How Real Relationships Win in an Algorithm-Driven World with Joshua B. Lee

I was talking to a buddy of mine, Giovanni, and we were talking like that. It's like, well, you know, most people are like, well, I'm the CEO of Standing Authority. Like, no, like, go back and look at my LinkedIn profile. My first job is on there as a server at Chili's, right? Everything is an indexable point. And like, how many people go like, I want to have conversation, build relationship. Oh dude, you worked at Chili's? Me too. Conversation, opportunity, commonality, right? Like, that's what people look for. And so like, Phil, everything he's like, oh, so I should put my first job at a Payless shoe store. I'm like, Oh yeah, you know, do everything, put it on there. The more information, the better. You're outside. Like, I'd been for the last couple of years the resident Spider-Man at Dell Children's Hospital here in Austin, Texas. Like, put that stuff out there. I don't want to see what you do. I want to see who you are. You know, don't tell me your resume. Tell me your career journey, your career story.

Welcome to the Speakeasy Mastermind Podcast, where the real conversations happen behind closed doors with the boldest entrepreneurs, creators, and growth minds in the game. No fluff, no filters, just the raw strategies, personal stories, and mental models that move the needle. I'm Eric Berman. Now let's get into it. Dopamine without direction is insanity. I love that quote. And I got that today from Joshua Beely. In today's Inside the Speakeasy Mastermind Podcast, we're going to learn an incredible, incredible entrepreneurial journey of somebody who went from being at the top, down to almost losing everything with $1,000 left in his name, having to recover his life, going through a rough time with personal family and coming stronger out of it. And now being one of the biggest gurus in LinkedIn marketing. He's also going to share 3 incredible simple nuggets and tips that we can all take action on immediately to grow our LinkedIn business. So excited to have you on the show today. Welcome Joshua B. Lee. I'm so pumped and excited today. I have my good friend out of Austin, Texas, where we just had our big event, uh, Joshua Lee. And I was going to riff an intro, but like, he was so kind to give me something really cool. And so, you know, I really want to talk about some of the things you actually said in your bio. And I like how you said this, the dopamine dealer of LinkedIn, which is true. I mean, when you think LinkedIn, there's a couple of people in the community, especially you, you know, reach out to, and it's just so underrated. We're going to get into that a little bit. And I didn't realize you'd over 2 decades in digital marketing and you've built 16 businesses, managed nearly $1 billion in ad spend. Damn. And driven over 35 trillion online impressions. I don't know how you're counting all that. We're gonna have to figure that one out. One thing I know you talked about is you realize that metrics don't build relationships. It's all about the people.

Yeah.

And that's why you founded your company Standout Authority. And there you help out entrepreneurs, executives, industry leaders humanize their brands. And turn engagement into real-world impact. And you've worked with tech giants like Google, AWS, Oracle, and MySpace. And I have a MySpace story we're going to talk about, along with visionaries Jill Polish, Dan Sullivan, Sally Hogshead, Peter Diamandis. And your expertise isn't just selling brands, it's making them authentic, engaging, and unforgettable. And when you're not doing high-level coaching on global stages, I love it because you and I are very aligned being a dedicated husband, father, and advocate for meaningful living. Get ready as I introduce and we talk to Joshua B. Lee. So pumped to have you today, Joshua. Welcome.

Eric, I'm excited, man. And you know, if you start your MySpace story off with, oh, so you know Tom, you know, that's, don't worry, everyone does. They're like, oh my God, you work with MySpace. I'm like, I did, I did.

It was, so when did you work with MySpace?

Dude, I, we're talking 2004. So I actually helped them design the first social media ads to monetize their traffic. So most social media ads that you use today are based on the technology that I put together over 20 years ago.

Damn, I love it. And do you remember who you worked with over there?

I mean, there's so many people that were over there, but I mean, like, so we, what we did, and just to give everyone context, like they were building the company, we were over there right outside, right south of LA, you know, being able to go through and we go up there and they were trying to be able to monetize their traffic. And so we had come in there, we had a partnership with, at the time it was Overture, which became Yahoo. Most of you know it as Yahoo. So we brought our partnership, we were doing arbitrage, right? Like we were bringing in ads to be able to go through, selling it to them for, you know, views for pennies on the dollar, like tenths of a penny, turn around and be able to sift it to different, you know, things like mesothelioma. I remember that was a $500 keyword, right? I mean, it was like printing money. It was insane.

The good old days, the good old days of the Wild West.

You know, we were with them for about a year. And then this is when probably one of the best business deals I ever saw, my friend, which was when Rupert Murdoch came in and bought that company. I mean, for me, it sucked because we got kicked to the curb because he came in, bought the company, and then turned around within 9 months and sold just the advertising rights that we were already running to Google for double what he paid for the company. I mean, talk about a brilliant business deal. So we were making money like crazy over there, but then that got done. So I saw an amazing business deal by him.

Well, funny enough, when Murdoch did that deal with News Corp, the person he was negotiating with to do that deal was a guy that I know very well, my brother. Named Joshua as well. So yeah, Josh Kernan, my brother, was one of the four founders of MySpace.

100%. I guarantee if I went back in, because I keep all my emails, I guarantee there's email between me and Josh back then.

You got to look at that. It's so funny. Yeah. So it was him, Tom, and two others that started it. And we're not here to talk about the MySpace origins, but the funny backstory is that deal, when they did that deal with Murdoch, it was between them and Viacom and it was the bidding war. And I will actually share a lesson for those founders who are listening is it was a really interesting backstory in that the guys that started it went through an incubator and when they got signed through an incubator, 'cause they had just the first idea of, you know, their idea just kind of kicked off. They were getting some momentum and the incubator bought, you know, signed them up and said, all right, we'll give you some $25 million valuation, pay you some nice salaries, and here you go, you're on your way and you get to own part of the company. And by the way, we're going to put a cap that if you ever get acquired for more than $275 million, we get the right to buy your shares back. So now when you're starting off and they're paying you a big salary, you're like, oh, whatever, sure, we'll take that deal. So Murdoch comes in on this bidding war and then, you know, I think they ended up going for like $600-ish around that time, that transaction. But all the founders were getting hosed because they're like, wait a second. So we built this thing and now we're getting $275 versus the $600 that we're worth. They're like, F that. So ultimately what happened is Murdoch sat down with my brother and the other guys and said, all right, what's it going to take guys to make you happy?

Yeah.

Close deal because I know you're getting screwed here. And so they actually made funnies. Backstory a lot of people don't know is most of the founders of MySpace made their money 2 years afterwards. On insanely high, decent, really good salaries, but insanely high and easy to hit bonuses along the way. Well, I guess you can argue how easy or hard it was. I'll leave that up to a different conversation, but that was the funny backstory of MySpace.

Dude, that's amazing. I never realized that. It was such an interesting time back then to be able to go through. And I mean, like, seriously, like we were doing anywhere from $3 to $5 million a month on just the arbitrage that we were doing with them.

Let's go there. So MySpace, it's long ago, but let's, I want to get into your career. So I mean, how did you fall into that? What were you doing? How did you get into this world a little bit? And then we're gonna lead into like, you know, becoming the guru of LinkedIn. And then now you have a secret project that you said you'll let me, you'll kind of let in a little bit. So we'll let you tease the audience. We got something cool you'll be doing. But yeah, let's talk about that. Take me through the journey.

Dude, I mean, like, I think I've been an entrepreneur all my life. My mom will tell you it happened like in, you know, when I was in grade school. She couldn't realize why I was, you know, going to summer school and things like that. And then until the teachers called and said that I was, Playing cards and I was stealing everyone's money, right? Like I was, I figured out how to be able to, you know, count cards at a very young age. You know, everything's numbers. I was selling candy outta my locker, you know, all those, all those things, right? Yeah. Selling candy in my locker till I remember, I think it was like 7th or 8th grade. It was like history class.

Yep.

And so my family's from Germany, so I brought some, I don't know, my mom was like, yeah, sure. Non-alcoholic beer. Bring it in. Show 'em this is from Germany. And well, that might have been fine until I decided to sell the non-alcoholic beer. That kind of got me in a lot of trouble. So nice. There's been a lot of things, but for me getting the online advertising space, like I was in Austin and I had gotten my broker's license in the mortgage industry and massive opportunity. And I remember the lenders had asked me to move out to California and, you know, start up another firm out there. And I mean, this again, Wild West, I mean, this is called neg-ams, you know, reverse mortgages, all those other things. And I used to say like people would run over their own grandmother to close a loan back then and kind of saw the writing on the wall early on because like people, especially in the California area, because you could refinance your home up to 100% of the equity that was in it. Like they were making more money on their homes refinancing than they were their jobs.

Yeah.

2008 was predicted way 10 years prior just by looking at the mortgage industry.

Yep.

And so I just couldn't do it anymore. And I had a buddy of mine that was like, hey, you got this company, Net Visibility, why don't you come in? You can kind of learn. And I mean, like, you want to talk about the down and dirty of online advertising and being able to go in, like how I learned that industry was they gave, and I've got to be careful, I don't think I have her plugged into my office, but the Alexa list, right? Like, we would go through that list and I would reach out to people, Eric, and be like, hey, I see you've got a website. Hey, if I can make you a dollar now, a dollar more than what you're making now, I'm either going to make you more money or you're going to prove to you that you're making the most money on your website that you can. That was it. I would send 1,000 emails a day and it was funny. My friends would joke, they're like, dude, you're looking at porn all day. Honestly, half the top 1,000 sites are adult sites.

Yeah.

I even remember my mom getting my call. She's like, your, your friend Larry told his mom that, are you really looking at— I'm like, mom, I'm not getting paid to look at porn. I promise you. And it'd be a cool job, but like, it's not what I'm doing. So don't worry about that. But that's how it started. And it really got to a point where I realized I sat back in the background and I just realized relationships, being an only child, relationships were always number one for me, understand people first. And so I sat back and a certain point in that company, the business owner came in and there's a huge difference between business owners and business operators. He was a business owner.

Okay.

And he decided he wanted to operate that company. It's kind of saw the writing on the wall too, that the company shut down very quickly. And so that's kind of how, where I got in that industry. I learned a lot. I met a lot of people very early on in the early 2000s. And then I started my own company when I left because the company shut down very quickly. And I just reached back out to people. We had started a conversation with MySpace at NetVisibilities, but they never finished. And so that's where I said, look, I've got the relationships. I have relationships with you know, Overture, with Google, with Lycos, right? Like all these other old companies, you know, Ask Jeeves.

Yeah.

You know, and you've got the traffic. So I was a middleman.

Yeah.

And my first company was called Leads and Feeds because I was bringing in leads, companies that had the content and XML feeds that I have access to, and I was making the margin. And so like, that's where I got my start. And you talk about 35 trillion online impressions. I mean, throughout that career, I started monetizing every acronym you could think of. CPA, CPM, CPL. I mean, there there's so many different ways to be able to go into it. And just looking at— we had our own servers. I was cool, right? Like, I had my own servers on the backbone in LA, you know, next to Sony.

Yeah, yeah.

That was cool until 2008 hit and I was bleeding $300,000 a month because everyone was, hey, the first thing we're going to cut is digital advertising because we don't believe in it yet.

Okay, so let's go there. So you're at— let's walk. Yeah, but you're now running this. How big did you have? A pretty good team, or are you going solo here?

We had a big team at that point in time. We had 10 different companies that I was running at the time because every company I was running so I could split them off, right? Like I had my S corp and then my LLCs underneath.

Okay.

Depending on if I needed to be able to split them off, tax purposes, things of that nature.

Yep.

And so like we had up to about 100 employees at that point in time.

Oh, sure. Okay.

And, uh, so I only talked to my C-level executives and then we'd have the CEOs of each one of those individual companies.

Okay.

But I mean, that's what it was. And I mean, it was great until it wasn't.

Yeah. And then you're bleeding $300, geez. Okay. So now what happens there? How do you get out of that mess?

You know, that was a tough time. A lot of the guys that I'd worked with, um, at that point in time were guys and friends that I grew up with. Yeah. They were great, but they were also, and this is another piece, right? Where I was surrounding myself with people that were happy to work for me, but weren't pushing me past my bounds. Right. You know, they were amazing employees. I loved that I made money, gave them jobs, but it wasn't, they didn't want to hear about my successes too much because that was bragging and things like that. Or, They didn't have that entrepreneurial endeavor. And so I remember, man, it was tough. Like, I was— the reason why I was able to get through that was because at that point in time, that's when people stopped answering the phones. I always made sure, not only myself, my team, you answer the phone. What's going on? What's happening? How do you have the conversation? Let someone yell, whatever it might be. But being that person that always answered the phones got me through that. Because at first I made some bad calls. I made the whole thing. I forgot that, you know, business is business and friends are friends. We always hear this.

Yeah.

You have to actually live it. And I was a person that cared about humans and the people that worked for me.

Yep.

Dude, we went through a company savings. I went through my personal savings. Then finally I was like, look, I can't, I can't keep everyone on. I'm gonna go bankrupt. Right.

Meaning you're saying in hindsight, you kept the relationships over probably the tough decision because you were, yeah. A good people person and you just wanted—

yeah, we probably could have lasted a little bit longer, but again, this is that whole thing, right? So let's just get—

I mean, let's definitely understand, like, you're a young business guy at that point.

I was about 30.

Okay, you're still getting the wisdom right now and you're learning on the fly.

Yeah, actually 29 because I'm 46 right now. So yeah, that's a— yeah, so I mean, like, it's trying to do the math and go all the way back, but I mean, yeah, I was really young being able to go through it. You know, we— I was dealing with companies like like Google, we had 2 chargebacks with them 2 different times. Yeah. If people listening don't know what a chargeback is in that world, basically you would run traffic, they always paid you net 30 to net 60, and you had to believe, you know, you're running traffic. So like I had my publisher that I put my, our ads on our XML feeds that we would pass down based on percentages. And you know, we'd run a couple million dollars a month on those. And 2 different times there was fraudulent, you do everything you could to, catch fraud traffic, but like, we live in a world where that's what people base their entire, you know, being on is being, how do I actually defraud people and make money and take it from them? So like, one time I had a $500,000 chargeback from Google. Another time I had a $900,000 chargeback. It was just a rough industry.

Jesus.

Right? And you have to pay those because if you don't pay that out to your publishers, because I remember, Eric, I went and spent $200,000 on legal fees and lawyers and all I got was redacted documents from Google. So they won't tell you where it came from. They just said some of the traffic within your 200 publishers, someone sent fraud, so we're not paying anyone.

Oh my God. And just dealing with that, it's gotta be so frustrating. And meanwhile, you're, you know, you're ruining relationships and friendships. I mean, doing the best you can to salvage 'em, but I mean, you gotta, you're, you know, these are people's families and, you know, that's such, so hard to deal with. So how'd you get through that?

Yeah. I mean, here's the thing, like how I got through it, Eric, it was understanding that I had to make a shift, right? For me it was, okay, I can, let me go down to the most basic. Who are my biggest partners that I can run myself and be able to go in? Like sometimes, you know, we all start off as entrepreneurs. You want to be able to grow to a business owner with an entrepreneurial mindset that has a team that you're not wearing all the hats. But sometimes you have to understand too, like you gotta step back in and like in the long run it all rolls down back to you. And that's kind of what I had to take. Okay, what can I do? What can I take on and what relationships can I keep moving forward that I actually enjoy. That's kind of where it kind of went on was, okay, these are the things that I can do. I mean, these are the days, and again, I age myself, of Ben Edelman. He used to be able to write these different, you know, like, oh, these are the people that are sending fraudulent traffic. You had to watch all different kind of aspects that were going through.

Yeah.

And so it just got to a point where I was like, I've got to make a shift. And so this is where some of my companies going from Okay, I've got all these traffic monetization companies. What other avenues can I go down? Because I have the backend people, I have the marketing, I have the tech guys, I have the sales. What other avenues can I actually go down? And this is where I started doing some mentorship, and I wanted to bet on people, not an idea. As ideas come and go, the right person can stand the test of time. And so this is where I started getting into, okay, well, let me do domains, let me get in the PR space. And I started really expanding my breadth of not just putting all my eggs in the advertising monetization basket, but what other businesses can I support with my own internal structure that the other entrepreneurs don't have?

Got it. Yeah.

And so that's where I really started growing into more businesses and more companies. So that's kind of where it went until, you know, life happens. I, as I said, I was surrounded by people that, you know, didn't push me. I was making everything business. I was doing this whole work-life balance thing where I worked as hard as I played. I mean, I remember, you know, times in Vegas, it's like blur, right? Like, 'cause he was like, oh, let me— it's just crazy times. And I've met a group that truly changed my life. You know him, he's been around for a long time. His name is Yannick Silver.

Yep.

Yannick and Maverick 1000. I, all of a sudden I got invited. I said it was a different group because people don't realize like the traffic side and the marketing side, like the social media marketers, they were, there were different businesses, different groups of people.

Yeah.

And so I got invited and said, hey, you know, someone recommended me, it's a good human being. You want to go out to Necker Island? Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah.

Yeah. This is crazy. It's a week out there. It's a great tax write-off. I said, I'm in. And all of a sudden I got to meet people. Like I was like, wow. Okay, wait a minute. There's other people in this world that make money, do good onto this world, and can actually high-five each other for their successes because I had surrounded myself with a lot of non-entrepreneurs. You were always there to be able to, like, to be able to, the value of being able to get excess of what you had. But they didn't want to hear anything you talked about was, even within my own, my former family, my ex's family, like, we weren't able to talk about the company 'cause that was considered bragging.

Yeah. Well, it's almost like, you know, the whole saying, and it took me a while to understand the saying, sometimes it's lonely being an entrepreneur. 'Cause again, I look at it and say, well, lonely? I'm friends with everybody. I go out, I'm not lonely. But I think it's that, those conversations sometimes get lonely as you're talking about because you're, they're just in your head and who can you hang out with that can relate to you?

Yeah. And so like, that's where I met those people. I met Richard Branson and then, you know, I started going out there once a year and just being able to be one of the early members in Maverick 1000. It was, it was really amazing. I think the mistake that I made was I started being able to expand my mindset and my visibility and I wasn't taking my partner along for the ride. And so I was growing and she wasn't. And I remember the different conversations that were going through. And I remember when I had my son, he's 15 now. After a while, she's like, what are you doing? Why are you trying to change the world? Like, why don't you do what you do best? Just make money. And honestly, I knew at that point in time, like our relationship had, had grown too far apart. I mean, there was times, I mean, like I was great at making money, but I wanted to do more. Like I had kids. Yeah, I looked in the mirror and I was 40 pounds heavier than I'd ever been. My relationships at that point in time outside of Mavericks were monetary and I had no vision about where I was going. I just knew where I was at, right? It was just this whole work-life-play. That's kind of BS.

Yeah.

We don't have two separate lives. We have one life. And there was a time, man, just to be 100% transparent, I remember running all these different companies. Everyone saw me as successful because we always have this outside, like, oh, look at us, you know, the social media side that everyone only sees.

Yep.

And Josh has an amazing life. He's got the kids, the wife, the house, the companies. He never seems to work that much. But I remember being in my office and I remember those office doors closing, man. I always had my office doors open. I want my, I want to be able to talk. Yep. Say whatever I said in front of my kids, no matter if they were babies. Because if I couldn't say it in front of them, like, why would I not?

Yep.

And those doors shut. That office became not only a sanctuary for me, but a coffin that I would stare at the wall for 8 hours straight contemplating if the money I would leave for my kids would actually be more important than me. Wow. I think a lot of entrepreneurs go through that.

Yeah.

You know, we, we do what we do best, but we forget why we started doing this in the first place. We start making money and the money takes the seat, the driver's seat.

Yep.

And so that was a big shift for me.

And look, I'm going through it now. I mean, we all go through it. I mean, I'm glad you're sharing some of this stuff. You know, I talked about a little bit earlier, you know, that balance as an entrepreneur. How do you know our natural comfort zone oftentimes is the desk, is the drive, is the making the money. And there is the other side that we realize is more important, you know, those kids and the family. Yeah.

As men too, Eric, like sometimes we just need permission.

Yep.

You know, we, cause we, we hold the world on our, on our back, which is not good either. You know, it's all on us, but it's not. Um, and luckily, an amazing friend of mine, Jesse Elder, kind of gave me that permission. He said, he gave me permission not only to take my life back, but to give my former hers. And that's kind of where I went through a divorce, you know, at 36. And dude, I remember my lawyers, they go, well, you live in Texas, it's a 50-50 state, but heads up, you've always had really good tax attorneys, you know, so, you know, you don't pay that much in taxes because you follow the law.

Right.

But your former is using that to show that you know how to hide money. So this is probably going to take 3 years. Oh God, do searching internationally. Like they, they know their money hidden somewhere. I'm like, no. I said, I can always make more money. I can't make more time. Yeah. So give it to her. Close everything down, give her everything. And I just want to save that time because I don't want to put my kids through that. So we were done in 6 months and at 36, I moved back in with my parents with a little bit under $1,000 in my name to reset and restart.

Crazy.

Of course it was freeing.

Yep.

And then I realized that I was probably in a little mini depression as well, just because of the fact that this was new, this was different.

You know, as an entrepreneur, we're always after success. We're always after winning, you know, it's like, do you go through that mental battle of, did I fail here? And like, like just going through that.

Close your businesses.

Yeah.

I was a person that my parents never went through divorce. I'm like, I was a double failure.

Yeah. Yeah. So you're like, in your mind, you're thinking, shit, I've never failed like this before. My family, my kids, right? Like, so that must have been tough. And how'd you get through that?

Honestly.

Yeah.

And here's the whole thing with social media, right? Like, I think this is what messes everybody up. Our perception of everyone else's perception is what drives us crazy. I could sit here. I'm like, oh, Eric's thinking this about me. Unless you tell me, I have no clue. I'm just perceiving what I perceive you think about me. And that's what drives most of us crazy. And that's what was driving me crazy because I was perceiving the world still saw me as Hey, this is Joshua Beadle. You need to monetize something. He's the guy, right? That wasn't the case, but that was what was in my mind. That's what was driving me crazy too, on top of the other loss, because I wasn't that person anymore.

Yeah.

I wrote my book, my first book, Balance Is Bullshit. You know, I had amazing friends, Hal Elrod, Jesse Elder wrote the foreword and the afterword for me. I launched it and I launched it when I was still depressed. Still not fully, because I was teaching everyone everything I'd learned prior to the divorce on how to get myself back. But now I'd found myself in a new situation. The book, people that read it, amazing. They loved it. They saw, they understood that there's one life. We had to live it that way. But I wasn't in the mindset to actually launch it until I remember I sent a text and to a lot of the friends, you know, I know how half of them were from David Gonzalez, Curt Malley, Jesse Elder. I mean, like there's a lot of them. I remember that text and I said, hey. Guys, I, I think I'm in a lot of issues. I'm really having a lot of problems. Their response was amazing. Dude, we know we've been waiting for you.

Wow.

You've been pretending, you've been trying to hide it, you've been trying to party, all this other stuff. Next day, dude, next day, opportunities started coming back in my life.

Wow.

Crazy. Because all I did was release all this pressure, all this heaviness. I didn't want anyone to know all the pain that I was going through.

Yeah.

And when I just let people know that I actually care, cuz we do that as entrepreneurs, we're too scared. Right, to be able to not show them that, oh, we're amazing, we don't have issues. Yes, we all go through things.

Yeah, I think, I think some of it's scared. I think some of it's just the ego, right? The entrepreneur ego that thinks that we're, we're tough, we're strong, we don't show emotions. All right, solve, on to the next thing, on to the next thing, we'll get through it.

And that was it. Because we could always make— once you're an entrepreneur, you can always figure out how to make money, just enough just to get by. And I was doing that. I was like, after a lot, I'm like, oh, well, I can close this deal. Here's $30 grand here, that gets me to the next thing.

Yeah.

And dude, it was crazy. And so like, that was that thing. And honestly, the other piece was my wife now, Rachel. I mean, we had started doing— I met her and I'll be honest, she goes, hey, I'm leaving. She's just graduated from UT, getting her MBA. And she goes, I'm leaving in 2 months to go work for Microsoft. I'm like, cool. I just got a 10-year relationship. This is awesome. We'll have some fun and then you're out. I don't have to like break the whole thing off. Yeah. And then, you know, we'd start, and we actually somehow did the long-distance relationship. And I remember she was going to move back after a year being gone. She moved back to Texas for me. She was going to turn down the fast track at Microsoft. She was asked to be like the executive assistant for one of the EVPs there, which is like the fast track on the corporate ladder. And she called me and she was like, hey. And dude, I had hit this month where it was like, I don't know how I'm gonna pay rent. If you're not, you've probably been there. Someone's, I mean, like Oh yeah. And I go, maybe you shouldn't. She's like, what are you talking about? Like, I'm changing my entire career for you. Like, what's up? Like, what's really happening? And I go, and I told her and she goes, are you kidding me? I said, I'm just being honest. She goes, let me tell you something. If I came to you and I told you I had the same issue, what would you say? Well, I got you. I'm, that's what I was raised. I'm, I always got your back. She goes, why can't I say that to you? So, well, no one's ever told me that before. I got you. I'm gonna move there. I got you taken care of. You reset, figure out what you need to do, and I got you, dude. I get chills saying it now. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah.

I was like, that's when I knew, like, this was the one. This is the woman for me. This is— this— other than my mom, I was the person that said that to everybody else. I was the person that everyone went to when they had an issue. And have that one person say, I got you, when I told them that my worst situation—

I could see it. That's when you know that he's the one. You're right. He's there, and she does have your back. And that's probably You probably have never felt that in a relationship like that. You felt like you were always taking care of somebody else. You weren't sure if they could do that. And for her to step up like that, amazing. And you're probably extremely happy now. Yeah.

And yeah, we work together, everything at Standard Authority. I mean, like, dude, talk about another ego thing. I mean, like, I know we're jumping ahead, but like, last year I was with David Gonzalez and we were going through some stuff and I had a lot of amazing friends like Ron Lynch and some other, other guys there and Jesse and his 3-day think tank that he does. And they're like, well, I'm like, well, I don't know. I need, they do $10 million or whatever. It's like, dude, what's, what's really going on? What's going on? I was like, I honestly, like, I don't really care to be CEO anymore. Oh, what's going on? Like, and Rachel had told me, it sounds like, hey, a female-owned business, there's so much more opportunity. My ego was like, well, I started this company. Like, you came in like halfway through. I'm not gonna— best decision I ever made, dude. She is the 51% ownership, female-run. So yeah, I mean, like, my ego was getting in the way, right? Like, having, allowing Rachel to come in after I realized like that wasn't what I wanted to be. I didn't want to be the CEO anymore, but my ego's like, well, I started these companies. It was magic. I mean, we've had so much opportunity ever since then, but like going back to that, right? Like if I go back to when Rachel said, I got you, she gave me the time and energy to go back and look. 'Cause after my reset, Eric, if you had met me after my reset and walk away, I had my man bun, my mala beads, pendulum had swung. I'm like, I'm gonna be the guru. I'm gonna teach everybody how to do this. 'Cause I was forgetting my past to forge a new future. Like, oh, I'm not gonna do the marketing anymore. And not until that second time that came back around when Rachel gave me the time to be able to kind of sit back in and have my back and cover me to give me the time was I realized I was forgetting my past and how do I actually merge these? How do I learn from my past to forge my new future? And that was bringing the two together. That's kind of how Standout Authority was born, was I was trying to show people I wanted to connect with the human beings, the entrepreneurs that were suffering through that, were contemplating, because there's such a high suicide rate in entrepreneurs and things of that nature. And so I was trying to help the humans behind there, but I forgot the marketing and all the advertising. And when I actually took the marketing and advertising, it was like, how do we actually humanize the way we are online, not just monetize the way we're online?

Got it.

And dude, it was magic. All of a sudden I got men and women— I was reading their books on how to be able to start my own companies 20 years ago— where flowing into my sphere of influence and opportunity. And I was being able to help them shift from, how do I sell you, right? How do I pitch you? How do I go through to, how do I educate, inspire, and draw you in? How do I get you to want to work with me rather than being sold into working with me?

Right.

And that was a huge difference. That's a huge shift in, in how we actually see most marketing play out today.

Wow. Okay. And so how's it, so this now gets you into the new company. One thing I was gonna reemphasize what you were saying. Is you felt for the first time in a long time you had a true partner that was going to call your shit out, that was going to be there for you. Good times, bad times, you could brag with, and she got your back.

Dude, let me tell you, she's really good at calling my shit out. Yeah.

And you hadn't had all this before. And sometimes, and that goes back to the loneliness. I mean, I remember that my first company is one of the biggest things I learned is the visionary guy I was with, he taught me something I'll never forget is like he wanted to surround himself with people that would call his shit, that would say, You're full of shit. And I remember he actually would walk around $100 bills. He says, the first person to call my shit and say I'm full of shit and tell me why, $100.

Yeah.

And he started training us mentally, his executive team, to do that.

That's beautiful, man. That's what we need in this world though. I mean, we're so scared in a world that we've been taught, you know, that we don't want to be polarizing in a way, not negatively, but polarizing to be, but like in life, human beings. We make decisions based on some degree of love or hate. We don't make decisions being indifferent. And so many people, like you're talking about, try to be indifferent. They try to be like, oh, you're great. And they don't want to say negative or positive or whatever, because they don't want to— they get skewed out of line. Like, but like, that's not how we actually grow. Wow.

Yeah. No, I love it. Exactly. All right. So let's go on to Standout Authority. So now you're doing that and you get into this, this world. And how do you go from that to being the LinkedIn guru that you've been, and now you got some other things coming up cooking.

Well, at first, right, I had the traffic. So like, once you have access to traffic, you can actually shift that traffic wherever you want. When I talk to online traffic, so like, at first, I used kind of what I knew when I first got in. I was like, well, I know that LinkedIn articles, if I can actually take that and actually pump a whole bunch of traffic and say, oh, Eric, hey man, I can help you write an article on LinkedIn and I can give you 100,000 views on it, that gives you you know, notoriety that you can use that and leverage that and say, look, this is why you should use me and this is why you should buy my crap because I wrote these articles and these other 100,000 people believe in me.

Right.

But that again was manipulation and it started me to understand there was a power on LinkedIn. I just was kind of like just touching the surface. I was still trying to use the old ways, but I wasn't shifting enough of what I really needed to do. And not until I started looking at, man, we're always chasing these algorithms. LinkedIn algorithm, Facebook algorithm, they're always changing. We've got to find the next trick or the next hack. And our essence, there's one algorithm that doesn't change, which is the human algorithm. It's the only one that stays consistent. It evolves slowly over time, but if you look back, I mean, like, we're not that different in our innate human beings and ourself as we were as the people that were, you know, a century before us. There's not that much of a technology as At our core, we still believe in our condition the same way, especially with social media. We've been conditioned over 20 years. Our online is like, comment, share, post, like, comment, share, post. That's how we're conditioned. They just want you to stay in that pattern.

Same dopamine, the same whatever endorphin, the same.

Yeah, exactly. There's a better way to be able to use dopamine. And I think that's where, like, I saw it with dopamine without direction is insanity. And that's where most of us find ourselves because we get this dopamine that we're not getting pushed in any direction. There's no depth, right? You're trading debt for dopamine, disconnecting from your purpose, right? And so like, that's the thing, right? Like, it's just people chasing money. And so like, when I realized like, as human beings, dopamine actually, if you use it in the right way, can put you in flow state. It's how human beings actually get connected faster. I kind of went back in and I said, man, like, I just want to try something. The things that my mom taught me, right? Like, what if instead of going, oh my God, Eric, hey, Let's connect on LinkedIn. I see you wear shirts. Me too. Like everybody else, they're like, hey, and then I can pitch you and then I can annoy you and everything else. It was like, well, what if I hate cold calling? I hate cold email. What if I shifted this a little bit? What if I look for trigger points? What if I look to see if someone looked at my profile, someone engaged on my content, or my ideal audience posted on LinkedIn and I just said something as simple as, man, let's reach out and say thank you. You know, hey Eric, I saw your recent post on LinkedIn, just want to reach out and say thank you. You know, I appreciate you adding value, or thanks for checking out my profile. Love to find out what pushed you to look me up. Like little things like that. What I realized, when you thank someone, it creates a stopgap in that pattern because you're appreciating them for something they take for granted. We take for granted the like, comment, share, post, the like, comment, share, post, because it's just the pattern we're in. And it was amazing. All of a sudden that started conversation. And I realized Wait a minute. It's not pitch, sell. Let me see how many leads. If I can pitch 1,000 people and get the one sale, yay. No, I pissed off 999 people. What if I actually shifted to actually go after advocates first and allow the byproduct to become clients? And so if I actually start a real conversation that builds a relationship, and a relationship can create an opportunity, that's a better way to go.

Yep.

And so that's where we started really going down that path. Way before anyone even cared. I mean, like, I've been beating this drum for 10 years on LinkedIn, and now all of a sudden I got everyone coming like, hey, Josh, that platform you were telling me about, LinkedIn?

Yeah, dude, can you help me now? You're like, yeah, where were you?

I'm like, yeah, like, we've been doing that. And so like, that was the shift, man. And it was like, and COVID's helped in a lot of the other aspects, but like, dude, you look at B2B or B2C, business-to-business or business-to-consumer, Like they were designed by guys like me, you, hell, your brother, it sounds like too, just to diversify ad spend.

Yeah.

Like every company is run by another human being. Most marketers forget that.

Right.

And so it's all that H2H. And like, once I realized that, how do we actually connect with the human beings behind these brands, be able to build that resilience through content, being able to highlight someone as an entrepreneur. Most of us don't want to highlight ourselves. We wanna highlight our brand and hide behind it. Be behind the curtain and make the money, but it's more powerful for us as human beings to step in front of that curtain and allow people to see us. Yep. And that was where the shift that I started going through. How do I highlight these people in a way that humanizes them and allows them to connect with their audience like never before? And that's where we started seeing massive power on LinkedIn.

And then through that, you've just evolved and fine-tuned that to today.

Exactly. And, and now LinkedIn's the more indexed than any other platform out there. Yeah. Microsoft bought them 4 or 5 years ago, one of their largest cash purchases ever, I think like $24.6 billion.

Yep.

And now they're worth like $90 billion. So amazing investment in them.

And like, so your wife got back to Microsoft some way or another.

Well, she's the one that kind of actually really keyed me back in. 'Cause when we were going through, when we got together, she was like, hey, she was actually at Microsoft helping with the LinkedIn purchase.

Oh, that's so funny.

I mean, she used to run branding over at the Microsoft Partner Network. So like she was part of that whole thing.

It all worked out. And she was like, hey, you might wanna check out LinkedIn.

Stuff, go a little deeper. Like you're kind of touching on it, but like you're not going deep.

Yeah. Yeah. I had the, she had the vision. She knows what's going on and you jumped in that early. And so fast forward many years now, and obviously it sounds like probably the same age to age thread, the human to human thread still exists. Obviously stumbled on and had a good vision towards that earlier on.

Yeah.

So let's go to present. Like, what are you doing today? And really for our community of listeners and others that might be listening, love to hear, you know, give us a nugget or two of what you think is maybe a big opportunity people are missing.

Look, I mean, I don't care who you are, what you're doing. If you're not on LinkedIn right now, you're missing out. I mean, it is the, it is not only the future of business, but it's the future of search, right? I mean, like, that's what we're doing. We're kind of going in, as you mentioned the earlier, you know, part, I get to work with amazing humans, you know, in this world. I also get to work with some amazing companies like AWS is one of our biggest clients, right? They realize the power that I remember, dude, this is, I wouldn't even had that opportunity. I wasn't corporate. Thank God for Rachel, right? Like she was, she had that corporate relationship, was able to bring that kind of to fruition. But I remember sitting down there like, this is so refreshing. Every marketing company we've talked to want to tell me about their funnels and all their leads. Like, we don't need leads. We're AWS.

Yeah.

Like we want to be able to highlight these amazing humans within our company. And you're the only company that's finally brought us exactly what we're looking for. People don't realize like AWS went around and hired some of the best top-level C-level talent from all these amazing companies around the globe, but no one knows about it because they don't highlight those humans.

Wow. Okay.

And so that's where they brought us in, you know, to really be able to highlight these human beings and allow that opportunity. And I was like, dude, finally someone gets it. And like, they were saying the same thing. Finally someone understands. I was like, it's finally, you know, people are finally understanding the power of the human brand because Eric, I'll talk to you, man. Like, Let's go Elon Musk, right? Like it used to be like a positive thing. Like, oh, Elon, you know, yeah, dude, his personal brand transcends. If I said Mercedes, Porsche, or Tesla, what name comes to mind?

Right.

Most people would say, unless they're a car person, even then, most people would only know Elon Musk. But I mean, and now it was a positive. Now with everything that's recently happened, his personal brand has negatively impacted other companies that he's associated with. But that's the world we live in. And so like, that's what we're getting able to do, but I still see an issue, right? Like, yes, we can come in, we come in and become someone and we do that better than like, people tell us like we have, we're able to get their voice, their mannerisms, their tonality better than anyone other company has ever been able to do that because we go through, we using being able to have AI, we build 50-page AI personas, right? To be able to understand their tonality, their mannerisms, their words they say, the words they don't say. And we do this because I said Microsoft owns LinkedIn, but Microsoft owns another little company. Let's just be honest. They own Copilot, but they also own ChatGPT. Most of us, the general public probably doesn't, but we know that. And so because of that, and they saw what Google was doing, being able to be LinkedIn, one of the highest indexed sites, I guarantee you, you looking right now or anyone listening, if you search your name up, I guarantee you one of the top 3 listings will be your LinkedIn profile. Right. I don't care who's listening. If you've got a LinkedIn profile, it's gonna be one of the top 3. It's probably number 1 if you're even active a little bit on LinkedIn.

Right.

And so because they saw that and it's the highest trusted platform out there, they went in and there's now actually over the last year, they finally came out in November of last year and said, hey, we've been doing this. I have been working with them on the beta side for a year and a half now. They've been indexing LinkedIn for the basis of generative search. So dude, like, we figured out.

So if you're searching on people and everybody else, that data's coming, a lot of it's coming from LinkedIn.

Yeah. And so like, I was like, look, we're gonna get indexed no matter what. Like, just like everyone's like, oh, I don't wanna have Alexa in my phone, my house, cuz they're listening. I got a phone. They're all, you and I both know they're all, there's too many times I'll be like, hey, I'm going to Costa Rica. And the next thing I know I get a, an ad for Costa Rica and I'm like, oh yeah, you telling me they don't listen on my phone?

Yeah.

But you know, so like I was like, dude, I wanna control the narrative. So we've now figured out how to be able to leverage LinkedIn, how to be able to build the profiles, the content, because content on LinkedIn, like I wrote articles 5 years ago that still get engagement and visibility. Like it stands the test of time compared to like X, Twitter, or, you know, Facebook, like that gets lost in like a day or time. Like this content stands and now I'm able to be able to go in and create the content that gets indexed for the future of search, which is generative search. Like. That's huge.

So one of your just basic recommendations, again, I mean, obviously you're saying get on LinkedIn.

Yeah.

So is it what you're saying, you know, if nothing else, they got to get their poo poo together, get their profiles up, make sure their brand is good. And what you're emphasizing here is we don't realize how much, how important this is. Like we all kind of know it's there and some people are like, well, I don't really know if I'm going to get on LinkedIn. They think in terms of, am I going to get business on LinkedIn? I don't really see it as a tool where my customers are going. You're saying no. That's short-mindedness.

Yeah. You're not thinking correctly.

You're saying no, no, no. Make a goal in the next 30 days to fix your LinkedIn. That is your business card to the world. And you have an opportunity to make it really kick ass.

100%. And that's, that's a place, right? Like this is where it really stands out because take the time out, fill everything out. I mean, like I was talking to a buddy of mine, Giovanni, and we were talking like that. I was like, well, you know, most people are like, oh, I'm the CEO of Standing Authority. Like, no, like go back and look at my LinkedIn profile. My first job is on there as a server at Chili's. Yeah. Right? Everything is an indexable point. And like how many people go like, I want to have conversation, build relationship. Oh dude, you worked at Chili's? Me too. Conversation, opportunity, commonality. Right? Like that's what people look for. And so like Phil, everything, he's like, oh, so I should put my first job at a Payless shoe store? I'm like, oh yeah. You know, do everything. Put it all on there. The more information, the better. You're outside. Like I'd been for the last couple years, the resident Spider-Man at Dell Children's Hospital here in Austin, Texas. Like, You know, put that stuff out there. I don't want to see what you do. I want to see who you are. You know, don't tell me your resume. Tell me your career journey, your career story.

Right.

And then unlike other platforms, Eric, like you got to put content out there. Dude, like I just saw your post the other day, right? Like I love this stuff because you don't have to post 3 times a day like some platforms. With our biggest clients, you know, how many times do you think we post a week?

2, 3?

3 times a week.

Oh yeah. I'm in the habit of doing once a week. That's what I'm trying to push myself to, but yeah.

Do, shoot for 2, 2 at least.

All right.

You want that content to breathe because again, with LinkedIn, you have a breadth of time. Yeah, of course, that first 60 minutes or whatever, but there's another impact that they actually hits that visibility 24 hours later.

Got it.

So like, that's why like people want to, they'll post and post a post and they'll cannibalize their previous posts. Because they're posting on top of that post without giving it enough time to get the full visibility of that network.

All right. I love it. So if nothing else, and then I'm going to skip one last tip and we'll go on. I like trying to keep it simple for the, for everyone, for most people are just getting their stuff, getting, get your shit together and get your profile up. And there's obviously a lot of models to look at, Josh's and others to go look at to make sure you're doing the right things and fill it as much as you can. Take the time, invest the time, 3 times, 2 minimum, 3 times a week, do some kind of post. Now, as far as the post itself, any suggestions or tips on what they should be posting about?

All right, so this is crazy, right? So last year, you know, I mean, look, I'm on LinkedIn. Last year I think I did 2 million total impressions across all my content. Last year I'm at like 26 million impressions so far for the year, Eric.

Yep.

Organically on LinkedIn. And not like opportunity, like massive opportunity when you look at what's going on, because the audience on the platform, average incomes like double any other social media platform. You're 50% of people on there have a college degree or higher, so you have an educated audience, and 4 out of 5 people on there are business decision makers. So like, I've got people that make money, can make the decision, and are educated enough to know what they're making a decision on. It's a win-win-win, right? So like, here's the thing. Yeah, you want to post different content. You know, you want to have a post with a picture. Like, it's still the human. Don't overproduce content unless you are a household name. We are now conditioned to look for the pitch. We just see it as a commercial. So unless you're like Gary Vee, Arianna Huffington, Tony Robbins, if it's overproduced, I'd rather you just take out your phone and do something real and raw, right? Because everyone else is going to go, oh, this guy's going to pitch me at the end.

Yeah.

That's what everyone does on LinkedIn. So real and raw and, you know, images, videos, and where I've gotten most of my content right now, I'm a sharer. You know me. Yeah. Eric, every social media platform, you know, you look for like the trending hashtags, right? Like, oh, this is trending for Twitter or for Facebook or Instagram. Well, trending hashtags on LinkedIn, if you go to the desktop, it's not on the mobile, and you look in the right-hand corner, it says trending news. Ah. Because again, we live in a 24/7 media world.

Yep.

That's the news. I mean, like, you know, the people that are running the country right now, they're all from TV. Every person on there. So, you know, that's what it is. So like that right there, it tells you and tells you how many readers are on there. And so you probably remember, this was years ago, we used to do newsjacking, you know, where you take something trending in the news. Well, dude, that's what I'm doing now. And with AI, it makes it awesome. Like, so I go in, I find out what's related to what I talk about. So I have 3 core pillars that I talk about: entrepreneurship, LinkedIn, and AI, right? Those are my 3 core topics that I talk about. So if that hits, there's a news article in there and I do this only twice a week, right? Like Tuesdays and Thursdays, I go in and I look and say, oh, there's a news right now that's going through and I've got balloons behind me. The trending news, you go through there, newsjacking and we're using AI. Like, remember I told you with our clients, we do a 50-page AI persona. So like, that's the biggest thing that most people miss out on. So my AI knows me so well. I'll go through, Eric, I'll grab the news story and I'll have, how does this relate to what I talk about? My audience, my, You know, something in the business, and then I create a video. And it's not like a 30-second, 60-second, like I go through, like my videos, if you look on LinkedIn, they're sometimes 2 to 3 minutes long. And most of my video content right now, I usually average anywhere from 800 to almost 2 million views a video on LinkedIn.

Wow. Wow. Love it. Love it. Okay.

Those are great. So that's the secret. Like, if it, don't just do something on a news story because it's like cool and you have no relatability to it. I hate the people that do that. You and I both have marketers like, I'm going to teach you how to make $7 million a year. And you're like, have you ever made $7 million a year? You're like, well, no, but I could teach you how.

I could teach you because I, yeah, read it from somebody else. Oh yeah. Like, did it. All right. So as we wind down, give us a taste because I know you can't share everything, but you got it. You were really pumped up before we, in our quote green room because yeah, you've been crushing on LinkedIn, but what do you got coming up in the horizon that give us a taste and then maybe you'll do a follow-up podcast where you could tell more.

Eric, dude, we're working on something big. I think it's gonna really revolutionize the way that the branding and marketing industry is seen. The, one of the biggest things that we see, especially working with major companies and even, you know, entrepreneurs, people in, in the group now, like the biggest thing, well, if I'm gonna invest in brand, like what's my ROI? And then, 'cause people want to go, well, if I'm spending $8,000, if I, in branding, I need to get $8,000 back a month. And it's like branding doesn't work that way. Right? You can't always directly correlate it back. They get marketing and branding mixed with sales.

Yep.

And they're, they're, they're two different things. And I think that's the biggest thing, cuz branding and marketing companies will go in and like, oh, I got you.

Right.

Yeah. Well, they, cuz make people happy, they're just gonna go through and spam 1,000 people. And that's where we all get pissed off these days. We're like, oh my God, we're getting marketed to all the time. It's being able to change brand perception, being able to change to a trust environment. People are looking to be able to trust the people they work with.

Yep.

Well, we've kind of seen this and like, how do you quantify what a personal brand brings back into a business? Yep. So that's what we're working on right now. We've got something new that's coming out to be able to go in and be able to say, hey Eric, this is exactly based off of every aspect that you could think of. And look, there's companies doing half of what we're building right now, like Sprinklr. Yeah. But they're not doing to the full extent of the PR, the mentions, the visibility, the someone's talked about you, Eric, and going through and being able to actually quantifiably say this is exactly what the weight of their personal brand means. Like, that's to truly give value to the human beings within the company. I mean, like, think of a company like Microsoft or Amazon. Like, what if they actually empowered all the employees at their company, or even everyone here, right? You've got smaller companies that are going in here.

You get—

you empowered all the people at your company to own their personal brand and empowered them to feel confident to be able to share content not only about themselves, but about the business, what they love, what they have, like, not only are they gonna feel better about working for you because you're allowing them to be able to really share and be their authentic self, but you're creating a social selling army. Because everyone can, you connect with people different than I connect with based on our background.

Right, right.

And so now if you can actually go back in and now quantify that, like, oh, well Eric's got a, out of 100, he's got a weight of 90. That gives him, that's how much value he's bringing back in this company. Dude, that gamifies it. That gives value. And I think that's something we're working on, not only with the new podcast that'll come out. So Eric, we'll have to have you on that new podcast.

All right. Let's do that. Yeah. That'd be—

well, we're going to have a book coming out. So it's a whole thing. And like, I'm the most excited I've been in a long time because—

Introduce me to your wife.

The problem is when I introduce everyone to Rachel, they always go, oh, there's where the magic comes from.

There's the magic.

This is— I'm like, God damn it. I get pushed to the back. No, she is amazing. And I mean, like, she is my better half. I mean, it allows us to, like you said in the beginning, right? Like, having a partner that you can depend on, not only financially, but personally and have all those interactions, it's a rare thing in this life. And I think that a lot of us entrepreneurs, we put that as a, in the behind the scenes and don't put so much focus on our family. But like, if we can't be amazing with our family, like how can we expect to be amazing to the world?

Exactly. I love it. And I know the feeling and look forward to that next time. And thank you so much for coming into the, uh, inside the Speakeasy today. Loved having you. Some incredible stories. Wow. I was blown away. And look forward to our journey and hanging out more together. And we'll see you next time.

Sounds good. Thank you so much, Ben.

And that's a wrap from the Speakeasy Podcast. If something sparked for you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it, review it, and pass it to the one person who needs to hear this right now. Want in on the real mastermind? Tap the link in the show notes to apply. Until next time, keep scaling, stay sharp, and don't be the smartest one in the room.