Trevor Turnbull - A Master of LinkedIn Shares His Real Secrets To Success

This is one of the things we do is an executive huddle. It's from 9:15 to 9:19. There's four people on it. And you have 60 seconds. Not a minute more, not a second more. Right. You have to summarize what are you doing in the next 24 hours and then where are you stuck?

That's it. And you also think about it in advance too.

Yeah.

And it gets you understanding what the other person's doing and where they're at in their mind too. Because you may be able to go, oh, no, no. I talked to a guy yesterday, it's solved already. Right. And all of a sudden it's, it's gone. You might burn a whole half a day on something that's already been.

This is an intro. Intro, intro, intro.

Hustle and Float, Shark with your boy.

My boy, Matt Wolf and Joe.

Hey, Good morrow.

Good morrow.

Yeah.

Isn't there a thing that somebody says, I don't know, people say, good morrow.

Bone marrow. You can eat that. I don't know, I was just thinking I'm hungry maybe if you noticed.

Yeah, because you're talking about bone marrow.

No, I don't know. Good morrow. Bone marrow. I don't know, like, you know, little fancy places with bones and you can eat out of them and never done that.

I know people do eat bone marrow, but I have not done it myself.

Pretty good.

Yeah.

It's tough to find. Don't know I thought about that. But I am hungry, so maybe that's why. Okay.

Not going to go find some bone marrow for food now.

It'd probably be like Mexican food. Yeah, yeah, that's probably more accurate. Yeah, that too. It's probably health. I don't know. Who knows, who knows what's healthy anymore? I know it is healthy.

Is Trevor Turnbull.

Oh, well, I was going to say the conversation we had with Trevor, but maybe. I'm assuming Trevor's pretty healthy too. Yeah, I would hope he is. So Trevor is our guest today. Trevor Turnbull, second time guest on this show.

Third time guest. If you include the older episodes before this show.

The lumped in. Yeah. The show has evolved from years past and Trevor is definitely veteran of all shows.

Yes.

And a good friend of ours. So we had Trevor on back again. He's a LinkedIn expert. He's our go to LinkedIn expert. So if you're looking for LinkedIn type stuff, he's basically the guy. But listen to this episode first because don't just jump in and LinkedIn because that's, that's probably not the first, our best move. You can.

They're already listening. That's why they're here.

Exactly. So keep listening. Good point. Yeah. Trevor's an amazing dude. He's a really good buddy of ours. He's been, like, deep into LinkedIn everything for the last 10 years, he said, and.

It is still figuring out, like, a good content strategy around all that stuff. Oh, actually, he figured it out, but it's just really interesting because we actually didn't talk a lot about just LinkedIn on this episode. We thought we would, but we actually went back into more of the kind of behind the. I guess, the business, you know, opening up the hood a little bit to see what's actually driving this thing.

Yeah.

And it goes back to really, him evolving as a business owner, as a human and a business owner. And then we do tie it into LinkedIn too, so it's really interesting.

Yeah, no, I mean, this one is. I feel like with our show in general, and you'll probably start to get this theme over the last. Over, you know, the last few episodes and the ones that are coming up after this, that the theme lately has been about, yes, we are still talking about business, we are still talking about tactics that you can implement in your business. But I also feel like we've been spending a lot of time talking about the human condition, the human experience, and what makes an entrepreneur and what things need to happen in your brain and in your daily life and in your routines and with your relationships and all of this stuff that's sort of not your business. What things need to happen to improve your business. I don't know of a better way to describe that, but we're really kind of talking about what makes humans tick and why we fail and struggle at things and why we succeed at other things, and really kind of getting to the root of this sort of mental progression that happened to get you to where you are. And I feel like it makes for much more fascinating conversations. So I'm actually really interested anybody listening that wants to write in or talk about this on our Facebook group or anything like that. I'm curious of your thoughts of this sort of reverse engineering how somebody's brain works versus teaching the tactics. Because I kind of feel like in my mind, almost any tactic you can find, like a YouTube video for can be explained in seven or eight minutes. It doesn't really provide a lot of fodder for amazing conversation, but the sort of human condition, mental side of it, the how. How we operate and why we operate the way we operate, I feel like, that leads down really interesting conversations. But almost all of the biggest aha's and insights come from those conversations. And not like, hey, here's how you can get 25 cent clicks on Twitter. Right. Like, that stuff is cool and I.

Love talking about it.

And there will be more of that on the podcast and we'll always have tactical stuff. But I think the stuff that really makes fascinating conversations and brings the biggest aha's is the type of stuff that we're gonna talk about in this episode.

Yeah. And I said it doesn't really matter the 25 cent clicks if you don't have your shit straight in your mind, in your life, with your family, with you as a person. Like, we, you know, we had Kamal Ravikant on here and I think I mentioned him here or another episode. But it starts with you loving yourself and understanding yourself and really getting cool with yourself and identifying what makes you tick. And a lot of that's actually ironically how we met Trevor originally is going through a leadership training that exposed a lot of this in us, has really helped us identify what makes us tick in blind spots. And I feel like as business owners, it's more than ever it's important for us to do this so we can lead a healthy life, not only in the business, but just in general as showing up in the world. Yeah. The best we possibly can. So it's, I mean, this, this, this podcast or this episode, it's actually another point. And we won't belabor this too much, but it's like we've gone through transitions. We've talked about it on our therapy session and it seems like Trevor is, has gone. Is going through very similar transitions. Different. But we're. The path he's on is very like, we're like right there. And I feel like there's a lot of folks I reached out to. Well, I know there's a lot of folks that reach out to us saying the same thing. Like the therapy session you and I did in your truck, talking about chopping a lot of our business off and going more into affiliate marketing or leading straight into affiliate marketing, brokering, growing our own newsletter and podcast. Huge.

Yeah.

And, and he's doing similar things. But there's action steps that we talk about in here.

Yeah. And so anybody who's like, turning off the podcast right now going, oh, they're just talking about mindset stuff, not tactics, I'm going to turn it off. Don't. Because we do get into some tactics around content marketing and some of the strategies that he's using. We do cover that stuff as well. So don't get scared away that we're going to get too emotional for you on this one. We're going to get into some rad tactics that you can implement in your business as well. And we're taking notes on all of it like we always do.

And there's a lot of good notes here, too, and there's a lot of good resources that were mentioned as well, and strategies. So, yeah, get the notes, go to hustleandflowchart.com comp c o m p. You got two weeks to get them for free from the time it's going live. So it's hustleandflowchart.com comp or pick out your phone, get your phone out and text to the number 38470. Text the word computer. C O M P. That's right. 38470 is the phone number. Comp is your word.

Let's go talk to Trevor Turnbull. That was four T words all in a row.

Yes. Good job.

Hey, before we jump over and chat with Trevor, I want to tell you really quickly about LinkedIn. People are kicking butt right now with LinkedIn ads. And guess who we're talking to on this episode today? We're talking to Trevor Turnbull, the LinkedIn AD master. If you haven't heard of Trevor, he knows what he's talking about when it comes to LinkedIn. So this is the perfect episode for LinkedIn to be sponsoring for us. LinkedIn helps you reach the right professionals at the right time. They've got over 62 million decision makers and you can connect with pretty much anyone using LinkedIn. It is super, super powerful. And it's not just about awareness either. LinkedIn ads are driving traffic and engagement. Whether you need visits to your landing page or your webinar or whatever you're selling right now, LinkedIn can really help you with the traffic. And LinkedIn is hooking up listeners of Hustle and Flowchart as well. So if you haven't tried LinkedIn yet, listen to this. This is gonna be cool. Try it for yourself. LinkedIn is offering a free $100 LinkedIn ad credit to launch your first campaign. All you gotta do is visit LinkedIn.com flowchart that is LinkedIn.com flowchart. Terms and conditions do apply. Now let's go talk to Trevor Turnbull, our LinkedIn expert, about LinkedIn and cool stuff surrounding LinkedIn.

Trevor, welcome back. You're back.

Yes, sir, I'm back.

You are Round two, man.

One of the very few that have made it for a second show. Actually, if you count the Authority Insider show that I was doing before Hustle and Flowchart, this is the third time.

That's true. That's right. I guess when you guys send out the swag with your logo on and stuff, and I put it on and take pictures and share with the world, it's just like, hey, guys, bring me back.

I know. I was gonna say, is this even allowed? A three peat? Is it? I'm gonna lump it in. It's three. Yeah. You're fine.

Yeah.

You're paving a new path.

I do consider Authority Insider, like, because there was no gap between ending Authority Insider and starting Hustler Flowchart. I was running that podcast. I talked to Joe one day, I was like, we should co host a podcast together. And he was like, all right, let's do it. And then it just kind of rolled into this show. So I do kind of consider that, like, the same show, we just added a co host and rebranded pretty much.

And think about how much has changed since then. Right. I don't think any of us had kids at that time. When you and I did the first interview, Matt, I would have. You might have had.

Yeah, yeah. Because I have a 7 year old, so she would have been born. But my son.

Not yet. Probably not. Yeah. But, yeah, things have changed, like business models, life, of course. I mean, so many all. It's all growing in the direction it should be growing.

Yeah. Well, I know the last time we talked, neither of you had kids, I don't think.

No, no. Definitely not. Definitely not.

And what a journey that's been. Holy, man.

Yeah. We both didn't down some crazy paths. You've been down your own crazy path. Mine too. Yeah.

We don't need to get into the whole backstory because we do have a previous episode where I think you broke down your backstory and we'll link to that below the episode. So you don't need to tell us how you got started, but I do know there's been quite a journey over the last 3ish years since we've probably chatted last. So let's start there. Let's kind of dig in a little bit to what sort of come up for you over the last couple of years.

Yeah.

So the most obvious thing is that for 10 years I did LinkedIn training and it was like surrounding.

You know, teaching people how to revamp their profiles and go get jobs and build their network and that type of thing. With Linked Influence, which was like the original program, and then it evolved to a program called 30 Day Sales Machine. When I started to see, like, okay, I should tie in the sales aspect of this and be. Make it less about getting a job.

And then I still wear those shirts, by the way. 30 day sales machines.

I still have mine.

I'll wear them around. And then like, people be like, 30 days. I'm like, yeah, it's cool. Trevor's awesome.

Yeah. My wife was giving me the gears about it the other day because I've got about 30 of them still too.

And they're two of them.

Yeah, they were the American Apparel one, so they're super comfy. So you just can't help but, like, wear them every day.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right.

If you guys need more, I'll send you some.

Please. Yeah.

So like, two, I guess it was two years ago. Two years ago almost around this time, actually, I started to kind of hit a wall with what we were doing around just straight up selling training. You know, we're really good at it, and we were getting people lots of results and all that kind of stuff. And it felt good, but something was missing. I was seeing people bringing up different questions where I just couldn't help them with what I had created. It was more just tactical. Like, here's how to use LinkedIn as opposed to, here's how to refine your offer so that people actually want to buy your thing. Here's how to create a offer and a product that aligns with your personal values and your vision and your mission so that you don't go crazy just trying to make money. And it happened because of a lot of different things. Two years ago, part of it was connecting with Scott Oldford, which you guys know Scott as well, and just resonating with his message and his ROI method and stuff. And to fast track the story, I took out $100,000 loan two years ago because I was like, I'm going all in to figure out what is this next step is. Right. And I. And I knew from 15 years of previous entrepreneur experience of bootstrapping everything and just saying, like, oh, I'll figure it out. Go watch another webinar. And just didn't have time for that anymore.

Good for you. Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, school of hard knocks. I finally decided to just buck up and get a loan. I didn't have the cash flow to actually even pay for some higher level mentoring, but I did invest in one of Scott's programs at that time. And then three, four weeks later, our second son was Born. And he was born four months early, which meant that he was on the brink of barely surviving. We had lost actually a child at exactly the same birth date. It was like 20. What was it? Yeah, 23 weeks roughly. Right. So it was really premature. So then we spent the next four months going back and forth to the hospital in the Neo intensive care units and had every opportunity to quit. And, you know, have Scott and his team say, like, here's your money back, man. Like, I get it. But I pushed through it. My wife was a big support on it to say, like, keep going. Scott and their team were a big support to say, like, you got this. I basically realized after I invested that I didn't even invest in a program that was like going to do it for me and give me the framework and anything else. It was basically like a group call where I got around other people that made me feel normal for the first time in my life. And they would spill like, they're at seven figures going to eight, but yet they're broke. Or they were at eight figures and they were miserable.

Right.

And he just kind of felt like, oh, okay, it's not just me. I'm not crazy for thinking the way that I do. So it was like a big therapy session every single week when we talked. But that's what allowed this program that I created, which is called the Expert Selling Machine, and then it's evolved into an online version called the Expert Selling Academy to really start incorporating mindset work and foundational stuff in addition to like tactical. Like, here's how you do this, this and this. So that's kind of the summary of what's been going on the last two years. And it's been up and down and up and down. But we're really kind of in a, we're in a flow here right now. There's really no other way to describe it aside from, you know, I'm creating content with ease. We were talking before. Here's my affirmations. Right. I create content with ease. I, you know, I'm no longer fearful of what other people will say or judge me on if I create content. Yeah, all these things. So it's a good space. I love it. And that's powerful. Yeah. And I'm able to serve people better. So it's like, win, win for everybody. So I'm just grateful that I'm able to talk about it on shows like this with you guys because I know.

Thanks for sharing it.

You have an audience and I love your guys stories too. We obviously have Been friends for a long time too.

Right, Right.

Yeah. That whole mindset piece of it, I think, is it's such a piece that I think people that are sort of getting into business, they sort of underestimate. Right. Everybody kind of goes, oh, yeah, mindset, blah, blah, blah. That's, you know, everybody says that, whatever. And they, they. They totally undervalue it. They underestimate the importance of having that mental game strong. But once, once you sort of realize that, even all these people that are out on Facebook showing screenshots of how they did eight figures last month, you're not getting the whole picture. A, you don't know if that's profit. It's most likely probably not. You know, they probably generated $10,000,000, but spent 9,999,000 to get it. Right.

Like. Yeah.

So there's that whole element about it that you're not seeing the whole side of it. But then the other element is there's so much ego involved with a lot of entrepreneurs, especially the early stage entrepreneurs, that nobody's willing to admit that they make mistakes. Nobody's willing to admit that they fuck up every once in a while. Nobody's willing to. To say, like, I did $50,000 in sales last month, but I only got to take home 2000. Nobody's out there talking about it because it hurts their egos. But what we find out as entrepreneurs is that the actual path forward, the actual path to progress, is to be talking about that stuff to people that could potentially give you solutions to those things.

Well, just the fact, Trevor, that you brought up the loan. We've done the same thing in our business. You're still paying one off. Yeah, but it's for the same exact reason. Like, we knew that there was some, you know, the cash flow, wasn't there enough for us to invest or to quit. Something that we were already doing and relying on, like, prime example, is actually a lot of these different offers that we had out there, you know, last year and even just previous years. Obviously it's great cash flow. It can be, but it takes a lot of energy and focus away from, like, a business model that we know that we can scale up and do really well on. I. E. Like affiliate marketing for us and growing this podcast. It's great, but it's like a total distraction. So we chose to. Yeah, like, there's actually mechanisms out there that we all have access to to then go double down on this thing that's already working well. And it's cool that you're sharing that because Yeah, I think a lot of business owners are even afraid to say, like, oh, no, I didn't have enough cash at that point. I had to take a loan out, debt out. It's like, that's actually there for a reason. So.

And on that note, actually, so my intention coming into this conversation here too, was to not have it just be another. How to. Let me tell you how LinkedIn works, because just go Google it. Like, I got everything you guys need. Just go look it up, you know, but to just have a real conversation around it too, because I think it would actually help people that much more to know the journey. And I mentioned to you guys at the start of this that, you know, I kind of. It's evolved into this new kind of methodology that we have that we can definitely talk about. But there's another thing that I've never actually even talked about publicly yet that I'll talk about here now, and you guys can share this with the world. But when I took out that loan and I started this business and we did it with the ups and downs and we had good months and exactly like you just said, Matt, we had months where we did 50k, but we spent 60. Then we had months where we did 100. And we were like, all right, we got a million dollar business and then the next month it was 30.

That was the real story. And in that time, of course, we were making money and it was ups and downs and there was different profit margins and stuff. But probably six months ago I looked at it and I was like, holy man. I've got close to $200,000 in debt to get to this point.

I had actually met somebody at Scott's mastermind that two years ago that I kept in touch with, and they were a bit of a partner. I would like refer over business to them with different types of clients that just weren't a good fit for us because they had more of an agency approach, like a growth accelerator kind of a model. And we kept in touch and we kept working together. And we talked like four or five months ago about the idea of merging and his company actually acquiring my company. And it happened on October 31st of this last year. Yeah, I haven't even talked about it publicly yet. So this is.

That's great.

This could be the reveal.

Yeah.

And you know what? I haven't talked about it publicly for probably a couple of reasons. One, my thought of, like, well, what would people think? Like, I was running my own business now. I sold my business. Am I no longer an entrepreneur?

The Deal.

You know, the uniqueness of the deal is that I'm still a contractor to that company and now I have shares in that bigger business and stuff. But it was just such a false mindset, even up until this point, because I know now the reason that I sold it was one, to get out of debt. First and foremost. Number two is I realized that I would be better together with this organization because I was solely responsible for sales, marketing, operations, fulfillments, sweeping floors, you name it. And quite honestly, I had had enough. And I knew that if I could only focus on marketing and sales, the two areas that I excel in, and then work on working with clients to deliver exceptional results for them, my business would explode. And it has. In the last three months, we've seen this exponential growth that's happening. And it's not to say it's not coming with struggles because there's integration and software and, oh, it's like. It's a major pain in the ass. Like it really is, and it's tough. But I can see the path now much more clear. And another major decision factor for that was constantly revisiting my personal values, which have changed since I had kids, because I get to, at the end of the day, close the computer and go, that thing can wait till tomorrow. And I couldn't do that when I was the sole owner of the business with 15 people to pay, where if there wasn't enough money in the account on this guy, sure, I don't get paid. They get paid.

So, yeah, that's a piece of news there. That's still new. Yeah, and it's still new. To me, that was something new. Like the idea of going through an acquisition. How do you value a business?

How do you value the intangibles of my personal brand and the content I've created and the traffic that we have and all these things. I've grown a lot in the last few months in an area that I never thought that I'd even be at, because I didn't even think about exit strategy.

I want to dig in really quick on your thought to even do that, because I feel like we've been approached by folks over the years on many different opportunities to partner and do things like that. The main reason we never would is at first we'd be like, oh, that's a really cool opportunity. But then we'd be like, oh, wait, like it's. Is that the path that we actually are happy with ourselves? So was there a little bit of that struggle happening as well?

I wouldn't say it was a struggle because it was basically an 18 month courtship of friendship and partnership leading up to that point in this case. But.

If an offer just came in off the street saying, hey, you look like you got a real profitable or a good business that would fit into ours. Here's an offer. I don't know if I would have even considered it. So this one was more around. I knew what their values were because they'd gone through the. Well, this. They've gone through this.

Oh, yeah, there you go. Vern Harnish is scaling up.

Yeah. And traction, Right. Like, I got them both. I think my wife's got traction in the other office right now.

We got both those books up here somewhere. Yeah, yeah, they see scaling up.

Yeah, they're on there.

But those were things that, like, previous to two years ago, I hadn't even thought about. I was just like, in the online marketing world, it's like, what's the next launch I can do? What's the next webinar I can do? Let's track my metrics on how many conversions I had.

Tunnel vision.

Eventually.

Yeah, right.

I did that for like four or five years. And eventually you're kind of like, oh, man, you have some good months and some bad months and you just don't see through the other side. So when I saw that these guys were doing the work and they'd created their own value statements and I looked at him, I'm like, yeah, I'm aligned with that.

Yeah, all right.

Like, they haven't figured it all out either, but I feel like we can work together to figure it out. So there's a personal relationship there first.

I think that's really powerful, man.

Well, also, I think, I think a lot of people get hung up on titles, right? I think at the end of the day, all we're trying to do is provide value and try to get compensated in return for that value. Whether it's as the role of a CEO of another company, as an employee of a company, as an entrepreneur, as a company contractor, as a free. Who gives a shit, right? If we're out there and we're finding ways to provide value that people are willing to pay for that value, who cares what title is attached to that? I think where, where we. Where I would start to get hung up is when lifestyle is affected, right? Like if, If I have to go work for. If. If I decide I'm gonna go take a role at somebody else's company and they want me to show up at the office every morning at 7am and they want to give me a week of vacation every year. And they know then, then all of.

A sudden, okay, I'm not wired like that.

I have an aversion to that. But if you want me to be your, your operations manager or you want me to be your head of marketing for your company, but I get to maintain the same lifestyle I live now and do it on my terms, who gives a shit what the title is? Yeah.

Well, and that's what this deal ended up being. And what some of the criteria of me agreeing to it Too was like, LinkedIn to leads is my parent company, essentially. Expert Selling is the brand of, like, products that we sell. They both still exist as completely separate business units. We don't have any, like, operating as a division of Irrational Marketing, which is the company that did the acquisition.

I like that name.

Yeah. Right. So that was one piece of it, which was like, you know, continue as is. You guys serve an audience that they didn't serve, but they also saw that that serving of that audience was going to lead to clients that would graduate to their level of type of service that they offer. Right. So it's such a good fit that way.

And then the other side of it was for me, like, I ended up, you know, with some cash, but also with some profit share opportunities and some equity in that business. So there was a lot of incentive and all that. And I'm a contractor to that company. I'm not an employee.

Yeah.

So I run my own departments and I'm accountable. I'm accountable to, you know, daily rocks and KPIs and that type of thing, which, quite honestly, I freaking needed, you guys.

We do as well. We've been going through very similar. The three of us are on a very similar path.

Yeah, yeah, I figured so. And we just hadn't really dug into it. That's why I thought I'd bring it up.

Well, it's interesting. I was watching a video last night with. It's random Jay Leno driving around in his car. He has like one of those, like, taking. It was a Lamborghini and he was picking up Trevor Noah from the Daily Show. And I was like, yeah, I was just YouTube binging, just mindlessly. But Trevor said something on there. And that guy's so damn passionate. He was like, you know, I realized that when you figure out what your calling is in life, that's. Your life just changes. Like, everything opens up and you just have this drive and you're like, pretty much unstoppable. And for him, that was or is stand up comedy. It's not being on TV and all that shit. But he realized that's what created him in his path. And he identified that, I think he said at like 25, because Jay was almost like discounting comedy. And he's like, no, no, no, Jay. It's actually backwards. That's the thing that's opened up everything else. And life was never the same after that. And then I started thinking, I'm like, shit, that really is it. And it's kind of like what you're talking about is like you've identified. And what I've been working on a lot is like really honing in what are the handful of things or one thing to really be the best in. And then life literally opens up to you and partnerships are a good thing. Then it's like, yeah, cool. Well, values are aligned. I could do what I'm really good at. And you've identified that. And I could serve more people. Fuck yeah. Let's do this.

Well. And that's why I like the framework of scaling up and Rockefeller habits and traction and that type of thing and companies that actually implement it. Cause like, one of the very first things we did was the elevate and delegate task. Have you guys gone through that before?

No, not probably.

I'm sort of familiar with the concept, but I haven't gone through their exercises.

Right.

Yeah, it's like a four quadrant thing, which I might butcher what it actually is, but it's like, what's something that you're really good at that you hate? What's something that you're really good at that you love? And then in between.

And what it does and it goes back to what you were saying, Matt, which is like, don't lay this to, you know, label on me of I'm the cmo. No, I'm a specialist in sales and marketing and client fulfillment and coaching and that type of thing. Those are my core skill sets. Just like everybody else on our team, they have core skill sets. It was really funny because when we started doing that, I had one person on my team who I had no idea that she was actually a good writer. I just never asked, you know. But doing the exercise, we're like, oh, you're a good writer and we need to fill that gap there. Do you want to do this? And she's like, yeah. And all of a sudden now she's inspired, she's doing better work and everybody's winning. So that's where that alignment came in for me too. Was like, okay, wait a second. I can actually just focus on the things that I want to do. Like, I don't do payroll anymore.

Cool.

You have no idea how much of a relief that is to me.

Yeah, yeah. Well, admin stuff. Yeah. It's like, all this BS stuff that is necessary, but, like, you know, you don't. You're not happy doing that. That's not your best work. Someone else might light up and just be monotonous and do that all day. Cool. Yeah.

Yeah.

Especially when you partner with other people or you get acquired. They have people like that, or they have companies that they work with or that they're acquiring that can fill in those gaps. It just makes for, like. I think the other thing that came up for me, and again, this was just a limiting belief in a mindset thing, was that I always used to look at the agency model as, like, the devil. Like, I'm not building an agency. There's no way. Right.

So. But. So you might change my mind with this conversation, so.

Well, because. Because I had been in an agency, too, where I saw just the dysfunction of, like, you know, going from 20 to 50 to 100 employees and just how chaotic it was. But it was because there wasn't the foundation of some of this work. And usually this work is. Is hard. And that's why I say, like, since October 31st, we've had, what, one, two, three months worth of integration. Here's our software, here's our systems, here's our people. Now we're into daily, like, huddles in the morning, and we got department meetings and stuff. And, like, it's a struggle. It's a change of habits. But, oh, man, we can just see so much more momentum to go through it. Right.

It's interesting you bring that up, because this is where Matt and I have been talking a lot. I feel like you're just, like. You might be three months ahead of us, actually. Yeah. Maybe from the sound of it. So. Because I put a note down, like, I really got to add, actually read scaling. Cause that's one I've kind of, like, I've purchased, but I flip through. I'm like. I don't think I'm there yet. I'm more in the traction phase and, like, all that stuff starting.

I'm in the same boat, man.

Yeah, I know you are.

This thing barely even looks like it's been open, because it hardly hasn't been flipped through. It too.

Yeah, Mine's just fresh. It just hasn't even opened. Yeah.

I mean, to me, it almost reminds me a little Too much of, like, a school textbook, when I start to flip through it that I get. I have like, an almost like a subconscious aversion to reading it because it reminds me of being back in college.

Yeah, but back to. Yeah, it's a good point. Reid's like, maybe that's a good thing, because the frameworks. And it's clear. But something that we've been talking a lot about is.

Containing ourselves in different areas. So if that's working times, and we talked about.

Having kind of a structure more or less around how long are we working? What are we doing? What's the business model? And really making sure all of our focus is contained within these parameters. And I was looking at myself, I'm like. And this is where, from the outside, it looks like I don't like containment because I'm like. I'm more the hustle side of this whole thing, which is great. But at the same time, I know I do my best work when I have a structure around me. And it's gonna be fucking brutal for probably, like, three months, this integration period. But I know that it creates this groove in my mind and these habits to actually perform at a level that I want to show up as in the world. And because if I don't have that, mentally, I will beat myself up because I'm like, shit, I know I'm capable of doing this stuff, but there might be some blockage. It could be like, oh, we need to partner up with someone, or I need to hire, or just stop doing that. And I think the constraints. That's a word I was not containing. But constraints are really helpful. Even if it feels like you're not good with constraints, it's like, no, they're probably actually best for you, but just hack it out for a period of time.

Yeah. And I think we just need the. We need the. The carrot, too. Right? It's like, you got to kind of see what is that consistency in going through the painful process of changing your habits. And, you know, like, if you guys are the business unit right now, like, do you got a daily routine? Do you check in at 8am every morning and have a. Like, this is one of the things we do is an executive huddle. It's from 9:15 to 9:19. There's four people on it, and you have 60 seconds. Not a minute more, not a second more. Right. You have to summarize what are you doing in the next 24 hours? And then where are you stuck? That's it.

And you also want to think about it. In advance too.

Yeah.

And it gets you understanding what the other person's doing and where they're at in their mind too. Because you may be able to go, oh, no, no. I talked to a guy yesterday, it's solved already. Right. And all of a sudden it's, it's gone. You might burn a whole half a day on something that's already been solved.

So good.

Yeah, yeah. But we need the incentive on the other side to go like, what's the point of this painful process? Kind of like working out for the first time after years and years, you know?

It's true.

What am I going to get out of this? Well, you'll get in better shape.

You might live a little longer.

It's like, have a goal in mind, but also fall in love with the process of getting there, even if you don't totally get there. Because typically a goal is not in your control. And this is something Matt and I have been talking about a lot. But have this constraint and this structure, this mechanism that makes you happy but brings the best out of you. And then stay consistent. But have the carrot in mind. But also just have the carrot of like, you know, I'm fucking good enough to complete this thing and actually stay true to my word that the carrot is almost like icing on the cake more than a carrot at that point. It's fucking awesome. But at the same time, you're like lit up just through the process.

Yeah. I think that, you know, where that analogy started, I think was one of my biggest aha's that I've had of probably the last, like decade of being in business is the fact that you're never going to be happy with your business until the work that you're doing on a daily basis is the thing that brings you fulfillment. Right. If you're always thinking that the end result that this work is going to create is the thing that's going to bring me fulfillment, you will never fucking be happy. Because when you get to that point, the goalpost just moves. You get to that point and you go, cool, we had our first hundred thousand dollar month. We did it. Yay. How do we push this goalpost even further? Let's get $150,000 a month next month. The goalpost always moves and moves and moves and you're always in that place of, I'm not quite happy where I am right now, where if you make the conscious decision that the things that I do on a daily basis are the things that light me up, the fulfillment comes from the work. And not the result. Once you sort of realize that. That I need to be happy on a daily basis with whatever I'm doing, then it's game over and everything just kind of starts to fall into place and feel effortless because you're happy with where you're at, not waiting for a result to be happy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that just brings up a million directions. We could take this. But specifically for me, like, now that I'm. I have the time to really focus on sales process and how does our marketing fit in with sales process to educate people further? So when I get on calls with them, I'm not selling anymore. Like, they already kind of know that they need our help now. It's just, can I help them overcome their own limiting fear beliefs of why they can't do what they think they can do? So it's really like, I love it, you know, but the thing that I struggle with still, and I constantly work towards, is that even when you start getting into a sales mindset, you're focused on the win. Right.

Which is like, the sale, the outcome. Yeah.

I find it's the same thing. And we were talking about. You guys are speaking, of course, that digital marketer. Whenever. I haven't done a lot of speaking on stages in the last little bit, I'm gonna get back into it. But I always loved it because there was such a high to it. You know, I felt like it was like when I was playing hockey back in the day. It's like, you're on, you know, like, it's up to you. But then the low would come. Right. As soon as you step off stage, and the crowd of people that wanted to come up and, you know, ask you questions is over. You're kind of back to like, all right, what's next?

Ye.

It's the same. It's the same for sales with me. And that's part of the thing that we're working on as a team, too, is, like, how to celebrate more than just the financial success and enjoy the journey. So it's not this high of, like, yeah, deal closed. And then like, oh, man, I gotta go find another one.

Yeah.

Yeah, dude, That's. That's what. Really? Yeah, you're right. I mean, there's. It's this whole thing of falling in love with the process. Like, I have a buddy, he actually went to high school with me, and he is going to be in the Olympics this year running the marathon. And he's. He's been in trials before and all that stuff. And I was asking. I Was basically talking about, like, his process and all that stuff. He's like, man, I am completely obsessed with working my best. Like my waking up early and just doing the work. I frickin love it. He said. And he's like, I don't care if I place or medal or any of that. It's doing the work. And the fact that, you know, like, even if he doesn't get into the Olympics for some reason, the trials and all that stuff, even though I think he's good, like, that wouldn't even matter. It's just the fact that he actually put himself out there because, you know, he's capable. He's the fastest guy I've ever met. And the dude, he just got obsessive with his daily practices. And I think that brings like the biggest happiness, if we can identify that in our work day and life, obviously, in general.

Yeah, I think you can look at like any sort of billionaire or multimillionaire or ultra successful in this financial sense. Look at any of them and you could sort of trace back an obsession that they had. It's almost always born out of an obsession. Meaning that they found a process, they fell in love with the process, they became obsessed with the process, they became obsessed with becoming the best at that process. So much to the point that it led to great financial rewards. It doesn't necessarily mean those people are happy and they found success in relationships and happiness and other forms of fulfillment. Financial needs are only one need among many that we all have. But I think the ones that are very financially successful you could trace back to an obsession. And I think you can also look at anybody who's like ultra enlightened or spiritual with an obsession too. Like you look at the monks and stuff, right? Those people, they became obsessed with that process of finding enlightenment. And that's why they are ultra successful in that specific thing that they dedicated their life to. Yeah. So, you know, there's a lot there.

Yeah, yeah, well, and that's so, like just in the last couple weeks, I just created a video that I posted on LinkedIn about this because we've been doing. We have a major mind kit set component in our program, which is. Which causes me to like, go deep on this stuff. Right. It's like, do the work too. You can't just be on the sidelines telling, you know, up at the top of the mountain pulling people up, you gotta be up there. Right. So it's caused me to change the statement that I have on my personal website that is essentially a mission statement. You Know, the evolution went from me talking about myself because I was like, oh, I'm gonna talk about the things that are important to me. It's like family and mission and legacy. And then I realized, like, nobody gives a shit. You know, like. And then it evolved to what I thought it was supposed to be, which was more marketing speak around, like, you know, I empower solopreneurs to connect with their most valuable prospects to da, da, da, da, da.

Right.

Because you see that everywhere. Right? It's like you were saying. And this is where the balance of sales and marketing comes in, too, Joe, is sell them what they want and then give them what they need. There's still an element of that from a marketing mindset where I'm like, maybe I should not try and sell them the big picture because it might be too much. But finally, just the other day, I was just like, you know what? Screw it. I'm gonna make the statement. And this is what I have on my personal website now. I empower solopreneurs to create generational wealth by building a repeatable, predictable, and measurable client acquisition system. And to me, that's defined by what we've been talking about. So repeatable, predictable, and measurable isn't, holy shit, I need to go get a client because I got to pay my bills. It's that. And how am I going to get the next client when I lose the last one? And then how, in six months from now? Or how once I've got three clients and I'm too busy fulfilling, am I going to keep that engine turning, that machine going so that there's always new people coming in at different stages? Because that's what creates our ability to close the computer and walk away and know that it's set right.

Yeah.

And then the generational wealth side of things, where that kind of came into it was the idea of, like, it's not just about me. It's about my kids. And not just financially. It's also, like, teaching them that failing is not a bad thing. It's about having them having a different money mindset than I did because I grew up with parents that said it's the Turnbull way to be in debt. And, like, you know, and every time they had extra money, they went and bought a boat. And, like, I'm not complaining. I had a great childhood. Like, it was. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not where I want it to be. You know, I want to be in a place where I don't have to think about having to debt, finance, everything. That was, again, why I sold my business was I spent 10 years doing this stuff. Like, that's a good hustle.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

That hustle was real. And I put in my 10,000 hours. I know my stuff, I just know it. So now it's time to create something that works for me, that will actually serve my clients better. That's why I sold my business.

I think that's amazing. And that's a good framing too, that you put on. It is, yeah. For 10 years. I mean, we're in a very similar boat, albeit like it's seemed a little more. It's because I'm so close. I think it's all not the same thing, but at the end of the day, we've done the same thing around content and conversions and just teaching in general. And it's just like you have done with LinkedIn as the primary focus.

People identify. And there's a reason why there's a time for change. If you don't want to keep doing, sustaining what you've built in the previous. In our case, it's around 10 years and having that shift. Yeah. Can open up. Who knows what's next for you, man, like after this transition period. Holy crap.

It feels in alignment with what we're teaching too, which is around like two key words, focus and action. So, like, you know, I didn't create content, publish content consistently up until a month and a half ago. Like, literally, I never had a consistent content strategy.

Yeah, I want to talk about this, but keep going.

And then eventually I was just like, you know what, I should actually do this and see how it works. Because I've always kind of used it as a resistance point. Like, oh, you don't need to do that. Just have a prospecting strategy and just keep working the numbers, you know? And then I started to do it and I was like, holy shit. Like, this stuff actually works. And it's actually going to live on too. Just like you guys, when you do blog content in these podcasts, this podcast is created for that purpose.

That's right.

Ideally, these things are immortal. Ideally, somebody is going to be listening to this episode 100 years from now, finding insights from the ancient philosophers of.

The 2000-20s Internet marketing wheel.

We gotta dust it off for you.

Yes.

These podcasts are the encyclopedias that people are going to find in those hidden underground libraries someday. And go. Those ancient philosophers. Matt, Joe and Trevor.

Yeah, very ancient.

You mean when our kids are working for agencies, just programming AI, but bots and stuff for Marketing. And there's no longer human interaction.

No. It's just gonna be like Wall E, where they're all just fat and inside of. Inside of wheelchairs and the food just comes to them.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

Isn't that where the world's going?

Right?

You got, like, grubhub. You've got, like, everything comes to you now. You don't have to leave your house anymore.

But I want to get back to this context.

But hence. Hence the home office. Hence why I actually have the mission that I do around the solopreneur, too. Because you and you guys would be essentially be defined as solopreneurs. And then you kind of like, partner per dirt up, but you get it. Like, you wear all hats. You work out of the home office. You're looking at the office office, but you're like, commute. That's why I left the agency world, you know? Like, I want to help people like that because I know what it's like not only to go do all the things, but also to get in your head and to think like, oh, man, this isn't working. And, man, my wife's really on me right now because we struggled that month. And it's a mind. It's a mind.

We've been there.

And I think everybody listening to this has probably been there, but not enough people are talking about it, and not enough people are. And I honestly think that, you know, well, what's the solution? I think the solution is talking about it. I think the solution is saying, look, we're all experiencing these struggles. We all go through this shit in our business. We all have months where we're trying to figure out how to pay the bills sometimes. Right? Most entrepreneurs that you're that have been on the show, most entrepreneurs that you're paying attention to have had those months. And the only way to sort of get over it is to realize that. That you're not alone in that we're all experiencing this. And so I think that's why talking about it is so important. Not necessarily coming to solutions, but just the act of talking about it is a solution.

Yeah, it's basically not making this a taboo feeling or a topic anymore. It's just letting it out. It's like we brought up the whole thing around stress, anxiety, suicide, all that stuff with entrepreneurs, and then that got a lot more of our guests to actually open up because, you know, future guests are listening to our previous episodes, and, you know, they're like, holy crap. You said this, this, this. You guys have gone through some Shit. And then that opens them up. So it's almost like in our little sphere, our ecosystem, we're starting to slowly open more and more. And, dude, hats off to you too, for sharing everything you have. Obviously you're doing this outside of just this, but, yeah, we also very much.

Knew that you were open to talking about kind of anything because the way that we initially met essentially was we were all kind of coming out of a training program, which was a very vulnerable, emotional sort of program that we're all in together. So we knew that these conversations would likely come up when we. When we chat together, because that's sort of how that was sort of the genesis of all of our relationships.

Helped a lot. Yeah.

And this is. This is where the marketing mind of myself still goes back to, like, maybe I should sell them what they think they want and then give them what they need. Because that's how I got into Mittens was Lewis came to me and said, dude, you want this business to explode? And I was like, yeah. He's like, I've got the perfect leadership program for you. I'm like, I'm in. Let's do this right. It's like, I'm going to learn the skills that I need to be a better leader and my business is going to excel. And then it was just the complete opposite of what I thought it was going to be, but exactly what I needed.

That's true. They very much kind of sell you what you think you want and then give you what you need to hear once you're in it.

Yeah. And obviously we're not going to talk about all this stuff because I think.

We'Re sworn to see that's a way, way deeper rabbit hole than we have time to go into.

But. But you're right. Like, the whole thing is. And that's what we found with these episodes you brought it up in. The recording we did earlier is typically the episodes where we go deep on mindset and all that stuff. Talk about anxiety, stresses or just struggles of a business owner, you know, less the tactical strategies of, like, LinkedIn strategy. Here's how you're going to grow your email list, blah, blah, blah. You know, using this specific framework. The mindset episodes just don't get as many downloads like people clicking into them. I really think we need to be more clickbaity with the titles. Probably.

I try to go as clickbaity again.

That's where the marketing titles.

I don't know how to go more clickbaity.

I know, I know. But it's interesting because this is. It's. To your point is, you know, maybe it's not doctored up enough, but it's the episodes we get the most reactions from and feedback and people saying, holy crap. Thank you for sharing this. This just connected the dots in my own brain. Do more of this. So it's interesting to see the download numbers compared to the feedback. So there's an impact happening with all this.

Yeah. And I mean, ideally, we're not gonna stop talking about this kind of stuff, so ideally, the sort of audience might shift into the people who love hearing this kind of stuff. And all the people that are like, fuck those guys. They didn't teach me how to drive Twitter ads on this episode. Like, you know, we still will have episodes like that. We still really, really enjoy talking about that, but this kind of stuff is what people really need to hear.

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaking of that, maybe we should start talking about some. Some of what your big shift with the content marketing was.

Yeah, I want to talk about the content piece, because that is a struggle for a lot of folks and.

Yeah.

How'd you get around that?

Yeah, well, it ties into what we were just talking about, which was I overthought everything up until about two months ago. And again, I was out of AL with what I was selling. And I have a mindset mentor who's in our program. Her name's Danielle Grant. You guys look her up as well. She's amazing. But the reason why she came into our program was I somehow she came into my world, whatever it was, you know, probably an ad or something. Right. But then I started to just resonate with what she was talking about, and it was the same shit as everybody else. She's not coming up with any unique ideas. It's all regurgitated and thrown into a kaleidoscope, as Mark Twain says, and twisted around, you know, but she was consistent with it, and I noticed it for, like, a year. And eventually she happened to be where we live now in Kelowna. So I was like, I'm going to reach out to her when I get there, because I just feel like there's a synergy. We did. Now she's in the program. She holds me accountable just like everybody else. But she called me out one day and she's like, dude, you keep telling people to, like, create content as a part of this process, this framework that you've created, but you don't create any content. I was like, yeah, yeah, I should do that. She's like, should or you will? And by when I Was like, okay, I'm gonna do this. And then I had to think, okay, well what am I gonna use for content? And you know, we could dive down that rabbit hole forever too. But we just went back to the well, what do I have? Document it. There's your first 20 pieces right there, you know, and then the next one was, what are all. And this is how I like to teach. It typically is we. We called it our passionate rant check challenge inside of our community. It's like, what are the things that you either complain about in your head that your prospect about why your prospect didn't buy and why they're stupid for not buying from you or the client that won't listen to you because you know better, but they just won't listen to you. Like, what are all those things? And create content around that and then also around, like, why are you doing what you're doing? So I started doing that and I do these live Q&As every week with our paid members inside of our academy. And I just started ranting about stuff like some of them were off the wall, like just little rants, you know, and the best converting ones, which by the way, have nothing to do with likes, comments and shares. My content barely gets any engagement. Well, it's something that I'm actually trying to enhance and fix because I know that it'll be better if I can get more engagement, but it doesn't matter. I've sold at least $150,000 worth of contracts in the last month just because I'm publishing content on LinkedIn. And the only reason I know that is because it came up in the sales conversation. Those people didn't like comments and share on anything. I got on calls and they're like, yeah, I'm here because I saw that three minute video you did about why you should charge for creating a proposal. I thought it was unique. And I've been in your email list for three years and I thought maybe we should reconnect again. I'm now in charge of sales and marketing in this company and all of a sudden it resonated with them. We're on the call and now sales process kicks in and this is what I like to do. So it was a major aha moment for me. And as I started digging into it though, I started to realize that there's challenges for people, including myself, around ideas and creation and distribution and repurposing, and then also around fear of judgments and the mindset component, because that's what it was for me. It's like, I already knew my stuff. I've been doing this for 10 years, but I wouldn't say it out loud. Like, honestly, there's still a part of me that, you know, if I was to be speaking at Traffic and Conversion, like, you guys are imposter syndrome kicks in, you know, where it's like, oh, man, what am I going to say to these people? Everybody's doing kind of the same thing. And then I realized, like, just talk about what you do and the little one or two tweaks that are a little unique because you're going to say something to somebody that's going to resonate for them, and it'll be valuable.

Yeah. And that's the value of that kaleidoscope, as you, as you quoted Mark Twain, is, is that that's a way to connect with the audience, even if you're fresh. And, like, that's what these little blurps of content do. But you put your little twist on there. There's like, a little thing that people are like, oh, crap, that was worth my time. I like Trevor. I need Trevor. I need to talk to him now.

Yeah.

Even because we experience the same exact thing with these podcasts and people on our list.

Yeah.

I mean, we've.

We've. We've definitely been there. We've done quite a handful of speaking gigs. Just recently, just last year, we kind of started doing speaking gigs and getting up on stages, and I think we always kind of went into it going, okay, we're talking about podcasting. I mean, how relevant is this going to be to the people in this room? And I know, me personally, I can't speak for Joe, but there was a little bit of imposter syndrome of, like, why are we talking about podcasting to probably a room of, you know, 80% of the people here probably don't care about podcasting, but that 20% that were interested in, we've actually built amazing relationships with that 20%. And we're still talking to a lot of them. Some of them became clients of ours. Some of them we do, like, mentoring with now. And some of them, it's turned into, like, a really great thing. And I think a lot of people, you know, speaking into what you're talking about, I think a lot of people think about who this is not benefiting as opposed to, like, who am I actually making an impact on?

Right. Yeah. Focus in action, too. Right. Like, that's one thing that I've been very admiring of. What you guys have done with the podcast here is, like, You've stuck with it, you just keep going, you know, and it's evolving, it's repurposing into different ways. So it evolves over time. And I'm just starting to get a feel for that and starting to see the power of like actually being consistent with something. Sure, it works. It just works.

Consistency is where it's at. And with a system, it goes back to constraints like not trying to be everywhere. And that's why I think as powerful as you have LinkedIn, that is your focus. I mean, that's not new to you. So it's a, you know, for us, it's not LinkedIn. Maybe in the future with a better strategy because we don't have one, but. I know you have one. But like Facebook, that's, that's where our people live. At least right now we have a pretty good strategy there. Tons of engagement and, you know, it's, it's a perfect place that we can cultivate our audience and have. I mean, with content, it's almost like this reframe. It's, it's just us communicating with folks that want to connect with us or are connected with us or discovering with us. It's. It's almost like the content word can kind of trip up people's brains a little bit and over complicate things. It's like, no, all you got to do is just like literally take a little topic that you think can resonate with this person over there. Just look at them as a friend of yours, a peer in a mastermind. You're sitting around a table and you're like, you know what this content repurposing strategy we use, I think people would love to hear about it. Here's a three minute talk about it. Bam, go. There's your content and it's just communicating. Yeah, execute.

Yeah. One of the things that Scott Oldford preached to me over the last year, I went to one of his other masterminds in October, I think it was, but he was saying how, like, he doesn't follow anybody anymore. He just, he's just on his own path. I shouldn't say anybody. He's got like two or three people that he follows. So like anybody listening to this podcast, here's a piece of advice for you and a piece of software. One, pick one, maybe two podcasts to focus on and just consume it and then go execute the things that they're talking about. So this podcast, just focus on this podcast. And then secondly, like one thing that. And this is just some last couple of weeks Or a month or so is I installed the Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator plugin on Google Chrome. Oh, my God. Best thing that I've ever done for my content production process and just build out of my own frameworks because I stopped looking at everybody else's shit and overthinking it, you know, and it allows me, when I'm sitting with my kids who are restless and not wanting to sleep, I'm not scrolling Facebook on the phone anymore. You know, like I'm sitting there, you know, sometimes I'm watching highlights, but other times I'll listen to an audio tape. Other times I'm just sitting there and trying to like, connect with my kids. Imagine that.

Go figure. That there's actually a cool Chrome extension. I don't remember the name now because I don't have it installed anymore, but it's basically Newsfeed Eradicator. But it leaves all the ads so you can actually scroll through Facebook and all you see is the ads that you would have gotten targeted with. And that one I find beneficial because I'm just sitting there screenshotting. Shit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That serves that side of it of the marketer and you wanting to kind of see what other people are doing.

Exactly.

It's funny, I was literally on Twitter the other day. Cause we're experimenting with some Twitter ads right now, and I'm like, I need to build out my swipe file. And I was like, God, all of these people are annoying. Just get me to the ads. And I was just scrolling through Twitter, like ignoring all of the tweets, just trying to find the ads.

Yeah, well, it's funny you say that too, because we're just starting to experiment with LinkedIn ads ourselves too. We've never done anything on it, just mostly because I've always thought it's too expensive, but it's mostly around, like, I haven't had time to really fully dive into it. And it can be expensive if you just go and like, play around with it. So we're now at the point where we can put a dedicated strategy behind it. And it's take. We thought we'd have an ad up in two days, and then we realized like, oh, damn, like, we better spend like some time and document, like, what's the standard operating procedure of running LinkedIn ads? What assets do you need? What audiences can you target? All these things. And now we're going to experiment and we'll share that with people.

Good.

But it's actually part of this framework that we have now. Because when people ask me, like, should I run LinkedIn ads? I'll say, do you have these nine things done first? Are they dialed in? No. Then, no.

Then don't touch them.

We actually saw one of the proposals that you made for somebody else to help with LinkedIn. I won't name any names or anything, but. But I noticed that like, one of the last things is ad strategy. And it said not recommended at this time. You got to do all this other stuff first. It's great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, let's. I want to focus in on the content strategy, like with you specifically. And obviously you're seeing a lot with your clients. Yeah. Like what, what got you to get to that consistency mode? And how have you like, dropped some of this friction with creating content? Like, what does it look like? And how can folks listening if they're struggling to create content? How can you start to kind of move in that direction?

Well, the simplest things that we found, number one was usually people have content already that can just be repurposed and just made in different ways and just needs to be distributed again. But we don't do it because we think, well, I already published that blog post. I can't repurpose it on LinkedIn as a LinkedIn article. I can't chop a piece out and add it as a LinkedIn post. I can. I can't create a video around it because I've already done it. Which is not true because whoever you're getting connected with now, they're never gonna find it unless they deep dive into 50 podcast episodes. Like in your guys case.

Right.

That's where you guys creating podcast content and having really good show notes and taking good notes around. Like, here's the five nuggets that are three minutes long. That would be really great clips. Like, I don't know what you guys do right now with these videos, but you know, we've talked about 10 topics already. That could easily be clips, right?

Oh, yeah, you'll see these videos. People listening to this episode will probably see clips from these videos floating around.

Definitely.

Awesome. Yeah. Well, that was one of the big aha moments for me because again, I was saying I was doing live Q&As and I was kind of like reluctantly doing them because you know how it is. You have an online program, We've got, I think three or 400 people that pay for our online program, and nobody shows up to the damn live Q and A's.

It's so common.

So at first you're kind of like, well, why am I doing this? And then the second part, you're like, wait a second, this is a blocked off time every week that I can focus on just creating content. And then I was like, oh, double dip in here.

I've actually never really thought of it from that angle because we experienced the same issue where we had membership sites and I think we always did a one a month live call and we'd have like, you know, a thousand members in the membership thing and 10 people would show up to the call and we're like, yeah. Or worse, sometimes we'd have like two people show up to the call and we're just like, well, our whole content strategy was to answer your questions and if there's only two people here, this is not gonna last very long.

Yeah, yeah, well, that's the thing is like, cause it's just like I said with me, publishing content on LinkedIn, if people go look at my LinkedIn profile and you go to my posts, you'll see that I get like 2 likes and 1 comments on every single video that I do. But it's making money, so I don't really care. At the same time, my ego and my marketer brain says, imagine if that was super engaging and there was a ton of more views and I could incorporate an ad strategy that gets those videos more into the stream. So to me, it's two ways to look at it. One is like, oh man, this isn't working or oh my God, there's so much potential here. Look at what we're doing without even amplifying the content that we're creating.

That's how I'm seeing it. You're laying a great framework here, a foundation, and you're leveraging.

A platform that you know, and it's not a platform you can control necessarily. You don't own it, but you're leveraging it in these strategic ways to then bring them into your own space. It's, it's the whole thing of not you're relying on it a little bit, but at the same time you have relationships you're building that can carry over into your own thing that you can control and follow up with. And I think that's the hugely powerful. Yeah, totally, yeah. And I think people, cause I know us with LinkedIn will look at it and be like, man, there's not a lot of engagement on there. So that will actually stop us from posting on there and making that a strategy that's consistent. Consistent. Right now it's just haphazard because of that, because we're not on sales calls necessarily, but at the same time, we know people are looking on there and you can see the views. So it's like 100% people are watching. They're just not necessarily pushing a button.

So are you familiar with Shawn Stevenson? The late Shawn Stevenson passed away just a few months back, but he was on stage at one time, and he was doing, like, a Q and A session, and somebody walked up to the mic and he. And asked him a question, and he said, and I'm totally butchering it. This is just sort of my recollection. But he said something like, you know, I've got a YouTube channel. It only gets, like, you know, 300 downloads per video that I put up. If you were me, what would you do to try to, like, boost my YouTube channel? How do I get my videos in front of more people? And Sean said, you're focusing on the wrong thing. Basically, he was saying, so if. If there was a plane crash tomorrow and 300 people were on that plane and all of them were gone, would that be a big impact on the world? Would everybody be sort of devastated and hurt by the fact that we just lost 300 souls? And the person at the mic was like, yeah, of course. That'd be. That'd be horrible. And he's like, so those 300 souls are valuable, but the 300 souls that you just put that YouTube video in.

Front of, aren't you.

You're focusing on the wrong thing. Stop thinking about the people that you're not impacting and start thinking about the people that you are impacting.

Yeah, and that speaks to what I think you were asking about, too. Joe was like, how am I going about the content? I call them rants. But honestly, it's just me, like, speaking the truth now and helping people get out of their own damn way. Because I know that I don't care what somebody does to be able to get into a better situation in their life. Just go and stick to it. Because I know we've been doing our process long enough that if you do it, it works. It just works. But 99% of people don't do it. They just don't, you know? So I talk about that honestly, like, usually the last 10 minutes of my live Q and A's are me going off saying, like, if you do anything, just focus on that one thing that we talked about today and then report back and let me know, because I'll keep you accountable. And, you know, I want to create a greater impact even than we already are. Right? Now, but I know I need to show up talking as though I'm speaking to one person at a time.

Yeah, you're changing that life. And just think about. And now you can now the fact that you're distributing that content in these little nugget forms on a bigger platform, that can now affect all of these other people out there. And, yeah, a lot of them you'll probably never talk to, and that's okay. But, like, it's this positive effect, this ripple you're putting out into the world, and it's just a byproduct of what you're already doing on a one to one basis or one to many basis where you do get feedback. So I think as a content strategy, this is an amazing way to start. It's almost like identify what you're already gonna do in your business and serve, like, who you're serving, whoever that might be. And then from there, figure out a good repurposing strategy and then connect that with a platform. Probably start with one platform that you're kind of familiar with and just be consistent as hell with that. Be consistent on both fronts. Creating the content, but also the repurposing on that platform. Not trying to be everywhere. That's the downfall, for sure.

Yeah. And know where your audience is, too, right? Like, I know my perfect audience. My audience audience is on Facebook too. They are. I know that. And we were running Facebook ads for the last, like, year up until about a month ago, and we stopped partially because Facebook's been a bit of a pain in the ass just with the ad shutdowns and all that kind of stuff. But also I just saw how noisy it was getting. And I also saw the calls that I was getting on those people were doing. Like, what we talked about earlier is, like, they were looking for LinkedIn lead generation solution. If I talk to somebody about LinkedIn lead generation solution, as the opener of my conversation, I'd rather just throw them back into the sea and say, you should just go watch my videos. Everything I teach is completely free because you're not ready for what I have to offer as a transformation in your business yet. So we pulled off Facebook, and now we're focusing on LinkedIn, which is why I say we're going to invest in LinkedIn ads, because we know that if people are there. And my LinkedIn ad, by the way, is like this. It's like, hey, I'm glad I got your attention. I'm gonna keep this brief because I know you're probably in here looking for prospects. Why else would you be in LinkedIn? Right. You're probably in your inbox and you're looking to see if that connection request got accepted and it probably didn't and you're probably disappointed. Does this resonate? Cool, here's what I got for you and then I'll call to action to somewhere straight to the point. I can actually be more direct because I know they're there to do business, they're not there to kind of do business, but also to check the sports scores and to see what their friends are up to. And it's a totally different mindset. Person that's in LinkedIn.

Where can people go to watch the free content that you've been putting out around LinkedIn. Because I, you know, I think going into this conversation, I think we thought we might Talk more about LinkedIn but I actually really like where the conversation went instead. But I do want to point people to where like, hey, I want to go down that LinkedIn rabbit hole. I want to learn what Trevor has to offer for LinkedIn where, where's a good place for them to kind of dip their toes in and start down that free content.

Yeah, so just go to my LinkedIn profile and then go into the, go into the activity area and my posts and you'll see all kinds of different videos in there. But you know, if you end, if you opt into anything on any of my websites, you're going to end up in email sequences that'll send you LinkedIn profile training. And here's the LinkedIn scripts that work for us to reach out to your existing first degree network. And here's a checklist of do this, then do this, then do this. Like here's the process. And then like our online program, you know, we've got all kinds of trainings in there. We've got a free Facebook group, it's called the Empowered Solopreneurs group. So you can just go search for that. We're posting stuff in there all the time. The paid one is like a library full of content in there as well. And we run different promotions throughout the year to get people in, knowing that there's always, you know, 50 people will come in and 10 will do the work and one will upsell into what we actually do to really help people. But it's all over the place and just reach out to me, that's the other thing that around the LinkedIn side of things too. So, you know, one of the things that people are always looking for when they're googling LinkedIn lead generation is like, how do I automate this? That's another big trigger for me to go, you're talking to the wrong person. Because we don't automate anything. We create scalable solutions through virtual assistants and scripting and that type of thing, but everything we track. So, like, if you message me on LinkedIn, I'm never in my LinkedIn inbox. I've got three other people that help me manage it, but I never miss a message. I guarantee you message me that I will get it if it's directed to me and tell me that you listen to this podcast, because then I have some context, right? Yep. It's just another stream. And I think that level of personalization goes a long ways. It's part of the reason why I sent you guys that big, long checklist, too, of like, here's what you would do if you are somebody that has an audience already or has an inbox, which both of you guys probably do, of connection requests in LinkedIn. And you're like, I don't even know what to do with this. And I certainly don't have time to respond to everybody on there. I get it. So you have to figure out a way to remove you from the process without losing the personalization side of it.

Gotcha.

That's essentially what I've created with this method.

Got it. I love it, man. And that's. It's something that we can use. But yeah, before all that, definitely go check out Trevor's free stuff out there, because there's probably a lot to learn before jumping into the deep end and automating. Not automating the whole LinkedIn process, if that resonates with whoever's listening here. And I think it's smart that you're not automating with software, because I think that's against terms typically anyway. So it's like, the personal approach works well.

And more importantly, the reason why we went down that path, because it does take longer and it's. And. But it does create better quality conversations and connections. You don't miss things where somebody responds to you and you respond with a script. That's totally unrelated. But the major core reason why we did this and everybody listening can probably resonate is that in the last year, in particular, this space of, like, I'm a consultant, I'm a coach, and I do it virtually through zoom meetings is so saturated that if you're using old tactics and automated tactics to, like, mass market, you're dead in the water. Like, just quit right now. Go get a job, you know, like.

How much more of this process, after I give you my money is gonna be automated.

Yeah, good point.

You have to find a way to stand out. And standing out actually means go back to things that don't seem like they make sense. Go back to things that used to work.

Yeah. Don't seem scalable. But really you can.

I literally have a book on my somewhere that says that's called do things that don't scale.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's all about that kind of stuff. It's all about businesses need to get back to more human connection, more one on one, more doing things that just, you can't scale. You just got to be up human again.

Which is, which is why, you know, the marketer brain and both in all of us though, goes, okay, I get that. But like, come on, seriously, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this. Like, no. So there needs, there needs to be an in between, which in between is usually just standard operating procedure. Do this in this scenario and do this, this, this, this, this. Right. And then in order to actually scale that. And this goes back to what we first started talking about is like, how do you manage your time efficiency? So, you know, our huddles that we do in the morning, it's strictly based on that. It's like, you know, here's what I'm up to, up to the next 24 hours. Here's where I'm struggling. This scenario came in. I don't know how to answer it.

Cool.

We need to create a script on that. Done. Next. What else do we got? You know, so it just starts amplifying itself. So like, you guys on LinkedIn? Yeah. There's a learning curve. You're gonna, you'd have to dive in and be like, okay, wait a second, how does this platform work and what scripts am I using and who's sending that and what if they send it to the wrong person? Oh, I get it. So I can bet the list, there's a part of you that doesn't even fully get what we do yet.

And it does take a little bit of convincing to get over that hurdle to go, okay, I'm going to justify some time to dig into this a little bit, knowing that once I get it, that every hour I put in is going to create less and less work on the back end once the system's set up.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

And that's why I'm creating content, man, is like this just, this conversation is maybe a trigger point for people to go, okay, I'll maybe look into this thing.

Yeah.

And that's what I was going to say is like, yeah, I think that would be a good next step. Like if this resonates. If you know, LinkedIn is something that really your audience lives there and you feel almost like, ah, there's like untapped potential there. But I still need to understand it. So check Trevor out on his LinkedIn page. Trevor turn will just type it in there and then reach out. So I think that's, I think that's a great next step.

Cool.

Yeah.

Well, I'm sure you'll be back for another round on this podcast because I don't think we've scratched the surface of some of the rabbit holes we could have gone down together. But I think we kind of got to wrap it up here for time reasons.

And any book you said scaling up. So would that be a book you recommend to.

Or do you have another one in mind? Because I know it's a specialty. It's not for everyone.

Yeah. Scaling up is honestly quite a beast. It's a good foundational piece and there's a lot of good pieces of it that you can use, but it's definitely for bigger companies. Typically Traction's a much more consumable, entrepreneurial folks startup kind of focused approach.

Geno Wickman, he also did get a grip, which is really good. And then what was the other one?

The Traction getting grip in Rocket fuel.

Rocket fuel, yeah. That was like more the assessment kind of thing.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah, I haven't read that one yet. The other thing that it's like a foundational piece of our business and everything that we've talked about is just the one thing. The One Thing is such a good foundational book.

That one's Gary Keller, right?

Yeah, that's a re reader. I haven't read that in a while, so I'm going to write that one. I like that one.

I like Essentialism a lot. And both those books I think came out within like weeks of each other and both kind of focus on this, on similar concepts.

Yeah, both.

Both great books. I think for some, for whatever reason, I think I read Essentialism first and that one really resonated with me. And I read the One Thing and I kind of felt like, oh, this is a copy of Essentialism, but it probably just depended on whatever one you read first.

Yeah, like the One Thing gets more love on the show for some reason.

So yeah, I kind of feel that way.

I don't know why, because I like them both.

But I think, I think the one thing gets more shout outs on the show than essentialism does.

Yeah.

Huh.

Awesome.

It's a pretty. Pretty easy read. Really. Like it's. And it's a good one on an audio book too, because I'm terrible at reading. It's me and you, Jovan. Yeah, I'm terrible at audio listened.

I literally 8 available credits right now on Audible.

Oh. I go through audiobooks like crazy, man.

So I read way more than I listen to audio. But for me, I mean, I guess it goes the same for you guys, but I don't have a commute. I don't really have a time where I sit down and listen to audiobooks. When I do have free time and I got headphones in my ears, it's usually podcasts or music for me, so it's cool. I really should use those credits, though.

You probably should. Yeah. It's a lot of good books you're just letting get dusty out there.

Yeah. That's like eight months of paying for Audible with not actually using Audible. That's true.

That too. All right, man.

Cool, guys.

Yeah. Trevor, it's been awesome. We'll link everything in the show notes on how to contact you, and I think we'll link up your article as well. That was on entrepreneur.com. is that what it was?

Could you shoot us an email with that URL? We'll make sure our show notes people get that in the notes as well.

I should have it too, but either way.

Yeah, we might have the link already.

Cool.

Yeah, yeah. And I'll send you any other new resources that we create that. Because us talking through this has already got me thinking about the new content ideas and because, you know, sometimes we don't know this when you're in a bubble of like, you know, how much free, organized LinkedIn training content do I have out there? And I'm like, well, I got a lot, but it's kind of a little all over the place. I'm like, all right, maybe I'll go organize that. And then I'm thinking to myself, wait a second, I'm not going to organize that. I'm going to get my assistant organize that. And then I'm going to get my VA to go repurpose that. So there you go. And it's all mindset. And this has literally shifted for me just in the last couple months. So I think there's so much potential out there for all your listeners that are listening in on this too, that think that they have nothing to share with the world and they're Struggling. And they want to stand out from this ever increasing competition. Focus on one thing. Don't overcomplicate things. Step through the fear of, like. Well, somebody's already talked about that. Well, of course they have. Doesn't mean you shouldn't.

That's right.

Put your own spin on it.

Yeah. There you go, man.

I appreciate it. Guys, Guys.

All right, brother.

Hopefully we'll see you at TNC in San Diego. Hopefully make it down. If. If not, then hopefully we see you soon.

And of course, reach out with any content help. We got your back on that, man. Absolutely.

We're gonna have to jam session after this, too, about some strategies.

Well, I see guitar there. We need to do jam sessions in.

More ways than one.

Oh, man, I gotta pick that thing up again. Yeah.

It's been a while.

It's been a while.

All right.

Trevor was great talking to you, man.

You too, guys. Thanks.

Yeah, thanks so much for tuning into that episode.

I hope you dug it.

I know Joe and I dug it. I actually kicked Joe out of the room. He's not here right now. Because I wanted to tell you about a tool that I really, really dig. We use it in our business. We recommend it all the time. It's called Easy Webinar, and it's a tool that lets you do live webinars, automated webinars, hybrid webinars, and, you know, pretty much any other kind of webinar, if there are other kinds of webinars. But anyway, this tool is kind of like your all in one, do it all tool for anything webinar related. It's Easy Webinar. It's put out by a dude named Casey Zman. He's been on the podcast. If you haven't listened to that episode, it's a killer episode. He's a really smart dude, but his software is amazing. It does everything. It's, you know, the title tells you exactly what it does. It's an easy webinar platform, and we use this in our business to run automated webinars all the time. We don't do a lot of live webinars these days. We like to do the kind of automated webinars where somebody can register and then it, you know, they can either watch it like 15 minutes later or they can watch it the next day, but it's just kind of always running. And it's a system that helps us make autopilot sales off of our webinars. Super cool tool. If you haven't tried it yet, you know, it's. It's. It's an amazing tool. And, uh, Casey is actually hooking you up. He said for listeners of Hustle and Flowchart, I can't believe he's doing this, but he said for listeners of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, he's giving 25% off of the membership to use easy webinar. It's already super, super inexpensive for what it does and all the cool features it has, but he's hooking you up with 25% off because you're a listener of Hustle and flowchart. Go to easywebinar.com hustle. That's where you can get that 25% off discount. That's easywebinar.com hustole. It's a awesome tool. You're gonna dig it, so just go grab it. Check it out. Easywebinar.com hustle See ya. No, not see ya. You'll hear me in the next show. I don't know. I don't know how to close these things. Go get Easy Webinar. Talk to you later.

Thanks, everybody, for listening to this episode.

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