Henry Kaminski Jr.: The Brand Doctor | The Business Blast Podcast #487

Welcome to the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. 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 Henry Kaminski Jr. with us, aka the Brand Doctor. He helps authority brands such as coaches and consultants design their brands, build their sales funnels, and attract higher quality clients. So welcome to the show, man.

Dude, man, I appreciate you having me and Thank you so much.

Of course, dude. Appreciate you coming on. We'll dive right in. And the first question I have for you, Henry, is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?

So it all goes back, man. It's probably 1980, probably 1988. I was 8 years old and my parents signed me up. I was a chunky kid growing up, man. I had a— I had this little potbelly and they always called me short and stocky. So my parents signed me up for the local soccer league, right? And I was— I wasn't very athletic at all, you know, growing up. I didn't play any sports. I was more into like Star Wars, GI Joe. I was more into like playing than sports. But they signed me up for the soccer league. And I didn't know a thing about soccer, but went to practice every day. And, you know, we we played games and it was like a traveling team. So, you know, they got me out of the house, they got me running around. I think that's what was— that was their goal, right? To keep me thin and keep me healthy. But the problem was I hated it. And I would complain every time I'd come home and be like, I don't want to play anymore. I don't want to play anymore. And so we were actually pretty good. The team was actually pretty good overall. And we made it to the championship game. Now, mind you, I never scored a goal or anything like that. And it was just one of those things where every time the ball would be at one side of the field, I would be on the other side of the field huffing and puffing. And it was like this cat and mouse game the entire game. Right. And I'll never forget, it was the championship game. And I was running down chasing the ball. And I get to about midfield because I was like, the ball's like so far away. And I wanted to just run off the field and like be done because I knew it was the last game. But I was, I was just like, I had it up to here. With this sport, period, right? And I look, and there had to have been like, my God, there had to have been like 300 people at that game. Like, it was, it was a crowded sideline. And I'll never forget it. I looked over to the sideline right when I was about to walk off the field. And I saw nobody other than my dad standing there. And he was screaming off the top of his lungs, go, go, get the ball, get the ball, like a lunatic. And for whatever reason, Tyler, I got this unbelievable second wind. And I ran like hell down to that field, got ahold of the ball, dribbled it up the court. It was like I was like a bull in a china shop. There was nobody that was going to stop this bulldozer coming down the field. And remember, I was a short, stocky guy. So like, these little skinny kids were like just popping off at me like Skittles. And I dribbled the ball down and just gave it a whack. And I don't know where this power came from, but it went right over the goalie's head. And I scored. I went insane. First, first goal I ever scored was at the championship game. Right before I was ready to walk off the field and give up.

Yeah.

So that, that story sticks with me and has stayed with me my entire life. And every time I run into, you know, those entrepreneurial moments when you're ready to throw in the towel because you just tried everything and you want to give up, I remember that story and I just kind of just plow through it.

Dude, that story is vivid. I was literally like visually like in my head the whole time you were saying that story. That was awesome, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thanks for sharing that with us, dude. That was awesome. The next one I have for you, brother, is what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?

Right. So there's a couple of things and I just want to break down what branding really is because a lot of people think it's like your logo, your website, and all of the stuff that people see. But it's not necessarily just that. Yes, you know, your logo, website, and sales funnels and all of that stuff is a part of your brand identity, but it's not everything when it comes to your brand. Brand is that gut feeling that people get, you know, after they interact with you and your business. It's what they say after you. It's what they feel after you leave the room. And I'm sure a lot of you that are entrepreneurs might have heard that quote before. I believe it was from Jeff Bezos, but that is what branding truly is. And so, you know, what I like to tell people is the quality of your brand will determine the quality of your clients. So a lot of my clients are coaches, consultants, authors, what I call authority brands. They are authorities in their niches and they're looking to take their brands to the next level. And they're all trying to level up the quality of client that they attract, yet their brand identities look like they're from 2001. And you're going to attract a cheap, amateur, low-budget tire kicker if your branding looks that way, because those folks, they don't care. About the quality or the value that you bring to the table. They're, they're what I call price buyers, and they just want the lowest price possible. So if you look cheap and amateur, you're gonna, you're gonna attract cheap and amateur. So what I try to do is explain the value of why it's so important to invest in the quality of your brand, because quality attracts quality.

That's huge. And it could tie in really, the next one is what's your best piece of overall business advice? I think that answers it as well. But I'll let you, I'll let you go.

Well, there was another piece of advice that my mentor gave me that really made sense to me. Because when I was first starting my entrepreneurial career, I thought that I didn't have to hire anybody. I would do everything myself. I was a one-man band. And I worked many many, many different hats. And the problem with that was I got burnt out. And I got burnt out very, very quickly. Like year 3, I was shot. And I remember going through— I remember working long-ass hours because I was just a designer at the time. And I remember sitting in my home office going, is this what life is all about? Is this— is this what I'm going to do when I'm 50? Just work 20 hours a day and not see my family and go out only on the weekends and, you know, work the weekends as well. And I just remember pausing and saying, like, something needs to give here. And so there was some turbulence in my career. Like any entrepreneur's career, you're gonna lose your ass a bunch of times and you're gonna win a bunch of times, and you're probably gonna lose more than you're gonna win. So get ready for that if you're just starting out. But for those folks that, that are losing, you know, know that there is always an upside. You have to think that way, otherwise you're going to be out of business. But what happened was, around year 5, my business took a turn for the worst. And Fiverr came out and design became a commodity. So I was up shit's creek. And so I'm sorry, I don't know if I could curse on this podcast.

You're good.

You're good. But But what happened was, I started losing business to, you know, these big— these Fiverr and everybody else. And on top of it, Hurricane Sandy came through New Jersey and just wiped out two of my biggest clients, which accounted for about a quarter of a million worth of— quarter million dollars worth of revenue per year, just two clients alone. So I couldn't recoup. And so I started to lose money and hemorrhage money. And that's when I know I've found— I knew I needed help. And that's when I reached out and I started looking for mentors and coaches. And that's how I met Russell Brunson. And I remember signing up for his Inner Circle program going, it's not if this works, it's when this works. And that was my attitude. And I'll never forget it was— I was on my first call at Russell. And I told him my whole story from top to bottom. As I said, I gotta let it out because he's— that's how he's going to help me. And on the spot, dude, he hired me for a bunch of design projects to help him with his first book launch. And then shortly after that, he brought me on board the ClickFunnels team and said, you're going to be in charge of all my branding going forward because it's all fragmented all over the place right now. And we're on— we're on course to build a $100 million brand here. And we need your help because you are one of the most amazing designers I've ever met. And so he said, I'm going to coin you the Million Dollar Brander because you've made this company into the million-dollar brand that— the $100 million brand that it is, because you helped us really get everything consolidated and consistent and really impactful. So The point that I wanted to make here was you got to trust who you hire, and you got to hire who you trust. And it comes down to relationships. The relationship that I built with Russell over the years has catapulted my career, has helped me build the confidence inside of myself, which has helped me build confidence inside of other coaches, consultants, authors, authority brands, which has helped them grow phenomenal businesses. Phenomenal businesses. And so you gotta trust who you hire and hire who you trust and you gotta roll with it.

Yeah, man, I think that's a great lesson. That's awesome that you did that, especially when times were tough, 'cause I know the inner circle and everybody's mindset on what's cheap or expensive is different, but it's definitely not like a financial cheap investment for his inner circle. So for you to be like down on cash and then put cash into that, you definitely like hired who you trusted. That's badass, man.

I was actually negative in my bank account at the time and I was like, dude, it's something I had to— it's funny what you can do. It's funny what you can accomplish when your ass is against the wall.

Totally.

And you know, when I realized that there was no there was no other way but up. I just said, I'm gonna triple down on this and see what happens. And, you know, there was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that went into that. I remember getting my first couple funnel design clients that were complete disasters. One of them actually ran to Russell and said, what are you promoting this guy for? He's the worst.

I'm telling you.

And Russell sat me down for a 20-minute conversation one day and he said, Dude, I'm telling you right now, this world, this, this world that we live in is very small, and you can't afford to lose like this. I'll tell you right now, you get a couple more clients like that and you'll be out of business.

Yeah.

And that was the one piece of advice that he gave me that I never ever forgot. And now it's all about quality, quality, quality, uh, over quantity. So now I only work with 10 clients at a time. And, you know, one client is worth $50,000-$60,000. And it's— I've streamlined and refined my process to the point where now it's like a well-oiled machine, which is where the Brand Doctor name came from, because the way I work with my clients is very similar to how a doctor would work with his patients. So we, we diagnose the problem first, we prescribe the strategy, and then we apply as needed the strategy to help them grow their business.

I love that. That's awesome. I like the way— because that's like, then you apply the ointment and then they're good. That's it.

And then you reapply when needed. Yeah.

That's awesome. Oh shit.

That's good.

Okay. So, okay. Next one I have for you, man, is if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?

Yeah, this one came to me rather late in my life. And, you know, I have to tell you that, thank God it came. You know, I'm grateful that this wisdom came to me when it came. I'll tell you a funny little story, right? So I was at this event in New York City. This company came in and rented out Madison Square Garden. And they did this awesome event. And I remember walking through crowds. I mean, there had to have been 1,000 people there. And walking through the lobby, and this guy tapped me on the shoulder and he said, are you the Brand Doctor? I swear to God, I was, I was blown away. And he was like, dude, I follow you on Instagram, and I love your stuff. And I can't believe that I picked you out of this crowd. And I was like, I can't believe it either. I was like, this is in New York City of all places. So we wind up talking and he's, he helps inner city kids because he's from the inner city. He helps inner city kids with like mindset coaching and he works with schools and you know, he's, he, he's, he had a rough upbringing himself and we went to lunch and we just connected, man. We just, we were like cut from the same cloth. And I had a really rough couple days prior to meeting him, right? And I wasn't really myself and I was a little bit down in the dumps. And I said to him, I said, what do you tell these kids when they feel like there's no way out and that they're at the bottom of the barrel trying to scrape their way out? And he says, I always tell him that no matter how tough time gets, you're always more than enough. And he looked me dead in the eyes when he said that. And I said, whoo. And because I said, how do you get out of these funks? That was the actual word that I said. I said, no, I didn't tell him that I was going through some shit, you know, at that time. But I said, how do you get out of a funk when like, you know? And he said, be grateful and ask yourself every morning for 3 things you're grateful for. And always know that you're always more than enough. So as my younger self, you know, I always looked for external validation. I always looked to get validation from friends and colleagues and aunts and uncles and my mom and my dad. For whatever reason, I never had that internal fire of confidence that some of these folks have, right? And I always envied that, like I always wanted that. And so if I look back at my younger self, I would say, dude, you're, you're way more than enough. And you have certain characteristics and attributes that nobody else has. And you have some attributes that people would die for. You know, I always had the gift of gab. I always had an extroverted personality. I would get shy at times, don't get me wrong. But once you warmed me up, I was like, you know, bring it on.

Yeah.

And, and so, but I always struggled with that internal confidence. And so later, so with that said, later on, you know, I have a new mentor now. And I was going through a little bit of a funk earlier this year, business was down a little bit. And, you know, I was looking for ways to get back up on my feet because last year was a record-breaking year. We had great, great success, but I was just in this, in this funk. And, you know, my mentor said, dude, you're looking for validation and you're looking for happiness in all the wrong places, man. Happiness comes from inside. And then he started pounding out some of the things that I actually had that I was overlooking because I was so I was such in a funk. He was like, look how cute and healthy your son is. Look at your beautiful wife. Look at your father. You have one of the most amazing fathers on the planet. Look at this amazing business that you created from nothing, from nothing. You don't even— like, you never went to formal— you never had formal education on graphic design. You learned this shit off the street. And you're running a 6 to 7 figure business now. He's like, what are you doing? And that woke me up, man. So for any of these folks that are listening that feel like, you know, you're back against the wall and you've tried everything and you're ready to quit and you're ready to give up, just know that you're more than enough, man. And you gotta keep going. You gotta keep going. You gotta find what you're grateful for. You gotta switch it up. You gotta try different things. You gotta take risks, you know, because if you keep doing the same things that you're doing, you're gonna get the same freaking results.

Totally.

And that's it.

And I think kind of to go on with that, I think what it is too is it's like, you know, you can always be striving, but then you got to take a moment and maybe it's every day or at least sometimes to just like be grateful for what you have. Because even if I think that's where you hear the stories of people that are like millionaires that are unhappy because they're always striving for more and they forget like, holy shit, dude, I came from literally nothing and I have millions of dollars. And although I want tens of millions, maybe let's say, I should be happy with, you know, let's like look at where we're really located right now.

It's funny, I'm a big hip-hop fan. I love hip-hop. I grew up with hip-hop my whole life. And Nas came out with a new album recently.

Yeah.

And he had mentioned in one of his lyrics, and I can't quote the thing verbatim, but he mentioned something like most people will, will have most people will never feel, feel like they have what they want in life, yet they have everything in life. And I was just like, whoa, dude, you hit the nail on the head there.

I love that.

Yeah, you know, nothing's ever good enough. And, you know, you realize that that's not the case. So, you know, you just got to understand why you're doing what you're doing and ask yourself, that question and whatever you're going to embark on, is this going to help or hinder me getting to where I want to be in the future?

Definitely. And this is a perfect leeway. You kind of sprinkled in, answered it somewhat in this last one, but in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?

So, you know, I, my, my, my son is just about to turn 1 in a couple of weeks and You know, now my time is the most valuable asset that I have. And I think that the key to happiness is doing what you want, when you want, with who you want. And that is the most fulfillment that I think somebody could ever get. And it doesn't mean you have to have this, the hottest car, the biggest house, or, you know, if you want to, if I want to spend time with my son by the lake, and just hang out and just like watch the ducks. Yeah, like that's happiness to me, you know. If I want to get out there in the market and scrap and grind and, and cut it up and provide as much value as I possibly can because I just, I just thoroughly enjoy it and it juices me up to see people applying my strategies and actually getting results from them, that's happiness. So, you know, it all depends. Happiness is subjective, you know, it's— and value is subjective. It's value and happiness, like beauty, is in, you know, lies within— lies— what is it?

In the beholder?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Sorry, I screwed that up. But you get what I'm saying. So, but to me, it's, it's doing what I want when I want with who I want.

And I'm excited for your answer on this one. Usually this one's tough for a lot of people, but what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from it?

Yeah, so dude, I had to break this down. I had to give you two, man.

That's fair.

One wasn't enough, man. So I was interviewing a guest on my podcast, The Brand Doctor Podcast, and She offered me a couple of books to read recently that blew my mind. And one of the books was called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. And he talks about the four agreements that you have to have with yourself in order to, you know, either get over yourself or to accept yourself. And one of the things in that, one of the, one of the four agreements was to never take anything personal. Whether it be positive or negative. So if somebody says something negative to you, right, don't take it personal. It's not your problem, it's theirs. The same thing goes is if they say something nice about you, don't take it personal because that's on them. It has nothing to do with you. So that was the one big key takeaway. I think a lot of these days I think what gets the best of us is ego and us taking things personal when we shouldn't. So that's the big key takeaway from that book. And then the other book that I had to mention is The Win Without Pitching Manifesto, and that's by Blair Enns. And the biggest key takeaway that I learned from Blair was that We as creatives have a tremendous amount of value that we bring to the marketplace that we were never taught, you know, especially in formal education. But take somebody like me who literally learned design and business off the street. We don't have a class that we can take that makes us realize how valuable we really are as people and professionals. And I could talk an hour about this book, and I can't because obviously time purposes. But in this book, I mean, every page reminded me of how valuable I am to business owners, coaches, consultants, speakers, authors, authority brands, how valuable I am to them in helping them scale their expertise. And never forgetting about that and knowing my worth. So that was the big key takeaway from that book is really understanding my worth as a professional and a person.

And what is your favorite quote and why?

So my favorite quote, I heard this by a guy by the name of Dan Lok. The guy's actually a pretty funny dude. He's very animated. But he said, To be effective, you must be selective. And I remember back in the day, I was quite the floozy, if you will, with my, with my time, and with my, with my business and with, with people in general, you know, I wanted to work with everybody, you know, I wanted to I just, I just was too available for, for people, and people took advantage of that, unfortunately. And I realized that when you're first starting out in business, you have to be the yes man, and no job is too small. That'll get you going, that'll get the engine fired up. And going in a forward trajectory. But when you want to go to the next level, that same process and strategy will not get you there. What I found out by trial and error is when you refine your business, refine your process, and you really start to be selective. Think about the guy or the girl that you tried to date that wouldn't give you the time of day. You wanted them even more, right? And, and the same thing goes in business. So when I cut out a lot of my products and services and only focused on the big revenue generators and, and made the commitment that I'm only going to work with 10 people, 10 people at any given time, I started to become extremely selective. And that created an even higher sense of desire and scaled my business exponentially. While working with less people. So that quote, I have to say, holds true because I've had a— I'm almost to the point of beating last year's revenue, and it's only August 1st or 2nd. And what's crazy, Tyler, is this year I've worked with 50% less people.

Yeah, you know what's great? I don't know if you've heard of this book, but I just thought it applies right now. It's called Built to Sell. Have you ever heard of it?

Yes.

Yeah, so I actually just finished that book like a week ago, and it completely like changed my mindset on things. And I was like, so everything you're just saying right now, I'm like, whoa, that is so in line with that book.

Yeah, I haven't read it, but it's been talked about by colleagues that have mentioned it to me, so I'm familiar with it and some of the strategies in it and philosophies.

Yeah, dude, you got to check it. Well, actually, even more odd, it's like perfectly aligned with you because it comes from a design perspective. Real quick, like what it— the basis is already what you said, but how it aligns with you more is like it's this agency company and the guy's like, listen, if you want to be able to sell your company and scale, you got to focus on one thing. You can't be doing like newspaper ads and all these other things. So he just focuses on logo design and he turns down all these other clients even though it like drops his revenue at first because he's like turning down like cash. Over time it becomes like a process, it's systematized and he has more logo clients. It's easy to onboard salespeople because they understand there's only one thing to sell. And then he ends up selling his business for like, I think it was like $5.2 million at the end. It's really cool. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] So yeah, but dude, this was an awesome episode. I really appreciate you coming on. Yeah, besides your podcast, The Brand Doctor, the last question I have for you, where's the best place for people to find and connect with you online?

Yeah, so my biggest presence right now is on Instagram. We're just about to break 65,000 followers. And it's— there's a very— I have a very dialed-in audience over there. So if you want to check me out on Instagram, it's The Brand DR. And you can find my YouTube channel, my LinkedIn, all my social media platforms right on my website. And it's unique designz with a Z at the end, not an S, dot net.

Perfect, brother. Thanks again for coming on. Really appreciate it.

Tyler, thanks for having me, man. It was a pleasure. The podcast you just heard was published with Anchor. Got something you want to say to the creator of this show? Send them a voice message using the Anchor app, free for iOS and Android.