Brand Building Masterclass with Justin Welsh

Every company has breakdowns in their revenue process. Sure thing. Deals slip into next quarter, competitors creep in and swipe deals away at the last minute, and deals getting single threaded that don't get to power. These are just a few examples of revenue leak, but there are a ton more and they're preventing your team from reaching their sales targets. That's why I'm such a big fan of Clary's Revenue platform is the only tool that actually helps leaders take control of their revenue and thrive through any market conditions, especially when things get tough. You can't afford to miss a single detail, but you also can't be leading by gut. Clary combines the science and the art of sales and sales leadership. So go to clary.com if you want to answer the most important question in your business. Are you going to meet, beat or Miss on revenue? Welcome to the live Better Sell Better podcast with your host Kevin Dorsey of Inside Sales Excellence, the number one Patreon group and YouTube channel for tech sellers and tech sales leaders, where we dive in deep for tactical advice on how.

To book more meetings and close more.

Deals faster and lead sales teams to success. But we don't stop there. We also focus on the person in salesperson. We talk about mindset goals, time management and so much more. So thank you for listening and if you're interested, head on over to patreon.com InsideSalesExcellence now with that, grab a notepad, get ready and let's dive into the good stuff. What up everybody? Welcome to the live Better Sell Better podcast. This is Kevin Dorsey, AKA kd, and I am so excited for today's topic, which is Brand Building 101 to 301 how to get a Master's degree in Branding in under a year. And so I have the pleasure of introducing a good friend of mine and former colleague, Justin Welsh, who is also the author of the LinkedIn Playbook. Justin is by far one of the best at building a brand that you need to listen to and follow. Because in a crowded and messy world where everyone says build a brand, no one was more systematic, scientific or intentional with building his brand than Justin. He went from barely posting and a following of around 6,000 to over 44,000 followers in just 12 months. So if you want to learn how to build a brand and do it right, Justin Welsh is the guy to learn from. So here we go. Let's kick it off. Justin, welcome to the show kd.

Man, I am pumped. Dude. Thank you so much for having me. Can't wait to get the conversation going Jazz to do it.

All right, well, let's dive right in. So we're going to set the stage here, get right into the juicy stuff. Why build a brand as a rep and a leader? Like, why even do this?

Yeah, you know, it's really interesting because if you rewind back to when I was doing it, like, it was relatively unintentional. Like, I started sharing things that I was doing, and, you know, at first it didn't resonate at all. No one was caring about anything that I had to say. And then I posted one post, and it kind of took off and it got addictive. So for me, in the beginning, it was just. It was a little bit addictive, and I wanted to kind of share my story. And then I slowly watched as over the next 12 months, opportunities trickled in. And I'm not talking job opportunities, right? You and I worked together during this entire time period, and I'm talking about opportunities to be on podcasts like this, to do webinars with companies like Outreach, to speak on stage. And these were all these really unique opportunities that had always been closed off to me. And I was like, wow. Building a brand isn't just about who I am and what I do. It's about unlocking unique opportunities. So when I talk to people who are just starting their brand building exercise, I want to know, what are the things that you want to accomplish? Most of them are saying things like podcasting, they want to be on webinars, they want to be on stage, things like that. But what about the network? Right. For me, it's all about the network that these brands, these reps, can build. Even if it doesn't land them that podcast or that speaking opportunity, it lands them connections. Connections that they literally will have if they nurture them for the rest of their life. And they'll be connected to some of the top performers in their industry. So the next time that they're looking for a new job or they want to get promoted, they have that network.

They.

What better way to do that than go out and tell people who you are, who you help and what you do?

I mean, I think that is huge. It's far more than just social selling or getting 50,000 followers on LinkedIn. So you kind of touched on it there. But what are some of the opportunities that you believe are directly related to you? Building a brand?

Yeah, for me, like, my very first opportunity to speak on stage at Saster was directly related to brand building. I got an email from Jason Lemkin, who I had met in past for maybe 30 minutes one day. And he said, hey, I saw this post. I thought it'd be a really good topic for you to speak about at Saster. And I was like, whoa, it's like the biggest event in my industry. And like, this is the biggest guy in my industry. And he saw a post of mine on LinkedIn and was like, that's a good topic for my huge conference. And I spoke in front of a thousand people on how to build a successful sales culture because it was based on a LinkedIn topic. So that's the kind of opportunity I'm talking about. Those are big. But the aggregate of all the small things, all the podcasts, all the webinars, all the guest appearances, I mean, those lead up and add up and they power my business today. So those are the opportunities that I'm talking about. Nice.

And that's a good segue because you talked about how it powers your business today. But what I'd like to start doing now is splitting between brand building for a rep and brand building for a leader, because those are two very different, different things. And so I'm gonna split it now here and say, how should a rep think about building their brand? And then we'll follow up with how should a leader think about building their brand?

Yeah, it's interesting. I'll say something that may not be popular with companies, and that's okay, because companies today aren't really my audience, but I don't believe that a rep should build their brand based on the customer that they're serving. I have seen a lot of people, let's take our time working together at Patient Pop, right? Let's take one of our reps there. They go out and they build a brand around helping healthcare providers. So helping healthcare providers thrive. And they go out and they talk about, Dr. This, building your practice, this acquiring patients that two years later, they get a job offer from the hottest FinTech company in SAS. Right now they've got 6,000 physicians following them along. Suddenly they transition over to fintech. Then what happens? You start again. Right. So the dynamic for a rep to me is less about how can I influence my industry, and to me, it's more about how can I share with others what I'm doing on a regular basis, what interesting experiences I'm going through, and take people on that journey so that you build a brand for building a network. Because to me, that network of peers is way more valuable than a network of customers that may not carry with you from on the job.

Okay, so do you think it also carries over then to a leader. Should a leader say the same thing? It's my personal brand. It's not about the company I work for.

I do. Like, I didn't think this way maybe 18 months ago, but a leader just needs to sort of step up their game a little bit more. To me, leaders are usually jockeying inside of a company for one golden role, right? Like that one director role opens up, that one manager role, that one VP role opens up. And the likelihood that you get it, like, if you're excellent, maybe it's a really strong likelihood. But if you're like kind of in the middle of the pack or towards the top, but you're not the top dog, you may not get that role. So for me, leadership is all about the future. How am I building my brand so that if I can't get the role that I want inside of my company, that other companies who are creating that role or hiring for that role put a target on my back and say, justin Welsh is the guy we want for our SVP of sales. That's what I recommend for leaders.

So that's gold. And we're gonna get into the how a little bit here in a second, but maybe think of something here. So, you know, we keep using this word, brand, brand. Build a brand, build a brand. You know, how intentional were you with your brand, Right? Like, when I think of brand, I think of, I guess what I'm known for or how someone would describe me, right? To someone they just met. Like, oh, that's KD he blank. Right? Oh, that's Justin he blank. That's the brand. How intentional were you with, I guess what you'd be known for or what that brand is.

I started off relatively unintentionally, but today I like to think that I'm much more intentional about it. And when I talk to people about building their quote, unquote brand, what I'm really talking about is their journey. And so I don't think about brand like Nike. That's not how I think about personal branding. To me, it is, what have you done that is interesting? How have you done that interesting thing in a unique way? And what is the journey that you have taken when doing that interesting thing? The brand is how you tell that story to the audience. So when people ask, how do I build a brand? I say, start by doing something interesting, right? Like if you don't do anything interesting, it's really hard to build a brand. So start by doing something interesting second off, after you do that interesting thing. Make sure that you're notating that. Like, what's happening? What does my journey look like? What's winning and what's losing? What's failing and succeeding? What are the roadblocks? Like, what are my unique perspectives that I'm learning about as I go on this journey and then share that journey, that journey that people follow? To me, that is your brand, and that's different than I think other people might think about their personal brand. That's just how I think about it.

No, I love that. Because I think a lot of people coming out are trying to establish their brand as an expert, right? They're trying to, like, oh, this is why I'm so knowledgeable. Here's why. I'm an expert. Whereas what you're saying is actually document your growth to mastery, right? Like, don't wait to be a master or pretend that you are, but just document the growth.

But what is a master and what is an expert? And so, like, when I talk to people about this all the time, they're like, well, I'm not an expert in X. I'm like, says who? Is there a checklist that, like, I get it. You want to be a doctor, you got to, like, get your medical degree. Like, that's different, right? Like, what makes an expert sales leader? Like, where's the checklist for that thing? And so the way that I try and talk about it with people is you're the expert in you. Like, you have the only expertise in kd. I have the only expertise in Justin. Our journeys are very different. So I don't sell expertise. What I sell is myself. I want people to follow me because they're like, justin reminds me of me, or I'm motivated by him in particular, or I like his story. And so I'm the expert in me. And when you create expertise in yourself, in your journey, then there's no competition. Like, you know, you and I are both sales leaders. Colin Cadmus, sales leader. Jake Dunlap, a sales leader. We could all say, like, who's better at outbound, inbound, building this team, whatever, but nobody's better at my journey than me. And so I have no competition when I think about it that way.

That's strong. No competition to you. That's gold. I'll write that one down. So, all right, now we're going to get tactical here. So you've been doing it for about a year and a half now. Super, like, super in depth. So if you were starting from scratch, and we're gonna split this in two, you're starting from scratch as a rep and starting to scratch from a leader. What would you do? You wake up today, you heard this podcast, you go, all right, they're right. I'm gonna build my brand. They're starting from scratch. What would those next steps be?

Yeah, I think there are sort of step one and step two happen in tandem, and it's kind of like. It's kind of like marketing, right? You can go out with a great marketing message, but if you drive people to a crappy landing page, like, it generally won't convert in whatever way that you're hoping it will convert. So the very first thing that I would do is I would build my landing page. And by landing page, I'm talking about my social profiles, the place where people interact with my brand. And so if you're just getting started as a rep, like, what I might recommend is a polished and professional headshot, a really nice header image, and something using something like canva, a great tagline. Who do you help? What do you help them do, and how do you help them do it? That's like a great tagline, not like account executive at Shopify. Like, great, I can scroll down and see that you're account executive at Shopify. That's not hard. What do you help people do? How do you help them do it? Put that in your tagline. So I would really create this beautiful profile, right, where it's very professional and polished, because everything that you do moving forward is going to drive back to that quote, unquote, landing page. The second thing that I would do is I would establish that expertise. And when I say expertise, I don't mean being an expert in X. I mean, what is the journey that you're going to take your audience on? What are you trying to accomplish, why, and what is unique about your journey? I just got off the phone with a guy named Blake Hudson. We were just chatting about. He's building his journey. And I said, like, what do you like to do? He's like, I'm huge on communication. I'm like, what do you do with communication? Like, I sell myself. And I was like, well, give me three examples. He's like, example A, example B, example C. I'm like, do you think other people want to learn to sell themselves that way? Yes. Then take them on that journey. Show them how you started doing that. What is the system that you used? So those are the two things that I would do is A, build out my profiles, make them look beautiful and professional, and then B, decide what journey you're going to take people on because you're going to be the expert in that journey.

Okay, I love that. So that pretty much actually covers the leader side too. They really just cover each other, right?

Totally. I think they do. For me, leadership is a little bit different. To me, being a rep is all like self driven. This is my journey, right. This is what I'm going on. This is what I'm the expert in. Leadership starts to evolve a larger circle of people. Right. No one really wants to hire a leader that is self focused because that generally makes for a poor leader. Leaders put their reps, their people, their supporters on their shoulders and they lift them to victory. So if you're a leader, what I want to hear more about is what's the journey you're taking other people on? How are people around you getting better? How is their performance getting stronger? What would they say about you if you said I was a D player and now I'm an A player? How would they describe your role in. In that transformation? So to me, that's like a really powerful difference between the leader level and the rep level.

That's really strong. And I've never heard anyone phrase it that way before too. So if you're listening, write that down because that's gold. So, okay, now I got a pretty headshot. I've got my banner image. My profile is looking sweet, right? I now know my journey. Shoot. Now I have to start writing. I have to start writing posts. So what types of posts? Twofold. What types of posts should I write? How do I document that journey? And then as someone who's had some posts go crazy viral, like, what types of posts get the best engagement?

Yeah, I mean, the types of posts that get the best engagement are entertaining.

Like.

When I want to be entertained, I generally watch a movie that's filled with action or comedy or romance. There's something about that that entertains me.

Right.

I don't generally watch a boring three hour sort of white paper, established documentary. I will if they're exciting and entertaining. But my point is tell stories. I see a lot of people who go out with their content and they're like 74% of people said this and 21% and it's like, next, I'm scrolling, right? This is LinkedIn and Twitter. They're very scrollable. So I'm looking for something that catches my eye. And to me, a good story catches my eye. So I like to use stories to teach lessons about my journey. We go back to the journey I'm going on Rather than document it in a dry and boring way, engage me, tell a story, and use a story framework. And the story framework that I use most frequently is called Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller. And I think he does a really great job of breaking down how Hollywood movies get written. I try and write my stories in the same way that a Hollywood movie might get written, just in 1300 characters or less, Right?

And so grab that book. Building a Story Brand. Another good one is Stories that Stick by Kendra hall, where they're very formulaic. So how do you get someone to stop? Right. Like what? Like, let's break that down, right? I am scrolling. Maybe I'm supposed to be in a meeting. Who knows? I'm not paying attention. I'm scrolling. How do you grab that first attention to get me to stop and want.

To read more chunks and white space? So for me, it's like, as I'm scrolling, you get three lines or you get five lines on LinkedIn. Excuse me, you get three lines if it's like an image post or whatever. But like, whatever format, LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever you're using, make that first line or those first three lines really enticing to me. Like, once someone's committed to reading something, they will generally read it all the way through. So step one is get someone to stop scrolling. That is like, what you need to do. So make your first line so compelling that someone says, wait, I got to stop. An easy way to do that is to be polarizing. And polarizing to me means, you know, 70% of people agree, 30% disagree. Maybe 60, 40, enough for someone to stop and say, I vehemently agree or I vehemently disagree. Once you've got them hooked on step one, you want to get them to read the entire thing. That's step two. Once you've gotten someone to commit to reading something all the way to the conclusion, you get to step three, which is interaction. Interaction drives the likelihood that other people take step one. So for me, it's being compelling right out of the gate. It's not being lengthy and wordy. It's easy on the eyes, chunky little sentences, lots of white space so that people can digest what you're saying. And I get made fun of for writing the same style all the time. I do not give a shit. Because it works.

It works. Everyone listening, like, oh, they're writing to get views. Well, yeah, if you have a message that you want to share and it's worthwhile and it's valuable, you want people to read it. There's nothing wrong with that. And if you're writing these big thick paragraphs, not only will people not stop and read, but they can't read it. They just move right along. So it's actually a good setup to the next question. This mysterious LinkedIn algo, the algo, the algorithm. What are just a few things because obviously it's not like posted somewhere like, here's how you beat the algo, here's how you get more views. But what are a few things you've learned over the past, you know, really year that say, okay, this has helped me get more views and more engagement on my post, besides good copy. I do want to be clear on this, everyone. If you have a bad message, you can't trick the algo. You can't put 500 people in your post and think that they're going to engage with it. So let's make sure we're clear on that. So, okay, you got a good message, a good profile, a good post. What are things to keep in mind to really put it in front as many people possible?

It's like SEO, man. Like to me, your copy is your on page SEO. It's the stuff that you write, it's the off page SEO that actually ratchets up your on page SEO. So let me break that down in case people don't care about search engine optimization. So writing content is one thing. It's gotta be awesome, it's gotta be excellent. Gotta get people to pause, scroll and read. Right? But it's what you do outside of that that actually helps you really influence the algorithm. And for me, what I try and do is I try and interact with people in my industry that are thought leaders and that have big followings. A guy like you, a guy like Colin Kadmiss, a guy like Jake Dunlap. When you post Kevin, I comment on it, right? And when I post, you generally comment on it. It's no secret, it's no hidden trick. It's just the more that the people inside of your sphere of influence have a large following, the more that people are going to see of my post. So by commenting on your post every day and Jake's and Collins and Max, all Chulers and everybody else's, you start returning the favor. And when you write on my post, it's suddenly exposed to your 52,000 followers, right? When Jake writes on mine, he's exposed to his 40,000 followers or whatever he has. So those are the things that I do systematically. Every morning, every morning you and I text at like 5:30 in the morning, right? It's like I'm up early, like I'm commenting on the people stuff, who I like and who I care about and who benefit me.

Right.

Like I'm, I'm not a, I'm not, you know, trying to beat around the bush here. But that is a huge thing that to me, I don't care about like the algorithm. Like to me, write awesome content, be really relatable, be compelling and surround yourself with people who have big followings.

And I love the way that you phrase that of like not caring about the algo. You need to understand it. But I know I even went through a phrase where I was trying to like beat the algo. Beat it, right? Like, you know, and. But then your, your message gets drowned. You're not writing good copy. You're writing hoping it goes viral. Are you hoping or people are engaging with it and it starts to feel very disauthentic, you know, so. Okay, yeah, man.

And like the minute you start writing for that, like, it, I don't know, it just, it to me, it just, it kind of messes with my head a little bit and I'm like, I start to lose the core message if I'm trying to change it to meet the quote unquote algorithm. I just rather put out good content and hope that people like it. That's the trick for me, I think.

And speaking firsthand with this and Justin, I have talked about this too. There are posts that you're like, this is gonna be the greatest post of all time. And it gets like two likes. And there's another one that you wrote in 30 seconds, just like on your way, like to the bathroom, like, oh, this is kind of funny. And then that's the one that goes crazy viral. Like you won't ever really know what's going to resonate with, you know, with your audience. So it's very interesting. So then how do you, how do you come up with your posts? Like, what is your post writing routine? Right, because you put content every day. And I think really over the past few months, I've even started to notice like a couple. Two first, there's been some days where you're getting two out. So how, how do you go about post planning your posts and like how it's not how much time it takes because that can vary, but like, I guess, what's your post writing routine?

Yeah, it used to be that like I would carve out two hours on Saturday or Sunday morning. And I liked that. But the only concern that I Had with that is some Saturday and Sunday mornings. Like, I wasn't feeling it. And then what happens? Like, you've got one block to write your content. You fail, then it's like stress. You get some anxiety. You're like, oh, man, I got to find more time. And I'm pretty busy. I've started to change up where I carve out a block of time on Saturday morning and on Sunday morning, and then I carve out an hour of time each sort of weekly evening. And when I do that, I try and catch lightning in a bottle. So maybe Tuesday at 5pm I sit down to write and I'm like, I'm on fire. I might write eight posts sitting down at one time. I might write zero. I might sit down and say, wow, I'm not feeling this right now. And just nothing comes out and I don't force it. So that's sort of how I first schedule. But where I get my inspiration are really in three areas. The first area is just stuff I do all day. I talk to clients all day. I talk to salespeople and sales leaders all day. What are the problems that they're looking to solve? Like, if they have problems that they're trying to solve, it only makes sense to assume that thousands of other people have those very same challenges. What are the challenges that I'm trying to solve? What are situations I got myself into that I got myself out of? And I'm assuming that there are other people who want to know how to get themselves out of those things. So the Notes app on my phone is a huge writing tool for me. Second is I like to be inspired by other people. I hate plagiarism. I don't like people who copy. But I don't mind being inspired. So maybe someone writes something that I agree with or vehemently disagree with or have a completely new take on. So I use the Pocket extension for Chrome and it installs and it syncs up with Twitter. So as I'm scrolling Twitter, it's just, oh, that's cool. Save to Pocket. Oh, that's interesting. Save to Pocket. I hate that. Take. Save to Pocket. And then whenever I get my lightning in a bottle moment, I'm just going back and reviewing my Pocket to see what else can I write about because I'm on fire right now. And then the last is Feedly, which is just an RSS reader. So I take all these. It's F, E, E, D, L, Y. I feed all the sales podcasts and blogs into this feed. And each morning I wake up and I take a look around at what are people talking about. Same as I do on Twitter. Creating content every day is super hard. And so you have to lean on other people to be inspired. And so that's what I do.

That's gold. And on plagiarism too, you have to be very careful because I actually made this mistake. Once I saw someone write a post, I was like, I really like that. Can I use that? Right? I asked for permission, I said, can I use that? They said, yes, you can use that. So I used it. I wrote a post and it starts going crazy not knowing that they had taken it from someone else. And so one person commented, saying, yeah, I saw this going viral on Twitter. I don't have Twitter, by the way. So they're like, oh, yeah, this is going viral on Twitter. Why did you steal it? I was like, oh, no, I had permission, just not from the right person. So do your homework on this, y', all, because it can go bad real quick. And so now, before we dive into, I guess, to wrap on this and then we get into some of the rapid fire questions, talk to me about this LinkedIn playbook that you've built. Because not only did you go through all this, but you documented your journey. You put it all together, and I think it has over like 50 five star reviews. Like, everyone who goes through it is like, yo, like, I'm doubling, like, my brand not overnight, but like, so fast. Like, talk to me, like, what's in that playbook?

Yeah, well, I was sitting down, having lunch with this really smart sales leader at my house one day. And his name, his name was kd. I think obviously that was you. And you were just like, hey, dude, you're going on this journey. Why don't you document it? Sound familiar? Some of the stuff I shared earlier, right? And I was like, yeah, that's a damn. That's a damn good idea, man. Why don't I document that? So really, it's a documentation of my journey. It is almost everything that I know about LinkedIn, right? It is how I think about building my profile and showing that to my potential clients. It's how I think about connecting with influencers in the industry. It's how I write stories, my story writing techniques. It is the different types of posts that you can write to make sure that you're covering all your bases and being interesting and unique. It is literally everything that I've possibly discovered in the last 12 to 18 months that has helped me grow my following so big. And my goal in the playbook was I went out and I see people and they're like, get the masterclass for 879 bucks or whatever it is. And my goal was to make it accessible. And I was thinking to myself what would be a no brainer for me to buy if I saw it and I liked this guy and thought his stuff was good and wanted to go on his journey. It's a $50 course. You can get it on my website, theofficialjustin.com personal branding and it's just everything that I've learned over the past 12 to 18 months. I'll be actually delivering a new free supplement to it Pretty. Which are all the tools that I use to sort of guide my performance. And you know, I've got now I think about 800 customers. So I'm really, really excited about it. So thanks for the idea by the way.

Thanks for doing it though, because I've learned from you and I think we even joked about this. Like I'm so excited for these podcasts because I'm learning there's things that I'm still improving on my brand journey. And anyone listening, it's a no brainer. Like experience is a really long way to learn something. If you can just drop 50 bucks and learn from someone who already did it, you could learn it in a weekend. Like now you're a year and a half if not more ahead. So definitely go scoop that up. We'll put a link in the podcast notes here as well. So, okay, so now we get into the fun stuff. So we have the three tactics and then we have some rapid fire questions from the Patreon Group inside sales echelons. So first we'll start with. Oh yeah, like this is straight, straight from the audience. So this is, is going to be some fun stuff here. So first the big three. If they were to forget everything from this episode except for three things around building a brand, what are those three things that everyone needs to remember?

Number one, do something interesting. Number two, document it. Number three, learn to write copy.

There we go. Quick follow up. Any good resources on learning copy?

Yeah, like I said, I like Building the Story Brand by Donald Miller. I like the Copywriter Bible by Josh Fechter. The Stories that Stick by Kendra. Whose last name is it? Wilson?

I think it's Hall.

Kendra Hall. Yeah, I just bought that, just started diving into that. So that's been really helpful. And then study guys like Dave Gerhardt. So I joined Dave Gerhardt's Patreon. I'm not a marketer but like 10 bucks a month, I'm just like, hey, if I learn one cool copywriting technique every month, like, this is well worth it. So those are some things that I use.

Okay. Love it. Storytelling. So, okay, now we get into the rapid fire questions from the group. All right, so first question. Any up and comers you see in the game right now doing it right in terms of brand building? Because there's a lot of talk on how to do it wrong. Is there anyone coming up in the game that you're like, you know what? They're doing it right?

Yeah, I mentioned her the other day in a podcast, so this will be two. But I really like Sarah Brazier. I just think she's authentic. I think she talks about her experience as an stm and I think her stuff comes across as really accessible and genuine. I think she's really excellent. Our former colleague and a very good friend of mine, Derek Jankowski, I think is doing a really great job. Derek is, as I've described many times in my life, just a reasonable guy. He just approaches things in a very reasonable fashion. And I think his content comes across that really shares his approach. If I had to think of one more, it might be the young man that I mentioned earlier, which is Blake Hudson. And Blake has been really excellent on video. He's a strong communicator. I think he works for VictoryLAP IO. So take a look at him. And he's just a genuine dude who's sharing really good tips on how to communicate, how to sell yourself. So, Sarah Brazier, Derek Jankowski, Blake Hudson.

Love it. Next question. You kind of answered this one already, so this might be quick. When building a brand, focusing on your ICP or focusing on your personal brand.

Focus on your personal brand and like, don't be afraid, right? I have seen so many people say, what if my company doesn't want me to do that? What if they want me to focus on them? Your company pays you a salary to go to work. They pay you commission to make sales. What you do in your spare time with your own brand is your business. So be really firm about that and make sure that you're focused on yourself. Because remember, loyalty goes both ways. So that company that wants you to be writing about them, when two years later from now they go through layoffs, that shit won't matter for sure.

I was just speaking about this with someone yesterday saying they don't own your profile.

That's right.

They do not own your profile. They own your email. They don't own your profile. Like set up your LinkedIn with your personal email. So. All right, next one. So actually kind of a good segue. Should you stay away from controversial topics while building a brand?

Depends, right? Like I think I would have to get a definition of controversial. But what I would say is I try and lean into polarizing subjects. I try and lean into controversial subjects. You probably saw what I wrote today, which would be considered controversial as long as your take on it reflects empathy, acceptance, general awareness of your surroundings. I think if you write something shitty and mean or nasty or aimed at a group or aimed at a former colleague or company, that's not polarizing, that's stupid. And there's a difference between controversial and stupid. So be cognizant of your surroundings. Be aware that your online profile and brand, while it can be used in a really good way, will follow you for a very long time. So I know what you're thinking in your 25 year old brain because I've been 25 before and guess what? When you're 39, you don't think the same way. So maybe if you're thinking it might not be a good share, don't share it.

We live in the screenshot culture, y' all. Just keep that in mind. So this next one I really liked and because I've also watched your brand evolve over the past, you know, year and a half, two years, how do you avoid, I guess, being either like single threaded or pigeonholed? This is what your brand is. So maybe a better way even to ask is how can you make sure your brand evolves versus just being known for one thing. Is it being a problem known for one thing?

I don't think it is. I think there's two answers to that. In my course I talk about defining a niche and I built this when I was at 21,000 followers. This was a while ago. I talked about being pigeonholed, being very direct and being very focused on one thing. And I still think that's good advice. But I am starting to change my outlook on being niched. I don't think it's required. I think what happens is if your brand is your journey, then your journey genuinely changes over time. And as long as you are talking about yourself and building an audience around you, they will follow you on your journey because you are you. So for example, I used to write a lot about sales. Well, I'm not a sales leader anymore. I mean, I am in the extent that I'm a consultant and advisor to some companies, but I'm doing different things in my life that I think are more interesting at this point in time. But a lot of the salespeople who follow me, follow me because they happen to like either my style or my journey. And they've come along on that journey and they're starting to talk about the things that I'm talking about now. So I don't necessarily know that being pigeonholed is a bad thing, but if you don't want to be pigeonholed, then take people on your natural journey because your journey will simply keep you from being pigeonholed. Because people change over time.

Love it. I think it keeps coming back to that journey. That makes it so an easier way to remember this and go through it. So. Okay, two more questions here. And they both deal with fear. So one, how do you. How did you. Or how would you encourage someone to get over the fear of starting their brand? Afraid of what people will think or afraid of what people will say? How do you help with that fear?

Yeah, boy, that's a really great question. I would say that building a brand is a lot like approaching a new job. Think about first time you were an sdr, right? Like you got the phone in front of you and it's like, all right, it's time to go. Day one. Like, like I've been told I gotta make 80 dials. Those first dials, that first day, that first week, that first month, like, it sucks. You're super uncomfortable, you're super nervous. Everything that you do, you're like, oh, that was such a stupid call. I was so bad on that call. And like, it feels really terrible. There's no different than being an account executive or a sales manager. The very first time you have to have a performance improvement conversation or being a vp, the very first time you're sitting in a board meeting, all those things are very nerve wracking. Brand building is no different. It's an exercise in uncomfortability. And the more uncomfortable you are, the more likely that you're growing. And the only way to grow a brand is by putting yourself out there. So here's what I would do. I would hold up the two. The two opportunities. What sucks more? Never building a brand, never building a network, never uncovering unique opportunities, or being nervous and scared for a few months. To me, the former that I described is so much scarier than being uncomfortable that it made it a no brainer for me. So kind of keep those things in.

Mind and a quick heads up, y'. All people are way meaner to us. When you're starting People don't tend to actually care that much. Like, we'll get people like gunning for us on, on a post like we deal with some shit.

Some people hate my shit. Like, they just hate it. Like, Like I can feel, I can feel the vitriol coming through the page. I'm just like, listen, man, if you haven't pissed off in the marketing thing, if you haven't pissed off someone by new and you're not marketing hard enough, like, I believe that.

Oh, yeah, there are some names. When I see the notification come through, I'm like, ah, what is this gonna be? So, all right, perfect. Last question. And we're probably gonna end every episode with this, right? Like, the whole premise of this show is the person in salesperson, right? Not just sales tactics, not just branding tactics, but also like the person side. If you could give one good life tip, right? So part of the live better side of this, what would be a parting advice in terms of how to live better that you would like to bestow on the audience?

Yeah, I think the one piece of advice that I would say is from a book that you and I have both read, which is you can do anything, but you can't do everything. And in a world where a lot of us are working remotely, companies have long hour expectations. Our phones are blowing up all the time, our email's constantly going off. There's a lot of shit to do. You can work from the minute you got up to the minute you go to sleep. And I've spent a lot of days doing that. And I don't, I don't appreciate those days. And what I've found is that oftentimes when I do everything, nothing happens and nothing gets gained. But when I focus on one very particular thing that I want to drive forward, I'm generally able to drive that forward. So look across your calendar, look across the way that you spend your time and choose to spend your time intentionally. That would be my one piece of life advice.

Love it. It's gold. It's absolutely gold. Do you remember the name of the book? Because there's two of them. There's essentialism and the one thing. Do you know which one it was from?

It's Essentialism by Greg.

Right. Essentialism. Great, Great read. Y' all so well. Justin, this was amazing. Like, serious, serious gold in here. Thank you so much for your time. Everyone listening. Go grab that playbook. It's a no brainer if you're truly trying to take your brand serious. But, Justin, thank you so much. And we'll be in touch, my man.

Katie. Talk to you soon, man. Thanks for having me.

All right.