210. “You Are What You Post” with Jake Isham

Dawn Kennedy talks with Jake Isham,a filmmaker-turned-brand strategist and creative director who helps founders and entrepreneurs turn their expertise into authority through powerful storytelling. They  delve into the significance of personal branding, especially in today's low-trust environment. The discussion highlights the impact of social media posts on perceptions, the importance of consistency, and the idea that 'who you are is what you post.' Jake stresses the value of authenticity and the need to tackle the challenge of building a personal brand, even if it means starting small and unpolished. The episode concludes with practical advice on creating and distributing content across platforms, aiming for a consistent presence rather than immediate perfection.

In this episode....

Who is Jake Isham, and whom does he serve? (01:07)

The Importance of Social Media Presence (01:15)

Personal Branding: Lessons from Experience (03:49)

The Role of Personal Brand in Business Success (07:01)

Evolving Your Personal Brand (10:54)

Building a Personal Brand: Practical Tips (15:09)

Navigating Social Media Platforms (20:43)

Finding Your Preferred Content Creation Platform (22:50)

The Importance of Consistency in Social Media (25:35)

Leveraging Multiple Platforms for Maximum Reach (27:45)

Building a Personal Brand in the Age of AI (30:56)

The Value of a Loyal Audience (36:03)

Final Thoughts and Where to Find More Information (40:45)

Jake Isham’s Information:

Website: http://www.jakeisham.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakeisham/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jakeAisham

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Low Trust World

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Business Mastery with Don Kennedy, your quick under 45-minute dose of expert insights and strategies to make a positive impact on your business and life. Let's get started. Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Business Mastery Podcast. Today we're talking about personal branding, but we're going to be talking very much about how you want to show up in the world and especially in a very low trust environment like we are today. It's very important to consider these perceptions in the marketplace as well as what you're putting out there. So I have Jake here to talk all things, personal branding, and then the perceptions of the marketplace, all the things. So you should be able to walk away with this episode some real aha moments and things you can do immediately in your own business. So, Jake, thanks so much for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Of course. So excited to be here and talk about all this.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

I am so excited. I know this is your passion project. So I'm sorry, but we're going to get this out into the world to this audience. So can you tell everyone who you are and who you serve?

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah. My name is Jake Isham. I'm a filmmaker turn marketer. I jokingly say I'm an accidental marketer. I don't have an MBA in this or anything like that. I went to film school and basically figured out what do I do with this degree? How do I make money with this? To make a film is a long time and a lot of money and a lot of resources. So I had to figure out what to do in between because they don't tell you what to do in between. They just say, good luck. And so I picked up this social media thing over a decade ago, but just before it was cool and hip and a job. And basically learned that my skill set in storytelling and directing really came into play working with entrepreneurs and helping bring their story, helping build their personal brands, and really help them get out there. Because I work with them, like you could say, as a coach, but as a director. Most people think about it like in the sense of going to the gym, but it really is just that personal trainer, that accountability, because more than ever, as we're going to dive into how important it is to build a personal brand.

You Are What You Post

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Right. Yeah. So for our podcast chat, when we were talking, the one thing I kept writing down and kept hearing was who you are is what you post. And I went, oh, that's so interesting. So let's just start there. When you say who you are is what you post, what does that really mean?

PR As Perceived Reality

SPEAKER_01 2:30

So I always like to give the example because I work with a lot of you could say first-time content CEOs, CEOs that are posting for the first time, or just saying, okay, great, I'm gonna actually do this. And you look at sometimes at their profiles and you'll see a spattering of different things, photos of their kids, photos of their animals, their meals, their like it's just kind of, oh, let me just post, right? What are you then? You're you're like, or if you post just about your kids, you're coming off as a parent, which is there's nothing. Again, I'm not saying right or wrong. I'm talking about using social media as a vehicle to grow your business. That's what this whole what we're talking about. So if you look at it through the frame of that, if you want to just post about your family, that's great. If you but you won't be known as the entrepreneur, the CEO, the whatever other branding you want. And like this was something, it was a hard lesson I learned very early on, where I call PR perceived reality, not public relations. Because, and that's where again a the early journey, and I'll tell you the story about it's like how I came up around with this idea of you are what you post. And I was right after, right outside of film school, I was working with some nonprofits. It was a great deal. I didn't get paid, but I got to travel. It was great for the first couple months, and then I realized that I have to eat. I got food paid for when I was traveling, but when I was back home, I didn't get any food. So basically, I'd go out like one of the trips I had was to Japan. I was out there for a week. I six days I was working directly with the executive director of this, filming her, getting all the behind the scenes, getting all the content. And then I had one day in Japan to go have fun and to go to for me, it was street photography. That's still a huge passion of mine. And I had a day where I got to like shoot all this amazing photography. And this is again, while you were still like this was over a decade ago when you would post in real time. People weren't like, oh, let me bat shoot stuff. Like where it's common practice now. You would, this was like, okay, great. I had one day in Japan and essentially where I was free, and I got, let's say, about 60 great photos. So then I got back home to Los Angeles and I started just trickling them out over the next two, three weeks. And I remember waking up one one Sunday morning, scrolling through Facebook. This was when Facebook was still cool with the youth, and seeing a bunch of photos of a friend's party. And I texted him, being like, What the heck? Where was my invite? He's like, bro, you're in Japan. I just saw your Instagram. I was like, no, I'm in LA. I'm trying to setting up my cap. Oh, and that's when I realized you are what you post. And the same thing was true, even just this last 4th of July. I posted some old photos of when I was in Florida for a 4th of July, having taken some photos there. And I posted it this year. Five years later, people were like, hit me up. Oh my God, are you in Florida right now? Let's say that, let's kick coffee. Let's I'm like, nope, I'm in LA. So it is still rings true that you are what you post. You have to be so conscious of it. And that's where it's like, what do you want to be known for? What do you want to be known as? Like all these little questions that you can self-check, looking at what would somebody perceive me as if they looked at my Instagram, they looked at my Facebook, they looked at my LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Okay, so now I'm gonna I'm gonna poke that bear a little bit because if you listen to the marketing people or read the books or do the things, and they'll say your bio over here needs to look a certain way, or your bio over here is a different way, or that that doesn't belong on LinkedIn, or that doesn't belong on Facebook. And you get this siloing of social media. And there are a ton of people who are excellent business owners who are like, I don't want to stand out. I'm behind the scenes, I'm making the decisions, I'm dodging the arrows and keeping the armor the armor on and keeping things rolling. Why would they need to know anything about me? It's my business. So I know that's gonna poke the bear a little, and we've had that conversation. So let's bring it forward. What are we doing? Because you are flying in the face of what just about every marketing suggestion has been over, I would say, the last eight years.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

I think there's two things we're addressing here, which is one, let's just talk about do you have a personal brand or not? Let's just talk about that. And that really is a personal choice. Like it I was literally just talking to an entrepreneur yesterday, literally while driving. And I was like, hey, let's, you know, I would love to do a podcast episode with you. I'm starting my own podcast, and he's a great entrepreneur. He's like, I really don't care. Like, I really just I don't want to be in front of the camera. It just it's time away from building the business. And that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

That totally makes sense. And like I know another entrepreneur who is now a billionaire and like just doesn't care because he's just putting his head down. But like for what he's doing, like he made his money. This other entrepreneur that I'm the second entrepreneur that I'm now referring to made his money buying Jiffy Loops and wrapping them all up, basically creating Jiffy Loop franchises. And he doesn't need to build a personal brand to do that. Like, you don't need to. Now, if you want it it depends on what you're wanting to do. You look at a guy like Steve Jobs, this was again pre-social media, but the man had a personal brand, right? He was in front of those keynotes. People knew the name Steve Jobs. And I'm gonna take politics aside, I think one of the greatest personal brands out there, just in terms of a marketing standpoint, is Elon Musk. You look at, regardless of politics, we're not, we're talking about marketing here.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Right. Yeah, is what whatever he stands for, but he's never behind it.

Do You Need A Personal Brand

SPEAKER_01 8:36

And he and he stands for something. And he stands for something, yeah, he's vocal. And again, there's uh another guy and a colleague of mine that's massive in fitness, millions of followers, millions and followers, makes gobs of money. And we've talked about content where he's got a couple rules: no religion, no politics, right, only fitness. Those are the rules for social. If you want, like we do not post about anything like that, and he sticks to those rules. So then he's known just by fitness. Now, he lives and dies by his personal brand. Like he needs to, that's how he's grown his entire business as a fitness guy. But you look at Elon Musk, that's how Tesla's valuation is lives and dies by his personal brand. Yeah, so there's a lot of people. But he's also been able to build Tesla to the speed it has because of his personal brand. And it is a conscious choice. A great example that I like to use is the difference between Gary Vanderchuk and Grant Cardone, right? Both relatively in the same space, you could say the marketing, the kind of coaching, not coaching, the the thought leader space of entrepreneur and marketing. Grant shows his kids and shows his family, shows his wife, and shows that side of his life in addition to business, et cetera. Gary V doesn't show his kids, does not show his wife, does not show any personal life, just shows the business, just shows the hustle, just shows all the work. So my point in saying that is that there's no hard fast rule. It's what do you want to show? What do you want to be known as? Do you want to also be known as a dad and like how I raise kids? Because Grant is trying to also show this is how you raise kids. Here's I'm and helping build his daughter's personal brands so that they can become their own thought leaders. Where Gary is, hey, we just talk about business here. We're just talking about marketing. We're just showing all of these elements. So that's where I always go back to. It's it's just whatever you want to show. If you want to talk about this, you can. If you don't want to talk about this, you don't have to. So that's kind of that first topic on building a personal brand or not.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Yeah. So before we go to the second topic, because we just brought up something really quite incredible and amazing. Anyone who has followed Gary Vayner talking about Gary V for any length of time would know that he started, I think, in his dad's liquor store and was doing wine review videos. And you can still find these wine review videos from 15 years?

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Like over a thousand videos. Thousand videos.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

So can we talk about the fact that it's evolved, although the message is probably pretty consistent? And I think that might be something we need to talk about is your personal brand could evolve with you, but it doesn't change who you are. So authenticity from the start.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Dairy and Grant are both great examples.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

I'm a fan of Grant Cardown, so I'm just gonna use him as an example.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Didn't he do wine videos?

SPEAKER_01 11:33

No, but he started like if you think of it like personal brand, like this is again who are you? What do you talk about? He started off as a car salesman.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Okay, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

And then he came up and became a oh, I can I'm crushing at car sales, I can teach people how to sell cars. Brand evolved. Then he went, I can I'm crushing at teaching people how to sell cars, I can teach people how to just sell. It doesn't have to be just cars, it can be just this or that or whatever business I can teach, I can help improve your sales. So then, oh, people are selling, and he and again, this is all with his own personal development. And the same thing with Gary. Started, I want, I need I'm working for my dad behind the counter. I'm the cashier. To then, okay, I need to help grow my dad's business. Let me help I there's this thing called the internet and YouTube. Maybe that'll help. Let me try it. Excuse me. And then, oh, I built an entire odd, I think he like over 10 and a half X to his dad's business. Maybe like 13x his dad's business in eight years by doing these videos. Oh, okay, we have something here. I can help other brands now do this. Starts Vanner Media. Oh, I can help other entrepreneurs do this. I can help invest in businesses now that I've making money. I'm investing in business. Like he's now an investor. Your brand grows with you. And one of the things I always talk about, especially to like younger entrepreneurs who are getting into the space or getting into what do I talk about? It's like you got to slay dragons. Because it goes back to, again, I go back to storytelling. You're you're the protagonist, you're the Luke Skywalker, you're the Frodo Baggins, you're the Harry Potter. If Harry Potter, the reason why we like Harry Potter versus XYZ background character is because he's the one to defeat he who shall not be named. But that's why we like Harry's story, is because he's the one having to defeat the dragons. And so you have to go look at what are the dragons you've had to defeat.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

That's very interesting when you point that out because in real time, all of these other characters were also there in the frame, right? So Harry was at Hogwarts, and I don't remember the whole story. I didn't even finish all the books, but my kids have all the movies, right? I'm aging myself. But all those other characters were around there in real time, but we do remember Harry. So I think there's something maybe to your point that even if maybe you do decide that you want to build a personal brand as the entrepreneur, it doesn't mean that the business necessarily has to go by the wayside. Everybody remembers Hogwarts, but to your point, they really know Harry's story.

What To Show And What To Keep Private

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yeah. And I look at building a personal brand as it does, it allows you to then evolve and your audience will then continue to buy from you as long as you keep providing them the correct value and you don't take advantage of your audience. You look at Elon Musk again to go back to somebody like Elon Musk, go, okay, great. Oh, I'll buy a Tesla from you, I'll buy Starlink from you, I'll look at just the next things he does. Great. It doesn't matter what he's buying. I'm trying to think of blanking on every entrepreneur now, but Grant Cardone is another great one. Like whether you again like him, don't like him. Oh, I'm gonna buy the next thing he puts out because he's helped you. And so as long as you keep helping people, they'll keep exchanging with you.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

So this is the next part, and I think this is the one that probably stops people from doing a personal brand more than anything else. And this is the idea that you have to be comfortable understanding you're not for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yeah, just the same way your business is not for everyone. You don't serve everyone, even though you're like, oh, we serve everyone. No, you don't. Even like Disneyland, right? Let's just say Disneyland. Oh, it serves everyone. There's a price point to get in there. It's$150 a ticket. Wow. Low, low-income individuals are either saving up for a year or years to go to Disneyland. It's it's not for everyone. Also, like the same way a football game is not for everyone. Like it has a broad mass appeal, but it's not for everyone. So your personal brand is not for everyone, but just speak to who you need to speak to. Like I so again, my background is as a filmmaker and as an artist. And one of the things that's talked about, especially in the artist space, is a thousand true fans. All you need is a thousand true fans who are willing to pay you a hundred dollars a year, and you're making a hundred thousand dollars a year. Like that's all you need is a thousand one really good, like a thousand true fans. That's all you really need to like to survive as an artist. Okay, maybe you get it's two thousand true fans and you're they're paying you fifty dollars a year.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

But it's such a reframe from the idea of I don't know what to post because I don't want to offend anyone or have somebody misperceive my brand or something like that, or I don't want my business to be, I don't want to offend anyone, or I don't want to turn anybody away from potentially being a customer. And it this is such a real reframe that, hey, you have to be comfortable understanding that you're not for everyone. And the idea of legitimately a thousand true fans, I I don't think I've heard that before. And it makes so much sense in the art space, but it makes sense in the business space.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

You don't You look at your customers and there there's great million dollar math. Grant Cardone talks about it, but like a lot of this is not a Grant Cardonism. It's a it's basic economics. Yeah. You look at okay, great. I sell a product for$20. If I wanted to make$100,000 a year, how many would I need to sell? Okay. Can I sell that on if I sell it? Can I create a business where it's a subscription,$20 a month? Like, for example, that gentleman who does fitness, well, that colleague of mine, he has a fitness app. It's$50 a month. He has a lot of people paying him$50 a month. A lot of people. So like he is definitely a millionaire.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

But to your point, people know what they're going to get because he is very narrow in the lane of what he does and finding. I talk yeah, and in authentic of what he for what he does. Yeah.

Evolving Your Brand Over Time

SPEAKER_01 17:57

And I think the simple the easiest way to do like your look at your brand is look at what do you want to talk about and what do you not want to talk about. Just write them down. Just and it's really clear. Okay, great. If your business is, I'm gonna pick a rent, power washing. Great. I talk about power washing, I don't talk about everything else. Okay, or power washing. I want to talk about power washing, but I also love football. So I'm gonna talk about power washing and I'm gonna talk about football. And when I do power washing, I'm gonna make the logos of all the NFL teams as a fun little shtick. So great. You see how that becomes a little bit more of the brand. And yeah, you could put it under the company, but it also why not just put it under your name and you become the guy who power washes the logos into people's driveways because then you get hardcore NFL fans who will pay extra for custom designs. So their driveways are not spotless clean, but they have cool, amazing designs in their driveways to support their team.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Like you now can start charging a premium for that. Not oh, it's a hundred dollars to power wash, but now it's three hundred dollars if you want your team's logo in it.

unknown 19:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Right. No, this is and that coming up. That's this is me coming off the spot. But put the things you like together in a bucket, put the things that like, okay, like for me, I don't talk about politics. And that's why, as you notice, when I mentioned Elon Musk, I was like, this is not political.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yeah, I don't talk about yeah. We also we have some very hard and fast rules about those things, not because maybe we don't have an opinion, but the opinion is not our personality. It's irrelevant for brand. Yeah, it's irrelevant for a lot of things, it's kind of collateral. I would have a very hard time, I think, finding anybody who doesn't have opinions on things, but those opinions it it doesn't necessarily affect your day-to-day and things they're they're collateral, and it could be opinions on anything.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

And I know guys who love just debating politics, they just they like enjoy it. So do they post about it a lot? I'm like, okay. And look, and that's my point is it's to each's own. And the whole point of building a personal brain is to build that tribe, is to build that community, is to build the people who are with you.

unknown 20:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

So to the second part of the question, the second, the conventional wisdom. And I'm going to say it's conventional wisdom because it is very siloed. You can find people who truly are experts in Instagram or LinkedIn, or they're experts in the algorithms and the Facebook and all the things. And I don't diminish that in any way. I think it takes a lot of skill and talent to be able to get those algorithms to behave. My point is, is if you are a business owner and you don't have, let's say, an in-house marketing expert on LinkedIn or something, then you what do you, what's the next thing you do? Is you either find a coach to work with for a few months or someone for a season, or you read marketing for dummies or social media for dummies, or you pick up the book, or you go and you have a newsletter that comes to you. Almost any, any of the e-commerce sites and a lot of like POS systems like Square and some of those, they have newsletters that they'll send to you about what's working and the marketing and things like that. And if you take that conventional wisdom, they're gonna tell you the bio for this one looks this way, and this looks this way. And the format of your content, right? So whether it's horizontal or vertical or or this or that, or I think even Canvas and emails, I think they're all relevant and amazing. But listening to you here, you're like, look, you're looking for a thousand raving fans. You're not necessarily looking to put yourself on every single platform. Maybe that's not relevant, or if it is, or how can you mix that authenticity with the rules? Of the individual platforms people are using.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

So I have a really simple framework that I've learned that makes this really easy for especially for the complicated. What are we doing? How are we doing to get you out of the thinking? First is you just got to make any content. What content do you enjoy making? Do you like making videos by yourself? Do you like doing, would you like to do a podcast? Would you like to write? Do you do you like to just speak? And so you want to just do an audio part. Like it doesn't matter. What are you willing to do that you're going to continue doing? So that's the first thing. Or is there a platform that you like consuming content on? Like, for example, like I you love watching long-form YouTube videos. So you understand, you have more reality and affinity for that platform.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Now I need to stop you for a second.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Sure.

Not For Everyone: Find True Fans

SPEAKER_00 22:50

How many entrepreneurs have you asked the question, how do you like to make content, or how do you like to educate or share or whatever? How many of them can actually answer the question? I don't know that I have seen too many people actually ask the question, how do you like to make content? How do you like to consume content? I think most of the time it's okay, we're gonna post three days a week on Facebook because our people are on Facebook, and twice a week on Instagram, and then two articles a month on LinkedIn, and they don't consider the creator. How many people can actually articulate when I think about it, this is what I like? I'm like you though. I'm a documentary, like I I consume those long documentaries, those are my things.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

So what and it makes sense. You have a long form video podcast.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Right. So how many people can just answer that question though?

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Or how many people I had all my clients to first answer it? It's the first thing I ask.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Okay, hi. This is a business mastery podcast. Has anybody ever asked you the question? And actually, I do want to know down in the comments if you're watching this, because I don't know that question's maybe asked when it should absolutely be the first one.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Yeah. And so what content do you like to consume on what platform? And if you mean that if they're talking to me, they're looking at starting to create content. And so it's like, do you have a preference on because at the end of the day, it's always compare social media to the gym and working out. My wife, for example, refuses to lift weights, refuses. Her background is as a dancer. She's like, I don't want to be bulky, I don't want, but she'd happily go to do aerial. She loves like aerial silk, the whole circus sole type workout. She loves that. She'd go every morning if she could. So you have to pull her away from that type of workout. You'd have to literally drag her by her toes to get her into a gym. Why would I do the same thing with if somebody's, I really do not want to be on camera. Don't put them on camera.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Don't a permission slip you are giving right now to everybody who is hearing this for the first time and going, but this is what we were told that we had to do.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Now, look, there are things that are gonna be more successful than up, but I'm talking about like this, like I'm all about gradients and building it up over time. Yeah. You'll see that with this framework. Is so the first thing is great, let's just start. What do you want to do? The same way, like again, working out. Just do any workout. Go on a walk, go on a run, do something, move the body, stretch for 10 minutes. So then it's okay, great. Now build that content a little bit more often. So great. Let's say you're gonna make videos, short form vertical videos, because you like TikTok. So great, you're doing you did a TikTok. Great. Can we shoot and put out three a week? Can we put out one a day? That's a one-minute video. Pick up your phone and go, hey, so this is what I think, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You should blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Great. Post. Good. Consistent, the whole game of social media is consistency over long term. I look at, especially I explain it to entrepreneurs because they understand it, which is it's very much like compound interest, building your personal brand. It's you're not gonna see anything in the beginning. You're not gonna, you're gonna see absolutely zero in the beginning. But over time, and again, just like compound interest, you keep depositing every day social media content. Five years you look up and you go, holy, I don't know if I'm allowed to curse. Holy bleeping, bleep bleep, bleep bleep, bleep. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

You know those words on this podcast.

Define Your Lanes And Boundaries

SPEAKER_01 26:40

So it's the same thing. Really? For example, my brother is a singer-songwriter, and he's been hot, he's been working his butt off on social media, trying to make anything pop, getting 200 views, 300 views. It was demoralizing. And he'd been doing it for a while. And just literally yesterday, within less than 24 hours, he had a video that's last night we looked at it, which was 2.2 million views. Because he kept going to my shadow band, and my this, my that, I don't know. And he just kept going, kept posting. 2.2 million views. And I'm probably, if we look at it this morning, it's probably over three million views. So you just have to keep post. So that's where the consistency goes in. Then the next level up above that is just post that same content on more platforms. Don't overthink it. Don't again, if you're making videos for TikTok, just post the same video for on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook. Right? You're you've now for X'd the amount of content you're putting out. So just by posting it on more platforms.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Without having to chop it up and change the views and read. Same thing.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Just post the same. If you're doing a long-form YouTube video, post it on Rumble, post it on Facebook, post it on X. For example, I have a client that I shoot a digital show with. He's an entrepreneur. He we basically create like an elevated podcast, which I call a digital show. He interviews people while he golfs. He's a commercial real estate broker and he loves to golf. So we created this show where he basically, it's like comedians and cars getting coffee, but like business real estate mixed with golf.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

He posted his first episode on X and got over a hundred thousand views. This is a 20-minute video that got over a hundred thousand views on X. Wanna know how many followers he has? 600. Wow. Again, he's posting it on YouTube. He's posting it on Facebook, he's posting it on LinkedIn. But again, he's you don't know where it's gonna pop off. You don't know what video is gonna pop off where. So if there is a medium to recommend, I recommend video content. That's where most people are consuming the type of content. So try to make video content. And then again, so that next phase is just post it more on more platforms. After you are posting more content, right? You're doing a video a day type of thing on five platforms, and you're being consistently doing that. And I'm talking about months, yeah. And you're growing, you're getting viral videos, you're getting reach, you're getting you're growing your business. Because we're doing this not to do, we're not doing this for fun. We're doing this to grow our business. This is work, this is business, this is marketing, this is promotion. So if it's not growing our business, why are we doing this? If that's and then you can start specializing. Oh, okay, great. Now I've built a business. This is making money. We're actually growing, we're getting leads. We're selling more. Good. Now I can hire someone to go, great, I'm gonna hire a graphic designer to make cool Instagram content to better make my YouTube thumbnails. Now they're gonna make content specifically more for Instagram, specifically more for LinkedIn. Now I'm gonna go, great, let's make longer form YouTube videos, and we're gonna make an edit for LinkedIn and make an edit for YouTube. Great. Like only at that point. Because you're putting 17 carts in front of the horse by doing it the other way.

unknown 30:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Really good at a platform and just keep expanding slowly.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

This is such a good segue to the other topic you and I talked about before recording. And if you have authentically built months and months of daily or weekly content, whether it's video, writing to your point, all the things, that also will help with the thing we were talking about when I said I was having a conversation with someone, and their 10-year-old assumes that everything they see on YouTube is AI.

A Simple Framework To Start

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Yeah. And that's where like really building that personal brand is so important, especially now with the rise of AI influencers. I'll give you a really scary story on the flip side of this. This is when you've become so big that, and it's wild. So a friend of mine, his father is a very big influencer in in the health space. And his father passed away a number of years ago. And he's one of the, but he's one of the biggest names in in the health space. And this year, and then his son runs a very large marketing company and is very bullish on AI. Very bullish on AI. And he was just telling me at dinner a couple of weeks ago, people are making AI videos of his father saying other things. So, yes, it can happen, but that's where, and it's a little hard because this gentleman has passed away. So we can't be like, that's not true. That's not me. And he's not, he himself is putting out videos. The best way, but what's great about it is that there's an army of fans going, This is AI. His video is false, and going, his real channel is here. And if you build a library of the of you, people will know you and what you stand for.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Yeah, I think that's the whole point here is even more than five years ago, just starting and just building the videos, and do they look well produced? No. Don't you love my studio and my camera and all the no, because the truth is we're just trying to get it out there, right? So now more than ever, I think beyond the idea of meeting a personal brand or choosing not to have one, but I think everybody who is listening in here is a business owner that probably has a need for one if they don't already have one. But to your point, the platform doesn't matter because you can always adapt to it once you have a thousand raving fans, I guess we'll call it.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

But I think the critical turn in this conversation is if you don't take the lead on this and do it when it's amateur, when it's ugly, when it's just you talking in the camera, when it's you just having a good idea, if it's you just putting things out there, there is a real danger that when you do it professionally and pretty and you hire all the right people that they won't know it's you.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Yeah, or just all right, you've waited five years to do it. That's waiting five years to go to the gym. Yeah. That's why I like I always compare it to social to social media to the gym. Like, when's the best time to work out or and compound interest? When's the best time to invest?

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Yeah. 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

20 years ago. So when should I start building my personal brand?

SPEAKER_00 33:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

20 years ago. 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Second best time?

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Today. Yeah. So it's the same thing. And yeah, there's a great quote. I forget who said it, but I think I heard it from Glenn Powell. As silly as that is, is everything you want is on the other side of cringe.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Oh, I like that. I like that a lot. So we're all gonna be cringy. We're just gonna go and do it to your.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

But you're cringe, but the cringe is in you. Others are not gonna look at it cringe. And the people that are above you, are the people who've done it, and the people, you know, they're never gonna go, oh, you're cringy. They're like gonna go, I was there. I understand. It's the people who are not doing it, the people who wish they were doing it, are gonna be the ones judging you. Not the people who are on the journey, not the people who are ahead of you. And it it takes a lot of courage to do it. It takes courage, but it takes courage to go to the gym and lose the weight. It takes courage to go, I'm gonna take this 10% out of my paycheck, put it in the SP 500, put it into this XYZ stock and hope it'll grow. It takes courage. It's not, oh, okay, whatever. Like I run through it my on my own personal brand constantly. And I do this for a living.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Like we all do it. Like, we that's why personal trainers exist. That's why financial brokers exist, is to help give you the confidence.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Yeah, absolutely. It's very eye-opening when you put it in the real perspective that believe it or not, there are Apple haters, right? So even though Steve Johns had his own, I know how I, yeah, they're the two to three percent of those Apple innovators that will camp out tents for three days if Apple were to re-release a string on a stick and they would still buy it, then those people really do exist. And there's no judgment in saying that that's just an objective sort of fact in the marketplace. So the reframe of look, you're looking for a thousand people, the globe has what, eight billion, seven billion, seven point five, whatever it is. That is a real prospective reframe that I think isn't isn't really marketed very well out there in the world. It's all about 12 million followers, not those loyal thousand or fifteen hundred that really what you have to say.

Consistency And Compound Interest

SPEAKER_01 36:14

The best post that I constantly see people reposting versions of this, which is it's so beautiful, which is close your eyes and pick sure a room of 20 people. That's a solid dinner party. Imagine being at a dinner table with 20 people. I know for me, my family is nine deep when we get a reservation right now. And we there's no grandkids yet. That's just siblings and their spouses. Nine deep. We're gonna have and if I go out with friends, we're talking, we get one other family with us, we're 15 deep. Right? Imagine a table of your 20, that's 20 people. That's 20 views right there on your video. Now, think of a stage of a hundred people. You're speaking on stage in front on a small hall with like a hundred. That's a hundred views. Think of a stadium of five thousand people. That's five thousand views. If you look at the big uh basketball arenas, there are like twenty thousand people. The biggest soccer stadiums and football stadiums are like fifty to eighty thousand people. It's fifty thousand views, a hundred thousand views right there. And so people get so oh needs to hit a million, it needs to hit a million. No, what you need to do is just consistently keep posting, and if each video gets one new person to go, huh? Who's this guy? Who's this gal? I want to see another one of their videos. There's a great additionally in terms of just thinking of longevity of time, is Alex Ramosy did a video about when he was sitting at a conference at one of his meetups at acquisition. And it's like, how many of you guys have heard about me in the last month? One person and paid then$5,000 to show up at Vegas. One person raised their hand. One or two people raised their hand. It's like, what about the last six months? A couple more raised their hand. He said, Over two years have you been following my content? Pretty much everybody raised their hand then. It was like, look, your customers, it's not that they don't want to buy from you, it's that they just need more time.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

So that's where, again, when's the best time to start doing this? 20 years ago. When's the next best time? Right now. Because what you're doing is you're investing now so that in two to three years, they're giving you all their money and they're sold.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

And that's where you hear the same thing about an email list. Just keep messaging your email list, keep messaging your email list, people being on people's email lists for 10 years and then being like, great, here's$45,000. Because they just wanted that high-ticket thing from you. If they didn't want a low ticket thing from you, they don't need another$27 course. What they want is a$50,000 mastermind from you.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

And it just takes a while.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Sure. But it if you don't offer that, like, but you don't know. Or you have this mailing list, and if you've never offered them anything, and then you the moment you do say, hey, here's this hundred dollar gizmo, boom, it's sold out in minutes. So it doesn't matter. Mailing list, that's again copy. Videos, it doesn't matter. You just gotta do it is at the end of the day, and do it consistently, even when you're not seeing anything. Because again, take my brother's example. He was doing it for two, three years on and off. And in the last year, he said, okay, going hard, doing three videos a day on four platforms, and then had a hundred thousand viewed video, and then now a video at over two and a half million.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

That's amazing. Okay. So where can people find you and get you to help them tell their stories and maybe help you help them define a personal brand? Because I think everybody listening in here at least has a new or different perspective on this than we did 40 minutes ago. So where can they find you?

Cross-Posting Without Overthinking

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Where can they LinkedIn is great? LinkedIn is a fantastic resource uh and a way of connecting with me. Feel free to DM me there. Additionally, if you just search my name, Jake Isham, on Google, you'll see probably 18 different versions of my social media. Unfortunately, they are all me. You'll see my photography, you'll see my filmmaking, you'll see the marketing branding sides. I'm on every single platform. And unfortunately, I have multiple pages because each of them have their own audience. So feel free to follow any of them, message me on any of them. Definitely happy to help.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

All right. So we're gonna put those down inside the show notes, and we'll take the top five Google results and we'll put those down in the show notes as well. So if you happen to find this podcast on the day that it launches, you can reach out then. And obviously, if you find us three years from now, you'll still be able to find Jay because he's consistently gonna do this forever. So thank you so much for this conversation. This is so important. And I do want to honor something you said, and that is so many times now in marketing, and I don't think it was ever a nefarious thing, but we've made numbers disconnect from the bodies that are actually those numbers. So instead of counting heads, we started counting numbers. So to your point, a football stadium full of fans, those are real humans and those are bodies and seats. And thank you for that perspective. I think it's really gotten lost.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

Yeah, it's and just do the math. I because I work with a lot of B2B entrepreneurs and I go, you couldn't handle 10 new clients if they walked in your door today. If they called your sales team, you couldn't handle onboarding 10 new clients. So shut up. Stop it stressing. Just make content because there will be a point where you will have 10 new clients that you onboard because a video will go viral and they will go, holy crap, you were at what I have been looking for. And you will be then stressed out and want to stop all your social media because of it. So let's get that problem.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

But you only have that problem by doing it.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Amazing. Thank you so much for joining me here today and for this very important conversation.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Yeah, thank you for having me. Amazing questions. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Thank you. All right, we'll talk to you all next time on the next episode. But before we sign off, because I keep getting reminded, if this is valuable to you, please subscribe, share, add us to your playlist, and see you again next week. Thanks so much. Take care. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Business Mastery Podcast. If you want to learn more about me, you can go to donkennedy.com. And you can now check us out on YouTube as well as, of course, any of your favorite platforms that host podcasts. Take care.