Joel Brown (featured on Vishen Lakhiani's YouTube channel) discusses how entrepreneurs should market by telling stories tailored to their audience, combining authenticity with clear vision and intentionality. He emphasizes testing and research to understand audience needs, personal branding (or finding an aligned ambassador), vulnerability over perfection, and using modern channels (social media/influencer marketing) alongside old-school relationship-building.
Chapters
You've got to learn how to market your content. And what's marketing? Marketing is essentially telling a story, okay? And some people get stuck because they feel like, well, I'm not very good at explaining it in this way, like one way, a singular way. The good thing is there are multiple ways to tell stories. It doesn't just have to be like the before and after story or the breakthrough. It can be many other ways to do it. And so we're doing it each and every day. When we're meeting new people, we're telling stories, okay, who are you? Why are you here? Where did you come from? All these things you've got to know, right? And we know the basics ourselves. But what if you could tell your story in a powerful way? Maybe you could recruit better people for your businesses. If you could share your vision in a compelling way, then the right people will start showing up. If I was to market my product and tell a story that wasn't right for my audience, and even if I did it in a powerful way, but it wasn't the right way to do it, I'm going to attract the wrong people. Therefore, I'm going to waste time on the phone or waste time in meetings with these people to finally realize after half an hour, hour or of hours, hundreds of hours sitting there wasting my time with people that weren't even right for that opportunity in the first place. This is how business is done nowadays, right? You're not just sitting in a storefront waiting for them to come. You've got to be out there, active, you've got to go to it. You have to be intentional. It's not just about attraction, it's about intention. I do believe in the old school way as well, which is, you know, picking up the phone, going for coffee and, you know, sitting down and getting to connect with humans, because that's truly what it's about, like. But I think the idea of maybe avoiding social media or avoiding influencer marketing is foolish, and it is, because that's where all the attention is. All you need to do is watch where are people spending most of their time and then find a way to get into that space and to do it effectively. Share your story effectively there. What's your edge? What makes you magnetic? What makes you different with marketing, those that are doing the best in this space are researching and understanding those that move around, but they are also so stuck in their lane and they're continuing to push on in their own original and unique way. And they're really harnessing the gifts that they have and really putting in the work to sharpen the skills. Over time, you're going to get better at understanding what your audience wants. But you never 110% know until you start asking and start testing and start experimenting. A lot of this is just. You've got to be a mad freaking scientist in the lab of life and trying things and collaborating with people and asking other people questions and researching. And that's why marketing is so important. You're not going to understand your audience if you're just winging it and guessing. And if you don't have a vision, what are you doing? You're bouncing around like a pinball in a pinball machine. Just getting bounced around by business, which can be a cruel game sometimes and or life. So that's why I'm such a fan of the vision piece. We don't 110% know what is around the corner. But if we start moving each and every day with more intention and making decisions for our brand and for our business and knowing, getting more clear and more specific about what it is that we need to do when it comes to whether it comes to the skills that we need or the people we need to collaborate with or what our vision and values really are for our company and what we stand for, that's when you move with power, right? If you're putting yourself out there and you are creating content and you have a vision, some people don't. But if you have a vision that you can see where you're seeing. Look, I really want my. Whatever it may be, personal, brand or business, to really be a success. You need to understand the value that you hold within you, right? And the whole game is when you create something, you're not just creating it to get a bunch of ticks in a box. Significance, that's very fleeting, right? It's really about living a life of meaning and purpose. If I create something and I've spent the time to create it, and it's really from the heart, man, I can't wait to give it to the world. You're setting yourself up for failure if you think that you need to be perfect all the time, right? Your expectations of yourself are unrealistic. I think a lot of people, what they do is they see people living in their fantasy and then they try and live the fantasy and then ultimately it turns into a nightmare. You can't keep that game up, right? So authenticity, I'm sure we know by now is the best way to do it. It's to be as authentic as possible. It's like, let's just put everything on the table. What's truly here? What do you really have to offer? Okay, so cut through the noise. And then also just being vulnerable and being open, being vulnerable as to what you really have to offer. Who are you people? Don't join your programs or align with your company just because of what you offer. It's also who you are. It's what you stand for, your vision, your values. I get to take me everywhere I go. So if I'm not focusing on me and I'm all the time just focusing on the product, eventually light is gonna be shone on who I am as the founder of the company or the representative of the company. I believe that personal branding is one of the best ways to really build company out there. Like, if you're not willing to get in front of a camera or get on stages and speak and tell stories, find someone that can be an ambassador that can do that, that's aligned with the values and the vision of the company, because you can just move so much more with that. The thing about this whole, like, being perfect, what you're doing is you're putting yourself up here on the pedestal, and then everybody else, the audience is down here, your customers are down here. How can you truly meet them eye to eye and get to know them as a real, real human beings? If you've separated yourself, falsely separated yourself? Okay, so that's just a. It's a losing.
