149: Building An Industry Leading Personal Brand With Justin Welsh

What's going on, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Make It Happen Mondays podcast with your host, John Barrows. This episode brought to you by our sponsors, Sales Loft, Gong, Vanilla Soft, and Vidyard. We thank them for their support and everything that they do for the sales community. Today, we are talking with Justin Welsh. Justin Welsh is going to discuss what it is to build a personal brand. Nobody feels closer to this topic than I do. And I can assure you that the insights that Justin is going to drop are going to be based on his experience and the things that we see that trend in the community. So, Justin, we want to thank you for coming on the show. Thanks for everybody for tuning in and let us know what you think about this episode.

Smash that like button. These things are getting better every day. Thanks again. We'll see you soon. Let's make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows. Make It Happen Monday. And I am here with Justin Welsh. And Justin, are you the founder of the Justin? The official Justin? What's the name of your company again? That's right. It's the official Justin just because that's the URL of the website. But when people ask me, I just say it's Justin Welsh. I love it. All right, cool. So we're going to have an interesting conversation. I've been real interested around this topic to hear about personal brand building and where we are right now, right? So we're going to dig into that.

But before we dig into that, Justin, give me a little bit of background of where you're coming from and what you're doing now and why it's going to lead us to this conversation around personal brand building and how you kind of got to hear where you are in your career. So yeah, totally. So I've been in a sales profession for about 16 years. I got into it in 2003. I wasn't very good at it for about six years. I worked for three companies. I got fired three times. I never, not yet. It was ouch. And not only did I never hit a quote, I never actually made a sale in my first six years of my career. Like no one ever gave me their credit card. No one ever bought it. No way, really. I was a pretty, pretty significant failure in the sales world.

And in 2009, I moved to New York City and I got lucky. I was the second sales hire at a technology company called ZocDoc. And for some reason, there was the intersection of like the right people, the right product, the right energy in New York City, my own maturity level, like those four things sort of intersected. And I went from being a guy who couldn't sell anything to being a top performer at this company. And that was the beginning of my career. I spent five years there in various leadership roles. In 2015, I got hired on as the VP of sales at a small LA tech company called Patient Pop. And that's sort of where I made my mark. I grew that business from $1 up to $50 million in recurring revenue in just about four years.

And then around 10 months ago, I left. I left Patient Pop after really burning out. I put in, you know, 80 to 100 hour work weeks for 10 years in a row and I was done. I was just super burned. And the reason that I was able to go out that way is because I had been building my brand online. I had been doing that for the past, you know, six to eight months. And I built a pretty significant following. And when I went out, I flipped on my website for, and what I do is I support early stage SMB SaaS founders and going to market and growing their business. And I flipped on my website and that brand that I had built paid off. I had an immediate inbound funnel of prospects. And I have spent now the last 10 months just converting prospects into customers and running my own consulting and advising firm.

Love it, man. So let's back up a little bit. What do you think was the trigger, if you will, what clicked from not selling anything for three companies? And then you said it kind of was a perfect storm, but was it, you know, because I talked to a lot of sales reps about kind of catching your sales group where you just kind of wake up one day and it's a little bit easier than it was the day before. And you don't know exactly when or what happened there, but was there something that really clicked for you of that, that you said, okay, now I get it. Yes. Um, I had always been selling other people's stuff, right? Like stuff that I didn't care about stuff that I didn't believe in stuff where if I sold it, like Mr.

And Mrs. CEO made, you know, some more money in their pocket, but I didn't necessarily see the fruits of my own labor. And when I got to ZocDoc, two things really happened. The first thing was I loved the product and service. I was like, it was 2009, John. And I was like, Whoa, online doctor's appointments. I booked my restaurants this way. I book a lot of other things this way, but not my doctor's appointments. I looked around at my friends and family. I'm like, would you use this? And they're like, hell yeah, we would use that. So I got, I got excited about it. Right. And like being excited about what you sell, I think is helpful, obviously. And then I went out with my boss on the first day and he gave me the autonomy to have a conversation with a prospect and he helped, right?

Like he gave me some support, but we closed the deal on my very first day of work. No way. And like I, I had come from six years of utter failure. And in my very first day at this new job, I, I closed the deal. And that was like that dopamine, right? Like that, that adrenaline rush. Like I was like, Oh shit, I can do this. This is awesome. And so I just got really, really hooked on that feeling. And for, rather than wanting to go back to my house and like work out or like party with my friends, I wanted to get actually better at selling that service. And so I went home and like, I practiced and I got with the top reps and we, we, you know, quizzed each other and studied late nights. And for some reason, man, I got hooked on the feeling of success.

And I think again, it was part of my own maturation and it was about time that I had matured as a, as a person, but those two things, uh, you know, uh, having the right service and having the support from my boss were super helpful. That's huge. Yeah. I mean, I always tell people like, you know, belief in what you sell is, I think one of, I think the most important thing about sales, like if you do not believe in what you sell, go find something else to do. Right. Cause if you don't, then you're just a jackass sales rep trying to cram shit down people's throats and nobody. And you're the, I always tell people like you're, if you're just in this for the commission and you don't honestly give a shit about what you sell or who you sell to, then you're the reason why we have a bad name in sales, right?

You're the reason that people roll their eyes when they say, Oh God sales reps, right? Cause they're just trying to convince you of something that you don't really need. But if you believe in it, then it's just the transfer of enthusiasm, right? Totally. A hundred percent with that, with that service, if I lost the sale, um, I always walked away thinking like that guy or gal, that doctor that I was, that didn't, didn't buy is going to be sorry. Like they're going to be super sorry if that they didn't buy this from me. And like, that's because I believed in it and I, I knew it was the right product. So that, that drove me, man. That was a huge driving factor for me. Love it. So now you, when'd you graduate?

You graduated 2003, right? Give or take. Yep. Yep. So what are you like 37 years old? Something like that? Yeah. I'll be 39 July. Okay. 39. So you're, you're close to me. I'm 44. Um, yeah. Hangovers start to hurt even more when you hit 40, by the way. So there's, there's benchmarks of 30, 35 and 40 and 40 was like, okay. Yep. But anyways, um, talk to me about brand, right? Because I went into brands building, like when social selling first really hit strong. Um, I was like, Oh, what the fuck? I'm like, really, you know, great. Yet another thing I got to do to be successful in sales here. Right. And the whole thing of like tweeting and posting and building, like it really bothered. I was like, this is stupid.

Right. So, and I got a bunch of people when I went off on my own to say, Hey John, you know, give us your Twitter handle and we'll get you 10,000 Twitter followers. And you know, in a month. And I'm like, why do I want 10,000 random ass people following me on Twitter? So for me, what I did was, all right, if I'm going to jump into this world, like, I don't know the true value of it. I, I get it. Everybody's talking about it. So let me do it, but I'm going to do it my way. Right. And all I did was like, focus on sharing quality content, stuff that I thought was interesting, putting my context around it. And, but I didn't do it with the mentality of building my brand. I did it with the mentality of sharing, sharing good, valuable stuff to help everybody learn from.

So walking through your journey of this, of the realization of brand building, um, like when it first, when you first started thinking about it and how you ended up where you are and was it purposeful? Was it a default? Because and I'll, I'll let you know where I'm going with this, but I want to know your answer to that one real quick. Yeah. At the beginning, it was really unintentional. Um, in the beginning, like I was, I was the VP of sales of patient pop. This was maybe 18 months ago when I first started brand building. And like, I shared something one day about something that I had done at work and people seemed to think that it was valuable. And I was like, Oh, that's cool. Like I, I did something today at work.

Other people who are not quite as far as I am in their career got, got some value out of that. So maybe I'll do that more often. Right. And like, if anyone who tells you that when you start sharing content and people, it starts resonating with people that that is not an addictive feeling is, is full of shit, by the way, it is, you were like, Oh, I want to do that again. I would like to help people for a second and third time. So I started doing that. Yeah, of course. It's just like making a sale. Right. And so, um, I, I continue to do that. And then it's sort of, it changed. And I think there's different levels that people go through on their brand. It went from being like helpful guy to doing what everyone does with their brand, which is like, how do I do it better?

And when you start thinking about how to do something better, it can become inauthentic because you start like, is this line written right? Is it positioned right? And like, suddenly you're, you're more of like a politician than you are just a brand builder. And so I went through a phase where I didn't sound as authentic as I normally did. And then one day I wrote something about how I had been fired a lot, which is what I opened up this conversation with. And that just exploded like a damn rocket ship. And so I was like, okay, it went to one and a half million people on LinkedIn. And I was like, this is interesting. I need to get back to just sharing things that I've learned over time. And after studying some other people who I, who I was following, right.

I started to look at like, who do I follow and why I started to realize that the people I followed most frequently were just telling their journey. They, they weren't building a brand. They weren't like focused on something particular. They're just like, here's the journey I'm on. If you want to follow me in my journey, because you want to be where I'm at, then all of my content is going to be very consumable for you. And so I flipped maybe 12 months ago, to just talking about what I'm doing, talking about my journey. And that is now the way that I build my brand. I don't have a slogan or a tagline that I drop every day. Like I don't have that kind of brand. Like, I'm just like, here's what I did today.

It failed. It succeeded. Here's how I think about it. Here's where it helped. Here's where it didn't. And if you're six months behind me in your career, then hopefully that's as beneficial as hell. And when you're, when you're the brand, there's no competition, right? You're yourself, people follow you. And that's, and I, and I think the importance of that moving forward here is critical, right? Because people are just don't trust corporate brands, right? I mean, like it's easy. I don't know about you, but like, uh, you know, for instance, just your Jay Barrows, right? Like my, my JB, Jay Barrows, um, LinkedIn page, right? My company page versus my personal page, right? Now, granted, we started my company page after way after I did my personal stuff, but you know, I got 350,000 people follow me on, on my personal, you know, LinkedIn.

I got, you know, I don't know, 5,000 people following it. And every time we post as JB sales, minimal engagement, every time I post as John Barrows, massive engagement, right? So, but I do think there's, you know, you mentioned authenticity in there because I can't like, for me, it's almost not worth it if it's not authentic, right? Because right now, and I don't know if you're noticing this, but you know, when this whole pandemic thing hit, right? Like COVID and all that other stuff, um, sounds like you, you did a very similar thing that I did in terms of building your brand. It wasn't in it, the intent wasn't to build your brand. The intent was to share your journey and share content to help the audience.

Right. But you had skills behind that, right? You had, you had a foundational component behind that of you learn selling, you knew the techniques you put in the work and all that other stuff. Right. Yeah. So when you flipped off on your own and you lit up your new website, people came to you because they trusted your brand and you had done that. Um, I'm no, and, and, and similar here. So, you know, beginning of March when the shit hit the fan, um, a lot of people were reaching out to me, like clients and prospects were like, Hey, how can I help? You know what I mean? Like how, what can we do to work together here? So they were, I mean, I had even had some clients who had to cancel onsite sessions, but be, but wanted to pay me so that I could have revenue right now as a small business.

And then, you know, we do the training later. Right. So they're like, Hey, let me pay you to make sure you're whole here. Cause I canceled last minute on you. You know, let's put that in the bank. So it's right. So I benefited a lot from having a very authentic brand early on in this, in this mess that we're in right now, but I'm watching other kids who, who are younger, right. You know, millennials or whatever, even Jen, Jen Zers or whatever, who, who I think, who I feel like have, have come into this world of brand building with the mentality of building their brand, but with not much behind it. And they're struggling right now because like, they're not, there's no skills to back it up. So I guess the, I guess my point right now is obviously we want both skills and brand, but to me, I'd rather have sales skills all day long over a brand that has nothing behind it.

Right. So what are you seeing right there as far as like a lot of the players in our space building their brand and the benefit of the authenticity versus just doing it just to do it? Yeah. Great question. And I think like, I see two different sides, right? The first side I see is like, you know, Jim who's 23 and just graduated college and is jumping on LinkedIn. Like, are you a, are you a founder? Here's what I know about building SaaS companies. It's like, come on, Jim. Um, you know, you've got like that, you got like that side. And then you, you have like the storytellers who are like, it was a dark and stormy Thursday night. And I'm like, are you a pirate? Like, just talk about, like, talk about what you're, what you're good at in like, what is that?

Then you have people like Sarah Brazier. I don't know if you've seen her from, from Gong. She's an SDR at Gong. And what does she talk about? She talks about being an SDR like every day. She's like, tried this today. Work didn't work. Here's something I learned. Like, is she a 15 year vet? No, but is she building her brand the right way by just literally talking about the things that she's learning on a regular basis and sharing it with people who are not yet as advanced in their career as she is? Of course that, that to me is the way that you build both a brand, your skills and your substance, because you're building your skills every day, your job, whether you're in sales or customer success or marketing, and you can build your brand by simply sharing what you're learning by looking and saying, there's a group of people that do not know how to do some of the things that I know how to do.

And so what I'm going to do is package up all of my learnings and serve it to them and say, Hey, don't know how to do these things. Here's how you do them. Continue to follow me. Brand building is really not that much more confusing than that. And if you try and go above and beyond your level of expertise, that's when the authenticity drops off. You can tell Sarah, and I'm just using her as an example, because she's really excellent at it. You can tell she's, she's real because the stuff that she shares is all the shit that I went through when I was in that very same role. So I know it's real and the people that are following her know it's real. So she's, she's just an example of someone who's doing a really great job, you know, as an SDR building her brand.

So how do you do it though? I think, you know, you and I have an easier job with this and I, and I think Sarah does too. Um, I'm sorry, Sarah was her name. Yeah. I think Sarah does too, because to a certain degree, we're kind of preaching to the choir in the sense that, you know, I'm building my brand. I train people on how to build their brand. I, I, you know, my audience is sales reps who are trying to build their brand, but what do you tell that kid who's 23, 24 years old, who is selling into the IT security space and, and, you know, yeah, great. This is what I learned today about selling. And I got my teeth kicked in by a CTO, but that's kind of more for other SDRs to, to learn from. Right.

But what about that kid who wants to build their brand in like their industry, right? CISOs and, and, and how do I get there? And then also, but I don't know, I'm only gonna, I might only be in this, in this industry for two years or a year. So why should I build my brand in this space when I don't know? So talk to me about that. Like, how do you build your brand in an authentic way in the space that you're in to an audience that, that you are, is so beyond what your skillset is. And then, then the decision of what do I do now versus what if I jump to another job that's completely outside of that? Where do I go with that? Yeah. I mean, if I were building my brand in an industry for a decision maker, like I, I wouldn't be sharing my expertise.

I'd be sharing the expertise that my customers have from using my product or service, right? I wouldn't be talking about, you know, Justin, the AE at a, you know, a technology company. I'd be talking about, you know, the small business that I just sold my services to. And what did they learn from being a part of my, my team? What did they learn from benefiting from my product or service? But before I do any of that, I just would never do that. Like, I don't believe in building a brand for your company. I'm just fully against that. And like, for instance, I sold into the healthcare space for 10 years and that's awesome. I got lucky that I stayed in the same industry, but it's like build a brand for two years around CTOs.

And then, you know, what you get fired and the next job you get is your, your whole brand, your whole last two years is totally irrelevant potentially. And so when people come to me and they say, I want to at least start making a name for myself. I want to build a little bit of a brand. I sell to the real estate industry. Do you recommend I build it around real estate? I said, no, I recommend you just build it around yourself. You are your brand. You are your journey. Build your brand around who you are, not your industry. That's my, my take on it. Gotcha. So if you're in sales specifically, right? Because I mean, we can talk about, you know, other personas and how they, and why they should build their brand.

But I think it's one of those where if you're in another industry, you usually stay in that industry. Like if you're an accountant, you're an accountant, if you're, you know what I mean? Like you, you do accountant work, whereas sales, you go sell, you could sell a billion different types of things. Totally. Um, so I think you're, you're right there. I mean, the, and so it goes back to, you know, that, that journey that you're on and what you're learning in that space, not necessarily like trying to impress the people you're selling to, if you will. Totally. I just don't believe in that. Like I fundamentally, when I'm doing work, um, for myself and on, and on my own brand, I just fundamentally don't believe that it should be done on behalf of the company that I could be at for 16 months.

Right. And like, I just think that's, that's wasted time and it doesn't carry, it doesn't carry over. And I think one other thing that people don't think about when they're building their brand is that they have a brand already. Like the whole idea is that you already have a brand, whether you like it or not, whether you care about it or not, whether you tend to it or not, there is a brand for you. There is a conversation happening about you online, whether it's with your customers or whether it's with your friends or your peers, you are appearing places online. So to me, sometimes brand is simply just controlling the messaging, just controlling the way that you are perceived in your group, in your network, in your industry, whatever you're targeting.

And so to me, I think it's just being mindful of, of how you look, act, think, and behave online. And so I just think I would rather, much rather control that for my peer group and my network group and my, in my following than I would for my, my industry. It's just my take on it. I like it. Yeah. And what do you think about like the, the difference in, in the approach of say somebody who's just getting started, right. And, and it, you know, I always talk about content creation versus content curation. Uh, my recommendation is to start with a curation piece, read somebody else's stuff, share it with your thoughts on it. Cause you get credit for it, right? Like if you, if you were to share something was like, say you were to read my blog post and share it out to your network and somebody read, and then you put some context on top saying, Hey, really interesting article here by John.

Here's my takeaways from it, blah, blah, blah. And you post it out there. The person that reads it, who's connected to you, if they like my blog posts, they, they thank you, right? They don't thank me. They, they don't say, Hey John, thanks for writing that. They say, Hey, thanks Justin for posting that. Right. So, so, you know, that's an easy way to kind of make a transition here, but what are your thoughts on creation versus curation and what the balance should look like? Yeah. So, so for me, probably, I probably do about 70% creation and 30% curation. Um, I probably started closer to 50, 50 and potentially even 60, 40 on the curation side, but I curated slightly differently than, than you had just suggested.

So rather than go out and say, you know, here's an article by John Barrows. I think it's really great in these three ways. And I have a question about X, right. Or this one, this one potential topic. Um, what I would do is I would scroll Twitter and I would just look for compelling topics. Like what is an interesting topic or, or theory that someone has. And I would just get motivated, um, by different topics. So I might read something from, let's say you again, I'll read something from you on Twitter. I hate people who rip content. I hate people who plagiarize. I just think that's so lazy, but what I might want to do is take a different approach, take a different thought on the potential topic that you had discussed on Twitter.

I want it to give me some guidance. And so that's how I usually use curation is rather than just repost someone's article and add a little context to it. I try and take a maybe opposite view or extend someone's current view into a deeper, uh, talk or deeper piece of content. And so that's how I usually use curation. But for me, what I found is that when things resonate the most, it's because of creation, it is because of my own personal journey. Um, for example, uh, you know, I posted something the other day that was my most popular post ever. It went out to about 1.8 million people on LinkedIn and all it was, was my own true story of how I strive to have a perfect day every day. And it always fails.

That's all it was. It was nothing more than like, here's what I try and accomplish. It doesn't work. And then here's what usually ends up happening. And just remember that every day doesn't have to be perfect. You can don't have to be on your a game every day. Success is a marathon. I shared that with people and that resonated with them because it was my own true unique thoughts with my own voice in my own, uh, sort of mindset on it. And I found that when I do that, it just, it, it's more likely to be consumed than when I'm trying to adjust another topic of someone else's to fit my, my brand voice. So I'm leaning more towards creation nowadays. I like it. And I think that's the hard part for a lot of people is that they're afraid, right?

To, to tell that story. And also, I don't know if you're noticing it on LinkedIn. LinkedIn's really starting to become super fucking noisy and, and also like they're, they're definitely messing with their algorithm algorithms right now. There's no question about it because there's no rhyme or reason. I don't know if you're seeing the trends, but right now with us, there is no rhyme or reason for what takes off and what doesn't anymore. Like I'll put out what I think is like the most authentic piece of real hardcore value that is very deep and insightful. Right. And I'll get, I don't know, 5,000 views, you know, 10,000 views and I don't know, 30 comments or something like that. Whereas I'll post, you know, some random ass thing, you know, me, a fuck you, Grant Cardone or something like that.

And 8 million fucking people will watch it. And you know, comments are through the roof. So what are you like, what are you seeing right now? I mean, LinkedIn's the obvious answer here, but do you see the, do you see what's after LinkedIn? You know what I mean? Are you starting to pay attention? I mean, yes, there's TikTok. Yes, there's Instagram. Yes, there's, you know, Facebook and all these different places, but what are you doing right now to build your brand, for instance, outside of LinkedIn? Because I don't know about you. I don't want to be beholden to them and their algorithms for my reach, if you will, because they change one thing. And all of a sudden my 30, 350,000 followers don't see.

I mean, I had a, like just, just yesterday, um, somebody, uh, tagged me in a post and I commented on it and it was about the algorithms of LinkedIn. I was like, yeah, we're actually getting kind of frustrated. And somebody actually jumped in and said, John, I actually thought you took a sabbatical or something from LinkedIn because I haven't seen anything of, I haven't seen any of your posts in the past two months. And we've been posting more than ever in the past two months to try to help people sell through this mess that we're in right now. So the fact that one of my like pretty dedicated followers says that they haven't seen anything from me in about a month or two is extremely concerning to me as far as that platform is concerned.

So where are you going with your brand and how are you trying to branch out outside of LinkedIn? Yeah, it's interesting. I think you had Amy Volus on maybe recently as a guest and Amy and I are really close. We catch up every week. We do a Thursday night sales event together every Thursday. And you know, it's funny that you mentioned this because a couple of months ago, she was like, Hey, did you stop posting on LinkedIn? And I was like, no, no, I post every morning around six in the morning. And she's like, Oh, I'm not seeing your stuff. And I was like, Whoa. So I get it. Right. And rather than trying to like be frustrated by the algorithm or trying to figure out the algorithm, like I'm not a guy, like I'm not going to go study and I don't, I don't want to be.

Yeah. I don't care about it as enough. What I found is the easiest way to maintain your, your following is just to be consistent. And so what I've done is instead of worrying about it, I just post every morning. It's all I care about. Just get my one post out, make it something that I think is very valuable to the people that follow me and just keep doing it. Just chip away, carry the water pail every day. Like that is my approach to, to LinkedIn consistency and patience. As far as where I see it going. Um, I don't care about other social media platforms. I don't want to shift from one social media platform to another and try and be an expert at that platform and then get screwed by their algorithm and then go to another platform and like have this sort of rinse and repeat model.

For me, I believe in micro communities as the future. I think that people are getting sick of sort of, um, being far away from the people they want to follow. So like being able to read their stuff, but not actually being able to interact with them. Like let's take a big guy. Let's take Gary Vaynerchuk just for lack of a better person to think of off the top of my head. Right. He's not super accessible. It's not like you can have a conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk. Like you can't jump. He does. That's right. But he's pretty darn good at that. And you know, regardless of what you think, think of the guy, he's pretty good at it. Oh, he's great at it. No, I follow most of what he does. Yeah. Yeah.

We've mirrored a lot of what we do based off of how he plays around on the different platforms. That's true. And imagine if he just said, Hey, I'm going to open up a micro community that I'm going to give access to a thousand people and it's going to cost X amount of dollars to be a part of like, yeah, not all 5 million of his fans would go in there, but get a thousand. And to me, I see micro communities much like I'm part of the revenue collective, you know, which is a group for revenue operators like myself. Like that to me is a super valuable community. It's curated. It's invite only it's expensive. Um, it's well, it's well worth. Okay. So I hear it. So I like it. I hear where you're going, but, but it almost feels like, yes, but for a period of time, you know what I mean?

It's like, uh, I'm part of a micro community and I love it when I'm first in it. Cause I'm super active in that person. Whoever said, you know what I mean? You, and you know, as well as I do, how hard it is to keep up with a community, right? I mean, we started a Facebook, uh, Facebook group, right. And you know, we got 5,000 people in that Facebook group. I have no bandwidth to go in there and engage with people and talk to people and all that other stuff. And it's growing, growing now, granted it's free and all this other stuff. And I think, you know, if you start charging, you know, premium prices, you have to be there, but you know, like, like, what do you do to keep a community like that fresh so that the people stay engaged and it doesn't get watered down?

It's like LinkedIn groups, like LinkedIn groups were fan, like on fire for a while. And then everybody's like, fuck, I'm a, I'm a blonde. I belong with 500, these micro groups communities. And I, and I'm now I've lost my interest in pretty much all of them. Um, so how do you keep like a micro group micro enough to still stay valuable? Yeah, I think it's through unique insights and unique access. So if I just take, and again, for lack of a thinking of a better group at the moment, like if I just take revenue collective, for example, one thing they do a really great job of is giving me unique access to people that I normally wouldn't have access to. So if they had an event the other day, how to read an S1 with Tomas Tungas, like that's a guy I don't normally get access to.

He's one of the best venture capitalists of all time history. Like being on a 100 person call with him was, was pretty incredible. Like being able to jump into the Slack channel and just access any CMO, any CRO, any VP of marketing or sales from across the entire globe to me is like a tremendous value add. And then the data and the studies that come out of that group to me just helped me keep abreast of what's going on in my industry. So I think that's how you keep it fresh with regards of like bandwidth. I don't know, man, that's, I think when it, when it transitions from being a free Facebook group to a $2 million run rate group, like suddenly bandwidth changes, right? You have a different focus on your business.

So for me, it's, you know, can you monetize, can you build a business out of micro communities? And once you do, you maintain a significant amount of focus on that group and you provide unique insights and unique access to your, to your members. So that, that's what I see as like the short-term future. Long-term, man, I don't know. Like I haven't given it much thought. I've tended to probably to my own detriment, live in the, live in the moment a little bit more than I have thought about it, you know, five years down the road, to be honest. Well, I mean, at this point, I don't think anybody else can look, you know, more than five months out for crying out loud based on what the fuck's happening right now.

So, um, yeah, cause I, I just keep trying to think of where things are going, right? Like even in the short term here with, with everybody now, you know, now everybody's, uh, trying to build a community. Now everybody's, and, and we're doing like, we're launching our on-demand platform this Wednesday. Right. And we're putting it out there. Yeah. Thanks. I mean, we're putting it out there for 420 bucks a year and we're trying to build our, you know, but there's going to be, and it's like a Netflix, you know, experience and we're going to keep content fresh in there, right? Whatever. But now I see, you know, every trainer in our space is going to have to come out with some online thing, right?

Because onsite training is, you know, is, is going to be questionable moving forward. Uh, there's all these kind of quote unquote experts out there, uh, that are sharing content. There's a ton of free stuff out there. So I look at it this way, where it's like, for me, thankfully, you know, I started building my brand six, seven years ago without trying, without that purpose. Right. But now it's like, okay, cool. I have a pseudo trusted brand that people come to me and they're like, okay. And you know, I have an audience that might trust what I bring to them. Right. And maybe I could flip over some of them to charge, but like, what about that kid right now? Who's in the, in the shit right now with, with all this, right.

And they're trying to figure out like you, you kind of had that itch of, I want to go off on my own and my brand allowed me to do that. Right. So do you, do you start just by, like you said earlier, just like sharing content, sharing your experiences and then joining certain groups to see how they work to build out your, like, how do you, how do you fast track where you are today and where I am today without skipping too many steps? Yeah. I mean, the first thing that you do is you try and figure out what's working for everybody else, right? Like you probably know. And a lot of the folks who follow me know, I have a small inexpensive course called the LinkedIn playbook. And essentially all I did was document all the shit that worked and didn't work over the last 12 to 18 months.

So if you want to get a headstart, pick it up, look for other stuff out there, buy someone else's, I don't care, but like, you know, shortcut your, your learning, uh, by, by not spending 18 months, like I did trying to figure out, you know, what worked and what didn't go figure out by looking at other people who are doing a really great job, follow them, copy them, right. Just, just take a look at it. For instance, I joined Dave Gerhardt's Patreon. Um, he's the, you know, the CMO at, uh, Drift. Yeah. It used to be Drift. I can't think of the company now, but, um, you know, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not a marketer, right. But like, I'm interested in marketing and for 10 bucks a month, like all I got to do is get one piece of value out of, out of either his content or to learn how he's serving it up to his audience.

And for me, that's just invaluable. So I'm happy to pay 10 bucks a month. So I follow a lot of people who I think are excellent. And I, anytime that I can shortcut something, I do it. So for instance, I'm interested in Twitter. Like I would like to know how to use it better than I use it today. So rather than sit around and stare at it for 18 months, like I did LinkedIn, I went, I found one guy who I really, really enjoyed. I found this course that he released on Twitter. I bought it, I watched it and I started using some things in it, circumvented the whole process. Like I don't want to waste my time. My time is my money and I'd rather just shortcut my way to the top. And so that's, that's what I'm doing.

And, um, and you said something really interesting. Like you said, yeah, a lot of like so-called expert trainers are coming out with free stuff and paid content, but it's like, who fucking cares? You're John Barrows. You have 350,000 followers on LinkedIn and they don't buy your content. They buy your content because it's good, man. Like, don't get me wrong. But a lot of, a lot of people buy your content because it's you, right? Like I buy the content that I buy because I like the person. I like their journey. I like their style. I like the way they do things. And so like, to me, I always think about if I'm going to go out there, I want to build stuff that people buy because it's me because they like my journey.

And so, um, when I heard you say that, I'm just like, man, you don't have anything to worry about because people buy you, man, you're, you're, you're well known in the industry. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I, and I learned that early where, you know, and this is where I went, like when I say, you know, I did not want to build my brands. I, you know, when I went off on my own with Jay Barrows, like I did not want it to be Jay Barrows. Like in 2000, I think it was 2008 is when I went off on my own or two, uh, 2010 is when I went off on my own. And, um, you know, when I wanted to like have a company name, like Kaizen sales or something crazy. Right. And, uh, and you know, and I, the more people I talked to, they were like, look, dude, in this space specifically, it's 50, 50, right?

It's 50%, the content, 50% who delivers it. Cause you could have the best content in the world, but if you're delivering it, nobody cares. Vice versa. You could be the best delivery person in the world, but if your content sucks, you know, whatever. Um, so I, I was like, all right. And then, you know, putting my ugly mug on the website and I'm like, but thank God it, you know, I did because now, you know, I'm, I'm bearing the, I have a benefit of that brand. Right. Um, but it's, but it's not, you know, you said, skip a few steps. Like you said, take some shortcuts, but I don't know if there's any shortcuts to building, building an authentic brand. I think there's, there's shortcuts to building a brand, like getting 10,000 Twitter, you know, Twitter followers, buying your Instagram followers, those types of things.

Yeah. I hate finding viral pieces of like trying to manufacture a viral piece of content and doing something dumb. Like that's what I guess probably frustrates me the most too, is that you see these people who put out like funny shit, right. That have just massive following, but it's like, but you look at it and you're like, but that's just like, what the fuck? Like it's, it's dog shit. Like, I guess that's the part that really frustrates me. It's like, and I'll pick on Grant Cardone cause fuck him again. Um, you know, that guy's 10X, right? 10X, 10X. He's literally 10X me by in every way, shape and form. And I look at his content and I'm like, God, is that such dog shit? Like he is a snake oil salesman.

And he's just a, he's a marketer, not a sales rep. And but so why the fuck is that guy so fucking popular? And because I think if I started doing dumb shit and you know, like being like, go hit the list, I probably could be 10X what I am right now, but I refuse to do that. So what do you say to the kid that's looking at Grant Cardone versus me right now versus you right now and saying, okay, look, Justin and John, I like your stuff and there's value in it, but I don't want to only have 300,000 followers, man. I want 3 million followers like Grant does. So I'm going to do his dog shit stuff just to get somebody to follow me. Like, what do you say to that? It will not resonate because they're not Grant Cardone.

Grant Cardone is a snake oil salesman. And so he attracts a world of snake oil salesman, right? Like he's authentically himself, which is to me, a shitty sales leader. Like, I mean, that's just the way that I think about Grant Cardone. Sorry, sorry if he's listening in a fan, but, um, but I hate, I, I, I don't like him and that's cool. He's not for me, but his tribe is for him. Right. And so like what I would tell a young kid is like, you try and build someone that you're not, you're not going to get the followers. Now you might be the kindest, sweetest, most opposite of that. Go build that. There might not be 3 million people there, but you don't need 3 million people. All you need is a hundred, a thousand, a few thousand true fans who interact with your stuff, who buy whatever you put out, who are your champion, who cheer you on.

That's what you need. And I think that people don't realize that they think quantity, right? They think 3 million and 5 million. Don't get me wrong. Great. Grant Cardone probably makes a shit ton of money. He sleeps really, really great at night. Way more than I'll ever make. Yeah. And that's cool. Like if that's people's route, then be my guest. Like I just, I just think you're always going to build a more authentic brand and tribe and you're going to turn that into revenue and you're going to turn that into an audience by, by being yourself. So if you want to try and be Grant Cardone, you better have a little bit of that in your heart and your soul. And if you don't, it'll come across as super fake.

That's just my talk. My take. No, I think you're, you're, because there are, because unfortunately there are people that are like him and, and most of the people that are attracted to him are like him in a lot of ways. So unfortunately they can be that if they want to. Um, how do you like, so brought up Gary V earlier. Um, you know, I love him, but you know, sometimes I get a little like, all right, Gary, give me a break. Cause he, cause he's like, Oh, I give away all my content for free and look at me and I give it away for free. I don't charge anybody for it. And it's like, yeah, because you're a multimillionaire and you have Vayner media behind you. That's generating our, I don't know how many million a year for you.

And, and yeah. So thank you, Gary, for sharing all this, but the rest of us has to make a living here, right? So his whole book, jab, jab, jab, right hook. I love it. I'm all about giving free content, not expecting anything in return, but a certain point people got to get paid, right? So, so where's that line where if you're, you know, with where you are, for instance, right, you built your brand, you worked for a company, you said, all right, now's the time. I got an audience. Let me go out there. And I feel like I'm justified to start charging for some of this stuff, right? Yep. Where do you start to find that line of the right hooks? Like when you start to say, okay, I built, I've, I've given enough away for free right now.

I need to get paid here in some way, shape or form. So I can keep giving this away for free. Where, what, like, how do you determine what you charge for and what you don't? Totally. For me, I have two sides of my business. I've got my consulting side and I got my like course side, my passive income, right? Which I do with my audience. So the first audience is not a lot of people have built a company from dollar one to more than 50 million in recurring revenue. And especially not at the speed at which I did it. And so I believe that I can charge a premium price for that. And so when people come into my funnel, I'm very upfront with my, my purchase price on my website. It's like, this is how much it costs just to have a discovery call with me.

I do not do free discovery calls. Like in, by the way, packages start at 2,500 bucks. Like I just, I put that out there because I think that my experience allows me to charge that. So I'm, I'm, uh, uh, upfront with that when it comes to my audience, like sort of the following that, that I have on LinkedIn. I, I like to follow an approach that I am most comfortable with. And the approach that I am most comfortable with is after giving free value for over a year, like every day I posted something that I had learned at my jobs. Like I had given free value for 12 consecutive months. I thought if I could package all that together and offer it up, I wanted to do two things. I wanted to make it extremely robust.

So like something that people could watch and be like, whoa, that was tremendous value, but also at a price point that made it really accessible. I don't like to gouge people. I don't want to charge people. You know, I see people selling courses for like 1200 bucks. It's like, come on, man. Like who has 1200 bucks to drop on a course? So what I did, I made mine 50 bucks. I'm like, here's everything that I know. I can share it back to my community. They can access it at an affordable price. I'm a nice guy. I'm not like a guy who's like a big money driven money, hungry dude. Like I just want to, I want to spread value. And so what it did is it covered my costs for creating it. And the time that I put into it, it allows me to make a little bit of revenue.

It gives it, it gives my entire community access to it for the most part. And it allows them to go out and get started by, by shortcutting the process that it took me to learn. So that's sort of how I think about it. The founders want to build their business. Like that's my premium pricing. And so I think about having those two price tiers and it just works really well for me. How much do you pull your audience to find out what, what, how much do you just kind of on your own say, uh, you know, I'm learning something I'm sharing and I'm sharing my journey versus listening to your audience about what they want to hear about. Like what's that balance look like for you? I don't at all. You don't.

Okay. Nope. I don't care to be quite frank. Like I don't, the way that I think about brand building and journey building is I want to work on things that I want to work on. That's the whole point for me. Like for me, it's, I want to build a brand that I enjoy. I want to spend my time doing things that I like. And if I go out and I start creating content around a topic or something that I'm interested in and other people don't like it, they will no longer be a part of my following. That's okay. Someone else who likes that stuff will start following me and then I will serve up my learnings to them in the same way that I did with the LinkedIn playbook or some of the other things that I've turned out.

And I know that's probably the reverse sort of advice that most people get, but that's how I think about brand building. I want to work on shit that I want to work on. And when you do that and you're excited and you're passionate about it, you are more likely to gain a follower, a following of people who like that stuff. And so, um, I don't, I don't pull my audience. Yeah. I mean, we don't really either. I mean, I'm, we pull it for like a certain webinar or certain topics, those types of things. But when it comes to sharing content, you know, it's usually what's ever in my head, you know, that day it's like, Hey, I just learned something, try this, you know, and, and how, but like one more question here is like, how do you come across, I guess, I think I know the answer to this question, but I want to ask it anyways, which is how do you come across, um, as somebody who is genuinely sharing information versus telling me what to do?

Right. Because I think there's that, there's that, that I see a few people who, you know, here's what you should do. Right. And dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And it's like, dude, fuck you. Don't tell me what to do. Like, tell me what your story is. Tell me what you learned here. So, but, but you and I both give out tips. Like we give out suggestions about, Hey, try this and try that. So where's that line for you of telling people, Hey, here's a really good idea. Do this versus, you know, here's my experience and learn from it type of thing. Yeah. Just the language that I use. Like if you read through all of my content, most of the language that you'll hear is something like here are eight things that I tried that worked really well for me.

Or, um, do you like, do you have an extra a hundred dollars in your pocket? Like, here's how I would think about using that this month. If I wanted to invest in myself, it's never like, I hate, um, declarative statements. I'm not a big declarative statement guy. I don't say you should, you have to, you must, I never say those things. And that's part of my leadership training just from running big sales teams. I always say like, here's my suggestion. Or if I were you, this is the way that I might think about it. Or then that's just sort of some of the passive language that I use. And so that comes across naturally because when I write, I write in my own voice. And so to me, it's just like the people who write very declarative statements are generally the people who lack confidence.

And they think that by being very declarative, they will show confidence. And instead what they show is insecurity. So I have a statement that I make. I don't care about being right. I care about getting it right. And I think a lot of that comes through in my content because I share a lot about my failures as much as I do what works for me. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to, so one of the things that I'm going to do with my team here, cause I couldn't agree more, like all my, almost all my most popular posts that I've ever done are always sharing like a horrendous failure on my part, like getting kicked out of an office, you know, like, you know, whatever it is multiple times, you know, that type of stuff.

And those are always the ones that I learned. And also the ones I learned the most from, you know, my mistakes are the ones I always learned the most from. Um, so we're going to start, uh, we're going to do some sort of contest coming up here of like, tell us your, your biggest train wreck sales story. Like just, I want, I want like details of like, literally share your worst case scenario sales story. And whoever wins gets like free access to a bunch of resources and stuff like that. Because I think all of those stories we'll learn something from it's like, okay, what happened? And then I obviously want to know, what did you learn from it? Cause I'm guessing that's probably one of the bigger learning lessons of your career.

And those are the type of things that I think, you know, people are so afraid to share, um, because they're afraid that people make fun of them or they'll, they'll, they're afraid they'll be seen as a failure, but I, I, it couldn't be more of the opposite, right? I mean, everybody's like, wants to see the human side. And that's why I always get frustrated in this Instagram world that we're in right now. Cause everybody's showing this perfect little landscape of what everybody looks like on the outside, knowing that everybody's fucked up, knowing that nobody has it figured out, you know what I mean? And so you look at, I mean, I got plenty of friends who, if you saw them on, on Instagram, you'd think they'd have the perfect life, but knowing them, I know they're an absolute disaster.

You know what I mean? So John, I'm old. I don't give a shit what anyone thinks of me. Really? I know. Well, actually there's actually one question. Cause it's funny you bring that up. I, I, I've, I've really come into my own over the past five or six years about just not giving a rat's ass about what people think of me type of thing. That's why I told you my program's going out at four 20 cause fuck off. Cause I wanted to. Um, but, uh, like where, where did you cross that? I don't really give a fuck boundary in your career when, and what did it take for you? Like to get to the point where you had confidence to be like, fuck it. I don't care what people think of me. Burnout, man. Like reaching, reaching a high degree of burnout.

Like, uh, about 12 months ago, I was 45 pounds heavier than I am right now. Like I was in a bad place, mentally, physically. I was drinking, you know, bottle of wine every night, if not a little bit more sometimes. Like I was just in a bad spot because I was so, I was so overworked. I was so burned out. Like I was, I was just drowning and I came out of that. I lost all this weight. I got really healthy. I made better decisions. And when I did that, I was like, oh yeah, when you treat yourself well, and when you do the things that, you know, work really well for you. And when you spend your time doing things that are fun, you're in a much better position. And you can really only do that when you do not give a shit about what other people think.

Like I used to talk about sales all the time, John. Candidly, I don't really talk about sales that much anymore because I'm bored of it. I've been in sales for 16 years. I'm sick and tired of talking about inbound and outbound and channel partnerships. And like, and so I started talking about something different. And like a few people were like, hey, that's not like we follow you for sales. It's like, great. I'm not talking about that right now. So don't follow me anymore. And someone else new will follow me. And then I get joy because I get to write about what I want. I get to talk about what I want. I get to spend my time doing things I want. And so to me, it was just like, I went through this burnout and I came out the other side like a new man.

So I'm going to do this. I'm going to send you one of these because I had this Photoshop because I love this, this cartoon. This is actually, I've been thinking about, so I got a few tattoos, right? I got one more shoulder to have a tattoo on and I think I'm going to have it this. So check it out. All right. I love that. That's awesome, man. It says, and for those who listen, it says, everybody wants to be like, there's a group of people that says, everybody wants to be liked and accepted. And then there's this guy floating with a bunch of red balloons with his middle finger up. And it says, except for John, John doesn't give a fuck. And it's like, literally, that's the tattoo that I want on my, on my shoulder right now.

Cause I, cause there is something really liberating. Once you, like, once you get to the point in your career where you know, you're good enough, you've been through the fire, if you will. And you're just like, you know what? Fuck it. I just want to be me. Right. And so, uh, hopefully, you know, some kids can get that. I mean, I grew up in Boston, so I kind of had the fuck off attitude earlier. You know what I mean? Then I think most do, but I, I, I want, I want to figure out a way to get kids in a respectful way. Like you don't want to get out there and be like, Oh, fuck everybody. I don't give a shit about anybody, but like to the point where, you know, you're good, you know, you provide value.

So whatever you're putting out there, if people don't like it, they don't like it. Who cares? Right. And I think that's last question here is like, that comes down to that values piece of yours. Have you gone through the value exercise, your why exercise to, to kind of hone in on what you really are, our core values are before you share that out? Or do you just know? I haven't. No, man, I just, I, I haven't. And, and I, that's probably again, like a bad piece of advice, I think, but, but mostly for me, I'm just like, I'm kind of, I know my values internally. I like to be real to myself. I like to be true to myself. I like to work on things that bring me joy. Um, and I like to help people. I've always been a teacher.

I've always been someone who's enjoyed. Like if you look through my career list of last 10 years, I've got 10 to 15 people who've worked for me that have gone on to run big sales teams and run big marketing teams. And that's the joy that I get from being a leader. So my value is like, if I see my network continuing to expand and grow, um, and I'm a part of that, like, great. That, that to me is my value. And I don't need to like nail it on a wall or put it on a website. Exactly. Cool, man. Well, um, look, let's, let's wrap this thing up here. How can, uh, people find out more about what you're doing? And also you said, uh, remind me again, zero to five, like, who are you looking for? Who, who can you help?

Who can you help? And how can people find out more about you? I help two people. I help early stage SMB SaaS founders that are looking to accelerate their sales from zero to 50 million in recurring revenue. So if you're early stage, if you're SMB, I don't do enterprise. I don't do mid-market SMB for me. Uh, and then on the other hand, like if you're looking to build your, build your career, build your brand, I, you're also part of my audience. And the easiest way to learn about that is the official justin.com. If you're interested in, you know, personal branding, you can go to the official justin.com slash personal branding and learn sort of about how I approach LinkedIn and all the things I've learned going from, you know, zero to 40,000 followers in the last 18 months.

And, um, that's, that's where people, if they want to get ahold of me, other than that, they can go to Twitter, Justin SaaS, Justin S-A-A-S. Perfect. Awesome. And I appreciate it. And I think we're both on a similar journey here of, uh, of figuring out how to continue to be yourself without, uh, you know, while, while adding value, while not pissing too many people off. I mean, I think there's a, there's a level of, uh, people, there's always going to be that level of trolls there that find you once you get to a certain point, but I love to stop caring about them. Right. So cool. John, thanks so much for having me, man. It was great. Yeah. Thanks for coming on board here and everybody else. Hey, you know, in this weird time that we're in right now, really think about your personal brand because you know, this world ain't going to get any easier.

Let's put it that way. And your personal brands, what's going to carry you throughout the rest of your career. Um, and, and think about what Justin said, as far as, you know, what you look like online and make sure that that is the same person that you are. Right. Don't be somebody different. Like don't have a Facebook. Here's my last piece of advice is don't have a personal Facebook account where you are one person and then a LinkedIn account where you are a different person because that eventually will get out and people will call you for it. And as soon as you get called out for not being authentic, you lose all credibility and people will call you onto that. So don't do it in an authentic way.

Don't give a shit about how many people are following you. Give a shit about adding value and sharing your story. So love it. Just like always, everybody do me a favor, do yourself a favor, no matter how bad your day went today. If you had a bad day, go make somebody smile today. Cause if you made somebody smile, you know, you had a great day. So enjoy the rest of the week, everybody. And, uh, yeah, go build your brand and have some fun. Thanks, Justin. Make it happen. Everybody. Thanks, John.