Growth Madness - The Power of Collaboration

Business brain, episode 535 for Wednesday, March 27th, World Theater Day. A business that deserves to be in business like any other 2024. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take a few ideas with, we dissect them, we analyze them, we discuss them so that we can each use them to tune our business brains every single time we get together. Sponsors for this episode include shopify.com, businessbrain, where you can go to sign up for your $1 per month trial period. We'll talk more in depth about that in a little bit. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton, and I'm still out.

Here in kind of sunny California, back from the snow. We were in Tahoe. Tahoe this weekend. It was amazing. Tons of Snow, like, like 2 or 3ft over the weekend.

Oh, wow, that's a lot. We got. Actually, where I am in New Hampshire, we only got me, let's say 4 or 5 inches maybe on Saturday. But we're kind of down near the coast here. The inner portions and northern portions of the state got like, you, you know, 20 inches, 25 inches kind of thing.

So, yeah, it was fun. We had a great time. It's always good when you're inside sitting by the fire.

Yeah.

You know, relaxing with good friends. That's the time to be stuck in the snow. Like when you're driving over the mountain.

No, it was perfect. I was supposed to have a band rehearsal on Saturday morning, and two of the people that would have come were coming from maybe about an hour away. And so they didn't. It was. It was snowing actively on Saturday morning. They're like, ah, let's push off. And so we did, but it gave me the day to, like, sit by the fire. And we played some board games with the family and just hung. And it was super chill and super laid back.

Super. So. Yeah, I love it, too. While I was there, I heard this fact, this little tidbit about the Hoover Dam.

Okay.

And I was thinking along the lines, I'm a big fan. We talk about it a lot on the show. Persistence and bullheaded persistence.

Yes.

I was just arguing with somebody today about their com, kind of this early bird gets the worm thing. And I was like, no, nope, that's not the way it works. But this, this tidbit of information that I heard was that friend of ours had recently gone to the Hoover Dam.

Okay.

And at the bottom of the Hoover Dam, it's massively, I guess, wide with concrete cement.

Yes.

Maybe there's difference, but let's just say concrete.

Sure.

I think it's like 600ft wide. It's some crazy number like that.

Yeah, yeah.

And the concrete is still not done curing.

Yes. I remember we were able to do a tour when we were there in like the late 90s. You can't do it that the tour we did. You can't do anym but duty more. Yeah. Because I think after 911 all that changed.

Yeah, they were down there pretty deep, I guess.

Yeah.

I said, yeah, these, the concrete that's down here, it will be a hundred years for it to cure. And it was built like in the 30s or something, so it's got another 10 year, whatever supposedly years to cure. And I thought, man, that like what a great analogy to talk about being persistent and how to create success. Because here's you know, Hoover Dam after all these years and you know, the gazillions of gallons of water it holds back or whatever energy it produces.

Yeah.

And it's still not done.

It's still not done. Yeah, yeah.

I just, I. As we were talking about today and thinking about, you know, how we've made it, how we've done this show for 10 years. When I tell people we've done this show for 10 years, they're like what? You know, and so yeah, just being persistent, paying off, you know, showing up every time and just, you know, getting it done.

Yeah, it's true. And maybe if your friends were down that far, maybe that they. When we did it, they called it the whole damn tour. I think they were. And so maybe that's opened up again. Yeah, yeah.

You went to some pretty narrow tunnels.

Yes.

That you know, they're way down at the bottom. They were talking about how they didn't use rebar at all. They use these refrigeration things.

Exactly. Yeah.

Thought that was interesting too. They didn't because they didn't think they needed it. It would cure faster without the rebar. Could you imagine, would that be 200 years or I don't know, 50 years? But all great things take time. And if so many people quit right when it's starting to go like this and, and you know, it's. It's especially in business that we talk about on the show. It's just grinding it. Grinding. I mean, you know, we did this show for two years before anything really. I think interesting happened. Sponsors started coming regularly and I mean it was interesting for us. I loved the first two years too.

Yeah. But we were finding our way. I mean in A sense we are still finding our way. We are in that we're always open to morphing it based on what we're interested in, what you're interested in, all of those things. So, yeah, yeah. So if you Businessbrain show.

I was just going to say that. Tell us what you want to hear.

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Yeah, I have and I've been talking about a lot. But I want to broaden the conversation a little bit.

Okay.

And talk about what it how it's been helping me in Other areas as well.

Got it.

So I'm making. I'm trying to make this transition from product sales, which I've done my whole life.

Yes.

Talked about it here on the show ad nauseam, to selling my knowledge and being able to somehow monetize what I know. Be an advisor, coach, that kind of thing. But that's. That's far down the road. That's future casting way down the road.

Okay.

See how that happens.

And.

Excuse me. And I started to, you know, play around with X. You've been on it for a while when it was Twitter. We still call it Twitter. I don't know how many years it's going to go away, but. And for a while I was just kind of plugging away. I think I started with like 30 followers and I didn't really know what I was doing. Just like everything else.

Yeah, right.

But I love that zero to one aspect of, you know, figuring out something else. And it. I got going with it and I stumbled into a group of guys that were helping each other grow.

And then kind of like a mastermind group. Ish.

In informally.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of mastermind groups are informal. Like.

That's right. It was. Yeah, informal. And nobody was paying any attention to me on X. And I couldn't figure out why.

Sure.

Now I know it's just the way things work. You're a certain level. But I started doing the T shirt quote. You know, I always say that should be a T shirt. We talk about it. So I created some graphics and started posting these T shirt images into these posts of these bigger accounts. Like, that's a great quote you did. Or great line you said. And I would take a picture or I'd make a picture and post it. I got some attention.

Right.

Met with these, you know, talk with these other groups or guys and they posted. Hey, this has helped us. We've been helping each other in the background. We're going to let five people come in and do the same with you and start this group and see if it could help you. Okay, sign up here. I was like, oh, yeah, man, I totally want to sign up. Well, it turns out about 175 people also wanted it. And so everybody signed up. So they formalized this group. They called it Growth Madness. I think that's going to change. And built this concept kind of around the March Madness bracket kind of thing, which I don't know anything about. But, you know, it's just kind of elimination something to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it was. And they built a slack you know, create a slack workspace. They had folks come in on a weekly basis and do zoom calls to. We could get tips on growing on X and everything. But along the way, something really powerful started happening. We got broken up into pods of 10 people in each pod to compete on a pod, on a, A group level and on an individual level. And it was all focused on growing followers because that's okay. You know, that's who we want. We want to have some kind of network influence, whatever.

Sure.

And my, you know, niche is small business and talking just like we are here. I, I basically post stuff that I've talked about here and that I'm going to talk about. And what I found was really fascinating is that it reminded me how I really kind of isolated myself after selling Tech Restore. I started this, that handbag experiment and that did Great. Did almost $4 million in business. It was great. All, all good, but all by myself.

Right, right.

And. And I've kind of been. I mean, even though I consider myself an outsider, I've been members of groups and, you know, gone to trade shows. We've done them here, conferences and all stuff. And, and that was really missing. And I feel, and I'm. It's a little hyperbole, but I kind of feel like X saved me because I immediately connected with. Not immediately.

Let me put that up. Yeah.

It's taken months, right?

Yeah.

But I got involved with a group of other account holders and I talk with them every day. I share ideas with them. We talk business. We do business therapy just like we do here. And we focus on growth. We're helping to grow our account, you know, do all these kinds of things. But it's, but it's much more than that. And it reminded me the importance of peer groups and advisory groups or whoever. And, you know, we've had people on the show that have talked about joining the CEO. We had the, the, the founder of. Is it Roundtable of CEO. CEO Roundtable.

CEO Roundtable. Yeah. Yeah.

Wit K. Yeah. I forget his first name, but that show where he talked about people joining his group and then we had members of that group come on the show that talked about the benefit of it. So I just wanted to mention it again how. And if you're interested in this growth madness thing on X, you can just message me and I'll tell you they're going to do another cohort as another name for it, I guess.

Cohorts a group. Yep.

Cohorts a group. Yeah, that's right. Fancy name. And so you can sign up for the next round. I, I'm somehow still in it. There's eight, nine of us left.

Oh, wow.

After that. And I'm still in it. And so I'm grinding away every day and learning.

All right, so I tell, tell me what you think. Yeah, no, no, no, no. I, like when you told me you were joining this, I thought, well, this is interesting. Like he'll pay more attention on X and, and learn the platform, which is fine.

It.

The idea of focusing on growing followers is something I've seen folks do on X. I've never focused on it. Right, but you have a lot.

You've got over 7,000.

Yeah, I've got like 7,000 followers. But it was very, but it was never organic. It was organic. Right. And, and, and all just sort of. I call it like the ripple effect. Like it's just the, I don't want to say accidental, but you have a.

Very big network, but your flywheel is much bigger.

So. And I also. Digital perspective started on Twitter, like not quite at day one, but pretty early on. Yes. And the first people that were on Twitter were a tech audience. Right. So it all made sense. And, and that's when I, you know, when people started complaining about Twitter getting full of politics and all that other crap, you.

This to me. Yeah, I remember this is you just like, well, mine isn't.

Like mine isn't. And now I know has been right there is mine.

Mine's all business related. It depends on what you look at.

It's what you want it to be and what you engage with and all that stuff.

Thank you for telling me that.

Yeah, of course. And so. But like I've watched people pay to grow their followers. Right. Like, you know all of that.

Right.

And it's like, well, I don't know that the number matters as much as some people think it does because you certainly don't earn money based on the number unless you do. Unless you're in some kind of competition where there may be a prize at the end or something. But so I'm curious to you and it's. I think you've answered this question in, in what you were explaining, but I'm going to ask it again. Yeah. To you, what is of the. That you've been part of this mastermind group for the last, what, two months or something?

Couple months?

Yeah. What's the, what's the most valuable currently most valuable effect of having been part of this group?

The collaboration with other people.

That's. Okay, that makes sense.

Even people in my group. But Even people. Here's the deal with X Twitter. If you have less than a thousand followers, you're kind of. If you want exposure and you're trying to grow a network.

Yeah.

Posting is not the best use of your time. It's just, it just doesn't work that way.

Interesting.

And I could, I could go more. You're really better to spend your time commenting on other posts.

Sure. Engaging with other people. That makes perfect.

Gaining credibility. What happens is.

But then what's the. This is the part where like you're. I totally agree with you. But also what you say makes logical sense. Like if you just post and there's no one following you, no one's going to see it. Right.

Yes.

Start commenting to. That's a good way to get seen. And then some of those people will then choose to follow. Yeah.

You're building credibility.

You're building your credibility and all that stuff. Yeah. But what is the value of that? Like that's the part that it Often people get hung up on. Oh, but I gained more followers. It's like cool. But yes. You're looking for quality. Yeah.

You're looking for quality followers.

Yep.

But let me tell you how it kind of works. You're getting. And I'm new at this.

Yeah. I'm curious your perspective here. Yeah.

Yeah. And there's been a couple of like mind blowing parts.

Sure.

One of them was when one of my people I'm involved in, like the guy who's coaching our pod made the comment like, oh, you guys are, are getting DMs and then jumping on calls.

Right.

And I said what? And, and that's how it works. And I'm, I do it every day. I had two this morning. So the way it works, you're building this network up, you're building your credibility. You're then starting to share things. A good example is had about 6,000 posts to get me to a thousand followers. Okay.

Okay.

And this is just this, this is just a random. But on. On post 6000. So I made it to a thousand.

Yep.

And on my 6001 and first. First. Thank you.

I got it.

My 6001st post, I gained 1200 followers.

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Because I got more. So much more exposure.

Yes.

And so then what happens is people get. You start getting DMs and people want to talk to you and ask you about a certain thing you may have posted about. And then they'll say, can we schedule a call? I would like to like a discovery call for a half hour.

Yeah.

And those People you're talking to. And I had a call with the guy that's running a global talent business earlier this morning that wanted some tips, and I had a. What was my other call? Oh, then I had a guy. A call from a person who's in the ETA space. Entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship through acquisition.

Oh, yeah.

Which is a big. On X. Twitter.

Yep.

And so you're meeting these people and building this network. And that's how like we had Bodhi.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

On from. I rent dumpsters. And the. The Stryker Digital. Who's SEO guy.

Yeah.

So he's my guy. If anybody asks me now about SEO, I'm like, oh, you should talk to Bodie.

Yeah, Right.

And that's value. So I'm. I'm building up my tank of adding value.

No, this is interesting, right? Because that makes sense. Yeah. I've always. Early on in my, you know, as I got involved in business, I noticed that there were some people that were excellent networkers. And I don't just mean to their own benefit. In fact, what made them excellent was they seem to know everybody and they would introduce people with no expectation.

Connectors.

Yeah, connectors. Right. And. But I also noticed that these people who were expert connectors had these fabulous careers. Right. Because they were. It's the value of reciprocity. Right. They throw this out there. And it dawned on me. It was like, oh, I see. In fact, the guy who convinced me to start podcasting this guy, Mike Dunn, who at the time was working for. I think he was working for Hearst at the time.

Okay.

In their M and A department. But it was like, oh, interesting. Here's this guy working in the M and A department. Fairly, you know, powerful there, it seemed, anyway. And really what he spends his time, his downtime, if we call it that doing is just connecting people randomly. Like, you know, and it's like he's just basically throwing like, it's valuable to the other people, but the value to him is nebulous in the moment. This is a long game, but it's the long game. No, that's it. It's the long game.

It's kind of like a digital. Rotary Club, Chamber of Commerce, whatever you want to talk about it, It's. Hey, how can I help? If you go to my profile page, Shannon Jean, you'll see it just says, how can I help?

Yeah.

Because I know how to help. Because I've done a long time.

Right.

I've done this show for a decade, so I kind of have a sense of what you might need help with. You know.

Oh.

And what I found is very interesting is on these calls, which I probably do five or more a week.

Wow.

Yeah. And is that a lot of the people? The main way I'm kind of helping them is mindset.

Yep, I can see that. Sure.

Right. And perception and talking through things. But I'm getting a ton out of it because everybody likes to feel like they have something to offer.

Yeah.

Right. And so. And the group of people that I'm involved in are all in different industries. You know, I have a finance of financial planner that owns Laundromats. Another guy who's a website builder that does this I'll roast your website thing and help people make their websites better. Another guy who's a cabinet builder. Another guy in India who's an ops guy.

You're. Okay, so you're using X. You. You grew your followers to a point where you could start to actually attract valuable people.

Correct.

And now you're using that network to play the long game. Right. So I'm curious to come back to you on this in like a year.

Yeah.

And see, you know, because there will be something that, like, you're not, you're not being manipulative here, but there will be something that happens at some point, and it might be tomorrow, but more than likely it'll be within the next 18 months, probably. Right. Where there's substantial or substantive value to you, and you'll be able to point and say, you know, this wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't have joined this business partnership. I wouldn't have. What. Whatever it is that leads to it being valuable to you in a, In a. Like, financially valuable. I'll say, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Whatever it is, you'll be able to trace the path and say, you know, I met this entrepreneur because he was introduced to me by a woman that I connected with on X six months ago, and now I'm in this new business, etc. Etc. So, yes, that's your words. That's your plan. Right.

I talked about, I think just this. Yeah, yeah, I think I talked about this last week before about, you know, you start something new and you have to put a ton of energy into.

It and then it pays you back. Yeah.

And then eventually, at some point, the energy has to start to come back to you.

Yes.

Or it's not going to work. You'll fail.

Right.

I think. Well, I'm definitely getting the energy back.

That's good.

There's. There's no doubt about it. So I feel like there's something good here. And it just, you know, reminded me to mention and to talk about, you know, what. Groups don't go it alone, I guess, is what it is. The journey is better with friends, they say.

But you got to be able to, like, there's. There's risk there. There's fear there because you're putting yourself out there at first anyway in an environment where you are not the expert.

Why do you think we did a show on the alter ego effect a few weeks ago? I'm trying to understand how not to get destroyed in the comments by jackasses and trolls.

Sure.

And to have a shield, if you will. And part of having that shield is having a group behind you. I feel like I'm on the other side of the velve velvet rope.

Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Anyway, if you want to learn more about growth madness at Shannon Gene, come follow me because I'm still in the competition and. And then I'd be glad to give you some more feedback and get you signed up on the waiting list because I think they're. They're taking one.

Amazing. That's very cool. Did it cost anything to join this group, just out of curiosity?

Does not. Did this group that I joined didn't cost anything. I don't know about the future.

Sure, sure.

Because there's some expenses involved, the slack group stuff, but I think it's nominal.

Okay. Yeah. Cool. All right, well, thanks for. Thanks for walking through that, and thanks for letting me.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for hearing. I'm in it. In the thick of it. So sharing about it is great.

Yeah. Thank you. It's great. Very cool, folks. Feedback at businessbrain show is another way to find us. Make sure you check out shopify.com businessbrain. Sign up for that $1 per month trial period and keep on living that charmed life. We will. We'll see you on Friday.