Episode 032: Jason Stone - The Millionaire Mentor, Instagram Growth, and Building A Brand

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This is the Rise of the Young podcast, bringing you insights from the most innovative entrepreneurs and influencers of this era. Hosted by 17 year old entrepreneur, author, public speaker and branding expert, Casey Adams. Now let's get right into the show.

Casey Adams here. Welcome to the Rise of the Young podcast. Today on episode 32, we have the man Jason Stone with us today. Jason has been able to build an Instagram audience of over 2.7 million followers, all while building a powerful brand known as the Millionaire mentor. So, Jason, it's a pleasure to have you on, man.

Awesome, Casey, thanks for having me. What's going on, guys?

Yes, I mean, my first question I like to always start off when I have guests on is just how did your journey start as an entrepreneur?

How did my journey start? Like, how far back do you want me to go? Like my teenage years.

Just a little rundown on just how you got into the position to where you are now. A brief kind of introduction of who.

You are as a person without making it too long. I mean, I've always had that, you know, that entrepreneur spirit, that hustler spirit. Always. You know, it started from selling candy in third grade type of thing. I'm sure, like a lot of guys know about that. I mean, my first job, I was like a dishwasher when I was 13. Fast forward a couple years. That wasn't working out, obviously. I started buying and selling used cars. I started selling stuff on ebay. Anything, anything that I could do to like start making some side money, some side hustle. That's what we call the side hustle nowadays. Yeah, but, so I started selling cars, I started selling stuff on ebay. When I started Treadstone Performance, I started selling car parts. But you know, then I started going into. I went to college for mechanical Engineering. My parents put me through college. Fortunately they paid for it. I don't recommend anybody going to college if they have to pay for it. By no means don't go into student debt loans. Make your parents pay for it. They want you to go to college, they better be paying for it. Otherwise you become a hustling entrepreneur and make the money yourself. Self education is the best education, right? So I kind of put my degree to loose. I can't say it didn't help, but I could have been where I am without it. But Treadstone Performance is an engineering firm. I use my engineering background a little bit to start that business. And it's a business that's still going strong today. That's 15 years long.

It's my baby.

But fast forward a few years. So I was in Treadstone this whole time and then I started my Instagram account and that was about three years ago. And then the rest is history.

I know I watched on your interview with Gerard Adams kind of like the whole background. It was super cool how just the involvement of social media now and like regarding the next question of Instagram, how that, that's kind of the last thing you spoke of when it comes to like your Instagram audience from the forefront. Like what was your initial starting point and like did you have that long term process of like what you wanted to take with Instagram as like now that you been able to build this audience?

I mean, I had no idea what I was doing back when I started my Instagram account. I just knew that I wanted to provide some value and kind of like teach people, help people. That's where the whole mentor came from. I've always, my friends have always kind of looked up to me. I was like the most successful one out of my friends. And I've always kind of taught them what I've learned through my years of entrepreneurship. I had a couple other businesses that I started, the Treadstone, which, you know, they weren't as successful as Treadstone. So I started my account. I don't remember why. Okay, the why I remember now. I had a friend who started a supplement company on Instagram and back then, like he started a supplement company. I'm sure you guys know the big ones on Instagram now that they started from Instagram only they didn't have any other advertising route or any other advertising means besides Instagram. He's making all this money. They're selling diet plans for $100 a pop. These guys making a couple grand a day. And so me, his PayPal account in a club. One time we were, you know, partying, drinking so many. I just made two grand today, free money, all these diet plans. And he started the supplement company there thereafter. And he was using, you know, influencers to sell his product. I'm like, I gotta get on Instagram. I gotta do something. I didn't have a business that I could start or promote on Instagram, so I just started posting pictures to, you know, kind of give back and teach and help and motivate. I created like, you know, a vision board. And that's what a lot of Instagram influencers, themed influencer accounts. Not like there's a difference between a themed account and an influencer account. Influencer accounts a person, while a themed account is like a vision board. So I created an ultimate vision board for these aspiring entrepreneurs that wanted to see the big houses, the big cars. They wanted to wake up and see motivation in the morning and that it just took off. There was a dozen of accounts back when we started that we all kind of came together and helped each other grow back in the day. And three years later, everybody's got millions of followers. Kind of set the path for a lot of other accounts to follow suit. Definitely.

Definitely, yeah. Cause I mean, I know that like the whole millionaire mentor brand itself is more than just an Instagram page now. You've been able to take it and do multiple different things with it, but when it comes to the current Instagram state, because I know that there's so much motivation pages now when it comes to like a competitive aspect, but when it comes to now, like the new year, moving into 2018, what would you say to people that are on Instagram building theme pages? What would be your advice from like the get go if they're starting in 2018?

I mean, it's, it's a little hard and it's a little late to try to do a theme page when there's already thousands in the same niche. So you have to differentiate yourself and actually become an influencer. You have to have some sort of skill or personality trait that's going to set you apart from the rest because you have to put a face to the account. Like, I'm not saying it's too late to start a themed account and have no face to the name, but it does help when you're a theme account, a motivation account, and you're actually motivating people and you're a real person and you're showing face and you get on camera and you talk to your audience and you build rapport and you build that audience that's going to follow you and eventually that's going to buy from you for sure. That's what it's all about. Like, you can have a theme account and never show face. No one's ever going to come by from that account.

Yep.

So I actually hid behind my account. I tell this kind of look, this little story. A lot of how I actually started Millionaire Mentor and it was because my house was robbed. I had a personal account and I have a millionaire mentor. I have a personal account, had like 10,000 followers. I thought I was like badass. I was in school. 10,000 followers back in the day. And my house is Robin. Like social media got me robbed. I posted pictures out of town and my house obviously is empty or out of town. Some inside job. I deleted my account. I'm like, fuck social media. I'm done with social media. Yeah. This tragic event happened, invaded my privacy because of social media. And I think it was a month later that I got back on and I actually started the brand new Mentor. So actually the reason why I'm telling this story is because I hid behind my account. I hit behind my account. I didn't want people to know who I was.

Okay.

I want people to know that it was me back. I didn't have my personal anymore. And I just, I guess that worked because there was no theme pages back then. There was maybe a couple that were maybe like a good quote. He's like 12 million or something. That was one of the big quote pages back then. But there wasn't really anything else in the entrepreneur niche that was doing that. So we paved the way. I grabbed, as Gary would say, I grabbed my land grab early on, definitely. And it worked.

That's sick. That's sick. I know that. Like, regarding, I know how you said like how you got in early. So obviously you've been able to cultivate this audience and have mult millions of followers now. But when it comes to like the future of Instagram as someone that's actively involved, where do you see it going from the standpoint of now using influencers? And there's different influencer marketing things that are happening right now in the industry and it's becoming not more mainstream, but more people are knowing about it, you would say. But where do you see it going in the next one to three years regarding the entire marketing pathways that are now developed?

I think more and more ordinary people are going to become celebrities. You know, these Instagram celebrities are just going to get bigger and bigger and I think influencing Marketer, influence, influencer. Marketing is just going to get bigger and bigger and allow the average Joe to make money and take away from your. Your big stream advertising routes like tv, radio and billboards. It's going to go straight into the hands of the people.

Okay.

Corporations. So I think there's still huge opportunity for you to start building a following. Start you know, building a tribe and providing value and just, you know, cultivating that network of people and a following that even if you're not selling to them. I had no idea I was gonna be able to sell to my followers. Yeah, I had no idea that I was sitting on a gold mine. The opportunity of advertising eyeballs that I can pretty much advertise any one of my businesses to now. So whatever business I start, I have free advertising and it's. That's priceless for sure. I probably would never sell my accounts no matter what offer someone gave me because I want to. I'm an entrepreneur, serial entrepreneur that I want to start build businesses. Yep.

Dude, that's, that's sick. Regarding just how like that's your avenue now for any business you start. And I feel like even for me, like growing my audience like last year had probably the same thing like when you started around 10,000 for my personal brand. But just for me, I've been able to, whether it be land brand deals or just grow my network in general with this, I think definitely Instagram. And like regarding how we talked about before we got on the live chat about Gary Vee, like just sending a DM or building the network, that's been huge for me that I always tell people to do. But real quick back to like Jason Stone as the individual you are. What's one word that you like to describe yourself as? Just. And I always like to ask the people that I'm interviewing this question, but what's that one word?

One word? I always preach consistent consistency.

Okay.

There's a lot of, a lot of people and ideas are diamond dozen. Everybody has an idea and I come up with a different business idea every other week. An idea every day almost. But if you're gonna stick with something, at least stick with it consistently for a good few years. You know, building a brand takes time. Everybody wants to start and then jump. You see it failed and want to jump to the next thing or the next Shiny ball syndrome, shiny object syndrome. People always want to jump on the next opportunity. But if you're just consistent with one thing for five years at least you're gonna be successful with that. Yeah, they become a Pro and become, you know, give people consistency, gains respect. And that's one of my favorite quotes. The more you're consistent with something, the more other people respect you, Other brands respect you. That's it.

I love it. I love it. So when it comes to, like, you as an entrepreneur, I know people, whether it be following you or just people in general that, let's say are starting, because I do have a lot of young listeners that listen to this. When it comes to your entrepreneur journey thus far, there's a lot of success happening. You've been able to build this massive page, but what's one setback that has happened in your life that you had to overcome to now get to where you are today?

Tough question. I don't like talking about my setbacks.

I don't know.

I can't really. I can't think of like one particular one setback.

It's all good. If not.

Setbacks that people have, I mean, they can come up with. You know, you guys are. Everybody is not a victim of their circumstances. So a lot of people want to make excuses of why they can do something or why they are not able to start a business or they don't have no money, or I grew up over here, or I was raised in this type of family environment. That's not an excuse as to why you don't need to do something. I believe that you can do anything you put your mind to and you can start a business with no money. I started selling, Literally, I started selling parts on ebay from my garage, my house. I learned how to sell. I learned how to do customer service. I took that money and I bought something. You know, the arbitrage. I bought something on ebay. I turned around, repackaged it a little bit, cut it up, and then resold it five different ways. Yeah. You know, tripled up. So it doesn't take a lot of money to start a business. Like, people think this might take a little bit more time. That's no excuse.

Cool. Cool. Love it. So when it comes to, I always like to give people, like a practical thing that they can take away from each and every episode. When it comes to just building an audience in general on Instagram, whether it be someone already has an audience and they're trying to just grow it faster, what would be like two practical tips that you'd give to someone regarding Instagram growth?

Networking. If you want to grow your following, you need a network. You need to cross promote. You need to network with other entrepreneurs, other accounts in your niche, other businesses. In your niche, instead of competing with them, you join forces and you team up to share the following. And that was one of the key successes to our growth. The first couple years of Instagram was our organic growth because we didn't compete with each other. We teamed up cross promoting.

Okay.

Business trying to get more followers, individuals trying to get more followers. You just got to network with other people in your industry. Sure, for sure.

So I got two more questions for you, Jason. So first one, another one regarding success in general. When it comes to the word success, who's the first person that comes to your mind when you hear that word?

Gotta say Ty, even though he's a little corny sometimes, you know, he's a little flashy, you know, grand, obviously. But Ty is just like a genius social media marketer.

Yep.

And he did what? You know, I was the first to actually promote digital products on Instagram with my account info, products, courses, stuff like that. And he did a great job of doing that with all his digital products.

Boom, there it is. Alright, so my last question, just regarding the entire journey thus far when it comes to just the entire branding aspect of Millionaire Mentor, because I know a lot of people may be listening, they have pages, but whether that be they're not converting on them or they don't have that true following like you have on your page, what would be like a few, two branding tips when it comes to like actually cultivating a real audience that follows you for you?

Yeah, it's just putting yourself out there more. Being vulnerable, showing emotion, showing you're a real person. Show your day to day, show your lifestyle. Even if you don't have a lifestyle, you know, give as much value as you can. There's something called learn, do, teach. If you don't have any value, go out and learn something, do it a little bit and then teach it.

Yep.

For sure. You got nothing. You got to start giving. You got to start learning a skill. Learn a skill, YouTube study, you know, the computers, everything's right at your fingertips. You can learn whatever you want. You don't have to pay for courses, even though courses fast track your success. Pretty much learn everything just by watching YouTube videos, different people's blogs, and the more knowledge you soak up, the more you can teach their audience, the more people are gonna respect you and follow you. Because you're teaching them a skill that you just learned. Yeah. They might think you're a professional. You've been doing it for five, 10 years, but you just learned it.

Yeah.

So you have to, you have to Develop skills. And I tell people all the time, they're like, I don't know what to do with my life. I don't know what route to take. Learn a skill. Learn Facebook ads. Takes a few weeks to learn Facebook ads. You really want to learn it? Go out and direct message. Get into the dm, Start messaging companies. I'll do your Facebook ads for free. I'll get your results for free. You don't have to pay me. Pay for the ads. Show people results. Start a business instantly. There's so many people that are doing that right now. It's the social media management. Every business needs social media management. One post per day goes a long way for a business that doesn't do any posts. For sure. For sure. You can give a business one post a day and they'll pay you thousand dollars a month. Yep, definitely.

Cool. I mean yeah. Cuz even for me if, regarding how you said like even when I started, cuz I'm 17 right now and everyone listening, maybe young, maybe older, like I started like my first content, you could say I used to do a lot of like Snapchat growth marketing and stuff and I was able to build a following of a couple thousand people and that was my first like channel of whether it be the books I was reading or the things I was learning, I was just kind of reteaching it. And, and then when it comes to like my, my first thing was affiliate marketing. I was then selling products based on what I was talking about. And just that's for me just learning something new. And that's kind of started my journey that's led me to different things. So I love how you said that just regarding the learning and teaching because you can always teach something to someone if you've learned something new. You know what I'm saying?

You know, you got a Snapchat, you acted like a professional at Snapchat. Then you're able to sell them digital products and become an affiliate marketer.

Yep, for sure.

Learn how to do Snapchat. You know we learn how to. I learned to do Instagram so people respect that I can teach them how to grow their Instagram.

Yeah.

That I can teach them how to do other things as well. For sure.

Well, well, that being said, Jason, first off, thank you so much for coming on. And then last thing is for the people that may not know what's what your Instagram account is, I'd love for you to just let them know what's the best place that they can connect with you.

Obviously at Millionaire underscore mentor. Also mill mentor.com if you can't put that link somewhere now. I'm working on it. It's. It's gonna be, you know, a big website coming soon. We'll have digital products, affiliate marketing stuff. It's gonna be the. Like a leadership, or actually we're calling it leadership for the modern Digital business. Okay. Noventure.com and obviously on Instagram as well.

Yep, perfect. And then for everyone that may not want to type all that in, there also be links in the description that you'll be able to look at. So make sure to check Jason out. And then that being said, guys, make sure to subscribe to the Rise of the Young podcast. Make sure to hit Jason up. He does offer different promoted posts on his Instagram page in the entrepreneur niche. So if you ever want to hit him up, just send him a DM on Instagram. It's powerful. And yeah, that being said, make sure you stay tuned for the next episode on the Rise of the Young podcast and I will see you guys in the next episode.

Monarch Legacy of Monsters An Apple Original Series the world is on fire. I decided to do something about it. On November 17th. This place, it's not ours. Believe me, the most massive event of the year arrives. If you come with me, you'll know everything. I promise.

Oh, my God.

Go, go, go.

Monarch Legacy of monsters streaming November 17th only on Apple TV.

Plus.