AJ Wilcox, founder of B2Linked, built a LinkedIn ads agency after spotting a gap while running campaigns for a tech startup. His formula: offer something valuable like a webinar or guide, collect contact info, then nurture. He credits faith and Daniel Pink's Drive with shaping how he works.
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by WagsMedia. WagsMedia provides you with everything you need to generate more customers and grow your brand. Head on over to wagsmedia.com, W-A-G-S-M-E-D-I-A dot com, to enter a contest where you can win a free, done-for-you custom website valued at $2,500 for a limited time only. Now let's jump into the episode.
All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have AJ Wilcox with us. He is a LinkedIn Ads pro who founded B2Linked.com, a LinkedIn ad agency. Back in 2014. As official LinkedIn partners, they manage the world's most sophisticated advertising accounts worldwide. So welcome to the show, man.
Hey Tyler, thanks so much for having me.
Of course, man. Grateful to have you here. We'll dive right into the first one, AJ. The first question I have for you is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
So I think that the story here is when, is basically the starting of how I started B2Link. That was probably the biggest turn that my life ever took. I'd been doing digital marketing I've been doing it now for about 12 years, but after about 6 years in, I got recruited by a local highly funded tech startup and ended up having a ton of success using LinkedIn ads. And it was so interesting when I would go and Google search, hey, how do you do this on LinkedIn? How do you do that? There wasn't anyone out there who was sharing, who was teaching, who was like really enjoying and diving deep into the platform. So I kind of had that thought in the back of my mind, like, hey, if you were ever to consider being an entrepreneur, maybe this could be an interesting niche. And I ended up about 6 months later being let go from that position. And, you know, we're— not to make this religious or anything, but we're a really faithful people. So we prayed about what to do. And I ended up being told through prayer that I should turn down other job opportunities and pursue this. So I think the really underlying valuable message here that I would provide is number 1, find the niche that you can be the very best in the world at. And then kind of number 2, seek and listen to the guidance from your higher power. If that's God, if it's the universe, if it's your gut, no matter what it is, just listen. I feel like we'll probably do well by listening more than we're talking.
Yeah, man. I couldn't agree more. I think in today's world with everything, just with all the digital things and the internet, just everything, our minds are always racing. Sometimes we forget just to sit and listen because if you hadn't prayed or as you say, whoever you believe in or whatever you believe in, like if you hadn't listened, let's just say as like a foundational understanding of what this means, you could have just kept going from job to job to job and never even started this opportunity. So I think the key there was listening. And then as you say as well is the praying. So the next one I have for you, AJ, is what is the— I'm excited for your answer on this. What is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise industry. And yeah, feel free to just lay some LinkedIn knowledge on us because we need it.
I love it. I can go super deep on this one if you want. Yeah, but basically social media advertising is all about the offer, what you can offer someone to get their attention. If you put up an ad that just says, here, click here to talk to our high-pressure sales rep, no one's gonna be incentivized to click that. Like, there's just no reason to stop what they're doing and participate in a sales pitch. So instead, in order to get someone's attention and get them to, you know, really have a conversation with you, you You need to have a piece of content like a webinar, a guide, a checklist, an ebook, something like that. And the key here is that it needs to solve a really heavy pain point for your user or satisfy a major curiosity. And you're going to give that piece of content in exchange for their contact information. And then as the advertiser, you can use that contact info to reach out to start a conversation or a relationship, which may eventually lead to the sale. Provide value first.
And it could— well, actually, let me rephrase this next one then because I think that could tie in with overall business advice. And you kind of mentioned it actually, but when you first started out with the startup that was funded, how did that kind of happen? And did you kind of know even when you were younger, let's say, did it ever come up to you that entrepreneurship was like within like something that you wanted to do? Or like, how did you kind of find that out?
You know, I've always loved money. I've always been involved in, you know, doing like a side hustle and things. Yeah. Back in college, I remember attending really faithfully all of these entrepreneurship meetups, but everyone I would talk to, I would go, oh wow, you're the real deal. Like, I could never do this. But, but I was just enjoying that energy. So yeah, before basically being told in prayer that that's what I should do, I never even considered it for myself because it felt risky. Whereas now that I'm on this side, it feels risky to go and work for a company. Yeah, dude.
Yes, I got to chime in there. I think that's such a huge point because it's kind of like what school does to you because there's one stat that I don't know if it's in college or high school or middle school, but they tell you that 9 out of every 10 businesses fail. So that's stuck. For me, it was like that was stuck in my head. So I always thought that starting your own business was very risky. Now literally me and you went through the same thing. Now that I'm on this side of the fence, I've been running my own companies for 5, 6 years now, I think it is more risky to put your fate, if you will, into somebody else's hands running a company. I'd rather be in control of it myself. So, it's just a huge mindset shift. It's pretty wild. But, yeah. So, the next one I have for you is if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
It has to be don't wait for the system to teach you. Information is free and you can learn anything. I had this concept when I was in high school. Like, every so often I would get bored, and I would just tell myself, it's OK, just wait a little bit longer. The next unit will come, and then they'll start packing knowledge down you and teaching you what you need to know. It just didn't occur to me that I could turn to the internet, or I could turn to friends, or the library, or other sources, and learn what I actually wanted to learn. So as a kid, I wish I could tell myself, like, go nuts. Go and learn any technology you want. And don't wait for school to give it to you.
In your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
My key to happiness has to be service. It's kind of a funny thing. You feel like if you're down, you really should just work on yourself until you're better, and then you can reach out and start helping others. What I found is that when I'm down, what I can do is just kind of turn my attention and turn the turrets and cannons towards helping others, and then just magically what happens to my own self, my own well-being is like we all rise together. So you gotta be service.
And what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
So I'm not a big reader. I'm a huge podcast listener, obviously. But I think the most recent book that I read that I really got something out of was Daniel Pink's Drive. And the specific advice that I was seeking there is, you know, basically how to compensate my own employees to get the most performance. And one of the pieces of advice that I kind of distilled out of this is you don't give raises but give bonuses because they're going to inspire better performance for longer. And so that's made a big difference for the way that I manage.
I like that. Okay, and what is your favorite quote and why?
Oh, I like this one. So this is by J.J. Watt, and I'm not a sports fan, but I read this quote, it just went, oh, this is like my life's motto now. It's, success isn't owned, it's leased, and rent is due every day. Every single day someone's coming for your job, someone's coming for your greatness. If you're the greatest, someone wants to be the greatest. And so if you're not constantly If you're not constantly improving your game, somebody else is.
Oh, that's good, man. I love that. Dude, thank you so much for sharing that. And yeah, man, thank you for coming on as well. The last question I have for you before we let you go is where is the best place for people to find you online?
All right, I'm big on Twitter. I respond to everything. So my Twitter handle is @willcoxaj. And also, if you're not on Twitter, b2linked.com is our website. If you go and fill out the form, I'll give you a little secret. You're not going to go to a sales rep. You're not going to go to some complex marketing automation workflow where you're now on my newsletter or anything. You will just get me and I refuse to sell. So feel free to reach out and ask anything you want.
Awesome. And thank you for providing that for them as well. And yeah, thanks again for hopping on.
All right. Thanks, Tyler. Always a pleasure.
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