say, like, oh, next time you should do this better, and that better. So I just got better and better, naturally, actual feedback from people. And time. People just started loving the content. And then my friend said, hey, can I write for it too? And I said, sure. And then I just kind of created a community of people that.

So how long between you having you being the only person writing and then having some people walking in about two months. Oh, just two months?

About two months, yeah. And then I had friends start asking me to write for it as well.

Right.

You know, writing for it as well. And they started sharing things. And here's an interesting thing. Most people think that you need this huge platform to start making something go viral initially, but you don't. If you have. If I have one new writer that shares it out to his Facebook audience, for example, that might be 10 people that might share it out to 10 more people, to 20 more people. You can reach 10,000 people just by having one writer that has a semi small following. So by really focusing on those relationships, I realized I was in the relationship business, focusing on the relationships and treating people with actual respect. So I started to realize that.

Right. So actually spending time building relationships and then that guy or that friend of yours believing in your content or the whole project and then writing for you, and then. So he's got a stake in it, that he invested in it emotionally.

Yeah. And what I did was instead of saying, a lot of other publications, they'll say, oh, great article. We're just gonna change it around a little bit on you. And then it becomes like, not your voice anymore. We were doing a video right now, and I went after and changed your voice, literally the video, and said what I wanted to say over your voice. That's what people do with articles.

Ah, nice. I like the way you put it. Right.

So we say, hey, we're gonna give you a shot. Put it out there. We'll see how it does.

Right.

And that's it. And then your people that know you will say, that's in his voice. You know, that sounds like. So they're gonna like it or not like it.

Right.

It's. At least it's in your voice. It's not changed.

Right. So what's the one piece of. I know it's difficult to just narrow it down to one, but what would be the one thing that you would say to somebody who's starting afresh? Because when you're starting afresh, you're like, you know what? I've got no one who knows me. My website is just, you know, just one job in the whole universe and nobody cares.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The interesting thing is I think everybody looks for a shortcut. They look for a secret hack that's gonna make their lives better. You know, they want a method, scientific ways to do something. Even dating people come up with these techniques, like, how am I to get more girls and guys? Right? But I think it really, at the end of the day, what it worked for me was, and it sounds really simple, but it's actually super powerful. It boiled down to being a good person and actually putting my attention on the other person, like, helping people as many as much as possible. Like, if I'm meeting you for the first time, I'm thinking the entire thing I'm thinking in my mind is, what can I do for them that would be valuable for them? How can I help them? As opposed to, like, trying to pull something out of you, like, how am I going to get in, make money off this guy? How am I going to get him as a client or something? Like, I'm not even thinking that. Like, that's the last thing on my mind. I'm thinking about what can I do that's valuable to them, how can I help them? How can I promote them? How can I push their message out to the world, whatever it might be? So really being a good person, I think, is overlooked. So commonly, I think people are always looking for some secret method, but really that was, for me, the secret method.

So being a good person means you have to have empathy, patience, willingness to listen to the other guy and put their interest before yours. It has a lot of competence built into it. Right.

But here's the thing. Yes, exactly. When people want to reach a big audience, they think they stop thinking about individual relationships. They think about reaching thousands and thousands, but they stop thinking about, okay, like, what is important to you right now? So I'm thinking about individual relationships, one person. And I think in the social Media space and influencer space and entrepreneur space that gets lost because people are trying to figure out how to reach 100,000 people. But if you can't figure out how to affect one, how are you going to affect 100,000?

Right, right. So where are you taking it now?

You know, I just want to reach as many people as possible. I think people are getting the message. They're getting like the unconventional wisdom thing and they're getting like the, you know, different ideas of how to, you know, personal development to business and social media and all these different things. So really it's about reaching as many people as possible right now. That was always the goal for me, making money with influence. It wasn't my goal and it never will be. It's just about the social impact of reaching as many people as possible and having them. Because I think there's a lot of people with cool ideas, not just me, that want to help people. So I'm sure reaching as many as possible.

Sure. So we spoke about, you know, India being such a big market over there. Have you been?

I have, yeah.

Oh, you have.

I was in Mumbai. Mumbai, two years ago. My. My fiance is actually. Her family is from Mumbai.

Okay.

Yeah.

How was that experience?

I loved it. I wasn't like, I had. I heard like, some weird comments about going there and I was like. So I was kind of unsure.

Right.

But I went there and actually thought it was amazing. Like, I thought everyone was super friendly and, like, the food was great.

Right.

Everything was. I mean, in my opinion, I loved it. So. Yeah.

So any plans of coming now?

Probably go back? I don't have any specific plans, but her whole half of her family is in Mumbai. And I want to see other parts of the country too.

Right.

So next time I want to go to maybe Delhi and other places as well. So. Yeah.

What are the challenges while you're building this? What's keeping you awake at night or stressed or, you know, is there something that bothers you to say, you know what? It's not going the way, because every time you start off with a notion, but once it builds up and other people are invested into it and the way it's going, you know, I hear from everywhere the influencer is doing well, and it's an authority that everybody should reckon with now. It's a lot of responsibility built around it. So then with responsibility comes some expectations that, you know, I want it to maneuver over this path. And this is what I want. This is my kid. But I wanted to go. Everybody knows that their child and Your business is your child has its own life and own destiny. But somewhere, as a father, as a parent, you want to control that destiny. And when it's not going right, that's what I call a challenge. So any challenges to that effect?

I think we are our own worst enemy. Sometimes negative self talk or not believing in yourself. And I think, especially for entrepreneurs, I think the problem for all of us, and me especially, is even our own brain. Our brain is designed to keep us alive. So when we get a new idea, when we're excited about something, our brain says, whoa, stop, don't do that. Because it's not used to that new thing that hasn't kept us alive before. So sometimes you can talk yourself out of doing something. And I mean, that's probably, that's been the trap for me. Probably my whole life is like, I'll get really excited about something and then start talking myself out of it. But I started to rewire my brain. So when that happens, I say, no, go forward, keep going anyway. So that rewiring process for me has been huge.

Does that also include being in the company of right people who will keep pushing you forward?

Exactly. They can see like, oh, you're down today. Like, I need to help you get back up or you're too up today. I need to like pull you back to reality. So it's having the right people around you that kind of balance you out. So I think that's definitely important.

So how do you, we will walk back. How do you, how do you keep yourself motivated when a video goes viral or when, you know, when I say viral means not just for the statistics, but for the fact that you've impacted so many extra people. Is that what keeps you going? That you know what, it's, it's working. It's working.

Yeah.

Or there are some, you know, some dull days or dull weeks where you feel, oh my God, you know, it's not taking off the way I thought it should.

To me, it goes back to those one on one encounters where I'll get a message, I'll get a DM on Instagram or I'll get a message on Twitter from somebody and they'll say, man, I was really down today. And I watched your video or I saw your article, oh my God, that's amazing. And I feel so much better. And they could be in any country in the world, right? Doesn't matter where they are. To me, they could be anywhere. And just seeing those one on one reactions to things really is what keeps me going.

Right.

I Can see, I can get, I have videos that have done tens of millions of views. That means nothing to me. I mean, it means something, but it doesn't mean as much to me as getting a personal message saying, oh man, somebody I don't know.

Right.

I'll just look through my messages and I'll see. Oh, I was really feeling like crap today and I saw your, you know, your article and I just feel so much better.

So in terms of, in terms of numbers. So if somebody, you know, anybody is watching this video and wants to have a content platform like you do. Yeah. So what are the first few steps? You said you have to be passionate about it, it has to come from within, you have to be a good person. But in terms of some, you know, some technical. I know we don't want to use the word hacks, but you know, are there some, some things that you've learned over time? Said, you know, I wish I had done it differently. It would have been faster results. Although yours is a great. I love the story because it is so fast. 20. You said you write a blog and now it's influencer.com that everybody's talking about.

Yeah. I think here's the first mistake that people make is they try to perfect the content. So what happens is they get in this perpetual motion of never ever publishing anything because they want to make it perfect. What I did was I put stuff out. I didn't know if it was any good. I put it out there. People said, eh, that wasn't so good. But what happened was I was like, oh man, I need to do better next time. So I kept going, I kept going and I got feedback along the way. So I think the first step for putting something together is you can use WordPress. You can technically figure out how to set it up by doing stuff like getting a server or somewhere and setting up WordPress. But the first or even publishing on Medium, for example, is another Easy1. Or LinkedIn. If you don't want to create your own site, you can just publish there. But the first step really is putting something out there as fast as possible. If someone's watching this today, put something out tomorrow. Force yourself to put something out. And what will happen is you'll naturally get better because you're going to put that out to your friends and your family. People are gonna see that. And that's the biggest step because then you're gonna naturally want to do better because people are saying it's either good or bad, maybe it'll be great.

But if it's not.

You'll at least get feedback to do better and better and better. So I think that's the first step is just putting something out there. People try to create the perfect content, but you're not gonna get perfect if you don't just start today.

Got it.

So I think that's the first step.

Excellent. That's a good point. He's always looking for more writers, people with different ideas or whatever.

Yeah.

So this video that we're doing, you know, it reaches out to a lot of people in India and different parts of the world. So there are people, writers who can, you know, how do they reach you?

So influenceive.com contribute and they can put in, like, an application to be a writer.

Okay.

And we'll take a look at it. And it has nothing to do with their following. Just. Just like, if you come up with a cool idea, put it on there.

Right. So you're accepting writers from everywhere.

Yeah.

Anyway, okay.

We have writers in India now.

Oh, you do?

We have a couple.

Oh, excellent.

I think maybe like three or four.

And in terms of future strategy, do you think there's going to be an influence of CA in China?

We own most of them, but I think so, Yeah. I think so. I want to do. I want to reach more countries. I don't know if we'll actually set them up. I think they may just reDirect back to influencer.com but we may have that.

Right. I'm asking because, you know, I want people who are listening to this eventually to be able to come back with, you know, from all over the world. If they want to have business partnerships or alliances or contributors, I want them to come back and they, you know, I know because this video, most of it goes to a lot of audiences in India, and I know they will instantly come back, you know, to be wanting to help.

And we love India and we look.

Forward to having you there. You know, we had a bit of a chat, which we won't disclose here much, but we'll talk about that, and we look forward to seeing you there soon. Perfect. Awesome. Thanks a lot. Yeah, good.

Hold on, hold on.